Advocacy after Loss
Episode 62: Advocacy after Loss with Ashley Spivey @ashleyspivey
Join Rachael this week as she chats with Ashley Spivey, a former contestant on The Bachelor, turned advocate and online content creator! Ashley has used her platform to advocate for various causes, including stillbirth prevention and paid family leave for stillbirth families. Since October is Infant Loss and Awareness month, Ashley shares her own personal journey of infertility and loss openly on social media and talks about how she aims to raise awareness and promote empathy.
Inside this episode:
Ashley discusses her transition from reality TV (The Bachelor!!!) to social media.
How Ashley uses her platform to talk about fun and serious: politics, books, recipes, parenting, loss, and so much more!
The importance of transparency and trust in content and the misconceptions about influencers and their work.
How she manages sharing her daughter’s life on social media: the challenges, hate, comments, need for boundaries, and respect from followers.
Ashley’s experience with infertility and loss, stillbirth, and anxiety during pregnancy, and how she’s keeping her son CJ’s memory alive
How to support someone who has experienced loss.
Learn about the advocacy work being done for stillbirth prevention.
And so much more!
Mentioned in this episode:
Ashley’s Instagram: @ashleyspivey
Information on The Shine for Autumn Act: https://www.shineforautumnact.org/
The Rainbow Clinic in NYC and LA: https://www.pushpregnancy.org/rainbow-clinic
App- Count the Kicks
Ashley’s Book Rec: Mayluna: A Novel
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate 5⭐️ and write us a review! ⬇️
✨For sleep support and resources, visit heysleepybaby.com and follow @heysleepybaby on Instagram! 😴☁️🤎✨
Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast.
Listen to the full episode
-
Welcome to No One Told Us, the podcast that tells the truth about parenting and
talks about all the stuff you wish you knew before having kids. I'm your host
Rachael and today I'm really, really thrilled to be speaking with Ashley Spivey, who
gained a platform actually from The Bachelor, which I feel like is so weird because
that's not at all who you are now.
She decided to use her platform for good And she shares about everything from politics to recipes and books. And she even decided to be a complete open book with her infertility journey, sharing her journey to become a mom online. And she's openly shared about her three miscarriages and one stillbirth. And after losing her son CJ, she decided to push for paid family leave for stillbirth families and stillbirth prevention bills Nationally.
Ashley finally had her adorable daughter Penny in 2002 and in 2024 the Stillbirth Prevention Act was signed into law. Ashley creates the most amazing welcoming and supportive community online and is such a fierce advocate for families and I'm so happy to have you here. I've been following you for such a long time and I just admire you so much and I'm really excited to chat today.
I'm so glad that we can make this work because I feel like I was like messing up, scheduling it for forever, so I'm glad to finally be here. It's hard to carve out the time and you're doing
this like post -bed time, it's what like 8pm for you, so I really appreciate it. And so for those who aren't familiar with you, I know I said you started on The Bachelor, but like if somebody started following you today, they would never have any idea that you were on The Bachelor because you don't really talk about it that much so sometimes I even forget about it but tell us a little bit about that journey and how that led to starting a social media platform.
Yeah I feel like even if you start following me you probably have no idea what I look like because I rarely ever show pictures of myself so I think it's like really surprising for people to find out that I was on a reality show and the reason for me going on that show is it was just like a very petty move on my part. A guy I was dating I found him in bed with another girl. He wanted to quit like finance and go into acting and I was basically just like I'm gonna beat you to TV.
Oh my god stop it.
Yeah and Around that time like my dad had died and so I think when I sent in my
application They were like this girl's dad just died. She found her bed her boy her
in bed with another girl like she's emotionally unstable. Let's get her on the show
this is like a candidate for what we want and Joke was on them because I ended up
like having such a great edit. It was such a great experience I really loved my time on the show even though afterwards I became like a critic of the show kind of the evolution of me being on there is that I started a blog after I was on there to kind of do like a behind -the -curtain to show what was going on because I felt like people had so much hatred towards these characters and they weren't realizing that they were seeing an edit, like you don't get the full picture of a person. You're seeing like five minutes of that day or even like a couple of days.
