Girly Pop Birth Talks

In this episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, we sit down with Haley Palos, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, who specializes in perinatal mental health, supporting first responders, high-profile individuals, and those navigating people-pleasing patterns.

Haley shares the deeply personal birth story that ultimately reshaped her life and professional path.

Her son’s birth in 2020 began with intense back labor from the very start, contractions coming quickly every two minutes while dilation lagged behind. After 20 hours of labor, an epidural, and her water being broken by her doctor, Haley’s baby—who was sunny side up needed to be delivered with vacuum assistance after experiencing heart rate decelerations.

Following the birth, her baby required immediate care while Haley was stitched, and the postpartum experience continued with the discovery of a tongue tie, launching her into the complex and emotional realities of early motherhood.

Through this journey paired with the isolation and limited resources many families experienced during the 2020 pandemic Haley’s perspective on birth, postpartum care, and maternal mental health shifted profoundly.

Today, Haley uses both her professional expertise and lived experience to support families navigating the emotional layers of pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, and the postpartum transition.

In this conversation we talk about:

✨ The emotional reality of long and difficult labors

✨ Sunny-side-up babies and back labor

✨ Birth interventions and processing birth experiences

✨ The mental health impact of early postpartum challenges

✨ Navigating miscarriage conversations with compassion

✨ Why perinatal mental health support matters now more than ever

Haley reminds us that birth stories don’t just shape babies they shape mothers too.

Guest: Haley Palos, LMFT

Perinatal Mental Health Therapist

Instagram: @palospractice

In this episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, we sit down with Kaleem Joy, LM, CPM the one and only, a legacy midwife whose wisdom, courage, and calling have touched generations of births.

With decades devoted to mothers, babies, and families, Kaleem shares the defining moments that shaped her path into midwifery from early experiences in highly medicalized birth rooms to the profound transformation she experienced witnessing connected, family-centered births.

We talk about what birth looked like decades ago, how the system has evolved, and what still needs reclaiming today. Kaleem reflects on the instinct that guides birth workers, the emotional realities of infertility and loss, and the importance of mentorship and legacy in this work.

In this episode, we explore:

✨ How one moment in a hospital room sparked a lifelong calling
✨ What birth culture used to look like and why that history matters
✨ The power of instinct, connection, and honoring the mother-baby bond
✨ Kaleem’s personal journey through infertility, miscarriage, and motherhood
✨ Why legacy birth workers matter and how their wisdom shapes the future

🌿 Learn From Kaleem

If you’re expecting, preparing for birth, or simply want education rooted in experience and intuition, Kaleem offers childbirth education through her program Natural Childbirth 101.

Her courses support families through pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and postpartum with education designed to build confidence, empowerment, and connection.

You can learn more at:
www.naturalchildbirth101.com

Kaleem’s story reminds us that birth work isn’t just a profession — it’s a calling carried across generations.

🎧 Tune in for a conversation about devotion, calling, and what it really means to live a life in birth.

In this honest and grounding episode, we sit down with Brittany Sallaberry, a perinatal mental health therapist, LCSW, and mom of two, whose personal birth journey reshaped the way she supports families today.

Brittany shares her experience of an unmedicated hospital birth followed by a difficult postpartum season and prolapse diagnosis — a chapter that deeply impacted her physically, emotionally, and professionally. She also opens up about the grief of an early miscarriage, the long process of healing, and the redemptive power of her later home birth.

Having worked in hospital settings, including Labor & Delivery, Brittany brings a rare perspective from both sides of the room — the clinician supporting families and the mother navigating her own story in real time.

In this conversation, we explore:
 • How birth experiences influence maternal mental health
 • Navigating postpartum body changes and recovery
 • Pregnancy loss and honoring grief
 • What healing can look like after a hard start to motherhood
 • Why compassionate mental health support in the perinatal period matters so deeply

This episode is thoughtful, validating, and full of insight for anyone walking through motherhood, healing, or the desire to rewrite their story.

Follow Brittany on Instagram: @therapybybrittany
And find her online here:
https://www.brittanysallaberry.com/

In this episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, we sit with Kelci Mukisa mother of three, homebirth doula, photographer, homeschool mama and a woman who has learned to trust the quiet voice within her.

