Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda Land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. We planned a home birth, yes,
Speaker 1: and the second year pregnancy becomes abnormal, all of that
Speaker 1: whole plan goes out the window, right, So what happened
Speaker 1: to me was that I my bag of waters broke
Speaker 1: at twenty eight and a half weeks. Oh my god, Kelly,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. Hi, everybody, welcome back to Katie's Crib today.
Speaker 1: I have a guest that I love with all my
Speaker 1: heart and souls who has recently become a mom. I
Speaker 1: don't even know where to begin. I I don't even
Speaker 1: know where to begin. She recently had a baby, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, please do Katie's Crib. Uh.
Speaker 1: You all know her as Dr Maggie Pierce, Meredith Gray's
Speaker 1: half sister on the ABC huge drama series Gray's Anatomy.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of it? I except that I first
Speaker 1: met her on Scandal, because she was also on Scandal.
Speaker 1: But you know her from a million other things like Castle,
Speaker 1: Netflix's animated series Harvey Girls Forever, Thriving, Thriving, Thriving, glorious career.
Speaker 1: Kelly McCreary is also very active in supporting voting rights,
Speaker 1: reproductive rights, protecting and uplifting black girls and women. She
Speaker 1: is a board member for Equal Justice Society. She's a
Speaker 1: celebrity ambassador for Michelle Obama's When We All Vote, My
Speaker 1: goodness gracious. She is married to director Pete Chapman. The
Speaker 1: two recently introduced their daughter, Indigo Reren, into the world
Speaker 1: last October. That name is glorious. Kelly. I can't thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on Kelly's Kelly's Crib. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's call it Kelly's Crib today. The sequel, Katie's Branching Out.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love it. Um, that was such
Speaker 1: a forty and slip. I love it. Should we like
Speaker 1: make this happen? Okay, first and foremost you. Let's let's
Speaker 1: take it back a second. Okay, we met on Scant.
Speaker 1: Did we meet on Scandal or did we meet before that?
Speaker 1: I think we met on Wait a minute, it's possible.
Speaker 1: Do we meet through any before that? We might have
Speaker 1: gone on a hike. So we have a lot of mutual,
Speaker 1: wonderful friends. But I remember you coming on Scandal, and
Speaker 1: I remember people whispering in the makeup hair trailer that
Speaker 1: have you guys met and worked her, had any scenes
Speaker 1: with Kelly McCreery yet on this show, because this girl
Speaker 1: is a fucking star. Like, that's what I remember attached
Speaker 1: to you. And then it was in one second that
Speaker 1: you were scooped up and put on Gray's as like
Speaker 1: the most pivotal role that's happened in the last like
Speaker 1: billion years of that show. So I'm so flattered. That's
Speaker 1: the memory that I attached with you. Was like people
Speaker 1: being like, holy shit, this girl's a fucking star. And
Speaker 1: I was like, holy shit, this girl's sucking star. And
Speaker 1: now your star and a mommy. So curious you and
Speaker 1: your husband met on the set of Gray's Anatomy, Yes,
Speaker 1: and yes, you got married in two thousand nineteen. And
Speaker 1: was parenthood always on the agenda? Like was it something
Speaker 1: that both of you knew you wanted to do. Was
Speaker 1: it something you knew as a little girl, like you
Speaker 1: always wanted to be a mom or was it not
Speaker 1: something like that for you? Not at all. I did
Speaker 1: not think that I wanted to be a mom, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I really appreciated how hard it was, right,
Speaker 1: Like how hard being a mom is? My My My
Speaker 1: parents had four kids, and it was it's really a
Speaker 1: lot of time and effort and work and attention and love.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I just I thought, with my life,
Speaker 1: the life that I wanted, which was you know, I
Speaker 1: was my ambitions were so humble in the beginning. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be like a theater actor, and I
Speaker 1: just had a really hard time imagining I mean not
Speaker 1: just a theater actor. Theater actors are amazing. What I
Speaker 1: mean is like the kind of theater actor that goes
Speaker 1: from town to town doing regional plays and and makes
Speaker 1: you know, a few hundred bucks a week, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's all I needed to live on. I was just,
Speaker 1: you know, a young, um person without many material needs,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, like, how would I ever fit
Speaker 1: a child into this life that I love? I thought,
Speaker 1: this is what I really want to do, This is
Speaker 1: what I'm really focused on now, is building up my
Speaker 1: career and having these experience and playing these characters and
Speaker 1: being a creative person in the world. And I just
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to add being a mom to that.
Speaker 1: So I was like I could take it or leave it. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it was more important. You felt your
Speaker 1: priorities was artist. That was your priority. Is it is
Speaker 1: not incredibly practical to be a traveling, nomadic artist and
Speaker 1: be a mom. It just doesn't fit. I remember Laurie Metcalfe,
Speaker 1: who I look up to so much. You guys all
Speaker 1: know her. She's on the Connors and she's amazing, but like,
Speaker 1: she didn't play. She she's a die hard theater actor,
Speaker 1: die hard and she had gave birth to Zoe Perry
Speaker 1: and that's when she took Jackie on Roseanne because she
Speaker 1: was like, I literally couldn't find nanny's that would just
Speaker 1: show up at seven pm so I could make my
Speaker 1: a PM curtain literally, and she was like, I have
Speaker 1: to take Jackie, like I have to take Roseanne, change
Speaker 1: the course of her life. But seriously, it does not fit. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's your priority. Yeah, so that was my priority.
Speaker 1: And then it wasn't really for me. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of reached my thirties and I was like,
Speaker 1: whoa know, it's it may not happen and that's totally
Speaker 1: fine with me. And and then I met Pete and
Speaker 1: we kind of just knew right away that we were
Speaker 1: going to be together. And um, so it wasn't long
Speaker 1: before he was like, we had to have a real
Speaker 1: kind of come to Jesus and uh. And he was like, look,
Speaker 1: you know, I if we're going to continue going down
Speaker 1: this road, you can't be ambivalent about having kids because
Speaker 1: I want to have children. Wow. I just got goose bumps.
Speaker 1: I'm so into this guy and like his communication, Like
Speaker 1: I'm so into just him knowing himself, Like it's great. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful to have a partner with self awareness and
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence. And he's a director, so like he really
Speaker 1: knows how to like direct, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He's like, this is what I want and it's yes
Speaker 1: or no, like whatever, Okay, Griha have clarity and communicate
Speaker 1: with love about it. Yeah, And and so we had
Speaker 1: the conversation was like yeah, I mean I guess do
Speaker 1: I want a life with this person? Yes? And do
Speaker 1: what if that involves kids? Am I okay with that?
