Mompreneur & PMHD Survivor - Corrie's Story

*CW: This episode discusses domestic abuse, suicidal ideation, and loss through suicide. Please be mindful of your own mental health boundaries when listening.

In this episode, Corrie LoGiudice shares her journey from an abusive relationship to becoming a mother and entrepreneur. She discusses her experiences with postpartum depression and the challenges she faced during her pregnancies. She emphasizes the importance of having a supportive and nurturing network during the postpartum period. She also discusses the strategies she uses to maintain her own mental health, including setting boundaries and prioritizing self-care. Overall, Corrie's story emphasizes the resilience and strength of mothers in overcoming adversity and finding their purpose. 

Takeaways

• Postpartum depression can manifest differently for each individual and may be influenced by personal circumstances and trauma.
• Having a supportive partner during pregnancy and postpartum can greatly impact a woman's mental health and overall well-being.
• Home births can provide a more personalized and comfortable birthing experience for some women, but it is important to consider individual circumstances and consult with healthcare professionals.
• Seeking mental health support, such as therapy or counseling, can be instrumental in navigating postpartum challenges and processing trauma.
• Women have the ability to transform their experiences into opportunities for growth and empowerment, using their personal journeys to help and support others.

Learn more about Corrie by following the links below:
https://corrielo.com/
https://www.facebook.com/iamcorrielo
https://www.instagram.com/iamcorrielo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcorrielo/

Thank you to Steve Audy for the use of our theme song, Quiet Connection
 

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Visit our Patreon to help support our mission to normalize the conversation and end the stigma surrounding PMADs!

Transcript

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Chelsea (00:01)
Hello! Today I'm here with Corrie Corrie, how are you?

Corrie LoGiudice (00:06)
Great, thank you. How are you?

Chelsea (00:09)
I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us today. I don't know where you're at, but we're in the middle of a snowstorm. So I hope hopefully wherever you're at is a little warmer and not

Corrie LoGiudice (00:21)
You probably got what we just had. I'm based out of New York and we got pounded earlier this week.

Chelsea (00:24)
Mm. Yep. I'm in Vermont and it's Cuckoo up here right now. But yeah, so I'm excited to have you. You are many things. You also have your own podcast as well that I want to make sure I mention. Corrie Lo Radio. So listeners, check that out. But rather than me listing off your...

Corrie LoGiudice (00:31)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (00:51)
achievements and abilities. I'd love it if you could sort of introduce yourself and let us know who you were before you became a parent.

Corrie LoGiudice (01:03)
Hmm. That's a great question. So my name is Corrie LoGiudice I go by Corrie Lo online. You can find me that way it's easier than trying to figure out how to spell my last name and With that said today, you know Corrie today I and I help women become leaders and entrepreneurs and one of the ways I do this is through helping them identify and address their personal overwhelm culprit

Chelsea (01:12)
Ha ha ha!

Corrie LoGiudice (01:27)
guessing we're going to probably talk about that a little bit in today's podcast, just because it's a huge part of my story from going from being a corporate SVP, becoming a mother while I was in an abusive relationship and managing the trauma after trauma after trauma behind the scenes when no one really had any idea what was going on. I created this framework that helped me.

Chelsea (01:30)
Hopefully.

Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (01:50)
managed that level of overwhelm and keep moving forward and allowed me to achieve some of the successes that I think you're alluding to before when I decided to start my business so that I could be at home for my son. I within a couple of weeks had landed paying clients within a couple of months I had an audience so close to 30,000 people online and in a year I was a TEDx speaker so the system works it works really well and it doesn't it doesn't matter what you know

Chelsea (02:13)
Wow! Yeah!

Corrie LoGiudice (02:19)
traumatic situation you're going through currently in your life, that doesn't have to be a reason for why you can't set yourself up for the future. And that's what I'm all about helping women do today.

Chelsea (02:29)
I love that. Who was Corrie? Who was Corrie before all of this? Before you had your kids? Before you were a crazy business woman?

Corrie LoGiudice (02:35)
Mm-hmm. You got it, you got it. Well, it's interesting because that story really kind of goes in two phases because the Corrie that you see now, that's the confident businesswoman go-getter, that was the person I always was as a child. And that very slowly started to dwindle away when I found myself in a relationship that I later learned was abusive.

Chelsea (02:53)
Mmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (03:03)
It was very long term, we met when we were really young. And over the course of 15 years, because of the emotional abuse that I went through on a regular basis where they were constantly correcting me and telling me not to be certain things that I naturally was like you're too alpha and you are too demanding and this and that and why can't you be more submissive and basically beat all the things about me that I am now proud of myself for.

Chelsea (03:19)
Hmm.

Yeah!

Corrie LoGiudice (03:30)
Out of me, so I was a very, very different person. And honestly, I had always wanted to be a mom. I didn't really, intuitively, I didn't really know how many kids I wanted to have, but I always kind of knew it was gonna be more than two. And so when I finally had my son, he really was my saving grace, because from when I had him, I left that relationship when my son was only five months old. So right in the, like, that.

Chelsea (03:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (04:00)
postpartum like danger zone right there. That was when I had left and it all started because my, I should say my son's father, he was an addict and he was still sleeping one morning when I was trying to get up for work and get ready to go. I was the sole breadwinner at the time. I was a corporate SVP. Like I said, I was holding everything down. And...

