Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. I had a very
Speaker 1: interesting relationship with breastfeeding. UM, I was incredibly lucky. I
Speaker 1: had more milk than I could possibly have used. I
Speaker 1: actually had my milk ducts and my armpits all filled up,
Speaker 1: and I was I had like, you know, dinosaur eggs
Speaker 1: sized like glands Emily's face And for everyone listening, I
Speaker 1: have look, I have given Emily Rogers milk out to like,
Speaker 1: if we can say this, I've given Emily Rogers milk
Speaker 1: out to friends. That's how much she has. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Katie's Crib. I'm so excited about this
Speaker 1: episode of Katie's Grip, which is postpartum depression that comes
Speaker 1: around weening. I don't know why no one talks about this.
Speaker 1: I don't know why there's no warning signs. I don't
Speaker 1: know why it happens the way it does. But I
Speaker 1: have come across so many friends that whether they wean
Speaker 1: at six months, three months, one month, one year, one
Speaker 1: and a half years, whatever, they have a major hormonal
Speaker 1: drop off and it is postpartum depression. And yet we
Speaker 1: are not prepared for this area. So I have two
Speaker 1: friends on the podcast today, Dear dear, dear, dear personal
Speaker 1: friends of mine who also know each other because we
Speaker 1: were the same mommy and me class. And the first
Speaker 1: of this dynamic trio is Alison Acle. She is Shonda
Speaker 1: Land's Chief Content Officer of TV and film. Listen to
Speaker 1: that title. She joined Sean Lannon two thousand of their teams.
Speaker 1: She's developed a number of drama and comedy projects for ABC,
Speaker 1: including the series How To Get Away with the Murder
Speaker 1: Station nineteen. She is also the co executive producer for
Speaker 1: Bridgton and Inventing Anna. On a personal level, like Ruben, saying,
Speaker 1: she also had a postpartum depression while weaning. We've got
Speaker 1: Emily Rogers, who is a former corporate attorney turned stay
Speaker 1: at home mom of two highly opinionated, excellent, incredible girls,
Speaker 1: the older of which is in nursery school with my son.
Speaker 1: She has experienced postpartum depression after weaning with her older daughter, Evie.
Speaker 1: She is currently weaning her younger daughter, Audrey. She's originally
Speaker 1: from Vancouver, Canada, and she now lives in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: with her husband, daughters, and her cat. Welcome to Katie's crib. Oh,
Speaker 1: and Allison lives with her cat, right your okay, thank god? Okay,
Speaker 1: I was the cat is here. The cats are year
Speaker 1: my son. All he wants is a cat and a fish.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I think not, Yeah, that's not
Speaker 1: a good duo, right, That's what I tell him. But
Speaker 1: he doesn't really get it. He's just starting to understand that,
Speaker 1: like when he eats beef or that's like like he's
Speaker 1: asking weird questions. But anyway, let's get back to the
Speaker 1: point of this podcast, which is I want to focus
Speaker 1: on the period when you're breastfeeding and you're weaning off
Speaker 1: of breastfeeding. And this is, like I said quickly in
Speaker 1: the intro that for some reason, why the fucking hell
Speaker 1: is nobody talking about this? Uh. Post weaning depression, according
Speaker 1: to parents dot com, is a term used to describe
Speaker 1: depression that can occur after a woman stops breastfeeding. Via
Speaker 1: very Well Family dot com. Post weaning depression may occur
Speaker 1: concurrently with postpartum depression, but it's a distinct experience. Most importantly,
Speaker 1: post weaning depression is linked in time with the ending
Speaker 1: of breastfeeding, whereas postpartum depression is linked with the birthing
Speaker 1: of a baby. Okay, I'm going to shut up now, Allison.
Speaker 1: Let's start with you. Yes, you breastfed your glorious son.
Speaker 1: And when did you know? Baby? He is the greatest
Speaker 1: king of all babies. I love him so much. When
Speaker 1: did you know that it was time to wean? Well?
Speaker 1: I don't think I did. I think this is why
Speaker 1: this whole thing snuck up on me. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that it's it's called kind of post or weaning related
Speaker 1: depression because it didn't manifest for me in any of
Speaker 1: the ways that I classically understood what depression would look like.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I was missing the signs. Shall
Speaker 1: we say? For me? It was a raging dose of
Speaker 1: anxiety is the best way, like a paralyzing dose of anxiety.
Speaker 1: And what had happened was I'll take it. He's so
Speaker 1: Walt is his name. He's a little bit Chris Farley,
Speaker 1: a little bit Philip Seymour Hoffman. He's a giant baby.
Speaker 1: Only the Chief Shanda Land Content Officer would nail her
Speaker 1: son like you have described your son is to pitch
Speaker 1: like I'm like that, Oh my gosh, you've nailed it. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so Walt is he's a big dude. He's not like, uh,
Speaker 1: a little little big no. And look he was a
Speaker 1: little baby was born. There was a lot of drama
Speaker 1: in the hospital of like he wasn't eating, and we
Speaker 1: get that's a whole another side note of it. But
Speaker 1: I was very lucky he took to breastfeeding, but it
Speaker 1: was never enough for the sensatiable beast of a baby,
Speaker 1: so you always we were always supplementing with formula, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't odd. Around two and a half months,
Speaker 1: I started tiptoeing back into the Shawna Land waters that
Speaker 1: I'd missed so dearly, and Walt started doing some very
Speaker 1: part time daycare and over the next two and a
Speaker 1: half months take him to about age five months. I
Speaker 1: thought I was just gonna be able to you know,
Speaker 1: we're work from home. It's a pandemic to I'll we're
Speaker 1: just start you know. I got vaccines while I was breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is great. All I want
Speaker 1: is for my son to have all the vaccines because
Speaker 1: I thought that that's what the science was communicating and
Speaker 1: this is hugely important. I'm going to do this as
Speaker 1: long as I can, and I can pump from home,
Speaker 1: but then I forgot that the other side of work
Speaker 1: from home and COVID is eighteen meetings back to back, right,
Speaker 1: So I was not pumping as much as I should.
Speaker 1: And essentially, I think a little bit of like back
Speaker 1: to work stress or pumping kind of scheduling issues turned
Speaker 1: into my body starting to wean itself. So this is
Speaker 1: a little different than I think, Like, well, my kids, one,
Speaker 1: this feels about the right time. It was like my
Speaker 1: body was cutting back. I was down to like at
Speaker 1: best and making making like two to four ounces a day, right,
Speaker 1: and I had a little bit of a stockpile, but
Speaker 1: it was and I'm just hanging on for dear life.
Speaker 1: So i am just nothing's coming out. But I'm like pumping,
Speaker 1: I'm doing the tease, I'm taking the pills and doing
Speaker 1: the whole all the lactation help. Right. Oh, this like
Speaker 1: breaks my heart. I'm only interjecting because I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of friends whose bodies just slowly
Speaker 1: stopped either slowly stopped producing or just fully stopped producing.
