This Is Parenting Podcast

In our last episode I chatted with Lisa Abramson about her experience with postpartum psychosis. This week we hear from her husband David. 

He shares the changes he saw in Lisa, how hard it was to try and find help, and how easy it was to dismiss symptoms at the start by using sleep deprivation as an ongoing excuse.

We also chat about what was different for them as a family as they prepared for their second child. David shares all the safeguards they had in place and the help they had lined up well before baby number two entered the world. 

Lisa Abramson experienced postpartum psychosis. It’s rare, happening to 1 in a 1,000 moms. Lisa lost touch with reality, believing that snipers were surrounding her home, trying to arrest her. It felt so real to Lisa, even if at times she could tell something was off. This episode left her in the psychiatric ward for treatment.

Lisa shares her story, where she feels the postpartum system failed her, and how this experience has impacted the future decision of having a second child.

Joe is a dad of two living in Texas and is a host of his own show about parenting called the Dtalks podcast.

He shares about how he’s always wanted to be a dad, even having names picked out for his future kids when he was in high school.

We talk about a few of the most common issues dads ask Joe about like how to effectively communicate with your partner, Joe’s unique concern about social media, and his favorite piece of advice to give to new dads.

In this episode I tackle the headline making story that shook so many women last week-abortion rights are under attack with states passing legislation that bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks.

If you are wondering how these states can pass legislation that is in direct defiance to the Supreme Court decision of Roe vs Wade in 1973 that states a woman has the right to choose up until a fetus becomes viable-well, it turns out that this all a part of a bigger plan.

Julietta Skoog lives in Seattle, Washington. She is a school psychologist and counselor and the cofounder of Sproutable. She has three kids age 10, 7 and 2. With her professional experience in working with kids, Julietta was confident she was ready to be a mom herself. But she admits that it certainly got complicated fast once she found out she was pregnant.

Julietta shares that she quickly understood how little control she had over so much in motherhood.

Alessandra shares her postpartum story where she talks about how she started having intrusive thoughts about her baby. She had anxiety about anything that could potentially bring harm to her child like knives, hot water, bridges but that evolved in to these scary vivid images of herself bringing harm to her child. 

She was still finding joy, so she assumed she wasn’t depressed.

She just happened to read a book that mentioned postpartum OCD and she realized it was exactly what she was experiencing.

Kristina Frost is a new mom who lives in San Francisco with her five month old daughter and husband.

She shares that she was more cognizant of the possibility of experiencing post partum depression. But even though she was prepared, when symptoms began, she was reassured by those around her that it wasn’t depression. So she put off getting help until the negative and dark thoughts she was having became overwhelming.

Episode 16 of the This Is Parenting Podcast features Ali Levine. Ali is a celebrity stylist, fashion expert, TV personality- you may have caught her on Bravo’s show Stripped, and she’s a mom to a sweet little one year old girl.

Ali shares how her birth plan pretty much imploded from the start with an incredibly long and difficult labor that ended in a c-section. Like so many moms Ali felt like she continually failed time and time again and suffered from postpartum depression.

I put out a call to my fellow moms who would be willing to share their experiences with postpartum anxiety, depression, psychosis, baby blues…all of it. In hopes of shining a light on a problem that needs proper attention.

I first sit down with Laura Courrau.

She has a two year old daughter and she really opens up about her start to being a mom and how anxiety overcame her during the first year.

In a first for the podcast I have three guests stopping in. I’m talking to the ladies behind the Pickup Line newsletter, a daily email that rounds up everything happening in the news, entertainment, and parenting.

Beth Kneebone, Patty Smith and Heather McBride have a lot of parenting knowledge to share between them. As work at home moms, the ladies share their experience with trying to meet the sometimes high expectations of their partners who aren’t there seeing the nitty gritty of it all.