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Birth Journeys: Birth Stories and Birth Education for Moms & Pregnant Individuals
Are you looking for a podcast to help you feel confident in your birth experience?
Then The Birth Journeys Podcast® is for you! We share powerful and transformative birth stories that illuminate the realities of childbirth. Hosted by a labor nurse and prenatal coach who specializes in transformational coaching techniques, this podcast goes beyond traditional birth narratives to foster healing, build trust, and create transparency between birthing individuals and healthcare providers.
In each episode, we dive into essential topics like birth preparation, debunking common misconceptions, understanding hospital procedures, and promoting autonomy in the birthing process. We also bring you the wisdom and insights of experienced birth workers and medical professionals.
This is a safe and inclusive space where every birth story is valued, honored, and deserves to be heard. Join us in exploring the diverse and unique experiences of birth givers, and discover how transformational coaching can empower your own birth journey.
Contact Kelly Hof at: birthjourneysRN@gmail.com
Birth Journeys: Birth Stories and Birth Education for Moms & Pregnant Individuals
The Birth of Milk in Motion: One Mother's Journey to Help Others with Laci Tang, IBCLC
When Laci Tang experienced painful breastfeeding with her first child, she had no idea it would launch her into a career transforming how mothers receive lactation support. Her journey from anxious first-time mom to innovative IBCLC offers a much-needed blueprint for better postpartum care.
Birthing at a midwifery center opened Laci’s eyes to a different kind of care—one where she was listened to, believed, and supported in finding real solutions. After navigating tongue ties, low supply, mastitis, and then oversupply with her second baby, she realized how vital individualized support is for breastfeeding success.
What makes her practice, Milk in Motion, stand out isn’t just her expertise—it’s her commitment to personalized care. “There has never been a single dyad, a mom and baby team, that has been exactly like the one before,” she says. Her innovative “pump bar” lets moms test different breast pumps before investing, solving a common frustration many face.
Laci also speaks openly about her own postpartum anxiety—from intrusive thoughts to fears about her baby’s safety—reminding moms they’re not alone. Her story shows that mental health and feeding support go hand in hand.
Whether you’re expecting or currently struggling, Laci’s story is proof that the right support can shift your journey from overwhelm to empowerment.
Connect with Laci: https://www.milkinmotion.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milkinmotion.co/
Join the Bump & Beyond Online Community for moms & moms-to-be!
Coaching offer
Kelly Hof: Labor Nurse + Birth Coach
Basically, I'm your birth bestie! With me as your coach, you will tell fear to take a hike!
Basically, I'm your birth bestie! With me as your coach, you will tell fear to take a hike!
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Connect with Kelly Hof!
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Medical Disclaimer:
This podcast is intended as a safe space for women to share their birth experiences. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Each woman’s medical course of action is individual and may not appropriately transfer to another similar situation. Please speak to your medical provider before making any medical decisions. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that evidence based practice evolves as our knowledge of science improves. To the best of my ability I will attempt to present the most current ACOG and AWHONN recommendations at the time the podcast is recorded, but that may not necessarily reflect the best practices at the time the podcast is heard. Additionally, guests sharing their stories have the right to autonomy in their medical decisions, and may share their choice to go against current practice recommendations. I intend to hold space for people to share their decisions. I will attempt to share the current recommendations so that my audience is informed, but it is up to each individual to choose what is best for them.
Hello, today I have with me Lacey Tang. Lacey has been working with infants and supporting new families since 2015. She began her career as a certified postpartum doula and certified baby-wearing educator. She quickly discovered that a large portion of her time spent with families was on breastfeeding support. This led her to pursue her certification as an international board-certified lactation consultant and her bachelor's of science in child maternal. This led her to pursue her certification as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and her Bachelor's of Science in Child Maternal Health. She's originally from Southern California and, yes, the winters here are difficult for her. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, exploring antique stores and spending time with her family. Some of the challenges Lacey faced when feeding her own children were low milk supply, painful latch tongue, lip tie, mastitis, thrush pumping and returning to work, oversupply with her second child, tandem feeding and postpartum depression and anxiety. Lacey, welcome and thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't heard your birth stories yet, but I have seen some of your kids drawings. They're super cute. Yes.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yes, I have a budding artist, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited to hear how your career has morphed into milk in Motion and all of the things that you offer moms. I love your office. For those of you that don't know, lacey Lacey has this office where you can go in and try on different pumps and flanges and try to get fitted for the pump that works best for you. And I just think that's so amazing because I felt like when I was breastfeeding I had to just like order random things on Amazon and hope that they hooked up to my pump. So when I saw your office I was like, wow, this is breastfeeding heaven. So I really love it. But I'm excited to see how your journey turned into Milk in Motion and everything you're doing today with New Moms.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it did it's. Certainly this is not where I saw my career or life going, but I'm so grateful I'm here and my children brought me to this place, because I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So when was your first child born, and was it everything you expected? And tell us the juicy details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my oldest. I have two boys. My oldest is nine but he is about to be 10 in the end of March. So I was and I'm about to be 40.
Speaker 2:So I was 30 when I had my first kiddo, which actually, if funny enough, where I'm from in Southern California, I grew up in a small town north of LA, about as far north as you could be and still be considered Southern California. I grew up in a small town north of LA, about as far north as you could be and still be considered Southern California, but in my area, 30 was considered very old to have your first baby. Most of my friends and most of my high school classmates had children much earlier than that and, of course, when I moved to the East Coast, that 30 is relatively young. Especially, I'm supporting a lot of first-time parents still in their 40s and stuff and nobody thinks anything of it. So it was a big change.
Speaker 2:But I was 30 when I had my first. I was in a completely different line of work and I decided to stay home and, yeah, I just kind of fell in love with a birth world. I gave birth for the first time with a midwife at a birth center not connected to a hospital, and that whole 10 months of my pregnancy just completely changed my outlook being at the birth center, surrounded by like-minded women, midwives, doulas it was amazing. So that's kind of how it got started. So how?
Speaker 1:did you find the birth center and what was that experience for you? Because I don't know that. I didn't even know what a birth center was when I was having my first.
Speaker 2:So I am a fairly anxious person and I originally, back in my 20s and 30s, I called myself in a very loving way, I called myself type A. As I've gotten older I realized that this was more based on how anxious I was and if I felt like out of control. I tried to do a lot of things, mostly research and education, to feel like I had a little bit more control of things, to ease my own anxieties. So, naturally, when I became pregnant and knew nothing, that made me feel very out of control. So of course I turned to Dr Google and started researching all the things and essentially I don't know how else to explain it other than I felt like this big ball of yarn and as soon as I started pulling on one thread, everything just kind of unraveled in front of me.
Speaker 2:It was originally when I got pregnant. I was with a traditional OBGYN a large practice here and they were very kind. They answered the questions that I had every time we went in, but I was with them all of like five minutes at each appointment and I left each appointment feeling just it didn't feel right for me, it wasn't, they weren't a great fit, and that's what led to the just Googling and what else and what are my other options? And midwife kept coming up for someone who would spend more time. That's what I wanted. I wanted more time, I wanted more connection, I wanted to know the person that was going to be at my birth with me and there was just no way this big practice was going to be able to fill that need for myself.
