Pauline (00:01)
Hi, and welcome to our podcast, What No Mom Told You, where the rarely spoken truths finally get loud. And I'm Pauline Walfish, and this is What No Mom Told You, a therapist-led podcast where we talk about the things no one warned you about, the truths you were taught to keep quiet.

Megan (00:10)
I'm Megan Nelson.

naming the messy parts of life. Motherhood, fertility, work, loss, identity, resentment, grief, relief, and joy. Without judgment.

Pauline (00:37)
because the rarely spoken truths, they deserve to get loud and they need to be told. No one should feel alone.

Megan (00:46)
Welcome to What No Mom Told You.

My name is Megan Nelson and I'm an LMSWNF therapist at Helping Hand Psychotherapy and I'm here with Pauline Walfish, the founder and clinical director ⁓ of HHP, otherwise known as Helping Hand Psychotherapy.

Pauline (01:06)
So, Megan, I was playing the cheering thing. Can you just say that again from, I'm Megan.

Megan (01:11)
Look for you.

Hi, my name is Megan Nelson. I'm an LMSW and a therapist at Helping Hand Psychotherapy and I'm here with Pauline Walfisch, the founder and clinical director of Helping Hand Psychotherapy, otherwise known as HHP, that you might hear us say. And Pauline is a licensed clinical social worker, ⁓ a perinatal mental health clinician, certified EMDR therapist,

and an approved consultant, educator, advocate, and a leader of a team of 20 therapists, interns, and other supportive staff providing trauma-informed, reproductive, perinatal mental health and parental mental health. So let's get this party started. ⁓

Pauline (02:03)
Man, that's like a lot of words.

Megan (02:12)
Why are we here?

Pauline (02:14)
⁓ because there's a lot of words. ⁓ I get to do all those things that you talk about every day, and it's my favorite part of the day. And part of that is because I get to work with those 20 something therapists and we get to share stories and bounce ideas off of each other and talk about all of the different things that happen in our day and.

we've realized that not everybody else gets that opportunity. So it happens all of the time that we're sitting with a new client who says like, nobody told me this was gonna happen or nobody told me this might happen or nobody told me I would feel this way. And it just, it's something that comes up all of the time and...

We need to stop that. We need to talk about these things so that nobody feels alone, like they're the only person that's experiencing something.

Megan (03:15)
So we're here to talk about the things that no mom told you, like you just said, right? And so what's the one thing that started all of this for you? Like the thing that you truly didn't expect that, you know, even with all of your clinical training, all of your background, all of your knowledge, like you didn't know.

Pauline (03:39)
my gosh, there are so many things, but I'm not going to give them all away on the first podcast. ⁓ But I think the like first, like I had no idea was when my husband and I were trying to build our family for the first time and we were trying to get pregnant and.

I don't know, I was young and naive and thought like you had sex to get pregnant and that's how people got pregnant. I mean, that's what my Catholic school teachers had told me. That's what my parents had told me. That's what everybody in society said, like, be careful. Don't get pregnant, right? It like never even occurred to me that...

that wasn't gonna happen. Right? So that was like my big, what, no, nobody, no, what? No moms, nobody told me that, right? They told me to use birth control. They told me to avoid getting pregnant by having sex.

Megan (04:45)
you spend so many years trying to avoid this thing, therefore that means it's supposed to happen easily.

Pauline (04:51)
Yeah, yeah, I came off my birth control pills. Okay, I'm going to be pregnant. Like, duh. And then even when I like started to read and I would read things like, okay, well, you you ovulate in the middle of your cycle. So here's the ovulation test and take this test and then boom, time things correctly and you'll get pregnant. Okay, well, that didn't work. Like what is happening here? Like is this machine broken for those...

who know me, I'm a very ambitious person and if you tell me to do something, I'm going to figure out how to do it. And suddenly, like, I was just failing all over the place. Like, no matter what I tried, it was not working.

So that was really like eye opening for me.

Megan (05:47)
When you look at the beginning, was that the hardest part for you, is learning like, oh wait, this isn't how I expected it? Or did it change from there?

