As I’ve mentioned, I’ve recorded over 100 episodes, and I decided to put together a series where I pull out my favorite clips from some of my most popular episodes. Last week, we were lifting the veil on the corruption of the big government, big pharma, and more.
This week, I wanna discuss my favorite motherhood episodes, which I know have brought in so many listeners.
Please know I appreciate every single one of you and how you’re sharing these topics with others.
This first episode, we’re gonna hear a snippet from is entitled My RhoGam Rebellion. And although being rh negative is very rare, to date, this is by far my most downloaded episode. So it goes to show you how many women are facing this issue when they become pregnant.
I wholeheartedly believed in informed consent and I knew that this personal experience of mine with the doctors, it couldn’t be rare.
Maren Crowley [00:00:52]:
Okay? And as I shared what happened to me more and more on social media and then eventually with the podcast, women came out of the woodwork to say that their doctors had treated them in the same way.
That is why this episode is so, so very important to me. And I share it all the time, because I need moms to know that no one knows you and your body or your baby like you do. Okay. Let’s dive in.
My RhoGam Rebellion
RH Negative Women’s Issues During Pregnancy
Hold that thought, though, about what could happen if you do take it.
So why are we giving you something that could actually just even just cause problems? Right? You’re not gonna have any problems without it. But if you do take it, there are risk factors because I don’t care what it is, folks.
Maren Crowley [00:01:41]:
There is a cause and effect. You take something, you you ingest something, you get something injected into you, there is a risk and benefit analysis that needs to be made. And by taking RhoGam, you are putting the mother at risk of issues to come.
By not taking it, nothing happens to her. K? The other red flag is you’re putting the baby that you have, and this is this was my big thing about why I didn’t take it at 28 weeks, is why am I gonna take something that could possibly be to the detriment of my current baby, the one that I have, the one that God gifted me?
Why am I putting that baby at risk when they don’t physically benefit from it?
Because nothing happens if if in my situation. K? Now I will let you know, spoiler alert, I do not have the antigen. I’ve been tested for it, twice now. I got tested at 6 weeks.
Maren Crowley [00:02:50]:
I had no antibodies where so blood did not mix. And then I wanted to have a follow-up, so I had a follow-up again at 10 months, no antibodies. So I did not take either of these shots. I am a negative blood type.
My baby is a positive, and this is just my testimony, k, that I do not have any of the antibodies in me. So why would I put my baby at risk for some child that I maybe don’t know if I even want to have?
Or can you imagine you’re putting that baby that you do have, that healthy baby that you were given by God at risk for someone else? It just it didn’t seem it’s not right. I’ve said what I’ve said.
Midwifery Misconceptions
Alright.
Maren Crowley [00:03:43]:
We all know I’m crunchy. Right? But in both pregnancies, I did have to take advantage of Western modern medicine.
In this episode clip, you’re going to hear from my first midwife, Mandy Rojas, who I absolutely adore. I cannot speak highly enough of having a midwife and a doula. Side note, please listen to the episode I did with my doula, Tina Schonhoff.
She is an absolute angel on earth. I will make sure that her episode is also in the show notes. You know, so many times when people hear the word midwife versus OBGYN, they imagine that you’re gonna be squatting in a field giving birth versus the actual tools and resources midwives have at their birthing centers or at a home birth.
And Mandy gives so much information and humor, I might add, into the 2 part episode we did together. Here we go.
Let’s hear from Mandy.
I think, my question, what I would like you to kinda explain to the listeners is sometimes certain things are necessary, right, to to it’s a it’s kind of of those pros and cons, like, okay. A big no no for me was no RhoGam, but it’s like, okay. If we’re gonna go that route, Maren, we gotta hedge our bets and we do need to have this. Right? So we don’t need to have the Pitocin. So kinda explain to people the difference, between, like, home birth, what’s available and what’s not, in a birthing center.
And then, obviously, we know every freaking intervention under the sun is available at a hospital. But just kinda explain the difference because you had told me, listen. There’s certain things I can’t do for you at home that I can in a birthing center.
