Kristyn Hodgdon
Everything you’re feeling, but didn’t know how to say.
The Part Nobody Puts on the Wellness Vision Board
Yesterday I drove to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and they gave me the wrong dosage. Not a big deal in the grand scheme, except that it meant another call, another explanation, another loop back into the system — on top of the two appointments I'd already canceled this week because they were scheduled for 11 a.m. on a Tuesday (as if I don't have a job).
This is the part nobody puts on the wellness vision board: the administrative tax of being a woman with a body that requires maintenance. The prior authorizations that expire without warning. The referrals that get lost between offices. The portal messages you send into the void and follow up on three weeks later, feeling vaguely like you're bothering someone. I've had a breast MRI rescheduled five times — not because I forgot, but because the system kept losing the thread.
And the mental load of it doesn't clock out. It just lives there, quietly humming in the background of everything else you're already carrying: the school pickup, the work deadline, the dinner that isn't going to make itself. Every dropped ball in the healthcare system becomes your ball to pick up. You are your own case manager, your own advocate, your own medical records department, and no one hired you for that job.
Research from the Urban Institute found that women face a disproportionately higher administrative burden in healthcare, and that nearly one in four people delay or skip care entirely because of it. Which is honestly not surprising. It's just confirmation that the exhaustion is real, and it's not personal failure.
It's a system that was never quite built with us in mind... and somehow still expects us to make it work anyway.
Trimester Zero: Knowledge Is Power, Until It Isn't
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Someone asked me recently what I thought about the "trimester zero" trend: the growing movement of women spending months, sometimes years, optimizing their bodies before they even try to conceive. Swapping out nonstick pans, replacing workout clothes, unplugging the Wi-Fi at night, taking beef organ capsules. All of it in pursuit of the perfect fertility foundation.
They asked: what's your hot take?
I said: do you want my answer as a founder, or as a person?
As a founder in the women's health space, I believe knowledge is power — Rescripted is quite literally built on that premise, the idea that women deserve access to real, evidence-based information about their bodies, and that being informed leads to better outcomes. I stand by that completely.
But as a type-B woman with ADHD who has lived through infertility, two high-risk pregnancies, and a miscarriage, I also know that more information is not always more peace. And peace, it turns out, matters more than most wellness influencers will ever admit.
The thing that worries me about trimester zero isn't the prenatal vitamins or the earlier bedtimes. It's the subtext. The quiet implication that if you just prepare enough, optimize enough, eliminate enough toxins, you'll be rewarded with an easy road to pregnancy. And when it doesn't work out that way, as it doesn't for one in six people globally, the information that was supposed to empower you can start to feel like a (very long) checklist of things you did wrong.
Fertility issues are not your fault, regardless of what you did or didn't do to prepare, and no amount of optimization changes that. My "hot take"? Know what helps you, ignore what doesn't, and whatever helps you sleep at night — that's the right answer.
The Thing That Wasn't on My Registry (But Maybe Should Have Been)
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When I was pregnant with my twins, I was not what you'd call a planner. I had the basics covered and a general sense of optimism, which — if you've ever carried two babies at once — you know is both completely understandable and slightly delusional. Cord blood banking didn't even make it onto my radar, and honestly, I wish someone had brought it up.
You've got enough to think about when prepping for baby: diapers, wipes, a bassinet that fits in your room. But while cord blood banking might not be at the top of your registry list, here's why it's worth a second look. The stem cells in your baby's cord blood are packed with powerful cells that could treat over 70 conditions, including leukemia and immune disorders. They're a perfect match for your baby and possibly siblings, too. The collection itself is quick, safe, and painless: it happens right after birth, so it's not adding anything to your plate in the moment. And ongoing medical research could unlock even more uses in the future.
The honest caveat: private banking isn't cheap. But some parents are now adding it to their baby registry... because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bank something priceless. And unlike the fourth muslin blanket on your list, this one actually has a shot at mattering in ways you can't fully anticipate yet.
Use promo code SCRP at cordblood.com for 50% off CBR's annual bundle, including processing, shipping, and the first year of storage. And if you want to find out more about cord blood banking, we've got you.
The registry list is long. This one's worth adding.
Say Yes to the Plans
I saw a video recently that said something like: if you want a social life, you have to actually say yes when people invite you places.
Which sounds obvious. And yet.
As a mom of three, the default answer to almost any plan that requires leaving my house after 7 p.m. could easily be no. Not a mean no, not an unwilling no, just a tired one. The couch is right there, the kids still need to be bathed, and there's a show I've been meaning to watch for six months. The reasons stack up fast, and they're all perfectly reasonable. They're just not the whole story.
I say yes anyway. And that small decision has made more difference than I expected.
