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Let me take you on a little flash back. The year is 2005 and I’m full out 9 months pregnant with my oldest son. Its 11 o’clock at night and I’m hunched over my computer writing up yet another summary for my contract work. When suddenly, my belly tightens and my back begins to hurt. Just another Braxton Hicks contraction, I assume.

I turn the computer off, saving my work for tomorrow and head to bed. Several hours later I wake up with more pain. Maybe they’re Braxton Hicks, but they sure are coming more often. I finally realize that I may just be in labor, but oh shit, my husband is 2 hours drive away and I’m home alone.

It’s now 5am so I call my neighbor to see if she can take me to the hospital. No answer. So, I do what any mama in labor would do. I grab my bag and my keys, hop in my Nissan Frontier and head off to the hospital, calling my husband on the way.

I arrive to the hospital, now in full out labor. Two hours later my husband arrived. And less than an hour after that we welcomed our first son to the world!

But wait a minute, the day was Saturday and I was supposed to teach a fitness class. So while I nursed my brand new baby, I composed an email to send to my students letting them know the class was cancelled.

Day two in the hospital, brings just a little more work. This time just a phone conversation with my client about the deliverables that had to be postponed due to…..a baby being born.

Day three, we bring our new baby home, and while he sleeps peacefully in my arms, mama’s got those summaries to complete. You know the ones I started the night before I went into labor?

Here’s the thing. Being a working mom, whether you work for yourself or an employer is NO easy task. It is sure to challenge your skills, your patience and your sanity.

It took me years, and a couple more kids to learn that managing work and family meant I had to be super vigilant about taking care of myself. A lesson I wished I’d learned sooner.

So when my friend Lori Mihalich-Levin asked me to read her book Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave, and provide some feedback I just knew I was in!

As a yoga teacher who makes a living teaching moms how to manage all of life with out burning out I still found Lori’s take on being a “good” mom and returning to work incredibly refreshing, insightful and practical!

At its core, this book is a practical and pragmatic guide to showing us busy working moms, how to live a life of joy, peace and prosperity, without sacrificing the things that are so near to our hearts. Our children and our careers.

What Lori has done in Back to Work After Baby, is show us “everyday Janes,” that working motherhood does NOT have to be the chaotic blur of life events, that sometimes seem to push us along our day to day.

She teaches us how to simplify our lives, so that we can focus on the things that are most important. How to fit in much needed (and much deserved) self-care rituals that help us save our sanity in the midst of all the confusion and kid chaos. And most importantly, Lori shows us busy mamas how to truly love ourselves, by connecting with our Self often.

Certainly a book I wish I had read when I was a new mom, and one I will definitely recommend to any mama looking to go back to work!

Lori’s book is on sale now on Amazon. So if you’re pregnant (or know someone that is) and planning to return to work soon, go here to snatch yourself up a copy!