#69 When The Plan Derails with Brigid Tebaldi

Do you ever feel like you are crushing it at work life, motherhood, and being an incredible wife on day, and then completely letting every plate come crashing to the ground the next… and the next, and the next.. only to reset and then do it all over again?

Do you ever wonder why that happens or how you can get out of that cycle? 

In this episode of the Persistence in Prayer podcast, hosted by Kylie Hein, we explore how high-achieving Catholic women can balance their spiritual lives with busy schedules. 

Special guest Bridgid Tebaldi discusses 

• practical tips on natural birth planning and they apply to day-to-day life
• handling unexpected changes in motherhood
•  leveraging your cycle for productivity
• personal insights into finding balance and being present
• parenting and family prayer tips. 

Tune in for inspiration, practical advice, and faith-filled encouragement!

Connect With Brigid

• https://www.loretowellness.com/
• IG @loretowellness

Connect With Kylie

• Book a free Confidence and Clarity Call HERE
• Follow along on IG for live prayer, reflection, coaching, and inspiration. @kyliemhein
• FREE Download - Daily Examen for Every Temperament

Transcript

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Do you ever feel like you were crushing it at work-life motherhood and being an incredible wife on one day? And then completely letting every plate come crashing to the ground. The next. And the next. And the next only to reset and do it all over again. Do you ever wonder why that happens or how you can get out of that cycle? Today, we're going to talk about a natural reason why your plate seemed to be crashing on more days than not. We're also going to discuss how to handle unexpected changes and how natural birth planning tips can actually benefit you. Right now, even if you are not in the baby-making phase of life. So turn up the volume. So you can hear me over the noise of you scrubbing your own dishes or to drown out the noise at the traffic out your window. And let's jump in. Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome to the Persistence in Prayer podcast hosted by Catholic Mindset coach, wife, mother, educator, and speaker, Kylie Hein. Kylie is passionate about helping you deepen your relationship with God through the power of prayer. This podcast is a space for high achievers who want to do it all, but also want to prioritize their spiritual life and grow in faith. Join us as we explore the beauty of persistence in prayer and the transformative impact it can have on our lives. Get ready to discover practical tips, insights, and inspiration to help you develop a daily prayer practice and cultivate a deeper sense of trust in God's plan for your life. Let's journey together towards a more fulfilled and faithful life as we invite the Holy Spirit in. Let's begin.\Hello everyone and welcome back. Today I am joined by Bridget Tebaldi. She is married to a wonderful man and blessed with five little ones. She's passionate about helping women discover their power and beauty of the feminine genius. Bridget holds a certification in women's health coaching from the Integrative Women Health Institute and is a Billings Method Fertility Awareness Coach. Bridget wants every woman to transformational childbirth is and the importance of preparing for birth. or their baby. When she's not on a coaching call, you can find her out on the farm, playing with her horses, watching the kids ride their bikes, or laying in the sun. Whether you are planning for babies, healing from babies, or trying to whatever, my Catholic friends know what that means, you are all welcome here. Today we are going to take Bridget's expertise and apply it to not simply coping, but finding ways to adapt and thrive when it comes to plans that don't go our way. So Bridget, thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm excited to have you and I love that you are on the farm, living farm life with all your babies. You guys can't see Bridget right now, but she is, she has a baby on her chest and she had another one that she just put to sleep. So for any of you who are moms who think that you can't still do work things, business things. I know it's not always easy, but there are ways to find balance. Can you just share with us a little more about maybe how do you balance it all and what brought you to this particular line of work? Yeah, so I definitely do not balance it perfectly. I struggle a lot. But I think one of the things and one of the reasons why I actually called my business Loretto Wellness is because of the litany of Loretto. And while I was praying that I just the image that kept coming into my head. Was that, Mary was doing all of, all of the things, that she had to do as a mom, but she was also being her perfect self, and striving every day to just love God in the way that she could. That is what I try to do, and again, why I call it The Businesses, because I'm a mom who's trying, who has to do all the things, or at least thinks that I have to do all the things. And I'm also trying to. Keep God in the center of it all in everything, whether that's washing the clothes, picking up the toys for the hundredth time or making dinner again, over and over again, just trying to do all those little things imperfectly, but to the best of my ability and knowing that God will take those things and somehow make good use of them. Absolutely. Absolutely. So. In your line of work, I know you work with moms on planning for a natural birth. However, we all know we can make the absolute best plans, perfect plans, and situations arise where those plans don't actually come to fruition. So my first question is, how do you help women out? Plan ahead or is there something that you say to them as you're making this plan as reminders of hey, this is the plan. But this might not happen. What do you tell them? Yeah, so 1 thing that I always try to reiterate is that. You are able to birth without any preparation, without any help, without any, your body just does it like you did not think today, let me grow this long, like your body just does it just like it breathes, just like it digests. And so that's one