Motherhood, Identity Loss & What Nobody Tells You — Episode 10 with Jessica Thompson, Therapist & Doula

About This Episode

In episode ten of And Just Like That… We Found Therapy, host Isabel MV sits down with licensed therapist and doula Jessica Thompson to unpack Sex and the City's "The Baby Shower." They explore the identity shift that comes with motherhood, why women are still not honest enough about how hard it really is, postpartum mental health, the rivalry between mothers and non-mothers — and what Charlotte's chest full of dreams for baby Shayla reveals about grief and longing.

What We Cover

• The identity grief of new motherhood — why becoming a mum means birthing a new version of yourself too

• Postpartum anxiety and depression: what perinatal mood disorders actually are and why they're still stigmatised

• Why no one warns you — and what Jessica wishes she'd known before her first daughter

• The singles vs. mothers divide: are these really two teams, or just women judging each other's choices?

• Carrie's pregnancy scare and Mr. Big's avoidant attachment — how to make a big decision when your partner isn't safe to tell

• What it means to have no maternal instinct — and why that doesn't mean motherhood isn't for you

• Birth trauma, birth plans and the doula's role in building your ideal environment for labour

• Hormones, grief and the "last hurrah" — why some women cling to their old identity right before everything changes

• Charlotte's baby name heartbreak: mourning a dream life that hasn't arrived yet

About Our Guest

Jessica Thompson is a licensed therapist specialising in perinatal mental health, trauma, grief and EMDR, based in Utah. She works with mothers through pregnancy, postpartum and beyond — and is also a trained doula through her venture Empowered and Rising, where she helps women worldwide build their ideal birth plan and postpartum village. Utah residents can work with her in therapy directly. Follow her at @JessicaTheTherapist on Instagram and @EmpoweredandRising for birth and postpartum education.

Transcript

Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of And Just Like That, We Found Therapy. This week's episode is all about the baby shower, and I am bringing you Jessica Thompson.

She is a therapist that specializes in treating women around pregnancy, and is also a doula. So needless to say, she was the perfect guest for this week. She was so kind and so calming.

So thank you so much, Jessica, for coming on and doing such a wonderful job. I would also like to dedicate this week's episode to two of my best friends who are having babies very, very soon. Alejandra and Paulina, this one's for you.

You guys are going to rock it. And I'm actually helping throw a baby shower for Alejandra on this Saturday. So, you know, we're going to have a blast.

I'll tell you all about it. Other than them two, this is to all my girlfriends that have become mothers in the past few years. You guys are all of you excellent moms.

And I want to thank you for showing me that motherhood is whatever you want it to be. I admire you guys so much. And I'm sorry if I sometimes did not fully understand you.

I hope this episode helps to everyone. Those of you who are moms, the ones that are about to become moms, the ones that are not moms yet.

And lastly, I would love to dedicate it to my mom, because whenever I do anything about motherhood, I think about her. She is the OG. Sadly, I lost her a few years ago, but I am so grateful that she was my mom.

So this one's also for you. I hope you guys love it, and I'll see you on the other side.

Bye.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to And Just Like That, We Found Therapy. Today I have with me Jessica Thompson.

Jessica Thompson is a licensed therapist and also a doula with a passion for supporting mothers through the emotional landscape of pregnancy, postpartum and beyond.

She specializes in perinatal mental health, trauma, grief and EMDR, helping women navigate motherhood anxiety, birth trauma, loss and the weight of perfectionism. I had to read that one because it was a mouthful, and I thought it was very relevant.

Welcome, Jessica.

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.

Thank you so much. And I am very thrilled to have you here again through the recommendation of Dr. Nicole, who did with us episode four of this season.

I'm very excited because today we're here to discuss season one, episode 10 of Sex and the City, The Baby Shower.

The Baby Shower.

Yeah, this is going to be amazing. So as per usual, I will just go a bit play by play of the episode and then I'll prompt you with questions and then we can start our discussion.

Let's jump in. I'm so excited.

Awesome. So in this episode, we start with Carrie's voiceover and she's talking about the pain that it inflicts for a woman to receive an invitation for a baby shower of one of your friends.

And I thought that that was hilarious because I am in that space right now. When I'm 35, I don't have any children. I'm not married.

But obviously, a lot of my friends are having babies, getting married, and I have been to quite a few baby showers.

Do you feel in your work, do you normally only treat mothers or do you also treat maybe people that don't have children and are trying to have children or don't have children period?

And do you see that rivalry or inadequacy feeling that sometimes there is amongst women for this?

Really good question. I would say I mainly work with mothers as that's my niche here in Utah.

But prior to evolving out on my own and my own practice, I've worked with women in a variety of stages of life where they didn't want kids and they were working towards making peace with that.

Or I've worked with women who can have kids, where they desperately want them, but for infertility reasons or other medical reasons, they can't have kids. And so it's kind of like this landscape of heartbreak and joy mixed with a lot of grief.

