Sacred Beginnings: Preparing Heart, Mind & Home for Your Angel Baby with Kristin Grayce McGary

Dr. Laura: Welcome to another episode of Well -Adjusted Mama. This is a podcast dedicated to educating and empowering women from preconception, pregnancy, birth, and through early motherhood on wellness lifestyle. Um, I’m your host, Dr. Laura Brayton. I’m a pediatric maternity chiropractor, a functional medicine practitioner, and a mother who has hand selected experts in natural holistic healthcare specialties to shine light on options and choices during this exciting phase of a woman’s life. And today’s episode is on Sacred Preparing Heart, Mind and Home for your Angel Baby with my special guest, Kristin Grayce McGary. Health and lifestyle expert Kristin Grayce McGary is an internationally recognized author and speaker, and she is an authority on autoimmunity, functional blood chemistry analysis, thyroid and gut health, alleviating pain, family wellness, extreme exhaustion, and resolving blocks to healing as well as food is medicine. Kristin Grayce specializes in integrating mind, body and spirit in health care through a uniquely individualized approach. She offers more than two decades of education, clinical experience and wisdom. Um, and to her patients, weaving dozens of modalities together to compassionately meet you where you are and guide you to vibrant health. Renowned for her health detective work, she helps successful hive achievers under stress, taking the guesswork out of healthcare, working to resolve patients root imbalances, helping them to regain lasting energy and live with more vitality. She empowers patients to revitalize and reconnect to their most brilliant self and to fulfill the mission of sharing their gifts with the world. She’s the author of Holistic Keto for Gut Health, a program for resetting your metabolism, Know youw Blood, Know youw Prevent Disease and enjoy vibrant health through functional blood chemistry analysis and her upcoming book On Blocks to Healing. Hi, Kristin Grayce welcome to the show. I’m very excited to have you on today.

Kristin Grayce: Hi, Laura. Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Laura: So you and I chatted a little bit before this podcast interview to determine the topic that we wanted to focus on today. And together we came up with Sacred Preparing Heart, Mind and Home for your Angel Babies. So, um, this is a really rich and fascinating topic, so I’d love for you to just share with the audience a little bit about who you are and how we came up with this topic.

Kristin Grayce: Uh, all right, thanks. I am an integrative, holistic, comprehensive health and soul care provider. And I’m licensed in acupuncture and Asian medicine and functional medicine and advanced cranial sacral therapy and Somato, emotional release, neural and perineural injection therapies, homeopathy, visceral manipulation, flu photobiomodulation frequency specific microcurrent, tons and tons of different modalities. I also am m a psychedelic therapist. And one of my passions over the years has been working with mamas and families on bringing babies in and also death midwifery as people transition. And in the beginning of my acupuncture training, I learned how to use acupuncture as anesthesia for dental procedures and labor and delivery. So I began working with mamas and families to prepare them to become pregnant and then work with them through, uh, labor and delivery. And then also offering pediatric cranial sacral therapy to the baby. And then of course, other healing modalities to the mama and even papa and other other kids in the family to help them integrate all of the magic and changes that occur when new life comes onto the planet and into our families. So that was where I started almost 30 years ago. That was one of my passions. And so as we were speaking, we. What was very much alive for me was how we’ve lost some of the ritual and intention around calling these souls in. And, uh, it inspires me and excites me to empower others to begin to broaden their perspective on conceiving.

Dr. Laura: Yes.

Kristin Grayce: And how to prepare mind, body and spirit. It’s not just like, eat healthy and have a new room and paint it right. There’s so much more that’s so fun to touch on. And it lit us both up. So here we are.

Dr. Laura: Totally. And I love that, you know, with working with, like, functional medicine practitioners. There’s that surface, surface level, like get the toxins out, you have the good nutrients, get the hormones balanced to help you get pregnant. Right. From a fertility perspective and a healthy conception perspective. But we’re going deeper today about the spirit conn, um, with calling in the baby before you’re pregnant. And so can you speak a little bit about the history around that, you know, that you may know of that, um, we kind of did forget. And now that we’re bringing, we’re looking to bring back today’s conversation.

Kristin Grayce: I think that different indigenous cultures had different rituals and practices. I know that some, and I am by no means an expert on any of those cultures. I just know how I’ve been guided and how certain elders have spoken to me and what I’ve learned over all of these years with working with families and parents and mamas and children and midwives and physicians. There are some indigenous cultures, for example, in Africa, that channel the soul’s song of the baby that’s coming in. And before that baby, I Have goosebumps before that baby’s even conceived. The community is singing that soul’s song to call them in. And then during the entire pregnancy, that community is singing that same song. This song becomes like a vibrational signature frequency to this being that they come and embody. And it’s not just a made up flippin song, it’s a soulful song that often the elders have heard and felt as this soul wanted to come into the community. And so there’s a sharing of this song with others so that it’s a community event to bring this baby into the group, into the community, into the family. So there are many different traditions around intentional conception that I feel we’ve lost sight of and can begin to bring them back in a way that fits our own values and intentions, no matter what culture or religion we’re currently in.