And so I try to get people to be nicer to reality contestants. And then after that, I feel like I kind of gain people's trust whenever it came to the show. And so a couple of different things happened. Like I got involved in this kind of scandal of this person being picked who was very politically different than the person, you know, he was supposed to marry. I found out that the show wasn't doing proper background checks on contestants. So they let someone who had been charged with sexual assault on a season, which was very disturbing because, I mean, how many times did that just slip through the cracks?
And I along with a couple of other members of Bachelor Nation kind of push for better diversity on the show, which I don't watch it anymore. But I know that they're doing a better job at that. I mean, they can always do better. But yeah, I kind of feel like, my time there is done, so I'll never talk about it anymore.
Yeah, I was going to say I didn't even know any of that because I feel like you just don't talk about it as much anymore, at least on your page, but it's such an interesting way to kind of segue into the world of social media. So then how did you start your Instagram page and decide to start sharing like your real life, especially such personal things?
I guess you could say I kind of started on Twitter first which is so interesting because back then Instagram didn't exist it was really just starting and you know that's when you could only share like a picture and it had a horrible filter on it but so on Twitter I talked about books and politics which made me not very popular with people because I was very opinionated about these things and I personally thought it was crazy that everyone on the show got this platform and didn't talk about politics because why wouldn't you want to use it for something good? And when I say politics too, a lot of times it would just be me telling people like to vote.
Like nothing too crazy.
Yeah. But I didn't know any difference. Like I my whole life, my parents encouraged me to always have an opinion about things that were going on in terms of politics. So I wanted to talk about that. I wanted to get people to read books. I made friends with a bunch of authors and then that kind of rolled over into my Instagram once you could do stories. So I've never been like a big picture share or like how to feed, but I love having like 30 stories.
Yeah, you're like one of my no -miss creators because you always have so much and it's like such a great mix of things like it's parenting stuff and Penny is so adorable… and
oh thank you
yeah it's like the political stuff and news stories and then amazing recipes and great book recommendations like you've got something for everybody so.
I call it stream of consciousness stories so it's literally just whatever is in my head that day like I don't plan content. I really just talk about whatever I feel like is going on in the world that day or whatever I'm doing.
I think it's super interesting too because you're also so I mean you're so transparent in most ways with what you share but you're very transparent about like the influencer world as well and like you'll answer people's questions about how does it actually work for influencers to get paid like how do you actually make money… What's an affiliate link versus a sponsored post like things that people outside this world don't really understand? You're so happy to answer those types of questions, and you're always so Transparent and I think that that is just so refreshing these days and people probably really like that.
I think it's important because I'm sure you know this too, but people have this like absolute hatred for influencers, even though they'll watch their stories religiously, they think they're
constantly being tricked by influencers or that influencers are lying to them.
Well, yeah or that, we're getting paid for everything we post.
Yes, or like you're getting paid for clicks or something like that. And I don't think people understand that I've been doing this for years. I didn't even really start making money until maybe two years ago that it takes a long time to build an audience and it takes a long
time to build an audience and it takes a long time to be paid a lot of money for sharing something if it's sponsored or whatnot. So I want people if they're going to be spending money on anything I'm recommending. I want them to trust me because I think that trust is really important.
Oh, it's huge. Yeah. No, it's huge. It's everything.
Yeah, I'm always just trying to like minimize hate, too.
That's it. Like, no matter what you do, people are going to hate you. And I know you've gotten your fair share of hate from really insane people for things that you talk about and things that you're passionate about. And I do want to touch a little bit more on that when we come back because it's just kind of mind blowing. So we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Alright, we're back with Ashley and before the break we are just talking about hate for creators and you've definitely gotten your fair share of that, partly because you are so open and you speak your mind and you, you know, go there with politics. But one thing that I think has been so surprising that I've witnessed because I have been following you for so long is how much hate you got when you were going through infertility and when you were sharing some things so intimate and so difficult. So how did you decide to keep sharing about that? Why did you think it was so important to talk about?
