DR. REBECCA N. THOMPSON: Fertility, Making Meaning, and her new book "Held Together"!

On today’s episode, we’re sitting down with Dr. Rebecca N. Thompson, a family medicine and public health physician from Portland, Oregon, who specializes in women’s and children’s health. She's also the author of Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love. We’ll chat all about her lived experience with fertility issues, about not just finding meaning but making meaning, and about letting go of our stories instead of holding them in. You know, we really should start an I AM ONE Podcast book club! Anyway, we’re thrilled to share this conversation with you. So, without further ado, please sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode with our friend, Becca.

Mentioned on today's episode:

• Held Together by Rebecca N. Thompson, MD
• Podcast: The Moth
• Watching: The Good Place, Arrested Development, Ted Lasso, The Office
• Listening to: Six (the musical)
• Rebecca's Website

Interested in sharing your story?
Fill out our podcast interest form here!

Questions about the I AM ONE Podcast?
Email Dani Giddens - dani@postpartum.net

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Transcript

Introduction | Fertility, Pregnancy Loss & Dr. Rebecca Thompson

Dani 0:00

Welcome to the I Am One podcast. On today's episode, we're sitting down with Dr. Rebecca N. Thompson, a family medicine and public health physician from Portland, Oregon, who specializes in women's and children's health. She's also the author of Held Together, a shared memoir of motherhood, medicine, and imperfect love. We'll chat all about her lived experience with fertility issues, about not just finding meaning, but making meaning, and about letting go of our stories instead of holding them in. We're thrilled to share this conversation with you. So without any further ado, please sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode with our friend Becca. Becca, welcome to the podcast studio. We are smack dab in the middle of the hustle and bustle of mid-December as we record this episode. And to be honest, it's really quite nice for us to take an hour to slow down from our wild day and enjoy sharing this lovely conversation with you today. You come highly recommended, which I think we may touch on a little bit later in the episode. We are really excited that we get to spend some time with you and for our listeners to get to know you if they don't already today.

Emily 1:12

They should.

Dani 1:13

Yeah, they really should. So thanks so much for being here.

Rebecca 1:16

Oh, thanks for having me. I've been really looking forward to this.

Emily 1:19

Us as well.

Dani 1:20

Yeah.

Emily 1:21

Let's dive right in. Would you like to introduce yourself? Name, pronouns, favorite pizza topping, whatever the people need to know.

Meet Becca: Family Medicine Doctor & Author of Held Together

Rebecca 1:30

Sure, sure. So Rebecca N. Thompson, MD, and she, her, Becca, is fine. Please feel free to call me Becca, as you know. I live in Portland, Oregon, with my husband and our two teenagers and a couple of very snuggly rescue cats.

Dani 1:48

Oh.

Rebecca 1:48

I'm a family medicine and public health physician, and most recently a writer, which is what we're gonna talk about.

Emily 1:56

You wrote something? No, I'm kidding.

Rebecca 1:58

And thanks for having me on to talk about some of the stories that that project is all about. But it was a really winding path to get here. And so that's I think what I'm looking forward to highlighting is how all of our paths can be so different from what we expected. It all makes sense in retrospect to end up where I am now, including creating Held Together, this book that we're gonna talk about. And you know, I think it goes back to starting out, I thought I wanted to be an archaeologist, not a doctor. That was about high school. I decided I would be an archaeologist when I visited some really amazing dig sites in travel and was like, oh, this is what I want to do. So I majored in anthropology in college and I discovered pretty quickly that what I really liked was the life stories aspect, like the living people's stories, more like anthropology than archaeology. I'm also terrible at being out in the hot sun all day.

Emily 2:51

You're like, well, that's like this is maybe not the best career path.

Rebecca 2:55

But just like really getting into that origin of storytelling and appreciating the power of that, right?

Emily 3:02

Yeah.

Rebecca 3:02

What I thought was totally unrelated, the other thing I love is to be outdoors. And I was president of the outing club in college. I wanted to learn some first aid because I was leading all these trips, you know, backcountry, canoeing, and hiking, winter camping, all this stuff. Yeah. And so I thought, this is really irresponsible. I'm doing this, and I don't even have a first aid certification.

Dani 3:23

Uh-huh.

Rebecca 3:23

So I gave up my spring break to do this. It's called a WFR, a wilderness first responder. I was out on the East Coast, like you all. I was in New England. And I was like, I love this. I would fall asleep every night with the book on my chest, like open, you know, reading until late into the night. And I was completely surprised by that. Basically, that was the end of college. And well, I better sort this out. I wasn't pre-med. So I ended up doing a post-bacc night school program to do those pre-med requirements while working several jobs. Like I was a research assistant in a psychology lab. I TA'd some classes to like pay my way through the program, like physics and organic chemistry and stuff. And I worked as an editorial assistant at New England Journal, which is New England Journal of Medicine, which was like nearby where I was living.

Emily 4:08

It's all coming together: medicine, writing.

Rebecca 4:11

That's right. But it was so messy at the time, like piecing it all together. And I thought because of wilderness medicine, I thought I would go into something like altitude research.

Dani 4:22

Interesting.

Rebecca 4:22

Yeah. But what I realized is usually to do that kind of work, you specialize either in emergency medicine or intensive care, like ICU type care process.

Emily 4:33

Oh, right, right.

Dani 4:34

Yeah.

Rebecca 4:34

And those are incredible fields. I've loved a lot of what I've done in those through my rotations, but I'm not a big fan of procedural stuff. I prefer the stories.

Dani 4:42

Oh.

Rebecca 4:43

Again, it all makes sense.

Dani 4:44

I mean, it doesn't, yeah, you're more interested in like, tell me about what was happening before this thing happened.

Rebecca 4:50

Yeah. And when you had, what did you feel afterward? What did it mean to you?

Dani 4:54

Meanwhile, somebody needs emergency care, and you're like, how did we get here though?

Rebecca 4:58

So obviously this led me to primary care eventually. And I ended up in family medicine, public health, like systems, and understanding the patterns of things and what I think of as sort of my biggest practice of medicine these days, which is translating medical experience, right? Using written and spoken words to make these kinds of complex medical topics more accessible to everyone. And to make people like more curious about the complicated experiences that we all face in health and healing and illness and disease and recognizing that we never know what other people are going through.

Dani 5:32

Oh, yeah.

Rebecca 5:33

Sometimes it even takes a while to make sense of our own stories.

Dani 5:37

Yeah.

Emily 5:38

That's why listening to stories and asking questions is so important because then you get to like, closer to the root sometimes than if you were just like, well, I think you need a band-aid because I can see a little situation, right?

Rebecca 5:49

Right. So that's kind of like the complicated, unconventional path that seemed very disjointed at the time, but makes complete sense now about how I am where I am, I think.

