← The MSing Link
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- [00:00]
Host (Possibly Gretchen Holley)
Before we jump into today's episode, I want to quickly tell you about something that I am super excited about. If you have Ms. And you feel like you're doing all the right things, but you're still not seeing the progress that you hoped for in your daily life, you are definitely not alone. And that is exactly why I created Ms. Summer Camp. It's a five day live experience happening July 27th through 31st, where I'll be teaching live every day and answering questions every day and helping you better understand your walking balance, strength, fatigue and movement so you can stop guessing and feel more confident moving forward. And if you're thinking it's summer, it's hot. I already struggle with fatigue and heat intolerance. The last thing that I want is another exercise program. I completely understand. That's actually one of the reasons that Summer camp is designed to be primarily educational. The goal isn't to give you more to do, it's to help you get clearer on what matters most for your body, your symptoms and your goals.
- [01:12]
Dr. Gretchen Holley
If you've ever wished you could ask
- [01:14]
Host (Possibly Gretchen Holley)
me your questions and get my thoughts on your specific situation and learn alongside other people with ms, I'd love to have you join us. You can learn more and save your spot using the link in the description. I hope to see you inside.
- [01:36]
Dr. Gretchen Holley
The big question is how does someone with Ms. Actually improve their mobility, strength, energy independence? The list goes on. My name is Dr. Gretchen Holley, physical therapist and multiple sclerosis specialist. Specialist. Welcome to the Missing Link podcast. Tune in as I share the top strategies and exercises to help you gain control over your life with Ms. Using research driven insights and advice from top industry experts. Whether you're newly diagnosed or have had Ms. For over 30 years, whether you have relapsing Ms. Or progressive MS, this podcast is for you. You're sure to feel empowered and inspired after each episode.
- [02:25]
Host (Possibly Gretchen Holley)
Ready?
- [02:26]
Dr. Gretchen Holley
Let's dive in.
- [02:35]
Host (Possibly Gretchen Holley)
Welcome back. I am so excited for today's episode because this is my first episode that I am recording post maternity leave and having my baby, my second daughter and I wanted to share part of my birth story with you first and foremost because so many of my Missing Link members and social media followers have been asking, but also because it's made me intensely aware of something that I think we all go through, especially when you have a disease like multiple sclerosis. And it's something that I have realized several times throughout my life, but it just hit me again and it's such a strong reminder that I want to remind you of as well, especially with a chronic illness that can make you feel down and less than your older self. Pre diagnosis, I'm just going to dive into it. I had my baby 8 weeks ago from the time of this recording, and there's so many thoughts around it. Her name is Scarlett Townsend Brzezinski. She weighed 8 pounds and 3 ounces, and I would say for the most part, she is a very easy baby so far. I almost feel like I want to whisper that because I don't want to jinx anything, but she obviously cries, but for the most part, she cries for a reason and so we're able to figure it out pretty quickly and then she stops crying. Whereas with my first daughter, Nora, there were lots of episodes where I don't know why she was crying like she wasn't hungry there. It just seemed like there was no reason for it. But Scarlett Townsend Brzezinski, her name is extra special because her middle name, Townsend, is honoring my husband's mom who passed away just this past year in November of 2025. And so anytime I look at her and think of her name, I'm just thinking of her. And that was not that long ago. So I like being reminded her. And this episode isn't really about childbirth or my birth story. It's about realizing how strong you already are, even if you've forgotten it or especially if you don't feel it. But going back to my birth story, one decision for me that was really weighing on me the entire time I was pregnant, and honestly, right up until she arrived was how did I want to deliver this baby? My first daughter, Nora, was breach. So the only option due to medical necessity was a C section. And I was terrified. I have another podcast episode where I share the full birth story from that experience. But this time my baby was not breech. And so I had a choice. I could do a C section or. Or I could try for a vbac. Or now they call it tolac, which is basically trial of labor after cesarean or vaginal birth after Cesarean. However, one thing that made it a little bit tricky is that my local hospital, which I live in a small town, so my local hospital does not have enough staff for me to try a VBAC or a tolac. My only option if I wanted to stay at the local hospital, which truly is three minutes, a three minute drive from my home, was to have a C section. So that was really appealing because my family is here. My daughter could keep her normal routine, but I really strongly wanted to try for A vbac. And if I'm being honest, I felt a lot of shame for choosing a C section when there wasn't a medical reason. I have always loved the idea of a natural birth at home even. And I have lots of friends who have had natural births at home. And it just seems like such a magical experience. And I really, really wanted to experience that. But at the same time, a C section meant that I could be closer to my family. My daughter could still have my husband bring her to and from daycare, my parents could stay with my daughter, and it just was so much more convenient. And at the end of the day, even looking back, I did have the C section and I 100% think it was the right call, even just with what happened within the first 24 hours of the birth. So Scarlett arrived safely. Everything was looking great. However, my heart rate dropped for almost a full 24 hours. It was down