28. Why Your Birth Preparation Matters More Than You Think: Maria's Life-Changing Story

In this episode I'm joined by Maria Lilly, a Christian mom whose first birth experience completely transformed her life—leading her from a corporate accounting job to becoming a doula and Lamaze certified childbirth educator. Maria shares her powerful story of navigating a terrifying prenatal diagnosis, NICU stay, and ultimately discovering God's faithfulness in the most unexpected ways.

When Maria was told at 35 weeks that her baby was severely growth restricted with only a 25% chance of survival, all her carefully laid birth plans seemed to crumble. But through faith, preparation, and God's grace, she experienced a redemptive hospital birth that defied medical expectations—and later learned her daughter had Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a rare chromosomal condition.

Whether you're facing pregnancy complications, wrestling with fear about your birth, or simply need encouragement that God is present even in the hardest moments—Maria's testimony will remind you that He holds every detail of your story.

In this episode, we discuss: 

🌸 How thorough birth preparation served Maria even in a high-risk hospital induction 

💔 Processing the grief of an unexpected diagnosis while bonding with a NICU baby 

✝️ Finding comfort in Mary's story as a mother who also faced extraordinary challenges 

🙏 Why no birth experience is neutral and preparation matters more than you might think 

👶 How God used Josephine's diagnosis to birth Maria's calling to serve other mothers

Scripture Shared: 

"This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him." – John 9:3

Mentioned in this episode: 

📱 Primal Pregnancy App: Maria's comprehensive birth preparation tool with labor guides, weekly pregnancy tips, and pain-reducing recipes 

✨ Christian Mama Birth Prep Library - Free birth prep tools, worship playlists & more

✝️ Online Christian Childbirth Education - Explore my complete birth preparation self-paced course

💛 Work with Me 1:1 - Personalized pregnancy and birth support that integrates faith and evidence-based care, including virtual coaching, doula support, and comprehensive childbirth education

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a pregnant friend who needs hope.

Let's keep choosing faith over fear, one birth story at a time. Go here for the full blog post, show notes, and all resources mentioned!

Transcript

Natalie Portman: 0:45

Today, I'm so excited to introduce you to Maria Lilly. Maria is a Christian wife and mom whose first birth experience completely transformed her life. She was so moved by God's design for motherhood that she left her corporate job to become a doula and a Lamaze certified childbirth educator. Now she helps holistic minded women prepare for empowering birth experiences through her work and her primal pregnancy app. has such a powerful story about her daughter's scary diagnosis, but how God led their family through that difficult season, and I just can't wait for you to hear that experience to serve other moms. Maria, welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy you're here.

Maria Lilly: 1:28

Thank you for having me. I, I've been looking forward to this all week long. I've been on a few podcasts to tell this story, but never from a Christian perspective. And in my opinion, that is the most accurate and truthful perspective. So I, I, I'm really excited to be here.

Natalie Portman: 1:43

I love it. Well, speaking of your first birth experience, you said that that experience was, you know, difficult, but also left you in awe of God's design. Can you just paint us a picture of what that experience was like for you?