Pauline (06:00)
You know, I don't think I really thought about like, oh, this isn't how I expected it. At first, it was a lot of like, no, no, no. Like I, if you, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. Right. And so I like in hindsight now, and as a therapist, I'm like, oh, I was really struggling with control. Like I was actually not in control. Right. And I'm somebody who like likes to be in control and can take care of things. So.

⁓ When I was doing all of the things that I was supposed to be doing and it wasn't working, I had lot of shame about that. This must be my fault. I must be doing something wrong. I'm not trying hard enough. I don't want it enough. I don't care enough. ⁓ And so I was digging in, like, okay, I'm going to try something else. I'm going to read something else. I'm going to eat something else. I mean, I...

did all of the things, know, chew pineapple core, take these vitamins, lay down, stand up, upside down, like what if you told me to stand on my head in the corner? I was like, yeah, I got that, no problem. And no matter what I tried, it just wasn't working.

Megan (07:17)
I think that's something we hear so often. It's like, first of all, like, why is this happening to me? Like me specifically. And then I've done everything right. And sometimes it's like, yeah, you have.

Pauline (07:35)
Yeah, yeah. And I was young. I ⁓ got married kind of early and I was a young pair wanting to be parents. And so a lot of my friends were not in that same stage of life with me. So there was nobody that I could talk to about what was happening. I didn't have friends that I could ask about their doctor's appointments or what kind of testing they were doing. So I was kind of navigating it on my own and also...

in secrecy. Like I was so ashamed that I didn't want to talk to anybody.

Megan (08:08)
Hmm.

So how did you really like start talking to someone about it? What, like where did you know how to go to or who to talk to?

Pauline (08:24)
So, I mean, I remember even back then being in the doctor's office and seeing like a sign on the wall about somebody that I could talk to. And I remember thinking like, ⁓ I don't know. Like if I tell them how depressed I am about this, maybe they're gonna think I shouldn't be a parent and they're gonna like stop me from being able to like do any kind of treatment.

Megan (08:44)
Mm.

Pauline (08:51)
I wasn't a therapist back then, ⁓ although I was a social worker, but I wasn't working in the role I am today. And so even in that stage of my life, like understanding what the healthcare system was and understanding what a therapist was, I was so petrified that they were going to tell me that like either there was something wrong with me or that I didn't deserve to be a parent or that they were going to get in my way.

I was so determined I was going to figure this out and I was terrified that if they knew I was depressed about this, that they wouldn't let me do whatever I was going to do next. So even though I knew that resource was there, it just seemed not an option for me because it felt like it was a potential thing to stand in my way.

I scoured everything ⁓ and at the time I found a forum, which is probably like the equivalent of today's Facebook groups, ⁓ that I was able to meet a bunch of people from Long Island who were in similar situations. ⁓ And this forum had them broken out, right? So was like newly married people, people who've been trying to conceive for a year, people who were veterans, right?

I fell into the veteran group at some point of like people who were trying for a really long time. And so I met a group of people who ⁓

really accepted me and embraced me and I found a community that I didn't know existed.

Megan (10:39)
Can you talk a little bit about how important it was that the groups were sort of separated into people who are going through like really specific things?

Pauline (10:52)
⁓ Yes, and also ⁓ I am incredibly grateful for the women that I connected with who really accepted me even though I was not just like them. ⁓ So the part that I didn't say was that this was really ⁓ my journey trying to have my second child ⁓ because the first one was very the first

getting pregnant with my first child was similar. It took a while and I was going to fertility treatments and I actually had a consultation and I was about to start treatment when I found out that I was pregnant. So my first pregnancy actually conceived spontaneously. ⁓ And that was about a year, it took about a year, which is what we.

say is the amount of time it normally takes to get pregnant. But when I was trying to do that, that year seemed forever. And then when I was trying to have our second child, it actually that took six years, right? Well, maybe not six years. There's six years between our kids. So probably like five years. And it was during that period where I really found this group of women who

Megan (12:08)
you

Pauline (12:14)
accepted me and I was so afraid that I wouldn't be accepted because I already had a child. I had the thing that they wanted more than anything and I was really afraid that they would reject me or that I would somehow hurt or insult them. ⁓

So I, this is where I think being a social worker actually helped me because I was able to be like, all right, I'm gonna like not talk about that part of myself, right? And I was able to kind of put that aside a little bit.

