Speaker 1: Welcome back to Bounce Forward with me, Tip Haul.
Speaker 2: I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 2: on which I'm recording this podcast, the weredar people of
Speaker 2: the cooler Nation.
Speaker 1: I pay my respects for elders past and present.
Speaker 2: Today on Bounce Forward, I have the amazing Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: She is an author executive editor at Mama Mia, as
Speaker 2: well as co hosting news and pop culture podcasts Mama Mia,
Speaker 2: Out Loud and comedy podcast Canceled. You may have also
Speaker 2: seen Jesse Gracial TV screens on the ABC and as
Speaker 2: a regular host of the Project on Channel ten. Jesse
Speaker 2: is also a mom to Luna and I can't wait
Speaker 2: to talk to her on Bounce Forward.
Speaker 1: Here's Jesse now. So, Jesse, you're a twin and I
Speaker 1: was really interested to hear from.
Speaker 2: You because my sister and I had our babies four
Speaker 2: weeks apart, right, and you and Claire had babies not
Speaker 2: too different in a So what is that experience like
Speaker 2: going through motherhood together as a twin.
Speaker 3: It has been one of the greatest gifts of this
Speaker 3: period of my life. Four weeks I am I'm sort
Speaker 3: of jealous, but then I also think you would have
Speaker 3: been in the trenches at very much the same time.
Speaker 3: Claire and I. Our girls are about five months apart, okay,
Speaker 3: and so it's been amazing to have. In one way,
Speaker 3: I was the luckier one because I got Claire for
Speaker 3: five months and she was amazing. She would come over
Speaker 3: and just like she just wouldn't leave. She'd come over
Speaker 3: at nine o'clock in the morning and it would get
Speaker 3: to like two o'clock and my husband would say, Claire,
Speaker 3: you probably need to go home, like, you can't just
Speaker 3: live in our house because there's a baby here now.
Speaker 3: But she couldn't. She was so over with how much
Speaker 3: she loved Luna, and Luna loved her. And then her
Speaker 3: baby came along, and I was very worried that I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to give her the same time that
Speaker 3: she'd been able to give me because I had a
Speaker 3: five month old. But I'm really glad that I've been
Speaker 3: able to help in terms of being a few steps ahead.
Speaker 3: So everything from like I don't know breastfeeding, even though
Speaker 3: everyone's journey is very different, but sleeping and all the trinkets,
Speaker 3: and every time Luna grows out of something or she's
Speaker 3: moved on from a toy. There are just bags of
Speaker 3: stuff at Claire's doorstep, and her knowing having someone just
Speaker 3: ahead of her, I think has been really good. But
Speaker 3: as you would know, it's indescribable the love that you
Speaker 3: feel for your niece or nephew. That's been so surprising
Speaker 3: to just have her, to have Matilda, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh wow, I love her as if she were my own.
Speaker 3: She's just the best thing in the world.
Speaker 1: Isn't that beautiful? Is there any sibling rivalry with it?
Speaker 2: Because I find with my sister we've both got girls,
Speaker 2: Margo and Vader, and they're both so close in age.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, Margo's talking, Vader's not, and you know,
Speaker 2: Vader's crawling, Margo wasn't.
Speaker 1: And it was just always comparing. Do you have any
Speaker 1: of that?
Speaker 3: There's a little bit of that, And I think that
Speaker 3: you naturally worry when it's your first because you go, oh,
Speaker 3: should they have hit this milestone? So Claire will always
Speaker 3: go back and she's like, Luna was crawling at this
Speaker 3: age and Matilda hasn't started crawling. But then on the
Speaker 3: other hand, I look at Luna is very small. She's
Speaker 3: always been small, slow to put on weight. And I
Speaker 3: look at Matilda and that's never been an issue for her,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, it took Luna so many more months
Speaker 3: to get to that size. So you just learn, I
Speaker 3: suppose that every baby. I mean, we've got identical genetics,
Speaker 3: so these girls are technically half siblings and they are
Speaker 3: so different, and you just go. You get the baby,
Speaker 3: you get in terms of temperament, in terms of milestones,
Speaker 3: and that's actually a really beautiful thing to learn that.