Maria Lilly: 1:57

Yeah. I'll just start from the beginning. So the pregnancy was an easy one. We got pregnant fairly quickly after our wedding. We were just over the moon. We were ready to have a family. I have seven brothers and sisters. Sam, my husband has four, so. We got together and we were just like, we wanna start a big family. Let's get going. And we got pregnant almost right away. Just over the moon about it. I was so excited to be a mom and I just had so many plans for motherhood and I mean, I, I was gonna teach her piano and I was gonna make her bilingual. I literally minored in Spanish and became bilingual in college that I could have bilingual kids. So I just, I was just over the moon to pass that on to somebody else. I was just so happy to be a parent. I had always wanted to be a mom. The one thing was that I was absolutely terrified of childbirth and I just wanted to skip forward to the motherhood part, and then just be a mom. But I did not want to go through childbirth, but at the same time, I really wanted to do it naturally, which didn't make any sense. But looking back now, I think that God put that desire in my heart because of. Everything that followed because of that desire to give birth naturally. So I was absolutely terrified. Still wanted to do it. And I was googling all of the things you shouldn't Google. You know what, whatever Reddit is posting all the terrible horror birth stories. And then a friend of mine lent me a natural birth book. It was the the Bradley book, husband coached childbirth, and I devoured every. Page. I read through that thing and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Childbirth can be like an empowering thing. It can be like an accomplishment, like really difficult. Sure. But you can feel good about it and have ultimately a positive experience. And it just opened the floodgates for me. And that book led to another book, which led to all the research articles in the world. And by the time. I was in my third trimester. I was ready to go. We ended up taking the Bradley course. I had so much information that I was like, okay, there's actually no way that I'm going to remember to use the LI four acupressure point in the early first stage of labor. But then when you get to active labor, you combine it with the SP six acupressure point. The human brain is not capable of. Doing something that intense and carrying all of this information and actually applying it effectively. So what I did was I wrote out in bullet point, format, all these things that we would be able to use and take into labor. So early first stage that had an index card of just boom, boom, boom. All the different things that we could do in the early first stage of labor to minimize pain, speed things up, keep everything progressing, and lower rates of interventions. I did that for. Every stage of labor transition, pushing all of it as well as pain management. I had a pain management card. I had a what to do if a cesarean section is needed. What to do if we need to speed things up, what to do if we need to start labor in the first place. So I was ready. I was. At the point where I was actually kind of excited to give birth, which I mean, who was excited to give birth, but I was, I was so ready to finally apply all of this information and, and do this thing, which at that point I was quite passionate about. So I was feeling good. I was feeling ready for everything except for this at my 35 week appointment, we. I went in to see the midwife and she said, your fundal height is measuring a little small. And she didn't have an ultrasound at the at the birth center. So she had me go and make an appointment at the ultrasound place And over the weekend, I was just catastrophizing. I was googling all the things like, what does a small fundal height mean? What does it mean to be, growth restricted. What, would that look like for a baby? And I learned all these terrifying things. Higher rates of NICU stays, higher rates of developmental delays of this, of that. And, and so I was staring down the barrel of this, but I told myself, okay, she just needs to be four pounds, which at 35 weeks, four pounds makes a cutoff of like, you're having a really small baby, but you're still healthy. Everything is still fine. So I get in there and I'm just hoping, I'm praying, we're praying all weekend long and. Midway through the ultrasound. I'm scared to ask the ultrasound tech anything for any updates.'cause I'm just, I'm just sitting there just like, okay, what, what's happening? What's happening? But my husband, he's with me and he asks, how's the baby measuring? Where's she at? And the ultrasound tech, she was completely silent the entire time. And she says, your baby's at around 27 weeks. So. Weeks behind in growth. And in that moment I was like, alright, that's it. All my plans out the window, something's wrong. Something is desperately, desperately wrong. This is not just you're having a small baby anymore. This is, something is wrong. I I, I knew at that point that a growth restricted baby would need a NICU stay. Staring down the barrel of developmental delays, all these issues, and there was absolutely no indication as to what caused it. What was the issue? She looked fine. Everything was fine. She was proportional, she was moving well, her heartbeat was good. The blood flow was all good. So they even asked me, are you sure you got your due dates right? I was like, yes. I'm pretty sure. I, I, I know that my due dates are correct. But we just, we had no answers and a lot of questions. So I, maybe I should have taken panic attacks more seriously. Up to this point, I had never experienced this before, but on the drive home, I stopped breathing or it felt like I couldn't breathe and I was like like hyperventilating. I didn't know what the time like, oh, that's what a panic attack is. But in the moment, I was like, why? Why can't I, why, why? I'm not breath. And then I knew that not being able to breathe was bad for the baby. So that just stressed me out more. I felt in that moment, like God was punishing me for anything, anything. And I, I asked him, why, why? Like, why are you doing this to me? I've been, I've, I've been a faithful Christian. I've tried my best. I read my Bible, I say my prayers. Why are you doing this to me? What I, I've. I've tried my best for you. So I felt like rejected, punished that I had done something to deserve this, and he was taking it out on my baby, which of course we, we know that that is not how our Lord operates, but in the moment, you have your doubt when you're, when you're under that that type of stress. My midwife. She transferred