Tanya (00:00):

Did you know that less than 15% of people meet guidelines for recommended amounts of physical activity during pregnancy? As healthcare providers, it is our duty to promote health and wellness throughout the lifespan. And the perinatal period is all too often overlooked. Our clients look to us for guidance on this, and we do the best we can with the knowledge we have, but that's often based on a combination of life experiences, common sense, and myths. My new course exercise in the perinatal period for healthcare providers is designed for providers who are motivated to improve their ability to support their clients in getting or staying active throughout the perinatal period, including their postpartum return to fitness. Click the link in the show notes to learn more. Hey, everyone, I'm your midwife, Tanya Tringali. Welcome to the Mother podcast, a show about the issues we healthcare consumers and providers face every day. As we interact with the medical system. We'll talk about its blind spots, shortcomings, and share strategies we can use to feel seen and heard no matter which side of the table we sit on.

Tanya (01:20):

Hey, everyone, I just wanted to take a minute as the year wraps up and send y'all a little message. I'm not sure how many people who listen also get my newsletter. And you know, just for honesty's sake, I haven't actually sent out a newsletter in over a year, which was shocking when I realized that. But I wanted to share some of those same updates that I put in a newsletter and make sure that those of you who are listeners who don't get my newsletter can hear some of these updates and my thoughts and reflections on 2023 and where things are going in 2024. I have a funny feeling. I have two different sets of audiences, so to speak, when it comes to the newsletter versus the podcast. However, if you want to be a receiver of the newsletter, you can do that.

Tanya (02:20):

You can head over to my website and put your email address in the subscribe button. I will try to be a little bit better this year, and I might actually be able to succeed because if you happen to listen to my last episode, I in, in rambling a bit at the beginning, as I often do, I put out a little call for help. And a former client responded and she wanted to help. And anyone who's ever volunteered to help, and I've had quite a few volunteers and interns and various things over the years you know, one of the ways I keep it real and can feel good about taking the help like everybody who listens to my show, I'm not so good at asking for help or even taking it. But one way I've made peace with this is that people who help me, I'm very clear, I never want this to be stressful.

Tanya (03:15):

I only want it to be fun and inspiring, and I only wanna call on the skillset that you feel like using. So, you know, if somebody's skillset for work is, you know, being an accountant and they're bored of that, I'm not gonna call on them for that piece. That's just not quite right to me, it doesn't feel right. I want the thing that they're doing to feel like it feeds their soul anyway. So the client who reached out to be of assistance is gonna help me stay on top of things with a newsletter and maybe some other pieces that kind of connect into that, try to find strategies for being able to make it more sustainable in my life. Anyway, I am thankful to her and I will share some information about her in due time in the new year. Anyway I just wanted to go over some of the things I put in my newsletter and maybe elaborate a little bit more.

Tanya (04:13):

I was aiming for brevity in my newsletter, <laugh>. I don't know if I succeeded, but anyway, here I feel like I can, I can ramble on a little bit more. So I wanted to share some reflections on 2023 and how that connects into my hopes for 2024. One of the things that I did most recently, so it's it's front of mind for me, is I got my CrossFit level two certification, and that was super cool. What an experience. It was profound. I mean, level one was profound, but for anyone who does CrossFit, I think many people will agree with what I'm about to say. And that is level one feels like the kind of thing that anyone who does CrossFit, if you have the funds available, you should do because it's really getting a much deeper understanding of the method methodology.

Tanya (05:10):

And, you know, gives you the foundation for really solid movement and how to view progress over time. How to compete with yourself rather than compete with others and how to be more holistic in the approach. So I think level one is something everyone should do. I personally wish that they would lower the price point and make it more accessible. And I'm glad to see a movement towards level two being, you know, what we want affiliate owners to have on hand. I gotta let my dogs inside or they're gonna bust the door down and then I'll be right back. Are you pregnant or a new parent looking to ensure a better postpartum experience? Or are you a birth worker looking to improve your postpartum care skills? Check out thriving after Birth. An online self-paced course by me, midwife and educator Tanya Tringali. It's 10.5 hours of video content featuring experts in lactation mental health, pelvic floor health, pediatric sleep issues. You also get worksheets and a workbook as well as options to have a one-on-one session with me. Sign up at motherwitmaternity.com/thriving and let's improve postpartum care together.

Tanya (06:26):

All right, dogs are inside. Onward. let's see. Believe it or not, me talking about the CrossFit level too, I'm sure has made some people who listen for more of the healthcare related stuff, you know, kind of plug their ears or maybe they're hitting the like advanced 30 seconds button over and over and over again. But if you haven't done that yet, you know, I think what I wanna point out here is that fitness planning and set goal setting and programming, all of that stuff shockingly felt applicable to many aspects of life, professionally, personally, everything. And hear me out on why, you know, when you think about setting a goal, whether it's a fitness goal or any, any life goal whatsoever, you kind of have a moment where you're thinking really big, right? And if you leave it there, it kind of lives in ideal land and never becomes anything else, right?

