Postpartum University® Podcast
Top-Ranked Podcast for Postpartum Care Providers in Nutrition + Holistic Care
The current postpartum care model is failing—leaving countless mothers facing postpartum depression, anxiety, hormonal imbalances, and autoimmune issues. For providers, the call is clear: advanced, root-cause care is essential to real healing.
The Postpartum University® Podcast is the trusted resource for professionals committed to elevating postpartum support. Hosted by Maranda Bower—a medical researcher, author, mom of 4, and the founder of Postpartum University®—each episode delivers powerful insights into functional nutrition, hormonal health, and holistic practices for treating postpartum issues at the root. This podcast bridges the gaps left by Western medical education, empowering providers to support their clients with individualized, science-backed, and traditional-aligned solutions.
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive insights, resources, and tools to revolutionize your impact in postpartum wellness and functional nutrition: www.PostpartumU.com/Subscribe.
Postpartum University® Podcast
Healing the Healers: Stories of Motherhood, Burnout & Postpartum Mental Health | Corina Fitch EP 223
If you're a postpartum provider, you know the juggle: supporting new moms while often navigating your own intense motherhood journey, battling burnout, and feeling stretched thin. This episode gets real with midwife Corina Fitch & Maranda who share their deeply personal struggles with postpartum mental health – from depression to bipolar disorder – and how those experiences completely shifted their approach to holistic postpartum care. If you're a doula, midwife, or any birth worker focused on maternal wellness and improving our current system, you'll want to hear this. They explore how understanding and embracing matrescence is crucial not just for your clients to thrive, but for you as well.
Check out this episode on the blog HERE.
Key time stamps:
- 0:43 Postpartum recovery is a multi-year transformation, not just weeks
- 2:13 Corina's own postpartum depression fueled her passion for maternal wellness
- 4:00 Even birth professionals face their own postpartum struggles
- 10:48 Personal healing ignited innovative holistic maternal support programs
- 17:05 Postpartum University grew from provider demand for root-cause healing for moms
- 19:58 Many moms turn to alternative support after traditional healthcare fails them
- 22:43 Postpartum University addresses the gap in provider education
- 27:19 New laws push for extended, comprehensive postpartum care plans
- 31:33 Pregnancy causes immediate brain changes & motherhood's lifelong impact.
Connect with Corina:
Corina Fitch is a Certified Professional Midwife and Neonatal Intensive Care nurse with over 27 years of experience in the field of maternal health. She is also a Certified Feminine Power Transformational Facilitator and has been leading women’s circles and ceremonies for over 2 decades. Corina has three daughters, each one bringing deeper meaning to her work. In 2017, after experiencing postpartum depression following the birth of her third daughter, Corina founded MotherFly, an organization dedicated to supporting maternal wellness and thriving.
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🧠Perinatal Mental Health Certificate Training & Additional Courses for Providers & Postpartum Professionals
The postpartum care system is failing, leaving countless mothers struggling with depression, anxiety and autoimmune conditions. I'm Miranda Bauer, and I've helped thousands of providers use holistic care practices to heal their clients at the root. Subscribe now and join us in addressing what modern medicine overlooks, so that you can give your clients real, lasting solutions for lifelong well-being. So today we're going to do something a lot different than what we have normally done, and so if you're listening into the Postpartum University podcast, you know me.
Speaker 1:I'm Miranda Bauer, and I have been doing this work for many, many years, teaching and serving postpartum providers and mothers for quite some time over 15 years and really supporting them and understanding these physiological and psychological changes that are occurring in the postpartum period, and by postpartum, of course, we're not talking about the first few weeks or even months, but the several years that it takes to really be in this space in this season, and I'm here today chatting with Karina Finch, who's been on the Postpartum University podcast before, and she had shared her story and her journey into having three daughters and her mental health battle and being a midwife through all of that.
Speaker 1:It's actually one of our most popular episodes, and so I highly recommend listening to that and I'll link it in the postpartum university podcast. But we're also going to have this recording on Karina's podcast and so I'm going to let her come in now and introduce herself and her podcast and all the things and we're just going to have a beautiful chat about our origin stories and where we've been through and matrescence and all of these things and how interconnected they are. So I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to let you come in now.
Speaker 2:Thank you, miranda. I'm really excited that we're doing this this way. Where we were each going to be guests on each other's podcast, we decided to do a combined version. So I'm Karina Fitch and I am a midwife of 25 years. I have three daughters and I, after the birth of my third daughter, I experienced severe postpartum depression and anxiety, which later morphed into bipolar disorder.
