Latest / Leanne's Podcast / Emma M’s Story

Transcript

Emma M’s Story · Leanne's Podcast

0:08
SPEAKER_02: Hey guys, welcome back to Motherhood Honestly.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: Season two is fine and I'm not sure how we made it this far.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: 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.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: The messy bits, the funny bits, the heartbreaking bits, and everything else in between.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: And if you've been here since season one, welcome back.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: You're the reason I was started recording season two.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: You've got to enjoy listening to Mum's Over Chair, so you're definitely in the right place.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: This season is bigger, more honest, and full of incredible women and maybe men, spoiler alert, sharing their journeys, and I cannot all wait for you to hear them.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: So grab a cover, settle in, and let's get into season two of Motherhood Honestly.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: My first guest on the podcast today is the lovely Emma.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: Emma is one of those people that I instantly click with as soon as I spoke to her.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: She's absolutely hilarious, completely chaotic, brutally honest, and such an incredible advocate for women.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: Emma welcomed her baby boy Ezra into the world ten months ago, and while she had what they call a textbook birth, the weeks following Ezra's birth were not good.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: Emma opens up about the early days in which she struggled mentally and her nasty fall six weeks post-birth, which resulted in a broken ankle.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you heard that right.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: She was open from the start about her struggles and leaned on the people closest to her to pull her out the other side.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: It's one of the conversations where I generally forgot we were recording, and I think you'll love her just as much as I do.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I should have a water drink.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Have a sip of your wine right now.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: What if you know if I do a big gulp of wine?
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Will you cut that out?
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: If I'm like glugging wine.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna say that in my intro?
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I turned up and she was glogging wine.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm already recording.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Are you recording now?
1:49
SPEAKER_02: You can put this in me.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Put I'm literally look, this is the sound effect.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: Guys, Emma's just filling up a glass of wine right now.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: I've got a squash.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: And I've got a wine.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: The conversation requires wine.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
2:06
SPEAKER_01: I've never drank so much alcohol since I had Ezra since you've become a mum.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: I never used to drink during the week.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: I feel like sometimes it's needed though, isn't it?
2:16
SPEAKER_01: What day is it?
2:16
SPEAKER_01: It's Monday.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: I know.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: It's it's Monday.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: You ready?
2:25
SPEAKER_02: What have you got?
2:25
SPEAKER_02: What wine have you got anyway?
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Chicken wine.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Chicken wine.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: Very nice.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: I've not tried that yet.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: Is it good?
2:32
SPEAKER_01: What well you're not drinking the one?
2:33
SPEAKER_02: No, I'll have a little sip later.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll do you a little one later.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, welcome to Motherhood Honestly.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: You are my first guest of season two.
2:42
unknown: Woo!
2:43
SPEAKER_02: Woo! I thought I'd start off with bang.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: When you messaged me and sent me this most chaotic voice note, I fell in love with you.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Chaotic is yeah.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: Is the word I would use.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: I absolutely fell in love with you.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I need to meet this person.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, I said to you after I'd listened to the episodes, I was like, I feel like we're best friends.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: We've never met.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: We're best friends.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: We're absolutely and your one with your girl mates.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: Did you like that one?
3:07
SPEAKER_02: I love that one.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: They're mental, aren't they?
3:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but great, like it's just so honest, isn't it?
3:12
SPEAKER_02: So I think we've all been we've been friends since school, you know, since like 10-11, and some of them even brought primary school, so we've kind of all seen we've been through every season together.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: So you could feel that in the episode.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: It's it's absolutely chaotic.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Let me put that on silent.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, welcome to the podcast.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: So, first of all, your accent.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Oh god, yeah, we need to address that.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: We need to address that right now first.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: We're in Banbury right now.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: We're in Banbury.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: We're in Banbury right now.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: It's Monday night.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: And you are not from Banbury.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: I am not from Banbury.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: Tell me where you're from, because that is not a Bam, but what's a Banbury accent?
3:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: That's not an accent.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: Where are you from?
3:50
SPEAKER_01: I know what you mean.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: What's your ASL?
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I feel like people need to know this before they commit to listening to a podcast of the accent because if you can't get on board with it, you it's just cut it off now.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: And when I get excited, it gets all high-pitched, and you know.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so I was born in a town called Stalbridge.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Actually, Jude Bellingham put us on the map.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm from the same town as Jude Bellingham.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: We went to the same sick form.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: Go on England at different times, exactly.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, um, a little town about half an hour outside of Birmingham.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And I've sort of lived all over.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: I was actually talking to so my other half schooled Farris, who've been together eight years, and we were talking about it earlier about how I've never really connected with anywhere.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: I lived in Stalbridge till I was 18.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: I went to uni in Coventry, and then I've just lived in loads of places.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: So I've lived in London, Birmingham, Milton Keynes, now we live in Banbury.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, just like moving.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I just don't really until Ezra, which is actually why we've been talking, because we're like, when he goes to school, yeah we're actually gonna have to pick up.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have to commit to like living somewhere, aren't you?
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Because we don't really feel, you know, his family are from Northampton, he works in Milton Keynes.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: I sometimes need to be able to get to London for work, yeah, and I want to be able to get back home, which is an hour from Banbury.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: So this Banbury's like quite well connected, um, which is what we liked about it.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: It's quite rural, yeah.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: It works for us location-wise, but yeah, so the accent is black country, so it's not brummy, but it's not brummy, we're just gonna address that.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: It is not brummy everywhere.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: But it I don't know.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: Don't you dare say it's brummy.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: It might be worse, it might be worse, but yeah, proud of my roots.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: I think like I I always used to hate saying I was from Birmingham, but now I think I appreciate it more.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: Nice, and you've been with Farris for eight years.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: How did you guys meet?
5:40
SPEAKER_01: We met on Tinder.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Did you?
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we did.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how it happened really.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: I was working in Coventry, so there must have been some time that a train went past somehow, and he was working in Milton Keene's living in Northampton, so somehow we overlapped, and I was his first Tinder date.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: He was definitely not my first Tinder date.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: But you're like a serial date are.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I just didn't give a shit when I met him.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Can I swear?
6:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, this is not be said to that.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: When I met him, I was very much in the like, I don't care, I've been a bit heartbroken, and I was kind of like, yeah.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: Here he is.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, here he is the main man.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: He's walking, is he going around the back?
6:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's getting around the back.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: You'll probably hear the panty dogs.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, shall I shut that door?
6:25
SPEAKER_01: You'll shut the door, won't you?
6:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll pause it.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: As we were just talking about Ferris, he walked in.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: Which is just like absolute ghost.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: Hello.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, so you met him eight years ago on Tinder.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Which I love.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: Um and so when did you come to Banbury?
6:40
SPEAKER_01: So in this we did long distance for a while through Covid.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: I lived in London and he went back to his mum's in well, he was living at his mum's in Northampton.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: So we did proper long distance for a while through Covid.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: And then we moved hard.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was awful.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:55
unknown: Yeah.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Awful for me.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure he found it quite as awful.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: I think he quite enjoyed the freedom.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we moved in together about three years after we met in Milton Keynes, and then about two and a half years ago we moved to Bamberry.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: But just completely, we didn't know anyone here, we didn't know anything about Bambury.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: We just sort of picked it and settled, yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: And you have a lovely little boy named Ezra.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: And I must, I just want to say, I look at your Instagram a lot, and he is just the most scrummiest baby ever.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: He's beautiful, Emma.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: He is such a beautiful boy.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Like he's gorgeous, and he's so he's 10 months, isn't he?
7:32
SPEAKER_01: He's 10 months, yeah.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: He's 11 months in about a week, um, which is just wild.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: So you're coming up to the first birthday.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, September.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: It's not a lot of reflection, isn't it?
7:42
SPEAKER_01: A lot of reflection and very emotional.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think I expected it to be this emotional.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: Before you became a mum, what did you imagine motherhood to be like?
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Did you always want to be a mumana?
7:57
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think I did.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Really?
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: I I didn't really know whether or not I wanted to be a mum.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna pause this now.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: We paused it because Farris has come back through the living room.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: We've kicked him out of the house now, he's gone.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: He's gone to the gym now.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: He's gone to the gym.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm like finding something else to do.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, right, so sorry, yeah.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: So Ezra is gonna be one next month.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: So I was saying I wasn't sure if I always wanted to be a mum.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think on reflection, I think it was self-preservation.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I think I just never I haven't been one of these people that has kind of always dreamed about getting married, having a family.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why it just wasn't.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to, it sounds really like fluffy, but I did just really want to be happy.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wherever I live, whatever job I have, I just want to be really happy.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I didn't think that much into it.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but um, I think, yeah, I had a concept that parenthood was hard.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: One of my best friends from school had my goddaughter when we were like 18, 19.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: She's since had three more, so she's now got four kids.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I had kind of an idea of of what it was like from her, but also just seeing things, and I guess I just kind of I enjoyed my life, I enjoyed the freedom, I enjoyed travelling.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: And when Farris and I met, we were both quite on the same page with that of like, we don't know if we want to get married, we don't really know if we want a family.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's kind of go with the flow figure it out, see how we feel.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think before we had Ezra, we'd been together for about six years, and we were sort of like okay, we're at a bit of a crossroads here.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Do we let's talk about do we want to buy a house?
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, I think we do want to do that.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Do we want to get married?
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Because I think we don't stop and think about these things enough in life sometimes.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Everyone's like, must buy a house, must get married, must have children.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: And we really thought it all through.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: We were like, neither of us are that bothered about getting married.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: Feels like a lot of money if we're not that bothered.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Let's leave that one on the side.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Children.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: And then it was like, okay, we are not sure if we want them or not, but and we could live this life easily for another 10, 15, maybe 20 years.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: But then I think the decider for us was we thought we'd get to 40s, 50s, and be like, shit.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just kind of run out of steam on the life we were living, and then think we won't, we don't have children, we won't have grandchildren, our parents and you know, wider family won't be here anymore one day, and then what will our family be?
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we kind of just were like, let's just let's just do it, let's just do it and hope for the best.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: I hope for the best.
10:39
SPEAKER_02: Tell me a bit about your pregnancy and your birth.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: So um pregnancy was actually great for me.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, we were very lucky that we caught quite quickly.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: And I was 31 when I fell pregnant with Ezra.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: And so I was kind of not one of the first in my friendship group.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: So I'd seen quite a lot from friends around me, and we kind of expected it to take a while because we were very aware that that can happen.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And we were also like, it might not happen for us.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, we think we want children now, but we don't know if that will happen.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it happened really quickly.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: I think we were quite we were shocked.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we were shocked.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: I think it was two months, so the first month I knew I wanted to be a mom then because I was sad.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: I think the test was negative, yeah.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: I felt sad.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: And even though it was only a month, it was the longest month ever, then waiting till next month.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: Then I thought, no, I want to be a mum.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, we found out in the January and we were going to Centre Parks to celebrate my dad's birthday.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: So we told our family literally there and then.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, lovely.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: I was not the wait 12 weeks kind of person because I literally told my mum like instantly.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: Instantly.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I can't hold this in.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: I was like, mum.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: I think as well, I know how I am.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Farris is definitely more private than me.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I knew that I was very aware that it didn't mean that I was gonna be pregnant for nine months, we'd have a healthy baby and it would all be fine.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I knew that whatever happened, I would tell people and I would talk about it, yeah, and I would want people around me.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So we told everyone in centre parks, and I actually had a great pregnancy, I was very lucky.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, didn't I felt sick a little bit, but I mean I'm really stretching it there.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: I felt fine, I was very active, um, yeah, was very, very fortunate, and I actually quite enjoyed it.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, so pregnancy was great.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, birth, I I feel like again, I kind of pushed that to the back of my mind for most of the pregnancy, which I think is quite normal.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: Um I think you do until it comes down to the why, and you're like, oh, I've got to think about this.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: It's gotta come out.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: So we did do hypnobirthing in Brackley, actually.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I found this woman who her website was like not another fucking hypnobirthing course.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, She's my person.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: Who's that?
