I quit my job while pregnant and battling an autoimmune disease. It led me to start my own company.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alex Taylor, the 39-year-old cofounder of women’s health supplements brand Perelel. It has been edited for length and clarity

I landed in leadership roles very early in my career

At around 29, I became president and executive editor in chief of Clique, the media house that publishes Who What Where, Byrdie, MyDomaine, and other publications

I loved the editorial work, but I worked very long hours. I was the first one in at around 7 a.m. and the last one out around 7 p.m. Back then, it was important to show up in the office

I was also young, and I didn’t have the obligations of having a family. If an email came through in the middle of the night, I would respond

Like a lot of women, I compromised my health and the things that really mattered to me in the process

Autoimmune disease diagnosis

While my professional life was thriving, my health started breaking down. In 2016, I started having weird symptoms

I was losing hair. I had always been a morning person, but suddenly, I had extreme lethargy. My skin had been affected. I was cloaked in this wild brain fog all the time. My fingers were incredibly inflamed, and I was gaining weight rapidly

I ignored it and kept going

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Then I broke out in shingles. That finally sent me to the doctor. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease: Hashimoto’s Disease. My physicians believe it was partly because of the extreme stress I was under

I was having a challenging time getting pregnant around that time. That’s when I realized what I had done. I had always envisioned starting a family, so I blamed myself

I decided to change my environment

I changed my diet to make it more anti-inflammatory. I got started on a prescription medication that helped with the autoimmune disease

When I got my diagnosis, my doctors told me I needed to reduce my stress. I wondered how I was supposed to do that while leading a company. Then it clicked — no job was worth my health

I decided I needed to change my environment. I left my role at Clique and was recruited by URBN to lead the activewear brand Free People Movement. I finally got pregnant during my last few months at Clique and joined Free People when I was seven months pregnant

I was there for about a year. But I knew when I started the job that something felt off. I felt this pull to start something of my own

Launching our supplement brand for women

Around the time I gave birth to my son, I found myself piecing together a vitamin routine from multiple acupuncturist, and naturopath were all giving me different advice

Then I met my cofounder, Victoria Thain Gioia, whose daughter was born with a nutrition-related cleft lip. We learned how critical certain nutrients can be during pregnancy, and decided to start a business in the supplement space

We set our eyes on fundraising. But then, COVID hit, and everyone’s checkbooks slammed shut. So we decided to bootstrap

We launched the business in September 2020 with five different products meant for different stages of pregnancy. We did fundraising after, with a seed round led by Unilever Ventures and Willow Growth. In subsequent rounds, we had Selva Ventures and Prelude Growth Partners participate

I was grateful to live close to my family in Los Angeles. My mother and mother-in-law often came to help me with the children because, in those early days, I couldn’t afford a full-time nanny

How I keep my stress levels low as a mother and founder

Five years on, we now have an office in LA and an amazing team, and we’ve expanded our supplement range to support people going through perimenopause and IVF journeys

Managing my stress as a mother and founder is not easy

I meditate almost every day. I go to bed at 8 p.m., right after I tuck my kids in — they’re now five and seven years old

Reading has been most helpful. I used to read a lot of self-improvement books and nonfiction, but I realized I have to stop over-optimizing myself. I’ve realized I found a lot of joy in reading fiction

I’ve also gotten a Brick phone lock to help me get more discipline with my phone. I realized most of my stressful moments came from trying to multitask during bath time with my kids while responding to team Slack messages

My career journey has taught me how to remain ambitious without compromising my values or putting my health into turmoil