Mama Making Podcast

Most of us walk into our first OB appointment with an arm out for blood work — and no idea what we're actually being tested for. 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Ushta Canteenwalla, board-certified genetic counselor and founder of Find Genetics, to demystify prenatal and reproductive genetic testing from the ground up. From carrier screening before pregnancy to NIPT during, from IVF embryo selection to donor health profiles, Ushta walks through what's available, what it means, and how to make the decisions that are actually right for you — not your friend, not your OB's standard protocol, but you. This is the conversation every person planning a pregnancy deserves to have before they're sitting in that waiting room.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Why Ushta left a high-powered clinical role to build a telemedicine genetic counseling practice
• The gap in genetic counseling access — and why so many people never get offered testing they could have had
• The difference between carrier screening before pregnancy and testing done during pregnancy
• What NIPT (noninvasive prenatal testing) actually is — what it looks at, what it misses, and what false positives mean
• Amniocentesis and CVS — what they are, when they're done, and what risks they carry
• The 20-week anatomy scan and what genetics has to do with what they're looking for
• In utero therapy — conditions where treatment is possible before birth
• IVF, embryo testing, and selecting against serious genetic conditions
• Donor egg and donor sperm — what genetic counselors look for in donor health histories
• The designer baby misconception — and what people are actually selecting for
• Personal values, religious beliefs, and the role they play in genetic decision making
• What a session with Ushta looks like — and what she's building next at Find Genetics

HOW TO CONNECT WITH USHTA CANTEENWALLA

• Website: findgenetics.com
• Instagram: @findgenetics
• LinkedIn: Find Genetics or Ushta Canteenwalla

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

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What if being a little "selfish" actually made you a better mom? 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Paulina Roe — Chicago radio personality, podcast host, and founder of the Mami Collective — for a candid, energetic, and deeply relatable conversation about ambitious motherhood, identity after baby, and why community changes everything. From her decade on Chicago radio to building a nationwide platform for moms who want more, Paulina shares her unfiltered take on postpartum identity, the myth of the selfless mom, and what it looks like to build the community you couldn't find. This one is for every mom who still wants it all — and knows she can have it.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Paulina's path from cassette tapes and UIC radio to the Fred Show and syndication across the country
• Starting her first podcast in 2018 before podcasting was mainstream — and why she built the one she was looking for
• How becoming a mom changed and elevated everything — without erasing who she was
• The fear of losing her identity in motherhood — and how she made sure that didn't happen
• Why being called "selfish" at nine months pregnant became her philosophy
• The connection between self-prioritization and a genuinely great postpartum experience
• What the Mami Collective is — and how it evolved from brunches to summits, dinner series, grants, and media opportunities
• The directory, the private newsletter, and how Paulina connects moms to real opportunities
• The annual summit — what it is, what's coming in October, and who it's for
• Where she wants to take the Mami Collective next — and why she's putting it into existence out loud

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Create and Cultivate — referenced as a summit model Paulina admires
• Brio Skin — success story from the Mami Collective directory
• Grief Magazine — featured Mami Collective member

HOW TO CONNECT WITH PAULINA ROE

• Website: themamicollective.com
• Instagram: @paulinaroe (personal) | @Mamicollective (community)
• Annual Summit: October 1st — tickets at themamicollective.com
• Newsletter: sign up at themamicollective.com

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!

What does it mean to raise globally conscious children in a world full of noise, misinformation, and borders — both literal and cultural? 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Maria Ahmad, humanitarian, multilingual professional, journalist, and mom of two, whose life has spanned Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Latin America. Maria shares her journey from BBC radio journalist covering terrorism and elections to leading migration work for the United Nations, the realities of immigration that mainstream media gets wrong, what it looks like to raise sons who understand the female experience, and how moms everywhere — regardless of geography — can build the alliances that change the world. One of the most expansive and important conversations this podcast has ever had.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Maria's upbringing in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East — and how questioning gender restrictions shaped her worldview
• From BBC radio journalist to UN migration expert — the career path she never planned
• Covering terrorism, the Obama election, and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto
• How becoming a mom transformed the way she experienced the world
• Motherhood across continents — what she observed about family, community, and village across cultures
• Raising sons to understand and advocate for women — the conversation we're not having enough
• The cycle of abuse that gets passed down — and why the work starts with men, not just women
• What migration actually is — and why everything in mainstream media is misinformation
• Women and children in the migration system — why mothers flee, and what happens when they're separated from their children
• How privileged moms can build alliances and take action for migrant families
• Media literacy for busy moms — how to navigate the noise and find trustworthy sources
• Community protection, child safety, and what grandmothers can do
• The global unpaid care labor crisis — and why it's a policy issue, not a personal one

