Usha Anandi's journey into feminine spirituality and embodiment began with her own story of trauma and numbness. Determined to heal the root of her disconnection and pain, she traveled all around the world, devoting her life to studying ancient healing practices and making them accessible for the modern age.

In this episode we explore the issues related to privilege and healing work, the impact of stress and isolation on our nervous systems, and some powerful embodiment practices to assist us during this time.

Returning guest Christa Gifford shares honestly about the challenges and healing she has experienced since the death of her daughter Goldie (story shared in EP 030). After the unexpected breakdown of her marriage, Christa had no choice but to confront her own demons and look within to discover what really needed to be healed so that she could move forward as a whole woman. Her powerful story will surprise you!

April McMurtry, creator of The Moon Is My Calendar, goes deep on how the moon serves as a guide to us on the journey of cyclical living and awareness, and how we can bring this awareness into our relationship with our daughters. April shares from her heart about the awakening she experienced in early motherhood, the deep peace she has discovered in living rhythmically, and what raising daughters intentionally has looked like for her.

Special guest Jessica Connolly shares her inspiring story of raising 4 daughters to be connected to their feminine power and potential, and how that is possible to cultivate at any age. Mellisa & Jessica describe a one-of-a-kind new project designed for mothers who want to empower their daughters to form a vital, healthy connection to the sacred power of the feminine cycle through practical tools, personal transformation and powerful community.

Best-selling author of Pregnancy Brain, Parijat Deshpande's world changed when her complicated, high risk pregnancy ended with the birth of her son at 25 weeks. In this episode, we explore trauma, the nervous system and how to use the mind body connection to not just manage a high risk pregnancy but actually thrive.

Join us on Tuesday, July 30th at 1:30pm PST on Instagram for a LIVE follow up conversation with Mellisa and Parijat where we will answer any of your questions and explore our conversation further!

Host Mellisa Reeves and guest Tamara Iglesias of Welly Nest, a conscious parenting coach, explore how motherhood brings up all of the unresolved issues in our lives and how conscious parenting serves as an invitation to heal our own selves.

Tamara believes that "parenting is our greatest opportunity to evolve. In this episode, we explore how motherhood triggers our childhood wounds, beliefs about the world, and even our own inadequacy as mothers. If motherhood is an opportunity to evolve, to transform, then these triggers are the catalysts that enable this transformation.

Healing our own wounds is the way forward, instead of getting caught up in the distractions of reacting to our children's behaviours and the anxiety so many of us experience. If you've ever felt in the trenches of motherhood and didn't know how to find your way through the dark, this conversation will be like seeing a glimpse of light for the first time in awhile.

As a journalist, Virginia Sole-Smith frequently wrote diet articles for women’s magazines but much of what she wrote never rang true for her. Then, when her first child was born with a rare congenital heart condition and wouldn’t eat on her own, she began to connect the dots of how outside influences can alter our bodies’ natural instincts to nourish and satiate ourselves.

Her new book, The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America, was inspired by her daughter’s resistance to eating, her journey to feel safe in her own relationship with food, and her experience of writing about diet culture. The book explores food culture, body image issues and eating disorders that can occur when societal rules disrupt our intuition, and the self-imposed judgments many women put upon themselves.

Virginia is a powerful voice not only for seeing yourself in a new way but also for raising the next generation in a new way that doesn’t assume we have to keep doing things the same way when it clearly isn’t working. Her book comes out this week and will be an incredible resource to anyone looking to de-program cultural messages about our relationships to our bodies!

In This Episode:

• How she learned her daughter had a congenital heart condition
• How she built trust around the feeding relationship with her daughter
• The intense bond the trauma and stress created between her and her partner
• The importance of establishing feeding patterns
• Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding
• The ever-changing rules of nutrition
• The science of hunger and satiation
• How the word ‘best’ is a misnomer
• The unhealthy relationship many women have with food
• How our bodies have a natural intuition about what we need
• The downsides of the diet culture
• How to get a free 1-month trial of guided meditations through Expectful

Show Notes:
Virginia Sole-Smith
The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America, by Virginia Sole-Smith
@MotherBirth.co on Instagram
Expectful — 1 Month Free Trial for MotherBirth Community Members

Few people have the tenacity and the resolve to recognize a gap in women’s health care services and then break down the barriers to fill the gap and find a place for themselves amid the new design. But, that is exactly what today’s guest, Director of Midwifery Care, Nikia Grayson, CNM, DNP, MPH did at CHOICES — Memphis Center for Reproductive Health in Memphis, Tennessee.

Coming from the DC area, Nikia found the infant mortality rates among families of color in Memphis distressing. With a lack of community-based programs and very little influence left over from the Granny Midwives of the past, Nikia set her sights on creating a high-quality, non-judgmental, comprehensive reproductive health center the entire community could use.

The organization Nikia helped transform — CHOICES — started as a cash-only abortion clinic. The organization now provides different health care choices based on community needs. During our conversation, Nikia shares information about her personal journey to becoming a midwife, the new birthing center, and how MotherBirth listeners can support the program.

Her passion for women, providing equal access for the entire community, and focusing on the entire spectrum of reproductive health needs is so inspiring. We are so excited to share this incredible conversation.

