Speaker 1: You're listening to a mother Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded.
Speaker 2: On Hello Hello Bump listeners, it's Grace here. So many
Speaker 2: of you have been following my journey through pregnancy on
Speaker 2: Hello Bump, and honestly, your support has my lot. The
Speaker 2: dms that I've received, people asking for the questions about
Speaker 2: pelvic floor physios or reaching out to hear my birth story,
Speaker 2: You've been through all the ups and downs with me,
Speaker 2: and the excitement and the nerves and basically everything. I've
Speaker 2: shared everything of my journey along the way, So thank
Speaker 2: you for listening, ah, and now I'm very excited to
Speaker 2: share with you the next chapter. I recently sat down
Speaker 2: with Kelly McCarran and Key re Searls on their podcast Eat, Sleep,
Speaker 2: Repeat to share my birth story and what it's been
Speaker 2: like becoming a parent and talking about the very intense
Speaker 2: first six weeks of parenthood. So if you've been wondering
Speaker 2: what happened after all those Hello Bump episodes, this is
Speaker 2: where you'll find out. And I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 2: And I'm recording this with my daughter Nora strapped to
Speaker 2: my chest and you can probably hear some of her breathing.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3: So our guest today is a very special former colleague
Speaker 3: turned friend of mine, Grace and also Kelly's.
Speaker 1: But I tell myself, well, yet I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: She's working on her becoming my real life friend.
Speaker 3: Honestly, everyone needs Grace in their life. Grace is an actor,
Speaker 3: like a real one, and a very good one at that.
Speaker 1: It's so good.
Speaker 2: She was in Colin from Accounts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that showy, it's such a good show.
Speaker 3: She's also a writer and a producer. She's also a
Speaker 3: podcast host and an audio producer, a celebrant, she actually
Speaker 3: married me and Charlie.
Speaker 1: She's a real jack of all trades. I call myself
Speaker 1: a jack of all trades, master of none. She's a
Speaker 1: jack of all trades, master of everything, master.
Speaker 3: Of everything, and she's also mastering being a brand new
Speaker 3: first time mum to baby Nora. So Grace just has
Speaker 3: something her. She's an old soul with there's quiet, calm
Speaker 3: and coolness about her. I was immediately drawn to her
Speaker 3: when we first met. She's sunshine in human form, and
Speaker 3: I was so happy to learn that she was pregnant,
Speaker 3: but her pregnancy wasn't all smooth sailing. More on that later.
Speaker 3: And today we're speaking to her at six weeks postpartum.
Speaker 3: She's in that blissful baby bubble meets what the actual
Speaker 3: fuck trenches and I just know that she's going to
Speaker 3: share so beautifully about her time so far as a
Speaker 3: new mum. Welcome Grace six weeks in. How are you, Grace.
Speaker 2: The answer to that question changes hour by hour, which yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you all know. I kind of do it
Speaker 2: as like is it a good day or is it
Speaker 2: a bad day, even though again the answer changes within that,
Speaker 2: but today's a good day. You know, we went out
Speaker 2: of the house. Her weight has gone up, which were
Speaker 2: stoked about. Yes, I think I'm doing like a hybrid
Speaker 2: version of my life, which is like a little bit
Speaker 2: of work and then like with a child strap to me.
Speaker 2: So that feels nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny, isn't it, How just like little pieces
Speaker 3: of you that you get to still tap into, how
Speaker 3: much they can make a difference, even though like.
Speaker 1: The thought of quote unquote work.
Speaker 3: With a new baby seems overwhelming, but just like little
Speaker 3: tappens here and there, I think really just remind you like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm still me, even though I'm completely for someone else
Speaker 3: at the moment, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And I always knew that's what I was going to need,
Speaker 2: and I just wasn't sure when I would be able
Speaker 2: to even start experimenting without thirty minutes or that one hour.
Speaker 2: And I think there was probably like four and a
Speaker 2: half weeks and went ooh, I've got like half an hour.
Speaker 2: Do I just like quickly try and write something?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Whatever. But I've been able to incorporate inside the house
Speaker 2: grace activities, but haven't found time to like go back
Speaker 2: to the gym or any I mean, I'm not six weeks,
Speaker 2: so I would love to be able to go. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm a spin lady as well, key, so I have
Speaker 2: to find time to do that.
Speaker 3: Oh Grace. I did my first spin the other day
Speaker 3: and it was glorious. I only have done it once,
Speaker 3: but I cried after because it was just so like,
Speaker 3: I haven't been able to do that for like a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you were sick as well, like really sick.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So actually, on that note, you had a pretty
Speaker 3: shit pregnancy.
Speaker 2: I did. I did, like I was feeling nauseous when
Speaker 2: I took the test like a little bit, and I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I think with the pregnancy nausea,
Speaker 2: you you sort of had this Hollywood idea of it
Speaker 2: of like this, Oh cute, I vomited in a bin
Speaker 2: and I'm going to take a test, and you don't realize, like,
Speaker 2: what nausea all day? They can't be fixed by like
Speaker 2: having another beer at four pm. What that actually feels
Speaker 2: like all day every day? So I found out it
Speaker 2: like five weeks obviously, as you do. And then the
Speaker 2: nausea like ramped up week six, and then I started
Speaker 2: vomiting from week seven and I was vomiting every day
Speaker 2: from week seven to week twenty four, and then it
Speaker 2: went to like three times a week, and I vomited
Speaker 2: like the day I gave birth as well, So it
Speaker 2: like went through the whole pregnancy. But the nausea, even
Speaker 2: though the vomiting got less than nausea, twenty four of
Speaker 2: nausea and never went away ever the whole time.
Speaker 3: Oh it's just awful.
Speaker 1: It's still sick for it actually like makes me a
Speaker 1: little bit teary because it just is so debilitating. You've
Speaker 1: just brought so much back I did not have it
Speaker 1: for the entirety of my pregnancy. You had about twelve
Speaker 1: weeks without the nausea, and people go, oh, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you get this beautiful baby at the end. It's true,
Speaker 1: but it's a very long time to be sick all day,
Speaker 1: every day. And when you're usually sick, like say you're
Speaker 1: hungover or you've got a stomach bug, you vomit and
Speaker 1: then you feel a little bit of relief, and you
Speaker 1: also know that there's an end in sight. But there's
Speaker 1: no end in sight.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: And I tried everything, and I think all of the
Speaker 2: suggestions out there, I tried like every iteration of ginger.
Speaker 2: I've tried to the point where I like, I just
Speaker 2: can't have ginger at all. I tried the medications. I
Speaker 2: tried different meals, like a different I tried like setting
Speaker 2: an alarm in the middle of the night, because my
Speaker 2: biggest trigger was in the morning. If I'd essentially fasted
Speaker 2: for too long, just sleeping, just living my life like
Speaker 2: a person, I would wake up and always vomit before breakfast.
Speaker 2: And I went to the GP because the medication wasn't
Speaker 2: really doing much. And the next level up of the
Speaker 2: medication was the I think it's called adanzitron. It's like
Speaker 2: the chemotherapy agent that helps you with nausea. And they
Speaker 2: wouldn't give it to me because it's what they give
Speaker 2: to people with hypermemesis. But because I didn't classify as hyperemesis,
Speaker 2: because I could hold down water and I wasn't vomiting
Speaker 2: more than three times in a day, I wasn't eligible
Speaker 2: for the medication. And I was like, okay, yeah, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. And then I did a podcast with Yanna Pittman,
Speaker 2: Hello Bump, and I told her, and she's an obstectrix
Speaker 2: register and she was horrified they didn't give it to me.
