Five and a half years ago, I became a mother. But the day my son was born wasn’t the best day of my life… it was the worst.

In this deeply personal Follow-Up episode, I revisit the story that changed everything for me: my traumatic birth experience with my son Ryaan, the complications that followed, and how it impacted me as a mother, a pediatrician, and a human.

Whether your birth went sideways slowly or spiraled in an instant—this episode is for you.

I share:

• The moment I knew something was wrong

• What I experienced during 13 painful days in the hospital

• How trauma shaped my identity, my anxiety, and my approach to parenting

• The invisible grief many parents carry

• Why birth trauma deserves to be seen, supported, and spoken about

If you’ve ever felt like your story didn’t “count” because you survived… this one is for you.

???? You are not alone. Your story matters. And healing is possible.

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00;00;00;05 – 00;00;30;20

Dr. Mona

Hey, it’s Doctor Mona and welcome back to the show and the follow up. Where I share short, powerful clips from past episodes to help you start your week with perspective and parenting truth. And today we’re revisiting the episode that changed everything for me because it’s Birth Trauma Awareness Week. Yes, there’s a week for that, and I can’t let it pass without saying something, because five and a half years ago, I lived it and I’m still living the ripple effects, although it’s not as hard as it used to be.

 

00;00;30;22 – 00;00;52;04

Dr. Mona

When my son Ryan was born, it wasn’t the joyful, Instagrammable moment I expected it to be. It was traumatic. It changed me as a mother. It changed me as a pediatrician. And even now, after postpartum complications are rare diagnosis after my daughter Vera was born and a journey through secondary infertility, I’m still unpacking everything that experience has taught me.

 

00;00;52;07 – 00;01;09;09

Dr. Mona

I wrote my birth story in 2020, and honestly, I could probably write an entire book just on what the last five and a half years have taught me about trauma, motherhood, the medical system, and healing. And maybe one day I will. But before you listen to this episode, I want to read something I shared recently on social media.

 

00;01;09;11 – 00;01;32;17

Dr. Mona

It struck a nerve for thousands of parents. And if you’re someone who’s lived through a hard birth or love someone who has, I hope it reminds you that your story matters to to the parent who experienced a traumatic birth. This is for you. Whether your birth went sideways, slowly, or spiraled in an instant, whether your baby was rushed away or you were, whether the scars are physical or emotional or both.

 

00;01;32;20 – 00;01;51;11

Dr. Mona

Maybe your baby was in the NICU, maybe you were in the ICU, maybe it was both. Or maybe your baby never made it home. Birth trauma looks different for everyone and every version deserves to be seen. Sometimes trauma isn’t loud. It’s all the things you didn’t expect to hate. Going up to see your baby, alarms going off when you try to hold them.

 

00;01;51;18 – 00;02;10;06

Dr. Mona

Getting tangled in wires, yours or theirs during skin to skin. Missing out on those early weeks because you were intubated or in the ICU. Pumping in a room with nothing but a blanket that smelled like them. Maybe you didn’t get the matching robes or the golden hour photo. Maybe you heard the hospital lullaby while watching your baby cry on an ICU cam two floors away.

 

00;02;10;08 – 00;02;29;01

Dr. Mona

Maybe you just kept wondering, when will this feel okay? Maybe you got discharged, but the fear came home with you. Maybe everyone said you’re so lucky to be alive. But you still felt anything but whole. Because surviving something doesn’t mean you know how to live after it. Maybe your baby’s doing great, but you’re still trying to catch your breath because trauma doesn’t end when you walk out of the hospital.

 

00;02;29;01 – 00;02;45;06

Dr. Mona

Sometimes that’s when it finally catches up with you. You don’t need to explain it. You don’t need to compare it. You don’t need to pretend you’re fine because other people had it worse. Grief doesn’t work that way. Trauma doesn’t want to be justified. Some people are dismissed, told us anxiety told to wait and see. I was one of them and it changed me forever.

 

00;02;45;08 – 00;03;02;26

Dr. Mona

Others are hurt but still can carry the weight of what happened because even with support, trauma can leave a mark. I can’t tell you when healing comes, but I can promise you’re not broken. You’re not alone and your story matters. And healing does happen. If your birth left a scar visible or not. You, you’re still worthy of support, peace and healing.

