Premature Menopause, High-Risk Pregnancy, and Fighting Maternal Stigma: Paula’s Story

When you’re a high-achieving attorney and licensed therapist, you think you’ve got the research and prep work handled. But as guest Paula Yost discovered, pregnancy and parenting don’t care about your schedules or degree titles.

In this episode, Paula shares her journey through two high-risk pregnancies, a sudden bilateral cleft lip and palate diagnosis, premature menopause at 34, and a terrifying bout with severe preeclampsia that nearly took her life. 

We’re talking about the subtle signs of preeclampsia, the intense mental toll of the NICU, and the overwhelming guilt birthing individuals carry when a pregnancy goes off-script. 

If you’ve ever looked at your child and wondered, "What did I do wrong?", this conversation’s for you. You didn't do anything wrong, mama. Let’s talk about it.

Key Takeaways

• Preeclampsia Awareness: Preeclampsia’s the number one physical health threat for birthing individuals in the US, yet so many aren’t taught the subtle symptoms (like early swelling or sudden, sharp neurological pain).
• Releasing Maternal Guilt: When medical complications or birth differences arise, birthing individuals almost always blame themselves. Realizing that conditions like preeclampsia or cleft palates aren’t "your fault" is the first step toward healing.
• The Power of Community: Whether it’s a spouse who stays calm in a crisis, a friend who gets tested to donate specialized neonatal blood, or a compassionate doctor who speaks truth into your fear—your support network is your anchor.
• Advocating for Early Intervention: Access to occupational therapy, speech therapy, and early childhood resources shouldn’t be dictated by your socio-economic status. Protecting our zero-to-five population needs to be a legislative priority.

• Website: paulayost.com
• Instagram: @paulayost_author

Transcript

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Chelsea Myers (00:00)
today I am here with Paula. Paula, how are you?

Paula Yost (00:05)
I'm great, thank you so much for having me.

Chelsea Myers (00:08)
I am excited to have you here. Paula is another fabulous guest who is rolling with the punches of life-lifing and so appreciative for everyone who just kind of is understanding and gets it. We're moms, right? That's life is gonna life for us.

Paula Yost (00:27)
Serious.

Chelsea Myers (00:28)
Is there... Okay, I think there's a little bit of a delay. So I'm gonna see if the feed catches up a little bit and then we'll... Okay. I know.

Paula Yost (00:37)
I'm like, sorry.

Chelsea Myers (00:41)
No, that's okay. All right.

Paula Yost (00:42)
We love the tech.

Chelsea Myers (00:45)
my God, technology. And it's just not working lately. It's just not.

Okay, let's see how this goes. So Paula, I would love it if you could introduce yourself to my listeners and also let us know who you were before you started your parenting journey.

Paula Yost (01:06)
gosh. So I am a lawyer. I was a lawyer first. I also went back after I became a lawyer and got a master's degree in clinical mental health. So I'm also a licensed clinical mental health therapist. I have...

Chelsea Myers (01:26)
my gosh.

Paula Yost (01:27)
Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I think more attorneys need to do that. The courthouse is nothing but mental health triage.

And many attorneys, like I've made it through all of law school and never once did I have a class on mental health or psychopathology or what I was looking at or depression or anxiety. The best and the closest I got to that was being told as an attorney not to be a substance abuser. And that's really not helpful information.

Chelsea Myers (01:59)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (02:01)
Just telling people don't drink to deal with your problems, that doesn't help for people who are in fact drinking to deal with their problems already. So I went back to grad school to get well versed in those types of things because I knew I was not equipped for them. And also to just figure out myself better and be able to deal with my own life better. I had been in therapy as a law student and found it very helpful. And so I wanted to be able to do that magic for other people. And so...

I had always really, really, really wanted to be a mother, but I had difficulty finding a decent man to father, said children. And I finally, finally found someone who I could reproduce with. And he and I have three biological children together and they are all boys. They're wild. They are eight, 10 and 12. And then we also have a daughter

Chelsea Myers (02:55)
Woo!

Paula Yost (02:56)
who is legally adopted.

She was actually my client. I was her child advocate while she was a foster care individual. And she aged out of foster care and we both adopted her together. So we love our daughter. She is 32 and she actually has a seven year old little girl who is seven months younger than my eight year old. So.

My granddaughter and my youngest son are kind of

Chelsea Myers (03:25)
you

Paula Yost (03:26)
growing up together. So it's a big, beautiful, wonderful family at this point.

Chelsea Myers (03:32)
Yeah, yeah, I so first of all, I love the way that you worded so much of that. I love it. Well, I finally found a man I could reproduce with. Because I mean, yeah, I think you kind of if you want to be a mom, you kind of have to find someone that you want to go on that journey with together. I just love the way that you framed it. And

Paula Yost (03:50)
That or some other alternative plan. Yeah.

Yeah, you either have to find him.

Chelsea Myers (03:54)
Yeah, yeah, and I

also love

Technology is getting us today.

Paula Yost (04:02)
It is, but we're doing great. We're doing wonderful. You were telling me that

Chelsea Myers (04:08)
We are.

Paula Yost (04:09)
you liked the way I worded, finally found a man to reproduce with.

Chelsea Myers (04:13)
Yes, and I was

Paula Yost (04:13)
And, and.

Chelsea Myers (04:15)
also going to say

Paula Yost (04:17)
I'm gonna hold my thought and let you finish yours.

Chelsea Myers (04:22)
I'm so sorry. I don't know what's

Paula Yost (04:24)
It's not our fault.

Chelsea Myers (04:25)
going on. I'm looking I'm... No, I think it's I think it's it's Riverside is being tricky. I'm just looking over here just to see if there's anything I can do about it. But I don't I think there's not we're gonna roll with it. We'll see

Paula Yost (04:44)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (04:45)
what happens. And if it's a big issue.

Maybe I'll like stop and start again, but we'll see. Yeah. Okay.

