50. Creating Options: Motherhood, Medicine, and Financial Freedom with Dr. Felecia Froe

Hey doc! On today's episode of ✨Stethoscopes and Strollers✨, I sit down with Dr. Felecia Froe, urologist and financial liberation strategist, for a candid conversation about navigating residency with young children, evolving relationships, and creating financial freedom.

We dive into:

• Having children during surgical residency in the 1990s
• The reality of workplace support (or lack thereof) for pregnant Physicians
• Managing marriage dynamics and household responsibilities
• Why financial independence matters for Physician moms
• The evolution of motherhood support systems

Key Takeaways:

• Support systems evolve - what worked then isn't what works now
• Financial independence creates options
• Traditional ideas about motherhood affect our choices
• It's okay to change course when something isn't serving you
• Your children see more than you realize

Dr. Froe shares powerful insights from her journey as both a Physician and mother, offering wisdom that only comes from decades of experience. Her story reminds us that it's never too late to create the life you want.

Dr. Felecia Froe is more than just a best-selling author, international speaker, and urologist—she’s a financial liberation strategist on a mission to ensure every woman has the financial ability to break free from the constraints of unfulfilling jobs and toxic relationships.

As the visionary founder of Money With Mission, Felecia believes every woman deserves the power to shape her own destiny with financial freedom. Her unique approach isn’t just about building wealth; it’s about creating a life of purpose, impact, and fulfillment. By investing in real estate and businesses with a positive social mission, she helps professional women achieve financial security while making a difference in the world. Her projects aren’t just profitable— they’re transformative, providing her clients with options to live and work on their own terms.

Partnering with Felecia means aligning with someone who doesn’t just talk about impact— she creates it. From launching a residential assisted living home to opening a grocery store in a food desert and developing housing for those recovering from addiction, Felecia’s ventures prove that you can do well by doing good. Her WealthBuildHers community is a testament to her commitment to empowering women to build a legacy that outlives them.

Discover her book, How to

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Transcript

Hey doc, I am back with another amazing guest and I know I say that for all of my guests, but they are really amazing. And this one is no different. She is a dear friend, a mentor, and reading your bio, I just have to say, I love the financial liberation strategist. I love that.  But she is also a urologist and a mom, just like you, Dr.

Felecia Froe. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Hey, Latoya. It's good to see you again. I am so excited to be here with you and to hear more about your journey long before we ever met, when your kids who are now quite, I don't want to say old. Advanced. Advanced. Advanced was the word that was in my mind, but I was like, I don't know if that's a good word either.

But yes, um, tell our listeners how many kids you have and how old they are.  I have to say how old they are? This doesn't have anything to do with my age. My children. I have two daughters and one of the things I always I think about is like I don't understand how they're getting older But I'm not Right.

My youngest one, this is hard to say. My youngest one just turned 30. My oldest is 32, will be 33 in December.  Yes. And Dr. Felecia is only 29. I don't know how that happened. I'm going to say I'm 40, yeah. Who knows? We, it's a medical marvel. , okay. So take us. All the way back to when you had the first baby, first of all, what stage of your career were you in?

I was in residency. I was in my, , first year of urology residency. So urology has two years of general surgery. Then you go into urology and urology residency at that time was four years. So I was in my first year.  No, that's not true. I was in, I got married in my first year of urology residency. I had my child in my second year of urology residency, maybe third.

She was born in 1991, bottom line. So is it that you did the two years of general surgery and then like the actual urology part is what you're talking about? Correct. Correct. Yeah. I got married in my third year and then we had a baby the next year. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So I just want to take a little bit of a segue.

What was it like being in a predominantly male  specialty at that time? Like, what was the environment for a woman?  Well, I was very lucky, number one, because I had, in my department at the University of Missouri Columbia, there was a woman attending.  She wasn't married, she didn't have kids, was a little, you know, there was some different, but, but she was very woman focused, and she wasn't gonna let anybody really take advantage of you and treat you in a way.

And,  I have to say, the guys in the group, whether it was related to her or not, they were very, um, The, the attendings were, it was very family oriented. You, we are a family, we get along, we take care of each other. I really, really liked our program. I really did. Wow. Is that why you chose it?  I didn't know anything about it like that before I got in there.

I got very lucky because I mean, I hear about all these other people with these horrible, toxic relationships in their residencies and we didn't have that. I didn't have that at all. So it's, I was very, very lucky. Oh, good.  All right. So you got married. Was it , your plan to have kids so soon?

Did you want to have a residency baby? I did. Well, it wasn't about residency. He's like, I was 30 already. It's like, it's time to get this done. If we're going to get it done, let's start. So I wanted to do it, got pregnant actually fairly quickly. My first pregnancy was a miscarriage, which was really hard.

got depressed all the things that go with now you're thinking now it seems like really but yeah that was hard because I really wanted to have a baby um got pregnant again shortly thereafter and I mean I did worry about it in residency I had a lot of pain during pregnancy like pubic bone pain you're trying to walk and get stuff done and  you know At that point, I felt like I wasn't, maybe it was all on, I was putting it on myself.

I felt like I wasn't keeping up, you know, how you could, before pregnancy, I mean, maybe everybody else didn't have this, but before pregnancy, I could run around and keep up and do all the things. And now it's like, I got to walk a little bit slower to get to things in the further along. So it took a while for anybody to notice I was pregnant.

And so finally I just kind of had to tell him.  And then it was, I mean, it was okay. I'll tell you, I could talk about the things that I worried about as we got along, but it was, it was okay. It was okay. Well, that's not great. So we're definitely going to talk about that. But if you don't mind, I want to go back and talk about your miscarriage.

