There are few experiences as universal to human existence as pregnancy and childbirth, and yet its most difficult parts — perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) — are still dealt with in the shadows, shrouded in stigma. The fact is 1 in 5 new and expecting birthing people will experience a PMAD, yet among those who do many are afraid to talk about it, some are not even aware they’re experiencing one, and others don’t know where to turn for help. The fact is, when someone suffers from a maternal mental health disorder it affects not only them, their babies, partners, and families - it impacts our communities.
In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Sarah Parkhurst and Whitney Gay are giving air to a vastly untapped topic by creating a space for their guests — including survivors of PMADs and healthcare professionals in maternal mental health — to share their experiences and expertise openly. And in doing so, Sarah and Whitney make it easy to dig deep and get real about the facts of perinatal mental health, fostering discussions about the raw realities of motherhood. Not only will Previa Alliance Podcast listeners walk away from each episode with a sense of belonging, they’ll also be armed with evidence-based tools for healing, coping mechanisms, and the language to identify the signs and symptoms of PMADs — the necessary first steps in a path to treatment. The Previa Alliance Podcast series is intended for anyone considering pregnancy, currently pregnant, and postpartum as well as the families and communities who support them.
Sarah Parkhurst
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; Founder & CEO of Previa Alliance
A postpartum depression survivor and mom to two boys, Sarah is on a mission to destigmatize the experiences of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), and to educate the world on the complex reality of being a mom. Sarah has been working tirelessly to bring to light the experiences of women who have not only suffered a maternal mental health crisis but who have survived it and rebuilt their lives. By empowering women to share their own experiences, by sharing expert advice and trusted resources, and by advocating for health care providers and employers to provide support for these women and their families, Sarah believes as a society we can minimize the impact of the current maternal mental health crisis, while staving off future ones.
Whitney Gay
Previa Alliance Podcast Co-host; licensed clinician and therapist
For the past ten years, Whitney has been committed to helping women heal from the trauma of a postpartum mental health crisis as well as process the grief of a miscarriage or the loss of a baby. She believes that the power of compassion paired with developing critical coping skills helps moms to heal, rebuild, and eventually thrive. In the Previa Alliance Podcast series, Whitney not only shares her professional expertise, but also her own personal experiences of motherhood and recovery from grief.
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Grief doesn’t always arrive when you expect it—or look the way you thought it would. It can sneak into ordinary moments, surprise you years later, and change parts of you that you never saw coming. In this episode, we talk honestly about the unpredictable nature of grief, the ways loss can reshape us, and what it means to keep living while carrying someone or something we’ve lost.
If grief has caught you off guard lately, you’re not doing it wrong—and you’re not alone.
Hi guys, welcome back to Preview Lions Podcast. This is Sarah and hi Whitney. How are you, my friend? I am good. How are y'all? Good. And guys, before we dive into this episode, just a little heads up of what we're going to be talking about. If you're not in the headspace, we're going to be talking about grief today. And um, while it may not be the funnest topic to talk about, it's vital and important to talk about because we're all at some point going to experience grief. And no one's immune to it. But um, just in case you're not in that headspace, give yourself a pause. We have so many other great episodes that you can listen to. Um, but if not, let's dive into it, Whitney.
