Getting Sticky With: Aya Kanai

Aya Kanai has the resume of rom-com dreams: Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Pinterest, Google, Target. And while the phrase "girlboss" feels firmly retired in 2025, if this were still the early 2010s—when millennial pink ruled and everyone owned that one pair of Jeffrey Campbells—Aya would’ve been its poster child. (This is also where I confess that Aya was, and remains, my fashion north star and the undisputed queen of Hearst elevator selfies.) 

But the coolest thing about Aya? How she embraces both profession and parenting with gratitude, adaptability, and fun. She delivered a daughter the size of a Thanksgiving turkey (her words, not ours) and was on a call with Joanna Coles ten minutes after being wheeled into the recovery room. Below, she reflects on remote work, egg freezing, and watching her daughter blossom from tiny blob to “roommate” with a life and interests all her own.

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A LinkedIn worth drooling over 

I spent about 20 years in the magazine industry. I started on the founding team of Teen Vogue; I remember calling publicists to request clothes for shoots and literally having to convince them that it was even a thing. I was a fashion assistant and worked my way up through Nylon, Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, and Women's Health, always within the women's fashion space. My last magazine role was Editor-in-Chief at Marie Claire. It was an incredible experience and frankly I look back on that time as some of the most creative, free, fun, exciting moments of my working life, but I always knew I wanted to evolve my career into something else. 

I went to Pinterest to lead creator partnerships, then moved to Google to work on consumer marketing for Google Shopping. Google was basically like business school but in real life. That said, fashion, beauty, and retail editorial have always been my passion. And at the end of the day, I love talking about real-life products and seasonal moments—which is something every editor does. So when the opportunity to join the marketing team at Target came up, I couldn’t say no. 

Balancing the ladder

When you work in the fashion and beauty space, it's easy to get so carried away in climbing to the next rung of whatever ladder or system you're trying to master. It’s also easy to ignore the need to create balance in your life. But because I'm from New York (my parents immigrated here from Japan in the 60s), I have childhood friends that I’ve literally known since kindergarten. And although I love where my career has taken me, those childhood friends provide a sense of groundedness that has nothing to do with where I work. Some of them are lawyers, some of them have family businesses; they’re not involved in industry events and stuff like that. And that serves as a reminder to not take it all so seriously. 

Online dating before online dating

I felt that when my time came, it wouldn't be hard for me to figure out having a family—it was a very bold and egotistical way of thinking, that I could make it happen because my career had followed that results-driven path. But I found dating to be really challenging. This was at the beginning of online dating, back when everyone was online dating but people weren’t really talking about it, which is hilarious because now it’s like, how else would you meet anyone? 

Ironically, my husband and I went to the same college but only met about 10 years later. One of those funny coming together elements of life that you can't predict. But I was very goal-oriented in my career and I believed that I could apply those same goal-oriented concepts to my personal life. And it actually doesn't work like that. 

Nature is wasteful, and hindsight is 20/20 

I froze my eggs at 35, fertilized them when I was 38, used them when I was 39, and had my daughter at 40. When I was working at Cosmo, one of my colleagues had just frozen her eggs and recommended that I do it too. At the time, I was broken up with my then boyfriend, who is now my husband. 

When we got married, I quickly realized that I was already at a point in my life where it would not be easy to get pregnant, so we figured we’d use the eggs that we had. But my fertility doctor liked to say that nature is wasteful. If you get, say, 20 eggs, that doesn't mean you actually have 20 babies. And that's because with every step of the process, you lose a certain amount of the embryos; they don't all make it. By the time I fertilized and tested those embryos, there were only two. One of them didn't work, and the other one is my daughter. 

If I would've known about this “inventory” issue when I was 35 and freezing my eggs, I might have frozen two rounds. But whatever, hindsight is 20/20. You can't know what you don't know at the time. And I'm very lucky to be a mom. If I were to do anything differently, I might not have waited so long to start a family. I spent my twenties and most of my thirties focused on my career, which is great, and I'm very proud of what I accomplished while doing that. But by the time I realized I had wanted to be a parent, it felt almost too late. 

Embracing a close-knit unit 

Growing up, having a sibling was really important to me. My brother is five years older, and we were never in the same phase of life, but still—having a brother around was always meaningful.

Maybe I would've had more than one kid if I started earlier. But in many ways, I'm like, Aya, you could not handle more than one. My life is more than overwhelming and full with just one kid. And as you know, living in New York, even one kid is very expensive. Two kids, wow. Three? You gotta move. So I know that I'm drifting off into a fantasy world that is frankly not my reality when I consider the possibility of having another kid.

Ultimately I am really grateful and, at the end of the day, having one kid is what's right for me. Obviously we live in New York where my daughter has friends all around her, she has grandparents in multiple places, and there's no lack of community for her. 

On egg freezing: “It’s just not a big deal” 

When I froze my eggs, I had to pay about $50,000 out of pocket. And at that age, that was a big chunk of my savings. But I thought, if I'm not married and I am not on the road to parenthood right now and I'm 35, I gotta take some action. So while it was painful to spend my savings, it was obviously totally worth it. That's why I often say to the young women on my team that if there’s a company benefit that lets them freeze their eggs, they should do it. That's cash that you're leaving on the table. 

I never bring up egg freezing unless someone wants to talk about it, because another challenge in the workplace is being around people who are child-free by choice. Choosing to be a parent or not shouldn’t dictate how you’re treated, and when the majority of your colleagues are parents, it can be difficult for those who opt out. 