Paula Yost (04:48)
We'll do it again. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (04:54)
okay. So let me see. So I'm gonna say, I also loved how you talked about, like prior to starting your parenting journey. I did know I knew that you were a lawyer. I knew that you also worked in mental health.

And it was a point that I was going to bring up with you because I think that it is so unique and so needed to have those two backgrounds sort of co-mingle because you're right in the world of law and in the world of the court systems, mental health is so much at the forefront of it and not at the same time. so I just, and first of all, two careers that require an incredible

depth of learning and schooling. So holy bananas, mama, you did the dang thing. But yeah,

Paula Yost (05:54)
So

Chelsea Myers (05:54)
so go ahead, go ahead.

Paula Yost (05:58)
am just a nerd who is really good at school. And I've always been a nerd who was really good at school. And I think that I was, I think that the master, I mean, it was a lot of school, but I think that the master's degree was really more of me being on my own healing journey from my own childhood and my own trauma. It gave me the tools that I needed to heal me so that now I can help other people heal themselves.

Chelsea Myers (06:26)
And I think that's why a lot of people get into mental health, honestly. I mean, not to make broad assumptions, but I feel like it takes a unique kind of person to pursue that path. And it takes someone who understands the need for it. So that makes sense.

Paula Yost (06:45)
You are spot on about all of that.

Chelsea Myers (06:48)
Let's, let's Yeah, let's talk a little bit about, like you said, you found your man, you found your path to to having your kids. But it was definitely, it was definitely an interesting path. It wasn't a smooth path. So walk me through that a little bit when you decided to have children. What did that journey look like for you?

Paula Yost (07:12)
Well, the first thing was I really thought getting pregnant would be easy. Like you just have sex and then you

Chelsea Myers (07:21)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (07:21)
make a baby, right? And with my first child, it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Like there are definitely women who have had it way harder than I have. But for me, I was expecting it to be like quick and easy because that's how it had been for other women in my family.

So I thought it would be quick and easy and then it wasn't quick and easy. So I had to go through some patience and then I finally got pregnant with my first child and I was thrilled. Like over the moon thrilled. I could not believe I was finally pregnant. I was so happy. And I was really sick, like really sick.

I didn't wind up having the kind of sickness like Kate Middleton had where you have to get like the IV fluids and stuff, but I was vomiting like daily for months and I wasn't taking anything, but I was just trying to tough it out thinking it would get better and it really kind of didn't and somewhere around like week 12, week 13, my gynecologist was like, you know, do you want to have genetic testing? Some moms do, some moms don't.

your insurance will pay for it. And I said, well, I do, I'm gonna have this baby no matter what, because I really want this baby. But I also wanna be as prepared as I can for anything that would be out of the ordinary. And so we did all that stuff and I fully expected everything to come back fine. And then when I was 16 weeks pregnant, I was literally in Barnes and Noble having a cup of coffee with a friend and trying to keep a cup of coffee down is probably a better term, but.

she called me on my phone,

Chelsea Myers (09:05)
Hahaha

Paula Yost (09:06)
like my cell phone rang and it was my doctor's personal cell phone. And she was like, yeah, there's something up and I need you to go to maternal fetal medicine now, right now. And so my husband

Chelsea Myers (09:21)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (09:22)
and I went over to maternal fetal medicine. We had a scan and my son had a complete bilateral cleft lip and palate, which is not the worst thing in the world,

but

He was born and then we had a really, like my pregnancy went completely from being like the happiest thing ever, despite the fact that I was vomiting a lot, to being like anxiety land. Like I was such an anxious pregnant woman, but I was mostly anxious about is my baby gonna be able to eat? And I spent the whole rest of my pregnancy figuring out Haberman bottles and pigeon bottles and studying research from around the world on cleft palate children.

I read like 700 medical journals, mostly I think too because I felt like I had done something wrong. And I was trying to figure out,

Chelsea Myers (10:09)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (10:10)
I was trying to figure out in retrospect, I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong. And I don't think I actually got to heal from those thoughts. Well, let me also say this, there will probably always be a part of me that wonders what I did.

Even though I know that's irrational, because it is irrational. I mean, I wanted this baby. Like, I did everything known to man right with all of my pregnancies. And I still had a child with a pretty major craniofacial birth difference that he will carry visibly for the rest of his life. Like, you cannot hide scars from craniofacial repair. Those will always be there.

And so I every day look at the face of my son and I do wonder like, God, what caused that? And no one really knows there are theories. I have theories, but I've really had to let that go. And my second pregnancy helped me heal a lot of that. And honestly, so did my son who's now 12.

Chelsea Myers (11:17)
Yeah. Yeah. So and then like you said, it was your oldest and I can't I say this all the time. Like it's. I almost say it nonchalantly, like I can't imagine what that must have felt like that shift from OK, like, yeah, I'm sick, but everything's fine and everything is going to be fine to getting a phone call on a Barnes and Noble and that instant panic of OK, everything's not fine.

Paula Yost (11:45)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (11:46)
and I have to completely shift my mindset. And again, like you said, like you're a lover of learning. So geez, like you even, not only do you have a law degree and that you have a mental health licensure and degree, like you probably could have a medical degree at this point with the amount of journals you've gone through, at least in this area. But that's what, that's.

what our mom brains do, right? We go into fix it mode,

Paula Yost (12:14)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (12:15)
we go into how are we gonna solve this? How are we gonna adapt to this? So I'm curious too, because you said your second pregnancy kind of shifted that for you, that feeling of shame and guilt. What specifically about your second pregnancy made the thought process change?

Paula Yost (12:35)
So second pregnancy was totally different than first pregnancy. First of all, I didn't think I could have second pregnancy. So after I had my first child, my cycle never really regulated again for the rest of my life. Like it just didn't. And I was like, well, that's weird. Like everything about me is weird. So I went back to the gynecologist and I was like, you know, is this, I thought it was normal postpartum.

that like my cycle was just crazy. I was 35 at this point. I just thought it was,

Chelsea Myers (13:07)
Mm-hmm.

