Speaker 1: Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy,
Speaker 1: but tired and worn, just some of the feelings when
Speaker 1: baby is born. There's magic, elation, there's chaos and tears,
Speaker 1: but everyone goes through the same hopes and fears. So
Speaker 1: this is a segment we hope helps you feel supported
Speaker 1: and valid. The mum juggles real, the good, bad, the ugly,
Speaker 1: the best and worst day. It's part of the journey
Speaker 1: to seize the Babe. I'm Sarah Davidson, a lawyer turned
Speaker 1: entrepreneur who hung up the suits and heels to co
Speaker 1: found Macha Maiden, a Macha Milk Bar, become a TV
Speaker 1: and radio presenter, and of course host The Sees the
Speaker 1: Ya Podcast. This year, I added motherhood to that list,
Speaker 1: which is the best job I've ever had with our
Speaker 1: beautiful baby Teddy, and this segment was designed to house
Speaker 1: all the conversations we've been having about parenthood. We'll still
Speaker 1: do our regular episodes and just like real life, it's
Speaker 1: a constant balance between our parent identity and everything else.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoy this segment as much as
Speaker 1: I have enjoyed creating it. I know I say this
Speaker 1: to you guys all the time, but it truly does
Speaker 1: feel like the greatest privilege to have a community or
Speaker 1: a neighborhood that shares in all our big life milestones
Speaker 1: and moments, especially over many, many years for some of
Speaker 1: you who have so kindly stuck around this long. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure it will shock you guys just as much
Speaker 1: as me to hear that this week marks one whole
Speaker 1: year since Teddy was born. I cannot believe I have
Speaker 1: an almost one year old. The time has just flown by.
Speaker 2: Weirdly.
Speaker 1: It feels like I've been his mum for both a
Speaker 1: minute and a half and also a lifetime and a
Speaker 1: half all at once. I'm a bit of a walking
Speaker 1: hot mess of emotions this week. I'm so grateful that
Speaker 1: he's such a healthy, growing boy. I'm also so nostalgic
Speaker 1: that the tiny little newborn we brought home has grown
Speaker 1: so much. Either way, I can barely remember the person
Speaker 1: I was before, and I think you can probably all
Speaker 1: tell from the content over the past year that it
Speaker 1: has been my favorite chapter by far. If you follow
Speaker 1: along on socials I think most of you do, you'll
Speaker 1: know the first birthday milestone has come with a very
Speaker 1: timely twelve month regression. We've had quite a few of
Speaker 1: these regressions, so we're back in the thick of sleep
Speaker 1: deprivation with another twist of the roller coaster of parenthood.
Speaker 1: But it's equally been a privilege and a safe space
Speaker 1: for me actually to share the tougher times over the
Speaker 1: past year as much as the good ones with you all,
Speaker 1: and you've all been so supportive with such amazing suggestions.
Speaker 1: Teddy's actual birthday is tomorrow at the time of recording,
Speaker 1: and we're having a little birthday party on the weekend,
Speaker 1: so you'll get bombarded on all fronts with his sweet
Speaker 1: little face.
Speaker 2: Lucky, he's cute, that kid.
Speaker 1: Because we are not getting a lot of sleep, as
Speaker 1: you know I love to do, I'll be marking the
Speaker 1: occasion with a bit of a dear diary reflection episode
Speaker 1: of Seize the Babe on the biggest things I've learned
Speaker 1: over the past year and just taking stock of how
Speaker 1: it all feels, because I haven't actually done that at all.
Speaker 1: It's just been living in the moment, almost to a fault,
Speaker 1: though I haven't really stopped and thought about how it
Speaker 1: all feels and who I am and what's changed and
Speaker 1: you know that. That's one of the things I love
Speaker 1: the most about having a podcast is having an audio
Speaker 1: record of who you were and how you felt at
Speaker 1: a moment in time. So I'll be doing that for
Speaker 1: next week's episode because I've had a few dms asking about.
Speaker 2: Our birth story.
Speaker 1: Plus I personally don't really remember any of that episode,
Speaker 1: having recorded it in the Thick of the Newborn Hayes,
Speaker 1: I thought it would be a nice throwback moment to
Speaker 1: re release that before the Dear Diary episode, to kind
Speaker 1: of have a look at what's changed, what hasn't, what
Speaker 1: turned out the way I expected, what didn't, and just
Speaker 1: think about how far we've come. I don't know if
Speaker 1: any other parents' experiences, but I still can't.
Speaker 2: Quite believe that Teddy's real life.
Speaker 1: Every day I pinch myself that we actually made a
Speaker 1: tiny human being, and I look back all the time
Speaker 1: at the photos and videos of the very early days.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that he didn't exist and then he did.
Speaker 1: And I can't wait to re listen to the actual
Speaker 1: chat we had with Sophie from Australian Birth Stories where
Speaker 1: I just kind of word vomited it all out in
Speaker 1: real time. I'm so keen to hear what I felt,
Speaker 1: so I hope you guys enjoy it. If you have
Speaker 1: any questions for the next episode, feel free to shoot
Speaker 1: me an email or a DM. Nothing is off limits.
Speaker 1: You guys know I'm an open book and kind of
Speaker 1: love the gory questions, so please hit me up. Thank
Speaker 1: you again for embracing this new chapter with us and
Speaker 1: celebrating our little almost one year old.
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoy Do you want to take us
Speaker 3: through your journey to conceiving with Teddy? Because I know
Speaker 3: it wasn't a smooth road. Do you want to take
Speaker 3: us through that first time? I think I was in
Speaker 3: the middle of promoting my book and I sent you
Speaker 3: a copy of the book and you said so timely
Speaker 3: because I've just found out I'm pregnant. It was all secret, Squirrels.
Speaker 3: What was that time like? Had you been trying for
Speaker 3: a while before you fell pregnant the first time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had.
Speaker 1: We've got quite an interesting fertility journey in that I
Speaker 1: am adopted, so and I know you have adoption in
Speaker 1: your family as well. I was adopted from South Korea
Speaker 1: when I was five months old, and so don't really
Speaker 1: have much medical history, including fertility information. But then to
Speaker 1: add to that, my husband's mother was also adopted. She
Speaker 1: was a young Asian girl adopted into Equalcasian Australian family.
Speaker 1: So so random that we ended up together. There are
Speaker 1: so many things in our story that we kind of
Speaker 1: think made destiny all aline. So we had less of
Speaker 1: a picture I guess a family history than most people,
Speaker 1: and did actually start a little bit earlier than we
Speaker 1: ended up, kind of trying properly. We started trying before COVID.
Speaker 1: We got married in twenty nineteen, and then my father
Speaker 1: in law got quite unwell in Tasmania, and then COVID happened,
Speaker 1: so we paused for a little while and then really
Speaker 1: gave it a go at the end of I think
Speaker 1: it was two thousand and twenty two, and we went
Speaker 1: straight ahead and did all the tests that a lot
Speaker 1: of people wouldn't probably do until six months or twelve
Speaker 1: months into trying, just to because we didn't have that
Speaker 1: picture of any medical history, had no kind of red
Speaker 1: flags come up, and I think we felt pregnant within
Speaker 1: three months, so that was quite surprising.
Speaker 2: I was already by.
Speaker 1: Then kind of in my early thirties, and I just
Speaker 1: had no idea whether I'd be able to, and also
Speaker 1: adoption had always been so present in my mind that
Speaker 1: it wasn't I kind of didn't have all my eggs
Speaker 1: in this basket of natural conception. So we were just
Speaker 1: trying and seeing what happened. Happened very early, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I had you on the podcast and I think it
Speaker 1: was like seven weeks or something at that point, so
Speaker 1: it was so early, but I just was like, so
Speaker 1: of all people, who's going to understand and know.
Speaker 2: That it's a secret, but get excited with me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we had conceived, so that was really exciting.
Speaker 1: And we ended up having a viability scan and I
Speaker 1: can't even remember the order it happened in now this
Speaker 1: is March last year, and we never actually got a heartbeat,
Speaker 1: so I think the six week scan we didn't have
Speaker 1: a heartbeat, and they sort of said, you know, this
Speaker 1: isn't enormously uncommon. You know, it's still possible that you
Speaker 1: could have a viable pregnancy, but the statistics have change
Speaker 1: now that you've made it to six weeks without one.
Speaker 1: And then we went back a week later, we still
Speaker 1: didn't have a heartbeat, and they sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: we got let down in very gentle stages that Okay,
Speaker 1: by now you really should have that marker. It's sort
Speaker 1: of gone from you know, fifty to fifty to eighty
Speaker 1: twenty of a missed miscarriage. Wait another week and we'll
Speaker 1: do another scan and that will really confirm it.
Speaker 2: And then you'll know what your options are.
Speaker 1: And I think because we never had that confirmation of
Speaker 1: a positive heartbeat, we did celebrate, but we didn't have
Speaker 1: that full safe zone of really, you know, trusting that
Speaker 1: the pregnancy would go ahead. So it made it a
Speaker 1: lot easier that it was quite early and that that
Speaker 1: was the way we found out. Still a shock and devastating,
Speaker 1: but easier then I guess if we had had that
Speaker 1: heartbeat at the first scan.
Speaker 3: It's such a drawn out process, and I think I've
Speaker 3: sort of witnessed it with girlfriends and things that it's
Speaker 3: not just a clear cut There's a lot of blood
Speaker 3: tests and a lot of retesting and kind of a
Speaker 3: few weeks often where you kind of are trying to
Speaker 3: get your hopes up to protect your heart and that
Speaker 3: sort of dance that you often do kind of isolated.
Speaker 3: Did you share with many friends and family during that time.
Speaker 1: No, it's so accurate what you said. It's you're so
Speaker 1: confused about where you sit in the pregnancy spectrum, like
Speaker 1: is this actually going to go ahead?
Speaker 2: Is it not?
