Birth And The First Six Weeks

0:11Speaker 1:You're listening to a mother Mia podcast. Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded.

0:19Speaker 2:On Hello Hello Bump listeners, it's Grace here. So many of you have been following my journey through pregnancy on Hello Bump, and honestly, your support has my lot. The dms that I've received, people asking for the questions about pelvic floor physios or reaching out to hear my birth story, You've been through all the ups and downs with me, and the excitement and the nerves and basically everything. I've shared everything of my journey along the way, So thank you for listening, ah, and now I'm very excited to share with you the next chapter. I recently sat down with Kelly McCarran and Key re Searls on their podcast Eat, Sleep, Repeat to share my birth story and what it's been like becoming a parent and talking about the very intense first six weeks of parenthood. So if you've been wondering what happened after all those Hello Bump episodes, this is where you'll find out. And I hope you enjoyed the episode.

1:12Speaker 2:And I'm recording this with my daughter Nora strapped to my chest and you can probably hear some of her breathing. I hope you enjoy the episode.

1:26Speaker 3:So our guest today is a very special former colleague turned friend of mine, Grace and also Kelly's.

1:32Speaker 1:But I tell myself, well, yet I'm working on it. She's working on her becoming my real life friend.

1:37Speaker 3:Honestly, everyone needs Grace in their life. Grace is an actor, like a real one, and a very good one at that.

1:43Speaker 1:It's so good.

1:44Speaker 2:She was in Colin from Accounts.

1:45Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that showy, it's such a good show.

1:48Speaker 3:She's also a writer and a producer. She's also a podcast host and an audio producer, a celebrant, she actually married me and Charlie.

1:56Speaker 1:She's a real jack of all trades. I call myself a jack of all trades, master of none. She's a jack of all trades, master of everything, master.

2:01Speaker 3:Of everything, and she's also mastering being a brand new first time mum to baby Nora. So Grace just has something her. She's an old soul with there's quiet, calm and coolness about her. I was immediately drawn to her when we first met. She's sunshine in human form, and I was so happy to learn that she was pregnant, but her pregnancy wasn't all smooth sailing. More on that later. And today we're speaking to her at six weeks postpartum. She's in that blissful baby bubble meets what the actual fuck trenches and I just know that she's going to share so beautifully about her time so far as a new mum. Welcome Grace six weeks in. How are you, Grace.

2:45Speaker 2:The answer to that question changes hour by hour, which yeah, I'm sure you all know. I kind of do it as like is it a good day or is it a bad day, even though again the answer changes within that, but today's a good day. You know, we went out of the house. Her weight has gone up, which were stoked about. Yes, I think I'm doing like a hybrid version of my life, which is like a little bit of work and then like with a child strap to me. So that feels nice.

3:07Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny, isn't it, How just like little pieces of you that you get to still tap into, how much they can make a difference, even though like.

3:15Speaker 1:The thought of quote unquote work.

3:17Speaker 3:With a new baby seems overwhelming, but just like little tappens here and there, I think really just remind you like, Okay, I'm still me, even though I'm completely for someone else at the moment, one hundred percent.

3:29Speaker 2:And I always knew that's what I was going to need, and I just wasn't sure when I would be able to even start experimenting without thirty minutes or that one hour. And I think there was probably like four and a half weeks and went ooh, I've got like half an hour. Do I just like quickly try and write something?

3:45Speaker 3:Yeah?

3:46Speaker 2:Whatever. But I've been able to incorporate inside the house grace activities, but haven't found time to like go back to the gym or any I mean, I'm not six weeks, so I would love to be able to go. You know, I'm a spin lady as well, key, so I have to find time to do that.

4:00Speaker 3:Oh Grace. I did my first spin the other day and it was glorious. I only have done it once, but I cried after because it was just so like, I haven't been able to do that for like a year.

4:13Speaker 2:Yeah, because you were sick as well, like really sick.

4:16Speaker 3:Yeah. So actually, on that note, you had a pretty shit pregnancy.

4:20Speaker 2:I did. I did, like I was feeling nauseous when I took the test like a little bit, and I was like, you know, I think with the pregnancy nausea, you you sort of had this Hollywood idea of it of like this, Oh cute, I vomited in a bin and I'm going to take a test, and you don't realize, like, what nausea all day? They can't be fixed by like having another beer at four pm. What that actually feels like all day every day? So I found out it like five weeks obviously, as you do. And then the nausea like ramped up week six, and then I started vomiting from week seven and I was vomiting every day from week seven to week twenty four, and then it went to like three times a week, and I vomited like the day I gave birth as well, So it like went through the whole pregnancy. But the nausea, even though the vomiting got less than nausea, twenty four of nausea and never went away ever the whole time.

5:12Speaker 3:Oh it's just awful.

5:15Speaker 1:It's still sick for it actually like makes me a little bit teary because it just is so debilitating. You've just brought so much back I did not have it for the entirety of my pregnancy. You had about twelve weeks without the nausea, and people go, oh, yeah, but you get this beautiful baby at the end. It's true, but it's a very long time to be sick all day, every day. And when you're usually sick, like say you're hungover or you've got a stomach bug, you vomit and then you feel a little bit of relief, and you also know that there's an end in sight. But there's no end in sight.

5:56Speaker 3:No.

5:56Speaker 2:And I tried everything, and I think all of the suggestions out there, I tried like every iteration of ginger. I've tried to the point where I like, I just can't have ginger at all. I tried the medications. I tried different meals, like a different I tried like setting an alarm in the middle of the night, because my biggest trigger was in the morning. If I'd essentially fasted for too long, just sleeping, just living my life like a person, I would wake up and always vomit before breakfast.