Dr. Laura: Mhm. Yes. Kristin Grayce I remember hearing that story in a Pathways to Family Wellness magazine. And what I even learned further is once that baby is born, the song is sung to the baby. Everybody in the community knows it. And when that person is not in alignment with the rules of the village, they put that person in the middle of the circle and the whole community sings them their song to remind them of their essence and who they are. Because when we really are connected to our essence, we, we do not hurt others, we don’t hurt ourselves. Right. We are imbalanced in that way. Right. So I think that is so powerful and to your point, you know, the song is an energy vibration and our bodies have our own energy vibration and that’s just one way to communicate with the body. So what a great story.

Kristin Grayce: A different judicial system. Right. Somebody acts out of line, they’re not kind, they steal something, they do something that’s harmful or inappropriate and we bring them into the center and we hold them in love and we sing to them, we remind them, wait a minute, this isn’t who you really are. How beautiful.

Dr. Laura: Beautiful, Gorgeous. So um, yeah. And like to your point, this is. There’s examples of this all over the world with all different types of indigenous cultures. So you know, now for a modern woman, you know, what is some good ways if she doesn’t know necessarily her indigenous roots, what can she do before she gets pregnant to start calling in the soul of her baby?

Kristin Grayce: Yeah. I would say it’s not only the mama, I would say it’s the couple. So. And I think there are different aspects of conception that each person holds and they’ll be drawn to different pieces of intention around calling that soul in but before the soul is even called in which I’ll speak to, I want to share that I think it’s important to have a conversation about values and about intention and motivation. What is your why as an individual and as a couple? Why do you want to bring a soul onto the planet? Get clear, no judgment around any of the answers. Flush them all out and get to know them, figure out what they are and expose them all. Because I wish I would have done that. I was a young mom, and I wish I would have had more guidance because I knew I really wanted to be a mom and it wasn’t all for the right reason. And I didn’t have the emotional intelligence back then to. Or the mentorship to discern and to uncover that so I could be more conscious and be more intentional. And part of that was my own growth and learning. And I don’t regret any of it. But I can definitely use it now to help others better define what’s motivating them and what their values are to make sure they’re aligning as a couple. And. And, uh, uh, it’s sometimes, uh, my judgment, my story. Sometimes it can be sad when two people decide to bring a child onto the planet, and very quickly they realize their values don’t align.

Dr. Laura: Oh, right.

Kristin Grayce: And then there’s a lot of fighting and arguing and disagreements, and there’s not the sense of support. And baby feels that mom’s nervous system feels that that impacts her hormones and her milk production, and it actually impacts the baby, baby’s brain development and how their nervous system develops. So, uh, if we can have those tough conversations ahead of time, if we can see, hey, we really align on these places. And hey, if we don’t align, how are we going to work with a therapist or another coach to get in alignment so we feel good about the choices we’re making. So I think that’s a starting point. So motivation, values and intentions. And from there, I would launch into how to do it.

Dr. Laura: Okay. Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s go there.