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• NPR and PBS — recommended as starting points for trustworthy news
• The Daily Show — referenced for accessible political commentary
• International Organization for Migration (IOM) — UN body on migration
• UN Women — referenced for care labor advocacy
• Baby Voyage — company founded for traveling parents

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
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WELCOME TO SEASON 5: Moms Making Impact  🎉

What if the hardest parts of postpartum aren't a sign that something is wrong with you — but a sign that something is finally waking up? 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Jenny Tucker, founder of Centerline Community, a support space for new and expecting moms navigating postpartum and matrescence. Jenny brings her background in mental health counseling and yoga to a conversation about the good mother myth, the portal of postpartum, generational healing, and why building a village isn't just nice to have — it's biologically necessary. 

This one is for every mom who has ever felt alone in the hardest season of her life.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• How Centerline Community started as a prenatal yoga Zoom call in March 2020 — and grew to 500+ moms
• Why existing postpartum support is mostly baby-focused — and what moms actually need instead
• The portal of postpartum — what gets unearthed when a baby is born
• The good mother myth and the facade of perfect mom life
• Matrescence as an opportunity for generational healing
• Why moms are biologically not designed to be alone with their babies all day
• The people-pleasing conditioning that makes postpartum harder than it has to be
• Running a business from a feminine energy framework
• How to find your village when you're new, isolated, or introverted
• What it looks like to stop outsourcing your own wisdom
• The Centerline Community membership — weekly Zoom groups, in-person meetups, and the Mothership

HOW TO CONNECT WITH JENNY TUCKER

• Website: centerlinecommunity.com
• Instagram: @centerlinecommunity
• Free month trial code: welcomemama

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!

What do you do when you get laid off while pregnant, have a toddler at home, and just bought a house? 

If you're Alexandra Swayne, you start a marketing business, invent a baby product, and launch a women's networking group — all within a year. In this episode, Jessica sits down with Alex to talk about the layoff that cracked everything open, the 2 a.m. manufacturer calls that turned Binky Bands into a viral product launch, and what it actually looks like to build three businesses while raising two kids under three. This one is for every mom who has an idea they haven't trusted yet.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Getting laid off while pregnant — and why it became the catalyst for everything
• Launching Sunkiss Media: 12 years of marketing experience, one layoff, and one LLC
• The middle-of-the-night idea that became Binky Bands — a wearable pacifier and teether
• Going viral on LinkedIn on launch day and selling 100+ units before noon
• Starting She Means Business Long Island — 600 members, 75 women at the first event
• How motherhood built her confidence — and helped her stop shrinking herself
• Trusting your idea when people close to you say it won't work
• Using her marketing background to launch a product she actually believed in
• Balancing three businesses, two kids, and daycare two days a week
• AI as a business tool — the love-hate relationship that saves her hours
• Advice for moms on the edge of making a leap of faith

HOW TO CONNECT WITH ALEXANDRA SWAYNE

• Sunkiss Media: sunkissedmedia.net | Instagram/TikTok: @sun.kissedmedia
• Binky Bands: Instagram/TikTok: @binkibands
• She Means Business Long Island: Facebook Group + Instagram: @shemeansbusiness.li

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
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Watch on YouTube: Click here!

What would it mean to raise a child who never learns to be ashamed of their body?

 In this episode, Jessica sits down with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — licensed sex therapist, bestselling author, researcher, and founder of the Northwest Institute on Intimacy — for a conversation that every parent needs to hear. 

From the definition of sexual shame and how it develops from infancy, to the impact of abstinence-only education on an entire generation, to the practical framework for healing shame and changing your family's legacy — Dr. Tina brings the research, the tools, and the deep humanity that has made her work transformational for thousands of families. She also shares her work with psychedelic-assisted therapy for trauma, and why she's on a mission to make healing accessible to everyone. 

