Are You Supported Enough in Your Pregnancy
Are you feeling overwhelmed and unsupported during your pregnancy? Wondering if you have the right mindset and care team to ensure a positive and empowered birth experience?
If you’re struggling to navigate pregnancy and birth decisions, feeling unsure about your choices, and craving more support, this episode is for you! Join Carolina and her guest Anne, a Pregnancy and birth Mentor, as they challenge the norm and discuss a perspective shift to uplift and empower the journey to birth and motherhood.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOUβLL LEARN:
- The significance of cultivating a healthy pregnancy mindset and how it can transform your experience.
- Strategies to uncover and address fears and self-limiting beliefs that may be hindering your pregnancy journey.
- Tips for building a supportive care team that aligns with your desires and needs during pregnancy and birth.
Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical advice to make your pregnancy journey more positive and fulfilling! Don’t miss out on this episode filled with actionable steps to empower yourself during this sacred time.
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Professional Bio
The Make A Baby Podcast is proudly presented by the incredible Carolina Sotomayor, the Make A Baby Membership, and the Next Level Fertility Program.
Meet Carolina Sotomayor, your go-to Expert Reiki Womb Healer! She’s your partner in the journey to motherhood, helping women all around the world bring their baby dreams to life by tackling physical barriers with Reiki magic. π
But that’s not all β she’s also the heart and soul of the Make A Baby Podcast, where we dive an amazing Reiki meditations, empowering healing tips, and taboo topics you won’t hear anywhere else. ποΈOver the past 7 years, I’ve had the honor of helping over 90 babies come into this world through the power of Reiki.
We believe that healing is not meant to be done alone nor should it be. That is why we created the Make A Baby Membership. It’s like a cozy online reiki healing haven where you can heal at your own pace and supercharge your fertility. πͺ
Carolina’s on a mission, and she’s already helped over 700 women find their healing path. She’s all about making your family’s dreams a reality. No wonder there are now more than 95 Reiki babies in the world! πΆβ€οΈ
Ready to join us and take your fertility journey to the next level? You’re in luck because we’re offering a FREE TRIAL of the Make A Baby Membership: Get Started Now. π
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Podcast Episode Transcript
Hi friends. Welcome back this week. We’re talking about are you supported enough in your pregnancy? And we have a very special guest, but before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to one of our featured listeners of the week, my coaching biz, who left us a great review, a five star review. She says, huge fan of this podcast, and absolutely loving listening to all Carolina’s episodes.
They’re insightful, helpful, and super enjoyable. My. Coaching biz. Thank you so much. And I see that this review is from New Zealand. So shout out to Listening to us from New Zealand. Thank you again We’re so glad and grateful to have reached you across the globe and remember you that’s listening Please leave us a five star review when you get a chance and maybe next week You’ll be featured as our listener of the week and i’ll give you a shout out here on the show personally I love talking about all phases of motherhood, but particularly pregnancy.
Pregnancy was, I dare say, sacred time for me, even though it was a tumultuous experience. I’ve only have my own experience to speak about. I do help a lot of moms through their pregnancy with Reiki, but I am super excited about the stories that are coming through this episode. And most importantly, I’m excited to bring you one of my favorite people who have I’ve actually gotten to know for almost a year now.
Her name is Anne. She is a pregnancy empowerment coach and thanks for being here. How are you? I’m so good. And I’m so excited to be doing this with you. Just being and bearing witness to what you’re putting out in the world. You’re infectious. And I have just been jumping at the bit to be on an episode.
So thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh. I met you over a year ago and, and I, just as soon as I saw you, you were nearly postpartum when you were like very, it was like with like less, it was like weeks, right? Newly postpartum. Yes. Yes. I was like, that’s a girl. Cause you’re into, you’re like spirituality.
Yeah. Breastfeeding. What do you want to talk? You’re postpartum. I’m your girl. What are you doing? What are you doing? And you’re an entrepreneur. Are we besties? Today I want to highlight that that Anne is an empowered pregnancy coach and she is available. For you to hire. I want that to be fore and foremost.
She’s incredible. I have done so much work with you and I’m just so honored to have you here. And I know that the things that we’re going to talk about today are going to be life-changing. So, let’s dive in. So, with our title, are you supported enough in your pregnancy? So let’s start there. Do you feel, I feel like I’m setting you up.
I’m like, do you feel, do you feel like women are supported enough in pregnancy and birth? Absolutely not. I strongly answer that. No, like literally not enough. Support. So why do you say that? So tell me what’s the stance? Like, tell me what’s the juice behind that? Yeah, I feel in general in our pregnancy culture, even motherhood culture, we commonly are passive participants in our pregnancy, whether that’s within our care team, whether that’s how we are viewed in pregnancy and in working.
I’ve been a coach in postpartum and for almost six years now, and I’m starting to see really common themes of the impact that our pregnancy has in postpartum and the lack of support and how that kind of continues into our journey into motherhood. So it is very run-of-the-mill. Necessary. We’re not taught how to take control of our pregnancies and prepare for birth and trust and know that we can have a positive birth experience.
It’s testing, it’s routine, it’s statistics. There’s a general underlying fear-based energy that exists in pregnancy and pregnancy requires a lot of support and unfortunately, at a baseline, we don’t have it. We’re not really set up for success. And you mean that particularly because we have listeners all over the world?
Yeah. You mean that particularly in the United States? Yes. Yes, I think in general in other countries, even if we think about what maternity leave and care looks like, the United States is low on that list. Most definitely. So how do we start to shift this? So if I know the tendency, because I do, I had a really great military birth.
Worker on the podcast. Her name was Kayla Cole. And she told me, she goes, you’re birth worker. You know that, right? And I was like, uh, I guess I am. ’cause I do a lot of birth prep as well. A lot of the lines, you and I, our lines are very similar. Especially I’m certified in reiki for childbirth, but I’m not a doula.
