As if gearing up for a new family addition wasn’t enough, Alex and I both intentionally changed jobs this fall, within 6 weeks of each other.

While we both targeted our new companies intentionally, I’d say that my timing was much more intentional than his. For me, after 4+ years at Ibotta, I was seeking change, a new challenge. My role and team had shifted in my last few months at the company and while it was an interesting change, it wasn’t the direction I wanted to take my career.

As I was weighing my options, I knew that if I were to change jobs while pregnant, I’d need to be extremely intentional about my next step since I wasn’t sure what to expect from a benefits – and more importantly, maternity leave – perspective. I carefully considered my options throughout the process and decided that starting a new role at 30 weeks pregnant would mean I should expect nothing from a paid maternity leave benefit. This is to say, I would 100% take a maternity leave but that it would be unpaid time off since I would only be at a company for a handful of weeks before the baby. This helped me really focus my search to companies whose mission and work I was really excited about – I didn’t want to take unpaid leave for just any old company and role!

In early November, I walked into my first day at the top company on my short list and into a role that is a great fit for me. My team is customer-focused, newer in it’s product//team lifecycle and staffed with smart, interesting people. It’s a new industry so there’s a ton to learn and a lot of opportunity to do impactful work – both within the company and for our customers. And as icing on the cupcake, I have full access to their (very generous) parental leave policy and have felt so supported as an employee and soon-to-be mom; I sometimes have to pinch myself to make sure this is real life! I couldn’t have predicted things would work as they did but man, am I ever grateful they did.

And for Alex, his change was more serendipitous timing but he was similarly extremely targeted in his search/company consideration set. He wasn’t actively looking to change companies but when this new company posted a very similar role to his own, he couldn’t not put his name in the hat – the ‘quality of life’ considerations/benefits were too great to not try. Needless to say, he was offered and accepted the role and started in mid-December; his team functions as a startup within a larger company so there’s a ton of opportunity for him to make significant impact, too. This change is great for our family in a whole host of ways but what I’m enjoying most right now is the fact that we now commute into downtown together on the bus and work mere blocks away so can meet up for lunch or happy hour after work. After years of his 45+ minute commute each way, it’s so nice to have more of my husband back!

As we’ve been reflecting on the year the past several weeks, we couldn’t have anticipated the wealth of change that this year held for us – hilariously, this time last year, we had vowed that 2018 would be the year of ‘settling in’ and ‘less change, less chaos’. Instead, we piled on the big life changes but truly, couldn’t be happier about how it’s all worked out, mere days before 2019 and the imminent arrival of our baby. It feels like this is how it was meant to be and we’re both so excited about the future.

So, dare I say it…here’s to less change in 2019! 🙂