Garrett W - From Birth Trauma to Breakthrough

What happens when your birth plan becomes a four-day ordeal of coercion, unmanaged pain, and medical gaslighting? In this deeply moving episode of Quiet Connection, host Chelsea sits down with Garrett, a mom, entrepreneur, and advocate, who shares her harrowing experience with birth trauma, the mental health fallout, and her ongoing battle with secondary infertility.

Garrett opens up about what it was like to be disregarded by providers, stitched without anesthetic, and left to process the trauma alone—until she took healing into her own hands. From a cathartic cold plunge in Wyoming to launching KozeKoze, a postpartum care company designing products that actually support birthing people, Garrett is reclaiming her story and helping others do the same.

We discuss:

• The emotional toll of secondary infertility
• How birth trauma can go unrecognized and unaddressed
• Building KozeKoze from personal pain points (yes, nipple diapers are real and necessary!)
• What true postpartum support should look like
• Listening to your gut when doctors don’t

🔗 Connect with Garrett:

• TikTok: @kozekozemama
• Instagram: @garrettnwood
• Book: Dare to Move by Garrett Wood – Available on Amazon

✨ Learn more about KozeKoze and their postpartum products at kozekoze.com

Sound Bites

“I have this insane mom guilt.”

“Motherhood has actually slowed me down.”

"I had a four-day long birth.”

“I spiked a 107 degree fever."

“I had the baby blues four nights in."

"I couldn't have done it without my husband.”

"I don't know how women do that alone.”

"I will do that for someone someday.”

"It takes a village to support a mom.”

"I just want a diaper for my boobs.”

"Birth can be beautiful, it starts with us."

Transcript

Chelsea (00:01)
Welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. This week I'm connecting with Garrett as she shares her journey through motherhood, including her experiences with secondary infertility, the challenges of birth trauma, medical gaslighting, and its impact on her mental health.

She also shares about how founding her company KozeKoze has helped her take her power back while helping other birthing people feel cared for during the postpartum period. Here's Garrett.

Chelsea (00:35)
Hello today, I'm here with Garrett. Garrett, how are you?

garrett (00:40)
I am so good. I'm really excited to be here today.

Chelsea (00:43)
Yeah, I'm excited to have you. It's been a long time coming, things with scheduling and whatnot, but my running joke is that podcasting is just a revolving door of scheduling and rescheduling. You are also a podcaster, so I'm sure you know how that goes. But yeah, I appreciate your flexibility. I appreciate you being here with us, and I'm excited to get to know you today.

garrett (00:56)
Literally.

Chelsea (01:07)
So I'm gonna dive in the way that I do with all of my episodes and ask you if you could tell us a little bit about who you are today and who you were before becoming a mom.

garrett (01:19)
I love that question. Who I am today is a mom and a business owner and a wife and a friend and actually I hate this label right now but as someone going through unexplained infertility and one of the biggest things that you hear moms talk about is is mom guilt and how certain things that pull you away from presence with your child make you feel bad and a lot of times the conversation is around

if self-care, something you wanna do for yourself, is pulling you away from your kid, you have mom guilt. And right now, I have this insane mom guilt because of how much my secondary infertility journey has brought me away from the present moment. The doctor's appointments, the doctor's calls, where I'm like, sweetie, can you be quiet? Okay, three and a half year olds are not good at being quiet. So that's been really hard, and I've never had problem with self-care as a mom because

Chelsea (02:10)
No.

garrett (02:18)
I had a single mom growing up who was a total martyr and I was like, that's not okay. It's not okay to be miserable and it was hard to see my mom be miserable. So I've never had a problem with getting my nails done, getting my hair done, going on girl trips. But man, the mom guilt right now for me and who I am today is someone navigating the balance of running a business being a mom and dealing with this level of how and why is this infertility journey taking me out of the present moment.

long-winded way for your who am I today prior to motherhood I was balls to the wall high achieving go-getter taught Barry's boot camp classes at 5 a.m. Monday through Friday did commercial real estate had an online coaching business for nine years while doing commercial real estate and teaching Barry's I wrote and published a book in 2018 it's called dare to move it's on Amazon

Chelsea (03:01)
my god.

garrett (03:14)
I'm podcast host and I'm an Enneagram 7 if you couldn't tell by that answer.

Chelsea (03:21)
Yeah, wow, that was like a lot in in like less than 30 seconds. my gosh. Yeah, so. So you are and always have been busy.

garrett (03:29)
I use a lot.

Yeah, and I think that like a lot of us will say like stems from childhood. Like my mom had three kids under five. Dad was, before they were divorced, he was overseas in the military, an F-16 pilot actually. And so I think the nature of having three kids alone just makes everything feel busy and hard. And then my life just kind of stayed that way. And you it's made me who I am and I'm grateful for that. And I'm...

Chelsea (03:38)
Yeah.

garrett (04:04)
grateful that motherhood has actually slowed me down though. It's first thing in my life to slow me down.

Chelsea (04:08)
Yeah. You had mentioned when you were giving us your little intro that you sort of made a mental note growing up that you were not going to be the mom that was the martyr that sort of sacrificed those moments of self-care. Did you always picture yourself being a mother though? Was that something that you always wanted?

garrett (04:20)
Hmm.

Yeah, and it's funny because I've just, people ask that question a lot and I've just always been a yes. And my dad even said in his father of the bride speech at my wedding, it's been, I had my son, we were COVID wedding people, wedding got delayed twice. He said, it's been amazing to see you become what you always wanted to be, which was a mom. And it like, had kind of forgotten that.

But I was mom to my two little brothers and when my mom was in the shower, I'd read them stories and watch over them. So it was always in my DNA, my blood, what I wanted to do. And it's also what really propelled me to choose a portfolio lifestyle and entrepreneurship in my 20s because I was like, I don't want to work for anyone when I have kids. I don't want to have to take a maternity leave. I want to do whatever I want and I always want to make money and I want to be a mom.

Chelsea (05:25)
so you really sort of, whether you realized it in the moment or not, you were really setting yourself up for motherhood and success. like success in terms of like feeling successful. I don't wanna oversimplify things and, right, like I don't wanna oversimplify things and be like, yeah, like.

garrett (05:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's a weird word.

