It’s Time We Catch Up
with Holly Lo
This is an unedited transcript.
Welcome to the Mondays podcast. My
name is Holly Lo, and I am your host, and this is my first solo episode, I’m so excited
to be able to just hang out with you and me
and share a little bit about what’s been going on in our lives and talk about what’s coming up, you’re gonna want to stay tuned, because there are some great guests coming, and some good topics that we’ve got planned for you as we head into the fall. So don’t go anywhere. I have had a lot going on in the last few months. Now, many of you if you’ve been following along, you’ve heard me chatting with our guests. And I share bits and bobs about our stories in our life and the things that my family has been, you know, has done and has been going through and experienced. So I thought it would be a good opportunity for our first episode to tell you a bit about who
I am.
Where did I come from? Why
am I doing this? And just tell you where we’re going. Because I hope you’re excited. I hope you’re excited to be on this journey with me and our guests and our family as we go through the next few months together and really just plan out what’s going to happen as we go along. So let’s jump right in. I am a mom of three. You’ve heard me talk about my little ones, not the little ones, I guess anymore and have a mom of a teenager. When did that happen? In the blink of an eye. I feel like I had my firstborn yesterday. And he’s 13 already. So
I am now a mom of a teenager at nine year old daughter who is going on 20 I’m pretty certain mums with daughters in the nine to 10 year age. You know what I’m talking about? This is craziness. And then I’ve got an incredible six year old son as well. And honestly he is I always joke that if he had been a girl, we’d have to named him joy, because he is seriously the highlight of our lives of our every day. He makes us laugh. He is a sweetheart and he just loves me fiercely. So they’re all incredible children. I’ve been blessed. Honestly, I know that we’ve had a hand in it. But I’ve definitely been blessed with really cool kids. So I’m grateful for that. But let’s talk a little bit about this life that we live. And I’ll tell you how it goes and what it looks like. And maybe some of the things that we’ve been going through lately because
haven’t had
had some ups and downs in the last few months. So let me share some of that with you. But I don’t want it to be too long. I want you to get excited about what’s coming in the months ahead. Our family lives in one of the most beautiful places I think in Canada. I know there’s some gorgeous places in Canada, but we live in wasaga Beach. And this is interesting until I moved here I did not know that was Saiga beach, if you look it up is is one of the world’s longest freshwater beaches. So we live in one of the great lakes. We live in Georgian Bay, and the beach is right outside our door. I love it. It’s the most beautiful place. It’s quiet. We live on a cottage Street. And we know everybody and it’s so so friendly and sweet. And we adore being here, when we’re not here. And when we’re not locked in our country. Florida alphas we are flying to England a lot. Not in the last year and a half. Of course, I’m really missing my home away from home. I call England my second home. Or maybe if I had a past life, I was definitely British, because when my feet hit that British soil, I can’t even explain to you the energy and the feeling is home to me. And it’s really odd because I’d never been there. Up until four years ago, five years ago. It was my first time there and it was so overwhelming even the first time landing there and just getting immersed in working there and getting to know and making beautiful friends there. I’m still shocked by how much it feels like home there. So
my heart is
broken because I’m missing my second home. But we’ve had a great time getting to know our area better connecting with our businesses here. I’ve joined the p&i network here in town. It’s been so exciting getting to meet lots of business people and other mamas. So that’s what I’ve been up to. My husband is a former phenomenal real estate agent among other things, and he is now full time Dad, I love it. I’ve been able to basically retire him or we’ve been able to do that I should say, with the work that we’ve done as Canadian founders with doTERRA so that’s been a lot of fun. I am the owner of oil babies and limited that’s something that I own and operate I’ve created we’ve created our own brand. created my own baby store. All this good fun stuff. So that’s what kind of keeps us rolling keeps us busy. And I’m on leadership, speaking writing, books, podcasting, all the other things that we get up to. And on top of all that we homeschool. Yes, we do grades eight grades.
