174 Our Secret Weapon

The VBAC Link

Who is behind the voice of our podcast introduction? Who edits The VBAC Link podcast episodes? Meet Brian Albers, The VBAC Link’s secret weapon!

Listen to this episode to find out why Brian has earned this title time and time again. We also learn some fun secrets and ask him some of your burning questions. But in all seriousness, we are SO grateful for all Brian does for us. He is a quality, genuine guy that they just don’t make these days anymore!

Additional links

The VBAC Link on Apple Podcasts

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

The VBAC Link Community on Facebook

The VBAC Link Shop

Full transcript

Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words.

Meagan: All right, you guys. Guess what? This is an episode that I know you guys have all been waiting for since we posted a picture of our secret weapon wearing, “Don’t be all up in my perineum.” If you haven’t seen the post, go scroll back in our Instagram. We have Brian, who is our secret weapon. Julie started calling him that, I don’t know, forever ago.

Julie: Because he is.

Meagan: He really is. He has proven it. So we today are going to be recording an episode about Brian. Brian is the voice of our intro on our podcast.

Review of the Week

Meagan: We have a review, and Julie is the best review reader. We all know this. I can’t read.

Julie: Oh my gosh.

Meagan: She can. So Julie, go ahead and read your review. I hope you picked a big one. I think strategically, you probably pick the big ones knowing that I can’t read them.

Julie: Yeah. That’s exactly what I do, actually. I pick the bigger ones and leave the smaller ones for you.

Meagan: I always hope. I always hope.

Julie: We have so many. I don’t even think we are going to get through them all, so I am trying to pick more recent ones because I know that you pick older ones and so I feel like maybe we have a little bit of both worlds in our review reading. All right. This review is from Apple Podcasts and it’s from carrie.vic so we can totally Facebook stalk her if necessary.

Her title is, “OMG, the best VBAC resource out there” and then she says, “Thank you so much to Julie and Meagan for this podcast! I began listening to it right after my C-section in August 2018. Then, when I found out I was pregnant in June 2020, I re-listened to every episode.

So. Much. Information. So much positivity and hope. I had my VBAC on 02/11”

That was just this year.

“and I don’t think I could have done it without The VBAC Link. This podcast helped me ensure I had the most supportive birth team and provider, provided so much useful information, and all of these mamas made me truly believe in my capability to do this!

“Thank you, thank you, thank you a million! Sending so much love to all you mamas out there! ❤️”

I love the heart emojis. I love the reviews. I love carrie.vic from Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much and congratulations on your VBAC.

Meagan: Yay. Congrats, congrats. I love when we hear the reviews and we don’t have to go stalk them. So if you leave a review or if you have left us a review and then gone on to have your baby, let us know how things are going because we kind of stalk you on Facebook, not on Facebook Facebook but on our Facebook community to see because we love following up and hearing about the stories. So leave us a review and if you have already had your baby, drop us an email or tag us on Facebook and let us know.

Julie: Yeah, because we really need closure on these things. Like the ones from last year that you read, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, they had their baby eight months ago. I don’t know what happened.” Closure is always good.

Meagan: Okay, without further ado, we are going to have Brian give us the intro.

Brian: All right, here comes the music.

You are tuned into The VBAC Link podcast with Julie Francom and Meagan Heaton, VBAC moms, doulas, and educators here to help you get inspired for birth after having had a C-section. Together they have created a robust VBAC preparation course, along with this uplifting podcast, for women who are preparing for their VBAC.

Although these episodes are VBAC specific, they encourage expectant moms to listen and educate themselves on how to avoid a Cesarean from the get-go. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. It is not meant to replace advice from any other qualified medical professional. Here are your hosts, Julie and Meagan after we hear from today’s sponsor.

Julie: “Here are your hosts, Julie and Meagan”

Meagan: Yay. I love it.

Julie: I love it. Brian is amazing. I call him “our secret weapon” because he is our very first person that we ever paid to do anything from The VBAC Link. He literally saved my life because when we first started, I was editing our podcast episodes using a free program that I downloaded, and every Tuesday night I would be in a rush trying to get-- I’d spend two hours editing, and trying to crop out “um’s” everywhere, and putting the intro and the exit there, and get it in the right spot, and get it uploaded, and get everything posted in time for our Wednesday podcast runs, and then Meagan connected us with Brian.

