REWILD + FREE - MUSINGS + MAGICK: Late Diagnosed Neurodivergence, Big Decisions & New Directions WITH LAUREN & NICOLE

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

After nearly a year away from the microphone, we're back with a life update that (in true Lauren & Nicole style) manages to cover ADHD diagnoses, fractured bones, nursing careers, master's degrees, ear piercings, birth work, and the strange way life only makes sense when you look backwards.In this conversation, we reflect on the seasons that have shaped us over the past year. Lauren shares what has shifted since receiving her ADHD diagnosis, including the grief, relief, self-compassion, and unexpected freedom that came with finally understanding how her brain works. Nicole reflects on returning to nursing, beginning a Master's in Counselling Psychology, and navigating the tension between unmet expectations and trusting that no experience is ever truly wasted.We also explore the realities of parenting neurodivergent children, making difficult medical decisions, advocating for our kids, and learning to loosen our grip on identities that no longer fit. Along the way, we share updates on the work we're creating together, including our upcoming prenatal education offering, Weaving Birth, and the deeper questions we're asking about birth, matrescence, self-worth, and what it means to prepare for transformation.This episode is a reminder that growth rarely happens in a straight line. Sometimes the thing that looks like a detour becomes the path. Sometimes a diagnosis creates freedom. Sometimes the season you're resisting is quietly preparing you for what's next...Connect with Nicole:Instagram: @nicolepasveerPodcast: REWILD + FREE..Connect with Lauren:Instagram: @nestandnourishPodcast: The Well-Nourished Mother..If this conversation resonated with you, we'd love it if you'd share it with a friend, leave a review, or send us a message. We always love hearing what lands.

Welcome to Musings and Magic. I'm Lauren Fortuna flock. I'm a mother, doula, the host of the well-nourished mother podcast and a somatic matressin's guide. And I'm Nicole Pasvier, a mom, wife, and host of the Rewild and Free Podcasts. We live 700 miles apart. But we've been holding space for each other virtually since 2022 when we found each other in super similar seasons of life. We were both in our retiring from a super secure nursing job in the thick of postpartum and starting a heart-led business era. We found ourselves chatting for hours on Zoom almost weekly, having the deep, why isn't anyone talking about this conversations around all things motherhood and conscious entrepreneurship. So we started recording these unfiltered and unscripted conversations to bring you this co-created

series. We're inviting you in with deep trust that you'll receive whatever insight, wisdom, or solidarity you need in this season because we all know motherhood and entrepreneurship are lonely as fuck. Yeah, we're blending our musings with a touch of magic. The kind of a woo-woo more spiritual witchy stuff that we're both so curious about but don't fully relate to. So if you're ready to come laugh, learn and reflect with us, then keep listening. But first, we invite you to take the deepest breath you've given to yourself yet today. And when you're ready, let's go. Hi, friend.

Hello. Oh, this feels weird. We haven't done this in so long. I know. We just looked it up. What did you say? September 2025. Yeah, so almost a year. quarters of a year. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. We've been busy in other places. Podcasting has certainly taken the backseat for me. Yeah, there's definitely been moments where I'm like, I forgot I have a podcast. But of course, we've still been, you know, meeting and having these juicy conversations together this whole time, but we just haven't been hitting record. So we thought

it was time. Yeah, I think, you know, life also has pulled us both into different directions. I just looked and I haven't recorded my own podcast since October and I basically like fell off the face of the internet earth around then. I don't even know if I've really shared publicly that like I ended up going back to nursing and I know you have been a big witness through that because you went through that process a couple years ago and just yeah the identity

shift that like the funkiness of wait we just like worked so hard to figure out who we were without our nursing hat and then to like consciously make the choice to put it back on that was a trip for me that was a big trip

um and then like what else I honestly feel like yesterday was all October. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, like, I think when we talked, when we spoke last, we were talking about, like, Zoe's starting preschool for the first time. And I was just going through, like, beginning my ADHD diagnosis experience. And, yeah, like, so much of that has evolved and grown since then. Like, now Zoe's almost finished her first year of, of school. I mean, she's going into kindergarten in September, but yeah, like it's wild. Well, and like for you, like it's June and now you're going through the bracing of, you know, just having what, nine, ten months of having so much time freedom and, you know, you drop her off

and then you get to come home and you do what you need to do. You're pouring into postpartum clients. You're attending births. You're picking up nursing shifts. you're creating, like you just have all of that autonomy that you, you know, were longing for and you've found a groove, you've found some rhythms that, you know, flow really well. And then she's going to be back home with you over the summer. Yeah, it's both amazing.

Like the fact that I can shift my work and be home with her for the summer is incredible. I know not many people can do that so easily. And it's beautiful and I'm very excited to spend time with her and to enjoy summer as well. Like I love summer. It's my favorite season. And I get to just, you know, go to the beach every day if I want to. But there's also this brief of like, oh, but I've got so many cool projects and things. And I love my work so much.

And I don't want to put it on hold. But it's not really on hold. It's just I'm creating my own rhythm with it. So yeah, it's exciting. But also like, yeah, it's kind of looming. Like, ah, I have so much to do before, you know, her last day of school. Yeah. And then for you, my goodness, there's lots of exciting new things.

