Postpartum OCD and Meadow's Four Leaf Clover Heart - Sarah B's Story

When Sarah became a mom, she imagined the typical first moments of motherhood — snuggles, milestones, and sleepless nights. Instead, she found herself in a hospital room, staring at monitors, watching her newborn daughter’s heart beat outside her tiny chest.

In this episode of Quiet Connection, Sarah opens up about discovering her daughter’s congenital heart defects just weeks before birth, enduring a whirlwind of surgeries and uncertainty, and recognizing her own undiagnosed postpartum OCD in the midst of it all. 

Key Takeaways

• Motherhood can look nothing like we expect — and still be full of purpose. Sarah’s path shifted completely after Meadow’s diagnosis.
• OCD in pregnancy and postpartum often goes undiagnosed. Recognizing symptoms and getting the right treatment can be life-changing.
• Intensive outpatient programs (IOP) can be transformative. ERP therapy helped Sarah reclaim her life after trauma and hypervigilance.
• Advocacy can come from lived experience. Sarah combines her medical background and motherhood journey to fight for children with heart defects.
• You can live with uncertainty and still find joy. Sarah’s family now lives in gratitude for the “in-between” time before the next surgery.

To learn more about Sarah, visit her website, Instagram, or Linkden account. And be sure to check out her newly released children's book: Meadow and her Four Leaf Clover Heart.

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

Chelsea Myers (01:38)
Hello today, I'm here with Sarah Sarah. How are you?

Sarah (01:42)
Good, how are you?

Chelsea Myers (01:44)
I am good. It's a Friday morning as we're recording this. So we're crossing our fingers for a smooth transition into the weekend. We'll see. We'll see how that goes. but yeah, Sarah, I'm excited to chat with you. I would super appreciate it if you could introduce yourself to my listeners and also let us know who you were before you became a mom.

Sarah (01:53)
Yeah.

I feel like I've lived several different lives in the last couple of years, so I'll try to keep this short. But I think maybe my three core identities and kind of like labels that I lead into is I am an entrepreneur, I'm also a nurse practitioner, and more important than both of those, I'm a heart mom. And so during 2020, I had this...

Chelsea Myers (02:15)
You

Sarah (02:35)
incredible luck, fortune, whatever you want to call it, lightning in a bottle moment to start a business doing the thing that at that point I love the most, which was teaching. And so I just graduated nurse practitioner school. It was crazy times during COVID. And there was all this uncertainty about like, will we even be able to take our licensing exams? And if so, what does that process look like when we're literally in the middle of a global pandemic? And so there's just

Chelsea Myers (03:03)
Yeah.

Sarah (03:04)
so much anxiety and so much uncertainty and so many things going on that I think in total I had my exam scheduled five times and I didn't get even an opportunity to start the exam until the fifth time. Like I would show up to a testing center, it would just be closed. I'd be like, okay, you know, they tried to do the online thing and nothing worked. Like it was, it was pandemonium. But all of that be...

Chelsea Myers (03:18)
my gosh.

Yeah, 2020 in

a nutshell.

Sarah (03:29)
Yes, just pandemonium with a pandemic, absolutely. But ultimately what happened was I had all this anxiety about taking this exam. And when I finally got to take the thing, I was like, that really wasn't that bad. I would love to help my classmates figure out how to better pass this thing and feel less anxious about it because everybody is just on next level anxiety. And what I didn't realize was a lot of people feel really anxious about taking that exam.

And so I gave it to the first 100 people in my Facebook group for free. They would just invite somebody in and give me some feedback and let me know. And the first day that I went to sell that course, I sold it for $15 for lifetime access for this three hour course, but I made a thousand dollars in a day and that like broke my brain. Like I made 40 grand as a nurse. Like I had never had an experience of like, Oh my God, just like a thousand dollars in my bank account today. Like what?

Chelsea Myers (04:17)
Yeah!

Sarah (04:26)
And so that was really kind of my first leap into entrepreneurship. had tutored during college. I knew already that I'd like to teach. mean, I have a master's in nursing education and a nurse practitioner degree. So like I knew teaching was going to be my path. I just didn't imagine that I was going to carve out this new path for myself. And so I give you all this backstory because being an entrepreneur and being a nurse practitioner, like big core pieces of my identity and who I am. But I really think

becoming a mom really shifted a lot of that. And for me, I thought that I was gonna have this normal, healthy, beautiful, I mean, she's beautiful, but normal, healthy baby. And I found out at the very end of my pregnancy, just weeks before giving birth, that I did not have a normal or healthy baby at all. I had a baby that had four heart defects. And so was really this whirlwind moment for me.

Chelsea Myers (05:08)
you

Sarah (05:24)
because I had this really incredible business. I actually sold it to a bigger test prep company a couple weeks before she was born, before we ever knew she was sick. And so in my head, I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to be on the executive team. I'm going to have this C-suite role. Like I need to integrate my employees. Like there's all these logistical pieces of how you bring one company into another and do that well. But all of that really had to shut off to be like, no.

I'm now about to have a daughter who's going to have heart surgery in her first week of life. And now she's going to have heart surgery again by the time she was a year old. ⁓ and she's going to have five to six more throughout her life. So everything just had to immediately pivot. And I think because of my experience as an entrepreneur, where I really spoke a lot and advocate a lot for mental health and the test prep space, it was this really natural evolution.

to now do what I do today, which is I do a ton, I do a ton of advocacy work for congenital heart disease.

Chelsea Myers (06:26)
Yeah, and that's kind of how we connected because it's all interwoven, right? Like your motherhood journey has shifted what you do, but also You're still an advocate just in a very different way. ⁓

Sarah (06:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's the

core centerpiece, like the invisible string.

Chelsea Myers (06:47)
Yeah, that's been coming up a lot lately. That weird, analogy, the invisible string, I don't know. That's... Well, I mean, I am a T-Swift fan. I'm like, yeah. ⁓ my gosh. Yes, as of recording this, it's Taylor Swift week. ⁓ Life of a Showgirl is all over. Yeah, ⁓ we can't say... You know what? I will say this. ⁓

Sarah (06:50)
Hmm.

Lots of Taylor Swift fans then. Same. Prime time for that right now. ⁓

huh. Loud and proud.

Chelsea Myers (07:14)
At least it's given us a break from K-pop demon hunters in my house. So now instead of getting in the car and saying, can we listen to Golden? It's can we listen to Fate of Ophelia? And I'm like, yes, we can. Yes, we can.

Sarah (07:17)
Yes.

yeah. Me

and my 3 year old we have the dance down already.

Chelsea Myers (07:30)
You, ⁓ my

God, I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay. We can talk about Taylor Swift forever, but so, so let's, let's focus it back. Sort of let's bring it back a little bit. said you didn't find out until kind of right before she was born. Talk to me about that shift. Like, and you said you were just going through selling your company. So you've got big things going on in your life and the doctor, I'm assuming it was your doctor at the time was like,

Hey, we gotta talk.

Sarah (07:59)
Yeah, I kind of had a bizarre pregnancy in the sense that from the moment, pretty much the moment I got pregnant, a few weeks in, I was like, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong. And I just had this impending sense of doom all the time. And what I didn't know then that I know about myself today is I actually have obsessive compulsive disorder.

Chelsea Myers (08:11)
wow.

Sarah (08:22)
So that impending sense of doom, yeah. That makes a lot of sense and a lot of the things that I did during pregnancy make a lot more sense now. But I will say that, did I have OCD? Yes. But I also had a chaotic pregnancy in the sense that I had bleeding on and off until I was 28 weeks pregnant. And so I would just go to the bathroom, there'd be bright red blood. Every time there's bright red blood, of course you have to go to the OB. And so my anxiety was already up and...

Chelsea Myers (08:22)
Hey, samezies! Yeah!

