• Why doctors just put hormone therapy back at the top of the list, and why our moms were scared of it

• Three things that are in and out

• My product of the week …. i love this one and it’s now avail on costco.com

• A harissa chicken fridge salad that holds up till Thursday

If you’re anywhere near your late thirties or forties, you’ve probably noticed your group chat slowly turning into a support group. Sleep, mood, sweating through sheets, “is this normal?” This week, the doctors finally weighed in, and it’s a big one.

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So Hormone Replacement Therapy is all good now?

On October 5, the American College of Physicians, one of the biggest physician groups in the country, put out a new guideline that says hormone therapy should be the first-line treatment for hot flashes and night sweats. Not the last resort. Not the thing your doctor mentions after you’ve tried everything else. First. They even told doctors to ask women about symptoms directly, because so many of us don’t bring them up.

If that sounds surprising, that’s because a lot of us grew up hearing hormones were dangerous. Here’s where that came from. In July 2002, a huge federal study called the Women’s Health Initiative stopped its hormone therapy trial early after finding higher risks, including breast cancer, in the women taking it. The headlines were terrifying, and women dropped hormone therapy almost overnight. By 2003, use among women in the study’s observational group had fallen by half.

The risks they found were real. But the women in that trial were, on average, in their sixties, many of them years past menopause. Over the following two decades, researchers kept digging, and the picture got more nuanced. For a lot of women who are younger and closer to menopause, the benefits look very different. Last fall the FDA moved to drop its black box warnings on menopausal hormone therapy, and now this guideline.

The fear was bigger than the facts for a long time, and a whole generation of women paid for it in sleepless nights.

This one hits close to home for me. I spent eighteen months being told my symptoms were “just anxiety” back in 2014-2015 before anyone found what was actually going on. It’s a major reason I care so much about women being taken seriously. At Love Wellness, 35% of the women who take our vaginal health quiz tell us they’re in perimenopause or menopause. That’s a lot of women who deserve a better answer than “it’s normal.”

The takeaway: if your sleep, mood or temperature has gone rogue, bring it up first with your doc. Ask directly: “Am I a candidate for hormone therapy, and if not, what are my options?” The guideline lists real alternatives too, if hormones aren’t right for you.

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IN / OUT

IN: My daughter sleeping till 6:55am
OUT: My daughter waking up at 5:00am

IN: Full fat dairy in my coffee, yes pls half and half
OUT: almond milk (it’s so sad)

IN: Soup as a personality
OUT: pumpkin spice, bye

My Fave Product of the Week

Today’s product of the week is sponsored by Kudos.

Kudos was my daughter’s very first diaper. I actually ordered them months before she was born. I’d done a lot of research (shocking, coming from me, lol), and I was so excited to have one thing on the baby list I felt completely sure about.

They’re SO soft. Kudos diapers have a 100% natural cotton liner, they’re hypoallergenic and non-toxic, and they’re Total Chlorine Free. They fit her great, and we have never had an overnight leak. Not once. If you’ve ever changed a crib sheet at 3am, you know a diaper that performs is worth $2385249857 dollars.

Newborn life is mostly unknowns. You don’t know when they’ll sleep, why they’re crying, or what that noise was. A diaper that holds up all night is one less thing to think about, and in those first months, that’s worth a lot. It also (again) made me feel so good and warm inside I had picked out diapers for her before she even arrived. It was one of my fave early purchases that gave me comfort.

Kudos is at mykudos.com, and it’s now available at Costco.com TOO, which just feels right for diapieee purchasing. Costco is the best place to stock up on the things you go through by the case, and nothing goes faster than diapers. One big order and you’re covered for weeks, not days. If you have a baby on the way, start here.

The Fridge Salad

My fridge salad video took off a few weeks ago, which told me two things: you’re all as tired as I am, and nobody wants to think about lunch five days in a row. So every week there’s a new one here. This one has a little heat, which feels nice for October.

