#348 | A New Year's Q&A Where We Talk About E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g

Welcome to our end-of-year Q&A episode! Settle in with your favorite drink and listen as we play listener voicemails from around the world. You'll hear us reflect on six years of podcasting together, while we share voicemails, questions, and stories as we close out the season and prepare for the new year.

We begin by addressing one of our posts that sparked an unexpectedly intense reaction online, and then get into an impassioned conversation on why postpartum life is never 50/50. We also share a personal client story about placenta previa, late-pregnancy ultrasounds, and an unnecessary cesarean narrowly avoided.

Prompted by one woman's considerate voice message, you'll also hear Cynthia reflect candidly on grief, resilience, and what this past year has taught her.

All bets are off for this episode, where we have spontaneous conversations from one topic to the next. 

Thank you so very much for being a part of our community, and for listening, calling our phone line, supporting our work, and sharing our commitment to evidence-based conversations about pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and motherhood. Season Seven begins next week with a very exciting year ahead!

Enjoy today's episode ad-free, and consider joining us for ad-free episodes all the time, for just $29.99 on Apple Podcasts. 

Finally, as a special end-of-year invitation, we’d love to welcome you into our Patreon community. For a limited time, you can get 40% off an annual membership of any tier using the code WELCOME2027. Patreon supporters receive ad-free episodes, extended content, access to our book club, and our growing library of past workshops and live events. Joining Patreon is the most direct way to support the work we do, deepen your engagement with us and be part of the conversations that shape everything we create.

Thank you again for supporting Down to Birth and we'll see you next week for our first episode of Season Seven!

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, birth educator, advocate for informed consent, and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Show. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone.

Yeah, wow. And 2025.

So, Trisha, we've been doing this for six and a half years. The podcast has been out for six now. We're finishing season six. We start season seven with our next episode. We've been doing this for six and a half years. That's about the longest I've done anything. Did you ever get along with anyone in your entire life as well as you've gotten along with me for the past six here. I can't believe it. I'm not sure I really could have done this with anyone else for six and a half years so smoothly. I mean, we are a perfect fit. We're a match made in heaven. We are. We are very lucky. We are, and we're just, we're just getting going. Really, just getting going. Definitely something very exciting coming in the year ahead. Oh, I can't wait. Oh, I can't wait about it. It's torture.

All right, so we asked our listeners to call in and just leave us any kind of message.

Oh, wait, yeah. Oh, before we get into that, I do think we have to talk about something, right? Because it kind of like broke the internet. It might be our most controversial thing we've ever said. So I just think we should address it here.

We've covered pretty controversial topics. I can't wait to hear what this is. I love for some reason this was really triggering for people.

Okay, so, okay, here's what it says, yeah. Okay. So in spin class, when I'm spinning, sometimes things just come into my mind, like, and this is what exactly what happened. I was in spin class, and this just popped into my head. And as soon as I got out of spin class, I got on Instagram and I wrote it and it said:

Dear dads, sleep through the night. Dear moms let them. Here's why. It's not 50/50. If you are exclusively breastfeeding, you will be tired. You will need him to not be tired. His job becomes to take care of you so you can take care of the baby. It can feel unfair you are exhausted, but it serves no one best to have you both exhausted. It is temporary. You will be more tired than him. He will need to pick up a lot more work. He doesn't need to give the baby a bottle to bond. He needs to protect the two of you. The baby will bond with you most in the beginning. This is how it should be. It is temporary.

I didn't proofread it.

I didn't do—no, because you have a grammatical mistake in there. Did you catch it?

No.

You will be more tired than he. What did I say?

Yeah, everyone says that. Yes, common one. So I stopped listening after that.

No, I got—so I can see why it was controversial. Was a little, a little hard for me to hear it without resenting you, but I get your point. Well, you're right. She has to take care of the baby. He has to take care of her in the beginning.

So many of the mothers in couples I see, I see in the first two weeks, and from day one, they believe that it should be 50/50 night, second possible, fourth night possible. It'll never be 50/50 everything. It will never be 50/50. Let's just set reality straight. Right? You are the center of the home. It's going to be very clear. As long as you have children under your roof, you're just the center of the home. The kids are always going to go to you first.

My point was, it's so important for the mother in the first couple of weeks, when she's establishing breastfeeding, to be able to rest during the day. She will never sleep enough at night. It's impossible. She has to feed the baby every one to three hours overnight. There's no point in both parents being up all night and both being tired in the day, because he needs to take on so much more work during the day. He needs to water the plants, he needs to feed the dogs. He needs to take care of the children. He needs to feed her. He needs to do anything that needs to be done so that she can be resting and be with the baby in bed, recovering and establishing breastfeeding.

What happens down the road—three, six, nine, 12 months down the road—that's for individual couples to work out what works best for them. But I see a lot of families think that from right, from the get go, she should feed the baby, he should change the diaper, she should go back to sleep, he should put the baby back to sleep. I do, I don't think that works. I think it makes both tired, both parents tired.

And when I tell parents this, the fathers are usually—actually, usually both parents are really relieved when I say this. Like, stop making him get up. Just let him sleep so he can take better care of you during the day. He can't sleep all night and then just do what he wants during the day, right? So that you can sleep during the day.

Anyway, yeah, people loved it. Loved it. So many people are like, hallelujah. Thank you for saying that. And then, of course, lots of people did not like it.

Well, yeah, if they don't understand the other half of it, it's that things have to be fair, but they can't possibly be equal. If you're a breastfeeding mom, it will never be equal. And we would never say pump and have your husband feed the baby from the bottle. Just follow biology as well as possible.

But women do need to actually be taken care of. They've never been so isolated in all of human history. They do actually need to be taken care of. Someone needs to make sure they're drinking enough water, eating food, having food prepared for them. In those early weeks, they have to heal. Their bodies are really busy recovering.

It's after those early weeks that I think people have to rethink how they do things. And what I tell my clients is, just look at the first year alone. Like maybe for year one, if you don't have a house cleaner yet, you probably will in your future. But for year one, get a house cleaner. For year one, figure out how you're going to do healthy meals, and so you don't have to think about cooking every single night or figuring it out together. It's just you've got to invest in the first year of what support is going to look like. Very, very tough. But it will not ever be 50/50 and the pursuit of 50/50 is going to make you really resentful.

That's right, that's right. You got to come to it with that understanding.

And when moms get so sleep deprived, which they do, and I work with these mothers all the time, I do suggest that the husband do one bottle feed overnight so that she gets a five hour stretch of sleep. If she can get a five hour stretch of sleep, then she can manage getting up every one to three hours after that to continue feeding the baby. One bottle in the middle of the night isn't going to disrupt their breastfeeding relationship. So there are ways, there are strategies, but in the beginning it's not. It's just, you're right. It's never really 50/50, but they really need the dads to get rest in those early weeks so they can take on all the additional responsibility that they need to take on.

