Briar: Welcome to my mommy's podcast.

Dr. Weisman: Hey, all you women in medicine. It is time to rock it with Doctor Me First, a podcast all about authentic conversation between female physicians to bring encouragement, community, hope, and fun to your life and your practice. I'm Dr. Errin Weisman, your colleague in medicine and coach in life, and this is episode number seven.

Dr. Weisman: Today is a special episode. I am talking with two female physicians, Dr. Sharon McLaughlin and Dr. Shikha Jain, and the word that we all decided on was "motherhood." Hence why one of my beautiful children got to start the intro today. I am so excited to share this conversation with you because it truly is straight gold. And remember afterwards, stick around for a kick of encouragement for today.

Dr. Weisman: All right, let's get on to the conversation.

Dr. Weisman: Welcome, everybody. It's Dr. Errin Weisman, and I am back with some special guests today. We are actually doing a twofer today because of some scheduling issues on my part. But I would love for my guests to introduce themselves and we will be jumping into the topic of motherhood. All right.

Dr. McLaughlin: Hello, everybody. This is Dr. Sharon McLaughlin. I am a board-certified plastic surgeon. I have one daughter, she's 15 years old, the love of my life. Side jobs consist of doing medical fraud investigation, and I'm also a blogger. I have a website called Going Green MD where I'm an advocate for healthy living.

Dr. Weisman: That's awesome.

Dr. Jain: All right, and I'm Dr. Shikha Jain. I am a board-certified hematology/oncology physician in Chicago. I have three children. I have a daughter who's four and a half, and then I have twin boys who are going to be one at the end of the month. I primarily do GI oncology, and then I've started doing some research on social media and the impact of it on healthcare, as well as women in medicine and career advancement. I'm the founder of a women in medicine symposium that's happening this year at Northwestern. And I also have a website, www.shikhajainmd.com.

Dr. Weisman: Well, you guys are absolutely amazing. And just to tell our listeners, we met through the Facebook group, I think it's the Female Physician Entrepreneurs, is that correct?

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah, I started that a little over a year ago.

Dr. Weisman: Yeah, and I'm so glad. Before we got going on the recording, we were talking with Dr. McLaughlin about how social media has been so powerful in our lives and bringing together. I was sharing the story that I am the only female physician in my county here in Indiana, and I just find so much joy finding connections with other female colleagues. I'm just so excited to get on these podcasts and talk with these fricking amazing female doctors that you guys are.

Dr. Weisman: All right, so jumping into our topic today of motherhood, it is the best of times, it is the worst of times, sometimes being a mom in medicine. You guys, give me some of your experiences with your kiddos and playing doctor mom.

Dr. McLaughlin: I'll go first. I think the hardest thing is actually I thought being a mom and trying to arrange the daycare was one of the hardest things, more so than practicing medicine at the time when my daughter was younger. Depending on the schedule and the type of lifestyle that you lead, if you have a practice or a field of medicine where things are unexpected, it makes it very difficult. I think for us it may be easier to do shift work, like you know that you're going to get off at 7:00. It may be 7:15, 7:30, but you know around that time you're going to get off, where other types of practices, it would be more difficult.

Dr. Jain: Yeah. We've been very lucky in that we've had fantastic nannies and we actually currently have an amazing nanny. She's 25, and she has the energy of a 25-year-old, and she's incredible, especially with three kids. And I have a very supportive family. My parents live nearby so they're very helpful.

Dr. Jain: I think that's the only reason I've been able to not only survive but flourish. I've been able to take on other projects because I have help. I face the mom guilt that I think all moms face, but I'm fortunate in that I know my kids are well cared for and loved, even if I'm not always able to be there. And they understand that mommy's helping sick people, and my daughter tells me on a regular basis she wants to be a doctor mommy when she gets older.

Dr. Jain: So I think that I'm hopefully setting a good example for all three of my kids to show that you can be a parent and an active and involved parent and also have a career that you are proud of. But it is a difficult balance to strike for sure.

Dr. Weisman: Absolutely. With my kiddos, my first one was born my intern year of residency, and daycare was a nightmare. I mean, there was many times that I was hiding him in his car seat in a supply closet on the floor, just praying that he would keep sleeping while I went and tried to do an admission. It got easier as I got through training and I got out into practice.