Chelsea (05:48)
career success and monetary success, but like feeling successful and feeling like you're achieving your goals. You were really setting yourself up to do that as a person and a mom, which is, which is beautiful. ⁓ let's talk about that journey a little bit. So you said you had a COVID wedding that got delayed. ⁓ what was the, what was the journey into parenting like? What was that conversation like? How?

garrett (05:59)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Chelsea (06:17)
How did the process evolve for you?

garrett (06:21)
Yeah, my husband and I met, I was 26, he was 33. I joked he was on the market for a house, I was on the market for a boyfriend. We bought the house really soon into our dating life. But we were one of those people that like we, our first date was a snowboarding date actually. And we were, we went to Sunapee in New Hampshire. And by the end of the date, we're like, okay, so we're like boyfriend and girlfriend now. Like we just knew we chose the name of our

Chelsea (06:29)
Ha

garrett (06:48)
unborn daughter, you know, on our first date, we have a son. And it just kind of always was like, yep, no, this is it. It was in my, my dating life was I went on 55 dates with 35 different people before him. So like it was, and that was in between my last relationship and then meeting him. So it was intense, but we knew we wanted to get married and we would have a kid. And so our wedding was supposed to be July 4th of 2020. And when the pandemic hit,

Chelsea (06:52)
you

garrett (07:15)
I was kind of joking at first. was like, well, if our wedding's canceled, I want a puppy or a baby. And he got me a stuffed animal. And I was like, no, that's not going to work. And so as soon as we called off the wedding, I was like, let's try. Let's try to conceive. And the first cycle that we tried, crazy story, but right before I would have been able to early test, we hit heads.

Chelsea (07:23)
You

garrett (07:43)
dancing and my two front teeth fell out and that Trauma like in that moment. I started my period on day 20 something like it was early and I I remember being like well We can't try again because now our wedding will be July of 2021 and I can't have a three-month old at my wedding So it was a it was a destination wedding so I was like darn it like we can't we can't try anymore I had to deal with putting my teeth back in my head and

on the 4th of July on our wedding night, and we were always people that said, we'll conceive on our wedding night. We were like, let's just try one more time, and we got pregnant. So like literally, like it was kind of felt like our first try, we got pregnant, easy pregnancy. And I feel like prior to this infertility journey, I just thought that's what you did. I'm like, you try, you get pregnant, pregnancy's healthy, pregnancy's easy. But my postpartum journey was really hard because I had such a traumatic.

Chelsea (08:18)
Wow.

garrett (08:38)
four day long birth, like I literally went into the hospital on Monday, he was born on Thursday, every intervention you could have. And so that really brought us together, not that we needed to be any closer, but our entrance to parenthood was like, it went from being like, pregnancy's easy, everything's fine, to like, my gosh, this was really traumatic on both of us and now we're not sleeping.

And so I think a highlight for us as well is that like my husband still goes up to my son's room every night, like literally, he doesn't sleep through the night. So for us, it's been having to understand that we're both individuals with hobbies and desires, and we really wanna work together to preserve our own connection to self, but then our connection to each other, but then also like create family memories and whoa.

Chelsea (09:28)
That is very hard. That is very hard and that is, that's a lot. So let's talk a little bit about your birth journey too, because,

You had this preconceived notion that like, you get pregnant, you have a pregnancy, you give birth, you go home, like, this is just what it is, because that's the narrative that we're fed. When you say your labor and delivery story took four days, walk me through that. What switched from a healthy pregnancy to a very difficult labor?

garrett (09:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the TLDR is induction, like point blank. Induction is not for everyone. There are so many times it saves lives and there are so many times it's just unnecessary. So at 41 weeks, I kind of had pushed the OBs off saying like, nope, I'm not ready, he's not ready. And at 41 weeks, they were like, well, you need to come in for a non-stress test. So I did. And they were like, well, he looks healthy, all looks well. But if you don't come in...

to our hospital by tomorrow, we can't guarantee we will have room for you to deliver your baby. Which was gaslighting at, you know, before I was even there. And so I said, well, do I do? What do you mean? And they said, you need to wake up tomorrow at 4.30 and make sure you have called our hospital at 5 a.m. to see when we think we'll have room for you. So I got up my last morning to sleep in, unbeknownst to me, at 4.30.

Chelsea (10:36)
Yes.

garrett (10:58)
called them by five and they were like, we're busy right now, but if you want to do your induction, call us sometime after four o'clock. And so at three o'clock I called because I just had an instinct. was like, I think I need to go, but I wasn't in labor at all. And they said, okay, if you want to come in for four o'clock, you know, we'll have you. So we went in for this induction and my doula met us there a little bit later. But first thing they did was they, put us in a COVID testing room, which, you know,

sign of the times and we were negative for COVID, which was great. But they're like, we need to put an IV in your arm. And I was like, well, don't, I'm not even in labor. I don't think I need that. Like, well, in case you do, we really need to put this like port in your arm. And so they missed on both of my arms. The phlebotomist like couldn't get it. So I'm bleeding out of both my arms and they're like, we need to go get someone who can do it, which was just a weird start to the whole thing. My doula walked in and was like, why are you bleeding on both of your arms? Like what is going on?

Did you need medicine? And I was like, no, they just said I had to do this. And she's like, no, you didn't have to. But anyway, they came back in, missed a third time. Then on the fourth try on my right arm, they got an IV in. Then they put me into a labor and delivery room. And they started with the Mesa Proto, I always say it wrong, but it's basically to help your cervix start opening up. so that was...

Chelsea (12:22)
Mm-hmm.

garrett (12:24)
You know they had to use their hand to like put this pill up there and I got some like cramping But like nothing changed and 12 hours later. They're like, hey nothing's changed and instead of saying go home They were like we're gonna put another one in or maybe a double the dose or something. See if it opens things up No, Tuesday afternoon. They're like, okay, we need to try this foley balloon and it's like looks like have you heard of it? Yeah, okay, so, know

Chelsea (12:47)
I've had one, yeah.

garrett (12:49)
So the foley balloon

Chelsea (12:49)
Yeah.

garrett (12:50)
they're trying that. They're having me stand up, walk around, do some squats with it in. But after about, I don't know, an hour or two, my son's heart started, right, started dropping. And so they're like, okay, this is weird. We don't know what's going on. So overnight I'm cramping. They're like, the next morning they're like, you're two and a half or three centimeters dilated. Like why they hadn't already just taken me to C-section was kind of crazy just with our.

hospital systems right now. And so by Wednesday night, I was like, I need an epidural. I need an epidural. I can't handle this. I feel like they had tried something else I'm blanking on now, but I tried fentanyl for pain relief. And I was like, isn't that a street drug? like, no, no, no, we can use it here. It's fine. Which was strange. So I was loopy, tired, and they gave me an epidural. The long story short there is that 33 % of epidurals don't work. I was one of them.

