10. Anne: An Overwhelming First Year of Letting Go and Becoming | Episode 10
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We’re joined today by Dr. Anne Welsh, a mother of four and a clinical psychologist, executive coach, and consultant. In this episode, she talks about learning how to let go and grow through her motherhood journey - in her career, relationships, and in self-compassion. She gives wonderful insight into some of the deep struggles new moms face with all of the shifts that come with becoming a parent.
Dr. Welsh began her career at Harvard before opening her own practice with a focus on perinatal mental health and wellness, to support working parents in growing their careers and families. She is a mother of 4 and draws on her own experience as a mother, her research career in the transition to motherhood, and her over 15 years in practice, to help parents feel less alone, more connected to themselves and their values, and more empowered to make their own choices.
In this episode, Anne talks about:
The process of learning to let go in motherhood - easier said than done for us type A personalities!
Scary medical challenges in the first year
How so many things - baby temperament, breastfeeding challenges, changes in work and ambition - can challenge your expectations of motherhood (and how that’s okay)
How stepping back and allowing chaos to unfold allowed her enjoyment, closeness in relationships, and self-compassion.
Wise, wise words for mothers who are in the thick of it right now.
Resources:
Managing Sleep Deprivation as a New Parent
Returning to Work after Maternity Leave: 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed
From Anne:
Instagram: @dr.welsh.coaching
Transcript:
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast! Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family.
Anne Welsh:
It's great to be here and thank you for having me. So I am a mom of four kids. My oldest is 14 and my youngest is 7 and they kind of span the range in there and then I'm also a psychologist in private practice and I'm an executive coach and consultant. And in all of those roles I focus on supporting parents and working parents with the hope that I can help them feel less alone and more connected with others and kind of tap into their own confidence as a parent. I live in Belmont, Massachusetts, which is just outside Boston, with my kids and my husband and a very adorable bernadoodle named Allie. So that's our Covid dog that we got a couple years ago now.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
What 3 words would you use to describe your first year of motherhood?
Anne Welsh:
So some of them are words, some are phrases. You know that I would say. The first one that maybe everyone picks is overwhelming. Um, but I would say that with a caveat of overwhelming like in hard and wonderful ways right? It was an overwhelm of stuff to do and of sleepless nights and of you know those moments of feeling like is this ever going to get easier? But also that kind of overwhelm of love and care and kind of absorption in this tiny person that like you just get so fascinated with, right? Like I say the minute I became a parent I was never bored again! In both good and bad ways because there's always so much stuff to do. Kids are also so fascinating and interesting to be around.
That was one, and then I think number two would be, “letting go”, even though that's kind of a phrase. I think, you know, I'm pretty type A person, I'm pretty in control of things a lot of the time and in particular having my first was this kind of constant process of recognizing that I am not in control. You know, even from the minute of getting pregnant and kind of the changes that happen to your body and you know, even things like, oh I now have to schedule this last minute doctor's appointment when I was supposed to be at work and I don't get to choose how this plays out or what the schedule is for the the ultrasound technician, I just have to let go. And I think that is something that I am continually doing, even 14 years into parenting.
And kind of relatedly, I think the last word I picked was “becoming”. I had done, prior to becoming a parent, my research was actually in the transition to parenthood. So, you know, as a 20-something grad student I loved looking at transitions and points where something shifts in someone's life and figuring out how they adjust to that and acclimate. And at that time, you know, again, I was really young, not a parent at all myself, nowhere close being a parent, and my advisor had saidwhat about looking at the transition to motherhood or to parenthood? This is really understudied and at the time there was nothing in the psychology literature! So I really focused on that and it was really interesting. So I done a lot of research on it, but the research was really looking at this at a point in time, right? As you are not a parent, and then you are a parent. And while that is true, I think my own felt experience since then has been that it's not an end state, right? It is a constant shifting and changing and adjusting as you kind of become the parent along with your kid's growth.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yes, absolutely That's so beautifully said. I think even just of the first year, like you think you've got it down ,and then they change, right? You're like I figured this out! This sleep, this bedtime routine that they're gonna sleep and then it shifts! And it's just an example of like, throughout all of parenthood you're just constantly adjusting so there is always like the next challenge and the next phase. And I think you're right, “overwhelming” I think is our most popular description so far! And I love that nuance that you added to that, of like it's almost like a… bursting of all the wonderful, all that, just filled with the the good as well as the hard.
What was the model in your head of motherhood? What did you think that your first year would be like.
