Latest / Mothering / S1Ep4 | Christina - What Kind Of Mother Does This Make Me? Breastfeeding Challenges, Two Under Two, Creative Sole Trader

Transcript

S1Ep4 | Christina - What Kind Of Mother Does This Make Me? Breastfeeding Challenges, Two Under Two, Creative Sole Trader · Mothering

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Before I had a baby, I thought I think I'd like to breastfeed, but we'll see how it goes.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: No strong feelings, really.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've assumed that I'll just do it, like my mum did.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I probably won't be that upset if it doesn't work out.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when I was in it, I was amazed by the kind of thoughts that I was having about the kind of mother I was and the kind of woman that I was.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I would say proceed with caution in terms of social media.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of black and white ways of thinking out there.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Trust your own instincts and your own gut.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And don't be afraid of trial and error.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're led to believe that if you try hard enough, if you only do it properly, if you only put the work in, or if you only knew what you were doing, it would work, but it's just not the case.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Mothering Podcast, and I'm your host, Carly.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode I sit down with women who speak honestly about their life-changing transition into motherhood and what becoming a mother actually feels like.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Please be mindful when little ears are listening to this podcast, as we can get a bit sweary and vibrant.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: One last notice to say that this is an inclusive space.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: While we touch on a lot of physical and psychological changes that the female body goes through immatrescence, the use of the term mother can encompass any person who identifies as a mother and takes on that extremely important and nurturing role.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode of Mothering, I sat down with Christina, who goes by T to talk about her journey in becoming a mother.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: T is a pianist and composer.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: She composed the music for this podcast.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you have been listening to it and you thought, oh my god, that is such beautiful music, that work of art came from T.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can check out her music.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll leave her details in the show notes below.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: On top of being an incredible musician, T is a mother of two.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: She had two under two, and our conversation together revolves heavily around her challenging breastfeeding journey and how that unraveled.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And a big piece of how the cultural message of breastfeeding is natural and therefore it's easy came to be detrimental to T.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us in breastfeeding, T spoke so truthfully about how that messaging negatively affected her in seeking adequate help early.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: T also talks about the contrast between her two birth experiences.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: One where she was induced and decided to have an epidural to give birth, and the comparison between her second baby, where she went into labor naturally, had a water birth, and a lot of that because of her newfound knowledge being a second-time mum and knowing what she wanted and how to navigate the system as well.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because T is a musician, she talks about being a sole trader and returning to work and how that felt for her.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And T leaves us all with some really wonderful insights into parenting at the end of our conversation.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know you will enjoy this episode.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It has so many gems relating to a breastfeeding journey.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you enjoy it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to support a fellow mother and check out T's music.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: She's on Spotify.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's begin.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Mothering Tea.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to start by introducing yourself, telling us who's in your family and where you're living?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So my name's Christina, or T, I guess, for the purposes of the podcast.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I am living in Newport.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's four of us in our family, so it's me, my husband Benji, my eldest Erasmus, who is three, and my youngest Tigo, who is 18 months.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have two boys.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what does mothering look like for you at the moment?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a musician, I'm a composer, and a performer.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I teach private piano lessons.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I am doing paid work on Wednesday, Thursday, Fridays at the moment.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And on Monday, Tuesdays, the boys are at home with me.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Did you feel like having babies was always on your life trajectory?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there were times when I felt like I was really ready to have babies.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it was more just a timing thing.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've always wanted to be a mother.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think I always felt that was something that was eventually gonna happen.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it was just a matter of when.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were times in my life where I've probably debated whether or not I wanted to have children.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And especially I think before you make that leap into like, yeah, let's do this.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's wait a second, do I really want this?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, like especially coming to it later in life.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was 37, I think, when Erasmus was born.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's like 37 years of only looking out for me or my significant other or family and things like that.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think for Benji and I, we both ultimately, like we spoke about it over the years.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think we were together for 10 years, I think, before we had kids.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think we were both like, no, we do want this, we just don't want it yet.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were like, oh shit, maybe let's get onto it.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: After COVID, you know, the post-COVID baby boom.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get pregnant in COVID?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, but we got engaged just before COVID hit, and so then we didn't get married till after COVID, and so I think we started to feel like, oh, we just want to get onto that next bit of our lives.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, how was that journey for you guys getting pregnant?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And do you want to touch briefly on what that was like for you and talk a little bit about the birth of Erasmus as well?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were lucky in that it was easy to get pregnant.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: We conceived like quite quickly, um, which was a shock actually, because I think we were quite ready for it to be potentially an extended journey.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: We were both not young, so we didn't know how that would go, but we just launched into it, like we just started trying, and that happened pretty quickly.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I had a pretty smooth pregnancy, but like I wasn't really sick or anything like that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, I was still working.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did you decide to have a birth at the women's?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Were you in any kind of midwifery group program?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do a whole lot of research into different ways of birthing, but I was in the catchment area for the Royal Women's and I had a shared care setup.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where you have your GP and then you also go into the hospital for some appointments.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was low risk, so it was pretty straightforward.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think I was like, all right, it's an amazing hospital, it's right there, I'm in the catchment zone, I'll go with that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have many other mums in your life at that time?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or were you kind of the first of your friendship group?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: My sister had I think she'd had two children by then.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of friends with kids, you know, we'd just been living up in Sydney for a number of years, and then you know we'd moved back to Melbourne with starting a family in mind.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess the kind of lifestyle we'd been leading was going out a lot with friends and working at our jobs and like you know what I mean?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: The high life.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think as well, a lot of people for a lot of people that we're friends, we're people are waiting a bit longer to have kids as well.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So even though I felt like we were, I guess, not old, but we weren't young to be starting a family, I felt pretty common.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if that actually answers what you were asking for.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's great, it's good to get an idea because I feel like if you're the first, you don't have much of an idea.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think our friendship group and our family are really the people that we get our information from for pregnancy birth and mothering because we don't grow up in multi-generational houses anymore.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so you don't really know what it looks like unless you've been around people.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are the first person in your circle of life to do it, I think it can be quite shocking.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me anyway, I had some people around me and I understood the many different ways that you could have a baby, or things that could go wrong in birth and pregnancy.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had heard enough stories to be aware.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I was just interested in your experience as to like how confident you were in the way things were going, or if you felt like you were the first one to kind of do it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a good question.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was probably looking at my sister's experience, and maybe my mum, and probably just in general people around me, but I knew that my sister had given birth at the women's, and that's all I knew.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, okay, she did that, she lives in this area, that seems like the done thing.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I'll do that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Which isn't to say that I didn't think about it, but that seemed the obvious decision.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I knew about home birth, I knew that that was a an option.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't feel right for me, but I remember learning a little bit more during my pregnancy.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: So once I was probably, you know, six or seven or eight months in, and I was definitely interested in it, and I s understand why it's right for some people.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't feel right for me, but that was probably the only other option that I knew about.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think you could actually do it through the Royal Women's as well.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think they have a program.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know Sunshine definitely do.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also which I didn't learn about until I had a baby, because of friends that have done it or acquaintances, is there's actually group midwifery programs at the hospitals.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, yes, there you go.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think maybe three known midwives.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have continuity as opposed to like that's the word.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, as opposed to going in on the day and you know, working with whoever's on call, basically.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I remember finding out that was a thing.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did have some continuity of care in that I had my GP who I was doing the shared care with.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I would always go and see her, and then occasionally I go into the hospital and I would have a different midwife or obstetrician, usually a midwife, because I wasn't high risk.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I yeah, but that worked for me at the time.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Even with Tygo, I had a very different birth experience, like two really different birth experiences, but I just I did the same with Tygo because yeah, for me that worked.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was okay with seeing somebody different at every appointment, which I know a lot of people would like to have that continuity of care, but it didn't appeal to me enough to seek it out.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's great though.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's so great that it worked for you because that's the goal.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think as long as we know what's available, and then you can make a judgment on what's good for you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, do you want to talk a little bit about going into birth with Erasmus and what that looked like and whether it was what you expected and any kind of feelings around that?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think I just did not know what to expect, really.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think any of you do.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So jarring.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I felt much more prepared with Tygo with Erasmus.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was nearly 42 weeks pregnant and ended up opting for an induction with him at yeah, I think I was 41 and 5.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I had learned about everything that can happen, and I learned about what inductions entailed.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I never really liked the idea of it, but I ended up in a position where I felt like it was the best call at the time.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't really happy about it, but I was nearly 42 weeks pregnant.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was being told that my amniotic fluid was low.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'd put my back out.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was so uncomfortable, so over it.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was a hard call.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I kind of stalled it a little bit.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, I'm gonna give myself like another couple of days, and we just did everything we could to get it going, to get labor started, like everything we could think of.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing worked.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like it was really disheartening at the time.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my gosh.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: But then yeah, we were like, you know what?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna go for it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And once I made that decision, it felt better.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I went in for an induction.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: There was definitely uncomfortable elements involved.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was like not, what's the word?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think my cerv was pretty much closed at the beginning of the process, which is crazy.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a long process.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: The whole process I think took about 30 something hours from the start of that process, like going in, and there's like a balloon catheter that they insert, which is supposed to ripen the cervix, and that's the beginning of the process, and then they kind of monitor and see how you progress from there.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're just laying in the hospital while they're checking in on you and waiting for.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was like period pain, it was like early labour pain, like now that I have had a a labour where I went naturally into labor.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was like that, but worse.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And just being by myself in the hospital, like Benji went home, I was just there, and that was not fun.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then once things got started, it was quite a hectic birth.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what birth isn't hectic, but it was quite dramatic in moments.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I have heard that inductions are extremely intense because it was intense, yes.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're getting the the hormones are driving your drugs are driving your contractions rather than your I mean I feel like you already feel out of control when your body's doing it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you feel a little more out of control when you put it on.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like the idea of the I can't remember the name of it now, but the drip.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh the oxytocin.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the synthetic oxytocin that they that you get through drip.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Pinto pintocinin?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds right.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, when they started, that's when my contractions really ramped up.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'd learnt all these skills and ways of managing labor and being active, and I was, you know, doing all these things that I felt like I wanted to do.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was walking around, I was sitting on the ball, I was like doing breathing, I was vocalizing.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just really interesting being able to compare my two experiences because what I was feeling at six hours into active labor, the level of pain that I was experiencing and like the contractions were just rolling one on top of the other.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to know how far along I was, like how much I was dilating.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I was like two and a half centimeters or something.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was at this point where I was like, I've hit my limit now, and I couldn't believe how little I had progressed or whatever.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that was when I was like, I would like to have the epidural now, please.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I'm only two and a half centimeters dilated, I need to get to 10 centimeters, and like this could go on for hours, and like I'm just not gonna put myself through that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So once I got the epidural, looking back on it, I feel for me, but you don't know what you don't know, and I and I kind of had in my mind like I'm gonna see how I go, maybe I won't need relief.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just see.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, at that point I was like, okay, this is looking like it's gonna take a while, and this is extremely painful.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like the level of pain I was feeling at that point with Erasmus.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: When I felt that level of pain with Tygo, I was about to transition.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, he was born like an hour later.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was saying, like, oh, I don't know, I think I might want pain relief.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was when they were like, Do you want to use the water?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the Royal Women's, you can have a water birth there if you request to have what are the rooms that has a bath.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so I had that, and they were like, Let's try getting in the water.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, fine, I'll try that.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And being in the warm water was really amazing.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because she was like, I think you're close from the way that you're acting and the way that you sound and what you're you know, they can tell by sort of listening to you.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, I actually think you're really close, and I was like, Oh, okay, then.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because in my mind, I was thinking this is what it was like with Erasmus, and I was hardly close at all, so that's pretty crazy.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I know some women have really great induction experiences, and some women, you know, don't use pain really for their induction, and like there's just all kinds of experiences.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it is really unique to the individual.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, yeah, it was crazy how painful that was at that point in comparison to when Tygo was born.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like if you're having rolling contractions, it's like what comes at the end when you're at your limit and you're like, I can't do this anymore.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: You hit that point where you think you can't do it anymore, and that's when often women will go into that transition.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the hardest thing is with birth is like you don't know for your first baby, you don't know what it's gonna be like for you, and you don't actually know what your pain thresholds are because you've never experienced pain like that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's also don't know how baby's gonna be moving down, and they might need a lot of time, they might come quickly.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's such an unknown black hole that you're trying to prepare for, and it's really difficult because you can't you can prepare in a sense of being aware of what could happen.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: You were talking about having your skills, like your breathing and your movement and all that, and it's like we know these are good mechanisms to move through pain, but you know, like do jack shit when you're in the middle of that pain.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they're not really they're helpful, but yeah.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're helpful in terms of like having to do almost, you know, like being okay.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: I am not just floundering here, like I have something I can draw from or feel that I can focus on.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, get it out of your body some way.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did his birth go and how did you feel after that?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was hectic, it was pretty intense and difficult when I got to the pushing stage.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, once I had the epidural, that was brilliant because then I could rest.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was just so tired.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember my back, I was getting a lot of back pain as well because I had put my back out already, and because I was trying to do all of this movement to move through the pain and manage the pain.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: That was also then tiring me a lot.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I just felt like my legs were giving way.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anyway, then I could rest for a while, and that was really good.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was basically waiting, the contractions are happening, but you're not feeling it, and so you're gradually dilating.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Then it was like, okay, pushing stage, you're fully dilated, the baby's gotta come out now.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, the main drawback of an epidural is that usually you're not able to move around because obviously you lose the mobility in your lower body, and so you're not able to use gravity to help with that stage.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, with the two births, it was like a really long pushing stage with Erasmus and much shorter with Tygo because I was like in water and able to just move around and use gravity.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember that was really difficult, and I wanted to be able to feel the sensation of the contractions and use that to help me when he was being born, essentially.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I remember being really anxious about not having too much epidural that drug in my system so that I could feel again and like getting the balance right so that I wouldn't be like in excruciating pain, but could also feel what was happening.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was really concerned about that and like asking them midwhile, Oh my god, you would be like that.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: When should we start easing back on that?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or do I have too much?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do I do?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, You're okay, you're fine.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean it had worn off quite a lot, I think, because I was saying that.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, Okay, we'll dial it back a bit.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so then, yeah, it was oh, it was so it was really strenuous, so strenuous, like really hard physically to get him out.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he had a big head.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: He was a big fat baby with a big head.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: So and you're quite petite, yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I can see that would be strenuous.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was so strenuous, and there's Benji there, and he's oh, my midwife at the time, I was obsessed with her.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: She was so good, just the way that she was coaching me through everything, she was amazing.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was I just latched into her and she helped me through, and so did Benji, and we eventually did it, and then yeah, towards the end, there was like a couple of other doctors coming in and everyone's like cheering me on.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So great, but yes, I ended up having a small pisiotomy with him because it was just like getting to the point where it was like he needs to come out now, and so it was VENTU's delivery, and that was fine to be honest.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like at that point, I was just so exhausted, like I was just so tired.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I can't push anymore, and because of the epidural and the way that I was lying flat, like with Tygo, my body just was doing it, you know.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: The contractions were working, I was working with my body, and I was doing that too with Erasmus because I could feel the contractions and I could feel when my body was involuntarily pushing, but it was just hard for him to just finally actually come out.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was such a relief when he was born, it was amazing, and they like put him on my chest, and I was like, cool, we can do the breast crawl, and I was really excited about it, and just the exhilaration was amazing and the relief and all that hard work.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: But then the doctor who was stitching me up, she was looking inside to just make sure everything was okay, and she found a tear to my cervix, which is a really rare thing to happen.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: But she was like, There's a little laceration here.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she's called over one of the other doctors.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just totally preoccupied with Erasmus.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, oh, I think it's something not quite right.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because they were talking together.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I basically had to give him to Benji.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even get to breastfeed him.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was like making his way down to try and feed.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, you've actually got to go now because we've got to operate right now.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, I've just been through so much.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now I can't believe I have to leave my baby thing.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was pretty devastated because I was like, are you serious?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've just been through so much.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it just wasn't on my radar that like I would be separated from my baby.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just never thought that would eventuate.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I was feeling fine, you know, I was feeling good.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I was also like, okay, you're telling me that I need to go to theater, and it was serious.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then I was just like semi-conscious in theatre for three hours.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: They had to get the most senior surgeon who was at the women's that night to come in and look at it.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then she had this other doctor, and they were talking together, and they literally said, Oh, I've never seen that before.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Cool, that's what you want to hear.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was so out of it though, I was just like, whatever.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Just on a bit of a high, but also really tired.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was also like, just hurry up, guys.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just hurry up because I've got to get to my baby.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where's my baby?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I could think of.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Benji, he was just in shock because when they wheeled me, finally wheeled me back to the room, it had been like three hours.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think they told him it was going to be about half an hour, and he was panicking, thinking, what's so were you in surgery for three hours?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think they said to Benji, Oh, she'll be back soon.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: It won't be that long.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like it won't be a really a long time.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it took ages by the time they do everything, and then they've got to hand you over and make sure the paperwork's kind of ticked off, and then they've got to bring you down in the trolley thing, you know, they're wheeling you around.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was just a difficult operation because it's really rare for that to happen.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so Benji was really stressed out, and he's got Erasmus there who's crying because he hasn't had a feed yet.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was so much better prepared with Togo.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I brought in all of this colostrum I'd harvested in preparation because I was like, if I get separated from him, he can have that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't even realise that was a thing you could do the first time.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: I learned about that afterwards.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I got wheeled into the room and I was just like, give me the baby, give me the baby, give me the baby.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Benji was like, shouldn't you be like passed out?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you even punchy?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like animalistic.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, I need my baby.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, give me a big one.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember because I also got separated from Odessa when she was born.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: We got, I think we got about an hour together, I think.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when she was down in Niku, I just sat there the whole time.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had to be with her.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I cannot leave my baby here out in the wild.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: What the fuck?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's such a terrible feeling.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is really bad.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk a little bit about the first few days, then like going home and what that felt like and who was around?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have visitors?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have anyone helping?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Were you just trying to make it work?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed in hospital for a couple of days.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I forgot about that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Erasmus spent a little bit of time in the near queue because they thought he might have had an infection or something.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were being quite cautious with that, and he had antibiotics, which we didn't really want him having antibiotics so soon after being born.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like his little system.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I stayed for a few days actually.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: The women's is amazing in terms of giving birth.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're so great.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a great system and resource, and it's publicly funded and it's free, and it's amazing.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're on the ward afterwards, personally I found it difficult.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And like they are just doing their best, but you're disrupted all the time, you can't get any rest because they're constantly coming doing checks and stuff like that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the night that Benji went home, it was like the first night, I think, or the second night, because he was exhausted and he needed to just go and get a couple of hours' rest.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was when I remember Russ was just couldn't settle.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: He I was trying to feed him and I still hadn't slept properly.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was so strung out and sleep deprived.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: And just because of the nature of what it's like on the ward there, I just needed to be somewhere quiet and peaceful.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it just isn't peaceful in a hospital.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Were you sharing a room?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a private room.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, I wasn't even sharing a room.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had my own room, but But it's still disruptive.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have everyone coming in.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: They come in all the time.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: The food lady, the cleaning, the You can't get any rest.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not conducive to really what you need when you've just given birth.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: On that point, I feel like when the midwives do come in, they're ticking off checklists about you.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, when was the last feed?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And how's babies nappies?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: When how many wet nappies have you?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, what?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I was going to be tracking what I was doing.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: When did you last go to the toilet?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: I had to keep track of when I was like, Yeah.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't fucking know.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: That aspect is so hectic because you're exhausted, you're recovering from surgery if you've had surgery.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to deal with a baby for the first time in your life.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: No one's helping you with the baby.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like no one's helping you.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you have to report back all these medical things that they're tracking.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit overwhelming.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're trying to learn how to breastfeed and all of this stuff.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I remember my mum came and visited me the day after he was born, and that was amazing because she just held him while he slept, and I just rested a bit.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, thank God for my mother.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was really nice.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I did not love being in hospital afterwards.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And thankfully, with Tygo, I got sent home on the same day that he was born.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like again, completely opposite experience, and that was awesome.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I just got to like come straight home, and that was I actually love that you've been talking about both your births side by side because it's such a good comparison.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's so beautiful that you've got your save your birth in a way of like something that felt really good the second time around.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that it wasn't still difficult and had challenges, but broadly speaking, it was a lot smoother, much more just like textbook straightforward and something like that, which is something you don't even realize before you are pregnant and have a baby.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that, yeah, to be able to just go home.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just personally didn't love being in the hospital.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you go with breastfeeding?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Fine initially.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'd done a little bit of preparation with that, you really just don't know how it's gonna feel unless you do it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, with all of this stuff.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I am like that with a lot of things.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just dive in.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, I'll figure it out.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're one or the other.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're either someone who's just rolls with it or you're someone who needs to prepare.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, for better or for worse.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes that serves me well, and sometimes not so, but it's just how I am.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I watched some videos on the Thompson method, and so that kind of gave me a bit of an idea.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I just had this assumption that it would just be fairly straightforward, which I think a lot of us have absorbed that cultural messaging around breastfeeding, which is that it's natural, so that means I will be able to do it, and it will be fairly straightforward.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that it could be painful, I just assumed that it would come fairly naturally, and it ended up not coming naturally with Erasmus.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding with him, it was such a journey.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Initially, it was okay.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being in the hospital and midwives kind of coming in and trying to sort of direct me and like you know, they all have different ways of doing it as well, so it can be really confusing.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Another overwhelming thing of being in the hospital, like having to stay on, when we finally got discharged, it was such a relief to go home.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being like, no, I'm gonna just guide him on, and I knew that there were different ways of going about it, and you know, I knew that it was important to get the latch right, so I was just doing my best with what I thought was the right thing to do, and then you're just constantly feeding, so you're just in that cycle of putting them on because they're feeding, and yeah, it was fine for a couple of weeks.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, this is going well, and then it just hit a point where I started to just get a lot of pain, um, like nipple pain, breast pain, and it went downhill from there for a while.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I eventually came out of it, but for the first few months, that was the main source of stress and discomfort for me in like that early postpartum period, apart from like the general shock to the system of bringing home a new baby and having a new baby in your life.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my god, and the crying, you know, just like you're not used to it, you're not used to hearing a baby cry, things like that.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's so shocking when you're not used to it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Also, when it is your baby, there's something that happens in our body that just makes you feel like you need to vomit unless you do something about it.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's so intense, and just the intensity of just everything that you're doing, and you're learning how to do all these things on the go, and you're not getting much sleep, and your body's recovering, and you know, all of that.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the breastfeeding, it was so difficult.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like when it started to go south, and I started to get all this pain, I just couldn't understand why it was happening, and I was a little bit in shock, and then I thought I should be able to get this, like I can get this, I'll figure this out.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I became obsessed with his latch, and I was looking up all these different techniques, and I was like, but it looks fine, and I was like getting Benji to take photos of me with him, and so I could look at it, and then I remember getting some support at the women's, like going in for a breastfeeding appointment, and that was really the only support that I got initially in those early couple of months, and I really should have reached out to a lactation consultant earlier.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: I just went into the hospital, and it's great that they have that service, and again, it's free and they're really lovely, but just the nature of having to go into the hospital for an appointment, just that in itself is quite stressful with a newborn, and then you know you're at home, you're struggling with breastfeeding, then you're having to go into the hospital, navigate that, being in there waiting.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not ideal when you've just given birth.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like for new mums in that early period, you really need somebody to come to your home, which is what I've looked into and got.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just I have a lot of thoughts about it because it's like that was really expensive as well.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I just often think of mums who don't have access.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just took it upon myself to just try to fix because I have obviously a lot of us absorbed this messaging around just how natural it should be, and that and I just thought, no, I can figure this out and I will figure this out.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I should have asked for help sooner.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did go in and have an appointment, but they gave me sort of generalized advice and then sent me on my way.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like someone was checking in on me really.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I would have had to go back into the hospital, it was hard to get an appointment, you know.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was often like, oh, you've got one in a week's time.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, How many feeds are there in between now and then?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the future of me is you have to keep feeding them as well.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you can't just stop feeding them.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he was putting on weight, he was great, he was loving life, but I was suffering.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know about lactation consultants?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had when it all started happening, yes, but again, I was like, no, I can figure this out.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just my personality as well, I think.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, how hard can this be?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's supposed to be natural.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: If I researched this, I was on the internet just trying to work it out.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what could it be this?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Could it be that?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'll try this, I'll try that, I'll give it a break, I'll pump for a while, and then I'll try it again.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'll try this position, I'll try that position, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Was it both breasts that were hurting?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think one, I think it would be like one would be worse than the other, and then the other one would be worse.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was usually worse during the day, and when he was like cluster feeding, the saving grace was that he slept really well from the beginning, and pretty soon, after the first couple of weeks, he was only waking up once during the night, and I would give him a big feed.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'd only realize now how amazing that is because having another child who needs to be fed constantly.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: But he would just have this giant feed, and I think because it was the middle of the night and it was just quiet, and because he wasn't cluster feeding, it wasn't as painful then, but it was more peaceful.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: They were like the nice feeds, and yeah, he'd just have a giant feed and go back to sleep for another like however many hours, and it wasn't an angel, yes.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: But this is it, this is also postpartum and motherhood in general, is like you win some and you lose some, yes, and you don't know what your challenge is gonna be, and I have yet to meet a mother who has had a clean run.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, like everyone has some sort of challenge, exactly, and unfortunately yours was breastfeeding, which can I just say like you've been talking a lot about how you had this internal narrative, which we all do, that it's been it's an easy and natural thing, but I would say every single mother I've ever spoken to has said that breastfeeding was extremely difficult.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, at what point is the narrative gonna change?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because the current one is clearly a lie, because it is so hard.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have that same experience as well, and like you said, it can start off smooth and then it can go haywire.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: That happened to Odessa actually.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: We started smooth and then it got quite bad for a few months.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: We saw a lactation consultant, she was like, Her latch is fine, like I can't really see anything wrong.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't really gaining any weight, so that was more of the issue that she wasn't taking in milk.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: She said my supply was fine, and we and anyway, we ended up seeing a I think an osteopath, and she honestly just touched her face, gave her a few gentle little rubs around her neck.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, her jaw was out of alignment, which can happen in birth because all their bones are so soft, and coming down the birth canal, it can actually put things out of whack sometimes.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I've learned anyway.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: We saw her like three times, and it completely fixed everything.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like no idea that was something that could happen to babies or something that could then affect breastfeeding.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's just like a wacky world out there of all these things that can go wrong.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like most of us have no idea, and you know, I liked what you said as well about accessibility with the lactation consultant.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I also thought that when I was in that period of, I am so grateful I can afford this, but fuck me, it is expensive, and I guarantee you so many women would miss out on this kind of life-saving crucial support because of financial help.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that there isn't more free help for mothers because that is such a source of stress, such a source of stress.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's everything you like at the beginning, which I didn't realize you don't realize this before you have a baby, but feeding them is literally the main aim of the game in those early months.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is what we need to be doing.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And regardless of how you're feeding them, the main thing they're doing is eating.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it also has all these underlying feelings for you as the mum in that if I can't breastfeed my baby, what does that mean for me?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm failing.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, there's something wrong with me.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, you know, my baby doesn't like me, you know, if they're rejecting the breast, like laugh, but it's true.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you have all these feelings and there's no instant assistance, it's all on the mother to go and seek out her own help, which is ridiculous.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons why I didn't seek help until he was like six weeks old or eight weeks old or something was because I just was feeling so overwhelmed by what I was going through that I didn't really even feel like I had the capacity to get online, research lactation consultants, and figure out who to see.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was very overwhelming.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up seeing a really amazing lactation consultant and she was great.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yes, your name.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Jolene Windus Pay.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put it in the show notes.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's online, she's amazing.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she helped me a lot.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just helped me even to have somebody come around and just be there in a supportive way.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because psychologically I was suffering a lot, going back to what you were saying about what were you saying just then about feeling like a like you failed as a mother and all of that.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was really interesting to observe in myself the feelings and the thoughts that were coming out with breastfeeding being difficult.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Before I had a baby, I thought, I think I'd like to breastfeed, but we'll see how it goes.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: No strong feelings, really.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd assume that I'll just do it, like my mum did with all of her children, but I probably won't be that upset if it doesn't work out.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: But then obviously, when I was in it, I was amazed by the kind of thoughts that I was having.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just about myself and about the kind of mother I was and the kind of woman that I was, which obviously points to all of this like quite toxic cultural messaging that we have all absorbed.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Those those intense feelings are so shared between women for sure.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hearing stories when the breastfeeding journey is difficult, there is so much shame that we all feel.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say most people that want to breastfeed and decide to stop or slow down or whatever, there's a huge emotional toll that those mothers go through.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Even if they were so chill about it before the baby, it's almost like our biology is like you have to do this thing because obviously, once upon a time it meant your baby would die.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was no one else in the community that could breastfeed it.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's one of the biggest influences on how your postpartum journey will go, is your breastfeeding journey.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, gosh, he sleeps really well, he's healthy, I mean, he's growing, he's putting on all this weight.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: If only this wasn't so painful.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um Jolene was amazing.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: She was so helpful, and even just psychologically for me, mentally, to have somebody come and just be there for me, be there with me, acknowledge what I was going through.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I had well-meaning relatives trying to help me, but I think somebody whose job it is to just, you know, be there and guide you, you know, you're going through so much and you're so overwhelmed, and you just you are very vulnerable at that time as well.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: So she came over to our house, that was amazing, and that kind of helped me.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it didn't really change anything practically.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was still getting the pain.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: She couldn't really figure out why.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: I won't go into this convoluted story of what the pain was because it would just take forever.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: But then she referred me to this amazing GP.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: She's like a GP that specializes in breastfeeding as well.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And her name is oh my gosh, what is her name?
• 41:41
  unknown: Dr.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nicole Gales.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: She practices in Richmond and she's amazing.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Since I saw her at her clinic a couple of years ago, she's opened this amazing clinic.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's called Juno Specialists, and it's this holistic clinic where it's primarily for women and especially mothers and young children, babies, where you can go and get a long appointment model of care, and they have you know, they have GPs there, they have lactation consultants, they have physios, osteos, and it's just you can go to this one place where they just are focused on that.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: On that's amazing and mothers.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing, yeah.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put it in the show notes.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone listening is going through something similar, I mean, one of the amazing things she did was to literally just give me permission to stop breastfeeding.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't end up stopping then, but she took a look at me as well and she was like, Wow, okay, you have been just battling through this and you have done some amazing work.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was really I mean it's amazing what we're doing.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Must have felt cathartic to have a woman who knows what she's talking about just tell you that you don't have to battle through this.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can, it's okay to stop, just to stop doing this now.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have given it your all.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then the other thing that she did was just really look at what was happening and she made a few diagnoses around his anatomy.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: She said, uh, I suspect that he's got a what's it called?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh tongue type.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tongue type.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Very slight, though.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can get those operated on, but I didn't want to do that.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wouldn't even recommend that.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you are starting at this point where looking at your anatomy, even just like the shape of your nipples and like your breast shape, and looking at his anatomy and looking at how they're fitting together, she was like, Your latch looks fine, but you're getting all of his pain, and I can see it.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm also looking in his mouth.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: She tested his suck, and she was like, He's got such a strong suck, and you've just been through all of these different things.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Sometimes it just doesn't work out because it's two puzzle pieces coming together, and sometimes they just actually don't match up very well, even though he's your baby.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're led to believe that you know, if you try hard enough, if you only do it properly, if you only put the work in, or if you only knew what you would.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Doing it would work, but it's just not the case.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that really helped me because I think I had internalized that idea that I just needed to figure it out.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just needed to work harder.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just needed to do more.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was really great.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then she gave me some prescription topical stuff to put on to help with the pain I was experiencing and the kind of mastitis I was having, as well as like other stuff.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that in a practical sense, because she's a GP, like lactation consultants are amazing and they can be really helpful depending on what your issues are.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: But because my issues were more complex, somebody like her was amazing and you know, also not cheap.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I was really lucky to have access to that.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really worthwhile in the end.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think Benji and I was saying, Oh, should I try this?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, should I just stop?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the right decision?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this thing's just hard.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: So hard.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Look, I'll just try it.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: I tried this topical stuff, that helped.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, take breaks from it.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's when I started supplementing with formula as well.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I was combo feeding, and that was great because it gave me a rest.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it actually allowed this the trauma and the other issues that I had going on time to heal.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then our breastfeeding journey was able to extend for longer.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was able to have lots and lots of feeds where I was comfortable and it was lovely.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I really wanted to breastfeed as well.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that I I didn't have not strong feelings about it.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: How am I trying to say that?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: Weak feelings.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I definitely wanted to.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed it when it was going well.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I liked the experience of it, I liked how it felt.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be able to have that experience.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: And not everybody does, and that is so fine.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Some people they don't really mind, or they'd actually rather not, and that's so valid.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, yeah, I really wanted it as well.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just so helpful, and I'm really grateful that I had access to that because it helped me just continue, and it just helped me mentally as well.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wish all women could have that level of support.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for sharing all that.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's such a crucial point that I got from that is when you were talking about the anatomy not fitting, because like you are led to believe that you and your baby are one, and of course it'll work.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you might have inverted nipples, you might have brackets that are too big, you might have super large breasts, and you have to hold your breasts in a certain way so that your baby can get the milk properly.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are so many elements to breastfeeding, and I just urge everyone, if they're pregnant, to do some research on the lactation consultants and what's available to you, and if there's any community-funded things available in your area before you have your baby, because I think that will absolutely save your emotional and psychological state in those early days.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: You do need the support.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is so key.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I had known to just tee up that support.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: I really think it should be something that at the hospital, if you go through a hospital or any system, you know, they give you a lot of information about different things.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if someone had given me a list of names, you know, of like here are some people you can call if you're struggling with this.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here are some options just written down on a piece of paper because you are probably going to need some support.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think most people do.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna change gears now and talk a little bit further down the line of what your maternity leave structure was like and whether you had any paid leave, how long it was for, and what your thinking and feeling around going back to work was.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: So with Erasmus, with our first, I because I'm a sole trader, I am eligible for the government.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember how many weeks it is now.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: They've been actually upping it like each year.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think now it's about I think it's 24 or 26.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's quite good now.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't as much when I had Erasmus.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was three nearly four months, maybe.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think by next year it's gonna be six months.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which is great.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I had that.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Then Benji at the time was in a job where he was going to be able to have three months of paternity leave, which was brilliant.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because then between that's incredible, yeah, so great.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is so rare.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Should be the standard.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, love that for you guys.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: That really it really helped a lot.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it really shaped that first year for me.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the plan was I was with Erasmus for the first four months, and Benji went back to work after a couple of weeks after he was born.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started part-time teaching again when he was four months old, and Benji started part-time working.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: We had some funding to do a creative music project, a big project, which just coincided with me getting pregnant.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: We got awarded this amazing funding and this great opportunity.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna have a new baby, but also have to deliver this performance project by the end of that first year.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is that gonna be possible?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was pregnant and then we got the funding, and it was so exciting.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, should I not be doing this?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Talking to Benji about it.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, No, you've got to do it.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I really want to do it, but how are we gonna make this work?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're gonna have a new baby.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't not do it.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was such an exciting opportunity, anyway.