The Kindness Matters Podcast

So. Much. Division. Let's talk about how to change that. Re-engage as neighbors, friends, co-workers and family. Let's set out to change the world. Strike that. Change A World. One person at a time, make someone's life a little better and then do it again tomorrow and the day after that, through kindness.
Kindness is a Super-Power that each of us has within us. It is so powerful it has the potential to change not only your life but those around you, too. Let's talk about kindness.

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The Kindness Matters Podcast

When Parents Become Advocates

May 21, 2026 • Mike

0:00 | 42:33

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The moment you realize “the system” can’t carry this for you is the moment you become your child’s advocate. I sit down with Ashlyn Thompson, co-founder and executive hope director of Parent Empowerment Network, to unpack the kind of courage that gets built in hospital rooms at 2 a.m. Ashlyn shares the story of her daughter Emery’s rare congenital condition, bladder exstrophy, and what it’s like to hold joy and grief at the same time on the day your child is born.

We talk through the realities of complex pediatric surgery, extended hospital stays, and the terrifying medical crises that forced Ashlyn to trade blind trust for informed partnership. She explains why parent advocacy is not about fighting doctors, it’s about collaboration, clear communication, and treating a caregiver’s observations as meaningful data for care decisions like pain management and medication changes. If you’ve ever felt the pressure of making a choice that could shape a child’s entire future, you’ll recognize the weight she names so honestly.

Then the story takes a turn that will stick with you: a single comment in an online parent support group leads Ashlyn to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and a bladder neck reconstruction option not available to her in the United States. We dig into research, intuition, second opinions, and what “solution seeking” looks like when the stakes are lifelong. Ashlyn also shares how connection counters isolation, and why Empowered by Hope and Parent Empowerment Network exist to move parents from emotional crisis to advocacy readiness across any diagnosis.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with a caregiver who needs hope, and leave a review so more families can find it. What part of Ashlyn’s journey hit closest to home?

You can support the show in a few different ways—by grabbing something from our merch store, picking up a copy of my book, or joining us on Buy Me a Coffee. Every bit of support helps keep the podcast going and also helps us give back to nonprofits doing good in the world.

“Intro music: ‘Human First’ by Mike Baker – YouTube Music: https://youtu.be/wRXqkYVarGA | Podcast: Still Here, Still Trying | Website: www.mikebakerhq.com”

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Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Hey, hello, and welcome everybody. Welcome to the Kindness Matters Podcast. I am your host, Mike Rathman, and I say this every single time, and I mean it every single time. Thank you, thank you, thank you for for tuning into the podcast today. Um and I if you listen every week, you're probably tired of hearing this, but on the off chance that there's somebody who's new, um I realize that we all have so many hours in the day, and the fact that you're taking a portion of one of those hours out of your busy schedule to listen to this podcast absolutely means the world to me. And I thank you, and I thank you for being a part of this journey. Um, I have such a fantastic show for you guys today. Um, today's guest is someone whose story redefines what it means to be brave, relentless, and anchored in love. Ashlyn Thompson, co-founder and executive hope director of the Parent Empowerment Network, is a mother who refused to accept the limits placed in front of her daughter, and in doing so, changed what's possible for countless families. Inspired by her daughter Emery, who was born with bladder extrophy and survived two nearly fatal medical crises as an infant, Ashlyn became a fierce advocate for parents navigating complex medical journeys. When the only surgical option available in the United States meant a lifetime of probable incontinence for Emory, Ashlyn searched the world for something better. And that search led her family to the United Kingdom, where Emory became the first American child to undergo a groundbreaking bladder neck reconstruction procedure. Ashlyn's story is one of vision, grit, and the sort of kindness that takes the shape of action. I'm honored to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for being here, Ashlyn.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

But um, and I know I can tell how genuine it is, but the reality is, is uh I thank you, Mike, too, for putting just goodness into the world. Anyone who's taking time to put love and light into the world, whether it's on a podcast or it's a compliment to a friend, a stranger, um, just saying something nice, sending a quick uh meme to make somebody laugh. That's how we raise the you know, the barometer of the world to a better energy, to a better state. And uh it's really cool to see you doing your part.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Thank you. Thank you so much. I okay, I can quit now. We're done.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Yep, we're good. It was nice to meet everybody.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

So thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Be kind.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Oh, it what you went through. Can you can you talk a little bit about it? Emory was Emory was born.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yes. So and uh life took off in a whole new way.

unknown 4:56

Yeah.

