Transcript:

Welcome to Follow Your Gut, Hillary. I am so honored and grateful for your time. Today, we are having a really hard, vulnerable conversation. And I am really, really grateful for you being open to having this conversation with me. Can we start by just getting to know you a little bit?

Hillary (00:20.585)

Thank you.

Hillary (00:27.1)

Sure, of course. And thank you, Juniper, for having this platform for us to connect and communicate. And I really appreciate you inviting me on and for your time, of course. Yeah, but a little bit about me is I grew up in Arizona and went all through, you know...

grade school and high school out there, and then moved around a little bit in my late teens and early twenties. And I eventually made my way to school where I went to school for theater arts. So my heaviest background is in stage acting and producing, and I got my degree in theater management.

And then my husband and I moved out here and I'm sorry we moved out to the Chicago land area back in 2018 and had our son in 2020. And so now I take care of our son and my husband works from home and I...

do my best to be as involved in the theater arts and arts in general in between being in my son's mama. So yeah, that's just the little basic things about me.

Juniper (01:46.858)

I love these introductions because even when we follow each other along on social media, it's such a reminder that we really don't know a lot about people's lives just from scrolling through that app, right, and watching people's stories. I didn't know that your son is your only child or that he was a pandemic baby.

Hillary (02:09.992)

Mm. Yeah, I like, I don't know if I can accept that he's, because a lot of people were like, oh, you have a pandemic baby. And I like to really, for some reason, I like to say, we got him in under, we got him in, in 2019, technically. So technically, it wasn't when everything shut down. And then, you know, we decided to have a baby.

Hillary (02:37.18)

We were lucky enough for it to be relatively easy for us. And then December and then January, February, March happened. And I was like, well, I didn't expect all that to happen. So technically we got him in under the line of technically, but yes, he was born during all the 2020 stuff. Yeah.

Juniper (02:56.534)

which I totally, totally like this term, pandemic baby is like, it means so many different things to so many people. But like, when I say that, what I mean is like, what a unique time to bring a child into the world and all of the different layers involved for you, postpartum and through that experience and how different that time was. So,

Hillary (03:03.034)

Right.

Hillary (03:10.256)

Great. Yes.

Juniper (03:25.154)

Thank you for introducing yourself. Today, we are probably gonna cry, I'm gonna cry. This conversation, I hope, is really healing for our listeners, but not only them, for you. I feel like being able to talk about and process our experiences is a huge part of our healing journey. And...

Hillary (03:34.864)

I'm going to keep it together. I want to try my best.

Juniper (03:54.202)

I can't thank you enough for accepting the invitation to come on the show. So will you? I guess we can let's just jump into it. Do you want to share your story of medical abuse?

Hillary (04:10.096)

Sure, absolutely. This will be the first time that I've shared it outside of family. So I'm not going to apologize if I cry, but it hasn't, you know, I don't know how it's going to catch me sharing it in this platform. So this is a journey for all of us, for both of us and all of us to

Hillary (04:39.964)

Pregnancy was pretty uneventful. I always made the joke that I was a very boring pregnant person. I didn't have anything drastic happen to me or him. I mean, and I had a home birth, which was something I really planned on. Even if it wasn't 2020, my whole adult life, if I was going to have kids, I kind of always pictured it in that fashion.

And then 2020 kind of lent itself to a lot of moms doing that, that I was singing friendwise and in social media and whatnot. The labor itself took like three days. It was a long, long process, but everything stayed good. He stayed good. I stayed good. You know,

Hillary (05:34.2)

But anyway, I say all that because just everything was good. Everything was great. He was born into the world and he was great. You know, everything was going great. And then about two months into his life, his little tiny life.

It was a slow, really slow process. He would eat and eat and eat and eat like all day long. And he wasn't gaining any weight. Like it was just very, he'd put on maybe a quarter of a pound here and there. And you know, we found a pediatrician, like most people do, where you find one that your insurance can cover and you go and see them.

she was very concerned that he wasn't gaining weight. And so was I, you know, I fully understood and understand the health benefits and that are necessary for your baby to gain a certain amount of weight in a short amount of time after they're born. Like I wasn't, I wasn't unknowledgeable of that. And so I...

fed him more. I saw a lactation consultant who was lovely and helpful and shared very same views of life and feeding. She was so helpful and I saw her three times. We were doing so many different things and he was eating all the time. So that's how I knew. He was sleeping pretty well and his poops and pees, everything was pretty normal.

though I felt like he was pooping a little too often, even for a little tiny baby. And I could tell that there was a lot of stress in his being when he would have to go to the bathroom. And after eating, I could just tell that he was stressed. And then about a month and a half into that kind of process.

Hillary (07:23.2)

he, there's a lot of big cry sessions, long, you know, hour long, just cry sessions where it was no matter what after eating and he ate all the time. So it felt like he was just crying all the time. So I knew, I was like, there, there's gotta be something going on inside of him that's not allowing him to gain weight. Like I truly felt like there wasn't a big, big problem.

At the moment, because he was sleeping just fine, he was eating all the time, he was cooing and lifting up his head, he was doing all of the baby things, all the infant things. I would say 50% of the time he was happy, and then the other 50% of the time he was just miserable. And then he started getting a body rash on his torso area and his back, just very, very red, irritated.

flaky like just and then it spread on his legs and his arm and then he had probably some of the worst cradle cap that I'd seen on a baby. And so you know we would call the pediatrician or my sister who has seven babies and I thought she you know that's a lot of experience so maybe she would know a few things which she does because she's also a nurse and you know so she knows the health care part and she knows the mama part and I trust her and so she would tell me some baths.

you know, tricks to try and, you know, different oils or topical things, just different things to try and nothing was really working. It wasn't really getting, the skin wasn't getting a whole lot worse and none of his other symptoms were getting worse. But he just still wasn't gaining weight. And my husband was very, very concerned with the skin because it just wasn't going down. It just.

looked red and blotchy and just itchy and I felt like a lot of his cries he was just uncomfortable now looked like from the inside and now out on the outside he was just this little tiny uncomfortable being and again still had yeah

Juniper (09:25.622)

Rashes do that. I mean, like they are this really amazing symptom that's like, whoa, we can really see that something really is going on now. And it's interesting that you like say that your husband was so concerned about his rash because my husband was the same way when our son was unwell. And I hear this a lot that it's like, like mamas are like really concerned about like all the other layers, right? The like, that just like,

make us feel so uneasy on the inside. Like that screaming, we know that something is wrong. But it's really tends to be like the rash for dads who are like, Whoa, like something's got to be done here. And so I think that's just so interesting that you just said that because that's, that's kind of like this running trend that I see that like once like the, the issue moves external, like, and you can visually see it. That's when

there's like this agreement like, okay, something's really, really not right here.

Hillary (10:30.972)

Yeah. So I, and again, because it wasn't getting drastically worse, though, my main focus was like, I got to get this kid to be comfortable. And he's got to start gaining weight, because I kind of had, you know, my pediatrician's voice, because we were seeing her once a week, because that's how concerned she was about his weight gain. So he was being weighed once a week. And then

I ended up having to move one of his appointments. So there was maybe a two week block. And then I needed to call her because my husband was like, we have to go see someone about his skin. And I was like, well, I feel like that's like.

that's on the bottom of the list of like the cons of what I feel needs to be treated. Um, but sure, we can try and make an appointment. So I called the pediatrician's office. She hurt our pediatrician wasn't available, but her like nurse practitioner, like her secondary person in the office was available, um, which didn't make me very comfortable cause they don't know.

They hadn't been seen, like we had at that point had seen that pediatrician like five times, I think. So I was like, okay, well, let's just go. I was trying, my gut told me don't go. My gut was saying, this is an unnecessary, but I was trying to put my husband's mind at ease. And if they could give us some kind of guidance of how to help his skin and help him be more comfortable. Um.

And my husband understood, like he has a biology degree. He understands that like your skin is telling you things. Like he got it, but I think he, because we had been trying so many different things that he was like, it's obviously beyond what we can do. And my...

Hillary (12:19.516)

research and my conversations that I've had that I had with my sister about her kids and her medical experience, she kept saying the words leaky gut. I think he has a leaky gut. I think he has a leaky gut. And

So I did more diving on that, like what that means. And a lot of the symptoms are exactly what his symptoms were and no weight gain. And I was like, it's gotta be that. And I don't know. I don't know the first thing about fixing a leaky gut. I don't, that's where my knowledge end. I just can inform myself of the thing that she felt it was and that it looked like it was. So when I went into the pediatrician's office for specifically his skincare, um, I brought that up. I said, I really just think he has a leaky gut. And they, um,

when I saw the nurse practitioner who had never, ever, ever seen my son before, um, was right off the bat, like 10 seconds into the appointment, she said he's dehydrated. And I said, he can't be dehydrated. He eats all the time. He pees and poops. Like, if you know the symptoms to dehydration, he had zero other than flaky dry skin and the little soft spot on his head was

was a little bit sunken in because he wasn't absorbing nutrition, you know? Like he wasn't getting a lot of the stuff that you need from my breast milk. Clearly something was going on with his gut. And I was like, I think it's not that he's dehydrated. He sleeps just fine. He had no symptoms for dehydration. So I was pretty adamant about, I think the problem is this leaky gut. And she was just concerned about what formula I had him on. And I'm like, well, I'm really determined to

you know, make sure he gets my breast milk. Like that was something that was important to me as a mom. And I knew that it was the best thing for him.

