I sat down with author and writer Laura Wifler to discuss her newest book, This Side of the Sky, and how we as mothers can navigate the restless "homesickness" we often feel in the daily grind. Laura shares how understanding the fall, anchoring our identity in Christ, and learning to slow down can help us combat burnout and comparison. We also talk about shifting away from a culture of complaining to cultivate true mental fortitude, learning to extend grace in times of grief, and holding onto the daily truth that in Christ, real change is always possible.

Key Topics Covered:

• Homesickness for Heaven: Why the mundane, repetitive tasks of motherhood point to our longing for Eden—and how heaven's hope anchors us today.
• Identity in Christ vs. Comparison: Anchoring our value in Jesus rather than cultural expectations, and trusting God’s sovereignty in our current season.
• Slowing Down & Protecting Attention: How poetry and intentional rest retrain our fractured attention spans, guard against burnout, and build focus.
• Practical Focus & Boundaries: Real-life strategies for guarding "deep work" blocks, batching digital inputs, and using transition time before stepping into family life.
• Compassionate Grieving: Giving allowance for long seasons of grief while extending grace to friends who don't always know the exact right thing to say.
• Mental Fortitude in Motherhood: Moving past victimhood and online complaining to embrace the joy and responsibility of motherhood by simply taking things one small step at a time ("left to right").
• Hope for Today: Remembering that because of the Gospel, we are not stuck in old patterns—we can change today as we eagerly await Christ’s return.

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

• Laura Wifler's New Poetry Book:This Side of the Sky
• Laura's Upcoming Bible Trivia App: Sword Drill
• Follow Laura Wifler on Instagram: @laurawifler
• Read Laura's Newsletter: Laura Wifler on Substack
• Connect with Motherhood Equipped here

Juliet Starrett, CEO, author, former professional athlete, attorney, and mom, shares her wisdom from navigating the extreme seasons of career and motherhood. Standing on the edge of an "open nest" as her two daughters head off to college, Juliet shares a no-nonsense, Gen-X perspective on how she balanced billable hours at a major law firm while building businesses alongside her husband, Kelly. This episode is a refreshing, pep talk for moms looking to drown out social media noise, protect their ambition, and throw out "mom guilt" for good.

Links & Resources:
Explore mobility, courses, and the app at The Ready State
Tune in to The Ready State Podcast
The Books:

• Built to Move by Kelly & Juliet Starrett – Buy on Amazon
• Master of Change / Works by Brad Stulberg – Buy on Amazon

Connect with Juliet here
Connect with Motherhood Equipped here

Key Takeaways:

• Chunking the Seasons: Embracing the mantra "It's not always gonna be like this" during the chaotic under-five years.
• The Ultimate Parenting Hack: Why aggressively prioritizing a child's sleep schedule is the single best investment you can make for household calm and eliminating tantrums.
• Foot on the Gas Professionally: The counterintuitive advice to lean into career growth while kids are small and their needs are simple, preserving flexibility for the critical high school years.
• Ditching "Mom Guilt": What kid actually need to thrive is intentionality behind your time with them.

Dr. Monique Yohanan breaks down pantry food dyes, microplastics in frozen meals, and how to navigate vaccine schedules with precision and parental agency. She sits down with us today drawing on her extensive background in medical guideline writing, health policy, and AI technology as well as her primary role as a mother. She is a physician, public health expert, and Independent Women's Center for Better Health Director. In this conversation, Dr. Yohanan breaks down how parents can move away from one-size-fits-all mandates and confidently take the wheel when it comes to their children’s health, nutrition, and medical care.

Resources & Links Mentioned
Dr. Monique Yohanan’s Policy Paper: Rethinking Vaccine Policy: A Case for Humility, Precision, and Parental Partnership
Independent Women's Forum (IWF) — Focuses on free-market solutions, health policy reform, and individual empowerment.
Dr. Casey Means: Functional medicine expert and co-founder of Levels (referenced for her work in metabolic health and root-cause medicine).
Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM): Suggested as a framework and provider directory for families seeking open-minded, root-cause medical care.
Follow along with @MotherhoodEquipped on Instagram!

