#31: Let's Support Mothers with Guest, Teresa Urbina of NurtuHer

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We're Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a San Antonio area realtor and lender, but most importantly, we're working moms.

The goal of this podcast is to provide support and a sense of community to San Antonio area working moms like us. So join us in trying to find a balance between career, family, and everything in between. Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're here with Teresa Urbina, and she is a perinatal mental health therapist. And I'm going to now turn it over to her for her to be able to talk about all the stuff she does.

Well, good afternoon, ladies. I'm so excited to be here with you today. As Erika just mentioned, I am Teresa Urbina, a perinatal mental health therapist, and I am the founder and CEO of NurtureHer, a maternal mental health care service where our mission is to bridge the gap in access to care for mothers, for those who are trying to conceive, pregnancy, and postpartum. Not only is this just offered for women in the perinatal here, but postpartum is forever. So we also work with women who are empty nesters, who have been a mother for years, who have teenagers, who have tweens, who have young children. So our mental health services are available for everyone. Not only do we provide just mental health— while that's at the core, we are also here to provide that wraparound care for moms when they are trying to find, how do I plan for my maternity leave? We provide that support with Retain Parental coaching services. And then I am also a Fair Play certified, uh, provider, which means that I help moms and couples learn how to equally distribute the home load. So all the responsibilities that we have at home, we learn how to share that. And how to make it equally distributed, not just with your partner, but age-appropriate for your children. This method not only works for couples and relationships, it also works with roommates, it also works within the workplace dynamics. So a lot of great services that we have and more to come. We are softly launching our platform, but there is more to come in the upcoming year, so stick around, follow me on social media where you can see what it is that we're going to be launching as the year progresses. I'm really excited about that. I want to so much share it, but it's all work in progress, so I can't just openly share it out loud just right now. But those, for right now, those are what we're offering, um, and I'm, I'm really excited to be able to have this to bring to the community, uh, especially because I am also focusing on the Hispanic population. Even though I service all moms, I have worked with the diverse population. I think that the voice of Hispanic women has not been heard. We have a big platform right now for Black women, and they are using their voice, and I am very empowered by them using their voice. And I'm like, all right, I want to be that Hispanic Latina woman that is using our voice and that is making a difference for women out there. So A lot of the work that I'm doing is coming from my big passion, but also because I recognize how a lot of these mental health concerns have gone unnoticed for Hispanic women.

Sure.

And when I think of it, when I think of what my mom went through, she had miscarriages. To before me, I think of, I wonder what that was like for my mom.

Yeah.

Well, Teresa, culturally we don't talk about it. I come from a very Hispanic background. They don't, my mom as well too, before me. And she didn't speak about it until I was later in, none of us knew. Nobody knew that that happened.

So, and it's not shared. And it, I think back then it was really, and not just back then, because even now I receive that message, just you got to suck it up. Yeah, um, tienes que seguir fuerte. You gotta stay strong. That's like a message that is really pushed on, and it's like, what the heck is strong? Yeah, yeah, that's true, because holding that dam up— I'm going to use the metaphor of a dam as my feelings. Like, when I'm thinking of holding that up, that is much more harder to do, like to hold all those emotions in.

Yeah.

And to hold those tears back than for me to let them out. If I just let them out, man, that feels so much better instantly. Like my body feels less tense. I feel good. My, my feelings feel like I start to feel better. But when I'm holding that up all day, like that is not strong, at least for me. That takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy. And at the end of the day, and, and I think a lot of moms can identify with this, is at the end of the day, when you're doing that all day, you're experiencing some type of fatigue, mental fatigue. Yeah, you're experiencing this exhaustion, physical as well. That tension just lives in your body all day.

Yeah.

And you're like, why do I feel this tired? Why am I feeling this way? A lot of it's because of that. And so when I think back to like my mom's experience, and I'm thinking of her mental health, because pregnancy loss, pregnancy or infant loss, is also another taboo thing that you don't talk about regardless of what culture you're in. That grief that women feel, they're told to get over it. And I come back to my mom and I think of Wow, what was her mental health like? How did that play in our family dynamic? If my mom was provided these services not based on socioeconomic status, because a lot of times these services weren't even available unless you had the money for them. There's barriers to that because if there was no provider that was Hispanic that could culturally identify or be able to understand the language— now my mom did speak English, but I'm relating this to others that their parents may not have spoken English. There was these barriers, so there was no way that they could even form the words or give language to what they were experiencing to their provider.

