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No one has it all figured out. And anyone who says they do? Well, they’re lying.
This is for the women who are trying. Trying to juggle all the things. Trying to make sense of what they actually want. Trying to keep their heads above water without losing themselves in the process.
Career. Money. Relationships. The pressure to do it all. The pressure to want it all. And the moments you secretly wonder, is it just me?
Here we speak openly, laugh through chaos, and ask questions instead of pretending to have all the answers.
Because we’re all a work in progress.
Amanda Thomas (00:00):
I think there needs to be a greater transparency with the challenges and the difficulties of being a mother. But to your point, I agree it's the greatest joy in my life and I also believe that things come down to our perspective. And so when you find yourself in those moments of great resistance, I think the greatest thing we can do for ourselves is just challenge ourselves to get curious.
Gayle Kalvert (00:22):
This is Work in Progress. I'm your host, Gayle Kalvert, and yes, I'm a work in progress. Hi everyone. I'm excited to get this conversation started. We get to talk about babies. Are you thinking about starting a family but you're worried about how you're going to be able to juggle kids in your career, or maybe you have little ones at home and you're thinking you need to make a change because it is just all so hard? Well, this convo is for you. Today I'm joined by Amanda Thomas, a former nine-to-fiver-turned-entrepreneur. Amanda is a creative consultant who specializes in design, marketing and event planning, and while she's doing all that, she also has a three-year-old little girl at home and is expecting baby number two. What I love about Amanda is that she is very honest and open about her journey. We'll dive into how she navigated being a first-time mom, her struggle with postpartum depression, and how she designed a life with balance. Amanda, welcome to Work in Progress. I'm so excited to have you.
Amanda Thomas (01:31):
Gayle. Thank you so much. I'm really grateful to be with you today.
Gayle Kalvert (01:36):
This is going to be a really good conversation. I know we're going to hit some stuff that is maybe not so easy to talk about, but like I said, I can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences and journeys with us today because there are so many others like us out there. When my husband and I got married, we knew we wanted to have a bunch of kids, and so honestly, we didn't make any plans. We just jumped in. We would figure it out later because we knew we wanted to have kids. We knew that our careers were important to us and we were just going to kind of make it work. And when I look back, that probably wasn't the smartest way to go about things, but I'm curious for you, Amanda, and with you and your husband, did you think ahead? What did that look like for you when you were wanting to have a family?
Amanda Thomas (02:23):
It's really making me think about somewhat of an affirmation and a mantra that I've been leaning into a lot lately, which is this whole idea of when life feels uncertain, that's when the real adventure begins, and that's exactly how I would describe our transition into parenthood and my specific transition into motherhood that we talked about kids, we knew one day way off in the distant future that kids were going to be a part of our life. I thought distant future, let us get really settled, continuing to think about the good old American dream. When my husband and I got married, we were both seeking jobs that we could climb ladders with and just get ourselves so settled after graduation. And so then when I got to this crossroads place of getting ready to, as you said, I'm a former nine-to-fiver, leaving my stable job, my first big girl job. Within that same month of me leaving, I then found out that I was pregnant. And so it wasn't a planned or expected pregnancy, but the arrival of my daughter has been truly the greatest gift. I don't think she's changed the course of my life because I believe she was always this more divine plan for me that she just helped me course correct and get back on track with where I was really being guided by my inner being.
Gayle Kalvert (03:58):
Did you meet your husband in college?
Amanda Thomas (04:01):
Yeah, so my husband and I are college sweethearts. We met at Ohio State. We were both studying various degrees of marketing and business and we're introduced by a mutual friend and the rest is history.
Gayle Kalvert (04:16):
I love that. Oh my gosh. Okay, so you have your first baby and what did that experience look like for you? I know my experience with my firstborn was not the storybook new mom. I'm happy to share my experience, but let's hear about yours.
Amanda Thomas (04:35):
Yes, mine. Mine was not either. I'm a very intuitive individual and I figured just like I can rely on my intuition and all of these other facets of my life, that motherhood would feel really ease-filled and would be so natural that I would just rely on my mother's intuition. I really did not do, I was going to say, I didn't do a lot of birth prep. I'm the type of gal that I throw myself into something wholeheartedly, and so during my pregnancy with my daughter, I studied to be a birth doula and really wanted to learn from the inside out what does it look like to support mom when she's going through labor?