Where do we start? Lauren, who am I? A million dollar question. And the answer keeps changing every three months. Yeah, right? So I put the nursing hat back on and that's very, very casual. I'm only nursing a couple times a month. But that's been, like I said, just even coming to that decision.

was really hard for me. And yeah, I don't even know if I have words to succinctly describe what that was like. But I think it also teetered me into sort of this full circle moment of recognizing where that nursing degree has led me to where I am today and the gratitude within that. And so currently I'm pursuing my master's of counseling. And I don't think I would have ended up here without going back to nursing, which is just a really weird thing. Because there's a lot of, you know, like low-key, like resentment with nursing.

Like I don't actually want to be nursing. You know, just financially it made sense in this season. But I can see it so clearly, too, as like stepping stones to where, I'm going and who I'm becoming. And then even the decision to apply and pursue this master's program was really, really big for me, right? There's a lot of just, you know, stuff I've worked through around, like, do I even care about the letters behind my name?

Like, oh, like, why is it that, you know, it's so easy to get student loans for something like this, but, like, it's so hard to get funding and support for other kinds of training. and yeah, it's just been really illuminating, I think, to get a sense of like the broader context of, you know, the systems that we live and play in and consciously making decisions of, you know, I don't necessarily agree with this, but I'm still going to make the conscious choice of letting this be,

again, a stepping stone. So that's kind of what I see this master's program being, right? It's a stepping stone that's going to open more doors, doors that are closed to me right now. And yeah, I don't exactly know. what that's going to look like, but I know that it's feeling good right now and it's feeling good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited for you. I'm, yeah, I know, you know, more intimately what it is that you're kind of moving towards in some ways. I mean, I don't think it's fully clear to you, but there's

definitely, yeah, a broad, a broad image of what you're moving towards. And I'm just really excited to see you move into that and go in that direction. Yeah. Yeah. I think more honestly, like what comes up in all of this for me is this, I don't think it's a bitterness. I think it's more of a almost like a sense of defeat in like coaching didn't work out for me. And that like inherently is not true. Right. I can totally pull that apart and challenge that story. But there's absolutely a part of me that is like, oh, I'm doing this because, you know, the last three years of pouring into my coaching business didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. And there's this theme in my life of witnessing and being humbled by unmet expectations and the choice point of like sitting in kind of

the discomfort and frustration of disappointment and also getting to sit in the gratitude and the experience and like the data that got to be collected in those experiences. Right. So like I can another stepping step. I can be disappointed and I can also recognize like all all of those years have. It's like I've been training for this. I've been it's all been building up to like where I'm going. And so it had to happen this way.

Right. Like I couldn't have skipped those years. Similar to like nursing. Right. Like if I didn't have my undergrad in nursing. the possibility of getting into the master's program I'm in right now would have looked very different. So also, you know, sitting in the recognition of that privilege, that privilege I have. And yeah, the options that are available to me because of that.

Yeah. It is. And I used to feel the same way about, you know, in 2015 I did a diploma and applied holistic nutrition. I was a holistic nutritionist. And I thought like, that was it. That was the thing. You know, I was going to be. like an online nutritionist and change people's lives. And then I never really did anything with it. I was really comfortable in nursing. Why would I? ADHD. You know, all of those, those things. Oh, spoiler alert. Lauren has ADHD. Oh, yeah. We'll get to that. I feel like that's where the last music's and magic episode left off, right? You were talking about

the process of getting a diagnosis. So, spoiler. Spoiler. diagnosed. See now? I don't know what I was talking about. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, the holistic nutrition. Yeah, like I felt very similarly about that. Like, oh, I kind of failed.

Like, it didn't work out for me. And now I can so clearly see that it was a stepping stone to where I am now. I get to pull it into the care of pregnant and postpartum women. And it's perfect, right? But you can't really see that when you're too close to it. It's like you need to get to the next. spot to be able to look back and be like, oh, yeah, that was exactly the path I needed to take. But it doesn't make it less bumpy or along the way for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I have ADHD.

That was a whole process of going through the diagnosis. There was so much like, oh my gosh. I don't even know if I have words for it anymore. It was such a process of, re-learning who I was and like not even relearning who I was, but just broadening my understanding of who I am and having a different perspective and having so much more compassion for myself and just a better understanding of how my brain works and why and what to do with that. And yeah, I did decide to try stimulant medication. So I am on a stimulant right now. and yeah, honestly, it's been incredible.

Like, I know people have opinions, and my personal opinion is that it's working really well for me. And yeah, it's been, I've seen improvements in almost every area of my life. I feel more me when I'm on it. Like, it kind of quiets all of the garbage so I can be more of who I am, where I think some people think it kind of masks who you are. I actually find it to be quite the opposite. I'm creative.

