Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Birek.
Hi Laura, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Though I was born and raised in Fresno, I first moved to Los Angeles in the early 2000s to pursue a Master’s of Professional Writing at USC. While there, I met my now-BFF and podcast co-host, Shanna Micko, who was pursuing her MPW degree in fiction. After grad school, we started collaborating together in a writing group and then decided to start writing TV scripts together as a team. Shanna also roped me in to taking live storytelling seminars with Margot Leitman and then stand-up comedy with Judith Shelton. Over the years, Shanna and I would hit up storytelling shows and open mics together and even produce a storytelling show together.
Shanna and I were actively working on our TV pilots in 2018 when we hit a little roadblock: we both got pregnant within three weeks of each other. While we were thrilled about the pregnancies, we quickly realized that staffing season might not be happening for us that year.
And that’s when I had an idea: why don’t we start a podcast instead? We’d follow our pregnancies week by week, candidly discussing all the highs and lows and laughing about it the way only two best friends could.
We launched our podcast, Big Fat Positive: A Pregnancy and Parenting Journey, in August 2018 and have published a new episode every Monday since then.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Recording, editing, and publishing a weekly show for over 5 years has been an ongoing challenge. We’re a completely DIY operation — Shanna handles copywriting and social media, I do the editing, and our producer (a.k.a. Shanna’s husband, Steve) publishes the episodes and interfaces with our advertisers. Managing all this throughout pregnancies, the newborn phase, and then the pandemic has certainly been difficult. But we are passionate about the podcast and the community we’ve created around it, so we always find the time and energy to get the show out on time!
Despite being an independent show with a small budget, we’ve managed to amass a wonderful group of subscribers and loyal fans who listen every week. As of 2023, we hit over 2.5 million downloads and only hope to grow from here!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Big Fat Positive was born out of a desire to connect with other pregnant people in an authentic, candid, and funny way. Most of the pregnancy resources available at the time fell on two extreme ends of the spectrum—factual, saccharine, and sometimes scaremongering medical information about pregnancy; or flippant, overly-sarcastic comedy about how much it sucks to be pregnant or a mom. Shanna and I wanted to create something different, something that was welcoming and supportive but still honest and real.
(For those not in the know: a “big fat positive” is internet slang for a positive pregnancy test.)
Our show follows a predictable format, with every episode starting with a weekly check-in about what’s going on in our pregnancies or lives as parents. Then we have a rotating “special segment,” with topics like “What I Googled This Week,” “OMG I’m Freaking Out,” “Stump the New Mom” trivia, or our storytelling segment, “Throwback,” where we tell stories from our childhoods that inform how we parent today. Then, we close every episode with a “Big Fat Positive” (BFP) or “Big Fat Negative” (BFN) of the week, which is just one good or bad thing that happened to us that week.
The format of the show allows for a mix of banter and information, allowing our audience to get to know us as people but also learn stuff along the way. We love sharing all the parenting tips and tricks we’ve found and also bring on expert guests like lactation consultants, midwives, pelvic floor physical therapists, pediatricians, toddler experts, and more.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
My top two tips for starting a podcast would be the following:
1) Be passionate about your topic. Your audience will know if you’re phoning it in, and you want to be able to sustain your enthusiasm for at least a year.
2) Make sure your sound quality is great. More important than having a good microphone is having a quiet and non-echoey place to record.
For more advice on how to start a podcast, I highly recommend Kristen Meinzer’s book “So You Want To Start a Podcast” — her advice is wonderful from top to bottom.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bigfatpositivepodcast.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bfppodcast/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BFPpodcast
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fat-positive-a-pregnancy-and-parenting-journey/id1423423794?mt=2
Image Credits
Jennifer Strauss