Speaker 1: And I did kind of like have a weekend of
Speaker 1: freaking out and talking to my girlfriends like, tell you know,
Speaker 1: I can make up my mind about it right this second,
Speaker 1: right I did. I had to make up my mind,
Speaker 1: and um, what I realized was that my my my
Speaker 1: big fear around. It was sort of being in a
Speaker 1: situation where traditional gender roles were played out in parenting right,
Speaker 1: where like the bulk of the load fell on mom
Speaker 1: and I would wind up having to make all the
Speaker 1: sacrifices and doing a lot of things on my own.
Speaker 1: And and I realized it wouldn't be that way with
Speaker 1: the person that I had chosen. I could reimagine what
Speaker 1: motherhood for me would actually look like, you know, and
Speaker 1: having a family with Pete would actually look like, you know,
Speaker 1: and also articulate that end to work together with my
Speaker 1: husband to like think about how we would approach our
Speaker 1: parenting and what our expectations were, and and just reframing
Speaker 1: it that way, it sounds like a great idea. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, kids, sure, yeah, I love this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: love this. So, once you guys decided and you got married,
Speaker 1: how is your fertility journey? Was it hard? Was it easy?
Speaker 1: Was it magical? Was it tell me all those things? Well?
Speaker 1: Of course, So having said all of that, that, like
Speaker 1: I didn't really need to be convinced, but we did
Speaker 1: have to have a conversation about it. Um. Once we
Speaker 1: had that conversation got married, I was like, we gotta
Speaker 1: get this party started. You know, I'm not getting any
Speaker 1: younger here. That's such a female thing. It's like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. And then once you decide that you want it,
Speaker 1: it's like, right now, this has to happen right fucking now.
Speaker 1: That's so common, Like I know so many women even
Speaker 1: have come on this podcast where it's like uh, kind
Speaker 1: of him in hall. And then once you make a decision,
Speaker 1: it's like where this needs to happen yesterday, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of you know, of course I'm accelerating
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, I did. It was about
Speaker 1: a year before that feeling kind of set in where
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, wow, we've been married a year,
Speaker 1: let's go. Let's go. So our fertility journey. I expected
Speaker 1: it to be difficult, you know, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I guess I just thought like that's the nature of
Speaker 1: life these days. Everybody kind of has um I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people who have needed support and help
Speaker 1: along their journey. And I was prepared for that because
Speaker 1: I I don't know, I guess that's something I do
Speaker 1: in my mind to sort of play out, you know,
Speaker 1: challenging scenarios and prepare myself for them, yeah, worst case
Speaker 1: scenario or something. Yeah, of course, of course, right, And
Speaker 1: so I was like, Okay, well, let's assume this might
Speaker 1: take a while and we might need some interventions, so
Speaker 1: let's get started now. And I sort of had this
Speaker 1: timeline like, Okay, we'll try on our own for a
Speaker 1: few months and then maybe we'll get scientific about it
Speaker 1: after X amount of time and then you know, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So you know, we just basically took the goalie out
Speaker 1: of the net, and um, we but we weren't really
Speaker 1: trying in a very intentional way, like in terms of
Speaker 1: like timing, right, there's like a very limited window time
Speaker 1: during which you can get pregnant. Yeah, very I think
Speaker 1: it's like the day you ovulate, I think I was reading.
Speaker 1: I think that even the day, if you were to
Speaker 1: nail it, the twelve hours that you're ovulating, I think
Speaker 1: it's still only less than a fifteen percent chance that
Speaker 1: you actually get pregnant. Like it's not easy, which is like, God,
Speaker 1: when you're a teenager, you're like, if a dick yes
Speaker 1: near my vagina, I'm pregnant. If a dick gets near
Speaker 1: oh my god. I was like, if I even see
Speaker 1: semen from six feet away, I'm going to get rid. Um,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to guess that it wasn't hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. But but you know what's funny is that, um,
Speaker 1: we did wind up just doing the the ovulation tests
Speaker 1: after like a couple of months. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, let's go ahead and also freeze
Speaker 1: some embryos, because if we decided to do this again,
Speaker 1: you know, let's be prepared and we can also take
Speaker 1: our time and not worry about like having a rush
Speaker 1: into another pregnancy if we're concerned about my age or
Speaker 1: anything like that, or both of our ages or anything.
Speaker 1: So I was actually about to start the process of
Speaker 1: embryo freezing. Um. I was taking the estrogen that they
Speaker 1: give you to prepare your eggs so that they for extraction,
Speaker 1: and you know, you start taking that like a couple
Speaker 1: of days before your period supposed to start, and I
Speaker 1: didn't get my period, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my perio has been like clockwork all these years, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know this estrogen is fucking with my period
Speaker 1: on this month, And like a week later, I was like,
Speaker 1: I still haven't got my period. This is so weird
Speaker 1: and I was on the phone with Aya Cash actually
Speaker 1: meet you, a friend of ours, and and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how's it going? And I was like, you know, girl,
Speaker 1: of course, look at that I'm not getting my period
Speaker 1: and um. She was like, why don't you take guys
Speaker 1: to find out if you're pregnant? I was like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know why, Like we have been
Speaker 1: trying to get pregnant. I don't know why because your
Speaker 1: because your sites were so set on embryo freezing. Your
Speaker 1: sites were so set on like Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: freeze my eggs and I'm gonna be like you were
Speaker 1: doing all the sort of executive functioning, which is like
Speaker 1: how do I plan and control something that's uncontrollable? But yes,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, that's such a great for himing for
Speaker 1: what came next. But um, but yeah, sure enough, I
Speaker 1: was not. Um, we were not able to um preserve
Speaker 1: embryos that month because I was in fact pregnant already.
Speaker 1: The moment you found out that you were pregnant and
Speaker 1: you paid on a stake after you called I, she
Speaker 1: was like, take a pregnancy test. What were your immediate
Speaker 1: thoughts and how did your husband take it my I
Speaker 1: was just shocked. I was like, oh wow, okay, I
Speaker 1: was genuinely surprised. I I I was so prepared to
Speaker 1: go down this challenging road and um and my husband's
Speaker 1: response when I called him, he was directing. He was
Speaker 1: at work, and so when I called, when I texted
Speaker 1: him and said like, call me, he thought it was
Speaker 1: an emergency, which uh like I shouldn't have done. But
Speaker 1: he called back immediately. He was like, what's He's calling
Speaker 1: from video village, his al soda voce, you know. He's like,
Speaker 1: what's what's going on? What's up? And I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: oh no, no call back later, coming back and he's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: you have to tell me now. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: just to contest and kind and he said, that's what's up.
Speaker 1: That it's exact words. I love it so measured. Oh
Speaker 1: I love it. Did you feel when you realized that
Speaker 1: you were pregnant and that this was already going differently
Speaker 1: than you had prepared yourself for it to go. Were
Speaker 1: you afraid? Were you excited? Were you relieved? Like? What
Speaker 1: was your immediate was relieved? Good? I was relieved. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, great, that saves us, you know that
Speaker 1: potential m heartache or headache or you know whatever I had.