Pregnancy News That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_03 4:57

So yeah, so I am the very, very proud, incredibly blessed mom of two children. My oldest is Cole. He's uh he just turned nine years old, feels more like 19 in the best of ways and the most challenging of ways. And then in 2021, I had my second child, my daughter Emery. And so she will be five before we know it, which is wild. But uh yeah, when Emery came along, I learned while I was pregnant that uh life was not going to go the way that I was anticipating uh life with a little girl. Uh I was expecting or planning for all the, you know, let's face it, the really cute clothes that are out there for girls. Right, uh, you know, the adorable nursery, just all the mother-daughter fantasies that I had of, you know, just dreams, right? That are honest and pure. And um nothing wrong with those. But I think a bit of me was just expecting smooth sailing uh to a point. And that is not what happened. So we learned uh ultimately the important thing is through uh thanks goodness, I had a really, really wonderful OB who um noticed on our ultrasounds at 20 weeks that uh baby girl looked extremely healthy, everything was great, but she noticed uh the sonographer was not able to capture any images of the bladder. They're like, it's literally like it's we just can't see it. But they said, well, it could just be that she's emptying it and we're just catching, you know, like when you uh catch a bad uh run of traffic lights, you're either all reds or all greens. We've all been there. So that's what they kind of likened it to for us. And ultimately that's not what it was. It turned out that she was going to be born with something called, as you said, good job, Mike, pronouncing it, bladder extrophy, which is a very complex congenital defect. Um, it has no real known cause. Uh the the best medical term I hear is it's a fluke. And so um, and what it means is that she was born with her lower abdomen open and her uh her bladder was what you would say is was malformed, right? Instead of being, you know, perfectly balloon-shaped, she basically had just a bladder plate, just this flat organ tissue. And it is considered one of the most physically complex uh dis um uh defects, excuse me, that a child can be born with, um, even more so in a lot of cases than hearts. Not saying it's more dangerous, it's just there's no real exact science on how to correct everything and make the body work the way that it's expected to work. And so I had my little girl and uh it was tough, Mike. Um, I would like to say the day she was born was one of the happiest days of my life, but it was that and one of the hardest days of my life because seeing it all I like my mom heart, yeah, what I could see was how much hardship we had ahead. And I knew that there were surgeries, and I knew that there was pain, and I knew that there were so many challenges ahead, and my mom heart was just grieving at the same time I was meeting her. And I share that because there's a lot of self-uh forced on shame for parents when they have a child, whether you know they're going to be born with something, or you find out at delivery, or anytime where your heart just sinks.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

And people think that means that, or they fear that the world assumes that means you don't love your child as they are, or you don't accept them. And that's a really, really common process that uh goes through the mind. And so that's why I share that part of the story is it took me a long time to learn. I was just so overwhelmed with love for my child, that's why I was it was fear that was showing up in the delivery room.

unknown 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Along with love. I mean, uh on the very day that she's born, right? And you're it it's it really is kind of bittersweet, right? You're you're you're thrilled that she's here and she's with you, and but yet looking ahead because and maybe I mean hearing about it prior to her birth and then actually seeing it, I I'm sure it's different.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

It uh so many things in your head. Right. It's it's no different than anything in life that you're anticipating, but when it actually happens, when it arrives, it just it just sits differently, right? The weight of it, you know, just settles on you in a way you cannot anticipate. And

Infant Surgery And Near Loss

SPEAKER_03 10:02

so I had Emory, and uh the faster story for the sake of what matters is she did have a surgery uh when she was an infant less than two months old. Uh, we were able to have the surgery at what is described as a medical center of excellence.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Nope. I got it.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Did I lose you? I'm so sorry. All of a sudden my screen Oh, I apologize. My screen just went away and I was like, I wasn't sure if it shut off.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