Rachel Marinowski [00:05:33]:
Right. So one of the things that people don’t realize that we have in a birthing center that we don’t have at home now I happen to have a very good close relationship with my backup doctor, and, I trained with his wife and everything.
So he trusts me to be able to use, IV pain medication in the birthing center. We also have nitrous oxide in the birthing center.
Now we do not do those things at home, and that’s just because, number 1, it’s your house is not a medical facility, obviously. And number 2, in the birthing center, I have access to advanced fetal monitoring where I can, like, run a strip like they do in the hospital if I need to so that I can monitor the baby closely you know, much more closely.
A lot of people also don’t realize that midwives like me do carry Pitocin. Now we don’t use Pitocin to augment labor, but we use Pitocin if you were having a postpartum hemorrhage or, in your case, you were foregoing your RoGham, so we wanted your placenta to come out so that we didn’t run the risk of hopefully mixing, you know, blood back and forth and and things like that.
Rachel Marinowski [00:06:48]:
We also have methanogen that we have access to, which is another hemorrhagic drug that we use for hemorrhaging, and then we also have, Cytotec. And these are all drugs that we can use, to control postpartum hemorrhaging.
Depending on what the level of the hemorrhage is, it’s depending on what level of the drugs that we use. I typically usually waiver between Pitocin. You know, usually a shot or 2 of Pitocin will stop any any excess bleeding, but we have Cytotek if we need it.
And a lot of people don’t know that we have those kinds of things. They think, well, what am I gonna do if I start bleeding out? Is my wife gonna die? You know? They also don’t understand that we have the ability to start IVs, to run fluids on mom. Like, if you’re dehydrated, I can give you Zofran.
I can give you Phenergan. You know, a lot of the things that the hospital has, we have them too. We just obviously don’t use them all in the capacity that the hospital use.
A lot of people don’t realize Pitocin is the number one overused drug in the United States of America. You know? It just is. You know? And so a lot of people don’t realize that. ~Mandy
Also, when your newborn is born, you know, the vitamin k, the erythromycin eye ointment, the newborn screening where we stick the baby’s foot and take the 5 drops of blood and send it to the health department.
A lot of people don’t understand that we do offer all of that stuff. Do you have the option to say, I don’t desire those things for my newborn? Of course. But we have them readily available.
It’s not like you have to run out and get a pediatrician to do it or something like that. So just because you’re in an out of hospital setting doesn’t mean that you can’t get some of the things or none of the things or all of the things that you desire for mom and baby.
Maren Crowley [00:09:00]:
And I think that’s important for people to know because, like we said, there’s this misconception that midwifery is you’re just squatting in a field. Right? Like, that’s that’s not what it is. And at the end of the day, sometimes these interventions, like you were saying, like, if it’s a hemorrhage, like, they’re necessary.
And I think that that’s very important for people to to know because in the crunchy community, it’s almost like you’re totally looked down upon if you had to have one of these things. And then there’s this mom guilt and shame like, you know, I did x y z.
Well, it’s like, yeah, you did it to save your life and the baby’s life. So at the end of the day, like, that stuff will be out of your system soon enough. Don’t worry about it.
Like, the end game was healthy mom, healthy baby. And I just I I want people to understand that just because you’re not in a hospital doesn’t mean that you can’t have these types of tools and resources if not in a hospital. ~Maren
Rachel Marinowski [00:10:00]:
Like you, Maren, yes, you did have to be in a hospital because we realized that this was a high risk situation, but you had Pitocin. You had a lot of the things, but you were still able to achieve a natural birth with a doula, pretty much same birth plan, different venue. Right.
Maren Crowley [00:10:22]:
Yeah. Exactly.
Rachel Marinowski [00:10:23]:
Because a lot of people don’t believe that they can do it. You know? They’re told that basically their bodies are lemons. It’s not gonna work. And so, you know, if you don’t listen to us, you know, this is your baby could die. You could die. Everybody could die. You know? And I’m going, what? Like, our bodies have been doing this for 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of years.
Maren Crowley [00:10:51]:
I told you you’d love her.
