Pentapartum Project with Tara White
-
Transcript
Welcome to Dula Tips and Tits, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to build a sustainable doula business. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been a doula informally for 14 years and full time for seven.
Around here, we don't sugarcoat stuff. We talk autonomy, owning your worth, creating a business that works for you. No fluff, no burnout, just the honest truth on how to be your own best boss. Let's get into today's episode.
Hello and welcome back to Dula Tips and Tits. I have another guest with me today, Tara White from, oh gosh, North Carolina. I just asked and then promptly forgot. She is a birth doula, but she is talking to us today about her newest project, which is called the Pentapartum Project.
Tara, I'm really excited to hear more about this, but before we dive into that, can you share with the listeners a little bit about who you are and how you got into this work of working with pregnant folks?
Yeah, hi. Thanks for having me on. I became a birth doula in 2014 after the birth of my second son. I went into my first pregnancy with nothing. No knowledge, no real support, and I wanted to have an out -of -hospital birth, which did not end well, because I just didn't know enough about what was going on.
And then after that, I was like, you know, I just feel like there's got to be a better way to do this if I had known more. And so I sought out all the things that I could learn on my own, and I had a completely different experience during my second pregnancy and labor.
I had a doula. I had the, you know, the birth experience that I really wanted. And then I was like, I was hooked. I was like, everybody needs to know all the things I want to tell everybody. And so I did a, yeah, I took my first doula training in March of 2014, a little over 10 years now.
That's super exciting. And I feel like a very common story of how people get started. So take us from that point to now where you are with your newest project. Yeah, I, so when I started I was, I was working on my own at first, I think that again that's a fairly common thing right now I was just, I was doing free birds and stuff my very first labor I was gone 50 hours and I had a six month old and my husband was like,
I don't know what what we have gotten ourselves under here right but so I but I joined a local co op in the end, which was was super helpful for building my business for having backup for just learning from the other doulas and we had other birth workers in the group and And so that was extremely helpful.
And I've had some really good friends doing that. And then, and so I have five kids and we homeschool. And so after the birth of my fourth, when we were kind of getting serious about homeschooling, I was like, you know, I don't know if I can keep doing this at this pace.
And so I took a big step back and I was really just taking repeat clients or friends of friends sort of thing until this year. And so we just had an opportunity that came up within our family that my husband could be home and just freed up my time.
I can sort of a little older now. And so then I could really like jump in and pursue this that has been a passion for a long time. And so right now my husband and I are in the process. We just created a new business for ourselves to pursue to the work full time.
That is the Pentapartum project. And our vision really is to encompass the whole, what we call the Pentapartum cycle. So from preconception through postpartum, I envision it as like five trimesters. That's where we came up with the term Penta or five Pentapartum.
Because I'm also a fertility educator and I see such a huge need for just for women to better understand how their bodies work before they get pregnant. And so I really love working with clients from like planning a pregnancy all the way through the early postpartum phase and just doing the whole thing there.
And so that was kind of our vision for Pentapartum and what we're putting our, what I'm putting a lot of my time into right now. I love that. And I love the idea of the five because I think we often don't really take intentionality in that preconception time.
And we're just like, okay, then there's pregnancy and then we go from there, right? And there's different levels of intentionality that's required people to get pregnant, right? And so then there's a little bit more effort in the infertility piece of it, if for some folks.
But I do think the like reality that many of us are learning about our bodies in the midst of pregnancy or after pregnancy because of the impact of that pregnancy and that birth is hugely problematic.
So part of why I'm excited for us to chat. So talk to me about the kind of things that you do with clients in the pentapartum project. Yeah, so in the preconception phase, I offer fertility education and that all of it really is very catered to the individual client, right?
I mean, like that's what birth work is. It's what you tell me what kind of birth you want to have and I want to help you have that, right? And so it depends on the client and what their goals are, right?
What their health history is. You know, I work with clients who have Or just wanting to know more before planning their first pregnancy or who have been trying to get pregnant for years It would have had repeat miscarriages, you know, the whole whole shebang or they just want to know how to optimize their health You know not even they don't anticipate having difficulty.
They just want to know, you know, how can I do the best that I can beforehand? um And so I I work with clients. Yeah, I I teach Cycle charting right how to chart your menstrual cycles and identify when you're fertile or identify potentially problematic, you know patterns Within the the menstrual cycle before before getting pregnant or to help identify like perhaps why you're not getting pregnant as quickly as you want it maybe this won't amaze you but it shocks me all the time like because Women will reach out to me and they're like,
oh, you know We've been we've been trying for five years and we've done IUI we've done all this stuff And i'm like, so has anybody ever actually taught you anything about how your menstrual cycle is supposed to work?