Speaker 2:So I started researching midwives and then of course, that led to just like random Googling midwives in Northern Virginia and different ones came up. I scheduled appointments with all of them and my husband came home and I was like, guess what we're doing? Okay, you know. Thankfully he is a pretty mellow guy who goes along with most things he does. Funnily enough, he didn't say it to me then. But now when he tells the story about the midwife he's like yeah, when you first brought up midwife, I imagined like an old gray haired woman with like chicken bones and like shaking rattles and stuff and he was a little concerned. But that's funny.
Speaker 2:But we scheduled an appointment at every birth center with a handful of midwives in the area and just started going to their spaces meeting them. They all of course, have like some open houses for prospective clients and stuff. So it was easy to do and they were all lovely. I ended up going with the birth center, with premier birth center. We lived in Alexandria at the time and it wasn't too far for us and the vibe I got and the people there I just really connected. And almost from that first open house, that initial visit, my mind was just kind of made up Again. You know I didn't tell my husband that, but he also. He was like oh yeah, this is great. We came home and we talked about it and it was fairly early into my first pregnancy about a little earlier than halfway through that we ended up switching.
Speaker 1:I just feel like the way that you described anxiety and type A is so relatable and I feel like typical of what I see. A lot like I've, and that's how I felt right. The only reason I felt comfortable was because I've worked at hospitals, so I kind of felt like I knew what to expect. But still I was kind of floored by my first delivery.
Speaker 1:But I feel like that's the same. I think that's why I love Milk in Motion so much, because I walk in and that anxiety is solved. It's like you really did all the research and categorized everything and made it make sense. When I feel like moms are just out there trying Everybody's trying to reinvent the wheel for themselves. There's so much information out there and not really a lot of people to guide you through it, and so I think what's missing is people to guide you through it, and I think it's just amazing to hear people like you and I feel like you know that's why I started doing.
Speaker 1:What I'm doing is because I needed somebody to guide me through, and I'm trying to provide that service. For somebody like me, it's almost like if I could go back and fix things for my past self. This is what I would be doing right. So I feel like it's just so cool to see moms that are filling that role.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you talk to so many of us in this industry, I think all of us are healing a little bit little pieces of our experiences, right. We kind of went like, oh my gosh, if this is happening to me, it's happening to everybody, and how can we fix this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's so amazing. So your first birth you said you weren't very far along in the pregnancy when you decided to go with the midwifery practice.
Speaker 2:How did that?
Speaker 1:change for you. How did your appointments go Like? How was your pregnancy overall?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So pregnancy overall for me was lovely. I always feel a little guilt about saying this because I know that's not the experience for, but I genuinely loved it. I loved being pregnant. I loved feeling my baby's move inside me. I've never felt so like lovely. My hair was like thick and gorgeous and I was like, yes. So the pregnancy itself, growing the baby, was some of my favorite part. The birth was more difficult, but the pregnancy, the 10 months, the learning, all of the things I genuinely enjoyed it. I didn't have a lot of difficulties. So I think of course that's why I feel the way I do, kind of standard run of the mill. I was a little nauseous in the first trimester, felt great in the second, tired in my third, but other than that, overall my pregnancies were very smooth. I think that's something to say.
Speaker 2:The midwife too. If anyone who is a little unsure about going with a midwife or feels a little hesitant, my midwife said something to me that stuck in my brain and my husband's too, because he still talks about it as well, and she said if you're feeling anxiety or unsure about birthing and out of the hospital space, unsure about birthing and out of the hospital space, she goes. I want you to know that it is my entire job to know what normal is. I see normal every day, all day, and as soon as I notice something that is not normal, I will send you to the people who deal with those things. So that kind of like oh okay, as soon as something she noticed, anything that was going to be a concern if there was going to be one. She was like you go right to the hospital. If not before you go into labor, during it is not an issue.
Speaker 1:So I think that's so amazing because I think there are a lot of misconceptions about birthing centers, right. So because, and partially because at least in our area, there isn't a whole lot of relationship between birthing centers, right. So because, and partially because at least in our area there isn't a whole lot of relationship between birthing centers and hospitals, and I'm not sure why that is, but I feel like when people are sent from the birthing center to the hospital, sometimes it's just such a catastrophe that I don't think we don't get to see the successful births. And I don't even think that the OBs and even the hospital midwives really understand the way that midwives practice in a birthing center. So I think every midwife I've interviewed or people that have been with a midwife, say that same thing that they are very trained to know normal and if anything abnormal comes up, then you go straight to the hospital.
Speaker 1:And I think that's really important for people to hear, because in order for us to change that perspective and to allow people to birth where they feel comfortable, because hospitals, let's face it, bring a lot of anxiety, right, but they need to be there. So if you don't feel comfortable at a hospital and you want the setting of a birth center and the attention of a midwife that works in a birth center. You have to know what you're getting into and I think you know hospitals should probably. I mean in different parts of the country, hospitals and birthing centers. They have kind of a partnership. They may not be the same company but it's more collaborative. And I feel like that's where the safety breakdown comes, because if you don't have collaborative care and we're judging people for having the failed birth center birth which is like super lame, like it wasn't a failed birth, it was a something happened.
Speaker 2:It changed yeah.
Speaker 1:Changed Right, that changed the acuity and the need Right, and so then they have to come to the hospital, which is a location where anybody in our area should be able to feel safe going to without being judged.
Speaker 1:You know like we just need a better system for collaborative care non-judgmental, you know, non-competitive, so that people can get what they want. Yeah, I agree. So I'm glad that you went to the birth center and had that experience and the midwife explained it that way to you, because I think that more people need to hear that. So you mentioned that your pregnancy, or your birth, wasn't as lovely as your pregnancy.
Speaker 2:What happened there? Well, I shouldn't say that it's just the warm fuzzies that I felt while I was pregnant. Certainly, my birth, my first birth, was about 32 hours, so it felt very long and I was exhausted. But when I look back now I know that it was normal, right, what I went through, what I talk of me being transferred to the hospital around, I think after the first day, around like hour 28 or 24, there was like, oh, you know, I think we're going. And then it was actually my birth assistant, the midwife assistant, that said I was in the bath and she I was towards the end.
Speaker 2:I was very triggered by car rides and I would. When I got in the car I would feel a little nauseous and everything. So in the throes of labor, I was sitting in this bath, I was as comfortable as I could be, and the thought of getting out of the bath and actually going somewhere less comfortable, I was like no, you know, don't make me do this, Even if the hospital is just down the street. And she just like kneeled down next to the tub next to me and was like let's give it another two hours and reevaluate. And I was like, okay, that's what I needed. I needed short term goals and I wasn't saying no to the hospital no one is saying you have to go but we were working in small increments and I was like that I can do, so that's a common occurrence in labor too.
Speaker 1:I think that thinking of the whole process overall is really overwhelming, and I think that one of the best strategies is to like break it down into timeframes, like you can do anything for a certain amount of time and if you feel like you can get through the next 20 minutes, you know, then we can reevaluate. That's a whole lot easier. Or two hours even. That's a whole lot easier than being like, oh my gosh, we're going to be here forever and there's no end. Like giving yourself little timeframes, like if you knew when your labor was going to be over, if you knew the time of birth ahead of time you'd just be like all right, well, I got, I can do this for a couple of hours, you know.
Speaker 1:So if you kind of trick your brain into believing something like that and you give yourself that time and then you do it again, then you're still. You know, you're making it easier, so I love that strategy.
Speaker 2:I could have been at home for probably a whole day, but as a first time parent, the moment those contractions got a little bit intense I was like, oh, you know, it's time the baby's coming, it's time the baby's coming. And we were 35, 40 minutes from the birth center and my husband was like the one thing he had anxiety about was traffic. So he was like, yeah, let's go, we're ready. And we got there essentially a day earlier than we needed to, that's all good, we'll live and learn.