And the doula is being, that word is being phased out and birth workers becoming more mainstream. Do you feel. That Oh, gosh, I lost my train of thought. Hot potatoes. You were saying, how do we shift that? Okay. Yeah. So a lot of the work, a lot of the clients that I work with that are wanting a positive birth experience, it’s usually two types of mindsets.
One is they’re already very naturally minded and holistic about their life in general, about their lifestyle, about their medicine, about their wellness. So, they’re taking that approach because that is something that is across the border in their life. So, it’s a theme and if they’re going for a natural childbirth, they’re also be, they tend to be of that mindset of very much holistic and natural minded.
And then the second part is the mom had. A previous birth experience was negative, and now they’re wanting a second, they want like a do over, or I want a different experience. I don’t see a lot of first time moms coming in that are. Just say that are not of natural light mindset and approaching like, and this is just the patterns I’m seeing.
I’m trying not to generalize, but I’m not seeing a 1st time. Moms come through by working or even speaking to them that. are empowered or know what kind of questions to say. It’s the women that have either who are natural minded or have had a bad birth experience that want an empowered birth experience.
I find most women who are first time moms don’t know enough about birth in general or pregnant, their pregnancy experience. to know what is good or bad even, or what is normal or not normal, or what questions to ask. Do you find that too? You couldn’t have hit that nail more on the head. Those two buckets are so strong.
Unfortunately, and that was me. I fell into, I fall into both of those two buckets, but oftentimes, oftentimes the, I want to do things differently the second time around usually comes after a poor experience or even birth trauma. To then be like, okay, now I want to shift things. Unfortunately with the first time pregnant mamas, which I feel like is a big part of why I stepped into this role is we don’t know what we don’t know, right?
We just head into this. I should be in a shirt. It’s not to any of our own. So we’re excited that we’re carrying new life and we’re trusting in the system, right? Like we’re entering into a system. And that is where the ultimate shift. starts is the education and the awareness around you have decisions that are within your control, right?
Like throughout the pregnancy journey, you can truly educate yourself and take control to your provider is not just somebody who’s down the street from your house because you’re this office is in close proximity. Sometimes that happens, but who is the right provider for me? What do I want? For my birth experience and my pregnancy experience.
And oftentimes there’s so many decisions that we’re making throughout pregnancy that we just don’t even know that we have choices. So I too like to think about it as it’s not really about making the right decision or the wrong decision in pregnancy. It’s about being provided with the proper information to make a decision that’s self aligned for you.
Motherhood is divided, right? There’s some hot topics there. Pregnancy is also very a hot topic. It’s Divided. So we have to really step into that. You could go to war over some things. We could go to war. I had a woman tell me I didn’t really give birth because I had a C section. And I said, hold up. What are you talking about?
She goes, you didn’t have a vaginal birth. Right. Yeah. You didn’t really give birth. Yeah. I was like, so what, how did he get out? Was he a leprechaun and he jumped out? Was it like osmosis? Oh, there’s so many dividing topics. So my question for you is. How do first, because I feel like there are so my audience usually has struggled with infertility.
I was struggled with her fertility and, or if they’re wanting to become pregnant, I like to introduce these topics. And my lives and my membership and my next level fertility group coaching program group coaching program and is we’re not just thinking about your fertility. We’re talking about beyond conception.
We’re going there. Most women who struggle are just looking to get pregnant. And then they’ll think about pregnancy and I’m like, okay, so now you’re pregnant and we, what are we going to do? And even then that’s still very jarring for them. So where, where is, so if we were a first time mom and they’re like, okay, I am now pregnant.
And I want to make the best of the situation. I want to do this well. I want a positive empowered experience for birth and pregnancy because this pregnancy is sacred. It might be like, it’s in your belly and I burped all the time and we are portals like we create life. It is sacred. I looked so beautiful when I was pregnant and I’m a plus-size woman.
I’ve mostly been a plus-size woman. I walked around like I was the sexiest thing that and let me tell you, I had the roundest belly. I was like, it was a thing. So, like, I was like, because I knew based upon the conversations I had with my spouse that this was. It’s the one-time thing. We were only going to have one child.
So when you have that mindset and you’re aware that this is one-time thing, you treat it very differently. Right? It’s very, I’m going to milk that. I was basically, I’m milking this, I’m living this because I’m, and I’m going to savor this because I’m not going to get another chance. So I tell women. In some of my, most of my clients, we don’t know if it’s taken one client took nine years and when she came to me, we got her pregnant within three months, but nine years and then you finally get pregnant or the pregnancy sticks.
Like you do want to see it, but it’s also terrifying. How does one start to, to shift into that? How do they find resources? How do they even begin? What’s the first step? It’s incredibly overwhelming. Right? So we even think about the women in that. Space, right? You’ve been on a journey just to get to the point of a journey that will then be the point to the next journey of being motherhood.
Oftentimes it takes an emotional toll, right? Like we have been on a journey to get to that point and our mindset has to be on point, has to be addressed. And I also feel like. our pregnancy mental health isn’t talked about enough, right? The support that’s needed to go alongside that journey. So when I think about a fertility journey, when I think about pregnancy after loss, right?
And the impact that has on pregnancy, the first pillar, if you will, is having a healthy pregnancy mindset, because we don’t ever really know what we’re going to be facing in pregnancy. I’ve had the easy glowing pregnancy and I’ve had the, I hate this. And my body is experiencing. Just a laundry list of symptoms and I can’t wait to be done being pregnant experience and you have to be able to have the mindset to combat whatever is going to be thrown your way because we just don’t know.
And depending on what our journey looked like to get there, we really have to tune in and I find that cultivating a spiritual practice, whatever that looks like, for you, right? Then that doesn’t always mean a religious practice, but it could mean just purely a spiritual practice or whatever. Mindful practices is really a going within journey.
Fortunately, pregnancy almost feels like an outer body experience, right? Our bodies are changing. We’re like, what the F is happening. And it’s not always a comfortable time to go within and assess. How am I feeling? What are my thoughts? What are things that are coming up for me? Pregnancy is also a time that will bring up some trauma.