Tanya (07:32):

And so what do you do when you come up with that big goal? You've gotta slowly break it down into manageable chunks. So then maybe you take a goal that you think, if I really put my mind to it, this might take me a year. But then you take that year and you break it down into quarters and you figure out what pieces of that you can tackle in a three to four month interval, let's say. And then you take that three to four month interval and you start breaking it down into weeks and even days. And really that is how, in a structured way we go about any big project or any new goal. And being able to sit through the CrossFit level 2, and have my mind balance back and forth between fitness goals, coaching goals, professional goals, entrepreneurial goals, personal goals, I, I was really blown away by how it made me feel instantly positive about the coming year.

Tanya (08:32):

Despite having had a year of a lot of uncertainty that followed half of a year before that, of a lot of uncertainty. And so I feel like, yeah, I'm learning how to live with this sense of uncertainty. That's probably not gonna go away. I'll get to that. But I feel like this is part of the toolkit and that was really cool for me. Anyway. alright, enough about the CrossFit level two, for those of you who that is uninteresting, I understand. That's how I feel if somebody tries to talk to me about football, my husband. Anyway. so what were some of my big wins in 2023? First and foremost, I wanna say, as corny as it may sound or as you know, I don't know, I, I suppose this could sound artificial and it's very genuine feeling. The wins of my clients and their families are always front and center for me.

Tanya (09:32):

Every little win I watch a family have is huge and reminds me why I am doing what I'm doing. And it really feeds me in so many ways and keeps me going and keeps me figuring out how to continue to offer this service that, you know, is hard to figure out how to offer in a sustainable way. You know, sustainable for me has been having fairly few clients at any given time and of course doing a lot of different things in order to flesh out all the different things I love to do and ways I want to be working within my profession.

Tanya (10:20):

Many, many, many of my families who worked with me for their first baby in the past year plus have gone on to have second babies. And wow, that has been super profound because many of them reach out to let me know that they're pregnant or that they might be in need soon. And guess what, rarely are they. And when they're in touch, they let me know during and even after that it was because they felt so confident and so knowledgeable from everything they learned the first time. And that's really cool. So I certainly don't have a service that is there for second time and so on. Parents with one exception that second time around, people come back to me for often a piece that they may neglect the first time around, and that is the more pelvic floor and fitness side of things.

Tanya (11:14):

So I do see that the families that don't need me as much when it comes to how to get through the end of pregnancy, how to navigate early and middle postpartum, that's where they, they reach back out. And that's kind of cool. I wish I could streamline my messaging for that first time around when it comes to that piece. But you know, that's a challenge I'll continue to work on. So that's first and foremost. Another thing is that I got married this year in 2023. So 2023 is a special year for me. January, 2014 I married my husband Pablo Poz and you can hear a little bit about him and mid husbands in general. If you check out episode 49 of the podcast that was just a little lighthearted episode where I spoke to a few of my friends' husbands and made a little silly podcast episode that it seems like people have really enjoyed.

Tanya (12:16):

So check it out. One of the biggest things I accomplished this year was that I got to be an editor on a textbook. So this project actually started back in 2021 during the pandemic. I was the fourth editor to join this team, so I was like the baby novice editor and I am ever so grateful to the rest of the editorial team for teaching me and mentoring me and keeping me strong because this definitely brought up, you know, bits of imposter syndrome that I hadn't seen in a long time. And it's just hard, it's hard work. But it was super fun and super rewarding. And now that the book is out, I'm just so proud. The book is called Prenatal and Postnatal Care, A Person-Centered Approach. It's the third edition of this book. And I have used both the first and second edition at when I teach midwifery students.

Tanya (13:24):

So it's a book I knew very well coming in and it was so fun to be a part of it. I also got to co-author, three chapters, one on postpartum physiology, one on sexuality, and another called Physical Activity and Exercise in the Perinatal Period. And the reason I gave you the whole title with that one is because my co-author, who is also on the podcast talking about her research on physical activity, I don't have that episode number handy, but I'll make sure it's in the show notes. Meghan Garland, she studies physical activity and I am the exercise centric person with a focus on pelvic floor. And so I think that's what makes this chapter super unique. And as far as I know, it is kind of one of the, one of a kind in terms of a medical or nursing or midwifery textbook that includes this type of content that's really talking about how to incorporate this into the way we talk to our clients in care giving some strategies for how you might help them move through their recovery or stay active through pregnancy.

