The Unplanned Parent

A note before you listen: this episode touches on infant loss. Dr. Hope Scott is a developmental behavioral pediatrician with over 40 years of experience. She’s also Angel’s former colleague, a trusted friend, and someone who lost her daughter Haley to pneumococcal disease when Haley was seven months old. She joins The Unplanned Parent to talk about autism, ADHD, developmental milestones, and what...

Season 3 of The Unplanned Parent is about what happens when parenting stops following the plan. This season, some of the detours are small and some change everything, and the guests have lived both. Coming up: Dr. Hope Scott, Angel’s former colleague, on autism, ADHD, and what happens in the room when a parent first hears a diagnosis. Dr. Vivi, a pediatrician and a mom, on her son’s type 1 diabete...

A season that started with a birth story and ended with a childcare decision. In between: a NICU stay, a feeding journey that didn’t go to plan, physical therapy at two months, expert conversations on men’s health and AI in medicine, and a recurring theme that nobody gets this perfectly right. Angel and Raman look back at all of it. Season 3 is on its way.

Ashley goes back to work soon. The childcare question is next. In Season 2, Episode 10, Angel walks through everything: daycare vs. nanny vs. grandparents, what the research shows about infections, development, and leukemia risk, what to look for in a nanny, and why the first nanny she ever hired fell asleep holding her one-month-old and then called her from the phone she’d said she lost. The main...

Raman sent a screenshot of an AI rash diagnosis to the family group chat before Angel could respond. Angel had feelings about this. Those feelings became a podcast episode. Dr. Jonathan Chen is a physician and biomedical AI researcher at Stanford who went to college at 13 and can solve a Rubik's Cube in ways that require explanation. He joins Angel and Raman for the AI in medicine conversation tha...

Masha is back, Baby Zen is a few months old, and the question has shifted from how do we survive this to am I actually doing this right. Masha talks about meeting Zen for the first time, the welcome party, parenting guilt that never fully leaves, and the walk she chose over the grading. Angel covers what kids actually need: stimulation, nutrition, safety, attachment, sleep — and what parental pres...

Raman noticed Zen preferred looking left. Angel noticed it too. This episode is what happened next. Season 2, Episode 7 covers baby head shapes: positional plagiocephaly, torticollis, what the two conditions have to do with each other, and why starting treatment early — Angel means really early, not at the four-month visit — makes a significant difference in outcomes. They cover the physical thera...

Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor. It is a real risk factor for postpartum depression. And there are things parents can do about it. In this episode, Angel walks through the full infant sleep timeline: what to do in the first few weeks, what changes at four months, and what the six-month sleep training window actually looks like. Cry it out, camp it out, Ferber, drowsy but awake, routines...

Three weeks in, Raman has a lot of questions. Angel has been waiting for them. This episode covers the first month of life with Baby Zen: swaddling with arms out, starting tummy time in the newborn period, flat spots and torticollis, cross eyes, cradle cap, peeling skin, pacifiers, irregular breathing, and why talking to your baby in a sing-songy voice is backed by real research. Angel also shares...

There’s a lot of noise around breastfeeding vs. formula. This episode is the context most parents are missing. Dr. Angel walks through what’s actually in formula, what to look for on a label, what the MFGM research shows, why US formulas might have too much iron, and what the breastfeeding benefit data actually means when you look at absolute rather than relative risk. She also covers something th...

Most men would rather Google their symptoms than talk to a doctor about what’s happening below the belt. This episode is for those men. In this episode 3 of The Unplanned Parent, Dr. Angel is joined by Dr. Lamia Gabal — board-certified urologist, one of Orange County’s top docs, and one of the most entertaining guests the show has had. She went to UCSD medical school, did her fellowship there in u...

Baby Zen came home from the hospital. Then he went back. Jaundice — specifically a bilirubin of 19, a Coombs positive result, and ABO incompatibility — sent Raman and Ashley back to the NICU for four nights when Zen was four days old. In this episode they tell the full story: the text message, the crying, the packing of the bag, the phototherapy lights, the IV they couldn’t get in, the NG tube, an...

He’s here. In this episode of The Unplanned Parent, Raman and Ashley are joined by Dr. Angel to tell the story of Baby Zen’s arrival. Two weeks old at the time of recording, Zen came into the world via induction at 39 weeks and four days — Ashley’s age and the IVF process both factoring into the decision to not go past 40 weeks. Raman picked Ashley up the morning of the induction, they went for a...