Speaker 1:Yes, do you remember how many?
Speaker 2:centimeters you were when you got there. So my midwife checked me but she didn't tell me because that was one of the discussions was like you know, we didn't want to know. I found out afterwards. I was at like two or three, that's all right.
Speaker 1:As long as you're progressing, it's all good. Yes, all right. So then how did the rest of it go? We waited two hours and then what happened.
Speaker 2:So that was towards the end. We had been there a while. My husband was with me, my mom was with me, I spent a lot of time in the tub. I moved from the tub, the shower. I had a lot of back pain throughout, like really intense, with my contractions. I wouldn't feel like the tightening in my pelvis area, it was mostly through my lower back and I was really struggling with that, and the water was the only thing that relieved that. So I was constantly in and out of the water, I bounced in a yoga ball. My waters had not broken and it was finally after like a day my midwife, you know. I really think that perhaps if we break these, we'll speed things up.
Speaker 2:We ended up breaking them again. I think it was like the 24 28 hour mark I don't remember exactly, of course and then that they did get. Everything got much more intense at that moment, which, of course, course, again prior to her doing that, I was like there's no way it can get any more intense than this. It turns out it can, and I ended up pushing for around three hours like bearing down purple face pushing. Contractions would come and I would push and then I would just like collapse. I was out of the water by then. I believe I ended up getting out of the water because there was some concern about baby's heart rate. It was fine, everything ended up being fine, but I did end up having him outside of the water, which is not how I planned things. I always kind of like just thought I would stay there and he would be bored in the water, but it didn't work out for that because of the way the tub that I was in she couldn't access, listening the way she needed to with my position.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that stinks. Yeah, there's always the possibilities of limitation because everybody's anatomy is different and the position of the baby and technology just isn't perfect. So that's one of the biggest complaints is like having to move around the monitor. We have the same issue in the hospital sometimes. Right, we try our best. So then pushing, did you feel like it just wasn't effective, or what do you feel like happened there?
Speaker 2:I believe I don't remember exactly, I believe there was some concern about the swelling in my cervix. I had, like a cervical lip he couldn't get back, he couldn't get over that lip. So a lot of my pushing was not effective at one point. And then for a moment they were like telling me to stop pushing, which was really frustrating, because I wanted to, like I needed to, needed to, and so there was certainly some hours in there because I was pushing for such a long time. I mean, one, at this point I was exhausted, and two, emotionally I was drained, and then it was just got so much more intense. So it was because of the swelling of my cervix.
Speaker 1:Okay, so they were having you push before the cervix got out of place, or were they saying that it was just it took longer for you to dilate because of your cervix?
Speaker 2:I'll be honest, I don't remember, but I there was some kind of swelling that was preventing it, and then she did alter his position just slightly to get everything moving and then, once she did that, the pushing got much more effective and he was out in, I think, like 30 minutes. Oh nice, I don't know if it's because earlier they were telling me not to push and because I was doing it anyways, essentially like I was bearing down because I felt like I needed to. So I think I created the swelling.
Speaker 1:Or I mean it sounds like the baby's position was worth the swelling, because if you have a cervix that's like pliable and flexible and ready to move and the baby's in an optimal position, it will usually move pretty quickly out of the way. But if the baby is kind of in a wonky position and your pelvis and your cervix is being kind of like pulled down by forces of gravity and your baby and swelling and all of that stuff, it's hard to not push when your baby's in an area of your pelvis that feels like you need to push. So it sounds like it was probably the funky position that was mostly the problem, because if a midwife was able to manipulate it and make the pushing easier or make the baby come down so that everything seemed physiologically normal, like the puzzle pieces fit together, then probably have more to do with that, because you're going to feel the need to push if the baby's in a certain position in your body and sometimes that's involuntary.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like they were just trying to work with you and find the optimal time to try to manipulate the baby so that you could push more effectively. Yes, so then, how is the delivery? Like a lot of people, remember things like the ring of fire and like the feeling of the Santa coming out and the feeling of the baby coming out. How is that for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I feel like perhaps I distinctly remember it with my second. My first is a little more of a blur. I think it has a lot to do with the exhaustion and my mental state that far into the labor you know I was, I was really done. I do remember because I was like leaning over the bed and my husband and the midwife were behind me. I do remember my husband saying, oh my gosh, he's here. So I distinctly remember that, but I don't remember much of anything else. At least with the first it's kind of a black spot.
Speaker 1:I mean, you were in labor for 32 hours, so I don't know how many brains I'll have left.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there wasn't a lot left at that point, so do you remember if you had a tear?
Speaker 1:that they needed to fix.
Speaker 2:I had a minimal tear. I had a very minimal tear. I don't believe I had any stitches and nothing else. No episiotomy, of course, or anything. So as far as everything with my healing afterwards, it was fairly straightforward and relatively easy. You know kind of textbook.
Speaker 1:Good, and you did skin to skin and were you able to breastfeed. What was that journey like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I absolutely did skin to skin. This was a huge piece of my birth plan. I was very adamant that this was super important to me. I knew that going into it and I was very grateful I did skin to skin. He did latch on fairly quickly after birth.
Speaker 2:At this point I was not I had no, you know, ibclc certainly, or lactation training. I was just simply a first time mom who gave birth without any medications, who knew that I wanted skin to skin. So, yes, he was able to latch on and at the time I thought everything was going very smoothly. And then what happened was going very smoothly. And then what happened? Yeah, yes, so, and then fairly quickly, within the first 24 hours of his life, I realized that, wow, like this is really painful.
Speaker 2:And I don't remember reading In fact, I do distinctly remember reading that it is not supposed to be painful. So I immediately assumed something was wrong. And he, in the first week of his life I mean almost instantly I had cracked and bleeding nipples. He had the brick dust pee. He wasn't this kid's eating all the time and I'm like, well, really eating all the time or being normal baby eating all the time, but mine was eating like every 30 minutes. If he was off my breast he was upset. So pretty quickly we realized something was wrong and he did have a tongue and lip tie. That sounds pretty textbook.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that you found it out. So my kids both had lip ties. My first was more severe than the other but nobody noticed it. And I noticed it but I thought that I was wrong because at the hospital, if you've ever worked with pediatricians at the hospital, they're not as well versed on the tongue and lip ties as IBCLCs or pediatric dentists people that work with them, and so I was kind of curious about what my daughter's was.
Speaker 1:So I started just kind of asking people do you think this one looks like a lip tie? And people were like no, that doesn't. So then I just like decided that I was, I made myself wrong for it. But then I took her to the dentist for the first time and he was like, yeah, she has a lip tie. I'm like, well, that's why I hurt.
Speaker 2:so much to nurse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I get. I get really frustrated with the. It's mild, it's there, but it shouldn't affect anything. You know, it either is a lip tie and causing disruption to function or it's not. I don't care what it looks like, I care how it's affecting the function. I've looked in a lot of baby's mouth and I've looked in a baby's mouth and gone like, oh yeah, I don't really see anything. But then I see the baby actually nurse and I'm like, oh, this is causing disruption. This baby cannot latch. Well, this is not functioning. So who am I to say this is mild, it's clearly not, it's affecting this baby. And then, same thing, I've looked in a baby's mouth and been like, oh my God, that baby can't move his tongue at all. And then he goes to the breast and he's like and I'm like, oh, it turns out you can. I don't know anything, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not about what it looks like, it's about how it's affecting the diet. Yeah, yeah. My kids their lips again. My son not so much as my daughter, but their lips would, their top lip would kind of turn under. So they didn't have that flange, like they had the bottom flange but then the top one wasn't, and so, oh my gosh, I just remember nursing with my daughter and you know how like they'll touch you and like do the motions to like get the milk down.