Speaker 2:I actually worked with Miranda and her program, which was really helpful for me in working on the nutritional aspect of my journey. But that led me to become very passionate about maternal wellness and empowerment, because I didn't want any mother to experience what I went through, and so I started a new organization called Motherfly which is in service to maternal wellness and empowerment, and I now I have programs for pregnant mamas and seasoned mothers to help support them to shift out of survival mode and burnout and overwhelm and into thriving. And also, what I'm really interested in and supporting is and what I see and witness over and over again in my work is how, when mothers thrive, um matrescence actually becomes an enrichment program and it's actually a portal to our most powerful, potent selves, to our fullest, fully expressed selves, and it's actually designed to up-level us, but without the right kinds of support, it can feel and be traumatic, and so I'm really excited to be in this conversation about matrescence with Miranda, who is somebody that I deeply admire and am inspired by.
Speaker 1:Thank you. That is so beautiful. Our stories are so similar because I just released on the podcast my story through postpartum bipolar and you were just sharing with me before we started recording. Like how different our stories are, but the same, the same thing, right? And I'm curious because you've been a midwife for many, many years before children, right? How did having children change your midwifery practice?
Speaker 2:So I had been practicing as a midwife for seven years before I had my first daughter and that birth process, as most first births go, was long and challenging and extremely humbling for me. I remember my clients at that time were like, oh, are you? You're not going to have a midwife, right, you're just going to do it on your own? And I was like, are you kidding me? Of course I'm going to have a midwife, like just because I know things. And in fact, because I know things, it can. I think it actually made it harder.
Speaker 2:So I feel like what I got out of that experience was was really understanding what I meant when I said for so many years, it's the woman that does the hard work, because a lot of times people like to say, oh, um, you know, you delivered my baby or whatever, and it's like, no, actually you delivered your baby, I was just there supporting you. Um, but what it also taught me not so much, uh, just the birth, but the, the, the mothering part, the postpartum journey was how essential self-care was in supporting myself as a mother. I was a single mom, I was a midwife and with midwifery, you're on call 24-7, 365. And same with being a mom, you're on call all the time, so it was I. It was very easy to burn out and I started to really weave into my prenatal teachings this idea that self-care is the foundation for motherhood and if we don't take care of ourselves, then we really are not going to be able to offer much to our children to be able to offer much to our children.
Speaker 1:I feel that really deeply because I was in the very beginning stages after I started my work, after having kids, it was actually like the thing that fueled me I was always really interested in, in science and birth and all things woman, womanly, like, woman related, and I became a doula after having my, my son, and again it's like you're on call all the time, 24, seven, 365. And it was a lot of of work. To you know, I was struggling with depression and I became a single mom and I was trying to navigate like this whole world of like the things that I knew, because I was deeply embedded in all of the knowledge and you know, the studies and everything, and then trying to work on myself and also trying to like grow my business and support others. And that was really hard. And you just said something that really caught me. You said being a midwife like of course you'd have a midwife because things would be harder, like it's often harder.
Speaker 1:I I have to point that out because I feel that so deeply I feel like being I was a childbirth educator for many years a coach, you know I've been in this field for 15 years only like half the time you but I just like I felt like I knew all the things and then I got caught up in my head so much and like dismissed so much of my own emotional, physical needs because I thought, but you know all the science, like I had so much going on in my head, right, I remember giving birth to my second and I specifically remember going through contractions and telling myself you need to suck it up. Yeah, this is hard, but you're in the very early stages, like you're you know, just now having bloody show. Like you're maybe four or five centimeters, suck it up. I gave birth to her five minutes later.
Speaker 1:Wow, which number baby was that? That was number two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And but I thought I knew everything right and I was already in my head and I had been doing this work for years at this point in time, and so it was so funny how and not so funny like I didn't treat myself very well, like that was not an okay thing for me to, to be telling myself but it was because I was so in my head, rather than taking a step back and like really feeling where am I in this journey? And yeah, I, just I relate to that.
Speaker 2:That's so interesting. It's like for me with my first, my midwife mind really got in my way. I was overthinking my labor. I was convinced that I was cause. I stalled at six centimeters for about seven hours and my cervix got swollen. And I remember I was convinced that my midwives were on the couch plotting my transport to the hospital. And then, with my second daughter, my midwifery skills came in handy. I was able to check my own cervix and it felt amazing to feel with my midwife fingers, like the dilation, but also know what it felt like on the inside of to have a cervix that open and a head that low, and it was just a completely different experience. They're they're all so unique.
Speaker 1:I love that. I did that too with my fourth, to just be able to feel like what was happening and I remember on my fourth I had a very fast labor, it was only 55 minutes but to be able to like feel the whole process. And at one point I ended up sticking around in the bathroom because when I put my my hands in I could feel the whole bag of waters just hanging out of me and like this big bulbous, you know, and I was like, oh, that's going to burst here real soon, you know, like I'm just going to hold tight and be in this space that's going to be able to capture it, rather than on my floor and carpet. It was, it was.