me outta the birth center.'cause obviously at that point I was too high risk and I saw a obstetrician who checked me out couldn't figure anything out, couldn't figure out what was going on. A maternal fetal medicine specialist, same thing. I ended up seeing multiple different specialists and they all said the same thing. Your baby needs to be born ASAP because it's looking like there's intrauterine growth restriction, which that's where something is wrong with the placenta usually. So the baby isn't getting the nutrients and the oxygen that they need, so their growth is restricted. And eventually if you don't get the baby out, they will starve to death or just their oxygen is cut off and they don't make it so. It's, it is a very true high risk situation, but weirdly enough, everything looked good. Like I mentioned, the heartbeat looked good. Blood flow looked good. Nothing was wrong with the placenta. She was just really, really small. So with the information that we had at the time, it looked like she needed to be born asap. However, she was doing really well inside the womb, no signs of distress, nothing. So I was able to advocate. I had learned enough self-advocacy tools to say, okay, let's. Let's not go straight to the C-section. Let's try for an induction and, and see how that goes. And they agreed after warning me that, look, this induction is going to take days. It's rarely effective when the baby is this small and you're gonna end up with a C-section anyways. And I was like, okay. I know, I know. I just wanna try. I this is just really important to me for all of these reasons, obviously. And and they agreed. So that was, that was good of them. The induction date was set. And I started to prepare, like my life depended on it. I drank all the teas, I did all the herbs and the oils and the chiropractor and the acupressure, and something worked. Something helped because I went in there and the obstetrician checked me and I had not had a single cervical check this entire time, this entire pregnancy, and my cervix was. It was ripe, it was ready to go, and it was already beginning to dilate. I didn't tell anyone this at the time because I was like, I don't wanna get in my head about it, but I was feeling light contractions and I, I'd never really felt a full contraction before. So I, I wasn't really sure if that was happening, and I didn't wanna get my hopes up. But no, I was feeling light, easy contractions and I'm 37 weeks at this point. So. This thing that wasn't supposed to work, going into labor this early, which almost never works. It was actually happening and my body was working with it. So we check in At the hospital and contractions were light. They were coming in, they were very gentle. They checked my cervix and it was, it was primed. It was ready to go. It was already starting to dilate. So something had worked, something had been effective. Still to this day I attribute it to all these different things, just to having the, the resources. They didn't need much Pitocin and looking back, I don't think they needed Pitocin at all. They started me at about. 10:00 PM and they, they warned me, look, okay, this is gonna take days. It's probably gonna be ineffective. You've gotta keep ramping it up and then you take it down and then you ramp it up again. Then it may work or it may would not work. They gave me two hits of Pitocin and my daughter was born in six hours. Something worked and I attribute that to just having the tools and during that labor It was not an easy labor. Now having given birth at home in a, a much more peaceful, calm setting, I know what an easy birth can be like. So laboring under the influence of Pitocin, that is so much more difficult. It is so hard on your body. The reason for this is because with a normal natural contraction, the oxytocin. Contracts the uterus, and then it the oxytocin rises so high that it also stimulates beta endorphins, which are the feel-good hormones that. Make you feel calm and make you feel good. It makes labor a positive experience. However, Pitocin, it simulates oxytocin. So it contracts your uterus, yes, but it doesn't have those feel good beta endorphins that come after it. So it's just the pain of labor without those positive feel good, happy hormone drugs that you get on the side. So it was. Really, really intense and I'm glad that I didn't know that at the time.'cause otherwise I don't know if I mentally could have done it. Something else I didn't know at the time was with Pitocin contractions, your uterus does not completely relax between each contraction. So during that last hour or so, I could not tell when one contraction started. The other one stopped. It was like one giant hour long contraction. And I was like, okay, I'm not sure. Am I like three centimeters now? Four? I don't know. Like I didn't know where I was at'cause I didn't, I didn't wanna play that mental game of checking and, and being disappointed if you're not too far along. But eventually I got to a point where I was like, okay, I just need the information. I need to know where I'm at so that we can make a game plan. And the the OB came in. She checked me, I was at nine and a half and I and this entire time I was still thinking, any minute they're gonna come in and say, Hey, your baby's in distress. We need to go for the C-section. So minutes after she checked me, I got to 10, my water broke and. I didn't know I was pushing yet. I felt this strong urge to bear down and I was like, wait a minute. What, what is that? What, what's happening? I was like, wait a minute. That's the urge to push. Oh my gosh. I read about this and at that point I was like, oh my gosh, I'm actually going to have the birth that I wanted to have. I had been waiting for them to come in and tell me I needed a C-section. I'm actually doing it. So I was just. Over the moon. And I mean, of course, that gave me that impetus to be like, all right, let's do this. I've got, I'm just gonna push this baby out. And she was born within 15 minutes of pushing. And to this day, I'm still just ecstatic because she, well, we'll get to this, but she had only a 25% chance of survival and. I think that having the birth that she had, it was gentle. It was natural. We used God's given tools, just natural things that he, he's provided to us through his creation, and I think that that is a huge reason why she's doing as well as she is today. She was not supposed to have a good birth. She was not supposed to have 37 weeks in the womb. And yet by using the tools that God has given to us. She did. She did, and she's, she's, I think that she has benefited throughout her entire life.

