Please welcome Marissa, as she shares her story of adding a new life to her already very full life, twice!

I was in the last semester of a Ph.D. program when I found out I was pregnant. Luckily, I had most of my dissertation written, but I still had the daunting task of defending my research before an audience of professors. At seven weeks pregnant I can remember walking into the committee room at the university and facing my dissertation committee – with massive morning sickness. It felt like a miracle that I made it through the presentation without vomiting, but I managed to complete this last hurdle with grace. And, a few short weeks later at eleven weeks pregnant I proudly graduated with a doctorate in Educational Psychology.

I had done it. I had reached my life-long goal. I was ecstatic, overjoyed, and as elated as I always thought I would be. Only I hadn’t ever dreamed that graduation would coincide with pregnancy.

So, I had a new Ph.D. and a new baby arriving later that year. I’m not going to lie and say that this didn’t make me nervous. I had worked extremely hard — five long years of classes, teaching apprenticeships, research, writing, oh, and a full-time job – to reach this goal, and now what? Could I find a new job with a baby bump? Should I keep my current job and put my child in day care once she arrived? Or should I quit work to stay home with my baby?

In the end I made the difficult decision not to return to my job. In fact, never in a million years did I think I would want to stay at home with a baby, but there I was in my new found profession of “Dr Mom”.   I loved (and do still love) every minute of it.

But, I found that I did miss conducting research, writing, teaching, and most of all, working with children. So, I founded a blog called Land of Once Upon aTime, which is devoted to showing parents how to guide their child in learning, literacy, and development with the help children’s books. In 2011, my blog was nominated for a Bammy Award which recognizes excellence in the field of education, which was a proud moment for me. In addition to blogging and being Dr Mom to my daughter, I was freelance writing and teaching college courses in psychology (in my spare time).

As my daughter got older, I became ready to take on even more work, but I didn’t really want to go back to a corporate job. I wanted the freedom to be my own boss, work from home, and set my own hours so I could continue to spend as much time as possible with my daughter. After a little brainstorming, I came up with the idea for A First Foundation, which provides consulting to parents and education professionals to equip them with the knowledge they need to give the children in their lives the best foundation for a lifetime of learning.

As luck would have it, I found myself (happily) pregnant again as I was just setting the groundwork for A First Foundation!

Being a mom to a toddler and a pregnant entrepreneur wasn’t always easy, but I tried my best to capitalize on my bursts of energy and the “nesting” phenomenon. Now, after nine long months of pregnancy and planning, I’m ready to launch my ideas into action with a new little baby boy in tow.

Marissa Kiepert Truong, Ph.D. is a mom on the mainline, early literacy blogger, and early learning consultant. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn. For more information about her consulting services, please email her at AFIRSTFOUNDATION(at)GMAIL(dot)COM.