Speaker 2:It was something that came in handy, but it was also something that took a long time for that to happen you know Right, it's like cultivating the wisdom to know when that comes in handy and when to be just in your intuitive, laboring body and mind as a woman. You know that's what I like. Nahama's birth, my first. It took me so far outside of what I knew as a midwife and so deep inside of myself as a woman that I was transformed woman that I was transformed.
Speaker 1:I love that. The last time that I spoke with you, you had Motherfly going and you were working so hard on like bringing this, this business, to life, and things have shifted dramatically. I haven't talked to you in some time but you have recently kind of like brought together midwifery and dance, which is a huge part of your work and coaching, and and like this transformative work into what it is that you're doing now and I'd love to hear more about like how that all transpired and how was that like birthed into the world by your experiences?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been. It's been a journey and it's been. You know, I always I love the labyrinth as a metaphor for birth and postpartum and just any journey of transformation, and it's certainly been a labyrinthine pathway because of the mental health stuff that I've been traversing. And what I appreciated a lot about your episode on the bipolar was what, how you were saying, you know, on the, on the days that you were manic, you were like getting shit done and like laying stuff out and and that's what I've had to learn to do is like be very productive in my, in my higher times, which I naturally am it's like I, it's easy for me, I wake up, I have energy, I do all my self-care, Um, and I'm currently in a business program right now to uh for supporting holistic coaches and healers and it's very robust, and so I have lots of support and I'm just getting all the stuff done. And right now what I'm doing also is putting hiring people to be my support when I hit what I call them dips, when I hit a depressive dip, because when that happens, everything comes to a screeching halt and I'm like I'm not on social media I despise social media in those moments and I'm just not doing the things that I need to do to move the business forward. So I'm getting an apprentice for my membership group.
Speaker 2:I have a, an ongoing membership group that started four years ago. We just celebrated our fourth year together um this past weekend and it's called the matrescent circle and that's for moms with um, with children of any age. We have some people with babies and other people with adult children and it's just a really beautiful community where we explore different aspects of matrescence and there's that giving and receiving of support that creates really a rich container for transformation when you have a community like that. And then I have my Mother Thrive program, which used to be called Mother Birth and it was originally designed for pregnant women to basically midwife the process of mother birth Like we, we prepare for childbirth but we don't really prepare for mother birth and mother birth is actually a lot more complex and transformational and life-changing than you know. Childbirth, which is, you know, a few hours or maybe a few days of your life if you have a long birth. So, but I opened it up to mothers with children of any age because I realized that most moms have not had a guide like a matrescence midwife, a guide to help them navigate all of the complex changes.
Speaker 2:And and I use tools from Feminine Power. I'm a certified Feminine Power facilitator and I use the dance um, I just had a group, a prenatal group, yesterday where we did some belly dance and um, and then I just use, uh, various tools that I've learned along my own personal journey of being a spiritual seeker and and, of course, my journey through mental health. Um, so those are the main two offerings that I have right now and along with my podcast, which I didn't say the name in the beginning but it's called Mother Tongue and it is a space where I interview moms who are working to empower mothers in some way, shape or form, and it's really about removing the patriarchy from motherhood, from the institution of motherhood, through each conversation. A hot topic, yeah, yeah, I actually kind of linked that together.
Speaker 2:After I went a few, several years back, I went to a ketamine clinic to help with as another tool for the mental health and in my sessions the therapist that was with me mentioned the book Burnout. Are you familiar with that book? I've heard of it. Yeah, it helped, really helped me to clarify that connection in my work, just with in in my own personal journey as, as a woman, um, how, like dismantling the patriarchy is part of my healing. And then that's actually what I'm doing with mothers. Um, and I know you. When I, when I worked with you, you were your focus was working one-on-one with moms as a coach, and now that's shifted to the postpartum university, where you are teaching doctors and midwives and nurses about nutrition and hormones, right Is that? Yeah, yeah, you want to share more about that. Yeah, yeah, you want to share more about that.
Speaker 1:I loved working with moms, like that was, that was my thing for so many years, so many years. And I noticed that so many like this, this was the transformation for me as I I was going through my own issues and I felt like I had to find. You know, I was going to all these providers getting the support that I needed, like nobody knew, or I would just walk away with some new diagnosis, like really that's what happened. I've had so many diagnoses. It's unbelievable, and I never felt like I was getting any help. So I mean, that's that's really where my education kind of dived into was how am I supporting myself? How am I healing my body? What is even possible here? And there's a lot of generational work that happened in there. There was a lot of physical work, nutritional, psychological, and kind of just putting it all together with my, my background in science and biology and really just kind of like honed in and like found specific certifications that would work with me and people that would, that would have kind of walked this path before, and also working alongside the mothers that I was serving and seeing their questions, seeing their journeys and put I put so many pieces together. It was just like mind blowing, and I I don't share this enough, but I often feel like my work is not my work, this is God's work. This is a higher powers work. It is just coming through me, and I know that sounds weird. I'm not like trying to say that I'm like a God's gift or anything of the nature. I'm just saying that I have had like some really horrific experiences and they have served such a beautiful purpose and I have witnessed how much I have been able to assimilate certain information and not even as a provider I'm not a doctor, I'm not a midwife and to be able to take this and cohesively give it over to someone else who is able to therefore use it for themselves and help their own bodies heal. And then, when I was doing that for years and a lot of women were walking away feeling immensely different in their bodies, so much better, right, they were getting off medications for thyroid, antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and of course, they were, you know, working with their providers to do all of this and it was a beautiful thing. But their, their doctors, were coming to me and saying what were you doing? Like how, how are you? How are you doing this? Like I've been working with this client for four years or five years and that's the truth.
