Ep. 1

===

[00:00:00] There's this feeling in early motherhood where you should be glowing with joy after becoming a mom, but instead, you're wondering what just happened to your body, your mind, and honestly your entire identity. Today's guest knows that feeling too, and she's a board certified pediatrician, Dr. Mona Amin of Peds Doc Talk is here to talk birth, trauma, identity shifts, and the grief we don't always name in motherhood.

If you've ever felt lost, dismissed, or just not yourself in those early days of motherhood, this episode will make you feel not so alone.

I'm Krissy Bold. I'm a stay-at-home mom to two little boys, and this is Mom's Guide to Finding Herself. Let's just say it out loud. Becoming a mom can break you wide open,

not just physically, but emotionally and existentially in that I don't even recognize myself in the mirror kind of way. And I think for so many of us, especially for those of us who like to feel in control, who've built whole identities on being capable and competent [00:01:00] and strong, motherhood can be the first time we realize, oh, I don't get to white knuckle my way through this.

It is tender, it's disorienting, and it's something that my guest today knows deeply. Not just as a pediatrician, but as a mom who's lived through medical trauma, NICU stays, and identity loss. Dr. Mona Amin is the founder of Peds Doc Talk, a trusted voice in modern parenting. She's been featured everywhere from the New York Times to Time Magazine, but what I love about her is how grounded she is in real life.

She's here today not to tell us how to be better moms, but to share what it's looked like for her to become one.

Krissy: Dr. Mona, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm so excited to chat with you.

Mona: I'm so happy to be here. I'm excited as well.

Krissy: I'm dying to know about your personal story. Now. You share a lot on your social media about your parenting journey, which is so welcomed, and so really it is a relief to see [00:02:00] that real people are experiencing the same things.

But I wanna hear, who were you before you became a mom?

Mona: Oh, I love this and you are so right people. When I share all my platforms, you know, Pete's dog talk is that channel. I'm surprised as to how many people like forget that pediatricians are human and that we do the, we struggle with the same issues. Like obviously I know. Things about health. I know things about parenting development, but it doesn't take away the fact that you are a mom, that you are a human being, and that you have all of the insecurities and patterns and things that every one of us has dealt with.

So who was I before becoming a mom? I was a pediatrician for five years before becoming a mom. I was a woman who. Was that type A personality, you know, had to have things go a certain way. I was very rigid in a lot of ways you know, and things that having to go a certain way and also just a little bit less flexible than I had become as a mom.

I was a neat freak, and this is all important because motherhood really [00:03:00] changed a lot of this, right? So I was a neat freak. I was type A. I also had a lot of. Anger issues and like irritability issues, like, you know inability to handle big feelings, which is so important now because as a mother trying to teach that for my kid, I really had to reparent myself.

And I talk about that so much on my platforms, that it's not just about our kids, it's how we show up. And I love that you asked that question because it's. How I'm showing up in all of those moments, how am I changing those old patterns of old Mona to become this new pattern of Mona, 40-year-old Mona you know, who's now in the second half of her, you know, second half or more of her life with these beautiful children, done having kids but also wanting to grow as a human as well.

Krissy: That's so insightful and it comes with so many feelings, a

Mona: shame.

Krissy: a lot

Mona: guilt. a lot of mourning that goes with it. We talk about it all the time on this podcast, so to hear you say it like it's so relatable being a type. A [00:04:00] person, like, I get it. I know what it feels like to now all of a sudden not be checking boxes and feeling productive and, and all of that.

Krissy: So let's talk about your transition to motherhood. When did you know you were ready to start having kids? Like, tell me about your, how you met your husband and how that journey I love that. And you would be, your listeners would be surprised because they would think Pediatrician wants to have children. For many years I didn't know if I wanted to be a mom, and it was because I had so much of that to work on that I saw how hard it was to have kids because I was a pediatrician and I'm like, I don't think I am.

