In this episode, Heather reflects on the evolution of her life as a working mom, navigating the challenges, surprises, and deep love that comes with raising her daughter, Jocelyn.
Initial Career and Family Plans:
Heather started with big dreams for her career, envisioning a future where she could “have it all” — being a successful professional while also being a perfect mom. This plan included her husband stepping into the role of a stay-at-home dad, which wasn’t a traditional setup but one that suited them well.The Reality of Motherhood:
Their plans drastically changed when Jocelyn was born, as both mother and daughter spent time in the ICU. Heather reflects on how those early months tested her expectations. While she had prepared with books, classes, and years of experience as a social worker, nothing could prepare her for the realities of raising a very sick baby, managing medical appointments, and pumping while working full-time.The Shift to Stay-at-Home Mom:
As Jocelyn’s needs became more complex, Heather made the difficult decision to leave her job and stay home full-time. She describes the overwhelming mental load that came with managing her daughter’s health and her social work responsibilities simultaneously. Despite the challenges, staying home allowed them to find a new sense of family rhythm and connection.Development and Milestones:
As Jocelyn grew, the milestones that once felt distant started to become a reality. Heather shares her pride as Jocelyn began to walk, run, and even climb, which gave her a renewed sense of hope. Despite early setbacks, Jocelyn is now thriving, and Heather feels immense joy witnessing her progress.Community and Support:
One of the biggest shifts Heather has experienced is in her sense of community. While the early months felt isolating, she now finds strength and purpose in the connections she’s built with her neighbors and friends. Support from loved ones and regular playdates have given her a sense of balance and relief.Self-Care and Embracing the Role:
Heather never expected to love being a stay-at-home mom, but over time, she’s found a deep sense of fulfillment in caring for her home, her family, and herself. Despite the challenges, she’s been able to cultivate self-care routines and build a strong sense of community around her.A Reflection on Identity and Personal Growth:
Heather opens up about the intense, sometimes disorienting experience of losing her sense of self in the early days of motherhood. She describes how her social work background helped her through some of the toughest moments, though it wasn’t until she found the courage to "show up" for herself that she truly started to feel like her pre-baby self again.Humorous Moments in Parenthood:
From shopping trips to crafting at Hobby Lobby with Jocelyn, Heather shares funny, lighthearted anecdotes about the new normal of being a mom to a toddler. She finds humor in the chaos and celebrates the little victories along the way.Final Thoughts:
Heather closes with a reflection on how much she’s grown in her new role. While the transition into motherhood wasn’t easy, she now feels deeply connected to her family, her work as Jocelyn’s personal social worker, and her community.
Key Themes:
Parenthood and career shifts
Mental load of motherhood
Building community and support
Embracing unexpected changes
The evolution of self-identity
Celebrating milestones and small victories
If you’re navigating a similar journey, or even if you're just curious about the unpredictable adventure of being a parent, you won’t want to miss this heartfelt conversation.
Where to connect with Heather Saylor, LCSW
Website: www.heartdrivecolorado.com
Business Instagram: @home.madebyheather.co
Personal Instagram to follow her and Joceyln’s story: @hedrbear
“The mental load was really hard because I would leave the house and wonder if she was okay. I was managing her doctor’s appointments and communicating with the doctors, which I was equipped for as a social worker, but it was still overwhelming. I was managing a lot of her life while also managing other children’s lives. Before Jocelyn was born, I talked about those kids as my kids, and it was a big shift not to be as available to them.”
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Welcome back to redefining us. I'm your host, Stephanie O'Hara, and here with me today I have Heather Sailor, who is currently a stay-at-home mom, and she's going to share with us her journey on becoming a stay-at-home mom. So, welcome!
Hi, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so excited to talk to you today.
Yeah, I'm really excited, too. I feel like having a bunch of different perspectives and different journeys on here really will help normalize every experience. So, I was hoping to maybe start with where you started and then how you got here. So, yeah, start at the beginning.
Oh, gosh! The beginning! We'll start at the adult beginning.
Okay, that sounds good.
Where I went to college and graduated as a social worker.
Yes. That feels like a good or long back beginning.
Yeah. I was with my husband in college.
Oh, okay.
It's relevant because we had a conversation where I said, I'm really passionate about my career. I've got really big plans for the future. So if you're looking to sign on with me, you're signing on to be a stay-at-home dad. And I'm going to go to work. I want to have it all. I want to be a perfect mom. I want the perfect career. And I'm going to take the role by storm. And now I'm a stay-at-home mom.
