Intentional Pregnancy, Birth, & Postpartum

Lana Sullivan: Helping you become the faith-filled mama you are meant to be. All things motherhood, peaceful homes, home birth, homeschooling, and Jesus.

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• Labor Course

How do we handle the hard times in motherhood? Join me in this conversation with Lana Sullivan, a mom of 5 from North Carolina.

Topics Mentioned

• Anger—Proverbs 29:11 - "A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back."

• Scripture Meditation—Psalm 119:11 - "I have treasured up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."

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Transcript📍 ​

 Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Grace Notes. Today I have Laina with me from Girl Teach Me, a YouTube channel all about intentional womanhood. Welcome. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. All right. So you were in North Carolina. Give us a little info about your family background and what started this YouTube channel.

Yeah. So we're in North Carolina. We've been here about four years. We spent most of our marriage in Tennessee. So I still feel like I'm from Tennessee, but yeah, we're here in North Carolina. I have five kids, two older boys, 10, eight, and then three girls, six, four and one. So I was a boy. Mom thought I was always going to be a boy.

Boy, mom and three girls in a row. So yeah, I, I just really, I loved being a mom with my two boys, but I really felt like, you know, dishes never get done. Laundry never gets done. It's just a continual thing. And I really wanted some projects and it wasn't like I was bored at home, but I think I just, I just needed a little something extra.

I used to be a college softball coach. And so I really wanted to get back to helping women. I really uniquely love just helping younger women. And so that seemed like something I can do from home without being away from my kids was set up a camera at naptime or write a blog post at naptime. And so that's kind of how it was born about six years ago.

I love that. And that's one of the goals of this podcast is to connect with older women. We see that in scripture as well, the older women mentoring the younger women. And like you said, with technology now, we can do that across states and through podcasts and YouTube channels. So tell me a little bit about your YouTube channel and what you focus on right now.

Yeah. So my YouTube channel is It's all just about helping women be more intentional in motherhood. And I'm really trying to make the videos with a young mother's pain points in mind, helping her feel like at the end of the day, okay. I think I took a step towards being faithful and just winning a little bit in motherhood.

We don't feel like we have a lot of wins. Sometimes the motherhood can be really hard. So, um, I'm just, okay, what will this video, how can this video serve this mom who maybe is feeling angry or exhausted or just kind of go through it like that? Yeah. I know the algorithm pushed me some of your videos and really enjoyed them because, um, it's you talking, but then also clips from your life and how you're with your kids and being intentional.

So whenever I thought about giving up my smartphone, it was always like, Oh, but I have to have it for Instagram. Well, I really felt like the Lord was just like, focus on one thing laying out. So I just try to focus on YouTube and just really let Instagram go. Once I let Instagram go, I really felt like the freedom to.

And I'd seen the light phone, but just felt like I couldn't make the jump mainly for a GPS. I was so nervous about a GPS. Eventually, I just went and bought one of the hundred dollar ones from Walmart. And for me though, when I would get on a smartphone, it wasn't like I could go to that one, one thing and get off.

It was like my brain got lost and I didn't even know why I was on there. And I may have got on there to make. One text and then I'm off to wherever and I didn't like that feeling and I also didn't like when I came up out of that how I mothered and so I just felt like, hey, you know, I've got lots of little kids in my home and for the sake of just being a good mom.

And. It was just eye opening for me in so many regards. So I had my first and then my second and I just realized that unless I change some things with my mindset, birth was not going to be something that I was, it was something I was winning, very afraid of. And then I found a lot of other women felt the same way.

So that's when I created labor without fear, just through my five birthing processes, like just. Took everything I learned from, when you do natural birth, a lot of times with a midwife, you go sit down for an hour appointment with a midwife. Well, every time I do that, I just be like picking their brain for everything I could and just try to like, put it all into a course.

Right. Cause birth is wild. We don't always know how it's going to go. Mm hmm. Yeah, I love the combination of using your mind, right? Taking every thought captive, and then also, you know, preparing and doing that research. What are some tips that you tell pregnant people?

Like, do you have any tidbits that you offer that would be helpful as we're trying to encourage others? Yeah, so, first of all, I don't go around my local church evangelizing for natural birth. You know, if a woman comes to me, she's like, it's really on my heart, Lana, this is something I'm thinking about.

I'm like, okay, we can talk about it. But if she's just pregnant and needing help. That's it's just, I really want to be careful and sensitive because not everybody's led to do it that way. And I don't ever want to put that up on a pedestal. Like one is more righteous than the other. But I think what I would say is if a woman is feeling like, okay, I think the Lord is just leading me down this path.

Perhaps there's something he wants to teach her about himself through the labor process, because I've learned, I feel like I've learned a lot about my walk through walking through birth with the Lord. Is just that he, women have been doing it forever. And while we're birthing, women are birthing all over the world and he will never leave you nor forsake you.