And they're like, nope, they just they just give you the med they Sell you one the thousands of dollars of treat you like and i'm like so Have you had a thyroid panel like a full thyroid panel in the last few years?
No, you know, like just they're just not looking at the root cause of problems. Typically they jump to medicine, right and so So i'm like look i'm i'm not a doctor like I can't promise i'm going to help you IVF is not but I can help you identify the root cause issues of what's going on here that may or may not you know At least it's going to improve your overall health if nothing else And so and that's a lot of what I do in that in that preconception time And then I love that the getting to work with clients before they're pregnant and then also being their doula um So yeah,
and then I you know, I guess i'm a quote unquote typical birth doula in there. I love education though That's really my passion. So I really like working with first -time moms, which I know that's not always the case for because it ends up being more work But, but I just love that education bit and being able to get out on the ground floor, right?
That whole before you're pregnant, knowing these things before you've, you know, like just early on to avoid as many things, obviously we can't control everything, but all the things that you know, if we wait until, Oh, baby's breach, what can I do?
Well, there were things that you could have done before even got pregnant to do with, you know, body mechanics and your body positioning before we even talked about babies, because so there's just so many things like that that I'd love to get in on the ground floor and be able to just work with clients from the beginning and give them all this information and stuff right up front to set them up for a better experience later on.
I love that. And I resonate with it so much because I'm a person who has PCOS and I get pregnant really easily. So that piece of it, I don't have, which means Nobody wanted to test anything about my hormones for the longest time.
Cause they're like, it's for sure, not PCOS because you can have babies, you know, and then it took a midwife being like, that's not the only thing we look for here, all of these systems are connected to be like, let's test these other things and just the amount of gaslighting that we have, you know, but sometimes even just the advocacy, like as a doula, I think there are many times where we hear an explanation of something and I'm like,
that's not how that body functions, like that's not how your body works, right? Like this thing doesn't equal that. And so that doesn't even make sense. But if you don't know some of those things about yourself, some of the like normal things that we encounter during pregnancy that don't need to be happening or that can be addressed.
We're just like, I don't know. I have heaviness here because I have a baby in my body and that's really all. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't have to, you know, but like, I mean, it's, it's truly empowering.
I think as a person to be able to say like this system impacts, this system impacts that system. And I know this system and my body has some issues. So if that one is acting up, it's most likely from this whole cycle, right?
Because that is how that's all connected. It's all connected. And I think, I mean, honestly, just understanding how your body functions. Should just be like basic human rights sort of thing. Like, I mean, if you are living in a female body, don't you want to know how, why it does what it does?
And, you know, kind of, there's so many things that are accepted as normal because they're very common, but are in fact, not necessarily normal. And so that's, that's a big like kind of phrase that I put a lot like common does not equal normal.
And you don't have to live with common if, you know, Just because all your pregnant friends can't sneeze without crossing their legs doesn't mean that it's something you should have to live with. Yes.
Oh my gosh. Pelvic floor stuff. We could go down that path for the whole episode. All of the jokes of laughing and peeing and sneezing and peeing. I'm like, no, it doesn't have to be that way. No, I mean, just the other day and, uh, you know, on social media, someone was talking about like, she was looking for a different brand recommended brands for tampons.
She's like, because mine keep falling out. And I'm like, girlfriend, that is not a brand problem. That is a pelvic floor problem. Like so, but there's just such a lack of understanding, a lack of, of education.
And that's, so that's really what I, that's what I love, just, just sharing information and I get really fired up about it. So I have to like make sure that I'm catering it to the client, right? And not like, cause I'll just be like, ah, all the things, right?
And so not overwhelming. the client and like, okay, so you know, you're saying you want to do these things. You know, you tell me like, do you want like the baby steps plan? You want like the whole hog plan?
You know, what sort of lifestyle accommodation, you know, we can, you know, so I really have to let the client set the tone there of what they're looking for and the changes they want to make and all that.
But but yeah, I, I love just sharing the information and helping women better understand how their body works. I love that too, because it is, I think such a key part of our work as doulas, right? Like I very firmly think that as doulas, we do not exist to bring our worldview into other people's births, right?