What, like anything, inspires this episode to us that we thought we're real life and our life that so I guess I'll go into like the backstory of what kind of made my own little therapist light bulb go off. So, backstory for about a year and a half, I've been struggling with insomnia. And at first, I say at first, it was a it was a legitimate factor where I had like a strain on a lower back muscle, it would spasm at night, that would create insomnia. Went to the doctor, went to physical therapy for it. The back got resolved, but I still had insomnia. And so I went back to my PCP and I was like, hey, like my back is doing significantly better, but I really don't want to be taken flexoril, which is a muscle relaxer, just to go to sleep at night if I don't actually need that. She said, absolutely understand it. Wrote me a script for hydroxizine, which I will say has worked fantastically for my insomnia. No shade to my PCP because she was treating said problem. Um, and then I see my GYN every December for an annual. And I was telling him about everything, and he was like, you know, you've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism for almost a decade now. I wonder if it's Hashimoto's. Because in addition to the insomnia, you know, hopefully this is not TMI, but I feel like it's all women, and we talk about, you know, postpartum and all the things here. Like my cycles were just off as far as like the flow and things of that nature. So I was concerned about that, kind of that 230 crash in the afternoon. Um, and so he was like, you know, let's test you for Hashimoto's. My labs came back beautiful, which you're like, Whitney, you should be happy about that. I'm like, it is such a double-edged sword of like, yay, I don't have Hashimoto's, but also what is going on with me? To the point where I was like, well, am I in period menopause? Like, what is going on? And so fast forward to June, so just a couple of months ago, saw my PCP and I'm like, hey, loving the hydroxine, it's going great for me. Um, you know, definitely noticed the insomnia worse about two to three days before my period. So again, feeling like it's a hormone-influenced situation. Um, and I said, you know, maybe it's my cortisol that's off, you know. And I told her, I was like, this feels like spaghetti noodles. I'm just throwing everything at the wall just to see what sticks. But in addition to that, I have gained seven pounds since March. And if y'all know me, y'all know that I run. I actually completed my very first marathon in March. And I told her, I was like, here's the deal. Yes, I do love me some Chick-fil-A fries. I eat them, but I'm not eating that all day, every day with absolutely no activity taking place. I was like, my calorie math just is not mathing. And she agreed. And so she did what I thought to be a very extensive blood panel. So I got my CBC done. Um, she did my cortisol, and it was on the like mid slash low end of cortisol. Um, my thyroid panels were good, my T3 and my TSH were perfectly normal, kidney function was fine, liver function was fine, I'm not pre-diabetic, blah, blah, blah, all these things. So then I'm just sitting there like, what is wrong with me? And so I made an appointment with my OB. But in the meantime, my curious little self went back and looked through the portal of my records from my PCP from about 2022 until now. And up until this past March, where I had that huge jump in my weight of seven pounds, and noticed that I slowly started increasing my weight, like pound here, two pounds here. Nothing that you would really get alarmed over. But also started noticing a slight increase in my bad cholesterol number. Now, my overall cholesterol, beautiful. Good cholesterol, beautiful. Bad cholesterol is just a touch over like the normal range. I'm talking like I'm 10 points over the normal range. Mind you, cardiac problems run in my family, which is why I run so much, is to try to be in good heart health. And I was like, that's interesting that I see that trend. So jump ahead to I go to see my OB and I told him, I was like, I don't know if I'm in perimenopause. I don't know if it's my thyroid, I don't really know what is wrong with me, but something is wrong, and I don't know what to do at this point. And this is where my type A came in clutch. Okay, I had screenshot all of my lab results from my PCP, was able to hand him my phone and he scrolled through and he goes, Okay, good, you're not pre-diabetic. We know that. He goes, Your cortisol is good here. He goes, but cortisol fluctuates so much. Yeah, one little snippet doesn't give the whole picture of cortisol. And my PCP had told me that too. She was like, it can be all over the place in one day. Fair enough. And so one thing he noticed was that in my thyroid labs, my TSH got looked at, and my T3 got looked at, my T4 did not. And he goes, Here's the thing: the medication you're on absolutely will make your TSH and your T3 look good. He goes, because that's what that medication specifically targets. He goes, granted, it got you pregnant 10 years ago when that's what you were wanting to do. He goes, it fixed that issue. He goes, but when we think about the thyroid gland, T4 plays such a crucial role in all of your hormones, not just what we would consider female hormones. So progesterone, progesterone and estrogen were great. Um, turns out my T4 was basically trash. Okay, and my testosterone was basically non-existent, which would make sense why I've gained weight instead of muscle with all of the running that I'm doing. It explains that afternoon crash that I'm having, it explains my irritability and those mood swings. So, no, I'm not in perimenopause. My thyroid needs a different approach. And that was a really big relief. I was like, okay, so I'm not just making this up in my head. This is just what 40 is supposed to look like. And then I really started to think on it. And I was like, so what happened in 22
that would have created all this? Well, listeners, if you've been with us for a minute, you know what happened in 22. We had three deaths in my family in two months. Two of which were very, very close to me. The second one being my dad's dead, which really was the just gut punch to me. And I started thinking on it. And, you know, we talk about how the body keeps the score, how our bodies can store physical traumas that happen to us, emotional traumas, things like that. And one of the biggest contributors to thyroid disease that is not genetic is stress. And I think that the stress of all three of those deaths back to back on me actually genuinely altered how my thyroid functioned, even on medication. The medication kept me above float, get kept me afloat. It did. But obviously, that T4 side of my thyroid, it was like, hey, this is too much. Because we think about your adrenal glands, your stress glands, that hyperadrenaline that you need to get through hard times. I mean, I never stopped having a hard time for a solid three months there.