Well, and you're still doing that. So.
Yes.
Thank you.
Yeah, so it sounds like your plans always were to be more of a career woman and a mom. And your husband sounded like he was okay with the idea of being a stay-at-home dad.
Yeah, when we were pregnant, which isn't necessarily the most traditional.
Yeah, it's not. And we love to buck the traditional norms. When we got married, we said, we don't want a traditional wedding. Is it traditional? I don't know if I want it. We got married during COVID in May of 2020, so it definitely wasn't very traditional.
But when we got pregnant, there was a lot of conversation, and it kept coming up with both of our families. It was a remarkable amount of conversation around the fact that I worked up until the day I went into labor.
I was texting my boss, like, no, I'm going to get off this meeting. The contractions aren't that bad? And she's like, no. I was like, no, you're right, I can't. They're actually getting worse. As a 1 o'clock meeting, my contractions started at like 11 am. So I ended up calling it a half day, but yeah, it was a remarkable amount of conversation within our families about the fact that I was going to be the primary caregiver. That was our plan—that I was going to work and I wanted to breastfeed, which was just the most insane choice. I see the insanity they thought in it now; it was really hard.
But that was our plan. And then Jocelyn was born against all odds. She and I were both in the ICU—long story short, heart surgery and a long hospital stay. Later, we come home, and it's hard to imagine a world outside of these four walls. When you are in these four walls with your baby, I still can't hold her enough. That’s just how I am. I'm a cuddly person, and I didn't get to cuddle her for the first couple of months. So every time I hold her, I think, Oh, I don't want to put you down. Just give me one more squeeze. And she's almost 2, so that's still going.
My work at the time was at Raise the Future, a nonprofit focused on family support and adoptions—something I'm very passionate about. I loved my job and always will. They gave me so much support when she was born, including additional time off and ensured I had insurance. My boss and coworkers even brought us meals and gift cards to get to and from the hospital.
Some of them wondered if I was going to come back to work, and when Jocelyn was almost 4 months old, just shy of it, I did go back. But that wasn't really working for our family a whole lot. I imagine trying to breastfeed, be the primary breadwinner, and also be a mom—that's a lot to have on your shoulders, a lot of mental load as well as the physical load.
I think the mental load was the worst part of it. Jocelyn was still learning how to eat, and I expected to breastfeed her and use my pump primarily when I was at the office. But it turned out I was mostly pumping. If anything could have looked different from what we planned, that’s what we got. Isn’t that motherhood? You think it's going to go one way, and then life throws you curveballs.
You really don’t know what it's going to be like until you're in the thick of it. You can have expectations, you can read books—I read all the books, went to parenting classes, and I’ve been reading about this since I was 19 because that’s my job. But here I am, primarily pumping for a very sick baby. We performed CPR on her several times in our first year, so I became quite good at that.
The mental load was really hard because I would leave the house and wonder if she was okay. I was managing her doctor’s appointments and communicating with the doctors, which I was equipped for as a social worker, but it was still overwhelming. I was managing a lot of her life while also managing other children’s lives. Before Jocelyn was born, I talked about those kids as my kids, and it was a big shift not to be as available to them.
At a visit, I was trying to enrich a child's life while worrying about Jocelyn and how I was going to pump during a two-hour drive to Pueblo. Things like that wore me down quickly, and I was constantly concerned.
I think my experience as a therapist and being someone who's client-facing in a care profession created this division. I was no longer just caring about the person in front of me but also worrying about my husband, my child, and my clients. The mental load felt heavy, as if I was responsible for everyone’s emotions.
When we made the switch, my last day at Raise the Future was last October, and Jocelyn was about 9 months old. We had the savings to just be home, and my husband went back to work in December, working from home. That allowed us to enjoy time as a family that we hadn’t had when she was born. When he returned to work, she was turning a year old, and things really started to look different.
Kids change so rapidly. People say you blink and suddenly they're different, but it’s much more minute and constant. Jocelyn in September was not the same as she was in January. She’s not even a baby anymore; she’s a toddler now, and it's wild to adapt to that.
I was saying to my husband this morning, can we still call her a baby? I’m feeling really emotionally attached to this stage. One of Jocelyn's therapists referred to this time as "taby," the transition between toddler and baby. It’s a hard transition, and accepting that your baby is different even from a month ago can be a huge adjustment.
Jocelyn recently got to the point where she can comfortably reach surfaces, which is fun and chaotic, especially when she knocks things off tables. Sure! Here’s your text without the timestamps:
The dining room table, the cabinet. She's walking up and pulling stuff off, and this is just the highlight of her day. She's like so capable. And she really is.
