Speaker 1: This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
Speaker 1: welcome back to another episode of Life on Cut.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and we have such a special
Speaker 2: episode for you today.
Speaker 1: It feels like sitting down with an old friend, one
Speaker 1: of our own alumni.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is within the Bachelor Illuminati.
Speaker 1: We did a call out quite a while ago and said, like,
Speaker 1: who do you guys want on the podcast and one
Speaker 1: of the most requested names that came in.
Speaker 3: Was not Holly, but we had it.
Speaker 4: We couldn't get.
Speaker 2: Us in Bachelor's very own Holly Kingston.
Speaker 1: And I mean we've talked about Holly and Jimmy, who's
Speaker 1: also sitting in the room hiding in the corner with
Speaker 1: their baby Lenny at the moment, but we've spoken about
Speaker 1: Holly so much over the years on the pod. We
Speaker 1: did Batchel on Cut and we literally updated you all
Speaker 1: in real.
Speaker 3: Time on them falling in love.
Speaker 1: And now we get to update you all on a
Speaker 1: very different phase of life that Holly and Jimmy have
Speaker 1: found themselves in, and that is being brand spanking new parents.
Speaker 2: Holly, Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I do feel like a little bit of
Speaker 5: pressure and I feel like it's really I think you've
Speaker 5: stitched me up a bit because I feel like I've
Speaker 5: been on a bender for about two months. I'm not
Speaker 5: the best version of myself, a baby bender. I wasn't
Speaker 5: drunk for two months, just so everyone's.
Speaker 4: I imagine, could you imagine that's the headline? Holy on
Speaker 4: baby bender?
Speaker 1: To be fair, though, like it is a wild bit
Speaker 1: of gear those first couple of months after having a baby.
Speaker 5: It is. But I think we were talking about it
Speaker 5: just before we, you know, started recording. But it's a
Speaker 5: fine line, isn't it, Because people really do. I do
Speaker 5: feel like I went in thinking it was going to
Speaker 5: be all doom and gloom, and it has been so
Speaker 5: much fun. It actually has. I've been a bit tired,
Speaker 5: but it's been so much fun.
Speaker 4: It's so nice to hear because Laura and I have
Speaker 4: spoken about this like multiple times, never in detail, but
Speaker 4: always in passing comments on the podcast in private, but
Speaker 4: all you hear the narrative about childbirth and the first
Speaker 4: year of motherhood, not even the first year. But it's
Speaker 4: just how taxing it is, how exhausting it is, how
Speaker 4: you never sleep again, how your social life changes, your
Speaker 4: relationship changes, everybody highlights the bad stuff, so it's really
Speaker 4: I'm trying to ignore Letty if anyone can hear his
Speaker 4: like moaning, we haven't left him on his own, Jimmy
Speaker 4: don't have him, But it's really nice to hear straight
Speaker 4: off the bat as well, you say like it's been
Speaker 4: great and not as bad as everyone made it out sound.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's quite ironic timing as well as
Speaker 5: my child screaming in the background, But no, it has
Speaker 5: been It's been so much fun. And I feel like
Speaker 5: I actually run into Laura at an event when I
Speaker 5: was heavily pregnant, and I thought about what you said
Speaker 5: to me so much, which was no one tells you
Speaker 5: about how fun it is, and that's something that I
Speaker 5: was underprepared for. I was very prepared for having no
Speaker 5: sleep and how much it's going to change your relationship
Speaker 5: with your husband and all of these things, and you
Speaker 5: don't get prepared for how fun it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting one because I remember when I
Speaker 1: had Mali and I was so ready for my life
Speaker 1: life to be ruined because I've been told so many
Speaker 1: times that it would never be the same. And don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, like, yeah, of course, it changes your relationship,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's one hurdle after another. It's a
Speaker 1: forever changing beast being a parent. But I think that
Speaker 1: it was important for the conversations of women who have
Speaker 1: found becoming mothers really hard to have its time in
Speaker 1: the spotlight. I think it's so important for us to
Speaker 1: have those conversations so that when motherhood does feel really hard,
Speaker 1: you're not sitting in a silo going am I the
Speaker 1: only one suffering? But I do think that that pendulum
Speaker 1: swung so far into one direction that for people who
Speaker 1: have actually had great experiences, or maybe even if you've
Speaker 1: had a traumatic birth experience but you don't feel ongoing
Speaker 1: trauma from it, it's as though we walk into motherhood
Speaker 1: with a lot of fear now that it's going to
Speaker 1: just absolutely fucking destroy your life. You're not going to
Speaker 1: have a career, and you're not going to have any
Speaker 1: sort of sense of social life, and your relationship is
Speaker 1: going to go down the drain. And not all of
Speaker 1: those things happen all at once for every single person.
Speaker 1: I think is important to show that side as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think every day is so different. Obviously, you're going
Speaker 1: to have your shit days, and you do.
Speaker 5: But I've actually really thoroughly enjoyed motherhood. There are certain things.
Speaker 5: The hardest thing for me was the hormones. No, like,
Speaker 5: I feel like that's under talked about. I think that's something.
Speaker 5: Those first few weeks, it was genuinely like there was
Speaker 5: just black. I was just Jimmy would be trying to
Speaker 5: talk to me, and I'd be looking out the window
Speaker 5: and just like, what have I done? And that is
Speaker 5: you don't really want to talk about that because it
Speaker 5: sounds like you're ungrateful for this journey. But one day
Speaker 5: that all just kind of lifted, and that was a
Speaker 5: really tough part. The other tough part is that you
Speaker 5: kind of feel like you've lost your old identity a
Speaker 5: little bit. You're now someone's mum and your body's changed.
Speaker 5: Everything you know, so much has changed. And we didn't
Speaker 5: help that because we moved house within like two weeks
Speaker 5: of me giving birth, So I'm in this whole new place.
Speaker 5: I'm you know, an hour away from where we used
Speaker 5: to be, and I'm you know, I don't lactating over Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm lactating all over myself. But yeah, there was definitely
Speaker 5: I think now we're really in the fun stage. I
Speaker 5: feel like you start to kind of think, Okay, I
Speaker 5: kind of know what I'm doing now kind of and
Speaker 5: things are getting a lot more funny, starting to smile
Speaker 5: at us and all of those things. It's starting to
Speaker 5: feel more rewarding at the first, you know, those first
Speaker 5: few weeks, you genuinely just for me, I just felt
Speaker 5: like a vessel. I felt like I had utters and
Speaker 5: that was you know.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's essentially it, right, Like they're just
Speaker 4: in the nicest way possible, they're little blobs. They're just
Speaker 4: pooh and need to eat, and that's all they do,
Speaker 4: and that's all you have to do all day. And
Speaker 4: I think it's really important what you just said, And
Speaker 4: I definitely want to get into that a little bit
Speaker 4: later about that idea of the cloud that people feel
Speaker 4: or the weight that people feel on them in those
Speaker 4: first few weeks, Like what have I done? That it's
Speaker 4: not necessarily a true reflection of how you feel. It's
Speaker 4: because we don't talk enough about the hormone change. But
Speaker 4: before we do get into that, we do want to
Speaker 4: kick start with your accidentally unfiltered, your most embarrassing story.
Speaker 5: I actually, do you know what you know when someone
Speaker 5: asks you about your most embarrassing moment, you just can't
Speaker 5: think about it because there's just been I mean it's
Speaker 5: not like I haven't had many, but I just can't
Speaker 5: think about it on the spot.
Speaker 1: Or it depends on the type of person, because some
Speaker 1: people don't embarrass easily, and you're like, I know that
Speaker 1: this would be embarrassing for someone, but like, this is
Speaker 1: just a normal day in the life Paull in Kingston.
Speaker 5: Here we are. Yeah, basically, no. I think most recently,
Speaker 5: I'm just really coming to terms with the laxating situation.
Speaker 5: I'm still kind of coming to terms with the fact
Speaker 5: that these are really their milk in, you know, And
Speaker 5: I mean only probably this is the most recent thing
Speaker 5: I can think of. The most embarrassing thing that's happened
Speaker 5: is I was at chemists warehouse just getting some nappys.
Speaker 5: I think I was getting Jimmy some protein or something.
Speaker 3: Checks out Frien, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, yeah, I'm glad one of us is going
Speaker 5: the gym. You look after yourself done, And I was.
Speaker 5: I was at the Chemist's warehouse counter and there was
Speaker 5: just this like it was just a teenage boy serving
Speaker 5: me and Hagus was looking at me, like I was
Speaker 5: looking at the boobs. I've never had boobs in my life,
Speaker 5: so this is also a really exciting time for me
Speaker 5: in that sense. I mean, without a bra on, they
Speaker 5: don't they don't look like you know, they're not great.