Harissa Chicken, Farro and Roasted Carrot
Serves 4. Per serving, roughly 50g protein, 14g fiber and 40g fat.

The base

• 1½ pounds boneless chicken thighs, rubbed with 2 tablespoons harissa and a drizzle of olive oil, roasted at 425°F for 20 to 25 minutes, then sliced

• 1 cup dry farro, cooked in salted water and drained

• 1 pound carrots, cut into sticks, roasted with olive oil and salt

• 1 can chickpeas, rinsed

• 4 cups chopped kale

The dressing

• ½ cup full-fat Greek yogurt

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• Juice of 1 lemon

• 1 teaspoon cumin

• 1 teaspoon honey

• Salt

Add fresh each day

• 4 ounces crumbled feta (about 1 ounce a day)

• ½ cup toasted almonds (about 2 tablespoons a day)

• A handful of mint or parsley

Toss the base with half the dressing, split into four containers, and keep the rest of the dressing in a jar for the week.

Talk to Me…..

What’s the “it’s normal” you’ve heard from a doctor that you wish you’d pushed back on? Tell me in the comments.

Talk soon,
Lo

When Nelle was struggling, I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t hand our pediatrician a feeling and expect an answer. I was emotional and frustrated. I could feel myself getting ready to explain everything at once, including details that had nothing to do with why we were there.

So I wrote it down. I tracked her feedings, noted what was happening and when, and brought a clear list of symptoms to the appointment. That helped us have a focused conversation that led to Nelle’s cow milk protein allergy diagnosis.

I want to be careful here: a good list didn’t diagnose my baby. Her doctor did. And parents shouldn’t have to deliver a perfectly organized presentation to be taken seriously. But when I was overwhelmed, those notes helped me say what I needed to say. They gave Nelle a voice in a room where I was the only one who could speak for her, and could often only word vomit the entire appointment vs just getting to the point. The notes are the pre-read for your doctor that do get to the point, so if you DO just word vomit random symptoms and feelings and meander (trust, it happens when you’re charged emotionally) your list can do wonders.

And the list isn’t just for kid’s appointments. It’s for your appointments too.

Here’s what I’d do again:

• Write the headline first. “I’m concerned about my baby’s feeding, and I’d like to understand what could be causing these symptoms.” Say that before the backstory.

• Bring a short timeline. What started when? How often is it happening? What have you noticed around feedings? The Notes app counts. No one needs a laminated binder.

• Pick your top questions. Mine would be: “What do you think could be going on?” “What should we watch for?” and “When should we follow up?”

• Ask for the plan in simple terms. Before you leave, make sure you know what happens next and whom to call if things don’t improve.

• Bring someone or take notes if you can. It’s hard to absorb information while holding a baby and trying not to cry.

How do you know if you’re actually being heard? A green flag is a doctor who asks follow-up questions, takes your observations seriously, explains their thinking, and gives you a plan you understand—even if they don’t have an answer that day.

A red flag is leaving with your concerns brushed aside and no idea what to watch for or when to come back. “This is probably normal” may be reassuring, but it’s fair to ask, “What would make it not normal?”

And if you cry? Cry. If you need to read from your phone? Read from your phone. You do not have to become the calmest woman alive to deserve good care.

I learned that advocating for Nelle wasn’t about arriving with the right diagnosis. It was about making sure the person who could help us understood what I was seeing at home. Sometimes that starts with three messy notes in your phone and the courage to say, “I’m still worried. Can we talk through this?”

Lo xx

P.S. If you’re heading into a doctor’s appointment with a list of symptoms in your Notes app and a baby who needs answers, this week’s Tell Me I’m a Good Mom is for you. Dr. Milobsky and I talk through the tactical side of getting your doctor to listen- and, for the record, Dr. M agrees with me on this one.