Chelsea (04:03)
Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (04:22)
our son woke up and I was waiting for him to tend to him. And I don't remember what he threw at me, but he threw something, it hit the wall, and he said, shut the fucking baby up. And after that moment, that really woke me up because I was like, I'm not leaving my kid here with us. It was one thing when it was happening to me, it was another thing when the potential of that could be directed to my son, who I wanted for so long, you know, and finally had. So that really...

Chelsea (04:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (04:51)
transitioned me. You know, it's like I really became a mother like in that moment and sacrificed everything to leave and take a lot of bold risks, you know, following that.

Chelsea (05:01)
Yeah, wow. Yeah, that was like you said, that was the transformative moment. That was the moment that you kind of like woke up and was like, no, thank you. You had mentioned that you'd always pictured yourself as a mom. In that relationship, is that something that you had agreed upon with your partner at the time? What like were you trying actively to have kids?

Corrie LoGiudice (05:09)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mm-hmm. That's an excellent question. And truth is, we had kind of we were together so long. You know, we had met when we were so young. Initially, you know, he had said right from the get-go that he didn't really want to be a dad. You know, he had grown up himself in a fairly traumatic kind of household. Didn't want to kind of impart that on his own kids. And I was the one that really wanted it.

Chelsea (05:41)
Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (05:50)
So when we did start trying, I mean, I did have a couple of miscarriages before having my son. So it was something that we had like actively tried for. But I think that a large part of, you know, the tragedy that is that story is that I believe that if I didn't necessarily push him to do that, that maybe if we had parted ways earlier, then we would have avoided a lot of that. But unfortunately then our son wouldn't be here. So it's kind of a weird.

Chelsea (05:56)
Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (06:20)
you know, weird kind of thing to even ponder. But with that said, I kind of take some responsibility in that, in knowing that wasn't necessarily something he was ready for. And maybe a lot of the ways that he handled things after our son arrived was directly tied to that. You know, and emotionally he couldn't handle that.

Chelsea (06:25)
Yeah.

Mm. Yeah. When you were going through that whole journey and you were experiencing miscarriages, which is not an easy thing to go through no matter when it happens, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that your partner was not particularly supportive during that time sounding like, or maybe he was. No.

Corrie LoGiudice (06:58)
No, I mean, he was supportive in that. I mean, being an addict, he's like, here, take this pill, you're gonna feel better. Supportive in that aspect. But there were certain things that were going on. One thing that stands out to me, because I'm fairly traumatized by it happening, was our taxes were due. And I had just started miscarrying, I was bleeding. And he insisted that I had to be the one to take our taxes into Manhattan.

Chelsea (07:06)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (07:26)
to drop them off at the accountant because he like had a headache or something that day. So it was like abuse manipulation that way. So, you know, I was going through obviously my own personal stuff, but then I constantly felt this pressure on a regular basis to put his needs before mine.

Chelsea (07:29)
Oh my god.

Yeah.

Yeah. Did you have any sort of support system outside of your relationship that was, that sort of helped you get through?

Corrie LoGiudice (07:50)
I didn't at that time because due to the nature of the relationship and you know this happens to a lot of you know women in you know DV situations you get isolated from your family and your friends you know they make it very difficult they don't necessarily say no you can't spend time with them but anytime you do they let you know how unhappy they are you just never hear the end of it so my family didn't really know what was going on until after it happened. I mean my mother ended up

Chelsea (08:03)
Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (08:19)
coming. My family had zero relationship with my husband. It was not on good terms at all. Yet my mother showed up to my doorstep without telling me to console me, you know, for it and shared that she went through something similar. You know, so common for women to do I think it's one in four women miscarries the stat. So I mean, I did have support in that aspect, but it was difficult for people to get me the support that I really needed.

Chelsea (08:30)
Mmm. Wow.

Yeah. Yep.

Corrie LoGiudice (08:48)
And by the time, honestly, I had maybe two months between my miscarriage and when I got pregnant with my son. So then it was kind of dealing with how do I support myself through this pregnancy, which I was doing a lot of it alone.

Chelsea (08:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that was going to be my next question. Like, so you don't have a great, I mean, you would have, you may have had a support system, but you were being isolated by your partner. You were not being supported by them whatsoever. What, what got you through? How did you get yourself up in the morning every day and, and tell yourself, I've got to do this. I can do this.

Corrie LoGiudice (09:28)
That's a great question. Truth was, it was all on me. I didn't really have a choice. I was the breadwinner. I was doing everything. So with that said, I knew if I didn't get up, if I didn't go to work, if I didn't go to this doctor's appointment, everything was on me and I was the only one that was going to be able to do it. And I was so overjoyed to have the opportunity to become a mother.

Chelsea (09:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (09:56)
you know, that I was expecting my son, like I would have walked through, you know, hell on earth to make that happen. It didn't matter, I was determined. You know, he really was my saving grace, in a way meaning my son. Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (09:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You, yeah, you, I mean, and I can feel that from the way that already that you're talking about him and just having just met you today.

that your go-getter attitude and you're like, you just seem like an incredibly determined person. So that's amazing. I just wanna like give you so much like love and like virtual hugs because that is not an easy situation to get yourself through. It's not an easy situation. Having a pregnancy post-miscarriage is not easy for people who are well-supported.

Corrie LoGiudice (10:31)
Thank you.

Chelsea (10:46)
There's a lot of anxiety and I'm not sure if you experienced that.