Speaker 5: But with the bra the bra, let me tell you,
Speaker 5: it does wonders no. And he was serving me and
Speaker 5: I actually texted Jimmy at the time and I was like,
Speaker 5: I think I've kind of got my mojo back a
Speaker 5: little bit because he was looking down at my boobs
Speaker 5: and I was like, oh, I've got boobs for the
Speaker 5: first time in my life, fully checking you. Yeah, And
Speaker 5: I just was like, I'm killing it today. And it
Speaker 5: wasn't until about, I don't know, ten minutes later that
Speaker 5: I looked down and I just had milk dripping, dripping
Speaker 5: from the nips. So that's my new life. And that's
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just every day, really, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Every day?
Speaker 2: Literally milk, You've got it all.
Speaker 3: So he was checking you out, but just not for
Speaker 3: the right and you thought.
Speaker 1: Shame because you could have picked up some breastpads in
Speaker 1: there at the same time. I could have made it
Speaker 1: all around the shop. I was just telling you about
Speaker 1: this before. But I had a situation where I was
Speaker 1: in mid serving a customer at Tony May and we
Speaker 1: just had a new aircorn instored right above where I
Speaker 1: was standing, and I felt wet, like a drip on me.
Speaker 1: And I look at the customer and I go, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry the air con is leaking. And I
Speaker 1: looked up at the air con and I'm like looking
Speaker 1: at trying to find this leak. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I was full squirting on the customer and she was
Speaker 1: too embarrassed to tell me that. I it was like
Speaker 1: it was beyond just like lactating. It was when it
Speaker 1: does that full let down and just squirts out of
Speaker 1: my top and was terrified.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like a water.
Speaker 5: For her skin though very good for.
Speaker 3: You should be grateful.
Speaker 4: Rub that on yourself, charger for it, Like that's essentially
Speaker 4: a facial that's terrible.
Speaker 3: Don't worry.
Speaker 1: I feel like any mom or new mum listening to
Speaker 1: it so will be like we've all been that, We've
Speaker 1: all had those moments.
Speaker 4: We put the questions out because you were so requested.
Speaker 4: We were like, hey, let's just really lead into this.
Speaker 4: What did you want to know from Holly, like, you
Speaker 4: guys have wanted this information and let's try and start
Speaker 4: in chronological order.
Speaker 3: But there were quite a lot of.
Speaker 4: Questions surrounding your life before the Bachelor. Were you already
Speaker 4: into like interior styling and fashion styling and because that's
Speaker 4: what people look at you for now, it's really become
Speaker 4: your mold of your Instagram presence.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean so, I was in fashion marketing for
Speaker 5: ten years so before ironically I was one of my
Speaker 5: main things was influence outreach and basically forgetting influencers to
Speaker 5: do campaigns and things like that. So I worked for
Speaker 5: a company called Retailer Power Group. And to be completely honest,
Speaker 5: when I went on the show, Jimmy and I were
Speaker 5: both asked to be to well, both both as to
Speaker 5: be on The Bachelor but with but when Casting was
Speaker 5: basically saying to me, because I was, I'm absolutely not
Speaker 5: doing it. It's just not something that I feel like
Speaker 5: is the right thing for me. And when Casting reached out,
Speaker 5: they basically said, look, we're trialing something different this year.
Speaker 5: Basically no one has any form of Instagram following. He
Speaker 5: doesn't want to be he doesn't want to be an influencer.
Speaker 5: He's got a real job all of that stuff, and
Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, great, that sounds good to me
Speaker 5: because I don't want to be in that whole scene.
Speaker 5: And then I mean fast forward afterwards and it just
Speaker 5: kind of it's just something that we we started doing.
Speaker 5: It is something that just happens. Yeah, it happens. Jimmy
Speaker 5: and I had a big chat about it after the
Speaker 5: show it aired, and we were like, well, if we
Speaker 5: are going to do this, what like, how do we
Speaker 5: do it? What do we want to do? And a
Speaker 5: big thing for us we made a pledge to each
Speaker 5: other was if we are going to do this, we
Speaker 5: have to always make sure that if we're ever going
Speaker 5: to do brand partnerships, they always have to feel authentic
Speaker 5: to us. We have to know and love the product
Speaker 5: or we have to trial the product and genuinely love it.
Speaker 5: And that's something that for us over the years has
Speaker 5: been incredibly important. It's not something that we I remember
Speaker 5: at the start, you know, getting you get so many requests, Yeah,
Speaker 5: well so many requests. Mate.
Speaker 3: I did a soup in COVID.
Speaker 4: I needed money and I was like, oh, nothing against
Speaker 4: sorry take out soup.
Speaker 3: Promote in COVID. I remember looking at brit at that point.
Speaker 1: Now, I was like, that's a real low point when
Speaker 1: you're poking packet soup on Instagram and I was.
Speaker 4: Like, sorry, I need to support my entire family in COVID. Yes,
Speaker 4: I'll sell the soup. I loved the soup, to be fair,
Speaker 4: it was authentic.
Speaker 5: It's authentic.
Speaker 1: I also do think that when you come from the
Speaker 1: side of life where you don't have an Instagram presence,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're not an influencer. I do think
Speaker 1: that we look at influencers with a dirty lens. I
Speaker 1: think that we can kind of have a perception around
Speaker 1: what we think that is. And then you you know,
Speaker 1: doing a reality TV show like The Bachelor means you're
Speaker 1: thrust into a situation where you do have a following
Speaker 1: and people are paying attention to what it is that
Speaker 1: you're saying, whether that's a value or not of value,
Speaker 1: and you have a choice to choose what type of
Speaker 1: business quote unquote you want to be. And I think
Speaker 1: that I've kind of had the same feeling around it,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't have a personal Instagram when I did
Speaker 1: The Bachelor. I only had my business one Tony May
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden I had this random
Speaker 1: one called Lady in a Cat that had a lot
Speaker 1: of people following it.
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, what do I want to
Speaker 3: do with this?
Speaker 1: Like it would almost be a missed opportunity to say
Speaker 1: that you're going to do nothing with it, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think that your perception around it changes as
Speaker 1: you become more familiar with what it means to have
Speaker 1: that responsibility.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think for Jimmy and I as well.
Speaker 5: I mean that first year was I mean, you go
Speaker 5: from being on a reality show to then being in
Speaker 5: a new relationship and then you're basically working together and
Speaker 5: we had no shortage of arguments. We decided we really
Speaker 5: wanted to focus on travel. He's a pilot, and you know,
Speaker 5: I really wanted to do all of the travel stuff,
Speaker 5: and so we were reaching out to, you know, all
Speaker 5: these different little airbnbs, like we'd love to come and
Speaker 5: you know, and we'd bring the mics and we do
Speaker 5: all of these things. And we worked really, really hard.
Speaker 5: I mean, Jimmy learned how to fly the drone. He
Speaker 5: tried to teach me and I crushed it, so I
Speaker 5: don't touch that anymore. But we worked really hard, particularly
Speaker 5: with the travel stuff to make something of it, and
Speaker 5: that took about a year and a half and now
Speaker 5: we're doing a lot more of that and whatnot. But
Speaker 5: it does take work, and you've got to be incredibly
Speaker 5: authentic otherwise people can see through it.
Speaker 1: Now, what was that you said the first year your life?
Speaker 1: You know, you go from being on the show to
Speaker 1: having a relationship to working together. What was that like
Speaker 1: for your relationship, Because I think everybody has a different
Speaker 1: experience when they get spat out of that Bachelor machine
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of support. You kind of just go from being on
Speaker 1: this show to being like cool, make it or break it,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I mean it's very evident that
Speaker 1: some couples thrive in that or it's galvanizing for them,
Speaker 1: and other couples really just it's a pressure cooker that
Speaker 1: they can't survive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were very lucky that we had each other
Speaker 5: and we kind of we did thrive in that whole environment.
Speaker 5: And I think it was just because it felt a
Speaker 5: little bit like it was us against us against the world.
Speaker 4: It does feel like that, I mean I do, but
Speaker 4: it still felt like me against the world.
Speaker 3: But it does feel like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, we put our foot in it
Speaker 5: a few times. I'm sure you could probably remember one
Speaker 5: of those times. You know. That's when it's really tricky,
Speaker 5: is when you say something that you know gets taken
Speaker 5: out of context or something, and then it's genuinely you
Speaker 5: feel like the world is against you, and you have
Speaker 5: that opportunity to either go, well, we can do this together,
Speaker 5: or we can you know, let it break us. And
Speaker 5: we thankfully didn't let those things break us.
