47-Christina Packard-Miscarriage-6 Cesarean Births-Made Mindful-Etenelle, Avalinne, Olivier, Azazael, Yvette,& Eames

In this episode, Christina shares she was unable to birth vaginally due to being born with hip dysplasia leading her to have 6 cesarean births. She shares some of the details for each of those births which includes a breast cancer scare with her 2nd pregnancy, in addition to talking about the importance of being human with and in front of your children to ensure they too can learn about their own emotions and how to navigate them. 

birthasweknowitpodcast.com/47

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only with no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. I, Kiona Nessenbaum, am not a licensed medical professional. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experience of the storytellers. All medical or health-related questions should be directed to your licensed provider. 

Resources:

• Made Mindful: https://www.birthmademindful.com/ 
  1. 30% off made mindful birth and 4th-trimester courses code: BirthAsWeKnowIt
• Perinatal Support of Washington: https://perinatalsupport.org/ 
• Postpartum Support International:https://www.postpartum.net
• Nurse-Family Partnership Program: https://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/ 
• ChildStrive-Child, Family, Community: https://childstrive.org/ 

Definitions:

• Hip Dysplasia
• Vernix
• Lochia
• Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) 
• Meconium
• Stages of labor

Transcript

Kiona: 0:07

Hello, and welcome to Birth As We Know It. I am your podcast host, Kiona Nessenbaum. I have experienced birth as a doula, a student midwife, and as a mother of three amazing children with my husband and high school sweetheart by my side. After attending over 130 births, including my own, I've realized that each birth experience is truly unique. So make sure you subscribe and join me every week as we are guided through many different birth experiences through the lens of the storyteller. Please be aware that some of the stories can be triggering to hear, so feel free to pause, take a breath, and come back and listen whenever you're ready. With that said, let's prep ourselves to dive deep and get detailed about what really happens in the birth space. As a reminder, this podcast is intended for educational purposes only, and has no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experiences of the storytellers. All medical or health related questions should be directed to your licensed provider. Before we dive into this episode today, I would love for you to listen to this episode with the intention of sharing it with a friend. All of these amazing stories on this podcast can really help others learn about pregnancy birth and postpartum. So please share this episode or other episodes from the podcast far and wide so that we could create relate and connect as a community, even though we're all far apart on this platform. All right. Let's dive into the episode. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Birth As We Know It podcast. Today, I am excited to have on Christina Packard, who is one of the partners of the Made Mindful business. And the Made Mindful business focuses on guiding birthing people through their preparing for birth. And they are also doing some focus on just supporting parents on their journeys into parenthood. Christina is also the mother of six wonderful little humans, ranging from the age of 14 to her most recent of six months old here pretty soon in February. So welcome, Christina. Thanks for coming on today.

Christina: 2:28

Thank you for having me, Kiona.

Kiona: 2:30

Yeah, I'm super excited to dive into your stories and all the information that you're willing to share. You are coming with so much information and background. So let's go ahead and start off with you just telling us a little bit about yourself and who's in your family.

Christina: 2:46

Great. I'm married to a most wonderful man. His name is Blake Packard. We met, and we wanted to have a family. We didn't know exactly how and when that would happen. I was wanting to go back and finish a master's program. We both felt very strongly that that wasn't the right timing. And so we, had our first beautiful little daughter. She came to us kind of, in a different sort of way. We were planning on having a natural home birth. with a midwife. we were just informed that it might be wise to see an OB GYN at first, so we did, and our pregnancy was pretty normal, and there's some pretty fun stories that revolve around her birth, but I'll get to that a little later. So, Etanelle is my oldest. She's 14. She's born in 2009, and almost to the day. We had a baby two years later for the due date. Avalinne is 12 and her birth story is also very exciting. We kind of joke that we have all these beautiful children that have pretty normal, relatively easy, I mean, clearly morning sickness and the different things that come with pregnancy, but relatively easy pregnancies. And then the delivery day is always quite eventful. my third also almost shared a due date with his two older sisters. His name is Olivier and he's 10. and then we have Azazael. He is my husband's 30th birthday gift. He was our surprise baby. We have been trying to conceive for a while and it just wasn't happening and we thought, okay, maybe, maybe this is our family. Maybe we're supposed to be done. And after Olivier's birth, which I'll share a few details about that, we thought, okay. Maybe it is time to be done. So Azazael came on Valentine's Day, which is also my mother's birthday. And, he will be turning eight on Valentine's Day this year. And then Yvette, came on, actually my due date was when her due date was, and she came on the 7th of June, so she is five. And then my most recent baby, Came on almost my dad's birthday. So I was able to give a baby to my mom and my dad. He was born on July 13th, eight hours before my dad's birthday on July 14th, which is Bastille Day and his name is Eames. So we speak French in our family. So our children have French names and we try to continue a little bit of the French culture that I was privileged to experience as a missionary in Belgium and France. And my husband and I have been together for 17 and a half years and married for 16 and a half. And we are loving this crazy, beautiful. parenting game of having every child and every developmental group all at the same time. With a high schooler, a kindergartner, and a three week old all at the same time, it's just been a wild 2023 and we love it.

Kiona: 5:22

Oh, that sounds just so amazing, to be honest. The expansiveness and just it feels like a very well rounded experience. If you can get what I mean by that, it feels like you're just meeting everybody where they are and just going with the flow. That is so beautiful.

Christina: 5:40

Yes, I try to remind my children I've never had a teenager and an infant at the same time. I've never had tweens stuck in the middle. I've never had children trying to navigate through what they're learning and going through at the same time as me as a 40 year old mother, trying to navigate through what I'm feeling with my teenagers with a newborn and the postpartum hormones of, struggling with sleep deprivation and, postpartum depression and the things that come into play. As I'm emotionally challenged by my teenagers and then physically challenged by my infant, there is a lot at stake and I'm trying to pretend like I have it all together. Some days I really don't and some days I wish I could just stay in my bed and be in my pajamas and not have to see anybody, but most days I feel like there's just a lot of beauty and joy in this parenting journey that I'm in.

Kiona: 6:26

Yeah, I think that's awesome. And I feel like that's the perfect lens to have with, being on the journey. As a parent, as a whole, like in general, coming into every day with an open mind of saying we're going to get through it. We're going to get through the hard times, the good times. We're going to try to meet everybody's needs. And we're just going to go and be grateful that we're all here and waking up this morning.

Christina: 6:50

Yeah, I love that. One of my 2024 goals is embrace explosive joy. So I'm trying to embrace all the emotions and all of the joy that come because clearly there's going to be stresses and pressures that I can't control. And I'm trying to learn about how much I cannot control. especially having babies that are further apart than what we normally had. I had five children in eight years and it was very fast and furious. Clearly my body needed a little bit of a break, but we were trying to conceive for quite a while after we had our fifth and we weren't sure if we were done or not. I felt very strongly that our family wasn't complete. But after Trying to conceive for so long and being diagnosed as infertile It was a big shock to our family because we had always been able to conceive fairly naturally fairly quickly But it wasn't like he winked at me and I was pregnant. It took some time to conceive and so with my fifth baby making the decision to not have a baby during COVID was hard because we wanted them close together. But I also was struggling with the fact that I wouldn't be able to have family present or I wouldn't be able to not wear a mask being asthmatic. It was really hard for me to breathe with a mask on and having to labor or having to have a C section with a mask because I do have C sections for all of my babies. I knew that I would have. to be wearing that mask for multiple days at a time. So being a prayerful and faithful person, I knew that God had my best interest at heart that maybe because I didn't want to have a baby during COVID, he left a little bit more of a gap, but having a five year gap versus an 18 month or a two year gap has definitely been a challenge. In the way that I've perceived my, my pregnancy, but also the way that I've been able to recover emotionally, hormonally, and the changes of having a five year gap versus a two year gap have been pretty evident for me as a mother. So, as you mentioned, trying to. to navigate through a parental journey, I feel like most women and men aren't having babies, at the beginning of their 20s and then again at the beginning of their 40s. I kind of look at these decades of growth that I've had having children and having pregnancies in my mid 20s and then again having them now. I remember my grandmother saying, after you have a baby after 30, it feels very different. And I can now say, after having a baby after 40, it feels very different, which was never our expectations. Like a lot of women, when I met my husband, I kind of had a plan in mind about how and when babies would come and what age I would be. And I've, Come to learn that even with the best control, even with the best doctors, even with the best providers, we are not in complete control of that conception date and how that happens. But in being flexible and in being able to embrace the things that are supposed to come when they come, I think I've learned a lot about how to heal emotionally, physically and mentally from the things that have occurred because Being infertile or having a diagnosis of not being able to conceive naturally or as you would plan to or want to can be very emotionally challenging, especially if you're not infertile in the way that other people that can't conceive at all are, and that felt very isolating to say that I couldn't conceive and was having trouble with that, and yet I had these other beautiful children made me question, why, why not only I couldn't do that, but it made me feel isolated because I couldn't talk about it with my friends that couldn't have children at all because I had my five beautiful children, but I still wasn't able to create life in the normal way. So we definitely had a lot of challenges with this last pregnancy, just emotionally and mentally trying to be prepared to, to welcome another life if that was what was supposed to happen. And, and that's a miracle in and of itself. So if you want me to start from the end and go back or start from the beginning and go forward, you just. Let me know what you think would be the best course to start this crazy parental journey that I've had.

Kiona: 10:38

Yeah, I mean. Goodness, let's start wherever you feel is best, like where your heart takes you, where your journey feels like you should, or where your heart feels your journey with sharing with us should go.