Speaker 3: It's not that you're doing anything wrong. If your baby
Speaker 3: walks a bit later, it's just that they're going why
Speaker 3: would I walk? Crawlings easier? And I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: regret ever learning to walk.
Speaker 2: Actually, yes, yes, Isn't it such a stress when your
Speaker 2: baby's not putting on weight?
Speaker 1: Like that was?
Speaker 2: My baby was the same and we were at the
Speaker 2: maternal health nurse every week for a way in and
Speaker 2: Vader just was difficult with the breastfeeding and wouldn't wasn't
Speaker 2: feeding and I was trying with the breastfeeding, but she
Speaker 2: was losing weight. So it is such a stress, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Isn't the early stage just a bit of nightmare.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad to hear you say that, because we
Speaker 3: were we were the same. I was breastfeeding every two hours,
Speaker 3: even overnight, and she was throwing. She was a bit
Speaker 3: of a refluxy baby. But they said to me, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's not as much as you think. It looks more
Speaker 3: than it is blah blah blah. And we would go
Speaker 3: after a week of me breastfeeding ten or eleven twelve
Speaker 3: times a day, round the clock, and I would go, Okay,
Speaker 3: she has to have put on weight. They and one
Speaker 3: week I remember going and she'd lost thirty grams and
Speaker 3: I was going, I have never worked so hard at
Speaker 3: something and failed so much. Yeah, and I still don't
Speaker 3: like she was a bit slower. I was a small baby,
Speaker 3: but that to me, that and eventually a doctor said,
Speaker 3: it's you know, failure to thrive because she's not put
Speaker 3: on the amount of weight she should have. That was
Speaker 3: the hardest bit of the whole journey, that, you know,
Speaker 3: the effect you feel like you have one job, which
Speaker 3: is to feed your baby, and you feel like you're
Speaker 3: failing at it. And it was, Oh, I am glad
Speaker 3: to be out of that period.
Speaker 2: I must say, I really do think that mothers need
Speaker 2: so much support in that beginning six weeks.
Speaker 1: It's just so hard, isn't it. You just yeah, very tormented.
Speaker 3: By I went in and you know, I've worked at
Speaker 3: a women's media company for a lot of years. I've
Speaker 3: spoken to so many people as you would have about breastfeeding,
Speaker 3: and I have no judgment for anyone who does formula.
Speaker 3: So I thought, if the breastfeeding doesn't work, it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: it's fine. What I didn't expect was that you go
Speaker 3: to a lactation consultant and I would say, look, breastfeeding
Speaker 3: doesn't appear to be working. She's not getting on. Wait
Speaker 3: do I do formula? And it was like the prescription
Speaker 3: was always going to be the same, which is breastfeed harder,
Speaker 3: breastfeed harder, breastfeed harder. And I was like, it's not
Speaker 3: working for us. Who can I go to? Who's going
Speaker 3: to give me? I think? I ended up seeing a
Speaker 3: pediatrician who was just a lot more pragmatic and went
Speaker 3: give her a bottle and see if.
Speaker 1: It helps, Yeah, give it.
Speaker 3: And I needed commission.
Speaker 2: I was power pumping, and you know, I would pump
Speaker 2: before a feed and then pump after a feed, and
Speaker 2: then feeding ridiculous, like you were, and the pumping was
Speaker 2: really doing my mental health in so I just I
Speaker 2: lasted a couple of months, but I just couldn't. But
Speaker 2: with my son, I exclusively breastfeed him for over twelve months.
Speaker 2: So how does it not work? Like? Why is this
Speaker 2: not working? I just beat myself up. But like you said,
Speaker 2: every baby is different. They come to you and you
Speaker 2: just get what you get, right exactly.
Speaker 3: And my sister I had issues with breastfeeding that were
Speaker 3: totally different, but the pumping thing was. And some people
Speaker 3: are just you know, enjoy it or it doesn't bother
Speaker 3: them too much. But I found it like dehumanizing and
Speaker 3: I would sit there on the like I felt as
Speaker 3: though when I was pumping, I couldn't hold my baby,
Speaker 3: and so I would just be sitting there staring at
Speaker 3: a wall, going I feel.
Speaker 2: Like a cow.
Speaker 1: Ye, it's old, isn't it.
