My Motherhood Journey: Lessons Learned from Pregnancy and Birth (Part 2)

Catherine A. Wood 00:00
Hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast, Kat here. If you haven’t already tuned into last week’s episode, hello. I’m back from maternity leave, and I’m really delighted to be here with you all, and last week, I shared a recap episode of just how life and business have gone for me over the past year, what our pregnancy journey has been like, and really just some of the lessons learned in life and business. Now, if you’ve been listening to podcasts right along, then a lot of what we shared may not have sounded new to you, but if you’re new to the podcast. I think last week’s episode is a really great just recap of what my life has been like over the past year, and these episodes are also just a little more personal than what I customarily share on the podcast, but this is a huge part of my life, and becoming a mom has been just a huge yearning, a huge goal, a huge dream that I’ve held for myself for so long that I couldn’t not share it. And moving forward, I think we’re going to be sharing a lot more about parenting and some of the wisdom and how parenting applies to business and being a prosperous Empath and and vice versa. So if you’re a mom or you’re a wannabe mom, I hope that you enjoy just some of these new themes that we’ll be exploring on the episode that would be that we’ll be exploring on the podcast moving forward. So with that, let’s jump in, because I am so excited to share my birth story with you, some of the lessons we’ve learned, some of what maternity leave has been like for me, some of what has surprised me and delighted me, and also some of what’s been really challenging. And I also I want to share just a couple of my takeaways and and I want to share a couple of our takeaways, I think that, and I Want to share a couple of my key takeaways. One, Our birth story. Why? So? Much of the birth of our son, Micah, felt like an absolute whirlwind, which I imagine that that’s how it often feels for first time parents and maybe for second and third time parents as well. But ironically, I didn’t actually pack our hospital bag until the night that I went into early labor, because I really didn’t think we were going to deliver our baby early.

03:55
I think I’ve

Catherine A. Wood 03:56
shared on the podcast before that I was really hoping that we would have our baby early, that he would or they, because we didn’t know the gender, that they would come by the end of August. Our our due date was September 11, but I was really hoping that they would come by the end of August, because in most cities and counties in Massachusetts, the school enrollment date, the cutoff date is August 31 so if your child is born before August 31 you can choose whether to send them to school early or to hold them back a school year. But if you deliver after August 31 then they mandatorily have to they’re mandatorily held back a school year, and I wanted the option to choose. And it’s not like. Necessarily wanted to send my child to school early. I know that a lot of the research suggests that children who are held back do better in early childhood years, but I just wanted the option to choose based on our baby and on their specific needs, but at at the as we were approaching our dead as a But as fate would have it, as we were approaching our due date, I was not feeling any signs of early labor. I wasn’t feeling any Braxton Hicks contractions like I didn’t feel like this baby was coming anytime soon, and so I kind of released my attachment to wanting them to deliver early, and then I just kind of surrendered to this idea, to the likelihood that I would deliver late, as statistically speaking, most first time moms Do, and then fortuitously declare and fulfill, which in coaching we know is one of our most powerful tools. It’s the possibility of declaring what you want and then surrendering to to the how and the when and we fulfilled we Michael was delivered on August 30, at 5:35pm in the afternoon, which was a Friday afternoon. I was so delighted that he was born during the day, rather than at night time. I feel like so many babies are delivered in the wee hours of the night, and I really value my sleep, and I was excited to have a full night of sleep, which was a little different with a newborn who I was trying to nurse. But that’s beside the point. I had a beautiful birth, I will say that I I had a really beautiful and magical birth as a first time mom. And I do not say that lightly, because I know that statistically speaking, as a first time mom of 40, that there were a lot of factors that were against me, and yet for me, I just felt like given how I had cared for myself throughout my entire pregnancy, given how I’ve always prioritized my well being, my mental health, my health, that there were a lot of factors in our favor. And let’s see, what do I want to share with You? So i I Our birth story feels really magical, and honestly, I’m really excited to just get to capture some of my experience here and share it with you, and also to just highlight some of the lessons learned. Because how often do we have these transformational experiences and then stop and just take the time that those experiences merit and deserve to reflect. So here’s a little bit of my own reflection that I want to share with you. So much of my birth story went exactly how I imagined it would, and some really important aspects, like absolutely did not go how I imagined they would. And I think that that’s what you have to hold right like, to hold your vision and then detach from the outcome, to detach from the regret of trying to control every little aspect. So more on that in a