Episode 19: Infertility, Pregnancy Loss and Adoption: A Candid Discussion with Brittany Pope
Finding Strength in Personal Journeys and Professional Life
Welcome back, lovely listeners! It’s Ashley here, and I’m thrilled to dive deeper into the rich and inspiring conversation we had with Britney Pope and Ariana Smith on Episode 19 of Raised to Empower. During this episode, we explored a range of topics, from the trials and triumphs of IVF and adoption to navigating the nuances of maternity leave while managing a private practice. Let’s unpack some of these insightful discussions.
The Path to Parenthood: Britney's Journey Through IVF and Adoption
Britney Pope’s journey to motherhood is nothing short of remarkable. Britney and her husband faced numerous fertility hurdles, including ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, before turning to IVF and eventually, adoption. Through it all, Britney exemplified resilience, balancing her personal struggles with her professional commitments.
Britney's story is a testament to the fact that the road to parenthood can take many unexpected turns, and it’s okay to embrace change. After having gone through unsuccessful IVF attempts, Britney and her husband moved forward with adoption while also continuing fertility treatments. Little did they know, their path would cross with Noah Ermias, a baby already born and waiting for a loving family. Their plans shifted, and soon after, they welcomed Noah with open arms. This part of Britney's story beautifully illustrates the importance of flexibility and openness in the face of life’s uncertainties.
Navigating Maternity Leave as a Private Practitioner
Maternity leave is a crucial time for any new parent, and for therapists in private practice, it comes with unique challenges. Britney shared her experiences of navigating maternity leave with both her sons while managing her private practice. Given her husband's rotating work schedule in Alaska, Britney found ways to adjust her work to fit around her growing family’s needs without daycare.
A key takeaway from Britney's experience is the significance of planning. Informing clients about anticipated time off, whether for maternity leave or adoption-related absences, is essential. Providing them with options for continuity of care, whether through referrals or temporary telehealth arrangements, goes a long way in maintaining trust and professionalism.
Another vital point is setting boundaries. Britney emphasized the importance of informing clients of her personal changes early on and encouraging those who may not be comfortable to seek alternative therapists. This practice not only fosters transparency but also ensures that you work with clients who understand and respect the transitions in your life.
The Power of Communication and Support Networks
Britney’s story also highlights the invaluable support of a solid network. From flexible leave policies to having friends and community members to lean on, these support systems played a crucial role during her maternity leave and beyond. This reinforces the importance of building and maintaining a supportive community for all parents, especially those navigating the complex world of private practice.
During the episode, we also touched on handling client dissatisfaction—a reality many therapists face. Britney shared a powerful perspective: she doesn’t want to work with clients who can’t empathize with her life changes. This sentiment reminds us all of the importance of self-compassion and prioritizing our well-being.
Personal Reflections and Professional Insights
Both Britney and Ariana reflected on the emotional toll of dealing with infertility, loss, and the rollercoaster of adoption processes. These personal experiences significantly influence their professional lives, particularly in their specialized work with perinatal mental health. Britney’s research on perinatal grief, focusing on male partners, not only contributed to her healing journey but also provided vital insights into an often-overlooked aspect of parenthood.
Ariana and Britney also urged all therapists to celebrate pregnancy and professional milestones in a manner that feels right to them. The societal taboo around announcing pregnancies early can put undue pressure on expecting parents; however, celebrating these milestones—regardless of past experiences—can be a source of joy and healing.
Embracing Professional Growth and Boundaries
As we wrapped up the conversation, the importance of setting professional boundaries and engaging in self-care emerged as a pivotal theme. Britney and Ariana emphasized that self-care isn't just a buzzword; it's a necessity, especially in the therapeutic profession. Their story underscores the importance of modeling self-care for clients and challenging the ingrained culture of neglecting personal well-being.
Finally, the episode reassures us that the professional transition—whether it's taking maternity leave or adjusting work commitments due to personal reasons—should be met with understanding and flexibility. Clients can and will adapt when given proper communication and support options.
Conclusion
I hope this deeper dive into Britney Pope's journey and the broader themes from our latest episode inspires and empowers you. Parenthood, whether through biological means, IVF, or adoption, is a transformative journey that beautifully intersects with our professional lives as therapists. Remember, every path to parenthood is unique, and the key lies in embracing flexibility, building support networks, and prioritizing self-care.
Stay tuned for more enriching stories and insights in our upcoming episodes. Don't forget to register for our free workshop, "Preparing for Maternity Leave and Private Practice," happening on July 12th, by visiting raisedtoempower.com/maternityleave. Until next time, stay empowered!
Warmly,
Ashley Comegys
Transcript for Episode 19
[00:00:00] Ashley Comegys: Hey listeners, this episode discusses miscarriage, fertility treatments, and adoption. Please take care when listening. You are listening to the Raised to Empower podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Comegys, a licensed clinical social worker with a multi-state online therapy practice. I have a passion for empowering women and mom therapists to break free of the fear, overwhelm, and oppressive systems that hold them back from taking action and building the private practice of their dreams.
[00:00:31] My goal is for you to boldly believe in yourself as a clinician and business owner. If you're looking for a place to learn, practice, building, strategy and skill, while also claiming your own power as a woman and a therapist, then you are in the right place. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:50] Hey, listeners, welcome to this episode of The Raised Empower Podcast. Today kicks off a special four-part series that I'm doing this week about [00:01:00] preparing for maternity leave in private practice. Now while everyone's journey in pregnancy is so different, the reality is that everyone's journey to motherhood and parenthood is completely different as well.
[00:01:11] This week I'm going to be releasing four new episodes Monday through Thursday, and in each episode
[00:01:16] I'm gonna be talking with a different woman
[00:01:18] about their experience and journey to motherhood and navigating private practice. Some episodes will discuss pregnancy loss, fertility struggles, adoption, and single motherhood by choice.
[00:01:30] So if you subscribe to the show already, you'll get a new episode in your feed each day this week. You can choose which episodes you wanna listen to and which ones you wanna skip. And also if you are preparing to welcome a child you're currently pregnant, or in the adoption process or whatever phase you're in, as you're journeying towards motherhood and are wondering how do I take maternity leave in private practice?
[00:01:53] What do I do to prepare for and all of the other important details I'm hosting. A free workshop on [00:02:00] July 12th called Preparing for Maternity Leave and Private Practice where we'll be going through all the details to prepare for maternity leave, including talking with your clients about leave, setting yourself up financially for taking time off and all the other details.
[00:02:14] You can register for this free workshop@raisetoempower.com slash maternity leave, and you can check the show notes on this episode for the link. Now in today's episode, I chat with my guest, Brittany Pope, about her experiences with infertility, pregnancy loss, and adoption, and how those experiences shaped and impacted her maternity leave.
[00:02:36] Here's my interview with her. I'm excited to introduce my guest today, Brittany Pope, an LPC, who is a mom of two nature lover, social human, and she is almost done tomorrow officially with her CD in psychology. She is a lifelong learner and lover of all things to support our mental health. She's from Ohio originally and lived in Alaska for [00:03:00] eight years, and now lives in Montana.
[00:03:02] She loves adventure and being with her family. Brittany, welcome to the show today.
[00:03:07] Brittany Pope: Thank you. Yeah, it's nice to be here.
[00:03:09] Ashley Comegys: I'm really appreciative of you being willing to share your story with us today. I know we're gonna be talking over a few episodes about experiences of becoming a parent and our different journeys to get there and how that has shaped what we've done in taking maternity leave and private practice.