Sarah (08:50)
really, I think it was, it was right past the anatomy scan. My daughter had been a little bit small in the anatomy scan, but not anything crazy. And so they were like, just in case we're going to do a few more ultrasounds, going to do some growth vulture sounds and just make sure she's continuing to grow. That's the goal here. And in the process of one of those growth growth ultrasounds I

was asking my OB, you know, I come in for my appointment, I had the ultrasound. She was telling me all of the typical stuff for that appointment, because you know, like when you're 28 weeks, they tell you X, Y, and Z. And I was like, okay, I love all this information, that's great, but what about the growth ultrasound? Like what are the results? And she looked at me really strange and she was like, why would you have a growth ultrasound? And I was like.

What do you mean right now? Like I've been in here for growth ultrasounds every two weeks for like the last two months. how do you, I know they see so many patients and I know there's so much going on, but like how do you not even just like look at the chart and know what I'm here for? I told my husband, was like, I'm going to sound like a crazy person and I just need you to do this with me. But like, I have to find another OB.

Chelsea Myers (09:41)
What?

Right?

Sarah (10:04)
because I feel like if anything goes wrong in the delivery room, that is not the human that I want with me and navigating that with me. was like, I think I'll just dissolve. And so I ended up getting the new OB when I was 30 weeks pregnant. And the deal with getting the new OB was he said, I want to do another anatomy scan as a liability check for us in our office. So I met him for the first time at 30 weeks. I had that anatomy scan.

Chelsea Myers (10:13)
Yeah.

Sarah (10:31)
which I had already had two anatomy scans that were normal by the way. So I had this third anatomy scan, I think it's gonna be totally fine. and right around 33 weeks and that's when the ultrasound tech was like, hey, something looks a little weird. And what they called it was a possible dilated aorta. And I'm a nurse practitioner and I had no idea what that meant. I'm like, what do you mean possibly dilated? And if it is possibly dilated, like what does that even mean? Like, I don't understand.

And it took me a few weeks after that to get into maternal fetal medicine, which was its own shambles because I think something could be wrong with my daughter's heart and I don't know for sure. And I have OCD, even though I don't know it yet. So I want the absolute certainty to know that like she's going to be okay and I'm going to be okay. And so it wasn't until 36 weeks that we finally got her diagnosis of

Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia, which is one of the most severe types of Tetralogy of Fallot.

Chelsea Myers (11:32)
⁓ my goodness. Yeah, it is chaos. And I'm, I'm curious too, like, is that something if you had seen a different OB, is that something that they would have noticed sooner? Or is it something that you can't really tell until later?

Sarah (11:34)
Yes, chaos.

They should have been able to see it in either of anatomy scans that I had previously. But what I know now that I didn't know then is if you have the four basic chambers of the heart, so the four main components, then it's a 50-50 shot whether you get that prenatal diagnosis. And so Meadow, even though she had reroutings and things that were missing and holes and like all this extra stuff, she had the four chambers of the heart. And so we just fell into that really gnarly statistic.

Chelsea Myers (11:53)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yeah, because that is, and I've met with a lot of parents and a lot of families at this point, like, and that is a diagnosis that I had never heard of before. So, again, like, I'm learning, I'm learning about this. And it is so interesting to me, especially that you come from a medical background, and even you yourself were like, can you

could you please just tell me what this means? Like, can someone please explain this to me? And I'm curious too, like, so now you can look back and know that you had and have OCD. Again, a lot of people, a lot of women aren't diagnosed until they have kids because it doesn't present itself or it does and it's just like, you have generalized anxiety disorder. ⁓

Sarah (12:46)
Yeah, right.

Oh yes, it's been the diagnosis

of my life.

Chelsea Myers (13:09)
That was my diagnosis from age 12 until... Yup.

Sarah (13:13)
Same, same,

literally age 12 and then finally at 28 I'm like, this is not it. I was like, I don't know what this is, but this is not it.

Chelsea Myers (13:19)
No.

No, it took me having my second baby for them to be like, by the way, it's OCD. cool, cool, cool. We're still working on that. But all of that to say, like, so you're already hypervigilant, you're already anxious. What did that sort of do to your vision of the remainder of your pregnancy? Like you've got your anxiety.

Sarah (13:27)
You're like, ⁓ thank you. Now I can finally get the treatment that I need.

Heh.

Chelsea Myers (13:49)
compounded by your medical knowledge, how were those last few weeks?

Sarah (13:55)
really, I can not even tell you much about what happened in that time. It is like what I actually remember the most is here's the thing about being a family nurse practitioner. In a lot of ways you're a generalist. So your goal is to be able to identify something that's not normal.

and get it to the human that it belongs to. So I would be like, okay, like you've had a weird EKG, maybe you have this heart rhythm going on, now I'm gonna send you the cardiology. I am not, like I have not been trained to read ultrasounds, but me and my medical brain in my cluster at the end of my pregnancy was like, I'm just gonna read through the whole ultrasound report and I'm gonna try to make sense of everything going on because the other added layer that was so painful for me.

Chelsea Myers (14:17)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (14:42)
was had it just been Tetralogy of Fallot, I mean, that would have been bad enough, but it's much less likely that she would also have a genetic condition on top of it. But because it was Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia, and it was this more severe type of it, there was like an 80 % chance that she was gonna have a genetic condition. And so I'm reading through the ultrasound report, trying to figure out that she also have some sort of genetic condition on top of it, as if I could even figure that out for myself.

Chelsea Myers (14:47)
Yeah.

Sarah (15:10)
And I ended up getting in this loop where it looked like something in her brain could also be off. And so I just spent a lot of those last few weeks trying to read, learn, prepare. And honestly, I was obsessing and compulsive like crazy on Google trying to figure this out, even though there's no way to figure it out until she was just literally born and here. And then we can kind of assess what we're doing here.

Chelsea Myers (15:16)
Mmm.

Yeah. And I laugh, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but like if you haven't lived it, like I feel like when you say like I was obsessing and compulsing, the laugh is like, ⁓ I know how that goes, right? Like if, yes. And if you don't laugh, you're going to cry because it's, is, it's all consuming. I'm curious, like what was your support like in that time? Like.

Sarah (15:49)
yes, I feel it in my bones.

Yes.

Chelsea Myers (16:00)
Or did you have family and friends who were kind of trying to ground you a little bit? Or like, what did that look like for you?

Sarah (16:06)
I think me and my husband really grounded down in those last few weeks and especially too when she was born. I'm just like, we are a team and like my husband, he worked with me in my business, but previous to that, like he was an over the road truck driver. And so that is a very different experience than being a nurse practitioner. And so there were things that he needed to lean on me for to be able to better understand and better educate himself about what our daughter was about to go through and what we were about to go through.

Chelsea Myers (16:14)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (16:34)
But I also needed to be able to lean on him because here I am at the end of my pregnancy and this is not how I envisioned or hope that this was going to go. I'm kind of I'm. Meltdown would be the only word I could think to describe it. But unfortunately for me and unfortunately for my undiagnosed OCD at the time, I had gotten it in my head during my pregnancy. If I announce I'm pregnant, if I have a baby shower, if I do X, Y, then

she's not going to make it. And so literally the week before we had this third anatomy scan, one of my coworkers very sweetly and very kindly threw me a surprise baby shower. And so in my head, I'm like, I caused this. This is my fault. And so I really need to be able to lean on him for that. Obviously there was a lot of reassurance seeking going on, which, but I also think

Chelsea Myers (17:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yes!

Sarah (17:28)
There's a normal level of reassurance that just lives in a relationship, OCD or no OCD as well.

Chelsea Myers (17:35)
Yeah, it's to hear you talk about it, it it is, it's resonating with me very deeply. And my child did not have a congenital heart defect or disorder or anything like that. But OCD is OCD and you're going to pick up on every little thing and you're going to obsess and it's going to be your fault. It's almost like superstition on steroids.

Sarah (17:51)
Yes.

Yes. huh.