13:04
SPEAKER_01: She's called Amy.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have I'll give you the link to put in.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: Shout out Amy, yeah.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Do shout out Amy.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Now what it's called.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: But she was very, very honest, very sweary, very not kind of airy fairy, you know.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: You don't need that, yeah.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: You need someone to share and it was great, it was really good.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: And I thought we need to do this together.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: So we went every week in Brackley, and and then obviously you start having the conversations, and we were like, okay.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: How do you want to give birth?
13:31
SPEAKER_02: This is happening, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: And I was a bit like I kind of had an idea that I'd like to get in the water if I could, and a big part actually of my pregnancy was my pregnancy was high risk because of my BMI.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, and aside from my BMI being high, I am perfectly healthy.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: And I was really tenacious in my pregnancy because it really irritated me that they were acting like everything was on fire just because my BMI was high.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, I was quite stubborn actually, and I was like, you know, with the consultants, they'd be like, right, so you know, you need to be in hospital because of your BMI, your high risk of um so first thing having gestational diabetes.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, did the test, didn't have that.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I was like, okay, so I don't have that.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: What's next?
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, you might have high blood pressure.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay, has my blood pressure been high at all through my pregnancy?
14:23
SPEAKER_01: No, okay, what's the next thing?
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you might have a big baby.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, is my baby measuring big?
14:28
SPEAKER_01: No.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what's next?
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Like I was just irritated by fire, girl.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: I was annoyed.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was really annoyed.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Amy was really good for that as well because she really sort of supported me to advocate, and so was Farris.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: So I think out of pure principle, I gave birth in a birthing centre because I was like, you're telling me I can't, so I'm gonna I'm gonna do it.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I didn't really mind if I was if I ended up in hospital, and I was kind of open that it might end in a C-section or I might have to be induced, or it wasn't like I was kind of fixed on it.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: You didn't have like a set plan, like it was if it was to go off course, yes, you'd be okay with that.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: And I again from having lots of friends that had been through birth, I've heard however many different avenues it can go down.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to have the option.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: That was my bugbear of like if everything goes smooth and there's no complications, I want the choice.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if it doesn't, that's fine.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, so obviously, when well not obviously, but when you live in Banbury, your options are you go to the Horton and you give birth in the birthing unit there.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: Because that's a midwife-led unit, isn't it?
15:36
SPEAKER_02: There's no doctors there, it's just purely a midwife-led unit.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: And my midwife there, Debs, who I had every week, again, was amazing.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: Hold on a minute.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: She got she got like big glasses, blonde hair.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't know if her hair's blonde.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: She got big, big, thick, brimmed glasses.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Okay, maybe not.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: She's plus size and she really supported me with my advocate.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: I feel like she was there when I was there having my scans, and I I just remember the name Deb and I loved her.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: She was great, yeah, amazing.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: She which she caught sorry to go short.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: She came into the waiting room one day and said to my husband to it.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: She was like, mmm.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: She was like, Where are you from?
16:14
SPEAKER_02: Because he's obviously very, you know, tantric and whatever.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: And it was so funny.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: He she was like, You are beautiful.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: You guys are gonna have a beautiful child.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, you didn't like she looked, Lives is gorgeous, but I was so funny, I was like, This girl, I need her in my life.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she was very, very honest with me through pregnancy, she was very supportive of me wanting to go to a midwife-led unit.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to go there because I wanted her and I'd had a good experience there.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: That's where I'm gonna be.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: So I felt safe and comfortable in that environment as well, yeah.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't like the idea that if anything went west, we had to go to the JR.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and with the traffic and everything getting there, I don't know Oxford very well.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: And Farris was from the beginning, Farris was like, Yeah, but you're nothing's gonna happen.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Why are you thinking like that?
16:59
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be fine.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: But I think where men and women are in different rooms when we talk about birth, sometimes I was like, Yeah, but it absolutely could, it absolutely could, and I don't want to be blue-lighting.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't want to be in the back of an ambulance.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: My oxytocin will not be in the room if I'm in an ambulance.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we looked at our options.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: The other option was to go to Spires or just the JR in general, or we could look at Warwick, and because of where we are in Banbury, we're kind of on the edge of the Warwickshire border.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: So we decided to go to the Bluebell unit in Warwick, okay, which they wouldn't sign off until I had a scan at like 37, 38 weeks, and they would not sign it off until then.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: And it was so funny because I had an obstetrician appointment on that day, and I was like, right, okay, guys, seriously now, everything is fine.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, can I go into the bluebell unit?
17:48
SPEAKER_01: I want to get in the water.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Well, I'll send a referral to the to the I think they call them matrons or something still there, the head matron, and she can review it and whatever.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Okay, cool, no worries.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Literally left the hospital, picked up the phone, rang the matron, and I was like, Hi, my name's Emma.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm coming to you to give birth.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Um she was like, Okay, that's fine.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: You just have to do a risk assessment in the pool.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: So their reason for you not going on a midwife ledge unit when your BMI is high is because they wouldn't, they think they wouldn't be able to get you out of the pool if you like fainted or something happened in the pool.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: Right, okay.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Because you're a ginormous elephant that nobody can touch.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: So they obviously hadn't met Farris.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: So Farris is a prison officer.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: He's like six foot two, and he's like he was very tall, I did think that.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I keep coughing.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: So we went into the mid, she said, I'll book you in for an assessment.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: So we were literally driving there, and Farris was like, right, when we get there, Emma, you've got to get in and out of that pool like as a like a gazelle.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Honey, you know me.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make it look like you know, and I'm five foot ten, five foot nine, five foot ten.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking someone who's tiny and is four foot nine is gonna struggle more to get in and out of that pool than I am.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm very active, you know.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we went, and she actually ended up telling me off for being too because I was like, right, too gazelle.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: She was like, get down, get up, and I'll and she was like, Slow down.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: I was like, nope, come on, what's next?
19:12
SPEAKER_01: What else do you need to see?
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Do you want a handstand?
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Do you want a forward roll?
19:15
SPEAKER_02: You were gonna prove this point, absolutely.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she was like, Okay, fine, you can get in the water, you can come here.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I those last few weeks of pregnancy are the hardest part, I think.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: See, right, everybody says early, exactly.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: Everybody says this to me, and I'm like, I didn't get that far.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: 36 weeks, I didn't, and so oh, everybody always says to me like the last few weeks, I can tell.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: Like yeah, but by 36 weeks, I actually felt like Liv was falling out of my vagina.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: Exactly, yeah.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: It's a mental game, those last few weeks.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: A mental game, it really is.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: My girls' podcast, I don't know if you listened, but uh my friend Kirsty, her first baby, she lost her mind, right?
19:53
SPEAKER_02: She lost her absolute mind one day and was like, I can't continue this.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: So I I you know I can appreciate how hard it must be for the women who really do go forward or like over, yeah, you know, um like 42.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: So I should women.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, say that your due date is 42 weeks in your head.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: This is this is what someone said to me.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think you should because those last couple of weeks, in particular, when you've gone over your due date, so yeah, I was 40 plus four.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, was I 40 plus four?
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 40 plus four.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And I was at I I decided initially for the last couple of weeks we were just gonna stay at home and not do anything.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: And I don't stay at home and not do anything, so it didn't, it wasn't going well.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, right, let's do something else.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: So we went to my mum's, let's try and get a bit of oxytocin going, let's be happy.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Went to my mum's, um, the dogs were playing, you know, and one of my best friends is a midwife called Rach.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Shout out, Rachel.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: Shout out Rachel, um, and she came round to see me while I was at my mum's.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: And while I was there, my cousin, who is also pregnant, um, was also there.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: And while my cousin was there first, she'd come round to see me.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: I went to the toilet and I thought, I'm gonna be TMI, by the way.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: I am that.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: TMI, go for it.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, we're all women in this podcast.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, men might be.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not if you're not, well, there you go, there's some information for you.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, I went to the toilet, I thought, oh my pants are a bit wet, but like I don't I haven't weed myself, and it doesn't smell like we and that it's not enough to be wee.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: And I I actually kind of just forgot about it.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: I went back into Grace, yeah, my cousin.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: I thought my pants are a bit wet, that's a bit odd.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm obviously just that's obviously a new symptom.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm obviously weeding myself.
21:32
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to motherhood.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, and I had already lost a bit of my mucus plug as well, so I thought, you know, is it that?
21:38
SPEAKER_01: So I went and sat down with Grace, forgot about it.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Then about an hour later, Rach came around to see me having a cup of tea.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: We were literally halfway through the conversation.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Oh, by the way, my pants were a bit wet.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: She was like, When was this?
21:52
SPEAKER_01: I was like, about an hour ago.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Can you smell them and see if you think it's like my water?
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Can you sniff my pants?
21:59
SPEAKER_01: She was like, No.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna go to the hospital and they're gonna test whether or not it's your waters.
22:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, I'm not doing that because then they'll want to induce me and they'll want it to be 24 hours.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not, you know.
22:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Then Farris came back and my mum was there, and everyone was hounding me and they were like, You need to go to the hospital.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And literally, Warwick Hospital is on my way home from my parents.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Fine.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't really have an excuse.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: You couldn't bypass it.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Just nipping.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: So I rang them.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Just nip in.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Literally, that's what they said.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: So I rang them.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: I was like, not sure if my waters have broke.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: Can I come in?
22:29
SPEAKER_01: They were like, Yep, no worries.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: Any pain at this point?
22:31
SPEAKER_01: No.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: No pain.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: Zero.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Zero pain.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'd had so much stop start towards the end of having like mild cramps, my mucus plug had gone, it was all a bit stop starty.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: We were getting our hopes up, and I was a bit fed up with it by this point.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: So I thought, I don't want to go in, then tell me it's not my waters.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Go home, it's just long.
22:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: But my dog was already at mum and dad's goosey.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I'll leave Goosey here.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd got my bags in the car because I was just that.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Ready to go.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: So went to the hospital.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then she did my blood pressure, did a urine sample, went in, and it's like a COVID test that they do for your waters, it's like a swab, and then on the you know, the little thing.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was like, Oh no, it's not your waters, go home.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: I was like, fantastic.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: And she showed me the test, and there was like a really faint second line that had obviously developed since she'd said no.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, Oh, do you think like that's a line?
23:27
SPEAKER_01: So she looked again and she was like, Oh, yeah, sorry, it is your waters.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: So like casual.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, but actually it is so sorry about that.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: You ain't going anywhere.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: No, so then she was like, I'm really sorry, but baby's heartbeat is quite high.
23:43
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And we hadn't had that at all.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: It was like 10 pm, and she was like, It it's probably quite normal.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: Are they quite active normally at this time?