My esthetician — who is Irish and therefore says things with a matter-of-factness I find deeply refreshing — told me recently, "If it wasn't for our girlfriends, we'd all lose our marbs."
She's not wrong.
There's something that happens when you're around other women that doesn't quite happen anywhere else: the kind of conversation that goes from genuinely funny to unexpectedly honest in about four minutes. The feeling of being known, not as someone's mom or someone's employee or someone's whatever, but just as yourself, with a drink in your hand and nowhere else you need to be.
It doesn't have to be elaborate — drinks, a walk, someone's kitchen table. It just has to happen.
So if you've been feeling a little untethered lately, a little like you're losing your marbs, before you Google your symptoms or adjust your supplements, just ask yourself: when was the last time you said yes to plans?
Ask Clara:
"Is laughter really the best medicine?"
Meghan Trainor’s Surrogacy Decision (and Why People Have Opinions)
When Meghan Trainor shared that she used a surrogate for her third baby after two C-sections and complicated pregnancies, my first reaction wasn’t shock. It was recognition.
Not because I have strong opinions about how celebrities grow their families, but because I understand the calculus that starts happening after your body has been through it — surgery, risk conversations, recovery that’s longer and heavier than the announcement. After you’ve already done the brave thing twice, after infertility and operating rooms and signing forms you barely remember reading, gratitude and fear can start living in the same body.
She said her doctors advised her against carrying again. She talked about safety, about wanting to be present for the kids she already has. It felt measured and practical. Almost immediately, though, the online commentary filled in the rest: privilege, outsourcing, what “real” motherhood requires.
It’s interesting how quickly women’s reproductive decisions become public debate, especially when they step even slightly outside the expected script. We celebrate endurance (fertility treatments, high-risk pregnancies, repeat surgeries), and then get uneasy when someone chooses not to endure one more round.
Surrogacy is layered: money, access, ethics, none of it simple. But so is pregnancy. Repeat C-sections carry increased risks, maternal health in this country is complicated at best, and choosing not to do it again isn’t a scandal; it’s a decision.
Eventually, the question shifts from proving you can to deciding you don’t have to.
When Your Postpartum Period Has a Personality
After two pregnancies and three babies, I thought I knew my body pretty well. We've been through infertility, loss, two vaginal births, and a C-section — I felt like we had a rhythm. And then my period came back postpartum and introduced itself like someone I’d met once in college and barely recognized now.
Not necessarily more painful. Just… different. Heavier. More dramatic. The kind of cycle that makes you check the calendar twice and wonder if your uterus has been quietly rebranding. I remember thinking, is this just what happens now? Because no one really mentions this part. You get the discharge instructions, the mesh underwear, the six-week clearance. You do not get a heads up that months later your period might return with a slightly louder personality.
There are reasons for it. After pregnancy, your uterus has stretched and shifted and done the absolute most. When your cycle returns, prostaglandins (the compounds that trigger uterine contractions) can fluctuate, and the uterine lining can be thicker at first, which can mean a heavier period. Breastfeeding adds a whole other layer, and when hormones finally recalibrate, things can feel unpredictable before they feel steady.
For a lot of women, the first three to six cycles are the messiest... heavier, irregular, just off. I wrote a full breakdown of what’s happening physiologically, what actually helps, and when it’s worth checking in about conditions like endometriosis or adenomyosis (which pregnancy can temporarily mask), here.
Just because your body did something extraordinary doesn’t mean it snaps back into familiarity overnight. It’s allowed to need real support afterward.
Ask Clara:
"Can you get pregnant while breastfeeding?"
"Half His Age" and the Relationships We’re Still Untangling
I finished Half His Age in two nights — the kind where you look up, it’s past midnight, and you’re already tired for tomorrow. If you read I’m Glad My Mom Died and immediately decided Jeannette McCurdy could write anything and you’d follow... same.
I loved it. Then I read the reviews and had that familiar reaction when something hits a little too close to home and the internet starts picking it apart.
The premise is uncomfortable by design: a high school teacher, a student, an affair. People are calling it gratuitous, irresponsible, unnecessary. And I understand the instinct to recoil. We want stories like this to tell us exactly how to feel.
But that’s not what she’s doing.
McCurdy has spoken openly about being in a relationship with an older man when she was 18 — someone with power over her, someone who should have known better. Half His Age is her processing that experience through fiction, which is what writers do with the things that are too sharp to hold any other way. The discomfort isn’t incidental; it’s the whole point.
What she captures — the way a young woman can mistake control for love, intensity for intimacy, attention from the wrong person for proof of her own worth — isn’t gross. It’s familiar. It happens constantly, quietly, to girls who grow up to be women still untangling it decades later. (I don’t know many of us who don’t have some version of that story.)
