Ep 80: Flipping the Script on Baby Gift Registries with Owner and Founder of BeHerVillage Kaitlin McGreyes

Kaitlin McGreyes is the founder of BeHerVillage. She started working as a birth doula in 2014 and quickly became passionate about creating access to maternal care for all. She has supported hundreds of families through their parenthood journeys, founded a doula team, ran a doula mentorship program, has lobbied on behalf of birthing people, and is committed to helping birth workers break into the retail baby gift industry.

BeHerVilalge is helping families get the funds they need to pay for support they deserve:

• Doulas
• Childbirth Education
• Pelvic Floor Health
• Lactation Consultants
• Mental Health Support
• Chiropractic Care
• And more!

In this episode, Dr Shannon and Doula Rachael share a passion-filled, forward thinking, and vulnerable conversation about we, as birth workers, can meaningfully and effectively provide the type of support new parents need in order to feel their best and be able to take care of their family in a way that leaves them feeling lifted up instead of overwhelmed. This conversation was truly magical and left us feeling inspired and on fire to spread the word about BeHerVillage and how they are flipping the script on gift registries and why this is so important!

How to connect with BeHerVillage:

Be Her Village (website)

Be Her Village (Instagram)

We hope what we share will make an impact and help someone else along their journey.

We believe that when you are aligned in body, mind, and your intuition, you can conquer anything!

If you like what you are hearing and you don’t want to miss our newest episodes, be sure and tap subscribe. Your support is greatly appreciated.

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Transcript

Hello, hello, this is the aligned birth podcast. Today's episode is gonna be awesome because it's interview day. It's like our favorite day. And this is really fun because both Rachel and I are here. Dr. Shannon, one of the hosts doula Rachel's here one of the hosts and we're doing an interview with an amazing human being that we found actually she found us and it's so freakin exciting. But it's with Caitlin mug Reyes and she is founder owner, creator of be her village and so she reached out to us on Instagram so we love we love our social media world sometimes, but because mainly because we connect with awesome people like Caitlyn. And so she wanted to come on and talk about be her village and when Rachel and I looked into it, I was like, holy moly. I'm so excited to have her on today because this is this is what we need in the world right now, especially with our birthing community. And she's a wonderful resource for birth workers. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of her bio. Kate lemongrass. She's the founder of be her village. She started working as a birth doula in 2014. quickly became passionate about creating access to maternal care for all. She supported hundreds of families through their parenthood journeys, founded a doula team ran a doula mentorship program has lobbied on behalf of birthing people and is committed to helping birth workers break into the retail baby gift industry. And so that's where we're going today with this with what is being her village and taking a different spin on the baby registries and what do you really need to be supported in your birthing journey? Hello, and welcome to the alive birth podcast. We are so glad you're here. I'm Dr. Shannon, a prenatal chiropractic

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and I'm Rachel a birth doula and childbirth educator and we are the team behind the aligned birth podcast.

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Between us we have experienced a cesarean birth a VBAC hospital births and a home birth our personal experiences led us to where we are today we share a lot in common. We are

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friends from high school who reconnected through our work. We both changed career paths after the birth of our own children. We line up with talking about health and birth and we are both moms to two young boys.

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This podcast was created to share conversations and interviews about topics from pregnancy and birth to motherhood and the importance of a healthy body and mind through it all. Our goal is to bring you fun, interesting and helpful conversations that excite you and make you want to learn more.

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We believe that when you are aligned and body, mind and your intuition you can conquer anything. We hope you enjoy the episode

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so welcome to the show today. Caitlin.

2:57

Thank you so much, Shannon, Dr. Shannon and Rachel. This is like Sorry, I don't know. I never know I never know. I am so so excited to be here and to talk about this and I'm just I'm pumped. This is so exciting to be able to share the message because this is like really a product of my lived experiences both as a mother and as a doula and being frustrated at seeing how pivotal and impactful support is through the pregnancy and childbearing birth, postpartum time and how hard it is to access and also being a birth worker watching people get 1000s of dollars of baby gifts that they don't really need. And not being able to access that sort of, you know, that funnel stuff they do need. Yeah, they do need which is us, that's the team it is support and really select baby products and so I loved sort of sitting down with my Doula hat and my mom hat and thinking how can we create something that gives parents what they actually need, as they have their baby showers and are receiving lots of gifts and it is it's been a really a whirlwind and it's only getting better from here. It's just

4:14

I love the passion that I hear in your voice when you talk about this. And as a doula I can relate to that so much because we get questions from our clients a lot about baby registry items and like coming up on our baby shower what gifts do we need, and we definitely have a few select things that we think can really help. It's important to have we then go into talking about Postpartum Support, you know, lactation support and all of that and like how you can ask family to help fund those things. So this is exactly in line with that. So sharing more of this with our clients is going to be super fun. So can you begin by telling us like what be her villages we sort of circled around it a little bit here but kind of tell us what it is and how it works?