Speaker 1: And then how do I feel about it? And it's
Speaker 1: such a blur and it's almost so raw as it's happening,
Speaker 1: you're not really sure how you feel about it, so
Speaker 1: you don't I didn't personally feel like I could share
Speaker 1: because I didn't really know what I would share, Like
Speaker 1: I sort of, I often wait in difficult situations, and
Speaker 1: I tend to do this generally, but I found during
Speaker 1: pregnancy I've done it even more until I'm more certain
Speaker 1: of the outcome and more certain of how I react
Speaker 1: to that set of circumstances. I don't share it with
Speaker 1: anyone because I'm just like, well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: share prematurely, because what if I I'm not, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I actually feel or how to
Speaker 1: even articulate what's going on. So I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 1: I think we told our parents because we'd already told
Speaker 1: them when we first we very very early, had told
Speaker 1: them when we first got a positive pregnancy test. So
Speaker 1: we then go and tell them that it had gone ahead,
Speaker 1: and I kept it quiet until months and months later,
Speaker 1: because much longer than I thought to even be able
Speaker 1: to articulate what my response was how we felt about
Speaker 1: trying again.
Speaker 2: Then you open the doors.
Speaker 1: To questions of well, how are you going now, and
Speaker 1: it adds a time pressure that you don't have if
Speaker 1: you haven't already shared that you've kind of started and
Speaker 1: had a false start and you're trying again. So we
Speaker 1: did keep it really quiet and just knuckled down, and
Speaker 1: I found the distraction of work and being treated as
Speaker 1: if everything was normal actually really helpful. That there was
Speaker 1: a place I could go where it wasn't all about fertility,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't waiting for a blood test, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't waiting to just miscarry naturally or wait and see
Speaker 1: what my body did. But all the while I still
Speaker 1: had symptoms. So I had about a month where I
Speaker 1: knew that I probably wasn't going to carry the pregnancy ahead,
Speaker 1: but my body hadn't miscarried naturally, so I just kept
Speaker 1: having nausea and saw boobs and all the things, but
Speaker 1: without the joy that kind of makes it all worth it.
Speaker 1: And I think it was one of the hardest, hardest
Speaker 1: months of my life. Just that waiting time was agonizingly slow,
Speaker 1: and I just I think I was the busiest I've
Speaker 1: ever been trying to distract myself to get through those.
Speaker 1: Each seven day.
Speaker 2: Period felt like a year.
Speaker 3: We're sort of going out working, doing all the things
Speaker 3: and coming home and crying or you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think because my work is so based around
Speaker 1: joy and yay, I'd put this mask on and go
Speaker 1: to work, and at the time it was what I
Speaker 1: needed to be able.
Speaker 3: To distract yourself kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, completely together, joyful, and have everyone reacting to me
Speaker 1: as if life was normal. And then once I got
Speaker 1: behind closed doors, I sort of was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can let it all out now, but.
Speaker 2: It didn't consume all day.
Speaker 1: That way, rather than telling everyone and then being surrounded
Speaker 1: by it all the time, I find you do need
Speaker 1: to escape that world a little bit. So we got
Speaker 1: to week eight and they confirmed it was definitely a
Speaker 1: non viable pregnancy, and the options were just wait until
Speaker 1: your body naturally miscarries, but you'll keep having all the symptoms,
Speaker 1: or you can go in for a DNC surgery to
Speaker 1: kind of bring it about, you know, at a timed manner.
Speaker 1: And it's a full general anesthetic, and it's quite quite dramatic.
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Normally volunteer for a surgery unless I had to, and
Speaker 1: I would normally just let nature take its course. But
Speaker 1: by then I was beside myself. It had been four weeks,
Speaker 1: and the idea of waiting another day of experiencing pregnancy
Speaker 1: without knowing it was never going to go ahead, I
Speaker 1: just was like, get it out. I just want to
Speaker 1: kind of turn the clock to zero. Let my bodies
Speaker 1: every day. I wanted to feel like I was building
Speaker 1: back towards a cycle or I was building forward, but
Speaker 1: until the miscarriage happened, that wasn't the case. I just
Speaker 1: felt like I was just in this limbo. So I
Speaker 1: couldn't actually get in for another two weeks, and that
Speaker 1: felt like agony. I was like, I can't, I physically
Speaker 1: and mentally cannot do that. And I ended up go
Speaker 1: into emergency and just at Cabrini and just trying to
Speaker 1: find a doctor who would do it and see the
Speaker 1: kind of physical and mental cost of not doing it earlier.
Speaker 1: And I think it was yeah, by twenty four hours later,
Speaker 1: at about eight and a half or nine weeks had
Speaker 1: the DNC. I think I went home that night. It
Speaker 1: was just a day surgery, and it was International Women's
Speaker 1: Week the next day or two days later actually, and
Speaker 1: I did a gig every day.
Speaker 3: That's your busiest season.
Speaker 2: And it meant even more. I think because of what
Speaker 2: was going on.
Speaker 1: I had to change all my outfits because I had
Speaker 1: a surgery and I was bleeding, so I had a
Speaker 1: line skirts that weren't tied around my stomach and that
Speaker 1: could fit a massive pad. And like, I didn't tell anyone,
Speaker 1: but in my brain, I was like, women are warriors.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: It's so hard because even at eight weeks after going
Speaker 3: through that surgery, you're still going through a postpartum period
Speaker 3: where your body readjusting. You've got the hormonal shift and everything,
Speaker 3: and it's interesting. I don't know if you've had time.
Speaker 3: You probably haven't had time to reflect on that now,
Speaker 3: but having now been in a postpartum after a full
Speaker 3: term pregnancy and all of those things, probably wasn't as
Speaker 3: intense because I don't imagine milk would have come in
Speaker 3: at that point. But you've still got that hormonal shift
Speaker 3: and yet kind of if you're not openly sharing it,
Speaker 3: you can't go. I need three weeks to lie on
Speaker 3: the couch and everybody cook me meals. But it's kind
Speaker 3: of what you need.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And I think there's such a sense, especially the first
Speaker 1: time that something like miscarriage comes into your world. We
Speaker 1: had had a lot of friends who would experience them,
Speaker 1: but they often don't share until you share, and then
Speaker 1: it sort of all came out in the months after
Speaker 1: we did start talking to friends that I mean, more
Speaker 1: than sixty to seventy percent of the people we know
Speaker 1: who have children have had one and we didn't know.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of at that earlier time, before I
Speaker 1: knew how common it was, you do feel this weird
Speaker 1: sense of shame and failure, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: tell anyone that it didn't work and you couldn't do
Speaker 1: it or your body couldn't do it, because that's still
Speaker 1: the narrative that you're in at that stage. So there's
Speaker 1: that as well, I think going through your head that
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't want to need three weeks of
Speaker 1: rest because you know, like you just have this sense
Speaker 1: of I don't know your body just like not being
Speaker 1: good enough for that, not the game, but for the
Speaker 1: task at hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I suppose you touched on kind of having adoption.
Speaker 3: In both sides there was some unknown so then you think, oh,
Speaker 3: maybe this was what your mother, your biological mother went through.
Speaker 3: And I know your adoptive mother had challenges conceiving naturally
Speaker 3: as well. Was she a good person to talk to about.
Speaker 1: This or she was wonderful? She's my best friend and
Speaker 1: the most incredible support. But it actually helped that she
Speaker 1: had never gotten to the stage of a positive pregnancy test.
Speaker 1: So even getting that one step further and knowing my
Speaker 1: body could fall pregnant, she had done I think it
Speaker 1: was four rounds of IUI and then five rounds of IVF.
Speaker 1: And this was at the very very early stages. It
Speaker 1: was quite primitive compared to the hormones they got pumped
Speaker 1: within the eighties, Like, it was very hard on her body,
Speaker 1: and so I almost had her journey and challenges like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I've gotten a little bit further. And the statistics
Speaker 1: after a miscarriage of fertility, aren't you know, it's so
Speaker 1: common that you can still feel pregnant afterwards, that this
Speaker 1: isn't kind of the be all and end all. So
Speaker 1: it almost helped for her to talk me through it
Speaker 1: and say, well, at least you got this far. There's
Speaker 1: no reason why your body can't do it again. We
Speaker 1: had the placenter and the fetus tested to see if
Speaker 1: there was any medical reason why there was a miscarriage,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't. It was just at the point of fertilization.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the math doesn't math, or the science doesn't science,
Speaker 1: and that was really helpful to take that whole like
Speaker 1: what did I do wrong away and just realize sometimes.
Speaker 2: It just happens.
Speaker 1: And then obviously we conceived again pretty quickly, so it
Speaker 1: kind of it's weird. Sometimes you want it to feel
Speaker 1: as big as it is, and sometimes you want to
Speaker 1: minimize it, to make it like it's nothing, It's just
Speaker 1: a blip on the radar, and then you try again.
Speaker 1: It's weird how you have to psychologically wide your way
Speaker 1: through how you.
Speaker 2: Want to feel about it at different times.
Speaker 3: You did share it more openly with the media and
Speaker 3: sort of through your platforms, But I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: think of the time frame. Were you pregnant with Teddy
Speaker 3: when you shared that, or was that prior to conceiving him.
Speaker 1: No, So I originally wanted to wait until we did
Speaker 1: conceive again, and then I kind of got to We
Speaker 1: tried for three cycles when the opportunity came up to
Speaker 1: share it with Stellar Magazine, with an incredible team and
Speaker 1: a female led team who had actually both of them.
Speaker 1: Both of the women who were in charge of the
Speaker 1: piece had had miscarriages before. It felt like a very,
Speaker 1: very safe space. And then I realized at that time
Speaker 1: that all the stories I had heard of people who
Speaker 1: had had miscarriages had told me after they'd successfully conceived
Speaker 1: the next time, and in the moment that kind of
Speaker 1: not that it wasn't helpful. It was enormously helpful to
Speaker 1: normalize the experience and get support and know how common
Speaker 1: it is. But at the same time, they had that
Speaker 1: certainty of the happy ending, and so your emotions don't
Speaker 1: feel like as relatable as when you're still in that
Speaker 1: uncertainty and the throes of uncertainty that will I ever
Speaker 1: conceive again. So it just popped up in my mind
Speaker 1: that I often try and share the bloopers or the
Speaker 1: shitty bits before something has resolved, and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is a real opportunity to share while I don't have
Speaker 1: the guarantee that I will conceive because the emotions will
Speaker 1: be so different. If I'd waited until I was pregnant,
Speaker 1: I'd be telling the story with this relief that I
Speaker 1: don't have yet, and maybe another woman who had just
Speaker 1: experienced in miscarriage would feel more reassured by someone else
Speaker 1: sharing before they had that certainty, if ever, And it
Speaker 1: was enormously cathartic to do it before I knew if
Speaker 1: there was a happy ending or not. But again the
Speaker 1: weird timing of the universe. We ended up conceiving on
Speaker 1: the weekend that the article came out.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so.