Speaker 1: Of course, I knew that there were you know, there
Speaker 1: we still a little long road to go to a
Speaker 1: viable pregnancy for one thing, and then to actually the
Speaker 1: child being there. But I was relieved that that everything worked.
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, that's just a question. I've never
Speaker 1: been pregnant before, you know, Okay, I managed to get pregnant.
Speaker 1: That that was a successful thing. So I was I
Speaker 1: felt relieved. I um, I was really excited. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is really happening. This thing that we said we're
Speaker 1: gonna do, it's it's actually you know, we're kicking it off.
Speaker 1: And I was a little bit like, oh damn, okay, now,
Speaker 1: well there's no more time to get ready. It's happening now.
Speaker 1: I guess I thought, you know the other thing about
Speaker 1: going through the process of the more scientific process, or
Speaker 1: well what scientific interventions, um that kind of brought you
Speaker 1: a little brought me a little more time to get
Speaker 1: um mentally prepared or something. But here I was here
Speaker 1: you are. I always think, like to like the nine
Speaker 1: months pregnancy which you did not have, and we will
Speaker 1: talk about that is the time, the time to sort
Speaker 1: of get mentally prepared. Like I'm always like people like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm not ready, I'm pregnant. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be ready today. You still have
Speaker 1: time to wrap your head around this. Um. How was
Speaker 1: the pregnancy experience for you before we get into the
Speaker 1: labor part of it, but like pregnancy, like like were
Speaker 1: you sick? Were you not sick? Do were you glowing?
Speaker 1: Were you in a stride? Did you love it? Did
Speaker 1: you hate it? The first six weeks were great, felt fine.
Speaker 1: UM was exercising, I was eating and very quickly and
Speaker 1: without ever turning back. It got I got hyper emesis.
Speaker 1: Grab a dar um, grab a dar um. What I
Speaker 1: didn't know you had that? You were barfing like every day,
Speaker 1: oh every day, all day, every day. My god. I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about it until I watched Amy Schumer's
Speaker 1: HBO documentary of her pregnancy, where she also had it.
Speaker 1: It's the most fucking realist, fucked up ship I've ever
Speaker 1: and and also scary because the baby has to be
Speaker 1: getting nutrients and and it's and it's scary and a
Speaker 1: lot of stress on a pregnancy on the on the
Speaker 1: on the baby and on the moll right now, and
Speaker 1: there is a there's like a continuum like Amy Shumers.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the doc, but from what I understand,
Speaker 1: hers was super severe and extreme. And I listened to
Speaker 1: the podcasts and read articles about it, and there were
Speaker 1: women who like couldn't keep water down until like months seven,
Speaker 1: you know, And I didn't have quite that extreme version
Speaker 1: of it. But there was not a day that went
Speaker 1: by that I did not get sick, need to take
Speaker 1: a drug and was totally incapacitated, Like starting around months four,
Speaker 1: I was basically like laid up, Um, were you shooting
Speaker 1: during this time? Were you shooting at ten? No? I
Speaker 1: wrapped it twelve weeks and at ten weeks my SI
Speaker 1: joints slipped, you know, so like that wre moon, relax,
Speaker 1: relax and yeah, And it usually happens a lot further
Speaker 1: down the line, like at least a couple of months
Speaker 1: in but for me, it happened um at week ten,
Speaker 1: which was also a week I was first hospitalized for
Speaker 1: the from sickness and uh and and then I went
Speaker 1: back to work and shot because that was our COVID
Speaker 1: season on Gray's and that was the first scenes I
Speaker 1: shot all year long where I wasn't in scrubs and
Speaker 1: sneakers and I was in lu Bhutan's and a wedding
Speaker 1: dress and I was like in terrible pain and like vomiting.
Speaker 1: It was just a ship show. Um so so but
Speaker 1: then we wrapped. Yeah, but then we wrapped it at
Speaker 1: week twelve for me and um and so I was
Speaker 1: on my hiatus when I was really really sick. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I tried traveling. My husband is working in New York
Speaker 1: and tried being there with him, and I was so uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted up going back home and just
Speaker 1: kind of being by myself. My sisters came to visit.
Speaker 1: I went and visited my mom, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I go home. You know. It was just it was
Speaker 1: it was yeah, but you know, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess even then, I was like, this is terrible and
Speaker 1: I never want to do this again. But I thought
Speaker 1: that would be the worst of it until one day,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so tell me now, this is huge.
Speaker 1: Let's go through Indie's birth story. Um. And they arrived,
Speaker 1: uh we know via people. India arrived several weeks early
Speaker 1: in October three is her birthday. October one, my son's
Speaker 1: birthdays atterber second, we've got our Libra baby. Yes, so
Speaker 1: take us through. I know, um, you guys had originally
Speaker 1: planned home birth, and here we are, here we have it.
Speaker 1: The pregnancy did not go according to total plans, with
Speaker 1: the sickness, and now here we have the birth story.
Speaker 1: Also total surrender of not being able to plan or
Speaker 1: control what happened. Take us through it. Yeah. Well, you
Speaker 1: know when I when we were trying to get pregnant,
Speaker 1: and then in the early days of my pregnancy, I
Speaker 1: was doing so much reading about pregnancy and childbirth, and
Speaker 1: I was really just shocked by how little I knew
Speaker 1: and how little of it is mainstream knowledge, considering that
Speaker 1: it happens to so many people. And I thought like
Speaker 1: there were just like vocabulary words, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how do I not know about this thing? That it
Speaker 1: happens invariably to any birthing person, But like relaxing is
Speaker 1: a hormone? Why did I ever hear about this? You know,
Speaker 1: of course there are a lot of bodily functions and
Speaker 1: disease and pathologies and all kinds of things that that
Speaker 1: we don't know anything about, But like, childbirth is so normal,
Speaker 1: and yet it's like, it's so weirdly on the margins,
Speaker 1: just I think because it happens largely to women, women exactly.