Meagan, you’re going to have to tell the story because I don’t even remember how you guys met. But then he literally saved two hours of my week and that’s why he is our secret weapon. But not only that, he is our video guy. He records the videos for our courses and we also give him a whole bunch of random audio/video stuff to do here and there for us. So he is called “our secret weapon” because he saved our lives and we want to keep him nice, quietly tucked away in our own little package so nobody else can use him because he is ours.

Meagan: Brian, you belong to us.

Brian: Yep.

Julie: We will lock you in a dungeon with a computer and some audio equipment just in case you ever decide you want to stop editing.

Brian: And honestly Julie, what you described Julie, just cutting out the um’s-- that’s pretty much what I do. That’s the bulk of it because there are so many, really.

Julie: Yeah, because me and Meagan don’t know how to not say “um.”

Brian: Well, I mean, everybody says “um”.

Julie: I know.

Brian: It’s just a natural, normal part of speaking, but when you’re trying to present it as a podcast, you want to sound as pro as you can. And cutting out those “um’s” is working towards that goal.

Meagan: Yes.

Julie: Yeah, and then not saying “um” is another step.

Brian: Yeah.

Meagan: Yeah.

Julie: Maybe when we are grown up we will stop saying “um”.

Meagan: It’s seriously one of the most, it’s one of the hardest things for me. What’s funny though is I don’t recognize myself saying “um” or “uhh” but I totally recognize anybody else saying “um”. I’m like, “Oh my gosh that person says--” like I recognize “um’s” more, but in myself, I don’t. I don’t know why that’s a problem.

Julie: Until Brian sends us a message that says, “You guys are saying ‘um’ a lot more than usual. Just pay attention.”

Meagan: “Can you guys drop the ‘um’s?”

Julie: And then we are texting each other during podcast episodes and saying, “Oh my gosh I am saying ‘um’ so much.” No, but I have learned that I replace that with “so”.

Brian: Uh-huh, or “and”.

Julie: Yeah. And “and”. Yeah, and “so”. That’s awesome.

Brian: And that’s okay. That’s okay too.

Julie: Yeah. So let’s get going. Um, we-- see? There I did. Oh my gosh, I just said it.

Brian: Yep.

Julie: You’ll probably have to edit that out.

Brian: I’ll leave that one in.

Julie: Yeah, you can leave that one in because, um-- oh my gosh. Now I am going to be so hyperaware. Oh, this is not going to go well.

Meagan: Oh my gosh. Okay, so I was just reflecting back on how I got a hold of Brian and I feel like-- okay. So I had a client who, crazy enough, yeah. Anyway. So I had a client and he does video and then his wife does sound. I asked her, I sent her a text or something. I was like, “Hey, do you know about anybody or do you know anybody?” And she was like, “Yeah.” I can’t remember if she sent Brian to me directly or if she sent me to someone else, but I’m pretty sure she sent--

Brian: You’re talking about Michaela, right?

Meagan: Michaela, yeah.

Brian: Yeah.

Meagan: Michaela knew you, right? I thought she sent me directly to you. She was like, “Yeah. I know someone.”

Brian: Yeah, because I work at the NPR station here in Salt Lake City and Michaela does as well. She is a weekender and that’s how I know her. She still does work there and I still do work there so we still do know each other.

Meagan: Yes, yes.

Brian: And so she approached me and she asked me if I was interested in helping out some friends of hers start a podcast or do a podcast or something. I don’t know if she just didn’t have the details or just didn’t give me the details, but I had no idea what anything was about. I just knew it was something about audio editing and a podcast and I said, “Yeah, sure.”

I love doing audio and I love helping people if I can pursue what they want to pursue. If I can help out, I will help out. Especially when it comes out to audio stuff because I’ve been doing audio forever. And so I said, “Yeah. Throw them at me. Give them my email. Whatever happens, happens.” And that just got the ball rolling.

Julie: And then you became our secret weapon.

Meagan: Yeah. She sent me your email. That’s right. I was like, “I was pretty sure it was direct.” And then I sent it to you. I remember emailing you and it was such a big step for Julie and I because Julie was our editor before and she did a wonderful job, but she was tired of it. And we are not professional. We are not professional. It’s not easy.

Julie: It was so much work. Oh, well and Brian can edit a podcast episode in 30 minutes that takes me two hours to do.