Dr. Weisman: We primarily use a daycare center located here, and they're so accommodating and they've been so wonderful. You know you always have that one more that comes through the door right before they lock it, especially when you're in family medicine. And it's just phenomenal, like you said. And I think part of my thing, learning after child one, two and three, is learning that it's okay to ask for help.

Dr. Jain: Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Weisman: So many people, I mean I found myself getting hung up. Like the perception that I put on myself is that I had to be everything for everybody. But then when I realized I'm like, no, people understand that if I can't get there, that it's probably somebody's life or their family's life. And so I'm the same way. I am so appreciative for the village that helps me raise my children because that certainly is the case. We actually moved closer to my in-laws for that exact reason because we knew we needed family after kid 2.0.

Dr. Jain: Yeah.

Dr. McLaughlin: I think that's the biggest takeaway lesson here is that you need help. You cannot do it all yourself. And whether you use daycare or you're using family support or a live-in nanny, I am still ... like having layers of people was useful, very useful, because if something didn't work out, if somebody was sick, like the babysitter was sick, that I had plan B. So have your plan B and plan C. But that's the biggest thing, right? As far as asking for help when you need it and using that and don't feel like you can do it all because honestly you can't and it just stresses you out, and then your family gets stressed out because you're stressed out.

Dr. Jain: Exactly. I agree 100% with that. Having a good support system and having ... you know, I've got a list of babysitters and backup babysitters and my parents and my friends and especially my friend with the twins, and we weren't sure when I was going to have to go to the hospital. You need to have that support system. You need to find a way to find it.

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah. How do you go about finding people, as far as babysitters? What do you think is the best way as far as words of advice for some of the females that are listening or perhaps even dads that are listening?

Dr. Jain: Sure, yeah, I think that there's a couple of different ways. So we've definitely done things like care.com and the websites and Sitters City and some of the other websites that are out there. In Chicago there's an entire parent network, like an online network that you can sign up for where they have classifieds for babysitters, where parents actually recommend babysitters.

Dr. Jain: If you don't have anything like that, going to ... my daughter's now in preschool, so I've asked at her school and any place that she goes for any classes or music classes, things like that, we ask her teachers there. And then colleagues. I've asked my friends. Some people get nervous sharing babysitters because they're worried they're not going to have the babysitter as available.

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jain: But most people I've found are pretty willing to give up a phone number or two. So that's been the best way. And then when you get one good constant babysitter, asking them if they have any friends who might be interested as well. Those are the main ways we've found our stable people. Our current nanny actually used to teach at my daughter's play school that she'd go to a couple days a week, and so she was looking to transition into a nanny position, and that's how we found her. We were extremely lucky. So I think it's a little bit of luck and then a lot of just networking and going online and then talking to people you know.

Dr. Weisman: I think so. I would echo that 100%. And the other thing too that seems like the easiest way to keep somebody who's good, we pay them well. And I tell them that, especially if it's like a younger adult or older teenager, I say, "You are taking care of the most important, valuable thing in my life, so I am going to pay you well so that you do this right."

Dr. Jain: Yep, and just showing that you appreciate them. That's the biggest thing. I mean, they do a lot for you, and they do a lot of things that we don't even realize they're doing when we're at work. You come home, and your house is clean, and you spend a Saturday and you realize, oh my gosh, there's a lot of work that goes into keeping my kids healthy and keeping the house straightened and making sure that everyone is fed and bathed. This is an important job, and it's not easy.

Dr. Weisman: Absolutely, absolutely. So talking a little bit more about motherhood, I know one of the most trepidatious times was always what we're now terming the fourth trimester, you know, that postpartum period. Do you guys have any stories or any insight to share maybe for a physician mom who has just had her first one, and she's just a couple months postpartum?

Dr. Jain: So I can ...

Dr. McLaughlin: My advice on dealing with that, it's a trying time, for sure, but just roll with it. You may feel like you're inadequate because you can't do your job as well as you want to do, and you can't be the type of mother you want to be right now. But you'll get there is the bottom line, and I think the children are better adjusted because of that, you know, not having a set schedule all the time.

Dr. Weisman: Yeah.

Dr. McLaughlin: For me, honestly, I didn't give up practice. Two days after I got out of the hospital, I was taking out stitches and seeing people in the office. There really was no maternity leave for me. I was in practice by myself, and if I wasn't working, there was no money coming in.