Dani 6:01

Yeah. Well, you've done a really great job of kind of laying out how professionally how you got to where you are. I'm curious, Becca, is there a role that perinatal mental health disorders have played in your life personally as well?

Fertility Struggles & Pregnancy Loss

Rebecca 6:15

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think a lot of this perinatal, we think of right around and right after childbirth, right? But for me, a lot of this was in more fertility earlier than that. So part of the origin of writing held together was that when I was first finishing up my first part of training, another like first public health, I ended up in family medicine later. And that's part of the story. When I was finishing up my public health residency, and my husband and I were thinking, yeah, it's a pretty good time to think about starting a family. We went through this series of really complicated pregnancy losses and medical complications. And that, I mean, I can't say that it's distinctly perinatal mental health disorder. It's more like fertility-related emotional and physical struggles. Like it's a much broader umbrella, which I think almost everybody has. One in five or not, like every family has something that falls into these categories, right? And so it was really, really isolating at the time. It felt like even as a professional, I just didn't know how to make sense of what I was going through or where to turn for support. And even having like a wonderful network of friends and knowledgeable medical colleagues and access to medical care and a great partner, it was so overwhelming. Once I finally did start to sort of open up about what we'd been going through, which wasn't right away, but when I did, I realized that everybody had a story, that we don't know what people are going through. And as those stories came out, I mean, that shaped everything about my personal life and changing the course of my life in a way, right? Because that's what led me to want to talk about these stories and to go back and do that second residency in family medicine to help other women and families with the kinds of things that I'd learned about and figured out going through them myself.

Emily 8:05

Right.

Rebecca 8:05

Yeah. It changed the course of everything and my practice too, right?

Emily 8:10

Okay. Can I ask a personal question?

Rebecca 8:13

Yeah, yeah.

Dani 8:13

Got an hour?

Emily 8:15

I know, right?

Rebecca 8:16

Yeah.

Emily 8:16

Good news. We've got you for an hour. No. Um what should people know about these like complicated losses? Like, was there anything that sort of was a through line through it all, or was there like a turning point in the course of these losses that like eventually led to all of this change for you?

Rebecca 8:40

Yeah, I remember it was sort of a general sense of letting the story go and sharing it starts to feel easier than holding it back and protecting it. There was this kind of shift. And I can't say that came at one specific moment, but it did happen kind of like abruptly. And I do remember, and I write about this in the book leading up to Shreya's story. My husband and I were out to dinner with a friend and her husband. This is Shreya and Kyle. And we were kind of in the midst of all these complications, waiting to see what was going to happen and what other treatment I might need and how bad it was going to be. Started having this conversation with her. She and I did, and our husbands are talking off to the side about something else. And she asks if we're gonna have kids soon. And I was like, uh, I wasn't sure what to say, right? And then I kind of like all hesitant and like, uh maybe, yeah, I don't know. And she started talking, they were talking about international adoption. And I was like, Well, what about you? Like, did you think about having biological kids or like why did you choose adoption? What's your story? And I thought I knew this person, like we were, we were good friends.

Dani 9:46

Yeah.

Rebecca 9:46

She all of a sudden was just like, oh, we can't, like wait, what? And just launched into her whole story, which was amazing and painful and beautiful. And I feel like this was the first time I look back on this as the first time that I really understood that sharing my story with someone else who could truly get it could be healing rather than like terrifying or too overwhelming. She just like she gutted. Our stories were so different, but the themes were so similar.

Emily 10:17

Like I felt this too.

Rebecca 10:19

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why these kinds of stories are so powerful, is that, you know, the details are always really different for every one of us. So different. And yet the themes, the threads, the narratives, like there's this core that you hear someone else's story, like, oh yeah, that's never gonna happen to me. This is like, no, whatever. I can't even relate to- oh, wait a minute. No, that's actually just like what happened to me, except not at all. But it feels the same at the essence, you know?

Emily 10:45

Yes.

Dani 10:45

So at that moment when you, you know, were kind of like dancing around answering that question, right? And your friend said, well, we can't, and she kind of did that thing you were just talking about. She didn't guard it. She like just sort of let go and just said the thing that was real. What happened next? Were you, did you feel like, oh my gosh, maybe I can share my story? Or...

Rebecca 11:07

Yeah, we started talking about it right away. I mean, more in that moment, leaving space for her story. Like I was much more of a listener in that conversation, but I shared with her what we'd been going through. And the other effect is that I really remember after that night, it was the first time I'd felt more hopeful. I realized that she was choosing hope, right? She was a realist who chose hope. She knew how complicated things were, but she's like, I'm just doing my best with what I have. It was the first time that I realized, or that I decided or that I acknowledged that if my husband and I wanted to become parents, we were going to find a way to do that.

Dani 11:44

Oh. And before that moment, were you starting to feel pretty hopeless or kind of like...

The Emotional Impact of Infertility & Loss

Rebecca 11:49

Discouraged, maybe? Like I'm very persistent. I'd say that, ridiculously persistent. Um, my defining characteristic and patient. Not that I was hopeless, it was more like, oh, come on. Like, what else do I have to do around here?

Dani 12:03

Yeah.

Rebecca 12:03

What do I have to do? And I was open to many definitions of family for sure. As I mentioned, I was a resident and I ended up going back and doing that second residency, which made things more complicated. But it's really hard to manage. I mean, a pregnancy is one thing, even if it's simple while you're working a really busy job, especially a medical training type job. But to manage either fertility treatments or adoption, surrogacy, any of these things with the cost financially and the time cost as a resident or any busy working professional, it's nearly impossible. And so I was like, well, obviously the simplest thing will be to get pregnant. I should keep trying that.

Dani 12:41

We should just, we should just try to do that.

Rebecca 12:43

Yeah.

Emily 12:43

Yeah. I mean, you're so right. Like whether you're doing some version of fertility treatment or you're choosing another road, it becomes a full-time job. Like the time, the appointments, it's like needing to be organized to manage it all.

Dani 13:02

Also, like the mental, I mean, and emotional capacity that it takes to, you know, to do that. I remember like reading in the book, you know, taking a test and it being positive. And then, you know, you find out a day later, you know, it's actually probably not positive anymore.

Rebecca 13:18

Yeah. And going through that over and over.

Dani 13:21

Yeah.

