Ask The Doulas Podcast

 Kristin Revere and Aly Dabbs discuss how dropping naps too soon can affect sleep at night in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast.  Aly gives tips on how parents can push through this phase.  She is the founder of Restful Baby and has a podcast called Aly, The Restful Mama.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Aly Dabbs today.  Our topic is all about toddler naps.  Aly is a wife and mama to two wildly curious boys and lives in the Nashville area.  She graduated from Center from Pediatric Sleep Management in September 2023 and started her business, Restful Baby, in February 2024.  Aly hired a sleep consultant with her firstborn and saw firsthand the benefits of teaching her baby to sleep independently.  When pregnant with her second, Aly kept feeling this pull to help other moms navigate a time that feels really, really hard and often isolating.  Through working with families, watching her own toddler grow, and taking continuing education classes, Aly has developed a love for all things toddler sleep.  It is her passion to help exhausted toddler moms work through those big toddler emotions, to get their child to sleep through the night, and in their own bed.  Her approach is to lead with love and take this dreaded thing – bedtime and naptime – and turn it into something fun.

Since starting her business, Aly has learned a ton about networking with local businesses, marketing herself on social media, and has also launched her own podcast, Aly, The Restful Mama. 

Welcome, Aly!

Hi!  Thanks for having me!  I’m so excited!

Yes!  This chat is so important.  Even the doulas on my team – and we have four sleep consultants at Gold Coast – struggle with getting their toddlers to nap.  It’s those battles that continue when you’re dealing with a newborn and trying to get naptime in an established routine.  I would love to hear your thoughts on navigating that very important naptime for toddlers.

Absolutely.  Naps can be so tricky.  They’re a little bit more complex and a whole thing in and of itself.  I think it’s such a great topic.

Absolutely!  And I know that naptime effects sleep time, and so it’s important to continue that, even if you’re getting some resistance from your toddler.

Yes.  Especially those two-year-olds that have the whole fear of missing out.  It’s a real thing for these little guys, and they can really start to fight naps and not want to miss out on anything.  Moms, it’s just a phase.  We have to push through.

Yes!  So where to begin, Aly?  I would love your tips.

So a lot of moms – and I do work primarily with toddlers, even though I do help the little ones, but the season of this summer, I’ve worked with a lot of moms who are expecting second babies.  They are realizing that sleep is going to be a lot harder once they have maybe a toddler who’s fighting naps and having issues at bedtime, and then they’re going to have a new baby and starting all of the middle of the night wakes and feedings.  The exhaustion multiplies, so they have those feelings and fears, and they want to get sleep in a better place before a new baby comes.  So I’ve been working with a lot of soon to be second time moms wanting to get sleep in a better place for their toddlers, whether they’re dealing with inconsistent naps or fights at bedtime.  For naps for the toddlers, it is so common for a two-year-old to start protesting, resisting, fighting, having big emotions, about naptime.  For all of those reasons: not wanting to miss out, feeling like they really don’t want to sleep.  And a lot of moms are like, okay, my toddler is done napping.  We made it to two years.

Right.  I see it on social media all the time.  It’s like, okay, my kid said they’re done today.  Naptime is not a thing anymore.

Yes, and I think the statistic is that 2.5% of two year olds are napping, but they don’t need to, and then it’s really the 97.5% are more like four to five years old.  Naps come up a lot, and I always tell my moms, really try to get it to four.  If you’re getting those nap strikes at two, it’s just a phase.  Keep going.  You can get to the other side and naps will get in a better place.  Those are some things that I work with my families on, whether it’s just a nap strike or just getting naps more consistent.  And then I have some tips and tricks, too, for when it is time to drop the nap closer to four or even five.  Some kids continue to nap later into life, which is awesome.  Keep the nap as long as possible.  But then there are some transition tips for when it is time to drop a nap and getting some quiet time in replacement of that nap as well.

That is so important, even for those three to four year olds where the mom wants to rest when baby is during the day and there isn’t a set naptime and the child’s got a very short daycare or preschool phase and may be home during naptime.

Oh, yes.  I think it’s probably harder sometimes for the stay at home moms because if they’re there and their toddler is fighting naps, they maybe kind of give up or they assume, okay, my child is done napping.  Or they spend an hour or two trying to get them to nap, and then naptime is past, versus daycare having a little bit more structure.  And toddlers are so much like monkey see, monkey see.  If the other kids are laying down, even if they have some trouble with naptime – because I have worked with daycares, too, to help with that – but they maybe are more likely to lay down just like the other kids are, where they maybe don’t do that at home, right?

Absolutely, yes.  As you mentioned, it’s more of that imitation, and if that’s the routine at daycare and there’s not that structure at home, then even on weekends, those routines that are established may go away unless following the patterns of the daycare is something that’s done in the household.

Yes, and through sleep training, whether with the little ones or the toddlers, my big push is consistency, right?  We want to make sure that we’re being consistent on all fronts, and that way the toddler knows what to expect.  If you’re maybe enforcing it one day and not the next, it can be a little confusing and probably frustrating for the child and for the parent, if I’m being honest.

Yes, I totally agree, Aly.  And what are your thoughts on the theory that if you eliminate the toddler nap during the day, that they will sleep longer at night?

You will very likely find an overtired toddler who missed their nap, is super fussy, extra cranky, giving you a hard time at dinner or right before bed, or the toddler who gets the second wind and is doing the zoomies all over the house right before bedtime, running around like a crazy person, because they’re just so tired that they really can’t function anymore.  You are more likely to start seeing pushback at bedtime, fighting bedtime harder, or maybe your toddler normally sleeps through the night pretty well, but now they’re waking up throughout the night or super early in the morning, and it seems so backwards, but when your child is overtired, it’s more disruptive to sleep, and you start seeing other disturbances and early morning wakeups, middle of the night wakeups, or the overall bedtime fight because they’re just too tired.  And I know it seems so backwards.  I hear a lot of moms or grandparents say oh, the child is going to sleep so well tonight because I ran them so hard at the park.  They didn’t take a nap.  They’re going to be exhausted!  And in my head, whenever I hear that, I’m like, oh, no, it’s going to be a long night.  Even for my own mom, when she takes my three year old and maybe he takes a shorter nap or she skips it and then they go do all these things and have so much fun and she’s like, oh, he’s going to sleep great tonight – and in my head I’m thinking, it’s going to be a long night.

Exactly.  That is the truth!  The theory that if you skip it or tire them out, that it’s going to be an easy night, it’s not reality at all.

Right.  So kind of my tips for if you have the two year old or three year old who’s fighting nap – again, push through.  Hold on to that nap.  Keep going.  Working on your nap routine, making sure it’s consistent with a mini version of what you do at bedtime.  I really like the Hatch sound machine because it has a light feature that you can use and you can change it from your phone.  So kind of like the OK to Wake clocks, if you’re familiar with that, the light is red overnight while you’re supposed to be sleeping, and then in the morning when you’re able to get up and leave the bedroom, the light turns green.  I use kind of a modified version of that for naptime, kind of like the stoplight, where when the light is red, you need to be actively laying down trying to sleep.  And then the light can change to yellow, maybe 30 or 45 minutes into to the nap, and then for another 15 to 30 minutes, the light turns yellow.  At that point, the toddler can get out of bed.  They can play with some quiet, approved toys in the bedroom that you’ve already discussed with your toddler.  Maybe take out anything really loud or crazy that they have, and they can maybe do a puzzle or play with some blocks.  My toddler can’t read yet, but he picks up his books and kind of pretends that he’s reading, and he’ll kind of remember stories that we’ve told him based on the book.  Have some of those things that they can do quietly for the allotted time while the light is yellow.  And then when the light turns green, they’re able to get up, leave the room, and play.  Naptime is over.  And that’s the bigger thing when we’re transitioning away from naps and still having quiet time because even if your toddler is four and they drop a nap, 12 to 13 hours in a day is a long time without any rest for your toddler, especially when they’re used to having that nap.  So from napping even an hour a day to nothing can be really hard and you can have those fussy, cranky evenings.  Whereas if you start implementing quiet time, even after they are old enough to drop that nap, it can kind of help get you through the rest of the day.  And so when you have that two or three year old that’s fighting it, if we are working on getting naps more consistent or pushing through that nap strike, we’re going to be following kind of the same steps that we’re doing in maybe a sleep plan overnight, but if they’re really fighting it, I would much rather you implement the quiet time than skip it altogether.

That makes complete sense.  So what other tips do you have for families who are trying to navigate the stressful time – or if there’s a caregiver in the house, say an au pair or a nanny – how do you work with families where other people need to implement the daytime and overnight plans?

Great question.  My answer for both would be communication.  One of the reasons that I absolutely love working with toddlers is because they can communicate with you.  They can be involved in the decision making.  They can really get into the process, whether it’s overnight, fixing bedtime, or working through nap problems.  You can really get them on board and involved in such a different way than we can with the little babies who are working through sleep training.  And same with day care or nannies or maybe grandparents are helping out.  I find that a lot of times, people really want to help.  If you go to your daycare provider and you let them know, hey, this is kind of what we’re going through.  This is what we’re working on at home.  More times than not, they are on board and they want to help you.  They want to do the same things that you’re doing at home or tell you what they’re doing there so you can kind of mimic what they’re doing a little bit.

Same with a nanny coming into your home.  I think communication goes a really long way and letting them know what you’re working on and why it’s so important.  Same with the little kids.  My big push is, every time I work with a family with toddlers, I want every family that I work with to call a family meeting.  Let the child know what’s expected at bedtime or naptime and why it’s so important.  I send little videos to the toddlers that I work with.  They’re like, “Hi, I’m Aly.  I’ve been working with your Mommy.”  I talk about why sleep is so important for your body and all of these things, and they really, really get into it.  That gets them really excited about it, and then you’re also talking to them about it in a positive way.  You can make it really fun.  You can have it where they send videos to grandparents after naptime to say, “I waited for my light to turn green,” or whatever it is that you’re working on.  And then when that goal is reached, celebrate it.  Let them call grandparents.  Let them call aunts and uncles.  If they’re in daycare, they can tell their teacher in the morning.  Whatever it is.  If you’re working with a sleep trainer and they do send videos back and forth like me – I love getting videos back from my toddlers, especially when they’re so excited because they’ve reached that goal.  It’s a big deal for them.

Absolutely.  I love that you mentioned grandparents, Aly, because grandparents are often caregivers now that we’re in this childcare shortage.  And with inflation, it’s hard to afford childcare.  So it can be challenging for grandparents who are used to parenting a certain way to follow your individual family goals that may differ from even their other children and how their other grandkids sleep or don’t handle naptime, for example.

Absolutely.  I’ve definitely worked with families who had the maybe over-opinionated mother-in-law who says, you know, we didn’t do this whenever I was raising your husband or whatever.  Or their own moms are like, well, you didn’t sleep like that.  You were fine.  Look how you turned out.  But again, I think talking to them and kind of meeting them where they are – and I know people are different, but more times than not, I think that people are really on board with helping, especially if they know why.  If you tell them, look, my little guy is waking up seven times a night, even if only briefly.  They’re getting up out of bed and they’re coming into my room.  I’m just so tired.  We really have to work through this, and even if it’s going to be a week or two weeks of a push, we’re going to come out on the other side and let them know, like, hey, this is temporary.

And I’m not the sleep consultant who’s super rigid and strict.  Nothing has to be so serious.  I’m all about having fun with it.  A lot of moms come to me and they’re like, you know, I want to do this, but I want to be able to still have my toddler in my bed with me sometimes.  I want to still be able to snuggle with my baby.  And I am all for that.  I think when those are the exceptions, that’s different than the norm.  And we can get sleep in a better place, and then every now and then, you can still have those fun nights, or maybe when it’s storming or a little one is sick or maybe a family fun night where we watched a movie and we’re going to stick you in bed with us just because.

Yeah, absolutely.  So what is the benefit to working with a sleep consultant or coach like yourself versus reading a book or going through a program that is not customized the way you’re talking about meeting individual needs and so on?

Oh, my gosh, great question.  So for all of the information out there on Google – there is a million things.  You can type in one question about your little one’s sleep, and you’re going to get a million different answers, a bunch of different ways to treat that issue.  It can be really overwhelming.  You’re maybe asking your girlfriends what worked with their kiddos.  You’re in Facebook mom groups kind of stalking all the questions and trying to find the answers.  But every kid is different, so what worked for your best friend or another mom in a Facebook mom group might not work for yours.  And then for those generic sleep plans – you can type into Google a sleep plan for a six month old, and something is going to come out.  They’re going to spit out something.  But what if you are the working mom, and that sleep plan says your baby wakes up at 7:30, but you have to be out of the house by 6:45?  That now has skewed the whole schedule.  That doesn’t work for you.  If it has these nap schedules but daycare doesn’t do that – Google doesn’t take into account what you’re going through.  It also doesn’t take into account what sleep issues you have, and more importantly, what sleep goals do you have.  What are you wanting to achieve out of this?  I can come up with a sleep plan based on age, but my number one is, I want to know that mom or dad’s sleep goals.  What are they actually working towards?  Because if I give them a sleep plan – yeah, it will get your baby sleeping, but maybe you had something more specific in mind that you’re really, really wanting to focus on those 5:30 a.m. wakeups or you’re still breastfeeding and you want to be able to do that through the night, which I am all for.  Those custom sleep plans really get to the heart of what are you going through, and what does your child respond to?  I worked with two kiddos this summer, different families, same age, a boy and a girl, and we worked on different things.  I really try to get what motivates the toddler and then going more towards, let’s have fun with it.  Let’s get them involved.  Let’s see what they respond to.

The little boy, he was working towards being able to go get a Build A Bear.  He had a sticker chart, and he working towards earning a bear.  And he went to Build A Bear and he got to pick out his stuffed animal.  He was telling all the workers that he learned how to sleep in his own bed – because he was sleeping on the couch with mom and then being moved into mom and dad’s bed after he fell asleep.  He was so excited, and I got videos all the time for him.  He was really, really into.

At the same time, the little girl I was working with, same age, she told her mom that she could throw that sticker chart in the trash.  She didn’t want it.  She didn’t need any more toys.  We switched gears.  We were working on the OK to Wake for sleeping in because she was getting up at 4:45 every morning, and we were trying to get that closer to 6:30.  We were going to do it where she had a date with Mom.  They could go have a pancake breakfast or something, just the two of them.  But she was like, I spend enough time with you.  She was not into any of these little rewards that we were coming up with.  So we had to really get creative: what does she want?  What will she respond to where she’s going to work towards that?  And we figured it out.  It was pretty funny.  But it just goes to show you that kids respond differently.  They work towards things differently.  They have different motivators.  They’re just all so different and so special.

They are!  So now I’m invested – what was her motivator?

Candy.  It was so funny.  I pulled out all the stops for this little girl.  They were so funny.  They were cracking me up.  But we did Bedtime Passes, so she would get so many Bedtime Passes at night, and then if she kept them, however many – let’s say she had three Bedtime Passes.  If she got up in the middle of the night, Mom would take one of her Bedtime Passes away.  Then if she still had one or two in the morning, she could trade them in for something.  She didn’t care about it.  She was getting up all the time.  So I was like, give her extra Bedtime Passes – the goal being we want her to be successful.  We want her to win.  We don’t want her to go all night and not have any because we want her to learn that if she keeps a pass, she gets something – for a temporary basis as she’s working towards later sleep.  So we shifted it to candy because the mom says she really likes sweets.  And I was like, well, if you’re okay with her having maybe some M&Ms in the morning, let’s just try it.  And this little girl – we told her the night before.  She had her Bedtime Passes.  She knew what she was going to get if she kept them.  She kept every single one of them.  She didn’t get up one time.  And then when her light turned green, she ran out of her room, and she was like, I get candy!

Oh, so funny!  I love it.  And I also think it’s so unique that you’re in the thick of it with your own kids, so you can be so relatable to your clients.

Yeah, we have a one year old and a three year old, both boys, so it has been neat kind of being back in the baby days and everything with multiple naps and following wake windows and all of that.  We finally got him down to one nap a day, so they nap kind of together.  Whereas before, my baby would nap twice a nap, so from 10:30 to 12:00, and then my toddler would go down, and when my toddler would wake up, the baby would go down for a nap.  Every day, one of my children were napping.  It was like we didn’t leave the house.  We couldn’t do anything because we really don’t want to mess up naptime.  It felt crazy.  I’m so glad that now they’re kind of napping once a day at the same time, and it’s really opened up some of that time for us to go and do things again.

That’s perfect.  So any final tips for our listeners, Aly?

What I tell every single mom is give yourself some grace.  It is super hard.  Mom life is insane, and it’s amazing and wonderful and beautiful, but it’s also very challenging.  You question yourself, and you’re always wanting to be the best.  And you are.  You are the best person, the best mom for your kid.  Lean into that, and it will all be okay.

Agreed.  Great advice!  So how can our listeners find you?

The easiest way is Instagram.  I am @aly_sleepconsultant.  Super easy to find there.  Give me a follow.  And then my website is restfulbaby.com.  And I do have a podcast, Aly, The Restful Mama on Apple, Spotify, wherever.  It’s all things momhood and sleep.  I also have my sleep packages, and if you guys are listening, you can just let me know that you found me from Kristin, and we can do $50 off.

Excellent!  What a gift!  And as you mentioned, you live in the Nashville area, but you work with clients all over the country, correct?

Yes, that is the beauty of it.  I’ve worked with people in New York and Texas and California.  Everything is virtual, so we can get on regular phone calls, Facetime, texting.  It just depends.  Some moms are anti-phone calls, which I get.  It’s so much easier to text.  That’s totally fine.  I also send videos back and forth with mom’s permission for their little one to be involved.  I email over the sleep plans and all of that good stuff.  So yes, all virtual.  Wherever you are, we can work together.

Beautiful!  Thank you so much, Aly!  Appreciate all of your wisdom today!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Restful Baby

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Sarah Marie shared her personal birth and maternity leave stories in this informative Ask the Doulas podcast episode.  She gives listeners tools and resources to better plan for birth and baby on the emotional vs. physical level. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to be chatting with Sarah Marie Bilger.  Aside from being the owner of Entering Motherhood, Sarah Marie is a mom of two, wife, and birth and postpartum doula.  Sarah is certified as a postpartum nutrition professional through Postpartum University and holds a doula certification specifically centered around VBAC preparation through the VBAC Link.  Sarah Marie loves capturing motherhood moments through photography and is an active member of Birth Worker Academy.  She is the host of the Entering Motherhood podcast.  After an unplanned Cesarean with her daughter in 2019, Sarah Marie quickly realized the lack of support and misinformation surrounding pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.  Later noticing she had postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, and was needing to work through some past trauma, she sought out any help she could get her hands on and began healing as she navigated motherhood as best she could.

Welcome, Sarah Marie!

Hi!  Thank you so much for having me!  I’m excited to be here!

I’m excited to chat!  Our topic today is the mental preparation that is needed for the birth as well as the postnatal phase.  Let’s get into it!

I think this is super important because it’s so much a part of my story and really what happened in my situation and what I see in clients and so much of what I feel we’re lacking right now because there’s so much physical preparation.  Do all the squats and eat this way and all the doing.  We don’t really focus on what it takes to mentally prepare for not only birth but the postpartum phase as well.

Yes, I 100% agree.  At Gold Coast, one of our primary classes that we teach is HypnoBirthing, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, the mental preparation that is involved in that class, whereas some classes are focused more on the physical end of things.

Yeah, that is one thing that I took during my VBAC and something that I recommend to clients, even first time parents, because it really helps you drop into that space to focus on what you need to be doing and it helps just block out any sort of external factors that might be happening.

Exactly, definitely.  And then as far as your personal story, how did you utilize some of those mental tools, not only for your labor, but also in the motherhood phase?  We are mothers all over again, whether it’s baby one or baby three.

For my first – my daughter was born in 2019, and she was an unplanned Cesarean.  I had my water break first.  That was the first sign of any sort of labor.  All of my birthing classes and people had said, oh, your water is not going to break like in the movies, and it’s not going to be the first thing that happens; don’t worry!  And so when it did – and that’s what happened.  I think what was playing over and over again in my head was, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  This isn’t how it’s supposed to be happening.  And I couldn’t get out of that loop of, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  And I didn’t have the tools and the resources that I have now and that I teach my clients of how we can really flip it around, and even if something unexpected happens, we can navigate and figure out what our next move is going to be.  And so Hypnobabies, HypnoBirthing was something that I took for my son’s birth, my VBAC.  And also just really exploring the what-if’s on a deeper layer of kind of understanding, if this does happen, how are we going to approach it, or what is that going to look like?  And if something goes not necessarily according to plan, how can we navigate that moving forward without being flustered or upset?  The same has really flowed into my motherhood experience and how I raise my children and how we navigate different things that happen at home and just all those little things that maybe you didn’t necessarily plan for but happen anyway because it’s life, and we’re not supposed to know everything that’s going to be happening.  How can we really approach it with a better mindset and a more optimistic outlook?

Yes, and not let fear get in the way, even with a prior birth experience that wasn’t the way you had envisioned.

Right.

Very helpful!  Let’s lean into a bit of your mothering journey.  Now, you mentioned utilizing some of the similar tools.  Is that more in those stressful moments, utilizing visualization or breath work?  Can you walk our listeners through some examples?

Yes!  I think for me, a lot of what was going on in my early motherhood experience was a lot of anxiety, a lot of the unknown, a lot of, well, what does this mean, or how do we handle this.  I’ve never done this before.  And I think it was just – you know, I went to therapy for the first time in my life, which is useful for, I would say, most people, even if you go for a short duration of time.  And it allowed me to really just get deeper and ask questions and see what was going on internally as opposed to just how I physically was feeling or looking.  And it allowed me to really just think about, what am I doing, and do I want to be continuing to do this?  You know, I was having those thoughts of, like, what if she goes over here and how does this happen?  Am I doing this right?  And I think it really just helped solidify and build that confidence that I needed in my motherhood journey and allowed me to feel more confident in the things that I was doing and know that the choices that I was making were the right choices at the time and the right choices for our family specifically.  And so I think that’s a lot of what I really try to instill in new moms.  You’re not going to know everything.  You’re not supposed to have it all figured out.  But be confident in the choices that you’re making and really root back to, why do you want to do that.  I think when we have our minds made up of why something is important to us, it’s a lot harder to really break away from that or teeter on the line of, like, should I do this?  Shouldn’t I do that?  And I think that can carry through in a lot of different aspects of our motherhood experience.

Exactly.  I’m really happy that you talked about your personal journey with anxiety and depression because I feel like it’s being talked about more, but not often enough.  And the fact that you sought out therapy for the first time.  What were some of the signs that you noticed that it was beyond the typical baby blues and that you needed additional support?

I had gone back to work.  At that time, I was working as a mechanical engineer, and I had gone back to work at eight week – nine weeks postpartum.  So I had eight weeks off for the Cesarean.  I took an extra week off of vacation.  And so at nine weeks, we dropped our daughter off at daycare, and I started back at work.  And I think up until that point, I was really just existing and going through the motions of trying to navigate everything and trying to figure out what was going on.  I didn’t really take the time to stop.  And so when I went back to work, again, it was just one more thing that was just, you know, I’ve just got to make it through the day.  I’ve just got to go and pump and do all these things.  And I can’t remember exactly at what point – maybe it was about three months postpartum or so.  I was just crying on my bedroom floor, and I was like, who am I?  What am I even doing?  What is going on?  I don’t get to see my daughter at all.  We would come home and it would be bedtime almost for her.  And so it was just like this really big shift, and a lot of people talk about the identity shift and new things that are happening and everything like that, but it was so much more than that because I was really just struggling with like, is this even what I want to be doing?  Why am I feeling so strongly about all of my emotions and all of my feelings and everything that’s going on?  And my husband just kind of looked at me like, I don’t know.  He was kind of lost for words.  I had never felt like this in my life, and I just really said, I think I just need to talk to somebody.  And it was just a lot of very strong feelings, and I’m proud of myself for really being so self-aware that I could put myself in that space of saying, like, okay, well, let’s just try therapy.  Let’s try all the things.  I think I’ve always been a go-getter in that kind of stuff.  If something’s not working, I need to fix it and solve it and put the pieces together.

That’s the engineer in you!

I was like, this doesn’t seem like how it’s supposed to be.  And I know that there is all the untalked about conversations and the parts that nobody tells you about, but this was just so much more of an internal struggle.  I really didn’t know who I was or what I was doing or what I wanted.  So going to therapy was super helpful for me to really solidify those thoughts and have a professional to speak to.

Yes.  Very helpful.  And you mentioned taking an extra week off, but you were working in a male dominated field.  What was it like?  You talked about pumping and that back to work environment.  Of course, there’s the childcare and the struggle we have right now, being in a childcare crisis for working families.  So much additional stress happens with that return to work. 

Yeah, I think for me, I was very fortunate because there was another mom who had literally just gotten back from maternity leave right before I left, so she was just a few months ahead of me on her journey, and we sat right next to each other.  So as soon as I came back, I had a pumping buddy.  I had somebody who was literally going through it with me.  And then a couple months down the line, at one point, four of us were sharing the room.  But it wasn’t for the mom before me – we had no place to pump.  There wasn’t a designated lactation room.  There wasn’t anybody that had asked or needed one before us.  And so she really pioneered that in our office and said, hey, look, we need somewhere to store our milk.  We need a private space with no windows, no way of seeing in.  We need somewhere that we can pump.  We need outlets.  We need all these different things to efficiently be able to do that.  And so they set us up in a room downstairs with a little mini fridge and there was a table.  The sink was actually outside of the room, so we had to kind of bring all of our pump parts into the other room, but it was so nice to have that designated space.  If we didn’t ask for it, I don’t know really what would have been done.  But yeah, it was something that we really had to explain to them and say to them, this is what we need to exist so that we can efficiently store our milk and pump.

And then the daycare was right across the street, so I was able to go there at lunch.  I was only pumping a few times a day and then physically going over to the daycare and nursing my daughter at lunch.

That’s amazing.

That was really nice, and it broke up my days.  But if we had a meeting or something going on that I couldn’t make it over there, it was kind of hard to go the full work day without seeing her.

Of course!  So how did you make the big transition to birth and postpartum work from being an engineer?

It was a journey.  It was a lot of just – again, going to therapy and starting that journey of saying, what is it that I really want to be doing?  I think for engineering, it was kind of the thing of, I was always really good at math and science.  I was always really good at schoolwork.  I was able to get things done and accomplish all of that stuff, but it was never something that I was truly passionate about.  It was just something I was good at.  And I always say that I just kind of fell into it.  It just sort of worked out, and I don’t regret any of it.  I learned so much being in the field.  I met my husband, who’s a mechanical engineer as well, at college.  A lot of good came out of it, but it was never something that I said, like, oh, wouldn’t it be so cool if I did this, or am I truly passionate about this?  Work was work, and I went, and I did it, and I was good at it.  But in becoming a mom, I needed to have more of a passion for my work, and more of a – you know, if I’m leaving my children to go and do this, it has to be worth it.  And so I bounced around a bunch of different ideas.  I started my podcast in 2021, and that really just sparked off the conversation around birth and postpartum.  I enjoyed talking about it, and my whole motherhood experience.  And I enjoyed communicating with different birth workers and digging into all the research and finding out as much as I could about every different aspect of birth and postpartum.  And in doing all of the research and all of the knowledge that I had gained, I really just focused on doula work because it felt the most connected to my purpose of what I’m really supposed to be doing.  Now, it’s been five years of a stretch of figuring out what I wanted to do, and now this is what I do full time.  I do birth and postpartum work, and I just love it.  I feel so called to it, and I just feel like this is what I was meant to be doing all along.  It was just a journey of getting here.

Right!  And many of us get into birth and postpartum work from our own personal experiences, whether they were positive or they were challenging.  I didn’t enter the doula space until I had my second child, but I had hired doulas.

Yeah, I had no idea what a doula was until I got pregnant with my first.  That’s how out of touch – I had no idea about the birth community and everything.  I just figured, oh, I’m pregnant.  I’m going to go to an OB.  I’m going to have a hospital birth.  That’s what your options are.  That’s why I feel even more lit up and passionate about it because I want people to know what all of the different options are and all the different possibilities, and it’s not this world that we live in.  It’s very practical, and there’s so much a part of doula work that can be helpful for any kind of birthing experience.

Right.  And with my first birth, I didn’t know – I knew what doulas were, but I didn’t know how to find them in my area.  They weren’t that popular.  My daughter is going on 14, and I knew about them after her birth, getting more engaged in the breastfeeding community.  And that was my first call once I knew I was pregnant again was to doulas I had met through some breastfeeding activism.  But I agree, back in the day, it was seen of more of a crunchy thing.  And even in TV and movies, doulas are still sort of given those labels and associated more with homebirth or unmedicated birth.  But doulas support all locations for birthing and all types of birth and certainly the postpartum doula role is even less familiar to many than the birth doula role.  I love that you are a professional in both areas and you’re also focused on nutrition, which again, we’ve learned so much about the depletion that results in the deficiencies in minerals and vitamins and nutrients after having a baby, but certainly during pregnancy.  I’d love to hear a bit more about why you were led to focus on the postpartum nutrition.

Yeah, I think that was part of my healing journey with my first.  It was something that really kind of drew me in because I was thinking I was doing all of the things to heal properly, and it still just didn’t seem like things were clicking.  And so again, I just went into the research of it and really tried to understand, why am I still not feeling back to – I’m not saying back to yourself, but just feeling like I can really heal in the way that I felt like I needed to.  And when I focused on my nutrition and I really learned about all of the different deficiencies and what could be going on, I just felt so much better.  I was seeing the work physically in myself change, and so I just felt like I needed to shout it from the rooftops and say, there’s something to this, and there really is a science behind it of how we need to be nourishing ourselves during pregnancy and especially in the postpartum period.  I completely 180’d my experience with my second.  When you talk about postpartum hair loss, for example, I was losing a lot of hair with my daughter and a lot of just that – I would say common experience that we’re seeing now with, oh, yeah, you lose your hair; this is normal.  And while it’s common, I wouldn’t say that it’s normal.  You have to really evaluate what is going on and how much hair loss are you experiencing.  Maybe it is a nutrient deficiency and it’s not something that should be occurring in the magnitude that it is.  I didn’t lose nearly as much with my son.  I mean, you lose hair every day, but not in the amount that I had with my daughter compared to my son.  And I just felt so much more myself, quickly, and I felt like the healing and nourishing side was happening so much more that time around.  It’s something that I share with my clients and something that I really try to instill in them, to honor their body during that time, to rest, to heal, to eat nourishing foods, something that’s comforting and warm and soothing, to be replenishing their body during that time.

Yes, exactly!  And especially for pumping and breastfeeding moms, you’re even more deficient, and so that focus on nutrition can help prevent some of the anxiety and depression.  As you mentioned, hair loss; the tired feeling that doesn’t go away.

Yeah, absolutely.

I could talk to you forever, Sarah Marie, but we are running short on time.  I would love to circle back to our topic and see what final thoughts you have related to mental preparation for birth and postpartum.

Yeah, I think really just trying to tap into that intuition.  I know sometimes that can be difficult for a lot of us to really trust ourselves and trust the process, but just doing little steps here and there to try and listen to that inner voice and listen to what your body is telling you and what your baby is telling you and really just hold on to that mental preparation of birth and the postpartum experience because there’s a lot to be unpacked and a lot that we can open up to if we really tap into that and allow ourselves to honor that time and experience all that birth has to give us.

Excellent advice!  Thank you, Sarah Marie!  So how can our listeners connect with you?

The easiest way would be to head over to Entering Motherhood.  That is the podcast that I host, so wherever you’re listening to this podcast, you can search Entering Motherhood, and you should be able to find it there.  I also have a website, enteringmotherhood.com, and I am most active on Instagram @entering_motherhood.

Excellent!  Thank you, and I hope we can connect again soon!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Entering Motherhood

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Jayme Bess discuss the options for embryo donation for families and the benefits for donors in this informative episode.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Jayme Bess today about embryo donation.  Jayme is the founder and CEO of Acts of Kindness Embryo Donation.  Acts of Kindness is a team of compassionate women who help intended parents start or grow their family through embryo donation.  They embrace all family types and offer a comprehensive range of options including non-identified anonymous, semi-open, and open donor recipient relationships.  Their dedication to inclusivity drives them to provide resources tailored to each individual’s unique needs, ensuring that everyone receives the support they deserve.

Above all, Acts of Kindness is focused on offering hope and opportunity to all and to give each embryo the chance at life it deserves.

Welcome, Jayme!

Thank you!  Pleasure to be here this morning.

I would love to hear more about how you personally became passionate about embryo donation.

A few years ago, I was working as a financial counselor for another fertility group, and we just decided that donor conception was really expensive, so we decided to offer an in-house program at a cheaper rate, and this is how we started embryo adoption was through donation.  We just offered it as a cheaper cost.  So over the years, the need for that program just grew because it was a more affordable option for everybody, and from there, we just decided earlier this year to break off from that company and start our own.  That’s kind of where we are today.  We’ve refocused, and we’ve decided to offer different options and focus more on those who have gone through IVF procedures in the past and had embryos left over that are looking for a recipient family to donate their embryos to us and for us to find recipients for those.

It’s so beautiful, and as I mentioned to you in a prior conversation, I had a doula client years back who went through that process of donating her embryos, and I was fascinated by that.  She spent a lot of time finding the perfect match for donation, so I love that there is a service that helps connect families and that you made it easier because it took her so long to be able to donate her embryos.

Yes, private matching can be very difficult because there’s a lot of steps involved and it’s a very intricate process, especially with several of the different REI labs and different clinics.  They all have different stipulations on what they will accept and won’t accept, so just having a service out there that provides that support is invaluable for these people.

Absolutely.  As far as the work you do, you serve anyone, anywhere, correct?

Correct.  So we are trying to branch out and go global.  We’re actually working on one case now that’s being shipped to Iran, so that’s pretty big for us.

That’s huge.

Yes, and we’ve dealt with one in Canada so far.  We’re just looking to expand our services and really open this up to anybody who’s looking for a more affordable option to grow their family.

Can you give us a range, when you say affordable, about what that would look like financially for a family?

Yes.  We don’t actually charge for the embryos themselves.  We don’t sell embryos.  We just have an exclusive package that’s a flat fee for our services and the transfer of ownership paperwork in our package is $7,000.

That is affordable.

It is, and then if you stick with our partner clinic, which is in St. Louis, Missouri, they’re only $3,000.  So for a total of $10,000, you can go ahead and get your matching with your embryos and have the FET treatment.  That’s usually about a third of what IVF costs.

Exactly.  I am familiar with those costs for IVF, and that is big savings.  So as far as the length of time a family would have to donate, do you have any tips on that?  How many years would an embryo be able to be good for, as far as matching?

We’ve had embryos older than 20 years that have been donated to us, and as long as the embryology team at the accepting clinic knows how to thaw the slow freeze methods and is able to use them, these embryos can go as far back as needed.

Fascinating.

Exactly, so they’re all frozen at about day five, day six, day seven; sometimes a day three.  And they just don’t develop past that, so when they unthaw, it’s just like they’re fresh.

Beautiful.

Yes.

You mentioned IVF and different family planning methods.  What does your typical family look like?  Have they tried IVF and that wasn’t successful, or looked into adoption?  I would love to hear more about what you’re seeing as far as your clientele.

You know, it honestly really varies.  We see a lot of different aspects of life.  We see them all the way from, hey, we’re a young couple who’s tried IUIs who just can’t afford IVF so we’re going to start here.  Genetics just don’t matter to us.  We’ve seen some who have done IVF nine times and it’s just every time, their egg quality is not good or it just doesn’t inseminate or for some reason they’re all abnormal; egg quality factors.  They come to us for that.  We’ve also seen women who are older who were career driven and just didn’t preserve their oocytes in time who want to come back and now have a child in life.  So it’s just all different ranges.  LGBTQ+, we cater to them as well.  We’re friendly, so that’s another great family building option for them, as well.

Yeah, I saw you pride yourselves on being inclusive.  That is fantastic.  As far as the process goes, what would the average length of time be for a family from beginning to work with you to the process of being matched and beginning the journey to conception?

It honestly can go pretty quickly.  The way our program works is when we get a donation in, we actually bring those embryos on site to our clinic.  So the embryos are all ready to go, ready to match, as soon as we find a recipient.  We house everything online in our online database.  That’s available to all our recipients for free.  What they do is they go in and they look at the donor profiles, and if they want to match with one, they just hit “Reserve Now.”  At that point, we’ll look at the donation preferences just to make sure it’s a good match for everybody, and if the match looks like it matches everything up, then we’ll go ahead and complete the adoption, basically.  So it can go as quickly as 24 to 48 hours for them to match and have the adoption completely completed, and then they can either come for the FET, which normally takes about 30 to 45 days to set up, or they can have it shipped off site which may take one to two weeks.  Within 30 days, they can match and have their treatment done.

That is amazing.  And are surrogates involved?

Sometimes, yes.  Surrogacy is tricky.  Gestational carriers require a lot more testing on the embryos than some of them do have because a lot of these are patient-donated embryos.  They were created for sexually intimate partner use, so they did not have the infectious disease testing.  Some of these donors don’t want to have that done afterwards, either.  They are still FDA compliant; you just have to put the warning on there, you know, it carries the risk that infectious disease can happen from the transfer of these.  But some clinics, especially the ones that are dealing with GCs, just won’t accept those.

That makes sense.

That’s kind of the hiccup we have there, but we do get other embryos in that were donor created that have all the testing, so if we’re dealing with a recipient who’s using a GC, we normally tell them to look at those profiles first because we know that those are more widely accepted.

Excellent.  What are some common questions that you receive from potential clients?

Usually, it’s how long does this take?  What does the embryo grading mean?  Will my clinic accept these embryos?  How does the process work?  They’re all just really fascinated with it because it’s still new.

Right.  I’m fascinated!  I love learning about all of the options for families. 

Definitely.  And then the one thing that we did do differently is that we offer all the different types of donation and adoption cases.  Most of the agencies just focus on either private matching directed donation cases or they’re anonymous, where we actually offer all three.  We offer the closed donation, the semi-open, and the open.  So our recipients do find that to be very proactive, and they come to us for that reason because we cater to all the different types.

Yes, it does seem like it’s a rare service.  So what does semi-open entail?

Semi-open is basically that we utilize a third party program called ADC Donor Nexxus, and what that is, it houses the donors’ and the recipients’ information as far as their demographics, their stories, their medical history, and it requires that they report back every two years with any changes that they may have.  That program also allows them to opt in for secure communication.  And in most cases with semi-open, they’ll go in every two years and give updates.  Sometimes they’ll send pictures.  Once the child turns 18, they’ve agreed to meet up.

That’s so helpful that they’re able to share medical information that could be needed for the child later in life.

Yes, especially if it’s a split recipient, because then you can add both recipients, and every family gets each other’s updates.  So if there’s half-siblings out there that are actually true siblings, you can see where they’re at in life, as well.

I love that.  And then what would a fully open donor mean?

It’s along the same process, only they just stay in communication more, and they have the option to meet up in person.

And then obviously anonymous makes sense; no information is given?

Right, no contact information is exchanged.  However, with us, we do have all the physical characteristics, the genetic history, the medical history of the family, and photos are shared.  So they do have a lot of the information.  It’s just no contact.

And is that medical information updated over time, or is it just at the time of donation?

Just at the time of donation, unless they opt in to share that, through that platform.  But it’s optional with the closed questions.

And another question I have for you, Jayme, as far as the families who are considering their choices and what to do with the remaining embryos, why should a family donate?

So really, you only have a few options when it comes to your embryos and what you’re going to do with them.  The most obvious one is to continue storage, which is going to cost you roughly anywhere between $500 to $600 a year to continue storage on those.  So if you’re never going to use them, you’re just paying on something you’re not going to ever utilize.

Yeah, that’s expensive.

It is.  It can be expensive over time.  The other option is to medically discard them.  And let’s just be honest, when you medically discard something, you’re putting it in a red plastic trash bag, and you’re just throwing it away.

Right, and for people who are pro-life, for example, that is important to them.  That may not be a choice.

It’s hard on your morals, yes, definitely.  The other option would be to donate it to medical research.  There’s a lot of programs out there that just do not accept them anymore.  So that is hard to find.  And then the last option, which we’re hoping to bring more light to and make it more widely known, is donation.  With donation, you’re actually giving your embryos a chance at life and to be able to thrive.

Right.  I didn’t realize that there were as many options.  I didn’t even think about the medical research aspect with embryos, but as you mentioned, that’s so limited.

It is.  We actually started a new program, a student teaching program, that will accept any abnormal embryos for medical research and for student teaching.

Okay.  So what else should our listeners know about this important service that you offer?

Really, that it’s just out there.  It exists for anybody who’s looking for a different way to grow their family.  We would love to see this more known for people, more accepted.  Usually, donor conception is not talked about very often because it just seems kind of bizarre in some ways to people, so we want to break those barriers open and just let them know that this option exists and it’s okay.  And we would love for you to check us out and recommend us to anybody that’s looking for this service.

Any other final tips for our listeners, Jayme?

Really, just help one another, you know?  Life goes on no matter what happens, and wherever you’re at in this fertility journey, we know that it’s painful, but we’re here to support you in any way that we can.  So even if you’re not looking at this for an option and you just need somebody to talk to about where you’re at on your journey, we’re here for you as well.

So how can our listeners find you?

We’re available through our social media and also our website.  From there, you can see all of our different resources.  We have a Donors page, a Recipients page, and then one that you go to for extra support if you’re looking for extra support on your journey.  We’re available on Instagram @aokembryos, as well as TikTok, and then on Facebook at Acts of Kindness Embryo Donation.

Excellent.  Well, thank you for offering this service globally now to the world and for the work that you’re doing.  It’s so important.

Thank you so much.  It was a pleasure sharing with you!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Acts of Kindness

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Meagan Heaton discuss VBAC preparation for families and tips for doulas supporting VBACs in this informative episode of Ask the Doulas.  Meagan is the CEO of VBAC Link. 

Hello, hello.  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my new friend Meagan Heaton.  Our topic today is all about VBACs.  Meagan is the VBAC Link owner and founder.  She’s a doula, and she’s also a VBAC mom after two Cesareans.  Very impressive!  Welcome to the show!  I would love to hear more about your personal story, Meagan!

Thank you so, so much!  It is such an honor to be here with you and be talking with your audience and sharing my story.  I do love my story.  I really hold it near and dear to my heart because I truly believe that my stories are what led me here today.  I think that’s a lot of the times how birth doulas get into birth work, too, just based off of their own experience.

As you kind of mentioned, I did.  I had two C-sections, and with my first C-section, I was young.  I was very uneducated.  Very, very uneducated.  I actually just downloaded an app, and that’s what told me what to expect.

That’s really typical, Meagan.

I was just like, this will tell me!  And it told me what size my baby was, and it told me what pregnancy symptom I might be experiencing that week.  That was really about it.  It just didn’t tell me much, and I was just kind of okay with that.  And so when my water broke spontaneously at 39 weeks, I did what a lot of people do or are told to do or believe is what we should do because we see it on movies and on Friends and other TV shows.  When your water breaks, you run right to the hospital because you’re having a baby, right?

That’s what media tells us, for sure.

It really is.  And honestly, it’s even what my doctor said.  Like, oh, if your water breaks, you come right in.  And I didn’t know anything different.  So I did.  I went in, and I got there and they were like, well, you’re not really dilated.  Let’s just start Pitocin.  And it’s kind of weird to think back and think, oh, I was induced, because that’s now how I was seeing it then.  I didn’t realize, oh, my water broke.  I go in and they start Pitocin.  That’s an induction.  They were inducing my labor that wasn’t quite happening yet.  And I was like, okay, sure.  So I started Pitocin, and 12 hours later, I had made it to 3 centimeter, which to me, I was really excited about.  That seemed great.  Unfortunately, to my provider, it wasn’t good enough.  They said no, this isn’t going to happen.  Your labor is not going.  Your body doesn’t know how to do it.  You’re going to have to have a C-section.  So I was wheeled down to a C-section.  I remember laying there and hearing them talk about the weather.  My baby was born November 4^th, and it was the first big snowstorm of the year.  One of the doctors had just gotten back from Hawaii, and they were talking about how depressing it was to be here in the snow again and not on the beach.

And this is your moment!

This is my moment!  This is the time that I feel like I should be the one being talked to and about my baby and so excited, and it just was so disconnected.  And my baby was born, and I of course was excited, but I also had this weird feeling of, why am I crying?  Why don’t I feel more?  I mean, if I’m being honest, it kind of sucked.  It really sucked.  It wasn’t what I had hoped for or, I guess, what I had imagined.  I don’t even know why I imagined anything, because I didn’t know a lot, right?  I wasn’t even educated.  But it didn’t feel the way like I felt like I should be feeling.