Yeah. After that, I think we get introduced to the woman who is having this baby shower. And it is this Lainey character.

And I think they do a flashback where I have to talk about how the girls are in costume for this flashback. It's pathetic, but anyway, it seems to be like in the 80s, 10 years before something. And Lainey seems to be like the wild party girl.

She wants to be the center of attention. She's on top of tables. She's getting undressed.

She's showing her boobs to the rest of the party. And you can see that she's wild.

And I think Carrie's voice over is saying Lainey had married an investment banker and moved to Connecticut when she was supposed to hook up with Sid Vicious and moved to heroin. Fast forward to this.

And then the girls are discussing together how much they are not only in shock, but hating the prospect of this party. Do you feel that there is a lot of jealousy or this frenemy situation that we have with the girls?

Because I think the way they are talking about it, like obviously Charlotte is like, I think it's great. But what about that conversation? Like, did you feel that that is very common?

Or do you think that this was just because Lainey was such a wild card?

Well, I want to say the first time I watched this episode, I thought it was hilarious and I thought they did a really good job at portraying this, hey, these powerful, beautiful women in New York City in a big city full of many people, right?

And the show was about them and their power and their sexuality and this female empowerment. And then to get an invitation to this baby shower, it's almost like they appeared as, ugh, like disgust, like they were disgusted in a way.

So when I first watched that, I was laughing, like, oh my gosh, they're making this scene very, well, not just the scene, but the whole entire episode, very dramatic in the way of This Is Motherhood.

And then I watched it a second time as a mom, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is actually so relatable. I can relate to so many little points in this episode, and we can talk about why.

I was so curious because I think they all decide that they're going to go, and they presented as, because we've been talking and you said that you had been binging the watch since we discussed to do this episode, and it reminded me a bit on the

episode of The Bay of Married Pigs, where they present the teams of like, married versus single or coupled versus single, mothers versus no mothers. And it just pains me that it was portrayed like this in television, and maybe as a caricature, but

like, yes, there's a bit of like that division. And as they are planning to go that Saturday to the baby shower, Carrie finds out that her period is late. Then they all get together to drive out to Connecticut.

Samantha's bringing her whiskey or something like that. Miranda's bringing condoms that are pastel. And Carrie has forgotten because she's very self-absorbed.

Shallow is the only one that knows what's up. It shows up with the ballini baby basket or something like that. And then they get to the shower.

And I'm very curious to know what it is that you felt, observed, agreed with, didn't agree with on this because they show up and immediately you can see a lot of passive aggression, especially between Samantha and Lainey.

Okay, yeah. Let's dive into this scene because this is probably my favorite part of the whole episode. My favorite part is when before they go, they get the baby shower invitation and Samantha is rolling her eyes like, do we have to go?

And looking at Charlotte, why are you trying to make sense of this? We're just not going. But then they all end up going.

And remember Samantha saying, oh, like I can just visualize her a little bit deeper to thought, like, I wonder how fast she's getting.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's go and check it.

Let's, you know, that's already associating that once you become a mom, you're going to get fat. And that's not necessarily true. And also, what kind of message is that sending to mothers?

I think a lot of women who don't have children yet, whether they want them or not, if they see a big show like this, and it's not just the show within many shows talking about getting fat and she's excited that she's going to get fat or just having

that underlying message like, you're going to get fat as a mom. It's like, whoa, back up.

You're going to lose your body.

Yeah. And then you're going to lose yourself. You're going to lose everything.

You're going to lose your whole life. You're going to lose your identities. Then she goes, knocks on the door.

And then first thing Samantha says to Lainey, look how big you are. I was so impressed with Lainey's response. She's like, I know.

Like she was so proud of it. Like, I can eat anything I want. Aren't you jealous?

Yes.

I thought that was a really beautiful reframe of she did seem to not care that she's not fat.

She was literally growing a human. Like her body was expanding.

I was going to say, if I'm ever pregnant and I look like her, because she's one of those that like from the back, you would have never guessed.

Right. And so first Samantha to say that, I felt like it was just kind of like a jab. Like, oh yeah, I don't like you, don't want to be here, but I'm just going to comment on how big you are.

And it could be in retrospect, like, you know, she is a lot bigger than she used to be. Right?

Yeah.

The party scene, now she has a growing belly, so she could appear bigger. But just to say that out front, like the first thing you say to your so-called friend is really rude.

Yeah. But you can see that Samantha was picking right up from that flashback scene where they talk about that rivalry that they have because they were both wild, sexy and extremely insecure.

And you can see that Samantha is obviously feeling still insecure in front of this woman.

Right. She appears happy and excited for this new change.

So as they walk in, Lainey introduces them as like, Oh my God, do you remember when you felt that you were going to die if you had to leave the island of Manhattan and blah, blah, blah.

