Hi and welcome to another episode of the doctor nurse
podcast. I am so happy.
You decided to join me today. My name is Sandra Penta, and I
am the host of the podcast. I'm a doctoral you prepared
nurse practitioner who wants to share stories of nurses and
nurse practitioners who are utilizing their degrees and
their certifications with a business mindset, after spending
from age 18, to 30 pursuing various levels of nursing
degrees. I wondered if there was
something more or I could do with my knowledge away from the
bedside and away from the hospital rat race.
This question that I was asking of myself, I knew it had to be
shared with other nurses and nurse practitioners.
So I sought to figure out, just what we could do with our
education and our certifications away from the bedside come,
listen, as I have conversations to help you grow your career
with a freedom, in an Endless Options mindset.
Thanks for hanging out with me on the podcast today and let's
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company and be sure to sign up. Hey, guys and welcome to episode
number 7 of the doctor nurse podcast.
Unscripted this week, we are talking work-life.
Mom life. We are chatting.
Is Ashley recktenwald. She is a PA in the founder of
working mom notes, which is the support of platform from working
mothers after having her struggle returning back to work
after her first child, she really started to develop
community and create a platform for working moms to share
quote-unquote notes from when they went back to work.
So her part her, her podcast, as well as her website.
It contains tons of information regarding discussing salary,
gaps, work, travel maternity, leave rights, postpartum
depression, anxiety, and a bunch of topics.
A bunch of topics that I think are really pertinent to return,
mom's returning back to the workforce.
And, as I said, she's a PA, she's now a mother to three
little girls. And she spends most of her days,
working on working mom notes. So guys, check it out.
Hope you guys enjoyed the podcast, all her links are in
the show notes and Hope you guys have a wonderful and merry
Christmas. All right, thanks for hanging
out. Hi doctor nurse podcast,
unscripted. And I am so happy to have on
today. Ashley, the founder of working
mom notes and she's got a supportive platform for working
mothers and she and I are connect a lot on a lot of topics
that we find to just be like, what the heck is going on here?
And so, I wanted to bring her on to talk about some of these
things as PA and as a nurse practitioner that we found in
healthcare as working moms that were kind of tough to swallow.
So Ashley welcome. Oh, thank you so much for having
me. I'm so excited to be here and
get fired up with you. Let's get a, let's do it.
So, let's just go ahead and Dive Right In.
Let's introduce yourself kind of how you see your role, these
days what you're working on and just share your story.
I want to hear a little bit about your Shark Tank pitch.
You got a shark tank pitch? I want to hear about it all, all
right. No, my name is Ashley
recktenwald. I am a physician assistant.
I specialize in Orthopedics, and Sports Medicine specifically
before that I was an athletic trainer.
So I'm all in sports medicine. If you will, I live in New
Jersey and I've three children their ages, seven, five and
three. And I had my first one when I
was working full-time in the thick of it, as a PA for private
practice. So I was doing it, all I was in.
The operating room three days a week, I was in the clinic we
were seeing upwards of 60 patients a day.
So anyone in healthcare knows it's just like we had roller
skates on. It was no joke to double booked
every 10 minutes all day long. No, six surgeries a day.
We were flying and then I got pregnant everything change.
And when I returned after my first baby from maternity leave,
I just had no idea what I was doing because I was new to the
area. I No many working mothers.
And I just had so many questions.
I mean, this was 7 years ago, so there's so many wonderful mother
Hood, resources out there now. But at the time there was really
nothing. And I decided to make a Facebook
group to do two things meet people in my area who work
full-time to who are moms because I was literally just
going to work coming home and like crashing going to sleep.
And so I couldn't really make friends and also just ask Ask
these women questions about how to be a working mom, like, how
do I pump at work? What are my rights?
Where do I keep my breast milk, all of these questions.
I had no idea how to navigate Life as a working mom.
So it started out as a Facebook group and then it grew into what
I call working mom notes because it's the cliff notes of working
motherhood and the community has grown both locally where we do
Mom, meetups and we Really can lean on each other and get to
know each other and ask all those questions and also now
it's a national platform. Where really the goal is just to
streamline information for a working mom, so that they feel
empowered through both Community feeling like they have a village
and experience meaning knowing where they can go and get the
resources. They need to thrive as a working
mom. Yeah, that is fantastic.