Rebecca 13:22

Well, in terms of like perinatal mental health disorders, too, I think– I do think that loss is a perinatal issue too. And I know you all talked about that at PSI, I'm fully on board with, but in terms of like perinatal in the way that I think more people think about it traditionally, like, you know, in the lay public or whatever we say, I think that some of the biggest struggles for me would have been like balancing that new mom life with the career aspirations and demand and anything else that you want to do personally or professionally. And so some of my biggest challenges were actually around breastfeeding and the logistics of that and the physical side of that. And after, you know, my son, as you see in the book, has been in the NICU a little bit, and that kind of set things off to a challenging start. And like I vividly remember sitting in the living room on this couch. It was like 3:30 in the morning. I've got my pumping supplies next to me on the little table. And my son is like maybe a few months old because I've just gone back to work and he was like 10 and a half weeks old, I think, when I went back. So I've got all the pumping supplies. Everyone else is asleep, of course. I've got the jar of the vinegar wipes you know to treat the awful thrush, the stabbing pain of the thrush and prevent that from- like tamp that down and feeling absolutely despondent. Like, what am I doing? I have to do this, and then I have to shower off that, like, you know, that- especially when you're postpartum or breastfeeding, that sweaty ick of the night when you wake up and you're like, I have to watch this film off of me and go to work, and I have to be at the hospital like a little after 5 a.m. to pre-round on my patients. And like, what am I doing?

Dani 14:56

How am I gonna do all this?

Rebecca 14:57

What am I doing? And I remember just feeling this tension and just ugh the privilege of being able to do all these things, and yet how miserable it was.

Emily 15:07

Yeah.

Dani 15:07

Yay, I get to do all the things, but and not but and wow, this is hard.

Rebecca 15:13

And wow, why? Like, and you just aren't prepared. You don't realize the practical sides. You just think I'm going to have children. It's this very abstract idea. I'm going to be a fill in the blank for what you want to do with your own self, besides just being a parent, right?

Dani 15:28

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca 15:29

And how that really has to come together on a day-to-day moment-to-moment level, it's just like...

Dani 15:35

It feels like moving mountains, right? Like...

Rebecca 15:38

Oh, every moment.

Dani 15:39

All of the stars in the universe have to align sometimes.

Rebecca 15:43

Absolutely.

Emily 15:44

Like there's no working in tandem with parenting in those early years and literally anything else. It's more like you're just jumping over a fence, doing things on this side of the fence, and then hurtling yourself back over the fence to do things over here on this side of the fence.

Rebecca 16:02

And never doing anything well. You're just back and forth and completely fragmented and yeah.

Dani 16:08

Yeah.

Emily 16:08

Yeah.

Dani 16:08

I felt very much like I was on this stage. And I'm sure you've heard this analogy before of just like, I'm spinning plates. I'm spinning plates. Look, look at me. Am I qualified to be spinning all these plates? I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm really good at spinning this plate, but this one's really wobbly, and it's, ah!

Rebecca 16:23

And are all of these plates actually worth spinning.

Dani 16:25

But I have to spin all the plates, Becca. I have to. No, you don't.

Rebecca 16:31

It feels like it if you're a new parent. I think that's part of the big deception, right? You forget that you can prioritize. my favorite metaphor is more about the big rocks. So the metaphor is, you know, there's this jar, there's a professor giving a lecture. They put a bunch of large rocks in this tall jar and say to their students, is the jar full? And they're like, oh yeah, it's full. Rocks all the way up top. Then they pour in some small pebbles and they shake it around. Is it full now? Oh, okay, yeah, now it's full. It's got all the pebbles. Sand, same thing. Sand fits in. Yeah. Water fits in. So the point is start with water or sand and things that are not as consequential or as important to you or your family or whatever priorities you want to set. There's no room for the big rocks.

Emily 17:11

Yeah.

Rebecca 17:12

Figure out what your big rocks are first. And then whatever sand may come, maybe you fit some in.

Dani 17:18

Yeah. That's a great metaphor.

Rebecca 17:20

I love that one. I try to remember it. I don't always do a great job, but I try.

Emily 17:24

It's like you have to remember it over and over.

Rebecca 17:26

All the time. All the time.

Dani 17:29

So what was it like making it through that period of time of you were kind of explaining, you know, just trying to sort of do all the things, the things that you need to do, the things that you want to do, like mentally. How do you get through that? Did you, were you seeing a therapist?

Emily 17:43

Yeah, was there like a getting help moment?

Dani 17:46

And there's no wrong answer here, Becca.

Rebecca 17:47

Right.

Dani 17:47

Emily and I were white knucklers. And I didn't talk to anybody for eight years, so.

Rebecca 17:52

Yeah, I think I was more toward that. I mean, I'm super on board with therapy. I did a lot of psychiatry rotations in residency. I thought about becoming a child psychiatrist. One of my best friends is a child psychiatrist. Her story is in the book.

Dani 18:05

Hey, shout out.

Rebecca 18:06

Yeah, shout out to Tess. But that kind of wasn't where I felt like I wanted to seek the support. I wanted it in my community more.

Dani 18:13

Yeah.

Rebecca 18:14

More organically and more integrated into the things I was trying to do. So I would say one of the big sources of support was my lactation consultants.

Dani 18:21

Ooh.

Rebecca 18:21

Yeah.

Dani 18:22

Did you seek a consultant out? Was it something like your insurance company was like, hey, are you interested in seeing a...? I don't know.

Rebecca 18:29

If I remember, it was probably pretty standard at our hospital that they would, you know, have you do that as you were like after delivery. Then I came back to see them outpatient and they were so helpful. I'm still in touch with a couple of them. And one of them has come to some of our book events, and she's just lovely. And because of that work, this isn't in my little letters after my name profile, whatever, but I also became a lactation consultant, IBCLC, during residency. To help other people and like counter that narrative of you have to breastfeed only. This is the only way. No, no, no. Like, what is best for your family? Infant feeding, it's not only breastfeeding, it's infant feeding. Like, let's get this situation. What are your goals? Let me help you meet them.

Emily 19:10

Yeah.

Rebecca 19:10

That was one of my biggest supports was like, oh, they were just such lovely people, these lactation consultants who helped us and just so like putting things in perspective, but also practical. I like that balance of kind and practical, helpful strategies, but also just supportive in general. And then I think starting to talk more by then, by the time we had our first baby, I had been talking more with my coworkers, especially, like sharing about what we'd gone through to get to him. And I just didn't hesitate at that point when people would comment about new baby, like, oh yeah, well, it took a lot to get here. And that opened the door. And I heard all these stories from my coworkers. And this is all midlife women. So almost everybody had a story. And whereas I felt like when you're starting to think about trying, I was at least hesitant to talk about that because then you're maybe seen as uncommitted to your profession or whatever. Like there was none of that. Cause like you have the baby, the baby's right there. But then you can talk about how you got there. And so just building that community, talking with my coworkers and feeling like, again, that's what brought me in my professional life to go back and do this additional training in women's health and children's health and family medicine. Seeking help for me was actually about giving help to others.

Dani 20:20

Oh.

Why Listening to Women’s Stories Matters in Medicine

Emily 20:20

Yeah.