Mona: Selfless enough yet, like I don't think I can put someone else's needs before mine yet. And I don't think I've done enough work emotionally to be able to handle that. And that was actually very, I think, insightful for being in my early thirties, you know, approaching mid thirties. To answer your question, I met my husband in 2013.

It's now 2025 at the time of this recording. We got married in 2016 [00:05:00] and we met online, which is also surprising to many people because they assume that we met in medical school or through mutual friends because we're both Indian, we're both physicians. But I met online. I met on Match and we really connected.

We had amazing phone conversations, old school, you know, and then we finally met in person. We did a little bit semi long distance. And then I finally moved down to be near him, lived with him. And then we ended up, uh, moving down to Florida. And that's where we, you know, currently are. And it was all of that, you know, the, how we met.

And then he also was like, I like our life without children, you know, we're able to travel. And me and him traveled. The world. We had a whole Instagram hashtag on our personal accounts. Like whenever we travel, we went like internationally, nationally. And we knew that we could do that with kids, but we loved the ability to just think about self.

And you know, we, we joke that we're both younger children, so I think we never had that nurturing role. You know, I [00:06:00] was a resident assistant in undergrad, so I did have that feeling of like taking care of younger kid, like. People than me and like guiding them. But we both were like, is this what we want?

And then a time came where I was like, you know what? I do want at least one. Like I would love to have at least one. It was probably when I was 33 where, you know, I was like, I think I like the travel, but we can do that with our kid. And then we tried, you know, getting pregnant it worked out and we had our beautiful son and for anyone who's familiar with my story, that whole experience was just a whole different ball game of like how he entered the world with a little bit more excitement than I would've wanted for anybody, including that type A.

Everything has to go according to plan type person.

Krissy: gosh. Right? Yes. Oh wow. Okay. So I wanna back up to what you were saying about not wanting to have kids. 'cause I didn't either

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: had never, I was a teacher before this. I had never, until now put together what you were saying of maybe it had something to do with the work that I was doing with families and young [00:07:00] children

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: much work it was until I met my husband and we. We had very similar story of, you know what, maybe this is something we'll look back on and regret

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: So it's so interesting to hear you say it from that perspective. I, I

Mona: And and I mean, you look at it now and I'm like, I cannot imagine my life without the children. And it, it's such an important thing to hear because some people feel like they have to have that nurturing role to become parents. And, and that's the only way. But I will say that I see a blend, right? I see par, I see some of the, i I quote unquote, like.

Most aligned parents, I don't wanna say best parents, but they love what they do. They love the role that they're in, who never just thought they would have kids. And then I see people who thought they would have kids from the moment they were young, who are really struggling with that role, or loss of identity of the other parts of self.

So it really comes down to knowing what you want, knowing that it is a commitment and, and there was a quote that you're, you know, you're not just. Having a baby, you're raising a human. You know, like this is not just like, let's look at this cute [00:08:00] baby. This is actually work that we have to put in. And that's also self work that I think a lot of parents forget that that's part of the process and that's how you do, I think, the best job as a parent evolving alongside your kid.

Krissy: yeah. So well said. I

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: too. So tell us about this eventful journey into motherhood.

Mona: Oh, too eventful. It could be like a whole, like book, which one, one day I hope to write it because I think it'll help a lot of people. I had a very normal pregnancy. Again, we didn't have to use IVF for my son. We did have to for my, my younger daughter. But with my son, everything was great. I had a little bit of high blood pressure towards the end.

Nothing wild, like, you know, something called preeclampsia, nothing like that. Went into labor. Everything was going great and then I wasn't progressing in terms of dilation. Hours were passing by. More hours. More hours. And then finally me and the OB decided together like, let's go into the C-section.

You know, it's been a long time. I'm not progressing in terms of dilation and let's do it. So it wasn't like rush her to the or it was. Very calculated. We [00:09:00] signed the, the consent forms and then with they had given, you know, Pitocin and other medicines and he had already, my son had already come down to the canal.

