Responding to Life: Talking Health, Fertility and Parenthood

Amira Alvarez is the founder and CEO of The Unstoppable Woman, a business coaching and training company that equips ambitious, driven, high-performing female entrepreneurs to tap into their feminine energy to create a more fulfilled and satisfying life and business.

As someone who has made a quantum leap (going from barely making 6-figures to making $700k in one year, then onto 7-figures) and has lived to tell about it, she knows exactly what inner and outer game strategies are required to get out of your own way, live life on your own terms, and master the art of achieving any goal you set your mind to.

Amira is proud to have helped thousands of women confidently break free of limitations and be unstoppable in pursuit of a life they are elated to live. When she's not helping others, she's continuing to say "yes" to her own growth and stays 100% committed to being unstoppable in her own life and business.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Amira about:

• Feminine vs masculine energy and how to use it in life and business

• Ways to break free from limitations

• Recognizing stress in high achievers and coping strategies for stress

• How Amira says yes to growth

Ways to connect with Amira:

https://unstoppablewoman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/theunstoppablewomanpage

https://www.instagram.com/theunstoppablewoman/

https://www.instagram.com/alvarezamira

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-unstoppable-woman/

We're kicking off the first episode of the new year with Sonali Perera Bridges, an award-winning, dynamic, innovative leader with over 20 years of progressive experience in a wide breadth of educational settings. A lifelong mentor and advocate - particularly for young women - she is the driving force behind the conception of Shero’s Rise and a mother of two vibrant young girls.  

Sonali has spent the majority of her career focused on the development of young girls and their ability to reach their highest potential. She helped start the Women’s Leadership program at her alma mater, which grew to become a part of President Barack Obama’s National Honor Roll. In addition, she has served in a multitude of high-level leadership positions as well as on executive boards, at both the local and national level, to ensure equity and access to higher education. 

In this episode, you'll hear from Sonali about:

• The origin and mission of Shero's Rise, an organization focused on empowering girls through self-discovery and the development of essential life skills

• The 12 pillars of Shero's Rise, which include self-esteem, empathy, courage, and gratitude

• The impact of the organization's programs, such as the Ignite the Force program and the recent Shero's Rise Summit

• How listeners can kick off 2024 by making a profound impact on the lives of young girls

To make a donation: https://www.sherosrise.org/s/donate?language=en_US 

Information on Shero’s Rise programming: https://www.sherosrise.org/s/programs?language=en_US 

Apply to become a mentor: https://www.sherosrise.org/s/volunteer?language=en_US

Connect on IG: https://www.instagram.com/sherosrise

On the newest episode of Responding to Life I am joined by Dr. Kumkum Sarkar Patel, a double-board certified gastroenterologist practicing at Providence St. Jude and Providence St. Joseph Heritage Medical Groups in Orange County, CA. Dr. Patel specializes in irritable bowel syndrome, esophageal, and anorectal disorders.

Dr. Patel currently serves as a healthcare consultant and speaker for medical device and pharmaceutical companies. She also serves on the American College of Gastroenterology's Women in GI Committee to promote advancement for women in GI. Additionally, she is a passionate motivational speaker, and has spoken nationally about women's health, work-life balance, post-partum depression, burnout, and gut-health related to mental health.

Outside of medicine, she enjoys spending time with her husband and sons, traveling, and singing a cappella. Dr. Patel‘s Instagram platform can be found on @dr.gut_motility. She uses this as an informational as well as an inspirational platform— to educate others on gastrointestinal diseases while inspiring them on lifestyle choices.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Dr. Patel about:

• The link between gut health and mental health

• How to optimize what you're eating for overall wellness and to boost fertility

• The truth about probiotics

• How to be mindful about what you eat during the holiday season

For more info, visit: www.kumkumpatelmd.com

On the newest episode of Responding to Life, I am joined by Linda Fruits, the content creator behind the relateable motherhood account @fruitsofmotherhood. Her mission in life is to normalize the sweet, bitter and bittersweet Fruits of Motherhood, with a side of humor.

This year, Linda wrote, designed and illustrated her first book called, The Mom Life.

Linda’s content on social media is bite sized, and her book is a full course dinner. Equal parts sass and inclusiveness, The Mom Life explores the highs and lows of new motherhood, tackling taboo subjects like losing interest in your partner, not immediately loving your baby, and imposter syndrome.

Linda’s book will be a must-have for every new mother trying to maneuver the realities of daily life with small children. The Mom Life creates a safe space and a vital contrast to the deluge of information and picture-perfect parenthood accounts popping up across social media. Full of powerful and empowering advice for women.

In addition, Linda hosts a new podcast called Fruits of Motherhood and now offers transformational motherhood life coaching. She helps moms make meaningful changes in their lives and overcome the guilt about doing so. As a coach, she’ll help you love the mother you already are and find the empowerment to move towards a more fulfilling life because taking care of you, is taking care of your children’s mommy.

