Between Meetings & Motherhood

She wanted her own business at six years old. At 26, she quit teaching in the middle of her third year with two months of savings and moved back in with her mom. Now Amariah Murdoch runs INFINITEXEC , an executive assistant agency for founders, and she’s about to map out a five-million-dollar goal out loud. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Amariah...

Morgan Everson was pregnant, working remotely, and had no idea how she and her husband would manage childcare. When her friend Britt pitched her a childcare, coworking, and fitness space, she thought: this is a product I would pay for. Her son Jack went through Haven from infancy to kindergarten, and she’s now COO of the company. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks...

She raised four kids as a single mom, won her age group at an Olympic-distance triathlon at 58, and wants Haven to be bigger than McDonald’s. Christy Johnson is a co-founder of Haven , and in this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks talks with her about building community, redefining resilience, and why her big goal is every city. Christy has a master’s in developmental ps...

Britt Riley had a one-year-old, a newborn who refused every bottle, and a career she wasn’t willing to give up. She knew something had to give, and she couldn’t change what childcare costs, because that money pays the people caring for our kids. So she built a way to support the parents instead. That became Haven: licensed childcare for ages zero to five, plus coworking, fitness classes, and welln...

Mom Founders: if you’re ready for real business growth with a community of other mom founders around the world, join the Mothered Founders Club. Waitlist is open, doors open mid-November to waitlist members first! Join us https://www.motheredmedia.com/founders-club Imagine speaking to a room of 200 people. You’d talk about it for months, post the photos, and put it on your speaker reel. So why doe...

Most pregnant women spend months on the registry, the nursery, and the baby shower, then hit the fourth trimester with no plan for themselves. Nina Spears has spent 15 years changing that. She’s a baby planner, birth and postpartum doula, massage therapist, and author of The Baby Chick Guide to Positive Pregnancy , and she thinks you should start preparing for postpartum before the third trimester...

When was the last time someone asked you what you want to build — not how you juggle it all, not how you manage it while raising kids, but what you actually want to build? In this solo episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks gets into it: what doing big shit actually means, why your goal isn’t big enough if it doesn’t scare you, and why the biggest things are never done alone....

She started developing the app just days after giving birth to her third child. Not because she had it all figured out — but because she’d spent years as a massage therapist, prenatal and postpartum doula, and lactation counselor watching new mothers fall through the cracks, and she knew exactly what they needed. So she built it. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks...

She dropped out of high school at 17, got her GED, and flew to South Africa with a group of strangers. While there, she was handed a three-day-old baby boy whose 14-year-old mother had given birth alone in the woods and fled. Everyone’s heart turned to the baby. Charlee’s went straight to the mom. That moment planted a seed that became Every Mother’s Advocate — a national nonprofit now operating i...

She didn’t go back to school for a master’s degree in clinical psychology because she had it all figured out. She went because she was in the thick of early motherhood, things were coming up from her own childhood she couldn’t ignore, and she wanted to break the cycle — for her daughters, and for herself. What she built on the other side is the Women’s Center for Healing, a mental health practice...

What if your kid being “fine” is actually… fine? In a culture obsessed with excellence, enrichment programs, and diagnosing anything that falls short of perfect, clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Katie Davis is making the case that we’ve lost the plot — and that our kids are paying the price for it. In this episode of Between Meetings & Motherhood , host Alexa Starks sits down with Dr. Katie Davis, a...

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...