So she's like also putting them down a little bit with little jabs. And Charlotte is just like so happy to be in that sisterhood that Miranda lost two friends to.

And they're walking around and I think Lainey is doing introductions and she's talking about, again, portraying motherhood in a very toxic way. Because I think there's one that she's like, Oh, that is Alice. Alice, don't stand up.

She's doing this IVF thing. She shouldn't be moving. And then this, she never goes anywhere with her son.

We call them our old marriage couple, but like it's not that nice now that she's getting divorced. Like basically, everybody has a lot of baggage around having children.

And then Samantha has another not so nice interaction with Lainey, where she's like, I'm going to have a big old drink. Jealous. Carrie goes to the bathroom thinking, is this what's in store for me now that my period is late?

And we get kind of like a whirlwind of what these women were. Because I think Carrie's asking herself, could I still be myself? And like, who are these women dipped down before their kids?

And we get this snapshot of all the different women, pregnant or with kids. I think one of them used to be a vice president and have 200 people reporting to her. Now she yells at the gardener, so no career.

Another one says that, you know, she used to sleep with everybody until she met her husband. And now she has an internet lover. The other one has a lesbian fantasy with somebody with whom we guess she hooked up earlier in her life.

And then another one just needs to escape life through locking herself up in the kids tree house, smoking a joint and listening to music. I have questions here. The first one, which I think is very big.

How much do you think a woman really gives up of her own identity through motherhood?

Such a beautiful question. And one that needs to be talked about a lot more.

Yeah.

In that scene, as you described all the moms that were basically interviewed, I will say they were portrayed as really weird moms, kind of odd, like out of norm moms.

And I think that's part of the show, was to bring some comedy into it and to make it a little drastic. But in a way, I think a lot of moms can relate to that, where sometimes maybe moms want to escape this reality that they're in.

And that's so true for a lot of moms. So they want to escape this just so much, where they feel like they're drowning in motherhood. And what comes to identity is there's a lot of grief that can come along when you enter into motherhood.

I always tell those I work with and when I educate, that when you become a mom, you're not just birthing a baby, you're not just birthing a new body postpartum, you're also birthing yourself again as a human being.

And you're meeting somebody new, whether it's your first baby or your fifth or your seventh baby, you're still basically learning so much about yourself and you become not a new person, but there's just a new part of you that's born into this new

journey. And that's not talked a lot about. And that's something that I wish I would have known. I've talked a little bit publicly about my personal journey into motherhood and it was really challenging for me.

That's what sparked my interest in working with mothers and becoming a trained periodontal therapist is I didn't know help was available and my identity was lost. I mean, I wasn't super young. I was 26 or 27 when I had my first daughter.

But I lost myself because one, you don't know what you're doing if you haven't had a kid before. I mean, you might if you nanny, but I had no idea what I was doing. And I thought all my life was just this baby that I didn't know.

I kind of relate to Carrie in a way like was I maternal? Does that just come in a package when you have your baby shower? Like, how do you get maternal?

That's also a question that I personally wrestled with. So a lot of moms that I work with, they feel like they lose their identity. And I love to explore with them, okay, let's explore what this new identity is like for you.

Most of the time it's causing distress because they don't know who this person is. It's like, oh, I'm so tired, I feel like a zombie, I'm up multiple hours during the night. Or I feel like all I do is eat, sleep, change poopy diapers.

You know, they may be disconnected from friends, especially if they're the first friend in their group to have a baby. And then that maybe feels secluded that their friends don't know how to relate anymore.

Then she doesn't know how to relate or she wants that so badly. And I also have to chime in as I'm talking about this. This is kind of generalize struggles, right?

So if we add in a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder on top of this huge change...

What does perinatal mean? I'm sorry, I don't...

No, that's a really good question. So perinatal is basically preconception, like pregnancy, beyond postpartum. And depending on your definition, I view postpartum as life.

Some medical providers view it as like one year postpartum, two years research. So at least seven years is kind of like you're in that range. But once you're a mom, like you're a mom, and it changes you forever.

So that's why I view it for life.

Can I ask you maybe to... Because I have seen this and it's true, no matter how much you want to be there for a friend, you don't understand because you're not there. And I think there's a part of an identity of a woman that gets lost.

It's impossible not to lose it because of what you're saying. There's no time, there's no rest. You're not a person, so there's no identity when you are under-slept, over-stretched, over-worked.

But there's the other side that is like, lany here, and I've had friends who were always the last ones at a party and like, they were like, okay, what was I known for before I had this baby?

Always having people over, always going out until late, always staying out the most, always going to all the music festivals. Who am I now? So there's this two sections of losing identity.

How do you think that maybe once, hopefully the baby starts sleeping, women can navigate feeling grounded in who they enjoyed to be?

I think that helps. You think about our basic needs, right? As humans, eat, sleep, shelter, connection.