Speaker 1: You've maintained a really close friendship with Carli from that
Speaker 1: from the season that you guys did. Is there anyone
Speaker 1: else from the season that you've been friends with or like,
Speaker 1: what was that experience like for you when you came
Speaker 1: out of the show and then still had to engage
Speaker 1: with some of the girls and you know, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a weird one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, I mean I didn't have a heap of
Speaker 5: friends on that show. I've tried to think about it
Speaker 5: a few times. I think it's because I have a
Speaker 5: personality which I was probably considered to be a little
Speaker 5: bit blunt, a bit sarcastic with some of the girls,
Speaker 5: and I think there was also that element of I
Speaker 5: mean it's just a very bizarre environment to make friends.
Speaker 5: Carlie and I are still very close. Its actually her
Speaker 5: wedding in a few weeks and I am bridesmaid, which
Speaker 5: is really fun. And I'm also still really close with
Speaker 5: Tani and Lily, So I kind of came out. I
Speaker 5: was really lucky to come out with a couple of friends.
Speaker 5: I haven't spoken to the others.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where and I always describe
Speaker 1: it as like, if you win it, you come out
Speaker 1: with a partner, and if you lose it, you come
Speaker 1: out with friends. And it's not very common to come
Speaker 1: out with both because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you're in competition with women for affection and there's like
Speaker 1: this hierarchy system that starts to happen, and it is
Speaker 1: just not an environment that is conducive for breeding friendships
Speaker 1: when you're pitted against each other at every point.
Speaker 4: It's funny because I came out with friendly with everyone,
Speaker 4: like not on bad terms with anyone, like you'll support
Speaker 4: each other on Instagram. But I didn't come out with
Speaker 4: any proper friends from the show. Still not to this
Speaker 4: day do I have any My two friends closest friends
Speaker 4: from the Bachelor, are you? Laura from a different season,
Speaker 4: and the stylist Kim, who's become one of my best friends. Like,
Speaker 4: they're the relationships that I ended up taking from The
Speaker 4: Bachelor because it is it's not a normal environment, and
Speaker 4: when you leave sometimes when you're in it, you have
Speaker 4: these amazing connections, like I had really good friends on
Speaker 4: the show, but then when you leave you realize that
Speaker 4: maybe it's the pressure cooker environment that forces you to
Speaker 4: have similarities, and then when you leave, you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's not quite what it was in It's funny.
Speaker 5: I think back to those bunk beds. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I actually think it's hilarious because the bunk beds, they're
Speaker 5: all engraved by past seasons, and some of the engravings
Speaker 5: were like leave, get out, and you're like, ride where
Speaker 5: am I?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't think I had anything of yours. I remember, yes,
Speaker 5: someone from the previous season. I remember reading hers and
Speaker 5: it was like love so and so and it was
Speaker 5: like get out right now while you can. And I
Speaker 5: was like, oh my god, what have I done me?
Speaker 3: Hious?
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you would go to bed these bunk beds
Speaker 5: all crammed in this room. And I remember even with Carli,
Speaker 5: she would come home from a date at like eleven
Speaker 5: pm or something and she'd crawl up into the squeaky
Speaker 5: bunk bed on top of me and I'd be like,
Speaker 5: how was it?
Speaker 2: Did you give him a kiss?
Speaker 5: And it's like, how bizarre is that relationship? And you
Speaker 5: can either yeah, I think it's like what you said, Britt,
Speaker 5: is you either realize you don't have that much in
Speaker 5: common and what you have in common is bitching about production,
Speaker 5: bitching about the situation, or you know, you're both dating
Speaker 5: the same guy and you talk about his kissing technique
Speaker 5: and then you get off the show and you're like, actually,
Speaker 5: we don't have that much in common. And thankfully for
Speaker 5: the girls that I was close with and still I
Speaker 5: am close with, is that we realized that we did
Speaker 5: have quite a lot in common, which was nice.
Speaker 1: You guys, obviously you have baby Letty now and we're like,
Speaker 1: as we've established where like in the early throes of
Speaker 1: what motherhood looks like it means to you, but I
Speaker 1: kind of want to take you back to when you
Speaker 1: were trying. And also you spoke about it a little
Speaker 1: bit on Instagram after you did share that you were
Speaker 1: pregnant that it wasn't an easy road to pregnancy. What
Speaker 1: was that period like and from when you guys decided
Speaker 1: to start trying until when you actually found out that
Speaker 1: you're pregnant with Lenny.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, first of all, I turned into an absolute
Speaker 5: nutter in that time, and I think it's really it's
Speaker 5: really easy to get completely swept up in this whole
Speaker 5: thing because you spend your whole life trying not to
Speaker 5: get pregnant, and then when you start trying, you realize,
Speaker 5: hold on a second, it's actually so not as easy
Speaker 5: kids just putting the p in the v and it's
Speaker 5: all done.
Speaker 4: You can see penis a bit of manner on the podcast.
Speaker 5: I Feel So Naughty. No, it was actually a really,
Speaker 5: really challenging time. I think that was probably one of
Speaker 5: the hardest times in my relationship with Jimmy, because I
Speaker 5: think it's kind of like you you are going through
Speaker 5: the ovulation stage and then you have to wait two
Speaker 5: weeks or however long, and you may get your period,
Speaker 5: and it's those two weeks that you're just riddled with
Speaker 5: anxiety and also with a bit of hope, and then
Speaker 5: it doesn't happen. And I was just a wreck for
Speaker 5: that whole week while I had my period, and then
Speaker 5: you start over again. And I'm also very cautious talking
Speaker 5: about this stuff because I know that so many people
Speaker 5: have it so much worse. And that's why I don't
Speaker 5: delve too much about it on social media because I
Speaker 5: think it is really you know, it can be quite
Speaker 5: triggering for people. It's a very sensitive topic, but for us,
Speaker 5: I mean, we got to the stage where we were
Speaker 5: checking sperm and doing those procedures and whatnot. Ironically, it
Speaker 5: was actually Jimmy had gone to get his sperm checked
Speaker 5: the day before I did the ignancy test, which I'm
Speaker 5: so glad he did that because that was quite a
Speaker 5: funny experience.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it is.
Speaker 5: It's just like I can't remember what he said. He
Speaker 5: just made the whole situation so awkward. Like I think
Speaker 5: as we left, he said to the receptionist like record
Speaker 5: timing or something, and I was like, why did you
Speaker 5: say that, Like why do you feel the need to
Speaker 5: feel that silence?
Speaker 4: I offered to go in with Ben when Ben did it,
Speaker 4: because we froze embryos. When Ben did it, they were like,
Speaker 4: it bands your time coming. So he got up to
Speaker 4: get the cup and go into this little room and
Speaker 4: I was following behind him.
Speaker 3: He's like, what are you doing? I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't know. Don't you want Do you want me in there?
Speaker 3: He's like no, it's like I was going to go
Speaker 3: in and play. I don't know what I was going
Speaker 3: to do. I was like, don't you need me? He's like,
Speaker 3: get out.
Speaker 5: Have you seen the room? Though? Yes?
Speaker 4: The TV it's like so gross, it's so gross, plastic
Speaker 4: chair and like a TV to watch pawn.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think Jimmy actually went to play the TV,
Speaker 5: which was like one of those old school, like thick TVs,
Speaker 5: and it was like resume from resume from where you're at.
Speaker 5: It was like seventeen minutes in and he was like,
Speaker 5: oh god, okay, so he just got his phone out,
Speaker 5: I think. But yeah, it was a challenging time for us,
Speaker 5: and we fought a lot in that time, mainly because
Speaker 5: I was just not the best version of myself at all.
Speaker 5: I think you have this vision I've always wanted to
Speaker 5: be a mum, and when you have this thought that
Speaker 5: maybe it might not happen, or maybe you might have
Speaker 5: to go down a more difficult route to get there.
Speaker 5: I found it really really hard, and Jimmy tried his
Speaker 5: best to understand where I was at, whilst also coping
Speaker 5: with the fact that he actually might not you know,
Speaker 5: have him It might not be as easy for him either,
Speaker 5: you know, their journey to becoming a dad. So it
Speaker 5: was a trying time. But yeah, we're just very grateful.
Speaker 5: I think that we didn't have to go down more
Speaker 5: of a difficult route to get there. We were lucky
Speaker 5: to get pregnant and conceive naturally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's a hard space to talk about because
Speaker 4: hard and difficult is subjective. Because somebody else's journey is
Speaker 4: harder than yours doesn't mean yours wasn't hard. And I
Speaker 4: understand why it's difficult to talk about because no matter
Speaker 4: what happens to you or anyone listening, there will be
Speaker 4: someone else has had it easier, and there will always
Speaker 4: be someone else who has had it harder. And it's
Speaker 4: difficult because you don't want to take away from your
Speaker 4: experience and you don't want to add to someone else's.