(05:16):
I can only speak for my own journey, but I think that's where I did myself a disservice as I was so hyper-focused on birth and trying to control and setting up these wonderful spaces so I could just breathe baby out, which was not at all my experience, that I completely forgot to consider what happens after baby arrives. And so my postpartum experience was not the immediate connection to my child and this warm, loving, overflowing feeling. I had been in labor for three days at this point, and for me that was a really traumatic experience and to have that immediate connection with my child, my body was responding in that way where the shakes, my nervous system was so out of whack, overstimulated. I just did not have that warm, immediate newborn connection and that carried over into then the first six months of my experience being a mom.
Gayle Kalvert (06:24):
That's really interesting. You said you focused so much on understanding and preparing for the birth and not what happens afterwards. I do want to get into your experience afterwards, but do you have any insight for listeners knowing what you know now? What would you recommend?
Amanda Thomas (06:42):
Yes, and it's so timely because this is what I'm going through right now being 30 weeks pregnant with my second daughter, and so the way that I'm really preparing for birth this time around, there's a big conversation and discourse in the birth space about surrendering to birth and we think we can intellectualize what that means. We can't intellectualize surrender, in my opinion. I think that surrendering into birth, into life, into the unknown is a lived experience and it's experience that we practice each and every single day. And so for me, the way that I am going about preparing for birth this time around is to truly just be present with each and every day as it unfolds so I can remind my body that it knows how to do this, it knows how to be present, which is ultimately just surrendering into life and taking that then into my birth when labor does actually start that I don't have any way of unless I have some sort of planned C-section, which those don't always go according to plan either.
(07:56):
There's just this huge amount of surrender that is asked of us as we become mothers, and so the greatest intention that I'm setting is just to surrender into my day-to-day life, practicing how that feels in my body, coming back to the present moment as often as I can so that way when I'm in labor I can do that and know that I'm not going in with these first time mom preconceived ideas of this is how my labor is going to go and this is the types of interventions I'd like or these are the interventions I wouldn't like. I am just trying to fully show up to my birth and allow it to unfold and be so present with it that I can just make decisions throughout the experience rather than having those prebuilt expectations that left me pretty disappointed because they weren't fulfilled.
Gayle Kalvert (08:49):
I'm reminded of a funny story, so I have three children. I will say that each birth experience was totally different, so I can attest to the fact that you can make all the plans you want and you just don't know how it's going to go. Honestly, my birth experiences were really fantastic. It can be better than you even expect. My husband and I were in birth prep classes and the instructor had everyone go around the circle and talk about what questions and concerns they had about giving birth and labor, and go all the way around the circle and we get to the last dad and the dad goes, well, I didn't have any until I got here. Oh my gosh. So sometimes he was hearing everybody be so freaked out. He is like, I wasn't worried at all. Just personally in my perspective is it's good sometimes to shut off the noise and, like you're saying, surrender should be a positive and give into the idea that it can go better than expected as well.
(09:50):
So let's talk about after you gave birth to your firstborn, and like I said, you've been really honest with me about how you had a difficult time actually bonding with her, which I know even sounds surprising to me given, like you said, how intentional and sort of connected you are as a person. I thought, well, wow, if that can happen to Amanda, that can happen to anyone. Happened to me as well. Our experiences, the way that our postpartum depression presented itself was different as it is for everyone, but it would be amazing if you could share a little bit and how you really came out. How did you get to the place where you are now, where you were feeling like, great, I'm going to do this again.
Amanda Thomas (10:34):
That is the whole point here that I am doing it again. I have been able to take all of my lived experiences, which I know are so intentionally guided for my greatest growth here, and for me that was just looking being so, again, back to this idea of presence that I was resisting so much of the change that was being asked of me to my day-to-day life in those first two weeks, I truly felt like what just happened? I've been thrown to the wolves. I am engorged. I'm leaking while trying to breastfeed my daughter. I am not sleeping whatsoever. Who is this stranger that is my husband now laying next to me in bed every night? What just happened to my life? And I think that because of the changes that took place for, I mean for me, but ultimately for everyone becoming a parent, I was still not at that total place of peace with becoming a parent knowing that when we got pregnant, it wasn't necessarily my plan for that time.
(11:43):
And so throughout the course of the first six months postpartum, it was just a mental battle for me every single day. It kind of felt like Groundhog's Day except that every couple of weeks, once we got into a place where, okay, I think I know what I'm doing, now there's a new dynamic presented because this tiny person is growing in front of me and is rapidly changing and developing and isn't just this little sweet potato anymore, but is like this awake, alert, vibrant little person. So once I got to that six-month mark, I would say that's for me when things started to transition. I found a really wonderful talk therapist who specialized in motherhood, who specialized in perinatal mood disorders and was reaching out to a lot of my birth community friends. I think that was one of the biggest turning points for me too, was relying on my village and building a sense of community.
