I’m a busy working mom to almost three-year-old little girl, with our next little girl due this June.

As I write this, I am sitting on a plane 30 weeks pregnant flying back home to Washington, D.C. from San Francisco. It’s a grueling, whirlwind 24-hour trip from the east to the west coast and back.

 I often (too often actually) hear the following comments:

 “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

“You need to slow down.”

“You can’t do this all yourself.”

I listen and take in this welcome advice from concerned friends and family members, but the truth is, I am genetically built to be busy. It’s who I am and who I will always be.

I thrive off my work in the media relations industry and love helping clients achieve their media outreach goals. At the same time, I make many, many sacrifices at home. I travel monthly for work, which means having to send our daughter to the grandparents every time I do so because my husband, who works in the construction industry, has to be at work at 6 AM every day, before daycare even opens (and before most people wake up!).

It also means that when I am not traveling for work, I work long hours at the office. (and  I have strict in-office rules that I cannot leave work until 6:00 PM every night). I don’t get home until after 7:00 PM every night, and I miss eating dinner with my family every night during the week. I barely get to spend time with my daughter before she goes to bed. But most nights, I do get to read her stories, sing songs, and tuck her in to bed. Is this my ideal situation? No. I would love to be home with my family for dinner every night and spend more time with them during the week. 

I love cooking homemade meals, and, in fact, many times during the week I cook my family dinner in the mornings before I head to work, so that my family can be fed a healthy and home-cooked meal even though I can’t be there to enjoy the meal with them during the week.I have shed many tears over my weekly absence at home and my pure exhaustion for literally “doing it all”. And yes, I will admit it, I do it all.

My current schedule also demands that I sometimes work in the overnight hours, which means waking up in the middle of the night to work from home in order to reach some of the people that I need to reach. Unlike other people in my position, I am not able to go back to sleep once my overnight work is finished. I’m a mom. I need to get my daughter ready for the day, cook her breakfast, and send her off to daycare. I then continue to work. There are no breaks.

Housework doesn’t get done on a regular basis because I simply don’t have the time to do it, but we somehow manage to keep the house clean and orderly for the most part. My husband does all of the laundry every weekend, and he usually does all of the dishes. We rarely, if ever, hire a maid. It’s just not in our budget to do so.

Weekends are devoted solely to spending time with my family. I recently signed my daughter up for a weekly swim class as an activity that we can do together and bond over during my time off. It’s been great.

With baby #2 on the way in less than three months, I think it is important to share my work-life experience with others. I don’t always love the demands of my job, but I love what I do. I know my current schedule sounds crazy and exhausting, but I love having a fullfilling career despite the many downfalls. But what would make all the difference in my happiness at work (and in turn, at home)? Flexibility.

I am a high-performing and results-oriented media relations executive and I believe I am an asset to any company seeking a person with the expertise I have. If a smart company wants to draw in a successful talent like myself (yes, I am tooting my own horn and I think us moms need to do that more), I would love to see companies embrace flexibility in work schedules. Yes, I believe working in an office and being around others can serve as a benefit to a company and its employees. But we live in an age of email, Internet, Skype, Facetime, Google Talk and more – there is no reason why I can’t do my job from literally anywhere in the world.

I see the demand for flexibility as a growing issue amongst talented career woman such as myself, yet I do not see enough companies allowing it. You’ve already heard from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who took a giant step backwards in flexibility when she called all telecommuting employees back to the office.

What would I do to be home with my family for dinner every night? Anything. And I’m sure a lot of working moms feel the same way too.  My wish is for more companies to acknowledge talented personnel and their needs for flexibility. If a company wants to keep a high-performing and favored employee in the long-run, they need to be willing to be flexible with work-life balance. Otherwise, a hard-working and highly-valued career woman (like myself) may find more immediate value in being a stay-at-home mom because she couldn't find a job that would giver her the flexibility to do both.