Christina: 10:52

Okay, we'll start at the beginning. So, Etanelle came after I had foot surgery. When you are laying on your bed with a double bunoscopy, I had both of my bunions corrected and repaired, and I couldn't move. What do you do? You make a baby. So, I was taking Vicodin and feeling pretty nauseous from my, my Vicodin as I needed it still for a pretty severe surgery. And I was just feeling so sick for so long and I thought, why am I still feeling so nauseous from this medication? I was told that I should be feeling a little bit more healthy, a little bit more stable. My medication shouldn't be affecting me so much. And as I was putting one in my mouth, I stopped and I looked up at my calendar and I realized I was late. And we had had been trying for so long because we had had a miscarriage at the beginning. It was a pretty early miscarriage about six or seven weeks, and we didn't tell family or friends about it because we we didn't want to. I mean, it wasn't necessarily denial. We just didn't want to embrace the fact that we had already tried and not been able to. So we were just really optimistic saying, well, at least we can, we can try to get pregnant. At least that's maybe my body saying, yes, this is going to happen. So I was pregnant with my baby a little sooner than we anticipated after the surgery. And, She and her pregnancy, were, everything was pretty clockwork. I worked through my whole pregnancy. I'm a piano teacher. I've been teaching piano for almost 23 years. And it was a pretty beautiful summer, moving into August, her due date. And I, nothing was happening. Nothing was changing. And my doctor said, you know, with a first time mom, it's going to be a while. So I kind of had that expectation. And I came into August, deciding to stop work. About 10 days before my due date because I wanted to nest and prepare and get everything ready and just promptly sat around waiting for her to come. Going on very long walks and doing what most women do, trying to get the baby to come, and just exhausting myself. Cleaning people's houses, doing things that probably, you know, lifting things that probably weren't as safe as they should have been. And, her due date came and went, and I was a little frustrated because I thought, surely I'm going to have this baby. I'm gigantic. I feel ready emotionally and physically. And so when I went into labor on a Sunday afternoon, some of the other women that were there with me and my church group said, I think you might be in labor. And I thought, these are just Braxton Hicks contractions. I've had them for a while. And that night I was just feeling really in the thick of it. So we ended up going to the hospital and they said, well, you're only out of one. And you're not really into, any sort of transition or active labor. Nothing's really happening, so just go home and labor, which we did. I ended up laboring all day on Monday. I ended up going to a doctor on Tuesday. in the middle of the day on Tuesday, they said, Okay, well, if you go back to the hospital, we'll probably keep you there because you are 41 weeks, and so we'll probably induce and have that baby come. So that night, my husband and I went. And we were noticing that my, contractions were camelbacking on top of each other, so I didn't have much of a break. I was having a lot of back labor and, a lot of pain. And because I had been in labor for so long with pretty consistent contractions, nothing that was into the active labor force, but definitely consistent contractions, I was feeling really tired. So they gave me an Ambien, they gave my husband an Ambien, and we tried to sleep as well as we could. And about three in that morning, they broke my water. Unfortunately, there was meconium already present, so they were a little concerned about that. And at six that morning, they were starting Pitocin, and as the drip is dripping down the IV into my arm, both her and my heart rate just bottomed out, just went really low. And they thought, you know what, we're going to do it, we're just going to deliver this baby via C section. And they had mentioned the words previously, and I thought, mm, nope, that's not my birth plan. I really want to try to have a natural birth. I didn't even want the epidural. I only got the epidural because they recommended, in order for me to calm down, an epidural would help with the camelback pain that I was feeling. So they rushed me into the operating room, and they said, okay, we need to get this baby out as fast as we can. The heart rate is very, very low. And I jumped up on the table. And they both looked at each other, the two doctors, and they said, Did she just get up on the table? Doesn't she have an epidural? So as I'm laying down, they're like, We gotta do it now. And one nurse grabbed one arm, and my husband grabbed the other arm, and they held my arms down as they cut because they needed to get that baby out. And I could feel everything. They were pumping me as fast as they could with the epidural, trying to get everything numb, and they got her out in 3 minutes and 30 seconds. So she came out. super fast, aspirated some meconium. they took her straight to the NICU. I wasn't able to really, I gave her a kiss and they took her right out. this is back when they had a nursery and so they took her to the nursery. They gave her a bath. I didn't see her for a couple hours, truthfully. they stitched me up. It was a pretty dramatic. Delivery for me because again, I could feel everything and they actually had to cut my obliques because she was caught under my left hip. So she was caught under my left pelvic bone, which is where when I was a baby, I was born with hip dysplasia. So my hips were broken at an angle in that they never fully formed and corrected because this was before they had the little frog thing that they put babies in now. I don't even know what the official name of it is, but they hike a baby's hips up when there's hip dysplasia to correct that imbalance. So because I never had that, my mother just put cloth diapers around my, my body and try to kind of connect my hips back together as they would shift and move when I would crawl or move or kick. So because of my hip dysplasia, this is after the fact, after I had this baby, they said that's why I will never be able to have a vaginal birth because it's called, androgynal hip dysplasia. So it's when you look more like a man than a woman. So your hip is turned upwards and inwards. And in an x ray that I most recently had, you can actually see that upward tilt of my left pelvis. So my babies never descend. They never touch my cervix. They never put pressure on my cervix. I was in labor for 76 hours with this first baby. and I was only at a one when I went in on Tuesday night and I was only at a four. after they broke my water. So I never really had enough momentum to even have the baby descend. so that was a very interesting way to start motherhood. And truthfully, it was not what I had planned and anticipated. So that led with some postpartum anxiety and depression. feeling like I wasn't able to accomplish what my body was meant to do and that was really hard for me to feel like I was failing at the one thing that like I literally was created to do was to birth a baby and to bring a body and a spirit together into the world. So I got onto, Zoloft and started taking a antidepressant right away, which was a good decision for me, but unfortunately I felt better too soon and I got off of it. And then I started having the suicidal ideation and some of the scary things that happen after you take yourself prematurely off a antidepressant. So I learned very quickly the power of modern medicine, not only to be able to deliver a beautiful, healthy, perfect baby, but to then provide me some hormonal imbalance checks and to help me through that postpartum depression. But I will say that I wish I had been more informed that getting off of it early would cause some of the things that I struggled with. I'm sure someone maybe thought that they had told me that, but I don't recall receiving that information. But now looking back at it, I'm really, really grateful that I had an in home nurse who came to my home and, and noticed signs of postpartum depression. She also noticed signs of when I was struggling because I got off of it. And she said, I have, have you been taking your medication recently? And I said, no, I feel great. And then she was aware that things were changing for me mentally. So I'm really grateful for her.

Kiona: 18:32

Wow. That is a journey into motherhood. That is like. hitting the brick wall and then having to climb another one right after that wall is broken through. So that is a lot. And to find out that your hip dysplasia that you were born with truly impacted your ability to have a vaginal birth, that in itself, and learning that after a 76 hour labor in an emergency cesarean that you could feel everything in, that is really, that shows how emergent it was. Because your providers were like, now is the time. Because if we don't do this now, one or both of them may not come out of this. And that's a really, really hard decision to make as a provider as well.

Christina: 19:22

Exactly. And I think that the intent was to let me labor as long as possible. And I think that's what my providers were trying to provide for me with my birth plan because I had birth plan specifications about not having epidural, not having pitocin, trying to do as much natural birth and labor as I could, which was really my goal. But often with our best intentions, we forget That there are things out of our control like we kind of talked about the beginning that hip dysplasia was known to me as a child But I had no idea that it would affect me as a birthing person as a mother and my doctor did mention that he saw That in my scans and he saw that in my pregnancy, but he didn't tell me which made me a little frustrated I felt like that was almost a dismissal of what I was trying to accomplish that he noticed that that was a possibility that I would have to have a c section and And I mentioned that to him, he was an older man, and I said, had I known that, I think it would have helped a lot with these unmet expectations and some of the depression that I felt towards the end, because I feel like had I known that that would be always the route that I would deliver children, then it wouldn't have been so frustrating. And, for my second, I was trying for a VBAC because they said, well, you can try for a VBAC, but I wish that someone would have just made a mention in my chart. No, this woman will always have a C section. Once a C section, always a C section. Not just because of what the medical world deems a necessity, but because of my true hip structure and the way that I was presented in my own birth. And at no fault of my mother, or no fault of myself, but corrective procedures now for babies that are born either breech or born with hip dysplasia is miraculous. I don't believe that it is the same now. I think that now when they put these babies in these little frog slings and they make these babies immobilized, it really does get that hip and that pelvic bone back into position to allow more of an open structure for women.

Kiona: 21:15

yeah, man, I agree with you in saying that if you would have just known, you know, who knows what was going through the doctor's head, like, maybe he's like, well. I don't know. They're not going to listen to me anyway. They're going to keep fighting anyway to try to have this vaginal birth or whatever. Like, even if he had just mentioned, Hey, I see that your hip structure is a little bit more narrow than, other birthing people that are out there. You're more than welcome to try for a vaginal birth, but your actual hip structure may end you up in a cesarean. So just keep that in mind. Like, just planting the seed, you know?

Christina: 21:50

Especially as a first time mother who didn't know. The options.

Kiona: 21:54

Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. so when you did go through your postpartum depression and anxiety with, your first, how did you come through that after you realized that you were having those suicidal thoughts?

Christina: 22:10

Those are great questions. So I think the first time it was really frightening because I used to work very close to my home and I would walk with my daughter in her stroller to my work and I had these moments where I thought if I just let the stroller go what would happen. And they were very frightening, very real, very, normal thoughts for me. I loved my daughter. She was my whole world. She was the whole thing that I was doing everything for. And so that's when I stepped back and thought something's really wrong. Like something, there's something wrong with me more than what I can control. And so being able to talk to someone about that, having this nurse, she was through this program that they would come to my home. every other week or twice a month or once a month, depending upon what my needs were and having her be a trusted source of, of medical support was really important. And then having her tell me that I wasn't broken, that there was nothing wrong with me, but it was just something that I needed to work through was really, really important. And I think the stigma of depression, anxiety and something that you're doing wrong is really still pretty profound in our culture and community. I think a lot of people don't talk freely about depression, anxiety, and the things, the thoughts, the feelings, the, the needs that we have. Another thing that was really important to me as a first time mom, that a lot of people did well, but not everyone, is they would come to see the baby, but they wouldn't come to see me. And as a woman, your birth as a mother. No matter how many babies you have, you're still being birthed as a mother and your hormones and your body and everything's changed again. So much your brain, the, the, the bath of hormones that we receive, the progesterone, the cortisol, the. Estrogen, the lack of these hormones as well, all the different things that happen in your brain when you are birthing and then when you've had the baby is so it's such a huge, almost intolerance in our community that we expect mothers to jump right back into being who they were. previously, or to be able to take six or eight weeks after you have a baby and jump right back into your profession, your career, a workload. And I think that this woman would come to me and recognize me and not just my baby. And having trusted friends and, and women, both that are related to you and non related to you, to be able to come to you and say, I see you and what you need and not just what you're needing for your child and with your baby and for your baby, but I see you as a human being and these needs is really invaluable. Because that's what helped me to be able to open up and tell her some of the scary things that I didn't even want to tell my husband about or my mother or my family, because those are frightening things to recognize and to realize and to verbalize makes them real. And in that reality, you're able to be treated because I do believe very strongly for me now. After having had postpartum depression with multiple babies that I've had and being treated medically, for me, I know now that being treated medically is not the best course of action. It unfortunately causes me to lose more of an appetite and it's just a very light buffer to what I'm feeling. But for me, I know that if I get more sleep, which is almost impossible with a newborn, I have a six month old who still needs to eat every hour and he does not sleep through the night. But if I can be fully fed, fully rested, and if I can get my body moving every day and exercise, those three things are vitally important for me in my postpartum anxiety and depression. And if I'm not doing those things as often as I can, even with a newborn, even with someone that is depending on me for nutrients and for the vitality of life, I don't feel like I should be taking a medication. That is just me because there's women that do all of that and they still need the assistance of a, of a medicine or a provider. Talk therapy is incredibly important but sometimes talk therapy isn't what helps a person come out of that. Even when they're talking to someone they might not feel regulated. So for every person it's so individualized but I know that The postpartum anxiety and depression world that we live in can last for years after a baby is born, and if not treated in the way that the woman needs it, not just that the doctor thinks she needs it, it can really alter the way that a mother can mother and can be seen in our, in our world and in our communities. So that's a great question.

