Episode 251 Meagan and Julie + What is Radical Acceptance?

Have you heard of radical acceptance? Julie Francom leads our episode today alongside Meagan as they discuss what this concept is and how it is helping them process their births even now, years later. Meagan gets especially vulnerable today as she shares a part of her VBA2C birth story that has never before been shared on the podcast. Women of Strength, birth can be all of the things– empowering, euphoric, intense, and traumatic. We want you to know that we are processing and healing right along with you. We all have work to do and we are all in this together. Has radical acceptance helped you process your births? We would love to hear your experiences!Additional LinksAccepting Reality Using DBT Skills ArticleHow to Embrace Radical Acceptance ArticleNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode DetailsJulie: Heyo, it’s Julie here, your co-host for the day of The VBAC Link Podcast. I am joined by Meagan Heaton, the ever-wonderful, always amazing, always uplifting and inspiring. Man, did I already say your name? I forget. I went on a tangent. Meagan: You did. Hello, everybody. It’s so fun. When we were just talking about it, I was like, “Julie, you lead the episode today.”Julie: I’m out of rhythm. Meagan: It’s great. You did a great job. Julie: We are here today. We were just hashing over topics that we could talk about something that I am working through always in my life and different things that we could possibly introduce today and we landed on the topic of radial acceptance. I think we’re going to tell you about why we chose that topic here in just a little bit, but I’m really excited today because birth is complicated. I feel like everyone coming here in this space with us has probably had a complicated birth or witnessed a complicated birth. Hello, birth workers. Review of the WeekWe’re going to talk a little bit about that and what happens when you just can’t get over it or overcome it. But before we do any of that and before I ramble on my merry little way today, Meagan’s going to read a review for us. Meagan: Yes. Okay, so we have this review from Apple Podcasts. This is from our friend, Tiffany. She said, “VBAC After Two Cesarean” as the subject. She said, “After two C-sections, I doubted if it was possible to VBAC for my third. I listened to your podcast my entire pregnancy and it gave me the strength and the knowledge to advocate for myself. I changed my provider three times before finding a supportive OB. My third baby came into this world on her due date with a successful VBAC after two Cesarean and I couldn’t thank The VBAC Link enough.”Oh, I am so happy for you, Tiffany. Huge congrats. This podcast is literally meant for exactly that– to give you the knowledge, to give you the strength, and to just give you the connection and this community. This community is so beautiful, so vulnerable, and obviously so near and dear to both my and Julie’s hearts. That is exactly what we want this podcast to do– to build you up, to strengthen you, to educate you, to go on and have the birth that you desired, and if you don’t have the birth that you desired, to have a better birth outcome. We don’t have to have a VBAC in order to have a better birth outcome. That’s really important to talk about too. Through this podcast, we share all of it. We share CBAC stories and elective inductions and all of these things because we know that one size does not fit all. That’s exactly what we are going to be talking about today during the episode. Julie: Yep. I love that. Meagan’s going to get a little bit vulnerable. Meagan: I am. I’m going to talk about a thing that I don’t think I’ve fully opened up to yet years later. Radical AcceptanceJulie: I’m getting old now. I know that everyone is like, “Oh, you’re not old.” I’m 38 though and I’m feeling it. I can’t even come home from a birth now without creaking my bones in the shower and into bed. I am feeling it. I know 38 is really not that old, but I feel like I look at my friends who are 28 and I’m 38. That’s a 10-year difference, right? I’m starting to see some differences between myself and them just in the space on the time lived and the amount of life lived and the amount of time spent on this twirling rock in the universe. It’s interesting because I know it’s not a secret here that I’ve had a huge mental health journey over these last two years. I feel like a lot of that has helped me grow and evolve as a human. Maybe I’m a little bit older and wiser than I was when I was 28. Oh my gosh, I hope so. I don’t know. Yeah. I’ve come a long way since then. But, we wanted to talk today about a term that I learned in therapy called radical acceptance. I’m just going to get right into it. I don’t know. Do you want to say anything, Meagan, before?Meagan: Yeah, so are you going to define it? I was going to say that radical acceptance is something that can be defined as the ability to accept situations that are outside of our control without judging them which in turn reduces the suffering that is caused by them. I think, Julie, what we talked about before is that you should start right out there and talk about