Preparing for the Unpreparable

When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah, did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop Podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers. Here to start conversations, because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. Welcome to the Goop Podcast. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow, and today I'm joined by someone who has changed the way women talk about some of the most intense transitions of their lives. Pregnancy, birth, postpartum, fertility, and the in-between moments no one warns you about. We talk about what it means to prepare for the unpreparable, from how motherhood can dismantle your need for control and shatter the illusion of being ready, to the curse of competency, the grief that can coexist with gratitude, and why women deserve better information, support, and products at every stage, from fertility to the fourth trimester and beyond. Founder and CEO of Frida, one of the most influential brands in modern parenting and women's health. Smart, unfiltered, and deeply empathetic, Chelsea Hirshhorn. Chelsea, it's so nice to meet you. Likewise. I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this conversation for so long. Me too, as have I. Your business is so fascinating and amazing, and you should be so proud of what you've built. My God. I never really, you know, I'm sure you feel the same. I never really reflect back in that way, but it never hurts to hear. So thank you. And I, and I feel, I feel like there's a lot of parallels, honestly, in all the amazing work that you guys do too. So I'm, I've been very excited. Right now you're, you really are in the thick of it, right? As I like, as I review first grade teacher emails while I'm waiting. Yes. The very much the thick of at all. Isn't that such an interesting intersection, like with the first grade, you know, teacher, parent conference, and you're, you know, growing the business and, and, and doing all of the operating at the same time? Like, how, how are you managing through that? Like any mother, working mother, I should say, I don't think you really ever manage it all equally. I mean, I'm an expert compartmentalizer. I'm reading Barry Diller's book right now, actually. Oh, it's so good. I read it. Oh my God, I can't put it down. I'm like, Eric, you're on bedtime for the next two weeks until I finish this book. I started reading it over December break, and I get into bed at like 8.30, and I'm like, leave me alone, children. I need to finish. But anyway, he talks a lot about compartmentalization, and I really see a lot of myself in that. And I think, you know, some people call it avoidance. I think of it sometimes as a superpower, but, you know, coupled with this idea that I think the pendulum swings at different phases of life into different chapters, you know what I mean? And I've been building this business now for over a decade. In the beginning, it was not a lot of teacher emails. It was a lot of missed Mother's Day shows. For whatever reason, they always happen at the same time as our Target and Walmart line reviews. But, you know, a decade in, I feel that the pendulum has swung. You know, I have a big team now. I have resources that I didn't necessarily have when we were first starting out. And I'm sure you feel the same. You know, it's different. Unlike a book, the page flip into a new chapter is not as clean, right? So I still find myself kind of dancing between, but I've helped work through that by kind of figuring out what my priority is at the moment. And if it was starting the business, it was starting the business. And I kind of had to relegate certain other aspects of my identity to kind of fall in line. And there was a lot of guilt wrapped up in that over the years, but not anymore. I've worked through that. I'm sure you feel the same. Yeah, I mean, I guess, how do you, how are you or how were you kind to yourself during those moments where you felt like, I'm choosing my business today over being at a soccer game? I think for me, getting comfortable identifying the chapter that I was in very early on and dealing with the trade-offs and the ramifications that came with it was the best resource that I ever armed myself with, honestly. And it was, there were a lot of trade-offs, right? There were fading friendships. There were, you know, missed games. I had to kind of tune out the noise. I think there wasn't as much judgment as there was in my head. You know, if I was thinking about a moment in time where I felt judged or less than, I think it was more a construct of my own guilt than anything else. And now, you know, looking back, I feel very vindicated in some of the trade-offs that I made, honestly. Because I built Frida at a time when I'm still very much building. But I started it at a time when my children's needs were very fundamental. You know, or at least that's what I told myself. Sort of as a tool, right? You know, it didn't necessarily matter who was putting the bottle in their mouth. It didn't necessarily matter maybe who was putting them down in the crib for a nap. I felt more comfortable delegating those tasks, which got me comfortable prioritizing work at the time. And, you know, as you know, probably even more than I do, now navigating middle school and to the emotional parenthood, the needs are not as fundamental. They're much more heady and dynamic. And I don't feel that those types of experiences are, they cannot, there is no one you can hire to handle and work through feeling left out or figuring out, you know, how to juggle a school trip with a water polo tournament, whatever it is, like working through those things, it's just not delegatable, you know, and there are some tools that I've honed along the way for how to work through when you can't delegate something or, you know, when you can't extend sort of timelines that help you work through that. But I don't, you know, I look at some of my friends who are building businesses at this stage of parenthood. And I don't envy them. And I genuinely don't think I would have been as successful were I starting now, because I think it would have been harder for me to define what chapter to prioritize. You know, it was really a lot easier to delegate back then. Yeah. So let's, I