Season 1 Episodes

Episode 1: Dr. Sanda Moldovan

Dr. Sanda (as she likes to be called) is an award-winning Periodontist and Nutritionist with her own practice in Los Angeles, CA. She is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and television personality consulting on oral health, periodontics, nutrition, and anti-aging. Dr. Sanda is the ‘go-to’ oral health expert for the Emmy-award winning television series “THE DOCTORS” and is a widely sought after oral health expert by NBC and CBS. She just launched her wellness brand, Orasana, and released her book: “Heal Up!: Seven Ways To Faster Healing And Optimum Health”.  Originally from Transylvania in Romania, Dr. Sanda has worked extremely hard to build up her robust practice where she is helping transform her patients’ health and their lives. She is currently working towards becoming pregnant, so I was excited to talk to her about what exactly she is doing to accomplish that and how her background with nutrition and new book about healing are helping her through that process.

Episode 2: Laura Ellis

As a student of the well-known Institute for Psycho-Structural Balancing, Laura was trained in the energetics of the human body including Aromatherapy, Polarity Therapy, and Sensory Repatterning.  She originally started her intuitive training in 1995 with Jim Self where she learned how to read the Aura. She then went on to further her education in the healing and intuitive arts training in Los Angeles, where she was certified in various subjects such as Master Crystal Formations, Transcrystal Therapy, Reiki, Akashic Records and Advanced Channelling. Laura is a certified Crystal Therapist and Teacher, Reiki Master, Multimodality Healing Practitioner and Intuitive Reader. We discuss her career and how her abilities played a role in her pregnancy and becoming a mother.

Episode 3: Sara Rajo-Miller

Episode 3 features my good friend of 15 years, Sara Rajo Miller (and today happens to be her birthday!!). She grew up living all over the world in Germany, Israel, London, and Mexico, before moving to Los Angeles at the age of 12. Growing up, her parents, who are both foreign correspondents, taught her that life is all about relationships and, as a result, she developed an affinity to interacting with different people early on. She fell into wealth management after a college internship at a stock analysis company, Miracle Mile Advisors, and never left! It felt like a natural fit from the beginning and now, six years later, Sara has worked her way up to a Senior Financial Advisor position and manages hundreds of millions of dollars in assets for over 70 families. We discuss financial planning and how important financial literacy is starting in our 20s.

Episode 4: Lina O’Connor

For this episode of the Not A Mama Yet podcast, I’m speaking with Lina O’Connor.  Lina is a serious #girlboss and mom of two boys who are 8 and 10.  Growing up, she was never sure of what she wanted to do but each step she took in school while attending the Cornell University of Hotel Administration and post-grad while working at Wolfgang Puck and Marriott International led her to become one of the first employees of Tender Greens where she is now the CFO.  Just last year she received the Rising Star CFO of the Year award from the Los Angeles Business Journal. I wanted Lina on the show to discuss how she built her career while being a hands-on mom, to hear more about her two drug-free deliveries following the Bradley Method, and what it’s like raising boys in today’s world.

Episode 5: Rachel Gelman

For this episode of the Not A Mama Yet podcast, I’m speaking with Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist Rachel Gelman.  Rachel is a Bay Area native. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Washington in Seattle and her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Samuel Merritt University. I reached out to Rachel during a trip to San Francisco a few months ago to talk about the pelvic floor. It is a part of the body I’ve become increasingly interested in because of its role in our everyday lives and also pregnancy and labor. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the pelvic floor, pelvic floor muscles function to support pelvic floor organs, assist in urinary and fecal continence, aid in sexual performance (orgasm), stabilize connecting joints and act as a venous and lymphatic pump for the pelvis.  

Episode 6: Danielle Cuccio

This week’s episode of the Not A Mama Yet “Podcast” is with Danielle Cuccio! Danielle is the CEO of her brand Cuccio Somatology, she is a private yoga Instructor, and runs her website, The Beauty Blender, where she brings you beauty, wellness and happiness all in one place. I had the pleasure of first meeting Danielle through work last year and we have become fast friends.  I was so excited when she agreed to be on the podcast as she had recently shared the news of her pregnancy with the world and I wanted to sit down to talk about her experience getting pregnant and her pregnancy so far! In our conversation, we talk about Danielle’s career and how she got into the beauty and wellness space, she shares her experience getting pregnant from the different doctors she saw, her fertility questions, the procedures she had to go through, and more.

