Podcast
What You Didn't Expect in Fertility, Pregnancy & Birth: Real Stories & Expert Insights
Hosted by Paulette Kamenecka · EN
Creating a family is a life transforming event that’s a lot harder than the culturally-generated marketing suggests.
Relying on the glossy media depictions of this transition leaves many women feeling like they are broken or failing when their actual experience doesn’t match their expectation.
I tripped over every step of this process: getting pregnant, being pregnant and giving birth on my way to having two kids.
This podcast showcases the really, really of people’s experiences:
* what they didn’t expect when they were expecting
* what they wish they’d known.
You’ll hear shareable insights gleaned from time in the IVF gauntlet, ways to manage the flattening nausea and fatigue of pregnancy, 40 hour labors and much more including expert medical insights to remake our expectations, making them more real, more human and more useful.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
What's the difference between PTSD & PPD: Teaser for *new show* Making Sense of Pregnancy
Jan 21, 202500:11:40Tap to summarizeFor this season, I'm going to migrate over to a new show called Making Sense of Pregnancy What Experts Want you to Know about Your Body:This show is meant to be a new pregnancy reference that should fill you with both information that's useful to your pregnancy and awe about the project of growing another human in your body and what science does and does not understand about this amazing process. I'm finding and talking with experts, doing cutting edge work to better understand pregnancy and what you can do to better understand your own experience. I was pregnant three times and each time I experienced things that I never saw in any book about pregnancy, which led me to dig deeper and try to find answers to some of these mysteries or talk about where we are in the hunt to better understand how pregnancy works. Each week, the research we highlight is focused on creating healthier pregnancies, Giving you the most current evidence-based way to approach this enormous transition in your life. I hope it will become your go-to source for how to make your pregnancy better. This is a teaser episode of Making Sense of Pregnancy. In this episode we'll talk about the distinct and important difference between childbirth related PTSD and postpartum depression. The two are often confused, and Its particularly important to figure out which path you may be on because although the symptoms can overlap, the treatment is entirely different. You can find Making Sense of Pregnancy: What Experts Want you to Know about your Body https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-sense-of-pregnancy-what-experts-want-you-to/id1779600854https://open.spotify.com/show/75WWhQawTcxSSn9xtXW5Bt
Transcribe →What happens when Endometriosis & Age aren't the final word on Fertility: Julia's story + Expert Insights, Part II
Jan 14, 202500:32:25Tap to summarizeThis week, we hear the rest of Julia's story. More endo, a bit older, a shorter menstrual cycle, a medical community that was suggesting the pregnancy was unlikely again. But Julia story should remind us to never bet against mother nature. I'm also including the insights of a functional nutrition and integrative women's health expert who focuses on endometriosis. Endometriosis is one of those topics that highlight how some areas of women's health have been historically. Let's say under researched. And if you go digging for those topics in the broad category of pregnancy, you will find more questions than answers. Because of that, I've started a new show called Making Sense of Pregnancy and which I interview scientists doing cutting edge work right now on a variety of topics to do with pregnancy. That may well change the way we manage and understand pregnancy both now and in the future. We pick up where we left off last time, Julia and her husband are trying to get pregnant with their second child and have run into endometriosis as an obstacle again. And the idea of IVF surfaces...To find Making Sense of Pregnancy--What Experts Want you to Know About Your Body: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/making-sense-of-pregnancy-what-experts-want-you-to/id1779600854
Transcribe →Rebroadcast: What Pregnancy can look like when it started with Undiagnosed Endometriosis: Julia's Story + Dr. Insights, Part I
Jan 7, 202500:30:08Tap to summarizePregnancy involves massive changes, and for some of us, one of the first hurdles is overcoming issues that have developed in our bodies that make getting pregnant and being pregnant difficult.On the road to becoming pregnant, today's guest learned that she had endometriosis, an issue that she'd painfully lived with for years without a diagnosis, and which required surgery before a pregnancy could develop.She also shares how the pregnancy and birth fulfills an earlier premonition. Women's health, especially around fertility and pregnancy has not historically gotten the attention. It deserves. I've started a new podcast called Making Sense of Pregnancy in which I'm tracking the impressive progress. That's been made more recently in these areas. You can catch my new show. Making Sense of Pregnancy here: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/making-sense-of-pregnancy-what-experts-want-you-to/id1779600854