(12:51):
I didn't go into this or my birth with having a lot of friends that were already parents. We were kind of the first in our friend group to do that, and so I had to develop and establish my village here, and as I did, I started to feel less and less alone and the more I realized even going to story time or going to the park and just having conversations, I will talk to anybody. So for me going and just chatting it up with another mom who seemed to have a little one in similar age to me, we'd start opening up to each other just about what that day had presented and how many diapers we've already changed or meltdowns we've already held space for. I'm actually not the only person going through this experience, even though for the last six months I've thought in some weird way that I was, that sense of community truly helped me open up to embracing motherhood and not resisting it anymore.
Gayle Kalvert (13:57):
I think that's awesome because we see community coming up all the time in all the phases and parts of our life, I find. It's like finding that community, whether it's the new mom community or the working mom community or just finding people in your own hometown where you live that make you feel less alone. And that's why we're doing this Work in Progress because I can say, even for myself, it is really hard a lot of the time to find community. And that is something I can totally agree with, Amanda, I was the first of our friend group to have children. I did not have any friends who I could call and talk to who were going through the same thing. I was at the time living in LA, which was a place that didn't really feel like home for me and I didn't find that community physically in LA, but I also didn't do it virtually.
(14:58):
And I think that you mentioned in a way that is really good. It can be through social media. There is positive right to finding those communities even online, and then a lot of times those become real-life friends as well. You might meet online and then you actually live near each other and you can get together. And so doing that work and before you have a baby, I would highly recommend because I know for me a lot of what triggered my postpartum depression was that I was used to being really confident at anything I did. And so I felt like what's wrong with me? I'm really good at lots of things. Why is this whole newborn baby thing feeling so stressful and different and if I look back now, had I made those connections before, because it's hard to make a community and make friends when you're dealing with spit up and diapers and all those things, it's much easier to do when you're pregnant and then you have those people when you are that new mom and you can be there for each other. I think that's a really good tip for new moms.
(16:01):
So is there anything that you're doing now that you are expecting baby number two that's different and maybe thinking how do you prepare for being a mom of two, which it is a whole lot easier the second time, Amanda, I'll tell you the whole giving birth process and all of that is so much easier because emotionally you know what's going to happen, right?
Amanda Thomas (16:24):
It's interesting that even as we've been toyed around with her name, for me, names are so special to me in that there's such significance to the meaning and what this little one in her presence already in utero has taught me is so much about these lessons of play and joy and pleasure and enjoyment of life. And so I would say that this time around, while I'd like to say I wasn't stressing my first time around about it, I absolutely was, as I can look back now, based off of how I was feeling inside my body, based off of how I was feeling with breathing every day. I mean, our breath is such a great compass for just checking in. When we are holding our breath, when we're tight, when we're constricted. Clearly we're not taking a full breath for a reason, we're holding something.
(17:21):
And so this time around it's felt so much more ease-filled that I've even been joking with some of my friends, not until about a week ago have I even felt pregnant. It's just been such a journey to joy this time around for me, and I think that is a huge part of the third trimester is really how we kick things off for that fourth trimester, that first three months postpartum. And so these last three months, I just am taking a daily intention with checking in with her and talking to my daughter as she's growing inside my womb and just really checking in with what do I need today? Even if it's just for five minutes, what do I need to make sure that I'm filling my cup? I'm touching base with that inner being inside of myself so that way when she gets here, there's going to be a little bit of time and space for me to just be so fully focused on her as well as my other child, and then reminding myself of this baseline that I've built and established that I can return to.
Gayle Kalvert (18:29):
When you say intentional and sort of surrendering, what comes to mind for me is being okay with whatever it is that you feel. And if you don't feel great about being pregnant, right? The story is about women who are like, oh, I just loved being pregnant. Well, there is a whole hell of a lot of women who do not feel great being pregnant, and that's okay. That doesn't make you a bad person, right? Everybody's experience is so, so different. But I think that concept that you've presented of, like, take a minute, good or bad, it's okay. Feel what that is and be kind to yourself. But where I'm going with all this is you have a three-year-old and anyone who has a toddler knows that they don't care what our schedule is. They don't care if we want to have some downtime or what. It is difficult when they're little. My kids are older. It gets so much easier. What I'd like to discover a little bit is how your career has changed. Like you were a nine-to-fiver, right? I know you were thinking about becoming a doula, but thought maybe I could support that passion in a different way. Did you make those decisions based on the fact that you're a mother? How did motherhood play into your career decisions?