Speaker 1:Like so many of the women that I was coming to and I actually I've never shared this before, I'll share this here, but a lot of the women that were coming to me, I kind of built a reputation for the good things that I was doing for women and I would have them come to me and say, miranda, nobody's been able to help me. I've seen four or five, six providers. I've been on all the supplements I've done. You know all the diets, all the fads. I've done, all I've seen. You know the chiropractor and the acupuncturist and I've done everything. You have no idea and I don't think that I can continue doing this. If you don't help me, I don't know where else I can go.
Speaker 1:And I felt like this immense responsibility of holding space for these women and like if they don't get the healing that they need from me, then I have failed them and I don't know what's going to happen, because they're they're telling me that their mental health is not okay and I can work alongside other providers, but they're telling me that their counselor, their third counselor, whomever you know, is not working and I felt so much fear and so much responsibility and I didn't know how to handle that. I'm not a medical provider. Like this is not. Like I'm just going to code, I'm just going to give you the tools that I have and I'm going to help walk you through it and hold your hand. And yeah, it got.
Speaker 1:It got really hard for that. And I kept thinking to myself, like this is this is not okay. Like they're going to their provider first and they're feeling like that's failed immensely, so much so that many of the women that I've worked with were telling me that if I, you know, don't help, then this was the end of the road for them. Or they would go through my entire program and then tell me and I actually have a couple of recordings on the podcast of women saying if this didn't work for me, you know, by the end of the session, like thankfully it worked, but I didn't tell you that I was going to end my life, and it didn't matter how much screening I did for this right, like you could do all of the screenings and everything, and there's some things that you'll just never pick up. Yeah, anyway, it was.
Speaker 1:It was really hard, and so I think that was the big shift for me is when I had I had providers in my inbox all the time Will you do a training, can you? Can you call me, you know? And then I had this pressure on this other side. You know these moms who were struggling immensely and not getting the support from the providers and then thinking I was their last ditch effort and I was like no, no, no, no, no, this has got to change. And if they were wanting this information then I guess I'll be the person to share it. And that's basically what happened.
Speaker 1:I launched a, a beta certification program for my nutrition, which is what I was really famous for at the time, and it sold out like three times in a row and it was just like wow, it was amazing. And I was like, okay, this is it, and I guess this is where we'll go, and it just it's really transformed over the last several years to what it is today and I'm grateful for it. It's taken a lot of pressure off of me for one and two. I'm really getting to help moms at the root, where they need to be supported and held, you know, where the system is already right. And then I'm also working on dismantling the patriarchy and other ways to help redefine and reshift the system that we work in. That will never fully be the model of care that we women need to heal, but what we've been given at the time and so yeah, that's that's the story, wow, amazing.
Speaker 2:Um, and how have the like the physicians were they? Did they have any resistance to you because you weren't a doctor or some other type of?
Speaker 1:practice, healthcare practice oh, I've, I've had everything I've had you know the most. Like, how come nobody's ever taught me this? Or I have got multitude of degrees and certifications and I've never heard of this. And so, like and and like I, I'm upset with my education. I've spent so much money and you've taught me more than ever, right, and I've gotten that. And then I've also gotten from the general public, like, who do you think you are? You're? You're not a doctor, you have no reason to be here.
Speaker 1:I've, I had one if I I won't share the name publicly, but there's one provider who's fairly big. She has her own podcast, she's got 30 plus books, like she's been in women's health for for many, many, many eons. And somebody that I looked up to and I had actually joined her program for an herbal course. Herbs, or something that I've just have connected me to mother nature and the earth. And being in Alaska on 40 acres, like, I have a lot I forage all the time and my own backyard. I'm very blessed with that. But I I've just used herbs. All of you know my adult life and I use it in my, my practice as well.
