Welcome back to Conquering Chaos , everybody . A mom's guide to self-care and sanity . I'm your host , sydney Crow , and today we have Abby Sangmeister from New Jersey . I'm so excited that Abby's here today . She is a coach and therapist . She has a 17-month-old daughter who she's already described as very determined , and we are going to be chatting a lot about how to redirect that energy that she's facing with her daughter self-regulation and talk more about her free virtual group for ambitious moms . So welcome Abby .
Speaker 2Thank you so much for having me today .
Speaker 1Thanks for being here . It's so great to connect with fellow moms . Now , you described yourself as a single mom by choice . Why don't we dive into that ? Because I feel like that's a very powerful story that you're able to share with the listeners .
Speaker 2Yes , and I love sharing about it . So at 40 , I woke up and was like I've always wanted to be a mom and I never found the right guy , and so I actually , like , googled and searched online and figured out single mom by choice was the terminology and I decided to use IVF and a donor to create my daughter and have have a baby of my own at 41 .
Speaker 1Wow , what an empowering story , and you shared with me that , even though you were going through IVF , the highest chance that you were going to be that the doctor said that you would be able to have a daughter with 11% .
Speaker 2Yeah . So the first round , which for a moment I was really discouraged because I knew I couldn't afford to do future rounds , it was like one round that would be it , and I still wanted to take the chance Cause I was like if I never try , I will never know . And it's definitely a rollercoaster ride for doing IVF and there's so many women out there that go through it for various reasons . But I definitely think it was worth . It is worth the risk .
Speaker 1Well , I mean , you have a loving , healthy daughter to show for it , so absolutely worth the risk . And I mean , like you , a loving , healthy daughter to show for it , so absolutely worth the risk . And I mean , like you mentioned , that women go through it for various reasons and I think there almost is a bit of shame around that connotation . Right , you were sharing with me about a personal story where a woman came up and was just kind of whispering it to you because she didn't know if it was a the appropriate thing to talk about out in public . Or you know , a lot of women can go through it and maybe still have loss involved with it . So why don't you talk about that ? Because I think that that's a really empowering piece for women to feel strength in their determination and decision .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , and , and there's so many ways . You know , when someone has fertility challenges , like there's different paths to take . You know there's IUI , there's IVF , there's different medications , there's different doctors with different viewpoints on that . There's whether you're using donor sperm or donor eggs , and I've noticed the more that I started sharing about it because I was , I was hesitant and bringing it up and and what you know , this journey that I was going to be on and so many women who you know even have teenagers they were like would message me friends of mine . I had no idea , maybe , like I went through IVF you know this many years ago , or this is why we had to do IVF . And when I was talking at my fertility clinic , it's like one in six women has fertility challenges . It's huge . That's a huge population of women .
Speaker 1Yeah , especially in our demographic because , or our age group , right , because I mean , when I was younger , it was like as soon as you thought about being sexually active or if you had bad periods , it was birth control . Well , birth control is leading to a lot of these fertility challenges down the road , and now there's a lot of knowledge and education around alternative ways to not get pregnant , alternative ways to manage your , your bad periods and cramps and things like that . And I think that that plays a huge role in it , because right from the get-go , we were taught oh , let's just put a pill on it , right ? Or oh , it's just like we don't really talk about this . And to have that statistic of one in six women that are struggling with that today , I mean that is a massive , massive number of the population that are struggling . So to bring these conversations to the forefront , I think is really important so that women feel less alone in it .
Speaker 2Right and like there's so many reasons that you could have infertility and the other pieces . We don't talk about men's health either , and so I have a background in studying nutrition and part of our course was talking about , like , men's health , infertility , and we don't . No one talks about that . It's like kind of all put upon . I still feel like on the woman , like , oh , what does she need to do to get healthy ? And then the partner isn't brought in until like later on . But let's look at everyone's , the whole family's health and what's going on .
Speaker 1Yeah , absolutely , and I think that even goes further into the mindset of like when you do become a mom , a lot of that weight and mental load is on the moms . So , you know , I just what would you say would be your biggest piece of advice to moms out there in terms of like changing this conversation around it ?