We're here. We're still here.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

We're here. All right.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Medical.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

So let's go back to Yes. We were able to have Emery's first surgery, which was just a close, which is the closure procedure to put everything back inside when she was an infant, and it's a very traumatic surgery. I say that she was in the OR for 11 hours. You know, she was seven weeks old. Um, she was in the hospital a little over a month. We did experience two really, really horrific, um, scary experiences where she did almost die. And I'm not saying that like as an exaggeration at all. Right. Um and uh that experience was a lot like um, I tell people I had these almost rose-colored glasses, but rather than you know, the typical way of seeing them, I had these these glasses, this view of the medical system that my job was to get her to the best of the best medical professionals, the greatest hospital, hand her to them, and then everything would be okay. And my job was just to be mom and love her. Those glasses got ripped off, stomped on, and then thrown over a mountain. And again, I stress I was at a wonderful hospital, very skilled, everybody doing their best. But it turns out uh advocacy is it was the world that I was stepping into, a role that was required of me that I had no idea what it was that it would be needed. And I learned uh a hard, it's very hard lesson, but the lesson that came out of it was that nobody will ever know my child as well as I do, and nobody will ever be able to speak up on my child's behalf better than I can.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

And my connection to her was what mattered, and it deserved to have a part of the equation for everything that went into consideration to her care.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah, yeah. And I I, you know, theoretically or hypothetically or whatever, we know that as parents, there will be times when we will need to advocate for our child. I don't think you had any idea to what extent you would have to do that for Emory.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

No, I did not. But uh I sure professor life or university of life, right? Uh that was a crash course. And I have a wonderful support system.

Learning Advocacy From Family History

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Um it's uh it's a fun family jeopardy fact that I am a third-generation medical mom. Wasn't expected, wasn't the plan, but I am. Um my my mom um was uh had to be a medical advocate for my brother with hemophilia and some other medical occurrences. And my grandmother, who I call Nani, had my uncle who was born severely brain injured due to a traumatic birth injury. So I've grown up in this world of of advocates, honestly, but it still didn't hit until it was my own. It was difficult.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

And were you even aware that you were come from a long line of advocates?

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Oh yeah. I've grown up my whole life around it.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Um and that's uh and a very blessed to take on the helped me.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

100% it helped me. Um so did advocating for my father a couple years, the the two years before I had my daughter. My father had a catastrophic stroke and lost his ability to move majority of his body and speak. And they want to put people like that in a nursing home and kind of lock them up and say, you know, that's all there is to it. Um, and that didn't work for me. And so I learned to advocate for my dad. And that's also what taught me. That's kind of one of those earlier threads in this what I call slow motion miracle, that had I not gone through the experience of searching for help and, you know, different options for therapies for my dad all over the country. And we did take my dad to some other places, had I not gone through that with him, I wouldn't I really don't think that I would have had the awareness or maybe the trust in myself to listen to that voice that there could be something else out there, right? So I got to practice on my dad. I kind of look at that as his last gift to me before he, you know, before he passed away. That I got to practice on my dad. And that's why I was able to eventually end up not only finding, but then pursuing medical care outside of America, something I never imagined I would need to do.

The Decision To Look Abroad

SPEAKER_02 15:34

So when you look back at that moment and you realize that your daughter needed care beyond what was available not just locally, but here in the United States in general, what was the emotional turning point uh that led you to choose the UK for her surgery?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

I don't know that I can identify a single point, but I think it's more about the feeling itself that that grew through the journey. And that feeling was uh what um I really look back now and I see it as my intuition speaking to me. And it as I went through this fact-finding process, I was desperate for facts. It's a terrifying position. It's to hold the responsibility of making decisions for anybody that you know whatever happens now will affect their entire life. It wasn't like I was making decisions for her that would just be temporary. Whatever if you make a surgical decision that changes the body composition, how the body is put together, you know, that's not a light decision. And it would affect, I knew it would go on to affect her physical health, whether she, you know, it could affect her becoming a mother or it could affect her mental health, how she saw herself, all those things. My biggest fear was what if I'm wrong and she grows up and she hates me for having done this?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

You know, and I was thinking about that when she was a year old.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

And uh And that's such a bizarre concept, right? That we have to worry that you had to worry about that at such a young age for her.

unknown 17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

And was it more of a just a I refuse to accept that there's nothing that somebody can't do somewhere in the world for my kid?

