Responding to Life: Talking Health, Fertility and Parenthood

On the newest episode of Responding to Life I am joined by Dr. Kumkum Sarkar Patel, a double-board certified gastroenterologist practicing at Providence St. Jude and Providence St. Joseph Heritage Medical Groups in Orange County, CA. Dr. Patel specializes in irritable bowel syndrome, esophageal, and anorectal disorders.

Dr. Patel currently serves as a healthcare consultant and speaker for medical device and pharmaceutical companies. She also serves on the American College of Gastroenterology's Women in GI Committee to promote advancement for women in GI. Additionally, she is a passionate motivational speaker, and has spoken nationally about women's health, work-life balance, post-partum depression, burnout, and gut-health related to mental health.

Outside of medicine, she enjoys spending time with her husband and sons, traveling, and singing a cappella. Dr. Patel's Instagram platform can be found on @dr.gut_motility. She uses this as an informational as well as an inspirational platform— to educate others on gastrointestinal diseases while inspiring them on lifestyle choices.

In this episode, you'll hear from Dr. Patel about:

• The link between gut health and mental health

• How to optimize what you're eating for overall wellness and to boost fertility

• The truth about probiotics

• How to be mindful about what you eat during the holiday season

For more info, visit: www.kumkumpatelmd.com

On the newest episode of Responding to Life, I am joined by Linda Fruits, the content creator behind the relateable motherhood account @fruitsofmotherhood. Her mission in life is to normalize the sweet, bitter and bittersweet Fruits of Motherhood, with a side of humor.

This year, Linda wrote, designed and illustrated her first book called, The Mom Life.

Linda's content on social media is bite sized, and her book is a full course dinner. Equal parts sass and inclusiveness, The Mom Life explores the highs and lows of new motherhood, tackling taboo subjects like losing interest in your partner, not immediately loving your baby, and imposter syndrome.

Linda's book will be a must-have for every new mother trying to maneuver the realities of daily life with small children. The Mom Life creates a safe space and a vital contrast to the deluge of information and picture-perfect parenthood accounts popping up across social media. Full of powerful and empowering advice for women.

In addition, Linda hosts a new podcast called Fruits of Motherhood and now offers transformational motherhood life coaching. She helps moms make meaningful changes in their lives and overcome the guilt about doing so. As a coach, she'll help you love the mother you already are and find the empowerment to move towards a more fulfilling life because taking care of you, is taking care of your children's mommy.

On this episode, you'll hear from Linda about:

• Motherhood as a metamorphosis

• Unrealistic motherhood expectations and how to challenge them

• The hardest lesson she's learned as a mother

• Burnout, owning our truth, and creating boundaries

For more info, go to: fruitsofmotherhood.com

In recognition of October being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, we're re-releasing a past episode where our guests discuss a very sensitive topic that may be triggering for some of you who are currently on your path to parenthood or are one of the 1 in 4 who has experienced pregnancy loss or miscarriage. Featured in this episode are the courageous stories of how to heal after experiencing loss.

• Samantha Busch
• • @samanthabusch
  • www.samanthabusch.com
• Kim Hooper
• • @kimhooperwrites
  • kimhooperwrites.com
• Monica Bivas
• • @monicabivas
  • www.monicabivas.com
• Tina Sugandh
• • @TinaSugandh
  • MomOnTopShop.com
• Kelsi Burley
• • @myjourneywithivf
• Linny Stone
• • @linnystone
• Josephine Atluri
• • @josephineratluri

Dr. Kela Smith is a Holistic-Integrative Fertility and Hormone Doctor. She founded The Hormone Puzzle Society and the Fertility Coach University.

The Hormone Puzzle Society is a health hub for fertility, hormones, and pregnancy. Through this platform, Dr. Kela and her team work with women/couples coaching them on how to optimize their body/mind/spirit so they can get and stay pregnant, bring home a healthy baby, have an easy postpartum, and eliminate symptoms of hormone imbalance.

Fertility Coach University is an accredited and certified institute of higher learning for anyone wanting to become a fertility coach.

With over 25 years of experience in integrative health, Dr. Kela has created seven online courses and published multiple books on fertility, hormones, pregnancy, and total body wellness. Some of her books include- The Complete Hormone Puzzle Cookbook, The Hormone Puzzle – Solving-Infertility Workbook, The Cycle Optimizing Scheduler, The Hormone Puzzle – Optimizing Pregnancy Guide and her newest cookbook, which came out in May 2023.

