We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Abigail Rodenburgh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Abigail below.

Abigail , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style. Do you have an interesting story from that stage of your career that you can share with us?

During my practicum (supervised teaching period) as a Billings Ovulation Method (BOM) Instructor my second client really showed me why the work is so important. She came to me just looing to learn to track her cycle with the goal of getting pregnant in a few months after her wedding.

She had struggled with midcycle symptoms, PMS, and pain for years but was constantly dismissed by doctors. After just a few weeks of working together I was able to identify signs of PCOS on her charts. Once we had identified the characteristics of PCOS on her chart, she was able to research and implement lifestyle changes that completely mitigated her symptoms and increased her luteal phase from four days to a normal length.

One of the side effects of short luteal phases is infertility. If she had not learned BOM with me she would have likely spent a year trying to get pregnant not knowing the cause of her infertility.

Without the knowledge of her body that Billings Ovulation Method provided, she would likely still be suffering from symptoms and struggle with infertility.

Abigail , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

With a background as a Research Analyst, I quickly found it more difficult to do research as a mom than for my job. It seemed literature and the internet were filled with outdated research that was often unfounded, flawed, or self interested. The only way I could find solid, accurate information was to directly read and analyze studies or to dive down rabbit holes of one expert referring another. After talking to many other moms, I realized I was not alone. So many of us felt like we had to spend hours scouring the internet to figure out what was going on with our kids, even those with backgrounds like nursing.

In modern times many of us don’t have a village of women skilled in all aspects of motherhood supporting us. We shouldn’t have to spend hours scouring pubmed or asking for one referral after another just to find out what is going on with us and our families. That’s a large reason why I started my business, to help connect women to the support they need.

My most popular service is my Postpartum Fill Your Freezer event. A group of women and their support people come together to prepare a 1-2 weeks of nourishing meals for postpartum. In addition to the food they take home, they receive education, and the opportunity to grow their village with other moms.

I personally really enjoy working one on one with my Billings Ovulation Method Clients. Billings Ovulation Method is a fertility awareness based method that can be used for understanding health, avoiding or achieving pregnancy. Most of my clients had no idea the insight they can glean from their biomarkers, and they are ecstatic to learn that information.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

If I had to go back I think I would have started my career with a nutrition background. I love supporting women in their mastrence journey, especially realizing how supporting themselves nutritionally improves their health and their kids. Over time I have learned a lot of this information on my own, but I wish I had started with it as my foundation.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think the biggest thing for success working with mom’s is seeing them as their own person. So much of a mother’s identity gets intertwined with her kids. Women literally grow another life within them, and then have the ability to feed that person from their own body. A lot of women loose themselves, wither in trying to conceive or being a mother. Many women just need to be supported themselves. I find when the mother is taken care of, it results in better outcomes for her kids as well, even though that was not the priority.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://motheringmethod.com
• Instagram: @motheringmethod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553178268478