Speaker 1: And it was so terrifying. All of those feelings we
Speaker 1: talk about feeling like I'm failing. I can't. And I
Speaker 1: think there's so much triggering for motherhood around the ability
Speaker 1: to feed or not feed your baby and how much
Speaker 1: or how little, and you use that to like directly
Speaker 1: associate with your value and how well you're doing. And
Speaker 1: I think in Allison's case, probably when you were back
Speaker 1: to work, like you felt like, well, I can at
Speaker 1: least give him this, And now that's like falling off.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh my god, I can't even imagine in
Speaker 1: the vaccine again, I'm thinking, I'm I'm thinking I'm shielding
Speaker 1: him from COVID, right, like, Okay, this is this is
Speaker 1: like the mission here, right, So he's got it in
Speaker 1: my head, no science to support it. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: if he gets a little bit every day, it's like
Speaker 1: a little bit of a vaccine whatever I was telling myself.
Speaker 1: And look, we're in the middle as we record this,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of this like gigantic, terrifying formula
Speaker 1: short of and I can't talk about triggering and paralyzing.
Speaker 1: I read those that news now and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I would have done. You know, seven
Speaker 1: months ago, I have goose bumps all over my body.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's awful, and I feel like kind
Speaker 1: of no one cares. But that's a side note. But
Speaker 1: but like people are not giving it its due of
Speaker 1: how insane this is. But that's what that's what happened
Speaker 1: with me, was like my body was just like we've
Speaker 1: reached the end of a journey. I just wasn't ready
Speaker 1: to let go, not even for anything truly, just this
Speaker 1: kind of very utilitarian thing where I thought I was
Speaker 1: still giving him COVID vaccine vietname, which is so weird.
Speaker 1: I know, no it's not, it's really it's really important,
Speaker 1: and it was really I I felt that way for sure.
Speaker 1: I felt that way totally about my breast milk and
Speaker 1: getting vaccinated and feeling like I was doing my part
Speaker 1: in this pandemic to try to protect my unvaccinated baby.
Speaker 1: Like that was definitely a huge, a huge, huge thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: when did you start to realize that you were maybe
Speaker 1: having disproportionate anxiety, that this wasn't um you were feeling
Speaker 1: not your usual self, even though I mean, how could
Speaker 1: you he had a baby five months earlier, but still right,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I'm not I was not my zesta
Speaker 1: usual self. For many reasons, but I think, look for me,
Speaker 1: I've always lived my life with a bit of an
Speaker 1: anxiety and worry. It's in producing. I think there's a
Speaker 1: certain amount of help of it that helps you. Right.
Speaker 1: I feel like Bill Hater. So many people have spoken
Speaker 1: to like how creatively anxiety can be a help, right. Yes,
Speaker 1: it had passed, allowing me to um, to put drive
Speaker 1: in my heart or allow me to anticipate problems. I
Speaker 1: think the day I will never forget was I was
Speaker 1: on our couch in the living room trying to compose
Speaker 1: an email about a note that was not easy to give,
Speaker 1: which in UM you know, working with writers, this is
Speaker 1: something you do all the time. Right that you figure
Speaker 1: it out, you move past it. And my husband just
Speaker 1: looked at me at one point t J and was like,
Speaker 1: you've been writing that email for four hours. And I
Speaker 1: realized I had been sat in the same spot, my
Speaker 1: knee vibrating on my laptop, trying to write the same
Speaker 1: unal for four hours. And I don't think I even
Speaker 1: understood what was happening. And it was him finally being
Speaker 1: like worried about it. I think maybe two and a
Speaker 1: half weeks prior to that, we had done our first
Speaker 1: trip with Walt to Palm Springs with one of my
Speaker 1: best friends and her husband and there two and a
Speaker 1: half year at the time, and I remember thinking it
Speaker 1: was one of the I hadn't like properly planned a
Speaker 1: place to pump um, so I, you know, we're all
Speaker 1: sharing this house and also kind of working from there,
Speaker 1: and I just all of a sudden remember this like
Speaker 1: strange feeling in my stomach of like I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I have much. This would be so much fun,
Speaker 1: and it is, but I have this like sort of
Speaker 1: damocles hanging over my head. I don't know what's wrong.
Speaker 1: Something is freaking me out. And it kind of cast
Speaker 1: Paul on the triple a little because I just I
Speaker 1: remember walk up kind of sunburned for the first time,
Speaker 1: and I maybe lost my mind. I was like, I've
Speaker 1: ruined him and he'll never work out her And it
Speaker 1: was such an outsized reaction and I could see it
Speaker 1: a little bit. But as the next two and a
Speaker 1: half weeks of my three week journey with this intense
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression, now that I understand it, I don't
Speaker 1: think I knew what was really coming and how bad
Speaker 1: it would get because eventually, Yeah, by the time t
Speaker 1: J caught me writing an email for four hours, I
Speaker 1: had slowly stopped eating and slowly stopped sleeping. And it
Speaker 1: was that was kind of like towards the end of
Speaker 1: like finally recognizing like I have to do something really
Speaker 1: drastic right now to like stop this and pull myself back.
Speaker 1: Did you remember, aside from having just very disproportionate reactions
Speaker 1: to like Walt having a really bad sunburn, or you
Speaker 1: not being able to really a function Maybe you're really tired,
Speaker 1: but like you were functioning at work and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden functioning is starting to be questionable. Do
Speaker 1: you have any examples of like thoughts you were having
Speaker 1: at the time. Oh my god, I'll never forget the
Speaker 1: thought I had, which is I had remembered filling out
Speaker 1: all of my pregnancy disability paperwork for when you file
Speaker 1: with the State of California for your maternity leave and
Speaker 1: all your benefits. You and I literally had this thought,
Speaker 1: which is so wild now, but I was like, I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna have to file for disability. I think
Speaker 1: I can't work ever again. Like it was that extreme
Speaker 1: where I was like, oh, I guess this is it, right,
Speaker 1: my brain is broken. And I think for you think
Speaker 1: that postpartum depression is going to look a certain way. Fuck,
Speaker 1: everyone I know thinks that they've broken, that they're broken,
Speaker 1: and they're going to be insta like everyone well yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. I was like, what else can I do?