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Absolutely. So at the heart of it. It is a brand new kind of baby gets registry that's not about the baby at all. Because what we think is what babies actually need Right? Like you go to like byebye baby and target and baby lesson they'll there's hundreds of items that you need to add to your baby registry. That's why they're asking you Rachel because it's overwhelming and they know they don't need all this stuff. And we think that there's only one thing that a baby needs and that is a well supported parents or caregiver that's that's really got their own needs met. So be her village is a baby registry where parents can line up the support that they need as they welcomed their baby. So that looks like childbirth education to get prepared for birth. That looks like doula support that looks like meals that looks like lactation visits that looks like pelvic floor therapy. It looks a lot of different ways for a lot of people. The registry is completely customizable. We have a registry guide it's very like you can come to be her village.com Have no idea just kind of like have heard about it on a podcast you know and not really know what it is. And we will walk you through exactly what you need will suggest people in your area will help you shop for support will help you understand why you need the support and then you add it to your be her village gift registry. And the best part of it is that it's completely flexible. So you connect your bank account and your friends and family can fund the different types of support that you have at the level that they're most comfortable with. Because that's one of the big issues that when I was sitting down thinking about this as a doula who cost a lot of money, and I'm looking at like well baby shower gifts are between 25 and $125. On average, that's not matching up with lactation visits. That's not matching up with childbirth education or doula support or pretty much any of the support and services that we need as we're growing our families. So we've made it completely flexible for a gift buyers and the funds go directly into the new parents bank account. But it's not just cash right cash can be super awkward. It can be like a guest here's money

0:00

Super awkward. It can be like, I guess here's money like do whatever you want with it. It is intention and love that is sent for a specific purpose and it's a really beautiful thing to watch. Our registrants get funded it is we just had our third fully funded registry and we've we've got lots of like, partially funded registries. We have almost $100,000 that have been funded on our platform so far, and to see people getting the support they need so now they're having doula support births, they're able to access midwifery care, because that's a you know, that's a whole can of worms right I don't know ball of wax can of worms that's that's a whole other issue right access even to the providers, nevermind the support team, but like our actual birth choices, require financial ability to pay. So we have this registry where people get to line up and create their own custom support teams, and their friends and family fund them. And then they're able to access the care and it's just it's absolutely wild to see the shift happening, because they're $12 billion a year spent on baby gifts in the United States $12 billion. And that's actually a super conservative number. We tried to sort of like, assume, like the least amount we could so that we could stand really behind that number $12 billion, at least, which equals like three to $4,000 per baby that's being spent by families and communities. And so you have the situation right, where parents are getting totally overwhelmed. And I would even say that they're getting a little trench, right because Oh, yeah. All of those things, most of them and there's this thing of like, if you buy this, it'll be easier if you buy this you'll be a good mother, if you buy this and if you buy this, like you can't be a good mother without buying this. This is the thing that you need. And we're being tricked because the thing that we actually need is support. We need somebody to come into our homes and tell us it's going to be okay. Again. It's like sounds like a little big but that is a big thing in those glory days of newborn hen where your relationship is different. Your sleep schedule is different. Your body is different. Your heart has been cracked open times 1000 With this new love that you found and yet everything's completely upside down. So to have your village come in, and that village used to look like right multi generational housing needs to be looked like you know, people really being in a physical village. It now looks like friends, family and professionals coming together to support that new parent and so we're creating access to that so that it's no longer you know, you can only access the care if you have cash out of pocket, because insurance is not covering anything in the United States. And it's a real so this is this is as much about helping parents get access to this care as it is like a political statement that mothers need access and that we are as as a generation and as a collective. We're putting our foot down we're creating tools to get our needs met because it's really, it's it's too late. It's been too long, right? And I look at my daughter who was four when I started this and his now six and a half and it's like I to me, I have like this time pressure of we need to shift how we treat mothers in this country before if she chooses to become one. But she doesn't have to go through what all of us have been through. And so there's this there's this real like passion that comes from a place that's not logical. But it drives me to try and shift the conversation in a really big way. One of the other things that I'm really excited about is the birth worker side of it because there are $12 billion a year being spent on birth workers and we've been completely completely left out of that conversation. And so what we're doing is we are organizing, we're holding mastermind groups where we are inviting birth workers to sign up and be part of our platform so that they can be found in their local area and that they can use the her village with their clients. We are certified gift registry experts so that they can do exactly what you're talking about Rachel so that they can have the tools they need to bring the retail experience into their care and help guide the families that trust them. We're doing we're creating, just essentially coming out next month a new state of the baby shower report, a monthly report so that first workers can sort of tap into industry knowledge, right because this is what retailers are doing. They're writing reports and sharing information about how you know spending is going and customer trends and all these things. And it's like, we need that as birth workers, we if we're going to tap into this probability of dollars, we need the tool. So we created the tool, we need the information or we're going to publish this report. And we need to work together. So we're holding these mastermind groups and we're organizing and we're sort of just doing the thing because it's it's long overdue for us to get to get access to that money and for parents to be able to access our

5:12

and for the parents to shift it to say okay, well this is what I want. I don't want the necessarily $12 billion business over there, you know, maybe the few things but to say like, Hey, this is actually what I want and I think one of my favorite things you said the baby gift registry that's not about the baby and like write that down. I was like that's because there's no Well, I write it down for you. Yeah, but I like that because it's that whole kind of aspect of you're holding the mother You know, like us you hold the baby and I hear I love those those sentiments in those sayings. But yeah, so definitely holding the mom there.