Yeah, well, and if the provider would listen. I have boys that are teenagers now, but I remember going to see my OB-GYN And I had a friend who also used the same OB-GYN. We happened to be pregnant at the same time. And her daughter is 6 weeks younger than my son. And she suffered from some postpartum. Now we know it was postpartum, years. And the doctor was an older doctor and shared, "You'll be fine. That's normal. You'll get over it." And not realizing for years she was suffering from postpartum. And it's just because that particular doctor came from a culture like, "Eh, that's what all women do.

All women go through that." Yeah, and I think that message is still very clear. I'm— I'll be 6 months postpartum in 4 days, and I remember this time around I was— because of the work that I do, I have met with so many different women that work within the perinatal scope. I've been able to sit in on webinars and meetings where there are— with policy makers and changers that are advocating for parental leave, paid parental leave, that are advocating for women to be able to pump during work hours. So more rights for women. And in this year, we've seen the Pump Act release, which allows women to take their breaks as they need to without any repercussions. That is awesome, that's amazing. And then we also saw the Pregnant Workers Act come through, which gives more of this sense of comfort, because I remember when I was pregnant and I was in the workplace, my first pregnancy. I didn't want, I didn't want to tell you when I was pregnant because I didn't want for that— there was like this shame to it. Like, it's a beautiful thing, but you don't want to be shamed for it because I'm pregnant and now I have to work harder. Now people are gonna have— are gonna think that I'm, I'm slacking it. And I was so sick. I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum with both pregnancies. There was no way that I could function. I could not function. I lived near the restroom. Yeah, I could not eat. Oh my goodness, it was not the best experience. And my first pregnancy was where I just was taking these mental notes. I was a mental health therapist. I was not in this profession, this specialization, just yet, but I was taking these mental notes of, man, this feels I don't like this. I can see how— I can see why some women don't want to get pregnant again, but I didn't understand the concepts just yet. I was just making note of my experiences.

Yeah, right. Yeah, you know, in our group we see a lot of women ask similar questions or say similar things about not wanting to share their pregnancy in the workplace or wondering when they should, or almost like when when they legally have to because they want to avoid it so bad that they'll wait until the last minute because they fear the repercussions of maybe being penalized for having to miss or being penalized for various things. And that just makes me so sad. I mean, I've worked for myself for a long time, but I have been pregnant in a situation where I was working for another person. Luckily, my employer was very kind and accommodating if I wasn't feeling well or different things like that, but I totally know that's not everybody's situation.

And you're absolutely right, you just hit the nail on the head with what you said. There's— women fear penalization. Women fear that if they just disclose, 'I'm pregnant,' how is the workplace going to receive that? Am I going to be retaliated against?

Yeah.

And this is what the Pregnant Workers Act brings in. It gives women their rights. They can ask now for more accommodations. If working from home is available How can I transition into that? Well, during the season where I'm needing this extra help and needing to tend for myself, right? And so this is such a great movement for women, for the rise of taking our power back, for allowing our voices to be heard, because for so long pregnancy was just like, okay, well, women are getting pregnant every single day, they're doing this. And society had this really high expectations where you gotta just deal with it, don't complain about it, pregnancy isn't that bad. And I will hold myself accountable, when I did not have kids, I used to judge pregnant women too. Come on, that's not that hard, you can't bend down to pick that up. And my gosh, did I swallow my words whenever I became pregnant. I was it was very hard to bend down and or put on your shoes. So yes, I, I don't know, the world, the universe gave that back to me and said, you will learn. And I did learn. And now I'm in a position where I want to educate the world, where I'm not just women, but maybe when I think of my platform, I think of I'm not just putting this out there for moms. I'm putting this out there for the support system of moms. I'm putting this out there because one day you may be a mom. Maybe this doesn't apply to you right now. And I think that where— what I've noticed is that in this work that I've done, I've learned just how good of listeners we aren't. And I think I've learned that because one thing that I've been working on recently is I've been writing a letter, and this letter is to my friends, to my mom friends. That were moms before me, done some self-reflection.

Yeah.

And they were moms at a much younger age. And I think of— I thought of, man, I know what my experiences have been. Even though I am a perinatal mental health therapist, it doesn't mean that I don't go through the trenches of postpartum.

Sure.

It doesn't mean that life isn't hard being a mom. It just means that I understand it I'm trained and skilled to be able to support other moms through it, and because of that, I can be here for you and model what that looks like. And my letter is a self-reflection of, wow, I was not a good listener. I wasn't able to be there for you when you needed the most support in your life because I didn't understand. I'm not letting that be my excuse. I'm saying I didn't understand because I was not a good listener. And I think that's what makes it very hard for us to be supportive of one another.

