Mama You Belong
Welcome to 'Mama You Belong' - a podcast for moms in the thick of it. We delve into the need for belonging and connection that mothers often face alone and help you feel seen. We acknowledge the dissonance between societal expectations of motherhood and the realities of managing our mental and physical load, with science and trauma-informed support. Co-hosts of 'Mama You Belong' are Kirsten Desmarais, PT, DPT, OCS, CD(DONA) a physical therapist, birth doula, and mother of three, and Molly Hilgenberg, MSW, LICSW, a psychotherapist, singer/songwriter, and new mom.
Kirsten and Molly were both kids who collected rocks, hugged trees and grew up in different towns in Minnesota. They met only a few years ago when Kirsten became Molly's PT and then her birth doula. They bonded when they both realized they could pretty much share anything without judgment and text each other about the moon.
Through shared stories and expert insights, 'Mama You Belong' seeks to empower mothers by creating a supportive space for connection and understanding in their unique journeys. Each episode aims to provide validation, education, and some laughs. By sharing our stories and inviting expert guests in future episodes, we aspire to create a nurturing and inclusive environment for moms.
Mama You Belong
A Pearl from Pain: How Infertility Shaped One Mother's Journey (Infertility, Motherhood, and Finding Hope)
Infertility is one of the most painful and isolating experiences a mother can face. In this raw conversation, we share one mom’s journey of turning pain into purpose—and why sharing real motherhood stories matters for building community and healing.
Meet Kathleen—craniosacral therapist, licensed massage therapist, breathwork teacher, entrepreneur, founder of Smoke Perfume, and mother to 15-month-old daughter, Pearl—as she navigates a perfect storm of overwhelm. With her husband temporarily incapacitated after breaking both arms, her chronic pain intensifying since childbirth, and the demands of running two businesses, Kathleen offers a raw glimpse into the often invisible struggle of modern motherhood.
In this episode:
- infertility, egg donors, and oysters
- a homebirth transfer and birth date surprise
- modern day motherhood overwhelm and community
This conversation serves as a powerful reminder that behind every mother is a complex story of transformation. Whether you're navigating infertility, birth complications, partner illness, or chronic pain, you're not alone. Sometimes life feels held together by scotch tape and random areas of duct tape—fragile yet somehow functioning.
Reach out, find your people, and remember that vulnerability shared becomes strength multiplied.
Kirsten's Physical Therapy website
Hey, mama, you belong. We are so glad you're here. We are your hosts. Molly mental health therapist, singer and songwriter, tree hugger and a new mom like many of you.
Speaker 2:And Kirsten, physical therapist, birth doula, deep feeler, lover of trees and fellow mama. We hope you feel seen through these episodes and truly believe that you belong.
Speaker 1:Hi Molly, Hi Kirsten, how are you?
Speaker 2:You always ask me that. I know Sorry, molly's not a fast processor. That was a really poor question choice to welcome.
Speaker 1:Right now I'm okay because I'm on like five medications for this random outbreak of hives that happened this week with no known cause. Just my body decided to hate me, uh, yeah, well, I'm glad you're here because, yeah, I needed a good distraction, so yeah, good how are?
Speaker 2:you um, I had a really good dinner tonight, oh good. I'm hyper fixated right now on chicken tenders from costco, making a big salad from it. So good, to the point where one time my husband was like insisted he take a picture of it before I ate it, because that was the biggest salad he's ever seen. But it's because I need it to be big enough to have everything I want in it. So it's also a little labor intensive, but it makes it so worth it.
Speaker 1:You're like Elaine from Seinfeld, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I had this salad right before I came here and I just feel like the world is right. Yeah, yeah, it's not right, it's not it. It really helped for a short period of time.
Speaker 1:Chicken tender salad near control is that when the world feels not right, do something that's in your control. Eat a big salad.
Speaker 2:My salads just get more and more elaborate. We just clawed back funding for pbs, so I just put cherry tomatoes on it yeah, there, we just keep adding more.
Speaker 1:Miss rachel is being like you know, character assassination. Yeah, caring about children in palestine, I don't know. Okay, anyway, uh-huh, we have a very special guest today.
Speaker 2:We do, I'm really excited.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, me too I. She was actually the first person that popped in my head when we thought of starting this podcast. Really, yes, so do you want to?