Right? If there’s things that you have gone through that are not healed, are not addressed, it’s going to oftentimes come up in pregnancy. So then what? Okay. We’ve had the fertility journey. We’ve had the trauma, we’ve had this, and now I’m pregnant and I’m supposed to be excited. And everybody’s telling me I’m excited, but I’m going through some stuff.
So pregnancy mindset, I would say is. Top first and foremost, that we really have to be putting focus towards in order to be able to head towards the rest of that journey. And oftentimes that is going within to ask ourselves, what am I feeling? And it’s not easy to feel. So no, it’s not. I’m going to touch upon.
I know you and I have been in circles where we, the word mindset is often used. And I always want to touch upon what that really means. Mindset is. What is determining is actually a couple of things is what your focus in priority is when you are thinking and also belief. So, or what your beliefs are shifting towards.
So, having a, if somebody says, having a positive mindset, having an empowered mindset, these are things that you are trying to bring into your life or you’re striving. to believe. So this means I am worthy of a positive pregnancy experience. I am open to learning what I need to do to prepare for birth and everything is working out in my favor.
It could be I trust my body and I trust my baby in my womb. Could be these things that you’re working towards doesn’t mean you don’t feel fear or that life might not happen, but having a positive mindset is also learning to either respond and or within that mindset. So, if something does happen, you’re like, okay, we’re gonna get through this or.
What are all the options before I make a decision. So those are also like a mindset of also a positive empowered mindset. I’m going to bring in a little woo here is more of is also channeling your divine feminine. And what that means is reckon some telltale signs that you’re doing that correctly, or that you are on the right trail, the right, I don’t want to say the word correctly or trail, some signs that you are actively doing that.
Or that you’re more patient than normal or slower to react, you pause before you speak. You also use words like I’m going to think about it and like, like it’s a, you’re pausing and that’s feminine because when we are activating our feminine and we’re feeling empowered, we’re also standing in our worth.
You may not be doing this. Consciously, you may not be aware that you’re actively doing it. So those are some things that are important to recognize. Yes, I am actually moving towards a positive mindset and positive responses. So mindset is beliefs. Reactions, responses and emotions and also, like, how do you handle all of that with it?
So it’s a little bit more than believes itself or beliefs. You want to have it’s the process in growing into it. And I think that’s a, a very honest approach to what mindset is, especially in this. Phase and season of motherhood also is your mindset might change to you might start out like you. I like to say, especially if you’ve never approached, like, mind training or mindset at all.
Start very simple. I want, I just want to be more informed and as you become and learn. More about your options with pregnancy or the right questions to ask. Think of it as refining. You’re just getting better and better. You might want to say, maybe I do want a tub. Maybe you want to leave her in my tub in the hospital.
Or maybe I want a midwife instead of an OBGYN and understanding like that mindset is okay. I’m going to look at it. And I’m going to allow myself to lean into that is very often not talked about nothing about this conversation that you and I are having and nothing about your fertility, your pregnancy or postpartum is a black or white and nothing’s a straight line.
So understand that your mindset can shift. I know that that my mindset now is a post part. I’m 60 year old. I’m more about what can I do to create more ease in my life? And so like, I’m refining my mindset of what can I’m, how can I essentially de stress my life so I can have ease. So understanding that mindset is all of those things.
So now if we have mindset, you mentioned a spiritual practice. My recommendations are spiritual practice could be meditation. It could be saying affirmations. You can do journaling. A lot of people you can talk to your higher self or have prayer. And I don’t necessarily like this might be a little, this might a little be a controversial.
I pray to the universe, to my higher self. I’ve prayed to the Reiki babies. I’ve prayed to, I’ve asked for guidance, I’ve prayed to my womb. So I also have Oracle cards. I have also done a lot of journaling. I’ve had crystals. There’s not one way to, to center yourself or ground yourself. So I want people to understand like whatever you choose and what makes you feel good as long as it’s legal and safe, um, just know that’s okay.
I have 1 client, she likes Oracle cards, but her husband doesn’t. So we just do 1 of our sessions, but she’s I really love that. It gives me so much insight. I have another client that uses a pendulum. I have another client that burns incense while she meditates, it’s just all what is going to allow you to feel more centered.
So what is so if they start to have the mindset. What is, uh, you mentioned a little bit in that about questions. So, does a person who’s pregnant have the right to ask questions? And who do they ask questions to? We still have to unpack some things here because, girl, you were just dropping some gems that we need to backtrack a bit.
So when I think about mindset and I think about these beautiful things of meditating and journaling and speaking positive words to yourself, for many, there’s also this voice in our head that’s girl, you don’t believe that, right? We start like wanting to shift, right? We start wanting to shift these things.
Yeah. And there’s ego coming through and there’s self love issues that are coming through and there’s. Am I worthy of this that are coming through? So oftentimes these thoughts, if we can be in tune with those thoughts is going to guide us to what’s really coming up for us. Because I feel like oftentimes when people think of a pregnancy positive mindset, it’s mind over matter.
Oh, if I just will my way throughout this pregnancy or into birth, then I’m good. And it’s allowing fear to exist alongside This shift, because I work with women so much that are like, I am flooded with my pregnancy fears. And I don’t know how to shift into that positive mindset. And I’m saying the things, I’m doing the things and I still feel it.
And we often, we have to unpack what are those belief systems. We have to unpack what are these fears that are coming up from you? Cause I never feel like I’m. Fixing you or solving you I am just here to be a vessel to help you uncover all those answers live within sight of us Right, so pregnancy mindset.
It’s so important that you said what does that truly mean because those spiritual practices only You know what it’s gonna feel good for you So I think the questions for me comes down to what experience do I want what I want to feel Do I want to feel peace in my pregnancy? Do I want to feel like I’m in control?