have more to say on that, but I know, but I just want to frame it. frame the conversation around what you have actually built and what you're building and ground the audience if they don't know, which I'm sure most people do about Frida and, you know, just a little bit about the founder story. And I also want to ask you about, you know, of course you have your, your fertility, then your baby, then your mom care, you know? And so I want to ask you also about like roadmaps into teen or if you're staying, you know, with baby because it's so interesting like as mother founders like our stage of life I think is so critical to for informing you know it's like a goop now now you know we're talking about menopause all the time you you know that's where I am so will you tell me a little bit about how your founder story why you left law a career in law to start Frida and what problem you were solving at the time for yourself and then for your customers. Yes. I love that you start there. And I really, I really didn't mean it when I say I want to thank you because not as many women are equally as committed to really lifting the veil and having the hard conversations. And I think some of the hardest moments in life that we have solved for, you know, whether it's childbirth, conception, support, miscarriage, you know, and all the other major life transitions. They're not hard because they're painful, although some of them are physically painful. I think they're hard because we don't have the language or the permission or the tools in some cases for the in-between moments. You know what I mean? And so that's really where Frida steps in. But as far as why I left a career that was a very straight path to all the things that I wanted, I definitely was not born for this. I was actually fairly risk-averse growing up. I still consider myself risk-averse, although some people looking out may think that that's odd. You know, I was raised by a mom who gave up her career very early to support my father's professional aspirations. And so she wasn't necessarily financially contributing. She used competency as her currency in our family. And despite that, for whatever reason, financial independence for my sister and I was a non-negotiable. Like I was working when I was 14, literally walked to the candy store in my town after middle school, three days a week from three to five. Right. And that's kind of the sandbox of professional ambition that I grew up in. My dad started his own practice. He was a dermatologist. She helped him run the business. And so when I graduated college, the most, I wasn't going to be a doctor. I left that for my sister. She ended up becoming a dermatologist. I wasn't good at that stuff. But the most traditional outcome that I could control in the form of sort of a graduate school next step felt like law school. Went through law school. I met my husband and worked in a white shoe law firm as one does or aspires to when they graduate. And then the first sort of deviation out of that traditional path was when we moved to Miami and we moved for an opportunity that Eric had. And I ultimately took a role down here as in-house counsel for the Miami Marlins. I had worked for the Mets while I was in New York for a little bit during law school. And I had sort of burnt out of some of the more corporate law firm type of work that I was doing in New York. So I was really excited to try something new, but still like very clear path ahead. You know, there was not a lot of uncertainty, not a lot of variability in the outcomes. And they asked me once I got there to help build out their non-baseball revenue work stream. And what that meant was sort of all of the revenue that was coming into the organization and the team outside of the 82 days a year that they played baseball. It was a brand new facility. I was super excited. It was like the first time I had dipped my toe in the entrepreneurial waters, but with this big organization as my backstop, right? So I could always still clearly see what was ahead. Then I got pregnant. And motherhood was the first time, honestly, where my obsession with controlling for all the outcomes completely collapsed, right? Like there was no amount of perfectionism that could manifest a perfect outcome at two in the morning, diaper blowout. It just was not, it was not fitting into the box, square peg round hole. and I was a preparer, right? Like I read every book, I bought every product that you should buy. And for whatever reason, I still felt very ill-equipped to navigate whatever the task at hand was. And it was around that same time, 2012, 2013, where social media, particularly Instagram, was rising and it was this curated, very aspirational, picture-perfect parenthood that I was being served. And it was very distinct from my reality, right? Like I was not as much as I wanted to be walking down Madison Avenue with my like perfect pram and the cashmere onesie, you know, cheersing my BFF with a perfect matcha latte. It's just, I didn't understand the disparity. And, you know, my reality was two in the morning feedings, pumping, sleeping husband, where was that version? And that, that gap between that version of parenthood and the reality that I was experiencing made me feel like a total failure. And I think looking back, that was the predicate of, you know, Frida's earliest brand identity. You know, we were the sort of like, you know, radical honesty, which like the tone of how you speak, you know, on the website, it's so refreshing. It's like the, it's, it's just, it just kind of, I love that sort of anti Instagram, you know, hardcore raw reality. Yeah. And I think that we've made a lot of progress over the last decade. And I think some of that version of those stories are starting to be told you know with a lot of credit to the work that you do And I think some of the work that we done in breaking down those barriers and demanding authenticity. But I wasn't always a truth teller. Like I was much more of a people pleaser, right? Like it wasn't until motherhood that I really kind of expected more. and the gloss over everything felt very inefficient. You know what I mean? And my neighbor at the time left our flagship product in my mailbox. She was selling it out of her garage. And I kind of like, you know, threw it