Chelsea Myers (18:00)
Right? Like, you're

like, okay, I cannot do this because that means that this bad thing is going to happen or this bad thing happened because I was happy today or something like that. Right? my gosh. Yes. We love, we love dbt over here. ⁓ And yeah, magical thinking and catastrophizing fun times.

Sarah (18:07)
yeah.

Magical thinking eats me alive.

Chelsea Myers (18:23)
So I'm really, I am glad to hear though that you did have like you and your partner really did kind of like hunker down and team up and be like, yeah, that's, it's so important. It's so important. And, and also you kind of didn't have a choice at that point.

Sarah (18:29)
we were a unit.

No, and you got to think too, this is 2022. And so like we were out of COVID, but we weren't really out of COVID yet in the hospital setting. So the way that the visitor policy was set up was you could have three visitors, but once that person was a visitor, they were a permanent visitor. Like they marked a spot off the list. And so we're like, how did, this is the first grandchild on both sides. How in the world do we pick who gets to see her and who does it? And just all of this.

Chelsea Myers (18:46)
Yeah.

Yep.

Sarah (19:10)
And so like we decided together, like we're not gonna let anybody into the hospital setting because number one, we don't wanna pick and choose between people because that doesn't feel good to us. But number two, like we know this is about to be this really like scary, harrowing experience. And in the nicest way possible, we don't want to have to account for your reactions, your emotions, seeing her like this because most people never see anyone in their lifetime.

look like she looked before and after her surgeries.

Chelsea Myers (19:41)
Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. what was your birth experience like? Did you have a planned C-section? Because of her heart defect, I'm assuming it had to sort of be intentional.

Sarah (19:56)
It was intentional, but it was intentional in the fact that it was scheduled around the heart surgeon schedule and when worked best for him to make sure he was in the country because we had this fabulous heart surgeon here. He is incredible. And I believe it's a week or a week and a half every year he goes out of the country and he goes back to his home country, which I love for him. And it meant that when he came back for Meadow's surgery, he looked so refreshed. Like he, he was but it also meant like

Chelsea Myers (20:01)
Okay.

Yeah.

Sarah (20:21)
We really wanted Meadow to come at the right time if we could arrange that. And so I ended up being induced at 39 weeks. If, you know, if she hadn't been sick and nothing else had went on, I was planning on a water birth at like, like, what's the, the facilities where it's like home birth ask, but you still have like,

Chelsea Myers (20:41)
like a birthing

center. Right? Yeah.

Sarah (20:42)
A birthing center, yes, that's the word. I was

planning on a birthing center, I was gonna have a water birth, I was not gonna be induced, I was gonna do as minimal interventions as possible, et cetera. Instead, I was induced, I was in labor for three days, and we had gotten to the point, you know, I think the mental state that I was at in like trying to control anything that I could control, the one thing, like the hill that I was going to die on in that moment was,

Chelsea Myers (20:56)
Ugh.

Sarah (21:12)
If I do not need a c-section, I do not want one because we are about to go through so much with this little baby. And the last thing I want is to be healing myself in that way if I don't need to be. And I'd had the really unfortunate experience when I was in nursing school where I had watched an OB. This is still crazy to me. This happened. They looked at their clock or look at their their watch on their wrist and she's like, it's five seven.

Chelsea Myers (21:23)
Yeah.

Sarah (21:38)
and I think we'll just go ahead and cut her because I want to make it home for dinner with my kids. And that was not what I wanted for me. So all that to be said, if it had been up to them, I definitely would have had a c-section, but I was like, you're absolutely not cutting me open unless we emergently need that. She needs that. I need that. And I don't see that here. But it I was on pitocin and induced

Chelsea Myers (21:43)
god. ⁓ my god.

Sarah (22:04)
But when she was finally born, we were really lucky initially because...

that birthing room, I mean, it felt like there were 30 people in that room. Like they were so ready. It was like everybody had their team and their role and like any anything that could have happened with Meadow, like they were ready in that room in that moment to do it. But she came out blue, but all babies kind of come out purplish blue anyways. And she was stable enough in that moment to be able for us to hold her and to have a few moments with her and like

Chelsea Myers (22:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (22:38)
pretend to be a family, even though 30 people are staring at us and like have that like initial moment. really like the first 24 hours after birth, she could have potentially sustained herself because there's a hole that's open in your heart in every baby that's born. And then for most people that closes off in the first day, that hole for her was like her saving grace. It gave her blood flow, it gave her oxygen, even though it wasn't

Chelsea Myers (22:58)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (23:04)
totally what she needed, it was enough. And so that's why we were able to have this really nice moment right after she was born. But then they took her to the NICU and that was when we kind of ran it started running into issues because we tried to go over several, several times as a children's hospital and the labor and delivery were connected, which is incredible. I was so grateful for that. And they're like, you know, we're trying to get a PIC line in.

PIC line is basically a really fancy IV that runs to your heart. So we're trying to get this PIC line in, and I mean, teeny tiny baby, teeny tiny veins. Like this is, it's not going very well right now. We don't want you in the room for that. Like it's a sterile procedure and like, my nursing brain understands all of this. I've seen all of this, right? But it just kept going on and on and on. And so she was born at three o'clock, but we didn't get to see her until almost nine.

Chelsea Myers (23:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Sarah (23:55)
And it

was a really long in between time of just like, want to see her and what's going on and can someone give me an update and like, I really don't care about me and I've just given birth and all that. Like I just want to like see the baby. And we finally get to see her and we're like so excited and initially, honestly, a little taken back as well, because since they couldn't get the pic line they were searching for places for an IV. So they shaved her head.

And so that was just kind of like a jarring experience in and of itself to be like, wait, is this the baby I just had? And like, do I know her? Like, it was just this weird, but I was like, okay, no, this is her. And they had just gotten the PIC line in and the goal of getting the PIC line was to start this medication that would keep that hole open for a few more days until she had her surgery. That was the main goal.

Chelsea Myers (24:30)
Right.

Sarah (24:46)
Well, they didn't tell us about the medications. There's a side effect when they're trying to figure out what dose works best for you of it can cause you to have something called apnea episodes where you stop breathing. So we walk into the room. They just got the PIC line started. We're so excited. They're starting this life saving medication for her to be able to sustain herself until the heart surgeon is back in the country. Like we're having this moment and then her oxygen dives down to 30%.

Chelsea Myers (24:57)
Mmm.

Sarah (25:14)
we're immediately thrown out of the room, she immediately has to be intubated. And I just like think about that sometimes, it just like my introduction into parenthood and being a heart mom and really kind of the beauty of like me and my husband could already become this team inherently because up until that point, like he had been my strong person, like I had been in labor and it was awful and like all this stuff and like.

He was there, he was ready, he was in the moment. And because he had no lived hospital experience and like the only person he had ever seen intubated was someone who was like critically ill and almost died. In his brain, he's like, ⁓ the baby is dying. And in my brain, I'm able to articulate like, no, this is the medication and the intubation is just a bridge while we're figuring out the dosing. And then she'll be able to be extubated and we'll kind of get a reboot. I mean,

Chelsea Myers (25:56)
right.

Sarah (26:10)
Obviously it wasn't what I wanted to see or what I envisioned seeing her the first time after birth, but I could understand that and he could not. So then we had to kind of flip roles a bit and I'm like, no, like she's okay. She's going to be okay. Like this is just an interim thing. but we often did that throughout our stay in the hospital. mean, total, we were there several months and so we really had to figure out, okay, like

who's gonna be the lead person today, who has less capacity today, and how do we bridge that gap for ourselves.

Chelsea Myers (26:43)
I love that you bring that up. That is, so there's so many things, so many things I want to touch on, but it's, I think a thing that a lot of couples and especially new parents forget is that neither of you are ever going to be operating at a hundred percent. No, never ⁓ for the rest of your ⁓ children, as long as they're, seriously, like this is your life forever.

Sarah (26:59)
Never ever. ⁓

This is

Chelsea Myers (27:10)
And also you can't expect that you're gonna balance each other either. Like you're not always gonna be 60 while he's 40 and he's, you know what I mean? But it's okay to talk about like, okay, do you have the capacity to be the point person today? Or... Right? Yes.