I have heard from a lot of people that they have had really traumatic experiences with their miscarriages, not from the miscarriage itself, but from the work environment. And I know you said your program was very family friendly, but that's a whole different scenario.  What was the experience in that situation?

Honestly, I have to now think about it. We've been, we have been talking a little bit and I actually forgot about that. And so we started talking today. The things I remember right off the top of the bat was number one, I didn't miscarry naturally, air quote naturally. So I had to have a DNC to actually finish off.

It was like,  I was having, I started having pain. It was over Christmas, I think, too. It seemed like I was on vacation. Yeah. It was like I wasn't at work and I had to call and I was like, maybe it's a UTI, should I do this? All these things were going through my mind. And then I got back and she did an ultrasound and so she goes, there's no heartbeat.

This was in the first trimester. Um, and, okay, okay, so now what do we do? Well, you can wait or you can, We can do the DNC. And so that mentally was a big thing for me. Cause I didn't, I still in my mind's like, okay, but maybe you're wrong. Maybe there really is a heartbeat. And you're like, did I , look at the ultrasound.

Yes. I looked at the ultrasound. Did I see that little flicker light? No, I didn't see that little flicker thing,  but I still had a hard time. And I think it was a few weeks before I actually, admitted that, okay, there's nothing here. We've got to go ahead and do this because it, it didn't, it wasn't this, that baby, that thing was not coming out of me on its own.

I had to go do something about it. Yeah. And I, you know, I know this is not. What this podcast is for, but I still I'm an educator at heart, and it's something that I had to learn the hard way, thankfully,  in residency about how we as OBGYNs manage and interact with women who have had missed abortions, which is what you had, like a missed miscarriage, meaning, you know, we look no heartbeat and what do we do now?

Because, coming up in residency,  At least in my time, those, there was this level of callousness that we were trained to have that was really quite dangerous for our patients. And it's just like, well, I mean, this is, this is not a big deal, but one of my chiefs had to tell me, she's like, no, this is a very big deal.

Even though. The quote unquote baby, it was a fetus, but it's a baby to that woman, right? And she was the one who said no matter how many times they want to come back from another ultrasound, do it because it doesn't matter that you know that there's no heartbeat or that there's no, no chance it matters to her.

And it's, it just reminded me when you were describing your experience, it is very, very common. And, since then. Any amount of time like you want to come back for us to check again. Sure. No problem. I actually forgot about that and it's really getting me now. Um,  yeah,  it was hard. It was really hard.

And then I remember laying around for quite a while and I had to go to work but I don't, I don't even remember that time except I remember being very depressed and sad. Yeah. How did you get through it?  I don't know, like time, time happened and then, okay, you can try, you can start trying again. So it was at six weeks of nothing and then okay, and I remember my doctor, um, who was actually also a friend, um, said, usually after we have to do a DNC, pregnancy comes fairly quickly and I was like, okay, well, let me know when I got to go and, so it was like six weeks went by, it wasn't much longer than that. And I was ready to try again. And I really did. I got pregnant fairly quickly. Yeah, you know, you still have this. And if anybody's had a miscarriage, or still that fear that, okay, this could happen again, I don't know, is this one going to go?

Is this going to be good? And  I don't know how long that lasted, but it did go. Everything went well. Everything went well, okay.  I know it was a long time ago and I'm really jogging your memory, but do you remember it being, like, a significant amount of anxiety that was affecting, like, your daily life, or that you had to suppress because you were at work, or it was just, you know, not too bad? 

I'm going to say I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I was suppressing. I'm pretty sure because I, I can remember that after she was born, how much I suppressed. So I'm pretty sure at that time I was suppressing and he's like, you just got to go to work. You can't let anybody know you don't talk about this kind of stuff.

And I had  all the, all the people in the residency were guys, but I was actually friends with their wives.  So I had them to talk to also. So there, there was some, I wasn't, I didn't feel so alone. Does that make sense? Even though I wasn't in practice and the woman attending had never had kids, so she couldn't experience this.

There were actually other women attendings and the wives of my colleagues, who again, which made it easier because we were a family to talk to about that kind of stuff. Well, I'm glad that you felt comfortable because I feel like it's very easy to say, well, I don't want anybody to see me like that, you know?

Think I'm less than or anything like that. Yeah, I probably had that too. I probably did. And maybe it was easier that I could talk to the women, people not in the program because they didn't see me that way anyway. They see me as Felecia and work with my husband. But yeah, okay. So was your birth particularly eventful or was it just like, okay, everything went well?

No, it was eventful. Um, of course,  So in addition to the pain of the pregnancy, pregnancies were hard for me. Delivery's hard, but I thought the pregnancy was harder just because it went long. Yeah. Like so long. And then Towards the end I ended up with high blood pressure, proteinuria, and then the doctor was like, you got to go in the hospital.

I'm like, really? Right. Can't I just go home and rest? No. You're going in.

You're going in. So I went in and then that night they started the, um, they started a cervical something, prostaglandin cervix to soften things up. And then, um, and then the pitocin started the next morning. I remember, oh my God. They're coming to turn it up again. They're turning it again up again. . Oh, were, were you not getting an epidural?

I got an epidural. Oh, okay. Back. It was a, I had, I had my anesthesiologist lined up. Everything was lined up. It was just that, you know, I, I didn't, my first time, second time was a little different. I, I'll tell you about that too. The first time I was like, I don't know. Can I ask for it now? Should I get it now?

Yeah. I'm like, this is, this is some stuff right here. He came up, put it in. And it didn't take all the pain away. I remember my sister getting her epidural and she just laid there through contractions. You could watch the contraction on the monitor. She didn't move. She eating, doing. Yeah. I didn't have that.

