Meagan: 0:28

Thank you so much for being here with us, Lauren. I would love it if you would just take a moment to introduce yourself, explain who you are and what you do.

Lauren: 0:36

I am Lauren Veazey. I am a therapist and the assistant practice manager at her time therapy. I do a lot there, but I have a passion for helping treat women who are going through perinatal and postpartum issues anxiety, grief, and all those things.

Meagan: 0:54

It's such important work you do, and I know that a lot of our listeners are the demographic that you specialize in working with. mothers through every sense of the word and through the whole mother journey, which is a really large one. But there's definitely some areas around pregnancy, prenatal, postnatal that you really tend to dive into. We're gonna talk about that as well as just motherhood and parenting today. One of the big things we're looking at is postpartum depression and like the baby blues and all the different terms we use for that concept. So I'm wondering from your perspective as a therapist who meets with a lot of moms and you also are a mom yourself and have been through all of this personally. Can you, explain a little bit about the difference. Between true postpartum depression versus what we call like the baby blues. When is it just hormones versus when is it really not just hormones.

Lauren: 1:45

Yeah, that's a great and really important question. So postpartum depression, like you said, can be lumped in together with baby blues but they're actually really different in terms of duration and severity. The baby Blues is a really typical postpartum experience that most mothers are going to go through 80% of the current statistics. So it usually occurs within about two weeks of the baby's birth. And it happens due to. the hormonal shifts that occur after delivery. The combination of that with sleep deprivation, the physical recovery after birth, the emotional weight of caring for a newborn. the big thing is that it resolves. It resolves in hours, it resolves in days. And some of the symptoms associated with it are things like weepiness, fatigue, anxiety. Difficulty sleeping and feeling off or feeling hormonal. But like I said it resolves usually with good self-care and it doesn't require professional intervention. When I talk about self-care with new moms, we're really reducing the scope of what self-care means. So that might mean just a little bit of extra sleep, a little bit of extra support, maybe being able to go for a walk to connect with people, make sure you're nourishing yourself. Again, baby Blues doesn't generally require professional intervention, but if a woman is complaining about these symptoms or talking about these symptoms that bear resemblance to baby blues and she's beyond three weeks postpartum, we can pretty safely say that it's not baby blues. And so that is a really limited time to be experiencing. These kind of hormonal fluctuations and these feelings. But if you are past three weeks postpartum and you are still feeling this way, then like I said, pretty safe to say it's not quote unquote just the baby blues, which are hard to go through, but will eventually resolve. postpartum depression, on the other hand, is more persistent and severe, and it can develop anytime in the first year. After birth some clinicians will even extend that to two years. After birth, and it affects about one in seven mothers. So it is not the typical experience. Unlike baby blues, postpartum depression doesn't resolve after some good solid self-care. It's a clinical mood disorder and it can significantly impact a mother's ability to function. these symptoms include things like. Intense sadness or hopelessness, this feeling of emptiness, numbness difficulty bonding with the baby. Extreme fatigue, but also difficulty sleeping when the baby sleeps. it's not just this reaction to shifting hormones, it's influenced by biological, psychological and social factors. And again, unlike the baby blues, it doesn't generally go away on its own. Typically requires some form of intervention, whether that's therapy, medication support groups, a combination of those things. One final note about that is an important distinction for postpartum depression that looks a little bit different than a standard clinical depression. Postpartum depression as a really agitated depression and a high functioning depression because there is an infant to care for, and generally moms are gonna do Anything to make sure that their baby is cared for and be able to present themselves as a good mom. Who is able to take care of their child. It looks a little bit different than standard clinical depression. Those are the really big differences, and that is not something that I knew about Baby Blues is that there's a time limit audit and it's really used to wish away women's difficulties after birth. It can be used as an excuse. Ah, you're just experiencing the baby blues. We might tell ourselves that we might be hearing that from other people if we say that we're struggling. But there's big differences.