Do I want to feel like I’m creating something positive for me and my baby? What is it? Those answers could run the gamut of what our answers could be, could really vary woman to woman, but sometimes we also don’t know what the questions are to even ask ourselves or our provider, but I like to start with What do you envision if you allow yourself to really just, what do I want for my pregnancy and birth?
We can start there and then backtrack to what the next decisions are. Okay. You really want to have a connection with your provider. Okay. That can happen in the OB space. It probably can also happen in the midwifery space. So let’s explore what type of prenatal experience that you want. Where do you envision delivering your baby?
Is it a home? Is it in a tub? Is it at a hospital? Okay, that’s what you envision. Okay, now let’s go down that route. So starting with questions is really important because it’s not my job to decide what your pregnancy and birth should look like. It comes from within you and then we make decisions that are self aligned around that.
And oftentimes we don’t feel That we know how to make self-aligned decisions because we’re pressured and we’re persuaded and again, that fear-based pregnancy culture doesn’t always allow us to tune in and ask the questions that we need to ask. So for us to get more support as a pregnant person, we need to know first what we want, but before we even know what we want, we need to know what our mindset is.
And then know what is possible, then we can make decisions, and then we can ask for support. Who should be supporting pregnant people? Well, birth workers. Let’s start there. You know how we always say that it takes a village to raise a child? Where I’ve always been like, where is the village? Where’s all the people that are supposed to be there?
I feel like pregnancy takes a village, and more often than not, you have your provider and you have your partner. And that’s probably the most of your village for the majority of the pregnancy culture, if you’re lucky to even have a partner with you, right? So one of the aside from pregnancy mindset focuses that I have for pregnant mamas is building your care team.
We have to think about it in that capacity. So that is likely my provider. That is likely my partner. That is potentially be a doula that could, it could, there could be a little mix of who is with me on this team. It could be my pregnancy empowerment coach. What are my needs? What are my needs? Because our partners, especially if we’re first-time parents, they don’t know oftentimes what they’re doing either.
So you have two of us that are, you don’t know what you don’t know. Support is needed. I would say. That have your medical provider, but then you need, I always, if you can find a birth, a pregnancy and birth doula, I know that they’re different. I would highly recommend it and choose one that you’re like 100% all in with.
This is your bestie. She’s going to see your vagina. She’s going to like tell your partner it’s super intimate. Make sure you’ve talked to people who’ve used that person. And gotten referrals. Make sure you have a contract. We’ve done whole doula episodes, all the things. But I feel like having an in person birth doula or birth worker is so profound and makes the birth experience.
Yeah. Go so much better. Yes. Statistically, there’s so many benefits for it. We won’t go into that, but. Yeah. Having in person support in addition to virtual support is also really good because I know a lot of birth workers will also do virtual support and there are some, like here in Omaha, there is a nonprofit.
that will give grants and pay the doula. So if you’re like there is, and there’s fundraising in the community and diaper drives and all kinds of things to make sure like women have access to it, that maybe might be lower income. I don’t know what I would have done without my doula in both births. Like it was a determining factor of me having a positive birth experience or not, because I was, again, that second time mom was like, I’m doing things differently this time because had my doula not been there.
And what I saw and experienced in the hospital, it would have gone very different. And I think there’s a lot of misconceptions around doulas as well. You can have a doula if you’re having a planned C section, you can have a doula if you’re planning a medicated birth, like there is, they’re there to support you in that process and even bring you and your partner together, right?
To help whatever you want that experience to look like. But then there’s also the side of what if I can’t afford a doula, right? I want to build this care team, but I may not be able to get there. And I’ve also shared with, with moms too, in the pregnancy journey, maybe if somebody is buying you a gift or maybe that is your focus, Hey, everybody, I really want this thing.
So instead of doing X, Y, or Z, if you’re contributing to my pregnancy at all, then it’s this, there are ways to pull it together. So I find that I work with both sides. I work with the mamas who are like, Hey, I need you and help me build my care team. And I want to do it. And then I have the mom is like, Hey, I can’t afford to do it, but I really need pregnancy support.
And then I can step into that role. Not with you, of course, in your birth. But again, it’s asking those questions of what I want my birth and pregnancy experience to look like in the building your support system around you. with many mamas who it’s their mom, it’s their friend, it’s somebody who stepped into the role of like, how am I going to learn how to support you?
And again, going back to the provider, we have to know what we want, and then choose a provider that’s aligned with our choices. And far too often, the important questions and decisions are coming bottom of the ninth, right before we’re about to deliver and we learn Oh, wow, our Are providers pushing an induction and wait, why?
And nobody asked me how I wanted to deliver. And there’s a lot of, again, going back to, you don’t know what you don’t know, but that care team being in alignment with what we want is vital. So I want to talk about something that’s really important to me is asking the right questions to your provider. I want women to know that are listening, whether it’s fertility, pregnancy, or postpartum, you have the right to ask questions to your provider.
Yes. Always, and there’s never a dumb question and you’re never a burden if they give you the reaction that you are one, you need to correct them. They work for you. Yes. And I think there is this common conception that is common. No, it’s a common belief and understanding that doctors are authority figures.
And as women were taught to be, yes, and people pleasers and just follow what I said. And that’s the culture that you were talking about of the pregnancy is like, who’s in charge here? And it is not commonly communicated while it’s not communicating a doctor’s office that you’re in charge. That’s quite the opposite of the vibe.
You are in charge. I would say your provider is the medical expert and commonly we think of them as the medical authority, but you are the authority of your baby, of your body, right? In pregnancy. And we really have to shift that mentality. We say like, you’re the MVP when you step in to that prenatal visit, right?
So we have to also command that. And I like to think of prenatal visits. Like you have homework to do before we step. What are the thoughts? What are the feelings? What are the things? What are the questions? There is no dumb questions. I don’t care if it’s my pee looks different this week or my big toe hurts tomorrow.
Like we have to assess what yeah, is this normal? There’s so much of that that we experience but I get that a lot where one, we don’t know they’re saying, and I don’t even know what to ask in the prenatal visit, or I get 15 minutes with my provider and it feels like it goes by in a second. And then I’m left.
