35 Women's Meditation Network CEO on Her Accidental Home Birth Story

Meet Katie Krimitsos, CEO of Women’s Meditation Network, and hear from her as she shares her personal and dual experiences laboring at home and at a birth center. Join Heidi in learning how Katie built her incredible business, her experience with podcasting, and about her favorite baby product Little Z Sleep Training.

For more information subscribe to Katie’s podcast, contact her on Instagram, or visit www.womensmeditationnetwork.com.

Looking for a Virtual Doula to create a custom birthing experience and guide you through your journey to parenthood in the United States? Contact Heidi at www.mydoulaheidi.com

For additional free birth education resources and to purchase Heidi’s book, Birth Story: Pregnancy Guidebook + Journal, visit www.birthstory.com.

Want to share your thoughts on the episode? Leave a review and send a message directly to Heidi on Instagram.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Does a contraction feel like? How do I know if I'm in labor and what did the day of labor look like? Wait, is this normal? Hey, I'm Heidi. My best friends. Call me hides. I'm a certified birth doula host of this podcast and author of birth story and interactive pregnancy guidebook. I have supported hundreds of women through their labor and deliveries, and I believe every one of them and you deserves a microphone and a state.

So here we are within each one to get answers to these tough questions, since birth story, where we talk about pregnancy labor deliveries, where we tell our stories and share our feelings and of course chat about our favorite baby products and motherhood. And because I'm passionate about birth outcomes, you will hear from some of the top experts and labor and delivery, whether you are pregnant, trying desperately to get pregnant, or you just love a good birth story.

I hope you will stick around and be part of this birth story family. Thank you for listening to the birth story podcast. If you are tuning in for the first time, I want to encourage you to start at the beginning. I want you to go on a journey with me and allow me to be your virtual doula and teach you.

All the things along the way. So I'm just going to give you a couple of highlights to some of the earlier podcast episodes. If you are just now tuning en so very first episode, episode one, you can learn all about me, who I am, why I became a doula, why it is I do what I do and also my very own birth story with my second child Jagger.

Then I have interviewed some really cool CEOs. So episode three, Tori Jones is the CEO of ECL triangle, and she was also featured on Rachel Hollis's. The rise podcast. Episode seven was Rachel Coley. The CEO of can do kiddo. She was just on good morning America. She's an incredible occupational therapist that teaches you how to play with your baby and her baby.

Burst stories are incredible episode. Ken was one of my best friends. Amy had a VBAC in the car. We have done episodes on micro preemies, episode eight, teen 21 on international adoption out of Uganda, 24 and 25. Oh, those episodes like get a box of tissues. They're unsafe, Argosy and cancer. We've addressed hypnobirthing fertility, really easy, joyful medicated birds, really hard, long labors, medicated, unmedicated, everything in between.

So I hope you'll start at the beginning. Let the birth story podcast take you on a journey all the way through and enjoy this episode and then remembered a rewind all the way back to episode one. Thanks for tuning in. Episode 35. This is meet Katie Kermit Sose. I love interviewing doing CEOs because we get two pieces of birth stories.

I get to share with you. Katie's incredible birth stories, but I also ask her all about how she birthed her company out of the necessity of wanting to be more intentional and more focused at home with her children. As she was transitioning to motherhood. This episode is simply incredible. Enjoy Katie.

And I hope that you'll follow her at the women's meditation network. The last 20 minutes of this episode, Katie walks us through a special meditation just for your pregnancy. I hope that you will stay all the way until the end and then find a comfortable and relaxing place to enjoy her 20 minutes.

Pregnancy meditation written just for you, not Ms. Day. Beautiful. Hey Katie, it's Heidi with the burst story podcast. How are you today? I'm good. Heidi. What's up girl. I'm so excited to be here. I am so excited. So for everyone listening, I have Katie . And she is like founder CEO, guru of the women's meditation network and mother of two.

And today, Katie, I just cannot wait to dig into how your life evolved through business and motherhood and your birth story. So why don't you just give everybody this snapshot of your life right now? Yes. If you were to take a picture of my life right now, it would mean that I am 40 years old. I have two little girls.

My baby's about to turn one. And I have an older girl who is four Sedona is the oldest. Savannah is the youngest. I've been married with my husband for about 10 years now. And we are both entrepreneurs. It's been about almost 11 years. Uh, ago that I left corporate and started, you know, this game of entrepreneurship and along the way became a mother and an entrepreneur.

And then a mother of two and an entrepreneur. My life has just moves fast. Like there's a lot of motion, all of these things that are really important to me and trying to do it in a way that makes me feel like I'm moving towards life and creating a life that is very meaningful. And where do you live?

I'm in Tampa, Florida. So very close to the water, which is amazing. No, but I've been, I grew up in Arizona, so I'm totally a desert baby. Um, moved out here in 2000. I love it. I love being near the water. I love nature around us. There are so many incredibly beautiful places to explore in Florida. My husband and I are both like big nature buffs and adventure buffs.

And so I just love it out here. Well, Katie, I want you to take us on an adventure today. We met because you were the key note speaker at Xi podcasts, and everyone in the room was just moved and crying and inspired and uplifted. And I'm so excited that you said yes to my podcast, because that's what we're going to do here today.

We're going to take all of these women. That are listening to this podcast that are pregnant or trying to get pregnant and are moms and maybe career moms. And I want you to take us on your adventure today of telling us about how you, like what corporate America looked like for you, how that led you to where you're at today, and then let's walk through your birth stories.

Ooh. Okay. So what did corporate America look like for me? I, I came out to Florida to finish my master's degree. I did that and I will hyper fast forward through the fact that I like stumbled for many years, trying to find like a career within corporate America and what that ended up being at least for those final three years was working in the healthcare system.

I worked for a senior living community, a life care community. And I represented like the Alzheimer's unit, the skilled nursing center and assisted living. And so I would go out and I would like meet with the doctors and the, all the, you know, other officials who would refer people to. To our facility. So I did that for a couple of years and I just wasn't happy.

I just didn't like it. And I knew that I always wanted to do it something to help women. I had caught wind of this idea of entrepreneurship, but didn't really know what that really meant or what I could do with it. And my jump into owning my own business actually started with me writing a book. And I wrote a book I'd always wanted to be an author.

So I wrote a book, red flags and yellow light that it was this book about like how to find your true love. Okay. Which was very relevant to my life. At that point. I self publish this as like digital book, 10 years ago, when that was sort of. You know, just a new and budding thing. And I sold my first $50 book and I was like, okay, cool.

This is, I can make this a business. I had met my now husband. I met my boyfriend at the time and he owned a local entrepreneurs association and, you know, fast forward through that, I decided, okay, well, I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to, I can help out my husband a little bit with his, his business, and I'm going to go full time trying to market this book and be able to supplement my income.

And it didn't take me long, not having a job to realize, Oh, that whole, you know, driving traffic and building an audience and getting people to buy the book like that is going to take a little longer than three months. And so I decided to go full blown into the business with my husband and so, Oh my goodness.

