Speaker 1: You're listening to a mother Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, no filter listeners, it's Capline Brooke here. We're bringing
Speaker 2: back this conversation with best selling author Sally Hepworth, who
Speaker 2: many of you will now also know as one of
Speaker 2: the hosts of Unleashed, the podcast for gen X women.
Speaker 2: Sally is famous for writing deeply addictive novels about marriage, motherhood, betrayal,
Speaker 2: and family secrets, but in this episode, she turns that
Speaker 2: insight onto her own life. In a conversation that is funny, wise, vulnerable,
Speaker 2: and incredibly candid. Sally opened up about the breakdown of
Speaker 2: her twenty year marriage, co parenting, dating again, and why
Speaker 2: she believes this chapter of her life might actually be
Speaker 2: her happiest yet. It's one of those conversations that stays
Speaker 2: with you long after it ends, So if you missed
Speaker 2: it the first time round, or even if you didn't,
Speaker 2: it's worth another listen. Here is my conversation with Sally Hepworth.
Speaker 1: I have the scars and I do feel like I
Speaker 1: lost a layer of skin. You know, everything was raw,
Speaker 1: everything I felt things is more beautiful and soader. You know,
Speaker 1: is marriage good for women? I've thought about that a.
Speaker 2: Lot, you know, when someone seems like they've got it
Speaker 2: all together hmmm. For instance, best selling author, Gorgeous, Family,
Speaker 2: thriving career, beautiful to boot, and then you find out
Speaker 2: they've been quietly rebuilding their life from scratch. Well, that
Speaker 2: is Sally Hepworth. She sold millions of books around the world.
Speaker 2: She's written a best seller every year since twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: But what you might not know is that over the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, Sally Hepworth's life completely imploded. Today
Speaker 2: we talk about that divorce, grief, the shit box. Yes
Speaker 2: you'll find out what that is. We talk about female
Speaker 2: friendship and falling in love again when you swore you wouldn't.
Speaker 2: This is a conversation about what it means to let
Speaker 2: go of the life you thought you wanted and build
Speaker 2: a new life that actually fits. Sally Hepworth. You of
Speaker 2: the lemon water, the cleansing lemon water. Welcome to No Filter.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And here we are both early in the morning.
Speaker 1: After thinking that it was ten am instead of nine.
Speaker 2: Both of us thought that what a miracle that we
Speaker 2: made up. And here we are. But what okay, you
Speaker 2: have shared so much of your self, but kind of
Speaker 2: in disguise. I think through your characters. Yeah, which have
Speaker 2: resonated with millions, literally millions of people, and you have
Speaker 2: had this is so remarkable, a best seller every year
Speaker 2: since twenty fifteen. So that's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like a lot. When it's going to
Speaker 1: be the tenth this year. In a couple of months,
Speaker 1: the my book will be yeah, right, and yeah it do.
Speaker 1: It feels amazing to think back to when I started
Speaker 1: writing in two thousand and nine, when I was pregnant
Speaker 1: with my first child.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All I wanted was to get a novel published.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then oh that's a dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the gold post kept moving. Then I
Speaker 1: wanted to make a career out of being an author,
Speaker 1: and then I wanted to become a best seller. You know,
Speaker 1: some people say they didn't dream of that, but I did.
Speaker 1: I had big dreams.
Speaker 2: And when like, how long had you had those dreams?
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose as soon as I got my foot
Speaker 1: in the door and I started to get published, you
Speaker 1: know what might not dream big. I mean, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that I was going to make it, but you
Speaker 1: have to kind of aim for something.
Speaker 2: I do always. I do like to say to friends
Speaker 2: miracles happen. There's no reason that it can't be the
Speaker 2: miracle for you. But the miracle is often hard work. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the miracle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess to write a novel, you're doing
Speaker 1: the hard work, right, like everyone who's written one. To
Speaker 1: get in the game, you have to do the hard work.
Speaker 1: And then there's the magic of you know, are your
Speaker 1: books going to resonate? Are people going to buy them?
Speaker 1: Are they going to in some cases hit at the
Speaker 1: right time that that's going to become popular. Sometimes that
Speaker 1: retroactively happens these days, and books take off years after
Speaker 1: they've come out. I don't know why, but I really
Speaker 1: do feel so fortunate to be while also allowing that,
Speaker 1: you know, I've done the work and I do think
Speaker 1: that I'm past imposter syndrome. I think I'm good at
Speaker 1: it now. I really enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Oh what a good feeling. Yeah. When did that come?
Speaker 2: Was it as a result of outside affirmation or is
Speaker 2: it something that comes from inside?
Speaker 1: Great question. I suspect probably started to come after a
Speaker 1: little bit of outside affirmation.
Speaker 2: That does help.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like to say it was internal. I
Speaker 1: think by the time I wrote my fifth book, I
Speaker 1: remember that was. The Mother in Law was the book
Speaker 1: that kind of, you know, broke out, as they say,
Speaker 1: and then each book since then has kind of built
Speaker 1: on it. And sometime between then and now, I just
Speaker 1: started to think to myself, when you know, I've written
Speaker 1: a couple of short stories recently, and I've never written
Speaker 1: a short story. I mean before I wrote the first one,
Speaker 1: and I remember Amazon approaching me to write it and
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, okay, I'll do it, and then I
Speaker 1: hung up and I immediately googled how to write a
Speaker 1: short story because I thought, yeah, I can do it. Well,
Speaker 1: of course I can do it, And that snuck up
Speaker 1: on me because I didn't always feel that way.
Speaker 2: Of Course, The Mother in Law was a really interesting
Speaker 2: one because it showed that you have a capacity which
Speaker 2: I think you always have to do as a writer.
Speaker 2: It showed you have a real capacity to see the
Speaker 2: other side of someone, and you do that with all
Speaker 2: of your characters obviously, but that was a really seminal
Speaker 2: one because I think it's so hot, Yeah, isn't it?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 2: Sticky? A mother in law? And yet you always were
Speaker 2: your handling of the concept and even in your conversations
Speaker 2: around it were very understanding of what it means to
Speaker 2: be a mother in.
Speaker 1: Law, I hope. So that's always been the interesting part
Speaker 1: of writing for me is there are books, I assume
Speaker 1: that have been written about awful mothers in law, and
Speaker 1: movies and monsters in law and jokes and jokes, and
Speaker 1: so what was interesting to me about tackling it was to,
Speaker 1: you know, to reverse engineer or to look at the
Speaker 1: other side, and what if you know mothers in law
Speaker 1: aren't awful, because they're not. I mean, my mum is
Speaker 1: a mother in law and she's beautiful. I adore her.
Speaker 1: I also know that she irritates my sisters a lot. Sometimes.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, there's always that that kind of tension, there's
Speaker 2: that rab A point that you've made is that that
Speaker 2: a mother in law is in a unique position because
Speaker 2: she loves the same man more woman, daughter or son,
Speaker 2: but has no say in it. The people that are
Speaker 2: trust together. But I'm curious, particularly about your understanding of
Speaker 2: human names, which I believe to be immense well just
Speaker 2: partly through your research on every character and situation, and
Speaker 2: you have had your characters often have confronted every type
Speaker 2: of rupture you know, And now this is what I'm
Speaker 2: curious about because you've encountered that own rupture yourself, and
Speaker 2: you've changed your life drastically since the last time you
Speaker 2: were on no filter with me, the last two times
Speaker 2: you're on, how has that been You're now divorced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, all of these experiences, they become
Speaker 1: a part of you, and so they leak out onto
Speaker 1: the page, I think. But I will say that every
Speaker 1: you know, my books in a way have followed the
Speaker 1: trajectory of things that I've gone through, motherhood, you know,
Speaker 1: even not being able to get pregnant and all of
Speaker 1: those things. And now with the divorce, I think that's
Speaker 1: been the most significant thing that's happened to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: and I say this acknowledging that this makes me very lucky,
Speaker 1: but it's the most significant thing that's happened to me
Speaker 1: in my life, the.
Speaker 2: Most difficult thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just coming up to two years ago. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's just gone over two years since we separated. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it, knowing that we were going
Speaker 1: to talk about it today, and I was thinking, am I,
Speaker 1: How am I about that? Like? Am I over it?
Speaker 1: Am I? And I'm not? I mean, it's I wonder
Speaker 1: if it'll be one of those things like the grief
Speaker 1: of death, that it changes.
Speaker 2: But it's always with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I don't know. And as
Speaker 1: you say, I'm so curious about people. I'm curious about
Speaker 1: you know, the last two years marriage, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been looking around it, marriages and thinking what makes a
Speaker 1: marriage work, what makes them fail? What makes people so
Speaker 1: angry after they get divorced, what makes people nasty? What
Speaker 1: makes a good divorce?
Speaker 2: And how is your divorce? By the way, Look a
Speaker 2: little bit of everything, I guess along the way, but
Speaker 2: if overall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look what you know. The thing that I have
Speaker 1: learned from this is that whenever someone would get divorced
Speaker 1: in my life, prior to it being me, I used
Speaker 1: to want to know what happened. And when I asked
Speaker 1: that question, I expected the answer to be a sentence
Speaker 1: or two sentences, and something that attributed blame to one person.
Speaker 1: There was a victim and a perpetrator. You know. I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear he had an affair or she was crazy,
Speaker 1: which has been clear cut yes, and so you immediately
Speaker 1: know that's what happened. And and what I've discovered since
Speaker 1: then and in my own case, this is true. I mean,
Speaker 1: you might be able to, for the sake of conversation,
Speaker 1: boil it down to one or two things, but ultimately
Speaker 1: you could write a book. It's not one or two sentences.
Speaker 1: You could write a book, and maybe I will.