So when they opened me up in the c-section, they couldn't get him out, meaning he got stuck in my pelvis. So his head was deeply engaged in my pelvis and the uterus had contracted around him. So they couldn't, she couldn't get him out. So he was stuck. He came out blue, he came out limp.

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Mona: anyone's familiar with Apgars, his Apgar was a two, which is pretty much almost at the brink of Okay.

And then he needed resuscitation in the, in the or. He needed a NICU stay. And then he ended up having a stroke and seizure from this entire traumatic delivery and. That wasn't even the end of the story because as I was going to visit him in the nicu, as we got that diagnosis I started to feel very winded.

I started to feel very sick. I started to feel like uneasy, like something wasn't right. All the doctors were like, I think you're just [00:10:00] anxious. I'm like, I do have anxiety. That's definitely real, but something doesn't feel right, like it's my and my body. My belly was so distended and I ended up having peritonitis.

So an in infection in my abdomen. And. I ended up needing I an ICU stay. I ended up needing to be there for five days and I needed to go back to the, OR to clean out some infected fluid that was in my abdomen. Finally started feeling better. Got home. It was around the holidays. It's that that loss and the grief that I have very much realized.

That was true grief that people don't often talk about with birth trauma,

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Mona: inability to come home at day four, right? Or day three, that inability to breastfeed, if that was your goal, that inability to have the cute photo or the golden hour, all of that was not happening for me. I was separated from my kid.

I had to look at him on a monitor while I pumped. I didn't end up continuing with breastfeeding because I needed to heal and focus on my body.

Krissy: Yeah.

Mona: And so it was such an eye-opening [00:11:00] experience and it, it's what launched my motherhood, right? It was what the like, and I saw all these moms coming into my office that, and you know, would have stories or tell me, you know, yeah, I was, it was kinda wild.

But no one ever really, I. Told me the traumatic stories, like I never heard it from a patient. I never heard it from a friend. I assumed that it was difficult, painful, that there was healing, but that it wasn't like this. And so when I started sharing my story online, I opened up a flood of comments of like you were speaking to something that I dealt with, that I buried inside because I thought people wouldn't understand.

And I'm like, I get it. Like especially as a woman. Whatever child this is, but that first child, being a pediatrician, seeing all the healthy kids that come into my office, and then now having a kid with stroke and seizures, not knowing. What that meant and what his developmental outcomes would be. And also for me, being on the brink of what is going on with my body and my husband, the ER doctor, trying to figure out and put all the pieces together and look at me as a [00:12:00] patient when he should have looked at me as a wife and the mother of his kid.

But because of him is how I survive this. And I, I get emotional thinking about that because he's the one who advocated like, something is wrong. My wife is not anxious. Yes, she has anxiety, but. There's something wrong in her abdomen. Like she should not have X, Y, and Z. Like her heart rate should not be X, Y, and Z.

And it was because of him that I'm here. And I'm very grateful for him and his advocacy.

Krissy: Wow,

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: amazing. Like, and to know for a family of physicians, you

Mona: Yes.

Krissy: it's, it's more than just trusting your gut. Like there are other signs and other factors, but at the end, when you're hearing from these other physicians who see this all the time, oh, it's probably just your anxiety.

Like, there's so much of your, just your intuition

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: go into it.

Mona: And that's something that I really wanted to tap in on as I started educating online, right? Because I was educating for about nine months before I had my son. And then [00:13:00] it was this revelation of that intuition that I talked about. And I, I do believe when, you know, talking about what I wish parents would know, and I, I do believe moms especially have intuition, but I think we block it or forget that we have it when we listen to too many people, when we don't listen to what we need.

And when we start comparing ourself with others. Right. That is when we lose, to me that innate feeling of something doesn't feel right. And I had that right. I felt like something wasn't right, but then I started getting clouded and I was tired and all of this, and I knew I, I knew my body. And I think every woman has this sixth sense of like.

