Between Meetings & Motherhood

Samantha Hays was drowning in early motherhood. Her daughter cried constantly, nobody was sleeping, the internet kept serving her five-dollar sleep hacks that didn’t work, and every time she scrolled Instagram she saw perfect moms with perfect babies and wondered what was wrong with her. Then one honest conversation with another mom changed everything. So she built a place where every mom could ha...

Christine Tangel, LCSW, Senior Director of Post-Adoption Services at Spence-Chapin, breaks down the three paths to adoption, what it really costs, how long it takes, and how matrescence shows up for adoptive moms too. Part of National Working Motherhood Week's expert interview series. Learn more about Spence-Chapin: https://spence-chapin.org/ Learn more about Mothered Media: https://www.motheredme...

Michelle Yu, co-founder and CEO of Josie , walks through a 5-step framework for pitching parental leave, flexibility, and other workplace support as a strategic business case, not a personal favor. Part of National Working Motherhood Week's expert interview series. Learn more about Josie: https://myjosie.com/ Learn more about Mothered Media: https://www.motheredmedia.com/ To download the HR Pitch...

Teasing a special interview with Briana Succop, founder of Cookie, who is hosting a hands-on workshop at National Working Motherhood Week all about mapping the mental load! Register for it here: https://luma.com/national-working-motherhood-week Briana Succop was executive-functioning all day at her job, then coming home to become her kids’ EA — a travel-team schedule landing in her inbox at 8pm on...

She left her corporate job, looked around, and realized she had no one to talk to. No community of women who got it. No space for the messy middle of leaving a career, redefining ambition, and figuring out who you are on the other side of it all. So she built one — in three days. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Cat Canada — award-winning brand ma...

She came to America as an au pair, never intending to stay. She had no business background, had never written a check, never used a computer. She didn’t even know what a leadership style was. But she saw a gap so enormous — new mothers with no village, no support, no community — that she filled it herself. Twenty-six years later, the Motherhood Center in Houston has served over 100,000 clients and...

Most companies don’t have HR built for working mothers. The policies aren’t there, the flexibility isn’t there, and when women return from maternity leave, the support isn’t there either. Sarah Alaimo has spent two decades inside organizations changing that — and now she’s doing it on her own terms as the founder of Elevate Consulting Collective , a fractional HR consultancy helping small and mid-...

You’re not depressed. You’re not crying all day. You’re actually doing everything — and that’s the problem. For high-achieving, ambitious moms, postpartum anxiety doesn’t look like falling apart. It looks like over-functioning, controlling every nap schedule down to the minute, unable to sit still, and wondering why you can’t just be present with your baby when you’re doing everything right. In th...

Why are you peeing yourself when you jump? Why do you desperately need to poop the second you drink coffee? What’s that dot in your thong actually telling you? And why has nobody ever talked to you about any of this? In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Cait Van Damm — pelvic floor therapist, chronic pain specialist, founder of Tidalwork (tidalworkmov...

Alex had a 56-hour labor, a planned home birth that ended in a hospital transfer, and a son born with an infection in his lungs who was immediately rushed to the NICU. She was at home pumping around the clock, receiving contradictory information from lactation consultants, and ready to quit breastfeeding entirely — until one lactation consultant drove 90 minutes to her house and changed everything...

Sophie Epton found out at 18 weeks pregnant that her son had a rare heart condition. He had open heart surgery at nine days old and spent 41 days in NICU. And then at 10 months postpartum, when life finally slowed down — the postpartum depression hit like a ton of bricks. For 18 months she held it together on the outside while falling apart at night. And when she finally came out the other side, s...

Booking kids’ camps, classes, and after-school activities is a nightmare. You’re deep in Google results, creating accounts just to find out there’s no availability, calling numbers that go nowhere. Meanwhile DoorDash exists. Molly Morse noticed that gap, called her co-founder Amy Kiska, and Recess was born — a marketplace that lets parents find and book kids’ activities in one place, in real time,...