thing that I always try to, tell women is that again, preparing for it is awesome, especially in like our culture that we live in today, but your body knows what to do. So that's one thing that I really work on is nurturing that self trust, which we can talk about a little bit more later on. But as far as the birth plan, I try not to use that word too, too much because that seems to have this, connotation In the world now where it's like this pretty document that you print out that has like the bubbles that say, I want skin to skin, or I want golden hour or whatever, and those things are awesome and great, and they obviously should be respected, but unfortunately. If you're choosing to give birth in the medical system, it's not always that simple. So instead of saying Oh, let's create a birth plan. I actually say like, let's, if you're planning to give birth in hospital, let's go over this hospital consent form that I have created. And it goes through and says like what it is that you consent to and what it is that you might be more, counseling on so that you're making sure that you're getting that informed decision, not just. Them not really looking at your birth plan because again because these are consent forms You're either consenting or denying or needing more information. So they have to look at what it is that you give them and then another thing that I really like to do is If you are going to do or go in with like a typical birth plan, whether it's the hospital center or home That instead of thinking about like each specific situation Because you can never You can't ever pair for every single situation. You never know what's going to happen. So instead stick to the principle. So instead of saying like, I need skin to skin, or I do not want to see section instead, stick to the principles where it's if. This person, is counseling that I should probably get a C section. Then before consenting, I'm going to need 20 to 30 minutes with my husband to gather all the data, to make a decision and to be sure that we're informed in that specific situation. So again, it's a little bit of a different way of thinking about it. So instead of, again, just the typical, let's make your birth plan, it's more of, let's figure out what it is that you want and then how to keep that in mind during the process, but also leaves space for discussion. Or if anything does arise. What do you do about it? How to work with that. Okay. I love interviewing people because I think we can learn so much from each other. So even though you were talking about a birth plan, my brain instantly went to, how can I apply this to my life right now, even though I'm not preparing for birth? So number one. You are able to blank without any preparation. So I think of this when I was teaching. You are able to show up and teach without any preparation. So I used to stress out over having my lesson plans done because I wanted things to be engaging and organized and having a plan definitely makes your day run smoother. There's nothing worse than being in a classroom full of kids and having no plan. But if we could just remember That we are able to do that thing, whatever it is, without any preparation. I could walk into a classroom right now, a math classroom, I will say, and I would be able to teach a lesson without any sort of preparation just by engaging with students, having a conversation, and throwing a problem up on the board and getting curious about how they're solving it. So you can apply this, I think, to most things in our life. We are able to do things without a lot of preparation or without any preparation. So even if we don't have our day perfectly planned, maybe it won't run as smoothly as we would like. But we are able to get through it without all of that. Number two, your body knows what to do. A lot of times when I'm coaching clients, they stress out. about something that is upcoming or a decision that they have to make. Or again, I'll use a teaching example because we're about to go back to school for the teachers. Some teachers I know are already starting right now. And your body knows what to do in certain situations. So, when you start to feel the stress or the pressure of back to school time, same thing as a mom, you feel the stress of back to school time. Have I been through this before? Yes. Did I survive it? Yes. Okay. My body's gonna know what to do. Number three. What do you consent to and what do you deny? So I think this is a great just quick checklist we can do in our brain. What do we consent to for our day or what do we deny for our day? So maybe we don't have to have every minute planned, but maybe I'm going to consent to let myself go exercise today, but I'm going to deny myself of watching two hours of TV. Or I'm going to consent to let my kids have extra snacks, but I'm going to deny that they are going to do this other thing. So I think that that's just a really cool trick for what are we allowing and what are we not going to allow? And we don't have to list everything, but maybe it's just one thing we're allowing, one thing we're not allowing that day. And then the last thing I heard you say was we can't prepare for everything. So stick to the principles, make informed decisions. So gather information, give yourself time, leave room for. Circumstances arising. You pretty much know, based on the pattern of your life, what type of obstacles are going to show up on any given day. So, if you can just take 30 seconds to think ahead of when does this obstacle typically arise, and leave room for that, leave space for that. At bedtime, my kid If they go to bed after 8. 