Dr. Jain: Wow, that's amazing. You are an amazing person. I don't think I could've done that.

Dr. Jain: I think it depends on what level you are. So if you're a trainee, I think the one thing that I didn't do that I wish I had done a bit more is, when you come back, reach out to your program director, whoever it is and tell them, "I need to have a little bit of help" I guess would be the best way. "I just need you to know that I'm doing the best I ca, and I want to make sure that you know I'm still very committed, and I really want to be 100% present, but it might take me a little bit of time to ramp back up."

Dr. Jain: Maybe not in those words, depending on the relationship you have with your program director, but reach out for help. Let them know if you need help because they should know what's going on to a certain extent so they can help you be successful in your training and so they don't take things out of context and they don't think that you are ... Sometimes, especially if it's a program director who doesn't have children or who doesn't remember when they had kids, you want to make sure that they know that the things that are happening with you aren't happening because you're being lazy or because you're not focused or because you're not as dedicated.

Dr. Jain: You want them to know it's because you're breastfeeding, so you're up all night, or your kid's not sleeping. You don't need to tell them all the minutiae. You just need to make sure they know "I'm still very dedicated to this, but I might need a little bit more help over the next couple of months. How can I make sure that I'm still successful and working hard when I have this fourth trimester going on?"

Dr. Jain: When you're an attending, if you can financially, coming back with a lighter load, if possible, at least for a couple of weeks, just to ease back into it. If that's not possible, if you have partners that you can also talk to and just be open as much as you can, as much as you feel comfortable doing. I think it's really important to make sure that you're getting the support you need while also continuing to work very hard.

Dr. Weisman: I would agree with all of that as well. I think so many times in medicine we try to be so stoic and so strong that we need to reach out. We need to be like, "Hey, I just popped a baby out four weeks ago, and I'm back here on rotations. If I'm a little sleepy or falling asleep during morning report, just wake me up."

Dr. Jain: Right.

Dr. Weisman: It's not that I don't want to be here. It's that my baby is keeping it ... You know, I would say a majority of the time with the majority of programs, they're very understanding with that. It's just the fear of being inadequate. Don't you think that's what keeps holding a lot of trainees back?

Dr. McLaughlin: Right, definitely.

Dr. Weisman: My first one, I had as an intern, I came back in four weeks. My second one, I'm super fertile by the way, just so you know, I had my third year of residency. I think I took a whopping like five and a half weeks off with him.

Dr. McLaughlin: Wow.

Dr. Weisman: And then my last one, I actually had when I was out in practice and took a more normal maternity leave of like seven or eight weeks. So I think I would also encourage moms too to say, especially first-timers, I think my biggest thing is I put so much pressure on myself that I was a physician, and I needed to know all the answers and that I paralleled to why my baby's screaming at 3:00 AM, even though he's been fed, diaper changed, and warm and loved. I put too much pressure on myself, and I think that sometimes you just have to back out of the situation and be like ...

Dr. Weisman: Like you said, Dr. McLaughlin, you're going to be fine. Just wing it.

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah, that's true.

Dr. Weisman: Your child is already heads and tails above so many other children because they've got a stable home and people that love them from day one.

Dr. McLaughlin: Right, right.

Dr. Weisman: And you probably have gotten healthier above routine prenatal care.

Dr. McLaughlin: Right.

Dr. Weisman: You just have to remind yourself of that. And I think it's really important too to have like a mom buddy. Have another physician who has either had children or in a similar state that you are, that they can be your emergency consult call, that when something's happening, even if they can't give you the right answers, that you can get ahold of them, and if anything, they can be that shoulder that you cry on because that was my experience is that sometimes I just needed somebody to tell me I wasn't crazy and that it was going to be okay.

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah. I think one of the big concerns, especially in training, a lot of people have if they feel like they're going to come back and say anything, and it's going to sound like an excuse, or it's going to sound like they're complaining. I think again it also really depends on your relationship with your program director. You need to be able to have these conversations and be open, but again you have to be careful that you don't end up sounding like you're complaining, and that, I think, is a very fine balance for new moms to come to.