Kristin Grayce: Okay, great. So it’s different for each couple, each woman and. And each. Each partner, each man, depending on. On, um, the partnership configuration. And I believe that once we’re clear that we have shared values and we are clear on what our motivation is, we’re setting intentions around how we want to bring this baby in and the kind of parents we want to be. So I like to have moms and dads write some things out. What are the top things you don’t want to be. In terms of a parent, what do you want to avoid? What do you want to upgrade? What do you want to change? What were the, the places that you look back at your parents and you go, wow, that was a mistake. That hurt. That didn’t feel good. I didn’t like that value. And where do you want to upgrade it? How do you want to be? And I say write it down and start talking about it, because if it’s not spoken about, you’re going to become your parents and you’re going to do exactly what they did, even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t. But if you expose it and you bring it from the unconscious to the conscious, um, and flush it up, you’re less likely to do it. And if you do, you have your partner to reflect and support you through growing through it. So that’s one, one important and fun piece to explore. Next, I would say, would be shared values around either religion or ritual. I like to invite parents to create a baby altar or a family altar. And some couples like to just do it insular, just the two of them. And other couples want their parents, their families, their brothers and sisters to be involved in the creation of that. And on this altar, it doesn’t have to be a religious altar. It could be. It’s more of a soulful spiritual altar where you’re going to put, put precious objects that are in alignment with your values in wanting to be a parent and bring this soul in. So perhaps you have a favorite crystal or an heirloom from your grandmother, or a picture of what your family and your mind will look like. Or you found a rock that’s in the shape of a heart, or you made a dream board and it’s a little mini. And you’re going to put that behind the altar so that you see it every day. There might be a candle or incense. There might be, uh, some other object that a friend gave you. There could be a little felted animal. There could something that, that you’re co creating with your partner with the intention of preparation. What do we want? This soul? Which soul are we calling in? What attributes? And I don’t mean blue eyes and dark hair. I mean soulful attributes. I mean morals. I mean values. What’s important to you and how are you going to represent that in your little altar? So that’s a fun exercise that you can do. I also like speaking intentions and writing intentions and living a life of intention. There’s a kind of presence that happens when we intend something. There’s a kind of focus. And I think if we’re going to conceive and create life and bring it onto the planet and start a family presence, it’s an important skill to develop if you don’t already have it. And uh, it’s fun to begin practicing presence with yourself and your partner. So this could be five to ten minutes, one to two times a day, where you’re eye gazing and you’re just speaking words of your intention of, uh, calling this soul in. How will you do it in your family? This soul is called in through divine love. This soul passes through bright light of love. This soul is welcome in our family. This soul is welcome in my body. And to begin to play with the emotions that it causes you to feel when you imagine this soul coming in and to not only think it, but feel it in every cell of your body. This pure love, this excitement, this welcoming, this fresh new life. And start to play with both the mind and the feeling. I also have different ways of setting intentions that I coach people, depending on what they’re wanting and how their beliefs, uh, play into that and their values, sometimes their spiritual or religious affiliations as well. One of my favorite ways, which is affiliated to a technique called the lifeline technique, is to use an I am statement. So, mama, imagining you were already pregnant, that you’re already detoxified, you’re already healthy, you’re already happy, you’re already abundant, you’re already pregnant, then who are you? What are you? So you set an intention about where you’re going as if you’re already there. Mhm. Not based on what you still want. So if your intention is I’m pregnant, that’s because you want to be pregnant. That’s not where we want to go. We want to imagine you already are. And you already have everything you need. You already are everything you need. And then who are you? What are you? I am blank. So that’s the first part. The second part is imagining how it feels to be that, to model that and for other people to be inside, inspired by you. They don’t even have to know you. They could just see you in the grocery store or hear your voice, or hear your name. And all of a sudden they’re filled with love, they’re filled with light just from your being. So how does it cause you to feel emotionally knowing that you have this beautiful impact on the planet and on your baby? And that’s a happy emotion. So there’s your intention. I am blank. Feeling blank. And then you can play with this in partnership, I guide couples through it all the time. So that’s another stage, another way to play, to invite the baby in. I also like preparing the space so not just physically. Like, please don’t paint a new room with toxic paint. Right. Please use environmentally friendly paint that you can eat off the walls. Right. Because we don’t want to tox out our baby as soon as they’re born. They’re already getting exposed to toxins in the womb. Hundreds of them that most people aren’t even aware of.

Dr. Laura: And even with the best ability to avoid them, we just can’t completely avoid them.

Kristin Grayce: It’s impossible. Yeah, it’s impossible. Sadly, the environmental working group, the ewg, years ago, did a very small but potent research study. They took 200 chemicals.

Dr. Laura: Mhm.

Kristin Grayce: That had not yet been found in humans. And they took the cord blood of newborn babies and tested them for these chemicals. And every single baby had out of 200 chemicals, something like 175 of them that had never been seen in humans before. And it’s just inevitable. Even with filtered water, our air, everything we’re trying to do right, we’re going to get chemicals in us and it passes the placenta barrier often. So uh, like you had said, preparation in terms of functional medicine. Mind, body, spirit, to detoxify, get the mercury out, get the mold, get the heavy metals, get rid of the parasites, get strong and healthy, exercise a lot, eat so much super well for like six months to a year.

Dr. Laura: Correct. And both partners, not just the woman.