Chelsea (13:31)
wow.

garrett (13:46)
And so after they gave me the epidural, they said, she's gonna go to bed and when she wakes up tomorrow, she's gonna be ready to push. So my doula and my husband, none of us have slept for three nights now. They lay down and all of a sudden they say when you feel like you're dying or when you're in extreme pain, you call out for your mother. And I start screaming, my teeth are chattering and the nurse was like, what's wrong, what's wrong? I'm like, I'm in pain, like I can feel all of this. She's like, no sweetie, you have an epidural, you can't feel anything. I'm like, no, no, no, I can feel all of this.

Chelsea (14:13)
⁓ ho.

garrett (14:16)
I spiked a 107 degree fever and then my teeth are chattering but mind you, my teeth were injured so I'm feeling like my teeth are gonna fall out. My doula's like, what is going on? And then they checked me again and from all the cervical checks I basically developed choreoamnitis which spiked the fever, which then I had IV drugs and nobody was believing me that I didn't feel anything but with the epidural you have to get a catheter.

Chelsea (14:19)
my god.

garrett (14:44)
And so they're like, we're going to prove to you sweetie that your epidural is working because you're not going to feel this catheter go in. And I felt like someone stabbed me with a knife, felt it all. they're like, ⁓ my gosh, she can feel it. So they go get the anesthesiologist and that person's like, I'm sorry, I'm busy. It's too late. She's already close to 10 centimeters now. Cause I went from like four to eight really quickly. And so I basically

Chelsea (14:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

garrett (15:12)
labored without pain meds now all night. And I, by the morning they had me start pushing at 430 in the morning, but my son didn't come out till 10. And the, was just like, there were so many things, a lot of layers there, but there was one OB I didn't want to deliver my baby because he was just awful. The one appointment I had with him and he walked in after four hours of pushing and said, if you don't get this baby out in 15 minutes, I'm taking you to C-section. And he ended up getting tied up.

Chelsea (15:21)
Ugh.

garrett (15:41)
for 45 minutes. So I had 45 minutes and my body kicked into the fetal ejection reflex. because I had given up, I was just like, I can't do this anymore. I'm exhausted. I literally felt like a prisoner of war that had been like broken down, like when they finally give up. And then as soon as I hit that, like I give up, kind of like threw my hands up, said a prayer, my body started doing the fetal ejection reflex to get him out. And I had a vaginal birth which was remarkable.

Chelsea (15:58)
Yeah.

garrett (16:10)
And I'm actually just while we're in the vein of the story and I mentioned choreoamnitis I haven't been able to get pregnant ever since that birth and I actually found out after my first embryo transfer failed a week ago that I could have endometritis which is an infection that lingers after choreoamnitis and I'm doing a biopsy this week to find out because We could have found out years ago if one of my doctors would just have connected the dots

which is crazy.

Chelsea (16:39)
Yeah,

the whole thing is crazy. Like, the whole thing is crazy. You were gaslit from the get go. I'm blown away by how many moments you were disregarded or completely gaslit and the control was taken away from you. To hear that you were essentially coerced into

garrett (16:42)
The whole thing is freaking.

Yes.

Chelsea (17:05)
going in for an induction just because of their scheduling issues is maddening. To hear that you questioned your need of an IV and it was disregarded. I could go through the whole story that you just told again, but literally at every move, at every turn, you...

garrett (17:13)
Okay.

Right? It's nuts.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (17:27)
had your power taken away from you. And that is not what you need ever, but it's 100 % not what you need when you're bringing life into the world. Yeah.

garrett (17:33)
For labor. Yeah. For

your body to feel safe to open up.

Chelsea (17:42)
Yeah, I guess I'm thankful that he decided to come out before Mr. Mean Doctor came back. so that is all trauma. That is trauma and that's deep trauma and your body holds trauma. In the moments after his birth, where was your mind at?

garrett (17:51)
Yes. Yes.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Such a question. And speaking of trauma and birth trauma, I've had a few different podcast guests come on that work on birth trauma. And they've literally said to me offline stuff like, still have some stuff I would clean up. And I actually have done a few different. And I'll speak to kind of what I've done to release the birth trauma. But when I first came out, I had read and thanks again, other podcast guests coming on that like,

You know, want to do the golden hour. You don't want to tug on the placenta. You want to have that come out on its own. Like these are all highest and best. Not everything is, you know, perfect. But the second he came out, I noticed the doctor was tugging to pull the placenta out. And I just I couldn't handle any more pain. Like my pain levels had been just like, like blown. And I was like, please stop, please stop. I don't want you to do that. I don't I can't handle more pain. And then

Chelsea (18:49)
my god.

garrett (19:03)
They pull it out and then two seconds later I feel more pain and I notice he's beginning to stitch me and I said, give me lidocaine, give me something. I can't deal with more pain, like please stop. And up until that point I hadn't actually been told that I had an infection. I had just been told that I had a fever and he stood up and he said, if I don't stitch you up right now, your infection could get worse. You have an infection. And then he sat back down, stitched me up through like me yelling like, please stop.

And that was the first I was informed that I had had this infection called choreoamnitis. So he leaves, then they take my son, and I looked at my husband, and my husband doesn't say he remembers this, but I remember it clearly, and I said, I'm so sad. And my husband said, why? And I said, because I wanted more kids. Because my brain in that moment was thinking, I can't do that again. Like there's no way I could put myself through that experience because

Chelsea (19:50)
Mmm.

garrett (19:58)
you're just kind of shocked that you made it out. And I hadn't even, you I think it was a huge weight lifted that like my son was okay, pretty much immediately. Like they did take him for observation, but yeah, you're just like, what was that?

Chelsea (20:12)
Was there any part of you that was like, is this what it's like? Is this what it's really like?

garrett (20:17)
There was a lot of me that didn't even realize I had, until you talk about it and process it a little bit, that's the worst of the worst. And like, this is so bad and I can't believe this and I need to tell the story. But the first three women I talked to when I came up for air, so like two or three weeks later, that had had similar due dates as me, they had almost the exact same story, except they had hemorrhaged after.

and had blood transfusions and I'm like, so it could have been worse. Like, what?

Chelsea (20:46)
Mm-hmm.

which is in itself

a dangerous thought, like the comparison game, but like, it's not normal. Let's say that bottom line. It's not normal. Just like we've said on this podcast many times, just like perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, it's not normal, but it's damn common. It's common and it's not.

garrett (20:54)
Yes!

No. Yes.

doesn't have to Yes.