little bit. But just to share a little, to share some of the details of a birth story. I’m not going to share all of it, but I experienced my very first symptoms of early labor when I woke up Wednesday night, going into Thursday morning. Thursday morning, I woke up and I experienced my very first early labor contractions, and I was spotting a little which feels a little bit like TMI, but so be it. So all day, Thursday, I was like questioning whether I was in labor, because, as a first time mom, not experience having ever experienced contractions, not knowing how to discern, you know, what are Braxton Hicks? Contractions versus early labor contractions like I really had no clue they say that like you’ll know when you know. And I was still questioning through a lot of Thursday I did, I was in kind of steady contact with my labor doula, and she indicated that that I was, she indicated that I was, in fact, experiencing early labor symptoms, given what I shared with her. So you know, it kind of added a little fuel to my fire to get all those last minute items done that we hadn’t gotten done. Ironically, that Thursday afternoon, we had our car seat installation appointment booked. So Now bear in mind, this was two weeks before our due date, which is very last minute for Catherine fashion, but the baby store had like a month. Actually, it was like three weeks back order of car seats and strollers, and so we had actually come home early from our annual summer vacation in Canada because I felt this, like this, need this, like pressure to buy the car seat and buy the stroller. So we actually bought them weeks and weeks ahead of time, but then they were on back order. So literally, I’m experiencing early labor contractions, and we’re at the baby store, finally getting our car seat installed, and getting taught on how to install and to take out the car seat and how to use the stroller and to break it down and put it up. So that that happened in super last minute fashion for me, and then I think I had that like extreme sense, that extreme case of nesting that you hear about for moms. So I I just had it in my mind that we should buy a new couch. My husband and I had been talking about buying a new couch. We had some cash saved up that we had been putting aside to use for a couch, and we went couch shopping. So we found ourselves at lazy boy trying out couches. And as you can imagine, I’m like, nervous because I’m literally having contractions and, you know, worried what I might find on the couch as I as I’m like, Wait, let’s get rid of that line. Haley, so we’re literally in lazy boy trying out couches, and I’m feeling super excited about having a couch to bring home a newborn in right to spend our maternity and paternity leave nested at home with a newborn, cozy on a new couch. So we, we did. We bought a new couch that day, and then I felt this in intense pressure that we needed to go to Target to buy all the outstanding items that we hadn’t yet purchased for baby that we were going to need in those early hours and days and weeks of being first time parents. So we that when then we then went to Target, and we spent a couple hours, as I’m having contractions, buying all the remaining and outstanding items from our registry that people hadn’t gotten us, that we felt like we needed, that were like mandatory. So that was fun. And then we come home and I’m packing our hospital bag, and my husband is installing window blinds in the nursery and in our bedroom so we can, you know, help the baby adjust to the difference between day and night as they’re sleeping and and I’m just like bearing in mind This wisdom from our doula and from our early from our first time parent education class that if you’re wanting to successfully have a natural, unmedicated birth, that one of the primary structures to support that is to stay at home as long as you possibly can, and to try to ignore your contractions, right? So I am doing my best to pack our hospital bag, go shopping, prepare for baby, organize the last minute things in the nursery that are still outstanding all while I’m having early labor contractions. So that was fun. And we were up. Gosh, I was up all night. My husband was up most of the night. And honestly, I think one of the most beautiful things of that night at home, our last night at home is like, just how empathic my two dogs were, literally, they did not leave my side. They were right outside the bathroom door as I was in the bathtub for a couple hours, and then in the early morning hours on Friday, on the day we delivered, I was literally lying on the couch with my head on our retrievers stomach, and Luna, our pit lab mix was under my legs, and they were just so comforting and reassuring. And it was actually just like a really I felt really loved and supported that night at home, my husband was tracking the time between all of our contractions and tracking them in this app that would be recommended. We had our doula on 24/7 text support with all questions and just helping us gage how we were progressing. I had my two dogs who were my emotional support companions. I spent most of the night in the tub, on the couch and on my yoga ball, doing all of these stretches and yoga poses that we’d learned at spinning babies and with our doula, and then in the early morning hours, our doula came to the house, which was, I think, the aspect of hiring a doula that I was most excited about. You know, I knew that I would want the doula for the labor support when we were birthing the baby, but I really wanted that early labor support at home that, you know, you read about in books and you see in movies, but it feels so outside of the norm of how it goes these days, in in