Speaker 1: I suppose, but it and it was such an intense
Speaker 1: but I think that's the strange nature of this. It
Speaker 1: was such an intense but casual thing. The other thing
Speaker 1: that was happening is we were pulling out of Afghanistan. Um,
Speaker 1: the US was leaving Afghanistan, and if you remember, it
Speaker 1: was nothing but just intense footage at the airports of
Speaker 1: like people hating their kids to soldiers being like, get
Speaker 1: my baby at it. And I just remember that was
Speaker 1: the other part is like, no humans should be spending
Speaker 1: this much time scrolling through I don't know, Instagram reels
Speaker 1: not even cool enough for TikTok alice an eagle. But
Speaker 1: it was just like I think I sucked up my
Speaker 1: algorithm for life. For life. My algorithm now is like
Speaker 1: dead dark, get you a new name. We have to
Speaker 1: get you a new Instagram and start over. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: or be like how did I deal? With child asses
Speaker 1: like bump bump bump, bom bomp op where they like
Speaker 1: knock their heads in and I'm like their hands together.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how did I get on this algorithm? I
Speaker 1: think it's from the period I was waning, because I
Speaker 1: think once the anxiety was rolling, I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to and did. There'd be those very traite
Speaker 1: things of like your baby's only small for four years,
Speaker 1: and then a little of that flooding could comes flooding
Speaker 1: in of like the breastfeeding journeys ending for me, and
Speaker 1: that's a big milestone. So I think the weird thing
Speaker 1: about it was it would flip flop between intense and
Speaker 1: same thought. I earned nothing saying that's terrible word, and
Speaker 1: your fingering thought outsized reaction, right, it was like this intense,
Speaker 1: outsized reaction that came to my brain in a very
Speaker 1: casual manner, or it was sobbing for two hours at
Speaker 1: videos of soldiers handing children or of civilians in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: handing babies soldiers, and I'm like, this is not normal,
Speaker 1: this is not usually my vibe um. And you know,
Speaker 1: then there would be on top of that, like the
Speaker 1: panic of like and now I've wasted all this time
Speaker 1: that I need because my work brain is going so
Speaker 1: slowly that I have to now that's now that times
Speaker 1: God that I needed this like extra buffer. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of a compounding effect, is the best way I
Speaker 1: can think of it. My last question for you and
Speaker 1: then I need I want to hear Emily story two
Speaker 1: is I know you were not sleeping at all. Your
Speaker 1: anxiety was reaching so bad that I know you also
Speaker 1: started getting two and you weren't eating. I remember this
Speaker 1: because when we spoke, I was like, funk, we need
Speaker 1: to get to be secure. Word for it spoke when
Speaker 1: I called you sobbing on a FaceTime on your vacation,
Speaker 1: Poor Katie lows Man, just the absolute go to parent moment. Look,
Speaker 1: I have been on that I have been on your
Speaker 1: side of that place as well, where I have reached
Speaker 1: out and needed a FaceTime and some of the darkest
Speaker 1: ship I've ever seen. And I took one look at
Speaker 1: your face, which is that classic for people who are
Speaker 1: listening you, Um, you are not recognizable as the person
Speaker 1: I know. It's so fucked And but the other funked
Speaker 1: up thing is you know it will like being on
Speaker 1: the other side of it as I was when you
Speaker 1: called me. I was like, you will be okay, and
Speaker 1: you will get through it, and you will feel like
Speaker 1: yourself again and you will enjoy like it's all going
Speaker 1: to be okay. But that does not seem possible right now.
Speaker 1: Like that just does not a possibility right now. M
Speaker 1: What did you do with the is three weeks to
Speaker 1: kind of get through it? I mean I leaned on
Speaker 1: t J so much, um and and also, look, I'm
Speaker 1: lucky I work at a really supportive place with bosses
Speaker 1: who have not like they haven't seen this before, right,
Speaker 1: bosses who have had women I think, accustomed to being
Speaker 1: type A professionals dealing with different challenges that come in
Speaker 1: all shapes and sizes, with the idea of new motherhood. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's like Shonda Betsy, all of my colleagues, my team,
Speaker 1: Annie Marko Fwong, everyone was just like always there to
Speaker 1: help and probably could tell something was like a little off.
Speaker 1: I think I wound up realizing I'm masked better than
Speaker 1: I thought I had. Honestly, like, I think what was
Speaker 1: going on side my head was a lot worse than
Speaker 1: what was presenting. So there'd be a little moments where
Speaker 1: i'd let some pressure out where I would just say
Speaker 1: to Betsy be like, look, Betsy, I don't know if
Speaker 1: today's my best day. I think something's going on right
Speaker 1: just so it's like okay, I can get it out
Speaker 1: there for a moment. But I think there was just
Speaker 1: this like power. I remember one meeting with a writer
Speaker 1: of Zoom where I was I had a moment where
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm outside of my body, watching
Speaker 1: myself in this meeting. I'm not really here, but I
Speaker 1: think it's going okay with that feeling. I know that feeling.
Speaker 1: I know that feeling. Oh my god, We're like, oh interesting,
Speaker 1: Allison's having a meeting. Oh crazy. I remember having this.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was like, oh, I'm not functioning anymore.
Speaker 1: When I had UM, I had to do a voice
Speaker 1: one line pick up in Vivo and I I play
Speaker 1: I don't even remember the character's name, but I had
Speaker 1: a role that i'd done pre pandemic, pre baby, and
Speaker 1: they needed me to do one pickup line. And I
Speaker 1: sobbed to my friend Jackie saying, I don't think I
Speaker 1: can work for five minutes, Like I'm in big fat trouble.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can pretend for five minutes
Speaker 1: like nothing's going on, just to record one line that
Speaker 1: was like wow, what you got there or some ship
Speaker 1: like that, and I was like, I am never been
Speaker 1: so scared the cuff right now? Yeah, okay, that's that's
Speaker 1: you're the pro and that's why you're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: you get to like a non functioning place is really scary. Yes,
Speaker 1: But the thing that saved me was the after I
Speaker 1: faced time with you and you let me sob I
Speaker 1: knocked myself out with like a bend and drill right
Speaker 1: because I slept, took the baby, the baby shifts that night,
Speaker 1: and I never looked back to breastfeeding. It was over.
Speaker 1: It was done. I barely had anything left. I remembered
Speaker 1: your cabbage leaf advice from an earlier season one Kati's
Speaker 1: crib o g But it was over. I was done,
Speaker 1: And I remember it was the same weekend. I just
Speaker 1: like slept, and then we had a weekend and Walt
Speaker 1: started solids and I was like, goodbye breastfeeding, And by
Speaker 1: Sunday night, I was myself again. And it was the
Speaker 1: most bizarre experience and I feel very lucky that it
Speaker 1: wasn't that it wasn't a longer drawn out experience, but
Speaker 1: that was how instantaneous once I let go. And I
Speaker 1: get why people sometimes don't advocate for this, because everyone's like, no,
Speaker 1: we should breastfeed as long as again it's great, but like,
Speaker 1: I just had to let it go and it was done,
Speaker 1: it was over. I remember when we were face timing
Speaker 1: and you were at your one of your lowest bottoming
Speaker 1: out moments of and I was getting to you. I
Speaker 1: know we had been texting and stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: once you face time to me and you had been
Speaker 1: going through three weeks to four weeks of no sleep,
Speaker 1: anxiety attacks, not eating, stressing beyond all belief like, and
Speaker 1: I remember just being like in my head, oh god,
Speaker 1: I hope she just stops like it's not because at
Speaker 1: some point what I always found interesting too. And then Emily,
Speaker 1: I have to your story. But I always thought it
Speaker 1: was really interesting when someone was like, whenever you decide
Speaker 1: or your body decides that it's time, and and hopefully
Speaker 1: you don't have this kind of reaction, you get this
Speaker 1: opportunity where you have to find other ways to connect
Speaker 1: to your child. Um, because I personally realized that I
Speaker 1: spent so much time breastfeeding and sort of taking for
Speaker 1: granted like that's my time with the baby, but I'm
Speaker 1: really looking at my phone. Are you looking at Instagram
Speaker 1: reels or like answering emails and ship like that, And
Speaker 1: I'm not, And I'm just saying like, well, this is
Speaker 1: my time with the baby, but like, is it really
Speaker 1: And then I remember when I weaned. I'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's really important that I have other ways to calm him,
Speaker 1: because I also used breastfeeding as like my way to like,
Speaker 1: you know, make him feel comfort, make him feel this,
Speaker 1: make it feel that, and so it's just like an
Speaker 1: interesting thing for anyone listening, like it's I try to
Speaker 1: reframe it in my mind as like the opportunity to
Speaker 1: learn how to comfort and mother in like other ways. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I will remember that FaceTime, and I honestly let it
Speaker 1: be known, said I was so honored to be on
Speaker 1: the other side of that call, and I I truly was.