Anyway, right now, you’re hearing all about hormonal health on social media. And it’s easy to think it’s just a trend, especially when it comes to becoming the focal point of a direct sales company. If you know, you know.
But I don’t like using that term trend because it makes it seem like hormonal health is for women, you know, a a blase issue that’s not important, but it truly is.
In this next episode, you’re going to hear from doctor Rachel who is the one half of the Instagram account, kale.blossom. I’m willing to bet you already follow them, and you are already learning so much from Dr. Rachel and Dr. Carly. But this episode that I did with doctor Rachel was also a 2 part episode.
It was one of my absolute favorites. It is so informative, and I know you’re gonna love it.
Hormonal Health and Birth Control
Maren [00:11:54]:
So let’s let’s kinda do a deep dive on birth control, and I’d love to hear all your thoughts on that.
Rachel Marinowski
Yes. We could probably do a a great point post on it. We’ve posted on it before. Do you know the history of birth control? It’s very shady.
Maren Crowley [00:12:01]:
Well, why don’t you tell everyone?
Rachel Marinowski [00:12:03]:
Okay.
Rachel Marinowski [00:12:03]:
So, Margaret Sanger in the 1900, her mom ended up passing away from tuberculosis. She was devastated. She was still a young girl, but she had had 11 pregnancy 11 births and 7 miscarriages.
So Margaret thought that her mom’s demise was largely because she had no way to control getting pregnant. So she was angry. Angry. Understandably, this is a wound she didn’t deal with in the right way because she sought to come up with a magic pill to help prevent pregnancy. So fast forward to the 1950s, now this is an angry person that’s wounded.
Right? She’s wanting to to validate her mother’s passing. So this was around the time when people like the Rockefellers, the Ford Foundation, Shell, they were talking about population control.
So she hooked up with another philanthropist and they just rocked and rolled with it. This is around the time the fifties that the big pharma groups were wooing doctors. Right? So it was the perfect kind of hospitable breeding ground for something like this to come into play.
Well, they ended up the first pill that came to market, they ended up testing it on women in the slums in Puerto Rico who had no idea what pill they were taking. Some of them actually died. Terrible, shady, shady, shady.
They pushed it through anyways, and that’s how birth control was born. You can read all about it. There are several books about it. So when you actually go through the timeline, 1968, the British Medical Journal, came out. 1968. Okay? This is decades ago, said something like a 7.5 fold increased risk of strokes for birth control.
It stayed on the market. 1970, there were what we’ll call the Nelson Pill Hearings, which was big before the senate.
We’re talking about all the side effects. The low libido, the weight gain, the depression, the migraines, the blood clots, the heart problems still stayed on the market.
2012, New England Journal of Medicine said twice as likely to have a heart attack. And then in 2019, I think it was, up to 9 times the risk. Again, they confirmed a blood clots and then 300 to 400 women are dying every year from birth control.
They have the largest one of the largest payouts, Yaz and Yasmin in 2016 paid something like over $2,000,000,000 in lawsuits. It’s just crazy. Another, like, almost 60,000,000 for heart attack and stroke victims and then another 20 something million for gallbladder disease.
It’s a huge cause for why women are having their gallbladders removed. It’s amazing when you go down the bunny hole. You can hear my passion because it’s so frustrating.
There’s also a great book by a pharmacist called The Pill Problem, and he talks about it as one of the number one causes of b vitamin deficiency in our country. So we’re talking about women that are walking around with no energy, no libido, gaining weight, depressed, and they’re on birth control.
It is it should be something that all physicians do. If they are going to prescribe birth control, that I still would argue should not even be on the market anymore, They should provide full informed consent. There should be a conversation with every woman about to go on it, talking about all these potential side effects, including and especially b vitamin deficiency, and every woman on birth control should be on a nonnegotiable b complex.
Dr. Rachel
So I am all for women being empowered and making their own decisions about their body. I can understand the benefit of birth control.
The other piece with birth control that’s pushed pushed in it, it says it’s a false narrative is that it fixes hormone problems. It worsens. It absolutely worsens and scrambles the system.