Speaker 1: I I was doing all this reading shocked by how
Speaker 1: much how little I I didn't know in order to
Speaker 1: make an informed choice about how I wanted my how
Speaker 1: I wanted to do my pregnancy, how I wanted to
Speaker 1: do my birth, and and all of those things. And
Speaker 1: ultimately we planned a home birth, yes, and we had
Speaker 1: a dula, and we had a midwife. And I didn't
Speaker 1: even have an obie that I was working with at
Speaker 1: the time, because I was like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: need one. I'm covered with these other medical professionals and
Speaker 1: I am. That whole plan was contingent on having what
Speaker 1: you call a normal pregnancy. The second year pregnancy becomes abnormal,
Speaker 1: all of that whole plan goes out the window, right,
Speaker 1: So what happened to me was that I my bag
Speaker 1: of waters broke at twenty eight and a half weeks.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Kelly, how fucking scary. It was crazy,
Speaker 1: It was weird. The dawning of it was slow for me.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how scary that was at first, Like,
Speaker 1: as soon as I found out the bag of waters broke.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, well what does that mean? You
Speaker 1: know what? Okay, so how do we close it? You know,
Speaker 1: how do and um, the nurse in the hospital very
Speaker 1: kind of ungently said to me, like, you can't leave
Speaker 1: until this baby becomes very dramatic, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, for so for twelve weeks, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: in the hospital, what you know. It also didn't occur
Speaker 1: to me that like that meant the baby was gonna
Speaker 1: calm sooner than later. I certainly wasn't going to make
Speaker 1: it to forty weeks um, and everything that I thought
Speaker 1: that I knew about how to take care of myself
Speaker 1: during pregnancy also went out the window because suddenly you're
Speaker 1: extremely vulnerable to infection or baby is vulnerable to infection,
Speaker 1: and all of the choices that you would have made,
Speaker 1: like none of those are available as options anymore. Pre
Speaker 1: natal yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays and like eating this
Speaker 1: thing or whatever. No, it literally becomes like my water broke,
Speaker 1: which means that now the baby is no longer in
Speaker 1: an enclosed, protected sack, that it is open and so
Speaker 1: now this is totally medical And if you had made
Speaker 1: a home birth choice. All of a sudden, none of
Speaker 1: these are options anymore, which is like really really wild, right,
Speaker 1: And it was it just was a constant I mean,
Speaker 1: it was in hospital for almost six weeks, and it
Speaker 1: was just every day it was like, wait, I can't
Speaker 1: do that. I can't do um. Nobody could guarantee me anything.
Speaker 1: But the thing that the team was most trying to
Speaker 1: help me do to the one thing I could still
Speaker 1: hold on too, was at least to try to have
Speaker 1: a vaginal birth. But that meant that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I would have to do it early, because if you
Speaker 1: wait too long, then you run the risk of having
Speaker 1: to have an emergency c section, and then you don't
Speaker 1: even get to have the kind of c section when
Speaker 1: you're conscious for it and can still watch it happening,
Speaker 1: you know. And so it was obviously just all very
Speaker 1: high stakes, and and every day I just I had
Speaker 1: such a hard time. I was so sad, you know.
Speaker 1: There was like a daily grieving what I wanted, and
Speaker 1: a daily grieving of the fact that like everything was
Speaker 1: so out of my control and and so scary for
Speaker 1: the baby. You know. Um, for example, I keep telling
Speaker 1: people like, of course, you know, a hospital is not.
Speaker 1: They can't force you to do anything. I can't force
Speaker 1: you to stay, but you are a mother now. And
Speaker 1: and if I had chosen to go home because I
Speaker 1: thought maybe, you know, I would be fine there, if
Speaker 1: I just did my bed rest from there, I ran
Speaker 1: the risk of not getting to the hospital in time,
Speaker 1: you know, to deliver my baby safely. And so you
Speaker 1: can't safely make that choice without going like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: what if something happens. What if something happens and um,
Speaker 1: I you know, was going to have to do things
Speaker 1: their way. Wow, this is so wild, Kelly. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm so quiet. I'm very rarely quiet, but I'm
Speaker 1: just like really feeling you right now, Like I'm just
Speaker 1: really feeling this experience and this this loss of letting
Speaker 1: truly letting go of any ideas you had of how
Speaker 1: this was going to go and what you wanted, and
Speaker 1: that it just really wasn't about that. Yeah. So medically
Speaker 1: your water breaks, you go to the hospital, and did
Speaker 1: they do some sort of procedure where they so it
Speaker 1: closed or no? Yeah, So it's interesting. So I didn't
Speaker 1: have like the kind of water break where that happens
Speaker 1: right before giving birth. It wasn't a gush. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a gus. It wasn't it was a leak exactly. So
Speaker 1: I had actually been leaking for a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: which I didn't realize because you know, when you're pregnant,
Speaker 1: you have all kinds of discharging. You know, what was
Speaker 1: BP couldn't discharged. We don't know what The fluids are
Speaker 1: fucking weird and often so you're like, yeah, yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: I've been leaking for a few hours. And then I
Speaker 1: spoke to I mid when I spoke to the Jewelah,
Speaker 1: and eventually we went to the hospital and that's when
Speaker 1: I found out that it was you know, the bag
Speaker 1: of waters had broken. And so what they did right
Speaker 1: away was give me um an antibiotic, which um that
Speaker 1: was to like head off any infection because now you've
Speaker 1: got this exposure to your own organs but also to
Speaker 1: the baby, and so the first thing they do is
Speaker 1: give you a whole bunch of antibiotics. But that also, interestingly,
Speaker 1: and I don't totally understand how this works, but it
Speaker 1: also helps to um uh slow the labor process because
Speaker 1: when the bag of water breaks, that's telling your body
Speaker 1: it's time to deliver. This baby, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to do that at twenty eight and a half weeks
Speaker 1: if you can avoid it, you know. So we didn't
Speaker 1: want her to come that early. You know. I guess
Speaker 1: once I realized we were going and she was going
Speaker 1: to come early no matter what, within I think, it's,
Speaker 1: oh my god, am I gonna get this right up now?
Speaker 1: Once your bag of water breaks, most women, I don't know,
Speaker 1: fifty percent of women will get birth within that for
Speaker 1: seventy two hours. If you make it past that seventy
Speaker 1: two hours, the next fifty of that group of women
Speaker 1: will give birth within the next week. So that was
Speaker 1: the race, right. It's like to keep the babe in
Speaker 1: first for the seventy two hours, okay. We checked that
Speaker 1: box off, and then we made it to a week
Speaker 1: and they were like, great, okay, now you should be
Speaker 1: able to get to thirty two weeks. And at thirty
Speaker 1: two weeks we worry a lot less about a premium baby,
Speaker 1: and um, you'll be in good shape. So I may
Speaker 1: get past thirty two weeks and they're like, awesome, let's
Speaker 1: get to thirty four weeks. And at thirty four weeks
Speaker 1: we got to take the baby out because at this point,
Speaker 1: you've had this rupture for so long that it's also
Speaker 1: telling your placenta that your placenta's job is done. The
Speaker 1: baby is not getting food anymore on nutrients on the inside.