Then I decided to learn more about my options.  My doctor didn’t actually really tell me much about VBAC when I got pregnant, but I had kind of learned about it, and people kept saying, VBAC!  You can VBAC!  And I’m like, what in the heck is VBAC?  So I would search VBACK.  I just didn’t even know anything about it.  I did soon find out that VBAC is vaginal birth after Cesarean.  And I was like, wait, this is a thing?  I can do this!  So I said to my doctor, hey, do you support VBAC?  And he said yeah.  I was like, great.  Sounds good!  So the plan was to VBAC.  I did start learning more about what happens in birth, and I definitely learned from my first birth that maybe the app that I got was not the only thing to go off of as far as education goes.  I found myself at 38 weeks this time.  My husband was out of town, and my water broke again.  Oh, my goodness!  I was feeling a little stressed because he’s out of town, so we got him in town, and my mom was here.  He and my mom were like, you need to go.  And I’m like, I don’t.  I’m barely contracting.  Literally, barely contracting.  Maybe every 25 minutes, maybe 20.  And only a 40-second long cramp.

No need to rush in, yeah.

No need to rush in, and I had learned at this point that I didn’t need to run to the doctor or to the hospital.  Even though I knew that, my mom and my husband – I love them.  Don’t get me wrong, I love them.  But they did not know that.  And I really wanted to hire a doula with this pregnancy, but we financially were not in a good space, and my husband really didn’t understand and wasn’t super on board, and I didn’t feel like fighting him hard enough.  I wish I would have.  But I didn’t have a doula, either.  So I kind of felt pressured, and we went to the hospital.  He was exhausted.  He passed out.  If you can imagine his rush of, oh, my gosh, my wife’s water broke.  I’m in Texas!  I have to get home; my wife is going to have a baby!  And I think he just crashed.  It was so much, and by the time he got there, he was exhausted.  So he fell asleep, and I’m just sitting here, twiddling my thumbs, barely contracting.  This nurse comes in and was so friendly and warm.  We were chatting, and she’s like, all right, you know, not much is happening.  But that’s okay, your body can do this.  Let’s get you a peanut ball.  Let’s get you on the birth ball.  Let’s move!

Amazing!  Doula-like!

So much doula-like!  As we were chatting – guess what?  She was a doula!

Oh, that’s why!  Okay!

Yes, she was a doula, and I was like, oh, this is amazing!  For me, I was like, this is a blessing.  I got my doula after all!  But you know what happens; at 6:00, 7:00, depending on the hospital, they leave.  They’re gone.  She left.  And when my new nurse came in, it wasn’t the warm energy that she had brought.  And it was like, well, we can’t do anything for you.  We can’t give you Pitocin.  We can’t do anything for you.  You’re only a 1.  We can’t do anything, so your doctors are going to come talk to you.  So when he came in, it was very much, we’re going to go have a C-section.

It was hard.  It was really hard.  It was not what I wanted.  My husband wasn’t super on board with VBAC, just because my doctor was saying C-section, at that point.  We walked down, and I had a second C-section.  It was undesired completely, but it was such a healing experience.  And I think sometimes when people  hear that, they’re like, wait, what?  But you didn’t want that!  How is that healing at all?  But it really was.  My husband reminded my provider, hey, she wanted to watch it in a mirror.  That was something I really wanted.  And I had told him that, and it was really kind of fun and special, because I was like, oh, he was listening!  He was listening along the way, even though I didn’t think he was.  He was.  So yeah, I watched my baby be born through this mirror.  It’s definitely different, but it was amazing.  And the anesthesiologist was playing music, and they put my baby on my chest.  It was the best thing ever.  You know those belly bands that they kind of hold the monitors on with?  They put that on like a tube top and stuffed my baby in that so she was secure.  So for anyone listening, if you have a C-section, planned or not, that is something that really helped me.  They stuck her in, and it was amazing.  So amazing.

I went in the postpartum unit, and here I am, Googling how to become a doula.  I became a doula quickly after that.  I definitely knew in the future, I was going to VBAC.  And that’s what I did; I had a VBAC!  I went into labor spontaneously again.  My water broke.  This time I had multiple doulas.  At this point, I was a doula and had so much support.  I had switched providers during my pregnancy from a different provider to another provider that would truly support my VBAC and have more options.  I had the most joyous experience when my midwife said, Meagan, reach down and grab your baby!  I reached down, and I pulled him out.  I had him on my chest.  And it was really long; a 42-hour long labor.  I was just so exhausted, but so high on life and birth.  I just can’t explain this joy.  And I remember screaming, you guys, I did it!  This is possible!  My pelvis isn’t too small!  My body really can do this!  All these things that I was told were false, were absolutely false.  Soon after that is when the VBAC Link was born with a friend.  We started it in 2018, and we just were like, we need to help people know more about their options for birth.  Is it possible?  Is VBAC really possible?  Yeah, guys, it is.  It’s totally possible.  I just have to tell you that!  It is so possible!

And I love that you explained all of your different stories, Meagan, with the Cesarean that went against all of your plans to the second surgical birth where you were able to experience more of labor, move, follow more of your birth preferences, and then have a family-centered Cesarean that gave you some healing from the first experience.  And then the journey to become a doula and create this program from scratch that you needed to exist and to then be able to make even more impact by training doulas to support families and giving families more education.

Yeah, exactly!  During my VBAC journey, there wasn’t a lot of information, and the information that was out there was kind of scattered all around.  I still think that today.  You could find how positive VBAC is and how little risk it is, to how scary it is and how you shouldn’t do it.  But there wasn’t a lot of information in one place.  We had ICAN.  We had VBAC Facts, things like that.  And it was so great, but then there was a lot of static out there.  So we wanted to create a space where people could come, both parents and birth workers, and really dive deep into the nitty gritty of VBAC and what does it look like, what are some tips for people to do.  Because I wanted to know what I could do to increase my chances of a VBAC.  And then to have this birth worker network where people can find a doula all over the world, literally.  We have doulas in Kuwait, even, who have a deeper knowledge of VBAC.  I mean, I’m just here in Utah.  I can’t change the VBAC world alone.  Birth workers have such an amazing impact on birth and people’s overall outcomes.  That’s why we wanted to broaden it past parents and reach doulas.

Yes, and I agree that back when I started as a doula, ICAN was about it.  Some local support groups.  But it was challenging for my clients to be able to, one, find the right provider.  You mentioned switching providers later in pregnancy and finding someone who wasn’t just tolerant of VBAC birth but also more supportive and was 100% on board because providers will sometimes say, oh, yeah, I’m all for a VBAC, but really understanding and is passionate about it and who has a track record that is pro-VBAC.

Yes!  I love that you mentioned that because that is honestly one of the number one tips, if not the number one tip, that I give parents who are wanting to VBAC.  Find a truly supportive, truly loving provider.  Someone who is up to date, that is not going to put all the restrictions on you, because even my first provider, right?  Sure, yeah, we support VBAC.  But in the end, he wasn’t even close to supporting VBAC.  In fact, I was bullied into a repeat Cesarean.  And not even just VBAC parents; I think even first time parents, really, a big goal is finding a supportive provider that aligns with you and your desires and who’s up to date with evidence based care.  That’s one of the number one tips.

And then, of course, education.  Education is so important.  I want to say I learned the hard way, right?  I want to kick myself because I should have learned!  But then again, I look back and say, I didn’t learn, and that’s why I’m here today.  So I go back and forth.  But learn as much as you can.  That is why we have the VBAC Link course, and we have a 20% off discount for any parents looking for deeper education in VBAC, and they can use BIRTH20 at checkout.  But really diving into the education.  Find a great provider.  Hire a doula!  Guys, if you can hire a doula, it’s so good.  There’s actual evidence on it.  I’m sure you’re aware of the evidence on doulas.

Oh, yes, but our listeners may not be.  There is so much benefit, especially with VBAC families, to hiring not only a doula but also a doula who is VBAC certified through your group as well as others.  I think VBAC Link has an exceptional certification program.  The doulas on my team that are certified through you are highly in demand by clients.  It’s not just the experience that our families are looking for, but they want the certification.  It’s not just, oh, I’ve attended five VBACs.  They want the education behind it and the full understanding from doulas now.

Yeah, and a lot of our doulas, I know, bring the actual book.  We have an actual book, over 100 pages.  They bring those to the births.  If there are providers coming in saying a statistic or something like that, they can kind of fact check a little bit and have that.  I just think it’s so great.  And of course, I believe I was a good doula not certified in VBAC.  I don’t think I was less.  But I definitely have that deeper, richer knowledge and knowing like, oh, they just said that.  I’ve learned that actually is not quite true.  Or there’s actually an alternative to that.  Let’s talk about that and really kind of help open conversation within the client and the provider, too.

Exactly, and having that community, whether it’s parent focused or the doulas, on the updated evidence based information, what the stats are, and staying current even after the certification.  I think the benefit to some of the communities you created is key and just an extra bonus from going through the actual program.

Yeah, and I love that you mentioned along the way – like, evidence does change.  Things are being studied, and there are certain things that, unfortunately, aren’t continued to be studied.  I mean, there’s a study from 2005, and that’s the last best study we can find.  But as things are evolving and updating, we’re updating that course and our doulas and parents.  Even if you’ve had one birth and then four years later, you have another birth, you might want to tune in to that course.  They have lifetime access to that course so they can see if there’s been updates to the course and things like that and studies that are provided in there.  We always want to make sure that you are up to date on the best evidence based care so you can know and you can help guide your clients.  Or if you’re a mom, you can feel prepared and educated.

I love it.  So I know we’ve talked a bit about the parent perspective and some of the benefits that doulas would have in going through VBAC certification, but I would love to hear your thoughts on how a VBAC parent would be different from a parent who may be a first time family or a couple that has had multiple vaginal births.

Yeah.  VBAC should not be different, right?  It should just be, someone wanting to go in and have their baby just like anybody else.  But it is different.  The fact of the matter is that it is different.  And as a doula, if I have a VBAC client, I expect and know that they may need more from me than some other first time parents or someone who’s had four vaginal births before.  And it’s not just because – I’ll use myself as an example.  I had never had a vaginal birth, so I was essentially just a first-time mom.  There was a lot more in my past that I needed to work through, process, and understand.  And I find that to be true with a lot of VBAC clients where they have experiences.  And sometimes it might not even be associated or recognized as trauma, mentally.  But then physically, our bodies respond as trauma, and if we don’t work through that, that can impact our future, right?  It can impact the way we dilate or the way our labor starts or the way our mindset is when we walk into the birthing space, wherever that may be.  I think that as doulas and birth workers, we need to expect that our VBAC clients are a little more tender, and I use tender as in just knowing that they’ve got some more.  They’ve got some more to work through.  I was also told that my pelvis was too small, so not only did I have experience that I needed to work through, I had a lot that I had to mentally work through to know that my body was capable.  I had to re-find the belief and the faith in my body’s ability to give birth.  That sucked that I had to do that.  But I was so grateful for my birth doulas and for my education in VBAC to be able to do that.  Not only is it different to prepare them for birth, but navigating finding support for VBAC parents – and this is nationwide – can sometimes be very difficult.  And if I’m going to be super honest with you, it really ticks me off.  It makes me so mad that someone has to fight so hard to find that support.  It should not be that hard.  It shouldn’t.   But it tends to be.  And that, I feel like, is a big part of what I do for my doula clients is knowing and being connected to my birthing community and all the hospitals and the birthing centers and the homebirth midwives and knowing who supports VBAC and who is that truly supportive provider, not just that tolerant, okay, sure, I’ll let you try type of provider.  Yeah, I think being a birth worker, we have this space where we really can identify those people, those providers, and help guide our client to the right provider.  And let me tell you – I’m going to be honest – sometimes, we’ll get a VBAC client, and they are with a provider that we know is not supportive.  And we know that we might have to navigate some of the hardships that a provider may throw at someone.  But if someone is asking and they want to know, hey, I’m really not feeling the support, or hey, this was said to me today; is there evidence on this?  Then we’re able to do that and spend time with them.  And sometimes labor can be longer with VBAC, so we have to know that, as birth workers, VBAC labors can be long.  I mean, mine was 42 hours long.  With my first birth, it was 12 hours long when he called it.  The second one, it was 18 hours total.  I was not there for very long because, again, I tried to wait it out and was waiting for my husband.  But my body in particular just takes time.  And a lot of VBAC moms do, just like first time moms.  I mean, my body hadn’t done it before, so you have to kind of expect that sometimes labor can take a little longer.

And I’ve attended some VBAC births that are very quick, even quicker than my vaginal birthing clients.  It was amazing how quick some of those ended up being, but then as you mentioned, some can be longer.  As a doula, there’s no formula.  Every body and baby are different. 

Yeah, and I think as doulas, it’s really important, too, to kind of know a little bit more, too, on pelvic dynamics and understanding positions of babies because we know that birth workers can help so much with that, as well.  So to your point, we had a VBAC mom who was kind of having a very fast labor and then it kind of stalled for an hour, and it was just a positional thing.  And then within an hour later, she had her baby.  So her whole VBAC was, like, six and a half hours.  Wild.  But yeah, I think the biggest thing for birth workers is know that VBAC clients might need some extra love and guidance and education.

So true.  And as you mentioned, the mental aspect of it.  It’s important for anyone who’s supporting VBAC families that there is that tenderness and that emotional support.  There can be some blockages that could have happened from the past birth or births that could be carried and could stall labor.  I feel like it’s so important to deal with some of that.  We teach HypnoBirthing at Gold Coast Doulas, and that mental aspect of it has really been helpful for our VBAC families to do some of the fear releases and process things and really do the work in pregnancy, as you had mentioned you did with your last two pregnancies where you did so much to prepare and really wanted to ensure that birth didn’t happen to you, that you were an active participant and had the education and you could advocate for yourself, even before you became a doula.

Yes, exactly!  If there’s anything I wish for anyone during their birth experience, whatever you desire or how it goes: be an active participant, just like you said.  Don’t let birth just happen to you, and I think that’s really hard sometimes because we don’t feel like we have a voice, or we don’t know we can say something else, say no, or maybe later, or I don’t know these things.  I think that’s really helpful where doulas come in so helpfully with that because we can kind of help you find your voice and kind of help you know your options and again facilitate that conversation versus just being told what you’re going to do or what someone is going to do to you.

Exactly.  Any final tips for our listeners, Meagan?

Oh, man, yeah.  I just think, get your birth team.  Get your education.  And birth team goes even into chiropractic care and yourself.  Remember that you are an active participant on your own birth team.  Sometimes I feel like clients can hire a doula thinking that the doulas are going to do it all, but if you don’t have the education yourself, that’s not good either.  We want to have a whole team full of education.  So educate yourself and make sure that you are prepared.  Find that provider.  Check into chiropractic care.  Whatever it may be.  Hire that doula.  And really just create your space to be positive and know that it’s okay if something negative is coming in, that it’s okay to just say no, thank you, I’m going to excuse that.  My mom was not a very positive person in my labor, and that was really hard for me because I wanted her to be there, but I had to be like, Mom, not now.  I had to kind of exit her from my space that was safe.  And I think that’s important to know, that it’s okay to do that.  You are worth so much.  You deserve so much.  And you can have a better birth experience, and that’s our goal at the VBAC link is to have a better birth experience no matter what that may be or what you may choose.  But definitely get the education.

I love it!  Thank you!  So as you mentioned, the VBAC Link – there are lots of different sites within the website, but what is your domain name, and how can we connect with you on social media and all of the different Facebook communities you have?

Yes!  Okay, so you can find us at www.thevbaclink.com.  And on there, you can find our blog.  We post blogs all the time.  We have so many blogs full of incredible information, studies, suggestions, all of those things.  Of course, we have our podcast.  You can find our podcast anywhere that you listen to podcasts.  It’s The VBAC Link, and we share weekly stories of people all over the world sharing their experience and their journeys.  We also have providers and doulas coming on and sharing tips and things like that.  We have our resource page.  We have our doula directory, so if you’re looking for a doula who is VBAC certified, go over there.  It’s www.thevbaclink.com/findadoula.  Type in your ZIP code; you never know, there may be a doula in your area who you can interview.  Then we have our course for VBAC, for parents and birth workers.  Again, we have a 20% off discount code for any of your audience members, both birth workers and parents, and you can check it out using the code BIRTH20 for 20% off the course.

On social media, just The VBAC Link.  You can find us anywhere.  YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest even.  TikTok.  Facebook.  All those places.  And then kind of what you said, we have some amazing groups on Facebook, so if you’re looking for a community of people with the same desires and questions and goals as you, we have a private Facebook group, and you can search The VBAC Link Community.  There are some questions that you do have to answer to get in, but once you answer those questions, we can let you in, and oh, my gosh, that community is so amazing.  It’s so special.  Going and reading and just seeing the outpouring of love and support from the community is amazing.  And then we actually have a CBAC community as well.  CBAC is a new term we’re throwing out at you.  That’s Cesarean birth after Cesarean.  Sometimes the goal of a VBAC doesn’t always happen and it ends in a Cesarean, or someone may choose to have a scheduled Cesarean, right?  And we just want you to know that we love our CBAC mamas just as much as we love our VBAC mamas.  We love all of you, and we do have that group and you can search that on Facebook.  It’s The CBAC Link Community.

Beautiful!  Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom on VBACs and your passion, Meagan.  It was a delight to chat with you today!

IMPORTANT LINKS

VBAC Link

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Kayli Joann discuss Kayli’s entrepreneurial journey, which started out of her frustration with finding postpartum bras and nightgowns that made her feel beautiful.  She decided to create her own line of clothing, Tender Seasons.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Kayli Joann.  She is the owner and founder of Tender Seasons.  Kayli was born and raised in Michigan and still resides there with her husband and two children.  She is passionate about motherhood, and nothing gives her more joy than being a mom.

Our topic today is all about reclaiming your beauty and the self-image you had pre-pregnancy after having a baby.  So I’m excited to dive into this subject with Kayli, who has personal experience with it as a mother and then created her business based on the struggles she had in finding clothing and nightwear that made her feel sexy and confident after having a baby. 

Welcome, Kayli!

Thank you!  Thank you for having me!

Let’s get into it!  Tell us about your big why for creating your business and your personal struggle in finding nightgowns and clothing that made you feel like your former self or less like that mom who is feeling frumpy and just not ready to receive visitors.  All of the things that we feel as a postpartum mom!

Yes!  So my journey started with my first pregnancy with my oldest son.  He’s four now.  And I got pregnant and by the end of my pregnancy, I had gained 60 pounds.  So I definitely felt different.  I looked different.  I had all of the fun stuff with the puffy ankles and puffy face.  I felt miserable.  I went shopping to try to find some maternity stuff but also for postpartum, and my options were very limited.  And nothing felt like my true style.  Like, it just felt like the same style that I literally saw my older sisters wear, my mom wear, my grandma wear.  I was like, why hasn’t anybody put more effort into this?  Especially with nightgowns.

I was going to go for a weekend getaway, kind of like a babymoon.  I want to say I was 35 weeks pregnant.  And I went shopping to try to find a maternity nightgown, and I could not find anything.  I ended up buying one that was three sizes too big.  It wasn’t even maternity, and it looked awful.  That was kind of where the frustration started.  And then I ended up having my son, and then I realized when I started breastfeeding that the nursing bra options were really not great, either.  I was packing my hospital bag, and I was looking at the bras that I had, and I had looked all over.  And I was like, well, these are really not cute, but I guess I’ll deliver in this one because it’s kind of a purple color versus just the skin color and black.

So yeah, I had my son, and the frustrations just continued.  I didn’t really feel like myself, and I know with motherhood, you’re a whole new version of yourself, but when I looked in the mirror, I had the added weight gain but also the type of clothing that I like to wear, I couldn’t wear.  Either I couldn’t fit it, or the breastfeeding options were not great.  Especially the nightgowns and the bras; that’s what I just kept thinking of.

When my son was three months old, I was like, okay, if nobody is going to do this, I’m just going to do it.  I had no experience with designing or running my own business.  My dad had run his own business my whole life, but I really didn’t try to learn ins and outs of that.  So I was kind of nervous, but I was like, you know what, I have to start somewhere.

Like I said, my son was three months old, and I remember this moment exactly.  I think about this all the time.  He was in a little bouncy seat just kicking, and I was like, I’m just going to start somewhere.  So I grabbed a piece of paper and some pencils and I sat down and just drew up a nightgown, a maternity and nursing nightgown.  That’s where it all started, honestly.

I love it so much.  And your bras are beautiful, and you’ve expanded to some baby gear.  Like, you have swaddles and cute little hats and leggings and so much more than your original vision.

Yes.

Did that come from feedback from your early customers on what they needed, or how did you expand your vision to be more encompassing?

Some of it was from customers saying, hey, we’d love to see this.  We started with one nightgown in one color, and then it became the same nightgown in three colors.  Then we had a couple of other maternity dresses, and one bra that we started with.  And people really liked it, and we were like, oh, okay, this is going well!  But then with our manufacturing, we had a couple issues with trying to create the extra large sizes.  We have now been able to get this specific bra into size 3XL, but we were hearing from women that were 4XL, 5XL that they can’t fit into them, and nobody else has my size.  So that’s why we came out with our second bra, our Eden bra, to fill that need, but also so much more.  It’s the three in one, so it’s perfect for nursing, sleep, and delivery.

That is so beautiful because I feel like, one, bras are expensive.  And as a birth doula and a postpartum doula, I’m always talking about what you can wear in labor, not to wear a sports bra because it might get cut off, and what might make them feel good in labor and also be able to have that skin to skin time.  As a postpartum doula, helping them plan for their return home and all about enjoying that skin to skin time, whether they’re breastfeeding or not with baby, and being comfortable.  Leakage that comes with that postnatal time.  What would make them feel good about themselves, especially because there are a lot of interruptions, whether it’s your hospital stay or coming home.  There’s visitors, family members, and you want to look and feel good.

Absolutely.  And the craziest thing that I did not realize before I had my son was that I would be wearing a diaper.  People joke about it, but I had no idea.  It was hard enough, and being in a diaper just felt humiliating.

And you’re leaking everywhere and sore, and you just don’t feel beautiful.  And then after you have a baby, it’s all about baby.  During pregnancy, especially if it’s your first, the mother is celebrated, and there might be a shower or sprinkle and family members are talking about your cute baby bump and so on.  And then after you’ve gone through this transformative experience, whether it’s baby one or baby five, then everyone wants to hold the baby.  The gifts are for the baby.  And the mother feels left behind.  It’s hard to even process the experience.  Like you talked about, you’re wearing a diaper; the leaking.  It’s feeling just less than in that stage where your hormones feel like a roller coaster of emotions.  You might feel weepy.  And then you look at this outfit that you’re wearing.

The fact that you’re making women feel celebrated and beautiful in this time that they can feel a little left out is wonderful to me.

Well, thank you!  Yeah, women and new moms are a big passion of ours.  Me and Lynee, my business partner, we felt a huge need for this.  And we also dealt with these issues ourselves.  So after we were like, okay, we’re going to do this – we were like, okay, moms need to find out about this.  We really wanted to help mothers change the narrative and to feel empowered and not to feel weak.  Sometimes for some women, it’s hard to walk.  It’s hard to move.  All of this, just after giving birth.  What you wear does make a difference, but also you want something that’s comfortable and not completely unrealistic.  That has been really beautiful, to see the community that has been created through this and all the women that we have been able to reach out to and help and encourage.  It has been bigger than we even thought.  That’s been really, really cool to see.

Yes!  And Kayli, I feel like just the change in relationship, especially if this is a first baby, and wanting to feel beautiful for your partner and not just feel like parents.  Put some priority into the relationship.  If you’re not wearing this frumpy gown – I remember when I had kids.  My daughter is 13 now, my first child, and my son is 11.  I pretty much only had Motherhood Maternity to shop at, and I had this little gray nursing tank and robe and pant set that I wore postpartum pretty much constantly.  And I felt really frumpy in it, personally.  And now there are all of these cute gowns and robes and florals.  I just didn’t have a whole lot of options back then.

Yeah.  I had gotten a gift from someone at my baby shower, which had the sweetest intentions, and they were like, this is a dress that you can wear for delivery, and also, you could leave the hospital in it.  So I tried it on when I was pregnant with my first son, and I looked in the mirror, and it was this huge, baggy, heavy dress.  It was green.  And I started laughing and I said to my husband, I look like Shrek.  I literally look like an ogre.

So yeah, it is true.  You want to look good for your partner, and you want to feel confident.  They can say, oh, you look amazing and all this stuff, but you have to truly believe it.

Yes, you do!

It’s such a mental thing.

Yeah.  And every day, it’s trying to feel more like yourself and the woman that you are versus getting into that mom role and feeling like you exist only to change baby, feed baby, help baby sleep.  To get some normalcy back and feel beautiful and sexy and feel like you are still desirable is a huge shift.  I think that fashion and your line of bras and the gowns can make a huge impact on the little steps.

Oh, absolutely.  And sometimes it’s as little as just wearing a bra that makes you feel cute.  Whether we realize it or not, what we wear does impact our brain and how we take care of ourselves.  With postpartum, I like to encourage moms even with the little things, like brush your hair.  Wear something that makes you feel cute.  What we really want moms to feel – and I feel like it’s not talked about enough – is that what you did was absolutely incredible, and we want you to feel powerful, empowered.  We want you to feel beautiful, sexy, and to actually believe it.

Because of social media, Pinterest, Instagram – I feel like the postnatal phase is documented a lot more than when I had my kids.  So wanting to look beautiful in a photo of a nightgown or with a robe – I don’t want to say Pinterest perfect, but you get where I’m going with that.  There is that pressure in pregnancy and certainly early parenting to keep up with what you’re seeing online.  Now there are so many other choices fashion-wise for mother and baby.  Again, those cute swaddles and hats that you have.  If that makes you feel good, having these beautiful choices for the photos or videos, it’s another great thing to consider.

Definitely.  When I had my second son, Tender Seasons had already started.  I started it in 2020, and we officially launched our website in 2022.  That’s when Lynee, my sister-in-law, and I started working together as business partners.  That was, by the way, the best decision I ever made.

Yeah, it can be tough to work with family, so I’m impressed that it worked out well!

Definitely.  And with working together, our talents just complement each other so well.  It was kind of fun because she had two kids already, and I just had one when we started.  And a dream of mine was, next time I have my next baby and I’m in the hospital, I want to wear my stuff that helps me feel cute and strong.  And so when I had my second son, I was wearing a nightgown for delivery, and then I was wearing our bras for postpartum, but during my hospital stay, I had brought several of our items, and my baby was in our hat and swaddle.  I had this dream of, while I was in labor, orders coming in and me getting the notifications on my phone.  And it was super fun having that experience that I had dreamed of come to life.  And then when family came to visit me, I did – I felt so much better.  I felt cute, and I felt presentable.  And that was huge.

Yeah, it really does make a difference.  And setting some boundaries, limiting visitors, trying to rest.  Whether our listeners feel comfortable, now that visitor restrictions have lifted in most parts of the country – having five people in and out of their labor room or the visitors in the postpartum room, or waiting until they get home –  you never know when baby might need to feed.  With the bras, I feel like they’re beautiful, but also, they’re discreet.  If you needed to nurse in public, if you were comfortable doing that without a cover, that could be an option for you with family members or friends coming and going constantly.

Yes, absolutely.  You definitely said it.  With being able to do it quickly in public, whether you decide to use a nursing cover or not – I’m not, but I’m not against them.  I think they’re wonderful.  It’s about each individual and their comfort level; that’s the right thing.  But one thing when we came out with our bras that was important to us was to have that easy, quick access.  When you have a crying, screaming, newborn and they’re ready to eat, you’ve just got to get it out quick.  So that’s nice.  We have our lace bra and then our Eden bra.  Our lace bra has quick, easy nursing clips, and you can do it just with one hand.  And then with our Eden bra, you just pull it to the side.  With postpartum, while your body is trying to decide, like, how much milk am I supposed to make for baby – personally, I dealt with milk leakage for a while.  Like, for several months.

So did I, with both kids.

Yeah, and I’d wake up in a puddle of milk.  I’m like, what just happened?  So that was one thing with our lace bra that was really important to us.  It’s leakproof.  Milk leaks are not an issue.  It absorbs the milk leaks so you’re not getting it through your shirt.  I was at my newborn’s checkup appointment, and I’m sitting in the waiting room, and people were starting to look at me.  I was like, what’s going on?  And I look down – this was with my first son.  I had through my bra, through my shirt, a stream trickling down to my lap, of milk.

I’ve been there.  It’s the worst.  I marched in a parade once and I leaked through my shirt, and there was nowhere for me to go.  I was pushing the stroller with my son, and I was leaking, and it was hot.  The worst!

These are parts of motherhood, and I think that finding ways to help things be more seamless is important.  Motherhood is busy, and it’s chaotic at times.

There are so many new gadgets that I’m thankful for, for clients.  Like the milk collectors and so many more breastfeeding and pumping related gadgets to make life easier.  Back when I had kids, it was, like, bamboo pad inserts, and I would be feeding on one side and leaking on the other.  The bamboo inserts wouldn’t collect enough, as an overproducer.  I am thankful for the milk collectors!

Yes, very true!

So one thing I would love to cover with you, Kayli, is you mentioned your bras being able to support larger breast sizes.  But it can be difficult in pregnancy and in the postnatal phase to choose the right bra because our sizes change so drastically when our supply establishes, during pregnancy, when things settle as far as supply.  You can often need to purchase multiple bras in different sizes.  It can be challenging to find the best fit.  So what are your tips in handling those changes?

So typically, we suggest size up.  But if you’re wanting something that is going to work for you while you’re pregnant and once your milk supply decides to regulate, our stuff is very stretchy, so usually that will do the trick.  But if you want to play it safe, order the size that you’re currently in while pregnant, and then size up, so that if that happens where your breasts get a lot larger when the milk comes in, you’ll have that second option for however long that takes.  If they decide to go back down, you’ll have the other one that you had in pregnancy.  But a lot of women are buying our bras while they’re pregnant, and it works all through.  I think it’s more of those extreme cases where they go up, like, three sizes when their milk comes in that they might need to get another size.  But all of our products are extremely stretchy and soft.  You’re never going to feel pushed on.  Especially with clogging milk ducts – I have dealt with clogged milk ducts in the past, and it is one of the most painful things.  What the lactation consultant told me was, you have to make sure that stuff is not pushing.  Your clothing, your bras are not pushing on your milk ducts.  That was something that was super important to us, too.  We do not want moms to have to deal with that.

Yeah, it’s very uncomfortable.  That is amazing.  So is there anything else that you would like to highlight from your product line?

We came out with a baby balm a couple years ago because my son was dealing with diaper rash.  And nothing was working for him.  The rash just kept coming back.  I tried all of the diaper rash creams and pastes; you name it.  So we came out with our baby balm.  It was originally called Baby Bum Balm, but then our customers were like, hey, I’m actually using this all over my baby’s body.  It’s working great for eczema, cradle cap.  So we kind of rebranded that and decided to make it an All-Over Baby Balm.  That was a complete game changer.  My son’s diaper rash went away right away within 24 hours.  It never came back.  I used it all the way until he was potty trained.  This has been a very popular product because moms are using it for all these different things, and it’s helping with a lot of stuff.  My youngest deals with eczema, so I’ve used this on his skin and it helps him so, so much.  With this formula, it’s all organic.  Everything is very clean ingredients.  I’m trying to remember off the top of my head every single ingredient, but one of the main ingredients, our oil is infused with calendula flower.  Calendula is extremely healing and has been known to help with burn scars and all sorts of different things.  Having that in there, it does this hydrating and nourishing and healing all in one.  It has been something that moms actually love and keep coming back for more.  It was life changing for me and my household.

Again, solving problems!  You couldn’t find the right products, so you created it yourself.  That’s what moms do!

Yes.  That’s another thing; I want to encourage moms that you can do whatever you put your mind to.  Just because you have a baby or children, don’t feel selfish for trying to follow your dreams and to be doing things for yourself, as well.  I know a lot of moms will feel selfish for doing anything for themselves after they have baby.  Everything inside them is like, take care of the baby all the time.  Baby, baby, baby.  And everyone, including your partner and your children, are going to be – they’re happy when mom is happy.  So I feel like it’s important to take the time to do things that help you take care of everyone else because you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Right.  So true.  Excellent.  Any final tips for our listeners, Kayli?  Anything about balancing motherhood or preparing for the postnatal phase; anything you want to suggest?

Give yourself grace.  Give yourself time.  And try to find the beauty of your changing body because for some reason, the minute you have your baby, people are like, oh, you’ve got to get the baby weight off.  You’ve got to do this.  Hide the stretch marks.  That’s something that we’re not okay with.  We encourage women to be healthy, but also, that starts with a healthy brain.  Loving and embracing your changing body – if you have stretch marks, okay, cool!  Look, you have something that shows what you did.  You grew a human.  And that’s absolutely incredible.  So kind of changing things in your brain, to look at that and be like, wow.  And say to your body, thank you, instead of just squeezing the parts that are a little fluffier than they were before.  I think it’s important to realize that it’s beautiful.  Everything that you’ve gone through in creating a human – it is beautiful.  That’s what I want mothers to know.  Just give yourself grace and be kind to yourself.

Beautiful.  So how can our listeners connect with you, Kayli?

We’re on social media.  We’re on Facebook and Instagram.  We are also on TikTok.  But the best way to reach out to us – if you just want tips on sizing or if you have any questions or you just want to say hi, probably the easiest way is to send us a message on Instagram.  We also have a couple email addresses as well.  Tenderseasons.lynee@gmail.com is a good one if you want to contact Lynee.  Both of us love to hear from our customers, and we do not mind when customers are like, hey, I’m this size; what size do you suggest?  Or they’re like, this is my first baby; I’m worried about sizing for when milk comes in.  Some people are nervous to reach out to brands because they’re afraid that their messages won’t get a reply or that they’re bugging people, but with us, we love hearing from our customers.  So do not feel bad; we love hearing from you.  It makes our day when we hear from our customers, honestly.

I love it so much, and everything that you’re doing at Tender Seasons.  Thanks for sharing your founders story with us, Kayli!

Of course, of course!  Thank you for having me!  This has been such an honor.

It has been my pleasure, and I look forward to chatting with you again soon!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Tender Seasons

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Jacque Ordner discuss finding ways to make pumping more effective, comfortable, and sustainable in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Jacque is an IBCLC, BSN, RN, RLC, and Motif Medical Advisor. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas.  I am thrilled to chat with Jacque Ordner today.  Jacque has many titles: IBCLC, BSN, RN, RLC.  And she is an advisor to Motif Medical.

As a registered nurse and IBCLC, Jacque has worked with breastfeeding families in the clinic, hospital, and private practice settings.  As a mom of four, Jacque is intimately familiar with the struggles that breastfeeding families face, and she loves helping families create personalized feeding plans to help them reach their breastfeeding goals.  Jacque has developed much of her career to creating lactation, birth, and baby care educational programs that equip new parents for the journey ahead.  She is passionate about finding ways to make pumping more effective, comfortable, and sustainable.

Welcome, Jacque!

Thank you so much!  I’m glad to be here!

I am excited to dive into the pumping topic, especially making pumping more comfortable.  I’d love to hear your tips for our listeners.

Absolutely.  This is something I’m really passionate about, working with families in private practice and advising Motif Medical.  The goal is to make pumping more comfortable, rather than something that we just absolutely dread.  There’s always going to be parts of it that we dread; washing parts, and all those things.  But my biggest tips are to understand, first of all, that it shouldn’t hurt, and if it does, that means that we need to investigate the underlying causes of that.  Most often, it’s flange size.  We need to get the right flange fit.  Other causes could be an underlying infection, or maybe we have soreness going on with baby’s latch, and that’s sort of transferring over and being exacerbated by pumping.  But honestly, most of the time, we’re not getting that flange fit correct.  That’s usually the first place that I start.

That makes sense.  So I know that with my own pumping and breastfeeding journey, it was difficult to find the right size.  And one breast can be a different size than the other, and trying to make that comfortable, you don’t have to just grin and bear it.  There is so much more that you can do, such as find a lactation consultant like yourself to help with that journey.

Yes!  And what’s really exciting is over the last, I would say, five to eight years, maybe, we have seen more of a focus on sort of just looking at nipple sizes and saying, okay, maybe this size 24 that comes in the box as “standard” isn’t really standard.  People are surprised to find out that flange sizes that sort of just came when we started working with pumps when they were invented – that wasn’t based on science having to do with human nipple sizes.  It was really science having to do with dairy animals.  And last time I checked, most of us don’t look like dairy animals when we’re talking about our anatomy.  It makes a lot of sense that we really need to revisit that topic, and thankfully, there is a lot of new information emerging.

Something I’m really excited about with Motif is we are taking a look at all of our flange sizing guidance, and you will see it’s a big process to change everything that comes in the box and to change all of the instructions about how to get your flange size.  But that is something that Motif has been willing to take on, and we are changing all that guidance to more closely align with the newer information that’s coming out.  And that information really is that most people’s nipples are smaller than 24mm.  They need a smaller flange size.  So we’re trying to adapt to that and provide moms what they need to be comfortable without having to jump through all these hoops.

So we’ve got this new flange sizing sort of criteria that we’re working with or instructions that we’re providing to parents, and that is you want to stimulate your nipples.  You want to get them to perk up, be everted as much as possible.  Sometimes we have nipple shapes and sizes that are a little bit more difficult to measure and to size, and so that’s when you need to seek out that expert help.  We’ve got a couple of flange sizing tools.  One is like a measurement tape.  It’s actually on a card.  And it’s like a ruler, but with the millimeter measurements, so you can measure from one side to the other of the base of your nipple after you’ve got it everted.  The other one has the holes that you can slide over the nipple itself.  You want to use something like that to measure in millimeters, and you do want to measure both sides, like you mentioned.  And then after you have your measurement, we’re not adding as much as we used to.  The current information is that we only need to be adding maybe zero to three millimeters, where we used to say two or four, or some sources said two to five.  And we’re finding that just like when baby’s mouth is stimulating that nipple tissue, baby’s mouth is touching the nipple on all sides, so it’s no longer this, oh, no, you can’t have the nipple touching.  It’s the nipple can touch as long as we’re not seeing a lot of swelling and it’s not painful.  So we’re definitely expecting a shift in how moms are able to size themselves, as long as they have the correct information, which is sort of the most important starting point.

Absolutely.  I’d love to hear more about Motif Medical.

I’m so excited to work with Motif.  As somebody who loves pumping, and as a mom of four, I have nursed my babies; I have exclusively pumped.  At times, I’ve pumped for a couple of adoptions.  So pumping is something I’m passionate about personally and professionally.  And what I love about Motif is they seek the information from parents and from professionals.  They want to know what makes lives easier, but not just what products can we put out there to market and make money.  Obviously, business is business, and you have to have products that sell to make a business work, but they’re really interested in, let’s solve problems.  Let’s figure out how we can make our pumps more effective.  Let’s get this flange sizing thing figured out.  Let’s make milk storage easier.  Because the whole idea is to make pumping easier and to help families meet their breastfeeding goals.  I just love that they’re constantly seeking information from the people who are boots on the ground, in the thick of it, so they can improve their products.

My favorite product from Motif is the Motif Luna pump.  It is an absolute workhorse pump.  It’s a pump that you could exclusively pump with.  I have exclusively pumped with it.  It’s a pump that you can build supply with right out of the gate.  And it rivals hospital rentals as far as performance.

That’s amazing!

It is!  When you look at the technical features, it really does rival the hospital rentals, and it’s available through insurance.  Usually, even to get the battery option is a lesser upcharge for moms than many other pumps on the market.  So I just sing its praises all the time.

I had to rent a hospital grade pump as my daughter was in the NICU and came home, so that was challenging.  I love that there are other options like Motif’s pump that have the strength of a hospital grade pump but you don’t have – I mean, it’s pretty big and bulky.

Yeah, and the Motif Luna is – you would just be surprised at how lightweight it is and how quiet it is.  I remember the hospital rentals that you’re just like, I’m going to turn this thing on and wake my baby up in the middle of the night, and that is so frustrating.  I’m excited for the advances that are happening in this space so that families who are dealing with all these other things – we can at least make pumping a little bit easier.

Excellent.  What are your tips for our listeners who are pumping at work?

Oh, my goodness.  First of all, it’s not easy, and there are no magic formulas to just take out all of the difficulty.  But I like to remind families that I work with that just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s bad.  So we can do really hard things and have really positive results for ourselves, and sometimes it’s just important when you’re in the thick of it to remember that it’s okay that pumping is hard at work and continuing to breastfeed while I’m at work, it’s hard.  Hard doesn’t equal bad, and there can be good things that are coming out on the other side.  The focus on those positives can really be motivating.

I think the biggest tip I have is not to get so overwhelmed with what you see on social media.  Probably three, four, five years ago, that was not my biggest tip, but it has become that way because so many families are coming to me.  Moms are saying, I’m only pumping four ounces at every pump session, and I’m shouting, going yes, that’s wonderful; that’s a great amount.  But mom is dejected because she’s seeing amounts from influencers on social media that are ten ounces, eight ounces at a pumping session, so there’s this disconnect between what real, normal output is versus oversupply.  So my first tip is to know what normal is.  25 ounces a day is the average intake for a breastfed baby from one month all the way to six months when we introduce solids.  So if you’re seeing somebody pumping eight to ten ounces at every pump session on Instagram, that’s an oversupply, and you don’t need to feel like you’re doing something wrong if you’re not getting those amounts.

I would say my second biggest tip is to know that some milk removal is better than no milk removal.  So if you’re in a situation – like especially teachers that I work with, nurses – being a nurse, I remember you couldn’t even go to the bathroom, let alone get in a pumping session sometimes.  Having this sort of mentality of, I’m going to do some milk removal, even if I can’t get in a full pumping session, can really be beneficial at protecting your supply.  So learned the skill of hand expression.  I can’t tell you the number of times I hand expressed into a sterile urine cup when I was working in the hospital because that’s what I could do.  I could steal away for five minutes, wash my hands.  I had a sterile container.  And I expressed some milk rather than skipping a full pumping session.

I had to do that as a doula, as well.  I can totally relate.  At a birth, you have just a few minutes. 

Yes!  Yeah, and you’re just like, some relief.  But also, you’re at least telling your body, I need some of this milk, and it’s more protective to your milk supply.

I think also reminding ourselves that breastfeeding doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  If you go back to work and you’re doing all the things and your mental health starts to struggle; you feel like, I just maybe need some formula.  First of all, I would highly encourage you to work with an IBCLC because sometimes there are things that maybe you’re missing.  You need somebody to look at big picture, and there are some ways to adjust things and you can meet whatever your original goals were.  And sometimes we need to adjust our goals.  And it’s okay.  You’re not unsuccessful if your goals change and you maybe aren’t producing 100% of what baby takes.  Now, it’s entirely possible to produce 100%, but sometimes we have to look at the whole big picture and decide what our priorities are.  And you’re not failing if you’re making 30%, 80%.  It doesn’t always have to be 100% of what baby is taking.

So true.  So I would love to talk a bit more about how partners can support the pumping journey. 

I’m sure that you work with partners so much as a doula, and I always champion doulas as the coach kind of mentality with partners.  But partners can really influence so much and breastfeeding in general that they just don’t realize.  Sometimes we get focused on, I’m not the one physically feeding the baby, if mom is nursing directly at breast.  If I’m not the one physically feeding the baby, somehow I’m not bonding with my baby.  And I love to tell partners that every time you meet a need for your baby, you are creating attachment.  You can work on anticipating and recognizing their needs, and then that helps foster the secure attachment.  So every time you change a diaper, every time you bring baby to mom for a nursing session, every time you wash pump bottles, every time you give the baby a bath – you are doing something that is supporting your baby’s basic needs, and that is creating secure attachment.  So try not to be so focused on, I have to directly feed my baby to have a bond, because that’s just not true.  And then basic things for mom, too: meeting her needs is also supporting her.  Filling her water cup every time she sits down to nurse or pump.  Washing those pump parts.  Oh, my goodness.  I told my husband he never looked better to me than when he was at the sink washing my pump parts.  Doing things like asking, what can I do that would be make it easier for you right now, because as moms, sometimes we’re sitting down and we have 10,000 things running through our brains.  It looks like we’re just pumping.  It looks like we’re just nursing our baby.  But mentally, we’re juggling a lot of things.  And so having a partner that says, what are you thinking about, and what can I take off your plate that maybe has nothing to do with baby care or nothing to do with pumping, but is just something else in our lives and the management of our household that can be handled?

And then research really tells us that being a cheerleader is so valuable for success when it comes to breastfeeding.  So no matter how your partner is feeding the baby, whether we’re pumping and bottle feeding, directly nursing, doing a combination of both – telling her that she is doing a great job, encouraging her when times are tough.  Maybe we’re dealing with cluster feeding or a dip in supply.  Helping to provide factual information, so learning about breastfeeding as a partner so you can then reinforce with factual information is really, really important for success overall.

Excellent.  And with partner involvement, I’m always suggesting that they attend a breastfeeding and/or pumping class to be able to understand how to put a pump together or how to be that encourager and help in other ways to optimize rest for the new mom.

Absolutely.  Even just having somebody sitting next to you in class – you’re just not going through that experience alone.  It doesn’t feel like it’s all on your shoulders.  It’s so important.

And my final question for you, Jacque, is you mentioned that insurance covers the Motif pumps and some of the differences with your pumps, but I would love to have your tips in selecting the right pump that works for the individual based on their needs and goals.  And also, how do you figure out if your insurance covers a particular pump?

