the INTERWOVXN podcast

Episode TRANSCRIPT

CORAL: Hi, I'm coral. I am 68 years old. Most people would not consider that to be the middle of life, but to me it still is. I think of a senior as somebody that's retired, goes to Florida in the winter, and brags about their grandchildren. That's not me. We stay here in the winter because we love skiing and snowshoeing. I don't have any grandchildren yet. I didn't have my kids until I. Was in my 40s. They're still in college, and so it'll be a while before that all happens. I am far from retired. I'm just now completing another Masters degree in family life education and just starting. I think this is like my 3rd or 4th career.

KARA: Hi, my name is Kara. I am 43 years old trying to keep up with Coral. I have two children. I have Charlotte who's 14 years old and Oscar who is 10. I run a non- profit child development center in near downtown Milwaukee for the second time, I am also restarting a career at 43 years old. Going back to school for a Masters of Midwifery. Coral has been a significant inspiration to me throughout my life in Milwaukee for the past 15 years–I met you pretty early on moving here.

CORAL: Yeah, so do you remember how we actually met? Kara  and I have been in the birthing profession for a long, long time–doulas, childbirth educators. lactation support, but do you remember how we first met?

KARA: Yeah yeah Claudia Koch, my medical doctor, referred me to Jan Wolfenberg who was renting a small space from you at the birth center in Menomonee Falls. I drove out there and gave birth to Charlotte in June of 2008 and then Jan just wouldn't take no for an answer and said I should be a doula and told me to start. I came to your meetings at Well-Rounded in Menomonee Falls. Then you said you were awfully busy and could use backup and would I and I said I guess so. And here we are–for me 300 births and nine years you know of full-time doula work. Later you were overwhelmed with how many people wanted you and you just kept sending them to me and I kept saying yes, you made my career, but that's how. We met through your birth center.

CORAL: Yeah, we certainly share a passion for birthing families. And I remember going to lunch early on in our relationship. We were at Beans and Barley, getting to know each other over that hour or so. I could not believe how many similarities there were in our lives.

KARA: Oh my gosh, I forgot yes.

CORAL: We went to the same college. We have family in Tennessee. We both grew up in very blended families. I couldn't believe how many people, stepparents, were attending your birth at home. So in addition to our love for working with pregnant people, all the other things that we had in common, the fact that we were both going back to school or changing careers in midlife.

KARA: We had lived like right by because you went to the University of Maryland. We had lived like a mile and 1/2 away in Takoma Park.

CORAL: So I feel like you're my little sister.

KARA: Oh, I would be honored. So then we fell into birth work, which is obviously extremely taxing and I remember asking you, I don't know if you remember this. I said, how did you do it with young children and you said only you and Sabrina did it with young kids. No one else? Is that crazy? Do you remember that conversation?

CORAL: But I did. When my youngest, Michael was born, I was back at a birth before he was three months old and I remember it was a long labor. I was with this couple for over 24 hours. And my milk was just coming in and so my breasts were exploding. I just remember it was a real challenge but a lot of things change when you're trying to balance this kind of work with family. The biggest thing for me was birthdays. I remember my husband getting abandoned twice with birthday parties and he put his foot down. He said you can be gone for Christmas, you can be gone for Easter, my birthday, but when it comes to the kids you have to get back up. And that's one of the reasons you and I continue to work together in back up for those kinds of occasions.

KARA: That is so interesting I didn't realize Michael was only three months old. Charlotte was six months when I started and Oscar was four months when I went to the first birth postpartum for him and for me. It's funny that it was birthdays for you. For me it was - I was at a birth at Saint Joes and the mother said, do you have anything else to do today? And I said, well, it's Oscar's first day of kindergarten and her response was, “Because, well, it's only kindergarten”, and I didn't say it out loud, but I thought well talk to me in five years. I'm here for you, but I really want to be there and so learning how to balance those things and setting boundaries as a woman in America. Was part of the job actually, learning what we cared about most.

CORAL: I think a big reason why a lot of women don't stay in this line of work is that they don't know how to set those boundaries or it's difficult and challenging to find the support you need. I could not have done this work without it. First, having a partner that was really good about picking up slack like I have to go to work and it's 3:00 o'clock in the morning. Or having my mother take care of the kids or a really fabulous babysitter. And of course back up like people that would support me if I had to leave a birth. Support really is a key to our being able to continue this kind of work. It's also why after 25 years of doing it, I'm not doing it anymore.