Speaker 2:introduce her. Yes, I'll introduce her. We are going to be talking with Kathleen today. She is a breathwork teacher, a craniosacral therapist, body worker, entrepreneur, perfumer and founder of Smoke Perfume. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and their daughter, pearl, and is adjusting to wearing the many hats required of a multi-hyphenate business owner and new mom Multi-hyphenate. I love that. Welcome and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're Zooming in from New Orleans.
Speaker 4:I am. I am, yeah, very different than Duluth, I would imagine. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's July and we're in like winter sweatsuits right now because it's so cold out.
Speaker 4:Well, I just assumed that you'd save us on. No, it's like 50 degrees out. It's a tropical depression here yesterday.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, no, it's really cold here for no reason, but anyway, we're really excited you're here. You put your beautiful daughter, pearl down just in time to join us. I just want to share with our listeners a little bit about how we know each other. So this is Molly. So Kathleen and I met in 2018 in a very random place out in rural New Mexico at a breathwork training, and neither of us had ever known each other. There was a group of like 35 people or something, and we ended up being paired together and got to practice on each other while we were learning this breathwork technique, and I feel like I poured my whole heart and soul out to you in those like two hours while we were working together, and you just, yeah, we've been connected as friends ever since. Anything you want to add from how we met?
Speaker 4:Well, we just were so lucky in that training to find each other and then this group of three other women that we formed this, this kinship with. I think you were roommates with them, but I, like all of you, sweetly adopted me. Yes, we had to um. Yeah, it was very, you know it was. It was very special and very cool that we've maintained our friendship um, throughout, like ever since.
Speaker 1:You know, even with things shifting in our lives so much, and then now being moms at the same time is very cool yes, very yeah, um, the most magical part of this is that we, you know, we continued our friendship and really diving into spirituality and breath work and what that meant to us, and supporting each other in that sweet little group of five women. And then we kind of branched off, realizing we were both really wanting to become mothers and went through this incredibly difficult journey with infertility. And to have you there every day I mean just whenever to vent to and to be feel seen, is a gift. I will never like be able to fully communicate like how that had helped me and continues to help me to have you there as a friend, even though we haven't seen each other in person since 2018. It's just like a wild modern friendship.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's so wild. And then, yeah, and then the ultimate magical part, which I don't even know we're just like burying the lead. But um, you know, we just had this really impossible fertility journey for both of us and uh, then we ended up pregnant at the same time, but Molly was due what like three weeks later than me um, yeah, two weeks later but we ended up having our babies on the same day, within 20 minutes, of course, they are born and I like never forget it.
Speaker 4:And Molly texted me that her water had broken on the morning of April 10th. Yeah that. And then at 3 pm on April 10th, my water broke and literally like, first I burst into tears and then the very next, like, the first thought I had was Molly and I are gonna have our babies on the same day, because I knew it would be the next day. And then, from 11, they were born within 20 minutes of each other, which is unbelievable, and I can't wait for August and Pearl to meet each other.
Speaker 4:I know a solar explosion when those two it will be.
Speaker 2:They're like the exact same zodiac same sun, moon and rising yeah oh, I know it is going to be a solar explosion, yeah, yeah, that like you can't, that's like something out of a book it is, you know, like I. How can you ever like manufacture that you know?
Speaker 1:I remember actually being kind of nervous to tell you my water broke because you were like two weeks past your due date by that point and so miserable and ready for this baby to come, and I was like damn it, my water broke before hers and then it happened.
Speaker 4:I'm jealous. I started crying. I was talking to my husband and I was like Molly's water broke. I'm never going to have my baby.
Speaker 1:I felt so bad I was like to my husband and I was like Molly's water broke. I'm never going to have my baby. I felt so bad. I was like, should I even?
Speaker 4:tell her no, it would be beautiful. I was also very excited and happy for you, and we were both very miserable at that point, so miserable.
Speaker 1:Just like cheering each other on so thanks for being here, kathleen.