Yeah, I, I think that's why you have a lot of maybe younger people not wanting children these days. Like, a lot of women are like, yeah, that can wait. I think they have seen people go through the hard part of it and not understanding what they're going through or not wanting to go through it themselves, or not having the support system to understand what a postpartum timeframe looks like. That is, it's not just the 6 weeks might be 8 weeks, it might be 2 years, and it, it can go for a long time. So I was reading an article not so long ago showing that obviously birth rates are down, not as many people are having as many children or not having children at all. And I think sometimes they see how the workplace reacts or how maybe even family members react or friends react to it, and not— they don't have that support group. So that you see obviously not as many births these days.

Yeah.

Ah, where's my village?

Yeah, exactly. And we've talked about this before, Teresa, but I didn't know that the services that you offer women even existed when I first met you. Obviously therapists exist and things like that, but I didn't know there was someone that specialized so down into perinatal stuff or that. And I wish I had. I went through a period of time after my children where you get a bit of baby blues and stuff. And I think we even talked about this, but it was like, I was sad and I felt okay, like it wasn't severe. But I remember thinking like, is it gonna get severe? Like, how will I know? How will I know when I need to tell somebody about this sadness that I'm going through? Or how do I know if it's normal, whatever they would like to call baby blues or that kind of thing. And so I think that if I had known that some of these services existed, I might have felt more like mentally equipped instead of just constantly being worried about, oh my gosh, I'm sad, they say this can happen, but they say this can get really bad, like when is it really bad? And so I just think that's why it's so important that you do offer these services and that more people know about them.

And I'm so glad that you both invited me to be on here because I think it's important to talk about it, to talk about what's not talked about, to talk about the hidden parts of motherhood. And I'm going to circle back to where, where I went to with pregnancy this time around, because you just said something so important, Erika, and that was, how do I know what's normal? In this work that I've been able to meet with so many different women, and the— I think the reason why we come into our field, our professions, is because there's something so profound in our lives that have happened and we say, all right, I don't want for someone else to have to go through this. And for me as a healer and as an empath, that was what it was. I was now starting to listen to my friends, to my mom friends. I was now starting to listen to myself because motherhood really was, girl, you've gotta slow down. If I didn't need any other sign from the universe. COVID also happened when I became a mom, a first-time mom. My son was born a week before the quarantine shutdown. So was that experience a whole lot of traumatic? Yes, it was.

Yeah.

And I know a lot of other moms that gave birth during COVID or were pregnant during COVID Those are 3 years, a 3-year, maybe 2 and a half year to 3 years. That is We have something so unique that no other mom will ever be able to relate to. And there are a lot of moms who were experiencing loss from that, loss of these birth— these visions of what birth would look like for them, what bringing home a baby would look like for them, what having a gender reveal, what having family in a village would look like. So all those visions were taken away. So it's a loss. And for a lot of women, what they were going through, they probably don't know, is grief, because we have to grieve these moments that are taken away from us by being able to work with— in this field and being able to connect with so many women there. I've met with pelvic floor therapists and— hello, no, ma'am, it is not okay that you pee when you laugh or you sneeze.

Yeah, I know, but people, people just say that. It's like, oh, that's normal.

There we go. And now we're getting back to where I'm coming at is we're told that all of these things are normal, that pain in pregnancy is normal, that discomfort in pregnancy is normal, that the sadness, that the, that it's hormones. We gaslight ourselves like, oh, it's just the hormones.

But you know what, Teresa, a lot of people think that women share everything. You know how that, oh, they go in the bathrooms in twos and they share everything, we talk about everything. But I don't think we really do, even with our friends, our moms, our sisters, grandmas, whatever, that we don't typically share, hey, I laugh and I have to go to the bathroom, or this was because we just don't go into detail. So when Erika was mentioning, hey, is this normal? Some of us don't know because we don't know how to judge it. We don't know what's normal because we don't share as much as people or maybe society thinks that we do. So having someone like you that's available to say, hey, I don't know if this is normal, is this weird to anybody else? And you can obviously have lots of— you can share like, hey, this is something we go through and you talk to, but everybody's experience is going to be unique to them.