Speaker 3: Weird, because there's often a long kind of gap between
Speaker 3: when you record and write and do a photo shoot
Speaker 3: to when it goes live. So in that introm wow,
Speaker 3: that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I'd done all that, I'd authentically spoken about
Speaker 1: it before I knew that we had conceived again, but
Speaker 1: then by the time and I still obviously didn't know
Speaker 1: until fourteen days after that, but it was just strange
Speaker 1: that I was like, that was the same weekend.
Speaker 2: That's so weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And yeah, if you're into that side of things,
Speaker 3: and I feel like there's often people who are yeah,
Speaker 3: who like just knew they were pregnant when they were
Speaker 3: and things, and they're not normally connected with the cosmos
Speaker 3: and all that, but it's like, yeah, yeah, interesting. You
Speaker 3: mentioned that you sought helped through Cabrini. Did you kind
Speaker 3: of was that where you were going to birth originally
Speaker 3: and did you plan to then go Okay, well I'm
Speaker 3: ready to go back there when the time comes with
Speaker 3: Teddy's pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we planned to go there. We knew the
Speaker 1: obstetration that we hadn't had the first appointment because we'd
Speaker 1: never had the viability scan show a heartbeat, we'd never
Speaker 1: actually been referred, but we'd chosen our ob We live
Speaker 1: really close to Kabrini and I've only been to hospital
Speaker 1: once before, but it was there, so it felt very
Speaker 1: safe and familiar. And then we always knew we'd go
Speaker 1: back there, and they were yet the team during the
Speaker 1: DNC after in the follow ups, they were absolutely incredible
Speaker 1: and then have continued to be so in this pregnancy
Speaker 1: as well. It's just we felt so cared for, which
Speaker 1: I know not all mothers experience during their pregnancy, and
Speaker 1: we've just had the most positive experience.
Speaker 3: What was it like doing a test then to find
Speaker 3: out you were pregnant again.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, so wild, so so I can't even
Speaker 1: describe it. One of the things that and I'm sure
Speaker 1: anyone who's experienced in miscarriage before will understand that feeling
Speaker 1: of ill, like pure elation, but it's tempered and almost
Speaker 1: the whole whole first trimester, and for some people, the
Speaker 1: entire pregnancy is colored a little bit by not trusting
Speaker 1: that it all stick or that you.
Speaker 2: Will make it.
Speaker 1: Like every week is sort of like you're holding your
Speaker 1: breath of oh my gosh, like, Okay, I've made it.
Speaker 1: It was a big milestone to get past where we
Speaker 1: got to last time, and then every week after that
Speaker 1: was sort of like a bonus week, but you almost don't.
Speaker 1: You want to celebrate that you've made it, but you're
Speaker 1: almost two guns. Tried to celebrate until quite far in
Speaker 1: because you know that you know you've lost a pregnancy before,
Speaker 1: and it's it was a very strange mix of emotions
Speaker 1: of just bliss and excitement and disbelief and then oh
Speaker 1: my god, anxiety and I don't want to wreck it
Speaker 1: this time and what could I do differently? And how
Speaker 1: do I know it's not going to go ahead? The anxiety,
Speaker 1: and again, you don't tell anyone until much well did
Speaker 1: I chose not to tell anyone till much later as
Speaker 1: a protection mechanism. So again, it's like I've never felt
Speaker 1: more like I'm living two lives then all of last year.
Speaker 3: Which is interesting from the way that you share in
Speaker 3: a workway, you do that the bloopers like this is
Speaker 3: me before and this is me after, when you're very
Speaker 3: open in that and then to not, like yet to
Speaker 3: have to hold back in that way must have been challenging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I've never done it before.
Speaker 1: I've never really held any kind of secret, Like I've
Speaker 1: never been on a reality TV show where I went
Speaker 1: away and then someone had to you know, Like there's
Speaker 1: never been.
Speaker 2: A big secret that I had to.
Speaker 1: Manage in the way I shared things. And so from
Speaker 1: January it was I'm pregnant, and then from March it
Speaker 1: was I had a miscarriage, and we kept that a
Speaker 1: secret until September, August or September, and then we felt
Speaker 1: pregnant in September, so then it was I'm pregnant from
Speaker 1: September until the time we told everyone, which we waited
Speaker 1: until eighteen weeks because I just didn't feel secure enough to.
Speaker 2: Share the news.
Speaker 1: So that was sort of like our whole year of
Speaker 1: living this like yeah fake, not fake, but like life
Speaker 1: for alongside but not telling anybody, And it felt so
Speaker 1: incongruous and really uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Was the flip side to that, It's also kind of
Speaker 3: nice having a secret just at home, the two of
Speaker 3: you knowing that you know. I mean, it seems like
Speaker 3: you guys, I don't know you intimately, but it seems
Speaker 3: like you guys are really really close. So I imagine having
Speaker 3: that secret at home was like also a nice thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really lovely, And it was almost like
Speaker 1: once I got momentum with it, like once we sort
Speaker 1: of made it past twelve weeks and had the NIP
Speaker 1: test and knew the gender and we'd chosen a name,
Speaker 1: and then we made it past like the next scan,
Speaker 1: and I sort of started to feel a bit more
Speaker 1: comfortable that, Okay, this is probably going to be a
Speaker 1: little baby that gets born and I can get excited
Speaker 1: about it. Then I was like, oh, how long can
Speaker 1: I wait without telling anyone? Like I didn't have a
Speaker 1: big bump at the start, so I was like, I
Speaker 1: wonder how long we can hold this in and just
Speaker 1: keep it in our little bubble.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I made it to eighteen and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I still haven't told anyone, like how do we do this?
Speaker 2: And it was it was really lovely.
Speaker 1: But then it got to the stage then it clicked
Speaker 1: over into Okay, part of my joy is expressing how
Speaker 1: I feel about things and sharing that emotion kind of
Speaker 1: how I share everything, and I felt any time after that,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm missing the joy of sharing
Speaker 1: it with my best friends or going to work and
Speaker 1: going to events with women and not sharing with other
Speaker 1: moms the joy, you know. I kind of was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I need to bounce this off someone. But it
Speaker 1: was interesting. I waited until I really felt deceptive not sharing,
Speaker 1: and that it took longer than I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Interesting, And did you travel during your pregnancy or was
Speaker 3: that prior to not?
Speaker 1: Really, we had done an extreme amount of travel for
Speaker 1: work in the sort of eighteen months to two years before,
Speaker 1: which was such a privilege and such a joy. And
Speaker 1: I knew that I wasn't pregnant at those times, so
Speaker 1: I took risks that I probably won't take again for
Speaker 1: quite a while. Like I went to Antarctica and did
Speaker 1: a lot of amazing trauvel. We went to Morocco in Egypt.
Speaker 1: I think that also helped feel really ready for the
Speaker 1: next chapter. So I kind of got it all out
Speaker 1: of my system, and we had a wedding actually in Greece,
Speaker 1: which is where we conceived. It's funny that once you
Speaker 1: stopped doing ovulation induction, stop timing everything, and just go
Speaker 1: and relax in a beautiful place.
Speaker 2: That was the cycle that we conceived.
Speaker 1: And then after we came home, I sort of was
Speaker 1: very paranoid in the first trimester about not upsetting the
Speaker 1: balance for my body at all.
Speaker 2: So I think I had.
Speaker 1: One long haul flight plan that I canceled. I just
Speaker 1: was I don't know, even though the OB and the
Speaker 1: GP were like, you can safely travel, I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to go away from routine and my little home bubble.
Speaker 1: And then I just didn't have anything booked after that.
Speaker 1: And then by then I'd sort of told everyone that
Speaker 1: we were pregnant, so I yeah, didn't move around. I
Speaker 1: really started nesting quite early, and we had bought a
Speaker 1: house and started renovating from I think week five maybe
Speaker 1: from the day I did the positive pregnancy test. We'd
Speaker 1: just gotten the keys, so the whole time we were renovating,
Speaker 1: we knew it was going to be our first family
Speaker 1: home and it was really special.
Speaker 3: You just touched on then your ovulation and doing did
Speaker 3: you want to touch on what you did was that
Speaker 3: post having the loss? Did you seek out some assistance
Speaker 3: from an IVF place or what was that journey?
Speaker 1: So we'd actually been seeing a fertility specialist from the
Speaker 1: first time that we started trying because of the adoption history.
Speaker 1: I thought we needed to go and consult someone to
Speaker 1: just get all the tests done just to get a
Speaker 1: picture of I did the AMH test, like did egg counts,
Speaker 1: we did nick sperm quality, we did everything.
Speaker 2: And so we just went back to them.
Speaker 1: They were sort of were really instrumental in helping us
Speaker 1: find the right doctor at Cabrini who we could try
Speaker 1: and get to do the DNC. So they'd been there
Speaker 1: for that whole journey, and then they said, as soon
Speaker 1: as you get your first cycle back, come back and
Speaker 1: we'll make a plan.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't so much about.
Speaker 1: That there were any problems because there hadn't been any
Speaker 1: kind of reports come back that there had been a
Speaker 1: reason for the miscarriage, But it was more that my
Speaker 1: cycles were still really long at the time, so we
Speaker 1: vaguely knew when I was ovulating, but it was we were
Speaker 1: just stabbing in the dark a little bit at either
Speaker 1: end of that window.