SPEAKER_03 17:31

You know, you're right. You're that's very close. So uh it's taken me a while to figure out the best way to put it for myself. And uh it's something I speak about a lot now to people. I naturally uh transitioned into a solution seeker. I moved from being a problem solver to somebody who focused on the problem, and that limited my person that limited my view, that limited where I could where I would look. It limited what I allowed to be possible that I wasn't aware of when it was a problem to solve. But I was given whether from God, you know, for me it's a very it's it's a very spiritual journey.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

You know, there was just this overwhelming knowing inside inside of me. And I think everybody has these experiences at some point, Mike. I'm guessing you have too. And it could be something really small, it could be something really big. You know, sometimes it's as simple as when you get that feeling right before you're about to turn on a certain road, and all of a sudden you're like, you know, for some reason I feel like I I need to take the other path home. And I have no idea why. And then later on you find out that there was a terrible accident on that road. Those aren't just TV stories, those things happen all the time.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Every day.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

Exactly. And that's what I I kept feeling that I could not settle for what all of American medicine was telling me her prognosis was. And they kept telling me what a great life she could still have. How and it wasn't that I I don't want to say that I doubted them so much as I there was just this refusal in me, and it was not, you know, denial. I spent a long time questioning myself. Am I just in denial of the reality we've been given?

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, I think that's natural. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Or is this really hope coming from something that's is this really possible? And so I did my diligence, I did my research, I talked to probably between eight and ten of the very top medical institutions in the country that had any type of specialization in her condition. And uh when I finally went back to the UK, to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which let's back up, Mike. I think it's

A Procedure Found Through Parents

SPEAKER_03 19:56

important for people to know. Yeah, I learned about the surgery that my daughter ultimately had on a Facebook parent and patient group, just a support group. And I saw on a thread that had about, I don't know, there was at least 30 comments on it, which we all know what that looks like on social media, really small. I don't often read those, but I know that I was meant to because I saw one comment when I was scrolling through this board where a gal said, I'm so sorry when I read these posts about how many troubles these patients and these kids grow up with. I didn't have any of these, but I had the Kelly procedure.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

And you're like, the what?

SPEAKER_03 20:39

The what? And that's what so much of my research was surely this is available in America. It must just have a different name. I must just not be, you know, there's just something that's is crossing wires and and it's here, and you know, it's just misunderstood. Right. And um, so I finally I reached out to that person directly and I asked her the information um or the questions I needed, and she directed me to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where it led me to uh it's funny over there, if you don't know this, it's considered more esteemed to be called professor than doctor, because most of them over there are both. So he is, of course, a doctor, but he is called Professor, Professor Imran Mushtak. Umran has become a genuinely a family friend. Oh, since then he's uh very, very important to our family. But uh anyway, I had a Zoom conversation with this man in a hospital in a country I had never been to. Granted, it was London. I wasn't trying to go to, you know, Timbuktu or um, you know, what some third world country, you know. And um and when I had the conversation with him, I can't tell you how visceral it was in where that knowing just settled. And I am not somebody who takes uh I don't easily find confidence in my decisions in the past. I'm somebody who uh has a long history of struggling with being confident in myself. And um and that I think that comes from my ADHD journey, not understanding how my brain is constantly trying to self-protect.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

But with this, that all went away. And then, let's see, it was five months from our first conversation. Uh, we were in London, and it's the best decision I've ever made my entire life.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

That's that's crazy. Oh you can say what you want about Facebook, and and plenty of people will criticize Facebook. But in this case, in this case there was a win there. It was it was more than useful, right? I and so talk to me a little bit now about okay, so you've had the surgery. Emory is is fine. I got this here, such a lovely little cutie patootie. Well, we're gonna be a little bit more. Isn't she just a firefly?