 

00;03;02;28 – 00;03;20;29

Dr. Mona

There will come a day when the beeping won’t shake you, when the what ifs get quieter, when your body feels a little more like home again. And if no one told you lately you were doing an extraordinary job surviving something really hard. If that spoke to you, please follow and download this episode. I promise you, you’re going to love revisiting this conversation.

 

00;03;21;01 – 00;03;38;19

Dr. Mona

We’re consistently ranked in the top 30 parenting podcast, and it’s your support that gets messages like this out with more hearts and more homes getting to consume it. So thank you for showing up. Thank you for listening and thank you for surviving. Now here’s the episode.

 

00;03;38;22 – 00;04;01;27

Dr. Mona

I don’t know why it happened, but it really was an awful time of my life. But somehow I’ve come out of it, and I really want to share how this trauma changed me as a person, as a mother, as a pediatrician, and also what I did that I felt helped me get through this serious trauma. And when you read my birth story, you’ll find out more about that.

 

00;04;02;00 – 00;04;25;10

Dr. Mona

But the day Ryan was born was the worst day of my life. And oh, it feels actually kind of good saying it, because how a mother would say that, right? What mother would ever say that the birth of their their first child was the worst day of her life. But Ryan’s birthday, December 16th, 2019, was the worst day of my life, of worst day of my husband’s life.

 

00;04;25;13 – 00;04;44;08

Dr. Mona

And the subsequent 13 days that we stayed in the hospital were the worst days of our life. And it sucks because you know you have a baby. You expect this beautiful like, you know, it’s social media and movies will say, oh, it’s this beautiful experience the baby gets on your chest. This is awesome thing. Read my birth story.

 

00;04;44;08 – 00;05;04;07

Dr. Mona

It was not like that for us. And in many ways I felt robbed of that experience. I felt robbed of that beautiful moment that mothers can say that they had. Right. But as I started to reflect more on my birth story, I didn’t look at it as a, you know, as something I didn’t have. I looked at it as a well, I had this experience and it’s allowing me now to help other women.

 

00;05;04;13 – 00;05;25;18

Dr. Mona

It’s allowing me to share my story so that other women who’ve gone through similar things and tons do, but just don’t talk about it or feel that they matter, and that their story matters just as much as the stories of a happy, healthy delivery. So in summary of my birth story, I’m not going to go into detail. My son was born on the sixth.

 

00;05;25;24 – 00;05;49;08

Dr. Mona

On the 16th, he was stuck. So he was big. I had I had progressed through labor a lot. So he was stuck in my pelvis. And when they opened up, they couldn’t get him out. So time was of the essence. He ended up having, minor oxygen deprivation, resulting in a perinatal stroke. So he had a stroke, subsequently developed seizures in the NICU, crazy imaging, crazy blood tests.

 

00;05;49;10 – 00;06;11;09

Dr. Mona

And while all that was going on, yours truly developed a post-op Elias, which basically mean my bowels stopped working and I was vomiting bile, and I had an infection in my abdomen. Let me tell you, saying that in like the fastest way possible was probably probably the best coping mechanism, but it was a doozy. It was awful. There’s no sugarcoating it at all.

 

00;06;11;12 – 00;06;28;00

Dr. Mona

I’m not going to. I can try to be all, you know, bright eyed and say, oh, it was this. It was awful. And I need you guys to remember that, that anyone who’s gone through trauma, even if they’ve come out the other side feeling great, it does not negate the fact that they went through a really, really hard time.

 

00;06;28;07 – 00;06;54;19

Dr. Mona

And they are just strong and they’re moving and they’re trying to get better. And it can take months. It can take years. It can take decades for them to feel that healing. But trauma is trauma, and no one should ever, ever minimize that trauma. It was interesting because I had premonitions during the whole hospital stay. From the moment I came, I basically went into the hospital.

 

00;06;54;21 – 00;07;08;23

Dr. Mona

So I don’t know what the Sixth Sense was, but part of me was concerned. I was worried for something and I couldn’t tell you what it was. But I’m just going to tell you a little bit about the premonitions I had. The from the moment we walked into the hospital. So we walked into the hospital and on their way to labor and delivery.

 

00;07;08;23 – 00;07;24;25

Dr. Mona

It’s the NICU. And as we rolled by, because I had to be rolled by in a in a wheelchair because that’s the protocol. I looked at the NICU and I said, I said, oh, hopefully we won’t need to be here. And I turned to my husband, right. And he was like, okay, we go into labor and delivery was fine.