SPEAKER_02
No.
SPEAKER_01
Because it's I had one grandfather die immediately. My youngest got, or not my youngest, my oldest got sick following that same week. My youngest got sick following my mom was in the hospital for sepsis from a brown recluse bite. I remember that. Yes. Month later, my father-in-law died, and then a month later, my other grandfather died. And so we think about that, and I say that not emotionally on here because we compartmentalize to get things accomplished. And I'm like, oh, well, that makes a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_02
It and it just was wild. I mean, it was wild to honestly. Every text that I got from you, I I almost braced myself of what else was happening to you in that moment. Yeah. Um, and I felt so much for you because I felt like how much more could she take in this moment? You know, it's and it was one of those things that we all do this when grief hits, there's nothing you can do but to go through it, right? And you're, you know, grief is one of the greatest stressors a human can experience. I mean, they have a syndrome, you know, called heartbreak syndrome, right? Yes, it's real, it is so real, and it's painful, like grief is so pain, and you know, the brain part processes grief as physical pain. Yes, and that's why people, when they say I'm heartbroken and they truly experience grief, your heart feels broken, and your brain is like, No, her heart is broken in that minute. And I'm sure I've said this, I remember I said this before after um miscarriage, is I physically felt pain. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01
I can remember because I will, for those that are new listeners, to preface, my mom's dad died in October. He was in hospice care. We knew it was coming. It was still heartbreaking but expected. Father-in-law in hospice care for Parkinson's, heartbreaking but expected. My dad's dad dying was extremely unexpected, and he just died in his sleep. I vividly remember my mom calling me, which I couldn't get at it because I was in session with somebody, and she called multiple times back to back. And we all know that that's a red flag. Okay, we know that that's not okay. And when I was able to call her back and she told me what happened, I remember like physically kind of caving in. Like it's like I went into the fetal position while I'm still standing up and I'm shaking. I'm like, what it what do you mean this is what happened? Like, no, no, no, no, no. And admittedly, when I first answered the phone, I could hear it in her voice. And my first thought was something had happened to my dad. She was like, No, no, no, your dad's okay. Don't it's okay. Your dad is fine, your dad is okay. And I said, Then who died?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And she told me, and I was like, What? And it just maybe I should have expected it to be him because he was 90. But also, like, we had other people in the family who are in much worse health. That I was like, That he was not on the top three list of people that I thought was gonna be going.
SPEAKER_02
No, no, but that is something, and again, it's in that moment, and you're not restoring what that is doing to your whole nervous system, to your cortisol, to your brain. And then, you know, and grief is such like you know, the iceberg, right? Where you see the tip of it so deep down, and your brain, if it's predictability of a person, right? I found this really interesting when I was researching about this, is you know, if you've always every year or every day, this person has been in your life, or right, it's like you you kind of expect your brain's expecting them. Oh, I'm gonna see them here. They're gonna call me here, they're gonna text me here. But my brain still does that to me. You think you're you almost think you're maybe going to hear their voice, or you seamlessly like reach for the phone, you're like, I'm gonna call this. Yep. And what's really painful and it's hard is your brain is slowly updating a world where they're not in it anymore.