Meagan: 5:23

Absolutely. That's such a great concise explanation of, there is time limits on these things from a clinical perspective, but there's also a lot of societal pressures and expectations put on women in general, but especially new mothers too. Get the baby blues quickly. Recover quickly. Get your body back quickly and be the best mom you can while also working and being a good partner and fill in the blanks. And there's a lot of ands that are all the things on us. Yes. All the things. Yeah. And, I wonder in your work with new moms, just how much, while they're in it, all, they're even aware of and realizing that maybe all of these societal pressures are making. All of these symptoms, worse.

Lauren: 6:06

I find a lot with my clients, especially the new moms or even, second time mothers, third time mothers, that there is this downplaying of our symptoms especially after we've given birth and we have children to take care of. There is something very scary about admitting that you're not doing okay, that you're struggling. And I know that it is of the utmost importance to moms to present. Everything is okay because that means that they're a good mom. And if things aren't okay, then they could be a bad mom. so to really recognize validate what we are feeling to ourselves is a big part of the journey with my postpartum moms in particular.

Meagan: 6:47

Yeah. And that takes a lot of courage to come out and say, I'm not doing okay as a mom in this period of time. That is very vulnerable. It's very risky, especially living in a society that has reduced women's lives down to their ability to be mothers. That is the thing that often we are most highly regarded for and celebrated for. So if this is an area that we're realizing, oh, maybe I'm struggling with this. It's not all the pleasant, good, overwhelming love that I was told it was. Or maybe it's that alongside a lot of bad. Or maybe you don't wanna be a mother at all. There's so much judgment around everything to do with motherhood that is placed on women's shoulders and it becomes really paralyzing. And I'm assuming, really difficult for a lot of new moms to even fathom reaching out for help and admitting that something's not great here.

Lauren: 7:36

You're absolutely right. And I think one of the big challenges is to distinguish what is. Quote, unquote, normal in terms of the struggles of new motherhood and parenthood overall, and when does it become something that you might need to seek out help for? Because being a new mom is hard no matter what. Being a parent is hard, no matter what. So when does it get to this level of Actually I do need to reach out for support. I need to be validated in my feelings. I need to untangle. How I got here and how I'm feeling. Because I don't recognize myself. I don't know how to reconcile who I was with, who I am now. And it can be, I. A really difficult and intimidating journey, especially because you're short on time and you're short on brain space and your body is different. And society's telling you that this should be the happiest, most joyful time in your life. And for many moms that I know, it's just not. And that's okay on a lot of levels. And are there things that we can do to help? Soothe this a little bit and make it not such a deep pain and not such a deep grief, to be able to really thrive as much as you can. Because like I said, it is hard, but there's different levels of hard.

Meagan: 8:54

Absolutely. And I think what I'm hearing here too is the power of talking about it. And admitting to yourself, admitting to your friend groups, your sisters publicly. Definitely including our male partners in this discussion. this is so widespread and so prevalent that it should just be a normal thing that we talk about and seek out help for that would make the world and motherhood a lot better place to be. And yet we are in that space in time where we're actively trying to normalize it and it's really important to do so. I'm curious in your perspective, what are some of those tipping point symptoms where we're seeing Okay. Parenthood is hard and we're dealing with the waves of hard as normal, but what's the tidal wave that's oof, okay, now it's dangerous if we don't take that step, that courageous step of seeking out help.

Lauren: 9:43

certainly I'm gonna start with a more severe symptom, which is thoughts of harming yourself or thoughts of harming your baby. That is a medical emergency that needs immediate intervention and there's helplines out there. For that or you go to the ER and things like that. So that's on the more severe ga when the tidal wave goes into that direction. But it is something that happens and it's okay to acknowledge that's something that happens. And it's okay to reach out for help when that happens. in terms of distinguishing the tipping point. It has to do a lot with duration of symptoms. So if you're not just feeling this like hopelessness and fatigue and just the struggle of the relentlessness of parenting and what it demands from you in terms of time and energy, physically, mentally, emotionally. If it is persistent and you're feeling that way more of the time than you're not that is a big signal to me that it's time to reach out for help. If you are not functioning in the way that you hoped you would through motherhood or parenthood, then that is a signal to reach out for some support and help too.