Kiona: 26:27

And that is a great answer. I really think that everything you just mentioned is so important because, every single time you have a baby, whether it's the first baby, the fifth baby, the twelfth baby, You are birthed into a newer version of yourself. You are birthed into a person that is not just taking care of five babies, but six now. How does that change you as an individual? What, how does your attention change? How are your hormones different? And it is so, so, so, so important to realize that. And The fact that you had a nurse provider that would come to your home to assist you and just see you for who you were, as you were, with no judgment of saying that you're broken or you're bad for thinking this way is vital. It is so important. there are a couple programs that we have here in Washington State, and the first one that I think of is the Nurse Family Partnership Program. there's also many, many doulas that focus primarily on postpartum and they're there to support you in those moments. And, doulas are not clinical providers, but they can also see symptoms of depression and say, Hey, you might really want to go get that checked out or here are a couple of resources for you. Let's go ahead and call this clinic, to get you an appointment. Let's try to find an additional resource that makes sense for you, so yeah, I think that's super important.

Christina: 27:55

That's excellent. And it was the Nurse Family Partnership Program that I received a nurse for that was able to come to my home as a first time mother. And she actually came with my second baby as well. She wasn't able to come as often or as frequently, but she was provided to be able to come back. She kind of made exceptions because we really enjoyed each other's friendship. And she really was a saving grace in helping me understand motherhood and the experiences I was experiencing, because it was unlike what I had planned for. And in those plans, having everything changed, my flexibility was pretty staunch. It was pretty rigid. And, I love what you also offered about doulas, because both my sister, Sarah Ziroll, and Carly Crowther are certified doulas in our Made Mindful Motherhood and Birth programs and courses. We encourage women to find people, not just women like mothers or aunts or friends, but actual doulas or a birth, group or coach that can help walk through because regardless of how many babies you've had, things change over time medically, but also providers in the way that they see women changes. And so with our company, we're encouraging women to make sure that they have information and that they can come and be an advocate for themselves as they're wanting to, to talk about birth and to talk about delivery and to talk about what they need. And I've noticed that even with my sixth baby, I've had to really be an advocate for myself and, and stress some of the things that I feel like are really important to me. And of course, some things they can't do. When you have a 6th C section, there's some things they just can't do. I asked for the cord to be clamped a little later. They're unable to do that because they need to deliver that placenta and get that placenta delivered and get me sewn up. So they weren't able to wait, but they gave it as long as they could. And they allowed me to have, as many of those things that I wanted on my birth plan as possible. because sometimes you will have this birth plan that will be beautiful and exactly what you need. And then you go into delivery and it's completely opposite about what you actually need medically or for the baby. And there's things within an ultrasound or things within your pregnancy that you can't determine with my second baby. That was what happened with her. She had intrauterine growth restriction and we were unaware that she was so small. intrauterine growth restriction is something that happens without reason, without cause of the mother or the baby, and she was born, at 37 weeks. She was born full term, but she was 5 pounds, 11 ounces. She dropped down to 4 pounds, 6 ounces, and she left the hospital at 5 pounds, but she was very small, some of those reasonings we're not quite sure about. during my pregnancy with her, we found, a mass in my right breast that they removed in a lumpectomy surgery during my pregnancy, and we're wondering if maybe that was one of the reasons why she struggled with her growth in pregnancy. There was a lot of extra stresses and pressure on me having a condition that wasn't treated with chemotherapy radiation, but they did catch it and removed it, and because a lot of cancer is created behind the nipple and that's where the masses were found. That's where they were removed during my pregnancy. Again, medical professionals felt like it was really important to have that treated at that moment. And one of the, the hardest parts about that is them telling me I wouldn't be able to breastfeed ever again, if at all on that side. So when she was born, my breast milk would come out of the places where they cut and it would spray her little face like a water balloon with holes in it so she would get a little milk shower and I would just, wash her little face and, but you know, as I've had six children, I breastfed my fifth until she was four and a half, my fourth until he was four. I was always breastfeeding and pregnant with every one of my children. After my first, I've always been a breastfeeding mother while pregnant and you can do that. Some people and some doctors say that's not allowed, but you can and you will and if that's your choice And if you want to breastfeed till your baby is five. My father always jokes that you know They have to come home from kindergarten to have their afternoon snack, which is breast milk and I remind him No, they're they're fully weaned. They're eating table food All my children eat table food at six months, but the bond of being able to nourish a toddler or a child that can ask for it. If a child crawls onto your lap and looks you in the eye and puts their little hand on your face and say, Lait, that's the word for milk in French, or say, Maman, je veux manger. Like those things are so incomparably beautiful to be able to verbalize the bond that you have with a child because it It's really just that at three and four, it's not really for nutritional value. It's kind of vitamin water. It's more for the bonding aspect. It's more for, the endorphins for feeling that beautiful connection. But there's so many benefits to breastfeeding. There's so many benefits for the mother through anxiety, depression, through weight, through, just the different ability to, to let your body naturally gravitate into what they need. Breast milk. is able to change temperatures depending upon the needs of your baby. Breast milk can change consistencies, the fat, the endorphins, the lipids, the amino acids, just the content of your breast milk alone, whether the mother is starving or she's fully fed, whether she's fully hydrated or dehydrated will all be dependent upon not just her but what the baby needs. And that is such a beautiful, remarkable ability to, to create life and then to nourish that life. So something that I'm trying to do as well as other people in the world, I know I'm not alone in this, is normalize breastfeeding and allow a mother to nurse wherever she is without excuse, without apology, and to be able to say, I can breastfeed my child and feed my child actively in a grocery store, in a restaurant, on a tram, on a bus, in my home uncovered. And unapologetic. And many countries who allow that and allow that breastfeeding notion are more successful. And what i'm teaching my children is that breasts are not a sexual object. They are not even a reproductive object They are meant to nourish and to strengthen a bond between a mother and a baby And when we especially some people in in my society or my community or my world see that The opportunity to breastfeed a child is not a sexual endeavor, and it shouldn't be, embarrassing or shameful. Removing that guilt and that shame, I think, allows for more of the nurturing that we need. And I, I do feel like if we can stop asking people to separate themselves from what breastfeeding really is, and really normalize it and really embrace it, we'll have much healthier children and much healthier mothers. That's my breastfeeding TED talk. Step off of that now.

Kiona: 34:20

No, I agree. with my first daughter, I fed her until she was three and a half, almost four. And with my second, I stopped at two. And with my third, I just stopped at two. Like our last day of feeding was Christmas Eve. And my choices for stopping at that time was because I I felt overstimulated. It was more for, my mental health of, needing to have my body back because that's a whole thing. I am sure that you can relate with, Having the bonding moments are extremely beneficial and extremely amazing and loving. Looking down at your toddler as they look at you, poke your nose, pick your nose, whatever it is, that moment is so special and to know that when they hurt themselves or when they're just sad or just want comfort, they come to you for that. And for you to be able to provide that kind of comfort and reassurance and consistency is amazing. I loved that so much. But then my mental health was like, Alright girl, get off me. You're doing yoga over my shoulder. It's time for you to, to go eat an actual snack.

Christina: 35:25

Absolutely, yeah. My son would crocodile spin me. He would latch on and then crocodile spin. like, the crocodile hunter. Trying to, to rip it off. So I, I can relate to that.

Kiona: 35:38

It's not fun. It's not a fun feeling

Christina: 35:40

Getting your body back is a real reason. I mean, and again, this is not to shame or to guilt or to make any woman feel that they should be compelled one way or the other. This is just my journey and my story and things that I felt, felt empowered by. But you're exactly right. When they're flipping around, it is, no matter how long you want to do it, it can be done. And,

Kiona: 35:59

absolutely. Yeah, 100%. Like I guess one of the primary reasons I was like, okay, time to get my body back is my toddler thought it would be an amazing thing to just try to see if my nipple could stretch all the way across the country, you know, and it was very, very painful. And I was like, okay. Boundaries are set.

Christina: 36:19

yes.

Kiona: 36:20

I dont need my nipples to start bleeding again.

Christina: 36:23

Exactly, and that's so important, and I think you being willing to say that, I don't know if you actually verbalized that to your two year old, but being willing to say, this is my body and this is my boundary is such an empowering part of womanhood and motherhood, because then you're teaching her, I love you, you are my whole world, you are why I'm doing this, but there are some boundaries and these things need to change, and that also is very, very powerful.

Kiona: 36:45

Yeah, I'm definitely a strong believer in verbalizing out loud, what boundaries are. My kids know all of the anatomically correct verbiage for their bodies.

Christina: 36:54

absolutely

Kiona: 36:55

every, everything we always talk about. No, you can't hit your sister in the butt for fun. That's her body. She says no, don't do it. Also Learn to not put your butt in everybody else's faces. My son is, he's, he's wonderful.