Speaker 2: Well, it is. It is fascinating, and because it's such
Speaker 2: a common experience and for it to be so traumatic, yes,
Speaker 2: and so common and yet not really, I don't think
Speaker 2: it's really given the full weight that it deserves, the
Speaker 2: significance in a person's life.
Speaker 1: I agree strongly, and in fact, look, I don't know
Speaker 1: if my experience is true of everyone, and of course
Speaker 1: it's not. Everyone has a different experiences. But I was
Speaker 1: so knocked to my ass from it, and even myself.
Speaker 1: If I heard someone was divorced before it happened to me,
Speaker 1: I would have said, oh, that's a shame. It certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't on par with you know, other terrible things that
Speaker 1: happened to people, like a disease, like.
Speaker 2: But it's a terrible thing and it is kind of
Speaker 2: a death. Yeah, it's a death of I mean all
Speaker 2: those things that lead you to get married in the
Speaker 2: first place, Yes, the hope, the love, the starry eyed
Speaker 2: whatever it was, it's the antithesis of that. So it
Speaker 2: is in some ways that it is.
Speaker 1: And on top of all that, I mean, that is
Speaker 1: the big part. And then on top of that there's
Speaker 1: the life up people. You know that there's worries about
Speaker 1: financial worries, there's emotional concerns for the children, children, there's
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that part is so hard, that
Speaker 1: you're going through something so difficult, and yet you have
Speaker 1: to do the best parenting of your life, you know,
Speaker 1: in order to hopefully get your children.
Speaker 2: Well, how do you do that? Because like you've got
Speaker 2: through three children, got two teenagers and an eight year old,
Speaker 2: I do I mean people like to say that children
Speaker 2: are resilient. I think that underestimates often the impact of
Speaker 2: major emotional shifts for children. I think we like to
Speaker 2: say they're resilient because it makes it easier for us
Speaker 2: to kind of push through what we have to push
Speaker 2: through with. I don't even think that they're resilient. What
Speaker 2: they are is adaptable and good at hiding stuff that
Speaker 2: they might be feeling because they're all antena yes.
Speaker 1: Or showing it in different way. I mean, my daughter,
Speaker 1: my youngest was six at the time and so I
Speaker 1: saw her dealing with it in ways that were not
Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't expressing it directly, but she was
Speaker 1: having a lot of trouble with you, nightmares and just
Speaker 1: behavioral stuff, whereas my old to and my older too,
Speaker 1: and you'rerodivergent, and so that had its own host of things.
Speaker 2: Did they process it differently?
Speaker 1: Yeap?
Speaker 2: How could you like? In what way?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: Even between the two of them, my son and my daughter,
Speaker 1: they prosed it, sessed it differently. My son didn't talk
Speaker 1: about it at all. In fact, it's funny when we
Speaker 1: told him, we said, have you got any questions? And
Speaker 1: we told him alone, just because of the word, and
Speaker 1: we told the girls separately, and we went through it
Speaker 1: and he said, if you got any questions, and he said,
Speaker 1: where will the dog be living?
Speaker 2: Actually a very good question, yes, And so where does
Speaker 2: the dog we live?
Speaker 1: We have a divorced dog who shared, We share custody,
Speaker 1: so the dog goes with the kids, which was something
Speaker 1: that they wanted and it has worked really well. The
Speaker 1: other thing that worked well in the early days is
Speaker 1: that we did birds nest parenting.
Speaker 2: The Swedish is that the Swedish model the Danish something
Speaker 2: everything good comes from.
Speaker 1: So because we had the family home, as a lot
Speaker 1: of people do, it was going to take time to sell.
Speaker 1: So we got a little apartment not far away and
Speaker 1: we would do week on and week off. One of
Speaker 1: us would would leave and go to the apartment and
Speaker 1: the other one would stay in the house with So
Speaker 1: the idea is that children are not They stayed throut
Speaker 1: ya right, and that you know, looking back, that was
Speaker 1: horrible for us or horrible for me, It was amazing
Speaker 1: for the kids. And I would do it again for
Speaker 1: the kids.
Speaker 2: And what why was that horrible for you?
Speaker 1: Like just the the packing up of your life every.
Speaker 2: Friday, which is normally what the kids have to do.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's what I was going to say. It
Speaker 1: really gave me such and that's one of the best
Speaker 1: things from it, such an understanding of what they have
Speaker 1: to go through, and we delayed that by a year
Speaker 1: by by us doing it. It's made me so much
Speaker 1: more sympathetic, so much more likely to you know, if
Speaker 1: they've forgotten their something will be in the car, you know,
Speaker 1: driving it off to school, which you know how it feels. Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: who was it harder for do you think in that
Speaker 1: nesting bird nesting time. Who was more adaptable with that?
Speaker 1: Obviously it was hard for you. How was Christian, your
Speaker 1: husband with it? I also also I think not great.
Speaker 1: It's a strange thing as well because the apartment that
Speaker 1: we had was very much like an airbn but it
Speaker 1: didn't feel like home.
Speaker 2: No, and because it didn't really belong to either of you.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And it's also I have to say, it's a privilege
Speaker 1: to be able to afford to have it, and it
Speaker 1: was a small apartment, but not everyone has the ability
Speaker 1: to know that's.
Speaker 2: Right to do that. The other thing about divorce divorce
Speaker 2: is expenses.
Speaker 1: Expensive, and there's an uncertain period which is just really difficult,
Speaker 1: and sharing space with that person is so difficult and
Speaker 1: I found that really really hard.
Speaker 2: It's almost like, in a way that when you're navigating
Speaker 2: the divorce course with someone and there are children involved,
Speaker 2: so you have to be very mindful of that that
Speaker 2: in a way you have to work together so intensely.
Speaker 2: Do you at some point think why are we getting
Speaker 2: divorced if we can actually manage a divorce.
Speaker 1: Look, I think the thing that happened with us, which
Speaker 1: I see happening with so many people, is that you start.
Speaker 1: I started off with a desire to do everything perfectly,
Speaker 1: you know, this thing of okay, this our life's going
Speaker 1: to change, the children's life is going to change. I
Speaker 1: read all the books you know on children, and I
Speaker 1: quickly realized that that wasn't going to work. That we
Speaker 1: weren't going to be working together like that, Christian and
Speaker 1: I and that took some adjusting. And it's actually the
Speaker 1: thing that when I look back, I wish I had
Speaker 1: realized earlier that we're not married anymore, and so we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily we're not going to be on the same
Speaker 1: page always. In an ideal world, co parenting is wonderful.
Speaker 1: I now have a lot of divorced friend I've sought
Speaker 1: out divorced people because I'm so traumatized. I've got a
Speaker 1: divorced group of women that we call ourselves the Golden Girls,
Speaker 1: and we share information. And in every case, even when
Speaker 1: they've come to the other side and now can co parent,
Speaker 1: there's a part in the middle that we call the
Speaker 1: mean part. And it helped me to call it that
Speaker 1: because it was a part and something that had a
Speaker 1: beginning and an end, and it wasn't personal, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know. And I think every divorce has a
Speaker 1: mean part.
Speaker 2: I agree, and with girlfriends in mine even I ended
Speaker 2: a relationship after nine years and we weren't married, but
Speaker 2: we were embedded. And particularly in my experience, the mean
Speaker 2: part often comes around money, yep. And it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if you're breaking up with the nicest guy in the world.
Speaker 2: There's something about money suddenly that really brings out that.
Speaker 1: But it's not even this is my thing because I
Speaker 1: think about these things a lot. I think it is security,
Speaker 1: you know, at which money represents a lot of security.
Speaker 1: I think it's supurity edom. Yeah, and fear, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't know, and you go from being even if
Speaker 1: you have plenty of money, you're suddenly half You've got
Speaker 1: half as much or whatever that looks like. And that's scary.
Speaker 1: And if you're you know, I'm in my mid forties
Speaker 1: Christians fifty, and so that is a very real fear
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, Am I prepared for
Speaker 1: retirement or am I? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And I was in the really lucky position that I've
Speaker 1: never stepped out of work. I earn a good income.
Speaker 2: Best seller every year since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Which you know, I mean that sounds wonderful. It's still
Speaker 1: you know, you look at the numbers and I've got
Speaker 1: three kids, cours and you go. But I definitely, I
Speaker 1: definitely was happy to you know, to keep things nice.
Speaker 1: I was like, yep, you know, I wasn't fighting. But
Speaker 1: I also think that you can do everything right and
Speaker 1: it can still be.
Speaker 2: Hard, of course, and maybe it has to be. Maybe
Speaker 2: it does maybe to you know, cleave apart what God
Speaker 2: put together, do you know what I mean? Or whatever
Speaker 2: the saying is, maybe it has to have that component
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Look, I mean, I'm sure there are people who've got
Speaker 1: some whimsical, wonderful divorce, but then you know, why are
Speaker 1: they getting divorced?
Speaker 2: Are there any in your extended group of girlfriends?
Speaker 1: Now there's a few, you know, sort of five years
Speaker 1: plus down the track that now are working well together. Right.
Speaker 1: I had to and look, I actually this was the
Speaker 1: best thing I ever did. I had to accept that
Speaker 1: I was in charge of what happened in my house
Speaker 1: and Christian was in charge of what happened in his house.
Speaker 1: And it's the most unnatural thing when you are a parent,
Speaker 1: even to you know, not have your kids with you
Speaker 1: half the time. But to let go of things that
Speaker 1: are really important in your life, like this is what
Speaker 1: time they go to bed. Things you're used to having
Speaker 1: control over this, This is what they eat, this is
Speaker 1: they shower. There are so many things that you have
Speaker 1: to that kind of stuff, bedtime, showering, whatever. I felt
Speaker 1: so much better when I stopped, and you know, you
Speaker 1: keep it to the important things, and there weren't any
Speaker 1: of those, you know, like they were alive and looked
Speaker 1: after well by their dad. And suddenly I unclenched, you know,
Speaker 1: And that too, is a really important thing to sort
Speaker 1: of letting go of the marriage that you do kind
Speaker 1: of have to understand that when you're married you work
Speaker 1: together as a team. Of course you should, and now
Speaker 1: I think we're much better at teamwork. But that was
Speaker 1: a bit of a process too, of just going well,
Speaker 1: you know, when not controlling. You know, we can't control
Speaker 1: each other anymore. Maybe I look a lot too at
Speaker 1: my part. You know, I don't like that idea that
Speaker 1: you know, he's a narcissist, she's crazy. Everyone thinks their
Speaker 1: X is crazy, you're a narcissist. I don't think that.