KARA: How many births did you do?

CORAL: Well over 550 births. Yeah, there was a point, I think where you just start thinking about yourself instead of your client when it's three in the morning and I'm thinking, oh, for God's sake. Just get the epidural so we can all get some rest. That's when you know it's time to quit because you're not thinking about what's best for them anymore, so there's that old saying those that can do, and those that can't teach. So now I teach other women how to be doulas instead, so I feel like I'm still contributing just in a different capacity now. You know life changes and so do our careers.

KARA: Honestly, you've impacted hundreds of professionals. I mean, you built a whole world. You built a whole community. I'm glad you're able to move on into a space that supports you better.

CORAL: I feel like I have a lot of life experience and it would be really sad for me to not continue to take that experience and give back to the Community. Still, this is just a new chapter, but it still incorporates all of the things that I've experienced over the years in my various careers, so I'm still working with families. Just as you will be. I got burned out on going to births, but here you are planning on really jumping into this. What's leading you in that direction?

KARA: You toyed with the idea of being a midwife. Right?

CORAL: Many times, yeah.

KARA: Yeah, and I know you were offered. I know people asked you. You were vetted by the woman who was teaching the program out of Well-Rounded. I remember that. I think like yourself and like the people, men and women, that we work with. You were here and how can we make this better? And so for me as a doula. Which is similar to yourself. I got to the point where I thought OK, I've reached my capacity to show up in this role. So how do I pivot and reach fulfillment for me and achieve work life balance? Honestly, I know it sounds silly. You know, being on call as a doula was very stimulating for me for many years and I recall just thinking I just need my hands a little bit more in the clay. And able to create balance and so how? So I do that. So it's, you know, not just a midwife but nurse midwife within the Western Hospital setting seemed to me to be not only the next logical step, but kind of the only logical step. One of the questions they ask you as you're entering the program is how do you know you want to be a nurse and that different medical profession and I said, because it's the only thing that makes sense. I don't need or want to be a doctor. There are phenomenal doctors. There's all these doctors who support our birth, being physiological and not pathological as you taught me, and nature taught us in nurse midwifery. You can then have this umbrella impact where you capture, you know, the early stages of development and family growth and personal growth. For the women. And within a hospital setting it allows for, ironically, more balance. Even a 24 hour shift is more guaranteed than on call doula work for 98 minutes or 36 hours, and it also impacts the culture within a hospital and within the community. I think all of your work that I can tell and my work running the nonprofit daycare. Working in childcare. With I mean all of my work and yours has been community building and community based, so if not at the ground floor of birth, then where do we start and what a pivotal time. So moving into it post pandemic is interesting because obviously nurses are at an extreme premium, as are childcare workers, but it feels so much the right time. It's no longer an interest. It's now just a calling. I just sort of dropped the reins and said, all right, let's throw my hat back in the ring and much like doing the work, everything is just falling into place. It's just the next logical step. There's no going back.

CORAL: We grow as people and I think especially now that we live longer, healthier lives, having one career doesn't make sense as we grow and develop and have experiences and new interests. It makes sense for us to change our careers to expand our careers. Think the passion that underlies all of what we do is the desire to make families healthier. Health and Wellness in the family starts, I think you and I both agree it starts with pregnancy and birth and how a baby is born can really dramatically affect that child's life. So we start with that and now I'm taking it to the next step and working with families and then all of that of course eventually impacts the community as well, but it starts, I think, with one baby and one baby's parents.

KARA:

Well, and how the baby is born, I think how a baby is born, whether it's through vaginal birth or C-section or epidural, is less important than the experience surrounding it. I know you and I have both been at planned C sections, planned epidurals, you know, and it's about empowering the mother and the father or the mother and the mother or whomever their configuration of family is. That also speaks deeply to me. As a doula you can do so much as a nurse midwife. Inside you can do more. And as a family counselor, healing what may have been missed as the culture shifts, giving space to say it is OK to be elated at your epidural birth, or elated with your C-section and it is OK to be devastated by your C-section. And we are here to hold space for you. I think you and I have had conversations about if one more person says a healthy baby is the only thing we need. Our healthy baby, healthy mom, we're missing the mental health component. Be honored. Was the dad engaged? Did it build their relationships? Those are also the things that I look forward to helping to empower to say. Sometimes we get in the car and we think we can drive from Milwaukee to Nashville. And then there's a snowstorm. And we have to detour in Indianapolis along the way and we have to get a hotel for the night. And it wasn't our plan and it cost a little bit more and it slowed us down. But yeah, we got there safely, but not to diminish anyone's experience. But that's a huge part of what I think you and I bring. It doesn't just matter whether or not physically we look good on paper, it's how do we help the family feel whole and feel connected?