Well then they better.

Exactly. Yes, exactly. They better do it. If they're not doing that, then, you know, this whole argument goes out the window.

I have a mom in my postpartum group. We just met yesterday in my group. It was a wonderful turnout, and this new mom very tearfully shared that she feels like she's the worst mom ever. Her baby is—gosh, I might be forgetting this—seven or eight months old. She's back at work. She's absolutely suffering. She's crying, she looks like, she feels like just pained.

And she is back to work. She has a nanny until, I believe it was 1pm, and then she has her baby. While she's working, she was crying and saying that I'm not getting work done. I'm doing nothing, right? And then my husband comes home and I want to just want to just like, throw the baby into his arms, but I can't do that, because he's been working all day.

And everyone started telling her, like, you're not a bad mom, you're this, you're that. And I said, like, I'm sorry. Can any human being do what you're doing right now? By the way, she's pregnant. She got pregnant—14 weeks pregnant—so terrified about what's coming.

I said, how is this okay with you and your husband? I just have to—I said, look, I'm very provocative. I'm gonna throw a lot of stuff out there. How is this okay with you and your husband that you're not sleeping at all during the nights, you're maintaining a full time job, and you only have a nanny till 1pm? Of course you're failing at that. I would fail at that too.

And then she's worried about giving him the baby after he's had a long day of work, and she still has to work. I mean, you cannot. Trying to work while managing your baby is the most stressful thing you can do. It is setting yourself up for failure.

And I said, I don't understand how this is okay with both you and your husband that this is what you're doing. I mean, I left a high paying job. I had no notion of building this business. I left a high paying job. It was not easy, and I'm not saying it's the right path for everyone. I did it because I could feel I was not going to succeed if I tried to manage the job I had, the very demanding job I had, and being a mother. And that's why there's four years between my children. Because I thought, well, a lot of women can do this. I can't. I will. I'm a limited resource. We are limited resources.

And the fact that so many couples go around saying, well, she'll just, she'll figure it out—and I said to her, the conversation always seems to be around like, but did you? But you got through it, right? But you got through it. You and your baby got through it. And I said, you know what? You know what they're saying? They're literally saying neither of you died. That's the bar. If it doesn't kill you. You can cry every day, you can be a wreck, your health can be impaired, you can forget to eat. But as long as you're alive and your baby's alive, somehow your household, extending all the way out to society, is saying, this is okay. You'll figure it out. This is not what figuring it out looks like.

So yes, it's a sacrifice. If you have children, you may take a financial hit. Might be temporary, or you might pay for the nanny to stay until your work day is done, which is still brutal, because then she's working all day and then immediately with her baby.

So I said to her, I don't know what your husband does for a living. I don't know if he's—I don't care if he's a welder doing manual labor all winter long, outdoors. It's a vacation compared to what you're expected to do right now.

So it's just not fair. It's just not fair. Yes, he's tired, but you're all going to be tired after a baby's born. This is so unjust. And then women are still talking. Everyone broke out into conversation. Like some of them said, oh, I stopped doing my husband's laundry. He has to do his own laundry now.

They're all doing the same amount of responsibilities—paying the bills, the housework, everything they did before—after they have a baby. It's not reasonable. Of course we will fail at that in our own minds, because we can't, we can't do anything.

Well, if we don't have enough support, how do you do a job and you have a baby? I can't read a book.

If I have a demanding—you can't do—I did it. I did it. It was horrible. It's horribly resentful.

Yes, for you to have, like, kicked down a door tells the world a lot.

It's true though. It's true, and I love it. So open for you, because everyone knows that you're even tempered and reasonable, and you're willing to work very hard as a mom. You're willing to—you don't resent it. You wanted it all your life, and even after your baby was born, you still wanted it. You baked freaking pies four days later, you really wanted to be that mom. You kicked down a freaking door because it's not sustainable.

I said to them, you're not supposed to hate your life. You're not supposed to hate your life. You and your husband have to figure out how to make sure, yes, not only you survive, you have to make sure you still like your life and feel good about yourself so the rest of your life, you don't look back on this first year or two and feel terrible. It's because both of you didn't ensure that you have enough support. And so many households are doing this to women.

I've been there. What a rant.

Yeah, that was a good rant. Anything to say about that?

Yeah, I mean, I will add to it that at this stage in my life, this is in part why I have no guilt about traveling by myself, doing things alone, putting a lot more parenting responsibility on my husband, because I feel it was very uneven in those years, and now it balances. It does balance out over time. But yes, what I do if I could redo it—would I do it differently? Yes, I would.

Well, I remind them, there is such a wave of women divorcing husbands in the middle of their lives, because they still are vibrant. They're still themselves. I say to women, you're going to have so much more energy 10 years after you have your first baby than when you have—I don't care if it's in your mid 40s, you're going to feel like 1000 times better than in your mid 30s.

The mid 30s—the whole thing is an illusion that we're at our sexual peak in our mid 30s, we're at our most vibrant. You agree, right?

Oh, man, mid 40s are it, right?

And beyond. They're the start of the peak. Yeah, you get your life back while still having your children to love and still having your vitality. And when you finally have enough resources and time and sleep.

When I say this to the women in my group, I often say, I'm saying these things, these strong things, and you don't have to agree. Just think about it. See what resonates and what you want to talk to your husbands about.

But I say this for the sake of those husbands, because they're at higher risk of their spouses leaving them than the other way around. And when women leave men in midlife, I know so many of them are angry about how it went in the early years. We don't want that. We want families to stay happy, intact, functioning. So yeah, it's going to be a hard, exhausting couple of years, but do right by her. So women, you have to make sure of that.

And again, it's not going to be 50/50. It's okay, even if it's 70/30, 80/20, fine. But you can't just take a baby in stride and do all the things you used to do as a woman who maintained a home or a career or both. I just—oh my God—it feels just painful.

If you do it, you'll pay for it. I mean, and many women do. They do it and they pay for it. Physically, emotionally, mentally, and in your relationship, right?

And I also told her, none of us, nobody lives up to the image of themselves as a mother. I always thought, oh my God. I thought I'd be like baking all the time, and I'd have every meal planned out for the week. No. None of those. I never got to that level of organization with many things that I fantasized about. So in a sense, we all feel like we're failing at whatever the vision was. That vision doesn't matter, but you can't feel horribly about your life and yourself as a mother, especially when you're draining yourself taking care of your baby or your children. God, those women get me feeling things so deeply.

Well, that wasn't what we were going to talk about today.

Well, this will be the outtake. We're gonna have, like, a 15 Cynthia's rant.

Yeah, I know. It's practically a whole different episode at this point.

No, this is gonna be—well, this is what happens when we don't have much of an agenda, but we do have a lot of voicemail messages to play, okay? But I had a little thing to share. Let's hear it.