5:49

And I love what you said about like the and this is a little bit probably we could go down a rabbit hole but kind of like into capitalism and how we are quote unquote tricks are convinced that we need x y&z things or products to make it easier or make us be better or do better. And what we talked about with our clients a lot is that like there's nothing more times than not there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with your baby. Right so baby taping obviously of crying, teaching normalcy of the hard in early parenthood or in labor or birth. The normalizing that there's not a thing necessarily to go buy, like to fix it except for the support investing in support that's going to lift the mother up. It's going to help her have all of her emotional, physical and mental needs met. And that's what I hear you say the job of doing and I love it.

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I love it. I love it. Thank you and yes, I I want to just like sort of underline what you just said. Absolutely. We should not be shying away from the hard. The hard is there to help us grow. And when we do this in a really supported way, we come out on the other side of motherhood and parenthood completely changed and we're supposed to be changed. You're not supposed to go through nine months of pregnancy and whatever labor we're not labor or birth you end up with, and the early days of newborn hood and baby hood you're not supposed to get through that unscathed or unchanged. And there is something really powerful about sort of leaning into that and saying, Okay, I'm about to embark on this journey. What supports do I need to get through in in the best way I can in the most whole way that I can rather than sort of these Band Aid things right. Let me just buy this gadget and this lady say,

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and not letting the advertisement this is what you need. You know it because it's enraged and I've talked about this a ton on the show. It's kind of like to like how your views of birth or form like, if you watch any movie, it's the mom, she's on her back. She's screaming, it's painful, it's horrible. I don't want to you know, like and that's kind of the same thing. That's how it's like normalizing birth but also normalizing the care support aspect of it because we are we'd have shifted from the multigenerational units and that home and not having the wisdom there, you know, and not and so needing to go out and like seek that and find that. So

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love that and that that wisdom that multi generational wisdom that gets passed down. I mean, like 100 years ago. People were giving birth in communities and little girls as they were growing up, were watching women breastfeed, and they were watching people in early labor and they were watching midwives caring for people and it was just sort of it wasn't behind closed doors. It was, I mean, even me and my, I think apparently my parents were like a little new agey, I'm realizing oh, wait now, but I remember watching my aunt breastfeed my cousin's it was just totally normal and it never even fazed me and, and birth is so behind closed doors now and we need birth and the postpartum time, right and all we see is the social media like perfection that I know that like one of my as a doula and I Rachel I wonder if you can, like relate to this. Sometimes the way that I know that my clients are struggling is by their perfect, perfect social media posts, like Oh, those are the ones that are actually struggling the most, and often they're the ones that will like post the perfect picture and then reach out to me about how everything is sort of falling apart. And that that wisdom now exists in professionals. That's what it looks like in 2022. It's still there. But it often looks like it's being passed down now through professionals, a mixture of professionals and personnel and what happens when a whole segment of our population can't access that. What happens we're failing the mothers, we're failing the babies and it's really it's time to reclaim motherhood in our country and the her village is not we're not saying this is like we're the leader, but we're part of the answer. There's so many people, you know, putting their heads together and putting their energy behind making the shift. And this is the way I'm doing it because I looked around and I said, Oh wow, there's all these people doing these great things. Who's Who's taking care? Of the baby shower? And the answer was nobody nobody was was talking about how we can access it as birth workers and help parents can access that carrot. So it feels really, really exciting to be working on that for sure.

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Have you heard about nesting parties or like nesting showers?

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I have an I love, love, love that idea. Mother blessing message showers, anything that sort of like, we need to do that so much more. That should be everything right? It shouldn't be like, Come on, let's care for you. Because there's really been this focus on the baby. Right? And it's not that we don't all love babies, right? But it's what does the baby need? It needs a welfare for parents. What's interesting too, is that we did some research into the origins of the baby shower, right? Because how did this start? It started when the advertising executives like the Mad Men era decided that they needed to sell a bunch of baby products. So if you come from a bunch of male advertising, I

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was gonna say it didn't even come from like people saying I would like that. Yeah, it came from you. You're gonna listen to this.

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Totally. If you have any mother that has already had her. What she needed, what she used what she wishes she had. It's going to be 8590 99 totally made up but it's going to be support. It's going to be the people that were caring for her. And the people who were showing up the people that were feeding her taking care of her older children and teaching her how to breastfeed validating her experience, right? It's these are the things that really impact the mothers that actually have been through it. And to have this retail marketing, male perspective sort of dominate how we care for mothers is really, really backwards and that's and that's a big part of it. That's what we're doing. It's like, I'm a doula. I'm a mother. That's how I identify first I often will say Hi, I'm Caitlin the greatest mother of three doula and founder view her village because in that order is sort of like how we've landed here. I'm not as my kids would be so excited. I'm not co Caitlin. I'm a mom. I'm a doula, you know, like, this is the work where we have to help each other because nobody else is doing it.