Dr. Kela also hosts The Hormone P.U.Z.Z.L.E Podcast, Solving-Infertility Summit, and Healthy Happy Pregnancy Summit.

In this episode, you'll hear from Dr. Kela about:

• 5 hacks to balance hormones fast

• How to tell if you have hormone imbalances

• What the Hormone P.U.Z.Z.L.E. is all about

• How to tell if your hormone balancing strategies are working

Ways to connect with Dr. Kela:

www.coachkela.com

https://www.instagram.com/kela_healthcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/kelahealthcoach/

Grab your FREE Cycle Optimizing Quick-Start Guide and learn how to start incorporating cycle optimizing into your life and put your body into the optimal state of health.

https://coachkela.com/responding-to-life/

As many of you may know, a big part of my path to parenthood involved many rounds of IVF cycles. Back then we really didn't know much about what was happening with our embryos and just blindly trusted that the miracle workers in the lab of our reproductive center knew best. These days, we're so lucky to have people like this episode's guest who is helping thousands of people learn about the ins and outs of their embryos.

Alease Daniel Barnes graduated from North Carolina State University in 2018 with a degree in Genetics and a minor in Biotechnology. While at NCSU, she developed a passion for reproductive health, women's health and comprehensive sex education, but wasn't sure how that would translate into a career. Her degrees gave her great lab experience and she wanted to utilize that while also working with patients.

Alease went into the field right after graduation and over the years, she realized just how little information there is on what actually goes on behind the scenes in the lab. She then decided to create her Instagram and Tiktok, and it's grown into a great way to educate patients. Infertility is not an easy journey and she believes understanding what happens in the lab can help give patients peace of mind during their treatment.

Her pages have now grown to over 170k followers and have been featured on Buzzfeed, Good Morning America, mom.com and more.

In this episode, you'll hear from Alease about:

• Embryo grading

• The embryo freezing process

• All about the PGTA testing

• What to ask about your reproductive endocrinologist and their lab

Ways to connect with Alease:

[email protected] Tiktok: @aleasetheembryologist Instagram: @alease_the_embryologist

For more information on Josephine Atluri Mindful Coaching, LLC and the Responding to Life podcast, please visit www.jatluri.com. On the site, you can sign up for a monthly newsletter that comes with a free 30 day mindfulness plan, you can book private meditation sessions, general or fertility specific, as well as sign up for Josephine's convenient online mindfulness workshops. For daily inspiration, please follow Josephine on Instagram @josephineratluri and @respondingtolifepodcast.

Victoria Facelli is an Internationally Board Certified Lactation consultant who just released a new book titled, FEED THE BABY: An Inclusive Guide to Nursing, Bottle-Feeding, and Everything in Between

Victoria is queer, Latinx, neurodivergent and raising a child with a disability. She wrote Feed the Baby to provide straightforward advice and evidence-based reasoning where bottle and breast are welcomed as equally valuable tools. Based on her years of experience in the field and as a lactation consultant who couldn't breastfeed, Facelli understands what families and babies need to thrive. She explains the science behind the various options, from how milks are made to how a newborn's sucking and swallowing skills develop. There are dozens of nursing positions and paced bottle-feeding techniques, with suggested systems and methods for parents and partners, from those critical hours after birth through the early weeks and months to the first year.

Feed the Baby includes:

• Detailed instruction on how to nurse, how to pump, how to formula feed – and, crucially, how to combine all of these tools, as almost all families ultimately will.

• The science behind breastmilk (a wonder of the human body) and formula (a wonder of human ingenuity).

• Accessible explanations of the ways a baby's anatomy and posture in utero can affect their eating, and massage and therapeutic techniques to improve that posture.

• Links to 49 original instructional videos linked in the book via QR code, featuring a diverse array of infants and parents, and demonstrating feeding techniques from latching to hand-expression, to paced bottle feeding, to infant massage.

• 75 original illustrations featuring diverse families and useful techniques.

