Parental Leave, Reframed

Misha Stein's parental leave story starts years before she ever got pregnant: in an ambassador's office in New Delhi as a Fulbright scholar asking about Foreign Service leave policy, then in the UK Parliament watching a country that actually took maternity leave seriously. She filed both away. At 24, with two duffel bags and her first time ever in California, she walked through Google's doors and joined the Benefits team, where she spent years pulling the company's own parental leave data, long before she ever needed it herself. By the time she got pregnant at 27, Misha was possibly the most prepared person in America for parental leave: she had the spreadsheets, she had helped write the policy, and she'd watched her own manager navigate a return from leave. None of it prepared her for her first night home, when a single planned onesie and a malfunctioning high-tech bassinet turned into a crisis by 8pm. Two weeks later, what had been a carefully planned leave took a frightening turn: postpartum sepsis sent her back to the hospital, where she learned a readmitted mother isn't allowed to be left alone with her own newborn. It's a detail she still calls more traumatic than the birth itself. Misha and Amy talk about advocating for yourself inside a medical system that's too stretched thin to always get it right, the unglamorous realities of pumping and daycare waitlists, and a second postpartum period that quietly surfaced an ADHD diagnosis she wouldn't seek care for until almost a year later. Guest Misha Stein spent years on Google's Benefits team, helping design the very parental leave policy she would later use herself. She is a mother of two, ages 4 and 7, and now works on Google's YouTube team. In this episode Why she picked her employer specifically for its parental leave policy, years before she needed it Pulling the company's own parental leave data, and what it taught her about who actually uses the leave they're offered Hiding a first pregnancy on a blue velvet office couch, and secretly "researching" daycare waitlists under the guise of a work project The first night home: one onesie, one diaper, and a bassinet malfunction that upended the entire plan Postpartum sepsis, a hospital readmission, and the detail she calls more traumatic than the birth itself Why she now tells every new parent to advocate for themselves, even with doctors they trust A second postpartum period that surfaced an ADHD diagnosis she didn't seek care for until almost a year later A mid-COVID caregiving leave that was harder than either of her parental leaves, and the career change that followed "The gap between knowing and living": why none of her expertise could fully prepare her for actually doing it RESOURCES The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline offers free, confidential support 24/7 in English and Spanish: call or text 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA). CALL TO ACTION Have a parental leave story of your own? Any version of it, we want to hear it. Reach out at ⁠cplleadership.com⁠/podcast . And if you're an employer, manager, or HR leader: the RETAIN Coaching Hub and App exist so the people going through this transition, parents, managers, and HR alike, don't have to navigate it without support. Find out if your company already has access through your Short Term Disability (STD) or Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance, often through your short-term disability or paid family and medical leave policies, at ⁠cplleadership.com⁠ .

Kisha Edwards Gandsy found out she was pregnant when she went to the doctor convinced she had dysentery. She became a mother at 25 with no roadmap and no peers who understood. So she became an entrepreneur and built World Explorers, the childcare and preschool community she and her growing family needed to survive. Amy and Kisha Edwards Gandsy have known each other for twenty years, since they were both pregnant at the same time in New York City in 2006. When Amy told her about this podcast, Kisha started talking, and with her permission, Amy pressed record. Kisha is a mother of three (her kids are now 20, 17, and 15), an entrepreneur, a community builder, and the founder of World Explorers, which began as New York City Explorers, one of the first indoor play spaces in the country. She built it because she needed it: growing up in a tight, multigenerational family community in Pelzer, South Carolina, and craving that same village in New York City. When she became a mother at 25, after a pregnancy she discovered while at the doctor’s convinced she had dysentery, she was, in her own words, "building the plane while flying it," mourning who she used to be while loving who was arriving, and holding it all together without telling anyone how hard it was. In this episode, Kisha shares two of her three parental leave stories: the early, disorienting transition into working motherhood with her first daughter, Haven, pumping behind a curtain in a shared loft office with no roadmap and no examples to follow; and the far more demanding return with her second child, Shelton, back at the front desk of her own business five days after giving birth. Her third story, about her son Isa, is still waiting to be told. Guest Kisha Edwards Gandsy is a mother of three, an artist, and a successful entrepreneur. She founded World Explorers (originally New York City Explorers) and has been a force for early childhood education and the protection of children’s creativity for two decades. In this episode Discovering she was pregnant while convinced she had dysentery, and the grief of a life she knew she was trading Becoming a mother at 25 with no peers who understood what she was going through The realities nobody prepares you for: pumping at work, communal fridges, and the questions that felt too embarrassing to ask Returning to her own business five days postpartum, with a toddler at home Why she built World Explorers: not just childcare, but the village she grew up with in South Carolina, recreated in New York City "No one tells you how you're doing": wanting someone to simply reflect back what she looked like as a mother What she'd tell herself now: "Say what it is. Ask for help. Slow down." Why "it's egotistical to think everything depends on you" RESOURCES The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA). CALL TO ACTION Have a parental leave story of your own? Any version of it, we want to hear it. Reach out at ⁠ cplleadership.com⁠/podcast . And if you're an employer, manager, or HR leader: the RETAIN Coaching Hub and App exist so the people going through this transition, parents, managers, and HR alike, don't have to navigate it without support. Find out if your company already has access through your Short Term Disability (STD) or Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance, often through your short-term disability or paid family and medical leave policies, at ⁠cplleadership.com.