I love all of that because it's So true, you paint this
wonderful picture of exactly what it's like, going back into
the Wilderness after you've gone and given birth to your child.
And then you go back into the workplace and you're like, I
couldn't. When I remember, I remember
sitting down, too tight after maternity leave, and I couldn't
even type, right? It was like, it was like
foreign, like, the behaviors that I was doing, because I had
taken such a long time to go back to work.
So, it's like, even in those little things that you're like,
okay, wait. With what do I need to do?
Okay, I got to get back to the almost this rewiring of your
brain like just trying to. Remember ya do I remember how to
like, do like tie in the or, you know, it's really like you but
it does. It's kind of like riding up if
you know, just way back to that place but it's a shift when
you're at home with your baby and not only learning so many,
new things getting to know this new little human, but you do
become a different person, your priorities, and then you're sort
of, you know, Rocketed. Back into this environment where
you're supposed to be the same person when inherently, you're
not anymore kind of an identity crisis.
Yes, am I still relevant in this role?
Like, is this the right place for me to be?
Do I, you know, what do I love? What do I need to change about
this routine? It's a lot, a lot of questions
again, well said. And one of the things that I was
thinking as you were talking, I was, you know what are Hacks
that you I guess have learned throughout this time for working
moms and they first come back to come balam bat burnout.
That's kind of the thing that I have struggled.
Most with since coming back as a working mom is just again we
kind of talked a little bit about some about the podcast
that it looks different for everybody.
But what are some of those things that you just kind of see
the common themes reverberating through your community members
and you're working mom notes. I really think the most
important thing is built. Adding The Village so many women
these days. Don't have a village, they don't
feel like they have a village to lean on and that is truly the
most important thing. The biggest mistake, I don't, I
really even I hate pulling in a mistake, but it was a
misconception I had was that you have a baby and it's like poof
your village appears, but that's not what happened.
And I was confused like, wait, where are all these people?
Where's my Village? I have a newborn like And
everyone's just so busy living their lives.
That it's not that they don't want to be a part of your
village, but you need to be very clear and explicit in how
different people can play a role in that Village.
And it's important for you to know what that means, and what
that looks like. No one else can Define that for
you. But you so I would say, the
biggest thing, quote-unquote pack, if you will is really work
hard to build the village. Like when your Pregnant, you
know, get out there, it's really uncomfortable meeting new
people, but it is so worth it in the end just to have people that
you can rely on get to know your neighbors.
Get to know the people in your community, get to know the, you
know, beyond your co-workers. That was my biggest problem.
That makes a huge difference. Also, childcare really try to
tear yourself up with not just one or two options which I'll
scare but honestly, like five or six, And same thing that comes
back to your village of okay, you know, the baby is sick.
Like how sick is my baby, not sick enough, that I need to stay
home, but sick enough that they can't go to daycare, you know.
Okay. So now what does that mean?
What does that look like for you?
And if you have a partner and if you're lucky enough to have a
partner with a flexible work schedule, then maybe that works
for the two of you. I know for me, my husband's job
was not flexible even less than my own and So, that was an
issue. Like, when we needed to be at
work, we both needed to be at work.
So then, what do we do? And I've done it all childcare
wise. I've done daycare centers.
I've done nannies. You know, I've piecemealed it
all together, but the most important thing is just to be
able to have that list of people that you can call like so that
you can feel in control what's happening when things?
Get crazy. And the last thing I would say
is except At this is emotionally exhausting and you're physically
recovering, and people like to try to be like superwoman and I
think that we need to just throw that idea out the window and
really allow ourselves that time and space to have this emotional
exhaustion as you're figuring out Life as a new mom and
getting to know, your new baby that is emotionally exhausting
on top of being physically. Ting being up in the middle of
the night, you know, recovering from whether it be childbirth
itself or learning how to breastfeed or just your, you
know, abdominals recovering from birth.
But all of this. Thank you people to put too much
on their plate because they want to look like superwoman and I
think scaling back and re setting expectations for
yourself and giving yourself that Grace to allow for healing
both emotionally. And physically but also growth
emotionally, which takes up a lot of that bandwidth will make
a huge difference. Going back to work.