30 p. m., they are going to ask for a drink, they're going to have to go potty, they're going to have to do all these things, like, just plan ahead, you know what's coming, and then instead of getting upset about it, it's like, we already know what's coming and we already know what we're going to say and how we're going to handle that situation. Yeah, I love those. Definitely a great parallel, for sure. Okay, so during this time, I don't know if this happens, but let's say you have a client, you've been working with them. Kind of outlines what they think they want, you've gone through the deny consent form and their doctor calls them and says, Hey, that's not going to happen. We want you to do this. How would you walk them through that? Or maybe you've experienced this in your own birthing process. Yeah, so one thing that I always make really clear is that I, won't tell you what to do. I won't tell you what I did, and I won't tell you what I would do in your situation. Because what that does is it puts my bias, and I obviously have a bias, everybody has a bias, That's going to put my bias on you, the client, and then you're going to try to do whatever it is that you think that I want you to do, or you're going to try to mirror what it is that you perceive, me doing. And so that's one thing that I always try to bring to them to think about is that if their care practitioner, and I always try to say care practitioner instead of like doctor or any of those types of terms, because again, the idea is that. We're all kind of level playing field. Yes. This person might know more than me, but it's still your experience. It's not their experience. They're just there to help support you. so again, yes, the care practitioner might know more than me and might want me to do a certain thing, but it always goes back to what is it that my body is telling me? Because ultimately, like I always tell the clients, like, you are the expert. So what is it that your body is telling you? What is it that your intuition is telling you? What is it that your baby is telling you? And I know that that sounds sort of strange to be like, well, what does the baby tell me? But 99 percent of the time, everything goes well if you stay out of the way. So if you say, for example, your care practitioner says, I need you to come in to get this other scan to, I have some concerns that your baby might be growing, on the smaller scale or smaller side of the scale, then you question it and say, like, Well, what am I going to do with this information? Am I going to change anything? If I know that say my baby might have beyond the 5 percent curve instead of the 40 percent curve. So it's just a matter of, again, going back to that place of looking in yourself and say, what am I going to do with this information? What is my body telling me that like, does your body think that everything's fine? If so, it usually is. Does your body think that something is wrong? And maybe question that and kind of dig into it a little bit more. So again, it always just goes back to what is it that your body is saying, because ultimately, that's the Holy Spirit working through you, working through your instincts and your intuition. Yeah. I love just asking questions and getting curious, and sometimes when we are in a stressed state, it's hard to ask ourselves those questions, so having an outside perspective, especially maybe someone who's not your spouse, because they're probably emotionally involved as well, or even a friend might be emotionally involved, but just someone who can just be objective and get curious to help you express what you're feeling. What you're already thinking what you're already feeling kind of what you already know, because I would say almost every time people actually know what they want to do, and they know what's right for them. They're just seeking permission to actually do it. And so just having someone mirror back to them. This is what I'm hearing from you. Is this what you are saying? Is this what you feel just helps them get such clarity. Yeah. And confidence to make that decision and to feel good about it. And then the second thing you said that I really loved is everything goes well. If you stay out of the way, I think this is a life lesson. Everything goes well. If you stay out of the way, that's not just in birth. That's an everything that is a constant prayer that I am asking is that Lord, whatever your will is, help me get out of the way. So I don't freak out and try to change it or If I'm uncomfortable, just completely switch the trajectory of what you're asking me to do because I'm scared, or I'm fearful about what other people will say or how my body will react, whatever it is. And so I just love that. I think that's such a great prayer. Lord, help me stay out of the way. Yeah, it definitely is very, very true. And, it's kind of with everything in life. As well where it's like, even if you have all of the information, you're going to likely be unable to resist the grooming that we've had and the coercion that we might have from our, again, like care team or just the world, that will be subjected to. So again, information won't necessarily save us. So there are again, a hundred percent time there are, there is definitely a time whenever, like you need help and you need to. have that information, but again, most of the time for most women, things go really well if you just, again, stay out of the way. So what about the next day? So that next day after you had this perfect plan and then everything went out of control, we failed. How do you help your clients to reset? Yes. So we actually go through this. As one of the sessions that I have with them is like what happens if things don't go the way that you think they're going to go. And I try not to harp on it too much because obviously, if you start thinking about it that way, then that negative thoughts and that negative, energy is going to get into your brain. So we try to stay very neutral about it and just a matter of if this happens, then this is what you can do. But. One of the exercises that I love to do, especially with the women that I help who come to me asking help, heal from their birth trauma or like heal their birth story is going back into that place and writing it down is really great. But taking it a step further and doing this guided meditation, where I basically walk you through, get back into that scenario that you were in and that can be really hard sometimes. But it's really, really helpful and really healing. Because again, when you go back into that place and then I walk you through this meditation and you actually see Jesus, like in that moment with you, it really changes things so that it's, some of the words that I hear a lot are like, I felt like I was out