SPEAKER_01
Right. It's trying to figure out what this new norm is because it definitely doesn't feel normal. And let's just be real, it's not normal. It's not. I also want to plug into this that in between all of that grief that I experienced into now, figuring out my thyroid problems. I can remember talking to one of my nurse friends, and I had started having some symptoms, not the insomnia or the weight gain, but just kind of my typical thyroid symptoms. And I was like, I wonder if I should just like double up my dose for a couple of weeks and like just see what happens. And she was like, absolutely not. You don't want to mess with the thyroid, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. All of these things. So even for a couple of years, I've suspected that my thyroid was off and my labs were normal. Y'all, that was my intuition saying something is off. We may not know exactly what it is, but that is a very good example of my intuition was like, something feels off. We don't know what it is, but something is amiss here. Now, to balance that out with the morning that I was going to go back to my OB to go over my lab results, I was running, and my mind decided that that would be a really good time to have intrusive thoughts.
SPEAKER_02
Of course.
SPEAKER_01
Because why would why wouldn't we do that? Why would you not? Right. Because my brain was like, you know what? What if it's thyroid cancer and you have six months to live and you have to tell your children that? And like I'm getting worked up on the treadmill over this, and I was like, Whitney, that's intrusive thinking. That's if that was the case, your doctor would have called you before today. Yeah. He would have said, No, you will come in before Friday to talk about these results. So that's a good example of your intuition versus your anxiety, but also how grief can also be sneaky in that role of, hey, if I created all these troubles, why wouldn't I create more?
SPEAKER_02
And that's in, you know, your brain again, right? Like when you've you've shot up your, for you've shot up your nervous system, your brain doesn't know the difference between grief and you're in active danger situations.
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely. Yes.
SPEAKER_02
So if you feel like post-grief and in this grief, you're on edge, you just like your inflamm, your inflammation, you just your brain doesn't know. Like you still in this body is like, I am not okay. And you you because your mind's not okay. You're carrying that grief. This is trauma, this is traumatic, this is hard. You don't know when you're going down the road, have you know, in the process of grief, and that you're gonna see something and it's gonna hit you hard and remind you of that person. Yes, yes, and for no reason it's gonna feel it floods your body. You're gonna feel that pain again that you felt that first time. And your brain is trying constantly, your body's going, okay, what what do I need to do? We're in danger. I mean, it's wild, and you know, you're saying you're hitting that midday. Grief is exhausting.
SPEAKER_01
Yes. Oh my goodness, y'all. It will drain you.
SPEAKER_02
Drain you. It takes it from you. It's your brain trying to figure out, well, how do I get safe again? It's the body healing that chain that the brain's telling that, you know, you feel so heartbroken. I mean, and an exhaustion leads to brain fog, right? You will then find yourself in a room and go, wait, what am I, what am I doing in here? You let up in someone's name. Yeah. You may feel like, you know, you can't make simple decisions. And I'm sure you've heard this from your clients when they're going through some grief of just feeling like I'm walking through this fog of my day-to-day.
SPEAKER_01
What is reality kind of?
SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Yeah. And all this grief, what it will do also is it affects your immune system. Yes. Mm-hmm. So you're gonna get sick easier, you're gonna stay sick longer, your digestion, you may not have any appetite, you may have a lot of appetite. I mean, there is so much to connection between your gut and your brain. Yes. So a lot of our digestive things, when you're like, okay, why is my gut brain connection? It's because your brain is still processing this grief and trauma. Yes, it is absolutely this is the biggest, you know, plug here too for therapy, is you cannot process grief alone. No. And it's sometimes really, really difficult to process grief with your family and your friends.
SPEAKER_01
Right, because part of it is you don't necessarily want to dump that on them because they're also simultaneously going through the same grief. And I absolutely 1000% get that.
SPEAKER_02
But then it's even it's like, you know, what things did you do or are doing that you could that our listeners like, okay, yeah, I've been carrying this grief, Whitney. Um, I'm walking through it, it's fresh, or you know, no, I'm still having grief from two years ago. What's their steps that you know is helpful, that's doable, that you you encourage that we encourage you don't have to stay in the same level of grief.