radical acceptance, how you learned about it, and how it came about. Julie: Yeah. Gosh, I love it. I remember when I was going through my big trauma-processing journey a few years back, that’s when I really learned the term “radical acceptance, radical acceptance” and I love it because radical acceptance is where you have to stop fighting reality. You stop responding with impulsive behaviors or destructive behaviors when things aren’t going the way you want them to or looking back on the way things happened. You’ve got to let go of the bitterness that can be keeping you trapped in this cycle of suffering and to truly accept the reality, to radically accept the reality, we have to understand the facts about the past and about the present– like what’s going on now– even if they’re uncomfortable or if there is something that we didn’t want to happen or to be happening. We can examine the cause of this suffering that we have encountered, the events surrounding it, or all of the situations that we went through that have caused us pain or are causing us pain. But by radically accepting them, stopping fighting them, and stopping living in this cycle of suffering, we are better equipped to move forward into a life that is better and that is more promising, and more hopeful and causes us less anxiety and less pain. I feel like it’s just all about embracing things as they were, embracing things as they are, and being able to live in that even though you haven’t changed any of it. I was telling Meagan before we started– I am saying this. This is a perfect example. I will never, ever, ever, ever know if my Cesarean was necessary. I won’t. I think I can list ways and reasons why it probably was and I can also list reasons why it probably wasn’t. I’m just never, ever, ever– I can say ever so many times– I will never know–Meagan: Never, ever, ever. Julie: –for certain whether it was necessary or not. Was my induction necessary? I think so, but I mean, I don’t know really. That used to really bother me because I’m a very analytical person. I liked fixed facts and data. I like to know things with certainty. I do. That is something I won’t ever know. I’m okay with that. I feel like getting to the point of being okay with not knowing and with the certainty that I will never know is very freeing. It’s freeing. I feel free. I am not haunted by it. It doesn’t keep me up at night. Moving beyond that, I know that I am a good mom even though I didn’t know everything that I wish I would have known going into my first birth. I have radically accepted the fact that there were things I didn’t know and that’s okay. I am okay with that fact. I have radically accepted the fact that I cannot be a human superwoman who can juggle all of the things in my life that I need to– my kids, my husband, my birth photography, doula work, The VBAC Link, and all of these other things. I had to drop these other things and I had to radically accept that I could not keep going in the life that I was doing. It doesn’t mean that anything has changed. My C-section was the way that it was. There was no change there, but I have changed the way that I thought about it, the way that I continue to receive it, and the way that I respond to those circumstances. I feel like that’s what radical acceptance is all about. You can’t just turn on a switch and be like, “All right. Radical acceptance. Schwink”, but I feel like if you move forward with the desire of that radical acceptance, then that will impact how you respond physically and emotionally to the thing that you’re trying to accept. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. Meagan: No, yeah. It does. This is going to apply to all things. In all things in life, it’s really hard because like you said, it’s not just a “schwink” like you say. It’s not a switch you can turn on and off like, “Okay. It’s gone. I accept it. Moving on.” It’s not like that. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of mind-power and will. You have to be okay to let it go and to let the attachment to the painful past or the pain that you are holding onto go because really what is happening in so many ways is that pain is overcoming you. It’s taking over you. Like Julie said, she’s not staying awake all night thinking about it. It’s not consuming her thoughts anymore. She’s let it go and it’s in a healthy place. “Okay. This happened. It’s not what I wanted. It’s not what I would have chosen, but it happened. I don’t know if it was needed. I don’t know. I really don’t know, but I’m going to accept that it happened and I’m moving on.” Yeah, so I think it’s so important to know that you can’t expect yourself to just do it. Right? But it can be done. So yeah. Keep going. Julie: Yeah, no. I feel like another simple way to say it, and it’s not simple, but a simple way to say it is understanding what you have control over and what you will never have control over. I can control how I respond to things. I can control how I do my self-care. I can control whether I meditate or not. I can control what type of clients I take on and what my travel radius is. I can control what provider I choose. I cannot control what provider I