Speaker 1:I was like stop touching me. Like I could not. I was so overstimulated by the discomfort from the and it's like you start, you latch and you're just like and I didn't have that experience with my son and I had no idea that that was, I think. Yeah, I was like I don't see a tongue tie, so we're probably fine and whatever is going on with her lip, it's not a big deal. Yeah, but it was all the way down.
Speaker 2:It was like down to here, yeah well, they need the lips to create the seal. So if you don't have a seal, then you can't create vacuum and the entire latch doesn't work if you can't create negative pressure in the vacuum. So babies are intelligent. They use the, the other parts of their anatomy, they chomp down, they use their jaws, and that doesn't feel good for anybody yeah, so so much chomping.
Speaker 1:So then you got stuff figured out with your latch, wouldn't it, or no?
Speaker 2:I mean, this is all. That was all like a very nice nutshell. I did not figure it out in the first week. It took much longer than that, but I do.
Speaker 2:I give a lot of credit to the people that were around me. My main resource at the time was the birth center, and, though they may have not been breastfeeding experts, what they did do really well was listen. They listened to me. They believed me when I said this hurts, this isn't right, I don't know what's wrong, but something is. And they were able to give me the confidence to continue to research, instead of saying well, here, something else will fix this. They sat with me and said we know that you chose the birth center because breastfeeding was important to you, so let's help you meet this goal. So I will forever be grateful to the ladies who believed me, for lack of a better term. They listened and I'm so, so grateful.
Speaker 2:The first three months of his life, I mean, we really struggled with breastfeeding and it was a whole journey. I don't think he got his tongue and lip tie released until like around two months, which is actually on the fairly early side for first time parents I mean thinking about the parents that I've supported out there. I was still very lucky that we figured it out as early as we did, but it was certainly intense. He didn't sleep well, he was always eating, like I said, nipple damage. But once we figured it out it was lovely.
Speaker 1:So the difference between the birth center and the hospital. It sounds like they had more appointments afterwards. How often did you check in with them?
Speaker 2:So I certainly had the first 24, 48 hours where they two of the midwives came to my house, which was amazing. I also had a birth doula who was hired. She worked at the birth center but she was also a doula and I hired her in her doula role and she was at my house as well after the birth. So there was again. I was surrounded by people who were lovely and wonderful and they were helping me find breastfeeding support resources.
Speaker 2:I went to my first La Leche League meeting, I think when he was like two weeks old. They were the ones who like kind of pushed me into that and that was a wonderful space for me to be in, surrounded by other parents. Again, I deal with a lot of anxieties, so seeing other parents who are also struggling with similar things made me feel better that it wasn't just me. Of course, someone from the birth center who got me connected to an IBCLC or someone from La Leche League who said like, hey, your nipples shouldn't be cracked and bleeding and hey, he should be, you know, kind of regulating himself. You shouldn't be feeding him 15 times a day. Eight to 10 is a little more reasonable, things like that.
Speaker 1:That's great that they have those resources for you, because I feel like with the hospital, it's like here's a packet of information, We'll see you in six weeks. So it's like we don't necessarily have a lot of the community resources, Like we're not as in touch with the community, which is sad. I think it needs to. That needs to change.
Speaker 2:Even though they weren't like necessarily in my house every day. I did have quite a few people doing home visits afterwards, which was great, but what I did have was access to them in a way that I don't think you have access to your OB. I could text them and you know I could do it in the middle of the night. They wouldn't answer me, but the next morning, in a more reasonable hour, they'd be like hey, I saw your text. I'm sorry you're struggling, here's some help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. I mean, that's kind of how things change when you become a mom. Like the texting in the middle of the night is like if you don't want to receive that text, you have to turn off your alerts and then you know that you're gonna wake up. But if you wake up in the middle of the night and there's another mom awake, well it's open season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure I can't tell you how many times I've answered texts in the middle. I love that, and it's so. That's so typical of like this is my life as a mom. I'm texting people at three o'clock in the morning. Okay, so then you kind of got stuff figured out with breastfeeding. Is that what started your journey with becoming a doula? And maybe wearing educator and IBCLC or.
Speaker 2:We kind of skipped over a little bit. In the last couple of months of my pregnancy I did mention some discomfort. Really, what started it was the being with a midwife and being in the birth center space. I learned what a doula was. I saw the space and essentially every time I left there I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay in that space and I was like how can I live here after my kid is born? How can I keep being in this space? And, of course, working there or getting a job or something seemed like the best fit. So I had already kind of planted the seed.
Speaker 2:I did work with a doula through my pregnancy and labor and that kind of I was like, oh, maybe this is where I need to go with this. But I knew that I wanted to be home with my new baby and I didn't want to be on call, which, being a birth doula, you're on call, of course. But the other piece that we didn't really talk about was in the last couple of months of my pregnancy my body. I'm not a tall person, my husband is 6'5", so in the last couple of months my belly went straight out in a very uncomfortable way. It's just how I hold my pregnancies, how I look when I'm pregnant, but towards the end, around seven months, seven, eight, nines my last trimester my belly was big and I do distinctly remember people being like, oh my gosh, you're going to give birth any day. And I'd be like listen, I got like two more months, so please shut your mouth.
Speaker 1:But remind me of how uncomfortable I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like thanks, I didn't notice. Last couple months my belly got so big that I had a lot of pelvis pain, sciatica, all sorts of really like. It was uncomfortable to walk. So, as I do, I was up at 2 am Googling and one of the things that Google said could help support was a baby wearing wrap. So also in that last couple months of pregnancy, I purchased a woven wrap and showed up at a baby wearing meeting with this long piece of fabric and essentially like handed it to the baby wearing educators there and was like please help me, I can't move.
Speaker 2:And I walked out of that meeting with my belly wrapped up in this huge piece of fabric and I felt like a million bucks and I was like, oh my God, I want to do this. Oh, I got a very similar vibe, a very similar supportive, open minded, just lovely vibe from that group of women. And this is how it started. I left there just having that long piece of fabric and every day for the last couple of months of my pregnancy I woke up and wrapped my belly for support. So by the time my baby showed up, I was very comfortable using my woven wrap. I knew how it moved across my body. I knew how to tighten it because I had been practicing the last couple of months. So when he came I started wrapping him almost immediately because I felt so comfortable with it already. And that the experience at the birth center, the experience with my woven wrap, was how the baby wearing postpartum doula kind of seed got planted.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, I just kind of suffered through it. I should never find it. I didn't know where to go to have somebody show me how to use the wrap. So I was like, well, I can't do that. So I kept trying the belly bands and stuff. I hated those. I taped for a while. Yeah, I wish I'd had an open wrap. That would have been nice.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and then you know I was. I stayed home the first couple years of his life but I was still doing the, my certification for baby and I became a volunteer baby wearing educator so I could stay in the meetings. I was going to La Leche League meetings so I was kind of doing my education while also just being a person at the meetings and with my child and everything. And then once I got my certified baby wearing educator, I realized that it tied in well with being a postpartum doula. I could be in people's homes supporting as a postpartum doula. So I got certified in that and I was going into people's homes as a postpartum doula helping support after birth and helping with baby wearing all in their space.