[00:03:29] I always like to know a little bit though about people's story of how they got into private practice. How did you get into this field? I know tomorrow you graduate with your PhD, which is so exciting. So tell me a little bit about how did you get to this field?
[00:03:45] Brittany Pope: So I actually started out as a special education teacher, which like, I, you know, I think when some of my clients find that out, it's usually years after working with them and they're like, how did we not know that?
[00:03:54] Cause I don't share my bachelor's degree with you. But that's how [00:04:00] I started. Um, I have a brother with autism, an autistic brother, and, um, he kind of is what led me to my path. Um, I taught for a year and realized it was before they mainstreamed. I was in a. At school with all students who had autism and, and just one for me.
[00:04:15] So then I got my master's and. I moved to Alaska and, uh, worked for some agencies there and just loved it. Um, my master's is kinda a specialized master's too. Like it wasn't very like, well known, but it was specialized, uh, as a clinical counseling degree that specialized in people with disabilities. Oh.
[00:04:33] And then I need knew, like I need a break from what I've lived through my life. And so I then branch out in private practice. Um, and I've been in private practice since 2017. While working with my, um, doctorate, so yeah, and then I moved to Montana for my internship. So, um, yeah, I had mostly been doing private practice between my agency work and, um, when I was trying to become a mom new.
[00:04:57] That it would be much more supportive of being [00:05:00] involved in your kids' lives.
[00:05:01] Ashley Comegys: Yeah, for sure. What's the plan once you get your degree, like you graduate tomorrow? Any changes with like,
[00:05:08] Brittany Pope: direction or, um, to be determined? Uh, I dunno. Um, we are trying to navigate postdocs and like, What that looks like for us as a family and sure.
[00:05:18] What that looks like for our kids. But I wish I had a clearer answer. You would think I graduate tomorrow. I'm not done with my internship till July though, so I've got some time.
[00:05:27] Ashley Comegys: Yeah, yeah. But it's exciting. It just opens up some additional doors for you. So I'm really, again honored that you're willing to kind of share your journey to motherhood with us today, because I think a lot of times there's so many questions for people in private practice who are looking at taking some kind of maternity or parental leave and.
[00:05:49] You know, the reality is everybody's story is different of how we get to become a parent. And so I know your journey is through a variety of different [00:06:00] ways to get there. So we'll kind of start wherever feels comfortable for you, but you know, if you're willing to kind of share, you know, how did things start out for you and kind of where did things end up through fertility for you?
[00:06:13] Brittany Pope: Yeah, so I don't remember a time my husband and I haven't tried, I should say that. Hmm. Um, we were married in 2017. We've been together for 10 years. Um, and so we were just like, whatever happens, we know we're gonna be together. Um, and so we really, I think, started actually trying after we got married in 2017, but before that we were just like, whatever.
[00:06:32] And, uh, so I've had quite a bit of loss, so just I know you're gonna do a trigger warning at the beginning. Yeah. That's another one right now. Sure. Um, I have had two ectopics. 10 miscarriages. Oh my. Um, and we, so we started out with time I u I or uh, time, I think just as time sex, like have sex at this time.
[00:06:52] Here's le, here's Letrozole. And, um, that didn't work. We lived on a remote island during this time. There was no [00:07:00] infertility treatment there, so we actually had to travel to Seattle to do it. I actually stayed in Seattle for six weeks the first round when we did I b F. Yeah. And it was, it was nice. I didn't have kids at time so I could like go do stuff and I was working remotely cuz it was during, uh, not even right before the pandemic.
[00:07:16] Okay. Um, the job that, um, at the time I was doing my practicums and stuff and they were so flexible with me. Um, and then in my private practice I had the flexibility of being away for six weeks and then it failed. And so that was heartbreaking for us. Like heartbreaking. Yeah. We kinda recouped for a couple months and we were like, We know we wanna have a kid.
[00:07:34] IBF isn't probably the route for us. Like yeah, we don't know why there's an infertility, so. On Valentine's Day, there was a, like an adoption workshop with this agency in Anchorage. So with adoption too, you can't adopt out of catch can either. Okay. So it's a, it's quite an extra journey for us. So it's
[00:07:54] Ashley Comegys: like only specific.
[00:07:55] Areas that you can adopt from up there?
[00:07:57] Brittany Pope: Or there's not an adoption agency in [00:08:00] Ketchikan. Oh, so the way, okay. Cause it's such a remote rural island, um, there's no like, resources like that. So yeah, it was either foster care or go through this infinite adoption agency out of Anchorage, which is about a five and a half hour flight for us.
[00:08:12] Ooh. Um, yeah. So it's always, it's always like an extra layer doing anything. Sure you can. So we, um, applied for that and then Covid hit. And it slowed everything down tremendously. Um, we didn't even know if we were gonna even be able to get a home study, home visit. Um, about four months later, um, they actually were like, okay, the state's approving virtual home visits.
[00:08:36] So we were able to do it virtually, which was just bizarre, but great. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and we got approved in May of 2020. Okay. And we got shown to like several families but weren't picked, which is normal. Um, and then we got an option to adopt a child that had special needs. Okay. And I'll just kinda keep it cause I don't wanna disclose too much about that situation.
[00:08:58] That's fine. [00:09:00] Um, ended up we were kind of navigating back and forth about whether we should do it and whether we shouldn't. And then there was some medical stuff that we felt like. We can't handle in Ketch can like, yeah. If this child is adopted, they need to be somewhere in a bigger city with access to healthcare.
[00:09:13] Said ultimately was our decision to say no. Yeah. Um, child, which was really hard. Super, super hard. Um, and then we just were like, you know what, we're just gonna take a break. We're gonna allow, like if someone comes up that we're interested in, like adoption wise as a birth mother, then we'll just, we'll entertain it, but we'll just kind of let it be after like a couple failed fe like.
[00:09:33] You know, matches and stuff. Yeah. And, um, and then the middle of that, um, We decided, like we were still filling this pool to have a birth, like have a biological child too. Okay. So we decided to do I V F again. Okay. During the middle of this, uh, frost conjunction or being matched and stuff. And so I was in Hawaii.
[00:09:52] Or Hawaii. That would've been nice. I was in Ohio. Um, If I'm gonna do this again, I'm gonna be near family. And so I spent months [00:10:00] in Ohio during the, during the pandemic. Yeah. Doing idf, which was a, it was a whirlwind. We were already working remote anyway. This was when everything was shut down. Sure. We were all working remote, so it was perfect.
[00:10:10] I was in Ohio doing I V F. My husband was in. Alaska working, and I got a call in August, um, August 6th exactly. Of 2020. Yeah. Um, saying like, Hey, a birth mom picked you, the baby's here. Like, do you guys want the baby? And we're like, the baby's born. Like the baby's here. Yeah. Like the baby already
[00:10:28] Ashley Comegys: arrived
[00:10:29] Brittany Pope: and she, she was like, yeah.
[00:10:31] And she, she like, she's really interested in you guys. Like she wants to Wow. Like match, like she wants. You guys. Yeah. And I was, okay, let me call my husband cuz I'm like on the phone with the adoption agency by myself. Like yeah. And we talked about like if we weren't together, how that would look like, sure.
[00:10:46] What or no. And now I, if I did that again, we would have a plan for that. Right, right. And I was like, let me talk to Jake and is my husband and. He was like, I don't know. We're going through I b F and like I was getting ready to [00:11:00] do the transfer, like within like, okay. Doing the transfer. So I was on the meds and all that stuff and I was like, well, what if we don't?