Rebecca 20:21

I talk about in the book how we really heal ourselves by healing each other. And I found that to me, having that kind of purpose, that purposeful work was what I needed to choose that this would all have meaning. Everything I'd been through, it was worth it. It had meaning.

Dani 20:40

Becca had nice peer support. Oh man, I think that's like key for lots of folks. Whether you are talking to a therapist, working with a psychiatrist, or white knuckling it. Yeah, I know that for all three of us, connecting with other people was so helpful. So during this period of time, did you know about PSI? Does this come on later? How did you first hear of PSI? How did we like, you know, get on your radar?

Rebecca 21:06

Yeah. So all the things I was talking about before were happening like between 2007 and 2009.

Dani 21:13

Okay.

Emily 21:13

Right.

Rebecca 21:13

Ten years later, I learned about PSI the same way I learned about your fantastic podcast.

Dani 21:20

Oh.

Rebecca 21:21

Through Wendy Davis herself.

Dani 21:22

Shout out to Wendy Davis.

Rebecca 21:24

Yeah. So I was at a women's health conference out here, hosted by the medical school out here in Portland in fall of 2019. Wendy and I just happened to sit down together at lunch. You know, I vividly remember just like starting to chat with this nice woman on my right, random person I'm sitting next to, introducing each other just by our first names and chatting.

Dani 21:44

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca 21:45

Never heard of PSI, but we just immediately connected. Like we just had a great conversation. I don't remember at all what we talked about, but I remember just feeling like, oh, this is definitely someone I'm gonna stay in touch with. And so we have stayed in touch, and she's been just the biggest supporter of Held Together in cheering us on from like the moment she first heard about it. And we were so honored. We invited her to host the launch that we had at Powell's Books out here. The iconic.

Dani 22:11

Shout out to Powell's.

Rebecca 22:12

Powells, love it. So Wendy was sort of a moderator, and we had a panel of myself, Devorah, Anna, and Kelly, who are some of the collaborators in the book. And Wendy kind of led us through a conversation about the threads among our stories, and it was so beautiful.

Emily 22:27

I'm so jealous I wasn't there.

Dani 22:29

Yeah, me too. I have FOMO.

Rebecca 22:31

And then we had a more recent reading at our little neighborhood bookstore, Annie Bloom's, here in Southwest Portland. Devorah and I just talked about the intersections of our stories. That's my OB who cared for me through all the pregnancy complications that I talk about in the book. And then at the very end of the book, you get to read her story too.

Emily 22:48

Yeah.

Rebecca 22:48

Shout out to Lianne Swanson, executive administrator of PSI. Wendy and Lianne came and they came up afterward and we're chatting and they're like, we have to get you on the podcast. And so I'm like, what? Wait there's a podcast? And so that's how I heard about you.

Dani 23:01

Now uh we have to send um special guest referral gifts to Wendy and Leanne. If you refer somebody to the podcast and they record an episode, no, I'm just kidding. That's not a thing, but that'd be cool though.

Emily 23:14

Like a finder's fee.

Dani 23:15

Yeah.

Rebecca 23:16

Fun, just random connection. Like you just never know where things will lead. And so I'm just so grateful that she's been so supportive of the book from the beginning. And yeah.

Dani 23:26

Well, we have a little visual for anybody watching. Oh.

Rebecca 23:29

Yeah.

Dani 23:30

The next question we love to ask is what are you doing to support folks in the perinatal period now, Becca? We know... yeah.

Emily 23:37

We know the answer.

Dani 23:39

We know the answer. But tell us more. We'll drop a link to the book in the show notes.

Rebecca 23:44

Yeah. Yeah. So it's true. You do know the answer. And I like to say that held together has become my practice of medicine.

Dani 23:52

Oh.

Rebecca 23:53

Because, you know, with one patient, I've loved so much of the clinical work that I've done. I really, I always feel so connected to like that one patient sitting there talking about their story. And that's really how I do medicine is hearing people's stories. Like it's all about the history taking, right? A little bit of exam of course and data, but like it's really about the story. And so with one patient, that can be really meaningful work. And I've enjoyed a lot of that and felt grateful to have those experiences to inform the other things I do. But like with these stories, I feel like there's an opportunity to reach whole communities and whole, you know, people anywhere in the world and see the effects ripple out as we share our stories. And I hope that then other people feel empowered and inspired to share their own. And so that's like how I feel like I support people is trying to make space for that and show that our voices matter and just amplify those voices. And then, like on a more practical side, I'm starting to partner with medical schools and training programs. This has been another huge goal of mine in doing this project is wanting to get this into curricula at medical schools, residency, lactation training, doula programs, midwifery, nursing school, PT, psychology, like anything you can think of that's a health profession, a healing profession, in there to help everyone who works with women and families at these vulnerable times to like use the ideas in this book and learn about and appreciate the context of the lives of the people, the families that they care for in their own practices and offer them the best possible care. So, like what I can do great with these stories, you know, I'm grateful for that work, but I want it to ripple out and go to all the next generation of these kinds of healthcare professionals too, so they can carry it forward.

Emily 25:36

Yes. You're very like anthropological.

Rebecca 25:39

Right.

Emily 25:39

You're like, okay, but how do we pass this down?

Dani 25:42

Minus the sun. You're not, you're not in like 120-degree scorching weather.

Emily 25:48

This is the right kind of anthropology for you, is to be part of the society and then do the thing that passes it down.

Rebecca 25:57

Right. It's good that I gave you that story at the beginning so that it makes more sense now, right?

Emily 26:01

Yes.

Dani 26:02

You really like pulled it together, E. Wow. Nice.

Finding Meaning vs Making Meaning After Loss

Rebecca 26:06

This is the theme of the book. Like things make so much more sense once you have a little more distance from them and can step back and understand the context. And you know, I say that I don't think it's a spoiler, but it's near the end of the book and the last few paragraphs about how I feel like stories are always harder to tell in the present tense.

Dani 26:24

Oh, yeah. I would agree with that.

Rebecca 26:26

So that's where this comes in, is like when we can step back and see our experiences. We're different people by the time we're processing them and looking back on what they mean than we were when we were living them.

Dani 26:36

I wonder why. I wonder if that's- okay. I'm just thinking in real time here. If I'm sitting in the th- my therapist on her couch talking to her in her office, it's hard for me to talk about what's happening right now. But if I talk about what happened last week, oh yeah, that was a totally different person than today me, right?

Rebecca 26:54

Mm-hmm.

Dani 26:54

Yeah, I'm with you.

Emily 26:56

It's easier to see the patterns, right?

Rebecca 26:58

Exactly.

Emily 26:59

Um, well, frankly, otherwise you're just walking around narrating. I'm walking, I'm eating. Like, that's just weird. Don't do that, right? Like, get enough distance.

Rebecca 27:08

Not recommended.

Dani 27:11

No, I'm just having visuals of it. That's funny.