Paula Yost (13:08)
you know, or no, was, was I 35? No, I was 34. And I just thought, you know, okay, I just had a baby, so maybe my body's just not reacclimating. I had been a very regular 28 day girl my whole life before that pregnancy. And my doctor was like, Paula, I got some news.

She was like, this is actually, this has nothing to do with the fact that you've had a baby. That is a coincidence. She's like, what's happening here is that you are in premature menopause. Your anti-mullerian

Chelsea Myers (13:43)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (13:44)
hormone, your AFH, which is what we check to see like how many eggs do you have left, is 0.018. She was like,

Chelsea Myers (13:54)
Whoa.

Paula Yost (13:55)
your body's tapping out on fertility.

And she was like, I could send, I'm gonna send you to like the IVF guy and see if he can do anything for you. But I mean, I don't think you can get pregnant again, honestly. So I went to the IVF guy and this guy's a genius. He's like the IVF guru of my community. And I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. So I live in a major city. We really do have good medical care here. And he was like,

you don't have enough eggs for me to harvest. He was like, like literally you do not have enough eggs for me to harvest. He was like, the only thing I can tell you to do if you want to have another kid is you've got to have sex every two days. Literally. He was like, don't have it every day. He was like, have it every other day. And just good luck. And I was like, okay. I was like, you-

Chelsea Myers (14:54)
my gosh.

Paula Yost (14:55)
I was like, you know

what, there are worse things in the world than being told you have to have sex with the

Chelsea Myers (15:00)
Ha ha ha!

Paula Yost (15:01)
man you married every other day. There are worse things than that. That is a sacrifice I am willing to make. And my husband was like, hell yeah. So literally that's what we did. And lo and behold, we got pregnant with Pearson. So I was like, I was over the moon happy. was like, oh my God, it worked.

Like, I'm like, my doctor was literally looking at Pearson on an ultrasound and she was like, I don't know how in the hell you got pregnant with this kid. She was like, this kid is literally like, she was like, this kid is like a tumbleweed rolling through the desert of your barrenness. And I was like, that's kind of insulting, but all right, I'll take it. know, success, absolute success. And so I get to around the 16 week mark, I'm freaking out because I'm like, God, please don't have something wrong.

I go to like all my scans, everything's normal. This baby is perfect. He is perfect. And I'm like, my gosh, I did it. I did it. I'm so happy. Around week 25, I'm sick. And I had not been sick in this pregnancy. So around week 25, I'm sick and I'm like puking. I've got a little bit of diarrhea, but I've written this off, right? I'm like my oldest kid had had, the oldest baby is now two.

The oldest baby was in preschool. He had been sick. I was like, you know, I caught something from a toddler and I have this long held belief that if you catch a disease from a toddler, you may as well have Ebola. Like it's gonna be way worse for you if you get disease from a kid.

Chelsea Myers (16:35)
Ha

Paula Yost (16:37)
Like it's not gonna be good. So I was like, I'm fine. But then I noticed I was swelling and like my hands looked swollen, my feet looked swollen. When I looked in the mirror, my face looked puffy.

And I remember thinking that that was weird, but I was like, well, I'm pregnant. Like, I also remember being really, really puffy at the end of my first child's pregnancy and I carried him all the way to 39 and a half weeks. So I was like, I'm fine. I'm just pregnant. You know, pregnant women swell. It never clicked in my brain that I was swelling too early. Like that never occurred to me

Chelsea Myers (17:14)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (17:15)
at all because I, and I think this is an important point.

I have four college degrees and five professional licenses. I had no earthly idea what preeclampsia was, no clue that I had symptoms of it, and no clue that I was literally, literally dying. And so about 26 and a half weeks, something like that, and so I'm walking around like with this swelling and this diarrhea thing happening. I just don't seem to be able to get well. I'm like, well, I'm pregnant, whatever.

I'm writing all this off. I really felt bad one night. It was actually New Year's Eve. I'll never forget it. It was New Year's Eve 2015. I was so feeling bad. I just put the two-year-old in bed and I walked out of his room and I felt this pain. And it felt like a fist gripping the base of my brain and shooting electrical current through my brain. It was the weirdest, most painful experience I've ever had.

I was blind for a couple seconds. Like I couldn't see anything. I grabbed the banister on my staircase. My husband had just gotten off the night shift. My husband, fun fact, my husband's a nurse anesthetist. That's an important point in a minute. My husband looks up at me and he's like, are you all right? And I tell my husband what happened. My husband looks at me kind of weird and he says, we're calling your mom to come stay with Pratt and me and you are gonna go to the hospital. All right.

You're the nurse. So we get in the car.

Chelsea Myers (18:50)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (18:50)
My husband takes me to the hospital and he's not driving like 90 miles an hour anything. He's just safely getting me to the hospital. And he was like, how are you doing? I was like, I really don't feel good. So I get to the hospital. They start doing a preeclampsia workup and they tell me that I have the highest possible protein count in my urine. And my blood pressure was at the point where I was about to have a stroke.

And

Chelsea Myers (19:16)
my gosh.

Paula Yost (19:17)
if I had gone to bed and let us be clear, I knew something was wrong when I had the brain current thing. I knew that wasn't good. But I think if I had not been married to a literal nurse who said, yeah, and my husband is also like the calmest, chillest man ever. Like he's exactly who you want in a medical emergency because he doesn't freak out about anything. Even with his own wife, he's real cool.

He's taking me to the hospital and staying relatively calm so I'm not freaking out worse like I have no idea that I'm dying when they start talking about preeclampsia But if I had stayed home and gone to sleep I probably Pearson and I both would have died we would have had a stroke in our sleep and we would have died better women than me have and So I get to the hospital I give birth to Pearson six days later, but during that five day period of time. I'm laying in there thinking again

What is with my body? How did I get here? How have I had a child with cleft palate? Then I get told I can't even get pregnant because I'm in premature menopause. Did that have something to do with it? Now I'm in here literally dying. Like nobody told me like this is we live in the you know, this is the 2000s. Like we are not supposed to die from pregnancy. That is not supposed to happen.