Speaker 1: I see he does. He thinks I'm crazy.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 1: I think that both of us made mistakes, and especially
Speaker 1: in the early days, I was much more interested in
Speaker 1: finding out what I what my part was, because that's
Speaker 1: the only part I comes back to control. I can't
Speaker 1: control why he's doing stuff that I don't agree with
Speaker 1: or why, and it's not my business anymore, only in
Speaker 1: so far as it affects my children. My role is
Speaker 1: to look at me, to heal and to hopefully not
Speaker 1: bring that kind of those difficulties into my life with
Speaker 1: my children.
Speaker 2: After the break Sally unpacks the part she played in
Speaker 2: the breakdown of her marriage. What do you think the
Speaker 2: role was that you played.
Speaker 1: I think that the let me step back. I always
Speaker 1: wanted to be married, you know, I remember that from
Speaker 1: a youngish age.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I liked the idea of having a partner. My
Speaker 1: brother's twins. I wonder if that had.
Speaker 2: Something to do with it younger or older older brothers and.
Speaker 1: Mum said, when we were little, I used to say,
Speaker 1: where's my other one? You know, like there was something missing.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, like maybe I'm reading too deeply
Speaker 1: into it, but I loved the idea of having a
Speaker 1: partner for life. I mean, come back to it. But
Speaker 1: I have so many partners for life in my girlfriends,
Speaker 1: and that's the sort of full circle that I've come to.
Speaker 1: But I was looking for that, and I had an
Speaker 1: idea of what my life was going to look like,
Speaker 1: and it was going to be a partner, it was
Speaker 1: going to be kids, you know, maybe some travel, career
Speaker 1: for me, career, you know. I had those kind of
Speaker 1: fairly maybe normalish, you know, traditional ideas. And I do
Speaker 1: wonder now if I was really holding on to something
Speaker 1: idyllic that maybe couldn't match up to what real life
Speaker 1: looked like. And when things did get tough, which they did,
Speaker 1: you know, several times through the marriage, as they always do,
Speaker 1: I found that really difficult. I found the I just
Speaker 1: didn't understand why it wasn't looking like the picture in
Speaker 1: my mind of what it should be like. And disagreements
Speaker 1: I found really hard. I wouldn't think, oh, we're disagreeing
Speaker 1: about this. I would think, oh, my god, a relationship.
Speaker 1: I've married the wrong person.
Speaker 2: This is terrible.
Speaker 1: I really see that now, and I'm in another relationship now,
Speaker 1: and that's something that I've really changed. And I see
Speaker 1: how communication clear communication. And also I think keeping the
Speaker 1: peace was something that was really important to me because
Speaker 1: I wanted I wanted harmony and happiness. And I think
Speaker 1: my mum was also a real peacekeeper in our family.
Speaker 2: Which is an interesting thing because a peacekeepers beautiful thing,
Speaker 2: but a peacekeeper can.
Speaker 1: Also be you can breed resentment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, because you're subjugating every natural instinct Ye
Speaker 2: to just preserve this piece on behalf of who.
Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, and it was it was often, you know,
Speaker 1: I was holding things in that should have come out.
Speaker 1: I think my career played a role. And again I
Speaker 1: don't think it's as simplistic as saying, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people will say, do you think that men can't
Speaker 1: handle a woman's success or versions of that, and I
Speaker 1: always think, I don't know if it's that simple, as
Speaker 1: simple as that. I know Christian was quite supportive of
Speaker 1: me doing well and wanted that It's maybe to do
Speaker 1: with purpose and drive. I think that then, you know,
Speaker 1: I was at home with the kids early in our relationship,
Speaker 1: and I was writing as well.
Speaker 2: And then you swapped and he was.
Speaker 1: He was the state home parent, right, which.
Speaker 2: My husband also was for a long time. Right. So
Speaker 2: I'm very curious about this dynamic the interesting one. Firstly,
Speaker 2: there's the external. To us, it made sense and at
Speaker 2: the time I was doing breakfast radio and it made
Speaker 2: sense for us rather than outsourcing to someone. But there
Speaker 2: is something about it externally the world is do you
Speaker 2: do do other?
Speaker 1: Mean?
Speaker 2: Even? Yeah, Yeah, it's weird, isn't it. It is so
Speaker 2: it's a strange thing. It takes an exceptional man to
Speaker 2: take on that role. Yeah. In my case, my husband,
Speaker 2: at some point we could tell he was done with it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was just done with it, I mean fair enough. Yes,
Speaker 2: And we had four under six, and that was a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, I and we both because I
Speaker 1: was not home. I was working. We went from Christian
Speaker 1: had the main job as the earner when we were
Speaker 1: first together.
Speaker 2: Right, what was his career, right, you know?
Speaker 1: And he was very good at that successful. We went
Speaker 1: moved over to Canada together because he was sent over there,
Speaker 1: and then we had the babies, and then I was
Speaker 1: at home with them, and then I was also writing,
Speaker 1: and then we were both working and we had the
Speaker 1: kids in a combination of childcare. I had some flexibility.
Speaker 1: I found it difficult. I still felt like I was
Speaker 1: carrying the mental load though, and together with working, I
Speaker 1: was burnt out, so also not my best.
Speaker 2: Did you know you were?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, you don't know at the time, do you well?
Speaker 1: The way I knew something. I've got this memory of
Speaker 1: being on tour in America and.
Speaker 2: Which book was this?
Speaker 1: Which give me an era?
Speaker 2: I think it worth the era.
Speaker 1: I think it was the Soul Mage right, okay, because
Speaker 1: it was right after Mum and Mia came out with
Speaker 1: their podcast But are you happy that Claire Stevens was hosting?
Speaker 1: And I saw it and I thought, I looked at
Speaker 1: it on my phone. I would listen to all the
Speaker 1: Australian podcasts while I was there, just to keep on top,
Speaker 1: and I thought no. When it said but are you happy,
Speaker 1: I thought nuh, And it just dropped in yeah. And
Speaker 1: again it wasn't that moment. There was a series of
Speaker 1: moments and things that happened that led to it. But
Speaker 1: that was the first time I thought, huh, because objectively
Speaker 1: everything was going so well, you know, and my career
Speaker 1: was was, you know, wonderful, and my kids and the
Speaker 1: interesting thing to jump forward a little bit is that
Speaker 1: once my marriage ended and I got through, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of early part of the pain of that.
Speaker 1: One thing that I guess I felt quite good about
Speaker 1: was that my life was actually everything in my life
Speaker 1: was wonderful. I've got this beautiful group of girlfriends that
Speaker 1: we've been friends since we were ten.
Speaker 2: This is separate to the Golden Girls. Some crossover there
Speaker 2: is some.
Speaker 1: In fact, because as soon as I became divorced, I
Speaker 1: didn't really know anyone who was divorced, and so I
Speaker 1: sought out, Yeah, it is, isn't it. And that's I
Speaker 1: guess maybe part of what was it a part of
Speaker 1: what made it hard for me. I don't know one element.
Speaker 1: One of the Golden Girls was my friend's older sister,
Speaker 1: and so I nabbed her, and then a friend of hers,
Speaker 1: and then one friend of mine, and then there was
Speaker 1: a girl I went to school with who has heard
Speaker 1: she got divorced. And I hadn't spoken to her for
Speaker 1: years and years and years, And as soon as I
Speaker 1: heard she got divorced, I messaged her and said, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say that if you're not okay, I
Speaker 1: know we haven't spoken and this might be really presumptuous,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to come and talk to you. We can
Speaker 1: have a coffee. I just felt like I I wanted
Speaker 1: to acknowledge since I'd gone through it, how awful it was.
Speaker 1: And so together we were started The Golden which is
Speaker 1: mostly now memes about being a single parent, which is
Speaker 1: so funny, and sometimes it's a how do I deal
Speaker 1: with this? To do with the children, or how do
Speaker 1: I deal with We developed something which we call the
Speaker 1: ship box from The Golden Girls, and the ship box
Speaker 1: is an actual box. They physical box that the kids
Speaker 1: put their shit in, not their like their stuff that
Speaker 1: goes to their dad's house. I was like, how do
Speaker 1: you and someone said, we have a ship box, and
Speaker 1: so they put it. It's just a box that goes
Speaker 1: inside the door. And the day that they're going to
Speaker 1: their dad's house, you say to the kids, put your
Speaker 1: stuff in the ship box, and they put it in,
Speaker 1: and then that gets taken to.
Speaker 2: Their dumb we've forgotten the ship.
Speaker 1: And they'll say, I'll say, where's your shoes?
Speaker 2: It's they're in the shipbox. How big is the ship
Speaker 2: box like.
Speaker 1: A laundry basket. It's so those kind of wondrous things
Speaker 1: basic come out of The Golden Girls. But to link back,
Speaker 1: I guess I realized, Okay, my marriage has ended but
Speaker 1: I've got these girlfriends who really had stepped up for
Speaker 1: me in a way that you know, my first night
Speaker 1: in the apartment after we broke up, they all came
Speaker 1: and slept over. You know. One of them arrived with
Speaker 1: a box of tools. Tools.
Speaker 2: You know, they just used the tools to do it.
Speaker 1: Is a.