Speaker 1: I was so so so honored to be on the
Speaker 1: other side of that call. And I really in my
Speaker 1: heart was like, she needs sleep. Take whatever. Fucking Bena
Speaker 1: Jules an X ambience. If you got on hand, you're
Speaker 1: not taking care of the baby this weekend. Eat anything
Speaker 1: and everything, please God, but you have to sleep. Emily
Speaker 1: has to UM. Beautiful girls and very different. They're very different.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about that now. UM. And what's crazy about
Speaker 1: me and Emily's journey is that we were pregnant with
Speaker 1: both of our kids at the same time. It's just
Speaker 1: sucking awesome. So I want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: your experience with UM ev right now, because I know
Speaker 1: you're in the midst of it with Audrey. I'm curious
Speaker 1: how it's going because I'm still happening. But tell me
Speaker 1: about your breastfeeding journey with Evie and when you knew,
Speaker 1: similarly how we started with Alison, how you knew it
Speaker 1: was time to wean for you. I had a very
Speaker 1: interesting relationship breastfeeding UM. I was incredibly lucky. I had
Speaker 1: more milk than I could possibly have used. And and
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things that happened early on with
Speaker 1: breastfeeding was I actually had my milk ducks and my
Speaker 1: armpits all filled up, and I was I had like,
Speaker 1: you know, dinosaur eggs sized like glands. Emily's face and
Speaker 1: for everyone listening, I have love. I have given Emily
Speaker 1: Rogers milk out to Like if we can say this,
Speaker 1: I've given Emily Rodgers milk out to friends. That's how
Speaker 1: much she has. Anyone who I ever get a text
Speaker 1: from that's like I'm running low. I don't have or
Speaker 1: is surrogate or da da da da. I'm like, just
Speaker 1: call Emily. Just call Emily. She's feeding all of the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles area. Okay, but yeah, And so I had
Speaker 1: so much milk, But part of that was just my
Speaker 1: relationship with it was always very different, interesting because it
Speaker 1: had such an effect on my body. And I really
Speaker 1: wish that I had known about postpartum from weaning, because
Speaker 1: I was so clearly a candidate for it given how
Speaker 1: much milk I had. I was also an endometrios as patient.
Speaker 1: I mean I am an Endometrios's patient, and so my
Speaker 1: hormone levels have always been insane. My goal for breastfeeding
Speaker 1: Evy was I wanted to get to a year. That
Speaker 1: was that was what I was trying to go for.
Speaker 1: I obviously had the milk to do it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: hard to get to a year. And then once I
Speaker 1: got to a year, I said, you know what, I'm done,
Speaker 1: And I just didn't think about it, and I started
Speaker 1: dropping a feed a week because that's what some people
Speaker 1: tell you to do. You just go drop a feed
Speaker 1: a week. Now that I know about postpartum weaning, I
Speaker 1: should have taken a lot longer to do it. I
Speaker 1: should have let my body adjust over time to do it.
Speaker 1: And that was just what I should have done. I
Speaker 1: mean not to say that anybody else should have done that,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. And at the same time, there were
Speaker 1: all these things going on in our lives. Um My
Speaker 1: husband had just quit his corporate job to go out
Speaker 1: on his own, and Evie was I was. I didn't
Speaker 1: know this at the time, but being with her as
Speaker 1: a mother started feeling like a chore. I remember there
Speaker 1: was one day that she had somehow there's like a
Speaker 1: two part tuberculosis tests that they give kids at various stages,
Speaker 1: and she had somehow failed the first skin test, and
Speaker 1: I knew we hadn't done any traveling. We she did
Speaker 1: not have tuberculosis. But they said, we want to give
Speaker 1: her the blood test for tuberculosis. And I have this,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a one year old and they're
Speaker 1: telling me I need to do a blood draw and
Speaker 1: they were going to send me to a quest lab,
Speaker 1: like just some random quest lab. And I said, absolutely not,
Speaker 1: I will go to the children's hospital and see no
Speaker 1: lab where they you know, dropped. And I pitched a
Speaker 1: fit in my pediatrician's office. And that afternoon, somehow, my well,
Speaker 1: after I took my daughter to get her blood draw, crying, crying, crying,
Speaker 1: you know, this one year old. And I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: my car after and I'm crying, and I don't remember why.
Speaker 1: I somehow got a call from my doctor, my regular
Speaker 1: doctor that day. She must have been following up with
Speaker 1: the test or something. And I just burst into tears
Speaker 1: on the phone, you know, in the car with Evie
Speaker 1: crying in the backseat, and and and I was telling
Speaker 1: her all of the stuff that was going on, and
Speaker 1: she said, you know what, honey, I think you've got
Speaker 1: to crush it. And I'm really really lucky that I
Speaker 1: had a primary care physician who could just point that
Speaker 1: out to me so easily and with such care and such,
Speaker 1: you know, just really understood who I was, what I
Speaker 1: what I should have been like, and how I should
Speaker 1: have handled all of these things. My husband likes to say,
Speaker 1: I'm the best in a crisis, and so when all
Speaker 1: of these things were happening to us and I wasn't
Speaker 1: handling it well. I mean, my doctor knew that, and
Speaker 1: she just said, you know what, like something's wrong, it's
Speaker 1: not crazy insane, like I wasn't having crippling anxiety. I
Speaker 1: wasn't having any of those things. It was so subtle,
Speaker 1: but they figured it out. And my doctor was just
Speaker 1: just said, I'm going to put you on a low
Speaker 1: dose of Lexa pro. Let's see how it goes. And
Speaker 1: I went on it. And a few weeks later, um
Speaker 1: a dear friend of a mutual friend of ours, Mary O'Malley,
Speaker 1: who's been on your podcast. I told Mary what was
Speaker 1: going on in my life, and she said, I think
Speaker 1: it's great that your doctor puts you on the US,
Speaker 1: but let's get you some professional women's health like psychiatry.
Speaker 1: And she put me in touch with her psychiatrist and
Speaker 1: he I've been in treatment with him ever since. I've
Speaker 1: never stopped. And he, I mean, he he changed my life.
Speaker 1: He really did. And like I said, I didn't have
Speaker 1: any of that crippling stuff, but you know, he he
Speaker 1: got me on the right dosage afterwards, we you know,
Speaker 1: and and he just he just really helped me figure
Speaker 1: it out. And then it was the hindsight part of it,
Speaker 1: and it's it's so frustrating that it took me getting
Speaker 1: on medication to realize what was going on with me.