Why are you tired? Because you're doing a lot, your
body is going through a lot. And I think if we acknowledge
that and recognize it, it we won't be so hard on ourselves
because that's the worst thing is when people new moms,
especially or so hard on their shelves, returning to work,
like, it's just not the same. I'm so exhausted.
Well, yeah, it is. It's very exhausting.
So holding that space for yourself.
Yeah. I think is so essential,
otherwise we burn out too quickly.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly what happens.
And you said, so many things in there that I want to respond to,
I think the biggest take-home is the community part, like you
said, just realizing whenever you get home, there's nobody
like you thought people were coming and no one's coming and
it just feels very isolating to also be so exhausted.
So Hired to not have any support and then also feel like am I the
only one that's like so tired and exhausted and can't keep up
with the work. So it's just, it's nice to have
people to talk to you where you're like, you too.
Yeah, me too. I mean, just that commiserating
with other moms that are like, okay, so what are you doing?
When you think about ancestrally, how we were, we
were like in caves and huts and like, we were all like, in these
little, you know, communities where you have, like the
grandmother and the The aunts and like everyone was just kind
of there and they pitched in and like one would breastfeed the
kid and like, you just go over to your aunt she breastfeeds you
and like you all like share you know, where is that's not the
case. Now it's all on two people, are
you currently working as a PA right now, or I believe I read
somewhere in the pandemic, you had to step away from your job,
he were fighting burnout. And so you decided to kind of Do
Your Own Thing. Tell me a little bit about which
I love side hustles, becoming main hustles.
How did This happened for you. Hey guys, and thanks for
listening to another episode. The doctor nurse podcast.
Unscripted, I would like to take this time to let you guys know
about the doctor nurse podcast, website on this website.
I have free resources for nurses that are looking to up their
career, maybe start a side hustle.
I also have my Etsy shop where I've created really cute digital
downloads for nurse practitioners in regards to
life, pregnancy planning, as well as portraits guys.
Check out my Has the doctor is podcast.com and let's get back
to the episode. So, that's correct.
I'm not currently working as a PA.
As we said in the pre-show discussion, I am keeping all my
certifications are up to date. And, you know, I might go back
at some point and I mean, that's the beauty of healthcare I
think. And why I chose this profession
in the first place is because of the flexibility and the
opportunity to do part-time versus full-time.
Versus as a PA, you know, I was an ortho.
Maybe I'll do just surgery or, you know, if there's many
opportunities to Pivot even within Healthcare itself, which
I thought was so wonderful for right now, I did step away.
I had had my third baby and six years working for a very busy,
busy busy Private, Practice taking call taking weekend, call
some holiday call and it was was a lot.
And I was really just having a really tough time.
After my third pregnancy, I went through horrific, postpartum,
anxiety. I think a lot because of the
concept of meaning to return to work at that level of
performance, and not being sure I was going to be able to do it,
that was definitely a contributing factor.
And so, when I returned after my third baby, it was like the end
of October of 2019 and we had just taken on responsibilities
at our third. Also, I was taking call over
three hospitals when I was on call on top of our normal
patient, it was a lot. It was a lot and it was really
just I would just slowly. I got the sense that things were
off when I came back and I was just being given tasks.
That were like pretty absurd especially for you know a PA to
have to do when we had other people within the company that
were fully capable and qualified to Be doing these other tasks.
So I was just burning out all around.
And unfortunately, I was reassigned to fully just an
office role and then they switched me from our Lee Herman
are from a salaried position to an hourly position like without
really discussing it well. So if you want to know what
pushed being pushed out, feels like that's what it is in a
small company and I said, you know, it was just ridiculous.
And so I started interviewing for other places.
And the pandemic head after how many years of working there
seven for how many years have you been working?
Almost eight. Seven years that's how they
almost eight years. That's how you treat an
eight-year-old like an eight-year-old mm that's given
years working through mobile pregnancies.
This is how and I work, you treat her.
Wow, incredible to my due date, didn't take any time off and
living in the stress living in the stress of work, all that
jazz. Getting it at because we know
medically research base, the stress effects pregnancy, we did
it. We kept going all that jazz and
then as you were kind of struggling.
Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.
Oh my God, this stuff fires me up, I can't pissed about this
kind of stuff because it's like do we value what women are doing
instead of just coming and talking to you having a
conversation with you? Hey what's going on?
How are you doing? Like we don't ask women, I wrote
a bird of peace. On this on women and postpartum
depression, we don't ask how they are.
And yet that first year is the hardest year and we're mostly
deprived pumping learning how to do now, you've got three babies
or every child is a level of complexity.
You're doing it all, and the work is just starting to put you
out to pasture. Yeah, she's not worth much
anymore but her just the better days.
So what they're doing right? We're learning in my head I was
thinking okay I'm definitely done have children that was my
third. A child and I was like this is
great. I can finally now Focus back on
work. Like I was really excited.
Now with the experience that I had within the company to now me
really building up words, not Howard.
So it was disappointing. I started interviewing for other
roles and then the Panic hit and I pulled, you know, at that
point everywhere I was looking were in little settings exactly
where I didn't want to be with a 6.
You know I had a four year olds a And a six-month-old, and we
didn't know anything at that point about how it was affecting
children or, and I was like, nope, not doing it, not doing it
to my kids and I pulled, all of my resumes and and just said,
okay, I need to be home with my kids right now, which felt
really weird, like I was doing something wrong, you know, like
it was so strange not week off, but you aren't going to work.
Yeah, you know, it's such a mindset.
It was so strange. But luckily, I I did always have
working mom notes on the side and I thought to myself, well,
this is a really awesome opportunity to dive in full-time
to this community building an experience and see what happens.
And here we are now two years later and, you know, it's just
been so wonderful. The people that I've connected
with, and the lives impacted and the things that we've done
including, I put together a whole cell.
Our transparency report. It's on an Excel sheet.
I'll have to lose for you. But it's yeah, it's awesome.
It's just women just coming forward and being true about
what experience is like for them as a working mom and it has
advice how much they're making how many years experience some
of them put their email down so that people can Network together
and this is like hundreds of it's not just you know, 50, it's
like almost I think almost 1,000 women so far and it's just a
rolling list. List of people it's amazing.
It's just been really fun to see women come together in such a
positive way to things first. I love the idea of women coming
together and building. This is building options for
other women. No other human is going to
understand this this struggle unless you've been there like I
have worked full-time. I remember just being like Oh my
gosh. This is gonna kill me.
Like if I keep doing this like I'm and then to see how your job
To you and you're like wait this person is making more than me
like all these things if you can see if we could open the doors.
To one another, you hear about physicians in bro, clubs they
look out for each other but women don't do this.
The second thing that I love about your whole journey is that
you kept working mom notes going in the background as this
possible option and that's something that I want, all of my
listeners, especially my mom's to here is that yes, you have a
job. Yes, your mom.
But you need to be building something for yourself on the
side. Something that you're passionate
about something that you can get fired up about on a podcast and
talk about because that is part of how you get back to who you
were prior to your child writing on Instagram.
People like how do you come up with this stuff?
And I was like, it's literally like a public Journal.
It's not like I'm I didn't do it to create content.
I was doing it because I had the all these pent-up feelings
inside that. Had to get out and something
about hitting send on the post button when it went out to the
world and having women come back and basically validate my
experience by saying, oh my gosh, thank you so much, I feel
this way too. You know, everyone said you're
so great for talking about these things and I'm like, I needed to
because I was literally going crazy in my own body, not
talking about them. And this platform was really to
help me like Yes, I'm helping people French talking about it
but they're helping me just as much by validating that it's not
just me, it's like a normal thing.
So I think it's important. It's can be really scary to be
vulnerable and talk about those tough things that you're
thinking or feeling but that's where the magic is in.
Those hard conversations to your point when you were talking
about finding that thing for yourself, there's this wonderful
author. Her name is Eve, Ron ski She
wrote the book, fair play Method and it's amazing.
If you're having trouble with your husband, after this baby
has now arrived, and you're doing all the things in
healthcare and your partner's doing all the things in their
job. This is I just highly recommend
it. I mean I literally sat down it's
a deck of cards and it breaks up all the tasks that you have to
do all of them. And if you want to know why your
burns out, just go cold fair play game are play.