Listen to the episode here:

Watch here:

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• What I Consumed: my summer house conspiracy theory

• From My Desk: the wellness brands are lying to you

• Behind The Episode: maybe I do want to lose weight? is that ok?

I have spent the better part of a decade telling women how to feel better in their bodies. I have the brand, the retail footprint, the certifications, the interviews. I know the category inside and out.

And then I got pregnant, and I gained sixty pounds from fertility drugs, and I had gestational diabetes, and I delivered, and I just had my retained placenta removed at twelve weeks postpartum, and I’m very much waking up to the fact that nobody knows shit about making babies ,and having babies, and then caring for moms afterwards. And I’m not shitting on doctors here - they do their best. I’m shitting on the dire lack of research dedicated to understanding pregnancy and postpartum better. IT’S DIRE.

The NIH spent only 8.8% of its total budget on women’s health research over the past decade, and only a fraction of that funded pregnancy studies. Meanwhile nearly two-thirds of US maternal deaths happen during the postpartum period. The most dangerous time. The least studied. The moment when everyone stops looking. I could have easily been one of them if I failed to advocate for myself when I started bleeding heavily 4 weeks after giving birth.

That is not an accident. That is a choice. And it is time to say it out loud.

What I Consumed 😮

Summer House. Obviously. And I have a theory. Actually it’s less of a theory and more of a reality TV industry suspicion, so let me share something with you.

It seems as though Kyle and Amanda may have allegedly been separated before production even began last season. And if that is the case, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt on the timeline. All of it.

Production determines storylines ahead of every new season. That is just how this works. So ask yourself: what does Summer House have without Kyle and Amanda? Nothing. No anchor, no stakes, no reason to tune in. Which means if they were allegedly already separated before they ever stepped foot on camera last season, production would have had every incentive to structure a deal. You film the breakdown, you live it out on screen, and you stay contractually quiet about the real timeline publicly. In my opinion, based on my experience in this world, that is just how the sausage gets made in TV land.

Which means, by the way, give Amanda a little grace on the West situation. If she was allegedly already separated when it started, and I personally suspect she was, this is not what it looks like on the surface. Is it a great look for her friendship with Ciara? HELL no. Absolutely not. No amount of timeline math makes that better.

And speaking of the edit. In my opinion Bravo caught wind of West and Amanda way before any of us did. Go back and watch this season. The confessionals, the framing, the way certain moments were constructed. That is not accidental television. It seems to be a network that knew exactly what was coming and was building the runway for it in real time.

As for the leak. Everyone is blaming some girl who photographed them through an apartment window?? But if a civilian had that photo it would have been everywhere immediately. The average person doesn’t sit on something like that. You sell it or you post it or you tell one person and it’s gone. The fact that it came out the way it did, timed the way it was timed, is just my personal opinion here, but it makes me wonder. Bravo has, in my view, historically never been a bystander in their own stories. They are the authors of them….

Anyway, my overall conspiracy is simple. Bravo is Big Brother. They always have been. Way more of this has been happening behind the scenes than any of us know, and the story we are watching on screen is never the whole story. It is the story they decided to tell. I know because I have been on the other side of that decision.

From The Desk

The CEO POV. Work, business, and what I’m actually thinking about.

The wellness industry is currently having a reckoning with itself and I find it equal parts validating and infuriating. What they are calling the over-optimization backlash is basically the industry admitting that years of wearables and biometrics and morning routines and tracking every possible metric made people feel worse, not better. The corrective trend is now officially just... feeling things. Meaning over measurement. The Global Wellness Summit put it in their annual report like it was a revelation.

It is not a revelation. It is an admission.

Love Wellness was built on the premise that the category was lying to women. That products designed to make women feel broken for having normal bodies were not wellness products, they were shame products with better packaging. That positioning was not popular when we launched. Suddenly everyone agrees with it.