This one will change the way you think about your own story — and the one you want to pass on.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Dr. Tina's Swedish upbringing — why she thought every family talked about sexuality like recipes
• The first wave of abstinence-only education and the shame epidemic it created
• The clinical definition of sexual shame — and why it starts earlier than most parents realize
• What to say when your baby finds their genitals for the first time (and why it matters more than you think)
• How sexual shame develops across the lifespan — from infancy through adolescence
• The role of authoritarian religious structures in creating unsafe environments for curiosity
• Religious trauma and sexual shame — how they intersect and where they come from
• The Frame, Name, Claim, Aim model for healing sexual shame
• Practical tools for raising shame-free kids at every developmental stage
• Shameless Parenting — what's in it and how to use it as a roadmap
• The Northwest Institute on Intimacy — training clinicians in sexual health
• Psychedelic-assisted therapy for trauma — the research, the ethics, and the Inana Rising organization
• The patient equity scholarship fund and Indigenous Reparations Fund
• Dr. Tina's offer: free promo codes for her books for anyone who can't afford them

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Northwest Institute on Intimacy 
• Inana Rising (psychedelic-assisted therapy organization) — https://inannarising.org/
• Girls and Sex and Boys and Sex by Peggy Orenstein — referenced
• Brené Brown's work on shame — referenced

HOW TO CONNECT WITH DR. TINA

• Website: TinaSchermerSellers.com
• Instagram: @drtinashameless (parenting/shame work)
• Shameless Parenting by Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers 
• Sex, God and the Conservative Church: Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy by Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!

What if birth wasn't something to be afraid of — but something to be prepared for?

 In this episode, Jessica sits down with Emily Encinosa, certified professional midwife, hypnobirthing instructor, and founder of Birds and Bees Maternity Center in Annapolis, Maryland, to talk about the modern home birth movement, the maternity care ecosystem she's building, and why continuity of care changes everything. From debunking home birth myths to navigating state regulations, transfer rates, and what it actually means to give birth on your own terms, Emily brings the clinical knowledge and the heart of someone who has attended over 500 births — and had two home birth transfers herself. This one is for every mom who has ever wanted more from her birth experience.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Emily's background — from New York to Las Vegas to bringing midwifery home to Annapolis
• The biggest misconceptions about home birth and where they come from
• Who home birth is actually for — low-risk screening, intermittent monitoring, and what qualifies
• Transfer rates — why a midwife who transfers freely is a sign of a good midwife, not a failed birth
• Emily's own two home birth transfers — and what they taught her as both a midwife and a mother
• The maternity ecosystem she's building at Birds and Bees — classes, support groups, doula referrals, and community
• Hypnobirthing, reframing pain as intensity, and shifting the cultural conversation around birth
• Postpartum Support International, the CLIMB fundraiser, and mental health advocacy
• The birth plan audit — a new offering for hospital-birth families who want a midwife's eyes on their plan
• State regulations, maternity deserts, and what needs to change for midwives to be recognized as legitimate stakeholders
• The role of community midwives in closing the gap in maternity care access

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Expecting with Emily — expectingwithemily.com
• Instagram: @expectingwithemily
• Birth Plan Audit 
• Postpartum Support International — Anne Arundel County Chapter
• The Village — women's networking group for perinatal professionals in Annapolis
• The Business of Being Born — documentary referenced
• The Big Push — documentary referenced
• Dr. Nathan and Dr. Stu — OBGYNs referenced for their advocacy work
• Born Free Conference — virtual attendance referenced

HOW TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

• Website: expectingwithemily.com
• Instagram: @expectingwithemily

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!

Sometimes life just doesn't ask permission. 

In this solo episode, Jessica gets real about the last two weeks — a broken arm, a late-night ER visit with her son, a hard decision to miss a conference she was really looking forward to, and a full dental surgery under general anesthesia the following week. She talks about what it looks and feels like to go into survival mode, why the emotional weight hits hardest when it's all over, and what she's still figuring out about how to take care of herself on the back end of a crisis. Plus — a look ahead at what's coming for Season Five of the Mama Making Podcast and why she is more excited about it than anything she's done yet.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Bode's broken arm — the fall, the late-night ER visit, and navigating it solo while her husband was traveling
• The soft cast weekend from hell — keeping a wild, high-energy toddler still on pain meds
• The hard decision to skip the Podcasting Moms conference and what she was most bummed to miss
• Bode's dental surgery at Lurie's — general anesthesia, root canal, extractions, and an extra tooth
• Going into survival mode vs. feeling emotions on the back end
• The emotional and physical toll of shouldering two weeks of crisis largely alone
• What she's asking from her community: how do you decompress after survival mode?
• Season Five preview — Moms Making Impact: women building communities, working abroad, navigating advocacy, changing laws
• The newsletter, private episodes, and what's coming next for the Mama Making Podcast
• A big ask: share the podcast with someone who needs it