Fantastic question!  First of all, the insurance piece is easiest, so we’ll start with that.  You can actually go right onto the Motif Medical website, motifmedical.com, and there is an insurance lookup tool where you can put in your insurance information and it will pop up different DMEs, durable medical equipment, providers who carry Motif pumps and work with your insurance.  Probably the most well known is Aeroflow.  Lots of people are really familiar with Aeroflow because they’ve got the whole things figured out.  We’ve had to send things to your house and all of that.  But there are tons of other DMEs as well who do the same thing and different DMEs might have different options based on your insurance provider.  So if you don’t find the pump that you’re looking for at one, check with another one.  That’s something I highly recommend.  And you can find even a brick and mortar store if that’s important to you to go touch the pump.  There are definitely still brick and mortar DMEs available, and the insurance lookup tool on the site will tell you all of that information if you want to go see and touch the pumps, which I’m somebody that would want to go do that.

As far as choosing a pump, on our website, I’ve written some recent blog content really diving into this, but we divide them into really primary and secondary pumps, and that’s not like, oh, this pump is just better and this pump is worse.  It’s really more about how we’re using them.  So the Luna, because it has a really high performing motor – it’s a double electric pump.  It has the independent cycle and vacuum, so you can adjust how fast or slow it is pulling the nipple, cycles per minute or sucks per minute, versus the vacuum.  They’re independent of each other.  So you can have it going really fast with a really high vacuum or low vacuum and vice versa.  So that is kind of the hallmark of a primary use pump.  And then the other thing is that it uses traditional flanges because we tend to see better milk removal with traditional flanges.

So then in our secondary pump category, we have things like the Motif Duo.  We have a wearable pump called the Motif Aura.  And those would be more of your secondary pumps, meaning we’re not going to rely on those for building a milk supply or exclusive pumping or maybe regularly pumping back at work.  We might have a secondary pump that we use sometimes, but we’re also going to have that primary pump like the Luna to really have those effective, efficient pumping sessions to just undergird the whole process.

So think of your primary pump like the Luna as the one that you probably want to use your insurance benefit for, and then something portable or wearable like the Duo or the Aura, these smaller, more portable pumps.  That’s something you put on your baby registry as an extra.  Really nice to have, but you want to have that primary pump as the main pump that you’re using to remove your milk.

The other thing when you’re looking at choosing a pump is battery options.  So a lot of the primary pumps out there, like Luna, you have plug-in option, and then you have the same pump, but it has a rechargeable battery, and I can tell you in all the families that I’ve worked with, no one has ever been sorry that they scraped together a $30 upgrade fee or a $40 or $50 upgrade fee for that rechargeable battery.  So any sense that you might need to be pumping in the car or where there’s no electricity or even in a power outage – if you’re exclusively pumping and the power goes out, having that charged battery is going to be really important to your pumping journey.

And then the other thing is knowing that flange sizing.  With Motif, it’s across the board once you figure out your flange size.  You can apply that to all of the pumps.  And so making sure that you can have an idea of what your flange size is and that as you’re shopping for pumps, make sure that that pump has some sort of option to size for you.  A lot of times, it’s a third party insert that is compatible, and that’s totally fine.  With Motif, we want you to use whatever size works for you, so it doesn’t have to be our product, but something that’s compatible that would size it for you.  So just making sure that is an option.  You don’t purchase a pump and then realize, oh, there’s not an insert available for this particular pump that fits me.

Makes sense.  And you mentioned your website for Motif Medical, but how can our listeners and doula clients connect?  I know you’re also on social media, for example.

We are.  Yes, you can find us on Instagram, on Facebook.  Definitely, you can even reach out.  If you go to our website and read a blog and you want to leave a comment, that’s always an option, as well.  We have great customer service.  That’s one of the things I absolutely love about Motif.  We get high marks in customer service, and those gals work so hard to make sure customers are happy.  You can always reach out to us for customer service, and that is available through the website as well, or you can call customer service directly.

Excellent.  Thank you so much for sharing all of your pumping wisdom, Jacque, and we’ll have to have you on again.

Loved it!  Thanks so much for the conversation!  Such an important topic.  I appreciate it.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Motif Medical

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Dr. Ari Brown focus on the benefits of goat milk formula on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Dr. Brown is the chief medical advisor at Kabrita.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Dr. Ari Brown.  Dr. Brown is a pediatrician, best-selling author, and chief medical advisor at Kabrita.  She has been in private practice for over 25 years.  Her passion to advocate for children and educate families extends beyond the office setting.  She is the co-author of the best-selling 411 Parenting book series, including Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby’s First Year; Expecting 411, and Toddler 411.  Dr. Brown has received several professional awards, including the American Academy of Pediatrics Advocacy Award and the Ralph Feigin MD Award for Professional Excellence.

Welcome, Dr. Brown!

Thank you so much for having me!

What an impressive background!  I don’t know how you have the time to author three books.  I’ve only authored one, and it took me two years!

Well, it’s been a journey.  Let’s say I didn’t get much sleep during those years, put it that way.

I can only imagine!  I’m excited to learn from you.  It is excellent timing in that we’re recording this during National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, but we are going to talk about all types of feeding today.  So I’d love to get into a bit more about your background and what led you to focus on feeding topics, especially goat milk formula.

Sure.  So I am starting my 30^th year of practice.  My gosh.  And I see a lot of newborns.  Over the years, I’ve cared for too many to count, and now those little babies – some of those are parents and bringing their babies to me now!

That’s so lovely!  The full circle!

It does.  It feels full circle, and it’s really – I have to say, I have the best job in the world because I get to be part of all of these families’ experiences and share in watching their kids grow up.  And what a great gig, right?  But I think in my experience – and also, by the way, I’m a parent too – I know what keeps parents up at night.  And the reality is that we’ve been given this very precious gift, and we don’t want to screw it up.  So the stakes feel really high, and we all want to do our best, right?  I think what I’ve learned on this journey of walking this road with parents is they feel much more empowered when they’re knowledgeable and also learning that we’re all just trying to do our best and that no one is every going to be the perfect parent, right?  So I try to give parents that knowledge base.  I feel very passionate about education, which is why I write books and do speaking engagements and do all these crazy things.  And I also want them to feel like they don’t need to be a martyr, right, and that they have to be open minded and realize that we’re not going to be able to control all the variables, as much as we would love to do that.  And so we want parents to be confident in the way that they feed their baby, and I think that when it comes to breastfeeding particularly, the struggles early on can feel insurmountable, and I don’t think people are prepared for that.  So that’s part of the education piece is preparing families for, wow, this may seem like a natural thing, but it doesn’t come naturally for everybody, and everybody has to learn.  The baby has to learn.  You have to learn.  And that takes some practice, and sometimes there’s some challenges.  And those challenges are early, right when you’ve delivered a baby and you’re exhausted and your hormones are all over the place.  All of those things can conspire to make that journey very early on very difficult.  And so teaching families where they can get help and being prepared for that is one of my missions.

And how that led to goat milk based infant formula?  Well, the interesting thing is, watching my families over the years, I’ve learned a lot of things from them and what’s important to them.  I had families that were basically buying not regulated formula from Europe – basically, being bootlegged.  It’s almost like prohibition days, and people were bootlegging this formula with a middle man that was questionable.  Like, where are you getting this product?  And these families would be saying, well, I’m buying this and I’m getting – and I’m like, why are you doing this?  I was actually pretty intrigued by this whole process, which was really kind of consumer driven.  People were looking for something better as an alternative that they could feel confident about to feed their babies.  So I kind of became goat curious, as an American pediatrician, because we didn’t have that, any goat milk based product, in the American market.  I came across Kabrita while they were going through the entire process, which by the way, the only goat milk based infant formula in the US that meets all FDA requirements, and they did this whole process and they did it right.  I kind of stumbled upon them back in 2018 as they were going through this process and was really excited that they were doing it right.  They were doing the work and doing the research and the clinical trials and getting it published and really demonstrating the efficacy – and we’ll talk more about why I’m excited about goat milk based infant formula, but they brought this product to market through the correct channels where you can actually buy it the way you’re supposed to be able to buy a product in the US, and so that’s why I’m excited about this.  It does offer a great option for families if they are combo feeding or if they ultimately formula feed their baby.

That makes complete sense.  And of course, we’ve gone through the formula shortage.  You mentioned trying to buy European formula, buying formula online and not knowing the source.  There was a lot of desperation, not only in being able to find formula, but also afford it.

Right, yeah.  I think the infant formula shortage demonstrated that the American formula supply system is kind of messed up.  And there had been kind of – not a monopoly but an oligopoly, kind of two major manufacturers.  And some of it is because we have a system where we have the WIC program, which is the Woman, Infant, and Children program where government subsidizes infant formula for families, which is fantastic, but because there are these government contracts, it kind of restricts the marketplace, right?  And then when we had a problem and we lost basically 40% of our infant formula supply in the US overnight because one manufacturing plant had a problem with a contamination event, it made us realize, wow, we probably need to have more options here in the US.  And so I think that has been an eye opener and hopefully an opportunity for us to have more options.  That did bring in other infant formulas, and it is a nice reminder that Kabrita, like I said, had been going through this entire regulatory process and meeting all of the hurdles.  Some of these other products that have kind of entered the market only have emergency discretion use because of the infant formula shortage, and for them to maintain their supply in the US, they have to go through the same FDA regulatory hurdles, which that has not happened for those products yet.  But I am thankful that it’s been a horrible situation, but it’s offered an opportunity to have more options for us and a more stable infant formula supply, hopefully, in the future.

Exactly.  So Dr. Brown, I would love for you to explain the difference between goat milk formula and the, say, cow milk based, and the pros and cons of each.  And certainly, as families are making choices, it’s good to have all of the information.  I know with a lot of my clients, their infant or baby might have skin reactions or some allergies to the milk based formulas.

Sure.  So let’s start really simple and talk about what infant formula is.  So it’s a chemical formula.  That’s why it’s called formula.  But as we have evolved, as civilization has evolved, we have created options to approximate and resemble human milk, as much as we can.  And so people have tried many different kind of formula bases over the years and then tried to modify it, which is the formula piece, to compare it as much as possible to human milk.  And to be clear, there is nothing like human milk.  Breastmilk – human milk is made for human babies, right?  And it’s living food, and it’s dynamic food.  It’s never exactly the same for every person or even on a daily basis, right?  So you’re never going to get exact comparison.  But when you’re trying to create these infant formulas, historically, what has been the most popular base has been cow milk protein.  And I think a lot of people don’t realize it, because that’s what’s so prevalent.  When you look at a can of formula, you don’t realize, oh, this is made out of cow milk or this is made out of goat milk.  In general, the leader in the marketplace, or at least in the United States for – I will say goat milk based infant formula has been around for decades worldwide.  This is not new there.  It’s just new in the US.  But cow milk has been the prevailing base for infant formula.  And most babies tolerate it and do fine with it.  And all of the what we call macronutrients and micronutrients – so your macronutrients are your fat and your protein and your carbohydrate, and your micronutrients are your vitamins and minerals, like folic acid and vitamin D and all the other ones.  So those ingredients are regulated.  So for any product to be sold in the United States – or the EU has their standards, and wouldn’t it be great if we all had one universal standard, but we don’t.  The United States has 29 ingredients that have to be regulated and meet those standards to be able to be sold in the US and meet all FDA requirements.  All of those ingredients are as close to, again, human milk as possible.  And then there are some premium ingredients that some manufacturers will add, and that kind of falls under what we call bioactives.  So they’re probiotics or prebiotics.  Other things that, again, are present in human milk and then are added to infant formula to try to resemble human milk as much as possible.  But the base, again, is kind of the protein, right?  So cow milk protein has historically been the most popular base.

Now, there are some babies who cannot tolerate that protein, and there are some babies who are actually allergic to that protein.  So for babies who struggle with tolerance issues – you may have a fussy, gassy baby; constipated baby; unhappy baby.  And then when you have a baby who has a true allergy, you may seem eczema.  The one key thing that we’re looking for as pediatricians is blood in the stool.  There is – it’s called a food protein induced proctitis, but what happens is the lining of the gut gets irritated because of this protein allergy, and then the baby may have this – what looks like slimy, mucous, snotty-looking stool, but then when you test it in the lab, there’s actually blood in it.  Some babies, you will actually see the blood visibly.

So for those kids, you can’t have them on a cow milk protein based infant formula.  You have to use something that’s considered hypoallergenic where the protein has been totally broken down or an elemental formula where it’s just amino acids floating around, like the protein is just amino acids.  It’s not even cow milk based.  And we have tried other alternatives.  In the US, there’s also a soy-based product for some babies and for families who for dietary reasons do not want a cow-based product.  So we’ve had kind of these categories of cow milk based infant formula, soy based infant formula, hypoallergenic where the protein is really, really broken down, and then elemental formulas where it’s just amino acids and there’s not even any cow milk.

But these babies that have trouble tolerating the cow milk protein, that’s when people are seeking alternatives because it’s really not fun to have a baby who’s miserable, right?  And so that’s where goat milk infant based formula has risen in popularity, but what I always try to tell people is this is not just a niche product for babies who can’t tolerate cow milk protein.  It is completely acceptable as first line nutrition.  You don’t have to wait until your baby has a problem with cow milk to try goat milk based infant formula, and in fact, that’s now been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  They put out an endorsement in 2023 regarding that.

But here’s the difference.  So why is goat milk protein different than cow milk protein, and why is it more tolerated?  So the key is – and this is where we’re getting a little bit granular, a little nitty gritty – but if everyone remembers Little Miss Muffet, sitting on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey – milk proteins are casein, which is the curds, and whey is very liquidy.  And casein, when it gets digested in the gut – curds.  Kind of like cottage cheese, like those clumps.  And so the big difference between goat milk and cow milk, naturally, is that the goat milk protein, that casein protein, is more like human milk, which is why it’s more easily digested.  And so it’s got more beta casein and it’s got less alpha S1 casein than cow milk, and it’s got more alpha S2 casein.  So it’s a little bit granular, but at the end of the day, the casein makes the curds different.  And the goat casein curds are softer and looser, so they’re easier to digest, versus the cow milk curds.  And so when you look at the data on these clinical trials of the babies who drink the goat milk based infant formula versus the cow milk based infant formula, it’s more tolerable.  You have fewer reports of the gassiness, colicky behavior, constipation, and even there’s some data on sleep where the babies sleep a little bit more comfortably and slightly longer, which for a newborn, I don’t give anyone – I don’t tell anyone their baby is going to sleep, so this is not like the baby is going to sleep through the night.  But it does seem that it’s more tolerated.  And so that’s really the key difference between those two.  Now that Kabrita is out – it came out in January here in the US – I’ve had families who have started cow milk based infant formula, and if the babies are having trouble with it, I’m like, let’s try this!  Let’s see how it goes!  And I’ve had good success with families.  So I can say clinically that I do think I have some happier babies after trying it.  I’m very excited about that.

The other piece that’s a little bit different between the cow milk and the goat milk is something called oligosaccharides, and again, this is a little bit granular, but these are prebiotics that are in huge numbers in human milk.  Huge, like third leading ingredient in human milk.  And goat milk naturally contains five times more oligosaccharides than the cow milk.  So that makes a big difference.  Also, there’s a diversity in the population.  So what it does is it fosters the baby’s microbiome because you need the prebiotics to grow those little germs that help your gut digest.  That’s also a reason why goat milk based infant formula has an advantage over the cow milk based because it’s supporting the microbiome and the gut health.

So where can our listeners and doula clients find Kabrita?

Super easy.  It’s on Amazon now.  You can buy it directly from Kabrita if you go to Kabrita.com.  You’ll be able to order it directly online and you can even set a schedule and set it and forget it and it shows up however often you want it to.  As far as in stores, there are a variety of supermarkets that are now carrying it nationwide.  Whole Foods is now carrying it.  And stay tuned because there’s a lot of other places that are coming, probably by the end of the year.

Exciting!  I’d love to take a few minutes to chat about your books.  I’m sure that our listeners would be interested in ordering the entire series.  They’re so helpful!

That was an evolution of families coming in, really seeking information.  I’m working on my second generation of parents, right?  But I’ve watched this evolution of parents who crave information, and they want more detail and they really want to understand and make science based decisions, right?  And as the growth of the internet and opportunities to filter information on that become more and more confusing – it’s overwhelming.  You have a vast array of information.  You just don’t know if it’s accurate, right?  And so as I watched my parents in my practice struggle with wanting to learn more, but I don’t know what I can trust.  Can you help me?  It exceeded the duration of our well check time, and I was like, how can I really give you more information, what you really need, and how can I be kind of at your bedside when I’m actually not physically there?  That was the birth of Baby 411.  It was really just all the questions that parents asked.  I think people still buy books, which is exciting.  As a book author, I’m so glad people still buy books because I think it’s super important to have everything in one place.  But in the day – you know, I’ve kind of picked up all the parenting books that were on the bookshelves, and I was like, what is missing here?  Because clearly people are reading this stuff, and they still don’t know what they need to know.  And so what I realized is that most of them are not written by somebody who lives in Exam Room 1.  And that’s what I can honestly say is I spend my days in Exam Room 1, and I’ve made a career of conversations with families.  So it’s really that level of detail.  And now we have a challenge, because I’m on the tenth edition of Baby 411.  We update our books every two years.  So I’ll say to my parents, if you have a question that is not in this book, you get added to the next edition.

I love it!  Because everything changes, even in two years, with sleep, feeding, all of the things.

Exactly.  So we update it.  I’m on social media.  I’m on TikTok.  My daughter, who is an adult now, was like, you need to be on TikTok.  That’s where people are who are young parents.  And I’m like, oh, okay.  So I’m actually on TikTok, but I will say, in between every update on my books, I’m always posting new information, and when there’s something that’s buzzing, I definitely address it so that people will understand, what do I really need to be concerned about?  Is this new study important, or is it just hype and the headline and the clickbait?  So anyway, I encourage people to follow me there because I really try to keep people abreast of new and changing things and then again, we update the books every two years.  So it’s very relevant and timely and evidence-based.

So where can they find your books?

Again, go to Amazon.  Our books are sold nationwide where books are sold, so every national bookstore carries them.  Amazon, or you can go to Baby411.com and buy it direct.

Beautiful.  Dr. Brown, you mentioned TikTok.  I’ve seen your videos on Instagram, as well.  I’ll have to check out your TikTok.  But yeah, they’re very helpful and engaging.  Where else can our listeners connect with you?  You mentioned your website.  Any other social media spaces you are spending time with?  Facebook, for example?

You know, it’s interesting.  I think that when I post to Instagram, it will go directly to Facebook, and it’s a generational thing.  I think you have to be everywhere all at once, I guess.  But I will say that I’m probably a little less active on Facebook.  But yes, we have our fan page @expecting411 on Facebook, and that is the portal for all three of our books.

Wonderful.  Any final tips for our listeners, Dr. Brown?

I think one of the things I like to tell families is to give yourself permission.  I think particularly moms, but dads, too.  I think that we put our children first, and they are our highest priority.  And for good reason, but I think that you need to take a step back sometimes and go, you know what, I am a parent.  I’m a spouse.  I’m a sibling, a child.  You have so many roles and you wear so many hats, and I think at some point, a lot of parents kind of become martyrs.  So I always remind people that happy parents make happy babies.  So make sure that you take care of yourself.  Don’t forget about yourself in this equation, and I think that it makes a much more joyous parent and a much better relationship with your child.

Excellent advice!  Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and we’ll have to chat again soon!

My pleasure!  Thank you so much for having me!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Kabrita

Baby 411

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Laura Navaquin shares her experience utilizing doula support in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  She also talks about her work with Nava Consulting and Inspire Her Foundation. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with Laura Navaquin today.  Laura is the founder of Nava Consulting, LLC, and Inspire Her Foundation.  Her background is very inspiring.  She’s a mother of two, soon to be three – or did you already have your baby?

Yes, I actually just had my baby in May, so he’s now almost three months old in about a week or so.

That’s what I thought!  So I wanted to stop there.  And you have nearly 20 years’ experience in the health insurance industry and climbed the ranks to become vice president of sales, leading a successful team.  In 2023, you made the bold decision to leave corporate America and fully immerse yourself in personal endeavors.  So since spring of 2023, Laura has been instrumental in expanding Inspire Her Foundation, enhancing its community presence, and scaling the real estate portfolio of Navaquin Properties.  She actively mentors students in real estate investing, educating them on how to start or grow their portfolio with minimal personal funds through creative financing.

In addition to her professional pursuits, Laura is a passionate advocate for pursuing dreams and encourages others through speaking engagements and various conferences.  Laura firmly believes that mindset is crucial in achieving success and that nothing is out of reach with determination, the right mindset, and consistency.

Welcome, Laura!

Thank you so much for having me!  I’m definitely excited to jump in and have this conversation with you today.

Yes, and our topic is all about the benefits of doula care, since you personally benefitted from birth doula support.  As a birth and postpartum doula, I often share the benefits of the support on our podcast and wherever I can speak about it, but it’s nice to have someone who hired doulas so we can hear about your own personal journey about why you invested that time and certainly finances in hiring a doula and how it benefitted you during not only your labor but also in pregnancy and that early postnatal phase.

Yes, definitely.  I’ve been fortunate to have been advised to get a doula since our first child back in 2017.  It was a friend of ours, or actually within a group, who recommended we got a doula, so we sought out one, and it was a great opportunity to meet various different women within the industry and select a doula to move forward with who we were able to connect with, felt comfortable with, and have her support throughout the pregnancy and of course, during labor and post-delivery.

Yes, beautiful.  So it sounds like you interviewed multiple doulas.  It’s always helpful to know what was important to you when hiring a doula.  Was it more the individual background or more of a gut connection, or the way the different doulas answered questions?  I find that it depends on a client’s personality.  Some are very analytical and will have ten questions.  They’ll ask every doula the same questions and then have a scoring card.  Others, like myself when I hired doulas, just go on their gut instinct.

Yes, I would say it was a combination of things.  Of course, we had a list of questions that I inquired about with each doula that we spoke to that time around.  Similar, too, with my two following deliveries.  But I had a list of questions of things that were of value to me and important to consider during the delivery.  So I went and worked down that list; that was the first step.  Then the combination of that was just who I felt comfortable with.  I think there’s some people that you just have that connection, that vibe, with, and of course, delivery and birth is a very intimate occurrence, so I wanted to have somebody that I felt comfortable with overall, especially during the delivery.

Yes.  And what was your partner’s role in the doula selection process?

So, again, he as well – I’m the one that met with them, so when I interviewed with them – and I was fortunate for the majority of them to get to meet with them in person over coffee to see how I connected with them, and my husband didn’t get to join those initial meetings.  He really wanted me to find somebody who I personally felt comfortable with and was supportive in that regard.  Other than that, he as well, with the doula that we selected that first time, Alexandra, he felt comfortable with her and connected, as well, and they worked well with each other, as well.

Excellent.  And yes, I find that it does vary.  Sometimes partners’ schedules, especially during work days, can be difficult to manage.  I made the decision for my family, and then my husband met our doulas once I had hired them.  So it does definitely vary based on timing and the stage in pregnancy and the partner availability or interest.  Like you said, your husband trusted your choice, and even though he was very invested in being a team with the doula and everyone else, all of the other medical professionals that you were working with in labor.

Yes.

So as far as how a doula supported you, I’d love to hear more about your personal experience.

Yeah, it was a little different from my first delivery and then my two following pregnancies.  In my first delivery, Alexandra, the doula that we worked with, she supported us during pregnancy.  I would say second and third trimesters, she was providing me with information on breastfeeding.  I’m trying to remember back, as well – it was seven or eight years ago.  My son is seven and a half now.  But she provided information as far as exercising, movement, diet to consider, breastfeeding information to be considering prior, as well as just answering any questions that I had that arose periodically.  I would have a worry or something that would just come to mind, and I would go to her to provide me her input and her expertise in regards to certain topics.  And that’s how she supported me prior to.  And then during delivery, the plan was for her to be with me, but there was a change in plans there because my son actually – during that pregnancy, we were supposed to delivery in a birthing center, and at 36 weeks – exactly 36 weeks, I was driving home from a work meeting, and I got into a minor car accident.  Everyone was fine, but it resulted in him flipping breach that day.  That last month of pregnancy, I was working on getting him to turn back around, which didn’t really end up happening.  We got risked out of the birth center.  We found a different provider who was trained and had delivered breach deliveries.  We were planning to get to him.  He recommended that we labored at home for as long as we could.  That being my first pregnancy and delivery, I didn’t necessarily know how long was too long or what was enough time, so I labored at home with my mother and my husband for as long as I thought was the right time, until we were heading to the hospital.

But I guess we waited a little too long, because we had to divert that plan and go to a local hospital.  Even my doula didn’t make it over prior to the delivery.  Nonetheless, she showed up and was an immense support postpartum or postdelivery with ensuring that I was okay and all the questions I had.  My son was taken to NICU at that point in time, but she was a great support thereafter, and even within the following days and weeks.  We remained in the hospital for about four days with him, and then even after we were discharged, would visit us at home to ensure the baby was latching correctly and help with breastfeeding and positioning and the care of myself and baby postpartum, as well.

That is wonderful that you were able to have that support after.  It can be stressful after a surgical birth with a NICU baby and having the husband or partner follow the baby to the NICU, and then the mother is sometimes alone.  If there’s a doula there, then the doula is able to provide support, come up with a plan for feeding if pumping is needed, if they had intended to breastfeeding, for example.  I’m glad you had that postnatal support because navigating the NICU can be quite stressful!

Yes, definitely.  Ever since having her with that first delivery, we knew that there was no doubt that we needed doula support in our following deliveries because she was such a help and just calming to me with questions that arose or not knowing what steps to follow or whatever it may be.  She was an advocate for us within the hospital, as well, with her experience, and giving us information and comfort.  I highly advocate for anyone considering a doula or sitting on the fence whether to hire a doula or not, to make that investment and do it.  It’s so worth it.

Exactly.  I totally agree.  And I feel like every doula practices in a different way.  So some doulas will come to your home during labor and then follow you over to a hospital or birth center for clients who want to labor at home.  Others arrive at a certain stage in labor, say active labor, and provide support for a certain amount of hours.  At Gold Coast, we support our clients at whatever stage in labor, wherever their labor is.  So if they’re laboring at home and then head to the hospital, we’re following them.  If they want to rest at home, then they let us know when they would like us to arrive, whether it’s in triage or when they’re settled in their room.  You had support from your family there and were likely doing well and potentially not knowing, as you said, when to go in or how far along you were.  There can be some of that confusion, and some doulas do not begin their call time until 38 weeks to 42 weeks.  We’re on call from the moment a contract is signed because we do work with a lot of multiple families, twins and triplets and high risk clients.  We found that that alleviates a lot of stress for our clients that may need to deliver earlier than your typical client would.

That’s great.

As far as the prenatal care, you mentioned your doula offered resources in the community or was willing to chat with you if you had any questions.  But did you have in person or virtual prenatal visits to prep for the birth and have the doula answer questions?

That first time around, prior to that last month, we had virtual meetings.  After she was hired, she had an in-person meeting where she came out.  She met my husband, as well.  And then every couple of weeks – I think it was every two weeks, we would do a virtual meeting just to go over questions and whatever it may be, up until the last couple weeks.  She came out two times to meet with my husband and I, go over questions, gave us some additional information to follow, information on HypnoBirthing and other recommendations that she was making for us that we did that time around.  It was a little different in my second and third pregnancies and deliveries.  That was when we were in New York.  We were now living in Florida, so we knew that we unfortunately couldn’t have the same doula, so we reached out and found one.  And I didn’t think at first that I needed a doula this time around for my second delivery.  That was my initial thought, and we actually ended up hiring a birth photographer who is a doula.  And the experience was so great, again, with her, but it was a little different.  We initially did a virtual meeting with her, met her, both my husband and I.  And then still prior to the delivery, she did another virtual meeting where she gave me recommendations on what to wear.  And this one was  little different because we were now doing a homebirth, so recommendations on what to wear, things to consider, being considered for comfort when you’re at home, for resting, for positioning.  Even items for my husband to wear, since we were going to have a pool for him to get into if we elected for him to get in, too.  Snacks to consider and whatnot.  So she met with us virtually to give us all that information and was on call for us at 38 weeks.  The experience was very rewarding with her.  During the delivery, her presence in just providing comfort with me during my first home delivery.

My third delivery was another home delivery.  We were fortunate to have her again along our side as well for the delivery of our son this past May.

Beautiful!  Yes, and as you mentioned, preparation for a homebirth is quite different from a birth center or a hospital.  What a doula may discuss in a prenatal for a homebirth would be quite different, as you mentioned snacks, the food you wanted to eat after delivery, whether or not the individual wanted a birth tub, as you mentioned.  A midwife will often go over all of the supplies to have on hand, but the doula can also provide tips and work as a team with the midwife.  And sometimes a midwife might have apprentices or other individual assistants, so it varies on who the individual ends up hiring.

Exactly.

But I love that you had the combination of a birth photographer and doula to be able to capture the beautiful moments of both of your births at home and also be able to support you emotionally and physically, if that camera is not in her hand.

So as far as the support after, you did mention that the doula with your first child checked in on you to see how breastfeeding was going, answer questions you had, support you emotionally.  Was there anything else in any of your postnatal experiences that you’d like to share with our listeners?

I would say just emphasizing everything that you just mentioned as far as how our first doula supported me postdelivery, but emphasizing the significance of them being there for you emotionally as well.  Having a delivery, especially when it doesn’t go as planned, can throw you off emotionally and mentally, and all those feelings, especially as our hormones shift post-delivery.  But for them being there for you post-delivery, and that was significant for me with my first delivery.  I ended up suffering from postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety, and that was not even necessarily known or diagnosed initially, but her being there, I felt, was a significant help for me in just kind of making me feel at ease and comfortable.  I really valued that component of her presence, still to this day.  She did so much more, as well, but that impact of her being there for me emotionally and mentally was so significant.

I love it.  Excellent.  Thank you for sharing.  So to pivot a little bit and learn more about what you’re doing professionally, I feel like it is very fitting that you’re in real estate because I find that many of my doula clients are making big changes.  They’re either remodeling a home or buying a new home to get ready for, whether it’s baby one or baby four.  And sometimes they’re even buying income properties and setting themselves up for just having some additional income and savings and college funds, all the things.  So you’re in a career that likely interacts with a lot of families making big changes in their lives.

Exactly, yeah.  My husband and I got started in real estate investing back in 2015.  I went full time in 2023, but essentially, we are real estate investors growing our own portfolio, but that has since led to helping others get started investing or purchasing their own home, whether it’s their first home or they’re moving to a larger home or relocating, assisting others in accessing capital, finding properties, especially off market properties, so that their savings is more significant there.  Especially if they are investing.  But helping others navigate that industry, as well, whether for their own personal home or investing endeavors themselves.

Excellent.  And I love the mentoring that you do.  It’s so helpful.

Thank you.

I feel like it can be overwhelming to look at real estate investing during a time of so many different changes like pregnancy and maternity leave.  What tips do you have for our listeners who are going through the change, whether it’s in real estate or in finding a support team, including a doula?

I would say as far as building your birthing team, whether it’s at home, in a birthing center, or in a hospital, just working with a team that you feel comfortable with, sharing your birth plan, even just vocally sharing what your expectations and your hopes are, because your team, I feel, most likely will work as closely to that plan as possible.  And just feeling comfortable with them.  I think that that makes a world of difference, feeling comfortable with the team that you are laboring and delivering with.  And in regards to real estate, whether you’re looking for a personal home, your first home, or moving to a larger home or whatever it may be, or looking to get into real estate investing, I would say that as far as interest rates, don’t let them scare you so much.  I think that’s one of the conversations I have with my community so often is that they’re scared with the interest rates, but there are so many workarounds and ways around the interest rates, as well.  Ultimately, don’t let them scare you, and I’m always here for you, as well, if you have any specific questions on that and how to navigate interest rates or whatever it may be.  Definitely reach out and send me a DM or whatever it may be, and I’d be open and willing to give you any information that I can to help you in your personal circumstances there.

So helpful!  Thank you, Laura!  So you’ve got two websites.  Can you share both of your website information with our listeners?

Yes!  One website is lauranavaquin.com.  That is where I share some information on real estate investing and just other information about myself and encouraging you to go after your goals and dreams, whether that’s building a real estate portfolio, starting a new career, or being an entrepreneur.  And then other website is toinspire.org, and that is a nonprofit founded in 2020, which is a 501(c)(3) which encourages you to go after your goals and dreams by providing skill set training workshops, education, mentorships, and health awareness information.  For the nonprofit, we are based in New York but also run events in California and Florida.

Excellent!  And you’re also on social media.  Any of your favorite spaces to share content?

I would definitely say I’m on Instagram probably the most, both at @lauranavaquin and @inspireherfoundation.  I also have more of a general Instagram with @itslauranava.

And we are fellow members of Entreprenista, for any of our listeners who spend time on that amazing membership community.  You can also find the two of us there!

Well, thank you so much, Laura!  It was wonderful to hear your personal experiences, and congratulations on your recent addition to your family!

Thank you so much!  I can’t believe he’s almost three months.  The time flies!

It sure does, absolutely!  Take care!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Laura Navaquin

Inspire Her Foundation

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Dr. Emilie Wilson discuss the importance of preparing for postpartum during pregnancy on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Dr. Wilson also shares self-care tips from her new book, “POST: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Postpartum Self-Care Plan in Pregnancy.”

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with Dr. Emilie Wilson.  She is a naturopathic doctor, an acupuncturist, an author, and a new mother.  Emilie’s clinical background is in women’s cardiometabolic and hormone health.  After a traumatic childbirth in late 2022, Emilie entered a very difficult postpartum time, including struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety.  She knew that if she could struggle this much as a naturopathic doctor, then too many other new parents would, as well.  So Emilie wrote a book to guide expecting parents to create their postpartum self-care plan in pregnancy to set themselves up for the best postpartum experience possible.

In early 2024, her book Post: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Postpartum Self-Care Plan in Pregnancy was released.  By walking expecting parents through specific, research-based steps to create their postpartum self-care plan, Dr. Wilson intends to empower new parents to have the best postpartum time possible so they can focus on what matters: their health and their relationship with their new baby.

Welcome, Dr. Emilie Wilson!

Hi, Kristin!  Thank you so much for having me!  I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here!

I am excited!  My passion is the postpartum phase and having our listeners and our doula clients understand that preparing for that phase is just as important as prepping for the birth.  Just the pregnancy preparation should be much more extensive, so I love that your personal journey and your professional journey led you to focus on the postnatal phase.  With your book, you’re able to reach a much bigger audience than you would with your own practice, so I’m all about that as a fellow author.

Oh, that’s awesome.  Yeah, it feels like the culmination of everything that has been happening so far in my career.  I had this baby and I had this experience, and all of a sudden, I was like, oh, my God, this has brought me to what I’m actually meant to do in my life.  So it’s been really special.

Yes!  I love that, and I feel the same with my own journeys with pregnancies.  I had preeclampsia, and my daughter was in the NICU for a very short time.  My son’s birth was much different, and I prepared in a much different way and hired doulas, so I love that your experience led you to wanting to serve families in this way.  With acupuncture, there’s so much that can be helpful, not only in pregnancy, but postnatal with just getting that balance of hormones and feeling better, any discomfort after labor.  I’d love to address some of your work in acupuncture, as well, Emilie.

I would love to share that information!  I didn’t realize how powerful acupuncture could be for postpartum until after I had my baby and I started working with postpartum women and postpartum people, helping them recover.  I had no idea.  The postpartum period, it’s so wild, and I just personally wasn’t prepared for it.  I think a lot of other women must go into it not being prepared, as well.

Yeah, and I think that people only assume that acupuncture would be beneficial if an induction was pending or baby needed to flip or just more physical issues, but it’s also great for everything from again hormonal imbalances to headaches or a lot of the physical ailments that happen after delivery, even with a simple vaginal birth.  There’s still recovery.

I love that you brought up hormones a couple of times because one of the many things I wasn’t aware of is how amazing our hormonal system is.  I knew that, but the intricacies of a woman’s hormonal balance kind of returning back to its new normal postpartum takes some time and some love and some attention, and acupuncture is really a wonderful way to help women rebalance their hormones as a very low force intervention.  I think it’s an awesome therapeutic for that.

Exactly.  As doulas, we’re always referring our clients to acupuncturists and certainly to naturopaths like yourself.  With my second pregnancy and postpartum days, I worked with a naturopath to try to prevent preeclampsia the second time around.  So it was beyond helpful for me to understand where I was deficient and what my body needed.

I can’t tell you how important this is.  In pregnancy and in postpartum, our nutritional needs change so much, and they change wildly, and they change relatively rapidly, right?  In pregnancy, we have our own health to take care of, but we also are creating this new life form, this brand new baby, and so our body needs extra nutrients.  Then we pretty abruptly enter the postpartum period where all of a sudden it’s about healing our body from a massive event, whether it’s a vaginal childbirth or a Cesarean section.  Those are both massive events, and they require a lot of healing, which requires a lot of nutrients, right?

Absolutely.

Of course, if we’re breastfeeding or lactating, that also requires a huge macro and micronutrient intake.  And then there’s this whole other piece, which I realized in my journey of becoming a mom.  Thank goodness I have this background as a naturopathic doctor, so I’ve been talking about the importance of the adrenal glands for a really long time.  And our adrenals, they require a ton of micronutrients, so that is an ample amount of minerals and an ample amount of vitamins every day, especially if we are being humans in this very fast paced, stressful world.

Yes, agreed, and I found after having both of my kids that my adrenals needed extra support.  It is very important to share that information.  As you mentioned with nutrition, especially with breastfeeding and pumping moms, the one thing that we point out as postpartum doulas is to notice the hormone shifts, not only after that first couple of weeks after delivery, but also when introducing solids and certainly when the breastfeeding journey ends.  There’s not as much information about the changes that occur then and how to balance out the system when those major transitions in the feeding journey happen and how that can affect the mother.

Totally.  And I’ve always been a huge proponent of what I call lifestyle medicine, but I think it resonates for a lot of people.  If we don’t have our relatively healthy diet in place, if we’re not hydrating and we’re not taking care of our stress levels as much as possible, then we are setting ourselves up for depletion, and there’s no medication, there’s no supplement, there’s no magic pill that’s ever going to make up for that.  So in these really important times in our lives as brand new parents, we need extra nutrient support, and we can’t always rely on just taking a bunch of supplements because in pregnancy and then breastfeeding, we have to be very mindful of what we’re putting into our bodies.  It is the best time to get really focused on a healthy diet.  For a lot of us as women, I think it’s an opportunity to heal maybe some old wounds or some old discrepancies in our relationship with food and really find ways to fall in love with food that truly nourishes us.  Think less about the calories and more about the colors and the satisfaction.

And what are your tips about those meal trains and friends and family who want to bring over food?  Say a casserole or something that can last multiple days that may not be the best nutrient-wise for a recovering mother and even the entire family.

That’s such a great question, because we want to leave those doors for support open, right?  What I found in my research is this, and I think this is sort of like the golden key that we can hand out to everyone in our lives, and it is just the Mediterranean diet.  And the research shows overwhelmingly that for women in pregnancy and in postpartum, the Mediterranean diet provides ample nutrients to help us maintain cardiometabolic health and wellness in pregnancy and postpartum.  It helps our mental health in pregnancy and postpartum, and it can help with recovery, that postpartum recovery.  So not only the physical healing from childbirth, but also for women – I hate to use the term – it’s not getting your body back, but it’s returning to a new state of health.  So it’s about getting your energy and your hormones back.

So the Mediterranean diet is, I think, the golden key or the magic formula, if you will.  I think there are a couple of ways to work that, and people can either request of their friends and family that maybe you bring some really simple pre-made Mediterranean diet friendly meals, which can be as simple as beans and rice and veggies and a little bit of meat or fish.  Just think like veggies, grains, healthy, healthy food, and then some appropriate protein; so some healthy proteins.  And I think that most people understand the Mediterranean diet well enough to be able to say, oh, I know what that looks like.  It can even look like healthy pizza, for example.  It doesn’t have to be “healthy food,” but it has to be nourishing and it has to be clean.

Yes, I agree.  Diet is so important, especially with depletion and needing to nourish yourself throughout the day and have things that are easy to eat.  Snacking for breastfeeding moms is so important, so having some nourishing, bite-sized snacks is also very helpful.  Like right at the bedside if they’re rooming in, or in a place that’s easy to access.  I’ve found even personally that I would forget to snack or eat enough throughout the day. 

Yeah, me too.  And one of the things that was a go-to for me that I think is really pretty easy to stock up on in pregnancy – for people who are into this – for me, it was cheese plates.  Every single day, I would make myself a cheese plate.  I bought enough little blocks of cheese, and I would make myself a little cheese plate.  I always made sure I had some nuts or seeds, and I always made sure I had some fruits and veggies, but then I also would have bread and cheese, so it was a nice way to be Mediterranean diet friendly, get some protein, some fat, and a lot of those micronutrients that we need while we’re healing.  When we think of healthy food, we don’t always think of a cheese plate, but I think that’s really a huge piece of the conversation in postpartum.  When we’re feeling really depleted, we need comfort food.  So how do we reframe this idea of healthy, convenient comfort food for people?

Agreed.  I am all for figuring out what works for you and your family and budget, what works for anyone who wants to help in that postnatal phase.  As postpartum doulas, we often do some light meal preparation or cut up fruit and veggies, get healthy snacks.  These are great tips for anyone who’s caregiving, like a nanny or a postpartum doula.  Grandparents are often very involved in caregiving, as well.

Yes.  Another thing that I’ve found that a lot of postpartum people really seem to resonate with is chips and salsa and guacamole.  Simple, simple; and yet it provides micronutrients.  It provides carbohydrates.  It provides healthy fats.  Relatively shelf stable.  The guac can be premade at the store.  My one caveat is always as much as possible getting organic because we want to really minimize the amount of pesticides or harmful chemicals that are going into a woman’s body in pregnancy and postpartum.  But outside of that, I think that there’s so much room and opportunity for us to have a conversation about what does healthy comfort food really look like for you?

Right, yeah.  And everyone’s got different foods that really help them feel more relaxed and comfortable.  And as you mentioned, snacking on cheese or chips and guacamole doesn’t feel like they’re in diet mode or being forced to eat.  It’s enjoyable and filling and easy to eat with one hand if needed.  I’m curious about your thoughts on self-care because everyone has different definitions; similar to comfort food.  Everyone’s got a different version of self-care.

I think the number one thing for self-care, above and beyond anything else, is just being able to be tuned in enough to ourselves to understand – to listen to our body’s cues and understand if there’s some need that we have that’s not being met.  And the easiest time in our lives to be tuned out to that is probably postpartum when we are so focused on this new baby.  And we just have been through something massive, and it’s really easy to not listen to your body’s cues.  That was something that I went through personally, and that’s also something that I hear from a lot of other women.  I think above and beyond anything, it’s not my job and it’s not my place to tell women how their postpartum experience should look.  It’s my job and my place to help women understand what it is that they need and find realistic ways to help them get that.  For a lot of us, it has to do with utilizing our support systems, because no woman can or should go through postpartum alone.  I think we all think that we’re going to be able to, but we shouldn’t even have to try.  So for me self-care is, as much as possible, listening to yourself and your body and then utilizing your support group to make sure that you’re getting your needs met.

I love it.  Yeah, and some people think it’s more of physical, like going to get a massage or a pedicure and something that would creep into the budget or require leaving the home, but self-care is so much more than that.  It can be just taking a moment for yourself and stepping outside and meditating or praying.  There’s so many ways.  There’s more than just sleep when the baby sleep; trying to incorporate rest.  And oftentimes, it’s hard to fully fall asleep, so I tell my clients to rest whenever they can and that their body can repair itself even if they can’t fully fall asleep during nap times and so on.

I love that.  Again, I think that that’s exactly what we need.  We just need to listen to our bodies enough to know what it is that we’re missing out on.  For some women, they might found out – for example, if rest is something that they’re challenged by or challenged with finding the time or space for, maybe that is where we start to look at their budget.  Can you find some money for a nanny to come in a couple of hours a week if you have maybe another child or even a family member to come take care of the new baby for an hour or two?  Maybe you need a professional laundry service for a little while or a housecleaning service.  There are ways to figure out how to solve the problem and get people what they need.  I think the number one thing is identifying the problem, and nobody’s going to know that better than the woman herself.

Exactly.  So is there anything that you’d like to share as far as tips within your book?