[00:11:06] We didn't know how many embryos had made it, so it was kind of like my time of like, you don't know. Yeah. I was like, what if we only get one embryo? Like Yeah, and we want two kids. We were pretty clear on that and he was like, I know, and we went back and forth and we actually said no. Okay. At first. And we hung up the phone.
[00:11:24] I told the adoption, they did say no, and they were like, are you sure? And I, and that question, I was, I didn't respond back to it. Yeah, that Christian just changed everything for me cuz I wasn't sure. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, I dunno. And they're like, well you have 30 minutes to tell us. Like
[00:11:42] Ashley Comegys: you can't. Oh my gosh.
[00:11:42] Talk about like being on
[00:11:44] Brittany Pope: the clock. Yeah. Right. Because they had to find other birth parents for this. For this, yeah. In their pool. Um, and so I called Jake back and said, I, we can't say no. Yeah. And I was like, okay. So we got, I flew from Dayton to Anchorage. My [00:12:00] husband got things ready at the house and we, um, adopted Noah.
[00:12:04] Wow.
[00:12:05] Ashley Comegys: Wow. So
[00:12:06] Brittany Pope: he's already named and, uh, I mean, she named him already, which is unusual. Usually. Like they let the adoptive parents name the child, so she named him Noah or Myas. Um, and he's Tongan, uh, Pacific editor, so his middle name means sent by God. So we were just like, we can't take you that. Yeah,
[00:12:23] Ashley Comegys: yeah, yeah.
[00:12:24] Brittany Pope: And we loved the name Noah. We didn't even know, like we would've. Loved the name Noah. And he's such a Noah. Like it, it's perfect. It fits him. Yeah.
[00:12:32] Ashley Comegys: So did ivf, so did you like put that on pause? Where is that at? Yeah.
[00:12:36] Brittany Pope: Yeah. So we did, so we put that on pause, but because we paid for like a package, like most IVF people know this, right?
[00:12:42] Like paper package, it has so many stipulations. Um, they were willing to like, Because they heard about the adoption and they're like, we're willing to give you six months to use like the rest of your package. So they, they were just lovely. I couldn't, we couldn't have had a better sort of I V F team, um Sure.
[00:12:57] Out of date in Ohio of all places. [00:13:00] Yeah. Yeah. They were lovely. And um, so we put that on hold, um, and. I stopped the medications right away and we, we took six months off and we thought, okay, we have to use it by December of 2020. Like, that was our sort of deadline. And yeah, my husband was like, well, like we do, we really want ki two kids that close.
[00:13:20] I'm in the middle of my doctoral program during a pandemic. Like, it was just a weird time and I was like, well, working and working. Yeah. And I was like, it's not gonna work. Like it's not gonna work. Like we've never had a pregnancy stick, like it's not gonna work. That was the mindset that I went in with and maybe that was a really good mindset.
[00:13:35] Cause I didn't know with my second son, but yeah. Yeah. So I did it in December. Noah was five months old. I did it, i v f in or the, um, I think it's the transfer, transfer, transfer. I was like the name of it. Now, when you're in the world, you remember all the terminology. Oh yes. Yeah, yeah. When you're outta the world, you're like, I survived that.
[00:13:55] Yeah. Yes. So we uh, we did a transfer and [00:14:00] I found out December 24th, 2020, I was pregnant with our second. Wow. Wow. And the year and 20 days apart. Exactly. Which is
[00:14:09] Ashley Comegys: like for those who are parents, like my mind is trying to wrap itself around how you managed that. It was like, oh my goodness. I know, but at the same time, I totally understand where you guys were like.
[00:14:21] Again, not that you necessarily had control over like any of this, but it was kind of like, this is the gift we've been given. This is the life we've been given.
[00:14:30] Brittany Pope: Yeah. We, we, I, I think we went into it knowing like all the feedback we got from people were like, it's gonna be a crazy couple years. And I think that's sort of like, How we've survived it.
[00:14:41] I mean, the last year we've been doing long distance. Like I've been in Montana with my children. My husband is in, is in Alaska. Wow. We dunno what we're doing. So we're like, let's get a job there and like, you know, figure that out. But um, so he comes down every, um, for a week, every 10 days and yeah, it's a party [00:15:00] every time he is down there.
[00:15:00] It's a party when he is not. Yeah. Um, I'm a 19 month old now and a two month. I think he's two, eight months. Two years and eight months. Two years, nine months. Yeah. I dunno. But, um, and it's, it's, he's now finally potty trained, so it's getting a little easier, thank goodness. Yes. Um, the oldest one and he's in a lovely school.
[00:15:18] It just, there's a lot of beautiful things that have happened over the last year that like Yeah. It sucked being distant. A distant family. Sure. Under two, and it's a beautiful experience for me because I've been able to spend so much time with my kids that like, I don't think I would've if I had, it's a, it's different being just a one parent home.
[00:15:35] I think single moms are amazing. I have been a semis single mom. I don't wanna like, offend, use that term in the sense of like, Single bond. Sure. A, a single co-parent. And it's been like a, it's been a journey while finishing my doctorate, internship and my dissertation and all that stuff. Yeah. And life.
[00:15:52] Yeah. And life. Yeah. Um, but Montana's a great place to live. Bozeman has been a beautiful place to live and like a has a lot to [00:16:00] stuff for kids to do. So it's been a, a fun journey for the kids. Yeah.
[00:16:03] Ashley Comegys: Like an experience and adventure for everybody.
[00:16:06] Brittany Pope: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So that was our journey. That was a long one.
[00:16:09] Free to tell you, we adopted and did I V F, but it was a wide ride. If you're okay,
[00:16:14] Ashley Comegys: I wanna go back. Uh uh, you know, I know you shared like there was a significant amount of loss at the beginning. Yeah. Um, and were you in private practice during that time?
[00:16:23] Brittany Pope: I just started private practice in 2017. Okay. And all, most of my loss happened 20 18, 20 19.
[00:16:29] Okay. And yeah, so I was in private practice during that time. I mean, there was times where I would. I had an ectopic, I had have to give a laparoscopic procedure Done. Yeah. Had to, I had to cancel all my clients of last minute. Yeah. So imagine the guilt of not being a good therapist in that. Yeah. Um, and then, you know, having two children back to back, I took two maternity leaves.
[00:16:51] Yeah. Uh, it still felt like a bad therapist. That's my own thing. That's nothing on my clients, but yeah. Yeah. The flexibility of being able to do that, like I had Sure. Two [00:17:00] atopic pregnancies within like, I think it was three or four months of each other. So I had two laparoscopics pretty back to back. Yeah.
[00:17:08] And that was pre Covid. So, You know, like telehealth wasn't as much done. I probably would've done right. But I also needed the time to heal and grieve too. Right, right. Yeah. Well
[00:17:18] Ashley Comegys: and that's what I was gonna ask cause I know you've shared, you shared with me that like perinatal mental health is one of your areas that you work in.
[00:17:24] Were you working with that population during the time of loss for you?
[00:17:29] Brittany Pope: Yeah, so I don't think it's as heavy. Okay. I don't think I was doing as much. I think, I don't think I could have. Um, I think I needed my own kind of space and time, but I was working with moms who were pregnant, new moms. Um, I didn't do as much perinatal grief cuz I didn't really know what it was to be honest.