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I was doing that as well, and Benji and I were just juggling.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: There were days where he was off with Erasmus, and I think he was working maybe two days a week, and then we also had a little bit of help from Benji's mum and also my grandmother and my auntie fortnightly, anyway.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, between all of us, I was able to work part-time, I was able to have a day where I did a few hours on this music project, and Benji was able to work a little bit, and Erasmus didn't have to go into daycare until he was 11 months.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, for that first year, we just shared him around a bit.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm amazing.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it worked really well, especially because when I'm teaching, that's happening from home, um, and it's just a few hours in the day, so I could have him in the morning, and actually for me, with him being my first, looking back in hindsight, apart from the breastfeeding hell, that was really challenging for me.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: That was the main thing that was challenging.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there was a lot of other challenging things because it's a new baby and everything, but that was the main challenge.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: But being able to keep one foot in working and also being creative and suing though that side of my personality, like being able to just keep a foot in there and not going from just doing that stuff my whole life to then suddenly this huge change in role and just being in mum mode full-time.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that would have been a massive shock to the system.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it is for a lot of people.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it would have been good to maybe have six months with him before I started back working, even though it was part-time.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: It felt a little bit short, I remember.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: At four months, I was like, I don't really want to start work yet.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just want to be in the little baby bubble for just a bit longer.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess nothing's perfect, so under the circumstances, it was good.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of like financially as well, I mean, I had to start back at work because I was only getting that government, like I was getting no maternity leave with the nature of my work and being a sole trader.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get sick leave either.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that can be difficult.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why it was so great that Benji had that three months because if he didn't have that, it would have been a lot more difficult.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we would have just taken more of a financial hit, and I probably wouldn't have been able to go back into work.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it just I think everything would have been a lot more difficult, and it was just really nice as well to have those balanced parenting roles.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: It really didn't feel like it was just all me in the way that it definitely felt more like that second time around with Tygo, where we were in a position where and I also wanted to have like a year of maternity leave, but obviously without pay, we just tweeted things so that would work.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I've had two different experiences again.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like in Erasmus, I was like straight back to work, still like doing my music projects, and I really loved that.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: But then with Tygo, I was like, you know what, I'd actually really like to just step back a bit now.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we had two under two, and so if we can manage it, I would like to just be at home with them for that first year, um, or with Tygo, and that was really great in some respects, but also very challenging in other respects because I then was very much the you know primary parent, especially for Tygo, and especially having two, as you would know, it's you're not sharing one child between the two of you in the same way.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like there's two now.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: Energy divided.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you were saying about your experience going back to part-time teaching in those early stages with Erasmus, and I was just thinking it's so beautiful that you had family members around to care for him.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so that you could just ease yourself back into work.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: For I think for a lot of mums, it's this sudden change from caring for your baby, maternity leave stops, and then you're back to work three, four, five days a week, whatever your chosen thing is.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this jarring transition for everyone in the family from like maternity leave straight back until now two parents are working and babies in care.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I just wanted to touch on the fact that's such a beautiful way to do it if you have you know care available, and even just being able to be around him in the morning and then going off to do your teaching in the afternoon, and then coming back together and knowing that he's like totally fine, and yeah, it's just a couple of hours, and very lucky, yeah.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just another beautiful model of mothering that can happen.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: It happened to work like that with the nature of my work and just how everything fell into place.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I maybe didn't really appreciate how great that was at the time, but it was really good.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I felt so busy, so busy, there wasn't no downtime.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I didn't really socialise, it was working on the music project and then teaching and then mothering, but I wanted to do that.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think I thrive when I'm busy, but yeah.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it would have been a missed opportunity, like it's something that you just you either had to do it then or not do it at all.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I get it.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, we're getting to the end.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to do some quick fire questions?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, whatever comes to mind.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: I do tend to waffle.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, waffle away.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love the waffle.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: If there were unlimited resources and finances available, how would you rewrite your postpartum period and what would it look like?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you have shared both your stories, so the perfect idealistic if you were to have a third baby, say, and you had everything at your fingertips.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think having an equal amount of parental leave for both partners.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, like six months for me and six months for Benji, it it just makes such a huge difference for the other person to have some parental leave.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: That and having family members around, it's really nice when your child is being looked after by a grandparent or a family member.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have my parents much closer.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: Benji's parents are an hour away, I'd have them a lot closer, and that little community could be parenting the children so that there's not as much stress placed on one or two people.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then starting work gradually from probably about the six-month period.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: Have I answered every element of that?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think something like that would be great.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's not all or nothing.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think at the moment it's okay, you take maternity leave, and your job is literally to do all of the children rearing.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: That first year of two under two, that's a two-person job.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's a three-person job.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: But often it's one person doing that job.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's really not a one-person job.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like we can do it.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know, but it's not.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually not a one-person job or a two-person job.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading a book the other day, and there's two two different tribes I'm going to talk about.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is the ACA tribe in Africa.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: They have four parents designated to each child.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they've got their two parents, and then they've got two aloe parents, whether that be two grandparents, aunties, uncles, whatever.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that for you, four adults on one child.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's these other people that live in the Himalayas.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: When a child is born, ten people from the community get designated to care for that child over their entire life.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so these ten people become key support networks.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not all in the early years, maybe some their strengths are in the teenage years or adult life or whatever it is.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: I remember reading that and being like, absolutely, I know why it's fucking so hard for me and you when and other mums who are wrangling more children in the week.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like one adult, two kids is so unnatural and so fucked, and we are so stretched, and like I wouldn't do it any other way.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is my choice, but fuck it, it's hard.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love reminding myself in those moments where you're just having a really shit day.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: That like, Carly, there are people in the world who are doing this with nine other adults around them.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, you're doing amazing.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Cut yourself some slab.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing amazing.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: So true.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: Our culture just has become, yeah, it's just the norm, it's just the expectation and the norm, which is a pity.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's rough.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, love it all.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, last one.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, sorry, that was the first one.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, what is one unexpected joy that you get out of motherhood?
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think how fun it is.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't expect the type of fun that it would be.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's the kind of fun that reminds me of when I was a kid.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: That really pure, just childlike, obviously, for want of a better word.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it's that really pure, kind of wholesome fun that you can have and feel that sense of fun.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think before you have kids, you know that okay, it's probably gonna be quite fulfilling and give you this sense of purpose, you know what people have talked about, and you have this sense of what it might be like.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: I guess when you're a younger adult, you're having fun by hanging out with friends and laughing and maybe going to music festival like activities, but just that childlike joy and fun that you can have with little kids.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's been unexpected.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really realize that it would take me back to my own childhood and that feeling that you had when you were a kid having fun.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: A different kind of feeling, I think.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: Totally agree.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just wholesome.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just feels like what else would I be doing right now?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the best.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: Especially on a weekend when you're all together as a family.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: And just doing something simple like going for a walk or a bike ride or whatever it is.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: It could be the most simple task, but it feels so fulfilling.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun, it's funny.
• 1:00:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: Kids are funny, man.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: They are so funny.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're funny.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: We've both got Isla and Erasmus who are getting Erasmus is already three, and Isla's nearly three.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they're at that stage where everything's why now, you know, but what is that?
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: And but why?
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not the full why yet, but but what is it?
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and Isla was asking me the other day, like, what are ghosts?
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh fuck yeah, let's sit down and talk about ghosts.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's so fun.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I never thought I would have these conversations in my life with little children.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're just a blank book in a way, even though they have their own personalities and whatever.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: You get to write these pages of knowledge and experience and tell them your views on the world.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: Although I always try and preface things that I'm like, this is what I think, but other people think other things as well, you know.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know what you mean though.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's really fun, and it's even fun reflecting on things with your partner.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun talking about what they've done together.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really fun activity, is just like having those chats about the kids.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: Getting stuck looking at your camera roll when you should be sleeping.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I do.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: When you've got a break from them and then you're just like looking at photos of them the whole time.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Last one.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's one thing you would tell a new mum about to go through their own matrescence and postpartum experience?
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: I would say just do what feels right to you.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: When you're navigating all of these things and all of these decisions that you're going to be making, because you're making a million decisions.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many things you have to decide.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: Just do what feels right to you.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: There is a lot of noise out there around parenting, birthing, mothering.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of good info, but there's just a lot of loud sort of shouting, especially if you're on the internet.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: I would say proceed with caution in terms of things like Instagram, social media.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of black and white ways of thinking out there.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you're in a vulnerable position, like when you're pregnant, when you're in matrescence in that early postpartum period, especially, just take everything with a grain of salt.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: Trust your own instincts and your own gut.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: And don't be afraid of trial and error.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like figuring things out as you go.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you can change your mind on things.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like you are allowed to try something out, realize that maybe you don't like that, and try something else.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: And do what works for you and what works for your kid, your little child.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because no child is the same and no parent is the same.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel like it's so easy when you're in that vulnerable stage of life to like just in the world that we live in at the moment, especially if you're on social media, there's just so much out there, and a lot of it can be quite dogmatic in the way that it's presented and spoken about.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, birthing and mothering and parenting can be really divisive.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: People have very strong, strong feelings about so much, which you don't realize until you become a parent, but it's everything feels so loaded or can feel.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I would just say proceed with caution in terms of that sort of stuff.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like be open to learning, read books and listen to podcasts, listen to this podcast, and absorb information, but I think just do what works for you and don't feel bad about it.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: Don't feel guilty about it.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's all you need to know.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's so many people out there, and you're gonna feel judged, you're gonna feel pressure from all kinds of people for family.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think I love everything you have said.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is you may have so much in common with your friends, but no matter how much you all love doing the same shit, you're all gonna parent differently, you're all gonna feel like you have different priorities in life, the way you want to spend your time as a family is different, and so I think that is also a place where some people get hung up is that their friends are doing certain things and they think they need to be doing those things, but I think our natural state is to look inward and just choose what you think is best.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we're both giving you the approval to just choose you in this stage of life.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: Love that, I agree.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, T.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've honestly spoken so beautifully, and I didn't even know we were going to talk so heavily about breastfeeding, but I love that has been our main topic because it is so important, and thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing all your insights and your experience and your information, and I truly know that it will help someone out there feel a little less alone.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a pleasure.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of mothering.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a mother yourself, I hope it provided comfort that you are not alone in your journey.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you're about to be a mother or have a new mother in your life, I hope it provided some understanding of the complex emotions and experiences women go through during this life-changing transition.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a one-woman show, so I would love, love, love, love, love to hear what you thought.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribing is the greatest way you can help this podcast reach other mothers who need it.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you rate and leave a comment on here, I will be eternally grateful to you.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the Instagram page, which is at by Mothering, B-Y Mothering.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of opinions on motherhood and share all sorts of things mother-related on there.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be a guest on the podcast, I really encourage you to reach out to me.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: There is a section on my website where you can submit, and I'll leave a link for it in the show notes.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can find all the relevant links and information mentioned in this podcast below in the show notes as well.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have a beautiful day, and I will see you next time.