Speaker 1: But I was looking back on things and thinking, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I missed out on having fun with my
Speaker 1: daughter for a while. I mean it was I don't
Speaker 1: think I ever in my head thought of her as
Speaker 1: a chore. But I realized after I came out of
Speaker 1: that fog or whatever it was, that I I could
Speaker 1: see that that's how I had been feeling. And then
Speaker 1: I just started experiencing joy again being a mom. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Did you have any postpartum depression right after the birth
Speaker 1: or postpartum anxiety? Did you have that? See, that's the
Speaker 1: fucking crazy ship. It's like we hopefully we're doing our
Speaker 1: due diligence of like preparing people to look at it
Speaker 1: in that first six week window, you know, but you're see,
Speaker 1: I know people who they've gotten postpartum depression around the
Speaker 1: time they've weaned, and that can be six months later
Speaker 1: in Emily's cases, a year later. And you didn't have
Speaker 1: it at all when you brought Evie home. From the hospital. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And interestingly, I had been so prepared to have postpartum
Speaker 1: depression from the birth, and we had you know, we
Speaker 1: had people lined up to talk to you. I had
Speaker 1: taken numbers from people. My Husben was, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of told this is the things you need to look
Speaker 1: out for. And I was cognizant of all that because
Speaker 1: of my end though, and recognizing that I had all
Speaker 1: of these hormonal things but never applied it to weaning.
Speaker 1: And also I had somewhat of a traumatic birth. I
Speaker 1: I broke my tailbone um in delivery. And so when
Speaker 1: I had gone through all of that without experiencing postpartum depression,
Speaker 1: in part because my husband, like he, like I said,
Speaker 1: he says, I'm really good in a crisis, and so
Speaker 1: I got when I got through all of that and
Speaker 1: after having you know, broken my tailbone and breastfed through
Speaker 1: it and all of that, and I was fine. I
Speaker 1: it did not occur to me at all that I
Speaker 1: could possibly have postpartum at any point. It's so funny
Speaker 1: you say that, because honestly, like that is I think
Speaker 1: that is the thing that stuck up on me too,
Speaker 1: is that you have all of the meetings and all
Speaker 1: of the pamphlets. And I did have a therapist through
Speaker 1: my winning experience. I should have shouted that out too.
Speaker 1: Oh that's yeah. I mean I wasn't in therapy. It
Speaker 1: wasn't any of that. But never occurred to me that
Speaker 1: it could happen with weaning, especially given the experience that
Speaker 1: I had had. You know, it was just if I
Speaker 1: was going to have depression, I was going to have
Speaker 1: it after breaking my tailbone having a baby. Literally like
Speaker 1: the baby, that can happen. But yeah, we should do
Speaker 1: a whole another thing. They don't talk about another thing.
Speaker 1: My god. I mean, I just think and what's crazy
Speaker 1: for me? Um. In my personal experience weaning Albe, I
Speaker 1: had the similar thing to Emily. I mean, I felt,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting having a second baby because I just
Speaker 1: I've I'm doing it so differently this time around, just
Speaker 1: mothering in genter in general, where I'm having this conversation
Speaker 1: with you. And when I was breastfeeding Albey, I was
Speaker 1: so stressed all the time about how much, how little,
Speaker 1: how many bottles. I can remember when he was coming
Speaker 1: up on a year, I was out of my stock.
Speaker 1: I was on Broadway. I was pumping every intermission I
Speaker 1: was exhausted, um, my supply was heavily diminishing. Um, and
Speaker 1: I was confused thinking I had to get him to
Speaker 1: a certain point before I made him to cow's milk
Speaker 1: and he had to have bottles. And it was so
Speaker 1: fucking stressful and I was so miserable and measuring everything.
Speaker 1: And I just say that to mean that now that
Speaker 1: I'm doing this with Vera, I I never pump, I
Speaker 1: never measure, I never care, I never know when I'm
Speaker 1: going to breastfeeder. It's very like sort of like if
Speaker 1: I'm at work, she doesn't get it. If I'm home,
Speaker 1: she gets it. Like I have no idea what I'm making,
Speaker 1: Like everything is just like whatever. And it's been really
Speaker 1: a much more pleasurable experience. UM. I also think it's
Speaker 1: lined up that I've had acting jobs this year that
Speaker 1: are less grueling schedule, So I think that's also a huge,
Speaker 1: huge part of this. Like if you're a working mom
Speaker 1: and you're on a pump schedule, I mean I did
Speaker 1: that with Albe and that's a crazy, crazy ride. Um.
Speaker 1: But I had to wean, albeit at around a week
Speaker 1: before a year because I when I was doing waitress
Speaker 1: on Broadway, I got MERSA, which is a deadly staff infection,
Speaker 1: and they called me and they said, I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna have to try a million different kind
Speaker 1: of antibiotics so that this doesn't spread. And you just
Speaker 1: had your last breastfeed, and I ugly cried and had
Speaker 1: the opposite experience of you all, which was I ugly
Speaker 1: cried and then felt such relief and finally felt like myself,
Speaker 1: like I was done. I looked in the mirror two
Speaker 1: weeks later and wait had fallen off for me that
Speaker 1: just because my boobs were like flat, dehydrated socks now.
Speaker 1: And I just had a different experience, which is funny
Speaker 1: because I had postpartum depression after birth. All of this
Speaker 1: to say, you don't know what you're gonna get, Listeners,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're gonna get. So it's Katie's
Speaker 1: crib point to have all these different guests on to
Speaker 1: make you aware and not make you scared, but just
Speaker 1: make you aware that if either of these things should happen,
Speaker 1: and all of the options in between, you are not alone,
Speaker 1: and there are things that you can do to get
Speaker 1: help and to feel better. There are some things you
Speaker 1: can do to help minimize symptoms of depression around weaning,
Speaker 1: which is weaning gradually Emily Rodgers, which takes me to
Speaker 1: what are you doing for the Audrey situation? It's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, like best laid plans and all of that. Um.
Speaker 1: I had talked to Dr Sparago, my psychiatrist. I had
Speaker 1: talked to my therapist. I had talked to friends, I
Speaker 1: talked to anybody that I could talk to about what
Speaker 1: was your weaning plan? Like how did you do it?
Speaker 1: And so? And I had come up with this elaborate,
Speaker 1: you know, scheme where I was going to wean one
Speaker 1: feed per month and that was it. And it's such
Speaker 1: a lawyer like you do anything, like like I just
Speaker 1: think you're so meticulous in all of this. I love it. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you had this totally elaborate, detailed plan. And then
Speaker 1: Audrey laughed at me, and so did Evie in fact,
Speaker 1: because it was a combination of both of them. I
Speaker 1: was still pumping at night right before I went to bed.
Speaker 1: I dropped that first. That was easy. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'm gonna drop. I'm gonna drop a feed.