Natalie Portman: 15:06

Oh, that is, that is so powerful. Maria. Like to go into what seemed like a very straight. Forward pregnancy and then to just that news just crash down on you guys at the very, very last, you know,

Maria Lilly: 15:23

With.

Natalie Portman: 15:23

to then have to refocus all of your plans and your strategies and all the things that you had prepared for that the Lord had given you that, that passion, that wisdom, that knowledge to do and then to still. Even apply that to your high risk hospital birth. so beautiful. Like it really does just show the Lord's faithfulness in your story and. And again, like you're saying, like just when we have those tools, like I say it all the time, like I think having that doula support, having that, that preparation ahead of time, which I know that's like a big thing for you and which we'll go way more into that in a minute. But just that preparation. Goes such a long way in just building up that toolbox for you to be able to utilize things, it's usually the right thing at the right time. Because that's what wisdom is, like knowing what to do and when and, and that's just so beautiful to see how the Lord was using all that knowledge to just guide you in wisdom. To be able to, to supply her with the most helpful birth experience, both for you and for her. And, and it's beautiful. Just so, so beautiful to just see that faithfulness. I, I knew that there were obviously complications, but I, I didn't realize the extent of her, her, you know, growth restriction and, and all of that, so, wow. What a powerful testimony that the Lord gave you for that first birth experience.

Maria Lilly: 16:53

she's incredible and all of it just, it goes to show me. Still to this day that in no way would, would our Lord have punished me and, and or, or hurt her. And yeah, he gave us something difficult, a very difficult circumstance, but he did it in the kindest way possible. He was holding our hand the entire time.

Natalie Portman: 17:15

And, and I, I love that you're also bringing that up because I think we all can go so easily to that mentality when things go really awry in our lives. That we assume that it's a punishment, that we assume it's a reflection on something we did. Sometimes we do have consequences for our, our actions and our sins and our choices. Absolutely. But sometimes. There is just brokenness. Like when Adam and Eve ate that fruit, macro to micro was fractured. Cells don't do what they're supposed to do. Weather systems don't do what they're supposed to do. And, and it's, it's just a result of the fall and it is not something that the Lord is like, I'm gonna get back at you. By having this horrible thing come into your life, especially when it comes to our children. I feel like when we get to that place where we can believe that we really need to be like, wait, I'm gonna take this thought captive'cause I'm gonna give it to Jesus. I'm gonna say, Jesus, is this coming from you? Is this coming from the enemies? Is this coming from me? Like, I need to know where this voice is coming from. But yeah, just so powerful that even, you know, amidst a panic attack that you were experiencing previously, like getting that news to coming out on the other side of it being like. there's no way that was you punishing me. There's no way. That's not who you are. That's not your character. And, and even if we walk through really, really difficult pregnancies, births, postpartum, just motherhood in general, it is not a reflection that there's something we've done wrong, that we're being punished for. It. Sin was a consequence and. God didn't curse Adam and Eve, he cursed the ground, our work would become harder. That he like the work that he gave us. Good work, like, know, growing our children, giving birth to our children, all of that. That's work. But it's now thorny. And it's hard and days it feels fruitless. And that is just, that's the fall. That's not God punishing us. He didn't curse us. He cursed the serpent, he cursed the ground. And so I feel like that's a, that's like a heart distinction. That's like really, really helpful to have. So now I'd like to shift gears a little bit here and I would love for you to just tell me a little bit about how you help moms find peace, even when their birth story takes an unexpected turn. Obviously, you have been through this now personally, so you get to speak not only from professional, knowledge and experience, but just even personally, which is huge.