Speaker 1: Good lord, this is such a side exactly. The baby
Speaker 1: is not getting may not be getting what it needs
Speaker 1: anymore after a certain point. And it's dangerous for you,
Speaker 1: right because if you birth the placenta while the baby's
Speaker 1: still in there, like, that's a whole dangerous situation, right,
Speaker 1: And actually I'm not even totally sure if that was
Speaker 1: the exact that boy I just described it was the
Speaker 1: exact risk, but like, you don't want to you don't
Speaker 1: want people sent it to call it quits before the
Speaker 1: baby comes out. And you had been on bed rest
Speaker 1: in the hospital. Were you allowed to take walks in
Speaker 1: the hallway? Were you eating where you postmating food? Was
Speaker 1: your husband coming and spending the night here and there? Like?
Speaker 1: What was I mean? Oh my god? Yeah? Well did
Speaker 1: you sleep at all? Did you sleep like I did? I?
Speaker 1: Did I slept? I listen, it was my third trimester.
Speaker 1: We had postponed a lot of stuff that we were
Speaker 1: supposed to get done during this pregnancy. Utill that time.
Speaker 1: So I was busy, Okay, I was like three. You know,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of stuff to do. We hadn't
Speaker 1: found a pediatrician, you know, we we had we are
Speaker 1: houses under construction, you know, we were like running a
Speaker 1: construction project. That was just we I was very busy
Speaker 1: in the hospital. But yes, I was not on UM
Speaker 1: technical bedrest because I was allowed. I got up and
Speaker 1: walked every day. They encouraged me to, in fact, and
Speaker 1: and I was allowed a visitor a day outside UM.
Speaker 1: And so I had that's nice. Oh my god. Yes,
Speaker 1: my good friend, my dear, dear wonderful friend, Milton, Dr
Speaker 1: Milton Little, He came to visit me almost every single
Speaker 1: day because he was you know, he was in the
Speaker 1: hospital and he would just come and talk to me,
Speaker 1: and we just it was like and and of course
Speaker 1: my incredible husband spent every single night on a cot
Speaker 1: and he was working, he was directing. I see why
Speaker 1: you picked him for so many reasons. I see why
Speaker 1: you picked this and why he's We were in it together.
Speaker 1: We made sure to be um. You know that neither
Speaker 1: of us were going through that experience alone. It was
Speaker 1: scary for both of us, right and so he would
Speaker 1: work during the day, go home and open the mail
Speaker 1: and open the packages and let the dog out, you know,
Speaker 1: after work, and then come and and get Most days
Speaker 1: he was able to get there in time for Postmates
Speaker 1: for dinner. And you know, in the beginning, the US
Speaker 1: Open tennis was on, so we would enjoy. We just
Speaker 1: we just settled in to a new normal of this
Speaker 1: weird you know, hospital life. And and he spent literally
Speaker 1: every single night in the hospital. Yeah, wow, what a gem.
Speaker 1: So you make it to thirty four weeks and the
Speaker 1: doctor says, we made it to thirty three and three,
Speaker 1: which is different than thirty four. And then what happens?
Speaker 1: How does labor go down? Um? So I started to
Speaker 1: feel contractions and around I believe it was like two
Speaker 1: or to thirty in the morning. And every day they
Speaker 1: were monitoring me and the baby. And I've been told like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're having contractions. Do you feel them? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know them at all. And so finally when
Speaker 1: I started to feel them, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: should probably tell somebody about this. So I wait about
Speaker 1: a half hour to see if they're coming consistently, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, they were coming every five minutes. I woke
Speaker 1: up Pete. We tracked them together for about another half
Speaker 1: hour and then I called him the nurse, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm contracting consistently and it's been going on for about
Speaker 1: an hour, and they put me on the monitor, which
Speaker 1: I hated. I hated being on that monitor. I hated
Speaker 1: that baby monitor. And uh and then um, the contractions
Speaker 1: kind of went away. By six am, I was back to,
Speaker 1: you know, just regular hospital living. And but the team
Speaker 1: of doctors had decided they were like, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: that's a sign. You know, we we got to get
Speaker 1: this baby out. Um, we don't want to run the
Speaker 1: risk of being an emergency situation, and so we decided
Speaker 1: to induce that day. And it all happened really really fast. Um,
Speaker 1: the decision was made really quickly, and suddenly I was
Speaker 1: packing up the room I've been living in for six
Speaker 1: weeks and waiting for my husband to wrap shooting so
Speaker 1: that we could move over into labor and delivery. And UM,
Speaker 1: we induced by potosa in, which was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do potosan And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to prejudice anybody. There's there's nothing inherently necessarily bad,
Speaker 1: especially in a situation like mine about using potosa. But
Speaker 1: I just you know, I didn't want it. I just
Speaker 1: know you have your triggers, you know, like you know
Speaker 1: in your gut, like what you want there. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to there doesn't have to be a reason for it, yours,
Speaker 1: Like I really don't want to do that, and you did.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't, and so you know, like I
Speaker 1: had a total breakdown. Actually I had a little baby
Speaker 1: tantrum and I was like, it's always gonna be yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't the first either. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. After all that time and the hospital, it was,
Speaker 1: I guess the last that I had before the baby came.
Speaker 1: And and it took exactly twenty four maybe twenty five
Speaker 1: hours to actually start active labor after that. And I
Speaker 1: was so upset the whole time because I thought, we're
Speaker 1: inducing and the baby is not ready. Nothing's happening, the
Speaker 1: baby's not ready. Let's just go back to the maternal
Speaker 1: fetal care unit and and let the baby cook a
Speaker 1: little longer. She doesn't want to calm, stop, stop the
Speaker 1: induction stop. And then finally at an hour, the real
Speaker 1: contraction starting and it was back labor, of course, because
Speaker 1: you know it couldn't be easy for those listening. Back
Speaker 1: labor basically means she's all the pressure is going to
Speaker 1: your lower back, and the way that her position is
Speaker 1: is real painful, real bad, real bad. It was. It
Speaker 1: was awful. So did you have an epidural? So I
Speaker 1: I endured back labor for about eight hours, and then
Speaker 1: I had an epidural and I passed out for four hours.
Speaker 1: I was asleep while that the rest of my labor
Speaker 1: took place. And they woke me up and said, you
Speaker 1: should you know, it's almost time to start pushing. And
Speaker 1: you know, they gave me time to get my wits
Speaker 1: about me, and they gave me in Pete some time
Speaker 1: alone and we had like a lovely tender moment before
Speaker 1: the baby came, and uh, you know, to ourselves to
Speaker 1: acknowledge the giant nous of the moment and at the
Speaker 1: end of that like harrowing journey and and we were
Speaker 1: almost there and then we came. And I pushed for
Speaker 1: about forty five minutes only um and out she came.
Speaker 1: She was in pretty good shape, but she was early,
Speaker 1: so she did she did have to go to the
Speaker 1: Nike You right, away. Um, I mean I got to
Speaker 1: help hold her for a bit first, right after she
Speaker 1: was cleaned off, but because her lungs were just a
Speaker 1: little not not quite how long was it to go
Speaker 1: in the nick you thirty three days? Oh yeah, my god,
Speaker 1: that is so much longer than I was expecting you
Speaker 1: to say. You know, I think people were trying to
Speaker 1: like not inspire a sense of dread and foreboding in me.