Absolutely. And this is one of the big questions that I help my clients with is becoming an advocate for yourself. So my work is not just postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety, which are the two big well-known perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, but I work with women through burnout to learn how to set boundaries, to become advocates for themselves. And part of that advocacy is going into the doctor's office and saying, okay, at what point is this not normal? Is at what point does my pain— because your pain is your pain, no one else knows that, no one else knows your discomfort— at what point do I find someone that can support me through this? And so just the system, it's the system that we live in, it's not set up to take care of women.

I feel as women, um, people for some reason, and I guess it's because most of the time women can, generally speaking, hold it together, right? We can do this and we can do that, and we can also do this and keep piling it on because, you know what, we're going to keep going and we're going to keep doing it. And so I think in general, people are uncomfortable when women are down, when they're having a hard time. They don't want to hear that. They want to hear that we're pushing through, and they want to hear that we're breaking the ceiling, and they want to hear that we're doing this and doing this. But when you're having a hard time, nobody likes to hear that when women are having a hard time. And so I think women get that vibe, and so they They don't say it, you know what I mean? It's no, we're not going to say we're being that.

We're being that boss babe.

We're being that mom or whatever.

Like mompreneur or whatever. It's hard. I shared a graphic into our group the other day and it really hit home. Like it was 3 women and 3 men in suits in a race and their race, the men's race was clear path, whereas you have a woman's kids' clothes, laundry. There's a laundry washing machine and cooking and all these other things that go on in their path in order to be successful. Right. That we just figure women can just handle it all and they'll get to the finish line when they get there. They don't realize that some of that burden, some of that, the tiredness is not normal. You can share some of the workload with your partner, with your family, with whatever the case is. But I don't think as women we know that we can ask for that sometimes. And when we do, we're at our end meet and I'm like, I'm crazy now. You're only listening to me because I'm screaming because I'm crazy.

But I've been asking.

Yeah, I might have said this nice a bunch of times and no one was listening. And then you yell and scream and it's like, why are you always yelling and screaming? It's like, I said it so nice so many times. You just didn't listen to me.

I live in a household full of boys and they don't hear. I'm like, I've asked 40 times, please pick up this and put it over there. Like, I'm just tired of picking up water bottles everywhere. Put away. But again, mom's supposed to be able to handle it all. And I'm like, I'm stressed with the economy, we're stressed with work, we're stressed with grades and with all these different things. And I actually asked myself the other day, like, this can't be normal, right?

Is everybody this tired?

So I never thought about going and talking to someone about that specific need as a woman, as a mom. As a working mom, hey, there's someone there that can actually help you work through this and learn how to ask for help a better way. So I'm super— I was super fascinated when you brought your career to us and showed us that, hey, this is what I'm going to be doing. And I'm like, that's real? That's— wow, that's like a fairy godmother.

I had never thought of it in that perspective. So I am odi that. But what you both are naming right now is all of the societal expectations of women and of mothers specifically. There is such a high demand for what women and mothers are expected to do, how they're expected to do it. We call it the Superwoman complex, where you've got to be Superwoman and have this superpower because now you're a mom and you should be able to do all of the things and carry it with grace and look fabulous while you're doing it. When I think— what I'm saying is, and I'm thinking of when Kate Middleton gives birth and then has to come out immediately after. Yeah, she just gave birth and she looks— she looks done up, but how miserable could that possibly be?

Yeah, because I didn't want to put makeup on, I didn't want to wear clothes, like, I just don't want anybody touching me. And you have to present yourself as we're all good, everything's great, and you have to present a certain way.

As if labor wasn't— they call it labor for a reason because it really is work on the body. And it is the one medical— not even condition— medical process. I don't— the word's not coming to me, but it's that one medical thing that women go through in their life, and then they're sent home. Now you gotta You're in recovery.

Yeah.

There is no treatment plan for that recovery. There is no support. There is no— you go to the hospital and you have surgery and you come home with a referral for physical therapy, occupational therapy. You get referred to other places to help you with that healing.

Yeah.

And moms don't have that. Moms are only given a one, the one-week follow-up. And then the 6-week follow-up. So who was taking care of mom?

Yeah.

Well, and God forbid, I had 2 C-sections and not planning. That was not— it was never a planned one. I was in labor over 18 hours and it was an emergency section the first time. And I could have sworn I thought my insides were going to come out for months. Every time you moved, it's a major surgery that you go through and you go home with no help. And you have to take care of a little person.