of control. I felt like I was alone. Things were done to me, not for me, some of those different phrases. And then after the meditation, it's different where it's like that things still happened. But instead it was like, I wasn't alone. Jesus was with me and he allowed this to happen. And I don't really understand why, but he allowed it for some reason and that's okay. And then, yes, I felt out of control, but again, he was there holding my hand the whole time or watching over me or like this angel was standing in the corner. it's just the idea of finding the good and little bits of things. So even if, again, you had to get that, like, quote, emergency C section, there was some good thing that will come from that, even if you don't understand it right now. Because, again, God will never let anything bad happen to us. Even if something bad happens, he's always going to bring good from it. Right, yeah, he provides for everything, but he provides everything for our spiritual life, everything for us to spiritually grow, and physically, emotionally, mentally, sometimes that doesn't always feel so great. Yes. I was thinking as you were talking about the mindset training when I was doing research for coaching, and I'm talking about athletics coaching, so I used to be a head volleyball coach, I coached for a long time. And. Some of the mindset exercises that they had was to walk your players through different scenarios. Like, let's pretend your boyfriend just broke up with you 10 minutes before the game starts. Right? So if you were emotionally neutral, how would you respond? Or just imagine yourself in that circumstance so they could feel like what would happen in your body, and how would you react? What would you do? And those circumstances do come up sometimes. I was on my way to a volleyball game, season opener, first game as a head coach, and my shirt That had already got something spilled on it. I washed it. I hung it up to dry in the bus. I was going to change when I got there. Flew out the window, driving down the highway. Because there's no air conditioning, right? And I'm wearing a t shirt that is not even our school shirt. Those are things that you just don't expect. Things don't go as planned. You have to adapt. Okay, what am I going to do now? We had players who lost grandparents. Two days before games or just had family circumstances or a player rolls their ankle in warmups, and it's your starter. How are you going to address? How is the rest of the team going to address? So just not ruminating on worst case scenarios, but if you can, every once in a while, just let yourself go to this place and say, If I were emotionally neutral, how would I respond? Or how would I tell someone else to respond? Again, those I think can be really helpful questions. Yes, definitely. So let's just take a moment outside of the birthing experience in your own life, because I think this is so helpful just to hear from real life women in their own households. When you're looking at handling unexpected days as a working mom, what do you wish was different for you right now? Oh my goodness. That's a hard question. Personally, I feel like I wish that I handled, I had more patience. And that I was better about being in the present because I typically am like thinking about the next thing or I have to get this laundry folded. Or even like right now I see the winds picking up outside and I have laundry outside on our clothesline and I'm like, Oh no, I hope it's not going to storm. And then like, being in the present is really challenging for me because again, I have all these different things that I have to think about. Or that I don't have to think about, but I do think about, and I wish that I was better at just like being in the moment, whether that be playing with the kids. Folding laundry, saying the rosary. I'm really bad at doing that and staying in the present for that one. So staying in the present and just having more patience with others and then also just myself as well. So if you were going to coach yourself on this, what is helpful for you? Remember to be in the present. Yeah. So it's funny. Um, I'm really good at this in coaching calls. Like I can hone in on it and coaching calls because. I think of it as like, I don't know, it's just easier for me because I'm getting to hear somebody else's story and I don't have to think, I just have to listen and I almost need to do that during the rest of the day where it's like, the kids want me to push them on the swing. I love swinging, but I hate swings because you have to stand there and just push for 20 minutes. And whereas it's like, I should go into that space of I'm getting to listen to them and to spend this time with them and to just, you know, Remember that this is a gift from God to be able to be at home with them and to be in this moment with them. And that again, he's doing this for my good as well as their good. So whether that be that this is an opportunity for me to practice that patience. So that I can become more like a saint, hopefully, I think would be helpful for me to continue to remember. Yeah, I think you nailed it, the daily practice. Being present in the moment is a daily practice, where I think for anyone listening, if you can just find one place in your day where you are going to focus on being truly present. So maybe it is with your kids on the swings, like I, when I go to the swings and I'm with my children. I am going to really just focus and dedicate energy into listening to them and to paying attention to what's going on around them, to how I'm responding to them, to all of the stories, because a lot of times At least for me, my kids are telling me something in my brain that's a million miles away. They're like, Mom, did you hear me? Uh huh. Or I responded to something and I have no idea what they even said because my brain just goes on autopilot. Yeah. But if we can just kind of segment our day down, like for this 20 minutes today, I'm going to make sure that this is where I'm really practicing my patience. I'm practicing being present. And then do that for so many days in a row. And then, okay, I'm getting really good at this. Where's another little small chunk of time where I can focus on being more present or I can focus on being more patient. And yeah, I just love asking coaches because we're so good at coaching other people, but sometimes we forget to coach ourselves. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So flip question, where do you feel like you are crushing it in life when it comes to handling the unexpected? Oh boy, I'm probably crushing it with handling the unexpected with handling the unexpected because that is like, just, yeah, even though we have days planned, you never know what's going to happen. When I have something that I want to do, the kids usually want to do something else. So I'm pretty good at just rolling with it and sticking to what I need to get done, but then also being very open and receptive to whatever it is that they want to get done. So I know that's not like the greatest answer to your question, but that's kind of my answer is I'm pretty good at just being chill and going with the flow. Yeah. And recognizing that, I think it's so important for us to look at our days and say, this is where I crushed it today. It's easy to find the negative. It's sometimes for a lot of us more difficult to find the positives. And I know this is, again, is true in my own life. So two questions that you guys can take from this as you're listening, that I strongly encourage you ask yourself these questions every day this week. What do you wish was different for you right now? And where are five minutes of my day where I can practice this. And then second question, where do you think you are crushing it? So it can be work related, it can be parent related, it can be related to how are you doing as a spouse or as a wife. Take those into consideration. Okay, next question. My personal take is that it is an unfair assumption that Catholic women know everything there is to know about fertility and their cycles, even though they're not. Many of us are in alignment with church teaching and we're following natural family planning. Do you have any advice on how we can utilize our cycles to help with productivity, to help with being better patient moms, all of those things? Yes. So this is another one of my wheelhouses that I love to talk about. So, unfortunately, in our society today, women are expected to pretty much, Behave and act like men, not in like necessarily their actual like characteristics or anything like that, but just in their productivity, and that sort of thing. So, men cycles are about 24 hours long. So when they wake up, they have the one cycle when they go to sleep, kind of resets it for the next day and then it happens over and over again. So again, Their cycles are 24 hours long, roughly, in a, in a healthy man. Whereas with women, our cycles are pending on the woman and the health and everything like that. They 28 to 32 days long. So it's a big difference already. So a man can get up, go work out at four 35 in the morning, do intermittent fasting. Eat a lunch and then maybe a small dinner and like work eight to 10 hours a day and go to sleep and do that all over again the next day. And he's designed to pretty much do that every day of his life. And obviously having a rest day for the Sabbath and everything, but he's pretty much designed to do that forever without experiencing any issues again in a healthy man. Where the woman has that 28 to 32 day cycle. So, if she tries to wake up every day, work out at 4. 30, do the intermittent fasting, eat lunch, work an 8 to 10 hour day, then go to sleep at the same time every single day, she is going to burn out and crash, like, very, very quickly. Because our hormones don't work like that. They don't go up and down as quickly as men's. They take their time, like they build up very very slowly, day by day by day, until they get to a peak, which is ovulation, and then they crash, which is then going to be, that, like, infertile phase that everybody loves. Or hey, depending on the person, so again, it's this gradual buildup where you get to ovulation, which is that peak. That is when we are most similar to men, um, in terms of like our ability to like really get going and work. So again, the buildup ovulation is like that peak time and then they crash. So if you're trying to, organize your days, depending on your cycle, it's gonna be really important during menstruation that you're like taking it easy resting.'cause that's when your body's trying to gear up to sustain a pregnancy. If you are exhausted and tired all the time, your body's not going to be in a state where you're going to be able to sustain a pregnancy or at least go into that pregnancy feeling good. And then during that ovulatory phase, you're going to be feeling great because again, this is whenever your body's saying like. I'm ready to have a baby. My body is prepared for this. It's time to go like, let's do this again. That's whenever you can go out and run the marathon or wake up at four in the morning to work out. or you can feel just like a lot more hyped up and better. And then that happens depending on the woman for maybe three to four days, maybe that long. And then again, you get this crash and it's a pretty immediate crash where all of your hormones sort of just drop down. And then I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty specifics of it, but just trying to keep it pretty general. Hormones drop. And that's whenever you go into that phase again, where your body's starting to, prepare for either that pregnancy that you might have happened. Or it's preparing to prepare for the next pregnancy that might happen. So again, that takes place over 28 to 32 days. So by trying to do all the things during all the parts of your cycle, you're going to really wear yourself out. Because biologically, we are not designed to do that. We are designed to rest during certain parts of the cycle. We're designed to work really hard during other parts of the cycle. But the majority of the time, we're designed to sort of just be In more of this, like, quiet, calm state, and less time in this, hyped up, I can do all the things state. Which is, I think, incredibly fascinating, because Our brains are so trained to be in this hyped do everything stage, which is where we fall into self reliance. We stop trusting God. We're so mad at ourselves because why can't we get everything done? And you just told us that let's say someone has a 30 day cycle. They have three days of feeling great ovulation. 