Latest / Mothering / S1Ep6 | Monica - The Juggle & Equality of Two Full-Time Parents. Neurofibromatosis, Low Milk Supply, Co-Sleeping, Full-Time Childcare

Transcript

S1Ep6 | Monica - The Juggle & Equality of Two Full-Time Parents. Neurofibromatosis, Low Milk Supply, Co-Sleeping, Full-Time Childcare · Mothering

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: First 10 weeks of his life, he slept exclusively on my partner eye, which meant we were taking turns throughout the night with a baby on top of us.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was quite crazy.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: I still couldn't sleep.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: My husband would say I kept checking the baby cam.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: He started to wake up more and more, and we were getting really tired.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: From eight months, we decided to co-sleep, and my insomnia stopped overnight.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I work full-time and my husband works full-time.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have other support to care for him during the weeks.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's daycare full-time, but that's our village.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Mothering Podcast, and I'm your host, Carly.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode I sit down with women who speak honestly about their life-changing transition into motherhood and what becoming a mother actually feels like.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Please be mindful when little ears are listening to this podcast as we can get a bit sweary and vibrant.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: One last notice to say that this is an inclusive space.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: While we touch on a lot of physical and psychological changes that the female body goes through immatrescence, the use of the term mother can encompass any person who identifies as a mother and takes on that extremely important and nurturing role in society to raise children.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Mothering.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: In today's episode, I sat down with Monica, who is a mother to her two-year-old son, and also works full-time in a demanding role as a senior manager at one of the big banks in Australia.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big themes in our conversation is around Monica's family life, given that her and her partner both work full-time in equally demanding jobs.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think so many women don't have the choice with their return to work and their career.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a beautiful one if your career remains a really important part of your life during these early years of being a mother.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Monica shares some really amazing insights into making that family dynamic work.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is an excellent episode if you and your family are in the full-time realm of work or close to it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Monica has a genetic condition called neurofibromatosis, which left her with the assumption when she was younger that she wasn't able to have children.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Monica talks about her journey through conception and pregnancy and how all that looked for her.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: We talked a lot about breastfeeding in the early days as Monica, like a lot of us, was advised to triple feed her baby because of low supply of breast milk.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about the huge impact that had on her mental health and also her whole journey on sleeping.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: She has tried it all.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: She's had the snoo, she's had the cot, she's had a toddler bed, and she talks about how each of those served a purpose at different times, but suffering with postpartum anxiety and also insomnia, it led her family to continue co-sleeping with Ben, which still serves them to this day.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that part of the conversation is just a beautiful reminder of how none of us get to choose what our baby needs and what we need as a family to survive.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are, I hope you can sit back, relax, walk, work, whatever you're doing while listening to this episode and enjoy the conversation between me and Monica.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Mothering, Monica.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to start by introducing yourself and telling us who's in your family?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me, Carly, on the podcast.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Monica.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a first-time mum to a little topper boy named Ben.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: My husband's name is Hayden, and we live in Burwood, Melbourne.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: What does mothering look like for you at the moment in terms of juggling other things, work, projects?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: If we look at it helicopter-wise, I think it's pretty intense and pretty crazy at times.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I currently work full-time and my husband works full-time as well, and we both work in fairly demanding roles.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I think how we balance that with parenting has been something that we have refined, I would say, over the last two and a half years.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say that balance part is definitely a challenge.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: But for us, in terms of the parenting or the mothering part, I have a beautiful toddler.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: I really am blessed in many ways.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: My husband and I joke that the terrible twos hasn't quite hit us yet.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it's the terrific twos for us.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Noting, of course, there is still some challenges, the natural challenges with the toddler.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: But overall, that component, Ben himself, is absolutely terrific.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he brings us so much joy.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: The challenge will be modern parenting, both parents working.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, we're both also default parenting.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: There is no gender roles per se, traditional gender roles, when you both work full-time and you both bring in the same money to the household.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something that we are still working on.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's still not perfect.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm sure there's lots to learn from other parents out there as well, which is why I'm excited to listen more to this podcast and the families that you interview.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about having a demanding role.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk a little bit about what your role is, really briefly, or even just name your title just so people have an idea?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I recently started a new role at one of the big banks in Australia.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a senior manager there, and hours-wise, it depends on the time of year, but some weeks I might be doing 60 hours.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Weekends, late nights, public holidays.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that balance can be a little bit difficult, particularly in the last few months, because my little toddler was going through the whole one nap to no nap transition.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he was going to bed really late.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: So around 9:30, 10 pm, when he was still napping.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that meant if I was going to do more work, it would be after 10 pm.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a little bit rough.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I am pleased to say, Carly, in the last two weeks he has started to drop his nap and he is going to bed at 7, 7.30, which is an absolute game changer.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, it's so good when they do that.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's so cool.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like waiting for that as well.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really waiting for that period because it's harder choosing to that personal time that you have allocated as really the only time of day that you can get shit done.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a balance, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: He used to go to bed at 7 p.m.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: on the dot.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: For the majority of his babyhood, it was only until 18 months that it started to drift, 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that drift started at the same time that I went back to work full-time.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And in many ways, the flip frame is that's my time with him, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: If it's 10 pm, so be it.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's four hours with him, which is a really decent chunk of time to be present with him.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: With the difficulty being when I moved jobs, this job was quite demanding.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so I also needed to work at night.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: So the difficulty was either I work when he goes to sleep, which means I'm working till midnight, which did happen or does happen still, as well as flipping time with my husband to go.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he takes more of the, if you will, default parenting in during the week.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then I do more on the weekend where we can keep things balanced with kind of our own time and our self-care and hobbies.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's also helped a little bit re-jigging the I guess the roles so that I'm not consistently working after 10 pm till midnight to get things done.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to talk more about that, but thinking about chronological things, do you want to talk a little bit about whether having children was always your plan in life or whether that was something that came later on?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, Carly, I always wanted kids, but my personal stories, I never was sure if I could have them, mainly because I was born with a genetic condition.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't educated on it for a long time.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: For a couple of reasons.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: One, I didn't I almost didn't want to research into it because I didn't want to know the answer in some ways.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you research and you find out you can't, that's scary, right?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Rather than not knowing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as well as I think my parents, their view was to protect me a lot, so they didn't talk to me about my genetic condition, which is a neurophibomatosis.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's a genetic condition, a neurological condition that is a dominant uh genetic condition.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a 50-50 chance of passing it on to your kids.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And while my own uh condition is very mild, I'm very lucky.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: I live a functional life, I've been healthy and no issues.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: For many people, it can be a disability or a very big impact to their day-to-day life.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: So when my husband and I were starting to plan for family, we went down the path of educating ourselves a lot more, seeing as genetic counselors to find out what our options were.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And incredibly lucky with science, IVF was an option to us where they can select the embryos that don't have the condition.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: So we learned that basically we would be able to have kids safely through IVF.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And Ben is an IVF baby to us for us, and we went through that whole process, and it was again, we can talk about it more, Carly, we can deep dive, but it was a Go for it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um again, we're just really lucky we could go through that and have a healthy child.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: But the reason why I wanted kids is because I almost couldn't have kids, if that makes sense.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't think I could have kids.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, once I found out actually it's a possibility, it almost became more of a well, I have to.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've been given the opportunity.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, after thinking maybe I can't, at least I can't safely.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: That was the driver for me to go, yeah, I do want kids.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how Ben was born through IVF.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: What was your IVF journey like?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think overall we were quite lucky in the sense that the IVF context for us wasn't infertility.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband and I were still fairly young, so we're in our early 30s, and I was, I think, 30 when I started my IVF journey.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: So because it wasn't fertility, the process of going through the hormones to get your eggs extracted, that wasn't as difficult for my body.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Funnily enough, when I said to you, Carly, it's a 50-50 chance of inheriting the condition, 50% of our embryos, exactly 50%, did have the condition and 50% didn't.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: So you can see the math does work out.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So 50% were donated to research.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: You can choose what happens to your embryos that are affected.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we donated them to research.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then 50% were viable and were healthy.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was very lucky.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was one round of IVF and then one round of implantation.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And again, maybe because my kind of presenting issue wasn't fertility, I was able to fall pregnant and carry Ben to full term through the first round.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: So really lucky there.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: So overall, the IVF journey was good for me at least.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: The part that was more nerve-wracking, if you will, was maybe waiting to hear how many viable embryos I would have.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And to have 50% of them healthy was quite interesting.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then how did your pregnancy kind of develop from there?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Would you say that it was an easy pregnancy, or did you get morning sickness?