I’ve lost track.
at that. Yes,
I’ve kind of lost track. I think we’re at grades eight grades. Four. Great to buy something like that. Yes, good times. So that all starts on Tuesday. Big, big busy week, as we launched back into homeschool, we don’t really stop schooling in our house, we kind of school throughout the year, secretly, they don’t realize it. Anybody else do that. manage to keep your kids learning through the summer. Definitely takes a break. We slow right down. This is the the story that I haven’t told that I wanted to take a few minutes to share. Because I know there’s so many moms out there who have experienced what I’ve been through. And we tend to not share our stories as openly as we should. And recently, I’d say when did we find out? I guess in May, June, May, June, July. Yeah. So in May, we actually found out we were expecting, we’ve been trying and struggling with secondary infertility, which you may have heard me speak with some of our amazing guests over the last little while. We’ve been struggling with that for the last two years, which was a huge shock, because I’ve never had an issue. In fact, we laugh that my husband just has to look at me, and I’m pregnant. So it’s amazing that we’ve only managed three babies. So far, we did lose a baby after our first so when I had my son, he was around just turning four. And we did lose a pregnancy than at around nine weeks. And that was a really, as much as I was able to see it as a doula and understand my body and understand the process and respect and feel grateful that my body knew what it was doing. I also felt very betrayed by my body that it didn’t work. And that didn’t work out, my body worked. That pregnancy didn’t work out. So it was a real struggle. But I also realized, looking back, we don’t right, cut it back in and got pregnant about a month and a half after that, again, with my daughter, and she was a rainbow baby. And that was a tough pregnancy because I spent the whole one the whole nine months worrying, right, that stress. So those of you who’ve been through it, you know what I’m talking about. But I realized afterwards that I never paused. I really didn’t take the time to pause and sort those feelings out. And to just breathe and just take some time to be disappointed to take some time to cry, to take some time to grieve whatever it was that I needed to do, I was so busy building a business and you know, looking after my son and all the things that were going on in our life at that moment. And I didn’t really take enough time to give place for that grief, I realized after I was still dealing with a lot of grief from losing my dad, not that not 20 years before that. And there was a lot of shock involved in that he passed away out of the blue, just suddenly healthy guide before he was, you know, even close to being of an age that we would worry about that. And he was my best friend. So when we lost him, we went through years of just working through the
shock phase
of grief, without even really progressing well through the other stages of grieving, if you’ve ever experienced that, or know what the stages of grief are, we kind of hung out in that shock, disbelief, anger, you know, sadness, area, and it affected our whole parts of our lives, a whole aspect of our family and our lives in other ways. It also affects your physical being right. unresolved grief, unresolved anger, unresolved, any of those things, disappointment, all of that, when you hold that in your body, it builds in it, it creates a perfect environment, along with stress, along with being a mom along with lack of sleep, all of those things, you can be doing all the right things and if you haven’t dealt with those emotions, if you haven’t really spent time listening, healing, grieving properly, and and moving through all of that you will hold that into your very self. It’s incredible how it impacts our body. So that is something that I never paid attention to. And looking back, right. hindsight is better than 2020 I think if there is such a thing, we’ve got such clarity sometimes when we can see behind and say if I had only known all the things and all the advice we gather even on these podcasts, I say to myself all the time, I wish I had known this was my first baby, I wish I’d known this when I was pregnant before. If we’d only known, here’s the thing we didn’t know. All we can do is as we know better, we do better. And you’ll hear me say that often throughout our recordings. When we know better, it’s up to us then to choose that better, that are not necessarily meaning you did something wrong, that or not, meaning you’re guilty of anything terrible. It’s just we didn’t know. And I really felt strongly as I’ve done a lot of soul work over the last year, as we realized getting pregnant was going to be trickier. This time around, I started to look at, hey, I’m doing all the right things, physically, what else could be stopping it, and all of these emotions started to show up. And it really helped that I was working with some incredible people I started seeing my friend Brittany, who is