Speaker 1: And in my head I had a plan that I
Speaker 1: was going to drop her afternoon feed first, and I
Speaker 1: don't remember at the time, I didn't why I had
Speaker 1: insisted on it being the afternoon feed, because one morning
Speaker 1: Audrey chopped down, like in her late morning feed, teeth
Speaker 1: and all, just like took a bite and I was like, nope,
Speaker 1: eleven am is done and we're dropping it today and
Speaker 1: it's done. So then I dropped it. And then I
Speaker 1: realized a week later why I hadn't why I had
Speaker 1: wanted to drop the three o'clock feed first, because I
Speaker 1: was taking my daughter to those ten day intensive swim
Speaker 1: classes every single day at three thirty, and so I couldn't,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't just nurse her. I had nanny's line,
Speaker 1: you know, I had childcare lined up for when I
Speaker 1: was taking her to swim class. There was going to
Speaker 1: be a rush of me picking her up from school
Speaker 1: and like so the whole thing. I ended up dropping
Speaker 1: two feeds in two weeks. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is exactly the opposite plan. So all right, so
Speaker 1: everything you've planned is not what's happening. Welcome shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so how do you feel? How do you feel?
Speaker 1: I mean, you must feel okay, because you're on you
Speaker 1: have the support and you're on medication, right, I have
Speaker 1: the support. I'm on medication. I mean. The best thing
Speaker 1: that happened to me was when my husband and Dr.
Speaker 1: Sparago and I actually had an appointment together before while
Speaker 1: we were deciding, you know, when to have our second baby.
Speaker 1: And this was maybe five months before the pandemic hit,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about should I go off the
Speaker 1: antidepressants before I get pregnant again, YadA, YadA, YadA, and
Speaker 1: we decided, and I made the decision. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I still need to be a good
Speaker 1: mother to my older daughter, So I can't go into
Speaker 1: postpartum depression again because I won't be able to mother properly.
Speaker 1: And so and let's face it, your older one takes
Speaker 1: so much more patience and the language and all of that.
Speaker 1: That's so much more important that you need to kind
Speaker 1: of be on for. And so I stayed on anti
Speaker 1: depressants the entire time. And thank god, because then months
Speaker 1: later we're in a fucking global pandemic and and everybody
Speaker 1: went on them. Yeah, exactly, and so um, luckily I
Speaker 1: actually upped my medication. UM after I gave birth to Audrey.
Speaker 1: Um things just weren't feeling totally right. Everything was stressful
Speaker 1: COVID I mean, you know, trying to protect your babies.
Speaker 1: I mean, and Katie and I both went through very
Speaker 1: stressful times of feeling like we couldn't protect our babies
Speaker 1: from COVID, and obviously Alison you went through the same thing,
Speaker 1: like the little bit of vaccine that I can get, Like,
Speaker 1: so we were all in that frame of mind. Anyone
Speaker 1: who's mothering, especially under five year olds during this pandemic,
Speaker 1: or and we're pregnant during this pandemic. It it was
Speaker 1: so intense. It was so scary, terrifying, and I was
Speaker 1: the full coming in being like perfect timing. Wow, March
Speaker 1: so much sorted getting my vaccines. Like I was just
Speaker 1: mad that I missed being able to get it as
Speaker 1: a pregnant lady. And pregnant lady, what do I say,
Speaker 1: just as a lady. That's I thought I was coming
Speaker 1: in And then it was like the oh Macron Christmas.
Speaker 1: Then we all got COVID a month ago, just rolling
Speaker 1: through the household. But it is well, I think I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine the early days. Honestly, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was. I was pregnant the week before shutdown. I
Speaker 1: was never forgot. I was like, we're, oh, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was so awful. Um, Emily, you're feeling okay right now
Speaker 1: even though your plan is not the plan. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: feeling okay right now. I actually just dropped another feed,
Speaker 1: so I'm down to one a day now, and um,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling good. I mean, I'm I'm in treatment. I
Speaker 1: talked to my psychiatry regularly, and there's so much of
Speaker 1: motherhood that is letting go of your own control. And
Speaker 1: I've learned that for the last several years. You think
Speaker 1: I would remember when I'm making an elaborate plan for weaning,
Speaker 1: that it's not going to go according to plan, and
Speaker 1: that Audrey has her own ideas and she's basically weaned herself.
Speaker 1: And in many ways, you know, she stopped, she stopped
Speaker 1: um feeding every single feed. She The only one that
Speaker 1: she's really attached to was the morning feed, and so
Speaker 1: that's the one I've kept. And we'll see how much
Speaker 1: further I go with that. Can I ask a queasy question,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a woo uh do what ressault?
Speaker 1: When the weaning happened? Did either of you ever just
Speaker 1: have this instinctual thing of just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: he seems upset, he's teething. It's a couple of months
Speaker 1: since weaning. Should I throw this baby on the boob?
Speaker 1: Did that ever? Strip? Because I almost did it a
Speaker 1: few times where I was like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: would happen. I didn't want to, like unleash the beast again,
Speaker 1: but I was like, there would be these moments I'd
Speaker 1: almost forget I wasn't doing it no matter how. Even
Speaker 1: still there's moments where I'm like, and I sometimes forget
Speaker 1: how it feels. Yeah, it's weird, Like I'll I remember
Speaker 1: when I weaned out the like I was like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not doing that right now, or like you don't,
Speaker 1: like you said unleash the beast, like you don't want
Speaker 1: to like open up that can of worms again and
Speaker 1: confuse them like that, it might still be a possibility.
Speaker 1: If it's not a possibility, but I do think, Alison,
Speaker 1: I'm curious if I'm pretty sure that if a baby
Speaker 1: started nursing on you regularly, you would start producing milk again?
Speaker 1: Is that true? Am I You're out? I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's let's throw to our panel of down.
Speaker 1: Does it only don't think so. And I can't believe
Speaker 1: I'm bringing this up, but I read an article the
Speaker 1: other day that when you stop breastfeeding, your boob basically
Speaker 1: eats it self, so all of the stuff that your
Speaker 1: breasts make in order to breastfeed, all that stuff is
Speaker 1: like your boob eats it all up so that it's
Speaker 1: no longer and that's why it goes to looking like
Speaker 1: a dehydrated sock. And anyone, I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: It just works for me. But like I anyone I
Speaker 1: know who had big boobs and hated them their whole life,
Speaker 1: like loved their chest after they weaned because it was
Speaker 1: just like they've never been like that kind of flat before. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: one of the additional things you've learned through post weening
Speaker 1: depression that no one told you about that you wish
Speaker 1: you had known all of it. I honestly, I just
Speaker 1: like truly have never heard of it. I don't I
Speaker 1: know this, And I read a lot of books, I've
Speaker 1: crept a lot. I had a top o b G
Speaker 1: y n um apparently, by the way, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you all knew this, but and I was panicking
Speaker 1: and didn't know if just stopping would stop it. When
Speaker 1: I called and she didn't get back to me about it,
Speaker 1: she said, oh, yeah, I already told the guy that
Speaker 1: like the Kenemine therapy clinic that you'd be calling. And
Speaker 1: I had no idea that kenemine therapy is now one
Speaker 1: of the treatments for postpartum I was like, special k man.