Speaker 1: But while I was in the maternal fetal care unit,
Speaker 1: everyone said like, oh, she gets to thirty four weeks,
Speaker 1: Like she could be out, you know, she could be
Speaker 1: out of the nikkio within a few days, maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, probably a couple of weeks, you know.
Speaker 1: And so every day that took by. After two weeks,
Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell, Like, when can I
Speaker 1: take my baby home? And um, she needed to learn
Speaker 1: how to eat, right like she she came so early
Speaker 1: that her lungs weren't She didn't have the stamina to
Speaker 1: do the suck, swallow, breathe reflex um long enough to
Speaker 1: get a full feeding. So like, your baby's gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta be able to take a baby home and feed it,
Speaker 1: otherwise you're gonna have some real problems. So that's what
Speaker 1: we were sort of still in the Nicke for. But
Speaker 1: I started to have the sense of, like, maybe she
Speaker 1: would be doing better at home, and and am I
Speaker 1: doing the right thing? Are we doing the right thing
Speaker 1: by by keeping her here? And they're the goal for them,
Speaker 1: bless their hearts, you know, they know what they're doing, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but their goal is to get that baby to eat
Speaker 1: by bottle. And it was very important to me of
Speaker 1: all of the things that I had given up, you know,
Speaker 1: all the plans they've given up, And yeah, I wanted
Speaker 1: to breastfeed, and and we when we made our attempts,
Speaker 1: we could. And but in order to get her out
Speaker 1: of the Nike, their main concern was that she eat
Speaker 1: by bottle, but being fed by by the nurses there.
Speaker 1: And I was, you know, very insistent that Pete and
Speaker 1: I be involved as many feedings as possible, either by
Speaker 1: doing the feeding ourselves or breastfeeding, because we didn't just
Speaker 1: want to take them a baby that could like hit
Speaker 1: all the the check boxes and hit all the markers
Speaker 1: of of getting out of the nik but that like
Speaker 1: was bonded to it us and had adjustment into the
Speaker 1: life they were going to have you know, she was
Speaker 1: going to have when we took her home, and and
Speaker 1: and so then I started to feel like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: are my interventions getting in the way of her getting
Speaker 1: out of here. We're supposed to be out of here
Speaker 1: at two weeks. It was just a total mind fuck,
Speaker 1: total mind fuck. And You're like, I want a breastfeed
Speaker 1: and get the skin to skin connection because that's going
Speaker 1: to heal her, and my breast milk is going to
Speaker 1: heal her. But then you're like, funk. But then like,
Speaker 1: she obviously needs the calories and the the stamina to eat,
Speaker 1: which they are helping her with here. So like it's
Speaker 1: this delicate dance of well, obviously you nailed it because
Speaker 1: she's six months old and she's healthy and thriving, and
Speaker 1: so whatever ended up, it worked out working get her out.
Speaker 1: But look, what's so fucking crazy about this mind funck
Speaker 1: of motherhood is that it really makes you in the
Speaker 1: present moment. And so whatever hurdles you were dealing with
Speaker 1: six months ago aren't the hurdles you're dealing with today.
Speaker 1: And so I can't Yeah, you can't even that's what
Speaker 1: I mean. And at that time, they're the biggest, most
Speaker 1: so fucking so acute, and then you get to this
Speaker 1: one and it's like, you know, you're facing whatever in
Speaker 1: these things are today, which won't be what they are
Speaker 1: in a month from now. What did it feel like
Speaker 1: when you finally brought her home? I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get emotional about it now, but I was just so relieved.
Speaker 1: We're so relieved that our deal was over. And you know,
Speaker 1: the nick you experience in some ways was really UM
Speaker 1: gave us kind of a soft place to land as parents.
Speaker 1: You know, we we went home at night and slept
Speaker 1: in our beds, which I hadn't done for six weeks. Right,
Speaker 1: So like and if I we had brought the baby
Speaker 1: right home, it wouldn't have been like that. You know,
Speaker 1: somebody else, somebody with incredible expertise, UM, was taking care
Speaker 1: of my baby so that I could sleep at night. UM,
Speaker 1: and actually I couldn't take care of her during that
Speaker 1: time anyway. And rest and restore your body which had
Speaker 1: been through major trauma in that you were on bed
Speaker 1: rest and you were in a hospital for six weeks
Speaker 1: throwing up a lot before It's like, okay, you did it.
Speaker 1: You carried this baby as long as your body could
Speaker 1: do it, and then you went home and you rested,
Speaker 1: so that thirty three days later when she would need
Speaker 1: you around the clock, you were probably in a better
Speaker 1: physical state. Yeah. Well, I mean, look it, I was
Speaker 1: sleeping at home, but we weren't getting a ton of
Speaker 1: rest because I was I was first of all, waking
Speaker 1: up and pumping in the middle of the night. You know.
Speaker 1: Pete was working a little bit at a time, and
Speaker 1: and I was at the hospital every single day, all
Speaker 1: day long for as many hours as I possibly could
Speaker 1: be before I would go home and go to bed
Speaker 1: and clean out my pump parks and everything. And so
Speaker 1: I just see you, I see you, I see you
Speaker 1: in this time. I can like see you and I
Speaker 1: are so similar in this like you're like I can
Speaker 1: imagine you because you're such You're so on it and
Speaker 1: you're so just if there is something to be done,
Speaker 1: you are going to fucking do it. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: that you were just right. Yeah, no, it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were. We were there all day, every day, and
Speaker 1: so that was like exhausting. But at the same time
Speaker 1: we've learned so much. People I don't know anything about infants,
Speaker 1: like near fus knew anything about infants, so like all
Speaker 1: that stuff that like you leave the hospital with maybe
Speaker 1: like a pamphlet about and maybe you've read a book
Speaker 1: and have decided how you want to do things, but
Speaker 1: like the moment to moment work of keeping a baby live.
Speaker 1: We watched professionals do for thirty three days, and and
Speaker 1: so when we brought her home, we were actually really confident,
Speaker 1: you know. And and I think we didn't worry about
Speaker 1: things like that a lot of parents worry about, you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, is she breathing? I was like, I can,
Speaker 1: I can see that. She's like, I know what it
Speaker 1: looks like when she's breathing you, and it looks like
Speaker 1: when she's in distress of any kind, you know. I
Speaker 1: just I think that we were pretty um confident and
Speaker 1: relatively relaxed at how we we would have been. Let
Speaker 1: me not compare to anybody else. I think I would
Speaker 1: have gotten her home under their circumstances. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what now? But I definitely, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we were like, great, she's home, let's do this. We
Speaker 1: know what to do, we know what we want to do.