in the back of my nursery drawer. Which was what? It was the nose Frida, the snot sucker. Right. The original Hero product off of which, you know, the entire brand and business has been built. And, you know, fast forward the first few months of motherhood, he got sick for the first time. The hospital bulb syringe that they send you home with never worked. And I used it. For whatever reason, I found it. I, you know, dug it out of the drawer. And it was my first, why didn't anyone tell me this moment of parenthood, right? Like, where was this in what to expect when you're expecting, right? I read the whole book, you know, to even, you know, scratching my head when I got to the chapter on packing your hospital bag and they say, pack a sandwich for your birth coach. I'm like, that feels odd, but OK, let's move on. Right. But I think motherhood, what it does is it really like forces you to find efficiency in everything. And that, you know, this tool, for whatever reason, was the light bulb moment for me. right? Like I was very frustrated with the current solutions that were available to me in this category. It was across the board. And this was before the feminine care postpartum line. This was really core baby care. I was really. And so your neighbor had made this product or? No, she was distributing it. She was this lovely Swedish woman. Her pediatrician had recommended it to her in Sweden. It was invented in Sweden by an ENT there, a pediatric ENT. And, you know, her kids were teenagers at the time and she wasn't really interested in scaling the business beyond. She had earned a tremendous amount of momentum around this single product. It looked pretty different than how parents know it today, more medically marketed, but had sold it to pediatrician's offices and was starting to get some notoriety. And it was at the same time where my career in sports, the path was becoming a little bit more murky. It became a little bit of a boys club. I wanted to start to own more of the revenue generating initiatives, but people were getting very political and carving it out. I wasn't qualified to be the president of the team. And I started to move up the ladder, but I was not breaking through the glass ceiling. And that's where the path kind of ended. And I started to be tempted by this idea of maybe staying home. I had just had a baby. But then this, you know, fierce financial independence side of me that had been beaten into me when I was young was like on the other shoulder. So did you acquire the product or acquire a license for it? So I actually started out by working for her to help her scale the business. And, you know, eventually really wanted to double down the growth, saw a tremendous amount of momentum in the brand I was building in the community. We were galvanizing around more authentic storytelling in parenthood. And they weren't necessarily as interested in investing for scale as I was, which ended up being a great lesson in hindsight. I never really talk about this, but I really learned how to build a business on a shoestring budget. They wanted to use the growth that the business was generating for other investments and other initiatives. And I said, would you be interested in signing the business to me? At that time, it was one product just starting with a second. And so bought the business basically on a paper napkin in her living room, moved out of the garage. And what was the top line of that business at the time? We were doing probably about a million, $2 million. I mean, now hundreds of millions later, it's, it's, it's incredulous to me, honestly. On that one product? One product. Wow. Amazing. We had two, we had two at the time we had started to promote the same pediatric group had, had developed the windy, which is a little tube that you stick up the baby's tush to relieve gas instantly. But again, like really anchored in building efficiency into parenthood, right? Like before that product arrived, it was gripe water, you know, and it was a hope and a prayer that it works. And the nose freedom, the windy and all these early products that we had started to launch were built around instant relief, instant results. And as parents, like there's just no more heroic moment when you can see that result materializing. And so, you know, had worked with her for a few years and eventually bought the business. And so many ways, the Frida brand is still predicated on that neighborly like word of mom is what we call it. Be the best friend that no one has. And she was that for me, honestly. She knew I would need it at some point. So you, you, you, you find this neighbor relevant product for your stage of life, you end up acquiring it and it becomes like the foundational product that Frida then comes out of. So tell me for the next phase, was it, were you really focused on those two products or when did you realize that there was a whole suite of products missing that you would go back to pre natal that you would, you know, focus on fertility? Like, when did that idea start to form? So was really heads down growing the baby care business after we'd bought the first two products and was kind of mapping the innovation plan to the experiences that I was having as a mom on the front lines. Brushing my oldest son's teeth was as hard as brushing my dog's teeth. Like, you know, I had to jam his jaw open and get in there as quick as possible. And so I was really like tackling these one by one, giving him medicine. I mean, the pediatrician sent me home with a syringe. I put it in. It took three people. First of all, one was holding his arms down. One was jabbing the medicine into the corner of his cheek. And I still ended up covered in pink. And so as a new mom, like the anxiety was suffocating. And so I would start to tackle these one by one. And then I gave birth to my second son. And at that point, I thought I had most of it figured out, you know, the second time around, you kind of know what to expect. But I vividly remember waking up in the middle of the night. I want to say it was like three or four days after I had been released from the hospital and home with him. It was a totally normal labor and delivery. I had prepared perfectly. My hospital bag was packed and I woke up in the middle of the night. I went to the bathroom just to