Meagan: 10:55

Yeah. Those are all really good key indicators. And it sounds like a lot of them align with major depressive disorder in, in general. If you're having a hard time doing those things for yourself or your baby, that's a really big indicator.

Lauren: 11:07

Yes, like I said, it's hard, but it doesn't have to be a constant struggle.

Meagan: 11:12

There should be those moments of joy.

Lauren: 11:14

Yes.

Meagan: 11:14

There should be a lot of them, in fact.

Lauren: 11:16

Yes.

Meagan: 11:17

I'm not a mother, so I can't speak to this personally, but I've seen this with some close friends and hearing stories of my clients too. It always surprises me difficult the postpartum period is. For many reasons, but one that stands out to me too is that the majority of the focus tends to shift to the baby. Even in medical settings. Certainly in family and public settings. cause everyone of course wants to celebrate and meet your baby. This cute little infant that's new in the world and that's beautiful, but it tends to leave moms. Dealing with where they're at on their own without a lot of attention or support. Yeah. Which is crazy to me. After a woman goes through what, for many of them, could be the most physically traumatic experience of their life. The attention is turned away from them. if someone got in a terrible car accident or went through a major surgery and we're in a period of recovery immediately after that event, all of the attention, the nursing staff, all of that tends to focus on the patient. And it seems like birth and motherhood is the one. Physically traumatic event where that happens and then very minimal attention is given to the mom as the patient. It tends to shift to the duo or mostly to the baby. I'm curious about your perspective on that and how big of a part that place in all of it.

Lauren: 12:36

That's a really good point. And it was an absolute shock to me how much the focus was on the baby because that's where I was placing all of my focus when I was pregnant. So getting all the baby books, doing all this research, I was approaching motherhood in this very academic way of I wanna know everything about everything and none of the baby books and none of the research that I was doing was there. Amir mention of what you as the mother were going to go through after giving birth. It was all about the development of the baby and what size it is in your womb and that's all very exciting. But what about us? it was very shocking to be relegated to the role of the birthing vessel. In a way and okay, you've done your job, your body's done your job, and now the focus is on this new life, which is so precious which is so expected. And of course, as the mom is there anything better than seeing people like, coup in awe over your new baby, but you're here as this person who's gone through this major medical event and you're just expected to like. Be happy and take care of things like you always have and now you are just mom and all of those previous parts of you that you've spent your whole life being no longer matter to society. even in friends and family, you get on the phone with them and How's baby doing? How's their sleeping? How's their eating? and it's like an oh and how are you? you always come last in the eyes of the world now because you've done your job. And that can feel really bad. It can feel really bad. Even if like myself, I have always wanted to become a mom and I always knew that I wanted children and I was very excited for that time in my life. Yet, man, the disappointment and the recalibration of understanding where society wanted me to stay and be now that I had birth a child. I know I've said it's shocking a couple times, but that really was the primary emotion.

Meagan: 14:44

Absolutely. It's a big shift to your identity. Suddenly in a minute you're treated differently by the entire world.

Lauren: 14:52

Yep.

Meagan: 14:53

You're regarded differently and you're having to figure out how to navigate that while also adjusting to a body that feels totally different, that has gone through major events where now you're having to recover physically and mentally and emotionally all at the same time. Very little energy and attention is directed that way. Seems really isolating.

Lauren: 15:13

It very much can be and. There's this beautiful term that I've come across in this field and, thinking about and treating people with perinatal and postpartum issues, and the term is mires and it is this term that encapsulates this time of becoming a mother. And so if we think of like adolescence where. Everything's changing around us. We're trying to form this identity. Our bodies are doing interesting and odd things and we are going through this major transition. some people, are gonna really struggle with that and some people are gonna do okay. And I find that is very similar with this period of mince, this becoming of a mother. Some of us are gonna be all right. Some of us are really gonna struggle with it, but to not even have that part of us acknowledged that, we're going through a transition too can be, like you said, very isolating. A little bit deflating.