Yeah, I wanted to share something. Okay. So I had a client work with me in the summer, due in early November, and I just want to share some text messages between her and me. I haven't checked these in a few weeks, so hopefully they all make sense.

So I got a text from her on Thursday, October 16, and it said:

Hi, Cynthia. I hope you're doing well. I had a complete previa, but my recent scan showed it moved to 1.5 centimeters and now it's low lying. I went in today at 34 weeks, and it's still at 1.5 centimeters. I was thinking of doing another scan at 36 weeks, just in case it moves. My midwife said, if it's not more than two centimeters away, I will need a cesarean. Does this sound pretty accurate to you? In your experience? Thanks for your time.

I wrote, Hi. I'll leave her name out. The odds of your placenta moving are extremely high. If not at 36 weeks, then very likely by 38. By the end of pregnancy, the belly goes from big to huge, and since the placenta is attached, it moves.

She said, I'll schedule an ultrasound for 38 weeks, just in case. And she asked for tips on a gentle cesarean. And I said, I wouldn't start envisioning a cesarean at this point. I can always help you prepare later.

She said, thank you. I'll keep that in mind.

Then I heard from her two weeks later: Hi, Cynthia, my placenta still stayed at about 1.5 centimeters at 36 weeks. I'm going to get a 38 week scan, but I'm needing to schedule a cesarean.

And I wrote, let's keep our fingers crossed. Placentas can move a lot near the end.

Then she wrote on Wednesday, November 5—listen to this one with exclamation points—after the first sentence:

I have some wonderful news. God moved this placenta, and I don't need a cesarean! I was literally scheduled to go in tomorrow at 7:30am for the surgery! I got a last ditch ultrasound one hour ago, and the placenta moved to 3.5 centimeters away from the cervix. It only needed to move to two, and now it's at 3.5. Thank you for the encouragement because of your messages, we booked the ultrasound today, the day before the surgery.

Wow. How many women have had unnecessary cesareans for placentas that were perfectly fine?

I wrote back, that's amazing. Am I surprised? No, but I'm glad you reached out and that this spared you a completely unnecessary cesarean.

And then she said, yes, I'm only 37 weeks in one day today. Can you believe they were going to do the cesarean that early? Infuriating.

She wrote, my husband and I were so torn and felt so uneasy about getting such an early cesarean, but the team kept telling us it could lead to dangerous scenarios. But your voice kept popping in my head that the placenta almost always moves later in pregnancy. It has to move.

This is such bullshit. 37 weeks is now the 39 week mark, it's just been moved back two weeks now. Every baby can be born at 37 weeks. You really get the feeling they want to do the cesarean before the placenta does, in fact, move.

I so—no, they just want to get the babies born. They just want to get the babies born sooner than later so they can put more people on the schedule later.

The word that always comes to my mind is the word robbing. They are robbing women absolutely—of a better experience, of a safer experience, of a more fulfilling, important experience. And this would have changed her whole life.

What more powerful way to keep women down in society, in the world, than to take away the most powerful, liberating, empowering experience of their life. This is a way to keep women down. Pissed.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to get everyone—it's my job, and I have to get in a better mood for the rest of this episode now.

Well, that's why I live with so much humor. Because if I didn't have so much humor, I laugh when I'm by myself on a regular basis. I've always been this kind of person, and I think it's because I feel things so deeply. I could sob about many things— the state of the world, my concerns about things happening.

But this is why we have to keep ourselves happy and light as well, because our work can be very heavy and infuriating, because ultimately we're so powerless about what's happening in those walls, right? Because we're told that it's in the name of protecting our baby. It's such gaslighting.

Yeah, I don't like to really use that word very much, but this is, like, really—it's an important word to use. People just overuse it.

They overuse it, yeah. Gaslighting. I mean, it all comes from that movie, I think it was in the 40s, or that play where the husband was turning down the dimmer on the stove light or something, and he was telling his wife, it's not changing at all. He was making her feel she was crazy. So that's how it should be used. But yeah, I was thinking gaslighting as well. I agree.

All right, so now I think we have to switch gears, get into New Year. Get a little pep in our step now, absolutely, and we're gonna see what our followers called in to leave on a voice message. And I'm excited to hear what these are. And let's get started.

Hi, my name is Gail, and I'm from Minnesota. I listen to your podcast with my wife somewhat regularly, or she'll refer me to episodes that I've missed that I need to listen to. And we were just in the car together and listened to episode 338, October 15, about breastfeeding.

And particularly enjoyed it for the main content, but also we were really laughing good when you got down the rabbit hole of the hop discussion, and what exactly are hops. And then shortly after that came the discussion of nursing twins overnight and how that can be possible on your back if you don't have size D's or bigger.

So it's a very entertaining episode and very, very informative, as always. So appreciate the show and everything you do. Thanks.

I liked it because it was about beer and boobs.

Come on. Don't degrade him like that.

Sorry. That was sweet. He liked it because we're funny. Okay, that was sweet.

Next.

Hi. This is Anna calling from Hawaii. I wanted to submit a couple of questions for the December personal Q&A session, and so here we go.

First. I always think of Cynthia when I listen to an episode, and I wonder how you are doing since your husband passed away. And I just, I hope that you're at peace and finding comfort and healing as you grieve and navigate that very complex path you are still on. My heart often, and I pray that you are doing well.

Another question I have is for both of you. Did either of you take time away from your professional pursuits to stay home with your children, and how did you navigate that decision? It seems like there's no winning as a mom, and there's mom guilt or career guilt, no matter what we choose. So I'd love your thoughts on that.

And my last question is, how did the two of you know when you were done having babies? You obviously are both very passionate about babies and family and birth and pregnancy, and I just wondered how you knew that your families were complete.

Thanks.

First, thank you so much for the prayers and the wishes. And I know that's on so many people's minds with our podcast, and I have so much to say and so much to share, and so much I've learned about grief and life and perseverance and love and resilience. I don't even know where to begin.

I really have to figure out what outlet to share. I've been keeping so much recorded, like so much recorded about the experience from day one. Trisha, maybe you can answer this better than I can. We're still happy, you know. I don't know why that is. I don't know how that is, but somehow happiness and love doesn't go away at all. And I cannot believe the things that have worked out for us in the past year. We're doing very well. Trisha, do you want to say something?

You have just continued to live your life the way you have always lived. You have just continued to persevere in the same way, keeping up with being a mother and being a podcaster and working and being happy and laughing and grieving. You've just somehow balanced it all perfectly. I don't know how you've done it, but you have.

Yeah. It's, it's—yeah, I mean, it's a heartbreak. And it's somehow—yeah, I have so much to say.

I really would love ideas from people. I have an idea. Okay, yeah. New podcast. No. What, a retreat?