Speaker 2: When you hear people go oh, you should have been
Speaker 2: given that, or hey, that was actually really bad morning
Speaker 2: sickness that you had. That's not normal. That's the stuff
Speaker 2: that made me really emotional because you're battling that all
Speaker 2: day every day, you don't feel like the person that
Speaker 2: you are, and then someone like goes, oh, that's not pleasant,
Speaker 2: and you go, no, it wasn't, thank you, because I
Speaker 2: think with so many pregnancy symptoms, as you said, there
Speaker 2: is this like yes, but it's you know, for the baby,
Speaker 2: it's for the good of the baby. They're constantly trying
Speaker 2: to push this silver lining to you, and when you're
Speaker 2: the one dealing with it and living with it, it just
Speaker 2: feels like so lonely.
Speaker 3: I know that obviously this is, you know, the first pregnancy,
Speaker 3: but I know that with Suki, my pregnancy was really
Speaker 3: horrible and it definitely had an impact on I guess
Speaker 3: my connection with her to some degree. It's difficult and
Speaker 3: it might be hard for you to answer because you
Speaker 3: don't have a benchmark, but I was constantly comparing to
Speaker 3: Rue but I felt almost like this thing was happening
Speaker 3: to me, but I wasn't really conscious of it. In
Speaker 3: a lot of ways, I was because my body was
Speaker 3: kind of failing me, I felt in a way, but
Speaker 3: it was a weird kind of thing of not being
Speaker 3: able to fully connect to the process that was happening.
Speaker 3: Did you have anything like that with your pregnant.
Speaker 2: I more found myself apologizing to my partner because I
Speaker 2: felt like I'd taken away any joy from these kind
Speaker 2: of few months of you know, you go, oh, we're
Speaker 2: going to go to Wiskan and you do still have
Speaker 2: those moments for sure, but then you feel like a
Speaker 2: dark cloud of negativity. Yeah, misery and they're kind of
Speaker 2: your care Like I couldn't go into my kitchen without vomiting,
Speaker 2: I couldn't open the fridge. So it's those things where
Speaker 2: you feel like it's meant to be exciting, like let's
Speaker 2: go take bump pictures or yeah, I don't know, and
Speaker 2: like that's one of the reasons, like we found out
Speaker 2: the sex. I was probably always going to find out
Speaker 2: the sex early because I wanted to start endowing what
Speaker 2: was inside me with something like even just calling her
Speaker 2: like we called her hey, lady, and we still call
Speaker 2: her lady. Yeah, just little things like that that did
Speaker 2: help me try and connect to it a little bit,
Speaker 2: because Yeah, I think I said to Kelly one time
Speaker 2: at the office, I was like, I've hated every second
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: We don't like to admit things like that because then
Speaker 1: we've got people that like all of our love to them,
Speaker 1: but they've struggled so much even fall pregnant or they've
Speaker 1: had these things, so it's almost we feel like we
Speaker 1: can't say that. But two things can always be true
Speaker 1: at the same time, and it can be so miserable
Speaker 1: and isolating and lonely. And I don't know if you
Speaker 1: felt this, but I still feel a little bit of resentment.
Speaker 1: Not resentment, but like I see people that really thrive
Speaker 1: in their pregnancy, and I just think, oh, must be
Speaker 1: fucking nice. Like I was miserable and I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like myself and it's something that unfortunately, it doesn't come
Speaker 1: really naturally and beautifully to everyone. No.
Speaker 2: I kept being like, when am I going to look hot?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: When am I going to glow? When's this glowing version
Speaker 2: of pregnant grace going to happen? Where you know my
Speaker 2: hair is?
Speaker 1: I thought that you looked really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Ah, thank you, thank you. I think I had a
Speaker 2: neat little bump.
Speaker 1: My hair just always looks so healthy. O, your skin's
Speaker 1: glowing to me.
Speaker 2: No, I got perry a dermatitis, and I was like,
Speaker 2: is that a pregnancy thing? It turns out like everything
Speaker 2: is a pregnancy thing. I lost parts of my eyebrow,
Speaker 2: Like I just got like a bald patch in there.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh what is that? That's pomones?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how was your birth after all?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 1: Was it good? Like we like, oh sweet relief.
Speaker 2: Look, I had birth preferences, not plans preferences, and they
Speaker 2: were yeah, it's like I don't want to be induced,
Speaker 2: I don't want an epidural, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: Caesar at all. And those were all the three things
Speaker 2: that I got. So I ended up having to be
Speaker 2: induced because they did a CTG scan on me, a
Speaker 2: CTG monitoring on me one day when I because I
Speaker 2: just felt like movements were off, but it was just
Speaker 2: did a routine appointment. They said, well, why don't we
Speaker 2: just took you up. When they did the scan, they
Speaker 2: realized she hadn't grown since her thirty six weeks scan.
Speaker 2: I was forty and three like at this point, and
Speaker 2: they realized she hadn't grown in four weeks, and they said,
Speaker 2: I think it's time to just get this child out.
Speaker 2: Come back tomorrow. And so I came in, got to
Speaker 2: be induced. I got with the tape, the gel thing,
Speaker 2: and then I'd done two stretching sweeps as well, because
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to have a vaginal birth,
Speaker 2: That's exactly what's going to happen. I'd done the pelvic
Speaker 2: floor physio, I'd done peroneal message, I'd done the birth
Speaker 2: classes like that's what was going to happen, and then
Speaker 2: got induced, stayed in the hospital like went up to
Speaker 2: like two centimeters. Then at like two am, they said, oh,
Speaker 2: we could put the balloon catheter in you. I said,
Speaker 2: that doesn't sound pleasant, or we can break your waters
Speaker 2: in about four hours. When the doctor rounds next, I
Speaker 2: was like, let's pick that option. Yeah, so then.
Speaker 1: I'd rather a knitting needle than a balloon please. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it didn't sound very comfortable. And at this point,
Speaker 2: like because the day before with the she hasn't grown.
Speaker 2: It was just a lot of anxiety. They were trying
Speaker 2: to get me to stay that night and induced that night,
Speaker 2: and then my midwife had privately said to me, it's
Speaker 2: just a really terrible idea to start an induction at nighttime,
Speaker 2: Like I highly recommend you come back in the morning.
Speaker 2: So like i'd come back, hadn't progressed. Then they broke
Speaker 2: my waters at like six am. My partner came back
Speaker 2: two hours, like oh, an hour later, they put me
Speaker 2: on the drip. The drip just intensified everything one thousand
Speaker 2: billion percent. And I'd had a planeting forought overnight. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'll just try that paneting fought again.
Speaker 2: That was great, and then that obviously did nothing. Morphine
Speaker 2: was great. I had the best time, you know, i'd
Speaker 2: have a contraction, which you still feel, but then I
Speaker 2: would like pass out for the ninety seconds in between,
Speaker 2: and then that kind of wore off, and then I
Speaker 2: tried the gas, which the gas does nothing. I don't
Speaker 2: know why that's recommended. And then I said, at one point, oh,
Speaker 2: it's not going to get better, is it. And they're like, no,
Speaker 2: it's going to get worse. So I said, okay, let's
Speaker 2: just do the epidural.