Hillary (14:10.436)

And so I wasn't supplementing with formula, even though the pediatrician had said that's, you have to put weight on him and you have to do formula. I was still in the zone of researching formulas because if it was something that had become absolutely necessary, I didn't want to deny my son what he needed. So I was still in a zone of like researching. So I was explaining that. I was like, well, I'm really trying to find like a really clean, it's really hard to find a really clean formula to supplement. So I haven't found one that I'm comfortable with.

So she was very adamant about him being dehydrated. And no matter what I said, it didn't, she just kept feeling the top of his head. And she's like, you feel that? You feel how his little soft spot is in a little bit? And I was like, yeah, ever so slightly, but I really think it's just because there's something going on. He's not gathering nutrients or weight. And so then the nurse practitioner said, I think you just need to take him to the emergency room. And like,

Every alarm bell in my body went off. My gut was like...

Juniper (15:11.982)

You just saying that like gave me full body chills. And before you go further, I just want to like acknowledge this hard place that you're in that I think every mom who experienced this gets to. And I was right there in the thick of it too is our intuitions are so strong, and they're telling us one thing. And our partners don't always like they

Hillary (15:16.026)

Yeah.

Juniper (15:41.11)

A lot of times, especially when you have like a very visible rash that is really alarming, you know, I remember my husband feeling you just have to fill that prescription for the serochrom. You've got to do something like you at this point, you are choosing to let him be miserable. And I'm trying to say it like, it just doesn't feel right in my gut. Like, and I don't have words to explain it beyond that. But my gut is screaming at me that is wrong. And

that you are in this situation, even going to this appointment, like your gut knew that you weren't supposed to go there. And it's this really fragile place that we find ourselves in not only like when our children are struggling, but all throughout motherhood, right? Of like honoring and listening to our gut feelings and our intuitions, while also, you know, valuing our partners and their needs and expectations. And it's...

this really fragile place that's beautiful. And I think ultimately, you know, when we marry the two, we end up on the exact journey that we're meant to be on, but it's really hard. And I also think that your appointment with the nurse practitioner is like so many appointments that every single listener has been to.

like I went to 17 times of like asking questions and looking for like root causes and, you know, saying I'm feeling like it's this, you know, I had a very strong suspicion that my son had candida yeast overgrowth and just like you, I was just like shot down. Like, that's not a thing. We all have candida in our bodies. That's not a thing. We need to do this and this and this and this. And like my son was put through the wringer.

And there it is all along, like my, my got new. And here you are at the very beginning of your journey. And you knew.

Hillary (17:49.561)

Yeah.

Juniper (17:50.374)

And so I just wanted to pause to acknowledge that because this is a parallel, these are parallel experiences that we all have that is part of this really hard journey. Okay.

Hillary (18:04.6)

Yeah. And I, and I, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know if you wanted to set me up. Okay. Yeah.

Juniper (18:08.758)

No, no, you keep going. Yes, we just left off where she said you're gonna need to go to the ER, but say whatever you're gonna say.

Hillary (18:14.156)

Yeah, no, I first was going to say, it was a surreal experience being a first time mom, and going in like, you meet this person that you're putting your child's well-being in, and they know 15 minutes of you in them. So I already felt uneasy even with the pediatrician, not saying that, you know,

I just felt like, well, can we just get to know each other first? Like I felt like my very first appointment with this newborn being a first time mom was 15 minutes. That's it. It wasn't half hour long. It wasn't an hour long. I saw this woman for 15 minutes after he got his vitals taken for the first time in a hospital setting. Um, and there was many, many conclusions already taken from him and from me.

And then when this new person came in, she made conclusions within the first 10 seconds. And so I was like, hold on, hold on, like, let's get to know, let's get to know. I haven't even told you his history or what I've been through or what's going on or, you know, anything like that. So when she suggested just going to the ER, that's why I think my alarm bells went off is because I was like, I didn't get in any, any specifics.

and I really don't think it's an emergency. I really felt because he was, he had again, no symptoms of being dehydrated and he was able to sleep and pee and poop a lot and eat all the time. It would be very different if he was lethargic or non-responsive or wasn't cooing or wasn't lifting his head up. I really felt like, yes, I was a first time mom, but I knew.

The work that I had done as far as getting to know what a newborn baby is and does and having lots of nieces and nephews, so also being a first-hand experience with babies, my gut was just like, I know he's not dehydrated, but there is something going on. I won't deny that.

The nurse practitioner went and asked the pediatrician and the pediatrician without coming in to look at him did not set eyes on him. But the nurse practitioner came back and said, yep, your pediatrician agrees. You should go to the emergency room. And I was in my mind, they're like, we will call them ahead. Like this is the one that you should go to. We'll call them and let them know that you're on your way.

And I was like, okay, I think that's unnecessary, but okay. And that was it. Like it was, again, another 15 minute appointment. No history, just saw that he wasn't gaining weight. His soft spot was dipping and he had a really bad rash. And so no questions were asked to me other than what formula I had him on. That was it. So we got in the car.

And I said to my husband, I said, I'm not taking my infant son to the emergency room. I said, no part of my body tells me that that's what he needs and that's a good idea. In the middle of a pandemic and he is not having an emergency. Even if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic, I was like, this is an ill use of the emergency room. I was like, he's not having an emergency. He needs someone to help him. And I don't know what that help is.

but an emergency room is not the setting for him to... I said all of this out loud to my husband. I was like, it's just not, I just don't. So I called my sister, the one who has lots of, seven kids, seven babies, and has been through it a lot. And I told her what our experience was. And I said, well, what would you do? And again, it's not like I was treating her words like the end all, like that was it. I was diagnosing my child through the phone, through my sister. I just wanted to know...

Juniper (37:39.655)

Sure.

Hillary (37:44.861)

in her mother experience and in her nurse experience what she would do. And she said, if it were me, I would not take him to the emergency room. And she said, but I'm not afraid of the repercussions. And I'm like, what repercussions? I was like, what's going to happen? She's like, oh, you know, like they could call CPS. And in my mind, I was like, they're not going to call CPS. Like, why would she do that? I'm allowed to make a decision. Like they suggested

And I'm like, it's just a referral. Like I can say no, thank you. You know what I mean? Like I can like, so I decided then and there in the car, I'm like, I'm just gonna get a second opinion. I'm gonna do some research on just a different pediatrician, make an appointment, get them in as soon as possible, and just see someone else who could help us. So I got.

Juniper (38:34.882)

How wild that even right there that your sister who's a nurse like had this awareness that this like was a possibility.

Hillary (38:43.701)

Yeah. So, but it didn't still didn't like scare me and not that she wasn't trying to do that, but it didn't scare me into making this decision that I felt wasn't right. So we went home. I made a couple of phone calls to my midwife and my doula and asked them if they knew, you know, some, a pediatrician that would kind of more so would know what to do, like talking to my community of caregivers.

Juniper (38:50.827)

Yeah.

Hillary (39:12.301)

And I got a name and made the phone call and they were seeing him, I think it was like five days later, which wasn't great, but you gotta take what you can get sometimes. Yeah.

Juniper (39:23.246)

It's still pretty amazing considering like the time that all this happened.

Hillary (39:28.925)

Yeah, yeah. So I called my current pediatrician. I said we were just there. They said to go to the emergency room. It just doesn't feel like I left this all on a message because again, she wasn't available. So I left it as a message and I said, we're just going to go get a second opinion. I really think what my son needs is just some help that I, that, you know, I just feel like we need a second opinion is all I really said, because I didn't really think I needed to explain myself. I just like...

We're going to go get a second opinion. Five o'clock the next day, or just before five o'clock the next day, there was a knock on my door. And I was sitting on the couch feeding my son. And my husband opened the door. My husband works from home. And he opened the door. And it was a very large, tall gentleman saying he was with CPS. And we have been asked and required to take our son to the emergency room.

Juniper (40:00.011)

Yeah.

Hillary (40:26.553)

for evaluation due to failure to thrive and dehydration.

And I think my soul like left my body. Like I couldn't believe it. I just, there was never in my mind with me communicating what the next steps were going to be for my child. Me knowing my child better than anyone that could lay eyes on him at that time in his life and feeling very sure and confident of the decisions that I was making for him. That whole rug.

was ripped out underneath me when he said those words.

Juniper (41:07.478)

Well, especially because you went to the pediatrician because you were concerned about your child. Like it's not that you were like this negligent mother, right? Like you were taking action, you were doing everything because you knew that something wasn't right. And...

Hillary (41:15.298)

Yeah.

Juniper (41:34.246)

Oh, I cannot fathom that moment.