Speaker 1: I just rolled up. You know, yeah, kenemine would be
Speaker 1: special k um. People are doing small, small doses of
Speaker 1: that actually for postpartum depression. And they're also doing micro
Speaker 1: dosing mushrooms. Guys. People are just getting into it. People,
Speaker 1: let's open up our brains. But yeah, I really couldn't
Speaker 1: believe no one it's anything. And I have an amazing
Speaker 1: WhatsApp group that is shout out Montown. It's just like
Speaker 1: sixty women in the business who've had kids over the
Speaker 1: last year and sharing very openly with each other. And
Speaker 1: I remember when it was a smaller group. I did
Speaker 1: just put it out there. Finally, guys, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I just lived through. And all of them said
Speaker 1: that they'd only seen one Cosmo article. And that article actually,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the name of it now, but
Speaker 1: it was like, why did no one tell me this
Speaker 1: would happen from like five years ago? And um it
Speaker 1: was it described perfectly the moment I had in palm
Speaker 1: Springs of just like sitting there and suddenly this deep
Speaker 1: sadness just opening up over you. But it's not. No
Speaker 1: one talks about it. Emily, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: had heard of it. I just didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1: I literally didn't know it existed. And I want this
Speaker 1: is the conspiracy theorist to me, I'm like, do they
Speaker 1: not tell us because they want to us breastfeed? And
Speaker 1: they're so, But I'm like, there's a little of that,
Speaker 1: right there is a little bit of like, you know,
Speaker 1: you hope for the best and know that if there's
Speaker 1: a problem, of course, and we'll come talk to you
Speaker 1: about it. But I almost would have It's not like
Speaker 1: it would have changed my drive to breastfeed. Had I
Speaker 1: known about this, I just would have been like, got it.
Speaker 1: I know now to look for the signals of that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you could get postpartum depression from having a baby,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't stop having a baby, you know, or
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't really equally equate, but how but
Speaker 1: I think. I think I personally still would have been like,
Speaker 1: we're going for it. At least when it hits, i'll
Speaker 1: know what it is. I can dive into action, will
Speaker 1: get that to do list going. But it was best
Speaker 1: to do find out why I think I need disability,
Speaker 1: go on disability. At this moment, you're the absolute fucking
Speaker 1: bes I'm obsessed with you. Okay, Emily, what about you?
Speaker 1: What are some additional things you learned through post meaning
Speaker 1: depression that no one told you about that you wish
Speaker 1: you'd known. Actually, when I found out that I was
Speaker 1: doing this podcast, I asked my psychiatrist. I said, if
Speaker 1: you could tell women, Yeah, if you could tell women
Speaker 1: about postpartum and weaning, like, what would you say? And
Speaker 1: he said, I want women to understand that even though
Speaker 1: we think that breastfeeding is controlled by the breast, it's
Speaker 1: actually controlled by the brain. It's all neurotransmitters and hormones.
Speaker 1: Are you know, I'm going to botch them medicine, But
Speaker 1: it's the neurotransmitters in your brain that control whether or
Speaker 1: not you breastfeed. It's up to your brain. And so
Speaker 1: I think when you think of breastfeeding as a mental
Speaker 1: function rather than a physical function. It really opens your
Speaker 1: mind to the idea that it will. Of course, you
Speaker 1: can get depression from it. I mean, you're you're basically
Speaker 1: stopping these neurotransmitters from producing prolactin and you know, oxytocin
Speaker 1: and all of these things that give us the euphoria
Speaker 1: of breastfeeding. It's also the waves, which is something that's
Speaker 1: really hard for some women to shake. It's like when
Speaker 1: you have a letdown producing milk and you get serotonin
Speaker 1: flooding your brain because you love your baby, which is
Speaker 1: why milk is happening. Then it dries out and then
Speaker 1: it that's all gone. It's like very Some women like
Speaker 1: literally get headaches every time they get a let down.
Speaker 1: Thank you to doctor, your doctor for telling us that bit.
Speaker 1: I'm like, doctors, Okay, if a mom is suspecting she
Speaker 1: has post weeding depression, what questions can she ask herself
Speaker 1: to confirm? For me, it's always about functioning. Have you
Speaker 1: lost function? Like I'm always like, but I but you
Speaker 1: know what in Emily's case, it's different than that. For me,
Speaker 1: it was like I couldn't even return a text. Allison
Speaker 1: took four hours to write an email. She could have
Speaker 1: written for Emily. It was that, which I also think
Speaker 1: is a great tell you've lost the joy in doing
Speaker 1: these things, like there's just a real And I had
Speaker 1: that too, which was just I no longer felt joyous
Speaker 1: taking care of my children at all. I mean I
Speaker 1: not everybody has a partner when they have a baby,
Speaker 1: but I did, and my husband and I I found
Speaker 1: that the second time around, at least, when I had Audrey,
Speaker 1: I checked in with him a lot. I was like,
Speaker 1: how do you think I'm doing? And I think that
Speaker 1: that question is just so important because with me, at least,
Speaker 1: it was so such a gradual process to getting to
Speaker 1: where I was depressed that if he weren't paying attention,
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have even really noticed, because
Speaker 1: it's just you get lost in your own I mean,
Speaker 1: he was super busy. I was super busy. We had
Speaker 1: the kid, you know. But when I made a point
Speaker 1: of asking him after I had the baby, probably like
Speaker 1: once every two weeks, I just asked him, I said,
Speaker 1: how am I doing? How do you think I'm doing?
Speaker 1: Especially since I think a lot of times after you
Speaker 1: have a baby, or when you're whatever it is that's
Speaker 1: going on, I think a lot of husbands don't want
Speaker 1: to say to their wives like you're you're not being
Speaker 1: normal or whatever it is like that, but they don't
Speaker 1: want to call attention to the fact because they don't
Speaker 1: want to kiss you off and there's all of the
Speaker 1: stuff going on, and they want to be understanding and
Speaker 1: sort of like give you more leeway to have the
Speaker 1: emotional experience that you're having. But it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a difficult balance to try and figure out. And the
Speaker 1: best person who knows you, like, the person who knows
Speaker 1: you best is your is your partner. And he was
Speaker 1: able to say to me, you know at certain times
Speaker 1: he's like no, I at least after all he was like,
Speaker 1: I think something's going on. I think you should talk
Speaker 1: to your doctor. I think you should tell him these things.
Speaker 1: Can I jump on the call with you with your doctor?
Speaker 1: Can we all talk about it together? Um, which I
Speaker 1: was really lucky, Like my Jamie has been on calls
Speaker 1: with me and my my psychiatrist. He's the ship. You
Speaker 1: both have such wonderful partners. Oh my god, that's amen
Speaker 1: for that. I mean truly again, like exactly, like if
Speaker 1: I try to think about the thing about questions, you
Speaker 1: can ask yourself. Here's one of you. Would ask me, Katie,
Speaker 1: what coping mechanisms did you use? And I was like, none,
Speaker 1: it was terrible. I stop dating it. I did for
Speaker 1: a while still try to go back to things that
Speaker 1: used to work. So meditation was a huge one. Um.
Speaker 1: I would get nervous about sending you know, cut notes
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and before I would say down
Speaker 1: to do it, I would go meditate and I would
Speaker 1: just it didn't work. Like it was not unlocking any calm.