Oh, to share it in person in the retreat. I'd be happy to do that. I really have so much to share. Like, my key word for the year was play. I think we all need to play more. I really do. I think we all need to get into our creative space more. We're all alive right now. We're all here right now.

When I was young, I believed the purpose of life was to grow. And now I laugh at that a little bit. That was what I thought when I was in my early 20s. And I'm like, ha. Like, how do you not grow, especially when you're growth oriented. You really want to grow from the relationships you have, from your life experiences, from hardships, anything. We gain so much wisdom as we get older, if we're pursuing wisdom. We develop so much grace, so much wisdom, and life gets so much easier.

Now I dare to think that what if our ultimate challenge in life is to love and experience joy and humor and delight and play despite the pains we experience. And that really seems to be how my children are wired as well, for some reason. I mean, we're wired for connection and joy.

Everyone said last year, I bet the holidays are so hard. The holidays were amazing. I mean, they were amazing. We always have this wonderful open house Christmas Eve brunch, and my kids absolutely wanted to do that, and the house was just filled with all the friends we love to see and family. And it's still—I don't know. Everything is—I have so much to share.

I think I need to stop there, because I'm forgetting our other two questions. But if people have ideas, yeah, we're gonna do a retreat, and yeah, I would love to share it, but I don't want to consume it.

I really have so much I want to say, like the concept of play.

I went to a grief support group for one or two sessions in March, and everyone there was older than I significantly and grieving someone significantly older than my husband. The first woman who spoke was in her 70s, grieving the loss of her own parents. She was crying. She was saying, next month is my father's birthday. It's been three years since he died. And I thought, oh my gosh. I mean, this is tragic.

We're still here. It is tragic to suffer, and when we're gone, we don't want our loved ones suffering the rest of their lives.

There was a woman there I really cared about. She was next to me, and she shared with me that she still didn't throw away her husband's Tums—like that product people. She said it was on his nightstand, and she hasn't touched it in—for her, it was also about three years—and she said, it drives my daughters crazy. They're in their 30s, and they're like, Mom, just throw it out. Like, I can't bring myself to throw it out.

And I made her laugh a little bit, and I said, well, you're going to get to the point where you need to put yellow police tape around it, make sure nobody touches the Tums. And she said, I sort of hate the damn things. I think that could be what killed him, because he took them all the time.

And I said, well, what about when you're ready to get rid of them. What about throwing them away not as the thing that killed him, not as something he purchased and you treasure? What if you just throw it away with indifference? Because what was meaningful to him wasn't the Tums, and you're applying meaning to that. And we can torment ourselves doing such things.

Anyway, she really got a spring in her step. And she very cheerfully said, I'm going to go home and throw those away right now. And I said, don't do anything on my account. You have to feel ready. But we can add to our own suffering so greatly.

And I think, well, here's the thing. People actually get addicted to their pain. People don't want to give up their pain because, well, there's probably a multitude of reasons why. But I think there are sort of two kinds of people in the world when it comes to grief: those who get addicted to their pain and choose to stay in their pain, and they don't really evolve through it, and those who take their pain and find purpose in it, right? And it can take time. It doesn't have to be like you turn around the next day and say, okay, have all this pain. I'm going to do something amazing with it. That's not what it is. You cannot be enthusiastic about your pain. You have to go through the process. But there are people who get stuck in it.

Oh, the last thing I'll say on this topic is I completely reject what whoever wrote that book about the five stages of grief. I completely reject it. I haven't felt a second of anger, for example. And they're like, oh, the first stage is denial. Yes, that I can understand. There's a shock. But the anger—I haven't felt a second of anger. I felt so many emotions that never got addressed in that thing. Like, first you feel anger, then you have denial, then anger, then bargaining, then whatever, and then acceptance. And I thought, nope, that's not true.

It's not like the five love languages. It just doesn't always apply.

I always make fun of that book, but I also will say it is no compare. My husband was ill for about five months. You cannot compare my experience to someone who lost a spouse to suicide. We would feel completely different emotions. Or someone who has children versus someone who doesn't have children. It's another world.

I just met a woman who lost her husband during an athletic feat. He was doing—totally unexpected—he was vibrant and doing an athletic feat, and he died. Cannot compare. She lost him in an instant, totally unexpectedly.

So when people say grief is grief, I disagree, because even among people who are grieving, they can't necessarily understand each other. It's not that one is easier, one is harder, it's totally different.

So the very notion that we can reduce grief down to a formula, I think, is very false, and we shouldn't give people the impression that it works that way.

Anyway, I really care about this topic very much, and I really want a way to go through all my things from the past year and find a way to organize and share it. So I'll think about how to do that. Maybe I'll get some ideas from people listening. But we need to move on.

Okay, so she asked two more questions. Do we remember what they are?

Oh my gosh, yeah. Career.

Did you ever feel you could leave your career. Was that it?

And then how we knew we were done having children.

Okay. So you go first.

Okay, well, because I had my first child when I was in my third year of graduate school, I sort of had to go right into work. Right? It was just part of the process. But eventually I did step away from my career. I took five years off, and that was in 2016. So almost 10 years ago, I took—I stepped away from women's health completely, and I stepped into my family business. So I was still working, but I was much more available with my kids. I was home. I was working at home. I worked on my own schedule. I could take days off when I wanted to, work when I wanted to. Those were really, really special, important years for me.

So your oldest was around 10 at that time. 11. She just turned 21.

Yeah, well, that's right. My God.

For me, when I had my son, I was working at MasterCard in risk management, which was a very demanding career. I had to travel internationally sometimes for a couple weeks at a time. It was a very demanding job. I was there till seven every night. And I was also a professor at UConn. I was always teaching a finance class at UConn. I taught four classes in total for 10 years, and I knew I had to walk away from my career. I knew I had to. It was the path of least pain.

I mean, it was painful to lose my income. It was a little scary at the time, like, oh my gosh, to not earn money when I had always earned money was one thing, and also just a major part of my identity, my self image. It's a big deal when those paychecks stop getting deposited. It's very alarming.

There was just no other way for me. I couldn't do it. I did maintain my professorship at UConn, because I loved it, and I was able to do just one class per trimester. We met once a week, three hours at a time, evening or weekend. I got to choose the schedule. Eric was always able to be home with Alex. It worked perfectly. It was wonderful. So that was what I did.

And then I just was so obsessed with birth, I started writing, publishing a couple years later, when Alex was almost two. I was teaching, and that's how everything took off.

Yeah, I will add to what I said too that it was extremely important to me to work for myself. There was no way, not under any circumstance, that I was going to work full time while raising my kids. So it was tough, because when you work for yourself, you got to create your own thing, especially in healthcare, it's really hard to be an independent practitioner, but it gave me the freedom to work. I only worked two days a week so I could be home with my kids.