Christina: 37:09

But he's a boy.

Kiona: 37:10

he's a boy. Uh, so yeah, that's, that's truly amazing. And I, I love your perspective on breastfeeding because it's so important for people to hear. And I 100 percent agree that like, you know, a lot of people feel like free, the nipple is just a movement, but really it's it's so primal to feed your kids from your body if you're able to just go with it and desexualize the breasts because just like you said, they don't even play any part in reproduction. unless that's like something that people choose to do and involve in their sexual lives, then that's a different ballgame. But, yeah, that's so, so important to mention.

Christina: 37:54

And in the same breath, saying, if a woman chooses to formula feed, or she has to go back to work or to school, or she needs to choose a different avenue about how to nourish her baby, there is absolutely no guilt or shame in that as well. Because we have so many opportunities now to have formula that is DHA and has the omega acids and all the different things and these, these properties that allow nutrients to be fully assimilated by the baby and by the human body, that's completely appropriate as well. And I think that there needs to be a movement of not casting guilt and shame upon women and men who choose to, or any person, any birthing person who chooses to raise their baby in a certain way, because we're all trying to find the best way for us and for our children. And every child and every birth experience you have is going to alter so differently. As we talk about my six children, people always say, Oh, your girls are twins or your boys are twins. And I just want to say, if you start to spend any moment of time with us, you'll realize how very vastly different they are because I believe that two loving people created these six children. I've been fortunate enough to be with my husband and have these six children with one man, but they are vastly different. They come pre wired, they have personalities and they're etched with character and they have, dislikes and likes. And even though they all have the same parents, they're so varied in their personal choices and in their personalities. And with that, it allows you as a mother to change and to grow. And the parenting books and the podcasts and the mantras and the theologies and the things that I have to adapt to and learn changes even now, even now with. you have three boys, three girls. People say, Oh, he's just another boy. He's just another Packard. he's just another member of the family. And I remind them, but he's completely independent, completely different than my other two boys and will be for the rest of his existence. And then that acknowledgement, I think, as a parent, you can say, we can just add one more baby to the group. It's not a big deal. But it is because they're so different. And the way that he's associating with his siblings changes, like you mentioned with your son, he's going to be completely different than his sisters because he is a male and he has a boy, but then he has an older and younger sister, correct? So with that, with him being that middle child, he will always have this middle child personality. And I believe very strongly that birth order and that the way that we come into a family and who our parents are at the time that we come into a family, there is nature. And there's also nurture. And in nurturing, we have the privilege of saying, these are things that we've done right with our children. And these are things that we want to change. And I can stop a cycle. from a parent or a grandparent or a relative, or I can continue that cycle because of things that I love and have learned from them, or I can say, no, I'm no longer going to do this. Even though I did it with my first and it worked well with my first, I can change that with my sixth, or I can continue that because my parents did that and I feel like they did that right. Or I can say, no, these are things that we're never going to do with the non negotiables, the boundaries, the limitations we're going to set. So I think in parenting, one of the things that I've learned the most is about how much things change. and how we, we get to go with that and choose to learn every time we choose to learn both from good podcasts such as yours, both from providers, from medical professionals, but also from other women and men who have had children and who have said these are the things that have served me well and helped me to learn and grow. And here's some advice or some things that you might want to prepare yourself for and learn from. That's what our That's what our business really is trying to do is help women to have different information and different resources and then to be able to act on their own and to learn on their own. But because we have a little bit of experience, it's kind of like anything in life. When you have a little bit of ageism or experience, then you, you get to be treated, by those experiences. And it is a treat. It is a blessing. It is a reward to learn from someone who is experienced and who has knowledge there. with my third, I don't know if you want me to jump right into that. He, he's kind of one of my more dramatic, one of my more dramatic, deliveries as he came right on his scheduled day. My first two did not, and that was kind of exciting. the day before I was in a cop car, there was a man trying to steal vehicles and a bike from my backyard and as I was out talking to my friend who was going to watch my girls while I had him, he jumped the fence and I caught a very good look at him. and as he walked by me, I saw a police officer drive up on the road, get out of her car, run to chase after him, and he starts running. And they came and said, did you get a good look at him? And I said, I did. And they brought me into their police car. They lowered, I guess in a police car, you can lower the, the tinting so they blacked it all out because he was looking my way so he couldn't see me and I'm 39 weeks pregnant very very pregnant identifying a man and writing my affidavit writing my statement so that he could be truly tried for stealing vehicles and in my bike in my neighborhood. So this was hours before I went in to deliver him it was the night before it was like six o'clock the night before so that was kind of exciting. Have those police documents in his birth book. So then the next day we go in and my brother was preparing to go to medical school and I had permission for him to attend the delivery. So he comes and he was looking a little pale and I asked if he was okay. And he said, you know, I just, I went to a movie the night before he took him taking my other brother. They saw a movie. He hadn't slept very well or ate very well.. So it was two in the afternoon, unlike any of my other deliveries more later in the day, and he was in charge of the video camera. So he's taking a video of the delivery and I look at him and I said, Are you ready? He said, Yeah, are you? I was like, I'm so excited. And as they can't again of the c section as they open me up to deliver the baby. I just hear my brother, all six foot four of him, go down. He just passes right out and the camera goes straight up and then somehow it lands on my shoulder and then the camera turns to him and I'm not really holding it, but I'm kind of holding it with my shoulder and he's just smiling as he's knocked there, knocked unconscious. And when he fell, my husband caught him with his hand and my husband's hand and my brother's head were wedged in between this little Refrigerator that they have in the surgery room. So my husband cut his hand, my brother cut his head, and I was cut, so there was blood just everywhere. Everyone's bleeding. And he'd fallen so hard and so fast that we didn't hear them announce the gender of the baby. One of the fun things we do is we don't know the gender of the baby when we're pregnant. And so we kept saying, Is it a boy or a girl? Is it a boy or a girl? And they're like, Didn't you hear? We said, No! He hit so hard and so loud we didn't hear. And they said, It's a boy! So they bring out this little boy and right before we had him an hour before they said oh, he's head down He's in great position. No, he was footling breech He came out kicking and his little feet were kicking So he did quite a bit of damage to my body with my bladder and my uterus being very bruised and very damaged So there was a long recovery after that. So as the nurses came to visit me They weren't just coming to visit me. They were coming to visit my very good looking brother who happened to pass out and was laying in the ER with an IV bag and a sandwich because he was underfed and tired, but the joke now is with my son, who is very handsome, that my brother found him so beautiful that he Passed right out. But kudos to my doctor brother who is studying internal medicine, almost finished with his residency program. He has never passed out since and he got it out of the system with me. Supposedly the c section is one of the bloodier surgeries to witness and it is very typical for people to pass out from the sight of, that. And also they mentioned because I'm his sister and there was a relation and just some of the effects of him being tired and hungry. But that was one of our favorite deliveries because it was very eventful. And, everyone had a cut, everyone was bleeding, and, again, the nurses were visiting my very handsome brother because he, he, there was a story with that one. So that's kind of a fun delivery.

Kiona: 45:43

I actually really love that. Um, it is A story, for sure. and the fact that you just said everybody came out with a cut. Like, that's so funny. I would not be surprised if there's a running joke of, you want to see my scar from the day? You know?

Christina: 45:57

Right. Actually, my husband still bears a scar on his hand. That's funny you mention that. I just saw it the other day. So, yeah, everyone did. I'm sure my brother has a little bump on his head where it happened to.

Kiona: 46:06

Wow. Yeah.

Christina: 46:08

And he's still a kicker. My son, who's 10, still runs. Still just kicking those legs.

Kiona: 46:13

Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Isn't it crazy that, the characteristics that they carry within the womb are just still carried out throughout as they develop into their own little humans? It's

Christina: 46:23

Yeah, that's an excellent perception. I believe that.

Kiona: 46:27

Yeah, one of the things I was actually really interested in is you keep saying that your babies came on or around their due dates. And so knowing that all of your babies are cesareans, were they planned cesareans? Or did you say, I want a trial of labor every time, or I don't want to do it until I know they're ready, which is when I have labor signs. Like, how did that go?