There you go, you hit the next part that I was gonna get. And then you have to take care of a little person and figure out how to do that. How is— nothing is supportive of moms. People go to the— go get medical surgeries all the time. You just hit, uh, C-sections. I had a C-section, two C-sections as well, and my body is not the same. My abs are not the same. I hadn't— I did not realize how much core we use for everyday life until I had a C-section and then I laid down in the bed. But like when I got home from the hospital, I laid down and I could not get up. I was like, what is this?

I used to use the sheets and this and like forever. It felt like forever like that because you— it truly is a major surgery. Nobody thinks of it that way and you really don't get a healing process. Your body doesn't have time to, to truly rest and heal as much as it needs to because you have a little person that needs you, needs your body in order for them to grow.

So yeah, and so that, that's where I'm here to bridge that gap. I want to be the village for women that shows up for them because you— we talked earlier about there's— the birth rates are declining. That's because a lot of women are finding, where's my support? Grandparents aren't— are unable now to be there because they're still working, they're still in there. Like, when do they have the time to really be there? Yeah, nothing wrong with grandparents still being in the workforce, but in, in terms of grandparents being able to help and support, it's a little bit different now.

Yeah.

Now they're retiring later, they're staying in the workforce longer. Not just that, but some families like my family, we moved from our hometown, and so we're not surrounded by family, but we have a village of neighbors that we can lean on. But some people don't know how to lean into a village or find their own village because, going back to the theme of what I've been noticing, what we've been talking about is We don't know how to say we need help because asking for help has these underlying feelings of, well, then I'm failing at this. If I don't carry all of this, then that means I'm failing at my role as a mom. There's shame in that. I don't— what will people think of me if I ask for help? If I don't carry all of this that I'm supposed to carry or do the way that society says that all moms do, What does that say about me? And we begin to label ourselves negatively. We begin to think of ourselves negatively, and then we just suck it up. I'm just gonna do it because that mom's doing it. Oh, I see Erika, man, she has like her Working Moms from San Antonio business, and she has her podcast going. Like, she's got it together, and she's— she homeschools her children. And I can't even do that. Like, we start comparing ourselves to others.

I feel like social media plays such a big role in that as well. Yeah. Like, social media, everybody's life is perfect. Everybody's got all their filters and everybody's got all whatever. And if you look at that all day long, sure as shit, I'm gonna start thinking about, well, why doesn't mine look like that? Why does— I just think it plays such a huge role where we didn't have to worry about it as much when years passed. But now that this is like a huge part of our life. And as you both well know, you've got to do— if you're working and you've got a business or whatever, you got to be on there whether you want to be on there or not. And so it's just, it's always in your face. And I feel like that's played a big role in kind of women, or people in general, but women's self-esteem, right? Because we're always comparing to the next door neighbor there on our social media feed.

Yeah. And that's another number one thing that I the— when I'm working with women, everything that you just named right there, there's so many different things that I can pull off of that you all have named. And I'm like, oh, you guys are hitting everything, and we don't have that much time to talk about it. And I could talk about it all day long because I love this. And yeah, social media is the number one contributor to our mental health. Yeah, we see things on there every day. Gender reveals are now becoming so wild. There was this real I saw the other day, and it was like how rich people do gender reveals, that there was like a Bentley.

Holy cow, no!

And they revealed the color of it, like they took off the car cover and it was a pink one, and everybody celebrated. I'm like, ooh, we just pop little things.

So that wasn't even a thing when I was having my kids. People weren't doing that, or maybe I just didn't see it in my— maybe it wasn't in my algorithm.

So if someone was struggling? Let's say I went to my OB-GYN. Is that someone who would refer me to you? Like, how would a, how would a mom or someone in the know know to call, to contact you? How, like, how would someone know that?

Well, I'm glad that you're asking because that's what I'm here for. That's why I'm here on this podcast. I took my training for perinatal mental health 3 years ago. And during this time we were talking about how do we as women in, in this field be able to get the screeners out. And what I mean by screeners is there's a postpartum depression scale that is used. Sometimes it's administered, sometimes it's administered within the pediatrician office because pediatricians are seeing moms more often since babies are visiting the pediatricians. And OB-GYNs are only seeing mom twice, and some OB-GYNs aren't administering any type of depression scale, so there's no way to gauge that. In my second pregnancy, where I learned how to now advocate for myself because I had— I've been connected with so many different perinatal providers that now I know what to ask, now I know what to look for. I asked for a referral. Can I please have a pelvic floor therapist?

Please.