Brilliant coming-of-age stories are rarely comfortable. The ones that stay with you usually aren’t. And maybe the urge to look away says more about us than it does about the book.
The Birthday That Finally Felt Like Enough
There’s a very specific kind of disappointment that can sneak into birthdays in your 30s. Not because anything goes wrong, exactly, but because the day rarely lives up to the cinematic version in your head. You’ve accumulated a whole life by now — kids, losses, career pivots, years of inside jokes in the group chat — and somehow you expect one dinner reservation and a slice of cake to capture all of it.
For the last few years, my birthday has landed in the middle of something: infertility, then pregnant and terrified after a loss (counting weeks instead of candles), then newly postpartum, which is less “birthday glow” and more “have I brushed my teeth today?” Every celebration felt slightly hijacked by whatever chapter I was white-knuckling through, like the day couldn’t just be a day.
This year was different. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t pursuing anything. No monitoring appointments, no two-week waits, no bracing for news. Just a regular Friday that happened to be mine.
My husband gave me the most beautiful earrings (the kind that make you feel more pulled together than you actually are), and two of my closest friends took me out for drinks... where we laughed about nothing and everything. My kids presented homemade cards and a dessert that was 90% sprinkles and 10% structure, which felt deeply on brand for our household.
Nothing was extravagant, and for once, I didn’t want it to be.
After years of wanting something so badly it tinted every single day, ordinary felt luxurious: healthy kids singing off-key, a stiff drink, jewelry I’ll wear on our next night out.
37 wasn’t flashy or transformative; it was steady — and after everything, steady feels like winning.
The Sleep Era Is Upon Us (and I Was Born Ready)
Somewhere between the protein obsession and the cold plunge discourse, sleep quietly became the coolest thing you can do for your health. And honestly? It's about time.
Bustle recently ran a piece on sleep tips from Olympic athletes — the people whose entire careers depend on physical recovery — and what struck me wasn't how extreme their routines were. It was how unsexy most of the advice was. Consistent bedtimes. Dark rooms. No screens. The boring stuff, done with unusual commitment.
I have been doing the boring stuff, and I will not be entirely humble about it: my Oura ring recently gave me a 97% sleep score. In my family, this is not surprising. We are, all of us, gifted sleepers: the kind of people who can fall asleep anywhere, at any time, under any conditions. It's less a wellness practice and more just how we're wired. My contribution to the family legacy is simply that I go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. That's genuinely the whole routine.
And I think that's kind of the point.
We’ve spent so long treating sleep as the thing you sacrifice to prove you’re serious: about work, about ambition, about being the kind of person who has a lot going on. Hustle culture turned exhaustion into something aspirational. I’ll sleep when I’m dead was said out loud, by adults, as if that were a flex and not at least a little concerning.
Meanwhile, the research keeps piling up. Sleep shapes cortisol, immunity, appetite, and emotional regulation. Even Olympians talk about it now not as indulgence, but as infrastructure. What I notice most, though, is simpler than any data point. I’m steadier when I’m rested. Kinder. Slightly less reactive in the group chat.
I don’t have an elaborate wind-down routine. I just keep my bedtime. The ring doesn't lie.
Ask Clara:
"How much sleep do women actually need?"
ADHD and the Six-Digit Code
Today is my 37th birthday, and if I could have one gift — no wrapping required — it would be a small reprieve from two-factor authentication.
I know. Cybersecurity. Identity theft. I’ve heard the arguments. I’m not unreasonable. I just also have ADHD, which means the gap between your code has been sent and me actually locating my phone, unlocking it, finding the text, reading the six digits, switching back to the original app, and entering them before they expire is… not always a gap I can close in time.
I have requested new codes while the original codes were still technically valid. I have, on at least one occasion, given up entirely and decided that whatever bill it was could wait until a more focused version of me showed up.
This isn’t laziness; it's a working memory thing. ADHD brains genuinely struggle to hold information across interruptions, which is, unfortunately, the entire premise of two-factor authentication. You disengage, reorient, hold the number in your head, switch back, and somewhere in that shuffle, the thread is gone. The code has expired. You’re back at square one.
There’s a specific kind of ADHD tax nobody talks about much: not the big, dramatic stuff, but the thousand tiny friction points that make ordinary life feel slightly harder than it looks from the outside. Two-factor authentication just happens to be the hill I’m choosing today, mostly because birthdays have a way of making you notice where your energy goes.
Thirty-seven feels like the age where you’re allowed to say that out loud. So happy birthday to me. Please send cake. And for the love of God, just let me log in.
Ask Clara:
"Why do birthdays feel hard sometimes?"