I'm, yeah, I'm weird. I'm like just all of all that masking. I don't have to do it anymore. Yeah, it's been quite the process. I think what I've noticed, right, is there's like that creativity is absolutely still there, but there's now this desire to follow through on things. Yes. That I think you really had a hard time with before. Like you needed a lot of just systems in place or accountability or, you know, like a kick in the butt to, to see things through. And now that is very intrinsic. You don't need that. You just do it. Yeah. I'm completing things like fully for like the first time in my life. And it feels easy.

That's the difference. It's not overwhelming. I think that's the biggest thing is that I no longer feel overwhelmed day to day. And that was, I didn't even realize how overwhelmed I felt daily until it was taken away. I was like, oh, wow, this is what it's like to just move through the world. Yeah. Yeah, with some executive functioning. Well, and what's coming up for me in that, like, I think in a lot of, you know, self-help and personal development spaces, there's this low-key kind of background music elevator hum of like, you just need like better self-talk. Like, you just need to like, you know, think differently and have better thoughts. And it's like, okay, wait, we're just shaming ourselves into getting things down. And we're gaslighting different facets of ourselves and different emotions and all of that. And again, what I've kind of seen with you is the diagnosis.

Like put medication aside. I would say just the diagnosis. And I can speak to my own personal experience with like our journey and, you know, autism and stuff like that is that invitation. To broaden self-compassion is huge. And I think when we have that self-compassion, it automatically just creates more space. And so those shame cycles, that inner critic and inner bully of like, oh, well, I just have to do this. I should.

And the shoulds and the pressure of like, I'm trying to think of an actual example to like land this. Yeah, like I've learned to accommodate myself, like because of that self-compassion. Yeah, the compassion creates the space for the accommodation. And then the accommodation removes that, that pressurey, urgent, shamy self-talk. Yeah, for sure. And like feeling like you have to do it a certain way. Like I have to do it the way everybody.

else does. I don't and my brain doesn't want to and can't. Yeah. So yeah, that compassion has opened up so much space for me to just look at my entire life through a different lens of, okay, let's get creative about this. I know where I struggle and I can do it a different way that supports me. And there's no like negativity around that in my own system, right? It's like, oh, I get it. I just need to do things differently. And just like seeing the effect of that is what is so motivating too. Like, I'm doing well in my business. My relationship with my daughter is 100 times better. My relationship with myself, with my husband. Like in every aspect, things are feeling easeful and improved. Yeah. Yeah. We've had conversations before about, you know, the power of a diagnosis and how it's not just a

label and something to identify with or like make excuses around, right? Like we really do. see some of the benefit of it. And again, yeah, I think your experience, your journey this past year is another testament to the power of that diagnosis, right? It's, it's empowering. It offers more self-compassion, more self-trust, more freedom. Like, freedom is the word that's coming to mind. There's just more freedom. For sure. And like, of course, there was such a season of grief as well. Of course. You know, getting that diagnosis. and kind of reviewing, doing this big life review through this new lens with the help of a counselor, which I will say, just getting a diagnosis is garbage.

You need an ADHD specific counselor that can help you move through this whole process. And that piece, my counselor, has been absolutely incredible. Like I'd say even more impactful than just like medication alone. But yeah, that process of grief was really big for me, like looking back on my life and grieving, like not only what was, but like what could have been. And even in my postpartum experience, like thinking like, oh, if I could have, you know, had this diagnosis sooner, I could have set myself up a whole lot better. My breastfeeding relationship might have ended differently.

My, yeah, like all the anger and rage and overstimulation I felt that could have been dealt with in a different way instead of me trying, like thinking it was literally me and my fault. And I could breathe my way through it and, you know, use every semantic tool. And that was all I really needed. Like, it was so much more layered. nuanced than that. Yeah. Yeah. If anybody's wondering why I want to become a counselor, I think Lauren just summed it up, right? That is truly kind of where I see myself going is exactly that, right? Helping people walk through that grief of late diagnosis. I don't even think it needs to be

formal diagnosis. Like, again, I'm thinking about myself, like, I don't have a formal diagnosis. We do have a formal diagnosis for my daughter and that obviously has been very very, very much. validating and empowering and, you know, it's helped me see myself too and been more confident in a self-diagnosis. But I think a self-diagnosis still has all the benefits of the things we're describing. And like Lauren said, really the benefit is being able to have someone, community therapist, whatever it is, some sort of witness to walk you through that, like, massive identity shift. Yeah. It's really no different than metrescence.

Yeah, yeah, really. And, like, just that help of reframing everything through this lens of my, like, neurobiology. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been so helpful.

So hopeful. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. What else? What else? My goodness. I don't know why this.