I thought it was important to share it at that time because I could see reproductive rights start to be stripped away. And I wanted people to understand that abortions are healthcare, and every time I had a miscarriage, my body did not pass that miscarriage, right? So I had to have a DNC, which is considered an abortion. And we're seeing now how the medical language just gets so muddy and how lawmakers shouldn't be in charge of making those decisions.
I was hoping that if I could share everything that I was going through people would be able to look at it in a different light and I always tell people after the 2020 election. I put up a poll and I was like you know if you're not the same party as me why do you continue to follow me? how did you vote this election?Jjust kind of like I called it like an election read up and the thing I share that changed the most people's minds was this story of a woman who had a late term miscarriage.
So she had one or not miscarriage sorry a late term late term abortion at I think it was 32 weeks and that story changed so many people's minds and I think it's because we think of abortion a certain way but when people share their stories it makes other people more empathetic because they they realize why this type of healthcare is needed and I always say though here's the thing when you when you open up your life and you share more about your life you're opening up yourself to get more hate.
Like, I know another thing, even though I am very transparent about my sponsorships and influencer deals and things like that, people want me to get like very in detail about money.
No. Like there has to be.
Yeah, you don't get to know that, yeah.
Yeah, there's like, there has to be some stuff that you keep private. I I try to keep Steve's family really private because not everyone's signed up to be a big part of my life online. Even Steve, he doesn't love being on there, so I try to show him whenever he wants to be shown, but I'm not going to make him do a bunch of things online because he really doesn't like it.
Yeah, no, that makes total sense, and that's totally fair. Everybody's personality is different and not everybody can open themselves up to public consumption and criticism. Do you think about that changing too? Like as Penny gets older, do you feel like there are things that you'll decide to leave off about her or not share about her at some point?
Yeah, so I kind of have a blueprint for this because I was a nanny for 13 years with Burley and I showed him about the same amount that I show Penny where I would basically just show what we did that day. And I actually started showing meals that we would make with Burley so There was a point I'd say when he was probably like six or seven where he did not like being on camera. And so I showed him less because I told him, I'm always gonna respect you wanting to be in front of the camera if you don't want to be in front of the camera, that's fine.
I always try to keep a lot of stuff about him private even though you do see him frequently. I don't think people know his last name or like his parents last name or I don't really show them that much because they opted out too. They didn't want to be featured that much. They'll be in the occasional picture. That's fine with me. I try to have respect for that, and if Penny ever decides that she doesn't like being on camera or she wants me to keep everything private, I will 100 % do that.
And I actually, I don't know if you read, did you read that Chapel Roan article that came out lately where she was saying how she wants fans to have more boundaries and respect for her? And so if she's not performing at a concert. She doesn't want people to come up to her and it made me think about something because someone sent me a DM the other day and they were like you know what if Penny don't don't you worry about people recognizing her and I think the bigger question is why can't people just not be like fucking weird like right?
Like can't they recognize her and just yeah make a mental note oh that's Penny I know her
from Instagram and just leave her alone and don't be a creep yeah.
Exactly, so like, why is this, I'm just doing what I've always done and I don't show her
having hard moments and I don't show her like pooping on the toilet, you know what
I mean?
No, exactly.
Yeah, my bigger question is, I would just like for people to be normal and-- - Yeah. - I don't mind if people-- - Is that what you should ask? - Right, and I don't mind if people come up to me whenever I'm out. No one's ever been weird like that, but yeah.
Yeah, it's an ever -changing thing. And yeah, I've gone back and forth with my own kids so many times thinking about this too. And it's, I don't think there's any one right answer that works for everybody, but I think you have a pretty solid view of things.
I respect people who don't show their kids to like 100%. But I think it's crazy because when people don't show their kids, then that makes people more interested in what their kids
look like.