Anne Welsh:
I was probably a little overly confident. So I'm one of 4 and my mother was a doctor and had four kids and made it all look pretty easy. And I loved babies! I started babysitting when I was like eleven or twelve years old, I could handle a newborn, I could handle you know, a family of 4 boys, like I could do it all. But it's a totally different ballgame, as any mother knows, right, to babysit versus to parent. So even though I came into it kind of knowing the how-tos, like I knew how to change a diaper, I knew how to hold and a newborn, I knew, you know, what it looked like for the umbilical cord to dry up and fall off and be a belly button, right? Like I knew all of that stuff, I just had no idea of what the emotional experience of it would be and I think that was really, really surprising and I think caught me a little bit off guard. Like I remember people telling me, you'll come home from the hospital and feel like how am I supposed to keep this kid alive and be surprised by the responsibility and then I was surprised when I actually had that feeling! Because it is this overwhelming sense of wait, this is real and this is mine and like permanent. It's not, you know, there's no end in sight. And I think with each of my kids I knew more, obviouslym about experience of parenting babies, but there was always a newness because now there's another kid in the mix. Now I have a 2 year old and have to navigate bringing home a baby or a 2 and 4 year old, right? And so there's always this piece of oh right, this is always hard - hard in different ways.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, hard in different ways. I saw something really beautiful recently that every time you bring a newborn home, your whole family is newborn again. Like you're a new mom again, you're a new parent again. This is a new sibling, like everyone is kind of starting over again. So it just changes the the family dynamics and everything becomes new once again.
Anne Welsh:
Yeah, yeah, I love that right? And there's some of it that's so familiar I mean even after 4 right? Like we had the crib, we had all this stuff. There was not a single thing I had to buy. But there's still, every time, a completely different experience and a different baby! And I think that's the thing I had no idea about going into it, was how much infant temperament matters and match of that temperament with you and that was really hard because my oldest ended up being colicky and just a difficult, difficult baby. And he's a wonderful human, but it was it was flooring how challenging it was to have, what I know in hindsight know was, a difficult to soothe temperament as an infant and that it, I think for the most of that first year I felt like I was screwing it up that, I was doing it wrong and that's why we couldn't figure this out as opposed to, this is also a kid that's just having a hard time and you're parenting like the best that you can through that.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. And I think that kind of ties in with what you're talking about with letting go- like up to this point, for a lot of women, your input equals out for right? Like your hard work or what you do equals results. And this is a dynamic where, this is another person! Like it doesn't matter all the time exactly what you do, it doesn't equal result - it's a lot more complicated and, oh gosh especially to have a first born with a difficult temperament, who is colicky. Our brains automatically go to “what am I doing wrong?” like, how do I fix this? We maybe never have run into that before where you can't! You get through it and you work together and you come out the other side.
Anne Welsh:
I mean I remember distinctly a moment in that first year where at some point, like literally all 3 of us me my husband and the baby were all crying and we just couldn't like get her to calm down and feeling really helpless in that moment. We were really young, I mean young compared to our peer group, so I was the first in my group to have a kid and really no one did for a couple years after that. So I had no other friends going through it with me. I had to go back after work after six weeks at the time with my first so I never had a chance to join a mom's group, it was kind of just me. And all my other friends that had kids after that, I would sit down when they were pregnant and say like, there's gonna be a moment when this feels impossible and you're gonna hate it. And you're gonna feel overwhelmed and like the worst mom and that's okay to feel that way. That's actually super normal and I told them this not as like, fear-mongering, and all of them have said to me afterwards I am so grateful you told me that because I hit that moment and I said to myself, Anne told me this was coming and I'm okay, we're okay, we're gonna get to the other side of this. And I didn't have that knowledge and so it just made it that much harder, right? and that much easier to think I'm doing it wrong.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Absolutely. Or there's something wrong with me, I'm alone in this, I'm the only one who feels like this. Yeah, absolutely
So it sounds like you kind of got to take on the role of providing that peerr support that you didn't have, later on.
Anne Welsh:
Yeah, totally and it's funny, you know, I think for me work and parenting have been kind of inextricably entwined. In part because you can't be a therapist and then have parenting not impact that, right? Like they’re both very emotional, personal things but also in this very concrete way of I ended up, during my pregnancy with my fourth becoming certified in perinatal mental health and have moved into coaching so I can access parents all over the country. Um, you know because it is such this important experience and it is one that really needs a lot of support. And so I think it's it's been this kind of growing in lots of different ways over the years for me. Yeah.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, “becoming”. Beautiful. So you mentioned with your first you went back to work pretty quickly, six weeks after birth. How did you feed your baby in the first year, what was that like?