Chelsea (21:16)
Okay, it's not okay. And it makes me really, really sad to even to picture you in that setting and in those moments and your some of your first thoughts are like, I'm really sad. I'm really sad, like, thinking like this is what birth is. And it's what birth shouldn't be.

garrett (21:17)
none of them.

Yeah.

Chelsea (21:41)
So, so many, I'm all fired up now.

garrett (21:44)
If you've been

through birth, you get riled up hearing stories like this.

Chelsea (21:50)
Yeah. And another thing like that I absolutely want to know is like birth trauma is relative. If you believe you experienced birth trauma, you experienced birth trauma. So listening to your story, listening to Garrett's story and being like, ⁓ it wasn't that bad. It's not a comparison game. It is not a comparison game. But what happened to you was not OK. Let's not like sugarcoat that at all.

garrett (22:01)
Yeah.

No.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

Chelsea (22:18)
I, I've got to like take a deep breath. I'm so pissed. It also kind of shocked. Well, maybe it shouldn't shock me. It surprises me a little bit that like you were saying earlier, you're in New England, we're in neighboring states. And it just isn't something that I would expect as much from this area.

garrett (22:21)
Mm. Yeah.

You think is like you

think Mass General, you think close to Boston, Boston trained doctors potentially or Harvard trained doctors like yeah. And I come from a medical family too where like I have some holistic side of me and I've explored all types of medicine alternative stuff. I have like my uncle is a very famous cancer doctor who treated Lance Armstrong. Like I come from a I have an oncological surgeon as a cousin who's in Vermont. Like I have

Chelsea (22:46)
Right.

Yeah, and I-

garrett (23:11)
people in my family that have given me trust in the medical system. And I grew up as an asthmatic who was hospitalized every year till I was 14. So I wasn't like anti-hospital, I don't want to do this. I was like, I need to trust these doctors and this is what they're telling me. And then it didn't go so well. Yeah.

Chelsea (23:33)
Yeah,

yeah, it absolutely highlights the maternal health crisis in this country. And, and as we'll get into it just feeds itself into the maternal mental health crisis in this country. Yeah. So, so talk to me about that. Talk to me about the days following you're you're going on four days of intense labor.

garrett (23:40)
Yes. Yes.

1000%.

Chelsea (24:01)
and unnecessary pain. I'm assuming you're absolutely exhausted. What did the days following look like for you and your partner and your new baby?

garrett (24:07)
yeah.

Yeah.

So I'll say that the two days in the hospital were the worst moments of my life because I was so, I mean, we know that sleep deprivation is a form of torture. When you don't sleep for four days and now you're supposed to stay up all night. I mean, it was just like, husband, my husband was almost like a zombie where like he could barely get up to function. And I was trying to get in and out of the hospital bed to like get my son out of the,

Chelsea (24:24)
Hmm.

garrett (24:41)
bassinet when I could barely reach them only five two it was just I I just remember as like two really dark nights and like really hard days and I don't have any family nearby I have a sister-in-law but no one from my family they're all in the Midwest and so my mom flew in when we came home I basically collapsed into her arms and she's always said that I'm her kid that she never worries about she's like even through your asthma attacks like you were just always fine I never worried about you she's like

with the hard birth, was really worried about your son, my son Declan. She's like, but I didn't worry about you until you came home and collapsed in my arms. And I was like, whoa, something didn't, this isn't right. And so we actually literally handed her the baby who she's never met. This is her first born grandson. And we slept until she woke me up and said, you need to feed him because we were just collapsed. We were just exhausted. And so

Chelsea (25:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

garrett (25:38)
I also joke and you know humor helps but I believe it or not I got a blowout before my before I went into the hospital and then by the time I gave birth I was like just like this sweaty gross mess as you can imagine it was like doing an Iron Man and so I also joke that I went from a not memorable B cup to a triple G my triple G bra was too tight

Chelsea (25:42)
Yeah.

garrett (26:05)
And so I had no idea what to do with my body. And I kept saying, feel like I have tumors or appendages on my body, and I'm leaking everywhere. My mom luckily had had that pain point. She was like, I could have fed the entire neighborhood's kids. I was constantly leaking. This is hereditary, probably, I don't know. But everyone kept texting me saying, put pads in your bra. I'm like, dude, my bra doesn't fit.

Chelsea (26:22)
Ha

garrett (26:33)
And shopping for bras is like shopping for jeans. Like it's awful and like you're not gonna do it when you're postpartum. my, was obviously exhausted, underslept, tired, but my other biggest pain point was this like personal hygiene issue of leaking and I was sleeping on a towel because I didn't wanna keep changing my sheets. Like I had my mom's help to help wash, dry, full, change, but it was just like, this is too much.

Chelsea (26:50)
Mm-hmm.

garrett (27:01)
And so that was rough. I definitely had the baby blues like four nights in. I was just like crying uncontrollably. That was really rough. The postpartum sweats really got me because I was leaking so much that I'm like, is it sweat or is it milk? We don't know. Like this is disgusting. Hence why I'm sleeping on a towel. And so I just was really caught off guard by, and hence why I started KozeKoze by the fact that like personal hygiene,

Chelsea (27:13)
Mmm.

garrett (27:30)
was getting in the way of my mental health and my bond with my baby. And I'm like, it's 2021. How is personal hygiene getting in the way? Like this is nuts. And so those are kind of like my big takeaways. But candidly, I didn't really, as far as what I've learned now about trauma, processing trauma, healing trauma and like somatic release, I didn't actually release anything until my son was two, 2023.

Chelsea (27:38)
Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. It's so much of what you're talking about, I think is gonna resonate so much with so many people because like we said before, your body holds the trauma and at this point you are so exhausted. You can't process any of that. You're so exhausted and you're so, like you said, like you can't, you're not caring for yourself, like your hygiene needs.

I hate this question because it's such a simple, like it sounds so simple, but in those first, maybe not those first couple of days because it was essentially like a war zone, but in those first couple of weeks, how did this experience shape your relationship with your partner and with your son?

garrett (28:41)
I think I will always feel bad for how I mean there were so many moments of newborn bliss don't get me wrong there were snuggles there we were in bed a lot but I would get angry when he'd wake up I'd be like like like cussing like how is he up how is he not back down like I was and maybe that maybe that was closer to like the three four month mark but because of the sleep deprivation just never stopped

Chelsea (28:55)
Mm-hmm.

garrett (29:07)
But for me, just made me so grateful for my husband because I was so sleep deprived and becoming very anxious because of just not knowing what's up or down. We actually did every single middle of the night wake up together wherein he would either help me get the baby or I'd get the baby start feeding. Sometimes he'd have to help me put a nipple shield on. He'd get the burp cloth.