That’s why there’s such a connection to PCOS and birth control because you’re literally suppressing ovulation every month.
So what happens? It’s like the body is trying to fight back because the body has a wisdom that no doctor, no researcher, no pharmaceutical company will ever outmatch. So, oh, birth control.
Yeah.
Maren Crowley [00:16:19]:
A 100%. And I always say I mean, I preach this to on the face. Like, God doesn’t make mistakes.
The body was made in a particular way and also uniquely. The way that he made Maren is different than the way that he made Rachel, like, because they’re gonna that’s why our our cycle days could be different too. ~Maren
I could be 28. You could be 29, whatever.
And I think what so many women have been misled to believe is that it’s so difficult, I’m using air quotes, to track your cycle, when in fact, it really isn’t. I mean, I I think sometimes women get on birth control because they think that they’re fertile every single day.
It’s like, no, no, I promise you, like, 6 days max, like, I I there’s 30 days, 31 days in a month, like, you’re groovy for the other, you know, 25, like, you’re fine, you know, and so we’re we’re miss led on that belief. We’re misled like, oh, you have you have, acne problems. Oh, this will fix it..
And like you said, it has such a major cause and effect. And to me, it’s like when you watch those commercials on on television that it’s fixing whatever said problem is, but then the laundry list of all of the side effects totally outweighs it.
It’s like, what are we doing here? So, clearly, you and I both agree. Birth control, get off of it. I mean, I’m someone that first of all, I had a full thyroidectomy, and I was on birth control for, gosh, at least 15 years, if not 16, 17.
And my my doc my holistic doctor straight up told me, she said, Maren, you know, I wanna let you know that this could be a bit of a challenge for you to get pregnant. And she’s like, you’re approaching an age where, like, if you do want to have children, I would say, get off it now to buy yourself some time to try and get pregnant. And I was fortunate enough, and I do think this is because of how I worked with her.
I’ll be real with you all. Like, I really believe wholeheartedly in holistic health and medicine, and I believe that’s why for someone who had a full thyroidectomy and was on birth control for as long as I was, I believe it’s a testament to how I was treating my body.
Like, what I was putting into it, supplement wise, food wise, water, all of the things that I was off of birth control for 9 months and got pregnant, like, right away. Like, meaning, like, I ovulated and boom, it it happened. Now so we we’re on the same page with no birth control.
Like I said, that was a 2 part episode. I just pulled from the first part. Make sure you go and listen to it.
Doctor Rachel is such a breath of fresh air.
Homeschooling Insights
Now in this next one, when I recorded also another 2 part episode, like I said, I’m pulling from my absolute favorites. They are lengthy and they had to be broken up, but the conversations were just so powerful. In this one, I did it with Kathryn and Karlyn.
And I have to say, I selfishly asked them if I could interview them, because I knew that homeschooling my girls was an option that I would be exploring down the line. I interviewed them when my firstborn was only 18 months, but I just knew like, alright, Maren, get this information now and get it out to moms who quite frankly have kids who are 4 or 5, 6 that could be entering school and and need this information.
Now these 2 have been homeschooling educators for nearly 2 decades, and they not only homeschool their own children, but they work as consultants to help students and families navigate the homeschool process, including college admissions.
And I had so many questions about what the college process was gonna be like, especially since I played sports and, you know, how does it affect recruiting? You know, I was a D1 athlete and a coach, but also I wanted to know about the curriculum, you know, how do you choose that? What is socialization like? Because quite frankly, so many times people are like, oh, your kids are freak, they’re homeschooled, you know, they need to socialize.
So I wanted to really tear the veil off that, you know, typical response, and there isn’t anything we didn’t cover. And I’m so glad that they were open to having this conversation with me. I I cannot thank them enough. I’m telling you, it is so good. Alright. Let’s go listen in.
Challenges and Responsibilities in Homeschooling
So one of the things you mentioned, Kathryn, was the different modalities that you use and the different styles. And we all know that every child, because a child’s just like us as an adult, like, different personalities and they gravitate towards, different styles of learning.
