Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Healing Everyday Podcast, stories and conversations to inspire you to be in the driver's seat of your life. Buckle up.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Healing Everyday Podcast. My name is Victor.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
And I'm Deanna. Welcome
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Back,
Speaker 3 (00:28):
. I know, this is crazy. It's been a long time. I actually just told Victor that to the day, um, 'cause we'll probably post this, you know, a couple days after this, but to the day, today's August 28th, a year ago. Today we posted our most recent podcast. It's
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Been a year, right? So it has been a while. Sorry for that. But a lot of things have been going on. You know, we all have lives outside of work and, uh, we'll be definitely better at, uh, at, uh, making more podcasts. We're very excited about this school year. But talk a little bit about why you, we took a little break.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah. So we took a hiatus and it was my idea. Um, pregnancy is hard, is really hard. And it's, I am still pretty hormonal and very emotional and that's fine. But I really wanted to take the time, um, to focus on my oldest son, my pregnancy, uh, my family and work. So one of the things I say is, some things gotta give. Right. And I couldn't give in to not attending to my son or my pregnancy or my family or work. And so things had to get kind of tossed to the side for a little while. One of them being the podcast. Another one is my lives. I don't go live on TikTok right now. Uh, mostly because I'm pumping and because I have two kids now. And because if I could get a little bit of extra sleep and both kids are sleeping at the same time, I will. And so, uh, I, I will take the, the full force of, I was the one who made the decision to pause the podcast. Um, but I think that it was the right choice and the healthy choice for me. Um, and I didn't wanna miss work, right? I didn't wanna, I, sometimes things gotta give, right? So, but yeah, life has been, um, very exciting. Very busy. Very busy. Um, I'll talk more about that. How, how's, how's everything in Victor land?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Everything's good. You know, based on what you just said, it's kind of like the title of this podcast is Healing Every Day. And sometimes you have to take into account a priority and the priority is yourself. And yeah. And I think that's part of this journey that we're all on. Uh, you know, despite any trauma anyone's been through in the past, I'm talking about just, you know, not beating yourself up and, and taking care of yourself. 'cause you can't, as I've been learning this last year, is you can't really take care of other people if you're not taking care of yourself first. And we've said that countless times. Um, my life has been good. Uh, my world is good. I have three kids now in high school at the same time. Yikes. . And my daughter's a senior this year. Um, my son is a junior and my youngest son is a freshman.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It is crazy. And I knew when they were, they were all born that I did the math and I'm like, they're gonna be in high school altogether. And it seemed like it was just yesterday. Uh, it, it goes so fast. That's why your kids are so young. It goes so fast. I cannot stress that enough. Like, literally.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, you don't believe people when they tell you that.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah. They say, oh, you blink. And it's, you know, they're in high school now. They're married and you have grandkids and all that. You don't really believe it until you go through it. Yeah. And now that they're, you know, I drove my son to school last week for the first time. They just started a couple weeks ago, and I drove him and I'm letting him out. And I'm like, he's going into the high school. Like he's a freshman. And that'll go fast,
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Don't lie. Did you cry?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Um, I had tears. I don't say it was full out crying, but you know, it's
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Third one.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Oh, you didn't sob. Not like, not like . Not like we you was different. But with, you know, when, when Mimi was a freshman, that was pretty, pretty interesting. But now with Mimi, we're talking about colleges. Yeah. So you go from one to one, extreme to another, you know, kindergarten, you know, and, and, and all that with younger kids too. Now Mimi's looking into college and, um, she's thinking about being a nurse and all that. Oh, get
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Outta here. You didn't know that? No. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. We talk all the time and I'm just not in the loop. I'm not in the know. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah. Now you're in the know. See, it required us to do this podcast , so, you know. Um, but no, everything is good. Um, you know, I'm, I'll get into this a little bit, uh, today, but just some new things that we're working on with, with childhood victories. Yeah. And our presentations are starting up. Uh, again, whoever's listening to this, if, if, you know, uh, schools in your area, you know, our, our focus, our mission is to help kids stay safe from unsafe touch. And we do that through a curriculum called Be Seen and Heard that I created many, many years ago. And it is an amazing tool for schools to have. And we can come in person to your schools. We can, uh, do live streaming, which we're doing a lot of that, you know, um, after Covid. Uh, but, and we also have an online version as well. But it's all about helping kids stay safe. So just a little plug there. So what else?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