Meagan: 16:09

Yeah. I'm so glad that there's a term out there for it, and I'm also so sad that it's not a more widely known term. That's a really powerful thing to share with people, but especially mothers, that there is a term for this transition whether you're struggling with depression or you had a really traumatic birth, or everything seems to be going smooth and you're really happy with your decision. no matter what, there is a transition that deserves validation and acknowledgement and attention to, which is what you specialize in. With doing this particular type of counseling?

Lauren: 16:41

Yes. it is a term that I love to introduce to my clients because the vast majority have not heard about it before, and there's something really powerful about naming the transition that we're going through and acknowledging that it's about us too, and it's about the dyad of us and our baby as well.

Meagan: 17:02

So you are a mom of two wonderful little boys. And I'm wondering if you can tell us a bit about the choice to have a second child and what the differences were, maybe from your first pregnancy to your second, and maybe the pros and cons of even that whole decision to be a mom of two.

Lauren: 17:21

Yeah, that's a big question because my motherhood journey oh gosh, was a struggle from the beginning. Currently just for some context, my boys are now seven and nine, and it's so interesting now doing the work that I do to be aware of. Some of the risk factors that, perinatal mood, anxiety disorders have associated with them because now I can think about these risk factors and just be like, check check, check. Because of my perinatal experiences. I'm talking about things like history of thyroid dysfunction, which I wasn't aware of before I started on the fertility journey. I'm talking about, having a predisposition towards anxiety. I really didn't realize what an anxious person I was until my mother had a journey. Bereavement, which is a big part of my journey that I'll get into in a little bit. A history of loss. So suffering miscarriage is a risk factor. That's a big piece of it. And then. Difficult infant temperament or a mismatch of infant temperament to your temperament is a big risk factor. And then overall unexpected outcomes, which is I think a big theme of what we're hitting on here there is tension and difficulty you come to realize that motherhood is not what you thought it was gonna be. And so those are all things that are part of my story. And, 10, 11 years ago when I started on this journey, like I said, I had no idea, no concept that any of these things were risk factors. So it was a surprise to me to slowly come to the realization that I was suffering beyond the typical baby blues and the typical difficult time of early motherhood. My motherhood journey really begins with struggle. My husband and I had been married for a few years. We were in our early thirties. We wanted to start a family, and it just was not happening. It felt like. Everyone around us who either already had kids or wanted kids, could just get pregnant at the drop of a hat and oh, it happened on our first try or our second try, or within three months. And it's just oh, okay. I'm so happy for you. there's so much dissonance there 'cause you really are happy for anybody who wants a child and becomes pregnant. But there's also this internal battle of what's wrong with me and why can't my body do this? And so we started to come up on this timeframe where it was time to start considering speaking to a fertility specialist, trying to dig a little deeper. So we were doing a lot of research trying to get acquainted with this potentially. Infertile world. And during that time, my mother-in-law had died by suicide. so we entered a completely different world at that time. A world of deep grief loss confusion and a lot of really complicated feelings. So that really shifted our world at that time. But a few months later, I did become pregnant for the first time and it felt. Miraculous. It was this beacon of hope and joy in the midst of this very dark time. But unfortunately that didn't last, I ended up having a miscarriage and after that I was wrecked. I was wrecked emotionally, mentally, physically. I was crying myself to sleep for months and months and just felt a shell of my former self and I really tried to pull myself out of this tide pool of darkness that I couldn't. And along with the mental anguish and the grief piece, I could also tell that there was something off. Biologically I couldn't get anywhere with my traditional doctors. So I eventually went to a holistic doctor and did some testing and I have, some thyroid issues that I had no idea about. They were subclinical, so everything was showing up normal, but really wasn't normal for me. So I started, taking thyroid medication and felt better almost instantly. And then within a few months I was pregnant with my now 9-year-old. I wish I could say things were easy going from there on out, but they weren't, we were still very much grieving my mother-in-law and, continually coming to terms that she would never meet her first grandchild. So we were still in this grief space and this celebration space, which felt very hard. And then, following Birth Man, I love that little guy, but he did not sleep. And we had breastfeeding issues and feeding issues from the very beginning, and he had a very difficult temperament that just did not match my temperament. And me being me, a typical oldest child type a high unbeatable expectations for myself. I now say I'm a recovering perfectionist, but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as that at the time. There's that piece and this running narrative in my family and even among my friends that I'm really even keeled and I'm really chill. I'm the one that you come to if you have problems. I don't have problems. I'm good. I'm fine. Spoiler alert, I had a very anxious internal life. I'm not fine but I can't let anybody see that. cause I'm supposed to be the Okay one. So You can see how that perception of myself, that identity that I had for myself really conflicted heavily with my experience of early motherhood. There's this saying that all babies do is eat, sleep and poop. And it's like, I'm failing it. Two of those. I was so determined to figure it out for myself again, going into research mode because I could not let anybody know that I was failing and struggling. So I didn't enlist help. I didn't really tell anybody that I was, feeling this way. I felt extremely guilty for not enjoying every moment of motherhood. And everybody says enjoy these moments. 