We did that together for eight years until I got pregnant and had my first baby. Oh, okay. Well, I have a question for you though. Yeah. What was your master's degree in. I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in communication. I know like the end of this story, like where we're going. And so when I hear about all these little pieces to the puzzle that you've just said, and especially with that being your degree, and then working in healthcare and then working with entrepreneurs and lifting people up, like, it makes perfect sense to me, like, wow.

Where you've landed today with the women's meditation network, we're going to get there now you're pregnant, right? Like you've been with your husband for a while. You guys are running a business together. You're like this go getter. And now, like, do you have morning sickness? Yes. What happens to Katie when she gets to, so let me just back up just a half a step there.

So what I didn't mention is that while we, my husband and I were running this together before we had gotten pregnant, I actually had started my own company called biz women rock. And that was a podcast that I started in 2014. And. That podcast was for women entrepreneurs and it gave birth to a whole business for me.

So I was a business strategist and coach, I put on live events. I did a lot of online education. I had a vast and robust community of women entrepreneurs. So, so when I got pregnant with Sedona, my first I was sort of in transition of getting more and more out of the business that my husband and I owned and more and more into working biz women rock full time.

So. Pregnant with my first and I have morning sickness for about a week. That was it, which was amazing. And yeah, I swear I had the best pregnancy with her. Like I'm a big athlete and I was, I was working out every day as a matter of fact, the day that I had her, I was on like a power walk with my mom. I like having contractions, like minor contractions while I was on this power walk, you know?

I was so optimistic about everything. I was just, it was a lot of the unknowing. Like I had no idea what was in front of me, so it was, but I was very conscientious. We chose to go to a birthing center and I chose hypnobirthing as a methodology on how to have labor, which. You know that those are giant choices to choose whether I'm going to sort of have like that traditional medical birth versus a natural birth, like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to feel everything.

Is that okay? I've always been an outside of the box type of a person, but I also have a mother who's very medical. She's a, she's a nurse. And she worked in a pediatric unit like she's. So it was a very big deal for me to not. Do that, like I had sisters who all had babies in the hospital, but I was very optimistic.

I was very happy. I was so excited. I was excited to bring this little one into our lives. And, and so, yeah. So then my parents flew out to be with us. Wow. Cause we, at that time had no family near us. And so they flew out, they were here for about a week before I actually gave birth. So yeah, it was really amazing.

Okay. So many, I mean like bazillions of questions coming into my night. Okay. The first, if I'm doing my math, right. That you have like, let's do air quotes, a geriatric pregnancy because you're 36 years old. Right. With number one. Okay. I know I really do too, but for, I'm just trying to like make our audience that's over 35 right now.

Like, feel like they have huge community and to be inspired that you can still have a baby in a birth center, even if you are, you know, not a spring chicken at 20 years old giving birth. So I remember going into my midwife and. Saying, Hey, listen, like I'm 35. Is there anything that I need to do extra? Like, is there anything that I need to know because I'm a quote, unquote older and she looked me straight in the eye and she said, Katie, on a risk scale of zero to 10, you are a zero risk.

I don't care how old you are. You are healthy and you're zero risk. You have every right to be here. And I was like, I love you. I will continue having kids here forever. Yay. Now. Okay. Did you have any kind of fertility or did you get pregnant pretty easily? I got pregnant right away, right away. Okay. Like where you actually trying to get pregnant?

I had never been pregnant before. Um, there was no trying before. Um, well, there's a lot to be said for what you just said a lot, a lot of things like in one sentence though, because you're healthy, you take care of your body. I mean, you have a meditation network. I mean, now show you're more relaxed. You do yoga.

Yeah. I mean, there's also a lot of factors when we reduce our Drennan and cortisol levels. When we eat, you know, I don't even know how you eat. Like maybe you eat gluten free or dairy. There you go. I was like, I knew there was probably something I had also seen. I stopped using birth control for a few years, by that point, because I didn't want those.

I didn't want that in my body anymore. I'm typically pretty granola. And so I had stopped using that. We really were just using either natural methods or condoms for protection, and that was it. So it was just a matter of stopping using those. So, yeah, I feel like my body was primed for all of those reasons.

You get pregnant really easily. You. I'm make this leap to deliver at a birth center. Yeah. It's amazing. Midwife. And then like, so your pregnancy went squeaky clean, like no high blood pressure, no gestational diabetes or group ADA strap. It sounds like everything was. Perfect. Okay. So then the family flies in to town a week before your guests, I'm going to do air quotes again, your guests date, right?

Yeah. Um, I personally delivered at 43 weeks gestation, so my family would have been on my phone couch for one month if they came a week. Okay. Early. So, so tell me about when your body started to transition from just being pregnant to letting you know? No, that may be LIBOR was coming. What did, what. What do you remember about that time period when he switched?

So I remember it was Thursday morning and my mom and I got up and we went on a walk and. I remember like having to stop on the walks a couple of times. Cause I was like, Oh, Oh, I think that's a contraction. And it was, it was like, is that really? I don't know. Is that really contraction? I don't know. Or is that just sort of like, Oh, okay.

Just need to stop. But um, by the time we got back, I was like, okay. Like I had started, like I could feel. I could feel it. And I was like, okay, I think that that's a contraction. And then like, I think many first time moms, I was just like kind of overly cautious and overly scared. And so, because I just didn't know what, what it would look like or what it was.

And so, you know, throughout. You know, a couple more hours. I started to really have contractions. And I would, I remember at my, the only position that felt well was going on. Yeah. Hands and knees. And so I basically just retired to my bedroom. And it was on my hands and knees kind of going through contractions.

My husband was there. He was like writing down the notes of when. And then at some point I had called my midwife, I'm sure. Like 10 times. And at some point she was finally like, okay, come on in. And I think she told that to me because she was tired of me calling her, not necessarily because. It was really time because I get up to the birthing center.

It was just me. You cannot call your midwife. You are not ready to have a baby. Right. But I didn't know. This is worth mentioning. I had heard the way that the birthing center works and I don't know why this one piece of information stuck with me. But if you are like, if you don't transition and you're not like progressing in labor by a certain amount of hours there, and I don't know what that hour number is, they'll transfer you to the hospital.

So for some reason I had that in mind. I hadn't, I was like, Oh, okay. So we go up to the two, the birthing center and all I could think about it was like, I need to hurry up and have this baby. So I don't get transferred. It was really my head. So we had also. Taken hypnobirthing classes. And so I called her the girl who had led those classes, who always said, Hey, call me if you need me.

So I'd called her and said, can you take me through meditation, please help me out. Like, I need to hurry this along. I don't remember how many hours we were there, but we were there for many hours, probably. I don't know, like eight or nine hours probably before I actually delivered. But the majority of that, like, I didn't.

I don't think my water broke until like my water broke and then it was another three and a half hours before my daughter was, was here. Okay. So how long do you think you were in labor from like the very first twinges I'm going on a walk with your mom until delivery? I think I did this math before, and I think it was about 22 hours.

Yeah, that's about right. So I train my clients and all first time moms that you're going to be in labor for 24 hours. And if you were in labor on your first birth for shorter than that, then high five, but most likely. Um, you can also go well into the 40, 50, 60 hour Mark. So like 22 is, is spot on. I'm surprised they kept you at the birth center, so they didn't send you home when you got there.