What else? Um, well, I mean, so I have, I have two kids now, right? I have a first grader and I have a almost nine month old. And I'm gonna tell you guys, 'cause I think this is so cool. Victor's actually the godfather to my youngest, which is so exciting. You're like the Godfather. Can you take the God ? Do it again. Hey, how
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You doing
Speaker 3 (05:41):
?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That's such a stereotype. I apologize. It's,
Speaker 3 (05:44):
It's, but you're like, you're like an Italian, but I'm Italian. Yeah. Yeah. And you're literally a godfather. So, um, that's awesome. And my, my, one of my best girlfriends from, from college, uh, Caitlin is the Godmother. And I mean, I'm not super religious, but what that relationship represents to me is so important. 'cause you know, Victor and I talk a lot about how like, we have our business relationship and then we have like our friendship and that we have kind of come, almost come to be a part of each other's family in a way. And like you and your kids were the first people outside of my family that watched Harry when he was little. And I didn't, it's not like I was needing babysitters, but like, Mimi watched him. Do you remember at, um, your old house? Right? And he like brought the books.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
He was reading books with you guys. And like, and it wasn't like scary. Like I just knew he was safe with you guys. It was great. And my mother-in-Law told me, oh wow, you, you are okay with, like, you're okay and you're not freaking out. I go, no. And that is surprising 'cause I feel so confident and so secure. It was great. So anyway, talking about our, our business and work and things like that, um, it's been busy. It's been busy, you know, this summer I thought it was gonna be relaxing. Oh my God. It wasn't. Now we got to have a couple times me and Victor together, where like my son was at day camp. Um, the older son was at day camp and I took the baby out to Victor has a really new awesome studio and office. We didn't talk about that either.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Oh my gosh. So many things talk about. But I would take the baby out to where we're at right now, the studio and, you know, just kind of hang out and have the baby crawl around. But we did a lot of work this summer. We were so busy. We rerecorded all of our online curriculum. We updated our human trafficking, our gun violence stuff. We added in new things to the online curriculum, like different camera angles. It was, it was just so busy. And then I thought, oh, it's summer, right? I'm gonna relax when we're not recording. No, no. I'm like literally pumping 95% of my life, you know, for the, for my kid. And then I also donate to help, um, critically ill infants, um, around the country, which is really cool. That's so cool. Oh my God. I cry about it. Wait,
Speaker 2 (07:50):
This is great. 'cause this is so not scripted. , uh, Deanna back in March was in Los Gatos, California doing presentations. Oh yeah. And she told me, she's like, you know, I have to pump. Mm-Hmm. . But I'm not bringing it back. So you donated
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It. I did. So, okay. Um, if you are not interested in this segment, fast forward like five minutes. So, um, right now I talk about like nursing and pumping so much because it consumes like anywhere from like six to eight hours of my day. And I, I, I produce a lot of milk and when I went to California, I was three months postpartum. And it is so expensive to ship milk. I mean, we're talking five, six, $700 to ship as much milk as I would've had back home. Wow. We already had like 3000 ounces in the freezer. And I was like, okay, I'm not gonna do that. So I researched milk banks and couple, you know, a month before I went out to California, I found mother's milk bank. And they're located, they were literally 20 minutes away from where I was staying in Los Gatos.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Isn't that insane? That's amazing. I mean, so I, what I did is, when I got out there, I would literally, I would pump throughout the whole day. The schools were great, gave me breaks, and then I would freeze it. And on my last day I put it, I packed it all in a cooler. I went and did my presentations and before I went to the airport, I went to the Milk bank and I gave them the cooler. And it ended up being, um, just over 400 ounces for the five days that I was there. Wow. Um, and then so
Speaker 2 (09:14):
How much milk is that for? Is it, how many children would, how many babies would
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Get that? So, okay, so I donate to two different, I donate to two different milk banks. Um, the second milk bank that I donate to, they say roughly 400 ounces is enough to help one critically ill child For how long? For, uh, well, to help them in their time in the NICU to, to, you know, establish, um, eating on their own and stuff like that. About 400 ounces. Wow. So I was able to help one baby then. And now with the second Milk bank that I'm donating to, um, which also happens to be located in California, um, what I do with them is, uh, you know, I, I sanitize all this stuff. I ship the cooler out there. Um, and I've donated, I think at this point, 2000 ounces. Wow. We're at about 2000 ounces now. But yeah. Anyway, talking about all this, it's, I remember going out to California and just thinking, wow, I'm out here, I'm working.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I love my job. I just left my three month old baby with my husband. I left my, he was a kindergartner at the time. And I was like, but I'm doing like my work, my amazing work. And I also feel like I'm doing this, this really awesome thing to donate to, to babies and families. And so I took a tour, and again, this is not scripted. I took a tour of the mother's milk bank and, um, it was beautiful. And it, there, there was this big wall, okay. And it talked about all the donors. But then there was another wall of moms who had, uh, they had lost their baby, but their milk still came in. Wow. And they donated their milk because they wanted it to go towards something beautiful. And oh my God. Um, I might have talked about this in a previous episode.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