Speaker 4:There's been some stuff happening um, lately. I think, like, like on a deep level, exhausted, like even prioritizing sleep, even if I get a good night's sleep, but there's no, like I don't feel very refreshed, or or um, it's just been intense. So three weeks ago, my husband we were on a family bike ride and my husband had a bike accident and broke both of his arms. He's fine, thank God. I want to preface this by saying like he's recovering very well. There were very minor breaks, he didn't have to be in hard casts, but it really threw our dynamic and our life into total chaos and like, immediately, you know he has no use of his arms and so he's recovering. Like I said, he's able to do more and more each day, like he's able to drive now, for example, but in terms of helping with the baby, being able to lift her up or do things with her, or even like house tasks, it's he wasn't able to do anything for the first two weeks, so it's just been really chaotic. We had to like pull in our community, which was amazing um, but you really realize like how tenuous uh, the support is for a nuclear family um, in America, maybe other places. But you know, I think it it really showed me how much of a team we were and how much of the physical labor of the, of running the home he was doing and with you know, cleanup and dishes and food prep and taking trash out and all of these things, because you know, the burden of mothering does fall more on me, like even on a good day, and Pearl is very much in a mom phase, like very clingy, and you know she's a little over 15 months old, so it's just that age. So it's just that age. So it's been a lot. And then I have these two businesses and they're a lot.
Speaker 4:My body work practice is wonderful and rewarding and busy and it's very intense work, um, and then on top of that I live with chronic pain and that's been really activated since having my baby and I'm dealing with just very strange and difficult symptoms and trying to get answers. Like I've had an MRI this morning at 8 am, after having insomnia last night, after waking up at 6 with the baby and doing the whole morning routine and then going to see clients, like it's just like, oh, it's a lot, um, so you know, it feels like I'm trying to give myself grace, because when I'm really sitting with it all, I'm aware that I have way too much on my plate and I don't really know how, how to take things off or what what it looks like to remove things from my plate. Um, but yeah, it's, it's just a wild ride, you know to, to like, having the baby has complicated all of this so much. You know, if we didn't have the baby and he had this arm injury, these arm injuries, it would be terrible, but not nearly what it is at this moment.
Speaker 4:So it's been, it's been a bit difficult over here for the past three weeks, and summer in New Orleans is difficult, like summer is our winter, as we say. So, um, it's, it's a difficult season here, you know, yeah, so I don't know what, like when things will shift, but I mean he is getting better and that is very good, but it's just been. It's been a lot, think lately I'm I'm trying to be aware that I need to try to take things off my plate where I can.
Speaker 3:You know, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:It sounds so hard to be able to figure out how to do that when they're your two businesses on top of like things you can't choose not to do like manage your chronic pain and health and take care of your daughter, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think there's a part of me that just always works really hard and then that narrative has been coming up and almost like in a reactive way, like why do I have to always work so hard? You know, um, and it is, it is it's familiar to be like working myself to the bone, but it's not healthy and I don't really know. And I don't really know yeah, I don't really know how to opt out, like I don't want to sacrifice my businesses, like I don't. You know, I've thought about like, oh, do I just try to take more time off? But that just feels difficult. I'm hoping for some answers with this pain stuff. If I could take that off my plate, if I could get some support around, that it would help, because feeling so awful in my body and then not having the outlet of being able to work out or things like that, doesn't help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for talking about your chronic pain. I was hoping you'd be okay with that because I think that's gonna hopefully reach a lot of mamas out there who are suffering as well, to feel seen and that they're not alone this um reminds me of like many conversations molly and I have had about, like just sometimes, weeks or seasons that we find ourselves in and um.
Speaker 2:One time we were talking and it was sort of like realizing that a lot of like life feels like it's held together by like scotch tape and that if like one little piece is undone or just like you just realize kind of how insecure so much of this stuff is but how important it all is, like there isn't room for much to give anywhere. But it is giving and it's like you sort of reinforce it with more scotch tape and then some random areas of duct tape, like maybe your community that showed up for you or certain areas that really were super solid in that moment. But ultimately it's like we're still fashioning things together with tape. But it's all really important stuff and I just wish we had something more solid to hold it all together. But I don't know what that looks like yeah, 100%.
Speaker 4:I mean everything I have going on is they're all important and valuable and things that you can't just like. All the plates that are spinning can't be dropped, you know, but yeah it, yeah, it is very. It's definitely like been like the proverbial straw the past few weeks, where it's like I really I thought I was operating in a capacity that I could handle all these things and then just eliminating, like the 100% able-bodied support of my partner has been, yeah, has really shown me how, um, beyond my capacity, I'm operating yeah, and pearl's big.
