Obstacles to Opportunities
When faced with life's obstacles, let's channel that negative energy into positivity and forge opportunities. Throughout the nation, business owners will share their experiences of triumphing over daunting challenges in their careers and lives, illustrating how they've harnessed these experiences for growth opportunities.
Obstacles to Opportunities
Vicki Hemmett's ChiroQueen: Navigating Life's Challenges and Triumphs
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In this episode, we sit down with Vicki Hemmett, the multifaceted owner of ChiroQueen, accomplished author, women's health advocate, devoted runner, mother, wife, chiropractor, and entrepreneur. Vicki walks us through her profound passion for the often-overlooked 4th Trimester in women's health and the impactful role she plays in filling a crucial void in women's healthcare.
As a young entrepreneur, Vicki opens up about the challenges she has encountered on her journey and shares valuable insights into overcoming obstacles in the business world. Beyond her professional pursuits, Vicki delves into her personal strategies for managing stress, highlighting the therapeutic significance of her morning routine.
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Vicki Hemmett as she reflects on her diverse roles and imparts wisdom on prioritizing self-care, navigating entrepreneurship, and advocating for women's well-being during the transformative 4th Trimester and beyond.
Welcome to the Obscles Opportunities podcast. I'm Jess Powell, your host, and I'm Heather Kane, your co-host, and today I am so thrilled to have my friend, vicki Hemet, in the house. Hello, and I'm going to do a little introduction. Ok, sounds good. I'm going to take some things I know about you and some new things that I've learned to do an introduction Perfect, ok. Vicki is an author soon to be second book. She is a women's health advocate. I would say she cares deeply about women's health and, specifically, things that maybe aren't always talked about. She is also a big runner. She has ran around the earth twice. Basically, that's incredible. If she added up all her miles, she has ran around the earth twice. Crazy, ok. She is a mother, she is a wife, she is an entrepreneur and a professor, a teacher. So I am just thrilled to have you here. Just, I think we can learn something from you. You're so kind.
Speaker 2I learned a lot of great things. There are so many little nuggets out of there that I'm like, oh, we need to pull all of those out and to have a little teaser about what we're going to talk about today. I love it.
Speaker 3There's so many roles that women in general take on, I think to be excited about each one and to have some that's family-oriented and some that's independent and some that's just for you. It's very exciting. So thank you for that kind introduction.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh, I love the name of your business. It's Cairo Queen, cairo Queen. How did that come?
Speaker 3about, oh my gosh. So I don't see myself as the Cairo Queen, but I see myself more as giving women the power to feel like a queen, right To feel through not necessarily chiropractic care in itself but pelvic floor awareness, and to feel empowered and to feel on top of things and to feel that they are on point and that they are a queen in their own right, whatever that means to them. So, as a chiropractor, I just thought it was catchy too.
Speaker 2I love that you created a niche, though, within the chiropractic community, right, very much so. So you have a lane that you've owned, to the point that you've written books about it, and I sneaked on your social media, okay, and you had some great stuff that you were just sharing. Oh, thank you, oops.
Speaker 3Yes, well, I can definitely go there now, if you want.
Speaker 1So let's back up. So we met gosh. We met at a shop, a social event I love plugging that. So we love Christine, we love supporting her, and so we met there and immediately we started talking about passions. And Vicki, Her energy was just so positive and passionate about what she does and it's about pelvic floor health and I had heard like a little tiny sliver about what pelvic floor health is. I saw, maybe I think of people doing like kegels.
Speaker 2I think of people you know, like, like, because I thought you pronounced it. I thought it was different Kegel, kegels. I got a potato potato. I was like I don't know it was kegels and maybe I've been saying it wrong. I have a kegel, kegel, kegels.
Speaker 3I'm Canadian, I know how it hurts for me.
Speaker 1Are we really talking about kegels right now? Apparently, I don't do them, so I don't know how to pronounce them. I don't know.