Chelsea Myers (20:39)
Mm.

Paula Yost (20:39)
Like

What is it with me? And so one day this neonatologist came in, Dr. Art Payne. I love you, Dr. Payne. I hope you're listening to this. Dr. Payne came in the room. I do. I love Dr. Payne. I will never forget Dr. Payne. Dr. Payne walked in the room and we had this whole conversation. And he said to me, we had a conversation about what was going to happen if I gave birth, what was going to happen if I had to live in a hospital for three months. We this whole conversation about what my options were.

or it really wasn't my options, what was gonna happen to my body. And I really didn't have options at that point. Preeclampsia does not give you options. It is, you're gonna either, this drugs we're giving you is not gonna work and you're gonna have a baby this weekend, or the drugs we're gonna give you are gonna work and you're gonna be in this hospital on bed rest for as long as we can keep the drugs working. Those are the things that are gonna happen to you. They're not choices, they're things that will happen to you. And you have no control over them.

Which is not good for someone like me who's a type A planner. That's its own trauma. But Dr. Payne was like, it was

Chelsea Myers (21:45)
Yeah, yeah

Paula Yost (21:47)
a bad one. Dr. Payne was like, know, birth plan, Schmurth plan. Like none of that. Like you don't get to worry about is it gonna be a VVAC or a C-section. You're not looking at that when it's your life and your baby's life on the line. Like those things become trivial at that point. No one cares. And you have no say so in it. So.

Dr. Payne finished all that and he was like, do you have any questions? And I said, I do. And I said, what did I do? Like, how, how did I

Chelsea Myers (22:17)
Mm.

Paula Yost (22:17)
get here? And Dr. Payne looked at me and he said, Paula, I'm sorry, I cry every time I tell this story. He said, Paula, this is not,

Chelsea Myers (22:26)
No sorry, no sorry.

Paula Yost (22:28)
he was, and this is 10 years ago. And still when I tell this story, I get emotional. He was like, Paula,

He was like, you did not do anything wrong. I don't think you've done anything wrong with any of your pregnancies. He was like, the preeclampsia is the mystery of maternal fetal medicine. He was like, you know, you, we see this happen to 22 year old marathon runners. We see this happen to women that are 35 and 42. This just happens in nature. No one knows why.

but this is not your fault. And he was like, at this point in this pregnancy, you and this baby have a 95 % chance of survival. And it's gonna be a long, ugly road in the NICU. You're gonna have to, it's gonna be a lot. And this is not gonna be a normal pregnancy. But he was like, but 10 years from now, you and this little boy should both also be for the most part fine. And I was like, okay.

Chelsea Myers (23:29)
Mm.

Paula Yost (23:31)
And...

For some reason, know, sometimes there are people who can tell you stuff, but it doesn't land with you. Like they'll tell you something's not your fault and you're like, yeah, whatever. But when Dr. Payne said that

Chelsea Myers (23:43)
Ha ha ha!

Paula Yost (23:44)
to me, there was something about Dr. Payne. you know, again, I'm a nerd. Like I will ask a lot of questions, but there was something about Dr. Payne and the way he communicated with me that it landed with me. Like this is not my fault.

And when I was able to accept that what happened with Pearson was not my fault, I was also able to accept that what happened with Prattley was not my fault. So again, will I always carry a little teeny bit? But I prefer to say now it's not so much guilt as much as it is like, why did this happen? Like I'm intellectually curious about why my child has cleft palate.

And I will always remain that way until somebody conducts a study where they can really know. There are theories, but no one really knows for sure. And I'm intellectually curious about it, but I don't think I'm carrying around the same guilt that I was because I was able to release it when I had Pearson.

Chelsea Myers (24:43)
that makes so much sense and so many things that you shared I want to touch on because they are things that I've heard brought up several times.

I mean, one, the shame and the guilt, and it's so common for any of us, and for any part of pregnancy or parenting or just life in general with children, us as mothers and parents automatically go to, this is my fault, I did something, I screwed up.

Paula Yost (25:13)
Hmm, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (25:15)
And then to also hear you say that like,

people can tell you things till they're blue in the face and it's not gonna resonate. But to hear that you had that one doctor, I also love that his name is Dr. Payne. I think that's

Paula Yost (25:27)
Yeah

Chelsea Myers (25:28)
one of the funniest things I've ever heard. But there will be these people in your life and when they say the things to you, they will hit home in a way that they didn't before. That's something that I experienced too and something that I think we both can be so grateful for.

But to also acknowledge, you had said too, like at the time, I think you said it was 2015. And like, it's 2026 now. It's 2026 now and preeclampsia is still happening. It's still as unpredictable. It's still costing lives of mothers and babies.

Paula Yost (26:06)
Yeah, yes.

Chelsea Myers (26:08)
And like you said, like I don't have as much knowledge and background with like cleft palate or facial.

abnormalities in that sense, but there is so much of pregnancy and childbearing and just the entire process that is so unknown, which blows my mind when you think about how like people are having babies every what seven seconds or something like this is

Why don't we know more about this? Why are we not figuring these things out?

Paula Yost (26:49)
Yeah, I think the one thing that I've tried to really say is like my mission that I've tried to share with my friends is preeclampsia is the number one killer of women in the United States. And most women don't know the first thing about it. Like I said, I remembered hearing the word, but I only remembered hearing about it toward the end of my pregnancy with my first child because they were testing my urine for protein.

and they would just say, urine looks great. And I would be like, okay, why are we testing that? I knew it was important, but I didn't really know why they were testing my urine for protein. They were looking for symptoms of preeclampsia, but I didn't know what it was. And I remembered saying to my doctor with my first eye, well, what is preeclampsia? And she said, don't worry about that. You don't have it, so you don't need to worry about it. I was like, okay. Well.