Dr. McLaughlin: I totally agree. If you can find ... I didn't have a lot of friends nearby who had kids. Nobody in my fellowship, in my year had children. Some of the older people did. It's a very difficult ... It can be a very difficult time if you don't have the people to talk to. I relied a lot on my husband and on my mom and then my friends from med school and residency who had children. But it's one of those things where, if you have somebody you can complain to, who's a friend, then they can say, "Oh yeah, I went through the same thing." And it definitely helps to have someone to commiserate with, if you need to.

Dr. Weisman: Absolutely. Another thing that got to me during early childhood care was the breastfeeding. I'm family medicine trained, so you know I am like a card-carrying "breast is best" member. And I ended up not being able to do it. And even though I understood all the logistics, understood that I was an intern, it was probably the stress and the lack of sleep and everything, and that my son ate like 36 ounces a day as a two-month-old. There's no way even a jersey cow could have kept up with him.

Dr. Weisman: That was a big deal, as far as I had advocated so much for my patients to have a space to pump at work. I had written plenty of notes. I had done community education about why breastfeeding was so good, and that was an issue that I had to confront in myself when I was not able to get even to six months. I think I made it three months with my first one, pumping in and trying to nurse as much as possible.

Dr. Weisman: Do you guys have any experience with that?

Dr. McLaughlin: I have bilateral mastectomies, so that wasn't an issue when I had my daughter, but I hear all these stories. My nieces go through it, and I don't know. I hate to say it, but I was sort of lucky that way because that was never a question for me or never a decision. You know what I mean? Because I would imagine there's a lot of guilt if you're trying to do it, and you can't do it. But that wasn't an option.

Dr. Jain: Yeah. For me, with my daughter, I had so many problems. We called three nursing consultants and all these people. I never made enough, so I ended up having to supplement her from day one. She's fine. She's four and a half. She's healthy. I was able to breastfeed her to some extent until about seven months, and by then ... And I was pumping at work, and I was, by seven months, I was like, "You know what, I think that I'm calling it."

Dr. Jain: And then, with the twins, I had decided from the beginning. I said I didn't make enough for my daughter, there's no way I'm going to make enough for two babies. It's just not possible. So I started supplementing them from the beginning as well because they needed to be fed, and I made it with them to about five and a half months, which I was shocked I made it more than two weeks honestly. And I figured any amount of breast milk that they were able to get was a bonus, and if they couldn't get it, then they'd still be fine. And there's formula-fed kids who I'm sure are Nobel Peace Prize Winners.

Dr. Jain: I think that it's a conversation a lot of women don't have. I'm a physician. I should have known that breastfeeding isn't easy, but we all assume, oh, it's going to be easy. It's natural. My body should be able to do it. The more people who I opened up to about my struggles, the more people I learned had the same struggles that I did.

Dr. Jain: So I think it's one of those things, if you're an over-producer, and you're able to make enough milk, fantastic. That's great. If you're not, then that's also great. Just make sure your kids are happy and that you're not driving yourself crazy thinking you're a horrible mom because you can't make enough milk.

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Jain: [crosstalk 00:19:48] Yeah. After you deliver, regardless of what a strong person you are, there are hormones that take some sort of effect, and they can make you more emotional than you normally would be. The rational part of you is saying "It makes sense that I can't do this. It's not a big deal." And the emotional part of you is crying and thinking, "Why am I such a bad mom?" So you just have to cut yourself some slack and realize that your kids are going to be fine whether you're able to breastfeed or not. Dr. Weisman: Yeah. I have changed my mantra to "fed is the best," instead of "breast is the best." Fed is the best at this point.

Dr. Jain: Exactly.

Dr. Weisman: I would encourage any of our female colleagues out there, if this is a struggle for you, welcome to the club because I think all of us have had this. And I think it's just the nature of our career. We don't get to have months and months and months of snuggle time. We don't always get to feed onto me, and I felt like I married to my pump. Shoot, I've burned through like three or four of those suckers just in a short amount of time.

Dr. Jain: Yep. I actually, with my first, our pediatrician had me ... This was crazy. I had to change pediatricians eventually. She was a lovely lady, but I was feeding my child and pumping every hour, and so I literally ... I had a chair and a setup, and I was sitting there. There was actually a 24-hour period where I did not move from that chair other than to get up to pee, and I literally was either pumping or feeding her because she was like, "If you keep her on the breast for 24 hours, and if you're pumping when she's not on the breast, then your production's just going to go up."