True. - You know what I mean?
Well, and I've even had people send Reddit, which I avoid Reddit, like the plague, but people have sent me threads before. You're right, like a lot of times, even if you stop sharing them at a certain point, or you stop using their name at a certain point, like those people remember, and... - Yep. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think there's a lot of fear mongering about it too. I just like, I don't know. I don't know what the right thing is. Again, I don't think there's any like right or wrong, but I'm just like being aware and people just don't be weird. Don't be weird when you're in public. Don't be weird. And you won’t have any issues. Yeah, don't be weird.
So stepping back before you had Penny and you guys were dealing with so much. Speaking about Steve, how did he feel about you sharing these intimate details about your fertility journey and about your stillbirth with CJ and all those types of things? Did he find it helpful to connect with other people going through similar things or was he kind of like, this is really private?
I think it helped him come out of his shell about it because I don't know if he would have started those conversations, but then because other people saw it on my stories, then they
approached him and they wanted to talk to him about it, and so then they would offer up. They would be like, yeah, me and my wife had trouble, or me and my wife experienced a bunch of miscarriages. And then he became very comfortable talking about it.
So I'm really proud of him in that regard, because now he is so open about it. And so if any other people are going through it, he's the first one to contact other people or start talking. And I really, I don't know, I appreciate that. He was really wonderful throughout the whole process. And I don't think he ever felt like I was being too open about things. I think he kind of knew that maybe it was therapeutic for me in a way.
Yeah. So he let me do let me do my thing. That makes sense. What did you guys find was that I guess I want to know the best and the worst things that people around you did or said because I've had friends that have struggled with infertility and loss and it can be so hard to know the right things to say. You don't want to ever say the wrong thing but it's such a
sensitive topic so can you just shed some light on that for anyone who has a friend that's listening that's struggling with anything like this with infertility with loss. What are some things that helped you that people said that were actually helpful and nice and what were some things that you just wanted to like punch them in the throat for?
Oh man. I mean there's so many things. I think we really just appreciated whenever people would invite us to hang out with them and act very normal. Do you know what I mean? My best friend, I was pregnant the first time with her and then obviously I had that miscarriage and then pregnant another time with her and had a miscarriage and I think she was so sensitive to that and she would invite me to like their birthday parties but then be like you 100% do not have to go. I understand and I think that was the best part of it.
All of my friends too were so great about If they had any news where maybe they were expecting a pregnancy, they would send me a text message instead of like telling me in person or Calling me so it kind of gave me that space to React however, I wanted to react which I was always very happy for people, but then I would always like cry too.
Right, of course. You're sad for you. You're happy for them. Yeah.
Yeah, but then in But then in terms of CJ, I think we just appreciated literally anyone who sent anything. And it didn't even have to be a gift. Even if it was just a text, some of my favorite things were text. Some of my favorite things were letters, especially I think that if someone has a really hard time saying something in person, writing it in a letter meant so much to me. I actually, I framed this letter that an author wrote me because it was so beautiful and just, she put into words even what I couldn't put into words. So that's literally my favorite thing that anyone sent to me after CJ died. And that, like we weren't even close. You know what I mean?
That's so sweet. Yeah, she was an angel.
It's so sweet. Okay, so it sounds like people just treating you normally Keeping you know the memory alive and also letting you kind of opt out of certain things was probably the most helpful.
Yeah, okay, and anything that we should just not say I feel like it's all like the God's plan and stuff like that is always Just like best to stay away from that, right?
Yeah, even I'll say like my mom, I'm not religious, right? And my mom is like, she's like a recovering Catholic and someone actually said something to her about God. And my mom is like the sweetest person in the world and she literally just looked at them and said fuck God.
Don't blame her at all.
Yes, it's one of those things where I think what you have to think in your head is what brings you comfort might not bring someone else comfort and instead of offering them comfort sometimes it's better just to be like that fucking sucks i'm sorry. That's a million times better to me than telling me they're in a better place because the better place would be with me. I don't care what that other place is.