Yeah. It was just like take the edge off. And she was born probably from the time it started at seven. She was born before noon. So she was born in the, you know, it was, it went pretty quick. Yeah.  Um,  so that was the trauma. And I remember that my doctor said she came back in two things, two funny, funny thing.

She does as a baby's coming out, she goes, do you want a mirror to see? I'm like, no,   love offering that. Some people want to see, , ask almost every time. And I'm always entertained by the reaction because a lot of people say no. And it's just like, well, why would you ask me that?

No, don't want to see anything like, like, it was almost like if anybody has to leave this room, I know everybody stay right here. Get this baby out of me. That's how I was feeling.  That is hilarious. All right. But she was born and she was healthy. Everything was fine. No,

she had a heart murmur. I mean, after a time, of course, yes, she ultimately was healthy, but she had a heart murmur. So we're having this scary part and, um, they said, you know, I'm in the hospital and we're in the regular, um, post labor and delivery place. And they come in and they check her out. And it's like, well, if in the morning she's not in the nursery, she'll be in the NICU.

And I'm like, wait a minute,  hold on a second. If you take my baby to NICU, you need to come and tell me right not tell me in the morning. She did fine. We went to the cardiologist afterwards. She had a patent ductus and um, they made us go to a cardiologist who then they had to say, well, this cardiologist, he's a really good cardiologist, pediatric cardiologist, but he doesn't have a very good bedside manner.

Oh, for God's sakes. Ah, the kind of things people get away with. Fortunately, they did the, they did her echo and it's like, this thing is closing as we speak. she did fine. And I didn't have to deal with him more than that one visit. I think maybe there was two, maybe she did come back and make sure it was closed, closed, but there was nothing else after that.

Okay. Um, good.  But before, I forgot, before that I had been on bed rest for six weeks. So before she was born, I had to be on bed rest for six weeks, which is where the stress started, really stress started.  I remember what happened. I was going on to this rotation with this resident that I didn't like. I thought he was incompetent.

I'm going to have to work hard. I'm like, this is going to be terrible. I remember walking around the mall and starting to have contractions. And  I don't know, I don't know how many weeks I was, but evidently not enough to be having contractions and delivering a baby. So I got put on bed rest. So then I started worrying.

It's like, okay, God, what am I going to do? They're going to shut me down. They're going to kick me out of the residency. They're going to Fortunately, one of the guys had torn his ACL skiing.  Shortly before that like it was he was back at work, but he had to be off work for six weeks So in my mind is like if they start giving me a hard time about having to be off then I'm going we're going right To that point right this guy he tours ACL and he did you know, yes, I got pregnant on purpose.

he tours ACL doing something on purpose You know, we got it, but it never was a thing. It never was. Okay. I love that you had your plan. Yeah, I just had no idea what was gonna happen then then she was born and then you know, then comes I was gonna keep wanting to say post op, but then comes the Postpartum part.

Yes. Well, tell me about that. I don't  I wouldn't have said I had postpartum depression, but I had postpartum anxiety. It's like, you're going home with this baby. I remember driving home thinking, what are they going to send me home with this? Isn't it funny? It's just like, so y'all really like, this is, this is ours?

And I've got to figure out what to do once I get home. Right. I very much remember that getting home. I nursed her, we drove in the back. We, I sat in the back seat with the baby driving. My husband driving 20 miles an hour to get home, which was fortunately like only three blocks away from the hospital.

So wait, there was no car seat involved? No, we had a car seat. Oh, okay. Yeah. All the, all the things. Of course, we had all the things and still driving 20 miles an hour with me sitting in the back, making sure nothing's going to happen to her.  Anyway, we get home. Okay. Nursing was hard. It was really hard. And it's just like, that's an experience.

It's just like, And it wasn't, my milk came in, but it just was very sore. Every time she latched on, it was a toe curling, you want to scream kind of pain. And people were like, well, it's just natural. It's natural. I'm like, why does it hurt so much? I'm going to tell you that was one of the worst experiences, especially the second time around.

It was excruciating every single time for months. Yeah, it was, it was bad. Fortunately, somebody told me, take the tea bags. Like, what kind of tea bags? Is there something special here? No, just regular tea bags. Get them wet. Put them on your nipples after you, before you nurse, after, whatever. Just put them on there and it'll help.

And it did.  I was like, you know, I was ready to do anything. I don't care. So were they warm or just like cold?  It was, I don't even remember. I didn't soak them in hot water. I just like ran them under the faucet and put them on there. I don't know if it was the tea that numbed. It felt like a little numb.

It just was a little numbness. And next time she latched on, it's like, oh, that wasn't as bad as a time before.  Let me put these, let me walk around with tea bags on my nipples. I All the things we do. So how long did you last breastfeeding? For her six, six weeks, maybe a little longer, maybe a little longer.

Cause I had to go, I went back to work at six weeks.  Okay. So pumping at work was not an option. I don't even think I thought about it.  I don't even think I thought about it. I do. I remember going back and after the first case coming out with the  You know, I had the breast pads on, but that didn't hold anything wet.

Unfortunately, the nurses are in the room. They're like, okay, yeah, here we got this. Go change your clothes. Oh my gosh. So how was it going back after six weeks? First of all, your husband is a physician, right? No, he's not. Okay. But was he home?  No, I can't remember.  I can't remember, but his mom lived in town, so she was watching her, um, after she was born.

, and that was still hard. That was really a hard time for me. And it was probably another six weeks, maybe three months after I went back, before I decided I wasn't going to quit.  Wow. And it, interestingly, it was the day I decided I wasn't going to quit that the chief resident came up to me and was telling me how my work, and he didn't put it this way.