6:22Speaker 2:And I went to the GP because the medication wasn't really doing much. And the next level up of the medication was the I think it's called adanzitron. It's like the chemotherapy agent that helps you with nausea. And they wouldn't give it to me because it's what they give to people with hypermemesis. But because I didn't classify as hyperemesis, because I could hold down water and I wasn't vomiting more than three times in a day, I wasn't eligible for the medication. And I was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. And then I did a podcast with Yanna Pittman, Hello Bump, and I told her, and she's an obstectrix register and she was horrified they didn't give it to me.

6:56Speaker 2:When you hear people go oh, you should have been given that, or hey, that was actually really bad morning sickness that you had. That's not normal. That's the stuff that made me really emotional because you're battling that all day every day, you don't feel like the person that you are, and then someone like goes, oh, that's not pleasant, and you go, no, it wasn't, thank you, because I think with so many pregnancy symptoms, as you said, there is this like yes, but it's you know, for the baby, it's for the good of the baby. They're constantly trying to push this silver lining to you, and when you're the one dealing with it and living with it, it just feels like so lonely.

7:29Speaker 3:I know that obviously this is, you know, the first pregnancy, but I know that with Suki, my pregnancy was really horrible and it definitely had an impact on I guess my connection with her to some degree. It's difficult and it might be hard for you to answer because you don't have a benchmark, but I was constantly comparing to Rue but I felt almost like this thing was happening to me, but I wasn't really conscious of it. In a lot of ways, I was because my body was kind of failing me, I felt in a way, but it was a weird kind of thing of not being able to fully connect to the process that was happening.

8:07Speaker 3:Did you have anything like that with your pregnant.

8:10Speaker 2:I more found myself apologizing to my partner because I felt like I'd taken away any joy from these kind of few months of you know, you go, oh, we're going to go to Wiskan and you do still have those moments for sure, but then you feel like a dark cloud of negativity. Yeah, misery and they're kind of your care Like I couldn't go into my kitchen without vomiting, I couldn't open the fridge. So it's those things where you feel like it's meant to be exciting, like let's go take bump pictures or yeah, I don't know, and like that's one of the reasons, like we found out the sex. I was probably always going to find out the sex early because I wanted to start endowing what was inside me with something like even just calling her like we called her hey, lady, and we still call her lady. Yeah, just little things like that that did help me try and connect to it a little bit, because Yeah, I think I said to Kelly one time at the office, I was like, I've hated every second of this.

9:02Speaker 1:We don't like to admit things like that because then we've got people that like all of our love to them, but they've struggled so much even fall pregnant or they've had these things, so it's almost we feel like we can't say that. But two things can always be true at the same time, and it can be so miserable and isolating and lonely. And I don't know if you felt this, but I still feel a little bit of resentment. Not resentment, but like I see people that really thrive in their pregnancy, and I just think, oh, must be fucking nice. Like I was miserable and I didn't feel like myself and it's something that unfortunately, it doesn't come really naturally and beautifully to everyone. No.

9:46Speaker 2:I kept being like, when am I going to look hot?

9:48Speaker 3:Like?

9:48Speaker 2:When am I going to glow? When's this glowing version of pregnant grace going to happen? Where you know my hair is?

9:54Speaker 1:I thought that you looked really beautiful.

9:58Speaker 2:Ah, thank you, thank you. I think I had a neat little bump.

10:03Speaker 1:My hair just always looks so healthy. O, your skin's glowing to me.

10:08Speaker 2:No, I got perry a dermatitis, and I was like, is that a pregnancy thing? It turns out like everything is a pregnancy thing. I lost parts of my eyebrow, Like I just got like a bald patch in there. I was like, oh what is that? That's pomones?

10:21Speaker 1:Yeah?

10:22Speaker 2:Yeah, how was your birth after all?

10:24Speaker 3:That?

10:25Speaker 1:Was it good? Like we like, oh sweet relief.

10:29Speaker 2:Look, I had birth preferences, not plans preferences, and they were yeah, it's like I don't want to be induced, I don't want an epidural, and I don't want to Caesar at all. And those were all the three things that I got. So I ended up having to be induced because they did a CTG scan on me, a CTG monitoring on me one day when I because I just felt like movements were off, but it was just did a routine appointment. They said, well, why don't we just took you up. When they did the scan, they realized she hadn't grown since her thirty six weeks scan.

10:57Speaker 2:I was forty and three like at this point, and they realized she hadn't grown in four weeks, and they said, I think it's time to just get this child out. Come back tomorrow. And so I came in, got to be induced. I got with the tape, the gel thing, and then I'd done two stretching sweeps as well, because I was like, I'm going to have a vaginal birth, That's exactly what's going to happen. I'd done the pelvic floor physio, I'd done peroneal message, I'd done the birth classes like that's what was going to happen, and then got induced, stayed in the hospital like went up to like two centimeters. Then at like two am, they said, oh, we could put the balloon catheter in you. I said, that doesn't sound pleasant, or we can break your waters in about four hours. When the doctor rounds next, I was like, let's pick that option. Yeah, so then.

11:40Speaker 1:I'd rather a knitting needle than a balloon please. Yeah.

11:42Speaker 2:And it didn't sound very comfortable. And at this point, like because the day before with the she hasn't grown. It was just a lot of anxiety. They were trying to get me to stay that night and induced that night, and then my midwife had privately said to me, it's just a really terrible idea to start an induction at nighttime, Like I highly recommend you come back in the morning. So like i'd come back, hadn't progressed. Then they broke my waters at like six am. My partner came back two hours, like oh, an hour later, they put me on the drip. The drip just intensified everything one thousand billion percent. And I'd had a planeting forought overnight. I was like, oh, I'll just try that paneting fought again.

12:17Speaker 2:That was great, and then that obviously did nothing. Morphine was great. I had the best time, you know, i'd have a contraction, which you still feel, but then I would like pass out for the ninety seconds in between, and then that kind of wore off, and then I tried the gas, which the gas does nothing. I don't know why that's recommended. And then I said, at one point, oh, it's not going to get better, is it. And they're like, no, it's going to get worse. So I said, okay, let's just do the epidural.