Speaker 2: Girlfriends of mine who got drilled. And then there comes
Speaker 2: a certain sort of pride in I can.
Speaker 1: Fix the rod.
Speaker 2: Yep, I know, and it is very satisfying.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinary the things that you can do that you
Speaker 1: just didn't do if you lived.
Speaker 2: In a traditional sort of compartmentalization of what needs to
Speaker 2: be done in it.
Speaker 1: In the family life, I can clean I have a
Speaker 1: pool at the house that I'm renting at the moment,
Speaker 1: I can clean the pool. I always thought that pools
Speaker 1: were some like foreign thing that only men could understand.
Speaker 1: And you know, because they've got chemicals, and it's.
Speaker 2: Always a pool boy, the poor boy. It's always a
Speaker 2: poor boy.
Speaker 1: So afford a poor boy. Maybe one day fingers crossed,
Speaker 1: you've got one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I think you said
Speaker 2: that marriage is maybe not good for women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh look, this has been a two year deep
Speaker 1: dive into my.
Speaker 2: Two years is not long, though you've really and compressed
Speaker 2: it or had experienced a lot in that two years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I say, I don't think I'm over
Speaker 1: it and over it's a funny thing. I am in
Speaker 1: a new relationship and I'm very happy. It's not that
Speaker 1: I'm not over him. I'm I'm happy. I feel like
Speaker 1: I you know, I have a great life. I have
Speaker 1: my career, I have my girlfriends, I have my family,
Speaker 1: I have my children. Life is so wonderful. I have
Speaker 1: the scars, and I do feel like I lost a
Speaker 1: layer of skin. You know, everything was raw, everything I
Speaker 1: felt things is more beautiful and sadder and so my
Speaker 1: you know, is marriage good for women? I've thought about
Speaker 1: that a lot. And I also looked around in the
Speaker 1: early days at relationships and thought whose marriage would I want,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at my friends, looking at my parents,
Speaker 1: looking at and I did find some there were some
Speaker 1: relationships that I thought I wanted. They weren't the majority,
Speaker 1: like I had to seek them out. Acknowledging that you
Speaker 1: never know what truly is going on in someone else's
Speaker 1: real you know.
Speaker 2: That reminds me of a girlfriend of mine who had
Speaker 2: a brutal divorce. She said one of the worst things
Speaker 2: that she experienced was that when friends would hear she
Speaker 2: was getting divorced, they were like, they started talking about
Speaker 2: how much they hated their husbands, and she said it
Speaker 2: was just like suddenly they felt like they had a
Speaker 2: outleaish to say yeah, permission. And she said at that
Speaker 2: period it was the worst thing because what she actually
Speaker 2: needed was to believe in romantic love yeah, not to
Speaker 2: have everyone go I wish I was you. And as
Speaker 2: she said, also she hadn't done anything magical. She was
Speaker 2: going through something really difficult. Yeah, And so they also
Speaker 2: had the capacity too. She's like, why are you telling
Speaker 2: me this and not addressing it with the person that
Speaker 2: you're so happy to slag off to me? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. I think. I see that a lot.
Speaker 1: I see a lot of unhappy women in relationships and
Speaker 1: presumably unhappy men. It's just that I spend more time
Speaker 1: with women, and I do wonder if this whole idea
Speaker 1: of marriage, like it makes me think, what in an
Speaker 1: ideal world, if you're unhappy, you could move on without
Speaker 1: this whole But you look at it and think, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't. I mean in that time where I was
Speaker 1: burnt out and everything and I knew and there were
Speaker 1: a few things that made me go, Okay, this, this
Speaker 1: is it, this is the end for you or yeah,
Speaker 1: for the relationship that I couldn't look away anymore. But
Speaker 1: I think I really understand why if you're not pushed
Speaker 1: to that point, why you might go, oh, it's too
Speaker 1: I can't go through that because it's so hard. There
Speaker 1: is happiness on the other side, but there's also there's
Speaker 1: also you are changed.
Speaker 2: I'm changed in the nature of a relationship though a
Speaker 2: lot a long term. How long were you married? Sixteen
Speaker 2: sixteen years to get to it, I'm twenty one, twenty congratulations.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know, well sometimes for everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct. So part of what I imagine is one
Speaker 2: of the things that you have to work out for
Speaker 2: yourself is in any long term relationship, it will have
Speaker 2: peaks and it will have ebbs, And so you know
Speaker 2: that you've worked through ebbs before, how do you know
Speaker 2: that it's not an ebb and that it's something that
Speaker 2: you can't that you're not going to then be able
Speaker 2: to surf the next wave onto the beach with.
Speaker 1: It's when they are not interested in working with you.
Speaker 2: To fix it and for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Whatever reason, and when you feel like you have tried
Speaker 1: everything in your power and it's accept this the way
Speaker 1: that it is, or try something else, and it's your
Speaker 1: last alternative, That's what it was for me. Every relationship
Speaker 1: is different and they have different reasons. It might be
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But the feelings are the same, are they? The circumstances
Speaker 2: might be. Whoever said some writer, one of those one
Speaker 2: of those who was it that said every happy family
Speaker 2: resembles each other, but every unhappy family is uniquely unhappy?
Speaker 2: Who was that? Someone? Someone? Clear? But I do often
Speaker 2: think about that because there's a there's just a patainer
Speaker 2: of happiness that you know, you might live in different
Speaker 2: circumstances or whatever, But happy is happy. Yeah, but unhappiness
Speaker 2: has so many flavors and textures, each more gruesome than
Speaker 2: the last.
Speaker 1: Yeah they do. And yeah, look, it's funny because I
Speaker 1: came out of that experience that the divorce and I
Speaker 1: and maybe this makes me very basic, and maybe everyone
Speaker 1: does this, but I certainly wasn't thinking that I was
Speaker 1: going to reap partner.
Speaker 2: I you were like, I'm not doing that again, And.
Speaker 1: Even without not from a bitter place. It was almost
Speaker 1: the opposite. It was from a place of I'm so
Speaker 1: content and I heard I've heard a lot of women
Speaker 1: say that they have been lonely after they've got divorced
Speaker 1: or they've had these certain difficulties. I didn't feel that
Speaker 1: I was never lonely. I was surrounded by love. I mean,
Speaker 1: which is just so bet And it's funny. I would
Speaker 1: say I was lucky, And I remember one of my
Speaker 1: friends saying, because I said, I've got an army of support,
Speaker 1: and my friends said to me, You're not lucky. You've
Speaker 1: got an army because you fought in the battalion. You know,
Speaker 1: you fought for us, and where are you for you?
Speaker 1: And I thought that's nice.
Speaker 2: Next, Sally rethinks what love really looks like thanks to
Speaker 2: the women who carried her through heartbreak. I think that
Speaker 2: when a relationship is failing and it's one that you're
Speaker 2: really committed to, you tend to try and put resources
Speaker 2: into it to the exclusion of other relationships. So I
Speaker 2: think sometimes people pop out like a meerkat to a
Speaker 2: very bleak savannah. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I did have that difficulty, which was to
Speaker 1: do with all of the horrible stuff about ending a relationship,
Speaker 1: but my life outside of that, I thought, well, this
Speaker 1: is good. I actually have got quite a good landscape.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking more and more that why is
Speaker 1: romantic love the pinnacle? I have got these women in
Speaker 1: my life, I mean so many, but particularly the ones
Speaker 1: that I've been friends with since I was ten. They're
Speaker 1: my life partners. They're the ones who have been with
Speaker 1: me before any of us met our partners. They are
Speaker 1: with me after partners. They've been through me with me,
Speaker 1: you know, through birth, and we've all been together. Recently,
Speaker 1: one of those friends, her father died, and I remember
Speaker 1: I went up with her when she did the eulogy
Speaker 1: and we looked back and I saw all of our
Speaker 1: girlfriends were in the front row, and I thought, it's
Speaker 1: something moved me about it. I thought, usually, you know,
Speaker 1: you see the family and the parents and whatever, and no,
Speaker 1: that was us, that was and that made complete sense
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Your significant ones.
Speaker 1: They were, We've always been a family. And even if
Speaker 1: there was an is and there now is a romantic
Speaker 1: love again, my life partner partners are those women.
Speaker 2: And are there any men in that number?
Speaker 1: Not in that I have got male friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have those relationships change.
Speaker 1: Well, one of my best male friends has been divorced twice.
Speaker 2: Okay, he was in the.
Speaker 1: Golden Girls for a little while, but then he couldn't
Speaker 1: handle it because there were all these memes about how
Speaker 1: we didn't like men. So he was like, I also,
Speaker 1: my brothers wear incredibly closed and they were huge supports
Speaker 1: to me throughout that. I'm not a hater of men
Speaker 1: in any way. I love men.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just always it seems, you know, maybe it's
Speaker 2: our times, or maybe it's been ever thus Really I
Speaker 2: don't know, but there's such a gold mine the female friends. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't seem to be the same crossover with me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean they're nourishing in a different way
Speaker 2: they are, and it's good. I do believe very much
Speaker 2: in yin and yang, and I'm not fully on board
Speaker 2: with women. We're fantastic. We're fantastic, and men are fact,
Speaker 2: which seems to be some kind of very very much,
Speaker 2: very much. And I'm like, when did we start to
Speaker 2: think we were so perfect? It's true, it's not helpful.
Speaker 2: And I, by the way, I do think that about myself.
Speaker 2: That's how I recognize it. What you think you have
Speaker 2: to pull yourself up and go hang on a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 2: why am I always trying to knock the top off
Speaker 2: this scab as though? Yeah, I'm the dermatologist. I'm not
Speaker 2: the dermatolic.
Speaker 1: We're the dermatologists of our own lives.
Speaker 2: Well we are, and it's good for someone healing.
Speaker 1: Someone's got to be healed. The ointment.