Chelsea Myers (27:44)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (27:45)
That's great, except for the fact that then I got pregnant with baby two and I absolutely had it and I had no idea. And I don't think I would have written off my symptoms that early if someone had told me what they were. And so I really do try to tell

Chelsea Myers (28:01)
Mm-hmm.

Paula Yost (28:01)
everyone that I know, please, if you love someone who is pregnant, educate yourself on preeclampsia because that is the number one killer of pregnant women.

and it slips up on you when you don't expect it, and then you wind up having a real life and death situation that you are not prepared for. That educational component,

Chelsea Myers (28:21)
Yeah, 100%.

Paula Yost (28:24)
like this is honestly the type of thing that I think we should teach girls. You know, we spend so much time teaching high school girls about their period and sex ed, and we talk to them about how to not get pregnant, but we don't talk to women about how

to in fact get pregnant. So then if you do have a harder time getting pregnant, you don't know basic stuff. Like the IVF doctor was so great by being like, here's the scientific reasons why just having sex every other day will work. I mean, he also taught me about, you know, my temperature, which I never tracked that because that irritates me fundamentally and I just wasn't able to be that committed to it. But he also taught me what cervical secretions,

Chelsea Myers (29:06)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (29:07)
yeah.

But he also taught me what cervical secretions were and how to pay attention to those. And like I got so much education as a 30 year old trying to get knocked up. And I feel like that was helpful information I should have had when I was much younger.

Chelsea Myers (29:23)
That is a theme that we have talked about on the podcast before several times about how, and again, it varies state by state, county by county in terms of what your like sex education will look like or what people would call health education. And I think you're absolutely right. think even the more progressive areas focus so much on

don't have sex, here's how you don't get pregnant, here's how you don't get STDs and that's great, that's wonderful, but I think

Paula Yost (29:59)
We need that.

Chelsea Myers (30:00)
there also needs to be, yes, I think there also needs to be a section of, also here are some things that can happen to you if and when you do get pregnant, whether that's now or later and talk about.

preeclampsia, talk about birth defects, talk about what a C-section looks like, talk about perinatal mental health disorders and what that can do to you. Because even that in and of itself, I'm thinking back to like, when I was 15, 16 years old, if you had told me, yeah, some of you like, especially if you are at a higher risk of having mental health disorders, you are at a higher risk of developing a perinatal health mental health disorder.

Or you could develop something called preeclampsia and it's unpredictable and here are the things to look and I would have been like, okay Yeah, I don't want to be pregnant. that doesn't sound like fun

Paula Yost (30:54)
Not at all.

Not at all.

Chelsea Myers (30:57)
But then also as adults, we would have that knowledge and that information and the things to look out for. So yes, I'm so glad that you mentioned that because education and we are, I am very like-minded. I am a nerd. want to understand. I want to learn.

Paula Yost (31:14)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (31:15)
we, the information isn't going to cause harm. If anything, it's going to be of benefit, especially to birthing people. If, if

If the, I'm gonna call them sperm donors in this situation. But if the male counterpart in the experience can pick up these things along the way too, that's even

better.

Paula Yost (31:36)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (31:37)
But yes, yes. I could go down that rabbit hole for ages, but you have another biological child. You got pregnant again.

Paula Yost (31:49)
Chelsea, let me just tell you, none of us know how in the hell. I mean, I know I got drunk at a science museum and had sex. That's how I got pregnant with Paul.

as I do too. It is hilarious. It is absolutely hilarious. So I'm just going to be real honest with your listeners because I think it's I think it's hilarious. I also think it's interesting again, intellectually interesting, but I also hope it makes somebody feel hope. So, you know, I have Pearson. Pearson is now to Prattley is now for.

Peter and I have assumed we cannot get pregnant again because the doctor was like, this was literally with Pearson, the doctor was like, this was literally the last egg you had. So after I had Pearson, I had maybe one period. Like my periods had pretty much stopped and my menopause hormones looked like I was really in menopause. And so,

I had not had a period in like eight months. And I got drunk at the Science Museum because the science, so the Science Museum near our house had Game of Thrones night. And my husband and I were super into that. Yeah, my husband and I were super into this show.

Chelsea Myers (33:17)
my god. Yes!

Paula Yost (33:20)
And like I sat on the Iron Throne and I drank a whole bunch of these wines that had like dried ice in them. So they were like steaming.

And like anyway, I was way more intoxicated than him because he was driving. He was not intoxicated. I was intoxicated. I drank all of his wine tickets. We got home and I remember going to the bathroom and cause I had to pee cause I was drunk and I looked in my underwear. so one of the things that the IVF doctor told me, which this is again, this information that I could have used 15 years before.

was women's cervical secretions tell you when you are ovulating. So most women will

Chelsea Myers (34:03)
Mm-hmm.

Paula Yost (34:04)
recognize that if when you look in your underwear, your cervical secretion is like a string that you can actually pick up off your underwear and it's sticky, kind of like a piece of Play-Doh, that means you're ovulating, not like egg whites, like you want it to actually be like a string that you can pick up. If it's like that, that is the time to have sex.

because you are ovulating. And I remember seeing that and I said to my husband, I am ovulating. There is a sticky string in my underwear. And I was like, and if we have sex, we're going to have baby. Cause that is how this worked for the last two kids. And he looked at me and he said, you are drunk. And I said, I'm just warning you. He was like, you're drunk. So we had sex and two weeks later,

I was at a yoga class and I was upset about something. Like my grandfather had dementia and I was in those early stages of like really starting to grieve my grandfather. And I started sobbing during Shavasana on this yoga mat, but it was not normal sobbing. was like crying so hard, it was gross. And like I couldn't breathe and there was all this water. And I was like, oh God, I'm pregnant. Like I knew, I was like,

Holy crap. And so like, I went to CVS immediately and bought a pregnancy test and I went home. I didn't say one word to my husband. I went upstairs, I peed on the stick and I was like.

I can't do this again. I was literally like, fuck, I cannot do this again. I can't go through this emotionally again. And I considered for a few, I considered a termination to be honest, because I could, I cannot go through the NICU again. I can't do it again.