Speaker 1:Now she's heavy and she wants you to hold her heavy to hold her.
Speaker 4:She's so active, like climbs, everything is running. A true aries queen, an athlete, a true like athletic muscly baby, oh, full-on toddler yeah, full-on toddler for sure well, I'm curious to hear more about her and your journey to meet her.
Speaker 2:Are you open to sharing a bit about your pregnancy journey, becoming pregnant, how you ultimately got to meet?
Speaker 4:Sure, yeah, I mean, we, we let's see. We started trying in 2020, wait 2021. And I just didn't think we would have any problem. You know, I just I don't think you're ever prepared for infertility and it was really out of left field and really difficult to find myself in a situation where we couldn't conceive and we tried everything, you know, went just, were on our own for a few months and then sought medical help and then had a really horrible experience at the clinic here and um ended up going out of state to do IVF and that didn't work. We did two rounds and then um just were devastated.
Speaker 4:Mean, I think there's this narrative within infertility of like you're just one retrieval away from it working. Everything's this magic bullet. I mean it's this idea of like you just need the right supplement or to go on vacation or to you know you can manifest your spirit baby. And it was just really difficult to be sifting with all of those feelings and thoughts and the reality of it just becoming more difficult on my mental health and my physical body. But we ended up sort of pausing in 2023, I think, and finding like we went to the other clinic here and we're working with them and at the end of the day, our best option was to work with an egg donor and use donor egg IVF, and so we could do an entire podcast episode on that journey and process, and there was a lot of beautiful, serendipitous things that happened once we made that decision.
Speaker 4:It was the hardest decision of my life, you know, um, but I am very glad we made the decision and then we um, conceived in July of 2023. Time is so weird, yeah, going back and looking at it all, but, um, yeah, and so once we, once we, once we made that decision, it all went incredibly smoothly, which is also a privilege. I know people where even making that decision does not guarantee that they'll meet a baby or, you know, get them out of the nightmare of trying to conceive and struggling with infertility. So it was amazing that it all worked out. And then now we have our precious baby, who is just the sweetest, most beautiful, joyful angel, and I'm obsessed with her.
Speaker 1:Can you tell our listeners how you named her Pearl?
Speaker 4:It's so beautiful hard, and for me there was. I think the hardest part about infertility is that you have to continue to move forward on this path while processing like the deepest grief I had ever felt in my entire life and at the same time, like there's a clock and you you're up against the clock and there's no time to just give in to the big feelings and the grief. And so that was really difficult about that chapter in my life was just being in such deep grief and making these hard decisions and moving forward and being pregnant and dealing with being pregnant on top of everything. But I just had a lot of emotion and fear and sadness. It's a big decision to go the route we went and to give up this genetic connection or give up on the idea of using my own genetic material to make our baby. But anyway, I had a lot of insomnia and at like five in the morning I would find myself often on the couch journaling or just feeling my feelings or crying or saying the rosary.
Speaker 4:And, yeah, one morning I was just journaling and processing it all and I kind of had this moment of reflecting on an oyster and a pearl and how, uh, you know, an oyster does not make a pearl out of its own body.
Speaker 4:Like a pearl is, they put something in an oyster a piece of grit, a piece of sand, and it's the friction, it's the relationship of the living oyster to that grit that creates this beautiful furrow, and so that felt really comforting to me to think of, like she wouldn't exist without my body and I wouldn't you know like. It just felt like this really comforting, healing, emotional thing to sit with. And so I started thinking like well, maybe we'll name her Pearl. And then I looked at names that mean Pearl, but I really just liked the name Pearl itself. So, yeah, and it felt very right, I kind of always liked I always liked those stories of pregnancy, of people getting the name from some deep inner knowing, and I kind of always knew that would happen for me. But I so, even though I was thinking of names that had running lists and my partner and I were talking about names, it was really special to have that like cosmic moment and she, it really suits her and she it really suits her like that mean really suits her well.
Speaker 1:So um, yeah, it's just such an incredibly beautiful path you've been on beautiful and so hard, and I am holding you with so much gratitude right now for sharing some of those really tender parts of what you went through. And I just I am so grateful you named that grief, because I have barely been able to fully like process how to talk about it the grief of like being up against the clock, finally being pregnant and also still being like what did I just do with my life these last three years? And all of that like rolled into it. And yeah, I, I just completely forgot that you were like flying out of state as well to go to IVF on top of every like. You are an amazing human.