Kelci has birthed three babies.

One in a hospital room.

Two in the sacred stillness of home.

But this conversation isn’t about where she gave birth.

It’s about who she became.

She shares what early motherhood actually felt like the tenderness, the isolation, the stretching of identity. The way your world expands and narrows all at once. The quiet ache of wishing someone would say the things you were thinking but didn’t yet have language for.

There was a kind of village she longed for.

Honest. Grounded. Faith-filled.

A space where women spoke gently but truthfully about motherhood not polished, not performative just real.

And when she couldn’t find it…

She began building it.

We talk about:

– How her three births shaped her confidence

– The unseen emotional landscape of becoming a mother

– Growing into her voice instead of shrinking it

– Supporting women in birth while still learning herself

– Raising babies while creating meaningful work

– What it means to build community with intention

Kelci carries motherhood with depth and softness.

Her words feel like an exhale.

This episode is for the woman who feels the becoming happening inside her.

For the one quietly building something she once needed.

Sometimes the calling isn’t loud.

Sometimes it’s just a whisper that says,

“Be what you were looking for.”

And she did.

In this heartfelt and deeply honest episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, Becca and Arielle sit down with special guest Ellen Silva to unpack her powerful journey through two very different hospital births.

At just 29 years old, Ellen has already navigated pregnancy, motherhood, and unexpected challenges with incredible strength. As a middle school teacher, makeup artist, wife, and mom of two little ones, she opens up about what birth really looked like for her behind the highlight reel.

We dive into:

Her first hospital birth with an epidural that ended in a traumatic postpartum hemorrhage

What it felt like to hear her own doctors label her experience as “traumatic”

Processing fear and recovery in the early postpartum days

Her second pregnancy, complicated by preterm labor at just 32 weeks

Spending six long weeks trying to “keep baby Henry in”

The emotional rollercoaster of hospitalization, uncertainty, and resilience

Making it all the way to 38 weeks after being told delivery could be imminent

How Ellen’s perspective on birth, support, and motherhood shifted the second time around

Her doula experience and how it shaped both of her labors

And the story of how she “redeemed breastfeeding” after a difficult start

This conversation is real, relatable, and full of the kind of honesty we love on Girly Pop Birth Talks. Whether you’ve experienced birth trauma, preterm labor, or just want to feel seen in your own motherhood journey—this episode will wrap you in a big virtual hug.

As always, we’re here to remind you: every birth story matters.

In this episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, Becca and Arielle sit down with Dr. Shanna Saenz, DC, chiropractor and mama of two, to share her two very different — and equally powerful — birth stories.

Shanna walks us through her first birth at the California Birth Center, where her water broke unexpectedly while walking around Raley’s at 37+6. When labor didn’t begin on its own, she made the empowered decision to use castor oil, leading to an 8-hour labor and a calm, supported birth just days later.

Her second birth, a planned home birth through CBC, was a completely different experience — fast, intense, and almost missed. With only two hours of active labor, a water birth in the middle of the day, and a midwife arriving at 2:53 PM with baby born at 3:10 PM, this birth became a powerful lesson in trusting the body and letting go of expectations (and the timeline 😅).

Together, we talk about:

Birth center vs. home birth experiences

Fast labor and how it can surprise even experienced moms

Trusting your body when labor doesn’t follow the “rules”

How chiropractic care can support pregnancy & birth

Surrender, intuition, and body wisdom in labor

What second births teach us about control and confidence

This episode is real, grounding, and empowering — a reminder that birth doesn’t have to look one way to be powerful and that your body is always worthy of trust.

🎧 Perfect for mamas, birth workers, and anyone who loves honest birth stories that leave you feeling more confident in your body.

This week on Girly Pop Birth Talks, Becca & Arielle sit down with Justine Williams, a mama of four whose motherhood journey has taken her through nearly every version of bringing a baby home.

Justine shares her experience of seven pregnancies, including four births, three miscarriages, and one beautiful adoption, as well as giving birth in a hospital, birth center, and at home. Her story is layered with loss, trust, surrender, and the deep knowing that families are built in so many different ways.

Now a stay-at-home and homeschool mama with children ranging from newborn to 9 years old, Justine reflects on navigating big age gaps, postpartum in midlife, and learning to release control while honoring her body and intuition.