Christina: 46:50

Thats an excellent questions that can lead me right into my 4th birth which is just right where it should be. So, when people say, oh, you have a C section, so you know exactly when your baby's going to come, I always laugh because I'm like, haha. we had our first at 41 weeks, and our second came early. She came two weeks before her C section plan day. and because I was not feeling the baby move, so I didn't really mention that in the birth of my second baby, but the reason why we had her so quickly is that the cord was wrapped around her neck many times, and I was trying for a VBAC, but I went into the doctor, and they asked if I had been feeling movement, and I said no, and I actually was in labor, coming home from my parent, we went to Utah, and I was in my parent's camper, and there was a lot of bumpiness on I 80, and I believe that the cord either was wrapped around her neck previously to that, or maybe even during that visit. I'm not sure exactly why, but I hadn't been feeling movement. And so when my doctor asked that, they did an ultrasound and they said, we need to have this baby now. I was at an appointment in the afternoon. They said, what are you doing at five today? And I said, why? And they said, we need to have this baby now, which I ended up having her the next morning. again, that was early. With my third, the one I just mentioned, he came right on his scheduled C section date. With my fourth, I started having labor pains, pretty consistent labor pains on Super Bowl Sunday. We joked that I was going to have Peyton, Manning Packard because the Broncos were They actually won the Super Bowl that day. so the joke was that I was going to have a little Broncos baby because I was in labor at my friend's house having contractions seven minutes apart and, came home. went the next day to the hospital, again, laboring and having only a dilation of one, they kept sending me home every time. That week I went to the hospital three separate times being sent home every time and they said, we can't deliver you because you're not progressing. And I mentioned it to them. I don't progress. My body doesn't know what it's doing to be able to have pressure on the cervix because like a balloon, that head pushes on it and just really opens that cervix up. and again, people know the different stages of dilation, but I had no effacement. So I was having these regular contractions, but there was nothing to be able to actually allow that baby's head to push through and to start really showing signs of an active or, the transition to kind of get into a position where the baby gets his head into and starts to efface your cervix. That never really happens for me. So finally, I went to the hospital on a Saturday night and told the nurse I know that I'm going to be probably at a one, maybe a one and a half, but my body isn't able to naturally deliver a baby. I have C sections and my doctor had mentioned if I have contraction pains between 10 minutes and then 7 minutes and then 5 minutes I should come in. And I did exactly what he said. It was almost clockwork. When he would tell me what to do, my body would do it. So when I went and I said, I'm not leaving this hospital until I have this baby. My body is trying to have the baby. I'm having these very consistent, very strong contractions, and it just, it's feeling like I, I can't get anywhere and though I want to get somewhere. And that is one of the hardest parts about being a c section mother is that it is out of my control again, But like you mentioned, I'll have schedule a day. So with my provider, I'll schedule a day at around 35 weeks. We'll say, here's the C section date. They don't want to deliver before 39 weeks because their lungs are still developing, but they don't want to deliver after that, because of what we just talked about. When my body's in labor, when there's stresses or when there's pressure, it can create not only exhaustion, but it can create placental abruption. And so that's one of the reasons why you've had multiple C sections, that window or that uterine lining can become thinned. It can cause problems within the mother and the baby. I've been very fortunate not to have anything like that happen. With my fourth, he was my biggest baby. He was 8 3 at 38 weeks. My other babies were relatively small. And so I'm grateful that they finally just said, yeah, we'll acquiesce to this request and we'll deliver this baby. on Valentine's Day, he was due the 25th, so it was, nine, 10 days before his actual due date, but a week before his scheduled C-section. And then with my fifth, she also came on my scheduled delivery date, which is so funny. You mentioned how babies are so different and how pregnancies are so different because between my fourth and my fifth. I had all these Braxton Hicks, all these contractions with my fifth, none. My whole pregnancy and I was out in my garden putting in a garden bed. I was lifting. I was doing all these things. I built a brick path and I, I rarely had if maybe a day or two of maybe even slight Braxton Hicks contractions with my fifth. So it's interesting the gender, the timing, the year, when you conceive, all of those things make such a huge difference, at least in my body for how I deliver these babies. But again, my providers are very aware that I've had C sections, so they know. so my fifth delivery was beautiful. my doctor jokes that it was the best delivery because it was with him and no, no one else. And it was. It was just, I mean, textbook delivery rolled me out. she stayed in my arms. It was the first time I'd ever seen a baby not washed off. My previous babies, they would take away and they would wash them. They would take the vernix, the, the white coating that comes with a baby, they would remove the blood, they would remove everything off the baby, and I would see a baby. Not fresh, not completely showered, but definitely not like most women see when they come out vaginally and for the first time with my 5th, they put her in my arms and she was fresh out of the womb, mine, and so beautiful and smelled differently than I've ever experienced and we had this connection and this bond unlike my other babies because I got to have her right after, whereas my other babies they took away to the NICU and they checked them because they had need that needed to be seen. So with my fifth, they let me hold her as they wheeled me out, and as they brought me in to recover, I never let her go. I kind of joke with people that she's so clingy because of that reason. Like, she was in my arms from that time, but she was very small. So I got to stay in the hospital a couple extra days, which is kind of a precious moment for me. Everyone else went home. I just got to hold my baby. They didn't even come to check on me, because when you have a C section, you're visited frequently throughout the night, not just for your baby, but for you. They check your vitals and make sure everything's good. They push on your uterus. Maybe some people don't understand, but when you have a C section, you still bleed. You still have the lochia and you still bleed for six to eight weeks, almost more intensely sometimes than a vaginal birth. but they have to actually do the pushing for you because they give you pitocin to deliver the placenta. Your body hasn't done all the natural things that a normal vaginal birth would elicit. and so with that, then there's a lot of medical need. often the women are on morphine or they're on pretty hard narcotics afterwards for the pain. But now when I went to have my, my sixth baby, I had to ask. for those. They didn't automatically give me, any narcotic. I had to ask and I, I told them, I said, I'm in quite a bit of pain. And they said, well, you haven't had a Percocet or Vicodin. And I said, don't you automatically do that? They said, no, only upon asking. So I had a morphine bolus from, from my delivery, but it wore off and I was very aware of the pain with this baby. And, I didn't take very much in the hospital right at the beginning, which was also maybe another, I don't know how to even word this, but maybe another tribute to the fact that my body was strong enough to have another C section. because most people are not, it's not advisable to have as many C sections as I had. Most people shouldn't, and don't, and don't want to. but after I had my third, they highly recommended that we be done with our family. Because he was a foot lean breach baby. He had done so much damage to my body. They said my terin wall was so thin and so fragile that they mentioned if I had another baby, placenta abruption would be very real. So it made us a little more aware of what the realities were about continuing our family, but we also felt very strongly that God would heal me. So with the six baby, I felt the same thing. I felt very much at peace. I went into labor early and was doing all my errands on a Wednesday. Went out with my son. This is baby number six. And we went to eight places. We were doing all these errands, lifting heavy things, trying to get my house and my baby and my body and everything ready for this delivery. I was going to have them the following Tuesday. And everyone kept asking me at the last place I was at, the grocery store getting groceries. Are you okay? Are you feeling okay? And I kept thinking, why is everyone asking me? People in the grocery store, the cashier, the manager, like my bag boy, everyone was asking. And I thought, maybe I don't look good. Maybe I'm not doing okay. But I was having pretty regular consistent contractions. Braxton Hicks, of course, nothing that I thought were really significant of, of true labor pain. And then I got home and kept having them. And I thought, okay, I'm laying down. I'm fully fed. I've been hydrated. Something's going on. And two weeks previously, I'd had a dream that my son broke his arm. And my son, just to preface, broke his arm three times in eight months last year. And he had surgery on the last break. It was that severe. And in my dream, I had a dream that he broke his arm, and I took him to the hospital, and then I had the baby right after. So that night, I came home after all these grocery shopping, all these errands, doing all these different things, and my son came down the hill carrying his brother's bike. And I thought, oh. And he said, Azazael fell off his bike and he's hurt and he's crying really hard and I thought this is my dream. Here it is premonition all the different things that come into play as your mother some of those weird mother moments and he comes in and he's got a big swollen hand and I thought okay it's probably broken he's pretty tough kid he doesn't complain very much, especially when he breaks his bone. And, I thought, I'm really tired. I'm gonna be selfish for a minute. And I said, is it okay if we take you tomorrow? And he said, sure. And I gave him ibuprofen and made sure that he was okay and called my brother who's a doctor and he said, yeah, I think you should take him in. It looks like it might be a boxer's break on the side of his hand. So the following morning we woke up, I took him in and I had an appointment at 9:45. I got to the hospital at nine. we had a late morning. again, I wasn't feeling very well. Took them into the hospital. It was just a bone contusion. Fortunately, it was not a break. They rescheduled my appointment and as I left, of course, I had a dentist appointment that day because that's how it happens when you have six kids. Everything happens all in the same day. And I called my dentist and said, just to let you know, I have an appointment that I need to reschedule. I'm still planning on coming, but if I'm not there, it's probably because I'm either in labor, or I'm having the baby, or I'll need to reschedule my dentist appointment. So, I took my kids to lunch. And in the cafeteria, they have free lunch in our state. I was having pretty regular contractions. And everyone was joking with me that I was going to have the baby right then and there. And I was sitting with one of my piano students. And she kept asking if I was feeling okay. And I said, no, I'm not actually feeling my best. Took the kids home, dropped them off. Passed them the lunch bag that happened to have my phone in it. And then went to my doctor's appointment. And I get there and they took me up to a stress test and they said, you know, I think, I think we need to have this baby, we can't really find a regular heart rate, and it's a little concerning that there's just so many fluctuations. And I said, Thank you. I'm really ready to have this baby. I was so ready. I had been feeling good for days, and then the nurse when we got down to labor and delivery. Unfortunately, I had to call my husband on the doctor's phone because again, I didn't have my phone. My husband had not eaten that day he was working from home. Of course, both their cameras and his phone were completely dead because that's what happens when you have a baby, an answer to your question when you're not planning it. And, so he gets to the hospital at 2:53 about. I walk down from upstairs to downstairs. My hospital was the same place where I had my daughter's appointment above. And I walk in and they ask me, what are you here for? And I said, I'd like to have a baby, please. And they said, when? I said, right now. Like, please deliver this baby right now. So I went in and, we had him at 4:30. My husband got there almost at three o'clock. He's putting crackers, salting crackers and orange juice into his mouth so that he doesn't pass out. I asked him to make sure he was fully fed and we had an absolute beautiful baby with a 6th section, they were a little concerned about hemorrhage. they gave me, an extra IV for that and it was just. Again, a beautiful textbook delivery. He came out, and we didn't know if it'd be a boy or girl, and they brought him up against, I'm gonna get emotional because it's such a beautiful thing, they brought him up against the, the little shield, and they let me hold his hand through that little shield. And they just let me hold them as they, as they delivered the placenta, as they stitched me up, they just let me hold them there. And it was just so beautiful because we'd waited so long to have this beautiful little baby. And it was just such an answer to so many prayers. And I know there's so many women maybe listening and maybe aching for a baby. And there's so many things that we can and cannot do. But I know the miracle of life and the miracle of birth is so empowering. No matter how you bring these babies to the world, no matter the age you are, no matter the way you get them there, there's so much beauty and joy and pain and suffering. And there's so much emotion in, in humanness and connectivity. that we get to make as women and as mothers and as men and fathers and all the different connections that we have to bring babies and life to the world. It's so precious and it's such a miracle and regardless of how many you have or the ages that they are or the difference in between their ages there's just such beauty in all of it and it really rang true as you know there is some fear to having 6 C sections but there was such peace and such joy and such beauty in that room. And there still is. He's still so beautiful.

Kiona: 1:00:20

Mm. That just warms my heart. It just warms my heart because that moment. It just rings so true that even though he was your sixth. There was so much meaning behind that moment because it took you guys so long to conceive your sixth and for you to have that moment to look him in his eyes and hold his little hand at that moment is so amazing. I absolutely love that for you and I can see and hear that it's such a meaningful moment for you and I'm sure it was a meaningful moment for your husband as well. Like, uh. That, that makes me feel really happy.

Christina: 1:01:02

Thank you.

Kiona: 1:01:03

Yeah, of course. So this actually leads me into a couple of questions because you had mentioned earlier in the episode that you did experience some postpartum depression and anxiety with multiple of your children. How did you navigate through those different moments because we heard a lot of detail about the first. When did you experience it again and how did you change what you did?