Speaker 4: Made me write.
Speaker 1: My thoughts on men are separate from my thoughts about
Speaker 1: romantic love. I think that is what has changed for me,
Speaker 1: as romantic love being the relationship to end all relationships,
Speaker 1: the one who you know you fell out on your paperwork,
Speaker 1: the one who you know when you die. They're the
Speaker 1: chief mourner, you know, all of those things.
Speaker 2: That notebook, yep, the crying in the rain. Romantic love.
Speaker 1: You can have that, right like I've got the beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful man that that came out of thinking I was
Speaker 1: never going to meet anyone. I wasn't looking for anyone.
Speaker 1: I was you know, my friends were all pressuring me
Speaker 1: to go on Tinder or bumble or whatever it was. No,
Speaker 1: I don't want, you know, I'm happy. And then I
Speaker 1: met this in real life.
Speaker 2: Now, in real life, because that does not happen now
Speaker 2: not even in novels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. Well, so this is a good story.
Speaker 1: So I actually did have one date before I met Dan,
Speaker 1: who's my partner. I had one date that was from
Speaker 1: whatever the app was. That was when i'd been away
Speaker 1: on with all my girlfriends. We go away to Nusah
Speaker 1: every year and we have a girl's trip, and they
Speaker 1: were it was for them, you know how you married
Speaker 1: friends are just desperate for you know, there's a single
Speaker 1: go on there and there up and I've ben swiping
Speaker 1: the wrong way and I'm looking at some guy called
Speaker 1: Shane with no teeth that I've just you know. And
Speaker 1: I had one date and it actually it went quite well.
Speaker 1: I mean it was not I wasn't looking for relationship,
Speaker 1: but it was. He was a gentleman. It was you know,
Speaker 1: we had a nice.
Speaker 2: Did you do it in NUSA?
Speaker 1: No, they set it up for winter. So I came
Speaker 1: back from NSA the next night, went out a night date.
Speaker 1: It was like six o'clock for a drink. It's all
Speaker 1: changed since our days. Yes, so nervous. He also didn't
Speaker 1: live in Melbourne, which I thought was better because I
Speaker 1: didn't you know, I just wanted to have a nice
Speaker 1: time and I don't know what. I don't think I
Speaker 1: wanted it, Okay, great question. I wore jeans and a
Speaker 1: like nice sparkly ballet flat and a black I was
Speaker 1: wearing a white top and all the girls are like, no,
Speaker 1: you've got to wear.
Speaker 2: It's been a very heavily workshop.
Speaker 1: And I think I had on a leather jacket or
Speaker 1: something like that. I felt very unlike me.
Speaker 2: It wasn't kind of thing, almost like you'd put on
Speaker 2: a costume, yes, which is the Sally goes on a
Speaker 2: first day costures. Yeah, in her forties. Yeah, look, and
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: He was so lovely. He was really handsome and made
Speaker 1: me feel great. And I went away from it thinking
Speaker 1: that was really nice. I don't know if i'd do
Speaker 1: it again. Right. So then I was in getting my
Speaker 1: boatox and he was in there, and my lady was
Speaker 1: doing her botox and I was telling her about it,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're like hairdresses. She's like, tell me more,
Speaker 1: and then she said, you know what, I've got a
Speaker 1: friend who's been separated recently and he's gorgeous and you
Speaker 1: should meet him. And I was like, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and then she said, can I give him your number,
Speaker 1: and I said all right, and then he messaged me, oh,
Speaker 1: I know. And you know what was funny is that
Speaker 1: he he said, so he lived away, lived in on
Speaker 1: the Gold Coast, but he was from Melbourne, yally, and
Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to be in Melbourne this week.
Speaker 1: Do you want to have dinner? And I said yes?
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, I don't know if I will
Speaker 1: or not, like I was very on the fence. And
Speaker 1: on the day I thought, oh, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm going to go, and but I just ad the
Speaker 1: last night I thought, yeah, I'll go. And it's funny.
Speaker 1: I found out later that he'd just flown down for
Speaker 1: the day, like imagine.
Speaker 2: And look it was, he flew down just for the day.
Speaker 1: God love him.
Speaker 2: Oh that's amazing. What was his hunch, Well.
Speaker 1: He said that he had heard about me from this
Speaker 1: friend and he cyberstalked me and thought that I looked nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, And it wasn't you know, it wasn't sparks.
Speaker 1: It was just you seem like a really nice person,
Speaker 1: and I really I'd like to get to know you
Speaker 1: more like that really kind of mature and and then
Speaker 1: it grew over I think by date three, I was thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is I'm getting a.
Speaker 2: Bit swept off. How was the geography He's moved back
Speaker 2: to Melbourne?
Speaker 1: Oh okay after how many dates? Well, no, it was
Speaker 1: about nine months and so there was a nice period
Speaker 1: of us going back and forth. But he worked, he
Speaker 1: had worked in Melbourne, so he'd becoming regular anyway. And
Speaker 1: it was lovely and I I'm so happy. I'm so
Speaker 1: different in this relationship. It's amazing what way I am
Speaker 1: the poor thing, because you know, I now I do
Speaker 1: not let one thing go that annoys me.
Speaker 2: Ah right, okay, so the peacekeepers, I just.
Speaker 1: Now to have a chat all the time. Now you
Speaker 1: know that thing that you did, I don't like that, right,
Speaker 1: And I encourage him to do that too, and he's
Speaker 1: so good about like what I love. I think the
Speaker 1: most masculine trait that exists is for you to give
Speaker 1: them feedback and for them to say, oh, okay, ah,
Speaker 1: thank you for telling me that, you know, and not
Speaker 1: being threatened at all or defensive or you know. I
Speaker 1: just think that's so so you're so sure of yourself
Speaker 1: and secure to be able to to take that on
Speaker 1: board and not feel emasculated or just.
Speaker 2: To actually have a curiosity.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I realized that's all I need. I don't
Speaker 1: even need them to immediately change. It's not that they
Speaker 1: won't do it again. It's that they've said, you're giving
Speaker 1: you know, you're telling me what you want, and I
Speaker 1: want to know that you know I'm not. I want
Speaker 1: to know what makes you happy. I want to I
Speaker 1: hear you, I see you.
Speaker 2: I want to work that kind of softens you. Yes.
Speaker 1: All you need, I think, is to know that someone
Speaker 1: wants that for you, that they're in it for you
Speaker 1: as well. And it's not just that that's been really
Speaker 1: healing for me because I am like that, like I
Speaker 1: will I have. I have a lot of faults, but
Speaker 1: I I really if someone says something or if I
Speaker 1: do the wrong thing, I will say I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: you know mea culpa and I don't feel threatened by that.
Speaker 1: And so when people do get defensive, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the problems in my marriage is that you
Speaker 1: don't get anywhere. You know you you know I'm trying
Speaker 1: to tell you that I feel this way, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't do that, and by the way, it's you know,
Speaker 1: then it goes nowhere and you just park it and
Speaker 1: it continues to simmer. Whereas I feel like we have
Speaker 1: really in the new relationship, we've really got to know
Speaker 1: each other and find our stride and our own rhythm
Speaker 1: together because we do listen and and you know, and
Speaker 1: work together. We want to.
Speaker 2: But you don't live together, No, and you won't.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Look, I always say I'll never
Speaker 1: do something, and then you know, five minutes later. I
Speaker 1: think what's really important to me now is that I
Speaker 1: have my three kids. I've got my own house. I
Speaker 1: want them to have their house that is just mum's,
Speaker 1: you know, not even it's their house. I don't want
Speaker 1: Mum and Dan's house or you know. I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen at Christian's house. But I want
Speaker 1: them to have a space that's theirs. And they don't
Speaker 1: need any more people. They don't need to be blending
Speaker 1: families or to I just don't want.
Speaker 2: That take on some other emotional load.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want that for them. And so maybe
Speaker 1: there's a time in the future where they've gone and
Speaker 1: who knows. You know, I'm really happy in this.
Speaker 2: How do you think your writings changed now?
Speaker 1: Some writers said once I don't know who it is, obviously,
Speaker 1: we know the sayings. We don't know the writer. But
Speaker 1: they said these characters are a third someone you know,
Speaker 1: a third made up and a third yourself. And while
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily, what I think is myself is the
Speaker 1: narrative that comes on the page. It's not necessarily a
Speaker 1: character or a thing, but it's the wisdom that I'm
Speaker 1: searching for in that book. Yes, and I have a
Speaker 1: new book coming out later this year. It's called Mad Maybe.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've read Mad Maybe or part way through with Maybe,
Speaker 2: which is so different than anything that you've done. I
Speaker 2: think so. Well, just I love having a character who's
Speaker 2: in her eighties. I find that, yeah, just amazing. But
Speaker 2: also that we get to see her in her youth.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a lot of people read it yet,
Speaker 1: so it's been I love hearing that in the Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the early it's in a like a binder. Oh
Speaker 1: they sent your boundary, Yeah, I've got Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know what that's. Well, that's even different from advanced reader copy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I've seen the cover online and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: that's what that's how it's going to look.
Speaker 1: Well, I think So the big thing that's come out
Speaker 1: of my life experience is that book in its essence,
Speaker 1: And it's funny because you read the blurb and it's
Speaker 1: about an eighty one year old curmudgeonly you know, I
Speaker 1: had so much joy writing that character who finds her
Speaker 1: neighbor dead and no one suspects anything until they find
Speaker 1: out that she, in fact was not a serial killer,
Speaker 1: like was convicted of murders when she was fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: and we go back in time to find that out.
Speaker 1: But the book, unlikely as it seems, is about friendship,
Speaker 1: and it's that comes, of course, off the heels of
Speaker 1: my These last two years have been about friendship for me,
Speaker 1: so much hurt and everything, but the way that friends
Speaker 1: can save you. And this book what I wanted to
Speaker 1: explore was can one friend save you? Is that enough?