10 percent of our time is spent in this period where we could actually realistically maybe get it all done. And that's like, yeah. And the other we're not created to do that, but we still keep trying to do that. Yep. It's very messed up and twisted the way that my brain specifically I'll use myself. Cause I do rely on this, like self reliance. Like I can do all things. Every day. But then I have to remember, like, I've had a baby every two years for the last eight years. And in that timeframe, I've also been nursing babies. So it's like, I've never had too many of those days where it's like, I'm up here. Most of them have been pretty level down here. So yeah, it's just a good reminder to be gentle with ourselves and not expect us to do all the things all the time. And to just practice retraining your brain. That we are created to need rest. We're created to need rest because our bodies were designed to hold babies. And I know that not everyone has been blessed with fertility and is able to, to have babies at this point in time. Or may not ever be able to. But as a female, as a woman, your body still needs that rest time. And. You still have these cycles where you're only feeling great for a few days. And I know when I hit those peak days, I'm like, yeah, I can get everything done. And I'm like planning out the rest. It's terrible. I start planning out all of these other things. And then I can't stick to the plan because I don't have that same energy as I go into the next phase of my cycle. And so this is, again, is just, if you fall into that trap, Really starting to retrain your brain and just pay attention to the pattern. I know I've really just been trying to focus on man. There are days in my cycle where I just feel awful. I'm so nauseous. I'm so tired. If it's a Sunday, I am sleeping. I'm taking a four hour nap. So that's great. That's what you're supposed to do. That's Yes. And it's okay. It's okay if you take a nap and your kids play together for a little while. Or my husband and I tag team if we've both had a rough week. He'll take a two hour nap, I'll play with the kids, we'll trade, and I get to take a nap. I highly recommend that for your marriage if you can make it happen. To the woman who wears many hats, professional mother, friend yet feels like she is never enough. I see you. You've built a life of achievement. But at what cost. Your worth isn't defined by perfection productivity or praise. I want you to imagine a life where stress and overwhelm no longer control you a life where your relationship with God. Andrew herself can thrive. When you work with me, you'll find that hope and clarity you've been longing for. And together with the holy spirit, I'll guide you to a balanced life where family work and prayer co-exist beautifully. Join me for a free confidence and clarity call today by clicking the link in the show notes. It's time to redefine success. It's time to let go of the stress and embrace the life. God is calling you to live. Do you have any other tips? when it comes to fertility, when it comes to cycles, just about how we can help maybe set realistic expectations for ourselves. Yes. I do teach billing still. So I do still have, those connections with clients in that regard. But one of the biggest things is that get your husband to learn about your cycle. And he doesn't have to know everything, but he should know the basics pretty much what I just told you, where it's like during this phase, you might feel pretty terrible or pretty tired or whatever. And then like during that peak, you're going to feel pretty awesome. And then again, you have this kind of crash. So get him to learn about that because when he can understand what's happening within your body, first off, it's going to help him be the man that God's calling him to be in terms of like patience and understanding. But then it's also going to help you both to really Step into like your marital union in a really beautiful way. And I know that sounds cheesy and it's like the typical NFP picture of walking through the wildflower holding hands. But it really is true where it's like, if you can get him to understand this and be on your side rooting for you, it really does change everything versus if you guys are constantly like at it, fighting, like figuring out like, well, why can't this happen this day or whatever. So again, that's my biggest tip is again, get your husband to get on board. If you're dating somebody and they don't seem comfortable with it and like, kind of turned off by all of this stuff, maybe reconsider or explore why that is, because again, it's going to set you up For some struggles later on, not to say that it isn't possible to work out, but I mean, if you can have a man who is really understanding and kind about everything and like he really gets it, it makes things a lot easier. And again, it helps him grow in his holiness as well. And like you just said, like just to remember to be kind to yourself that some days you are going to nap, even if it isn't a Sunday. And I'm really bad at this too, like I'm not great at resting, because there's always something to be done, or something to clean, or something to cook, but sometimes I do just have to sit for like 20 minutes because I am tired, and if I don't sit for 20 minutes, then the not so nice side of me comes out, and then that's going to lead me down the path that I don't want to be on, so sometimes it is better for me to just go sit under a tree or something by myself, And let the kids play whatever for 20 minutes so that I can just have that piece and kind of regulate my nervous system again and kind of go back into that calm state. And that typically did help things, but those are the two biggest things is again, get your husband on board and rest when you feel like you need to rest. So, I did not plan on going down this route, but since you are talking about spouses, NFP can create a lot of divide in marriages if you allow it to. And