Transcribe →What Inspired this Mother to Do an Iron Man & Swim Solo Across the English Channel: Gil's birth story + OB insights, Part II
Dec 31, 202400:36:42Tap to summarizeThis is the second half of my rebroadcast conversation with Gill, a mother from England who experienced lots of physical challenges with her premature birth, which changed her life. The birth gave her a beloved son, but it also dramatically shifted her life: away from the job she'd had and the life she'd imagined into something entirely different and ultimately completely inspiring. Now: she's an advocate for women who encounter birth trauma and a full time source of inspiration. Today we pick up where we left off last week. Gill has finally met with a consultant who accurately diagnoses the tear she sustained in birth. Chameleon Buddies: https://chameleonbuddies.org.uk/Beyond Fistula: https://beyondfistula.org/
Transcribe →REBROADCAST: What One Woman Did to Turn Birth Trauma into a Movement for Resilience and Awareness: Gil's Birth Story + OB insights, Part I
Dec 24, 202400:35:17Tap to summarizeToday's guest overcame all the challenges that met her in birth, including a premature birth, a fourth degree tear and a misdiagnosis and a fistula and a stoma. Despite that list, this is an amazing story of resilience. Having had so many elements of her life overturned by her experience of birth, she was reborn in a way she could never have predicted.She's challenging all the ideas that had created limits on her life and in the process, raising awareness and money for others who've experienced birth trauma and are living with a stoma.
Transcribe →What this mom learned about Triumph and Heartache through 7 pregnancies: Sascha's Birth Story, Part II
Dec 17, 202400:34:01Tap to summarizeToday I finish my conversation with Sascha. We hear about her triumphant home birth with her fourth pregnancy and the challenging outcomes of the two pregnancies that followed: what her experience was with the screening and diagnostic testing, and how she's moved on to her current pregnancy. We pick up where we left off last week: Sascha is being ushered to the hospital by her husband, so as to avoid a home birth with their third child.
Transcribe →What is the Key to zeroing in on the right approach to Birth? Sascha's Birth Story, Part I
Dec 10, 202400:33:51Tap to summarizeToday we hear the really really from a woman whose experiences dramatically changed her approach to birth, from having the first one at a hospital, assuming that was the norm, to having her husband catch the fourth baby at her home birth, with a midwife looking on from the sidelines. She shares how she managed the challenges of extreme nausea, scary test results, and more.diastasis recti:https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22346-diastasis-recti
Transcribe →What Happens when GBS visits your pregnancies repeatedly? Atara's birth story, Part II
Dec 3, 202400:32:06Tap to summarizeIn today's episode we hear about the rest of Atara's experience. She talks about managing GBS and its consequences with her newborns, and the importance of nutrition before pregnancy.We pick up today where we left off last week. Atara is pregnant with her second child and is experiencing a numbness on the left side of her body. She has figured out that she should be in the emergency room and what follows is what she encountered there...
Transcribe →What Happens when a Birth Center Birth Moves to the Hospital? Atara's Birth Story, Part I
Nov 26, 202400:33:05Tap to summarizeIn today's episode my guest, who is a therapist, shares her experiences of four births and all the many things she learned things like holding lightly to the birth plan as she's moved from the birth center to a hospital when her cervix is reluctant to fully dilate, holding lightly the plan to return to work three months after delivery when postpartum
Transcribe →What Mindset helps you manage Miscarriage that Doesn't go as planned? Kristen's Story, Part II
Nov 19, 202400:29:45Tap to summarizeToday I finish my conversation with Kristen. This week we hear about:* two challenging miscarriages* drugs for miscarriage versus D and C procedure* Insights on how to think about the miscarriages* Her current pregnancy We pick up where we left off. Kristen is talking about getting pregnant a 4th time, around 9 months after the last birth, and how this time things don't go well...Must Watch video with Elizabeth Banks from the American Heart Associationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JI487DlgTAReferences for Oocyte Aginghttps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-many-eggs-does-a-woman-have#pubertyhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10080932/
Transcribe →