[00:17:44] Like I didn't Yeah. You always hear one in four people have infertility and it's like, but those one in four people also have to experience significant loss too. Most likely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I didn't, I, I didn't do as much perinatal loss until after I had experienced it myself, and I was like, sure, [00:18:00] there's no resources for this.
[00:18:01] Like, what? Right. About this stuff. Right? Right. So now I do a lot more of that. Well, I. I'm in my internship, so I'm not as like, ingrained in it because there's not a lot of 18 to 25 year olds who are planning at that stage of life. Um, I shouldn't say that, that never happens, but it's uncommon. I'm not doing as much now.
[00:18:17] But before I left, yeah. I was doing, I was running a mom's support group for new moms. Um, I was working with like moms and dads who experienced perinatal loss cuz we can't also forget the dads. Right. We experienced the grief just as much and my husband never got asked how he was doing. It was, how's your wife doing?
[00:18:33] Are you accessing therapy for me? Yeah.
[00:18:35] Ashley Comegys: Not for him. Yeah. And they experienced the loss as well, and a lot of times don't know what to do. Yeah. Like what, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to support my partner?
[00:18:45] Brittany Pope: Yeah. And that was what my dissertation was on. It was on perinatal grief and the impact in men.
[00:18:49] And because I was like, we can't forget about the men people, like we can't forget about them. And identified partners here. Yeah. And so that's, that. That was a really impactful, I think, piece that I researched that I did, and [00:19:00] also very healing. Yeah. I spent five years doing research on men's grief and it like, I think someone had asked me recently, um, how did you feel after you defended your dissertation, which was, uh, about a month ago.
[00:19:09] And I said, I felt like I was healing. Yeah. I was healing. I felt like it was like the, sorry. It's like, no, that's okay. Like nail in the box, like, okay, you're done. Like you can put your grief away now. Yeah.
[00:19:24] Ashley Comegys: Well I, I mean, you say it's five years, like you were going through those losses Oh, yeah. While doing this research, which like, I can only imagine at the time, like maybe at the beginning didn't feel as much of like processing, but probably felt heavier.
[00:19:39] But now like you said, it feels like maybe that's how you were able to work through some of that grief.
[00:19:44] Brittany Pope: Yeah, I was able to, Put it to a purpose. Yeah. Like, you know, be like, okay, at the end of this, like I'm gonna have a piece that, and I'm, I'm working on publishing it, um, in the P S I, um, elastic. Yes. Uh, I dunno if they do a magazine or quarterly, whatever they do.
[00:19:59] But that's [00:20:00] my next kind of step is just to dem disseminate and get it out there. Um, but yeah, that was the question from one of my dissertation committee members. Like, how did you go through this? Because I'm pretty open, like, Hey, this is my life story. Like if you wanna know, Um, how did you go through this?
[00:20:14] You're a therapist for this and you a research for this now, and I, and I said I just, I had to put different hats on. You know, when I was doing research with a gentleman that I was working with, I couldn't be the therapist for them, but I could give them resources. And how, how invaluable is that for them to be sure about and share their story and get resources?
[00:20:34] Did you ever find,
[00:20:36] Ashley Comegys: either in the re as you were doing research or when you were going through either experiences of loss and grief or even the fertility process that like it can be hard, and I'm thinking like on a personal level, right? When if somebody is going through fertility or infertility and they're happy for their friends, but I just thought there's also a pain there, [00:21:00] right?
[00:21:00] Yeah. Of like, But why not me? And when working with clients who maybe are experiencing pregnancies that are going full term or not experiencing a loss like. Did you find either in the research or in your work with clients ever a need to like step back from that for your own
[00:21:21] Brittany Pope: wellbeing? Yeah, so with my research, like when you do like dissertations, like it's like it's, it's a process and so you're really, were working on sort of the background information.
[00:21:32] At first, I didn't start doing the actual like clinical interviews until. November of 2022, which I honestly am so grateful for because yeah, if I would've done those at the beginning, I probably would have not been okay. But because I already had my kids and I was like kind of through my own grief, cuz I've done, I've done lots of counseling for my own stuff.
[00:21:50] Yeah. So I think that was he like a happy accident in, in a lot of ways. And yeah, there were times where like, I had a client when [00:22:00] I, or I ha, when I was pregnant in private practice, I would be seeing a client who was struggling with infertility in there and I'm sitting here pregnant and they're like, I'm so sorry to talk about this.
[00:22:09] Like very gar guarded sort of of sure me. And I was like, no, like this is your lived experience. And then I think like after when they'd leave, I'd have to sort of do some grounding things and like really put it away because I didn't wanna lose my baby. In my belly, you know? Um, and
[00:22:22] Ashley Comegys: you've gone through so much loss already.
[00:22:24] Brittany Pope: Yeah. Like, you know what that feels like. Yep. And my hypervigilance, the first like 20 weeks of my pregnancy was just like anything I put in my body, anything to do. Like I want this pregnancy to be successful. And then the last 20 weeks I was like, all right, we paid it. I mean, yeah. But, but again, like stillbirth is possible, you know?
[00:22:39] Absolutely. Um, and I interviewed probably three or four men who've experienced stillbirth. Yeah. And lost the babies after, like had pre pretty much preterm laborers and. Stillbirth. So like there's still that other risk, but I had never experienced a stillbirth, I had never even moved pregnant past 20 weeks.
[00:22:57] Mm-hmm. So my goal was just to get to 20 [00:23:00] weeks. Yeah. Then I did with the rest of it. And so once I was past 20 weeks, I think like it was easier for me to separate a little bit from that stuff, but Sure. The first 20 weeks that I was, and I told people actually pretty early on,
[00:23:11] Ashley Comegys: I was wondering Yeah. Like how you navigated that conversation.
[00:23:14] Brittany Pope: Yeah. So I actually was, um, at the time doing a practicum at. Um, a site in KE can, and I had shared with the entire team. I was like, I'm six weeks pregnant. Like, just wanna let you guys know because if something happens, it's like, you know, that's why. Yeah. Um, like if I call one day randomly and I'm like, I'm not coming in today.
[00:23:31] I, it's probably pretty much what happened and they were like, great. And I got so much support. Um, I think there's so much taboo around the timelines that women need to share on. Yeah. That's your choice. Yeah. Like if you wanna share when you're four weeks pregnant, you celebrate that. You scream it to disguise.
[00:23:47] Like that's your success. That's your like excitement. Yeah. And like, I wanna help you in that. Um, and then I think some people are like, don't say it until 20 weeks. And like, right. I was just, every single time I was pregnant, I was so excited. Even though [00:24:00] most of them resulted in a loss, like, I was so excited and I celebrated every single pregnancy, every single atopic pregnancy that I had.
[00:24:08] I celebrated that because if I didn't, I don't think I would've survived my grief. There was
[00:24:14] Ashley Comegys: an excitement here, there was a joy, there was a life here that like there's a baby. That may not have come full term, but like I'm celebrating this in regardless of where we are in the process.
[00:24:24] Brittany Pope: And I think with IBF I felt a little bit more comfortable because like we knew our baby was genetically normal cause we did genetic testing.
[00:24:30] So I think I felt a little more comfortable cause we announced it to our families. I had actually ordered onesies thinking like, okay, if it doesn't work, like that's fine. I just ordered this. Or I had my cousin make one actually. Um, got it. Stink it under the tree to my mom. Yeah. Um, because I thought, okay, we're gonna find out on Christmas Eve and like my mom will find out on Christmas, like, yeah, I'm not gonna not tell her.