Rebecca 27:14

Tragedy plus time equals comedy, right? Maybe we don't quite get to comedy, but at least we get to tragedy plus time equals something that we can see a little bit of the absurdity and the interesting parts of without being mired in the pain of it.

Emily 27:29

Yes.

Rebecca 27:29

We can see the threads more clearly.

Dani 27:31

Yeah. I mean, in the moment, I didn't even know that there were threads. I didn't know what to call the things. I didn't know how I was even feeling. Anyway.

Emily 27:42

I mean, to me, the key is like processing. If you aren't doing the work with a therapist as a writer and journaling however your process of processing looks, if you are not invested in doing that,

Rebecca 27:59

Right.

Emily 27:59

then you won't be able to gain enough perspective to share it without it still feeling present.

Rebecca 28:08

Yeah, you know, I think this is another idea that I've only realized in working on this. And even after finishing writing the book, but thinking about it more and more in different contexts, I think there's a really big difference between finding meaning and making meaning. We can go and like say, oh, it feels like too many cliches if we just say we're finding meaning in our stories or in our experiences. But when we actively choose, looking back to decide to interpret things a certain way and decide what they meant to us and decide what lessons they can give us, even if we didn't wish for those lessons, but like what can we take from it intentionally? I think that's really different from the passive idea of finding meaning. And that's kind of what I feel like you're talking about, Emily.

Emily 28:49

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it's the difference between like feeling resigned to whatever your parenting journey has looked like and being able to find a sense of purpose or a lesson or something that you can take willingly from the experience.

Rebecca 29:11

And sometimes you have to make it yourself. It's just not there to be taken or found. You have to create it.

Emily 29:18

Absolutely. Okay. Well, what else do we need to know before we get into things about you that are more personal and less professional?

Rebecca 29:30

I want to highlight just in all that, I hope that what we said just in the last part does show this, but these stories are difficult stories, but it's a super optimistic, uplifting book, right? I don't want people to think I don't want to read that because it's just going to be too heavy. It's very, very optimistic, especially as you go through and see how everything fits together and comes together. Not that everything works out great for everybody or how they would have chosen things, but like it's not a sad book.

Emily 29:58

Yeah. I mean, those of us who hold space for stories like this, we know that the stories are hard and there's joy and there's silly and there's a lesson and not just like a slog. I would say they're not even a slog, really.

Rebecca 30:16

They're not. You get to travel alongside this person. It's like you're experiencing this monumental thing with her, and you're just walking beside her as her friend, you know?

Emily 30:26

Yeah.

Dani 30:27

There are like lots of little rabbit holes I'd love to jump down, but I'm keeping it reeled in. It reminds me of every podcast episode. I mean, every single one is different. We are laughing, giggling in every episode, and many of them I'm totally like, you know, we're like wiping tears. It is...

Rebecca 30:47

It can all exist together.

Writing the Book “Held Together”

Dani 30:49

Yes, exactly.

Rebecca 30:50

This idea held together. We can hold– Spoiler that title has many layered meanings.

Emily 30:55

I love the title.

Dani 30:56

Yes.

Rebecca 30:57

One of them is that we can hold as people, as women, as humans, as mothers, as parents, we can hold many complicated ideas. It's okay.

Emily 31:07

They can be true simultaneously. Yeah.

Rebecca 31:09

Both, and, and all that.

Dani 31:10

This and.

Emily 31:11

Mm-hmm.

Dani 31:12

Well, if you haven't read it or listened to it yet, all of our lovely listeners, check out Held Together.

Emily 31:19

We'll put it in the show notes for you. We're gonna make it easy, don't worry.

Dani 31:22

We'll put a link to some cool bookstores where you can buy the book. But you can also listen to it. I've done both. I've got it here, hard copy, and I can listen to it in my earbuds. There's one other thing, Becca, that it would be lovely. Would you like to share a little something very special that is on the back of your book Held Together by somebody that we know?

Emily 31:46

Can you read?

Dani 31:47

Would you like me to read it or Becca, you would like to read it?

Rebecca 31:50

Oh no, you should read it. You should read it.

Emily 31:53

Dani's really good at reading out loud, so this is good hands.

Dani 31:57

I should be on a podcast someday.

Emily 31:59

Okay.

Dani 32:00

I'm kidding. It says: this book does not seem like a book. It seems like a quilt that weaves together stories to create a treasure, and reading it is a healing. The women within these pages share the impact of deep loss, fear, self-doubt, and surprises, both agonizing and wondrous. As I read, I was with these women, sitting before them like the receptive and open pages of a journal, absorbing their truths. I hung on to every word. Pop quiz. Who do you think wrote that? Emily? Do you have any ideas?

Emily 32:35

I mean, I also I know the way this person speaks and writes, and this is very in line, very Wendy. It sounds like sunshine.

Dani 32:46

The one and only Wendy Davis, CEO of PSI. Aren't those such lovely words? It is true. Every one of those words is true.

Rebecca 32:54

So grateful for her support and encouragement all along the way. Yeah.

Emily 32:58

She's quite good at that.

Rebecca 33:00

Yeah.

Emily 33:00

Professionally, personally.

Dani 33:03

Yeah, that's so lovely.

Emily 33:04

This is how you came so highly recommended.

Rebecca 33:07

Well, thank you. And I mean, that's exactly the feeling that we're going for is to have people just be immersed in these stories and want to go through everything from, you know, the wondrous, the terrifying, the everything in between, and to just walk beside these women or like they're immersed in their stories. So I think she captured that beautifully.

Emily 33:28

Yeah.

Dani 33:29

So go check it out if you haven't read it. Okay. Click on the link in the show notes.

Rebecca 33:34

Thanks.

Emily 33:34

You have homework now, guys.

Dani 33:36

Yeah, you've been assigned homework. Emily, Becca, are you ready?

Emily 33:42

I'm ready.

Lightning Round

Dani 33:42

Are we ready for the lightning round?

Rebecca 33:44

So ready.

Dani 33:45

Emily, are you going first or am I going first?

Emily 33:48

Ooh, I will go first. Okay. Go. What is your second favorite podcast? Because obviously, this is your first favorite podcast.

Rebecca 33:55

Obviously.

Dani 33:56

Obvi.

Rebecca 33:58

This is really hard because I listen to so many and my focus has changed over time as my kids have, you know, been through different stages, of course. But of all time, I have to say The Moth.

Dani 34:09

Oh, yeah. We've had some guests participate in The Moth Project, right?

Emily 34:14

Oh.

Rebecca 34:14

It's a huge project. I mean, they've got books about- so basically this is a storytelling collaborative. They have a lot of live events. They have local events in small kind of coffee shop type venues, and they have the main stage where they come to the bigger kind of literary arts type organizations and hundreds of thousands or thousands of people in a room with the kind of polished, more fancy stories.