Hillary (41:39.829)

Yeah. And I had downloaded an app pretty early on when he wasn't gaining weight that like recorded every time I fed him and how long he ate and what side he ate from. And I had weeks, you know, days, hours of recorded and I pulled it up for the CPS and I said, he is not in a state of emergency. That is why we have not taken him to the emergency room. He is not in a state of emergency. I said,

this is how often this child eats. Does this seem like a child who's dehydrated? And the gentleman agreed with me. He's like, I hear you. And I agree with all of that. He's like, my job is to make sure you do this one thing. And then you can show that you took him to the emergency room. You could show that he was released. And then I have done my job and I can move on and sign off on the papers. And I said, can't you just see?

that he's not, like, look in our apartment, see that he's not neglected, see that I'm feeding him, see that I have been feeding him, and that we have all the baby things he needs. You know, like, can't you just see that these people who are recommending this, who are now enforcing this, are wrong? And he said, well, I could lose my job.

if I don't make sure you go to the emergency room. And so I said, so now the decisions I make based on my child is now contingent to you keeping your job or not? So I have to factor in what I'm about to do with my son to make sure you keep your job. I didn't know that was a factor I needed to worry about as healthcare providers and professionals keeping their job. So I was like, oh, okay.

So of course I was shaking and I was crying and I couldn't believe it. And my husband and I, we just packed up everything, thinking we were just taking our son to the emergency room and went to the emergency room that they recommended. And when we got there, they said, oh yeah, we got a phone call that you were supposed to be here last night. I was like supposed to be here. I said my son wasn't having an emergency. So I felt like that was very odd.

Hillary (43:52.565)

And this is just a side note to the system that I just feel is obviously a little broken is that they had us pay for the visit upfront, which I thought was very strange, that they hadn't even cared for my child. So just arriving at the ER, we had to pay just to sit in the, just to be there. So that was a little odd to me. And again, this is my first experience. I've never experienced this before. So we get back into the room and...

The emergency room knows nothing about CPS, that we're basically forced to be there. They know nothing about that. That's like a separate thing. They just know that we were supposed to be there last night, we weren't. And they did the same exact thing that the pediatrician's office did. They weighed him, they took his vitals, they asked about his history, they asked about what formula he's on. We still wasn't on any formula. And I said this, and at that point I did supplement.

with just a little bit of goat milk based formula, because that was the only one that I was even remotely comfortable with. And even then I didn't love it. But that was me. That was the decision I had made. But I was just wanting to see if it would help him balance and help him gain weight. And it wasn't doing either. So I let them know they didn't like that. That wasn't the right formula. And it wasn't approved. So that was like red flag for them, number one.

Juniper (44:56.962)

Yeah.

Hillary (45:18.961)

He was there for dehydration and they wanted to take blood samples. And I said, okay, well, if you get blood out of him, then he's not dehydrated. Like I knew all of this. I knew that another symptom is that you wouldn't be able to get a vein and you wouldn't be able to pull blood, enough blood to take your tests. So this poor little two-month-old baby in the emergency room was someone who was not equipped to do NICU blood polls, prodding at my screaming child.

Juniper (45:47.059)

Ugh.

Hillary (45:47.137)

Like that by itself was like heartbreak number two, having the person come to my door, having this happen to him, and then also being told that I was not feeding him the proper things, which was breast milk and goat milk formula. So then the test results come back. He's not dehydrated, which I already knew. So that was not surprising.

but they said they were very concerned with his weight. And I said, I'm working with his pediatrician on this. I know there's something going on in his gut that's preventing him from absorbing nutrition and fats. And I'm working on it. And now I'm also gonna go see this other pediatrician because I needed to get a second opinion because clearly his current pediatrician just isn't helping him with what he needs. I think that was red flag number two for them that I said that about the current pediatrician.

Because then they also said that he was vitamin D deficient. And I said, well, yes, typically newborn babies. Again, this is research that I had done as a mom knowing that there was something off about him. So I knew that if he's not absorbing fats, he's definitely not absorbing vitamins and minerals from his food. What is preventing this from happening? So he was vitamin D deficient. And I said, well, it's January in Illinois. The baby has never seen the sun before.

and he's not absorbing the nutrition he needs. And I know this, I already know this. They're like, well, with the lack of weight gain and the vitamin D deficiency, we think we should keep him overnight. And I said, really, I can't just go see the secondary pediatrician, we're gonna see them next week. And they told me that this pediatrician that I had, I gave him the name of the pediatrician, the secondary one that I wanted to see, and he was not approved.

That's what they kept telling me, that he's not an approved pediatrician.

Juniper (47:49.934)

What does that mean?

Hillary (47:51.614)

I don't know. I don't know if it was...

Juniper (47:53.782)

He doesn't, maybe he doesn't promote the same formula. Ha ha.

Hillary (47:57.717)

Maybe. I'm honestly not 100% sure. And I said, well, then if you don't like him, can I make a few phone calls and just get him in to someone else? I really just don't think he needs to stay at a hospital during a pandemic. I just don't think that that's necessary. And I said the same things. It was like I was a computer repeating it over and over again. He eats all the time. He sleeps just fine. He holds his head up. He's responsive. He's

He's a very happy baby." And she was like, well, his vitamin C, his vitamin D is so low. And I said, okay, again, newborn babies have low vitamin D already. It's January in Illinois. There's just probable causes for these things to happen. And she said, again, remember, the emergency room knows nothing of CPS.

Hillary (48:57.33)

ER pediatrician looked at me in the face and said, if you don't let us admit him into the hospital, I will have to take him.

And I said, wait, you're gonna have to take him from me? I said, are you saying that, like, did I just hear that right? And I repeated the words back to her. She's like, I don't want to. I was like, but will you? And she's like, I don't want to.

So I admitted my child to the hospital on threat of him being taken away from me. And so we were admitted and we spent the next three days very fearful that if we made any sort of disturbance or said no to any care, and I use the word care very openly because I felt like what he was receiving was not care. We had the, when we finally got upstairs

Juniper (49:26.04)

Oh my gosh.

Hillary (49:55.609)

pediatric wing of the hospital. We were delivered cans of formula and I read the ingredients and it like broke my heart. Sorry.

Juniper (50:09.606)

It's okay. This is part of the process and there is a lot of tears on the Follow Your Gut podcast so you, you're welcome.

Hillary (50:10.565)

enough.

Hillary (50:17.114)

The very first thing I was told was to stop breastfeeding him immediately.

And this was the formula that I was required to feed him, to help him, to help him gain weight and be not vitamin D deficient. And so I looked at the ingredients and I said, the first ingredient in this is corn syrup, which means that more, I said more than 57% of this formula is corn syrup.

That's why it's the first ingredient. More than 57% of it is corn syrup. So my baby is going to gain weight because I'm giving him sugar in the form of corn syrup. He will absolutely gain weight on this, but it will not be healthy, and it will not be good for him. I said, I cannot knowingly give this to my child and feel okay about it. And the...

the hospital pediatrician said, I give it to my children. And I said, that's fine. That's what you have chosen for you and your children. I'm not saying that it's, I'm saying that it's wrong for this tiny human. And I can't bring myself to do it. He has a very, I can tell he has a very sensitive stomach and something's wrong. So then I had

in my back pocket this like cow's milk based formula that I wasn't really wanting to use, but I picked that up when we were forced to go to the hospital just in case. And I said, can I just give him this? And it was still not great. It still wasn't because I was told to stop breastfeeding him. He needed something like and this formula was rice based as opposed to.

Hillary (52:16.981)

the corn syrup and they wouldn't let me do it. They said they were, if I didn't feed him the formula that they brought, that they could lose their job. So again, if they don't have on the record that I fed him this formula, apparently my decisions for my child are conducive with people keeping their jobs once again. So

My baby was going to get the CPS guy fired apparently, and this pediatric doctor, this hospital doctor. It's very odd to me that this all depends on people keeping their jobs, but nowhere in their advice was it because they cared for him. The bottom line on both instances was that they needed to keep their job, and it wasn't about making sure my son was cared for. So that was the motivation that I was told.

by these people, was that so they could keep their jobs?

Juniper (53:20.542)

I'm speechless right here. Because I just want to like acknowledge the fact that when your child is struggling.

Hillary (53:20.657)

So, so I, oh, go ahead.

Juniper (53:34.794)

I'm gonna lose it here. When your child is unwell, it is already such a battle. And as a mom, you are already so scared. And then to have to...

Fight. Even without an experience like you've had to have to fight and fight and fight to be heard and to have somebody acknowledge what you know. And that in fact, as the mom, you do know best. And you know.

As moms, especially our first time around, we are constantly second guessing ourselves. We just want what is best for our child and...

A lot of times it takes some time to learn. And for you...

to.

Juniper (54:36.446)

be forced to stop doing what was the best thing for your child that you so deep in your heart knew, shakes me.

Juniper (54:49.458)

I can't tell you how many women come, they message me on Instagram and say, you know, I was exclusively breastfeeding and then I was told that my child was having these symptoms because of my breast milk. And so I stopped and now my milk has dried up, but I never wanted to stop. And even though I stopped, my child is still sick. And formula didn't heal them.

Juniper (55:23.127)

I mean, to me, like, breastfeeding is...

Juniper (55:30.038)

Like you were showing up as a mom, how you instinctively were designed to be a mom. And you fell into this trap in the system that is not designed to care for you.