[00:24:49] You know? Yeah. And she, I got a video cuz we weren't home. We, we hadn't been home for Christmas in years cuz we don't like over the holidays and, um, And she like opened it up and she was like, [00:25:00] there's no way she knows right now. That was her first response. Yeah. Um, because it was, it was only four weeks, but Right.
[00:25:07] To tell our families pretty early because like, it was the first time I actually felt so comfortable in being like, this baby's genetically normal, he's in the right spot and we know he is gonna come. And he came and he is Yeah. Right in the world with his kindness and his feistiness.
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[00:26:17] Ashley Comegys: With Noah. Right. With where you were in the process of adoption. Right. And obviously your adoption story isn't one where we knew he was coming and we were preparing for him, him and anticipating this. This is a surprise, right?
[00:26:29] Yeah. It was very much a surprise. With regards to your practice, did you have, well, I mean, I don't know how you would've. Begun to prepare clients, but like, did you have any conversations around this is a process we're going through if something comes up suddenly or was it really like this caught everybody off guard and now suddenly I have to figure out how to tell my clients I'm going on maternity
[00:26:51] Brittany Pope: leave.
[00:26:52] Yeah. So that was the case. Um, because like we didn't know, like, uh, self-disclosure is kind of a hard thing I think. Like yeah, how do we [00:27:00] navigate that as therapist? Yeah. And. Um, I don't know if any of my clients knew that we were going through the adoption process. I wasn't really, it's Ketchikan, it's a small town, so like we could have, but I don't know.
[00:27:10] And so we didn't really prepare anybody. We didn't say like, I. This is what we're doing. So, uh, they did know that I was going away for medical stuff. That kind of was helpful because like I could prepare them like, Hey, I'm gonna be doing telehealth for six weeks. Yeah. Like, you're, you know, I'm, well, yeah, you were away when he arrived.
[00:27:27] Yeah. Yeah. And so I was doing telehealth the time for all, so it was just more of like, Hey, I'm having a baby and I'm gonna take three months off. And most of my clients, because it's private practice, they're a little lower needs like higher, sort of like I That's fine, I'm good. Yeah. Kinda thing. And some of 'em are like, Hey Ashley, we want it to end anyway.
[00:27:46] Like that's fine. I did work a couple weeks into my maternity just because I would work around my husband's schedule just because I wasn't postpartum and I felt like I wanna give people at least like 30 days like I wanna be shared. Sure. [00:28:00] So I, I did work like, I think it was like maybe about three weeks in.
[00:28:03] Okay. Because most people were okay with a couple more appointments. So I did that. Um, I also, I did, I mean, since I was still doing telehealth, cuz it was covid, I worked like during nap times and stuff, cuz Noah's nap times were pretty like predictable. Yeah. So I would just like, Put him down for an nap. I would do an hour session and then he'd wake up.
[00:28:21] That's how I did. I don't know how I survived that, but, um, a lot of my, I mean, there was a couple that were upset. Very mu well, I mean, understandably and like those aren't, I like, that's not the type of client I wanna work with, right. Um, if you're gonna get upset cause I adopted a baby and then take that joy from me or try to, I don't usually let people take my joy, then I don't think this is a good fit.
[00:28:41] And that's, yeah, I can say that in a nicer way of just like, hey, like I, this is the where, the stage I'm at in life and like, yeah, I'm going to be having other children and I'm going to be having other maternity leaves. And if that's something that's not okay with you, That's okay. Like do other referrals of, you know, people who are not in this [00:29:00] stage of life.
[00:29:01] And so that's, I mean, those are, I wanna work with people who understand and that we're humans as therapists. Exactly. Um, and I wanna work with people who aren't gonna be unkind during some of this process. I learned like, Who isn't a good match and who is. No,
[00:29:15] Ashley Comegys: I think that's such a, a, an important point because I know, I mean, you even talked a little bit about the therapist guilt, right?
[00:29:22] Of like, oh, I have to cancel or I have to reschedule and you know, we are so, I. Concerned about our clients, which is not a bad thing, but sometimes to our own detriment. And I think where you were able to at that point recognize that if this is someone who can't see me as a human, like see my humanity and recognize that this is an exciting thing, or if I'm experiencing a loss and I need to take time off to grieve, you can't recognize that I'm human.
[00:29:54] I'm having an experience. Yeah. I'm not a right fit for you. And that's
[00:29:58] Brittany Pope: okay. And I think that's [00:30:00] hard for us because we like to be liked, like human nature. Yeah. We only liked, we wanna be socially connected to people and like, uh, my, one of my supervisors, my, my, one of my psychologist supervisors when I was going through like some of my loss, cuz that was part of like some of my supervision and when I was going through, um, the adoption and stuff.
[00:30:16] Yeah. He said to me, he was like, nowhere in our code of ethics do we let people be jerks to us. And I think he used a different word, but I'll, I'll require that not to be censored. What this person is doing is O not okay. And like you're allowed to be like, Hey, I'm not gonna work with you if you're gonna talk to me this way.
[00:30:33] That's so,
[00:30:34] Ashley Comegys: so important to remember, right? Like that's not in our code of ethics, that we have to be a martyr to people like treating us awful. Yeah.
[00:30:40] Brittany Pope: We don't have to accept mistreatment. We're allowed to set boundaries. And that was, that really stuck with me. Yeah, that really me. So knowing that we wanted to go into having our next son pretty close.
[00:30:50] Sure. I did prepare people after my, like my maternity leave. I'm in this stage of life. I just kind of kept it at that. Um, there might be another, you know, Pregnancy, [00:31:00] child something, if you wanna hang in there with me, like that's fine. If you wanna find someone that that's not the path that they're on, like I'm okay with that too.
[00:31:07] And so that's worked. So how
[00:31:10] Ashley Comegys: long was your maternity leave with
[00:31:12] Brittany Pope: Noah? I took a lot longer with Noah, so I think it was during Covid. It was like, You know, like we can stay at home, like we can snuggle. It was just, yeah. So I ended up taking off. I was, I went back slowly. I ended up taking off like August, September, October, and I think part of November.
[00:31:28] I think I ended up going back right before Thanksgiving. But if I would've done it differently, I probably would've taken off more time and just gone back after the first of the year. Also like. That therapist guilt. I was like, well, I guess I like, need to go back. So, yeah, so I, I took off probably like three and a half, four months, maybe a little longer.
[00:31:46] Um, I started, the nice thing about being in private practice is you can go back slower. Yeah. You can start building up your caseload slower. And so I did that. I just, I had people that wanted to come back. They were like, oh my gosh, we probably should have seen someone while you were gone. I was like, I probably [00:32:00] know I told you that.
[00:32:01] Um, um, but I had someone covering while I was on maternity leave. Okay. I was really blessed to have a couple therapist friends that were. Hey, if the client's good fit for us, totally. We'll cover while you're gone. Good. Um, and some clients access that. Some clients were like, no, we're good. That I think is key when you're going on maternity leave, is giving clients the option.
[00:32:19] Not every therapist has sort of those relationship or friendships, I think, where that's like, yeah. Like I have friends that are therapists that like, I'm, I'm actually thinking about taking a couple months off when I'm done with my internship. Talked to a friend. She's like, I'll cover for you. You know, I just have really stellar therapist friends that are just awesome so that I would like.