Speaker 1: And what if you don't have one friend? What happens
Speaker 1: to you then? And so I don't.
Speaker 2: It's funny because she's been the sort of because she's
Speaker 2: so prickly and combative, it's almost like she's wanted to
Speaker 2: keep the world at bay. But she's also you can't
Speaker 2: help but love her good.
Speaker 1: Well, she's vulnerable, like even the people that want to
Speaker 1: keep the world at bay, they're probably the most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: There's a reason that you do that. As humans, we
Speaker 1: want to connect. And yeah, like there is a kind
Speaker 1: of hope, a layered story about that, and all of
Speaker 1: that comes from my experience over the last couple of
Speaker 1: years and the importance that friendship has. And it's dedicated
Speaker 1: to my best friend Sash, who has just been diagnosed
Speaker 1: for the second time with triple negative breast cancer. She's
Speaker 1: going through treatment at the moment. Again, we it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's been so difficult. But the thing, and she
Speaker 1: talks about it all the time, is I've got my girls,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got and we just know what to
Speaker 1: do and we just rally and we support and we'll
Speaker 1: get her through it. And and there is the it's
Speaker 1: so horrible and it's so difficult for her, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so difficult to watch her go through that. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, and this is what I felt
Speaker 1: about my divorce, there's this beautifulness of it, of the
Speaker 1: way that we just move around each other at these
Speaker 1: difficult times, and that's the stuff that it just moves
Speaker 1: me in a way that I don't think any I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like, I don't know why that love doesn't
Speaker 1: have that same company.
Speaker 2: My girlfriend of mine had breast catcer last year before last,
Speaker 2: and it does. What you do is you you can't
Speaker 2: hold anything back, no, because it's a currency you've just
Speaker 2: got to spend. Yeah, and sometimes the watching everyone bring
Speaker 2: it is, like you said, just beautiful, cruel but beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always think, look to the helpers, you know. Another
Speaker 1: one I don't know who said that. Someone did say that,
Speaker 1: look to the helper.
Speaker 2: Who was it?
Speaker 1: It was someone that was not a writer.
Speaker 2: I think that was like a Michelle ob that.
Speaker 1: She always says the good things. But yeah, oh I
Speaker 1: don't have it. No, I'm fine. That's what friendship is.
Speaker 1: It's the hard and it's the beautiful. And I don't
Speaker 1: know anyone who's you know, I'm forty five and I
Speaker 1: don't know any forty five year olds that haven't been
Speaker 1: through something really difficult. And we know more difficult stuff
Speaker 1: is going to come, you know, hopefully, because that means
Speaker 1: we're alive, and that's more difficult things.
Speaker 2: I always said that in yoga class. I'm always like, yeah,
Speaker 2: because there are always if you're discomfort yes, yes, it's
Speaker 2: about discomfort, and so they'll often say the temporary discomfort
Speaker 2: in the in this class or in the practice of
Speaker 2: yoga helps you take on the discomforts that are coming
Speaker 2: for you in life.
Speaker 1: I can't wait, but.
Speaker 2: It is true.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I heard a similar saying, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: it was something to do with waves. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: you stand in the water in the ocean and the
Speaker 1: waves come. You know, hopefully you get a gap between them,
Speaker 1: but your role is to learn how to swim, because
Speaker 1: you know the next one is coming. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't just get bold, you know, if you do, just
Speaker 1: get bold over. But if you learn to swim, then
Speaker 1: so that each time you learn a bit more than
Speaker 1: you're going to be ready for the ones that are coming.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's very interesting, because that is I like that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think that we don't allow ourselves, or we
Speaker 2: don't emphasize enough how much agency we play in our
Speaker 2: own lives.
Speaker 1: Or how much opportunity there is given.
Speaker 2: As you said earlier, like it's a privilege to be
Speaker 2: able to even think like that, really, because some people
Speaker 2: are just bowled over by waves and can't even get
Speaker 2: back on their knees. But you've got to teach yourself
Speaker 2: to swim, you do, and really probably teach yourself, as
Speaker 2: you have done with your girlfriends, to not only save yourself,
Speaker 2: but try and save someone else while you're at it.
Speaker 1: That is almost the I think it's the key to
Speaker 1: getting through something is to focus on someone else, right,
Speaker 1: And I you know, as terrible as as you know
Speaker 1: my friend's illness is, I do think that it pulled
Speaker 1: me out of a depression. I think I've been in
Speaker 1: a mild depression for a couple of years, and as
Speaker 1: soon as I knew that she needed me, Yeah, it does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, then you you're out of it and there's
Speaker 1: something more important than you. And I think that is
Speaker 1: the key to you know, you steal yourself and you heal,
Speaker 1: but then look out to the world again, because it's
Speaker 1: not you know, you can spend so much time looking
Speaker 1: inward and there's self love and everything, but actually sometimes
Speaker 1: the most loving thing is to look outwards and go
Speaker 1: and help someone.
Speaker 2: Else because also then that reminds you once again of
Speaker 2: what you're capable of. Yeah, it's a strange gift to
Speaker 2: be given.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and it's almost you know, having friendship is such
Speaker 1: a blessing. But it's even better to be a friend,
Speaker 1: you know. That actually is a better feeling in a way.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, someone said it's better to get then
Speaker 2: received would.
Speaker 1: Have been someone smart. Just attribute them to like random
Speaker 1: people people that is, so let us know who said
Speaker 1: them all.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's Sally Hepworth's future?
Speaker 1: Well on the tenth of August, my first book to TV.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, serious coming so many at once because it's
Speaker 2: the Family next Door. Also Darling Girls.
Speaker 1: So Darling Girls has been optioned and that is currently
Speaker 1: a writer has been attached and she's working on the script.
Speaker 2: Was that that Amy Pohler thing who.
Speaker 1: Amy Polar optioned? The mother in law? The mother in
Speaker 1: law and the soulmate has also been optioned.
Speaker 2: I saw that with Asher.
Speaker 1: Yes, Asha Ketty is attached, which is amazing and she's
Speaker 1: going to produce. And also my short story Uncharted Waters
Speaker 1: has been.
Speaker 5: Short stories that you googled how to write a short.
Speaker 1: Story, and Blossom, which is Nicole Kidman's production company has
Speaker 1: optioned that. The thing about the options is that they
Speaker 1: come in that's so exciting, and then it goes quiet.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and sometimes nothing happens or sometimes a lot
Speaker 1: of things are happening behind the scenes and I'm getting
Speaker 1: on with my life.
Speaker 2: So optioning is when people a production company will say
Speaker 2: we love this, we want to do something with it.
Speaker 1: You enter into an arrangement.
Speaker 2: But as we know, it could take years for things
Speaker 2: to get produced.
Speaker 1: Rore and nothing can happen. What they do is they
Speaker 1: buy the rights to have no one else look at
Speaker 1: it for a period of time, so it's theirs to
Speaker 1: try and get it off the ground, to try.
Speaker 2: Also landing all at once these little ships that you
Speaker 2: sent out to see.
Speaker 1: It does feel like over the last and finally over
Speaker 1: the last two years, as my personal life's been imploding,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of things have been hitting.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's I do think that sometimes when
Speaker 1: you've gone through a period where you've set yourself free,
Speaker 1: that it's you entered this kind of flow state and
Speaker 1: suddenly things change.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's happened?
Speaker 1: I do. I do. I believe in that. I've also
Speaker 1: a woman of my forties. I also do yoga, I
Speaker 1: have crystals. I've become very much into the universe and
Speaker 1: you know, putting my feet in the grass and doing
Speaker 1: all of that, and I do believe so much in signs,
Speaker 1: in energy, in things falling into your lap.
Speaker 2: At it all to me too, I'm mad for it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about buying an earthing sheet. I've got one.
Speaker 2: You got one with the core? Have you got one
Speaker 2: with you? Is it a plug in one or one
Speaker 2: where you run I've been looking at a real bonkers
Speaker 2: one from Canada or whatever. You have to run a
Speaker 2: copper cable outside your window into.
Speaker 1: The grid, Yes, no, mine's not mine. It has the copper,
Speaker 1: but it plugs in.
Speaker 2: Plugs in. Does it work with electricity for grounding?
Speaker 1: No? Like, how would you know if it works?
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful thing about it. You look really healthy.
Speaker 1: That I'm going off. I oh, everything like that I've done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that Stuch can't get enough of it.
Speaker 2: And I'm mad on supplements. This could go all day.
Speaker 2: This could go all day. Sally Hepworth, what an absolute
Speaker 2: duel you are in the crown of artists.
Speaker 1: I love this? Is that some something someone said? Is
Speaker 1: that a writer? We don't calk? She wrote this book
Speaker 1: called chow Bella.
Speaker 2: It said, it's not on net Worth, but it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: I've read Oh, I brought a gift for you because
Speaker 2: I've got your soul which I loved.
Speaker 1: I have a signed coffee.
Speaker 2: I have it at home. Oh I wanted to give
Speaker 2: you that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll still take it.
Speaker 2: Look and signing you to sign the soul mate. But
Speaker 2: when I bought it, I already bought a signed one.
Speaker 1: Well I can personalize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, good, we're going to do that. I'll see
Speaker 2: you in five months. We'll have our chat about AI
Speaker 2: is now doing everything for you. Look forward and may
Speaker 2: your ship box always be full in the best way exactly.
Speaker 1: Thank you. This has been lovely.
Speaker 2: Sally and I could have talked all day, and in
Speaker 2: fact we very nearly did, and it just struck me
Speaker 2: how generous and open she is. Even sometimes in the
Speaker 2: parts of your life that are kind of shadowy and
Speaker 2: your inclination is to try and cover them up, she's
Speaker 2: just spreading sunshine through herself and to those around her.