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Which I don't really know whether I should say this, but you know, when everyone was like, There's no there is a pattern that you learn about your baby.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I didn't ever feel that Emma, I never had a pattern with Liv ever, ever.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: She just went kicked when she wanted to, you know.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I never and you absolutely should go if you're worried about anything.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: If you're not gonna go back to the city.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: 100%, yeah.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: Any reduced movements and things, yeah.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: There was no regular pattern for me.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: So when she asked you that, you were like, Well, I didn't.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think so, like when I get into bed, but some days he doesn't, some days he does.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: So she was like, You're gonna have to go up for monitoring because we just need to check.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, here we go.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: Here we go.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be induced, it's all gonna go downhill.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: So she was like, When did your waters break?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: I was like, How honest do I have to be here?
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Because I knew that whatever time I said, that was the start of the 24 hours.
24:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: So I was honest with her.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: I said about five o'clock, and we went up to be monitored.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, I gave birth in September, which is the worst month to get birth to give birth.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's born in September.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: Everybody has Christmas, decides they want a baby.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: People who get pregnant quickly get pregnant, December, January, babies.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: I never thought about this.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Do you know loads of people born in September though?
24:58
SPEAKER_01: You do.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So the waiting room was full.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Chuck a block.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I was fuming.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: So literally, when we eventually got on the hospital bed, it was like two hours.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: I got on and I was like, right, honey, you need to get me in and out of here, ASAP, because I need to go home and get some oxytocin going.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: Because right now it's not happening.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: So she was great and she put the thing on and she was like, Can you feel contractions?
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Because the monitoring is telling me you're having contractions.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: And at that point I couldn't.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like Braxton Hicksy kind of tightenings.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Okay, that's what that is, great.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: So I kind of went home with a knowledge that maybe things were moving, which helped my mindset really.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: And I'd had a couple of sweeps as well.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay, fine.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, from about 38 weeks, yeah, I was like to Debs, just give me a couple of sweeps because I just want to try everything before any induction happens.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, and sweeps are not.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: Did you have any sweeps?
25:55
SPEAKER_02: I didn't.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: I never I never liv uh Liv was breached from 28 weeks, she never moved, so I always knew I was gonna have to have a C section.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: So there was never that no one ever no one ever went down there.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: No one ever ever went near my hoo-ha.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: That sounds appealing.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: It was alright, but then she came out the sunroof, so I don't know, I don't know, it's a real winner.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, it was.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: But um, no, sorry, so you had a couple of sweeps.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: I had yeah, so my first sweep, I'd read so much online, you know, what's it like?
26:25
SPEAKER_01: And people said it's not painful, but it's uncomfortable, and people had compared it to like a smear.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: I thought, okay, cool, let's you know, see what happens.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: I did find it painful.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: Did you?
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: So the first one I literally shot up the bed, it felt like someone had like rammed their fist in my vagina.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: But I think because it had been so long since anything could be up there, but also like I don't know, I just like what's this up there?
26:52
SPEAKER_01: I've been pregnant for so long that it just felt like it was a it was a yeah, I didn't enjoy it at all.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: I I did kind of have like tears in my eyes, and I thought, oh my god, that was awful.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: But I was one centimetre the first time she did it, then I went back for one more, I was one and a half.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: I actually I had three.
27:08
SPEAKER_03: Did I have three?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I went for a third and I was two centimetres, so it was good for me because it got better as they went on and my cervey softened and I got more used to it, and then it was just uncomfortable, not painful.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was good for my mindset because I knew that in terms of an induction, I wouldn't need to dilate to some a lot of the inductions are to get you to two, yeah, and I knew I was already at two, so my mindset was pretty good because I knew things were moving.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I came home after they checked the movements and was bouncing furiously on my ball.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Because before then I'd just been doing the rotations and like the gentle eight I would motion at the moment together to each other if there were visuals will I hit rolling.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: If there was a visual here, we would be doing the figure eight.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, I was bouncing on that ball, like literally hammering it because I really I don't know why, I just really didn't want to be induced.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which is You hear all the stories, don't you?
28:13
SPEAKER_01: But also I know a lot of people who have had really positive inductions.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I just but I think it was just the stubbornness in me.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: It was just like, you know what, you all think that this isn't gonna happen for me, it's all gonna go wrong.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna show you that it's gonna be fine.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, bounce on the ball, but by this point it was like half twelve, one o'clock.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I need to go to bed.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: I got that um Clary Sage on my diffuser, literally next to my face in bed, like concentrate 90% Clary Sage, 10% water, and fell asleep with Clary Sage like up my nose, basically.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: And I'd tried everything, I'd tried like the spicy foods, the curb walking, like I'd really been going for it.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, I woke up about 4am, and there'd been so many points before this that I was like, is it happening?
29:01
SPEAKER_02: Having the Braxton Hicks is this it because they're quite like um they you do think, oh, is this is this a contraction?
29:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like and you don't know when it's the first time.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: When you're still at hardens, yeah, exactly.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Again, your first time you have no idea.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Everything you're looking out for, aren't you?
29:16
SPEAKER_01: And like I said, I'd lost my mucus plug, and then I was googling how long after you lose your mucus.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Someone would say two hours, someone would say two weeks.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: There's just no consistency.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I woke up about 3, 4 am and I thought, well, this is it.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: This is it, here we go.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: It's not like anything I'd felt before.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Really?
29:37
SPEAKER_01: It was just like strong period pains, but it was exactly what everyone had described.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: Clary Sage had worked.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: That Clarice Age, sponsor me.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: It worked.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Get me out of here.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think going to sleep, the dark room, you know, we've done a lot in the Hitler thing about how to kind of produce oxytocin.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: So I was very aware that I needed to just be relaxed and calm, and I was really trying to do that.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I nudged Farris and I was like, just to let you know, I think it's happening.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't worry, go back to sleep.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go have a bath.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll wake you up when I need you.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, don't be concerned.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I know this is gonna really worry you, and you're just gonna lie there wide awake.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just relax.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, by the time I'd run the bath, I could hear him snoring through the next door.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: I thought, well, not that concerned, Faris.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: Brilliant.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm on my own.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: He did not have any problems going back to sleep, was not concerned.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: So I was voice noting.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: So we had a group chat that I'd pulled together from.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: So I'd got a best mate called Holly that I'd met from work, yeah, a best mate called Rach that I went to school with, and a best mate called Liv that I went to school with.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: And Rach and Liv went to school together and were really close, but had kind of drifted over the years, and then the four of us were pregnant at the same time.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we had this group chat together, yeah, and it was honestly like we all say this, we talk every day on it still now, and they're very good.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: It's so nice that you've got that every day, voice notes, everything.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: So I was messaging them like face shots of me in the bath, being like, guys, what the lake is this?
31:10
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
31:11
SPEAKER_01: What is like what is happening?
31:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm scared.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, I was in the bath and I'd forgotten everything.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: I was like, when do I go into hospital?
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what do you think?
31:21
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
31:21
SPEAKER_01: Where's my bag?
31:22
SPEAKER_01: I don't, you know.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: So I got to about half six and I'd rang the hospital.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'd rang the midwife led unit because they'd signed me off for the bluebell unit at this point.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: So I rang Warwick and she said, Um, you can talk through your contractions at the moment, so you're fine.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Ring come into us when you can't talk through them and you're having three contractions in ten minutes, right?
31:42
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, Okay, I remember.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: So got to about half six, and it was really starting to get difficult to kind of breathe through.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Sorry about all of my grunting.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't apologize.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: So I went and woke Varys up.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: I was like, right, we need you now, you know, it's your time.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: Get that tens machine on my back.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, so he got up, we came downstairs, he put the tens machine on my back, and that instantly helped me.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: I know not everybody finds them useful, but I found the tens machine very helpful.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then by about I wasn't having three and ten, but I was logging how regular they were, and they were getting more regular, they were getting stronger.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: I was struggling to talk through them.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was like, no, I need initially I was like, I want some coding, I just want something a bit stronger than paracetamol.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: So we knew there'd be rush hour as well, going to Warwick because by this point it was like seven, maybe eight in the morning.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: Like school time traffic.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we were like, let's just meander down.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Like we think we've got time, so let's just take our time.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Typical us, we had no petrol in the car.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: So first thing we did, went to petrol station.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: That was us, same as us.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: We didn't think about getting petrol on the way back after my waters had broken.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: We went to sleep.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: Pine site's a wonderful thing.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Type, what is it they call you?
32:54
SPEAKER_01: Type B if you're like, you know, chaotic, as you've already referenced.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: Um so we got petrol, then we were driving past Starbucks, and I was like, I would love a pumpkin spice over time.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you said this because I made Tottie stop at the garage on the way to the labour ward and was like, I need um a red bull and some ready sort of crisp please and a star bar.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: It's very specific.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Like, I feel like in that moment you're like, I need something.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: And they're not gonna say no to you because you're about to birth a child.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Faris never says no to stuff like that anyway.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: He is we're not good for each other in that sense.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: It's like, want to go to the Maldives tomorrow?
33:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: No, there's no there's no money for it, there's no plan, we're just going.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: We're just going.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: So rent Starbucks, got this coffee, and we drove there.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: It did take us a while.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: It's supposed to take an hour at half an hour, it took us about an hour.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: So we got there about 10 past nine, and there's a video of us getting there.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: Farris is filming me, and I was fuming my face.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd had a round with my mum on the way down.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Me and my mum, like, I never speak to anybody like shit.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: And we were literally on the phone.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: We'd rang my mum and I was having the contractions in the car with the tens machine on, just trying to breathe through.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: And my mum and Farris were like joking with each other.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I actually can't even remember what it was about, but they were like laughing, and I was like, shh, shh, like trying to get in the zone.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I carried on.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: I was like, you're like, shut up, and it's just so unlike me.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: But I was just like, Can everybody just appreciate you?
34:25
SPEAKER_02: I needed to be in the zone, yeah.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And I am that person, like Farris knew.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, we've done lots of stuff together now, and we did this hike a few years ago in the Himalayas for charity, which was amazing.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: But when I struggled, he's just like, just don't talk to her, just let her crack off, just leave her alone.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I just can't because you'll come out of it in a minute, yeah.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then I'll be like, sorry guys, yeah, I'm back.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: Sorry about me.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: So I was like that, and he was filming me.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: He was like, Last walk as a group of two, and he like turns it to me, he's like, How are you feeling him?
34:54
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Like I'm being ripped apart.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Fuck off, fuck off, Harris.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Not funny, not the time.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we got there and we were so fortunate because um there was a woman, I I'm 90% sure her name's Catherine.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: I really hope I've got that right.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: I think it is Kat or Cat or something like that.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: But when we got there, she had just started her shift and she was on a 12-hour shift, so it was amazing because we had her gonna have a continuity the whole time.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she was so good.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: And we got there and I was like, Look, it's happening.
35:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, I need some codeine.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: Can you can like I'm here?
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
35:30
SPEAKER_01: We brought the suitcase in, yeah.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: I ain't leaving.