'cause it goes so fast and it's just I haven't slept more than 90 minutes in a row for weeks. And when was my last shower? I don't know, but okay, I'll enjoy it. So I just felt so unprepared for the relentlessness. Of motherhood and how the baby's needs just don't stop. when my son was a few months old, my mom, who was and is a huge part of my support system, was diagnosed with a rare cancer. And again, my world flipped upside down. That time is honestly still so much of a blur, but I just remember isolating myself even more and feeling like. I can't let anybody know that I'm struggling because she's struggling and we need to put the support towards her. I felt buzz with anxiety constantly. But things really had to give eventually. And I finally sought out some help and I joined a group for Moms and Infants, it was an open group where you could just bring your baby. You could talk or not talk. There was an amazing therapist there, and we just went around the circle and talked about whatever we needed to talk about. And I got to say out loud for the first time that I was having a hard time with motherhood and I was supported. And I was believed, until then, I really did not know that I was allowed to say that. I didn't know that I was allowed to say that motherhood was hard and that I was struggling. I thought that made me a bad mom. But in that circle of support where I got to hear the struggles of so many other women and different ways that they were struggling and, being validated, that it was really as hard as it felt. We just got to exchange some mom knowledge on feeding and sleeping it was also fun to be in a community of women as well. I eventually was able to get connected with, lactation consultants. I tweaked thyroid meds and that mom group really made me feel like, okay, things are gonna be okay. I'm okay. And they were. And because of that, we decided we wanted to try for another child. Things had stabilized, things were okay. I did get pregnant immediately, which was a shock with number two. And so my younger son was born two years and about three months after my first, Again, wish I could say that from there on things were okay and smooth sailing, but they weren't. From what I've been describing, as you might imagine, I had a lot of unresolved things that were just festering beneath the surface. Early motherhood kept me so busy that I had not fully confronted my loss of identity, grief over who I used to be. This existential crisis of not knowing if I was gonna lose my mom. Continued bereavement of my mother-in-law, going through depression, heightened anxiety symptoms, and again, not understanding how much anxiety I personally was living with on a daily basis and even before I had kids. That ultimately manifested in episodes of anxiety where I would have very vivid, terrifying thoughts of bad things happening to my kids. Them getting hurt, them dying and it got to the point where I would just stand frozen. In the kitchen and these thoughts would replay over and over again, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And my body was physiologically reacting as though my thoughts were real. my kids at that time were going to a part-time at home daycare. And I knew their outdoor play schedule and I knew their park visiting schedule. I was so close every day to getting in my car and going and just watching them because I was terrified of something bad happening to them. That was a clear disruption in my daily functioning. I thought I was going crazy. It might be taboo to use as a term as a therapist, but I thought I was losing it. And so I contacted the therapist that led the mom and baby group. Nicole. Shout out to Nicole. Love you. Started going to sessions with her and during my first session I just explained to her all of these terrible thoughts that I was thinking, and I was so nervous to tell her about it because I thought it was so extreme and so terrible. And she just said, do you know that there's a name for what you're experiencing? And I was like, no. And she said. Those are called intrusive thoughts the relief of knowing that there was a name for what I was going through, that there wasn't something terrible located within me. I wasn't this broken person that was having these terrible images just that was so powerful. all moms have intrusive thoughts. Many people. Have intrusive thoughts. But again, in my case, they were disrupting my functioning. I felt like I couldn't function properly because they were taking over my life. once I got a handle on those, I was able to process a lot of other things that I had gone through. And it was going through individual and. Group therapy that made me get serious about making a career change and focusing a lot of my work on the perinatal population and working with grief and anxiety too. it's so important for moms birthing people, dads to have a safe space to fall apart, to say the scary things that maybe they can't say to family or friends. For fear of judgment or. Being perceived as a bad parent. I know what it's like. I know what it's like to love your children with every cell in your body, and to have these mental health struggles connected to the parenting journey. And just because you're okay with one kid and you stabilize and feel all right, doesn't mean that things are gonna be okay with the second child or the third or the fourth or whatever your family structure looks like.