In this episode, we talk about:

What it’s like to birth in every setting

Trusting your body after pregnancy loss

The emotional journey of adoption

Parenting across wide age gaps

Letting go of the “perfect birth” story

Redefining what a family can look like

This conversation is tender, grounding, and full of wisdom for anyone walking through pregnancy, postpartum, loss, or adoption.

✨ Press play, grab a cozy drink, and come sit with us.

In this deeply moving episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, Becca and Arielle sit down with Amanda Vonderheid to share a raw, honest, and incredibly vulnerable birth journey one that holds both profound loss and enduring strength.

Amanda opens up about experiencing six pregnancies, including two living children, three chemical pregnancies, and one devastating stillbirth. She walks us through her three unplanned cesarean births, each one shaped by unique circumstances, medical complications, and emotional weight.

We talk about:

Planning a birth center birth that ended in a hospital transfer, Pitocin, and cesarean after PROM and positional challenges

Navigating preeclampsia at 39 weeks, induction, and the unimaginable discovery that her baby had passed away, followed by a cesarean and postpartum preeclampsia rehospitalization

Hoping for a VBAC after loss, only to face another cesarean due to cord complications and fetal intolerance of labor

The lasting impact of birth trauma and being treated poorly by medical providers

What it means to grieve, heal, and mother after loss

How these experiences reshape trust, advocacy, and the way we hold future pregnancies and births

This episode is tender, heavy, and incredibly important. Amanda’s story is a reminder that birth is not linear, that outcomes do not define worth, and that women deserve compassion, autonomy, and respect—always.

🤍 Content note: This episode includes discussion of pregnancy loss and stillbirth.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube

💗 If this episode resonates, please share it with someone who might feel less alone because of it.

If you live in Northern California, you’ve probably seen the billboards. Valary Jennings isn’t just our guest she’s the co-founder of Made 4 More Realty, the company behind those local billboards that are all over the Sacramento and Roseville area.

In this episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, Becca and Arielle sit down with Valary — a 34-year-old mom of two (soon to be three), real estate pro, and woman with real stories about birth center birth and what it takes to trust your body again.

Valary shares openly about:

Birth center births what they’re really like beyond the highlight reel

Her first birth at 40+4 and the healing that followed

A second baby born mostly en caul on the due date

How previous birth experiences shaped her confidence going into baby number three

The emotional, physical, and spiritual prep for another baby while parenting little ones

Letting go of perfection and embracing real birth experiences

This conversation is grounded, honest, and full of heart perfect for anyone navigating birth expectations, healing after a challenging delivery, or preparing for another round.

🎧 Episode 22 is live now

Available on YouTube • Apple Podcasts • Spotify

Come sit with us 💗

— Becca & Arielle

Episode 21: Emergency Induction, Postpartum Hemorrhage & Finding Your Voice After Birth

with Morgan Kuppenbender

In this episode of Girly Pop Birth Talks, Becca and Arielle sit down with Morgan Kuppenbender, a mama sharing her first and only birth story—a vaginal birth that unfolded very differently than expected.

At 31, married, and balancing life as both a wedding planner and tech sales professional, Morgan opens up about her pregnancy, emergency induction, and the moments during birth that forever changed her understanding of advocacy, trust, and postpartum healing.

Together, Becca, Arielle, and Morgan explore:

    •    Experiencing an emergency induction

    •    Delivering a healthy baby boy

    •    A retained amniotic sac and postpartum hemorrhage (850 mL blood loss)

    •    The emotional and physical recovery that followed

    •    Processing birth trauma while stepping into motherhood

    •    How perspectives on control, surrender, and self-advocacy evolve after birth

This conversation is raw, grounded, and deeply validating—especially for parents whose births didn’t go according to plan but still resulted in profound growth and resilience.

Nothing is off-limits in this episode. With Becca and Arielle holding space, Morgan’s story reminds us that birth can be both beautiful and hard—and that telling our stories helps other mothers feel seen, supported, and less alone.

✨ If you’ve experienced an unexpected birth, medical intervention, or postpartum complications, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts

YouTube • Apple Podcasts • Spotify