Meagan: Unless we say “um” all the time and then it’s two hours. But yeah. But no, it was just such, I don’t know. The stars aligned so perfectly. I will forever be grateful for her and we are forever grateful for you, Brian, and we are so excited that you are with us.

Brian: And that was when? That was the fall of 2018?

Meagan: Two years, mhmm.

Julie: Yeah. Right about that.

Brian: And you hadn’t done too many episodes before I came on board, right?

Julie: I think we were 30 episodes in.

Meagan: I was going to say, I think it was 30 or 40.

Brian: Wow.

Julie: Yeah.

Meagan: We really hadn’t done that many and they were a mess.

Julie: Brian was like, “You guys really need to find a studio and I actually know one that might be available.”

Meagan: Yeah. He’s like, “You need to have better audio.” So it’s just been so awesome and then we were like, “Oh, we are going to do this online course. Hey Brian, do you know how-to video?” “Yeah.”

Brian: “Yeah.”

Meagan: And you guys, he spent an entire Sunday--

Julie: It was like, 10 hours.

Meagan: Yeah. With us in an empty duplex sitting there as we were just talking about-- like seriously, yeah. It was amazing and yeah. I am so grateful for you.

Brian: And actually, videoing is the easy part. It’s all the editing and post-production that takes forever.

Julie: And so you know so much about birth, and Cesareans, and VBAC--

Brian: And do you want to know? The funny thing is when I started editing the podcast, I, first of all, didn’t know it was a birth thing.

(Meagan and Julie laughing)

It was just a podcast. Seriously, I had no idea--

Meagan: He didn’t know.

Brian: --what it was about until I heard the first audio. I had no idea what a VBAC was. I had no idea what a VBAC was. I had no idea what a doula was. I had to look that stuff up.

Julie: And now you know way more than you ever thought you would know about birth.

Brian: Oh, I know way more than I thought I would ever know.

Julie: Probably way more than you would ever care to know.

Meagan: You could be a doula, Brian.

Julie: I want to read your bio really fast.

Brian: Oh, go for it.

Julie: You wrote out a really well-thought-out bio and I want to read it because I think it is transitioning to what we are talking about right now, but I want you guys to know a little bit more about Brian and then we can talk some more, and share some really embarrassing stories, and all that fun stuff.

But Brian is a SoCal native which-- I did not know that about you. Meagan probably did. Meagan is a bigger people person than I am. But you moved to Salt Lake City in the summer of 2015. You are a lifelong musician and we have seen some of your stuff on YouTube. It’s pretty amazing. You have been an audio engineer since the early 90s. You worked in radio, big-time nationally syndicated stuff as well as small-time local stuff as an engineer and on-air host since the mid-90s. He is currently an on-air host at 90.1 KUER NPR Utah, headquartered in Salt Lake City, heard throughout Utah, and video editor in marketing at Salt Lake community college. I did not know that either.

You run Humorless Productions. That’s his business name. Remote audio, video recording, and post-production, primarily concert recordings, primarily noisy undergroundy, aggressive, electronic music. Obviously, not recording too many concerts these days. You are an avid skier. I did know that. Avid road bicyclist-- also knew that, and hard-core introvert. Also knew that.

And let me tell you, people, Brian‘s never married and has no kids. Brian is such-- this is why I call him “our secret weapon”, right? He literally edits a birth podcast. He has never had kids. He has never seen somebody or helped somebody have a baby, but he is sitting over here being the biggest trooper for us. He came to our first birthday party and took pictures with us in our little made-up photo booth. He is just always so willing to help out and is just so-- I don’t know. I just think you are a good-quality, genuine guy. They just don’t make people like you anymore. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Brian: Well, if you think about it though, if you put yourself in my position, I mean, I don’t really have to know anything about birth specifically. I’m just doing the audio.

Julie: That’s true.

Brian: You know? I just pull it up on my computer and put it in my editing program and start editing. At that point it’s not about birth, it’s about audio and it’s about making the people sound good.

Julie: Which you do a great job of.

Brian: So the podcast could be about anything and I’m still going to do the same process.

Meagan: Right.

Julie: Yes.

Meagan: But at the same time, you are so willing to go the extra mile to do so many other things. In fact, even wearing your “Don’t get all up in my perineum” shirt.

Julie: “Don’t be all up in my perineum.”

Brian: The perineum shirt.