Speaker 2: And interesting enough yet literally figuratively and literally stabbing in
Speaker 2: the dark. It was a really fun time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they said, you know, we know that you really
Speaker 1: want to get pregnant as soon as possible, so let's
Speaker 1: get as much information as we can. But interestingly, my
Speaker 1: cycles went from fifty to sixty days. They'd been consistently
Speaker 1: that long for the whole year before, back to thirty
Speaker 1: day cycles like after a miscarriage.
Speaker 2: It was so interesting.
Speaker 1: My body just reset and went, oh, yeah, normal now, like,
Speaker 1: let's just go back to standard cycles. But we still
Speaker 1: did two cycles of ovulation induction to make sure that
Speaker 1: I was actually trying in the right window, and then
Speaker 1: the third cycle I was going to be overseas, so
Speaker 1: we stopped because I couldn't travel with the injections and
Speaker 1: keep them at the right temperature, and we felt pregnant
Speaker 1: that cycle.
Speaker 3: Wow, I'm just thinking, I know, throughout your journey you
Speaker 3: had kind of quite a good support system of different
Speaker 3: resources that you leant into. Were you referred to? Is
Speaker 3: it n nurtured birth Sarah nurtured Beth? Yeah? Did a
Speaker 3: friend recommend her? Or how did you come across her?
Speaker 1: So it's actually a wonderful story. I think you can
Speaker 1: tell by now. I'm like a big I have like
Speaker 1: quite a science brain, But then the other side of
Speaker 1: my brain is very trusting of the universe, and I
Speaker 1: think being adopted and lots of things in our story
Speaker 1: have made me know that the universe brings people into
Speaker 1: your life or makes things happen at a certain time,
Speaker 1: often for a reason. So one of the weird things
Speaker 1: about our adoption. This is such a tangent. But my
Speaker 1: younger brother is four years younger than me, also adopted
Speaker 1: from Korea from a different biological family, but he was
Speaker 1: born on the same day.
Speaker 2: Were born on the same day as each other. It's
Speaker 2: so wild.
Speaker 1: But Sarah came into our world through lots of different ways,
Speaker 1: and none of them were kind of through a referral.
Speaker 1: We just went to the same cafe, and then she
Speaker 1: happens to also work with the ob a couple of
Speaker 1: days a week, was filling in I think maybe on
Speaker 1: a maternity role. But with the OB who we had chosen,
Speaker 1: and then the person who referred me to the OB,
Speaker 1: it's his cafe Jed at Eden Espresso, shout out if
Speaker 1: he's listening. So that's the cafe that she had seen
Speaker 1: me at and we'd gone to all the time. And
Speaker 1: then we had also connected on social media through her
Speaker 1: having been the dueler for a couple of other people
Speaker 1: who are friends of mine. She just messaged me one
Speaker 1: day on Instagram and was like, I feel like I
Speaker 1: saw you, and I also think that you might be
Speaker 1: coming to my OB and I feel like you might
Speaker 1: also be really into supporting your body. And she knew
Speaker 1: that we'd had a loss, and she not only is
Speaker 1: a door herself, but has a clinic that has a
Speaker 1: lot of fertility services, so acupuncture, pregnancy massage, ostio for sciatica,
Speaker 1: and she's like, we'd really love to support you on
Speaker 1: your journey if you would like extra help, particularly this
Speaker 1: time around, anything extra.
Speaker 2: To give your body the support that it needs.
Speaker 1: And I just was like, oh my god, I know
Speaker 1: you from seventy five different ways and.
Speaker 2: You were sent to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And she works often as the door up with
Speaker 1: my OB. Like it was just so strange. And then
Speaker 1: the first appointment I had with the ob she was
Speaker 1: there that day. It was just it was just so weird.
Speaker 1: So it was through lots of different ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you had sort of jumping you ahead. But
Speaker 3: you had quite a busy kind of work schedule at
Speaker 3: the end, and I saw you kind of regularly going
Speaker 3: in and having messages and checking in and doing that.
Speaker 3: So did you kind of book that in as needed
Speaker 3: or did you kind of schedule every week, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do this, or did you play it by year.
Speaker 1: I think from the start of the third trimester we
Speaker 1: booked in something every at least one treatment to just
Speaker 1: keep the bot. I started having quite bad sciatica pretty early,
Speaker 1: and then as the work commitments became kind of crept
Speaker 1: further and further into the trimester, I didn't know i'd
Speaker 1: work as late and as intensely as I did. And
Speaker 1: I was so grateful that A I felt good enough,
Speaker 1: but b that people were still willing to have a
Speaker 1: very pregnant woman working. I know it wasn't always the
Speaker 1: case in the media, So the fact that there was
Speaker 1: work to do and I could still get involved in
Speaker 1: fashion week it was amazing. But as we got further
Speaker 1: in and I became less and less mobile and kind
Speaker 1: of needed more and more. So we started adding a
Speaker 1: few more sessions in here and there. And that's absolutely
Speaker 1: the reason why I could still be on my feet
Speaker 1: for a long time.
Speaker 2: Like the ousteo was just like whoa.
Speaker 1: Whoa, we need to fix this, unlock this. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that helped so much, so much.
Speaker 3: At what point in the pregnancy did the sciatica present,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: About twenty four weeks. It came on really intensely for
Speaker 1: about two weeks and I almost couldn't walk and he
Speaker 1: was just Teddy was just kind of sitting on a
Speaker 1: spot that really triggered the saiatic nerve and I thought,
Speaker 1: if it gets worse and worse every week, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to make it to forty, Like there's no way.
Speaker 1: If it's already this debilitating, I'm going to be in
Speaker 1: a walking frame. But then he moved up, as you know,
Speaker 1: as the uterus kind of moves up, he moved off
Speaker 1: that spot and then it just disappeared for quite a
Speaker 1: few weeks, and then it kind of came back around
Speaker 1: thirty two weeks and then stayed and a couple of
Speaker 1: people on social media were sort of like, oh, the
Speaker 1: answer really is just delivered the baby. I was like, oh, great,
Speaker 1: should there's no solution, it's just deal with it.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the challenges of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, literally had they.
Speaker 3: But there were some things that you were doing that
Speaker 3: were relieve giving you relief, and that Sarah was doing
Speaker 3: for you absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I think before I did get quiet because you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to do much in the first trimester, and
Speaker 1: then in the second and I felt really good. I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing anything supplementary. I wasn't kind of getting massages.
Speaker 1: I stopped getting doing anything for self care or physical
Speaker 1: maintenance other than walks and a bit of pilates because
Speaker 1: I was really gun shy from I think the first time,
Speaker 1: and then as I gradually eased back, I just was like,
Speaker 1: there's a spectrum of discomfort, and I sort of thought
Speaker 1: that I was sitting where it was inevitable and I
Speaker 1: just had to deal with it until I delivered. But
Speaker 1: I realized there's so much you can do to minimize it,
Speaker 1: Like you might not get to the third time.
Speaker 2: Mas is pretty uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: You're probably not going to feel nothing will really get
Speaker 1: you to not having a gigantic bump in the way
Speaker 1: of your sleep and everything you do. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot you can do to kind of make it less
Speaker 1: intrusive or less intense. And once I got onto that,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, well I haven't I've
Speaker 1: been doing this the whole time. There's so much you
Speaker 1: can do to support your body that you can't do
Speaker 1: on assisted either, Like a lot of the stretches your
Speaker 1: bumps in the way like you do need the ostrio
Speaker 1: would just move my body in ways as no way
Speaker 1: I could do by myself, and it was, yeah, incredible.
Speaker 3: At what point did they start talking about the positioning
Speaker 3: of Teddy and did you start to kind of be
Speaker 3: aware of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so think it wasn't until the third trimester that
Speaker 1: they really started to notice or even mention it. In scans,
Speaker 1: Like most of the time as a baby, they're kind
Speaker 1: of in the same shape and all the aftrasounds, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter because they move around so much.
Speaker 1: So sometimes I'd go in for a scan and he'd
Speaker 1: be upside down, and then sometimes he'd be lying on
Speaker 1: his back, and then he'd be left and right, And
Speaker 1: you didn't really take notice until sort of in the
Speaker 1: I think it was maybe a couple of weeks into
Speaker 1: the third trimester. They were like, oh, okay, he's in
Speaker 1: the same position every time, like he's sort of just
Speaker 1: lying on his back and having a great time, and
Speaker 1: his head's up pretty high and his feeded down really low.
Speaker 1: And I started to I think maybe around thirty five
Speaker 1: I started to get real really uncomfortable in the bladder,
Speaker 1: like I needed to pee all the way through the pregnancy,
Speaker 1: but it became like I really have a yeah, like
Speaker 1: a small capacity, and yeah, the ob and the team
Speaker 1: was sort of like, ah, his head's still not turning
Speaker 1: to sort of where we want it to be, but
Speaker 1: that's okay, We've still got quite a lot of time.
Speaker 1: A lot of babies turn right at the last minute.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of things you can do, so
Speaker 1: around thirty five weeks I started doing There's a site
Speaker 1: called Spinning Babies that has a lot of protocols of
Speaker 1: how you can help encourage your baby to turn, like
Speaker 1: swimming in water and doing handstands and then doing inversions.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like yoga posas you can do,
Speaker 1: or you can lean over the side of the couch
Speaker 1: and kind of do a headstand, and you can do
Speaker 1: mox sebustion, which is a traditional Chinese medicine incense that
Speaker 1: you hold against your little toe. It sounds so weird,
Speaker 1: but we did it.
Speaker 2: Try everything at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, like so much anecdotal evidence. Even the ob
Speaker 1: suggested it, and she's not particularly woo wo, So we
Speaker 1: were like, look, let's throw everything at this, and we
Speaker 1: did that every day for weeks. He still wasn't turning,
Speaker 1: and then I think we got to thirty seven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got to thirty seven weeks and he still had
Speaker 1: not turned around. And there's a procedure you can do
Speaker 1: called an ECV where you can manually turn the baby.