pee. And I mean, this is going to be gross, but it's goop. So, you know, here we go. Exactly. Here we go. I passed a clot the size of a jellyfish, like right into the toilet. Like it was so loud. I was like, what was that? And I looked and I had a really great relationship with my OB. I still do to this day. And I texted her, you know, Eric's of course fast asleep, the baby's sleeping. Like I should have just gone right back to bed. This was like a normal trip to pee. And, you know, of course did not sleep the whole night. Thought I was hemorrhaging, just petrified. And I woke up to this text, totally fine, totally normal. I was like, what do you mean? It was, let me show you a picture of how big it was, right? Like with my hands. And it was that moment coupled with a few others reflecting on sort of my in-hospital experience that second time, where I realized that there were a lot of things and experiences in this shift from labor and delivery and pregnancy care to baby care that were being minimized medically and totally sanitized or not even shared culturally, right? Like no one was talking about this at all. Not a single person. Couple that with the fact that we had developed some momentum on the baby care side of the business, especially in retail. Like I had gotten us into Target. I had gotten us into Walmart. But the experience preparing for the hospital was so broken and so fragmented. I was up, even from the hospital, when I should have been sleeping. Amazon Prime, when that was a thing, you know, sending my dad out to Walgreens where he's like FaceTiming me with wings, without wings. I'm like, I don't know, dad, just get whatever is there. And then, you know, before I even left the hospital, this nurse came in right after I'd given birth. I'll never forget this. And she comes in with a newborn diaper. And I thought it was odd because the baby was in the nursery, right? It wasn't in my room. And she rips open the middle of the diaper. She pours from the little pink hospital pitcher, that hospital ice machine ice into the middle of the diaper. She closed the diaper back up and she said, here, sit on it. And I was like, oh, I guess. Light bulb. The baby is not the only one leaving in a diaper. And that was really it. And I had developed really great relationships with our suppliers, manufacturers, our retailers, even though that was a journey in and of itself because there was no mother care category at the time. And so worked really closely with Target to create eight feet of space on the shelf, specifically dedicated to what we eventually called mother care. And that was a battle, genuinely just to get it there. But- Do other brands sit next to you there now? Yes. I'm very proud of that, actually. A lot of other brands. I bet you are. That's great. You know, some people think like, oh, there's so much competition. There's so much noise. You know, I'm so proud to have created a category where none existed. I mean, to the point where when we first walked into the Target offices with this beautifully curated line of much better products for postpartum recovery, the team proposed we put them in the feminine care aisle next to the tampons. And we were like, that's kind of broken. She hasn't shopped for tampons in nine months and she's not going back anytime soon. Right. Let's put them by the diapers. Let's make it a little bit easier. You know, like we don't have any space. This is feminine care. That's where it belongs. And that's when you really have to, you know, start to unpack who's making the decisions. Where can we layer in some intuition here and not just lead with data, right? Okay. I get it. Women go to the feminine care aisle, but ultimately they were, they were good partners. And I want to go back to something you talked about in terms of this total lack of transparency around sharing information and normalizing, you know, these things that we go through when we give birth, you know, like I was so shocked by what happened to me. I, of course, had my perfect plan of my natural birth. I ended up like with a seizure and a cesarean, emergency cesarean, like just, you know, kind of one nightmare after the other. And I imagine that in earlier generations that there was much more information sharing between women, sisters, mothers, friends. When do you think that broke down culturally and why? Why? I actually am not sure it ever broke down because I think that there still very much exists that word of mom. I think if you have the best friend or the sister, which not everyone does, right, I think you're still hearing bits and pieces. And what I mean by that is I think that we're a little scared to tell women the truth because we're nervous that it will scare them. So we sanitize a little of it and share what we think women can tolerate. But I think the reality is being blindsided is what's scary, right? I think we prepare women, whether it's from our moms or from our friends who just went through it, we prepare them for this milestone labor, delivery, right? Here you go. Here's exactly what to expect. Maybe she didn't have the same experience. there's a whole range of outcomes that you have to prepare for. And it's possible that the one person or two people who you heard it from didn't experience it exactly as you did. Right. And so I think where I've approached it from is trying to prepare women for the marathon of experiences, not just the moment. Right. And I think for people like me who try to control all the outcomes, it's very hard, right? Because, you know, preparing for a single outcome is ultimately preparing to fail. You have to prepare for a host of uncertainty. And I think that that's where some of it breaks down and unravels. And I think there's also different sources in this day and age where women consume their education and their information. You know, over 90% of women who start their breastfeeding journey, start it on social media. They're not asking their mom. First of all, my mom formula fed, like I got nowhere near her nipple, right? She looked at me like I was crazy. She looked at me like I was crazy when I wanted a breastfeed. That was just their generation's approach. And so when you think about social media, you know, those platforms are systematically and algorithmically not designed to educate