12:41Speaker 1:Get it into me.

12:42Speaker 2:Get it into me. And I don't know why I was resisting it, because that is like God's gift to women. Thank you so much. It was great. It was great right up until the exact moment that it wasn't and it stopped working and then I could feel everything again, and then that's kind of when the wheels fell off mentally for me. It was about seven pm on the Thursday. That routine appointment that had started everything was the tuesday. I'd been induced on the Wednesday morning, so at this point it's about thirty hours. They checked me up with four centimeters dilated. I was like, oh my god. And then they said, let's check again in two hours, and they checked again and I was only five centimeters. They'd done that, her heart rate and started going up and down, and they did the little prick test to her head to make sure like her sugars were okay, and she was fine, so they said we can keep going. And then I said, like, how long have I got left?

13:29Speaker 2:Do you think? And they were like soon, And then my husband stepped in and said, you have to tell Grace what soon means. Could I can tell she thinks that means two hours? And they said, no, it's probably like another ten hours. And my midwife's that I'd been with the whole you know, pregnancy. They were about to go off shift and another team was going to come in, and at that point when you're just like, mentally everything is terrible, It's it's so hard to talk about it at this point because you know, now here mentally fine, physically fine, you go. I should have just kept going, but everything just felt really intense, and I was just really really overwhelmed by the fact that I was feeling contractions again even though I had the epidural.

14:09Speaker 1:And you thought, I cannot go through another ten hours and also shift changes, of course they have to happen, like it's just awful having to swap your like you get really attached to someone, and then there's always the changeover period and no one checks in on you during the changeover period and everything is delayed. Of course it has to happen, but it is one of the most annoying things that happens in a hospital. I think that's stupid, bloody changeover.

14:35Speaker 2:And I just didn't want an energy change in my room. I know that sounds silly, but I was like, I just don't want more people coming in. I don't want like the handover to happen in front of me. You know, your brain goes to weird places when you're in that space. They kept leaving us for ten minutes to like have chats of like what we wanted to do, and I said, well, on that last check, I wished I hadn't progressed at all, so the decision was easier, and Josh was like, I think you want to see section. I was like, yes, I think I do, but then everyone had to get me to say it, and it was really hard to say I want to see section because I just didn't want that. I'm quite terrified of needles, terrified of I didn't want to be in an o awake, Are we the say person, yes, yes. But one of the beautiful things that happened is when the doctor came in he was going to do the sea section. She walked in and she was the person who had broken my waters on her shift beforehand, so she had lived a life in between. You know, they've got to do like some legal things, like they've got to say like, we don't medically have to do this. She's fine, You're fine. And

15:33Speaker 2:then my midwife stepped in and said, oh, look she has to say this. She goes, oh, yeah, I have to. But you know, if this with me, I would have had a sea section hours ago. Yeah. So I felt a lot better because there's a part of you that like martyr woman thing that's like, am I giving up? Did I just like throw the towel in? Yeah, But after that amount of hours and it was just all a bit much. So at ten pm I got a sea section on that Thursday night.

15:57Speaker 3:Just on that note when you said like about being a martyr and feeling like, you know, you should be doing it this way. On the flip side of that, did you also feel like because I had this where I felt like I'm so selfish and trying for a bad birth. I just need to meet my baby, Like, what if something were to go wrong now, Like I had both of those things going on at the same time, which was a really hard kind of mind space to be in.

16:20Speaker 2:You're just punishing yourself. Oh yeah, from both sides. Yeah, I had that. When they keep saying just monitor for fetal movements, monitor for fetal movements. So that was my least favorite thing. It just terrified me because they said, well, has the pattern changed. I'm like, I don't think there is a pattern. I've tried so hard to figure out the pattern, but I just don't know it exists.

16:40Speaker 3:So talk to me about meeting Nora. I know obviously it wasn't what you'd planned, but I don't know. My c sections have been kind of beautiful.

16:48Speaker 2:I felt like I was quite drugged up by the time I got in there. It was all like very again because I'm like quite a medically anxious person and I like to know what's going on, but then not too much what's going on. So the first like fifteen minutes were great, Like I had my midwife and the student midwife who i'd been with the whole you know, a few months, and then Josh was obviously there, and then they were just talking to us and they said, are you ready to meet your daughter? And before they even finished that sentence, like her screams like filled the room.

17:21Speaker 2:And it's like, oh, makes me feel emotional because I wasn't expecting it, and she wasn't even out of my womb, like fully out of the womb. And was like, I'm here because I've seen the photos later on, like her legs were still in there, and she was just screaming, how very dare you?

17:37Speaker 1:I was comfortable, yeah.

17:38Speaker 2:And so Josh and I just like it kind of took us by surprise and we were like, oh my god, and we both looked at each other and like obviously started crying. And then when they bought her around and put her on my chest, like she stopped crying like immediately, and my breast just started lactating, like, oh, I actually also lactated when they did the epidural, which is so weird.

17:59Speaker 1:They were like, your bodies are incredible, Yeah.

18:03Speaker 2:So weird. It's all very beautiful and wonderful. But then she goes off for her checks, and then Josh had went off with her as well, and then you sort of left alone and the adrenaline of the moment is gone. Did you have the shakes where you're yeah, Oh yeah I did. And then I started to panic because I didn't know what that was. And everyone said you're fine, and I was like, cool, mindfulness, mindfulness, trying to be mindful, and you can feel yourself.

18:25Speaker 1:Someone's inside me right now, Yeah.