This is my words. He was much more  professional about the conversation. Your work sucks. You got to get better. I'm running around looking after you, making sure, and that's not, you know, I, I like, and I said, I know I've just decided I'm not going to leave.  Wow. So tell me a little bit more about what was going on.

Like, what made it so hard in particular?  I felt, I always wanted to be an involved mom and going to work. I, I mean, I, I  so clearly remember, like, I don't even know what my daughter does all day. I don't know. Did she, did she pee good? Did she poop today? Does she eat well?  I just didn't know. I get to see cute pictures sometimes.

And then I come home and I'm tired. You know, you'd come home, you go to sleep. And it's like, I don't know. I don't know if I can do this. I got to figure out what I'm going to do. I, I very, very much remember thinking of quitting very much, but not knowing what I was going to do, which kind of has led me to where I am today with my stuff I do because I want nobody in that position, right?

So what made you stay? Like what made you change your mind? I don't know. I don't know. I know. I think it might as much as I don't know what else I can do. I was in that kind of that frame of mind. I don't, I've got to, you know, pay off these loans. I've put all this time in.  I don't know what else to do.  I really don't remember, but I, it was almost like a switch that said, okay, you can do it.

You're going to stay.  Wow.  What was your ex husband's, what was he saying, feeling during this time? I don't even know if I was having the conversations with him about it. Wow. I don't even know if I was, I believe I was talking to him about feeling like I wasn't a part of her life.

Like, I don't even know what's going on, but I don't know that he, I don't remember feeling like he felt it. Does that make sense? And I'm looking back on that. Of course, after a lot more marriage

gotcha. Okay, and the same thing with the miscarriage thinking about that is like he didn't feel that sadness and all that. It was like, it was almost like, well, I don't understand what's, what's the problem. And then I could get to like, okay, well, you never felt it, a being inside of you. You didn't have all that same kind of feeling about it.

I can tell you another funny story. Get to a funny story now, right? When we were, before delivery, I think I was on bed rest already and we were in the kitchen talking and I was talking about the epidural and blah, blah, blah. And he says, why don't we try to do it without an epidural? And Why don't we try? 

I said, okay, why don't every time I have a contraction, I squeeze your testicles and we see how long we last.

What was the response? He said, okay. I understand. Yeah. There's no we in this conversation, in the pain. Right. That is hilarious. Yeah. That's hilarious. Oh boy. All right. Any dads listening out there don't say stuff like that  Or or in the middle of labor looking at the monitor and going that doesn't look like it hurts  He said another thing he said Yeah, that one doesn't look like it hurts.

Like are you freaking kidding me?

Looking at the monitor not at you not at me got it Got it. Got it Okay. All right.  How did you get along with his mom?, good. But  I didn't know how to be a mom. I didn't know what I'm supposed to, what can I push her on? What can I, yeah, say I need, what can I, I didn't do any of that stuff.

It was like she's taking, she's doing me a favor taking care of my baby while I'm working.  Gotcha. So do you remember at least a feeling of, I don't like this, but she's doing me a favor? Yes. And is it that you didn't feel empowered to say something because you didn't know that you could, or what was the reason?

I think it was, I didn't know I could, I don't even know that I knew what to ask for. Yeah. Yeah, that was the other thing. It's like  so yes, your baby's pooped or something, you know, she's doing she would always say she's doing great She's fine.

And then later. I would think about the specifics of the thing But yeah, how much does she eat? Did she you know all the things and that seemed like every other mother in the world knew these kind of things which  Yeah. Not true. I know. Now I know. But that's what it felt like.

That everybody else knows how much, you know, everything their baby's doing, they know. And I know, I take my baby over here, or my husband Ian takes her over there, and then we pick her up and I come home and I try to spend time with her, and I'm dead, tired, and it just wasn't, it was not good. It was, it was really hard.

It was really hard. It was really hard. Yeah, it sounds hard and it sounds familiar. Very, very familiar. So that was  fourth year. How was your rest? Fourth and fifth. Fifth. Fourth and fifth. Fourth. And the fifth. Fifth, yes. And the rest went fine. I remember we just went, I went to the R retirement party of one of my attendings recently, and he told a story of me bringing Takara as my daughter to poker night  and 

Sitting her on the table, poker table, and she went to the bathroom. Oh my, he was like,  he said, all I said was, don't let the cards get wet.   at least that was a fond memory.  I mean, it really was family. It really was good. It was good. That's really nice to hear, especially at the time. Not that it was that long ago because you're not that old, but, um, It could have been, I mean, there's lots of women in urology or a lot of urologists who did not have that kind of experience and did not, would not have even thought to get pregnant during their residency, because they're, they're not going to be accepted.

They're going to, all the things are going to happen that you think can happen. They're going to happen. Cause guys don't have to deal with that. Yeah. Just so you know, all those things happened to me in practice. A lot of those things. In my first year of practice, I got pregnant again, and then I had, it was nothing like residency.

Residency was hard having it, it was harder in practice. Well, tell me about that. So you come out, how old is Takara at this point? Takara, I finished in 93. Takara was two. Okay. A little over two. And then, um, I got pregnant again. It's time, let's get this other one up, born, and with her, they were doing maternal fetal, maternal serum alpha fetal proteins at that time. That came back abnormal. Oh. So then we had to have, uh Uh, amniocentesis and then there was a whole conversation with Ian around that if it comes back abnormal. There, there was a lot of stress around that thing. What are we going to do?