Of course so How did you then, once you got pregnant with Penny, how did that pregnancy feel? Were you really on edge the entire time? Were you anxious? How did you deal with that pregnancy after everything that you had been through?
I was an absolute mess all the time. Bless Steve for staying with me because I think I was probably just a nightmare to deal with. I'm very thankful for the hospital that I went through which is called the Rainbow Clinic which is a wonderful organization. I think there's one in LA and there's one here in New York and what they do is they're very sensitive to mothers who have had recurrent pregnancy loss because before I went to the Rainbow Clinic I was
actually at a different hospital with Columbia and every time I went in there they would use like a teaching fellow and they weren't great at communicating with me and so if they didn't start talking I would start hysterically crying because I thought she died or they couldn't find her heartbeat and so I asked like three times not to have a teaching fellow and just to have the doctor and they kept on forgetting and then I had this really scary thing that happened.
I think I was 13 weeks pregnant and I went to see my sister in LA and when we flew back I had I was having some cramping but I didn't say anything to Steve because I didn't want to scare him and I went to bed that night woke up at 2 a .m. and the bed was full of blood and I started freaking out. I texted my IVF doctor lucky because I love her so much and she was she told me she was like Do not worry. You know, you've had bleeding before.. It doesn't mean that it's a miscarriage.
So I told her I would call my doctor first thing in the morning and then when I woke up at 7 I went to use the bathroom and when I peed an avocado-sized blood clot came out and I just like, I lost it, Steve lost it, we were freaking out, I called my doctor and they were like, we can schedule you at 11. And that's when I was like, I am, I'm never going back there again. Never. I can't.
Yeah, so I ended up going with the rainbow clinic. Oh yeah, no. So what ended up happening? You're fine? She was totally fine. It was sub-chronic hematoma, have you ever heard of those?
No. They're very, they're very common with IVF. I just had a giant one and for whatever reason it decided to like happen then. It scared the shit out of us. Everything was totally fine. Then I went to the rainbow clinic and they're so wonderful because you can go in anytime, they'll
do an ultrasound on you anytime, they all use wonderful language, they tell you about the heartbeat immediately, and then eventually when I was pregnant enough with her, they would do non-stress tests all the time, do a 3D scan to show me her, they were just, they were wonderful, I can't recommend them enough for people who have had recurrent pregnancy loss.
Yeah, That sounds amazing because you probably just want like a monitor 24 /7 to make sure that everything is fine, right? I would oh So then what about after Penny was born then? How have you kind of I mean you can't really talk to her about it yet? But I know you do talk to her about her brother. How do you keep CJ's memory alive with her and how do you plan to do that as she grows up?
So she will even tell you now if you ask her who her brother is. She'll tell you CJ. So she knows we have his earn where her play area is. So if she ever wants to hold him or we always say good morning to him, she can 100 % hold him or play with him. She learned to roll over by reaching for his earn, which always like makes me cry when I think about. Um, and whenever I would go to DC, um, to talk about these different stillbirth, uh, prevention laws that we were trying to get through, I made sure the first time I went, I was pregnant, I brought, um, CJ and the urn, um, and then whenever Penny was born, I made sure that I brought CJ and I brought
Penny because I thought it was important for them to see my living child and for them to see my dead child. And I wanted to have those pictures for her so that she knows that she was a part of making that happen too. So both of them helped me get that done.
Yeah, that was amazing. I remember following your stories that day and just choking up when I saw that you brought CJ and the urn too because they really need to see how it affects families in real life and they need to be close up to it. We're going to talk a little bit about that and your great advocacy work when we come back. And we're also, I'm going to probably ask you for some recipe and book recommendations. We'll be right back.
So before the break, we were talking about your work in DC and how you even brought Penny and you brought CJ, what can you tell us about the different initiatives that you've been working on and for anyone out there who might have, you know, heard your story or someone else's story about stillbirth, what can you tell us about what you've learned about prevention for stillbirths?