Anne Welsh:
So yeah, I had to go back after six weeks. You know, I should say, I didn't really think twice about it. I mean, this was 14 years ago so things were a little bit different in terms of policy. But I was doing my intern year and for people not familiar with psychology training, it's a lot like medical school internship. It's a match process and youu have no say over where, I mean you have some say, but not a ton of say, over where you end up and it's a pretty intense year of training and so I was lucky to get the six weeks off and luckily I was going back to the tail end of it. But in terms of feeding, you know I had as supportive an environment as you could get, a lot of mothers, actually, in my office, so I nursed and pumped initially and I was dead set on nursing for the first year and I didn't make it. And it was in part because I finished that intern year and I went to a postdoc and I had a really rough experience in that as a working parent. I was the only working parent and I would have to pump in like a bathroom stall, I didn't have time to pump, like if I pumped it meant I was staying at work later and then away from my kid longer and I just had a lot of trouble with pumping and I didn't know it at the time that some women can pump much better than others, right? I had a friend who was able to pump, you know, 20 ounces per feeding or something crazy and I would work for you know, half an hour and get like 2 ounces and by 6 months I was just fried. So at that point I stopped pumping and just switched to kind of mixed feeding of formula during the day and nursing at night and in the morning. And we kept that up as long as I could and then my supply ended up completely dropping out before the first year and that was really disappointing because it wasn't what I wanted. But I think that was maybe like a very first lesson in kind of being gentle with myself, right? That like you can want it to work out one way and you can feel like that’s the right choice and also it can work out a different way and that can also be a good choice.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. What was sleep like in that first year?
Anne Welsh:
Sleep was, I would say sleep was challenging. In hindsight, my second was the worst sleeper, so in hindsight I think I didn't realize that it could have been worse. My second did not sleep more than an hour or 2 until he was about 6 months old and I was up with him constantly and so by about four months of that I really started to struggle and get pretty anxious, irritable, like the sleep deprivation was just really tough. But with my first it was hard because it was, again that same, you know, you mentioned that input output, right? I read all the books. You know, I have my doctorate - I am good at researching things! But it doesn't always play out the way that the books say- turns out, news flash! - And so I did a lot of reading on sleep and tried to figure out, here's how we're gonna do it and like 3 of the methods we tried just didn't end up working for that kid. Um, and so it was a little bit of do the best you can at first and then around six months we sleep trained and that was a game-changer and it was good for my kid. My kid ended up sleeping and kind of, it made him happier. And also it made the rest of us happier, right? It was definitely one of those things where mom getting sleep helped everybody and so that was the right choice for us at the time. But it was one of the things that, again, in hindsight, I can see. And I talk to a lot of patients and coaching clients about is that- whatever you choose, someone's gonna tell you it's the wrong thing, right? Like we do as parents is so loaded and rife with judgment and someone is out there shouting at the top of their lungs that you are a bad parent for doing it a different way than they are. And sleep is definitely one of those things, where no matter what you choose someone's going to tell you you're doing it wrong and I really had to struggle with that to get to a place of, I get to make a choice that feels right for us and I have to quiet out all of those other voices.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci
Oh my gosh, yes. And especially now with social media and just so many like hot takes and it's very passionate people on all sides, right? And I do a lot of work, with my clients but also myself as a parent, of yeah, blocking out that noise and being like what is in line with my values and like what is in line with my values at this moment? And just like you said, what is going to benefit my family? And sometimes that's what benefits mom's mental health is going to benefit the whole family. Like it's not helpful for us all to be irritable and exhausted when I'm not parenting from the place I want to be when I'm exhausted. So what sleep methods or what arrangement is going to work best for my family right? It's so- it can be so loaded.
What challenges did you face that you just didn't anticipate?