Speaker 2: It's always fascinating when the storyteller becomes the story. Sally's
Speaker 2: life has changed in ways she never saw coming, and
Speaker 2: she's done what so many women do. She's carried on.
Speaker 2: But what stayed with me was this, when everything falls apart,
Speaker 2: Sally doesn't pretend to have the answers, she just keeps
Speaker 2: showing up. The executive producer of No Filter is Nama
Speaker 2: Brown and the senior producer is Bree Player. Audio production
Speaker 2: is by Jacob Brown and I am your host, Kate
Speaker 2: lane Brook. Thank you so much for sharing No Filter
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 5: Hello, it's Nama here, the executive producer of No Filter
Speaker 5: bringing you a sample of Mamma MIA's women's health podcast, Well,
Speaker 5: hosted by doctor Merriam and Claire Murphy. This week's episode
Speaker 5: is about pregnancy, but that's not all. They'll also take
Speaker 5: you to mad school to talk about why you might
Speaker 5: get a pen in your but when you have your period,
Speaker 5: and do a quick consult about testosterone Duram Perry. If
Speaker 5: you want to hear the full episode. Well is your
Speaker 5: Full Body Health Check and drops every week on a Thursday.
Speaker 6: This episode of Well is brought to you in partnership
Speaker 6: with Clear Blue Australian Women.
Speaker 3: Welcome to your Full Body Health Check. I'm Claire Murphy
Speaker 3: and for the sake of today's episode, because we are
Speaker 3: talking about pregnancy, I'll let you know that I have
Speaker 3: been pregnant twice in my life. Once when I was
Speaker 3: a very young teenager, which is a pregnancy I chose
Speaker 3: to terminate and have zero regrets about. And then I
Speaker 3: got pregnant again at thirty five, where I was wonderfully
Speaker 3: called a geriatric pregnancy, and that resulted in my small
Speaker 3: human And.
Speaker 4: I'm doctor Mariam, a GP, a mother and someone who
Speaker 4: has lived the full spectrum of the fertility journey, from
Speaker 4: the heartbreak of my firstborn Samuel, who was a still earth,
Speaker 4: to three miscarriages and two years of infertility. My path
Speaker 4: has been anything but easy, but it led me to
Speaker 4: my greatest blessings, my beautiful rainbow two boys, Zak and Jagin.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that
Speaker 3: sometimes with your self and with friends of mine who've
Speaker 3: really struggled to get pregnant and to have babies, it's
Speaker 3: it's a really emotional thing to talk about, especially all
Speaker 3: the losses too so. But I think it's interesting to
Speaker 3: note that like our pregnancy journeys could not be more different.
Speaker 4: Like it's such a vast array.
Speaker 3: Of experiences involved in getting pregnant, being pregnant, and having babies.
Speaker 3: Because I was the discussion with my husband worriers went,
Speaker 3: should I just stop taking the pill and like, if
Speaker 3: it happens, it happens, and if it doesn't, it doesn't
Speaker 3: and he's like, yeah, cool, and then it did and
Speaker 3: it was just like and then we're like cool, do
Speaker 3: you I want to do it again? And we're like
Speaker 3: not really, it's won and done. We could yeah, very
Speaker 3: very different perspectives. And in case you haven't worked it out,
Speaker 3: we are talking about being up the Duff today with
Speaker 3: child Prego bun in the oven however you would like
Speaker 3: to refer to it. We will find out what's happening
Speaker 3: to your internals and it is a lot. And we
Speaker 3: have a quick consult for Tony who's been seeing a
Speaker 3: bunch of people on her feed talking about a hormone
Speaker 3: that she thinks that maybe she might need to but
Speaker 3: her understanding is is that it's something that is exclusively
Speaker 3: for men. Now, Mariam, I have found out something very
Speaker 3: interesting about women's buttholes.
Speaker 1: Go for it.
Speaker 4: I've said this before, I will say this again.
Speaker 3: I am a deeply immature human being and I will
Speaker 3: laugh every time I say but holes.
Speaker 2: But here we go.
Speaker 3: Something happens to some of our buttholes during our period. Yep,
Speaker 3: we need answers this is very serious medicine, Mariam.
Speaker 4: I want to know where this conversation is going.
Speaker 2: Let's go to med school.
Speaker 1: Welcome to med school, Mariam.
Speaker 3: We've discussed all types of pain that women might experience
Speaker 3: from various things, but have you ever experienced a proctalgia fugax?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Now, this is something that happens to a lot of
Speaker 3: women when they have their periods.
Speaker 4: So you might just be, you know, walking along.
Speaker 3: Minding your own damn business when you're hit with a
Speaker 3: really short, sharp pain in your buttthole. It feels like
Speaker 3: someone shoved a hof knife up there for a second. Yep,
Speaker 3: it is like butt lightning. It's reportedly super normal, quite harmless.
Speaker 3: It's a spasm in the anal sphincter or pelvic floor muscles.
Speaker 3: The pain can last somewhere between a few seconds, which
Speaker 3: I think is what the majority of us have probably experienced.
Speaker 3: Two way recorded ninety minutes, which sounds like the worst
Speaker 3: day ever. Marriam. Do you get butt lightning on your period?
Speaker 4: Butt lightning? Yes, so proctalgia? Four gucks. It sounds like
Speaker 4: a Harry Potters spell. It steels more like a curse. Yes,
Speaker 4: I've had that surprise up and it's usually like surprise
Speaker 4: that it's exactly what that is. It's usually in the coals,
Speaker 4: freezer ales I've gotten us. That's where your butt always
Speaker 4: decide to betray you. Top that or a pot triggered
Speaker 4: by the cold.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Yes. So if you are just randomly sitting there and
Speaker 3: it's like Harry Potter ZAPPEDI with his wand in your buttthole,
Speaker 3: it's totally fine. Don't stress. From spiky buttholes to actually
Speaker 3: being up the dove. Today's check up is all things pregnancy.
Speaker 6: When you're trying to get pregnant, timing is everything. With
Speaker 6: only a few precious days each cycle, it's not surprising
Speaker 6: that one in two couples may be trying to conceive
Speaker 6: at the wrong time. That's where clear Blue Advanced Digital
Speaker 6: Ovulation Test comes in. You can double your chances of
Speaker 6: getting pregnant in your first cycle of use versus not
Speaker 6: using ovulation tests. Plus, you can download the free clear
Speaker 6: Blue Period and Cycle Tracking app to keep a diary.
Speaker 6: Double your chances of getting pregnant with the clear Blue
Speaker 6: Advanced Digital Ovulation Test. Always read the label and follow
Speaker 6: the directions for use.
Speaker 2: It's time for the checkup.
Speaker 3: Okay, Mary, can we talk about the first trimester? What
Speaker 3: is actually happening in your body when you conceive and
Speaker 3: why a first trimester mum's so tired.
Speaker 4: So when you conceive, your body immediately kicks into pregnancy gear, right,
Speaker 4: it wants to support that tiny new life. The fertilized
Speaker 4: egging plants itself into the lining of your uterus, which
Speaker 4: starts releasing hormones like hCG and progesterone. And those hormones
Speaker 4: do a bunch of jobs. They keep the pregnancy going,
Speaker 4: they stop your periods, and they start preparing your body
Speaker 4: for the months ahead. So why are we all so
Speaker 4: exhausted during that first trimester? It's always the hormones, same hormones.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The progesterone, which we call the pregnancy hormone, relaxes your muscles,
Speaker 4: including your digestive tracks, so that can make you feel
Speaker 4: little bit sluggish. Your metabolism is revving up, so your
Speaker 4: heart is working harder to pump that extra blood, and
Speaker 4: your body's busy building the placenta, which is like a
Speaker 4: new organ and other essentials, so your blood sugar and
Speaker 4: your blood pressure can dip as well, and that leaves
Speaker 4: you feeling wiped out, so you're adding the emotional rollercoaster
Speaker 4: as well. Sometimes you might get the nausea, the morning sickness,
Speaker 4: and it's no wonders that the first trimester is relentless.
Speaker 4: The good news is that it starts to ease up
Speaker 4: when you get to the second trimester. Go when your
Speaker 4: body starts to adjust. So if you're feeling wiped listen
Speaker 4: to your body. Rest when you can, eat good foods,
Speaker 4: stay hydrated, and don't beat yourself up if you need
Speaker 4: that extra downtime. Your body's doing incredible. It's growing a human.
Speaker 4: But in saying that, I just wanted to have a
Speaker 4: conversation and want to see what your thoughts are. A
Speaker 4: lot of people don't like telling people about their pregnancies
Speaker 4: until they pass that twelve weeks because they feel like
Speaker 4: they're in the safe zone. But then this is when
Speaker 4: they need a lot of extra help and support because
Speaker 4: hired and they're wiped out. They're like, oh, how am
Speaker 4: I going to tell my employer that I'm pregnant and
Speaker 4: I might miscarried. I want to tell my family.
Speaker 2: Well, that's it.
Speaker 3: It's the most common window for miscarriage, right, So and
Speaker 3: if something happens to you and you haven't told anybody,
Speaker 3: it makes it hard.
Speaker 4: It does, But I kind of want to break that cycle.
Speaker 4: As females when we see that positive pregnancy stick, there
Speaker 4: shouldn't be that stigma where we shouldn't be allowed to
Speaker 4: announce it. Unfortunately, one in four pregnancies do end in miscarriage,
Speaker 4: and that's when we need support. And if we haven't
Speaker 4: spoken about it, then how do we get that support?
Speaker 4: So I think you know acknowledging I'm pregnant, and if
Speaker 4: a miscarriage does happen, then acknowledging I need support and
Speaker 4: people knew about it.