HOW TO CONNECT WITH JESSICA

• The Mama Making Podcast newsletter — themamamakingpodcast.com
• Subscribe on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@TheMamaMakingPodcast
• Follow on social: https://tr.ee/tJdzccD-oi

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!

What does it look like when a business-owning mom hits rock bottom — physically, emotionally, and hormonally — and finds her way back? 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Terry Tateossian, founder of Thor (The House of Rose), a health coaching practice built for midlife women ready to reclaim their vitality. At 42, Terry lost over 80 pounds, overcame emotional eating, and discovered she had been navigating early perimenopause since age 37 — without knowing it. She shares the raw truth about burnout, using sugar and alcohol to regulate a dysregulated nervous system, the identity shift required to actually keep the weight off, and why strength training was the medicine that changed everything. This one hits home for every woman who has ever felt like she is running on empty and can't figure out where to start.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Terry's background — from Eastern Europe to entrepreneurship, two kids, and corporate burnout
• The panic attacks that sent her to the ER twice — and what they were really telling her
• Using sugar, alcohol, and nicotine to regulate an overwhelmed nervous system
• Why doing more was never the answer — and what doing less actually looked like in practice
• Early onset perimenopause at 37 — and why she thought she was pregnant again at 42
• The identity shift required to lose 80 pounds and keep it off for 13 years
• Time blocking, strength training, and the two-hour morning non-negotiable that changed everything
• How physical health transformed her business decisions — and freed her from fear-based choices
• The difference between profitable work and work that breaks you
• Thor retreats — what they are, what happens there, and who they're for
• Nervous system regulation, breathwork, restorative yoga, hiking, and community as medicine

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Thor (The House of Rose) retreats — thehouseofrose.com
• Instagram: @how.good.can.it.get & @thor.wellness
• Walking pad — mentioned as a tool for movement during the workday
• Resistance bands and dumbbells — Terry's recommendation for home-based strength training

HOW TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

• Website: thehouseofrose.com
• Instagram: @how.good.can.it.get & @thor.wellness

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!

What if the key to less defiance, fewer tantrums, and a deeper connection with your kids wasn't another parenting strategy — but play? 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Dr. Kim Van Dusen, licensed marriage and family therapist, registered play therapist, and founder of The Parentologist, to talk about why play is one of the most powerful and underused tools in a parent's toolkit. From meltdown interventions to getting picky eaters to try new foods, Dr. Kim breaks down the practical, evidence-based tools from her new book Parenting Through Play — and makes the case that you don't have to be a "play parent" to use them. This one is for every mom who has ever felt like they're fighting their kid instead of connecting with them.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Dr. Kim's background in play therapy and how she accidentally found her calling
• What play therapy is — and why it works when talk therapy doesn't
• The myth that play has to mean sitting on the floor for 30 minutes
• How playful moments woven into everyday life build the trust that reduces defiance
• The sand timer meltdown intervention — Dr. Kim's tried and true strategy
• Teaching emotional intelligence and regulation through play
• Play as a tool for picky eaters, homework resistance, and chore avoidance
• Why the connection you build through play makes consequences more effective
• Solutions for the overtired, overworked parent who doesn't have the energy
• Parenting Through Play — what's in the book and who it's for

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Parenting Through Play: Creative Strategies for Building Better Behavior, Deeper Connection, and Positive Communication by Dr. Kim Van Dusen 
  • On pre-sale now — releases May 5th, 2026
  • Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever books are sold
• The Parentologist Podcast — available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube

HOW TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

• Website: theparentologist.com
• Instagram / TikTok / Threads / YouTube / X: @theparentologist
• Podcast: The Parentologist Podcast on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

Follow The Mama Making Podcast on socials on Instagram and Facebook!
Share and subscribe to the podcast: click this link
Watch on YouTube: Click here!