Like that's not that shouldn't be the primary thing people are getting from us. It's like, Kaylee's coming to my birth, and she wants people to birth like this, right? Like that is not my, my job. And my job is more so in my mind to open up the possibility to you of the things that you have choices about the options that you have the things that are considered normal and not normal and what to expect with your provider or your birthing location and all those different aspects,
which is exactly the kind of stuff that you're talking about, right of being like, Okay, do you want more information about how this and this can go together and actually are working for or against each other, depending on what's happening in your body, you know, yeah, and then empowering them with like, what are you going to do with that information?
Like you can decide to not have it and not use it, you know, and you can decide to walk yourself through this process and heal that piece of your body if that's what's kind of, you know, able to be done in that space.
So yeah, I love that. Okay, so one of the things that stood out to me about your about your pentapartum project is the idea of body literacy, and how which is, of course, like what we've been chatting about, but how that impacts the postpartum time, and I see so much neglect in the postpartum time by how we, you know, work with postpartum people in this culture, by how we have family leave, right?
Like all of these different layers of things, how we typically don't see someone until six weeks postpartum, et cetera, et cetera. But I would love to hear from you, like, what have you seen in clients that do have that body literacy and how does that change their postpartum support and time?
Oh, yeah. You know, I feel like, unfortunately, it often comes down to the level of support that, you know, economics and demographics a lot, because the women who are able to be really intentional in that postpartum time is because they have a lot of support.
Like, they can afford a postpartum doula or they just have a lot of local family and stuff. And so, but I mean, yeah, it makes such a huge difference. The understanding, I mean, some physical of you know, of course, like your what your postpartum bleeding and all this kind of stuff and what your body's been through and what it needs.
And but the biggest thing I think is helping women understand like, the slower you go now, the quicker you go later, like the taking the time to be intentional about the recovery in the short term, even when it feels long, sets you up for much quicker and better recovery in the long term.
And that really, I think makes the biggest difference for for women who are able to accommodate it, you know, then, you know, I mean, I've got five kids, but I am blessed with a great support system.
And so but I get it, you know, when you've got two or three kids at home, and husband or whoever only gets like a week off at work, that's really hard to prioritize. But the the body mechanic aspect still really plays a role there, because there's so much you can do just in being aware of how you're moving, how you're breathing that, you know, how you're bending and squatting and, and just being intentional with even if you can't take perhaps as much time as we might like on bedrest or whatever,
you know, you can still be really intentional with how your body how you're using your body in that recovery time, for sure. Yeah. I feel like the thing that keeps coming to mind for me too, is back to the like idea of what, what is considered normal, right?
And having better understanding of what to be concerned about in your body in the postpartum time, and what to normalize, you know. And one thing I really don't love is the whole idea of like quickly getting back to anything, like your body hasn't shifted forever in some ways, you know.
But like you said, like healing and letting yourself heal is oftentimes a privilege, sadly, you know, and it is something that not everyone can afford. Not everyone has given to them, you know, depending on their circumstances and their ability to be off from work or partnership or family support or whatever that looks like.
And I am hopeful that that will become a bit more accessible. But I do think even just knowing like this is a concerning sign, right? Like this, this is not how this should feel. And so I should advocate for myself to be seen by someone saves lives, you know, in that postpartum time.
And well, you know, coming back to the body literacy aspect. Again, so many women come and they're like, oh, I'm, you know, I, my bleeding stopped and now it's started and I'm getting my first period.
It's six weeks postpartum. That's not what that is. Like, this is just your body saying you're doing too much, but it's so common that they're like, they coined the term six week bleed because it's such a common phenomenon for women to think they're mostly recovered.
And now this magical six week mark comes along and they can just start doing all the things. And then they start bleeding again. And they're like, why am I getting my period? So early, I'm like, it's not.
You're just, you're just doing too much, right? Your body is saying, chill out. We need more rest. Um, but, but we're just not given that, right? It's like, Oh, six weeks, you know, six, now you can have sex.
Now you can exercise and I can do all the things and like, it's just some magical switch and that, and it's just going to be different for everyone. Well, and, and having providers who do take that more individual approach is such a big piece of that, you know, like being able to have someone who says like, let's see what your body is doing at this point, postpartum, rather than just like everyone who's ever had a baby is fine at this magical week in the postpartum time,
you know, which I think most of us who have had children know that that is not the case, you know, but there are people that, of course, like fit that kind of norm. And then if that's mostly who you have around you, that is your expectation, you know, and culturally, that's how we've set it up.