SPEAKER_03 23:07

She's just constant light.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Um how did you meet with Emily? Whitey, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

All right, yes. Okay, so uh let's pack this up from my brain uh so that I can move to that uh successfully. So no, you're good. This is on me, this is for me.

London Surgery And A Fast Miracle

SPEAKER_03 23:30

So, really quick, Emory had the surgery right before her second birthday. And normally it could take two to three years, even longer, before they know if the surgery was truly a success. And 11 months to the day, Emory had her surgery. She came to me and told me that she needed to use the potty, and she did. And she is considered a medical miracle because she's literally one of the fastest, not only healing, but they've never seen success as quickly as it has occurred with her and as thoroughly as it has been with her. She's literally been studied from a safe perspective of a objective mom, but in an appropriate way by specialists from multiple countries. They say they've never seen a case like hers.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

If she goes to medical school, she may run across herself in a textbook.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

She might. Yeah. Well, I'll have to tell you some stories about some images I've seen of my daughter's anatomy internally that I was not prepared for at uh at some point that I know are in textbooks. Now I had to give my permission.

The Friend Who Felt With Her

SPEAKER_03 24:39

But um anyway, so yes, so Emily, who's Emily, right? Uh so Emily Whiting is a now she's more than a friend. She is uh truly like a sister. Uh I met Emily a couple years before, let's see. No, it would have been a few years before that, I guess. I met Emily at a bachelorette party. We had a mutual friend. And this is before uh we were both married, having families, any of that.

unknown 25:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

And then when Emily had her daughter a couple years after that, which was shortly after I had my first child, Cole, I learned that Emily's daughter, Charlotte, had been born with a mountain of diagnoses. Uh, literally head to toe, she had anomalies. And I was very invested in the story emotionally. Um, looking back, it was another one of those threads being woven into this slow motion miracle story, right? Like I was obsessed, is really the only word to describe how I closely I followed the journey. I was sending her things like little gifts or supplies or pick-me-ups or whatnot for her, the family for months. Charlotte eventually got to the place that she was, you know, better. It wasn't life or death all the time, thank God. Things kind of moved on. And then years later, when I found out my daughter was going to be born with these medical challenges, even though I've grown up with the most supportive family and literally, like I said, third generation uh medical parent, it wasn't until I reached out to Emily and asked if we could talk that I had that experience of, I mean, I I describe it as the relief that comes from connecting with somebody who feels with you, Mike, not just for you.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

For you.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Yes. See, my mom and my grandmother, they could feel with me to an extent, but they were so far down the road that it was hard to be in the same to land in a mental space that was close, right? Like they were lighthouses for me, but they were so far away that it still it just didn't feel as pertinent yet. Whereas Emily was still in the throes of advocating for her daughter's medical complexities. She lived it daily. And I get chills. I'm right now, even um, I didn't even speak for the first five minutes on the phone. I just cried and she just waited with me and just kept saying, I know, hun. I know it's all just love. It's okay. Just kept saying things like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

And um she didn't fix anything for me. She didn't tell me what to do, Mike. She didn't uh, you know, give me a step-by-step step directions or anything. But she showed up with me and she could feel with me because she too knew what it was like. And it busted through that invisible wall of isolation that I had no idea I was barricading myself behind.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Yeah. Yeah. It'll it'll break right through that, won't it? Just no.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

And uh well, good, good. Uh and so that's how things started. And Emily, of course, stayed in our lives. And when Emory was about six months old, uh, we had gotten through our first surgery. We'd been home for a couple months, and I was uh, this was an anomaly. I was folding laundry, not something I do very often. And um it was that monotonous of a task.