So how does a parent navigate that as far as their older child maybe goes towards a Montessori approach, right, very structured, take it out, put it away, or, you know, this is when you start, this is when you finish.
And then you have maybe your youngest child is more free spirited and wants to do the homework like Carlin said on a Saturday and wants their Monday off, you know, because they wanna go to the zoo. Like, how do you do that balance of the different personalities, but also you have to have some sort of structure so you as the mom don’t go crazy.
Karlyn Sullivan [00:22:03]:
Do you want me to speak to that, Kathryn?
So, Maren, first of all, I would say, as a parent or, you know, a a husband and a wife making a decision about their school, I do think it it needs to be parent led. So one of the challenges of homeschooling is the relational part of it.
And, you know, you are going to be with your children a lot. And that’s wonderful, and it’s a joy to be with your children, but you’re going to be dealing with different personalities, different challenges.
You’re going to need to keep short accounts with your children.
You’re going to be doing a lot of apologizing and asking for forgiveness because you are living close.
You’re living life close, and that’s its own set of challenges, but there has to be an establishment of a family culture. We’re in a team, this is our homeschool, so we are doing this so that all the children can flourish.
Karlyn Sullivan [00:23:13]:
But as a parent, you know your children better than anyone else. And so you are able to make decisions about how the day looks. Now, I would say caution is required in just allowing a child to do whatever a child wants to do, right?
That’s not good for children. Children, they need challenge in order to grow and they need boundaries so that they can feel safe and feel like somebody is in charge and somebody loves me, and I might love parts of it and not so much love other parts of it.
That’s good for their character, for them to grow in those ways. That being said, I think we as parents, if we’re homeschooling, have the responsibility and the freedom to choose particular ways of learning for our children that suit them well.
So I think it needs to be a blend of what their natural personalities are, you know, applying it to their natural personalities, but also challenging them to grow in other ways because we want our children to be able to function well in society.
We want them to be able to, first of all, have a foundation of strong academic skills because they will need those skills as they grow.
Karlyn Sullivan [00:24:43]:
And we don’t know what’s ahead, so we need to prepare them for, okay, what if we homeschool for 2 years, but then my child is going to be going in might go into a school 2 years from now?
So we want our children to be equipped. So we need to make a solid plan for them to develop appropriate developmental skills. So, you know, they’re going to need math. And if they don’t like math, you know what? You still need math. So
Maren Crowley [00:25:14]:
…because you’re still going to be out there spending money, kid. Absolutely. You got to learn math.
Karlyn Sullivan [00:25:18]:
But there but there are different but there are different curricula for math. You know, there are computer driven math courses. There are hands on, with younger years, math courses where you’re doing a lot of, you know, play money and, manipulatives and things like that.
But your children are going to need to learn their multiplication tables, and that might not be comfortable for your child. But there are lots of ways to make it fun. You know, we can do it with a game, we can do it with a song, we can do it with manipulatives, we can do it marching around the house, we can you know, so you can adapt.
I recall that, and this was one of the beautiful parts about, homeschooling multiple children, is we would study a particular period of history, and and all 3 boys were at different ages and different ability levels. But it involved a lot of reading aloud.
As long as they were quiet, I would let them build with their Legos while I was reading aloud to them. And so for those children who need busyness, they need to be doing something with their hands, or they would be, you know, coloring or whatever.
But there was always a mixture of sit down work, and this was when we were in the home, sit down work, reading work, active things that we would do together, and then going out outside.
And, you know, you can just mix all of that in because you are in control of your schedule.
Maren Crowley [00:27:00]:
Alright. See? I told you. Now I encourage you to go listen to the full conversation. You’ll be more open to the idea of homeschooling. It isn’t just for weirdos. Okay?
Transition from One Child to Two
Now in this last episode that you’re gonna hear from, we talk all about going from 1 child to 2. And I recorded this episode before my 2nd baby came Earthside. And once again, it was a mini therapy session for me.
I was very nervous about what was to come. And literally up until the point she entered the world, I was still unsure of what our family of 4 was going to look and feel like and, you you don’t know what you don’t know. Right?