Chelsea (29:26)
Mm.

garrett (29:35)
or like then I'd go to the bathroom to like either change my pad or wipe the breast milk off or wash my hands. He'd do the diaper, he'd swaddle, he'd rock the baby, get the baby down. So it was just like all hands on deck, like contact sport. It was just like, this is a lot. And I didn't trust myself to do it alone because of how under slept I was. And I was actually having nightmares wherein I'd wake up thinking I'd had a dream that I hadn't put him back in the bassinet.

And I'd be like digging in the bed like, where is he? Where is he? And my husband was like, no, no, he's in the bassinet. You're fine. so I just, I mean, I couldn't have done it without him. just being a daughter of someone in the military, like I know how many women do that alone. And I'm just like, I don't know how. I don't know how. And I really am just in awe about how strong women are because I couldn't have done it without my husband.

Chelsea (30:02)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you had mentioned before that you don't have much family close by either. So you guys are kind of an island and it was, I mean, it was still COVID times. Did you have any sort of support system that you could fall back on in terms of like friends or maybe your husband's family? Like was there anyone stepping up?

garrett (30:40)
Yeah.

The one lifeline we had early was my sister-in-law. She'd come over once a week for four hours and you know sometimes she would hold him the whole time. Like she would rock him, she'd bounce him, she was amazing. And I could shower or run an errand or whatever. I don't even remember much but my mom flew in for the first I think two weeks and then once she was gone that was weird. And then one thing I always share just because it meant so much to me

is that my stepmom who had a baby at 41, my son, sorry, not my son, my brother was four and a half at the time and she left him with my dad and flew in at week seven because she said, everyone's forgotten about you by now and you're not out of it yet. And she stayed with us for a week. She cooked us dinner. Like I could cry thinking about it because it was just the most selfless thing. And I'm like, I will do that for someone someday. Like, I don't know if it'll be a daughter or a friend or a niece or whomever, but it's like,

Wow, what a time because at seven weeks everyone has kind of forgot about you and you're still dealing with like sleep regressions and just so much. And so that was really, really powerful that we had moved during COVID from Boston to New Hampshire. So all my friends were still in Boston. And of course, as the universe would have it, I had had a falling out with a friend prior to it. Sort of a strange scenario. She thought childbirth was uncomfortable and couldn't talk to me about it.

Chelsea (32:08)
Mmm.

garrett (32:19)
I was going through a mourning of losing a friend and to the first, I would say eight months of my son's life were just like us adjusting to life in New Hampshire, trying to figure it out. And then I eventually met like an amazing group of mom friends I'm really lucky for. Cause that's made such a difference in my mental health and my day-to-day life as a mom.

Chelsea (32:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And that's something that we talk about all the time is community and the village and that I've said it so many times now. But like they always say like it takes a village to raise a child but really the mom it takes a village to raise or to to support a mom and that village doesn't exist. kind of assume that it will appear and it and it doesn't and it's it's not okay. So I'm so thankful to hear that you

garrett (32:50)
Yeah.

No.

Chelsea (33:09)
have since found a village. You had mentioned early on that that you experienced some of the baby blues. when did it sort of occur to you that like, okay, maybe this isn't the baby blues at this point, like, maybe I have something else that I need to address here.

garrett (33:10)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, so the baby blues for me, thankfully I had had someone on that told me kind of you know, kind of explained scientifically and I don't want to take the words out of their mouth because I'm not a scientist, but like basically just that it's a massive hormone drop and that your hormones just completely, we all know this, like they're completely bottoming out essentially and that you're going to feel that in your body, it's going to feel weird and you're going have emotions.

I was upset, you know, crying on the bathroom floor four nights after being home and like kind of like, yeah, there's nothing like I could cry about everything right now for sure. But like there's no, there's no one thing like this is just what's happening. And my husband sat there with me and was like, yeah, I think this is what's happening. And I do, I did have some postpartum anxiety that I could kind of target around six months, but I was more focused on that than birth trauma. It wasn't until talking to more and more,

Chelsea (34:03)
You

garrett (34:22)
birth workers from doulas to midwives when I started Koze Koze end of 2022 in the beginning of 2023 that I was like, I think I still am. And it was, I can't not get emotional without talking about my birth story, but it was sort of the language I was using around it. And then the activation that that held in my body when I would tell the story. And so unbeknownst to me, I just planned this 40th retreat for my husband.

It was a cold immersion retreat in Wyoming. And we went, my husband actually got sick the first day, and they had a cold tub outside. And so it's snowing outside, there is literal chunks of ice in this ice bath. And the facilitator of the retreat was like, before we do morning breath work, if you guys wanna take turns plunging outside, it's open. It's unscheduled, but if you wanna do it, do it.

A bunch of people were hyped about it and I was like, you know, I'm here to do this. I'm not going to be scared of the cold water. This is what I'm here for. And we were all out there without supervision. It was just like a group of people, like a couple moms, couple older men. And I was in line, last in line, and I get in the tub. And the thing about cold plunging is the only way out is through. Like if you're signed up for two and a half minutes, like you're going to do two and a half minutes. And with birth, the only way out is through. So I get in the tub.

Chelsea (35:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

garrett (35:47)
just thinking like, this is gonna be cold, this is gonna be so hard. I didn't get in the tub saying, I'm gonna release my birth trauma. But I was in the cold, I instinctively just like, closed my eyes and started crying. And at the same time, the leader of the retreat happened to like, wanna come see what was going on. And as I guess, I'm starting to cry, one of the older women was like, hey, Sam's coming, he's coming out here now.

And I opened my eyes and I thought he'd be like somewhere on the side and he was right in front of me. And he starts like, and he kind of has like an angelic presence as you know, lot of like gurus do. And he's like, he's like, breathe. And he's like doing this kind of like mesmerizing, know, helping me zone in on my breath work. And I just continue to cry harder and harder and harder. And you know, this two and half minutes feels like a lifetime, but timer goes off. I get out and I look up.

Chelsea (36:21)
wow.

Yeah.

garrett (36:45)
And the women in front of me, there were three women in their 40s, all moms, they were like sobbing. And they were like, we don't know what that just was, Garrett, but like you just moved us. And they had no idea that I had birth trauma. I had just met them the night before. So I don't know what it was, but well, now I do because I was brought back to the room of being unable to do anything but keep moving forward. so that experience of

Chelsea (36:53)
Wow.