35:32
SPEAKER_02: We were having a baby, yeah.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: And uh she was like, Well, you don't you don't look like you're in labour, like you look, you look fine, but we'll you know, let's have a chat.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: I'll do your urine sample, I'll do your blood pressure, you know.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: So I sat on the bed and I'm like, just closing my eyes, just trying to breathe through it.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: She's like, Look, I'm not gonna check you because I don't want to go up there unnecessarily with risk of infection and all that kind of stuff, your waters are broke.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, she was like, if you want, you can just go like I can get you some codeine, you can go home and just come back.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, no, honey.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm not.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going out, yeah.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm not leaving.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know, I just knew, I was like, no.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: So luckily there was nobody else in.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: So she was like, Well, you can go into the room that you'll be in and set up camp and just go in there and see how you feel.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: So we went in and it was just it was amazing, it was wonderful.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: It was like an Airbnb room.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: Really?
36:20
SPEAKER_01: The pool was in there, there were like fairy lights up, we'd got a double bed, it was amazing.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, if anyone's wondering where to go, like is a place to be.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really, really had a positive experience there in terms of the environment, the people, yeah.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: And I've heard a lot of positive stories about it as well.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: So I got onto the double bed, and literally within half an hour, I was like mooing, and I was like, This is not, you know, this is not good.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: I was like, where is she with that coding?
36:46
SPEAKER_01: So she came in, she was like, sorry, I had to get a prescription.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Oh, you sound a bit different.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, do you want me to do you want me to check you and you know, where do you want to go from here?
36:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, I was like, I need something more, like this is not, you know, this is not good.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so she'd given me the codeine, and within about 20 minutes, I was spewing up pumpkin spice and milk latte.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: What a waste of a Starbucks.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: It's put me off for life now.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: Put me off for life.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you're like pumpkin spice latte pants as well.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I can do it.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can't.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Because it was like it was such a strong strong, yeah.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, T.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: I can no, I could actually imagine the scent of your breath.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: It's so fresh, it was awful.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: Pumpkin vomit.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was literally just like spewing up, and I was like, okay, then that was a bad idea.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: My mum was like, I don't know why you did that, but anyway.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: So she gave me the gas and air and she checked me, and she was like, Well, you're still two centimetres.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like, No, you've got that wrong.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: Like, I would again I would have put my life on being four centimetres.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: I was like, this can't be right.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but she said their head, we didn't know what we were having.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, she said their head is really low, so I think what's happening for you is your body's sort of doing it in reverse.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Normally you dilate, then the baby would come down into the birth canal.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Your baby has come down, and now you're gonna dilate, so it might happen quite quickly, we don't know.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: But she said, I'll let you have the gas and air because you know, obviously you're in a lot of pain.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: So she was like, Do you want to get in the water?
38:15
SPEAKER_01: We don't want you to get in the water too early because it can slow things down.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: What do you want to do?
38:19
SPEAKER_01: I was like, No, get me in the water, I'll I'll get in.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Like, I just knew it was happening by this point.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: It was like 10, half 10.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I knew it was happening.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: So she went out, then she came back in.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Um, I'm really sorry, but um the hot water isn't working in the facility.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, we have got somebody on their way, like maintenance, we don't know how long it's gonna be.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a pool available up on the labour ward.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to like go up?
38:45
SPEAKER_01: Because the at Warwick it's kind of attached to the hospital, so it's just up the road.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: I was like, absolutely not, I'm not moving from here, I'm set up.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: If I don't get in the water at this point, I just didn't really care.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like, I've come here, this was what I wanted.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Like I've had my option, whatever happens from here, Jesus take the wheel.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
39:04
SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus take the wheel.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Then she came.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to get on.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: It was the gas and air actually that had made me sick.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: So I'd had my first pump on the gas and air, that is what made me throw up.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, no, I don't have anything else here.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: So I'd I've got to get on board with this.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: So I was hammering the gas and air, like, really, really went for it, and then I kind of got over that.
39:24
SPEAKER_01: Felt a bit tipsy.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: Great, okay, I've got this going now.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: Then she came back in not long after and she said, The hot water's working now, you can get in.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: Great, okay.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: It was really quick.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: So I got in, and oh my god, the pain.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: Was it bad?
39:39
SPEAKER_01: It was so bad.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: They say the water's meant to help.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: No, the water didn't help.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: No, no, the water didn't help, breathing didn't help, the gas and air didn't really help.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: It was just, it is just a complete for me.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: You can't, you just can't liken it to anything.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: I was desperate before I gave birth, googling like what can you compare it to, what does it feel like?
40:00
SPEAKER_01: And I was trying to be like, well, I have quite a good pain threshold, so hopefully that helps me.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: But I really just think that for me, it was like nothing I had.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: No, it's there's no point trying to be a warrior hurt during birth.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Like, there's I didn't care either.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like in terms of pain relief.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just yeah.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: If you need it, have it.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's not somebody said to me, if men gave birth, the options would be a C-section or an epidural.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: And I think that is absolutely 100% true.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: Why do we want to put ourselves through excruciating pain?
40:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: Why?
40:29
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: No, exactly.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Just have the pain relief.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: Take whatever they're offering, take it.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't that for me.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: It it I think it was pure stubbornness that that got me in that water and got me on that gas and air.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that I had any feeling about an epidural or pethidin, because I really genuinely didn't mind.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I did really I did struggle with the pain, and I very quickly felt quite helpless.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: I remember just repeatedly being like, help me, I can't do this, please.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, I want an epidural, like I can't, you know, this is too much, like this is beyond my capability.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: This is I'm I'm out of my depth here.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, and the midwife was incredible, she was splashing the water on my back.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Farris knew exactly what I needed, he was being really supportive and like rubbing my back, and but I just I mean, I didn't get my birth plan out of the bag, I didn't have any snacks.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: It was very much like I was just in the zone, yeah.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I just felt really, really intense pain.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: I'd been in the water for less than an hour, and I was like, right, guys, we need a plan B.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't cope with this pain.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Well, if that's because I was like, I need a poo, and she was like, and I thought, I actually need a poo because I'd only been in there for like an hour and I was two centimetres an hour ago, yeah.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I must just need a poo.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was like, right, let's get you out the water.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: You either are 10 centimetres and you need to start pushing, yeah, or your baby's like back to back or stuck or the something because you shouldn't be like at this level.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: And I was really loud in labour, like really at the end I felt really embarrassed.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm so sorry.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: No, no, but I was like roaring.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: I remember it said to me when you give birth, you leave a dignity of the door and you pick up on the way out.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I picked mine up on the way out to be there.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it's back, I don't know if it's same, slit the JR.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I I just I was embarrassed afterwards, but at the time I couldn't, I didn't have time.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: I was literally like, help me! Yeah, I can't do this, you know, really desperate.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: So I got out, I was like, Yeah, just get get me out.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: You need to check me.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: Like, I need to know what's going on here.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: So I got out and she checked me and she was like, Right, you 10 centimetres, let's go.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: Because I was like, I want pethidin.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: So in the space of one hour, Emma, you were from two to ten.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Two to ten, yeah.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't because she was like, You if you want an epidural, you'll have to go up to the labour ward.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, because Barris and the midwife, I think, behind my back were a bit like, just ignore her, she's fine.
43:00
unknown: Like, just have a couch.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, guys, ignore the mooing in the corner.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm being deadly serious.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: I think she knew that I was transitioning, but she just didn't really tell me, just in case I wasn't.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but that is quite common, I think, asking for an epidural, needing a poo, saying you can't cope, that you that's what's happening.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, so yeah, she was like, let's go.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: Because I wanted pethidin, you can have pethodine in a birthing union.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, if this is gonna be hours, so I was looking at the clock and I was thinking my contraction started at 3-4 in the morning, it's now uh midday, so yeah, half twelve.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, if I've got this for another, you hear about so many long first labours.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if I've got this level of pain for another 12 hours, I'm not gonna make it.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: So I wanted something else, but then she said your 10 centimetres, start pushing.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, and literally I think I started pushing at like half twelve, quarter to one, and ten past one he was here.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: So it was just very quick.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I was just He was a boy.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: He was a boy.
44:03
SPEAKER_01: So you didn't know what you were doing.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: So we'd had a couple of like readjustments with the position, but then he came and I was literally like, I'm doing everything you're telling me to do, and they're not coming out.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: I can't do this.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: I was frantic, like bless her, that midwife was a saint.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: But do you know what?
44:20
SPEAKER_02: They've probably dealt with like 50,000 women that'd done that.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
44:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: And Farris had filmed some of it as well.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: So there is a video of me literally warming the house town.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll show you.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad I've got it now.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: At the time I had no idea he was filming.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, he came out, and honestly, I just it's so weird now to reflect on because I spoke about it a lot when it freshly happened.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: But to like go through it in this much detail now is so weird because I I just felt pure relief.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Did you?
44:50
SPEAKER_01: It was pure shock and pure relief.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: There was no elation, there was no, like they they caught Farris had I don't know where Farris was, he was in front of me, and then another midwife had come in and they brought him out and they put him on my chest.
45:05
SPEAKER_01: And I remember just thinking, like, he's not they're not crying.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even I didn't I hadn't thought through birth, I don't know what gender he is they are.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: I I didn't even comprehend it because it was so fast.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Um but then I remember being like then they're not crying, why aren't they crying?
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Why aren't they crying?
45:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah and they were like they are they are, and then when I heard him cry, it it was just relief.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like and it feels like such a long period of time, doesn't it?
45:29
SPEAKER_02: It might only be like five, ten seconds, but for you as a as a man, it's like it feels like yes, it's it does, yeah.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: And I just I was sobbing.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: Like there is a video, bless her, one of the midwives took my phone and took loads of pictures and videos of when he just came out, and I'm literally just like, Oh my god, I'm in so much.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: That's all I think.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm in so much.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: It's horrendous the sun again.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, they said to Faris, What is it?
45:57
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
45:58
SPEAKER_01: And and Farris was like, It's a boy, and we looked at each other, and we say now, like that moment of we have a son, was it was magic.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: And I'm so pleased now because I can look back now and see the positive and the magic.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think at the time, yeah, I just found it all very traumatic very overwhelming, very overwhelming.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: And and it's hard because I had a textbook berth, like everything went to plan, but I felt I did feel quite traumatised and I felt in shock, and it was everything that happened after then.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: So then Farris cut the cord, and then she wanted to check me because he'd come out with his hand on his cheek and his elbow like pointing to the side.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: So she was quite worried about how I might have torn.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: So she was like, I'm really sorry, but I need I now need to check.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: Then there's the placenta that you have to deliver, yeah.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: The afterbirth of that, and I'm like, I I'd forgotten all about that.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: So I was so sore, and then she's like, Now we've got to deliver the placenta.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to wait or do you want the injection?
47:00
SPEAKER_01: I was like, just give me the injection.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: I literally don't give a fuck, like just get it out.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: So I had the injection, went to the toilet, and I just felt like I was walking around holding my umbilical cord.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, what like a zombie has just happened?
47:15
SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was in a mental.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: It's like an out-of-body experience, isn't it?
47:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you look down, there's all this blood.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: Farris was sat there having this lovely cuddle with our new baby, and I'm looking over thinking I was just I just spent a lot of time just staring into the corner.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: I think I was I'd the life had just been completely drained out.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, what's just happened to me?
47:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: And the the placenta came out, and that was I found that shocking as well.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: And then she checked me and I'd got a second degree test, so she was like, You need to be stitched.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: And then she wheels in this chair that on at the time I was like, I felt like it was like an Edward Scissorhands like sore chair, and it was all a bit rickety, and like it was a bit broke, so my legs were like flinging, and it was just I just felt like like Farris's mum says that when she came to see me, she's like, You looked like a young girl, like a teenager, sat on the bed, and that was how I felt.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: Um it's a very vulnerable moment, isn't it?
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and being stitched, like I felt like I could feel everything because all I'd got was so the gas and air they'd taken off me before I started pushing as well.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Oh, it will distract you, so you can't have it anymore.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: So I gave birth with nothing.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: I'd thrown up the codeine, I didn't have gas and air, so it was like complete, yeah, pain relief free birth, which I think is why it was so painful.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just I just remember looking at Farris and being like, I am never in my life doing that again.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: That was awful.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: What why does everyone say that this is magical?
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Why does everyone say this is like wonderful?
48:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, I've got friends who had done it with no pain relief, and they were like, It's a wonderful, like magical, and I was like, they're lying, they're absolutely lying, and I think that's why I'm so honest about it now.
49:01
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know whether maybe sometimes I'm too honest, but I I've said this to you before.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: I do think we owe each other honesty as women.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: I think we're doing each other a disservice if we don't say it's really fucking painful.
49:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like we were saying just before we started recording, you know, it's we're not doing this to scaremonger.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: No, it's the realities of of of pregnancy, and and and you know, sometimes things don't always go to plan.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: And if yes, yours did go to plan, but you know, you were very traumatised at the end of it as well, you know.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: And and I like you say it's such a vulnerable moment.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what's really hard is that like everyone around you, your village, has this brand new baby, but sometimes they forget that you've just been through yeah the most horrendous experience.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, childbirth isn't easy.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: No, if it was, everyone would be you know, there'd be millions of children in the world, you know what I mean?
49:49
SPEAKER_02: You'd have five by now, but it's not.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: No, so I yeah, shout out to you for talking about it because I know I know how difficult it is.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: So Ezra was born.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: And you how was it the first few weeks after birth?
50:06
SPEAKER_02: Honestly.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting because I had um I ended up being referred to the perinatal mental health team, and one of the things they asked me when I had my phone assessment thing was, How did you feel when you came home?
50:21
SPEAKER_01: So we chose to stay the night.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: Our parents came to see us and we chose to stay overnight.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: And to be fair, as far as first nights go, we had a bottle of champagne that we took with us, popped that straight up.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: No way, no tea or toast for you.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: No, I did have tea and toast, to be fair.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: I was having a right crack with the woman as as they were stitching me up while I was doing the gas and air.
50:39
SPEAKER_01: She was like, How do you like your toast?
50:41
SPEAKER_01: I was like, not too hard and not too soft.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: So I did have that wonderful toast, but we ordered Domino's, we had champagne, we stayed over, and then we came home the next morning.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: Midwives were amazing.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was incredible.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: But I came home and I was like, I don't, I don't know how I felt.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I just kept looking at Ezra.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: I didn't breastfeed, I never wanted to breastfeed, so I didn't have that, like he didn't latch, and we didn't have that kind of traditional skin to skin, I guess.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: And I do think for me that partially impacted my feeling of a bond with him.
51:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: I think that that is one of the pros of breastfeeding is that you have that skin to skin, you have that bond.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can really relate to it, really relate to that.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think that I just I just kept staring out the window.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: I felt like all he did for the first few weeks was cry.
51:34
SPEAKER_02: Scream.
51:35
SPEAKER_02: You said to me just about that that you spent a lot of time staring out the window saying, What the fuck?
51:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: I think so many albums will relate to feeling like that.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: Tell me, uh uh I feel like that most days.
51:47
SPEAKER_02: Now sometimes you're like, what the fuck's going on?
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: Were you like, was it like a lights were on no one's home situation?
51:52
SPEAKER_02: Like you were here but you weren't.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: I just felt so numb.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: I felt really shocked by what had just happened.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: And I think a big part of my it's not really birth trauma, but my feelings of trauma after birth was just the not knowing.
52:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: I I knew I'd give birth, but I didn't really know everything that would happen.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: That they put their finger up my bum.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, that is a point actually.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah when she said, I'm really sorry, but I'm gonna have to put my finger up your bum.
52:20
SPEAKER_01: I lost my shit.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Please, please, I'm so you know.
52:23
SPEAKER_01: And Farris put he came over to me, put his hand, he went, um, just breathe.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: And I went, just breathe.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: I told him, I'll sit there with him.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: You can come here and have a finger up your ass and you can just fucking breathe.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: And they all just burst out laughing.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: I was like, never get them said it because I've been so like calm and kind.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: And I said to her afterwards, I was like, sorry, my name's Emma.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm really, I'm a hoot, I'm lovely, I'm so sorry if you know.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, No, you've been fine, but felt like I hadn't even met the woman and she's finger was up.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna yeah.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, sorry.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I felt like it was just the whole shock of the unknown, the sleep deprivation.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Me and Farris were both having like hallucinating night terrors where we thought Ezra was in the bed when we didn't even co-sleep, so he was never in the bed, but we would rip up the pillows and the and and the quilt, and then it was just like no sleep, constant baby crying, and I'm not a baby person, and neither is Faris.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: It's overstimulating, isn't it?
53:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we both knew that we would struggle with that baby phase because we're just not baby, you know.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, as a woman, when you're in an office and there's loads of women and someone brings their baby in and everyone goes, Oh, look, my fruit are hurting a URA and I and you were like, No, no, the newborn phase, this newborn stage, those early days are so hard though.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: It was so hard, and it was if bring me a puppy, and I'm you know, I'm like that, but and I knew I knew we'd be like it, but I just and I think I felt so guilty.
53:52
SPEAKER_01: I think what I felt so what I struggled with, the health visitor came around and she was so wonderful, she's just like a core sympathy.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: She was really nice, yeah.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: She was incredible, and I was just crying all the time, just constantly crying about everything.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: And I remember saying to her, like, I just feel like he deserves a mum who wants him and loves him, and had that rush because, like you say, you see social media and you hear and you think what should happen is I should have this unmedicated perfect water birth, which I basically had.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I should instantly feel a rush of love.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: I should want to put him on my boob, I should feel in a bubble, in this baby bubble, and I should love it.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: And I love it.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: There's a level of guilt when you don't feel like that.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, you know, I you know my story, I felt exactly the same.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: When you don't feel a certain way, yeah, and social media again plays a huge part in that you know, this is how you should feel, and you know, and then when you don't, I was almost too scared to say anything because I was like, shit.
54:59
SPEAKER_02: Like, so then you have to put on a front, don't you?
55:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, and to kind of be like, Yeah, it's all wonderful, but in reality, it it's not, it isn't yeah, and I didn't really do that.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why, but I am just such an open book, like to a new level, and I was honest about it from the beginning, yeah, but I felt guilty that I was, yeah, yeah, because there is a level of guilt.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't be saying this out loud.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: I know that this isn't socially acceptable to feel like this, and you get the text of, oh my god, are you loving it?
55:26
SPEAKER_01: Are you in a bubble?
55:27
SPEAKER_01: And I remember going to get my hair done about six or seven weeks in.
55:32
SPEAKER_01: My family had booked me to get my hair done for my birthday, which was a week, my birthday's one week before Ezra's.
55:38
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, about six or seven weeks later, and I remember sitting in the chair, and my hairdresser, who I I get on with really well, I've known her for years, and she was like, Oh, do you miss him?
55:47
SPEAKER_01: Like you're here, like and I remember thinking, No, not at all.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
55:53
SPEAKER_01: He was with my mum, Garris was at work, I knew he was safe.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:56
SPEAKER_02: I just It's your time now.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: I didn't miss him when I wasn't with him.
56:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't I I said to Cynthia, like, because one of the questions that they ask you with the assessment is, Do you want to just drive away and never come back?
56:09
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't want to never come back, but I want to drive away for a bit.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: I want to come back.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: I want him.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: I did feel like I wanted him, and I knew I loved him because I knew he was my child, but I just knew that this phase was not going to be what I enjoyed.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: And I I struggled a lot with the relentless crying, yeah, and that just not knowing what I just felt like constantly being like, What what more do you want from me?
56:34
SPEAKER_01: I have bared my soul, like you've torn me apart physically and emotionally from the inside out.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: As you start running off, then you're like, Well, he's been fed, he's he's bone-changed, he's uh burped it.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what more do you want?
56:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: What else do you want from me?
56:48
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm literally doing this all for you.
56:49
SPEAKER_02: And it's exhausting.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: It's uh trying to do that on like you know, one two hour sleep.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: How did Ferris find it?
56:55
SPEAKER_02: Was he in the same way?
56:56
SPEAKER_02: He struggled as well.
56:57
SPEAKER_01: Did he?
56:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we both struggled, and again, he was honest about that.
57:00
SPEAKER_02: That's good.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: Like you guys communicated about it.
57:02
SPEAKER_01: We did.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I was probably quite brutal with him at the time because I just couldn't help him.
57:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really tough on your relationship, isn't it?
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Having a child anyway.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: And I felt like he was struggling, and in an ideal world, I would have been able to support and comfort him.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I was very much like, look, we're in this to we're I know it's hard, we're both struggling, but we just need to crack on, dig deep, get on with it.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: We'll chat about it again now.
57:31
SPEAKER_02: And this is not spoken about, and this is something that me and my husband, you know, we really struggle with is that you for six years, just like me and my husband have been together eight years as well, six years it's been you two, and then suddenly you don't it's not about you two, it's about that baby, and you your soul focused.
57:48
SPEAKER_02: So if when one of them's you guys is feeling down, of course you're gonna support them, but you can't fully support them because your brain and your mind and your soul is on this child, yeah, and that's not that like you said, that's such a pressure on your relationship.
58:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because if you've got this baby and you're like, What do you do?
58:03
SPEAKER_01: Ring your mum or speak to GP or I I can't actually help you here.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and what didn't help was we had six weeks of really struggling.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: Like I say, we were really honest with everyone around us, me probably more so than Farris, but just because I'm such an open book, yeah.
58:17
SPEAKER_01: And I know people were worried about me, and and you know, but I'm very lucky, I didn't feel lonely at all.
58:22
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I had a really amazing village, and I've got girls who knew what it was like, so I did have people looking after me, good, bringing me meals, turning up, showing up for me.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't feel I was very, very supported.
58:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, that's important, you know.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but about six weeks in, um, I was spending a lot of time at my parents because Farris, so also we decided that it would be a good idea that Farris got a new job.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: So a couple of weeks, as soon as Farris went back from paternity, he had four weeks with me, and then he went back to the prison service into the dog section.
58:57
SPEAKER_01: So he was having training in London, it was three hours drive from our house every day, eight or four.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: So he was leaving at like 4 a.m.
59:09
SPEAKER_01: to get to work for eight.
59:11
SPEAKER_02: You were like solo parent then.
59:13
SPEAKER_01: It was yeah, it was really rough.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: He was staying over, he was not getting home till eight, nine o'clock in the evening.
59:19
SPEAKER_01: He was exhausted from work all that driving, and then coming home and trying to support me.
59:26
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Don't tell me you're tired, like that word is banned in this house.
59:30
SPEAKER_01: But he was exhausted, I just couldn't, you know, help him.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: And he says, like, there was one night I was down here, I remember it so vividly.