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Were there any complications being an IVF pregnancy as well?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Were you heavily monitored?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: I would say overall my pregnancy was a genuine uh low drama one, if you will.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: In saying that I was also monitored because of IVF and because of my pre-existing medical condition, it meant that when I went through the public system, I was tagged as high risk.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I had an OB look after me through the journey as well as a midwife, but I think they had to tag an OB to myself.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it just meant extra monitoring, extra testing on growth and development.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Generally speaking, the pregnancy was okay until third trimester because my baby was sitting quite low.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: I had really severe pubic girdle pain, I think it's called pubic girdle pain.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I couldn't sleep on a bed.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I couldn't sleep on my side at all.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I had to sleep in the recliner in the lounge for all of third trimester.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh god.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Poor thing.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Went to physios, I went to kind of those pregnancy movement specialists, couldn't resolve it.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I joked to my husband that it was like, goodbye, I'm going on an economy flight now to Europe for the night.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: Literally sleeping there like that, reclined for three months because I couldn't sleep any other way.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course getting up and down from the recliner to go to the bathroom as well.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it would say it was the discomfort and the sleep not being the best.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But otherwise, no, um, I didn't have any morning sickness.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: The first time I threw up was during labor, which is um surprising.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you're obviously still working in that third trimester with sleeping in the recliner and far out.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: I worked all the way to if I remember right, it was around 32 weeks.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: The reason for that was my due date was mid to late January.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I went, you know what, there's no point coming back to work after Christmas for two weeks.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'd rather planned, finish up, plan my handover before Christmas, and then have this beautiful month off before having been.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I was really lucky.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: This timing was I finished up around 32 weeks.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I went Christmas camping with my husband, and we go camping in basically the bush, and I was huge, but I didn't camp out that year.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: We went back to his family home for the nights.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember being huge and packing the bag, and we were in regional Bensdale and thinking, just in case, right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's a public hospital there.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was actually later than 32, must have been 34 because it was at that is courageous, I have to tell you.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I could do that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I remember we were just packing just in case.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it must have been post-34 weeks because it was at the stage where it could happen.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and obviously, if I'm not sleeping on a bed, I'm not sleeping on the floor, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: It just can't happen with my um.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sleep on the camping chair.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, pretty much.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had this beautiful month off where it was really just to slow down again because the job beforehand was still high, high intensity.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: So slow down, rest, and then plan for the birth, which was planned as the recommendation for me given IVF and my medical condition was induction.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a date that we were planning towards, and we got to PIC.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so we knew when we'd leave, what time we'd go into hospital, etc.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they hesitant to let you enter Labour naturally with IVF?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good question.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think it must be a statistical recommendation.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So there isn't overarching recommendation for IBF that you don't exceed a certain number of weeks.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I was induced, I think it was 38 and a half versus going 3940.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there must be a statistical recommendation.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: But then on top of that, because of my medical condition, they also had again generally recommendation to not wait too long either.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I think because of the both together, that's why we made the decision, you know what, this time, given it's two reasons, we will go through the induction process.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I think you don't know what you don't know until you've been through labour and pregnancy the first time.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: So even now, I go, I don't know what I would do next time.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I would wait a little bit longer.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I could because 38 and a half is not late.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you just say my cutoff is different, I'll still get induced if that's what you're comfortable with, but you have a different cutoff date.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's hard.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: After that, every subsequent pregnancy is different again.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know if you choose to have another one.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So do you want to touch briefly on what you did to prepare in your time off after birth?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Were you just resting?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Were you making some meals?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good question.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think I was I definitely was resting a lot.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: We went through one of the birth programs and now I can't remember what it was anymore.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was the hypnotherapy one, maybe.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Hypnobirth.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the one?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Hypnobirth courses.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so I remember I would still take a nap where I could um every day in the recliner before I went into labour and I would listen to those meditations.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I recall doing that and my husband sending my husband the clips as well.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Meal prepping, not really, to be honest.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: We probably should have, and we'll cover that in a moment, why it would have been helpful.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I actually don't think we did any meal prep, and I don't know why, because I'm usually quite organised, but it would have helped to at least prep one or two weeks worth of freezer meals.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think really it was just to relax and prep the nursery as you do get into that what's that mode called when you're nesting.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Nesting.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're nesting and you start to prep everything and organise things.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um but again, the first time you think it's that's what you need, and the second time it will look different, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you just start.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you look back and you were just saying, Oh, maybe I should have meal prepped more.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's those thoughts that you have way after when you're thinking about it, and why didn't I do all this other stuff, like organise the house to be cleaned so that it was at least functional when the baby came around and it wouldn't need to be cleaned for a really long time because no one's cleaning your house when you have a newborn.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's so true.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's so true.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of I wish I did this, and also I wish I didn't do XYZ or that's not needed next time.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: So there's both sides of the coin, I feel.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny, I think the nesting thing of setting up the nursery and or a space in your room wherever the baby's gonna sleep and folding their clothes and washing them.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: It I wonder in a way if we all do that because that's what's portrayed to us in media.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: But there is, I know there is this internal desire to organise and tidy things.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I went on some massive cleaning spree a week before my had my baby, just deep cleaning the kitchen.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know why, I just had this intense urge to do it.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard so many stories like that.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there is something in us as a pregnant woman, like needing to organise things.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, having gone through it, I think having some energy towards meal prepping and organizing for things in the future rather than just the baby things itself would be so useful.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit maybe the where you are at that time pulls you into the current, right?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're probably day-to-day thinking one day, one week at a time versus thinking months ahead.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it is probably more helpful if I did think a bit more postpartum, what do I need versus what do I need today this week?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it it sounds like it's a shared experience, and there's probably a reason why we feel pulled to what we feel pulled to in terms of what we do and what we think about.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I yeah, I'm sure me and other mums would say you would change things around a bit with number two.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I have no doubt two to three and three plus, there must be even more learnings that you take into place.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk a bit about how Ben's birth went then?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Ben's birth was good.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think overall, again, I was very lucky.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: The birth itself was not um it was not an issue for me.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: The the labour itself was very painful due to the induction process.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that took me by surprise.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, maybe I overestimated my pain tolerance.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I'll be okay, but it actually was a lot more painful than I expected, and hence why all the vomiting happened for the first time during labour for me.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk a little bit about that process?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Was your cervix already I think they call it ripened?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or did they have to start from the start?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Let me remember, I think with my labour, they had to start from the start.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So they put a balloon in, and then that helps to ripen the cervix.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you you stay overnight and you sleep overnight.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that part, I'm not in labor yet.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: They're trying to prep your body to simulate that you're ready.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next day, and this is if I remember right, this is the way you do it without drugs in the first place.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: So it's let's try it with a balloon.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: But then I think after a certain amount of time of using the balloon, they then break your waters.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever they call it, like manually, and then that starts the labor.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what happened for me.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it was based on time, okay, after this amount of time, um, to get to the next stage, we'll break your waters.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that happened, and then wasn't in pain yet, and then from there, that's where it escalated quite quickly from a pain perspective.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think just because I don't know, again, I'd have to read into this, but I think probably my body wasn't ready for it, which is why I think induction feels more painful in terms of intensity because your body hasn't naturally arrived there itself, and so probably the the contractions are ahead of what your body is expecting.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had the TENS machine that wasn't helping.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: I had on my birth plan that I would like to labor for as long as I could before extra intervention, but I ended up being quite sick, so you know, throwing up, my heart rate was elevated, baby's heart rate was elevated, so I ended up getting dural, which only half worked as well.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I got it, but it only numbed half my body, so better than nothing, but it was still painful and in what way?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Around your pelvis at least.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I could still experience some sensations.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: So they I remember they did the ice test.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: So they say, Do you can you feel where the ice is?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And in some areas I couldn't feel the ice, but I think my back and pelvis I could still feel things.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think downstairs, I think it was pretty numb, but my back still had some sensation.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: I do think it was a bit of a complication due to my again, my genetic condition means I have scoliosis.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Even positioning the epidural is a bit more complex than usual.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I I worked through that with the doctors before creating my birth plan.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's not impossible, but it's more, it's a bit less straightforward than a normal spine.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it might have been that potentially.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: But the the main implication was they did say to me, you need to make sure all the notes are there.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: If you had to have an urgency cesarean, we couldn't just take you in as is because you were not fully numb, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: You would have to go under if that if it went that far.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't in the end, but it just meant that the rest of the labor was still really painful.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then when it came to pushing Ben out, that was okay.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think I was either I just didn't know and I was not with it, but pushing him out wasn't the sore part, the painful part was before that.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: But because I was so elevated, he was quite elevated as well.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it could have gone to emergency cesarean.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: We were actually really close to, and they were asking for my consent and my husband's consent because I was so distressed from the pain, and the baby was so distressed from my pain.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: But when they checked me at the last moment, they went, he's actually here, his head is here.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we were like, Okay, we'll do it, we'll just go for it.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then the part is the most painful for sure when they're about to be born.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: So it must have been that, Carly.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:09