women honestly and authentically, Which is so sad because it in such stark contrast to the way that men health gets promoted and shown I mean really like we faced so much rejection in a variety of capacities online on linear television advertising, social media advertising. So women really don't have a single source of truth or a repository of information. And so that's why, you know, when I look at, and this goes beyond postpartum, right? Like, I get excited when you talk about new vibrators or, you know, I'm sure there are women who get excited when you're talking about divorce or, you know, co-parenting, whatever the topic is, that you can become sort of known for this unabashed truth telling. And that's where, you know, we're trying to step in. Yeah. And I love how it touches, you know, it's like in the copy of every product. I think it's just, it's very refreshing. And, and I, there was obviously nothing remotely like this when I was having my kids, unfortunately, and there was an Instagram and there was barely anything on the internet, you know, so you have to have the best friend or, or a mom. Yeah. But still there, you know, there are certain areas like I, I love your, the Frida uncensored part of the site where you have, you know, age protected videos of what a perennial massage looks like to prepare for birth. Like, luckily I was in London at the time and I had, not that it mattered, I ended up in an emergency C-section, but, you know, I had a doula who explained to me, you know, how to start to prepare for vaginal birth. It was really incredible to see that on the site. Yeah. Did you watch the full video? Yes. I watched everything. I sat there watching all of them. That one was the farthest I've ever taken it to the line. And I think what we're excellent at is really knowing what's gratuitous and what's not, and really stopping well short of that line. And really that entire platform, I get so emotional when I think about it because I think about all of the different major life experiences and physically transformative transitions, whether it's becoming a mother, whether it's getting your period for the first time. You know, I think about my mom shoving me into a bathroom with a box of tampons and unfolding the instruction manual and trying to figure out which hole it goes in as if that's even a question, right? Like, but I was 14 and that felt, you know, I guess like a natural way to tackle that experience for her. And so I, I, I get excited when I think about our daughters one day having a place to go that is not, you know, limited, whether it's in the visuals or the language of the stories that we tell that is rooted in science, right? That is portraying a range of outcomes, especially for those who like to control for one. That's not really scalable. But yeah, Uncensored and that website was really built because the systems had totally failed us, right? Like from the beginning, honestly, when we launched the the first five-step postpartum recovery regimen, we shot the most beautiful 30-second commercial. We had never done that before, ever. And it was something as simple and mundane as following a woman who was getting up in the middle of the night to feed her baby and trying to pee for the first time, not so dissimilar to the experience that I just shared. And okay, So we had this beautiful 30-second spot. We're like, when do we put it on air? And so my husband, who runs the commercial side of the business with me now, said, let's do it during the Oscars. It's the Women's Super Bowl, right? We'll get the most eyeballs. This is great. And we all sort of like rallying around this idea. We submit it. No question. We allocated the budget for it. Everything. We're locked and loaded. Inbox email comes in. Unfortunately, your commercial has been rejected. We don't allow looter and decent content to be shown on this network. There was no nudity. There was nothing inappropriate whatsoever. And we were so upset and disheartened that Eric said, let's just put it on YouTube, right? And let's see what happens. And we added this opening super that explained to the audience that we had greater ambitions than this. and we really wanted to show it on a much broader platform. And we were rejected. But it was censored, essentially. Yeah, correct. We were censored and we were rejected. And that lit a fire in our community that I cannot overstate how much it has triggered as far as progress, like true progress. We worked with the Center for Intimacy Justice to really advocate for changes in the algorithms that allow things like the Girls Gone Wild Instagram feed, but filter us showing what a perineum is. It's the same body part. There's just like a thin strip of fabric covering in one. And I think- Unbelievable. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, listen, like fast forward a few years later, we're clearly moving in the right direction. We showed the first ever breastfeeding woman on national television during the Golden Globes a few years ago. So that was exciting progress. We're just not quite there yet. And so that's where Uncensored comes in. And I think, you know, I get asked a lot, are you burnt out? Are you tired? Like, how do you keep going a decade in? And I really think that it's experiences like that that continue to motivate me to keep going. So what let's talk about the sort of addressable roadmap that you could have, because, you know, there's, as you were touching on before, there's a whole postpartum. I mean, I think it's like years personally of regaining, rebalancing your hormones, you know, for some women psychologically, certainly sexually and on and on. I mean, there are so many, so many areas you could go into. So how do you think about that? Or do you think about having discipline around product focus? Or do you think like, no, we could really go more laterally into these other categories? We're very disciplined in how we think about innovation. But at this stage, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Forever, this product line has traced my own personal experiences as a mother. And I would have kept going for a fifth, sixth, and seventh child, but I would have had to have found a new husband. And Eric, like the joke, either you're going to have to have more kids or we're going to