Kind of stepped out of that work and back into this. And now my kids are older, and I'm so happy that I have work. So it is important to keep your work in your life or make sure that you have a path back to it, because when they're older and out of the house and in college, man, it's quiet. The days are quiet. It can be a little boring.

Yeah, it's great to have something to sink your teeth into.

And the other question was, how did we know when we were finished having children. I alluded to it earlier. I always envisioned having three because I came from three. Trisha, I think you always envisioned having four because you came from four, five. You wanted to go one higher.

But when Alex was born, I was both so fulfilled and so consumed that I felt okay with just having one for a couple of years. And then I really was—I didn't ever want to have one—but I was like, I can't believe how perfectly fulfilled I feel.

And then when he was over three years old, I started having dreams that I was having another child, and dreams that in one or two of them, that a girl was coming to me, just another baby was coming.

And we conceived immediately upon trying, as we did before, and she was born when he was over four years old. So that's just how it worked out in my life.

Then I definitely felt tapped. Like, I can't. Like, I am still a good mother at this stage, and I'm not sure how many incremental children I can add where I won't feel like I can do this job anymore, and I didn't want to risk it. So that's it. We stopped at two.

Well.

I had this vision of five, but I could never figure out exactly how that would work with a car situation and like where you would live and how you would make all that work. That's a lot of bedrooms, although, of course, kids can share rooms, and my kids did when they were young.

But after two, my husband didn't want any more. He was like, that's good. We're good. Two is enough. And I was adamant that we would have a third. Really adamant, like, there was no question we were going to have a third. The third came four years later, and after the third, I think I just felt settled.

Hi, Cynthia and Trisha. My name is Heidi, and I wanted to drop you a quick thank you and some comments on everything you've helped me with with my second birth.

So I discovered your podcast about nine months after my first birth. My daughter was born via unplanned C section, and then I was desperately trying for a VBAC, so I listened to your show. And going into my second birth, my son was born exactly two years and one month after my daughter. And thanks to your show, I did all the things.

I started by hiring a doula. I practiced a whole bunch of spinning babies routines during my pregnancy, and with my son, started my contractions on the Monday, and by Friday he was born, but I was absolutely exhausted. Ended up having a repeat C section.

However, it was a C section where I had music playing in the OR, my midwife took 25 pictures of him being pulled out of my belly, they dropped the sheet, I had immediate skin to skin, all these things that I felt empowered to ask for, thanks to your show and your tips. So I have two great births, and my second birth story is wonderful. All thanks to you.

So happy new year, and thank you for everything. You are truly appreciated in the birth community, and even though I believe I'm done having children, I still look forward to listening to your show every week. Take care and happy new year.

Yay.

That's so sweet, and just a good testament to how important it is not how you give birth, but how you are made to feel when you feel that your choices are supported and you feel respected and you feel dignified and you feel treated well. Any birth is a good birth.

That's right.

All right, let's do the next one.

Hi. My name is Paige, and I have a three year old daughter and an eight month old son, both born at the same birth center along the side midwives. I wanted to call and share my birth story, because it's an amazing testimony of how the Lord delivered us, but I also think it's pretty funny.

So my son measured big my whole pregnancy, but the midwives were supportive of a vaginal birth, and they're like, hey, if your body grows the baby, you can birth the baby. You're sick at time, Mom, don't worry about it.

So I go into labor and I feel like I labored like a champ. Like, this is nothing like my first birth. I'm vocalizing, I'm breathing during contractions, and then I'm like chatting with my husband and my midwife between them.

So then, like, time to push comes, and like, I know I need to. I can feel my body wants to push. I just like freak out, complete panic. So again, I'm saying I think my body knew that this baby was big, and I just like lost my mind.

So the nurse is like trying to try to be so kind to me. And she's like, so you haven't really pushed with any contractions. So what if you just, like, before we transfer—because I was begging for a transfer—she's like, before we transfer, what if you just, would you just try three pushes for me with contractions?

I'm like, yeah, okay.

So the next contraction comes and I push this baby. He's up high. He had not even fully dropped, I feel like, into my pelvis. Like, not down, you know. He's not in there. I push him from all the way up through my pelvis in a push, and like, one scream.

But he does have a shoulder dystocia, like a long, scary one. Not like that people are telling me, oh yeah, my baby had one for 15 seconds. Like, no, this kid is stuck. Like, minutes. Minutes.

My midwife and nurse are amazing. They did everything right. But in the end, the nurse is like pushing on my pelvis. My midwife has her hand all the way up inside me. We do get him out together, although I definitely did punch one of them somewhere in the middle of all of it.

But he comes out stunned, and he doesn't want to breathe on his own. So they're doing rescue breaths and resuscitation and like, they do everything right. My husband is on the phone with a 911 operator. So it's like, it's chaos in there. And I'm praying for my baby, and the nurse is praying over me.

And a mountain of a man, like a six foot six police officer, bursts into this tiny birth room, and it's like, what's going on in here? And my midwife is trying to tell him what's wrong with the baby. He's like, what needs to happen? And she says he needs to go to the hospital. And he's like, get me the baby.

And he grabs him and like runs out into the night with him across the street. My husband sprints after him, and then the midwife sprints after him, but she like slips in birth—she like springs back up and charges out. It was crazy.

That's a wild story.

How many of errors?

I love that he just grabbed the baby and ran across the street, because that's totally like not protocol. You know, how silly is it that they're supposed to go by ambulance when it's across the street?

It's the same at the birth center here in Connecticut. The hospital is immediately across the street, and if a mom or baby has to go, they make them go by ambulance instead of just literally walking out the door.

So I love that he just grabbed the baby and ran across the street, and probably that cold night air snapped the baby out of the distress, and all was well, and the midwife slipped and fell.

It sounded like the midwife slipped and fell. It was all like a little bit panicky.

It was crazy.

I mean, truly, I wish they would have just left the baby on the mom and the cord intact and let everybody just rest and recover and self resuscitate. But it's kind of a funny story. It is.

Let's see what the next one is.

Hello, ladies. My name is Justine. I'm from Quebec, Canada. I decided to call because I thought it'd be fun for you to know that you have a French speaking audience.

I started listening to your show a few years ago, and I truly love how you cover topics thoroughly, and you helped me cultivate a strong curiosity regarding all things pregnancy and birth.

I gave birth to my first baby in May, and we're now in the seventh month of breastfeeding. I went into spontaneous labor at the beginning of my 37th week on the full moon, labored quietly at home, and everything went so well that we almost did not make it to the birthing center an hour away.

Baby girl came a mere six hours after my water broke, a few minutes after we arrived at the birthing center.

The first thing my midwife did when I arrived at the center was to give me a big, strong hug and say, hey, Justine, you made it. I'm here for you.

And I will remember this for the rest of my life. I felt so seen and important in that moment.

Thanks for all that you do. I don't know if I would have had this amazing outcome had I not been educating myself along with you. And I wish you an amazing 2026. Cheers.