Maria Lilly: 19:51

Yeah. So aside from practical help, if there's something that I can actually physically, literally help with, obviously that's the first route to take. But if. Everything has been tried and the your birth story does truly take an unexpected turn. I think that the most important thing from someone who's been there is letting the mom know that she's not alone. Back to my story. We were so happy that our baby. Josephine was born. We slowly bonded with her in the nicu and I think that it's important to talk about this, but I did not have a very strong bond with her at first. Because of the Pitocin. It reduces your oxytocin, which is the bonding hormone. And then and also she was taken away from me at birth for obvious reasons. And just, just having those two combined, it was really, really hard to form that connection with her. And of course, we formed it over time, slowly but surely with a lot of skin to skin. And we just, we just fell in love with our daughter over the next week or so. But we were still wondering why, what had what had happened. Was it, was it something we did? Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that Mexican food in the first trimester. You know, we were just racking our brains as to what could have possibly caused this. I mean, she, and she was doing well, you know, she was proportional, she was sweet, she was, you know, just three pounds at birth, but she was doing well under the circumstances. And then at 12 days in the nicu, the. Geneticists came by and with a 15 minute conversation changed our entire lives. They told us that our daughter had a rare chromosomal abnormality called Wolf Hirschhorn syndrome, where she is missing part of her fourth chromosome. And it is so rare that even the professionals who study this stuff for a living, most of them have never seen a case like hers just because. I don't know the exact numbers, but it's like one in 50,000 or I think one in 50,000 pregnancies and then like one in a hundred thousand live births. And the fact that she made it to full term under those circumstances is almost unheard of. A lot of these babies don't make it. Many of them are miscarried, which is why she only had about a 25% chance of survival. And we were also told during that conversation that we had a 33% chance of losing her before she turned two. There was a chance that she would never walk a chance that she would never feed herself a chance, that she would never speak open heart surgery liver failure, I mean, all of these things. She could have all of it. She could have some of it. She could have none, none of it. There are so few cases like hers that they don't really know, so. Of course, they just, they gave us all of the information and so we were staring down the barrel of, we don't know what's going on, what, obviously we ha we were given this daughter who we love, but the life that we expected to have is. It's not available to us anymore. And there was a very real loss that we went through at that time. And of course we were overjoyed to have our little girl. She was still the little girl that we loved. But the motherhood experience, the parenting experience that we were looking forward to. That was gone and we had to say goodbye. And I, I felt alone, Sam and I felt alone. And and this is also hard to admit'cause Sam and I, we, we love each other and we have a beautiful marriage, but we, we processed it very differently. So it took some time to come together after that and process it together. If that makes any sense. And I was, I was in the NICU a few days after all of this and, and I was just asking, God, why, why didn't I get the motherhood experience that everybody else gets? I couldn't bring my new baby home and show her off to the, the, the overjoyed grandparents. You know, when, when my baby was born, no one said, congratulations. We're so happy for you. Everyone was like, are you okay? How's everything you know? I didn't get that, that proud, happy moment. The skin to skin. Why didn't I get all of this? And Natalie, I felt the words, neither did my mother. And in that moment, I, I thought about it. And Mary, after having our Lord, she was forced away from her family. She had to flee into Egypt. She was woken up in the middle of the night by, by her husband Joseph, and said, we're, we're, we're going. They're trying to kill our son. She said, what, what, what's going on? And she didn't even have time to pack a toothbrush. And she has to get up. She has to leave her family and her friends. She has no support system. The distance she traveled on foot with a baby was 12. Hundred miles. She was in a foreign land. She had no idea how long she would be there or if she would ever see her family and her friends again, talk about postpartum depression. And here I was complaining while holding my baby while having a support system all around me. And this was not an afterthought. Christ loved his mother. There's that beautiful scene at the foot of the cross where he's. He's got minutes left. He's crucified. He's, you know, gasping for air. Mary and John of the cross are below at his feet, you know, praying at, at this hideous yet beautiful scene. And he says to the two of them, woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. So. In that moment, he's essentially saying, Hey, take care of my mom. For me, she was not an afterthought. He clearly loved her, and yet he let all of these horrible things happen to her. She is literally watching her child be tortured and crucified, and yet in that moment he's thinking, I want you to be taken care of and. I'm gonna try to keep it together. He, in that moment, I was like, even as I'm going through all of this, I feel the same like you are taking care of me. So, back to your question. Aside from practical help to offer mothers who are in need of it during a a, an unexpected turn in their birth experience, the most important thing that can be offered is support. No one. No one understands sometimes, especially when your birth experience is, it's just so far from what is normal. No one can understand, but people can still be there. Sometimes it's as simple as dropping off a meal or, or sending a text. I appreciate every single person who sent a card or, or a text or whatever the case may be. And sometimes I didn't even always have the bandwidth to say thank you. But the appreciation was there and it was, it was felt, and it was, it, it really made the experience. My faith in humanity was restored through all of this. And people were so kind. I mean, people came crawling out of the woodwork. People I'd never even spoken to, like friends of friends would hear about what we were going through and, and send a card to us. I mean, it was, it was really, it was really something. So support is, is, it really goes a long way.