Do you remember how far, like, did they do a cervical check or were they not into doing cervical checks? No, they absolutely did that. They have some, you know, check the check to everything. Um, and I guess I must've been progressing just a little slower and I think at some point Michelle was my. Um, midwife then I think that they.

We're sort of like, okay. Like checking to see if the water broke, checking to see if the water broke. And then at some point it was sort of like going a little easy on me and then the water. So it was like, okay, cool. So was it cheerfully? I had more of a rush in my head than I think was actually real, like, cause I went back to Michelle afterwards.

Um, months afterwards. And I was telling her about this. She's like, no, you were totally fine. Like, you know, I was there a totally normal number of hours and it's totally fine. Nine hours is definitely a normal amount because then that means you did that first, you know, 12. You know, just 15 hours at home for that early labor, letting it build the reason that they've probably mentioned the water so many times is when they did your cervical exam.

I'm assuming that they felt like what's called a bulging bag of water. Meaning like they could feel like that amniotic SAC bulging, like just about to pop and when it does pop, then it allows the head to really kind of come down and engage and lets you get into transitions. Yep. And then that makes sense.

You said your water broke and then she was delivered three hours later and usually transitions about two hours. And then, you know, I don't know how long you pushed for, did you have a water birth? I wanted one for the second one. I had considered it for the four Sedona my first, but I didn't because it just wasn't what felt comfortable at the time.

The only thing that felt comfortable was me being on all fours. And I couldn't imagine being in water, not having that gravity. So I, uh, with her, when I. I remember like when the water broke and it got really intense. I remember like just slowly walking. Cause you know, the birthing center apartment basically is like a little one bedroom apartment with a living room and everything.

And so I went from the bedroom slowly, walked into the bathroom to see if maybe the shower on me would help. And I remember getting in the shower and feeling the water on me and it like knives. And I was like, yeah. So I come out. And I'm, you know, at that point, like contracting every, you know, half a step.

And so I, it takes me a little while to like, get to the sink from out of the shower. And that's where I ended up delivering her. I basically like grabbed onto the sink and just grabbed onto the faucet and, and like squatted her out after, I don't even know how many, I'm assuming your midwife was there to catch the baby, like sitting under you at the sink.

Oh, man, that girl was she. I love her to death. I've told that birthing center many times, like I just want to continue having kids so I can keep seeing you guys like the group of midwives. There are like family, they are amazing women. Um, and yes, Michelle was of course there. And Corey Corey was there by that time.

And so, you know, and then my husband, we were all there and they were just right underneath me and my husband, my husband. Loves it, he still likes to, to, you know, say something to the effect. Like I have no idea how they caught her coming out because like, it was just such stuff. Like I obviously wasn't on the ground.

Like I, you know, there was a distance between, you know, my opening and the floor and they just. They caught her so smoothly and turned her upside down and seemed to wipe her all in one, one gesture. And then I got back on, you know, they put me back on, uh, on the floor and leaning my back up against the wall and then put her in my arms and, Oh my God, it was, it was, it was crazy.

It was, and it was nothing like I thought a hypnobirthing experience would be. So are you listening to your hypnobirthing tracks, like throughout those eight or nine hours? And did you feel like you're deeply self hypnotized. No, no, no, absolutely not. And knowing, and I'm deliberately comparing this to my second burst, I would say yes, I was.

I don't even know if I would use the term hypnotize, but I was definitely with my second birth. Really intensely in the moment and present through the tool of meditation, because I was absolutely using that, that time. But with my first birth, um, I was mostly practicing the breathing methods. And so I was using the breathing methods.

Through all the contractions through the, pushing, through all of that stuff. And do, you know, envisioning the uterus, expanding, pushing down and visioning those muscles. Like, I was really envisioning all of that stuff, but I wasn't listening to anything. I didn't feel like I was very surprised how much it hurt and how much pain there actually was.

Cause I am the optimist and I totally bought into like, no, I will, I can actually have a birth with no pain. And while I believe that there's something to that, like, I really like bought into it. Very ignorantly, I think. And so the, the, the pressure or the intensity or the pain, whichever word you want to use, that was actually a surprise to me would really, I was like, dang it.

I bought into this and it's not exactly how I thought it would be. Yeah. I'm so glad you said that Katie though, because I have a lot of clients that come to me with this, like. They have practiced meditation or yoga, their whole lives. And they're doing hip, no babies are hypnobirthing or they're working with a self hip.

No, as his coach. And like, it's very hard for him, for me to then come in as the doula and be like the reality check, you know, and to say like, yeah, all of this that you're practicing is true and we'll get you in to a deep state of relaxation, but yeah. And there have been women that will tell you that they did not feel pain in childbirth.

This is a very rare, and so my job as a doula, like if you can get yourself into the deepest state of relaxation where you don't somehow feel that that's amazing. Yeah. Our bodies are designed to feel things because it helps. Give us information. You said you felt good on your hands and knees, so your body's sensations or pressure or pain, however you felt it led you to your hands and knees where you felt more comfort.

Yeah. And that's the thing. When I, when I coach, I like to coach love natural childbirth. I also, hello. I had a doula and an epidural with my first baby. So there's that? I mean, I believe in all of it, you know, but there is something to be said for, if you, and your particular instance had. Gone to the hospital and gotten an epidural and been put on your back instead of your hands and knees.

Now there's a chance that your baby might not have turned and come down so quickly. One, I did one contraction on my back and I about screamed and, you know, like blew the walls open. I was like, Nope, Nope, Nope. Get me move me, move me. But I love that you say that because that is. So it is a men. The reason I really did love hypnobirthing is because it was a total mindset shift on instead of sort of what we see in the popular rhetoric out there that, that having a baby and giving birth is just pain and pain is bad.

Instead, it was. Okay, your body's going to go through pain and intensity and tightness, and it's telling you something. So what do you need to do? And how can you be one with it instead of trying to fight it? And so I will absolutely say. I still, I was very hesitant for my second to still choose a natural birth.

Like I actually was like, Ooh, I remember that pain. And so do I actually want to do that again? But I was like, I was so committed to what I believed that to be. And I am so grateful I did because the second birth was, I would use the word painful, but it was, it was literally everything that I had learned about.

Well using this method to get into the deep relaxation, just like you said so that my body was primed and ready to do what it needed to do naturally. And all I had to do is listen. Like I know I'm jumping ahead to the birth number two story, but in those actual final couple of pushes, so baby number one.

Was literally like me holding onto the sink and just pushing as hard as I can and visualizing, like, just get out, get out, get out. Right. And, and so I didn't really feel much other than just like the pain of the, of all of it right now. Fast forward to baby, number two, those final, like the final couple of like, there were really only four pushes with that, baby.

I'll tell that story later, but like those final four pushes I could. I like, I would feel the contraction and I could, I could breathe into it and breathe her down, breathe her down. And then I knew I had, it was like, okay, just wait for the contraction, take a breath. Okay. Contractions coming here, we go now push down.

