WEBVTT - Jamila Rizvi on the diagnosis that turned her world upside down 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.480 This episode of Headgame was recorded on Gadigal Lands. 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.160 August twenty seventeen. And Jamilla Risve is walking into her 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:13.800 GP's office. She thinks she might be pregnant. Being just 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.640 two years since she and her husband welcome their son, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.200 she is a little concerned about managing two children under 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.320 the age of three. Her GP orders the usual tests, 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:30.240 an ultrasound and bloods, With results inconclusive. She's sent to 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.720 specialists for a closer examination. Instead of finding a baby, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:40.279 doctors discover a rare tumor in Jimilla's brain. The diagnosis 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.519 triggers a harrowing treatment plan, two rounds of surgery and 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.360 thirty six rounds of radiation, the effects of which she 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:53.320 still battles to this day. I'm at Middleton and this 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:59.040 is Headgame today, Australian author and journalist Jamilla Risve on 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:05.640 fighting a one in a million brain tumor. Now, Jamila, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:07.560 you wear many hats, don't you. Yeah? 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:07.880 I do. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.000 Actually, I look really good in hats. That's one of Like, 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.200 that's one of my that's my I don't have one today, 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.200 but like it's my humble brag. I'm someone when you 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.800 get told to put on a hat I look good. Yeah, 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.280 I think I'm someone who, uh most people when they 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.440 describe me when I've left jobs and stuff like that, 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.120 enthusiastic tends to be the word that gets thrown around 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:27.480 the most. 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:29.680 I can feel that. I can feel that energy. 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.840 Or any But when you're enthusiastic, you try. You tend 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:35.240 to want to do all the things right. And I'm 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.480 someone who has always sort of felt like there's not 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:39.360 enough time to do all the things I'd like to do, 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:41.360 so try and wear as many hats as i can. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.360 Yes, I've seen and journalists as well. I'm sort of 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.240 reading through the list and I'm loving it because I 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.960 completely relate to that. You know, jumping from from hat 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:56.000 to hat, you know, people to people, different environments, different locations, 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:58.640 surrounding yourself with different people, You're always going to learn 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.360 and grow and become a better version of who you are. 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.280 Take me back though, to your Mama Mia days, Yeah, 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.160 because that's ultimately where it's sort of not all started, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.799 but that's where you know, you sort of were thrust 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:16.640 into into the limelight as such, and your messaging and 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.120 then you know your values behind what Mama Mia encapsulated 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:22.440 taught me through that. Yeah. 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.040 Sure, So I'd been working in politics, so I'd very 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.680 much been around media and around that spotlight you talk about, 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:29.799 but very much not in it. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:30.560 I was. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.400 I was behind the scenes helping prime ministers and ministers 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:35.840 get their message across. But the worst thing in that 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.240 job you could possibly do was get caught on camera. 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.200 Your job was to never be, never be seen. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.360 Oh so that's what you were. You were you were 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.120 ultimately were you scripting stuff for politicians. 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.680 And media advisor and buchw of different things. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:50.520 I love that. 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.680 And then I could see that the government wasn't likely 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.000 to win, and to be honest, I was really pragmatic. 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:58.799 I could see a lot of people with the same 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.200 skills as me. We're about to be unemployed at the 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.040 same time, and I was looking ahead and thinking. 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:05.120 Well what would I do? 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.440 And Lisa Wilkinson tweeted the job at Mamma Mia and 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.120 I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. I clicked on it 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.079 and I applied and I got the job and moved 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.120 to Sydney and it all happened in about two weeks. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:17.799 So it was a real whirlwind. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.000 So you went some Ultimately, you went from the political 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.799 realm into what realm is Mama Mia, because it's quite 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.680 quite a jump from one jib bowl to another. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:30.880 And actually I think what Mamma Mia is today is 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:32.960 quite different to what it was in twenty twelve. So 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.520 in twenty twelve, Mia Friedman had turned her blog into 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.040 a website and she had a company that was running 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.720 this women's website and publishing every day and they probably 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.440 had three, maybe three writers I think working there. The 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.440 whole company was about a dozen people. We were working 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.200 out of this tiny little office in Lime Street, down 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.440 by the wharf in Sydney. We didn't have a meeting room, 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.080 so we used to have all our meetings out on 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.760 the balcony because there was a table out there that 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:01.840 was a bit bigger. 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:02.680 Good old startups. 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.200 It was a proper startup. It was a proper startup. 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.160 But it really suited me actually because I think to 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.480 thrive in politics, you've got to be happy with chaos 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.120 and you've got to be happy with making what you 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:15.800 can out of what you've got, and a startup isn't 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.040 dissimilar in that regard. You've just got to hit the 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.600 ground running. There's no time to say, oh, I don't 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.279 want to do that. Job, or I think I'd be 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.520 better suited to this. You just like you just start right, 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:28.040 you roll your sleeves up, and you do whatever you're 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.880 asked to do. And I loved working there, and I 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.400 worked there for almost four years. And during those four 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.800 years we went from twelve to one hundred and twenty staff, 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.960 so it was a massive expansion. 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.680 Wow, so you're going along and I take it you're 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.040 working all hours under the sun here right. What was 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.159 the messaging behind Mama Mia? How did that look on 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.040 a day to day basis going into work. 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.040 Yeah, it was incredibly empowering to work there. I've got 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.240 to say I had a great time. I loved working 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.280 with a lot of women because in politics, certainly when 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:00.919 I was there, so we didn't work with a lot 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:02.719 of women. At the time, it was almost all women, 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:04.560 so it kind of gone. It was a real shift 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.680 from vast majority men who I was working with the 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:11.320 politics to vast majority women at Mama Mea. It certainly 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.880 was back then a website with a really strong feminist message, 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.680 and I enjoyed that. I enjoyed putting a gender lens 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.799 on whatever happened to be going on that day, whether 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:27.200 it was celebrity or current affairs or politics or sport, whatever. 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:27.600 It happened to be. 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.200 And we didn't have a lot of boundaries because it 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.520 was new and it was a startup. There weren't many 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.839 processes in place, not many systems that could be tricky 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.960 at times. But it also gave us enormous freedom in 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.200 that if we felt like launching something new or doing 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.840 something differently, like, we didn't have to ask anyone, We'd 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:46.360 just do it. 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.640 I find that fascinating. And also, like you said, there's 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.080 no boundaries to it. You can you can ultimately say 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.160 and try and get away with what you can right 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.599 in a pure way. And I found it really interesting 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:01.839 that you said went from a sort of male dominant 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:06.400 political realm to being, you know, amongst women and free. 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:08.560 Did it Do you felt like that give you a 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.120 sense of freedom, a sense of liberation, and a sense 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:12.559 of power. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:14.520 Yeah, maybe a little bit. 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:14.920 I think. 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.159 I think I was confused at the start because I 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.960 started working in politics at twenty one, and so I 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.680 hadn't really had another grown up job in my head, 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.200 and so the first thing you do is what you 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.159 think is normal, and so working in politics, i'd been 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.719 there four or five years, and that was how I 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.880 thought the world worked, I suppose, and that's what I 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.680 was used to. And I was really used to quite 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.560 a masculine environment without recognizing it as that. Yeah, I 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.279 was used to an environment where people were extremely confident. 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.880 There was a lot of bravado and you never admitted 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:46.360 you were wrong. 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.279 And I walked into this. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:53.479 This all being politics everywhere, all these young women every day, 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.479 like sorry was the most commonly used word in the office. 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:57.880 It was like, Oh, I'm so sorry, do you mind 0:06:57.880 --> 0:06:59.240 if I just go to the bathroom? It was like, 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.640 you don't to be sorry for going to please, please go? 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.600 But there was always there was so much apology, and 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.720 I think it really did start to cement a lot 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.760 of my views around what makes people feel confident and 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:15.560 why it is that women are made to feel not 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.920 so confident, what it is about society that makes women 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.680 not feel confident, and a lot of that is about inequality. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.520 It does strip your confidence away a lot of the time. 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.720 And there are people who don't fall victim to that, absolutely, 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:28.800 but for a lot of women, I think the voice 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:30.800 in their head has been put there by living in 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.520 a pretty gendered society, and one of the things I 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.280 did love about that Mum and me are setting, is 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.040 I suspect similar to an all girls' school, right, was 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.600 that it did give women a place to thrive without 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.840 feeling like they were being pushed out or muscled out 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.360 because it was an all female environment. 