Speaker 1: That ob can like physically give you, like quite an
Speaker 1: intense massage and try and turn the baby. But by
Speaker 1: then Teddy had been tracking large and he had really
Speaker 1: stuck his feet down into the pelvis, so there was
Speaker 1: not really we'd kind of missed the boat to even
Speaker 1: try that procedure, which means that he was breach unless
Speaker 1: he spontaneously turned, which given how far down in the
Speaker 1: pelvis he was, was very unlikely. So at that point
Speaker 1: we considered the possibility of a cesarean because no one
Speaker 1: is going to give you the chance to birth naturally
Speaker 1: if he's still breach at the time of delivery. It's
Speaker 1: just I don't think there are any hospitals that would
Speaker 1: go ahead with a natural vaginal birth that.
Speaker 3: Way because of the footling reach presentation to me, because
Speaker 3: his feet were right.
Speaker 1: There, yeah, and because I was so far down. I
Speaker 1: think they were just like, it's firstly, it's very unlikely
Speaker 1: that he would have enough room to turn by now
Speaker 1: by himself. But even if he didn't, they wouldn't let
Speaker 1: a vaginal birth go ahead because it would just present
Speaker 1: in too many cases, it presents too many complications and
Speaker 1: then often you end up with this cesaien anyway. So
Speaker 1: they sort of were like, I think this is the
Speaker 1: timer we introduce the possibility that you'll probably have to
Speaker 1: book a cesarean. And I definitely had that moment of disappointment,
Speaker 1: knowing in advance that I might not be able to
Speaker 1: experience a natural labor, and I don't even I couldn't
Speaker 1: even articulate why. I was like, is it because there's stigma?
Speaker 1: Is it because I think that it's more womanly.
Speaker 2: To go through?
Speaker 1: Like I couldn't really explain why, but I just felt
Speaker 1: disappointed that I wouldn't be able to experience.
Speaker 2: And see if I could do it.
Speaker 1: I think that was part of it, Like I'd been
Speaker 1: up so up for the challenge and doing so much
Speaker 1: preparation and thought, oh is that, Like is that a
Speaker 1: cop out?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: And also you know everything you hear about bacteria in
Speaker 1: the vaginal canal and like all the congestion that they get,
Speaker 1: Like I was like, oh, no, is this just like
Speaker 1: not the right way for him to enter the world.
Speaker 2: And my ob was amazing.
Speaker 1: She was very much like, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you want a safe delivery of your baby, and no
Speaker 1: one has chosen the way that he has positioned except him.
Speaker 1: So he has done the math and he's worked out
Speaker 1: that he's not going to come in his head was
Speaker 1: really big as well. She was like, he's done the
Speaker 1: math that he's not going to make it out that whole,
Speaker 1: and so he's quite comfortable where he is and we
Speaker 1: just want him out safely and that's all anyone wants.
Speaker 1: So whatever, you know, this is just he's chosen and
Speaker 1: you just have to go with it. And it was
Speaker 1: a really good exercise in surrender of in preparation for
Speaker 1: labor where you have to surrender completely. Anyway, it was
Speaker 1: just a very good, gentle introduction to the idea that
Speaker 1: you have no control really and you just have to
Speaker 1: go with what your baby has decided is how he
Speaker 1: wants to enter this world. So we booked for thirty
Speaker 1: nine weeks, and I think they do that so that
Speaker 1: there's a less chance you'll go into labor before that.
Speaker 1: So they bring it forward a week and then said
Speaker 1: left it open that you know he might turn and
Speaker 1: if he does, amazing, we'll leave it and give you
Speaker 1: the chance to do a natural vaginal birth.
Speaker 2: But it's unlikely.
Speaker 1: So went home, had a couple of days of getting
Speaker 1: my head around it and kind of let go of
Speaker 1: the disappointment as well and just embrace, like, Okay, whatever
Speaker 1: happens happens, and I'm in the safest hands no matter what,
Speaker 1: and I will trust my bee. From the minute I
Speaker 1: met her, I was like, our risk thresholds are the same,
Speaker 1: and I just trust you'll make the decision that I
Speaker 1: will never not be happy with in the end. And
Speaker 1: then I had Sarah as the dueler, also informing kind
Speaker 1: of the process. And then the ostio Kadi was also
Speaker 1: a midwife at Cabrini, Like there were so many people,
Speaker 1: like a consult in the team who got me on
Speaker 1: board and yeah. So by then we changed to weekly appointments.
Speaker 1: We got to thirty eight weeks and this was the
Speaker 1: big appointment where we were going to go through what
Speaker 1: it meant. He was still breached, so we were going
Speaker 1: to go through the appointment and figure out what the
Speaker 1: plan was for the C section and what it would
Speaker 1: look like. And I had this list of questions and
Speaker 1: I got ready for what it.
Speaker 2: Was going to be. Like we drove to Cabrini.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a bra on, I didn't take my bag,
Speaker 1: I didn't take anything because I was like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: just going for half an hour and it's around the corner.
Speaker 1: I was quite large by this point. I'd done that
Speaker 1: sort of ten days straight of work on my feet.
Speaker 1: I was pretty uncomfortable. So he dropped me off at
Speaker 1: the lift so I wouldn't have to walk up the
Speaker 1: ramp and drove away to park the car and I
Speaker 1: ran after him, like waving, and he was like, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: And I was like, my water just broke everywhere.
Speaker 2: And my water broke at the hospital on thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Weeks on the dot, everyone had said, like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen like a dozen of the movies. Not a big
Speaker 1: gush of water, it's just a little leak. It was
Speaker 1: a massive gush for me, like it was all over me, did.
Speaker 2: You hear it? It just hurt. It went through the pad.
Speaker 1: My shorts were like a light colored linen drenched, like
Speaker 1: literally dripping everywhere. There was this big like from me
Speaker 1: running after Nick, there was like this big like look
Speaker 1: someone ever had a hose that was just following me
Speaker 1: and it kept going.
Speaker 2: So then I ran back to.
Speaker 1: Hide behind a car so that it could just keep
Speaker 1: coming out, and He's like, oh my god, Okay, oh
Speaker 1: my god. So he just like abandoned the car in
Speaker 1: the closest spot, which I don't even think was like
Speaker 1: a normal car park. And then we called Yeah, we
Speaker 1: called Danielle Mayo Bee and said we're on the way
Speaker 1: to you at your office, but should we just go
Speaker 1: straight to the birthings week because my waters are broken?
Speaker 1: And she said yes, I will meet you there.
Speaker 2: Oh wild.
Speaker 1: So I walked all the way through Caberini leaking, just
Speaker 1: like trying to hold it in, and was like.
Speaker 2: That's all right.
Speaker 3: I'm sure they've seen it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were like, I don't worry.
Speaker 1: You're not the first person who has bodily fluids coming out.
Speaker 1: And we went straight to the birth suite and I
Speaker 1: never went home.
Speaker 3: Wow. Was there a little bit of a sense of
Speaker 3: panic then or was it sort of controlled because they
Speaker 3: obviously didn't really want you to go into labor. They
Speaker 3: didn't want the contractions to really ramp up because they
Speaker 3: didn't want him to birth that way. Did you feel
Speaker 3: like rush, rush, rush then? Or were they like, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's fine, it's your waters And you hadn't probably had
Speaker 3: a contraction or a pain at that point, had you no?
Speaker 1: So I had no idea it was coming, Like I
Speaker 1: hadn't felt different sort of in the date, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't have any yes signs of contractions or pain or
Speaker 1: anything like that. So I was very unprepared. It was
Speaker 1: a big shock when it happened. We didn't even have
Speaker 1: the hospital bag in the car. We just weren't because
Speaker 1: we booked it. We had this date. We had the
Speaker 1: thirty nine weeks was the date it was coming. And
Speaker 1: the whole silver lining of cesarean was that you had
Speaker 1: the certainty of a date so I put every this
Speaker 1: date and ignored the fact that it could, of course
Speaker 1: happen earlier. But I had gone into labor and I
Speaker 1: had I had contract so I started to have contractions,
Speaker 1: but they weren't getting really close together that quickly, so
Speaker 1: they sort of knew we had a bit of time. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I had just eaten and you're supposed to fast as
Speaker 1: well before the surgery. So I think because of that
Speaker 1: and scheduling and getting the pediatrician in on time and
Speaker 1: getting the team together, I think they ended up deciding
Speaker 1: that I could wait five or six hours, So we
Speaker 1: scheduled it for five or six hours time, and in
Speaker 1: that time I got my head around it, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense.
Speaker 2: So I was extremely shocked, but.
Speaker 1: Then I had time to let it all. I didn't
Speaker 1: go straight into theater, which I think would have totally
Speaker 1: freaked me out. I had time to sort of realize
Speaker 1: I was in the birthing suite. But also what was
Speaker 1: really beautiful about it is I got to experience both
Speaker 1: without it being traumatic. And I think some people do
Speaker 1: get quite far into natural labor they tear and then
Speaker 1: they have to have a cesarian, and then it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, I got the shit bits of both.
Speaker 1: I kind of got the nice bits of both. I
Speaker 1: got to know what a contraction feels like. I got
Speaker 1: to know that also Teddy was getting the massage that
Speaker 1: a contraction gives to the baby. They wanted him to
Speaker 1: have a little bit of that if they weren't getting
Speaker 1: too close together, and that was really.
Speaker 2: Good for him and good for my body.
Speaker 1: And by the five hours they were getting a bit spicy,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, this is good. I know
Speaker 1: what this is like, and I know that my body
Speaker 1: did this naturally, so I know the date wasn't also artificial,
Speaker 1: like we let nature kind of do its thing, and
Speaker 1: he was ready to come out. Yeah, And then we
Speaker 1: went into theater and again the weirdest thing in this
Speaker 1: whole world universe thing. My mum had just been going
Speaker 1: through breast cancer treatment, which was very unexpected, and it
Speaker 1: happened in my third trimester and she was in one
Speaker 1: of her very last radiation.
Speaker 2: It all went as well as could be expected.
Speaker 1: She had surgery really quickly and they got most of it,
Speaker 1: caught it really early, and then she had to do
Speaker 1: fifteen days of radiation and I think it was like
Speaker 1: day fourteen she was very close to the end and
Speaker 1: we called her to say my waters had broken and
Speaker 1: she said, I'm also on level too at Kabrini.