And I felt every movement of that. And it was not something that I would consider painful. It was ridiculously tight and intense and crazy amazing, but I felt it was so ridiculously spiritual. Like it was. So magical that I could, I was super present for every. Motion, but it was exactly that it was the being present and letting my body relax as much as possible so that nothing was tense that didn't need to be tense so that the movement could happen as it needed to.

It was beautiful. Yeah. I had a very similar experience with my natural childbirth on number two. One of the things that I missed. With number one that I got with number two is actually feeling my son like kick off of me from the inside and like work with me. So like, as I pushed, he kicked and I could feel like us working together as a team.

And like you said, it was really magical and spiritual and I also could never have survived childbirth with number one with that. Out in epidural, but when I was able to survive childbirth on number two, without it, um, it, you know, it is pretty magical, but again, you have to listen to, you know, your body and, and what your body needs for each birth.

Okay. So this is going to, I want to transition now two. Okay. You're a mom. And you now you are in a relationship with your husband who he's, you know, there's nothing paternity leave when you own your own business. No, no. So, you know, now you're trying to like nurse and recover and you have this podcast and now I want you to walk me through that journey of your inauguration, into motherhood, as an entrepreneur and how your heart and mind shifted.

Yeah, well, so business wise, I was at least smart enough to know that I didn't want to have to deal with anything business for at least, um, you know, at least a month or two or three. And so I had preplanned a bunch of content for the biz women rock podcast. So I didn't have to worry about that. Um, and then the, the work that I was doing with my husband locally was pretty minimal at the time.

So I really didn't have any business responsibilities that I needed to take care of. So what that. W the reason that was, that was awesome is because my first five weeks with Sedona, my oldest was hell. Like I. She never latched is basically what the deal was. And it was so emotionally painful. I later found out that my mom was like sneaking her formula just because which I'm grateful for actually, you know, like, okay, that's fine.

Um, but I just had so many instances of like bawling, crying with her. Like, please, please, please. So like, I would, I would have these for five weeks. I would have these. Nursing sessions with her on the nipple shield. And then at the end, take it off and try to get her latch and nothing like just nothing.

And so after five weeks I have another one of these sessions where I'm like trying to get her to breastfeed. I take off the nipple shield, she's not having it. And she just looks up at me and she looked at me like, no, this ain't going to happen. And I was like, Oh, Okay. And what I interpreted that to mean was this, ain't my choice.

This kid just doesn't want it. And it's her choice. So she found her voice early. Yeah. Well, my go and it's been so true. And so I was like, okay, well bottle feed. So for her first three months, I pumped and fed her through, fed her breast milk through the bottle and then transitioned to formula partially because of ease and partially because my supply just wasn't that great.

And so, so that was a big deal because that. Like that five week Mark. I remember it being, that was the first time I could breathe and be like, Oh, okay. Okay. I know, I know how to take care of that's good. Okay. And I'm going to like interrupt and interject right now. And jump ahead because part of the story is we're moving into, like, I've mentioned it a couple of times that you have the women's meditation network, you know, where there's like, I'm one of 500,000 women that are listening to this.

Amazing podcasts, but rate then what you just said, you have to develop a podcast specifically for moms right there in that moment that yet that you were in and help them let go. I know, I know anyway, there's my request. And I'm like, if right now you're like, what are they talking about? What is the women's meditation network?

We're getting, they're done. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Okay. So you're right. You're just right in the middle of getting your sanity back. So from three months, Until about nine months, I should say at about three months old, she started going to daycare twice a week. And that was, yeah. Awesome. Cause it allowed me like just some space to, to do some work and just kind of have space to not be mommy.

So that was really good. That then transitioned into three days a week. And then at about nine months old, when she was about nine months old, I felt very. Confused and chaotic, and I didn't really know what the hell was going on in my life. I didn't know. I am a very organized and kind of scheduled person.

Like I really thrive on routine and that whole kind of having a baby thing, like took the whole routine thing out of whack. It was just really like, I was so in the juice of mommying and I was sort of trying to do business in little pockets here and there, and nothing was really, and even though I had these days without her, um, it was still very.

Weird. And I couldn't find a cadence. And so at nine months old, I took myself on what I like to call a Katy retreat. So for two days I just took myself away to the beach by myself and did nothing except for what in the world am I doing right now? What is important to me at that point? Biz women rock had been.

Sort of flailing around trying to find itself. And I had done some coaching here, some coaching there, you know, there was another stuff that I had tried that I, I S I sat down at my computer for two days by myself without interruption, without needing to be mom, and basically said, what is important to me?

And I actually wrote the very first thing I did was I wrote what I call my mom preneur mission statement. And I basically said, Here are the things that are important for me here are the things that are important to me. Yeah. You know, spending quality time with my girl, spending quality time with my husband, impacting women through my business.

Yeah. You know, having a prosperous life, spending time with my, my family being healthy. And so all of these things. And so my, my immediate next question to myself was great. If those are the things that are important to you, how are you going to make sure each of them get your time? And so. What immediately followed was like me scheduling and organizing a schedule that would work so that I could spend time in all of these things.

And so that meant literally putting on my calendar, like, okay, these are the days that I work, which mean, these are the days that sit around as going to school. We always called it. These are, you know, once that's when we started a once a week and I, these are the times I'm working out every single day, like I just started like actually scheduling the things that were really important to me.

And I'll tell you what, like that. Created a massive transition. And I got really. Clear with, uh, as it were to business, I started looking at, okay, I've got, you know, about 25 to 30, about 30 hours a week of work. What are the most important things that I want to be doing that I can get done in 30 hours? So, so as opposed to.

The mentality of like, Oh, how many I just have to work a lot and how do I fit everything else? And it was like, no, here are the times that I have to work. What am I going to be doing during those times that are the most impactful for, for what I want to do here are the times that I'm mom, you know, if she's going to school three days a week, these two days a week, or just mommy daughter days, what are we doing on those days?

That, so I don't feel like I'm rushing to nap time in order to do work right. I guess it was about a year and a half with that. That's the life that I lived. It was a really good cadence of spending quality time with my girl. You know, the work that I loved getting building is women in Roxbury intentionally from that moment.

Yeah. So that was mid 2016 when that kind of Katy retreat happened. And then of 2018 is when I got pregnant again. Oh, okay. So you're talking and it's really funny because like Ray, before this, I was just having this like kind of mom crisis that I think you were probably in like Ray before your retreat.

So everything that you just said, like, I know I needed to hear everything that you just said. I know that there are so many moms listening right now that. They need it right now, or a few months from now when these babies are born, they're going to remember this podcast and they're going to, okay. We might not be able to go to the beach for two days, but where can we go to have some quiet time and kind of refocus and reprioritize?

So thank you so much for like, Like your journey is like continuing to inspire. It's inspiring me right now to go home and get well. And it's not for the sake of getting organized, like producing more it's for the sake of like, I it's just this massive act of self love. Like I know that I can't and truth be told if we're, if we're pinpointing this moment, I need this.

Stay like, I need this now. Like I actually took the day off tomorrow. Like I'm taking my baby to daycare for an extra day because I need tomorrow just for me, for me to have kind of a mini version of this. So it's like, you know, sometimes it's maybe just a couple of hours that somebody can watch their kids or sometimes it's.