I'm like,  the only reason I'm doing this test, this is what I said to him, the only reason I'm doing this test is so that if something's, if she needs something, I didn't know it was a she at that time, but yeah, if this baby needs something when it's born, I want everybody in the room. Right. That was my thought process on it.

His thought process was a little different. We, we would let this one go and have another one. I was like, yeah, no, we're not doing that. I'm not doing that. This, I want the room taken care of. Right. Did you know that you all diverged on that particular like value in terms of, you know, if, if the genetics is abnormal, let's terminate it versus no.

That was, that was the first conversation when we decided to do it,  it was before it was done, but he talked about, he said his feelings about, I said mine, and then we did it.  Fortunately, we didn't have to deal with that because everything was fine.  But it, we, I could have seen that being a big issue.

Cause I was like,  Nope, I'm having this baby. Yeah. And that's, I was recently on a podcast where I was talking to residents and she asked me about the different things.  people should talk about before they get even married. And I was like, there's so much stuff. And that's, this is like,  so for any resident listening, this is one of those things where you would never think.

to talk about it.  But it is a huge thing about, you know, what are you going to do if it comes to potentially having a disabled child and all of the ranges of disabilities that they can be. And what are your beliefs? Like, what are you going to do? It's something that you should definitely know beforehand.

Yeah. And you might not know, but at least you have the conversation so that,  like, I don't know what I'm going to do. It kind of depends on the things, but. you, it, it is a, it's, it was, it was, that was very stressful. And it was, yeah. I knew I was not aborting, I just knew it. Right. And so it, it really didn't matter.

It was like right. You can think what you want. This isn't happening.  Right, and that's what I was about to say. It could be a deal breaker. And the way that you answered that, it sounds like it would have been a deal breaker. At least, like in, in practice, in your heart, all of that. So it's really important to talk about all of these things.

Yes, that, yeah. And that is not something that you would think to talk about. No. Because who thinks that's going to happen? You don't. Yeah. Anyway, she was fine. And let's see what happened. Oh, in practice, that practice. So that one, I came in replacing a woman. It was like 12 guys. And again, painful pregnancy, um, had to be on bed rest. And they were like, why do you need to be on bed rest? My doctor had to write,  I had had a, um.  a conization cervical cone. So I had this kind of flat cervix and then it's going to,  so they wanted me laying down. Yeah. And so my doctor had to  tell them information that was none of their damn business for me to be able to be on bed rest.

And then when I was like, and then she said something about six weeks off after, so again, I only took six weeks off and they were like,  As an attending, yes. Wow. Why do you need six weeks off? Wow.  It was, that, that relationship was fairly hostile. It, it was. I think I stayed there five years, and I keep saying it was just because of the weather.

I was in Minnesota, but there was a lot more to that.  Yeah, that sounds like it was definitely more than the weather. Yeah. So you did another six weeks. Yeah. How, how was that on not just your mental health, but like your physical body going back to work six weeks now twice?  I don't remember. Physically having a lot of problems.

I did pump with the second one. Okay. Um, so I spent I did I we breastfed for almost a year with her. I don't remember. Physically having a lot of problems. I had to be separated from her because I was time for oral board. So I had to go down and do oral board. So I'm pumping down there thinking. She's not going to want me when I get back.

And my husband's going, yeah, she wants something. Cause you know, they kind of go at your arm when they're in your, right, right, right. She wants something. It ain't me. So what was the difference in the decision to pump? You just were more educated about it. I was going to do it the way, I guess so. I think so.

Maybe I thought I couldn't in res. I don't, I don't even remember thinking about it in residency. I really don't. And then as, um, Okay. Maybe somebody talked to me about it. I don't, I don't really remember. It was just more of a, you know, and my mom, so I didn't, my mother didn't even participate in that conversation cause she didn't nurse us.

We were bottle fed. And so that was not even something she really thought about or could advise me on. I remember her telling me I need to sterilize the bottles and do all this like, Sterilize the bottles. She got me a bottle sterilizer. I'm like, I don't think we need to do that anymore, but okay. Well, people are still doing it now.

So,  yeah, we stopped. We had like these sterilizing bags and stuff. I probably did it like once, but yeah, they're still selling sterilizers and there's a whole bunch of stuff about, you know, you don't need to versus you need to and yeah. No, we didn't sterilize. We also didn't feed the babies. We didn't feed any of them like baby food in a jar.

Yeah. We ate ground up. Yeah. When we started eating, like, which is why I think my kids have kind of sophisticated palates now. Like, right. This bland food. Let's give us some food. We want real stuff here. That's great. That's great. So what, besides the work environment? What do you think was the most difficult part of them being that young because it would have been two under three, right?

Two kids under three. Yeah, Takara was almost three. She, Reed was born in October, Takara turned three in December. Yeah, what was the hardest part of that situation? the, when Reed was born, I remember, recall that Ian was working. Interesting, funny, funny, interesting story. I get home from the hospital with her.

And like, there's no food in the house. He drops me off and goes to work.  And I'm like, there's no food. Takara needs to eat. So here I am, newborn baby, first day home from the hospital, going to the grocery store.  So pause, where was his mother at this point? Who was helping him? We moved. Oh, I see. We moved and lived in a different city at this point.

Okay. So no help. Now that being said, I probably should have, could have called my neighbor down the street who took Takara while we went to the hospital. I just didn't even think about it. Maybe she was at work. Maybe. I don't remember. Yeah. Why I didn't even think about doing that. Again, one of these, I got to take care of it myself moments without thinking about who can help you.