59:38
SPEAKER_01: It must have been about five weeks in.
59:41
SPEAKER_01: I'd brought Ezra downstairs because he was next to us in the Moses basket, and we were sleeping separately, and Farris had to get up at 4am.
59:49
SPEAKER_01: So he'd gone to bed, and it was like two, three o'clock in the morning, and Ezra had not slept at all.
59:54
SPEAKER_01: And I remember being sat where you are now with the Moses basket, and I remember thinking, I actually hate you.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: I hate you.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: I want I want to pick you up and throw you out of the window.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: And I remember texting Rach, my midwife friend, and being like, Rach, I hate him.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: Like he won't do, he will only sleep on me.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm not allowed to fall asleep with him on me.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: I am absolutely exhausted.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_01: I what do I do?
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: And I remember her being like, Look, if that is the only way that you are gonna sleep, prop yourself up.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: I know it's not safe, not safe, safe sleep seven, so no advice here.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: But she was like, prop yourself up on the sofa with loads of pillows around you, upright, put him on your chest, and if you need an hour, just do it.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it it had got to that point where like Faris needs, and he he woke up because he heard Ezra's just like screaming.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: I think it was about this point that we decided to try a dummy because I was very like no dummies at all.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then it got to this point and I was like, right, whatever.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: He came downstairs and I was just like sobbing, and he was sobbing, and Ezra was sobbing, and it was just so like emotional.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: So I was at my mum's and um we my me and my uh sister-in-law, my brother's fiance, were there, and we were going to her parents.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: I think we were going on like a dog walk or something, and we'd put Ezra in the car, and the front door was open, and I was just doing it, it was Halloween.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: He'd got like a pumpkin outfit, and I was like, I want to get that.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: So I ran upstairs, was like grabbing the pumpkin outfit, and I came downstairs with just like too much stuff, basically.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: I'd got my air wrap, I'd got a coat, I'd got, you know, loads of stuff.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: And as I was walking down the stairs, I trod on um the silk bit of Ezra's sleep suit, you know, those like snowy sleepsuits.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: It had dropped out of my arms and I didn't know, so I trod on it and like banana skinned pretty much top to bottom of the stairs.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: And my sister-in-law stood at the bottom of the stairs.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: Ezra, like I say, had just been loaded into the car, and I went the whole way downstairs.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: My ankle went underneath me, and the rest of me went down.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: And I literally I got to the bottom of the stairs, and I just like closed my eyes and I was like, Cal, can you go and get Ezra out of the car?
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Oh my god, because she'd not she broke her ankle the year before.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Are you okay?
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: Are you okay?
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, I've just broke my ankle.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: Can you go and get him out of the car?
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: I need to like sit down, whatever.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Oh my god, oh my god, look, you know, so she brought him in and I was like, Right, clear everything around me.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_01: Do not let my mum see how much I was carrying down the stairs because she will be.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_02: Spoiler alert.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: Spoiler.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh sorry mum.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was like, Oh my god, right, we need to get you in the lounge.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Are you in pain?
1:02:33
SPEAKER_01: Are you in pain?
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: And I remember standing up and I was like, I feel sick.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm gonna faint.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_01: I was looking around, I was like, Where am I gonna faint?
1:02:39
SPEAKER_01: It's hard floor, my child is there.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: I literally was like, I can't believe this has just happened.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: I was fuming.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: We went and sat down, she was like, Oh, and she was like, How'd you know you've broke you?
1:02:48
SPEAKER_01: Because it didn't look broken.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I definitely just broke my ankle.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: It is very painful, but I gave birth six weeks ago, so snap my ankle off 50,000 times is my response.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_01: Like when you go to the hospital and they said, you know, on a scale of one to ten, I was like, Yeah, two, oh yeah, two, just give me birth.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: And if you see my notes, and they x-rayed me, and then she was so lovely the nurse, and she was like, I'm really sorry, but you have broken your ankle, you are gonna this was six weeks after birth, he was six weeks old, yeah.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_01: Um what happens then?
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you do?
1:03:23
SPEAKER_01: You can't well, you can't walk.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: No, you can't walk.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, like I said, I wasn't breastfeeding, you can't, you're supposed to sit for a lot of the time with your legs propped up and just don't move.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: And me and that scenario, as we've already established, don't go together well.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_01: I am like as ADHD as they come, and I was just like, no.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: And diagnosed, but something's not right.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: I am diagnosed actually.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm still in my sentiments, so it will come, it will come, it will come.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_02: Something's definitely not right.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_01: I know you are.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_01: I know you are.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_01: I'll diagnose you.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was like, it was it's so weird because my mum says now, my mum's like, that was actually the best thing that could have happened to you because I was just trying to just plow through and just pretend it wasn't happening.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_01: It made you stop.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_01: It made me stop and it made me accept the help because I I needed the help.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't in the mornings when Ezra was asleep with me upstairs, I couldn't carry him down the stairs because obviously I was in a cast.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I needed somebody.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_01: Farris had left at 4 a.m.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_01: I needed somebody to come over, bring us downstairs basically.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_01: And I I did get a wheelchair a few weeks in, which was life-changing because I'd wheel myself around, but before that point, I couldn't carry anything because I'd got crutches.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, but my mum says, my mum's like that was some kind of divine intervention to make you stop and address how you were feeling, what was happening, accept the help.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I kind of half moved in with my mum.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: I spent half the time there, half the time here, like when Farris was staying over.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_02: Then you were at your mum's, yeah.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I don't know, I feel like I thought it was getting better at six weeks, and then it got worse during that time.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: Like I remember once the health visitor came around to see me, I was still up in bed because somebody hadn't come to bring me downstairs yet, and I was just like, This is just chaos.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: But I was re I was really honest with her, and I was like, you know, I am I'm struggling, I don't know what's normal, but I just feel like I am not feeling what you're supposed to be feeling.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: What you meant to feel?
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what we're supposed to do about that.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but like I know I looked.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_01: Just tell someone, but I don't know.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_01: And then she was like, Do you wanna do you want to go to groups?
1:05:32
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, not really, because as I said to you earlier, like I thought I would just take on what everyone else was feeling, and I just thought I I did think it would get better.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_01: Like in my head, I thought, as he gets older, I feel like I'm gonna enjoy this more.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_01: So like a big part of it was the sleep deprivation, the ankle, yeah, big broken, couldn't move.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_01: Farris being away so much of his new job, which was gonna end around Christmas when he'd qualify and then we'd have the dog home.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_01: And it would be kind of more back to normal, he'd be around more.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, and when Ezra could give a bit more back, yeah.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_01: Because I just don't find potato babies entertaining.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_02: I really struggled with that, and um it was um like with a newborn newborn phase, I found it quite difficult that I it was like I needed my child to validate that she was happy with what I'd given her.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_02: So like when she started smiling at first, and I was like, ah, okay, you know, things like that, but like a newborn, they don't know.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_02: I found it really hard.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_01: And you just feel like they're just miserable constantly.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: And you're like all they do is cry.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm not making you happy, you're not making me happy, this isn't working.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_01: And I remember it it was before I broke my ankle, so he must have been about four or five weeks old.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_01: We met up the group chat people that are in the group.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_01: It's now called the Hunger Games group chat.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna call them the Hunger Games.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_01: I volunteer as tribute when we all when we all had them, we just kept doing that.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, that when that she called Katniss when she's like we would just send that gift to each other all the time of like bedtime, mate, you know, good luck.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_01: I am with you.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I remember us sitting there, and Liv, my best friend from school, had had her little boy Otto the most recently.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_01: So Otto was about seven weeks older than Ezra.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_01: And I remember looking over at Liv and she was like chucking Otto up in the air, cuddling him, she was breastfeeding, he was smiling, and I remember look looking over and looking down at Ezra and thinking, I don't feel like that.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: No, and I knew she genuinely did feel like that.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_01: She wasn't being fake, like no, no, no, you know her, she yeah, yeah.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_01: She she loved it.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_01: She was loved as soon as he came into her life.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_01: For me, I looked at her and I thought, you are the perfect mum, like you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing, and I know I'm not doing that.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's I just felt so sorry for Ezra.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: I just kept thinking, like, I'm chaotic, I'm all over the place, you're gonna have no routine.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then I thought a sad mummy, and yeah, I've brought you into this world, and I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing for you, and that's not your fault.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and like they don't deserve to be around it.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but my health visitor must have been about it, was not long after I broke my ankle, it must have been about eight, nine, ten weeks in.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_01: She referred me to the perinator mental health team, and obviously there's a waiting list.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_01: So in the meantime, she said your GP will ring you.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_01: So my GP rang me.
1:08:26
SPEAKER_01: I'd never met this GP before, never spoke to her before.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, she literally said everything you need to hear in that moment.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_01: She was amazing.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: She rang me and she was like, I've had a referral from your health visitor, I'm just checking in, and I told her like some of this briefly, and she was like, Honestly, Emma, I think you're feeling completely normal.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_01: She was like, So many women struggle, it's so hard.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, you're not getting any sleep, you're not getting anything back.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_01: It's your hormones are all over the place.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_01: This is normal.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you love your baby, it's it will get better.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, come in and see me.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_01: I think we'd got his when do you have a check?
1:09:06
SPEAKER_00: Like six weeks.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_00: Six weeks.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_01: I've got my six-week check and I said, Can I see you?
1:09:10
SPEAKER_01: She was like, Yep, I'll make it with me.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_01: Come in next week, we'll chat to you, go come in with Farris.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_01: Then by the six-week check, I'd broke my ankle, I'm pretty sure.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_01: So Farris was like wheeling me in for the check.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we reiterated the conversation there because then I was like, I don't really want to go on medication because I don't know what's going on.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if this is gonna get better, I don't want to go to groups, don't even really think I need therapy because I am talking about how I feel very openly to everybody around me.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_01: If something's not right, yeah, and I'd got friends who had struggled too.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_01: So I had people who were validating how I felt, yeah, and people who were saying, Oh, I felt it for four months, I felt it for six months, it gets better after four months or six months.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I remember thinking, I can't do this for another four, yeah.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_01: That's ages away.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_01: Four months is a lot.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean, four months?
1:09:58
SPEAKER_01: That's not, and people were saying it like, oh, it's only four months, and I thought, no, not when you got a bloody newborn, every day is like groundhunter, yeah.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_01: But it did, it did get better when he started smiling, yeah, Christmas time.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_01: So he was born on the 17th of September, and around Christmas time I had my cast off, and literally I was just as stubborn with my cast.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_01: I was like, get this off, I'm gonna be walking out of here.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_01: And they were like, Take it easy, you know.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_01: And literally, as soon as it was off, I was like, right, come on, let's go, yeah, let's do this.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_01: I can't, because I'd be wheeling around the hospital, and my friends, honestly, like had so many appointments in the hospital, x-rays changing my cast.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_01: My girls came round, like friends from college, friends from uni, you know, but there was like a rotor.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_02: Everybody rallied round you, they really did.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_01: It was constant.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_02: That's so nice.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_01: And they'd like bumble me in the back of their car.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_01: Friends who don't have kids would like wear the carrier and would be carrying six, seven, eight-week-old Ezra round the hospital while they were wheeling me to get my X-ray standing outside.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_01: I was having an X-ray, I could hear him crying with a stranger to him.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_01: So this whole like, don't touch my baby, don't kiss my baby, like, don't pass my baby around.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_01: I had no choice.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_01: I had no choice, yeah.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_01: Because I knew you couldn't do it all, I couldn't do it.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that in the long run made him quite laid back and relaxed with other people.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_02: That's good though, which helped me.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_02: Because again, you've got that support and you don't need to worry about it.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_02: You said that you um so you started to feel like lighter.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_02: When when did that happen?