Sarah (27:27)
that's like the sentence of my household. We're always saying that back

and forth, like, in this moment, do you have this?

Chelsea Myers (27:34)
Yeah, that's huge. And that that's something that like is learned through situations like this, I think, when you're faced with crisis or when you're faced with challenge, you have to you have to learn quick. so that was one thing, the one area that I wanted to touch on also that you did experience you and Meadow experienced a long NICU journey. How this is

I always hesitate on this question. What did that look like for you guys? Was the NICU close to where you were? Were you far from home? Like, how are you navigating that part?

Sarah (28:12)
We were so lucky. I know I've used the word lucky several times, but I really like, I try to lean into the gratitude of the things that we did have working for us. Like for example, me and my husband being in the NICU together and being in the SICU together, like that is the ultimate gift to never feel like you're alone making decisions, for example. But for us, I think we were kind of set up for failure in the sense that they told us,

Chelsea Myers (28:24)
Mm-hmm.

no.

Sarah (28:40)
Her first surgery, which was a patch for her to grow bigger and stronger because her full repair is what they call her second surgery where they really fix the defects. You want them to weigh as much as possible because that has the best outcomes. So her first surgery is a patch for her to grow bigger, stronger, eat, weigh more. And they told us that that was definitely the more dangerous of the two. So we were going to have the longer stay with that one. She would probably be more unstable afterwards.

after she had her patch surgery, they actually had the medical director of the entire hospital sit in her hospital room for 24 hours. Like that's how high risk this is. Meadow, that surgery, I mean, it went incredibly. Like everything went exactly right. We had no complications. She nailed it. They nailed it. Like nothing. And so we...

Chelsea Myers (29:19)
Wow.

Yeah.

Sarah (29:34)
She was born the first week of August and we were home by the end of August, even though we thought that it would be late September, early October before we got to go home. And we kind of ended up having to make our home this like makeshift hospital environment. And that sucked, but at least we were home. And our local children's hospital, know, when I got the diagnosis when we were pregnant, I thought immediately we were going to have to travel.

to a hospital that I knew about three hours away from here. And they're like, no, we have everything that you need here, downtown, like 25 minutes from your house. They had just built in the year before a dedicated cardiac ICU for Peds. Incredible. And thank you to Jennifer Lawrence from the Hunger Games for funding that unit, because I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, she's from Kentucky. But really.

Chelsea Myers (30:15)
Wow.

my gosh, wow. That's amazing.

Sarah (30:27)
We had everything that we needed right at home. My in-laws live like 10 minutes down the road. mean, all of that was incredible. And we lived just close enough that we were able to go home and have that what they call interstage time or in between time until our next surgery. But the hard part of like being home is because I didn't know I had OCD. I mean, I was so hypervigilant and I was so overwhelmed because

like the protocol that we were under was like, submit her weight twice a day, we also submit how much she eats. So we have everything recorded, every ML of milk that she drank in her four months of life is in a filing cabinet in our house. we still have it. My husband is attached to those. And we also had to keep her hooked up to a saturation monitor and see where her saturations were and submit those a couple of times a day.

Chelsea Myers (31:10)
You still have it. Yeah.

Sarah (31:24)
And so we didn't really get to have like the full like newborn home experience, but we got little bits and pieces. And eventually we got to a point where we had these two incredible women who would sit with her at night from like 12 to six, just so we could get a stretch of sleep. And I think having that stretch of sleep was so important because her little oxygen monitor, I mean, it was great, but like every time she moved her foot, I mean, she's a newborn baby. She's going to move around. It would just

Chelsea Myers (31:44)
Yeah.

Sarah (31:52)
Blair and like that was so jarring for both of us to be like okay are we back in the ICU like where are we in this moment etc. The goal was that she was gonna be home we were gonna do this protocol all these things for almost a year and instead on Thanksgiving weekend I was up by myself with her because we didn't have overnight care it was a holiday so me and my husband are doing shifts because neither of us felt comfortable enough to

Chelsea Myers (32:06)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (32:21)
both be asleep while she was like, we wanted somebody up with her at all times. So we skipped all the holidays that year because we didn't want to risk her getting sick. Because the other thing, and I know I'm throwing a lot of details, but there was just so many pieces, was when we brought her home and this in between time, like her oxygen was not normal. Like her oxygen on a day to day basis was about 80%. And

Chelsea Myers (32:26)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (32:47)
for anyone else out in the world. If you walked into the ER today and your oxygen was 80%, like they were prepared to intubate you. Like they would be ready, like this is an emergency. But for her, like that's her normal and her baseline until we can get her heart fixed. And her patch, and I didn't know this at the time, and I'm actually really, really grateful that I didn't know this, was the size of a diamond stud earring.

Chelsea Myers (32:56)
Yeah.

Sarah (33:10)
And so if it narrows or starts to develop clots at all, like that really reduces her ability to get even the little bit amount of oxygen and blood that she's getting. And so Thanksgiving weekend, I'm staying up with her by myself. It's five o'clock in the morning. She's totally asleep. I'm literally just sitting there staring at her and all of sudden the monitor just starts blaring like crazy. And it's like 59%, 55%.

Chelsea Myers (33:35)
Mmm.

Sarah (33:36)
42 % and so immediately I like start waking her up. I'm like, is it the probe? Because I tell people all the time like when you have someone on the monitor like look at your patient Don't look at the monitor like that might be doing its own thing But look at what you got in front of you. So I'm trying to wake her up and stimulate her and I do all that and it pops back up But it wasn't like she was moving there wasn't anything else going on Like it literally just dropped on its own and I knew the probe was in a good spot

And I told her cardiology team, it was really nice. They kind of had like a bat line that you could call. And I was like, hey, I'm going to sound like a crazy person. And I know you guys already know I'm anxious, but here I am. And I know that it's like holiday weekend, but I do want to let you know that she was asleep and it dropped down to this amount. So whatever you all want me to do with that. Great. And they were like, you know, we would just feel a lot better if you brought her in because why not?

And what we found out was that little patch that was the size of a diamond set earring had now narrowed to half of that size. And so it was now time to go ahead and have her second surgery way earlier than anyone anticipated. And unfortunately for us, I feel like her surgery was really set up for complications from the beginning in the sense that, you know, that little teeny tiny patch is the only thing giving her blood flow.

Chelsea Myers (34:40)
Mm.

Sarah (35:01)
and they have her on blood thinners every day. Like we were giving this teeny tiny four-month-old baby lovinox shots every day to keep her blood thin and they weren't able to stop her blood thinners before her surgery, which sounds so counterintuitive to any medical knowledge you've ever heard.

Chelsea Myers (35:09)
Yeah.

I I don't even have that extensive

of medical knowledge and I'm like, no. ⁓

Sarah (35:23)
Yeah.

So we had to send a baby on blood thinners into surgery and that was a calculated risk because what everyone decided as a team was it's far riskier to take the chance of taking her off the blood thinners and that fully clotting off than it is to take a baby into surgery on blood thinners because we can replace blood loss. Like that's a problem we can fix. But it really like set us up for a whole host of

Chelsea Myers (35:45)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (35:51)
complications and other melodrama because anyone out there like they don't even want you to take ibuprofen before surgery let alone like an actual heavy-duty blood thinner.

Chelsea Myers (35:58)
Mm-mm.

and like I heard you say earlier on, like we got so lucky with this and we got so lucky with this. And then it just sounds like all of a sudden everything kind of caved in on itself. My curiosity, and I know, I know you are such a fierce advocate for Meadow and for the medical research for her condition, but like, I'm curious through that. said your OCD, you were hyper fixating a lot.

Were you taking any steps at that point to address that or was 100 % of your focus on Meadow?