Juniper (55:50.782)

And I just want to acknowledge how fricking hard it is to have an unwell child and then to have to fight to keep your child because you are doing, you are mothering instinctively and intuitively is absolutely heartbreaking.

Hillary (56:13.773)

Yeah, yeah, I felt very confident. Like I shared about my pregnancy, even my really intense labor, even those first eight weeks that I had him pre-going and having this experience. I was a very confident person, I'm not gonna lie. I wasn't to the sense that I was like not hearing anybody, but I was very confident. I had worked, I didn't have my baby until I was 33 years old. So I felt like I worked.

really hard on myself and healed a lot of wounds before I had that baby. And I was very confident and I didn't know everything, but I was confident in the learning. I was confident in the journey. And it's amazing what six hours of this treatment did to me. I was unsure of everything.

Juniper (57:07.406)

Well, I want to talk about that for a second because I think that our, I think a lot of healthcare workers are not used to somebody coming in with confidence. They're used to people not having confidence in themselves, not trusting themselves and being very obedient. And your confidence very well could have been

felt threatening to them because that is not, that's like such a beautiful gift that you have and that you are giving your family. And from my experience, something that not many moms enter motherhood with. And so I just, I amend to you for like, for your confidence because...

How many people have that?

Hillary (58:08.229)

And that's, I think, and I know lots of mamas. I have a lot of mama friends. I have older sisters who all were in very different stages of their life. I think I've been so honored to witness so many people's mom journeys in my life that I've seen so many different ways that it can be done and so many colors of love, you know, so many variations.

and lessons learned. And so my confidence is in the decision that my husband and I made to start trying for a family and being blessed with our son. It's because of those mom's journeys, honestly. I don't feel like I would have entered that decision because at one point in my life, I didn't want to be a mama. I thought it was like, it's for some people, I'm just gonna be the really, really strong, cool aunt for the rest of my life. And I had really hung my hat on that.

Just because that's where I thought my journey was to go. And then my journey shifted and changed and looked different with the significant other that I had found. It changed and felt like it should be something different, something else, something. And so really my confidence is not self-affirming. It was I got it from all the other women and moms in my life. That was my confidence.

I got the honor to witness their experiences and hear their stories. And then if I even got the one little moment to babysit a child of theirs and I was a nanny, my confidence is not just well-researched information, which I read a lot going into my pregnancy and being pregnant. And I read all the books, all the articles, every, but it really stemmed from the confidence was I had so many generations of moms and women.

behind me on this decision and this process. So I felt so strong. And in minutes, it was what built, what took me years to build. It was ripped away from me in minutes. And it is very odd, like what you said about being in a hospital setting or a healthcare setting, there's almost this back and forth trust that is so essential. But I felt

Hillary (01:00:34.869)

even with his first pediatrician that we were seeing, she didn't trust me. And I was trying to get to a place where I could trust her, but we knew each other for 15 minutes. So I don't know how I was supposed, she's a stranger. And I don't know how I was supposed, I'm not required to trust her as a medical provider, just as she's not required to trust me as a mother. So there's already a lot of settings, I'm not saying every setting.

Juniper (01:00:50.24)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:01:03.757)

but a lot of pediatric settings with new parents and first time parents, it's.

It's this lack of trust and communication, which every relationship, every partnership, that is the key component, is a level of trust and communication. I had built my entire womanhood and motherhood and friendships and relationships on trust and communication. So to walk into a room where you're automatically not trusted, where there's zero interest to get to know you as a person, and you're not trusted.

Juniper (01:01:20.277)

Absolutely.

Hillary (01:01:39.353)

There's more so of the numbers on a computer screen that is the bigger concern than what's happening between two individuals and a new mom. It wasn't for me, I was like, something's missing. There's a disconnect that we only see these people for 15 minutes, they only know my baby for 15 minutes. And what if he's in a terrible mood? What if he's having one of his screaming fits? What if he's, we get to these people in these small snippets.

Juniper (01:02:02.68)

Sure.

Hillary (01:02:08.449)

And then we deem them whatever, you know, unfit or failure to thrive or dehydrated. And it's the small snippet. And that's what they're trained to do. That's, that's, that's the textbook response. I get it. But for me, it was definitely a broken system. And for me, my child was the one that suffered because of it. Being in that room and told to give him something that I knew was unhealthy for him confused me.

I was in a hospital, a hospital that's meant to care and provide care. And I was blatantly telling them, this is not the care that he needs. But again, I was so afraid because I've already been told twice that he was going to be taken from me. And so when they left, when the pediatrician with the formula left, my husband said,

I think we just need to smile and say yes to everything. He's like, we gotta get out of here. And I think the only way we're gonna get out of here is if we just smile, not our head and say yes to everything.

Juniper (01:03:21.079)

No.

Hillary (01:03:22.285)

which if you have to accept care unwillingly to get out of a situation, you're not being cared for, you're kidnapped. So that's when it came into my mind that we were medically kidnapped. I had to smile and say yes, so they would release me and my son. And I still pumped

as often as I could because I didn't want my stuff drying up and I had no idea how long we were going to be there. So I still fed him the things that they required me to feed him. He started getting after the first day of about six feedings with this formula, he started getting burns on his butt. So in his diaper area, there were chemical burns.

on both of his rear ends and through his whole little tiny under pieces were all burned, chemically burned. And so when I pointed this out to them, they gave me another formula that was supposed to be more sensitive to sensitive guts. He was basically pooping just liquid.

Hillary (01:04:46.869)

he would literally drink it and then it would fall out of him. And I was so worried because I was like, he's not going to gain weight even on this stuff because it's just falling out of him. So that was day like two. And he would still have these enormous screaming fits after he would eat. And then like, well, yeah, he's got burns on his butt and probably through his like little butthole. And it hurts to.

process this stuff. If this is what it's doing to his skin, I can't imagine what it was doing to his insides. And so like, I was so worried that he would eat and then he would scream and he was like burning off all these calories. And I was like, baby, you got to stop screaming because you're burning calories by crying. So I'm like trying to comfort him as best I can. And by the third day, he was finally keeping on the weight.

Juniper (01:05:17.291)

Yeah.

Juniper (01:05:31.665)

Oh

Hillary (01:05:44.533)

and he actually started to fill out in his face, but he wasn't right.

Hillary (01:05:52.773)

He was still having a lot of screaming fits after eating.

And um...

He wasn't talking to me.

Um...

Hillary (01:06:11.169)

And he was sleeping a lot. Like we had to wake him up to eat majority of the time, which told me that his body is like fighting because his body was also running a little hot, not feverish, but just hot. And he wasn't waking up and interacting with me. So then by the third day, they wanted to weigh him again because they were weighing him every three hours. And then...

they wanted to take his blood again. I was like, can't you just use what they took in the ER? And I don't know if they were looking for something else very specific. So they had to let them take his blood again. And again, they brought someone in who didn't know how to do NICU blood pulls. So he got poked a lot of times, he was screaming. I finally asked, can you please call a NICU?

blood, can you please call a NICU person who knows how to do these needles with NICU arms, please, like tiny arms. So I finally stepped in and said, I just need someone who knows what they're doing, who knows tiny arms and tiny veins. And so finally, they brought someone in from the NICU who used a smaller needle. And I was told to step aside. So they could hold him down and get the blood out. And I said,

You tell me where to stand so I won't be in your way, but I'm not stepping aside. I need my son to know that I am not available. My presence will be right next to my son. So you tell me where to stand where I'm not in your way, but my presence is not leaving his presence. So they told me where to stand, that I wasn't in their way, and I just held his little head, because that was all that was available to me, because they held his arms down.

Hillary (01:08:10.209)

And they took his blood again. They ran the tests that they wanted to run. He was still vitamin D deficient and a lot of other deficiencies and whatever else. I can't even remember now, like all the things that came up, because again, I was just smiling and nodding my head. And I was, we were required to see a nutritionist before we left and a gastroenterologist before we left.

and we had to make an appointment with an approved pediatrician. And we had to have that on the books and proven that we made the appointment. And again, this hospital knows nothing of CPS. This was just the hospital's regulations. Meanwhile, we're on the phone with CPS telling them everything that's happening. And they said, you know, yes, we need to do everything they say. And we need documentation that we're doing all of it. So we had, you know,

a GI come in, nutritionist come in, they weighed him three more times that day. The most horrible experience, I mean, it was all horrible, but to really get under my skin while I'm just smiling and nodding was the gastroenterologist who came in and told me again to the worst thing I could, the worst thing, these are his words, the worst thing I could do for my son right now is to breastfeed him.

stop breastfeeding him. And I said, listen, when I was breastfeeding him, I took out everything that they say could affect his gut. I stopped eating dairy, I stopped eating sugar, I stopped eating nuts, I stopped eating, I took out everything that they recommend you take out to affect, that could affect your babies. And he looked at me and he said, so did you stop eating yogurt? And I said, is yogurt dairy?

And he said, yes. And I said, then yes. He said, well, what about ice cream? And I said, is ice cream dairy? And he said, yes. And I said, then yes. And I looked at him before he could ask me one more time. I said, I'm not confused as to what dairy is.