Kristin Grayce: That’s right. Papa needs it too. You’re right. Exactly. And then prepare your space energetically. It doesn’t just mean paint and buy a crib. But how are you going to open your home to invite this soul in? So maybe it’s an altar, maybe there’s a special place where this baby knows it’s its safe place. Maybe you’re going to create like a cuddle nook or a processing nook where you and your partner will go and do intentions and say prayers to welcome the baby in. Maybe you’re going to create a really sacred bedroom place to make love. To create this child and light candles and create sexy yummy rituals with chocolate and you know, fruit and, and whatever kink or love making thing you’re into to call the soul in. So preparing your space, getting rid of the clutter, getting rid of old stuff from past partners, from the kids that moved out from, uh, just. People have piles, they accumulate stuff and then the garage is full and then the spare room is full and then get Rid of stuff, create the space energetically. When you walk in your house, it should feel like a sanctuary. How do you want your baby to feel in your home? This is how you should feel. And if you’re anxious or depressed and upset that this didn’t get done and that’s broken and that’s a clutter and clean it up, get help. You don’t have to do it all on your own. But creating that space physically and energetically makes a big difference.

Dr. Laura: It does. And you know, I got a flashback when I was already pregnant and our spare room was a guest bedroom and it had my husband’s desk, which was like his office. And I said, okay, I want to start preparing this room for the baby. And he wasn’t ready to let go of his space. That was his desk, it was his old bed. That was now the guest bed and his closet. It was like his backup room or his man cave. And when you’re in a two bedroom apartment, you know there’s less room and space. So it was a hard conversation to have with him about moving that furniture out that wouldn’t serve the baby and then getting what we did need for the baby. And at the end of the day, the compromise was is that a lot of them nursery was set up, uh, after the birth. And that was okay too, because when they’re really little, like for my son, he slept in the bed with us and we changed his diaper in our bedroom. And, um, you know what I mean, we didn’t necessarily need that nursery fully complete before he was born either.

Kristin Grayce: Right. I think that’s a really good point, that there is an energetic clearing of the space. But there’s some very interesting research about how a family bed, keeping your baby in bed with you, nursing in bed, sleeping together, decreases the chance of sids.

Dr. Laura: Yes.

Kristin Grayce: And there are some physicians that have not read that research and are still miseducating patients and telling them that it’s bad to sleep with their baby. And I think this is a real disservice to the development of their nervous system and the bonding that is so sacred when we have a family bed. And how to get your own body regulated and sleep rhythm going while you’re still able to nurse and take care of your baby and connect with your partner.

Dr. Laura: Yeah, I think co sleeping was huge for my recovery after the birth just because I definitely had better quality sleep with a newborn than if I had to get up, uh, to feed him every couple, two, three hours in a separate room, you know, to stay in bed, roll over latch him on. We, you know, I was still half asleep, he got fed, we both went right back to sleep very quickly. And that bonding was so important. And we also, I what I see in my practice, when I see newborns that are very irritable and colicky, they are really missing that connect, that physical connection and they’re not feeling safe essentially. Right. So how do we help babies feel safe is we hold them and we’re close to them and that’s, you know, skin on skin. All of that is so great those first several weeks of life. Right. For that baby’s nervous system to feel safe.

Kristin Grayce: Even months. You know, I have a, uh, family I’ve been working with and they have a four month old and he’s still getting swaddled. When he takes a nap, he, we swaddle him. He loves it. He just sleeps better. So sometimes it can even be months. Depends on the family and the baby and the dynamics and. Yeah. And it’s so important. I love how you and your husband compromised. Right. And kind of worked it out even in a tiny space in a two bedroom apartment and how, you know, baby still stayed in your room for a bit. So it wasn’t as big of a deal. It didn’t have to be 100% perfect nursery. There was a shift in the energy.

Dr. Laura: A lot of people, even if they’re not co sleeping, they have the bassinet in their bedroom. So at the end of the day, the baby’s sleeping in the room with them for uh, for usually a few months before they transition into a separate room in a separate crib. But um, I do talk a lot about co sleeping with families and I do, I like to dispel those myths because the reality is, is unless you’re like an alcoholic, a drug addict or on medication, where you’re so out of your body that you would potentially roll over baby and suffocate them, which is not the majority of most parents. Right. Then it is safe. And I would say, you know, the challenge sometimes with these blanket rules, um, is that they, they’re like that small, tiny subset of families where co sleeping is not a good option. They want to apply it to everybody. Right. And we really need to say, okay, is this family having an issue where there is, is it safe or not and we can look at what’s required. Right. And then make a decision for that family.

