Motherhood Equipped

Juliet Starrett, CEO, author, former professional athlete, attorney, and mom, shares her wisdom from navigating the extreme seasons of career and motherhood. Standing on the edge of an "open nest" as her two daughters head off to college, Juliet shares a no-nonsense, Gen-X perspective on how she balanced billable hours at a major law firm while building businesses alongside her husband, Kelly. This episode is a refreshing, pep talk for moms looking to drown out social media noise, protect their ambition, and throw out "mom guilt" for good.

Links & Resources:
Explore mobility, courses, and the app at The Ready State
Tune in to The Ready State Podcast
The Books:

• Built to Move by Kelly & Juliet Starrett – Buy on Amazon
• Master of Change / Works by Brad Stulberg – Buy on Amazon

Connect with Juliet here
Connect with Motherhood Equipped here

Key Takeaways:

• Chunking the Seasons: Embracing the mantra "It's not always gonna be like this" during the chaotic under-five years.
• The Ultimate Parenting Hack: Why aggressively prioritizing a child's sleep schedule is the single best investment you can make for household calm and eliminating tantrums.
• Foot on the Gas Professionally: The counterintuitive advice to lean into career growth while kids are small and their needs are simple, preserving flexibility for the critical high school years.
• Ditching "Mom Guilt": What kid actually need to thrive is intentionality behind your time with them.

Dr. Monique Yohanan breaks down pantry food dyes, microplastics in frozen meals, and how to navigate vaccine schedules with precision and parental agency. She sits down with us today drawing on her extensive background in medical guideline writing, health policy, and AI technology as well as her primary role as a mother. She is a physician, public health expert, and Independent Women's Center for Better Health Director. In this conversation, Dr. Yohanan breaks down how parents can move away from one-size-fits-all mandates and confidently take the wheel when it comes to their children’s health, nutrition, and medical care.

Resources & Links Mentioned
Dr. Monique Yohanan’s Policy Paper: Rethinking Vaccine Policy: A Case for Humility, Precision, and Parental Partnership
Independent Women's Forum (IWF) — Focuses on free-market solutions, health policy reform, and individual empowerment.
Dr. Casey Means: Functional medicine expert and co-founder of Levels (referenced for her work in metabolic health and root-cause medicine).
Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM): Suggested as a framework and provider directory for families seeking open-minded, root-cause medical care.
Follow along with @MotherhoodEquipped on Instagram!

Key Takeaways & Highlights

• Pantry Basics & Ingredient Red Flags
  • Focus on three building blocks for balanced meals: Fiber, Healthy Fat, and Protein.
  • A quick rule of thumb for fruits/vegetables: If you can eat the skin (e.g., apples), it’s generally high in beneficial fiber.
  • Artificial petroleum-based dyes—specifically Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6—have been linked in studies to hyperactive and behavioral symptoms in children (partially triggered by histamine release).
  • Unlike the U.S., European regulations require warning labels on foods with these dyes, leading many global brands to reformulate their recipes overseas using natural coloring (e.g., paprika) while keeping synthetic dyes in American products.
  • Plastics & Frozen Foods: Avoid heating food directly in plastic containers
  • Reclaiming Control in the Pediatrician’s Office
  • Understand the system: Standardized schedules and rigid "one-size-fits-all" checklists are often driven by clinic quality scores and insurance compensation models, not individual nuance.
  • Enter appointments with a focused agenda (aim for no more than 3 main topics/questions per visit to stay productive).
• A Precision Approach to Vaccines
  • Differentiate between community-protective vaccines (highly contagious illnesses like measles and whooping cough) and individual-protection vaccines (like the seasonal flu shot).
  • Recognize flexibility in timing: For example, while standard U.S. CDC guidelines recommend the MMR vaccine between 12–15 months, countries like Sweden successfully wait until 18 months. Spacing out shots is a valid, nuanced conversation to have with your provider.

What if everything we’ve been taught about the female cycle focuses on the wrong thing? In this episode, Haley Yeager, a fertility awareness instructor and founder of the Truth and Fertility Project, busts the biggest myths surrounding reproductive health. Haley shares her personal journey of being prescribed birth control at age sixteen for irregular periods, only to discover years later that it was masking a root diagnosis of PCOS.

We dive deep into the difference between standard hormonal suppression and Restorative Reproductive Medicine, how to spot crucial hormonal red flags on your chart, and why ovulation—not just your period—is the ultimate biomarker of your overall health.

Connect with us!
Connect with Haley here

Connect with Motherhood Equipped here!