chose. It’s already happened. I cannot control how Meagan thinks or acts in any situation. One of the things that radical acceptance term really clicked and the first thing that I radically accepted was my sister-in-law and I butt heads a lot sometimes. It’s gotten better over the last year and a half because I have radically accepted that she is the way she is. It took me a long time. It sounds easy, but it took me a long time where I just don’t worry about it anymore. She does this. She says this and I don’t worry about it. I interact with my children the way I want to interact with them. I teach them how to treat other people. I respond to people how I do. I know how to treat other people and try my best to treat other people well although I am not perfect at it because none of us are perfect, but just radically accepting it– I remember the day where I was just like, “Yes. She is the way she is and I’m okay with that.” It felt like a light switch at that time, but it was a lot of things building up to that moment. I feel like we should probably say that we are not medical professionals. We are not mental health professionals. We are just talking about our real-life experiences so I feel like if you have things that you need to process through, you should see a therapist or you should see a mental health professional or somebody that can really help you. Meagan, I just sent you an article. You can link it in the show notes. Meagan: Yeah, I have it. Something that I really love is what is reality acceptance. Julie: Yeah, so drop this in the show notes. I feel like this has got lots of helpful tips there, but I want to skip to the end where it says, “10 Steps for Practicing Acceptance”. I’m using DBT. DBT is just a different type of therapy, but I feel like the first one is such a big deal. I could go off on another therapy tangent, but I won’t. The first one is “Observe that you’re fighting against reality.” It shouldn’t be like this. Every time you say, “I should” or “I shouldn’t” or “He should do that. My doctor should know better. I should do this. My kids should go to bed.”Those are requirements that you have for the world and requirements are not usually healthy. They’re just not. I could go off on a whole thing, but I won’t. “I should do this. He should do that. I shouldn’t feel like this. I shouldn’t feel sad. I have a healthy baby. I shouldn’t feel sad about it.” No, that’s a requirement and that is fighting against reality. You’re fighting against reality when you say things like that. That’s a sign that you’re fighting against reality. I feel like sometimes awareness is the first part of it. Or “so-and-so shouldn’t post triggering things like that. Those things trigger me. They shouldn’t be posting that. They should post a trigger warning with their comments.” Those are all signs that you’re fighting against reality, right? Some type of reality that exists somewhere inside of you. And then the second is just reminding yourself when those things happen, instead of sitting with that, “It shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t have said that,” remind yourself that that reality, you cannot change it. You are not in control of it. Sometimes that awareness, being like, “Oh, I’m doing this. Okay no, you’re right. This is fine. It’s not going to change. I can’t change this. I have no control over that.” That’s the first step into your radical acceptance path. I’m just going to read through the rest of these really quickly and I highly recommend that you sit with these if you can. “Acknowledge that something led to this moment.” Something happened to you to lead you to have this kind of response. The next one is, “Practice acceptance with not only your mind but your body and spirit.” Be mindful of your breath and your posture. Use your self-care skills. Use half-smiling and take deep breaths. That’s a big thing for me. I take deep breaths when I feel those sensations and that tightening and tensing in my body. The next one is, “List what your behavior would look like if you did accept the facts and then acted accordingly.” Imagine what it would be like if these things didn’t bother you. Meagan: How would you look? How would you feel? How would you be living your everyday life?Julie: How would your environment change? How would your body feel? How would your breath feel? “Plan ahead with events that seem unacceptable and then plan how you should appropriately cope.” Oh my gosh, we go to my in-laws for Sunday dinner every other Sunday. It was like, every Sunday dinner going in, I would see my sister-in-law. We’ve had moments where we’ve been grumpy with each other and moments where we’ve been fine. But during those grumpy stages, I would walk in bracing for a fight, but when I became aware and was working on my radical acceptance, I would just meditate before, breathe deeply on the way in, and walk in with a posture of lightheartedness and airyness and it helped so much. “Remain mindful of your physical sensations” because your body will respond before your mind catches up to what’s going on. So being more mindful of your body is so important. “Embracing feelings of disappointment, sadness, or