My sister had lost a child, um, when I was in eighth grade. And so there is definitely infant loss trauma that I, I, I never really realized until my husband brought it up. 'cause I was so scared, um, with, with my youngest this time around about, oh my God, safe sleep, gotta do safe sleep. And babe I'm leaving for a week. And I was so scared. And he's like, I think that you might still have some of that trauma. So going and seeing these moms who, who took it upon themselves to their milk came in and they donated. Oh my gosh. It was so beautiful. That's awesome. And so amazing. So yeah. I am busy with that. So ,
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So not only you're out there presenting Yeah. On a very difficult topic and a personal topic, but now you're helping other babies outside of the school. Yes. And I
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Love babies.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It was so great. That's so
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Great. Yeah, it was awesome. And they, uh, they gave me like, of course they got swag, right? So like I got like this pink hat that says Mother's Milk Bank. But the best thing I got, um, was the good feeling of helping people. No. The best thing that I got, like physically from them, they gave me a t-shirt that says Milk Warrior. And it is, so my son loves it. He's like, you're a milk warrior. Ha ha ha. Like, 'cause you're always pumping 'cause he is. Right. You know, and it was, it's very cool. So, um, there's also, uh, you know, I've done a lot of research about obviously breastfeeding, things like that. Um, some women can't, some women choose not to, I'm going to say definitively fed is best. That's the most important thing. It's so important that your baby is fed and loved and taken care of.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Um, some women can't nurse, they cannot do that because it is triggering from their abuse. That is a, that is a very common thing that women, it is that physical pull on, on their body, uh, is, is, is triggering. And so they, maybe they're aware of it, maybe they're not. They choose to, uh, not produce and instead go for formula. Which again, a hundred percent support. Um, healthy mom equals healthy baby fed is best. Um, but I learned that back when I got pregnant with my first son. And I feel, uh, that because I was able to talk about that openly in therapy and really open up about like trauma related to physical touch and things like that. I think that helped me nurse and go through my, my nursing journey with Harry the first time and being able to do it for, i, I nursed for 13 months and now we're almost nine months in. And same thing. Did
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You Wow. This whole topic.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I know. I'm sorry. It's all about
Speaker 2 (13:32):
. No, but this is, this is really good because this is, uh, inspiring me to ask this question. And that is, did you, did you go to therapy specifically at that time to discuss it, but prior to it happening? Or It started happening
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Like it happened naturally in therapy. Um, because But you were
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Pregnant and ready?
Speaker 3 (13:48):
No, I wasn't pregnant yet. Oh, you just
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Brought it up.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Correct. So I had actually started going to therapy when my dad was released from jail when he made bail and I was ready to end my life. I was distraught. I knew that we were, uh, there was a really tough road ahead of how long the court process takes. And so I was like, ah, I need to go to therapy. I think I talked about this before. I did partial hospitalization, all that well, I got into therapy to talk about the trauma and things like that. Well, what naturally occurs when you do that is you talk about your current life too, right? And how your trauma impacts your current life. Well, my therapist Margaret, love you. Um, she said that people, uh, sometimes, uh, especially women when they go and they start to work, do this emotional work, um, sometimes the stress is less that, um, what is it? Cortisol lowers. She's like, a lot of my, my clients end up getting pregnant because they relax. And that twice that happened with her, with Harry the first time I got pregnant while I was, uh, I would think I was about a year into therapy and got pregnant. And that's when I started talking about like the physical touch trauma and the trigger and, you know. So
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You started talking about it when you were
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Pregnant? When I got pregnant, yes. Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