18:26Speaker 2:Someone's inside me. And then they came over and they were like, your blood pressure's rising, and I was petrified of pre clamsier. So I was like, oh my god, I'm going to hear the words hemorrhage and they're going to like I'm just going to be put under for some horrific surgery. So I kept saying to the people. I was like, am I okay, is my blood pressure? Okay? How many layers have they sewn up? Like? I just kept going on this loop and then they ended up giving me medication for the to bring the blood pressure down.

18:51Speaker 2:But because of that, because I'd had a spike, and then I had to stay in hospital for five days just to monitor that it wasn't going to develop into postpartum pre clamsier, and I was on four hourly. I don't know if this is normal. I was in four hourly vitals checks for blood pressure because I was quite anxious. The automatic ones, the electronic odpressure monitors, would make me go way higher than the manual ones. So every time they'd walk in, I said, please don't use the automatic one.

19:16Speaker 2:They're like, you'll be fine, and then it was like, you know, one sixty over something.

19:20Speaker 3:Anyway, I was the same grace, like those ones are so annoying, Like I'm just like through the manual one. It takes two seconds.

19:26Speaker 2:We can Yeah, who was your obstrition? Her name was doctor Christine. Because I was through the midwife program, I just I did MGP. So I was just with my midwives until that is the very end.

19:36Speaker 3:Good that you got into MGP.

19:38Speaker 2:Yeah, I called constantly to be like, am I on the list? Am I on the list? And I found out it sixteen weeks that I got into mgps's that's awesome.

19:48Speaker 3:That's a good tip for anyone at home thinking that they might have missed the boat. Just to be persistent. Okay, so I want to because I could see that you obviously it's emotional talking about a birth, especially six weeks in, but I wanted to touch on baby blues and have you been able to rationalize and work through those emotions of your birth not going what you thought it might go, but still being, you know, a beautiful birth for baby Nora.

20:17Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't feel at all like I had a traumatic birth at all. I think I'm I just got a bit hard on myself for sure. That could I have done longer or it's just so hard to talk about the headspace when you're not in it. In terms of baby blues. Everyone warned me about day four or five, but I was fine at day four and five. It was when I got home, and I'd say like the first week and a half to first two weeks at home. And that's why I reached out to u Key is because I saw the post that I believe you wrote Kelly about what it's like at three am as a new parent. And I've never felt like everything about that post was like how I was feeling, and I didn't know how to articulate it. This feeling of you feel completely different. You feel you're not sure if you're ever going to go back to the person you were before, and like, how can you because you have this thing.

21:05Speaker 1:You feel unhinged every single way.

21:09Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah, everything is a level fifteen out of ten of emotion. You're trying to figure out breastfeeding, which is a near death experience in itself. Every single time, like I was having, my nipples were bleeding, they got paper cut tears over them. Also, this thing called a nipple vasospasm. I don't know if you've heard of them.

21:27Speaker 1:My girlfriend had that and she said that it was more painful than contractions, like it, can you talk me through this?

21:35Speaker 3:I haven't heard of it.

21:36Speaker 2:So it's basically my boobs were like throbbing and my nipples were throbbing, and I thought, maybe this is normal. But once you leave MGP care and you've got two weeks with them postnatal, and then you can't use your little twenty four to seven phone call anymore. So I was like, oh my god, my nipples are in pain. I'm bleeding. It looks like she's actually going to rip off my nipples. And I called a private lactation consultant and midwife to come to the house because I was like, I can't do this. And she came and I said, like, my nipples are like really sore and she goes, oh, do they turn white on the tips? And I said, I've no idea, but I'll look next it happens, and I did look, and so they do turn white. So essentially a nipple face of spasm is you're losing circulation to your nipples and they go white and throb and then as the blood comes back in, it like throbs again.

22:22Speaker 2:So people with the condition that have like poor circulation in their hands and feet, it can happen to them. I've never had that condition, but this, so this was just a big surprise, horrific.

22:32Speaker 3:Like I've had two babies and I've never heard of that.

22:35Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's all these like woo woo ways to treat it, you know, there's like all these vitamins or just make sure that you've got a hate pack you're warm at all times. But then people say, like with the cuts, then to keep it open and put breast milk on it. I was like, so am I am I covering up? Or am I not covering up? And then I went on too like a little forum and asked if anyone else had had it, and they said, oh, you can get medication for that. It's like a blood pressure medication that helps with the blood vessels constricting. I was like, why wasn't that mentioned first all these like anyway, so that got sorted a week ago.

23:05Speaker 3:I want woman to just be in pain. They're just obsessed with it. It's just stopping so obsessed with us being in pain.

23:13Speaker 2:Or you should just be able to handle it.

23:15Speaker 3:It's like, no, I've handled enough through my presancy that I've done enough, all right, So should we start to talk about the feeding journey? So no, it's been hard, and I don't want to upset you, but I want to talk to you because I want to hype you up as well, because I feel like you are doing an amazing job. Also, off the back of that Stella news today of Nora putting on three hundred grams and.

23:37Speaker 2:Three hundred grams, three hundred grams. If this is the weird like identity shift, isn't it. You hear people talking about parent things that like my baby ganda this much, and then suddenly you're that bitch.

23:50Speaker 1:You're like bore you have kids, You're like who cares?

23:53Speaker 2:That's sacking, and like, oh.

23:55Speaker 1:Why would I even care about that? But then you have and you're like no, no, it's very important.

23:59Speaker 2:It's very important, and everyone also makes you feel like it's super important. Well, it is, obviously you want your child to be fine. So I was making a lot like I was able to get colossterum before Nora Kane, which my midwife milked for me, Like I could sometimes get.

24:13Speaker 3:It, but really hard to do. It's so hard when they do it, it's so much easier, and you're just like, this is so.

24:20Speaker 1:Weird, Like I could do it now because I've breastfed and done that, but at the time, I was like I never experienced that, And I.