Speaker 1:So I thought, ah, this would be such a beautiful thing for me to go through when I applied and I was accepted and then it was at the time that my book Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness was coming out and I asked her to review it and we sent it to her. She said she had said yes, got on our mailing list. I was so thrilled, right, like she was such this famous person, and then all of a sudden, like I can't access the course anymore, and it was. It was a big ordeal. She eventually responded back to me saying, yeah, we kicked you out. You're not qualified to teach what you teach and we don't. You don't belong here.
Speaker 1:And it was just like the most you know awful experience. I just bawled my eyes out. For a few days. I actually had to hire a lawyer to get my money back from the course. It was, it was a disaster, right, somebody that I looked up to and I really wanted to learn from. And here she is telling me that I'm not good enough, you know, and that happens, it happens, and I think, no matter what it is that we do, there's always going to be those people in the world Like if you put yourself out there on social media, you're going to get something right, like this is just the something that I get, and I'm okay with that because I know the value that I bring to the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's where you really have to sink into that value that you bring. And you know, I mean you've changed, you're changing lives, you've changed lives and I think it's beautiful to watch you change your niche kind of from the moms to the providers. Because that's something that I kind of envision for the future is to have a program that's for birth workers whether they're childbirth educators, midwives, doctors, lactation consultants or anyone that's just passionate about matrescence to have a program that like a training to become a matrescence midwife, where you're actually not just supporting childbirth but you're supporting the mother birth.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think our world is shifting significantly, to be in a space that I think allows that so much more, because we're looking at so much change, especially in the postpartum space, right, I think, and maybe just because I'm inundated with it, but I do see a lot of legislative work in regard to postpartum care, and here in the state of Alaska, a new law has passed that allows midwives to care for women and insurance cover it for the first year after having a baby, so no longer the first six weeks, which is amazing, right, but that's the perfect blend into the matriarch sense. I think midwives and providers they don't have necessarily that training to go that long, and so they're looking for, okay, what do I do? What's my protocols, what's my? How do I get into this space? How do I offer this?
Speaker 1:There was a New Jersey also passed a law saying that all postpartum moms have to have a care plan. So they're all like scrambling, like what the heck is a care plan and what do I do? Right, that's great. So I think that there's it's, it's like trickling in, but that work that you do is so, so, incredibly beautiful, and I think we're in a space now that that is going to become a thing where women and providers are going to be seeking that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I mean, unfortunately, it's taken us getting to such a low point to to make folks realize that we're actually in crisis. With, you know, the maternal mental health being where it's at and um, suicide being one of the leading causes of death for mothers. It's like, okay, if that's not a wake up call, then then I don't know what it is. And so, starting I and I and that's why I'm also so passionate about the word matrescence and the idea of matrescence, which is something that I learned maybe six years ago, that word, and I've been in the midwife for 25 years so, like most people don't know what that word is.
Speaker 2:And I feel, like you know, if we, if we don't, if we don't have a name for something, then how can we possibly support it properly? You know, with adolescents, everyone knows that word and we do our best to support it. We understand that. You know, children at that stage are going to be going through different changes. But matrescence is something that is relatively it's an old word, but it's a new concept for most people, and so one of my missions is to make it a household word, like adolescence, that everybody knows about and understands that, like you know, you wouldn't. You wouldn't plan a wedding without a wedding planner, without support, right. So why would you take on, you know, this transformation into motherhood without a mentor or guide or a community?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that I was actually. I have a podcast episode that I just recorded not too long ago with Jesse Harold. She wrote a book on matrescence and I opened up that podcast episode and it's not it'll be out in June but I was like tell me about matri science. And she was like, well, actually it's pronounced this way. And I was like, oh my God, I actually had to coach myself throughout the whole episode and I left everything in there, so everybody will be able to hear me work through this.
Speaker 1:But I think that I mean, I've been in this field for 15 years and I still am learning at like I just learned how to pronounce it correctly, like, yes, I've read it, yes, I, I know of it, but I am not I'm not an expert in this in this way, like, and I know it'll be easy for me to like flow into it once I know it more deeply. And I, of course, I've been through it, I've experienced it personally and all of those things. But I think there's so much that's here to to learn, like for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah absolutely yeah. One of the things that really fascinates me is how early the brain changes happen, because you can do an MRI and see that somebody is pregnant before they could pee on a stick and discover they're pregnant, like that's how immediate those changes begin to happen and it really, you know, it changes, changes us completely and it lasts for years. Changes us completely and it lasts for years. Right, yeah, it's, I mean, I in my mind it's, it's forever.
Speaker 2:It's the rest of your life, because your children are constantly going through different developmental stages, so you, you as the mother, also going right along with them. And I'm, my oldest daughter, just turned 18. And so I'm moving into, you know, parenting an adult, and and I and I've been thinking about how, like you know, really our, our relationship, or want that to be with her, and I'm so grateful that she, for whatever reason, has always stayed connected to me and tells me everything. Like I was not like that with my mother. Once I hit puberty and I was in my teen years, I did not share things with my mother, but my daughter shares everything with me and it's, it's just really sweet and I, I, yeah, I want to keep those open lines of communication as she continues.