Speaker 4: But it's still your story to tell, so it's still
Speaker 4: okay for you to say it wasn't the easiest thing
Speaker 4: for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's something and that's something that I kind of
Speaker 5: overthink a lot with social media, and I'm sure you're
Speaker 5: both quite similar as well. Is you've just got to
Speaker 5: be so aware when it comes to sharing these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I also think it's important to show the
Speaker 1: spectrum of how people feel along this journey.
Speaker 3: And there are a lot of.
Speaker 1: Women who maybe try naturally for a year and then
Speaker 1: they've created a narrative for themselves that it's like every
Speaker 1: month is a disappointment and a sadness, and like those
Speaker 1: women as well feel like, well, I can't talk about
Speaker 1: this because it's not as bad as someone who's currently
Speaker 1: going through IVF, but there's.
Speaker 2: Still a deep sense of like not having the thing
Speaker 2: that you want. And I mean, the only thing that.
Speaker 1: I can compare it to from my perspective is I've
Speaker 1: had two miscarriages. Both of those were as in I
Speaker 1: had a miscarriage before Marley and then I had a
Speaker 1: miscarriage before Lola, and I was very lucky to get
Speaker 1: pregnant quite quickly after each miscarriage, and I felt that
Speaker 1: having a successful pregnancy after each miscarriage kind of like
Speaker 1: voided my ability to be sad about the miscarriages because
Speaker 1: I was like, well, at least I got pregnant.
Speaker 4: Like negated the fact that it happened because you fell
Speaker 4: straight away totally.
Speaker 1: So it was like I was like, well, I kind
Speaker 1: of want to tell this story, but also I need
Speaker 1: to make sure that people know that, like, I know
Speaker 1: that other people's version of this is worse than mine.
Speaker 1: And I guess like there's space for all of those
Speaker 1: discussions in the spectrum of what it is to you know,
Speaker 1: have a journey towards motherhood. And everyone is very, very
Speaker 1: sensitive to the fact that there are women out there
Speaker 1: who have it incredibly, incredibly hard, and it's so important
Speaker 1: that those stories are shared. But I think every other
Speaker 1: story along that spectrum is equally as important to share
Speaker 1: because there are other people who are going through the
Speaker 1: exact same thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I remember when we were trying. I remember thinking, well,
Speaker 5: I've only ever heard of like my close friends getting
Speaker 5: pregnant first try or having to go down IVF routes,
Speaker 5: having to you know try for many years before anything,
Speaker 5: I never ever heard of the people in the middle.
Speaker 5: And you know, when we went to go see a
Speaker 5: GP and speak about what our next options were, she said, look, like,
Speaker 5: what's normal. I know, but generally it would be six
Speaker 5: to twelve months that people are trying, and that's kind
Speaker 5: of what we would consider normal. And I was like,
Speaker 5: even I didn't even know that. I thought that, you know,
Speaker 5: most people got pregnant first go or it's a full
Speaker 5: on journey.
Speaker 3: So you can't A lot of people might not even
Speaker 3: know this.
Speaker 4: But with IVF, they won't even see you unless you've
Speaker 4: been trying for twelve months, Like twelve months is definitely
Speaker 4: the okay, twelve months, we might start to think there's
Speaker 4: a problem. It really isn't as easy as people think.
Speaker 4: But we do hear the people that are like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, I fell first try, like I wasn't even trying,
Speaker 4: and that's great, that's amazing, But it definitely isn't the
Speaker 4: normal thing, and I think people need to understand that
Speaker 4: to make themselves feel better. Also the fact that you're
Speaker 4: an educated woman in your thirties trying for a baby
Speaker 4: and you weren't even aware of that.
Speaker 5: No, and I was so unaware of so many, like
Speaker 5: so many different things. I didn't even know that you
Speaker 5: could only get pregnant a few days in the month
Speaker 5: when we first started trying. I was like, I don't really.
Speaker 3: Tell you that just so could I navigated month. It's like,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I read somewhere.
Speaker 2: The fertility window is three weeks.
Speaker 5: I had no idea.
Speaker 2: What was it like for you when you got that
Speaker 2: positive pregnancy test.
Speaker 5: I was in shock, And if I'm completely honest, I
Speaker 5: feel like I was in shock for many, many months.
Speaker 5: And I think after trying for a while, I was
Speaker 5: so terrified something was going to happen. And at the time,
Speaker 5: I was filming Luxury Escapes TV, so I was I
Speaker 5: was on like cruise ships and things, which is not
Speaker 5: where you want to be when you're in your first trimester.
Speaker 5: And I was just kind of around the world. And
Speaker 5: I was actually in a really bad place mentally because
Speaker 5: I was hating first trimester, but mostly I was mentally
Speaker 5: not in a great place because I was terrified constantly
Speaker 5: that something was going to happen. And I was constantly going,
Speaker 5: you know, oh, I don't know, did I eat something
Speaker 5: that may you just you go into all of these
Speaker 5: mindsets that just I don't know.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 5: I struggled a little bit. Actually I struggled my whole pregnancy.
Speaker 5: I'm going to say it right here. I hated being pregnant,
Speaker 5: And I think two things can be true. I think
Speaker 5: you can be so grateful that you are having a
Speaker 5: baby and you're pregnant, but you can also not really
Speaker 5: enjoy the experience. And I didn't love being pregnant.
Speaker 3: What else did you not like about being pregnant?
Speaker 5: I felt quite self conscious a lot, like I've felt
Speaker 5: like my body was changing so rapidly, and it was
Speaker 5: one of those things where all of a sudden, this
Speaker 5: doesn't happen in life, where if you gain a few kilos,
Speaker 5: someone will be, oh, you're looking you know, you're looking
Speaker 5: on a little on the curve your side. And the
Speaker 5: second that you become pregnant or you announce that you're pregnant,
Speaker 5: people feel it's actually completely okay to go, wow, you're
Speaker 5: sure you're not having twins. I got that constantly, or wow,
Speaker 5: you're looking very healthy. It's like, but it was said
Speaker 5: in a that didn't seem like a compliment. I was
Speaker 5: really self conscious, and I think in this world as well,
Speaker 5: in the social media world, that's a little bit more
Speaker 5: exacerbated because you are getting those comments and those dms
Speaker 5: quite frequently about your body. Yeah, like daily, I also
Speaker 5: just I genuinely the hormones did not did not agree
Speaker 5: with me. I was just anxious a lot, and I
Speaker 5: wasn't myself, and I was causing a lot of arguments
Speaker 5: with Jimmy and I because I was just constantly angry
Speaker 5: about something. I was just an angry pregnant lady.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that's kind of fast forwarding a bit,
Speaker 1: and I want to know about the birth and everything else.
Speaker 1: But you've mentioned hormones a couple of times, and I
Speaker 1: think it's so important to talk about that period afterwards.
Speaker 1: And so many women experience it where there isn't this
Speaker 1: instant gratitude or connection or happiness. There's this feeling of
Speaker 1: like what the fuck have we done? And it lifts,
Speaker 1: but it's very real feeling, and it kind of exists
Speaker 1: alongside lots of other feelings of motherhood at the same time.
Speaker 3: What was that like for you?
Speaker 5: That was, without a doubt, the worst. That's first part
Speaker 5: of the fourth trimester was the worst part of this
Speaker 5: whole time for me, with pregnancy, with trying to conceive,
Speaker 5: with everything. And I've never spoken about it because I
Speaker 5: truly feel like such an element of guilt. I have
Speaker 5: everything I ever wanted. We moved into a beautiful new house.
Speaker 5: Jimmy was amazing. He was on paternity leave and he
Speaker 5: was there constantly and being an amazing father, and he
Speaker 5: was just so positive all the time, which also led
Speaker 5: to resentment because I was like, nothing's changed for you,
Speaker 5: and everything's changed for me, which obviously things have changed
Speaker 5: for him. But I felt such an element of guilt,
Speaker 5: particularly in that first month, because genuinely I just felt fog.
Speaker 5: I felt like I was looking out the window and
Speaker 5: I was like, I can't see the light at the
Speaker 5: end of the tunnel, and I think it was just
Speaker 5: a little bit of baby blues. And I think a
Speaker 5: lot of people experience this, But when I had the
Speaker 5: C section and when he came out, I didn't feel
Speaker 5: this instant like they showed me the baby and I
Speaker 5: was like, is this kind of like this moment where
Speaker 5: you're like, I know there was a baby in there
Speaker 5: that whole time, but that's a baby, yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: like I was supposed to do that. And I remember
Speaker 5: when I was wheeled back up after the theater and
Speaker 5: the midwife came in and she was this older midwife
Speaker 5: who had done this for thirty years, and she was like, okay,
Speaker 5: were you guys all good? And jim and I looked
Speaker 5: at each other and we were like, but oh, sorry,
Speaker 5: but what do we do now? And she was like,
Speaker 5: just keep doing what you're doing. And I remember her
Speaker 5: leaving the room, like in slow motion and just being like.