 

00;07;24;25 – 00;07;50;05

Dr. Mona

We’re going to C-section. I was fine, I didn’t feel worried. And then Ryan was born. He got stuck. He came out blue and limp, and the NICU had to be down there and resuscitate him. And when they couldn’t get him out, I was worried because as a pediatrician, I know when they can’t get a baby out, time is of the essence and that baby can go through some trauma and they can end up getting oxygen deprivation, which can subsequently cause issues with their development.

 

00;07;50;05 – 00;08;10;01

Dr. Mona

And, something called. H-He, which is hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. So as I was laying on the table and he came out, it was this weird out-of-body experience where I felt like I was outside of my body looking down, but I couldn’t see what was going on because I visually couldn’t see. But I was, I just saw myself laying there and in a daze.

 

00;08;10;01 – 00;08;30;20

Dr. Mona

I literally had I was not moving, my tears streaming down my face. And Ryan was not breathing. I didn’t even get to see him. I didn’t even get to hold him. I didn’t get to hear him cry because he didn’t cry initially. He got taken to the the warmer and intubated and got sent to the NICU. So my husband went to go see him in the NICU while I went to recovery.

 

00;08;30;27 – 00;08;45;17

Dr. Mona

And when I finally woke up from all the meds because he had given me a bunch of meds because they needed to relax my uterus and get the baby out and calm me down. I had my husband walks in and he tells me Ryan’s off of the intubation. He’s off the tube, he’s breathing on his own and he’s doing well.

 

00;08;45;20 – 00;09;03;28

Dr. Mona

And in my days and my medicated days, I kept asking him, but how’s he neurologically? And he was like, what are you talking about? He’s fine. I’m like, is he okay? Is he is he alert? Is he okay? And he’s like, yeah, I had this weird premonition that something was wrong neurologically. And if you guys know my birth story, he ended up obviously having the stroke and seizure.

 

00;09;04;00 – 00;09;19;28

Dr. Mona

So I kept saying it. I was like, okay, great, he’s fine. I and I was and again, I was loopy and I kept saying it. The next day when I was on rounds at the house at the NICU is when I saw the movements. And then when I showed the doctors in the NICU, it had stopped already, so they couldn’t really see it.

 

00;09;20;00 – 00;09;36;07

Dr. Mona

And then it happened again. I got on video, and of course they agreed that it was a seizure activity. And it was, you know, I said that mommy intuition set in when I saw that movement for the first time. I’m like, mom, this is not a normal no more movement. This is a seizure we need to monitor.

 

00;09;36;07 – 00;09;56;12

Dr. Mona

Obviously, he was on the on the oxygen monitor and the apnea monitor in the in the NICU, but he wasn’t having to saturations or apnea or anything. So they obviously couldn’t really tell if he was having a seizure when he was hooked up in the monitor. I only saw because I visibly saw my son having a seizure. And that is a visual that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.

 

00;09;56;12 – 00;10;13;21

Dr. Mona

And I can’t believe I held him while it happened and that I was the one who saw it. But it was these weird premonitions, right? The okay, we hopefully won’t need the NICU will hopefully doesn’t have neurological problems. And then my my, in my third premonition, when I saw him having the seizure, I turned to my husband. I’m like, he’s going to be fine.

 

00;10;13;28 – 00;10;30;05

Dr. Mona

He’s going to be fine. And I again, this is wishful thinking of the universe. I’m like, I know he’s having the seizure, but the outcome is going to be fine. And that was really hard for my mama brain and pediatrician brain because my mama brain wants to have hope, right? That’s what we are. We’re women. We want to have hope.

 

00;10;30;08 – 00;10;51;13

Dr. Mona

My pediatrician brain kept thinking of all the rare cases of everything that can happen when babies get strokes, cerebral palsy, autism, developmental delay, all the things that strokes can cause. Because I know it. Because I obviously know the literature and see it. Yes, these things are rare, but they happen. And that is what, you know, obviously is very hard to remove.

 

00;10;51;13 – 00;11;16;24

Dr. Mona

That mama hat and that pediatrician hat, especially when your child’s acutely ill. But it was these weird, weird premonitions. The other premonition that happened was when my heart when my son was in the Nikki Orion, and I was in that in the normal floor. I wasn’t feeling great, I wasn’t feeling super sick. But I asked them if I could extend my stay because I had a C-section and I had to, you know, I was feeling, you know, pain and and Ryan was in the NICU.