Speaker 2out there in terms of , like , changing this conversation around it . I think that's it having a conversation . You know we get together so often and have these like superficial conversations and so encourage yourself to just break , be the icebreaker in your group and bring something up . You know , it could be something personal , it could be something maybe that you read an article about or saw a tip talk or something on Instagram . You know as a good icebreaker and see where that goes , because there are you know as being a therapist and coach too clients come to me and they're like oh , I've been thinking about like this challenge or issue and I'm the only one . I'm like you're . My client last week was talking about the same thing and I wish like I could play matchmaker sometimes with my clients and say you're not the , you're not the only one . So I think a lot of times we think or we don't know other people going through that . So , putting it out there in a way that feels comfortable to you and bring it up so that way the conversation can start happening , yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , and like you said it's , it's interesting if we are just having these little sidebar conversations and in your case it's therapy , so they are meant to be private , but like if you have a group of friends and you can get together and share this as a whole in the group , so that it's not , you know , maybe this this person shared us a IVF or their fertility struggles with me , let's say , and and then they don't know how they're like , oh well , I have somebody else that has shared the same journey . But because it's not in a group or a setting where I feel comfortable sharing each other's story , I can't connect them . So , making sure that we are like connectors in our society and just saying like , hey , I know somebody is going through this , can I share your story ? Can I connect you ? Maybe there's some support there for you , right , and I think that's where this group that you have is so powerful . So if you want to share a little bit about your virtual group for ambitious moms I love the title , yeah .
Speaker 2So the ambitious mamas collective came together . As someone who , like I'm part of Facebook groups and other groups and I was like where , where do I feel like this connection and where do I connect with all of these different groups ? And as someone who you know has always been like career driven , high achieving and lots of areas of my life not just my career and balancing being a mom , I was like who is there to talk to and like really elevate and lift each other up , like I want to talk about your wins and also like the struggles that you've gone through . Let's like talk about them and talk about you know how each of us have kind of gone through it in a way that feels like supportive and nourishing and that we can like all kind of thrive together . And also this piece of like connecting moms on like a career kind of thrive together , and also this piece of like connecting moms on on like a career kind of networking too , if people want to .
Speaker 2The other pieces . I like to start each session with a question or an affirmation or a journal prompt , something , because it's a great thing for us to do is to reflect . But as moms and working and taking care of the household . When do we really sit down ? So this is like the opportunity that I give everyone to sit for a few moments and then to kind of bring those conversations together . People don't have to share if they don't want to . They can share if they want and it just kind of gets the conversation going and creating more deep connections .
Speaker 1I love that so much and I can't wait to be a part of that group
myself . But you are a fairly new mom . Your daughter is now 17 months old and you've talked a lot about the chaos that kind of came along with that juggling your business . You've been very ambitious through your career and then have now brought life into the world . How do you find balance with all of that ?
Speaker 2It's hard because I really thought it would be different . I thought I would have all this energy not energy is the right word I was like , oh well , I'm taking postpartum time off , when she's napping , I can do all of this . And none of that happened . We still , to this day , contact nap or car naps or sometimes stroller naps , but we're not liking the stroller so much . I love it .
Speaker 2She is someone who is very attached to me and I love our time together , but it also means it's tough to work on business . He could know , the moment I opened my laptop , like she could be busy somewhere else , like someone else could be watching her , and she like just senses it . And then she's like mom , you know , which like I also love . So it's a little bit of adjusting to saying like , okay , now , this is the season of life that I'm in , where I thought I wanted to grow my business and my career . Some of that I'm just putting to the side , and that's okay , cause I know she'll be in school in a blink of an eye and now it's like spending time with her . But at the same time , there are those moments where I'm like , oh my gosh , I have this content , this blog post , this Instagram , and I'm spending time with her and I'm like starting to be like , oh my gosh , I need to do this and and that .