Speaker 1:I think that's a beautiful, a beautiful tale of like how well you've done in this whole journey and, yes, there's been struggles, but you have remained so connected through the process as a mother like that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know, being a mother that has worked through mental health stuff, that the guilt and the shame that for me is like crushing when, when I'm in a dip, and I just know that my my best as a mother when I'm in a dip is looks very, very different than my best when I'm feeling well, and and I just like have all this like anxiety about you know what kinds of therapy they're going to need because of having a mom that that suffers from bipolar disorder.
Speaker 2:And, um, and I actually just shared with them the older one knew, but the younger two I just told them about my diagnosis a couple months ago and, um, I was like you know how sometimes mom seems like she's really sad. You know, this is what I, this is what I ago, and I was like you know how sometimes mom seems like she's really sad. You know, this is what I, this is what I have, and and I think it was good just to give them like a framework or a context so that they're not internalizing it as something that they're doing.
Speaker 1:That open communication again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my, my oldest is going to be 16 here soon and he tells me everything. So, like I, my favorite moments is when he he can just like crawl in bed and he'll just sit here and just talk for hours of like all the things and tell jokes and crack you know all the funny things and just also tell the intimate stories of what's happening in school, and he's very easygoing. And then I have my three daughters and my oldest daughter is 11 and things are not as easy. Like there's a lot of emotion, right, she's about to enter into, you know, monarchy and like that whole space and uh, I'm very excited for for that and being there for her. But I also recognize like there's, I feel, like all the different things, like I haven't been through this with a girl before and this way this is my first daughter and so, um, yeah, I'm, I'm just trying to trying to navigate all of that as a as a mother, that not having that as as a woman myself, like I was not that person who had that relationship with my mom.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and I think that's part of the work of matrescence and this was, um. What I brought forth in my prenatal group yesterday is this that happens during pregnancy, but it's an ongoing process of like psychological nesting. When you're pregnant, where you're we? We always hear about the physical nesting that happens at the end of pregnancy, but I feel like second trimester, when you're more comfortable it's usually the most comfortable time of the pregnancy there's a kind of psychological nesting where you're thinking about your relationship with your own mother and what you want to take from that and what you want to leave behind and what new things you want to bring in into your own identity as a mother. And and that's really, like you know, an ongoing work.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the one of the things that we're all things that came out kind of as a theme in the group yesterday is how most of us were not raised with knowledge of emotional intelligence and what that looks like and how to hold space for the so-called negative emotions fear, anger, jealousy, disappointment and for me it was like I was a very sensitive baby and child and I was made fun of for that and I was.
Speaker 2:You know, there was this suppression of those kind of the anything that was not like peace and love and happiness and so, and I think that that is, you know, just culturally, something that has gone on for years, where toddlers and young children are kind of not supposed to have meltdowns or not supposed to have these big feelings that they have, that are here now, are really trying to pivot from that and be able to teach their children how to downregulate and that what you're feeling is okay and it's valid and let's see how we can move through this. But yeah, I think part of the work of matrescence is like breaking the lineage for things that are negative, that we don't want to bring into our own children and our relationship with our children.
Speaker 1:I love that that you had just mentioned that, because that was actually a conversation that I had with my mom right before Mother's Day. Right before Mother's Day, and she has a lot of guilt about how she's raised us and she talks about it openly, about the things that have happened in my childhood that she regrets or feels guilty and she asks all the time how did that affect you, how did that change you? And I was having a conversation with her the other day and I was like you know, mom, you know she's asking the questions again and I was like, look, your generation and the generation before, like what happened with your mom, and like that was not a generation that was given any sort of coping skills, like you were not taught how to do that. And we're the first generation. Really I feel like to say wait a second, like what are my coping skills? To start normalizing things like therapy and counseling and nervous system regulation, like those were not terms that were used and and things that were acceptable in the generations before. And and that's how we're.
Speaker 1:A lot of us are breaking these generational traumas and and things and you know how do we deal with disappointment and fear and shame and and all of those things. And you know how do we deal with disappointment and fear and shame and all of those things. And you know, and she there was like such a sigh of relief when I had said that to her and she was like, yeah, yeah, I was never taught that, I had no idea, my mom didn't know any of that, and it was just like, wow, like you can hear the release from her. And so I think, like the work that we're doing now is not just for our children. You know our, our births and our journeys as mothers and the ups and downs and everything in between. We're also healing the generations before us and they're witnessing of us, generations before us. Yeah, and they're witnessing of us and having these open conversations. It's a beautiful thing, wow.