Juniper (01:10:20.554)

Oh my god.

Hillary (01:10:21.145)

I took out all of the things. He's like, well, what were you eating? Because I said, I took out gluten. I took out, you know, I took out all the things. And I was already someone who didn't eat a lot of processed foods to begin with. So I didn't really list that as a thing. And he's like, well, you gotta make sure you eat real food.

So again, going back to just the smiling and nodding my head so we could get out of there. We also had to make an appointment, have it on the books for a dermatologist, a pediatric dermatologist. We had to find a new approved pediatrician, which I went to my oldest sister who kind of has the pulse on...

Hillary (01:11:04.229)

nice pediatricians who would share the same values as I do when it comes to health care for your child. And she put out like the bat signal asking, you know, if friends knew anybody in the Chicagoland area of a pediatrician who, you know, has X, Y, and Z values. And she came back to me like 10 minutes and had three different names. I researched the first one, called the first one.

Juniper (01:11:28.955)

Wow.

Hillary (01:11:31.565)

got in there and that pediatrician has been our pediatrician since that day. And so we did all the things, even me bringing to their attention that we felt medically kidnapped and that my son didn't need to be here and that we were supposed to be here because of dehydration and he's not dehydrated. And it just keeps turning into something else as to why he's here. And we are leaving this hospital.

and he is worse than when he came in. Fatter, but healthier, no. He had gained weight, but he was not healthier. He had burns, he had chemical burns on his butt, and his skin rash never went away. So that was the whole other reason, that was the number one reason why we saw our pediatrician was to help his skin rash. It was worse, his cradle cap was worse

And he had that traumatic experience of two blood draws, being less than three months old. And so we were finally able to go home. And after that, CPS stayed with us until that was a January visit that we went to the hospital, or yeah, January. And we were required to report all activities, feedings,

and appointments to CPS until May of 2021. So January to May, we were required to document, share, and provide all history of care for our son.

Juniper (01:13:05.77)

Wow.

Juniper (01:13:17.846)

Wow.

Hillary (01:13:19.033)

So that's the big, you know, all of, that's the medical abuse of it all. But what happened after that, of course, was the damage that was caused to him and to myself and my husband, ours more emotional and physical than his being physical. I mean, emotional, yes, because he's a child and he did.

I feel like that trauma just has stuck with him even to this day and he's three. But I wasn't better off. We were required to go see a dermatologist who we found a very lovely pediatric dermatologist. She was so lovely. She was so caring, so giving, so interested in him, but she knows one way to treat skin and that's topically.

But again, we had CPS dealing with us, so I had to smile, nod, and put the, and I'm gonna use this word, and I know it might upset people, but I had to put the poison on my kid's skin. To me, it was poison that I was rubbing into him, even though it was a steroid cream. Works for people, I get it. For me, I knew it was the wrong thing, and it was temporary, but because I was required to do so in order to be released from CPS, I was only required to do it for two weeks, and that's all I did it for.

And I would say his skin rash went away the initial time we used it and then immediately not using it came back with a vengeance it like I was like because the problem is not with his skin The problem is going on with his gut and I we still don't know what the issue is and his pediatrician His current pediatrician the one that we ended up finding

She's the one that recommended us and we had a referral. So we were allowed to go to this homeopathic doctor who runs a restorative healthcare facility. And because it was pediatric recommended and our pediatric was approved, because we saw her is when we first started seeing good change in George, in our son. And that was, we started seeing her

Hillary (01:15:40.597)

I want to say August of 2021 is when we finally got to go see her. And you shared your experience that your son had the candida. That was the very first thing she brought up. And I had candida and over, you know, an over amount of candida in my gut when I was in grade school. So I was like, that makes sense. I think I'm prone to that because I had issues with it growing up, but no one knew how to treat it. I just kind of powered through it as a little kid.

And when she started to, we started doing more of a homeopathic and diet based approach to what he needed. That's when we first started to see change. But he, his skin was just so bad at that point. The damage that had been caused to his gut because of the formulas and it was just hard to come back. And he had suffered after that.

hospital stay of me not breastfeeding him. He wouldn't breastfeed. I could not get him. I saw the lactation consultant again because of the nipple confusion that he suffered and had many, many breakdowns of feeling. I was like, he's broken. Just because we didn't have that connection anymore, he wanted nothing to do with my breast, nothing. And it was three days of not being able to be on my breast that he wanted a nipple.

a bottle, a nipple from a bottle. And so I pumped and I gave him that and it was still making him really sick. And I was like, but there was no support in trying to get my breast milk to work better for him. There was only find the right formula. That's all I was advised, just find the right formula. I tried to, again,

like supplement with the breast milk in the formula. And that just always made things so much worse. Like it just wasn't. So I pumped and I pumped and saved and saved. And I was like, one day he's gonna be able to do it. I just, I'm like, he's gonna want this breast milk. I'm like, one day. And then sometimes we would also use my breast milk for his butt burns and his skin, like when they got really bad or when they turned into bleeding cuts and he would get infections on his face. So I would put it on his face.

Hillary (01:18:03.629)

Um, and he ended up getting three different topical infections and a staph infection, uh, on his face and had to do, unfortunately, um, again, because we had CPS involved, we were required to give him whatever the doctors gave us. So he did have to do some antibiotics that I was like, well, they'll probably clear up the infection, but now I got to deal with that damage to his gut as well.

And we ended up finding, through our pediatrician, we ended up finding a pharmacist that makes really, really clean. Like they take out all the red dyes and all the frou-frou flavor, and they really clean up a prescription. And this gentleman who's probably in his 80s, introduced me to probiotics. He's like, I understand if you have to give your kid this antibiotic. He's like, but here's a probiotic as well.

Juniper (01:19:02.589)

Wow.

Hillary (01:19:02.717)

So he, and he had done all this research for me about the gut and that was the door that opened when I found to really get into the nitty gritty about eczema, because that's what everyone kept saying, oh, he has eczema, oh, he's gonna grow out of it, oh, he has eczema, and I go, is eczema so bad, like infections and blisters and he was the one that really connected the dots.

for me and had done this research for over 40 years that he had a little booklet of. He didn't know me, he had no idea. All he knew is that I needed to call in a prescription because of eczema and he had this little booklet. And luckily, I think he trusted that, since I was coming to him and wanted a cleaner prescription, he maybe just trusted that I was someone who wanted to know the information. And that's...

Juniper (01:19:48.471)

Wow.

Hillary (01:19:59.997)

Then very shortly after that, I found you. I found only organics because I had done so much research on my phone about cleaning and balancing your gut based on this man's research. And finally, my algorithm caught up with what I needed and I found you. And I was a little suspicious because it was too close to my story that I thought maybe you were a bot. I was like, well,

That's very brave of Instagram to create this other person that has exactly the same story as me, other than like being like in the hospital, but just the going through, I think at that time we had seen nine different specialists for our son and like, it was just, I was like, this is too close. Like this, you know, like you just, because I was so like my, yeah, I couldn't believe it.

Juniper (01:20:34.455)

Wow.

Juniper (01:20:50.518)

know exactly what you mean. Like, how could I have fought so hard for my son for two and a half years? I mean, that's how long our journey was. And like, I mean, I never connected with anybody who had been through something like this. And so when we, you know, we healed our second child, and then we had our third and then our fourth. And when our fourth was four months old, and started showing some of the symptoms, and I followed the same healing protocol and healed his gut.

Hillary (01:21:06.308)

Me neither.

Juniper (01:21:20.578)

That's when I was like, there's no way that two of my children experience this and we're doing everything right and that nobody else is experiencing this. And so I put it out there and not really expecting that literally thousands and thousands and thousands of moms will come forward and say, wait, this is exactly the same experience that we've had. And

What is, I mean, what just shatters me is that if we step back and as women, we are taught during pregnancy, how much our gut health matters because we pass our microbiome on to our children. If we were given that information and taught how to make sure we are passing a balanced.

microbiome onto our children, all of this would be, none of this would happen. And so how, like our system is just so broken that, you know, in pregnancy, we are told, well, take a, do you have a multivitamin? How's your multivitamin? And, and that's it. And, you know, even if you're working with holistic, you know, birth workers, they have the best intentions.

but there is just such a massive lack of awareness around the importance of our microbiome. And so this made me laugh so hard when you said, I thought that maybe you were a bot because our stories were so similar. I completely understand what you mean because how could it be possible that you had to fight for so long for your child and somebody else has already gone through this? Like, how could that possibly be? And

Hillary (01:23:01.155)

Yeah.

Juniper (01:23:14.478)

how can these professionals have no freaking idea of what's really going on? It's absolutely outrageous.

Hillary (01:23:21.267)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:23:24.673)

Yeah, and this was after seeing an allergist who did the poke test on my, not even one year old yet. And literally are, again, wonderful dermatologist, pediatric dermatologist, wonderful, so sweet, so caring. After like the maybe 10th time, knowing that I didn't wanna keep doing the steroids, so she didn't, we didn't keep doing it, she understood that I was like, I'm in it for the two weeks.