Speaker 2: So she was in the hospital and said, I'm on
Speaker 2: the same level. I'm just in a different building. I'll
Speaker 2: come and meet you.
Speaker 1: And Rob said, I am also obviously, will go into
Speaker 1: an appointment with her. She said, I'm also here. I'm
Speaker 1: going on my wedding anniversary holiday at four am in
Speaker 1: the morning. So he got me just on time. And
Speaker 1: then the person who I had booked for recovery was
Speaker 1: Katie my Osteo, who is never on a Thursday night,
Speaker 1: and she happened to be the person who I went
Speaker 1: straight into recovery with. So it was just like Teddy knew.
Speaker 1: He's like, everyone's in the building. Yeah, let's just do
Speaker 1: it tonight.
Speaker 3: I'll just do it now, you're coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm ready. I just don't want to miss out
Speaker 2: on the fun.
Speaker 3: Did Nick grace home in between if he had those
Speaker 3: five hours, did he go home and get your stuff?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, So they told him like nothing is going
Speaker 1: to ramp up. They monitored me for an hour and
Speaker 1: they're like it's not going quickly enough to worry, go
Speaker 1: and get your stuff. I mean he's spared home. He
Speaker 1: was there and back too quickly to have been going
Speaker 1: under the speed limit, but yeah, he went and got everything,
Speaker 1: came back and mum was there as well, and they
Speaker 1: spent that sort of five hours with me. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then we went in and it sort of was so
Speaker 1: weird to know. I think the thing with the C
Speaker 1: section that was weird for me is they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll literally be out in ten minutes. I was like,
Speaker 1: what what, what do you Yeah, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of it's the prep for the anesthetic, but
Speaker 1: then once they kind of open you up, he just
Speaker 1: comes out.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I'm going to be a mom in
Speaker 2: like ten minutes. What do you mean? It was so weird?
Speaker 2: Did you call Sarah?
Speaker 3: Sarah wasn't just happened to be in the hallways as well?
Speaker 2: Did you call her? Imaginant? That would have just been weird. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I called her straight away and she came in, so
Speaker 1: she was there for that whole lead up as well,
Speaker 1: and then talking through ways and it was really beautiful.
Speaker 1: It was by then embrace the idea of a cesarean
Speaker 1: and that it could still be made as beautiful. It
Speaker 1: is still the moment you become a parent. It is
Speaker 1: still the first time you see your baby. I was
Speaker 1: still with the amazing team that I thought I would
Speaker 1: be with. There are ways to make it not feel
Speaker 1: like a kind of sterile, scheduled thing, and it obviously
Speaker 1: wasn't scheduled for me. It was still a surprise, So
Speaker 1: there was that element as well. And you know, Myobe's amazing.
Speaker 1: She always has rainbow scrubs or like under the CEA
Speaker 1: theme or something.
Speaker 2: And she walked in and.
Speaker 1: The first time she walked in, she had gum boots on,
Speaker 1: and she brought in this neon pink sign that said
Speaker 1: you are amazing, and just had that as the light,
Speaker 1: like turn off all the lights. This was in that
Speaker 1: five hours, so she was like, we're gonna make this amazing.
Speaker 1: It's going to be absolutely lovely. She took the sign
Speaker 1: with it. She borrowed it from another patient who had
Speaker 1: finished you can't just take this, and then she brought
Speaker 1: it from that room into the operating theater, so it
Speaker 1: was there and I think, you know, I do know
Speaker 1: women have come away from Cesarian's feeling disappointed. And I
Speaker 1: had enough time and enough amazing people that it didn't
Speaker 1: feel that way. It was still magical. It was still
Speaker 1: like I'm becoming a mum right now.
Speaker 3: M And I think the common thread all in all
Speaker 3: the research is having that continuity and having a support
Speaker 3: team which you'd handpicked and the universe had sent to
Speaker 3: you at the right time. But you had that so
Speaker 3: you didn't have to Everybody knew you, so they knew
Speaker 3: how to support you, and they knew you kind of
Speaker 3: wishes and what you guys would want. So, yeah, sounds
Speaker 3: so nice. Was he crying when he came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's such a sweet little boy.
Speaker 1: He's got such a lovely temperament, and that started from
Speaker 1: the start. So I was worried because he didn't really cry.
Speaker 1: He sort of just did one big cry. He just
Speaker 1: went ah, and like it was the first noise I heard,
Speaker 1: and I just remember I got goosebumps, Like I knew
Speaker 1: that it was coming, and I knew he was coming out,
Speaker 1: but just to hear the noise and independent noise that
Speaker 1: he was alive, it just I cut I still, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain it. But then he
Speaker 1: didn't keep crying, so then I sort of free out, like,
Speaker 1: why isn't he crying? But what had happened is I
Speaker 1: was contracting and they had to pull him out in
Speaker 1: between contractions, which had become quite strong by then, So
Speaker 1: instead of just opening me and pulling him out, they
Speaker 1: opened and then had to pull in between. So they
Speaker 1: pulled one leg and then apparently they pulled the other leg.
Speaker 1: Then they had to wait to pull his head out,
Speaker 1: and he did the little cry and then it pulled
Speaker 1: him back in.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so they were like, oh no, oh my god.
Speaker 1: So then when they got it, so they got him out,
Speaker 1: he did the one scream, he went back in, and
Speaker 1: then they got him out and were pulling quite hard.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I knew that you wouldn't feel pain. I didn't know
Speaker 1: you'd feel so much pulling, which was so weird, like
Speaker 1: my shoulders were moving around, and Nick was just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what's going on. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's so strange. We had the curtain down
Speaker 1: until they sort of pulled him out and put him
Speaker 1: on my chest, and it.
Speaker 2: Was so beautiful.
Speaker 1: His eyes are wide open, but he wasn't breathing very
Speaker 1: well and he was starting to go a little purple
Speaker 1: and wasn't crying, and I think it was because he'd
Speaker 1: had air, got used to the universe, and then went
Speaker 1: back in and then was like, oh my god, how
Speaker 1: do I breathe? So then they had to take him
Speaker 1: away to the like only to the sort of resuscitation table,
Speaker 1: put a little, tiny, little oxygen mask on him, but
Speaker 1: straight away he went pink. So he was getting air
Speaker 1: and I was getting live updates and they were reassuring
Speaker 1: me a lot like he's okay, and Nick had gone
Speaker 1: straight over with him, and then he came back pretty
Speaker 1: much five to ten minutes after that, so I got
Speaker 1: skinned to skin straight after that, and yeah, it was
Speaker 1: just I still can't believe it happened.
Speaker 2: It still seemed so surreal.
Speaker 1: And then you get that time with them on you
Speaker 1: while they stitch you back up because of course you've
Speaker 1: just undergone.
Speaker 2: Major adominal surgery.
Speaker 1: And then I had to go to recovery, which was
Speaker 1: one thing I was worried about at the time that
Speaker 1: I had to go for half an hour while they
Speaker 1: took all my vitals and they Teddy went.
Speaker 2: Somewhere else, which I was sort of like, I like no, but.
Speaker 1: Nick went with him and they had this incredible bonding
Speaker 1: time together where Nick had him like skinned to skin
Speaker 1: for that whole half an hour and he got weighed.
Speaker 1: They kind of put his first nappy on, Nick did
Speaker 1: his first nappy change. They sort of like, here, here's
Speaker 1: this newborn. And I've had a lot of experience with babies.
Speaker 2: Nick has had none, and he was just like, what
Speaker 2: do I do? But by the time I got back
Speaker 2: to the room, he just become a dad. Like in
Speaker 2: that half an hour. It was bizarre.
Speaker 1: It's almost like you fall in love with your partner
Speaker 1: again because you're like, that's what we made.
Speaker 3: And is it interesting? Because you're adopted, he's your first
Speaker 3: biological link that you are connected with and know, and
Speaker 3: he looks obviously very Asian and a lot like you.
Speaker 3: And I know Nick's got some Asian heritage as well,
Speaker 3: but was there something quite special about seeing that and
Speaker 3: seeing that he looked like you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it only hit me. I think halfway through the
Speaker 1: pregnancy that he would be my first blood relative, like
Speaker 1: I just forget. I think one of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: things about our adoption is we forget all the time,
Speaker 1: and even though we're very Asian looking at it, My
Speaker 1: mom's extremely Caucasian.
Speaker 3: It's just show not does that too about gluten intolerance,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you guys aren't biologically LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, yeah, I didn't eat pork so
Speaker 1: my whole life until I was in my late twenties
Speaker 1: because I thought I inherited it from my mom.
Speaker 2: Like it's beautiful, how easily how connected you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And interestingly, people when we're out and about, they
Speaker 1: always say, like you and your mum, like they know
Speaker 1: from our body language, or people assume that I'm half
Speaker 1: and my dad's Asian. It's really interesting how easily you
Speaker 1: can forget that, and how I'm always believe it's because
Speaker 1: of that that, you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people think blood is thicker than water, but I've just
Speaker 1: thought love is thicker than anything.
Speaker 2: Like that's kind of the bond that we have.
Speaker 1: But it did dawn on me a lot of things
Speaker 1: that were significant that have never been significant until pregnancy.
Speaker 1: For example, that from now until Tea being five months old,
Speaker 1: mom didn't see because she only got us at five
Speaker 1: months old, and so she's gone through the ultrasounds and
Speaker 1: the newborn phase, like everything is brand new for her.
Speaker 1: As well, which is so magical to watch her go
Speaker 1: through it. And then when he was born, it was
Speaker 1: like he looked like my brother weirdly, and we're not
Speaker 1: biologically related, but he had like his nose and I
Speaker 1: didn't see it sort of straight away because it was
Speaker 1: like a little squishy newborn.
Speaker 2: But by about a week he was doing some things
Speaker 2: that I was like, you look like me.
Speaker 1: And now more and more as his face develops, people
Speaker 1: are saying like, he really looks like you, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's so cool. I've just never seen my features reflecting
Speaker 1: in somebody and it's so beautiful and weird and magical.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Ah, And I mean primal always springs to mind,
Speaker 3: but it's just so kind of grounding birth and pregnancy
Speaker 3: and things, Isn't it just the kind of connection there.