I wonder if she knows what a goody two shoe is.

Oh my gosh, that was so funny. What made you think of that?

Because she said she's French, then you told me that goody two shoe was a French word. The tissue was a French word. You don't remember this.

Trisha, I told you I was kidding. I know I felt so bad that you believed my joke, but I had to get back at you about those. Like, what? Really? I couldn't believe it.

Yeah, so now we have to tell everyone that—I was funny.

I told you. What did I say? I'm sick of everyone thinking you're goody two shoes. I said something ridiculous. So I spelled it the proper way, goodie two shoes. And Trisha wrote back, is that actually how it's spelled? Like, t, w, o, s, h, o, e, s, yeah. Thinking, yeah, of course, that's how it's spelled. But did I tell her that? No, I didn't tell her that.

I replied and said, no, I was using voice text. It's actually supposed to be—and then I wrote like, T, U, E, some weird S, H, L, E, W, S. I wrote something. And then I sent you that. I said, no, it's actually this. I said, really. And then I said, it's French.

Which is the best part, because that's not even consistent with French vowel sounds. But I wrote, it's French, and you saw the message a few minutes later and gave it a thumbs up. But I just couldn't take the guilt. I'm like, oh my God, she believed me. So I had to say, no, no, that was a joke. It's actually spelled two shoes.

No questions, did I even read it, or did I just give it a thumbs up?

You read it, and you know you're just, you just don't want to admit it. Yes, you read it. That was a funny conversation. It was hilarious.

So then I Googled who is goody two shoes and read the story of where that came from. Because I'm always from.

I love that you did that because I've always heard the expression, but I've literally never thought about it. Never read it, never ever thought, never read it, never saw it, never tried to write it, never used it. Just know it, so used it.

Yeah, yeah, I remember. I've never used it. I don't think. Maybe. I don't know.

Okay. Anyway, so goodie was a girl, and she had one shoe? Are you now getting back at me for my—

Goodie was a girl—if it was friends—one shoed girl. Who has one shoe? Poor girl who had one shoe.

What if you have one shoe, would you wear it and just hobble?

I guess. Okay, because back in the day, if you could protect one foot, you would at least protect one foot instead of risk losing two feet. And somebody gave her a second shoe, and then she became like such a happy person that they started calling her goody two shoes, actually. So goody wasn't her name. She became goody two shoes.

But that doesn't seem consistent with the meaning of goody two shoes to me.

Well, I think she became really sweet after that.

But goody two shoes doesn't mean someone who's really sweet. It means a good girl. It's not. It's a little sarcastic. What's the actual definition?

Okay, it's not, it's not a good girl. You'd never say, like, oh, her daughter is such a goody two shoes. That's definitely derisive, right?

It's a, it's a too good of a girl.

It's like a goody goody, someone who, right, who tries to portray themselves that way, right?

Well, somebody who is always—could potentially even be like a tattle—

Oh, the story of the dark side of—okay.

Her name was Marjorie. She's a poor orphan girl who's left with only one shoe, but remains optimistic. A kind gentleman gives her a second shoe, leading to her nickname, and she works hard to become a successful teacher and a respected member of her community.

The tale was originally a popular 18th century children's book that helped define the phrase, which is now often used to describe someone who is excessively virtuous.

Excessively virtuous. That's a perfect way to put it.

I love that you started it by saying her name was goody. My mother tells stories like that. My mother would be the worst person to play the game telephone with. We used to sit in elementary—like 20 of us would sit in a circle, and you'd whisper the same thing to see how it changed. My mother, if she's the first person in line, she'll change it.

Oh my gosh. I mean, I can't tell you. I have to correct things. She'll like tell me one of my stories back at me, and I'm just like, Mom, that's not at all what happened. Like you just said, well, her name was goody. Exactly what my mom would have done.

This episode is just all over the place. Do we have a purpose here today? Bunch of diversions?

Well, for New Year's Eve, everyone's going to be forgiving. They're gonna be, you know, preparing for their evening.

Listen, like, I thought these women were professional. I thought they were serious people. They are obviously not.

No, no. Wait till we get into the quickies.

Now, you know the real—oh, I forgot we have—okay. Think of one more voicemail. Hang on.

Hi, Cynthia and Trisha. Thank you for this podcast and for being such fierce and down to birth advocates who really shaped my birth experience, my daughter's birth experience earlier in this year in so many ways. I'd love to know what your favorite holiday tradition was growing up, or maybe a favorite holiday tradition that you created with your children. Merry Christmas.

Bye. Bye. There is one more after that.

Okay, well, first of all, I believe that traditions are super important. I think like traditions are the spice of life.

My son just told me this year, one of the things he just thanked me for was the effort I put into traditions. He loves tradition. That was sweet.

Kids love tradition. People love tradition. It just gives you something to look forward to, because there's always a positive feeling around it.

So I guess we probably, I probably have a lot of small traditions, but one of my favorite traditions around the holiday that is recent—in the last four or five years—is that I go away for Thanksgiving with my sister's family, and we rent this big, historic, beautiful home in Newport, Rhode Island.

The house is from the 1830s, I think it was built in the 1830s, so it's got all this history, and it's meticulously maintained, and it's just pristine and beautiful. And it just feels like of the times.

So we've been doing it for a few years. And this year I told everybody that they had to dress colonial. And nobody did it except me. But I did it, and I bought a really fun dress, you know, because I probably didn't push it enough. I just said I was doing it, that we all should do it. But I didn't help everybody get organized.

Yeah, you bought a great dress.

But I've had a great dress, and that was my Thanksgiving dress. And I think next year everybody will participate.

And you've done that for three years now, right?

This was our fourth. Our fourth year.

It feels so recent that you started that. That's so great.

And there's a great, massive, massive tree in the front yard. Because, of course, the house is from the 1800s. This tree has been there for God knows how long. It's never been cut down, and it has this little hole in it, like in To Kill a Mockingbird. Boo Radley is leaving things in the hole in the tree.

Oh, well, this hole's super high up. It's probably like 40 feet up in the air, and it's probably the size of a small dinner plate, like a dessert plate.

And my kids are lacrosse players, and they bring their lacrosse sticks every year, and they have this competition, and they spend hours and hours and hours outside in the yard trying to throw a lacrosse ball through the hole 40 feet up in the tree.

Into the hole, or through the hole?

Oh yeah, they get it usually. Actually, North got it two or three times this trip.

That's really fun. Fun tradition.

And what about when you were growing up?

Oh, let me think. Growing up, one of my favorite things was the way that my mother did Christmas. Instead of putting everything under the tree, she created a station, a gift station, for each of us. So we each had a segment of the living room that was our little station where our stocking was and all our gifts.

And she would make signs and put stuffed animals and everything that was special to each individual child. So it was just a different way of doing Christmas morning that was very special.