a beautiful osteopath, actually is going to be one of our guests, hopefully coming up soon, you’ll hear from her. But she also does energy work and works with the body and osteopathy. And when you combine those modalities, it’s such a beautiful combination. But she was able to help me just really see where those bottled up emotions kind of make like these little bundles through your gut, through your chest, through your your insides, and it has a direct impact on your cellular health. It’s incredible. And that affects our whole body that actually can stop all kinds of things, it can stagnate different parts of us. So, and we were doing a lot of work, I did a lot of work with her I was doing, you know a little bit more with hormone balancing naturally, and just doing some extras to take care of myself for the last in starting for the new year and into the spring. And then maybe Surprise, surprise, we were pregnant. So that was the big news that I didn’t actually get a chance to share properly on any of our episodes up to that point. Because the first few month or two you get pretty nervous. I was very nervous. Of course, I’m usually not I’m usually pretty chill about pregnancies. But after trying for so long and wanting this so badly. It’s something that you kind of hold close, right. And I remember the day we told our kids we were I was probably about almost nine weeks at the time. And my daughter bawled. She cried her eyes out when we told them and we did a video on it the whole deal. And they were so excited. So over the moon excited because they’ve been wanting this as much as we have maybe more actually than what we have. And it was just such a special moment to be able to share that with them. But I was hesitant. I was hesitant to tell our families, I was hesitant to tell my you know, my mom, and they were kind of the last to know as we headed into the end of my first trimester. But I thought this is crazy. Of all the people that should know and can support us regardless of what happens. It should be our children and our family. So we told everybody and of course, everyone was super thrilled. Fast forward to just around my 12 week mark, when you start to celebrate, right when you start to feel like we’re 12 weeks, we’re good. Everything’s everything’s good. I was scheduled in for my first scan, I already had my first visit with the midwives and everything was lovely. I felt great. nauseous, of course tired as all get out. But there’s so so thrilled, and I let myself hope that was the big one is from the moment I found out I was expecting and we found out very early, like five weeks, I decided that regardless of what happens, I will allow myself to hope I will allow myself to dream, I will allow myself to think of baby names, I will allow myself to sort out baby clothes and get rid of things and decide what we’re keeping and get organized for a new baby. I embraced it. And that was a big step for me. Because with all that work we had done, I chose not to hold anything back. I just chose that I’ll embrace this journey, whatever, whatever the end result, I will embrace it. And that was a really powerful thing for me, it might not seem like a big deal for other people. But taking that leap and taking that step to say I know there’s risks in this and I know nothing is guaranteed. And I’ve been down this road before we’ve had other losses. And you know, I’m going to choose to just enjoy this process every week that goes by and celebrate it. And I did I started doing week by week videos and having a really good time with it and just the kids were were over the moon my youngest would kiss my belly every chance he got and he still does actually because my belly and talk to baby and and tell them you know tell me how excited he was for baby to grow. And around 12 weeks that’s when things fell apart. part, which was really, really tough.
So when we got to that 12 week mark, and we realized that, you know, we should be taking a deep breath and moving into the second trimester with ease and with confidence, it was a really, really good feeling. And it was like, the next day, I started spotting, I started bleeding. And the instant, the instant panic, he instant grief, the instant anger, all of it, all the emotions that normally I would not feel as much of, to be honest, I’d learned really early on, as a mom to kind of bottle that up. But it all just came up so fast to the point where I thought it was gonna be sick, it was just those, all those emotions crashing in and the Oh, no, this, this can’t be happening moment. Now, again, then you’ve got all the logic kicking in and saying, that’s normal, it’s okay, don’t panic,
this can be completely normal,
this happens to all kinds of women, sometimes even bleeding is normal, it’s just doesn’t mean there’s anything horrible going on, take a breath. And so I tried to walk that out in that manner. And for about 48 hours, that’s how we progressed, it was just talking with our midwives. Resting, taking it easy, you know, whatever I could do, to just see what was what was going on with my
body.