Speaker 3: Can you answer me this question? Riddle me this, yes, Mariam,
Speaker 3: but can you please tell me how we predict a
Speaker 3: baby's due date and how accurate it is? Because there's
Speaker 3: some math going on here, but realistically, forty weeks, which
Speaker 3: is our normal gestation period, doesn't add up to nine
Speaker 3: months already. The math is not math for me. So
Speaker 3: how do we predict the day that baby's supposed to
Speaker 3: come out?
Speaker 4: Okay, the magic date, it's the date we all obsess
Speaker 4: over as parents. It's a bit of a legend, to
Speaker 4: be honest. Okay, So the standard way we work it
Speaker 4: out here in OZ is you take the first day
Speaker 4: of your last menstrual period and you add two hundred
Speaker 4: and eighty days or forty weeks to that date. It
Speaker 4: sounds straightforward, but pregnancy isn't always a neat nine month
Speaker 4: package like the calendars.
Speaker 3: And another our cycle, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: So the forty weeks is based on an average twenty
Speaker 4: eight day menstrual cycle, assuming ovulation happens on day fourteen,
Speaker 4: but not everyone's cycle plays by those rules. Some females
Speaker 4: ovulate earlier, some later, and the date can shift. Plus
Speaker 4: months aren't all the same length, so you've got thirty
Speaker 4: day months, thirty day ones, and then you've got February
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 2: But here's the kicker.
Speaker 4: Only one in twenty babies will actually only arrive on
Speaker 4: their due date. Most babies will come either two weeks
Speaker 4: before or two weeks after, so the jew date is
Speaker 4: more of a rough window, not a ticking clock. So
Speaker 4: early ultrasounds in pregnancies can help us estimate gustational age
Speaker 4: if we're not really sure when our last mental period was,
Speaker 4: or if the cycle regularity, and if things start to
Speaker 4: stretch beyond the Jude date, then you know you've got
Speaker 4: your treating team that will help you guide you through that,
Speaker 4: So don't stress about the Jude date. Baby is not
Speaker 4: likely to come at that date.
Speaker 3: Just be aware if your baby does come after the
Speaker 3: jud date, like mine did, it might come out.
Speaker 1: A lot hairer than you expected.
Speaker 3: Just a little shock surprise that you might not be
Speaker 3: aware of. Mariam, what should very early pregnant mums be
Speaker 3: doing from the get go? I know there's a lot
Speaker 3: of talk about what you should have already done in
Speaker 3: the lead up to conception, like not drinking alcohol and
Speaker 3: taking FOL eight supplements, for example, But what are the
Speaker 3: first things you tell a newly pregnant woman to do.
Speaker 4: I love these consults, Like I'm a GP shared antienatal
Speaker 4: care provider, so I would start, if you think you're pregnant,
Speaker 4: finding a GP with antenatal experience and don't just wait,
Speaker 4: so kind of book that consultation in early and there's
Speaker 4: a lot we can do to support a healthy pregnancy physically,
Speaker 4: emotionally and logistically as well. So when you see your doctor,
Speaker 4: we will confirm the pregnancy with like a urinal blood
Speaker 4: test based on what I've said before, and if we're unsure,
Speaker 4: we'll do that dating scan for you. And then this
Speaker 4: is the most important part of the conversation. It's never
Speaker 4: always congratulations on your pregnancy. I always start the conversation
Speaker 4: with is this a congratulation? And it's important because you
Speaker 4: know for some people it's a surprise, it's not at
Speaker 4: the right time. There are a reason.
Speaker 3: And when I was told when I was a teenager,
Speaker 3: I had a major breakdown. So yeah, it's not always.
Speaker 4: A welcling Yeah, that's right. And so your GP will
Speaker 4: walk beside you without judgment. They'll have that conversation and
Speaker 4: if termination is something that you're considering, will guide you
Speaker 4: through that process and make sure that you have the
Speaker 4: right supports. If you are thinking of continuing the pregnancy,
Speaker 4: it's ensuring that you're on the right supplement. So we
Speaker 4: spoke about folic acid and iodine, but then there are
Speaker 4: other things. So if you're at risk of preclamsy, you've
Speaker 4: had preclamcy here before, you might need to be on
Speaker 4: aspirin or cow So it's important we go through your
Speaker 4: medical surgical history, go through any medications you're on that
Speaker 4: might be teratogenic so they might harm the baby, or
Speaker 4: we might need to change dosages of some medications as well.
Speaker 4: Then we check whether your cervical cancer screening is up
Speaker 4: to date. So I'm going to break a myth, it
Speaker 4: is safe during pregnancy. There's also the self collection if
Speaker 4: you're really worried about anything touching the cervix, that self
Speaker 4: collection just touches the sides walls of the vagina, so
Speaker 4: that's completely safe. We also might offer an STI screen
Speaker 4: for some people if that's relevant as well. We'll check
Speaker 4: if your immunizations are up to date, and we'll tell
Speaker 4: you about the schedule of immunizations during pregnancy, which are
Speaker 4: really really important. I know there's a lot of misinformation online.
Speaker 4: If you have any concerns regarding immunizations during pregnancy, please
Speaker 4: please speak with a trusted healthcare professional. Do not get
Speaker 4: your information from untrusted sources online. Then we'll talk about
Speaker 4: lifestyle and nutrition. So obviously no smoking, no vaping, alcohol,
Speaker 4: LISTA drugs, and that includes passive smoking. Sometimes just being
Speaker 4: a people that smoke can also harm the baby. And
Speaker 4: then there's the food safety. That's a big one.
Speaker 2: There are certain.
Speaker 4: Foods to avoid, soft cheeses, deli meats, or all seafoods
Speaker 4: there's a whole bunch of foods, and it's not about
Speaker 4: instilling fear, you know. I still want people to go
Speaker 4: out and be able to eat healthy foods. I usually
Speaker 4: refer people to the New South World Food Authority Guide.
Speaker 4: It's a great resource, has a lot of information about
Speaker 4: it's got like a red light, green light, orange light system,
Speaker 4: or things to just be cautious with. I usually print
Speaker 4: that out for them. And important conversation I also have
Speaker 4: is about domestic safety and emotional health. So this part
Speaker 4: is so important. We will ask gently and privately about
Speaker 4: your safety at home. Unfortunately, pregnancy increases the risk of DV.
Speaker 4: The questions aren't just routine, they're protective. We also talk
Speaker 4: about mental health. So peronatal anxiety is very very common
Speaker 4: and it's a risk factor for postnatal depression. So we
Speaker 4: catch it early. We can put in those supports early
Speaker 4: and if anything's flagged, will help you access the right care.
Speaker 4: I'm a bit of a Debbie down us. I've been
Speaker 4: through the miscarriage journey, and even as a health professional,
Speaker 4: I was also a bit annoyed that we don't have
Speaker 4: this conversation that one inful pregnancies. Unfortunately, do anti miscarriage.
Speaker 4: So I think having that conversation at that first consert
Speaker 4: with the doctor saying, this may not be your story,
Speaker 4: but I want you to be prepared. These are the
Speaker 4: signs and symptoms to look out for ectopic pregnancy, education
Speaker 4: of the signs and symptoms to look out for. And
Speaker 4: it's not about, you know, kind of ruining the mood
Speaker 4: and the celebrations, but it's about providing them with that
Speaker 4: information that you know will be really really helpful if
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 3: To end that way, because we often find ourselves when
Speaker 3: we do experience those things asking why didn't anyone tell
Speaker 3: me about exactly?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'll have some antenatal bloods and potentially genetic screening
Speaker 4: if you haven't had that offered, and then we'll plan
Speaker 4: the antenatal journey. We'll talk to you about the options,
Speaker 4: whether you want to go privately or publicly through a
Speaker 4: midwife system or whatever that might look like, and we'll
Speaker 4: put those referrals in place and then follow you up. Gosh,
Speaker 4: that's a lot, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: One.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I love those consoles and then obviously the
Speaker 4: physical examination as well, but no, it's a great, great console.
Speaker 4: I love those consultations.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you too, because it's something that
Speaker 3: I did not know how to face when I was pregnant,
Speaker 3: is how do you find a good ogbyn or midwife, Like,
Speaker 3: do you need a referral? Can you go and hunt
Speaker 3: one down for yourself?
Speaker 4: So you do need a referral from your GP, which
Speaker 4: is why the GPS your best starting point, and they
Speaker 4: can recommend someone based on your health needs, your location,
Speaker 4: or your birthing preferences. Most mid referee care is available
Speaker 4: through the public systems unless you wanted to go privately
Speaker 4: as well. I find the Facebook moms group really great
Speaker 4: in terms of recommendations and experiences of obstetricians that they've
Speaker 4: had as well, So that's always a good place to start.
Speaker 4: You can look online, you know, if you've got specific
Speaker 4: issues like your high risk we've got a twin pregnancy,
Speaker 4: there are also obstetricians that kind of look after those's
Speaker 4: or doing a bit of research on your part, or
Speaker 4: speaking to your doctor about any preferences that they might have. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so your first port of call and they'll match you
Speaker 4: to the right team for you through your pregnancy journey.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 3: Okay, on the way we're going to answer a quick
Speaker 3: consult for Tony who's on HRT, but she thinks maybe
Speaker 3: it's missing something that most of us think only belongs
Speaker 3: to men. But next we are catching up with Associate
Speaker 3: Professor Kirsten Palmer to talk through all the basics of pregnancy,
Speaker 3: from like bigger feat to blood pressure, the food rules,
Speaker 3: and why medications may not work as well when you're expecting.
Speaker 5: If you want to hear the full episode, Well is
Speaker 5: your Full Body Health Check and drops every week on
Speaker 5: a Thursday, we've popped a link in our show notes
Speaker 5: for you to like and follow.
Speaker 6: This episode of Well was brought to you in partnership
Speaker 6: with Clear Blue.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
Speaker 2: waters that this podcast is recorded on