Amanda Thomas (19:47):
So the word that's coming to mind because I was even practicing this morning, and that's what it is, it's a practice, is uncompartmentalizing my life categories. I used to think, okay, this is my dedicated time and space for motherhood. This is my dedicated time and space for business. This is my dedicated time and space for all of the activities that bring me joy and pleasure, and thinking that they had to be happening at different times and wearing different hats. And so for example, this morning, my daughter woke up earlier than she typically does, which cut into my morning rituals and routines, which for me just looks like being in meditation and journaling and doing a little bit of card pulling. And instead of saying, well, she's up, so guess I have to close those activities down and I don't get to finish what I was enjoying doing.
(20:43):
I said, you know what? I'll just go get her and we'll just do it together. So I brought her downstairs, sat her down in my lap, and while she was yes, letting me know all of her wants and needs right off the bat, I let her know that mom still needed about five minutes before I could help her tend to those things. And you know what? She was completely okay with that and at ease with that because, while toddlers are these really dynamic little people, they also are looking to us as the adult for that guidance. And so what happened then in return was we sat down, did some deep breathing together. She loves to be a part of these activities with me, and so I feel like every time I get to show her these sides of myself or these parts of myself, it's just enrichening the experience for both of us.
(21:34):
Not saying that she needs to be a part of every single Zoom call that I have when it comes to work, but more oftentimes than not, I have been met with such compassion and grace when I've said to folks that I have a scheduled meeting with, hey, something came up. My child's going to be bopping around. And more often than not, they're just like, totally get it. I understand because either they have children so they've been in that lived experience and space, or they're just really kind humans that I'm surrounding myself with. So they extend that grace and compassion to me, and I think at the end of it all, it comes back to that idea of being less alone and just feeling like, ah, they're human too. Amanda asked me for this because she needs a little additional space, given her time, given her rescheduled, or her kid's going to be with her today. She's a human being too. And it just gives that greater permission slip to others when we say, here's me in all parts of myself, not just me as the creative consultant or me as the mom, it's like, here's me and my multifacetedness. I honor and accept and invite and extend you to show me those parts of yourself too.
Gayle Kalvert (22:48):
What do you do when your work doesn't allow that? I can say too, of course, there are times when that might be okay, but of course there are times when it might not be possible or maybe you'll say no, you've built a life where she's part of it all the time, whatever that answer is. But what do you do when you can't bring your daughter or have that interruption, whether it's you're planning an event and you have to physically be away. What is your community? What does your support system look like?
Amanda Thomas (23:15):
It's all because of the support system and community that I can do what I can do. Every week, she has her dedicated times that there is childcare allotted for. My husband and I have to be in super clear communication about our schedules so that way we make sure that they are aligning on all cylinders. And if it doesn't work out, then there is still that part of me that definitely resists having to make changes when it's for something that I'm really excited about doing. But I just started appreciating those moments as, oh, this is helping me be more adaptable. Okay, my daughter has the flu. There's been so many times this past winter that's had to reschedule my days. And as much as there is still that feeling that is inside of me that is frustrated about having to make the changes, when I look deeper, I'm like, this is why I am building a life the way I'm intending to because I want to be able to put my family first and know that my career, my colleagues, my clients are all always going to be here. And so long as I'm doing my due diligence and placing the right people in my life by showing up how I want to be, then I know that's going to be met with a mutual respect. And if it's not, then you're probably not the right person to be in collaboration with for me.
Gayle Kalvert (24:39):
One of the things that I like to be really honest with people about is there's this concept of like, oh, you can have it all. And then everybody has a different idea of what having it all means. In my mind, historically, that was always successful career, making lots of money and having a family. But as I've grown, I realized having it all looks very different for different people. But to be successful in any area of your life, certain things have to be deprioritized or you might make a sacrifice for a period of time, not forever, but I find that to be really critical advice, even for myself to remind myself it might even be a few years. You know what? There are a few years here where I'm not going to be able to commit the amount of time I'd like to this hobby or this other thing because I want to achieve these other things in my life right now. Is there anything you can think of that you are either putting on the back burner or you're sacrificing for the time being?