Speaker 1: Holidays are coming up, you know, let's let's enjoy life,
Speaker 1: family life. Finally, finally, I my god, applaud you, Kelly mccrew.
Speaker 1: I applaud you for this journey. This I mean, my god,
Speaker 1: this is all like just such warrior mom medals through
Speaker 1: and through and your husband too. Well. First, I just
Speaker 1: want to say, like, the reason that I wanted to
Speaker 1: share that story and in detail, um, it was because
Speaker 1: once we were in the hospital, people started coming out
Speaker 1: of the woodwork. People in our lives are like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, maybe became really oh yeah, I was on
Speaker 1: bed rest. And these are really difficult experiences. They're frightening,
Speaker 1: their painful, They're like they mess with your head and
Speaker 1: all of your expectations, and and they're so common, they're
Speaker 1: so common, and we kind of just take it as
Speaker 1: a given because yeah, like childbirth is common. People with
Speaker 1: kids all over play like obviously we've been doing it
Speaker 1: since time immemorial, having children, but it is still a
Speaker 1: big deal. You're on the brink there, like you're in
Speaker 1: a life and death situation for yourself and your child,
Speaker 1: and we just take it like it no big deal
Speaker 1: all the time. And I I think that there's like
Speaker 1: some normalization that should go on with like because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of women also feel shame about not
Speaker 1: caring to term, you know, or feel guilt about things
Speaker 1: that they did in their pregnancy that might have caused
Speaker 1: that to happen, or you know, it is very common.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh my god. I mean, your story is remarkable,
Speaker 1: but you're right in that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: women who give birth to premise. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: women who are on bedrest in hospitals, were at home.
Speaker 1: It's like, and then you never hear about it again.
Speaker 1: It's so fucking weird. No, it's crazy. Like we found
Speaker 1: out about friends of ours whose baby was in nicky
Speaker 1: baby came out like twenty four weeks, and we're like,
Speaker 1: what that little baby, that little you know, rambunctious kid. Wow,
Speaker 1: we had no idea that you went through the terrifying,
Speaker 1: harrowing journey of a nick you experience. And it's like, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, it's way in the past, and your kids
Speaker 1: healthy and thriving and maybe something you want to think
Speaker 1: about her talk about all the time, but like, gosh,
Speaker 1: I really hope you had to support that you needed
Speaker 1: during that time, and and you know, I hope somebody
Speaker 1: fucking patted you on the back to say, like you
Speaker 1: said to me just now, Katie, you know, but that
Speaker 1: that means something to me, like, wow, you and your
Speaker 1: husband did that, And I was like, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: looking hard, really fucking scary, and it takes time to
Speaker 1: recover from a trauma like that, you know. Um, And yes,
Speaker 1: I have all of the resources I could possibly need,
Speaker 1: and so many people don't. I really was excited to
Speaker 1: have you on specifically, I mean, for so many reasons.
Speaker 1: But um, I do think such a huge point of
Speaker 1: this particular episode and having you on is normalizing your
Speaker 1: experience for women who are on bed rest, for women
Speaker 1: who don't carry to term, for women who you know,
Speaker 1: have um that water breaks really early. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like a thing, guys, This is like a total thing,
Speaker 1: and it is not talked about. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think we've ever talked about it on all the episodes
Speaker 1: we've done of Katie's criminal So thank you for being now,
Speaker 1: thank you for being I mean, people Mabe have had
Speaker 1: like yeah, but it just it hasn't been the focus
Speaker 1: of an episode. So thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: our um gateway. And you're hearing you did it, you
Speaker 1: fucking did you. Guys have her name pre planned. Did
Speaker 1: you have an idea? Did you meet her and know
Speaker 1: it was her name? Did you tell me that that
Speaker 1: so her name? Um? Okay, we had to priorities, and
Speaker 1: I'll let you guess whose priority was, you know, which
Speaker 1: of us for whom which of these things are party?
Speaker 1: But like one of them was that we wanted it
Speaker 1: to sound cool. We wanted it to sound like something
Speaker 1: that you know, she would like saying, like being called
Speaker 1: you know when the teacher read out her name, you
Speaker 1: know they she wouldn't feel embarrassed. Um. And the other
Speaker 1: thing was that I needed to have some meaning, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it was a family name or you know, a
Speaker 1: word or a person from history who we admire. That
Speaker 1: was could sort of be like a not inform who
Speaker 1: she is, because we don't know who she's going to be.
Speaker 1: But it's the thing you're going to hear the most, right,
Speaker 1: Let it have some meaning to you that like that
Speaker 1: resonates on on a deeper level. Right, it resonates through
Speaker 1: your ancestry, or resonates through your you know, conscious, through
Speaker 1: your third eye, something like that. So we found this
Speaker 1: this word indigo, which we decided would be a cool
Speaker 1: sounding name. But also has the color and the the
Speaker 1: energy of indigo has so many really great properties, like
Speaker 1: it's a the color is used to sort of open
Speaker 1: up the third eye. It's a color like deep favorite color. Oh,
Speaker 1: you asked him any day of the week, what's your
Speaker 1: favorite color? Indigo? No way? Oh my god, I'm surprised
Speaker 1: he even knows what the color is. Pepper Pig has
Speaker 1: a and he and he hasn't watched pepper Pig for years,
Speaker 1: but when Indy's into it, Pepper Pig has a song
Speaker 1: about all the colors of the rainbow, and indigo was
Speaker 1: the color that he didn't know what that meant, and
Speaker 1: so I showed him which one was indigo in the rainbow,
Speaker 1: and since then he's been sold. Oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: so cool. So speaking of that, I kind of, um,
Speaker 1: I remembered after we decided, like, oh, Indigo, that's kind
Speaker 1: of a cool name. And Wren is kind of a
Speaker 1: play on um one of Pete's names. His first name,
Speaker 1: so which is Warren. So uh, we kind of made
Speaker 1: it like so she just in case we don't have
Speaker 1: any other kids. He's we still passed on part of
Speaker 1: his family name into into her name. Yeah. Um, plus
Speaker 1: it's a bird, and you know, birds are free and
Speaker 1: they fly, and that's a cool like kind of thing
Speaker 1: to assigned to her and let her be inspired by
Speaker 1: as she so chooses throughout her life too. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So the other thing about Indigo was that I remembered
Speaker 1: after we had chosen that name about this book. My
Speaker 1: dad was is very into um. Spirituality has been my
Speaker 1: whole life, and he used to take me to this
Speaker 1: mystical this mystic bookstore, and I picked out this book
Speaker 1: once called The Missing Magical Energy, and it was about
Speaker 1: all of these crystals, uh that unite there, the colors
Speaker 1: spectrum unites to like heal planet Earth, right, all we
Speaker 1: need all of the the energies of the Earth and
Speaker 1: the wind and the fire and the rain and then
Speaker 1: you know, all of these powers that that these colors
Speaker 1: and crystals represent, and Indigo was the missing magical energy.