You know, maybe a couple of days, but it is. It's like, I need to get set with myself. Maybe that doesn't look like business stuff for you, but maybe it does. And maybe it looks like all these other things. Like maybe he's just like extra quiet time away where you just don't have anyone else asking you for anything.

Just you like it is massively important. And getting, getting that time for yourself enables you to really come away so much more secure and strong and confident and clear and focused and therefore intentional with how you're stepping into the world from there on in. Yeah. Oh, I just love it. Now we're going to take a short break to just share a few things with you.

Things for listening to the birth story podcast. I am so excited to announce the launch of my book. Birth story, a 42 week guide for your pregnancy, a collection of these birth stories, Han of doula advice and journaling prompts. You can order a copy [email protected]. It also will mean the world to me.

If you'll spread the word about this podcast, so on Stitcher or on iTunes, just leave a review. Thanks. Well, okay, now you're pregnant with number two. I'm doing my math again. So you're 39 39. Was this again, an intentional pregnancy? Had you been trying or again, got pregnant right away again, it got pregnant right away.

So the quick back story that'll set this up is within this like, you know, year and a half, two year period that I told you that I had been in a really good cadence of managing my business and my baby and all these things that are important to me, biz women rock my business was. Incredibly prosperous, like it had had just this banner year.

Um, in 2017, beginning of 2018 comes, I have every very realistic plan to like triple my business. I'm super excited. I'm feeling really good about where I am in my journey. I'm having so much fun with my, you know, then three-year-old and we have been, you know, we had been talking about having another kid.

I come from a family of six, so I always wanted more kids. And so, you know, finally it was like, yes, let's have another baby. And then yes, it happened very fast right away. And that was April of 2018. And. It totally shook me. Not because we got pregnant, but because all of a sudden it was like the reality of actually like, Oh crap, we're actually pregnant and crap.

That actually means that, you know, she's due in December of 2018. It now it's April. I had a lot of crap planned between now and then, and that I, that it doesn't necessarily fit with this lifestyle right now. And so it really, it shook me. It really took me for a loop cause I was like, Oh man, like this Rio and also with baby number two, I now had.

Horrible nausea for the first trimester. It was bad. I did not experience that with, with my first. So like all of a sudden I was like, the first three months were just ma I did not feel good. I was not the one working out all the time. I could barely move. Like I was, my goal was like movement just right.

Move, just move. And so I really had to sit there and think of like, wow, this giant plan that I just had for my business. Now all of a sudden a I don't feel very well. And so therefore I don't feel very inspired or motivated to go do anything that I am like in the process of doing. And this makes me question whether this is actually what I want anymore.

Is this the best thing for me? So what I did, even though I was terrified to do it, I. Kind of stepped away from everything I stopped. Like I, thankfully I think I have a lot of like podcast episodes. Like I did a lot of stuff, three done so that I didn't have to do anything. Um, but, or, or I just sort of like did the bear man, but I was, you know, at that time I was.

You know, showing me before we got pregnant, I was like showing up in my Facebook group all the time. Like every single day I was posting over here every single day I was, you know, getting creative with my podcasts over here. I was launching this mastermind. I was talking to people every day. I was meeting with clients every single day and I literally like paired down to nothing.

Like I, I was like gave my self permission to just. Katie, you don't have to show up on social media at all. You don't even have to do anything else other than show up for those things that you're responsible for show up for your clients, you know? And that's it. Like all those calls are people who are interested in your masterminds.

Like just let it go. Just wait, just wait. And that lasted for about, Oh my goodness. About six or seven weeks, which is very scary because I was terrified. I was like losing them all this momentum of my business and. In that time period of sort of this quiet time, my husband and I were going on walks every single day.

And he was amazing. And just being this great listener and one day I would, you know, we'd be walking and I'd be like, okay, I could do this because I could do this, make these things happen. It'll totally be fine. And then when we have two kids, it'll look like this and dah, dah, dah, dah. And then the next day I would show up for a walk and I'd be like,  I'm done.

Like, I don't want to do any of this. I just want to pull the plug on everything right now and just be mom. That's all I want to do. And then of course, there's just like for anyone who has gone from one to more kids, like there's a giant unknown there there's this giant, like, what is this actually going to look like to like, you know, with one kid, if, when they go down to nap, there's a breather.

With two kids. Like there's a, if the miracle that that actually does happen, there's, there's still just, there's so much more. And so there was a lot of that, like worry and anticipation and no when unknowns and everything was like, You know, just really, I don't know. And so I knew emotionally I was all over the place.

I knew I didn't feel well. And so I just allowed myself to just be without needing to make a decision about anything. And one of the things that came up during many of these walks was my husband reflecting back to me. Hey, Katie, what about that meditation idea now? Back in January. So a few months earlier, Then that I had had this idea on my annual plan to do a meditation podcast just for women.

And it was sort of amongst the giant business plan for the year. And it didn't really fit in with any of the other things, even though it was something I had always been a consumer of meditation. I'd been practicing meditation since I was, you know, 18 or 19 years old. So, but I didn't do anything with the idea because it didn't really fit in the focus plan that I had.

And so now here's my husband, reflecting back to me all these months later, Katie, what about that meditation idea? And I was like, well, what about it? And so that, I mean, this conversation of possibility, like. Hmm, let's just talk about, let's just put all these worries and thoughts about biz, women, rock and everything that is right now.

Like let's just put those aside and let's talk about something about a meditation for women. And what got birthed out of that was this idea of the women's meditation network. And it was a podcast with guided meditations, just for women. So that I could use that as the next evolution of being able to help women see their own light, which is something the older and older I get.

I understand more and more clearly that that's really one of my big purposes in this world is to allow women to see how naturally beautiful and amazing and lit and glowing that they are. And it's just all this extra stuff that we sort of like put. To dim that, right. Whether it's self-imposed or imposed by other people.

So I, yeah, it made sense to me. I was like, Oh yeah, I could totally do this. And it would allow me to sort of graduate to the next way that I could really impact women. And then the biggest reason that it made sense to me too, was because I understood. I was about to, you know, at that 0.6 or seven months away, I was about to get into this lifestyle of having to littles that I knew I needed a little bit more.

All of a sudden, I was like, well, can I completely will this to support a different type of a business model where I can have product than that? I can create this, you know, evergreen type of meditation bundles or, you know, advertising or meditation challenges or types of things that I could create once.

And my job would then be the work that I would be doing would be in. Whatever time I could do it to like, you know, bring numbers, the website and bring numbers to the, bring more women to listen to the, to the meditations. Like could, could it be that instead of me having to show up live or something. So I knew that that supported that type of a business model.

So that got really exciting to me. So all of a sudden my mind, instead of like, let me figure out what this means, woman rock. I literally just allowed myself to like, Let it be like, I made the decision to pull back the reigns on everything in biz, women rock, except for my one-on-one coaching. So all those big things that I had planned for the year, like I was like, Nope, just going to do coaching.

And now I'm going to put all that extra time. But I had now created into the women's meditation network. So that's what I had been living until my, my second daughter was born. Oh my God. I bet that that just felt so amazing to like, listen to that voice inside of you. And then to say goodbye to the things that weren't serving you at that time in your life, and to really just dive in.