Oh, my goodness, I have so many.  Well, so I’ll begin with this: the whole purpose of POST is to help people create that postpartum self-care plan, ideally in pregnancy, but it really walks women through the research-based areas of care that seem to make the most difference, and it’s not mind-blowing.  It’s diet, hydration, exercise, sleep, and stress management.  And then there are worlds within that, but I think that those five areas, starting to consider those areas and figure out a plan as soon as possible, are really, really important.  I feel like as far as something that’s really actionable that people can kind of take away from this: the Mediterranean diet, again, is huge.  The research time and time again shows that just following this Mediterranean diet of whole foods, healthy fats, healthy carbs, healthy veggies and fruits, can really change the trajectory of women’s health.  So I think the Mediterranean diet is huge.  I think hydration is huge.  There is this general rule – I’m sure you probably have heard of it – but women are supposed to drink half their body weight in ounces.  That’s great for most of us, but then in pregnancy, we really need to drink a little bit more than that, right?  So half your body weight – the old rule, plus you want to drink a little bit more than that.  So you want to probably get up to, for most women, you want to drink at least an extra 20 ounces a day on top of that, give or take.  Then if you’re breastfeeding, too, you want to drink that extra water and then also an extra glass anytime you’re breastfeeding.  That’s something that I try to impress on people, that not only do you need a lot of nutrients to help boost your health and recovery, but you also need that hydration.  It’s so important because outside of being an athlete – you know, people who are high intensity athletes – postpartum breastfeeding people have the highest nutrient and water requirements in the entire human lifespan.  So what we’re doing here is really, really important.

It is, agreed.  Thank you for sharing that!  Anything else you’d like to address from your book, Emilie?

Yeah, I think the other piece is really the support piece, which I touched on before, but it’s so important for us to plan ahead and really start contacting our people in pregnancy and get a sense from them.  Once the baby comes, would you be willing to provide me support in any way, whether that’s like a meal train or childcare or grocery shopping?  And then I walk people through this in the book, but let’s create a little bit of a plan.  Are there any time frames throughout the week or the month that you know you might be more likely to be available?  And a good time for me to contact you.  What are some things you might be willing to help out with in that period of time?  Really just setting yourself up for, if you need something, then you don’t even have to think about who to call.  You have the list right there.  And the same thing goes with your medical care team.  You want to have your list right there so you don’t have to think about who to call or when to call them.  You just know who to call.  Or you can talk to your partner or another close person and they know who to call.  So I think those pieces are so important.  The support piece is really one of the missing pieces in postpartum wellness.

Agreed.  And people want to help, but they often don’t know how to help, other than holding the baby.  Oftentimes, there’s so much focus on the mother during pregnancy, but she’s left behind after delivering because everybody wants to bring gifts for the baby and hold the baby, but then the mother has a lot of needs as well.  So it’s good to have communication during pregnancy to set expectations of what can be helpful, not only for the baby, but also for the mother.

Totally, and I think too, this is life that we’re talking about, so everything can and will change.  But having some kind of framework is so important because new moms need to be held just like new babies need to be held.  I remember before I had my daughter, I always gave my friends who had had their babies kind of a wide berth because I thought they probably want to be alone with their baby.  I feel like now, gosh, that was such a missed opportunity on my part.  I wish I could have been there for them more.  I didn’t realize, because I hadn’t been through it, how much support they probably needed, and I thought I was doing the right thing by just giving them time and space.  But I realize now, no, we actually do really need to be there for each other.

Exactly.  I did the same thing before having kids.  I gave them space and didn’t want to be another visitor bothering them.  I now know, both as a mom and doula, how I can help families and clients to better meet their needs.

That’s so awesome.  It’s so important.

It is.  So how can our listeners find your book, first of all?

It’s on Amazon.  It’s called Post: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Postpartum Self-Care Plan in Pregnancy.  Kind of a long title.  There’s also a direct link to it on my website, which is www.sanoswellness.com.

And then as far as your practice, if our listeners want to reach out to you directly, whether it’s with a question or to work with you – it sounds like the website is the best place to reach you?

Well, you can access my email through the website, which is great.  I am very responsive on email.  And then also on Instagram, and it’s the same label on Instagram, @sanoswellness.  Just drop me a DM.  I’m really good at responding there, as well.

Excellent.  Well, I could chat with you forever, Emilie.  Thank you so much for sharing your story and for birthing a book, as well as a baby.  It’s amazing.

Well, thank you!  You did the same thing, so you know the work involved there, but thank you!

Yes!  I look forward to chatting with you again in the future!

That sounds great, Kristin.  Thank you again for having me – this has been so wonderful!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Sanos Wellness

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Jeaneen Tang discuss how parent and caregiver education and training on early language development skills and strategies is so important.  Jeaneen also shares tips from her new book, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with Jeaneen Tang today.  Jeaneen is a speech language pathologist and mother of a special needs child.  Along with her over 20 years of experience with working with children and adults with neurodiversity, she also has an 11-year-old son who is neurodivergent.  He suffered a traumatic brain injury and stroke at 13 months old.  Jeaneen’s personal and professional relationship with this amazing population has forever changed her, and she hopes to change their world, as well. 

Jeaneen recently published her first book called Play Dumb and Sabotage.  It addresses early language development and is meant to be helpful for parents, caregivers such as doulas, and educators to work through any issues with young children and hopefully decrease the number of children needing speech therapy later on. 

Jeaneen believes we can achieve success and raise confident communicators.  Welcome, Jeaneen!

Thank you for having me on, Kristin!

I am ready to learn from you.  We haven’t had a speech pathologist on Ask the Doulas in a while, and with your personal and professional training, I’m curious to learn more about how as postpartum doulas, we can give the proper referrals to our clients who are looking for help earlier rather than waiting for any delays that may happen later on.

Absolutely.  I think that working with people like you, the doulas, is so important because you guys are so trained in the whole birthing process and postpartum process and you guys have a great relationship and rapport with your clients.  It’s a natural communication for you to help with any red flags they might see, any difficulties that they might be concerned about or not even aware about.  Sometimes parents get to this point where there’s the idea that, oh, their child is fine, even though they might have a gut feeling that there might be some kind of delay, and they come into a state of almost denial and they continue to go on as everyday until the child becomes almost two years old and they’re not talking.  So it’s great to nip it in the bud and get that help as soon as possible.

Exactly.  And at Gold Coast, we do work with families with NICU babies and a lot of twin and triplet babies.  They are often asking us for referrals for speech pathologists and other services in our community, so your book is a great resource, as well as your website, for our clients.

Thank you!  Yes, I think like birth training, parent training in language is as important because they take so much time in learning how to give birth and what happens after birth, how to diaper their baby, how to feed their baby and everything, but they don’t necessarily learn how to interact with their child and how to promote that language and introduce how to do vocal play and how to have this back and forth conversation, whether it be nonverbal or with babbling or moving forward to words.

So Jeaneen, is this something that you recommend parents prepare for during pregnancy, like they would with taking a childbirth class or breastfeeding class, or is this something that is more of an after delivery type of planning and prep?

I think it’s great if they could start planning and taking a look at the book and the strategies before they have their baby, because you know after you have your child, you’re just so tired and you’re just going that having to pick up a book when you’re exhausted is almost too much.

Right.

Does that make sense?

It absolutely does.  And that’s what I tell my clients.  They’re sleep deprived, even if they work with an overnight postpartum doula or a newborn care specialist.  They’re tired, and so to do as much preparation and planning during pregnancy and even sometimes preconception can be so beneficial.  I love the resources that you offer.  I’d love to hear more about how you can work with our listeners, whether it’s connecting with you directly or picking up your book.

Absolutely.  You know, I have a handful of friends who are having babies now, and I’ve been giving my book as a baby shower gift.

Oh, beautiful!

It’s available in paperback, and I have a lot of parents who are like, you know, I have your book but I haven’t read it yet because I’m so busy.  So it is available on Audible, as well, and it will be available on Spotify and wherever you can get audiobooks very soon.  So it’s very easy to get.  It’s a very easy read.  It’s very conversational, and it’s also very easy to listen to.  I did not record it myself, but my narrator was great in how she was able to convey my book and she was very communicative on how to relay my message as best as she could.  So I think it’s a great resource.

And I agree with you.  For busy parents, it’s amazing to have an audio format as well as, of course, a physical copy to be able to go back to certain chapters that apply.  Even if they listen to the audiobook during pregnancy, they may want to go back to certain sections as they are in that early parenting phase that may be a little bit blurry.

Absolutely.  You go through that pregnancy brain and straight into a mommy fog, and that kind of just doesn’t go away.  My son is almost 11, and I’m like, oh, my gosh.  When am I going to catch up on all that sleep?  It’s like a never ending thing.  But they can reach out to me on my website.  I have a website called Play Dumb and Sabotage.  They can reach out there and be added to my email list.  I’m starting a newsletter and will hopefully do some online training, as well.  They can also just reach out and just ask any questions that they might have.

Beautiful.  So you mentioned not only parent education but caregivers.  So do you help prepare nannies or au pairs and other caregivers, even grandparents, who are actively involved in childcare?  As we both know, we’re in a childcare crisis.  There is a lack of options and certainly very few affordable options.  Our listeners are getting creative with finding care, whether it’s working from home and trying to manage things themselves.  But how do you focus on educating others who are involved in caring for newborns and children?

I think it’s important for everybody who is involved in that child’s life to be educated and taught how to use language strategies, whether it be the grandparents, nannies, preschool teachers, daycare staff, other teachers.  Everybody who’s going to be active in that child’s life is really important.  So I provide direct trainings to preschools right now.  They have reached out to me.  I’m reaching out to my local YMCAs and reaching out to parents and sometimes there’s nannies that come along.  When I work with my clients in early intervention, some of those clients have nannies at home, so I do direct trainings with the nannies, as well, alongside the parents.  So I think it’s all important for everybody in that child’s life to be on the same page because if you have the parent doing the strategies but the grandparents are still tending to every need that child might have before the child’s able to even know that they need something, then there is a disconnect in the flow of the therapy and the flow of how that child is going to be able to practice that language.

Okay.  Excellent.  So outside of going to your website and getting information that way, as well as your social media – I know you’re on Instagram – but also with the book content, how can people find a credible speech language pathologist in their local area?  What tips do you have for our listeners?

So to find a speech therapist in your local area, I would definitely reach out to the department that would be handling early intervention.  In Los Angeles, California, it is the Regional Center.  So you get a referral to the Regional Center, and they would help connect you with some licensed and credible speech language pathologists that they vendor with, so they are able to vet those speech therapists.  There’s also – online, there’s myself.  I can also refer to some local speech therapists.  I’ve also connected with a speech therapist in Minnesota on a podcast, and she does amazing work there.  There are a lot of speech therapists on Instagram, as well, who have great tips to help with different strategies and play.  A lot of early intervention is structured play, so it is learning strategies that you can implement into your child’s daily life and then practice that and become your child’s play partner.

Beautiful.  I love that.  So that would be a little bit of mat time, tummy time.  You could incorporate some of the techniques that they learn from your book and website.  And you had mentioned babble play, as well.  Can you elaborate on that, Jeaneen?

Absolutely.  So before a child can say words, they’re going to have to learn how to produce sounds.  A lot of the early sounds might be ma-ma-ma, da-da-da, ba-ba-ba.  Things that are repetitious.  That’s why we think, oh, the child said mama, because that’s one of the first sounds they might make, or dada.  Right?  It’s like, oh, they said their first word.  But they’re really just playing with their sounds.  So until they’re able to consistently call you mama or their father dada consistently, that’s not really a true word.  They’re really just vocally playing.  The way that we can help as their communicative partners is to respond to their vocal play or initiate vocal play with them so they can learn that, oh, they are making sounds.  They can react to someone who is communicating with them, and the communicative partner can react to what they are saying themselves.  And then you can play and change and vary those sounds so they can start to mimic intonation.  They can learn that, oh, if they move their tongue in a different way or their jaw in a different way, different sounds will come out.  So there is that communication that happens, even if there aren’t actual words going on.  There’s facial expressions.  There’s eye contact.  There’s gestures.  There is play in the voice.  And all of that is super important for them to know that there is interaction happening and that they can affect how somebody else responds to them.

Excellent.  I love that.  So any signs that our listeners should be looking out for, for delays?

Yes, if the child is not responding to sounds.  Say you have a rattle or some kind of toy that makes a noise and the child is not turning to that toy or item, you might want to check their hearing because there can be a hearing delay or a hearing loss.  Or there could be some other abilities; maybe autism or something, that is affecting their ability to attend to their environment.  If they are not babbling before one year – actually, you know, it would be six months, even before that – if they’re not babbling before that, it’s a sign that they have some delay in language or speech.  If they’re not saying their first word by around one year, then that’s a red flag that oh, they are not on track for their speech.  You want them saying two rows in a row, connecting two words, by two years.  And then at three years, connecting at least three to five words or more at that point.  So if a child is not saying their first word by 13 months, 14 months, 15 months – you definitely want to flag that.  Maybe get a referral from your pediatrician or reach out to your local agency.

Excellent.  So as a doula, I’ve noticed more and more tongue ties and lip ties.  How would that affect speech if it gets missed until a child is older?

That can definitely affect how the child is able to move their tongue or their lips.  If caught early on, they do have a surgical procedure to release that, but unless it’s very severe, the child should be able to accommodate their tongue movements.  I have a short frenulum, the ligament at the bottom of the tongue.  It’s short, but it’s not severely short.  I’ve learned after going through my speech therapy program that, oh, I accommodate certain sounds by just producing it by moving my tongue in a different way.  So it should not affect babbling so much, but it might affect where the placement of the tongue is for certain sounds.

That makes sense.  Is there anything else you’d like to highlight from your book, or tips that you share on social media, Jeaneen?

Yes, the title of my book is Play Dumb and Sabotage, and the subtitle is Mindfully Under-Anticipating the Child’s Needs and Create Opportunity to Practice Language.  The “play dumb” is really about knowing what the child needs, but willing yourself to not over-anticipate everything they need, because that really is a detriment for them to practice their language.  As parents, as caregivers, we think being a good caregiver and a good parent is anticipating everything the child needs and providing that before the child even knows that they need something.  Before they’re even hungry, we start feeding them.  Before their soiled, or if they’re just soiled a little bit in their diaper, we’re going to change.  We’re going to get their clothes changed.  We’re going to give them a blanket before they’re even cold.  We want to make sure that they’re comfortable, make sure that they’re not crying.  And by doing that, we are taking away opportunities where we can practice interactions with that child.  So for snack time, children are given a whole bowl of snack rather than just a couple little pieces.  If we just give a couple pieces, they then have to ask for more or indicate that they want something more.  If there’s a toy that they love, a great strategy is to have it in sight but just out of reach, so they can indicate that they want that thing, that they need something.  And then also when we are instructing them – instead of just changing their clothes, we offer them choices.  “Do you want to wear the blue shirt or the green shirt?”  “Do you want to wear the red pants or the yellow pants?”  And then also providing the vocabulary, as well as showing the items, so they know that this is the red shirt.  This is the blue shirt, and so on and so forth, because we don’t know vocabulary unless we’re introduced to it and experience it.  Does that make sense?

It does, absolutely.  So helpful.  Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and I’m glad that you were able to impact even more families with your book being there as far as audio and print format.  I would love to have you share your website again for our listeners and your social media links and different ways that they can connect with you.

They can go to my website, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  I’m on Instagram @playdumbandsabotage, as well as my personal Instagram with is @jt808.

Thank you so much, and again, I appreciate the work you’re doing!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Play Dumb & Sabotage

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Jackie Cook discuss her work with clients and employers on maternity leave preparation and her Expecting Success program on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my friend Jackie Cook today.  I met Jackie back when I was doing a baby registry training through Be Her Village and then begged her to bring her 9in|9out Baby Expo to Grand Rapids, which she did!  So we formed this friendship over the years, but I’ve always been amazed by the work that Jackie does in the postnatal, maternity leave, preparation phase because I feel like it can be overwhelming to navigate all of the options, and it’s so important to understand all of the benefits with your employer and make a plan during pregnancy for your maternity and paternity leaves versus trying to figure it out when you have a baby, whether you’re a pro and it’s baby four, or it’s your first baby.

So, welcome, Jackie!

Good morning, Kristin!  Thanks for having me on!

Yes!  I would love to have you fill our listeners in on your story.  I know it, but share your background and your own experiences with having kids and what led you to create Popins.

Absolutely.  I’m happy to share.  I currently have what seems like super huge, old, independent kids that are almost 9 and 6 years old.  We’re in this kind of new phase of elementary school and activities.  But rewinding nine years when I was pregnant with my son, we were working over in the Netherlands.  And I had a really big job, and while we were super excited to be pregnant – it was a very much wanted baby – the timing wasn’t great.  My due date actually aligned with a couple of really big work projects, which were the whole reason we were over in the Netherlands in the first place.  Oh, no was kind of my first reaction, which is not great, necessarily!

But I remember going in to meet with my boss to tell him that I was pregnant and being so nervous.  And this was a boss I’d worked with a couple of years.  He was a wonderful manager.  But still, I was super nervous to share this really delightful life event with him because of the impact that I thought it might have on my job and my career.

In fact, it went just fine.  The first thing he said was congratulations; I’m so happy for you.  Which is absolutely the right thing to say and what every manager should say!  It’s not what always happens for everyone, but it was great.  And I spent the next few months really getting ready to not just have my first kid, but also get my job ready and help my clients feel like they would be okay without me.  They were also really supportive.  I think I was probably more nervous than they were.  They were like, Jackie, people have babies.  We’ll be fine.

And after my son was born, it was like, oh, they were right.  People have babies.  They’ll be fine.  I was completely consumed with this new human that I was taking care of.

So in the Netherlands, we’ve had amazing postpartum support.  They have a system of care that’s very similar to what you do at Gold Coast with postpartum doulas, but that’s just the standard.  Everyone gets, essentially, a postpartum doula for the first few days that they’re home with their baby.  So my husband and I just really were able to delight in our first weeks with our son.  We had a lot of confidence that breastfeeding was going well.  We had an opportunity to get a couple naps in because our doula would say, okay, I’m taking the baby now for the hour.  Eat your lunch, and then lay down.  And it was amazing!

A couple years after that, we moved back to the US and were pregnant with our daughter, who is now six.  And I thought, oh, gosh, we have this.  We know what we’re doing.  It’s our second time around.  We’re going to rock it.  And everything went just fine from a medical standpoint.  We had a really healthy delivery, really healthy birth, really healthy baby.  And then I got home and I realized I didn’t have that person that I’d had the first time around who checked my stitches and checked on breastfeeding and held our baby and showed us how to give a newborn a bath.  And we had good friends; we had family support, and that really was very important and very helpful.  But I missed that expert support.  The first time I gave our daughter a bath at home, we were in a different house; we had different stuff.  And I think I ended up getting more of the bath water on myself than on her because I just didn’t have the logistics figured out.  I’d forgotten what that was like from three years earlier.

I do love that nurses do the home visits.  You have doulas.  Midwives also do home care.  It’s such a fantastic model.  And then they also have such a lengthy leave time for maternity and paternity leave.

Yes, absolutely.  And I think regardless of who you have supporting you, I am such an evangelist now for lining up postpartum support before your delivery, whether that’s a doula or a midwife or a group like Nurse Family Partnership, if you have that in your area.  Because just having someone who – that’s what they do.  They help parents with new babies in their home.  It makes such a huge difference in starting that new version of your family on a good foundation.

Exactly.  And I know that you also work not only with the expecting family but also with employers.  So can you elaborate on that a bit more, about how you work with the HR department or employers directly?

Yeah, absolutely!  So really that experience, those contrasting experiences of my own kids, helped me tune into what my team members were going through when I got back to work, what my friends were going through as they grew their families.  And I started looking more at how could we support people as they’re getting ready to have their baby, as they’re transitioning back to work, and I think employers play a huge role in that.  So as I started Popins and looked at, what does one need to do to prepare for a parental leave, and how can you transition well back to work – I think the employer is a really key role in that.  So I work with HR departments on a couple levels.  One of the first things I like to do is just take a look at, what are their benefit offerings?  What are their policies and guidelines around parental support?  And an obvious level, the first question is, do they offer paid leave?  In the US, that’s not a requirement.  It is becoming more attractive for employers to do and to look for in employee benefits, so that’s something that we certainly talk about and look at.

But I also think it’s really important to highlight more standard benefits that employers can expose or put a spotlight on for their employees that are growing their families.  So, for example, many employers offer health savings accounts, and that can be used for a number of different things, specifically in this phase where someone is growing their family, it can be used for some of these expert services often, like lactation support or doula support, to things that your insurance may or may not cover.  You can leverage your employer benefits like a health savings account for those types of things.

So that’s some of the work that I do with both the employer, as well as individuals, to make sure that people are thinking about how they can make the most of the money they have available to them.  And then employers can make the most of the benefits that they’re offering to help their employees have a really good experience as they’re growing their families.

Yes.  And then in the last couple of years, I’ve seen so many more fertility-based benefits that also extend to birth support and certainly postpartum doula support, Carrot Fertility being the largest, that many employers have been taking on, and then Progeny and certainly other employees are looking into their individual company’s plan, which if they’re self-funded, as you know, they can create their own plans.  So we worked with an area construction company and added doulas to their benefits and helped them create a customized program.  There are lots of different options.  What are you seeing with navigating those?

With Popins, what I talk to employers about is adding Popins in as a benefit for that individual support as well.  So we at the HR level talk about, how are you describing and sharing your benefits and policies?  How are you training your managers on how to react and how to get answers for consistency and time savings?  And then also, is there an opportunity to offer our one on one guidance and support for both preparation and return to work?  Because that offers an option where someone who’s not the employer can talk to an expecting parent about how they’re going to have the right support when they get home on their maternity leave.  So I have not met many managers or HR people that really want to talk about pelvic floor therapy or consultants with their team members, but that’s something that, from a Popins standpoint, I can talk to those people about and help them get the support that they need so that when it’s time for them to go back to work, they’re going back as a more whole, healthy person and family.

Yeah, that is so needed.  I feel like as I’m talking to my birth and postpartum doula clients, they don’t even know what their benefits include, and back when I worked in corporate America, we had a lot of different presentations, as you mentioned, like you coming in and the different benefits that we had.  Say it’s vision, and someone would come in and explain the vision benefit to us that wasn’t our HR department.  So I was able to better understand this huge packet of benefits by some of that work.  So what you’re saying makes complete sense.  Or just sharing information in company newsletters or emails and so on to highlight, because it can be overwhelming.  And for spouses to try to figure out their partner’s benefits – like, I don’t fully understand my husband’s and what we have available to us.

And I don’t know if you’ve seen this also, Kristin, but I think what I’ve been finding is that for expecting parents, it’s just an overwhelming time.  There’s so much new information coming at them around doctors’ appointments and baby development and how are you preparing for birth, and all of that on top of the normal day to day life.  And so if their employer says, hey, we have this program that we will cover and we’ll support you – I think it feels easier to take advantage of than if it’s one more thing that the person has to seek out.

Exactly.  Or they may not read through everything and have no idea that this benefit existed unless, say, a coworker told them that they took advantage of a particular program or service, whether it’s therapy or whatever it might be.

Yeah, and that’s one of the things that I feel very passionate about is just any avenue to get more word out there, whether it’s the, hey, please tell your coworker, or did you know that these are some of the common areas that people struggle with?  And I think we’re seeing more of this, where there’s more awareness around mental health, especially in the prenatal and postpartum phases, where there is getting to be more awareness around lactation support.  So things like the Pump Act that came out last year that requires employers to provide time and space that’s not a bathroom for their employees to pump.  These are good things that are just, I think, enhancing and increasing the conversation around areas that are struggles for many, many new parents, and I think we share this passion, Kristin, that there’s no need for new parents to suffer in isolation.  It’s really hard being a new parent, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Exactly.  And sometimes well-meaning friends and family members will just give time and space when actually, it can be so beneficial to offer support or let them process their birth or hold their baby for a minute.  So yes, it can be very isolating, and I feel like we never fully came back from the isolation of the pandemic.  People are still more isolated than what I saw pre-pandemic.

Yeah, that’s a really good point.  I think that was such a hard time for people to be having new babies because there was so much unknown and fear, and a lot of the services that I was able to take advantage of six years ago pre-pandemic didn’t survive and are now starting to find their ways back.  I live in the Madison, Wisconsin area, and we’re starting to see more mom-baby groups in person, more music baby classes, more swim classes.  Those types of things seem to be regaining their traction again, but it’s been slow, and it can be hard to find a community.  If your listeners are hearing this and they’re like, I really need a community – please don’t give up.  Please try to find it.  Groups like Gold Coast Doulas and Popins, we can help make that easier to navigate or direct folks that are looking for community in a certain direction in your area, but it’s so worth it if you can find it.  It’s just hard, and your friends that are not in the same phase of life as you might just not get it.  And that’s okay.  It doesn’t mean they’re bad people or not good friends.  But I think it’s important to have people that are in that chapter with you.

Absolutely.  So tell us about your Expecting Success program, Jackie.

Yeah, thanks, that’s a good transition.  Part of our individual Popins programming is we offer really prenatal support and guidance, that maternity leave prep, through preparing at home.  So that’s lining you up with your local support network, as well as helping you align expectations with your loved ones who want to help out in the area.  And then we continue that on through your return to work.  So getting that transition back into the workplace, figuring out how do you manage childcare with your job, who’s going to order diapers, all of that.  Stuff that maybe didn’t exist in your life six months earlier.  About a nine-month engagement, prenatal to postpartum.  And our Expecting Success group takes that and adds in a networking component.  This is a fully virtual offering.  We’re currently putting together a group to start this fall for folks that have due dates in the November to January range.  And the goal is really to have that individual support in parallel with a small group that you can meet with and talk about whatever is top of mind.  So in previous groups, we would come together and I would think, oh, we’re definitely going to spend this time talking about how people are going to clear their calendars for their maternity leave.  And I was so wrong!  No one wanted to talk about clearing their Outlook calendar.  What they wanted to talk about was, hey, what kind of birth class are you taking?  Or, should I be worried about this childbirth thing that I’ve never done before?  So it’s really a nice window of time where professionals can meet with others that are in the same chapter of life as them and talk about things that they probably don’t really want to talk about at work but that are top of mind and that do need some processing.

And do you work with employers to fund that, or is it self-pay for the members of the community?

It can be either.  I’ve had prior clients do both.  If their employer is open to a conversation, that is certainly the preference, that their employer will cover it, and we can see a lot of benefit for the likelihood that this person is going to have a really clean exit into their parental leave as well as a much better supported, more productive return to work.  So there’s definitely clear benefit for the business to fund it.  But I’ve had some clients that use existing employer funds in creative ways, as well.  So if your company offers a professional development fund, for example, or a learning fund or a wellness fund, those are kind of budgeted areas that I’ve had clients access to pay for Popins services.  And then certainly, out of pocket is an option, and I’m always happy to talk to someone one on one about what their needs are and build out a budgeting plan as needed.

Okay, excellent!  So what are your top tips for our listeners who are preparing for their family leave?

Ooh, love this question.  Everyone has advice, right?  So I think one of my top tips is actually do what works for you and toss out the rest.  So that includes any of my tips that you hear.  If it doesn’t resonate – if you hear me say, like, absolutely everyone should have a postpartum doula – which I absolutely say – but it doesn’t resonate with you for a variety of reasons, then do what you feel like is going to work for you.  I do feel very strongly that as you’re preparing for your parental leave, lining up your expert support in your community for when you get home is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.  So the top areas that I recommend people look at and that I help connect people with in their community include doulas, birth and/or postpartum support, mental health support – so knowing who in the area or who through your insurance focuses specifically on postpartum mental health, like anxiety, depression, et cetera.  Often, that can be through your health system, but sometimes you need someone faster.  Lactation, and pelvic floor physical therapy.  Those are some of the areas that I recommend people know who their go-to people are, who the go-to experts are in their community, so that if or when they need help in those areas, they don’t have to spend a lot of time Googling at 2:00 in the morning.  They already have the number of the person they’re going to call.  Maybe they already have the appointment set up for an assessment or an eval.

Yeah, so I think that’s kind of my top area in the prepping for parental leave is the at-home stuff.  Everything else, we can work through.  Clearing your calendar is actually quite straightforward.  It’s just making sure you actually do it so that you’re not taking a call from the delivery room.

Right, and I’ve seen that as a birth doula too many times.  Or I’ve had clients work on their laptops trying to get those last-minute emails out and get everything set.  So yes, if there’s a way to get it done before – but babies come when they want to, so as much as you can plan and prepare, sometimes things are out of our control.

Yeah, and I think that’s such a smart point.  My main philosophy with the Popins prep is, have everything set to go two weeks before your due date, and that’s going to cover most cases.  There are some people, of course, as you know, that do deliver more than two weeks early, for a variety of reasons, but statistically, if you have everything wrapped up and you are acting as a lame duck two weeks before your due date, you’re going to be in pretty good shape.

Right.  And then I’m sure you work with clients who are navigating bed rest or multiples, and that is a whole different scenario as far as preparation and leave goes.

Yeah.  I think on the multiples side, my advice would be that you have that same support that I mentioned, but make sure they have some experience with multiples.  I had a friend who had twins in the Netherlands, and a very similar experience to mine where they had that standard of care postpartum doula come in, but they had two.  So they had kind of the older, very experienced doula that worked with the, and then that person brought a second set of hands that was a bit more junior, but it meant that they just had more hands on deck.  And I think when it comes to breastfeeding, there are ways to breastfeed multiples, and there are experts out there that know a lot of great tips and tricks to help set you up for success in that area, as well.

Absolutely.  Great tips!  So how can our listeners and doula clients connect with you, Jackie?

My website is popinsfam.com.  And you can get a sense of my services, as well as schedule a discovery call right from my website.  You can also find me on LinkedIn as Jacquelyn Cook or through Popins.  Those are the best ways to connect with me.  And like I said, I’m always happy to do an intro call with anyone who’s expecting or getting ready to go back to work, or even if you’ve been back at work for a couple weeks after baby and it’s just not going well.  Happy to hop on a call and give some quick tips, as well as share a more expanded, individualized program based on your needs.

Exactly.  And information on your Expecting Success program, of course, is on your website?

Yes, absolutely, and for that program, again, we’re looking for folks who have due dates, specifically expecting moms who have due dates in the November through January time period, and we’re planning to start up in early fall.

Excellent.  Well, thanks so much, Jackie!  I loved our chat!  We’ll have to talk again in the future!

Looking forward to it, Kristin!  Appreciate you having me on, and keep doing the great work that you’re doing!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Popins

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Anna Rodney shares hospital birth prep tips with Kristin Revere in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Anna is the founder of Birth and Baby University.  Gold Coast Doulas is an affiliate for the online Birth and Baby University class, Preparing for Your Hospital Birth. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with my friend Anna Rodney today.  Anna is the founder and CEO of Chicago Family Doulas and the creator of Birth and Baby University.  Anna is a committed lifelong learner and has spent her entire adult life in the field of education.  After the birth of her first child in 2009, Anna became incredibly committed to learning as much as possible about birth and babies.  She first became a labor and postpartum doula and childbirth educator and has continued to grow her knowledge base and accomplishments.  Anna is a newborn care specialist, lactation educator, Lamaze instructor, Happiest Baby on the Block parent educator, a former HypnoBirth instructor, and faculty for CAPPA.  CAPPA is a doula training organization.  Anna trains labor and postpartum doulas and childbirth educators through CAPPA.  Her commitment to learning is only matched with her commitment to supporting and educating families and their incredible journey to parenthood.

Welcome, Anna!

Thank you so much for having me!  That was such a nice introduction!  I appreciate that!

Of course!  You are so accomplished.  I’ve been a longtime admirer, and it’s been great to reconnect with you again more recently.

Same!  I’ve watched you from afar for many years also and all that you do for your community and the doula community.  It’s always incredible.

There’s so much work to be done.  I feel like it is a passion of mine that just won’t cease.  A lot of people burn out, as you know, in our industry.  The average doula is only doing this work for three years, and you and I have worked hard to make things more sustainable for doulas and trying to advance the career.  So I do appreciate that!

Really exciting and relevant for, again, supporting families and making impact, and our discussion is centered around preparing for your hospital birth.

Absolutely.  I’d say a majority of our families are giving birth at the hospital, and I have created so many classes over the years.  A few years ago I was like, I think it would be very important to have a class helping families prepare for their hospital birth outside of the hospital so it could still remain that unbiased support and help them create real questions and real opinions, not being told how to have a baby at one specific or particular hospital.

Exactly.  I am with you.  I feel like, again, the hospital classes are an excellent option, and they are, as you mentioned, focused on specific hospital policies and procedures and are not as customized.  They’re made to be as inclusive for all patients, but with your course, once you approached me about being an affiliate for your Birth and Baby University classes, I wasn’t sure how we could partner because at Gold Coast, we have so many classes, including HypnoBirthing, and I teach a Comfort Measures for Labor class.  But we don’t have anything specifically to preparing for a hospital birth, and it is so unique.  So I’d love for you to fill in our doula clients and listeners on more of your unique focus in this particular class and what would separate this class from other online classes or even in person out of hospital classes, and then of course the hospital classes themselves.

Yeah, absolutely.  So I touched on it just a little bit, but thinking about having a hospital birth, it’s very different from having a birth at a birth center or a home birth.  And one thing that was always really important to me is that whoever is taking my classes feels like all or almost all of the content of the class applies to them.  And that was something that I’ve always held really close to me because I never want somebody to be sitting in a class feeling like this isn’t about me, or how would I use this.  I’m having a homebirth; how would I use this?  So I really wanted to hone in on our target audience, which honestly, mostly has births at a hospital.  So that was really important to me, that everything in the class applies to them.  As a doula trainer, I feel like I get this really broad lens because I’m training doulas from all over the country.  So I’m training doulas from New York, California, Georgia, everywhere.  And some of them are nurses.  Some of them have been doulas for a very long time.  And I get to learn about all different ways that hospitals operate, what’s allowed and not allowed, and it was really shocking to me to see such a huge difference.  And I love bringing that lens into my trainings, and I thought, oh, wow, this is a lens that I can actually bring into a class.

In Chicago, we offer Preparing for your Hospital Birth in Chicago because I want it to be very specific to the area hospitals.  But it’s not very different from our just Preparing For Your Hospital Birth class, but learning about what protocols and procedures are possibly available in every hospital and what maybe they can ask for, what are common things.  So my take on it is, hey, these things happen all over the place.  What is allowed?  What can you advocate for at your specific hospital?  What sits well with you?

It’s interesting where families come from in terms of what they believe is possible.  And often, they believe what people around them tell them is possible.  And Kristin, as doulas, a lot of possible if they ask.  So that’s a huge platform for this class.  Hey, did you know that you can have skin to skin with your baby?  You can even have that for one hour.  They don’t have to take baby from you and weigh them and measure them.  And did you know that your water might be able to be broken for 12 to 24 hours before even heading in?  All of these really big, important changing possibilities that I think families don’t know to ask for and they’re not being offered.  So it’s really about empowering families to ask questions, to know what’s possible, to know why people make choices that they do, come to terms with what choices they’re comfortable with.  A big part of my classes, always, is about empowering families to feel like they have some control and that it’s up to them and they need to work within their comfort levels.

Exactly.  And your class is also very partner-involved, which is helpful because partners want to help, but they don’t know what to ask for, and that could be anything from a birthing ball to the heat packs at hospitals to understanding all of their options and even the importance of a birth preference sheet or birth plan and how that can help them work with their birth team, whether or not they have a doula.

Yes, absolutely.  Thanks for saying that!  Yes, it’s very much partner involved.  It doesn’t have to be if there is no partner, but a support person involved, as well.  Somebody who understands why choices are being made for the family and by the family and helping to make sure that those happen.  I think building investment in the process and the outcome is a huge part of the class, establishing conversations and boundaries.  I was a special ed teacher before becoming a doula and diving in here, but one of my huge ideas always has been information is just information unless you make it usable.  So I approach every single class I create with that mindset.  Here’s the information, but so what?  Why do you care?  Why do I care about this?  Why might you care?  Maybe you don’t care about it.  But I really want to build that structure around information so that families can dive deeper and connect it to them.  That’s so important to me.

Yes.  And I find with some of my Gold Coast clients, we have partners who are traveling for work or they could be a military family, and the fact that you have this online component makes it a lot easier.  As doulas, we often serve a large territory for our agencies.  For example, at Gold Coast, we serve Northern Michigan and Southwest Michigan for postpartum support, but we aren’t teaching classes in person in those areas.  We have clients that have needs, and a class like this is so helpful.

Yes, absolutely.  I mean, just making it accessible and having families break it down in a way that they can, at home when they’re sitting with their partner, talking about these sorts of things, they could spend an hour talking about why they may choose an unmedicated birth, where in a class – I love in person classes; don’t get me wrong – but time is limited.  So they might have to table the conversation and finish it later in a class, where at home, they can choose what’s the most important to them, watch about it, re-watch about it, talk about it for as long as they want.  So there’s absolutely perks to having an in-person class and perks to doing an at-home class, for sure.

And you did mention being able to rewatch things.  So if you’re taking the class early in pregnancy and it gets closer to your due date and you’ve forgotten some of the material from class that is very important to your goals for your birth, then the fact that you can watch it over, versus an in-person class, like a hospital class, for example, that is one weekend or multiple evenings for a couple hours here and there.  That information, other than the worksheets you’re given, is gone.  It’s not like you can access the instructor readily unless it’s potentially a doula who’s teaching that you happen to be working with who you have access to at all times.

Absolutely.  There’s that, and we do have – like, all of our classes come with a very comprehensive workbook that has questions and activities but also very helpful handouts and information that they can take screenshots of with their phone and pictures of with their phone and save it for the day of or labor or they can just have it out in labor and be like, oh, yeah, we did talk about comfort measures.  Here’s the handout for that.  Or yeah, I do remember we talked about when to head to the hospital.  What was said about that?  What did our doctor say about that?  Oh, yeah, there’s a page about it.  Like, very usable in the moment activities, as well.

Beautiful.  And as you mentioned with some of the comfort measures, the early labor tips, if the partner has forgotten and wants to support, then having screenshots or going through the workbook can be very helpful.   I know with my first birth, I didn’t know what doulas were and took Lamaze and worked with a nurse midwife, but my husband had a workbook from our Lamaze class, and he was looking up different things to try.  And of course, I had doulas the second time around, so he didn’t have to know all of the things.  But I think some of the key points that you cover in this class would be great to jot down notes for discussion with a provider at those very brief prenatal visits, unless of course you’re working with a nurse midwife who may have more time than your OB-GYN.  But also in the prenatal visit or visits with your doula, going through some of the information that is important to your unique goals and questions you may have, having access to that information and using it with your support team or any friends or family who might be supporting you as well.

Absolutely.  I always teach doulas this and guide my doulas on my team in the same capacity, but I say the prenatal visit, if you’re doing one, do that after someone has taken their classes because then they’ll have this great foundation, and you can build from that.  Rather than teaching someone about early labor for 45 minutes in a prenatal visit, it would be great for you to say, hey, bring whatever materials you have from your classes that you took.  Let’s talk about questions that you have.  Write down questions when you’re taking those classes, and I’m happy to answer those and build that into our prenatal visit.  It really can make the doula experience so much richer, and I just feel like families get so much more invested when they’ve taken classes, and that makes them more satisfied with all of it, with their experience with the doula, with their doctor, with their midwife, with the hospital, with their birth, with their baby.  It all intertwines so beautifully if families feel prepared and supported and cared for and like they had a voice.

Exactly.  I agree.  Preparation is important, and not every family wants to invest time or has the ability to afford a class.  There are certainly other options, but I’ve found that people who want a doula and can’t make that work for their budget – if they’re investing in a class, then they’re getting information a doula may share at a prenatal.  They’re able to prepare and feel confident with the support that their partner or other family member or friend is able to give them.

Absolutely.  I do think it makes such a difference, having not only the birthing person, but also their partner know all the why’s for all the things so that in the moment, everything feels so much smoother and less intimidating and scary.  I agree; not everyone will want a doula; not everyone will be able to afford a doula, but taking well-done classes will make a positive impact.

Exactly.  And your class is affordable!  It’s $97, and if our listeners happen to be in West Michigan and are Gold Coast clients, then they can register on our Gold Coast clients, but through your Birth and Baby University, you have a full curriculum of different options class-wise.  So if you’d like to touch on your other options and how our listeners who are outside of Michigan are able to register for one or multiple classes that you offer?

Yeah, absolutely!  Well, anyone listening, whether they’re in California or New York, can absolutely register for your Preparing For Your Hospital Birth class.  But if they do hop on our Birth and Baby University, they’ll find that we have quite a few options on there, and we’re actually always working on building in more classes, so there’s more to come, which I’ll talk about what’s being added soon.  But currently, we have Preparing For Your Hospital Birth, Bringing Home Baby.  Well, let me talk about the birth ones.  Preparing For Your Hospital Birth, Intro to Childbirth, Comfort Measures.  Then the preparing for baby classes include Bringing Home Baby and then a simplified class called Newborn Care 101.  We created this class because we were getting an influx of families who maybe were adopting or having surrogates.  All the things from Bringing Home Baby like postpartum recovery weren’t applying to them, and it’s so important to us that people sit in the class and feel like this is all meaningful information to me.  So we created a really hands-on Newborn Care 101 class where it talks about feeding your baby and bathing your baby and swaddling and troubleshooting tricky situations with your baby, but it’s very baby-focused.

I love that you have two options.

Yes.  You know, I’m really about making sure that it applies to everyone.  We want to support all of our families, and that’s been a great addition.  Then we have a breastfeeding class and like I said, all of our classes come with these really comprehensive workbooks so that families can remember things, write down their answers, and dive deeper into the material itself and also have lots of really helpful handouts and information that they could bring with them.  Or when they’re nursing their baby, they can look through and be like, oh, yeah, this is normal.  I remember from the class, but I also have this great book that reminds me, oh, yeah, feeding my baby every two hours is normal.

Then we have a VBAC class that’s getting put on our website very soon, and we’ll have a twin class coming up really soon.  We’re just in the final stage of recording those and making them look perfect, and those will get on there.  Also, our goal is to have these classes available in multiple languages at some point, but right now, Intro to Childbirth, Preparing For Your Hospital Birth, Bringing Home Baby, and Breastfeeding are also offered in Spanish.

Wonderful!

Yes, it’s unheard of, unfortunately!  That was one of the big reasons I wanted to do that is I don’t think they exist anywhere, and something that I love about having prerecorded classes and materials like this is I can share them for free.  I do share a lot of our Spanish curriculum and classes with hospitals so that they can offer it for free to their patients who need it.  We are sharing a lot with the refugee community, like the Venezuelan refugees, trying to get them access to this information, because as you can imagine, navigating a whole new system in a language that is foreign is really overwhelming.

Definitely.  That is so wonderful.  And once some of your newer classes are up, we will add those to the Gold Coast website, certainly.  We aren’t teaching a VBAC class.  We do have an in-person customized multiples class, but for people who want a self-paced option for twins, I am all about having that, as well.  We will be making updates when you do, then!

Awesome!  And as you can imagine as a project person like I know you are, too, I do have a list of a whole bunch of other classes that I would like to create but haven’t done so yet.

I love it.  And over time, with videos, you can always re-record and update things as, say, hospital policies and procedures change.  There have been so many changes since I became a doula, whether it’s feeding information, safe sleep, car seat safety.  Things are always being updated, especially with technology advancement.

Absolutely.  That is definitely an ongoing thing we do.  We create videos surrounding all these different topics, as well, and we’ll be like, well, now we have a video for that.  We need to embed that.  Now we need to embed this.  So it does make it easy to update classes.  I mean, we do have printed books for our families taking in-person classes, but we update those also often, so it keeps us on our toes, for sure.

Absolutely.  Anna, what other tips do you have for our listeners who are preparing for a hospital birth?

Yeah, I think, like you said earlier, I think taking classes from hospitals can absolutely be helpful, so please don’t think I’m saying never take any classes from hospitals.  But it depends on the area that you live in.  There are some hospitals that offer more comprehensive classes and some hospitals that offer really short lecture-style classes.  So just know what’s offered and know that other options exist out there in terms of classes.  But I think what is super important about taking a class like Preparing For Your Hospital Birth is knowing that even if your hospital doesn’t offer something, that it might be an option somewhere else.  So a really simple example of this is a tub or showers.  Sometimes people are delivering in hospitals and they’re like, oh, you know, my hospital doesn’t even have tubs or they don’t have showers.  They take this class and they’re like, oh, wow, maybe some hospitals do absolutely have these things.  Or we talk about, can you get out of the bed in labor?  I know it seems silly to even say something like that, but to be honest, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had families tell me, oh, the hospital said once my water breaks, I’m not allowed to stand up outside of the bed.  And it’s like, really?  They said that?  That’s not true.  Like, you should have the option.  So I’m hoping that people take this class and feel that they really do have much more control than maybe their friends have told them or that their doctor has mentioned to them.

One big belief that I have is that absolutely different ways to ask questions and some ways you ask a question results in being empowered, and some ways you ask a question results in giving away your power.  And we have a section in the class devoted to this, but a really simple example that I like to share in most of my classes is a family asked their doctor, oh, so when my water breaks, should I head straight to the hospital?  That answer is probably yes in most circumstances, if you ask that question.  If you ask a similar question and say, if my water breaks, I’d like to stay home for as long as possible.  Is that 12 hours?  16 hours?  24 hours?  I’m comfortable monitoring what that looks like and smells like.  I know what to look for.  How long can I stay home for?  That answer is going to be 12, 16, or 24 hours, most of the time.

Right.  It all depends.