Speaker 3Well, and the secret of that, kegel, is that you can be doing them and no one knows that you're doing them.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's true, I know I've heard of people doing timers, of all this stuff, but I think, like what really hit me, like even like, because we can laugh about all the things that it's like it's embarrassing to talk about. Even women aren't typically. I mean, we may talk about some of them like in tight circles, but some of the things that we talked about or issues are things that I didn't even know could be solved, or things that could be solved. And then even postpartum you've talked to me about the fact that there's just no continuation of pelvic floor health after we have kids. Think about all the havoc that's wreaked in our body. So some of the things you've told me, all these dots are connecting and I'm like you are really filling a void in our medical space that like, oh, that's missing.
Speaker 3I agree, I stumbled upon it myself and I guess I'll go on and go into my story. It's great. It's great it's that I went to chiropractic school in Chicago. I'm Canadian and my dad is a dentist, my mom's a nurse. I always wanted to get into healthcare. Never been adjusted. I thought chiropractors were quacks because my parents were quacks and so it was never really an option. And I heard a chiropractor speak when I was in my third year of university and I thought, gosh, that sounds like exactly what I wanted to do. So I went to chiropractic school in Chicago and subsequently met my husband and married him there and he was from Vermont and I was like all right, let's go to Vermont. And we purchased a really very busy existing orthopedic practice. It was run by a very savvy gentleman, awesome adjuster, but he saw like 80 or 90 patients a day and it was like boom, boom, boom, boom and I mean it gave me great adjusting skill practice, but it just what doesn't? It didn't like motivate me. Ill your soul.
Speaker 3I didn't feel my soul. I just I knew as a woman I was like gosh. Pregnancy pain, low back pain, happens to at least 50%. Every other woman who is pregnant has a low back pain issue and you don't want to take anything, you don't want to take any medicine, you don't really know what to do. And so we were just kind of told to live with it and I thought, gosh, this is our bread and butter, we can be helping. So I went and collaborate, tried to collaborate, with a lot of OBGYN practices, thinking that, oh gosh, I know exactly what I'm doing, I can solve all your problems. And I wrote probably 30 letters to OBGYNs in Vermont and one practice was awesome. They got back to me and said I would love to just kind of sit down and talk. And at this point I was probably six months into my career, very, very young, very, very green, thinking I knew everything right. I was very nervous to go and speak to these seasoned medical doctors carried an overhead projector with you.
Speaker 2That ages me big time but oh my gosh, I remember those though I can't tell, I think I might have carried a few in my days, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3It was well before like any like high tech digital process that we have now. Oh my goodness. But my goodness, it was like I was schlepping this thing. I remember I was going up the stairs and I had, like I went to the ever steeples or something and had like the anatomy slides that were Xerox on to like the transparency yeah I remember those, yeah, and I remember flipping like a picture of the piriformis muscle, which is like the driver or most low back pain in pregnant women, and it crosses the SI joint in the hip.
Speaker 3And I started talking about it and the MDs were kind of thinking like where just orient me, Like what am I looking at? And I was like wait a minute, Wait, we're starting from square one. And that was like a 100%. My aha moment is like oh, I know way more than they do in this space, right, and I can help them so much. And it's to this day. I mean, we still have a collaborative relationship with them almost 20 years later, and they're just these wonderful providers and they see the value of that collaborative model of care where I lean on them for certain things and they lean on me for certain things in our practice to help patients feel their best right. And so we developed a relationship for about five years and then they invited us to move our practice which was a big deal, you know, as a 20-year mature practice at that point moving it to a space, which we did.