I don't know why I'm thinking of this, but, like, my daughter got her ears pierced. And this is a cool story. You should tell this story. Yeah, just like it just felt like such a right of passage. Just the way she brought it up herself. She was so committed, wanted to do it. We went and did a couple of consults. The first one, yeah, she wasn't really quite ready yet. And then we went and did another one. And then just the appointment itself observing her. And like I went first. I decided I was going to get my ears pierced too and we were going to make it this whole like mother daughter thing make it all cute. I got my ears pierced first. To be honest, she couldn't care less. She was like busy playing with some toy in the corner. She didn't even care. But then it was her turn and she was

like, yeah, I'm ready. And she laid down and she, you know, the woman who was amazing, she did the first ear. And I remember the look on Zoe's face. Like she just looked at me with like, oh my God. Like, what did I just do? And I could see her. trying to hold it together. And then she just burst out crying. And I was like, yeah, I know, like it hurts. It hurts. And it, you know, it'll go away soon. It'll, it's kind of like a wave, you know, just like in labor. That wave will crash and it won't feel so painful. And then, you know, I kind of gave her an out, of course. I was like, you know, you don't have to do the second ear. Like, it's okay. And she just looked at me and she's like, no, like, we're doing the second

year. And it was just such a beautiful moment. And then she did. And she same thing, you know, she knew what was going to happen. She cried through it. And then when she was done, she was so proud of herself. But I think it was the witnessing her in doing something really hard, having the out and still choosing to do it again and like walk through that pain and discomfort. Like there was just something so incredible about witnessing that. And I felt like she like developmentally, she like upgraded that day.

And yeah, it was just really cool. And she's been so good about like cleaning them and not touching them. And she's just, there's this pride. She tells everybody that she was the first one in her class at school to get their ears pierce. She's just so proud. It's so cute. Yeah, it was a really neat experience. Yeah.

Yeah. It was cool to watch how you, you know, parent-tinted her along the way. It was never pressure from you or Cohen. It was also never, like, a no from you or Cohen. It was just truly following her lead and doing what you could as parents. to, you know, prepare her, let it be an informed choice from her. Yeah. It was really cool.

The amount of role playing we did where, you know, we pretended she was at the piercing place and I would use a cue tip to clean her ears and then I'd mark it with a pen. And then I'd use the end of like those little floss sticks. They're a little bit pointy and I would literally like press on her ear and poke at a bit and she'd be like, oh, I'm like, yep, that's what's going to happen. And then, yeah, and like we talked about pain with purpose. and all of these things. Yeah, it was quite the process.

And she's just so proud and so am I. It's very fun. As you're describing this, I'm like now having like flashbacks of the past, you know, kind of nine months for us and remembering like, oh yeah, shit. Like we have been in it. Aubrey has fractured not one,

but two bones. Right? She fractured her arm in the fall. So that, like, the, you know, five weeks of her in a cast for the arm kind of felt like a complete right-off in life, right? I forgot about the arm. Right, I know. So let's start there.

So my world kind of stopped. I don't even, I barely even remember it. That's what's so funny and really a testament to how deeply in survival I probably was. And then a couple months later, she fractured her leg. both these instances were completely like fluke accidents like she wasn't doing anything dangerous or scary or sports or anything like that the arm thing she tripped in our friend's basement and ended up like falling on hard concrete floor in just the right way and then the the leg she was actually running zoomies around the house with our dogs and we've been fostering dogs on and off this past year and

one of the dogs, they were running all in the same direction until they weren't. And so she ended up colliding with one of the dogs. And to this day, we don't know if it was like the collision of the dog's head or the impact on the ground. But somehow she ended up fracturing her femur right at the growth plate. And that one was a doozy, right? Because when you fracture a leg, she ended up being, oh, this, you know, this is funny. Let me tell this story. So because she had already fractured her arm the one time and had been through the motions of that,

which by the way she was a trooper with she felt the arm cast was so cool all her friends signed it it was her left arm and she was right-handed so it really didn't impact her life that much I would say the worst part of it was we still have her in bed with us and so she and she you know most kids this age they sleep in all different directions the other day Dylan was like telling a friend he's like you know um lunette the clown and big comfy couch like doing her like clock dance that's how Aubrey sleeps. I'm like, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So anyways, the worst part with the arm cast is we kept getting bonked in the head with this rock hard arm in the middle of the night and basically waking

up with black eyes. Um, but anyways, side note. Oh, okay. My grandmother made me the best Lunette the clown costume when I was like, I don't know, maybe six or seven years old. Like, I looked exactly like her. She like hand drew the little clowns on the shirt and everything. And then she made me the Molly doll. Like I had a full on Molly doll that she made. For Halloween or just for fun? For Halloween. Okay, okay.

I love that. I wanted to be lunette for Halloween and Aubrey would be Molly and then I wanted Dylan to be the guy on the unicycle. Dylan didn't like that idea. He vetoed it. And then my next best idea was I wanted to be Mary Poppins and Aubrey was going to be one of those penguins. And then Dylan would be the chimney sweeper. he vetoed that too. So basically next Halloween, I think I get to make a choice.

Yeah. Anyways, so when she broke her leg, right? She had this collision with the dog. She's crying. She's saying her leg hurts. Basically, since she broke her arm, every time she was getting hurt, she would say, I need to go to the hospital. My blah, blah, blah might be broken.

So, of course, she was saying the same thing with her leg. And I'm like, no, there's no way you broke your leg. If we're not going to the hospital, you just fell down. And I'm, I'm kind of dismissing her because, like, she's been, she's kind of become the, the girl that cried wolf. And we wait an entire day. So this was like a Sunday afternoon. She's saying that she needs to be carried around.