Are you asking as a patient, or are you asking like this is my birth and this is what I want?  And you will get a very different answer.  One thing I often talk with families about, and I hear this often – they’ll say something along the lines of, well, I’ll just do whatever my doctor says to do.  And I say, well, that’s great.  That’s great that you trust your doctor and you like them.  One thing to be aware of is that your doctor may not share all of your options or possibilities.  And then I give them that example, and they’re like, I’m going to try it.  And they try it and they’re like, you’re right.  I asked in this way, and it totally changed their response.  It’s true.  In most hospitals, you have some wiggle room with provider practices, and they may or may not be open to changing the way they say something to you if you advocate for yourself.  I’m really excited to have that as an option for families.  If they know the questions to ask and they know how to ask those questions, they will have more possibilities on the table, and that’s so important to me.  Even if it’s not the exact birth that they imagined and hoped for as we know birth is unpredictable, they still will have some power in that, and they usually leave feeling more satisfied and respected and cared for.  I am always heartbroken when I hear a family say, like, I don’t even know what happened.  I don’t know – I don’t know what happened in my birth.  I don’t know how it came to this.  That’s one of those words or phrases that sits with me for a long time.  When a family says that to me, I always feel devastated for them.  And so my hope in all our classes is that we can help families feel like they know what happened.  They know why it happened.  They know how it led to that.  They know choices that they made along the way that were choices rather than things they felt like they had to do.

Exactly.  Birth happening to you, versus making informed decisions. 

Yes.  And I absolutely know that birth is unpredictable and not always as we imagine it to be, but I also know that there could be a lot more power given to the family if they know how to go about receiving that power.

Yes.  Absolutely.  Anything else that we didn’t cover that you’d like to share, Anna?

I would say also that the Preparing For Your Hospital Birth class is not just about decision-making.  It’s absolutely teaching about what happens in labor, comfort measures.  A lot of the other things that are more focused on are absolutely mentioned and talked about in this class, but obviously, in Comfort Measures, that’s the focus and we talk only about comfort measures for the most part.  But in this class, you can’t avoid talking about having birth in a hospital without going over all of these very important details that make for questions and options.  But a lot of knowing what to expect in a hospital and knowing how to navigate it that I think a lot of classes don’t have a focus on.  That’s a big focus in this class.  So absolutely, we’ve gotten great feedback about it from our families.  Families take it and they say, oh, wow, I had no idea that I could ask these questions or that I could ask for any of these things.

Right.  Knowledge is power.  So thank you for bringing these beautiful classes to the world and to Gold Coast clients!  I would love to have you share – let’s start with both of your websites and then get into all of your social media channels that you spend time on.

That’s a lot!  Like you mentioned earlier, I own Chicago Family Doulas, which is obviously a Chicago and suburbs of Chicago based doula agency.  And we have the opportunity to support so many families in that setting.  We have over 200 doulas on our team and a really amazing admin team of about 13 people now.  We have a big reach.  I love the lens that that has given me.  But we have that business, and then I also have, like you mentioned, Birth and Baby University.

I’d say the best way to contact me is at hello@chicagofamilydoulas.com.  That is a very busy email that we check hundreds of times a day, so we definitely get back to families really quick and get back to doulas very quickly on that platform.

Then I have an Anna Rodney Doula Trainer website as well where I provide lots of resources to doulas and doula agency owners and birth workers and perinatal professionals.  That’s another connected business that I have.

Birth and Baby University is where you find your classes if you’re not going to Gold Coast for the hospital class?

Yes, absolutely.  So Birth and Baby University is a big class platform dedicated to expecting families with prerecorded self-paced classes on that platform.

And then what are your favorite social media channels?  As you mentioned, you’re pretty much everywhere, but where do you spend the most time?

Yeah, it’s pretty well divided up, but we’re on Instagram and Facebook with all three of those companies, so Chicago Family Doulas, Birth and Baby University, and Anna Rodney Doula.  And we do have a really fun TikTok channel on Birth and Baby University.  That one is one I fought against for years, but – I have!  I always say the younger, cuter version of me, my cousin Nina, runs that channel.  And I think that’s been going well because she loves doing it, and that was one of the things that I did not love doing.

I am with you on that.  I feel like I’m too old.  We have a TikTok channel, but I just can’t get into video the way that I can with other forms of content like blogging, podcasts, and so on.

Same.  I’m just like – everything I do on TikTok, I’m like, really?  What am I supposed to be doing?  I want to give longwinded information and people don’t really want to hear that.

No, it’s all these short clips, and I’m a talker, so YouTube is definitely more my strong suit when it comes to video.

Yep.  At Birth and Baby University, we have a YouTube channel, also.  We kind of are spread out, but we have lots of amazing followers and contributors to our blogs and our social media also.  So that’s all been fun.

Well, I appreciate the work you’re doing.  Thank you for sharing your wisdom with our listeners and doula clients.  I’ll have to have you on again, Anna!

Yeah, I would love to talk about all the things.  We can absolutely talk about anything birth and baby and agency owning, all of it.

Yes, let’s do it again!  I’ll wait for your next series of classes to come out and we can do a combined podcast on some of your new options!

Awesome!  Thank you so much, Kristin!  I really appreciate it!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Preparing For Your Hospital Birth

Birth and Baby University

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Christi Kmecik shares her journey with loss and how she was drawn to create a beautiful line of grief cards.  She also gives tips on how to support someone who is grieving.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with my friend Christi Kmecik.  Christi is the owner and founder of Written Hugs Designs.  She’s been married to her husband Gary for over 13 years.  She has three kids, and she started Written Hugs Designs to help people feel more seen, more connected, and less alone.

Welcome, Christi!

Thank you!  Happy to be here!

I would love to learn a bit about your journey, and being that Ask the Doulas supports families from the early family planning stage through the toddler years, I’d love to hear more about how your business helps families with all different types of loss.

Yeah, happy to share.  I’ve been through a lot of different kinds of loss myself in this space.  I’ve been through miscarriages, and it was really through the seasons of miscarriages in my life that I first began to realize how uncomfortable we are as a society with grief, with pain, with loss, especially when it comes to babies or miscarriages or stillbirths.  And my experience led me to circles of other grieving parents who had different stories to mine, but we all had a very similar feel, that society in general doesn’t know how to show up for us, doesn’t know how to make space for us.  And that was kind of the beginning of my desire to help change things.  Written Hugs Designs – I started it in hopes of helping people connect through the hard things when words are hard to find, and acknowledging how holidays are harder when you’re grieving.  I remember the first Christmas after my first miscarriage, and it just felt like the rest of the world had already moved on, and I still couldn’t breathe.  I really found that in sitting in different supportive circles or in my own life experience, that it seemed like everyone else was grieving an announcement and I was grieving a lifetime.  It was a very disconnected experience of grief and perception and reality and all of the things.

So what I do when I design a card is I’m trying to help bridge the gap for people to feel more seen.  I think these cards should exist.  I think some of the these things are hard to say for the average person, and I am somebody who values words very deeply.  Words are sacred to me, and I also empathize a lot with other people and what they’re going through, so I’m happy to create these things in an effort that the person receiving a card from someone feels seen, feels less alone, feels more connected and not isolated and disconnected like I felt through so many things.

That is so lovely.  And I do feel like it’s hard with traditional cards to really express the deep sorrow that we have when our friends or family members experience a loss.  And since you are such an empathetic individual by nature and have personally experienced many types of loss, the meaning behind your cards – and I know when you gifted me a card, it was so beautiful.  You’re an artist, so the images on the cards – you create them yourself, so it’s not just the messaging.  There’s so much beauty in the gift that you give your customers and families alike.

Thank you.  I’m glad you brought up the artwork, too.  That’s definitely something that I keep in mind as I create it, of what something feels like or how I’m feeling at the time as I’m creating it, in an effort to also bridge that gap and an effort to also have some kind of emotional connection even before the card is opened and read.

I love it.  So other types of cards that can be helpful, other than infant loss – give us examples of all of the different cards that you’ve created and how people can find your cards, where they can purchase them.

Yeah, my cards fall into a few categories.  One is straight sympathy where they’re created either with a specific kind of relationship loss in mind, or in general, coming alongside somebody who you know is going through something, going through their grief journey, and you want to come alongside them and say something more than just “My Sympathies.”  Here’s an example of one of those.

As the waves of grief come, remember you are not alone.  Please reach out for support.  Let us lift the burdens that you can share so the weight of it all doesn’t pull you under.  We are here for you and so sorry for you loss.

Beautiful.

So there’s cards like that, that aren’t necessarily about the relationship specifically.  Or I have cards that are about the relationship specifically.  I have cards that are coming for loss of babies, multiple, loss of baby, loss of baby boy, loss of baby girl, loss of daughter, loss of son, among other relationships, as well.  So that’s the straight sympathy cards.

Then I have holiday or celebration sympathy cards.  They acknowledge how this particular celebration or gathering may be harder because you’re also grieving.  Grieving the loss of a child during Christmas or the loss of a loved one during Christmas; grieving a loss over Mother’s Day, or infertility during Mother’s Day, or where Mother’s Day is both joyous and sorrowful; if you happen to have joy as well during that day, but you’re also grieving the loss of a child.  I have a both/and card for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

A birthday card for somebody who is also grieving.  Cards like these really acknowledge how the celebration itself, society itself, doesn’t tend to make space for our realities when we’re also grieving, so I decided to make them in hopes that those people don’t feel more disconnected and more “other” and more alone in their reality because we haven’t decided to make space.  I have made space for them in these cards.

I have cards that lean into positive affirmation, into encouragement.  I think these are a really beautiful thing that could be touching to this community.  Cards that say, you are enough.  You matter.  You are loved.  You are brave.  You can do hard things.  These kinds of words of encouragement that we may not be telling ourselves as we’re in the thick of it, but we really need to hear.

And then the last kind of card that I make is something called a keepsake prompt card.  And they are geared more toward the happy celebrations where you want to be intentional in the connection with somebody, so there are prompts inside to fill out.  If it’s a birthday, they say things like, my favorite thing we do together is _____.  If I could give you anything in the whole wide world, I would give you _____.  I hope you always know _____.  It’s a really beautiful way to stop, be intentional, say the things that maybe you haven’t said before, and I find it to be a really touching way to connect with someone instead of just signing your name in another card.

So those are the kinds of cards that I have, and they’re all really geared toward intentional connection, especially when words are hard to find.

So as you described some of even your affirmation cards, I’m thinking of our doula clients who may be on bedrest, who may be celebrating a pregnancy but also grieving a prior loss and they’re in that in between space.  And then just a simple, you are loved, you are enough – all of that can make a difference in a time where it is stressful and you feel like one foot is grieving and then the other part of your body is wanting to celebrate and be joyous, but you’re torn.  It’s like you’re almost split in half.  And you had mentioned multiples.  We work with a lot of twin and triplet clients.  There may be a loss of one of the babies, and then they’re still stuck in too many different emotions, and people don’t know what to say or how to be there for them.  And sometimes people say the wrong things, like “At least you have one healthy baby of the twins.”  When you have these cards or these prompts, it can make a big difference because as you said at the start of our conversation, Christi, words matter, and sometimes those words can sit with you.  Even when I’ve attended births as a doula and hospital staff says something, like again, “At least you have a healthy baby,” or some of those things that can really hurt.  “You should be thankful even though you had a traumatic birth or didn’t get what you wanted.”  Even processing birth trauma, it can be helpful to have a card or a friend listen and really feel like you’ve been heard.

Absolutely.  Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head with your examples.  “At least” – starting the sentence that is spoken to somebody who is grieving, is going to be followed with some kind of invalidation, some kind of taking permission away to feel what they’re feeling.  And I’ve found that it does the opposite.  It doesn’t bring comfort to the griever.  It makes them feel more unseen.  It makes them feel more misunderstood, and it could lead to feeling like, what’s wrong with me?  Why can’t I just be happy?  And the answer is, because you’re grieving.  It’s normal.  It’s okay to grieve that you had a traumatic birth.  It’s okay to do that because it’s within us and it needs to come out.  And when we try to ignore it and shove it down, it will come out sideways.  What a gift of a doula to be able to walk someone through permission to grieve in that space.  Sometimes we are so vulnerable when we are pregnant, expecting, going through birth, having just had birth, whatever step along the way we are, and having a doula that gives us permission to grieve is really powerful.  It’s really powerful.  I know for me, I’ve had many people in my life come alongside me and simply give me permission to grieve, and I’m so grateful for them because I didn’t know I could do that.  I didn’t know I could do that within my own self, but the fact that they did it for me – now I know I can do that.  But at the time, I really needed that support from somebody else, someone outside myself, to understand what it was.  It’s grief.  Understand it’s not wrong.  It simply is, and you have permission to feel it and move through it.  It’s just a really powerful thing that you can give to people.

It really is.  And you mentioned different milestones, like holidays or the anniversary of what would have been the birthday for baby.  What are times that our audience, who may not have personally suffered loss, can really keep in mind when trying to be sensitive, and if they’re thinking of sending a card, what would be appropriate?  You had mentioned Christmas or Mother’s Day. 

I think if they celebrate Christmas, that’s a big one.  For many people who celebrate Christmas, it’s got so many personal and societal expectations of how it’s happy and bringing everyone together, and then you have all these expectations that you have for what it will look like with the baby that you’re expecting.  When it doesn’t end up happening, if you lose your baby, if you miscarry like I did, this Christmas doesn’t look the way it should because I should have been eight months pregnant now, or the gifts we would have been given would have been all about baby.  There’s just so many things about it that feel wrong to you, but you also feel like you can’t talk about it because it feels like everyone else has moved on.  Acknowledging that with a card that simply says, it may feel like the world has moved on, but I want you to know that you matter and you’re not alone and you are seen – it’s a gift that will help them release the feeling of being alone.

The other one that I think is really powerful, I have cards for the month anniversary, acknowledging it.  My miscarriage of twins happened in July, so acknowledging how July itself is harder because there are things that my body remembers about this month that I can’t just ignore.  And if I’m going through it, to have someone else acknowledge that, hey, I just want you to know that I’m thinking about you, and I understand how July could be harder for you, and I want you to know that you matter to me – that can be a really beautiful gift for them, as well.

Definitely.  Thank you for sharing that.  So for our listeners who are personally going through loss, what tips do you have for them?

I would say that if you haven’t already experienced it, it can feel shocking that people’s reactions, in my experience, fall into really three main categories.  One is where somebody shows up in a very meaningful way that feels like they’re present, that feels like they’re listening and that they really are feeling the thing with you.

The other is, people are really uncomfortable with it, and in an effort to try to ease your suffering, will say something like, “At least ______.”  “At least you have a healthy baby.”  “At least you weren’t further along.”  Whatever it is.  I would encourage you to understand that although their intent is to not hurt you, that it’s okay to recognize that what they said hurt and felt invalidating, and it’s okay to grieve that somebody just did that to you.

The third thing that I’ve found is people don’t know what to say.  They know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the invalidating comments.  They don’t want to do that, and they also are so afraid that whatever they say will inadvertently hurt you that they simply don’t acknowledge it at all.  And what I would encourage you to recognize in that moment is that, again, their intent is to not hurt you, but their impact, that I have felt, is that they are putting the weight of their discomfort on you to pretend like your reality isn’t what it is.  Understand that that is something to grieve.  It is okay to grieve when somebody does that.  It’s okay to acknowledge that was not their intent.  And the thing that I’ve found the most shocking about those three different categories of people is that it does not matter how close or not close a relationship is to you.   You will have people who fall into all three categories across the board.  You will have complete strangers who you don’t know show up for you in the most meaningful way if they find out that’s what happened.  You will have people who may be your best friend of a lifetime who say the invalidating thing, or a family member say nothing or not acknowledge it.  And that to me was the most shocking.  I kind of assumed that the closer to me, the more meaningful the response and the further away, the more invalidating, and that’s just not what I experienced.

So if you are grieving, I would just tell you that if that’s what you’re experiencing, you’re not alone.  I’ve experienced it most.  Most people I’ve talked to have experienced it as well, and your feeling of people’s lack of capacity to show up for you is valid.  I hope you can also hold on to their intent, which is to not hurt you.

Having said that, I do want to acknowledge that there are malicious people.  There are malicious people who may say something with intent to hurt you.  That’s not what I mean.  If there is somebody in your life who, knowing your loss, says something with intent to hurt you, they are not a safe person.  If you’re experiencing that, I would strongly recommend you talk to your doula or a therapist and get some external help to make sense of what’s happening because unfortunately, there are people who do want to cause harm.  I just want to acknowledge that it’s different than the first three that I mentioned.

That makes complete sense, and so true.  So how can our listeners find your cards and connect with you personally, Christi?

My cards are all on my website, Written Hugs Designs.  And all of my variations that I have on hand are listed there.  I do have the loss of babies, loss of baby, baby boy, baby girl – those are all coming and will be up shortly, so check back in a couple of weeks.  They are on order, so they are coming.  And I’m also on Instagram and Facebook @writtenhugsdesigns.  You can find me there!

Thank you so much, Christi!  I know I’ll be ordering more of your cards myself.

Thank you, Kristin!  I appreciate you inviting me on, and thank you so much for doing this really important work and helping people learn how to connect through loss in this way.

Thank you!  I appreciate the work you’re doing!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Written Hugs

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Kelly Cox discuss milk sharing and her new platform called Share the Drop on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Kelly Cox today.  Kelly is a registered prenatal yoga teacher, a birth doula, a former mental health therapist, and a breast cancer survivor.  Her experience in working with pregnant and new mothers for 15-plus years led her to create Share the Drop.

Welcome, Kelly!

Thank you for having me!  I’m so excited to talk!

Yes, I would love to hear more about your story!  Obviously, you’ve worked in the prenatal and postnatal phase for quite some time, but to create an app and get into the tech space is a much different venture than working in this service business.

Absolutely.  I am the least tech-savvy human you may ever meet.  My friends laugh that I’m in this tech space, but I just had this idea, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so here I am.

I love it!  It’s all about solving problems.  So tell us a bit more about the informal breastmilk sharing concept and how you’re able to connect donors to families in need virtually.

Well, I operated a pre- and postnatal yoga studio here in Charlottesville, Virginia, for about ten years.  We closed during COVID.  And I was always working with prenatal clients and doula clients with kind of a more therapeutic hat on, of thinking about what they were going through, trials and tribulations of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, preparing for how everything in life was about to change, but really wanted to think more about mental health-wise, how were they doing?

And it wasn’t until I really started working with doula clients and started paying attention to how the moms were returning to the studio that it became very clear to me the stress and anxiety wrapped around how you feed your infants.

100%.  Totally agree.

I think we spend so much time getting pregnant, and then we worry about how we’re going to get the baby out, and there’s very little prep for what actually happens after.

Yeah, and we went through a formula shortage, so people who needed to supplement or were unable to breastfeed were struggling and having to order European formula.  This obviously was all during that time of your big idea to create this platform.

Yes.  So I was constantly at the studio being bombarded with women who said, hey, I have so much milk.  I don’t know what to do with it.  And then other women were just scrambling and saying I either can’t produce enough, I have to go back to work, I have a medical issue, and how do I get breastmilk?  And so for years and years, I sent people to Facebook groups, and always they came back with the same response, that it’s so clunky.  It takes time.  Once you get into a group and get accepted, it was all forum-based posts, so someone might post at 6:00 in the morning, you have 100 ounces to give, and then someone else is posting right on top of that.  And so they just said as new moms, we don’t have the time to do this.  So I just was personally introducing women in town.

Beautiful.

This happened for years and years at the studio, and I always thought, there should be another way.  It’s a long story, but I actually came up with this idea because one night I was emailing two women.  One had milk to give; one needed milk.  And I knew they lived a couple miles away, so I was introducing them via email, and my phone went off with a notification from Bumble saying, oh, I had a match.  And it was like this life-changing moment.  I was thinking, oh, my gosh.  If I can go onto an app and create my ideal mate and then the algorithm works like it does and matches me with this perfect mate ten miles away, I thought, okay, this has to happen.  So it just sat in my head, and I was really busy.  I had a studio and I was a doula and I was doing all these things.  And so when we closed during COVID, the voice wouldn’t stop.  I was like, I have to do this.  And so because the process is so clunky on these forum-based groups, I really wanted it to be in real time.  So if you go onto Share the Drop, either a donor or a recipient just goes on and creates an account, and then we use zip codes.  That’s one of the main things you put into the account because my idea is not find a donor two states away, have them pack up the milk, pay for shipping, have to wait for it.  Let’s not only meet someone in your own community who might have extra milk but also meet your neighbors.  We used to raise babies together in community with aunties and grannies and sisters, and that just doesn’t happen as much anymore.  The biggest thing that happened after a decade of owning the studio was –  like, prenatal yoga is great.  Postnatal yoga is great.  I can do that kind of work in my sleep.  But it was really the moms who would meet on their mats, newly pregnant or new to motherhood, and then they would keep coming back and sitting next to each other, and then I would see them having coffee after.  This community I live in is not that big, so now I see them three kids later.  They’re still hanging out with the same moms that they met in a yoga class.  And I realize it’s the community aspect that parents really, really need and can benefit from.

100%.  And certainly not every community has a milk bank.  We have one about an hour away from Grand Rapids, but there are so many restrictions.  It’s basically NICU babies and the most need.  So not everyone qualifies.  And then there are restrictions as far as donating, so as you mentioned, there are all of these Facebook groups, and before I found your app, in researching for our new book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby, I really only was referring to either the milk bank or some of those Facebook groups to our doula clients.

Yes.  I think there’s 33 milk banks in the country.  So it’s rare that someone is going to live very close.  First of all, the process to get approved for those formal milk banks can take 30 to 45 days, and then like you said, not everyone can donate.  And so my idea of peer to peer milk sharing is really based on a lot of what Eats On Feets has been doing for a lot of years.  I believe that if there’s a woman who has excess production and more than her baby could ever consume and that baby is gaining weight and meeting developmental milestones, that would be the perfect option for people who can’t produce breast milk, can’t find formula on the shelves, can’t afford formula.  I just think that this whole conversation around breast is best, fed is best, is causing a lot of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy if you can’t produce enough.  And there are people in your community who have excess, and if you do this safely – we talk a lot about dating your donor.  It’s the exact same questions you would ask if you were on a dating site.  What is your lifestyle?  We have filters on there for do you drink caffeine, do you drink alcohol, do you take prescription medication.  Are you allergic to anything?  We want to know what’s in the milk.  And then it’s all about recipients making good choices for themselves.

As a doula, I’m not of the mindset that there’s only one way to have a baby.  I always tell my clients, this is your birth, your body.  Do all the research you can, and then you can make the best informed decisions on what you want to do during birth.  And I think it should be the same thing if you’re going to use someone’s milk.

Yes.  So it’s basically a trust.  You’re having people fill out the forms, but you’re not requiring blood work, for example.  They’re just listing if they take medication or if they’re drinking coffee and so on?

Yes.  And then we do ask donors when they’re onboarding – we say, are you willing to share any recent medical lab work with a recipient if asked?  Clearly, we’re not uploading that to the app because of HIPAA, but if they would, we put a little medical icon on their badge, so that’s one more safety feature that recipients know, hey, this woman is willing to share her recent lab work, which is great.

That is.  That’s a big relief for some families who want that information.

Absolutely.  The part about using zip codes is not only can you meet your neighbors, but you can vet.  You can say, oh, Kristin, did you use a doula?  Who’s your pediatrician?  To get to know who you’re talking to, but then to say, do we have any friends in common?  And then vet them that way.  We talk about meeting in a safe place, meet during the day, when it’s light out.  Meet in a public place.  I have a neonatologist on my board of advisors, and he said in the very beginning, the questions you should ask someone before you take their milk are the same questions you should ask someone before you sleep with them for the first time.

Yeah, makes sense!

It’s totally the exact same thing.  I get a lot of feedback of, oh, this is gross; why would I drink someone else’s milk?  And I just kind of sit back and say, well, we drink cow milk and we drink sheep milk.  It is the perfect food.  If you can breastfeed, fantastic.  If you’re an exclusive pumper, great.  If you find a formula that works, great.  I don’t think there should be any shame no matter how you feed.  And I think informal milk sharing should be in the conversation.

I agree.  And it’s also, I have found in working as a doula, that some of our families experience loss and want to donate milk in that way.  Do you have stories of, as a way of grieving, where families are longing to share breast milk to help other families in need?

Yes.  Actually, I had a client at my yoga studio, and it was after her loss that I really started to think more about this app.  She was pregnant with her second.  At 38 weeks, she delivered a baby still.  And it was very important to her that she honor that life, and so I helped connect her to a local woman who was pregnant with her fourth baby.  Just diagnosed with breast cancer and knew she had to have a mastectomy right after delivery.  So that woman, the grieving mother, pumped for six months and delivered it to this other mother in need, and then the rest, gave to our milk bank her in Norfolk, Virginia.  This woman is so sweet.  I see her all the time, and we always talk about what a healing process that was for her.

It really can be.  That’s beautiful to have that story as part of the journey in starting Share the Drop and that it can certainly, with grieving, benefit so many other families and is a way to give back in such a personal way.

Yes.  I have users who have reached out and said, you know, my first baby was in the NICU.  We received donor milk.  It made such a difference, and that’s why I want to give my excess now.

I love it. 

I remember in the beginning of this, looking for investors and talking to some people, and I was in a room with a group of men, and one of them said, why wouldn’t you pay donors for milk?  And why would someone just do this out of the goodness of their heart?  And I couldn’t think of anything to say other than that women are amazing.  We’re the healers.  We’re the ones who are going to save the world.  So I don’t see where the question is.

Right.  But I’m sure that as an investor, they’re looking at the potential income that paying for the milk could help grow your business, certainly, and help grow their investment in your business.

They did invest in me.  And they’ve been fantastic cheerleaders.  One of the biggest ways we keep this safe is we do not pay donors for milk.  I understand the time and effort that goes into pumping and storing and donating.  However, I think when you open the door to monetizing a human liquid, you risk opening the doors for fraudulent behavior.  You can water down anything, sell it as milk, and this is when babies get sick.  So the app is free for anyone to create an account.  Donors always use it for free.  Recipients create an account for free, and then you can see who’s in your feed, and you never have to pay.  There’s a $9.99 a month subscription fee.  You never have to pay that until you find someone you want to message, and then that’s unlimited.  I waive that fee if they’re WIC or SNAP eligible.  I want no barriers to entrance whatsoever.  And then I also have a giving program where anyone can go onto the website and purchase a subscription to give out.  And I have had some people go on there and just say, hey, I got donor milk years ago.  I’d like to just feed it forward.  I just want it to be accessible.

As far as apps, it would be on the Google Play store?  How else can our listeners find Share the Drop?

We are on the Google Play store.  We are not on Apple.  I spent months and months rewriting code, trying to resubmit.  They have finally come back and said that this is not a concept the Apple store condones.  There is an app on their platform that does exactly this; however, they do pay donors for milk.  So at that point, I was not interested in fighting with Apple, and so I pivoted, and I made a web app.  So at our website, Share the Drop, you can create an account right there.

For me, running a business, this means I don’t have to give Apple 30% of my proceeds.  But users can use it on a computer.  You don’t have to have a smartphone.  You can use it on a computer at the library.  It actually makes me more inclusive.  It did sting a little bit not to be on the app store.  You think you’re going to build this app and of course it’s in all the big stores, and the more I pulled away from it, I realized, I own the web app.  It works just as fine.  It works just as savvy.  You can get push notifications.  And so yes, it is on Google Play, but anyone else can just go directly to the website and create an account.

Yes, and I agree with you that it’s so much more accessible.  Not everyone has a mobile phone that has data, internet, and so on.  As you mentioned, being able to go to the library and log in is very helpful.

So what’s next for Share the Drop?

It’s built.  It’s running well.  My biggest hurdle right now is just knowledge that it’s out there.  So that’s why I reach out to everyone to tell them about this.  I think if it’s an option, even if families need it in the very beginning until their milk supply comes in, it could be a short term option.  It could be a long term option.  But I really just need folks to know that it’s available.  So if you are on Facebook groups sharing and you’re finding that that’s cumbersome and takes too much time, go create an account.  It’s free to create an account and to look, so it’s really just spreading the word, which is a huge undertaking.  I’ve been working in my community for 15-plus years marketing a studio and marketing my doula services, but I’ve never had to take it to this national level.  And so yeah, just spreading the word as far and wide as we can.

I love it.  So Kelly, what kind of insight do you have as far as the states that you’re in and cities?  Where are you most located?  Would it be in your home state, or what are you finding as far as data?

Yeah, so most of our users are from the central Virginia area where I am, so Richland, DC.  We have quite a few users in DC.  I’ve been able to build some great social media partnerships.  Doula agencies in Boston and Chicago and Atlanta, so those are our top markets.  However, we’re available nationwide, so I’ve just been asking users – I have users email me and say, hey, I’m done donating.  Can you help me create my account?  And I’m always like, absolutely, but tell your neighbors who are having babies.  Tell anyone you know with excess.  Really spreading the word like that.  I mean, advertising is one thing, but when you deal with moms, you quickly realize that moms just talk about everything all day long.

They sure do, yes.

What they’re eating, what they’re drinking, what they’re buying, what their babies are doing, and so trying to, little by little, build this little army of moms who will continue to spread the word.

That’s what it’s all about.  And then as you know, being a fellow doula, part of our role is to give our clients trusted resources and recommendations, just like your app.  And that is, again, one of the most common needs for families is milk sharing, where to donate.  And so you’re solving so many problems and still keeping it local and not having to deal with shipping out of state.  As you mentioned before, even having relationships or seeing the person that you’re donating to can make a big impact.

Yes, absolutely.  I really believe that what we’re missing out most in our current world and our society is community.  We’re a lot more transient.  If you can just meet your neighbors, talk to them more, no matter what stage of life you’re in, and be active in your community.  Understand who the helpers are.  I think we can solve a lot of what’s plaguing families right now.  Especially coming out of COVID.  I realize it’s been a while, but it still feels like we’re in it in some ways.  It was the communities and the neighbor partnerships that really, I think, solidified families and took care of them during that time.

Agreed.  Yeah, it does feel like things have not fully gone back to pre-pandemic times, and there’s still more isolation.  You feel like there is less community, and a lot of businesses that did support prenatal and postnatal moms had to close during the pandemic.  Some are opening back up, but there is that missing link since the pandemic.

Yeah, and I see a lot of prenatal offerings coming back, but I don’t see as much as postnatal as I think there should be.  You know, I always tell yoga clients and doula clients while they’re pregnant, do your research about pregnancy and labor, but really, really focus on breastfeeding.  Take a breastfeeding class if you can.  Go sit in on a Le Leche League meeting.  Have extending family members taken an online breastfeeding class so that they can understand more and be supportive.  If we put more steady time into what’s really going to happen that first year, I think new moms would fare a lot better.

Agreed.  So Kelly, for our listeners who are pre-conception or early in pregnancy, what are the benefits of donating breastmilk?  The second part of that question is, what are the benefits of receiving donated breastmilk?

Every woman I have ever met with excess breastmilk understands how important it is and what a vital nutrient it is.  I have never had anyone say, hey, can you help me sell this?  They’re always like, this has done so well for my child.  I can’t believe I’m making so much.  Can you help me find someone?  I mean, I think any woman helping another woman – that’s the biggest benefit.  Years ago, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had a lot of women come to me, other survivors, saying how can I get milk, but a lot of other women saying, hey, I understand.  This has opened my eyes to the fact that, of course, a breast cancer survivor, if she had a mastectomy, couldn’t feed.  Can you please help me find a survivor?  Absolutely.  The benefits of donating are really altruistic.  Helping your neighbor.  I’m a big fan of karma.  I think everything comes back.  Any time I’ve been able to help someone, it’s made me feel better about my life.

For a recipient, if you just are having trouble feeding for any reason but you believe that breastmilk is the best option for your infant and you don’t want formula or you can’t find formula – it’s out there and it’s safe.  It’s the perfect food.  It has the perfect blend of carbohydrates, proteins, fats.  We have huge companies trying to replicate breastmilk because they know how good it is.  So if you choose it and that’s what you want for your infant, great.  Here’s an option to get it.  I do have people asking about safety.  We talk about safety measures and how to meet your donor and all these questions to ask, but if you’re really worried, you can buy testing strips for alcohol.  My friend Dr. Trill over at Free to Feed has just come out with a new testing strip that will actually test for certain things.  If you know your baby has some allergens, it can test milk that you get to see if there’s any gluten in the milk or dairy.

And then last but not least, you can do home pasteurization, which is very simple.  It’s a very vital food that you can get from a neighbor.  But what if you can’t find your formula?  We just had another formula recall, I think, three weeks ago.  Some formulas have been difficult to find.  And families are struggling financially, so you think about a $9.99 a month fee, as our admin fee.  It’s so much cheaper than buying formula.

It is, no doubt.

And if there’s excess out there, I think it should go to infants in need and take that financial piece out of it.  We talk about being commerce free.  I do tell users, if you find a trusted donor and they’re giving you milk on a regular basis, buy them new storage bags.  Replenish that, so that they’re not spending their own money on that.  But I think we can set the standard for helping your neighbor a lot more than we do.

We can.  Totally agree.  So any final tips for our listeners, Kelly?

Just go onto our website.  You can read about us.  Anyone, anytime, can email me.  It’s kelly@sharethedrop.com.  Ask me any questions.  Give me feedback.  I’ve got pretty thick skin.  Realize that we don’t have huge users in every city, and so it might be a while before you find people in your community, but you can create an account and then keep signing on and seeing what’s there.  But just talk to people about their experiences.  Did you ever donate milk?  Have you ever received milk?  Listen to what that experience was like.

Agreed, yes.  It certainly helps to have personal experience.  Ask your friends.  Having your personal testimonials and stories that you shared today is also helpful.  If you just venture on a site and don’t have the background information that you shared, it can be a little overwhelming and scary.

Yes, absolutely.  It’s all about the more you know.  So read, ask questions.  I’m a big fan of any sort of informational support groups, whether that’s about getting pregnant, delivery, the first three months.  Go into your community and see who else is talking about these things because the knowledge will help in every aspect of parenting.

Agreed.  Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, Kelly.  I so appreciate the work you’re doing.

Thank you so much!  Thanks for having me on today.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Share the Drop

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Dr. Lora Grasso discusses small changes that can help you maintain your health after having a baby in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Dr. Grasso is the founder of APEX Coaching.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with my friend, Dr. Lora Grasso.  She has an extensive background in health and education, and our topic today is focused on health as a new mom and small changes that can be made to stay on top of your health at such a challenging time, whether this is your first baby or your fifth.  Welcome, Dr. Lora Grasso!

Hi!  It’s so nice to be here, Kristin!  Thanks for having me!

Yes!  I’m excited to get into it!  And again, your background is so extensive.  I figured it’d be better for you to really walk us through your journey in health and education and how it led you to focusing on supporting new moms with health coaching.

Sure thing.  So I started off – I was always in health.  My entire professional career, I was in health and education.  And I started off with getting my bachelor’s degree in health and physical education.  I taught in public education for a little over a decade until I had my wonderful twins, who are now eight years old.   In the process, I also got my master’s degree in exercise science, and I, of course, tend to take on the world, and I worked on my doctoral degree right as I was having my newborn twins.

That really was a wakeup call to this whole mothering thing and being able to do it all.  Then when I went back into the workforce, I went into virtual education.  I could be home with my kids and be there for them and have my own thing in education.  I quickly worked my way up to assistant director at that company.  I really loved it.  And then I just went on to find an opportunity teaching at an elementary school of my children, and that just did not work out for me.  It was not for me.  The schedule was tough with being basically a single mom at that point.

And if a kid is sick, it’s not like you can call off work.  So much to navigate.  Although the thought, obviously, was good, to be in their own school.

I always tossed around the idea of coaching because I’ve been trained as a personal trainer.  I have a certification in personal training and a health coach certification, both of those since around 2001 to 2004.  I’ve trained all age groups, all capacities, all skill levels.  I really love that.  I’ve always been involved in the exercise arena.  I’ve also competed in figure competitions, which is another thing a lot of people don’t know about me, but it’s a branch of body building.  That taught me a lot about nutrition, really.  That gave me a lot of my background in that.  And I said, why not now?  I always wanted to do health coaching.  So why not now, and I left that job and decided to go out on my own and start my own health coaching because I knew mothers needed it.  I know we always put ourselves last.  I know we need all the help we can get, and just that support, too, of each other.  We’re all going through this.  We’re there to help each other.  What can I do to make that whole process easier and simpler and just make your everyday life better and not let your health go by the wayside because you’re raising little ones?

Exactly.  And your business, APEX Coaching with Lora, is so focused on moms and women, based on your own personal experience, so I would love to get into some tips for our listeners and how to, again, make some actionable changes, what it might look like to work with a coach like yourself.  You’re not the typical health coach, with such an extensive background.  So I’d love to hear more about how you can be helpful and what moms can do.

Right.  Well, one of the biggest things here is there’s no one size fits all, and there’s no fast fix.  We all want that.  We all want that instant gratification.  Sure, it feels great, but it’s not going to stick with you for life.  So if you cannot look at a health change or a plan and say that you cannot stick with this for your lifetime, or a very long time, then it’s not the plan for you.  And everyone is different.  The programs that I build are very comprehensive.  You can’t just look at what you eat and how you move.  There’s much more to it than that.  Your daily behaviors, handling your everyday stress, your habits.  Sleep is a huge one, and I’ll talk about that more with new mothers because that impacts every aspect of your health: mental, physical, social.

Absolutely.  That is what we stress as postpartum doulas and sleep consultants.  It can affect so much more than mental health.  I mean, it compounds.  So I love that you focus on that in your plans, as well.

Yes.  And there are lots of little tricks you can do.  That’s my philosophy, too, that if you want to sustain change, if you want something you can stick with, it can’t be this huge all-encompassing, overwhelming change, like a lot of these fads are.  It has to be small, sustainable ones.  So what I do is I look at what you like, what would stick with your schedule, how can it fit with your life, not making your life fit to it, but how can it fit in your life.  So sleep, for example.  We know that first year, we try as hard as we can, but we’re not going to get as much sleep as we want.  It’s very baby-focused, that first year, at least.  And we do the best to get it in where we can.  But there are other tricks, too, like using light is very important for maintaining your circadian rhythms and getting more quality sleep, even if you’re not getting quantity.  There’s a lot that you can do to help with quality.  Like that first sunlight and sunset – there’s a lower angle light that comes in.  If you get that early light and the evening light, it helps to set your rhythms, which help you get better quality sleep.  When you sleep, ensuring that it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s quiet.  Those are other things.  Granted, you could have a crying baby.  We all know that that’s going to happen.  We all know it’s not realistic to think we’re going to have the perfect sleeping environment.  But when you do get sleep, doing that, if you need to take a midday nap, have blackout curtains.  If you can, have someone else watch the baby so you can be in a quiet, dark, cooler place.  That’s going to make you feel better.

I always say don’t make any big decisions when you’re sleep deprived because it affects you so drastically.  I mean, I’ve been there.  I know how it feels.  I know how those days can seem way worse when you don’t have that sleep.

Especially with twins.  That’s a whole different experience, navigating feeding two, and different sleep schedules, trying to get them on the same page as far as all of their activities throughout the day and night.  I give you a lot of credit!

Absolutely.  But any new mother – like you said, after the fifth child, even though you have the experience, it’s never a breeze, and every child is different.  We know there’s some children who are going to be more colicky and more difficult to handle.  Think about what works with them, too.  You want them on as much of a schedule as you can.  Right?  You want to do that for yourself, too.  Going back to circadian rhythms and trying to get quality sleep – things you do throughout the day, like when you eat, when you move, any type of movement.  It doesn’t have to be an extreme, regimented exercise routine.  Just walking.  Doing that at consistent times every day helps set that rhythm as well.

Yes.  I love that.  So Lora, as far as your typical coaching client, are their concerns more about getting back to their old size they had before having kids, or is it more in getting energy?  What are the top concerns?  Is it weight or having a better diet or energy? 

I think the biggest ones are fatigue and your pre-baby body, which really, we have to learn to love and accept who we are after children because there’s just no way that you’re going to be exactly what you are and who were before you had kids.  We think about physically, we’re not the same.  My feet grew!  That’s one thing.  I have extra skin.  Those are things that are just there.  But you’re also – you are different inside.  You know how life-changing having a child is, and we have to learn to accept that.  We have to learn to accept the way our bodies are.  But with that said, there are definitely things that we can do to make us feel more confident and stronger and gain more energy because the most common complaint you hear about motherhood is I’m tired.  I’m just tired.  That creates that cycle, too, because you’re too tired to feel like you can exercise, but in the end, exercising is going to give you energy.  So it’s hard to get past that, and the biggest thing is building habits.  There’s a great book by James Clear called Atomic Habits.  I highly recommend a read for anyone out there.

I love that book, as well.

So good!  One of the examples I like to explain that he gives in the book is that when he’s trying to get someone to go to the gym, and he said, just go every day for five minutes.  You probably think, what’s that going to do for me?  What you’re doing in the beginning is strictly setting the habit.  Get into the habit and change the identity and everything else is going to follow.  Once you start doing that, you’re like, I am the person who exercises regularly.  And you start to do it more.  So the idea is don’t bite off more than you can chew.  Even something as simple as, you want to meditate every day.  Just start by getting your mat out everyday and then go from there.  Especially as mothers with very limited time – and I always take that into account when I’m working with clients – we need to know what our schedule is, what’s realistic.  If you are absolutely not a morning person, morning workouts are not going to be for you.  You’re setting yourself up for failure if you’re like, every day I’m going to get up at 4:00 a.m. and I’m going to exercise.  You just have to do what’s realistic and what’s going to work for you, and you can always go up from there.  You can always take more baby steps – since we’re talking about babies, right?  It’s about being realistic and taking those small steps that you can sustain, that you can stick with.

I love it.  And how do you factor in breastfeeding or pumping moms as far as their goals and their diet and ability to have the time to even work out when you’re feeding a lot more frequently than using formula?

Well, a couple of things with that.  I think a lot of us get stuck in what it means to work out or exercise, and it doesn’t have to be this, going to the gym, doing this many sets and reps, or doing this YouTube workout.  Really, put it in your mind as movement, especially that first year.  Get out and walk your baby.  Take them on a daily walk.  Move more.  When you’re parking somewhere, parking further away.  Just getting strictly more movement in.  And one thing, a misnomer I’d like to clear up with breastfeeding: you do need more calories, right?  You need 350 to 500 more calories.  But you also need to keep in mind what that is because I think a lot of people think – and that’s when their weight can get carried away – that they need to eat a lot more to sustain this.  But in reality, up to 500 calories is three cups of popcorn.  It’s two slices of cheese on toast.  It’s one and a half bagels with cream cheese.  It’s really, when you think about it, not that much.  So being careful with that, and I’m not a big proponent of calorie counting.  I do it in the beginning with a lot of my clients just to see kind of where we are, and it’s usually a wakeup call to see, oh, I didn’t realize it was that much.  But again, do you want to count calories for the rest of your life?

Obviously not!

Right!  So realistically, we just need to do an assessment at first, and then realize what we can sustain and what makes sense as far as the amount to make up for what we’re doing, whether that’s breastfeeding, whether that’s working out, whether that’s training for something.  I think people get a little carried away, and people do this, too, when they’re pregnant with cravings.  Like, I need to eat so much more for the baby.  I need to eat so much more.  You definitely don’t want to deprive your baby, but you also don’t want to be misled on what you’re intaking.  It’s setting yourself up for something that’s hard to rebound from.

That makes perfect sense.  And hydration, obviously, is key, especially if you are pumping or breastfeeding and having water throughout the day is so important.

Absolutely.  Hydration is huge.  There’s actually a link between your amount of sleep and hydration, so especially when you’re not sleeping as much, you need to drink even more.  It will be more trips to the bathroom, but very important as far as your health.

Exactly.  Thank you for that!  What are your other tips for small changes that mom can make in that first year?

I think a support system is huge, as well, if you can have accountability and support with other moms.  There’s great Facebook groups.  I have a Facebook group I started.  I’m going to put it out there – anyone is welcome to join.  It’s called Momentum Wellness Lounge.  There’s support in there.  There’s tips in there.  I think another thing to keep in mind with those small things is your mental health.  Having time for you – and everyone is like, I don’t have time!  It comes down to priorities.  You have to make time for you, and I’m not saying 20 minutes, even.  I’m saying 5 minutes.  Everyone can take 5 minutes out of their day to step away, to read for 5 minutes.  Just lay there and do nothing for 5 minutes.  Once again, it’s the little things, and that’s something that you can look forward to everyday, as well, when you’re in the chaotic realm of motherhood.  That’s so important with your mental health.  Writing things out, too, getting things off your mind and onto paper helps a lot of people.

100% agree.  Yeah, we talk about writing out the birth story and doing some journaling and meditating.  Taking that time, and I know there’s always that temptation, if baby is sleeping, to get on social media or answer some emails, but taking, as you mentioned, 5 or 10 minutes for yourself can change your entire day.

Yes, and I also say with social media, just be very careful.  I mean, it’s the perfect storm for depression, right, because you’re sleep deprived, which every single mental illness is linked to sleep in some way.  So you’re already sleep deprived.  Your world is around this baby.  You have this whole new identity that you’re still trying to learn about yourself.  And then you’re going on social media, where people are depicting their best lives.  People are going on vacations.  People are having a blast.  So it can be great for support – like go to some of those mom groups and vent or get advice – but also just be careful and just know everyone is putting out their best selves.  There’s a lot of people on there who are dealing with the same stuff that you are.