grief.” It’s okay to have those sad feelings and those hard feelings. It’s okay. You should sit with them. You should sit with them and explore them and let them move through your body, but don’t stay there. Don’t stay there with them forever. “Acknowledge that life is worth living even when there is temporary pain.” Things are worth moving forward and moving through. And then the last one is, “If you feel yourself resisting, complete your pros and cons exercise to better understand the full impact of your choices or your experience.” I feel like all of those things, wherever you’re at in the process, moving through these steps or these little feelings are going to help you grow and become better. You’re going to be released from these things that are burdening you, this reality that you don’t like or that you don’t accept. But yeah. Meagan: Yeah. That’s what I was saying. Radical acceptance doesn’t have to mean that you agree with what happened. Julie: Yes. You don’t have to endorse it. It doesn’t mean you have to like it. Meagan: Right, but it gives you a chance to accept things and not fight against it because it is insane how much we don’t realize that sometimes these things will bring us down. They’re going to bring us down. There are many times– we were talking before we were recording about how sometimes it’s not even to us. As birth workers, we see things and we’re like, “No!” You know? Or we have friends and we’re like, “No, don’t do that.” But we can’t control them. We have to know that we can’t control them and it’s okay that we can’t control them. We may not agree with the choice that they are making, but it’s okay. We have to accept that. That is a choice that they feel is best for them. That is what they are doing whether or not we would do that or not. So, kind of in the beginning, Julie was talking about, “I will never, ever know if my Cesarean was truly necessary,” and something when we were talking about this is that I’m never going to know blank, blank, blank. I don’t know if I’ve ever really, deeply talked about a part of my birth story that happened and that does affect me. It’s really hard. As I’m learning about this radical acceptance, it’s like, “Have I done radical acceptance? Have I practiced this or is it still eating at me?” I think it probably is still eating at me. I probably fully haven’t. I’m working that way and I’m waiting for my light switch to go on and off, but I’m working up to it. It’s like my light switch is half on. It reminds me of Hypnobabies. My light switch is dim. It’s coming down but it’s still there. So yeah, I’m going to open up to you and just tell you guys. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this that I know of. Julie: I’m so curious. Sorry. Meagan: You’re just fine. So after I had my son, Webster– he’s my VBA2C baby– I was so happy. I was so happy and I will never forget that moment of, “You guys! I did it!” and just ugly crying, screaming, and looking around the room and everyone– not a dry eye in the room– looking at me just smiling from ear to ear. And then what happened after is what I may need to work on accepting. I remember sitting there holding my baby and hearing everyone talking and then all I heard was, “Riiiiing.” Yep. I heard ringing, just like that in my ears, high, high-pitched. My ears were just buzzing. I’m sitting on a horseshoe thing holding my baby. We’re waiting for my placenta. I’m hearing it and it’s getting louder and then everybody started going fuzzy. I woke up on the floor covered in blankets confused. My husband said, “You passed out.” I said, “Okay. I thought I was going.” I knew what was happening, but I didn’t want to say anything. He said, “I looked over,” because he was right behind me. He said, “I looked over your shoulder and your arms just went limp so I hurried and grabbed the baby and said, ‘You guys, she’s passing out.’” I pass out. I’m on the ground. I wake up and I’m like, “What just happened?” Everyone is still so happy. They’re not acting really any differently. They’re just like, “You passed out.” I’m like, “Okay, well I did just go through a long labor. 42 hours of labor, pretty intense pushing. I hadn’t eaten a ton. I hadn’t eaten a ton the day before either because I was not feeling very good.” Anyway, so I was like, “Okay, cool.” A phone was handed to me and they’re like, “Your chiropractor is on the phone. You’ve got to tell her,” so I’m like, “Hi!” I’m telling her how I did it. I’m so excited and back to normal. But laying on the floor, I guess pushing out the placenta, I don’t remember. Then they’re like, “Okay.” I hang up the phone and they’re like, “Okay, let’s get you to the bedroom.” I’m at a birth center. I’m like, “Okay great.” We stand up. We walk to the bed and I’m not feeling very good. I’m feeling really funny. I can just feel my heart. It’s pounding. I think I made it to the bedroom and I was in the bed. I just remember not feeling very good. They were taking my vitals. My vitals were off, but I was just so happy. I was so elated. I was nursing my baby. He latched really fast and I was so happy. Then they’re like, “Okay, we’ve got to get you to the bathroom.” This was a couple of