Julie: Actually, can we talk about that shirt? I’m going to have that available in our VBAC Link shop. So if you go to thevbaclink.com/shop, you can see exactly what we are talking about and buy your own. “Don’t be all up in my perineum” shirt straight from our VBAC shop. So by the time this episode airs, I will have it up there and live for you. I am pretty sure we can include a picture of Brian rocking it. In fact, that might just be our main product image.

Meagan: Yes. Yes. I love it. Okay so, Brian. What got you into-- I mean, you’ve been doing this for such a long time. What sparked your interest in this? Like as a kid, what did you do as a kid? Did you want to do stuff like this as a kid? Like in editing and audio and video and all that?

Brian: No, I mean, as a kid, like as a teenager, I would ride my bike around the neighborhood or ride my bike just as much as I could, so that’s always been a lifelong thing. I started playing guitar at 12 or 13 years old and that pretty much instantly became my main focus forever. I wasn’t good at it instantly. I wasn’t a prodigy, but I got fairly good at it in some short amount of time. I was sort of a natural musician. It was just a language that I understood.

Meagan: Yeah, it just came to you.

Brian: It just kept going and going from there. I was in bands back in the 80s which-- we didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t record anything. But I was always playing and I was always getting better. Eventually, the first thing I did out of high school was, I went to a guitar school in Hollywood. It’s the premier West Coast guitar school via Musicians Institute and the Guitar Institute of Technology.

I graduated in 1990 and from there, that’s what got me interested in audio. In playing guitar, and playing with bands, and playing with other people and recording as well, I was interested to know how exactly. You know, you mic up a guitar and why does it sound different if you put the mic here or if you put the mic here? Or if you use this microphone or that microphone? I was interested in that sort of stuff. I just dove into it headfirst while all along being a musician, but also being interested in audio.

Once I eventually went to proper college, I was a music major at first, but then I switched to audio engineering and graduated as an audio engineering major. That was in the mid-90s. That’s when I started in radio. I eventually did my own music shows in LA and I was an engineer for some big radio shows in LA. It all just came together and that’s how it’s been since then.

Meagan: That’s awesome. I didn’t know that about you.

Julie: Yeah. You’re pretty good at it. You’ve got a natural talent.

Meagan: Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Julie: Alright.

Brian: Isn’t that what they say about kids? Because I’m a middle kid. I have an older brother and a younger brother.

Julie: Aw, that makes sense too.

Brian: Isn’t the middle kid supposed to be the artsy one?

Meagan: You know, my middle kid is. She is very artsy. I mean she seriously, she was 18 months old and I remember we were in this group of people and there were some coloring books. She sat down and started coloring and this lady was like, “Oh my gosh” because she was color blending and coloring in the lines so perfectly. She was like, “What in the deal?”

And then now, she can just look at something and she just draws it. And she’s like, “Look, this is--”. The other day, she brought home-- it was Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, or whatever, and she brings me this Cat in the Hat picture. I am like, “Oh my gosh.” She is so good that way, and then she is really good in the arts like dance, and music, and things like that. She is really good at the piano and she is six. So, yeah. I would say my middle kid is good at it.

Brian: Cool.

Julie: I have two middle kids and I would say my third is definitely the more artsy one. But again, they are three, four, six, and seven. My seven-year-old has really mild cerebral palsy so he has always hated handwriting. He’s always hated coloring because it’s hard for him because of his right hand. It’s his right side that is affected. He’s not severely disabled or anything. It’s really, really mild cerebral palsy, but it affects his right extremities and so he is forced to be left-handed when his brain operates in a right-handed way. He’s never been good at that type of thing. I wonder if that’s true. I don’t know. We will see. We will see as my kids get older I suppose.

Meagan: So tell us something else unique that no one would know about you that we don’t even know.

Julie: Yeah. Behind the scenes.

Brian: About me?

Meagan: Yeah, because you are. Like we said, you are just like this secret weapon. You just have all of these hidden talents. What is something that you-- I don’t know. What is something secret?

Brian: Well, I have a good one. I don’t know if I have told you before, but I lived-- so I am from Southern California. That’s what I say. That is the short answer. But the long answer is I was born in San Diego and I grew up in San Diego. But I lived all of my adult life in LA and so LA feels more like my home, which sounds sort of weird than San Diego, but if you press me, if you asked me where my home city is, I will say LA. But then, I also moved to Austria twice.