So, which is.  I'm so much better now to think about, now I think about who can help me, not I got to take care of it and how can I do this myself. And it,  it took a, those are the years. That have passed in my life that needed to pass for me to get to that point. So  we do grow up. It could take a while, but it does happen. Yes. So, okay. So this is like one of my things. All right. So what was the thinking surrounding not having somebody there consistently that you were planned were not even only paying your mom, somebody else or having like a nanny or something like that. Yeah, there was no thought of that.

None. My mom, my mother came  And I recall her not being of any help. She's just like there to and you know, maybe I'm remembering it wrong. I just remember doing the laundry I remember Like she was there to hold the baby when I had to go do something else that she didn't want to do or that You know, that's what if that's what I remember and Nobody around me taught every mom that I knew And I didn't know doctor moms were, nope, they didn't have nannies and stuff like that. 

That didn't come along until like my, one of my good friends, the one that Takara went to her house when I went to have Reed, got a nanny much later, much, much later. Like we had, we weren't even living in the same state anymore. And her kids were all actually  in school by that time. But she got a nanny, no, two of her kids were in school.

One was still not in school. And she got a nanny then to help. But it wasn't something that was, was still at the time when women did everything. You don't, you know, you just take care of it, figure it out. Even doctor moms. Even.  Yes. I didn't, I didn't, I don't even think I knew doctor moms.

So I'm this, I'm in this urology practice by myself.  One of the neighbors down the street was a family practice, but I don't think she was, she hadn't had any kids at that point. Uh huh. And in my circle, not even in the town, but out, you know, people from residency and that kind of thing, I don't think I was talking to anybody.

It seemed like this is a thing you just do, which at this point, now, I would never, it's like you gotta, no, you don't have to. You don't have to do all that by yourself. We ultimately, so what happened is Ian, He was working at the time. Sometime down the road, and they, before Takara went into kindergarten, I'm like, she was probably four, maybe, maybe it was halfway through Reed's first year.

Then I was like, This is ridiculous. We never see each other. We are, you know, like, the kids are in daycare, which is icky. They're eating stuff I don't want them to eat. They're, you know, this is just bad. Then, and. You don't make enough money to make it worth it. That was the, that was honestly a thing, but I don't think I said, hopefully I didn't say it that way.

But was like, why don't you stay home  and take care of the kids and let me make the money and do the work and you take care of the house,  which he did. He agreed to, he did. He agreed willingly or was that like a thing? No, I don't remember it being a thing. Okay. I remember him agreeing to that. pretty easily.

The problem came up is that it's not like you would think it's going to be is like, like, I think if I was staying at home, my job is to take care of the house. That's my thing.  And he took care of the kids. The kids were good. Nothing bad happened to my kids. They had on clothes that I wouldn't have had them in, but you know, they got to be creative.

 I come, what does she got on? That's what she wanted to wear. I'm like, she's fine.  But it would be like, just as a family thing, no dinner was ready. There was no dinner cooking. It's like, what do you want to have for dinner? I'm like, I don't freaking want to make another decision today.  I don't care what we eat.

So that, that became a big thing. So that was, you know, bigger than just the kids, but it was, , I'm thinking the person that stays at home is the one who takes care of home and takes, makes, is what we're going to eat. And this is all those kinds of things. And that I was still making a lot of those kinds of decisions, even going to work. 

So what was the conversation surrounding that or was there no conversation?  When we finally had the conversation, I was like, well, you don't usually like what I fix. I was like, okay. sounds like a cop out.  And I'll say that only because you are no longer married. I would have had respect for your husband if you were still married.

No. Yeah. There, there was, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine this morning and who as a guy who recently divorced and now you're looking back at your life and you're like, yeah, this lasted way longer than it should have. When you look back at all the things you.  put up with and try to fix. And that's, I was married for 19 years, 19.

So we stayed married a very long time. Um,  and now some of these things I didn't even remember. Now we're talking about, I'm like, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. Oh yeah. And I, I can just tell people now it's like, why did you get divorced? Cause I felt like I was doing everything and finally became enough.

If I'm going to do everything, I'll just do everything. Yeah. And now when I look back at what everything is, I'm like, Oh yeah, I was, It was a lot. It was everything. So how old were your kids when y'all got divorced? In high school. Like, Takara, Takara was a senior and Reed was probably in 8th or 9th grade.

So they were Oh wow, you really held out for a long time.  For a long time. And I actually just, I stayed married because I didn't want my kids to be a statistic from a broken home and dah, dah, dah, dah, I wanted them to see what a mother father household looked like. Yeah. Yeah. And the day I decided that was done was a day, this, Takara said to me, like I had to go to work, and  Ian was working at that time, and I, I said, so tomorrow I have to go to work early, I have surgery, do you want to go to school early, or do you want your dad to take you, what do you, what do you want to happen, and she goes, well,  Dad's always tired in the morning and um, I think maybe I can't remember what she said, but just her saying that was a trigger for me.

And I said, okay, honey, I need to tell you something.  I'm going to talk about your dad. Can you, are you okay with that? Yes. Okay. I'm just going to tell you what I did in the last three days. And I talked about how on that Sunday I had gotten up at three o'clock in the morning, gone and done a case, came home, made your breakfast, made your lunch, went back to work.

picked you up from school, blah, blah, blah, all these things.  And, uh, and dad  went to work and came home and he was working a night job and slept all day and then went to work. And she goes like, Oh,  she goes, what I said wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be about her dad. And it was that moment that I thought, Oh my gosh, what she's getting from me staying here is that the woman does everything.  That's what that was when I was like, okay, this has got to, this is over. This is done. Yeah. And it's like, I, and the reason I say that is that I think we, we often stay in situations for reasons in our heads that aren't the reasons that are, that somebody else is perceiving.