Speaker 3: Don't go. Yeah please.
Speaker 5: I was like, what do we do with this little thing?
Speaker 5: And yeah, I think just it was probably almost at
Speaker 5: the four week mark postpartum where all of a sudden
Speaker 5: I woke up and I was just like, wow, this
Speaker 5: is actually quite fun, and maybe we should start planning
Speaker 5: a holiday this year, and maybe, you know, I could
Speaker 5: start thinking about getting back into pilates, and like, all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, I was thinking about the future, and
Speaker 5: before I was just every day just trying to It
Speaker 5: sounds quite dramatic, but trying to survive. Was just going,
Speaker 5: you know, I feel like I should be so grateful
Speaker 5: for this perfect little baby, and it led to guilt
Speaker 5: because everything was so great, and I was like, you're
Speaker 5: the problem. And we also had Lenny leading up to Christmas,
Speaker 5: so there were so many people wanting to come over
Speaker 5: and visit. And I said to Jimmy at one point,
Speaker 5: I think it was about three weeks in and I said,
Speaker 5: I think I've lost my ability to talk to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want any more people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know how to keep conversation and sustaining
Speaker 5: conversation anymore, because I felt like everyone was so excited
Speaker 5: for us, and I wanted to be the life of
Speaker 5: the party, and I wanted to be excited, but I
Speaker 5: just wasn't you're.
Speaker 3: A dirt inside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there will be so many mums
Speaker 1: who listened to this, and maybe, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how many, Like every pregnancy and every birthing experience
Speaker 1: is different, but I think that there will be mums
Speaker 1: out there who listen to this and go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I had that with my first or my second, or
Speaker 1: you know, I have a girlfriend at the moment who's
Speaker 1: just recently had a baby, and she's going through the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. This like feeling as though the connection
Speaker 1: that you're expected to have.
Speaker 3: Just isn't there.
Speaker 1: And I think my pregnancy with Lola was such a
Speaker 1: surprise because I felt that instant connection with Marley. But Lola,
Speaker 1: I remember sitting on the side of the bed, like
Speaker 1: three days after she was born and staring at her
Speaker 1: thinking what the fuck have I done? And I did
Speaker 1: not feel what I thought I was supposed to feel,
Speaker 1: especially in comparison to first pregnancy.
Speaker 2: But it lifts, you know, and it changes and.
Speaker 1: Like the way that you feel, especially in that like
Speaker 1: postpartum phase where your body is absolutely destroyed and then
Speaker 1: everyone's over and you're like having cups of tea, Like
Speaker 1: it's this surreal experience where you're like, I just ran
Speaker 1: a marathon and almost died, and now I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: fucking keeping this thing alive and talking to you about it,
Speaker 1: and I'm so tired. I just want to go to bed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that you can compare it to. So it's
Speaker 1: so close to an your death experience you're gonna have.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean I just remember. And I think
Speaker 5: the other thing with the C section as well, is
Speaker 5: you were so paralyzed from like the ribs down, and
Speaker 5: I remember it was actually so bizarre. They moved me
Speaker 5: over on the sheet. I remember thinking my legs were
Speaker 5: over to my left and then I looked up and
Speaker 5: my toes are up the top of the top of.
Speaker 3: Me, and I was like, well, what is going on
Speaker 3: or nothing?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I remember when you're so physically unable to
Speaker 5: do anything. I remember the midwife putting Lenny on my chest,
Speaker 5: and first of all, she put him straight on my
Speaker 5: nipple and she said, oh, by the way, sorry, did
Speaker 5: you want a breast feed? And I was like, that's
Speaker 5: probably something you should ask people, but it should put
Speaker 5: him straight on there. And I just remember going like
Speaker 5: I could hardly move my arms, and it was just
Speaker 5: this moment where it was, wait, I have to parent now.
Speaker 5: I've just been through the biggest operation I was awake
Speaker 5: for of my life, and I now have to be
Speaker 5: a mum? How does that work? You know? And I
Speaker 5: think that it's just an interest. It's a very interesting
Speaker 5: start to becoming a parent.
Speaker 3: How did you end up with the C section?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: What was your birth plan? And then what when? How
Speaker 3: wide did it change?
Speaker 5: Didn't have a birth plan. I think our obstitution of course,
Speaker 5: used aviation analogies when we came in whole time. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: It was like, okay, can we drop the aviation analogies?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And she.
Speaker 5: Said something with Jimmy like look, you know it's like yeah.
Speaker 5: Basically she said, you know, I wouldn't go as a passenger.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't go into I actually don't really remember. It
Speaker 5: was something like this. I wasn't listening all the time,
Speaker 5: but it was like you you know, I wouldn't go
Speaker 5: into the cockpit and tell the pilot there's not going
Speaker 5: to be any turbulence and it's going to be a
Speaker 5: smooth light and blah blah blah. The whole goal is
Speaker 5: to get those passengers on the ground safely.
Speaker 2: No, it's actually not a bad analogy, to be fair.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think for me, I was just like, look,
Speaker 5: my main thing is I had like little things, you
Speaker 5: know that I wanted to make sure, like I wanted
Speaker 5: to see if I could have music on, and I
Speaker 5: wanted to you know, there were just little things. But
Speaker 5: I didn't I never thought, you know, I need to
Speaker 5: have a vaginal birth and I need this to you know,
Speaker 5: feel satisfied or whatever. And Lenny was Frank Breach. And
Speaker 5: I had marginal cord insertion, so the ambilical cord attached
Speaker 5: to the outside of the placenta, so it's just made
Speaker 5: it a bit more of a high risk pregnancy. But
Speaker 5: he was Frank Breach. It was up the right way
Speaker 5: round the whole pregnancy. And then the little monster decided
Speaker 5: that I actually want to turn upside down now.
Speaker 1: So he turned upside down and was feet first. For
Speaker 1: anyone who doesn't know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like they're in a pike. Yeah. So he's like,
Speaker 5: we never got any cute ultrasound photos of him because
Speaker 5: his feet were in front of his face.
Speaker 3: The born like that with my legs over my head.
Speaker 5: But first, I think you told me about this and didn't.
Speaker 5: It was a vaginal birth, wasn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my poor mum, and also my hips to this
Speaker 4: day dislocate like I could pop them out right now,
Speaker 4: Simon Dentsman, the stars they pop out all the time.
Speaker 3: Because if you have a vaginal.
Speaker 4: Birth like that, you as a baby, you should be
Speaker 4: put into a hip brace for like.
Speaker 3: Six months hip displasure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I just wasn't because back in the day that
Speaker 3: I didn't give a fuck. I was still smoking, so
Speaker 3: like off go. But yeah, so I can absolutely understand
Speaker 3: why you had a sea section.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I don't even think they would allow you to do.
Speaker 3: No mum lives through that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just try it, just a little bit broken, but
Speaker 5: she's Yeah, so he was. He was frank breage and
Speaker 5: basically I tried all the things too. I tried all
Speaker 5: the things to turn him. I think heaps of people
Speaker 5: on social media said, you know, try mock sebustion, and
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, so interesting. It's basically, like I
Speaker 5: think you turn into you just do things that you
Speaker 5: didn't think that you would do when you become pregnant.
Speaker 3: You're prefacing at what is it, Holly, it's a little
Speaker 3: woo woo.
Speaker 5: But basically, and I came home in a field drinking your.
Speaker 3: Like, what are you doing on your handstand?
Speaker 5: I saw it on social media, So basically you get
Speaker 5: it looks like a joint. It's like it looks like
Speaker 5: it looks like and it smells like a joint. And
Speaker 5: I remember Jimmy and I'm looking at him now because
Speaker 5: I remember having the biggest fight with him because I
Speaker 5: came home and he started busying himself laughing. Then like
Speaker 5: what are you going to do with that? Yeah? So basically,
Speaker 5: you hold it above your pinky toe, like I think
Speaker 5: it's like ten centimeters above your binky toe or something,
Speaker 5: and you hold it there for twenty minutes and it
Speaker 5: like burns the crap out of your toe. So I
Speaker 5: don't like it's hot. It's hot. On the toe.
Speaker 3: I thought you're going to say you hold it, you
Speaker 3: just put it down.
Speaker 4: I thought you're gonna say you like smoked him out,
Speaker 4: like smoke on the other vaginals, like gas him out.
Speaker 5: Basically, yeah. So and Jimmy was like, We're not doing that.