traditional births, and it just felt so important to me to have her know our home, know our dogs, and support us in that really intimate way. So she came to the house like 5am on the on the day we gave birth to Micah, and we spent those the first half of the day like we spent the first five hours of that day like until 10am at home, doing different yoga poses and spinning babies postures and stretches and just really trying to help me progress naturally at home, so that by the time we arrived at the hospital, I would be sufficiently dilated that I would be able to stay and so I. By mid morning, I by mid morning, around 1030 we all decided that it was time for us to go to the hospital. And I loved the hospital. We delivered at. We delivered at the Mount Auburn Center for Women in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They partner with Harvard Medical School, and they also have a lot of they partner with Harvard Medical School, and they’re a teaching hospital, so there’s oftentimes nurse midwives who are observing and doctors who are observing and learning, and that just felt like the exact environment that I wanted to have a baby in, and particularly to have a midwife deliver my baby. So we we arrived to the hospital around midday, and we arrived to The hospital midday, and I unfortunately wasn’t able to go right up to labor and delivery. It turns out that every birthing bed was occupied, and they sent us to the they sent us for our 38 week prenatal appointment that we’d already previously scheduled for that day downstairs to triage us and to make sure that I was sufficiently dilated to to get to stay in the hospital. And fortunately, I was I was six centimeters, and off we went to labor and delivery. So this was around noon. I think by 1230 we were safely in our own room. I had packed all of these like beautiful holistic items to support the environment and the energy of the room, I had gotten these electric candles, and I got a heating pad and and we brought the stroller fan in case I was hot. And it turns out I needed very few of those items because I progressed so quickly from there again, like we delivered by 535 and we weren’t in the birthing room until 1230 that Day. So you can imagine things moved pretty quickly. I uh, things moved pretty quickly. And I think some one of the aspects of the my journey that things moved pretty quickly, and I think what supported the time frame of my delivery was the support that I chose to partner with. I had two midwives overseeing the delivery of my son, and they were absolutely magical, like they were so beautiful, and just like the caliber of support that I always envisioned for my birth they they were all about empowering Mama’s natural urges to push and her own wisdom around what positions that I wanted to be in, and it just felt so aligned with who I am and what I value, and just the type of birth that I had always envisioned. I also had a a doctor in residency who the hospital staff also asked permission if one of the doctors in training could observe my birth, because he had never observed a natural and medicated birth, and and I was like, Oh, sure, no problem. The more the merrier. So we have a full house. We had two midwives. We had a. Doctor in training. We had myself, my husband, our doula. We also had our labor and delivery nurse, and there was one other person. So it was a very packed room, and almost everyone in the room was like completely values aligned and contributing to the overall experience and the environment that I wanted to create for my birth except one person we had, a labor and delivery nurse, who, I think the word I can only use to describe her is that she was super crimogeny. She was very kind of old school, and rather than kind of empowering me to lead, she was very controlling and domineering in what she told me to do and how she told me I needed to push and breathe and in what to expect and to like, to top that all off, she also was a smoker, and so she had smokers breath. And what is really fascinating for me about her being in the room and just about having someone like that be inside of my own energetic bubble inside such a vulnerable state and such a like a deeply intimate experience, is that it didn’t actually bother me that she was there, and I completely attribute that to all the work I’ve done over the past decade, a prior version of me would have been completely riled up or taken out, or maybe even like, angry and venomous about having someone in my space trying to tell me what to do, rather than Like helping to empower me and like encouraging me to lead. And what was so fascinating for me is that she didn’t get under my skin at all. And I could tell, like, even being like, completely out of it, right? Even in the midst of my contractions, I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, you know, like I could tell that she was getting under my husband’s skin and that she was getting under a doula skin. But I think something I was able to do in that moment, and something that, again, I completely attribute to all the coaching work I’ve done is that I was simply able to tune out the voices that weren’t aligned and that I did not trust, like hers, and I was able to tune in the voices that were supportive and empowering to me. So quite literally, what this looked like is I just blocked her out energetically and laughed at her in my head, and I tuned in the voice of my husband and my doula and our midwife, who were telling an entirely different message with an entirely different, energetic vibe, and it literally made all the difference. I think another aspect of we don’t want to Get rid of that, that line, too, okay, I

29:46
I want to say, Okay, I.