 

00;11;16;24 – 00;11;36;15

Dr. Mona

I asked him if they could extend my stay. And, you know, I was supposed to go home on a Thursday. I asked him if I could stay till Saturday. And they’re like, well, maybe till Friday and ended up happening that they extended my stay and I was feeling off but not sick. And it ended up happening that I ended up having those post-op Elias fevers, infection concern.

 

00;11;36;22 – 00;11;52;22

Dr. Mona

So I almost I was telling my husband I was telling the nurses that something wasn’t right. Right. And we know our bodies. I was like, look, I don’t feel like this is normal. I feel very tight. My stomach feels very tight. I feel like I’m pregnant and it’s my stomach was tight. It wasn’t soft. It was super, super tight.

 

00;11;52;24 – 00;12;19;04

Dr. Mona

I kept asking the staff, you know, I know the staff. I worked with them and I’m like, look, I’m not passing poop any more. I’m not passing, guess what’s going on? And they were like, you know, you sound will monitor. And I knew something was wrong. And I we kept pushing it. They actually thought I had a little bit of anxiety because they were concerned that, you know, oh, you have a daughter, you have a son in the NICU, and you’re going through a lot that they thought all my symptoms of pain and my heart rate being high and me being winded was anxiety.

 

00;12;19;04 – 00;12;38;01

Dr. Mona

And I almost got like gaslighted initial a little bit to think that I was that it was anxiety and it wasn’t real. And I’m saying that not to. Obviously bash doctors or anything because I am one, but that we all, you know, we’re not perfect. We have to start to listen to our patients a lot more, especially when they’re telling you something is not right.

 

00;12;38;06 – 00;13;00;04

Dr. Mona

I need I need something to be done. It doesn’t mean that there’s going to be something wrong, but the thorough workup should be done, in my opinion. And we were very clear on this. Right. And ended up happening that I had this infection and this obviously earlier that thankfully got better. Now I want to go over like the stages of grief and how I moved through the stages of grief.

 

00;13;00;04 – 00;13;21;16

Dr. Mona

And I’m going to briefly go through this. There’s different. Everyone has different definitions, but I’m gonna go through the five stages of grief. First of all was denial. So I talk about the denial phase, which was probably the first 48 hours for me. And again, everyone goes through the stages of grief at very different paces. Okay. So there’s no rush if you’re if you’re still grieving and I still grieve.

 

00;13;21;16 – 00;13;39;25

Dr. Mona

But my denial phase lasted about 48 hours. So it happened. I was on the, you know, operating table for the C-section, and I just kind of was in a daze. And I’m like, this isn’t happening. It’s not happening. It’s not he’s fine. It’s not going, this is nothing. And then in the the the next day when, you know, it was we was born at like 243 in the morning.

 

00;13;39;25 – 00;13;58;11

Dr. Mona

So the whole day I was in cloud nine, Ryan was on rumor I have my pain was better. I was feeling fantastic, things were good, and I was like, it’s going to be fine. The NICU the next day I went there. I was also a little bit in denial. Still, I kept looking at him. I’m like, this feels very surreal.

 

00;13;58;11 – 00;14;22;14

Dr. Mona

I don’t feel like it’s me watching this happen. I feel like I’m again outside looking in. And again, I think this might be a coping mechanism that people do, but I just felt like I wasn’t really there. I was outside of my body and I was in denial. And then finally it hit me on rounds when they talked about him and we basically they were talking about our story and talking about everything, and it just hit me that this is my reality right now.

 

00;14;22;16 – 00;14;40;19

Dr. Mona

And then that’s when the anger set in. And I just started yelling and screaming. And, you know, I was on rounds with my colleagues, by the way, people I know, residents I trained in other ways. And I just started saying, how is this happening? How is this fair? This isn’t fair. Why me? Why me? I’m a good person.

 

00;14;40;21 – 00;14;59;19

Dr. Mona

I have treated people with respect. What did I do to deserve this? These are questions that came out of me in that anger phase. And as you guys know, no one does these things and no one deserves trauma, you know? Yes, you can debate that some people are bad people and karma should deserve it. But in general, good things happen to good or sorry.

 

00;14;59;19 – 00;15;18;21

Dr. Mona

Bad things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It doesn’t mean that the person deserve that. It just means that that’s what happens. And I kept thinking that this was something personal that I was. I did something that I what did I do? Who do I have to talk to? But, you know, that makes it better.