Speaker 5: This is stupid. He tried to hold it and he
Speaker 5: was like this is ridiculous, and I was like, we
Speaker 5: are doing a week and to turn this baby. And
Speaker 5: so I ended up sitting out on the balcony in
Speaker 5: the freezing cold with this like joint op of my
Speaker 5: toe and Jimmy's just looking at me like what is
Speaker 5: Like what has she become? But tried all the things, acupuncture,
Speaker 5: all of those things, and I was like, look, I'm
Speaker 5: sure there's a reason he's not turning. I just feel
Speaker 5: like you've got to kind of trust the process a
Speaker 5: little bit. So I agreed to do a C section.
Speaker 5: I agreed, like it was, it wasn't a choice. And
Speaker 5: when he came out, actually they they said to Jimmy,
Speaker 5: do you want to see the placenta and he was
Speaker 5: like absolutely not, And they still came over with the
Speaker 5: dish and like he's like, oh you know, And it
Speaker 5: was actually pretty much all calcified, which is it was
Speaker 5: measuring a forty three week placenta and I was thirty
Speaker 5: eight weeks at the time.
Speaker 3: I was so lucky to have gotten about So.
Speaker 5: It's basically even in that within a couple of hours
Speaker 5: I was heading into preeclamcy. My placentda was shutting down.
Speaker 5: It was just your wasn't going to be I wasn't
Speaker 5: going to be able to have a vaginal birth anyway.
Speaker 5: And I think sometimes you've got to just go I
Speaker 5: trust the process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like we spoke about a little bit
Speaker 1: and maybe it's even too early to know how things
Speaker 1: have shifted, but what do you think having a baby
Speaker 1: or how has having a baby changed the relationship between
Speaker 1: the two of you.
Speaker 5: Ah, this is one of those things that I feel like,
Speaker 5: I really I was very anxious about because you hear
Speaker 5: so much about how much your relationship is going to change,
Speaker 5: and truthfully, I think our relationship has actually changed for
Speaker 5: the better. We've definitely had our moments. I think it's
Speaker 5: so fun seeing your partner become a parent, like how
Speaker 5: they just how they change. And Jimmy has just been
Speaker 5: the most phenomenal dad. But we just we actually went
Speaker 5: for quite a few date nights when I was pregnant,
Speaker 5: and we made this a real focus. We were like,
Speaker 5: we need to make sure to prioritize each other another
Speaker 5: aviation now g But Jimmy was always like, you've got
Speaker 5: to fit your oxygen mask before you fit the babies.
Speaker 5: And it actually is a really good way to think
Speaker 5: about it, because, you know, we make sure that we
Speaker 5: are happy first and foremost, because that way we're going
Speaker 5: to be good parents, you know, whether that's Jimmy still
Speaker 5: going the gym or him giving me some time to
Speaker 5: go to pilates, or us booking holidays and booking trips
Speaker 5: and doing the things that we always did before. And
Speaker 5: there have definitely been times I'm not gonna lie where
Speaker 5: I'm like, are we ever going to be like, you
Speaker 5: know that hot and spicy? Like is it the sex
Speaker 5: ever going to be the same as all? Because I
Speaker 5: remember the first time that we were intimate.
Speaker 1: It's so weird the first time, like you're just kind
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I guess we'll get this out of
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But I remember I had a dummy in my
Speaker 5: ear and Lenny was like I was leaning on the
Speaker 5: bed and had a dummy in my ear, and I
Speaker 5: was looking at his dirty nappy, and I could hear
Speaker 5: Lennie just like having a great old time in the
Speaker 5: next room. He wasn't quite asleep, it was stirring, and
Speaker 5: I was just like, this is you know, is it
Speaker 5: ever going to be back to what it was? And
Speaker 5: it's obviously still too early to tell. I'm I think
Speaker 5: I'm eight weeks in. I've been saying, Lenny's like six
Speaker 5: weeks old.
Speaker 1: You've guys have done a fucking cracking job because like
Speaker 1: a lot of people even six, seven, eight weeks, and
Speaker 1: I know they kind of say you got to wait
Speaker 1: till six weeks, but I would say most people or
Speaker 1: a lot of people can't get back into it at
Speaker 1: the six week mark. Like that's like put in there
Speaker 1: from like a health and safety perspective, but then there's
Speaker 1: like your mental health around getting back into being intimate.
Speaker 3: That's the whole secondary thing. There's also the C section
Speaker 3: recovery too. Yeah, that's why they're six weeks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean, And I said this to Jimmy
Speaker 5: the other day, I said, I think a big thing.
Speaker 5: We actually had this conversation we said, is it ever
Speaker 5: going to be like what it was, and Hey, of
Speaker 5: course that Yeah, of course it will. You know, you
Speaker 5: just need to give it some time. But I said
Speaker 5: to him, I said, a big thing for me is
Speaker 5: feeling attractive again and feeling sexy, and I don't. I
Speaker 5: do not feel like that at all at the moment.
Speaker 5: And that's just the reality, you know. I think I've
Speaker 5: also built a career on beautiful clothes and styling things
Speaker 5: and doing whatnot. I can't wear the same clothes as
Speaker 5: I used to wear because my body is so different.
Speaker 4: And there are also so many new people now that
Speaker 4: are in the same phase, that are following you in
Speaker 4: looking at you for advice of this phase.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean? Like, there will always
Speaker 3: be people in the journey with you no matter where
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I agree, And I think it's just one
Speaker 5: of those things you've just got to come to terms with.
Speaker 5: This is the me at the moment, and I don't think. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm surrounded by a lot of people
Speaker 5: as well who bounce back really quickly. And I hate
Speaker 5: that term bounce back. But you know, I was at
Speaker 5: pilates the other day and there's mirrors all around and
Speaker 5: I was just looking at my stomach and I had
Speaker 5: like this little pouch that I've never had before, and
Speaker 5: I was like, it made me not even want to
Speaker 5: do the class because I felt so I just didn't
Speaker 5: feel like myself anymore. And I think it's just about
Speaker 5: coming to terms with those things. Not everything is going
Speaker 5: to be influencers who come back from things very quickly
Speaker 5: and all of that. There is this stage where you've
Speaker 5: just got to try and deal with the new you.
Speaker 1: I also think that there's an evolution that happens, like
Speaker 1: I don't and for me personally, like I never was
Speaker 1: the same version before, Like I don't think you can
Speaker 1: go back this idea of bouncing back to the person
Speaker 1: that you were before you had kids. There are things
Speaker 1: that change that never are the same. And for me,
Speaker 1: part of that was I never felt as though the
Speaker 1: clothes that I used to wear pre pregnancy, pre having
Speaker 1: a baby suited me or fit me right anymore. Like
Speaker 1: I had a complete change in the way that I
Speaker 1: and it was it was really hard for a while
Speaker 1: because I was like, what do I wear now?
Speaker 3: What does look good on me?
Speaker 1: I don't know, And it took me a really long
Speaker 1: time to kind of figure out what my style was,
Speaker 1: but that changed, and I would say, I look at
Speaker 1: I have like plastic tubs worth of clothes that I
Speaker 1: look at every so often that I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I would have won all, Like it was all my
Speaker 1: clothes pre pregnancy.
Speaker 3: I'll take them and none.
Speaker 1: Of it and none of it would I ever dream
Speaker 1: of wearing now. And it's not that I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: fit it. It just doesn't feel right on me. But
Speaker 1: if that makes sense, I think there's also an argument
Speaker 1: for the fact that you shouldn't go back to who
Speaker 1: you were, because that's not what life is. Life is
Speaker 1: forever evolving and you are not who you were before,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Like
Speaker 1: we become a different person in a different part of life.
Speaker 1: I think the thing, though, is that there's never another
Speaker 1: time where it happens so rapidly as it does with motherhood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we all age, we know that, but it is
Speaker 1: like overnight, your physical identity shifts, and that can be
Speaker 1: a really hard thing to process, I think for most people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's no other thing in life really that every
Speaker 5: single part of you changes within those nine months. It's like,
Speaker 5: and that's what I really struggled with It's like mentally
Speaker 5: you change, emotionally you change, your relationship changes, your body changes,
Speaker 5: and it's just about coming to terms with those things.
Speaker 5: And now I'm just going I do still feel that
Speaker 5: loss of identity a little bit. And I also struggle
Speaker 5: with the you know, all of a sudden, everyone just
Speaker 5: wants to talk about your baby and you, you know,
Speaker 5: and how everything, which is ironic because that's what we're
Speaker 5: talking about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think, yeah, it's just it's just going
Speaker 5: to be a bit of a journey of figuring out
Speaker 5: who the new me is.
Speaker 3: How do you go.