Kristin Grayce: Exactly. Such good discernment. Right. That’s really where the wisdom is, is individualizing it per adult, per family and per baby. What’s really right Exactly. Well, we’ve touched on, you know, a little bit about how to prepare. We haven’t touched on some mental preparation. I think there’s. It can be very easy to drift into fantasy when we want something. And we can fantasize about the perfect birth and the perfect pregnancy and the perfect husband and the perfect life. And I’m going to take this time off of work or I can’t, or I’m going to do this and the baby, everything’s great. And I’m going to breastfeed or I’m going to have a natural birth or I’m going to have a scheduled seaside. Like we, we tend to want to structure it according to what we want and what we like and what I like. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just one way of doing it. And there are other ways. So I like to educate people so that they have a larger palette to choose from. And another way is to listen, to pay attention and feel what might be right versus what our programming says is right, or what our doctor says we must do, or what society has conditioned us. Or don’t breastfeed in public because someone shamed you or whatever. There are many variables and influences on how we think about conception, delivery, birth and parenting. And I like to invite parents to get a taste of many different ways so they can try on what works for them. Mhm. Instead of a very structured, scheduled thing. And then we get disappointed when it doesn’t go that way.

Dr. Laura: Right.

Kristin Grayce: I think it’s great to have the best of intentions and to say this is what I’m intending, this is. And to focus on that as if it’s already done. And then to work with and build your resiliency, to go with the flow of what your baby is showing you. And sometimes that C section saves a life and it’s okay. And there are ways to recover from it there. You know, I think mama needs a lot of treatment after a C section and eventually to have the scar treated is very important. Moms don’t realize how important it is to have those scars treated.

Dr. Laura: And not just a scar. You can see all the layers of stuff, scar tissue underneath. That’s a big part of my practice. Yes. I recommend that for every single postpartum mom. C section.

Kristin Grayce: So important with the work you’re doing. Also that I am doing like injection therapy. I did neural injection therapy on the scars and advanced cranial. There’s so many modalities, acupuncture, and then also the baby needs pediatric osteopathy. Pediatric cranial sacral therapy.

Dr. Laura: Cranial work. Yes. Which I do as well because of.

Kristin Grayce: That pressure gradient change with a C section. It can cause a lot of dysfunction.

Dr. Laura: Yeah.

Kristin Grayce: And so it’s, it’s. Yeah, it’s really a, uh, very beautiful thing to be able to address that so soon after birth. I mean I just work with my moms and babies immediately. Yeah. And then continue as I’m guessing you do as well. Yeah, so. So that’s another piece. And then the mindset that ties into where we’re attached to things going a certain way and where we can have a strong intention, see and feel it as if it’s already happened. And if it has, if it changes, if baby says no, I’m coming in a different way, or no, I actually need to nurse more or no, I need skin on skin more. I’m crying a lot. No, I actually, my belly’s upset. You need to change your diet, mom. Right. There can be all these changes and I think it’s important for parents to listen, especially new parents. This is their first baby to begin to learn how to listen differently and to start that before they have the newborn to start mom and dad listening to your bodies differently, listening to each other in perhaps in bringing in authentic relating practices like non violent communication and t group or circling. There’s so many beautiful ways of listening differently to your partner and what they’re saying and meaning under their words and guessing and checking in. And this develops a different way we listen with our being. That’s going to be of great benefit when you have a baby and a toddler and a child.

Dr. Laura: 100%. Wow. This is such great information. Kristin, Grayce do you have any last thoughts you want to share with the audience?

Kristin Grayce: Thanks for asking. I think some final thoughts are to remember the sacredness of life and to hold it as such that our lives are just as sacred as the one we’re bringing in. And to take care of ourselves and our partnership, to take care of the family and really have those conversations and evaluate values and motivations before you have a baby to talk about money. Right. To really dive in before you make this massive life changing decision is so fruitful. And I invite people to work with their fear if it comes up and to dive in and to honor the sacredness, uh, of and the joy, the beauty of bringing, bringing life onto the planet through our magical bodies and souls.

Dr. Laura: Awesome. Well, Kristin Grayce this has been such a enlightening conversation. I’m so thankful that you shared all of your wisdom and love with the audience today.

Kristin Grayce: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Such a joy. And thank you so much for sharing what you’re doing. It’s so needed on the planet right now and it has such a beautiful, powerful impact. So thank you so much.

Dr. Laura: Thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s awesome episode with my special guest, Kristin Grayce McGary. She has almost three decades, uh, of experience, wisdom, um, as an acupuncturist and a holistic healer, integrating so many different modalities into her work. Because of that life experience and education, she had so much amazing knowledge to share with the audience today. So if you want to learn more about her, how you can work with her, please check out her website@kristingracemcgarry.com that’s K R I S T I N G R A y c e McGary m c g a r y.com definitely like and subscribe to the podcast and we’re looking if you to get more five star reviews. So if you enjoy this episode, please leave us a review. Thank you.