Speaker 3And that's when they said they should have an in-house pelvic floor provider and I tried to find a physical therapist and it didn't really work. And I said like gosh, this seems musculoskeletal, seems like it's in my wheelhouse, Let me just go to a seminar. And so, sure enough, I went to the seminar. It's probably the first chiropractor ever to do that, because it's very much a physical therapy-driven field, which is great. But as soon as I did my first internal exam, I was like the heavens opened. I was like, wait, I can feel all these muscles. I know exactly what's going on. I understood the biomechanics of it and it was then that I kind of started to learn more about it, research about it. And then, yes, I found that gap. I was like, well, wait, a minute, you know, standard of care at that point was doing just this external probe that would kind of be inserted intravaginally and then it would measure how you're doing the kegel. And I was like, well, what muscles are activating? Is it the right or is it the left? Is there any scar tissues? Is it the high tone, Is it low tone? And none of that stuff was coming back to me as a clinician and so I just kind of started doing my own thing. So I developed my own technique. I did everything manually, because that was just where my experience came in and I could feel things better just with my palpation skills, and I realized that no one really talks about it, and the OBGYNs too, to their credit. I mean, they don't have much schooling in the musculoskeletal realm and so, again, that's where my professorship kind of comes in. Is that I was able to? I would lecture with Dr Jenny Lowell to the OBGYN residents and teach them how to palpate the pelvic floor, and just to teach them the anatomical structures that could be driving some other diagnoses. So that was super fun for me and it really cranked up my interest in pelvic floor.
Speaker 3But in speaking to patients, it is just so interesting that when you're pregnant, especially with your first one, it's like everything is about the baby and about the mom and you go in and everybody. I remember being pregnant myself I had three kids and people would open doors for you and be so happy and then all of a sudden you have the baby and everything in the focus, understandably, is now on the child. But it's like you're left in limbo in this fourth trimester and you're physically the weakest that you've ever been. Your pelvic floor has been through a lot, whether regardless of the delivery style. Like I said, you can read 5,000 books about how to become a mom and you really don't really know how to be a mom. And then, just physically, there's so many demands with like bending and lifting and poor posture and nursing and waking up seven times a day. Absolutely, You're tired.
Speaker 1You're stressed. You have a new body. The body's new. You're looking down. You're like whose body is this? This is not my body, that's fine. That's fine forever. That's a thing, yeah.
Speaker 3And in doing some other research, one of the muscles of the pelvic floor it's called the Pua vaginalis and it kind of slings around the vagina but they have been shown that circumferentially it stretches 250% times its naturally resting state. So that sucker has to really stretch and 30% of the time it partially evalses or fully evalses, which may kind of pulls away from its attachment site on the pubic bone and it's like that does not go diagnosed, that does not get any credence. There's no kind of appointment that really specifically speaks to that and women just kind of like put themselves I don't know about you, but like I remember running on adrenaline for like the first time, yeah, you're on the back burner, you're 100% on the back burner, unless, I mean, our podcast title is obstacles to opportunities, right?
Speaker 2So that's a huge obstacle that every woman goes through that has a child, right? So you've taken that as an opportunity to educate women that there's a solution. There is a solution and you're not alone.
Speaker 3There's a huge isolating factor for pelvic floor dysfunction, and it's not an old lady disease, like a lot of people think that oh, I'm in my 70s and 80s and I'm in my 80s.
Speaker 3They're not the old ladies. They're the first, then I'll deal with that. But like these women are in their 20s and 30s and 40s and like beautiful, vibrant women on the outside and then on the inside they're just like dying. You know, they're just, they're changing their social strategies because it's like, oh, I wanna go to the beach but there's no restroom there, and what am I gonna do? And oh, I wanna be intimate with my husband and there's pain and everything's different. I don't wanna do that.
Women's Pelvic Floor Health and Treatment
Speaker 3And then that goes down another path. Or, you know, and I'm talking about women who have had babies, and that's the number one risk factor. But you can also, you know, I have lots of patients who come to me who have pelvic floor dysfunction, who have never been pregnant or never had a child, and let's say they're high athletes or ballerinas or have had trauma, or all of these things contribute to pelvic floor dysfunction. So, you know, I really want to, you know, be the megaphone for women and say that you are 100% not alone. 50% of women over the age of 50 have had their pregnant 그러�. And I just want to say remember that incontinence to some description, and incontinence is the number one risk factor for getting into a nursing home. So, in the absence of any other symptoms, if you're incontinent you have twice as much. I know I just this research was just definitely don't want to change my husband's diaper or have him change mine.