Key Takeaways & Highlights

• Pantry Basics & Ingredient Red Flags
  • Focus on three building blocks for balanced meals: Fiber, Healthy Fat, and Protein.
  • A quick rule of thumb for fruits/vegetables: If you can eat the skin (e.g., apples), it’s generally high in beneficial fiber.
  • Artificial petroleum-based dyes—specifically Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6—have been linked in studies to hyperactive and behavioral symptoms in children (partially triggered by histamine release).
  • Unlike the U.S., European regulations require warning labels on foods with these dyes, leading many global brands to reformulate their recipes overseas using natural coloring (e.g., paprika) while keeping synthetic dyes in American products.
  • Plastics & Frozen Foods: Avoid heating food directly in plastic containers
  • Reclaiming Control in the Pediatrician’s Office
  • Understand the system: Standardized schedules and rigid "one-size-fits-all" checklists are often driven by clinic quality scores and insurance compensation models, not individual nuance.
  • Enter appointments with a focused agenda (aim for no more than 3 main topics/questions per visit to stay productive).
• A Precision Approach to Vaccines
  • Differentiate between community-protective vaccines (highly contagious illnesses like measles and whooping cough) and individual-protection vaccines (like the seasonal flu shot).
  • Recognize flexibility in timing: For example, while standard U.S. CDC guidelines recommend the MMR vaccine between 12–15 months, countries like Sweden successfully wait until 18 months. Spacing out shots is a valid, nuanced conversation to have with your provider.

What if everything we’ve been taught about the female cycle focuses on the wrong thing? In this episode, Haley Yeager, a fertility awareness instructor and founder of the Truth and Fertility Project, busts the biggest myths surrounding reproductive health. Haley shares her personal journey of being prescribed birth control at age sixteen for irregular periods, only to discover years later that it was masking a root diagnosis of PCOS.

We dive deep into the difference between standard hormonal suppression and Restorative Reproductive Medicine, how to spot crucial hormonal red flags on your chart, and why ovulation—not just your period—is the ultimate biomarker of your overall health.

Connect with us!
Connect with Haley here

Connect with Motherhood Equipped here!

Haley’s recommendations:

• The Truth and Fertility Project (Haley’s platform for fertility awareness coaching).
• Naprotechnology (Natural Procreative Technology): A specific system of restorative medicine that works cooperatively with a woman's natural cycle.
• Episode 90 of Truth & Fertility: Haley interviews an expert endometriosis surgeon regarding surgical diagnosis, high success rates of excision, and the reality that early-stage endo rarely shows up on a standard ultrasound.
• Dr. Monica Minjeur. https://radiantclinic.com/
• Natural womanhood https://naturalwomanhood.org/
• FEMM https://femmhealth.org/
• FertilityCare.org https://www.fertilitycare.org/

Key Takeaways

• The Standard Prescription: Haley shares her experience being put on the pill at sixteen for irregular cycles, the mood side effects that caused her to stop, and the lack of alternative answers given to young women.
• Restorative Reproductive Medicine: The turning point at age eighteen where Haley discovered Naprotechnology (Natural Procreative Technology) and learned that charts can be used as medical diagnostic tools.
• "Why Do You Want to Ovulate?": The shocking disconnect between mainstream primary care and restorative health when treating young, non-sexually active women.
• The Triad of Diagnosis: How charting, comprehensive blood work, and an ultrasound led to Haley’s true diagnosis of PCOS, and how radical diet and lifestyle changes finally flipped the switch to get her ovulating.
• The Ultimate Cycle Misconception: Why ovulation is the star of the show, not your period, and why a true period must follow ovulation.
• How to Read the Language of Your Body: A breakdown of normal cycle parameters (24 to 36 days) and what indicators like cervical fluid changes can tell you about your estrogen and progesterone.
• PCOS & Endometriosis: Why these two conditions are leading causes of infertility today, driven by decades of symptom-masking via hormonal birth control.

In this conversation, I sat down with exercise physiologist and fertility coach Alexa Gruber (known as "The Conceiving Coach") to discuss a radically different approach to navigating infertility. Alexa shares her journey from running a general fitness coaching business to stepping into a season of deep pruning. God called her to strip away her plans, focus on her family, and ultimately step into ministering to women trying to conceive.

We dive deep into why true fertility coaching goes far beyond supplements, cold plunges, and hormone tracking, and explore how drawing close to Jesus regulates the nervous system, helps us to fight spiritual battles and maintain hope despite disappointment.