Yes, exactly. Culturally and unfortunately, I see this where, for whatever reason, the women who either didn't have or couldn't afford or whatever that, that support or, or chose not to, for one reason or another, to take that real intentional recovery time, where that like, as a badge of honor in some ways, and it downplays, you know, I, I had this a little bit in my own family dynamic of where it's like,
I'm, I want to have this intentional recovery time for myself. And I'm getting family members who are like, well, you know, I had C -sections and my husband was, didn't take any time off work. And I was just like, okay, but like, was that great for you?
Is that, is that really what you want for everybody else in the world? Just because, you know, so, um, I think just like supporting each other, right? Like I can recognize that I maybe didn't make the best choices or, or, you know, whatever, like I want, I want you to have a better experience than I had or, you know, like let's optimize your experience and not based on mine or somebody else's because they did X,
Y, Z and now they're fine or, you know, you know, whatever, maybe they're not fine. fine, but they think they're fine. And then, you know, just the whole care, I mean, again, but the, there's a lack of education, honestly, with the care providers, like with our doctors and stuff.
Again, I was, I just the other day, I'm talking to a mom, she's had a couple C -sections and she's talking about, you know, they're telling me I have all these adhesions and stuff. I'm like, okay, but have they ever told you anything you could do for those?
And she's like, nope, like, you know, maybe probably because they don't know, but there's a lot that you can do if you have that knowledge, right? And so it's that, just that education bit, again, the finding, having care providers, having, you know, dual supports who can help you find that, that information to optimize your experience, whatever that looks like for you.
Absolutely. And I mean, it's funny because as a doula who does trauma informed care, I'm like that response, that response of like, I had a C -section and was right back up at it, you know, two weeks later, I don't know why you think you need four weeks.
That's a trauma response, right? Like, and, and that is about them and not about you. And I think culturally we do, we totally live in that space of like, if I had to do it, then you have to do it too.
Or, and I'm like, no, like that sounds horrible. Like that recovery sounds terrible. And also, why do you hope that I have a worse, less supported postpartum time? You know, like, why is that the goal here?
Yeah. I, when we were having kiddos, we had three very close together and my mom was able to come every time for a few weeks and she works online. And so she was able to like come and work from our place.
And it was honestly, I mean, I think we all drove each other crazy, but it was so much help. Like just like the kind of help that you can be like, I'm exhausted. Take the baby. I love you. You love me.
I got to sleep for 45 minutes or I might die. Right? Like that, that is the kind of help that she was. And I remember an older woman that was in our church community that we're in at the time, she was like, when I had my babies, I did everything by myself.
And I was like, I wish that didn't have to happen. And she kind of looked at me like, what? And I was like, I wish you had had help when you had your babies. Like, I wish you hadn't had both your girls by yourself the whole time.
And she was kind of like, I was fine. I was able to do it. And I'm like, that's not the best way. Like, and just so many people would say to me, like, okay, what advice do you have? I'm like, have help.
That's my whole advice. Like, try to have a mom who has an online job, who's actually loving and supportive, who can come and live with you for two weeks. That's my advice. And I'm like, I fully appreciate that not everyone can do that, you know, and we were having babies in grad school, like we couldn't have afforded a postpartum doula, you know, so I get the privilege that we had in my mom's ability and willingness to do that.
And even in the relationship that we have, that that's safe for her to do with me, you know, but also I'm like, we actually would not have survived is how it feels, you know what I mean? Like we made it through those postpartum times because we had that kind of help that was literally willing to do anything, even in the middle of the night, and that we fully trusted so that we could rest so that we could sleep so that,
you know, emotionally we weren't like down each other's throats all the time, as we're dealing with a toddler and a baby or whatever, you know, but yeah, I think that that trauma response and other folks like is so tricky because then we also kind of bring it back to our own ability.
Right. Like if you could do it with no help and I have to have help to do it. What does that mean about me? You know, and like, are you somehow better at this, which is just ridiculous. Anyway, I can get on that soapbox for such a long time.
No, right. I mean, that, that comparison of like, like somehow needing to tough it out. And I'm like, just be thankful. If you, if you have that support, be super thankful and take it because it does, it will set you up so much better for the, for the long run, you know, long -term health and stuff.