I asked my doctor, at what point is this not normal? And she did— she was like, well, she didn't have an answer for me. No, no bashing on her, it was just she didn't have an answer. And I think it's because the perinatal providers are just so doing their own work in their own scope. And what I— my mission is to bridge that. I want to be able to connect with all of these perinatal providers so that we can better support women. And how are you going to know to come to me? Because I hope that this podcast inspires someone that says, hey, I could use this, not, oh, I know a person. Yeah, how could you benefit? And the reason why I'm turning this question around is because when I have— when moms find out, or women find out the work that I do, they're like, oh, I know someone, what's your information? And as moms, we're very selfless. We take care of everyone else before we take care of ourselves. And in that moment, why aren't— why don't you want to take care of you? Why are you thinking of someone else? What about you?

Yeah, yeah, you get me.

So special— I didn't know there was a specialized training. I'm a mental health therapist. I didn't know there was a specialty in this profession until I, I looked for it. I was like, there has to be something when when I was experiencing like this anxiety from COVID and from being a new mom and having my boundaries pushed all the time and that stress from that returning back to work and not being supported because I didn't plan my leave. They didn't have a room for me to pump. All of those were the reasons why I was like, there has to be something for moms. And then I took a training. That was led by a doula talking about postpartum depression. And she was like, hey, just so you know, we don't have any providers here in El Paso. This is— that's where I'm from. I'm from El Paso, Texas. And I was like, what? I was a new mom, so this really stuck out to me. I got online and I found it. I was like, ah, I'm gonna take this training. I was like, oh, it's expensive, but I'm gonna do this. I tried to see if the workplace would provide that training because we were working with teenager— teenage mothers and babies. And I was like, maybe they'll provide this. They didn't provide that. Okay, I will do it. So that's—

I found it.

But back to the system, it is so broken. There— fact— back in May, there was a— oh my gosh, the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health released a report card for the entire United States on the maternal mental health care. We are in a maternal mental health crisis. None of the states passed. All the states received a low score, including Texas. We got an F. The only state that had a good score was California. They had a B, but that was the only state. So we failed. There are different categories on there that we failed on. One of the big ones is there are only 5 providers per 1,000 births in the state of Texas. So how could you find someone if there's only 5 providers per 1,000 births?

State's so big. Yeah, yeah.

Oh my gosh, I just can't believe that.

And what I'm thinking of, I've been doing my work, I've been posting this awareness, trying to bring it out because OB-GYNs don't know I asked mine, I was like, hey, did you know? And she's no. And I said, all right, when I come back from maternity leave, we'll have a different type of conversation. Yeah, because there's a better way to serve these women. And she was like, yes, when you're back from— when you're done recovering, you come back. And I said, I will be here. So it's hard. How do we know what to talk about or where to refer when there's very limited professionals out there. And what I've noticed on social media is, back to what you guys are saying, we keep it to ourselves, we keep it quiet, we don't want to talk about it. I will post my information. A lot of women are very reluctant to like it or share it, but they will DM me because it's— no one can see that, it's private. And they'll ask or they'll inquire. I know that it's needed. Why aren't we sharing this more? Why aren't we being more supportive of each other? One thing that I always write on my post is share this because you never know what someone is going through. You never know what mom needs to hear it, what mom needs to see it, what mom, what woman is looking for some type of support and doesn't know where to find it. And it's not our fault. It's the system that we live in that doesn't provide this after birth care, like, hey, there is specialized mental health care if you feel like this is too much, and it is okay. And also, I think a lot of language that is used in terms of like how people talk about the diagnosis is like bipolar. I hear people like, oh gosh, the weather's so bipolar, or like we use these terms incorrectly. Or when I see people cleaning, they're like, oh, it's because I have OCD, it has to be this way. And the terms that we're using, they're not being used correctly when we're talking about OCD in general, because there's even a postpartum OCD diagnosis because the onset could be because of postpartum. OCD is a more serious type of anxiety disorder, and what— it's an obsession. So moms experience intrusive thoughts and intrusive thoughts usually come in the form of, I'm going to hurt my baby. Now, it's not that they're going to, and this is why, and I'm going to mention this on here because this is what makes the difference between me, a perinatal mental health therapist, and a general mental health therapist. Please do not go see a general mental health therapist because they don't— they're not specialized to serve such a sensitive population. And understand that when a mom is coming with an intrusive thought, like, I keep— I walk by the stairs and these visions come to my head that I'm going to drop my baby, so I don't go on the stairs anymore. That is what happens, is there's a fear because I'm going to drop my baby, so I stop doing something. So it becomes an obsession. Before I go to the stairs, I gotta— I, I have to make sure that I put my baby secure on, on the car seat or somewhere where they're strapped in. And that becomes the compulsion, is doing like strapping them in. Okay, make sure I'm— now I'm walking towards the stairs. Wait, did I do it right? And they go back and they check. So that is what— oh, just a slight little example of what that looks like. And because it's used incorrectly, people don't see themselves as Oh, could this be a concern?