Speaker 1: I was vibrating and thinking through the whole. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just like come back to your practice, cycle back, No,
Speaker 1: it was it was not working. And going on walks
Speaker 1: like t J would force me to leave the house
Speaker 1: sometime around five pm every day. That used to be
Speaker 1: so calming to me in a early pandemic days and
Speaker 1: did nothing for me. I would come back just as so.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good test, is like, are those
Speaker 1: things that usually calm me down, bring you back focus
Speaker 1: you do they still work? And if if they're not working,
Speaker 1: there might be something more aggressive happening even if you
Speaker 1: do them inconsistently. That's that's the other thing that really
Speaker 1: helped me understand something goes wrong. I had the same thing.
Speaker 1: I remember hanging onto this like meditation app on my
Speaker 1: phone and like trying to play it to like go
Speaker 1: to sleep and just being like I am spinning the
Speaker 1: funk out. I cannot do this. And then I remember
Speaker 1: going on Fai only walks for at sunset at five
Speaker 1: o'clock and just being so sad and like so feeling
Speaker 1: out of body, feeling like I was watching myself like, oh,
Speaker 1: you should be enjoying this, like you're going on a
Speaker 1: walk with your baby strap to you and your toddler
Speaker 1: and your husband, and I'm a shell, like a shell,
Speaker 1: like I I why I'm not in the experience like
Speaker 1: at all. It reminds me of something that I heard
Speaker 1: in my childbirth class about you know, whether or not
Speaker 1: you should get an epidural. Tally A Moore taught my
Speaker 1: childbirth class, and she had said, you know, it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be painful, but you're not supposed to suffer. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's like a very good way of
Speaker 1: the parton too. It's supposed like just supposed to be hard,
Speaker 1: but you're not supposed to suffer, and it's not supposed
Speaker 1: to be so hard that it feels debilitating, or that
Speaker 1: it affects the way that you go about your life,
Speaker 1: or you have no joyless with your child. No, but
Speaker 1: suffering is a different suffering. Suffering is different things. Analogy,
Speaker 1: but it's no, hard is different than suffering. Hard can
Speaker 1: be okay, you know, but suffering is a different thing. Um.
Speaker 1: What would you recommend to women who are going through
Speaker 1: or who suspect they have post weaning depression. One of
Speaker 1: the best things I could recommend to is, like, I
Speaker 1: didn't have a general practitioner before I gave birth. It
Speaker 1: was just all on my OB G A N. She
Speaker 1: was my everything, her and her and my amazing rheumatologist
Speaker 1: for with my cool young people arthritists that I have
Speaker 1: middle aged people now. Um, but I wish I'd had
Speaker 1: a GP in place before I gave birth because I
Speaker 1: didn't have a psychiatrist right so I didn't. I just
Speaker 1: had my my talk therapist and my O B G N.
Speaker 1: And I wish i'd had somebody I could have gone
Speaker 1: to in this very kind of like distinct way from
Speaker 1: both of those experiences to do an assessment at the
Speaker 1: early stages of it, just to be like, my, okay,
Speaker 1: what's happening and they could have then like guided the
Speaker 1: rest of that experience, because I think I had some
Speaker 1: like I just don't I think that would have allowed
Speaker 1: me the freedom to maybe even I know this sounds weird,
Speaker 1: say things I wouldn't have maybe said to my b G,
Speaker 1: I N and my therapist about physically like what was happening,
Speaker 1: because I think I was a little nervous to admit
Speaker 1: I wasn't sleeping and eating and I was also like
Speaker 1: doing a high octane job and caring for a baby,
Speaker 1: and I feel like just a Mr g P. I
Speaker 1: just signed up with miss GPS. I don't have a
Speaker 1: GP either, Like what the hell? And this is not
Speaker 1: as helpful for new moms, but like, as you're getting ready,
Speaker 1: have a have a person who's just like this separate entity,
Speaker 1: I think, and then can and they can be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want you to see a psychiatrist right but in
Speaker 1: this and kind of have a speed and an ease
Speaker 1: of care with that person. Because that was one of
Speaker 1: the things when somebody casually mentioned it to me in
Speaker 1: the midst of the weaning of like we'll get a
Speaker 1: GP and they can like see you and then they
Speaker 1: can get you a prescription, and I was like, a
Speaker 1: g you want me to find a GP in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and I just seem like they've asked me to
Speaker 1: go to the moon. I was like, are you kidding there?
Speaker 1: So that was the one thing I really wish someone
Speaker 1: had told me at a time. That's great. And your
Speaker 1: GP is the one who told you Emily right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's the one who fish interesting. Interesting. And what would
Speaker 1: you say to that question? I would say, talk to
Speaker 1: the people in your community. Talk to them, Talk to
Speaker 1: your mom, friends, talk to or if you know you're
Speaker 1: the first person of your friends to have kids, go
Speaker 1: find you know, your sister's cousins, mother's neighbor's daughter, you
Speaker 1: know Whoever, because the moment I started talking to people
Speaker 1: about my postpartum depression, you discover that everybody you know
Speaker 1: as postpartum depression or depression of some sort. Everybody's medicated,
Speaker 1: everybody's got it off, like seriously, like everybody has a talk.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you'll find referrals within your community, people that
Speaker 1: you trust, and just give them a call and talk
Speaker 1: to them. I love it. And last question that we
Speaker 1: always ask parenthood is parenthood should be a choice. Right
Speaker 1: up now, perfectly said, uh, perfectly said, parent parenthood is extremes.
Speaker 1: I think it's the best way I can think about it.
Speaker 1: Extreme lows and eyes at least in this all my
Speaker 1: limited experience of fourteen months of it. But hats not
Speaker 1: limited because you were you were pregnant for a year
Speaker 1: before that, and you were trying for longer before that.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been a fucking journey so and
Speaker 1: it's been extreme, and it's it's not a bad thing
Speaker 1: that it's extreme. It's a it is like none if
Speaker 1: there's power, and knowing it's extremes. Yeah, I'm so appreciative
Speaker 1: of you both coming on to Katie's crib and sharing
Speaker 1: your personal experiences. I think it will be so helpful.
Speaker 1: I think hopefully we can add to the great canon
Speaker 1: of the Cosmopolitan article depression around Me, around weaning to
Speaker 1: hopefully make women more aware information is power and let
Speaker 1: them know that they're not alone and that this is
Speaker 1: fucking common. I freaking love you both. I love your children,
Speaker 1: I love your partners, I love your faces, everything about
Speaker 1: you now everyone knows why I FaceTime do you crying now? No,
Speaker 1: right back at you, And so so endlessly grateful to
Speaker 1: be invited to be a part of this conversation and
Speaker 1: I do hope it, I do help, it helps people.
Speaker 1: Um and Emily helped me hearing your story, which could
Speaker 1: not have been more different from my own but still
Speaker 1: loves me feel connected. Yeah, definitely, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode.
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns.
Speaker 1: Let me know. You can always find me at Katie's
Speaker 1: Crib at Shonda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a
Speaker 1: production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.