Even before people have kids, if you're not eating or sleeping or drinking, like hydrating yourself, you're going to have a really hard time functioning during the day. Include a baby in there and this new identity.

For a lot of people, feel like, how do I get on top of this?

So, I think a lot of people find it interesting when I work with a new mom who's struggling with postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression, is we go back to those basics, back to the foundation.

And let's figure out, build your village, figure out how you can get more sleep, how you can get more food in hydration, sunshine. Because if they don't have that, how can they even explore their identity?

How can they explore this new, you know, with curiosity instead of anger or resentment? Because they're so out of balance in a way.

Yeah. Then I think in this episode, the girls are just, you know, like trying to find their spot where they may enjoy themselves the most or hate it the least at the party. And Charlotte is talking to Lainey.

She's like, Lainey, I have to say, your house is so beautiful. And then I don't know how it gets brought up that Lainey is expecting a daughter, and she's going to name her Shayla. And Charlotte loses it.

And she's like, what? And first I have to ask you, because I'm obviously English is my second language, and I live in London, but I think I've made quite a few Shayla's. Have you not?

Oh, gosh.

I don't think I personally know a single one.

Because they were like, oh, it's so rare, it's so special. I was like, is it? But Charlotte loses her grip, and she's completely flipping at Lainey.

And Samantha shows up and she's like, what's going on? And Charlotte is like, she stole my baby name. And Samantha takes the opportunity, is like, you bitch.

She was waiting for that opportunity to yell at Lainey.

Yes.

And I think they all leave, and then they stop on a bar, like a truck stop on the way back to Manhattan. And Carrie's talking to the girls about the fact that she is late.

They're having a discussion, which I think is hilarious, because she's like, oh, I'm seven minutes late. And Samantha's like, oh, that's gray area. You're fine.

And Miranda's like, well, once I was 10 days late, trying to make Carrie feel better. And Carrie asks her, were you having sex? And Miranda's like, no, which I think is hilarious.

And then they're asking her, will you tell Mr. Big? And she's like, well, I don't know.

I don't know if I'll talk to him until I know how to finish this sentence. And I have to ask you, because obviously, say that Carrie decides that she cannot or she doesn't want to have this baby.

And how fair or unfair do you think that it is for a woman to take that decision unilaterally and not let a man know?

Oh, my God, like a pit in my stomach when you ask that, because that could be... I mean, it's a spicy question, and I try not to get like personal beliefs in there, but I think it's very circumstantial.

Yeah.

Right? So Carrie is just in this newer relationship. She doesn't know Mr.

Big very well. They had sex on their first date, and now she's been anxious if that's going to be like the falling out, if that's causing like the curse on the relationship.

But they continue on dating and then has this scare, and he's also told her that he's not marriage material. He doesn't, he's not interested in marriage.

Yeah.

And so for her, she's gathering this information, has this scare. I think anyone in that position would be asking themselves, what the heck do I do?

I'm with someone who, you know, could be, if I'm pregnant, the father of this baby is not interested in marrying me, but I think what she has to really pull back and ask herself, like, what do you want? Are you interested in becoming a mom?

Is this something that you want? And depending on how the relationship goes with Mr. Big, let's say he's mature and a grounded person that can regulate his emotions pretty well.

Yeah.

If she feels safe and comfortable, yeah, I would say, okay, I guess, okay, before I answer that, I love to invite people when they have a big decision on the table.

First of all, I never tell people what to do. It's not my job as a therapist. But I like to help them see two different sides and maybe multiple sides.

So if I was Carrie's therapist, I would say, Carrie, okay, visualize what it would be like if you told Mr. Big that you are pregnant. Imagine his reaction.

Imagine what might happen. And then sit with that for about a week. Sit with it, how your body feels, notice how it feels.

Does any new thoughts or new beliefs come in after sitting with, I'm going to tell him. And then sit with another week, I'm not going to tell him and see how that feels.

And then at the end of those two weeks, they can really sit with, how did my body respond to these two decisions?

And I just really believe the body is wise and can help guide us and then bring in the values, like, Carrie, is this something that you wanted in the first place? If you don't, what are your options?

I just think that, unfortunately, probably her character was basing the decision on whether or not to tell him, not based on what she wanted, what it meant, but how it would make him react. And if he would, like, both, she wouldn't tell him.

So after that, I think we are back in Manhattan, and then Carrie is shopping for pregnancy tests with Miranda, and then she's getting ready for a party. She decides she's not going to take the test until she knows how she feels about the result.

Lainey calls her, and she says, I'm sorry I was such a bitch during the party. My hormones are all over the place, but I'd love to see you guys, and I mean, like, really see you.

Because I think right before she left, she kind of dissed them, and she was like, guys, you think it's nice to, like, live four girls in New York looking for love, like you're a Susan whatever novel is not cute anymore, like grow up.

So here I have two questions for you. One, what do you think about some women making other women feel inadequate about their choices, especially if it's not their choice, like Charlotte, I think wants this desperately, but just hasn't found it.