Speaker 3: We were chatting before we hit record about breastfeeding. Did
Speaker 3: you do much preparation in your pregnancy? I mean, it
Speaker 3: seems like almost a silly thing to say, because you can.
Speaker 3: I obviously support and definitely recommend people do learn about
Speaker 3: breastfeeding in pregnancy, but it's so different to actually doing it.
Speaker 3: Did you do some It's.
Speaker 1: So funny breastfeeding, especially like definitely is the case that
Speaker 1: you can't prepare for any of it in theory, but
Speaker 1: the whole experience, I said to you before we started recording,
Speaker 1: I felt immediately like I had to apologize to every
Speaker 1: parent I've ever interacted with about parenthood or their children,
Speaker 1: or people I've gone to the hospital to visit while
Speaker 1: they're still in the hospital, or I've gone to someone's
Speaker 1: house and not taken food or tried to empty their dishwashot, like,
Speaker 1: I just have done things that are so useless in
Speaker 1: that time because you just cannot fathom. But then also
Speaker 1: everyone who has done it before. You just suddenly connect
Speaker 1: with these people on this new level that you've never
Speaker 1: had with them before.
Speaker 2: It's just so weird. It's like you've.
Speaker 1: Become another species or gone to another planet or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just bizarre. So yes, I had through Sarah, who is
Speaker 1: just such an amazing fountain of knowledge and has an
Speaker 1: incredible network. We had a lactation consultant come and do
Speaker 1: a session with us, so she introduced basically the whole
Speaker 1: landscape at once, which was amazing because I just sort
Speaker 1: of thought, you put them on your boob and it
Speaker 1: works or it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't, like either you can or you can't. And I
Speaker 2: was formula fed.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the things that helped me
Speaker 1: and Nick not be to cling you towards certain outcomes
Speaker 1: or to judgmental of ourselves or other people if you
Speaker 1: had a c section or a natural birth, or if
Speaker 1: you're formula fed or not. Is that with adoption, like
Speaker 1: you kind of you've already accepted, you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of most just different, yeah, different way pathway to parenthood.
Speaker 1: And then we had to be formula fed. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: we turned out fut well, a bit weird, but we
Speaker 1: turned out pretty okay. So I haven't been too wedded
Speaker 1: to making something work at the expense of our health
Speaker 1: or at the expense of our mental health. At the
Speaker 1: same time, I think you can set yourself up really well,
Speaker 1: and you have been such a pioneer in that that
Speaker 1: being informed is all that matters, because then at least
Speaker 1: you give something a good go and you're not trying
Speaker 1: the wrong thing or not giving yourself a good chance.
Speaker 1: So we learned all about latching, and also I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that even if you can breastfeed.
Speaker 2: It still hurts like a bitch. Nipples have to get
Speaker 2: used to it.
Speaker 1: Even if you're going to end up not feeling it
Speaker 1: and being totally at ease, there's just this adjustment period
Speaker 1: that is hell.
Speaker 2: Hell the pain.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever been through something so painful
Speaker 1: as my nipples in that first two weeks. And that
Speaker 1: was even with a really good latch and with all
Speaker 1: the education behind us and that cabreed it. Were there
Speaker 1: for five nights and we had breastfeeding consultants coming in
Speaker 1: every day, and I still was like cracked and bleeding
Speaker 1: and still having to put him on the boob every time.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I'm so glad that bit's done. But no
Speaker 2: one prepares you for how much you hear.
Speaker 3: And a good point though that you got that you're
Speaker 3: through it like it. You've kind of they've recovered.
Speaker 1: Yes, and people and I just turned a corner one
Speaker 1: day and I suddenly understood when everyone said, even if
Speaker 1: it's going well, you still just have to get through
Speaker 1: that bit, and even if you've had a child before,
Speaker 1: even on your second child and third child, you have
Speaker 1: to go through it again to get your skin used
Speaker 1: to it. So don't give up, don't push through to
Speaker 1: the point of killing yourself, which I know some women
Speaker 1: do because there is a lot of stigma around formula,
Speaker 1: and even with some of the breastfeeding consultants, there are
Speaker 1: some old school views that get very pushed on you,
Speaker 1: and I think women have made you feel incredibly bad
Speaker 1: if they can't breastfeed, which many can't, or if they
Speaker 1: need to supplement. I've been president of the Itty Bitty
Speaker 1: Titty Committee my whole life. I've never had boobs, so
Speaker 1: I had no faith that they could perform. And it's
Speaker 1: got nothing to do with size. It's got nothing to
Speaker 1: do really with you doing anything. It's not your fault.
Speaker 1: It's I do not deserve. I have never had boobs
Speaker 1: or been a boob representative. I do not deserve to
Speaker 1: breastfeed well.
Speaker 2: But for some.
Speaker 1: Reason, my milk came in really easily, even after a
Speaker 1: sea section. So don't be hard on yourself. And I
Speaker 1: think I know women who have pushed themselves beyond to
Speaker 1: try and make it work just because of the stigma
Speaker 1: attached to going to formula. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: don't give up too early because it's painful no matter what.
Speaker 1: So I kind of feel like that's a weird message
Speaker 1: to give people, But.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get through the first six weeks and then decide yeah.
Speaker 2: And people would say just hang in there.
Speaker 1: And I really remember at one point balling my eyes
Speaker 1: out and someone saying that for them it was at
Speaker 1: four weeks, and for me, I was two weeks in
Speaker 1: and I just thought, that's too long, Like two weeks,
Speaker 1: I need to hear that in two days I'll feel better.
Speaker 1: And I did end up in two days at least
Speaker 1: feeling incrementally better to see the light to keep going.
Speaker 1: But it just that felt like a million years. Had
Speaker 1: you set things up?
Speaker 3: I know you were reflecting on, oh God, I went
Speaker 3: to the hospital to see people and stuff. Had you
Speaker 3: set up expectations of how many people you wanted to
Speaker 3: come to the hospital or to home, or did you
Speaker 3: think we'll just see how we feel.
Speaker 1: We kind of have had and the same thing with work,
Speaker 1: we've kind of had to see how we feel approached
Speaker 1: to most things. But at the same time, because I
Speaker 1: know I'm really prone to getting over excited and also
Speaker 1: to having no clue before we went into it what
Speaker 1: it would be like, or what we would feel like,
Speaker 1: or what my recovery would be like with a C
Speaker 1: section as well, we gave ourselves a bubble and then
Speaker 1: allowed it to be flexible, if that made sense. So
Speaker 1: before pregnancy, I wasn't very good at setting up bubbles
Speaker 1: to protect myself, but I thought, because I just don't
Speaker 1: know what this is going to be like, we pretty
Speaker 1: much set up like six weeks of nothing, no appointments.
Speaker 1: Like Nick has work, but he works from home. He
Speaker 1: sort of set up no physical meetings or anything. I
Speaker 1: have no work commitments or nothing that I had to
Speaker 1: be ready for. And then we also set up like
Speaker 1: no booked visits before that time, so as soon as
Speaker 1: we felt ready, we could, but we didn't sort of
Speaker 1: say to anyone or set up the expectation come over
Speaker 1: on this week or And it worked really well that
Speaker 1: he arrived early because.
Speaker 2: We also did didn't tell anyone that.
Speaker 1: He had arrived until our second last night in the hospital,
Speaker 1: so we created an extra bubble of five days to
Speaker 1: just be in it together and be in the chaos
Speaker 1: and not want to be on my phone. Whereas I
Speaker 1: knew if I'd announced it, then we'd have messages from
Speaker 1: loved ones and I'd want to respond to share in
Speaker 1: the joy. So we just told our parents and our
Speaker 1: siblings and my aunties who were really close to when
Speaker 1: they came to the hospital, but then by the time
Speaker 1: we announced, no one could kind of come because we
Speaker 1: were leaving them day. And then when we got home,
Speaker 1: we didn't invite or encourage any visits until because I
Speaker 1: just did not feel like I could.
Speaker 2: I don't even remember that time, yep.
Speaker 1: And then once it started to feel like we could
Speaker 1: cope with that, we just had one every sort of
Speaker 1: like I think we started with one in the first
Speaker 1: week and then it was like five days until the
Speaker 1: next one because that was just like whoa, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm so tired. And now we've started to have you know,
Speaker 1: it won every two days and it's just a short one.
Speaker 1: And people have been so respectful. And most of our
Speaker 1: friends have had kids, so they also understand. They've all
Speaker 1: brought home cooked food, which I just cannot express my
Speaker 1: gratitude for our loved ones. They have been so in
Speaker 1: tune and so incredible. Some of them have even done
Speaker 1: the dishwasher, like and they all also know that your
Speaker 1: social battery runs out really quickly as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know to stay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's just been amazing.
Speaker 3: I just realized when we talked about food too. We've
Speaker 3: glossed over and we probably don't have time. I'm not sure,
Speaker 3: but we didn't talk about your gestational diabetes. But were
Speaker 3: you like just so excited to be able to eat again,
Speaker 3: like all the things you want to eat.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. I was so stoic about it when
Speaker 1: it happened, and I remember being and I've shared this
Speaker 1: a lot on socials with other women who have had
Speaker 1: their diagnosis. I remember being again, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stigma around it. People like, but you're fit and healthy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's not you didn't do this is
Speaker 1: not to do with that at all. It's just your
Speaker 1: hormones and your genetics, and you know you can't do
Speaker 1: anything about it. So there was that overcoming that, and
Speaker 1: then there was overcoming the fact that you're so exhausted
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable in your third trimester that the admin of
Speaker 1: having to learn a new thing was just so exhausting
Speaker 1: and you just you barely can figure out what to
Speaker 1: eat anyway, And I.
Speaker 2: Felt sick towards the end doing blood tests.
