Letter from TeriLyn – the first in 2024

Wow, we’re almost halfway into the year and I’m just now writing the first letter. But it’s been a full 5 months. I had a baby, almost died after having that baby, had a pretty horrific recovery and then once I got back in the swing of things physically and emotionally, I essentially lost my job.

So, I’m drafting this sharing all the details and honestly, I may delete some of them since it’s all pretty raw but writing is how I process emotions (writing and running and therapy).

Letter from TeriLyn – May 2024

LIFE

The biggest thing that happened in 2024 is that I had Charles!!! He is truly such an angel baby. It’s wild how I could feel the difference in his demeanor right away. Thomas was intense (and still is) and Charles is sweet. Not that Thomas wasn’t a cute baby and I was just as obsessed with him, but he was just HARD. And honestly, he’s still hard. I think he is going through some major developments right now because he is feeling some big emotions and gosh, he fights back on things. But that’s normal at his age so at least I know he’s developing the way he’s supposed to. He’s not a chill kid but that’s also what makes him so special. Charles is much more chill, so we’ll see if that stays his demeanor.

Thomas has also started loving school (most days) and has even told us he wants to sleep at school. We’ve come so far from the beginning of the year. I still love the idea of homeschool but as my friends say, “Evaluate school for every kid, every year.” So, I signed him up for 5 days of preschool (still just half days) this fall since he has loved it so much.

Charles was born at the end of January and the last month of pregnancy was absolutely miserable. My entire pregnancy was hard but it just got worse and worse as time passed. I was sick the entire time and threw up most days of the week, every week. I had severe insomnia and only slept 3-4 hours a night and there were many nights where I didn’t sleep at all – literally zero hours. The doctors prescribed everything they could and nothing helped. So while I loved being pregnant with Thomas and even fought induction, I was very ready to be done with my second pregnancy.

We were going to attempt a version procedure to turn Charles since he was breech the entire pregnancy but decided it was too risky given two factors. I had an extra piece of placenta they were concerned may detach while turning and if they turned the other way, they weren’t certain the umbilical cord was long enough since I had an marginal cord insertion. And gosh that was the right decision – we later found out when my doula was encapsulating my placenta that the cord was barely attached. She simply lifted it up and it came off — that should not happen. It should be attached as firmly as tendon on muscle.

I’m so thankful for the doctor who made the recommendation not to attempt an ECV and that I was at peace with the decision. I was so anxious about a c-section and I really wanted a “do over” since Thomas’ birth was pretty bad too (I was in the hospital for 5 days) but once I knew it wasn’t safe to turn Charles, I was completely fine with the c-section.

The c-section itself was really, truly lovely. Everyone in the room was so kind and happy and I could tell they really cared about making me comfortable. It was such a joyful experience and I’m beyond grateful for the medical team I had that day. I especially loved that I got to hold Charles within minutes after birth which I don’t think is always common with cesareans.

I started to write more detail about what happened in the next 24 hours after birth that but it’s causing some pretty severe anxiety so I’m not going to share that today. I am getting counseling for PTSD so I’m hopeful that someday that I can share more, if I decide it’s the right thing. At the very least, I’m hopeful I can write and talk about it without fighting off a panic attack.

One thing is for sure – the Lord had put the right people in my life to support me through it. Two years ago, we joined a community group at our church and they are now some of my very close friends. And wow, did they show up for Tommy and me when we needed them most, both at the hospital and when I got home.

WORK

I took a pretty solid maternity leave when I had Charles and only worked when I wanted to, which was so nice. I originally planned not to take any sponsored content since I didn’t want any work with a deadline but I got a campaign with Target that I ended up taking since it was such a perfect fit. And, I was so lucky to have a dear friend visit me on the day I needed to take photos and she took my photos for me (and they turned out beautifully). God puts people in our lives when we need them, even in little moments like that.

I didn’t have a firm end date in mind for maternity but just said I’d ease back into work when I felt like it and it was a pretty natural ramp up. I started working more regularly around 3 months. I also hired a number of additional people (part-time) to help while I was on maternity leave and when I started working again. I hired someone new to help me with SEO since that’s something I’ve wanted to bring in house for a while, another person to help me in-person once a week with photos and inventory management, and another person to help me with Beautycounter since I wasn’t always replying to people as quickly as I liked.