Amanda Thomas (25:38):
I'm thinking right now, specifically being pregnant, and this is a very personal opinion for me, but I do believe that as I'm growing this tiny human, there has been body sacrifice. There has been physical sacrifice to me and to my capabilities and knowing that even my typical energy limits what I can hold, the sharpness of my mind while I am going through all of these shifts hormonally, I'm not at my full physical capacity. And so for me, one of the biggest sacrifices I feel like within motherhood has been utilizing my body to bring these new lives through. But then at the same time, I really believe there is so many stories and we can have multiple truths at once. That while I feel like I have had to sacrifice my body in some ways, I also believe what a gift it has been, what a gift it has been to usher forth new life, to hold life, to carry healthy pregnancies.
Amanda Thomas (26:46):
And so I just think digging into the multilayered truths to that is really important when discussing the idea of sacrifice. The other sacrifice for me, it has been personal time. I recharge and I replenish when I can have time alone. And when you are a mom to young ones, that is really hard to come by sometimes. And I'm such a relationship-driven person that I have many friendships I enjoy pouring into, and our family doesn't live near. So for me it's phone calls and voice notes and video chats constantly that to also be able to pour into those relationships, I need that time and space to just be in my own presence and my own energy, which is why those morning moments for me are so important. When they are interrupted, while, on one end, I'm saying I just bring my daughter into it with me,
Amanda Thomas (27:44):
there still is a bit of sacrifice in that time is a bit of a finite resource, and it's been hard to allow myself to fully embrace the adaptability piece there, knowing that this is just a season and one day my babies aren't going to need me as much as what they do right now, but until then, this is what it looks like. So how do I find peace with that is really what I look to myself as I ask each and every day, when I find myself frustrated in those pockets of moments where I feel like I don't have all the time that I wish I did.
Gayle Kalvert (28:23):
I have found being a little intentional, like you're saying, even if it's abbreviated, maybe it's not the ideal amount of time in the way it used to be, but certainly I can carve out some time for myself if you get up a little earlier or do different things. That is something that I didn't really know until I went through so many different phases of motherhood that it changes so quickly and so often. So the new baby phase, the toddler phase, each phase is totally different. And sort of like you said with your baby when you're like, just when I thought I had everything down, she changes. It's like, right? The same thing continues to happen. You've got this lifestyle with your children and then it changes again. So giving into the fact that it's going to keep changing and that's awesome. I can't say enough great things about being a mother. We can talk all day about all the challenges, but there is just no greater joy in my opinion.
Amanda Thomas (29:21):
I agree. And I know we've talked a lot about bringing to light the hardships because I think there needs to be a greater transparency with the challenges and the difficulties of being a mother. But to your point, I agree. It's the greatest gift in my life. It's the greatest joy in my life. And I also believe that things come down to our perspective. Our reality is truly shaped by the perspectives and perceptions we hold of what we believe to be true. And so when you find yourself in those moments of great resistance with things like being a parent, becoming a mother, I think the greatest thing we can do for ourselves is just challenge ourselves to get curious. Just get curious and ask, why does this feel this way to me? Is there a way that this could feel different? Is there a more loving approach, a more compassionate approach? Allowing curiosity to be this catalyst for just an easier filled time, I feel like is a great way to approach being a parent.
(30:24):
And we have these little mirrors constantly, right? My daughter can be so content with staring at ants, crawling on the ground for 10 minutes, and she's so immersed and engulfed, and it's because she just has this childlike curiosity and this innocence. So it's such a beautiful mirror to us as parents. How can we embody more of that curiosity and that childlike presence with the activities that we do?
Gayle Kalvert (30:49):
So I have a couple of surprise questions for you. So we just want to get to know you a little better outside of the motherhood and career. There's a lot more to us than that. What's your preference? Coffee or tea?
Amanda Thomas (31:02):
Coffee.
Gayle Kalvert (31:03):
Iced or hot?
Amanda Thomas (31:04):
Typically hot, but right now I am running an internal furnace at all times. So iced coffee all the way.
Gayle Kalvert (31:11):
It doesn't matter about the weather outside, you're game. Are you a music person?
Amanda Thomas (31:15):
Big.
Gayle Kalvert (31:15):
Oh.
Amanda Thomas (31:15):
Big music person.
Gayle Kalvert (31:16):
Fantastic. Okay. I always like to know, what is your favorite hype song? What's on your playlist right now? When you want to either dance with your daughter or you just want to get happy, what's your song?