I’m like, Oh man, I still have questions. Guess what? Those questions that are constantly circulating and the crazy that is up here, it’s going to affect your pregnancy experience. It’s going to affect your mindset. And yes, we need to know that it is a part of our pregnancy and birthing rights that you are in control.
And you ask the questions because on the other side of that answer, Is again, not a right or wrong. It’s being provided with proper informed consent, the pros, the cons, the benefits, the risks, whatever it is, to get your answer so that you have clarity to then decide what do I want? What does this look like for me based on my health, based on my pregnancy, based on my baby?
We have to start shifting into Asking questions. A lot can start and a lot can be solved for and more clarity can be given by simply asking your questions. But also commanding that time. If you have 15 minutes, and mommy better maximize that 15 minutes, then we are going to utilize that. Yeah, sure. If you have 45 minutes with a midwife, then great.
Then we have more time to dive into things. But we have to ask. Bring your list. Bring your list. prenatal visit prep sheet for mamas. And I’m like, Hey, going into that visit, you’re going to write down these things. You’re going to write down your questions. That way we don’t forget. We have pregnancy brain, right?
We get into that visit. We’re like, Oh my gosh, what was my question? Did I have questions? And then after I didn’t even ask. So we have to treat it as. True prep and homework and birth is the same. We’re busy and we have lives or we have other children and we’re like, oh, I have an appointment today, right?
And we’re in that headspace. So we really need to focus and especially if we have questions, worries, stresses, concerns, fears, that we need to ask for the help and make sure. And again, if we’re not getting a positive response, Right? If we’re met with you don’t have to worry about or there’s some sort of negativity on the other line.
He was told mom has been, that is a sign that your provider may not be right for you. And we don’t just have to pick one and stick with it the entire time. If you’re consistently not feeling seen and heard and feeling like you are an active participant in your pregnancy, it is not too late to find another provider, at least start that journey of finding somebody who’s going to properly support you.
I always recommend clients to interview. Interview if you can. Now a lot of my clients are high risk. Yeah. So it’s a little bit different. But if they are coming in and they’re not doing like I V F or I U I and they are, you can go, they, it’s a thing you call up maybe the midwife or you call up the OB G Y N, that you’re looking and you mm-hmm.
Wanna schedule a meet and greet. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. You can also do for pediatricians, And they usually do them like, once a month around here, I found that the providers either do them weekly at the same time during this window, and they’re very short, but you can go in and at least get the vibe and ask the questions then and the meet and greets are not built through your insurance.
They’re free and you. So you have a right to get to know the provider. You can also do this, even if you’re not pregnant, if you’re looking to get pregnant and you were like, I want to stick, do this with an OB. If you’re not happy, you can be proactive in this way. And that way you’re like, yeah, I like this doctor.
And if that doesn’t work, I have a plan B. I always people were like, are you serious? I was like, oh, yeah, I interviewed like. Four or five pediatricians. And I interviewed, I think I interviewed three midwives. Absolutely. Offices. I did the same. And I switched halfway through my pregnancy. I switched around in 15, 16 weeks pregnant.
I switched. I switched. That was not quite halfway, but yeah, I switched. So this is a ums.
If a person does not have a supportive partner, but they do have a supportive doctor or a medical team, what is a way? Cause this episode is all about, are you supported enough in your pregnancy? So there are going to be a lot of women who are not supported. Or I want to particularly talk about the women who are having spouses that are just there, but maybe not in tune with them, or maybe not emotionally available or me, whatever the reason is, but they’re not exactly supported.
How does 1 approach this? Because that’s more of a deeper issue. It’s a relationship issue. That’s out the scope of our, my practice and yours, but how does 1 navigate that? Or what are. Tips that women, uh, that pregnant person can, I think when you have a situation like that, it’s more about mitigation if, because that’s more, if you’re going to stay in the relationship, so we’re not going to talk about that, but that’s another, that’s another situation, but if you’re actively pregnant, you’re going to go give birth with this person.
They’re going to be there. You’re in a relationship with them, but they’re not supportive. Or they’re like, just do what the doctor says. What can a person do to go through that as best as possible? It’s real. It’s a very real scenario. And it a lot and it’s heavy and it, you, it’s heavy. Yeah. It’s heavy. I usually immediately hit it with, but this is the current scenario, right?
So what do I do? And I try to scope out and then scope in. And. Really explain that if we are undersupported by our partner in pregnancy, which happens all the time I want to give you a little preview of what that’s gonna look like When you have a newborn and what that’s gonna look like as you’re taking care of a baby, right?
So we already start to have to make decisions differently in pregnancy. So Somebody may not be ready to leave their partner. They may be working through some things and that’s okay. So we have to just have a truth moment of let’s just accept what currently is, but you have a lot riding on this. You have a lot riding this and guess what?
That baby’s coming. Like your baby’s coming regardless of this relationship. And this support is solved in the now or it’s not with that sense of urgency, if you will, then we have to assess, okay, what is the relationship with the provider? Is it positive? It’s not provided, or is there any opportunity to make any shifts there to at least get you a care provider?
for pregnancy that you feel in alignment with and is supporting you. Then we may need to take the route of, is there somebody else in your circle that is going to properly play that role? Is that a family member? Is that a friend? Is there somebody else that can step in and be an added support person?
Like we’re not about reducing, we’re about adding to when it comes almost like the more the merrier. Now this isn’t always the case when you’re talking about labor and delivery, right? Cause there’s always going to be restrictions around who can be with you. But in addition to having real truthful, honest and honest.
Honestly, uncomfortable conversations with your partner. This is not the time to just, that’s what they want, right? Or I don’t want to deal with this now. So I find that there’s a, it’s a, it’s an onion. It’s like layers to an onion to make sure that we are addressing what is real, because it’s not going anywhere.
