Feb. 10, 2025
Pearls of Wisdom: If you could go back, what would you tell yourself?
Imagine facing the transformative journey of motherhood armed with the insights you wish you'd known before your first contraction. Our latest episode in the Birth Journeys podcast, part of the Pearls of Wisdom series, does just that by unwrapping the wisdom shared by mothers who've navigated the unpredictable, often challenging experiences of childbirth. We promise to equip you with not only practical tips on managing societal pressures and preconceived notions about natural birth, akin to preparing for a marathon, but also to highlight the significance of staying flexible with your birth plans and the supportive role of tools like epidurals.
In candid conversations, we’re joined by guests Emily Finnell, Natalie Davis, Stephanie Fernandez, and Alex Wachalka, who lay bare the emotional and psychological transitions they experienced during pregnancy and postpartum life. Their stories reveal the power of trusting one's instincts, embracing vulnerability, and overcoming the unrealistic expectations placed upon new mothers. You'll hear about the importance of self-belief, asking for help, and how these insights can serve as a comforting guide through the complexities of early motherhood, offering reassurance that you are not alone in this journey.
As we navigate the early days of parenthood, Jenna Hodge, Amy Suzanne, and Marie Carl share invaluable lessons on self-compassion and balance. Their wisdom sheds light on life's temporary seasons, reminding us to focus on manageable aspects, trust the unfolding path, and cherish fleeting moments with our young ones. From the importance of rest to listening to our instincts, these conversations emphasize the beauty of imperfection in parenting and inspire confidence in trusting our inner voices throughout the adventure of raising children. Join us for a heartfelt exploration of motherhood's challenges and triumphs, as we learn to embrace the journey with courage and grace.
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Medical Disclaimer:
This podcast is intended as a safe space for women to share their birth experiences. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Each woman’s medical course of action is individual and may not appropriately transfer to another similar situation. Please speak to your medical provider before making any medical decisions. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that evidence based practice evolves as our knowledge of science improves. To the best of my ability I will attempt to present the most current ACOG and AWHONN recommendations at the time the podcast is recorded, but that may not necessarily reflect the best practices at the time the podcast is heard. Additionally, guests sharing their stories have the right to autonomy in their medical decisions, and may share their choice to go against current practice recommendations. I intend to hold space for people to share their decisions. I will attempt to share the current recommendations so that my audience is informed, but it is up to each individual to choose what is best for them.
Chapters
00:00 - Pearls of Wisdom in Birth
12:37 - Lessons in Motherhood
25:32 - Navigating Motherhood With Self-Compassion
30:44 - Trusting Yourself Through Parenthood
Transcript
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Pearls of Wisdom is a series of the Birth Journeys podcast where I highlight some of the most profound thoughts that each mother has shared with me.
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It is so powerful for birthing people to hear from others who have been through the metamorphosis of motherhood, and it is so important for women to have a voice in this process.
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In almost every episode of the Birth Journeys podcast, I ask my guests the following question If you could go back and talk to yourself before your pregnancy journey started, what message would you want to tell yourself?
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In this episode, I have compiled the answers that each guest has given to this question.
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Please enjoy these pearls of wisdom.
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Neri, live Choma.
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The birth story of a woman.
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It goes for generations, and if she feels bad and feels that things were imposed on her, and if she feels that it was traumatic, it builds also our collective awareness at the end, and it is so important that she feels she is not only cared for but also listened to, that people ask her questions and we're really interested in her psyche, how she feels about things and what will make her feel better, and that those people come with zero agenda.
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I think this is one of the biggest challenges, especially for millennials, who are the people that are giving birth right now.
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They grew up with a very packed schedule and everything was planned so carefully by their parents, me, my generation, guilty as charged, and they need to just show up for a very unpredictable experience.
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It is about performing at the peak of your ability and going through this very unpredictable, challenging, chaotic, sometimes horrific experience that at some point also involves pain, right, and it's taking you totally out of your comfort zone.
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And sometimes I want to say you know, just talking to them about natural birth, the concept is a little bit deceiving.
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Yes, it is in our nature to give birth vaginally.
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Deceiving yes, it is in our nature to give birth vaginally.
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However, the experience of going through vaginal birth for a modern woman is not natural, it's not part of her everyday life and, in this respect, it's not natural.
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And it's funny that we were talking about natural birth and we were talking about the natural birth movement and, at the same time, we were all using the metaphor that childbirth is like a marathon run.
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Well, do you think running a marathon is natural to anyone?
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It is so not natural.
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Natural.
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You need to emotionally, mentally, physically prepare for this run and, in this respect, just telling our students and our clients your body was designed for it, it's natural for your body.
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I must tell you, in the last 10 years, I feel that it is deceiving.
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I must tell you in the last 10 years.
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I feel that it is deceiving Maya Miller.
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I'm wondering if maybe there is something that you would want to tell yourself, just because it's helpful for new moms that are starting their journey to hear what people wish they'd known.
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Yeah, I mean for me.
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I didn't have anybody in my life that had a positive birth story.
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So with every movie that I watched knocked up, where there's screaming in pain, purple, pushing, sweating, swearing at your partner you did this to me, you know.
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And then all of the traumatic births that my friends have had and also how awful their postpartum was because they didn't do the work that they needed to ahead of time in order to have a healthy pregnancy, like balancing minerals, like a spore-based probiotic, prebiotics, like all of these things reducing stress Really didn't touch on some of that stuff, but it's like so, so, so important.
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So I had this negative perception of the childbirth and that was probably one of the reasons I prolonged it so long, because I was terrified.
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I had this very logical fear of birth because of my experience in the medical.
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Then I would understand that, like my body was born to do this.
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And it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life, and maybe I wouldn't be 45 dang years old, you know, trying to keep up with the five month old and wanting to have additional children with my husband.
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Devin Garcia, if you could go back and talk to yourself, what would you want to say to yourself?
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First of all I would like to say to try to be in the moment and not have anxiety about what's going to happen, because, who knows, you don't even know what's going to happen in the next moment, right, so to just enjoy the moment you're in.
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It's such a special time to be with your baby and to have a little baby growing inside of you.
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So thinking forward and just live in the moment would be the number one thing, and I would have loved to have tried a water birth but being induced, that wasn't going to happen.
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So I would have said to myself it's great to have a birth plan and I did but also keep an open mind so you don't get annoyed at other stuff that's going on.
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Because, on top of everything, you don't need to be feeling annoyed and that having an epidural is a tool.
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My midwife said that to me.
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She's like it's not a failure, it's not an easy way out, it's just a tool to help get the baby in your arms.
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So I would definitely keep that in mind going forward.
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Because I wanted to try unmedicated and then, because I couldn't, a little bit of me felt like a failure, but it wasn't like we were talking about.
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I was so tensed up Like who knows what would have happened if I was stubborn and just tense the whole time.
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I pushed for only 15 minutes.
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That was great, and maybe that would have been two hours if.
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I was really tense.
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Well also, and I think people forget that labor isn't just that period of time where you get your epidural and you push.
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You went from nine o'clock in the morning to about eight o'clock at night, yeah, like nine to nine basically.
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Yeah, that's a really long time to not have an epidural.
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You did a lot of the hard work then and you prepared also physically by doing the yoga poses to get the baby in the right position.
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So you really did a lot of work before you got your epidural.
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The epidural, like you said, was a tool that got you over that one little hump yeah, and I know a lot of people want to try without and if you can do it, that is amazing.
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You're a warrior, you're great.
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But if you can't, definitely don't feel like a failure, because if your baby is in your arms, that's really all that matters.
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Kiona Nessenbaum.
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If you could go back and talk to yourself before you got pregnant that first time, what would you want to?
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say.
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I would say trust your gut and your intuition, because even though I was young, I still knew what I wanted and I still knew what I was capable of, regardless of everybody around me telling me otherwise, and do your research.
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And that might be hard, because that's such a blanket statement.
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Do your research, you know.
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But, for example, I really wanted midwifery and I just didn't know what it was called at the time.
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I didn't know what to look for.
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And by the time I was postpartum I did know, but I didn't accomplish it.
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And so, even if I did my research back then, I may not have landed in a midwife's care, but going through the experience of not being in midwifery care, I would have chosen midwife, but I think that's it.
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And then, if I could do it per pregnancy, can I do it per pregnancy?
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Oh, yes, go for it.
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So with my first, I would go back and do research and look for midwifery care.
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For my second, I would say be proud about who's in your space.
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With my third, if I was to change anything about my third, it would be probably to not focus so much on the negative ways that I was feeling in my labor and pregnancy, Because I was very much.
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My headspace when I was trying to get pregnant was hard.
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It took us a long time to conceive her, A lot was going on in the world and everything like that.
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So I felt like all of that came into my pregnancy and my birth.
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So I was a lot more stressed out.
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I carried a lot of negative or uncontrollable energy with me throughout that pregnancy and birth and it felt.
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I felt it in my labor.
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It was the most intense and when I was done I was like I'm never doing this again.
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And then, of course, as my daughter got older, I was like, oh, you're so cute, Maybe, but I was like nah, because she's, she's a sour patch and she will like literally kiss you and then slap you across the face and then kiss you again.
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So I totally get that.
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I Steph Sellen, if you could go back and talk to yourself before that first pregnancy?
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Do you have a message for yourself?
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I would definitely talk to different OBs and midwives and do more research.
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The swelling that I had, that was so bad, and that one I gained like 90 pounds.
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So I feel like there were so many signs and symptoms that something wasn't right.
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But I just listened to the doctor.
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I asked a right, but I, I just listened to the doctor Like I asked a question and he said, no, you're fine, I didn't advocate for myself at all, I just took his word for it.
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So and I feel like if I would have pushed more, I don't think I would have actually been actually diagnosed with preeclampsia, like they could have done stuff before.
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But and I mean, I've had six pregnancies since then and I haven't had preeclampsia yet because they induced me before you know.
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So I would just learn more and not just take doctor's word for it, not saying I'm a doctor, I'm just saying advocate for yourself more Well, find a doctor that you can trust and that you can learn with, and learn more yourself, so that you know the science.
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Yeah, yep, yep, that'd be it.
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Wendy Powell, if you could go back and talk to yourself at any point in this process, where would you want to go and what would you want to say?
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Gosh, I think, see, from what I know of what happened during the births that I had, as far as I'm aware, I don't think they could have been prevented, so I don't think there's anything different I could have asked for or done or should have done.
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So I think if I could go back to talk to myself at that time, it would be that reassurance of you haven't done anything wrong and that there's going to be medics that rush in and out and haven't got time.
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They've got a job to do, they've got a priority list and small talk is not the top of the priority list.
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I get that.
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I think we all understand that.
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So I think it would be about a reassurance and a nurturing, if you like, handhold, almost to say it's okay, just let them do what they need to do.
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This bit is out of your hands and that's okay and it's not because you did anything wrong.
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And if they're rushed, that's because they're really good at their job and they're getting on with it and making sure you're okay.
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So I think it would be.
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I think it would be a reassurance and also what we talked about before of for now they're in control, but the baby's yours, the body's yours.
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You'll get it all back.
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So I think it'll be something along those lines.
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Yeah, I think that's really important.
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You'll get it all back and then stepping into that.
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So the moment we hand over, and that's okay, that's really is okay, and you make the choice to hand over.
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You relinquish that and then you decide when to take that back.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, remembering that you have that control.
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Yeah, I think a lot of moms forget that they can get their power back.
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Emily Finnell, if you could go back and talk to yourself during those experiences, what would you say?
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See, I've thought about this before.
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I feel like with the first pregnancy it was like I would just want her to relax and trust, because I did.
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I didn't really get into it, but I definitely had some postpartum anxiety.
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I had never experienced anxiety really at all in my life until the hormones of pregnancy and childbirth.
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I mean, honestly, it was like a night and day switch for me, because when we talk about what women don't know, what you don't realize your body is going to go through, those hormones are strong and new things come in that you've never felt before, and I was that mom that was like is he breathing, is he breathing, is he breathing?
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I was just so afraid I think it was just that intensity of vulnerability, of loving something so much that you're terrified something could happen.
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And I also think I had mentally prepared myself to give birth to like a six-month-old and instead this little alien came out that I was like is he alive?
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He's so tiny.
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So I think, going back, it's funny that I even say this, because my dad did give me this advice at the time, but I don't think I was receptive to it, but I tended to seek outside knowledge instead of trust myself.
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I had to read all of the sleep training books and the parenting books and it was like everything I read I would jump on board to different ideas like sleep training or not sleep training.
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And my father noticed this about me and he said I want you to put the books down and I want you to trust that you know how to be a mother.
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You instinctually know Trust yourself.
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And, like I said, I probably wasn't as receptive as I should have been because, looking back, that would be the advice I would give to myself during the pregnancy gosh.
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I feel like I just would love to let her know that whatever she thinks is going to happen, it is so much more expansive and amazing and abundant than she could ever have dreamed, because I just I was so living in the moment and, like I described back when I just I didn't have that light at the end of the tunnel, but the truth is I had to experience all that.
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I don't actually regret it.
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I don't wish it away.
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I would want to just assure her that it's going to be okay.
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Natalie Davis, if you could go back and talk to yourself at any point in any of your birthing experiences, where would you go and what would you say?
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Gosh, I think I would go to all those moments of doubt and just the first thing that kind of came to mind for me maybe it's kind of corny is just like you got this, like you can do this and you know giving.
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If I were able to go back and give myself that, that support, probably that, and then like ask for help when you need it you know yourself.
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You've got this and then just like ask for help, right, yeah, and knowing like put put the plan in place to know who to ask, because if you have to think about who you're going to ask and what you're going to ask.
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That, just then, you're just going to lay down.
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Yeah, you're just gonna be like it's not getting done.
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It's so true, stephanie fernandez.
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If you could, just going to lay down.
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Yeah, You're just going to be like it's not getting done.
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It's so true, Stephanie Fernandez.
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If you could go back to prior to your birth experience and talk to yourself, what would you want to tell yourself?
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That's a nice question.
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I think I would tell myself that the postpartum period, especially the first six months.
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I'm not liking the movies.
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I mean I know that birth is not like in the movies and I knew that it's not like your water breaks while you're standing in the kitchen and you have this huge pond underneath you and then you go to the hospital and the baby's here.
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I knew that, but I didn't know that.
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About the postpartum period, I thought it's going to be this pink cloud that I'm sitting on and it's perfect and it's easy and it's so natural, and my baby and me will be in the perfect symbiosis and I will be this mom that prepares homemade meals, and it was such an unrealistic expectation of what I thought was going to be.
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I wish I could go back and tell myself, however, this is going to be, it's just fine, it's just right.
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You don't need to do anything, you don't have to look anything particular and your child doesn't have to do anything particular.
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All you have to do is be there in the moment and present and be a bit more courageous of feeling what you're feeling, because that was difficult for me.
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Yeah, I think all moms need to hear that.
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That's really good.
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Alex Wachalka, if you could go back and talk to yourself before this whole experience, what would you want to tell yourself, even if it's just like reassurance?
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That's a really great question, probably, to just continue to trust myself and my instincts and it's something that I tell all moms that I work with because they're there for a reason Whether you truly know what the issue is.
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I've never I've yet, in two years of doing this, I've yet to meet a mom who has said I feel like something's off, I feel like this is the issue, and she has been wrong, like they're right every single time.
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Whether it's truly what the issue is or we find you know there's a different root cause.
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When a mom says no, they so-and-so said it's fine, but I think it's this or I think something's wrong.
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They are right, and I think part of me, as a brand new mom, was hearing well, your body's not going to keep up with him as he gets older and thinking that's not right.
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I know I can do it, I'll figure it out myself then.
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Or like, oh, no, the pain is normal.
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Well, no, you know what?
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There's no way this is normal.
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How have people breastfed children since humans existed?
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If this is what they're feeling, and I think that's what I would probably just try and reinforce that message to myself Keep listening to yourself, because your instincts are there for a reason.
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They're telling you something.
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They may not know exactly what they are, but they're telling you something.
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So follow them needing help a little bit sooner and not experience so much damage, because I thought this isn't normal.
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But then I had society's idea of like, oh yeah, it's fine, it's normal, push on through, let them toughen up, like all this misinformation.
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I was like, ok, you know, drowned out.
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What I truly felt inside was this can't be normal.
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So I would just reinforce that to myself.
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Well, and I feel like we medicalize everything nowadays and there is this innate ability to birth and feed a baby.
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That just needs to be supported.
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And you know, I'm a nurse and I do medical interventions and I'm grateful for them when they're needed.
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But there's a lot that can just go ahead and happen a lot of the time in having to push formula on someone that doesn't want it.
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Now, if somebody wants formula, perfect.
00:19:01.275 --> 00:19:03.760
If that's how you want to feed your baby, good, that's there for you.
00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:07.433
But if somebody wants to breastfeed, it's equally important to have that support.
00:19:07.433 --> 00:19:13.291
Bridget Panetta, what point would you want to go meet yourself and what would you say?
00:19:13.291 --> 00:19:14.913
Oh, this is good.
00:19:16.175 --> 00:19:24.346
It's tough because I want to say to the pre-mum just drop expectation, don't try and be perfect.
00:19:24.346 --> 00:19:26.113
It's not going to work Like.
00:19:26.113 --> 00:19:31.432
You need to love your flaws and know that you're going to have a lot of them soon.
00:19:31.432 --> 00:19:39.836
I think that would set me up the best, because I thought I had everything perfect, even just becoming pregnant.
00:19:39.836 --> 00:19:44.673
You know, like I've had previous partners and things, but I just knew they weren't the right one.
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I knew I never wanted to have a child with them.
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Like it just didn't feel right.
00:19:48.530 --> 00:19:53.412
And then I met James and I just knew straight away and so I felt like everything I did was right.
00:19:53.412 --> 00:19:58.550
You know, I waited, I did the right thing, I made sure that we were, you know, financially in the right position.
00:19:58.550 --> 00:20:06.164
I had done things in my career that I was proud of and I was ready to move on to the next stage, but literally everything got ripped from under me.
00:20:06.164 --> 00:20:17.332
So just telling that person nothing's ever perfect and you can't expect, just because you think you've ticked all these boxes, that the universe is going to just give you this easy run.
00:20:17.332 --> 00:20:22.892
Things are going to be tough and you need to be able to accept that just because you think it should be like this.
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It's not always going to be the way you want it to be.
00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:27.673
That would be to the pre-publishing preacher.
00:20:27.673 --> 00:20:37.261
And then I think, when I was in that thick of it, it would just be look after yourself and love yourself and look after yourself, and that's all you can do.
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You can't worry about everyone else, anything else, just love that version of you.
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You can do.
00:20:41.910 --> 00:20:42.913
You can't worry about everyone else, anything else.
00:20:42.932 --> 00:20:43.513
Just love that version of you.
00:20:43.513 --> 00:20:59.423
Dr Michelle Gerby, I've had friends who've had births in other countries and they're like, oh yeah, well, a nurse comes to your house and there's community lactation support and free clinics and we send doulas and it's just, our system is not set up for that.
00:20:59.423 --> 00:21:02.396
And it's like I feel like the baby has a pediatrician.
00:21:02.396 --> 00:21:05.257
If they're gaining okay and meeting their milestones, then they're fine.
00:21:05.257 --> 00:21:08.034
And then mom's cut loose after six weeks.
00:21:08.034 --> 00:21:11.762
And that's when I think most of those things just start snowballing.
00:21:12.090 --> 00:21:13.680
And they just don't know who to go to.
00:21:13.680 --> 00:21:19.251
Yeah, that's where my doubt came in, because people that I respected were telling me that everything was fine.
00:21:19.251 --> 00:21:23.594
I'm like, okay, well, it's just me respected were telling me that everything was fine, I'm like okay well, it's just me, so I just discounted what I was thinking.
00:21:23.594 --> 00:21:24.855
Or we say it's normal.
00:21:24.875 --> 00:21:30.057
Yeah, we say it's normal, but I always say, just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal.
00:21:30.057 --> 00:21:37.080
How many women are like I still feel a lot of pelvic heaviness or fullness, or I'm having hemorrhoids, and we're like, oh, it's normal.
00:21:37.080 --> 00:21:38.662
I'm like, no, it's common, it's common.
00:21:38.721 --> 00:21:42.144
It's not normal and there's actually stuff that you can do to treat it.
00:21:42.144 --> 00:21:50.008
So many things that we tell postpartum women in their own bodies carpal tunnel, nerve pain, chronic headaches oh, it's just common.
00:21:50.008 --> 00:21:51.808
You just had a baby severe low back pain.
00:21:51.808 --> 00:21:53.270
Well, it's normal.
00:21:53.270 --> 00:21:54.751
It's normal, it's like no, it's common.
00:21:54.751 --> 00:21:56.354
And it's actually super treatable.
00:21:56.354 --> 00:21:57.675
It's really actionable.
00:21:57.675 --> 00:22:03.021
There's a ton of things you can do for free at home, but you just need the information.
00:22:03.321 --> 00:22:08.010
Elise Nicole Kirk Patrick, what point would you go to and what would you say to yourself?
00:22:08.290 --> 00:22:10.233
That is a powerful question.
00:22:10.595 --> 00:22:31.402
So I think, looking back, the hardest point in my motherhood journey was when I thought I was losing my family unit, going through separation and becoming a single mom, and that's actually where I started to source all of this worthiness work.
00:22:31.442 --> 00:22:40.674
That's where it was born out of right, Because what I didn't share with you here is that I had a lot of anxiety and panic attacks and stuff when that was happening.
00:22:41.678 --> 00:23:03.913
And back then, if I could go back and tell her me something, I would say know yourself, Get clear with who you are and what you desire, because that way you'll know where to focus and you'll be able to be super present with your children, super present with your family, no matter what the outside circumstances are.
00:23:04.075 --> 00:23:26.978
You know that you always have that love within you for yourself, for your vision of who you desire to be, the kind of mother you desire to be, and that's like the elixir for being a mama is knowing who you desire to be and then, from that place, you can act intentionally as if you are that mom now and then.
00:23:26.978 --> 00:23:28.102
That closes the gap.
00:23:28.102 --> 00:23:36.621
So I think I had a long time there where I lost myself and, looking back, I was absolutely an incredible mother.
00:23:36.621 --> 00:23:43.863
But I felt in that time that I had lost that sweet, gentle, playful mama that I had always been.
00:23:43.863 --> 00:24:04.065
But had I just had someone just whisper into my ear just recalibrate, know yourself, restore, have a renaissance of who you desire to be, I probably would have been able to pull myself out of that a lot sooner.
00:24:05.069 --> 00:24:09.990
Jenna Hodge, if you could go back and talk to yourself, what would you want to tell yourself?
00:24:09.990 --> 00:24:17.611
What message do you wish that you had going back to that first pregnancy, delivery and motherhood experience?
00:24:18.011 --> 00:24:18.531
A couple of things.
00:24:18.531 --> 00:24:19.914
The control thing, for sure.
00:24:19.914 --> 00:24:21.798
Yeah, I think that's just life.
00:24:22.218 --> 00:24:22.439
Right.
00:24:22.459 --> 00:24:25.423
But obviously it's really big in marriage and in motherhood.
00:24:25.423 --> 00:24:27.212
Those two are obviously big factors.
00:24:27.212 --> 00:24:30.962
But and then also the season thing it will not be this forever.
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Your child will sleep, you will sleep.
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They will not cry forever.
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Then they'll start talking back at you.
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