have to move on to Frida tween and teen. And here we are on the precipice of launching a big kid line that is really rooted in my lived experiences every single day as a mom of four. So what is in that? What is in that product line? Well, more to come soon. We're launching it actually probably in Avaganza later this year. But yeah, so I think it's really rooted in, I'll give you sort of a hint or a teaser, but I think it's rooted in the same insight is that, you know, parents need to resource themselves for every stage of parenthood, whether it's emotional resources or the physical tools. And my toolbox that I created for myself, really, at Frida, is just not aging with me, right? So it's the same categorical types of problems. Did you brush your teeth? Did you, did you put shampoo and conditioner? Did you put the shampoo more than just in the front two inches of your head? Right. Right. Like how about can we wash your neck? Right. It's not just like the shoulders and it's the, so it's all of those same types of health, wellness, hygiene, grooming, but what does the toolkit need to look like when your kid is 13 and only wants sort of like the llama hair fluff, right? Like, I don't know, you're going to get all of this acne around your hairline. And that's where I feel very grateful for my dad and my sister's contribution to this line that's coming up. But yeah, it just, it really is. Listen, necessity is the motherhood of invention. And it's, you know, a saying that's as old as time, but it's so true. And if I never have to go back into my kid's bathroom and check if the sink is wet to see if they brush their teeth, it will be too soon. I'm just done with that. I don't know why it's such a problem. Just brush your teeth. So yes, we are aging up, But also really at the same time, very intentionally expanding even earlier. So when prospective parents think about conception, that was actually the catalyst for uncensored. Yeah, I saw the sperm squeezing syringe. Yes, at home insemination. Believe it or not, women were using turkey basters at home. Yeah. I mean, it was the biggest hack all over the internet. And so we felt like we really needed to, or we had an opportunity to really, one, just like we did on the baby side, make it more efficient and more thoughtful. But two, to educate both men and women, by the way, on how to properly prime your body for conception. I mean, the only education I ever got to that end was in sixth grade health class where I was taught basically how not to get pregnant. After that, it kind of clipped. And I was left Googling, you know, what's the best sex position? How many times in my fertile window? You know, over 70% of girls think that they can get pregnant any time of the month. I mean, we're failing them, really. That's so sad. And waiting is traumatic in and of itself. And conception and that whole period of time, as you think about the excitement of becoming a parent, and then it's like, hurry up, hurry up and wait. It's traumatic. And no one names it. No one tells you about that middle part of that transition. They think, oh, go get pregnant. And then you'll be pregnant. and then just you'll have this glorious glowing pregnancy and then you'll prepare for the labor and delivery and you prepare for that milestone and then it's on to the next. And so, you know, the hope is to really like step in and cushion the fall or the transition really sort of first and foremost explaining that it's not a moment in time, you know, it's really a season, a chapter, whatever it is. And, and you need the tools. It certainly is a chapter. And that I think it's like for each kid, in that sense, it's an 18 year chapter. I mean, with that has like, subsets, you know, in every in everyone. It's I really I love how you are thinking about that, like the because we are in such a results oriented culture and society. And I think you're right, that there's this public facing image of, you know, pregnancy and childbirth that's very sanitized and very unattainable in a way. And so like the more, and obviously that's, you know, what we try to do at Goop as well as sort of dispel this idea that things go exactly as planned and will be perfect. And, you know, life is incredibly messy and, and nothing highlights that mess more, I think, than when you give birth to your first child. And as you said, right in the beginning, you know, it's like, you have this idea of how it's going to go and the depth of letting go that needs to happen and the depth of self-forgiveness that needs to happen. And it's like, it's in a way, it's almost like, you know, I, I said this once to my friends, it's almost like at that point, You're birthing into your own real womanhood because not because you're a mother, but because you have to start framing things as like to be gentle with yourself and to listen to yourself and to, you know, put down these mantles of like, should I should be doing this? Nothing does that faster than having a kid. It's so true. And I think to the greatest extent, the ability to abandon this concept of being ahead or behind or on track, right? And just finding yourself in whatever chapter that you're in that's so independent and free from comparison. It's so much easier said than done, right? But these timelines are not linear, right? Like they're just really not, especially when it comes to trying for a baby, you know, and all of that. How about bounce back culture, whatever that means, right? Like physically, emotionally, right? Like I should be thinner. I should be back in my jeans by now. I should feel fine, right? And I think- It's so dangerous, you know? I remember thinking that and then somebody said to me at some point, you know, you had that baby in your body for nine months. the fact that you could even think it would take less than nine months to go back to normal is totally unrealistic. You know, I'm thinking, oh, in eight weeks, I should be back in my jeans. Yeah, I think it's especially true for super ambitious women, right? Who were so fucked up. It's really debilitating because in every other walk of life up until that point, you were the most capable person, you know, maybe, you know, second to my mom only. Right. And I think that the biggest disservice that we do to ourselves is we expect this to just happen