in the 40s, which is very low. And also my iron levels dropped significantly. So much so that the nurses and doctors hooked me up to an EKG to make sure that my heart was okay. They wouldn't let me get out of bed, which after a C section, generally speaking, they want you to be up and walking within four to six hours. They made me wait. I believe it was about 12 hours before I could even try because they were worried about my health and status. So lots of stuff was happening within those first 24 hours. Meanwhile, my parents had Nora. We also recently got a puppy. Ask me why. I. I don't know. I don't know what we were thinking. He is a really great dog for the most part, but we got a puppy when I was six, seven months pregnant. But we sent him to a camp so that we didn't have to worry about dealing with him for the first few weeks of us coming home with the baby. And my other dog, Finn, was with my parents. Jeff was doing daycare runs, so he, my husband, was picking up my 2 year old from home and bringing her to daycare, picking her up from daycare. And while all that was happening, my family was rotating in and out of the hospital. And so I'm so grateful that we did stay local because I did need someone to be there with me. And the other option, if I were to have a VBAC, would be to go to a hospital that was 45 minutes away that I had never been to. Didn't know any of the doctors there. And so even just within the first 24 hours, I thought, oh my gosh, this is. It's so nice to have this support for me as well as my other daughter and for my husband so close. And recovery this time around was much faster than expected. If I'm being honest, the surgery itself of the C section was worse this time around. I felt much more of it. It was very, very uncomfortable and I just didn't experience that last time. So I was very surprised and happy when recovery was moving faster than expected. I was walking a little bit faster than the last time. I was feeling stronger even though my heart rate was plummeting and my iron levels too. Overall, I was actually feeling better and stronger faster than the first time. So I was very grateful for that. My 2 year old Nora came to meet Scarlet at the hospital and it was important for me. She had never been in a hospital and I didn't want her to see see me sitting in a bed different than what she normally sees me as. So I did make it a point to be out of bed and to greet her at the door. And so my husband brought her to the hospital after daycare pickup and you could tell that she was a little timid and confused by her surroundings. And my husband and I thought that she just wasn't going to care about the baby at all. We thought she'd be very indifferent, but she was, was so interested in Scarlet and it was very cute. She kept poking her and petting her hair. She wanted to just like touch her and see like who is this? What is this? She stayed in my husband's arms the whole time. She didn't want to be let down, but she was very interested. And ever since coming home, Nora has wanted to hug Scarlet every single night before bed and hold her even though she's only two years old old. So we are heavily assisting in that. But she's been the sweetest with Scarlett, which is the best thing that you can ask for. The first night home, definitely lots of cluster feeding. We were up every hour. The hardest part for me about that though was that once we were up, she was staying awake for two to three hours and that was so exhausting. But I hate to say this out loud as well, cause I don't want to jinx anything but. But we are at about eight weeks right now and Scarlett has slept through the night for the last four or five nights and my first daughter Nora was the same. So I'm kind of hoping she's just a really great sleeper now, now that we've gotten through that chaos. But another piece that have felt pretty chaotic for me was the morning routines. My husband took two weeks of work off, which was lovely. We had our first two weeks together, but once he went back to work, mind you, he does work from home, so he was really just in the basement and he was able to help out at times. But the morning routine with two kids versus one was chaos. And to be honest, we're still trying to get into a good routine, but it was a lot. And it reminded me of my trigger to noise sensitivity. Because what was happening was Scarlett was awake at the same time as Nora. So Scarlet, who's this beautiful blob of a baby, can't hold her head up. I have to be holding her and my 2 year old needs me to get her out of the crib and get her dressed and get her fed. And so caring for two kids at one time when you're not used to doing that and the baby's crying, but then the 2 year old can't pick out what shirt she wants to wear. It was just a lot to have two people needing me. So, like, physically and emotionally at the exact same time. We are getting into a routine now. It only feels chaotic maybe a few times per week. And I'm sometimes able to make sure Scarlett is asleep when I get my two year old up. So we're figuring it out. We're figuring out what that new normal looks like little by little. But my main point of why I wanted to record this episode for, for you is that there was one day within the last week or so where everything was going as normal as, you know, seven weeks or so that we've been in this routine. But something for some reason made me stop and have this realization. So this situation was I was sitting on the couch and I was feeding Scarlett in one hand. So I'm holding her with my left arm and I have my wrist and at this weird angle so that I could hold the bottle. So holding one kid in one arm with the same hand, having the bottle in the other hand, I have a microphone because my 2 year old came up to me and wanted me to sing the Wheels on the Bus with her. She absolutely loves that song. So she says, mama, sing, and passes me the microphone. So I'm holding onto the microphone in my other hand. And Frankie, our puppy, who's back home with us now, he was on the floor getting into something. So with one foot I was trying to move something away. And to be honest, it was a lot of chaos. It was feeding