Catherine A. Wood 30:07
The other important highlight from that day that I really want to share is actually a gem that I took from one of my clients turned friends, and it was the option to use nitrous oxide during my labor and delivery if I felt like I needed some support. So I have always wanted a natural, unmedicated birth. And again, like most things you know, I I was open to the possibility of I was open to the possibility of pain management or alternative options if I needed them, but having a natural, unmedicated birth is something that I’ve just always envisioned for myself. It’s what I It’s what my mom had with me, like it was just, it’s always been a dream. But like most things right when we’re trying to hold our dreams, there’s oftentimes barriers or moments of fear that that put your dream in question. And so for me, like that absolutely happened when I was delivering mica, I think I was like, right between seven, seven and eight centimeters dilated. And I had kind of reached this moment of hopelessness where I was like, I cannot do this anymore. And I had promised myself that if I reached that point where I was considering pain alternatives that I would ask for nitrous oxide, and this is something that, again, one of my dear clients had recommended I consider it’s not pain management, but it does. It’s not pain management per se. It’s laughing gas, but it helps cloud your senses a little so that you’re not as present to the pain that you’re experiencing. So I decided to try nitrous oxide versus, you know, versus jumping to an I asked to try nitrous oxide versus jumping first or directly to an epidural and so and and interestingly enough, they brought me the nitrous oxide tank and the gas mask, and I’m trying it, and it’s it’s not working, like I’m literally not feeling anything. And again, having never used this before, I don’t entirely know what you’re supposed to feel or how it’s supposed to work. But again, I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel, or entirely how it’s supposed to work. The labor and delivery nurse told me how to use it, and so there I am trying to, like, suck in air hard and then breathe through the mask. And I literally can’t do either. And now, again, I’m so grateful for this decade of work in learning how to find my voice as an empathpreneur, because I was able to advocate for myself in that moment and just communicate Hey, I don’t think hey, the mask is Not working. I don’t think This is working. And I I was able to advocate for myself and just communicate, hey, I don’t think this is working. I can’t feel anything, and I cannot exhale through this mask. And the labor and delivery nurse, I know she kind of challenged me and said, Ah, no, I think it’s working. You just need to breathe harder and and again, like I was able to advocate for myself a second time and just say, No, it’s not working. Can you please bring me another tank? Now a prior version of myself would have collapsed, would have trusted the. Kind of inherent power dynamic that you’re inside of in that very vulnerable state. But they listened to me, they brought me another tank, they brought me a new mask, and it immediately started working. And it made a massive difference in the pain that I was, that I was present to during the contractions. At one point, I remember, like, mid contraction, I like, take the mask off my face. I’m like, this is completely different. It’s working now. And I was so proud of myself, right? Like even kind of like being half out of it. I was so proud of myself for advocating for myself multiple times in that moment of pain, in that moment of vulnerability, because truly, a prior version of myself never would have been able to this is one of the reasons I think we all need to have doulas support us in our labor and delivery experiences, regardless of how much work we’ve done in ourselves, because it can be really hard to advocate for yourself in those moments of weakness and in those moments of just Complete vulnerability and like massive unknown as a first time mom, right? I do really attribute that nitrous oxide to making the difference between us having a natural, unmedicated birth, and not being able to endure that pain and needing medication, it made such a difference. It also allowed me to relax and allowed baby to naturally lower and and we pushed out Mike or we, by 430 that afternoon the baby had lowered, and we were able, by 430 that afternoon the baby had lowered, and I was able to naturally deliver Micah Aish tiwala into the world, and by 430 that afternoon, the baby had naturally lowered. The midwives came in and they were able to deliver by 430 that afternoon, the baby had lowered into the birthing canal, and I was able to safely and naturally deliver mica into the world in like 45 minutes, my husband was able to help catch the baby and pass him to me and announce the gender and cut the umbilical cord and and it’s like just the most profound life changing experience that I’ve ever experienced. It was like otherworldly. And the irony is that when they passed the baby into my arms, like I was completely, I was completely lucid, and I was also completely grounded. I think they recorded videos of me. And I think the, like, the first things I said to my son was like, oh my goodness, hello. It’s so nice to meet you. Not crying, not like overwhelmed with emotion, right? Like, completely that’s and then, like 30 seconds after that, when I saw my husband, and I saw how moved he was, like the emotional I um, the emotional impact of what I had just done caught up with me, and we just broke down into tears, and it was just so so beautiful. And I’m just so grateful for, um. I think I can safely Say it’s like