Yeah, I imagine that's a very good feeling for you, after the first few months, first year of life being so challenging.
Yeah, she's incredible. And I have a cold. I'm sick today. So today we were supposed to have physical therapy and feeding. This morning's really a morning girl.
And I let them both know, I was sick. Come at your own risk. She's running on all cylinders. She's ready to go, happy to see you, but if you don't want to be exposed, I highly respect that.
I canceled her physical therapy, and her physical therapist said, I'm really not worried. If you're comfortable with only having one session this month, then I'm comfortable with it.
The second she learned how to walk, she started running and wanting to jump. She's been climbing since she could crawl, but she's getting more effective at it. It was almost as if this is what she was designed for. That's such a stupid thing to say. She's a human. Of course she was, but she knew it. The whole time was really hard; all these milestones were really hard for her, really delayed. But the moment she started to walk, she started to catch up.
And I mean, really get on track. Feeding therapy was rescheduled for Thursday. That's not on track, but she's such a smart and capable little girl. It is really exciting to see.
Yeah, I imagine that makes you a proud mama, too.
Oh, so much! I can't imagine not being proud of her. I look back as Google will give you those memories on your photos and videos, you know? And so I'll look back like, oh, a year ago she was just rolling over.
That's wild.
I was so excited; I was cheering for her. If you've seen the Bluey episode, that is a perfect example of how silly a parent can get. Like, look at me, crawl! Look at me, rollover! You wanna do some of this? It doesn't look good.
I actually just saw that episode a couple of days ago.
It's so fun! I love it. Bluey really meant for my husband and me, because Ella is not really watching it. So we thoroughly enjoy that as our own entertainment while she dances to the song.
That's sweet. Yeah, we were kind of in that zone. We first put it on like, oh, this is kind of fun. And like Bluey rules. We sit down for breakfast, and the second she gets bored with whatever we're doing at breakfast time, it's Bluey. Today. Good. I'm like, no! And I try to save Bluey for the afternoons so that she can watch it and be kind of engrossed in it when I'm cooking dinner.
And there are 6-minute episodes. So every 6 minutes, we get to interact and check in and dance to the intro song, and it's a lot of fun.
Yeah, it really sounds like you feel like you’ve come into your own with the stay-at-home mom role.
Oh, I love it! I did not expect to love it. I really thought before having kids that I would be going crazy. I'd be going stir crazy. I would be like, my numb's like bored. And I'm sure that people find those things. They have that experience as a stay-at-home mom; it's a very real experience, and that's what I expected for me.
When she was bored, she became very fulfilling for social work. So silly, like as a social worker, I'm like she meets all of my skills and needs as a career-driven person. I have to do all of the things I've done for 30 kids for her, and I'm doing all of it for her, whereas I might do bits and pieces for a caseload. So that was another thing that made it feel like a very natural transition is I am her personal social worker, and that gives me the biggest smile. It makes me feel like the most important person ever. What more important job is there? That's so cool to me.
But more important than that, I have found ways to really care for myself while staying at home with her. And to care for my home and my friends in my community. I've been able to really put effort and love into that, and make it a strong community. By giving support and receiving support, I have so much less worry now than I did a year ago. A year ago, we felt very isolated and overwhelmed and didn’t know how we were going to do this. And now I feel so connected and valued and purposeful.
A lot of that is really from the community where I know that we can call on Aunt Claire when we need something for Jocelyn. We get to pick up Claire's girls from school on Wednesdays and walk home. We get to get together at the park, and she has all these valuable relationships that enrich her life so much more than I can.
Like she’s being involved in the community just as much as you are.
Right! Anything I do pretty much, she also does. And that has been maybe the biggest challenge of being a stay-at-home mom, is that everything you do, you do with a baby or toddler. She's a toddler now. But grocery shopping—I once in my craft store fix, I don’t craft that much, but I craft just enough to really enjoy being in a Michaels or Hobby Lobby or Joann’s. I wasn't finding that time because the time that my husband is off from work and I might do a couple of solo things, they weren't crafts.
So I finally stuck her in the cart. I hooked up her G-tube feed. I've gotten very strategic about that so that we're doing it all the way through Hobby Lobby. I get my craft store fix, and it is a challenge having a toddler in Hobby Lobby, but it is one that I'm willing to take on.
That’s fair.
Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about this community thing. When I first had Ella, I’m assuming a lot of moms and dads experience this. When they first have a baby, it does feel like people are there because people say that they’re there, but you're so in it that you don't see them there.
And then—
No, you have tunnel vision.
Yes, you have tunnel vision, and then as soon as the dust settles, just even a little bit and then you get your feet under you. That's really, I think how I felt for a long time is like, Oh, wow! I finally have my feet under me again. Now I can talk to people. I can be a human. And then it's like, okay. The dust is settled. My world is still. I've got a handle on things. What else can I do?
Yeah, I don't know if you felt this, but for me, like I didn't even feel like myself for the first several months. My baby didn't even have any medical complications, right? Just myself, as like a human in adapting to this new life. Like, I didn't even feel like I could. I mean, obviously I knew that I was Stephanie O'Hara, but I didn't feel like Stephanie. I felt like this weird version of myself that was just, like you said, grasping the dirt and pulling myself forward every day.
I refer to the first six days of Jocelyn's life as the time when I wasn't a person. I was human, but I wasn't a person. I did not exist, like me, Heather. She wasn't here. My body was here, and I was going through it, and I was taking in information, and I was giving information out. But I remember vividly the morning of her sixth day of life when I woke up in her CICU room, and I put on jeans, a T-shirt, brushed my hair, washed my face, and put on this necklace that my doula gave me that she passed on to find strength and healing. I put that on, and I showed up to rounds with the doctors that day. I was showing up. Now I have to.
And I also at that time would tell people, I'm a social worker right now. The social worker turned back on before Heather did because she's been through insane crises. She's stood in blood-spattered homes, removed children, healed children, and given children back. So she's been through some tough stuff. I knew she could handle this.
Yeah, that version of you could be tapped on easier, right? Like this one can do it. And then, months later, I started to feel like me again and started to find myself. I feel like a lot of that after conversation that my husband and I had recently is getting to know yourself as a parent. People tell me a lot that it's amazing to see the mother that you've grown into, to see how you've changed, how you've responded to all of these challenges. And I don't actually feel that different because I feel like me again. But I think I feel like me again because I've gotten to know me and who I am now, just like you've gotten to know who you are as Ella's mom.
Yeah, and that got to align back to the Stephanie that you knew already.
Yeah, I feel like you're gonna make me tear up saying that, right? But I do think it's so true. It's like you figure out who you are now as this mom or this parent. Because who you are now is different than even like the pregnant version of you. Right? Like your pregnant self had one idea of what this was gonna look like. But then, when you're in it, you know. We've already said this. It's not like that.
No, and not every expectation is ridiculous or obscene. Like you're changing diapers, you're feeding a baby, you're not sleeping. Those things all happen in some form or another.
Yes. In the context that my husband and I spoke about, we've been working a lot the past few months—really heavily on our relationship and our marriage—because it definitely took the back burner. To say it took the back burner is generous; it wasn’t on the stove. It was not a priority in the most remote fashion. Survival was the priority. And then our individual selves, along with our daughter, were the priority. Once again we got a handle on things, we got to say, Oh, hi! Good to see you again. You've been here the whole time. Let's chat.
One of these conversations kind of led us to talking about how me as a mom is still getting to know him as a dad. Because we are both different, but we don't feel different. When we look at each other, he is different. And when he looks at me, I am different, though I don't feel that way. He feels more comfortable in his role as a dad than anything else because that's what he needed to be for so long.
So he's still finding that. And I think a big part of that was talking about and opening up to the fact that we had a lot of separation and a lot of unique experiences at the get-go. When we came back together as a family, there was this new person here with all these new challenges that needed us more than anything. Now that we are getting to know ourselves, we get to share that with each other and finally get to know each other again.
It's like your relationship—I was thinking about this concept the other day or the other week about how my husband was one person before, and now he's a different person. That’s because we have this whole other person in our lives. I knew conceptually, you know, logically, that a baby is a whole other human. But I don’t think you really know what that means until you have a whole other human that is now a part of your relationship, right? Until you're met with their personality up against your personalities, and that starts to come out.
I think a new part of our own personalities comes out. People will tell you when they talk to me that I've always been a mom in a lot of ways. My sister is 13 years younger than me, and I had the blessing of being able to help raise her. All the kids I've been a part of their lives, I've practiced parenting. So I got a lot of that practice in for a very long time before she was born. But I have never seen my husband as a dad. So he became a dad, and he's never really seen me be a full-time mom, like a mama bear, until she came around. It's like, yeah, I'll get protective over her.