And then deciding how are we building your care team a little differently to make sure that you are properly supported, but it really has to come from within here, right? We really have to know that. No, we do need support. And oftentimes we don’t, we don’t know how much support we need it until something happens.
And then we realized, man, and that was my experience, right? Like you don’t really understand the full magnitude of advocating for yourself until you’re in a scenario where, wow, this is really powerful. And we just can’t skimp on our support and our care team. And unfortunately. Many don’t have a supportive, that could be emotional support, right?
That can be like somebody who just doesn’t understand your pregnancy journey. And I feel like for a lot of us, pregnancy can feel isolating because we’re like, God, our partner just doesn’t get it. They could be awesome. They can be amazing and a great partner, but they may not be fully emotionally supporting your needs throughout pregnancy, which can affect your pregnancy mindset.
So who, what can we be doing and who can we get on your team to make sure that you are filling those needs of support during pregnancy? And if you’re not getting it and you happen to be at birth and maybe for some circumstance that it’s only your spouse or partner or whomever you’re romantically linked to or not, but it’s your provider in the hospital, it’s the most common place where people give birth is the hospital, then it’s okay to lean in on those nurses and just be real honest if it’s an emergency.
Say, I, I am scared. There’s a lot of good labor nurses. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of I like to see. There’s a lot more good people in the world than bad. And I actually had a couple good, really great labor and delivery nurses and. You can really lean into them too. And I think that’s like most of the conversations I have are exactly like birth workers and doulas and pregnancy coaches like yourself.
I bet. I also think, and this is especially cause I know when I work with a lot of women, there are so many various. Varying levels of income and also there’s something also, I think that with a 1st pregnancy, depending on your emotional capacity, meaning, like, maybe you have a lot of trauma. Maybe there’s a lot of stress.
Like, I have worked with women who have had really difficult relationships. There’s no plan to leave. And that’s not up to me to decide again, everything is about on that client on that person and being supportive of them throughout their journey. There’s no judgment here, but is asked for the support where you can get it where it’s supposed to be given as support for your provider as support from the nurses as support from a friend.
And people even sometimes Facebook groups. So depending if like, maybe you don’t have money for these things that we’re talking about, and that’s also privileges is if you don’t there, I want you to look for resources in your area. There there’s mom groups. I love, I live in the Midwest. I live in Omaha and there is women will show up for you.
If you’re authentic and you’re kind of, I love that about the Midwest, like people will show up for you. And that’s like another reason why I’m not going back. It’s so I know I got back to Florida. You can’t get me to go now. It’s amazing,
but Nebraskans are like, notoriously, I call it Nebraska. Nice. And you cannot find it elsewhere. They are the nicest. People and people love to help others and they’ll bring you a lot of casseroles when something happens that you drop in or gift cards. I remember when we got covered the 1st time I had people drop off.
It was a girl. I hadn’t even talked to in a year. I just got Facebook and I was like, yeah, please. It was really rough time. She had delivered to our door. I got you and you need it. I’ve got you. Yeah. And I had, she lives in the podcast. They can shout out to Kristen, but I didn’t talk to her in forever. And I just, I was like, gosh, that’s the nicest thing.
So I just want to remind listeners. So if you’re on a budget or if you have no budget, I want you to become resourceful. I want you to get on Facebook because I know it’s Facebook’s not cool. And he still has a large demographic of people looking for a lot of groups there is in Omaha. We have a lot of what I was trying to what I was trying to say out here in the street was there’s a lot of local mom groups and even also there’s also.
In person nonprofit mom support, we are very lucky and I realize not every community has this is we have something called milk works, which is a nonprofit lactation support group and they have. I. B. C. L. C. S. They distribute milk pumps. You can buy them there. They accept insurance. Yeah. Super amazing. I live there when all he was born and, but they also have in person support groups for like moms.
So, like, you will find I had to find my village because I lost everyone almost. In my postpartum. So in my And I, when I started to search and I joined these groups, I didn’t realize Right. What I was prepping myself up for. Yes. For a softer landing later. So there are things that you can join. There are, listen to this podcast.
Thank you. There are also other pregnancy, birth prep podcast. There’re don’t feel like there’s nothing Yes. Out there to help you. Mm-hmm. There is free no babies on YouTube. Which birth hypnosis to help you get ready. There’s a lot of resources. So you just have to seek them out. And I know that it is.
Pregnancy is daunting in general, but if you want more support, knowing that what is out there. It’s so important and getting in these groups can really change all of the things you were saying, especially if you’re not going to have, have the budget. But I also think there’s something about emotional capacity that needs to be understood when there was certain points during my pregnancy, I was like I cannot take on anymore at capacity.
Yes. Yes. I cannot super scary. I was actually, when I found out I was pregnant, I found out very early. I was, when I was four weeks pregnant, it was like, The faintest line, but I knew the day that I can see you, Dolly, because of course, my supernatural self, the magic, the magic moment is there. Oh, my God. Yes.
Anyway, at the job that I was at, they were going through a layoff. It was the, I don’t know, I went through three round, three rounds of layoffs at that factory at that manufacturing facility. And I, like, I just remember just like, Oh my gosh, if I could survive this, cause I was carrying the insurance and like, I was a breadwinner and I heard I am pregnant.
Nobody knows I’m pregnant. And for me, is it wise for me to tell you when I’m pregnant? Like just, and then just also, okay. Do I go with choosing all of these things? Because of course, me being the natural nerd, I am, I’ve been on this. I was already interviewing doulas at six weeks pregnant. Not typing.
Giving out my first appointments. I was like, look at me, super slurred lines. Be dating doula vets. Yes. And then right after the deal of it, we went to my in laws and told them that we were pregnant for the 1st time. It’s fine. Oh, yeah, we already have a tool. It’s fine. We haven’t heard the heartbeat. It’s fine.