Christina: 1:01:29

Yeah. Those are great questions. So with my fertility, treatments too, I did Pregnol and Clomid, many, many rounds of Clomid. I did a lot of different ultrasounds. And in saying that, I share that because when you're taking hormones, it also can change the way that you feel. With postpartum anxiety and depression also with depression anxiety through your pregnancy So I feel like I felt that more with this baby. We also had a very cold rainy wet winter in Colorado. So I felt a lot of that depression with this last pregnancy Which was not as common for me to feel it in pregnancy as after pregnancy. So because I was kind of more aware with this last baby that that might be something that would happen now. And because I've had it in the past, I always let my doctors know, like I'm a high risk or this is something that I know. And I try to be very truthful and honest with the evaluations that they, they give you. They'll give a questionnaire for those that don't know, maybe that don't have children or that haven't had a child in a while. They'll do an actual questionnaire that will have, how do you feel on a scale of You know, and they'll either have a number scale, they'll say a lot or a little, sometimes, never. And, I think being really honest in those questions is really important. Because it is easy to kind of sweep that under the rug. It also is easy not to tell people about that. So when you feel something, it's easy to kind of just brush it aside and be like, Oh, that's not a big deal. But I think the frequency for me about how often I have a feeling or a thought is what alerts me to know that it is truly depression or anxiety. Because for me now, with This baby, I find that I've had more postpartum anxiety and not depression, which is interesting because I've had more depression with my girls than with my boys. I've always had more depression with my girls. And when I'm pregnant, I feel more rage when I'm having a boy, like almost like parental rage, which is really hard, but that's also one of the attributes of depression. Is rage and anger like undisplaced or unmerited anger or rage is kind of another attribute of depression or anxiety. And so knowing some of the things that causes that being hormonal allows you to kind of step back and say, is this me? Is this hormones for me now with anxiety? I feel like if I'm starting to have these anxious thoughts or these feelings or these behaviors, I can step back and say. Where is it coming from? Is it real? Do I need to worry about it? And how much do I worry about it? Because with anxiety, I feel like all of us have a right to be anxious. We live in a world that's very fast paced. We live in a world where we have to work, we have to provide, we have to do things, have to, not need to or want to, we have to. And then there's the needs and the wants. So we have to say, okay, where do we allocate financial, familial, emotional, mental, and physical time and and management of these different things, you know, we all are expected to be back on our size whatever it is or be down to a certain weight Whatever it is or be looking in a certain way be back at a profession We all have these expectations as women and mothers to keep moving on past birth And I think that with depression anxiety it almost incapacitates you and makes it makes you unable to function. And when you're not a functioning person, after a baby, like you mentioned, like, when did that happen for me with my girls, that's when I noticed, oh, I'm not functioning at a normal level or what I normally feel like I can do. And with this particular baby now that I have, it's mostly like the sleep deprivation, that he's not sleeping at night, he doesn't really nap in the day, he contacts nap almost always. Or he naps for maybe an hour. I'm lucky if I have an hour. So when he goes down, I say, okay, I have an hour. Let's get as much as I can in an hour. But then I have to stop and remind myself, what is my motive? Where's my agenda? What makes me feel like I have to do all these things within this hour? And I love what Brene Brown says, and I mentioned this a lot to people, but she talks about expectations and how expectations are just unrealized disappointments, which kind of makes me sad sometimes to think about that. But when hold ourself to a standard or an expectation that cannot be matched, that's when we find ourself being unhappy or disappointed or sad or feeling invalued. So if we cannot lower expectation, but just change the reality of what we want out of our lives or out of someone else or out of people around us that allows us to look at each other with a more clear lens and accept failure flaw or more like what you talked about humanness to accept that we are all going to be imperfect every day. We all have need to change and to repent and to move and to grow and to to flow into ebb and to be flexible. And with depression, anxiety, I think sometimes we don't allow that reality to feel because we want to mask it. So another thing I'll say about that is, I don't want to mask the feelings that I'm feeling, even if they are feelings of sadness or depression or anxiety or not feeling contented. When I mask it, when I cover it up, when I hide it, then I feel like it's taking away some of the joy. Because I believe that a lot of the things in life that are our strengths are tightly coupled with our weakness. And a lot of the things that bring me great joy are tightly coupled with the things that bring me great pain. So with my depression, with my anxiety, also comes the great need to love and to experience and to create. I'm not necessarily a creator in some of the ways that other people are, but I feel like some of the things that bring me joy and creativity are highly linked to what bring me great pain and great sorrow. So when I cover that up or when I hide it, when I don't tell my family about it, especially my spouse who can support me in ways that no one else can, I feel like that's doing an injustice to me as well as to him. And like you mentioned earlier about being honest and being verbal with our children, I feel like when we ask our children or our spouse to just automatically accept or understand or know without us telling them verbally and in body language or however we choose to communicate is unfair to them because they can't read our mind and they can't read our language and what we're experiencing. It doesn't mean we have to verbally abuse them and use verbal diarrhea to always make them feel exactly what we're feeling, but telling them how we feel and what we need and being honest with that evaluation of ourselves allows the treatment of anxiety and depression to be more more encompassing. And that's what I'm working on right now is allowing my children to know I just need a break. I just need to step away for a little bit. I love you, but I'm stepping away because I'm feeling really anxious right now and I don't know what's making me feel stressed and anxious, but I feel like I need to just breathe on my own for a minute. And in that honesty, we're able to say I'm a human being, so are you, and let's work on this together.

Kiona: 1:08:15

100%. I am right with you in that and, I wanted to touch back a little bit on when you had brought up rage. I'm actually really happy that you brought up rage because I feel like a lot of people hesitate or hold back from bringing up the fact that rage exists, right? They look at themselves as bad or broken or they try to invalidate their own feelings of rage, of like, Am I overreacting? Am I doing all these things? And really, rage is so Real. It is such a real thing and you cannot control it. You can't control it. It's a real thing. And there's also different levels of rage. There's like, it, it, it goes so deep. So I'm happy that you brought that up. And if any of the listeners out there are experiencing any episodes of rage or anything, talk about it. Let the people around, you know, and try to get some support in that because. It's a real thing, and you're not broken, and you're not going insane. You are not the only one in this world, even in your community, let alone, I guarantee even in your family to have experienced this kind of symptom. Rage is huge, and hormone imbalance contributes, and everything is so, so, so real. So thank you for bringing that up.

Christina: 1:09:31

And I feel like it's not just a newness. It's not just a newness in today's society. I feel like depression, anxiety are more new now because we're willing to openly talk about it. I feel like it's always been existent in since the history of time, but we definitely have different problems than people who didn't have the technological advances that we do now. But I think with rage, what scares people is, and what I try to remind my children is that we need to feel to heal. So we cannot feel unless we're We cannot heal unless we're feeling we cannot work through our emotions unless we're commutative with ourself and honest with herself. And then also again, being honest with others. But another thing that's really important that I remind my children is that just because we have a feeling or emotion, it's actually what we do with that emotion. that creates our behavior. So it's not appropriate to feel rage and then lash out at your husband and to beat your children and to hurt yourself or to hurt someone that you love physically, emotionally, or verbally. That's not appropriate. And so what becomes really crucial in the way that we experience rage or depression or anxiety is how we use our behavior to govern our emotion or what we're feeling. So that is where we become mature, emotionally resilient. That is where we become able to cope with the difficult things in life is when we can say, here's my emotion. I'm feeling very angry right now. And we allow our children to say, I feel so angry when they're screaming and crying and throwing a tantrum. What are you feeling? What are you feeling? What do you need? What do you need? You're right there with them. You're matching their intensity. You're matching their level. And they say, Oh, I'm feeling so angry. I'm, I'm feeling. angry. This is anger. I'm feeling anger. Now, what do I do with that anger? How do I behave in that emotion? What do I do in that anger? Do I hit my brother? Do I hit my sister? Do I slap my mom across the face? Do I bite someone? No. I say, I need to go. Bite a pillow, hit my pillow. I don't always encourage my children to hit something else because I think there's other ways that we can actually show when we're feeling rage and anger. For me, that's exercise. If I'm not exercising regularly, if I'm not getting something out and sweating it out, I'm probably going to be a little more likely to feel rage and anger and maybe even act inappropriately towards someone that I love. And it's not necessarily being abusive or being violent. But even like grabbing someone too hard or even like yelling at someone or even creating emotion and creating sadness in someone else because of how I'm feeling for me is inappropriate. And again, I am far from perfect. I make mistakes every day as a parent, but what I'm learning as I have more children is the more that I'm able to be honest and open about my emotions allows them to identify that in themselves. And then for us to all come together and say, these are the things I did wrong and I'm really sorry. And we have a little saying we say in our family, and it comes from a little song, and it goes like this, it says, When we hurt someone's feelings and we make someone sad, we are quick to say sorry so they don't stay mad. And then the second verse goes, When we make someone angry and we take more than give, we are quick to say sorry and quick to forgive. And we try to remind each other that. We're going to be imperfect our whole lives, and because we're going to be together in this little house with all of us right here on top of each other, we're going to hurt each other more than we ever would want to. And with that acknowledgement, we can say, I'm going to feel rage, I'm going to feel anger, I'm going to feel frustration, and these are appropriate, and they need to be had in this home, and these emotions are not wrong. And I think what we do in our world is that we tell people, you can't feel depressed, you can't feel anxious, you can't feel sorrow, or you can't feel All these different things that are part of the human experience, so please tuck them away, please over medicate, please hide them, please don't talk about them, and then when we start to feel it, then we don't know where to go from that. And so acknowledging that these are real things, and maybe we do need to change our diet. Maybe we don't need so much processed food. Maybe we don't need to eat out every day. Maybe we need to exercise more. Maybe we need to just get outside and enjoy some sunshine. Maybe we need to turn off our TV and our phone and our video game and sleep a little bit more. Maybe we need to have a medication or need to talk to a medical professional and have talk therapy. There's so many different options for so many different people, but where I think We're struggling as a world and I'm right there with everyone else and my struggles is that we feel like no one else understands it, which I love that you said in our own community, in our own family, in our own world. There's people. And when we are vulnerable and we can share that in honesty in a safe place where people won't judge and won't criticize us, then we start to open up and say. I hear you and I'm here for you and talk to me and not try to just solve the solution and try to give them an answer, but just saying I empathize and I know that what you're feeling is real because I feel it too. I've either felt it or I feel it now and that's powerful and that will change the way that we can react and act as mothers and as fathers and parents.

