It really does take a village, but not just to raise a child. It takes one to raise a mom. Between six jobs, five kids, and one growing company, I’ve learned that asking for help isn’t weakness; it’s wisdom. My sister, my friends, and my fellow moms are the reason I can keep showing up for everyone else.

The lessons that shaped me most didn’t come from prestige or perfect scores—they came from struggle. From mentors who let me fail safely. From learning to see my ADHD not as a flaw, but as the force behind my resilience. The struggle didn’t slow me down—it taught me how to succeed.

In medicine and entrepreneurship, it’s easy to sprint from one milestone to the next without ever stopping to breathe. But this season, between patents, publications, and new speaking invitations, I’m learning that celebration and gratitude are forms of fuel—not distractions from the work.

As both a hospitalist and a birthing center medical director, I’ve seen the dangerous divide growing between hospitals and community birth settings. Mothers deserve safety and trust—not fear and fragmentation. It’s time to rebuild the bridge between midwives and medicine.

Medicine teaches us to pour from an empty cup, to save joy for later, and to equate exhaustion with purpose. But being a good doctor isn’t about self-sacrifice—it’s about remembering that caring for ourselves is part of caring for our patients.

But my bigger question, and it always seems to circle back to this, is Why can’t we as women give ourselves permission to do what we need to heal our bodies? We are EXHAUSTED. We just gave birth—sometimes in very traumatizing and physically invasive ways. When will we, American women as a culture, allow ourselves to take a break? Why won’t we give ourselves that permission?

I was working four days a week, leading a clinic, and carrying call—only to learn my male colleague was being offered $100,000 more for one extra day. For the first time in my career, I realized merit alone couldn’t protect me from the insidious reality of the gender pay gap in medicine.

I used to believe my worth was measured in test scores, titles, and perfectly dotted i’s. But what I’ve come to see is that my real legacy isn’t in accolades — it’s in the people I’ve nurtured along the way. Being called a “Residency Mom” reminded me that the truest success is leaving others stronger, braver, and more seen than they were before.

A former OB-GYN shares how outdated postpartum care nearly cost her career—and how new policy changes are finally reshaping maternal health. This powerful story highlights why the old six-week postpartum visit model fails families, how COVID opened the door to innovation, and how expanded postpartum coverage is transforming care. Discover why individualized, year-long postpartum support is the future of maternal medicine.

Why would someone risk their baby's life rather than deliver at a hospital? This appears to be a growing trend, and we're not asking the right questions about it.

Doctor Braden riding… a bike. Pretty literal. We know.