CORAL: I think a lot of what we do is prevention. Now you mentioned family counseling, counseling and doctors are there after the fact. I think to fix something that's wrong but I think that our goal is to help prevent some of those issues in the 1st place to avoid the need for healing. So if we can help a family have a better experience in birth or in parenting and staying together as a couple, all of that can lessen the need for counselors and doctors to fix the problem after the fact. My training originally is in health education, which is all about prevention. We come in and try to get people to think about their lifestyle, habits and how that affects their health before they get sick. And I think as a family life educator, I'm doing the same thing at the family level instead of individual health and Wellness. I'm looking at family health and Wellness and I think it's again more about prevention of problems. Instead of solving problems. You'll be doing the same thing empowering pregnant people. To embrace their birth experience, but also to be a part of it. To make choices for themselves, to decide what's best for them. I think that you'll have a profound role in doing that. For the women you work with in the future.

KARA: That's the goal.

CORAL: So on our trip from Milwaukee to Tennessee, we had that snowstorm. And for you and I both, I think we've had, you know, life throws curveballs for us. We've been divorced. Twice, which is a big reason why I didn't have kids until I was in my 40s. Started and stopped school. Family crises like death. Just all of those things can divert us from our professional course. It's that it goes back to that balance of family and career and just overall finding balance in our lives.

KARA: Yeah, and you know I think one of the things that you in particular are an inspiration, you know, we are sold as women in America, we are sold, whether it's intentional or not, correctly, this sort of trajectory of life, you know it involves sort of a point A to point Z, and there's A and you know you're gonna pass B, then there's C. And in reality that for a lot of us, if we're listening to our passions in the moment, that's not just straight forward. For me, one of the things that has been so helpful is, I mean, you've said to me over and over like you know it just it took me a couple of tries and then I just figured it out or like it's OK to not be happy. We just move towards happiness. That's what we do and I think that's extremely important to happiness. Is that it's not stagnant. It's not a degree. You don't get there and then you have the degree forever. It's a constant. Is this best? What feeds my soul? What makes me happy? I think that's part of the time of life where at 68 and 43 you know we're starting again.

CORAL: What you were just talking about reminds me of my struggle with the idea of success. Do we consider ourselves to be a success in our careers? As you've mentioned, I had a birthing Center for 15 years and I had to close it. It was not financially viable to keep it open anymore and that felt like a huge failure to me, but I had to really look at it again and realize how much in those 15 years we impacted the lives of so many people in the community, not just those at birth center, but all the classes and the support groups and care network, which is a group of birth professionals that would meet there. And just to redefine for myself what success is, and it's not that my business is thriving and I'm making a ton of money. For me, success was again just having an impact in people's lives and making a difference. My standards have changed a little bit. That's why I hope I just keep on being a success in little ways like that. Continuing to impact people in small changes? Yeah, really. I think add up overtime.

KARA: Well, I think it would be important for you to know too that the birth center to this day through the childbirth classes that I taught - I have several families who now come to the daycare. There's a whole community of Coral presence that has been enormous and will not stop with the birth center shifting gears.

CORAL: We just plant seeds and unfortunately we just don't always know how that seed grew. If you don't always get that feedback, it's too bad. Just reminds me especially of this Christmas time season of It's A Wonderful Life. The movie with Jimmy Stewart. And it's one of my favorite movies because I think all of us are like that. If we could just know how we've impacted other people's lives, I think we'd all feel like huge successes.

KARA: So how did you over the 25 years if we're talking about self-care - did you do self Care, would you have done it differently?