Speaker 2That struggle in my brain and now I'm not paying attention to her , which she absolutely picks up on every emotion . Now she's getting , you know , fussy , a little bit wound up , and I'm like , just hold on a minute . Mommy had this great idea , let me write it down . Or I got to get this post out , and so that's been like the biggest struggle and so learning how to kind of let go of some of those type a perfectionist qualities within my business , to like Instagram , the best time to post is at this time . I'm like , no , I'll just post whenever I get to . Oh , I didn't do any stories today , oh , no , and just , but it does still come up of , and like kind of like , how do you calm yourself down in that moment too , as your kid is now feeling your emotion and they're taking on that emotion ?
Speaker 1Yeah , absolutely . I mean and that comes a lot to the redirecting her energy piece that we were talking about earlier right , Learning how to handle that fire , I think , is a nice way to put it , because my daughters are both very strong-willed themselves and redirecting that in a way that doesn't stifle it but also allows you a little bit of freedom to get things done on your plate . And I think that comes down to a lot of the self-regulation that you've been talking about .
Speaker 2Yeah , and so part of that is there sometimes is not any time for me to self-regulate without her . So , yeah , I've been finding ways that I can do that with her , and sometimes that's like putting on dance music and picking her up and it could be a fast song and we dance to her , or it's a slow song and I'm just holding her and the weight of her is grounding me and our connection is grounding both of us and we just take that pause . Like going out for walks is great and just knowing like this is what the walk is gonna look like . Okay , we're not getting in the stroller today , that's okay .
Speaker 2Yeah , I have become highly addicted to make her mega blocks every night . I'm like it's mega block time and she , you know , like she just tears them all apart . But I sit there and I'm like we're gonna put the colors together , we're gonna like whatever feels good in my brain and in a way it's kind of mindless for me , but that like regulates . That brings me down after like an evening of working and getting dinner done . I'm like , okay , this is like relaxing to me , so kind of trying to find those things that she enjoys doing but also regulates myself .
Speaker 1Yeah , puzzles were a big piece in our household when my kids were you know that three , four stage , which she'll be getting to soon enough we did a ton of puzzles . Like I could sit down and it's just like staring at a picture , right , putting those pieces together , being able to turn off our minds , because that's a big piece for type A personalities , overachievers , as you self-described . I mean I fall into that category myself and it's like when you're running a business and a household simultaneously , it is really hard to have an off switch . And so finding some sort of activity that can help you calm down and co-regulate whether it's self-regulate or co-regulate with your kids I mean it's the same thing my oldest , she needs co-regulation and so a lot of times when I can feel her energy that's starting to trigger me , it's like I just get on her level , we do a hug or we'll go forehead to forehead and it's just like helping her breathe through it . Same way , the weight of your daughter helping her having her there , right , that co-regulation piece .
Speaker 1It's the beautiful thing and I love . I love that piece and I hope that it I mean eventually . I know it'll go away , but I hope it doesn't go away anytime soon .
Speaker 2Right , right and you're like hold on , you're modeling something so healthy and I think that's the other piece of being mindful and doing it with them is you're modeling options for them as they get older and grow . Yeah , and I bet she will still want those cuddles your daughter so yeah , and I bet she will still want those cuddles , your daughter , she's still going to come she's going to be like 40 and be like mom . Yeah .
Speaker 1I hope so . I hope so . Well , is there any last piece of advice that you'd love to give the listeners , whether it's in terms of your single motherhood journey or your business out there for the listeners ?
I think the biggest thing is giving yourself permission . We don't do it quite enough to take a break , to ask for help , to tell people how we're feeling and that we have permission . We give it to other people so often . But I want you to think of , like , how can I give myself permission and maybe even put like a reminder in your calendar that reoccurs , whether it's every week or every month like I give myself permission to go get a coffee by myself , like go to bed early , not , you know , check my emails for a day . So I think we have to remember that we can have permission to take time for ourselves .
Speaker 1Yeah , well , I think we're changing the narrative around what self-care is . A lot of people think self-care needs to be like going to the spa or going to the store and buying themselves something , which it can be , but also not checking my email for a day would be such a great mind rest , right , yeah . So thank you so much for being here today , abby , and thank you guys for tuning into today's episode , where we help you conquer the chaos one day at a time .