Megan (12:51)
So you are able to focus, and they were able to focus on this like common pain and goal and desire and need really.

Pauline (13:02)
And I

validated them, right? Like, I had something that they didn't, and I wasn't pretending that that didn't exist. ⁓ And also, I really...

valued having them for support. Because when you're struggling with secondary infertility, and this is another what nobody told you, right? Like that you can get pregnant once and then not be able to get pregnant again. Like that's a thing that happens. We call it secondary infertility.

And so when you're going through secondary infertility, you're like struggling with your own feelings of like feeling like your family's not complete and also feeling guilty because you know that you at least have one child and that you have the thing that other people would be dying to have, right? So now there's like guilt and grief and like, I don't know, do I have a right to feel so upset?

And the answer for anybody listening is like, yes, you have a right, because it's not the family that you imagined.

Megan (14:07)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, I think that it's so important to talk about that because even the messaging from outside can be, at least you have another kid. Well, thank goodness you have another kid. And like, suffering isn't competitive, right? Like, you still get, it's still pain.

Pauline (14:27)
No.

Right, right.

And it can be really invalidating. Like, no, I still, yes, I love my child and I am grateful that I have him in my life. And I want a second child. I want a bigger family. This is the family that I imagined. These are the dreams that I've had since I was a little kid. I imagined having many kids.

Since I was a little kid, I imagined having six kids. The fact that I'm stopped at two is not what I had planned.

Megan (15:06)
Little bit different than what I imagined.

Pauline (15:09)
Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think my husband is grateful that we have stopped at two But like I it wasn't what it wasn't. It wasn't the future I had written. Right. Like and well, here's another no one told you like we don't actually get to write our future. ⁓ But I thought I did. I thought I had a plan and a roadmap and how I was going to do that.

Megan (15:35)
do get to grieve the loss of a dream that is not met.

Pauline (15:41)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, grief is not only about the things that you have and lost, right? It's sometimes about the things that you dreamt and lost.

Megan (15:59)
What do you think was your takeaway from being able to be in this group? How did it help you the most?

Pauline (16:09)
I mean, that group still helps me today. Those ladies are some of my best friends and it just made a huge difference to know that like I didn't have to explain everything that I was going through, right? Like that I could just talk about the stirrups and they'd know what I was talking about. ⁓ I didn't I didn't have to justify.

what I was feeling like they got it. They knew how hard it was. They knew all of the different emotions. the women in my group all had different stories. I was the only one with secondary infertility, but they were different ages. They had different relationships. ⁓ One had had a stillborn before going through fertility. ⁓

So I was the only one with a living child. ⁓ Some were doing all sorts of different types of fertility treatments. So like we were all different and we had this like unifying ⁓ mission that we were like on a project together trying to get to our outcome. And that just felt like,

we were equally invested in each other as much as we were in ourselves.

Megan (17:43)
So, now that you're the director of a psychotherapy practice that specializes in all things pregnancy, parents, reproduction, is that why you started? Is that why you started helping hand psychotherapy? Because of your experience.

Pauline (18:00)
I mean, so

I think I'd be, I started being a therapist for people with infertility because of my experience. Like I knew how alone I felt. I knew how isolating it was. I knew how afraid I was to talk about it. And I didn't want anybody to be, feel that way. I also wanted to have, I wanted to start a group. I wanted to bring people together the way that.

people had come together for me. ⁓ And ⁓ I'll never forget like the first group that I had in our office in Rockville Center. This was like way pre-COVID and there were, you know, three people in my office, around the couch. And I just, I still get goosebumps thinking about it, right? It's just so incredible when people feel supported and can hear a story that sounds just like what they're feeling.