Speaker 2Oh, no.
Speaker 1So what do we do, Vicky? What do we?
Speaker 3do. Let's just talk about the opportunity. So I, you know, again, up north, in our practice it is standard of care to have patients come in at six weeks, whether or not you postnatally, whether or not you have any dysfunction, and just get like a musculoskeletal assessment of pelvic floor, like, do you know how to do a kegel? Did you know that there's three different types of kegels? Did you know that back pain could resemble, you know, pelvic floor dysfunction? And teaching them how to engage their core in the correct way, teaching them ergonomics to how to carry their babies in the proper way.
Speaker 3And you know, I would say maybe 30% of the time we dismiss our patients right at that appointment because they're solid, they're golden, everybody's healthy and they're doing well. 60% of the time you know there's an issue. There may be high tone, there may be some, you know, dysfunction or spasms in the pelvic floor, there may be weakness in the pelvic floor. So we work with them and from a prevention standpoint, from a collaboration standpoint, you know we loop in the OBGYNs that are referring and we wanna make sure that they actually see them first postnatally, to make sure that we get the green light to go ahead with this rehab track. But you know, I say all this but it's also never too late, right? So I have patients in my 70s who come to me and are able to, you know, reactivate their pelvic floor. I have women who are in their 50s, perimenopause.
Speaker 3That's another thing you know, when you decrease estrogen, you decrease the amount of collagen that you elasticity everywhere globally in your body, and that's the suspension system for the pelvic floor organs. So there's more prolapse, there's more dysfunction there, but it doesn't necessarily have to go to the spectrum of surgery immediately right, there's an intervention that's more conservative, that's. You know, some women choose to do this right.
Speaker 2So as long as everyone's getting their pelvic floors looked at, whether or not you, you know, go to the comfort that uncomfortable conversation to those that are watching are listening, that's right, but you know it's why. Why is that uncomfortable? Why is that not talked about? You know, a lot of people that are listening right now are entrepreneurs, right, that are leaders within their niche, right. So let's talk about you. Know, you're now. You know two books, you own a practice. You I mean you're a Canadian. You relocated your entire family in COVID to Southwest Florida. I mean, let's talk about that for a minute, right?
Speaker 1So you've accomplished so much, but it sounds to me like maybe you breeze through it.
Speaker 2all you know like, like it's just Like you may look at the surface Right, and most people didn't be like oh, she's, what is. What is the constant thing that I get all the time oh, must be nice. Oh, it doesn't that drive you nuts when someone tells that to you. Oh, you've had so much success, it must be nice. And you're like, excuse me, like, do you know what has happened in my life? For sure.
Speaker 3Yes, I mean in hindsight, looking back at my life, I am so grateful but it is not without effort, like considerable effort and considerable risk. You know, I think, being an entrepreneur, we still own. You know our practice up north at 100%. I say we, my husband and I, are 50, 50 and everything, but there's still challenges every single day. We still manage people, we still have hiring and firing issues. We still have that. But like way back when we first bought the business and I think I mentioned this story, you know we were green, newly married, new business owners, had a ton of professional debt between the two of us and purchased this existing practice which was probably double of what our student debt was.
Speaker 1And that alone when you told me that, that alone, I think, would make some people's palms sweat.
Speaker 2Well, most people wouldn't take the risk, right. But without big risk there's no reward.