Their body, but then they also be when they become a mom. I joke that you get this super sense of like this intuition, which moms will tell me, I don't know if I have it. I'm like, I, I think deep down you do, but I think it's getting buried by all of this stuff around you. And if you really just tap in and shut out the noise.

You will, you will find it and you'll listen to it. And it'll be something very powerful for you and your children. And I [00:14:00] think every mom can think about those mommy intuition moments that maybe not in the newborn period, but maybe now that they're four, they, the kids are four. They know when their kid's starting to get sick or they know when their kid about to, needs to go poop or whatever it is, you know?

And maybe dad doesn't know, maybe nobody else knows, but you know your kid and it's this weird sense that comes over you and you feel like a super superhero.

Krissy: Yeah, you really, truly do. That's so powerful and like as women, we so often just don't wanna bother anybody,

Mona: Yes.

Krissy: we're making a big deal outta something when it's really not. But it's so powerful to hear it from a pediatrician

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: this is, this is meaningful and, and you can really make a difference.

Now. How long was your son in the nicu?

Mona: So he was in there for 13 nights. But he was, he was able to go home on night seven. But because I was admitted and I worked at that hospital, they bedded him in the NICU so that we wouldn't have to go separately. And I wanna be clear that that's not always the case. Because of course they, they're not gonna keep a kid there who doesn't really need it, [00:15:00] but because.

They didn't want to send him home with uncertainty about me with a husband. That would be like, what the heck? They almost as a favor, the nurses just helped feed him and take care of him so that my husband could be with me, my husband could go visit him. And it was something that really helped us a lot.

Not having, so we, we both got discharged home together on that after 13 nights. Yeah,

Krissy: Wow. I'm glad you had a homecoming of some sort together,

Mona: it.

Krissy: if it was unexpected.

Mona: But it was nice, I mean, to have to come home together. 'cause I know that's not always everyone's story that. I mean, I'm gonna be quite frank, sometimes the mom doesn't come home or the baby doesn't come home, or they're discharged separately. I mean, this was a huge, again, be tr completely transparent, this was a favor given the fact that I worked there and everything was happening as it did.

But it did make a huge difference in terms of like feeling a little bit more normal, normal or typical of the experience, being able to walk through my door, holding my kid and how emotional that moment was. Like literally [00:16:00] falling to the ground, like so grateful to be home after not knowing if I'd make it because they couldn't figure out what was causing my infection for a long time.

Yeah,

Krissy: I'm so glad you had that, that moment. And then how was the transition after that?

Mona: to be honest,

Krissy: Yeah.

Mona: be honest, I, I think every NICU parent will, will agree to this barring any medical issue. Obviously the, the nicu, because they put your baby on a schedule. Because that's what the nicu needs. My son was on a, like a routine machine in terms of schedule. He was like waking up every four hours.

He started sleeping through the night at like at eight weeks. And he was doing all of that stuff. And I joke with my husband that this was the gift because of what we went through, right? Like we needed this.

Krissy: lining.

Mona: We needed this kind of kid that was sleeping, that was like not fussing besides just having a little bit, you know, when he was hungry and because my body got to heal, you know, and I, I, I mean, I'm like, I'll take it.

Like if this meant that I could heal, I. So it was [00:17:00] actually really enjoyable. You know, like I, I love those moments. I obviously was dealing with trauma, but I had buried it until I started therapy and I realized that I needed to process that. But I was doing well. I started seeing a therapist closely, you know, close to the discharge, like about a month and a half after in person and then COVID hit.

And to be honest, COVID was much harder than the birth trauma recovery because of the fact that. It meant further isolation. It meant like uncertainty on top of that uncertainty that happened in the hospital. But once I got home and I started seeing myself heal, it was almost this like gratitude that trumped anything difficult that I went through with the baby.