Speaker 4:Total nightmare. I'm just so grateful that I'm on this spot. Yes, it's traumatic and a lot of people, a lot of couples, deal with it. What is it? It's one in six or one in four couples. I feel like I see both, both numbers, but that's an insanely huge amount of um of people who face infertility. Yes, yeah, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's truly horrendous. It is yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So thanks for talking about it well. So pearls here, beautiful pearl with her beautiful.
Speaker 2:Well, so Pearl's here, beautiful Pearl with her beautiful name. And then what I would I'm like very much a sucker for, like the postpartum story and like this timeframe that feels very formative for so many moms.
Speaker 4:Do you have anything you want to share about what that was like for you? Yeah, I was very committed to the first 40 days and keeping ourselves in a bubble as best as we could. We do have an amazing community here and our meal train was really beautiful and really sweet. We had a lot of people coming to us and bringing us food and visiting, so it didn't ever feel lonely in any way. Um, because we just had people coming.
Speaker 4:We kind of joke that like we had our baby on a Friday or we got home. We got home on a Friday night and then the weekend was like bananas, like with family and visitors and stuff. So that was kind of too much, but a strong community. But yeah, no, my yeah. But it was really the early postpartum days I feel like were very magical, you know. Just a lot of skin to skin and being at home and resting. I mean, I wasn't so stripped about what did they say? Like two weeks where you're just lying in bed. I wasn't so stripped about that, but I was lounging hard couch porch bed. It was really like magical and healing and very sweet, with my husband and the three of us just getting to know each other.
Speaker 4:Um, you know, I think I think the hardest parts about postpartum it's just been such a huge nervous system shift, like there's that phrase that once you have a child your heart is outside of your body.
Speaker 4:I personally feel like for me it's less my heart and it's more my nervous system is outside of my body and that adjustment that begins once, like in postpartum, of just adjusting to the disrupted challenge and then the physical pain that really started for me in postpartum.
Speaker 4:I had a pretty good pregnancy and prior to pregnancy I have lived with chronic pain my entire adult life, but it was pretty manageable before pregnancy and and um, and pregnancy I felt really good, and so it's really just in postpartum that I've had these pretty debilitating symptoms. I couldn't even tell you when they started, though I don't. I don't feel like it really started in the first 40 days, other than the normal pain of birth and stitches and all of and soreness, but you know just a lot of neck stuff from nursing and then these other stranger symptoms. So, yeah, I think I do think fondly on the early postpartum days where it was just I stayed home for five months with her and you know it was just contact naps and I binge watched like Top Chef which the most low stress tv show I could find and just like we just slept up and we all we just slept and nursed and ate, and it was really, really sweet. You know, I really loved those days.
Speaker 1:It sounds like full circle, like where you're at now. Your community has really been there for you through all of this, with meals and showing up when you ask for help. That's wonderful, because I think one thing we've really navigated a lot together as friends and supporting each other was working through how expectations have played such a role in matrescence, like just expectations that were there, that we didn't know were there until things didn't happen. And I like the way we expected right and um. You don't have to share your whole birth story or anything. You that you know, whatever you feel comfortable with talking through Kathleen, but like what was, like what came up for you around expectations, especially coming into birth and then into postpartum, and how did that change when it actually happened?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean delusional in my pregnancy. In a way that was really self-protecting. You know, I'm like now, since having the baby I'm I'm like shocked at the level of like I'm just going to have this baby at home, it's going to be great, and now I feel like there's I'm so aware of the risk and reality of of undertaking pregnancy and birth. I mean it's, it's a miracle, it goes smoothly for anyone but it it was something that I had this sort of self-protecting idea around and then, um, you know, launched another. Another thing we could have an entire episode devoted to would be the birth story, but the long and short of it is um, let's see, I was 40 weeks and five days and, um, my, when my water broke, which is how my labor started, um, there was new conium in the in the water when it broke, and so it immediately sort of kicked off when it broke, and so it immediately sort of kicked off some fear in my body and some like some worry that maybe the home birth wouldn't happen and or maybe the home birth wasn't even a good idea.