Sarah (36:37)
So I had actually, I got a glimmer of an idea that I might have OCD during my pregnancy because somebody mentioned it to me offhand. ⁓ And what me and my husband decided was during my pregnancy is probably not the best time to go get a new diagnosis. And I think that's fair. And I think now, like, I think even looking back, I would have made the same choice just for the sheer fact of

Chelsea Myers (36:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

Sarah (37:05)
You know, it's really stressful to go through OCD treatment, especially in the way that I ended up doing it eventually. And I don't think I would have been able to do that during my pregnancy. I don't think I would have had the capacity or bandwidth for that.

Chelsea Myers (37:17)
So you're in that postpartum phase, which is a challenge in and of itself, but you're also navigating all of these new challenges with Meadow that you didn't foresee, right? So were you able at all to address your own mental health or were you all in on Meadow and not focusing inward at all?

Sarah (37:27)
I do remember now, yes.

I was pretty much all in on Meadow. What I told myself was when Meadow makes it through this period of time in this super critical, she could die time, because they told us actually that between surgeries would be the most high risk time of her entire life based on her heart. So was like, once we make it through this window of time, then I can figure out what's going on with me. I can heal my brain. I know I'm going to have so much stuff circulating around from all these experiences, but

Chelsea Myers (37:56)
Mm.

Sarah (38:08)
Especially given the way that her second surgery went and all the complications and all the different pieces. I can't even imagine leaving the hospital room to like go to therapy or do something else like the literally the ICU attendings had to beg me to just like take a walk outside sometimes and just like get some fresh air. And there was just no way that I was leaving her in that moment to focus inward, which is also why when she got out of the hospital.

Chelsea Myers (38:19)
Yeah.

Sarah (38:36)
In mid-January, it was less than a week later that I went and got my OCD diagnosis. And then was less than a month after that that I entered into an intensive outpatient program because I was like, just can't function and live in this way.

Chelsea Myers (38:47)
Yeah. Well, and so I ask that because it highlights several things that one, even in a even in a typical like birth and postpartum period, you are so focused on baby, baby, baby, baby. And with Meadow specifically, like you just like we were talking earlier, like you did not have the bandwidth.

Sarah (39:02)
baby baby baby baby.

Chelsea Myers (39:12)
to look inward at all. know that you, and I don't know if it's retrospect or if you knew in the time, but like you did, you noticed these things. You noticed that you were hypervigilant. You noticed that you were, but you're absolutely right. And it's so common that you're like, no, I'll deal with that later. This is what I need to deal with right now.

Sarah (39:12)
No.

Yes. I don't

even have time to even consider dealing with that right now.

Chelsea Myers (39:35)
No,

no. I'm just trying to think about which direction I want to go in because you've mentioned, like you piqued my interest with intensive outpatient. Well, that's an experience that I also went through and it's not one that is highlighted often. no.

Sarah (39:53)
No.

Chelsea Myers (39:55)
Right? I'm excited about this topic. when I talk about, I'm remembering I was talking to a dad who had postpartum depression. I'm like, I'm so excited to talk about this with you. And it's like, no, I'm not excited that you were depressed, but because it's not something that is brought up often. do want to talk more about Meadow, but I'm very curious. How did you come to know about or think about starting this IOP program?

Sarah (40:04)
Ha

Yes.

I even heard of IOP. Like I had not heard of like an intensive outpatient program. Like I had been in nursing school. I had seen the inside of psych wards and units that was very intimidating and very, very scary to me. So we got out of the hospital with Meadow and to just give a little bit of perspective, Meadow the night of her second surgery almost died.

Chelsea Myers (40:35)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (40:45)
And then for the week after her second surgery, they actually had to emergently reopen her chest and leave it open. And literally, like we could stand over her body and like watch her heartbeat from outside her body, which is such a weird experience. just. So I tell you all this to say I had a lot of intrusive images and a lot of intrusive thoughts, and it was PTSD layered with OCD. Like there's just, it was all a swirl, but.

Chelsea Myers (40:52)
Mm.

Sarah (41:14)
A friend had mentioned to me that maybe I had OCD while I was pregnant. And when we got home, I just could not stop all of my compulsions and all of my hyper vigilance. And there's so much hyper responsibility that comes along with being a parent and having OCD as well. And I felt like I'd had some of those things a little bit reinforced because, you know,

I switched OBs and then we found out she was sick or I was the person who was there the one random time her oxygen dropped and that was the time, you know, like, so I did all this reinforced to be hyper responsible and be hyper vigilant. But like we came home, I just could not sleep. I felt like I couldn't eat. I felt like I couldn't function. Here I am supposed to go back into my company now and reintegrate into this role and figure out what's going on. And I am up.

Chelsea Myers (41:46)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (42:06)
all night, every night, because we don't have anyone at night anymore. And they tell us that she doesn't need the oxygen monitor anymore and she's okay now. But like, how do you shut off that part of your brain when you've just been the last four or five months, always hooked up to a monitor and always watching. And so, you know, a normal, well, not normal, but like a pretty routine postpartum anxiety experiences, like watch your baby breathe, or to count their breaths.

Chelsea Myers (42:32)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (42:34)
But for me, it was just like on this whole other level of, okay, I would get up and I'm like, okay, she's breathing. And I would be like, okay, I count five breaths and I fall back asleep. But then like, I might wake back up 20 minutes later. And this time I have to count 10 times. Like five doesn't feel good enough anymore. And it very much became this insatiable cycle to literally one night I was like, it was 154 times I had to feel her breathe.

Chelsea Myers (42:59)
Wow.

Sarah (42:59)
And like,

how do you sleep when you're waiting for someone to breathe 154 times in a row? And I would also get trapped if like, like what if I skipped a number and now I have to start over? So I was very much at a point where it was affecting every area of my life. And so I decided like if there's a chance I do have this, I want to know because I cannot continue on like this. I feel like I'm going to end up on a psych unit somewhere or be committed somewhere. Like I feel sick and

Chelsea Myers (43:03)
Yeah!

Yeah.

Sarah (43:28)
When I got my diagnosis, I didn't know IOP was an option. I hadn't really heard of that before. But when I did the YBOCS scale, which is that OCD assessment scale, I believe it was out of like a range of zero to 40 or something right in there. And I literally scored like a 37. So it really was eating up every area of my life, which is why she suggested like, if you have the ability, because your symptoms are so bad and they're

Chelsea Myers (43:46)
Yeah.

Sarah (43:56)
it's just taking up so much time. I think you should explore the IOP route where basically for four to six weeks, you do therapy for about four hours a day with four different therapists. And you really just like tackle this thing head on. And I've always been an all in kind of human, but I was also really desperate in that moment because like I...

Chelsea Myers (44:11)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (44:23)
It would be so easy as a heart mom to like be the helicopter parent and like always be like over your kid's shoulder. But that was never what I wanted or aspire to. And I never wanted my own anxiety or my own mental health to be a hindrance to like my one day children. And I was like, if there is a time to tackle this, I think it's now when she won't remember. And then hopefully I'll be better resource, better skilled for the times that she does remember. And so really like

Chelsea Myers (44:39)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (44:52)
motivators for me, one, just to be able to show up in everyday life because I needed to, but two, far more than that was to be like be a true present mom like I really, really wanted to be.

Chelsea Myers (45:04)
Yeah, that's huge, by the way. Like that is not an easy conclusion to come to or a decision to make. ⁓ my gosh, yes. Well, and especially for several reasons. And the reason it is not a comparison game, but I'm like...

Sarah (45:14)
It was so scary. Ugh.

Chelsea Myers (45:25)
anyone in a situation like this, whether it's a situation like yours, or whether you have a perfectly healthy child, but you are really struggling with OCD or postpartum OCD, that decision to go all in like that, because it's exactly like what you said, it's intensive treatment. It's like going to school again. You're going to school and it's therapy school. And I'm assuming because again, I did IOP as well.

Sarah (45:44)
It is like going to school.