Like even when he went through some fussy colicky phase, I was like, okay, this is what it is, but I'm here, I'm alive. Like there was this newfound appreciation and gratitude that. Not to say that it's not hard, but it was like, at least we're home. You know? And it's, it was my own understanding of that. It wasn't anyone telling me like, oh, you should be happy and grateful like that you guys are home.

It was me [00:18:00] feeling that gratitude and saying, ah, like we are out of the hospital. I don't have to step foot in there again, like right now, and I can just heal at home with my baby. And he's, he was doing great. We had to give him five day, five times a day anti-seizure meds as a newborn. So, I mean, I, I mean he's all, he's completely amazing now, but like, it was hard.

I mean, that is not something that I think a lot of parents understand or have to deal with, like the medi, like medical issues with a newborn. But yeah, I mean he had, he had a stroke, he had a seizure and it was monitoring with a neurologist, EEGs. So that, and developmental assessments that I did simultaneously while healing.

But

Krissy: yeah,

Mona: there was such a protective cloud and I think evolution for this that I think there was this sort of. Cloud that came over, almost like to remind you that it wasn't so bad to force you to procreate. Again, like people, it's, it's a reality that a lot of women who go through traumatic delivery, they're like, maybe I'm ready now.

And it's like this protective mechanism that I think, you know, is there to kind of help you [00:19:00] realize that, yeah, it was hard. Yeah, you get to go into labor for this many hours, but look at you now. Your baby's so cute and X, y, and Z. Like and I felt that, you know, I felt like, okay, he's here, he's healing.

And that was our story. And it was. It was okay until the pandemic hit and until I realized I, I had secondary infertility for my daughter.

Krissy: So this cloud definitely did come over you because even though you had secondary and fertility, you had it. You did it again, you found,

Mona: I did it again and I ended up being hospitalized. I was, I had the same complication again. I ended up having a rare condition. If, and the medical term is Vernix KoSA peritonitis, which basically there's only 250 reported cases in the world. So I'm 252. And it's a woman who has a c-section who has a. In, uh, has an inflammatory response to the amniotic fluid that is spilled into the cavity during a C-section.

So my body created an infection response to the amniotic fluid, and it wasn't until they drain that fluid that I got better. So [00:20:00] that's why time one, I got the peritonitis I needed to get that drained. I felt better second time. It was a, it wasn't an emergency C. It wasn't a C-section where my baby was stuck.

It was completely redemptive. But then I started getting sick on day four where I was starting to get the peritonitis symptoms. My heart rate was elevating and everyone was shocked. They're like, this can't be happening again. And then we did a literature research. I was in my bed googling and like looking at papers online, and we found out what this was.

I showed my OB and she's like, there's no way. And I'm like, this is what I have. And she was like, wow. And lo and behold, they drained the fluid. I got better. I had to be on antibiotics and that's what I had. And it's 252 cases reported in the, in the world. Yeah. And I was the pediatrician. Lucky enough to have the two, two more cases of that

Krissy: I

Mona: yeah.

Krissy: to appreciate the fact that you are laying in bed probably in excruciating pain

Mona: Oh yeah.

Krissy: and a newborn, and [00:21:00] searching medical

Mona: Well, I was still in the hospital, so to be fair, I was, I had nurses there and like, but the pain was right. I mean, I was in a lot of pain. I, and, and if anyone is not familiar with what peritonitis is, your bowel stop working. So I.

Krissy: Oh

Mona: I couldn't poop. And if anyone has had severe constipation, let's be completely frank.

It is unbearable pain. It is so uncomfortable. So whenever I have a little kid who's complaining of constipation and the parents are like. It's really uncomfortable. I believe them. Like, I'm like, I get it. I have been there. It is the most, it is one of the most painful things to be severely constipated.

And I wanna, I, I'm sure people are like solidarity, but you can't, your, your bowels stop working so you can't poop, but you feel like you need to. And

Krissy: Yeah.

