They’re a freeloading couple that apparently has a wide community network offering support for the upcoming birth of their first child, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough.
Jim Burns, 43, and Alex Orgera, 34 — the Philadelphia couple whose parental anxieties spawned an overreaching request for elaborate food donations, mental health check-ins and completed chores that went viral last week on Twitter — also produced a podcast that detailed having everything and having nothing to help with their child’s arrival.
The Post has learned the pair run “Not a Parenting Podcast” — a January-debuted series now with 19 episodes that largely run for approximately one hour. But on Wednesday afternoon, after The Post reached out for comment, the series appeared to be taken down, but still shows up in Google search.
“Not a Parenting Podcast” also appeared to be crowd-funded, with its website linking to a GoFundMe page that is no longer active. It’s unclear how much money the two aimed for, or how much they received, but individual episode descriptions tell listeners they can “help finance the ongoing podcast adventure by contributing to … GoFundMe.”
“Guys! We’re pregnant!” read the series’ iTunes description. “And we appreciate that people have gone through pregnancy all throughout human life, but this has never happened to us before. And we’re going to talk about it. Hopefully once a week.”
The result: Near-weekly episodes in which the pair discussed everything from Alex’s previous miscarriage to clearing out their home office for the baby, whose sex they’re leaving a surprise.
About a week before launching their high-maintenance campaign on Meal Train and Nextdoor — which asked neighbors to cook elaborate dishes such as Paleo-friendly egg muffins dressed with thinly sliced cremini mushrooms — the two released a podcast detailing their baby shower.
“My mom made this nice little speech, which I thought was really sweet about child care taking a village — and commenting on our big, robust and loving village, which is something I feel a lot of gratitude for, all the lovely people in our lives,” says Orgera. “So it was very, very special to have all those people in our neighborhood together enjoying a casual party.”
The two later discussed the gifts they received at the shower, which was held at a local brewery. Burns mentions there was a collection of gift cards to a food service.
“I did the math and I think we have six weeks worth of meals … which is awesome,” says Orgera. “We’ll need that. Those first six weeks are, from what I hear, very overwhelming. So just having ingredients and instructions at our door … I think will be very grounding and helpful.”
The two were also gifted an Instant Pot.
But in the next episode, which aired on April 15, the couple seems to contradict themselves entirely — and birth the idea for their controversial crowd-sourced request.
“One thing the midwife asked us today was ‘Do you have a lot of postpartum support in place?’ — and we were both sort of looking at each other like, ‘no,’ ” says Burns.
“Nothing formal,” adds Orgera. “We know people, but no one’s coming to stay or anything.”
And then, the planning seems to start.
“Should I get, like, a calendar together and stage-manage visitation from somebody every day to look in on us — make sure we’re ok?” says Burns. “Maybe do our laundry or dishes?”
Orgera replies that every day feels like a lot and that she doesn’t know what she’ll want — to which Burns tells her “just like an hour, half an hour.”
Orgera then says it depends on who’s coming over and how comfortable she feels with them being there, to which Burns replies he’ll arrange it.
“It’ll be like, ‘Text me before you come over at your arranged time and we’ll tell you if we want you to still come over,” says Burns, with Orgera adding: “And what to pick up for us on the way.”
Beyond the request for meals, snacks, walking their dog, doing their dishes and washing their clothes, the Meal Train page, which has since been deleted, also allowed site users to book a day and time slot for them to swing by. But that didn’t mean the couple would always welcome them inside.
“If we could use some food but prefer no distractions, I’ll put a big white cooler in our side yard,” wrote Burns, who didn’t return a message seeking comment for this story.
But in that April 15 episode, listeners may get a sense of what’s fueling the anxiety of Burns and Orgera, whose baby is due April 29. Orgera discusses that she’ll soon lose a job doing freelance bookkeeping for an unidentified restaurant — a position she’s had for the last five years — because it’s shuttering in June.
“I felt maybe a brief sense of relief or excitement that I have freedom from this in a way, but also a … big sense of fear and frustration about the timing of just when I actually really need an easy cash gig in life,” says Orgera. “It’s kind of bad timing for trying to find something to replace it with, money-wise.”