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Your body is absolutely right in thinking that you're at your absolute limit.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: It must have been, yeah.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd have to look back at my notes.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think overall it was pretty fast.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: The night before I went in and had the balloon done, and then I started labouring from probably noon the next day, and then Ben was out by the evening.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it was pretty fast by all Labour, I'm sure Labour statistics or averages.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: But it was fairly intense, and I think it the laddering of interventions definitely was true that it kind of happens really fast.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: But for me, I think he was there when it was at the most painful and the most critical part.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then he was born, and I had no, you know, post-birth complications.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very grateful for that as well.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Did you tear or have an epesiotomy?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: I did have an apesiotomy at the end, and it was a minor one, which healed really well.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was part of them saying he's in so much distress, like the heart rate, because it's all monitored again.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: When you have an induction, you have the monitoring on your belly, so they can tell by that stage that was something I consented to say yes if it's required.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that helped the birth progress as it needed to progress.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was very lucky, like it healed with no issues, and all the toileting and things like that, again, no issues for me.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I was lucky that it all worked out well there.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: The labour overall, I would say I think back on it and I would still do it again, as in I would go through it again.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: You just know more next time around what to expect from a pain journey, I think.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so hard the first time because it's so unknown and it's this it's such an intense event to happen to your body, and you can't prepare for it.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can get knowledge about what's gonna happen, but to actually physically prepare your body for that, you can't, and then you think, oh yeah, it's gonna be painful, but women do it all the time, so surely I can do it and it's gonna be okay.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then you are in it, and you're like, is this what it is for everybody?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is not okay, this is too much, this is crazy.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um you go through birth and you talk to all the mums around you that have gone through birth, and everyone's like, Yep, that's what it is.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, here we all are, just walking around, living our life, having a job, doing all these normal things, but we've also gone through this extreme monumental physical act that just doesn't get acknowledged enough of what our bodies go through.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know, it is pretty crazy.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: I did think of that too, just like you, Carly, to go, I can't believe everyone has gone through this for millennia, right?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because you kind of go, I almost can't do it.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: How did everyone else do it?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure we'll get there, but it's the same with kind of early postpartum days when you're so exhausted and you go, is everyone coping?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do they do this?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then you know everyone doesn't cope and everyone finds it really hard.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you find a way through, right?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you survive, and then you, as human nature, you do it again and you learn more about it next time.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: But you do find yourself going, whether it's labor or the early days, how can others do it?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: If you're barely holding on, you're crazy.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then your mind and your mind forgets maybe certain elements.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think the mind absolutely just decides not to store those memories.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: It stores the memories, but it doesn't store the sensations of how painful it was.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I even think maybe a day later I had forgotten how it actually felt.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can think logically about my birth my two births and know that they were intense, but I can't replicate that feeling in my body anymore.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go through it again to then be put back into it, and then that when you're doing it again, you go, Oh, I remember this.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I don't know why I'm doing it again.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I doing this again?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is so fucked up.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then you move through it, and I think that sentiment is so reflected in so many things of motherhood.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're presented with this scenario and what's happening in that moment, and you just find a way to work through it, and we all do, and we all survive somehow.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But this might be a good time to talk about what those first few days and weeks and months were like for you guys.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Did you guys end up staying in hospital or did you go home fairly quickly after birth?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I went home fairly quickly after birth.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: I stayed one night, so we I gave birth in the evening the night before, and then I left the next morning.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I would not do I would do that differently next time.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: I would say, I think my husband and I, we were so excited to bring the baby home.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: And because overall I had given birth no complications, baby passed all the tests that they do in the first night.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: We were like, why not go home?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: I can't see us staying another full day, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly given the birth was in the evening, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not even late evening.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like we've already stayed one full night.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember that night, my husband and I, we have a favourite restaurant or one of our favourite restaurants in Box Hill, and the baby was sleeping, he ducked out and got some takeaway and came back, and we were eating in the room, this lovely meal, while the baby was sleeping that first night, and we're like, This is awesome, the baby's here.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: But of course, the first night is the trick night, right?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: They talk about day two, but we either we selectively forgot through our birthing classes, or no one reminded us that hey, it's actually a good idea to stay in hospital that night, too, because of that's when shit hits the fan.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: We forgot about that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: We went home and we had the most terrible first night, and I'm sure most people experienced this.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: And on the phone to the nurse, we forgot that there's such a thing as cluster feeding and that.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember my husband and I sitting there going, Is this what's going to happen for the next three months?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because if it is, we cannot survive this.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was one night, I mean more nights than that, but it was the first night that it happened, and we were both completely like this is messed up.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do people do this?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Are you literally not gonna sleep?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because we hadn't slept through that first night when I had the balloon in.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: I hadn't slept because it was really uncomfortable.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next night you don't really sleep because you're you've just given birth and the baby still wakes, so you're not fully rested.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next night we just did not sleep because I remember I was recording how long the feeds were taking, and it would take for me like 45 minutes of boob, and then just needed more and more.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'd be feeding for three, four hours straight, and just not sleeping and hallucinating, right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're so tired.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband and I being like, What the hell is going on?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that was night two, we forgot.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Cluster feeding happens, it's normal, there's picks and chops of it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: In hindsight, I would have it would have been good to stay to again kind of get the latching correct and just get that extra support because you have no idea what you're doing, and even changing nappies, you're like, How many nappies do I change?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: We're changing it every hour as you do as a new parent.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, is this wet or is it mixed?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: So true.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: No idea.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: So true.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: No idea.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh did you do anything to prepare you for breastfeeding when you're pregnant?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: The only thing I did was I tried to, oh my gosh, what's it called?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: The colostrum.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to get the colostrum, which I couldn't do.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to massage and get the colostrum beforehand.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: But again, maybe because I was early, I knew I was being induced at 38 and a half, so trying to get colostrum at 37, 36 is probably on the earlier side.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the only thing I did.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: But in hindsight, again, I would have definitely just done a bit more research and a bit more reading or talking to friends about it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think in my head I assumed it's one of those things that just happen.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it for me, it was not something that just happened the breastfeeding journey.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: We all do.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: You think it will happen?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think l like society and media and everything just makes it look so natural, and every single mother I've spoken to.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there are mothers that it happens quite smoothly, but I am yet to meet one.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where it's just worked.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people definitely need help in that first bit.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually reading a phenomenal piece about breastfeeding in tribes the other day, and they were saying, nobody has the innate knowing of how to breastfeed when you have a baby, but all these women that live in tribe and community have a much easier time because they grow up watching women breastfeed their whole life, because women don't cover their breasts as much, they're surrounded by their families and infants and mothers day to day, and they're watching this ritual act happen all the time.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so by the time they themselves have children, they might not know the feeling and the exact way to hold a baby, but they have visually seen it countless times, and so I think that's one part that we miss in modern day is that we actually have no idea what the intensity is from a 24-hour period of how a baby feeds.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can see a mother feeding her baby on a park bench or in a restaurant, and it's like a tiny little snippet of what's happening, and you don't actually see the three months before that period where she's got bleeding nipples and she doesn't know how to hold her baby, and maybe the baby's got a tongue tie, and all these struggles that happen, and we get to the point of having our first baby and trying to breastfeed, and yeah, it was was really similar for me as well.