Juniper (01:23:30.782)

Oh yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hillary (01:23:55.037)

And then I'm not putting, she's like, I wouldn't recommend it anyway. So she, it was just, but it was getting to a point where it was like one prescription cream after another, after another, after another. And even she looked at my little tiny, not one year old face, baby in the face and said, I don't know what that is, but it's not eczema. And so she like washed her hands. Like she was like, there's nothing else I can do. Like she was out of.

She was out of... because he didn't get magically cleared up after the fourth or fifth prescription cream, she was like, I don't know what that is, but that's not eczema. And it did turn out... Yeah.

Juniper (01:24:38.978)

Well, and how wild that someone who specializes in skin doesn't have the knowledge that our skin is a roadmap of our gut.

Hillary (01:24:50.989)

Yeah. And she, and again, even though she was lovely, I had brought up the link and she's like, yeah, I don't think so. Like she, even though I was like, well, I think, you know, your skin like tells you what's going on inside. And she's like, yeah, I, that's, I don't, I don't think so. I was like, oh, okay. And the same thing with the allergist that we saw, he shot me down. He said, oh, his formula wouldn't do this to him.

And I said, oh, okay. So why are you doing an allergy test to see what he's allergic to? If like what he eats doesn't matter. Like I was so confused. I was like, aren't you seeing what he's allergic to? And his stuff has corn in it. His stuff has corn syrup in it. His formula has, you know, chemical made vitamins. And like, I'm like, then what's the point? Yeah. And it really, they're...

Juniper (01:25:30.536)

Exactly.

Juniper (01:25:46.452)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:25:50.998)

I found you, I want to say he had just turned one.

Or was it two? Yeah, he had just turned two. So that's when I think in, when I was listening, I dove into the research first before buying your product, but he had gotten a lot of cleared up with all the, like he had, it turns out because it wasn't just eczema and the infections were happening because he had just overgrow of like bacteria and his, the restorative healthcare person that we are seeing, have been seeing.

she was like, oh, it could just be a sugar imbalance. I'm like, this kid has never had sugar, but again, the corn syrup, basically sugar. And so it was just like a, like an effect in a bacterial, like infection that was spreading and then turning. So she looked at his stomach rash and she said, I think that looks like bacterial. And I was like, oh, no one has ever looked at his, no one had ever looked at his rash on his stomach.

Juniper (01:26:34.03)

Sure.

Juniper (01:26:43.103)

Yeah.

Juniper (01:26:53.079)

Wow.

Hillary (01:26:57.833)

They always just went right to his face because of how bad it was, because it was literally yellow and just awful. But yeah, anyway, seeing her and taking a completely different approach as to what kind of infection it was, being in the gut versus the staph infection on his face, though very key to take care of, definitely take care of your staph infections, I get it. But the bigger infection being in his gut and having to really rid that of the bad bacteria,

And then that was the biggest change. Though when I found Only Organics and I found you and heard your story, I wept listening to, because I first got your course to get to know Only Organics. And so I invested the time in getting that introduction podcast things and the little course that you have. I don't know if you still have it available for people, but it's like a, you know,

balance course that you had.

Juniper (01:28:00.248)

Yes, so the one that you got. I have kind of an abbreviated version now. Yeah.

Hillary (01:28:04.725)

Yeah. And to hear, I'm like, two and a half. I was like, wait, my kid's two. And you know what I mean? Like so many things were just so similar. So I wept with complete and utter joy and sadness and relief and grief and like just this back and forth of just every time. And one of the very first things that you said, and I think this was probably the biggest reason that I was so called to contact or to be in touch with you.

Juniper (01:28:11.136)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:28:31.861)

and why I was so inspired to encourage to share my story in this capacity was that one of the very first things you say in that course or even it might just be on your podcast is that this is not your fault.

Hillary (01:28:52.717)

And then you said, let me say it again. This is not your fault.

Hillary (01:29:03.525)

And for some reason, though I think I had heard that, and I did my best to tell myself that, and I had heard that probably from my sisters.

Hillary (01:29:15.197)

being the life source and the life giver and the nutrition source for this human, you can't help but feel like you've completely messed up and you've completely

wronged this tiny human that you worked so hard to bring into this world. So for some reason, hearing it from someone who shared such alignment in story, it really resonated. It finally like landed. And though I still have to catch myself from time to time still, when I look back, especially, or if he is having a really bad day,

I have to take a deep breath and remember, and I just hear now your voice in my head until my voice resumes once again, because yes, my son is three. But it's still we're still in the journey. We've been using Only Organics in February, it will be a year. So that's, you know, so I think you said with your son, you did it five times. We took a little break in between one just so I could see where he was at.

Juniper (01:30:07.67)

Oh.

Hillary (01:30:33.521)

and to see if he was still kind of rollercoastering with his rashes. And he was kind of refusing to take it. So I was like, you know what, not going to force them. Let's just take a break. So we took about a month break. And so now I think we're on the fifth time, fifth round of rebalancing. And that has been the biggest change is what we've discovered with his restorative health care professional. And then

through using the gut balance remedy through only organics have changed his life. We're not in a perfect spot. I don't think you ever really get into a perfect spot. Like you still have to always listen to your gut. But we're just in the fact that I can see my baby's skin as fleshy, white, cuddly skin. And the fact that I look at him and I don't see a little suffering

um, little suffering, bleeding mess anymore. Um, it's the, the encouragement and the inspiration of, of taking this journey is not only because I feel like it's, it's so hard to not feel like it's all your fault when it's not. But also I sat in waiting room after waiting room after waiting room.

of specialist after specialist after specialist. And they looked at my child and they said, oh, he has eczema. And I was like, yeah, pretty severe, huh? And they said, oh my, and it would, every time, oh, my daughter had eczema, oh, my second child had eczema, oh, my youngest has eczema. Every mom in every waiting room had over nine specialists sitting in their waiting rooms.

you know, dozens upon dozens of times. Each time I ran into a mom whose child had eczema and then going to the airport, going to parks, moms were stopping me, oh, he has eczema? Oh yeah, oh, and I'm like, everyone's kid has eczema. Do they know how to help them? Do you know, do you know how to help them?

Juniper (01:32:48.566)

I know. Well, the answer is absolutely heartbreaking, is that no, no. And so you being here and sharing your story, and I never intended to be a business owner or entrepreneur, but I feel like I've been given this journey to share how to actually heal our children, how to...

Hillary (01:32:57.41)

Yeah.

Juniper (01:33:18.986)

Because here's the thing, is the fear that all of us moms going through this, we know upfront, is that if we don't heal these symptoms, they are going to catapult and like morph into something greater, into an irreversible disease, into developmental delays, into irreversible.

conditions that will rob our children of the life that they are meant to live and

I'm in awe of you battling the system, not only trying to find help, but then having to nod and say yes while being kidnapped and then still finding your path and continuing to stay in alignment with yourself is so inspiring and so beautiful and...

Hillary (01:34:10.423)

Thank you.

Juniper (01:34:25.206)

I'm so emotional with your experience because any one of us could have been there. Any one of us. And a mama recently shared with me on Instagram, that's how the idea of this episode came, is she sent me a message, she said, thank you so much. I'm so grateful to have your Rebalance Kit and your Rebalancing Handbook because they saved us. My family called CPS on my family on us, and...

we were okay because we had your stuff. And that's when I was like, wait, what? Like that really woke me up that that's like, like somebody would call CPS because someone's child is like, because they're fighting for their child. And you know, you were one of the many moms that responded and said, we went through that. And it just like left me speechless that is a whole.

whole other battle that I was fortunate enough to not have to go through. But I am really in awe of you and for you continuing to search for a healing path that aligned with your intuition and with your heart. And the healing journey is different for everybody. And sometimes it is a really long process.

Juniper (01:35:54.27)

you know, physical healing, but also emotional and

Juniper (01:36:01.582)

from hearing your story, I'm guessing that like, there's this whole layer of emotional trauma for both, you know, you and your husband and your son. And that really takes time to heal. And I'm so sad. I'm so sad that...

Hillary (01:36:19.83)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:36:23.181)

Yeah, it was, don't get me wrong. Like after that point, after that month of being in the hospital, being forced to be in the hospital and then being watched for months afterwards and feeling like my child was not mine, like they could show up and just take him at any second. Like I was just, we were all like, we were all in survival mode. And

I wanted so badly to get my son into a place of not just surviving. And you say that in your podcast all the time. We're trying to get ourselves as humans to not just be in survival mode, we want to thrive. And I knew, I was like, he's still just in this state of survival. Bare minimum, he's able to gain weight. I'm like, but that's not the sign of just… That's not the overall health…

sign for these babies. But it is. Exactly. It's got to be check off-able. And because he wasn't, there was no box that people could check off for him. I had to keep playing with the system and playing with the different things and knowing that I would see positive change if I did certain things that were kind of outside of the system.

Juniper (01:37:22.77)

Yeah, well that's just like their measurement tool that lets them check off the box, right?