[00:32:36] Take in a, in private practice setting, taking a maternity leave, I would say like if you have a relationship with someone else or you're in a group practice planning with those folks, maybe a couple months ahead of time to be like, Hey, like are you guys willing to cover? Like, what should I provide to these clients?
[00:32:50] And then the ones that like didn't need it, I just like contact me. This date I didn't. So you gave them
[00:32:56] Ashley Comegys: like a, a specific date, like when you went out, even though it was [00:33:00] suddenly at that point you had anticipated or had like an estimated return date?
[00:33:04] Brittany Pope: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And, and that was nice because people kind of trickled in because I was started back part-time, so that was really nice.
[00:33:10] Sure. I just, people would be like, are you back yet? I'd be like, yep. Like, I'll get you in. And so that was really nice cuz I was able to start slow. I did tell people, Hey, contact me after November 1st. Okay. Like that's when I'll be back in the office. People were like mid-November into November. Sure. And then, you know, into December.
[00:33:27] So Sure. It was a slow stop. I think most people's concern though, with being in private practice is you don't have like the funds, like you're not getting paid. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I will acknowledge privilege here. Um, I have a husband who works and we have benefits through him, so I don't really have. To work like.
[00:33:46] So I think that's a privilege Yeah. That a lot of people have. So I definitely wanna like acknowledge that that's not everybody's experience. Absolutely. And we spent a lot of money on I b F and like adoption and we had to completely give us money. [00:34:00] Like we were pretty lucky in that sense. So like that's also privilege.
[00:34:03] Absolutely. So I would be able to like not stress about like, we just spent all this money on I V F and adoption. Um, I have to work to pay it back. And we took out a loan like we were pretty smart. We're pretty smart with our money. So it's, it's another thing like people wanting to take off is like Yeah.
[00:34:18] If, you know like ish, I mean, you have nine months. Yeah. Usually. Um, not in your case, but not in my case. But most of the time, like with our student son, we had nine months. You did? Yeah. So then we planned, we just put, I just didn't pay myself as much. I put money away. Yeah. For the time that I knew I needed.
[00:34:36] To take off with my second son, but my first one, I was just very lucky that my husband is the, is the like main income. Mm-hmm. Um, which is what, how I'm able to do private practice because I can work as role as I want or as much as I want. And also why I went into my CD because in, in psychology, because I really don't wanna do therapy forever.
[00:34:53] Yeah. And I wanna have a more mobile. Like I can do testing for a month and leave for a [00:35:00] month. It's just not that mobile. So that, I mean, some people have that ability where they have, like if you're a testing psychologist or if you're a counselor, then it doesn't wanna be more assessment stuff. You can do that and then take three months off.
[00:35:12] So there's, I think there's creative ways that you can do it, but I think if, you know, you're gonna have a baby start saving up for that. And if you don't know you're gonna have a baby, that's a whole different, like obviously right. But I was just lucky that my husband has a job. I'm
[00:35:27] Ashley Comegys: a similar position where my husband was able to cover, um, a lot.
[00:35:31] He makes more than I do, but I was able to prepare, yeah, for my maternity leave and know, okay, I need to put X amount away. So it would just cover basic. Practice expenses while I'm gone. Yeah. And then to still be able to pay ourselves, um, or pay myself during that time.
[00:35:47] Brittany Pope: Well, and it's not like you're not working, like running a business, right?
[00:35:49] You're paying bills every month or to stop by your office and water your flowers. I mean, I know that sounds like inconsistent, like, um, not, uh, As important, but like that stuff also happens. [00:36:00] Like you have to make sure your office isn't on fire, your financials every month. I mean, yeah. I don't think people realize like, you're not really off when you run a business part or full-time.
[00:36:09] It's like running it full-time. I was lucky, I had an awesome like, um, office mate who did a lot of that stuff for me. That's, but sometimes you're doing like all the, you know, the monthly like QuickBook stuff and like, I mean, you're, you're doing things still. And so I still did that stuff when, when he was napping.
[00:36:25] I had a better maternity leave with Noah than I did with Ben. I
[00:36:28] Ashley Comegys: was gonna ask, how did that differ for you? Yeah, because you, you pointed out like you were not necessarily experiencing postpartum after Noah, but with Ben, what was that difference like for you?
[00:36:39] Brittany Pope: Yeah, so Noah was like, I was out walking him on the docks.
[00:36:42] We were out running, cause I live in a seaside town, so like, Literally, I walk out my front door down a hill and I'm, yeah, I mountainside and I'm on the ocean. So I was like, just, it was like great. I mean, all my friends are like, okay, wait till you actually experienced postpartum. And like, in a, in some ways I did absolutely, but not the same way as I did with [00:37:00] my, with my, uh, second sentence.
[00:37:01] So my second son, I had a C-section. It was unplanned. Yeah, let's have, let's give her fertility issues and then a really crappy birth experience. Yeah, that's great. Um, so I had a horrible like, Pregnancy with him, so it was not enjoyable. Yeah. I had a lot of mom guilt because I was like, oh my gosh. Like my, my oldest son of course is like getting like less of me because I just don't feel good.
[00:37:22] Yeah. I was sick for 25 weeks. That's, that's rough. It was rough. Um, I had hyper misread like oh my, and I ended up getting preeclampsia. Like it just anything you could have. Yeah. Which like the doctors kind of predicted, cause I almost went into labor twice. Like, it was just like, okay. A horrible experience with Ben.
[00:37:41] And so then I, um, when I was postpartum, I. We were MEC to Seattle because again, we're on a small island. There's not a lot we can do here. And so we, I had been in Seattle. Noah was stuck in catch can with friends. Unfortunately. Unfortunately we have a good support group. Then I, we came back and like I ended up getting an infection post C-section [00:38:00] incision infection.
[00:38:01] So I was like sick for like a month. So like I had a horrible like, experience with postpartum. Yeah. And then I think I had like postpartum anxiety pretty bad. Mm-hmm. So then I was like, Um, so Ben's like, and I think that's where like people are, like maternity leave is like so much time off and it's like, no, it's so much time.
[00:38:18] No. Yes.
[00:38:19] Ashley Comegys: Especially if you've had a c-section,
[00:38:21] Brittany Pope: like yeah. So much time healing. Um, and so, and if I would've like talked to my mom about her c-sections, I would've realized like I. I had the same experience as her, as her first pregnancy. Yeah. Where she always went to labor several times. My, actually, my mom had my brother at 26 weeks.
[00:38:36] Oh wow. So we had sort of the same, she was sick. Yeah. All the same weeks. And if I would've talked to her, I would've known her. Pregnancy wasn't this beautiful journey. Yeah. But it's beautiful in a lot of ways, too. Um, hard, yeah, hard. So I guess the difference for me would be like, I actually had to heal.
[00:38:51] Yeah, like respected. I couldn't, like, I remember the first walk we went on as a family. Ben was two months old and I was like struggling even two months later. Yeah. [00:39:00] Um, to like, I would like sit down when we were at the park and be like, okay, you guys go walk. Thankfully my husband was able to, I mean, he's got an incredible job where he gets, he's been there long enough and he gets.
[00:39:10] Sometime a lot of time off and Yeah. Would take like almost eight weeks off with me. Yeah. Yeah. So was just pretty much the primary. And I didn't bond with Ben the way that I bonded with Noah, cuz breastfeeding was hard too. Sure. So these are the things that like women don't hear. Yeah. And these are the messages.