Kiona: 1:14:19

Ugh, Christina, you are just over here, like, shaking it all up, in a good way. You're saying all the things, and I'm literally, this entire interview, I've been sitting here, like, nodding and nodding and nodding because, ugh, like, you're bringing so much information to this platform and I'm so appreciative and thankful of that, and everything that you're saying, I feel. I feel it, I've experienced some of it, I can understand why you're saying the things you're saying, even if I haven't experienced exactly what you've experienced in your journey of parenthood. Like, I've experienced things where I'm like, Oh, you're, and I love your little song. I love that. I think that's so awesome. one of the new tricks that I learned as a parent to this third child of mine that is a toddler is I just happened to scroll, and find this video of a parent guiding their child out of a tantrum with blowing out candles. And the candles are Their hands, right? It's their hand. Each finger is a candle and they Take deep breaths to blow them out, and sometimes Sometimes when I see that my daughter needs a little bit more Than five breaths. I'm like, ooh, this candle is really strong. You got to give it your biggest breath, And so she does and then I go down to her level for that meet her at her level or bring her to my lap and then after that I'm like, can you talk to me, tell me what you're feeling. And sometimes she'll go right back to her little high pitch, like whiny tone of like, I just want gummies or something. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, but tell me more, you know? And so we go into this whole thing of trying to help them regulate their emotions. And I found that also as an adult who is a 30 year old woman, Blowing out my imaginary candles is very helpful because sometimes you just need to take those breaths and, taking that moment to actually pause and reflect and move forward. And I hear as you're saying things that, especially when you were talking a little bit earlier in the podcast about, taking. What you want from the people around you and putting hard boundaries on, like, what you will do as a parent and what worked for your first and what didn't necessarily work for others is really figuring out and seeing the things that you're triggered by as a parent that come from your past. And so Navigating that because I'm sure each one of your children bring up a different trigger that the past one didn't bring up and at least that's what the experience was like for me because each child of mine is completely different and has completely different energy, completely different needs, wants, desires, everything. And so, yeah, just navigating that whole process. So I'm super, super thankful that. You're saying all the things that you're saying

Christina: 1:17:13

Kiona, I love that. I love that you mentioned about the candles. That's so great. I'm gonna use that if I can.

Kiona: 1:17:18

Yeah, definitely try it. Like, I, I do not claim ownership of that by any means. I found it online just randomly and it worked because they were, they were navigating that and using that with twins. So, I don't have twins, but they were using it on their two toddlers and both of them, you got two hands. Most people have two hands, to be able to help them calm down. And I was like, wow, I wish I knew this earlier.

Christina: 1:17:43

I love that. I, my, my boys were driving me crazy at dinner a couple days ago and I started breathing out like that and I said, when you watch me do that, just know I'm working through something. They're like, oh, mom is deep breathing. But I think another thing that I've been trying to do is instead of yelling, I've been whispering.

Kiona: 1:17:58

Oh, my gosh, I was just about to say that.

Christina: 1:18:00

waiting it really, really, gets their attention and then I, so I do that, another thing that I do that helps is I, sometimes I'll talk in my British voice, and I'll be like, hey kids, we gotta get going, and I'll change my British voice to different parts of London, and so sometimes it'll be really cocky, and I'll be like, from the south, I'll be like, guys, we gotta get our shoes on, go get in the car, and so when I start doing a British voice, or start doing a We speak French, so if I start speaking in French, a lot, they really tune in, especially in public, because there's not a lot of French people, and so when they hear French, they know that I'm wanting to talk to them, and some people feel that's offensive, because they feel like I'm trying to say something private, and I'm like, that's exactly why I'm speaking to them in French, so I can speak to them privately, and not everyone has to hear it, but, But it's also a gift to speak a language. It's a gift to have something that. But as a mother, sometimes pulling these little tools out of your bag and saying, I'm going to whisper instead of yell, or I'm going to speak in a funny accent, or I'm going to one time my kids were all screaming and I screamed right with them and they all just. quieted down because I don't raise my voice and scream at the same level that they do, but they were impossible and I did and it just stopped everything. And so I think sometimes finding, like you mentioned, people and what they do and taking that into your tool bag, it's like any good mechanic or electrician or plumber, they don't just come with one option because every home is going to be different. So when you have three children, especially with a boy in the middle, and sisters surrounding them, and with a toddler, anyone knows, it's like, You can't negotiate with the terrorist and toddlers are terrorists. They have this carnal, priminal brain that they can't, they can't identify what they're feeling, what they need. And so when you come at it with that and you say they literally have no tools in their tool bag, they don't know what they're feeling or what they're emoting or what they need. And then you, I love what you said, bringing her on your lap, getting at her level, being there with her, making sure she feels comforted and supported and surrounded by love, Making your home a safe haven surrounded by love is one of the privileges I have as a mother and as a parent. Being able to work from home, being able to teach piano, being able to have a lot of different jobs, but being able to say, These are the privileges that I have. My children are not going to remain in my home forever. They're not going to remain in my arms forever. when you have six kids, you realize how fast the babyhood phase. I mean, he's already six months old and I can't even believe it. And you just realize how fleeting these moments are. And unfortunately, as parents, we make so many mistakes and you realize. it's too late because you've made mistakes and now the time's gone. But there's always renewal and there's always a chance to grow and to change. And again, breaking the cycle and say, when I'm a grandparent, I'm not going to do these things. Or when my children are this age, I'm not going to do these things. And being informed and having knowledge is one of the greatest tools we have. And that comes from watching other people, listening to a great podcast like yours. It comes from reading. It comes from going to Made Mindful, hint, hint, and checking out our course material. it comes from some of these options that we have to say there's really, really good women and men doing really, really good things and raising such an amazing strong generation of people who are emotionally resilient, who are going to be better parents than me. That's why I'm having children. I want my children to be better than me in every way. More talented, more beautiful, more capable, more, more resilient, more dedicated, hopefully more successful in every area. But if not, like you mentioned, our children, they're a face in the mirror of our greatest weaknesses and our greatest strengths. And that's where we struggle. And going back to the rage, that's where we feel anger. And when we feel anger, we have to halt. We have to say, am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Am I thirsty? What am I feeling? Why am I acting out in anger or in frustration towards this innocent child or this being who I have trust and loyalty and accountability to? And what do I need as a parent so that I can come at this problem or this difficult decision? In a different light, and that's something that I've learned between my first and my sixth. How am I approaching the difficult things with maturity? And if I'm not able to be mature, what do I need to do? either right in the moment or should have done before or could do in the future to be able to help them. Because I find for me a lot of the reasons why I get angry in parenting or I have rage or when I, it's not always hormonal, sometimes it's circumstantial, sometimes it's environmental, sometimes it's, yeah, I, I haven't eaten. It's 12 o'clock and I haven't eaten and why haven't I put something in my body to fuel, and, and I think that as a parent we, we need to bond and we need to realize that. There's no, like you said, there's no competition. There's no, you're doing it better than I'm doing it, so I'm going to resent that. There is just this commonality of raising these beautiful human beings to be their greatest selves and achieve their greatest potential, and we have the privilege of being able to guide them along that way, and the honor of seeing them grow in our tutelage, and hopefully being able to succeed in ways that maybe we Can't or didn't or couldn't, but then be able to like embrace them and create these family units that are just beautiful. That's the whole purpose of parenthood for me. That's the whole reason I want to be a mother and, and maybe even a mother again. I mean, I feel like there's also this judgment about having these big families in this world today. And I feel like why would anyone not? want to judge or want to judge someone with that, but why would we put ourselves in a position to be judgmental instead of just supporting and loving? And that's what I appreciate about you and coming at me and asking me to share that because when you speak about something that you're passionate about, it makes you realize how great that is and how blessed you are and how you can then take that and hopefully share it with someone else in a positive way.

Kiona: 1:23:40

Yeah, absolutely. And even just in that last response, there's so much that could be unpacked there. there's so much because there's so, Many aspects that go into being a parent, like, for example, you were saying that rage can come from being like the actual circumstance or environmental, or even just how you're physically doing that day. You are also human. Your kids also need to be reminded that you are also human. And my kids remind me every day that I still have baggage that I need to unpack. I still have things that I need to navigate and how to understand my own emotions. And so as an individual who is raising other little humans, they're going to watch me go through my struggle. As they go through their own struggles, but it's only going to make everybody stronger. And one thing that I recently saw was, a person that was posting as a parent saying, Me doing things for myself is not saying me first, but me too. Because they also need to take care of themselves in order to be able to give anything to the people that they're caring for and nurturing and raising. So, yeah, I really felt that and I was like, ooh, gosh, that should be like a plaque on my wall or something because a reminder is definitely warranted sometimes. So, Yeah, but Christina, we could definitely talk all day about this. Like, I feel like I can talk forever. I think that now may be a good time to kind of wrap things up unless there's anything else that you feel like you want to share.

