My Birth Story + The Beautiful Chaos of Being a Mom of 3 and CEO
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Listen to Episode 154 with Midwife, Skyler Jacobs
Another girl has joined the girl gang at BrandWell Designs! Over the summer, Victoria welcomed her third daughter, McKenna Rhodes, and this episode is all about her beautiful birth story. Victoria is sharing all the highs and lows, from navigating the switch from traditional OB care to a midwife group, to navigating labor without an epidural for some time, to the sweet and special moments of introducing her newborn to her big sisters.
Victoria will also be answering questions that listeners submitted including how this maternity leave looked versus what she expected, how she navigated visitors during those early days, and how McKenna’s name came to be.
This story isn’t just about birth, it’s about balance, priorities, and the courage to step back. Victoria reflects on what it’s been like to run BrandWell while fully embracing maternity leave, and how years of building strong systems and a reliable team have given her the freedom to be present with her family. She opens up about the surprising ease of letting go, the lessons learned in scaling a business that works without her, and why she believes the goal isn’t balance—it’s being present where you’re needed most.
If you’ve ever wondered how to honor both your role as a mother and your role as a CEO, this episode will leave you encouraged, empowered, and reminded that building a business with intention gives you the freedom to savor life’s sweetest seasons that go by in a blink of an eye.
Growing a Business While Growing a Family
If you’ve been an OG listener of the podcast, you’ve truly been here while Victoria has been building BrandWell Designs from the ground up. You’ve been here for all the highs and lows of business, but you’ve also been here when Victoria has brought each of her daughters into this world and figured out in real time, how to grow a business while raising littles at home. With each baby Victoria has changed. Her priorities have shifted and so has the way she’s run her business. The heart of this show has always been the desire to help women build brands that work with their lives and not against them, so leaning into that, today’s very personal episode is all about the birth story of Victoria's daughter, McKenna Roads. So, whether you’re a veteran mom or an expecting mom, a CEO, or all of the above, if you are in the thick of building something beautiful while also figuring out how to rest and recover, you’re going to love this episode.
Traditional OB Care vs. Midwifery Care
Prior to having her newest addition, Victoria had two other babies, both with traditional Obstetricians, but this time around she opted to go with a midwife group. When Victoria had her second daughter, she ended up developing cholestasis, which is a liver disease that can occur in late pregnancy. Knowing this, Victoria and her husband opted for a more personalized approach of care for their third pregnancy. If you’re interested in learning more about midwife groups and how they approach and view pregnancy, listen to the episode with Certified Nurse Midwife, Skyler Jacobs, here. Victoria shared that she has a positive experience with the midwife practice she went with. She enjoyed the longer, more personalized appointments, and they never made her feel like having her two other kids with her at appointments was a bother.
The type of midwife group that Victoria saw also had an OB component to it, so that should they need to intervene, they would be accessible. Nearing the end of her pregnancy, this did occur so that they could monitor Victoria’s bile acid levels closely and then take action to induce as soon as they spiked. At 37 weeks, Victoria’s test results spiked and within 24 hours of calling the hospital, she was able to go in for her induction.
Beating Delivory Records
By the time that Victoria got to the hospital, she was already in active labor, having contractions about every three minutes. Even though her body went into labor on her own, they did still proceed with medical intervention due to the cholestasis risk. Victoria loves a good challenge and pushing her body to do hard things, so she went into the labor process wanting to push herself to see how far she could go before getting an epidural. She labored for about seven hours on her own, then got an epidural and was able to rest. About four and a half hours later, Victoria felt like the baby was coming out and sure enough, when the midwife checked, the baby’s head was crowning! Victoria has a history of pushing out her babies fairly quickly and so the midwife made a joke about beating her record, which made Victoria giggle, which actually caused the baby’s head to come out! When the next contraction came, Victoria gave a small push and out came McKenna Roads!