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was so hard.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: So hard.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think the other part you don't expect is how you will emotionally respond to what feeding looks like for your baby.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think now I can think about it with different perspectives, but at the time I think I was so intent on getting breastfeeding right that it was consuming to go, I have to get it right.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: At least for me, I need to get the timing right.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: I feel that.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And because I ended up being an under-supplier, I went through the whole triple feeding process.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, where you breastfeed and then you pump and then you give your baby a bottle because Ben still needed a top-up.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that was probably one of the most intense periods of our life.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I we survived it, and now we're like, what was that like?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: But at the time it was very intense, and it was a full-time thing for my husband and I because I remember the nurse saying, if this is what you want to do and you want to continue breastfeeding and um establish your supply, triple feeding is the way to do it while still giving your baby the enough food that it needs today.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: But you'll need your husband to step in.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can't survive unless it's two people because someone's got to be pumping, someone's breastfeeding, and I think I found that to be the most difficult part.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I um kept trying, I kept triple feeding for a long time, longer than the recommended time.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then I added in drugs as well.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: They say you can take tablets to help with your supply, and then I did that as well.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: So took the Domperodone, I think it is, and then continued triple feeding.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think the drugs helped?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not for me.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's the thing.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I ended up not being able to establish my supply.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: How long were you doing the triple feeding for?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say at least a month to six weeks, a long time.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think they say two weeks max.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did two weeks of double feeding, so not the formula on top.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just the breastfeeding, hand pumping, because I didn't use a machine because I hated it.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hand pumping, and then my partner would do that side of feeding with the pumped.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's exactly almost the same, right?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's the that's triple feeding if someone's giving a the bottle, whether it's the triple feeding, I think they usually mean added formula.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Added formula.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: But logistically it's the same effort, right?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: You still have to pump someone's to misuse a bottle, yeah.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the time, the intensity of it, you you the breastfeeding for starters.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about the 45 minutes.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, that's a pretty normal time for a baby to feed at the breast.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Close to an hour, and then you have to spend the gap in between them feeding, pumping.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then where are you meant to eat and sleep and go to the toilet?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's yeah, it d it drives you insane.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's horrible.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: I fucking hated it.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like you, it was probably the worst experience of my postpartum days.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is having to do that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's crazy.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: For as long as you did, is honestly incredible, Monica.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was crazy.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was um, and you don't I don't know about you, but I didn't hear these stories.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, you hear it's a little bit hard breast breastfeeding, but I actually didn't know what triple feeding, double feeding meant until the baby was here.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how I didn't know about it.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I have people with babies in my life, and this it's actually so common now.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've spoken to so many women that have had to do the double triple feeding combo, and it's not rare.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's actually it's more common than you think, to your point.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so you just go, wow, how did I survive that?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: And on top of that, my baby was a Velcro baby who didn't sleep unless he was sleeping physically on one of us.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Again, maybe next time I would know how to potentially put them down a bit more.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: But Ben, I'm not no joke, Carly, first 10 weeks of his life, he sat he slept exclusively on my partner or I through the day and through the night, which meant we were taking turns to shift throughout the night with a baby on top of us, because that was the only way he would sleep.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's beautiful thinking about it now to go.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: He had such a beautiful skin on skin time, literally 24-7 for the first two weeks of his life.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: How beautiful, right?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: But the reality for the parent is it broke us, it was very tough, and on top of that, triple feeding.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where you literally would be I would breastfeed and then pump, but then you have to swap over with your husband in the middle of the night, and then I would still breastfeed, pump, and then go back to sleep, even if it wasn't my shift, if that makes sense, because I still needed to do it to get to survive, yeah, and then go back to bed, even if my husband's up holding the baby, and so your sleep is only ever in two hour increments essentially, because I'm still getting up to do that first feed, so that's where over time we decided to transition to formula only.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: But in saying that, I found it really beautiful because I was able to keep comfort feeding up until eight months.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, what it meant was even though he was only getting a bit of milk from me, what I loved is if it was my turn and I was putting him to sleep, I'd actually go into the reverse.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: He'd get his bottle first and then my boob, and he would comfort feed and then fall asleep.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I did that for eight months.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful, and in some ways, I feel like I had the best of both worlds after that whole triple feeding moment where any member of my family could help feed Ben.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: But if he was unsettled, it was always me that could give him that comfort and go to sleep.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, I did breastfeed, I was able to feed him for eight months in my own way, and that was his comfort.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it was also the hack.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: If anyone was like, I can't get him to sleep, I'm like, just bring him here, he'll go to sleep.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, the boob is gold.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it was feed to sleep.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: I know there's different opinions on feed to sleep, but for us it was the easiest thing, so that's what we did.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: Feed to sleep.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then I can't remember how it stopped now that I think of it.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly think he just didn't need it anymore.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: I know he didn't need it for his nutrition.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you say eight months, I think it is around that eight, ten.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: When they start eating a lot more food, eat a lot more.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And some kids really love the boob for so long, but both my girls queened themselves during the day around that nine, ten month mark as well.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe it's that.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know when the last time will be, right?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think because at that time I think he needed less and less of the hack.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: He would be able to nap from the bottle.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: He would also feed to sleep with the bottle.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: So if he fell asleep with the bottle, then we'd transfer him.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I think he needed the mum hack less and less, and so at some point it just stopped.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was around eight, eight months where he just didn't need that anymore, and then that was it, no more comfort feeding.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so overall the journey was oh my goodness, so up and down.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: I probably wouldn't triple feed for that long next time.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Did you get any support in that time?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a lactation consultant, or were you just seeing your maternal health nurse through the council?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was seeing my maternal health nurse.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have a private lactation consultant.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: I did have a GP that was specialised in the area, if you will.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't seek extra support because in some ways it wasn't the latching, it was actually just my body not making enough milk.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we tried with the drugs, we tried with the pumping, we tried different um phalange phalange sizes.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: I remember buying every single size just in case.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, girl.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um there is no lack of trying here, yeah.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: No lack of trying.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've tried and tried as far as you can go.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tried.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you did amazing.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's this innate desire in us to get breastfeeding right.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us feel this intensity to to really want to breastfeed your baby.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when it doesn't work, it's really emotional, it's really hard.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit of a a point where you feel like a failure.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: And especially in those first couple of months, you deeply feel it.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: I remember every time this topic came up, I was crying, it was just so intense.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: I can talk about this now without the same level of emotional impact, but back.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Then I just it just was so deeply ingrained.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband would ask, Do you really think we should keep trying?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is really taxing on both of us.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say, No, I want to keep going.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's logical and illogical, right?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: You can probably look back and go, let's trade off the time versus the benefit.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: But at the time, you also just go, This is what I need.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your body is running on biology alone.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: There is no logic in anything.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're just doing this the evolutionary thing that your body wants to do.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you were going to have another baby, what would your approach be around breastfeeding the second time?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think I would know a lot more, firstly, around what's normal in terms of 45 minutes, etc.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's normal.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the reason why we ended up at the time supplementing, he wasn't putting on weight and he wasn't his jaundice.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't jaundiced, but he wasn't not jaundiced, if that makes sense.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: He was yellow for a while.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So there were signs that even though the timing was there, he was not putting on the weight that he needed, so he was under supply.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I would look at the facts a bit more and go, if we needed to start double feeding or triple feeding, do it sooner.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then if that doesn't work, just you don't need to persist beyond two, three weeks, whatever the recommendation is, because at some point it impacts your own health and your husband's health, and it's just not worth going through all of that.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: And if I could continue to comfort feed like I did, if you can do that, it's such a beautiful compromise to go, you are still there for their comfort.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: I had so many days on the couch in that first six, eight months parentally, where every nap was on the boob, and that's he's already had his feed, so I knew that was fine, but then the rest was on the boob.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was so beautiful.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: So nice, so nice, and so I think I just it just fills you with oxytocin and it just feels so gooey and yummy and it's so nice and it's so nice.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Feels like the right thing to do.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: And did you guys have any help around the house?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Were there people coming over cooking for you guys?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Were there people dropping off food, cleaning, caring for you?