Natalie Portman: 27:05

that we were not meant to do this alone. And I think especially when we are navigating, like you're describing a very difficult pregnancy, birth, postpartum nicu, like you're saying, grieving the. The motherhood journey that you had envisioned. And, as you were speaking immediately, what brought to mind was Hebrews four 15, and it reads for, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. He was. Acquainted with our grief. So that's Isaiah 53, three. and it says he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. And so you drawing out that. Very powerful picture of Mary, not only in the postpartum time, literally fleeing for her in her child's life from, People already at that point wanting to destroy him, her, her precious, perfect son. Like we say, our kids are perfect all the time. Jesus was actually perfect. And, we think back to the cross and like you're saying. Even Jesus as he's being crucified, as of course he's, he's bearing the weight of sin But he's, he's thinking about his mama and just so beautiful that, that's the Lord's heart for us. That he, he thinks about the, the mothers and he is not, throwing hardship our way because it's fun, because it's a way to punish us because it's just chaotic and he can't control it. There is such calculation in the hardships that he allows to send our way because he is working all things for our good and his glory, and we can assured that even suffering is not a sign that he has abandoned us. Or that he's disappointed in us or that we did something wrong, that he's inviting us to come alongside him because he was a man acquainted with grief full of sorrows. The son of God who literally lived in heaven, came down to earth. I would say that was a step down in every possible way, and yet he would, he would do it. He would do it for us because we were worth it, just like our babies. As difficult as our pregnancy, our birth, our postpartum, all that can be like, we get to look at them and say, you were worth it. And maybe not immediately. Maybe. Maybe it takes some time and you're like, that was just so much like I, I don't even think that was worth it. You know? You might be feeling that, eventually the Lord in his goodness will reveal to us like. The, goodness of that suffering and what it brings us through. So I, I just love that you, you've just been given such, like I said, like a unique testimony in that way to be able to. Impart that support that you're not alone. Like, I feel like that's huge, that you're not alone when you're going through a difficult time, especially in this season where there's a lot of expectation and it's supposed to be a joyful moment, but for many, many moms and many, many families, it is not. It is, it is nothing but heartache. And, and how do you reconcile that? You know, how do, how do you. Put that in the context of your, your life and your faith in God. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Maria. so In, in practical ways, You teach childbirth education, So tell us a little bit about that, but can you also tell a little bit about your Primal Pregnancy app and just ways that even, you know, practically you are supporting and preparing families. For this, this season of giving birth, pregnancy, and postpartum.

Maria Lilly: 31:01

Yeah. So after leaving the nicu, I joined the moms groups and we have such a beautiful church community here in Colonial Beach. And I encountered many women here and then just in the surrounding area who had horrible birth experiences without any of these challenges. And I would ask'em, well, did you try Clary age and acupressure and horse lips and this and that? And they said, no. What is that? And that's when I realized. Women either don't have the time to do the research or they're getting conflicting information from this, that, and the other location. And that lit a fire in me to get this holistic God-given information about natural tools that can, help women while not resorting immediately to medication into the hands of mothers who need it. So I. I left my job. There were a lot of reasons I left my job, but this is another one of them, I became a childbirth educator. I took those index cards that I used in my own labor with the early first stage of labor and active labor in transition. And I took all those little bullet points and I turned it into the Primal Pregnancy app, which takes you through childbirth, pregnancy a little bit of postpartum, and it does a lot more than just childbirth now. So the labor guide, which I kind of alluded to with the index cards, it'll take you through each stage of labor. So starting with the early first stage research shows that some. Coping tools and some progression tools are more effective at some stages of labor than other stages. So the Labor guide is designed with that in mind, so it will show which tool is most effective at each stage of labor. And then. How to recognize what stage you're in, what your birth partner can do, and then it takes you right through until the golden hour. So everything is designed to help you cope with labor naturally and then keep labor progressing and then as well as as minimize interventions if your birth does call for that. It also has a week by week pregnancy guide that prepares you for childbirth. So what week of pregnancy are you in? Remind me.