In this episode, you'll hear from Victoria about:

• Victoria's personal experience with breastfeeding

• Identifying expectations and goals as it relates to feeding your baby

• How to let go of expectations when it comes to feeding your baby

• How to prioritize one's mental wellness postpartum

• How Victoria's book, "Feed the baby" is different from other baby feeding books on the market and how it can help you

Ways to connect with Victoria:

www.victoriafacelli.com

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781682686928

IG: @victoria.facelli.IBCLC

For more information on Josephine Atluri Mindful Coaching, LLC and the Responding to Life podcast, please visit www.jatluri.com. On the site, you can sign up for a monthly newsletter that comes with a free 30 day mindfulness plan. On the site you can book private meditation sessions, general or fertility specific as well as sign up for Josephine's convenient online mindfulness workshops. For daily inspiration, please follow Josephine on Instagram @josephineratluri and @respondingtolifepodcast.

Audrey Wisch is the CEO and Co-Founder of Curious Cardinals, a global community where K-12 students discover and pursue their passions, build confidence, and unlock their greatest potential with the guidance of college mentors they aspire to be.

Audrey started Curious Cardinals as an undergraduate at Stanford University; after teaching her first workshop on mass incarceration to high school students at the start of the pandemic, Audrey decided to mobilize her most ambitious peers at Stanford and beyond to join her in teaching the topics they were passionate about to K-12 students and serving as their near-peer mentors.

Since then, Audrey has taken time off from Stanford to pursue Curious Cardinals full time, now a community of over 400 college mentors mentoring students around the world. The company has raised $6.8 million in seed funding led by Anthos Capital and Audacious Ventures, and has been featured on CNN and Bloomberg. Audrey was also recognized in the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Education and Youngest category.

In this episode, you'll hear from Audrey about:

• How Curious Cardinals came to be

• How Curious Cardinals can support your children

• How to help your child if they don't know their passion yet

Ways to connect with Audrey:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-micay-wisch-39a95a1b2/

https://twitter.com/AudreyWisch

CC founding story - my manifesto captures this: https://blog.curiouscardinals.com/the-pursuit-of-passion-a-manifesto

For more information on Josephine Atluri Mindful Coaching, the Responding to Life podcast, and Josephine's mindfulness books, please visit www.jatluri.com. On the site, you can sign up for a monthly newsletter that comes with a free 30 day mindfulness plan. You can also book private meditation sessions, general or fertility specific, as well as sign up for Josephine's latest online mindfulness workshops and retreats. For daily inspiration, please follow Josephine on Instagram @josephineratluri and @respondingtolifepodcast.

To kick off the new year, I want to show my gratitude to all of you for being part of my community. As a gesture of my gratitude, the newest Responding to Life episode is a special bonus edition featuring an intention setting meditation guided by me.

In this episode, I will guide you through a meditation combining the elements of breathwork, visualization and intention setting.

Tune in to:

• Learn what a visualization is and its benefits
• Learn what an intention is and how to use it
• Put these two techniques together into a guided meditation starting at 00:00:50

To listen to this episode, click on the link in bio to listen on Apple, Spotify or my website (www.jatluri.com). I would love for you to share, rate and review this episode. Also, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode on wellness, fertility, and parenthood!

On the newest episode of Responding to Life, I am joined by Christina Rodriguez. Christina is a wife and mother of four. When Christina isn't working the Atlanta tech scene, she can be found sharing her love of storytelling as a content creator and blogger. Christina's own experience with PCOS, IVF, endometriosis, and adenomyosis has led her to devote a large portion of her time raising awareness of infertility and its many struggles.

• Christina's experience with PCOS and endometriosis
• Lessons learned from her fertility journey
• How she empowers her daughters about their own health

https://chrissyrodriguez.com/

IG: @christinanrodriguez To listen to this episode, click on the link in bio to listen on Apple, Spotify or my website (www.jatluri.com). I would love for you to share, rate and review this episode. Also, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode on wellness, fertility, and parenthood!

On the newest episode of Responding to Life (@respondingtolifepodcast), I am joined by Dr. Elizabeth Grill who is a clinical psychologist at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, and is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Reproductive Medicine, and Psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

Dr. Grill is also a Board Member and Vice Chair of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association (@resolveorg). RESOLVE and First Response™ have teamed up to launch Fertile Friends, an initiative highlighting available support and resources for those experiencing infertility as well as tips for friends and family on how they can support those trying to conceive.

• Why is infertility and treatment considered a life crisis
• Why do people TTC withdraw from family and friends and strategies that can be used to cope during this time
• How to be a "fertile friend" during the holiday season
• Ways to support your mental health during the holidays while TTC

https://www.firstresponse.resolve.org/