Yeah.

garrett (37:15)
of also having to surrender to pain and relax in discomfort was nice. then part of why it got me so emotional, and I can still get emotional thinking about it, is that I had all those people around me supporting me in the moment versus antagonistic nurses and doctors. So that was also a therapeutic experience as well. So I highly recommend cold plunging if you can do it safely to release your birth trauma.

Chelsea (37:45)
Yeah, that sounds so powerful. And it makes so much sense. And it does. It sounds like your body taking you back there, but also releasing a part of it. So you've mentioned Koze Koze a couple of times now. I want to make sure we talk about that. I'd love for you to explain what Koze Koze is, because it's beautiful. And I love what you're doing.

garrett (37:56)
wanted to let go. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Chelsea (38:11)
And again, you mentioned when you started talking with birth workers and doulas and whatnot, that's when that transition happened for you. yeah, bring me into Koze Koze World and tell me about how that came to be.

garrett (38:24)
Yeah, so I was like I had shared earlier and set myself up to be able to work as a mom but not have to do like kind of make my own schedule. And as a coach, I would see, you know, I was like, I'll see three or four clients. And by the time my son was six months old, I like I had like 10 clients and I was like, wow, this is like, not low key. And I was making good money. And I ended up kind of dialing it down for my because I was having my wedding in 2022.

Chelsea (38:45)
Hahaha

garrett (38:54)
And I had a little bit more space. And anytime we create space, then we leave room for more things to get created. And after my wedding, I just started talking about inventing the world's first absorbent disposable bra, because I still couldn't get over the pain point of leaking everywhere. And don't get me wrong, the Hakka is, if people have heard of the Hakka, that kind of suction cups to you so you can leak into it. Love the Hakka, wish I had invented it. The hands-free breast pump, amazing.

Chelsea (39:16)
Mm-hmm.

garrett (39:24)
amazing solutions on the market, but from a mirror, like I don't want to collect anything right now and I don't want to like have a contraption on me right now. I was sick of leaking into my own bra and I was sick of wearing a real bra around the house because I just don't, I never wore bras because I was a not memorable B cup. So now I'm like, I have these heavy boobs that are leaking and I just couldn't let go of it. And so I started just talking to my friends about like, would you, what do you think about this idea?

Chelsea (39:42)
Ha ha ha!

garrett (39:53)
A lot of my friends hadn't had kids yet. So they were like, okay, Garrett, you know, they know me by now. Like when I say I'm going to do something, like they kind of know I'm going to do it like with writing the book or the podcast. So they were just kind of like, whatever you want to do, do you know, you do you. But one of my friends is married to a billionaire and we were at a wedding and I was, I just pulled him aside and I was like, what do you think about this idea? And he, for the first time, like didn't look at me like I was crazy. And he was just like, you need to protect your IP. You need to think about your moat and

how you're gonna stand out from other people and you know, need to get some good, like he just gave me some just like, not like just like tactical things to do as if like he was talking to me like, yeah, of course you could do this. And so I called a college roommate friend of mine that I trusted and knew that she was maybe looking for some other things in her career. And I was like, do you wanna start learning about this with me? And then I called my mom because she had the same exact pain point.

Chelsea (40:34)
Right.

garrett (40:49)
And I was like, let's try it. And we thought we would launch the world's first absorbent disposable bra which we call the nipple diaper. Because I was like, I want a diaper for my boobs. I just kept saying that my whole pregnancy or my whole plus one. I want a diaper for my boobs. I just want to like not leak everywhere. And we thought we'd launch it by summer 2023. So we're like, let's get started on the company. Let's come up with the brand. And my son was always doing this like really cute snuggle move when he was tired. And we'd always say cozy, cozy, like get cozy, cozy.

Chelsea (40:57)
Yeah!

garrett (41:18)
And it just, to me, like the word just encapsulated those moments. You know when you're really tired and you've had a long day and you get in bed and you're just like so comfortable? And I was like, that's what I want moms to feel because I did not feel that when I was postpartum. And had I had some simple tools that were better hygiene products, like what a world of difference that that would have made for me. And so that's why we wanted to call it Koze Koze. I know that people are probably just listening audio, but the background of our

Chelsea (41:27)
Mm-hmm.

garrett (41:47)
branding is weight, looks like waves, you're like a sunset. These are actually outtakes of my own bump from when I was pregnant. They were turned from all my different maternity photos, which is kind of fun. But anyway, we were like, okay, so if we're gonna do something innovative and sustainable, so the bras made out of biodegradable materials, we're like, what else can we do? What else can we improve in the meantime? Because this may take a while. And we're like, well, what else do you need when you're nursing or having problems with nursing?

Chelsea (41:50)
Yeah.

⁓

love that.

garrett (42:16)
first time mom, it's like, ⁓ cracked, raw, bleeding nipples, which I definitely had and I hated dunking my finger in a nipple balm jar because I had long nails, I couldn't go get them, I always have dips, I couldn't clip them very well. So I'm like, let's make one that opens with one hand and that has a ceramic applicator that's mess-free so I don't have to wipe my finger on a burp cloth I can literally do it with one hand. Moms do everything with one hand.

but let's also take it a step further and make the packaging sustainable. Let's make it non-toxic and organic. And so we just saw that there's a lot of white space in the market, not just to impress investors. You always want to have white space and a big market size, but truly, why has this not been done for moms? Why is there still room for improvement? We're all here because for hundreds of thousands of years, people have given birth, and yet the mother is still not fully supported. And so that was for me just like,

Chelsea (43:02)
Yeah.

garrett (43:14)
My husband and I joke like, why did I decide to like take like making six figures coaching and working on my own time to like, you know, not pay myself for two years and try to go on this wild goose chase. But I'll never regret it because I've learned so much and I know that we're bringing comfort to moms.

Chelsea (43:31)
Which I think so one of my biggest things with Quiet Connection is that like, I've always said like, I'm not a platform for like, I'm not going to endorse specific products, and I'm not going to endorse coaching, and I'm not going to do that. But when I learned about what you were doing, and now even deeper, like, I maybe I intuited, I don't know, but like,

when I learned about what you were doing and the role that it played in your journey in terms of seeing the disparities and the lack of care and the lack of just recognition of what a mom needs. not only...

are you creating something for other moms who are going through the same thing, but through that process, you are taking power back and owning your story.

garrett (44:27)
Yeah.

Chelsea (44:29)
So that's what I found really beautiful. And not only that, I mean, like, again, yes, this is an audio medium, but the...

garrett (44:32)
Thank you.