And then the other one is how big do hormones play a role in those big swings and in the mind of a pregnant woman?

Wow, two good questions. So I'll answer the first one. I wish so badly that this could be on every billboard in the largest of cities and every city across the whole world.

Let's just stop the comparison game and stop judging other women. I often think what would the world look like if we were to empower each other and respect each other a little bit more?

And I just think, I think it's a saying I've heard here in Utah, like, don't yuck other people's yums. Like, okay, Lainey's excited, it appears, before this ending scene you just brought up.

It appears she's excited to have this baby and she's met new friends and she kind of dumps on her old friends, like, having little jabs here and there. She's excited about it. And then her friends are behind her back saying all these things about it.

But then they're both doing it to each other. All of them are doing it to each other. And when I was witnessing that in the episode, I thought, are those real friends?

Like, with Lainey and that friend group, it just seemed like they don't... No one really liked Lainey and that she didn't really like them. I don't know.

I think it's really disheartening.

Total frenemies. Yeah. But then what about the hormones?

Because I have had some friends that, especially postpartum, I think I've seen them maybe be a bit more emotional during pregnancy, but postpartum, it looks like they are hostage to their brain chemicals playing tricks on them.

I'm very curious to know what does that look like from a professional perspective? Are there any ways that you think you've benefited or your clients have benefited from, I don't know if it's proper medication or therapy?

I would say therapy is always beneficial. So to have a secluded, safe space to talk about, this is everything that I'm feeling, what's wrong with me? And to be validated, okay, well, maybe nothing's wrong with you, maybe it's X, Y, or Z.

And then we could educate on, you have a lot of hormones going through your body, you're about to give birth, there's lots of changes, a lot of fears probably coming up too.

When it comes to medication, it definitely depends if the person coming in has, so earlier I said perinatal mood or anxiety disorder, those are very different than generalized anxiety or major depression.

So perinatal anxiety or depression, there's also OCD, psychosis, bipolar, PTSD, that can happen during the perinatal stage. So it could be during pregnancy, something really, let's say anxiety, for example, comes up out of nowhere.

Hormones definitely can play a factor, but there's so many other factors that play into if someone does have, I call it a P-MAD disorder. Okay.

And so medication would very much be helpful for specific disorders if the person feels comfortable taking them. And there are some medications that are safe to take during pregnancy and postpartum, and some are not.

So I would say it definitely depends on that.

But I think when women just get the education, I always love to encourage them, you know, take a birthing class, you know, here's some books that I recommend so they can educate and inform themselves on these are the hormonal changes that are

happening within my body. And when people get that education and knowledge, it kind of expands their awareness and they find a little bit more gratitude from what I see. Like, holy cow, my body's doing so much to build this human.

And then they can also be angry about it at the same time. Like, I don't like that my body is doing this. And I can sit with that, like, yeah, it sucks.

Sometimes, pregnancy sucks. And it's also, and then they can highlight how it's also beautiful at the same time.

I have to say, though, I feel very disinformed than I am.

Lucky, I'm gonna say lucky, I'm gonna see the glass half full of not having been the first or not having children yet, because I see more and more different ways that my friends are deciding to embrace motherhood.

And I think they do mention it in the episode, like nobody told me about. And I do think that the image that I had of motherhood and what it meant to be pregnant, give birth and be a mother was not at all what it really is.

Because I obviously remember my mom when I was already grown enough to like, you know, have that memory storage. And to me, there was no pain, there was no suffering.

I remember they always told me that when my mom had to push me out, she had to push so hard that she like blew up so many blood vessels in her face. But that was it. Other than that, she loved me, never complained about me.

And suddenly people are talking about postpartum depression, hormones, medication around postpartum, because sometimes it is chemicals that have changed in your brain. And if you don't have treatment, it will stick.

I don't know if forever, but like, yeah. So, I do think that there's a bit more information. I do think there's a bit more honesty amongst us and less judgment.

But honestly, all in all, if I had had to have a baby, not having my friends have any babies, I would have been like, who cheated me? Can I ask you how many kids do you have? And like, have you felt any difference through the processes?

I have three daughters and I love them.

They're great. Motherhood is such a wild ride. But when I first entered motherhood, I did not like it.

It was really hard for me. I don't ever remember growing up telling my journal or when people ask me, like, when you want to be or when you grow up. I never said like a mom.

I remember playing house and like wanting to be the mommy. But I don't ever remember it being like a huge desire of mine. But when I met my husband, I mean, we've been together for 14 years.

I mean, I love him so much. When we got into the stage where we're talking about having children, I definitely wanted it. And I mean, the more kids I have, I just had my third daughter five months ago.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I'm like fresh post-partum.

I had no idea.

Yeah.

I mean, I've been a mom for almost six years. And when I put it into perspective like that, I think I still know nothing. And do I have any business in being a mom?