Meagan: 28:09

Wow. Thank you first of all for being so vulnerable and sharing that whole motherhood journey with us here. This is exactly the type of stories that we need shared, and there's so much power in putting words to it, and I know it took a lot of bravery for you to summarize all of it in that way, so I really appreciate that you showed up here, willing to do that.

Lauren: 28:30

Certainly. I don't think that it answered your original question about knowing about it, but the struggles were such an integral part of my early motherhood experience that it's difficult to separate knowing when to go from one to two, without acknowledging there were things that needed to happen, before we could do that.

Meagan: 28:48

Absolutely through your story. What I kept thinking too is that, the motherhood journey and pregnancies and having children and that whole shift, it highlights a lot of the struggles in life that happen anyway. whether you're naturally a person that struggles with anxiety or you're dealing with a mother who is. Battling cancer or you have a loss in the family, or you have job struggles or any other fill in the blank stressor, all of those parts of life don't stop just because you happen to be pregnant and have an infant the rest of life doesn't stop. But the fact that you are in this particular place, in your world and in your body makes all the rest of it heightened. All of it together makes it all exponentially more. And when things are more, we need more support. We need more people around us. for you, that women's group and having a circle of women that you could be real with seemed to make all the difference.

Lauren: 29:44

It really did. And yes, that word heightened. There is just such a sharpness to everything after you have a child, and we should all over ourselves during this time. I should be enjoying this. This should be easier. I should be able to get through this. But when everything does feel heightened and sharper, like you said, that's a call for more support, not self-judgment. let's be compassionate with ourselves in this major thing that we are going through and ask for more because we really deserve it.

Meagan: 30:16

Absolutely. And that starts even in the fertility journey in the beginning. And I'm so sorry that you had to go through the grief of a miscarriage we could do a whole episode on the grief that women experience, especially in reproductive parts of their lives, it's a disenfranchised loss. It's not one that we recognize nearly as much as we should in the society. as a woman myself, getting older, I'm a noun. I'm 34, I'm in my mid, almost thirties, and I never recognized in most of my twenties that was so common. I. It wasn't until I had a lot of my friends go through, getting, their own mother journey started and seeing their sisters and their friends go through it. you hear about it through stories and you realize as you get older, boy, these stories are becoming more and more common. And when you're a teenager and when you're in your twenties, even. A lot of women are so focused on not getting pregnant. That we never are really taught to think about fertility and we're never taught how common it is to struggle with these things where do you hear it? Other than by women just talking behind closed doors. And that's really part of what we're doing on this podcast is taking those conversations and putting them out more publicly so that it's not such a shock when you start to realize this is way more of a prevalent problem than anyone gave me any inclination of.

Lauren: 31:35

Yes. That's the big theme here, isn't it? It is just I didn't know. I didn't know this. And it was exactly that. That was exactly my experience with suffering. The miscarriage is all of a sudden you become part of this club that you didn't wanna be part of, but that there's a lot of other people who are members of that club and the healing piece. Is in connecting and sharing and grieving that disenfranchised loss together and allowing yourself permission to acknowledge that it is a major loss and it's okay to feel sad and it's okay to talk about it.