Emily 34:37

Wow.

Rebecca 34:37

What I love about them is they make storytelling accessible to everybody. And they allow people, they remind us that like allowing vulnerability can really change the world.

Emily 34:49

Yeah.

Rebecca 34:50

I love The Moth and have been to all the iterations, read the book. Like, yeah. So that's the one podcast that has stayed consistent over as long as I can remember.

Dani 34:59

That's a great suggestion.

Emily 35:02

Very cool.

Dani 35:02

Thank you for that.

Rebecca 35:03

Yeah, of course.

Dani 35:04

Okay. Are you currently binge watching or reading or listening to anything good? Are we like, do we have Taylor Swift on repeat? Are you watching something on Netflix? Uh, any great books in your Audible queue?

Rebecca 35:16

Yeah, I'm not like a big big pop culture person. Like I like all music. I'm not interested in celebrity anything, not for me. I like ordinary people's stories. I say the extraordinary moments in ordinary lives.

Emily 35:28

Ooh, yeah.

Rebecca 35:29

But the first thing that came to mind with this idea was that we've really been enjoying rewatching as a family some of those series. Like now that the kids are old enough to appreciate them.

Dani 35:38

And how old are they now?

Rebecca 35:39

So I've got 14 and 16.

Dani 35:41

Those are good ages to watch some classic shows.

Rebecca 35:44

Our favorites lately have been over the past, you know, year or so. I'd say The Good Place, Arrested Development, Ted Lasso, of course.

Dani 35:53

Oh, yeah.

Rebecca 35:54

Right now it's The Office, which I think is my like third or fourth time watching The Office. In fact, we were watching The Office when I went into labor with my first child. So that was a Thursday night. So it used to be when you watched it when it actually came on television.

Dani 36:08

That was a hot night on TV.

Rebecca 36:10

Yeah. So now we're watching The Office with our kids, which is a really fun full circle moment. And it's just like, it's so fun with teenagers to see the clever plot twist and like the snarky humor.

Dani 36:21

Oh, yeah.

Rebecca 36:22

Through the eyes of teenagers, watching it with them. It's great. I love that. So then, like on my own, I guess I'm constantly listening to audiobooks or podcasts, especially memoirs about ordinary people, stories about ordinary people.

Dani 36:35

Yeah.

Rebecca 36:36

And I don't know, like music background exercise. I like really eclectic things, but lately I've been enjoying the musical Six.

Dani 36:43

Oh.

Emily 36:44

Oh yeah.

Rebecca 36:45

We saw it live. Well, not the fancy one. My daughter goes to an arts program, kind of a middle school, a school, it's middle school and high school. And the high schoolers performed Six a couple months ago, and it was phenomenal. If I had seen this show and paid Broadway ticket prices to see it, I would not have been disappointed.

Dani 37:04

Wow.

Rebecca 37:04

I'd never given the show any thought. We just went like, oh, I will get some tickets. It's a little school performance.

Dani 37:09

Yeah.

Rebecca 37:09

It blew me away. And so now I just love to listen to the soundtrack and remember their performance. And anyway, that's what I've been doing lately.

Emily 37:16

Cool.

Dani 37:16

Those songs are catchy.

Rebecca 37:19

So good.

Emily 37:20

They really are.

Dani 37:21

Very cool.

Emily 37:22

Okay. As a fellow parent of teenagers, I am very interested in your answer to this question. Do you have a favorite parenting hack? What's working right now?

Rebecca 37:32

Yeah. Okay. I have two levels on this one.

Dani 37:35

Okay.

Rebecca 37:35

The granular level. And I don't think this has changed, but I've gotten better at it as the kids have gotten older. Batch prepping, batching everything. So, like what I mean by that is I never chop or cook something without chopping or cooking something else for the next few days.

Dani 37:51

Oh.

Emily 37:52

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sure.

Rebecca 37:54

And also trying to do that kind of thing when I'm already hanging out with them. So like in the kitchen, they're still scrambling to get ready in the morning and have breakfast. We've all got our breakfast going and got the lunches ready for that day, but maybe I'm like chopping the salad for dinner.

Dani 38:09

You're here, I'm here. The lettuce is here.

Rebecca 38:12

Yeah. And so that way I'm like not ignoring them and going off and doing my own thing while they're hanging out in the mornings. But the teenagers, you know, because this is the sneaky secret, right? They're gonna share stuff with you when you're least expecting it. So you're like driving in the car and not making eye contact, and that's when they share things.

Dani 38:28

Yeah.

Rebecca 38:28

You want to make space for those moments where you're just around, like, yeah, whatever. You could share something with me.

Dani 38:32

Totally just chopping lettuce over here. They did what?

Emily 38:36

And I'm barely listening.

Dani 38:38

Yeah, totally.

Rebecca 38:39

Yeah. So that's my granular level. Like, I don't know if it's a hack, but that's like how I do things without getting angry about having to constantly food prep and you know. And I want to say my husband is a good partner and all like he does a lot of the work too. But like for me to feel like life has meaning, not be constantly doing house type things, I try to like bundle and batch things. And even, you know, separate from the kids, having on a podcast or an audiobook while doing any of these annoying tasks. That's another hack. Like, I don't mind doing family care tasks if I'm also enjoying what I'm hearing in my brain.

Emily 39:11

Yes.

Rebecca 39:11

But the bigger picture, I think, and this has gotten like clearer as the kids get older, is to try to remember all the time that we are not raising children, we are raising adults. And this is like the most difficult thing. The features that make children so challenging, being spirited and persistent and all these kinds of things, like that is going to make them fantastic adults. So try to hold it more loosely. So that's my like philosophical parenting act.

Emily 39:38

How do we get them to put the dishes in the dishwasher? I'm kidding.

Dani 39:41

For real.

Emily 39:41

I think that's like our life's journey.

Rebecca 39:43

Yeah, we don't even do that. We're more about like, let's get them to put away the clean dishes.

Dani 39:49

Oh.

Rebecca 39:50

Maybe it comes back to bundling in a way, because we're not gonna ask people to do like one little task. Rather, we'd have them take responsibility for a whole task from start to finish.

Dani 39:59

Oh.

Rebecca 40:00

So they're gonna put away all their laundry or they're gonna put away all the family dishes or fold all the napkins and towels to put back in the drawer, all the cloth goods, whatever. They're gonna do the task. And in fairness, my husband does like 95% of the dishes, but we don't ask them. I do all the laundry, he does all the dishes. Like we kind of have some divisions of things that we just naturally gravitate to more and we've leaned into that. But we're not gonna ask them to like wash their thing and put it in the dishwasher. We're gonna ask them to rinse it out if it had a smoothie in it. So it's easy to wash when it comes to that. But my husband will wash all the dishes at once at the end of the evening. Or in the morning as they're getting ready for school. Again, something you can do. We're all doing something in the same room, but we're doing our own thing, so.