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.600 And how important is that is, you know, to give 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.040 people the opportunity to have an all female environment so 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.240 they can gain their confidence, be around like minded people, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.880 be around you know that home, shall we say, because 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.800 it is really important because when something goes wrong, you 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.560 go back to your own people. You know, you go 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.360 back to your own circle, You go back to your 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.800 own environment, You go back to somewhere where you feel 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:11.280 comfortable and confident. 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.960 Yeah, I do think that, you know, at a personal level, 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.120 I do think there is something extraordinary about being in 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:17.720 a room full of women and I get a lot 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:22.440 of enjoyment and energy from that. Having said that, I 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.480 think my preference would be that we had less gender 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:27.920 segregated workplaces. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.840 And interestingly, Australia is one of the worst at this. 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.520 If you look at sort of other OECD countries and stuff, 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.320 Australian workplaces are more gender segregated, which means most of 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.760 us work in a workplace that is dominated by men 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.079 or dominated by women. We don't have as many industries 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.040 professions where it's kind of even and sort of if 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:47.400 you think about it off the top of your head, 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:49.840 it tends to be true in your own life. You know, 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.400 my kid goes to a school where he hasn't had 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.360 a male teacher. Yet, there's not many male primary school 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.880 teachers other than the principal. Sometimes you don't get as 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:00.520 many men who are nurses. You don't get as many 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.280 men who are hairdressers. In the same way, you don't 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.600 get as many women who are electricians, or as many 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.920 women who work in finance. We have quite a gender 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.600 segregative workforce, and I don't think that's a good thing. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.880 I think that betrays a whole lot of inequalities in 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.680 pay and things like that. But also, the best decisions 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.559 are made when you've got a group of people around 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.920 the table with very different experiences and backgrounds. It avoids 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.440 group think. It means that you can challenge one another. 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.640 Usually means you're representative of whoever you're trying to serve 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.840 or sell to, etc. So I'm kind of I've worked 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.480 in these gender segregated workplaces but actually I'd like to 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.400 see on the whole US move to a place where 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.280 it's more usual to go to work and have a 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:42.880 mix of people. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.120 Love that. And so you go from this political career 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.840 to jumping in into the limelight, I suppose because you 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.600 went from behind the scenes, people are starting to know 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.840 your name, starting to recognize you, You start to build 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.880 a profile in the limelight. How did you manage that 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.400 and how did that feel when you were subconsciously doing 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.760 it without really realizing that you were right? 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.760 Yeah, look, I think you felt really good. I'm a 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:12.920 bit of a show off, and you know, I was 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:15.840 a kid who liked being in the school plays and 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:16.240 stuff like. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:17.360 I quite enjoyed it. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.200 And also, in politics, being part of a political party 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.400 or a government means that your opinion sort of has 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.400 to fall in step with the government, right, you have 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:28.400 to parrot the lines of the government, even if you 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.200 personally disagree. And so I found there was a lot 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.640 of freedom in being able to have my own opinion publicly, 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.520 and so I really, I think reveled in it for 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.720 a while. But I did find that as a writer, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.280 the more I felt like people knew who I was, 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.720 the less well I wrote because I found that I 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:50.800 started to write scared. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.480 I would be writing interesting, really interesting, and. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.360 I'd be so worried about who might read it and 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.120 who might hate it, and if I get criticized, and 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:00.839 I think, I certainly. 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:02.040 I'm interested to know what it was like for you. 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.959 I found an effect of my work for the worse 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.400 because I was I'd sort of write something really boring 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:11.720 because I'd sit down to write an opinion I had, 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:14.560 and then I'd almost pull back a little bit here 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.000 because I didn't want to upset anyone. There, Like a 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:18.640 little bit here, and you pull it right back till 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:20.880 it was just boring. It was a really vanilla. 