Chelsea Myers (45:53)
did you do dialectical behavioral therapy through that? You did not. Okay. So you did ERP, which, well, that's, that's the standard for OCD, which when you said like, when you were like, which I'm sure you know, it's like, I have not done that yet. I did DBT and I still have to work on ERP, but, ⁓ all of these acronyms listeners Google them. We're not like, I love that

Sarah (45:56)
I did not. I specifically did ERP.

Yes, ERP is exposure

and response prevention. So in the simplest way, you expose yourself to all of your scariest, worst fears, and then you don't do your compulsions, and then you realize that you did, duh, and then you do it again. Yeah, it's pretty bad.

Chelsea Myers (46:22)
Yes.

Yeah, and it's terrifying. ⁓

It's really scary. But to make that decision to go all in on yourself when your baby's still little, I love your rationale behind it too though. Like that's powerful, that's badass that you were like, no, she's not gonna remember this right now. No, but I want to be there when she does remember me and I want her to have my best self. that, that is...

Sarah (46:46)
Thanks. No, she won't have any clue.

Chelsea Myers (46:59)
When we tell moms like the best thing that you can do for your child is take care of yourself. Like that oxygen mask analogy that we've all heard a million times is the truth. It's the truth. So, so you did your IOP program. was meadow with dad at the time. Did you, cause I know she's still kind of in that, like you don't want her to get sick. Like.

Sarah (47:04)
Absolutely.

Yes.

Chelsea Myers (47:22)
What did that look like?

Sarah (47:23)
So, you know, as I said, I'm an all in human and the company that had acquired mine was based out of the West Coast. And so I did not tell anyone that I was doing IOP outside of my immediate family. Like my husband knew, my in-laws knew, and we actually, so one of the women who used to sit overnight with Meadow, it was this really cool like moment of happenstance for us because

Chelsea Myers (47:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (47:49)
We had worked with them through a doula agency. And so like, we didn't know exactly who they were going to bring in. But they were like, obviously were briefed on Meadow's history and stuff. But one of the women that they brought in used to be a medical assistant or tech in the cardiac ICU at the Children's Hospital Meadow was at. yes, incredible. mean, just like unbelievable how well that was matched. And so we.

asked her like, hey, you know, would you maybe just like want to stay here forever? Like, do you want to be Meadow's nanny? Like, we're not gonna we we can't feel safe about paying her in daycare right now. Like, we're not there. Like, we're not mentally there. And she's not medically there either. Maybe one day. And now we've just decided like Hannah is going to stay forever. Like, we're not going to do a daycare thing.

Chelsea Myers (48:34)
You

Sarah (48:36)
But and I say that with the most like humbleness and grace and not arrogance like we're very very lucky also to be able to do that. But I think like I would have really lost my mind if I had to put Meadow in daycare right after coming out of the hospital and like she was on chest precautions and all these different things. But all that to be said, I would do my IOP from 8 to 12 every morning because at noon West Coast time is 9 o'clock.

their time. So that's when their day starts. And now I would work every day from 12 to five or 12 to six trying to like reintegrate into my new company and take on this new role. Like, was quite literally a chief nursing officer. And I was very excited. I've always been very career ambitious. So it's like, have a title like that and be 28 years old, I did not want to do anything to mess that up. And I wanted you know, even though I'm doing all this like terrible, scary work in the morning, like

Chelsea Myers (49:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (49:31)
I'm not going to show up as my best self. Like I'm not going to have the most capacity, but I do think I can still show up and I don't think I can take any more time away after all this time I've just taken with Meadow. And me and my husband actually did some of the sessions together, which was really cool. So for me, for anyone out there listening who doesn't really understand what OCD is, the like core tagline that I tell people all the time, because I think it makes it very clear.

Chelsea Myers (49:34)
You

Sarah (50:00)
is it's simply just an intolerance of uncertainty. So everything, every behavior, all these things that people are doing, like washing their hands, which is only one flavor of OCD, is to get this certainty of I don't have germs on my hands or I'm not going to get sick or like whatever that is. It's not actually about the hand washing. And some different things that can kind of pop up to really get that certainty is reassurance seeking.

Chelsea Myers (50:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (50:27)
avoidance is another big one. And unfortunately, me and my husband, we have been together probably six or seven years at that point. And so those kinds of behaviors were already hardwired and ingrained into our relationship because we didn't know that's what we were dealing with. And so, you know, I might ask Ben, be like, Hey, like, do you think Meadow's heart's okay today? And there's like no way that he could know the answer to that.

Chelsea Myers (50:44)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (50:54)
But I just

need like, I want to hear it from someone else. But as we talked about with the breathing example, it becomes this insatiable cycle of like, okay, I asked once, but now it doesn't feel good enough anymore. Now I'm going to ask three times. Now I'm going to ask five times. And so like, he really had to be a part of that process with me. And my first week of IOP, I will never forget it because he just stopped talking to me because he was so afraid of giving me reassurance and he didn't know what to say. And he was, he was like overwhelmed himself.

Chelsea Myers (51:17)
Mmm.

Sarah (51:23)
which fair, but it was nice that we kind of had a checkpoint with one of the therapists who just worked specifically with us as a couple of like, how do we manage this together? And also trying to find, know, OCD really wants everything to be black and white and nothing in life is black and white, just like nothing in life is certain. And we had to be able to find a gray area of like, where does our relationship have this like,

mutual ground of I can ask for reassurance sometimes because that is part of a normal and healthy relationship without it dipping into OCD territory. But we have some fun skills that we still use today where we try to poke fun at OCD. Like humor is a big part of our relationship. Bringing levity to it is a big part of our relationship. And so sometimes my husband will literally ask me, he'd be like,

Are you asking me that or your OCD asking me that? He's like, I think it's the OCD. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. Of course it is. I'll be like, my OCD is really talking to me right now, but I'm trying not to listen to it. Or like, you can't do X, Y or Z because I think it's going to feed my compulsions. But just having the awareness, the intentionality, and more importantly than anything else, the dialogue and the communication and the conversation, like that saves the game.

Chelsea Myers (52:36)
Yeah, it's and again, I always say this like I this isn't about me and this is this isn't I try not to play the yeah, but the first of all, it's insanely ironic to me that your husband's name is Ben. That is also my husband's name. And that exact situation.

Sarah (52:50)
Ha ha.

Chelsea Myers (52:54)
is what we had to go through once we had that diagnosis of OCD. I remember

those days and those reassurance seeking days and you're like, can you, I just need to hear you say it. Like I just need to hear you say it. And again, like our therapists were saying like, you can't, you can't say it. Don't say And just like you explained,

Sarah (53:13)
No, don't do it.

⁓

Chelsea Myers (53:18)
the impulse to reassurance seek and then to be told like, no, no, you can't give that reassurance. is, that is something that you can't explain to someone who hasn't experienced it because it's physical man.

Sarah (53:35)
I feel it in my gut. Even you just like saying those words, like I feel it in my gut.

Chelsea Myers (53:38)
Yes. I apologize. I don't mean to trigger you, but like, I see you. Like I say, I see you. So let's kind of, yeah, you did your IOP program. You also were on top of this business switch. Like there, doesn't really feel like there was any time for you, for Sarah during that time.

Sarah (53:41)
No, no.

No, and I think like anytime I did have like I was still

Also, I think I just want to like give the insight. Yeah, I kind of said it flippantly earlier of like, face your fears head on and realize you don't die. And that's true. But to like give you just an idea of like kind of the content that I was dealing with and doing these exposures. I mean, we worked out to doing an exposure at the end of my IOP where we literally created a tombstone for my daughter.

Chelsea Myers (54:16)
Yeah.

Sarah (54:30)
and we set the date for the end of the year to like really combat my magical thinking and like, you know, in some ways it's nice to realize like, you know, you're not the supreme ruler of the universe, like you don't get to magically decide like what's going to happen. But I think even in my off time from therapy and work, like, I was really having to grapple with a lot even in the sense of like not doing my compulsions in the after because

When you do ERP, what you do is you do the scary thing like making a tombstone and then you don't do your compulsions and I call it like riding the wave. And so you just ride the wave down and you realize like, okay, like I'm okay. Everybody's okay. And then you still have to follow up behind that though to not do the compulsions later because you mean you could log off the zoom or walk away from the therapy place or whatever else and go do the compulsions. And that really ruins all of the work that you just did.