Speaker 1: Get it into me.
Speaker 2: Get it into me. And I don't know why I
Speaker 2: was resisting it, because that is like God's gift to women.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It was great. It was great
Speaker 2: right up until the exact moment that it wasn't and
Speaker 2: it stopped working and then I could feel everything again,
Speaker 2: and then that's kind of when the wheels fell off
Speaker 2: mentally for me. It was about seven pm on the Thursday.
Speaker 2: That routine appointment that had started everything was the tuesday.
Speaker 2: I'd been induced on the Wednesday morning, so at this
Speaker 2: point it's about thirty hours. They checked me up with
Speaker 2: four centimeters dilated. I was like, oh my god. And
Speaker 2: then they said, let's check again in two hours, and
Speaker 2: they checked again and I was only five centimeters. They'd
Speaker 2: done that, her heart rate and started going up and down,
Speaker 2: and they did the little prick test to her head
Speaker 2: to make sure like her sugars were okay, and she
Speaker 2: was fine, so they said we can keep going. And
Speaker 2: then I said, like, how long have I got left?
Speaker 2: Do you think? And they were like soon, And then
Speaker 2: my husband stepped in and said, you have to tell
Speaker 2: Grace what soon means. Could I can tell she thinks
Speaker 2: that means two hours? And they said, no, it's probably
Speaker 2: like another ten hours. And my midwife's that I'd been
Speaker 2: with the whole you know, pregnancy. They were about to
Speaker 2: go off shift and another team was going to come in,
Speaker 2: and at that point when you're just like, mentally everything
Speaker 2: is terrible, It's it's so hard to talk about it
Speaker 2: at this point because you know, now here mentally fine,
Speaker 2: physically fine, you go. I should have just kept going,
Speaker 2: but everything just felt really intense, and I was just
Speaker 2: really really overwhelmed by the fact that I was feeling
Speaker 2: contractions again even though I had the epidural.
Speaker 1: And you thought, I cannot go through another ten hours
Speaker 1: and also shift changes, of course they have to happen,
Speaker 1: like it's just awful having to swap your like you
Speaker 1: get really attached to someone, and then there's always the
Speaker 1: changeover period and no one checks in on you during
Speaker 1: the changeover period and everything is delayed. Of course it
Speaker 1: has to happen, but it is one of the most
Speaker 1: annoying things that happens in a hospital. I think that's stupid,
Speaker 1: bloody changeover.
Speaker 2: And I just didn't want an energy change in my room.
Speaker 2: I know that sounds silly, but I was like, I
Speaker 2: just don't want more people coming in. I don't want
Speaker 2: like the handover to happen in front of me. You know,
Speaker 2: your brain goes to weird places when you're in that space.
Speaker 2: They kept leaving us for ten minutes to like have
Speaker 2: chats of like what we wanted to do, and I said, well,
Speaker 2: on that last check, I wished I hadn't progressed at all,
Speaker 2: so the decision was easier, and Josh was like, I
Speaker 2: think you want to see section. I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: I think I do, but then everyone had to get
Speaker 2: me to say it, and it was really hard to
Speaker 2: say I want to see section because I just didn't
Speaker 2: want that. I'm quite terrified of needles, terrified of I
Speaker 2: didn't want to be in an o awake, Are we
Speaker 2: the say person, yes, yes. But one of the beautiful
Speaker 2: things that happened is when the doctor came in he
Speaker 2: was going to do the sea section. She walked in
Speaker 2: and she was the person who had broken my waters
Speaker 2: on her shift beforehand, so she had lived a life
Speaker 2: in between. You know, they've got to do like some
Speaker 2: legal things, like they've got to say like, we don't
Speaker 2: medically have to do this. She's fine, You're fine. And
Speaker 2: then my midwife stepped in and said, oh, look she
Speaker 2: has to say this. She goes, oh, yeah, I have to.
Speaker 2: But you know, if this with me, I would have
Speaker 2: had a sea section hours ago. Yeah. So I felt
Speaker 2: a lot better because there's a part of you that
Speaker 2: like martyr woman thing that's like, am I giving up?
Speaker 2: Did I just like throw the towel in? Yeah, But
Speaker 2: after that amount of hours and it was just all
Speaker 2: a bit much. So at ten pm I got a
Speaker 2: sea section on that Thursday night.
Speaker 3: Just on that note when you said like about being
Speaker 3: a martyr and feeling like, you know, you should be
Speaker 3: doing it this way. On the flip side of that,
Speaker 3: did you also feel like because I had this where
Speaker 3: I felt like I'm so selfish and trying for a
Speaker 3: bad birth. I just need to meet my baby, Like,
Speaker 3: what if something were to go wrong now, Like I
Speaker 3: had both of those things going on at the same time,
Speaker 3: which was a really hard kind of mind space to
Speaker 3: be in.
Speaker 2: You're just punishing yourself. Oh yeah, from both sides. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had that. When they keep saying just monitor for
Speaker 2: fetal movements, monitor for fetal movements. So that was my
Speaker 2: least favorite thing. It just terrified me because they said, well,
Speaker 2: has the pattern changed. I'm like, I don't think there
Speaker 2: is a pattern. I've tried so hard to figure out
Speaker 2: the pattern, but I just don't know it exists.
Speaker 3: So talk to me about meeting Nora. I know obviously
Speaker 3: it wasn't what you'd planned, but I don't know. My
Speaker 3: c sections have been kind of beautiful.
Speaker 2: I felt like I was quite drugged up by the
Speaker 2: time I got in there. It was all like very
Speaker 2: again because I'm like quite a medically anxious person and
Speaker 2: I like to know what's going on, but then not
Speaker 2: too much what's going on. So the first like fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes were great, Like I had my midwife and the
Speaker 2: student midwife who i'd been with the whole you know,
Speaker 2: a few months, and then Josh was obviously there, and
Speaker 2: then they were just talking to us and they said,
Speaker 2: are you ready to meet your daughter? And before they
Speaker 2: even finished that sentence, like her screams like filled the room.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, makes me feel emotional because I
Speaker 2: wasn't expecting it, and she wasn't even out of my womb,
Speaker 2: like fully out of the womb. And was like, I'm
Speaker 2: here because I've seen the photos later on, like her
Speaker 2: legs were still in there, and she was just screaming,
Speaker 2: how very dare you?
Speaker 1: I was comfortable, yeah.
Speaker 2: And so Josh and I just like it kind of
Speaker 2: took us by surprise and we were like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: and we both looked at each other and like obviously
Speaker 2: started crying. And then when they bought her around and
Speaker 2: put her on my chest, like she stopped crying like immediately,
Speaker 2: and my breast just started lactating, like, oh, I actually
Speaker 2: also lactated when they did the epidural, which is so weird.
Speaker 1: They were like, your bodies are incredible, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So weird. It's all very beautiful and wonderful. But then
Speaker 2: she goes off for her checks, and then Josh had
Speaker 2: went off with her as well, and then you sort
Speaker 2: of left alone and the adrenaline of the moment is gone.
Speaker 2: Did you have the shakes where you're yeah, Oh yeah
Speaker 2: I did. And then I started to panic because I
Speaker 2: didn't know what that was. And everyone said you're fine,
Speaker 2: and I was like, cool, mindfulness, mindfulness, trying to be mindful,
Speaker 2: and you can feel yourself.