hours later. They fed me some food and I was hoping that maybe it was blood sugar or something. Anyway, they fed me my food and were like, “Okay, let’s go to the bathroom.” I get up and before I know it, I’m waking up. I wake up and the first thing I say is, “I’m on the ground again.” They’re like, “Yeah, you just passed out again.” Did you know this, Julie?Julie: Okay, so it’s kind of ringing a bell a little bit, but I don’t remember.Meagan: You don’t remember all of it, yeah. Julie: Well, I remember other little parts, but I just don’t want to get ahead of you. But go ahead, you’re fine. Meagan: Yeah, you’re fine. I’m like, “I’m on the ground again.” They’re like, “Yeah, you just passed out again.” I was like, “That’s weird.” So I sat on the ground. We’re talking about random stuff, you guys. I still remember to this day. Serial podcasts, Adnan Syed, if anyone likes crime, that was my favorite podcast. I was like, “What do you guys think? Is Adnan guilty or is he innocent?” We were just talking about all of this random stuff. They were probably thinking, “What?” It was like my fight or flight was like, “I can’t deal with what is happening right now. I have to talk about something else.” So we talked about that. We talked about such random stuff. I was like, “Okay. I feel better.” I had sat up and I was like, “I’m feeling really good.” So I sat up. I walked to the toilet. I sat on the toilet and I was like, “I’m going again.” I could feel it. I communicated it. My doula and my husband run over. I’m literally falling off the toilet and I wake up to an alcohol swab. My doula had an alcohol swab on my nose. I wake up and I was like, “What the heck? What is happening?” I go to the bathroom. I go back in and I’m just not doing very well. My vitals are not good. My pulse is really high and my heart rate was actually really low. My blood pressure was low. I’m actually showing signs of shock is what I’m showing, but it’s not clicking in my head. “What in the heck, right?” Needless to say, I go home. I’m not doing really well. The next day, I’m really not doing well. I’m white as a ghost. I have this weird, crazy thing. I stand up. I’ve got ringing in my ears. I feel like garbage. I’m very dizzy. I can’t get my breath. It’s just really weird. Anyway, I went to the hospital because I had gone to the midwife the day before. We did a blood draw and she said, “Yeah, you’ve got low blood counts.” I was like, “Okay.” It was the Fourth of July. I’m really not feeling good. We go to the hospital. We do my blood tests. The doctor comes in and has a very serious face and I’m actually really mad. It’s the Fourth of July. I just had this beautiful VBAC and I’m in the hospital emergency room without my baby. Without my baby. My mom stayed with my baby. I’m pissed. I’m like, “What the heck is happening?” So he comes in and he’s got this very serious look on his face. He says, “Well, we’re going to have to run some more tests.” I said, “Oh, okay. What’s going on?” He said, “Well, half of your body’s blood is missing.” Julie: This is the part that I remember. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. He said, “Half of your body’s blood is missing. You said you’re not really bleeding, right?” I said, “No.” After you have a baby, you’re bleeding, but it wasn’t bad. I was like, “No, yeah. Pretty normal.” He was like, “Okay. Well, we’re going to do some tests to see if we can find internal bleeding and if you’re bleeding internally.” I said, “Okay.” So anyway, we did all of these tests. We can’t find my blood. It’s gone. It’s missing. I have no blood– or half of my body’s blood. I look like a ghost. I feel terrible. I can’t function very well and he’s like, “We can’t find it. We don’t know. You’re not bleeding internally. You’re not bleeding externally. We have no idea what’s happened to you.” I’m like, “Okay.” So they said, “You need four bags of blood. Two blood transfusions. Two bags each.” I don’t know why. It freaked me the heck out. It was a lot of someone else’s blood. I know we’ve come a long way. I thank all of the donations. I thank all of the donations out there, but it freaked me out so I actually declined and to this day, I need to have radical acceptance. I question, “Why didn’t I get blood? I would have felt better.” Julie: It took you forever to feel better. Meagan: It did. My levels were back to pretty much just above normal at six weeks. Everyone told me it wouldn’t happen. Sorry, I’m weird. Yes. I ate my placenta. I did placenta encapsulation. I swear it helped. Everyone told me I was crazy. They were like, “You’re not going to be able to breastfeed. You’re in bad shape. You’re really bad.” And I didn’t do it. So I had that. Why didn’t I do that? But all in all, I still have this, “What in the heck happened to me? What happened? How did that happen? Why did that happen? How does someone lose half of their body’s blood?” Julie: And don’t know where it goes because you didn’t hemorrhage afterwards. Meagan: No. No. I had very little, normal blood loss after. Anyway, I have lots of questions. I have lots of hypotheses. I have a lot of things. Could this have happened? Could this have happened? I don’t know. Maybe