That Time I Brought my Baby on a Business Trip.

It’s early morning at LAX. My baby, not quite crawling yet, is sitting on the carpet, waving at the throngs of people walking through our gate area. With one hand, I’m trying to get him to eat some banana; with the other, I’m answering a work email on my phone. It’s a version of the mom-juggle we’ve all done, but the less typical part of it is—we’re going on a business trip.

Record scratch. Freeze frame. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

I didn’t know much about babies before having one, but a lot of what I thought I knew just… wasn’t true. I knew that parenting added new joys and pressures to your life, of course, but I also thought that being a working mom in a fairly flexible career with solid benefits would be smooth. I thought babies were easygoing creatures who went along for the ride of adult life.

Anyone with kids is laughing at me. Kids are the ride.

Not only did I know very little about babies, but in hindsight, there’s a lot I didn’t know about myself. There’s a conversation I’ve reflected back on a million times that I set up with a beloved coworker during my pregnancy. I told her that I didn’t have any maternal instincts. I had been, until recently, ambivalent about having a child. I had workaholic tendencies that were great for my consulting career but would make me a terrible parent. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be good at this. And she said something to me that turned out to be remarkably astute—that I would be fine, because I go all-in on things. And that’s what parenting takes: going all-in.

I found out quickly what that meant. We all do when we have a baby, right? One moment you’re the “you” you’ve always been, and then the moment your baby arrives, you’re somehow an entirely different “you,” and another person WHOM YOU GREW (sorry, that’s just still wild to me) lives outside your body yet feels so completely of your body that you almost throw up when someone else holds them. It’s crazy magic for something we think of as a routine happening. In my story, going all-in at the start meant dragging my sick and c-sectioned body around the NICU to spend time with my preterm baby and attaching myself to a hospital-grade pump every few hours. But the specifics don’t matter—early motherhood asks everything of us, no matter the circumstances. And in my experience at least, it gives a lot back. Holding my son skin-to-skin on my chest, feeling our body temperatures and heart rates sync. Learning with every need attended to that that’s all nurturing is. Question and answer. Call and response.

I learned a lot about my baby (still wouldn’t call myself a baby expert; they’re all so different!). He was super snuggly. He was communicative—I never wondered what he wanted or needed, even long before tools like pointing entered the picture. He was extremely strong-willed… I saw that the moment he was born, when he howled at the NICU team’s attempt to intubate him.

And I learned a lot about myself. I was, despite my anxieties, doing this parenting thing. I was in tune with my baby, with my partner, and with my intuition. I was a different kind of mom than I thought I would be—and different from what many people who knew me as a type-A New Yorker probably expected. I was relaxed and baby-led. I joked that my parenting style was “not fighting with a baby.” When my son resisted the reintroduction of bottles after we’d started breastfeeding, I didn’t force it. When he decided that his bassinet was lava, I didn’t force it. I committed to exclusively breastfeeding—not even pumping—and safely co-sleeping with him.

Here's the thing: this is exactly who I’d always been. Self-assured, optimistic, a little intense. It’s just that parenting calls for a particular kind of intensity. An intense letting go. An intense joy in the moment, in the mundane, in the miracle of watching another human begin to take shape.

Our cocoon collided with reality, of course. And that reality was business travel. I have the privilege of working from home, but it’s an important part of my job to be flexible to hop on a plane to spend time with clients and colleagues. And I had a baby who wouldn’t take a bottle or sleep away from me. Which are totally normal baby behaviors, despite societal expectations.

When my first trip came up, I started asking around for advice on pushing more independence in sleeping and eating. I asked, specifically, how I could pull this off without harming my baby or me—that tight-knit dyad that was born when he was lifted out of my belly. Moms in this community of ours are freaking amazing, and I got so many helpful suggestions and tips. But I knew in my bones that my son would not get with the program. That I would have to crush his fiery spirit, his spirit that I loved and wanted to lift up and not tear down, to even attempt it.

I got one piece of advice that shocked me. It pissed me off a little at first. It was: take him. It was: you can’t pull this off without harming your baby or you, based on what you’re sharing about your son’s current needs and habits. I sat with it. My frustration was that I knew it was right. And despite my confidence as a mother in my own little world, I was sheepish about the choices I was making relative to other people’s expectations of “normal parenting.” It embarrassed me to think of my coworkers judging my choices, comparing them to a status quo that I know looks different. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t going to do something that I was sure was wrong for my child and me to… what, avoid an awkward conversation or two?

So, I brought him. And I’ve kept bringing him. It’s worth acknowledging the resources that make this possible: my own mother and our family’s wonderful nanny are both happy to travel with me and are amazing caregivers, so I only have to “parent” at night. I can afford to cover the extra expense of bringing baby and another adult, so I don’t have to bring it up with work—I just pay for it. And I have supportive coworkers who I didn’t give nearly enough credit, because whenever I’ve mentioned that my son is with me, it’s only been met with enthusiasm and support. I know this is a lucky set of circumstances, and I’m grateful. But I’m also proud of myself for challenging a default that I knew wouldn’t serve me, my baby, or my family well. 

There will come a time when my son is fine staying home, and the effort and cost of bringing him on a trip won’t be needed. He’s already a solid food enthusiast, and independent sleep will click in his developing brain when it’s time. It’s a cliché, but this is just a chapter. But it’s the first one my baby and I have written together—and I’m starting our story the way we want.