[00:39:26] Like, I don't mean to be the Debbie Downer, but these are the messages that are really important to hear for people. Like I felt like. Just like a crazy person like all the time when I was pregnant too. Yeah. I mean, I think's totally normal, but people don't talk about that or the hormone
[00:39:40] Ashley Comegys: on. Well, and I, I think too, like in thinking about maternity leave of private practice, you can't anticipate what your postpartum is gonna be like.
[00:39:48] Right? Like some women. Breastfeeding is like a piece of cake. It's a, yeah, take the baby takes to it easily. You take to it easily. Not a problem For others, it's a big [00:40:00] struggle. It's really hard. It's. Taxing mentally, emotionally, physically. Yeah. Right. Or you experience postpartum anxiety, you experience postpartum depression and you are just trying to cope and like survive day to day.
[00:40:13] Yeah. And so one of the things I've shared with a lot of women who talk about like taking maternity leave is haven't anticipated return date, but like that you, if you give yourself grace Yeah. Right. Where like if you're like, okay, I anticipate. Two months and at the end of two months, if you're like, I'm not ready.
[00:40:34] Yeah. Your clients will be okay. Yeah. Take that time to heal. Yeah. Take that time to bond with your baby, because if you are not okay, you're not gonna be able to be there for your clients either.
[00:40:45] Brittany Pope: No. And you can only take your clients as far as you've taken yourself. I mean, like Yeah. We can't expect, like that's like with Ben, it was a tentative return date.
[00:40:54] Like it was a, like I might be back the beginning of November maybe, and I can't remember when I went back with him. [00:41:00] I actually was done with all my practicums, so I left. I worked at the tribe in KE can, and I left that. Job or full-time private practice. Again, I at least had the, like I didn't have a caseload built up, so I actually had the freedom that my second maternity leave where I was able to be like, okay, like I can take as much time as I need.
[00:41:17] I ended up wanting to go back though, because I think after the second and when you have two under two, you want some like I need an adult. Yeah. Uh, like I wanna help you with your stuff. Like, I don't wanna be Yeah, like the, I don't wanna do the mom thing all day, so. Sure. I'm just, and again, kind of going back to like my luck with my husband's job, like he has, he only works first, or se so he's a, he's in law enforcement and he only works first or second shift, which is like unheard of in law enforcement.
[00:41:44] Yeah. Um, and so like, and then he gets like a good span of five days off. So he works on 10 off five. Our schedules can align where we don't even need childcare. Yeah. Which is like a beautiful thing. Absolutely. So I was able to be like, okay, on your five off days, like if, well, during [00:42:00] the weekdays I'm gonna work these days.
[00:42:02] So we were able to kind of work around like each other's schedule. Sure. Which was really nice. So I, I went back, I think. End of October with Ben and I was feeling like I needed just that like little bit of pee like Yeah. Peace and quiet too from like the kids. Um, but we ended up actually, and I don't think there, there's anything wrong with this.
[00:42:20] I think every mom's path is different. We did end up actually doing daycare for both of them. Yeah. Yeah, for a year before I, we moved to Montana because we really needed like our time too.
[00:42:31] Ashley Comegys: You don't have to explain to me. I get it. Yeah.
[00:42:34] Brittany Pope: Yeah. So it was, that was a nice break for us. We could do some things during the day together if we wanted to.
[00:42:39] Yeah's, the nice thing about private practice is like, again, your schedules can be built around your life. And obviously keeping in mind consistency for clients. Sure. And I think that's something like having two kids in two years. So I've been on, so some of my clients have been on two maternity leaves with me.
[00:42:54] Yeah. Um, and that I think like I. Most of my clients are super [00:43:00] supportive. Great. Sure. And, but that's also like, oh no, I need to work harder because I just took like two, like three, four or five months cents off. And I think that's like, American culture just sucks about that because mom shouldn't be able to take, like in Canada, you can take a year with your child and your job is safe.
[00:43:15] There's so much, um, sadness or for me around like that guilt. Yeah. Now my kids are, um, you know, almost two and almost three. Yeah. And I'm like, where did this time go? Yeah.
[00:43:27] Ashley Comegys: What they good, you know? Yeah. If you had a piece of advice to give somebody, regardless of what their journey is to to motherhood or parenthood, like what would you.
[00:43:39] Say to them if they're trying to figure out what should I do for maternity leave?
[00:43:44] Brittany Pope: I think definitely depends on your circumstance. Mm-hmm. I would just wanna honor like that space too. So like, make the best decision for your family. But my piece of advice would be make the best decision for your family.
[00:43:53] Yeah. Um, because like you, like for me specifically, I worked so hard to have these kids, like literally worked really hard to have these kids. Yeah. [00:44:00] And I don't think I took enough time off, um, because of the guilt about being a therapist and showing up. But, you know, someone said to me recently, cause we're trying to navigate this next chapter of our life, and someone said to me, no one is gonna be mad at you for your success and, and, and taking care of yourself.
[00:44:14] No one's gonna be mad at you. Like, whatever that looks like, your success as a mom, your success as a. As a psychologist, you're success as a therapist. No one's gonna get mad at you for that, for saying like, I need to go better myself. Sure. Or I need to go be a better mom. Sure, sure. So I think my, my, my main piece of advice would be, make the best decision for your family and don't listen to the noise.
[00:44:35] Don't listen to the societal expectations of people overworking themselves, moms and not being able to show up with their kids in the way they should and don't listen to like any of the input from. People from different generations of parenting because everybody is so different. You can't, you legitimately cannot get these years back.
[00:44:50] And now my toddler is potty training and I love to tell the story of just how. Interactive, like two and a half and up are, I mean, I, every [00:45:00] time I go to the potty, I get cheered on and get a prize in the box too. I
[00:45:03] Ashley Comegys: got clap it it the other day too for my cheer Yearold. Cheers. This feels so good.
[00:45:10] Brittany Pope: Um, and it's just like, those are moments that like when you're working every day, you just don't get to see.
[00:45:15] Yeah. So like balance, whatever that looks like for you. Balance of taking time off for yourself on maternity leave. Being there for your child and then taking care of yourself during that time. And hopefully like if it's a partner, non-partner, you have support a family in some aspect too. Yeah.
[00:45:34] Ashley Comegys: Let me ask another question.
[00:45:36] Um, yeah. Before we start to wrap up, uh, kind of around maternity leave and adoption, and I know your adoption experience is different than like, if it was planned, I mean it was planned, but it was, you were not expecting a baby. Nope. That soon we got a baby in two
[00:45:50] Brittany Pope: days,
[00:45:51] Ashley Comegys: which is insane. Yeah. Um. For somebody who is either thinking about adoption or is in the adoption process [00:46:00] and in private practice, and let's say that they are in a situation where they know this baby's gonna be coming an X amount of months.
[00:46:08] How would you like if you were in that experience now, how would you. Yourself or recommend navigating maternity leave? Because you know, if you are physically pregnant, clients start to see, or if you're like, I have to take time off because it's coming up. But when you're going through an adoption or even a surrogacy experience it, you know, it presents a little different.
[00:46:30] So I'm curious how you either yourself or you would recommend to people navigating that with clients in maternity leave.
[00:46:37] Brittany Pope: Yeah. So a lot of the times you do know, and I think it's about two to three months usually when like adopted mom picks like a family and we do family planning together and stuff like that, birth planning together.