CORAL: It was a big lesson for me to learn how to do that when I was first starting. I think I used to just have horrific migraines all the time. I mean at least twice a month, which is just a clear indication that I was stressed and imbalanced in my life. And I think one of the things I really love about being in middle life is I have more control now. I've learned to not only be able to give in the profession I've chosen, but I chose a profession that allows me to have more flexibility, so I'm working remotely now. It lets me travel and spend time with family and just balance more things, but I'm also very fortunate not to have that tremendous burden of finances that I had when I was 20 years ago. You're always living month to month. How am I going to pay the bills? We're far from the first time in our lives at a point where we're just not having to worry about every month and how we're going to pay things off. And so that's a huge relief. So now I'm at a point where I can just focus on me a little bit more. So I spend more time in the morning. I'm not a morning person, so it takes me a while to get up in the morning. And I'll just do some puzzles while I'm having my coffee and I'll do some stretching and maybe a little bit of yoga and I'm really concentrating now on trying to get a full night's sleep. I'm not very good at that part. Exercising during COVID we used to belong to a gym and we would go and workout and both of us, my husband and I hated it and during COVID of course it closed and we didn't have that option. So that's when we started snowshoeing and skiing and then hiking and kayaking and all of those things. And really enjoying being outside. So I think the answer is now, it's just all about balance in my life. Taking care of myself means that I spend time with community and family. I focus on my spiritual side. I enjoy going to church. I try to eat well. I'm just really trying at this point in my life to have balance. If I don't take care of myself, everybody knows, if you can't take care of yourself there's not as much left of you to give to others, so to be able to give to my family or give to my clients, I have to take care of myself. So how about you?

KARA: Learning a similar lesson. So all the activities that you mentioned I enjoy. Also the outdoors for me. And I think as women raised in the 70s and 80s and 90s, it's OK to say no to things. So what I'm experiencing personally and professionally is sort of a radical shift of no. where. My young teachers who are between the ages 18 to my 28 year olds. Who's formidable. Experiences initially in the workplace where COVID, they're saying no is more crippling to relationships. I'm trying to pause before responding or just being an observer of things before I formulate opinions, right? I think that's a big piece that we miss is to say OK, how do I set boundaries to create the space. How do I set boundaries to create space for myself but also support the team or support the community? And how do I create both of those? Because to me it also is very fulfilling as yourself to support the Community and so I think that's the art that I'm currently trying to work on. I hear you and I see you. I hear me and I see me and before I could just give and give and give and give of myself and my migraines came later. My migraines came about eight years in.  There was just a month where I believe I called Becca and I just said I've done 21 births in three months, and I can hardly stand up. I hurt everywhere. You know, essentially it was that I pushed and pushed and pushed and didn't listen to the cues earlier, and now it's that balance of how do we support the healthy community and the healthy me? Good nutrition, hydration and, also I will say being kind to myself in my thoughts. For so long my thoughts were just good and it was just easy. And then there was this period from outside rhetoric and from the world. And then the world fell apart, quote UN quote. And you know the pandemic, and there was just all this negative rhetoric. And I find that even on days that I'm really tired and not able to get to the gym or get outside, even just positive internal dialogue. And also the book The Four Agreements is great, right? Like not assuming that people's anger is actually about me, right? It's they're also exhausted. And they're also financially behind. And they're also burning the candle at both ends. The last 18 months has been an enormous pivot, taking a moment. To pause. And so yesterday I had an experience with a teacher. Who was coming in, as they say, coming in hot and was rightfully frustrated. Good and is a really talented teacher. Highly overqualified with her abilities. I think she could probably do anything she wanted if she put herself in the right mind frame and we were texting back and forth. I just found myself full of compassion and love for her and saying, The thing is, you're right to be frustrated. It's OK, but I was only able to do that because of my assistant director giving me the space. Ultimately the bottom line is to build your community with people who support you. I would not have survived the pandemic or the last five years or a divorce that I just didn't think was gonna happen, but it did happen and I did have the right people in place. Solid community cannot be understated. My self-care is a combination of evaluating what I need and being careful about the people I put around me. Which I did not do for a long time.

CORAL: I think that's a really good point. I mean, part of what you're talking about is barriers and being able to put up limits. It's not just saying no to certain things, but I think sometimes you have to say no to people in your life as well. If someone's really negative as much as you think that you still could probably do something to help them, we don't have to be all things to all people, and if their negativity is impacting on our well-being, then I think that it's OK to say no to that person. Not having them in your life and that can be not just friends. With a spouse or a boss or anybody like that, that's negatively impacting you. It's important to just step away.