But by day three, it was pretty obvious that that was not good that my body was was trying to clear things out and to end it. And, you know, after a lot of tears, which again, I remember the first time when I went through it, at nine weeks, I don’t remember even crying. I don’t remember, I just remember having to go through it. I was on my own, in a sense, my husband, my family were there. But I didn’t have any, you know, my midwives weren’t able to be there at the time, they were on the phone with me and helping me through and they were beautiful. And they are such a good support. But you kind of just have to handle it. And I was at home and I was fine. So I was able to go through it and just do that all at home. But at 12 weeks, that’s a big difference, that a significant difference between nine weeks and 12 Weeks Pregnant as you know. So this was definitely a different story. It was like labor. And I’m sharing it because I know you’ve been through it. I know there are moments who have been through it even later. And I know I know the heart wrenching it can be to walk that I also know how scary pregnancy in general can just feel. So haftar, having had beautiful easy pregnancies, and then having had some losses, you know, the feeling of both, you know, that that Gannett, that whole range of emotions that come with it all.
So when
we realized what was happening, but with my hubby, and I we the kids were they were lucky enough to be you know, with good friends of ours and spend some time with them and not have to. It just was really a nice time for them. They knew what was going on. But they had the support of one of my best friends who had been through it many times, many, many times with her family and her babies. So she knew more than anyone that I know, she knew firsthand really what was going on and how hard it was. So they had her to kind of talk them through and support them and love on them. So we got some time to be alone at home and just with the midwives on the phone and just try to walk through what was happening. I didn’t need to go to the hospital, thank goodness. Thankfully, my body was cooperating to a point it was it was rough. So it took a good 24 hours for my body to know what it was doing. And the next day was my ultrasound that was already scheduled. So we said let’s just keep going. Let’s go for the ultrasound and see what has happened and what’s the end result. And we left that appointment with some confusion. Because they said well, we’re not too sure what we’re seeing, which at that moment when you’re just either want things to be over with us, you can move on and deal with the next steps or you want to hope that nothing you know serious is going on that left me with some very conflicted feelings are should I be hoping that everything’s fine? Or are we is this done? Of course they don’t tell you all those details at your ultrasound appointment, they tell you nothing. So you know later that day, I got a call from my midwives which I was very grateful because it can take a few days sometimes to get the info. And I remember her saying it looks like you’re definitely miscarrying. But something’s still up. You know, there’s your cervix isn’t clear. If you’re not a mom and listen to this while it’s TMI for you, but too bad. Um, so I that I had to get referred, I went and visited the local ob and had a, you know, kind of traumatic visit with her, um, traumatic simply because I do not love being in the care of an OB That’s just my personal. I’ve met some amazing obstetricians over the years amazing. And I’ve worked with some amazing ones. But as a mum delivering in any situation, that’s not my first choice. So it’s what had to happen anyway, spent some time in her office. And basically, she realized that my body hadn’t delivered the baby. So it was traumatic in that sense. So it was her job then to remove everything. And it was obviously not anything, you know, complicated because it was almost done. It’s hard to explain that in a in a conversation, but she basically removed everything in one simple pop. And it all just came out the trauma, and that, for me was simply, I knew what was happening, I knew I knew it was already over. But I think it was the matter of factness of the process, right? When you’re so raw feeling in here, and your body’s just tired. Like, we’d gone through two nights of just not knowing what was going on, I didn’t sleep for two days, and not really sure what the process was, and what had really happened. And you have so many questions. And as much as I appreciate the current clinical approach that they take, you know, that’s what they do. It’s so hard to be in that moment, and not just, you know, want to fall apart and cry and to just want to be angry and to want to be sad, and to want to ask questions, and all of those things, but you’re trying to hold it together in this office, you know, with sterile feeling. And to just know that, that was it. That was it. That was the end. That was hard for me. And maybe you’ve had similar experiences, maybe you’ve gone through other scenarios, other situations like that, and maybe it wasn’t hard. For me it was that was very traumatizing. And I, I realize what I missed, in the grief side of things, and in the processing of those emotions, the first time I went through it, I think because this time, I had allowed myself in a good way. And all of this was good in the emotion side of things, because I was letting myself feel I was letting myself feel broken, I was letting myself grieve, I was letting myself be disappointed. I cried with the kids, you know, we all talked about how disappointed we were. And the best moment I have to tell you, it still makes me emotional, which again tells me I’ve done a lot of work. So if you’ve ever, if you’ve ever questioned whether, you know therapy is for you, or whether energy work is for you, or a soul coach or any of those things, and just being able to tap into that healing, and that that ability you have in your own body, to make some changes with with your emotions, and to find some of that healing,