Postpartum & Maternity Leave
Since Victoria didn’t really end up pushing, she also didn’t end up tearing, and that was different from her two other babies. That said, physically this postpartum experience has been a much easier recovery. Emotionally, it’s been about the same as it was with her second baby. Overall, postpartum has been better than she expected but of course, not without its challenges.
Victoria has loved watching not only her five-year-old but also her two-year-old love on their little sister. She was a little nervous at what to expect with both of them because they have different personalities, but they both love McKenna so much. In the past, there wasn’t much maternity leave, but this time Victoria is taking almost six weeks and has been pretty detached from the business. She did receive a weekly report from her COO but thankfully, no fires have popped up where she’s had to step in or provide guidance on. Things have been pretty smooth sailing.
Visitor Preferences in the Early Days
With Victoria’s first baby being born during Covid times, James was the only visitor allowed in the hospital with her. Once they experienced this they decided that they really enjoyed it only being the two of them and so they decided to do the same with their second baby, and now their third too.
Once Victoria had given birth, she really wanted to see her two other girls so her mom had brought them up, along with coffee and balloons, to meet McKenna only a few hours later. No other visitors came to the hospital outside of immediate family members and honestly, that was preferred.
When Victoria and McKenna came home, her mom was there at the house for 10 days, along with her sister, to help out with the older girls and to support Victoria around the house. One of the greatest blessings was having a meal train set up by their friends. Having the home-cooked meals dropped off quickly, without the pressure to entertain, was really nice for Victoria. The first couple of weeks were really intimate, so it was nice to keep the visitor policy down to just family.
Where did McKenna Roads Come From?
Finding a name that both you and your husband agree on can be a challenge, especially when it’s your third child of the same gender. There were a few names that both Victoria and James agreed on, but for the most part it was like every name that she really loved, he didn’t, and vice versa. All of their girls have first names that they both liked, but don’t have a sentimental meaning, but their middle name has a family tie to it.
Strength in Unmedicated Labor
With her first daughter, Victoria labored for 16 hours without an epidural. She felt like she was laboring with her body and not fighting against it, and this was really empowering. This time, even though she did get an epidural, she was able to experience a few hours of labor unmedicated, and that was an empowering experience.
The Switch From OB to Midwife
After her scary and upsetting experience with an OB during her second pregnancy Victoria wanted a provider who would take her condition with cholestasis with more care. Her midwife group offered compassionate care and personalized interest in her too, not just the baby.
No matter what route you go, you have to advocate for yourself. Pay attention to your own body and your own motherly instinct.
It’s Not About Finding Balance
No matter what happens with BrandWell, no matter what stage of growth they scale to, Victoria’s priority will always be her family.
That said, she is very excited to be back from maternity leave and to touch base with what’s all been going on. Building BrandWell to be able to function with or without her has been a goal of Victoria’s since day one, and receiving 10 five-star reviews while she’s been on maternity leave has been an incredible reminder that she has done just that.
To the person who’s afraid of letting go in their business, Victoria is sharing this encouragement: letting go is a skill and it’s something that you have to practice. Over the last five years, Victoria has been practicing this skill of letting go and letting her team take over. Every time you step away it’s a little pop quiz for your systems and your teams to see how things run, because if you can step away for a few days and things go well, it’s the biggest confidence boost. Maybe you don’t pass the pop quiz, and that’s okay. Now you can recognize the areas that didn’t go so well when you were away and so you spend the next few months working on those areas and training up a person or creating softwares and systems that are automated to allow you to step away without those necessary tasks getting dropped.
Your Biggest Encouragement & Reminder
The goal is not balance. The goal is to be present where you’re needed most.
Right now, Victoria is being present for her newborn, because this stage will go by in a blink of an eye. This is where she is needed most. But it will ebb and flow as her kids go through different stages and as BrandWell does too. Just remember, that balance isn’t always the goal.
Key Quotes
“The goal is not balance. The goal is to be present where you're needed most.”
Victoria Marcouillier
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