The bigger lie that is finally getting called out: the longevity market, the wellness market, the medical system, all of it was built on male data. Women’s health was extrapolated from studies done on men and adjusted. Not a conspiracy theory. Just true. And the era of we will figure out women’s health later is apparently ending?? I will believe it when I see the research funding change. But we are closer than we have ever been, and the founders who were building honestly before it was the obvious play are the ones who are going to matter when it finally arrives.

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Behind The Episode

A deeper look at what we talked about this week, and what didn’t make the cut. Watch here, listen on Spotify here, and Apple here.

This week on Tell Me I’m a Good Mom I said something out loud that I have been afraid to say. That I want my body back. Not the exact body, I know that’s gone. But something that feels like mine again.

And I felt immediately embarrassed by it. Like I should be above that. Like wanting to recognize yourself in the mirror after everything you just went through to become a mother is somehow shallow. Vain. The wrong thing to be focused on right now.

But here is what I actually think. Your body is not separate from your identity. It never was. And I spent the last two plus years doing something incredibly hard to it. IVF, 60 lbs gained, gestational diabetes, pregnancy, delivery, a retained placenta, a D&C. My body was a medical situation for so long that I forgot it was also just... mine. And now that the medical chapter is closing I am realizing I am allowed to want it back. That is not vanity. That is just a woman saying I have been through enough and I would like to feel like myself again.

I got one step closer to admitting that on this episode. It felt freeing in a way I did not expect.

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• The Google Notifications Sends My Stomach Dropping Into My Butt

• My Haircare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

• My Skincare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

• On The Podcast

The Google Notifications

I googled myself this week. I kind of couldn’t help it.

The Laguna Beach press day happened (the reunion comes out April 10) and the notifications started coming in and I had one real question: would the reactions reinforce everything I have always known to be true about reality TV and the internet, or has the tide actually changed amongst keyboard warriors.

My stomach went tight immediately. That specific dread I do not have a great word for except maybe: the feeling of being talked about in a room you are not in.

I have been here before. I was 17 the first time.

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What I have learned over twenty years of being occasionally and involuntarily in the public eye is that the internet is very committed to the version of you it first met. Rivalries that were never really rivalries. Storylines that got written around you. A whole personality constructed from footage of a teenager who had absolutely no idea what she was signing up for. And then twenty years later you are sitting in your pajamas with a baby and a medical situation and people are debating your absence like it means something about who you are.

I almost didn’t look.

I built a pretty full life out of not looking, honestly. Staying quiet felt like protection for a long time. I left the TV world, went to culinary school, started Love Wellness, became a person with a private interior life and genuinely loved having one.

But I looked. And what I found was mostly kindness. Women who had been through having a new baby at home. Women who had complicated postpartum experiences. People saying “no explanation needed, real fans know.” Comments that felt personal rather than performed.

I sat in my apartment eating cold leftovers reading a Just Jared comment section and cried a little. Postpartum does what it wants.

The thing I keep coming back to is this: I spent so long being careful about what I share because I was afraid of being reduced to a version of myself I did not recognize. The best friend, the bitch. And the week I stopped being careful … pajamas, placenta, toast, full honesty … is the week people seem to really see me as a person. An actual one.

Maybe the only way through is just to keep being the full complicated human thing and trust that people can feel the difference.

I am still figuring that out.

My Haircare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

Somewhere in the middle of this week, between the notifications and the cold leftovers and the general chaos of being a postpartum human with a public history, I decided to do something just for myself. Not for anyone else. Not to look good on camera or show up somewhere. Just because I deserved to feel a little more like me.

I dedicated some real time to self care and it helped more than I expected.

My hair has been through it. Postpartum hair changes are real and nobody fully prepares you for the specific sadness of watching your hair behave like a completely different person’s hair. I want SHINY hair. Not meh hair.

Here’s what I got:

I started using the Epres Bond Repair and I genuinely cannot believe I waited this long. If your hair feels weak or damaged this is the one. It works and it is not fussy about it.

For everyday washing I have been on the Redken Color Extend Magnetics which keeps my color looking fresh between appointments and does not strip anything.