Like six years compared to my 33 years of life is not that long. So, yes, definitely answer your question. Each baby I have, I discover new parts of myself.

And I would say luckily for me, I just I love myself more and more through each baby. And I also attribute that to me doing my own work. I go to therapy monthly.

I talk to my therapist at Motherhood. I've done some really hard work from like past childhood experiences and also the nuances that exist within Motherhood of like, I hate it some days and I love it some days.

I do the work and I'm really grateful that I haven't struggled with postpartum anxiety or depression after my second or third daughter. I mean, it could come up at any time, but luckily it hasn't for me yet.

I struggled with it with my first daughter. And for me personally, I'm not quoting research or anything, but I gave birth to my first daughter in the hospital and I was pumped with medication, right?

Like the epidural, all the things to help avoid pain. And I remember people telling me, you want the epidural, make sure you get it.

And I didn't empower myself enough to do research of like the maybe the risks and the benefits of an epidural or any other medication. And I didn't have a traumatic birth, but it wasn't an ideal birth for me. I didn't bond with her right away.

I remember just like, please get her away to the nursery. Like I just need to sleep. Yeah, I was really sad for me.

Like there's so much grief still surrounding her birth story, that I'm still processing six years later. And then my second and third daughter I had at home unmedicated in a pool, in a beautiful pool of water, a little tub.

And it was so sacred and I felt everything. And with that experience, I learned a lot about myself. Each birth, I learned new things.

I was writing my journal about this other day, and I said my first daughter taught me how to be a mom. My second daughter taught me that I can do hard things. And my third daughter taught me how to surrender and trust my body and trust her.

You're going to make me cry.

That is beautiful.

Thank you. Yeah, they're very sacred to me and very, very special. And I really love and feel passion for what I do in helping moms with building their ideal experiences and help them when things don't go ideal.

I have to take this very selfishly because a friend of mine, I remember she had that plan.

She did a lot of research and she wanted to have a natural birth at a hospital, but vaginal, no epidural.

And I think also as you grow older, past 33, 34, you're more at risk of not being able to have a vaginal birth and you're more likely to have to do a C-section, or at least that's what I've been told by a doctor.

But I remember my friend, she was in labor during the pandemic, I think December 2021, which in the UK was the peak of, I don't know which COVID, so the hospitals here were at very low staff.

And she was in labor for, I think, 30 hours before they decided this girl cannot do natural vaginal birth. She kept screaming, please give me an epidural. They tried to give her the epidural, it wasn't working.

Morphine, it wasn't working. And then they had to do an emergency C-section after, I think, 30 hours when she was exhausted. And it was obviously a traumatic birth.

But how do you think, because as a doula, I'm very curious to know, how much room can you make for that when, you know, maybe you are supposed to have a C-section?

I approach birth very sacredly, no matter how the mom wants to birth, whether it's in the hospital, out in the woods, at home, birth center, wherever. I learned this from an ancient midwife. She talked about how the woman is the first environment.

And I fell in love with that, because we are the first environment. We came from our mother's environment. She came from her mother's environment, the woman's environment.

Think about environment. You've probably been in a place in the world where you live, where you felt like this is not a good environment. I should probably leave.

I don't feel good, or something feels off, so you leave. When I approach birth with the moms I work with, I ask them, what do you want your environment to look like, to birth it? And they'll tell me all their values and their desires.

And then we'll go back to, okay, what is your environment currently feeling like? What do you think about your environment? How do you need to nurture this environment?

That kind of gives them some clues to, there's some things that I need to work on for myself to birth this baby wherever I'm birthing in the environment.

And so if a mom wants a really peaceful, low-intervention birth environment, but they have this worry if something goes wrong, then they want to birth in the hospital, then we'll give education.

Okay, well, we can do the best we can to limit people coming in, but that's not a guarantee because hospitals have policies.

So we'll just go through these list of questions and I'll ask if you really want a water birth and you want it to be quiet and just you and your spouse or your partner, then maybe let's look into a birth center or home birth, because hospitals, they

have to adhere to policies, right? And so lots of education and informed consent. When it's an emergency, there's not going to be a lot of time to inform.

And I'm disheartened where I hear a lot of moms, when they process their birth stores with me as a therapist, not a doula, they tell me how they weren't told X, Y, or Z was going to happen. It just happened because of emergency circumstances.

So I always like to encourage them, if you're hiring a doula or have your partner, whoever is there, ask, OK, if we waited just 15 more minutes, is that safe? Can we really think about this before you make this intervention occur?

So I guess to answer your question, you're really going back to the environment and building on that to help you build your ideal birth to hopefully avoid interventions that you don't want. This is such a loaded question.

It's so complex that you probably need a whole other episode to talk about.

I mean, I'm definitely popping all your information in the episode notes because I think a lot of my friends are going to have a lot of questions. So I'm going to switch gears, bring it back to the episode.