Chelsea Myers (36:01)
Mm-hmm.

Paula Yost (36:01)
And I can't die again. I cannot. I went to my gynecologist in tears.

I hadn't even told my husband anything. And I went to the gynecologist crying and Kelly was like, we are going to give you baby aspirin in about a month. And I was like, what? She was like, yeah, there's this new study that says baby aspirin prevents preeclampsia and you can't take it too soon because it'll make you have a miscarriage. But if you wait until about six to eight weeks,

then it kind of insulates you a little bit and it'll probably keep your blood pressure down and we can probably help you get through this pregnancy. She was like, I'll bring you in every week. We'll do a maternal fetal medicine scan. We'll check your urine. We'll start monitoring you for preeclampsia around week 20. She was like, but I think I can help you carry this baby to term. And she said, or at least 36, 37 weeks. And I was real scared.

And I really had a nervous breakdown around week 27. But Paul Justin was,

Chelsea Myers (37:02)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (37:03)
I really did. Like I remember it was snowing here and like we don't do snow in the South. And like I needed to have a maternal fetal

Chelsea Myers (37:09)
Hahaha

Paula Yost (37:10)
medicine scan. We don't, we don't do snow in the South. And like it was snowing and like my dad had to take me to like go get like my maternal fetal scan. Cause I needed somebody to drive me in the ice to go get it done. And my dad had four wheel drive. I'm like, I was freaking out.

and I carried Paul Justin to 36 and a half weeks. My blood pressure did get high around that point. Like around that point, it was getting sketchy. It was never preeclampsia. It was hyper, I forgot what it's called, but it's like elevated blood pressure at the end of pregnancy, but it was at preeclampsia. It was not good blood pressure, but it was not like you gonna die of blood pressure. So Paul Justin was

Chelsea Myers (37:54)
Mm-hmm.

Paula Yost (37:54)
born at 36 weeks.

Paul Justin was my healthiest baby. He was my easiest baby. I had all kinds of problems breastfeeding the other two because, you know, obviously the first one couldn't latch because he didn't have a roof in his mouth or most of his upper lip. My middle child was like the size of a squirrel at birth. So he definitely wasn't going to attach. And I also couldn't hold him for a long time at all. And then Paul

Chelsea Myers (38:21)
Mm-hmm.

Paula Yost (38:22)
Justin just rolled out of there. They brought a breast.

a breast pump

Chelsea Myers (38:25)
You

Paula Yost (38:25)
in the room and I was like, get that out of here. I was like, I am not doing that again. I was like, we're going straight to formula. This is baby three. I am not doing that. Couple of days later, my milk just dropped and I was like, what is this? I was like, I'm not supposed to be doing this. I couldn't do this with either one of the other two. Milk just dropped, Paul latch dried on, Paul breastfed for eight months. Healthy, the only thing, the only thing that I know I don't.

I don't know what people's spiritual beliefs are. Sometimes I don't even know what my own spiritual beliefs are. The only thing I can come up with is that the universe wanted Paul Justin to be born. I never had another

Chelsea Myers (39:03)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (39:03)
period after Paul was born. I had normal bleeding after that, but my tests after he was born showed that I had completed menopause. I never had another period. I've never seen a cervical secretion since then.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (39:19)
Okay, so what's craziest to me through this whole thing is like we can talk about each of these experiences and we have and we've talked about them but at such a surface level too because there's so much more like we didn't even talk about I mean the emotional toll that it takes to bring home a baby that has a cleft palate and what that does I mean obviously it complicates things like feeding and and and health complications, but

It obviously takes a mental toll on you. And then again, to go through something as traumatic as preeclampsia to the severity that you had it and having such a premature birth. you said, I'm not sure if you said it, but he spent what, the 90 days in the NICU, your

second? Yeah.

Paula Yost (40:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (40:08)
A NICU journey in and of itself, whether it's an hour, a day, a month, or a year is a huge deal.

and then

Paula Yost (40:15)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (40:16)
to go through this third pregnancy, which I can only imagine was fraught with anxiety. Holy,

Paula Yost (40:24)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (40:26)
like, holy shit. what sort of support system did you, or did you have a support system around

Paula Yost (40:34)
I

Chelsea Myers (40:34)
you? Or were you just kind of constantly for six years in fight or flight?

Paula Yost (40:41)
Chelsea, it is important to understand that the only reason I am mentally stable now is because of the support system that I had. First of all, my husband, again, is genuinely one of the most mentally stable people I've ever met. My husband never went to war, but he was trained as a sniper for the US Army. And then after he got out of the Army, he went to nursing school and then he went to anesthesia school.

So my husband is amazing in a crisis and he, because he's a nurse and he's an anesthesia nurse, he knows a lot about surgery and anesthesia and how to prevent the negative ramifications of anesthesia on an infant's brain. So I feel like I had a huge leg up educationally and just support system wise from him. My...

My parents were on and off supportive. There were moments where they were very supportive. There were moments where they were not. I wrote about that a lot more in my book as well. But also my girlfriends. Like I'm going to tell you my story about

Chelsea Myers (41:52)
Mmm.

Paula Yost (41:53)
my friend Judge Herrick. Judge Kimberly Herrick, Cabarrus County District Court Judge. Kim was just a lawyer when I was pregnant with Pearson, but

Kim was a really supportive friend. still is. She will listen to this podcast. In fact, she'll probably be the first person who listens to it. So I love you, Kim. She listens to all my podcasts. But let me tell you what this... Hi, Kim. But

Chelsea Myers (42:14)
Kim.

Paula Yost (42:16)
let me tell you what this skinny little bitch did. Okay. So, Pearson is in the NICU. And like every day is a disaster. Like honestly, Chelsea, I could do a whole separate podcast on the Cleft Palate and a whole separate one on the NICU. But...