Speaker 4:I mean, we had a wonderful midwife and she was very assuring and talked us through and, um, anyway, so we proceeded, but we ended up laboring at home all night and then at like six in the morning my uh, I was dilated to nine centimeters. And then she checked me again at 9 am and I was I had stalled, so there was no change. I wasn't dilating to 10 and the baby seemed stuck. And so we made she made the decision to go to the hospital and do the Pitocin drip and at that point I had experienced just the most debilitating back labor and and I was just really exhausted, so the idea of going to the hospital was also so I could get an epidural at that point. And then we did the transfer to the hospital and ended up delivering at the hospital Was that by ambulance Kathleen, no, oh no.
Speaker 4:By Ben drove.
Speaker 1:You're nine centimeters dilated in a car.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh, my God, yeah, and these streets in New Orleans are very bumpy. I was in the back and I had like like the most, like the back labor. It was horrible. The only thing that got me through was we had a Theragun and every contraction which at that point they were like nonstop. I would just wail on my low back or our doula would do that for me at home. But when we decided to transfer, the midwife took her car, the doula took her car and we took our car and, yeah, I was in the back seat, kneeling, facing the rear windshield with the share gun and Ben's just driving. I mean, I remember looking out the window and it's like it's rush hour. You know, I'm like looking at cars, like going to work, it's a Friday or whatever day, it's like a.
Speaker 4:Thursday yeah and then we get to the hospital and it's like 9 am at our busy local hospital, so people are just going to normal doctor appointments. And I mean, when it when it happened like we didn't even have a hospital bag packed, I was just naked in the house I immediately was like, okay, I'll put these sweatpants on and this mismatched short on and I was just telling them what to throw in a bag and then you just got out of there and um, and then, yeah, it was like out of a movie. I had to walk an incredibly long way from the parking area to the labor and delivery triage and stopping to lean against the wall with every contraction. I had to go through the security check-in and give them my driver's license. Oh my God, it was truly insane. It was unhinged.
Speaker 1:That's totally unhinged. Yeah, it was unhinged, it was that's totally unhinged.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was unhinged there's no wheelchair.
Speaker 4:There's no like like, let's get you where you're going, like it was just my doula and beth like holding me up and walking me to the, like the delivery triage. But they were really kind. I was you know, louis Louisiana doesn't have uh, they're not very kind to midwives and home birth and I had this fear that they were just gonna ridicule me or oh, you're coming in with this failed home birth. But they were all very sweet and were like, wow, yeah, you're nine centimeters dilated. And uh, you've been in labor since 3 pm and it's, you know, 10 am the next day. Like, yeah, we're going to get you an epidural, we're going to get you in there.
Speaker 4:So it was positive. I mean, in some ways I feel like I had the best of both worlds, like a positive home labor experience and a positive hospital birth experience. And, of course, there's the loss of not having that dreamy home birth um, not, you know, not ever being able to experience that, or you know, so there's. There was definitely a lot of grief and emotion and loss in the first few days. I feel like, like I, now that we're talking about it, I remember processing very intensely, like the days and weeks after the birth and just what went wrong and could I have done things differently? And you know, did I? Could I have lunged more? But you know it just went away and it was good that we were in the hospital because towards the end, I mean, it still was a home birth situation.
Speaker 4:It would have been like the tones were too low for a safe home birth at that point and the hospital, like at that point the doctors were saying that if we don't get her out soon, they'd have to vacuum her out and then when she finally was born, she had like a lot, she had swallowed a lot of meconium and a lot of fluid and so they had to pump her lungs and she almost went to the NICU. So these are things where if we had been at home and had to transfer to the hospital after birth, that would have just been really, really hard and I'm so grateful that we didn't have to do that. Would have just been really, really hard and I'm so grateful that we didn't have to do that and none of it was an emergency because we were in the hospital and they have the tools and, you know, capability to deal with the help she needed, because she was a little distressed when she came out.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. I really want to hear how Kirsten's inner doula is reacting to your birth story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, I mean, I think I I hear a lot of this, like what you're saying about like, um, kind of almost holding a very specific vision for your birth, almost protectively feeling like you can't even really consider any other option when you're preparing, and that there's so many reasons why people prepare for birth in a certain way and, um, that you can do all of the things and birth goes the way it goes, and that there, that there's so much value in like knowing that, realizing that we can't prepare for one outcome because we don't know what that is going to be, and it's. It's just like there's so much processing because of that, even in births that you know are like quote, uneventful, or that people are like, wow, like you did so great. It's this reconciling of expectations and like everybody can be okay and people can still be like processing their birth for like a long time, and that can be okay, and people can still be like processing their birth for like a long time, and that can be shocking, like why am I? You know, like every everybody's healthy, I should be happy, and maybe they are happy, but they're just hung up on something like birth goes the way it goes. You can't really fully mentally prepare for that, because you've never been there and even if you have, I think it's still so shocking sometimes.