Speaker 3No, reward and from a business perspective, our biggest asset was my 1991 Tudor Honda Accord. That was probably about $3,000. Right At that point, and the only thing that we owned between us and we got about 10 nos from local banks and we had one bank that took a big risk on us and it was a country bumpkin Vermont small bank. All of the big ones did not want to take a risk on us and we borrowed money from my mother a lot to put a down payment down on that and we paid her back immediately. But this bank, we continued to banking with them to this day, 20 years later. Of course All of the big businesses wanted to. You know, when we were making a lot more money, then they're coming back, then they're back to us. But we felt solid. No, thank you. And it was not easy because this bank is actually like an hour and a half or two hours away across the state. But we stayed true to them and we still banked with them. In fact I'm banked with them now in Southwest Florida Because they took the chance on for real.
Speaker 3And that's part of my value system is that you have to just be loyal, yeah, loyal, yeah. I think that's fine. Loyalty goes a long way and that's a big core value for me personally and for my family. I love language and yeah, there we go. I love it, but that's just part of the story. So just to reflect back to that's a considerable amount of debt. I mean, it's just paper money. At that point it didn't even feel like a real number because it was so big, to be honest with you, and we just kind of really were working really hard and it was a new life, a new marriage, a new body, a new everything and stress was mounting and you just kind of got into this rhythm of doing, doing, doing and not taking breaks and didn't really realize how much I was running around the world While I was running around the world. So running to me every morning is my me time. What time do you get up? 5 or earlier, actually.
Speaker 1And how long does it take you to run six miles every day?
Speaker 3Well, it ranges, but now I'm feeling really fast, I have to say. I run in about 36 minutes.
Speaker 2So yeah, so that is about a 6 and 1 half no, but 7 minutes, 47, 45. That is amazing. Well, thank you.
Speaker 3It's my stress therapy. It's my therapy. Thank you, jess, it's absolutely. It takes all my boxes right. It's physical, it's mental, it's emotional, it's spiritual. I'm on the treadmill because I'm such a type A person that I want to know exactly how far I'm going.
Speaker 2So you don't do it outside, you do not do it outside, you do it. Do you do it in your home, I do it in my home.
Speaker 3OK, and for the first 10 or 15 minutes I actually just it's silent. I don't listen to anything, I don't watch anything and I have this conversation in my head about I pray for people who are sick, I pray for myself, I have my manifestation time, I think about my family near and far, and I say names of people who I want to like restrain from that.
Speaker 2Out loud. No, I don't. I say I started doing it out loud, OK, and especially when I pray for myself and healing and stuff like that, and I've noticed a huge difference. So in the morning it may sound crazy, because I also get up at 5 and I do that in the morning, and I started doing all of my prayers out loud and it changes Big time when you, because when you stay it in your head it's almost like yes, but when you speak it over yourself and others, I don't know, I change that out. I think you changed that?
Speaker 3Yeah, I am going to try that. Thank you for that, tibet. Yes, I mean it's just with all of the roles that you mentioned that I play. Putting myself in that lineup never really was part of that process, I would say, and so we talked about this a little bit initially is about stress, and so I got to a point where I was super high stress and in this space where I didn't really have an outlet and, yes, I was running but I didn't have any other outlet and I ended up having stress induced salopecia, which is I lost all of my hair, like I was completely bald, and it was before I had kids. I was in my 20s and it was devastating and it was also when you think about rock bottom. That was when you really have to look at yourself.
Speaker 3Yeah very clearly, and I leaned on my husband a lot and he didn't really know what to do either. He was like you look beautiful. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2You're beautiful and I'll tell you guys now she's a beautiful head of hair.
Speaker 3Yes, and so it was transient, but it was something. And so, for a message, I don't share that story. I probably only shared it with maybe 20 people on this planet. But not anymore. Not anymore, and that's OK. But the message there for me would be don't let stress get to the point where you don't have an outlet right, because it will manifest physically in you and it may show up as cancer, it may show up as pain, it may show up as Depression and for me it showed up as alopecia, so Unnecessarily right. So when, while you do have these big goals and while you do have all of these big stressors, like you also just take time to not sweat the smell stuff right. So like I wrote this down because I get so irritated when people in my family like I'm appreciative that they load the dishwasher, but it's like not my way and I get so irritated.
Speaker 2I know the laundry. Don't fold a laundry.