So did you spend your pregnancy then really? Developing and building women's meditation network, like, yes. So all my creative energy for launching creation, anything new, all of that went to women's meditation network. So it became, okay, cool. What is this podcast? You know, then, then it becomes business strategy.

So like, what is the podcast? How is that serving a larger business model? What is the intention behind this? Who do I want to be listening to this? Who, who really needs to hear this and what is that going to be? So, so then it became like great, like let's launch the show. The ad, how do you make money too?

So, you know, and that is, if anyone wants to know how to monetize your podcast, I highly recommend Jenna Kutcher. Katie, you should go on Jenna pitchers, gold Digger podcast. So when did you launch, when was launched eight for women's meditation network. It was in July of 2018. Oh, that was really fast. So you have like this goodness, Katie.

So you have this like idea in January, your husband yeah. In April is like, what about that? And by July you have a podcast. Yeah. So that you're incredible. It was probably may. By the time I was like, really had like a solid idea of like, okay, this is what it is. And so by the end of may, I had recorded probably about four meditations.

And then by July, I was just like, okay, I got like, I got the graphic down. I got the, I didn't even, actually, I didn't even have a website done when I launched. I just had like, I think three. Three episodes and then like enough in the can to launch a weekly show and like just the desire to like, I think for a while there, it was like every week I would just have to create one, I record on create one record one.

So yeah, it was just, it was that I did not have everything in place, but I had the basics in place. Sure. Right. Like biz women rock were much longer, more intense podcasts episodes. And women's meditation network. I mean, the ones I'm listening to are 10 minutes. Yeah. That's also a big deal about like the timing and the business model of it.

Like with biz women rock, I had to show up for an interview on somebody else's schedule my schedule. They needed. I think, um, I needed to obviously record that interview and then, you know, do all the things attached to that. Well, here, I literally could write a meditation. Go and record the meditation, send it to my producer and I'm done.

So it was like, I could do that at any time. So that's what I was really looking for. So it started getting me into that habit of doing work on my time. I love that you have a producer. I know that's big goals for the bird's story. I'm going to push you there because it was a game changer. I did my own production for biz women rock for the first, I think two or three years.

And when I finally did get a, get it, give it over. I got back probably five hours of my life a week easily. It's about five to eight hours to prove it. Yeah. So I love all of the decisions that you have made like in motherhood. I'm just, I'm just feeling super inspired right now. And I am blown away by your timeline.

So you're well into like, Having everything set up in place before your labor with number two begins and December. And so w so does your whole family fly in again and December a week in advance to prepare for your burning time? Tell me about how the end of the year went for you. Okay. So I'm a hard driver, which means I have very high expectations for myself that I rarely hit, which is something I'm always managing.

So my thought process was, you know, I was using December is like the day, like the timeline, right. Which I know all of us pregnant mamas do like, okay, I have until this time to do XYZ, And so my idea was like, Oh, I will, you know, if I launch in July by, and I really put, you know, some investment behind marketing and really get more and more downloads, I could get advertisers and I could start making money with this thing right away.

Right. Because remember, one thing I'm not mentioning is that there is this massive fear of. You know, me pulling back on a lot of the biz women rock stuff meant there were financial implications to that. And therefore I was like, Oh, got to get, got to get to, you know, profitability got to get to profitability in this new business.

So I had intended for women's meditation network to be quote unquote profitable by the time I had my baby that did not have so, and that's okay by the way. But I was definitely like, I CA I don't want to pretend that I had it all together and a perf line blind up perfectly. It's really what I want to say.

I was still in the throws of, and still am a year and a half later, like figuring it out. So, so we're in December. Well, my baby's due date, I think it was December four. Yeah, I think it was December 4th and my parents were coming out now for baby. Number one, they had flown out and it was like a week, maybe even a little longer than a week before Sedona came.

And so I think that they were more like, you know, let's try and get there closer. So we're not waiting as long. So they had booked their tickets so that they would get here on December six. Second, but it was like midnight on December 2nd. And I was like, I mean, that's really cutting it close to like my constant mantra and prayer during that time was like, baby girl, please wait until naughty and poppy get here.

Please wait till Noni and poppy get here. Oh, that's my parents, grandparents names, Bobby. I love it. Okay. It's really funny to me. How grandparents try really hard to like maneuver. Date and I'm like, you can have your baby anytime 33 weeks, 43 weeks. Like if you are a grandparent and you somehow found a way to the birth story about guts, good luck planning.

The, if you make it to the delivery, it's a gift. I know very much a gift. If you live out of town, I should say so they do they make it. Yeah. Yes. So they, so here's the story. So. It's Sunday, December 2nd. And they are scheduled to come in that night. By that evening, I had given Sedona a bath. And so it's like eight o'clock and I, I am starting to really feel contraction.

So I'm like, okay, Chris, I need to go in the bedroom. So he puts her to sleep. Um, I'm in my bedroom contracting, listening to meditations, by that point, it's worth mentioning. I had also read mindful birthing. So like, I was very much like. Clicking back into place of like be present in this moment, be present in this moment.

No worries. No fear, like just getting, doing my best to sort of up level being in the moment and doing that hypnobirthing type of method. Right. And so listening to some meditations. Okay. And I'm just there. And at this point with this lady, my comfortable position was on my side, thankfully, because it was very restful.

Um, and so I'm on my side. And so I was contracting so eight o'clock at night, like I'm starting to contract, starting to contract. Chris goes to pick up my parents. Um, they come into the house about midnight, 1230. They come in and say, hi, I'm contracting. Everything's good. But like just regular contract billing, like not intensive.

Next morning, everyone wakes up the house is sort of like, has this beautiful, happy kambas. Cause my parents are here and I'm definitely like intensifying. I've been keeping track this whole time. And about nine 30. I finally get on the phone with my doula and your hours into labor, I guess. So. Yes, I wouldn't, I never kept track with that one.

So feel free. Yeah. Feel free to keep the track. I get on the phone with my doula. It was probably the second or third time I had called her, but I finally get on the phone with her and I was like, Hey, here are the times, what do you think? She goes, yeah, go ahead and call the midwife. So I called the midwife, you know, Michelle, what do you think about this?

Yeah. You know, she's like, yes, you're right. That you've definitely moved into active labor. Why don't you meet me up at the birthing center? I'll be there in about an hour. It's worth noting that the birthing center is about 35 minutes away from us. And so, so I'm like, okay, cool. Um, but you know, at that point, like I was.

My husband likes to say, like, you're meditating the shit through those contractions. Like, I mean, so in the zone, like I was there, I was like meditating I'm through. It was amazing. I'm going to venture to say if you're 13 hours and with baby number two, your water is still intact. I'm getting there, girl. I was like, I'm getting nervous right now.

Like I'm sweating. I'm like, Oh, the doula and me kind of knows what I'm like, your water is intact, right? If you're still home on our third. Yeah, water's intact. I'm close. You know, literally hang up the phone with the, with the midwife. Tell my mom and husband, guys, get everything ready. We're going to go up to the breathing center and a couple of minutes pass.