the most I appointment, truly, it felt like a life changing day. I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of myself and of my body and what I can physically and spiritually do and life has felt forever changed In just the most magical and beautiful way possible. I uh, since coming home with Micah, things have gone so smoothly, more smoothly than I could have imagined. I think that I’ve just fallen naturally and gracefully into motherhood, and things have just made sense in a way that I’ve been yearning for, where my multiple hour Morning Routine it used to be the highlight of my day, and something that I held with so much sacredness and reverence, it’s now transformed into a completely different morning routine that I hold with the same amount of reverence, and it looks entirely different, and I wouldn’t trade it for a minute. I now find myself laying in bed until I naturally wake up with the baby and enjoying those early morning hours with a cup of coffee and in bed having reading time with my newborn, playing and completely allowing his own natural rhythms to to guide our morning routine and the timing of things. Now I know that not every new mama has that same luxury, and I do not take it lightly how much privilege I have in being being able to have a morning routine like that, or also in knowing that I don’t have to go back to an office at all, and that I can come back to business while working from home in a way that Just completely works for my family. And I’m so grateful for that. Had we had our son earlier on in my career, when I was still working in an office, maternity leave and kind of the anticipation of going back to work full time would just look entirely different than it does now. But as it stands, like I don’t have any major concerns or fears about going back to work post maternity leave, I feel excited and also just present to a whole lot of possibility for how I want to reinvent things. Another thing that’s really shifted inside of maternity leave is that I’ve massively lowered my expectations for what I commit to or what I set intentions for myself to get done in a day. It is wild how much time babies take, and just how little you can actually get done in a day when you have a baby on your boob pretty much all day, which is what it feels like some days these days. So oftentimes now, I find myself asking, What would a win look like today? Or what would be enough for me today? Like, essentially, what would I need to get done today that would have me feel that would have me feel like I got done what I needed to get done for me, rather than just it all being about baby now that ability to mask. Lower My expectations in the way that I have is something that I can guarantee also would not have looked like this had I had a baby earlier on in my journey, my but what a gift to be able to earlier on my journey. Let’s just stop there. The next choice that we’ve made about parenting is that we’re keeping the baby off of social media. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I have very infrequently been on social media. I haven’t posted any pictures of the baby. There’s been some announcements of baby that were already scheduled with the podcast episodes and the promotional work that my podcasting team releases for me, but it has felt incredibly freeing to just keep that part of our personal Life off of social media, to not need to engage with the dopamine high of and fix of social media and the likes and the comments and, man, it’s just been completely liberating. Another thing that’s looked really different for us in our maternity i Uh, another thing that’s looked really different for us postpartum is I recovered well, quickly and like another thing that’s looked really different for us postpartum is that we’ve been welcoming visitors into the house, pretty much from the first week we’ve had like a steady cadence of visitors and family visiting and even staying over. And I have loved celebrating being and I have loved celebrating being a mom and celebrating our son with our family and friends. It’s been such a joy to to not feel lonely, to be surrounded by people I love. That’s been such a blessing, and then the last choice we made in parenting is one that I never thought that I would make for me having a baby as a 40 year old mom, you can imagine that I’ve had many friends and family members have babies before me, and I’ve got to observe how they Do it, and see and take note around how I would want to do things for myself. And one of those choices that I thought that I would never make for myself was co sleeping. I always envisioned being a mom that would have an independent sleeper early, maybe because I respect my sleep so much, maybe because I wanted that separation. But I will say that you never know what type of baby you’re gonna get. You never know what independent needs your baby is going to have, and something that I have not only had to surrender to, but also completely fallen in love with, is bed sharing our baby sleeps with us every night, and sleeping does not feel like a drag. I noticed that it’s just been a natural rhythm and cadence for us to co sleep, and it is not a choice I ever thought that I would make for myself. So there you have it. There are kind of the highlights of our birth story and our journey, some of the new choices that I’ve been making, both in my postpartum timeframe and during maternity leave, and also as first time parents, I think overall, some of the greatest lessons that I’m taking with me from this journey, overall, two of the greatest lessons that I’m really taking with me from just the transformation that it is to become a mom, is that I two of the overall lessons that I’m