I’m Tiff — The Placenta Girl, Your No-BS postpartum mentor

First things first: I’m a mom. Just like you.

But I’m also a late-diagnosed autistic mom with ADHD who battled postpartum anxiety like it was the worst enemy I never signed up to fight. I refused meds for years until I literally passed out from stress in the toy aisle at Barnes & Noble. I finally caved and tried Lexapro. Within a weekI felt better. Less ragey. I wish I hadn’t waited so long.

I didn’t even know I was neuroSPICY until I was 49. Once I did, I devoured everything I could about my spicy brain, reset my life to fit my neurodivergence.

My first pregnancy was a hard teacher. I was clueless. I leaned on What to Expect When You’re Expecting (I would later dump it in the recycling bin and refer to it as later called it What to Fear When You’re Expecting).

I trusted my doctors wholeheartedly and when I had gone in for many extra appointments reporting brown discharge, and was told it was “nothing to worry about.” When I pushed, they gave me Diflucan for a yeast infection I didn’t have. The next day my water broke while I was teaching my 6th graders about Early Humans.

My baby was born at 22 weeks, weighing 1lb 6oz, and lived only 10 minutes. I held him and loved him for his whole life.

While pregnant with my next baby in 2009, I received certification as a childbirth educator in 2009, and then a doula soon after (though the on-call life wasn’t for me, so I called it quits in 2014 after sleeping on the hospital room floor while 7 months pregnant), and started encapsulating placentas in 2012. I earned my Perinatal Mental Health Specialist certification from Postpartum Support International because I’m obsessed with comprehensive postpartum care. Placenta pills can be a game-changer for many moms to prevent postpartum anxiety, but not everyone. That’s why I cover all the bases — because every mom deserves support, no matter what.

But I got off track there…

My second birth was another wild ride. My baby ended up stubbornly breech, so my planned home birth ended in a C-section. Plus, he was an IVF baby—a triple whammy of postpartum anxiety risk factors mixed with ADHD and autism.

And so it hit.

Postpartum anxiety wrecked my marriage and left scars on my child that I still see today.

My third baby, also an IVF baby, arrived in 2014, safely at home.

This time, I had my placenta pills, a group of mom friends, and a plan for how to manage everything. I made it through this time without even a hint of the baby blues.

But here’s the brutal truth: We live in a broken system that does not support postpartum moms. You get a 6-week checkup. They ask if you’re bleeding, breastfeeding, and ready to have sex again. Then you’re on your own. No village. No support. No follow-up. No acknowledgment that 20-25% of us are fighting postpartum anxiety or PPD.

No wonder we struggle.

So here’s what I want you to know:

You deserve more. You at the very least deserve someone who has your back. Someone who you can turn to when things feel too hard to handle on your own. You deserve a postpartum experience you can look back on with tears of joy, instead of tears of sadness or rage.

This is hard. This is temporary. You are not alone.

I’m here for you.