The Pureology Strength Cure conditioner has also become non-negotiable. My hair feels like my hair again after using it which sounds like a small thing and is actually not a small thing at all.

After washing I use the Redken One United leave-in and finish with Moroccanoil Treatment Light. The whole routine takes maybe ten extra minutes and the difference is significant enough that I noticed it immediately.

Abbey was right. Abbey is always right. Listen to your colorist.

My Skincare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

Same energy, different category.

I had let my skincare routine collapse into the bare minimum for a few months and I am not judging myself for that because survival mode is real. But this week I got a package of new things to try and it felt like a tiny holiday and I went all in.

Here is what I rebuilt my routine around:

Morning starts with the Round Lab Birch Juice UV Lock SPF 45. Sunscreen is the one thing I will not negotiate on and this one layers beautifully under everything without pilling or leaving a cast. It is genuinely the best daily SPF I have found and I have tried a lot of them.

At night I double cleanse. First the Tatcha Camellia Cleansing Oil which dissolves everything including sunscreen without feeling stripping, then the La Roche-Posay Toleriane Hydrating Gentle Cleanser which is gentle enough for postpartum skin that is doing unpredictable things. This five minute routine has become the part of my day that belongs entirely to me. Nobody needs anything from me for five minutes. Warm water, quiet, done.

I am also back on the Elizabeth Arden Retinol + HPR Ceramide line now that I am not breastfeeding and my skin has already started to respond. If you have been waiting to reintroduce retinol this is a gentle and effective place to start.

None of this is a ten step routine. It is just the right things done consistently and that is all skin actually needs.

Taking care of myself this week felt like a small act of rebellion against everything that was trying to make me feel like I was not enough. I recommend it.

On The Podcast

Episode 2 of Tell Me I’m a Good Mom is out. It goes into the loneliness of new motherhood, what it actually felt like to grow up on reality TV at 17, and why being perceived publicly for twenty years changes you in ways you are still figuring out.

Watch here on YT, listen here on apple, or here on spotify.

See you next Sunday.

xo Lo

I did not expect to cry editing this one. Something about watching myself talk about the quiet stab in the heart … the years of wanting a relationship, wanting a baby, watching everyone else announce theirs hit differently in the edit than it did when i recorded it.

I also talk about my laguna beach origin story for the first time on this show, which felt overdue. And the 20-year reunion is coming (!!!) so the timing felt right.

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This episode is for anyone who has ever felt alone in the process of becoming a mom. The women who held me through IVF, the ones i’ve never met but followed at 2am…. this one is for them too.

New episodes drop every Wednesday. If someone in your life needs to hear this one, send it.

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In Episode 1 of Tell Me I’m a Good Mom, I get into all of it. The gestational diabetes that changed everything. The decision to schedule a C-section that I made with full agency and zero apology. And the part I never saw coming: high blood pressure at my 38-week checkup that sent me into the OR right away, days before my scheduled date, completely by surprise. But here is the thing. The C-section was not the scariest part. The scariest moment of this entire experience happened the day after Nelle was born, when I thought it was all over and I was finally safe. It resulted in 15 doctors and nurses sprinting into my room.

Episode 1 is where I tell the whole story.

🎧 Listen on Spotify: here OR

📺 Watch on YouTube: here

I went into my pregnancy as the most relaxed person in the room. No birth plan. No spreadsheet. No Pinterest board of affirmations. Just me, going with the flow, trusting my body, the whole thing.

And then gestational diabetes showed up and laughed in my face.

Suddenly I had a plan. Four insulin shots a day, a scheduled delivery date, and a decision that I knew people would have opinions about. I looked at my health history, sat with my doctor, and made the call that felt right for me and for Nelle. I felt relief the moment it was on the calendar. And I am not sorry about that.

People will tell you a scheduled C-section is the easy way out. They think it’s the lazy woman’s delivery plan.