Season Two is here. 👶 Last season, we followed Ashley and Raman through the whole wild, beautiful, planned-yet-unplanned journey to becoming platonic co-parents — the IVF, the waiting, the figuring it out as they went. Now Baby Zen has arrived, and everything has shifted. Season Two lives in that shift: the newborn haze, the questions nobody fully prepares you for, jaundice scares, feeding curveb...

IVF gets thrown around as a catch-all term. Most people — including most patients — don’t actually know what it involves. Dr. Rhea Chattopadhyay, reproductive endocrinologist and IVF specialist, joins Angel and Raman to walk through the whole process: AMH testing, ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval, embryo grading, PGT-A, expanded carrier screening, embryo transfer, and what the body still has to...

The baby is a few months away. Angel decides it’s time to talk about SIDS. Episode 10 is the safe sleep episode — what SIDS actually is, what parents can control, and what the data says about all the things new parents worry about: belly sleeping, swaddling, co-sleeping, pacifiers, reflux, over-bundling, and breathing patterns that look alarming but are completely normal. Angel also shares a Rutge...

Masha is back, and this time she goes all the way in. This episode is Masha’s divorce story — why she ended a marriage that looked fine from the outside, how she and her ex navigated separation during COVID with her mother in the house and two kids under seven, and what she’d do differently if she could go back. She also talks about introducing Raman to her kids, how her son handled learning that...

Masha is finally here. In this episode, Raman’s girlfriend joins the show to tell her side of the story — how they met, how she found out about Ashley’s proposal, and what it’s actually been like to be the partner in this particular situation. She’s an economics professor with a PhD, a mom of two navigating 50/50 shared custody, and someone who has consistently shown up for Raman throughout all of...

Dr. Samantha Johnston is back for round two. This time: early childhood vaccines. This episode covers every question new parents actually ask — why hep B is given at birth, whether the ACIP changes affect anything right now (they don’t, thanks to an AAP lawsuit), what the autism data actually shows, why spacing out vaccines backfires, what aluminum in vaccines means in context, and why giving Tyle...

Vaccines during pregnancy: what to get, what you can’t get, and why it all matters more than most people realize. In this episode, Dr. Angel is joined by Dr. Samantha Johnston, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and longtime friend. Together they walk through the four vaccines recommended during pregnancy — Tdap, RSV, COVID, and flu — and explain exactly what each one is doing for the mom a...

Ashley is 5.5 months pregnant, the baby bash is coming up, and Raman still doesn't have an apartment near the baby. Episode 7 of The Unplanned Parent is the practical one. Ashley spent 15 hours on her baby registry and is overwhelmed by the options. Raman plans to go with the flow and is grateful Ashley did the hard work. Dr. Angel steps in with the information that actually matters: what to look...

Ashley is 22 weeks pregnant. And she's finally telling her side of the story. In Episode 6, she walks through how she got here: the deadline she gave herself at 42, the FaceTime call where Raman's name came up as a joke, and the morning-after text where he said he was actually considering it. She also explains why she chose a known person over a sperm donor — and why specifically Raman. Then she g...

Ashley is finally here, and she's 22 weeks pregnant. In Episode 5, she tells her own story: why she froze her eggs at 34, what it actually felt like to give herself daily shots for three weeks, and why she went back and did it again at 40. She also shares the unexpected thing the egg freezing process gave her: a diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis that had been missed for years, and a treatment t...

The baby is coming. Raman has thought about approximately two things. Dr. Angel Rampal puts her brother through the questions every new parent should be sitting with before the due date: circumcision, breastfeeding (and whether you can have a drink while doing it), cord blood banking and what those OB-office brochures aren't telling you, infant CPR, skin-to-skin for dads, sleep safety, and a few t...

Raman thought the hard part was over after the yes text. Then Ashley called from the doctor's office. The recommendation: quit vaping for 90 days to improve sperm quality. Raman's first reaction was to hang up and vape ten times in a row. Episode 3 is the story of how he actually did it — the addiction, the logistics of quitting, the dismantled vape that ended up in a dumpster at 1:30am, and the b...