 

00;15;18;27 – 00;15;48;25

Dr. Mona

And I was so, so angry. Finally, that anger stage of grief subsided and I went into that bargaining phase. Right. I started kind of negotiating and praying and looking for ways. And this happened during my ICU stay as well, you know, what can I do to to make this better if maybe I, I did this and maybe it’ll be fine and will be okay and you know, I’ll, I’ll go I’ll go to I’ll go to temple or I, you know, I did a lot of bargaining with God and I’m, I’m a spiritual person more than a religious person.

 

00;15;48;25 – 00;16;03;25

Dr. Mona

So I was like, maybe do I need to become religious? I had the chaplain come and I was okay with them blessing me and whatever religion they wanted to bless me in. It wasn’t obviously Hinduism. It was different religions. And I just wanted to be blessed. And I just wanted to feel that I was I was doing something.

 

00;16;03;25 – 00;16;27;23

Dr. Mona

I was just bargaining, please let this be, let this be over. What can I do to trade this life that I’m having and the pain that Ryan was going through? What can I do to make it go away? And then the depression set in, and that’s the next stage. And the depression set in, in, in the hospital. And again, it gets a little emotional talking about it because it was a very difficult time in the hospital.

 

00;16;27;25 – 00;16;45;18

Dr. Mona

So my sister came my sister came actually on a Friday. So Ryan was born on a Monday. She came on a Friday. If it wasn’t for my sister, I think I would have been in the depressive stage of my trauma for a long time. And I don’t know if she’s listening to this. I don’t think she will because she’s not a podcaster.

 

00;16;45;20 – 00;17;03;27

Dr. Mona

But I mean, she what she did for me in that time was huge. She was there for me. She basically speaks to me in the language I need, you know, the love language I need. And so she was there. She was bright eyed. She was supportive. She was empathetic. She was everything I am. But I couldn’t be to myself because I was going through trauma.

 

00;17;04;00 – 00;17;22;25

Dr. Mona

And I thank her because I think because she was there, I was able to go through the depressive stage much faster. And again, it’s not a contest going through these stages. It’s basically everyone’s grieving process. But I’m grateful because I was able to jump through the stages because of my sister. And how did this look like for me?

 

00;17;22;25 – 00;17;36;27

Dr. Mona

This look like me staring into space. The nurse would come in and she would be like, do you want to watch TV? And gave me the remote and I would just stare at the clock, the big clock on the wall, almost like I was in a prison. I would just stare at it and I would just stare and look at it.

 

00;17;36;27 – 00;18;04;18

Dr. Mona

And then I would look at the Nikki cam, I would cry, I would pump, which I ended up stop pumping after my second surgery because I just was exhausted and febrile and septic, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I just would sit there and stare. I stopped going on social media. So if you guys followed me, I actually removed the app from my phone while I was in the hospital because being on social media didn’t help me and also people kept asking how I was because a lot of my followers are amazing.

 

00;18;04;24 – 00;18;19;00

Dr. Mona

And I had posted that we had a baby and then I never I went radio silence. So I remove myself from it because I didn’t want to have to explain to people like, well, this this is happening is how I’m feeling until I processed it on my own, right? And that’s why I waited to tell my birth story.

 

00;18;19;05 – 00;18;39;00

Dr. Mona

It’s just a personal thing that I needed to do. The next phase was the acceptance, and the acceptance phase happened also in the hospital, and mainly in that first week when we went home and the acceptance phase came from help, also from my sister, my obviously my husband, my mom, everyone who came to visit, I started to accept it.

 

00;18;39;00 – 00;18;55;26

Dr. Mona

I started to accept the reality. I started to see Ryan do things in developmental that make me. It made me reassured already in the two week period, right. He was eating on his own. He started to make some smiles at. I was like, you know, in his sleep. He was doing very well and I also started to do better, like physically.

 

00;18;56;02 – 00;19;13;12

Dr. Mona

So I started to accept it and say, this is our reality. And I started to use humor, which is a big coping mechanism. I started to use humor a lot. I started to talk about it with people, and it really started to help me through that next phase. I want to talk about how it changed me as a mother and as a person.

 

00;19;13;14 – 00;19;29;11

Dr. Mona

The first thing is my anxiety and you’re like, what? How would bird trauma make your anxiety better? So interestingly enough, after my birth trauma, I went through this sort of like almost like a denial phase. But after the birth, trauma became home and I was in bliss. I was so grateful to be home that I actually had no anxiety.