Julie: What?

Brian: Yeah. I lived there for most of 2005 and then I moved back to LA, and then I moved back to Austria from late 2009 to late 2010, so another year there for no reason. It wasn’t a work thing. It wasn’t for anything, I just wanted to live there. So twice, I sold all my stuff and quit all my jobs, and moved.

Meagan: Oh my gosh.

Julie: Oh, to be free.

Meagan: That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

Brian: Yeah. I didn’t really know the language too much. I mean, I took some classes beforehand just so I was a little bit familiar, but I went over there and that’s actually where Humorless Productions started my mobile audio/video recording system. That’s where I really cut my teeth because there were so many more shows over there at that time that I could record as opposed to LA, at least for the music that I was interested in recording.

And so I went over there, and I brought some equipment, and I would record all sorts of shows every month. It wasn’t easy, but I worked out a system. It’s evolved over the years and now I have a really good system.

Actually, the first time I lived in Austria was in Vienna. The second time I lived there was Linz, which is a smaller town about an hour and a half west of Vienna. But if you really asked me if there’s anywhere in the world that feels more like home than anything else, I would say it’s Austria.

Meagan: Really?

Brian: Yeah. I have five more friends even today in Austria than I do in the States.

Meagan: Wow.

Julie: That is super cool.

Brian: Yeah.

Julie: Gosh, I used to travel so much when I was single. I guess maybe it was because I was in the military. I lived in a couple of different places and then once or twice a year before I got married, I would just travel somewhere on a plane. I was just talking to Nick the other night about this and I just miss that so much. You know, you get married, and you have kids, and you’re just stuck forever until your kids get old enough to travel with you. I love that.

Brian: And actually when I was over there, I wasn’t really intent on traveling or going around, but that just ended up where the shows were that I would record. Vienna is fairly centrally located, so I would hop on a train and go up to Prague, or Budapest, or to Venice, or to Zurich, or to Munich, or to Berlin, or wherever. So it was all sorts of fun.

Meagan: That’s awesome. So cool. Yep. I did not know that.

Julie: Yeah. I did not know that either.

Q&A

Meagan: So I posted on our Instagram what questions people have for you and a couple have come in. Can I ask them to you?

Julie: Yeah.

Brian: Yeah.

Meagan: One, what is the most interesting thing you have learned from this podcast?

Brian: I’ve learned all sorts of stuff. What’s the most interesting thing? I don’t know the most interesting thing.

Meagan: What’s something that stands out to you that you’ve learned? Obviously, you learned what a VBAC is in general.

Brian: Yes, in general.

Julie: Maybe if somebody asked you, what is The VBAC Link? What would you say?

Brian: Well, here’s the thing. For anybody listening, Julie and Meagan don’t necessarily want you to have a VBAC. They want you to have the birth that you want. If you want a Cesarean, that’s super great. More power to you. The thing is, you’re going to learn stuff. Even if you do a Cesarean, you will learn stuff for your pregnancy that will benefit you if you listen to this podcast. If you are a first-time mother, you will benefit. You will learn stuff from this podcast. It doesn’t matter if you have never had a Cesarean, doesn’t matter if you have never had a vaginal birth. There is just so much good information that you will learn in this podcast.

Meagan: I would agree. So another question is, do you share what you have learned with any expectant parents in your life?

Julie: Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. Thanks for that Brian. That was really nice of you to say. I really like that.

Brian: Yeah.

Meagan: That really was.

Julie: Thank you.

Meagan: So to me, Brian, you just answered it a little bit, right? Because that’s one of the most interesting things you have maybe learned, right? We’re pro VBAC, obviously. That’s why we are here and that’s why we created the course, and the podcast, and the blogs, and all of that jazz, but you nailed it. It’s not that we want you to have your VBAC. It’s that we want you to have the birth experience that you want, whether that be a VBAC or not.

So I totally love that so much and that seems like the answer to me too. Maybe it’s not the most interesting, but it is something that you have definitely taken away and realized that through editing our podcast, that’s what we are here for. That is exactly what we are here for is to help these people get the birth that they desire no matter what that may look like to them.