Well, you know, I'm a huge fan of the empty chair method. And when you Google it, it is primarily about grief. And a lot of times it's about like creating your own closure or trying to tie up loose ends. If it's a very positive relationship, like it was for me and my grandfather's, I we didn't have any unsaid business or nothing like that, but even just being able to say, I really miss you today, pop, or oh poppy, I wish that you were here to see the girls and things like that. Because recently we went up to my parents' house and it dawned on me that four years ago this month was the last time I got to see him, like up and walking around. And he died of cancer, but like overall in that moment, like he was in good health. Like he didn't need assistance to walk around. He could eat and he could talk and he was coherent and all of those things. And I thought, oh, okay, this might be a heavier grief weekend because I'm expecting him to be on the couch playing with my kids, and that's not going to be today's reality. And so, even just kind of preparing myself of okay, this might be difficult, but you can tell him that you miss him and that you wish he was here with you, things like that. You know, if you're able to get pictures of your loved ones, if you're able to keep any of their clothing items, like a t-shirt or a jacket or things like that, so that you have something of theirs that you get to keep, that can be very helpful. One thing that I did um is I had my grandfather's old denim shirt that I remember him wearing up to the barn when we would ride horses, I had that turned into a pillow. So when the grief is really hard, I can hold that and I can imagine hugging him. And it it eases the grief in a way. Like, yes, it's emotional, but it's like okay, we're not fully separated.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and if grief is super fresh right now for someone, what would you say?
SPEAKER_01
Let yourself feel what you need to feel. Cry, scream, yell. It's okay. Go to a rage room if you need to go to a rage room. If you feel like you know, them dying was unfair or not the right time, okay. Maybe it is unfair, maybe it was not the timing that it was supposed to be. You can feel those things. And remember, take the morality out of your emotions and feelings. Feelings and emotions are not moral, they are not bad or good, they can be unpleasant to feel or they can be pleasant to feel, but just because something is unpleasant doesn't inherently make it wrong. We don't want to have guilt with grief.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Okay, we don't want that.
SPEAKER_02
Because I think a lot of people say, well, maybe I should have, or I wish I would have.
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, totally, me too. Okay, absolutely felt like that because the day that my dad's dad died, I woke up that morning and I was getting ready and I was like, huh. Wonder what would happen if something happened to Pop. And I was like, No, no, no. Rebecca, his wife, would call us and tell us, like, it would be okay. I cannot tell you how many times I wish I had just picked up the phone to call.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
unknown
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
But I said he would have intervened, but my something in me knew something was off. And I wish that I had just jumped on that in my brain. I'm like, I could have prevented something. Logically, I know I probably couldn't have, but that's part of grief, is that bargaining stage?
SPEAKER_02
Oh, and that's where you're like, and we I think this would be a good for uh we will do an episode on grief in the stages of grief because I think it would be a really good um episode that we could dive deeper um because we always gonna experience it. But Whitney, sum us up. Um if you would could go back to Whitney Um before this happened and uh you know, the words of wisdom of grief that you kind of wish you would have known before you've gone through this these hard couple years.
SPEAKER_01
Right. So if I could go back to this time of 2022, Whitney, pre-all of the deaths, it would be to make those phone calls to express my love for those people so that I would have reassurance that they knew how much I loved them. Um, you know, that way I could get one more hug. That way, you know, I could really soak up those moments. So if you're in this place of you think you have a loved one that's gonna be going into hospice care soon, or just life in general, tell people that you love them, tell them what they mean to you. Get that hug, take those pictures, keep the cards that they write you. Yeah, keep the have a shoebox for your cards. Yeah, you know, it's it's not gonna take up that much space in your home, I promise.
SPEAKER_02
No, and I, you know, it I always tell my boys it takes nothing to be, it costs nothing to be kind, and you want it costs nothing to tell someone how much they mean to you. Absolutely. I think that's a good lesson we all need to learn. Listeners, thank you for listening and hanging in with us.
This I know again, these conversations are not easy, but they're so important because we're all gonna experience it. And Whitney, thank you as always for being so vulnerable and transparent and giving us um just what we need, as always. Absolutely. All right, friends. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back next week. Maternal mental health is as important as physical health. The Preview Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables like anxiety, anger, and even apathy. Hosted by CEO, founder Sarah Parkers, and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay, each episode focuses on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.