Anne Welsh:
I would say a couple - and one maybe in some ways more towards the end of that first year - was I wrapped up my postdoc and had some time off before I was supposed to start my next job and this was right around the end of the first year. And being home with my baby at that point full time like opened up this space of maybe I don't want to work full time? And that I had never even allowed myself to question and that was, actually it was hard to have this sense of, what am I doing with my life? What do I want to be when I grow up? Like how do I want to handle this? And I tried a lot of different iterations and things after that and kind of found my way to a place where now I really love the balance I’ve struck, but I didn't see it coming. Again, my my mom worked full-time. She was a doctor, and this was in, you know, the 80s and I thought that was so cool, right? She was like, a trailblazer and I totally appreciated that. But also I didn't have a model of like, making a different choice. Of saying I want to do this part-time. So that was one big challenge, and the the other was that my oldest actually got really sick right at like eleven months and having a kid get really sick at that little was one of those things where it was incredibly challenging and I didn't fully let myself feel it while we were going through it. So the, you know ,the short version is he started throwing up every day and this went on for a month and we were in the doctors constantly and not getting diagnoses and went from a kid who by eleven months was already walking and talking to a kid who was not saying anything and was not really moving very much because he was incredibly malnourished. And I knew, you know, working in mental health but also with a lot of illnesses that overlap with physical health, I knew how damaging malnutrition could be and it was very scary and and in the end, it turned out that my kid had celiac disease and this was the symptoms. And again, now this is something that people have heard of, but 14 years ago this was not a very commonly discussed diagnosis.
So we were able to kind of get it fixed so to speak, but that two months at the end of that first year was pretty terrifying and and I hadn't seen it coming. You kind of think, oh, I have a healthy baby. Everything's gonna be fine and then your kid's not fine and it's like this almost out of body experience while it was going on.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, it's like the definition of survival. You don't realize how hard it was until you get through it because you're just focused on getting through it. And I can relate so much to what you shared, because I had a healthy pregnancy and then my baby was born with medical needs. And it was like this big surprise and then you're just trying to figure out the next best thing to do and yeah, it can be incredibly scary.
I think also when you're talking about this model of work, you had your mom as your model and this I hear so often, that when a baby comes into the picture all of a sudden things can kind of open up and you're like there might be a different way to do this like my ambition looks and feels a little different than it did before and that can be really destabilizing like because your identity can be so tied up in what you're doing and what you do for work and the plans you had before and so - that makes a lot of sense. But when you're in it. It's like whoa, like what's happening? This baby has changed everything that I thought I wanted for my life.
What helped you during that that transition and what do you wish that you had known in the first year?
Anne Welsh:
I think what helped with that in particular was being open to it and being willing to like kind of talk it through with other people. I'm a pretty verbal processor, there's probably a reason I went into the field that I went into! And so you know being able to say out loud, “Hey, I don’t want to do this anymore.” And my husband was always super, super supportive as I kind of worked through that process I had another job lined up, I had gotten a job at Harvard and so I was going to take it, right? Like yes, that high-achieving part of me was like, you've got the job at Harvard you're going to Harvard, this is like not a choice, really? But the seed had been planted and I was willing to kind of let it percolate. And so I think just being willing to listen to myself and acknowledge that that was there and sit with it and that push it away I think was really helpful and you know and again having supportive people in my corner that were willing to let me wrestle with it a bit and let me figure it out as I went along.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, absolutely invaluable. How did the idea of self-care shift for you during the first year?
Anne Welsh:
I think it shifted from something that I just do to something I have to advocate for and that was hard, right? Prior to having a baby, I went to weekly yoga class and I would, you know, occasionally go for a run or a walk or get my nails done or read a book on the weekend if I wanted to. I mean I was in graduate school so I had a lot of flexible time too, and that kind of all changed at once so that was part of it. But all of the sudden, self-care became this thing I had to get essentially permission for because I needed to find someone else to watch the baby or say to my husband will you take the baby and it's not that I ever got pushback. He was a hundred percent fine with me saying hey I'd like to go do X, please take this child, but I had a very hard time with that. I really had to work at saying I need this thing and it's okay for me to ask for help to get it. And in the early days, people kind of almost have to push me. Like at one point my mother-in-law waw was like, you need to go schedule a haircut, I'm going to come take my grandchild I would like to see her. And at that time, I was real annoyed. Not that she was saying my hair looked bad! That was at the point, I think she knew I needed to schedule one. But you know. And at another point, my husband said why don't you go to a yoga class? Like people kind of had to suggest it for me to be able to see I need this thing. Because otherwise I was always trying to squeeze it in during nap time or like when it was convenient to everyone else and and not take space in that way.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. It sounds like it had to become something intentional.
How did your relationship with your husband change and evolve during that first year?