Speaker 2:I love that. I've never thought of it like that, thank you, yeah, I'm curious what you do to balance, because you're a mom of four and you're an entrepreneur, just like myself and like so many of the the moms that I serve, and I always like to ask about you know, what you do to replenish yourself and how you kind of juggle the two things, all the different things yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:First off, I don't do it alone. Like I think that's and foremost. I have a husband who shows up 110%, not 80%, not a hundred percent. Like he rearranges his work schedule to handle school pickups and drop-offs and sports and running errands to the store and grocery shopping. Like he handles a lot, he also cooks a lot. So I feel like I have a lot of physical and emotional support from my husband when it comes to all things home related, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is a huge blessing. You know, we've been married almost 11 years and I thought that was not possible. I was a single mom for a really long time and I had sworn off men. I was like I cannot do this anymore. But I tell you they exist. If anybody is in that space, you know, an amazing man is out there and available. Uh, and I and I, I have one um, I'm very, very grateful for him. And then I all have other people in my life too. I have an executive assistant in my in my business. I have somebody else who does podcast editing, I have a team, I have several other people on my team that helps me with my business and and all of that. So I think those, think those are set up.
Speaker 1:And I also you know you mentioned and I was talking about in my podcast too you know the ups and downs of bipolar. Like you have these moments of high where you feel like you have all the energy and you can do all the things, and that might last for some time. And then you have these lows, and I also feel that in just like the cyclical rhythm of the female body, and it's not necessarily a low, I wouldn't call it like manic or depressive or anything like that. But there are times in our cycle where we are more apt to get more things done and feel energized and ready to go, and then there are times where it's like I just don't have the energy right now or this is not what. This is not going to bring me joy. I just don't feel like this is something for me right now, even though I set it up a couple weeks ago. Like I now I want to say no, you know, and honoring a lot of that in my life and recognizing my cyclical rhythms as a female, as a woman and my cycles and how much they dictate my energy in the best of ways, like this is not. I'm not talking about imbalance, I'm not talking about mental health here, but I think really honoring that and stepping into that space.
Speaker 1:I was having a conversation with somebody not too long ago and she was like how do you manage your time? Like, cause, you have so much. I have 40 acres in Alaska on top of it, so we're homesteading and four kids and my daughter's a competitive gymnast, my other is a rodeo gal who does barrel racing and so it's all summer long. As horses I mean hours and hours a day, like how do we, how do we do all of that? And and I was like you know what, if you just think of your you're a queen, you're, you're a queen, you're a damn queen you show up in your life as a queen, you treat yourself like a queen and you say yes to the things that you know that belong in your queendom and you say no to the things that don't. And I think when we honor ourselves in that way even though it sounds funny, like I say it and I'm like it's kind of it sounds a little silly, but at the same time it's like there's immense relief that comes from that and like I am important and I am valuable and with it also comes a great responsibility. Right, a queen is not somebody who's just like she works with everyone right In her whole community, but at the same time, like there's this there's valuing yourself and valuing your time and valuing your energy and where you are in the world. And I think when we make that a reality, then it's so much easier to set up your system, set up your life, set up I don't have additional things that I have to do for my health that feel like, oh, I've got to do X, y, z or I got to add this in. It just is that's part of my life, right, because I've built the systems around living a healthy, abundant life, and that has taken a really, really long time.
Speaker 1:There's a quote that I saw the other day. It was like um I, I asked God for flowers and he gave me rain. And it's like that's the first step, right. But oftentimes we look at the rain and we're like, why did you give me the rain? Right, and it's the cleansing, it's the getting the soil ready, and so sometimes you know that we can know what we want, but we have to recognize that we have to release and let go, and that's a long, that's years of work. Sometimes, you know, and being okay with that release and the shifts that come with it, now I embrace them rather than fear them. And you know, maybe it's something that has taken. It's taken me 40 years. I turned 40 this year, so you know, we'll see yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll see, we'll see where that goes, but yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:The first thing that came out of your mouth when I asked you about you know, juggling it all, was that you said you don't. You don't do it alone, because I think that that's in my work. I talk a lot about archetypes and the different archetypes for motherhood. So we have the martyr, who was like the reigning archetype for years and years and years, before women had any identity outside of wife and mother. And then, with the rise of the first wave of feminism, we got the super mom. And the super mom sounds, you know, really glorious because now she's got the freedom to, you know, have an identity outside of a motherhood, have a career, pursue higher education and higher callings. But ultimately we just added more to our plate because we didn't take off the martyrdom, we didn't take off the caregiving. We're still, for the most part, the primary care providers and now often we are the primary financial providers for the family.
Speaker 2:And the super mom Also the, the, the super mom is expected to do it all alone because she's a, she's a superhero and and she's actually killing us Like that's why we see all the burnout and the overwhelm and the depression and anxiety is like this super mom archetype and what I am, in my work, trying to midwife into being is what I call the mother fly. And the mother fly is a mother who is soaring, she's flying, she's connected to her dreams and her visions and she's actually thriving in motherhood. And there's three key components to the mother fly. Number one is the container. I call the container, and that's like, we're containers for our children. We hold space for them, we create a safe space where they can be nurtured and develop within, and so we have to create a container for ourselves, and that's made up of self-care and self-compassion.