Just saying I remember part of that, so there was no handing out of presents.

Nope. Everybody had their little station, and you would go to your station.

Did your family open one at a time?

We would open one at a time. So we would watch, which usually gets hard after a while.

Okay, so growing up, my favorite tradition—we definitely had a bunch of traditions—but my favorite one, I would say, is every Christmas Eve my cousins would come over, which was a day I looked forward to the whole year, and it was so wonderful.

And my mother would cook the most spectacular— I mean, you know that this was still, and this still, this is starting to feel like old fashioned days— but she would be polishing the silver and just cook a beautiful meal.

And there'd be like 22 of us around the dining room table with all the leaves in it, and then the kids would run off and play.

And what we would do, of course, when my relatives would show up, they would come with bags of presents for us, and we would have presents for them and their families, and we all just had the best time hanging out.

And we would have to wait till midnight, and at midnight it was officially Christmas, and we would charge to the adults like, it's midnight, it's midnight. Can we open our presents now?

And we would. They would all come into the living room, and all of us would sit there, and my dad would play the accordion and the piano. We always sang the 12 Days of Christmas. We still do. Everyone taking a part of the song. We always sang that, and then opened our presents at midnight.

And midnight felt so late. We were so tired, but it was the most exciting thing.

You opened them all after midnight, all only with the relatives, and then they would all go home after that. And then in the morning, I would be the first to wake up my family, of course, being the youngest.

So at like 7am I would wake up my parents, and they would say, go wake up Don and Nick. And I'd run to my brothers and be like, it's Christmas morning, time to get up.

They'd be like, are mom and dad up yet?

I'd run to my parents. They said they'll get up when you get up. I'll just run back and forth till everyone got up.

Everyone would drag themselves up, and then the five of us would exchange our gifts down by our tree.

But that was our tradition. It was great.

And with our family, with my children, we have a lot of traditions, like our beautiful Christmas Eve brunch. I think that's our favorite. But what I did when all the years my kids were growing up, I always did a scavenger hunt of sorts in the house.

I wrote poems. I would write about 12 or 15 little riddles, and they were all little rhyming poems, and the kids would read them, and before Vanessa could read, Alex would read it out loud. And the riddle would give them a clue as to where the next clue was.

So they would read it. And I don't know, like I once had something in the piano bench, and it was something about like a seat that lifts, or a seat that opens, or something.

Anyway, they would run from spot to spot in the house finding their clues, and then with the final clue, there would be gifts for them.

Like one year, their gifts, just for the scavenger hunt, were wrapped presents that I had put in the dryer. So they had to solve the last one and run to the dryer, and that's where their gifts were.

But they had the best time doing that, and it was really, really fun.

That's a really fun tradition. I like that a lot. Really nice.

Well, we'll have to ask our community about their holiday traditions. We'll put that out on Instagram and share with everybody, because everybody needs to have a tradition. So if you don't have one, we'll give you lots of good ideas to start one.

All right, well, we have one more voicemail, but why don't we play that at the very end of the episode?

Oh, okay. We're gonna shift things up and do quickies. Yeah, for the end of the voicemails. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

Well, it is crazy, but why not? Let's just let the last voicemail be whatever someone left to us.

Okay, all right, so quickly. It's not a question, but yeah, let's see what has come in. I'll leave out all the birth ones because, of course, people submit birth ones, even when you can't resist birth and breastfeeding.

Okay, what's your favorite tea? What's your favorite tea of latte or LA, that's cute.

No, she means that's cute. I read it like that at first too. But she's doing a little play on words. What's your favorite tea of late?

Oh, cute. Oh, wow, that is. What's your favorite tea of latte? That's very clever. So I have to answer with a tea. I guess I'd rather answer with a latte.

Okay, you can do whatever you want. Not big on tea.

Okay, maybe she means what's your favorite tea or latte? So you can answer it that way.

My favorite latte is a latte, a cold one, iced.

You like an ice never. I will never drink a cold coffee.

All right. Well, you don't have to get furious at me about it.

Don't get it. What do you not get about it? It means to be hot.

When it's hot, I chug it in like three minutes. The minute it's not hot anymore, I just—I love to nurse a nice—I love the flavor. It's like an ice cream. I love it.

Ruins it for me.

Okay. My favorite tea of latte is the ginger tea from Trader Joe's, the ginger powder with lemon, fresh squeezed lemon in it. I drink it every day.

It's intense. My mother loves that tea. And do you put honey in it?

You don't put any honey. I don't put honey in it.

Oh, wow. It's delicious.

Yeah, it is good with honey in it. I don't know. I don't like it sweet.

Oh, okay. And I like my coffee black and hot, yes, I know, yeah. And never sweet.

You like it black and hot and never sweet.

Stop it.

I literally repeated what you said.

Okay, literally all I did sounded funny.

If you could have any other profession than your current, what would it be?

I'm sorry to be so predictable, but I've always said, I think the best professional job that there is is to be a professor. You're your own boss. It's delightful, like teaching is amazing. It's interesting, it's intellectually stimulating. It's unpredictable because of the questions you get. You make your own time, you set your own schedule, you have a great family lifestyle with it. I just think it's, I think it's the best career.

I'd be an author, a writer, or a trad wife. Is that a profession, trad wife? But let me think if I could just be any crazy, wild, unusual profession, what would I be?

Fighter pilot.

You'd be a fighter pilot.

I don't know. That just came to my mind. That'd be thrilling.

All right, don't know me.

To you. I—you don't know you. You think you'd be a fighter pilot? Who you gunning down?

Trisha, you're telling me I don't know you.

Okay, what state would you like to visit that you haven't ever before visited?

Oh gosh, I've been to a lot of states, one that I haven't visited. Oh my gosh. That's so hard to even think about. I—oh my gosh. I can't even, right now, I can't even think of a state I haven't been to. I haven't been to Colorado.

Well, you have to go there.

I know, it's crazy that I haven't been there. I've been to like South Dakota, all sorts of places on business, and I have never made it to Colorado.

Okay, so that's on your list.

Yeah. But I heard it changed a lot, so I got discouraged when I heard that. My husband went to undergrad at University of Colorado, at Boulder, and he just said it was amazing, but it's changed so much so that we sort of lost interest in going after that hearing that. But I bet it's still beautiful just to see the mountains, the Rocky Mountains. I mean, they're just impressive.

I'm gonna say I would go to Arkansas or Missouri.

Why?

Because I don't know where they are.

You need a place to wear your cowboy boots. You don't know where they are. Do you?

I can hardly picture where they are on the map. Really, they seem like random places.

Did you say Missouri or Mississippi?

Missouri. I go to Mississippi too.

Missouri isn't terribly far from where you grew up.

No, not that far. Yeah, I don't know. Just places that I can't really picture, like Oklahoma.