Tanya (14:35):

Lots of examples, movement library esque kind of stuff, tip of the iceberg for sure. But it's a great starting place and I'm really proud of it. So this was pretty awesome. This year I also became a fellow of the American College of Nurse Midwives and won the the the Media Award for both the Mother Wit Podcast and my online course Thriving After Birth. So that was really, really cool. Which reminds me if you're listening to this episode and you have wanted to give feedback, ideas, suggestions, be on the show, anything, there's a link to a podcast survey that I'll make sure is in the show notes. Fill that out, talk to me, let me know what it is you're looking for. I'm definitely going to be making fewer episodes. It's been that way for quite a while, as you can see.

Tanya (15:26):

But I have some balancing to do in my life. I'm slowly moving towards talking to you about that. But basically the podcast has to come second and social media has to really fall to the back burner. Why? Because if I'm honest, I don't know if I've ever said this out loud on the podcast, pretty sure that I've never gotten a client from social media posts. That's not how I get clients. I get clients from people who have worked with me before. It's all word of mouth. And so in order for me to survive, I have to let some things go. And I've never enjoyed social media and it doesn't get me clients. So probably the only time you're gonna see me post on social media is when something fairly big happens or when I'm promoting a podcast episode. 'cause I just don't, I don't really see the point for myself.

Tanya (16:23):

And if anybody wants to talk about that, I'm happy to have those conversations too. The other reason is, and I've hinted at this, I really like to do a lot of different things. And over the course of my life since high school, I, certain people, people I adore, people who were well-meaning sometimes made me feel bad about that and made me feel like I had to find a way in my growing up to streamline all my interests, narrow them down. And I think I spent my life trying to do that. And the truth is, I'm happiest when I spread myself out. And yeah, I can spread myself too thin. All of those things can happen, but I think that's okay. It's always gonna be a balancing act and reigning yourself in and then, you know, broadening back out. But I, I think this whole jack of all trades master of none is not, not always true.

Tanya (17:17):

I think it can be, I think there's an ounce of truth, but it's not always true. And so that's my cross to bear, but that's where I'm at in my trying to prune a little bit while maintaining the things I really love doing. So why has this battle been there for me? It is a little bit about my healthcare journey, which I talked about on episode 46, a brief episode similar to this one where I just kind of gave you guys some updates 'cause I really didn't know if I was going out. It's a really long story and I've shared very little of it. And for now, I'll keep it that way. I do sometimes think about telling a longer version of the story, but the story just keeps evolving for me. And I keep not knowing when I'm at a place where I'm ready to tell the story in kind of a cohesive way.

Tanya (18:06):

But I have a rare genetic condition called hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. And I am navigating challenges regarded regarding that condition. It's a condition that my father had his whole life. My, I have multiple family members that have this condition and it's something that does get worse with age. And I was always told, wait till you're in your forties and boy did it come on when I got into my forties, for sure. And I'm really navigating some of those things. So next week I am having a surgery, a, it's not really a surgery, it's interventional radiology where they're going into my lungs and they are going to close up what are called pulmonary arteriovenous malformations. And yeah, I, that's, that's gonna be an interesting thing to navigate and see how I feel afterwards and see if it gives me some relief in some ways that I feel not so much myself these past, I guess year and a half, two years now. But yeah, this has changed my relationship to work. This has changed, you know, how I commit myself to things and how hard I push, whether that's when it fitness stuff or work related things.

Tanya (19:25):

So anyway, that's really the long and short of why it may seem that I'm less engaged on the socials on the podcast when it comes to newsletters, all this stuff. I am really just trying to figure out how to prioritize and reprioritize. And I am still out here working with small numbers of clients. One-On-One and doing all the other things that I love, teaching midwifery students doing various consulting projects and of course keeping up my love for fitness and trying to reincorporate some more pregnancy and postpartum specific stuff in that regard. Anyway, I hope you guys are enjoying the holidays and reflecting on 2023 and gearing up for 2024. I hope it's everything that you want it to be. See you next time.

Tanya (20:23):

Thank you for listening to the Mother Wit Podcast. If any of the issues we discuss today resonate with you or your experience, I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a voicemail at 9 1 7 3 1 0 0 5 7 3 or better yet, email me a voice memo at tanya@motherwitmaternity.com. I really wanna hear what worked for you, what didn't work, what support you'd wished you had, how you got through the tough times, how you advocated for yourself, or especially any tips you wanna share with our listeners. I wanna hear all of it. And if you'd really like to work together, you can get a discount on your first consultation with at motherwitmaternity.com using the code first consult10%off, that's 1- 0 - % symbol, all one word. Okay, that's all. It's wonderful being in community with you all. Thanks again for listening and see you next time.

Carolina (21:24):

And remember, listeners, nothing we discuss on this show should ever be considered medical advice. Please speak to your local provider about anything that comes up in this show that resonates with you and your needs and your healthcare.