Speaker 1: Someone's inside me right now, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Someone's inside me. And then they came over and they
Speaker 2: were like, your blood pressure's rising, and I was petrified
Speaker 2: of pre clamsier. So I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm going to hear the words hemorrhage and they're going
Speaker 2: to like I'm just going to be put under for
Speaker 2: some horrific surgery. So I kept saying to the people.
Speaker 2: I was like, am I okay, is my blood pressure? Okay?
Speaker 2: How many layers have they sewn up? Like? I just
Speaker 2: kept going on this loop and then they ended up
Speaker 2: giving me medication for the to bring the blood pressure down.
Speaker 2: But because of that, because I'd had a spike, and
Speaker 2: then I had to stay in hospital for five days
Speaker 2: just to monitor that it wasn't going to develop into
Speaker 2: postpartum pre clamsier, and I was on four hourly. I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is normal. I was in four
Speaker 2: hourly vitals checks for blood pressure because I was quite anxious.
Speaker 2: The automatic ones, the electronic odpressure monitors, would make me
Speaker 2: go way higher than the manual ones. So every time
Speaker 2: they'd walk in, I said, please don't use the automatic one.
Speaker 2: They're like, you'll be fine, and then it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, one sixty over something.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I was the same grace, like those ones are
Speaker 3: so annoying, Like I'm just like through the manual one.
Speaker 3: It takes two seconds.
Speaker 2: We can Yeah, who was your obstrition? Her name was
Speaker 2: doctor Christine. Because I was through the midwife program, I
Speaker 2: just I did MGP. So I was just with my
Speaker 2: midwives until that is the very end.
Speaker 3: Good that you got into MGP.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I called constantly to be like, am I on
Speaker 2: the list? Am I on the list? And I found
Speaker 2: out it sixteen weeks that I got into mgps's that's awesome.
Speaker 3: That's a good tip for anyone at home thinking that
Speaker 3: they might have missed the boat. Just to be persistent. Okay,
Speaker 3: so I want to because I could see that you
Speaker 3: obviously it's emotional talking about a birth, especially six weeks in,
Speaker 3: but I wanted to touch on baby blues and have
Speaker 3: you been able to rationalize and work through those emotions
Speaker 3: of your birth not going what you thought it might go,
Speaker 3: but still being, you know, a beautiful birth for baby Nora.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't feel at all like I had a
Speaker 2: traumatic birth at all. I think I'm I just got
Speaker 2: a bit hard on myself for sure. That could I
Speaker 2: have done longer or it's just so hard to talk
Speaker 2: about the headspace when you're not in it. In terms
Speaker 2: of baby blues. Everyone warned me about day four or five,
Speaker 2: but I was fine at day four and five. It
Speaker 2: was when I got home, and I'd say like the
Speaker 2: first week and a half to first two weeks at home.
Speaker 2: And that's why I reached out to u Key is
Speaker 2: because I saw the post that I believe you wrote
Speaker 2: Kelly about what it's like at three am as a
Speaker 2: new parent. And I've never felt like everything about that
Speaker 2: post was like how I was feeling, and I didn't
Speaker 2: know how to articulate it. This feeling of you feel
Speaker 2: completely different. You feel you're not sure if you're ever
Speaker 2: going to go back to the person you were before,
Speaker 2: and like, how can you because you have this thing.
Speaker 1: You feel unhinged every single way.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, everything is a level fifteen out of ten
Speaker 2: of emotion. You're trying to figure out breastfeeding, which is
Speaker 2: a near death experience in itself. Every single time, like
Speaker 2: I was having, my nipples were bleeding, they got paper
Speaker 2: cut tears over them. Also, this thing called a nipple vasospasm.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've heard of them.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend had that and she said that it was
Speaker 1: more painful than contractions, like it, can you talk me
Speaker 1: through this?
Speaker 3: I haven't heard of it.
Speaker 2: So it's basically my boobs were like throbbing and my
Speaker 2: nipples were throbbing, and I thought, maybe this is normal.
Speaker 2: But once you leave MGP care and you've got two
Speaker 2: weeks with them postnatal, and then you can't use your
Speaker 2: little twenty four to seven phone call anymore. So I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, my nipples are in pain.
Speaker 2: I'm bleeding. It looks like she's actually going to rip
Speaker 2: off my nipples. And I called a private lactation consultant
Speaker 2: and midwife to come to the house because I was like,
Speaker 2: I can't do this. And she came and I said, like,
Speaker 2: my nipples are like really sore and she goes, oh,
Speaker 2: do they turn white on the tips? And I said,
Speaker 2: I've no idea, but I'll look next it happens, and
Speaker 2: I did look, and so they do turn white. So
Speaker 2: essentially a nipple face of spasm is you're losing circulation
Speaker 2: to your nipples and they go white and throb and
Speaker 2: then as the blood comes back in, it like throbs again.
Speaker 2: So people with the condition that have like poor circulation
Speaker 2: in their hands and feet, it can happen to them.
Speaker 2: I've never had that condition, but this, so this was
Speaker 2: just a big surprise, horrific.
Speaker 3: Like I've had two babies and I've never heard of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's all these like woo woo ways to
Speaker 2: treat it, you know, there's like all these vitamins or
Speaker 2: just make sure that you've got a hate pack you're
Speaker 2: warm at all times. But then people say, like with
Speaker 2: the cuts, then to keep it open and put breast
Speaker 2: milk on it. I was like, so am I am
Speaker 2: I covering up? Or am I not covering up? And
Speaker 2: then I went on too like a little forum and
Speaker 2: asked if anyone else had had it, and they said, oh,
Speaker 2: you can get medication for that. It's like a blood
Speaker 2: pressure medication that helps with the blood vessels constricting. I
Speaker 2: was like, why wasn't that mentioned first all these like anyway,
Speaker 2: so that got sorted a week ago.
Speaker 3: I want woman to just be in pain. They're just
Speaker 3: obsessed with it. It's just stopping so obsessed with us
Speaker 3: being in pain.
Speaker 2: Or you should just be able to handle it.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, I've handled enough through my presancy that
Speaker 3: I've done enough, all right, So should we start to
Speaker 3: talk about the feeding journey? So no, it's been hard,
Speaker 3: and I don't want to upset you, but I want
Speaker 3: to talk to you because I want to hype you
Speaker 3: up as well, because I feel like you are doing
Speaker 3: an amazing job. Also, off the back of that Stella
Speaker 3: news today of Nora putting on three hundred grams and.
Speaker 2: Three hundred grams, three hundred grams. If this is the
Speaker 2: weird like identity shift, isn't it. You hear people talking
Speaker 2: about parent things that like my baby ganda this much,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly you're that bitch.
Speaker 1: You're like bore you have kids, You're like who cares?
Speaker 2: That's sacking, and like, oh.
Speaker 1: Why would I even care about that? But then you
Speaker 1: have and you're like no, no, it's very important.
Speaker 2: It's very important, and everyone also makes you feel like
Speaker 2: it's super important. Well, it is, obviously you want your
Speaker 2: child to be fine. So I was making a lot
Speaker 2: like I was able to get colossterum before Nora Kane,
Speaker 2: which my midwife milked for me, Like I could sometimes get.
Speaker 3: It, but really hard to do. It's so hard when
Speaker 3: they do it, it's so much easier, and you're just like,
Speaker 3: this is so.