24:28Speaker 3:Was like, yeah, I get what you mean, Like after you've breastfed, you have a bit more of like an understanding.

24:33Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think for me, in my brain, I thought everything was going to come easy because that that's what your body is made to do. You know. It's the same with the vaginal birth psychopath mentality that I had of like, well, you know, we were made to do this, so that's what we should do. And it's like, well, no, we've we've made so many medical advances to help women and we should just lean into that. In the hospital, I was able to she would feed, but I now like I know what actual sucking and swallowing is. I don't know how much she was actually getting. And then a midwife would help me pump in the evenings. I had a really wonderful night midwife, and she would pump my breast for me and put it in a little syringe to give to her. And then we weighed her and she'd gone from two point eight nine to two point five something, which she'd lost like she'd lost weight, but she'd also lost weight in the womb, and then she'd lost weight right like a lot. So they said she was really gentle with me, and I will always appreciate this. She was trying to get me to give her a bottle of formula, but she didn't know if

25:34Speaker 2:I was a strictly breast milk only person, which I'm I'm a FEDI is best person, and so she was like, I really think she's hungry, and I think that you should just do a bottle of formula.

25:45Speaker 1:Yowed out to this queen.

25:47Speaker 2:Yeah, she was amazing. She was really really amazing. And then we got home and I was yeah, feeding and then I was getting these tears, which I was then just you know, you're putting her on and she's just damaging them more. And you know, when you were to do something eight times a day, it's and it's painful, it's so.

26:02Speaker 1:Depressed, and it takes so long when they're so small, Like, yes, why do you take so long to eat? You don't have anything else to do?

26:10Speaker 2:That's a little faster, Yes, reframing it around. She's also learning the new Skills slate because I felt like I was failing. I was like, what's wrong with my boobs? What's wrong with my nipps? Why can't I do this?

26:21Speaker 1:It makes perfect sense, but it's also just annoying, like why do they come out useless where other species come out and trot off? You don't even know how to burp yourself.

26:31Speaker 2:No, you need to rub your back. We need to go up and down and up and down. And then when they do get better at feeding, you've got to spend like more time burping than like, well, this hasn't sped up anything. No, but yeah, the private lactation consultant that I paid three hundred and fifty dollars for was worth every single penny because she got a new technique that it was just so much less painful, and the weekly weigh ins. They just kept showing me on the graph that she was dropping and they said, just add another feed, just add another feed. I was like, I don't know where to add another feed? Yeah, yeah, where I'm on like a two and a half to three and a half hour cycle, depending on the day. She's taking an hour to feed, and then she's asleep or whatever.

27:08Speaker 1:Well, she's having her tummy time that I'm also supposed to do. And then when am I supposed to urinate or go? Like, when am I supposed to sleep during this time? It makes zero sense.

27:20Speaker 2:I don't know. And then I also just felt like there was nothing in there, like she was getting assitated. Yeah, and then they just kept saying, just put them back on for your supply. It's like, this just feels so counterproductive. She's distressed, I'm distressed. There's clearly nothing in there. So then last week when we had another appointment at the community health, they said just do two top ups, two to three top ups a day, and again was a very kind person who said, however you do that is up to you. You can either pump in the morning when your supply is the best, or you can give her formula and that is that is completely up to you.

27:53Speaker 2:I'll let you make that decision. And so we made the decision to do formula top ups. If anyone needs to hear this just for mental health wise, I've felt like four thousand percent better the past week, especially going to weigh her and she's put on three hundred grams, which is double what they wanted.

28:08Speaker 1:Oh that's so good, Grace, And I mean, you're an actual superhero. You're powering through your bleeding nipples.

28:16Speaker 2:It's awful. Did your nipples bleed and it would please? Can you guys tell me about your nipples.

28:21Speaker 1:Like I used the shields, I was actually fine, like after my nipples got used to it, so the first couple of weeks, but Lenny was allergic to my milk in the air. What really shitty pregnancy, shitty birth. Didn't like so many things. He screams all the time. He doesn't bloody sleep. But you know what, he was a good feeder. He wasn't cluster feeding. I felt like I was good at one thing. Turns out he was bloody allergic.

28:47Speaker 2:That's awful. I'm sorry that has so that is all.

28:50Speaker 1:Yeah, my nipples were after they got past that first sensitivity. They were actually okay. Also, any other new mums that are listening, I promise you that they will not forever look like cow utters.

29:01Speaker 3:Lucy was over the other day, She's like, oh, yeah, nipples look really different. They've kind of gone back to normal.

29:05Speaker 2:And I was like, I feel like I might have started pointing in weird direct Is that a thing that happens?

29:12Speaker 3:I mean, Grace, from now on, they're going to point in very different directions.

29:16Speaker 2:Okay, okay, just a gift stop.

29:19Speaker 3:They're going to be even more different.

29:21Speaker 2:That's what they don't tell you about. Like in pregnancy, they go, everything's going to stop, all of your pregnancy symptoms. You're going to feel like a normal human being. But they don't talk about the new world of things that hit you, which is postpartum bowel movements. I can't even that's traumatic. I made a midnight phone call to my midwife because I felt like it was at an actual emergency.

29:41Speaker 1:It wasn't because you both felt like anything in No, I.

29:45Speaker 2:Couldn't get anything out. Gross.

29:46Speaker 3:I'm right there with you. Don't worry about that, Like even if you have a c section.

29:50Speaker 1:The pop was hard poopa, though I was the opposite. I couldn't really not, Grace, so.

29:56Speaker 2:For your body was just getting it out six weeks.

29:59Speaker 1:I have so many memories of sitting with Len on the toilet if no one was there, and I thought, this cannot be good for the baby to be breathing this in right now. But I had no other option, like some tis even be feeding with like catastrophic diary coming out of my body for six weeks.

30:16Speaker 2:That is wild, wild.