Okay, so this one is very important. So I actually work with an organization called Push for empowered pregnancy and they are wonderful and they actually have a handout you can download on their website. It lists everything that you should really be looking for in your
second trimester and your third trimester. And a lot of these are so easy. They're, you know, sleep on your side. Notice movement patterns. And this is something that someone actually texted, or not texted, DM'd me about today. They said that their doctor told them not to count kicks because it would only make them more anxious.
What the fuck….
And if you're right if your doctor tells you that this is run … this is horrible advice. Yes and also it's just frustrating because I want people to understand there is an app called count the kicks and this app is not about just counting kicks, like it's about tracking movements. And so that involves a bunch of different things, whether it's rolls, whether it's, you know, turns or kicks, whatever. Your baby is going to have a normal. And if you monitor that at the same time every day, you will notice when something changes. And it's important to go in right then.
And it's not just about a decrease in movement, it's not just, It can also be like an increase in movement. Both of those things are things that you should be paying attention to and this is not to scare you. This is to empower you. You should have this information in front of you and that's what's so frustrating about this whole Stillbirth conversation is that what we've found is that doctors don't want to scare their patients and I wish someone had scared me because then I would have made a bigger deal about it when I went to the doctor that day because I did mention that he hadn't moved that much that morning and the fact that the doctor didn't do an ultrasound on me and told me as long as his heartbeat was okay you know he was okay.
And I know now that that's wrong. The heartbeat is the last thing to go so if she would have done the ultrasound on me, I 100 % believe CJ would still be here. And instead, within the course of five hours, he died. And I have to live with that forever. That doctor has to live with that forever. And it's something that's happening to 21,000 babies a year. Like, the rates are not going down. And if anything, like we've even seen them increase during COVID, so it just seems so frustrating when I know that we can do more as a country to prevent this.
So I would like to give people those tools.
Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't think I even realized that the number was not high. That's a
huge, huge number of potentially preventable deaths, which is just absolutely devastating. So in 2024, then this Stillbirth Prevention Act was signed into law. So what does that do exactly?
So the Stillbirth Prevention Act, this is very simple. It's just there's Title V of the Social Security Act, which basically gives funds to states. That act has not been updated since the 30s and we wanted to add the word stillbirth into it so that health departments know that they can get money for stillbirth prevention, stillbirth education. So this bill didn't cost any money. It's crazy that it took this long to even get it passed because everyone wants to save babies. You know what I mean?
Like, there's a very simple way to do it. So this is the first of the bills and then there's also one called the Shine for Autumn Act. And that one deals more with kind of data collection because it differs by states and there's not a good kind of counting mechanism for the real number of stillbirths and even like doctors aren't trained in how to perform the correct autopsies so they're not giving parents the answers that they deserve so there's just a bunch of things like it goes into more research better education, better data collection, and I think it's something like nine million dollars over the course of five years, which when you're thinking about a national budget, that's very small.
The amount of money we spend on other things, this should be like a no -brainer. So I definitely, if anyone is interested in contacting their senators or their representatives. We're doing a really big push because we need to get this done before the end of the year. Otherwise, we have to start all over again.
Okay, well, hopefully everyone listening can help get involved and help get that in action because it's like you said, it's a complete no brainer. Everybody wants these moms to have their babies live. So, okay, we will put that in the show notes to make sure that everybody and be aware of that and share it with their own communities. I know that you recently started Substack, which I'm having so much fun with, and you have your newsletter called Sister Sister that you do with your actual sister. How are you liking it?
We love it. I love getting to work with my sister. Like, I personally think this is a really fun job. And if I was ever making money in the influencer space, like being able to have her help me do all the parts I really hate has just helped me so much. But the reason we wanted to do it is that people love whenever we're together and they love like all the common interests that
we have. So we wanted the newsletter to seem like all the things that we were sharing to each other like over the phone. And so we actually did start doing like an audio reading of the newsletter since that kind of makes more sense. But I'm loving it. I think it's really fun.