Speaker 2:And then, the more and more I realized how many questions I was getting about breastfeeding and then I had my own breastfeeding experience. By that time my first was around two and I was still breastfeeding him. I realized that I really needed to be at the top of my game with this breastfeeding education. I was a big piece of this puzzle for many people and my anxiety. I needed to know I needed to be the best. So I continued on and that's what led to my IBCLC.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's so amazing. So then you got your IBCLC and then did you get pregnant right away, or did you start your career for a little bit.
Speaker 2:So I was actually in my internship. So to become an IBCLC there's three different pathways. Each one of the pathways has a different set of internship hours where the person becoming certified has to work under already certified IBCLC. So the pathway I took was the third pathway, which includes 500 hours and I was in the midst. So I was done with all the other stuff which is like the prereqs of like essentially like becoming a nurse, the breastfeeding education, and I was in my internship hours when I was pregnant and had my second, so I actually paused my internship hours to give birth again. That sounds fun. Yeah, great planning on my end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it is what it is. So then, how was that pregnancy? Did you have the same experience with the need for the wrap? Were you able to manage your discomfort a lot more efficiently this time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my oldest was three and a half and I was still wearing him. I would put him on my back and him on my back and with my belly in the front. It's surprisingly I was doing okay, because I would wrap him on my back and then get the support from the wrap and kind of the counterbalance. So it was a little bit of a combo, you know, keeping him still close because he still loved to do it, and a little bit of belly support. Certainly, as I got really close those last couple weeks months I couldn't do it. He was just too heavy and I was just too big. But yeah, I did still struggle a little bit. I didn't gain as much weight with my second as I did my first. So I think my belly was just a little bit more manageable the second time around.
Speaker 1:And then did you go to the birth center the second time I did.
Speaker 2:I wasn't working there. I've never, I've never been an actual employee of the first center of the premier person.
Speaker 1:I know your office is pretty badass, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, but I still, I love them. They're still there. It's a lovely space. But, yes, I did. I had. I gave birth there a second time. My labor was nine, nine and a half hours. I showed up and I was yes, I was left left that same evening. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:I love that and you remember so this, you said the second one. You remember a lot more like the I love that and you remember, so you said the second one. You remember a lot more like the actual birth part. Do you remember like the sensations? Was it surprising to you, was it? Like some people think that when their labor is faster it's a lot more intense. How did that feel for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do remember it being quite a bit more intense, or so I thought. Mostly I think it's just because I actually do remember it right. I distinctly do remember that. The motion of him moving out of my body. I remember, I believe, what was probably his shoulders like, as he spun and shifted. I can still feel that sensation of his head and his chin and, I think, a shoulder. There was no water breaking. He came out and call in the bag and my husband was able yeah, yeah, it was really amazing and my husband was there to catch him and I love listening to him talk about it Because he was like you know, it kind of looked like an egg. Him talk about it because he was like you know, it kind of looked like an egg. I was like, is this his head? I don't know what this is. He couldn't figure out what part was what.
Speaker 2:And I also had a really cool experience because I had a videographer in this space with me who was actually we didn't hire. He makes documentaries and he was filming and creating a documentary about death doulas and he reached out through the birth center and said, if you're open to it, I will film your birth for free because I want to open my documentary on death doulas with information about birth doulas. So I am looking for someone who is working with a doula and who will let me film their birth and put it in the opening of my movie, and I'm going to talk about, like, the spectrum of doulas from birth to death, how there's people out there who support both parts of life, and so that was really cool too, because he's not a birth videographer. And so that was really cool too, because he's not a birth videographer. My labor was the first one he had ever filmed. That's not risky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he didn't pass out. I guess if he's behind the lens he's a little bit. My husband's a videographer and he's done surgeries. But if he's in an actual surgery without the camera protecting him, totally different experience. But he was like what he's thinking about getting the shots it's totally different yeah yeah, he did great.
Speaker 2:So you know, that was kind of cool In the space. I was like I don't know how I'm gonna feel about this, of course, like when I got into the zone it was like actually pushing and everything. I was like the president could walk in here, I wouldn't care. Like you know it didn't matter.
Speaker 1:I'm focused yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was really grateful afterwards to have this really beautiful video because I didn't have that with my first. In fact, with my first I was like I don't even want pictures. So yeah, it was quite different.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. And then was it the same? No real tear. And you went home no real tear fairly straightforward.
Speaker 2:I was halfway through my IBCLC training. I thought I knew all the things and I was like this is going to be so different. And it turns out it was quite different. It was quite different in that I created a massive oversupply. He would latch on and was just like hanging on for dear life and was like you know. He still had a tongue and a lip tie too, but he was getting enough because my body was shooting it into his mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fire hose.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally feel that, because I worked in postpartum with my first and obviously they were delivered with my second. But you get that like, oh, I have a lot of information, let me just utilize it, and you're like maybe I don't have all the it's, like you know how to increase your mouth supply, so let's do it. Then, whoops.
Speaker 2:Or if you're like me, you damage your nipples doing it because you're pumping like too much with flanges that are the wrong size and all you know hand expression and and hakas and you know like anytime you move oh yeah, anytime you move, I'm like here taking all the supplements I had friends that would get prescriptions for I don't remember what the medication is for, like increasing their supply.
Speaker 1:There's so much information out there, and it's like you will find what your brain wants to find. If your brain thinks that's where the end is, you may not go looking for the rest, and so it's's like if you're at that step of your journey, that's the journey you're going to have.
Speaker 2:So oversupply here, we come Right. I was not struggling with low supply this time, like I knew that, so I certainly didn't. Nobody told me on the other side that oversupply is just as tricky, but we figured it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did you manage that? I mean, I'm assuming you also probably had some issues like mastitis and stuff with that, Like what is the? What is the problem, Since you're the expert? What is the problem with oversupply? Why is it that we want that perfect balance, Like not low supply? Obviously because we don't want the brick dust pee in the baby that's nursing all the time. But if you have the oversupply, what are the challenges with that?
Speaker 2:Because I think most people think that sounds great. They do, and I, you know. If you had told me as the first time parent who was struggling with low supply, that oversupply was just as tough, I wouldn't have believed you. I would have been like oh I would, I will deal with that all day, every day. But oversupply can be really tricky and really painful. You can have a baby who is willing to latch and be fed by a fire hose, but at a certain point they can absolutely start to refuse because they don't want to be fed with a fire hose. Over and over again it upsets their belly and so now you have all of this milk and the baby's not willing to remove it, and then you have to pump and then you're ordering more milk because you're pumping and it's. It is this really vicious cycle to get out of until you get to the point where the baby is refusing.
Speaker 2:Prior to that, when the baby is still latching and being fed from the fire hose, the baby deals with those issues because think about you know, when do you feel the worst? I don't, I don't know what everybody did in high school and college, but when did, did you feel awful? It was after you chugged the beer. It was after the beer bong, right, it was after you swallowed ineffectively and you chugged the fluid. You're going to feel really poorly throughout the day and of course then the baby and the parents are going to deal with that as well. The gas, the spit up, the uncomfortable baby, and then on top of that, if there's more milk left in the body now the mom or the parent is dealing with that the mastitis, the pain, the swollen. The baby can't latch on because the nipples are. The breast is so big that there's nothing to latch on to. There's just so much that comes along with it as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I agree, I didn't know that either. I was just constantly like trying to get more. I'll just save it.