30:19Speaker 3:And you had a lot of drugs too that usually back you up because that's your issue. Yeah, that's the issue, isn't it's actually the drugs, So drugs backing you up. And also you're so dehydrated from breastfeeding, you can't keep up the water intake. It's just a whole mess of all of those things. Oh, I'm just so proud of you, Grace, Like I'm so toughed for you. Formula top ups are the best, and I think that you introducing it at the right time was genius and I'm just so excited.

30:47Speaker 3:It makes such a difference when you don't have to worry about their weight and their feeding and they're happy.

30:52Speaker 2:Yeah, and not also being able to have the option of giving Nora to my partner to do one of those feeds is incredible when you you know, it's so lovely, all the beautiful cuddles, but you do get a bit touchdown OWT, Yeah, how are.

31:07Speaker 1:You going with the lack of sleep, because you've also been feeding her a lot. You look good, like your eyes are not falling out of your head, so.

31:19Speaker 2:I feel like it could be worse.

31:21Speaker 1:Do you need a lot of sleep?

31:23Speaker 2:Like in general, I kind of like have been a person who thrives in chaos of busyness in general, and like when you're on like big projects or things, you know you can push through in like four hours. Like I used to do this like crazy job on different time zones and then I'd go to five fifteen forty five classes because I was up anyway. So that kind of you thrive.

31:43Speaker 1:On like adrenaline and chaos busy.

31:46Speaker 2:Yeah, which so this is a whole different world. But the first week at home wasn't great because she wouldn't sleep in the basinet. She'd only sleep like she's a little velcrow baby. She'd only sleep on me or Josh. And you know, then you're trying not to.

32:02Speaker 1:Fall asleep, which is impossible when I'm so tired and you're sitting in the dark on a comfortable couch.

32:09Speaker 2:How do you like?

32:10Speaker 1:But then you've got so much anxiety about falling to.

32:12Speaker 2:Sleep yep, yeah, all of the terrifying things that you read. And then it was probably we'd been home for six days. We'd had a weekend of family coming to visit, which was just exhausting, and then we decided at like six thirty, we just said, all right, let's just go to bed at six thirty. Who are we kidding? And we did this like routine together at nighttime, like from six thirty till six thirty, so basically twelve hours in bed and just were like feeding and then putting her down straight away, and we were doing it together, and then she just stopped hating the basinette as much. So I feel like we get like two and a half hour blocks and then the odd four hour block of uninterrupted sleep.

32:53Speaker 1:That first four hour block, Oh oh, you.

32:56Speaker 2:Feel like a different person. That was not the case last night. Sadly, she knew that you.

33:00Speaker 1:Were having a chat are the adults today? And she was like absolutely not, Mum, absolutely not.

33:06Speaker 2:She was just fussing before we jumped on and I was like, I looked down at her. I was like, don't you let me have this? Let me have this?

33:13Speaker 1:And now she's just like Okay, I'm just gonna sit.

33:16Speaker 2:Yeah, look at.

33:17Speaker 3:Her little head.

33:18Speaker 1:She's so cute.

33:19Speaker 3:I am obsessed with names. How did you pick her name?

33:23Speaker 2:It's such an unemotional story. We were going through baby names on the internet and just being like no, no, no, and Nora was one that we both didn't say no to. It wasn't like our favorite we had. We had a short list of three. We had Florence, which was my favorite, and we had Aralia, which was Josh's favorite. Aralia was because when we on our honeymoon, we went and did a wine tour and the person running the tour in Bordeaux, her name was Aralia and we're like, great name, great paino NOAs excellent, and so we kind of kept that.

33:57Speaker 2:And then when I was pregnant, I was like, I just don't think we have an Aralia, Like, I don't think we're that fancy. I feel like it sounds a bit whankory. I get you. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful, but it wasn't us. And then so we added Noura. It was down the bottom on the list, and it just slowly kind of kept up. And then there was a girl at mum and Mia. She had a baby four months before me, and she called her daughter Florence, and we're in the same team, and I was like, it's just a bit too close. Even though she wouldn't have cared, no one would have cared. But it does just change it. It does change it.

34:30Speaker 3:And the thing is, Florence is a really popular name these days, whereas I think Laura's still. Yeah, Noura's one of those names that you don't hear all the time, which I think is still has a bit of a flare of uniqueness about it. Yes, I rode deep on the names Grace. I'm like obsessed with names and naming babies and stuff. Does she have a middle name?

34:52Speaker 2:She has two middle names, so she has I'm a grief person, as he would know. One of her middle names is Katie, which is my best friend who died almost four years ago. And the second middle name is Robin, which is Josh's mum. And we did that to honor his side of the family because thelast name is my last name is Rubray.

35:11Speaker 1:I absolutely love that.

35:14Speaker 3:I couldn't let your last name go to away.

35:16Speaker 2:It's too pretty to not carry on. Yeah, I really like it my last name, and I feel a lot of identity to it. I'm sure people are just like that thing of no matter what, it's a man's last name and all of that stuff and say, well, no, it's mine. It's what I was born with, and so I really cared about it. Josh didn't really care about it, so it was kind of an easy decision, but he wanted to put his mum's name in there, so he felt like there was a part of his family also in there. But he's very advanced. He's like, it doesn't make her any less mine if it's not my last name.

35:46Speaker 1:So h into toxic masculinity and that blow by the sounds of it.

35:50Speaker 2:No, no, not.

35:52Speaker 3:At all, because you did mention Katie just then did your grief around losing her and her not being there for the experience? Did that have an impact on your pregnancy at all? Because I know that my grief this time around with Suki, my grief was really central to my pregnancy. Just in case anyone else out there has gone through something similar and as pregnant.

36:16Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely did have you know, she would have been one of the first people I told, or she would have been Josh And I made jokes that she she would have like wedged her way into a scan at some point and that really sucks. But where it impacted me the most, well, one was her mum, Like I'm close with her family, and her mum made a bunch of handmade clothes and a rug and she came over to give them to me, and that was really hard. Like we both got quite upset at that because she feels that she won't get this opportunity to have this with Katie, and we were both I think we probably were both leaning on each other in that moment of the absence of that person. But where it probably showed up the most is it's a very complicated reason how Katie died. Katie got a blood clot from the astrosenic har vaccines. So in terms of what are the chances pregnancy complications, like, I didn't really have a way to manage that anxiety because I've seen what are the chances in real life, So I really struggled with that. And I was giving birth at the same place that Katie died, So that was probably the main reason I didn't want

37:23Speaker 2:to have a city section is obviously she was sick when she came into hospital, but she had brain surgery there to try and get this clot out, and I was petrified. It was really petrified. Yeah, what's hard is you, Like you look down at Nora and you go, well, she represents a life that Katie's never going to witness, and that's really hard. And I'm sure that would be the same. It can just be very triggering environments depend Yeah, So I told my midwife what happened, like they do a big three hour like who are you, what's your medical history, what's your mental health history? And I told them about Katie and that I was obviously going to be going into this hospital, and because she died in lockdown, I was never able to go in. So I'd always been piecing together visually what had happened, even though like, I know what happened. And I said, so at one point I might ask to see where the ICU is because I'm just going to be weird and I'm just going to want to see it. Yeah, And she said, oh, well, the birth center is actually on the same floor, so I had to walk past it every single appointment, which

38:23Speaker 2:was good and weird, and you know, okay, yeah, yeah, because all you've got is, you know, just these little snapshots of other people's stories and you're kind of endowing them as to her stories or you know, when I was being wheeled into the C section, I was like being wheeled through the corridors and you're like, am I going to see something that says neurological? Oh or something like that? Like it's I tried to, you know, dig into the whimsy of it. That's you know, Norah's going to take her first breath in the same place Katie took her last. But it was you know, I think you can keep saying that mantras so it feels like it's it's it's real. But I think it was more putting together the pieces of something that I wasn't physically able to be there for, which was hard. It's so hard grief.

39:08Speaker 3:As I know, you've been very kind to me during my grief, which I thank you for. But it's just I think anytime you're bringing a baby in, it's another level of like the wave that comes in of grief. So but I'm really glad that Katie came up organically because I was wanting to ask you about her, which I.

39:25Speaker 2:Go, I'll talk about it all the time, you know, as you know, people stop asking at a certain point and you're like, great, even though it's depressing, I'll talk about it.

39:33Speaker 3:Yeah. I think that's really important to us too, Like we do ever want to stop talking about Charlie's mom, Like it just seems like a disservice to them memory and everything, especially when it's like sudden an accident, you know, a medical thing.

39:47Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean I get it. People are like scared that you're gonna cry, that they have to do something. Yeah, you don't have to do anything. I'm just I'm just gonna feel some feelings on the outside. Yeah, you don't have to do anything.

39:57Speaker 3:You don't even have to touch me.

39:58Speaker 2:Just actually I prefer if you didn't listen, just not exactly.

40:03Speaker 3:Yeah, And just how we honor people, I think, Yeah, how we deal with grief is in this part of the world is very sad. I want to change that.

40:13Speaker 2:It's lonely and it's behind closed doors, and it's you know, they more from being someone's name to being your loss. It's even how we just speak about it. But look, I was the same until I joined the grief club. I was like, you know, I would say so sorry with such sincerity that I would cure their sadness. You know, I was really genuine about it. And then you know, you just don't know until you know, and then you're on that side and you'd go, oh, let's talk about them.

40:38Speaker 2:What do you want to do? Do you want to talk about them? Do you want to like share a memory? Do you want to tell me about the horrific circumstances that you found you in the grief club, Like the conversations don't scare you anymore.

40:49Speaker 1:Everyone's so different. Our friend had lost her father in the most tragic sort of circumstances that you could lose someone, and she wanted to talk to us about it, and she wanted like she went into every single graphic detail.

41:06Speaker 2:It's the same as a birth story, like it's something that's changed you. So you can't do it without going from the start to the end exactly. You have to just tell it how it happened, until it's been some years and you can just be like, oh, yes, here are the dot points.

41:20Speaker 1:Yeah, when people ask me about my birth story, I still will go through every bloody detail if they'll let me, because.

41:25Speaker 2:It's the moment you became a different person. Now, that's the same as grief.

41:29Speaker 3:It's an interesting parallel of grief and birth and motherhood, isn't it Like they are all quite things that you have an idea of from the outside, but then when you actually enter that stage or of your life, it's so different from what you can imagine.

41:46Speaker 2:Yeah, a friend of mine had a newborn around the same time like I was in that first year of after Katie died, and we found a lot of commonality in how we were living life at the time, even though we were having such different experiences. It was the fog. It's the fact that your life has changed, the fact that the highs are like all of this love, but you know, the newborn side is that there's an addition rather than something being taken away, and then the lows are I don't feel like the same person anymore, and it's the same yea, even though it was completely different circumstances, it was really nice to talk to someone who was in that same confusion.

42:26Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, I wanted to ask you about Josh, your partner, your husband, I should say, what's it been like to see him as a father?

42:35Speaker 2:It's pretty special. It's really special. I actually remember when we were getting ready for your wedding key and it was something that you said, and I think Charlie said it as well, of like watching each other beat parents. He's just so special. Yeah, And I always remembered that. I wouldn't say he's an annoying type A, but he's definitely more type A than I am. Yeah. Yeah, And he tries to hack a lot of things, and he's like determined to get the sleeping thing right, and I'm a little bit more like who knows what's going to happen.