It's right above Texas. The panhandle of Oklahoma would be fascinating. That little strip, it's so funny.

Yeah, what goes on there? Let's go. Let's go and see. Let's go to the panhandle of Oklahoma.

It's in the middle of the country, so that's where we'll have our first big event. Treat everyone to the panhandle. Perfect.

Okay. It reminds me of the country Chile, where it's just like this long, skinny strip. What do you do with that? Just drive up and down life, your whole life, up and down, up and down.

What's a belief that you have that would totally be unexpected or shock people?

Mine's going to be that the smell of skunk is delicious.

Yeah, okay. We've talked about this.

Delicious. I love it. It doesn't bother me at all. It reminds me of my childhood in very nice ways. But it's, it's not like delicious to me.

I smell it and I'm like, more more.

I don't get that at all.

Not up close, though. If it's too close, it's really bad. It's got to be just the right amount of skunk.

All right. Let me see if I can—so what was the question? A belief? That's a belief. I don't know if that's a belief would surprise people.

Yeah, that's a belief that would totally be unexpected.

My belief is that we should go back to saying Merry Christmas rather than happy holidays.

Ah, good one.

I still would say happy holidays, because it can imply multiple holidays, including New Year's. But it's okay to say Merry Christmas.

I think it's important to say Merry Christmas if you celebrate Christmas, just as it's important to say Happy Hanukkah if you celebrate Hanukkah.

Jon Stewart once held up an ad from—it was an ad like a Macy's ad—and it said, I'll never forget this. It said, holiday ornaments for your holiday tree. Did you hear me? Yeah, there's not—it's a Christmas tree. Isn't that crazy? They got to the point where the word Christmas was so frowned upon, and they had a picture of a big tree, and the ad said holiday ornaments for your holiday tree. And I thought, nope, I'm out. You lost me.

That's it. Oh, my God.

Somebody just wrote in like six different questions.

Okay, wow. So we've got a lot more here now.

On a scale of innocent to troublemaker, where do you really sit? And why?

Oh, God, I'm so disappointing. What am I? What am I, like a troublemaker? Like, does that include teasing and joking with friends and telling you that goody two shoes is spelled differently and that it's French?

Let's call innocent a zero and troublemaker a 10. I mean, in my life, where do I sit on the scale?

I'm innocent as an innocent of wrongdoing sort of thing. I mean, I'm very, very—I'm very much on the innocent side, I believe. Don't you agree?

I'd give you like a one or two, yes.

But troublemaker with my friends, like convincing you that goody two shoes is a French word and that it's spelled totally differently—that's something I'm all about.

So I'm very much a troublemaker with mischief and joking, but that's where I draw the line.

But on that scale, with mischief and joking with friends, I'm very high on the scale, whether my friends like it or not.

Like when I convinced you that genes j, e, a, n, s and genes g, e, n, e, s are pronounced slightly differently.

I would still consider those very innocent things.

Yeah, that's me.

I probably err more on the troublemaker side.

Okay, what's an example, not your worst examples, please.

Oh yeah, let's keep those to ourselves.

But what about things we'll keep to ourselves? Fine.

I mean, little things like, you know, I will leave my car running in the parking lot when I run in to do something or park illegally.

Because I'm—believe you ever park in a handicap spot?

I do not park in handicap spots. No, that's mean.

Yeah. Well, the difference between a little bit of a rule breaker and being mean. I'm not mean, but I do think rules need to be bent at times.

I think some rules absolutely should be bent at times too. It depends on what they are. When they're arbitrary and don't serve anybody and you're not taking something from somebody else, I agree with you, yeah.

So as long as it's not hurting anyone, I'm going to cause a little trouble.

Cause little trouble.

Okay, so examples. At one time, I sat in first class when I didn't have a first class ticket.

That's freaking bold. I can't believe they didn't catch you there.

I was young, too.

That is so bold. I can't believe they didn't check the ticket.

I was the last person on the plane, and I was running late, and I just sat down.

I just cannot believe they didn't catch you.

Nope, they didn't ask a thing.

Okay, have you always had blonde hair, Trisha, and dark hair?

Cynthia, I've never dyed my hair a day in my life, or colored it or highlighted it. So this is my natural hair, and that's why you will start to see my gray coming in, because it most certainly is. And it's quite evident, I think, when I tilt my head certain ways on YouTube here.

So, yes, I've always had this hair color. Well, no, I didn't when I was young. It was the color of honey, then it became dark.

No, my hair is generally quite dark. Actually, it's only because I get highlights now that it's blonder.

It's quite dark. I bet that would look good on you.

Really? I thought it was like a medium brown.

It's pretty dark.

I guess it's medium brown, okay. It's kind of dark. It's medium to dark brown.

I guess we probably would look pretty good. Yeah, maybe I should stop getting highlights. I don't know. It's just you got to grow them out.

So, okay.

What clothing item is your favorite that you have had for decades and you could never replace?

I have a pair of jeans that are the brand Seven that I got when I was 20-ish, 20, 21, 22, something like that years old, and they are worn in all the right places to the perfect degree of wear and tear. And I will never get rid of them. And I still wear them, and they're my favorite, and I would wear them every single day if I could.

I have a leopard print top that I'm never going to get rid of.

When's the last time you wore it?

I don't remember the last time I wore it, but the first time I wore it, I was 26.

How about you wear it for the next podcast recording?

Oh, no, not for a podcast recording. We have to go out.

Oh, it's a going out top.

Yeah, and I just recently was talking about this top. It's interesting.

Okay, so we're gonna wear it out, and then we'll share a photo of it.

All right, I'll wear my jeans.

Okay, perfect.

All right, okay, I think we need to scratch that message.

Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. So we have one more voicemail to play, okay?

And if we leave it at this, if she's not asking us a question, then let's just wish everyone a happy, beautiful 2026 and a thank you to everyone for supporting our show, listening to us, sending us questions, understanding us, leaving us five star reviews, knowing when we're joking and when we're not, big part of it.

Yes, and we are kicking off season seven next Wednesday. We have a great episode lined up. We have a lot of great episodes starting off the new year. We do, and a big thing coming in 2026.

All right, so that's it. Thank you, everyone. Happy, healthy, beautiful New Year. And here's our final voice message.

Oh, hey, I've listened to you for almost a year before I decided to visit the HypnoBirthing of Connecticut website, and I was like, what Trisha pick doing here? And for the longest I had you two mixed up in my head. Trisha will always look like Cynthia and Cynthia like a Trisha. It's something I just can't seem to get past. I feel like I was taking crazy pills.

But I did want to call and let you all know that as the holidays approach, I just feel it's on my heart to let you know how deeply valued you are. You two are the best to do it, and I recommend down to birth to anyone who will listen. You have changed my life, and I thank you from the bottom of my redemptive home birthing mama heart. Cheers.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.