1:11:29
SPEAKER_02: Was that a gradual thing?
1:11:31
SPEAKER_01: Faris says that the day I got my cast off, I had a personality transplant.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm back, baby.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_01: And I do think that that happened.
1:11:39
SPEAKER_01: It was late December, I think it was the week before Christmas, and I think that that that physical disability during the newborn stage played a massive part in my mental health because I couldn't escape.
1:11:51
SPEAKER_01: No, like sometimes if I was stuck and people had left me, you know, when people say if you're really struggling, take walk out of the room for five minutes.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't do it, and you couldn't just live out in the car because sometimes getting outside, yeah.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_01: It was like having a section because for six weeks I had to have the injections in my stomach for the blood thinners, they are terrible, aren't they?
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I thought I might as well have had a section because it was like that, you know, all over again.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_01: So I I think the cast played a big part when I could walk and I could do things, um, but also him smiling, giving more back.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_01: I do think, like I remember the health visitor saying, You're so brave, you know, for being honest.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_01: And I I didn't feel brave, it's just who I am.
1:12:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I do think speaking it out loud helped.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: Just like saying how I felt, talking about the guilt, and even to this day, I feel guilt.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_01: You feel guilt for everything.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I actually don't feel guilt when I leave Ezra with my mum or Farris's mum.
1:12:49
SPEAKER_01: He's very comfortable with them, he's very happy, he's had multiple sleepovers, yeah, but I feel guilt that I don't feel guilt.
1:12:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and in the hairdressers, you know, I felt guilty that I thought no.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_01: So you can't win.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_01: You feel guilty if you feel guilty, you feel guilty.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: Mum feel should be studied like as an actual profession because it's such a I I don't know how to describe it.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_02: Everybody feels it.
1:13:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I could be having Liv could be being a little shit, and I shout at her.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_02: Then I go to bed and I'm like, oh, I feel awful.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_02: But then the next day she's like, Mummy, you know, you know, it it's it's a really strange feeling, and you know, and it weighs down on you sometimes more often than you care for me to admit.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but just know it's normal, everyone.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_02: Like it's normal.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that I really did prioritise myself, actually, yeah, which I feel guilty for saying, but I did.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_01: In those in those early New Year's Eve, he stayed at my mum and dad's for the night.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so he was three months old, October, November, December, three months old.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_01: And my mum and dad were like, Oh my gosh, when we had you.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_01: And I think I I give a lot of credit to my mum for this because my mum struggled with my brother with personality depression, and my mum was really honest with me about it, particularly as I was being honest, and she said to me, She was like, Thank you for giving me someone to talk to about it, because I never said at the time, and she was very supportive of me and Farris having time, yeah, and you know, getting ourselves together and prioritising what we needed to do.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_01: And I do think the biggest correlation of a happy baby is a happy mum, like if you're happy, whatever you're doing, and you're fulfilled, you will be a happier mum, a better mum.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_02: But I think, like you say, you know, it's such a um a shift in you know uh your relationship and marriage and and whatnot when you have a baby, and like you just said, prioritizing that time together, yeah.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes you know, you lose your way a bit, and you know, I've been very open and honest.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_02: Me and my husband did last year really we really struggled, and you have to find a way to come together and take the help, like you say, your mum had dad had a for had us on New Year's Eve, spending time like with Farris.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you probably had a great evening, didn't you?
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: We did, yeah.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_01: We went to the to a pub here and we went to a live music.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_01: A couple of our friends came and stayed at our house.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_02: And my mum you did like normal life, right?
1:15:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my mum said that my grandma had had me on New Year's Eve, my first New Year's Eve, and they were like, We'd love to do it, we're staying in.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_01: He's cut my mum and dad have built a nursery for him at their house.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_01: They are he's their first grandchild, they're obsessed with him.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_01: Um and it's just I do think that I sometimes the guilt does creep in because kids need a loose routine, they need to know what to expect, and Ezra has that.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_01: But I am very chaotic.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm always driving somewhere, I'm always, you know, like you always see you out and about on your Instagram, you wear your social butterfly, yeah.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do not stop constantly, and as a result, neither does he.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: We didn't do any baby classes, we didn't have any, like, you know, this newborn, you know, sit and watch movies.
1:15:53
SPEAKER_01: No, we were like in a lake with the dog swimming, we were up a tree, like honestly, it was just chaos.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_01: But I am starting, and I think this is where a lot of the fog has lifted for me, and a lot of the guilt has eased.
1:16:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm starting to see what I bring, yeah, and it might not be a typical mum that sits on a bed of flowers and like stares into their baby's eyes and gives them a massage, and you know, like I don't read to him every night, he doesn't have a bath every night.
1:16:26
SPEAKER_01: No, I've never given him a massage, but he is such a happy baby, he's so happy, he's so content.
1:16:34
SPEAKER_01: I can see now that he is happy, and exactly I I never really thought of it like that, but as you've just said, I think that is my validation.
1:16:42
SPEAKER_01: He's relaxed in the car, he literally the car is a sleep cue for him in the car seat.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_01: He gets in the car seat, he tilts his head to the side and he's off.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, he he loves, you know.
1:16:51
SPEAKER_01: I I joke that when I come down in the morning and like he he's just had his bottle, I feel like he looks at me and he's like, Where are we going today?
1:16:58
SPEAKER_01: What are we doing?
1:16:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, are we in Scotland?
1:17:00
SPEAKER_01: Are we in London?
1:17:01
SPEAKER_01: What have we got is that what we didn't say then?
1:17:03
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's it has already given him such a varied, fulfilled like and maternity.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_01: I've spent a lot of time with my friends, yeah, in coffee shops, having lunch, doing what I want to do with him.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like him.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_02: You've kind of got to find your routine, but uh you know, involve them as well, you know.
1:17:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and life does change.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, there's no point in the Yeah, you're like, I'm still doing what I need when I do.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and somebody said to me, if you try and fight motherhood, it will attack you.
1:17:35
SPEAKER_01: If you try and like push against it, it'll come for you.
1:17:40
SPEAKER_01: You have to go with it and you have to kind of lean into it, accept the change, embrace the I love that.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_01: I it's true, isn't it?
1:17:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I can't remember who said it to me, so it's definitely not my crow, although I could have pretended it was.
1:17:53
SPEAKER_02: You could have heard it at first.
1:17:54
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
1:17:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you have to go with it, you have to accept sleep is you know, I mean, disclaimer, I do have a very good sleeper because Liv, who I was just telling you about with Otto, he doesn't sleep quite as well as Ezra.
1:18:07
SPEAKER_01: And if I ever make comments about sleep, she looks at me and she's like, Shut the fuck up.
1:18:11
SPEAKER_01: You have a good sleeper.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_01: So disclaimer, he does sleep well.
1:18:14
SPEAKER_02: And it is a completely different experience if your baby does.
1:18:17
SPEAKER_02: My cousin and um his partner have just had a baby and they're going through the four-month sleep regression, and that was the one regression I always remembered with Liv was like fucking hell on earth.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_02: I hated my whole life.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_02: I was like, This is awful.
1:18:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but she is again quite a good sleeper now.
1:18:31
SPEAKER_01: But so I you know Ezra didn't even have you didn't even have that regression.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we skipped it.
1:18:36
SPEAKER_01: So we're vibe, very lucky.
1:18:38
SPEAKER_01: To meet this guy, yeah, to meet this kid, but you know, especially at the beginning, sleep like somebody else was like, just see it as 24 hours, don't see it as night as day, stop, stop trying to like force yourself to have eight hours sleep, or you know, your life does change, and my life looks very different, especially now.
1:18:54
SPEAKER_01: He's crawling, yeah, he's on the move.
1:18:56
SPEAKER_01: It's not quite so Instagram relaxed coffee shop stationary child anymore.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_01: But we go with it, he's in the carrier, we walk the dog, and I feel like it has made me a better mum now and him a happier child that I'm just bringing him with me.
1:19:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, I asked all my guests this question to my last question.
1:19:18
SPEAKER_02: If you could go back, Emma, to the early days of motherhood, and I'm talking like the early days, what would you what would you think you could write a letter?
1:19:26
SPEAKER_02: What would you tell yourself?
1:19:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I just wish I could give myself a big hug.
1:19:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:19:31
SPEAKER_01: I really do wish I could just give myself a big hug and just and ever the thing is, everything I'm about to say to you, people did say to me.
1:19:40
SPEAKER_01: I did have this, you know, support and reassurance because I was so honest about it as it was happening.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:19:46
SPEAKER_01: But I just would just like reiterate it and actually listen to myself because I think you just can't you can't take it in, you're on you are on a different planet, but just it will get better.
1:19:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the time does go really fast.
1:19:59
SPEAKER_02: It does.
1:20:00
SPEAKER_01: And like somebody said to me, You can't you can't explain the hard bits because you've never been through that level of pain, sleep, sleep loss, deprivation, you know, all of the hard stuff, but you also can't explain the joy, yeah.
1:20:16
SPEAKER_01: And I wish I really knew the joy that was coming, like the love that was coming.
1:20:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because in that moment you can't see it, right?
1:20:23
SPEAKER_01: You can't, you're not feeling love from them.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_02: And no matter how many times people tell you, until you are actually living it, like you, you know, you're not gonna believe.
1:20:32
SPEAKER_01: And it's the one thing that has maybe slightly opened the door for me about having another, if we can.
1:20:37
SPEAKER_01: Short alert.
1:20:38
SPEAKER_01: Is that I just think if I did it again, I would know what was coming.
1:20:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and when you do it for the first time, you don't know what's coming.
1:20:46
SPEAKER_03: You don't know, yeah.
1:20:47
SPEAKER_01: And you just and I remember thinking everybody says to me this is the best but hardest thing ever, and I just kept thinking, it's just hard.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not the best.
1:20:55
SPEAKER_01: It's not, you know, and with birth, everyone's saying it's the best day of my life.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_01: That was not the best day of my life.
1:21:00
SPEAKER_02: Can confirm it was not mine either.
1:21:02
SPEAKER_01: So if I I just wish I I could explain, which you can't, but I wish I could explain to myself what was coming when he laughs at you, when he reaches for you, when he smiles, when he giggles, like that boy idolizes me, and I can see it now that like he is gonna be my little best mate.
1:21:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're gonna go horse riding together, and and it is now it's the hardest but best thing.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but in those early days, I didn't relate to that because it just felt relentlessly hard.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_01: But now I'm like, I get it.
1:21:34
SPEAKER_01: I remember in we went on holiday in February, he was five months old, we went to Tenerife with him, and I remember that being a real turning point.
1:21:43
SPEAKER_01: Like I remember sitting by the pool and he was giggling away, and we took him in the water, and I remember looking at him and thinking, fucking like it shifted.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm looking at him now and I feel the love, like I want to be around him.
