Gifts from Mother Eve

Get to know Kelsey as a relatable mom-friend, where she shares her experience with postpartum depression and anxiety, and what it's like to be a twin mom during the pandemic.  Finally, Kelsey shares her theory that all women from Mother Eve have Divine Gifts that help them mother. 
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Connect with Kelsey:

@creating.intentional.mothers
[e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Kelsey (00:00):
I so appreciate you being here with me today, and
I'm so glad you've found thispodcast. I hope that in this
podcast, you will find acommunity of joyful, supportive,
encouraging mom friends who wantto celebrate the opportunity we
have to be stay at home moms,who recognize that this isn't

(00:21):
just being a mom, but that it'sthe best, most sacred
responsibility we could befulfilling at this time in our
lives. Let's get started.
Welcome to motherhood, the bestjob in the world. I'm your host,
Kelsey Redd, a stay at home momjust like you, sharing practical
parenting tips so you can findultimate joy in mothering.

(00:45):
In the first episode of thisseason, I gave you a little bit
of my history and my story andjourney through infertility,
through having my miraclebabies, but I wanted to
introduce myself a little bitmore so that you can get to know
me as a friend.

(01:06):
I was born and raised inCalifornia, and from my earliest
memories, I loved taking care ofbabies. You can say that I
didn't have a whole lot of bigcareer ambitions as a child. I
grew up saying, wanna be a momwhen I grow up. What do you
wanna be when you grow up? Amom.

(01:26):
So my husband and I, myhusband's name is Tyler, we met
when we were just young kidsourselves early in college in
Idaho, and we got married rightaway. And I was happy to have
the opportunity to finish myundergrad degree. And I hoped
that around the time we weregraduating college, we'd be

(01:49):
ready to start our family. Thatwas still kind of the main
objective, the main goal of mylife was to be a mom.
So by the time I graduatedcollege with a degree in
marriage and family studies,with no children coming quickly
on the horizon, I thought, well,well now what do I do? I knew

(02:11):
that my passion still lied withfamilies and helping to build
strong families. So I decided Iwould become a a counselor. My
goal was to become a marriageand family counselor. That's
what I thought I really wantedto work with.
Well, things never quite goaccording to plan, and I
actually found my passion inworking with substance abuse

(02:32):
disorders and addiction, andspent the majority of my career
working in residential treatmentcenters, helping people who had
struggled with addiction. And Ifound so much satisfaction in
this opportunity to work withthese people, some of whom were
the most humble, spiritual,courageous people I had ever met

(02:57):
who had gone through so manystruggles and trials and had
found a coping mechanism thatunfortunately became a bigger
problem than a solution. And Ilearned so much from my clients
and from my fellow cliniciansabout serenity and about seeking
a higher power to help heal ourhearts, whether it's addiction,

(03:23):
depression, anxiety, trauma, allof the above. It was really
beautiful to see. And during mywork in the substance abuse
field, I became reallypassionate about mindfulness and
the mind body connection, andhow the ability to be present
and mindful actually heals somany issues.

(03:47):
That's what allows us to get outof the rumination of the past or
the stress about the future, andto just sit still and be with
our body, managing the emotionsand triggers we may be feeling
and being able to feel them andaccept them. As I progressed on
this journey of mindfulness, Ibecame really passionate about

(04:11):
mindful self compassion and theincorporation of the self
compassion piece as we arehealing from whatever it is
we're healing from. This iswhere I learned that all people
need to be willing to forgivethemselves, to be kind to

(04:31):
themselves, to speak tothemselves with loving care and
kindness, rather than the harshself criticism that we often
talk to ourselves with.Eventually, as my own personal
life took me deeper and deeperinto the journey of infertility,

(04:51):
and I realized how traumaticthat experience was. I wanted to
make meaning out of thissuffering.
I feel really strongly aboutViktor Frankl's philosophy that
when we can make meaning in oursuffering, it ceases to be so

(05:12):
painful. So I wanted to helpothers. So I started getting
involved with a nonprofitorganization that offered free
counseling to couples that weregoing through infertility. And
then I realized that this was mycalling. This was why I was
going through this, so that Icould be a support to other

(05:32):
women and couples who wereexperiencing this.
That eventually led me to openmy own practice that was focused
solely on infertility counselingand reproductive mental health,
including perinatal mooddisorders. I was able to work in
private practice for a coupleyears before I was finally able