Speaker 1And I think that's a little too late with some of the OCD. So I'm on the other end, I I'm just like what, I'm the one loading it the wrong way. I do fold the laundry and there's no issue. But but my husband last night was putting dish. I heard him come in and I had cleaned the kitchen and everything. And you know, because he does have OCD, so I have to be cognizant of that. When he comes home I try to keep everything picked up. Well, he was. I heard of open the dishwasher and I just hear this and I looked over, I go, I go, are you okay? And he's like here, pots and pans banging, and I said I'm interviewing a friend tomorrow and she wrote is this so like evil me? I said. She wrote don't sweat the small stuff, like rearranging the dishwasher. I was like I just thought I would throw that out. You know, you know we could learn from her right.
Speaker 3Well, I mean, I Am still learning, because I still, like, kick up a fuss when it happens and I have to stop myself consciously. Yeah, because in the moment I'm like gosh, I said this literally a thousand times. Yeah, it's just, it's not that it's not important to them, it's just not even in the radar, and I just have to appreciate that they have different gifts. And I was not yeah, I could, yeah correct. So you know, in the grand scheme of things, and all these like big goals that you have for your business and your family, and you know, personally, physically, like just don't sweat the small stuff, because everybody has an issue too, you know, did you know that they had.
Speaker 2Don't watch this.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think I'm gonna send him the episode immediately, just so you know. Just keep talking.
Speaker 3Well, I yes, well, and I think it would be buddy if my family was sitting here. Yeah, they're like Mom's, not like that.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, yeah, accountability.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly exactly. But I'm learning, you know, I it's such a gift to be a mom, I would say, because I have three kids and they're very different Personalities. My oldest is just like happy, go lucky, and she's always been that way, super mature, and I say I learned so much From her. In my middle one is exactly like me, you know. So she and I are on the same page, but then sometimes that's not a great thing. You know, we bought, yeah, I wonder how to OCD people.
Speaker 1I don't say that lightly, I do know it's like a serious medical diagnosis, but which I think my husband could be officially diagnosed for, by the way. Yes, but but to have two people that are somewhat type a In in a house together? Do you both have ways that you think you should do things because they're quote-unquote right and you butt heads, or do you have to like agree, hmm?
Speaker 3Well, I would say my husband has a very strong personality. He's probably more of a type a than I would. I am, yeah. I mean I say I'm a type a but I'm kind of more of a relaxed one. I would say. But yes, it's a relaxed type a. Yeah, I love the house. I love it. Yes, I would say it gets spicy in our house. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2You know it's funny, I in business I am very type a get it done, take charge. You know, I have a goal, I run towards it and then at home I kind of just let him lead. I love that and not this. And you know it's funny because my mom, I remember when I met my husband, he did the first thing she says she was wow, you actually let him Lead, which I didn't realize. That sometimes you know, you can be something in business, but at home, absolutely you can surrender and let let him lead, yeah. So yeah, yeah, I don't know it's. I think you can pay different roles too. Oh for sure.
Speaker 3I mean, balance in life is everything, yeah, right. So I think that that illustrates that beautifully. Yeah, but we should all strive to do yeah, let things go and be a little more playful and fun, and you can have the best of both worlds. I think for that perspective, yeah, surrender, surrender, that's a good word too.
Speaker 2But my favorite thing in our house is I, my pastor, said something to me one time and it changed our marriage you guys listening right now. So he said the first person to say I'm sorry wins. So I am like and you have to be heartfelt Sorry, right? Not just, not just a win, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know it has to be like. I heard you. I I probably shouldn't have said that that way and you know what? I'm really sorry. I'm gonna try really hard not to do that again. Inside I'm like, yeah, but like my personality is like he's like you have to think of it that way. I don't know why. I just thought, yeah, that is so anytime you have to say you're sorry, when you really don't think you should say your story. But you know it really doesn't matter and they've grand scheme of things that sometimes you should just reverse it in your mind and think by saying it you're actually winning the battle.
