Crystal Nightingale is The Mama Coach. Her mission is “to guide families through every stage of their parenting journey by providing evidence-informed education infused with nonjudgmental support, compassion, and empathy.” Crystal chats with Meagan today about some of the many resources available to women who are in the postpartum stages of motherhood. While we spend a lot of time preparing for our births, we sometimes don’t know how to really prepare for postpartum. Crystal talks about how to recognize postpartum depression, preparing for going back to work, tips on birth control after a baby, and lactation advice. We are so thankful for the work Crystal does to help families thrive with their new babies!Additional LinksCrystal’s Website - The Mama CoachPostpartum Support InternationalThe Lactation NetworkNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello you guys. You are listening to The VBAC Link and I am with my friend today, Crystal. Crystal Nightingale is with The Mama Coach. Right? I’m saying that correctly. She’s amazing. I feel like we connected on social media and I just madly fell in love with her. I feel like I could talk to her for hours postpartum and just the journey of what things look like after we have our babies. It’s a topic that we don’t talk about enough in today’s world and honestly, it’s a topic that isn’t focused on. It’s not only not talked about, but it’s not focused on, in my opinion, enough. We have babies and are told to come back six weeks later but a whole load of things happen in that six-week period. There are things from recovering from birth and sometimes we have different types of birth. Maybe we had an easy birth and that’s super great, but sometimes we have a C-section or a vaginal or an assisted vaginal and we have extra tearing. Maybe we’re having a really hard lactation journey and feeding our babies emotionally. There is so much that is packed into postpartum and we just don’t put enough focus on it, in my opinion, in the medical world. So today’s episode is with Crystal and she’s going to be talking more about postpartum. What does it look like? What to expect? All of the things. We’re diving deep into it. We’re going to be talking about baby blues and postpartum and mood disorders and hormonal dips and lactation and when it’s okay to not be okay and when it’s okay to ask for help. Just all of the things, so stick with us today. It’s going to be a really, really great episode learning more about what to expect in that postpartum experience. Review of the WeekWe have a Review of the Week as usual. Just a reminder if you guys have not had a chance to leave a review, we would love for you to do so. You can do that on Apple Podcasts. You can do that– I actually don’t know if you can do it on Spotify but we are on Spotify. You can do it on Google. Just Google “The VBAC Link”. Find us and leave a review there. Wherever you leave a review, we would just love it and you never know, it might be read next on the podcast. Today’s review is actually from Google and it’s from Elizabeth Garcia. She says, “As a birth doula and mom, I am always referring clients for information to The VBAC Link. For incredible VBAC stories to lift my VBAC clients up and make them know that there are others who have successfully VBAC’d and for advice, information, and statistics, I always turn to The VBAC Link.”Thank you, Elizabeth or Beth, if you go by Beth, for your sweet review. Again, as always, we love your reviews and would appreciate them on any platform that you want to leave them on. Crystal NightingaleMeagan: Okay, cute Crystal. Hi. Welcome to the show. Crystal: Hi Meagan. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I’m excited for you to be here. Like I was saying in the intro, you probably know more than I do. We don’t talk about this. There are so many things that I didn’t even know about in postpartum, how our