really holding on to throughout this whole pregnancy and first time mom journey is that. We get to own what we want, right? Like it is on us to, like, own the crap out of what we really want, whether it’s to have a baby, buy a house, become self employed, fall in love, become a millionaire. Um, I travel the world, whatever it is, right, like it is completely on both you and me to fully articulate and communicate what we want, and we actually have to do it. We have to take those courageous and brave steps, to acknowledge, to express, to own what we want, so that we’re spiritually able to detach from how it goes. There are two regrets that I have From my labor and delivery. There are two regrets that I have from my pregnancy journey that I don’t think I would be able to make peace with so fully had I not done everything I knew to do. I uh, around owning what I want. The first was that I really wanted a water birth. I mean, if you know me, you know how much I love the water. I grew up in the ocean and my parents pool. I swam most days in the ocean during Micah’s during my pregnancy journey with Micah like, if there’s anyone who was going to have a water birth, it would be Catherine Amelia wood, I communicated to the midwives every single prenatal appointment how much I wanted the water birth, how likely it would be that I would be able to get one of the birthing rooms with one of the birthing tubs, I literally did everything I knew to do to up my chances of having a natural water birth. And unfortunately, at this hospital, there was only there’s only one room that has a birthing tub, and it was occupied. And not only was that room occupied, but also every other room that had a tub was occupied. So my labor and delivery room only had a shower, and a prior version of myself would have been absolutely crushed that this part of my dream couldn’t be actualized, but I did everything that I knew to do so that I could detach from how it went And that, that knowing, which I think is so important and such a breakthrough place for us to get as Empath preneurs, allows us to move forward without regrets, when we really own the crap out of what we want, when we make sure that there’s no wish or aspect of our desires that’s left unsaid, it is so much easier to detach from how it goes, or to detach from the outcome. I feel so grateful for every aspect of my my birth, and this one is one that we’ll just see how it goes next time the other the other regret is also feels equally tender, and this is one that I haven’t shared publicly. I wanted to be surprised by the gender of our baby from the beginning, and I’m just not going to share that one. I’m not going to share that part. Haley, the final lesson I want to share with you all in today’s. Episode is one that I think we continually get to learn as empathpreneurs. It’s one that I’m continually learning on a deeper and deeper level, and it’s the reminder that we have to allow ourselves to be celebrated something that happened during my labor and delivery is that we received a lot of compliments, a lot of praise around our specific i We received a lot of compliments, and we received a lot of praise around our my pregnancy. No, we received a lot of compliments, and we also received so much praise about how I did delivering Micah. Now this is something that I just imagined hospital staffs say to everyone. I just imagined that, oh, you know, you compliment the mom, you tell her how good of a job she did. And then, you know, off you go. And something that really stuck with me is that the compliments and the praise did not stop. People were coming to our labor and delivery room and then our room in the i

56:40
and

Catherine A. Wood 56:52
then to our room in the postpartum care unit for the whole time that we were in the hospital, just complimenting us again, letting us know that you don’t often see a natural and medicated birth anymore, like how magical it was, how I don’t occur like a first time mom, how easy this seems to be going for us with the labor and delivery and the breastfeeding and everything else. And there was this part of me that just didn’t want to receive all those compliments, that didn’t think that I had done anything exceptional. And I think that we often don’t fully acknowledge ourselves for the exceptional things that we do all the time in life. And what I realize is that this was an exceptional birth. This was a beautiful, magical, special, natural and medicated birth, and I am so freaking proud of myself for it. And the message I want to leave you with on today’s episode is that we consistently need to expand our capacity to receive love, and it comes in so many forms and fashions, right? Like I us, allowing ourselves to feel people’s acknowledgement and praise of us, is one version of it, allowing ourselves to receive gifts with appreciation and excitement. Is another version of it, allowing ourselves to feel people’s excitement for us right like these are all versions of how we can allow ourselves to be celebrated, and as we do, as we expand Our capacity to receive and feel love and celebration. You we expand our own capacity to celebrate and to be content and to be present. And I have been so freaking present and happy and content during my own maternity leave, and I think it’s because of this. Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I shared a little bit more than I was intending to today, but if you took anything with you. From this episode, I would love to hear from you. Come on over to a private community. It’s really the only place I’m hanging out online these days and and share with me what your one takeaway was. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you next week. You.