Natalie Portman: 33:08

be 21 weeks tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow's

Maria Lilly: 33:11

almost past halfway through. That's exciting. So in the app, you would put, you would plug in 21 weeks and it would show you at week 21. This is the most effective thing you can do to prepare your body and your brain for natural childbirth. This is what your baby needs for the developmental stage that they're at. And then this is what. You also need to maintain a healthy, low risk pregnancy at week 21. So it takes you week, by week by week through your entire pregnancy up until the very end so that you can stay low risk, have a healthy baby, prepare for a natural birth, and and minimize interventions if that, if that really is what is called for. It also has a recipe section, and I am such a foodie, so I love this. I still reference these recipes on a pretty much weekly basis, if not daily. There is a budding field of research that that is all about minimizing pain using food like magnesium and calcium, for example. They lower pain perception in the brain. So I take that information and I apply it to all the recipes and. They're designed to help you actually reduce pain and childbirth, and they are effective. I don't wanna brag. They're super tasty and they are effective. I used these in my own second pregnancy, and I had a nearly painless childbirth experience. So I, I mean, I'm an N of one, but hey, something worked. And I just wanna say. The fact that I have zero app building experience, I have no coding experience. I was an accountant. I don't know how to do this stuff, and I still got this going. That's not because, oh, I'm just this, this tech genius. No, I can't, I, I don't know how the TV works. The fact that this still got going is a testament to what I believe is the fact that God wants this in the hands of mothers and babies who need it. I pray every single day for all of my app users that. They have the pregnancy and birth experiences that, that they deserve, that God wants them to have. And that prayer has been answered. I've seen some beautiful stories. I've seen moms have a home birth when they didn't think that they could have. Vaginal birth at all. I, I saw one mom go into labor naturally when she, when she thought that she would have to just have, be induced every single pregnancy. A mom reached out to me and she told me, Maria, you changed my marriage. And I was like, alright. I mean, thank you for the compliment. I know that I didn't change your marriage. I know that that's just the power of a positive birth experience. What was going on with her was she had a. Traumatic preterm birth with her older child, and it had placed strain on her marriage. Just the stress with everything. So going into this birth she just wanted a redemptive experience and using these tools that God has given us through nature. She was able to have a powerful bonding, redeeming experience, and her marriage benefited as a result. It really brought them closer together, and it's just a, a testimony to God's, God's graciousness and his design for birth. I mean, he, that's, that's what he wants. He wants childbirth to be. Not just get baby out of womb and into the world. It's, it's designed to be a beautiful life-changing event that is impactful for the baby, the mother, the husband. The whole family is benefited when a birth goes well and none of it could ha could have happened without Josephine's diagnosis. And that's just another reason why I know God had us taken care of the entire time. I still would've. Stayed in my corporate accounting job that I absolutely hated, and I would've been doing that until I died. But, but here I am, and all of these moms have beautiful stories as a result of, of a situation that they had nothing to do with. And yet years later, women and babies and families are benefiting from, from that experience that we had a few years ago.

Natalie Portman: 37:11

just so powerful and, and yes, I completely agree. I think that when the Lord put some. Thing on your heart to share. will make it come through and there might be difficulties, there might be challenges to get that out out there, but the Lord is so faithful to. To provide.'cause that's who he is. He's a provider. And so I love that the Lord has given you the passion, the knowledge, and just the means to be able to get this information into the hands of, of, I mean literally like it's in the palm of your hand and on an app Just all of this information that Yes is, is wisdom and just. So beautiful for just fostering a healthy, pregnancy and birth. I'm so,, so thankful that you said yes to that. I'll put the link in the show notes for that, primal Pregnancy app for all of you mamas to download., A lot of it you give away for free. And then there's a paid version, correct? Yeah, I would go for the paid version I have the app myself. Such a plethora of, of knowledge and like I learn stuff on there too.'cause I don't know everything there is to possibly know about pregnancy and birth. We're always learning these things. So thank you so much for doing. So I wanted you to touch on a scripture or truth about God that has been an anchor for you in this challenging season of motherhood. Obviously, like you've kind of have already touched on the fact that you had a very beautiful home birth experience that was very different from Josephine's. But what was, you know, what's a, a scripture or a truth that the Lord has given you to, to get you through all this?