(05:57):
to conceive my own children andended up getting out of the
workforce. So after three roundsof IVF and several embryo
implantations, I was finallyable to get pregnant on
Thanksgiving Day of twentyeighteen. And my twins, a boy

(06:18):
and a girl, were born the nextJune. They were born really
early and had to spend a monthin the NICU, which was so hard.
I have such sympathy for anyNICU parents because it, that is
a traumatic experience in and ofitself. But fortunately there
was amazing medical attentionthat allowed them to grow and

(06:41):
thrive and come home after abouta month in the NICU. But this
was a really hard time for me.Suddenly going from having a
career, having a home with justmy husband and I where we could
do whatever we wanna do wheneverwe wanna do it, and then

(07:02):
suddenly to have these twobabies at home was so
challenging. As I've saidbefore, of course I was so
grateful for the opportunity andI was in heaven with my babies.
But I will tell you, twins arehard. I highly, highly recommend
if anyone has the opportunity tohave twins that you take it

(07:24):
because it is the best thing inthe world, but it is very
challenging. So I started toreally have some scary thoughts
and a hard time managing myemotions after the twins were
born. To have that kind ofpressure to take care of two

(07:47):
crying babies and to not haveany help was very overwhelming.
And I definitely experiencedsome postpartum depression
during the early phases ofhaving my twins.
It didn't help either thataround the time, you know, my

(08:07):
twins were born in June oftwenty nineteen, around the time
I was finally like, you knowwhat? I think I'm ready to
venture out of the house. It'swarming up. It's March of twenty
twenty. The weather's gettingnice.
I'm ready to start getting outwith my kids. And then we all
know what happened in March oftwenty twenty, and it was a

(08:29):
whole different kind ofexperience than I would have
expected. And then suddenly itwas parenting amidst a pandemic
for the next couple years as wenavigated, how do I socialize my
kids? How do we get out of thehouse when I need to get out of
the house? How do we, go tothese kid events when we all

(08:52):
have to wear masks?
And, that was was interesting.That was an interesting time,
wasn't it? But as I was able toget practice doing more things
with my twins, I was able togain confidence as a mom and
feel more and more capable ofgetting out and doing things.
And I think that's one of thebeautiful things about

(09:12):
motherhood is you can see yourconfidence grow. I feel like
with every child we've had, it'slike, oh, do you remember when
two babies was the hardest thingin the entire world?
And then after the third babywas born, it's like, oh, man.
Having two babies is nothing.Can you imagine having four?
Having four would be soimpossible. And then the fourth
one is born and you're like, oh,taking care of three babies is

(09:35):
nothing, but taking care of allfour is just the hardest thing
in the world.
I don't know if anyone elsefeels that way. So less than two
years after our twins were born,we had a baby girl, and we were
so excited that she came to usnaturally. I was able to
conceive her naturally, and wasable to bring her straight home

(09:59):
from the hospital, which wassuch a blessing after the month
we had spent in the NICU withthe twins. So at that point we
had my twins, a boy and a girl,and then my baby daughter. And
after my daughter was born, I'mremembering the chaos of having
three babies under two yearsold.

(10:22):
And I honestly don't even knowhow we survived that time. It
was somewhat of a blur. But Ididn't experience the scary
thoughts and the depressed moodslike I did after my twins. After
this one was when I reallyexperienced anxiety, postpartum
anxiety. I remember just beingabsolutely paralyzed.

(10:44):
I could not make a decision tosave my life. It felt like there
were so many factors to considerto even just leave the house
that I I could not even make ithappen. I don't know if you guys
have experienced this feeling oflike, but if we try to leave the
house, do I whose nap? Do Ioverlap? And what snacks am I

(11:08):
gonna bring?
And what if someone how manythings do I have to pack? I
don't even know if I can makeit. But if I drive and then
someone's crying, it was just sooverwhelming that I remember
telling my husband, do not askme a single question. I cannot
answer a question to save mylife right now. If you ask me
what is for dinner, I couldpossibly have a meltdown right

(11:31):
now because it's just toooverwhelming to even consider.
If you ask me, do you want to goout to dinner? Should we go get
some groceries? Or do you wantto eat at home? I too much. Too
much.
And so I remember telling himlike, honey, you have to tell me
what to do at all times becauseI cannot decide what to do. It's