Speaker 2:It's okay, Save it freeze it, yeah, and then the baby is getting enough. But now you know the baby's like sleeping potentially, and now the mom still has to wake up and you're like my kid is asleep and I'm still awake dealing with this, it's, there's so many, there's so many pieces, puzzle pieces.
Speaker 1:I feel like I had all of it with both kids, you know it's like I would compensate, and then I would end up having that issue.
Speaker 1:I never, luckily, had mastitis, but it was like, oh, my supply is getting low, so then I would do something to increase it, and then it would get too high and then be like, okay, got to back off, and it was just this constant like chasing cycle, perfect balance, yeah, and it just was always kind of out of whack. That's frustrating because like the baby doesn't know what to expect, I don't know what to expect.
Speaker 2:There's no the poor baby's like what am I going to get today?
Speaker 1:You know, here, just take the bottle and go pump, you know. And then wrong size flanges, you know all the things. So okay, so you managed to get through that, did you get your IBCLC and then move on and you were total expert and everything's perfect. Of course I mean no, no, because that's how it happens, right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yes, I will say this. I am almost, you know, eight, nine years into supporting new parents. I'm six years into my IBCLC and I genuinely I learned something new from every single parent, every single baby that comes through that door. In fact, I just posted this on my Instagram, a quick video talking about the need for individualized care. There has never been a single dyad, a mom and baby team or a parent and baby team that has been exactly like the one before, that has been exactly like the one before.
Speaker 2:So while I, of course, think the internet can be helpful it helped me a million times it can also be really harmful, in that same way that if I get on and Google oversupply, I am going to get inundated with a lot of information that may not apply to me, because oversupply does not look the same for every single person. Because what a lot of people don't realize is that you are dealing with the parent, but also the baby, and them together. So, separately and together. What is happening with these three pieces and there I have yet to see one that's exactly the same? Has there been similar? Absolutely, but we're all individuals working with a professional who can help you piece together.
Speaker 2:Is your baby tied? Is your baby underfed, overfed? What's happening with your anatomy, your breast shape, your milk supply? Google is never going to be able to fix those things for you and whatever you read, whoever said it, it probably was the right answer for them. I believe them when they say this is the only bottle that worked for me. It probably was, but it doesn't mean it's going to work for your baby. Nothing's wrong with your kid, nothing's wrong with theirs, it's just they found their puzzle pieces.
Speaker 1:I think that's so important because I feel like that's a common theme that comes up for people like you and I, because in the hospital there is a push for individualized care but there are policies in place that standardize care right and we want to get people through efficiently and safely.
Speaker 1:And it's challenging and the push for individualized care comes without a lot of resources to provide the individualized care. I'm still a nurse taking care of two people in labor. I'm also supporting other people on my floor and I'm communicating with the rest of the medical team, depending on what that patient needs and then trying to find ways to provide the individualized care and is that provider available? And it's just like this whole. It's kind of a mess, but I feel like there's a big push and the more people help share how to provide individualized care and the more moms communicate what they need and ask for what they want, the more the hospital learns and the more we learn in the healthcare system, everything, the more we learn how to support moms. Because I feel like we've gone from this support desert almost, you know, like when we were having our kids and probably before. I don't know what it was like in the 90s and the early 2000s.
Speaker 1:But I just feel like the information was there but like trying to tap into it was the was the challenge for us and I feel like we're moving towards a place where we're all trying really hard to make sure moms know we're out there to help provide individualized care. And there's even right now there's a push. I just interviewed somebody, natalie Davis. She's the CEO of the United States of Care. She's pushing for a 100 weeks initiative, which is before. So it's like the 100 weeks starts when you're pregnant instead of the six weeks factor right. And then what services need to be in place for moms up to that one year mark after they deliver?
Speaker 1:Because it's just like yeah we provide all the services before right and we tell you kind of what you might need, but we don't help you. We don't help you facilitate that in that year after it's like all right, cool, good job you had the baby Right. Yes, like you can grow the human and like the doctors can make sure the human's okay and make sure that you're not like dangerously unhealthy, but that's where it ends, yeah.
Speaker 1:And they tell you to breastfeed and there's people in the hospital being like, okay, this is how you latch Peace out. Yeah, like what? What the heck?
Speaker 2:is this. Well, what I wish for most providers is for them to be okay with saying I don't know, is for them to be okay with saying I don't know. If a parent comes to you with breastfeeding questions, if you don't know, don't guess, just say I'm not sure but I do have somebody who does know or can help you.
Speaker 2:Here are the resources and that's what kind of floors me sometimes, and I don't always. I'm not throwing any providers under the bus, it I? I do know that it's a little bit of a game of telephone right the the parent hears one thing, the providers perhaps meant another, and then they bring it to me. So I'm not always assuming that, like what directly the parent tells me is exactly what was said. Of course I know it can be convoluted, but some of the things I'm like what? How did this even become even remotely what should have been said it shouldn't have. So I just wish that instead of saying things, random things, or basing it off the little bit of perhaps breastfeeding education they had during medical school or their own experience or their spouse's experience, they just said you know what? I'm not sure, but I know somebody who can probably help. Here's a resource.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I just feel like also. I mean, if you think about the way we do it in the hospital and then it's carried over into the pediatrician's office, there's that standardization right or regimented recommendations. You know it's like your baby should be eating eight to 12 times a day. You should be pooping and peeing eight to 12 times a day. And so then what people like me who I also identify as type A here is we need to schedule every feed right and we're doing it this way.
Speaker 1:We're not going with the flow and listening to our bodies. In fact, we're taught to ignore our bodies and ignore what feels right, because how could we know? We don't have the instincts. This medical professional is telling me to do it this way. So we need to allow space for the variation to happen. We need to instruct people to listen to their bodies and also say if your baby is not producing enough wet diapers, then maybe we need to have a conversation or call me. You know not even a maybe. Call me. Let's troubleshoot this. It's not the. Your baby needs to fit into this box, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so our mindset has to change, I think as a society, and understand that there's so many variations of normal that we need to allow the people that are actually trying to figure this out and trying to work this into their life. We need to help them, not just tell them what to do. Help them figure out what works for them and send them to people that have more knowledge and experience, because the thing is like pediatricians have to know everything about a child until birth to 18. How can they possibly like pediatricians? You are released from the need to know about lactation, birth to 18. How can they possibly? Pediatricians, you are released from the need to know about lactation. I release you because it's not possible.
Speaker 1:You have so much knowledge and so much value and so much that you need to provide to your patients on so many different levels. It's not possible for one human to know everything, and lactation is a completely different field. Please don't feel obligated to be a lactation consultant. The same with obese 100%, yes, right, your job is just to connect people. I release you from the duty of knowing everything. I also want you to feel like you can go out there and network and find your people that you feel comfortable with referring your patients so that you can give that help, because I think that from the medical culture that I mean my dad's a doctor, my mom's a nurse, my brother we're all in it. I understand the pressure to know it all and I just want to put it out there that that's not possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can say I don't know yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, so I love that you're like, just refer, let's work on individualized care. I so feel that. I so feel that everybody needs to have individualized care for the parts of their life they're struggling with, you know, no matter what it is. So how did your beautiful office space come about? And you guys, I really, okay, I need you to send me a bunch of pictures of your office space so that I can like put it, include it with, like some of the stuff in the episode, because I just I'm so obsessed with it.