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Absolutely. So

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I want to know, have you gotten any feedback from moms who have used the registry or what are they? What are they saying about it? Well,

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the feedback from the moms is actually the best part. I have to be honest with you, because because I can get really lost in like the day to day like the numbers and is the tech working and and how are we doing outreach and how are we thinking about our messaging? And I remember pretty clearly like a couple of weeks ago, we had one of our fully funded registrants. Come on and your resume call like this, and we recorded it and I was full blown in tears trying to not ugly cry on this call because she sat there and she talked about how impactful it was how she was preparing for her second birth and was her first birth. The financial stress impacted how she chose for herself and how she access care, and how she experienced her entire birth and postpartum time and to have that relieved this time around going into her birth. It was it was so beautiful, because what she said was, she felt the love of her family. She felt it in those funds going her way. She felt that when she meets with her doula, she felt it when she hired her midwife she feels it as she's going into peace and calm that they were able to give to her was priceless. And they were able to do that by just sending some intention. It's so much more than money. It's about sending this intention of I care about you and I care about your experience. And so she was sitting there 38 weeks pregnant. She probably reached out to her she might have had her baby. She was sitting there like 38 Weeks Pregnant saying I just feel so joyful. I feel so joyful going into my birth. And to me I was like I was just a mess because it's that layer of stress. What's your new house? Right? It's like, you need to nevermind. Shifting this it's about bringing peace and calm and empowerment and joy back into the motherhood experience.

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Lie now so how much debt it

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was it's customizable. So how does that how does that work and how that looks so like if someone if someone is intentionally sending that money, do they say okay, well, I want this to go towards the doula or is it like a lump sum and then the mom kind of figures out where things go, how does that work?

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That's a great question. So when the parents will be set up their registry, they have two options. Number one, they can shop. So we have a bunch of practitioners all across the country who have signed up, and they are found in our registry guide. So anybody who's within 50 miles of that parent will show up in their feed. They can shop for the different categories chiropractic, acupuncture, doulas, lactation children, that we have all kinds of practitioners on there. If we don't have practitioners, or if they already have their team set up. We also have a way for them to just add whoever they'd like so it's completely customizable for the parent. Everything when we built this was about like, how do we make this most easy for them? How do we remove as many obstacles so they can shop for support or they can add their own support very easy when their loved ones come? One of the things that they see besides the registry is there's a little tab that says Wi Fi for village and when you go there there is a video of mothers that have used our platform and they speak I'm not on the video we don't we just splice together a bunch of mothers talking about why being privileged was impactful for them. And the gift buyers are able to hear and see immediately why this gift is so important. Which I point that out because I've heard from other registrants that Oh, well I you know, I added a doula primetime baby list and I didn't get any funding. I'm like, Well, yeah, because maybe list doesn't want you to fund your doula. They don't make any money. If you're funding your doula. They make money when you buy all this stuff. That's how they make their money. So they're not gonna put any energy or effort into you getting funds be her village, all we want is for you to get money. All we want is for people to understand the importance of this. So the gift buyers have access to videos and tools like that and really understand so we educate because we heard from our registrants, I don't know I'm setting it up and people are crying. So we put a ton of energy into educating those gift buyers so that you don't have to, and what they see is just like any other registry, they see different items. So instead of a stroller or you know a diaper bin or a crib bumper, they're seeing doula Lactation Support midwives, postpartum care, and within each of those items, they can send any amount of money, literally any it's completely flexible. We suggest certain amounts, but they are able to type in what they like so which is great because we see people sending smaller gifts because that's what they can afford. And we also see people buying entire doulas entire home birth midwives for people I think on believable to see the generosity that exists out there and that's kind of the the best part of this. This. It's like, people are not spending $12 billion a year on baby stuff because that's what they think parents need. They're spending $12 million a year on baby gifts because there is no other option until the her village showed up. Right so we're watching people be able to send that those funds for that specific support and feel really good about it and and we're seeing the parents to be in those families really like feel that love coming in.

18:44

Yeah, I feel like I feel like with the with the society and how baby showers typically are and people feeling like they have gotten invited to have a job or excited to go celebrate this person. They've created a registry or I'm gonna go to Target or Walmart or whatever baby byebye baby whatever big box store they can go to pick out whatever is on the shelf in the baby section and take it because that's like, how they know how to like go to a party or go to a baby shower. It's like when if they were cold or given the information about this is actually another way you can help support them. I think people get real excited by that because they're like I really want to help. I really I want something I want to buy you this on this useless thing. This is just kind of all that's available are all I know when you redirect and kind of paint that picture for them and expose them to the potential I think that's when you probably see the more the generosity come because Oh this was like a an actual, a meaningful, useful gift. And people can get excited by that. And unlike that for me, if you reframe the baby shower, and sure you still need some products, right? Like it's not that you don't, but it's like reframing it and I think that actually is when you probably say more more generosity. So this gets me excited for how we can make this picture for our clients as far as how to prepare in a meaningful way and kind of what to do with the whole baby shower thing, how to really reframe that and that can start within just coming to your website sounds like and you would walk them through those steps. And that would probably help ease their mind because a lot of times we tell them you need a lot less than you think you need like right really, really basic simple stuff. You know, trying to help tamper down the stress about completing the baby nursery, you know?