this happened. And some days, Julie, it does take over my mind. I get angry. I get confused and I sometimes question my team. Is there something that they know that they’re not telling me? I don’t know. I struggle. So I need to practice radical acceptance. Julie: Radical acceptance. Yes, you do. Meagan: Because that did happen to me and it is frustrating because I did say– so the signs of lack of acceptance is “This isn’t right. It’s not fair. It shouldn’t be like this. I can’t believe this is happening. Why is this happening to me? Why did this happen?” I have all of those feelings still. It’s not fair. I had this beautiful VBAC. Now, I have this shitty– yes, I’m saying the word shitty on the podcast– postpartum experience. It was really hard and I was mad. I couldn’t believe it was happening. It shouldn’t be like this. I should be screaming from the rooftops, “You guys, I had my vaginal birth after two Cesareans!” But instead, I could barely walk. So I need to practice this radical acceptance. I need to recognize these signs and I need to get better because I am angry with the situation and confused. Julie: Yeah. Meagan: I feel stuck. I feel stuck. What happened? But like you don’t know if your Cesarean was ever necessary, I may never know what happened to me. Julie: You will never know where all your blood went. Meagan: I will never know where all my blood went. Julie: Nope. Meagan: I will never know why I had ringing in my ears and why I passed out three times after I had him. Right? I will never know. So I have work to do. Julie: We all have work to do. Meagan: I was going to say, it’s okay if you have work to do too. Women of Strength, we all have work to do just like Julie said. We have to take one step at a time moving forward and working through it and letting go of the painful past of the unknown. Julie: Oh my gosh. Okay, so I have something to say. Surprise. My therapist is obsessed with his wife. Obsessed. You wouldn’t want anyone to be more obsessed with you if you are married to this guy. A few months ago, she came to him and she wanted a divorce. They are getting divorced now. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Julie: I know. It took everybody by storm. I was like, “What is happening?” Anyway, the details are not important, but he came to one of our trauma support groups the other night. He’s not affiliated with the company anymore, but he just came because I told him to come and he listens to me because I’m his favorite. We were all going around the room sharing how we were doing and he wasn’t going to share, but everyone got done. I came a little bit late and I was like, “Oh, did I miss his check-in?” He said, “Oh no, I wasn’t going to share.” Then somebody else came in and they shared, and then he said, “You know, actually, I think I will share.” He was like– anyways, he had some concerns about sharing or not and he decided to share. What he said, I think, will always stay with me. But while he was sharing, he said, “This is the most pain I have felt in a long time, but I am sitting with it and I am letting myself feel it because I know it is the fastest way for me to get through it.” I was like, “Yes. Yes.” Sitting with that pain and that hurt and that discomfort is hard. It is so hard. So, so, so hard, but allowing yourself to sit with it and feel it and hurt and suffer is going to be the fastest way for you to get through that suffering. It’s going to shorten the amount of time you have to suffer and it’s going to stop it from controlling your life– maybe not right now. Probably not right now, but as you move on and as you go throughout your life, if you don’t let yourself sit in that pain and struggle, then it will continue to control you and you will continue to be miserable. I just thought that was so impactful that he said that. I know that is the fastest way for me to get through this is to feel it. Meagan: Yeah, and that’s scary, right? That’s scary to say, “I’m going to open up and I’m going to welcome this pain.” Julie: And be vulnerable and receive it and hurt from it. Meagan: Yes. Women of Strength, as you are going through your births, you may run into this where you feel cheated or lied to or you are starting to question your own decisions or whatever. We’ve had an undesired birth outcome or experience and we hurt. They sting. They sting. But it’s okay to one, sit with it like she said, and two, be vulnerable and be mad or angry or sad. It’s okay to feel the feelings and then it’s okay to have radical acceptance and move on. It’s okay if it doesn’t happen overnight. I love that. He sat with it or he’s sitting with it. It’s the fastest way for him to heal. Julie: Yeah, because he’s a therapist, right? He obviously knows a thing or two. But sometimes it’s hard even when we know. Meagan: Even when we know. Yeah. Yeah. So as you walk away from this episode today or drive away or wherever you are listening, we hope you know that we love you. We love you and you need to love yourself too. Offer yourself grace. Sit with it. Sit with it and find radical acceptance. Julie: We wish that for you. Meagan: Mhmm. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands