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Transcript

Heidi’s Story · Leanne's Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, welcome back to Motherhood Honestly.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Season two is finally and I'm not sure how we made it this far.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new around here, this is the podcast where we talk about the bits of motherhood that don't always make it onto Instagram.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: The messy bits, the funny bits, the heartbreaking bits, and everything else in between.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been here since season one, welcome back.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're the reason I'm sorry recording season two.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: This season is bigger, more honest, I'm following incredible women and maybe men or sharing their journeys, and I cannot wait for you to hear them.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So grab a card, set an end, and let's get into season two of Motherhood Honesty.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Heidi.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Heidi's been a quiet supporter of Motherhood Honesty since the very beginning, so it feels really special to finally have her on the top of sharing her story.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: From the heartbreak of losing her birth baby in twelve weeks, her two pregnancy is blighted by severe debilitation sickness.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Heidi opens up to me about the physical and emotional toll pregnancy took on her.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about gestational diabetes, birth trauma, anxiety, breastfeeding struggles, and the reality of finding herself again after becoming a mother.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Amongst the difficult moments, Heidi also shows how finding her ability to her NCT moment, discovering the healing power of marathon, and joining a local fire help where we connect with herself.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: She also opens up about the difficult decisions she faces now.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is a conversation about loss, survival, friendship, finding your identity, and the parts of others that we just don't always talk about.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So grab a cover, set a limb, but this is Heidi's story.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the podcast.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, thank you for having me.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Heidi, I've been here uh it's five to eight and I got here at seven and we've already just started recording.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, I've just had a really cute little play with Oliver because he is beautiful.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's crummy.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be one next month.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: This month this month of crummy! How are you feeling about it?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like genuinely, are you upset?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Nostalgic.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I blinked, and everyone told me that would happen.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: You'd blink five minutes, it's here, and I'm like, oh my god, it's actually happening.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's been it's been the best year, the hardest year, the most emotional year of my life.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, I'm so proud of him.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm proud of Sam and I for bringing up such a gorgeous little bubbly little boy.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You were the other one.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm proud of myself too.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I grew that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you grew that.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just watched a little video of you him in your baby, in your baby, in your belly.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like you grew, you grew him.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you've been uh I just wanted to jump in.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've been a little a long time follower since the start of other honesty.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So just I want to say thank you for that because I really appreciate that.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um people tell me that the yeah, you are an OG.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like you told me you wrote your story out months ago.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I never clicked.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I clicked him out.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm glad you've pressed them now because now we're here.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um when you sent me your story, yeah, it was it was a lot, and I you've had a really tough time.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, but there's also been some positives in it as well.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk through your story today.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you're married to your lovely husband Sam, who we've just met, made a cracking cover if you listen, Sam.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Great cover in a Highland cow.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Highland cows live don't free in the town, as you can see, cushions, highland cows.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have three highland cow doorstops.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy cow lady.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh um, so yeah, sorry, you're like married to your lovely husband Sam, and you've got your beautiful baby boy Oliver, who I've just had lots of cuddles with.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to take you back to the before Oliver your first pregnancy.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you fell pregnant two weeks after removing your implant.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, it was quick.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: How did you feel when you discovered that you were pregnant?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess, yeah, from there happened.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a lot of couple friends that always said, Oh, come on, it's your turn, like come on your turn.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: We really wanted to get settled, like get married, buy a house, kind of do it a traditional way, I suppose.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: A part of me was always afraid of being pregnant, so I think I low key put it off.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if Sam had it his way, we would have been pregnant a long time ago.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: He has always wanted to be a dad, and I knew he'd be a fantastic dad.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: A part of me was like, Oh, I'm just really I don't know if my body can do this, I don't know if I can do this.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, even though I think I'm quite maternal, yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was just that faith in my own body.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually I convinced myself to get my implant taken out.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: After I think I had it in like nine years, so I was kind of dubious that it would do anything straight away anyway.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because they say, didn't they?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like probably like normally like 12 months or so.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like well, the nurse was like, do not expect anything to happen for at least a month.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, right, Joy, thank you very much for that information.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: That is um, but it was it was literally a week before I was due to start a new job.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of like, I'm banking on this information, Joy, to to be accurate because I can't be pregnant now.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I took the online out, it was all really exciting.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I felt really nervous, and then we we would not we we've never been people that have been like, right, I've done I've got an app, I'll track it, you know.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: We've never been like that.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could say the same.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't say I was that pregnant, but I wasn't.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, it just it stressed me out from why I think it would have delayed things because a lot of it is psychological, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I I didn't download a single app.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, look, my legs are open, what will be will be.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is it.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we just kind of crept on as normal, like we've enjoyed it, and then I started my job, all was great, and I suddenly felt one morning really nauseous, and I'm quite an anxious person.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a severe anxiety disorder diagnosed when I was about five or six years old.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I thought, oh here we go, IBS, up to it again.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they want an IBS, don't they?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I blame my IBS for everything, but I just thought, oh no, this is this is different, like this feels a bit weird.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was in a bit of denial for a few days, but then I was also low-key excited, like so um Sam got a test for me, and then I remember I got sent home from work because I just felt so nauseous to the point where I couldn't like couldn't speak to anyone without wanting to gag.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was just o it overwhelming.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I went home and appeared on a stick, yeah, positive within seconds, the strongest line I've ever seen.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Loki had a meltdown.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, holy shit, oh my god, okay, we're two months, and so we're two weeks in.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So this was like middle of September, yeah.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I remember calling Sam and I was like, get home, get home now.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I I actually forgot to say why.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, please just get home, and he was major panicking, driving down the roads like a crazy man.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: He opens the door and I just stood there with a stick, like am I pregnant?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was lovely, it was so good, and like the nausea was kind of there, but nothing big to worry about.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then it got to the sort of four or five week mark, yeah, and then it hit me like a bus.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I had to carry food around with me everywhere, and obviously, being a teacher in a new school was you're not really supposed to eat in the classroom.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, I physically couldn't have a conversation with anybody without like shoving a bit of cheese or a cracker in my mouth because it was like my throat was closing up and I just wanted to gag all the time.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I felt this constant seasickness wherever I went.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a horrible feeling.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have it a lot, but you know, the times I did have it, I I couldn't, you know.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And whoever named it morning sickness needs to be fired.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Basicness is all day.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've had so many women say the same thing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So many.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that was coined by a man, you know.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mine was always around three o'clock when I used to feel terrible.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: 3 pm was my time.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wow, the ginger nuts, and I'm like, oh my god, I cannot actually have ginger nuts anymore.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I am scarred.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so the nausea kind of came out of nowhere and hit, and it was awful.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was like, look, suck it up, get through it, you're fine, it'll go by 12 weeks.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: As they all say.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it got to I think I told you earlier, it got to about the six-week mark, and I just had this pit of the stomach feeling that something wasn't right.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone I spoke to about it, my mum, some close friends at work, even Sam, they were all like, No, just you're just this is a new sensation for you, like it's it's a new feeling, you don't really know what you're feeling.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Try and be positive.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Okay, so obviously, with my anxiety, I was like overthinking things.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't sleep because I was so anxious, and because obviously, being so early, you don't feel kicks, I didn't really have any cravings, like my only evidence was this god-awful nausea.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then another six weeks, and I just had the nausea cracked on, went to the scan, and I just knew I knew before they showed it to me.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and luckily, we had a really lovely scenographer the first time who said, Um, I'm really I'm so sorry um that baby was there um and has no longer is no longer with us and has passed.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was like the ground had swallowed me up and I physically couldn't talk.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was like even the nausea took a break, like everything just stopped for me.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I remember that feeling just sat there like I failed.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've I can't do what I was meant to do.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's an element of that, isn't there, especially when women do miscarriage because they feel like it's your that you know you it's your fault and it's it's not, you know, it's not the case.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: You feel solely responsible and you feel like you've let Sam down and you've let even like future grandparents down.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like it the list was endless, and I just I felt like I just I wasn't fit for purpose anymore.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and like I said to you earlier, that I didn't even get to see the screen, she didn't even show me, so I never got that turnaround screen moment.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they took into a private room, I sobbed, Sam comforted me, and they they were great to a degree.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then, in with so that was about late October, early November.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: In between then and December was probably one of the lowest moments of my entire life.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You said you endured like months of like physical and emotional pain.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, the nausea continued, yeah.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they called it a mist miscarriage, right?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So my body technically didn't realise that the the baby wasn't alive anymore.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: My body continued producing HCG, so the nausea ramped straight up.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was like couldn't even walk without wanting to pass out, it was just so bad.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was still getting hormone fluctuations, like my body just did not know it wasn't pregnant anymore.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: They said to me, I've got a choice, I can induce miscarriage myself, I can wait for it to happen, or I can have surgery.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never ever had surgery before, so I was like, That is not a route I want to go down.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I will wait.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I waited and waited.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, nothing happened.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Then I went back to the hospital and they um induced the miscarriage, so it was a pessary at the vagina, bab, nice and dignified.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, it should happen within 24 hours.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Funny story.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sam chose that night to go out with friends.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna hate me for this, but he was like, Look, it's not gonna so this was like five o'clock in the evening, he was like, This isn't gonna happen straight away.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you've got time to go have a bath and chill, you'll be okay within three hours.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be TMI, but like it was just I was in the bathroom, yeah, it was blood everywhere, it was just it was horrific, and I don't wish it would be my worst enemy, it was awful.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and obviously I rang him, he came straight back.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: He thought it was all done.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then they do ask you to go for a follow-up scan, which probably was the most traumatic part of the whole thing.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: They made me sit in the waiting room with lots of other pregnant ladies, all holding their scans, all with lovely big bumps.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, nobody kind of knew why I was there.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the lady comes out and says, Oh my dear, what are you here for in front of everybody?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I just went, I'm here for a check for a scan that my baby's passed.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And she just went, Oh my god, I'm so sorry you shouldn't be here.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I know, but where am I where else am I supposed to go?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: No one told me.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um she brought me into the room, and unfortunately, the second sonographer was awful to me.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Bearing in mind, I'm still having this nausea.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like nibbling on walker's crisps the whole time to try and talk to her, and she said, You're not allowed to eat in here, you need to stop.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I can't, I've got really bad nausea, like from a pregnancy that I'm actually no longer experiencing, by the way.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she wasn't having any of it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So during the confirmation scan, Sam was like sneaking Walker's Crisps in my pinky finger up to me because I just couldn't I couldn't eat, it was ridiculous.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how they treated you, especially in that time, and they're aware of why you're there.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was horrific.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: We just we felt the lowest of the low after that appointment.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: That was um fairly close to Christmas.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had been signed off work this whole time as well because the nausea was just so debilitating.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that Christmas was again probably the worst.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I my mum came round and decorated my house for me.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I physically couldn't touch anything, I I couldn't even lift a bauble.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: I love Christmas, it's like my whole personality.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Same, same.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I just couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you experience something like that so close to sort of you know that period of time, that favourite time of the year and things like that, yeah.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: That you said it, you know, you had such an emotional and physical pain.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you nicknamed the baby lentil, which I love.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you like lentil?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And oh what is hold on, guys.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Idie's just showing me a little ring on her finger.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: So there is um a website called Santi Designs, yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out Santi Designs, incredible.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: They make rings with shapes of fruit and vegetables.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when like you have those baby apps, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is the size of lentil when the baby passed.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I wear lentil on my finger all all the time to remind me.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they I think they do them all the way up to like 24, 25 weeks.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, not like real size, but yeah, so it's like a little site is that Santi Designs, S-A-N-T-I, Santee Designs.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was actually one of my teacher friends who had experienced a miscarriage told me about them when I went through it all, and she said it helped her get through it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, so I I I wear lentil all the time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's so lucky.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I lost lentil once.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was Sam was like frantically going in the car, hoovering the carpet, like it's got to be here.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: It dropped out of the car.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was in the in the fit well, and he's like, Thank the Lord I found it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know what would have happened if I didn't.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's really special that you still have that one, yeah, as like a reminder.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and also when Ollie gets older, you know, I can say, Oh, you know, this because I think it's important he knows why he's a rainbow baby.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, yeah, lentil will always be a part of our family.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um after you kind of experienced that, people told you, yeah, and I hate this because when I hear it, it angers me when they say that oh, at least you can get pregnant and just try again.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what do you wish people understood about baby loss?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: That is a really good question.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had that said to me a lot, oh, at least you can get pregnant.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Especially I've got um a friend who uh was going through the sort of early stages of IVF, and um that was really hard to hear from her because I know she meant it from a good place.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, they always do.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I wish people understood that it's not just the baby you've lost, it's a future.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a whole future of what-ifs and a future of potential memories, potential connections, relationships.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's everything as soon as you see that stick, you're instantly just taken on that journey.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all of that goes away.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just that physical baby inside you, yeah.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, especially for women that have missed miscarriages where their body doesn't even recognise that, yeah, it's like you're holding on to something so desperately.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember just I spent night after night sobbing on the landing stairs on my own, not through and like Sam's felt like he needed sleep, but I just physically couldn't sleep because I just felt like there was a part of me missing.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was awful.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and at that point, I didn't know anybody that had ever experienced a miscarriage.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was so naive, thinking it would never happen to me.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all of a sudden I had friends of friends, family come to me saying, by the way, I've had one or I've had two, or um, and it was like, Well, why is no one speaking about this?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, why is there why is there not more?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and I know we've got some fantastic baby loss charities out there, and I I did try and use their resources as best as I could, but yeah, speaking to real people is actually what helped get me through it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you you know speak to people who like you say, it's a real person in front of you who's gone through exactly the same and knows in that moment exactly how you feel, yeah.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's all you need, yeah.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what that's like validation in its own sense, isn't it?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and knowing they got through it makes me think, okay, I can do this whilst this is proper shit, I can do this.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: 100%, and you can, you know.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, but I feel like yeah, in that moment it feels like the world is it's against you, yeah.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I felt like that for you know many, many times over the last couple of years.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I get it.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: You fell pregnant again and you struggled to believe it at first.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, huge denial.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um, how soon after did you fall pregnant with our little man Oliver upstairs?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was that Christmas where um I was really they told me basically if there was any tissue left, I was at risk of having sepsis.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: This was oh literally over Christmas Day as well.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I was telling the nurse, like, uh you know, maybe I should come in for a scan because I can't be sure for certain if I passed it all.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I had another scan, and she said, Yeah, there's tissue left, so you're gonna have to have surgery.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's just we're just gonna get it out.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Surgery was booked for the 5th of January, so enjoyed Christmas as best I could.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was also low-key nervous for like my first ever surgery, yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my mum took me in.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: They were they were great, they were so great.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was at the JR, they were lovely, it was day surgery.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I went in fairly early in the morning, and um, they even asked me, like, how would you like us to bury baby?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: We've got like a special place for them in the hospital gardens, and it was just lovely.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So then all of that kind of came out, and it was a fresh start.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, right, we can just enjoy being a couple again, we can love lentil in our hearts and we can move on.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I refused, I was like, son, don't touch me with a six-foot pole until at least February, because it's not happening.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they do say like for healing purposes as well, like you should be called.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we didn't do anything until February.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I now looking back, I must have fallen pregnant mid-feb.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: So again, a couple of weeks.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: I did not find out until the end of March.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was in such heavy denial.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I actually found you were like, nah.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nah.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I ignored them to I was like, I am not gonna go away.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I was like literally in the mirror, like, no, I'm not gonna gag, no, it's all good, it's all fun.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I essentially just ignored and ignored and ignored until one of my teacher friends at work because had gone back to work by this point, was like, You look like you're going to faint, go home and take a bloody test.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I literally left, like sobbing.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're gonna go home and it'll be positive.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I pulled it out of the packet, I was like, Oh, here we go, god damn it, here we go.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and do you know what?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was the night before I'd been to a draw with my best friend Emily.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And every time we stood up to applause, I was like, oh god, no, it's so good, yay.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we met them.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a picture of me.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: We met the drag queens afterwards, stunning, amazing.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally looked at one of them and was like, I'm gonna hell on you.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god, and I was like, No, no, no, it's all good, it's all good.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked back at that picture and my face is sheet white and I I look so ill.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was in such denial because I was like, No, I can't go through it again.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was not only afraid of the nausea again, but the fact that I might lose it and I was I was just not ready to open up.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you would probably be a little on edge a lot with it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um you had sickness and it was it was dismissed as like your anxiety.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was yeah, I can sympathise with this because I have had many, many doctors say to me, it's just your anxiety, and I'm like, nope, it's not.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um you felt unsupported at work during this time.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Massively.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about that.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a head teacher that I think was a little bit old school, and she'd had her children, they'd grown up.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: She just kept saying to me, Oh, have some ginger biscuits, have some mints, and I was like, I look, I am.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm trying, I really am trying to try.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to teach maths, trying to teach shape, trying not to hurt on the kids if that's what's happening here.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying not to hurt on the kids, okay?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I remember.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I taught like um, I think it was long division with a chocolate bar in my mouth.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is low for me, like this is really sad.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do what do you gotta do?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, break do you eat the pretzels anyone?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is all I can do.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just it was so bad.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so obviously, when I first found out I was pregnant, like the sickness was already there, so I I kind of thought, right, here we go again.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I tried mint tic-tac, honestly, yeah, I tried everything under the sun.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Those travel bans, and yep, like stuff thing.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I tried eating little and often, drinking as much water as I could.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't stomach anything, it was just awful.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't actually physically sick because I've got emetophobia, and I've done a lot of research about women that have emetophobia.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just want to clarify emetophobia is a fear of vomit.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: A fear of vomiting.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Some people it's fear of yourself, some people it's Of others.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Mine is more fear of myself.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like Ollie has been sick on me.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many today even.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was, yeah, in my hair.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I do it, it's it's like my whole body goes into like toxic shock.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Really scary, really scary.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I I was anticipating every gag was this is it, I'm gonna vomit.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I like physically forced it down.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I sucked on polo mints for solidly for nine months.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I was a Murray mint girl myself.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh butter no, not a butter mint, yeah, buttermint.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I love a buttermint.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not really great for my job, of course.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, I I was a butter mint gal and they did they did help.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um but again, yeah, if you're that far into it, it's yeah, you know, nothing's gonna help.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think at that point it was more a coping mechanism.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it did anything.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, um, but when I went to the GP, they just said, Oh, this is this just anxiety because you're you've rheumatophobia.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, no, I did so much research about postna uh postnasal drip, gag reflexes, yeah, all the things your hormones can do to your body.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it felt like every time I spoke, my like throat closed up, it was making me gag.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I just said that to her, she was like, Yeah, all symptoms of of anxiety and just kind of sent me away.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: They even tried to put me on antidepressants.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, this is not no, this is not it.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I basically just suffered through it, and I just I had a drinking bottle.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: This triggers me now.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Any bottles with straw in triggers me because I had to chew or like step on a straw very quickly before I had to speak to somebody.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's just awful.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can't I can't imagine living that way, like annoying months all night, all day.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was it never switched off.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no matter what I did, like I'm quite a creative person, and every creative outlet didn't it wasn't relieving for me, it was just awful.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, no, I was dismissed very heavily for for everything, and they I mean they still don't know why it you know.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think someone mentioned HG to me, yeah, but because of the lack of actual vomiting, they said it's probably unlikely to be that, but you can still have HG and severe nausea, so there's it might be a little bit of that, but yeah, that was rough.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So aside from the sickness, not sorry, because that's makes me sound like it's not uh the sickness, but you had so you had gestational diabetes, oh yeah, pelvic pain, yeah, and then you were made redundant during your whole race and taught me through this because out of all of them, pelvic pain, I had pelvic girdle pain, and I honestly thought I my whole body was gonna snap.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sucks, it sucks, yeah, like it sucked.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was the worst, it's crippling, it's actually like it's debilitating.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had a cash guy at the time.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I remember trying to get in that cash car high.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yeah, pain, not pain.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, luckily for me, Olivia turned breach at 28 weeks and then never moved and it disappeared.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, of course, because of the pressure left your pelvis.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean she was like, you know, in vagina.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, some people would literally it lasts up until like birth.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it talked me through kind of the next few months.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've not signed for the sickness, but yeah, including the sickness.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the sickness is like the main character in the background, just kill it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's always like this.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: It started with so I was I was signed off work because I pushed the GP and said that I can't physically cope.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that kind of thing.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know by law you're not allowed to be discriminated because of pregnancy, and there's lots of policies that protect you.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I still feel like that that was an element of my dismissal.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was told it's because of funding, because of money, and I just had to accept it.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they did call me in when I was seven months pregnant, and they were like, Yeah, no, we're not gonna renew you, even after telling me they were.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: So this was kind of adding to the fact that I've now been signed off sick.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you just don't want to deal with me.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that added a lot of stress, but then a lot of people said to me, Maybe that was a blessing in disguise, that maybe that just wasn't the right place for you.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I just kind of had to accept it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously, low-key scared about finances when the baby comes, what on earth do I do?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and also going back after maternity leave, what do I do?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where do I go?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that was a massive add to the stress.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then I got so I did the GD test.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um horrible drink.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, with everything going on, the nausea, the emetophobia, I said to the nurse, God, I can imagine drinking that in his shake.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: What's gonna happen if I spew on you?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: She went, so sorry, darling, you have to redo it.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Not a chance.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, not a child.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to her, like, if I what if I refuse?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can't physically make me.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: What if I refuse?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can't actually force me to drink the same drink.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke to my but my midwife, Mel, was incredible.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hold on, stop.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think you had Mel, didn't you?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, stop.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Your midwife Mel?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, you can eat it with one.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Stop.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: She's laughs.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna roll up.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: She listened she's listening right now.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: She's listening to this podcast.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: No!
• 27:02
  unknown: Oh no!
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: She was incredible.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: She she she was blunt enough with me that she was like, right, come on, Heidi.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like we need to just work through it, but she was also gentle enough with me that she was.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: She is the most incredible person.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: She saved my life.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: She saved my life.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my god, how special is that?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Mel, I know you're listening.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to your earlier podcast.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I hope it's the same Mel.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the same male.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's got to be one.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: She is a mate.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: She's an incredible, incredible midwife, you guys, in the community of Vista.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you get a chance to if you get pregnant, choose Mel.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, she was honestly.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's absolutely incredible.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mel, we've just basically just been talking about you for like the last three minutes, how amazing you are as a midwife.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: We miss you.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if anyone's pregnant in the Vista area, choose Mel.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Highly recommend.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I want to talk to you a little bit now about your birth.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and what happened during your labour.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you had uh a very traumatic experience, but I will let you kind of take the lead on this.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you you go for I always feel really weird saying it's traumatic because like the reason I didn't contact you to start with was I was worried it wasn't traumatic enough.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like all women go through their first birth and think, oh my holy hell, what was what was that?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it was it was traumatic because it was a lot of unknown.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I had previously Mel for a sweep.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, You're two, three centimetres dilated, you're doing great.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had actually a week beforehand been on not me personally, salmon a half marathon.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hell no, not for me.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I had to walk around to catch him up at all the the gates.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, of course.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Eight and a half months pregnant.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like waddling.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've got I in fact I was wearing this dress um super stretchy, and um I remember just waddling around and then I was out of need a wee, right for a wee in a horrible portaloo, and my mucus plug came out in a portaloo.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, fuck, I'm gonna have a baby in a field.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Sam is halfway around Oxford by now.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was low-key kind of game, but no, the baby was not born.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: So wait, was Sam doing the Oxford half marathon?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this is like this time last year.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, of course, because Olo's gonna be one.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, there's a sign in here that says Olo is turning one.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or fine for that.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, so you're in Portland.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was horrendous, and I thought the baby was coming.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never seen a mucus plug before.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not very nice, is it?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, no.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've still got a picture of mine.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I said it to my friend Jasmine, I was like, What is this?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Yeah, I was like, she I said, That's your that's your mucus plug.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I took a picture.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I took a picture of God gross.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: All part of the process.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was with my friend Emily at the time and she she low-key had to grip my shoulders, like, get a grip for not giving birth today, it's not gonna happen.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Shut your legs, let's go.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, right, let's get to the finish.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we got to finish, and then that night Braxton Hicks started.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when Mel said to me, or two or three centimeters, I was like, no surprise there.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: What she said to me though, thanks Mel, she said, God, it could happen today, like it could happen tomorrow.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be so close.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck was I not?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that was on No, no, I panic of fire.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that wasn't like the Tuesday, Wednesday that week.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, no, even earlier, Monday, Tuesday.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then um basically I was due for an induction on the Wednesday because my blood pressure was climbing, and they basically said that preoclampsia was coming, it was on the horizon, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Not here yet, but we're really worried about it coming.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because of my GD as well, they don't like them to get too big, even though Oliver was never ever measuring too big, yeah, which I hear is quite common with a lot of GD women.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Who did I interview?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Who did?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who's they came out like six pounds?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Charlotte.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Charlotte was like got diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and then like um And you were like, and I was like, You did not have B D.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, come on now.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was only just above the threshold to get diagnosed though with GD.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, Oliver came out£8.1.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean average.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's average weight, yeah.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: They scared the shit out of me.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, shoulder dystocia, it's gonna be massive, you're gonna have to have a you know prepared C section.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was terrified of burning this massive thing.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um 11 pound big to be like first first 14 pounder every baby mail.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I was terrified, and then they said to me, You have to be measured, like your sugars have to be measured, Oliver's sugars have to be ever says hoppalava.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the induction, I was like, it's gonna happen.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so then I've got I've actually got a picture of me, bump out the ready, all my stretch marks showing the night before going in.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm gonna have a baby tomorrow.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, I did not.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we went into the induction first thing early morning, yeah, and then she was like, right, we're gonna do the pestery, um, up it goes, and you already two, three centimetres salivating, great, it's gonna work a treat.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we were so excited, like we packed the bag, everything was grand.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I must have been like four hours later, she was like, I'm gonna do another sweep.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, did you have many sweeps?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had zero sweeps.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, baby's crying.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, baby Oliver.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Cat's out the way, quick, go, go, go.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: You've got the monitor.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: The baby is awake, guys.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: The baby is awake.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Baby's on it.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I didn't have any sweeps.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um did you not?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, I because I gave birth a month early.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, of course.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so no one actually went near my Who Heart.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um quite that was a great thing.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no one actually went down there.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, mine was on a display for everyone to see a window.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you know if people wanted to look I'd show them, but my flex is that nobody looked at my hoo heart.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I think everyone and their mum looked at mine.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um legs open all the time.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, so you had your tweets, you you were two to three centimetres and had your pressure eight.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Still stuck at two.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, four hours.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like that like gets it going, right?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they were like, Yeah, this this will speed things up, especially if you're already dilated.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is great.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the first sweep wasn't that painful, and she was like, Yeah, because you're so dilated, like you're ready to go.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: However, the second one was absolute agony, they had to give me gatonair, which did nothing.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: What does a sweep entail?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I you know, I interview a lot of women.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on, um, just quickly, your mum's ringing, yeah.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh she's my she knows I'm on this possible.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, she's fine.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: She'll get the download later.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just check it.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but um, I hear obviously I you know I speak to a lot of women.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: What does a sweep entail?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is it if it actually like what it says, it's a sweep.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: They save you.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, go in with two fingers.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And do you know what?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's really incredible how they measure.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how they do it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they go up with two fingers and they have to measure the distance away from it's like something with your cervix away from the uterine lining, and maybe they can measure how far away it is.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And when Mel first, I mean Mel did, I think she did two.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she was great.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, let me know the second it's uncomfortable.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when I say this, Leanne, it's almost like being a Lego person, like someone is shoving a bit of body up you, you feel it in your belly button.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's weird, it's so bizarre.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh my god, can you like touch the baby's head?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Yeah, I can feel all of his head.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, so weird.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can feel hair, she said.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're like tweezers, off you go.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when they did the second one, and I was like, No, I've had two already, this is fine.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: That one was oh my, it was like scratching my insides out with tongs, it's horrendous.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to her, should it be this painful?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Unfortunately, like you were two slash three, now you're just two.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: I said, But I've had the pessary, like, what's going on?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Unfortunately, some women just don't like they they get stuck.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, brilliant.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: So then this was then like late afternoon lunchtime.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, We'll do another one, and then if nothing happens, then we can't actually give you any more.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because um, what that does is it starts false contractions.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I was having, I suppose, like Braxton hicks, like false contractions, yeah, and I said, But I'm actually I can feel pushing, contracting.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, Yeah, that's great, but they're not actually doing anything.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What do you mean you're not doing anything?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Your body is kind of like getting too ahead of itself, you're not dilated enough, so nothing's gonna happen, but your body's like trying to do something.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I was contracting all night, nothing, nothing was moving, nothing was happening, still stuck at 2-3.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I had another sweep at 1am, and I sobbed in bed, and I was like, Oh, you can't do this, get this baby out of me, I can't do this.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Look, like, this induction clearly isn't working.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're gonna in the morning, maybe to labour and delivery, get this baby out, like we're gonna get things moving.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, good.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I kind of like I didn't really sleep at all, like half-slept, because every 20 minutes or so I'm having this quite strong contraction, and also knowing they're not doing anything is hard.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like a lot a lot of women say when you get contractions, it's your body working with you.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: This wasn't no, so I was just like my own body, like ridiculous.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Screw you.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um so then it was about four or five in the morning.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sam was snoring all night, and I could have honestly murdered him.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know how men do that, they just it's like they don't they don't even But he could sleep on the fucking washing line, honestly, ID.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that you're you know you're like probably in like quite very Sam snoring his face.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I spent the night on the ball like blaring at him in the corner.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then he has the nerve in the morning he's been like, Oh that bep was a bit uncomfortable.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh it was it.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've said this a few times on my podcast, but um straight after I had Livia and they brought him tea and toast, I'd be better.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Toy ate half my slice.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: He did not assume it, he's like I'm bloody starving.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just I'm so pissed at it, you know.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I talked about it on my podcast now, and I talked about it on my last one.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Stop saying about the bloody toastly, and I was like, Wow, it's a crime, yeah.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you just yeah, I I yeah, I get it.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um so sorry, so yeah, this is now in the morning.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the morning now, yeah.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, you know, you had a lump under his pillow, god forbid.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, we get we get we're all down, we're getting excited.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is the day.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: So this actually is Friday 31st, and again, low key, I was like, I'm not giving birth to a pumpkin, it's not happening.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my midwife's were great, um, and they were just like, It's okay, like this could still take a while, so it could be a first of November baby, like it's fine.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's either gonna be a pumpkin or a pudding, we're gonna find out.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, we we get down there, and uh they say to me, Right, we're gonna put the hormone drip in.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I had read about this, and I was so anxious about this.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Bear in mind, sickness main character still in the main story.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm still like sucking polos like they're going out of fashion.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: She then says to me, I can't eat anything just in case I need the C-section.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, sorry, love, that is not a situation that's gonna happen.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still having polos, and I said to her about the sickness, like, can I just like non-mon a bread crumb or something?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: I need something, sustenance.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Okay, I'm I'm gonna be like, turn my head, you have something, I'll pretend it's not in your mouth.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the situation.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: So they say to me, as soon as this drip goes in, you're gonna feel it.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, feel it where, like, describe to me.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: She went, the contractions you're having now are not progressive, the ones you will have will be.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: So just just get ready, get in.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm like, okay, fine, I'm feeling like a super brave girl, it's okay, it's all good.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: They put it in my hand, and I was like, okay, that's fine, cool.
• 38:45
  unknown: Good.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Holy my god.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: The first one hit me like a bus, and I I remember in my antenatal classes, we had Jenny, fabulous lady.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: She talked about mowing.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, there is no planet in which I'm gonna move.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: I moved.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: You mow.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I moved.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't actually control it.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Then over the bed, breathing.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've just got a hole in my tights, just realised.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was then over the bed and I was like, Oh yeah, and I I just I physically couldn't get any words out.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: The pain, it just took over.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they do.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I've heard, yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I remember she said to me, Do you want to go for a bit of a walk?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, as if you can walk right now.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but didn't say do you want parasite well?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: That was so much.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is no.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that for and the first one passed, and she said, like, they will go away.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just keep that in mind, they do go away.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it did.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: So when it went away, she said that you've got an option, you're still two or three, you can either get on the bed we can check again, or you can go for a walk.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I did choose to go for a walk, got as far as the window across the hall, went over to Moo again, and then was like, No, get me back in the room.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: So came right back in the room, and then I kind of I knew because of my anxiety, I knew I wanted some sort of pain relief.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if I'm in a large amount of pain, I'm not gonna be productive with giving birth to a baby, it's just not gonna happen.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so there's no I was not trying to be brave about it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Look, how long do I put my order in for an epidural?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And she kind of said, like, I can let the anesthetist know now.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he might not be in.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was bracing myself, she's like, for a couple of hours, and I literally have to bite my tongue and not call it every horrible name under the planet.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, okay, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, So have I got a couple of hours of this?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is this just gonna be it now until baby's born?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is my life now, yeah.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, Yeah, yeah, really sorry about that.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: But okay, so I'm moving.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sam is I I felt really bad about this.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure this happens to lots of people.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Would you like some water, my darling, princess?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: I love you so much.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally snapped and went, Get the fuck out of my face! I don't want fucking water.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: But he put it like right up my nose, like I'm bent over moving, and it's the straws up my nose.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so oh my god, he was really great.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I it was so intense, just so intense.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like my stomach was gonna fall out my asshole.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was oh my god.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I when that anistotus walked in, I could have kissed him.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yes, get me on that bed, give me the job, yeah, oh yeah.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't even look at Sam's like all I could oh all I can remember is the size of that needle hiding that needle.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Totty said the same to me.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had one obviously for my C section, and I'm like, don't fucking tell me that.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't even remember looking at it.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even remember him bringing anything in.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Instant relief?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it took a while, so I was I was obviously all on the bed, they put the epideral in.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Perfectly.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look at that, it's gone straight in.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like your posture.
• 41:55
  unknown: Perfect.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh great, this is brilliant.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it did start working almost instantly, and I actually got some sleep.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I slept for about an hour and a half on the epideral.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's really important for that though, because you need the energy.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, do you know what I mean?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was like really, really good.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact I could press it whenever I wanted gave me that control back.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I could and you could feel it, it was like ice, like an ice slushy going through your veins, and that yeah, weirdly weird feeling.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, and like after a while, I could feel the contractions at the top of my my belly, but because the pain wasn't there, I could almost work with it and then break breathe through it, and it was all fine.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was feeling really good, I was feeling really positive.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: I played Uno, I had some snacks, like I was chatting with the midwives, and it was all lovely.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then they did another sweep, and it must have been um like three o'clock in the afternoon.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been like sort of labouring contractions all day, and they said, Oh, this is good, you're five centimetres.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, we've progressed, this is all I ever wanted.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is good.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and but then I kind of thought it's taken me this long to get to five.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is an absolute joke.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: What is my body doing?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kind of losing faith a little bit and starting to panic.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I could see Sam's face, he was like, Oh, kind of wanted to be a little bit more.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she went, Look, we'll give it another couple of hours, then we'll do again, and we might have to up your hormone drift.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh god, please no.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like manifesting 10 centimetres, 10 centimetres, it will happen.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Widen a vagina, or widen, and then uh yeah, a couple of hours went by, and she was literally just a little quick dip like a dipstick in the car, quick dip.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're ready to push.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh my god, no, 10 centimetres, yeah.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was ready to go.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like five to ten in like an hour.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: It happened, and I was I was like, that manifesting worked, like it's happening, and that was so exciting.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a photo on my phone, my mum took it literally seconds before they kind of sat me up, stirrups, feet, very undignified.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's Sam's holding my belly, and she's like, right, ready parents to be.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, ready to crush.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Was a really lovely moment before shit here before.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so sorry, I feel like I'm muffling.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, no, no.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So stirrups are in, I'm pushing.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I look back on my badger badger notes, and apparently I was pushing for almost two hours.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even realise it felt like five minutes.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was pushing, pushing, pushing, and the midwife was like fingers, she's like, Oh god, I can feel this head, he's there, he's there.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know the head has to get down past that little sort of crown.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's setting your little curve, isn't it?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she went, Oh, he's there, and he's gone.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's there, oh he's gone.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, For goodness sake.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Then I saw the surgeon walk in, and that's when I just knew I was like, ah, here we go.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is it now.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they said baby was back to back.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, no matter what, he would never have, yeah, I never would have pushed him out naturally.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which a part of me felt a little bit robbed, but then I think, no, that's quite selfish because you baby's here, that's all we've got to think about.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Um, yeah, back to back, we're not pushing anymore, it's not safe for you or baby.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, we're gonna prep you for a C-section, but I'm gonna try four steps first.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: When I was shown four steps in my anteenage class, um, I thought it was something they could just do there and then, like they could just get baby out there, but I still had to be prepped for surgery in theatre, yeah.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that all kind of happened.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Sam was getting scrubbed up in the corner, my mum was sobbing in the corner because they were explaining what was happening.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was still contracting, yeah, it was a lot, and then all of a sudden the doors were flung open, my bed was wheeled down, and then I was suddenly in this bright theatre, and I was like, Whoa, this is a bit jarring.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, all the meantime, sickness is still here.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um has been ready sort of my polo.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was low-key gonna sneak a polo in my mouth before surgery, and I thought I was gonna get told off, so I thought, no, I can't.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm there, like I'm gonna puke, and they kept lowering my head, which did not help.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I'm gonna be sick, I'm gonna be sick.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and at the same time, they were going, Hi, my name's Jane, I'm this, hi, my name's Barry, I'm this.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm Heidi, I need I've got a baby in me, get it out, please.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then finally, famous last words, I'm all done, I'm all hooked up to the machines and everything.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then they tip me up, and the surgery was like, Right, everybody, let's get this baby born.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: I turned to Sam, he's right here, and I'm like, Sam, they can't start the surgery.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Why?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, My legs aren't open.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Heidi, I can guarantee you, my darling, they really are.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they're wide open, you just can't feel them.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it the most strangest sensation?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was really humbling.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: I felt really like exposed.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: They they laid me down and they were like, This midfield was like, Do you mind if I whack a cather in?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was like, Have you done it?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yeah, I've done it.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh no, you haven't.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Todd is like, Lee, there's there's a tube in your vagina.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have you this is a weird sensation, isn't it?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember when they pulled it out and I said that was in there.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember that being in there.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: What have I put in there?
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't actually think they told me they'd put it in.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think I knew I had to have one, yeah, but I didn't remember them doing it.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, weird, it's weird what you block out, isn't it?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll kill the vegetables.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh so sorry, yeah.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you your legs were in the air, my legs were in the air open, but all I could see was bump like that because I'm laid down up.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um the nurse has got a hand on my tummy because I'm so numb now that I can't actually feel much of the contraction, it's just this like intense tug feeling.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: So she's like, right, there's another one coming, right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, Mum, we've got to push this baby out.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: So within three pushes, um, this was after an epesiotomy as well, which I didn't realise they did, but it makes sense now to get the forceps up that they do have to cut you.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I had the pesiotomy, and then within three pushes, head was out.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that's good.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Yeah, head's out, you've done the hard work.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Then I've got one more to do, and I did two more, and then Oliver came out.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was I describe it as an absolute like flood of emotion.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: I remember breathing like oh god, it was like you know, when you've gone for like a poo after a big roast like that, yeah.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: That relief, all of a sudden, this body, this baby, comes looming over me like from the sky, yeah, covered in blood and guts, placed on my chest.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just sobbed.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: I broke down, I've never felt that kind of like animalistic, kind of instinctual kind of cry.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think Sam was a bit worried.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Are you in pain?
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm just I'm I'm in love, I'm overwhelmed.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd read about this, I know not everyone gets it, and but it was quite scary.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, God, I just love this thing so much, and I've met it for three seconds, like what's going on?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do have a picture of Oliver about 10 seconds old.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was on my chest.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: They put a little red hat hat on, um, and he was just there, and I just felt like again, it's it's like the nausea paused, everything paused.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I meant to oh my god, oh bless me.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um it was just Halloween though.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't pretty Halloween!
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: My pumpkin um yeah, no, I forgot about that though, I forgot it was Halloween, I forgot everything.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: So what time was he born?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: He was born at 7 51.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in the evening.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: In the evening.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just knowing like like just in time for Halloween.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yeah.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Very trick-a-treat.
• 49:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ready trick-or-treat.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: You said you were dressed him as a pumpkin this year.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: He is going in the pumpkin.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: You said, I want to say that absolutely.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: We always go really full out decorating at the front.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh he's gonna be at the door with his little bowl of sweets ready to give the sweets to the children.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: We did get quite a few around here actually.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: We are in a new place this year, so I don't know about it.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: We live on the street.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh not that she can eat sweets at the moment, but Tottie was like, that's alright, I'll help.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually giving out snap bands this year.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: We we ran out of sweets um a couple of years ago.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had to send Sam out to the shop, like, you didn't buy more, why?
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I bought snap bands so the older children can choose, like the younger children that can't have sweets can be something to take home.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, maybe we'll pop round.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll do it, honestly.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be the house, the only house in the street with like anything up.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: So so you've given birth to your rainbow baby olive.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: I did, yeah.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: You spoke about feeling invisible after giving birth, and you said that everybody focused on the baby rather than you.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's something I can really relate to.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: Talk me through that.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my identity shifted, and I I knew it would.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I, you know, I knew that I was I was mummy now.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: But everyone just kept calling me mummy, and after a while, it didn't it didn't bother me as in like it may be irritated, but I just thought, well, hold on, I'm still I'm still Heidi too.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like the Heidi that was pregnant and has given birth and done all the hard work, you know, I'm still that person.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but everyone just kept saying, again in a in a meaningful way, hi mummy, oh look at you, new mummy, or mother, or it was it was nice because I've never been called that before, but at the same time, it was just a bit much, it was too full on.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I felt like nobody said my name for weeks, and I kept asking Sam because we have nicknames for each other, like Darling, Bubba.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like, Can you just call me Heidi, please?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because no one ever bloody does anymore.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just mummy or mum, and um, even like again, the midwives, the healthers, just everyone was like, How are you mum?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's Heidi, I'm great, thank you.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just so important to talk about.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I get that 100%.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is it's so you're like referred referred to as like a third person, aren't you?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm grateful for the fact that I can be called mum because I know there are lots of women out there that would love to be called mum, but at the same time, when you're suddenly just mum, yeah, it's difficult.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I completely get it.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um you uh you said you know previously that you suffered with anxiety, you had a lot of worries about Oliver's breathing and his feeding and his his sleep.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: When did you realise that you might be experiencing like postpartum anxiety?
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was possibly inevitable because of the anxiety I've already had in my childhood.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I was expecting it, and I I think it crept up on me.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: I thought this was what every mum went through.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: So he was very congested as a baby, yeah.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Snuffly little piggy.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I kept googling things.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like every time Sam would look over, he's like, What are you googling now?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I was googling like when can a baby be breathe through their nose, which I turned out was like three, four months, and I was like, Oh my god, I've got three, four months of watching this child breathe because what if he suddenly stops?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna do?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: So he was in the next to me, and um ours had like a little zip-down window, yeah, which probably I should have zipped up.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was so afraid that every second counted that if he stopped breathing, I would need to rush in and grab him.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I had it unzipped the entire time he was in there.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I made myself force myself to sleep on my left side so I could watch him.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed up hours and hours on end just to watch him breathe, to watch his chest rise.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: The amount of times I went to the GP for what I thought were um uh the chest, is it refraction?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think what they're called now, where they sucking at the ribs.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know I know you remember the name, but I know I know what you mean.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because um I the amount of times I thought, oh, he's having that, but actually maybe it's just because you're supposed to see their ribs a little bit.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it it was just awe-consuming, and I I lost so much sleep.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sleep deprivation was a massive, massive factor in like my mood.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I became very snappy.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry, Sam, because I I know I was awful to you.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's hard though, like those first few months, like the sleep deprivation alone, yeah, added in with everything else, is yeah.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: They say sleep deprivation is a form of torture, you know.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it felt like it.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I it's hard, isn't it?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Tori was my punching bag as well.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd like you say you've got no how do you release all your frustration, your anger on the person that's closest to, do you know what I mean?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I get it.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just the one to do it with, yeah, unfortunately.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was it was really bad.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um every time um Ollie's hands went maybe a little bit purple, I was like, Oh my god, it's gonna get hypodermia.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was always the extreme.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: I want to jump in because baby's hands are always freaking cold, aren't they?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: Always, yeah.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: His hands were freezing all the time, right?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as long as I wasn't doing I I get that.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was just intense, and I just I just felt like maybe maybe this was related to the miscarriage, but I felt like I was gonna lose him every five minutes, yeah, and that I wasn't doing enough to keep him safe.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it I spent so long in my pregnancy wishing him to come out because he didn't feel safe in my belly because of the GD, yeah, the pelvic pain, the risk of preocampsia, like, and because of the miscarriage, like losing a baby in my tummy felt real.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the second he was born, I was like, no, get him back in.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's safe in my belly, like he's he's he's exposed out here.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was it was really intense.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like your anxiety kind of like um stopped you enjoying some moments with him?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: Massively, massively.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: People looked at him and saw a smile.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at him and saw stuffy nose, can't breathe, purple hands.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh god, why have I not dressed him appropriately?
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is he gonna suffocate?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is he in too much of a talk at night?
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was relentless, relentless, and I just felt like I look back at photos as well, and my face is quite stoic in a lot of photos, yeah.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm just staring, like, is he okay?
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or you know, is his nose open enough?
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can he breathe on somebody?
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: The amount of times he was having cuddles on someone's shoulder, and I'm going, I'm just gonna turn his head slightly just so he can breathe.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I must have come across as like this really intense mad woman, yeah.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it was all I could think about.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just had this baby alive.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you said one day you went all day without eating or drinking or going to the toilet because you were scared to put him down.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: Talk me through that day.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we were bought a beautiful battery, it was stunning, it matched all the decor, it was like amazing.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: He went in it maybe twice in his life.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was not a put-down baby, he was what like I suppose they call a velcro baby.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had one of them.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: One gonna be on me.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: Contact naps were just were life, it was the vibe.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and at first that was lovely.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was like, I could stay here all day until it started impacting my basic needs.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I couldn't.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I tried peeing with him, it was really awkward.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I can pee with him great now, it's fine.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: But like I tried peeing with him at like three weeks old.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was really I was girls gonna drop him down the toilet, Leanne.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was ridiculous.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I couldn't do that.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked at it to do this caller, like I got it.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: I like this is TMI, but I had to wear because of the blood loss after my surgery, yeah.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: I had to wear those Lady Turner nappies.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: We were both in nappies, both loving life.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: Mate, snap! I low-key was like, I've got a nappy on, I could just go.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know what?
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had those thoughts too, because no one would know.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, and like I've just given birth, I've got the best excuse in the world.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no one's gonna cut me some slack, like so that that went through my head, but yeah, I was so scared to just move around with him.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Again, the fear of what if I trip?
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: What if I go up the stairs and fall?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like all those irrational thoughts almost.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then the eating thing, um, we tried to get as much like instant food in the house so I could just get up, grab, and go and come sit.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think uh like the anxiety took away my appetite a lot.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was breastfeeding, so I literally Googled, can I have this while breastfeeding?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can I have this while breastfeeding?
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: And there's always gonna be a website that says no.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's always gonna be a website that says oh, but in limited, you know.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I just cut everything out because I was like, Well, I can't, it's not safe.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it again it spiralled and it got to the point where nothing was safe.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I lived on a very basic diet.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the sickness, no longer main character now, but disappeared the second my placenta was poured out of me.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, yeah.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: That tea and toast you were talking about.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: Best meal of my life.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't gag once.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she got the four tea spices, you know.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was very nourished.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was uh it was great.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it just disappeared.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, but this because the sickness has gone, yeah, I was afraid of it coming back.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so I don't want to overeat.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, I get that.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like it's like a a circle, but you're just going round and round, aren't you?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, that was uh Yeah.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a time when Oliver became quite unwell.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very random.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: So this was um early January, we'd had a lovely Christmas, gorgeous newborn Christmas.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then we he was a bit refluxy anyway, like a little bit spitty uppy.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but one day he just completely projectile vomited all over me after a milk feed, and I thought, Oh my goodness, this has come out of nowhere.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I cannot tell you how many times a GP said to me, Clarify what you mean by projectile.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, it shot out of his mouth at a rate which I'm uncomfortable with.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's all you need to know.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they said to me, But did it hit a wall?
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: I said, No, it covered my entire sofa and floor, but no.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well, if it if it's not powerful enough to hit a wall, it's not projectile.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that word changes a diagnosis very quickly.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: So a GP would not take me seriously until I said the word projectile.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, we went through months and months of justifying.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: I took videos of him puking, it got that bad.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: I had to physically prove to them that what he was sicking up was was more than normal.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: So wait, if you if you said projectile.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: They took me seriously.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if you said that Oliver just he'd been sick a lot, yeah, like they said reflux.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: They then tried to convince me that he had CMPA, Cal's blood allergy.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: They even went as far as to prescribe me the special formula.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, but he has not got an allergy, and I did so much research on it, I did all the symptoms.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Well, you can cut things out of your diet if you're breastfeeding, etc.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I tried to convince them for so long he does not have CMPA.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew, I just knew he didn't.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but for them that was an easy go-to because it's probably the first avenue they look down.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I was like, no, he's not got this, we need to do further tests, and this went on for months, and it finally card just disappeared around the end of March.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to um there was a course called the Early Days course that the health visitor set up.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to that every week, crying, like sobbing, because I couldn't feed my baby without vomiting.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: He was born on the 50th centile, dropped to the 15th, then dropped to the ninth, then dropped to the fifth.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: He was just losing weight because he was not keeping anything down.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like a failure.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh, this is the end of my breastfeeding journey as well.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: So this is just it was just all mounting up to be I'm a failure of a mum.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, he just vomited and vomited and vomited constantly.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it was green, yellow, random colours, and they all just kept telling me, Oh, well, babies are sick.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is just what you've got to deal with.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: So a part of me kind of feels scared that if I have another one, this is gonna happen again and no one's gonna listen to me.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: But then But then do you feel like now like you would be in a position to advocate for yourself?
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've got much more of a backbone now than I did before.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was it was a very do you know what actually it really upset me how many GPs opened their conversation with are you a new mum?
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what the fuck does that matter?
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know I get it because uh I had a conversation with my mum about this, and this is before pre-Olivia being done into C MPA, I saw multiple GPs or multiple out-of-hours doctors, and they all said, Am I a new mum?
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm remembering my mum, shout out to Elaine, she's Scottish, she's straight to point.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: My mum said to this one doctor, like, it doesn't matter if she's a new mum or not, this baby's unwell, you know.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was like the wee later that we got you know the milk.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, but it it's hard because you have to constantly fight the corner and fight battles to get help, yeah.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: And all because you're a new mum, like it's yeah, I I I get it, it's it's really hard.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was really hard as well because my antenatal group, like, shout out village mummies, I couldn't have survived without them.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we all did the village midwife course, um, and that's how we all met.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've we still like literally all went soft play the other day, like we all still keep in touch, but it was really hard seeing all their babies thriving, and they were so good to me, they were so supportive, and they were shoulders to cry on, and they like come over for a cuppa, but it was really hard to see all their babies thriving, not being sick, like drinking seven, six, seven ounces of a bottle.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: I could barely get three down all of that, and then he'd pick it up again.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Why why me?
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: What have I done?
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what have I done wrong?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: It can make you feel so alone, yeah.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was scared to leave the house because I was like, it's just gonna vomit all over people.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't I can't socialise, can't go to the cute little coffee shops.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna need a spare change of clothes, about 15 muzzies, like it's it's just it's a thing.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um bloody muzzy, honestly.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you were breastfeeding and you said that it was painful until you received the right help.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um did you feel like you instinctively know what to do with breastfeeding at first?
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or like how did you God yeah.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: Again, like the antenator course, they'd showed up, they'd got like the squidgy boob and we'd practised, but it was nothing like the real thing.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was about five minutes after literally giving birth.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was on my side and numbed up to the legs because of the epidural.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then the nurse went, Come on, then, come on, mum, breastfeed, breastfeed, come on, come on, get your tit out, breastfeed.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh my god, give me a minute, woman.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: I just birthed a child.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Oliver was placed next to me.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just kind of flopped a boob out, like, I've at it.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and luckily he did.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: He knew what to do, it's instinct, he latched.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: Little did I know that was the wrong latch.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: So he was only sucking on the nipple and not having any of the areola in his mouth.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: So he was literally um like sucking raw nipple and it was bleeding, it was cracked, it was sore, it was dry.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: But nobody told me it wasn't supposed to hurt.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no one had said that.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was grimacing, and Sam's going, That looks really uncomfortable.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, But that's just breastfeeding, that's what I've been told.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: Countless nurses looked at me breastfeeding, didn't correct me, didn't say anything.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, they were like, Oh, well done, baby, baby knows how to suckle.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, am I doing okay?
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Yeah, it looks like he's drinking, and he was, but not efficiently enough.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not enough, yeah.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we we did that for a couple of days, and then I think it was towards the end of my discharge.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I remember I wanted to support him with two hands, and a nurse slapped my hand away and said, No, no, no, breastfeed with one hand, and I said, Well, what's the other hand for?
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: She went, So you can get a drink and you can do other things.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: Multitask, mama, multitask.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was my jaw hit the floor.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: She's just giving birth.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, what the hell is this?
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: So every time I breastfed, I shut the curtain, so I was scared she was gonna slap my hand away.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and that that was just kind of how I left it, so I came home.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I you know, tried different rug behold, I told all the positions, it was stinging, so painful.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then we went to um the Piggy Lane Community Hospital to get Oliver's ears checked.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: And while I was there, she said, And how's how's breastfeeding?
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: That was it, I choked or broke down.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she went, right, we're not really supposed to be hands-on.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can I touch you?
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can I show you what to do?
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: She physically grabbed my boob, right?
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you need to get his palate to latch, grabbed the back of Oliver's head, shoved him on my boob, and instantly the relief, I was like, Oh my god, this is how it's supposed to feel.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I weeped because I was like, Oh my god, he was a week and a half old by this point, so I'd think 10 days of like any eight, nine feeds a day.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yeah.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this out of hours doctor was like, She was oh I can't even name.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I knew her name.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible lady, she saved me.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: She she saved my breastfeeding journey, she really did.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: She when she said we're not supposed to touch.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, how else are you supposed to do it?
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know because of that that barrier, that confidentiality.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: But she grabbed my boob, put him on, showed me how to uh tilt the chin up to get because he's got a high palate, and he instantly suckled.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: He was perfect, and we had a great sort of breastfeeding journey from then on.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that relief for you was like Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was so good.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it got to the point in those 10 days.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you have a bit of an MOT where like a midwife comes out and checks you over.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: She even looked, she physically looked at me breastfeeding in that old way and went, Looks good to me.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need to pump though to get your milk supply up.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, but I I don't want to pump just yet.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, Oh no, I would.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd I'd buy a pump so you've got some milk spare.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: So daddy can help feed, and I was just like, Oh, no, I don't want that pressure yet, but I did, I did because I was told what you know, I did what I was told.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you do though, don't you?
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're just like, you latch onto anything they say.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was the same, so I get it.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of feel like you have to take their advice because they're professionals, and I'm glad that you managed to get a good journey, that you had a good journey in the world.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I breastfed for nine months, yeah.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, and I was I felt I felt when I drode up like it was time, and Oliver's weight was plateauing a little bit, and I thought, now's a good time.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's time.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I weaned him off fairly easily, and he took the formula like Dr.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: Water.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: You spoke a little about your antenatal group and um Mama time.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh my god, and your crystal.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_00: So these are these have become like really important sources of report.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: How much did finding your village change things for you?
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, huge.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was always really anxious about being alone.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can be a little bit of an introvert.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think some people think I'm an extrovert because I'm very bubbly.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: Snap.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the the outer person that a lot of people see, especially when you're a teacher, you're you're on, you perform, yeah, you you for parents for the children.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but with a mum, like being being a mum, it was like I felt very like reclusive almost.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: So then my mum kind of said to me, like, you need to get your creative spark back.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: You've always been very crafty.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, find something, yeah, whether it's mindful colouring.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: I did that a lot in pregnancy.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_01: Something like doing mindful colouring.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: I loved doing it.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was like crack for me.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was just great.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: I bought so many pens, so many pens.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um just bought me, I don't know if it's I think on TikTok or like TV.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's like 120 different the jewel-ended ones.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, jewel-ended.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you're not profile.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fellow colour here.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love it.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: My famous colouring is just you're in control, it's calming.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it's good to find like outlets for yourself that you know, yeah, whether that's reading or colouring or whatever, you know.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you um, yeah.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I tried to find something, yeah.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: But obviously, everything was really difficult with the newborn, yeah.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like the colouring was really hard.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I remember I was scrolling Instagram one day and it was about sort of mid-December, and I came across an advert for the rock choir.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out rock choir, they are incredible.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd never heard of them before.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: My mum had because they've been on TV, they're they're quite a big, a big collective organisation, and they have choirs up and down the country.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd never heard of them, and I saw this advert come up, and the local rehearsal was literally that school across the road.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, this could not be more perfect for me.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had literally just given birth to a baby and thought, right, let's draw in the choir, let's do it.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I inquired about a settling in session, settling in session, we've got a nursery on the brain, um, a taster session, um, a free taster session.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was absolutely bricking it.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was the first time I'd ever left Oliver alone with anybody.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it was for Sam, but it was still on the road, yeah.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was still breastfeeding it by that point.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had pumped enough milk like to last a month, but still, um I'll be back in um January, I yeah, but it was Sam's first time being solely responsible for Oliver, I was so nervous.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I now disclaimer I do not have the voice of an angel, I just like to sing, it's that community spirit, it and like when you harmonise together, it feels glorious.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I went and it was incredible.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to Liga, my choir leader.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's the most loveliest lady.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, You are so brave for coming out here, postpartum.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all the ladies and gentlemen um that are there were so lovely, and they're like, Let me see pictures of your baby, like, come sit down with us.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I soon discovered I was a soprano, so I sat in my soprano um bit, and um I'm still part of the choir now.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I do performances quite often.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oliver has a rock choir t-shirt that he comes and supports me with, and um yeah, we we sing fairly fairly frequently, and I still go to rehearse now.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've only missed like one since January, and that was because I was really ill uh every week, yeah, every Thursday evening.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like one little thing, yeah, a little piece of me once a week, and I I love it so much.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is just overhacked.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when they say that oxytocin flows and like that helps breastfeeding.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot tell you how many times I leaked during rehearsals, the point where this lady next to me was like, Oh my love, I think you need to go to the bathroom, and I instantly thought wee.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I've read myself back then, whoopsie, no public floor anymore.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh she was like, No, your your milk dripping.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh my god.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um I now I then had to put like proper breast pads in every time I went because I was so happy for singing that my milk flowed.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you say that though, didn't they?