Speaker 1: Weird, Like I could do it now because I've breastfed
Speaker 1: and done that, but at the time, I was like
Speaker 1: I never experienced that, And I.
Speaker 3: Was like, yeah, I get what you mean, Like after
Speaker 3: you've breastfed, you have a bit more of like an understanding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think for me, in my brain, I
Speaker 2: thought everything was going to come easy because that that's
Speaker 2: what your body is made to do. You know. It's
Speaker 2: the same with the vaginal birth psychopath mentality that I
Speaker 2: had of like, well, you know, we were made to
Speaker 2: do this, so that's what we should do. And it's like, well, no,
Speaker 2: we've we've made so many medical advances to help women
Speaker 2: and we should just lean into that. In the hospital,
Speaker 2: I was able to she would feed, but I now
Speaker 2: like I know what actual sucking and swallowing is. I
Speaker 2: don't know how much she was actually getting. And then
Speaker 2: a midwife would help me pump in the evenings. I
Speaker 2: had a really wonderful night midwife, and she would pump
Speaker 2: my breast for me and put it in a little
Speaker 2: syringe to give to her. And then we weighed her
Speaker 2: and she'd gone from two point eight nine to two
Speaker 2: point five something, which she'd lost like she'd lost weight,
Speaker 2: but she'd also lost weight in the womb, and then
Speaker 2: she'd lost weight right like a lot. So they said
Speaker 2: she was really gentle with me, and I will always
Speaker 2: appreciate this. She was trying to get me to give
Speaker 2: her a bottle of formula, but she didn't know if
Speaker 2: I was a strictly breast milk only person, which I'm
Speaker 2: I'm a FEDI is best person, and so she was like,
Speaker 2: I really think she's hungry, and I think that you
Speaker 2: should just do a bottle of formula.
Speaker 1: Yowed out to this queen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was amazing. She was really really amazing. And
Speaker 2: then we got home and I was yeah, feeding and
Speaker 2: then I was getting these tears, which I was then
Speaker 2: just you know, you're putting her on and she's just
Speaker 2: damaging them more. And you know, when you were to
Speaker 2: do something eight times a day, it's and it's painful,
Speaker 2: it's so.
Speaker 1: Depressed, and it takes so long when they're so small, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: why do you take so long to eat? You don't
Speaker 1: have anything else to do?
Speaker 2: That's a little faster, Yes, reframing it around. She's also
Speaker 2: learning the new Skills slate because I felt like I
Speaker 2: was failing. I was like, what's wrong with my boobs?
Speaker 2: What's wrong with my nipps? Why can't I do this?
Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense, but it's also just annoying, like
Speaker 1: why do they come out useless where other species come
Speaker 1: out and trot off? You don't even know how to
Speaker 1: burp yourself.
Speaker 2: No, you need to rub your back. We need to
Speaker 2: go up and down and up and down. And then
Speaker 2: when they do get better at feeding, you've got to
Speaker 2: spend like more time burping than like, well, this hasn't
Speaker 2: sped up anything. No, but yeah, the private lactation consultant
Speaker 2: that I paid three hundred and fifty dollars for was
Speaker 2: worth every single penny because she got a new technique
Speaker 2: that it was just so much less painful, and the
Speaker 2: weekly weigh ins. They just kept showing me on the
Speaker 2: graph that she was dropping and they said, just add
Speaker 2: another feed, just add another feed. I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't know where to add another feed? Yeah, yeah, where
Speaker 2: I'm on like a two and a half to three
Speaker 2: and a half hour cycle, depending on the day. She's
Speaker 2: taking an hour to feed, and then she's asleep or whatever.
Speaker 1: Well, she's having her tummy time that I'm also supposed
Speaker 1: to do. And then when am I supposed to urinate
Speaker 1: or go? Like, when am I supposed to sleep during
Speaker 1: this time? It makes zero sense.
Speaker 2: I don't know. And then I also just felt like
Speaker 2: there was nothing in there, like she was getting assitated. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then they just kept saying, just put them back
Speaker 2: on for your supply. It's like, this just feels so counterproductive.
Speaker 2: She's distressed, I'm distressed. There's clearly nothing in there. So
Speaker 2: then last week when we had another appointment at the
Speaker 2: community health, they said just do two top ups, two
Speaker 2: to three top ups a day, and again was a
Speaker 2: very kind person who said, however you do that is
Speaker 2: up to you. You can either pump in the morning
Speaker 2: when your supply is the best, or you can give
Speaker 2: her formula and that is that is completely up to you.
Speaker 2: I'll let you make that decision. And so we made
Speaker 2: the decision to do formula top ups. If anyone needs
Speaker 2: to hear this just for mental health wise, I've felt
Speaker 2: like four thousand percent better the past week, especially going
Speaker 2: to weigh her and she's put on three hundred grams,
Speaker 2: which is double what they wanted.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so good, Grace, And I mean, you're an
Speaker 1: actual superhero. You're powering through your bleeding nipples.
Speaker 2: It's awful. Did your nipples bleed and it would please?
Speaker 2: Can you guys tell me about your nipples.
Speaker 1: Like I used the shields, I was actually fine, like
Speaker 1: after my nipples got used to it, so the first
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, but Lenny was allergic to my milk
Speaker 1: in the air. What really shitty pregnancy, shitty birth. Didn't
Speaker 1: like so many things. He screams all the time. He
Speaker 1: doesn't bloody sleep. But you know what, he was a
Speaker 1: good feeder. He wasn't cluster feeding. I felt like I
Speaker 1: was good at one thing. Turns out he was bloody allergic.
Speaker 2: That's awful. I'm sorry that has so that is all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my nipples were after they got past that first sensitivity.
Speaker 1: They were actually okay. Also, any other new mums that
Speaker 1: are listening, I promise you that they will not forever
Speaker 1: look like cow utters.
Speaker 3: Lucy was over the other day, She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: nipples look really different. They've kind of gone back to normal.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I feel like I might have started
Speaker 2: pointing in weird direct Is that a thing that happens?
Speaker 3: I mean, Grace, from now on, they're going to point
Speaker 3: in very different directions.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, just a gift stop.
Speaker 3: They're going to be even more different.
Speaker 2: That's what they don't tell you about. Like in pregnancy,
Speaker 2: they go, everything's going to stop, all of your pregnancy symptoms.
Speaker 2: You're going to feel like a normal human being. But
Speaker 2: they don't talk about the new world of things that
Speaker 2: hit you, which is postpartum bowel movements. I can't even
Speaker 2: that's traumatic. I made a midnight phone call to my
Speaker 2: midwife because I felt like it was at an actual emergency.
Speaker 1: It wasn't because you both felt like anything in No, I.
Speaker 2: Couldn't get anything out. Gross.
Speaker 3: I'm right there with you. Don't worry about that, Like
Speaker 3: even if you have a c section.
Speaker 1: The pop was hard poopa, though I was the opposite.
Speaker 1: I couldn't really not, Grace, so.
Speaker 2: For your body was just getting it out six weeks.
Speaker 1: I have so many memories of sitting with Len on
Speaker 1: the toilet if no one was there, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this cannot be good for the baby to be breathing
Speaker 1: this in right now. But I had no other option,
Speaker 1: like some tis even be feeding with like catastrophic diary
Speaker 1: coming out of my body for six weeks.
Speaker 2: That is wild, wild.