(11:54):
too hard to even make adecision. So just tell me,
Kelsey, sit down and eat thesandwich. And I will just try to
do what you tell me to dobecause I can't even make a
decision for myself at thismoment. So that was my first
experience with anxiety.
I always kinda said that I don'tlean towards anxiety. I tend to
lean towards depression, ifanything, in my general life

(12:17):
experience. But after my thirdbaby was born, I got a taste of
anxiety and I started to really,have sympathy for people who
experience anxiety, more oftenthan this. Luckily, when my
third daughter was about sixmonths old, my husband was able

(12:38):
to change jobs to a job thatallowed him to work from home
and have a little bit moreflexibility in his schedule. And
I tell him that is the onlyreason why I was able to be sane
raising those three little onesand why we had a fourth.
I told him if you hadn't beenable to work from home, I
guarantee we would not have hada fourth baby. But my fourth

(13:02):
baby was born just about a yearago, and he was such a beautiful
blessing in our life. We hopedfor a boy to even out our
numbers, which we now have. Mytwins are boy girl, then I have
my baby daughter, and now mybaby boy. And he has been the
light and joy of our family.

(13:24):
It is so sweet now that my twinsare getting a little older to
see the joy that they have ininteracting with him and playing
with him and taking care of him.My daughter is just like me. She
wants to be a mama so much. Shefinds so much joy in taking care
of her baby brother, and it's sosweet to see, and actually has
been quite healing for me to beable to recognize that, oh, this

(13:49):
is what I was like as a kid. AndI can see her potential for
motherhood, and I can see howmuch joy it will bring her, and
it's beautiful.
And I pray I pray that she willhave no challenges in being able
to start her own family becauseshe wants it so much, and I know
that that's going to be the joyof her life when she's an adult.

(14:11):
It really is beautiful to me howour children can become the
instrument of healing for ourown inner child, and that's
something that parenting allowsus to do. It allows us to parent
ourselves, especially when wesee little mini mes. And we'll

(14:33):
talk more about that in futureepisodes because I think there
is something to be said oflearning to be parented,
learning to parent yourself, andto heal yourself. But there's
something else I've been wantingto talk about.
Lately, I've been thinking a lotabout our Mother Eve and the

(14:55):
divine gifts that women aregiven that make women innately
creative and expansive andalways seeing potential and
growing things. I really thinkthis is something that gives
women a defined nature. And Ithink it's not a coincidence

(15:18):
that God blessed Eve to be themother of all living and that
this trait is carried generationto generation to generation
through all women. I reallybelieve that Eve was gifted the
ability to see what could beeven beyond the Garden of Eden.

(15:43):
I believe that she had thedesire for expansion and
progression and creation deeplywithin her, and that because she
decided to seek for knowledgeand wisdom, she was able to
manifest and create the worldand the family that she must

(16:06):
have felt needed to be inexistence.
And I think that trait is withinall of us as women. Women are
creators. It is innate in us.From our biology to our
spirituality, we are intuitive,we are creative, and we see

(16:28):
potential, and we have ambition.This is a universal law.
The universal law of expansionis what allows us to continue
expanding and creatinghumankind, and growing and
building these tiny humans intopotential world leaders. It

(16:52):
comes with the responsibility todevelop the best in others. And
I think that's one of ourprimary goals as parents is to
develop our children into thebest version of themselves,
because we can see what theyhave the potential to become.
These are some of the thingsthat I think bring joy into
mothering, is using our divinegifts, using our God given

(17:16):
talents, creating as the divinecreator created the universe so
we get to create our household.We get to create order out of
chaos every day in our house.
I'm so excited to talk more withyou about all the things we can
do to create beauty in ourlittle universe, in our little

(17:39):
corner of the world. In futureepisodes, we'll talk about how
to create a family culture thatyou're proud of, how to
implement rituals that bringconnection and love to the
family, and other practicalparenting tips to make parenting
more enjoyable for you so thatyou can truly say every day that

(17:59):
you get to do the best job inthe world. I'll see you next
time. And until then, remember,you're doing an amazing job. If
this episode has added any valueto your life, please reach out
to me.
I would love to connect withyou. Find me on social media or
click on the podcast website.I'll see you next time on

(18:21):
Motherhood, The Best Job in theWorld.