Haley’s recommendations: 

• The Truth and Fertility Project (Haley’s platform for fertility awareness coaching).
• Naprotechnology (Natural Procreative Technology): A specific system of restorative medicine that works cooperatively with a woman's natural cycle.
• Episode 90 of Truth & Fertility: Haley interviews an expert endometriosis surgeon regarding surgical diagnosis, high success rates of excision, and the reality that early-stage endo rarely shows up on a standard ultrasound.
• Dr. Monica Minjeur. https://radiantclinic.com/
• Natural  womanhood https://naturalwomanhood.org/
• FEMM https://femmhealth.org/
• FertilityCare.org https://www.fertilitycare.org/

Key Takeaways

• The Standard Prescription: Haley shares her experience being put on the pill at sixteen for irregular cycles, the mood side effects that caused her to stop, and the lack of alternative answers given to young women.
• Restorative Reproductive Medicine: The turning point at age eighteen where Haley discovered Naprotechnology (Natural Procreative Technology) and learned that charts can be used as medical diagnostic tools.
• "Why Do You Want to Ovulate?": The shocking disconnect between mainstream primary care and restorative health when treating young, non-sexually active women.
• The Triad of Diagnosis: How charting, comprehensive blood work, and an ultrasound led to Haley’s true diagnosis of PCOS, and how radical diet and lifestyle changes finally flipped the switch to get her ovulating.
• The Ultimate Cycle Misconception: Why ovulation is the star of the show, not your period, and why a true period must follow ovulation.
• How to Read the Language of Your Body: A breakdown of normal cycle parameters (24 to 36 days) and what indicators like cervical fluid changes can tell you about your estrogen and progesterone.
• PCOS & Endometriosis: Why these two conditions are leading causes of infertility today, driven by decades of symptom-masking via hormonal birth control.

In this conversation, I sat down with exercise physiologist and fertility coach Alexa Gruber (known as "The Conceiving Coach") to discuss a radically different approach to navigating infertility. Alexa shares her journey from running a general fitness coaching business to stepping into a season of deep pruning. God called her to strip away her plans, focus on her family, and ultimately step into ministering to women trying to conceive.

We dive deep into why true fertility coaching goes far beyond supplements, cold plunges, and hormone tracking, and explore how drawing close to Jesus regulates the nervous system, helps us to fight spiritual battles and maintain hope despite disappointment.

Join Alexa’s Pregnancy Prep Collective for a way to connect deeply with others walking the same journey as you and to get the resources you need. Connect with her on Instagram here.
See more of Motherhood Equipped on Instagram here! 

What if standard pregnancy dietary advice is actually backwards? Bestselling author, dietitian, and researcher Lily Nichols, RDN joins us to dismantle conventional prenatal guidelines. From outdated carbohydrate recommendations to the truths about blood sugar, PCOS, and egg quality, Lily shares the science-backed, real-food strategies every woman needs to feel confident in her health decisions before, during, and after pregnancy.

Lily Nichols’ Website

Lily’s Books: Real Food for Pregnancy, Real Food for Fertility, and Real Food for Gestational Diabetes

Recommended Prenatal Vitamin Brands: FullWell & Seeking Health
Connect with @MotherhoodEquipped on Instagram! 

Key Takeaways

• Questioning the Guidelines: Why standard pregnancy nutrition advice often falls short—and what the research actually shows.
• The "Nutrient Bank Account": Why it’s never too late in pregnancy or postpartum to start making deposits using nutrient-dense, whole-food protein.
• Blood Sugar Mechanics: How balancing fat, carbs, and protein prevents the energy crashes, cravings, and mood swings common in pregnancy.
• Rethinking PCOS: Why "just lose weight" is outdated advice and how protein-forward eating addresses the root cause of insulin resistance.
• Optimizing Egg Quality: What’s actually within your control during the months leading up to conception.
• Prenatal Vitamin Red Flags: Navigating quality control issues in the supplement industry and how to choose a trustworthy formula.