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: What did that look like?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we had people drop off food, which is always lovely.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: So my parents dropped off food in that first little while, friends and family dropped off food as well, which is really great.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: So because he was constantly on us for sleep, the request was anything we could eat with a fork, so nothing that we had to, you know, literally use a knife.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not kidding, I think Carly, for the first two months, my husband and I did not cook.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: We physically didn't have the time when the baby's literally on you 24-7.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: So anything that we could cook really quickly or heat up and eat with one hand was what we ate.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I remember we would stock up on like the soy milks with like chocolate, like that's how we kept ourselves alive overnight.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: I remember we would sop over and we'd pour the chocolate soy milk and then a shot of coffee to go, here's your night cat.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how we would do things, and we'd look forward to that chocolate coffee before the night sheet to go, that's how you stay up.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: So everything was like in a cup or or eaten like that.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I say before, I wish I prepped a bit more because that first period, and again, multiple reasons because of the triple feeding, because he was a velcro baby, where we even with two people, we just didn't have the hands and the time and energy when you're so touched out all the time, and that's both of us.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: I did get more help from my mum, but I would say was post that first fourth trimester, if you will.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think my husband and I again we tried to do everything ourselves, which is again maybe a learning for next time.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: But after that period, I did have my mum come over.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think it was two days a week to help during the day.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: And my baby, he still remained a Velcro baby, so all his naps were on me or my mum.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: So just having someone else to hold him while he sleeps, and then you can go.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: So good that he was happy to be with other people though.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was, yeah.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not just you, he was that would be which is lucky, yeah.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: So having someone over just to hold him so I could go have a shower or take a nap was really good.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: And now that I remember the first four months, I had insomnia, Carly, like postpartum insomnia, which is the other thing.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're so exhausted, and you finally get time to yourself to have a nap, and you just can't.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me it was anxiety induced where I just could not relax.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was just so worried about my baby.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: Worried in a sense that I wasn't with her and she's gonna need me.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if I go to sleep and she needs me, what's gonna happen?
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds so crazy now, but at the time I just felt like I couldn't step away at all, even though my partner is so incredibly beautiful and capable, and we had people in our lives that were here, and they're all extremely wonderful people and capable, but I don't know, it was this in innate feeling inside my body that I just felt I couldn't relax.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I totally hear you and felt that too, Carly.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a guilt, and it makes no sense, right?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: You need to step away, you need to let the other people in your life take care of you and the baby.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I felt like this sounds so um funny, but I would say to my husband, I'm gonna go do a stress poo, but I meant like I'm gonna go poo really quickly so that I could come back, which sounds so you know, just go do your natural business.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I'm gonna go do a stress poo now.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I meant like I'm gonna do it really quickly so I can come back.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other two Do you think it's because we sorry to come back to it?
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I was just gonna say, I think it's because as women we're taught to be it's a good thing if you can be an independent woman in your life and do everything for yourself.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to having a baby, that whole mantra and way of being just absolutely backfires on you.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're forced to ask for help.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have those skills, which I absolutely did not have those skills, like I am have probably been a hyper-independent person my whole adult life.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: I moved out of home when I was like 18 and just supported myself since then, and having to ask people for help, especially to care for my baby, felt so hard and just something that I wasn't meant to do.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't even something that I thought I would have to do or need to do.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the second time round was lovely because I got to practice that a bit more, and like I still have a long way to go, but I think definitely that first time that's where a lot of that anxiety for me came from was that I should be able to do all this, and actually don't know how to ask people to step in for me.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: I definitely think so, because there's something about if you are hyper functioning, performing in other aspects of your life, and maybe I had the biased opinion that this would be a cakewalk, but I was like, surely if I'm really organized in every other domain of my life, and this is now my domain, it's my child, surely I will have this right, I've got it.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I found it, I think it was almost like organ rejection.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was almost like the more you think you're going to be prepared, and the more you think I'm gonna be organized and controlled, the worse it is.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because you cannot control a baby's schedule, their feeding, when they will sleep, when they're hungry.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's all out of control.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: And for people that are really neurotic, like I am, it gets worse, right?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because you cannot control things, and so I think that anxiety that you talked about, Carly, was certainly true for me, and I didn't properly address my postpartum anxiety for a while, and so I think that didn't help, right?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because then you're not sleeping, I wasn't sleeping due to the reasons you discussed, but then you're not sleeping because you're looking at the watch and going, I have another hour of nap time and I'm not sleeping, or I slept four hours last night, and you look at the clock and then you get stressed.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know what's funny about that, Kylie?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: So after the first ten weeks, I mentioned we had Ben sleeping on us for shift, then my husband came back to work.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: He would come home from work, and then I would sleep from about seven till midnight.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd do a four, four, five-hour block of sleep, and this is post the triple feeding, so I wasn't waking up to feed Ben as well.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was just that's my moment to sleep.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I couldn't sleep at all, other times I could manage a couple of hours, and then from midnight to the next day, I would stay up because Ben's on me, so I'm watching movies at night, so that was my shift, and then in the morning I'd be funny.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'd go to a cafe and I'd order lunch food at 8 a.m.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because for me, I was like, guys, this is because you've lived a day.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: I've lived a day, I've been up all night and I lived a day, and then it's my lunch now.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm entitled to this greasy breakfast.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good on you.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: But what I was saying is so after that shift point, and then we got a snoo, for us, it really worked.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: So Ben transitioned from the bassinet moves.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: I know, we were like, what is that?
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds so over the top.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: It is not.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: If we had our time again, we would just start from the snoo if you had one of those babies.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, luckily, you know, after sleeping on us for that long, ten weeks, we transitioned to a snoo, and that got him sleeping quite well, all things considered.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: He slept really well, and then at six months.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: How old do you think he was?
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: Say ten weeks.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: So moved to a snoo, and then he was able to sleep in the snoo.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: He still woke up like a normal baby would, like one or two times a night, which is incredible for that age.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: So one or two times a night.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: Incredible.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: We'd get up and bottle feed him, put him back.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: Good for you guys though.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, you're finally getting to catch up on sleep.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so the craziest thing is the snoo we had set up in the lounge room, because that was like our main room where we used to sleep at night and watch TV and whatnot.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: So we had the snoo in the lounge, and so over time he was able to sleep in this lounge, and then we slept in our bedroom.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, in some ways, he went from sleeping on us to technically a separate room, right?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's not in our immediate vicinity.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then he went from snoo to cot.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: Again, he actually did okay for a little while, but then I found I still had insomnia.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was quite crazy.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: I still couldn't sleep.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: My husband would say I kept checking the baby cam.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: Again, irrational now, but in the moment, that's just what I felt like I needed to do as a mum.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then for us, and this is our what worked for us as a family, is he started to wake up more and more, and we were getting really tired from getting up and moving rooms and getting him is from eight months we decided to co-sleep.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: That works for our family from eight months, and my insomnia stopped overnight.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it was almost like I need there is so much happening underneath our external facade that there's this magnetism, I think, between baby and mum where you just need to be next to each other and close to each other.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you recognize this when you started co-sleeping together, but would you wake up minutes before Ben would wake up and you'd be on this?