Mona: I was in that pain. I would just start to get writhing. Like anytime I would feel like I needed to go, I couldn't. And it was like. Horrible. And then I was like trying to figure it out and it was such big clarity to finally understand like, this is what was happening with my body.

And then figuring out what to do with it. And even though it was super rare, that's why I think I wanna write a book about it, like

Krissy: [00:22:00] yeah.

Mona: wild that it happened to me. And if I ever write the book, it's gonna be called How My Kids Tried to Kill Me. Like When, when, when they were born. My kids tried to kill me when they were born.

Yeah.

Krissy: That's the best title I think, for this specific scenario. For sure. And how validating to see that there is a diagnosis about this and you're not just some like, you know, it is not just this wild coincidence, like there's something true truly that was happening inside your body that was causing this to happen two times in a row.

Mona: Yeah,

Krissy: were you in the hospital? The second

Mona: same thing. 13 days. Can you imagine the exact same duration? And then unfortunately I got readmitted after my daughter because, because. They put me on antibiotics, but I was breastfeeding, so they put me on oral antibiotics so that I can, so I could continue breastfeeding because the IV options wouldn't be compatible with breastfeeding.

So I ended up getting discharged, but then I ended up having a relapse, meaning they needed to put me on IV antibiotics. It wasn't strong enough. So I got readmitted. I was spiking fevers. They were like, listen, [00:23:00] I think you need to pump and dump or use it for a bath. I was like, that's fine. Like I can feed her formula.

It's not the end of the world. So I pumped, I you know, used that for like, like breast milk baths and all of that. And then when I got discharged. We had more help. We had a night nurse. This is something that I was very grateful for. I pumped and I was able to build my supply back up, and then I was able to do exclusive pumping, which was truly redemptive because I didn't get that opportunity with my son to breastfeed.

And although I was like, oh, I would've loved to take her to the breast, it really worked out because I was healing the second time around. And the thought of her like. Tangled up in my wires and having to take her was like not appealing to me. So this was appealing, like I got to breastfeed her, but I got to do it on my own terms, which was super redemptive, if that makes sense.

Yeah,

Krissy: It really does sound like you

Mona: yeah.

Krissy: many full circle moments

Mona: Yeah.

Krissy: journey, even though it had repetitive trauma. You, you had this like closure in it where you were able to figure out the, the cause and you [00:24:00] had all of these, these, storylines just go around and, and close in this beautiful way.

Is

Mona: Yeah. Yeah. And it, and it did feel like that. And, and you know, I think sometimes when people go through a traumatic delivery, they, they want the redemptive birth. And I did have the redemptive C-section and

Krissy: Yeah.

Mona: am still, there was a little part of me that felt sad that I didn't get the redemptive postpartum, you know, meaning the experience of taking a daughter home

Krissy: yep.

Mona: day three, day four.

In our Indian culture, we have a ceremony that happens on day seven, day nine. I'm, I'm drawing a blank right now. I wasn't home for that ceremony for both of my kids, you know, and, and that, that will, I'll never have that. But what I have gained is two beautiful children. I'm going through therapy to heal from all of that loss and grief that I felt, but it, I do feel whole, but that wholeness took time on my part, you know, and I, I wanna reiterate that because.

I don't just believe that time heals. We have to want to heal, you know, and I, I see a lot of women in my office who've gone through traumatic experiences, whether it's from deliveries, whether it's [00:25:00] from their own personal lives. And I always say that, I'm like, time will heal, but you gotta be ready to do the work, to heal.

Like it doesn't just happen, like, it just ha it has to be either you're doing some self-help work, you are doing therapy, you are trying to understand that yes, grief, ch grief will, will pass with time, but it. You just grow around it, right? There's this beautiful infographic of like, the grief stays the same size, but you just grow around it.

So it's like, how are we gonna grow around it? Whether it's the loss of a loved one, whether it's the loss of what you thought your delivery would look like, you know, these are all forms of grief that I think people don't realize.