And again, like, we've, we've done this before. She hurts herself and she, she milks it. And she, she can't do anything. And like, like, whatever. Like, we're just going to ride this, ride this day out. And then through the night, she kept waking up in pain. I'm like, okay, this might actually. be something. She's not like just making this up anymore. If she's really waking up in the night

from pain every time she moves. And then the next day, she still couldn't bear weight on it. And I'm like, oh shit, maybe I should listen to my kid. She's telling me her leg hurts. And so I take her to urgent care. And the stupid triage nurse, she did not keep her inside voice inside. And she literally said out loud that, yeah, there's no way this is broken. You guys wouldn't have made it this long, as in like you wouldn't have made it a whole 24 hours without coming in. I'm like, hey, ladies, shush. We don't know until there's x-rays. Also, my kid is already, you know, all anxious about being here now,

and it's probably going to be a fucking four-hour wait. So anyways, we put in our time, we do the three, four-hour wait, we finally get put in the back. And the confusing thing is Aubrey was actually complaining about more pain kind of in her hip. And I'm like, okay, that's not where you heard it. Like, I'm just really, like, there's a lot of, radiating pain going on. And obviously my nurse brain was working a mile a minute trying to figure out like what could be happening here. There wasn't any crazy bruising or swelling. And then she couldn't

wait there, but she could crawl. I'm like, okay, that's really interesting. And then anyways, we get back there. I'm probably now over explaining this story, but we're in and now. So we're still going. So then we first see a nurse. And I guess the nurse is able to put in just kind of like default x-ray orders without us seeing a doctor yet. And so she does that. And she sends us off to X-ray. And the X-ray tech just wants to X-ray. I don't even remember what it was.

Like, just like a certain part of the leg. I'm like, no, we need an X-ray of the whole leg. Like, I need the X-ray of the whole leg. I remember having to practice a lot of advocacy. We literally stormed back to the nursing station. I left the X-ray place. I'm like, no, like, this isn't good enough. I'm not going to be able to get her to do an X-ray twice.

So we need to get what we need in the imaging. And we ended up having to wait for the doctor because the nurse couldn't change the orders. And so we wait for the doctor and show enough, the doctor's like, yeah, we should x-ray the whole leg. So let me go to the x-ray. We come back. And of course, the doctor rolls back in. And he's like, yeah, so there is a little fracture right here. And I just remember, Aubrey looked at me in like the most like innocent, calm, relax.

She's like, see, mama, I told you it was broken. And I'm like, okay, okay, I have been told. Like, there is a lesson here of we can. trust our kids, right? We can trust them. And yeah, anyways, so yeah, she ended up having to have a full leg cast literally from her toes to upper thigh. And that was a dozy. She couldn't walk. Daycare couldn't take her for a full day. They could only have her for lunchtime and quiet time because they're not allowed to carry her around. Everyone was like, well, can't she have crutches or a wheelchair? And it's like, no, you can't give a four-year-old crutches. They just become a weapon. And

maybe a wheelchair if she was going to, you know, be in this predicament for a longer period of time, but it just didn't make sense for the short duration it was going to be. And then fast forward, the kind of three, four, five weeks of being in this cast. It would have been the three week mark. We went in to get it re-xrayed and they wanted to remove the cast to do a proper x-ray. And she was terrified of the saw that they need to use to cut it off. We were at the children's hospital and they did everything right they like introduced it in a really playful manner they wanted to show her on her stuffy and these are the moments where the autism really stands out um her rigidity and her just the the sensory experience of it all and like just the way that she needs to be communicated with

um again more advocacy for me needed to happen there and so that was a really big moment for me they ended up calling in i don't even know what these people I don't know if they're like social workers or like anyways, they literally come in in moments like this to just like help support families with with kids like Aubrey. I even know what I mean by that kids like Aubrey. Anyways, they they attempted to support and at that point it's too far gone like in Aubrey's head it was a no. So it was a no.

And the cleverness in her, she basically said to the doctor, she's like, I need to go to the other hospital because the other hospital is where we dealt with the arm. cast and they didn't have to cut off the arm cast because it technically wasn't a full cast. Like I guess it would be considered a partial where like it, it basically still went completely around her arm, but the the hard part of the cast, there was like a gap there. So no saw was needed. They just have to like unwrap it and then carefully kind of like squish it off her arm. And so she, she remembers all that.

She's like, I don't like that experience was good. So it you, the doc, she's saying this. the doctor she's like you are the problem i need to go back to the other hospital and have a different doctor and thankfully the doctor was not taking it personally she's like girl i get it like i'm sorry though like this cast is different and of course like we couldn't reason with her at this point so the doctor was like okay we'll just do the x-ray with the cast on and if we get a good enough image we can just leave this cast like it's in good enough condition that you guys can just maintain it for another a couple weeks. So we ended up doing that. And then she wanted us to come back to get it removed.