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: I experienced this, I would we'd be on this same kind of wavelength where I don't know what it was.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: My brain would wake me up, and then like seconds later, she would wake up and start crying.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't as jarring to be woken up by crying because my body was already, oh, I'm gonna have to breastfeed her in a minute.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we also co-slept, by the way.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: She was right there, and I found that so incredible and phenomenal that I was kind of like, wow, there is so much happening underneath that we are just not aware of.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I think your story about your body just not being able to relax until until he was he was right there with you.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: You could touch him and hear him breathing.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Baby cams are great, but it's not that human, yeah.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not warm body next to you.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I totally get that.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband talks about it.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was just overnight I could sleep again, and we all slept much better, and we still co-sleep now at two and a half.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I say all this having tried every single type of sleep, right?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like I mentioned to you, he has chess slept for eight weeks, he has slept in a snoo and a cot from a young age in a separate room.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've co-slept, then we went back and tried a toddler bed for a little bit, and then we've gone back to co-sleeping.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we've tried everything, so there is no judgment on any type of sleep, because I've tried it all, right?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: Even things before recommendations, like he slept in his own room before it was recommended, but then he also co-slept before it's technically recommended, and he chest slept, which is not recommended at all.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I have done everything, a bit of everything, so I understand what it's like to have every type of sleep.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Funny, before you have a baby, we all have these ideas of what our family's gonna look like and what feeding's gonna look like and sleeping's gonna look like, and then you become a mum or a parent, and it all just goes out the window because you get your humble pie served to you, and you then are like, okay, there is no judgment about how other families do things because you just have to figure out what works for you guys, what makes everyone get more sleep and be able to function, and yeah, whatever that looks like is great.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just gotta go on the path of finding it, and I think that's the hardest thing about postpartum.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some people get unicorn babies, but most of us go on this windy path of trying this and trying that, and if this working for a little bit, and then having to change it for another few months, and it's this continuous changing of trying, just trying to find the thing that works for everyone, and yeah, it can take a really long time to get to that point.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but I think it's pretty natural for everyone just have to walk their own path on that.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, it's not the same for anyone, and I think sleep was definitely the biggest surprise in many ways for us, is it's just been a total journey of different trial and error to get to where we are today, which is something now we're really comfortable with.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I tell you what, Carly, I still don't regret the first I say this now, I don't regret the first eight, ten weeks because I truly do feel I formed such a strong attachment to my baby through that we were able to do.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: I know not everyone has the support to do that, but I'm glad I did it in the end.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I even tell my toddler now, he knows all the stories of when he was little, and he can see the videos that are captured and the photos that are captured of him as a little boy, and I tell him you literally slept here all night on me or on your dad, and he talks about it.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes when he's upset, he says, Mummy, I want to sleep on your tummy like a baby.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's what he does when he's upset.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, Even we can sleep now, but he'll roll into my tummy if he feels scared.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's his safe spot.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I just go, That's so beautiful.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he knows it, he's like, I can't see that video again when I was a baby on your tummy.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: Love that, Monica.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's so wonderful.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so in some ways, I'm like, I'm glad he feels so safe and loved.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: You guys did a phenomenal job with pretty much no support.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he you were talking about Ben being a really lovely, beautiful toddler, and I have no doubt there is a correlation between the love and safety that you guys provided to him in those first few weeks.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just he he was he felt safe and loved.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think I don't know if I am allowed to say I agree.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: I actually agree, I think so.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was so tough, it nearly broke us.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: But looking back, I know he is so secure and loved, and one thing, like it's uh it's quite a beautiful thing that we do with him is we ask him to tuck us in to bed.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: And have you tried that before, Carly, where they you should ask Carly, because then you're they mirror what they what they do is probably mirror everything.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: So if I say to Ben, can you tuck me in?
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: He will then put the blanket on me, he'll say, Mummy, it's okay, I'm here, you're safe, I love you.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then he gives me a kiss, and that's how he tucks me in.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so do you know what I mean?
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like when me and he did that the first time, I went, that's how he experiences our love.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: He cuddles and he kisses and he says, You're safe, I'm here, I love you.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I go, you know what?
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: That was the sacrifice for the first 10 weeks.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_02: He absolutely knows it, right?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: That we're there in closeness for him.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: 100%, and I can see it now, and I think that's where it's other things.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: We might genuinely he might be a unicorn toddler, right?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: That first 10 weeks was not a unicorn baby, but he's now a unicorn toddler where he's genuinely terrific twos, not terrible twos.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in part, I hope anyway, it's the love, the closeness, and the skin on skin that he continues to get to this day.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: So he doesn't want my PJ shirt on, it's skin on skin mummy, even at night now.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh putting him to bed, mummy, no, no shirt, because he wants the skin on skin.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so he still gets that every night.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing that.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk a little bit now about what returning to work was like for you?
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to say how much maternity leave you had, how much you took, whether you extended it, whether you went back early, what did that whole environment of going back to work look like for you?
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: And also your partner, could you let us know how much he had?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: Both my partner and I were quite lucky.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: Both our workplaces are very generous for leave, and it doesn't distinguish from birth parent and non-birth parent.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: So my workplace at the time when I was during Matt Leave parental leave was 26 weeks.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's six months full pay.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and my husband, I think, was 20 weeks or 18 weeks full pay.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I took a year, as in that's was the plan, and that was what I did in the end, a year.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband took about, I think it was eight weeks at the start, and then he took the rest later when Ben was older.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or like it was six months paid and then six months unpaid/slash government pay.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I was super lucky as well with my workplace, and I actually didn't know this, but they paid the remaining six months super to me when I returned to work.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I was actually really lucky, six months full pay and super, and then six months super only.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, many ways, leaving the workplace for a year, I did not lose out on super as a birth parent.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: So incredibly lucky.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: My recommendation to people is just to check your parental leave policy because they may have something in there around super, around the unpaid component.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think the gov federal government's made it law now.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that's coming in until next year.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, your workplace must have been doing their own thing with that.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: Must be.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was not expecting that lump sum when I came back and I got it, and I was like, wow, that's incredible.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure it's up to a certain amount because I had six months unpaid, but it just meant there was no interruption to my own super in that year.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I was very lucky from uh that standpoint.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: What I did do though was say I planned to come back Jan because Ben was born Jan.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_02: I came back Jan the next year, is around October we sent Ben to daycare two days a week to start prepping him for daycare and also to give me a bit of rest.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like time.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um Ben was older by then.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: He was already running, he walked at 10 months, so he was already very active, and my mum no longer could look after him for those days.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: We decided to go, you know what, let's do childcare two days a week from I think it was about October, to give him two months lead time to settle down, orientate, get to know his teachers and peers.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we're really glad we did that in the end because he actually got a lot of illness out of his system, firstly, in those first two months.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was there, right?
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was home, so I could pick him up, get him if he was so.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say it was probably a good leeway for you to have him be in care and you're not trying to juggle work at the same time.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: When he can be relaxed, that you can go and get him anytime.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, in many ways, I was incredibly grateful that I did that.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: I just had some time for me then after that long year, and I was able to spend some time on myself.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: We were able to cover things if he was sick, and then when he started in Jan when I returned to work, he was comfortable with his daycare routine.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: I came back to work three days a week at the start, and then I increased to four days, and then five days, so I transitioned slowly to five days, and then as we were saying at the start, I'm now still five days, and he goes to daycare five days a week.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have other support to care for him during the week.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's daycare full time, but that's our village, and he loves his teachers there, he loves his peers.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: Part of the maybe part of the ease is because he does enjoy it.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: I personally don't have the guilt.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: I know there are parents that feel really guilty.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sending to daycare or for having long days at daycare.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: For me, I can personally tell you, Carly, I don't feel that.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Then maybe that's also because I know he's comfortable, and then I know we have time with him, and then for me the time is also overnight, right?