Speaker 3: This isn't working. And you know, women have been breastfeeding
Speaker 3: since the beginning of time, and this is as good
Speaker 3: as we've got in terms of a pump.
Speaker 1: Like, I know, the pumps are terrible.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're so right. They need to invent something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they need to look into that whole feeding thing. Oh
Speaker 2: so Jesse, I have to ask you about your relationship
Speaker 2: with health and fitness because you know I'm a personal trainer.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: What type of exercise do you enjoy? Are you a
Speaker 2: very sporty person or or you know.
Speaker 3: I actually I really enjoy exercise. So I've been doing
Speaker 3: reformer pilates for probably seven or eight years amazing, which
Speaker 3: I I think I enjoy it because I don't get bored.
Speaker 3: It's very you know, from balance to changing it all up,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of stimulation. Whereas I couldn't go for
Speaker 3: a run, I would get very bored during pregnancy. Actually,
Speaker 3: I also swam a lot, which I really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: That's great. That would have felt amazing, felt so no gravity.
Speaker 3: Yes, and even I got a lot of like ribbon
Speaker 3: back pain and so the movement of getting my shoulders
Speaker 3: and that rotation I think was really good. But since
Speaker 3: having lunar, I you know, was thinking about, all right,
Speaker 3: if I want to get pregnant again, what what would
Speaker 3: be I would like to be really really strong, and
Speaker 3: even though reformer plarti is great, I thought I'd like
Speaker 3: to lift weights like I'd like to. I can't remember
Speaker 3: what it's called, but you know, behind your shoulder blades,
Speaker 3: what's that your posture muscles? Yes, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to get that really strong. I want to
Speaker 3: get my glutes really strong so that you know, pregnancy,
Speaker 3: to me, it was carrying around this extra weight and
Speaker 3: it takes. Yes, I'm also right through your thoracic you
Speaker 3: sort of hunch because of the feeding and the carrying
Speaker 3: open all that up exactly, so it's like and even
Speaker 3: your boobs get massive, so you just get this. Like
Speaker 3: I felt as though I was hunched over for the
Speaker 3: second half my pregnancy. So I started going to the gym.
Speaker 3: I can commit to three times a week, which I'm
Speaker 3: very like proud of with a one year old, so
Speaker 3: I do a lot of like arms which you need
Speaker 3: when you carry them around and that back bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah, lats yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And I have felt such a difference. I feel really
Speaker 3: I feel really strong.
Speaker 1: Oh that is awesome. That is awesome.
Speaker 2: Has your relationship with exercise change much since you've had Luna,
Speaker 2: like massive body or how you feel in your own
Speaker 2: body life?
Speaker 3: Oh, massively. When I went to so I signed up
Speaker 3: to a new gym and they had like a like
Speaker 3: a wellness consult with a PT and I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to see a female because in the past
Speaker 3: I've seen a male PT who I felt like was
Speaker 3: telling me what I needed. But I wanted to tell
Speaker 3: her why I was going to the gym, and I said,
Speaker 3: I am not here to make my glutes look a
Speaker 3: certain way. I'm not here to get a six pack.
Speaker 3: I'm not here to lose weight. I'm here to make
Speaker 3: sure I'm not in pain. I don't want to be.
Speaker 3: I don't want to have back pain, and like, for
Speaker 3: functional reasons, I want to be able to pick up
Speaker 3: my baby. I want to be able to go for
Speaker 3: long walks. I want to be able to get down
Speaker 3: on the floor and be able to do that for
Speaker 3: the next forty years of my life. And I felt
Speaker 3: like she really understood what I was trying to say.
Speaker 3: And since doing that, it's like how I feel in
Speaker 3: my body and feeling like I'm switching the right muscles
Speaker 3: on and I'm not getting the saw hips and the
Speaker 3: saw back, which you kind of get inevitably when you're
Speaker 3: doing so much picking up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that is so great. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to pause things right there and I'm
Speaker 2: going to come back with a part two very very soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to Bounceport. I love having
Speaker 2: your company, so please dm me on Instagram at tif
Speaker 2: haul Underscore XO and let me know all the questions
Speaker 2: you'd love me to cover. Don't forget to rate and
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Speaker 1: Happy days,