20:32

Yeah, well the thing is this stuff creates more stress and that's what feels exciting about beaver village is the inner village reduces stress we get people the funds they need to build their support teams to access care the care reduces stress, certainly, but also sodas not having all these boxes. I remember after my baby shower, I was blown away by the generosity that's that's like a constant people are generous. I think at the heart of it. People are very generous. People have so much love to give. And so it's never I've never felt like people are buying all these gifts, you know, because they they're bad people or No. People are buying gifts because that's they're just trying to help. But I remember like, you know, just loading up the cars, multiple cars with all these boxes and then going to my one bedroom apartment city and be like, Oh, what do we do with this? It felt totally overwhelming. And the truth was most of it either got returned or wasn't used which is such a waste of the energy, love hard earned money time that my friends and family offered me. And then there's like we haven't even talked about we we interviewed a bunch of parents as we were developing this and one of the things that they talked about was how much they returned. And how much returning items was a burden on them. Because they're returning it after they figure out they don't need it with a newborn. In that learning time. It's a chore it's just like the stressor that these gifts add and so we absolutely need some things. But we mostly need support. And we need support to figure out what those things are, which is part of the reason why we're launching our new gift registry experts certification course because we know as the first worker I was asked all the time about what people should register for and what we want to do is we want to arm an entire army of birth workers with the competence and the tools and the knowledge and the access to you know up to date industry you know knowledge to share with clients so that you can confidently say in each of these areas baby sleep baby travel you know developments partying, those sort of things. Here are the products here are the supports and here's how to access both of them.

22:54

I'm excited by that both definitely we look at a team of doulas who could benefit from that for sure. And we do we do feel a little bit lost too. Sometimes when when, when expecting parents and families are looking at out for recommendations because it's a thin line and not being up to date with all the I mean, come back when I had my oldest the rock and play was a big thing and now the rocking play is a no no and I remember swearing by the rock and play. And so now I want to live forever. I've recommended that and now I'm like well that makes me real nervous because that's not a safe product anymore. I don't even know if they make it anymore but like being having access to sort of like that up to date for the products and for the other support. You know, categories that be your village is founded on like having that information readily available in like up to date. And then like one place because Google is a scary place, you know, to look up a product, you know, it's just in line of like what do you refer What do you not refer or recommend and yes, I don't know they get it feels like this could be a solution to that problem.

23:57

Yes. Well that's that's really the thing, right? Because we we have to insert ourselves birth workers need to come together and insert ourselves so part of our mission with birth workers is to arm them with the information because you know like you just said you use the rock and place that you recommended the rapidplay that work for peer to peer recommendations for like, Hey, I'm a mom right now and you're a mom right now and this is what's working for me. But as birth workers as professionals, we need to really be up to date and we have to know what things are, you know, safe and not safe. We need to know how to figure that out. And we need to know how to support families in a non judgmental way. And that for me, it was was one of the most like eye opening and enlightening and wonderful parts of my birth work. And also the hardest because it forces you to sort of like well, I would never make any of these choices but I'm fully fully fully on board for you making them right there's this like separation between our own experience at our clients experiences. So we're bringing that into the gift registry conversation with the certification course and and we've lined up Lexie Tabare paper I always say her name wrong. Sorry Lexi from hatchling and she is she's building the course with us and I am so excited to facilitate it but also sort of take it with her find her because the amount of knowledge and up to date knowledge she has. It's really a game changer. And I'm really excited for that launch. It launches in January

25:27

so that I know. I could use that too because my kids are 12 and almost 10 Wow, Almost 13 Almost 10 So like, I mean the haka, like all of these new things that are like I didn't have so then I and I'm also like, I might be missing information that could be very helpful because I don't even know even these like double zipper onesies when they put the zipper on the bottom and on the top. This I didn't have that, like I did. It's amazing time worrying about that. Oh, it's amazing. So when I'm doing my like pediatric adjustments or whatever I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can easily just do it through but I every time I do that I'm like oh my god, I didn't have this.

26:09

So I mean how you see Yes, I know I'm supposed to are like in the frog round and oh my friend was like for your office and I I was amazing. Amazing. Like there are so many developments, but it is absolutely. Part of what I'm saying here too and like realizing is that we as a birth worker industry need to level up, right like it's time for us to go with the sort of just this word of mouth working. It's time to have industry. You know, papers, it's time to get trained in these. It's time to be like hello, hello gift industry. We're here and we're ready and we're on the frontlines we are in these poems of these parents. With their full trust well before they're in by any of these companies. So we have this really unique opportunity to sort of like the verge and tell the truth to these people to all the families that need our help before they get inundated from the retailers and it feels really, really exciting to sort of like be stepping up into that role as a collective, not me, but like as a collective of 1100 birth workers that we have on our platform.