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_02: All the cuddles and kisses that we have overnight, that's my quality time with him.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he's turning out to be so wonderful that it just works for our family.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're right in what you said that everyone has their own things that they struggle with.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think our own lives that we've lived have influence on how we then mother and how we parent and what sorts of things we're really passionate about in terms of the life we lived and what affected us as children.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think whether you know it or not, I think that actually really plays into how we approach certain things like childcare, absolutely, breastfeeding, or sleeping together, or anything baby related.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just think there's all these other influences.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: You say it's not logical, and I'm like, yeah, I think it's because it's through lived experience, and maybe we want to do something different for our children that wasn't done for us.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I totally get that.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say it's still, you know, he still gets sick often.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_02: Last week he was sick two days a week.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_02: And previous to that, I think we had um suspected hand foot mouth, which ended up being an ear infection.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there are times that's not.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's just relentless.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's relentless.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have kids in daycare, but they are sick all the time as well.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a it's just babies in the world.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: They just get sick, yeah.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_02: They just get sick.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: And whether you take them to a playground or play center or playgroup, they're gonna get sick from that too, right?
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: Just living life.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you need to find a way to manage that.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's been part of the challenge as well, is going back to this topic at the start with my husband and I both working full-time.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you both have similarly demanding jobs at a similar level, we can't go, your job's more flexible, so you need to take bed.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't work like that.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: We just have to try the best way based on the day, based on the hour.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm we're not happy.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you chat with each other first before you decide?
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: We basically do.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just picking him up or taking a day off?
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_02: On the d on the days off, it's more, Carly, it's more like we play it by ear.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_02: Depends on the meetings that we can or can't move.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we try and both cover things.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: But there are also days like last Thursday where my husband, I needed to go into the office that day.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_02: So my husband just took the day off carrier's leave or took a flexible day and looked after Ben.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_02: So there are times when we just go, it's alright, I'll take care of his leave, we'll do the full day.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_02: And there are other days where we don't take care of his leave and we try and both work through it, which is most of the time, and we go trade-off meetings literally to try and make things work.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's not always easy, but also I think workplaces are more understanding these days, too.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's a parent, there's lots of parents with young kids.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was gonna ask how receptive your workplace has been with you returning as a mother and needing to take a lot more time off, especially in a senior role that you're in.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: How's that experience been?
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest, I've been really lucky.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: Very supportive workplace, very supportive manager, very supportive colleagues who all have either young kids now or have had young kids.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I think if anything, it's me.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I could have taken like a proper carist day, right?
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: But instead I'm trying to do both, which is part of my personality.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have the formula right either.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: And this is still one kid, not two.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_02: So even one is quite a balance when the sick day throws things off because it's not planned.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Again, if it's not planned and out of my control, that's where my personality is like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_02: But otherwise, I might tell you about how my husband and I have divvied things, if you will, during the week because it's a little bit different, to be honest, than others.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because we've tried different things as well and we've landed on something that works for us for now.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I know, for example, common things would be you split, pick up, and drop off.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty common.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_02: But what we've done is because particularly for my husband, he needs, and it's personality, it's part mental health, is he needs some time to decompress and um not feel like there's pressure to turn up or deliver.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's like a need for predictable segmented time, which is hard with a kid, right?
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: So what we've worked out over the last year, plus, is the best way to do that is rather than split things up over a day to go, I take evening, but you take bedtime because we're one on, one off.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_02: We tried to do that for a while, like one night on, one night off for bedtime.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but then morning and evening was also different.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we're losing track as well of who did what.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of doing that, what we've done is we take full days each.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it's full end-to-end accountability, if you will, end-to-end.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say, so at the moment, because my work is quite demanding, my husband does Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, let's say, end-to-end.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, what does that mean?
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: On those days, he does drop off, pack the daycare bags, pick up daycare comms, cooks dinner, cleans the house, puts Ben to bed, end-to-end.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you do all those things, which means the other person can work late, go to the gym, do whatnot.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Unless they're asked, they know they can switch off for the day.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then on my days, I do the same thing: drop-off, daycare, pick-up, dinner.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we also made sure it's end-to-end, not just childcare, but household responsibilities.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because like you might be doing pickup, but then I was doing all the dinners, for example, at one point.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I enjoy cooking dinner, I genuinely do.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: But after a while, I was cooking a lot more, right?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: So in this new model, it's I don't have to cook every night on the days that I'm not cooking.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: I can work late, I can catch up with a friend, I can read a book.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: And that genuinely works for us now, but I feel like it's different.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't talked to many working parents like me who take full day.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_02: It can be hard, right?
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've worked a full day, but I'm still putting Ben to bed, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, yeah, or whatnot.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I know the next day you know you're getting time off.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Which is actually gold.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love hearing this.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so you must get to the days where you just you're of child work and housework.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're just your normal old self.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You wake up, you get dressed, you go to work, you get to choose what you want to do with your time after work if there's any.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Come home, have dinner with the family or whatever.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that would be a brilliant way to feel more feel less like you're in that hamster wheel.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You actually get time to switch off, and also you don't have that mental load of juggling, like you said.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Who's doing pickup today, who's putting Ben to bed, who's cooking dinner, and that actually takes a lot of energy as well in terms of who's cooking dinner, what are we gonna have for dinner, and who's gonna bath the girls tonight and who's gonna Although we do that together.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine for other families it's who's doing this task, and that whole conversation in itself is added mental load.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas you guys having your set full days honestly sounds great for parents that both work.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine it's so full on doing your full day of everything, but then you know you're getting your day off as well.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And do you do one-on-one off, one on one off, or do you have days together?
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sunday's our day where we there's no rules, if you will, today.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, and sometimes it breaks down, right?
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because we're like, who's doing the nap?
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then it gets a bit like, oh, having structure works for us.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's, you know, default is let's say morning, evening, and unless there's something on, like this podcast, then of course the other person supports.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um but otherwise during the week and we've changed things, right?
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_02: We've changed some days.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_02: For example, when I my work started to ramp up, my husband now does more of the front of the week.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas I used to do more of the front of the week.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now it stands as he does Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_02: I do Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and then Sundays shared.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And particularly for my husband, like that hamster will feeling is something that actually distresses him.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: He really doesn't feel well if there's that hamster wheel feeling.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_02: For me, maybe that's less of a trigger, but I have different triggers as we all do.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I think ZimPlace particularly has helped him to go.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_02: There are days where I can fully switch off, but then the days that he's on, he's doing the full thing end-to-end.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I know it's a bit creative and different.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_02: In some ways, it feels like you're solo parenting for a full day, but we're still eating dinner together if we're home and we're still spending time together.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's just we know who's default on that day.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it works, but I think Carly, it works for one.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure how you would do it with two because going end to end for two would genuinely be hard.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you can do it if you knew there was a break coming.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe two would be hard.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: But for one, I've started to tell more people about this, and they're like, oh, you might have cracked something because Thursday is great.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_02: I love going out with friends on a Thursday night.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_02: So go to work in my own time, go out after work, go for drinks like I like to do, or go for dinner with my girlfriends, come home whatever time.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, it's incredible.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because then you also don't have that guilt of being like Hayden's at home cooking dinner and putting Ben to bed and oh my god, I should be there, and blah blah blah.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you just this is what you guys do and it works.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my other question was Did you have to convince did one of you have to convince the other to do this, or did you both talk about it and think this is great?