Amanda Thomas (31:27):
When I want to dance with my daughter and get happy, it's called Cloudy Day, and it's by Tones and I, and the lyrics are so fun. It's like, "Bet your mama always said, look up into the sky. Find the sun on a cloudy day." It repeats over and over and over again, and the lyrics, my daughter and I are jumping up and down since it's this whole idea that look up into the sky when you feel like it's a cloudy day, the sun is probably shining.
Gayle Kalvert (31:54):
Your voice is amazing. If I sang right now, this would shock, and this would be a horrible experience if I started to sing.
Amanda Thomas (32:01):
Thank you.
Gayle Kalvert (32:02):
My dance with my kids song was always I Choose You by Sara Bareilles. Actually, she wrote that song about Los Angeles, but you can make it about whatever you'd like.
Amanda Thomas (32:13):
That is the beauty of music. It's a universal language up to our interpretation.
Gayle Kalvert (32:18):
I have one more. What is your guilty pleasure?
Amanda Thomas (32:21):
This might sound so simple, but it is my guilty pleasure if I'm just like, I just need a minute moment for myself. It is going to one of our local coffee shops, getting myself the most delicious delectable latte, and I'm not like a big fru fru coffee gal. I am just talking I just want some good hard espresso with some whole milk and taking that to one of our local trails and just going for a walk in nature and being with the birdsong while I sip my delicious beverage, that's my guilty pleasure.
Gayle Kalvert (32:59):
I don't think there's anything guilty about that, Amanda. That sounds amazing. Do you have any vices? Do you have any? Come on, Amanda. I'm sitting here. I can never be Amanda. I could just never be this serene. You must have something.
Amanda Thomas (33:13):
There is something. Part of my postpartum journey had introduced me to plant medicines, and so for me, my guilty pleasure is microdosing psilocybin, which is in a teeny tiny capsule, and just letting myself draw and paint and just be. That's, there's my guilty pleasure.
Gayle Kalvert (33:35):
I love that. I have not tried that yet, but I'm totally open, so we're going to talk about it. But certainly for me, medical marijuana, a little bit of that is a very relaxing thing for me as well.
Amanda Thomas (33:46):
There's been a lot of nights recently where the sleep is starting to be hard to come by, and I'm like, man, if I could just take a gummy before bed right now, I would be in a good spot.
Gayle Kalvert (33:58):
That's amazing. I'm so glad we got there. Okay. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you think you want to comment on or our listeners should know?
Amanda Thomas (34:07):
What's coming up, not that we didn't talk about this, just how much of the motherhood journey, the parenting journey, wherever you are at in your life, facing, navigating a big transition, just knowing that there are a few things you can turn to if you don't have that community built yet. Then start by being in community with yourself. What does it look like to really get to know yourself? What is it that you really need? What is it that your heart is really trying to guide you towards? And to not write off those things that are seemingly small or seemingly whispers because there is a reason you're getting those inner nudges and they're going to help push you along to then find the right people, places, things to plug yourself into so that external support system can find you. Yeah, if you're feeling alone and facing changes right now, just know that you're never truly alone. You can always be a friend to yourself.
Gayle Kalvert (35:06):
I will say I wish that I knew myself as well as I do now when I became a new mother. I definitely feel like I have grown up and almost reparented myself in the process of being a mother and parenting my children in the best possible way. So I think what a blessing, Amanda, for your children, I mean for you and your family, but for your girls that you are where you are. It's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing everything with us and our listeners. I know that we're helping women out there who are either struggling with this or maybe concerned that they may come across some struggles as they become a new mom, and it is universal.
(35:52):
I will say as well, if you're out there and you feel alone, just reach out to us. You are not alone. No, you never are alone. So Amanda, where can people find you? So if there are people out there who want to talk with you about your consulting services or talk with you about your experience as a doula or your training actually, right, your training to be a doula, but where can people find you?
Amanda Thomas (36:15):
My door is truly open. I'm, as Gayle shared, an open book, so please feel free to reach out. You can find me on Instagram @amandathomascreative, my website, amandathomascreative.com, or send me an email hello@amandathomascreative.com.
Gayle Kalvert (36:34):
Amazing. Thank you so much, Amanda, for being here. I'm excited to have you on again after maybe you're a mother of two and you can share with us how things are going. Thank you so much.
Amanda Thomas (36:45):
Thank you so much for having me. This was such a pleasure and such a joy to just be in this shared space with you today, Gayle.
Gayle Kalvert (36:54):
I hope that was helpful. If you know someone that you go to for this topic, send them my way. After all, we're just figuring this out together. See you next time.