I would think a general therapist would misdiagnose that as something different versus a mom just fearful of things she doesn't know yet. A lot of times I think back as being a new mom, I just— it wasn't thinking— I thought I wasn't going to be good at something or I didn't quite understand. Like, I obviously was around babies but not my own. So it was a fear of things that I just did until I got good at something. Like, this is obviously the second child, like, oh, this is better. I understand how this is going to work because you don't know how it all works. So a lot of times things are fearful. So I'm thinking if you went to a general therapist and talked about it and they don't have maybe the training, they might see it as something different or hear you wanting to hurt the child versus fearful that you might hurt the child. And so there you go.

And that is— thank you for calling that out, because yes, that is why we are trained and we're assessing different things. I'm looking at different things. I know a mom doesn't want to hurt her baby, and that's what I'm gonna assess when I hear mom say that. And I ask, okay, when you're thinking of this, I'm noticing you right now. Is this causing you anxiety? Is this causing you distress? And I can see it on a mom. She'll be like, yes, like, this is making— am I crazy? What is happening to me? That's how I know that it is just a thought. There is no intent for a mom to hurt her baby. I'm using this example because another reason why I come to a perinatal mental health therapist is because we know that this has nothing to do with you wanting to hurt your child. We will assess that. We're making clinical assessment and documentation on this. We know the procedure for that. And no, you're not going to have your baby taken away. No, we're not going to call CPS. This is another reason why moms don't come for the help that they need, because there's a fear that my child will be taken away. That's so sad.

I hadn't thought about it that way. I hadn't thought about that, but you're right. I would think, if I— they deem me as a bad mom, they're gonna take my child.

Yes. What is my family going to say? How are they going to be supportive? Because Oftentimes too, and I've heard this from other family members, like when they're asking, what is it that you do? And I'm like, I'm always a little bit hesitant to share because, because of sometimes the conversations will be like, well, what do you think of this? And I'm like, I'm off the clock right now. My brain does not want to work. But when my brain is on, it works really well. But sometimes what I've heard is, back to that what I mentioned to you earlier, oh, I know someone that could benefit from you. And in a recent conversation I was in is, yeah, my cousin is just doing really bad. I think we need to call CPS. And it's no, that's not what you need to do. That's not supportive. Support is, you know, I know that you're having a really hard time right now. How about I take your baby? Your baby will be fine with me. When your baby needs to eat, if they're breastfeeding, I will wake you up. Just go nap, go sleep, go take some time for you, get out of the house. That is supportive. Or referring to myself to Nurture Her, which provides these services for women because we know how to support them. We know how to handle the mental health. We know how to—

You just said something about go take a nap. I think a lot of times doctors don't even assume that, like, hey, it might be just a lack of sleep that you're having this anxiety and you're having all this stuff because your mind's not thinking correctly. Like, you know, this is how, you know, and maybe help them ask for help or whatever the case is. But a lot of times if they're not trained in that, I would assume that not— their mind's going to go a different way versus focusing on what the moms go through.

Yes, and I'm here to hold the mom. I'm not here to hold the baby because baby already has someone to hold. Mom is holding baby, dad is holding baby, grandparents are holding baby. Pediatrician is holding baby, but who's holding mom? Yeah, that's so true.

Oh, I like that saying. Who's holding mom? Yeah, yeah.