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had the best pumping session after uh a rehearsal every week.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, it's it's freedom.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is, it's science, it's incredible.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I love my choir, it's it's become a massive part of me, and there are times when Oliver's had a really shitty night, or he's poorly, or you know, something's happened, yeah, and I've still forced myself to go, and I've always been grateful.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you it's very easy for someone to be like, Oh, I can't go because and I am like I'm this person.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the fact that you push yourself to go and do it just because it's your time, you know, it's your time, and that's really important.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Finding snippets in motherhood, you know, these little outlets.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like for me, this is an outlet coming to speak to you, coming to speak to all these different women.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a couple of hours out of my week where I'm like, Oh, okay, you know.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so good for you.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you still see your antenatal girls all the time, all the time.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's so nice.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, one of them lives literally around the corner, and we we never knew, but we were so close.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we all met um in the September before we gave birth.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and it was really funny.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Jenny going, Look, one of you set up a group chat, whenever you do it, you'll thank me later.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_01: No one else did, so I was like, Right, I'll do it.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I set up the group chat.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I did the girls' one, Sam did the boys one, and I like titled it Village Mummies.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And at first it was a bit quiet, which was normal, and then it was oh, what time's the session again?
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like that kind of message.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then one by one, it was this is baby so-and-so born at so-and-so, and one by one the babies were born, pictures were sent, and it was it was getting really exciting.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then once all the babies were born, we did have a bit of a newborn bubble phase, so it went a bit quiet again.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then come January, we were going for walks, we went to baby sensory together.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we started baby sensory when the babies were two months old, and we still go now, uh almost a year old.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, shout out to Kelly, lovely, wonderful angel of a woman.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, who made me feel so welcome in that baby sensory class.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was looking at she does Whitney, um, she does quite a few, but um, yeah, she's just she's incredible, she's so bubbly and outgoing.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But there's it's a no-pressure class.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you need to go and breastfeed or change a bum or do whatever you need, or leave if it's not for you, like that's okay.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_01: She just made us feel so relaxed, and the babies loved it.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's bubbles, it's colours, it's music.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_00: She loves bubbles, doesn't it?
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Great, I love me three, and she loves a bubble.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I go for the bubbles, like you know, that would be for me.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, she was great.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we yeah, and obviously now's the time where all our babies are turning one.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we had our first birthday party on Saturday, we went for soft play, and it was yeah, it was weird.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're all discussing like how we feel quite sad, but also excited because this is the first chapter of our lives, and we've been through it together, and it's like we said about um like the first birthday, like it's it's you reflect, don't you have on your year?
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think you're you know you're talking to me about your story, but I've kind of forgotten that this is this is a shift, yeah.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's very much like still very present in your life.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um you you want another baby.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I do, but you're terrified of going everything going through everything again.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: How do you navigate that internal battle?
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I am the same with you.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I feel the same.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you kind of navigate it?
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's oh you answer, I guess, as well.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's we discuss it a lot, I think that's important.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about it all the time.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we want to be on the same page, yeah.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think he can sense when I'm slightly off or anxious about it because again, he has said very um earnestly, I'm not the one that's got to carry and push it out.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I accept that fully, but I really would like another one, and that's how I do too.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I do feel like our family isn't complete.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: There is somebody missing, there's somebody waiting to join us.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, not that Oliver's not enough, and this is what I battle with frequently.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, am I making Oliver feel like he's not enough?
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I've given him I've literally thrown everything at him, like all the toys, all the photos, all the memories.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like his first birthday is gonna be whack, it's gonna be amazing.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then apart from me's like, Do I have enough room for another one?
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, does your heart grow?
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: All the women that say they've had two or three say it happens, but again, it's that oh it's my first time.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a friend of mine, Jasmine, who I did um my girls' podcast with, she had the same as you, she's got two girls, and you know, she fell pregnant which before she fell pregnant with her second baby, she said how am I gonna love another baby?
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you?
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you do, yeah, you know, and I just know that, yeah.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um you're not alone in feeling like that.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a really common, very common thing that probably people don't probably admit enough, you know.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and actually, you know, like when it was just Sam and I, I he was my world.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I loved him, yeah.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But then Oliver came along and suddenly I love them both in different ways.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just you just do.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_00: You do, I think, and like you say, like you think that you know there's something missing, and hey, look, if you want to do it, do it.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not here, yeah.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can support you.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's also like I I didn't really go through pregnancy the early stage of pregnancy with anybody.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_01: When I met all the girls from Village Mummies, that made a life a lot easier.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but now that we've kind of all got children, I know that if I get pregnant again, and let's say no one else is pregnant, that's fine.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they've still been through it fairly recently with me, so I can still bounce off them and have them for support.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there is this fear of what if I get a GD, what if I get nausea again?
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So debilitating, I'm signed off another job.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what if I lose another job?
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, then we're financially screwed again.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, all those.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I know it's it's a hard battle, isn't it?
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think you sort of like you say, you and Sam discuss it a lot, which I think is really important.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I you know, I I guess in some way, like, is there ever a right time?
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they say that about the first, don't they?
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can never be fully ready for a baby.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, it just happens.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I can vouch for that, you know, and we bloody were very excited for not that's awful, we were very excited to have Olivia, but when she came out, I was like, Well, this is not why you know yeah.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um you said to me at the end, which I loved, you said motherhood is like being reborn, and that you were the one who was reborn.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you could go back to like those early days of of motherhood, what would you tell yourself?
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I know you ask everyone this, and every time I listen to your podcast, I always think about what I would say, and I I come up with something different every time.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you?
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just speak from the heart, you go.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on I think the frame of mind.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_01: The frame of mind I'm in at the moment is I did it once, I can do it again.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am strong.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I it's almost like you say this to yourself convincing yourself you can do it, but I did, I did actually do it, and there were times when I was in the thick of the nausea, in the thick of the induction, in the thick of the newborn days, where I thought, oh my god, I'm actually not gonna make it out of this, I cannot get through this.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I did.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm living proof that I'm strong enough mentally, physically, and I take comfort in the fact that a lot of women say your second pregnancy, your body remembers, yeah, so it might be slightly easier.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even with GD, I now have coping strategies, even with the nausea.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can I can do it.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just have to willingly put myself through that again.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what I would say is it does there is a light, no matter how long that tunnel feels, there is a light, and you've just got to keep pushing towards it.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_01: You just gotta keep going, yeah, because you will then be a year later postpartum, yeah, looking back and feeling goddamn proud of yourself that you got through it.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And is that how you feel right now?
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what you've just said, it kind of answered my question previously.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you ready?
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like it.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have we have like a date that we've set, the implants coming out.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it freaks me out.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, I know.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, it it it's freaking me out a little bit because um I'm excited as well.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's excitement, it's all gelled into this one kind of rah! Yeah, um, but I I know that come the end of the year when we're sort of fully, fully trying.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm not downloading any apps, I'm not gonna do any of that.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's what will be will be, and a part of very small part of me, sorry Sam, very small part of me, if it doesn't happen instantly, I'm not gonna be sad.
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_01: My first two pregnancies were so damn quick.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, didn't really have chance to kind of process.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was pregnant.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if it takes time this time, that's okay.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've got Oliver, I've you know, we can enjoy our family of three.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, you know, it's it's kind of trying to see it on the flip side of if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_01: But if it does already, yeah, I've already kind of said as well, this will be my last pregnancy.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that is also another, you just want to get through this last bit.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: This will be your last first trimester, your last second trimester.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Try and enjoy it.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, there's one people last time was saying to me, Oh just enjoy it, like you know, you're lucky you can get pregnant.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh, yeah, no, I yeah, it's it's one of the worst things you would say.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's like it's like a default saying, isn't it?
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, and again, they never make they never mean it in a horrible way.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, one, for inviting me around into a lovely home.
• 1:20:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're more than welcome.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love this job, it's not even a job.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love this hobby because I get to go to people's houses and drink tea, it's great.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, absolutely.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I put my pumpkin spark candle on just for you.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_01: It looked oh, is that what it was?
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was lovely.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but my default smell.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like wearing Halloween.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I hope Oliver has a great birthday.
• 1:21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you ever want to come back on, yeah, just the door's always open.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm pregnant again.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be part of the bigger.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, Harley's gonna be back in the new year.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_00: My word.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, my love.