27:28

And it's taking the responsibility seriously. It's kind of almost like creating a new element of the service Ferber worker you know it's bringing it down into their service line right Sam okay not only can I you know, we have our whole list of things we do and then we can help you with your get like in a not gift registry. I don't even really want to say that but your your be her village register your your, your how you're gonna build your village how you're gonna build your support. Team and like we can help guide you in that and then gives us confidence to but you're 100% Right. I mean, when I was pregnant, my first I had my Doula come in. And we were walking through my nursery and I was like, what else do I need and it was a jam packed nursery had all the things and she was like, no one more thing. I was like, she was like, your baby's not sleeping in here for a while and your baby's gonna wear these little white onesies and that's it and like, she just like gave it to me wrong like you. She had seven kids. I don't know. I mean, she knew. She knew

28:29

you're like now I do need this room.

28:32

In a tizzy about my rocker like, not being in a gym like 14 weeks, I was so stressed about it. And I think there is an element to because I always try and affirm my clients and their stress around the nesting phase. It's like balancing what you truly need and helping them understand that that's not necessarily a to spend their energy on but also affirming that the nesting phase and like worrying about those things is also very real. So striking that balance but I love that idea of like coming at that being that frontline and being like here's really what you need. Here's the place to go get it. Here's the current research current evidence on these products because it is ever changing. It is overwhelming parents feel so much overwhelmed by products and things and supplements and stuff that I would love to be able to help them sort through that. And so I love what you're doing. I love the the greater vision and the

0:01

sort of way you have you started and you're growing it to kind of take on that like the commercial industry and say, you know, we can shift this and because like you said, you have a front row seat, you're invited in your trusted and that's the way you can shift their thought process on how they consume. And then that ripple effect to their family and their kids and their friends will go and go and absolutely, and you know, I make perfect sense when you think about it, that we're in their homes, we're helping them craft their vision for their birth, their vision for their postpartum. We're helping them create tangible plans and actions to reach those goals for their own parents that experience. Why wouldn't we also offer the advice on how products and services could support them and this gift registry expert certification is actually a deviation for us because we previously I appreciate you saying you know, it's nice how you're growing because we previously were like, here's the Bihar village registry support, not stuff do it, you know, which is totally filled. The whole village registry is all about support now. But now we're looking at this as a broader okay, how do we make the shift we have to acknowledge that stuff exists. We haven't acknowledged that we need it. We don't need to sell it though. What we can do is we can train the birth workers so that they understand you can go in as a certified differentiate for offer these services to your families to help them reach their goals and help them stop their baby lists registry. It doesn't have to be their village. The point is that we are helping the birth workers expand the conversation from just here's all the stuff the baby stuff catalog, to let's figure out exactly what support and product you need to reach all of your goals that we're already working on. It's a it's a really a natural extension of like creating a fuller spectrum of care.

1:57

That kind of added to because we did have a question on our list for you, but kind of like what's that long term vision for the her village and like what are you kind of envisioning for the future? Oh, that's such a great question. I I envision the her village being comfortable being I envision it being like, Oh, where are you registering? What what stroller, who's your doula? What you know, we've told the floor provider to do like I envision us sort of helping funnel millions and millions of dollars into small businesses into birth workers into communities and getting a bunch more of them right because the other uncomfortable truth is that if everybody could suddenly access the care that they need, it wouldn't exist, because there's not enough of us, which is a really big part of my collaborative spirit. I don't look at other people, even other sport registries or other people that are doing things in this realm. I don't look at that. Senators. I think that there are so many people just not getting care right now that there could be 100 be her villages and it still wouldn't be enough because we have such a hill to climb. So I like to envision the conversation shifting first and foremost, that is the most important thing that people are talking about lining up support alongside their stuff and their baby products. The other thing I love to think about is our industry. I love the idea of sort of creating this push something that you know where we are eating at conferences and we are looking at the data and we are tapping in our businesses and that's what we pray there's a fee her village right you can just plug your business in. You can get found on the gift registry, you get access to our mastermind meetings where we're strategizing we can create legislative action, we can we can really if we work together, we can do anything we want, right we can get this shift happening and I think for me the end goal or be her village is not to do anything in a certain way. But to have the end goal be that all mothers and all parents are able to access the support they need. Because when you when you take a wider lens look at the world every other developed country is caring for their mothers. They have in home postpartum care. They have health visitors, nurses, doulas. Midwives, lactation consultants checking in on them. They're getting pelvic floor therapy handed out like candy. I mean, it's like it's ridiculous and wonderful what other mothers in the in the in the world are experiencing so my end goal is that that is the normal experience for American mothers. How be her village can help that and how what our actual company looks like is less important to me because we have continually sort of pivoted and shifted our message based on the people who are actually engaging with us when we first launched we launched you know, the registry how I wanted it to look and then we had our first moms use it, and they were like, Oh, this, this and this and this and this, and this doesn't work. So we shifted the entire thing. And now that's happening with the birth workers, right? We're we're asking them how they want to use us. We were having meetings with them. And we said do you want us to, you know, be a way that your current clients can afford you and they're like, no that's we just we're really excited about the mission and we want to work on the mission. We want to work on changing the conversation. We want to work on being able to talk about gifts with our with our families that we're already working with and to do it with confidence. So that's where we came up with Alright, so we're gonna get the industry reports. We're gonna get the mastermind group. We launched the certification course it's time to give the birth workers what they need to be able to tap into this and it doesn't have to be her village centric, it's more important that the work happens and that we move the needle forward a little bit on caring for mothers.