Dr. Jain: After 24 hours ... My mom was staying with us at the time because I was just a couple, about a week postpartum, and I'd had a C-section. My mom finally told me, she said, "This is insane. Go to sleep. I will feed your child. And please remove the pump from your breast."

Dr. Weisman: Yes, exactly.

Dr. Jain: [crosstalk 00:21:45]It was horrible.

Dr. Weisman: Isn't it amazing?

Dr. Jain: The things we do.

Dr. Weisman: Isn't it amazing, the crazy things that we do as far as ... I mean, I even had a friend who, she begged me to come over and start an IV on her so she could do pretty much the exact same thing, feed and pump but stay hydrated.

Dr. Jain: Oh my god.

Dr. Weisman: Because she was just ... I think we just get a little cray-cray.

Dr. Jain: Yeah.

Dr. Weisman: I mean, it's that like OCD, hormones, the self-expectations, all of that.

Dr. McLaughlin: The lack of sleep.

Dr. Weisman: So I just normalize that for everybody and say it's okay to be a little crazy, but call a friend, so that they back you off of the ledge eventually.

Dr. Jain: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. McLaughlin: I think it's that lack of sleep, and you're so involved, right? And then, when you step back, and you're like, "What are we doing here? This is crazy." It's easier to see [crosstalk 00:22:36].

Dr. Jain: It's obvious.

Dr. Weisman: You know, retrospectively.

Dr. Jain: In medicine, you have a problem, here's the solution, and you fix it, right?

Dr. McLaughlin: Yes.

Dr. Jain: That's just the way it is. When you're a mom, that's not the way it works. There's a problem, the solution might not ... you might not be able to fix it. You've just gotta you got to roll with the punches. And my husband is lovely, and he tried really hard to tell me I was being nuts, but I was hormonal and not listening. So when my mom finally said, "You're being nuts," my husband was like, "I've been saying that for hours. Why haven't you listened to me?" And I said, "Well, you're not my mom," and my mom said it, so now I realize I'm actually crazy.

Dr. Weisman: Yeah, you're just the husband, yeah.

Dr. Jain: Exactly.

Dr. Weisman: Who cares if you've got a "doctor" in front of your name too?

Dr. Jain: Exactly. That's irrelevant. You don't know what I'm talking about.

Dr. Weisman: I love it, I love it.

Dr. Weisman: Well, moving on from this, I always love to bring in a personal flair to any of these conversations because I think it's so important that we acknowledge both our professional side, but all elements within our lives. So can each of you give me a recent just sweet moment of your motherhood?

Dr. McLaughlin: Yeah, I definitely can. Sometimes on Facebook. we'll see these videos, and I just think they're so encouraging. Well, maybe you don't think that this is sweet, but I think it's sweet. I had shown my daughter a video of Elizabeth Smart speaking, and she had been through so much. She was the one that was kidnapped from her home and taken. Yeah.

Dr. McLaughlin: She goes around, and she speaks. She's a great speaker and just very encouraging, very inspiring. My daughter listened to this, and she said, "You know, Ma, thanks so much for this. Thanks so much for sharing." I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to say is she's 15 now, but she's finally coming to realize what we do, or maybe some parents would look at that and say, "I don't want my daughter seeing that." But I think it's important at 15 years old to be aware of what can go on. For me, it was very sweet because she was just so appreciative of what I was trying to show her.

Dr. Jain: Yeah, I think that's incredibly sweet. I'm looking forward to the day when I can have profound conversations with my kids. Right now, they're obviously much too young to have very deep conversations.

Dr. Jain: So I'll give you an example with each of them. So, with my daughter, the other day, she sat me down. This just happened last night actually. She sat me down before she was going to bed and she said, "Mommy, I need to talk to you." I said, "Okay, honey, what's wrong?" She said, "Mommy, I want to talk to you about really important things."

Dr. Jain: And I said, "Okay, sweetheart, what do you want to talk about?" And then she proceeded to tell me about her entire day, and then she told me about some nightmare she'd had and how she was having trouble sleeping. And then she said, "Mommy, I want you to know you are the best mommy in the whole world, and you're my best friend, and I want to live with you forever." And I said, "That's amazing, honey. What about when you get married, when you go to college?" And she said, "No, mommy, you're going to come with me, and you're going to live with me." And I'm thinking in my head, I wish I had recorded this so I could show you this when you're 18 and yelling at me.