Speaker 3: And you had a lot of drugs too that usually
Speaker 3: back you up because that's your issue. Yeah, that's the issue,
Speaker 3: isn't it's actually the drugs, So drugs backing you up.
Speaker 3: And also you're so dehydrated from breastfeeding, you can't keep
Speaker 3: up the water intake. It's just a whole mess of
Speaker 3: all of those things. Oh, I'm just so proud of you, Grace,
Speaker 3: Like I'm so toughed for you. Formula top ups are
Speaker 3: the best, and I think that you introducing it at
Speaker 3: the right time was genius and I'm just so excited.
Speaker 3: It makes such a difference when you don't have to
Speaker 3: worry about their weight and their feeding and they're happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and not also being able to have the option
Speaker 2: of giving Nora to my partner to do one of
Speaker 2: those feeds is incredible when you you know, it's so lovely,
Speaker 2: all the beautiful cuddles, but you do get a bit
Speaker 2: touchdown OWT, Yeah, how are.
Speaker 1: You going with the lack of sleep, because you've also
Speaker 1: been feeding her a lot. You look good, like your
Speaker 1: eyes are not falling out of your head, so.
Speaker 2: I feel like it could be worse.
Speaker 1: Do you need a lot of sleep?
Speaker 2: Like in general, I kind of like have been a
Speaker 2: person who thrives in chaos of busyness in general, and
Speaker 2: like when you're on like big projects or things, you
Speaker 2: know you can push through in like four hours. Like
Speaker 2: I used to do this like crazy job on different
Speaker 2: time zones and then I'd go to five fifteen forty
Speaker 2: five classes because I was up anyway. So that kind
Speaker 2: of you thrive.
Speaker 1: On like adrenaline and chaos busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which so this is a whole different world. But
Speaker 2: the first week at home wasn't great because she wouldn't
Speaker 2: sleep in the basinet. She'd only sleep like she's a
Speaker 2: little velcrow baby. She'd only sleep on me or Josh.
Speaker 2: And you know, then you're trying not to.
Speaker 1: Fall asleep, which is impossible when I'm so tired and
Speaker 1: you're sitting in the dark on a comfortable couch.
Speaker 2: How do you like?
Speaker 1: But then you've got so much anxiety about falling to.
Speaker 2: Sleep yep, yeah, all of the terrifying things that you read.
Speaker 2: And then it was probably we'd been home for six days.
Speaker 2: We'd had a weekend of family coming to visit, which
Speaker 2: was just exhausting, and then we decided at like six thirty,
Speaker 2: we just said, all right, let's just go to bed
Speaker 2: at six thirty. Who are we kidding? And we did
Speaker 2: this like routine together at nighttime, like from six thirty
Speaker 2: till six thirty, so basically twelve hours in bed and
Speaker 2: just were like feeding and then putting her down straight away,
Speaker 2: and we were doing it together, and then she just
Speaker 2: stopped hating the basinette as much. So I feel like
Speaker 2: we get like two and a half hour blocks and
Speaker 2: then the odd four hour block of uninterrupted sleep.
Speaker 1: That first four hour block, Oh oh, you.
Speaker 2: Feel like a different person. That was not the case
Speaker 2: last night. Sadly, she knew that you.
Speaker 1: Were having a chat are the adults today? And she
Speaker 1: was like absolutely not, Mum, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: She was just fussing before we jumped on and I
Speaker 2: was like, I looked down at her. I was like,
Speaker 2: don't you let me have this? Let me have this?
Speaker 1: And now she's just like Okay, I'm just gonna sit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at.
Speaker 3: Her little head.
Speaker 1: She's so cute.
Speaker 3: I am obsessed with names. How did you pick her name?
Speaker 2: It's such an unemotional story. We were going through baby
Speaker 2: names on the internet and just being like no, no, no,
Speaker 2: and Nora was one that we both didn't say no to.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like our favorite we had. We had a
Speaker 2: short list of three. We had Florence, which was my favorite,
Speaker 2: and we had Aralia, which was Josh's favorite. Aralia was
Speaker 2: because when we on our honeymoon, we went and did
Speaker 2: a wine tour and the person running the tour in Bordeaux,
Speaker 2: her name was Aralia and we're like, great name, great
Speaker 2: paino NOAs excellent, and so we kind of kept that.
Speaker 2: And then when I was pregnant, I was like, I
Speaker 2: just don't think we have an Aralia, Like, I don't
Speaker 2: think we're that fancy. I feel like it sounds a
Speaker 2: bit whankory. I get you. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't us. And then so we added Noura.
Speaker 2: It was down the bottom on the list, and it
Speaker 2: just slowly kind of kept up. And then there was
Speaker 2: a girl at mum and Mia. She had a baby
Speaker 2: four months before me, and she called her daughter Florence,
Speaker 2: and we're in the same team, and I was like,
Speaker 2: it's just a bit too close. Even though she wouldn't
Speaker 2: have cared, no one would have cared. But it does
Speaker 2: just change it. It does change it.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, Florence is a really popular name
Speaker 3: these days, whereas I think Laura's still. Yeah, Noura's one
Speaker 3: of those names that you don't hear all the time,
Speaker 3: which I think is still has a bit of a
Speaker 3: flare of uniqueness about it. Yes, I rode deep on
Speaker 3: the names Grace. I'm like obsessed with names and naming
Speaker 3: babies and stuff. Does she have a middle name?
Speaker 2: She has two middle names, so she has I'm a
Speaker 2: grief person, as he would know. One of her middle
Speaker 2: names is Katie, which is my best friend who died
Speaker 2: almost four years ago. And the second middle name is Robin,
Speaker 2: which is Josh's mum. And we did that to honor
Speaker 2: his side of the family because thelast name is my
Speaker 2: last name is Rubray.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love that.
Speaker 3: I couldn't let your last name go to away.
Speaker 2: It's too pretty to not carry on. Yeah, I really
Speaker 2: like it my last name, and I feel a lot
Speaker 2: of identity to it. I'm sure people are just like
Speaker 2: that thing of no matter what, it's a man's last
Speaker 2: name and all of that stuff and say, well, no,
Speaker 2: it's mine. It's what I was born with, and so
Speaker 2: I really cared about it. Josh didn't really care about it,
Speaker 2: so it was kind of an easy decision, but he
Speaker 2: wanted to put his mum's name in there, so he
Speaker 2: felt like there was a part of his family also
Speaker 2: in there. But he's very advanced. He's like, it doesn't
Speaker 2: make her any less mine if it's not my last name.
Speaker 1: So h into toxic masculinity and that blow by the
Speaker 1: sounds of it.
Speaker 2: No, no, not.
Speaker 3: At all, because you did mention Katie just then did
Speaker 3: your grief around losing her and her not being there
Speaker 3: for the experience? Did that have an impact on your
Speaker 3: pregnancy at all? Because I know that my grief this
Speaker 3: time around with Suki, my grief was really central to
Speaker 3: my pregnancy. Just in case anyone else out there has
Speaker 3: gone through something similar and as pregnant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely did have you know, she would have
Speaker 2: been one of the first people I told, or she
Speaker 2: would have been Josh And I made jokes that she
Speaker 2: she would have like wedged her way into a scan
Speaker 2: at some point and that really sucks. But where it
Speaker 2: impacted me the most, well, one was her mum, Like
Speaker 2: I'm close with her family, and her mum made a
Speaker 2: bunch of handmade clothes and a rug and she came
Speaker 2: over to give them to me, and that was really hard.
