Choosing Chaos: Solo Motherhood by Choice
Choosing Chaos: Solo Motherhood by Choice — the podcast for women who are done waiting for “the one” and ready to become a parent on their own damn terms. We’re talking fertility, pregnancy, the emotional chaos, and the village it takes to raise a kid.
Sometimes you cry in the bathtub. Sometimes you're crying because your toddler bit you. And sometimes, you cry because you chose all of this.
Unfiltered conversations about solo motherhood—because doing it alone doesn't mean doing it quietly.
Choosing Chaos: Solo Motherhood by Choice
Maternal Mental Health with Erika
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this special Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month conversation, we are joined by Erika Schmitt, Director of Counseling and Family Support Services at a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit, to explore the importance of reproductive mental health support across the entire journey into motherhood — from trying to conceive, through pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond.
Erika shares her perspective on expanding access to counseling services that support individuals navigating infertility, pregnancy, and postpartum experiences, and highlights the critical need for care that meets people where they are emotionally and medically throughout these stages. The conversation underscores how maternal mental health is not a single moment in time, but an ongoing journey that deserves compassion, resources, and specialized support.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Postpartum Support International: https://postpartum.net/
- Jewish Fertility Foundation (Veterans Program): https://jewishfertilityfoundation.org/veteran/
- Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts by Karen Kleiman: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Moms-Have-Scary-Thoughts/dp/1641701307
- The Postpartum Depression Workbook: Exercises for Healing https://www.amazon.com/Postpartum-Depression-Journal-Exercises-Reflection/dp/1638783284
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
New Mom Talk: A Resource for Pregnant, Expecting Moms & New Moms & Pregnancy
Mariela De Santiago- evidence-based parenting advice in bite-sized episodes—your go-to resource for new and expecting parents into the postpartum period! Get the information you need, when you need it, in short and digestible episodes.
Untamed Blossoms
Amanda & Cristi Riley
I've Had It
Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan
Give It To Me Straight
Dear Media