Hillary (01:37:49.941)

and having to fight for that. And once CPS closed our case, I felt like I could then start voicing my opinion and voicing my needs and my wants for him, knowing what was better. I wasn't as fearful, but he was so bad because of the damage that had been done from that January to that May of the intake of just bad stuff that I was told to put on his body, put in his body.

that I was required to, again, in fear of like, just him being taken away from me. I was so scared. And no new mom, no mom of six babies, no mom of 10 babies, no mom should be making decisions based on fear. No, no laboring mom, no, no pregnant woman, nothing should be out of fear. Not only because that's not the way health works,

Juniper (01:38:35.266)

No.

Hillary (01:38:47.097)

but also your baby can feel that energy. They can feel that there's something not right. So I felt that my son was also susceptible to all of that. And then on top of that, because his gut was so bad and his skin was so bad, so bad, he wasn't sleeping. My husband and I had to sleep sitting up in a recliner holding him, and we stayed awake so he could sleep.

Like we had to watch him because he would rub, his face was so raw that any amount of brushing would open the wound on his face and he had it on both cheeks at one point in his life. And so we had to stay awake to make sure that he didn't rub, touch, skim any portion of this because it would be healing and then he would open it up again and that's when infection could happen. So yes, for I would say my son turned three.

Juniper (01:39:23.79)

Mmm.

Hillary (01:39:43.377)

And probably about six months ago is when I could say we were sleeping for more than five hours overnight. So it took.

Juniper (01:39:50.474)

Wow. And so that's like about six months of like of rebalancing.

Hillary (01:39:57.929)

Yeah, so that was, yeah, in the midst of that, that was probably in the middle of like our third rebalance round. And it wasn't perfect, like he would still have upsets and, but I would say we could finally lay him down after balance one. So it cleared up his face enough to where we could lay him down on his own.

Juniper (01:40:04.512)

Okay.

Juniper (01:40:22.962)

And will you remind me, did you get like any topical products or did you, you did? Okay.

Hillary (01:40:27.045)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we'd, off the bat, we got the Rebalance Kit and the silver, the relief gel. I couldn't remember what it was called. The relief gel. And because his skin was just so bad, it was like, think of like the worst chapped lips you could have ever had in your life, and then to put that like all over your body. So

Juniper (01:40:35.81)

Like the relief gel.

Juniper (01:40:49.621)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:40:53.081)

I felt at the time his skin was just very damaged, that I felt the relief wasn't doing a whole lot for him at that time. So we kind of just went back to what was working, nothing, nothing topically was working. So in defense of your wonderful relief gel, nothing topically was working. It was nothing. Yeah.

Juniper (01:41:07.294)

Yeah. Sure.

Juniper (01:41:14.262)

Well, when the skin is so inflamed and so raw, I mean, that healing really does have to come from within.

Hillary (01:41:21.661)

Yeah. So we were just kind of trying to manage the itch because the itch, the scratching just was making it so much worse. So we were just trying to, we got like the really raw, raw shea butter, like the rawest stuff, the most organic raw stuff of the earth we could find, just to manage the dryness because we even tried a plethora of...

like anti-itch agents, natural stuff, all natural stuff. Once we could go all natural and cleaner, the better type of stuff. But it almost, anything that said helps itch almost made him itch more. So I was like, just ease the dryness, which we'll hopefully, but by, you know, when you go to bed, when you go to sleep, your histamines are heightened because that's nice that our body does that for us. That our bodies become more itchy, right? When we're trying, when the sun goes down.

Juniper (01:42:14.837)

Mm-hmm.

Hillary (01:42:16.545)

then our bodies are like, well, all your senses are heightened and you itch even more. So he just had a horrible time sleeping. So my husband and I were in, we ourselves, emotionally, we're already in survival mode. But then we had to mentally become in survival mode because we just weren't sleeping. The three of us took us about just over, like, I would say we're just now sleeping, like, and he's three.

Juniper (01:42:42.786)

Wow.

Hillary (01:42:43.793)

I would say, yeah, within his, I would say in his third year, I feel, is when we started sleeping and in his third year is when we really had the momentum with the rebalance kit that we got and his skin started to heal and that last February when we started is with the last time he had the, a big blemish on his face and he hasn't had one since then. Little blemishes, little hives here and there still, but when finally going that route,

something balanced, something aligned, and he was able, those were able to close up. His skin changed for the better, honestly. I had never seen his skin heal. It was always just like a management of wounds for the first two and a half years of his life. And then finally seeing a switch turn on to his skin after starting that rebalance kit was like another switch that had never been turned on before and it was the ability for his skin to close up.

and heal before he could do any further damage to it.

Juniper (01:43:44.426)

Wow, well, I really, I love having this conversation because I think, you know, we live in such a fast-paced world that a lot of times we expect instant, like everything is fast. And if it's not fast, it must not be working. And the truth is that real healing, a lot of times takes a long time. And that you have stuck with this for over a year is absolutely remarkable.

Hillary (01:43:57.15)

Yeah.

Juniper (01:44:13.21)

and really a testament that again, all of our journeys are different, but when we are committed and when we trust ourselves enough and you know that that's a big part of like why I show up the way that I do, especially on follow your gut is I don't see myself as an expert. I see myself as like an equal mom with you and everyone listening in that. We have this shared experience and.

my healing journey of my son is very different than any of yours. But if you guys, if you like, trust in the healing process, you will heal. And there is not anyone who has done a rebalance kit and given it enough time, who hasn't seen massive healing and improvement. But I, you know, I've actually like dabbled with the idea of

I wonder if I should just change my whole business to subscription only, like make this just for people who are really committed, because I don't ever wanna sell the false idea that this is a quick fix. Because there are some people who can heal with one kid, but there are so many more people who, like you need to be invested in healing over time. And I-

Hillary (01:45:19.41)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:45:22.889)

one who's done. Yeah. And I think asthma, yeah.

Juniper (01:45:39.694)

want that to be very, very transparent to anybody coming here is I am not sharing a quick fix. I am sharing like real deal, true healing. And it is an evolution. It is, it is a journey that takes time.

Hillary (01:45:55.393)

Yeah, and I think it's for me, the desire, I mean, if it works for, if it works after your first time, like, wow, you know, and it was so many times though that I would see, because of all the research I was doing on my phone and my computer, of course your phone starts to get smart with you and starts to advertise things. And so many pictures of babies that look just like my baby. And then they tried this cream and then it was gone. You know, so I tried it all.

Juniper (01:46:13.992)

Mm-hmm.

Juniper (01:46:22.923)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:46:23.437)

Anything that came my way, I would do the research on it, make sure it was clean, make sure it didn't have anything that he was prone to be allergic to, nothing. You know what I mean? And I would try it and I would wait. And of course you watch your baby suffer in any capacity, whether it's a short while, major infections like, you know, my baby or just maybe just really colicky baby, whatever the level of suffering, you don't want to witness that. You want the quick fix, of course.

Of course, but I had to definitely say, and my husband still does struggle with this of like, is it done? Aren't we done? I'm like, no, we're not done. And in the best, it's only because he just wants him to be, like wants it to be over, wants him to thrive, get in the zone of thriving. And I would say we're on the cusp of thriving, but we're not 100% there yet, maybe about 85% in the thrive zone. But.

Juniper (01:46:52.865)

Yes?

Juniper (01:47:08.078)

Absolutely. Yeah.

Hillary (01:47:20.129)

we're still a little bit in the survival mode. And along with that.

Juniper (01:47:24.386)

That is massive. 85%, that is like huge celebration.

Hillary (01:47:26.989)

Yeah. In a year. And again, it took a year. Don't get me wrong. It was not a we're in, but we were working on zero. We were in zero, you know, before that time, before I could even utter those words. You know, it was a surviving minute to minute and then it slowly grew. And by slowly, I mean months. And then it went felt like we could live hour to hour and then months and we could live day to day and then months and we could live week to week.

Juniper (01:47:32.724)

Yes.

Juniper (01:47:36.328)

Yeah.

Hillary (01:47:57.089)

You know what I mean? Like it was a slow growth and the journey is hard. And my husband and I definitely took a hit. Do not get me wrong. He sees healing very differently than I do. He sees, he wants the evidence he needs. And that's fine. We are very different. He's a very logical. He's a very, what's the problem? Gotta solve it, get it solved. It's, you know.

Juniper (01:47:58.218)

Yeah.

Juniper (01:48:26.538)

and be done.

Hillary (01:48:26.765)

We're good. So he has gone on this journey with me and with our son and he has changed and I have changed and we really had to learn to be together again. I mean, we're still not sleeping in the same bed because my son still needs nightly attention. So we have yet after three years, I could probably count on one hand the amount of times that we've slept in the same bed over the last three years. But.

Outside of that, along with my son's healing and being in a thrive zone versus just survive, my husband and I are now also in our relationship, not just in a survival mode. We're learning to communicate to each other again. We're learning, like we've had to re, we've had to get to know each other as parents in a very unexpected, neither of us expected our son to need what he needs. You couldn't,

textbooks, like you couldn't read beforehand to get ready for this.

Juniper (01:49:31.698)

Absolutely not. And I really appreciate you sharing this part because this is, I should do a whole episode with my husband on this just to validate and validate this part of it. We, our marriage was also in survival mode for those two and a half years and it took us a really long time to

to come back together, to thrive in our marriage. And I think this is, you know, it's not just me and you, and you and your husband are not alone in this. And when you are sleep deprived, I mean, not alone. Yeah.