do it,
I can’t emphasize that enough. With a professional, please. You know, there’s a lot of different aspects out there of practitioners and so on that I honestly would not open my soul to. So make sure whether it’s you know, prayer ministry, whether it’s therapy, whether it’s you know, energy, work, whatever it looks like, or all of those things, make sure that it’s safe for you and that you feel comfortable with that vulnerability, but that you have an opportunity to be vulnerable and to open and to let your walls down. And to just be yourself, not be a mom, not be a professional woman, not be a wife not be whatever it is that you’ve categorized yourself as just to be you, even the little girl you and to say, you know what, I’m hurt, I’m broken. And I just feel like I’ve fallen apart over this situation over these situations or whatever it is. And that’s where that healing starts, is being able to just acknowledge it and say, this is how I’m feeling this is what I’m seeing. And this is what my body is physically dealing with. And as you do that, you’ll see what the healing does and it’s it’s a process it is not a one step. Done. And you know what, you did it and you’re it’s over. One of my favorite parts is when my youngest, he, like I said he would kiss my belly all the time. And even afterwards, when he new baby was gone. He would lay he came into my room and he laid on my belly and he kissed it because it because then he said Mommy, that’s okay. We’re just gonna have a double rainbow baby. I was like, What do you mean, buddy? He’s like, well, you lost other babies. And I said, Yeah. And he said, Well, then this one’s two rainbows which is even extra special. And the his ability to just, you know, take it in. He said that he was disappointed. I mean, there was tears on their part too, but they had such a beautiful understanding, more concerned about taking care of me because that’s just the kind of hearts they have. But that They were, they knew it was safe for them to say their feelings, but also that they could encourage me at that moment that was, to me such a special thing, that these kids were able to say, hey, it’s not the end, you know, there could be more to come, who knows. So he still kisses my belly as many chances as he gets. And he says, Hello, Rainbow baby. So who knows what he knows, I’m just gonna go with it. So that has been a very emotional journey for the last little while. And also partly the reason why I have not been, you know, putting out as much content or posting on social media and things like that as regularly as I normally do. We needed a soul break we needed as a family, we needed to step back to regroup, to heal up to spend some time together. And we’ve done that, and it was beautiful. And well, it’s not a, again, an over process, it’s always going to be happening. We’re always healing up, we’re always learning and growing. But I felt such a beautiful release, kind of, you know, happening as we took the time to rest and to just be together. I hope that if you’ve been through that, or if you’re walking through some of those scenarios, maybe it’s just trying to conceive, maybe it’s multiple losses, whatever it looks like, I would just hope that you have a safe space that you can take some time. And you can walk through that grieving process that you can have some professional support, you know that I’m here. I mean, yes, it’s a podcast, I might not be live, but I’m available, you can always reach out, you can message me, you can contact me and I always answer personally, that’s, that’s a promise, I will always answer my messages. And it’s me, it’s not my assistant, it’s not anyone else. But if you’re in that place, and you just need someone to connect with, I’m here, I’m happy to listen and to just share some tears with you, or any tips that I may have learned. So having said all of that, the exciting part for me is, as I took the time to just be still and take care of myself and take care of our family. And really feel out what those next steps look like, where are we going to keep trying, which we are, we are going to keep trying. And I hope you can send all the healthy baby vibes our way, because we’re going to need them as we keep going. But I really felt strongly that this there was a beautiful lesson in this for me too, that you can plan all you want, and you can try all you want, and you can do all the right things. But life is still gonna throw stuff at you. You can’t prepare for everything. And I like to be planned. I like to have things laid out. I like to have it programmed in. So I know what to expect. I don’t like surprises. Yes, my husband? Should we have a surprise party? For Holly, the answer will be no, no, we should not. He learned that early on the poor guy. So
I did take that lesson away that no matter what is going on, no matter how planned you are, there’s always going to be curveballs, there’s always going to be things out of our control. At the end of the day, we can only control what we are in control of. And we can’t be in control of everything mamas we we might be that kind of mama who feels the need to have a handle on everything. It’s not possible. It just isn’t, we can’t do that. So I would challenge you to as you’re heading into the fall, especially into September, to just pick one or two things that are important to you to have your hands on. And to guide. Maybe it’s schooling, maybe it’s a goal of your own, who knows whatever that looks like for you. But pick only one or two things. Don’t pick 20 things. Don’t worry about picture perfect lunchboxes for your children every day. Don’t worry about you know,
thank you computer keeps doing weird things.