I am ten weeks postpartum and I can tell you with complete honesty that it is not easier. It is just a different kind of hard. And I will be honest with you, there are parts of it I have some regrets about. Things I wish I had known. Things I wish someone had told me before I made that choice, not to change my mind, but to actually prepare me for what was coming.

Episode 1 is live right now. I recorded half of it pregnant and half of it after, because I wanted you to hear both versions in real time.

🎧 Listen on Spotify: here OR

📺 Watch on YouTube: here

The Good Mom Group Chat

When I put a form on Instagram last week asking moms to share their stories with me, over 400 women responded overnight. I have been sitting with these responses for days and I am honestly still emotional about it. The honesty, the vulnerability, the willingness to share the hardest parts of something so personal with a stranger on the internet. It means everything to me and it is exactly why I made this show.

I want to share three of those stories with you today because they belong in this conversation.

Hayley Edwards had a textbook pregnancy. Easy, uncomplicated, exactly what you hope for. Her daughter arrived safely after 13 hours of labor and one hour of pushing. And then postpartum arrived, and nothing was what she expected. The complications were hers, not her baby’s, and the mental health impact of that gap, the one between “everything went fine” and “I am not okay,” is something she is still sitting with. I think about how many women are living inside that exact gap right now, quietly, convinced they have no right to struggle because the birth went well. You do. You absolutely do.

One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, had an emergency C-section she never saw coming. She had never had surgery before. She was a fitness girlie. And then they cut her open and her body was never the same. She writes: “It is something I am still healing from and it is a weird dynamic because I would do it over again.” I find that last part so honest and so human. Holding gratitude and grief at the same time is one of the hardest things motherhood asks of us. She is doing it. And she is not alone.

Christina Beres has been through things that most people will never fully understand unless they have lived them. IVF. A postpartum medical emergency. Peripartum cardiomyopathy. A daughter born at 28 weeks who spent 70 days in the NICU. She says she is still working through her own trauma and that she wants to share so other moms do not feel alone. Christina, I hear you. What you carried, and what you are still carrying, is extraordinary. The fact that you want to turn that into something that helps other women is exactly the kind of courage this show exists to celebrate.

Three different stories. Three different versions of “I thought I was ready.” All of them carrying something the world never thought to ask about.

This is exactly the kind of conversation Tell Me I’m a Good Mom exists to have. And I want yours in it too.

If you have a story you want to share, whether it is for a future episode, a community piece, or just because you need someone to hear it, I want to read it. Fill out the form here. Nothing has to be perfect. Nothing has to be resolved. I just want the truth.

And if you have not listened to Episode 1 yet, this is your sign.

🎧 Listen on Spotify: here OR

📺 Watch on YouTube: here

You Are Doing a Good Job. I mean it.

Lo x

Okay so the trailer for my new podcast is out, which means it’s real now. I’ve been sitting with this podcast for months — recording it, thinking about it, losing sleep over it — and now it’s just out there for people to watch and have opinions about. That’s the part I keep coming back to. The opinions part.

And then there’s the name. Tell Me I’m a Good Mom. I love it. I chose it on purpose. It’s funny and a little ironic and it says everything about what this show is in five words.

But I’d be lying if I said I don’t think about what happens if I do something publicly that someone decides makes me a bad mom. Because the internet will use that name against me. I know that. I named the show knowing that. I did it anyway because that’s kind of the whole point. the scrutiny moms face is exactly what we’re here to talk about. I just didn’t fully anticipate what it would feel like to hand people the headline on a silver platter. So that keeps me up at night a little. Just a littleeeee.

Episode 1 premieres Wednesday and I’m genuinely nervous in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. What if it flops. What if nobody cares. What if the thing I’ve been so sure the world needs — honest conversations about what motherhood actually does to you — turns out to be something only I needed. I’ve built an entire company on the belief that women deserve better. I show up for that every single day at Love Wellness. And now I’m doing it again, in a completely different format, 10 weeks postpartum, on not enough sleep, with a baby who has opinions about literally everything including when I’m allowed to record.