one, singing at the same time and scooting something away with my foot. But in that moment I thought wait, I'm doing it. I am doing three things right now. Like look at me go. I was so motivated. I even tell my told my husband that night. Like I felt like super mom today. Like I did these three things at the same time. Also, I just want to point out I honestly do not know how moms of three are able to do it. Being a mom of two. I know I'm still in the early phases and I'll get used to it. But holy moly, it is a different beast than than a mom of one. But I had this feeling of wow, I've got it. And I know I might not feel this way tomorrow, but right now I look how much I'm doing. Like I'm doing it. And I had a follow up thought of I wouldn't have known that I was this strong and that I could do this if I hadn't been hard first. And just really within the last few days I had the same thought and reminder again. Because if you've listened to some of our previous podcast episodes over the last few months, you may have heard that I was in excruciating back pain for the entire last month of pregnancy. I fell down my stairs when I was seven months pregnant and had a lot of pain in a lot of different areas. The baby was fine but had a lot going on from that. And then I healed and then out of nowhere excruciating back pain. I was essentially on bed rest for the last month and and I had this realization, honestly within the last few days of oh my gosh, I did that. I didn't feel it in the moment, in the moment I was just feeling like this freaking hurts, like I couldn't do anything. It was so limiting. But I was still moving around my home probably more than I should have been. I still put my daughter, my 2 year old, down for bed at night and did bedtime routine. I still did bath time even though I was in so much pain and part of me is now realizing I need to get better at asking for more help. But also just that thought of I did that. Look what I was going through and I did that. And I don't think I would have realized that I was that strong and could get through moments like that if I hadn't been presented with it. And I I know that multiple sclerosis is very different. I am not trying to compare my experience to ms, but I share this because I think that it's something universal that happens to all of us when life asks more of us than what we expected. And I've seen it in so many people that I work with where we realize that we. We don't know what we're capable of until we have no other choice. And I just want to remind you that you are so much stronger than you think and even so much stronger than you feel. I know it's really hard in the moment to think of that, especially when you might be comparing yourself to the way that you used to move or the strength that you used to have, or the balance that you used to have. But I want you to remember even just the smallest moments throughout your day that you're proving those negative thoughts. Otherwise, because more likely than not, you got out of bed today. That took emotional strength and physical strength. If you got dressed today, if you walked around your home today, all of that requires emotional and physical strength. I hope that you are able to remind yourself of that every so often. Because it's so easy to just go about our day in the mundane way that it may or may not feel, doing the same things or similar things and just not stop and realize, holy cow, like, I'm actually doing it. You know, especially with ms, especially with fatigue, you very easily could choose to sit all day, and that would be okay, too. But if you are choosing to move, if you're choosing to stand up, that counts. That requires strength. And again, you're just so much stronger than you think you are and so much stronger than you feel. And my recent experience, both of just realizing how much pain I was in, yet I still did so many things and my whole birth story and realizing, wow, I made those hard decisions, I went through that, and. And now being a mom of two and realizing I needed to step up to the plate and I'm doing three things at once. While I could choose to feel overwhelmed by that. And sometimes I do in the moment, just feeling and realizing, wow, I'm making this happen, and that that's pretty badass. Strength often doesn't look like what we imagined or think of strength to be. Sometimes it looks like asking for help, or in my recent scenario, it looks like accept the C section instead of choosing to feel shame around it. Sometimes it looks like holding a toy microphone while feeding your newborn and shoving something away from your puppy and realizing, I've got this. So we are so much more capable than we think, and we don't always find out until something asks us to rise. But I just want to thank you for being a listener and for being on this journey with me. It is so crazy to think that I'm no longer pregnant anymore. Which is a crazy thing to say, but so many of my podcast episodes were when I was recording and feeling pain or limitation in some way, shape or form. And I just want to thank you for being a listener and for following along through my pregnancy and my maternity leave and now joining me in this new chapter of I am so grateful for you and this community as a whole. So, so so much. And I hope this episode reminds you of how strong you are.
- [21:06]
Dr. Gretchen Holley
Thank you for listening to today's show.
- [21:08]
Host (Possibly Gretchen Holley)
I am so grateful to have you as a listener.
- [21:12]
Dr. Gretchen Holley
If you'd like extra resources such as a video of one of my seated exercise classes, my favorite core exercises, and the opportunity to ask me your questions, head to missinglink.com insider. That link will be shared in the show notes along with links to my social media handles. If you love this episode and think a friend or family member with Ms. Would benefit from listening, please go ahead and text or email this podcast podcast to them right now. Sharing this podcast will help me educate and empower as many Ms. Warriors as possible. Thanks again for joining and be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the Missing Link Podcast.