So I'm here to hold, I'm here to nurture the mom, which is what moms need. I'm here to help mom because I get it, because I know how lonely it can feel. I know, and I think that maybe you both can identify with that, is sometimes you're in this chaos of motherhood, and even if you do try to share it with someone, we can be invalidated. And sometimes that invalidation comes from our own family, and that hurts the, the most. Yeah, that hurts the most. And that is why we don't ask for help. So it goes back to Well, one, our system doesn't set up— isn't setting us up for care afterwards. And then when we do ask for help, we're not saying it like, hey, I need help, because we don't have that language. Perhaps we just don't— we've been taught not to ask for help. I could go in a whole different spiel about that, um, but I'm going to keep it at the surface. So we just don't know how to ask for help. And also, we're not good communicators. We think that we are but we're not. We're not saying exactly what we need because we don't even know how to identify what we feel. We don't know how to— we don't know how to name that. Like, some people will come in and they'll tell me, this is what I'm— they'll tell me, this is what I'm going through. And I'm like, and how do you feel? And they're, what do you mean? I just told you all of this. And I'm like, yeah, okay, that's okay. We weren't taught emotions. We weren't taught that anger— we were taught sometimes that anger is like the big response, but that anger is a secondary emotion to a prime— to the primary, which could be fear or sadness. So it manifests differently. And so I help moms with being able to learn how to name their emotion, identify what that is, so that they can communicate and say Hey, I didn't get a good night's rest last night, and I've noticed that when I don't sleep well, that affects my mood. I'm more grumpy, and if I'm more grumpy, I'm a little bit more irritable and snappy. So what I need from you this morning is some patience, please.

Even just saying something as simple as that.

Yeah, well, I think at the end of the day, you're just— it makes you a better our main goal is to be the best mom we can. I think most moms would relate to that. Like, I— that's my main goal in life. My— I was put here to be a mom. I know that. So, and I want to be the best version of that that I can be. And obviously having someone to help you work through some things that maybe culturally you didn't get to understand how— what you're going through, or even in today's physicians, doctors that didn't help you. But having someone to support is a big deal to help you be a great mom.

And I think we're all doing the best that we can, and I'm being mindful of our time here. I know that we're all doing the best that we can with what we've got. And in the chaos of it all, in the busyness of just being a mom and juggling all of these balls that we're juggling, we also forget that some of those balls, they can They're not— what we're juggling, they're glass balls. Yeah, they're not glass balls. We think they are, and we can just let some of those drop because they're rubber balls. And what do we know about rubber balls? They bounce. And that ball will continue to bounce until you're ready to pick it up. Because I don't know about you all, I don't know how to juggle. So at most, 2 balls, right, for me is enough.

So true.

I'm just going to be juggling those 2 balls and I'm gonna let all of those other balls bounce. But this is one of the most powerful metaphors that I use in my therapy to help with moms. And for anyone that is listening right now, if any of this has resonated with you, if any of this sparks curiosity for you, I invite you to come over to my Instagram, look at some of the stuff that I have. Submit a consultation. So if you want to get to know what it is that, that I offer, I invite this because there's a curiosity and there's for a reason.

Yeah.

And I think that the best gift that you can give to your child is the journey of your own healing.

That's so true. Yeah. Um, well, this feels like a good time since you just mentioned your Instagram. We usually, at, you know, kind of when we're wrapping up, ask people to share how people can get a hold of you. And I know you're really trying to bring awareness to this topic, and so I would love for more people to be able to get a hold of you. So can you let everybody know how?

Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to extend that invitation because it's awareness. At some point in our lives, whether you are a mom now, not a mom, thinking of becoming a mom in the future, knowing how your own mental health how your own experiences will pave your way in motherhood is important. Learning, just beginning that journey of healing for yourself and letting that be your form of care, because your children will learn through you. How you care for yourself is how they are going to care for themselves. And you can find me at NurtureHer, that is N-U-R-T-U-H-E-R on Instagram and on TikTok. Like I said, we have some big news coming forward with the new year, and I'm so excited to be sharing with you all what I have been working on for the past 3 years. And 3 years because life happens and pregnancy and hyperemesis gravidarum and My son needed surgery. So there's a lot of things that happen in life, and I invite you to be in community with me if that is what it is, to be in community with me and, and also see that you're not the only one. Because sometimes even that can feel so empowering, is I'm not the only one that's going through this. So I hope to see you all there. I want to thank you both very much because we're all busy moms and your time is valuable. And for you and, and the listeners to be taking time to listen to us today, that means a lot to me because you're sharing the time that you could be doing for you. You could be using for you, for your self-care, whatever it is that you need to be doing, but you're sharing that with me. And so I want to thank you all for that.

Yes, yes, thank you so much for being on here. I feel like I could just listen to you talk for hours.

You have so much—

Yes, you have so much passion about what you're talking about, and yes, you have a very good soothing voice, and just even the cadence in your speech, I just am like listening here and I feel so relaxed. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing all this information. I feel like it's so, so important that more people know that these services even exist. And so I'm hoping that this episode, we can obviously share it around and hopefully get more people aware of the fact that your services are here and they're here to help them. So, and I'm also going to thank our listeners for tuning in to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast, and we will catch you guys next week.

See you guys next week.

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