Hillary (01:50:18.768)

it. You don't want to talk to anybody, not even the person who lives on the street. You have enough energy for one thing.

Juniper (01:50:23.574)

Well, and the two of you, exactly, and the two of you are going through this on the same journey, but you're experiencing it very differently. And like you and your husband, my husband has a very different, we've aligned so much over, like through our journey and our parenthood, but we have very different opinions, medical opinions, and it has been a long journey in us.

coming together and aligning.

Hillary (01:50:55.169)

Yeah, the same. Yeah. I think that might be the same. Hopefully, that's the same case with a lot of parents, couples that are going through a journey together of this of this caliber, because it did there was, you know, things can get rocky when you see things differently. Or when you want your

Juniper (01:51:12.946)

Yeah, I mean, our marriage was, I mean, there are many times I think back and think what a miracle it is that we made it.

Hillary (01:51:20.989)

Yeah, yeah. And I think we were at that fork in the road. And, you know, we, there was a lot of decisions we had to make as far as when, when our son was starting to, again, creep into that, like thriving, creeping in and we looked at each other and we hadn't worked on each other. We were only working on our son for two and a half, over two and a half years, all of our time, when you're sleep deprived and

Juniper (01:51:47.412)

and not.

Hillary (01:51:49.953)

you know, and self-deprived when you haven't been caring for yourself or each other. All of our time, energy, and focus was going on him. Coming back to each other, you look at each other and you say, are we in this still together? And luckily, I would only hope that all partners can come to that realization that as you grow as a parent, to grow also as a couple.

whatever that again, it's not going to be a quick fix. You're not going to come back after two and a half years and just be like, okay, and everything's cool and we're cool and let's move on. It's going to be a journey. It's going to be take time.

Juniper (01:52:28.922)

Exactly. Because when you are consumed with an unwell child, I mean, it is all life consuming. And when your child finally starts to heal, there's suddenly space for like, you know, every ounce of your energy and conversation doesn't have to be focused around like, what should we do? Once you finally like,

that threshold and you start moving into that thriving zone, there's suddenly this like almost whole of like, oh my gosh, this has filled our space and now it's kind of gone.

where I don't know what's left. Like you said, like, you know, your marriage gets kicked under the bus, your self-care gets kicked under the bus. And suddenly like that's a whole part of the healing process too, is once your child like crosses into that thriving zone is whoa, like I kinda, I really lost myself. Our marriage has really not been nurtured.

It's time to heal these areas. And so with that, I have a question for you. Hillary, have you ever done a Rebalance Kit for yourself?

Hillary (01:53:50.585)

I have not done it yet. It is on the docket. It most likely will start to happen very, very soon, honestly, only because I've seen the strides that it has done for my son. And I know that my son and I have, I mean, I made his gut. So we have very similar guts. But I know that it's on the docket.

Juniper (01:53:55.519)

Okay.

Juniper (01:54:15.167)

So.

Juniper (01:54:19.966)

I was listening to another podcast recently. So I live and breathe everything microbiome because I'm just like so obsessed with this world of healing from within. So I was listening to this podcast the other day with, you know, it's a doctor who specializes in microbiome and she said something that really like stopped me in my tracks is that our microbiome

is like, so a family unit, our microbiome is only as healthy as the most imbalanced person, because so you can have two identical twins. And when they go their separate ways, their microbiome no longer matches each other's, it matches their environment. And our microbiome is so

it mirrors what is around us. It reflects us what's around us. And so if you are interested in rebalancing, I would love to gift you a woman's Rebounce Kid because I have this really deep feeling in my heart that this is like the next stage of your son and your family's healing is healing you. And when our children...

Hillary (01:55:29.267)

Oh, that's so kind.

Juniper (01:55:45.37)

experience symptoms of imbalance so young, it is very likely that we as moms unknowingly pass an imbalance onto our child during birth. And as moms, we are never considered in the healing process. Nobody ever stops and says, well, how are you? What are you doing for you? It's all child-centered, which is so beautiful, but we are left in the dust. And if you're interested,

Absolutely love to gift you that.

Hillary (01:56:18.309)

I, of course, that is not something that I know we're like programmed to say no thank you to things of this nature, but no way. I honestly feel that this is going to sound very selfish, but your experience was gifted to me. Again, somehow, even though it took two years for the algorithm to show me you.

I think it was because I was finally in the brain space to find someone like me and find someone like my son and hear it. I think before that I wasn't hearing a lot of things. So I'm going to of course accept that beautiful gift and offer and know that.

and acknowledge that is a huge component to moms, whether you're first time mom, fifth time mom, whatever the number is, that our moms.

need support, whatever that looks like.

Hillary (01:57:35.977)

I think that was also a big inspiration was to finally hear, you know, finally tell the story outside of my family of what had happened and the journey that has been in progress because it's still in progress because it got dark for me as a mom. What's supposed to be the most happiest time?

in someone's life got dark very, very quickly. And the joy of motherhood was completely stolen from me. And I would sit there in the middle of the night holding my inflamed, oozing baby. And I would look at him and I would think, there are other moms sitting in the dark.

going through something right now, they're babies.

Hillary (01:58:39.617)

And I would hope that they are finding the joy.

And from that epiphany on, and I even told my husband, because he was having a hard time, you know, in the survival mode, as we both were, and I said, whatever you need to do, I can no longer let this joy be taken from me. So I met my son where he was at, oozing and all. I stopped wishing that he was healed.

though I was wishing it, but I stopped wishing for the quick fix. I stopped focusing on the next thing to try on him, the next diet thing to try. I kept going with the healing journey, but I stopped expecting it to just drastically change. And I instead engaged in the joy of who he was. And my son still, even through the inflammation, even through the gut…

suffering and the agonizing skin and the damage to his gut, he still had sparkle in his eyes. And I'm so glad that I allowed myself to even see that sliver in him. And that's the part I think the moms need to be encouraged. Parents, find the joy. And if you see a mom losing her joy or hasn't found it yet,

Juniper (02:00:04.622)

Absolutely.

Hillary (02:00:11.297)

You got to ask yourself, what can I do to help this mom find her joy? And whatever that is, you know, do that thing for that mom, because, um, it's a lonely world being a mother. It's a, it's odd that it can be so lonely and you're there with a person 24 seven, and I've never felt so lonely in my life and I'm with him all the time.

Juniper (02:00:36.287)

Yes.

Hillary (02:00:41.566)

And yeah.

Juniper (02:00:41.678)

Well, I love so much that you say this because I reflect back on my experience with my second child a lot and have so much sadness in my heart. And I was actually in another episode, I'm sharing a session I did with a tapping coach where we like went into my womb and just like tried to uncover like old trauma or what.

and my body needs healing because I've recently been experiencing like really like hormone issues that are not me and which is alarming to me because I know our hormones are connected to our gut and so this is really wild for me but so in this session I'm sharing it in a podcast too but she took we went back in my womb and what was held there was this like

really great sadness that I missed those two and a half years. I missed like my baby being a baby. I missed my daughter who is three and a half years older than my son and I have a complete block from that window of time.

because I was so consumed with fear and the obsession of healing his body before it evolved into something that I couldn't heal. And...

So I've been invited to like go back in my mind and rewrite our story, which is such a beautiful practice. And like you were saying, like, people have told me to do that before, but I wasn't ready to receive that. I wasn't there yet. And just like you shared, like you were, you know, I came into your world when you were at a place where you were receptive to this healing. And

Juniper (02:02:45.042)

I think there's a really powerful message in that is that we as women get to keep showing up with our purpose to be available when people are ready. And that right there is my motivation for showing up on Instagram and recording these podcasts is for being here when people need it because we all arrive on our own timelines. And when we're ready.

It's really, really beautiful.

Hillary (02:03:17.121)

I agree, absolutely.

Juniper (02:03:19.266)

Hillary, thank you. This has been an absolute pleasure talking to you and getting to know you. And I feel like we are friends and I'm really grateful for that.

Hillary (02:03:31.536)

I'm grateful for it too and for you being so vulnerable and so trusting and loving to not only this time between you and I, but just putting yourself out there and your journey out into the world that's so brave and admirable. And I think that's what's definitely inspired me to do, to share this moment with you, to help someone else the way that you have helped me through your podcast, through your...

products through your motherhood. If I can just help someone, even the slightest iota, to feel less alone and trust in the journey for however long it is. And I thank you for being so brave and starting this trend, for lack of a better word. Thank you.

Juniper (02:04:22.67)

Well, thank you. I'm honored that I get to move forward with this and connect with people like you. The last thing that I want to say is that I want to ask you is, would your husband, would he ever be receptive to doing a rebalance?

Hillary (02:04:41.976)

Yeah, oh yeah.

Juniper (02:04:43.37)

He would? Okay. I'll send one for the two of you so that you guys can rebalance together because it's a really, really wild, beautiful thing to do it simultaneously.

Hillary (02:04:59.708)

Yeah, I think we're at a place where we're ready for that too. So, yeah. Thank you. Thanks Juniper.

Juniper (02:05:04.59)

Okay, thank you, Hillary.