Speaker 1And don't say but after I'm sorry, yeah, no.
Speaker 3Don't say yes. That is the worst. I'm sorry, but yes, but, but, yeah, but no that does not count.
Revolutionizing Women's Health Care
Speaker 1No, that does not. It does not For all you men listening out there. If you got through all the pelvic floor stuff, we're just giving you really good little nuggets for marriage.
Speaker 2Don't say but after I'm sorry.
Speaker 3Oh true, but here I mean I am going to learn for that, because that was like didn't I feel like a good story, like a very good apology. So yeah, that was really great.
Speaker 2I hope my husband doesn't listen to this. I'm caught.
Speaker 1Right Busted. Well, we springed it all the pelvic floor stuff. Yeah, probably to now. That's right, right, well, I just I just wanted to say, and I know that we're kind of running up against our time, but I, you know, I think a couple things that stick out. For me is I love how you're you. You saw that obstacle which was, you know, this missing kind of link in the medical field and I resonate with that, like I resonate as a mom and I'm like the fourth trimester, like that had, just like is a mate. I mean we need more support for that area. I'm so sensitive when someone has a baby, even just to check in with him, because I understand the psychology of it. So I love that you're helping physically. So if anybody is in that space, please reach out to someone like a Vicky yes, that DM her, you know, follow her on.
Speaker 2Instagram location here in Meeple's. Where are you located?
Speaker 3We're in the Marines professional building on Tammy Emmy Okay, so right across the street from kind of a little bit north from the coastline mall, okay. And so I've been there for about a year and a half and, unlike the busy, busy practice up north, this is just me. So I answer the phones, I answer texts. I can, she does, I have fled, I did my good, but it's intentional, right, I'm intentionally kind of slowing, slowing my pace down.
Speaker 3Good for you and you know to your point, jess, like well, how can I have a bigger impact than just me doing it? Because I can teach people how to do what I do. But my goal, you know, my next kind of thing is you know that my next book is kind of an introduction to this but taking this professorship that I'm doing already, that is, for medical doctors, and bringing it to the masses, so bringing it to chiropractors, bringing it to physical therapists, bringing it to primary care providers, anyone who will interface with these women to kind of identify and make a good diagnosis that this could be a problem and you should seek it out sooner than later. You know, and on really big, major scale, in France there's 10 or 20, I think, pelvic floor visits postnatally. That is inclusive of the whole maternal care.
Speaker 2So you get prenatal care, you have the baby and then bam, automatically you have these there's going to revolutionize the medical industry, can I tell you, yeah, yeah, that's my mission statement. Yes, that's far too.
Speaker 1We're revolutionizing real estate. My is I, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2So yes, I trademark it just so you know, because everyone tries to copy you. So trade we, trademarked revolutionizing real estate by design because everyone started using it. So we trademark that, oh I love it. So trademark it now before anyone. So what would the trademark be Revolutionizing?
Speaker 3So I said a bold and fearless approach to revolutionizing women's health care. Oh, I do love that.
Speaker 2So that was my. But should it be something that talks about the pelvic floor, revolutionizing your pelvic floor, revolutionizing your pelvic floor?
Speaker 1I feel like it's so that it's bigger than it is. That's I mean, I don't want to say singular piece of it, but it's like there's so much it's a component of it. It's a component, correct? You keep saying like the fourth trimester. I'm like, yeah, we do have a fourth trimester and it's it's. It might be harder than I didn't really make it to the fourth trimester.
Speaker 2I had my babies early. No, no, no like, like, oh yeah, the one, that are the after the baby. That's what you call yeah, yeah, yeah, the first.
Speaker 1Oh, that was a good one. We got Heather. We got Heather on board. Yeah, I totally did not Connect that. Oh God, jeff, oh, put the four like yeah there's tongue.
Speaker 2Well, the fourth. I'm like, I'm sorry, heather's fourth trimesters in the yeah. Yeah, I give you two.