Chelsea Myers (55:24)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (55:24)
And sometimes

that's going to happen. So I'm not saying like you just ruin the whole thing by doing the compulsion. Like it happens, but it does take a lot of mental work and intentionality to be able to not do that. But what I hoped and what the benefit of doing an intensive program is, is like you get to see week to week, like how much your symptoms are already starting to back down, back down. like,

you already have this like light at the end of a tunnel that's being painted for you. Week one, you don't have that. Week one was the worst by far. But like week two, I'm realizing, okay, like I'm having less symptoms. Week three, I'm having less symptoms. You know you're gonna get there. And I think actually for me, what my fear shifted to and what it really became was I felt like I was only successful because of my OCD, because it gave me so much drive.

Chelsea Myers (55:58)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (56:21)
And now

if I don't have this thing anymore, or at least I have less symptoms of it, because I also tell people like, there's a difference between being recovered and recovering. And I'm always recovering from OCD. Like it's never fully gone for me. But who am I without it? And that was almost more intimidating to me sometimes than thinking about living with it.

Chelsea Myers (56:42)
Yeah. Yeah, especially for someone who, like you said, was so career It is easy to see when you pan out and like wide lens like doing IOP caring for your daughter transitioning your company, like OCD, right? I mean, that's a lot for anyone. And some people be like, I'm just type A, that's just how I operate. But from a fellow like OCD sufferer,

you do that, I almost feel like that panic of like, nope, I have to be in control of this and it has to happen this way. do, there's days where I'm like, no, if I don't have that, then it's not gonna get done. And then this is gonna fall apart and then this is gonna fall apart and then this is yeah, that resonates so deeply with me. And I'm so appreciative of how open,

Sarah (57:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (57:35)
you've been in sharing your experience of OCD and anxiety through this journey and just in life because and like you said you almost like mentioned it flippantly but like that's so helpful to hear not only for people who don't experience it but for people who are experiencing it especially in the postpartum period and may not know what it is.

Sarah (57:59)
Yeah, if you don't know what it is, I tell people all the time, like if you don't know what the thing is and you can't name the thing, then you can't figure out how to deal with the thing. And the other thing is too, like we mentioned earlier, like we've both been in therapy since we were 12. So I went 18 years misdiagnosed and

It was so pivotal in life changing to me. Like some people would be like, OCD is just another label. And I'm like, no, it got me the treatment that I finally needed. I need so much less therapy now. And the thing about OCD, if you do traditional cognitive behavioral therapy, is you get a lot of reassurance.

Chelsea Myers (58:34)
I mean, I do CBT and I think that there's a place for it, but you have to be so super intentional because yeah, yes, because you can be reinforcing a lot of those. Like I refer to them as superstitious thinking. Yeah. So bringing it back to your journey with Meadow. So you did the IOP, you said you came out realizing...

Sarah (58:35)
Ahem.

Intentionality.

huh.

Chelsea Myers (58:58)
that you weren't feeling the symptoms as intensely and you were sort of kind of taking back control in a different way, because OCD is a lot about control. But yeah, like control in a different way. So at this point, Meadow's getting older. Today, Meadow's three. She's newly three. She's a, whoo, you're in, she's a fresh three. Are you in that three-nager land right now? Oh yeah.

Sarah (59:05)
Yeah, so much control.

Yeah. She's a fresh three.

yes, ⁓ she's

a character and I'm actually, at least for now, at least for now, I am the chosen one as I call myself where like I am her person and so like I really enjoy that I get that role she likes, of course, she loves her nanny, she loves her dad, she loves all the people around her but like I am the person and I really love that.

Chelsea Myers (59:31)
⁓

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it doesn't surprise me just like, like I said, I've never met in Meadow and I'm just meeting you for the first time today. But just knowing I do I, I want to acknowledge and it's not toxic positivity in any way, but the superpower in recognizing a problem that's something that's not working for you and actively choosing

Sarah (59:51)
Hmm.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:11)
to find a solution or to work on that problem. So like that's a superpower. So you probably are her superhero. Like you're setting such an example for her. Like mommy takes care of mommy and mommy gets her stuff done. And like, yeah, I, I'd like to say that I'm the chosen one, but my three-nager she is her own chosen one. ⁓ She's a she's a second child and she has that second child syndrome where she is just

Sarah (1:00:29)
Ha ha.

Hahaha.

Hmm.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:39)
She's a little beast, but we love So yeah, let's talk a little bit about today. Like where is Meadow's health at today and what does the future look like for both of you on this journey?

Sarah (1:00:51)
You know, today I feel like we get to play pretend a little bit because you know her last big surgery was right between like four and five months old. And basically every time she grows exponentially now she has a lingering piece which is a fake heart valve. So it needs to be replaced via open heart surgery. We hope she'll be five before that next surgery.

And so we're kind of living in that nice in between time where we're like, we're going to cardiology appointments, but it's not time yet, et cetera. But there is so much uncertainty that lives in the fact of like, every time we go to an appointment, it could be the time. And that's really scary and really intimidating. And it's just good for me to always be mindful of because my OCD, you know, and once that certainty, it was like, like she's absolutely okay. And even last night, like,

I feel exactly what she did, but she just like looked at me funny and I'm like, is she okay? Is it her valve? And I'm like, ⁓ shut up OCD, like get out of here. But what's cool about being in between is she has so much fun. Like she ended up, she didn't have a genetic condition, which you're so grateful for. And

Chelsea Myers (1:01:47)
Yes!

You

Sarah (1:01:58)
Even though she had all those complications, she had a brain bleed, she was on bypass, like I felt like everything was kind of like stacked against her to develop normally. She has and she did. And she was only a little bit behind physically for just a little while. But I mean, she had major chest surgery twice. Like how could you not be behind physically? Like you don't have core strength. But mentally, she has always been so sharp and it's like

Chelsea Myers (1:02:17)
Yeah!

Sarah (1:02:24)
so fun to like watch her become her own little human. Like she's funny. Like she's like genuinely funny and it catches me off guard still. I'm like, ⁓ like you're a whole human in there. And I love that I get to like do things like this and talk about our story and try to paint what we live through in a different way. And also I've done...

a lot of advocacy work, a lot of philanthropy work, trying to change the future for children like Meadow because what we hope is that her next surgery is her last one and then they could do alternative procedures in the future to replace that valve and as a very real possibility. But of course we need funding, research, trials, all the different things to support that. And I tell people all the time, I have this really incredible

perspective and leverage point of like when I go to Washington DC, for example, like I have the medical knowledge, but I also have the personal lived experience and the story. And that makes you the most incredible advocate because you can see both sides of it and you can bring both of those things into the conversation. So it's like, how could I not be doing this work? Like this is like, I feel like what I've been designed to do, I just didn't know this is where it was going to end up.

Chelsea Myers (1:03:42)
and anyone who has listened to the show for any length of time knows that I am not a fan of the term silver silver linings. ⁓ And that's okay. That's a personal thing.

Sarah (1:03:49)
Mm.

Chelsea Myers (1:03:54)
but I do believe that the universe kind of sets us up for what's to come to a certain degree. And yeah, in your case, like your medical background paired with your personal experience, paired with your get it done attitude, makes, yeah, like

Sarah (1:04:03)
Yeah.

And selling a business, like...

Chelsea Myers (1:04:19)
Puts you in this perfect position to be the advocate and the philanthropist that you are today. So yeah, so.

Meadow is a funny three year old who is becoming her own person. And oh my god, I love it. You. Oh my gosh, I like I said, I've never met her, but I can just picture her and she sounds like such a joy. If you put her and my Avery in a room together, I think it would be pretty freaking hilarious.

