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Become A Calm MamaLearn how to stop yelling at your kids and feel calm Author: Darlynn Childress
Become a Calm Mama is a parenting podcast where you learn practical parenting tools and strategies so you can stop yelling, feel more calm, and show up as the mom you want to be. Darlynn is the top parenting coach for moms who want to know exactly how to handle misbehavior and create a peaceful home. Darlynn is known for her practical strategies and a down to earth understanding of what its really like to be a mom raising kids in the 21st century. Over the past 15 years, Darlynn has dedicated her life to becoming the mom she wanted to be for my kids. In that process, she created a parenting model called The Calm Mama Process that helped her navigate every tricky parenting moment thats been thrown her way. From hitting to bullying, from toddler meltdowns to teenage shenanigans, from missing assignments to college admissions, from getting kids to bed to getting kids out of bed, from kids not wanting to get out of the bath to middle schoolers that dont want to take a shower, from kids fighting in the car to kids who drive their own car, shes seen it all. Darlynn has taught her model to hundreds of moms since 2015 and when they apply the Calm Mama Process to their tricky parenting moments they have calm and peace in their homes. Their kids' behavior improves, their relationship with their children gets so much better, and they enjoy motherhood (most of the time!). Darlynn teaches her process inside her coaching program, The Emotionally Healthy Kids course, where you learn how to master your reactivity, teach kids how to manage their big feelings, and set limits that work. Each week she brings practical and simple strategies to the podcast so you can stop yelling and create a peaceful home. Language: en Genres: Education, Kids & Family, Parenting, Self-Improvement Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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My Infertility & Adoption Story
Episode 200
Wednesday, 19 November, 2025
As I prepared for our 200th(!!!) episode of the podcast, I realized that I hadn't completely shared a huge part of my story with you. You may already know that I’m an adoptive mom. Today, I’m going deeper and sharing my infertility and adoption story.I sometimes talk about my journey as arriving through the back door of motherhood. In this episode, I’m talking about how I experienced infertility, why we chose adoption, and how that informed me as a mom, ultimately becoming a trauma-informed parent. -----------------------------------------------My hope is that if you have experienced infertility, this episode gives a voice to your pain and a place for you to feel supported and loved. If you have not experienced infertility, I hope that hearing my story might help you have more understanding and compassion for your girlfriends or family members that are going through it. My Infertility StoryAfter a few years of marriage (I married young at 22), it became clear to me that I really wanted to become a mom. Sometime in 2001 or 2002, my husband and I started trying to get pregnant. For the first few months, I didn’t think much of it when my period kept coming. Six or seven months in, I wasn’t super concerned but thought it was a bit strange that I wasn’t pregnant yet. So I started the ovulation strips, the basal thermometer, and all those little at-home hacks to increase our chances. A year went by, and I still wasn’t pregnant. During this time, I was pretty sad. In the beginning, I was so excited for my friends when they got pregnant. But as time went on and it became more evident that maybe it wasn't going to happen for us, I started to feel jealous, scared, and less than. It triggered insecurities and feelings from my childhood of not belonging.At the one-year mark, we decided to go to the doctor and have some testing done. Our results showed that we would need some interventions if we wanted to get pregnant. The obvious answer at the time was IVF. I knew a few people who were going through IVF, and I was hearing about how much it cost and how devastating it was if it didn’t work. So, we decided to consider ALL of our options. After getting our test results, we weren’t closed off to the idea of adoption. In fact, I think there was a part of us that always sort of wanted to adopt. We just thought it would be in addition to our own biological kids.The options were laid out to us in two paths: the medical route or the adoption route. At first, I told my husband that I wanted to pursue both at the same time. Our Adoption JourneyAs we started to look at adoption, I was clear on one thing. I did not want to adopt through foster care. I was so desperate for this child, and I wanted a baby that could be mine. While I now know that this isn’t the risk factor I thought it was, I was so afraid that our relationship would be insecure, that a birth mother could come back and take my child away. So we decided on inter-country adoption. At the time, our main options were Russia, China, and Guatemala. We attended an adoption seminar and learned about the process, costs, and wait times. Russia seemed the most aligned for us in that we could have a baby in about nine months. It felt like the most natural timeline to me.We realized pretty quickly that both IVF and adoption required a lot of time, money, and energy. We had to choose one. When I have a big decision to make or I'm in a lot of emotional pain, I often end up on the shore, by the ocean. So after the seminar, my husband and I drove to Santa Monica, sat on the beach, and talked about it. We both wanted to pursue adoption for different reasons. Kevin wasn’t super invested in having a biological child. And I wanted a sure thing. I didn’t want to go through round...