43:04Speaker 2:Maybe the better analogy is he grew up in the city. I grew up in the country, so I'm a bit more free range of we'll figure it out whatever, walk it off kind of vibe. And he like really wants to figure things out, Like every like useful piece of technology that we have is something that he's researched and purchased, like a sterilizer, whereas I'm on Facebook marketplace being like we can get this half broken thing for free. How good is he?

43:28Speaker 3:A chat GPT dad, because this is Charlie.

43:31Speaker 2:O'tosh Charlie.

43:33Speaker 3:Every night, let's repick a story via chat GEP.

43:37Speaker 2:Oh my god, that's so funny. That's so good. Yeah, he's he's more playtime dad. Like I've changed five nappiece in six weeks. I'll be honest. I like, that's his job. That's a legend yeah, legendary. And because I'm milk lady and he's true man who man, But he does like he's the one who goes I think we should do Tommy time. And he takes her and goes and does it and then he like puts all the like black and white things around her and plays with her. That is really beautiful to see. Yeah, so I'm like, oh I get some time off.

44:06Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, thank you very much.

44:08Speaker 2:I'll take it, thank you, unity le. He works for the government, so he is sixteen weeks. Oh I know. So it's insane. He took the first six weeks off and now he's back at work this week. But then we are going to embark on a very ambitious thing. We're going to go traveling together as a family from December start of December to mid January. We're going to go to Ireland and Portugal and.

44:32Speaker 3:Oh my god, amazing.

44:35Speaker 1:If I was to do it all over again, I think that that's a brilliant idea. And everyone I know that's done it has said it was great. You're going to have a newborn, a fresh little baby. May so we do it in another country.

44:44Speaker 2:Yeah, And we sort of went, well, we don't have him. We're renteds, we don't have a mortgage, so we don't have like our I mean, we would love to, but we're not in that financial position. When are we going to have the same amount of time bulk of time off again, because we only we only want to have one, like she's perfect. Why I try again? Until like we retire all long service leave or whatever, We're never going to have paid time off again. So we're just as chaotic because it's probably going to be. We are leaning in and hopefully it's fine.

45:12Speaker 3:Toddlers, I would say, well, this is what Bingle said.

45:17Speaker 2:When they can move and when you're having to prep full meals, it's all over. It's not amount of time.

45:23Speaker 3:When you're the milk lady, you can just do a little top up with formula. Yeah, that's great, that's great.

45:28Speaker 1:Yes, you mentioned to me in the office one day that you were one and done. What went into that decision and do you still feel I mean, you've just said so, I'm assuming you still feel the same way.

45:41Speaker 2:Yes, I do. The decision to be one and done is a bit. It's like when Chapel Rohane said that thing about all of her friends with kids, I hate their life. I was a little bit that's kind of the philosophy.

45:56Speaker 1:I'm wrong in some ways.

46:00Speaker 2:All of my friends and that have multiple kids, the identity shift that they've felt, the depths that they've gone to, that you're having conversations with them where they don't feel like themselves, whether their partner's gone back to work and they've been very career people and they're like, I don't know who I am. I know that I need work and I need to feel like I'm doing something. And that's not to say it's such a tricky thing, because also I'm aware, Key, you have two children, and I know that this is it's been so tricky for you this postpartum period as well. I don't want to lose a sense of identity and we wanted to always outnumber our children is one of the things we thought, and also financially, I don't know how that works, and I think if I did have two, it would be I would probably feel that pressure to take more time off work, or I would probably feel guilty. I was seeing a lot of my friends who were picking like a work thing and then punishing themselves for taking time away from the child, and I want to kind of, I guess do both well, and I'm probably going to do both at fifty percent, and that's okay. I don't know. It's

47:01Speaker 2:such a tricky one to answer. Now that she's here. It felt less real when I was just before I was pregnant, and when I was pregnant by being like we just want one. Now, I definitely don't feel an urge to go again. I didn't feel that surge of like, oh my god, let's make a hundred, especially after a bad pregnancy. I think it's just wanting time to still feel like I'm getting to do the things that make me me, and that could change, like this could be I could find so much fulfillment in this that I don't need to keep climbing a career thing. But I'm so terrified of not having time to do that.

47:35Speaker 3:I'm so glad that we were able to speak to you, Grace. I think they'll ending on one and done is really good as well.

47:40Speaker 2:It feels controversial to talk about it because look, I have said this to some people and they do get offended, and so I feel it's hard to share it because I do find that some people get offended. It's weird, isn't it. But even like, yeah, it's a stress. You don't want to criticize anyone else's life choices.

47:57Speaker 3:I've just had my second and I'm not offended by that, Grace. I think for me, it's like, yeah, everything that you've said is right. Like I feel like I'm not doing well and I feel like had I realized what I would have been sacrificing in my relationship with Rue, that's something I wasn't expecting. So I think that Obviously I love Suki, She's like delicious, and I don't regret Suki. But I think that I'm jealous of people who have enough awareness to be like, oh no, no, I'm one and done, because I think that that's a really responsible choice to make, and it's also honoring yourself.

48:36Speaker 1:I think that anyone that gets offended by other people's life choices. I think it says more about them than you. There's no point judging someone else's decision, because if you have thoughts about someone else's that probably means you're not that comfortable with yours potentially.

48:50Speaker 2:Yeah, and look, the work is going to have to come into it from us, Like we're going to have to be way like very proactive with friends, or we're going to have to be very proactive with playtime.

48:59Speaker 1:Oh and you've got to play with them all the time. I would say that, but because you can't just go play with your brother, Oh lass.

49:07Speaker 3:There is none but how nice when they get a bit and then you've got space in the car for their friends and you can have sleepovers. And look, I was an only child. I was lonely, but for many other reasons. But I had great cousins that I was around all of the time. So if you just make sure that you have a great set of friends with kids and they all kind of plunkin together, it's so fine.