And I'm about to lie back down and my water break. And I was like, Oh no, I'm like, Oh shit. So I know this story. So I just, and he's like comes and he's like, why go my water bro? And it just immediately. Boom. Everything moves starts moving into place. My mom starts getting my bag and we're just like, let's go.

We gotta go. Now, you know, all I know is, you know, my mom and Chris get around me. They start lifting me up, getting me towards, towards the front door. That takes obviously a long time. And then my daughter, I don't really know this cause I'm not aware, but my daughter who's three years old at the time is coming up and saying, mommy, mommy, what's wrong.

Am I mom tells my dad, dad go, you know, poppy go takes it on out on a walk. They leave the house. Thankfully we, they continue to like walk towards the door. We have everything, all the bags ready, we get to the door and I'm just like, no, we're not going anywhere. We're staying here. So we slowly turn around, go back into my bedroom and I am grabbing onto the crib.

My mom is trying as fast as she can to like pull my pants down to get everything off. I, then she's a nurse, right? Yeah. And she, I get on all fours on my bed and I'll all I know Chris at this point had called the midwife. Yeah. So he's like, you know, he, she is trying to speak to him, but way too calmly.

She's just like, okay, well what about this? And you know, are you feeling this? And what about that? And. He's just like, Oh my God, this isn't going to work. So she, he throws the phone at me. She's, they're kind of on speaker with me, which I'm sort of half hearing. And in the meantime I hear the two of them, my mom and my husband and back of me and my mom, my mom is like the perfect person to have an emergency.

She's so good. She's so good under, uh, under pressure. And so I hear her like basically saying, okay, Go get towels. Where's a little booger sucker thing and you know, where's this, go get this, go get that. And so she's like preparing, like just preparing everything. She see the head crowning. I don't don't know.

Um, and I don't think so. Not as of yet, but, um, so I'm on all fours. Meanwhile, my husband calls nine one one, and he's like, you know, basically, like I think the midwife had told him like, okay, so can you like stick your fingers in there? And you feel a cord around the neck? And he's like, Oh, after this, I know that I, I, that is not, yep.

I'm not giving my wife a cervical exam. So he called nine one one, which I'm so grateful for. He calls nine one, one they're walking him through. So he has them on speaker while, you know, while he and my mom are doing stuff, she starts to crown. And, um, of course, I don't know what's going on and I can't see anything.

And so what my husband has told me is that she, her head comes out and he said it was the freakiest thing. Cause I didn't know. Oh, he's like, I wish I would have watched a YouTube video on this. So I would have been prepared. Um, you know, but she came out he's like, it just like, he's like for a second, I thought it was like your intention since coming out.

Cause I didn't know what was going on, but yeah, she, her head came out like it was literally the perfect and most healthy birth. Like she came out, head, came out first, then shoulders, then you know, all the pieces. So it basically at nine 39 is when the water broke. And then we go through everything that we're talking about.

Now. Four pushes later, she comes out and it's nine 59. Wow. Well, it's when I held my baby in my arms. I'm so glad that you had the intuition to know turn around, because that was a much calmer, peaceful, safer place to deliver then in the car, on the side of the road, you know, and you know, when your baby's coming out of you, I mean, in that last 20 minutes, I mean, you know, so for anyone who's listening, where I was getting at is, you know, second babies come a little bit faster and if your water.

Breaks it's it's, it's usually game over. I mean, it's usually go time. So if you're in labor now, if your water breaks first, before you're in labor, that's different. But if you are in labor, well to actively bar and then your water breaks, you're going to immediately go into transition. So. Yeah. Wow. Oh my goodness.

Okay. So did the, did your daughter, um, Savannah, was she born onto the bed or into your arms terms? Like kind of I'm trying to, or like the ending of this. So she comes out perfect, but where does she go? Does she, so I'm on all fours, so Doggystyle. So my mom caught her coming out. Um, so my mom held her. I then sort of collapsed out of exhaustion onto the bed, on my belly, turn around pretty quickly.

And I'm like, you know, they basically, um, so I'm like sort of laying back up against the window. And then she, uh, my mom like cleans her up and then brings her onto my arms. Wow. Now, did you keep the cord attached until the medics got there? Yeah. Nine 11 was telling my husband like, okay, you're going to cut the cords you have, do you have this?

Do you have this? You even have like a shoe string. And he's like, what? For, he's like to cut the cord and he's like, no, no. And I. Hear that, and I know no, you keep the court on for as long as you can. So, um, so I was like, don't cut the cord. You can figure it out. We'll get it later. Don't cut it right now.

Let all that blood pumps through. So, uh, so no. So we just left the cord, uh, about four minutes later, I think it was the, you know, fire department, nine one, one shows up. And then about two minutes after that, the midwives. Showed up at that point, they were like triangulating who's closest to Katie get to her.

So, um, and then my doula showed up shortly after that. And so the aftermath actually was incredibly painful, useful for me. I'm sure my husband and my mom would say something different. Yeah. But the entire experience was incredibly peaceful for me and most, especially afterwards, because it was like I was in my home.

I didn't have to go anywhere. No, my daughter, the last story I'll tell is about my daughter here, but, um, It was like the doulas were all there. They were all taking care of me for the next few hours. Like it was so beautiful. So, and you stayed at home then? Yeah, like they didn't make a transfer to the hospital.

Amazing. Um, I do have a question on your placenta. Did, um, did your placenta deliver naturally then or did like the midwives have to help with the delivery of your placenta once they arrived? Um, they, uh, they didn't need to pull it out if that's, that's what I mean, but no, it, it delivered naturally. They were there obviously.

Yeah. And then with either of your birds, did you do placenta encapsulation? Yeah. With both of them? I did. Okay. Incredible. Yeah. So now you get to just. Stay at home. This is, I've heard this story, like in a few different versions, just from friends of friends, not on the podcast or anything like that, but they usually like take everybody to the hospital for some reason.

So I'm just, this is so lovely that they just let you stay at home because childbirth is not an emergency when mom and baby are perfectly healthy, so great. Alright. Now you were about to tell me a story about your daughter. You were like, um, Yes. So, you know, my mom had instructed my dad to take Sedona on a walk.

So, you know, fast forward, 20, 25 minutes later, they walk back into the house with the firetrucks around and everything. And you know, they walk into the room and here I am with this little baby on my, on my, um, in my arms. And so Sedona is like, cool, the baby. Yay. So, you know, a couple minutes past Chris takes, uh, you know, once they cut the cord, Chris takes Savannah, my baby.

Into the living room. And I didn't see any of this, but he showed me a video of it. And. He is holding her and she's like, okay, cue, baby, whatever. And he's like, do you know who this is? And she's like, yeah, it's a baby. And he's like, no, this is Savannah. This is, this is our Savannah who was in mommy's belly and see her light up.

Like she got it, like. Oh, my gosh, that's my sister. And she like got so teary eyed and held her. It was, Oh my God. It was so cause you know, she went on a walk and she came back. She has a sister. So it was so immediate that it was, it was really cute for him to like, Really help her get it. She's probably really confused on how babies.

Yeah. Yeah. When she's a teenager and you're drawing, she's going to be like, no, I mean, the baby's just come out and at a 20 minute, right? Oh, what an incredible, so a couple of birth stories and just. Your journey, your life journey. I mean, thank you so much for sharing it, Katie. It was a very inspiring and two last things.