5:59

And no, and I like I like that focus, but you've, you've kind of been adaptable. So as far as like, you've got that big vision, but it's also seeing like kind of where it's taking you and really that birth worker aspect to it so and helping people create that birth support team. So that's kind of I don't know, it's fun to see and hear what you're speaking about, like the future for be her village. But are you still a doula? Do you still do doula work? I do not do doula work anymore. Okay, though. Full disclosure. There are three people that I will go back and call for and they know exactly what they are. And if any of them have their second and third babies, I will go back home for that.

6:43

But I needed there was a shift that happened for me in my own life where I was the primary caregiver to my three children. I and I was homeschooling them, and it was like it'd be this was the pandemic it was just, it was, it was a lot. Actually, no, it was before the pandemic we had already started be her village. So I was on almost non stop for seven years. I had launched this doula team, I was doing a mentorship program. We were taking so much and I had hired joined the Council of our local doula group, we were doing lobbying efforts, there's a lot happening and I felt I felt a little stretched in every place. And so for me, it really became like a personal sort of focusing in on what is the thing that I want to do, and how can I most be possible? And I felt so strongly about how impactful my Doula support was, and I have a hard time like tooting my own horn. But I think I think a doula support is impactful, not because my Doula I think it's just something that's impactful. And how, how positive people were experiencing their birth and their postpartum with support with my support and my team support. And I was just there was always this thing in the back of my head of like, well, what about the people who are left out of this? I couldn't afford my own doula support. You know what I mean? Like some of my clients couldn't either we worked with people as much as we could. But there was this nagging thing of like, well, how do we do this for everyone that I couldn't ignore, and so there just became a time and it happened to be right before the pandemic, my last month on call was February of 2020, which was, well time is I had no idea what was coming. Yeah, but it really just became Okay, so we're going to if I'm going to take care of myself, which is something I am not that good at. And if I acknowledge that right, like I tell others, you shouldn't, you should stay in the bed near the bed whenever you know, and I'm like at Costco, literally, I'm at Costco, day two after maybe that there's I am the worst person at taking my own advice. So there has been a huge emotional internal transition for me. I can't be everything to everyone. So how can I most efficiently use my time and energy? So now, my kids know when I'll be home, right? There's no more like disappearing for 36 hours at a time and there's no more obsession with having my phone next to me. But there is a very focused effort and intention to my working time that is very, you know, delineated to move this industry forward and help more people access to doula care, even though I'm not the one that can provide that you needed that experience as a doula though to see you know, like, I like it. I like seeing people's journeys and kind of where it led them. So you needed that to be like, Oh, yeah.

9:44

Not only am I awesome, but also all jewelers are awesome. So it's like, we you know, when people need this, they need to know about it. So I like how that progression is. Yeah, so there was this I gave her I don't think this is the weirdest podcast I've never I didn't have to share my birth story which is like how I always thought I was gonna ask that so yeah, go for because then I wanted to see Did you have a doula at your birth? So my first one I didn't and I should have but I didn't know. So I you know, I watched this thing born and I hired midwives, the whole birth went really sideways, the loss of New York State are such or worse such that midwives own birth center so I I sort of had a face which happened to me where I tried to give birth at a birth center with midwives, but the OB is we're pulling the strings the entire time. So the decisions that were being made for my birth were like on the the midwife being on the phone with this OB I'd never met and it was really it was less than ideal. I ended up having an interaction and an epidural and a C section that was then necessitated by the baby's reactions to epidural. It was I'm very careful to say that the C section was the best part. It was not the traumatic part. The C section was the first time I felt listened to the C section was my ticket out of an absolutely horrendous situation. I was I was I laugh at this now because I'm like an advocate and helped so many people navigate, but I didn't know about them. And so I was up for my induction my Cytotec induction where they beat me double doses upside attack in the C section, recovery room, so I wasn't even in a private space. I was next to all these women that are post surgery and post DNC is moaning and miserable and I want to I don't like screaming at the contractions because I couldn't handle that because they were making me lay flat on my back. They had blood pressure cuffs, they had wires. They had to like inflatable things for your legs. They were trying to make me pee in a bedpan. I think I did actually. It was it was such a traumatizing experience as a C section. Was this like okay, I everything I've wanted for this first has gone out the window. And there I am now at least I get to meet my baby secretary. So I'll be now met and we you know, there was just this like relief in it. So I'm very careful to say that like the the drama that was experienced in my first birth was not sexual related. It's not to discount that other people. Don't have that. But I think for me that trauma was about how I was treated, and how I was cared for not cared for. So there was there's always a lot of sort of self blaming and guilt that happens for parents. I didn't prepare it. I didn't know the right questions. I didn't hire people. I mess up. And I believed those stories that I told myself, right. And then I went and I hired a doula and I hired a very direct supportive OB and I went on had a beautiful, amazing, spiritually transformative, spectacular Isa, I went to the stars. I had those amazing birth I was like in this beautiful I enjoy that the labor which I like cringe when I say that because I know some people are like, You're alright, you're nuts. I'm not listening to anything.