So don’t worry about those Instagram, perfect back to school photos or you know, going into grade, whatever I mean, if you do those fantastic. If that’s your one thing that you want to have done, do it. But learn to and choose to let some of the other things, let go of those controls a little bit or loosen the control handed over to your spouse to an older child that you have to someone to help you out or just let it go. I had to learn that there was priorities and those moments that were more important than my business that were more important than posting on social media that were more important than it Getting my fall planning done at the first of August, my health and my body were more important my family, gathering them into me and holding on to my babies was important. And it was hard for me that might sound really simple. But when you have as many things running as I do on a regular basis to drop it all, is a scary moment and to let control go and say I’m off the grid, I’m done for a few weeks. I’m not available. I’m not available to anyone but me. I’m not available to anyone but my family for right now. And that’s okay, there are those moments that you need to do that. So I would challenge you as you head into the fall, like I said, try not to take it all on what movie was it where they talked about how he was going to send her a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils, because it’s fall, and that just reminds her the fall? I think it was, you’ve got mail. I’m dating myself now. Um, but I remember that that line. And I always think of it when it comes to September, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. And as a former teacher, I can attest to that. But as we head into September we come up, it’s kind of like our you know, we suddenly have all these goals and ambitions and things that have to happen. So let’s take a breath, and choose those two to three things maybe, for September. And if taking care of yourself hasn’t been one of those things it has to be and it may not be going to the gym every day, it may not be you know,
I don’t know going
biking or running or something it may be it’s not just your fitness, a lot of us put that as our main priority. And I had to make a priority just simply to go sit on the beach, put my feet in the grass for 1520 minutes a day, it could be that simple, right. So choose what it is you can do. What is it you are in control of what is it you are able to accomplish easily. And when it flows with ease when you do it on a regular basis, it becomes easier, but take care of you.
That’s an automatic.
And then the other things that you want to make your goal those are going to happen to you’ll be able to do those at a at a higher level of accomplishment than if you weren’t taking care of you.
So I appreciate that I had time to take care of myself and my family and I am looking forward to moving ahead
with all
their plans for the rest of the year.
Having said that,
we’re going to talk with some amazing guests throughout September, all about women’s, like immediate health and we’re talking like right now health we need to deal with right now. And it will be things like we’ve got pelvic health that we’re going to deal with pelvic floor health. Yes, we’re talking about pelvic floor health. We’re gonna be talking about osteopathy and and women in specifically, and energy work and all that great stuff that comes with that I’ve talked about how that affects our body on a physical level. And we’re gonna be talking about how we can use you know, different things to to adjust our emotions, hormones, all those things, right that are happening in our body. So stay tuned, we’ve got some good stuff coming up. I promise you I am on it. Now.
I’ve had time to regroup. I’ve had time to get planning and we’re going to keep on going. And as always, if there’s a topic that you are really interested in and you’d like to hear an expert on or hear some conversation on you feel free to let me know in the comments in the feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for listening to my first solo episode. I am so grateful for you. And as always, don’t forget to share our podcast comment, save it Subscribe
all those fun things.