Chelsea (44:39)
products and the packaging are beautiful and I love that they are sustainable. But for me, the biggest thing when I was approaching, like getting to meet you and getting to talk to you was like, wow, you took what was probably one of the most traumatic experiences of your life and you took your power back.

garrett (44:42)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Chelsea (45:07)
And you are designing products to help other birthing people to feel seen, to feel clean, like to feel cared for. Yeah, literally to feel cared for. So yeah, that's just what was so powerful for me when I was, again, I don't typically like research my guests beforehand, because I really want to, yeah.

garrett (45:18)
Literally.

Thank you.

I don't want to make

an idea about them.

Chelsea (45:34)
I

don't want to, I want to meet you authentically, but I did look into, I looked into Koze Koze and I absolutely, loved the message and I loved where it came from. So, I mean, I don't have to tell you, but like, you're a badass. And also hearing that you acknowledge that

garrett (45:37)
Yes.

Thank you.

Chelsea (46:02)
I hate that saying like healing is not linear. We all know that it's great, but it's not. It's not. And to hear you say like, yeah, I'm still figuring this shit out.

garrett (46:04)
Yeah,

Yeah, I mean, I just did

a birth trauma session on Halloween and it was one of the most moving experiences like besides the cold tub for me.

Chelsea (46:17)
Yeah!

Yeah. So, and the commitment to yourself and to your mental health and to your physical self, physical health is, is powerful because you're not only doing that for you, you're, giving the best version of yourself to your son and to your family. And we could talk a little bit about too, like when, so before today, before talking today, you

had indicated that you were starting an IVF journey and you had talked about secondary infertility and you're only just now finding out the root cause of that. So my question in that regard has evolved because I had questions but like so knowing what you know now and knowing that it very likely in all likelihood goes back to your birth trauma. How are you moving forward with that?

garrett (46:50)
Yeah.

⁓

⁓ gosh, so the literal logistical step is this Wednesday I'm doing a biopsy of my uterine lining and they say it can be painful kind of like an IUD going in which I was not prepared for that pain. If you know, you know, it's not fun. They do not prepare you for that. But that's what the doctor said it could feel like.

Chelsea (47:33)
They don't prepare you. Yeah

garrett (47:40)
And basically a lot of us have heard of PCOS, a lot of us have heard of endometriosis, at least I had. What I hadn't heard of is endometritis. And endometritis is like, it can be a lot of different things, but it can be an infection or inflammation of your uterine lining. But like your gut has a microbiome, so does your uterine lining. So when they do this biopsy, they can also test the microbiome for unhealthy pathogens, bacteria.

Chelsea (47:48)
Mm-hmm.

garrett (48:08)
So my husband and I started trying when my son was nine and a half months old because he was about to be 40. We're like, let's just get the show on the road. I just want to, I'm in it. Like, let's just keep going. And after six months, we were kind of like, well, we had like three weddings plus our own, like, then I was hosting an all women's retreat out in California. And I was like, well, you know, that would have been a lot of stress and early pregnancy. And then we hit the one year mark and we were going on our honeymoon.

Chelsea (48:17)
Yeah.

garrett (48:36)
in New Zealand and we were like, hmm, maybe if we're not pregnant from this, we'll look into it. So after the year mark, we look at his sperm, we check to make sure I still had eggs, we check to make sure my tubes were open. They actually do do, I'm gonna say it wrong, it's like a hysteroscopy, a lot of people call it like hypozy, hystroscopy, yeah. So they fill your uterine line or your.

Chelsea (48:56)
Hysteroscopy, hysteroscopy, yep.

garrett (49:02)
cavity with fluid and they look for scar tissue and things. And I was first like, well, if I had Corio, it could have led to the scar tissue. And they're like, no, you didn't have anything. Like you're fine. So we were unexplained and the doctors were like, you need to go make embryos now. You're 32. Like you need to go do this. And I was like, no, like we had a baby so easily. We really don't need to. And I did the whole holistic thing where I like detox from mold. I checked my hair in mineral stores.

did gut lining tests, Dutch hormone tests, but I also still went through my IVF doctor and my OB and everyone was like, ⁓ unexplained, unexplained. So we get to this point where I did my egg retrieval. This past July when we hit the two and a half year mark, was like, definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again. I want 33 year old embryos if I can get them. Like let's do this. And so we did the stim shots and I got something called OHSS.

which is where your ovaries get so swollen you start leaking fluid into your abdomen and it can go into your lungs and cause pulmonary embolism, fun times. And I was telling my doctor, so very paralleled to my birth star, was telling them, I'm like, I'm not feeling well. they're like, well, your estrogen's almost at 4,000. That can be, you know, put you at risk for hyperstimulation, you know. But I'm like, no, no, I don't feel good. And they still gave me the option to try to stimulate even more, to get even more eggs. And I said, nope, I'm good. I want to call it.

Chelsea (50:07)
Ugh.

garrett (50:29)
I got 34 eggs and when they went in, they found fluid in my abdomen. I could have gone even further. So I just, don't know if I just had bad luck, but a lot of astrologers say that based on my placements, like I am the karma. So I am the karma for these doctors. My experience like I am the karma. Anyway, the craziest part speaking to the karma is that we made 20 embryos that still had to grow to day five, day six, but they dropped 10 of my embryos on the floor.

Chelsea (50:34)
my god.

my god!

garrett (50:58)
Like they dropped them on

the floor. Yeah, that's a crazy story. I know, it's literally too much. It's literally too much. And the other part I left out, and I, I want to share this all about the root cause, cause I'm trying to leave crumbs for anyone going through this. Like when you're going through unexplained infertility, like you will be convinced you have like a rare blood disorder and that's like, you will look under every stone. The day I started the stim shots, a dentist told me that those two front teeth that had been knocked out right before my son, the root canals were infected.

So I had to get my two front teeth taken out right after the egg retrieval. And so I'm going through that. They call me and tell me my embryos are dropped on the floor. And we ended up in a settlement because they lost the embryos. And we take a month off because they make you do that to recover. And then we went forward in October with this transfer. And when it failed, I was like, we had the highest grade embryo.

Chelsea (51:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

garrett (51:56)
We know that our health is like tip top shape. My husband is as fit as you could be at 41, 42. And I said, what about my endometrial lining? What if the choreo at my birth could cause that? And my doctor goes, you had choreo? I was like, we've talked about this. And she was like, well, that could be. She goes, but it's more common for the embryo to just fail. So why don't you do another transfer and then we'll check your lining.