13:03

But I did. I enjoyed the labor. It was I was working with my body. I just I remember standing in the mirror after the birth, and I was fully naked and I have had a difficult relationship with my body, probably forever, right? And I remember looking at instead of seeing fat and instead of seeing droopy boobs, and instead of seeing failure and ugliness, I remember just looking at my body I'm gonna get choked up just talking about it. Oh, that was my thing to remember, like looking at my body and thinking, you did that. How are you? You know, it was just so empowering. And it didn't really have to do with the Wii, but like the vaginal birth, it was empowering before I even had hair. It was just so empowering to like, work with my body and move with it and and be able to join in with it instead of fighting it during the labor.

13:58

So that the back experience has really shifted me in ways that continue to like, obviously, it's still it's transformative, to be able to trust yourself. It's transformative, to try to do a hard thing and to be successful at it, despite all the odds and there was this thing that happened in my brain then that I was like, Oh, I've been talking myself out of things for a really long time. I've been saying, Maybe I should go to do this. Now other people are better at it, and I wouldn't be that good. You know, I'm like, oh, cutting myself down. And I stopped doing that after that feedback. And I went to the doula training and I, you know, I beat her. Those are all of the things that I've set out to do, or because a lot of people will look at me, oh, you're crazy. What are you doing? Like you're gonna fail or you're not gonna be impactful or it won't work for hundreds of reasons. And I just say, Okay, I'm gonna try anyway. And when I became a doula, it really helped me see all of these other people having that experience of feeling like a failure or feeling the struggle or feeling that isolation and loneliness and I started to realize that everything I went through with my first baby sitting in my nursery postpartum three days postpartum, my husband went back to work before I left the hospital because there's no paid parental leave and we couldn't afford for him to not work. And I was just completely alone totally felt like I was failing and I saw hundreds of other people go through that exact same thing. And that is where privilege was born because it's like, wait a second, why are we all sitting in our homes with our babies feeling lost and confused and blaming ourselves for this when there is clearly a systemic lack of support for mothers, and it's time to do something about it. And so, you know, I have huge visions of how privilege can be successful and how we can shift this conversation. And I have been really intentional about celebrating the really small successes as we move forward because because the the issue we're tackling is so large, it's hard to not feel like you're failing all the time. It's one of the reasons that we put a ticker on our website. So if you go to be her real chat time, at any point, you can see the exact numbers down to the pennies, of how many funds have been gifted to new parents and my darkest days when I'm like, I don't what am I doing? What am I doing trying to take on this? You know, this well funded industry? I look at that ticker. And I'm like, Oh, and another spot, another good spot. This is working. This is happening.

16:39

So yeah, so that has been my transformation from from blaming myself to realizing that it's not it's not the women's fault. It's not the mother's fault. We are all doing the very best that we can. And we deserve better. Dory, now I've got tremendous chill. Oh, yeah. tears in my eyes. I thank you so much for sharing that and going there with it. And I think what we can do I know Dr. Shannon, because I know her story and when I can relate to and what we have witnessed so many other birthing people witness and go through as well is the transformation that comes with becoming a mother and also that that reclaiming of yourself and your body and your birth what that does to us, both nonfiction and I redirected our careers after having children because something was spark something was cracked wide open. We were exposed to something and ignited something and realizing what you're truly capable of after those types of experiences. It's all I ever hear, you know, and sharing that with other birthing people and giving them that little bit of glimpse into the potential of what this experience can be and giving them meaningful support is what we're all here for and we're all doing it and I just am so so like on fire with your story and what you're doing and cannot wait to share more about it. Thank you so much. And that's why I love asking birth workers and getting into their birth stories.

18:13

Because it is so transformative. But it really does direct.

18:20

I like your intentions and your purpose behind things because you can even use those you use the story to remind yourself to like why am I doing what I'm doing, you know and being like okay, by now I can spread the word and and help with that spring the education and the knowledge that we have, you know, we had very similar we very similar birth stories because I had my emergency C section first time around, but then I had my VBAC and I remember and, and with mine I remember saying, once he was born, I was like, oh, that's what it was supposed to be like, like you know, just being like, this is so different than what I experienced. So it is such a, I don't know it is such a transformative process. Yeah. But then as I was with my second one, I was like, Oh, I think I'm gonna quit my job and go back to school. What do you think about that big moment so it's kind of like you can get a glass glad I'm not the only one.

19:19

I love it. I know Kelly, can you tell us and everybody where they can find you? What's your preferred method of people reaching out or learning more about you? And your be her belt be her village? Absolutely. So be her village.com is the easiest place to get started. There's a little question mark that pops up when you go to be her village shop calm. And when you use that it goes right to my email. So that's the easiest. You can find us there. There's also a tab for businesses if you'd go to the header. And that's where you can learn about you know, getting involved getting your services listed on the registry, getting involved with the mastermind groups getting access to the reports and just sort of joining the coalition that we're building to shift this conversation. We're also on Instagram, and I'm the one where the Instagram messages go so I'm very available. I want to hear from people I want to help you figure out your support team will help you shop we will help you you know get your business on board. We're just I'm here to move this forward. However I can