Anne Welsh:
In that first year, it was I think it really grew. Again, we were both pretty young. We had gotten married young and we had our first kid young. He was in his first year as an associate at a big law firm, so working a pretty intense job. And I think we really kind of worked well together in terms of communicating how we were gonna manage stuff, with who is taking days off with the sick kid, you know, because I was at that postdoc I had no vacation time, very little sick time. So he really took the brunt of the sick days and the kind of unexpected needs, most of the doctor's appointments. Actually the pediatrician was right next to his office, so our nanny could take her in and he could meet the nanny. And as much as I wanted to be there for it, that's what worked and so watching him really step up and kind of do all of that was great. And I think it was also this sense of watching him kind of fall in love with this baby, too, was wonderful. So I think we really had a positive experience during that first year with each other. I think there was an awareness that like we were going to grow as a couple because of it and that again we were young and that like this was kind of a normal part of like just the growing pains of transitioning from school to work all at once with the kid.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, a big time of a lot of transitions. With your relationship with your husband, was there a number of kids- like going from 1 to 2, or 2 to 3, or 3 to 4, that felt the most challenging?
Anne Welsh:
That's a really interesting question. Um… I don't know. I think I would say from 1 to 2 was probably the hardest transition but I don't know how much that was about the number of kids versus again, like, infant temperament and the combination of having a kid that was having a really hard time at 2… you know, later my oldest was diagnosed with the spectrum disorder, but we didn't know that at the time we just knew that two was really hard and then adding another baby who did not sleep and was super mobile - I mean my second was walking at nine months, climbed out of the crib at a year, like super active. It was this sense of, I'm still trying to hold it all together and act like I have some illusion of control and I don't and these kids, this particular pairing of children was really really hard versus when we hit 3 there was the sense for me of like, yeah I got no control. Right? Like this is gonna be loosely controlled chaos at best at all times and I'm totally okay with that, right? So I think for two it was the sense of we added a whole level of complexity and I'm still pretending like I actually know all of, like, I'm trying to know all of the things and do everything right and get it just so, whereas 3 was the tipping point into that's not going to happen. Let's just clear up any illusions of this being structured or easy or anything but some degree of chaos and I was actually so much happier in that.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, yeah, there's so much to be said about being able to step back and detach from that control and it was it bring on a lot of peace and more opportunities to just enjoy the chaos.
Anne Welsh:
Yes, exactly.
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Alright, let’s get back to my conversation with Dr. Anne Welsh.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Did you always know that you wanted to have a bigger family? Tell us a little bit about your decision to have more kids, what was that like?
Anne Welsh:
Well we knew we wanted multiple kids. That was something we talked about even before we got married, just like hey, let's make sure we're on the same page here. I think we both kind of assumed we'd have 3 and then we ended up with one more. So you know, I would say the difference between 3 and 4 is like logistics more than anything, right? Like you know, you have to have a car that fits the fourth kid and you don't all fit in all of the cars and it's an extra plane ticket - there are certainly some things to consider. But I think with adding one more there was kind of a, we're already here, it's already chaotic, what’s one more?
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
When you think back about your first year as a mother, what makes you feel proud?
Anne Welsh:
I think for me, it was the pride of letting the process happen. Being open to that, because I do know that I historically considered myself a perfectionist and had kind of worked on that a bit. And letting go of some expectations. But I think with parenting, there was very much a shift into being in the process and being more mindful and sitting with stuff. Sitting with the hard stuff and I think that's the thing I'm actually the the proudest of even though I wouldn't have been able to see that in the moment.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, so much growth.
Is there a moment or a period of time that stands out most to you looking back?
Anne Welsh:
I don't know that there is a moment so much as like clusters, of little moments that I still can kind of look back at and enjoy. Right? Just like sitting and watching my baby play with blocks, right? That feeling. I can still have the feeling of, you know, my my youngest is 7 and all of my kids are very big, but the feeling of that little baby! I used a moby wrap and going for walks with my baby tied on my chest, like, I can still kind of physically feel that. It's almost these like, sensory memories that hang in there for me and they're like totally joy filled. And I also can look back and know with compassion that they might not have been joy-filled in the moment and that was okay, right? Like there were times when I had the baby in the wrap and thought, I'm hot and I'm sweaty and I don't want to be holding this baby and I want to be able to put her down, and also there were moments when I enjoyed it! And both of those were part of the experience and both of those are totally okay.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. What delights you about your children right now?
Anne Welsh:
Oh so much. I feel like I need to go through them one by one. My oldest, who was my first baby, is brilliant and creative and um, sometimes we butt heads because I'm a super metaphorical, big picture thinker and they are a kind of more linear, black and white, but like smart smart smart smart kid and we just don't see the world the same way. But I love when we can talk about that, and like exchange, right? At 14 we can have conversations around, like I see it this way, I want to give you a metaphor and you're going to look at me like I have 4 heads and be like, why are you talking about it this way, here's how I see it. You know, teenagers are, and we’re only in the early phase of the teenage years, but there are really cool things about them. My twelve year old is the includer. He is the most extroverted person I have ever met in my entire life and I adore that he will play and talk to anybody. He is not interested in what is cool and who the cool kids are, he is interested in people and it is just like the warmest thing to know that about him and to watch, even if it's something that is a struggle for him because twelve year olds are not always the nicest people in the world.