Right, and I do like that there’s more vulnerability now on social media, and people are showing the messy house or talking about mental health struggles.  But there’s still so much of that Pinterest perfect and Instagram lifestyle photos that are hard to keep up with.  I really like your tips of finding a community, like your community where you have moms going through the same things at the same time, supporting each other.

Yes.  Something that I will admit I struggle with, too, is asking for help.  Ask for help.  Someone – I think it was Brene Brown – brought this up in one of her books, about think about the other side of the help offer.  Like, I know when someone asks me, I love to help.  I love when people reach out to me and ask for help, so think about that next time that you’re asking.  Typically, especially the people who care about you and are around you would want to help you.  It’s hard for us.

And we’re not mind readers.  We often don’t know how to help, so it’s good to have that clear direction.

Yes, even for those five minutes to step away, I think anyone would love to help a new mother for five minutes.

Absolutely.  So Lora, what does it look like to work with you if our listeners are interested in moving forward with a consultation?  Can you walk us through that?

Yes, I offer free consultations, and that’s just us getting to know each other and making sure that we’re a right fit for each other.  From there, we’re going to talk about everything.  I mean, in order for it to be personalized, I need to really know what you like, what you don’t like, what you’re doing, what you’d like to do, your goals, your habits, your behaviors, where you see yourself in five years.  We go through a pretty in-depth analysis of where you are and where you’d like to be.  And from there, you’re going to get a very personalized plan.  We try to do it – again, I mean, that’s a lot of factors that I take into account.  So we pick out the big ones first, which usually means nailing down the sleep.  And I’ll tell you, I’ve had clients and I’ve read in several pieces of literature and articles too about people solely changing their sleep and seeing all these changes from it before even doing nutrition and exercise.  So that sleep is going to be a big factor for new moms, especially.  But I’ll do it in a way that you’re not overwhelmed because it’s a lot of factors, and it will be very personalized to you.  There will be constant feedback, constant communication, as far as, “Lora, I don’t really like this part or I’m not doing well with that.  What can we change?”  And then it will be consistent check-ins.  Some of it, depending on the needs of the client, will be that I will assess and say when we need a check-in, but sometimes client preference, too, as far as what works best for them.  It’s really a matter of getting to know the client, them getting to know me and my style, and figuring out how we can reach those goals together.

Love it.  What is the average length of time that a client works with you?  Is it a year?  Three months?  Or is it different for everyone based on their needs?

Right.  It’s a little different.  There’s three months, six months, and one year programs that we start with, and then people will renew, or some people will feel like, I’m good.  I feel like I’m good where I am right now.  And some of those people come back, too.  I always say I’m here.  This is up to you, what you feel that you need.  I’m going to give my feedback on where I feel that you are and where you need to be, as well, as your support and your coach.  But we have many ways to meet your needs.

Beautiful.  Any final tips that we didn’t chat about, Lora?

Something I always say is think of what you would tell your best friend when you’re giving advice – because we’re so hard on ourselves, you know, just as being a mother and trying to juggle it all.  Now that you have kids, think of what you would tell them.  Think of how you would tell them to make sure they’re taking care of themselves.  Now we’re always being the model for them.  They have such unconditional love.  They’re going to love you no matter what, but they’re watching what you do.  So if you’re not taking care of yourself, what are you showing them?

So true.  Excellent advice.  How can our listeners find you, Lora?

My Instagram is @lorae5.  It’s a mesh of personal and some professional tips on there, as well, but it’s important for people to know me as a mother, too.  That’s why I do that.  I have my website.  And then the Momentum Wellness Lounge, on Facebook, as well.  Just send a message that you want to join, and I’ll approve you and bring you in!

Excellent!  Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom with us!  Appreciate you, Lora!

I appreciate you!  Thank you!  I’m rooting for all you new moms out there!

IMPORTANT LINKS

APEX Coaching

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

In the latest episode of Ask the Doulas, Kristin Revere discusses the launch of the Audiobook for Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby.  Alyssa Veneklase and Kristin Revere recorded the audiobook at a local recording studio called Centennial Sound and had a lot of fun with the process.  You can now order Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon.

Please leave a review on our podcast if you enjoyed this episode, so we can reach more listeners like you!

Subscribe to our newsletter, check out Kristin’s birth and baby book, and see more about our Doula services & online courses at our website!

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to share our latest book news.  As you know, Supported launched on Mother’s Day in paperback, hardcover, as well as the Kindle version, on Amazon and select retailers, including EcoBuns Baby & Co, and now we are releasing an audiobook!  That will be available on Audible and Amazon as well as iTunes, if you consume books the way I do in the audio format.

Alyssa and I recorded the book ourselves in a local studio.  Ben Zito from Centennial Sound was our engineer and guide through this process, and it was so much fun!  I hope you choose our book if you’re an Audible member or consume books on iTunes or Amazon.  We’ve got a preview of our introduction that we will share with you in today’s episode.  Check it out!

Are you ready for one of your most life-changing experiences?  We compare it to graduating from college, preparing for a promotion, or planning a wedding.  Big life changes deserve attention.

Our book, Supported, is your one-stop shop for everything you need to know about becoming a mother.  It’s created by two seasoned doulas with more than 19 years of combined experience who have helped more than 1,000 clients during pregnancy, birth, and early parenting. 

Focus on you and what you need as a new mother.  Make sure you eat.  Make sure you’re sleeping enough.  Trust your instincts, and ask for help.

Believe in yourself, and know that you’re going to be awesome at this parenting gig.  No matter who you are or where you live, how you choose to birth, or if this is your first or fifth, you have options.  You have choices.  Knowledge is power. 

IMPORTANT LINKS

Buy our book, Supported

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

 

Kristin Revere and Sabia Wade discuss her book “Birthing Liberation” and discuss spirituality and doula work.  Sabia is the CEO of Birthing Advocacy Trainings and a speaker, mentor, and author.  

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to bring back my friend Sabia Wade to Ask the Doulas.  Sabia is the CEO of Birthing Advocacy Doula Training.  She is an author.  She’s a speaker.  She is a thought leader in, I feel, so many different spaces, but in my lens of doula work, she is certainly my go-to.  Sabia is also known as the Black Doula.  Welcome, Sabia!

I’m glad to be here!  I’m glad that we finally have some time to sit down and talk about some things.

Yes!  You and I were both presenters at DoulaCon in Colorado, and your keynote was just receiving so many rave reviews, and of course, you had your book with you, which is all based on spirituality and doula work, and unfortunately, I was speaking at the same time, so I missed hearing it!  But I got to get a photo and say hi before you left the conference, so that was amazing.  I would love to dive into the topic of spirituality and doula work and hear more about your journey as an author and how you’ve been able to expand your message using books as a platform.

For sure.  Where would you like to get started?  I love this conversation, the topic layout so far.  I’ll say this, too, as a note.  I think sometimes when you are specifically a doula of color, sometimes people get caught up in only one topic that they want to talk to you about, and you’re like, I’m also multifaceted.  So I really love when I’m in a space where we can really talk about these topics and not just trauma.

Exactly.  And obviously, Black maternal health is a major concern.  We are in Black Maternal Health Week, currently.  This podcast will be coming out after, but I’m sure a lot of your speaking and podcast guesting is so focused because you are a major thought leader in this space.  But I’m open to wherever you want to take the conversation, certainly.  And I feel the same way, that doula work, both birth and postpartum, is very spiritual.  It’s hard to explain the importance of the work unless you actually do it.  Like when I tell friends about how it is such an honor to be in this space and how I need to be open and this moment can’t be duplicated, even if my client has five kids, so I need to be this open vessel as a doula and really hold space for them.

For sure.  1000% agree, and I think a part of this work and the value of a doula, too – I think sometimes we undervalue ourselves and the role we play because there’s so much conversation about how we’re not medical providers.  We can’t act as a midwife.  We can’t do those things.  Those roles are very much important, for sure.  And I think there’s something so special about the role we do hold as a doula because there’s something about it that is very holistic and, in a way, spiritual.  And not in a sense of religious.  Obviously, I’ve had clients that have been a different religion, whatever it looks like, but more so in the sense of spiritual as far as, like, wholeness.  I think that we all are people and we all have these experiences and we all have our fears; we all have our trauma, our this, our that.  I feel like as a doula we hold that and say to the person, it’s okay that you are existing in all of this.  Something about that is healing as well as just spiritual in nature.

Yes.  And it’s a rite of passage, so again, whether it’s baby one or baby six, it is still this major life occurrence that, in many cultures, is treated with reverence and celebrated, and it’s not just a medical occurrence.

Exactly.  And I think that when you’re standing there too – I think my gift, as I’ve found myself as a person and as a doula, because there’s a difference, I think – the more that we find ourselves and the more that we work on ourselves, the more that we do our personal work, the better we show up as doulas, and the better we understand how our doula approach works.  Because every doula is different, right?  What we focus on or what’s important to us or our approach, the way that we talk, the services that we provide – it’s just different.  And I think the more I worked on myself, understanding who I am, the more I’ve been able to show up for my clients in a way that is very transparent and also in a way that has more boundaries, even for my students.  I think a lot of times in this work enmeshment is something that can happen so quickly.  It’s so easy to feel like me and this person are one and the same because you’ve had similar experiences.  A lot of us come into this work because we’ve had a child, right, or because we’ve had some type of reproductive health experience that made us realize, oh, this system is not what it should be.  So we come into it, and then there’s this enmeshment and also this level of looking for healing in the work, which I don’t think that is bad to find a healing experience within the work, but when we make that our whole main reason for being here, sometimes that can transfer for enmeshment in spaces that we don’t want that to actually be happen.

Yes, 1000% yes, Sabia.  I feel like doulas get into the work either based on a positive experience in birth and postpartum or a negative, and like you said, trying to heal trauma, trying to live out a better experience.  In one of my doula trainings, I learned that we are not accountable for our clients’ birth or postpartum experience, and it’s not – I’m there to hold space and to support without judgment, but my role is not to fight the system or reduce interventions or if they want an unmedicated birth, to help them achieve that.  There’s so much out of our control and out of our clients’ control.  So if I go in with that act of service and without trying to keep perfect stats and save the world, then I end up being able to support in a more holistic way.

For sure.  And I think too, naturally for me, I am definitely an anxiety girly.  In my anxiety, understanding that my anxiety comes from different spaces.  It comes from myself being someone who’s been in the medical space.  I just had a hysterectomy, but that’s three abdominal uterine surgeries later, right?  And I think there’s a part of us when we get into this work – there’s a part of us that we understand there’s a need for this work, so that’s very clear.  The other part is that this work can be very triggering, for lack of better words.  It can be very intense, and I think in that, all of us have anxiety because we all have really seen things.  It’s one thing to have anxiety over an idea.  Like, oh, maybe birth doesn’t go right or the experience is not good, but when you’re a doula, you’re literally in that space with people seeing things not go right.  You’re seeing things in real time not be the way or you’re seeing outcomes, and not necessarily – when I say outcomes I don’t mean necessarily death as an outcome, right?  Like, we obviously don’t want that.  But the outcomes that we see are people who are like, I feel unsettled.  I feel unsafe.  This birth or this procedure didn’t go the way that I wanted it to.  I’m having a lot of feelings about whatever.  We see that all the time, and honestly, I think all of us, in my mind, we all build up certain anxieties and certain stress and certain trauma, like secondary trauma, and then that sometimes comes off as, now I’m trying to control the outcome of every client that I work with.

Right, and we can’t do that.

We can’t!  Sometimes I think in that not being able to do that, it sometimes looks like simply – and I think there’s two kinds of ways that it shows up.  Sometimes it’s like I’m literally trying to educate you, and you’re active in education, and then we’re in the birth room and things are going chaotic, and I’m feeling like it’s my personal failure that it’s not going the right way, even though I’ve done everything I can do.  And then there’s also the second part, which I think a lot of people don’t talk about often.  When you have a client that you adore but they’re just not listening.  They’re not listening, and you’re just kind of like, why are you not listening to me?  And then I feel like, I want to control this.  Listen to me.  Listen to me.  But we have to understand that people are on their own path and they do what they want to do and they do what they know how to do.  In that instance, if they’re not listening when we’re in the birth room, we try to direct or give as much as we can, but again, the outcome is not in our control.

And that’s very freeing.  When I was a new doula, I kept the stats.  I felt like a failure.  There was so much weight on my shoulders, and when I was able to release that, I was able to be a much more effective doula and hold the space that was needed without that anxiety that comes with helping your client to make what you feel is the best choice for them.  But it’s their choice.  It’s their birth.

And it’s like, how do we hold ourselves, right?  Obviously, this work is about holding people, and that’s great, but also, like, how do we hold ourselves?  How do we as doulas, as care providers, as birth workers of any sort, how do we fit a team that holds us?  Because you really can’t – I wouldn’t suggest doing this work in this one-sided manner where, like, oh, I hold everyone.  As a superhero personality type like me, that’s not it.  At some point, the walls fall down because you’re like, but who was holding me?

Yeah.  And that’s why we encourage therapy and support groups for our clients, but I feel like doulas and birth workers, birth keepers, need it just as much.  I know if I experience secondary trauma or loss, I am talking to my therapist and also my team of doulas are certainly there as a resource and we’re able to help each other process situations that are challenging.

For sure.  And I think, too, for me, I have realized, especially even beyond my – you know, you have your doula pals.  And your doula pals, they’re going to understand what you’re going to.  They understand the things, and you’re like, oh, my gosh, thank you, I don’t have to explain this.  But I think one of the things that is important to do is kind of require the people in your life, your partners, your families, whoever your family includes – also require them to learn how to hold space, as well.  Because sometimes as a doula, you’re like I can go to my doula friends, but what if they’re not around?  Can your partner hold space for you?  Not that they have to understand every piece of what happened, but I think that we have to also as doulas – and I think that’s a hard thing for doulas to require people to hold space for them because we are the space holders.

Exactly.  It’s hard to ask for help, and especially for the helping personalities, they want to serve, and it’s hard for them to ask for a listening ear or a hug.  I find that especially with the postpartum doulas on my team, so many of them serve and then get depleted and then get so burnt out that they need to take a break or might have health issues.  It’s a matter of slowing down, finding some form of self-care that works for you, and just like with the advice we give our clients and the resources – take them ourselves!

For sure.  And I think, too, when we say that, finding something that works for you – so currently, I’ve almost finished my training as a spiritual director.  And basically, spiritual direction is – you could even call it the spiritual doula in some realms because it’s really like sitting with you in spirit.  There’s no end goal.  With coaching, let’s say you have a business coach.  The end goal is, let’s say, increase revenue by 10% by the end of the year.  But with spiritual direction, there is no goal.  It’s more so for me to sit with you while you’re figuring out things or whatever that looks like for you.

It’s so beautiful.

And I love it.  I’m definitely being more open about it.  Spirituality – I’ve always practiced or I’ve always existed this way in my close circle, but I haven’t existed this way more publicly.  But I think the reason why I love spiritual direction is that when I’m talking with my different clients – and some of them are doulas.  A lot of them are doulas, to be honest.  We talk about, like, okay, well, what does spirituality mean to you?  And I think, one, we always have to go over the difference between religion versus spirituality.  But for me, I’m always like, spirituality starts with yourself, right?  And I think a lot of us, just traditionally, by the different traditions and religions, we talk about everything starting externally.  You have to go to church to be spiritual.  You have to do this to be spiritual.  It’s always these external things.  But I think spirituality for me, it starts with you.  What do you put in your body?  Not what do you put in your body like don’t eat sugar.  More so, what nourishes you?  What gives you energy?  What life force are you putting into your body that helps you?  Whether it’s drinking tea, whether it’s drinking water, and whether it’s drinking a glass of wine.  It’s whatever is personalized to you.  And then also thinking about – if we’re thinking about food, what energy?  What people am I absorbing?  What do my surroundings look like?  A lot of times, that’s nature.  If you go to my house, my house has 30 houseplants.  And it’s not just because I love plants, although I do love plants.  But when I look at my plants, if they’re in bad shape, I know that I’m not taking care of myself because part of my self-care for myself is keeping my plants in good shape.  I think for doulas and care workers in general, if we were to have a better relationship with ourselves and maybe see ourselves the way we look at our clients, to see them as these sacred bodies – like this is a sacred situation.  They are a vessel of light, of whatever.  And we don’t look at ourselves the same way.  I just want to do more work around that to change that because we need to see ourselves as those vessels, like vessels of light, the same way that we see our clients as those vessels.

That gave me chills.  Very moving.  No, I hadn’t thought of our work in that way.

I think about all these things.  Like, we could be here for three hours.  I know we’re not going to be here for three hours.  To know me is to know that this is how I am, right?  But I think I’m being more publicly out there with this part of myself.

Please do!  We need more of this!  But it’s hard to be vulnerable, especially as a thought leader, if you’re known in certain categories, to break into yet another.  But I don’t feel like this is a topic that is talked about enough, especially when it comes to birth workers and those that care for newborns and the importance of the work where we don’t have the village that helps in the first 30 to 40 days, depending on the culture.  Women are feeling very isolated.  It is a time that the caregivers need to fill their own cups and put their own mask as, as you say.

Exactly.  But what does that actually look like?  And I find that in my personal experience, I do see people in different communities I’m a part of who aim to create spaces of care for birth workers, and we don’t show up.  And I find it so interesting.  Not saying that these topics aren’t important, but for example, when we’re talking about more of the harder, traumatic parts of being a birth worker, people show up in numbers.  And I want that – and I want people to show up in spaces of care for themselves, right?  To me, I find that to be so alarming because yes, we are going to talk about trauma and all that naturally in the birth world because especially the way that we do birth work, right, it’s about systems and people and all that.  But I see people, and it’s like, oh, here’s this kind of event.  Here’s this, here’s that.  And they don’t show up.  And I also have this feeling of like our work has become so trauma-centered that we’re forgetting about the joy and the thriving and the beauty and the care and the community aspects that will actually keep us going.

Right.  And it’s so essential.  If you don’t have that community of support – that’s why I feel like when I was a solo doula, it was so isolating.  Even if I had my doula friends in the agency that I created, there is that sense of community, and we support each other and we do continuing education.  In fact, a couple of years ago, you did a training for my entire doula team on really focusing on trauma and equity and just understanding a lot of the diversity, equity, inclusion, and how that relates to their work, both as birth doulas, as educators, as postpartum doulas.  But I am very intrigued by talking with and having our doulas have a training with you on spirituality and how they can really get to that next level so we don’t have the burnout in our industry that we’re known for three years and then you’re done.  I’ve been doing this work coming on 11 years, and I’m one of the rare ones in my community that have stuck with it.

Listen, it’s not easy, and I think, too, one of the things I hope for the doula world specifically is, obviously, that we do more care for ourselves and understanding what that looks like for ourselves.   And understand that it’s going to look different.  It looks different for everybody.  What fills me may not fill you, and it’s okay to have those differences.  What fills you might be a specific religion.  That’s also fine, right?  But I also hope that we are able to start healing our money trauma.  That’s the second thing.  I feel like people have this feeling of, if I’m giving to my community, it can’t be for any type of financial gift or financial return.  Building a budget for some people or building or asking for a certain amount of money for their time – it doesn’t feel good.  So I really hope that we can help people to move that.  And I think the other thing that I would love to see is the expansion of doulas seeing themselves as – how do I say this?  I guess what I’m trying to say is, there’s nothing wrong with, obviously, being a doula, being very happy in your practice, doing one on one clients, whatever.  But I think there’s so many different types of business models that can exist for doulas.  And I think a lot of us feel the weight of, like, we don’t have college degrees, some of us.  Like I don’t have a college degree.  Our work is not seen as this valuable thing, so people seem to limit themselves and what their business can look like.  And I’m like, oh, my gosh, it can look like so much more because you have these natural talents, these natural gifts, and these ideas; how do we bring it to life?  That’s something I would love to see more in the doula world.

Yes, absolutely.  And women doing women’s work.  I feel like a big project for me was trying to get doulas to be respected in the business community, so I joined the chamber and got on some policy committees and became a B Corp to try to get the respect that I was used to getting in the corporate and political world, and that was my own agenda, but I do feel like doulas tend to undervalue and undercharge, and that is one of the many reasons they leave the work.

Yeah.  And then it’s like when we look at the world that we’re in, right, where there’s all this monetization of doula work, right, whether it’s looking like the Medicaid process – but yeah, I think when it comes to doulas, right now we’re in this very sensitive time where I know a few years ago, when I started being a doula, even in 2015, people were like, doula what?  And even now, I still get that reaction to some degree, but I think there is more awareness of us, especially because of COVID, I think.  With COVID, it was like, oh, we need doulas because we’re getting into the hospitals; we don’t know what’s going on.  It was chaotic for all of us.  So I think to a certain degree, it’s a blessing that we’re known more, right, because then we also see different opportunities.  Here’s the thing.  I feel like there’s benefits to Medicaid, and there’s not benefits to Medicaid, and then there’s benefits to, like, hospital programs, and there’s not benefits to hospital programs.  But the major point that we’re at – we are something that people are seeing as valuable enough to want to recreate or want to collaborate with or want to partner with or want to reimburse.  The social capital and relationship capital when your hospital says, we have a doula program, right?  We’re not going to say if that doula program may be good or not good, but there’s also health insurance plans who are like, we want to reimburse or we want to whatever.  To me, that’s telling me that there is an understanding of our value, that we’re not just this thing.  We’re not just like, oh, this is cute.  No, these hospital systems, these major corporations, these things are like – even colleges are like, how do we get doulas in here because that’s what’s being desired, and that’s something that will bring value to us.  But I’m saying that all to say that doulas are seeing that and not even equating that their value is higher than what they think it is.  Does that make sense?  If hospitals and these people, whoever, want to have doulas as a part of it, it’s because there is a value there, whether we’re saving money, saving lives, doing whatever.  And so it bothers me when doulas who are actually doing this work don’t see themselves as valuable when these systems are saying, there’s value.  Literally, it’s why we want to have you here.

Right.  And depending on the state, the Medicaid reimbursement rates may not be high enough.

Now, they may not respect your value.  They might not respect your value, but they’re putting you there for a reason.

Yes, and certainly reducing intervention, increasing patient satisfaction.  There are so many studies on the benefits and advantages of doulas, and I am thankful, as you mentioned, for the awareness of the birth doula role.  I think we are a long way off from the general public understanding what a postpartum doula is or a newborn care specialist and how an NCS would replace that night nanny or night nurse.  And they’re becoming a credentialed industry of their own with postpartum doulas caring for the entire family and their client during the recovery process after the birth and supporting feeding and all of that.  I’ve been trying to get as many opportunities to educate on that role because, as you mentioned, especially with the pandemic, birth doulas are becoming much more known, but I still feel like that postnatal phase is an area where our clients are getting neglected.  With perinatal mood disorders and a lot of medical concerns that can happen after the birth and before that six week visit – it’s very concerning.

I mean, I wish that people had more understanding, especially of that six week period of how much goes wrong.  I mean, obviously, there can be severe cases where people are dying from infection within those six weeks.  People are dying from complications.  They’re dying from postpartum eclampsia.  Those kind of things, too, are very severe cases.  But when I say, like, what can go wrong, I’m even talking about, like, a parent’s decision to not continue with nursing because no one’s there.

Right.  There’s no support.

That’s the stuff that’s going wrong.  Or someone, you know, had the beginnings of a postpartum mood disorder starting to be present, but no one’s there.  I’m not talking about the biggest catastrophes that we see on the news, like people going into psychosis and harming their children.  Everyone sees that.  But there are so many other things that happen in that time that, if a doula is not present – not that families are present, but everyone has to go to work.  We just live in this capitalist society where your aunt, your grandmother, whatever, they’re still going to work.  And even the things that go wrong, it’s like a partner being able to connect with their partner because there’s no one there to provide the support that they need to reconnect.  And now that is felt through the next year or two, whatever the case may be, to maybe possibly a divorce.  Those are the things that, especially in postpartum work, I feel like a lot of my postpartum work – yeah, obviously, helping take care of the baby and the parent, but a lot of it was saving marriages.

I am 100% on board with that.  I feel like we can save marriages.  They can get time to communicate.  They feel like their needs are being met, especially when the partner is, as you mentioned, going back to work very quickly, so they are both tired and stressed.  It’s hard, often, for our clients to ask for help if they’re home and their partner is back at work.  I know when my husband went right back to work the day after I had my daughter, he would come home, and all I would want to do is talk to him.  I needed adult interaction, and he just wanted to relax.  I was like, here’s the baby.  I want to talk.  And he needed some time.  And if I had a postpartum doula – which they weren’t really a thing then.  My daughter is now 13.  In my community, there were very few of them, and they weren’t really promoted.  I could have used someone to help care for me and talk to me when I’m dealing with feeding issues, which I did get support from lactation on, and having a baby coming home from the NICU and all the overwhelm that comes with that. 

For sure.  It’s quite busy.  And I think doulas, sometimes you come into this work, you’re like, okay, I’m going to have a birth client, whatever.  We’re going to work together for six months to a year, whatever that looks like.  And then we’re going to have some type of relationship.  But I think also the role of doulas of any form is you find out that you’re sometimes a lifetime buddy.  You know, now you’re helping them make the decision or helping them to think through the decision, do they even want to have more kids?  Right?  Or they’re pregnant and they didn’t expect it and they feel a way about it.  They’re like, I’m not exactly happy, right?

So many things.

I think back to that, and I’m like, who else would they have talked to?

Yeah, because, I mean, sometimes, some of these topics can’t be openly discussed with friends or family members, and everyone has their own idea of how things should be done.  And it’s often well-meaning advice, but to have someone who is a non-medical expert in the home to be able to run things by and have that emotional support as well as the resources.  It’s so helpful.

I think I love that part – I’m not that old, but in my life path, where I’m at now, I really love holding space for those conversations.  I love holding space for the people who’ve had kids and they’re like, never again.  Or who are like, I want to have ten more, but how can I do that, because there’s this social pressure that says that I shouldn’t do that.  Because if you don’t have a certain amount of money and you want to have five kids, people judge you for wanting to have five kids and not being super well off.  I love having those kind of conversations that require a lot of nuance and require a lot of depth, I guess, and just sitting with people and being like, well, what do you think today?

I love it, too.  A topic that comes up at that six week appointment is contraception and family planning.  So you do have to really sort some of that out.  There is a lot of judgment on the one-and-done families of not wanting to add on, and also, as you had mentioned, the larger families.  So dealing with some of that when you have a doula there to talk through, whether you want to be finished with your family, or you would like to plan for another, but how do you budget that?  How do you work that out if you are working career-wise because, as you know, women get set back for each time they have kids.  Advancements, promotions.  It’s getting better as far as maternity packages and mentoring for women in business, but we’re not there yet.  There’s so much work to be done.

There’s so much work to be done, and I think one of the things that we do as doulas is basically to say, like, you’re damned if you do; you’re damned if you don’t, so what are you going to do?  What do you just want to do, because we can talk about the pros and cons of things for your personal health, your personal whatever, but I think specifically when we’re talking about women, specifically, it’s just kind of like – I think we hold space, and I think this is kind of the spiritual part of it, like we hold space for, what do you want to do?  What does that mean for you in your life?  Is that in alignment with you?  How do you work through your fear of rejection?  How do we work through this thing because as doulas, I feel like we want people to live whole, happy lives.  That’s the place that we hold.

Yes.  And feel like they made the best decision for them in that moment.  Again, my goal as a doula, similar to yours – I don’t want to be the influencer or be someone who wants someone to give birth or parent the way I did or feed my children the way I did.  There are so few people like doulas in that we don’t have an agenda.  Even providers sometimes have an agenda.

Oh, yeah, for sure, 1000%.  And I think to be fair, you know, not every doula is going to have the same approach or the same vibe.  I think being a doula or being a midwife or being whatever doesn’t make you obsolete from harm, but I think that part of the work that you’re doing, part of the work that I’m doing is also creating more understanding of, ideally, what a doula would be doing for you.  Ideally, they wouldn’t have an agenda.  Ideally, they would be listening to you and what choices you want and giving you unbiased information on what those things can lead to or pros and cons and so on and so forth.  And sometimes you don’t come across that.  Sometimes you come across someone who’s harmful.  But I think the work around that, whether it’s writing or podcasting or any type of media – it’s to put the message out there more so that when a birthing person comes in contact with a doula, they know what they’re looking for.  They know what they’re not looking for.

Exactly, yes.  So we are running out of time, Sabia, but I would love for you to share some of the top tips from your book.  Let us know how to purchase that and how to connect with you in all of the different social media channels and your website.  You’re everywhere!

I would say my biggest thing, and I talk about it a lot in the book, is that everything starts with you.  So if you have a goal of wanting to be a doula, or if you are a doula, it still centers you.  What is your well-being?  What traumas are at the surface?  What work are you doing for yourself?  What do you put in your body?  What are you listening to?  What are you reading?  All of it starts with us, just as much as we push that our clients are these vessels, we are also these vessels, and having that mutual respect for our clients and wanting to show up for our clients in the ways of showing up for ourselves.  That makes us even better doulas and people in general, actually.  So I would say that.  And then Birthing Liberation, my book, can be found anywhere.  I have no preference on where people buy it.  As far as finding me, I’m most available and most social on Instagram.  So @sabiawade.  I’m in other places, too.  Of course, my website is always the best way to see what’s going on or reach out to me for different things.

I know you’ve got book links there.  You’re on Amazon.  You’re in some bookstores.

I know some people are not purchasing from Amazon, which I obviously understand, so please feel free to buy or purchase wherever.  And also, just a reminder that the book is available in audio version, because accessibility is important.  So that’s always available for folks who would like to utilize that option.

Thank you so much for the important work you’re doing!  I hope that, again, this focus on spirituality – and I know you’re torn in so many directions, but please keep getting that message out, and let me know what I can do to support you, Sabia.

Thank you!

We will plan to keep our conversations going.  You’re always one of my favorite guests.

Thank you!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Sabia Wade

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Mariela De Santiago discuss how preparation during pregnancy can impact your postnatal recovery phase.  Mariela hosts the New Mom Podcast and is the founder of the Carlsbad Mom Crew.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Mariela De Santiago today.  Mariela is the host of the New Mom Talk Podcast, and she is also the founder of the Carlsbad Mom Crew.  Welcome, Mariela!

Hello!  Thank you so much for having me!  I’m excited to be here!

I can’t wait to dive into our topic, which is the importance of preparing for postpartum during pregnancy versus waiting until after you have your baby.

I love this topic.

Before we get into it, I would love to hear more about your journey as a mom and how you got into podcasting and supporting moms with your Carlsbad Mom Crew.

Yes, so it all started with me being a first time mom, which I think many of us can relate to.  I realized I had a ton of questions and found myself on Google when I should have been napping.  You know how they tell you to nap when the baby naps.  I could not do that.  I was on Google, everything from why do my boobs hurt; oh, my gosh, that’s a clogged duct.  How many diapers should my baby be going through?  What’s the difference between cloth and disposable diapers?  You name it, anything and everything.  And I thought to myself, why isn’t there a podcast that just brings experts on to answer these commonly Googled topics?  So I created it, and then out of that, I took over what was originally Carlsbad Moms and I’ve had that for just over a year.  I’ve since then rebranded, built it up to what it is today, expanded to now have Sandiego Mom Crew, and that came out of that desire of wanting to connect with other moms that were also in the same place as I was, being a first time mom, being new to the area, not knowing other moms, wanting to just connect and have meet-ups at, like, a park.  Just being able to invite a friend and say, hey, do you want to go do tummy time underneath a tree in the shade?  It’s just so hard when you’re a first time mom, and if you’re the first one out of your mom friends, things change and you need to build new relationships.

Exactly.  I had kids later in life, so most of my circle of friends had advice that wasn’t relevant.  So many changes, as far as feeding and baby gear and even safe sleep has some changes.  So their advice was helpful, but I learned that hiring experts is the way to go.

Yes.  Well, I feel like also just the science has evolved.  What’s accessible to us, things that you hear – I mean, I will say that I did not know the difference between a doula and a midwife until I started my podcast.  I also did not know what pelvic floor physical therapy was until I started my podcast.  That was eight months after I had a baby.  Isn’t that crazy?

It’s so common.  That is the biggest misconception is that we are actually midwives and catch babies, and people are so confused about the non-medical doula role and the role of a homebirth midwife.

Yes.  So I just wanted to be able to educate moms and provide the answers in short little snippets.  With that came my love and passion for the whole postpartum stage, which again, I didn’t realize until I was in it.

And with the Mom Crew, again, you’re getting women who may feel very isolated, whether it’s baby one or baby four, and it becomes this overwhelming time where people may bring you a meal, and it’s all about the baby after birth, but then the mother feels left out of it and has emotions they want to process.  Being with other moms who are going through the same thing at the same time – and you talked about going to classes together or meeting in a park – can be so beneficial.

Yes.  Yeah.  I mean, you’re discovering who you are as a new person.  You’re all a sudden in charge of another human.  You’re sleep deprived.  Your body is so different.  Being able to find the connections or the support that you need for yourself is so important.

Exactly.  And I know that your podcast is all about interviewing experts in the birth and baby space, similar to mine, but you learned a bit about doulas; again, the role for a doula versus a midwife.  You mentioned pelvic floor therapists.  What other experts do you feel are important to know about during pregnancy to plan for the postnatal phase?

The differences between the doulas, so being able to research or determine, do you want both a birth doula or a postpartum doula?  You can have both.  What would serve you best?  Meeting with pelvic floor physical therapists to help you during that prenatal phase.  Obviously, check with your doctor before, but finding a workout to help you during this stage.  For me, that was yoga.  So there are plenty of prenatal yoga classes that really help you with the stretching and relieving some of the discomforts.  I think that’s so important because you’re moving slower, but you probably still want to move and get stretched out and do some sort of a workout.  So for me, prenatal yoga was very important.  I already had been working out prior.  I know that some of the recommendations change depending on whether you have worked out prior to being pregnant or not.  That’s very personal.

Find a sleep consultant if you think you might need one.  I know that this is kind of a hot topic.  I am all for, you do what’s best for you.  If you think that a sleep consultant is going to serve you, then do that.  If you don’t need one or don’t think you’re going to need one, then maybe just hold onto a contact for later on and you can start to interview.

And sleep consulting gets a bit of a bad rap.  We have four sleep consultants on our team.  I think there’s a difference between sleep training and, say, the cry it out method, and a customized plan that is based on your family’s needs and goals that a sleep consultant would walk you through and support you by text and phone and sometimes in person to implement even very gentle strategies.  It doesn’t have to be letting your baby cry, closing the door to the nursery, and feeling like you’re abandoning your baby.

Yeah.  And we did sleep training.  We did the Ferber method when my son was probably five months old or so, and it worked.  That was fine for us.  We didn’t need anything too crazy or too intense.  We didn’t just let him cry uncontrollably.  But after two days, it was great.  Now, that doesn’t work for everyone, and that’s okay.

Exactly.  And you waited.  Some people want to start sleep consulting or training very early, and we don’t recommend doing it until at least 12 weeks, so you waiting until that five month point in time is very helpful.

Yeah, and I felt like I knew him pretty well.  He had already been sleeping through the night.  We just went through a pretty intense four month sleep regression.  Those are rough.  And also, if you plan on breastfeeding or nursing, reach out to lactation consultants.  Have one that you can connect with if it is a support that you need later on.

Exactly.  Such great advice.  Taking a breastfeeding class or a pumping class, if the goal is to exclusively pump or understand your options when going back to work are fantastic and involving your partner or support person is even better so they can then support your feeding journey.

Yes, because it is a lot of work.  I nursed for nineteen months, and it was tough.

Yeah, that’s a commitment.  Good job!

Thanks!  He stopped taking a bottle at nine months, so at that point, I was home with him.  It was easier for me to just put him on the boob than having to pump and then do a bottle, so it was fine for us in our situation, but I know that can’t always be the case, especially if I was working, that wasn’t going to be realistic or possible.

Exactly.  And one thing I’m sure that you face, not only with your podcast guests but also in your mom crew, is childcare.  I mean, we’re in a childcare crisis.  Figuring out your plan on whether you use a center or an in-home licensed daycare or have a parent – many grandparents are taking on the childcare role.  So figuring that out as early in the pregnancy as possible is my recommendation there.

Yes, and determining the differences.  If you have a spare room in your house, maybe looking into an au pair might be a great alternative that ends up being a little bit more affordable.  But now that means that you have a room that’s occupied by an au pair.  So there’s a lot of options.  There’s now services that are more where moms support one another.  If you are needing more of just part-time or maybe a few times a week versus a full time childcare placement.  So there’s lots of options.  Also, it’s pretty pricy, right?

It is, certainly.  And it can essentially end up being most of your salary.  So again, if you’re looking at a center or an in-home daycare, it can be quite pricy.  Looking at the transportation and time involved.  Sometimes, as you mentioned, a nanny or an au pair is a good solution.  If you’re not interested in live-in, there are overnight postpartum doulas or newborn care specialists that can come in seven nights a week or just for a few nights or, as you mentioned earlier, helping during a sleep regression.

Yes.  And I would say definitely if you can, use those services because I can only imagine that transition going from you had a baby.  Let’s say you only get three months off.  Now all of a sudden, you’re going back to work, which is a different change of routine, and then you have a sleep regression, so now you’re even more sleep deprived.  Get those supports so that you can really do your best; it’s so essential.  And it shows strength, right?  Sometimes I feel like we tend to feel a little bit weak when we ask for help or support, but it really does show a lot more strength for you to be able to admit what your capacity is and what you can take on and what you need to give to others to help you.

100%.  And it can be uncomfortable communicating your needs to others and having those conversations.  Certain personality types want to help others and it’s hard for them to ask for help, so again, in prepping for that postpartum phase, having some conversations with family members or your partner about how they can best support you.

That’s super important.  Another thing that I didn’t mention was therapists.  Maybe have one in hand in case you do end up suffering from – whether it’s postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression.  You just want to have a contact, somebody that you either have referred to or that you met and you just had a great connection.  But I think it’s so much easier to have a list of contacts to reach out to than it is to search for that when you’re in the moment and you’re overwhelmed.

Exactly.  And if you have a doula, part of our role is to give trusted resources in the areas that we work, whether it’s a birth doula or a postpartum doula, so we certainly have trusted mental health therapists that specialize in perinatal mood disorders or sometimes there is a traumatic birth or other issues that could certainly use either a support group or one on one therapy.

Yeah, and I always tell my husband, if we have another one, I am 1000% getting a postpartum doula if we can.  Just the difference between having a doula that has those connections that can recommend different services to you, that knows proper care, somebody that – I mean, I always say this, and I know it probably doesn’t sound that great, but paid help versus having your mom or your in-law – somebody that is helping you with the baby, there’s a big difference.  I personally would feel a lot more comfortable telling a postpartum doula what I needed help with because I know I’m paying for that support, and I can always ask questions, such as, hey, can you take a look at my scar?  I’m feeling a little uncomfortable on this side of the C-section.  Those types of things were – you know that they see it all the time.  This is their specialty.  They’re constantly being educated in the newest and latest versus somebody that maybe had a baby five years ago or even three years ago.  There’s a big difference, right?

Yes.  Such a big difference, and if it’s a family member, sometimes there’s a bit of judgment, or they may want you to focus on sleep in a way that worked for them or even one of your other siblings, and having an expert that has the evidence-based information and is not there with any judgment, no agenda, can be very helpful.

Yes.  And also, they can advice you on the best meals or types of things to eat to help with the recovery process.  They can also just help you out with telling you what you need for recovery as far as, let’s say, the mesh underwear, or maybe more pads, whatever it is.  A lot easier to talk to an expert or a friend about that than it is to, I don’t know, let’s say, talk with your mom about that.

And if there’s anything that needs a referral, we can suggest calling your OB, calling the pediatrician.  We know what’s in the realm of normal and can encourage our clients to get additional support.

I love this topic, just because it’s something that I feel like we tend to not think about very much.  It’s more that we prepare for the baby.  We prepare for the nursery.  We prepare the registry.  And then all of a sudden, you have a baby, and your visits with your care provider really diminish.  You might have hair loss.  You are crying all the time.  All of a sudden, your body is swollen and different.  So we aren’t thinking about what is it that we might need during this stage, to just feel as close to human and the best person that you could be for yourself at this time while also caring for a new human.

It’s beautiful.  And certainly, I’ve seen a big trend in friends and family members gifting postpartum support or a housekeeper or a diaper service.  Different services that can make life easier versus buying that stroller or things that you might not even use until your baby is a year old and just sit around and clutter up your house.

Yes.  And we spend so much money on baby items that they’re going to use for a few short months.  One perfect example is a very expensive bassinet, like the one that rocks and is over $1000.

The Snoo, yes.

Yes.  And I had some people mention that.  I personally did not want to go that route because my thought was, that’s really expensive.  If I need it, then I’ll buy it, but I’d rather just go with the one that the Uppa Baby came with.  We did that.  My son was in the bassinet for two months because he did not like the bassinet, and I did not have to spend over $1000.  I could have used $1000 to go towards, let’s say, a postpartum doula or, yes, a housecleaner or some meal prepping service that would just drop off fully cooked meals and not just Door Dash.  There’s just a lot more that I could do with $1000 to actually help me out versus a bassinet.

Yes.  And then again as you’re setting up a baby registry, you don’t know what’s going to work.  Some babies don’t like a certain swaddle, and you think – you know, your friend had a great experience with it, or with a bassinet, as you mentioned.  And there are rental services with the Snoo and some higher end bassinets, but that’s still expensive.  Some babies don’t take to them.

I always say, keep that registry as minimal as possible, and then if you need it, get it, but don’t spend so much on something that you’re not sure if you’re going to need.  A stroller?  Yeah.  Highly recommend that you spend on a stroller that you love.  You’re going to need it.

Right.  A car seat, a crib.  I mean, there’s some basic things, whether you purchase them yourself or register for at a baby shower or a sprinkle.  That can be helpful.  But until you get into it, you don’t really know what your baby is going to need.  And some bottles might be great for your sister, but may not work for your own baby.

Yes, I’ve heard so many stories about that, and that’s tough.

Yes, because they can be pricy, and if you buy all the different nipple sizes and inserts and then it doesn’t work, then you either are cluttering up your house and you get frustrated and then you have to try something else, which may or may not work.

Yeah.  And another option, too – there’s a lot of milk freezer freeze dry services now, so that’s another great option for postpartum support.  You could have people give you money to go towards that, especially if you’re wanting to give your little one breast milk for a longer period and you have to go back to work.  Well, just get your milk freeze dried.  It’s expensive, but now that’s so much easier for you because you don’t have to worry about all of these milk bags potentially going bad, depending on who’s feeding your baby.  It’s a small powder form like formula.  That’s a great alternative.  I plan on doing that.

Great tip!  So what else are you thinking would be essential during pregnancy as far as preparing for a new baby?

Have a list of items that you want people to do when they come visit the baby.  So yes, people always want to come and visit and hold the baby, but you still can’t host, and you shouldn’t.  So I tell myself this: I will have a list of things, whether it’s like, hey, thank you so much for coming to meet my baby.  Can you just switch the laundry load for me and then you can hold my baby?  Can you unload the dishwasher?  Just have them do something for you because any little thing like that helps you so much when you’re recovering.  Like, you’re moving slow.  You really need as much support as you can get, and I don’t think anyone is going to say, oh, yeah, I’m not going to load your dishwasher.

Right.  And some people want to help, but they don’t know how to help.  Having a list of tasks helps so much.

Yeah.  And they can just pick out of that.

Some of my clients will put a little sheet on their fridge with a checklist of options that would be a great help, and then a family member or friend can check off the tasks that they completed.  Folding a load of laundry, for example, of newborn clothes or towels, or unloading the dishwasher or cutting up some snacks and refilling water.  Things that a postpartum doula would do.

Yeah, and they’re very simple tasks.  It doesn’t take very long.  That help goes so far.

Yes.  Or running a vacuum.  We’re not supposed to vacuum after giving birth.

Oh, wow.  I don’t think I knew that.  But I didn’t vacuum!

That’s good!  It’s just about lifting.  You’re supposed to reduce the number of times you go up and down stairs.  Again, a friend or family member could run downstairs if you’re in your room and bring something that you needed, so you’re reducing that.  And part of it is, if you’re too active, then that can cause more bleeding in recovery.  Your body will tell you, you need to slow down.

Other things that you can also add into this registry, which are all of these that we’ve already mentioned – I know some people want to have a birth photographer at their birth.  Maybe that’s something that you can have people give towards instead of that onesie, or a newborn photo shoot where you have a newborn photographer come to your home and catch those moments with your little one as opposed to you going to a studio and doing all of the little newborn things.  The newborn photo shoots are super cute, but we opted for doing the ones where they’re in our home, and it was so special because we didn’t have to go anywhere.  They catered to the baby’s schedule.  If you’re feeding, they take pictures of you just in the moment catching what your reality is at that point.

We did the same thing, and it’s documentary style, very lifestyle focused.  I love those.  I did some in studio, as well, but the ones at home are my favorites, for sure.