And in my head, I'm like, I'm never going to be able to get my kid to come back to this hospital again, let alone if I'm saying it's to get the cast cut off. And thankfully, she had another dental surgery planned. And we already had that scheduled at that hospital. We had the OR book. Like, all of that was already happening. And so they were able to cut the cast off that day, while she was put under. And then somewhere in all of that, we also had an E&T referral and ended up deciding that her tonsils needed to come out

and that could be a whole conversation for a different day because that's a multi-year process as well and really hard decision for us as parents to make. But to make a long story short, she had a surgery to get some teeth pulled, her tonsils removed, and the cast removed all at once. And so I'm really grateful.

that we had doctors that were really great team players. They were willing to share the space with each other. And, you know, just it's one of those moments where, like, the healthcare system felt like it was working. And I don't have a lot of evidence to say that. So that was nice. And then I'd say the post-op experience, not so good. But again, different conversation, different story for the other day. But yeah, I'm now having flashbacks of all of this. I literally forgot all of these really big things happened in our life. And so yeah, it's no wonder I fell off the face of the earth, right? It's no wonder. And in the mix of that, we had foster dogs coming and going. We now have a guide dog in training with us, right? Like, it's, it's no wonder I haven't been online and recording podcasts. Yes. Yeah. You guys have had some big, big, like, parenting decisions to make for her with her. And it's been really cool to see. Because I know each one has been a big process for you. There's been a lot of, you know, we've had a

lot of discussions about it. You and Dylan have had a lot of discussions about it. Um, but it was, you know, it's been really nice just to see you advocate for yourself and for her in a new way. And, you know, even with a little less of the kind of overthinking that can be common and it's been, yeah, yeah, you've done amazing. You've done such a good job of that. Even though it's felt hard along the way for sure. And it's been tricky. But yeah. And like, I think I just asked you earlier before we were, before we were recording, like, did the tonsill thing help? And you're like, yeah, it was like life-changing for her. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, you know, not to get too deep into it, but I think kind of the Cole's Notes version of the tonsil situation is, I mean, I'm very naturally minded.

I want to take a holistic route when we can. And we've basically spent the entirety of Aubrey's life trying to support her in some of the open-mouth breathing and restlessly. and all of the things. And so the decision to remove the tonsils was kind of like a final straw of like, okay, nothing else we've been doing has worked. And I think, I remember me and you having a conversation and you really helping to reframe it for me. And like, because I think for me there was grief and frustration of like, I still feel like

there's other things we could be doing. And you had to remind me, but like you have to make the decision for Aubrey, right? Like you have to look at the kid that's in front of you. And some of the other things maybe we could have tried just did not feel sustainable or accessible for her. And so, yeah, that was a really hard decision because it kind of felt like I was giving up on like a more natural, holistic route. And yeah, again, kind of just a testament of where sometimes like modern medicine does play a role. And again, those decisions can be really hard. There's a lot of weight to them.

And like I was just saying when you asked me that question earlier, like, I almost wish we did it sooner. Like it has made such a big impact in our lives that, yeah, so now there's almost grief of, wow, like the past couple years could have been completely different if we didn't have to wait till she was like almost four and a half to do this. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think what you're describing is exactly how I teach informed decision making to my. do the clients as well. Like, yes, there's like the objective decision and there's the risks and benefits and what are the alternatives and all of that. But then people forget there's the layer of how does that make sense for me or for my specific daughter and her needs. So like when we look at these decisions and think, oh, surgery, like I don't want surgery and not look at like the deeper context of yes, but does it actually make sense in this particular situation with this particular

child, then, yeah, it was the right choice. And sometimes you don't know that until it's done, but, and you're taking that risk and you're, yeah, and it's scary and it's the unknown and all of that. But yeah, yeah. I think where the tenderness and the heaviness in it all comes is like this entanglement around identity that still exists. Like me maintaining the identity of being more naturally minded and holistic, I had this expectation of, well, then I fail at being natural and holistic if I choose surgery, right? So it's, and again, we see that in birth. We see that in motherhood. We see that in health and wellness spaces all the time where we're gripping onto this identity and the rules that we've, you know, attached to within that identity. I think we've talked about this in

different spaces too, right? Even my own experience of, well, I had a home birth. So that must mean I'm also going like homestead and homeschool and I went through my era of like I should have chickens and make sourdough and then very quickly realized wait a bit this isn't me I'm literally just doing this because I thought it came with that identity yeah yeah and it's so much more freeing once you realize that yeah you get to create your own identity like you don't have to there there's no ideal like these ideological yeah like there's no room for that yeah from my perspective especially in birth, especially in motherhood. Yeah.

It really is about carving your own path. Yeah. Whatever that looks like, yeah. And I think that's where the excitement and peace comes in this decision to pursue my masters in counseling is like I am very clear and that like I don't just want to be your average therapist, right? Like I know that there's going to be unchart. What's the word? Unchart.