I just really want it to matter.

One thing that has genuinely helped with the nerves: Dear Media said yes to this show. And I don’t take that lightly. Dear Media is one of the most respected podcast networks for women and they chose to partner with me (ME!!!) on this. To me that means something bigger than just a business deal. It means that the conversation around matrescence, around what actually happens to a woman when she becomes a mother, is one the culture is ready to have. They validated that before a single episode aired. That has meant more to me than I expected it to.

Here’s what episode 1 is: before my daughter arrived I sat down and recorded my birth plan. And I want to be honest about something — the way women choose to give birth is one of the most loaded conversations in motherhood. Everyone has an opinion about what brave looks like, what informed looks like, what the right choice is for a body that isn’t theirs. I made a decision that was right for me. For my health, my history, my body. I made it with my doctor. I made it without apology.

And then I recorded my birth story six-ish weeks later. It did not go to plan. It never does, does it? I want you to hear it the way I lived it: the plan first, then the reality, back to back. It’s the most honest thing I’ve recorded since I started talking publicly about my health when I founded Love Wellness. And I already know people will have thoughts. That’s kind of the point.

I also posted a video this week about regular mom bodies and the response stayed with me. Here’s where I actually am: I gained 60 pounds during my pregnancy. And I want to be clear that I’m not trying to bounce back right now. I’ve rejected that conversation for years and I’m not about to start now. But I do want to feel like I’m in my own body again. There’s a difference. It’s not about size. It’s about ownership. It’s about recognizing yourself when you look in the mirror and feeling like you live in your body rather than just borrowing it for a while. The comments showed me how many women are sitting with that exact feeling and staying quiet because they’re afraid of being told they’re vain or not focused enough on their baby. We have so far to go. And also you guys showed up in a way on that post I wasn’t expecting. That’s exactly why this show exists. So thanks!

Here’s what I need from you. Watch it/listen to it/subscribe to it (yea, get out the ol’ YouTube account from your makeup tutorial days my friend bc all the episodes will live there).

Send it to one mom who needs to hear she’s not alone right now. That’s the whole ask. I still run Love Wellness every single day. And I’m doing this too because I genuinely believe moms deserve a seat at the cultural table and few are pulling the chair out for us. So I’m doing it. MWAH!

Tell me I’m a good mom. 🥹

— Lo

Stuff I Buy at 3am

• body: this thin Skims dress for cozy sleep (I wear it almost every night)

• wellness: Quick Melt Strips (I love the energy and sleep ones right now)

• home: the hatch baby sleep machine (the new design is so cute)

• bag: my trusty revealer concealer from Kosas

My therapist asked me recently when I last felt like my body belonged to me?

I didn’t have an answer. But I want to start here, before anything else: my daughter is extraordinary. SHE IS FUCKING EXTRAORDINARY, I’m literally sobbing as I type that in all caps. I chose all of this. I would do every single bit of it again without hesitating. That is not nothing. That is everything.

And also, here’s the rest of it…

That question has been sitting with me ever since, because I think for a lot of women the honest answer is … a long time ago. Maybe never, depending on what you’ve been through. Your body becomes a place where other people have opinions and instruments and waiting rooms. You learn to think of yourself in terms of function. Is it working. Is it cooperating. Is it going to do the thing.

And then you have the baby, and everyone says look what your body did. And you think, yes. And also: look what it took.

But I’ve also been thinking about the women who chose it too and didn’t get what I got. The women still in the waiting rooms I’ve graduated from. The ones who would trade places with me in a second, five (and possibly #6 coming up) surgeries and all. The women who wanted a family and got a different life instead — one they didn’t dream of as a young girl. The women who didn’t want this at all, and are watching the rest of us work ourselves inside out over it and wondering why the world can’t just let a woman be.