But I’m always open to sharing my experience because it’s not a big deal. I would never hide it from my daughter. It’s not the time for me to have that conversation with her right now, but in the future, it’s important to recognize that so many kids come into the world through IVF and fertility treatments—and it’s just not a big deal.

Birth plans prefer improv to scripts 

My birth experience was positive. I had entertained the idea of having an unmedicated birth (my acupuncturist had recommended a doula-in-training who is ironically now a friend), but my pregnancy went up to 40 weeks, and what you will find out at the end of this story is that I had a gigantic baby. As my mother likes to say, she was overcooked. 

I labored for 28 hours and then my doctor was like, you’re not progressing at all and we think this is a very big baby. I never really dilated; all the stages you're supposed to go through never happened for me. I ended up needing a C-section, which is obviously the opposite of unmedicated. 

And what's funny is that once you decide to have a C-section? It takes all of five minutes. The whole thing is so quick. We went from this dark room with low vibe-y lighting to a freezing cold operating room, bright lights, literally the opposite experience. And for some reason the room is very, very cold. Like you're inside of a meat locker. 

A perfectly pleasant last-minute c-section (yes, you read that right) 

The doctors started laughing after my delivery because the baby was so grown. And they told me that while they’ve seen bigger babies, they've never heard louder ones. Oftentimes when a baby comes out via C-section, they don't yell because there was no laboring through a birth canal. But my kid had very properly developed lungs; like the ability to talk and take the SATs and go to college level kind of properly developed. My daughter was 10 pounds and nine ounces, like a Thanksgiving turkey. She was very, very large. So thank God I didn't have a "natural" birth of any kind because that would have been extremely challenging. 

When babies are born their heads can misshapen from the pressure, and she had that issue from spending hours pushing against my cervix which wasn’t opening. Her head had that funny shape at first, but it corrected itself, and all’s well that ends well. Honestly, having a C-section was the best outcome for everyone. 

My daughter instantly slept through the night. It was like having a two-month-old from the start. She never wore newborn diapers or clothes because at almost 11 pounds, she was huge. My husband and I are both tall so it’s no surprise that she’s tall, too. 

OOO… I guess? 

You’re obviously on serious drugs after a C-section. You’ve basically been cut in half and are completely loopy. About ten minutes after getting to the recovery room—my husband stepped out to sign some paperwork—my phone rang and even though I was fully out of it, I went into work mode and answered the call. It was my boss at the time, Joanna Coles. She knew I had left work a day and a half earlier to have the baby and she was calling to check in. I told her that I just had the baby, and she casually responded that she would come visit the following day. I hung up and realized, oh my god, she had no idea that I meant I had the baby literally just now.

Hilariously, the hospital where I delivered was Mount Sinai West which is only a block and a half from Hearst Tower. So the next day my boss and colleagues stopped in to see the baby and bring me food, which was totally fine since we were all friendly. Some of my Cosmo colleagues are still some of my closest friends. 

And I had this idea that I needed to be standing up when they came over to visit. Joanna gets there and goes, Why are you standing? Sit down, lay down, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't know! I just thought that that's what I was supposed to do. 

Plus, a few hours after I gave birth, my mom showed up with my mail in her purse. It was literal junk mail. Garbage. Completely unnecessary. And yet, she thought it was important enough to bring with her to the hospital… to see her daughter who had just had a baby. But in classic mom fashion, she just said, Oh, but I thought you might need it. 

Looking back, it’s wild that I was wheeled into a recovery room and my brain went into answering a work call and looking at mail. Like yes, I just went through this crazy thing, but I’m going to continue functioning as I normally would. 

From the Hearst tower to remote work in a corner Brooklyn “office” 

Over the pandemic, my daughter’s drawings were of my video calls: keys on the keyboard or the phone screen and little tiles over people's faces. I saved a lot of that artwork because it’s such a specific moment in time. 

She understands work as me sitting in my Brooklyn apartment, looking at people's faces on video calls, talking loudly to myself all day long. And while I travel to Minneapolis for teamwide meetings (and that is a really, really important part of feeling connected to the broader group), I’m usually there for 6:00 PM pick up, school recitals, all that different kind of stuff. It’s a special time in her life to be more present, and working from home has been really impactful in that sense. 

I don't wander around my apartment holding my computer anymore. I did that for a while and it made me feel all over the place, so now I’ve sectioned off a designated space for work. What’s funny is that so many of my Target colleagues live in Minneapolis and they have gigantic living rooms that are probably larger than my 900-square foot Brooklyn apartment. But I was born and raised in New York City. Living in a small apartment doesn't bother me, though I never really intended when I moved into this apartment that it would eventually become my office. But you know, it happens. 

Blob to roommate and the joy of growth 

It's been really delightful watching my daughter develop her own relationship with her grandparents. When we're at my mother-in-law’s house, I love hearing them off on their own, having conversations about whatever they’re into, whether it’s cooking, baking, reading. It’s amazing to see her becoming her own person and forming friendships and relationships that have nothing to do with me.

It happens so fast. One minute, your kid is this little blob you take care of, and the next, they’re basically a roommate you pay for. I feel like we’re in that phase now. In the beginning, you never want to take your eyes off them because they could fall or pull something down on themselves. But now, I’ll walk into my daughter’s room and she’s just sitting on her bed, listening to an audiobook, completely in her own world. I love this stage. She’s her own person doing her own thing in the house that we share.

Of course, I’m sure we will soon enter the point where she thinks I’m clueless and embarrassing. Right? But for now, it’s like having another roommate you can enjoy hanging out with.