KARA: Personally, for so long I equated with not helping actively as potentially harming, which is not true. Just because I'm not actively helping doesn't mean that I'm hurting them. It just means that I'm protecting myself. I think that's the other paradigm that we have to adjust. A little bit was saying, you know saying no isn't harming them, it's just protecting me and those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I love getting older. I know people talk about you know, Oh I'm turning 35 I'm turning 40. I'm like, Oh, I cannot wait for what 50 brings. Every year I get older I'm like, Oh, I'm better at this. If practice makes perfect, I'm just getting better. The other thing for me that's been really a big part of self-care is being really present whether or not it's comfortable or uncomfortable. Pausing and feeling the moment. And then deciding where to move from there has helped me personally, if I'm uncomfortable, I'm either going to make the change now or I'm going to make it for discomfort efforts from now on will only tolerate discomfort for so long. Part of my journey has been feeling it and saying OK if this person is saying this to me. This is real. This is who they are. This is what they are and if they come back and change their story, OK, well that's who they are now. But not trying to just make the best of everything. It has been an important journey for me because for years I just made the best of everything and then I was like, oh I don't think I'm quite on the path I want to be on.

CORAL: I think that being present in the moment is one of the most valuable things that we can do, but it's also one of the hardest things to do. You might remember. I lost a younger brother. He was only 23 when he was killed. His death was a profoundly sad thing in our life, but it was also something that taught me how important it is to just stay present and enjoy the moment we're in because we never know when that will be our last moment. That was a valuable life lesson. Instead of worrying about the future, or lamenting over the past. Just to  make each day count. Overall, you may not feel like you're the happiest you've ever been in your life, but each day there must be some moments of laughter or joy or something that makes you smile. So just being able to be present, I think, is again, it's a really important thing to do, but it's also very challenging. It's easy to get caught up. And where am I going next week? And how am I going to do this?

KARA: Well, and I think to your point previously, what do we define as success? And do we allow society to define that? I certainly did, and not that I ascribed to it. You know, I just sort of was like, OK, well, I'm going to move and I'm going to go on this adventure and I see what they say is success. And so I guess I'm just not their brand of success, but I feel good. And as I raise my children and as I work at the daycare and help the teachers who are between the ages of you know, 19 and 73, get where they want to be. Its success is only as valuable as the happiness around it. What is it that gets us there? That's also a phase I just have to go back to school because it's just where my brain goes, it's just what's interesting to me. Teaching my kids that you need to be responsible fiscally, certainly, and with your health and then beyond that. What fuels you? What makes you happy that's rebranding success? You know it's not just the 1950s through the 80s nine to five.

CORAL: But it's not success or our profession, only success in profession is one thing, but success in parenting is equally as important, but we're also, I think, as harshly judging ourselves about whether I'm a good parent or not a good parent. I know that I've done that a lot. I've compared myself to other families and I'll say, oh, why didn't I stay home with my kids like so and so or I was too lenient just so many different things about parenting, I found myself judging, but I can say now that my children are grown and successfully launched, that you know, I made some mistakes. I have some regrets, but they're healthy, wonderful adult human beings, and in spite of my parenting and because of my parenting, I think that their success means that I did an OK job. So defining success in parenting is another area that's really challenging.

KARA: They do not belong to you, but they come through you. I have held on to that like as I watch the kids develop. I'm like, man, they're really cool people. In spite of and because of, is a great juxtaposition. That's another thing that I'm trying to impress on the kids is, go to college. Don't go to college. Be happy, What makes you happy? If happiness for you is skiing every year and Aspen, then you're gonna need to adjust your sales for that. Trying to line up and put all the pieces together as a parent and hand it to the kids. It's probably a fool's errand. We probably can't hand it to them, and probably trial by error.

CORAL: I think the best thing we can do as parents is to model for our children a healthy life, healthy relationship with our partner and our friends and family and that work family balance, etcetera. I think as parents too. One of the things that's important is that we are flawed. We do make mistakes. To be able to admit to our children, you know, I really didn't do a good job of that, and I am really sorry. What can we do to go forward from here? That's important, we can't do it all. I've been very fortunate to have you, as part of my village, you are an amazing person and so talented in so many different respects. I'm so grateful that's all I can say, it's been wonderful.

KARA: I think Milwaukee is a better place and I know my world is. A better place because of everything that you have done and who you are.

CORAL: All right well bye love you too bye honey.

KARA: I love you. I'll talk to you soon bye.