I think about all of them when I’m lying on the exam table. I think about how much we carry, in every direction, whatever we choose.

And, I’m not asking for sympathy. I’m asking for honesty to be the norm rather than the exception. And for honesty to not always be digested as a big flashing “danger” sign on our behalf. Women are moved too quickly past the hard parts. Told to reframe it, find the lesson, be grateful for what they have. And gratitude is real. I have it. It lives right alongside everything else I’m feeling. But we are allowed to say this is a lot. That it isn’t fair. That fair was never promised and we’re saying it anyway. Like truly it’s okay to not be fully okay for a minute. It takes nine months to bring a baby into the world, and we should start making more room than a few weeks of mat leave for us to be considered healed.

I shared in the past few days I may have to have another surgery to remove some retained placenta and a humongo ovarian cyst my body is supercharging from postpartum hormones. I find out more next week what’s gonna happen after my next scan. I don’t have the resolved ending yet and I’m continuing to learn to be okay with that (you have to be if you do IVF). I wonder if my body will be mine again.

What I have is this… (!)

A big announcement. A new project I’ve been building quietly, born out of exactly these kinds of conversations. The ones that don’t happen enough. The ones women have in their heads at 3am or in DMs with strangers or not at all because there’s nowhere to have them out loud. It lives alongside the work I do at Love Wellness. It’s inspired by it. And it is, at its core, about women telling the truth about what their lives actually look like — not the version they’ve been told to present.

You’re hearing about it here first. I’ll share more on Wednesday.

This project came from this chapter, a hard one. And hard doesn’t equal bad.

A follower DM’d me that recently. I’ve been saying it to myself every day since. So thank you, whoever you are.

More soon.

— Lo

Stuff I Buy at 3am

• body: My whipped Henley by Negative for cozy sleep (it’s so soft)

• wellness: Quick Melt Strips (I love the energy and sleep ones right now)

• home: coterie diapers bc my friend got me a subscription (they’re great tbh)

• phone: The Wonder Weeks app for baby development stuff

• bag: Saie glowy super gel (it’s divineeee for an all over glow that isn’t sticky)

Eight weeks ago, my whole life changed in the most obvious and yet completely impossible-to-prepare-for way. My baby is here. My baby is here. I still can’t say it without smiling like an absolute idiot. She is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, full stop, and I am so wildly, embarrassingly in love with her that I don’t even recognize myself sometimes. In the best way.

I want to be honest with you about where I’m at right now, because that’s kind of the whole point of this space.

My body is not cooperating. I’m dealing with some complications that may require surgery, and it’s a lot to hold emotionally while also wanting to be completely present for this little person who has already rearranged my entire heart. It’s strange to feel the most grateful you’ve ever been and the most physically humbled at the exact same time. But here we are.

I also feel this pull back to work that honestly surprised me. The ideas are coming, the energy is returning in small doses, and my identity is doing this beautiful, disorienting thing where it’s stretching to hold all of it at once. Mother. Founder. Wife. Woman still very much figuring it out.

I know this kind of content isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. But for those of you who are in it, curious about it, or just want a real and unfiltered look at this chapter, I’m so glad you’re here.

Something is coming. Something personal and bigger than anything I’ve built before, and it lives right alongside everything Love Wellness stands for. (and im still the operating CEO and going back to work there soon also). I’m not ready to share yet, but I wanted you, my Substack family, to hear it first.

In the meantime, if you’re curious subscribe to my YouTube now. It’s a hot mess over there and doesn’t reveal what’s about to happen and rly needs to get cleaned up, but you’ll be ready and in the right place when IT happens.

More soon. Until then, I’ll be staring at my daughter like she hung the moon.

Because honestly? She did.

With love, Lo

This one’s for the moms, the almost-moms, and everyone who’s ever felt like they were figuring it out in real time. If that’s you, forward this to someone who needs to read it.