Two New Beginnings: Jenna

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when the midwife becomes the patient?Katie O'Brien sits down with Jenna — a newly minted midwife and an even newer mom — to find out. With 10-week-old Celeste in tow (and occasionally on the breast), Jenna unpacks what no clinical rotation could have prepared her for: the sheer, humbling, beautiful chaos of the postpartum fourth trimester.Turns out, knowing about postpartum swelling and C-section recovery is a lot different from living it. Knowing that cluster feeding is normal doesn't make 4 a.m. any shorter. And knowing that new moms are always late to their appointments? Well — now she really knows.But Jenna came prepared. Doulas. Classes. Freezer meals. A husband who learned the difference between input and output. A mother-in-law who's a massage therapist. A community that showed up so Jenna could sit down.The conversation expands into something bigger: a field that asks its caregivers to pour endlessly from cups they're never given time to refill. Katie and Jenna make the case — gently, persistently, from lived experience — that taking your maternity leave is clinical practice. That modeling sustainable midwifery is patient care. That the bravest thing a midwife can sometimes do is say: not yet. I'm still becoming.BTW Celeste approved this episode. She didn't say so, but she stayed on mic for the whole thing.This episode is best paired with coconut water (a stable of hydration support for Jenna)