That's what I'm trying to say. So if people are experiencing, you know, they've been through something like you were, you went through and they end up wanting to have babies, uh, you know, have a family might, that might be something to consider doing because you may not know that when the time comes Correct. That you, you'd rather be ahead of it. Absolutely. Is, is what I'm trying to say. Absolutely. I mean, this may not, you know, you may not connect to this whoever's listening, but if that might be something to think about. Oh, definitely. I never even thought about that.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Right. No, and I, I didn't really either until I was in therapy and we started talking about it and you know, my sister shared with my mother-in-Law that with her first baby, my, my eldest nephew, she said it was horrifically triggering to nurse him. And she, she said she'd asked my mother-in-Law and we had talked about it later on, and she talked to me specifically, but before she talked to me, she talked to my mother-in-Law and said, you know, is Dee having trouble with nursing at all? And this was before she came to see me in the hospital to meet my son. And Michelle said, no, she's, she's killing it. And um, that's because she was able to get help before that happened, before she dove in. It wasn't like I hit a brick wall with it. Right. Which again, you're right. It sometimes we're not aware and it's not always like in a perfect world, everyone would go and get help and, and if they choose to continue to, to nurse and things like that.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Okay. They've gotten help for it. Right. Not always the case, but Yeah. And it's, uh, it, I've actually had other survivors, um, I might have mentioned her as well, it's been so long. Judy Ferrero, um, she wrote the book, um, if I catch You, I will Kill You. She's a survivor of sexual abuse as well. I've, I've known her for, uh, about 10 years. Um, she had sent me a message when I was posting about my breastfeeding journey and said, you know, I believe she shared with me that she didn't, um, nurse and, and it was because of her trauma. And so I actually went back and edited one of my statuses and I said, Hey, just so everybody's aware, um, 'cause I didn't talk about that piece. This can be such a trigger. Right. And some women choose not to, to avoid it. And I, I have to respect that because again, if we don't feel happy, healthy, secure, that impacts our kids. Sure. You know? A hundred percent. So anyway. Well
Speaker 2 (17:15):
It impacts your kids, not only the ones that are alive in the world, but also ones that you're caring
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Too. Absolutely. Absolutely. It does. So, yeah. Um, that is my life right now, you guys. Yeah. Obviously I've just, my mother-in-law said when I'm done with like nursing and all that, she's like, I never ever, ever wanna hear about your boobs again. And I'm like, okay, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2 (17:34):
. See what, yeah. We have to go through with Deanna. It's,
Speaker 3 (17:37):
It's a lot. It's a lot. It's
Speaker 2 (17:39):
A lot. Well, this has been, this is cool. I mean, we're back and we're talking about
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Breastfeeding.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
This is so exciting.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I know. . I know. I'm so, oh, you know what? Okay, so I, I don't know how how long we wanted to, don't wanna do, do we Couple more minutes? Yeah. Okay, cool. We don't wanna do like hour long podcast. We just kind of, we wanted to catch up this first one and then we'll be maybe a little more structured later on. One of the things probably not that I'm
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You know, we, unless we're interviewing someone, you
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Know me. Um, one of the things I do wanna do an episode on, but I want you to touch on here momentarily, is doing things for ourselves that have nothing to do with our kids, our family or work. It is a theme that we have been bringing up. So let's, let's
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Bring that up for the next
Speaker 3 (18:19):
One. Yes. Let's say Dad is fantastic, but really quick I want you to say that thing that you've been doing this summer with your boys. Yes. Really quick. So to end
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Positively, we'll we'll start the next one, uh, which we're gonna record right after we're done with this one. We'll start the next one with this topic. So, um, I was going through some things this summer. I won't get into that, but Deanna has been always full of knowledge and very helpful. She's a great friend. But she made a comment to me one day and she said, you know, it's time that you start doing something for yourself. Nothing to do with work, nothing to do with, uh, kids necessarily family for yourself. What's a hobby? I don't have any hobbies. Well, now I do, but before that I really like my business is my passion. I love it so much and I never really know that I'm working most of the time 'cause I love doing it so much, however, but it's still work, right? Yes. So I have to, I have to distinguish what, what is work and what is not.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So I came up with a hobby that I started my kids one day said, Hey dad, we're going disc golfing. Do you wanna go disc golfing? And I'm like, what's that? And it's like golf . Yeah. It's like, I call it Frisbee golf. 'cause that's what it is to me. And we'll, we'll, we'll leave this right here, but we'll continue next one. But it has changed my life. Not only because I get to spend time with my kids. Mm-Hmm. . But I also, I love to golf, but to me, golfing, I do it once in a while. It's a very long, it's, it's a very, it's a time commitment. It's time commitment. You know, you're, you're gone for a half a day and golf with, with a Frisbee, you could be done in 30 minutes. Mm-Hmm. It is amazing. So we'll kick off the next one with that. And then I have a lot of things to add about that leading into something else too. So, uh, with that being said, thanks for joining us today. Please share this with your family and friends. And until next time, be present, be playful and be powerful.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
And I will say be happy, be healthy, and be safe guys. Bye.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
If you would like to learn more about childhood victories in the programs and curriculum we offer, please visit childhood victories.com.
