Resurface Podcast

Would you spend $700 on a toaster that only makes two slices of bread? What about $680 on a Gucci dog bowl? Or hire your own paparazzi just to make strangers think you're famous? Apparently, people pay for these things. And some start to sound surprisingly reasonable. We're Rachel and Stephen Scroggins, the married hosts of Resurface Podcast. In Episode 45, we're putting our judgment to the test....

We invited ChatGPT to co-host our podcast and gave it one job: try to start an argument between us. It roasted both of us, called out our ridiculous excuses, and somehow ended up playing couples therapist. We're Rachel and Stephen Scroggins, the married hosts of Resurface Podcast, and for Episode 44, we decided to let artificial intelligence join the conversation. Armed with everything ChatGPT alr...

Toy Story 5 takes on kids' screen time, technology, and imaginative play. But what happens when a screen isn't just entertainment, but something a child with disabilities genuinely needs? In Episode 43 of Resurface Podcast, Rachel and Stephen react to Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5 and its surprisingly complicated message about children, tablets, friendship, and growing up. As parents of three chi...

How does a real mom measure up against the internet’s parenting standards? Rachel is finding out the hard way. In Episode 42 of Resurface, Rachel turns online parenting advice into an Internet Mom Report Card and grades herself on everything the internet says a good mom is apparently supposed to do: perfect morning routines, creative lunches, developmental activities, enrichment, screen-time limit...

Rachel lived with severe OCD during pregnancy, after childbirth, after pregnancy loss, and for years without knowing what it was. In Episode 41, Rachel shares her experience with postpartum and perinatal OCD, intrusive thoughts, contamination OCD, and the fear of telling anyone what was happening inside her head. Stephen knew about these thoughts at the time, but after having a stroke at 37, he no...

Episode 40: Medicaid Waiver Fight, Invisible Disability, and a Labor Day Break at Carowinds Rachel and Stephen return for episode 40 after a Labor Day weekend break, clarifying they are not homeless but still facing mortgage and housing instability tied to their ongoing fight for Medicaid services for their daughter Mila, who was born pulseless for 25 minutes and has an invisible disability. They...

Would you save your spouse or the dog if your house were on fire? In Episode 39, Rachel and Stephen play “Wives or Husbands,” a game built around marriage hypothetical questions and which spouse is more likely to do what. It begins with familiar arguments about driving, directions, man flu, mental load, selective hearing, and passive-aggressive sighing. Then the questions become considerably less...

The whiteboard challenge. Who would survive a Zombie apocalypse? Who would hoard snacks? And pranking Alexa. Then we move into a few serious questions. What do well-meaning people say that actually makes things worse? What do we wish people knew about special needs parenting? Edited with Movavi Video Editor: https://www.movavi.com/Some supplemental music licensed through Envato Elements Edited wit...

What happens when a married couple compares their favorite foods, desserts, TV shows and restaurants, then realizes how much of life they have been putting off while waiting for the “right” time? In Episode 37 of the Resurface Podcast, Rachel and Stephen start with the important questions: Is crinkle-cut fry slander justified? Could Rachel actually win a food-eating contest? How many completely wr...

A stranger claiming to be a 17-year-old messaged our child on Fortnite, then asked where they lived, their school, and their phone number. This week we're breaking format: a lighter Amazon reviews cold open, then a hard conversation about online predators on gaming platforms. We walk through exactly what happened when our child was contacted by an adult posing as a teenager, the red flags we misse...

Episode 35 starts with Reddit reactions, stories, questionable snacks, cuteness aggression, Elmo, and a much-needed family day at Carowinds. Then the conversation shifts. Rachel shares what happened after the kids left for the day, the financial pressure the family is facing, and the fear that they may not be able to keep their home. This episode is funny, honest, and uncomfortable in the way real...

We started with a trivia game about each other. It ended with Stephen saying something he had never told me. After 16 years of marriage, we played relationship trivia to see how well we still know each other, and the answer was uncomfortable. What began as a comedy game about shoe sizes and Starbucks orders turned into the most honest conversation we have had in a long time. Stephen admitting he h...