On this episode, you’ll hear from Linda about:

• Motherhood as a metamorphosis

• Unrealistic motherhood expectations and how to challenge them

• The hardest lesson she’s learned as a mother

• Burnout, owning our truth, and creating boundaries

For more info, go to: fruitsofmotherhood.com

In recognition of October being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, we're re-releasing a past episode where our guests discuss a very sensitive topic that may be triggering for some of you who are currently on your path to parenthood or are one of the 1 in 4 who has experienced pregnancy loss or miscarriage. Featured in this episode are the courageous stories of how to heal after experiencing loss.

Dr. Kela Smith is a Holistic-Integrative Fertility and Hormone Doctor. She founded The Hormone Puzzle Society and the Fertility Coach University.

The Hormone Puzzle Society is a health hub for fertility, hormones, and pregnancy. Through this platform, Dr. Kela and her team work with women/couples coaching them on how to optimize their body/mind/spirit so they can get and stay pregnant, bring home a healthy baby, have an easy postpartum, and eliminate symptoms of hormone imbalance.

Fertility Coach University is an accredited and certified institute of higher learning for anyone wanting to become a fertility coach.

With over 25 years of experience in integrative health, Dr. Kela has created seven online courses and published multiple books on fertility, hormones, pregnancy, and total body wellness. Some of her books include- The Complete Hormone Puzzle Cookbook, The Hormone Puzzle – Solving-Infertility Workbook, The Cycle Optimizing Scheduler, The Hormone Puzzle – Optimizing Pregnancy Guide and her newest cookbook, which came out in May 2023.

Dr. Kela also hosts The Hormone P.U.Z.Z.L.E Podcast, Solving-Infertility Summit, and Healthy Happy Pregnancy Summit. 

In this episode, you’ll hear from Dr. Kela about:

• 5 hacks to balance hormones fast

• How to tell if you have hormone imbalances

• What the Hormone P.U.Z.Z.L.E. is all about

• How to tell if your hormone balancing strategies are working

Ways to connect with Dr. Kela:

www.coachkela.com

https://www.instagram.com/kela_healthcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/kelahealthcoach/

Grab your FREE Cycle Optimizing Quick-Start Guide and learn how to start incorporating cycle optimizing into your life and put your body into the optimal state of health.

https://coachkela.com/responding-to-life/

As many of you may know, a big part of my path to parenthood involved many rounds of IVF cycles. Back then we really didn’t know much about what was happening with our embryos and just blindly trusted that the miracle workers in the lab of our reproductive center knew best. These days, we’re so lucky to have people like this episode's guest who is helping thousands of people learn about the ins and outs of their embryos. 

Alease Daniel Barnes graduated from North Carolina State University in 2018 with a degree in Genetics and a minor in Biotechnology. While at NCSU, she developed a passion for reproductive health, women’s health and comprehensive sex education, but wasn’t sure how that would translate into a career. Her degrees gave her great lab experience and she wanted to utilize that while also working with patients.

Alease went into the field right after graduation and over the years, she realized just how little information there is on what actually goes on behind the scenes in the lab. She then decided to create her Instagram and Tiktok, and it’s grown into a great way to educate patients. Infertility is not an easy journey and she believes understanding what happens in the lab can help give patients peace of mind during their treatment.

Her pages have now grown to over 170k followers and have been featured on Buzzfeed, Good Morning America, mom.com and more.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Alease about:

• Embryo grading

• The embryo freezing process

• All about the PGTA testing

• What to ask about your reproductive endocrinologist and their lab

Ways to connect with Alease:

www.aleasetheembryologist@gmail.com
Tiktok: @aleasetheembryologist
Instagram: @alease_the_embryologist

For more information on Josephine Atluri Mindful Coaching, LLC and the Responding to Life podcast, please visit www.jatluri.com. On the site, you can sign up for a monthly newsletter that comes with a free 30 day mindfulness plan, you can book private meditation sessions, general or fertility specific, as well as sign up for Josephine’s convenient online mindfulness workshops. For daily inspiration, please follow Josephine on Instagram @josephineratluri and @respondingtolifepodcast.

Victoria Facelli is an Internationally Board Certified Lactation consultant who just released a new book titled, FEED THE BABY: An Inclusive Guide to Nursing, Bottle-Feeding, and Everything in Between 

Victoria is queer, Latinx, neurodivergent and raising a child with a disability. She wrote Feed the Baby to provide straightforward advice and evidence-based reasoning where bottle and breast are welcomed as equally valuable tools. Based on her years of experience in the field and as a lactation consultant who couldn't breastfeed, Facelli understands what families and babies need to thrive. She explains the science behind the various options, from how milks are made to how a newborn’s sucking and swallowing skills develop. There are dozens of nursing positions and paced bottle-feeding techniques, with suggested systems and methods for parents and partners, from those critical hours after birth through the early weeks and months to the first year.

Feed the Baby includes:

• Detailed instruction on how to nurse, how to pump, how to formula feed – and, crucially, how to combine all of these tools, as almost all families ultimately will.

• The science behind breastmilk (a wonder of the human body) and formula (a wonder of human ingenuity).

• Accessible explanations of the ways a baby’s anatomy and posture in utero can affect their eating, and massage and therapeutic techniques to improve that posture.

• Links to 49 original instructional videos linked in the book via QR code, featuring a diverse array of infants and parents, and demonstrating feeding techniques from latching to hand-expression, to paced bottle feeding, to infant massage.

• 75 original illustrations featuring diverse families and useful techniques. 

In this episode, you’ll hear from Victoria about:

• Victoria’s personal experience with breastfeeding

• Identifying expectations and goals as it relates to feeding your baby

• How to let go of expectations when it comes to feeding your baby

• How to prioritize one’s mental wellness postpartum

• How Victoria’s book, “Feed the baby” is different from other baby feeding books on the market and how it can help you

Ways to connect with Victoria:

www.victoriafacelli.com

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781682686928

IG: @victoria.facelli.IBCLC

For more information on Josephine Atluri Mindful Coaching, LLC and the Responding to Life podcast, please visit www.jatluri.com. On the site, you can sign up for a monthly newsletter that comes with a free 30 day mindfulness plan.  On the site you can book private meditation sessions, general or fertility specific as well as sign up for Josephine’s convenient online mindfulness workshops. For daily inspiration, please follow Josephine on Instagram @josephineratluri and @respondingtolifepodcast.

Audrey Wisch is the CEO and Co-Founder of Curious Cardinals, a global community where K-12 students discover and pursue their passions, build confidence, and unlock their greatest potential with the guidance of college mentors they aspire to be.

Audrey started Curious Cardinals as an undergraduate at Stanford University; after teaching her first workshop on mass incarceration to high school students at the start of the pandemic, Audrey decided to mobilize her most ambitious peers at Stanford and beyond to join her in teaching the topics they were passionate about to K-12 students and serving as their near-peer mentors.

Since then, Audrey has taken time off from Stanford to pursue Curious Cardinals full time, now a community of over 400 college mentors mentoring students around the world. The company has raised $6.8 million in seed funding led by Anthos Capital and Audacious Ventures, and has been featured on CNN and Bloomberg. Audrey was also recognized in the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Education and Youngest category.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Audrey about:

• How Curious Cardinals came to be

• How Curious Cardinals can support your children

• How to help your child if they don’t know their passion yet

Ways to connect with Audrey:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-micay-wisch-39a95a1b2/

https://twitter.com/AudreyWisch

CC founding story - my manifesto captures this: https://blog.curiouscardinals.com/the-pursuit-of-passion-a-manifesto

For more information on Josephine Atluri Mindful Coaching, the Responding to Life podcast, and Josephine's mindfulness books, please visit www.jatluri.com. On the site, you can sign up for a monthly newsletter that comes with a free 30 day mindfulness plan. You can also book private meditation sessions, general or fertility specific, as well as sign up for Josephine’s latest online mindfulness workshops and retreats. For daily inspiration, please follow Josephine on Instagram @josephineratluri and @respondingtolifepodcast.

On this episode of Responding to Life, I am joined by Melissa Connelly. Melissa is an LGBTQ+ content creator whose platform focuses on inclusivity and authenticity while discussing real and raw topics candidly. A Black lesbian in an interracial marriage, she is about to be a first time mom. She's created an online community sharing her life and her family online while inviting others to the table to join the conversation and share their stories.

I'm excited to share with you my interview with Melissa where we discuss her infertility journey as a lesbian which involved IUI, IVF, and the use of a third party donor. We'll also dive into Melissa's concerns of becoming first time parents as a lesbian couple.

@missyhalle

We’re kicking off 2022 by recapping some of our favorite episodes from the past three seasons. In six special podcast episodes, we’ll highlight some of the best tips and advice from our previous guests. In this third bonus episode, we'll be talking about the different experiences people have on their unique paths to parenthood. In this episode, you’ll hear from:

Founder of Robyn, Alli Kasirer

Fellow fertility advocates: Marilyn Gomez, Eli Weinstein, Monique Farook, and Krystle Chavez

Tune in to hear from these incredible guests on how to navigate the complexities of fertility journeys, the effect of infertility on relationships, and the role of faith and hope while trying to conceive and ultimately, once a child is born. 

Allison Kasirer, founder of Robyn
@wearerobyn
www.wearerobyn.co

Marilyn Gomez, founder of Infertile Tees
@marilynbgomez
@INFERTILETEES
infertiletees.com

Eli Weinstein, host of The Dude Therapist podcast
@elivation_therapist
https://linktr.ee/dudetherapist (podcast)
www.ELIvation.org

Monique Farook, host of the Infertility and Me podcast
@infertilityandmepodcast
www.moniquefarook.com

Krystle Chavez
@krystledchavez

Josephine Atluri 
@josephineratluri
www.jatluri.com

We’re kicking off 2022 by recapping some of our favorite episodes from the past three seasons. In six special podcast episodes, we’ll highlight some of the best tips and advice from our previous guests. In this second bonus episode, we’re exploring the different ways you can prioritize yourself. In this episode, you’ll hear from:

• Murray Hidary, composer, visual artist, and founder of MindTravel

• Puneet Nanda, founder of GuruNanda

• Melissa Monte, mindset coach and host of the podcast Mind Love

• Annie Tevelin, founder of SkinOwl and host of the podcast, Off the Record

• Colleen Christensen, RD, nutritionist, and founder of No Food Rules