Speaker 1You're like, I didn't hold my baby for a year like you did, jess. I just I did it.
Speaker 2He was nine months, no, I know I actually took some time off of real estate when my babies, yeah, born to take care of them, but it's a whole thing. I mean I had no it's, I didn't know it, but I had. I definitely had postpartum depression with my first. For sure I didn't know it at the time, but I definitely had it.
Speaker 3Well, I think too, like as much as we want to, you know, jump into motherhood like I remember having visions of like playing my piano with like a white gauze dress and like wind blowing in my hair to let me borrow baby.
Speaker 1I'm going to crack, I'm going to do crock pot dinners, yeah, no.
Speaker 2Just crock feet long. Instead I was like, yeah, I won't go there. I can't see what I would just did.
Speaker 3But yeah, what I say is that there is fluid coming out of every single place on my body without me wanting it to come out, and it was, you know. And the expectation to like love your child immediately is there and like I didn't really love I mean. This is hard to say and I know many women feel this way because I've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of new moms. It's like that bond sometimes takes a little while, especially if you had a difficult delivery, if you had a difficult labor, if you had a difficult pregnancy, and it takes a while to like learn who this person is, because it's your baby, but it's also it's like this new life and you have to adjust and to transition from like I'm not Vicki anymore, I'm Sienna's mom. Yeah, yeah, and that change in identity is also part of that really challenging time in that you know period where you are first after having your baby in that time Time after. So it is inclusive of all of those things.
Speaker 1It is, yeah, it is, and so I love that you're an advocate for women at space. I love it. I seriously I feel very passionate about that. It's like if you've had, if you've really struggled. You just remember the one girl that showed up to church the next day after having a baby in high heels I was not like that.
Speaker 2No, I have one story I'll share with you guys. That was really, and then we'll sign out. But I was struggling so much after having my first daughter, mikaela, and my husband was like, just go to the grocery store by yourself. And I was like, okay, yeah, awesome. So I'm in the grocery store and I'm like so happy I can get a Starbucks and a coffee and I've got my cart full and a baby cries oh, no, okay, and I know it's gonna happen If you don't know what happens after a baby cries.
Speaker 2Note to self, I had milk in my shoes. I literally just covered myself in milk. I was what did you do? I literally I cried and I left your whole day. I had to. I was covered in milk. I mean, my whole shirt was soaked. I had.
Empowering Women Postnatally
Speaker 2I was like my shoes were squishing, I was like being droplets of milk and I was bleeding. I was like gold man, so I know. So I got in the car and I remember climbing. I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that. I didn't even go to the grocery store to go in, but the breast pads in my bra and it still happened. I was a sorry man for those that are watching. But that's the struggle that we have, that you do Nobody, no, you don't. No one tells you that no Before, and so that was my-. Would anyone have babies? I'm not sure, no, but that's where I remember, like my most humbling, like moment, and I'm crying that nobody, like I know, is there, because I'm literally yeah, it was so bad, I mean it's yeah, it's such a primal thing and you know everyone wants to be glamorous and that kind of thing, but it is.
Speaker 3I mean it's humbling. Yeah, it is, that's a good word for it. It is humbling, and to lean into it and some cultures just a quick, you know, start like some Asian cultures. It's like you literally like lie in for weeks on end and your mother-in-law and your family brings you like nourishing food and acupuncture and all of these things. It's like and it's just, yes, we are not quite there yet as a culture, and so this is part of my mission and just to think about it but just start by thinking about it and empowering women to make a bet, you know, to honor themselves postnatally.
Speaker 1Well, I, hope that, if this resonated with someone that's listening, that they will. You know, seek resources, find help If you're in that period of time where you feel like the obstacles are just crashing upon you and you can't seem to like see your way out. I hope that you'll reach out to a support system or resource for this and, vicki, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2Thank you so much for coming. Thank you, I appreciate it. I'm serious. Thank you for having me.