Turning Pain Into A Podcast

SPEAKER_03 28:33

I'm sitting there folding laundry, and all of a sudden, whether it's God, universe, spirit, whatever, you know, however anybody connects with that, for me, it was God. It was just Ashlin. There is a reason you cannot stop thinking about all those other families you saw in the hospital during your time with Emery. Because, like I told you earlier, Mike, I had to advocate constantly for my infant daughter, and not for little things. I'm talking about medication changes, pain management. Discussing with people the fact that my daughter was in pain and not just crying because she's a baby. Because I'm the mom, I could tell the difference. But I had it in I had a team of five pain management, you know, uh doctors who would come at realms and I would have to explain to them the difference between her cries and her faces.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Because I knew her in ways that they could not. And I learned like I don't blame them for it, but I had to be consistent because they weren't trained to take mom's emotional feedback as data points to make medical decisions.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

And um so I was with Emery. I went home like maybe three times that month for like a shower and then like two times to spend a little bit of time with Cole, who was only four outside the hospital. But the rest of the time I I couldn't be away from her in my own mind, right? And um but I remembered there were so many other children there at this it was a children's hospital who their parents could only be there before and after work. Um, because there were children who were there, we were on the transplant floor, and so some of these kids were there for months up a year even. And these parents had to go back to work. Some of them didn't have support systems, they didn't have somebody who could be with their child, and sometimes, I mean, I'm talking they were infants, toddlers, up to teenagers. And my heart just kept breaking. Like, what are they missing that they can't help but miss to help their child? And uh so that all of a sudden it was, Ashlyn, there's a reason that you are so emotionally affected by this. It's not just to keep breaking your heart, it's to do something about it. And you and Emily, I don't know that the word podcast came to mind, but that's what I took from it. I literally called Emily right that moment and I said, I'm going to pose this as a question, but I already know we're going to do it. That we need to start a podcast to connect with other parents, other caregivers of their children, no matter their medical circumstances, to one, remind them that there's nobody better suited to do this than them for their child, and two, to remind them and or teach them their voice is not an option. It is critical to their child's care and well-being. And we teach them how to partner with their medical team for their child to reach that great quality of life that they're after, not to fight with them or, you know, which is what a lot of people attach to the word advocacy or advocate. They they seem to think it means to like initiate fights. But uh true advocacy is partnership. It's collaboration.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

And so what came first, the podcast or the nonprofit?

SPEAKER_03 32:06

The podcast began first. Uh well, the concept of the podcast began first. And Emily lives in Ohio. I live in Indiana. We got together about a month after that phone call, spent a weekend together, and by the end of the weekend, we had an entire business plan, if you will, to create an entire nonprofit because we realized there's a lot more to this that needs done. And we dove in and didn't think twice.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Wow. And really, I mean, who better? You two are probably more qualified to inform about advocacy. I can't think of anybody else that would be worth it.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

Well, I mean, it's you know, when I said earlier the conversation that I learned what it means to or how important and powerful it is to talk to somebody who feels with you, not just for you.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

You know, it's uh it's like anytime you're being like when we're being taught, right? The best teachers don't tell you what to do, they show you how to do it by example, right? They they lead, they, they guide you, yeah, but they don't just force it on you. And that's what we started out as Charlotte's Hope Foundation. Originally we were named after Emily's daughter, Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yes, sir. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

And uh we learned later on that the word foundation meant everybody thought we were giving away money, which we were not. We would have liked to, but we were not.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Right. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

Right. And then later on, the reason the only reason we we changed the name, we we we tell everybody we kind of matured and and grew up some more and uh figured out who we really were, and that evolved into what we call parent empowerment network, because that's truly what we are. We are here to be the bridge for parents from emotional crisis to advocacy readiness. And we don't remove the hard, we can't take away the problems or the pain as much as we wish we could. But what we do is we show up for them to remind them, A, you're never alone. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Because I think that's probably prevalent, isn't it? For somebody who's dealing with a complex medical situation. They feel like they're the only ones that are going through it.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

And Mike, I'm

Isolation As The Real Enemy

SPEAKER_03 34:25

curious. I mean, you've had so many incredible conversations with guests, but something I've been chewing on for a while lately is that I really like I really, really believe that there's something about this concept of isolation being the biggest enemy that humanity faces.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Yes, absolutely. Our relationship with a person or uh or a a kid in middle school, whatever the case is. And I think was it the Surgeon General a couple years ago said that it's the biggest epidemic, most serious epidemic that this country faces right now is isolation or loneliness.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Right. It is, and it's the most destructive because the the uh the impact it has on the spirit, the mind, and the body. Yes, it's it's toxic. And um it also shows up in, you know, whether, like I said, whether it's self-induced, uh, of that nobody can possibly like for my own child, even talking to other parents when they would have it, when you're in the throes or or the the flames are at your, you know, are surrounding you, yeah, what we feel is so intense that there is no way that anybody else can possibly understand what I am feeling for my child right now.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Right?