And I've got an almost 10 year old, got a birthday coming up next week, and he is so warm and creative and he is kind of the polar opposite of his brother, he is the most introverted child on the planet. His happy place right now is the hammock with a book. And adore that about him. I love seeing him in his happy place and I love that about him and get to kind of support that that there's nowhere else he'd rather be.
And then my seven year old is just this like bright bundle of creative energy. She loves to do art. She loves to play with her friends. She's just happy and kind of you know, an easy going temperament which is delightful and easier and I've been able to enjoy her in like a special way because there was no one else coming up the ranks behind her and that's kind of unique. but you know, I think each kid is super, super different and I have been so appreciative of getting to witness that and honor that difference. And I think that's the benefit for me of having had so many kids is that it's not about what I'm doing in the end - I mean to some extent, yes as a parent it is, but it's allowed me to have this perspective of, I don't actually matter as much as I think I do in terms of how they turn out right? They are who they aren't I just get to watch them grow. That’s my job.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yes, yeah. I love hearing that - nad just even going from talking about the first year to hearing you talk about where your kids are now and just, the delight in who they are and getting to see - that’s our greatest role as a mother, right? Getting to just support them in who they are and see them go out into the world becoming who they are. And so I love just like getting to see that arc of like ,you started out and you're like I don't know what I'm doing and now look, you have this fourteen year old, you have all these kids in this whole range of that journey.. It's just beautiful.
Anne Welsh:
There’s this concept I’ve been reading about in like leadership literature around confident humility and I was reflecting on how much that applies to parenting, right? The space of I know that I'm doing an okay job. And then I'm showing up and I feel confident of that and I also know that there's a whole lot I don't know as a parent and I'm gonna have to figure it out as I go along. And in particular with my oldest, I'm always saying, I'm sorry kiddo, you're the oldest I got to figure this out along with you, I don't know yet. And they are somewhat tolerant of that. But hitting this place you know over time of I'm not going to have all the answers I'm going to screw up and I'm a good mom.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yes, yeah, that self compassion piece - it’s a growth journey and you don't have to have it figured out.
What words of encouragement or wisdom do you have for moms who are in the thick of it right now?
Anne Welsh:
I think my the biggest thing, and I say this, if any of my clients are listening they will probably laugh - it’s that it's hard because it's hard. Not because you're doing it wrong. And I say this all the time and I wish someone had said that to me because I didn't know. And I think there is a lot out there about you know, parenting is hard now and a lot more about it than there used to be, but I don't think Moms always let that seep in right? I still think that there's a lot of moms who maybe know that everyone finds parenting hard but that somehow still think but I'm actually bad at it or I'm the only one that hasn't figured out X or Y or I'm the only one that gets bored playing pretend with my kids or I'm the only one who feels like I'm just going to scream if I don't get a little bit more sleep or whatever and the reality is: no! There’s other people, other moms often feel this way. And you're going to get out to the other side and maybe not feel that way anymore, but it IS hard and you're doing a good job.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yes. Yeah. Where can people find you to connect with you?
Anne Welsh:
Yeah - people can go to my website which is www.drannewelsh.com or at Instagram I'm @dr.welsh.coaching and they can shoot me a DM there or send me a message on my website. And you know I'm not taking any therapy clients at the moment, but I do have room for coaching clients and this fall I'm going to be launching a mastermind group coaching for working mothers and so people who are interested in that they can certainly ask questions and I'm happy to talk about what that experience might be like and schedule a one to one call and talk about what coaching is like in general and what that might be like for them and see if they'd be a good fit for it.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Perfect. Yes, that sounds like such a good opportunity. Such a good resource for working moms. Thank you for sharing that and we'll link that in the show notes as well so people can easily access that all that information. Thank you so much for joining us and just for sharing your story. I just see so much of the the growth - the becoming, the letting go, and what you've learned. Thank you so much for coming on and talking with us.
Anne Welsh:
Thanks for having me This is so fun.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci: I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. If you loved this episode, please share it with a friend, review it, and subscribe to the podcast.B e sure to check out the show notes for links and information about any resources we mentioned in this episode. Thank you for listening.