But what I can tell you is that it was the greatest decision to expand our family. Now is going from 0 to 1 child a lot easier in my opinion than going from 1 to 2? Yes. 1 to 2 is no joke, but boy, oh, boy, it is freaking worth it. Okay?
I can’t even imagine my life without my baby. Alright, let’s get ready to dive into this one. Once again, this is one of my most popular episodes to date.
We’re adding to our family
Maren Crowley [00:28:09]:
You have probably seen the announcement that my husband and I are expecting our second child. So while this was certainly a surprise at first, it was an experience we had talked about giving our daughter for a while now. You know, we weighed all the pros and cons of only having one child and ultimately, as 2 only children, we believe there are more benefits to having siblings than not.
And let’s start with the biggest one that my husband and I discussed. And that’s the fact that as 2 only children, our daughter, she wouldn’t have any direct aunts, uncles or cousins. So while I unlike my husband have a large extended family, none of them live near us in Florida. And while I believe that close friends can certainly feel like family, the reality is it’s just different. Right? It it just it is.
You know, you hear the term blood is thicker than water, and I really do believe that to be true in most circumstances, which leads me to the emotional support that siblings can provide, especially as an adult.
Obviously, it’s not a guarantee, right?
But the reality is that siblings equate to companionship. It’s a built in support system through life’s ups and downs, especially as an adult, when it comes to things like going through pregnancy, you know, relationships, marriage, other types of topics that well, you know, you’re very comfortable speaking to your parents about with a sibling. It’s just it hits different, right?
And not only that, but as your parents age, having that other person to help you kind of navigate that whole process, rather than it falling on you as the only child is definitely a benefit. Now, of course, I will reiterate once again that I know not every family is perfect.
I’m also a firm believer in nurture over nature. But I do find that most siblings have a bond rather their rather than there being like, major, major issues. And one of the key differences between only children and those with siblings is the shared experiences piece.
Maren Crowley [00:30:31]:
So like I said, that’s that’s a lot of the the nurture. Right? Obviously, the nature part is we’re all different and that goes without saying, but as a parent, when you’re nurturing 2 children and you’re creating that family environment, there is a lot that you can control.
And growing up with siblings means sharing experiences, creating lasting memories together, and having someone to reminisce about these things with in adulthood. And I see this type of thing all the time with my parents and their siblings, plus with my friends and their brothers and sisters, always laughing and joking about moments when they were growing up and, and these memories they carry over decades later.
I mean, my dad and his siblings are all in their seventies, eighties, and they still joke about things and remember things that happen when they were, you know, memories from when they were children.
And having siblings also develop social skills and the ability to learn from one another. Right? That’s why it’s so important, as introverted as I am, but I wanna make sure that I’m exposing myself to so many people.
Because when you have constant interaction, which siblings obviously provide, it helps kids learn important social skills, cooperation, negotiation, how to resolve a conflict, and they learn from one another, like we learn from people, right?
We we learn and we develop as humans by exposing ourselves to others.
That’s how we learn valuable life lessons and skills. That’s how we have different perspectives. And it really fosters personal growth and development. Not only that, but having siblings, it it can lead to, like, greater empathy, right, for others and understanding their perspectives.
As children, we we have you know, we learn to navigate relationships with different personalities and preferences.
We obviously that carries over into adulthood, but it starts with kids.
Alright. So for some of the best of the best of my motherhood episodes, but there are so many more that I wanted to share with you.
Maren Crowley [00:32:57]: I just don’t have enough time and I always honor your time. I believe, you know, hey, time is the only resource you can’t get more. Right? So I wanna make sure I honor it.
So whether it was the You’re A Good Mom episode where I talk about going back to work full time as a new mom, or the Intentional Parenting episode that I recorded with my guest, Kate Godfrey, I encourage you, if you wanna hear more of these motherhood episodes, you can just go to my website and then click under the podcast tab.
Next week, we will be going over some of my favorite business and money podcast episodes. Make sure you tune in to get inspiration, helping you into the New Year so you can have the most financially successful one yet.
