I decided to host a podcast when I was 7 months pregnant with my second child in 2018. I gestated the show’s concept and my audio editing skills while I finished growing my son in my belly. In early 2019, I spent all postpartum freetime writing episode outlines and re-recording my first episode so many times that I no longer hated the sound of my voice, but was rather numb to it. I launched my podcast on February 4th, 2020. I was full of hope and naivete as I hit publish on the first three episodes of my shiny new show. During the Dark Ages of March 2020 I had released my entire backlog of episodes without creating weekly new shows as I had originally planned. Instead, I spent all my energy hoarding toilet paper, working my day job while simultaneously wrangling my two toddlers and managing my feelings about suddenly being in the same space as my husband for 37 hours a day. 

The sun was setting as I soaked in the tub. In the water, I vacillated between floating in pain and denial. Every eight minutes or so my belly would tighten and the pain began again emanating from my torso. I would inhale and begin to count to four, pause, then exhale while counting to five, pause. I repeated this until the pain peaked and retreated, my belly softening with the tide.