Meagan: 32:12

Absolutely. So you are now a therapist specializing in women's mental health, pre and postpartum care, parenting care, motherhood care. And you've not only academically learned what to do about all of this, but you've healed from it yourself. I'm wondering what you can share with folks that are struggling with this and maybe are realizing I am at that point where I need to reach out for some. Support here. What can they expect to happen in therapy session? What works to heal those intrusive thoughts or some of the other heightened symptoms that we've talked about?

Lauren: 32:47

That's a great question. I think one of the biggest things to acknowledge is that what can feel the most healing is being witnessed. And seen and held in your pain, whether that's through other women, through, joining part of a group or in a therapy session it is that relationship, that therapeutic alliance that you have that connection that community and a safeness where you can feel. Free to express what you need to express because again we're taught that we are supposed to be experiencing motherhood in a specific way, and it feels very shameful if we are not experiencing it in that way. so it's a huge goal for me to provide a safe, non-judgmental, compassionate space for women. To say whatever they need to say, the scary things, the bad things, the things that they feel ashamed about. so what you should be able to expect when you go to seek help in your perinatal, postpartum period or any other time in your life, is that you will be met with compassion and A genuine interest and curiosity in who you are, what your experience is, what your story is, and a validation that what you're experiencing makes sense. And is okay and that there are things that we can do to treat it. So postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, these can be really scary things to experience and to acknowledge that you have, but they're highly treatable. So you can not just talk about where you've been and where you are, but where you wanna be and collaborate with your therapist on your treatment. thriving as much as you're able to in the context you have available to you in your parenting and motherhood journey.

Meagan: 34:35

Very well said. And no therapeutic journey looks the same. So what works for one mom is not gonna work for another. Yeah. But it's a combination of working in context of other mothers. Of other women, of your therapist to have connection. And of course I can't not quote Brene Brown here, but shame can't live in the light. So bringing a lot of it into the light that in itself can be healing. Yeah. Just to be witnessed. Yes.

Lauren: 35:02

All of our stories are so precious and they really deserve to be heard. it can be really powerful to name what's happening to us. And to be able to be an active participant in the narrative of our lives.

Meagan: 35:15

That's a really beautiful way to say it. Be an active participant in the narrative. I imagine as we gather listeners to this episode, most of them are gonna be mothers, but there's probably a good demographic out there that are what we call fence sitters. The women who are considering motherhood but aren't sure and do a lot of that academic research that you talked about to really figure out, is this right for me or not? What information do I need to have to make the best decision I can for myself? And as one of those fence sitters, I wanna maybe selfishly ask you, what would you share with those women that are contemplating becoming mothers through pregnancy or through adoption or to maybe decide not to? What would you share with them?

Lauren: 35:58

I would share that no matter what your decision is you have the right to make your decision free of cultural influences, whether that's family the wider culture that you should have full control over your reproductive experience and that you deserve to trust yourself. In the decisions that you ultimately make about whether or not you decide to bring a life into the world women have tremendous value outside of the role of mom. And even though it is such a joy in my life, I am also so much more than a mom. so no matter what way you choose it is valid. It is wonderful and the world needs your gifts, whether those are steeped in motherhood or not.

Meagan: 36:45

Thank you for saying that. That is absolutely beautiful and so true. I couldn't agree more. That's such great advice for any women listening to this. You are so much more than any one of your roles. Thank you for your time today, Lauren. This was such a powerful episode and I know it's gonna help so many people. So I really appreciate your courage and your vulnerability and your expertise that you shared with us here today.

Lauren: 37:07

Thank you so much for allowing the space for my story. I love to be in session with my clients and hearing them. Talk about their stories and I welcome so much their vulnerability that I only feel it's right to be able to model that and to be able to tell my story and be vulnerable in that. So again, thank you for allowing the space for that and allowing me to express my passion for helping and supporting the perinatal and postpartum population.

Meagan: 37:37

Absolutely. And if anyone has listened to this and wants to meet and work with Lauren, we'll put her profile link with her contact information in the show notes, as well as some of the crisis resources that we mentioned for general crisis support as well as miscarriage support. For potential moms who are in need.