In This Episode:

• The barriers to becoming a midwife
• How she built trust and relationships within the community
• How funds are raised for the reproductive center
• How policy and politics have disrupted the long-standing tradition of midwifery
• The importance of high-quality, non-judgmental care
• How the same women who have babies are the same women who have abortions
• Why having a birth team is important
• The past role of a Granny Midwife in a community
• How to support the work of CHOICES, locally or otherwise
• How to get a free 1-month trial of guided meditations through Expectful

Show Notes:
Memphis CHOICES Website
Memphis CHOICES on Facebook
@MotherBirth.co on Instagram
Expectful — 1 Month Free Trial for MotherBirth Community Members

Kate Woolley and her husband didn’t anticipate all the bumps and struggles they would face when they made the decision to become parents. When their first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, a fracture was created in their communications due to the different manner in which they dealt with grief. But when Kate faced rare and challenging conditions during their second pregnancy, their bond grew stronger than ever.

When her water broke during her 16th week of pregnancy Kate was placed on home bed rest. Then at 27-weeks, she experienced such an intense bleeding that she was placed in a high-risk perinatal unit where she was told by hospital staff that she was the most complicated, naturally-conceived pregnancy they had ever experienced.

During our conversation, Kate describes the roller coaster ride of emotions she experienced on her journey to motherhood as well as the myriad of rare physical conditions she faced including a cervical cyst, a placental abruption, and vasa previa. She also shares how her business, The Noble Paperie, was born from her experiences of grief, loss, and hope.

We are so honored to share these powerful stories with you during Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and hope that you share with those you love who will find comfort and connection.

In This Episode:

• How a miscarriage created a wedge between her and her husband
• How she approached the decision to try to get pregnant again after the miscarriage
• How it feels to have an extended stay in the high-risk perinatal floor of a hospital
• How a cyst on her cervix led to a placental abruption
• How a rare occurrence of vasa previa led to a Cesarean
• The grief of being unable to hold her baby for weeks
• How she and her husband reconnected during their second pregnancy
• The importance of friendship and support during her motherhood journey
• Why there was an absence of visitors during her son’s 34-day stay in NICU
• What it felt like to arrive home from the hospital without her baby
• What inspired her to create The Noble Paperie
• How to get a free 1-month trial of guided meditations through Expectful

Show Notes:

The Noble Paperie
@TheNoblePaperie on Instagram
@MotherBirth.co on Instagram
Expectful — 1 Month Free Trial for MotherBirth Community Members

Dr. Jessica Zucker is a well-known psychologist who specializes in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health, the founder of the ‘I Had a Miscarriage’ campaign, and a writer. She practiced clinically for years before her own 16-week miscarriage offered her a new perspective on the many aspects of loss and how it touches every part of a woman’s life.

During our conversation, Dr. Zucker shares the raw details of her loss, how getting intimate with death changed her and made her more emotionally available to her patients, why she created the ‘I Had a Miscarriage’ campaign and her fears about getting pregnant again.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and we hope that this powerful conversation helps create more space and openness between those who have experienced loss and those who haven’t. We believe that open dialogue in our culture is rare but so needed - especially in this incredibly misunderstood arena.

In This Episode:

• How modern psychology was originally designed for men as a moral development tool
• How mental health professionals can offer assistance to others even if they haven’t had a similar experience
• The physical realities of a pregnancy loss
• How she considers her loss an unforeseeable gift
• Why some women choose not to share their stories of loss
• How the trauma of loss appears in many different areas of a woman’s life
• What it’s like to have an unmedicated D&C procedure
• Discussing psychologists ability to apply their knowledge to themselves
• The dangers of walking on eggshells when discussing pregnancy loss
• If the ‘12-week rule’ is appropriate advice for doctors to relay
• How to get a free 1-month trial of guided meditations through Expectful

Show Notes:

Dr. Jessica Zucker
@Ihadamiscarriage on Instagram
Expectful — 1 Month Free Trial for MotherBirth Community Members

Sarah Peck was the first employee to get pregnant at the Silicon Valley startup she worked for. And while her boss affirmed things would work out, she could feel unconscious competition and misogyny in the air. Inside she was feeling lonely and wondering if she was sacrificing the career she had built. In addition to her other duties, she was tasked with helping to write the ‘maternity employee handbook’ for the entire organization.

Since that time, Sarah has left that position to become an entrepreneur and to follow her passion for writing. She founded Startup Pregnant, a soulful space for women wanting to be intentional about the intersection of career and motherhood, based on her own experience of unpacking what it meant to be a woman in a corporate startup venture blended with her many years of blogging experience.

During our conversation, we delve into the seldom discussed topics of how the modern world changes the way women prepare for pregnancy, how keeping up with the Joneses can add stressors to what should be a transformative experience and the myth of finding a work-life balance.

Sarah articulates beautifully the struggle so many of us feel — how can we pursue meaningful work that matters while also desiring to create a family landscape that is nurturing and healthy?

In This Episode:

• Having a baby in the male-dominated startup world
• The benefits of having a pregnant woman on the team
• The emotionally complex situation entrepreneurs face while expecting
• How pregnancy launched her new career
• How she created a company’s policies on pregnancy and maternity leave
• How she took a softer approach to parenting in the commercialized ‘baby market’
• Cost-justifying a Doula
• How her partner negotiated extended time off to spend with family
• How the inexpensive gift of letters from family and friends can help guide parents through their first year
• How to building body confidence during pregnancy
• The effects of the modern lifestyle on the birthing experience
• How she prepared for birth physically, mentally, and spiritually
• Visualising the tender care you want from others during postpartum
• How women can be more specific about what they want
• How to build your maternity wardrobe with style and ease online

Show Notes:

Startup Pregnant
Startup Pregnant Podcast
@StartupPregnant on Twitter
Stitch Fix — Create a Style Profile and Have Clothes Delivered Right to Your Front Door