So, I think the understanding your emotional capacity, what you feel in this moment, it’s okay to feel. But it’s going to shift. Things will, in pregnancy, things come and go, meaning there’s going to be ups and downs. What I’m also hearing in you talking about the support in Nebraska and right, like, what that looked like for you is we have to get comfortable asking for support because guess what, Mama Love?
When you get into postpartum and that baby comes. Oh my gosh. For the people in the back, you have to get comfortable acting for help. Because you just recently did a podcast, right? About the doing it all mentality, right? And we do that commonly. We get into motherhood and we do it all. So if we can get into that space in pregnancy, where we’re like, you know what?
I need support. I’m struggling with X. I’m struggling with Y. I’m struggling with C. And find the support that we need. This really And what I preach and as a core of Empowered Decisions, Gosh, that’s like the whole episode. You have to find the strength within you. I don’t care if your partner’s crappy and it’s not going to support you.
Then what are you going to do? Then what can we do? Like shifting that into that. Absolutely, it does. I think it takes vulnerability. Postpartum is going to force it out of you. And a lot of women, Break me down, girl. Yeah. Just in general, We are trained not to ask for help. Yeah. Like, in every capacity, be independent, be like a man, make as much money as a man, all of these things, do it all, and it, I think, it’s taking me a long time to ask for help, and, cause, but then, it was like when I was breaking, and I think that you need to ask for help.
I actually have a podcast playing with this with a woman who’s a postnatal depletion specialist. She talks about postnatal depletion. It’s like a syndrome. Actually, ironically, I was when I was preparing for this podcast. I was also looking at that one too. So, all the things, but it’s. To ask for help in some people’s eyes is being that you’re admitting that you’re weak.
Big misconception. Big myth. My opinion is You are so strong, mama. And your baby chose you. Big lie.
When you ask for help, it is one of the greatest It’s acts of self appreciation and self love that you can do. Also think you can add in self preservation. We’ve used the word village so many times in this episode. And to be honest, back in the day, back in the olden times, we used to live in tribes. We used to live, I don’t like the word, cut that part, we used to live in villages, and we all had assigned duties, and we all heard, fuck my words, cut that too.
Back in the day, it took a village to raise a whole child, and as we’ve grown older in society, or now, our villages I read about this when we first got married, we did a marriage co reading book. It was, it was interesting. Anyway, we learned that the village got smaller and smaller over time. So our village went from a mass of like a hundred people, 200 people, and each of them having different roles in our life, helping with our children, cooking, cleaning, support, emotional support.
You know, there was elder women who provided wisdom and insight down to one person. The elder. Yeah. Yeah. And in this book, I can’t remember the name of it. It’s pink. It’s on Ryan’s bookshelf. But anyway, it talked about how all of that compacted down into one person, the person you’re usually partnered with in a relationship.
But really, then we had to look it down further. The village is really falls down now on the maternal person, the mother person. But you’re, so if we had to have that perspective of, it went from 200 people down to you. Yes. That’s not fair. Yeah, who wouldn’t break under that pressure and who wouldn’t you’re not everything we’ve tried.
Many of us have. So, and that’s why, but learn many of us have tried. Yeah. It’s okay. Yeah. It’s okay to ask for help. It is okay because. In turn, what that looks like, I know that this is going to be like some, I can hear it now, is that it is also a healthy sign that you’re preserving yourself. Preserving what’s left and also giving yourself reprieve so you can restore.
Because you can’t pour an empty cup. All the cliches flowing tonight. You simply can’t. Cliche or not, you just can’t. Yeah. No. So I think that dare you, I dare you, the listener, our friend, Bessie for the resties, think of asking for help, not as a sign of weakness, but a sign of self respect, self love, self preservation, self appreciation.
Like I appreciate myself. That this is gonna in asking for help can be can be for things that it could be listening ear. It could be can can we swap? I have a friend who we kid swap 1 day. We’ll, like, occasionally we don’t do this as much as we used to, but she’ll bring her kid plays with my son. Yeah. And they go on a date night and then we switch so it could be asking for help or I call my mother in law and there’s something I get from my mother in law that I just don’t get from my own mom.
There’s this device for my mother in law hits a bit different than my mom just because of the complex relationship complicated relationship. I have my mom. It’s a lot more trust in the wisdom that my mother in law has given me, especially about parenting because she parented so well. I got a fantastic 5 star husband or something.
So, if I had this past week was really challenging with our son, call her immediately. I said, I need prayer for me and I need to know what to do because. Yeah, and I need to know what to do is I don’t know what to do and I never feel shame anymore asking her for those things because you know what? I know that she loves me.
So hardcore. She wants me. She wants my she wants my husband. To be, and I think that’s important to understand is that when you are asking for help, look at who you’re asking for help from. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because I’m talking on a personal level and look at the relationship. What state is it in? I don’t, mother in law relationships are tricky.
But my mother in law shows up, even if things were like, I thought were not perfect. Yeah. She’s seen my penis. She’s seen, she’s every surgery I’ve ever had in Nebraska. And I’ve had quite a few, she’s, she’s been there and people show up and that matters. My, I have had plenty of the people who are genetically blood related.
Not give a about me or when the things I’m going through. So look at who is showing up for you. And I bet you, if you ask them, if they’re showing up for you, meaning they’re texting, how are you? How’s your pregnancy? Do you need anything? Those are the people. That you need to appreciate and invest more time in because instead of asking, I have 20 bucks.
Those are not the people that care about your health. How are you doing? I
mentioned this a lot in my content of protecting our energy and censoring what we’re consuming during pregnancy. And sometimes when we look at our inner circle and our village. Some people feel like my village is toxic, right? Like this, I am surrounded by negative energy. So I think too, that there is such freedom on the other side and peace on the other side of being vulnerable enough to ask for help.
But we also have to, pregnancy is going to show you who’s toxic and not toxic in your village. Motherhood is going to show you who’s toxic and not toxic. But it gets revealed to you, but it’s all for the better, right? It’s a gift so that you’re heading in the direction of having the proper support for people who you can ask for help.