Speaker 1: And only once they were rejoined by Indigo, could they,
Speaker 1: you know, have work in full force to heal the
Speaker 1: planet Um in this children's book, come, I fucking love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Kelly, this has been so moving. I'm like,
Speaker 1: You've always been such a grounded artist to me and
Speaker 1: such a grounded person I just really feel your feet
Speaker 1: under you, and my God, like I just think that
Speaker 1: that is translated. It's one of your superpowers. And it's
Speaker 1: just really it translates so well into motherhood. I mean
Speaker 1: it really, you just seem so like this is I
Speaker 1: know it's this hasn't this hasn't been always for you,
Speaker 1: but my God, like it's such a fit. Um, since
Speaker 1: coming home. What has been the hardest part of parenting
Speaker 1: so far for you? Guilt? Um, the guilt of like feeling,
Speaker 1: oh my god, everything makes me feel guilty Katie going
Speaker 1: to work, staying home, falling asleep, like feeling tired and
Speaker 1: not having a ton of energy for her, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: not having read that book so that I knew what
Speaker 1: to do right away when she showed signs of being
Speaker 1: interested in food. Like everything, I'm just prone to guilt
Speaker 1: and a shame in the first place, so like just
Speaker 1: everything is like a trigger for like, oh I should
Speaker 1: have done this differently, or oh I should have done
Speaker 1: that differently, and ah, you know, so just it's the guilt. Well,
Speaker 1: the great thing is you'll get so many fucking opportunities
Speaker 1: to keep changing the narrative for yourself. Um, what have
Speaker 1: you been learning about Pete and your own parenting styles
Speaker 1: from raising Indie. Are you guys similar or you vastly different?
Speaker 1: Thus far um, we're not vastly different. But I am like,
Speaker 1: I am a researcher about this. I'm not about everything
Speaker 1: in life, but I I am a reason I wanted,
Speaker 1: like read all the books about this. I feel like
Speaker 1: I need external expertise. Maybe that's the main distinction, is
Speaker 1: like I feel like I want the help, like having
Speaker 1: all of the information so I can weigh my options
Speaker 1: and really make like uninformed choice about how I want
Speaker 1: to handle this thing or that thing or this thing.
Speaker 1: And but really what that does is makes it really
Speaker 1: hard to reading decisions. So Pete, it's very decisive. Director. Director, Well,
Speaker 1: you guys are a perfect fucking in the middle, and
Speaker 1: what you guys bring is absolutely perfect. What has Indie?
Speaker 1: What is Indie like as a baby? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: she is so charming because she's a fucking libra. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's a fucking libra, and so are you, and so
Speaker 1: is my son. Charming is a big component. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: are fucking charming. She's very social. She every time she
Speaker 1: meets somebody newer or you know, not new, the usual
Speaker 1: people coming over to the house, and she like kind
Speaker 1: of waits. It takes a second for them to register,
Speaker 1: and everybody gets a big old smile, and she's just like, hey,
Speaker 1: she's well, she's got a warmth and like a sense
Speaker 1: of like I don't canna have a great time like
Speaker 1: she is just she's delightful. She's a good she is
Speaker 1: a great hang. She's a great hang. And she doesn't
Speaker 1: have any consonants yet, but when she does, I think
Speaker 1: she's going to be a great storyteller. She is so
Speaker 1: like she's very observant of how people um are reacting
Speaker 1: to her, you know, and she can turn it up
Speaker 1: if you're having a good time. You know, we're having
Speaker 1: a good time. Yeah, let's keep going, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's she's going to be
Speaker 1: a good, good little storyteller. Are you able? Have you
Speaker 1: been able to make time for each other? You impete
Speaker 1: um we have here and there we are both working
Speaker 1: a lot um on our jobs, and then the work
Speaker 1: of the household is also a lot. Fortunately we have support,
Speaker 1: but it does become really difficult to um, yeah, to
Speaker 1: carve out time. But we were doing it here and
Speaker 1: there and we have, you know, some plans for the
Speaker 1: summer and we'll get there. I'm not worried about it yet,
Speaker 1: you're h and you're fucking in it. I'm musics month old.
Speaker 1: They say, like, the first year is just really it's
Speaker 1: a lot of adjusting and a lot of priority reorganizing
Speaker 1: and identity shifting and things like that. So go easy
Speaker 1: on yourselves for sure. Kelly. What advice do you have
Speaker 1: now for other young professionals who are worried about achieving
Speaker 1: career milestones before having a child. Oh, I would say,
Speaker 1: makeup plan. I would say, really like, do that five year,
Speaker 1: ten year plan thing. And obviously, life happens and you
Speaker 1: can't control everything, every single thing that happens. But I
Speaker 1: have some idea of where things are going to fall.
Speaker 1: I think I if I could do anything over again,
Speaker 1: I would sort of, you know, I'm very like, oh,
Speaker 1: just let it manifest and things will unfold, and just
Speaker 1: keep putting energy out there and put the work in
Speaker 1: and things will unfold to say, as they will. And
Speaker 1: I still think that that's true. But I also think
Speaker 1: that if if parenting is going to be part of
Speaker 1: your life, look, I'm forty, my baby is six months old.
Speaker 1: I'm like, if I had done this younger, it would
Speaker 1: have been easier. And I completely agree with you. I
Speaker 1: completely agree with you. Yeah, and uh, I also I
Speaker 1: know that I'm it also happened at the perfect time
Speaker 1: because I'm ready with resources in a way that I
Speaker 1: would not have been ten years ago. And this would
Speaker 1: have been much harder for me personally ten years ago
Speaker 1: without those resources. And plenty of people do it with that,
Speaker 1: but but just having it, like, really get real with yourself,
Speaker 1: do whatever you need to do to get your self
Speaker 1: awareness together, make a plan and see if you can
Speaker 1: pull it off. Last question, parenthood is parenthood is? I
Speaker 1: mean amazing true that Kelly McCreery. I'm so grateful for
Speaker 1: you making the time with a six month old and
Speaker 1: you took so much time and care and energy and
Speaker 1: you are such a fucking glorious mom, and we've got
Speaker 1: to have you back on Katie's crib. I'd be happy.
Speaker 1: I hate to hear how it's going and teach me
Speaker 1: all the ways and I have a lot to learn
Speaker 1: from you, and I'm so happy. I'm just so happy
Speaker 1: for you. Thank you the best, Kelly, the best. Thank
Speaker 1: you guys, so much for listening to today's episode. I
Speaker 1: 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 Shanda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a
Speaker 1: production of Shonda Land Audio in partner ship with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. M