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Good question.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_02: So to be honest, neither of us came up with this idea, our couples counsellor did, because we proactively saw a couples counsellor.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_02: I know many people do, particularly when a kid comes into the picture, because there's so much new stuff that just comes up for couples, and so I just is great.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing that.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_02: No worries, Harley.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's yes.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know so many many of my friends who started couples counselling, literally, either during pregnancy or something.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a great investment.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I think she just listened to us going, You're both full-time, it sounds like trade, you know, you're trading hours and it's just not working.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_02: She was like, I'm exhausted just listening to you both.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, Why don't you try this?
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And she gave us the idea, and then we trialed it, and to be honest, it's worked really well.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I think I hesitated a bit more.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_02: My husband was like a full for it.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the idea sounds great, let's do it.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I was like, Oh, but it sounds a bit lonely, don't you reckon?
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like doing end to end.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_02: And also it's hard, right?
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's a lot of that's an intense day when you have intense work and end-to-end and your kid doesn't go to bed.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: As well, it's like on days where you're getting a little bit sick or you're just having a bad mental day.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be 100%.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be even harder.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but you know what, we persisted, and the other thing that our cancer good tip is she's like anything you try for at least three months, right?
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Even if it gets hard, she's like just keep going for a little bit more just to see if it works.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it's now been six months of us trying this, and to be honest, it's working, except for Sunday.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest, like falls apart.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Even today, I'm like, who's doing bedtime and dinner?
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_02: No idea.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I feel like weekends are like that in the world.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like yeah, just you're both there, whereas usually in the week everyone's doing their designated role, and you get to the weekend or Sunday for you guys because you get to spend it as a family, and you're just like, Oh, I'm so out of rhythm.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what are we gonna do?
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do?
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do something fun, but like what are we gonna do?
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, and then you spend half the day just talking about what you should do.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so true.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_02: But we're still learning too, right?
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like to your point, Carly, if someone's sick, obviously you say, Can you help me for the evening or the morning?
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sick.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_02: But then do you say, But I'll swap you for another day?
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's but maybe you do that anyway.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I did drop off this morning a bit extra.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Do you swap it for another I don't know, it's still not perfect, it still feels sometimes a bit.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are seasons where one person's doing a lot more, and I think there's seasons where it swaps.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes maybe it feels like it's lingering where it's your turn to do a lot more, but yeah, I think always it it comes around.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're a trading type of couple, then go for it.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'll trade you one day for another day.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta trial it.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's either gonna work, it's either not gonna work, you're gonna learn a lot of stuff.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And coming back to all the points we were making before, being a family and having babies is just a whole lot of trial and error.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually you'll find your rhythm and then it will change, and then you'll have to find a new one.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_00: But parenting is really just teaching you to let go of control of what you think it should look like and giving new things a go.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is an amazing time to do our last three quick fire questions.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_00: If a utopian world existed with unlimited resources and finances available, what would your dream postpartum period look like?
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest, if money wasn't an issue, I definitely would lean into some of the Eastern philosophy for postpartum.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um my family wasn't as big for that.
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_02: I know in Eastern Asian cultures there is confinement periods where it's all about them looking after the mother and eating really nourishing meals and things like that.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think that's commonplace in Australia or Western society to really lean into the mother in that way.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_02: So if my life was different or money wasn't the issue, I think imagine that first three months, which is the most difficult three months for any mum and the dad as well, right?
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Having that additional support around the house and around the baby in that way, I think would relieve a lot of those tensions that come up in the first three months.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that would be mine.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I actually read I think it's called the Fourth Trimester, which is really influential from East Asian culture, and they had heaps of recipes in there with using all these types of ingredients and herbs to create these warming soups for the mother.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_00: But doing it on my own was just ridiculous.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't I couldn't do it.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's like the book is actually for your family, it's not for the mother.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I loved it, it was a beautiful book to read and had a lot of great resources, but I couldn't do anything with it, it wasn't for me.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I agree.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wholeheartedly.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_00: There needs to be this little cocoon around mums that's currently not there.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number two.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_00: How has becoming a mother changed or perhaps cemented your view of how women are portrayed in the world?
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think if anything, there's a lot more incredible respect for every woman that has come before me, just knowing what they have experienced through pregnancy, labour, early postpartum.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_02: There is just something incredible that every birthing woman has gone through and survived.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_02: That I just go, I just can't believe we are where we are today as a civilization, and we're able to all go through those things as hard as it is and as different as we are.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's just respect, particularly the first three months.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can't believe I didn't lean in more to some of my friends.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know, but you don't know what you don't know as well in those times.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely found myself thinking, fuck, I could have been such a better friend if I had just known.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, last one.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's one thing you would tell a new mum about to go through their own matrescence and postpartum experience?
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think to be honest, becoming a mum is a bit like getting married in the sense that it's not about the wedding day, it's about the marriage.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think for me I was a bit biased towards preparing for labour through classes and reading books and whatnot.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's important you still do that.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously there's still things I missed, right?
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like learning more about breastfeeding.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_02: But to be honest, there's a lot of other resources or conversations you can have, particularly with your partner, about how you want to parent and how you want to be a partner to each other in the first three months and the first six months of the first year that we just didn't cover.
• 1:22:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think if you had a more realistic idea of what relationships will be like in that first year, I think it would prevent a lot of those shocks that naturally come for anyone.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it would just be that to go, it's actually the bit after.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_02: I know it sounds obvious, but it's just like the wedding day versus a marriage.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_02: I would really think a little bit forward to go, what happens if I've not slept all night, or what happens when you go back to work?
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_02: What's our philosophy for that?
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_02: That would be my number one tip.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to my friend about this the other day, actually.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, why don't we talk more about the postpartum period when we're pregnant?
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the reality is when you're pregnant, especially the first time, it's such an intense period because you've got your scans, you're watching what you eat, you've got to go to all your appointments, you're experiencing this thing for the first time as well, and you're so in pregnancy mode.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_00: That even preparing for birth takes a lot of energy to pull yourself out of pregnancy and think, fuck, I've got to put my birth hat on now and think about what kind of birth I want.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I want a birth?
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want that to look like?
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of assistance do I want with that?
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then to go the step further and be like, now I've got to think about what breastfeeding is going to look like and what my home is going to look like and what we're going to look like as a family, and what are our family philosophies?
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I absolutely agree with you in that point.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Of I actually think you've framed that so beautifully in the analogy with the wedding and it being not about this celebration of the wedding, but everything that's going to come after that.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's really brilliant, and it is totally the same.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is the pregnancy and the birth is fucking nothing compared to everything that comes after that, and especially the way you just speak to each other when you're stressed, I think is a really important thing to talk about.
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And things like what do you want your family unit to look like?
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_00: What's important to you guys?
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is it spending time together as much time as possible?
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it everybody doing what they need to do to maintain their own individual health and so on?
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much, Monica.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've honestly been an incredible guest and shared so much, and I've loved the way you have talked about postpartum and sharing the way that your family operates.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really going to be helpful for new mums and current mums and anyone entering this space and just wanting to know a little bit more about what it actually is.
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was lovely to just reflect right and take some time out to think about all that's being and all that's to come.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I enjoyed the conversation.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Mothering.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a mother yourself, I hope it provided comfort that you are not alone in your journey.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're about to be a mother or have a new mother in your life, I hope it provided some understanding of the complex emotions and experiences women go through during this life-changing transition.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a one-woman show, so I would love, love, love, love, love to hear what you thought.
• 1:26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribing is the greatest way you can help this podcast reach other mothers who need it.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you rate and leave a comment on here, I will be eternally grateful to you.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the Instagram page, which is at by Mothering, B-Y Mothering.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of opinions on motherhood and share all sorts of things mother-related on there.
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be a guest on the podcast, I really encourage you to reach out to me.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is a section on my website where you can submit, and I'll leave a link for it in the show notes.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can find all the relevant links and information mentioned in this podcast below in the show notes as well.
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have a beautiful day, and I will see you next time.