And that’s, it’s almost, it takes a journey. All of us are there, right? It takes a journey to get to the point where you’re like, these are my people, like they’ve got me. But we do have to start that in pregnancy. I always think about this journey from pregnancy to motherhood, and we do. We have to start with asking the questions.
We have to start with the stepping into that inner power. We have to start with a vulnerability and. A lot of us can spend time in our masculine energy and finding that balance into the feminine, but we got to have this support system and a circle that we trust and that we know is, goddess is going to show up just like your mother in law does.
God bless mother in law. Yeah. God bless her. God bless her. I’ll keep her. She’s pretty good. God bless her. She also tolerates me. Like, I’m a lot, like, I am a lot. Oh, no, I should have seen the paragraph I sent her the other day. We’re going there for Memorial Day. It was like, I have these 7 things you should consider.
That I want to do, I have been researching these, these are the things I would like you to consider and you’re in parentheses, but I really want to do them and they were like, And this is in Wichita, Kansas. And I was just like, there’s an Asian nighttime market. I’m super excited. I was like, if you ever come out to California, I’m going to need to your trip of recommendations from Carolina.
What can I know? I know you gotta do stuff. We need to go do stuff. Yeah. Which is boring. I found a hidden secret underground bowling alley at the universities. I follow the university page. I’m finding like super cool things for us to do. I found this new retro arcade. It’s not pinwheels. It’s The, that’s slanted.
It looks like this and then you have to push and then the things go like this. I don’t think so. You don’t know what those are pin. Oh, anyway, we have to hit it through if the things go down. Yeah, you have to time it. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I want to show Ollie what those are about because he’s six.
He’s never seen anything like that. Then watch the name will come later. It’s it’s a ping pong. It’s a pinball. It’s. Something machine anyway, there’s like, loads of them in there and it’s all retro. It’s all old. And I’m just so excited. There’s like, new, there’s a new bookstore and it’s, I don’t know. It’s going to be great.
So, anyway, time this tangent. So, anyway, just to recap is, if you’re, are you supported enough in pregnancy? You may or may not be. And if you’re not, the 1st thing is, you need to know that you’re worthy of being supported. Mama, you are worthy of proper support, healthy, loving support in your pregnancy. And for me, it comes down to your pregnancy mindset, building a care team, learning how to self advocate.
It’s just, it’s a core in order to be able to get through this beautiful yet crazy journey that we’re on when we’re pregnant. So we’re going to do mindset, you’re going to learn what you want so you can effectively communicate that to your provider. Make sure your provider matches what those wishes are and you’re going to start asking the right questions that could be.
Is this good enough? Do I like this? How do I want to labor? All of those fun questions, which could take hours and hours even to dive into the next thing is. I want you to ask the question of, can you help me please with X and I want you to look at the relationship of the person that you’re having this conversation with and that might be the nurse of the doctor’s office.
Hey, the doctors, hey, Amber receptionist person. I. Have these other questions. I forgot to ask him in the dark. Is there someone else I can ask these questions to? There’s usually someone in there that will sit and really, yeah, really, really push for that. That’s a part of advocacy is just continuing to fight for what you need and what you want.
And somebody will help you, but sometimes it takes a little effort and that’s okay. And if you don’t, if you’re not getting the responses that you want, I highly recommend. And if all your controversial, like, go join a mom group in your local area, and it’s anonymous posting in those groups, you can have your privacy go to the local mom group and say, hey, I am looking for a new medical provider that does X, Y, Z.
I want this kind of pregnancy experience and I want this kind of birth experience. Yes. Please give your recommendations of who you’ve had great experience with. There’s no better. There’s no better way to find a good provider than reviews for moms in this one groups. Absolutely, because there are moms that have lived it, birthed multiple children, maybe, or have had different bad experiences.
And people will tell you. And then interview them. You have a great starting point, right? It’s such a great starting point as a referral. The common question is, I don’t even know where to start. start, right? When it comes to what do I want and don’t want. And when I was putting together the birth month template and guide, I’m like, it’s important to know that when we talk about planning for birth, using that to get these thoughts out of your head, to get these questions out of your head, and to use that as a conversation tool throughout your pregnancy, to take it to this provider, to interview, to pull together all of your thoughts and questions.
So don’t be afraid to write things down to really. Start looking at that. What am I experiencing? What do I want? So that you can properly have those conversations that you need to have throughout pregnancy and as you prep for birth. Okay. We’ll link that in the show notes for sure. So friends, I want you to be the first to know you can download my sleepy meditation to connect to your spirit baby in the show notes.
This is the favorite Reiki meditation that’s inside my make a baby membership, which has been popping. So I want you to know that you can connect to your baby. While you’re asleep and so we don’t waste time or energy around here connecting to the other side because the spirit baby has your answers. And I know when we’re doing fertility, that’s the number one thing we want answers, right?
Also, Anne has been super, super generous. She has an epic birth affirmation guide where it will shift you away from fear based mindset. And these affirmations are a mind body baby approach. How cool is that? That’s not it. That’s like next level birth affirmations. So while you have your phone open, assuming you’re listening to my voice right now, I want you to go to go ahead and open up the Instagram app.
Follow me at the Carolina Sotomayor and what is your handle? Yes, I’d love to hear from you and would love to hear from you. We would like, we’ll definitely send you a DM back. We want to know what you thought about that. Sometimes we can do voice messages, so make sure you hit us up. If you, there’s a topic you want me to speak about on the podcast, please let me know.
Coming up next week on the show, we’re talking about when is it okay to ask for help in postpartum. So a lot of the things that we talk about now. But what we’re going to show you is stop wasting your time listening to granny’s outdated 50 year old advice and where to focus your energy and attention.
So you can have the best postpartum possible and avoid depletion. So, go ahead, share this show with your friends. If they’re trying to conceive, let them know what’s coming up next week and invite them to tune in with you and learn how to conceive with Reiki too. Until then, let the Reiki flow and I’ll see you back here next time.