Twenty-six years ago, Karen Abrams Gerber was there when Dr. Amy Beacom was a doctoral student trying to figure out how to keep her health insurance while pregnant. She was there for the yellow glider chair, the breast pump, and the spiral notebook where the RETAIN Coaching framework first took shape. So when it came time to launch this show, there was no one else Amy wanted turning the microphone around on her. In this launch episode, Karen interviews Amy about the parental leave transition that started it all: a bureaucratic fight over her health insurance that cost her a PhD (she received an EdD instead), a surprise pregnancy after being told since age 15 that she'd never be able to have children, and a traumatic, complicated cesarean birth. In a shared hospital room afterward, a stranger behind a curtain, a new mother living in a shelter with nowhere else to go, taught her how to hold her son and in doing so gave her first company its name. It's also the story of what followed: severe postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, and undiagnosed psychosis that she hid from nearly everyone, even as her boss, Val, kept her on payroll without really knowing how close to the edge she was. And it's the story of the exact moment, at 3am, in that yellow glider chair, listening to the rhythm of a breast pump, that Amy heard the answer to the question she'd been asking for weeks: "What can I do so that no one feels the way that I do?" She calls what came next a divine download. That answer became the Center for Parental Leave Leadership, the RETAIN Coaching framework, and now, this show. Guest Dr. Karen Abrams Gerber is an organizational consultant, leadership coach, and certified RETAIN Parental Leave Coach. She is founding partner of Rally Point for Collaborative Change, a consulting practice built around helping people harness the full potential of collaboration to make the world work for everyone. She has been Amy's friend and colleague since they met decades ago while in the same master’s program in Organizational Psychology at Columbia University. In this episode What a health insurance loophole cost Amy while finishing her PhD A surprise pregnancy after being told since age 15 that she'd never be able to have children A traumatic, complicated cesarean birth, and the moment she thought something was "deeply wrong" Naci: the stranger behind a hospital curtain, living in a shelter, who taught her how to hold her son and in doing so, gave her first company its name The unraveling into postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, and undiagnosed psychosis that she hid from nearly everyone, including her own boss The 3am "divine download," in a yellow glider chair, that became the RETAIN Coaching framework What Naci's name actually means, and what Karen realizes about the name Beacom Why Amy built an entire field around a question nobody else was asking RESOURCES National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: Call or text 1-833-852-6262 (1-833-TLC-MAMA). CALL TO ACTION Have a parental leave story of your own? We want to hear it. Reach out at ⁠ cplleadership.com⁠/podcast. And if you're an employer, manager, or HR leader: the RETAIN Coaching Hub and App exist so the people going through this transition, parents, managers, and HR alike, don't have to navigate it without support. Find out if your company already has access through your Short Term Disability (STD) or Paid Family and Medical Leave insurance by reaching out to us at ⁠cplleadership.com⁠ .