Yeah. Yeah, and it comes, you started
breaking up. It's called fair play.
Okay, fair play. Yeah, and it's a deck of cards
and the book outlines how to do it and how to use It.
Ultimately, you know, I sat down and looked at this deck of cards
and I was holding about 70 cars, and my husband was holding about
15 and it's like, well, no wonder I'm so tired because I'm
holding all the cards, and it's easier for him to see, or your
partner. See because you're like, okay, I
need you to take these, you need to take the cars and now they
need to be your response. Yeah, so it's just a really nice
way to have. That is so good.
Hmm. And she did a follow-up book
called unicorns face. So it's called Finding Your
unicorn space which is what you're referring to that passion
project or just a place for you and she has dubbed.
It her unicorn space, like whatever that means to you, is
you Your passion. Yeah, and again like you said it
doesn't have to be my eyes. I mean when I first started
doing podcasting, it was me pouring money into all the
different things I needed to keep the podcast going and that
was it. And I was just like I'm just
going to talk because that's what I feel like I'm good at and
I just it's cathartic to me to talk to people about what
they're doing with their careers.
And someone that had just recently, kind of had the shell
shock of, like, I have to work, I have to go back.
I wasn't prepared, I'm not. Is anybody else?
But prepared, I can't be the only one that didn't see this
coming. I began to go.
I want to have these conversations.
And yes, it was to help me, but it ended up being that I was
solving the problem for other people, too, because I'm not
alone and you aren't alone. We are all in this.
And one of the Instagram post, I think is so funny.
You posted about. I was a PA should work like 54
hours in a week and she came home and she's like, it's harder
being a stay-at-home mom that it was being at work.
And we need to give ourselves space.
His mom's and as women to recognize that the work of being
at home is extremely tough and extremely valuable.
And we need to start valuing ourselves in those roles because
I think, reverberating not just in nursing.
I don't know if it's this way with Pas, but it definitely is
this way in nursing is that women don't know their worth.
We, for whatever reason Society, or in culture, or I don't know
what just gives. Is this this final thing within
women to kind of go, we're not enough and we aren't worth
certain things. I need to start understanding
what my value is, and either go that needs to go, I can't do
this. I gotta say no to this because
I'm still valuable, you could be replaced tomorrow and you are
irreplaceable in your home. You are irreplaceable in your
home. I want to normalize this
conversation. I want to normalize pay
transparency. I see I talk about my salary all
the time on the podcast and like, this is what I'm making.
Our people are like, oh gosh, poor thing, you know, like I
talk about that stuff because I want people to know, like, I
went part-time, but it was a 70 80, 80 percent, pay cut, but for
me, that number of what I'm missing is vital, it's my
sanity, it's my sleep. It's my, it's my time with my
son, it's my memories that space for me, has imminent value for
me? It might not be the same for
you, and so everyone do what's good for you.
But listen to yourself. Because if you're not listening,
you're going to wake up a 50 and 60 and you can regret the
decisions that you made through your 20s and your 30s and your
40s. Come on, let's are they can find
you Ashley. If they're like, oh, I want, is
I want to see what she's talking about, like what is it that
she's talking about that impressed and her so much so you
can find me, I try to post daily on Instagram at working.
Mom note basically every social media platform, that's my
handle, whether it be Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, if you are
in the New Jersey area, we do. Have a private community on
Facebook for working mom. Notes again, just search that
name. I also run for my local
community, emergency babysitter group so that when parents are
in need of emergency cut childcare, they send me a form
and I blast it out to like hundreds of babysitters locally
in our area. So all these little things you
can make this stuff too, I know moms are so burned out but it's
not just me that can You can do it too.
If you need more people in your community who say, just create a
Facebook group or throw a message in people's mailboxes,
hey, love to start a group, me chat, or whatever it is.
It's possible. It takes a little bit of effort
but it's well worth it. I always always say it will pay
you back tenfold. It's just getting going and if
you need the inspiration to get going, then come follow me at
working mom notes. And feel free to DM me.
Anytime I try to reply to everyone.
And it's been really a pleasure talking to you.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you Ashley.
Thanks for tuning in to the doctors podcast.
So that's a wrap, be sure to subscribe to the show so you
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