1:21:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm having this is the best holiday, like we had the best holiday ever, partly because he also wasn't moving and slept a lot.
1:22:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we'll state when you put the wheel.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_01: We were making the use of the all-inclusive and all that kind of stuff, but there was a real shift then, and I just wish I could have.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_01: There's no way to do it though, but I just wish I could have given myself that picture, yeah.
1:22:19
SPEAKER_01: And just you are gonna look you are it you don't look like that, no, but also most people who say they look like that don't.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_01: Some people do, but like we were saying earlier, because I was so honest, a lot of people were honest back to me, it breeds it.
1:22:34
SPEAKER_01: So if you just say to someone, like I've went sorry, I'm going off on a tangent.
1:22:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're fine.
1:22:40
SPEAKER_02: Good, good, good.
1:22:40
SPEAKER_01: I went to my first baby class, and he was like really tiny, like six.
1:22:46
SPEAKER_01: It was before I broke my ankle, so I was driving before he was six weeks old.
1:22:50
SPEAKER_01: And um, a friend from home runs the class.
1:22:53
SPEAKER_01: So the four of us, the Hunger Games girls, had gone to a group, gone to this group.
1:22:57
SPEAKER_01: So we met at baby Glow Bugs, and I remember pulling up and he was screaming in the car, and I was looking for a space.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_01: And Liv was stood on the corner, she was trying to show me a space, and I thought, Oh my god, this is hell, this is hell.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_01: And I was trying to get him out of the car, he was screaming.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_01: Everyone else, I looked around at the car park.
1:23:13
SPEAKER_01: It looked like everyone else was just really slowly picking up their perfect, not crying baby.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_01: And they were just walking, and their bag was packed, they knew what was in their bag, they'd got their car keys.
1:23:23
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what was in my bag, I didn't know where my car keys were.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_01: He was screaming, and I walked to the front door, and they were all just sat in a circle.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_01: Their babies were just lying peacefully on the mat.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_01: Ezra was screaming, and Libby, who runs the group, came straight over to me.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_01: And she says, Now, I didn't even remember at the time, but she says I just went straight up to her and I was like, Fucking hell, this is so hard.
1:23:42
SPEAKER_01: This is so hard.
1:23:43
unknown: What the fuck?
1:23:44
unknown: What the fuck is going on?
1:23:46
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Oh no, babe, it's okay, just sit down.
1:23:48
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, No, no, don't, don't let me.
1:23:50
SPEAKER_01: This would be me.
1:23:51
SPEAKER_01: This would be me.
1:23:52
SPEAKER_01: Don't leave me, don't leave me here.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_01: No, everyone's looking at me, they think I am nuts, and I am nuts, I'm crazy.
1:23:57
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't even talk about it earlier, but the OCD-ness with cleaning, I think that was a control, it's calmed down now, but in those early days of control and things completely obsessed about getting everything done, cleaning the house, and all that.
1:24:11
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I've like I was completely frantic.
1:24:15
SPEAKER_01: But if I had known then, if everyone, every other mum that has walked through the door has felt like you, Ezra isn't actually crying that loud.
1:24:23
SPEAKER_01: No, nobody is actually looking at you.
1:24:25
SPEAKER_02: And you I think also people forget that they're all mums, they've all just been through that.
1:24:29
SPEAKER_02: They might be having a good day back, but last week, yeah, this probably happened to them.
1:24:34
SPEAKER_02: I used to get so embarrassed in the coffee shop and be like, oh my god, like shut up, Liv, like, shut up, shut up.
1:24:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:24:38
SPEAKER_02: And I might fit Leanne, like our children do that.
1:24:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but you just in that moment you can't you can't see it out of there.
1:24:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think when you have struggled and you're honest, you can be the power that you have then, who you can be for other mums, then.
1:24:55
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, my cousin is about to give birth, and I'm like, I am gonna be the best person for her when she has this baby.
1:25:02
SPEAKER_01: Because I will, as soon as she'll let me through the door, I will be, I'll know exactly what she needs when I'm walking, you know, helping her around the house, I'll take the baby out for a walk while she's asleep so that she can have a nap, go and have a shower, yeah, go and just stand.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_01: That shower has seen a lot of things like tears, meltdowns, because like you just you just need 10 minutes.
1:25:24
SPEAKER_01: You really just sometimes just need 10 minutes.
1:25:26
SPEAKER_02: I think also when mums, and I've spoken about this quite a lot before, like when you've gone through something like you have, or like I have, or you know, you've had a difficult time, feel like as mums, our spidey senses are on, and we know you know you know what they need, and you know, when they're having a bit of a tough time, and and then and like like you say, being that support for somebody because you know exactly what it's like, yeah, it's almost like you're giving back.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, does that make any sense?
1:25:50
SPEAKER_02: You're calling it.
1:25:50
SPEAKER_02: And I'm with it, yeah.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_01: And my friend, my one friend Harriet, who she's got an almost two-year-old little girl called Nate.
1:25:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, she's 18 months, she's two in October.
1:26:00
SPEAKER_01: But she is absolutely that person.
1:26:02
SPEAKER_01: Like now she's like, she wants to be a midwife, yeah, because she is so passionate about helping women and like and I think how imagine leaving school, you have no concept of what you want to do, and you choose to be a midwife.
1:26:13
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:26:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, incredible.
1:26:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like like now.
1:26:16
SPEAKER_01: I think it's an amazing job, and I would absolutely do it.
1:26:19
SPEAKER_01: But then I I would, you know, and I just think you know, the woman who did the hypnobirth in, the midwife that I saw every week, the midwife that was with me in labour, I mean, I would recognise her face in the street anytime because the person you are for women at that, it's such a transformational time.
1:26:37
SPEAKER_01: And there's that whole thing that's come out now, isn't there?
1:26:39
SPEAKER_01: About um, you know how we know about the menopause and we know about when you go through puberty and stuff, but that transition when you've had a baby, yeah, is you really are completely reborn and you need your village, yeah.
1:26:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, and also I did read something that was like if you want a village, you have to be a villager.
1:26:59
SPEAKER_01: And I do think you have to put yourself out there in that time.
1:27:02
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have anyone around you, you've got to go to groups, yeah, you've got to reach out, you've got to be honest.
1:27:07
SPEAKER_01: Because if you just shut yourself in the house, it it goes downhill.
1:27:11
SPEAKER_02: And like you just said, it will fight against you.
1:27:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I could not be alone.
1:27:15
SPEAKER_01: That was one thing about me.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_01: I didn't never I just didn't want to be alone.
1:27:18
SPEAKER_01: Just don't leave me in the house on my own.
1:27:19
SPEAKER_01: I can't, I knew what would happen, and I do think it would have been maybe my mum's right.
1:27:24
SPEAKER_01: If I didn't break my ankle, I think maybe it would have gone a lot worse.
1:27:29
SPEAKER_01: But because of my ankle, I nobody left me on my own.
1:27:32
SPEAKER_02: Because you were continuously needing help.
1:27:33
SPEAKER_01: They knew when they came around, they were like, Oh my god, you can't walk.
1:27:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, we need to be here.
1:27:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they were just it was literally a rotor every day.
1:27:40
SPEAKER_01: There was somebody here in the morning, somebody here in the evening.
1:27:42
SPEAKER_01: If it wasn't Farris, it was my mum, it was my cousin, it was my best friend.
1:27:45
SPEAKER_01: It was there was there were people here.
1:27:47
SPEAKER_01: People came around to see me who I hadn't seen for like months, years.
1:27:51
SPEAKER_02: But you know what, when something like that happens, everybody just rallies around every day just to help, you know.
1:27:56
SPEAKER_01: And maybe it would have been different if I wasn't how I am, if I didn't talk about it, I wouldn't even want to.
1:28:02
SPEAKER_01: I really think if I if I tried to hide how I was feeling, I really think it would have I don't think I'd have come out of it as quickly as I did.
1:28:10
SPEAKER_01: Because in the grand scheme of things, and that's another guilt, isn't it?
1:28:13
SPEAKER_01: I look back and I think my birth was good.
1:28:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:28:16
SPEAKER_01: I did struggle, but in comparison to you or to somebody else, I didn't struggle that much.
1:28:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:28:21
SPEAKER_01: So that's also the guilt that you think, well, I had it fine.
1:28:25
SPEAKER_01: So I should just my baby sleeps, yeah, and all this, that, and the other.
1:28:28
SPEAKER_02: So actually, I should just but like your feelings and any you know, anybody who are always valid, you know, however you feel, whether it's good or bad.
1:28:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and never stop talking about it.
1:28:37
SPEAKER_02: Like, and this is part of the reason why I do this podcast is again getting women on you like that that share their journey, and yes, you had a positive, but there was negatives as well to it, you know.
1:28:46
SPEAKER_01: And it's also okay if you do just love it all.
1:28:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, some people cry thriving as well.
1:28:53
SPEAKER_02: Love birth, love newborn.
1:28:54
SPEAKER_02: My friend Kirsty, honestly, and I know she's gonna be listening to this, she is just she was made to be a mum.
1:29:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, she admits it, she finds it really hard, but she's just such a lot of people.
1:29:05
SPEAKER_01: And there are those people out there, and I I have so many wonderful women in my life who are those people, you know, Liv, Rach, Harriet, and I look at them and I think, oh my gosh, you are you are what you're supposed to be.
1:29:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and actually we're all we're all struggling like that.
1:29:20
SPEAKER_02: It's funny because they probably look at you like that, Emma.
1:29:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and people have said you can't see it, they can't you can't see it because it's you and you know they said to me, you know, he's so laid back, you must like he must get that from you.
1:29:32
SPEAKER_01: Like you've obviously created this, or like he has such a fun life.
1:29:35
SPEAKER_01: If I was a mum, I've had some stranger say, like, well, I see all the stuff because I my Instagram is like a diary, as you've seen, I post all the time.
1:29:43
SPEAKER_01: You you like you do if I was a mum, I hope I'd be like you.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_01: And when people say that, I think, oh no, you don't know.
1:29:49
SPEAKER_01: You think that, but you don't know.
1:29:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
1:29:52
SPEAKER_02: Again, that's like social media, isn't it?
1:29:53
SPEAKER_02: Like it betrays, yeah, like poor kid gets pushed from but you know, we're all you guys giving the best life that you can, yeah, and that's what's important.
1:30:01
SPEAKER_01: We are all just completely winging it, but it is, yeah.
1:30:05
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you asked me.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_02: Nobody's got their shit together.
1:30:08
SPEAKER_01: You asked me my letter, and I'm back at the start, but love letter.
1:30:12
SPEAKER_02: Emma, thank you so much for coming on and being part of it.
1:30:16
SPEAKER_02: My first guest is season two, and I'm very happy because it was a cracker of an episode.
1:30:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was so much fun.
1:30:22
SPEAKER_00: Your episode's gonna be out next Wednesday.
1:30:23
SPEAKER_02: No, thank you for letting me in the house and provide me with squash.
1:30:26
SPEAKER_02: There was Christian dips, we've not touched them.
1:30:28
SPEAKER_01: No, and we couldn't try the wine now.
1:30:29
SPEAKER_01: She hasn't tried the wine.
1:30:30
SPEAKER_02: Drink your chicken wine, it's happening, it's happening.
1:30:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay, thank you so much, my lovely.
1:30:35
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.