I'm in the NICU and Dr. Silver comes out. I love Dr. Silver too. Dr. Silver comes out and he's like, hey, he was like, so, Pearson's white blood counts are doing some weird stuff today and it's entirely possible that he's going to need a blood transfusion. And I'm not gonna do one right now because I wanna keep watching his labs, but he might need a blood transfusion and I just wanna let you know that so that you'll be prepared for that.

And I am like, what? And I was like, okay, do you need me to

Chelsea Myers (43:08)
Yeah!

Paula Yost (43:09)
go give blood? Do you need Peter to go give blood? And he was like, that's not how this works. He was like, you and your husband cannot give blood. That is not what we do. He was like, there is a special occurring DNA in society that's basically the neonates golden blood. And it's honestly a rare blood type.

And basically, if you have that genetic marker, then you're the newborn blood donor. And he was like, and if you don't have it, then you can't really give blood to neonates. And he was like, there's not that many people who can give this type of blood in society, but for people who can do it, he was like, you know, they're who we use. And so we have a whole donor bank of people that can do this, but it can't be you or your husband or anything like that. I'm like, okay. So.

Kim calls me or talks to me, she's like, how you doing? And I tell her like, well, I'm kind of freaking out because I think my neonate is going to need a blood transfusion. This woman

Chelsea Myers (44:06)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (44:07)
went down to the Red Cross, had them test her blood, found out she has the special neonate blood. And since that time,

Chelsea Myers (44:16)
my god!

Paula Yost (44:17)
yes, since that time she has donated like,

I don't even know how many gallons of blood it is. I want to say it's like five gallons of blood or 500 gallons. I don't even know. But it's like the one where the Red Cross gives you an award because you've literally been there every month giving. She

Chelsea Myers (44:32)
my gosh!

Paula Yost (44:34)
literally goes to the Red Cross and gives the maximum amount of blood that she's able to donate. And she has done this every single month since Pearson was in the NICU. So we're looking at like 10 and a half years now. She has done this. And I'm like,

That's the kind of friends that I have. And Pearson never actually got any of

Chelsea Myers (44:53)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (44:54)
Kim's blood because he actually recovered fine and didn't need it. But there are little boys and girls all over this country that are being born who need blood because not everybody can give it to them. And Kim did that. And so also if any of you are good at giving blood,

You should go and get tested and just say I heard this random podcast about neonate blood like I'm First of all, I don't have it. But also after what I went through giving birth to Pearson I cannot do needles like I don't do needles anymore that part of my life is over like I'll do it if I have to But I'm not gonna voluntarily do it. I just can't and I've decided that's okay But if you're a person who giving blood for you is no big deal. See if you've got the neonatal blood Thanks, Kim. You're a rock star

Chelsea Myers (45:44)
Yeah, Kim, you are an absolute rock star and I want to reiterate, holy crap. Yes, there are babies and children all over the country right now because of people like Kim. Kim, thank

Paula Yost (45:56)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (45:56)
you. Yeah, go get tested, y'all, and figure out if you can do that. My mom is a regular blood donor. She has the blood type that anybody can receive. I don't remember if it's O positive or O negative or whatever it is.

Paula Yost (46:12)
think it's O positive.

Chelsea Myers (46:14)
Yeah, yeah, so she like, yes.

Paula Yost (46:15)
But there's something else. There's something else other

than just, yeah, that makes you the special, it's like the gold donor. But Kim is the gold donor.

Chelsea Myers (46:23)
Yes, the gold standard.

Paula Yost (46:26)
Yes, but that's the kind of friends that I have. Like my friends have been so, and also fun fact, Kim doesn't even have her own children. She is a childless aunt and has been very happy being

Chelsea Myers (46:38)
Mm.

Paula Yost (46:39)
a childless aunt.

but she has been so supportive of my motherhood journey. And I have a lot of friends like that, but she's one that I always like to shout out because she started giving donor blood when I had a baby. that, I also went to therapy a lot because God knows I needed it. And I do think my own baseline level knowledge of mental health was really, really helpful. But I guess kind of to go back to your question, I think the reason that I'm mentally stable is

My husband was not a moron, thank God. My friends were really,

Chelsea Myers (47:11)
Hahaha

Paula Yost (47:12)
yeah, my friends were really, really good. I went to a lot of therapy. I also had a baseline knowledge of all this stuff that was good. And you know, the other thing that I'd just like to say too, because I think it's important, is that my husband and I are not a lower income family. We have...

We have access to money for things like co-pays and things like that. And one of the things that I find the most heartbreaking and that I think 100 % does lead to perinatal depression is mothers who go through the exact same stuff that I went through, but who don't have access to adequate resources to help them provide for the financial burdens of this.

Like, Pearson's NICU journey was over a million dollars, but I didn't have to pay for that. He qualified for Medicaid because his birth weight was so small that he qualified for Medicaid as long as he was in the hospital. But the second he got released from the hospital, I mean, we did 65 medical appointments for him the first year he was born. And so it is a tremendous financial burden to families who have these babies who are not able to cook long enough.

And that is such a social failure for mothers who again, it is not your fault. You did not do anything wrong because you had a pregnancy that went left on you. But if you don't have the financial resources to handle a bunch of this, like I sued a public school system over speech therapy for my oldest child because I had to pay for a bunch of it out of pocket. I mean,

Pearson had to have OTPT. He had to have so many things because he didn't get to cook in my belly. And so I don't

Chelsea Myers (49:04)
Yeah.

Paula Yost (49:05)
even know how much money I've spent on stuff like that, but it has been a lot. you your normal, even your upper middle class family cannot afford to do it. And the people who suffer are those children in those families. And these things can become like a lifelong speech

Chelsea Myers (49:22)
Yes.

Paula Yost (49:23)
impediment.

You know, a lifelong speech impediment hurts you in the career force. That is a lifetime damaging thing. And so I think I'll also just add like if there's anyone listening to this who has any form of legislative advocacy, you know that that zero to five population, whatever they need, whether it's OTPT, speech therapy, access to preschool, we should be giving those children everything that we can.