Christina: 1:25:10

No, I think you've covered a lot. And I hope I havent drawn out or over extended or stepped over any boundaries or any lines. I feel like what's so important about birth and motherhood, you know, birth as we know it is just that. It's as we know it and it can only be something that is subjective to us, but it also can be objective because more than just me will experience it. And you know, the people talk about, I don't want to hear your birth trauma or your birth story. I don't want to be frightened, but there's so many things about everyone's birth that makes you a mother every time. And something that I've noticed as we've created this Made Mindful business and organization is that no matter your age, no matter how old you are, you will always remember every detail of the birth of your baby because it's transformative. And being able to say, I can remember the detail of my first baby being placed in my arms. She's 14. I can remember every moment of that day. I mean, I've written these stories down. I've expressed them. I've shared them, but there's such a pivotal part of who I am because the day that your baby's born is also the day that you are born as a mother, six times, 12 times, three times over. And in that acknowledgement and knowing that we are so guided and blessed by these children, we are privileged to say we can look into the future through them. because hopefully they will want to have children and want to continue this posterity. And then we can look back to our ancestors and know that they are with us, whether they're living or they've deceased, they've gone, wherever we believe that they go to in our belief system and our core beliefs. I know that there's people that are supporting me in this journey. I know that there are women and men who are no longer on the earth and that they want me to succeed and that they share guidance and things with me. I know that I have sisters and women on the earth. both biological and in laws, and I know that there's people all around me that want me to be my very best as a mother, and I want that for women. That's why we created the Maine Mindful group. That's why we created this organization. We want people to be their best. We want them to have, like I said, this explosive joy. That's my motto for the year. And you're welcome. Anyone's welcome to use that explosive joy, embrace explosive joy, because if we're not experiencing joy, then why are we doing it? And there's stresses and pressures and hardness. And I have more hard days than probably most people, but I am wanting to just show my children. beauty of womanhood and motherhood and choice about having these children come from this womb that has been healed time and time again. And I can only accredit that to a God who knows me and loves me. But I know that the womb can be healed. And in that womb, we can find healing to be able to nurture and care for other women. And I thank you for what you're doing and sharing birth stories and sharing the connectivity that creates empathy and compassion and realism and I hope that as women and mother and birthing people, I hope that we can support one another and that the judgment and the laws and the rules and the things that we would rather point fingers at can be erased and that we can just envelop and love and cherish these moments because they are crazy. In their fleetingness and they just leave us more than we would want to want to admit and that as we hold our babies and as we love these children and as we embrace motherhood and birth that we can just envelop one another in love and acceptance and. hopefully having more babies and hopefully there'll be more women to come on your podcast and share the birth as they know it.

Kiona: 1:28:39

Yes, Yes. And I love that. Yes, it is my podcast, but I love that you pulled in the title because you explained all of why I called it birth as we know it. Because each of us as individuals experience birth in such a different way. I have actually really wanted to also reach out to individuals that don't have a baby in their arms, but have birthed. And what that looks like for them living their life without the baby that they so so much longed for or unfortunately lost or chose to put up for adoption because that individual was still very much birthed into the person that they were after that baby was born. So it's so important to do that. And even just talking about being birthed into a mother, I am also actively reaching out to people that did not birth a baby through their body. There are people. And what I mean by that is there are individuals who are parents that tried and tried and tried and tried and were never able to carry a baby or experienced many, many losses. So they were unable to birth through their body, but they were still birthed into parenthood, whether that be through adoption, surrogacy, or what have you, birth is still happening. Birth always happens. And the way in which you get there is a journey that this podcast is a platform for you to share, so, yes, I love that you brought that up. I do have just a couple of closing questions. You have given so many amazing pieces of advice on this podcast just throughout our casual conversation, but I did want to ask you if there was one piece of specific advice that you would give to all pregnant people to prepare for labor, birth and postpartum, what would that be?

Christina: 1:30:23

That is a really great question. I think that the advice I would give you is to recognize yourself, to try to make sure that who you are and some non negotiables, regardless of the outcome of your birth, of your delivery, of what that baby will bring into your life. These are the things that I will do. These are things that I won't do. And kind of trying to formulate that in some sort of written documentation. I think writing things out, I think reading, and the way that we learn is we see it, we hear it, we read it, we share it. We teach it to others, and then we also write it down, and I think that having that group of five hope I didn't repeat too many and that that was clear, but knowing that you have certain things that you will and will not do right from the start. Again, it's going to change. Things are going to have to be flexible, but if you kind of know who you are, to thyne own self be true and having that knowledge is probably the advice I would give because there are a lot of things that are going to change. But if you have some things that you can say. This is what I really want to do, then that can be a platform to where you can, you can start from another piece of advice would advice I would give is that find not just a tribe, but people that are like minded because there's a lot of different opinions and thoughts and things that will sway you and try to move you from that knowledge or from your foundation or from what you want to believe or what you choose, choose to believe. So having people that are like minded with you and that support you. is very, very powerful. And they might not always come in the form of your family. They might not always come in the form of your friends. It might have to be someone completely new. It might be someone that you find on the internet when you're wanting to blow out the candles with your toddler who's having a tantrum. it might be a stranger that you meet in the grocery store. But, that, that advice can be taken with a grain of salt because again, life changes. Everything changes and that's the purpose of life. And that's the beauty of life, is change.

Kiona: 1:32:25

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. I agree with that and I love those pieces of advice because they are so, so vital and so important. I have two other questions. My next question is, what is one resource that we can share with the listeners on your behalf?

Christina: 1:32:45

There's a lot of resources. I read a lot. I try to read 100 books a year. I get to about 75. This last year I got to 63, which was Actually, not very good for me. I know people think that's kind of silly, but in reading, I think that we learn and then we can also absorb, but of course, I'm going to put a pitch in for my company, because, my wonderful sister Sarah Ziroll created a group that really empowers women, Carly Crowther and myself. We have a Facebook group. We have a blog. We have a podcast. we're working more on the podcast platform. We're not quite as you are yet, so we appreciate you allowing us to kind of put a pin in for that. But as you find resources, my recommendation is to write them down or to share them because sometimes we will think that we will remember it forever, but we will not. Our brains are fragile and they change. As we become a mother, you can probably speak to that as much as anyone else can. The baby brain is really a real thing. the forgetfulness of having having a child is, is just real. So write your resources down. When you find a blog, when you find a group, a Facebook group, save it, pin it, write it down. When you read a good book, make a note of that. Use a Google sheet or Google document. Write it in a notebook. Keep a notebook handy. That's another good resource, I would say. Keep a notebook where you are by your bedside so that you can write down promptings that you have as a mother. that's really important because you are your own resource as well because what you have will You'll be able to reflect back on and look back on.

Kiona: 1:34:20

Mm hmm. Yep. I have actually found recently that I need to have a notebook by my bed because, my office is right around the corner from my bed, but I keep my notebooks in here and I'm like, I don't feel like getting up to write in this notebook. So I don't. And then I wake up in the morning and I'm like, Oh! What was that thing?

Christina: 1:34:40

Yeah. What Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kiona: 1:34:44

but yes, Christina, the last question that I have for you today is if you could describe each of your births with one word, what would it be?

Christina: 1:34:52

Hmm. I mean, each birth is going to have a different word because each child is so different. I like what you said that they come out, they come out with some of the attributes that they were inside of you. And when they're inside of your uterus, I feel like they, they kind of come out with some of those same things. But I think, an over encompassing umbrella, word that I would use would just be, honor. I am just so honored that they chose me to be their mother. I feel like, I'm very undeserving of the joy and the beauty and the perfection that surrounds me and my children. I'm very biased. They are my children. And when I say perfection, I don't mean that they're, that there's no faults or failures. I mean that it is perfection to be able to unite in my beliefs with a God who allowed me to create a body to house a spirit. and I won't get too religious, but I do feel like it is a truly an honor to create life. And, and in that honor, I hope that I am justified in the choices that I make so that I can, at some point see a small glimpse of that, returned if they choose to be parents. That would be a blessing to me, but I do feel like, when I look into their eyes, I see more beauty than I can hardly encompass in my heart. I can't hold it in my heart. It's such an honor to be a mother and to have birthed and to allow it to transform me and to change me. And I would do it 20 times if I could. I don't know if this body would allow me 20 times, but, those women and people that, that can't birth and that are still parents and that parent from afar, even if they don't have children, I think the mother heart is a real thing. And I'm grateful for all the women in my life who have mothered whether they've birthed or not and how they mother. I am grateful for the ancestors and for the the sisters and the women and the people that surround me that hold their honor.

Kiona: 1:36:48

Hmm. I love that. I love that so much. And I feel that I can feel that hardcore. And I'm sure many listeners will also feel that and resonate with that and find some relation to that because it brings so much to the surface, internally and externally, to view and visualize and comprehend and process and all the things that in the end you just see it as an honor of being able to have the opportunity to do all those things, so. Yes. Well, Christina, thank you so, so, so much for sharing all of your amazing stories on the podcast and just being Such a knowledgeable vessel of all of this information, and I'm just so, so happy to have connected, and, if anybody wanted to listen to Sarah Zaroll's episode, her episode is episode 16, where she shares the births of her kiddos, and, again, we will definitely be, uh, sharing the, information on how to get into contact with you all for the Made Mindful company and resources. So thank you so much.

Christina: 1:38:01

Thank you for having me Kiona and good luck with those beautiful babies of yours.

Kiona: 1:38:05

Thank you, to you as well.

Christina: 1:38:08

Thank you.

Kiona: 1:38:19

I was truly excited to interview Christina and hear her stories when she sent in her guest request form. Her journey to and through parenthood has been full of ups and downs. And it makes me happy to hear her share the ways that she ensures happiness for herself and her family in this chaotic thing we all call life. She has such an amazing perspective on parenting. And she taught me a lot in this interview. And I'm sure all of you as listeners learn some things as well. I also found it super awesome to hear her talk about the nurse family partnership program. And how it helped her through becoming a parent for the very first time and even how she got the same nurse for a little bit during her second pregnancy as well. The reason why I find this so awesome is because I used the nurse family partnership program as well for my first pregnancy. And I actually recently reconnected with my nurse from the program that I utilized 10 years ago, this past December. And I even mentioned my nurse, Erika Boyd in my very first episode where I talk about my pregnancy with Kavina, because she truly impacted my life in a way that I couldn't have imagined just by participating in the program. So I'm really happy to hear that this program was super awesome for others as well, and really impacted their lives and change their lives and help them as they were growing their families. So shout out to the nurse family partnership program and my nurse, Erika Boyd. Christina. I want to thank you so very, very much for sharing your stories with all of us on the birth as we know it, podcast, I am honored and so happy that you chose my platform to share. And for you listeners, don't forget to share this podcast with a friend so that they can listen to Christina's story as well as the other amazing stories on this podcast. And if you're not already follow me on Instagram,@birthasweknowitpodcast As for next week, tune in to hear Kelly Durbin, who is a lactation consultant and author of protecting your potential for breastfeeding. She shares her two personal birth stories. And what her breastfeeding journeys were like with her two kiddos. She also speaks on how interventions during labor can impact breastfeeding. So tune in next week to hear those details. And if you want to share your birth story or experience on the podcast, Head over to kionanessenbaum.com. All right, friends. Bye for now.