Raising a Human While Building a Business

by Cassie Abel

I did not ease into motherhood. I collided with it while running two businesses as the world fell apart during the COVID pandemic.

When I had my first baby, Sawyer, I was holding together a communications agency that paid the bills and Wild Rye, which at the time was more of a dream and side hustle. I tried to prepare for a reasonable transition into motherhood. Then Sawyer arrived three and a half weeks early.

I was wildly unprepared. The crib was not built. We did not have premie clothes. And while I was in the hospital, in labor, I received an email, yes, I was checking my emails, from the woman I hired to cover me for a few weeks of maternity leave. She let me know she had accepted another position. It was one of those moments where you can only laugh, because the alternative is losing your mind. Although, to be honest, there were definitely some expletives too.

The Reality of Early Motherhood and Work

I came home with a very small but perfectly healthy baby and little to no maternity coverage. It took nearly two weeks before my body felt strong enough to walk around the block, but even in the heart of winter, fresh air gave me life. It was the one thing that made me feel human again.

Those early weeks were spent working in the margins. I answered emails while Sawyer slept and struggled through breastfeeding while quietly questioning whether it was working for either of us. I felt the weight of outside expectations while trying to listen to my own body and my child.

Six weeks in, I finally let go and accepted that Sawyer needed to be a formula baby. That decision brought relief, sleep, and a sense of steadiness that we both desperately needed.

Finding Stability in Small Daily Rituals

What truly carried me through those first weeks was our daily walk to the Warm Springs ski lodge in Sun Valley. A cup of coffee, a few familiar faces, and the mountains in the background gave structure to days that otherwise blurred together.

It reminded me that I still existed outside the walls of our house and beyond the exhaustion of new motherhood.

Building a Business During COVID Chaos

Just as I began to find a rhythm between work, parenting, and sleep, the world shut down.

COVID hit, and everything unraveled at once. My mom was hospitalized. Our childcare disappeared overnight. I got sick and later learned it was also COVID. My dad was airlifted to Twin Falls with a heart attack. There was an earthquake in Idaho, which still feels absurd to say out loud.

The Wild Rye website was hacked during a period of profound sleep deprivation. My agency clients paused contracts as they scrambled to recalibrate. I found myself enlisting my husband and infant son to help ship REI orders just to keep Wild Rye moving.

I remember very little from that time. I was operating in a fog, focused solely on survival and keeping the wheels from coming off entirely. My experience did not resemble the romanticized version of pandemic life circulating online. There were no craft cocktails or sourdough experiments. There was only survival.

Motherhood did not come naturally to me. I was not someone who felt instinctively prepared or particularly graceful in the early days. Sawyer and I cried a lot together.

Even so, I would not change that season for anything.

Rediscovering Myself Through Movement and Business Growth

In early April, the fog lifted. I got back on my mountain bike, despite my fear of sitting on a saddle postpartum. I felt a sliver of my former self return. The adrenaline. The pain. The wind in my hair.

That day, after riding, I got back to my car to a series of Shopify notifications. People were actually shopping for Wild Rye.

Coming out of that fog, I knew something had to give. I could no longer do it all, and I had to choose how to prioritize. That hazy period forced me to identify what truly mattered and let go of everything else.

That was the moment I decided to give Wild Rye my full professional focus. To build something I believed in deeply, something aligned with my values, my reality, and my life.

The Long Road Back to Feeling Like Myself

Inch by inch, I found my way back to this new version of myself. Motherhood and Wild Rye helped me find my footing, my voice, and clarity around what matters most.

I was not someone who bounced back quickly. Not physically, not mentally, and not creatively. It has taken nearly six years and a massive community support system for me to feel like I have hit my stride again, both in my body and in my work.

Balancing Motherhood and Entrepreneurship

Raising a child while building a business during a period of global chaos is not for the faint of heart. Still, I would do most of it all over again.

It required a level of presence and patience I may never have learned otherwise. In many ways, the world closing allowed me to stay home during Sawyer’s earliest years, to travel less, and to build relationships and opportunities through Zoom that would not have been accessible before.

What Motherhood Has Taught Me About Life and Work

Fast forward six years, and I feel mentally and physically strong. I have a little human I can talk to and play outside with.

We recently returned from a hiking trip in the Dolomites with three generations of our family. My seventy-seven-year-old parents joined my husband, Sawyer, and me for days filled with movement, laughter, and an impressive amount of Nerds Clusters. Sawyer and my dad joked that they were perfectly matched pacing partners, tackling hikes that ranged from one mile to seven.

Watching them together felt like a full circle moment.

Motherhood has not made my world smaller. It has expanded my perspective, reshaped my relationship with the outdoors, and made me a more confident entrepreneur, even if I am still sleep deprived at times.

It has taught me that there is no single way to be a mother, no singular path back to ourselves, and no one version of what it looks like to move through the business world with purpose.

One thing has remained true through it all. I still do my best thinking when I am outside, moving my body, pushing myself, and laughing with friends.