So I knew I wanted to do that and infertility is like definitely like where this all started for me, but then it just grew because it wasn't just infertility. It was everybody who experienced pregnancy loss. And then it was everybody who had depression and anxiety in their pregnancy and postpartum. And then people who delivered babies and didn't have the birth.

they experience, that they hoped for or expected. We started to ⁓ treat people who had traumatic deliveries, who had stillbirths, who had miscarriages, who had relationship issues during pregnancy, around pregnancy, and then the list just kept growing and growing and realizing that this is a really hard

period in a parent's life from wanting to get pregnant through pregnancy and then postpartum, like, holy shit, this is hard. And there's a lot of stuff that just keeps happening that everybody's like, nobody told me this was going to be like that. And if you're around me, you've heard me say over and over again, as I'm older now, one postpartum is really forever. I'm like, I'm like.

Megan (20:24)
was gonna say, most partners forever.

Pauline (20:27)
postpartum, So postpartum

is ⁓ forever.

Nobody told me that having a young adult would be harder than having a toddler. So that will have to be another podcast at some point.

Megan (20:42)
That will

be, because I'm in the middle of it. I'm teenagers.

Pauline (20:45)
Yeah, yeah, but

we are, as parents, we're literally like building the plane while flying it. Like this is hard. And there are people who have done it before us. So why are we not leaning on them?

Megan (21:03)
I love that you brought in the community.

to focus on building community around challenges, right? Because that's something that historically has been part of our worlds and is less and less now. What do they call it? Like third locations, places to go and be in community are much less now than they were even 40 years ago. And so even when you're going through something so major like infertility, like loss, like any of the other things that we'll

discuss in the future, having a built-in community of a place that's safe to be able to process this experience, to grow from this experience or not, or to be able to just really sit with the sadness that it brings and to be in community at the same time. I think it's so powerful.

Pauline (21:48)
Yeah. Yeah, just not to be alone.

Yeah, as humans, we really, we need to be talking to each other and listening to each other and caring for each other. Right? Like being in a group, it's not only what you get from the group, it's also what you give to the group. There's so much healing that has happened for me in my life from being able to help other people to being able to watch other people grow.

Like that is just as important as what they have done for me is what I get to do for somebody.

Megan (22:37)
Any other thoughts as we kind of...

Tie this up.

Pauline (22:47)
I am super excited for this podcast and being able to talk about the things that no mom told you. And we can't just blame the moms. There's lots of other people who could have told us this stuff was gonna happen.

Megan (23:01)
aunts, grandmas with

us. Yeah.

Pauline (23:06)
Right,

but everybody comes from a mom. So ⁓ it starts there and we need to be talking about these things. So I'm excited to have a platform where we get to talk about the things that nobody talks about. And that's going to be really fun and exciting and a little bit scary because there's a lot of vulnerability in talking about.

these secret things that we're not supposed to talk about, but I think there's a lot of power and a lot of healing that can come from talking about these things out loud.

Megan (23:47)
So just to do a disclaimer that even though we are therapists, we are not doing therapy on this podcast. There might be some, you know, of our experience as clinicians that we color the podcast, like everything will color, you know, all parts of us will color this, but that this is not therapy. It's really people who happen to be therapists and happen to be moms and talking about this experience.

Pauline (23:55)
No.

Megan (24:17)
Thanks for

Pauline (24:17)
Yeah,

and also we're gonna give a lot of examples. Most of them come from our real lives because besides being therapists, we're actually humans. And we're moms and we're sisters and we're neighbors and we're friends and we're people too. And sometimes we're gonna give not ⁓ client specific stories, but like the things that we hear about all the time, right? Like.

It's really common for people who are struggling with infertility to feel like they hate going to baby showers, right? And they can't say out loud, I hate going to baby showers because then you sound like a bitch. But baby showers are really hard. We're not going to disclose the things specific clients tell us, but we're going to talk about the themes that come up over and over and over and over again in therapy.

Megan (25:02)
Yeah.

Pauline (25:12)
because nobody out there should ever feel like, I'm a terrible person because I don't want to go to that person's baby shower. Like that is a thing and not going to the baby shower is okay. And that is how you take care of yourself. So if no one told you, you can skip the baby shower. I'm here to tell you it is okay to say, I can't make it.

So there, I said it.

Megan (25:38)
There you said it. There you said it.

Okay. Well, so fun. Till next time.

Pauline (25:42)
Megan, this was fun.

Until next time.