Corrie LoGiudice (10:50)
Actually, that's a great point not to cut off your thought. I can't say I didn't have any support because when after the object flew past my head that day and I was like, I'm out, I don't know what to do. I had actually, it's kind of a funny story. I was convinced that my ex had the postpartum depression. You know, I'm like that's in my head that was like, I was convinced like that's why he's drinking and that's why he's doing this and that's why he's acting this way to me.

Chelsea (10:55)
Mm.

Yeah.

Oh.

Corrie LoGiudice (11:20)
So I had actually gone out and in a very, you know, codependent manner had researched a bunch of therapists for him to potentially speak to. And I was like, call, you know, call these therapists. Let's see what's up. So then what ultimately ended our relationship with some other stuff had come out, which really doesn't, it's not relevant to the story. But some other stuff that came up that were like, okay, yeah, we just, you know, we just need to end things here. But with that said, on that list of therapists, I was like, okay, well, he didn't use this one.

Chelsea (11:28)
Oh wow.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (11:49)
and I should probably talk to somebody. You know, like it's probably important. You know, I just had a baby, like all this stuff is going, I should probably talk to somebody because I can't talk to my family or anything about it just yet. And I went to this therapist and on the very first session, she tells me, listen, I'm gonna tell you something and it's gonna be really, really hard for you to stomach and you might not come back to see me. But based on everything you just shared with me, you are in an abusive relationship.

Chelsea (11:51)
Ha ha ha!

Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (12:15)
and for yours and your son's safety, you need to get out immediately. And that woman became my go-to lifeline for, I've been working with her for nine years now. And I attribute a lot of what I've been able to achieve through having, you know, her support, you know, and that mental health support and unpacking my traumas, understanding how I got to where I was and being able to work on that as I move forward. That's a huge part.

Chelsea (12:20)
Mm.

Wow.

Corrie LoGiudice (12:45)
you know, and how I was able to navigate.

Chelsea (12:45)
Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up. I'm curious too, did you have any sort of background knowledge or experience in mental health challenges prior to this? No. So that, well, that's, it's amazing to me though that your thought, well, one, that you thought, oh, maybe my partner has postpartum depression because that is a thing. There is, that is absolutely a thing.

Corrie LoGiudice (12:58)
No. None.

Mm. Right. Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (13:13)
And then for your mind to go, okay, well, I probably need some help. That does, that's not everybody's first thought if they don't have a background in this, like if they haven't. Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (13:22)
Well, when you have no place else that you feel safe going, I'm like, I might as well pay a third party to do it.

Chelsea (13:28)
Yeah!

Corrie LoGiudice (13:31)
You know, since I had the money, you know, at that point I was the breadwinner. So I was like, okay, like I have, you know, the health insurance, I have this, that's an option. And that's what I did. And I'm so glad.

Chelsea (13:38)
Yeah!

I'm so glad that you did and that you were able to have such a positive relationship and it sounds like continue to have a positive relationship with this person, this therapist. Because wow, that yeah, that's just a huge step. That's very cool. It's not often, I know I'm rambling now, but it's not often that...

Corrie LoGiudice (13:51)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (14:04)
I talked to someone who again, like did not have a history of mental health in their family or within themselves that would have taken that step or known to take that step. So huge credit to you and I'm so glad you did. So in no, go ahead.

Corrie LoGiudice (14:09)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

It's interesting too, sorry, not to cut you off. It's interesting too, because with that move to going to the therapist, she's a big part of the reason why I'm working as a coach today, because what she was able to observe, like you had said, you know, that it's like, oh, this is like, people don't intuitively go and like sign up to go work with a mental health professional. But as she was watching me navigate the scenarios I was in, I was doing like,

Chelsea (14:30)
Wow.

Yeah!

Corrie LoGiudice (14:48)
heavy duty, you know, like mental health work and unpacking years of trauma, divorce, you know, grief, all sorts of different things, and doing it in record time, and having actual results that she felt really comfortable with. And she's like, if you could teach people how to navigate like what's next in their challenges, because you know, obviously therapy is all about learning how you got to where you are, where coaching is learning about how do you figure out how to get to where you wanna go.

Chelsea (14:59)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (15:17)
And that part I had down and she's like, have you ever considered being a coach? And at the time I was running my family's business, you know, as a corporate SVP and was really struggling, you know, with the commute and the hours and never getting to see my kid, but I kind of dismissed it and I was like, Oh, I think it you're nuts, like who would ever think I could do that? But she had seen that ability in me and I'm grateful that she did kind of plant that seed because now I wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing today. Had she not.

Chelsea (15:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So it's, I am not a fan of silver linings. I don't like that term, but, and let's say and instead of, of but, and you through the situation that you went through, you made this connection. And now you are where you are in your life. And we're going to dive deeper into it for sure. But I'm putting like a checkpoint in like for listeners.

Corrie LoGiudice (15:50)
Ha ha

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (16:11)
The situation that you're in right now and the feelings that you have right now are not forever. And Corrie is proof of that. And other guests that we have had are proof of that. So whatever it is that you're feeling right now and struggling with right now, it does not determine the rest of your life.

Corrie LoGiudice (16:29)
a belief with that I really truly deeply believe after going through as much as I've gone through especially in this space. Everything that you experience in life good bad and different prepares you for how you're meant to help and serve others next. So had I not gone through all the traumatic stuff whether it be through birth or abuse or anything else I would not be able to support people the way that I'm able to support them right now without having that direct experience.

Chelsea (16:43)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (16:58)
So I don't necessarily view it as a bad thing.

Chelsea (17:00)
Yeah, and I think that's a great, I think it's a great attitude to have and I'm glad that you're able to view it that way. There's a lot of us, myself included, I'm still not able to see my trauma that way, but hopefully someday, one day, one day I will. I feel like this may kind of be a little bit of a repetitive question, but.

Corrie LoGiudice (17:14)
Mm-hmm. One day. Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (17:24)
In terms of recognizing the postpartum depression within yourself, did you have any friends or know anybody that had gone through something similar that may have tipped you off?

Corrie LoGiudice (17:38)
Well, for me, my postpartum depression actually showed up with my daughter, which was several years later. To be honest with the depression I had, I can't even say that I necessarily had depression with my son because I was going through so much other stuff. I think it just would have bulldozed over the top of it and not fit as much a priority. It did come to light when I had my daughter several years later, there's six years difference between them, I did eventually get married to an amazing guy.

Chelsea (17:43)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (18:06)
I went from being a single mom of one to a married mom of four during the pandemic in a year. So crazy, crazy. But with that said, that was a very big adjustment for me more so in that it was interesting with the postpartum depression. And I mean, there was a lot of awareness around it, especially being

Chelsea (18:10)
Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (18:27)
so ingrained right now in mental health because of all the work I've done on myself, being very involved in working women's issues and stuff like that. I mean, postpartum depression comes up on a regular basis. So I was very aware of what it looked like. And the thing that really stood out to me and I, because I have done so much work on my mental health, it was one of the only opportunities in my life that I felt that I had literally no control over my thoughts. I'm like, I'm thinking this, but it makes zero sense why I'm thinking this.

Chelsea (18:29)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (18:57)
Like, I don't know where this is coming from, you know, and it's hormonal. It's like so many number of things that you have literally no control over. And that was right. And that's what really stood out to me in that moment. I felt like I had no control over my thoughts and it scared me that I could potentially have no control over my actions.

Chelsea (19:04)
Yeah, whenever you have a kid. Yeah.

do you feel comfortable talking about those thoughts a little bit? Yeah, like what kind of so I'm we talk a lot about intrusive thoughts and their thoughts that come into your head that you don't want to have and you don't know why you're having like you're describing but they're super common super common in postpartum mental health disorders and mental health disorders in general but yeah if you're comfortable sharing a little bit of like what that looked like and what that felt like

Corrie LoGiudice (19:43)
Sure, so I mean, I can kind of describe a story and a scene of what one that really stands out to me. My husband was away on a business trip and my family had put together a vacation to go someplace. It was like a quick weekend trip nearby to go to like Great Wolf Lodge or like one of those places with the slides and everything. So I, you know, the slides. So I pack up my son and my daughter was, I think.

Chelsea (19:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Ha ha ha!

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (20:12)
I want to say maybe she was around five months old at that time. And my daughter didn't not sleep well. My son was a great sleeper. She was not a good sleeper. So I was still in the thick of having absolutely no sleep. And I was on the tail end of that week, doing everything solo by myself without my husband to help and didn't get any sleep on that trip. I was probably going on 48 to 72 hours of not really getting quality sleep. And I remember being in the car. Luckily my family had drove us.

Chelsea (20:14)
Okay.

Ugh.

Corrie LoGiudice (20:41)
So it was me and my two kids in the backseat and my parents were in the front. And between the music playing and my son yelling about something and my daughter yelling about something, I remember the noise being deafening, even though it wasn't at that time, but just like that's the way my brain processed it. And it became so loud, it was painful. And I let out a scream and I was ready to open the door and jump out of the car, moving car.

Chelsea (20:58)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Corrie LoGiudice (21:10)
I just, I couldn't deal with it. And I had a straight up meltdown, you know, that day. And luckily my husband had just gotten home at that time, but my parents, you know, my mom actually took the kids for a little bit. They let me get sleep. You know, at that point it's people finally stepped in and part of the frustration with that is I had been communicating to everybody, like, I can't keep doing this at this level. I can't keep doing this. I need sleep. I need this. I need that. And people kind of underplay it like, Oh, she's a new mom. Like this happens to everybody. But.

Chelsea (21:13)
Yeah.

Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (21:40)
and people didn't take like what I was saying seriously after my meltdown, then they did. They intervened and I was able to get help for it and it never really was an issue after that. But what I remember was the physical pain that it was like bad enough I was ready to jump out of a moving car.

Chelsea (21:50)
Mm.

Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned that because a lot of people do talk about the mental strain and the overstimulation, but it can be so physical. You can get physical symptoms and pain is one, nausea is one, dizziness is one. And having that urge to jump out of the van or the car.

Corrie LoGiudice (22:08)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (22:21)
It's not abnormal and you don't want to think it. It's not, you're like, I don't really want to do this. Like, where is this thought coming from? So absolutely, yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (22:28)
Right. Exactly, thoughts of hurting yourself. I mean, those are like, if I just, you know, which for me, and we didn't really talk about this through this conversation yet, but one of my traumas post leaving my divorce was my post-divorce partner. So not my ex, but my other partner died by suicide. So then I was dealing with all of that, you know, in addition to whatever, but several years later, then I got remarried, settled down, so on and so forth. But...

Chelsea (22:47)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Corrie LoGiudice (22:57)
For me, when I went through the postpartum depression, having those suicidal ideations and understanding the fallout that comes with that, that was particularly disturbing to me. Cause I'm like, I don't, like I understand what he must have gone through at that point now, because it's like, I have no control over my thoughts right now. It's just, they're running away from me.

Chelsea (23:12)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm so sorry that you experienced that. That's also something that we talk about pretty frequently on the podcast, suicidal ideation, as well as grief from being a suicide survivor or suicide loss survivor. So yeah, those thoughts can be absolutely terrifying, especially if you know what the outcome is. And...

It's so interesting to me that you were such a good advocate for yourself, but you still were being dismissed and that's like our culture right now. It's like you're a mom, get on with it. Like everybody does this. Is that kind of what you were getting?

Corrie LoGiudice (24:02)
That's kind of what I was getting, you know, and it's interesting because it is definitely a cultural thing. And for that reason, you know, with both of my children, my biological children, I opted for home births, because I was so afraid of people not taking what I was saying seriously in a hospital setting, that I was like, I'm just going to eliminate that and I'm going to do it at home. And there could be less intervention and I could have trust that.

Chelsea (24:14)
Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (24:26)
you know, the women that I'm hiring to help me with this are medical professionals, and they have my best interest in mind. So yeah, I think that's a very, very common thing. And it's a very frustrating thing.

Chelsea (24:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's, I'm obviously not a medical professional, but I've been doing a lot of research. There's been this big push in the social media world, especially in the parenting world, for less medical intervention and more home birth or more alternative options. I'm curious, you said you had a very good experience. What were those experiences like for you? Like, what was the process to get that?

Like if someone wanted to do that, yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (25:07)
Mm-hmm. Sure. Sure, now happy to talk about. Both of them were great. They were very different. But one of the things I was fortunate for, New York State has great laws regarding home birth that they have to be covered by insurance. So a lot of the midwives in New York, the ones that practice home birth, they are not accepted by insurance as an in-care, in-network provider. They have to get out of network.

Chelsea (25:14)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Corrie LoGiudice (25:35)
provisions for it, but they have either agencies they work with or there's some kind of magical way that they're able to get that approval for you out of network with your insurance company. You just have to reach out to them and have them start the paperwork and stuff with it. So that said, I'm very glad because I know it's not the case in every state. My situation with both kids was different because there was two different midwives that managed the birth. One was more of like an agency and

Chelsea (25:41)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (26:03)
My son's birth, the first one was with somebody who had been doing it like 20, 30 years. That was like her main thing. And I absolutely, both of them, I just love the process because it's more like kind of like meeting with like a relative or an aunt that you're like talking about, like the process. It's less sterile, it's less medical. It's like, have a cup of tea. Let's talk about how many kicks and this. So just, I love the overall, like just the care that you got during it. But the reason that I say both births were very different.

Chelsea (26:09)
Okay.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (26:32)
So my son's, his father was not present. That was something we both agreed on was not going to be a good thing. And as a result, I relied heavily on outsourced support through doulas, you know, the midwife brought in additional midwives that she worked with. So I did feel supported in that environment. The thing that really was different with my son's birth was I was a rare instance where they gave me pitocin at home.

Chelsea (26:38)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Oh wow.

Corrie LoGiudice (27:01)
Not something they normally do. The midwife that I worked with, she had experience doing it in Europe. So she felt very comfortable doing it. It's not something that every midwife would do. They might actually transfer you to a hospital if you're gonna get induced in that way. So I had Pitocin at home with no epidural or anything like that. And that was awful. But my son came very quickly after they started that. And I remember it being really bizarre because I was like sitting on my couch and we had the Pitocin bag hanging off the ceiling fan. It was just.

Chelsea (27:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ha ha!

Corrie LoGiudice (27:31)
Really odd, but I remember that birth was, from when he was born and handed to me, I remember thinking to myself, I can't wait to do this again. I was just so happy to be a mom, and just that whole experience was so kind of spiritual for me in a way that I was ready to do it again. So I had to wait six years at that point, multiple divorces, losses, stuff like that, to finally...

Chelsea (27:48)
Hmm?

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (27:59)
meet somebody to do it again. So my daughter's birth was interesting in that I did have a support person the whole time. My husband was with me every step of the way. My husband actually works in the medical field. So he understands kind of behind the scenes and initially was a little bit nervous doing the home birth, but supported me, you know, and what I wanted. And the thing that was so different with my daughter's birth, which I understand now I had pitocin with my first, apparently I'm prone to prodromal labor.

Chelsea (28:16)
Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (28:29)
So I labored with my daughter for over a week. It was a week at home. It would like start, it would go for three hours, then it would completely stop. Then the next day it would start for three hours, then it would completely stop. So with that, we just kind of kept going through that for a week. And then my daughter ended up being born on Mother's Day, which was kind of a treat, but she was born on Mother's Day, no medication, no nothing. She was full natural birth, but it took a very long time to get her.

Chelsea (28:32)
Oh my gosh!

Ugh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (28:59)
out into the world, which really freaked a lot of people out though, because they're like, you've been in labor for seven days, when are you going to transfer to the hospital? But my water hadn't broken, so there was no reason for me to have to go. So we just stuck with what my providers had shared that they felt that I was safe and everything else. So I stayed home and I had her and not even 20 minutes later, I was in my own bed and that was it.

Chelsea (29:08)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm. Oh, that sounds so nice. Oh my gosh. Um, so yeah, so you had mentioned earlier that the depression sort of came more with your daughter. Um, but you had a lovely home birth experience. Was the was the experience similar to your son and that like when she was born, you had that instant connection? Or did it feel a little different this time?

Corrie LoGiudice (29:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

little different and that I knew she was going to be the last one. So like while I would, well, it's also different too, in that I'm older. So I had my son relatively late, I was 35 when I had him, you know, in the scheme of things. And my daughter, I was 39. Actually, no, I was younger with my son then, because there's six years difference. But either way, I had my daughter at 39. I turned 40 like two months after I had my daughter. And physically, I could feel the pregnancy was very different.

Chelsea (29:55)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (30:20)
I was way more tired. It was a much more difficult pregnancy with my daughter than it was with my son. And that alone would make me, I mean, that plus I have two bonus kids. So we're just like fours, we can't do anymore, we're done. So going into that birth, I kind of knew like, okay, this is the last one. So it was different and that was a little bit bittersweet with that, but I was also kind of relieved because my daughter just in general, and she's this way too, even now out of the womb, she just does not stop moving. She was like ninja kicking from like the second that she was able to move.

Chelsea (30:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (30:50)
to the point where there would be times I'd be on the couch at night watching TV and she would kick me so hard, I would jump off the couch that it scared me. I was like, what the? So by the time she was out, I was really, really glad. I was like, okay, like I can't do this again. I think I'm done. Yep.

Chelsea (30:58)
Yeah.

It's that second kid syndrome. It's the exact same with my second. They are unpredictable and they never stop moving. All right, I'm just looking at my notes a little bit because you are so good. You are such a good speaker. You are so succinct. I know. Yeah, and we'll.

Corrie LoGiudice (31:14)
Nope.

Thank you. I get paid to do this for anybody who needs a keynote. I speak on transforming overwhelm into action for women's groups, so.

Chelsea (31:32)
Yeah, and we'll, we're, I am 100% gonna delve more into that. I just want to make sure that I like weave us through your story a little bit. But, um, so, okay, let's see. Yeah, we've sort of hit on those quite a bit. So thinking back through your whole experience and it was, they were both very different experiences and you were at different places in your life. So this could sort of, there could be two answers to this.

Corrie LoGiudice (31:38)
Yeah, you got it.

Chelsea (32:01)
What would have been most helpful to you in terms of your postpartum experiences? The first one, I think, going to therapy like you did was probably the best thing you could do because you were you were trudging through so much trauma at that time. But if you were to focus solely on that postpartum, I mean, you're always postpartum once you have a baby, you're postpartum forever. But

Corrie LoGiudice (32:26)
Right.

Chelsea (32:29)
the challenges that sort of came along specifically with that. What do you wish you would have had to help you navigate that?

Corrie LoGiudice (32:38)
The thing that I wish I had during that pregnancy, which I really couldn't change, despite hiring outside people, was not having the supportive partner. That I did find to be huge because, I honestly, I would have ended up at the hospital asking for a C-section if it wasn't for my husband with my daughter, telling me like, you got this, you could do this, you wanted to do this naturally, stick through it, like, yeah, it's been six days, but you know.

Chelsea (32:48)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (33:08)
It's gonna be any moment now. I didn't have that at all with my first one. And I feel like that element was kind of missing. And that was something I really needed somebody who was close to me, who cares about me, to be in that kind of nurturing supportive role. That's probably what I missed the most.

Chelsea (33:09)
I don't know if I would have believed him.

Yeah.

with your first, yeah. Yeah. Do you think that anything could have been different with your daughter? I mean, like you said, you advocated and people just weren't listening. Maybe just having people listen to you? Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (33:29)
with my first.

More in the post, more in the post. Yeah, I think just being taken seriously would have been a big thing. And I mean, granted, after I had the meltdown, it was like that my long term therapist was called, like stuff happened to get me what I needed. And they also started running a lot of tests and stuff on me too to see if I had like thyroid issues and other types of things that could potentially cause those issues. But...

Chelsea (33:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (34:09)
Yeah, I mean, it just would have been helpful if it wasn't, you know, it took me five months of no sleep, little by little, you know, and it kind of sneaks up on you. And I mean, it's interesting too, because I can't even say that whole experience postpartum was wonderful in that I had my own business at that time. So I had plans to take, you know, full three month maternity leave. And my husband works for a European company and he got two months of maternity leave. So we were able to kind of space it out that we were both.

Chelsea (34:15)
Yeah.

Oh wow.

Corrie LoGiudice (34:40)
taking on equal load. So I can't even say my husband wasn't taking on equal load. He was. It was just kind of the perfect storm in that moment that he was on a business trip and I was left by myself. And I think I also need to kind of add to it too. And I think this is important to kind of tie together that probably what made it more traumatic for me was I felt in that week, like I did with my son's birth, that I didn't have that support. Like I was doing it by myself. And I think that probably aggravated it.

Chelsea (34:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (35:10)
that it was almost more like a trigger that then kicked it off than anything else.

Chelsea (35:12)
Yeah.

Oh, I lost you for a second. Oh, I got you back. Okay, cool. Oh, that's the other thing that I was gonna tell you. If anything glitches, it's still recording on your end. So I won't lose anything. So yeah, I'll edit this obviously. So yeah, that would absolutely be a trigger, that feeling of being completely alone and having to deal with the kids. You had all four kids at that point. And you, oh, two.

Corrie LoGiudice (35:28)
Okay.

Okay.

No, I had two. I had two of them with me for that trip. Yeah, because we split custody with my other two with my husband's too.

Chelsea (35:46)
Okay, okay.

Yep. Um, and this was all during COVID, correct?

Corrie LoGiudice (35:58)
Uh, yeah, it was a little bit after the world was just starting to open up again, which is why we were going, why we were going to the slide park. We're like, things are open. Let's go. There. There's lots of chlorinated water. We'll all be fine. You know, like it'll kill the germs. Let's go.

Chelsea (36:01)
Yeah, so...

You're brave to go to any sort of waterpark or theme park with a five month old, holy, holy smokes. So you do all of these incredible things and I want you to be able to talk about them. But before we get into it, I wanna know what fills your cup. You've been through so much and you are exuding such like positivity and power and.

Corrie LoGiudice (36:20)
Hmm

Chelsea (36:43)
What do you do to maintain your own mental health and make sure that you're getting what you need through all of this?

Corrie LoGiudice (36:51)
That's a great question. I think it's really important for women especially to figure out what works for them in terms of like a daily routine to create that space to have what you need for your mental health. So for me, you know, this actually came out of that situation with my meltdown, right? With the postpartum depression where I was able to communicate, okay, I need at minimum an hour in the morning of silence.

by myself, I don't need to be with the kids. It has to be in the morning because that's what I am most mentally awake after being well rested and everything overnight. But I need an hour of silence to be able to work out, to meditate, to journal, like get my thoughts out on paper, figuring out what mental health activities work best for you. Even physical fitness helps a lot with that. So I have my magic, I guess you could say menu.

Chelsea (37:42)
Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (37:48)
of different self care items and I need an hour every morning to figure out which one of those things I want to do and if I don't have it, that's when I start to fall off the rails slowly but surely So now it's well communicated, the boundary is set, it's like there have been a few days where I was supposed to get that hour in the morning when we were first making the transition postpartum and my daughter woke up early for whatever reason and I just left the house. I was like, you're all on your own because I'm getting my hour of silence in the car.

Chelsea (38:09)
Mm.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (38:18)
So really protecting that boundary and trusting that the other people that you can be communicating this to will step up and do their part so that you have it. That I think is crucial.

Chelsea (38:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So for you, your go-to's are journaling, fitness, meditation, and silence.

Corrie LoGiudice (38:36)
Mm-hmm. So, because if you don't have silence, you're constantly listening to other people's inputs and you don't have time to process your own thoughts.

Chelsea (38:43)
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's I'm so I'm glad that you're able to do that. And I'm glad that your partner is supportive of you in doing that. Is it something that you talk to your kids about too? Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (38:55)
Yes. Yep. On a regular basis, there have been times, um, this past week was a great example because we got snowed on really bad and my kids were home from school and mommy still runs a business. I had sales calls, I had other stuff popping up. And there was a few times when I got short with them because they didn't listen or they were, they were basically being psychos. Let's just call it real. They're being psychos, which is, which is to be expected. Uh, but there were times when I lost my cool with them and which

Chelsea (39:12)
Mm-hmm.

That's pretty typical for... yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (39:25)
you know, is upsetting for kids, but usually I'll explain to them and we have like, I get down at their eye level and we talk about, I'm sorry, mommy overreacted. I was upset because X, Y, Z, we talk a lot about emotions and communicating our emotions and how we feel. And, you know, then I'll share with them, mommy needs this space for like 15 minutes to calm down. Like, can you give me that 15 minutes? And they're like, yeah, mommy, we're fine. And they'll go watch TV or pick up their iPad or do something and give me that space.

Chelsea (39:46)
Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (39:52)
But it needs to be two ways though, because when my kids get upset, and for reference to my son is autistic, so he could freak out, like drop of a hat if things aren't consistent, but being able to help him manage those outbursts was through this communication and okay, you need to go take space by yourself for a few minutes. You don't take it out on everybody else, you excuse yourself, you go in your room, you calm down, we do deep breathing.

Chelsea (40:01)
Okay.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (40:22)
Right, so it's teaching your kids those skills for themselves to learn to protect their mental health and their boundaries. But you have to model that by doing it yourself as an adult.

Chelsea (40:30)
Mm hmm. Exactly. That's what I was just gonna say. You're modeling that perfectly for them. Do you find that so how old are your daughter and son now?

Corrie LoGiudice (40:41)
My daughter is going to be three and my son is turning nine in like two weeks.

Chelsea (40:47)
Oh wow, that's exciting. I have an eight year old and a 19 month old, so kind of close. But do you notice now, especially with your son being on the autism spectrum, that has he started being able to make those calls for himself, like I'm overwhelmed, I need a break.

Corrie LoGiudice (40:52)
Okay.

Yes. Yep, no, we do that. And I mean, he had a scenario a couple of years back that it was kind of like his own thing that he had to deal with a lot of emotion and upset and things like that in regards to our past. And during that time, I enrolled him in therapy and it was really difficult to find a therapist who specialized with kids on the spectrum.

Chelsea (41:19)
Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (41:31)
who knew how to teach him what he needed to know, but that was the best investment in time and money ever. We would spend like three hours on a Tuesday between driving him all the way there and bringing him all the way back. But the skills that he learned to be able to cope and manage his emotions and everything else, I mean, to this day, he's like, mommy, I know exactly how to handle it, I'm fine. Well worth it.

Chelsea (41:39)
Oh wow.

Oh, I love that. I love that. And also, I'm a former special educator, so my special educator heart is just like, oh, mama, you got him what he needed. You got you what you needed. Yeah, I just, I'm amazed at, of everything that you went through, that you were able to, A, recognize that you needed help. B, you took that step to get help.

Corrie LoGiudice (42:00)
Mm-hmm

Chelsea (42:19)
and see that you are at a point in your life now where not only are you managing your own mental health, but you're teaching your kiddos to manage their own mental health, which is phenomenal. I would love to let you just toot your own horn and boast about what it is you're doing today to help others kind of achieve that in their lives.

Corrie LoGiudice (42:45)
Sure. So the work that I'm doing today, I work as both a professional keynote speaker as well as a high performance coach. And in my coaching business, I really specialize in working with women who want to become executive leaders and or want to leave corporate altogether and start their own businesses. So create more freedom and flexibility, you know, with their lifestyle so that they can be home with their kids.

Chelsea (43:05)
Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (43:06)
Um, so with that said, I, I am, like I mentioned before, a big believer that everything that you've experienced in life prepares you for how you're supposed to help and serve others. A big part of what I'm doing today is taking the lessons that I learned during that five year really traumatic period that we talked about and how to, how I was able to systemize that, uh, into a process, I call them the overwhelmed culprits, if you're able to identify which.

source of overwhelm is affecting you and create a strategy surrounding it, then it allows you to continue to take action and move, not unlike what we had talked about that I had done during all of these processes. And there are things that we've already talked about, things like that they're all, they all begin with a C and there are a lack of one of these five things. So there's lack of clarity. So knowing what you need, how you need it, why you need it.

Chelsea (43:45)
Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (44:00)
That was one thing that we definitely talked a lot about during today. So gaining lack of clarity is going to cause you to be overwhelmed. A lack of confidence. So if you don't believe in yourself, you don't, other people are putting you down, that's going to hold you back. Lack of community would be your support system. So there were so many times I didn't have the support system. It's up to you to go out there and find somebody. I went out, I found the therapist. So what exactly does that look like for you?

Chelsea (44:02)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Corrie LoGiudice (44:26)
Lack of conditioning, that's your mental and physical health and wellness. So that's going out and it's taking that hour in the morning for your self-care. It's doing the physical activities, it's making sure you're hydrated. And then last but not least is a lack of consistency. So if you're not consistent in your actions, which is so difficult, especially for moms, because our schedules are so uprooted all the time because of our kids and we're managing everybody else in addition to ourselves, how do you build systems that help with that?

Chelsea (44:41)
Mm.

Corrie LoGiudice (44:53)
And these are all things that over the course of everything I've gone through, I figured out how to master. And that's what I speak and coach on.

Chelsea (45:01)
And I love that. I love I love too that you acknowledge and recognize how difficult it is for a mother specifically, but it I mean, it could be any parent. But

In the culture that we're in right now, the expectations put on moms, I think, are very different than the expectations put on dads. And so every single C that you hit on, I was like ticking off in my head like, oh yeah, I need to get better at that. Oh yeah, I need to get better at that. And I think that's a lot of us. So sort of tying it all together, if, I'm,

Corrie LoGiudice (45:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (45:45)
mom brain. The train literally just jumped off the track. Oh my God. So if there was one thing that you would want my listeners to take away from your story, what would that be?

Corrie LoGiudice (45:48)
I've been there. I've been there.

The one thing would be kind of what we had previously discussed, understanding that just because this is where you are today, it doesn't mean that that's going to be where you are tomorrow. It all is dependent on what decisions you make today and that you make decisions based on where you want to be and not what happened in the past. Right? We have to get past our own fears. We have to get past our own discomforts. We have to...

Chelsea (46:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Corrie LoGiudice (46:36)
continue to do things that are in alignment for our well-being and our kids' well-being in the future and not use our current circumstances as a crutch or an excuse not to do something difficult.

Chelsea (46:47)
Yeah, I love that. And I think it's also important to add to that. And you have, you've said this, when you're in the thick of it, you may not be able to see that clearly. And that vision may not be a possibility in your mind. But hopefully this conversation that we're having right now can plant that seed. I may not feel it today, I may not feel it tomorrow. I'm going to feel different.

and then I can take these steps to get to where I want to be. Yeah, I love it. Well, before we completely wrap up, is there anything that I didn't ask you or touch on that you feel like you really wanna communicate?

Corrie LoGiudice (47:20)
Exactly.

Sure, well I will say for anybody that's listening that the story resonates and the culprits resonate as I shared with them before. If you're looking for another resource that's helpful, I have a free quiz on my website at corrielo.com backslash overwhelm culprit that you can take it's like six questions and it'll help you identify what your culprit is now and tell you exactly what you need to do so that you could start taking action today and not have to wait.

Chelsea (48:05)
I love that. I mean, I was just about to ask you where my listeners can find you and I'm absolutely going to tag all of your stuff in the show notes, but what is the best way for my listeners to find you?

Corrie LoGiudice (48:20)
Got it, so you could find me online. My website is corrielo C-O-R-R-I-E-L-O. And then I'm on every major social media platform. I'm most active on LinkedIn. And my handle for all of them is I am corrielo Love to connect with you there.

Chelsea (48:36)
Okay, perfect. Listeners, please check out Corrie Lo. And I can't even begin to tell you how empowered I feel right now. It's hard, it is hard. It's hard to juggle being a mom. It's hard to juggle having a social media presence. And I can't even imagine running my own business on top of that and being a keynote speaker, so.

Holy wow, I'm giving you like a million high fives right now. But yeah, I just, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. Yours has been a very empowering one. And yeah, thank you.

Corrie LoGiudice (49:07)
Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me on.

Chelsea (49:22)
All right, I'm going to hit stop. It won't hang up on us.