as opposed to mourning the loss of who we were. And it sounds morbid. And I don't mean you'll never be back to yourself, right? But it's a new version of yourself. And I think that to the greatest extent possible, and this is not just becoming a mother, right? I felt this when I got married, right? I sometimes just wanted alone time, right? And I think for all of life's big transitions, giving yourself the freedom to kind of mourn and grieve who you were is really powerful. And it doesn't mean, because I know, you know, people think I'm supposed to be grateful. I have a healthy baby and I have a great marriage. And I don think the gratitude has to cancel out the grief The two can coexist But if you don give yourself the time and the space to grieve the version of you that was and prepare to receive the new you, I think it sets you up for disappointment down the line. I think that's absolutely. I always say we have this idea that, you know, life is about crossing finish lines or about doing things a certain way or ways or to keep adding on. But life is, you know, it's like the Buddhists say, right? Like there's a lot of suffering alongside of growth and expansion and joy. And it really is being able to hold all those things at once, I think, that make life the most beautiful and interesting. like acknowledging that the pain is okay. The pain of losing, you know, the incarnation of who you were in your twenties, that's, it's okay to acknowledge that. Like that's, it is sad to lose that. Yeah. I think also about our mother's generation where competency was their armor, but the armor is very heavy to wear, right? Like they did not have the tools or the language or the permission to be vulnerable. It wasn't seen as a resource like we try and sort of explain that it is now. It was seen as a weakness, you know, and you're taught not necessarily even explicitly just by absorbing what you're seeing. Competence is the only way to survive, right? And you have to work through it. And if you're capable enough, you won't need anything. Like I vividly remember coming home from the hospital with my third son. I think it was, now I have four. It's hard to keep track. You have four sons? No, I have three boys and a girl. But the distinct labor and recovery experiences kind of all meld together. But it was my third. It definitely was my third because he was born in September and that's when Rosh Hashanah was. But he was born in September, actually on Eric's birthday. September what? September 7th, on Eric's birthday because Eric thought it would be great to get one last birthday sex in. And I said, that is what you get. And forever you will have to share your birthday with your son because you couldn't wait a few months until after I recovered. And I had come home and it was around the time of Rosh Hashanah. And I typically host all of those holidays. and I was so driven by this obsession with competence and can do and I can do it that I decided to host Rosh Hashanah dinner for my whole extended family, my sister, my brother, my in-laws. And it was three days home and I sent Eric out to services and I was getting everything ready in the house. We were living in a house with a lot of stairs at the time. And I remember like walking upstairs every time I forgot something to get something. And it was so painful, like really different type of pain than my previous two recoveries. And my sister came over and I said, Alex, you have to look at what's going on down there because something is not right. Something's rubbing, it burns. I can't describe the sensation, but when you know, you know. And we went upstairs to my bedroom, like to the point where I can't even move one foot in front of the other anymore. And she said, oh, one of your stitches is a little too long and it's rubbing against your incision wound. I had an episiotomy. And so I was like, what do I do? It's Roshana. Like, I know that my OB is not in. She went out to her car. She's a Mohs surgeon. She got her doctor kit, whatever it was she got. I don't know what she keeps in there. and she, in the middle of Rosh Hashanah dinner, trimmed my stitches. I mean, I can't even believe I'm sharing this right now because I want to put everyone, and not everyone has a sister for a surgeon, right? So what do you do? Right? And so I think it's, my mom used to call it the curse of competency. Why did I have to host Rosh Hashanah dinner? I didn't. Nothing would have happened. I could have been vulnerable for a fleeting moment. I mean, that's insane that you did that. And I'm glad you learned the lesson. It was dumb. It was, it was not, there, there was, there's no metal one for how many holiday dinners I host. And that has been, that is a hard lesson to learn this balance between complacency and just this like super unrealistic chase for perfection and competence. Yeah. I've completely tried to like turn that upside down now. Cause I was just, I was always there, like, how much can I do? And how lovely can it be? And, you know, on and on and on. And now I and I'm still learning how to do it because it's like a lifetime of deprogramming, but stopping to think about like, okay, my, my, my impulse is to host this holiday meal. Let me really check in with myself and see, like, do I have the bandwidth to do this, you know, and to make a really self honoring choice. I am still honing those skills. I do. And I think the greatest misunderstanding is that you're born with that ability and, and that it's not a learned behavior. It is such a skill that you have to practice like any other skill to be good at. And I'm like not one for self-help. I hate it. I can't. I really just try to avoid investing in myself in that way at all costs. But, you know, experiences like that really demonstrate and have kind of honed this approach that I've gotten better at, I will say, where I'm kind of, I don't know, I'm delegating more. I'm, and I don't mean delegating because delegating is still, you know, in Eve Rodsky's definition, doing, right? I'm delegating ownership holistically. Right. You're letting somebody else really make decisions. Own it. Yes. Or I'm dropping it altogether. Or I'm extending my own internal deadlines, right? I'm doing one of those three, at least, to try and be better. And I think there's just this like