Nala is on hospice, she still plays, and she has growled at our special needs daughter twice. In 2019 a dog we used to own attacked, with no warning at all. Nala is our Great Dane. She is almost 11, she is on comfort care for liver damage and arthritis, and she is still happy. She still plays with Luke, our Golden Retriever. She still gets excited to see us. And we may still have to make a decisio...

Somebody we trusted to do a job stopped doing it. And when Rachel realized it, she had a decision to make. Sit quietly and hope for the best, or sit down with a laptop for 10 to 12 hours a day and do the work herself. In this episode of Resurface, we start with laughter, always, playing guess what Google auto-populates and finding out the internet is going through way more than we realized. We tal...

A $10,000 raise. An $837 overage. By year end, this family was $21,000 worse off. Not our story. I still had to tell it. Stephen goes through my whole medical mom bag / purse on camera. Plenty of laughs are had as usual. Then I tell you the story of a family living outside Detroit that I have never met, a family raising a disabled child with epilepsy and a son with severe ADD, and I walk through t...

We found out there's almost no data on babies who survive 25 minutes without a pulse. Turns out we're it. This week Rachel and Stephen put each other on the stand, married-couple-court style, running through guilty-or-innocent questions about hiding from their kids, fantasizing about being single, and who actually farts in front of who after 16 years. Then the episode pivots hard into the...

We put AI in the judge's chair and asked it to rule on our self-care habits. It had thoughts. A lot of thoughts. And then it turned on Stephen. We kicked off Episode 29 with a game: Stephen typed increasingly ridiculous questions into Claude about our household, our routines, and whether I should be committed, and I read the responses out loud. The answers got more honest and more pointed with...

We almost didn't film this one. A conversation online about disability gave us a reason to say something out loud again. In light of a public conversation about disability, down syndrome, and grief, We sit down to talk about something we live every single day: the worth of a disabled life. No names, no debate. They talk honestly about parenting our daughter Mila, who has severe disabilities fr...

Rachel's sister Kristina is back for Episode 27, and this time they're roasting their husbands. Why do men say "I was going to do that" only after you start doing it? Why do they call from the grocery store like they've been abandoned in the wilderness? Why do they spend so long on the toilet? In this episode, Rachel and Kristina play a game called "Husband or Dog?"...

Rachel’s sister Kristina joins Resurface for an episode that starts with sibling chaos and somehow ends up in the deepest parts of the family story. They talk about growing up as sisters, childhood punishments, birth order, husbands, cleaning, workplace red flags, and why anyone who says “we’re like a family here” at work should probably be watched carefully. But this episode also turns toward the...

Episode 25 starts with pet peeves, including Stephen calling from the grocery store, interrupted alone time, tipping culture, and more. We always choose to laugh first. Then we shift into a more serious conversation about raising a child with epilepsy. Rachel retells the story of Mila's first ever seizure, which was life threatening status epilepticus. We talk about how Mila’s diagnosis change...

In this episode we start by reacting to the viral back massage clip comments. We then talk about marriage after crisis, family after trauma, and what intimacy looks like when your world has been turned upside down. If you are parenting through stress, disability, medical uncertainty, or just trying to hold your family together while life keeps coming at you, this episode is for you. New episodes w...

In Part 2 of our Medicaid waiver hearing recap, we read more direct quotes from the hearing transcript, including the moments that still do not make sense to us. This episode picks up where our last one left off. After losing in court, we are going through the actual exchanges from the hearing, including testimony from medical providers, arguments made about Mila’s needs, and the way her disabilit...

In this episode of Resurface, we start the way we refuse to stop starting, with laughter, marriage banter, and another round of Agree or Disagree. We debate whether the higher earner should get more say over money, why “we need to talk” texts are morally wrong unless immediately explained, whether one parent should override the other’s discipline, and whether all men should know how to cook. Then...

This is about as raw and real as it gets - our daughter's hearing was denied. We will be back Tuesday with all of the details! New episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts and Spotify . If you listen on Apple Podcasts, leaving a review helps more families navigating trauma, special needs parenting, or hard seasons find this podcast — and the community around it. Download your free Get Helped and Be Helpe...