Speaker 1:It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I love it too. Yeah, so I started once I became an IBCLC. I did kind of stop being a postpartum doula in the fact, like I was going in and doing like four hour blocks with, you know, families and stuff, and mostly was focused on just lactation because it was truly my, my love. I genuinely love it. Supporting families and helping them reach their feeding goals is my favorite thing. So once I became an IVCLC I started working for it with a group Lactation Room. I'm so grateful for those wonderful ladies and the years that I spent with them. They were fabulous and I learned so much and grew so much. And then the space in Beehive Wellness.
Speaker 2:So for those who don't know, my business Milk in Motion is within a collaborative office space called Beehive Wellness. You know Beehive Wellness is a group of offices and other perinatal professionals who rent office space and I knew that if I didn't jump on the chance and take one of the spots of the office, another lactation consultant would get in there. So I, a year ago, kind of jumped in headfirst to having my own private practice. It was always something in the back of my mind but it just wasn't something I was going to do right then until I saw the space at Beehive Wellness and decided to kind of take the leap. And I have. Milk in Motion has been open for a year now in January one whole year and I'm super just excited and grateful to be in the lovely space with so many other lovely providers. Like I said, we share the collaborative workspace, we have two classrooms and we have individualized office for pelvic floor therapists and mental health support, lactation. There's postpartum massage and prenatal massage and acupuncture. It's just really wonderful, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love how it's just a one-stop shop.
Speaker 2:Yes, my third baby for sure is Milk in Motion. I still do the baby wearing consulting from the office space, which I'm so grateful for because I love it as well. But I also do a lot of pump support, as you've been mentioning. I have the same kind of shelves in my office except instead of books they're covered in different pumps and the parents come in and we try on different pumps. We get them set up with different phalanges if that's what they need. I do a lot of consulting with wearable pumps. So that's kind of the new thing out on the market and they're expensive and they can be a little tricky. There's lots of troubleshooting. So I am happy to provide a space for parents to come in and try and troubleshoot prior to dropping their hard-earned money on these really expensive pumps, so they know if it works for them before they purchase it yeah, I just remember with my second I like just the having two pumps because I got the.
Speaker 1:It was when it just came out, the free me was pretty, it was before the ones that you can. I had it yeah, and like trying to figure out which flange size and like. Then I think they had just developed the silicone ones and I was like they're so expensive, I don't have enough money for that. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to. I did the weirdest stuff.
Speaker 1:I would like take the tubing and like buy extra tubing because it was cheaper than the like silicone ones, and I would try like my Medela pump flanges with, because I felt like with the free me at that point it wasn't like the standard pump size wasn't quite right, so it was cheaper for me to buy the ones for the Medela, so I would rig it up to the free me. It was crazy. And then we had different types of pumps at work and so I would take the tubing and like connect it to the flanges that I liked and I just made these like Frankenstein pumps. Correct, it's crazy, absolutely. Are you? Do you do that too? Do you Franken pump?
Speaker 2:I try not to. Only because we know now that every time I put something in between the flange and the pump. So if I connect an extra plastic piece or a silicone insert or an extra tube or whatever it is, I'm decreasing the pump motor or strength by just a little bit. So if I have something on both ends that I've rigged up, I could be compromising my warranty. So like if something happens to my pump and I take it to the manufacturer and they go like, oh well, you weren't using our pieces, so we're not covering this. That's one thing that is irritating. And two, the power or the pump motor, the strength that they've talked about in like the pump stats is only tested for their pieces. So if pump strength is a concern of mine and I have like 15 things that I've done to get this flange to that pump, I'm decreasing, I'm decreasing the motor each time I do it.
Speaker 1:Which is exactly what I was doing. And then I donated everything to a friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I try not to. There is still some things that I'll be like, oh, this is fine, but I try not to do a lot of it. I try to stick pieces with pieces simply so if it doesn't work, I can take it back to them and be like this doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Right, and that makes sense, where you can do. That is why I love your office, because it saves, like the, like you said, the individualized care and the ability to touch and feel and measure and try and learn how. I mean just learning how to put your pump together and break it down to wash. It is a huge part of the battle, and is it? Do I want to do this every day, and how many times a day? Right, because I remember the free me. I don't know what it was, I don't remember. Maybe it wasn't the frame, I don't remember. I just really didn't enjoy yeah, it was the free me because of the cups having to pour it out, yep, with a little, and then take it all apart and wash it. It just it felt for some reason my brain didn't like it. Oh no, I totally get it. Others didn't like it, right? Yeah, some people may have loved it. I was not in love with that process.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and we talk about this a lot with the wearables. So when I spend a lot of time with clients taking wearables out and stuff, I lay them all out excuse me on the counter and I'm like, okay, you felt them all on. Now I want you to see what it looks like to get the milk out, because it's not something you think of, right? Everyone's very focused on what it feels like when it's in there, but now that it's done, how do I get it? Does this have to pop off and clip? Is it going to spill? Can I set it down? Is it going to? There's lots of little nuances that I think not a lot of people are thinking about. I always make sure to point this out. I'm like this is all the stuff you have to clean. This is all the stuff you have to do before you can just take this container and go like this and pour your milk out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's huge, it's really really important. Yeah, I just feel like thinking about this, like I was just so in the dark on everything, and then I think in my head and I just want to kind of like break this down for people, because I think a lot of new moms are feeling a financial strain, right, and so you could go about it the way that I did it and spend a lot of time and maybe, at the time, not a lot of money, because I was not buying all the pieces and trying them, right, I was just buying the cheapest things to see if I could do something with them, or you could save your time, which I believe time is money right, I could have been maybe picking up a shift or taking a nap, spending time with my baby.
Speaker 2:Or in your family, not stressing about it.
Speaker 1:Right, not destroying my nipples in the process, right. There's a lot of things that you can't always put a financial number on things. But I feel like the financial expense of coming in sitting with your staff making the decisions and then either going out and buying the pump or going and having insurance by the pump and knowing that you have chosen what works for you, you're not going to have to be frustrated, you're not going to deal with you're less likely to deal with things like oversupply, just kind of depend on like what you choose to do with your day.
Speaker 1:A lot of those issues that we've described, that we've been through, will be essentially solved for you because you've had a place where you can look at all of these things, and, while it may not translate always from like dollars, you may end up potentially spending more because I'm thinking about myself. I just bought tubing, so that's cheap, right, but I'm still going back to that place and going God, that was hard. And, and I'm still dealing with, my nipples are destroyed, right, and it's because I my entire breast was going into the into the flange Like yeah, that's not good friends.
Speaker 1:That's not good and we don't have to do that. So if you're going to make an investment, my recommendation is make an investment in individualized care when you are pregnant and in that first year of postpartum and however that looks for you. And if you're having difficulty with the breastfeeding aspect, make an appointment with a lactation specialist. And if you're not in the Northern Virginia area, you know, maybe find something similar to Milk in Motion. Utilize your resources that way, instead of Googling all the things that you can Frankenstein together to have the experience that I had, maybe see if there's somebody out there like Lacey. If you're not in the area of where you can go to Milk in Motion and see Lacey for yourself, if you are, please, please do, please. It's like my Mecca I'm not even kidding you Like I just love your office. It's like, oh my goodness, I just want to bow down to all of the pumps and all of the supplies and everything and, oh my gosh, I wish that I had had that. So make an investment in yourself and make sure that you are doing all of the things and setting yourself up for breastfeeding success, if that's your goal, and find something similar where you can have all your questions answered, whether it's a lactation consultant that can talk you through it or somebody that can actually physically show you all the things. Do that for yourself because and in your first pregnancy, please because it's going to carry over and it's going to save you time and money and heartache and stress and trauma and everything and your baby, like if you're transferring milk better, your baby is going to be happier and you're not going to be up all night dealing with gas and you're not.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's so many effects that I had no idea I was inadvertently causing because I didn't have a place to go, that I felt like I could have all my answers in one place.