Dr. McLaughlin: Exactly.

Dr. Jain: But it was just so sweet and so heartfelt, and she was so just endearing about it.

Dr. Jain: And then, with my twins, they've recently learned how to kiss, and so what they do is they crawl over to you, and they say, "Kissy?" It's an open-mouth like suction on your face kiss. They do it spontaneously, and they get so happy when they do it. One of them does it a few times in a row, and then the other one, if you ask him, doesn't want to do it. He shoves your head out of the way.

Dr. Jain: One of the boys was shoving my head out of the way, and the other one saw that happening, crawled over to me, and started giving me kisses because he saw his brother wasn't giving me kisses. It as just ... Even at less than one year old, they are intuitive enough to see kind of what's happening and come over and make me feel good, despite the fact that they're not even a year old.

Dr. Jain: So I love having them at this age. And every age comes with its own challenges, but it's fun. It's fun to watch them grow and see how they develop and see their personalities. I feel like being a mom is an incredible thing, and having the opportunity to raise three children, I think, is incredible.

Dr. Weisman: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, my story is ... my husband told me ... The other day, I was working a late shift. Every time they come home and if I'm not there, they always ask, "Where's mommy at?" He tells them, "Mommy's working at the hospital."

Dr. Weisman: Then the next morning, I got home late in the middle of the night, but I always get up with them in the morning, when I went and got my two-year-old, my daughter up, she said, "Mommy, you back!" And I said, "Yeah!" And then she said, "Mommy always comes back." And that just broke my little heart, that she knows that, even if I'm not always present in every moment of her life, that I will always come back. So that was my sweet moment.

Dr. McLaughlin: That's awesome.

Dr. Weisman: Well, ladies, it has been so great talking with you. It's been fun doing a twofer. It's definitely a new flavor to the podcast, and I can't wait to have you back. Any finishing touches? Or maybe we should tell our listeners, if they're interested in getting in touch with you, what would be the best way?

Dr. McLaughlin: For me, there's a contact on GoingGreen.com. It's GoingGreenMD.com. You can contact me through there. But my words of encouragement are whatever you're doing is great. It's fine. Don't be guilty about it. Just be happy. You're doing so much. You have so much on your plate at this moment, if you have young children, and just keep doing it. You'll be okay.

Dr. Jain: Yeah. So, for contact for me, you can contact me on Twitter. I'm @ShikhaJainMD, so it's S-H-I-K-H-A-J-A-I-N-M-D. Or you can go to my website www.ShikhaJainMD.com, and there's a contact link on there.

Dr. Jain: And then I guess my last piece of advice for moms is, whatever you're doing is right. Whatever you are doing is right, and you're going to second-guess yourself, and you're going to doubt yourself, and you're going to see the Pinterest moms and the Facebook moms and the Instagram moms, and you're going to wonder why you didn't have a four-course breakfast for your three-year-old prepared with organic kombucha and all this stuff.

Dr. Jain: Just remember that you are amazing, and what you are doing is amazing. Your child is just going to remember that they're loved. They're not going to remember every little tiny thing that you did or that their friend's mom did. They just want to be loved, and they want to know that you love them, so keep doing that and whatever you're doing is just fine.

Dr. Weisman: Absolutely. So go out there and kill it, doctor moms. We'll see you later. Bye.

Dr. Weisman: How about that interview? Was it not amazing to hear the different perspectives of what Dr. McLaughlin and Dr. Jain brought to the conversation? Gosh, I just am enthralled with what they're doing and their perspective on motherhood and just their summary thoughts that they brought to us.

Dr. Weisman: So I encourage all of you listeners, as your kick of encouragement today, is that if you are feeling down, if you are having mom guilt, if you are feeling inadequate, no longer do you have to be. Reach out for help. That could be with friends, that could be online, that could be getting ahold of me because let me tell you, help is available for anyone who asks.

Dr. Weisman: And the other thing in our motherhood, just love them. You don't have to be perfect, like Dr. Jain mentioned. You don't have to be the Pinterest mom. All that our children really do desire is that we truly love them.

Dr. Weisman: So I can't give you any more encouragement than what we've already got for the conversation, but I'm just so glad that you joined me today. And remember your life, your calling, your pulse matters. Hang in there and check out the next episode.