Sarah (1:04:31)
She rides horses, full of life full of life.

Chelsea Myers (1:04:49)
I lost my train of thought because of my dog. ⁓

Sarah (1:04:53)
Bring it full circle.

Chelsea Myers (1:04:55)
Yes. my God, thank you. You're so sweet. I'm usually so much better at this.

Sarah (1:04:57)
Yes.

Listen, listen,

we did filming for the hospital the other day because they're doing a big campaign, and Meadow was doing what your dogs are doing behind me the entire time. Throwing a wagon into a wall, twirling, running. I'm like, I'm trying to talk about seeing your heart from outside your body and you're running a wagon into a wall. What is happening right now? So I feel it in my soul.

Chelsea Myers (1:05:04)
Yeah.

That's kind of, that's kind of beautiful though, right? Like, isn't that

kind of beautiful? You're like, I did see your heart beating outside of your chest and now you can throw wagons against the wall. right? ⁓ what a gift. We love that. but yeah, so bringing it back to you today, every day is different. How are you feeling though about your own mental health at this stage?

Sarah (1:05:27)
Yes. What a gift.

I'm

Chelsea Myers (1:05:46)
of your motherhood journey.

Sarah (1:05:48)
I really feel like it's the best it's ever been in my entire life. Not even just like in being a mom, like in my entire life, like the motto of my every day is your urgency is not my emergency. Because for me, ⁓ it's my favorite. It's so good. But in building my business, in, you know, the fact that I had three college degrees by the time I was 25, like I lived in a constant state of urgency, urgency, emergency, emergency. Like I've got to run, I got to be faster.

Chelsea Myers (1:05:50)
Yeah.

I love that!

Sarah (1:06:16)
And so at first it was really hard to slow down because I just like, what is this? I've never lived this. I've never given myself any kind of space ever. Because even leading up to starting my business, like I worked two nursing jobs. One was teaching, one was working at the bedside and I was doing full time school. So I'm used to just out running all the time. And I've had so much more time and space for just like me and my thoughts.

So at first I kind of sucked, but now I really love that I have space and flexibility and because of selling the business and being able to now exit out of that entirely, like I get to do stuff like this. But also like a lot of times middle of a day, like, you know, Meadow goes to forest school sometimes in the mornings, like I get to be home when she comes home from forest school and like we get to hang out and we get like all this in between time. And I think like that's really

one of the most important things that I could be doing because you only get so much time with your kids. And I know everybody says that. I know it's really cliche, but you really only get so much time with your kids. And I really want to enjoy her as much as possible for as long as I can because none of her life has ever been guaranteed. And we just live in this like weird spectrum and duality of like grief and joy all the time, but they're on the same spectrum.

Chelsea Myers (1:07:36)
Yeah. Yeah. And I love that so much. And I love too that you that you acknowledge the duality and the and rather than the but right like so much and so before I get to my wrap up question which is a new exercise that I'm doing with my guests for my listeners who want to learn more about the advocacy work that you're doing and about

Sarah (1:07:46)
So much and.

Chelsea Myers (1:08:03)
everything that you're doing for this community and helping Meadow and helping kids like Meadow. Where is the best place to find you? And these will all be linked in the show notes.

Sarah (1:08:13)
Yes, I am everywhere. So if you go to literally sarahmichelleboes.com, I have a whole heart mom page that talks about our story, our journey, my upcoming memoir. I'm still in the midst of working on said memoir because it's very involved. And as you can tell, I have a lot of stories and a lot of things to say. So I'm trying to condense that down. I'm also about to release my first children's book, which is really cool. It's about heart defects. I'm so excited.

Chelsea Myers (1:08:26)
you

⁓ I'm gonna need that when it comes out.

Sarah (1:08:39)
Yeah, Meadow and her four leaf clover heart. I'm very excited about it because the odds of having her defect are the same odds of finding a four leaf clover. So we found all the four leaf clovers. Yeah, there's just not enough books about heart differences and I'm like, why not? Why not? find me my website, but I'm also very heavily on Instagram.

Chelsea Myers (1:08:48)
⁓ gosh. like, it's gonna be on my bookshelf. I'm gonna be- it's gonna be- yeah, it is. But-

Mm-mm.

Sarah (1:09:04)
kind of in a reboot period right now where I'm still teasing away from my old business and still like establishing like, hey, like I am a human outside of this business, but that's about to be done here soon, which I'm very, very excited for. And then LinkedIn, I mean, you really could find me about anywhere. Like I do so many things. Like I even have an astrology podcast, cause that's just fun for me. So I'm everywhere all the time.

Chelsea Myers (1:09:26)
so cool.

my gosh. Okay, so it's all going to be linked in the show notes. Listeners, please check the show notes. I'm going to be following along. We all know that I'm obsessed with children's books. And I love I love the message behind this one. So I'm writing that down and saving it for later. so yeah, so first, I'm going to thank you for spending time with me for rolling with the madness that is my

Sarah (1:09:44)
You

yeah.

Chelsea Myers (1:09:54)
dogs this morning for whatever reason. And yeah, so this is my new little exercise that I'm doing. I used to wrap up on one of two questions, but now I'm kicking us back to back in the day before text messages and when everyone was reachable all the time, like when you could get ahold of anybody. This is back when you called and someone didn't answer, you had to leave a voicemail.

Sarah (1:10:10)
wow.

Yeah. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky, so I know this life well. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (1:10:20)
You had to. You couldn't just be like, hey, I just called you. Yes.

Right. And I mean, and I'm an elder millennial and in rural Vermont. So like, you just had to call and hope someone's parents didn't pick up. But anyway, so you don't know anything about who my next guest is. You don't know what their story is. You don't know anything about their journey, but you called Quiet Connection today and they weren't here to answer and you've got to leave them a message.

Sarah (1:10:31)
You know the life.

Chelsea Myers (1:10:50)
and you can interpret that in whatever way resonates with you, what message would you like to leave for my next guest?

Sarah (1:10:59)
the message that I tried to leave with lots of people, but also your next guest, is just this really pure message of how important it is, especially in the world that we live in today, to be transparent and authentic and vulnerable. It's really, really, really hard to do. I think I'm pretty well seasoned at this point. I'm just like, here's my life, here's my story. But...

Chelsea Myers (1:11:20)
I'm

Sarah (1:11:24)
It was so cool for me and I like, can't overstate how cool of an experience it was to start my business and really mental health be the forefront of that business and see how people's lives were impacted and touched by the fact of me just being vulnerable and showing up as my whole self and being like, hey, I have panic attacks and hey, I have this going on and like.

I broke a tooth while I was preparing for this exam because I was so insanely anxious and like all these different things. But the response I got to that was not anything in what I anticipated. Like I thought some people would be like, that's cringe. But for a lot of people, they're like, my gosh, this is the first time I've been seen in my life. Like I went through all these years of nursing school and they're always like, stuff it down, stuff it down, stuff it down. And I'm so grateful that you're just like, no, here it is.

Chelsea Myers (1:12:04)
You

Yes.

Sarah (1:12:17)
and creating that community and building that business so fast was just a sheer result of authenticity. if you're going to be the next guest, that's what I would lean into.

Chelsea Myers (1:12:28)
I it. And I love that I've never got the same answer twice. ⁓ the fun part is you're going to have to come back and listen to the episode before this to get your message. Yeah.

Sarah (1:12:32)
Hahaha

Yeah, my message. This feels

very witchy and magical and I'm in.

Chelsea Myers (1:12:42)
Yeah, see, I don't know.

It's just and we're gonna see. I guess now and in the future, I want to hear from you. I want to be like, if the if the message hit home or if it was like, that definitely wasn't my message. Like, I don't know. I'm curious. But anyway, Sarah, thank you so much for being authentically you and for sharing your story and Meadow's story and just space with me this morning. I so appreciate you.

Sarah (1:12:47)
Ahem.

Hehehehe. Hehehehe.

Yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.