There’s this one boy I don’t want to put his name out there if he doesn't agree with it, but I jokingly call him my first born because he was one of my first kids in social work. I met him when he was 14, and he still calls me and talks to me about his wife and their little one. You know, just how to get through. He'll call me Mama Heather, and I would get protective over him. I would show up for him in ways that I didn't for other people before. And then she came along, and it was like, whoa! We thought that was a lot. This is another level. This is like part of my body outside of my body.
That's a very good way of describing it. I remember early on, I was having a conversation with one of the therapists on my team, and I was like, it feels now like I have a baby and then like a real baby. Because I consider my business like my baby, and I've taken so much time nurturing it, spending time building relationships and caring for the people that work for me. I just can't do it differently; everything is very heart-led when it comes to working with people. It feels like an actual child, my business.
And so then when I had a real child, I was like, Oh, wow! These two things are like really competing against one another. I love the people that work for me, and I love my work, like you talked about. And then there’s also this other human being that I deeply love. It feels like my heart is outside of my body, and that push and pull is just so strong.
It's so hard. I really didn't start using the word blessed until the past couple of months because it really made me angry at the start. Trauma can really mess you up. I am a Christian; I consider myself a religious person. But I really did not want to hear the lick of that when my world was turned upside down. Things like everything happens for a reason made me so angry. It wasn’t even because of what happened to my child. My child has a prosthetic part of her heart that is human tissue from another child. When someone told me, "That's amazing, everything happens for a reason," I got so angry because it's like, why is my child's life more important than that little boy's? Why do I get my child, and that person doesn't? As a social worker, as a mom, as a human, the injustice there never really leaves you.
But I will say, like I am so blessed to have so many opportunities that I've had to get us to this point, and one of those is that I had the ability to put my career on hold and say, "Hold please. These are people's lives." They don't go on hold. But I'm not doing them justice. I'm not serving them to their fullest. What could we do to make sure that they're taken care of? Because I needed to take care of someone else. And not everyone has that opportunity.
Yeah. I'm really, really blessed to have been able to take this time and to have the capacity to do it.
Well, I'm so glad that you shared your journey with us and made us all tear up, probably a little bit, and make our hearts feel warm. I really hope that, you know, like I said earlier, your and Jocelyn's and your husband's experience just keeps being full and rich, and you get to go outside, hang out with friends more often.
Oh, yeah, I appreciate that. We have a very busy schedule now between her playdates, gymnastics, and doctor's appointments, so I definitely don't have a lot of downtime, which is good for someone like me.
But I will find time to feed you and your family, too, because I can't talk about feeding people and then not feed you. So I would love to feed you too.
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
Well, I feel like I'm pretty good at it.
It's good. Well, thank you so much for being on, and if you want to contact me, or if people want to find you or follow your story, where can they do that?
Yeah. So we do have an Instagram. People keep telling me to make one special for her, but right now it's just my Instagram that I made when I was, what, 18 years old, 17 years old? It's at header. Hedr. BEAR.
But we also have a website, colorado.com. We did a toy drive for Children's Hospital in honor of Jocelyn's 1st heart day, which in the cardiac world is a time when you have your 1st heart surgery. So in honor of that, we really wanted to give back to the families that are there now and going through that again because, like Jocelyn, a lot of kids have that multiple times. She's estimated to have 3 or 4 more heart surgeries in her life to continue to replace that prosthetic piece.
So that website is up year-round, and it will just become more enhanced next year when it comes time to do her second. It's a great place to learn more about congenital hearts, Children's Hospital Colorado, and Jocelyn's story. I made the website myself, so it works pretty well, but it's rudimentary. I would love it if people would check that out.
Now that I'm seeing it out loud, I should reach out to some other folks and see about putting maybe their kiddos’ stories on there. Because once you step into the cardiacs, you realize how full it is, how big it is, and how many people are here. But when you're outside of it, you don't know it exists; you don't really think about it.
And just one last plug: there's a poem called "Welcome to Holland." It's a beautiful piece to read or listen to. It talks about stepping into new worlds and has given me a lot of solace and comfort in becoming a special needs mom. It's really a great poem, so I just wanted to put that out there.
Okay, well, I'll definitely link all that information in our show notes and on our website so people can find it even easier. I'll also find a copy of that poem and put it on there so people can access it easily. Thank you so much for taking your time to be on today. I hope everyone feels inspired and connects with the toy drive and shares their generosity and warm hearts with kids in need.
Yeah, if not Children's Hospital Colorado, maybe just a kid near you.
That's true. Well, thank you again.