Uncharted. Edit this out. Uncharted, what's the word? Uncharted territory? Yeah. That doesn't sound right. Yeah, uncharted territory. You're going to navigate uncharted territory? Unchartered. Yeah, I know I'm going to navigate uncharted territory. And again, like, it's like I've been training for this moment. If I had just gone on to do this master's program straight out of nursing school, I would have still been, you know, this people, pleaser, perfectionist, just wanting to have the letters behind. my name for the credibility and the security it was going to bring me, right? And that motivation doesn't exist anymore. That's actually where the discomfort in pursuing all of this has come from. It's like, wait, I don't actually want any of that. And yeah, anyways, all this just to say that the peace and the excitement comes in knowing there's freedom and possibility in getting to pave my own

path here. Yeah. And focusing on the nuance, the nuance of life, the nuance of these decisions, and the nuance of birth, of motherhood, of diagnoses and all of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like all of this could be a segue into what you and I have been working on. Yeah. For sure.

We've been building out our own childbirth prenatal class curriculum. And I think, you know, the weeks and months recently that we've poured into it, We very recently just came to this moment of wait. We need to do this than Nicole and Lauren way, right? This doesn't just have to be your average CBE. And that's been a really fun moment of realization. And also we had to go through the motions to get to this point. To feel confident.

Yeah, here we are at this very like open, I don't know, how would you describe it? Like there's just, again, that sense of freedom is here, right? There's no wrong way to do this. And really, like, there's just so much space to really infuse ourselves into this curriculum. Yeah. And everything, yeah, we've been learning, you know, me supporting births in person, supporting parents in person, you teaching a different childbirth education. Does podcast land know that? I don't even think, like, again, that's another, like big, right?

That's another big transition for me. So this would have started, well, maybe, maybe we talked about it. because I think I technically started last August teaching birth, child birth education. So that's been fun. Like I have literally, I've technically been working for someone else, teaching someone else's curriculum, which was exactly what I needed, I think, in that season of my life. And it really allowed me to gain confidence wearing that hat again because I haven't really been in the birth space for a while. haven't been in the in-person birth space ever. So yeah, that's been just a beautiful kind of season for me

of getting to do in-person work with expecting families. Yeah, I don't know. What else to say? But yeah, now we're compiling it all together. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much do we want to share. I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, nothing's a secret, but there's, yeah, I don't even, I mean, I think just generally speaking, the plan is, you know, we're going to have this curriculum, but we're both going to be able to teach it in person in our own, you know, local communities. And then maybe sometimes eventually one day doing it virtually together. But yeah, I think like the reason we're wanting to create something different because there are, like, lots of other options out there for childbirth education. There's a million online versions. There's, you know, even in each of our respective cities, there's different options for child birth education. But I think what we're really noticing is that, you know, some things are missing.

There's some gaps. There's some gaps that we'd like to fill and we'd like to address around, you know, there's not much, for example, there's not much focus on metressants at all. Metrescence and postpartum, the nervous system and the role of the nerve. nervous system in birth and how it is literally like the foundation of of safety and of how the physiology of birth can flow and what that means for you as a birther and as someone supporting someone going through labor. And just like, you know, coming from this perspective of birth and parenthood being a right of passage and what that means and how that looks and how we can look at birth through this lens of like there's no hierarchy. There's no right or wrong way to give birth.

The nuance, right? We're all about the nuance. Yeah. And helping people understand that nuance. Weaving in the identity, the identity shift that comes in all this. Like you mentioned, the hierarchy, the sense of like moral failure or superiority that tends to happen. And I think what we've witnessed in our own work and even in our own personal experience, experiences and kind of what I just named about this pipeline of, oh, well, I had a home birth, so that must be. And like how that identity carries forward, I just lost my train of thought. Just again, speaking to the identity, right? And how we tend to measure our self-worth potentially with our birth outcome. Yeah. And I think that needs more air time in prenatal education.

and like you named the metrescence piece. Like we're seeing metrescence thankfully be talked about more and more and more. But it's almost as if it's being talked about too late. It's being more central once a woman's already deep in her postpartum experience. And I think you and I keep asking like what will happen if these conversations and these seeds get planted before the baby's even here? Yeah. Right? Because we've talked about creating metressence programs.

And it's like, but wait, we can't, we can't expect a, you know, four, six week postpartum mom to be able to immerse herself in that kind of container and experience when she's still in the thick of it. Yeah. Yeah. So which is exactly why, you know, including this stuff in prenatal education. Like it needs to be in prenatal conversation. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and just like the deeper layers of preparing for birth. Like it's not taking a childbirth education course, like, yeah, great. You're going to learn about stages of labor and birth hormones and, you know, epidurals and inductions and things like that, which is great to have somewhat of an understanding, but most kind of stop there. And there's not any actual like, who are you and who are you going to be in those moments when you have to make a decision and who are you going to be when you're struggling? and you're not coping well and it's feeling hard and what's your relationship to things that are hard and

you know like how is your relationship together with your partner going to shift and change through this process and what does support really look like for you and what does safety really like feel and look like for you in your body so it's like asking these deeper questions to prepare you like as a human being not just to give you information because there's information everywhere you could literally go on chat GPT and be like, tell me, you know, a typical childbirth education, like, give it to me. And it would lay it out for you and tell you the facts that you need to know, but you don't birth with facts. You birth through your body, through embodied knowledge. So that's really where we're trying to focus this, this curriculum. Yeah. Which again, isn't the right word, I don't think,

but, you know. It's not. It's not. But again, it's the nuance and the, the personalization throughout at all, right? Like every single person, all those questions you just kind of named, like, what does safety, you know, look like? How do you handle hard moments? Like, there's no textbook answers to those. There's no right or wrong answers. There's, you cannot look outside yourself for those answers. Yeah. And I think that's where you and I really love to get curious and help shine light on. And again, this isn't just for the person giving birth. This is also for the person witnessing because even though they're not experiencing the intensity of labor contractions, there's still discomfort in witnessing something so raw and primal.