Maria Lilly: 38:50

Yeah. So John, chapter nine, verse three, he's going with his followers through the town and they, they come across. A blind man who he'd been blind since birth, and they're asking him, well, what'd he do? What did he do to de deserve this? Did he sin? Did his parents sin? Why is he cursed this way? And he tells them this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. And. Obviously I relate that back to Josephine. The world sees her, sees her life as, as a mistake, as a burden. Everyone says, I'm so sorry. I get that all the time. And these people mean well. So I mean, no shade to them. But I hear that all the time. I'm so sorry that this happened to you, but God sees her as. Perfect. We all fall short of the glory of God. We all sin, but Josephine she's innocent, she is pure, and the world doesn't see it that way, but God sees her as his perfect, precious child. So loving her, taking care of her. It gives us the opportunity to love as. God loves, and that's just, I, I get to be reminded of that every day. Just how, how he loves us, despite our imperfections and our sin, and all the ugly things about human nature. He loves us. Just as I get to love Josephine or other way around, I get to love Josephine the way he loves us.

Natalie Portman: 40:17

I think motherhood can be seen by some as like, oh, but what about your career? What about your aspirations? Like, didn't you wanna travel? Didn't you wanna have experiences in the world? And, and when you think of motherhood and the sacrifices you make, not as I have to make these, but I get to make these for the least of these. Like, I get to serve the least of these. That is our children, you know, they, they show us the rawest, most crazy versions, most sinful versions of, you know, ourselves and. Yet, you know, changing a poopy diaper, you know, making lunch with kids, screaming in your ear, like all those things, like that's a, that is a gift. saying that it's easy. Again, going back to the thorns and thistles of motherhood and just the struggle that we will have in our work, the work that's worth doing, that it is worth doing because that's the way God loves us. Absolutely. It's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. So we'll end with this question. What is one thing you wish every pregnant mom knew about preparing for birth?'cause I know this is your, your big thing.

Maria Lilly: 41:29

Yeah. Take it seriously. Nobody has a neutral birth experience. No one gives birth. And you ask them two years later and they're like, yeah. It was just kind of like any other day, you know, just kind of forgot about it. I don't really remember. Maybe we this happened or that. No, everyone remembers it will make or break your parenting experience one way or another. So take the preparation seriously. I mean, like I mentioned before. It's designed to make a powerful positive impact on your family. And a lot of women just wanna speed it up and say, I just wanna get to the motherhood part. I was one of those women. Don't skip past this. Look at the design. There is a period of waiting, of anticipation and preparation, and then there's that big challenge of childbirth and then the postpartum where we, piece it all back together and we, figure out who we are as a family. This is all part of the design. Prepare for it. Like it's important because it is, it's one of the most important days of your life.

Natalie Portman: 42:26

Yes, I almost kind of relate it to, it's like your wedding day. You know, like it's this big important day, it's also not the end of the story. know, and so it's like you, you wanna have the, all that preparation, but it's like preparing for your marriage as well. You want to prepare through the pregnancy, through that postpartum time and just like the whole motherhood journey, you know, just like you'd prepare for your marriage. But, but absolutely it is a very, very important day that if you are neutral in your preparation, just usually doesn't go the way you would want it. Because it is such an intense experience and especially like navigating it in the world that we live in, where most of the time women are giving birth in hospitals and, you know, just the lingo and the terms and the all the things like it is so empowering to have that knowledge base to be able to operate in wisdom. As you're making choices and decisions through your whole entire experience, that's from the moment you are wanting to have a baby to the rest of that baby's life. It's full spectrum But yes. Thank you so, so much for just imparting your, wisdom and sharing your story and your heart. I am just so thankful for you and just the ways that this is going to. encourage even challenge some mamas. So thank you so much, Maria.

Maria Lilly: 43:54

Thank you for having me. This is a lot of fun.