And then, boom Beautycounter disappeared. (Here’s my post about what happened to Beautycounter.) It’s always been a hefty portion of my income, but thankfully, I started to really diversify about two years ago since I just had a gut feeling it wouldn’t be around forever. I saw some writing on the wall that concerned me about the company and as much as I loved the brand, I didn’t want most of my eggs in one basket. (Plus, fashion content is really fun and my audience likes it too!)

I got lucky that I had tried a new-to-me brand — Oliveda — a few weeks before Beautycounter closed and really liked it. I was in the middle of trying to figure out how to share it without getting terminated at Beautycounter (I was a senior enough leader at BC that I had some restrictions on sharing other beauty brands… which I may write about at some point…) So then Beautycounter closed, I had another brand to jump right into. As much as I love Colleen Rothschild, I don’t view it as a perfect replacement for Beautycounter. But Oliveda felt like a much better fit (full Oliveda review here). And, since I’d spent years building out strategic automations for Beautycounter, I knew exactly what steps I needed to take with Oliveda. (Now let’s just hope stuff comes back in stock soon. They had a few products go viral earlier this year and then with the influx of Beautycounter customers, they keep selling out. But the company is ramping up production to fix the inventory issues.)

And I kind of hate to admit it, but I like (almost) all of the Oliveda products I’ve tried better than Beautycounter. They feel amazing, they are insanely hydrating and I love the smell (which is very light but feels very natural). My Beautycounter products smell almost musty by comparison now, which is very odd since none of them are old. It’s really, truly strange. So we’ll see how I feel about Beautycounter when (if) it comes back later this fall. I still think the products are good but I’ve been very impressed by Oliveda and it seems like a particularly good fit for people with aging and/or sensitive skin. (You can read more about Olvida in this post.)

On the fashion front, I had recently joined a new affiliate program called ShopMy since my monthly partnership with LAKE started requiring it. And then a friend pointed out that a lot of their commission rates are higher than LTK. While I’m definitely an LTK girl (I like the app better and my rep there is truly amazing and my biggest advocate), I tested a few things with ShopMy since I like to be up-to-date on new affiliate programs so I can educate the members of Let Me Pick Your Brain on new options.

One of the things I tested was switching all my LTK links in my Tuckernuck blog post to ShopMy links and within two weeks, Tuckernuck reached out. I’ve been sharing Tuckernuck for close to five years and was never on their radar, despite it being one of my top-selling brands on LTK, so it was wild — and beyond exciting — to have a contact there. I have a few thoughts on why it happened that I’ll share with my members since I think there is a lot to learn from it but that’s a whole different topic.

But a common theme I’m noticing from today’s work section that I think is important for anyone growing their own business is simply that you need to try new things — even when it seems like something is working well. If I hadn’t diversified my income streams, if I hadn’t tested multiple platforms beyond blogging and LTK, if I hadn’t built out automations — my business would be in a much worse spot today after the whirlwind of 2024.

HEALTH

My recovery was rough rough rough. On top of the c-section, I had other complications that made things even harder. And then there were complications specifically related to breastfeeding (Charles couldn’t latch for a couple reasons and we eventually did a tongue tie release, which resolved most but not all of the problems). I was triple feeding for about 12 weeks which was exhausting. I’m so thankful for our doula team; because of them, I have been sleeping 5-7 hours a night (double what I was getting in my last trimester!). And that’s amazing with a newborn — and essential for my recovery.

My c-section scar has improved so much and doesn’t bother me most days. I resumed pelvic floor PT at six weeks and my PT has helped so much with scar mobilization (cupping on the scar is a game changer).

At 14 weeks, I attempted running for the first time (mostly walking with 2-3 minutes of running interspersed) and it felt pretty good. But, when I tried to run again yesterday, I literally couldn’t. My ankles really hurt and felt like they couldn’t support my body. I’m hoping it’s just related to dry needling I had earlier in the week at PT plus lifting heavy the day before, but I need to email my PT to get her thoughts. It’s so frustrating since I just want to run, but I also know enough about running to not be dumb about getting back into it. I plan to share more about my running journey on my running instagram account since I’ve always loved sharing my running journey (it’s how this blog started 15 years ago!)

Thank you 🙂

Okay that’s probably long enough for today! Thank you for being here and reading and following along. I absolutely love my job — especially since it allows me to have work flexibility to be with my boys — and it’s never lost on me that this gets to be my job because you read my blog, follow me on instagram, and click my links. I always tell people that I have the best online friends and I mean it – the love and support I get is always touching and somewhat surprising. So thank you.