emotional liquidity that you need during that phase. You know, you got to be flexible and forgiving with yourself. Definitely. Okay. With our last few minutes, I want to move into a rapid fire round. Great. Okay. One thing that belongs in every hospital bag. The upside down Perry bottle, without a doubt. I mean, there is nothing less dignifying than sticking your hand in the toilet with that ketchup squirt bottle that they give you in the hospital and trying to wash instead of wipe. I was personally very interested in your icy maxi pads. They're great, but you know, there's just nothing like a cool rinse after a burning tea. What is a fertility myth that you wish we would stop repeating? That it all happens on the same timeline for everyone. And really like the nonlinear nature of preparing for parenthood. You know, it's just the impulse to compare has to be abandoned. Something women need from their partner without having to ask. Oh, this is so good. Shared ownership, right? And not just delegation, right? I can't, I think that is the greatest resource that women can arm themselves with from their partner. And actually asking for it in advance of when you need it. Not waiting until you send the text like I did even three days ago. Why are you at work and I am playing camp counselor to the kids? This wasn't how I envisioned starting the year. That's too late. It's just too late at that point. You have to share, you have to talk about dividing and conquering before you need to divide and conquer. What's one thing you wish someone told you before becoming a mother? What is one thing I wish someone, definitely that being ready is a mirage. And you have to, I think, arm yourself for a range of outcomes and uncertainty. because for people who like to control the outcome in life, motherhood will turn you upside down and inside out. Well, you talked about this, but a product you created out of personal necessity. Oh, there are 200. Where should I start? Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about what I haven't spoken about yet. Really? All of them, which is like top of mind right now. That's okay. You can say all of them because you did. All of them have been born out of, like, I can share. What's amazing is I can share a moment in time story for each of them. And that's why we don't have 3,000 products, right? And that's where the discipline comes in. But, you know, like the Medifrito is my favorite, probably one of my favorites, because I think the anxiety that comes with knowing how much medicine to give a new baby. It's hard. It's slippery. It's really hard. And so making sure that you can accurately dose without being covered in amoxicillin. Yeah, which hopefully we can avoid anyway. But yes. It'll happen. What do you think that the biggest misconception or the biggest lie women are told about postpartum? Not lie, you know what I mean? Like led to misperceive. I think, you know, I think that sort of what I was referring to earlier, that these transformational life stages are somewhat stable if you prepare. And I think that that is a really big misconception. I think women have to prepare to be shaken and destabilized. Right. I think there is understanding that, okay, I read the book, bought the products. I am set. We kind of optimize and plan for the checklist moments, but not the in-between. And so I think, you know, we're better off if we prepare to be destabilized during these transitions. Brilliant. One word to describe sex during pregnancy. Oh, during pregnancy? Yeah. Depends on which stage. Let's break it down. First trimester and second trimester, exhilarating, especially second trimester. Really fun, optimal hormonal flow to every possible organ, including your brain and your body. Third trimester, no. I just want to not be touched. And the inevitable like fourth trimester. And again, this is not just six weeks and I'm back to me, right? Sandpaper, lubricate, practice, be forgiving, talk about it, prepare for it to take longer. I actually analogize the postpartum amount of lubrication to the perimenopausal and menopausal amount of lubrication. I think it's the same exact hormone highs and lows that are emulated in your body. Yeah. That certainly is confounding. I'll put it that way. And I would say really like it's a joint effort, right? This is not just about tap me when you're ready, right? This is about why don't you get some lube and have it on hand just in case I'm in the mood to try. Be prepared for me to say, nope, I'm done. I don't want to try anymore. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Gosh, you're giving me flashback to those days. By the way, that's why people have a hard time preparing other women, right? You don't want to think about it. You've compartmentalized like the best of them. Okay. Last one. And this might be going back to the first thing you said, which was that compartmentalization is your superpower. But is that a superpower that motherhood unlocked for you? Or what is a superpower that motherhood has unlocked for you? I feel like there are a few. Okay, great. I've become much more efficient as a mother. Your your, your frustration tolerance sins, I think as, as the mother. And so you really strive to find and eliminate all of the inefficiency in your life. And that has become a superpower. You know, like that family therapist that my mom brought us to, who diagnosed me with frustration and tolerance and really nailed it. Right. I just think that that has become sort of a very valuable resource for me is just find the efficiency, whether it's time management or, you know, planning and, and organizing and optimizing for the tools that we have or don't have. Well, Chelsea, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me today on the Goop podcast. I really, really, really love talking to you. And I honestly, I'm, I just, I, I'm just so in awe of your business. And it's so beautiful to see a woman, a mother go into the world, you know, and have this level of, of success because you are committed to solving the problems of women, you know, pre postnatal and now into, into preteen. Yeah. Onward. Well, we couldn't do it without and alongside the goop truth tellers. So right back at you. Thank you. You're so sweet. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.