Join Alexa’s Pregnancy Prep Collective for a way to connect deeply with others walking the same journey as you and to get the resources you need. Connect with her on Instagram here.
See more of Motherhood Equipped on Instagram here!

What if standard pregnancy dietary advice is actually backwards? Bestselling author, dietitian, and researcher Lily Nichols, RDN joins us to dismantle conventional prenatal guidelines. From outdated carbohydrate recommendations to the truths about blood sugar, PCOS, and egg quality, Lily shares the science-backed, real-food strategies every woman needs to feel confident in her health decisions before, during, and after pregnancy.

Lily Nichols’ Website

Lily’s Books: Real Food for Pregnancy, Real Food for Fertility, and Real Food for Gestational Diabetes

Recommended Prenatal Vitamin Brands: FullWell & Seeking Health
Connect with @MotherhoodEquipped on Instagram!

Key Takeaways

• Questioning the Guidelines: Why standard pregnancy nutrition advice often falls short—and what the research actually shows.
• The "Nutrient Bank Account": Why it’s never too late in pregnancy or postpartum to start making deposits using nutrient-dense, whole-food protein.
• Blood Sugar Mechanics: How balancing fat, carbs, and protein prevents the energy crashes, cravings, and mood swings common in pregnancy.
• Rethinking PCOS: Why "just lose weight" is outdated advice and how protein-forward eating addresses the root cause of insulin resistance.
• Optimizing Egg Quality: What’s actually within your control during the months leading up to conception.
• Prenatal Vitamin Red Flags: Navigating quality control issues in the supplement industry and how to choose a trustworthy formula.

Timestamps

02:10 The Impact of Food Industry Conflicts on Dietary Guidelines
04:00 How Lily's Books Empower Women in Pregnancy
07:09 The Importance of nutrient stores to prevent depletion
10:00 Protein's Role in Pregnancy and Postpartum
12:03 Understanding Blood Sugar and Its Effects
17:12 Managing PCOS Through Diet and Blood Sugar
22:47 The Role of Healthcare System and Guidelines
27:01 Egg Quality, Age, and Lifestyle Factors
29:58 Choosing Quality Prenatal Vitamins
35:10 Foods to Emphasize During Pregnancy
39:55 Caffeine Intake and Pregnancy

43:52 Gestational Diabetes and Blood Sugar Trends
50:02 Preconception Testing and Fertility
52:00 Personal Habits for Optimal Nutrition

In this episode, I’m getting incredibly vulnerable and sharing the complex, high-stakes birth story of my second son, Luke. After a beautiful previous homebirth, I fully intended to deliver at home again, even knowing Luke was breech. But days before my due date, a sudden fluid check put me "out of bounds" for homebirth, pulling the rug out from underneath me. Driving to the hospital, I had to completely lay down my vision, my sense of security, and surrender the experience to God.

I openly navigate the heavy contrast between a peaceful home environment and the corporate, often fear-driven reality of modern hospital medicine. I share how we fought to avoid an unnecessary, mandatory C-section, what it was like keeping my mental focus in a chaotic room of 15 people, and the reality of a forced supine (on my back) delivery that led to a last-minute placental abruption. This is a story of deep spiritual surrender, intense self-advocacy, and a reminder that even when the shifting sands take over, you are built to do hard things.

Help us build a real, supportive community so no mom feels isolated in the mundane or the heavy moments. Follow along and share your thoughts at @MotherhoodEquipped.

In this episode, I’m opening up and sharing my personal journey to motherhood. As a fit, first-time mom, my story started in a standard hospital model. However, facing a preeclampsia diagnosis at 25/26 weeks left me feeling unsettled and craving true autonomy. I wanted to see "both sides of the coin" when making informed decisions, which ultimately led me to pivot, trust my intuition, and choose a homebirth.

Tune in as I share how I went from hospital hesitation to absolute peace and confidence. I break down how I chose a midwife who perfectly fit my vision, why I focused on mental discipline over a perfect nursery, and how amazed I was by just how intensely athletic labor truly is. It is the ultimate mental game and endurance sport.

Follow along for more behind-the-scenes and motherhood encouragement at @MotherhoodEquipped