Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristin Vasko.
Hi Kristin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Long before I had a title for it, I was already there. At 22, I was the one sitting beside friends as they moved through one of the most transformative moments of their lives. I didn’t have a certification yet. I just had a pull I couldn’t explain and couldn’t ignore.
After years of showing up for the women in my life, that pull became a calling. In 2018, I got certified as a birth and postpartum doula and spent the next three years serving women full-time in the most meaningful work I had ever known.
In 2021, I stepped back for a personal season — one I didn’t choose, but needed. Even then, I always knew the birth world wasn’t behind me. I just didn’t know when I’d find my way back.
In 2026, I felt it, a nudge in my soul that it was time. That return took shape first as The Refining: A Mother’s Journal, born out of years of sitting beside women through their becoming. The waiting. The arrival. The strength it took to bring a child into the world. The way a woman changes in ways she cannot yet name. I wanted women to have a place to hold all of it. A keepsake to look back on, and one day hand to the very child who began their becoming.
BirthNotes followed as the natural next breath, an unfiltered podcast where women share the raw, real stories of their journey to motherhood. Because every story changes a woman. And everyone deserves to be heard.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not even a little.
Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, and building anything in the birth space means you are working inside a system that is deeply broken. The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world. I have been present at births that were beyond magical, and I have been present at ones laced with tragedy. Both stay with you. Both shape the way you move in this work.
Being a doula through COVID added another layer entirely. The isolation, the restrictions, the fear families were navigating one of the most sacred moments of their lives under conditions none of us were prepared for. The impact of that season is still being felt in the birth community today.
And then there is the business of actually building something. BirthNotes is my first podcast. I have learned as I go, made mistakes no one warned me about, and figured out most of it in real time. That part has been humbling in the best way. It has also made the work feel more honest because I am not presenting something polished and distant. I am in it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a certified birth and postpartum doula, the host of BirthNotes podcast, and the author of The Refining: A Mother’s Journal.
My work lives at the intersection of storytelling and the birth space. I specialize in holding the stories that don’t always get told—the ones that are complicated, magical, surprising, and real. BirthNotes is an unfiltered podcast where women share the raw, honest stories of their journey to motherhood. Every episode is a reminder that no two paths look the same, and that every story has the power to change the woman who hears it.
The Refining came from years of sitting beside women through their becoming and noticing the same things surface again and again, the waiting, the arrival, the way a woman changes in ways she cannot yet name. I wanted to create something she could hold onto. A keepsake to look back on, and one day pass to the very child who began her becoming.
What I am most proud of is that both exist at all. That I created a journal where a mother’s story has a place to live. That I built a space where women can be heard and seen, in one of the most transformative seasons of their lives. That I did it. Building in the birth space, telling these stories, creating something that lasts, that is the work. And it is the most meaningful thing I have ever done.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Surrender.
In the birth space, you learn quickly that control is an illusion. You can prepare, you can plan, you can hope for a certain path, and then the moment arrives and asks something entirely different of you. The women I have sat beside taught me that the most powerful thing you can do is release the grip and trust the process, even when it is uncomfortable.
Especially when it is uncomfortable.
Building something has been no different. There have been moments in this work when something felt off, when a direction, a decision, or a next step didn’t sit right in my body. I have learned to listen to that. Your intuition is not a soft suggestion. It is information. And when you stop trying to override it and start moving with it, everything shifts.
The lesson underneath both is the same. You cannot force what is meant to unfold. But you can stay present, trust yourself, and surrender to what the process is trying to show you.
Pricing:
- $40.00
Contact Info:
- Website: https://birthnotespod.substack.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/birthnotespodcast
- Other: https://linktr.ee/birthnotespod