Speaker 1: Yeah, four times a day, I didn't ever need insulin,
Speaker 1: but that also meant I kind of had to be
Speaker 1: stricter with food, so I just was like, oh, another thing,
Speaker 1: and you're already tough. But in the end, I really
Speaker 1: saw the silver lining in how nourished I was. By
Speaker 1: the end, I felt really strong and healthy, whereas I'd
Speaker 1: been really leaning into I'm pregnant, I can just like
Speaker 1: eat whatever which you can, but I was getting especially
Speaker 1: lazy now that uber eats exists for pregnant women, So
Speaker 1: it was I felt really healthy going into birth. And
Speaker 1: I think you also adjust to it very quickly, so
Speaker 1: that testing became second nature. It wasn't a drainer or anything.
Speaker 1: It taught me a lot about energy management and nourishing
Speaker 1: yourself generally. But even with that, all that like positivity.
Speaker 2: The day that he was.
Speaker 1: Born and the next meal, they were like, well, the
Speaker 1: main impact is on him and he's out of you.
Speaker 1: So my first meal that was delivered was just normal
Speaker 1: food with bread.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, I can eat bread
Speaker 2: whenever I wanted. I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2: It was bliss. Oh my god. It was amazing just
Speaker 2: to not have to think before you eat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. And then you could like carver a load
Speaker 3: for your breastfeeding. How has your incision healed?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Really well, really well. I think one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things about and that I was worried about before the
Speaker 1: C section was that I knew in that first week,
Speaker 1: like I'm sure natural vaginal births you don't feel one
Speaker 1: hundred percent physically straight away either.
Speaker 2: But I was.
Speaker 1: Worried that you can't even sort of stand for the
Speaker 1: first day because you know, the drugs take like twenty
Speaker 1: four hours to wear off, and then you do have
Speaker 1: a huge incision where they've moved all your organs around.
Speaker 1: You are in quite a bit of pain for that
Speaker 1: first two weeks. Definitely the first week and you're a
Speaker 1: bit hesitant around your physical movements, but you're also trying
Speaker 1: to lift your baby and learn to change nappies and
Speaker 1: do everything one handed. And I don't really take panatoll
Speaker 1: very often, so I was sort of like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't really want to take too many meds.
Speaker 2: I just took a lot of them.
Speaker 1: I just did what I needed to get through and
Speaker 1: followed all the instructions.
Speaker 2: I use the compression.
Speaker 1: When they told me to wear the compression, I was
Speaker 1: horizontal as much as I could be. In between Nick
Speaker 1: was amazing. You really need to lean on your partner
Speaker 1: to do to minimize the times that you were getting
Speaker 1: up and down as much as you can. And we
Speaker 1: have stairs at home, so when I first got home,
Speaker 1: he would up and down, up and down, like unless
Speaker 1: I really needed to go down.
Speaker 2: We try and make sure I was not getting up
Speaker 2: too much.
Speaker 1: And it's nearly four weeks out and I almost can't
Speaker 1: feel it, which is quicker than I expected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it does feel very intrusive at the start.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you felt fine about physically touching and
Speaker 3: massaging the scar.
Speaker 1: Only in the last week I've had this like a
Speaker 1: second skin, like a really intense dressing on it, which
Speaker 1: I don't have to take off until the six week appointment.
Speaker 1: And it's so far it's lasted really well, so that's
Speaker 1: allowed it to just be protected. You can shower, you
Speaker 1: don't even have to think about it. It's waterproof. But
Speaker 1: it was very very tender until and I had quite
Speaker 1: a bit of swelling above it with all the just
Speaker 1: liquid that's going through your body. And then I actually
Speaker 1: had no water attention or puffiness during pregnancy and in
Speaker 1: the week immediately after, but once I got home, suddenly
Speaker 1: my lymphatic system just couldn't deal, and I got really
Speaker 1: puffy and needed to wear compression socks, and then the
Speaker 1: wound got really.
Speaker 2: Puffy and was still quite sore.
Speaker 1: But I would say around the three week mark it
Speaker 1: became I'm not avoiding it. I was avoiding it, like
Speaker 1: really actively avoiding that area. It wasn't as sore to
Speaker 1: move around, but to touch it was sore. And now
Speaker 1: I am using oil to sort of just gently massage
Speaker 1: the area and it does remove a lot of the
Speaker 1: swelling to kind of give it that massage, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure once the dressing comes off, I'll try and do
Speaker 1: a lot of scar management as well in that area.
Speaker 1: But it's been a lot quicker than I thought, and
Speaker 1: the swelling has gone down a lot with the massage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually just the body is amazing.
Speaker 3: And he is ridiculously cute. And I know I've got
Speaker 3: three of my own kids, but he's right up there
Speaker 3: and he's so cute. Do you find I know, Johnah
Speaker 3: and I are fighting with the first there's a little
Speaker 3: bit of like it's my tent to hold me?
Speaker 1: Now, do you have a little bit of my whole family?
Speaker 1: Like my mum comes over and she's like, I don't
Speaker 1: wonder why you shouldn't wake away you wake a sleeping baby,
Speaker 1: but can you wake him up? Because I really want
Speaker 1: to cuddle him, Like I don't want to interrupt your system,
Speaker 1: but I kind of do. We just love him so much,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I definitely I think we're all so biased.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm like, he's objectively really beautiful.
Speaker 2: He really is. He's a really cute baby.
Speaker 3: He's gifted and talented and all the things. So he's
Speaker 3: so advanced.
Speaker 1: He's definitely going in an accelerated program. He's next break,
Speaker 1: he's doing tummy time and he's holding his neck up.
Speaker 2: I did not expect that. I thought that'd be so wobbly.
Speaker 2: He's really strong.
Speaker 1: But I think also because he didn't go through the
Speaker 1: birth canw and we didn't need fourceeps or anything. He
Speaker 1: also was like quite formed from the start.
Speaker 3: Which was instant squished.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't squished, so I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: so pretty.
Speaker 1: How much did he way then three point one when
Speaker 1: he was born so not as heavy as we were expecting.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize the variance is about eighteen percent to
Speaker 1: an ultrasound, so we thought he was massive and his
Speaker 1: head was big, but he wasn't as big as we
Speaker 1: had been expecting. And then my milk took about three
Speaker 1: and a half to four days to come in, and
Speaker 1: I'd expressed a lot of colostrum in the weeks prior,
Speaker 1: so we had enough to keep in going for two
Speaker 1: and a half three days.
Speaker 2: The third day he.
Speaker 1: Didn't have enough and was starting to lose weight, and
Speaker 1: I think they're happy with ten percent, but he got
Speaker 1: into eleven percent, which was still okay, but they wanted
Speaker 1: to arrest the trend, so we ended up feeding him
Speaker 1: formula twice. And that was around the time where I
Speaker 1: sort of realized some people still really talk about it
Speaker 1: in quite a stigmatized way.
Speaker 2: They were like, oh, we.
Speaker 1: Don't want to give you the F word, and I
Speaker 1: was like, does it matter. He's hungry, And that just
Speaker 1: saw him through and helped him turn a corner. And
Speaker 1: then my milk could come in and I was expressing
Speaker 1: and he started putting weight back on, and I think
Speaker 1: he got back to his birth weight by about three weeks.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and now he's just gotten to the stage
Speaker 1: where the ones is that he started in that his
Speaker 1: feet wouldn't even reach the little feet pocket thing he's
Speaker 1: pushing at the end of.
Speaker 2: Them now, and I'm like, that's happening too fast.
Speaker 3: You'd be putting them away for the next one soon.
Speaker 3: I feel like we could talk all day, but I
Speaker 3: better let you get back to him because he's teeny tiny.
Speaker 3: But thank you so much. It was so lovely to
Speaker 3: hear your story.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I feel like
Speaker 2: there's so much else. I'm like, oh my god, there's
Speaker 2: so much I want to talk about.
Speaker 3: I have to get you back when you've had a
Speaker 3: bit more postpartum. You'll have to come back and tell
Speaker 3: us more about post fudom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. You know,
Speaker 1: your podcast and your book and community have been such
Speaker 1: a just safe space and has helped me feel so confident.
Speaker 1: And I really didn't go into it feeling much fear,
Speaker 1: and I think that's quite rare but also very very
Speaker 1: much attributed to your work. So I'm so grateful for
Speaker 1: everything you do.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if any of that made sense,
Speaker 1: And again, as I mentioned, I feel like I forgot
Speaker 1: to say so many things. There were so many other details,
Speaker 1: But I also completely run myself short of time and
Speaker 1: poor Sophie just got an ear bashing. I loved reliving it.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine ever emerging from this newborn bliss. So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when the next follow up episode will be,
Speaker 1: but I do promise it will come eventually. I have
Speaker 1: so much more to say with the life lessons and
Speaker 1: revelations coming thick and fast every single day. You've probably
Speaker 1: seen a few ted Talks which have now been renamed
Speaker 1: Teddy Talks on socials about things that I'm learning each day,
Speaker 1: but I somehow have lesson less time to actually articulate
Speaker 1: them for you. So TBC for now on the follow
Speaker 1: up episode, but I promise it will come. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and thank you so much again
Speaker 1: to Sophie for being such a wonderful and thorough host,
Speaker 1: not that I really gave her the chance to ask
Speaker 1: any questions. Apologies for chewing your ear off, soph and
Speaker 1: you guys, but I hope it was informative and interesting.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I hope you guys are having a
Speaker 1: wonderful week. It's been after having just recorded that the
Speaker 1: first four weeks were wonderful and very smooth, or smooth
Speaker 1: than at least I expected, even though they were chaotic.
Speaker 1: We've had this week a couple of nights of projectile vomits,
Speaker 1: of maternal and child health appointments, of five hours of
Speaker 1: unexplained crying. It's been a little bit messier, and that's
Speaker 1: all part of.
Speaker 2: The beautiful chaos. So you know that I love to
Speaker 2: share the bloops. There's a lot of bloops.
Speaker 1: They're just free flowing, and I'll keep sharing those of
Speaker 1: your way as well, so that you're getting all the
Speaker 1: side of the picture as usual. But yes, I hope
Speaker 1: you guys are having a wonderful week. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for sharing in our joy, and I hope you're
Speaker 1: all saving you're ya.