Speaker 2: Like we both got quite upset at that because she
Speaker 2: feels that she won't get this opportunity to have this
Speaker 2: with Katie, and we were both I think we probably
Speaker 2: were both leaning on each other in that moment of
Speaker 2: the absence of that person. But where it probably showed
Speaker 2: up the most is it's a very complicated reason how
Speaker 2: Katie died. Katie got a blood clot from the astrosenic
Speaker 2: har vaccines. So in terms of what are the chances
Speaker 2: pregnancy complications, like, I didn't really have a way to
Speaker 2: manage that anxiety because I've seen what are the chances
Speaker 2: in real life, So I really struggled with that. And
Speaker 2: I was giving birth at the same place that Katie died,
Speaker 2: So that was probably the main reason I didn't want
Speaker 2: to have a city section is obviously she was sick
Speaker 2: when she came into hospital, but she had brain surgery
Speaker 2: there to try and get this clot out, and I
Speaker 2: was petrified. It was really petrified. Yeah, what's hard is you,
Speaker 2: Like you look down at Nora and you go, well,
Speaker 2: she represents a life that Katie's never going to witness,
Speaker 2: and that's really hard. And I'm sure that would be
Speaker 2: the same. It can just be very triggering environments depend Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I told my midwife what happened, like they do
Speaker 2: a big three hour like who are you, what's your
Speaker 2: medical history, what's your mental health history? And I told
Speaker 2: them about Katie and that I was obviously going to
Speaker 2: be going into this hospital, and because she died in lockdown,
Speaker 2: I was never able to go in. So I'd always
Speaker 2: been piecing together visually what had happened, even though like,
Speaker 2: I know what happened. And I said, so at one
Speaker 2: point I might ask to see where the ICU is
Speaker 2: because I'm just going to be weird and I'm just
Speaker 2: going to want to see it. Yeah, And she said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the birth center is actually on the same floor, so
Speaker 2: I had to walk past it every single appointment, which
Speaker 2: was good and weird, and you know, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: because all you've got is, you know, just these little
Speaker 2: snapshots of other people's stories and you're kind of endowing
Speaker 2: them as to her stories or you know, when I
Speaker 2: was being wheeled into the C section, I was like
Speaker 2: being wheeled through the corridors and you're like, am I
Speaker 2: going to see something that says neurological? Oh or something
Speaker 2: like that? Like it's I tried to, you know, dig
Speaker 2: into the whimsy of it. That's you know, Norah's going
Speaker 2: to take her first breath in the same place Katie
Speaker 2: took her last. But it was you know, I think
Speaker 2: you can keep saying that mantras so it feels like
Speaker 2: it's it's it's real. But I think it was more
Speaker 2: putting together the pieces of something that I wasn't physically
Speaker 2: able to be there for, which was hard. It's so
Speaker 2: hard grief.
Speaker 3: As I know, you've been very kind to me during
Speaker 3: my grief, which I thank you for. But it's just
Speaker 3: I think anytime you're bringing a baby in, it's another
Speaker 3: level of like the wave that comes in of grief.
Speaker 3: So but I'm really glad that Katie came up organically
Speaker 3: because I was wanting to ask you about her, which I.
Speaker 2: Go, I'll talk about it all the time, you know,
Speaker 2: as you know, people stop asking at a certain point
Speaker 2: and you're like, great, even though it's depressing, I'll talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's really important to us too, Like
Speaker 3: we do ever want to stop talking about Charlie's mom,
Speaker 3: Like it just seems like a disservice to them memory
Speaker 3: and everything, especially when it's like sudden an accident, you know,
Speaker 3: a medical thing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean I get it. People are like
Speaker 2: scared that you're gonna cry, that they have to do something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you don't have to do anything. I'm just I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna feel some feelings on the outside. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: have to do anything.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to touch me.
Speaker 2: Just actually I prefer if you didn't listen, just not exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And just how we honor people, I think, Yeah,
Speaker 3: how we deal with grief is in this part of
Speaker 3: the world is very sad. I want to change that.
Speaker 2: It's lonely and it's behind closed doors, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: they more from being someone's name to being your loss.
Speaker 2: It's even how we just speak about it. But look,
Speaker 2: I was the same until I joined the grief club.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I would say so sorry
Speaker 2: with such sincerity that I would cure their sadness. You know,
Speaker 2: I was really genuine about it. And then you know,
Speaker 2: you just don't know until you know, and then you're
Speaker 2: on that side and you'd go, oh, let's talk about them.
Speaker 2: What do you want to do? Do you want to
Speaker 2: talk about them? Do you want to like share a memory?
Speaker 2: Do you want to tell me about the horrific circumstances
Speaker 2: that you found you in the grief club, Like the
Speaker 2: conversations don't scare you anymore.
Speaker 1: Everyone's so different. Our friend had lost her father in
Speaker 1: the most tragic sort of circumstances that you could lose someone,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to talk to us about it, and
Speaker 1: she wanted like she went into every single graphic detail.
Speaker 2: It's the same as a birth story, like it's something
Speaker 2: that's changed you. So you can't do it without going
Speaker 2: from the start to the end exactly. You have to
Speaker 2: just tell it how it happened, until it's been some
Speaker 2: years and you can just be like, oh, yes, here
Speaker 2: are the dot points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when people ask me about my birth story, I
Speaker 1: still will go through every bloody detail if they'll let me, because.
Speaker 2: It's the moment you became a different person. Now, that's
Speaker 2: the same as grief.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting parallel of grief and birth and motherhood,
Speaker 3: isn't it Like they are all quite things that you
Speaker 3: have an idea of from the outside, but then when
Speaker 3: you actually enter that stage or of your life, it's
Speaker 3: so different from what you can imagine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a friend of mine had a newborn around the
Speaker 2: same time like I was in that first year of
Speaker 2: after Katie died, and we found a lot of commonality
Speaker 2: in how we were living life at the time, even
Speaker 2: though we were having such different experiences. It was the fog.
Speaker 2: It's the fact that your life has changed, the fact
Speaker 2: that the highs are like all of this love, but
Speaker 2: you know, the newborn side is that there's an addition
Speaker 2: rather than something being taken away, and then the lows
Speaker 2: are I don't feel like the same person anymore, and
Speaker 2: it's the same yea, even though it was completely different circumstances,
Speaker 2: it was really nice to talk to someone who was
Speaker 2: in that same confusion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, I wanted to ask you about Josh, your partner,
Speaker 3: your husband, I should say, what's it been like to
Speaker 3: see him as a father?
Speaker 2: It's pretty special. It's really special. I actually remember when
Speaker 2: we were getting ready for your wedding key and it
Speaker 2: was something that you said, and I think Charlie said
Speaker 2: it as well, of like watching each other beat parents.
Speaker 2: He's just so special. Yeah, And I always remembered that.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say he's an annoying type A, but he's
Speaker 2: definitely more type A than I am. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: he tries to hack a lot of things, and he's
Speaker 2: like determined to get the sleeping thing right, and I'm
Speaker 2: a little bit more like who knows what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Maybe the better analogy is he grew up in the city.