Krissy: That's, yes, I completely agree. There's so much grief in motherhood,

Mona: Yes.

Krissy: the

Mona: of identity. Yeah. Yeah.

Krissy: Or maybe something you used to enjoy that you don't enjoy anymore or valued. But it can go so much deeper around what we just carry because we don't deal with it. So. Good for you to find that therapist that you found a good relationship with and be working through it, because that's so [00:26:00] powerful for you and for your children and

Mona: I mean life changing, right?

Krissy: around

Mona: everyone, my husband, myself, and it's not even, you know, when we talk about this stuff, of course we're doing it for our family and other people, but how beautiful it is to change patterns, right? It was the work I've done with my therapist that not only is helping with the trauma from the delivery, but all the things that I mentioned, right?

The perfectionism, the type A personality, the. People pleasing all the things that weren't serving me in a healthy way, you know? And what you, you open this conversation with, right? That is what we're working on, and that is what feels so good, and that makes me show up better for my children and for my husband and for my patients, and shows up for myself better.

You know, I feel better in the body and mind that I'm in. Feeling more like I don't need to do this for everybody, that I am my own person and have my own feelings, and it's okay that I'm an emotional person and I have become less emotional, if that makes sense. Like less sensitive because of this work.

Right? I have just more coping skills that I didn't unfortunately have growing up and I love that. [00:27:00] Yeah. Yeah.

Krissy: I feel like we could talk about this all

Mona: Oh, totally. Yes.

Krissy: need to write this book

Mona: Yes.

Krissy: need to come back

Mona: I.

Krissy: write this book so we can talk about this even more because this is my wheelhouse. I love this. Now tell us where we can learn more about you and more

Mona: Yeah, I have so many resources. You can go to my website and search like what, you know, illness and I have a whole database. I actually have a free guide with all of my illness content that like, you know, gives you all of that sort of what to do with different illnesses. Peds doc talk is my handle on Instagram.

P-E-D-S-D-O-C-T-A-L-K. My website is the same. Peds doc do peds doc talk.com, tongue twister. And then the podcast is the same Peds doc talk podcast and then the YouTube. So the Instagram and the website are your hub. There's so much guidance there. I have all my stuff online that you can search. You can Google peds doc talk and a key word now because everything comes up thanks to SEO, like search engine optimization.

So I have. Everything that you can imagine, and I continue to [00:28:00] create content for what my community needs. So keep coming in. Follow and I'll maybe make something that you need if I don't have it already.

Krissy: You'll definitely have to come back next week because I wanna talk to you more about sick season 'cause we are in

Mona: Oh yeah.

Krissy: Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Mona: Thank you. Yes. I cannot wait to chat again. And thank you for having me.

That reminder that sometimes the best thing we can do is shift the focus back to ourselves, is something I think so many of us need to hear.

If you are in that season where even knowing what you want feels impossible, I want to gently invite you to check out my mom Identity Starter Kit. It's a set of three mini workshops designed to help you figure out what lights you up, carve out some guilt-free time to do it, and make a plan that you'll actually follow through with

even in the thick of all of the chaos, everything is short, flexible, and available in audio, video and PDF format so you can do it your way even if you only have 10 minutes during nap time. Head to mom identity project.com/starter [00:29:00] kit to grab the full bundle at just $17.

Small steps count. You're allowed to take up space. Even now, especially now.

Now, don't go anywhere because as you may very well know, sick season is here and if you're feeling rundown, worn out, and like you're somehow supposed to be the rock while everyone else coughs and collapses. The next episode is for you. Dr. Mona Amin is coming back to talk about how we can take care of our kids and ourselves this season without losing our minds in the process.

And if you related to anything in Dr. Mona's story, please leave me a note in the reviews. While you're there, leave a quick five star rating and share it with a friend who may also benefit from learning that even pediatricians are trying to figure out this whole motherhood journey on their own too.

I will see you next time and until then, remember you are an amazing mom just the way you are.