Brian: And one other thing, it might sound like not the best way to say this, but a lot of these women who come on the podcast have learned lessons the hard way. They want to share their experiences of learning things the hard way so that other women don’t have to learn the hard way themselves. You know? You never ever want to say, “Well, I told you so I told you so,” but I think that’s one of the best things about this show is that women don’t have to go through all the trauma and all the pain that these other women have gone through, not unnecessarily. You know how birth goes. You never can plan it out 100%.

Julie: You know how birth goes now.

Brian: Yeah, more than I used to.

Meagan: Yeah, and I love that. Yeah. I don’t think it was saying it like that or anything. It’s true. We have all learned things in hard ways a lot of the time and that for sure was me with my second provider. I didn’t switch and I learned the hard way to follow my gut. I didn’t follow it the first time. I had to follow it the second time. I am glad that I did so I had the outcome and the experience that I had. So, yeah. I love that.

Do you share what you have learned through this podcast with expectant parents in your life? Do you have many expectant parents in your life?

Brian: Yeah, I would in a heartbeat. I have only had one friend who had a kid last year sometime in 2020 and I definitely recommended it to her when she was pregnant. I said, “Hey if you want to learn some stuff, listen to this podcast.” I don’t know what her plans were as far as her birth plans, but yeah. I said, “There is all sorts of stuff that you will learn listening to this podcast.”

Meagan: That’s awesome.

Brian: And she was a first-time mom.

Meagan: Yeah. I know, I think that’s something that is so interesting. A lot of the times it’s like, “Oh, I have had a VBAC so I don’t need to listen to that,” but really like you said, the first-time parents can almost learn just as much, if not more, than the people who have had Cesareans. Right?

Brian: I mean, how many episodes do you have on the pelvic floor? That is something that every first-time mother can use.

Julie: Yeah. At least four I think.

Meagan: Exactly. Mhmm. Yeah. And chiropractic care and working through your fear.

Brian: Yep.

Julie: And big babies.

Meagan: Oh yeah and big babies. Things like that and learning what is evidence-based. You know, we really focus on a lot of evidence-based. So yeah. I love that. I love that you referred us. Thank you for referring us. Do you know how her birth turned out?

Brian: I don’t know.

Meagan: Did she talk to you about that? Most people, probably not.

Brian: She hasn’t talked to me about it. I’ve seen pictures of the baby on Facebook and everything looks like it’s rolling just perfectly.

Meagan: Going really well. That’s awesome.

Brian: Yep.

Meagan: So you said you have two siblings. You are the middle child. Did you say, two brothers?

Brian: Yes.

Meagan: Are they married?

Brian: Both of them are. Older brother has no kids. Younger brother has two kids.

Meagan: Oh awesome. Do you know how his wife’s experiences went?

Brian: I don’t know. I haven’t asked her.

Meagan: Right. It’s not really something you probably would. I was just so curious if now--

Brian: I mean, I don’t think she’d hesitate to tell me if I asked because she’s an adult. I’m an adult. Yeah. But I just haven’t asked.

Meagan: Yeah. Okay, what other questions do you have, Julie? Or what else do you want to tell us, Brian?

Julie: I mean, I guess unless you want to embarrass us or roast us, I am so disappointed that there is not going to be any roasting. Throw us under the bus. What kind of dirt do you got on us? Tell the whole world.

Brian: I don’t have anything embarrassing about you. I have something embarrassing about me.

Julie: Okay sure.

Meagan: That’s the thing is, I want to know more about you. I want this episode to be about you. So tell everyone about you.

Brian: Well, here’s one thing. First of all, I said in my bio there that I am a hard-core introvert and that’s 100% true. This story sort of reflects that a little bit. It was when I first started the podcast. I think I had met Julie and I had met Meagan maybe once. I forget. Maybe not at all at this point, but one of you called me. I forget who it was. One of you called me on some afternoon and just wanted to say, “Hi. I just wanted to chat on the phone for a little bit.”

Julie: That was definitely Meagan. I don’t do things like that.

Meagan: Probably me.

Brian: I felt so bad because when you called me, I was at the main library and I couldn’t really take a call. I couldn’t really talk but I was totally whispering. I felt bad because I wanted to talk. I wanted to say “hi” but I was just not in a position where I could do any of that because there were people all around, and I was in the middle of something, and you can’t make a whole lot of noise in the library. And so the call ended up being 30 seconds. It was like, “Yeah, hi. Thanks. Okay. That’s cool. Okay, bye.” That was more impersonal than I usually am. You know, in the first place, I really am not the most personable person. I am not friendly at first.