And so in that moment I said, okay. And then two nights later I had dozed off watching a show and I woke up and I just heard, no, don't do it. Stop the hormones. And so I looked at my husband and I said, we have to call off the transfer. We need to do the biopsy. And so that's where we are now. Funny enough, along the way from all the ovulation testing of trying to conceive naturally and all the pregnancy testing, we invent, my husband made this pee cup for me, which we now sell.

Chelsea (52:54)
testing.

garrett (52:55)
as a product. He's like,

you're literally peeing on your hand testing, like stop, like this is disgusting. And so I've really used obviously my fertility journey to continue to inform what we're doing with Koze Koze. I mean, if it comes out after the test this week that the infection from my birth has kept me from getting pregnant these three years, and at least seven doctors miss that, like it will be, it will be my second podcast. I'll start a second podcast.

I'm like, people need to know.

Chelsea (53:27)
Yes.

Well, yes, it highlights so many different things. It highlights medical gaslighting. highlights the maternal health crisis. highlights... I'm raining myself in because I could go down so many rage holes right now. But what I will say is I'm...

garrett (53:35)
Yes?

Right.

Chelsea (53:54)
so inspired by you in that you, you are advocating for yourself. And despite, despite being disregarded, despite being belittled, despite being dismissed, you are listening to your body, you are listening to your gut and you are advocating for yourself. And that is amazing. That's a skill. That's a skill. Yeah.

garrett (53:59)
So much for watching.

Thank you. Built the skill through the fire.

Chelsea (54:23)
Yes.

I mean, like a lot of us, we develop these skills in situations that none of us should have to be in. But again, it kind of just, I say this a lot too, but it seems very on brand for you. Like you see a problem and you're like, no, I'm going to fix this. You're doing it with Koze Koze. You're doing it now with your fertility journey. And I don't...

garrett (54:30)
Right.

Thanks.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea (54:49)
I don't know exactly what I want to say. Like part of me wants to be like, well, I hope that your test comes back and that everything's okay. Part of me wants to be like, I hope you get the validation. Yeah, I hope that you get the validation that you're looking for and a plan, like a real actual plan. Yeah.

garrett (54:59)
Damn, thank you. Me too.

Damn, I'm in a weird void right now. Yeah, that's the hard

part, being unexplained.

Chelsea (55:13)
the unexplained and the unknown. The unknown is always the hardest.

garrett (55:19)
Yeah.

Chelsea (55:20)
so again, yeah, just what I'm taking away, what I'm taking away from your story is you have not let this define you.

but you are taking it to propel you to create the world that you want to see and to help others who are in the situation that you are in so that they don't have to experience what you experienced. And that's beautiful. I usually end on one of two questions and I take the entire session to decide what question I'm going to ask.

garrett (55:43)
That.

Yeah. ⁓

Chelsea (55:59)
I yeah, that's how I like to roll.

garrett (56:01)
fun.

Chelsea (56:01)
I've been using this one a lot, but I still really like this one for you.

If you could sort of take one thing, because there's so much, but if you could take one thing from your story that you want to make sure my listeners take with them when they put this one down, what do you hope that message or that... What do you hope it is that they take with them?

garrett (56:20)
Mmm.

Hmm, it's two things one. I think I've kind of said without saying but I feel really strongly about it is You have to take control of your own Not only your own fertility but of your own Pregnancy and birth and like I'm not there yet in the sense of like we identified. I don't have answers and I haven't had a second birth yet, but my intention and my hope and my

My wish for the world was that birth is beautiful and it can be beautiful. And it, but it starts with us really, and I'm learning this real time, like imagining that and holding that as true and walking towards it. And I recently met a midwife for the birth trauma session and the way she described, she kind of set a scene for me of what it's like for her to be at a birth. And I just started bawling my eyes out with how much beauty, like just the scene was just so.

gorgeous and so I just hope that women listening that are even thinking about having a baby or maybe they've been trying for a few months is to start looking deeper and just get your answers sooner. You will not regret getting the answer sooner if you're even slightly concerned and if you're looking, if you're interested in what types of testing you could do, I have so many TikTok, whatever you want, TikToks, I guess.

Chelsea (58:00)
Yeah, TikTok videos. I don't know.

garrett (58:01)
on TikTok videos on

just a different test that I've done and different things you can ask your provider and your provider should be able to do that. That's like the first thing that's just on my heart and like the second part is just all of us holding the belief and the vision that birth and motherhood really can be beautiful. And it just takes each one of us doing the work like you are with your podcast and all of us taking the steps to envision and have

the right village around us, the right support when we're postpartum, the right resources, the right products. It really can be this beautiful experience that's full of these like oxytocin rich snuggles. And I really believe in that power of oxytocin and it's very challenging to do without it. And when you're in fear and you've lost your control or you don't have the right comfortable products like.

Chelsea (58:49)
Yeah.

garrett (58:53)
you lose that drip of oxytocin that can be so characteristic of the bliss that is motherhood. I really hope that people believe in that bliss.

Chelsea (59:02)
Yeah, that is beautiful. I love it and I really hope to join you in that mission of creating a world where we all have beautiful births while still honoring the fact that right now it's not happening and we need to be talking about it. Where can my listeners find you if they would like to learn more about you?

garrett (59:12)
Yeah.

Sure, so my TikTok is where I'm showing up the most. I'm having so much fun there. It's Koze Koze Mama, K-O-Z-E-K-O-Z-E-M-A-M-A. I think the name is just Koze Koze on my account, but the handle is that. And my Instagram is at Garrett N, the letter N for Nicole Wood, my maiden name. So you can find me on Instagram and you can find my book, Dare to Move on Amazon.

Chelsea (59:51)
All of that will be linked in the show notes. So listeners, check out the show notes. Garrett, thank you so much. You have fired me up on a Monday morning. I am ready to... This isn't true at all. I was going to say I'm ready to take on the world. I'm absolutely not. But thank you for sharing your story with me. Thank you for what you are doing for yourself and other moms and birthing people.

garrett (1:00:08)
I feel that.

Chelsea (1:00:20)
And yeah, thanks for hanging out with me this morning.

garrett (1:00:24)
Thanks for having me and thank you for creating the space. You're a really, really amazing host.

Chelsea (1:00:30)
Garrett, thank you so much for sharing your journey with me. Your resilience and empowerment to help new moms feel seen and validated is so needed right now. I can't wait to see where your journey leads and I know I'll be following along.

Listeners, please check the show notes to learn more about Garrett and KozeKoze You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and threads at Quiet Connection podcast. You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, and consider sharing our episodes on social media. To share your personal journey, you can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcast.com.

or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmail.com. Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone. I see you.