 

00;19;29;11 – 00;19;54;00

Dr. Mona

My mom was here. Gaurav was here. My husband, my in-laws were here. I was just a happy, happy, happy person. I was feeling so blessed to be home and alive and my son to be alive, that the anxiety kind of went away. And it was weird. And, you know, I thought a lot about it. And I think a lot of the reason why it went away for me is that I’d been so anxious and having this kind of high functioning anxiety for so long.

 

00;19;54;02 – 00;20;11;24

Dr. Mona

And then this happened and I realized that I can’t control everything in life. I tried so hard. And if you know, I try, you know, I ate, right? I did everything, but this was out of my control. What happened in that labor and delivery room and in that C-section? Obviously the operating room was out of my control.

 

00;20;11;26 – 00;20;31;11

Dr. Mona

I didn’t bring that on. This was all just what happens. And so much in our life is like that, right? You can try to control, control, control. But so much of our life is out of our control. And when I look back to it, right, I almost feel like all these things happened to us for a reason. And I know you’re like, oh God, how can you say that?

 

00;20;31;11 – 00;20;49;18

Dr. Mona

You know, death or this in this instance? Okay, I, I really feel like it changed me and I really feel like it almost happened to knock the anxiety out of my life. And this doesn’t say that I still, you know, doesn’t mean that I don’t get anxious, I obviously do. I think some degree of anxiety is important for us to be, vigilant mothers.

 

00;20;49;18 – 00;21;09;07

Dr. Mona

Right. Because we obviously when we’re anxious, we can kind of be protective of our young, our youngins, but it’s not overwhelming anymore. I understand what I can control, and this was something that really happened after my birth trauma. The other thing that trauma did for me, it made me really grateful for being a mom. And I know you’re like, well, I’m grateful I am.

 

00;21;09;14 – 00;21;30;29

Dr. Mona

Now, this is a different degree. I because we went through what we did because my my story as a mother began with such awful circumstances, and I was in the hospital for the holidays. I was separated from my son. I have so much gratitude for being a mom and all the other little things that that motherhood brings the the fits, the crying, the sleepless nights.

 

00;21;31;01 – 00;21;46;07

Dr. Mona

We actually when Ryan came home, my husband and I were up one night because he was crying and, you know, having a little fussy episode. It was like three in the morning when it usually is. And we turned to each other and we’re like, well, I think we might be the only parents to say this, but we are just so happy to hear him cry.

 

00;21;46;14 – 00;22;07;10

Dr. Mona

I know you’re like, what the heck? How could they say that? Our son Ryan didn’t cry when he was born. It was silent. He came out limp and blue and silent. So we. I never got to hear that cry, right? That when you deliver a baby and you hear that beautiful cry. I never got that. And so, you know, when you come home and you hear that baby.

 

00;22;07;17 – 00;22;22;28

Dr. Mona

And even in the NICU. And he cried, I was like, oh, he has such a strong cry. I’m I was so grateful to hear him cry. And now we talk about that when he gets upset and cries. We obviously have figured him out to know what what he needs, but when he cries, we don’t let it faze us.

 

00;22;23;00 – 00;22;40;06

Dr. Mona

We really understand that you know what? We’re going to be there. We know what to do. We were trying to figure him out, like I said, but we don’t sweat the small things because we obviously went through something major that we understand that the small things sweating over that is not going to do any benefit. And that’s why I encourage a lot of you guys to do, too.

 

00;22;40;08 – 00;22;57;23

Dr. Mona

You do not need a traumatic incident to stop sweating the small stuff. It’s okay here and there to say, oh, this sucks or I don’t like it. But if you’re finding that you’re always complaining about something in your life, I really encourage you to kind of find ways to remedy that, right? I call it that woe is me mentality, right?

 

00;22;57;23 – 00;23;14;07

Dr. Mona

If you always feel like, oh, my life sucks and this sucks and I suck and I hate my life and this and that really don’t look externally. Think in yourself what is making you so unhappy? Because I don’t want you to go through a traumatic incident to feel that way. Right? I want you to look at for it now.

 

00;23;14;14 – 00;23;36;11

Dr. Mona

Find ways to make yourself happy if it’s your partner, but it may not be that your partner can help you. If it’s seeing a professional, a mental health professional, do it because we don’t want to waste our lives thinking about, okay, well, this is happening and I hate this. Joy is there and joy is a beautiful thing, especially as a parent.

 

00;23;36;13 – 00;23;57;23

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

 

00;23;58;00 – 00;24;13;14

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.