Emily 40:39

I think you're on to something because it's the being interrupted multiple times a day. It like builds a little bit of frustration for them. Or for us, we're like carrying around the list of things and we have to go follow up over and over and over and over and over again.

Rebecca 40:54

You never finish anything. It's so frustrating.

Emily 40:57

Where if we go right now, you're mine for 30 minutes and you're doing this whole thing.

Rebecca 41:02

Yeah, the task switching is exhausting. I think it's part of decision fatigue.

Dani 41:06

Yes!

Emily 41:07

Totally.

Rebecca 41:08

Yeah, I'd rather just- and I want to teach them, do one thing, you know. Again, they'll put on an audiobook or music while they're doing it. Great. I want to model that for you. Again, becoming a good adult. I'm like teaching you the skills I hope that I find useful. You can take them or leave them as you grow up and decide. But this is what I find helpful. And so to try to model that for them.

Emily 41:26

Yeah.

Dani 41:26

Well, since this is so fast, I'm gonna ask a follow-up question. This is not fast.

Rebecca 41:31

Lightning round.

Dani 41:33

Do you- yeah, the lightning round. Do you switch tasks? Like, do you switch who's doing certain tasks so that the kids have practice? I'm just thinking, like, I've got some kids that are about ready to, like, you know, quote unquote be adults in a couple years.

Emily 41:52

I'm practically an adult. Like, okay.

Dani 41:54

Like you said, we're not raising kids, we're raising adults, right?

Rebecca 41:58

Yeah.

Dani 41:59

And part of what we're doing is also helping them like learn some life skills, right?

Rebecca 42:03

Right. Yeah. I guess to me, it's more important in that way that they know how to do everything, not that they always do it all. So, like they both know how to do the laundry. Often I'll just kind of wash all our stuff at once because it's easy. Again, I'll start it in the morning before they're getting up.

Dani 42:18

Like, but they know how if they say, I don't have any socks.

Rebecca 42:22

Right. We're like, Well, why don't you go kick off the laundry?

Dani 42:24

They know how to take their laundry basket to the laundry room, put it in the washing machine with some soap and start it. If you say, Oh,

Rebecca 42:32

Then do that.

Dani 42:32

start a load.

Rebecca 42:33

Or I need this for tomorrow. Well, looks like we better get going then. But for like the kind of core household stuff, like cleaning dishes, mostly again, they're putting away the clean stuff more or like clearing the dishes. They'll do all that.

Dani 42:46

Yeah.

Rebecca 42:46

It's some degree of take responsibility for your own stuff. And okay, who wants to put away clean dishes and who wants to fold the napkins today? Like it's some degree of trading off, but those aren't really skills.

Dani 42:57

That was a really skilled way to put it though. You're gonna do something. Would you like this or this?

Rebecca 43:04

And you know, having two kids makes it a little bit easy in that way because it's an alternating thing. If we had one or three or five, it would be different.

Dani 43:10

Yeah.

Rebecca 43:11

Yeah.

Dani 43:12

I have three.

Rebecca 43:13

I know.

Dani 43:13

That complicates things. Anyway. Okay. We digress. Wow. I took lots of notes.

Emily 43:21

You're like, all right, all right.

Rebecca 43:23

Awesome.

Dani 43:24

Okay. What is one way that you'll show yourself a little radical of today?

Rebecca 43:29

Swimming.

Dani 43:30

Oh, you're a swimmer.

Rebecca 43:32

I love to swim. I think Emily too, right?

Emily 43:34

Yep.

Dani 43:34

I'm a land animal, but go on.

Emily 43:36

I'm aquatic.

Rebecca 43:38

Any season of the year in the water, all the time. I've been listening to Six while swimming, if not a podcast. This morning it was a podcast, one of your podcasts to like warm up for the fun.

Dani 43:48

Yeah. Okay.

Rebecca 43:49

But often at Six because it's a great variation in tempo.

Dani 43:52

Yeah.

Rebecca 43:53

Those bone conducting headphones that are just like so energizing for the pool. So I love to swim.

Dani 43:58

Wait a second. You have headphones that you can wear in the water? I mean, I don't know, I don't know anything about this.

Rebecca 44:04

Do you have these, Emily? They go on a like a bungee cord.

Emily 44:07

I don't have them, but I mean I swam competitively for forever. I mean, they've had versions of headphones for in the water for 30 years probably.

Rebecca 44:17

Yeah, they're bone conducting, so they just press on the back of your head. Yeah. And then if you take your swim cap and kind of fold it so it holds them against your head, you can hear them better.

Dani 44:26

That is very cool. A fellow swimmer. Awe.

Rebecca 44:30

That's my favorite.

Emily 44:30

Okay, so you're swimming solo then, because obviously if someone's giving you instructions and you're in a lane with other people and whatnot.

Rebecca 44:37

No, it's just me. It's purely recreational. I was more of a runner competitively. I love to run, but these days swimming is just it's so peaceful and meditative.

Dani 44:47

Oh, yeah.

Emily 44:47

People are like, what do you think about? And I'm like, my mind is blank.

Rebecca 44:52

Meditation, really. A moving meditation.

Dani 44:55

Emily's getting excited over there.

Emily 44:56

Yeah, I just hit my microphone. I got so excited. Okay.

Dani 45:01

Ma'am, settle down.

Emily 45:03

What is one thing that today you, if you could jump into a time machine, and I would love to hear the type of time machine because I'm a sci-fi nerd. Um, if you could tell yourself, like what's the moment, what do you say?

Rebecca 45:17

So it's gotta be a DeLorean.

Dani 45:19

Yeah.

Emily 45:20

Okay.

Rebecca 45:20

Because we're watching all the old movies and shows with the kids, and Back to the Future, it holds up like a little bit pretty well. Like it's pretty okay. You know, they enjoyed that one.

Emily 45:31

Yeah.

Rebecca 45:31

Better than some other movies from that era have held up.

Dani 45:35

We're not gonna name any names, but...

Rebecca 45:37

I think what I would say to myself, if I could look back to those, gosh, it was like almost 20 years ago now when this was all going on. You're on your own timeline. And it's okay. This is gonna take a while. And like through the three losses, the two residencies, and honestly, we didn't even talk about this, but Held Together took more than 10 years to write, get out in the world, especially because of all the collaboration with the other women and wanting to share their stories and then just looking for, finding my agent who is wonderful, and then her patience and persistence to find us a publisher. It took a long time, especially because a lot of it happened during the height of the pandemic.

Emily 46:14

Yeah.