Speaker 2:And then you're just reconciling expectations sometimes that you didn't know you had until after, and then it's like what do I do with this? Because I'm also caring for myself and I'm caring for a new baby and I didn't know I was going to need to process and who do I do that with and what does it look like, and yeah. So I think sometimes I struggle as a doula. How do I gently support someone and meet them where they're at and do it in a way that like honors what I know about birth? I don't want to scare the pants off people and I don't want to use fear as a motivator for anything, but I also want to be real with them. And how do I do that when this is only the third time I'm meeting with a family? This is only the third time I'm meeting with a family.
Speaker 1:It's just that that is something that I feel sometimes like I'm on like a slack line above the Grand Canyon and trying to like figure out sometimes when I can kind of maybe tell that there are things people aren't considering.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember you gently like recommending podcasts to listen to different birth stories as a way to prepare, and I can't remember if you I think you did specifically say and listen to one about a C-section and I like went through all of the ones and was like nope, I'm not going to listen to the C-section one. And of course I had to have an unplanned C-section. And I look back on that time and like I love how you are I really appreciate, kathleen, how you're like talking about it in an honoring way of that you were being overprotective, like you know, slash delusional, protective, like you know, slash delusional, but like it like gently bringing it back to like just this was you were trying to protect your sacred state of being pregnant and preparing yourself and I can totally relate to that. Like I was just trying so hard to be protective, of hoping for the best outcome and being positive that it was going to all work out. So I don't know if there is any right way to fully prepare people.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And then the day two I mean you, I mean immediately, like immediately, even when my water broke and there's neoponium immediately, the priority is what is the safest thing for the baby? You know, I, I mean, there was even in that moment, I think that was there was fear, but it was. It was like a healthy fear too, of is this really the best thing for the baby? You know, so it is, it is. Also, I wanted this beautiful home birth experience. However, like not at the expense of the well-being of the baby or myself.
Speaker 4:So I think that that felt pretty clear with all of the decisions. Like even our midwife was so gentle with delivering the news about needing to transfer and, and you know, because the water breaks like at least in Louisiana they need the baby out in 24 hours and you know. So I didn't have the luxury of just letting my labor stall and resting and then it kicking back up later that night. Um, but I think that there was like an inner knowing of I really have given this my all, like I don't, there's no position I could get into at home that's going to shift the baby or allow the labor to hit back up. So yeah, I think it.
Speaker 4:I mean it's just, it is such a big thing Like we don't have a point of reference if we've never had a baby, especially if you've never had a baby. Maybe it's easier when you have a second or third or more child, but being your first, it is like I still think about my labor and and maybe partly because I had the epidural when it was, when I was pushing, so I don't really I didn't really like feel her being born, so I just but I'm constantly thinking about it, like sometimes I'll be lying down to go to sleep and I'm just like in my birth again. Um, or some photos of birth that my doula took that I look at a lot and yeah, it's, it is a wild. I mean, it's just. I mean I don't know what other. There's nothing we can compare it to. You know, there's no point of reference for birthing a child that then becomes that you just are so intimately connected with from the moment they take their first breath.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's wild why don't you do the last one, just for the sake of time?
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:When you think about maybe other moms, whether you know them or not, and a little bit of like. We all know we don't love unsolicited advice, so it's not that you're necessarily giving them advice, but if, like, if you could give them like a message from where you're at in motherhood is there anything you want other moms to know?
Speaker 4:I mean, I think I mean the first things that come to mind are community and support, but they also come to mind because I don't, I'm not, I don't feel supported enough. You know, like I and that's something I remember talking about in therapy a lot when I was pregnant was worries about support. And what does support look like and what does support mean? And um, or like. I have a friend who's pregnant now and she was asking me, like, what would you do differently in your postpartum period? And and I think one thing I told her was I wish I had had more support that at the time felt indulgent, like I wish I had had a massage, you know, regularly in that period. I wish I had taken the time to leave my baby or find someone who could come to the house.