And I mean, yeah, you don't, so you're not still peeing your pants at 45 or 50 or whatever, you know, like you're just, there's, yeah, just take the support, take the time, take the, take the opportunities if you, if you have them.
And, and even if you don't have the optimal support, you can optimize your experience for whatever that looks like, right? We can make the most by being intentional with, with whatever your unique situation is.
Yeah. Well, and even just that intentionality changes everything, you know, like going in with the knowledge and the intention of how to make this the best scenario it can be for you, given the fact that you don't control a lot of things and that we all have different ability to support, you know, to have support and be supported is huge in terms of changing how we enter into this parenting world,
which is a long, hard world, you know, that we live in forever after this, you know? So, okay, we could keep talking forever and I would love that, it would be amazing. But I'm going to make sure that all of Tara's information is in the show notes so you all can check out her Pentapartum project.
But Tara, I always like to ask folks, what is something that you want our dual listeners to hear before we end the episode? You know, I think that the, just that, the aspect of body literacy can, can be incorporated in all different ways, right?
You don't have to focus on fertility or one specific aspect. But just as women taking the opportunity for yourself to have a better understanding of how your body works and then being better able to support your clients and how their body works, that's going to impact all aspects of pregnancy, birth, labor, postpartum, all the things.
And with the postpartum, like you're saying, you're forever postpartum. If you have ever been pregnant, you are postpartum forever. So there are still things, right? I mean, there's like an optimal recovery time, but you can still seek out and do all these postpartum recovery sort of things five, 10, 15 years later, right?
I mean, I've had this conversation with my mom, like, you know, we could still address this. I don't care that I'm 36, right? It's been a while, I know, but we could, you know, like, you can, your body adapts to how you use it and you can change how you use it at any time and become more intentional.
And, and, and benefit from that, regardless of your family planning intentions or your, you know, your relationship or, or any, uh, any of that, like just, just having a better understanding, I think benefits us as doulas and our clients as well.
Yeah. And gives us the, the power, like we've been talking about to decide if we want to do something, you know, like your mom can decide I'm, I, you know, at this point, I don't want to do something or she can decide, oh, I didn't know I can, and now I know, and I can do that, you know, which is, yes.
That's the Maya Angelou quote, I think, right? Like you, if you don't know your options, you don't have any, like, and that's really what doulas were all about. It's like, let me help you see the options here.
And now it's your choice. You're, you do what you want to do. Right. So, yeah. Yup. And then I support you. I'm here along the journey. Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time, um, to hang out with us.
If you're interested in learning more about Tara, hang out with her on social media, check out her website, all of that's in the show notes, and we will see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula tips and tits podcast.
If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hara doula so we can celebrate alongside you. If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app that helps other doulas find us as we do this work together.
This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business.
We'll see you again soon.
In this perinatal space it is vital to have more care that is all encompassing from fertility/pre-conception through postpartum. Tara White is our guest doula today and is talking about her work on a project named the Pentapartum Project. Tune in to hear her passion about this project and how it’s impacting lives for the better.
Quote from Tara
“That is the Pentapartum project. And our vision really is to encompass the whole, what we call the Pentapartum cycle. So from preconception through postpartum, I envision it as like five trimesters. That's where we came up with the term Penta or five Pentapartum. Because I'm also a fertility educator and I see such a huge need for just for women to better understand how their bodies work before they get pregnant. And so I really love working with clients from like planning a pregnancy all the way through the early postpartum phase and just doing the whole thing there. And so that was kind of our vision for Pentapartum and what we're putting our, what I'm putting a lot of my time into right now. I love that. And I love the idea of the five because I think we often don't really take intentionality in that preconception time. ”
Meet Tara White:
Tara White is a Birth Doula and Fertility Educator with over a decade of experience supporting women throughout their childbearing years. She recently founded PentaPartum to better address the endemic lack of body literacy among women of childbearing age.
Tara's passion is informed decision making. If you don't know your choices, you don't have any. By focusing on Fertility Education and Body Mechanics Tara gives her clients the information they need to better understand how their bodies function, and the tools to make empowered lifestyle choices so they can have the experiences they desire. Better body literacy leads to better periods, better pregnancy, better birth, better postpartum, and better quality of life.
Connect with Tara:
CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram
https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach
https://www.instagram.com/Harroddoula/
If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @harroddoula
Doula Tips and Tits is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Doula Biz Blueprint Self-Paced Class for Doulas Launching Successful and Sustainable Businesses!
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