Speaker 2:And I think the self-care often doesn't happen for moms because the self-compassion piece is missing and that's a whole other thing that we could dive into.
Speaker 2:But then there's the second key is missing, and that's a whole nother thing that we could dive into.
Speaker 2:But then there's the second key is creativity, and creativity is just, you know that, being in touch with our passions and our dreams and really, ultimately, it's about our connection to the divine, because when we're connected to the divine, creativity just flows through us. And then the third piece is community, and that's where we have to shift out of this, like I have to do it alone and recognize that you know, it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to raise a mother and we we really need each other to to thrive. And you know, when we think of the classic symbol of transformation, you know we think of the butterfly and the caterpillar to the butterfly. And what creates the safe space for that caterpillar to turn into a butterfly because it actually has to literally dissolve and turn into mush and then reform as the butterfly what makes that safe space is the chrysalis. And for mothers, the chrysalis is the village, it's the community, and we can't get very far without that.
Speaker 1:I relate to this so much. I was that super woman for a really long time I was actually. I got pregnant with my fourth and I was not expecting a fourth. And I remember sitting down at the table with my husband and I was like I don't know how I can, I'm going to be able to do all of this with another baby. And he looked at me all chippery and he was like you can do everything, you're super woman.
Speaker 1:And it it hit me in that moment. It was like a fuse just went off and I stood up from the table and I like my hands hit the table and I was like I don't want to be super woman. I am done with Sue, like it was like a whole thing. And he was like what? Like? What's happening here? You know, I was like I don't want to be super woman. This is not what I signed up for. I don't want to do everything. Can I do everything? Sure, but I'm going to. You know, I'm like going off. You know, having this conversation. He's like are you even talking to me anymore? But I was like no, I'm not going to do this because I'm just going to burn out, and then I'm going to do it again and then I'm going to burn out and that's why, you know, so many women have, as you mentioned, like mental health disorders but also autoimmune disease, and you know I was like I can't, I can't do that, I'm not going to do that to myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that was really a revelation for me and for him too, and I think that was really the beginning of our shift in our relationship, where he was like okay, what do I need to do? That's different. And I had to communicate a lot more to him, because it wasn't always him just showing up and doing all of the things. It wasn't always him just showing up and doing all of the things. I think that happened over time where it was like hey, no, this is not where I am going to be the martyr anymore and I need support here, and I need support here and I need support here. Is that going to be something you do or is it someone we're hiring? Like what's the thing? It wasn't a question of like oh, I really just need help, will you help me. It was like no, this is the things that I'm no longer going to be responsible for, and it's either you or it's someone else, cause it's not me.
Speaker 1:And there was a lot of that back and forth and that's where we are today and I like it's an ongoing conversation. It never ends Like we're always like we're looking at summer. Right now, I've got four kids out of school, I work and he works and it's like, okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to split this so that we both get the time that we need? And you know it's ongoing where we're. You know, scenarios are always shifting and changing. But yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Well, you could probably do a whole course on how to, how to create that kind of transformation in your partner.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's pretty amazing that that he, you know that you had, he wasn't always like that and he is now, and that, I think, is a testament to you know, your, your queendom, and and how you communicate and how you express your expectations.
Speaker 2:And and I just wanted to say I know we have to close soon, but those old archetypes the martyr and the super mom the thing about them is that they're patriarchal and they come from you know, this idea of, like, the rugged individual which is, which is the symbol of power in in this, in this country, um, which is very patriarchal, it's, it's very like, uh, hierarchical and um, and yeah, not relationship based, and the motherfly is very much about relationship to to self, to the divine and to others. And we get there through through conversations like these and we get there through circles and communities and I I'm just so thankful for the people in my life that have supported me and the communities that I'm a part of, without which I would, I would have who knows I might not be here, without which I would, I would have who knows I might not be here.
Speaker 1:Likewise, I feel the exact same way. I probably would not be here without the community or like those, those small, those individuals, coming at the right time. You know we're here for a reason Both of us. Such a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Like I can't believe, it's taken years to make this happen. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been lovely and I'm glad that we did it combined.
Speaker 1:Yes, so good, so good. All right, thanks everyone. Thanks so much for being a part of this crucial conversation. I know you're dedicated to advancing postpartum care and if you're ready to dig deeper, come join us on our newsletter, where I share exclusive insights, resources and the latest tools to help you make a lasting impact on postpartum health. Sign up at postpartumu the letter ucom which is in the show notes, and if you found today's episode valuable, please leave a review to help us reach more providers like you.