They are, and you can turn those into a book.  We did that.  That way, you have all of the pictures somewhere that you can actually see them instead of in a computer.

Excellent.  Yes, we have so much with digital photography.  It’s great, but to actually take the time to print doesn’t always happen.  For me, I need to catch up.  My kids, with all of their activities – to put a book together is something that is always low on my to-do list.

It takes a long time!

Yes!  Any other tips, Mariela?

Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway is, your body is really going to change.  It’s not going to come back right away.  You’re bloated for months.  So invest in quality clothes that are going to make you feel good and comfortable with where you are.  And accept that it’s going to change later on, but just really get things that make you feel good with the place that you’re in because I didn’t want to do that, and I always felt frumpy.  If I had just done that one thing, I feel like I would have felt a lot more put together.

I love it.  And you never know if someone’s going to pop over, so having some cute tops that are easy to breastfeed in or a nice PJ set – it does make a difference, and that soft material is a game changer for sure because you don’t want anything starchy or rough, especially with feeding.  You’re so tender during that time.

Yeah.  When you’re building this registry, really think about what you’re going to need after you have the baby, and ask for it.  I think we’re in a place now where we are so willing to support each other and say, oh, I love that this person is asking for these nursing bras, or that beautiful shirt for themselves; I will get that!

Yes.  And there are some great postpartum subscription boxes that have items that are geared not only toward baby, but also for the mother and self-care and some clothing and nursing bras.  I love that trend.

Yes.  I just really hope that all moms out there think about themselves.  It’s so hard to do, especially with your first one, but make sure that you don’t leaver yourself out, because this is your time, your moment of transitioning, discovering who you are.  So make it what you want it to be.

We don’t get a do-over of this postpartum phase or birth, so I agree, preparation makes a huge difference!  So how can our listeners connect with you, Mariela?

The easiest way is to go to my website, newmomtalk.com.  On there, you can find my podcast and Instagram page.  If you’re in the San Diego area, you can find me on Instagram @carlsbadmomcrew or @sandiegomomcrew.  I would love to connect.  Please be sure to tune in and sign up for my newsletter.  If you have a topic in mind, please reach out.  I love hearing from moms and supporting moms.  It’s something that I’m very passionate about, after having one!

I can tell!  Thank you for all of your work in supporting moms in the San Diego area.  Your podcast has such an incredible reach and is certainly educating moms everywhere.  I appreciate the work you’re doing, and I would love to talk to you again, Mariela!

Thank you for having me!

IMPORTANT LINKS

New Mom Talk

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Emily Cleghorn shares her personal story of overcoming trauma and discusses the importance of support during motherhood on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  She also discusses navigating triggers and tantrums as you heal your childhood trauma in the midst of early parenting.  Emily is the founder of Mindful Soul Wellness.

Hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Emily Cleghorn today.  Emily is an award-winning trauma recovery coach, author, podcaster, and inspirational speaker on a mission to support trauma surviving mamas to navigate triggers and tantrums as they heal their childhood trauma in the midst of parenting.  Passionate about creating positive ripples for generations to come, Emily shares her powerful story of overcoming the veil of her own trauma placed over her life to inspire audiences and readers that they too can achieve peace and healing.

Emily owns Mended Soul Wellness.  She is, again, a holistic trauma recovery coach. 

Welcome, Emily!

Thank you for having me!  I’m excited to be here.

Yes, I’m excited to get into a very sensitive topic of addressing past trauma and going into parenting, whether it’s baby number one or baby number four.  We’d love to have you share not only your personal story and how it led you to this particular career choice, but also tips that you might have for our listeners.

Yes!  I became a mama in 2018, and leading up to that, I struggled with infertility for a bit.  It wasn’t until I took my health journey into my own hands that I learned that infertility was being caused by my stress response, which was a result of my trauma.  So trauma can impact your life deeply.

When I was able to successfully carry a child to term and became a mama, I was completely unaware of how my childhood would impact my life as a mother.  And I wasn’t very far postpartum – I wasn’t very far into the journey when it was like what I call the trauma freight train side railed me, and it was all of my repressed emotions, everything that I had pushed down over the years of my childhood growing up demanding to be dealt with, demanding to have some attention given to them.  So my daughter was born.  She was the spitting image of me as an infant, which is really cute, in my biased opinion, but also really triggering.

I struggled at the beginning of my motherhood journey to discern where the boundaries were with regards to where I started and stopped and where my biological mom stopped and I started and then where I stopped and my daughter started.  And my stress response was on high alert.  Get the heck out of here, because it’s not safe.  It took me a really long time to understand that my mother of a mother wound was the obstacle that was preventing me from enjoying the transition.  It’s a huge life change.

It sure is, yes.

And if you’ve got a mother wound, it can play a huge part into your transition into motherhood.  So it took me a long time to come to terms with that.  That’s a bit of my journey.

It’s hard to even realize that we’re repeating patterns from our own childhood when you’re really trying to focus on conscious parenting and being mindful, but some things just show up as patterns, and we don’t even know that it’s happening until, say, a partner or a husband brings it up.

Yeah.  What I learned very quickly is that I needed to work on my nervous system because if my nervous system, my stress response, was preventing me from establishing a healthy pregnancy, then it showed up again in postpartum with my stress response being on high alert and my flight or fight response kicking in.  Then any stimulus from a baby crying, a busy household, which happens when you have two kids and they enter the toddler phase – they’re busy all of the time, and kids scream and cry.  That’s just how they communicate, right?  But my nervous system couldn’t handle it because I was on the edge so far for so long.

That makes sense.  So you saw that you needed to get help?  Obviously, your adrenals and the hormone changes after giving birth – there’s so much fluctuation as it is, and a lot of people don’t even recognize that they need certain minerals, they need to focus on their diet, and seeking help if the cortisol levels are elevated, as you mentioned.

Yes.  I developed a lot of mindfulness strategies, but one of the biggest tools that I utilized during that time was community because so often as a new mama, whether it’s baby number one or baby number four or baby number seven – however many babies you have, those early weeks and months of motherhood can feel so lonely, especially if you are a trauma-surviving mama and you are dealing with the trauma and maybe you don’t have your mom in your life anymore.  Maybe there’s estrangement or something like that going on.  That can amplify the feelings of isolation.  So finding a community for me was huge, of other mamas, mature mamas who have been there and done that.  They know what is going on, and they have space for compassion and to sit and listen and just hold space.

So important, and as doulas, yes, just being there and open to allow conversation to begin rather than forcing conversation is so important.

Yeah.  It’s huge.

So what was the community that you found?  Was it, say, a mom group that you connected with virtually that had in-person meet-ups, or did you intentionally reach out to friends who were also mothers?  I’m curious about what worked for you.  This may help our listeners and doula clients find their own community.

I sought out a community of like-minded mamas.  For me, I am very holistic minded, natural remedies and stuff.  I was looking for mamas who were older than I was.  They had kids that were older than my daughter, so they had a bit more experience than me.  I was looking for that mother-type figure that I was missing.  I sought out a community of more mature – maybe they were a little bit older than me – mamas who were like-minded, who were healing focused, because when you are healing trauma, it’s so easy to find a community that is willing to commiserate with you, but that’s not helpful in healing.  So I was looking for people who were like-minded, healing focused, that could help me out, give me the support that I needed when I couldn’t support myself.

Beautiful.  I love it.  Very helpful to, again, focus on finding common ground, like-minded moms, not just any mom who had a baby within the last two months.  I know at support groups, you might connect with one or two and then maybe include them in a separate meet-up, but I found before I became a doula with my first and second children, from my childbirth class, I had meet-ups with fellow students in my class after we had our babies and we went on adventures together with our kids.  That gave me a sense of community and people in the same stage of life.  I had kids later in life, but what you’re talking about a whole different level beyond that, of really creating a community where kids can grow up together, if you have the same values and focus, and as you mentioned, your lifestyle is very similar. 

So how did you get into coaching?  I see how intentional you were about focusing on mindfulness and parenting, but what led you to want to help other moms, other than the community you created of moms?

So when I was a little girl, I remember – I think I was, like, six or seven years old, and I remember walking across a parking lot.  I was going to a child psychologist appointment, and I remember thinking, someday I want to help kids like me.  And in the midst of growing up and all of that, that dream was still there, but I didn’t know what it was going to look like.

So when I was in my postpartum days with my daughter – those days were quite dark for me, very heavy.  And I knew that I am not special enough to be the only one dealing with the heavy emotions of childhood trauma while also trying to raise a child and be the mama that she deserves.  And so I started searching for ways that I could help kids like me, now mamas, and I embarked on a dual certification process to become a health and life coach.  My passion is in helping mama who are navigating their triggers because nobody tells us that mamahood can be triggering if you’ve got junk in your past.  So that is my passion because I firmly believe that our children are gifts, and they were not given to us to inherit our junk.  Healing is a huge part of not giving them our junk.

Exactly.  What would be the difference in seeing a therapist, as you had mentioned you had, and having coaching?  Would that be something that would be done in tandem, or maybe after therapy sessions have ended and it’s time to move forward, if someone doesn’t have the continuous therapy throughout their life?

It can be done in tandem.  It can be done side by side.  However, the difference is, your therapist is interested in digging down deep into the roots and helping you work through the trauma.  Okay?  My role is not to dig down to the roots.  My job is to focus on the now, and I do a process of compassionate inquiry to see how the events of the past are affecting your now.  I’m focused on helping you improve now.  So a therapist digs down to the roots, and I focus on the right now, how it’s impacting your life right now.

Very helpful.  And when you mentioned trauma, for our listeners, there are obviously different levels and types of trauma.  As a birth doula, I support clients who may have had a traumatic birth or a prior loss or a loss during the pregnancy while I’ve been supporting them.  Those are things related to motherhood, but there could be past trauma if, say, a sibling had died.  Would you consider parents divorcing in childhood a trauma?  What would be a typical client that you would work with as a trauma recovery coach?

First of all, trauma is not the event.  It’s what you make it mean about you.  So I could be working with a mama who had their parents divorce and it was messy and there’s some trauma around that with regards to relationships.  It could be a mama like me who has been abandoned by her mother or is estranged from her mother and is worried about how that is impacting her ability to be a mother to her children.  With all of these events, we internalize them to mean different things about us, how we interpret them into our story and what we perceive that they mean about us.

And certainly I would think that medical traumas – again, as a birth doula, like past histories of surgery or fear of the hospital – there can be some of those concerns going into another pregnancy or again, having loss.  So it sounds like as long as someone is continuously navigating something – if someone had PTSD from a traumatic birth, a therapist would be the first step, and then if it was lingering, then working with a recovery coach in tandem to help through the day to day and address the issue and try to come up with some action steps to, again, focus on being the best parent that they can while healing themselves, which is challenging, because you’re caregiving for one or multiple kids and then trying to take care of yourself postnatal.

Oh, yeah.  Because so often, we feel like because we have our children, that we no longer matter or that we come last.  Sometimes we do need to come last because babies need us for every need to stay alive.  But sometimes, we need to come first because we can’t give from an empty cup, and I know that sounds so cliché, but it’s true.  If you have nothing left, if you’re tapped out emotionally, then how are you going to co-regulate with your child when they’re having a fit?

Right.  Yes.  So what are some of the strategies that you work through with your clients, if you have any tips for our listeners in that early parenting phase that can be so stressful?

Yes.  First and foremost, if you are able to find a community, make that a priority, to have at least one or two people that you can count on and are like-minded and will hold space for you to feel the feelings that you’re working through because it’s such a huge life change.  Another tip that I would give is to develop a plan with your spouse or your significant other about how you’re going to communicate that you need a minute to breathe because so often as moms, we feel like we have to do it all.  Our husband or our significant other is just waiting for you to tell them what to do or to allow them to help.  So communicate beforehand how you are going to communicate that in the moment, because so often, it can come out as being snippy or short with someone when really, you just need a minute to take a walk, get a breath of fresh air, and maybe a shower, and then you’re good to go again.

Yeah, that’s very helpful advice.  And we all just do need that minute, even if it’s meditating, focusing on our breath, having a sip of water – just a way to calm down the adrenals.

Yes!

So as far as working with you, Emily, what would that look like, and how do our listeners connect?

So if you are looking for a holistic trauma recovery coach, I currently have five one-to-one spaces available in my Mended Mama Academy.  It is a three-month program, and right now, I have promotional pricing so that it does not break the bank.  If you are interested in learning more about that, you can go to my website.  There’s a button on the homepage that says Work With Me, and you can learn more there.

Excellent.  And you’re also on social media, so how can we find you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube?

If you just search my name on YouTube, you should be able to find me that way.  On Instagram, I am @emily.cleghorn.coach.  And on Facebook, you can find me through my podcast, which is the Mamahood After Trauma podcast.

Beautiful.  Well, thank you so much for sharing your tips and your personal story and for helping so many moms during an isolating and life-changing time.  We all do need support and community, so I love that you are encouraging in-person community and also creating a virtual community for your students and your coaching clients.

Yes!  Thanks so much for having me!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Mamahood After Trauma

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Jodi Graves of Michigan Family Doulas discuss the importance of postnatal and prenatal nutrition.  They also talk about the role of the postpartum doula and how they can support families after baby arrives on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas. 

Hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with Jodi Graves.  Jodi is the CEO of Michigan Family Doulas.  She’s an accomplished professional with a profound commitment to modernizing birth and postpartum care in the United States.  With her extensive nutrition, functional medicine, nursing (LPN), and psychology education, Jodi leads Michigan Family Doulas and serves as an elite certified doula trainer.  Her personal experience has fueled her passion for empowering birthing individuals and their partners, advocating for informed consent and fostering a sense of agency and education in the birthing process.  Jodi’s dedication extends beyond her family in Brighton, Michigan, including the love of her life, her two daughters, and dogs, to her love for Hawaii and her lifelong dream of saving the whales.

Welcome, Jodi!

I love hearing that – the saving the whales part.

Yes, that is awesome!  It’s so amazing to have you join us.  I know our topic today is focused on postnatal nutrition, and with your background, you’re the perfect guest to address that topic.

Yes, it’s one of my favorites.  One of my favorite topics.

I would love to have you tell a bit of your personal story about how you got into not only doula work, but also all of the other related modalities focusing on women’s health.

Yeah.  Well, so I started out in nursing school back in the ‘90s and completed nursing school and did a little bit of time being on an oncology floor in a local hospital.  And I said, this is just not for me.  I was absolutely miserable.  And so I went running and screaming away from it and kind of did a 180 and started really thinking about, what am I passionate about, and what am I already knowledgeable about?  And the answer for me was women’s health related issues and food and nutrition.  And so then I went down the path of exploring a nutrition degree and doing something in the nutrition field, and I ended up getting a bachelor’s and a master’s, both in naturopathy and nutrition.  And then I guess just for fun, I ended up with a psychology degree in there.  I started taking some psychology classes and was just so hooked it ended up being a degree.  It’s actually relevant for the work I do, honestly.

Absolutely.  So relevant.

For sure.  But then it kind of evolved, and from the naturopathic degrees, I ended up becoming a clinical nutritionist.  And I’m certainly very passionate about women’s health in the reproductive cycle, but my people are now perimenopausal and menopausal, so I also work with women when we come out of that childbearing cycle.  It’s all about women’s health.

That is the overlying theme that I see with your work.  I know you also do a lot within the advocacy space, if you’d like to touch on that.

Well, birth and postpartum in this country has, to put it mildly, is severely lacking.  When you compare us to the rest of the world and all other industrialized countries, we consistently get much lower scores than everyone else.  The March of Dimes the last couple years gave us a D+.  I mean, we’re just – we’re failing women.  So I am passionate about change.  I’m passionate about, honestly, an entire overhaul of the system as my goal because what we’re doing isn’t working, and women are continuing to die post birth, certainly.  During birth, absolutely.  At just embarrassing rates, right?  And it just keeps climbing.  So it’s time for an overhaul.

100%.  And where does nutrition fall into that advocacy work?

I think it’s a largely overlooked piece of health in general across the board for everyone, but certainly in pregnancy and postpartum recovery, it’s not something that is talked about with physicians.  And to defend them, I guess, physicians don’t have any training in nutrition services.  So they are not somebody that should be relied on for information or guidance as far as nutrition is concerned.  So if it’s not talked about at the doctor’s office, it’s really not being considered.  I think part of our problem in this country is nutrition related.  You can be obese and still be malnourished.  We are one of the countries across the world that has that as a real, legitimate problem.

Yes.  And certainly postnatal, that is a big focus of yours.  That depletion is a real issue, and that can be dehydration, lack of the nutrients and minerals needed, especially for breastfeeding mothers.  They get even more depleted.  But recovering from birth, there are so many things where nutrition is important, and if you don’t have, say, a postpartum doula in your home helping to make snacks and make sure that you’re drinking water and keeping up with meals, mothers often forget to eat.  They’re so focused on trying to rest and feed baby.  They may have other children at home to feed, and they don’t care for themselves.

And we’ve gotten so far away from community where mom and aunts and cousins and sisters would all come and help make sure that you’re nourished.  That’s not really so much a think anymore.  In pockets across the country, people are still doing this, but as a majority, we’re not part of communities anymore.  And so you’re right.  It’s hard to focus on yourself when you’re caring for a newborn.  And we have so many postpartum complications in the US, and I think some of them could be solved completely with good nutrition.

Yes.  And there are so many jokes about just satisfying whatever pregnancy cravings you have, or those first meals after you have a baby and not being nutrient dense and kind of the fast food cravings people may have, and so really understanding some important books related to postnatal nutrition.  I love The First Forty Days and anything by – Lily has a lot of gestational diabetes.  Lily Nichols is an amazing resource.  She also has some pregnancy- related nutrition books.

Yeah, and I encourage folks to pick up anything that you can while you’re pregnant, right, so you can plan for your postpartum recovery.  Because it’s hard to then catch up.

Yes, exactly.  What are your tips for our listeners who are looking at planning for their postpartum phase and how to get some good nutrition in those meals, whether they’re asking for food from friends and families from meal trains and how to ask for the right things rather than, say, a casserole?

Right.  Well, and a casserole is not a bad idea, as well, if it is nutritionally balanced.  If it’s mostly cheese and bread, it’s probably not going to give you the desired outcome.  But we do like to tell our clients that work with my agency, Michigan Family Doulas – try to focus on warm foods.  Soups are amazing, especially if they’re packing with vegetables and beans and other things.  You can even put chicken and that kind of thing in soups and get a really good nutrient profile in something that’s fairly easy.  Casseroles are great, too, if we’re talking about including some phytonutrients, which is going to be plant-based nutrition.  Keeping it simple, keeping it easy is important.  Things that you can put away and freeze and pull them out and reheat them easily are tips that I have.  If you’re having cravings for things, think about why that might be.  Usually, the human body has cravings because it’s lacking in some sort of nutrient.  So really focusing on phytonutrients, which are plant-based, warm foods, of course, and getting enough fats, enough carbs, enough protein during that postpartum recovery time.  And it’s tricky to know what that means, right?  Like, you go to Google and ask how much do I need, and you might get six different answers.  So that’s a tricky piece.

It is.  And as doulas, of course, we have our finger on the pulse for all of the experts that we can refer our clients to, and that could be functional medicine doctors or nutritionists, dieticians.  We try to look at even some healthy meal delivery services.  I know there are some in your area in southeast Michigan.  I’ve ordered for friends who had babies and had some healthy meals delivered to them. 

And that’s a wonderful thing.  We definitely have more options here than we ever have.  I think that’s the case across the country, which I love.  I think that a lot of Americans have realized that there’s a problem with the way we eat and the food that’s available to us, and a lot of us are making changes already, which is awesome.  It can only help with postpartum recovery, the more people that start realizing, hey, our food supply isn’t that great.  What we normally eat really isn’t healthy.  Maybe I’ll get some different options and change my diet a little, and I think that can only help this whole process, right?  And it can only help with our statistics about postpartum complications.

Right.  And what are your tips for listeners who are breastfeeding or pumping?

When you are breastfeeding, your body requires an extra 300 to 500 calories a day.  That can be something as simple as a half a sandwich and a handful of grapes.  Simple things, right?  So we encourage our clients and I encourage those we work with to, again, even if you are eating extra calories, be mindful of what those calories are.  I think mindful eating is really important.  Ask for help, right?  If it’s the middle of recovery, I’m two weeks in, there’s nothing in my house to eat and I can’t cook for myself – the typical conversation we have in postpartum.  Where’s my extra pair of hands?  I encourage folks to investigate what’s in your area.  Investigate some of those meal delivery services in the area.  Or postpartum doulas will come and help do some of that for you.  Make snacks while they’re there.  If you have a soup recipe or something you want us to put together, your doula can do that for you.  So there’s a lot more options now than ever before for getting these needs met, whether you’re breastfeeding or you’re not.

Exactly.  Yeah, and even with grocery delivery service.  I wish that was a thing when I had my kids.

Oh, my gosh, yes, for sure.  I think about that now, and I’m like, how did we make it work in the middle of postpartum recovery?  I’ve got to the grocery store with my brand new newborn.  Times have changed, so we have more options available to us now, which I’m so grateful for.

Exactly.  In my early days as a postpartum doula, I used to run errands for my clients.  Go grocery shopping, the butcher, and that way they could stay home and focus on healing and feeding their baby.

For sure.

Now, it’s not really even a needed service, as you can get your groceries delivered.

That’s right.  Now, they don’t always do a perfect job in getting the things that you ask for, but I tell you what, it’s a heck of a lot better than what it used to be.

Totally.  Jodi, you mentioned warming foods and teas and so on.  That really, again, is focused on those traditional, especially Malaysian, cultures’ focus on pregnancy being a warm state and the shock after you deliver and your body being in a cold state and needing to be warmed and eating and drinking warming foods and teas and so on.  Again, in our culture, it isn’t something that is so focused on, and in so many traditional cultures, families are focusing on caring for the baby and mothering the mother and making sure she is getting rest and proper nutrition so she can then be the best parent for the rest of the family, as well as baby.  And I feel like, again, not only nutrition, but also making sure that you’re drinking water or healthy teas and so on.  So where does hydration play into postnatal recovery and certainly breastfeeding or pumping?

This is a vital piece of recovery.  You know, you are going to be getting rid of all the extra fluids that your body kind of packed on the end of your pregnancy, and just the normal fluid accumulation that we get when we’re gestating.  So that’s all going to be happening.  I encourage people to keep drinking, even though they feel like maybe they have some swelling going on or they have some extra water weight.  We still encourage fluids all day, every day.  In fact, I’ll never forget this.  My first daughter was born 25 years ago, and I was so thirsty, it was the only thing I could think of, those first few weeks.  I was so thirsty.  And we forget that, right?  That’s an important piece.  So I always recommend that you not just sip on water, but electrolytes.

Exactly.  Coconut water or electrolyte drinks.  I’m a fan of electrolytes for labor, but as you mentioned, also the postnatal recovery phase.

Yeah, for sure.  And I like electrolytes that don’t have sugar in them because it can be a lot of extra sugar in some of those premade mixes.  I like to stick to the ones that are salt-based only with no sugar in them.  And then eat some fruit or other healthy things that give you the sugar.

Great tips.  So what else are you seeing with your postpartum doulas and how they’re able to help their families adapt to this change, whether it’s baby one or baby five?

Well, I think that some of the biggest things that we are doing as doulas here, really, are obviously supporting folks, no matter what their parenting styles are, no matter what their choices are, no matter whether it’s one baby or five, like you mentioned.  Just helping everybody to get rest, to get nourishment, to have somebody there to help with basic things in the early days.  And then as folks transition to getting into parenting and getting into their groove, we’re just there to support their choices, make sure that they stay rested, be a sounding board for these families or a place that they can ask questions and get referrals to other services.  You know, we really want to be the go-to person for these families when they have an issue or they’re feeling stressed, or God forbit, they’re showing signs of postpartum mood and anxiety disorders.  We want to be there on the front lines.  That’s really our focus here.

Exactly.  And you mentioned rest multiple times.  Your agency, similar to mine, does offer overnight postpartum doula support and newborn care specialists, so let’s touch on that for our listeners who haven’t really known that was an option for them.

Yeah.  So we do provide overnight care.  I would say that we – I wouldn’t say it’s exclusive, that we just provide overnight care, but it’s definitely more than 75% of the care that we provide is overnight because everyone is exhausted.  And I don’t know what we’re doing right now outside of growing babies and giving birth and all of that.  As a society, we must be doing something, that we’re coming into birth already exhausted.  So people have an infant, and then we’re playing catch-up.  So it’s not just the normal fatigue.  It’s more of an extreme, everybody’s stressed.  Everyone is exhausted.  And so we’re really trying to focus on helping people overcome that because you can’t be a good parent if you’re so fatigued you can’t keep your eyes open.  So we really focus on that quite heavily.  And I’m going to say about 90 to 93% of the time – I’m a numbers person – so 90 to 93% of the time, our families will have a few overnight visits or plan for maybe just a short-term care plan with us, and then they almost always ask us to stay on.  So I think when folks get a taste of what it’s like to have a newborn but also sleep, they’re like, oh, my goodness, you can’t leave.

Yeah, it’s priceless.  And for partners who need to return to work right away, then it is helpful for them to be at the capacity they were.  Say they’re a physician and need to return two days after the baby’s born, and they’re working long shifts, so they can’t help with diaper changes and need to get a full night’s sleep.  So we work with a lot of families where the partner is back at work or traveling for work.  Or, say, an athlete, for example, and may not even be around.  It’s hard to plan with certain schedules, whether it’s military or with athletes. 

We find the exact same thing, as well, here in southeast Michigan.  We do work with a couple of the sports teams in the area, and lots and lots of physicians.  We’re finding the exact same thing.  It’s hard when you’re a team, right?  It’s hard when you just gave birth, but you and your partner both can stay home for a little while.  That’s hard.  And then you take one of the partners away and say, okay, now you got to go back to work, and everything is as normal.  It’s almost debilitating for some families, and so I’m really grateful to be doing the work that I’m doing, that my agency is doing.  I’m grateful to be able to have even just a little impact on communities.  And if I’m being honest, it stems from the fact that I didn’t have any of this when I had my children.

Right.  Yeah, I mean, postpartum doulas and newborn care specialists were not a thing, and if there were postpartum doulas, they mainly did daytime support.  Short daytime shifts, helping with household tasks.  So it’s definitely changed quite a bit since we both got into this field, and with insurance and employer benefit plans covering more and more, and health savings and flex spending going from only birth doulas to also identifying postpartum doulas as a need.  That’s been very helpful.

It’s wonderful.  We get a lot of clients now that are using employer provided benefits, which is amazing.  It’s a step in the right direction.  It’s not a cure all.  It’s not even a band aid, if I’m being honest.  Maybe this is a backward analogy, but we’re using a firehose to put out a match with some things.  This is the opposite.  We have a forest fire.  We’re trying to use a little bucket that we might have on the beach.  So yes, it’s helpful.  It’s a step.  It’s something.  And I still feel like we have so much work to do.

Yes.  And in your area, especially, people are moving to southeast Michigan, to Detroit area, without the family ties and potentially friends around.  So they don’t have any support.  They move for work or to get into a more affordable city, whatever their reason, and they’re feeling very isolated, and the postnatal time is isolating, as it is.  If you don’t have family to help, especially when we’re in a childcare crisis, a postpartum doula or a newborn care specialist can help fill in some of the gaps.

Absolutely.  I think one little thing that is concerning to me is a lot of families here recently have said that they’re feeling pressure from family – mothers, mothers-in-law, extended family – they’ll make comments about, why would you have a doula?  Why on earth would you have doula support?  That’s just silly.  You should take care of your own baby.  I mean, we did.  And that kind of pressure and those kinds of comments are really hurtful for some of these people who really genuinely need somebody.  They really need help.  And then they’re feeling guilty for asking for help.  We’re hearing that quite a bit lately, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it.

That is so true.  It’s like, just don’t complain and focus on being a mom, but there’s just so much more in today’s society.  I feel like it’s hard to turn off work.  I mean, technology can be amazing, but I think that is a big part of the depletion and the tired feeling that families have even before pregnancy and the early newborn phase.  We’re just so locked in, and it’s hard to turn off work.  I see clients at a birth, and they’re checking their work emails and they’re getting texts.  There used to be, pre all of this cell phones and technology and emails, you would go to work and do your work, and you could turn it off.  There’s not a way to really fully do that now in most fields.

For sure.  Which is funny for me to think of.  It just makes me want to laugh, if I think about myself in labor, giving birth to my children – if I had given even one thought to my employer, I would have been upset.  I feel bad for families that have to do that now.  It has changed, you’re right.  It’s been another factor, I think, that’s added stress.

Exactly.  Especially if you deliver early and you had planned everything for maternity leave and tried to go as long as possible to optimize your leave, and then all of a sudden, there are all of these unfinished tasks.  That’s what I would see.  It’s like, oh, no, I need to email, and this needs to be done.  You really need to focus on your birth and early parenting, but again, some things are out of our control.

And I think people feel a lot of pressure at work or just a lot of pressure to make enough money to make ends meet.  You know, it’s extra stressors all the way around.

Right.  And with the rising costs of everything, for childcare and food, gas, all of the things – it is stressful for families.  Luckily, as we mentioned, there are different ways to pay for support.  Also, certainly with healthy meals and nutrition, registering for services instead of things, like all of those onesies and the fancy stroller – you could register for a doula and ask for a healthy meal delivery service or gift cards to your favorite restaurants, a housekeeper – things that will make your life easier.

Yeah, and it’s hard to know where to direct your money, but you’re right, all the things is not the place to spend because they won’t help you when you’re exhausted.  They won’t help you unplug and have a nap or have a shower or do the things that you need to, to make yourself feel normal, to feel like, okay, yes, there’s some semblance of my old life here.  And so it’s just, I think, ultimately, it’s all about all this extra stress.  It’s hard to know what direction to look, you know, and how to narrow down the options.  Hopefully folks hear us both say, your options are here.  We have teams full of them, and by that I mean doulas that can come and help and take care of all of these different facets of your early parenting.  And I know for us, we sometimes stay with clients throughout the first year.  Not just a two week thing and then you’re on your own; we do provide a lot more care than that.  It sounds like you guys do, as well.

We do work through the first year, as well, and I know some doulas, depending on the training organization, focus more on the first six to eight weeks and that recovery phase.  It just depends on which professional you’re choosing, what their philosophy is.  So look into that.  At Gold Coast, we have some families that have a lot of support initially, and they hire us during times that the partner is traveling or they’re transitioning back to work and want to optimize their rest.  There are so many different scenarios.

Absolutely.  I’m just thrilled by the progress that we’ve made as doulas.  Back in 1999 when I started this work, I spent more time telling people what a doula was than I did actually doing doula work.

You’re definitely one of the OGs!

That’s right!  We’ve come a long way because now most people do know what doulas are.  Not so much on the postpartum side, so we’ve got some work to do there, but every now and again, I still run into people who don’t have any clue what a doula even is.  So now it’s fun for me to be like, oh, this is something that you must know about.  I’m just really glad that we have come as far as we have.  I also, in the same breath, feel like we have so much farther to go.

We do, yes.  I agree.  I could talk to you forever, and our conversation has gone into many different directions, but I would love your top snacks for our postnatal listeners who are trying to avoid that depletion and nourish themselves.  What are you giving postpartum clients or what are you suggesting with your team of doulas, other than the fruits you mentioned earlier?

Yeah, I mean, anything like that, like fruit that you can cut up and put in the fridge so you can quickly grab them and snack on them.  If you can tolerate gluten, making sandwiches.  Of course, there’s lots of different options to make sandwiches with.  You can certainly do wraps and that kind of thing.  Stuff that’s easy to reach in the fridge and grab is essential, so even cut vegetables.  Maybe you could make those soups, a couple of soups, and put individual bowls in the fridge so that you can then pull them out, pop them in the microwave quickly, and then you have a warm, nourishing meal that you can sit and sip on or have little bites of while you’re rocking baby.  But easy, quick, convenient things are essential.

I like to encourage protein, so Greek yogurt is a really great thing to have on hand if you can tolerate that.  There are nondairy versions of Greek yogurt out there now that don’t taste too bad.  Hard boiled eggs are a great go-to.  Cut fruit and vegetables.  Cheese sticks or cut pieces of cheese if you can tolerate dairy.  There are a lot of options, but some of this does require some forethought and/or hiring a doula.

Excellent tips, Jodi!  Thank you so much!  How can our listeners find Michigan Family Doulas?

We are on social @michiganfamilydoulas.  We’d love to see you on Instagram or Facebook.  You can also find me.  I am the host of a podcast called Tea with Jodi.  We talk a little bit more in-depth about some of these political issues and things going on in the birth world.  And of course, you can find us at michiganfamilydouals.com.

Excellent.  Thank you so much!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Michigan Family Doulas

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Jessie Jaskulsky discuss the types of surrogacy and options for families in this informative Ask the Doulas episode.  Jessie also gives her top tips for families who are considering surrogacy.   Jessi owns Surrogacy Simplified.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Jessie Jaskulsky of Surrogacy Simplified today.  We are going to talk all things surrogacy.  I’d like to share a bit about her background.  After a devastating 22-week pregnancy loss that led to secondary infertility, Jessie spent years trying to complete her family and ultimately had both of her daughters through surrogacy.  Through Jessie’s journey to becoming a mom, she felt as if there was an obstacle at every turn.  Jessie founded Surrogacy Simplified, a boutique surrogacy consulting and white glove concierge that helps intended parents start or complete their family through the selfless gift of surrogacy.  Jessie takes care of all of the details, big and small, allowing her clients to truly enjoy this pathway to parenthood.

Welcome, Jessie!

Thanks for having me!

So happy to have you on!  I would love to begin with a bit about the definitions, the types of surrogacy, if you wouldn’t mind explaining that to our audience who may not be as familiar.

Absolutely.  It’s interesting because the way the terms are used has even changed from the birth of my oldest daughter to now.  I’ll get into that a little bit.  Gestational carrier is the most common surrogacy arrangement in the United States, and that is when the surrogate is using an embryo that does not have any biological connection to them.  So the egg would be from the intended mother or a donor egg, and the sperm from the intended father or donor sperm.  Traditional surrogacy is when the surrogate – it’s the surrogate’s biological egg and the intended father or donor’s sperm.  When I first was expecting my oldest through surrogacy, it was important for me that people used the term gestational carrier instead of surrogate because I wanted them to know that my daughter had the biological connection to me.  But now, over the past couple of years, surrogacy has become so much more talked about and widespread that people sort of use the terms gestational carrier and surrogate interchangeably, which is interesting.  It hasn’t been that much time, but it has been a shift over the past few years.

Yes, that is interesting, and I don’t think that it’s talked about enough.  I do feel like, whether it’s reality tv or the media, there is more information.  I mean, even thinking of some of the Kardashians and their journey and how they highlighted their own experiences and struggles with secondary infertility.

Right.  And interestingly, traditional surrogacy is not legal in a lot of states.  Gestational surrogacy is legal in 47 of the 50.

Interesting.  Yes, I know Michigan is working on legislation, but we’re not quite there yet.

Yes, I’m crossing my fingers that by the end of this year, we are having a different conversation.

Same!  As far as finding a surrogate, let’s talk about that process.  You know, sometimes it could be a family member or a friend who then carries.  I know a lot of doulas have a love for everything pregnancy, birth, and baby, and I have friends who have been surrogates, not for their own personal clients, but yes, have been matched with agencies and so on.

That’s so beautiful!  Yes, there’s different ways to find a surrogate.  One way would be asking a member of your community, whether that’s a family member or a friend or even going to social media.  Some people want to keep it more private, and then there are others who share their story.  I actually have a client right now where she’s shared a little bit of her story on her Facebook status, and a friend of a friend – people shared it, and then she was connected to somebody that way.  Believe it or not, that does happen.  That’s one way, and I would say the biggest pro of that would be saving the cost of using an agency to help you match.

If you do not have anybody that you think would come forward to carry for you, using an agency is a very common method, as well, and the agency would help recruit and find a surrogate that matches some of the things that you’re looking for.

More recently, there have been these sort of intermediaries that pop up.  One that comes to mind is Nodal.  You can think of it like a dating site, but it’s between gestational carriers and intended parents where they can kind of connect.  It’s not free, but compared to an agency fee, it’s less expensive.  So it’s a middle ground in terms of cost.

I love it.  That is an excellent idea!  So how did you get into this work?  Obviously, you have your personal experience, but to start a business and pivot in that way is a big move.  I’m interested to hear what led you to starting Surrogacy Simplified and how your business is unique and maybe even collaborates with agencies since you do so much of the concierge work for clients.

Yes.  I love that.  Thank you.  So really, when I went through the process twice, I felt like it was just very, very complicated.  And there should be lots of steps involved.  I mean, this is somebody else carrying your baby.  But with that being said, my first journey was with an agency, and my second one was totally independent, meaning I found somebody and I managed the process on my own.  Both times, I felt like the amount of hours my husband and I spent in the evenings kind of project managing the journey – we liked it, but I felt like for somebody else, I just wanted to make it less complicated for them.  I was previously a speech pathologist and just felt so driven to want to help other people that have gone through something similar to me.  Last year, I just did a complete career pivot and opened my doors and have never looked back.  It’s just been so incredibly fulfilling.

I love that!  As far as the process of working with you, what would that look like?

Yes, I have two buckets of independent parents that I support.  Those going on that independent journey that we discussed who might know somebody who’s willing to carry for them – I case manage the entire journey, meaning I connect them with their attorneys, their psychologists, the escrow, the health insurance, the fertility clinic.  In addition to all of those logistics, I also wanted to feel like this warm hug, a friend, somebody they can really trust who’s gone through it personally who they can text questions to who is really going to make the process smooth and enjoyable for them.

For those who need an agency, I’m going to work with them and find out their priorities, whether it’s cost, trying to match, all the different things, and help them find an agency that best suits their needs.  And then the agency is going to work on matching them and doing some of that case management I described, and I’m going to work on all of the little details to make sure that they have a really incredible journey and everything’s taken care of, big and small.

Excellent.  So Jessie, I’m sure that you’re much different than an agency with the concierge aspect if, say, the family is looking to have a birth doula supporting the labor journey for the surrogate or looking for day or overnight newborn care, for example.  You know the experts in each area and are able to match, correct?

Absolutely, yeah, and I love offering a doula to the carrier because it’s just another person for the delivery who’s really there to support them and make sure that the delivery is just exactly how they envisioned it.

And how do you work with budgets?  Are there any benefit packages that you’re able to draw from?

Yes, that’s one of the first questions that we’ll ask the families, and based on that, we will decide what’s the best path for them.  Sometimes it’s applying for grants or financing.  Insurance is getting a little bit better, but a lot of it doesn’t cover it, unfortunately.  But specific to using a doula, I do think that some of our surrogates might be eligible for that, as well, which is great.

Yes.  Again, depending on benefits or the state they’re in.  Medicaid covers doulas in many states.  Fascinating.  As far as your top tips for our listeners when they are looking into surrogacy as an option for their family, what are your favorites?

I have a few.  I would say being patient with the process.  I know it’s really hard.  I’m sure a lot of people listening might already have a child, but now they’re looking to complete their family.  I, too, struggled with secondary infertility.  And being patient is so hard when you just feel like your family’s not complete.  But I would say to anticipate the surrogacy process to be a little bit long.  That way, you know what you’re getting yourself into.  I’d say an average is probably 8 to 24 months, start to finish.  I also suggest thinking about the type of relationship you’d want to have with your surrogate, and the reason I think that’s important to consider in the beginning is that way when you go to match, you meet with someone who’s on the same page with you, and then you’re in alignment and you have this really incredible journey because you’ve clearly communicated what you were hoping to get out of it and you met somebody accordingly.

I can give an example.  For me, I had chosen surrogacy after a late pregnancy loss, and it was recommended – it caused me secondary infertility, and I had just been coming from this place of a little bit of trauma, and I knew I needed a surrogate that was wanting to have a friendship and open communication because I had gone through this loss, and I knew if I hadn’t talked to my surrogate for a week or two, it would just create anxiety.  So I shared that I was looking for a friendship, and both times – I think since I laid out my expectations so clearly in the beginning, my husband and I had these two really amazing relationships with the surrogate and her family.

I love that.   It definitely is such a unique situation.  I’m sure some of your families want no contact, and others, again, want that emotional connection that you would have with, say, a doula, for example.

Right.  Exactly.

So as far as understanding laws, how does one navigate it without an expert like yourself?  Each state is so different, and understanding how to follow guidelines is so important, I’m sure, in this process.

Absolutely.  I think it’s helpful to have a general understanding of the state you live in, but at the end of the day, you’re following the law where the baby is going to be born and where the surrogate lives.  So anyone listening that lives in Michigan, for example, where you’re based, even though it’s not currently surrogacy friendly, if you’re able to find a surrogate in a different state, it’s not like you’re not able to move forward with surrogacy.  And then you would speak to the attorneys to learn the details in whichever state that the surrogate’s living in.

Exactly.  So Jessie, what would you say the best explanation for – you know, I guess what I’m trying to get across is I feel like secondary infertility is not discussed enough, and it’s important to understand all of the family’s options.  So are you utilizing resources as you’re talking to families who are struggling?  Are there support groups?  How does one navigate this?

Absolutely.  I know for me with my secondary infertility, I was sort of in this gray area where the doctors were like, yeah, you can keep trying, or we can move to surrogacy.  And I had wanted that black and white answer and would have loved a support group to talk about this with.  There’s actually somebody that I’ve connected with that I would recommend people can check out.  Her Instagram handle is @holdingboth, and she does have support groups specific for secondary infertility.

And I would think families who’ve gone through a lengthy process of IVF, they’re exhausted physically, mentally, and they still want this baby, and so understanding that they have more options outside of, say, adoption is important.  Spreading the awareness is key.

Absolutely.

As far as matching with a surrogate, there would obviously be some physical and mental aspects related to being a good candidate if someone’s interested in being a surrogate themselves.  How does that process work?

Yes.  So once you’ve identified a surrogate, the first step is that the surrogate collects her medical records, and if she’s working with someone like myself or an agency, they’re helped along the way with this part of the process.  The records are sent to the fertility clinic for an initial review of her prenatal and delivery records to make sure everything looks okay.  Beyond that, she’s also evaluated at the fertility clinic.  So there’s sort of this physical evaluation that takes place.  There is also a psychological component where, interestingly, the intended parents are evaluated.  The GC and her spouse are evaluated.  And then there’s, depending on the state, but I highly recommend, there is a group session that occurs where the psychologist leads a session where she talks about issues and how they would handle them to just put everything out there in the beginning and create this harmonious relationship.

And then there’s certainly a lot in the news about getting surrogates and families on the same page with, say, medical issues that may arise with the baby.  Can you speak a bit to that concern that families may have if the surrogate has different wishes than they do?

Yes.   There’s a few things that come to mind.  First is that in your legal contract, you would talk about some of these issues and how you handle them.  It would be written out in a legal contract.  Secondary to that, when you’re matching, I would encourage families to think about some of these topics and talk about them up front to make sure you match accordingly.  An example of that is vaccinations and worst case scenario is terminations if something were to be medically wrong or life altering for the baby.  Those are just two examples, but however you feel about whatever the topic is, you bring it up to your surrogate, even though it feels uncomfortable to have that discussion in the beginning.  I really recommend it because that way you don’t fall in love with somebody and have paid for their evaluation and their psychological evaluation, paid for the attorneys, and then found out you’re not going to agree because you won’t be able to get past the legal phase.

Yes.  And then of course every state has different laws on termination in pregnancy, so needing to follow those laws and make sure that you’ve had that open discussion.  As with anything related to pregnancy and early parenting, being on the same page, especially with surrogacy, I feel, is so important.

Absolutely.  I joke when I’m with my intended parents that anything you don’t want to talk about at Thanksgiving with your extended family, these are the topics to bring up when you’re matched because it’s going to come up on your legal contracts, so you have to just get it over with, and better to get it out in the beginning before any money’s been spent because I try to be really conscious of how expensive the process is and making sure you move forward with somebody that you’re really going to be on the same page with.

Exactly.  And then certainly if there are multiples, then there are totally different considerations with more than one baby.

Yes, absolutely.  Both singles and multiples would be great with a doula, but especially with twins, they would really benefit from using a doula.

Absolutely.  So Jessie, how long do you follow the families that hire you?  Are you working with them a couple of months after baby or babies are born?  Or when does that journey begin and end, essentially?

I like to call it end to end.  So in the beginning when they’re thinking about surrogacy all the way to when the baby is born.  My preference is to be with them through the fourth trimester, just so I can check in with them, if they need a doula, if they need a night nurse.  I can be coordinating that on their behalf because they’re going to be tired, and I want to take care of everything for them so they can just focus on baby.

And do families ever hire you in that fourth trimester, that postnatal recovery phase, in just wanting some extra support and knowing that you are the expert?  Or is it mainly in pregnancy?

I would say it’s typically in the way that my services work that they retain me for about 18 to 24 months, so best case scenario, the minute they decide they’re going to go through surrogacy, we can partner together.  I can also just educate them on all of the things to know and then stay with them through the fourth trimester because it’s such a special time, and I want to make sure they have everything that they need.