I think then we are at Samantha's party, which is I don't have a baby, everybody drink party. We see Lainey crash this party. Seeing her old friends made her miss maybe, because like the grass is never greener.

I think you always give up something, miss something. There's always a compromise. You can see that they made her miss that side of her life.

And I think she tries to get that Lainey out again. Did you ever feel or do you see people that maybe once they are in it, they're like, whoa, I want to have one last hurrah. I want to feel like my old self before I give up my life.

And my brain for this baby.

Oh, 100%. 100%. I haven't personally seen this last hurrah.

The episode is pretty dramatic. She's like, get me a beer or something. Get me a scotch or whiskey.

And they're like, you're pregnant. She's like, oh, it's going to get me going to labor. Okay, Lainey, that's not a great decision.

I would never. I personally would never. No.

I've heard sex and spicy things.

Yes, alcohol, no.

I have a personal belief that your baby will come when they divinely want to come.

Okay.

If there's no medical issues, like baby will come when they're ready. Sometimes there's needed intervention there. But Lainey, it's like when I watch, I'm like, please don't drink.

Don't drink when you run down your baby. Yeah, there's this grief process where it's like they want to just hold on to this a little bit longer, this part of their life where it wasn't chaos. When you become a mom, there's lots of chaos.

You're learning so many different things and you're being woken up and your body is changing. I compare it to puberty.

If you can remember when you went through puberty, you're learning a new body, your voice is changing a little bit, you get new boobs.

I never did, sadly, but yeah.

You also get new boobs when you become a mom. There's so many changes. And so just with your whole body changing, your brain chemistry is also changing.

It's like this, oh, I just want to like, hang and grasp onto this life that has been so familiar for me because it's about to get really unfamiliar for a lot of people. There can be a lot of grief, like I've mentioned, mixed in that.

Or there's a lot of women like Charlotte, who's like so excited and wants to have that so badly. So yeah, I've seen both sides where people are like, I don't think I'm ready for this. I don't actually want to do this.

But once they're there, they're like, oh, wow. Like I've seen people go from, I don't think I want to do this anymore, to this is the best thing I've ever done.

Okay. So we hope that that's what happened to Lainey. Then I think they put her in a cab and like that scene is super sad, she's like she doesn't want to leave, but...

Did you catch what she said at the end?

No.

She's like, no one warned me that it would be like this.

Yes, that's what I remember that, yes, there's nobody tells you.

That's how I felt as a first time mom.

No one told me how hard and isolating it was going to be.

Were you one of the first ones amongst your friend group?

Yeah, I was the very first. Oh, wow.

Yep.

Mine, I believe mine came like my, no one warned me because I had a, I was struggling with postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, where I didn't have words for, this is an actual issue, like this is an actual disorder that you're struggling with

So even back then, that it was six years ago, nobody was putting a name to it.

No, because it's not talked a lot about here, especially in Utah, where there's a lot of moms here, really young moms, and it's a very religious state, and there's a lot of comparison.

I personally believe there's a lot of comparison, and it's just not talked about. Motherhood's not talked about openly, unless it's like, oh, everything's great, like it's so fun and enjoyable.

But even, I would say, it's not even just Utah, but a lot of the world just doesn't, it's a stigma to talk about postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression. But luckily, it's being talked a lot, I mean, a lot more.

There's a lot of education around it now. And if I would have known, I had a therapist at the time, but I had no idea there was therapist that specialized in helping treat moms with their struggles postpartum, or even during pregnancy. I had no idea.

And I was a therapist. I had no idea.

That's incredible. Because obviously I have no idea about, because, yeah, why would I? And then I think the episode ends with Carrie going to a kid's park and trying to picture herself if she was maternal, not maternal.

Because I think you've talked about this, that maybe you didn't have the most maternal instinct. And I think that Carrie's questioning, like, am I maternal? And I remember my mom always told me, like, listen, I never liked kids.

But when I had you guys, it was something different. So what do you think about maybe somebody that thinks that maybe that's just not in the cards for them, because they don't have a maternal instinct?

I've met a lot of people who have said that. And to their surprise, it sometime, most of the time, it just comes to them. Like, they have that maternal instinct.

Some they don't, and that's okay. Where if they don't, then I would encourage them, let's build your maternal village. Let's build maternal presence around you, so you can rely on them to support you as well.

If you don't feel like you have that maternal instinct. I mean, you can hire an au pair or a nanny to support. If that's, you know, you have the ability to do that.

Or aunts, your mother, if you have a good relationship. I like to explore that with clients when they say, like, I don't feel like I'm very maternal. We'll explore, like, what is maternal?

What does it mean to you?

Exactly.

What do you want it to look like?

Yeah, I have a friend who recently became a first-time mom, and she was very adamant that she was not going to lose her identity, and she did not want to take maternity leave. She was going to take the legally mandatory time.