For example, you stay in a marriage because you're, you want your kids to have a dad or a mom, either way.  It just doesn't work out. They're not getting what you think they're getting out of it is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I think that's a really important lesson to share and thank you for sharing it because I see so many people say, you know, the marriage is over, but we're going to stay married for the kids.

I'm like, those kids don't need you to stay married. No, they need you to be your parents. Exactly. They need parents. Yeah. So what was, what was their reaction to the divorce? Were they completely surprised? That's funny too. So we had decided, okay, this is happening. I decided and I decided I wasn't doing anything else to make it come back.

We'd gone, we'd done counseling, we'd done all this stuff.  And so it was like, okay, we got to tell them. And he was hesitant to tell them. He was actually in the kitchen.  Making dinner that night and I told the girls to come in, come in the living room, girls. We need to have a conversation. So they come in and they're sitting there and they go, what? 

Okay. Senior in high school. And so they were like, what? What do you want? I was like, we're going to wait for your dad. And he took forever, took forever, took forever. They go, they said, you guys, you're scaring us. And he finally came and I said, we're getting divorced. I said, Oh.  Can we eat now? 

So what was your reaction? Like,  I was like, Oh, okay. So this isn't going to be as traumatic. I still worried about it. I still thought about it, but it's like, Oh, okay. Can we, it really went to, can we eat now? There was no more conversation about it. Yeah. And maybe it was that they were so scared. We were going to tell him somebody was dying.

Right.  Divorce is okay. Fine. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and you've had a lot of your child's life since then.  Have y'all talked about it and where they secretly traumatized or were they expecting it? I don't know that they were expecting it, but I, we, and we haven't actually really talked about the divorce a lot.

We've talked about  my relationship with her dad and we've talked about those kinds of things. They had a doctor appointment, you know, regular checkup kind of thing. And I told the doctor, it's like, this is what's happening. And I, at, at that age, I didn't go in the room with them. They got to go talk and do what they say, what they had to say.  But she knew that.

And when she called me later, she goes, yeah, there's, I got nothing. You guys are doing a good job. I was like, okay, good. Good. We tried. There was no, we never really had arguments or fights. It just seemed like this is done.  Let's get this divided up and no, we didn't even do lawyers or anything. It was just like, Oh, wow, call this a day.

And  Oh, well, that's, that's nice.  Do you think that if you had  said certain things at the beginning when the kids were younger, it may not have ended up  that way in the later on?

I think we would have gotten divorced. Okay. I think we would still gotten divorced. Um,  It was a long time. So even basic things like having a housekeeper, having somebody come clean was a conversation. And to me, that's like, that's a set that they go to work every day. You don't need to spend your weekends cleaning.

So, and I remember having that conversation with a physician, a woman physician, and she was struggling with that. And she was, Her kids, she had kids already, and she was really struggling with, I should be doing that myself. I should be taking care of the kids. No, you're, you're just as good a mom and woman, somebody else can do that.

And think, and you have to, we even have to talk, when women are having a hard time with that, to say, you're giving someone else a job. You're giving someone else something to do. It's not, you're not doing it. You,  100 percent could do it.  But give somebody else a job that wouldn't have a job any other way.

Sometimes that gives them the permission to do it. And just to not have to clean a toilet, my gosh, come on.  You can afford not to clean the toilet. And I think that's an important point because I, I told that to somebody recently because it, it can get to a place where it seems very elitist very quickly because we are naturally Hire earners and all of these things and the, the social status, whatever, of being a doctor is that, you know, I think I'm too good and that is not the case at all, you know, we know that you, you can do anything.

You are a woman physician, you can do whatever you want to do, but should you be, do you have to, and you can empower another woman to take care of a family, you know, or it could, it could be a man too, I suppose. But.  You can give somebody else a job. And if you really look at your own life, there's how many other things would you rather be doing?

When it comes to business, you think about what is my highest and best use. And your highest and best use as a woman physician is not cleaning your house on the weekend.  You want to spend time with your kids. You want to spend time with your husband, your spouse, your partner, whoever that is. And you want to do good work.

Take care of patients. Does this not? Cleaning the house is,  like, so far down on the list.  Take it off the list. Give that to somebody else to do. And feel good about it. That is,  of all the things to do, To me, that's the easiest one, right? Cross that off. You can clean my house, take care of it. And will they, will they do it perfectly?

Of course not. Of course not. But it's going to be good enough. It's going to be done. My toilet gets clean and it was not getting cleaned on a regular basis when it was up to me.  That's the thing. That's the thing  is either you're doing it all and you're stressed and burnt out or you're not. And angry, stressed, burnt out, angry with all the things. 

We didn't do nannies, and I don't know.  I just never thought about that. I never thought about that. I'm trying to think, what would I advise my daughter today? She was thinking about going to veterinary school, and her spouse works as a nurse. I was like, yeah, you probably want to have somebody, because, I mean, I'm probably not going to be the one. 

Why not, Grandma? Grandma's going to live in a different country. See, Grandma's living her best life.

Well, you should have somebody in there. Put some cameras in your house. Do all that kind of stuff. You'll be okay.  Yeah, I, it does seem radical. It does. Even when I'm saying it, it seems like that's a lot and it's a lot to think about. And I actually, one of my friends where I used to work had a baby, um, and she has an immune deficiency disorder, not the baby, the mom.

I was about to say, which one? Okay. Mom. And when they're doing her child, like she stayed off for three months. Then she went back to work, came back to work and the baby went to daycare. And the baby started getting daycare stuff  and come back and then mom is sick for a month And then happened like two or three times I said you got to get you got to get a name this you got to get somebody coming in your house This is not working and she she struggled with it, too But she finally because she kept getting so sick Decided that was the right thing to do and once she did that And it took a while.