Speaker 4: Solely parenting now because Jimmy's job, obviously as a pilot,
Speaker 4: takes him away. What's the longest period you've been on
Speaker 4: your own for and how.
Speaker 3: Has it been so far?
Speaker 5: It's actually been alright, because Jimmy took quite an extensive paternity.
Speaker 5: Well he was he was home for about a month,
Speaker 5: but he did his ankle before I don't know. Ye
Speaker 5: oh god, that was that was interesting that time.
Speaker 3: Also, sorry, Lenny has the hiccups.
Speaker 5: It's the cutest thing. He's just over there going. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's actually been it's a struggle. The main thing is
Speaker 5: that feeling of not being able to be hands free.
Speaker 5: I think you just it's a full time job. It's
Speaker 5: not a full time job. Actually it's twenty four hours
Speaker 5: and it's really challenging. But to some degree, I actually
Speaker 5: quite enjoy having Jimmy gone. I realized the house is
Speaker 5: actually a lot easier to keep neat, and there are
Speaker 5: there are things like he can't do a lot of
Speaker 5: the things that I can, you know, like I have
Speaker 5: to get up and feed him, and if you are breastfeeding,
Speaker 5: it is one of those things the men can kind
Speaker 5: of be a little bit useless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit, especially during this period.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with the unsolicited parenting advice that
Speaker 1: comes in, because one of the joys of having a
Speaker 1: following is that there's people who are like interested in
Speaker 1: what you say. But one of the burdens is that
Speaker 1: people have a lot of things to say to you
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, look, that's definitely been one of the biggest hurdles
Speaker 5: for me. I think you've obviously got family and friends
Speaker 5: usually that will give you unsolicited advice. You'll have, you know,
Speaker 5: maybe you're in law saying you know, you should do
Speaker 5: it in a certain way, but when you have social
Speaker 5: media on top of that, it is incredibly daunting, particularly
Speaker 5: in those first few months, because you don't know what
Speaker 5: you're doing, and there is such an over consumption of
Speaker 5: just things on social media when it comes to pregnancy,
Speaker 5: when it comes to parenthood, every second thing on my
Speaker 5: algorithm at the moment is you know, this is my
Speaker 5: bathtime routine with my three weeks old, and it's like,
Speaker 5: who has a bathtime routine?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I barely watched her when she
Speaker 2: was three weeks I think I watched her once.
Speaker 3: In that time.
Speaker 4: But the advice also contradicts constantly, so like you see
Speaker 4: one thing and then someone else will pop up and
Speaker 4: there's saying exact opposite thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think for me it was when we got
Speaker 5: back from hospital. I think I realized I went on
Speaker 5: back onto social media way too soon. I think I
Speaker 5: almost had this idea that if I just keep going
Speaker 5: with social media, it's like it won't become this burden
Speaker 5: in a couple of weeks time that I have to
Speaker 5: then update people on our life, and that there is
Speaker 5: that element. But I remember five days after being in hospital,
Speaker 5: we got back and I remember posting this video of Jimmy,
Speaker 5: and I thought it was just this really lovely video
Speaker 5: of him holding Lenny, and he'd fallen asleep holding Lenny
Speaker 5: and I was there, obviously unpacking the hospital back watching him,
Speaker 5: and I just remember there was just this one comment
Speaker 5: that basically said, you shouldn't be holding him that way.
Speaker 5: There's the risk of SIDS. And it just blew up,
Speaker 5: Like I had hundreds of people arguing with each other.
Speaker 5: You know, you shouldn't talk to them. They're new parent,
Speaker 5: like new parents, and blah blah blah, and then all
Speaker 5: these other people going, well, no, she actually makes a
Speaker 5: solid point. You know. I had this traumatizing experience which
Speaker 5: I don't want to repeat. But and I'm reading all
Speaker 5: of these things five days into becoming a mom and
Speaker 5: just going, oh my god, am I doing this right?
Speaker 5: Is my kid at risk of seeds? Like and you start,
Speaker 5: I don't know. I was just a wreck. And I
Speaker 5: said to Jimmy, I said should I delete the post?
Speaker 5: And he was like, no, absolutely not. Stop reading the
Speaker 5: comments and just move on.
Speaker 3: Just let them sort it out for themselves and move on.
Speaker 1: The ridiculous thing is is that people on social media
Speaker 1: do love to give their advice based on a snapshot
Speaker 1: in time. And the thing is is from that photo,
Speaker 1: people don't have the context that you're standing there. I mean,
Speaker 1: the context is in the photo. You're standing there taking
Speaker 1: the photo. So although one person's asleep, the other parent
Speaker 1: is right there. And I think that people make a
Speaker 1: lot of assumptions around a second and then therefore like
Speaker 1: give their advice. And it's the same when you talk
Speaker 1: about being pregnant woman and the unsolicited comments on your body.
Speaker 2: When you're a new parent or any parent. I don't
Speaker 2: think you have to just be a new parent.
Speaker 1: It's like you are open slabber for people telling you
Speaker 1: that you're not doing it right or that you should
Speaker 1: do something differently. And often that advice comes from women.
Speaker 1: I would say it comes from like older women who
Speaker 1: have maybe the second generation, who think that the way
Speaker 1: that they did it was the right way of doing it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's the irony as well. I think through
Speaker 5: the whole time that Jimmy and I've been doing the
Speaker 5: social media thing, Jimmy very rarely cops anything. It seems
Speaker 5: to be always women against women, which really really sucks.
Speaker 5: But I think, like, yeah, I don't know, I just
Speaker 5: feel like it comes naturally, I think to some people
Speaker 5: as well, even for me. The other day I saw
Speaker 5: someone going like, pack my hospital bag with me, and
Speaker 5: I remember thinking my head, oh, she's not going to
Speaker 5: use that. And I was like, I just did the thing.
Speaker 5: I did the thing where it's like you don't need that,
Speaker 5: this is how you do it. Every child is so different. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did the same thing recently, and Influence was posting
Speaker 1: all the cute baby outfits they bought for their newborn
Speaker 1: and I was like, hah, buttons, You're never gonna use
Speaker 1: any of those fucking cute but I bet you all
Speaker 1: of those have tags on when that baby's four months old.
Speaker 3: Buttons, Yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Know, right.
Speaker 1: But but also like people have to learn for themselves,
Speaker 1: and like there is no nothing good comes from telling
Speaker 1: someone that the thing they're excited about isn't gonna happen,
Speaker 1: because maybe they will be that parent who has the
Speaker 1: energy or the capacity to put the buttons on their kid.
Speaker 2: Maybe they will be good for them. Like I found
Speaker 2: that bon.
Speaker 1: Zippies were like my fucking one and only my kid
Speaker 1: would go to Like we'd go to events and they'd
Speaker 1: be wearing bond Zippy.
Speaker 3: I've never seen your kid in a button at five.
Speaker 1: Literally, Marley and Lola until they were literally one years
Speaker 1: old just lived in slipsuits.
Speaker 2: I was like, it's all I have the capacity for.
Speaker 5: Yeah, having to be fair, Lenny is dressed to impress today,
Speaker 5: he's got overall.
Speaker 2: Holy it was my first thought when I saw Lenny.
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, that's ambitious.
Speaker 5: Exactly was big podcast exactly exactly?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can only imagine how hard that
Speaker 1: period is. And you guys are so in the thick
Speaker 1: of it, like I mean eight weeks, six weeks, who
Speaker 1: knows how old then he.
Speaker 2: Is, but like twelve months we want to take but
Speaker 2: it really is.
Speaker 1: It's like this is ground zero for like everyone critiquing
Speaker 1: how you're doing it. But I mean, anyone who can
Speaker 1: get up, get themselves dressed and come into do a
Speaker 1: podcast record with their husband and their baby is doing
Speaker 1: a fucking amazing job.
Speaker 4: And I also, I think we scooted it over it.
Speaker 4: But I do just want to say, because we should
Speaker 4: have commented on it. But you just saying you went
Speaker 4: to a polate's class and looked and saw your pouch
Speaker 4: and you were really down about it.
Speaker 3: Can I just say a pouch. What you called it?
Speaker 3: You said you look down for a pouch.
Speaker 5: Didn't you say that? I probably did.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe I called it a pouch. Maybe said pocket
Speaker 3: is a pouch.
Speaker 2: But that's what we don't call it, right because you.
Speaker 5: Get this pouch, you get this pouch that stays a
Speaker 5: bum bag.
Speaker 3: You've got a bumb bag.
Speaker 4: But can I just say, firstly, you look incredible, You're
Speaker 4: doing incredibly well. No, there is no normal, there is
Speaker 4: no bounce back. There is no normal recovery for any woman.