I think it's a really interesting combination of sovereignty and free will because. In our free will, we can, we can prepare all we can get education, we can talk to other women, birth stories, but at the end of the day, birth is wild and we're just going to trust the Lord through it. So it's like this beautiful dance that I would just say, prepare all you can.

And then trust the process. And I know you had five natural births. Were those at home? So the first one, I was out in California. I know that you're on the West Coast. So I had a birth center birth out there. And Driving 45 minutes through LA traffic to a birth center was not really, yeah, I was just like, I think I would have progressed better had I been able to stay at home.

Because every time I get in the car, labor would stop. So my next were home births when I was on the East Coast. Okay, and do you feel like they all went well? Would you have changed anything about them? Yes, I would have gotten a dual at the first time. The first time I really encourage women. If you want to have a natural birth, get a dual because they're going to stay by your side and coach the dad because the husband's like, what the heck, I don't know what's going on.

And we really could have used some help. Some midwives are hands on, some midwives are hands off and I had a hands off midwife. She wasn't bad, but, um, yeah, she wasn't there to help me labor. She was there to make sure the delivery was safe. But I would also say if you really. Getting a good team on board, like getting a good midwife, somebody who's going to coach you and not just give you like five minutes of their time, but really sit down with you and hear your heart and let you ask questions that to me made the, like, at the end of the day, I'm like, I trust you with my life.

Definitely, I was a teacher and we talked a lot about mindset and growth mindset and just being careful about, you know, what is coming in our minds. I think especially when we're in a vulnerable position, we have to be especially careful and to let someone know.

I remember just writing it out and just giving someone the note because it was too hard to talk. So yeah, just to have the supports and to, you know, consider every aspect, right? Physical, spiritual, emotional, all of that is really important.

Um, there's this one book I point everyone to I'm obsessed with it, but it's the power of Christian contentment. And in one chapter, it's all about suffering. And honestly, I flip to it often and I don't want to sound like I think all of motherhood is suffering, but most definitely we will have some moment in someday that's a little bit like suffering.

And it's like, how do I do the right thing with that pain? Because, um, The Lord wants me to do the right thing with that pain. And so, yeah, I think it's all productive pain if we think about it like that, but it doesn't mean it's, it doesn't mean he's going to take it away. He's just going to be available.

Like you said, through it. Yeah. And I think I like what your course is doing because maybe like with my son, his birth was a little hard. The postpartum was a little hard and surprisingly with our second baby, things did go a little bit better. And so to not get, you know, Consumed by that fear. Um, but so yeah, process that with someone, um, as we close, do you have any just advice that you like to give to those in these little years or thinking about birth or wanting to be pregnant?

And it's going to help transform you into the better version of yourself. If you will just surrender to the process. Of the micro sufferings that we experience as mom as being a mom, and, um, it's just not a burden. I really think the enemy has women thinking that children will inhibit our ability to have a flourishing, you know, life and.

He doesn't do it to hurt us. . Mm-hmm . I know on your site you have some, um, scripture passages. Do you have any favorites that you like to share with, um, moms? Hmm, that's a good one. I'd say, I think Psalm 119, 11, I have treasured up your word in my heart so that I may not sit against you. And when you feel like you come across some sin struggles in motherhood, maybe you didn't know that you were an angry mom.

Oh, definitely. Um, as we close, I'd love for you to just maybe pray for the woman listening who's contemplating this, maybe struggling, um, and just, yeah, needing some encouragement today.

Yeah, I'd love to. Oh, Jesus, I just thank you so much for The mom that's listening today, I thank you that she is just trying to be as faithful as she can. And in all the ways that she feels like she's failed, I pray that you would just push back the voice of the enemy, the voice of shame that comes from the enemy.

That's not your voice. And you would just help her to quiet herself and tune into your voice, Lord Jesus, that you would help her. You would help her to cry out in her times of need when, um, just everything may feel messy and chaotic. That she would just be able to sense your peace there. And I pray Lord that you would just help her to take control of everything.

She can take control of her just decluttering or lighting a little candle or Washington minutes of dishes, Lord, I just pray. And I asked Lord for a mentor for her, an older, wiser woman in our local area who can be somebody she can talk to in like a listening ear. And that can also just show her the way.

Cause we need older women in our lives and God, just thank you for this podcast. And I think you, I pray you just bless this podcast and make it a blessing to a lot of other women in the days to come in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Lena. Where can folks find you if they're interested in learning more?

Yeah. So it's just a girl teach me. com. And I write, a couple of blogs a month. And then, um, I send out a weekly email. It's actually really fun ideas for intentionality comes out every Friday. I share like just some favorites podcasts. I'm listening to things I'm buying for my family.

And then I put out about one YouTube video. I'd say a week, but let's be honest. Sometimes it's a couple of months if I'm, lucky. So yeah, YouTube and my website is probably the best place. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today. Oh, yes. Thank you, Grace. 📍