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

And what I learned is that people don't have to understand. They don't have to be in my shoes to to get where I'm coming from. And that's why we are what makes us rare with Parent Empowerment Network and then our podcast, Empowered by Hope, is that we are very, very purposely uh non uh nonspecific in terms of diagnosis or medical conditions because it if you know what heartbreak feels like, if you have experienced fear for your for your child's well-being, if you have experienced the angst and the pain of not being able to be the one to make it better, then we're all in the same playing field. But yeah, I promise that you can you'll you will be able to relate. It's not about the specifics of life, it's about the emotions that we experience as human beings that bring us together. And that's been one of the most beautiful gifts. I know, Mike, when you and I first met, we we talked about the thread of hope that is woven through all of this, both what you do and and what I do. And this experience for me, I think one of the greatest gifts to come from it is that realization that there is there's not anything out there that is so powerful and or so important that it can prevent me completely from finding connection with another person, no matter who they are, where they are, what they are, what they've done, what they've gone through. Because I really do believe after everything I've gone through and witnessed, at our core, we all want love, we want to be loved, we want to give love, but it is how we go through life, how we see ourselves, how we see life, our relationship with it. That's where you either see you start to either build barriers around that love in your center that prevents you from experiencing it, or you you spread seeds of of more love and more hope, and and then that reflects in your own life, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It ripples right back to you.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

It's it's amazing how I mean I've connected with families directly. I've had the privilege of talking to either families or medical providers or advocates, uh, you name it, so many different types of people from uh last week counted. We're up to 18 countries. Sometimes we need some help, but I'll be honest, it is helpful how many countries do speak English as well. It's very, very spoiled here in America that they do that. Um, and like the language doesn't matter, their location, their demographics, the the medical condition. It's all the all the uh my biggest fear in life, I I tell this uh to people, one of my absolute biggest fears in life is small talk. The beauty of this journey that life threw beyond is there is very little small talk, Mike. You meet people heart to heart all the time. We don't talk about weather, we don't talk about unless it's gonna interrupt us getting to an appointment for our child.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

No.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Uh yeah. Yeah, that is so cool. I and what you're putting out there right now, Ashlyn, and um is you're you're giving people hope. Really. I mean, bottom line. Um and and you're helping them in in ways that I can't even begin to count. Um I'm gonna have to wrap it up, but I wanna how can your your the your website I'm stumbling.

How To Support The Mission

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Your website we'll have the link to your website and your podcast in the show notes. How can listeners support your mission right now or get involved in the case?

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Biggest thing that I recommend is one looking up the podcast, empowered by hope, sharing it with people. I have yet to ever meet somebody who doesn't somehow know another parent or caregiver who is on the journey of a child who's got some medical needs. Okay. That may be a good idea. And it could also be somebody it is. Um also it could be somebody who had a medical experience with their child and they're past it. But I will tell you, some of the people I've seen the biggest impact hit are the ones who went through the NICU journey 20 years ago and never had anybody to talk to them about it and relate to them. And I have seen healing and breakthroughs in people who had no idea how much they were carrying with them because nobody ever connected with them about it. And so uh sharing our podcast is always appreciated. And um, you know, just educating yourself um on what re that there is a resource available. Um it it's a great thing to be in to empower yourself with another tool or a gift you can share with somebody else to help them with very little effort.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah, very little effort. It's yeah, absolutely. Ashlyn, thank you so much for for being on the show today. I I really appreciate it. I could talk for hours early, probably about this. Well, this was wonderful. And then I had a list of questions that I didn't even touch on um that that's all right. I you know what? It it's simply it's such an honor to meet you and to uh to have you share your story with me. And um I wish you all the all the best, all the most success.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

Well, thank you, Mike. I'm so grateful to be here, and I encourage all your listeners to keep coming back to you for the dose of hope and humor and humanity. If we could always use as much of that as possible. So thank you.