It wasn't the first person, but it took a while. And again, they got a great lady coming in and then mom stopped getting sick. Yeah. The daughter, I keep wanting to call their names, which I have no permission to do. Right.

Did fine. Yeah. They're still friends. Her daughter's now 10. They're still friends with that person. Yeah. And it's just like, it was just such a, for that reason, if you're getting sick, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Just. Let it go. Yeah.  I think that is like an extreme example, but it is an example of the kind of sacrifice.

It's like, how much are you going to give? She was literally giving her health. Yes. For the, because of this idea of I can't have somebody else raising my child or, and also she was in daycare anyway, you might as well. It's not like if you were home with her, which again, no judgment, my daughter's in daycare right this second, but it's just like, give yourself a break.

Yes, and it, why, and we do think about, I think it is that elitist kind of, we think, well we can't, that's just,  like, rich people do that. Right.  Right. And that then that brings in the money conversation, right? Like, what are your money issues? It's another conversation you should have with your partner. What are your perceptions about money?

What are your perceptions about what makes a good mom? You know, because all of that is going to affect you and how you mother and the choices that you make. Yes. I think we both know somebody who wanted to get a housekeeper in and their husband said, no, why don't, why do we need that? After they had their baby and they're like, yeah, I'm not going to do it. 

And neither are you.  Being a traditional wife, mother. Well, I think we could argue what traditional means, but if we talked about that June Cleaver traditional, right, mom stays home, takes care of the kids, that's not, that's gone. We don't, you're, you already left that part when you decided to become a doctor.

Now you can't go back, you're not going to go back and we want to have them both. We do. I get it. You want to be that great mom, June Cleaver mom. taking care of everything and a great doctor doing your surgeries, taking care of your patients and then you are the one that suffers and that's not the right place to be.

Yeah. It's just, it's hard. It's hard. And I want to say a couple of things as we wind down. Number one, you are dating yourself by the June Cleaver reference.

But it's okay. June Cleaver? Leave it to Bieber? I think so. I don't even remember. Um, that may be a fact of I did not grow up in this country because I did watch it. I didn't watch it. It's on like game show. It's on some network. Game show network that is also dating yourself. Game show  But so that was, that was the one thing I wanted to say.

 So but for you specifically,  you mentioned traditional, you had some fairly traditional ideas about motherhood. Where did that come from for you?  That's a great question. Because my mom was not a stay at home mom. We went to daycare. Mom had a job. I think it was, I just wanted to do it different and better than my mom, because you know, you can look back and see all the problems you had in your childhood and how you can do it better.

I think that was where, where that came from. And maybe if I stayed home, maybe if I was home and I didn't do all, you know, whatever. I don't even remember what was in my head now because it's not there anymore. Right. Right. Like way washed out. What kind of craziness was that? It's so amazing how you look back and you really like, yeah, she did this and he did that and I could do it so much better.

And it's just like, you have no idea. You have no clue. The day you come to that, to the realization that your parents were doing the best they could. Yes. You might be messed up. But your parents were doing the best they could  and it's on you to fix it. I had this conversation with my nephew recently.

Your mother did the best she could do. It's on you now. You're 27 years old. Go to therapy. Talk about us. We don't care. It's up to you. And that's something else I think is really important before we become mothers. Like figure out your shit that you've been taken from childhood before you then have another child and then make your whole motherhood experience about either being just like your mom or being exactly opposite your mom.

Yeah.  Yeah, that's a hard one, though, because I don't do we realize the stuff we got from our childhood before you have your kids because your kids reflect some stuff back on you, right? And he's like, Ooh, I sound just like my mother, let me go to therapy.

Well, at least be open to even realizing that is a possibility. And that's, that is the purpose of this podcast is to get the wisdom from. People like you and to have these conversations so people can think about it and realize because somebody listening may not even realize that that's what's happening.

And because of this, they're like, Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. Wait a hot second. The growing up is the kids growing up as something else.

Raising your kids.  I remember my kids were getting fat because mom would feed them dinner before dinner.  Wow.  And then when I asked her to stop, that was a thing. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. You see, that's what, even though I'm a huge proponent of free help and pulling on your family and all that, sometimes paid help is better than free help.

Let me tell you. You can tell them, you can have some rules. All right, Felecia, this was amazing. And thank you so much for sharing all of your stories and going way back in the archives. Way back. Way back.  Thank you for giving me a chance to remember all those things. Because I'm thinking about my kids.

I look at pictures of them now when they were that age. All their ages, all their stages were good to me. It was all fun. Yes, there were challenges along the way, but it was all fun. And I think they're amazing women now and doing great things in the world. And I don't think I would change any of it.  Oh, that's beautiful.

With that said,, let people know where they can find you. Um, if they want to learn more about everything that you're doing, about your podcast, all of it. Okay. I, so my podcast is Money With Mission. My company is Money With Mission and we believe that every woman should have the financial ability to walk away from any job or relationship that's not in her best interest.

That being said, my really thing is I want everyone to have options financially, so just like I talked about, I had to stay in this job when I really wanted to quit. I had to keep doing, you know, you just had to keep doing because you financially don't have money coming from anywhere else. So I help women get passive income or income coming from other places, not having to put more work in. So  moneywithmission. com is the website. Money with Mission is the podcast on Spotify, Apple, all the, all the places. And we just talk about  being better with our money. Another thing that we don't talk about very much, money. Let's get it out there.  Yes, I loved it. Thank you so much again.

And Doc, I will see you on the next episode of Seth's Scopes and Strollers. Bye.