Speaker 4:Or body work support. I mean, I'm a body worker and I'm experiencing a lot of discomfort in my body. So I think I maybe that's just where I'm at, because I I still am not getting enough support physically. Um, so I think just it's something I'm working on and I think is important for moms especially is to really sit with what support looks like for you and what it feels like. You know, I mean, not everyone has family where they live. If you have family and they're reliable, can you really ask? Can you really give them, you know, outsource things to them and really call them in? Is there a way to budget for body work or self-care?
Speaker 4:You know, I think these are all the things like before having the baby, I was always very like righteous about, oh, I'm going to just put like, I'm not going to put myself last and I'm going to focus on self-care and I'm going to be at the gym and I'm going to do this, this and that, and then that has all gone out the window, like that's easier said than done and I don't feel I don't do a very good job.
Speaker 4:I think that it's partly that nervous system thing of I'm just so focused on Pearl's needs and it just becomes too easy to not focus on my needs. Focus on my needs and there was only so many hours in the day, and so I think something I'm working on more is like always is is just what does support actually look like as a nuclear family, as now, a mom with a toddler and not an infant, like it's a totally different ballgame now, even in these past three weeks, like realizing that I need more support because of my family situation, my husband's injuries, like anyways. So I think support is big one. Or just mom friends you can vent to, people you can honestly vent to about how difficult it is, because a lot of my friends haven't had kids and it is not, as you know.
Speaker 1:you need to find the people who you can be safe venting with yeah and my friends without kids are wonderful too, and they're a different kind of support yeah, yeah, I was hoping it would just come across through our whole conversation of just how much intertwined we've been as friends through this, of being able to vent to each other.
Speaker 1:We've rarely offered a solution to one another in our friendship it has been mostly just venting and supporting, and I just think back to so many dark points when you were there for me and vice versa, of just like having that outlet and it makes it actually makes me want to cry, just thinking about all the moms out there who don't have that you know, and so just to like you know how to help that mom find the connection hopefully you know, feeling maybe to talk to someone that they don't maybe know that well but their babies are the same age, because that can be really incredible just to be going through the stages at the same time and just having that space that's really safe and known, because I don't know what I would do without you likewise and I think, another piggyback, briefly, I know we're running out of time, but you know it's it's lonely being a mom like, oh, very lonely and um, and so I think it's just extra important.
Speaker 4:you know, there is just this burden that falls on moms primarily. And yeah, I agree, I mean likewise. I know I can text you any hour of the day pretty much, and even if you don't write back right away, you will.
Speaker 1:Now that August is ripping my phone out of my hands all the time. I don't know, we'll see, just start hiding. Well, thank you, kathleen. So much for your time and just really opening up and being so amazingly honest. I really hope this is helpful for people listening yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:It's fun to share yeah we'll be sure to put where people can find more about you and the different businesses you own in the show notes yeah, I wear your perfume every day, just just a little bit, so I can feel like I'm in my feminine power.
Speaker 1:It's the best perfume in the entire world. I don't even know how you do it, your magical being. Thank you All right.
Speaker 4:Thanks, kathleen, thanks y y'all have a good evening thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:We hope you feel seen. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with other mamas. Subscribing to our podcast and leaving us a review is one of the best ways for other people to find us. So if you enjoy what you are hearing or if it resonates with you, please subscribe and leave us a review. It would mean a lot. You can find me, kirsten, at empowerorthoandpelvichealthcom, or on Instagram at kirstendemareadpt.
Speaker 1:And you can find me, molly, through my music at Sister Viri, on Bandcamp or other streaming platforms or through my clinical practice at Insight Counseling in Duluth, minnesota. You can follow us or send us a DM on Instagram at Mama you Belong, or email us if you have questions, ideas or just want to connect at mamayoubelong at gmailcom. We will see you next time.
Speaker 3:Mama you belong, mama, you are seen. We are connected like the mother trees. Mama, you belong. Mama, you are seen. Strong as the mountain and gentle as the stream, flowing underneath and throughout the stories of our lives. Centering each other so families can thrive. Centering each other so families can thrive. Centering each other so families can thrive.