Yeah. And I think our goal is that people that move through this with us is that it helps them craft and experience. And when I say craft, I don't mean you're trying to control every little thing. It's like, will you have the resiliency to meet whatever comes? And can you surrender to the experience? without just being like, yeah, I'm just going to like go with the flow and let things happen. No, that's not what we're saying either.

It's this beautiful balance of, yes, learn and understand that each choice you makes has an effect. And depending on what it is you are desiring and how you want to feel and all these layers, all these pieces. But the hope is that at some point you can get comfortable with that discomfort of not knowing how it's going to go and understanding that birth is not linear. And birth might not look at all how you hoped and thought it would be. And what do you do then? How do you respond then? How do you still come out the other side of that having a good experience and feeling, yeah, just good about the decisions you've made. And yeah, yeah. The resiliency to make the experience. Be vivanceing today. That was all said, very well. I have nothing to add.

Yeah. I think the other layer in all of this, we've both been, walking through becoming birth story medicine listeners. Yeah. Which again, we're busy. We are like and again, it's making so much sense. Like this is evolved,

wondering where I've been or right. Like it makes sense. But I think that's also been one of those moments of like it makes sense that we're touching this aspect of our work now as opposed to potentially having done the training a couple years ago. it would have just looked very different. It would have been received very different, I think, by both of us. And to circle back to your comment about the nutrition diploma

and how obviously you never went fully into becoming a nutrition coach, but you're seeing so clearly how you continue to pull threads from that. And again, I think we're both seeing that now through this curriculum, for lack of a better word, that we're creating, and also now our upcoming work in birth story medicine, is we get to bring all of us into those facilitation roles, right? We're bringing in the nervous system. We're bringing in metrescence.

We're bringing in somatics. We're bringing in, you know, nursing, biology, physiology. We're bringing in our motherhood experience. It's all of it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which is really cool. It is really cool.

Mm-hmm. Feels good. Yeah. I'm excited. So I don't know when. We'll be ready, but it's soon. We're going at the speed of our creation style and, yeah, our busy lives. And it's coming.

It's coming. Yeah. Yeah. It's coming. Mm-hmm. Anything else, my friend? I mean, I think that's a more succinct update than I was expecting. But I think that touches.

on the big pieces where we've been, what we've been doing, what we've been talking about and experiencing where we're going through, where we're going. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll have lots more to say about, did we even say it's called weaving birth? I'm sure we will be talking a lot more about it, recording some podcast episodes about it and our kind of philosophy around it and our, you know, ever-evolving understanding of birth and birth preparation and all of that. Is this a Musings and Magic episode?

Yeah. Do we, yeah, okay, I don't know. What's Musings and Magic? I was so confused. If I think Musings and Magic is the, you know, the shared sub-series that we both host on our own podcasts. And I think the intention way, way, way back when we started it was to actually use it as a bit of cyclical embodiment, right, to do a check-in of where we are in our own cycles,

where we are in, like, lunar cycles, and you and I constantly ebb and flow with how connected we are to those things. But again, in coming back to the earlier conversation of your journey through the diagnosis of ADHD and starting medications and, you know, how you've been learning more about yourself through all that, it's also been really cool to, continue to touch back into the cyclicalness of all of it, right? Because it's so easy to kind of get wrapped into the more linear model that the outside world wants from us. And I think constantly we're having conversations and reminding each other of the cyclical nature of not just our own productivity, but also creation. Yeah. It's just really cool that, again,

that that's part of our foundation now. It shows up. in everything we do. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I feel like I almost like, kind of forgot that for a little bit the last few months. I think ADHD medication can mask a lot of things because it is giving you that like not artificial,

but it's helping you focus and giving you energy in a different way. That does feel a bit more consistent if you're taking your medication every single day, which is amazing and incredible. feels great, but it can be easy to, like, mask. Oh, yeah, I am in my ludial phase. And it does make sense that I'm not feeling as great as I normally do. It's not the medications fault. It's, you know, my hormones are shifting and things are happening. And it's okay for me to slow down and take a break and remember that I should be resting now, should be, want to be. Yeah. So it's been a good reminder, even just this last cycle, that that cycle is still there and still needs attention and love.

All of that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's a good update for now. Yeah. I feel like it was like a lot of little bits. But yeah, kind of sort of a general overview.

All right, friend. Well, until the next one. Well, hopefully it's not a year from now. Yeah. See you like next spring. No, just kidding. We will. I don't know if summer's going to look different.

right you're gonna have well I don't know we'll just see yeah really not attached to anything surrender to what wants to present itself okay my friend I love you love you bye