Speaker 1:I felt like I could either piecemeal everything on the internet or I could piecemeal paying different individuals until I found the answer and I was just like I have to do it myself. And now I feel like we have that community that is starting to flourish, where in most areas there is something similar, where there are places, there are resources. So when you go out searching for things instead of finding the answers, this is the message that I want moms to hear Don't try to find the answers for yourself. Find the people that can help you troubleshoot and give you the ideas that you may not know exist or may not have really stuck out for you when you're doing your research, then have an open mind with those things, because there's people out there that know a whole heck of a lot more and know how to assimilate that information for you so that you can have what you actually want instead of trying to do it all yourself.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, and that's like you said. I really hope that people are getting that message, because we're out there, we're trying to help and we're hoping to build this community for you, so you don't have to do it alone, because yeah, it's tough out there, it is really yeah.
Speaker 1:So one of the questions that I ask every single mom and I kind of feel like you touched on this, but there might be some, sometimes other things pop up If you could go back and talk to yourself anytime during this process, where would you go and what would you say to yourself to kind of like help ease the pain or the pressure or, you know, make you feel safer or more secure in that moment?
Speaker 2:I would tell myself to give more grace to everyone, to my baby, to myself. We didn't talk about some of the other things that I dealt with afterwards. One in particular was my postpartum depression and anxiety. Despite all of my research and best intentions, I struggled quite a bit with postpartum anxiety after my first. With my second too, but not like I did with my first, I was very ill prepared for the mental aspect of motherhood and how my anxiety would manifest in some really unhealthy ways. So if I could go back now, I would tell myself to get more mental health support. I had a lot of people around me, and my people were providing food and providing resources, but I wasn't talking about the scary thoughts and feelings I was having because I was afraid of them.
Speaker 2:And if someone had warned me or if I had known I maybe could have been a little more prepared for that portion of it.
Speaker 2:Um, I had this really irrational fear of water and I wanted to co-bathe with my new baby. I wanted to sit in the waters and do all the things and have them skin to skin, but I was terrified that I was going to drop him, like he was going to slip down my body and I wouldn't be able to pick him up. So I would. I wanted to co-bathe, so I did, but I made my husband sit and watch us next to the bathtub and I also. We lived in Alexandria and I drove over the bridge constantly. I had this fear that I was going to drive off the bridge into the water and I ordered a seatbelt cutter and I drove with it in my cup holder. For the first year I have that fear and I have one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm also in healthcare and I've seen a lot of things. Yeah yeah. I also have a thing to break the window.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, yeah, me too. So you know, and I also gosh. It was very tied to water and breathing. I was very concerned about my first breathing, my oldest child's breathing. I was afraid he was going to stop breathing in his sleep.
Speaker 2:When I look back now, so my mom is in the dentistry field. She was a dental hygienist when I had my first. She lived in Southern California at the time. I called her and made her send me. I was like mom, please steal a tiny mirror you know the mirror that the dentist use and mail it to me and I would go in and hold the mirror. So I didn't have to touch him and wake him up and hold the mirror in front of his mouth to make sure it was fogging up and like, just looking back now I'm like, oh, that was so, I was so not. Okay, I was not, that was. You know, she did it, she sent it to me. She was like, okay, crazy, like, if you want this, here you go. But we're looking back now like that I was not in a healthy place.
Speaker 1:I feel like I did that too, but also I didn't have anxiety about it. I was just like this is just part of my ritual.
Speaker 1:I'm just checking these things out. I'm doing these things because I'm doing it, because it makes me feel better, and I had intrusive thoughts too and I didn't know until later. It was mostly the intrusive thoughts that I was like what's going on? It wasn't until, actually, megan told me it was normal and she was like if it bothers you, then that just means you're mentally healthy. Like if you think things, if your brain sends you messages that distress you and they're distressing to you and you don't want to act on them, that's actually a good thing, yeah, and then we just need to work on like minimizing those thoughts so that you're not distressed all the time. So not normal in the sense that it's like you know it's unpleasant, we don't want them, but it also kind of means that you're having a normal reaction, you're processing, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was things like that. I also, my son's eyes are blue, very blue, and just very innocently. My husband one day said, when he was first couple weeks of his life, said, oh my gosh, his eyes are so blue that you can almost like see, you know, the blue through his eyelids because his eyes were closed, he was sleeping. He was like, gosh, you can all. His eyelids are so thin, you can see the blue through them. And that night I had a dream that my he was born with no eyelids and like the way that manifested in my brain, you know, like just so many things like that, like that little innocent comment and the way my brain took it that something was wrong, his eyelids were too thin, like how does that even become a thing in my brain? But it did Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're so raw in those moments you know not to minimize it. Yes, there's a lot going on. Your hormones are all over the place and your brain is trying to keep up with your physiology changing so much. But also you're having this intense reaction to this tiny human you created and this huge desire to keep them safe, and so that gets challenging, and I don't know that there's any way to prepare a new mom for that other than what you said. Give yourself some grace. You know and just understand that what you're going through is immense and you just did something so remarkable Even though every mother does something similar. That doesn't decrease the value of the miracle that you've just put your body through and it also, you know, you have to recognize that what you put your body through is so intense that you have to give yourself time to readjust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and grace to baby too, right, I mean, what is birth to baby Coming into this new world? Yeah, getting dropped off on Mars and you're naked Like what?
Speaker 1:just happened here. Hello, with weird people that don't know how to adjust, I want to sleep all the time and you're like, yeah, I need to eat. Well, is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, how can we get in contact with you? I'm going to put it in the show notes too, but you can share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you are always welcome to find me on my website. It is milkinmotioncoco. I'm in the Northern Virginia area within Beehive Wellness Website has all my contact information my email, my phone number, everything. I'm also on Instagram same milk and moon dot co. And I'm always happy to connect even if you're not in the area. I do virtual appointments if that's something you're interested in. Obviously, a pump bar visit you know, coming in and touching and feeling doesn't work, but I do a lot of pump education. I can chat through quite a bit of, you know, troubleshooting with the pieces you have, if you feel like that's something helpful for you. So I would be happy to help. Amazing.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yes, everybody take advantage of that, because, my gosh, it would have been so nice to have somebody just go through all the pieces with me so that I didn't have to do all the weirdness that I had to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do take insurance and hopefully it stays that way. Lactation currently is covered under the Affordable Care.
Speaker 1:Act. That's amazing. Yeah, I feel I. I didn't know that with my second because I didn't have a child during all of that, like in 2015, it wasn't fully covered or my insurance didn't cover it, but then I think they revamped it and I didn't realize it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, same I, I bought my own. I had to buy my own crappy pump, right. But now they're the now insurance just gives you the crappy pumps.
Speaker 1:So right exactly there are ways to find the good pumps, though. Yeah, insurance, but you need somebody to guide you through that. So, yes, well, thank you so much, lacy. I really appreciate. I'm so glad we finally got to do this yes, me too.
