40. My Story – Miscarriage at 17 Weeks

Welcome friend. Today’s topic is a heavy one. I want to take a moment to have you pause and check in with your own heart before we charge into this topic and story. I’m going to be sharing my miscarriage story, raw and real and vulnerable. If this isn’t something your heart needs right now, feel free to move onto another episode!

So, if you haven’t listened to the last episode, the recap of my last few months, I encourage you to pause, jump back and listen and come back, because it will help fill in a few gaps for you.

Let’s get into it.

39. I’m Back & Where I’ve Been!

Hello friends! It’s been quite a few months since I took my hiatus from this podcast, and I wanted to give you a quick update before diving into some deep content over the next few episodes.

The last episode was aired in August of 2020, crazy right? It’s amazing how quickly and slowly time goes at the same time.

Well, where I live, has been and still is in pretty restrictive lockdown, so most of my updates are of a personal nature, but it definitely bleeds into my business, because what I offer comes from my heart.

August was a big month for me, because we found out we were pregnant!

Then in November, at 17 weeks, I miscarried….

38. Down Regulation & Real Talk

Hello fellow birth workers!

Today’s episode is a little different.

Here’s some background before I explain.

Life has been a lot, for all of us. Personally, I’m quite sensitive to being overwhelmed and overstimulated. I’ve cut way back on my own podcast consumption and really being very mindful of what I read, watch and listen too.
This mindfulness as helped support my mental and emotional health over the last few months.

I’ve had to reassess how I serve in my business with all these transitions. Being in a house and isolated from my community has been rough, and so I’m having to make adjustments. One of those adjustments is putting the Thriving Birth Worker Podcast on hiatus. I always want my work to be an authentic reflection of who I am, and right now, I’m not able to put more noise out into this noisy world authentically….

37. Thriving in Midwifery & Business with Hearth & Home Midwifery

Hello friends! I’m so excited to share this interview with you today! I had the chance to talk to Sarah and Charli from Hearth and Home Midwifery who serve here in the Willamette Valley here in the PNW in Oregon, making them a couple of my local colleagues!

Today they offered so much wisdom to all us birth workers as they share their process of entering into the birth world and how they navigate the on call life, serving clients, working together as a team and so much more. They drop so many bits of wisdom in this interview you’ll be grateful and possibly interested in taking notes!

I’m so happy to introduce you to Charli and Sarah of Hearth and Home Midwifery.

36. Mentor Session with The Doula Darcy

Hello fellow birth workers! I’m really excited for today’s conversation! This is going to be our second mentor session on the podcast. What is a mentor session? Well, I’m so glad you asked. It’s basically, if you could sit down with someone who has been in the birth working field for years and listen to their wisdom, experience and knowledge and soak it up. Many of us want a mentor, but after our trainings it can seem like we’re on our own. Yet, we’re designed for mentorship. One of the points that was covered in today’s podcast was our deep need for someone more experienced to help guide us on our journey, and that it is not a negative reflection on what we know or don’t know, but simply how us humans are wired. I’m so excited that we got to chat with Darcy Sauers today!

35. How Movement Healed Me

Hello fellow birth workers. Today I’m excited to get pretty vulnerable with you all about my own story with functional movement. How I started out as an athlete, became a couch potato for the sake of motherhood and transitioned into finding my balance and rhythm. When I share that I’m a functional Movement Specialist, I get a lot of questions, it’s not your average title. I get that if I said I was a personal training most people would get it. But also most people would probably assume they know what I do when what I do is quite different, so functional movement specialist it is!

Why does my story matter, well stories are powerful, but mostly I want to take you on my own journey of feeling like I was never doing enough, never strong enough and always feeling like I was behind and how my relationship with functional movement changed me. In reality it was a huge tool in my own healing journey, and not just physically. The peace and strength I feel in my own skin at 36 is so drastically different from what I felt in my body at 26, and every year it keeps getting better. That’s a pretty different narrative than what we generally hear culturally. We’re told you need to be young and thin and athletic to feel that way. Then it’s easy to believe that it’s in accessible to us simply because of our age, body structure and so on. I want to help combat that narrative for you, and the best way I know how is to tell you my story.

34. Why Self Care is Hard for Birth Workers?

Hello fellow birth workers! We’re a week into July fo 2020. Everything has been crazy this whole year! Do you remember the Australia fires that started this year? That seems like 5 years ago instead of 5-6 months ago when that kicked off our year. It’s gotten more intense ever since. 2020 has impacted our families, our communities, our ability to BE with our clients, our ability to provide for our families. It’s challenged our own personal beliefs, challenged us to really assess if our values line up with our actions. We’re also doing all this work physically separated from our support systems. To say 2020 has been a lot would be a gross understatement.

Today I want to chat about the power of self care, what barriers come between us and actually practicing self care, and why necessary for world change. This is a topic that is near to my heart. I deeply love supporting the birth worker community. I see birth workers as a vital piece to the puzzle of a balance and supported culture and community. Birth is such a vulnerable time, and being supported, seen, heard and valued during that experience is incredible.

33. The Website Doula – Sarah Juliusson

I’m so glad you’re here today, because today’s episode is GOLD! Now it’s about a topic many of us might find overwhelming or unapproachable or we have told ourselves is just quite frankly out of our league. Websites! Did you cringe? Did your groan a little? That’s ok and very normal, and also, that means today’s episode is perfect for you! Over the last few months, we’ve seen a transition into the online world on a level that is off the charts. Many of us are navigating bringing our work online, even if it wasn’t our first choice, because we have to to safely serve our clients. It has been overwhelming and scary for many of us. This episode will feel like a doula taking your hand and providing the calm and clarity we all need right now as we navigate all the tech stuff!

32. How to Doula Yourself

Hello! Welcome to todays podcast! I’m excited to connect with you today! I’ve been processing today’s podcast for a while now, and getting lots of personal opportunities to experience this topic in my own life, and I’m excited to share what I’ve been learning and practicing and to offer an perspective that is in my opinion needed now more than ever! The art of doula-ing yourself! See the show page for more info…

31. Occupational Therapist Lisa Westhorpe

Occupational Therapists are quite literally the best. Today I get the chance to chat with the amazing Lisa Westhrope. She’s the fabulous woman behind Nurture Occupational Therapy and I basically fell in love with her over the brief time I’ve known her and over the course of this interview! If you’re not positive you know exactly what an occupational therapist is, no worries, she explains it to us!

A bit about Lisa! She is a masters-level qualified occupational therapist and mama of two who has a passion for supporting women during their motherhood journey. Lisa became interested in women’s health after her own experiences of pregnancy and early motherhood. She has a particular interest in supporting birth choices, educating parents-to-be on the fourth trimester, suggesting ergonomic modifications for everyday parenting tasks and promoting a safe return to exercise.