it totally depends on the couples, but this is a topic that I see come up a lot. And when we're stressed in our marriage, when we're having difficulty, because it is, for a lot of people, a really heavy cross. It's difficult. Like you mentioned, we feel great for a few days and then we have this huge crash and when we have a busy day with our kids, with our work, with doing all the things to our standards, which are already very, very high, and then now we have to try to create time for our spouse during this part of our cycle where for many of us, Maybe it's our infertile phase because we're trying to avoid, we can't maybe have kids right now, or we just had a baby or whatever it is. Do you have any tips for helping to navigate that? I mean, yes, communicating with your spouse, helping them understand your cycle. But I'm just curious if there's anything else that you would add or that you found. And I think that's really important. with other people. Yeah. So personally, we are not experts at this, but I mean, we've been married almost 10 years and have come like a long way. And one of the biggest things that has, helped with this is like I was harping on having him, my husband, learn about this stuff. He could honestly probably go and teach a Billings class by now, because he just knows, he's heard the spiel so many times and he knows so much about it now. So I think that was again, really, really helpful because now it's in his brain of Oh, this is a day where the things aren't going to, It goes super well if I try to do it X, Y, Z, or whatever. And then the one thing that has been really helpful is because we live on a farm, there's always a project to do, which is good and bad. The good side of it is that, or I guess the bad side of it is it's hard to rest sometimes, but the good side about it is that it always gives my husband something to do. So if he's having one of those days where it's like, again, he's a man, um, but things aren't happening, what he can do is. I don't know. He can go out and use a tractor and figure out where the waterline is leaking. And by digging a hole for three hours, that usually is going to get out all that testosterone that was built up. And by the time he comes back inside, he is tired. And that gives us ways to connect in different ways. Cause now we can talk about the waterline that he found or didn't find that was broken. And so instead of him being pent up and angry about this one thing now he's thinking about like how do I fix the water line and like it's working together so he's like we're brainstorming how to do that and I mentioned the water line because it just happened last week so again it's just it's a redirecting that energy into a different thing and I know we're in a unique situation where we live on a farm so he has those opportunities he can go out and just There's always projects to do. So if you don't live on a farm or live in an area where you can do that, maybe involved in a sport or, um, get into some sort of activity together. So it's like he gets out that physical exertion that he needs to get to release that testosterone and use it, but it's still in a healthy way. And again, it always comes back to maybe go watch him play the baseball game. And then afterwards you have that connection through talking about how well he did and stuff like that. Right. Building him up that way instead of him being super frustrated and that sort of thing. Yeah, I love that. I'm just thinking in my own life, something that's been helpful for me actually, as we are in a trying to avoid stage for my own health reasons, is, It's almost helpful for me, instead of guessing every night, like am I gonna need enough energy to have alone time with my husband? Which sounds terrible, but sometimes you're just really tired. Yeah, I know. You had a, you had a busy day, you're exhausted, you're touched out, especially when your kids are little, you're just touched out, and for me, it's been really helpful in my brain to just think, okay, I don't have to worry about that all these days, because we are on the same page, but then during, during this part of the month, I need to plan my day a little differently because I need to make sure that I have enough energy at night to spend that dedicated time with my husband in a different manner than I did these other days of the month. And so for me, I think that that's helpful, like not putting off work till after the kids go to bed. I know that I'm not going to work after the kids go to bed during that time. phase because I'm going to dedicate that time to my husband. So that's something that has also just been really helpful for me. Maybe it will be helpful for someone listening is just again, that mindset of, Oh, this isn't a problem. This is a way that we can navigate this. This is a way that we can problem solve and actually grow closer together in our marriage, because it is really hard. And just solidarity and just compassion for anyone who has that struggle, with your husband's because. it's incredibly difficult for them to understand it because their body is not wired the same way. Yep. 100%. Thank you for sharing all that. Okay. This has been awesome. Before we get to our prayer tip at the end here, can you share with everyone where they can find more about you and your business? Yeah, definitely. So I do a free mini session for anybody who's wanting to chat about, NFP, birth prep, if you have a birth story that you need help with healing, or had a traumatic birth. So do that. And you can find the link for that on my website. Which is lorettowellness. com and Loretto is L L R E T O. So just one T, spelled it the Italian way. So lorettowellness. com and then you can also find me on Instagram at lorettowellness as well. And again, it's L O R E T O and yeah, I'm just happy to chat with you and always looking forward to making connections and growing, who I know in the Catholic community. At the end of every episode, I ask my guests to share either a scripture verse or a prayer tip. I would love to hear your prayer tip and how you navigate this in your family. Oh boy. So the one tip that I always give clients is if they're not already saying a daily rosary