Speaker 4: Eight weeks in, your hormones aren't even back to normal.
Speaker 4: So even for you to look at yourself in another month,
Speaker 4: you'll feel differently and that's going to be forever evolving.
Speaker 4: So I just felt like we should have sat in
Speaker 4: that for a second because whilst you don't feel quote
Speaker 4: unquote sexy, you're fucking hot. Like I'm looking at you
Speaker 4: now and you're a fire flame.
Speaker 5: So I feel like that's the nicest you've ever been
Speaker 5: to me.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm like, it's a hard one, isn't it,
Speaker 1: When like the benchmark on social media is hot pregnancies.
Speaker 1: I mean there's lots, like there's the full spectrum of it,
Speaker 1: but like I even recently. I only use this as
Speaker 1: an example because she is so beautiful and like being pregnant.
Speaker 1: She's like literally the icon of fitness, Steph Claire Smith.
Speaker 1: Like I was watching her kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: she's quite heavily pregnant now and she just looks amazing and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she she pregnancy suits her, and like.
Speaker 1: You know, she's also her brand is fitness, so like
Speaker 1: she's always going to be like the fittest version of
Speaker 1: a pregnant person. And I looked at it recently and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I just I just so hardcore.
Speaker 1: Can't relate because I'm so sick when I'm pregnant that
Speaker 1: I can't exercise. So for me, it's like I look
Speaker 1: at people who are able to maintain that part of
Speaker 1: their life and who go to pilates in first trimester
Speaker 1: and they maintain their shape, and I'm like, I am
Speaker 1: literally a dead person. Yeah, can't get off the couch,
Speaker 1: can't stop vomiting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pregnancy doesn't love you.
Speaker 2: It doesn't love your friend.
Speaker 3: You don't thrive at the start. Did you come into
Speaker 3: your own Yeah?
Speaker 2: I figure it out midway, but it's a rough start.
Speaker 1: But also like by then, I've just done seventeen weeks
Speaker 1: of literally nothing. So not only am I behind the
Speaker 1: eight ball and trying to exercise again, I'm also midway pregnant,
Speaker 1: Like it's so hard. So you know, I understand this
Speaker 1: like reference point that we have sometimes for what pregnancy
Speaker 1: looks like, and it's just so different for every single person.
Speaker 5: I do think though, I just I fail to believe
Speaker 5: that there aren't women who are gassy and they've got
Speaker 5: swollen hands and everything goes like the amount of symptoms
Speaker 5: that you have. I remember asking chat GPT the whole
Speaker 5: time I was pregnant, like is this symptom normal? I've
Speaker 5: got a block nose? Is this symptom normal? It's like
Speaker 5: every symptom.
Speaker 3: What was the weirdest thing that happened to you?
Speaker 5: God?
Speaker 3: Like, did you grow hair? Someway?
Speaker 5: You shouldn't have all the Yeah, if you are a
Speaker 5: laser person, like I've had laser for twelve years on
Speaker 5: the bee on the badge where the p goes yeah,
Speaker 5: and it just all of a sudden it started growing
Speaker 5: back in these patchy ways. And I remember as well,
Speaker 5: for the C section, I was like, I need to,
Speaker 5: you know, sort this out.
Speaker 2: I can't see it, but I need It's so.
Speaker 4: Funny because they're literally cutting you open to pull a
Speaker 4: baby out, and you're like, oh, I know, you got it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you got to make sure that it's all in order.
Speaker 5: And I remember looking at it. Do you know that
Speaker 5: the Deadpool Wolverine dog that's like it's got like all
Speaker 5: the tufts of hair. I remember when my stomach started
Speaker 5: to go down and I could see my vagina again.
Speaker 5: I was like, what did I do? It was just
Speaker 5: like there's just like it was just yeah, it was
Speaker 5: not good. Yeah. So the hair situation that was and
Speaker 5: I think, as well, just it's this isn't a funny one.
Speaker 5: But it was just the hands, like everything just started
Speaker 5: blowing up. I was like Violet Beauregard from Charlie and
Speaker 5: the Chocolate Factory when she turns into the giant blue Barrey.
Speaker 5: I remember going to the gym for the last time
Speaker 5: and I just went in my third trimester and I
Speaker 5: was like, nah, I picked up some weights and I
Speaker 5: couldn't actually even clasped the weights and I started just
Speaker 5: I was so pregnant, and Jimmy was sitting next to me,
Speaker 5: and I just just crying with these dumb bells in
Speaker 5: my hand and he was eing me to go, and
Speaker 5: I think it's time. Yeah, so yeah, it all just happens,
Speaker 5: it really does.
Speaker 3: It is something we didn't you go chest here? I
Speaker 3: was like a drup. Wasn't that stuff?
Speaker 1: We got a really fat vagina, that's it? Fat, like
Speaker 1: my fucking vulvar. I was like, are we are we kidding?
Speaker 1: Like I was like, I can't even wear a fucking swimsuit.
Speaker 3: It looks like I'm packing.
Speaker 1: Like it was so confusing, and then it deflated afterwards.
Speaker 1: But I just like, third trimester had the fattest vulvar
Speaker 1: that you've ever seen?
Speaker 5: Wait, which is that? Which part is the volvering?
Speaker 1: The whole outside? Everything that's like on the art side
Speaker 1: other than.
Speaker 5: Like except mine hasn't changed. Mine is still the same
Speaker 5: as when I was pregnant, and it's been well no,
Speaker 5: it's just my whole vagina has actually changed. I don't
Speaker 5: know if this is a thing like my laby of
Speaker 5: sucked in.
Speaker 3: Really most people go out well, but.
Speaker 5: I didn't have to push. I didn't push the thing.
Speaker 5: It still waiting. They're waiting.
Speaker 3: You gotta vagina talk. You've got like a reconstruction.
Speaker 1: I got barracus veins as well, Like that was another
Speaker 1: fun symptom that just came out of nowhere. I still
Speaker 1: have them, haven't done anything about them, but like so
Speaker 1: many things, like my hair stopped falling out and then
Speaker 1: it fell out in tough afterwards, like it just it
Speaker 1: really does do a fucking.
Speaker 3: Doozy on your body.
Speaker 1: And so it's no wonder that for those like few
Speaker 1: weeks afterwards all longer for some people press like what
Speaker 1: just happened?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah it's fair, isn't It's like when you're really
Speaker 4: nutted out, you're like, yeah, this checks out.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we've spoken a lot about like the hard bits,
Speaker 1: but what's been like your favorite thing so far?
Speaker 5: Oh? I mean I went into this being like I
Speaker 5: want to make sure that I don't talk about doom
Speaker 5: and gloom, and I hope that I haven't touched on
Speaker 5: that too much. I just want to make sure that
Speaker 5: everyone knows that this has been the most incredible thing
Speaker 5: I have ever done in my life. It definitely comes
Speaker 5: with its lows, but just seeing him now where at
Speaker 5: such a fun age where it's like he's now starting
Speaker 5: to respond. He's no longer just this potato who just
Speaker 5: you know, poohs on you and vomits on you. He
Speaker 5: is now like he smiles at us in Like I'll
Speaker 5: go to get him out of his little bassinette in
Speaker 5: the morning and he's just like smiling at me. And
Speaker 5: I think, just seeing how much they change every day,
Speaker 5: Jimmy and I have like these just really nice mornings together.
Speaker 5: They're just slow mornings. We get up and we just
Speaker 5: lie in bed with a coffee and we just have
Speaker 5: the nicest you know, Jimmy will sing to him and yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean he doesn't have the greatest voice, but it's
Speaker 5: just all a really exciting time seeing him grow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so beautiful, honey, Holly, thank you so much for
Speaker 4: coming in and sharing your story.
Speaker 3: You actually are such a dream.
Speaker 4: You've always been such a giving and kind and generous person.
Speaker 4: You've never You've not changed an ounce since we saw
Speaker 4: you on the bachelorfe the whole way. And I think
Speaker 4: that that is a really we don't see it often.
Speaker 4: It's a really rare thing to be truly who you
Speaker 4: are and authentic from go to woe.
Speaker 3: Like it's been like what six seven years now.
Speaker 5: No, no, like, yeah, maybe four seven for me, it's
Speaker 5: been a while seven, Fu fuck.
Speaker 3: Is you eighty seven?
Speaker 5: Now? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was thirty.
Speaker 4: I'm turning thirty eight this year, so I'm eight years.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, I'm nearly eight years. You're going on nine years.
Speaker 3: Wow, what it's done to us? Yeah, so maybe you think.
Speaker 3: But thank you so much for being so generous in
Speaker 3: sharing your story with us today.
Speaker 5: Thanks guys, I've not got vicovern moment for thank you.
Speaker 3: The end of there