Episode 7: Kerry Buzzell

Today’s podcast guest is Kerry Buzzell, the Director of Alliance of Moms, a membership-based program that supports pregnant and parenting teens in foster care in Los Angeles County. Kerry was born and raised in San Pedro, CA, by two parents who were civil servants in Los Angeles. From a young age, she has been exposed to the inequalities in our community and was always encouraged to help underserved Angelinos. After earning a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Education, Kerry began her career as a LAUSD teacher and taught throughout Los Angeles, until transitioning to marketing, brand association, and business development work with numerous women's athleisure brands. It was after the birth of her daughter, Elle, Kerry knew that she wanted to utilize her professional talents to help mothers and children in Los Angeles who might not have the resources to find success.

Episode 8: Karen Joubert

This week’s episode of the Not A Mama Yet podcast is with Dr. Karen Joubert. She is considered one of the most accomplished and experienced physical therapists today with more than 25 years of experience in health care and runs one of Southern California’s most respected physical therapy practices. Karen is passionate about learning and educating patients about healthy living and understanding the true source of their pain. She co-developed “My Therapy Exercise,” the world’s very first PT app, endorsed by the American Physical Therapy Association and she has contributed to several other pain related devices/products used today in the field of health care, along with books and publications. Joubert Physical Therapy provides the current state-of-the art treatment methods and equipment available on the market to benefit all of their patients.

Episode 9: Kira Cook

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, so I thought today would be a perfect day to share Episode 9 of the podcast featuring Kira Cook. My cousin is a close friend of Kira’s so when she let me know that Kira and her husband were fostering to adopt, I was interested to speak with her and learn more about that process. Adopting has always been something I have thought about doing one day. Our global population is growing at such a rate that we aren’t totally sure how we are going to feed the number of people projected to live on this planet in the coming decades. So I always think about the children who are already alive whose parents are unable to raise them and are in need of finding a loving home they can grow up in and have a brighter future as a result.

Episode 10: Andrew Wasser

For this episode of the Not A Mama Yet podcast, I spoke with my cousin Andrew Wasser who is a Mindfully based Marriage Family Therapist.   Andrew’s approach to Psychotherapy is helping his clients discover and process their unhealthy patterns and finding new ways to change or alter them. Andrew has several years of diversified experience and specializes in families, couples and individuals with addiction, divorce, parenting and family crisis issues.

Episode 11: Carolyn Witte

This week on the podcast, I am speaking with Carolyn Witte who is one of the Founders of the Tia Clinic in NYC. At the Tia Clinic, you can get integrated gynecology, wellness and primary care under one roof and one health record. They hold community events, offer same week appointments, which can be super hard to come by in the city, and they provide you with a care team. Imagine a team of physicians and wellness practitioners talking to each other and understanding your health records together so they can understand the whole you. Everything about this clinic is game changing and I can’t wait to see it grow to become a household name across the country.

Episode 12: Embrace Race

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Embrace Race, but I am so happy I did. If you are not familiar with it, it is a multiracial community of parents, teachers, experts, and other caring adults who support each other to meet the challenges that race poses to our children, families, and communities. We welcome your participation. I reached out to the Co-Founders Melissa and Andrew because I believe that while the work they are doing is invaluable for people who already have kids, people who don’t can still benefit greatly from their platform.

Episode 13: Pamela Hunt

Episode 13 feels like a particularly special episode. I had the pleasure of interviewing Pamela Hunt. If you have heard of the book Spiritual Midwifery or The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, you may have heard of her. In the 1970s, Pamela was part of a caravan of eighty school buses that went across the United States led by Stephen Gaskin. Stephen was a teacher in San Francisco when his writing class evolved into a discussion group that grew to have 1500 students in attendance each week. A lot of the hippies in attendance made up the caravan and their mission was to save the world! As women became pregnant and started to give birth during their trip, Pamela and a group of a few other women including Ina May Gaskin, Stephen’s wife, fell into the role of the midwives assisting in the deliveries.

Episode 14: Beth Porter

This episode of the Not A Mama Yet podcast features Green America’s Climate & Recycling Director Beth Porter. Beth is the author of Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine: Sorting Out the Recycling System and through her work she has helped thousands of individuals and businesses live and operate more sustainably. Beth has spearheaded many campaigns that identify the waste of resources and energy in varying sectors and has authored comprehensive reports of proposed solutions. She loves to help people find answers to their recycling questions and try new ways to reduce waste, which is why I wanted her on the podcast!

Episode 15: Not A Mama Yet LIVE Q&A Series with Dr. Carolyn Alexander and Dr. Layne Kumetz

This episode of the Not A Mama Yet podcast is the live audio recording of my first Q&A event with a Fertility Specialist and an OBGYN. We spent an evening with two women’s health specialists who kindly donated their time to answer all of the audience’s questions on various issues including fertility, Endometriosis and PCOS, birth control, miscarriages, egg-freezing, contraception, and more!