Rebecca 46:15

I would say, I would remind myself that my superpower is persistence. So just keep at it, and that little things add up. So, like being patient and whittling away at my goals, building things up little by little, and all the changes and the setbacks, everything would come together. Like it didn't make sense at the time, like I was saying earlier, but it would bring me to this place where I get to do this absolutely incredible work of advocating for women and families and sharing these stories and like the big picture of all of this, just like the small moments can add up in our lives. Our individual voices are so much stronger when we stand together. So I would say to myself and to anyone struggling right now, like just start where you are now. Keep going, don't judge it, just do it and surround yourself with others who believe this too.

Emily 47:11

Yes. I want to clap, I want to clap. It's not that kind of podcast. We're gonna have to add like a applause uh track in there.

Dani 47:20

That was lovely. Big, big question, hard-hitting question. How do you take your water? I mean, we have to make sure that you're staying hydrated, are you?

Rebecca 47:30

Obviously, immersively.

Dani 47:32

Oh, right.

Rebecca 47:33

I mean, that's my top preference.

Dani 47:34

Overachiever. Sheesh.

Rebecca 47:37

I guess for drinking, okay, conventionally.

Dani 47:40

Yeah.

Rebecca 47:41

I'm always gonna have like some kind of a water bottle around when I'm writing or out and about, but usually it's gonna have like a little bit of that mellow flavoring, like a citrusy drink kind of thing, or it's gonna be some tea that I've- so after my half calf in the morning, I'll like make a thing of iced tea for later in the day and the rest of the day, non-caffeinated something to just have to stay hydrated, so like a big mason jar of that. I'll usually have a couple of those in the fridge, different flavors going.

Emily 48:05

Very cool.

Rebecca 48:05

But preferably swimming in it.

Emily 48:07

Yeah.

Dani 48:07

Fair enough. Becca, if anybody would like to get a hold of you, is there a good way to get a hold of you? Would you like people to not get a hold of you? What do you think?

Emily 48:19

Don't call her, she'll call you.

Rebecca 48:22

Yes, people are welcome to get a hold of me. What I really want them to do is get a hold of the book and read these stories because it talks about me. Like, fine, great. Yes, connect with me so I can talk with you about these things. But like, I really don't care if anyone remembers my name or not. I want these stories to get into everybody's hands and just have people feel seen and share their own stories with each other. But that said, yes, I have a website, so it's just my full name without the MD. So rebeccanthompson.com. Everything is there, including socials and all that and podcast and media coverage. You can read the reviews, the blurbs like Wendy's and other beautiful–

Emily 48:57

Yeah, you got some good blurbs, so.

Dani 48:59

You've got some great blurbs.

Rebecca 49:02

It's quite an honor and humbling, like so rewarding to be able to do that. A lot of them, I'd say most of them were through just cold emailing people and building relationships over years.

Dani 49:12

Wow.

Rebecca 49:12

I think all of them I just sought out myself, not that like my publishing team found them. I just started emailing people way ahead of time and asking and persisting. Not all of them came through that I requested, but the ones that did are just like, oh, I couldn't be more grateful.

Dani 49:25

Yeah.

Emily 49:26

That's why it pays to do things on your own timeline.

Rebecca 49:29

Right? Oh, I started so early. You got to be on your own timeline. I started a couple of years before the book was coming out. I started trying to seek blurbs. You can also on the website, you can read the whole introduction for the book and find some excerpts. You can find the audiobook sample. Another thing I want to highlight, I mentioned about student teaching, medical students, residents, nursing programs, all of this, PSI trainees. You can find all of the discussion guides. We created these discussion guides for book clubs and teaching settings. There are a couple dozen different versions on themes, on topics you can focus on looking at a few of the chapters or specific to medical trainees, all the different ways you might explore the book. There are, yeah, a couple dozen docs you can download there. And if anybody, especially in the PSI community, wants to reach out to talk about a collaborator and/or myself to join you for like a virtual book club or a teaching session with the health profession students you might work with or other professional, like if you have a group of your own like friends who are in this space doing this work, I would love to zoom in and join you or locally out here in Portland. And I've loved being on all these podcasts. There's like a whole list of the podcasts and different press we've had. And of course, if you want to get the book, we are trying to support PSI with it as well. So on my website, there's an order page. Just you know, order here. There's a link on like every place so that people will go do that. Within the order page, there are a couple of links that send a portion of the proceeds to PSI.

Dani 50:54

Awe.

Rebecca 50:54

Yeah.

Dani 50:55

Thank you. Wow.

Rebecca 50:56

If anybody is financially able to support the project, it will send a portion of that right to PSI. Or if people would like a signed copy, especially, then that bookstore, Annie Bloom's that I mentioned, they have signed copies. It takes a little time to get them mailed out, of course, because they, you know.

Dani 51:13

They're like, Becca, we need you to come sign more books.

Rebecca 51:16

Yeah, right. So that keeps happening. But I think they're down to like three copies at the moment. So they got to get some more for the holidays. But anyway, if it's not as much of a time issue, then we can get you the signed copy anytime from my neighborhood bookstore too.

Dani 51:29

That is fantastic. We love supporting local. So that's great.

Rebecca 51:33

So I just hope that, like, of course, I want people to get a hold of me and read the book and all, but I hope like even more so that people will start reaching out to each other because of these stories and connecting with each other and sharing stories, and that they will feel compelled to like take this book and like press it into the hands of a friend.

Emily 51:52

Yes.

Rebecca 51:52

That's the kind of feeling I want, the spirit behind this, and that it will feel like that quilt that Wendy Davis referred to, that it like it wraps us all in this comfort and companionship and reminds us that we're part of something bigger.

Dani 52:05

Wow. Oh my gosh. Well, Emily, with that, would you like to take us out?

Emily 52:12

Why, yes. Thank you so much. Okay. Now I understand why you came so highly recommended, because...

Rebecca 52:18

Thank you.

Emily 52:20

Not only are you equally a fan of telling stories and holding space for stories and the importance of like being able to hear parts of yourself reflected in someone else's experience. You're a fan of water. Same. And to me, the favorite takeaway from today's episode is the idea that we are really all on our own timeline. And I think so much of this perinatal experience feels like we want to rush through it. Like we want to rush through the hardship of infertility. We want to rush through sleepless nights or issues with breastfeeding or the postpartum depression. And there is absolutely something to be said for being on our own timeline. So thank you...

Rebecca 53:07

Thank you.

Emily 53:08

so much for teaching us this.

Rebecca 53:11

My pleasure. It's been so much fun to talk with you.

Dani 53:14

Thanks for tuning in to the I Am One podcast. Check out today's show notes where we'll drop links to all the important things that we mentioned in this episode. Please consider sharing about I Am One on social media and following and rating our show wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. It only takes a minute of your time, and well, that'll help our collective mission of bringing resources and local support to folks worldwide. From everyone here at PSI, thanks again for listening.