Timestamps

02:10 The Impact of Food Industry Conflicts on Dietary Guidelines
04:00 How Lily's Books Empower Women in Pregnancy
07:09 The Importance of nutrient stores to prevent depletion 
10:00 Protein's Role in Pregnancy and Postpartum
12:03 Understanding Blood Sugar and Its Effects
17:12 Managing PCOS Through Diet and Blood Sugar
22:47 The Role of Healthcare System and Guidelines
27:01 Egg Quality, Age, and Lifestyle Factors
29:58 Choosing Quality Prenatal Vitamins
35:10 Foods to Emphasize During Pregnancy
39:55 Caffeine Intake and Pregnancy

43:52 Gestational Diabetes and Blood Sugar Trends
50:02 Preconception Testing and Fertility
52:00 Personal Habits for Optimal Nutrition

In this episode, I’m getting incredibly vulnerable and sharing the complex, high-stakes birth story of my second son, Luke. After a beautiful previous homebirth, I fully intended to deliver at home again, even knowing Luke was breech. But days before my due date, a sudden fluid check put me "out of bounds" for homebirth, pulling the rug out from underneath me. Driving to the hospital, I had to completely lay down my vision, my sense of security, and surrender the experience to God.

I openly navigate the heavy contrast between a peaceful home environment and the corporate, often fear-driven reality of modern hospital medicine. I share how we fought to avoid an unnecessary, mandatory C-section, what it was like keeping my mental focus in a chaotic room of 15 people, and the reality of a forced supine (on my back) delivery that led to a last-minute placental abruption. This is a story of deep spiritual surrender, intense self-advocacy, and a reminder that even when the shifting sands take over, you are built to do hard things.

Help us build a real, supportive community so no mom feels isolated in the mundane or the heavy moments. Follow along and share your thoughts at @MotherhoodEquipped.

In this episode, I’m opening up and sharing my personal journey to motherhood. As a fit, first-time mom, my story started in a standard hospital model. However, facing a preeclampsia diagnosis at 25/26 weeks left me feeling unsettled and craving true autonomy. I wanted to see "both sides of the coin" when making informed decisions, which ultimately led me to pivot, trust my intuition, and choose a homebirth.

Tune in as I share how I went from hospital hesitation to absolute peace and confidence. I break down how I chose a midwife who perfectly fit my vision, why I focused on mental discipline over a perfect nursery, and how amazed I was by just how intensely athletic labor truly is. It is the ultimate mental game and endurance sport.

Follow along for more behind-the-scenes and motherhood encouragement at @MotherhoodEquipped

"Small wins are still wins and they still matter. There is beauty in simplicity." — Ashlee Haines

In this episode, we catch up with Ashlee Haines, the powerhouse mom and CEO behind Inspire boutique. Ashlee gets real about navigating the beautiful chaos of motherhood, bouncing back from a tough postpartum season, and building a faith-first business right out of her home. Grab your coffee and tune in for some super relatable advice on celebrating small wins, ditching the comparison trap, and setting healthy boundaries for your family.

Connect with Ashlee
Browse her shop!
Connect with the podcast! 

Are you exhausted and overwhelmed in motherhood and thinking it’s just “normal”? I used to believe that, too. But what if exhaustion isn’t a badge of honor? What if simple shifts in your routine could transform how you feel? In this chat, Sarah Grace shared powerful ways to reconnect with your body, like starting your day with just 10 minutes of stillness or sunlight. She emphasizes how protecting your peace, nourishing your body with quality food, and minimizing phone time can drastically reduce stress, hormone imbalance, and fatigue. Imagine feeling more energized, more confident, and fully present all while embracing your faith and trusting your body. Maybe it's time to get back to real food, quiet mornings, and trusting God with your motherhood journey. What simple change will you try first?

Connect with Sarah:  sarahgracemeck.com , @sarahgracemeck

Connect with us: @motherhoodequipped

Jennifer holds a special place in my heart, because she was my personal introduction to all things home birth! I came to her initially a few months into my first pregnancy when I was personally feeling unsettled in the hospital setting and was looking for something that made me feel like I could have the autonomy I was looking for. In this episode, we explore the depth of birth experiences through the lens of midwife Jennifer Argueta. Discover how trusting the natural process, shared support, and informed choices can transform birth into a sacred, empowering journey. 

Follow us on Instagram @motherhoodequipped

Jennifer's Recommendations?👇

1. Trusting the Natural Process: Emphasizing the importance of trusting your body and the physiological birth process.
2. Building a Supportive Team: Encouraging the involvement of doulas and partners to support the birth journey.
3. Preparing Thoroughly: Mentally, physically, and emotionally preparing for a home birth.
4. Navigating Social Media: Being cautious of misinformation and anxiety-inducing content online.
5. Open Communication: Maintaining open dialogue with care providers to ensure a supportive environment.

You can follow Jennifer on Facebook and Instagram at College Park Home Birth and find her at www.collegeparkhomebirth.com.