One, we all want to know what your favorite baby product is. And then number two, I would like all of the listeners to stick around. If we are going to play one of Katie's beautiful meditations for everyone. Yay. So let's end with baby products. Baby products by far right now is little, these sleep it's little Z sleep training.

And it's Becca Campbell and I sleep, train the hell out of Savannah. So her program is the one that I have loved. I know there's a gazillion of 'em out there, but she has a lot of different resources. Sleep and for food schedules and stuff like that, but it's all under the guise of sleep. And I swear by it because if baby sleeps well, mama sleeps well, and life is good.

So that is by far my favorite product right now. Awesome. Going to have to link to it in the show notes. Okay. And she has a podcast too. That is a great free resource for a lot of immediate questions that you might have about that asleep. So, Oh, what's is it little yeah. Sleep. Yep. Little D sleep podcast.

Oh, beautiful. We'll also link to the podcast in the show notes. Well, Katie, is there anything else that you want to leave us with? I just feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. I know we fit a whole lot into an hour, so that was really incredible. Thank you so much for being on the birth story podcast.

Thank you. It has been amazing. And to every mom or mom to be, or, you know, anyone listening, it's just, um, this, all of it, like. The birth story is not just about the actual happenings of, you know, a baby being birthed into this world. It's like about the journey of the mom who has to, you know, be a certain person to make all of that happen before, during and after.

And I feel like even, you know, a year after the second birth, I'm still. Figuring out, you know, what this life looks like with kids and a meaningful business and the life and all of these things. We're just on a constant journey. And I love your podcast because I think it gives voice to the fact that there are so many different variations of what that could look like and what that can be.

But, you know, ultimately, especially with. You know, me being the creator of the women's meditation network. I'm just such an advocate of each of us getting in touch with our own voices. So we know what it, what are the right things for them, us along the way, and hello, knowing that to override anything, any of those sheds, any of those things that we feel should be happening in stead and really going with it.

At any given minute, you know, what is the right thing for us? So I'm just, I'm so grateful that, that this podcast exists to be able to share those voices. So thank you so much. You're welcome. And I just want to end with celebrating you and the half a million listens. I mean, that's so many half a million listens from your little dream of inspiring women.

And so how can we find you? The easiest way is that women's meditation network.com. You'll find it an easy link to the podcast or any, or whatever podcast player you're listening to this on. You can also search for women's meditation network and there's a free guided meditation that goes out every single Tuesday morning, but at women's meditation network.com, there's a lot of other resources there too.

So there's a lot of fun. Stuff. If you're just new to meditation and you want to get started, there's a seven day challenge. There is a downloadable about how to start your simple, a regular meditation practice. There's a sleep bundle. There's a lot of really good resources there for you to be able to utilize this tool of meditation.

And it's so important too, because if you listen to this podcast and you absolutely have 10 minutes to listen to Katie's podcast and it will significantly change your life as it's been changing mine, but. Part of the power of your podcast, I think is also teaching us how to be quiet as moms. And there's some really good, there's a good mommy went out there.

I'll link to in the show notes, the mommy timeout. Yeah. So yeah, I was like, let's put that one in the show notes. So Katie, today we celebrate you. Congratulations on your two beautiful births and Namaste Nama stay beautiful. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to birth story, Michael it's. You walk away from each episode with a clear picture of how labor and delivery might go, and that you will feel empowered by the end of your pregnancy to speak up plan and prepare for the birth you want. No matter what that looks like.

Welcome to the women's meditation network with your host, Katie.

Hello and welcome. Beautiful. I'm Katie  and I'm so grateful that you're here with me today. The intention of today's meditation is to give you the space to be Hawaiian with your pregnancy

act with a growing baby inside of you to let go of any anxiety you may be feeling. How about labor and delivery? Pre through any physical discomforts you might be having and ultimately to honor the incredible miracle that you are experiencing.

Let's begin by getting into a comfortable position. You can be sitting lying down

or even moving in a way that's comfortable for you.

Any position allows you to feel relaxed,

I guess, low and D grass and. Bringing your attention to your expanding belly. As you draw that area,

your breath on the exhale, breathing all the way out until you're at the ferry and of your breath.

Bring your breathing to her relaxed, regular rhythm.

Feel your body getting just a little bit heavier, allowing yourself to relax deeper into your position.

Breathe in a soothing, calm energy feeling itself in your body and soften your mind

and on each out breath, breathe out again. Any tension, stress or discomfort,

breathe out tension.

go ahead and place your hands on your belly.

You do nice. The worms. How's the palms of your hands.

Warm. Cami glowy yellow light

and just watch it as a glows from your hands. And onto your belly,

you can see your warm yellow light radiating from your hands

onto your belly.

And entering your body,

how it tenderly embraces your little one.

Normally holding your little miracle and yeah.

T preface in expanding your belly and watching as a yellow glow shines. Brighter and exhale, feeling calm and relaxed.

your body, maybe feeling uncomfortable. Really?

You're feeling nauseous,

low on energy,

tired, or even in pain.

Take a moment to bring to mind and all the physical discomforts that you've been feeling during your pregnancy,

if any related thoughts. Worries or judgments about your body. Come on.

just recognize them and visualize yourself, letting them float away into the sky.

Agreeing your attention back to your body,

feeling yourself, expand and contract as you breathe.

Even feeling your little one move around inside of you,

your body, his doing magical and hard or great now.

And it's complicated. The details work.

So over the next minute, breathe in some grace for your body

appreciation and love for what it's doing for you and your baby.

no matter how messy, uncomfortable or inconvenient that may be.

pre's and grace.

no. Bring your attention back to your breath.

There is work ahead of you mama,

bringing this beautiful being into the world will require much of you

and you have everything you need to do it.

you are extraordinary.

So if you're feeling any fear or anxiety or worry about delivering your baby.

Just take a moment to recognize it

and imagine yourself gathering all those thoughts, varies and fears and what ifs they were stones on the ground.

One by one, pick up those heavy worries.

It was heavy fears and collect them in your arm.

now imagine yourself sitting on the floor, her pile of stones in hand.

think about another mom, you know,

Imagine her putting her hand on your shoulder,

whispering to you. It's all going to be okay.

And as you breathe out, watch, as she takes one of the stones. From your arms and sits next to you.

Now watch as another mom, perhaps your mother or sister.

Puts her hand on your shoulder and whispers to you. You are so strong

and as you breathe out, Why she takes one of those stones from your arm, hence sits next to you.

repeat this process for a few minutes. Watching as moms, you know, moms you don't know,

and moms from history Oh, make their way to you

sharing their motherly wisdom with you.

Taking a stone from your arm and sitting down beside you.

You are not alone. My dear

look at all these women around you,

you have the strength and wisdom from generations of women within you.

everything is going to be okay.

take a deep breath in. Watching it that calm yellow glow that began in your hands now expands to your entire body.

And as you breathe out, feel the warmth of your yellow light center. You.

What miracle you are right now

being.

you're doing a great job, mama.

no, my stay beautiful.