Meagan: Really? I think you were. You were friendly.

Brian: But I felt bad about that call. But now we all hang out and we are all cool.

Meagan: Yes. Now it’s like, “Brian!”

Julie: COVID has put a serious cramp in our style. We don’t get to see you anymore.

Meagan: I know.

Brian: Yeah.

Julie: One day. One day, maybe.

Meagan: I know. COVID. Darn COVID. How’ve you been during COVID Brian? What have you been up to during it?

Brian: It’s been pretty great for me. I call it “working from home”, but at the same time I have been an essential worker at both of my jobs, and so I have really not changed my schedule at all too much. But it’s been great for me as an introvert because everybody else in the office doesn’t show up. They are all working from home.

Julie: So you get to be all alone and enjoy being an introvert.

Brian: So at both of my jobs, I pretty much have the whole building to myself. I can work at my own pace and I can play music as loud as I want. So it’s been okay.

Meagan: That’s good. Have you taken on any side projects or anything other than everything that we send you?

Julie: Everything that we send you?

Brian: Everything you throw at me? No, not really. I mean, I have all my regular stuff. I have about a dozen blogs and a dozen side projects. I have always a thousand music projects at home which don’t really have a deadline, so I have a mountain of stuff I can always work on. Sometimes I get to it. Sometimes I don’t. Right now it is ski season, so I am skiing every Saturday and every Sunday for months on end. I am working both my jobs quite a lot these days so I don’t have much time to do much of anything.

Meagan: Where do you like to ski, Brian?

Brian: Well, living here in Salt Lake City is pretty much the center of the universe. We have all sorts of good skiing here. I have one of those multi-resort passes so I have gone to Big Sky Montana this year. I’ve gone to Steamboat Springs this year. I actually have weekends coming up for both of those coming up shortly. I don’t think I will hit Jackson Hole this year. I don’t think I will hit Sun Valley this year. I don’t think I will hit Aspen this year, but I have skied all over the West Coast.

Meagan: What’s your favorite resort here in Utah? What resort would you suggest of someone to come to Utah and try out?

Julie: Megan is our skier. She probably wants to go catch you on the slopes one day.

Meagan: Yeah.

Brian: It’s probably not the one that most people would come up with as the number one resort here in Salt Lake City at least, but I go to Snow Basin.

Meagan: Snow Basin is awesome.

Julie: I like Snow Basin.

Meagan: That’s the first place I go.

Brian: At least for me. I was going to say, Snow Basin is better than any of the four here close to town. We have Snowbird, Alta, Brighton, Solitude. But Snow Basin is the one I prefer. Just got the best terrain for me. I am an advanced skier. I’ve been skiing my whole life.

↔Julie: You got a lot of that in SoCal huh? Just kidding. I’m sure the slopes were amazing in Austria.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I went skiing at St, Anton in the alps for a week. I skied Kitzbühel.

Julie: Aw, what a dream.

Brian: I skied the racecourse. The Hahnenkamm racecourse at Kitzbühel a week before the race. It was the day before they actually shut down the course for the race, which was totally cool. So I skied the Hahnenkamm in Austria.

Julie: That’s pretty cool.

Meagan: That’s super cool. I just started skiing this year.

Brian: Really?

Julie: Did you? For some reason, I thought you’ve been skiing for a while. I used to snowboard back in the day when I was cool and now I’m just a boring mom. I still have my snowboarding boots. I used to go to Brighton because it was the cheapest one. You could buy a half-day pass for only three of the lifts and it was only $40 instead of having to pay $90 for a full resort pass and so me and my friend would go up almost every weekend.

We would go boarding and then we would go to the Porcupine Grill at the face of the canyon afterward and have nachos and hot chocolate which you wouldn’t think go together but after you go snowboarding, they definitely do go together.

Meagan: Oh wow. That’s in my neighborhood. Yeah. No, I actually begged to snowboard as a kid. I begged my mom every year. “Mom, I want to snowboard. I want to snowboard” and she was like, “Nope, nope, nope. Too dangerous. Too dangerous” and refused.

And so this year for Christmas, my husband surprised us with also a multi-pass and said, “We are--” because you guys probably know I hate winter. I hate it. I hate it. I hate being cold. I like being at the pool feeling the sun and going outside on hikes, and sports, and obviously, as of last year I really took up cycling, and so I just like to be on my bike. So yeah.