She had a high-flying career in international higher education, a son diagnosed with a rare lung disease at her 20-week scan, 18 months out of the office navigating pregnancy, PTSD, major pediatric surgery, and a return to work so unsupportive it gave her a full-blown motherhood penalty — being undermined, managed by the person who covered her mat leave, and asked to fly to Pittsburgh three days p...

Welcome to Doing Big Shit — a brand new series inside Between Meetings & Motherhood where host Alexa Starks sits down with founders, builders, and visionaries who are doing exactly that. First up: Synne Linden, a Norwegian-born, Australia-raised, 13-year entrepreneur and founder of Tidal — a matchmaking agency launching on International Equal Pay Day, September 18th, with one mission: more money i...

What if the secret to raising confident, emotionally resilient kids isn’t doing more — it’s doing less? In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Sarah Lucas, childhood education expert with over 25 years in the classroom, author of Atomic Parenting , and the woman parents have been begging to write a book for decades. Sarah breaks down why modern parentin...

She had the career most people dream about — McKinsey consultant, Alibaba leadership program, expat life in Shanghai, all the external markers of success. Then she had a baby. And six months later, she was standing in a forest telling her husband she wanted to quit everything. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Babette Lockefeer, leadership facilita...

She had four kids back to back. She’s a maternal mental health therapist, a keynote speaker, a global clinical researcher, and she’s doing it all while raising a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, a two-year-old, and a six-month-old. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Tiffany Williamson, M.Ed., LCMHCA, founder of Transformative Destiny — the woman who...

She got angry. Really angry. And instead of swallowing it, she built a business out of it. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Vanessa Rio — cover feature of the July issue of Mothered Magazine , founder of Mothering Minds , and the woman quietly solving one of the biggest gaps in maternal mental health care in the UK. Vanessa went from journalist to...

Nobody tells you the real truth about building a business while raising small children. Not the highlight reel version — the actual truth. In this solo episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks breaks down the 8 things she wishes someone had told her before she started building Mothered Media with two toddlers at home. This isn't a motivational pep talk. It's the unf...

What if the skills that make you a great mom are the exact same ones that make you a great leader? In this episode of Between Meetings and Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Alex Pensiero — doctor, school psychologist, leadership coach, and founder of Wellspring Coaching and Consulting ( wellspringcoachingandconsulting.org ) — for a deeply honest conversation about ambition, identity, f...

She was the county's number one Girl Scout cookie seller at nine years old, moved to New York City the day after her 18th birthday with zero plan, built a quarter-million-dollar marketing agency during COVID — and then burned it all down three weeks postpartum while being threatened with a lawsuit while holding her newborn. In this episode of Between Meetings and Motherhood , host Alexa Starks...

Two working parents, a baby, and an endless list of mental load no one ever sees — that's the problem Ashley Chang Dawson set out to solve before she even became a mom herself. In this episode of Between Meetings and Motherhood, host Alexa Starks sits down with Ashley, founder of Sundays ( withsundays.com ) — a service that pairs families with expert executive assistants to take the mental loa...

Most women don't hear the words "pelvic floor" until they're already pregnant — or already dealing with symptoms they don't know how to name. In this episode, Alexa talks with Anna McMaster, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and pelvic floor specialist, about the muscle group your OB probably never mentioned and why it matters your entire life. Anna is the founder of Amy (askamie....

Did you know U.S. kids are out of school up to 18 weeks a year — but most working parents only get 4 weeks of PTO? That gap is exactly what Kathryn Hatcher set out to solve. In this episode of Between Meetings and Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Kathryn, founder of Camply (joincamply.com) — a two-sided marketplace helping parents find the right summer and school break camps, and help...

Most women were never taught how to invest, and that gap is costing them. In this episode of Between Meetings and Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Danielle Sissons, independent financial planner and founder of Ivy Financial Planning — a firm built specifically for ambitious women who want to grow their wealth, on their own terms. Danielle started her career in financial services strai...