Because if they can hit kindergarten feeling like they are typically developing, then they are going to thrive. But you're not going to thrive if you feel stupid. You're not going to thrive if you feel like you're behind. You're not going to thrive if you feel like the other children are making fun of you or your speech is so messed up that it's illegible. There is a pipeline to prison and it is that. And so taking care of these little people and their families.

is probably the best thing we can do. And there are Scandinavian countries that do this and they are not having the problems that we are having in America. So I think that would be my big

Chelsea Myers (50:32)
No.

Paula Yost (50:33)
thing other than moms, none of this stuff is your fault. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't your fault. You do need a solid support system, but also we have got to do a better job of funding these things in this country.

Chelsea Myers (50:48)
my God. So I mean, I've never, that's not true, but I'm close to tears. I was going to say I've never come so close to tears, but I am very close to tears right now because again, I do not, these episodes and these sessions are purely you. And this is me holding space for you. And I don't, I try as hard as I can not to infuse any of me into it, but I just, have to,

Thank you so much for bringing up literally everything that you just said, but specifically, mean, number one, we're a neuro sparkly household. We are an odd HD household. So we are very familiar with needing services and needing the OT and the PT and the speech. I'm also a former intensive needs special educator. So I worked with the low incidence.

disabilities in children, in school age children. So you're speaking to a part of my heart that aches on the daily. And then the other side of it that is so just seems like a no brainer to me is the supporting families financially and through like public services

Paula Yost (52:03)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (52:07)
and like you saying like

you acknowledging that you do have privilege because of your financial stability, acknowledging that and understanding that the outcomes that we're seeing, whether it comes to maternal mortality, maternal mental health, infant mortality, just like readiness for school, it should not be defined by your income or your

Paula Yost (52:36)
No.

Chelsea Myers (52:37)
your economic status. That is, it breaks my heart in a way that I can't explain. So I just personally want to thank you for highlighting those things. And again, driving home the fact that mom, this is not your fault. This is not your fault. And it wasn't it wasn't your fault, Paula.

Paula Yost (52:59)
Not at all. Not at all.

Chelsea Myers (53:03)
And it wasn't

It wasn't my fault and it was nobody's fault. system, the system, one, the system is set up for us to fail. And when it comes to these genetic abnormalities or these like things like preeclampsia and help syndrome and things like that, that we don't, we don't have a crystal ball. We don't have a crystal ball. And it's not like we're manifesting these things for ourselves. It just happens. And it's, it sucks.

but it's not your fault.

Paula Yost (53:35)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (53:36)
Ugh. Freaking powerful. Freaking powerful, Paula. my gosh.

Paula Yost (53:42)
Thank you.

Chelsea Myers (53:45)
Ugh. So, and we didn't even talk about the fact that you have a daughter, a beautiful daughter and a grandchild and all of these things. But what I'm gonna say to you, what I say to all of my guests.

open invitation, open invitation to come back to explore one of these topics to explore more of these topics, because holy cannoli are there levels and levels and levels and levels to your story that we didn't even get to touch on today. But I just I so appreciate number one, the openness, the honesty, the transparency and also like

the mama bear energy that you have brought to our time together. I'm so appreciative of that. And also just, I don't, I don't even know how to, how to put this into words. You, I'm leaving, I'm leaving this session with a, with a feeling of empowerment that I didn't walk into it with. And that's, that's because of you. Like you put that in me today. And so I'm personally thanking you for that.

I get to carry that with me through the rest of my day. That's my glimmer today. So, ugh.

Paula Yost (55:03)
Well, that's my goal. That's

my goal in telling this story.

Chelsea Myers (55:08)
Ugh, and that's why we're here. That's why we're here. So that you can tell your story and the next person can hear it and know that they're not alone and know someone else out there gets it. In

Paula Yost (55:21)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (55:22)
that vein, in that vein, if my listeners want to learn more about you or to connect with you, which I certainly hope that they do, I will also link all of your wonderful

contact info in the show notes, but for anyone who's listening, where's the best place to find you and connect with you?

Paula Yost (55:43)
Yeah, so gosh, there's so many ways at this point, but all of them will work. There's my website, pauliyost.com. And then I also have an Instagram page, which is paulijost-author. And I do reels and talk about all kinds of stuff on there. And so send me a message that way or just hit me up on my website. Either one will work.

Chelsea Myers (56:08)
It's perfect. I need to like triple quadruple check that I'm following you because I get so I cannot keep up with social media. I don't know about you, but like I am so bad. I'll answer everybody's messages. But like, I just don't get it. I don't get it. Maybe someday I'll get good at it. Who knows? But

Paula Yost (56:24)
Maybe, maybe not.

Chelsea Myers (56:26)
follow Paula. Maybe maybe not follow Paula check the show notes. Paula, I am I'm doing this thing.

And I feel like you might you might vibe with this. Because like you said, like, I'm a little woo woo, I'm a little woo woo. And I believe that the universe

Paula Yost (56:45)
You

Chelsea Myers (56:47)
kind of orchestrates some things for us. So I'm ending my episodes, I'm asking my guests to leave a little message and that message is going to be for my next guest.

You don't know who my next guest is. You don't know if they are a mom, if they are a dad, if they are a caregiver. You don't know what their situation is. But you called Quiet Connections today and they weren't here to answer. So you're gonna leave a message for them and it can be whatever you want, whatever you want. But what message would you leave for my next guest?

Paula Yost (57:26)
I think I would just say that there's always hope and you just have to keep going.

Chelsea Myers (57:30)
I love it. It's simple. It's impactful. It's empowering. And it's very, very on brand for you, Paula. I just I can't thank you enough. This. Thank you for rolling with the punches, not only with like scheduling wise, but like technology wise and all of the things you it has been such a joy. has been such a joy chatting with you. And yeah, I can't

I can't wait to just follow your journey and see what you guys are doing with the world.

Paula Yost (58:05)
always happy to talk to you and be around Telsey. It was so nice to meet you. Thank you very much.

Chelsea Myers (58:11)
Ugh.