[00:46:47] Um, so if, if that were our case, which is what we were prepared for, um, I would say to like, inform your clients. Let them know like, Hey, we have in at your comfort level. Like I think Sure. Um, we [00:47:00] all know that the self-disclosure is different depending, depending on your theoretical orientation. Yep. So how you practice.
[00:47:05] Yeah. And so I would just say like, Ground in that and like explore that with your clients in that space. That feels like what's comfortable for you? We probably, we probably would've done is like, Hey, we've been matched with a family. We are planning on adopting, and that's, that's gonna take a couple months.
[00:47:23] And I just wanna give you a heads up. So if you need to find another therapist in the next couple months, um, you can do that. Or if you wanna wait, this is what my maternity leave is probably going to look like. And so I would just say B as upfront as you can be with all the information you feel comfortable sharing, I don't feel like it's too much to share that you're adopting, but some therapists might feel like that.
[00:47:40] Yeah. And so you could, you could phrase it like, Hey, we have a, a life change coming up and it's going to require me to take some time off. Sure. And that what that looks like is between this and this. Cause I also know that babies can come early if it's a couple months. You wanna give them like 60 days in my opinion.
[00:47:57] Yeah. And then if a baby comes early, then you at least have [00:48:00] had that time Sure. To be like, okay, the baby's here, kind of thing. Sure.
[00:48:04] Ashley Comegys: Just kind of giving them a heads up of like, either there's a baby coming or there's some kind of change coming. Yeah. And kind of this is anticipation of when I may be going out.
[00:48:13] Brittany Pope: Yeah. Yeah. And in ke like where I live, like. Everybody can see me walking my child. So one form or the other, they were gonna find out that I was adopting because I, one, I didn't have a baby in my belly for nine months. Yeah. So I felt like a little bit more like comfortable being like more adopting. Sure.
[00:48:29] Um, but sometimes like in bigger cities, like that's not, you don't need to share that information, but in catch can, it was just, it's just a different beast. Yeah. And so like, people are gonna find out, like I've literally had clients past clients see me in the grocery with the baby, and they were like, who is this baby?
[00:48:45] I like them. Like, oh, we adopted them. Um, you know, kinda thing because like, it's, it's just such a small, such a small, like know your audience, know your city, know your, you know, like sometimes you don't need to share that. You can say there's just something coming up and like, yeah, it's an important life change and like, I need [00:49:00] to attend to it.
[00:49:01] First off, I just wanna
[00:49:02] Ashley Comegys: thank you so much for like sharing this story, your story with us today. And I know there's so many different parts of it that are gonna connect with so many different listeners. Is there anything else before we start to wrap up though, that you wanna share that, like for anybody who's either going through infertility or loss or the adoption process and is in private practice, anything that you again, kind of wanna offer to them or you know, recommendations or things for them?
[00:49:30] Brittany Pope: Yeah. Gosh, that's such like a rich question. A broad question. Yeah. Um, I think what I would say is like if your goal is to have a baby, you can get there. Mm-hmm. Um, it's like that's really important to you. Like, I mean, our goal was to have two kids, and here we are with two kids. The journey is not easy.
[00:49:45] Like it was heartbreaking. I mean, there were times like, I felt like I was dying because I didn't know if I could get through the grief. And I don't mean like I wanna kill myself Right. In that sense, but like, I physically was like, Is this what it feels like to lose a family member? That's really important to [00:50:00] me because I'm lucky I haven't lost, I've lost an aunt, but that's about it.
[00:50:03] And she was really important to me. But like, Someone I've never met and I feel this connected to. Sure. Um, and I think treat every loss as like other people's success in I D F is not your pain. I think that was really important for me to hear. I heard that actually in a Bible study that I was doing. Um, and I would also recommend in support groups.
[00:50:23] Um, I was doing one called Moms in the Making and it's a Christian based one, but that doesn't mean that's the right one. I think there's so many out there. Sure. And like, there's so many messages that I heard that I was just like, okay. That was so helpful. And so I, I always encourage, like, support groups therapy, I think yes, was like a life-changing thing for me.
[00:50:41] I mean, obviously I'm a therapist and I think therapists should access therapy. I've had some great therapists that have just been the, just what I've needed in that timeframe. Um, and then the last thing is like, You're allowed to grieve and you're allowed to love yourself enough to take time away from your practice.
[00:50:56] Yes. Just because you take time away doesn't [00:51:00] mean you're any less of a therapist. Yeah. It just means you're more of a therapist and a better therapist for people because you're taking care of yourself.
[00:51:07] Ashley Comegys: And you're modeling for them what that looks like too. Yeah.
[00:51:10] Brittany Pope: Yep. Modeling is huge. I mean, we talk about self-care and I think about us as as a profession, like we are the worst at self-care.
[00:51:18] We're the worst at balance. Yeah. And we are taught that from an early, like early training model of like, yeah, go to school. Work full-time, be in a practicum. Like we're, we're taught we are a society that's taught it's not okay to take care of ourselves. Yeah. And we're a therapists that are telling people it's okay to take care of ourselves, but we're not taking care of ourselves.
[00:51:36] No.
[00:51:36] Ashley Comegys: We're the worst one. And, and then you have the messaging towards moms too, right? Yeah. Of like, yeah. That piece in, right? Yeah. So then it's even more compounded, but No, absolutely. And I think. No, it's, we preach it to our clients all the time and we know we need to do it. Yeah. But we're just bad at doing that, so Yes.
[00:51:52] Take the time. Yep. It's okay. And I promise your clients will be okay too.
[00:51:57] Brittany Pope: They will. It's amazing. I mean, I had to leave for my [00:52:00] internship too. Like I was matched somewhere and I had to leave and I. My clients are fine. Like I'm still seeing some telehealth here and there, but they're okay. They can find another therapist.
[00:52:10] You can give them recommendations, like it's going to be okay. Yeah. Like you're allowed to live your life and that's okay. Yes, and that's been a, that's been a journey for me. That's my own sort of like you said, martyrdom, like we're not martyrs. Like we, yeah. We are people who make mistakes too, and like we need to own those.
[00:52:24] Yeah. So
[00:52:25] Ashley Comegys: yeah, thank you so much Brittany for being here today and again, just for your openness and being willing to share your experience. I hope you share your research somewhere at at PSI conference or like publish it, but I hope, I hope that gets out. I gotta get
[00:52:41] Brittany Pope: the next phase, and then I, my plan was to write something up this summer when I'm done with my internship and I take some time off.
[00:52:46] I was gonna just do some writing and, yeah, get that out. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:52:51] Ashley Comegys: Good, good. Well, thank you so much for being
[00:52:53] Brittany Pope: here today. All right. Thank you.
[00:52:57] Ashley Comegys: Again, I just wanna thank Brittany so [00:53:00] much for sharing her story with me and opening herself up. For all of you listeners, and if you're anticipating taking maternity leave and private practice soon or in the future, be sure to register for the free workshop I'm hosting called Planning for Maternity Leave and Private Practice.
[00:53:15] Again, you can register@racetoempower.com slash maternity leave. Thank you for listening to today's episode, and if you haven't done so already, be sure to subscribe to the show so that you'll get part two of this series tomorrow directly in your podcast feed. Thank you so much for listening to the Raise to Empower podcast.
[00:53:36] Check the show notes for all links and resources mentioned in the show. If you found today's episode helpful or inspiring, be sure to share it with your therapist friends, and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave your five star rating and review. It truly means so much to me and will help us get our message of empowerment out to other women and mom clinicians, and I'd love to connect with you in our Facebook community.
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