Cass Bodington and Jess Morgan are tired. Not just from being busy working mums. They are tired of feeling guilty, tired of feeling judged for their choices and tired of feeling unsupported.
Shocked by some people's reaction to their decisions to go back to work within two weeks of giving birth, the pair are now on a mission to help others and to confront judgemental behaviour about parenthood.
They have joined forces to produce a podcast, called Business, Babies and Bossing It, to help others trying to work out a balance between careers and parenthood.
By sharing their own experiences and speaking to mums and dads about how they deal with the constant juggle, they hope it will go some way to helping change perceptions.
Cas says that when she went back to work as a business coach within days of giving birth to daughter Elodie four years ago, she felt a "mixture of emotions".
Those emotions were not helped by comments made when she shared a picture of her going back to work, with earphones in and her two-week-old baby daughter sitting on her knee as she spoke to a client.
"A couple of people commented," she says. "I think it was well meaning, but they said things like, 'there is statutory maternity leave for a reason, and 'you should be resting'.
"I was a single parent, and I had to make the choice of keeping a roof over my child's head.. I was a completely single parent, so I didn't have that support around me in terms of having somebody to financially support me, so there was no way I could take full maternity leave. There was a bit of having to go back to work, but also a little bit of needing to keep myself busy and maintain that part of me that was really important to keep hold of.
"And that's part of the reason why this podcast is happening, so that we can talk about all of this out loud and try and be less judgemental. That fear of judgement is so hard.
"It doesn't matter what your case is. If you want to stay at home for a year and look after your baby full time, that's great. If you want to go back to work after two weeks, that's great. We just want to showcase all the different ways that you can be an incredible mothers and incredible women in business."
Cass is joined on the podcast by Jess Morgan, of Welsh creative agency Jessica Draws Media, who took three weeks’ maternity leave after the birth of her first child.
Husband Dave, 39, looked after their daughter and later their son for more than two years while she returned to work.
Jess, who lives with her family in Abergavenny, says it was the best decision their family ever made. Read her full story here.
"I was freelancing at a time as a designer so I had a handful of clients who weren't going to wait around for me six to 12 months. It was a difficult choice. Do I leave my career behind, and start from scratch again?"
It was this difficult decision that Cass and Jess shared that saw them bond and come up with the idea for the podcast.
"It was a bittersweet experience finding out I was pregnant. I had been told I couldn't have children, so that moment I found out I was pregnant was amazing," says Cass. "I was totally on top of the world and it hadn't dawned up me how to run a business , at that moment it was just pure elation.
"Despite being on my own, I was always going to have my baby. I just had no clue at that point how I was going to do it. I had a fear of how I was going to do everything. I had no clue what to do next, there was nobody around me who was talking about being pregnant, or having young kids in business. It was still very much, business life, and professional life were very separated.
"I think that is one of the things that lockdown has done for us, forced the two together more, but that wasn't the case four/five years ago. The fear that I just wasn't going to be able to do it all was quite paralysing."
Cass didn't share with business colleagues that she was pregnant until five months into the pregnancy.
"My ex-partner's parting shot to me was that I couldn't run a business and have a baby," she explains in the podcast. "He said I would lose absolutely everything. My business, my house, he said I would end up a single mum on benefit, as if that was the worst thing that could ever happen to somebody.
"My immediate family knew, but I really struggled, in terms of business, telling people. There is an expectation that when women are having babies that we will take nine months, 12 , 18 months off. For me, I had to think about how to support my child, and the idea that clients might just cancel their contracts with me, or that I wouldn't be able to take more business on was difficult.
"But I had never actually been interested in taking maternity leave, I have never wanted to take maternity leave because I didn't want to put my career on hold. It so not an acceptable thing to say, but would have taken more time off if there had been an option, but it would probably have only been a month or two. Maternity leave has never been for me."
Cass says that her clients were "amazing", and couldn't have gone back to work so quickly without their support, and would sometimes have to pump milk in the car in between meetings.
"It was just all part of trying to make it work," explains Cass. "I didn't know how to make it work, or if I was going to survive and keep my head above water. It was really stressful.
"I have learnt so many lessons. I had two options, I could be really subconscious about what people think, and I can try and hide my situation or I can say 'don't worry about the people who are judgey, don't worry what they think, you don't even know them'. Or say 'I don't care what you think and I am going to provide a brilliant future for my daughter'.
"It is that fear of judgement from other people that can be crippling, but if you can get past that, everything changes."
Cass admits that the first couple of years were "so hard", and found that childcare was so expensive, but has now found the right balance.
And she still believes there is a long way to go, and the system is not catching up quickly enough, especially for self-employed parents.
"I hope that I am showing my daughter that she can fight anything, you don't have to settle for the status quo, you just have to find a way to make it work," she says. "If you are really happy, then your kids will be really happy too, whatever you decide to do.
"I am so much better in business since becoming a mum, and I have learnt so much."
Cass has got a last piece of advice: "Never give up. Find your cheerleaders and take one tiny step towards your goals every day. Focus and keep moving forward, you’ll get there, I promise.
"I also always say, you can do anything, but you can't do everything."
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