Yeah, it is really fun. I'll put that in the show notes too for people to check out because it's so much great stuff in there. And speaking of which, you have some of the best recommendations on the internet. Can you tell us your most recent favorite book? Because I'm always looking for good like audiobooks in particular to listen to during
Ooh, let's see. Okay, well I have one book that I actually just said it's my favorite book of the
year and I feel like no one is talking about it and that's really frustrating. And it reminds me a lot of, did you ever read Daisy Jones and the Six?
Yes, let's say. - Okay, so this is like in the same vein as that book. I personally think it's fantastic. you can't find it anywhere, but if you have Kindle Unlimited or you get like the Kindle version, it's $249 or free on Kindle Unlimited and it's called May Luna.
May Luna. Okay, great. I'm writing that down right now. May Luna on Kindle Unlimited. I'm gonna download that tonight. Okay, perfect. And then you also share amazing recipes and you have a cookbook club. What's your favorite, book or a recipe that you've made lately.
Okay, there's two things. Have you ever made anything by Broma Bakery? I don't think so. I'm not really a baker.
Okay, I'm not really a baker either. Ally is the baker, but I've had to send cookies to Burley for sleep away camp for two years in a row and I got all of the recipes from Broma Bakery and they're the best cookies I've ever had in my life and I recently just met her at a party. I went to celebrate the launch of Caroline Chambers Cookbook, which we're doing for Spivey's Cookbook. I just ordered that one the other day. It's on the way. I'm so excited for that one too.
You're gonna love it. You're gonna love it. Or you you have to do the cookbook club with us. I know I really need to. I really need to. I need to I need to just get on it because it'll 'cause it'll motivate me, that's what I need, is I need accountability to actually cook, too.
And I find, at least when I was a nanny, I think the thing that stressed people out the most is deciding what to make for dinner. Yes. Or packing lunchboxes. That too, oh my God, yeah.
The deciding is a huge piece, though. I have started just outsourcing meal planning. I was chat chat GPT for a while because I was like, I just can't like think of an idea. I need somebody to just tell me what to make. So I think yeah, the cookbook club is probably what I need to be doing. But okay, wait, I cut you off. What was the author you met of the cookbook that you were gonna say?
Oh, Broma Bakery. Broma Bakery. Okay, right. Okay. Yes. Perfect. Okay. Thank you for those
recommendations. And if anybody wants regular recommendations in books or recipes, you always have so many good ones and I always love seeing what Penny's eating for dinner and I'm so jealous because my toddler's the same age and she eats like literally nothing. So it's very, very cute to see her enjoying her food. So kind.
Okay. My last, my last question for you is what is something no one told you before becoming a parent that you wish you knew?
I feel like this is such an annoying answer, maybe two things. no one ever told me that it was fine and very common for like a baby to just sleep on you for like the first four months and
you're preaching to the choir here with our listeners yes and I wish at that time I would have just like sat there in red and not let it stress me out so bad Because I think that really did a number on my mental health and it really made me feel like I was doing something bad and now like I miss her sleeping on me.
So I know I know I could have read so many more books and also just like enjoyed her sleeping on me like the other day she was sick and I she slept on me for a little bit and it made me so happy so. Is that an annoying answer I feel like people are gonna know that's like I again you're preaching to the choir I think everybody that's listening to my podcast in particular would love to hear that because yeah I think there's a lot of noise and a lot of opinions out there about how babies should sleep and where they should sleep and You think that it's gonna be your life forever I think especially when you know, you're a new mom.
You just you don't realize yet how fast it goes and how much you win this those things. So
it's hard It's hard when you're in it though. Well, thank you so much for joining us with such a fun convo. Again, you're an amazing follow on Instagram, so everybody needs to go follow you. And all the stuff that you mentioned today, I will put in the show notes for people to find. I really, really appreciate you coming on today, and I hope you have a great rest of your night.
Thank you so much for having me on.