Speaker 2: I grew up in the country, so I'm a bit
Speaker 2: more free range of we'll figure it out whatever, walk
Speaker 2: it off kind of vibe. And he like really wants
Speaker 2: to figure things out, Like every like useful piece of
Speaker 2: technology that we have is something that he's researched and purchased,
Speaker 2: like a sterilizer, whereas I'm on Facebook marketplace being like
Speaker 2: we can get this half broken thing for free. How
Speaker 2: good is he?
Speaker 3: A chat GPT dad, because this is Charlie.
Speaker 2: O'tosh Charlie.
Speaker 3: Every night, let's repick a story via chat GEP.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's so funny. That's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's he's more playtime dad. Like I've changed five nappiece
Speaker 2: in six weeks. I'll be honest. I like, that's his job.
Speaker 2: That's a legend yeah, legendary. And because I'm milk lady
Speaker 2: and he's true man who man, But he does like
Speaker 2: he's the one who goes I think we should do
Speaker 2: Tommy time. And he takes her and goes and does
Speaker 2: it and then he like puts all the like black
Speaker 2: and white things around her and plays with her. That
Speaker 2: is really beautiful to see. Yeah, so I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: I get some time off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I'll take it, thank you, unity le. He works for
Speaker 2: the government, so he is sixteen weeks. Oh I know.
Speaker 2: So it's insane. He took the first six weeks off
Speaker 2: and now he's back at work this week. But then
Speaker 2: we are going to embark on a very ambitious thing.
Speaker 2: We're going to go traveling together as a family from
Speaker 2: December start of December to mid January. We're going to
Speaker 2: go to Ireland and Portugal and.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, amazing.
Speaker 1: If I was to do it all over again, I
Speaker 1: think that that's a brilliant idea. And everyone I know
Speaker 1: that's done it has said it was great. You're going
Speaker 1: to have a newborn, a fresh little baby. May so
Speaker 1: we do it in another country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we sort of went, well, we don't have him.
Speaker 2: We're renteds, we don't have a mortgage, so we don't
Speaker 2: have like our I mean, we would love to, but
Speaker 2: we're not in that financial position. When are we going
Speaker 2: to have the same amount of time bulk of time
Speaker 2: off again, because we only we only want to have one,
Speaker 2: like she's perfect. Why I try again? Until like we
Speaker 2: retire all long service leave or whatever, We're never going
Speaker 2: to have paid time off again. So we're just as
Speaker 2: chaotic because it's probably going to be. We are leaning
Speaker 2: in and hopefully it's fine.
Speaker 3: Toddlers, I would say, well, this is what Bingle said.
Speaker 2: When they can move and when you're having to prep
Speaker 2: full meals, it's all over. It's not amount of time.
Speaker 3: When you're the milk lady, you can just do a
Speaker 3: little top up with formula. Yeah, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1: Yes, you mentioned to me in the office one day
Speaker 1: that you were one and done. What went into that
Speaker 1: decision and do you still feel I mean, you've just
Speaker 1: said so, I'm assuming you still feel the same way.
Speaker 2: Yes, I do. The decision to be one and done
Speaker 2: is a bit. It's like when Chapel Rohane said that
Speaker 2: thing about all of her friends with kids, I hate
Speaker 2: their life. I was a little bit that's kind of
Speaker 2: the philosophy.
Speaker 1: I'm wrong in some ways.
Speaker 2: All of my friends and that have multiple kids, the
Speaker 2: identity shift that they've felt, the depths that they've gone to,
Speaker 2: that you're having conversations with them where they don't feel
Speaker 2: like themselves, whether their partner's gone back to work and
Speaker 2: they've been very career people and they're like, I don't
Speaker 2: know who I am. I know that I need work
Speaker 2: and I need to feel like I'm doing something. And
Speaker 2: that's not to say it's such a tricky thing, because
Speaker 2: also I'm aware, Key, you have two children, and I
Speaker 2: know that this is it's been so tricky for you
Speaker 2: this postpartum period as well. I don't want to lose
Speaker 2: a sense of identity and we wanted to always outnumber
Speaker 2: our children is one of the things we thought, and
Speaker 2: also financially, I don't know how that works, and I
Speaker 2: think if I did have two, it would be I
Speaker 2: would probably feel that pressure to take more time off work,
Speaker 2: or I would probably feel guilty. I was seeing a
Speaker 2: lot of my friends who were picking like a work
Speaker 2: thing and then punishing themselves for taking time away from
Speaker 2: the child, and I want to kind of, I guess
Speaker 2: do both well, and I'm probably going to do both
Speaker 2: at fifty percent, and that's okay. I don't know. It's
Speaker 2: such a tricky one to answer. Now that she's here.
Speaker 2: It felt less real when I was just before I
Speaker 2: was pregnant, and when I was pregnant by being like
Speaker 2: we just want one. Now, I definitely don't feel an
Speaker 2: urge to go again. I didn't feel that surge of like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, let's make a hundred, especially after a
Speaker 2: bad pregnancy. I think it's just wanting time to still
Speaker 2: feel like I'm getting to do the things that make
Speaker 2: me me, and that could change, like this could be
Speaker 2: I could find so much fulfillment in this that I
Speaker 2: don't need to keep climbing a career thing. But I'm
Speaker 2: so terrified of not having time to do that.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that we were able to speak to you, Grace.
Speaker 3: I think they'll ending on one and done is really
Speaker 3: good as well.
Speaker 2: It feels controversial to talk about it because look, I
Speaker 2: have said this to some people and they do get offended,
Speaker 2: and so I feel it's hard to share it because
Speaker 2: I do find that some people get offended. It's weird,
Speaker 2: isn't it. But even like, yeah, it's a stress. You
Speaker 2: don't want to criticize anyone else's life choices.
Speaker 3: I've just had my second and I'm not offended by that, Grace.
Speaker 3: I think for me, it's like, yeah, everything that you've
Speaker 3: said is right. Like I feel like I'm not doing
Speaker 3: well and I feel like had I realized what I
Speaker 3: would have been sacrificing in my relationship with Rue, that's
Speaker 3: something I wasn't expecting. So I think that Obviously I
Speaker 3: love Suki, She's like delicious, and I don't regret Suki.
Speaker 3: But I think that I'm jealous of people who have
Speaker 3: enough awareness to be like, oh no, no, I'm one
Speaker 3: and done, because I think that that's a really responsible
Speaker 3: choice to make, and it's also honoring yourself.
Speaker 1: I think that anyone that gets offended by other people's
Speaker 1: life choices. I think it says more about them than you.
Speaker 1: There's no point judging someone else's decision, because if you
Speaker 1: have thoughts about someone else's that probably means you're not
Speaker 1: that comfortable with yours potentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, the work is going to have to
Speaker 2: come into it from us, Like we're going to have
Speaker 2: to be way like very proactive with friends, or we're
Speaker 2: going to have to be very proactive with playtime.
Speaker 1: Oh and you've got to play with them all the time.
Speaker 1: I would say that, but because you can't just go
Speaker 1: play with your brother, Oh lass.
Speaker 3: There is none but how nice when they get a
Speaker 3: bit and then you've got space in the car for
Speaker 3: their friends and you can have sleepovers. And look, I
Speaker 3: was an only child. I was lonely, but for many
Speaker 3: other reasons. But I had great cousins that I was
Speaker 3: around all of the time. So if you just make
Speaker 3: sure that you have a great set of friends with
Speaker 3: kids and they all kind of plunkin together, it's so fine.