It is.  So you’re supporting the family after the surrogate delivers.  What kind of support do you offer with the family to potentially pay for add-ons to support the surrogate?

Yes, if there was anything that the surrogate needed, I would help them coordinate that, whether it’s food, whether they need doula care, anything that might make them recovery and help with their recovery, I’m happy to coordinate.  And I would just be setting it up on their behalf, and the intended parents would be paying for those expenses.

How fascinating.  So is there anything else that you would like to cover that we didn’t address, Jessie?

I think we covered so many important things.  I would let listeners know that I offer a complimentary consultation, whether they want to work with my directly or just learn about surrogacy.  I’m happy to help them out, and they can get to that directly on my website, which is surrogacysimplified.com.

And you’re also active on Instagram?

Yes, @surrogacysimplified.  I try to post a combination of informative, lightheartedness, so people can learn a lot that way, as well.

Excellent.  Well, thank you so much for being on Ask the Doulas!  We’ll have to have you back on when Michigan makes some changes here, hopefully very soon!

 

IMPORTANT LINKS

Surrogacy Simplified

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Alexandra Francis discuss postpartum recovery traditions worldwide and the need for holistic postpartum support models like Mama Haven.  Alexandra also owns Our Hummingbird. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to bring you Alexandra Francis.  Alexandra is the owner and founder of Our Hummingbird, and she has so much information to share with us related to the postpartum revolution.  Welcome, Alexandra!

Thank you for having me!

So happy to have you here.  I’d love to have you fill our audience in about your personal motherhood journey, as well as why you decided to professionally work with women in the childbearing years.

I’ve given birth to seven children, and the first three children, I gave birth to in the hospital.  It was a bit of an antenatal, but I don’t feel that it really prepared me for the birth that was going to happen, and I felt very much at the mercy of the midwives and the whole system and how it runs and so on.  And after having an unfortunate experience with the first birth, I had a postpartum hemorrhage.  Then I was managed the second and third time.  It was really sad for me, because I really wanted a water birth, but I didn’t get one.  And with the fourth baby, I went to the hospital, and the thing was, I had such a terrible experience, actually, that I left the hospital in labor.  I came home, and a friend of mine said, look, I’ll get you a doula and I’ll pay for her, and then you’ll be all right.  You’ll be able to have the baby.  That was the first time I’d ever heard that word, doula.  And when I called the doula and told her about my experience, she said, oh, yeah, I would honor your birth plan.  That’s the first time anyone had ever spoken to me like that.  I was like, wow.  And she said, why aren’t you having a home birth?  And I was like, home birth?  What’s that?  I’d never been told about a home birth before.  And I told her that I was told that I would die.  I’m going to bleed to death.  And I’m going to die, and the baby’s going to die.  That’s why I can’t have this baby at home.  I have to be in the hospital.  She said, well, contact the community midwives.  And I was like, community midwives?  Who are they?

They’re the midwives who come out to homebirths.  I’d not heard of them at all.  And through this experience and finding a likeminded midwife – she honored my birth plan, and she really protected me, which meant that my rights were upheld and the way that I wanted birth, I got to do it.  It was so much more beautiful than the other three times.  I said, you know what, after this, I’ll never go back to hospital again.  I had my fifth baby at home, and it was a water birth.

Exactly as you wanted!  And I do agree, no matter where you live, if you don’t know your options, you’re so limited in your choices.  Learning about doulas and home birth and community midwives later on changed your path in the future and for that particular birth.

That’s right.  And I’m so glad that I did learn about this because it really did change the course of the future of the way that I birthed.  After the fifth time – on the fifth time, I’d even learned about HypnoBirthing this time, so I really had the birth down now.  At this point, I felt a bit like a pro, you know?  And yet all the things that went really beautiful in the birth, they went beautiful because of me and the way that I prepared, and the things that went wrong, they went wrong because of the interference of the midwife.  So after that I was like, you know what, I’m not going to have a midwife, if I ever get pregnant again, which I actually thought that I wouldn’t.  With my sixth baby, it was just me and the dad, so we had an unassisted birth.  I went to Ecuador and gave birth to my daughter there, and that was the first time I found out about the 40 days postpartum.  Have you heard about this before?

Yes.  Depending on the culture and the traditions – certainly Malaysian and Chinese culture – yes, they take it very seriously of that warming period, caring for the mother, and it’s all about bonding with baby and the village members and family members all help with the newborn care, household tasks, caring for the siblings, in some of the ways that a postpartum doula does.

Yes.  Yes!  All of that.  And with my other babies, I never had that experience.  And in actual fact, I remembered with the third child just being so focused on being able to fit into my jeans and get to the supermarket, and I remember pushing the baby in the trolley and he’s newborn and everyone’s looking at the baby like, oh, wow, he’s so small.  He’s newborn.  And I’m like, yeah.  And they were like, wow, you’re such a superwoman.  And that was almost the standard that I felt that I had to meet, this superwoman that’s back in her jeans and back to doing all the things that mums do.  And I really felt that.

Yes, there’s so much pressure certainly in the US, in the UK.  And in other countries, it’s all about mothering the mother and taking that time and family members will fly in and stay for 30 to 40 days and just care for the entire family, but especially the mother.

So yeah, this was just a different experience for me, being in Ecuador and being able to have that time, which I’d never, never had before.  It slows everything down.  I even got to do elimination communication with my baby, so literally from the time she was born, she was potty training.  And potty training, she didn’t really need diapers, and she never did a poo in a nappy ever.  It was just this whole brand new experience for me.  And I felt almost kind of robbed, you know, with the last babies and the other experiences.  I really felt it in my system, just how different that was, having the other children in that way and not getting that much-needed support and time to just really bond with my baby.

Right.  So it sounds like that is what led you to Mama Haven and your work there?

It was actually following the birth of the seventh child.  It was because I’d still never experienced a doula, but after the sixth baby, that’s when I really started to do the work.  I started to be with other women and be in birth and witnessing these babies being born and giving the support to the women and holding their rights, and really, what I feel that my role was is just saying, like, you can.  It was hearing the woman, her birth plan, her heart’s desire, the way that she wanted to birth and being like, yeah, you can do that.  And I feel that my work is more around helping the mother to really lean into her intuition, to be able to listen to her body and take the cues from her body, to listen to her baby, and to follow that and to trust that and to know that if she feels something, that she can ask for help if she feels that she needs support.  She can ask for it.  But not to intervene, rather, but more to hold that space and allow the birth to unfold in its own time, ever so gently and naturally.  So I got to witness birth in this very beautiful, peaceful, loving way.

Beautiful.  So tell us a bit more about Mama Haven.

Okay.  So the first time I got to experience a doula for myself was after the seventh baby.  When I gave birth to him, the girl came from California.  Basically, she did an exchange with me.  She came to learn how to be a postpartum doula by being my doula, and I was training her on the job, and that’s how it happened.  And with having her, it was like another level because I really got to fully immerse myself in the mother-baby relationship and being in the energy with the baby and just learning all the baby’s cues.  It’s similar to like before, you learn like a telepathy with the baby.  I got that through the elimination communication, but this time, it was just by being so present, by having all of my needs met.  She fed me.  I taught her how to massage my body, showed her where aches and pains were.  I had a slight labial graze, so I taught her how to treat that and to care for it and how to wrap me and do all these things.  It was just out of this world, really.  I just got to look at the baby, be with him.  I only had to think about breastfeeding.  I didn’t have to think about anything else.  She really had it covered.

And it was from this experience, having such a deep immersion with my own baby that actually when the end of the 40 days came, I really felt like, oh, my word, we’ve been in such a protective bubble that I felt almost like the world was such a harsh place for my son, and I wasn’t ready to break out of the 40 days.  I actually ended up having another month, not with a doula, but just me and the baby, and I lived in a house with another woman who’d also just had a baby, so we were both postpartum together.  I was a little bit ahead of her.  So we were able to support each other and be there for each other, eat together, and things like that, and it was just really beautiful.

And through having that experience, I felt like all moms should be able to have this if they so choose.  I mean, a lot of moms don’t even know.  They don’t even know that it’s an option, especially here in the UK.  Most of the girls who are going to the hospital even today, their focus is, when can I go home, and then going to the local shopping center.  And I find that so bizarre, that that was my experience in 2001, and it’s still the mentality in this country today.  Unless you’re, say, from a Muslim family or where the family members come around, like you said, and really get around the woman and support her and hold her in those 40 days, but the culture in Britain is just not there yet.  So there has to be some work done first and foremost to raise the awareness to allow moms to know what can be possible, to help them to see how beneficial it is for them just to slow it down.

And in England, there’s massive issues around breastfeeding, for example.  And women might try, and if they don’t get it as quick as they need to be able to leave hospital, they’re almost prompted to give formula.  It’s like, okay, if I give the child the bottle, then I can get out and tick that box off.  So it takes time sometimes, doesn’t it?  You’ve just got to almost like stop and be still and be relaxed and let it happen.  But if you feel stressed and you’re trying to think about forcing it to happen, or you think, oh, what’s wrong with me?  What’s wrong with my nipples?  What’s wrong with my baby?  It can kind of end up with a bit of a downward spiral, and that can be impacted a lot by the stress and whatnot.

So first and foremost, to just raise the awareness, to let moms know that they can slow down.  The Mama Haven, really what it’s doing is giving moms an opportunity to have a home.  In the Mama Haven home, the woman will have care that’s wraparound, so she’d have care 24/7, just the way that I did.  And the women want to train how to become postpartum doulas, so what better way to have the training than to be in the Mama Haven?  The students can be there, alongside the mamas, and they can then observe the mamas.  They can talk and get to know them and then see what their needs are and then understand to meet the needs when they emerge.  And then I can be there to offer that supervision and the guidance, but it’s more like it can happen quietly and organically through building those relationships and really, like I said, slowing everything down and observing.

So the plan is to be able to cook and give meals to these women, so the food is very nutrient-dense, what the mother may be calling for at that time, to build the good supply of breastmilk and keep the mom feeling well-fed and feeling good and energized.  Then she can also rest.  Then she can have her emotional needs met because we can be there to listen.  I found that instrumental, actually.  That was a huge part of it, just for myself, processing my birth and some of the things around being alone in a foreign country and having other family members around me at that time, I got to just cry about it.  She’d just hold the space and let that happen and I didn’t feel judged or anything.  And it was okay.  Feelings come up and they go, and we don’t necessarily have to make more about it.  It’s just, this is it.  This is natural.  It’s a process.  We just allow for that process to unfold.  So this is another big thing that would be on hand for those mothers.  Then the hands-on care, like the massages and the wrapping and things like that, as and where the mother needs.  There’ll be people on hand to do that right around the clock, to provide that care and give that nourishment.

So are you doing the Bengkung method, or what is your preferring wrapping method?

I do the belly binding with massage and the Rebozo, actually, the Mexican one.  I got to learn this ceremony called the closing of the bones.

Yes, I learned that as well.  I took a training, a Zulu doula training and learned that method, but I’ve also been trained in Bengkung belly binding, the Malaysian way.

Okay, I’ve not done the Malaysian one.  I did the other one, and it’s so good, isn’t it, to be able to hold the woman.  Have you had it done to yourself as well?

Yes, during the training.  It was amazing.  I was not postpartum, though.

Yeah, so when you are postpartum, in that area – I mean, I can speak for experience that it feels vulnerable, almost.  It almost feels like the top half of my body is going to fall off of the bottom half of my body.  It’s a really weird sensation.  And somehow, when you get wrapped, it’s like it keeps you together, you know?  It holds you up.

Agreed, because your organs are going back into place or shifting after you deliver.  It makes complete sense.  And again, going from that warm state to a cold state and the benefits of warming foods and nutrient dense foods, as you mentioned, and just slowing things down and that care.  It’s so important.

I even offer the closing bones ceremonies to women, not necessarily in their 40 days postpartum, and I’ve found that they’re instrumental for women literally at any time in their life.  I did one for mother and daughter.  They were side by side.  And the daughter was 30-something years old, and the mother received her first closing bones ceremony, and the daughter received one.  For her, it was closing the dependence that the mother had on her and closing that down, opening her up to be able to receive her own children.

Beautiful!

It was so powerful.

It’s such important work.  You are definitely changing the community.  So you have one location in the UK; is that correct?

The plan is to get the location.  At the moment, the Mama Haven is in its seed stages.  The idea is there.  I’ve been doing a fundraiser because I identified a property that I want to buy that’s perfectly suitable, beautiful, in such a quiet space, quiet surroundings to honor the privacy of the woman.  It’s got seven bedrooms, beautiful surroundings.  I saw this place and I was like, this is perfect to have this Mama Haven here.  So I want to establish the first one, actually, in the UK, and I’ve been talking to a lot of people that I’ve been connected to because a lot of my work, it’s actually been in other places.  This will be the first thing that I actually will do in the UK, and most of my work has been across other continents.  But yes, once we’ve got this one here, there’s other women that would want to put them in their areas, so I see the bigger picture of this is that there’d be a Mama Haven literally all over the world, anywhere and everywhere.

Almost like a franchise, but a bit different.  Their own havens, that they would rely on your direction.  Beautiful!  I am so impressed with the work you’re doing and seeing, since you traveled the world, seeing that there’s more of a need in the UK, and so starting that first haven there makes complete sense.

There is a huge need here.

So fill us in on your funding campaign and how our listeners can connect with you.  I’m also curious about how you might handle travelers.  What if US citizens want to come during not their immediate postpartum, but later on to get care, for example, once they’re able to travel?

Yes.  So what I want to do initially is open the one in the UK and make it available so that actually people can come from anywhere.  If somebody’s birthing in the UK, for example, they can be there after the birth and get postpartum care, but the students can come from anywhere in the world.  So they can come from the US, and that’s why it’s great to have it as a residential so that the student can come.  They can be held in the space, as well.  Then they’ve got a skill.  They can take that back to where they’re from, and they can begin by giving that service to women, maybe in their own homes, but maybe there’s women there that also want to set up their own Mama Haven.  So then I would support them to be able to set up the Mama Haven at their place and just take the training there and be on hand to do the training, make sure it’s all set up and managed, and then I would move away and let that one run by itself.  That’s how I would do it.

Perfect.  I love the plan.  So are the donations directed through your primary website, Our Hummingbird?  Or how can our listeners or potential students get involved?

Yeah, they can get involved directly through the website.  The page is actually being created as we speak, so I hope by the end of this week, the weekend, it should be finished.  I have a giving page as well where people can make donations.  So what I’m looking at doing initially is raising, like, 5,000 because once you raise 5,000, you can open a charity.  And then I could become a charity, and that way, I can be open to other types of donations, like bigger donations, and I can apply for funding from places and things like that because then what I want to do is create sustainability.  So people that want to come but might not be able to afford to pay for something like this, they can still come.  Students that want to come, they really have a passion; they have a desire to learn – they could get a scholarship, for example.  Also, the mothers that run the Mama Havens, they would have to be residential, so they live on the site.  It gives that person security, and then they are able to run a business, so what they’re able to do is create wealth for themselves and their own families because that’s something that I’ve found because I’ve been in different parts of the world and I’ve got my kids and I take my kids to different countries and stuff like that.  It’s almost a bit all over the place, but being rooted and being in one place means that actually I can build that wealth, and then that’s something that I can pass on to my children.  If I do it for me, I can also do it for other people, whereas when I was doing the work that I was doing because it was just a service, like I just felt like women should have it regardless of whether they should pay or not, it was almost like a call to humanity, a basic human right.  I just did it.  I did it out of the goodness of my heart, so it was not something that I created a business out of or made anything from.  And then I’m like, oh, that was a bit silly, because really, what you want to be doing is if you set yourself up in a business way and you create wealth for yourself and your family, then you’re able to share that wealth so there’s an economy where other mothers can come in and you’re giving them a system where they can also create income and wealth for themselves and their families, as well, and that’s a far better system and a far better blueprint to be doing a business like this than the way that I was doing it before.

Right, giving  your work away for free and serving people because it’s in your heart.  But yes, we’re able to give back much more substantially if we are receiving income and our families are able to benefit when we’re away if we’re, again, getting paid for the work that we do.

That’s right.

So, Alexandra, you are also on social media.  I know Our Hummingbird is your primary.  It sounds like you might have another page coming up as well?

On the Our Hummingbird website, the page will go under there, so just by having the link, it will come onside.  And I do have an Instagram and things like that, but it’s something I’ve not been so strong on in the social media world because I’ve been doing the work face to face and hands on.  I really didn’t have time to build that type of following, and it didn’t feel – it almost didn’t feel right for me, if I’m doing the work and then all of a sudden I have to take out my phone to take pictures to post.  It just kind of didn’t work.  So I never got that bit down, but I’m learning right now, and I’m like, okay, I need to be a bit more active in there, as well.  So I’m going to do my best to also post and things like that and keep that going.  But the best way, I feel, that people can really keep in touch with me and get involved with Mama Haven and be a part of it – because I think it’s quite groundbreaking.  It will be a flagship project.  So for people to stay close to that, I’d use the www.ourhummingbird.com website.

Thank you!  Any final tips for our listeners, Alexandra?

Final tips: I would say arm yourself with as much information as you can because knowledge is power, and find yourself doulas and birth workers in your local community.  Meet them, get to know them, and the ones that you really gel with, have them help and support you because having help and support and advocacy and love and care during a very powerful but also very vulnerable time in your life is – well, there’s nothing that really compares to it.

Agreed!  Thank you so much!  It was lovely to chat with you. 

IMPORTANT LINKS

Our Hummingbird

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our new book, Supported

The importance of postnatal nutrition with Genevieve Mena, Co-Founder and CEO of Mamieli.  Kristin Revere and Genevieve Mena discuss everything from traveling with kids to nourishing ourselves during the postpartum recovery phase on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast.  Be sure to tune in until the end for the special discount code for our podcast listeners.

Hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Genevieve Mena.  Genevieve is the co-founder and CEO of Mamieli, which is a platform supporting moms in postpartum and beyond.  Mamieli also launched a topic-based bundle for new moms, curated with top brands and expert service providers.  Just this spring, they launched the first marketplace to help moms find affordable, vetted home cooking support in postpartum and beyond.  In building Mamieli, Genevieve has been inspired by her personal experience becoming a mom while drawing on her prior professional experience supporting entrepreneurs through initiatives led by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.  She has an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Norton and lives in New York City with her husband and two young girls.

Welcome, Genevieve!

Thanks so much, Kristin!  So excited to be here!

I am thrilled to chat with you about the importance of nourishing ourselves postpartum, and because not only do you have these amazing pregnancy and postpartum bundles, but you also now have this service where you can find the right type of cooking for even allergies or other concerns that you might have that may not work for some of the friends who want to be helpful and bring you a meal and those meal train services that are helpful, but again, if you have allergies or any dietary concerns, it can be challenging to accept friends’ food or even gift cards, if that restaurant doesn’t work for your needs.

Right, exactly.  That’s right.  Mamieli is a resource for moms in postpartum and beyond and really, our goal is to provide moms and families with really tangible, practical support.  As you said, last year we launched these really beautifully curated bundles for moms for after the baby comes for these key topics.  There’s so many little things you need, so many questions you have, and they’re constantly changing from one topic and stage to the next.  From postpartum recovery to breastfeeding, baby health questions, traveling with baby, introducing solids, et cetera.  We’ve curated these beautiful bundles with the top products from really great brands and we did that with expert service providers in each topic area.  Then to this platform that you’re speaking about: we actually just launched about a month ago, this new resource for moms, and we’re starting in New York.  It’s a resource for moms to find vetted, affordable, local home cooks to support with meals during postpartum especially, but really any time along the journey of being a busy mom transitioning back to work or just juggling everything.  We’re really excited about this.  We’re starting here in New York, but then expanding beyond.

It is so needed, and there may be some of those local or the national pre-made meals, but the fact that you can get home cooked meals customized to your needs and your stage from local cooks – that is a fantastic option, and certainly in New York, I’m sure it’s much needed.

Like many ideas and businesses in this space, it was kind of inspired initially from my own experience and my husband’s experience having our first daughter.  Postpartum was actually a pretty good experience overall for us.  We were excited with our baby.  I think the biggest day in and day out pain point that we had was around meals.  And I’m someone who loves to cook, but when you have a newborn, you barely have time to eat, let alone cook.

And you’re feeding your baby, no matter how you choose to feed.  That consumes so much time!

Exactly, so much time.  And so just kind of piecing it together with Door Dash or takeout.  We tried some of the meal kits that come in those little plastic containers.  Really, none of that is what we wanted to be eating for each meal.  What we really want is home cooked meals.  But like many new parents, especially in New York, many new parents don’t have family nearby to come cook for weeks on end, and especially when it’s your first, you don’t necessarily have a community to organize a meal train for you.  You’re kind of left piecing it together, and we just wanted home-cooked meals and couldn’t really accomplish that because we were focused on the baby and just learning to be new parents.  But it did dawn on me, especially when we were about to have our second daughter – now we’re not just feeding ourselves.  Now we’re feeding our toddler, too, so we really need to find a better solution for this.  And it dawned on me that there are incredible cooks all over the city, and probably someone right around the block from me who’s a phenomenal cook who would love to come and help you while earning a bit of extra income on the side.  So, long story short, we built this platform to bring them to one spot, to make it easier for moms and dads to find that kind of local support.  We vet them, and it’s a rigorous vetting process to make sure that it’s safe.  Everybody is a really incredible cook that can adapt to whatever needs your family has.  You mentioned allergies, for example.  Some of the families that are booking through our platform – one of their kids has allergies, or there are certain kinds of nutritional goals that the mom has or the dad has, or nutrition for postpartum recovery or breastfeeding or whatever it might be.  Since you’re hiring someone to come and cook just for your family, they can tailor it to whatever your needs are.  That’s one of the beauties of this.  It’s not only healthy and delicious, but also, it can be for whatever needs or goals your family has.

Yes.  And as postpartum doulas, we do some light meal preparation.  We certainly don’t make full meals for our clients, but we often find that clients will have a particular postpartum recipe book that they would like us to follow, say for the first 40 days.  Does that come into play, or is it more of what the chef would like to make for a family?

That absolutely comes into play, and actually, postpartum doulas were a big inspiration as we were kind of organizing how to build this.  We spoke with a number of doulas here in New York, and many of them love the idea because they see this as a big point with moms that they’re working with in those early days.  And they do light cooking support, and in some cases, the family needs even more cooking support beyond that.  But also, some doulas even realize that they like that aspect of the work so much that they wanted to lean into it even more, and in addition to their postpartum doula work, also take on some clients focusing specifically on cooking and postpartum nutrition and developing meal plans for families.

The way it works is, the family – and usually it is the mom – puts in a request for a local home chef.  You can browse through profiles of all the different chefs on the platform because every family is different and every taste is different, and your budgets are different.  Each home cook sets their own price point, and they have their own style or background.  Some are doulas, some are not.  Some are professionally trained, some are just really amazing self-taught cooks.

You can browse through these different profiles and then book whoever is the best fit for you or whoever you think resonates most with your family’s needs.  Maybe that is more of a focus on the first 40 days and somebody who has a really great repertoire of meals and experience around postpartum specifically, or maybe it’s somebody who has more of a Latin bent to their cooking because they’re from the Dominican Republic, and that’s what your family, especially in a diverse city like New York – to be able to find somebody with a cooking style that matches what you’re looking for.

And then you share your family.  Who’s in your household?  Who will be eating these meals?  What dietary restrictions you might have?  If you’re breastfeeding or recovering or if you’re pregnant, and what your family likes and doesn’t like.  From there, whoever you book will put together some meal options for you.  Typically, families book between three and four meals at a time.  Three or four dinners, for example, that then you can reheat over the next few busy days.   They’ll put together meal options that you can choose from, and you can tweak it as much as you like.  They share all the ingredients that go along with each of those meals so you know exactly what it’s in it, and then either you can do the shopping, or in many cases – most cases, actually, whoever is cooking, the home chef, does the shopping for you just to take the whole load off of you.

It outsources the mental load, which is a huge part of this, as well as the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning up afterwards because it’s that whole process.  It’s not just the cooking.  It’s everything around it, day in and day out, that is a lot of work for parents.  Finding somebody who can help you with this is a game changer is what we’ve been hearing from clients.  That term, it’s a game changer – for my mental health and for my family’s health.  So we’re really excited about this.

And it’s so important in recovery to have healthy meals, and for breastfeeding moms and pumping moms, to be able to nourish themselves properly.  And if you’re so focused on caregiving, if there are other kids that need to be fed, to have the healthy homecooked meals is going to make recovery so much better.  You’re going to sleep better.  I find as a postpartum doula that sometimes, unless we’re making snacks or telling our clients to drink water or eat, they’re forgetting to eat and nourish themselves.

Yeah, you do.  You forget.  You’re focused on a million and one things, and you can forget to eat.  It happened to me.  Then when you do remember, you’re so hungry that you just kind of grab whatever is there, and you’re probably holding your baby while you’re eating.  Maybe even nursing.  It is a struggle.  And now that you’re mentioning this, I’m grabbing my water.  You just reminded me to take a sip of my water.  It’s true, though.  You need to be reminded.

Exactly.  So Genevieve, how did the topic-based bundles come about?  It’s lovely because you can follow your clients across the journey, everything from the pregnancy bundles to feeding, as you had mentioned, and postpartum recovery.  I’m so curious about what led you to solve some of the problems of really understanding the curation and thoughtfulness you put not only into the chef matching platform that you have but also in making moms  and families’ lives easier with some of these customized bundles that you’ve created.

We actually started with the bundles, and then the resource of the home cooking kind of grew out of what we saw as one of the big pain points for moms in postpartum, among many, but one being an ongoing one around meals.  The inspiration for these bundles was, again, from my personal experience after having our first daughter.  I think what struck me was how scattered this whole kind of parenting world is.  I was somewhat surprised by it.  I knew there were so many things you need to buy and research for, for your registry ahead of times, and even that process is kind of overwhelming.  But then even after the baby comes, there are so many little things that you need, and all these questions that you have at the same time.  As I said before, these are constantly changing from one topic and stage to the next.  You’re focused on postpartum recovery in those early days and figuring out breastfeeding or formula feeding and questions around baby health and introducing solids.  Then the next thing you know, your baby is ready to start solids.  For each of these, you’re researching all these little things that you need that you didn’t maybe think about ahead of time or plan for when making your registry.  But then also all these questions that you have as you kind of encounter these different stages and topics.  So we decided to – and I say we.  I actually started this alongside my brother, who lives in New York as well, and we kind of launched this platform together.  We decided to curate these beautiful bundles for each of these different topics with only the essential items, from the best brands in each category, and we curated them based on what other moms are loving the most.  I can talk more about the curation if that’s interesting.

Yes, I’m fascinated by how you vet and decide who to include in the bundles.

First, we kind of curate what different items even go into each of these bundles.  So what are the items that most moms actually use for that topic area?  For postpartum recovery, there’s a vaginal and a C-section version.  What do moms actually use?  We vetted each of those bundles alongside experts in that topic.  For the recovery bundle, we worked with OB-GYNs.  For breastfeeding, lactation consultants.  Pediatricians for the baby health and feeding therapists for introducing solids, et cetera.  These different experts helped us to kind of say, yes, these are the types of items that we would recommend moms use and that moms actually do use.  We didn’t want to fill these bundles with things that are just going to clutter up your space and you’re never going to use.  From there, to determine which brand for each of those items or which specific type of – you know, postpartum underwear, just off the top of my head.  We wanted to triangulate it across several different platforms.  Most commonly registered for items and highest reviewed items across Baby List, Target, Buy Buy Baby at the time, Amazon, and brand-owned websites to see what are moms really loving the most.  And then we partnered with those brands to include them in the bundles.  We want to be the best of the best, not based on affiliate links or sponsorships or anything like that, so that you can really trust that what’s in in here is truly wonderful.  And then the last piece of it is each of those experts that I mentioned that helped us to vet the bundles also contribute a guidance book that comes in each bundle.  The recovery bundle has a guidance book that we created in partnership with OB-GYNs that goes through the most common questions they get asked around postpartum recovery.  There’s cheat sheets to answer each of those questions.  Same thing with all of the other bundles.  It’s really bringing together top products with content that kind of cuts to the chase without being alarmist.  There’s a lot of content out there that kind of makes you scared or even more uncertain about what you’re doing, and we really wanted to frame this content around reassuring you and kind of cutting to the chase on really actionable tips that are vetted by experts and really helpful for moms who are navigating all of this.

And what a wonderful shower gift or postpartum gift to give a friend or family member!

Absolutely.  That was part of our thinking, too.  Sometimes on registries, you’ll register for the big things, a lot of the big things like the crib and car seat.  But then there’s all these little things, like the ten-dollar nail clipper and the twelve-dollar thermometer and all these little things that, as a gift-giver getting these little things, it doesn’t feel like a really nice cohesive gift.  So these bundles really make nice gifts.  We see a lot of moms registering for them, and their friends are excited to give them.  A fun fact, actually, is that the most commonly gifted bundle from existing moms to new moms is the recovery bundle, which has the least appealing stuff – it’s the diapers and the pads and all those things.  But the moms who have been through it know that those things are so helpful.  It’s a really popular gift.  The baby health one is, as well, and the travel one.  They’re all really wonderful gifts.

I love that you have a travel one.  We’re getting into travel season, so if you want to touch on that for a minute, I would love to hear more about it.

Absolutely.  When we were curating these and kind of developing the topics that we were going to create bundles around, we surveyed a couple hundred moms and asked about biggest pain points and what you used and didn’t use, et cetera.  And traveling with babies, being on the go with babies was one of the biggest pain points, which is not surprising to me.  It’s hard.  It can be hard to travel with babies, especially the first couple of times when you’re just getting used to it.  And there are kind of a lot of little things that can make traveling a lot easier.  This on-the-go travel kit is one of my favorites, and it’s one of the most giftable ones, as well, I think.

Similar to the other bundles, we crowd-sourced travel tips from moms who have traveled a lot with their babies and toddlers to curate this bundle and create a guidance book that comes with it.  It goes through flying, and for example, with flying, questions like, should I bring my baby as a lap infant or book them a seat?  Do they need a boarding pass?  What do I do about security?  What do I do with my car seat?  How do I handle jet lag?  All these questions around travel.  We have lots of cheat sheets in the guidance book on plane travel, car rides, packing lists, et cetera.  And then the items in it are so handy.  My family travels a whole lot.  My husband is from Mexico, and so we travel to Mexico a lot, as well as a bunch of other places, and we use everything in here all the time.  It really comes in handy, and it just takes a lot off of that mental load of planning and packing and remembering to bring things.  We love it.  It really, really comes in handy on trips, but also, even just traveling on the go around the city on day trips and things like that.

Right.  It could be by car, train, plane, or boat.  It would work for all of the travel options.  But I know that it can be intimidating, especially for new parents to take that first big trip, whether it’s a long car ride or a plane ride and having their kids be content and all of the things that they might need in a new place.  It’s very helpful that you are inspired by your own travel experiences with two kids and that your brother is also so involved in this business as well with his own experiences.

Absolutely.  My brother is like the fun uncle.  I’m the third of four, and he’s the baby of the family.  And we have lots of nieces and nephews.  He’s the go-to babysitter for my kids here in New York.  We’re so lucky to have him nearby.  And yeah, it’s a lot of live and learn from traveling with babies and toddlers.  We’re very much in the thick of it still with – actually, both of my girls just had birthdays, so a three-year-old and a one-year-old now.  There are different challenges at different ages when traveling.  I think the hardest is probably one and a half to two and a half when they want to be mobile and move around, but they’re not old enough yet to sit through a show on the airplane so you’re just entertaining them the whole time.

It’s work, but I think that the two things that helped me the most: one is preparing, so not leaving everything to the last minute, which is hard to do, and I often leave things to the last minute.  There’s even some research around procrastination being good for efficiency, but I would say with preparing to travel, it’s the opposite.  You’re just creating more stress for yourself if you’re packing the morning of or doing things at the last minute.  It’s much less stressful to prepare ahead of time and start packing ahead of time.  And then you can be more thoughtful about what you’re bringing.  I find you end up weeding out what’s unnecessary and you pack lighter that way.

The second is just getting in the right mindset and letting go a little bit.  It’s probably not going to be perfect.  You’ll probably forget something.  It might be hard to settle the baby on the plane or you’ll have a hard time sleeping wherever you are.  You just do your best and you roll with it, and you try to get right back into things when you’re back home.  But I think it’s just a mindset shift that traveling with kids is different than before.  It can still be really fun.  Being in different environments is good for your baby and for you.  That’s kind of the mindset that I try to keep.

I love it.  And you mentioned the recovery bundles are very popular gifts that seasoned moms are giving friends.  What is your favorite bundle?

Oh, that’s a good question.  That’s tough.  Probably the baby health bundle.  The baby health bundle has a whole lot in it of things that you will actually use.  It all comes in this really neat, organized medicine box that also looks cute.  This covers all the major topics of baby health issues and even toddler issues that you might face.  Fever and pain, colds and congestion, rashes and skin issues that you might come across.  There’s all these little things.  The thermometer and Tylenol and saline drops and sprays for congestion and nasal aspirator and the nail clipper and file.  Vitamin D drops, which is something that a lot of moms just don’t even know exists or is something that you give your baby at the beginning.  When you’re at the hospital, maybe they tell you about the vitamin D drops, but there are so many things going on that maybe you forget about it.  We have all of these things in the bundles so that you have it when you get home, and you have everything in one spot.  Then you have this guidance book alongside of what everything is for and how you use it and all these cheat sheets that I mentioned.  It keeps everything organized.  In the middle of the night when your baby spikes a fever or you need something, you’re not running out to the store to get it or waiting a couple of days for an Amazon order to come.  You already have it all in one spot, and it’s all things that you will use.  It’s really meant to be practical and useful.  I think that’s probably my favorite one.

I love it.  And so many grandparents are now caregivers, so it would be great to have something at their place if they’re watching toddlers or babies over there so they have a full kit of everything they might need.

Yeah, that’s a great idea, actually.  And even with these cheat sheets, there’s quick references on how much Tylenol or acetaminophen to give your baby at different weights and sizes, which you forget.  You don’t necessarily know offhand.  You’re right that it’s great for caregivers or grandparents to have on hand, too.  Absolutely.

I love it.  I could talk to you forever, Genevieve, but we’re running out of time.  Any final tips for our listeners?

Yeah, I’ve loved this conversation!  For a final tip, similar to what I said before around traveling.  It applies to everything.  Let go a little and roll with it.  I think that there’s a lot to say around being prepared that can ease stress, but there’s a lot that you can’t prepare for or you don’t know until you go through it.  I do think that sometimes as new moms, our generation wants everything to be perfect.  Letting go a little bit is probably my tip.

Beautiful.  How can our listeners and the doulas in the Gold Coast team find you?

You can find our marketplace for home cooking on Mamieli.com.  Right now, it’s just New York, but if you’re not in New York, you can go to the website and put in your ZIP code.  We’re collecting ZIP codes from outside of New York, and once we get a critical mass, that’s how we’ll determine how we expand.  So even if you’re not in New York, feel free to put in your ZIP code and we’ll reach out to you when we’re where you are.

We’ll be putting in Grand Rapids ZIP codes then to try to get your service in Michigan!

Perfect!  And then our bundles, anybody can buy them from anywhere.  You can find those also on Mamieli.com, or you can go right to shopmamieli.com.  You’ll find all the bundles and cheat sheets and everything on there.  And I believe we have a special discount, too, for your listeners.  If you use the code GOLDCOAST24, you can save 20% of the entire order.

Thank you!  And you’re on social media, so our listeners can also connect with you there?

Yes.  On social, we are @lovemamieli.

Thank you for sharing all of your amazing platforms!  I’m all about the bundles.  What a wonderful gift!

Thank you so much!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Mamieli

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Our book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth & Baby

 

Kristin Revere and Jessie Jaskulsky of Surrogacy Simplified discuss the changes in Michigan’s Surrogacy laws on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Jessie also provides helpful tips to our listeners considering surrogacy as an option to grow their families.

Hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with Jessie Jaskulsky.  Jessie has been on the podcast before, and she is the founder of Surrogacy Simplified.  She is a surrogacy consultant and concierge.  Welcome back, Jessie!

Thanks for having me again!  Great to be back!

Yes!  I didn’t think I’d have you back quite so soon, but in the prior episode, we were chatting a bit about legislation in Michigan and changes in surrogacy.  And luckily, those changes happened a lot quicker than both of us thought, and surrogacy is now legal in Michigan.  So I wanted to have you back on to chat a bit about the impact of this and help our listeners and our doula clients in Michigan understand the impact of this change.

Absolutely.  I would say so many great things are going to come as a result of this.  One of the biggest things is that it’s going to significantly reduce the cost for pursuing surrogacy in Michigan, for a variety of reasons, one of them being that prior to this, if they wanted to pursue surrogacy, they would have had to find somebody out of state and then also ship embryos, and when you start doing those things, it does end up, unfortunately – some people just can’t rise to all of those costs and they don’t pursue the process, so I think it’s going to make it a little more accessible to many intended parents.

Absolutely.  And it’s always been a dream of mine as a doula to support a surrogate and work with the family, and so hopefully, that will happen now that it’s legal in Michigan!  I’ve had doula friends fly to other states to support those as birth doulas and postpartum doulas.

I would say that’s another really great thing that we’re going to see happen as a result of this is more surrogates that reside in Michigan that previously were not able to come forward and pursue the surrogacy process.  So now it’s so empowering to them to be able to have this control over their body if that’s something that they want to do to help somebody complete their family.  And then it helps the intended parents because there might be more surrogates becoming available right now.  Generally speaking, it’s pretty difficult to find surrogates.

Exactly.  And certainly, there are more benefits surrounding fertility and adoption and surrogacy, so that’s also exciting to families in Michigan.

Yeah, absolutely.

So for those of our listeners who don’t understand the surrogacy process, can you walk us through what that looks like?  With your personal story, you had shared about having some secondary infertility and a lot of the challenges in navigating your options.  Feel free to elaborate!

Walking through the process – and I’m going to give the very high level overview just because it can get a little complicated, but I would say one of the first parts would be creation of your embryos, so going to the fertility clinic.  For some people, they may have already been trying on themselves for a while and now turned to surrogacy, or others may have had to go ahead and create embryos knowing that this was always going to be their path.  And then from there, deciding what type of journey do you want to have.  Do you want to use an agency to help you match with a surrogate?  Do you want to go a more independent route where you have a family member or a friend or maybe use social media to find a surrogate?  Or sort of a hybrid like myself where you might have somebody come forward to carry for you but then you have me guide you, or a consultant in general, to do all of that end coordination.

So once you kind of figure out the type of journey you want to have, after that, it’s really matching with the surrogate, through whatever method you’re going to use.

Excellent.  And so you mentioned working with an agency or the option of working with a consultant or a concierge like yourself.  What would you do as a concierge for families in Michigan who are looking for this support?

I think for them, especially because Michigan hasn’t really been doing much surrogacy before previously, you could do an altruistic or an uncompensated arrangement.  So maybe the fertility clinics have had some experience, but really, I think it’s going to be so much education for the intended parents because surrogacy hasn’t really happened before.  They may not have friends that have gone through the process.  And really breaking the process down for them and helping them feel less overwhelmed, whether that’s during an initial consult, just giving them a high level overview of all the different steps involved, helping them understand their choices in terms of the type of journey, the costs associated with different things, and just really helping the parents feel empowered to make these types of choices while they’re on their surrogacy journey and feel like they have somebody there that really understands it and can take them through the process as hopefully stress-free as possible.

And Jessie, how would you be working with doulas, or if other doulas outside of Gold Coast are interested in connecting clients who are, say, struggling with secondary infertility and interested in their options?  I would be curious about your role in relation to birth doulas or bed rest doulas or certainly the postpartum, the day and overnight newborn care that we offer.

Absolutely.  So there’s a couple different ways.  I would love – part of what I do is having this rich network to refer to my clients, and a lot of intended parents do want that doula support for their gestational carrier.  So I would say to absolutely reach out.  And thinking about making sure that the surrogate feels really supported during her journey.  Oftentimes, that is making sure that I have that coordinated for the delivery, that we have the doula ready to go.  And then following the delivery, whether the surrogate needs some care and needs that extra support with the help of a doula or the intended parents want somebody at the home to kind of support them in this transition to parenthood.

Yes.  And I know sometimes surrogates do end up on bedrest in those final days or weeks, and it can be helpful if they have other children at home to bring in an antepartum doula to help feed the kids, get them snacks, help make the couple who is supporting the surrogate feel like they are able to make a difference and an impact as well.

For us, on my first journey, having a doula would have been really amazing because our surrogate developed preeclampsia and she went on hospital bedrest.  And had we had that support at the hospital with a doula, I think that would have been really great.  My husband and I helped care for her so her husband could focus on the children, but I think that that additional layer of support would have been really, really incredible.  Our daughter came seven weeks early, so we sort of were scrambling to get all the resources together, but I think knowing what I know now, I would guide other intended parents to know about making sure that if they want to have a doula or the surrogate wants a doula, that they have all that perhaps lined up in the second trimester so that if something were to happen at the end – baby’s coming early, or the surrogate’s on hospital bedrest – all of the supports are already lined up and in place.

Exactly.  And that’s certainly something to factor in, and we do support bedrest clients, both in the hospital and the home bedrest option.  And then some doulas do not make themselves available until 38 weeks, but at Gold Coast we’re on call from the moment a contract is signed, so for those families in Michigan, as you begin to build your business here, we’re able to support if things happen, like preeclampsia, that are not expected, and deliveries earlier than anticipated.

Oh, that’s incredible.

I see so many ways that we can work together!  I love that these changes have happened early on.  I know you’ve kept up to date on a lot of pending legislation in other states.  Are you seeing with this change in Michigan that things may happen elsewhere?

It’s hard to say.  I’m hopeful, but I think we’re going to have to keep staying in tune yet in terms of the other two.  We have Nebraska and Louisiana still, and I’m just not sure yet what’s going to happen with them.  I think we have to keep hoping and praying.

Okay.  And what are some of the other states that surrogacy is legal in?  I know Colorado is a good example.

Going back to our first podcast together, we talked about traditional surrogacy versus gestational surrogacy, and traditional surrogacy is much less common.  And when you say surrogacy nowadays, it’s interchanged with gestational surrogacy, which is when the surrogate has no biological connection to the child.  So when I say this, I’m referring to gestational surrogacy.  It’s now legal in 48 of the 50 states.  Traditional surrogacy is not.  It’s much less states.  I don’t even know offhand because it’s just so rare nowadays.  But really, any state is okay to move forward in, I would say, with the exception of Louisiana and Nebraska.

Exciting!  So what are your tips for our listeners who are considering this option to begin moving forward?

I would say balancing becoming informed with going into a rabbit hole and spiraling because there’s so much to know.  So really trying to make it digestible.  I offer a free surrogacy e-book that anyone listening is welcome to download.  We can have it listed in the show notes for everybody, how to access it.  And then also learning about, like, the costs, thinking about the relationship you might want to have with your surrogate, just starting to think through some of these points is really valuable so that when you’re in the middle of the journey, it can go much more smoothly and efficiently.  And I think also just to end it with being patient with the process.  It’s not a quick one, but it’s definitely so beautiful and so worth it.

Yes, and as you mentioned it’s not a quick process – what is the average time that a family would work with you or that the whole planning process would take in getting matched with a surrogate, for example, and even in being able to afford it?  Like, if this is something that a couple is just in the early stages and want to begin planning with a consultant like yourself and saving – I feel like there are so many different categories it could go.  Once you have your match, how long does that take?  And then once you’re in the planning phase, how long is that stage?

I think with the planning phase, it’s really about how long it’s going to take until the intended parents feel comfortable moving forward in terms of affording it, whether they need to wait and apply to some grants and see what happens or look at financing.  I think that can definitely play a role.  Once you’re matched, the process tends to move on the quicker side.  I would say once you’re matched, an embryo transfer can tend to happen within three to six months.  So you’re looking at anywhere from a 13- to 16-month journey.

That’s quick.

Yes, and I would say surrogacy in general, from thinking about surrogacy to baby, would probably range from a year and a half to two years, depending upon how quickly it takes to match, how quick different parts of the journey go.  There’s always a range on how long it takes to get through the legal process or IVF creation or just the different steps that are involved, and that plays a role in the overall timeline.

Thank you for explaining all of this, Jessie!  I am excited to share your download with our listeners, as well.  I appreciate you offering that.  How can our listeners connect with you?

You can always send me an email at jessie@surrogacysimplified.com.  Also, my website has a landing page where you can book an initial complementary consultation if you’re getting started on your journey, whether it’s that you’re ready to move forward or you’re just deciding and feeling overwhelmed, I’m here for you.  And I also would suggest if you’re on social media, I post a lot of really valuable tips and reels, and that is also @surrogacysimplified, as well.  You can follow me there.

Yes, you’re on LinkedIn, Instagram.  Any other social spots?

I’m on the others, but I’m most active on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Same.  Agreed.  Well, thank you!  It was great to chat again, and I look forward to working with you in Michigan, Jessie!

Yes, likewise!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Free Beginner’s Guide to Surrogacy e-book

Surrogacy Simplified

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Our book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth & Baby