And I went to see her recently, and she's doing fantastically. And I was like, oh, do you regret not taking more maternity leave? And she was like, no, because I love to, like, my job kickstarted me feeling like myself.

And when I come back home, I spend quality time with my kid. I don't feel like I'm his house prisoner. I'm finding it really inspiring to see some of my friends become really different kind of mothers.

And back to your question of what is maternal. I think she's extremely maternal with him, and she does enjoy her time with him so much, but it's very much in her terms, and it doesn't look anything like I've been raised to see maternal.

Yeah, I believe everyone's going to have a different opinion or idea on what maternal is, and it really goes back to what have we been taught, like these societal messages about motherhood that comes up, I would say, a lot of the time in my office.

So I learned about motherhood like this, and I'm way over here.

Yeah.

And I don't even know if I want this, so we'll explore what do you want? What do you want it to look like? You get to choose, you get to embody how you want to embody motherhood.

You have that choice. So just to have people here like I get to choose, it's really freeing for them and empowering.

Yeah. Okay. So now, off to the last bit of the episodes, which is, what would your advice be for each one of the girls after watching the episode?

So starting by Carrie, what would you tell maybe a client of yours that has been dating an obviously avoidant attachment style man and thinks she might be pregnant?

I love this question. I actually wrote my advice down. I'm going to read it.

Awesome.

Carrie is my client.

I would tell her, Carrie, motherhood doesn't need to be a yes or no right now. It's okay to explore your feelings and ask yourself what you want, not what Mr. Big wants, not what society wants.

Clarity often comes with time and self-reflection. Don't stress. You have time.

Awesome.

Okay. What would you tell Samantha, who has this in front of me situation with Lainey and she is so nasty to her?

Oh, I would say Samantha would be a really challenging client.

Oh, yeah. She'd be like, what am I even doing here?

I know. She's like, I'm paying you the big bucks for what? So I would say this.

So Samantha, I said, Samantha, I love your confidence, but ask yourself this. Is this party about celebrating your choice or pointing the middle finger to Lainey?

Make sure that your energy is going towards uplifting yourself and not competing with other people.

Okay. What about Miranda, who seems to be very much like team sisterhood of motherhood and once you go there, you lose them versus us normals.

I think Miranda would also be a tough client because she's always rolling her eyes at everything that doesn't align with her. Can we just get curious?

What I would tell her is, Miranda, it's okay to not relate to every life choice that your friends make.

Instead of judging them, get curious, ask questions, seek understanding, and remember, what works for one woman might be very different from what works for you. Also known as, don't yuck other people's yams.

I hadn't heard that saying in such a long time. I love it. Okay.

And last, Charlotte, what about her getting so offended about Lainey taking her baby name and mourning her dream life? Because we haven't talked about it, but when she pulls that little chest filled with all of these dreams, what would you tell her?

A creme pillow for her daughter Shayla. That was heartbreaking. I just want to say before I give advice to Charlotte, that's just girl code.

You don't just take each other's baby's names. That's just a big no-no, first of all. Would you agree or disagree?

I agree, but like if somebody took my baby name and they're like, but you don't even have a baby, which they say to her, you're not even pregnant.

And you might never be. I'd be like, what do I say to that?

I know. I know. But still, if it's like if you're really true friends, it's girl code.

Totally. Okay. So the advice I could give to Charlotte was names don't hold your dreams, you do.

Your future baby wherever and however they arrive will be special because of the love you have for them and the love you bring to their life, not the name they're given.

It's okay to mourn a vision of your life that hasn't come true yet, but don't let it rob you of the present moment. Dreams evolve and yours will too.

I love that one. I'm happy we left Charlotte for the end. Thank you so much, Jessica.

I think, just before we say goodbye, I would love to maybe have you plug in anything that you want to plug in, talk about what you're excited about working on at the moment, and anybody that wants to reach out to you to maybe work with you, what they

Yes, thank you.

I'm a licensed therapist here in Utah, so I'm only able to do therapy with people who live in Utah. So any Utah people that are listening, yes, I can work with you.

However, if you are outside of Utah or outside of the country, exciting news, I am actually opening another business where I'm able to work with people worldwide.

So it's my dual business, and I'm taking some birth this year, but I'm mainly going to be focusing on educating and working one-on-one with helping people build their Aizle birth plan and really build their postpartum village.

So that will be online if you're outside of Utah, and I'm currently working on my website, and my Instagram handle for that is Empowered and Rising.

Okay. Awesome.

Therapy stuff, if you're interested in just following along for education for motherhood perinatal mental health, my Instagram is JessicaTheTherapist.

I will pop those two down on the episode notes and hopefully we can share the website as soon as it's ready.

Yes, I'll send it to you as soon as it's ready.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jessica. This has been so sweet to share with you, and thank you for sharing so much about your own journey on this.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

This has been such a pleasure. I've loved it.