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.480 There's no substance in it. Yeah, there's nothing in there, right. 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.160 And it did take me, I think, a good few 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.040 years to genuinely be comfortable with the fact that there 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.160 were always going to be people out there who disagreed 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:34.760 with me, and there were always going to. 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:35.960 Be people out there who didn't like me. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:41.160 And I also think I kind of got there by 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.040 working with a team and watching younger team members come 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.000 through and go through the same thing and sort of 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.000 supporting them. I think it was almost like I had 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.280 to do the teaching to start believing myself. 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.040 Yeah, yeah, of course. And how important is it to 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.160 stay true to yourself ultimately through writing. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.080 Yeah, enormously important. But I also think what you can't 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.160 do is give in to the idea that criticism doesn't matter. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.440 Because criticism does matter, and you should be open to 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.880 taking criticism. But a nameless, faceless person on the internet 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.520 is not the person to take your critique from. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:13.800 Right. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.400 One of the things that I found really helpful and 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.320 that I used to try and make all the team 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.400 members do back in the day was to sit down 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.400 and assemble a group of people in your head, or 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.440 cut their pictures out of the newspaper, whatever you wanted 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:26.640 to do. 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:28.520 It could be a mix of people. 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.840 You knew, tro darts of them, and a mix of 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.280 people you didn't whose opinion you cared about, you know. 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:36.920 For me, it was I remember saying, like, I care 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.000 about my dad's opinion on my writing. I care about 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.280 I was very close to my former boss in politics, 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.679 Kate Elis. I cared about her opinion. I remember think 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.560 I remember saying, I think I care about Oprah's opinion. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.520 You know, it was a mixture of people I knew 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.240 and didn't know, And so when I did get criticized, 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.240 I would, sometimes practically or sometimes just in my head, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.320 run what i'd written or what i'd see by those people, 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.800 and I go, what would they say? 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.679 What would they think? And sometimes I call them and 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:06.200 find out. 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.160 And what I tried to do is narrow it down 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.480 and say, absolutely, I am up for criticism because I 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.760 can get it wrong sometimes, I can be off base sometimes, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.680 but I'm not just taking it from everyone. I'm going 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:20.280 to choose a few people who I care about and 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.720 who I respect, and I'm going to think about what 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.679 they would say. And that sort of kept me honest 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.160 and made sure I was, I think, more nuanced and 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.439 careful in what I wrote and what I said publicly, 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:32.920 but meant that I didn't give in to the horrible 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:34.160 trolls on the internet. 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.720 While you're going for all of this, you've got family 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:45.720 in the background, right. 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:47.200 Well, sort of just at the start. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.760 Actually, when I was working at MoMA me Or, I 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:56.319 met my husband, and yeah, we started a long distance relationship. 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.839 Originally he was in Melbourne, I was in Sydney, and 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:01.480 then yeah, I was working at my meal when I 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:05.199 felt pregnant as well, and we had our little boy. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:09.559 After that, and did your work affect that relationship between 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.000 you and your husband or did you manage to find 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.920 a great balance and everything was work as a child 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.800 as well doing what you're doing. You're definitely double hatting there. 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:20.000 It's tough, right, oh for sure. 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.120 And you know, I think we had to figure that 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.920 out together in those early days, and I really thought 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:27.960 I'd just be able to go I was so naive. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:29.320 I just thought I'd be able to go back to 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.760 work and work the way that I used to. I 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:33.800 think I was thinking of a baby like an accessory 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.240 rather than like I just really did not know what 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.680 I was getting myself into. And I had kids, like 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:43.680 I had my son much earlier than most of my mates, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:45.840 and so I didn't really have a model of how 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.920 to do things, and so I didn't have a lot 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.320 of friends who had kids already, and I think as 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.360 a result, I just sort of was muddling along trying 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.440 to figure it out. But one of the things that 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.560 really helped for us, at least was that my husband 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.400 and I shared care pretty early, so we both went 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.920 part time when my son was about five months old. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:06.680 I did the first five months and then from there, 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.960 we shared it together, and for me, that has been 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.560 the game changer in allowing both of us to have 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.160 careers that we love and also have really great relationships 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.960 with our son. And that's not an easy thing to 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:24.760 do because you've both got to want to do that. 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.880 It's got to be financially possible for you to do that, 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.640 and I know that's not easy for a lot of people, 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.840 but I do think in a partnership, if you can 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.000 find a way early to share the care, it. 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:38.040 Means no one's the expert. 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.960 Because I think the danger for mums, especially if they're 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.240 in a relationship with a man, is that you have 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.560 the baby and so there's already this like, oh, look, 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:50.440 you're the one that did all the things. You grew 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.480 the baby, so you must know things when actually don't 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.160 know anything. And then you become the expert in the 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.480 baby because you're the one at home. And once you're 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.680 the expert, you're always the expert. And so you know 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.600 all things, and you're in charge of all the stuff, 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:03.960 and you're the keeper of the knowledge, and you know 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.800 what snacks at what time, and when bottles have to happen, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.920 and you know when's too late for a nap and 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.920 the more expertise that you hold and nobody else has 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.080 means that you have to be the one doing all 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.840 of the care. And I think what my husband and I, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.120 probably by accident rather than design, were able to do 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.360 was that neither of us was the expert in how 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.880 to look after our son. And it means that now 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.560 where I would say we're pretty balanced as parents still, 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.840 and we've established those that shared care and that equality 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.720 between us really really early, and it's followed through our 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:37.600 son's whole life. 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.040 Wow, and what year was your son born in? 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:42.360 He was born in June of twenty fifteen. 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:47.960 And then in twenty seventeen, you feel like you're pregnant again, 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:53.600 but you have these same sort of symptoms. You think, oh, 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.680 we've got another one on the way, and you go 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.040 to the doctor to confirm. Right, take me back to 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.160 that moment in twenty seventeen. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.600 Yeah, so I I'd skipped a period and I thought, 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:12.399 oh God, I must be pregnant. And my first reaction, 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.960 and I will admit, was no, it's too soon, ye 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:15.480 ready to go? 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.680 Not yet? Not yet. I was gonna wait another year, but. 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.320 The pregnancy test at home said I wasn't pregnant, and 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.400 I thought, oh, maybe that's not right. So I went 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.600 and saw my GP. I wasn't pregnant, and at the time, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.320 I was on a book tour, and so we sort 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.280 of thought, well, I'm probably just really anxious and sort 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.399 of stressed. My body stressed out doing a lot of 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.280 travel promoting this book, and I'm a bit nervous about 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.399 it all. Maybe that's what's going on. Also, you know, 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.000 my son was only two. I'd only stopped breastfeeding a 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:46.560 year or so earlier, so maybe things were just a 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.320 bit not back on schedule. Yet. I had a really 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.880 great GP who took me really seriously, which is important. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.680 I think a lot of gps in that situation would 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:57.760 have said, you're just a bit stressed, don't worry. She 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.840 had me do some blood tests which showed I had 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:03.480 no estrogen, and I was like, what was that mean? 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.240 And she said, look, I don't know, because if you 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.679 were in menopause or something early, everything else would be 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:13.719 different too, like your other hormones would be changing. But 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.080 it's just your estrogen. So she sent me off to 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:19.800 some specialists and that took a bit of time. I 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.639 think one of the gynecologists was very fancy gynecologist. It 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.280 took me like eight weeks to get in to see her, 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.760 and I also got sent to an endocrinologist, and everything 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.640 sort of happened like they were investigating, but no one 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.520 made me feel panicked. It was very much like, oh, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:34.280 I we'll just figure out what's going on with this thing. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.639 But as part of that, both of them said, you know, 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.480 we're going to do all these different tests to figure 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:41.600 out what's happening. We do do a brain scan, but 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:43.760 don't worry about that. It's just to rule things out. 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.639 And the day of the brain scan, I went in 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.359 and I had an MRI in the morning, and that 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.160