“We are going to make your winter better.” I will just tell you right now, if you haven’t ever skied before and you have snow In your area and you are listening, go skiing. It has changed my winter life completely. So I love that you ski, Brian. I always remember we would always try to get the podcast recorded at the end of December, or really November, so we weren’t driving in the winter and we would try to get enough through February because we were like, “We don’t want to drive to the studio in winter.”

Julie: The studio is an hour away from my house. In some of the snowstorms, it took me two hours to get home, and then there was that one time Meagan made me run out of gas on the freeway.

Meagan: Yes.

Julie: That was at midnight. It was awful.

Meagan: Yeah. We were recording with Brian. This is how much of a champ Brian is. He would literally stay with us at the studio until 11:30 PM. It’s insane what this man does for us. So we just are overly grateful for you. But I always remember he was telling me-- I swear there was two years or something that you were like, “Yeah. I’m going to Jackson this week.” And you would go and ski in Jackson. It’s one of my dreams to go and ski because we have a cabin there and now that I ski, I want to go skiing there because I have heard it’s amazing. I’ve also heard it’s pretty steep though. Is it steep?

Brian: Great one. Yeah. They have something for everybody.

Meagan: Good, because I am still not as advanced or confident. My husband says I am a really really good skier. I just lack confidence.

Julie: We need to get your confidence for skiing just like we want people to have their confidence for birth.

Meagan: I know. Okay, one last thing. What advice would you give to parents listening to the podcast? What do you feel is one of the most important takeaways from listening to all of the stories?

Brian: The biggest takeaway, and it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Birth is not easy. It is a monumental challenge. You can only be as prepared as you can. You could write down every single thing that you think is going to be a part of your birth plan and both Julie and Meagan will tell you there is not a single birth plan in the existence of the history of the universe that didn’t go 100% according to that birth plan. There’s always going to be some curveball in there that you were not prepared for.

It’s impossible to prepare. You can’t prepare for absolutely everything. You can make a birth plan. You can make a backup plan. You can make a backup backup plan. The best thing you can do is just learn, research as much as you can, listen to the podcast, I don’t know what else to tell you. You can’t be prepared for everything but you can just try.

Julie: And trust your intuition.

Brian: Yeah. And the other thing is that-- I’m sure you’ve said this Meagan or Julie in the past on one of your episodes and I know it’s easy for me to say, “Well, keep this in mind.” But keep in mind that you are the mother. You are in charge. All the nurses, doctors, the providers-- they can tell you, “Okay. We need to do this,” and if that doesn’t line up with your birth plan, you say, “No, wait a second. I am doing it this way.”

Julie: Boom.

Brian: “I’m doing it this way.” You say it twice. You say it loud if you need to. “I’m doing it this way.” And if they say, “Okay. We’ll work with this.” It might get to a point where they say, “You know what? This is medically unsafe or medically unwise.” At that point, you say, “Okay. I will listen to what you have to say.” Otherwise, you are saying, “I’m doing it this way. I’m doing it my way.”

Meagan: Yeah. And it’s okay to say, “Why is this medically unwise?” It’s okay to question that.

Brian: Yeah. You are in charge. Not them.

Julie: Love it.

Meagan: Okay. You’re awesome, Brian. We love you. We love you so much.

Julie: Yep. Don’t ever go anywhere. We are going to keep you forever as our secret weapon. Our not-so-secret weapon anymore but I am still going to call you our secret weapon.

Brian: Awesome. Okay.

Meagan: If you ever decide to go back to Austria, are you still going to stay with us, or are you going to be like, “Peace out Meagan and Julie?”

Brian: Well I mean, we haven’t actually ever been in the same building for a year now.

Julie: Yeah, so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter where he lives.

Brian: And we’re still making a podcast, so whether I’m in Salt Lake City or in Vienna, we can still work it out.

Julie: Boom.

Meagan: Perfect. All right, okay. Well, if you guys want to know more about Brian after this episode, message us and we will get your answers. And Brian, seriously, you are just a miracle in our lives. So, we love you. We appreciate you. Thanks for joining us today and telling us more that we didn’t know about you. And for the ski trips.

Brian: Totally awesome.

Julie: Wonderful.

Closing

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