with their family and their kids start doing it. And the only reason I say that is because we started doing that about four years ago. We have obviously missed a few days here and there, but pretty consistently we've been doing it every single day. And we have seen such great fruits from it, whether that just be doing like the full rosary, there's five decades. We have also done the like 55 days or 50, however many days it is 50 some day Novena. Um, thank you. Thank you. So yeah, we have done that as well. If you come to our house during that rosary time, it is not pretty all the time. A lot of times it's kind of disastrous, with the kids jumping on the couches and not listening and all of that sort of thing happening. But, we keep doing it because, I have to remember that again, even though it doesn't look like my idea of perfect or like what I think it should look like, God will use this for good in my life, in their life, and we're already seeing it because sometimes if it's the end of the night and we're getting back from a long day or something, all the kids, whenever we get home after showers, they're always like, We can't go to bed yet. We have to do our rosary. So it's like, they always keep us accountable probably cause they don't want to go to bed. But also it's, it's really. Been fruitful in our lives. And again, it's just all the promises that there are around the rosary are really wonderful. So even if it feels like it's not worth it, or it's like a total chaotic disaster, it still is going to be worth it. Good will come of it. Whether. It's immediate or in the future, just keep doing it and stick to it. You got to love when kids use good things for their own well, like what they want. So I know my kids do this too. It's like, Hey, we haven't done prayers yet. And it's like, yeah, cause you were in bed and all these things, they know you won't say no to praying. So they'll ask to pray more, even if they're completely distracted. And I will say. A lot of the things that you mentioned, you know, kids bouncing off the walls, not paying attention, getting distracted. Whether you're saying a rosary or you're just doing family prayer, I think this is 100 percent normal. Kids are going to get distracted by the stuffed animal in the room, by the paint on the wall, by their feet. I mean, anything and everything that can distract them. We know as adults, for many of us, the rosary is difficult to pray as well, but It is a practice. It is something that the more you do it, the more naturally it's going to come, the more easily you're going to be able to meditate on the mysteries and how glorifying to God to be able to do it as a family. Have you ever utilized, I know there's like rosary coloring pages or they have rosary poppets or rosary books. Do you use any of those things with your kids? Um, not too much. The only book that we've used is the holy heroes, rosary books. So on each page, it's one of the prayers, but it goes through the mysteries. So it'll give like a picture and then it'll have like just one sentence where it's, I don't even know, something like Jesus is baptized in the Jordan or something like that. So now that our eight year old can read, like she'll sometimes go through and each page she'll kind of read us the story of the rosary and then we'll all say the prayers together. So it keeps them a little bit more engaged because it's more like a story. But as far as like other things like that, we don't usually do them to too much. Yeah, I just have found sometimes with my own kids that novelty of something new or praying in a different area. Sometimes they like to trade between where we do family prayer whose bedroom it's in can hold their interest just a few minutes longer. And that can be helpful. But regardless. I love this prayer tip because your kids are learning the mysteries of the rosary. They're learning all their prayers. So even your toddlers, your little, little ones, they're going to know those by heart without you ever actually having to teach them. Granted, sometimes they fill in their own words. They don't quite understand the words, but they will get there. And I think it's such a beautiful prayer practice. Yeah, and I would agree as well, um, we go outside a lot in the summer for it, like the kids will be swinging and we'll say it while they're swinging. So again, it's not this like perfect idea that I have of us all kneeling down in front of like our little home altar, but it's getting their wiggles out. It's still letting them listen and we're still getting it in. And then as far as, um, like that's better than nothing, better than not doing it at all. And then with the memorization and like the understanding what's happening, it is true because. We actually say some of it in Latin as well. Some days and our, when she was sick, yeah, all of a sudden just started saying the Hail Mary in Latin. And it's like, oh, how did you learn that? Well, I guess I'm just hearing it over and over and over again. So that's kind of cool, too. That's amazing. Normalizing family prayer that is chaos. I know Jessica Castillo, who was a guest on here quite a while back, she would talk about how her kids would start using rosary whips. They'd be snapping each other with their rosaries. Yep. If this is your family, just recognize this is perfectly normal. This is kid behavior. Sure. They are getting so much out of it. So if you've tried it and you quit because it was hard, maybe this is your sign to try it again. Bridget, thank you so much for being here. This has been such a joy and a blessing. I will post all of your links in the show notes. And to everyone listening, I pray that you have a wonderful day. And be sure to reach out to Bridget with all of your fertility and pregnancy questions. Thank you so much. Beautiful souls, thank you again for journeying with me. If you have been blessed by this episode, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review. Be sure to screenshot it, share it on your social media stories, and don't forget to tag me on Instagram or Facebook at Kylie M. Hein. Stay persistent in prayer, protect your peace, and as always, share the light of Christ with everyone around you.