Navigating Postpartum Depression: One Mom’s Story of Healing & Hope — with SUZANNE ASLAM

Today I speak with Suzanne Yatim Aslam, a former actor and Miss Arab USA turned writer. Her personal experience with postpartum depression and anxiety left her feeling alone and confused. In her book Post Pardon Me, she addresses the dark thoughts that so many mothers have but are too scared to say out loud. She's thrilled to get this book into the hands of mothers who may be struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety.

This conversation with Suzanne is so real, but also hilarious. You don’t want to miss this episode!

We talk about:

-deciding to have kids or not

-struggling with finding maternal instinct

-going through the motions

-dealing with mom guilt 

-physical symptoms of depression

-ancestral muscle memory

-ways to cope

-going to therapy

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

3:15 pregnancy expectations

5:05 life before kids

6:30 signs of depression

11:29 struggling with the bad days

16:05 warning signs of a bad day

18:03 cultural expectations

24:45 writing her book

28:30 being an advocate for yourself

31:40 finding help, trying therapy

38:30 learning about yourself through parenting

43:41 deciding to write her book

47:25 rapid fire questions

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH SUZANNE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/suzyatimaslam/

Website: https://www.suzanneyatimaslam.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're tuning in to the Active Month Podcast with Physical Therapist, Dr. Terry Pegliano, a real mom's guide to all things postpartum return to work out after baby. If you're a postpartum mom, coach, trainer, or physical therapist looking for answers on how to get back to running across the yoga pull out of hits, you name it without the fear of public court issues or doing something wrong, this is the podcast for you. Let's start the show. All right. One of the things that I end up talking to so many moms about is mental health more and more. And I think it was one of those things back in the day, you check the box, postpartum depression, you know, cleared, all good to go. But I think more and more, especially with active moms, we start having conversations about, you know, why is it important for you to be active? And the one of the answers that comes up a lot is for mental health and to stave off that postpartum depression. So our guest this morning, um, Suzanne Yatim Aslam. She is the author of Postpart Me. It's a dark comedy on postpartum depression and anxiety. And she kind of had me at dark comedy. So Suzanne, thanks for being on the show. Thanks, Gary. I'm excited to talk to you. All right. So you've got how many kids? Two boys. Two boys. Are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I don't know. That'll be my next book.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Right, exactly.

unknown 1:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

So when when you, you know, uh before boys, were you like, all right, I'm gonna, you know, have kids, it's all gonna be good. Not realizing that you're gonna have a couple kids write a book about and a dark comedy about postpartum depression. Like, how does this how does this come to be?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, how does that happen? This was not in this was not like in my tarot card plan. Um there was uh I never had like an inkling to people just have kids, man. Like you get married, you have kids, that's what you do. And I never really was like yearning, my loins weren't burning, like you know, like none of that. Yeah. Um, but I turned 30, or I was about, you know, I was gonna turn 30. And I was talking to my husband, and I was like, I mean, you know, like, should we? Shouldn't we? I don't like what do we do? And he was trying to talk me out of it because he was like, think of all the money we'd save and all the traveling we could keep doing, and like we were, you know, we were like, we could keep acting, it's gonna be great. Um and I started thinking, I was like, okay, that those are all like really, really valid points. And so then why do people have kids? So I started thinking about it, and I was like, well, when I'm 50 and I can't have kids, am I going to have regrets? Right. And then it just felt like a like a zero-sum option. I was like, oh, well, most people don't regret having kids, but people will regret not having kids. So the safe bet was to just have the kids. And that was how it was kind of logic. It was very romantic, this conclusion I came to. Nice. Yes, it was very, very personal, very deep. Um, yeah. So that was just my I'm very analytical, and that's that's how I thought about it. And then he was like, huh.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

All right, we're gonna do this. Yeah. So you get pregnant and you're thinking, okay, this is what you know, pregnancy is supposed to be like, this is what postpartum is supposed to be like. What was what was in your brain? Like what was going on around you with your friends? What were you taught as a kid? Like what this was supposed to look like.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Okay, so pregnancy was weird because there are people who love their baby like before conception. And they bond with their baby inside of their belly. So you hear, I this is what I hear. I don't know if everybody's lying to me or what, but this is what I hear. And then so I wasn't having that. And I was like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Why can't I bond with my baby? I have no maternal instincts. Oh my God, you know, and I was like, just really just I just shamed myself a lot. Um, because I didn't understand why I wasn't connecting with my baby. And then he was born, and I was still like, well, I mean, like biologically, you're like, you're biologically coded to love your child. That's just that's just evolution. That's just that just happens. But the whole like mushy gushy love, I just said words. I would say, like, I love you, but I only said it because I knew I was supposed to say it. And I knew that's what he needed to hear. But I wasn't like, I wasn't compelled to say it. Do you know what I mean? And then that confused me because I'm like, well, I know I'm like gonna be responsible and I'm gonna say it, but I don't feel it. And and like, when does this kick in? And all of that, like the whole time, I never felt the thing that everybody says you're supposed to feel, and that made me feel horrible.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

So already right off the bat, you're like, what the heck is going on here? Something's up, I'm doing this wrong, which is a quintessential mom guilt, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's the hierarchy of mom guilt. That's probably right at the top.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Uh, that coupled with like, so I had like a really full life before I had kids. What did life look like? Like I said, I was an actor. Um, I I live in Phoenix and we have like a like a commercial industry and a in an indie film industry. So I would shoot indie films like in the middle of the night, you know, watch the sun come up, uh, exhausted, making like crap films nobody's gonna see. Um, and then I had a commercial agent. So I would like I would do commercials for like the Arizona Lottery and Massage Envy and like, you know, whatever. It was fine. Um, those I didn't love as much because they're not like character-driven work. But anyway, uh I had traveled a lot, I was an activist, I had like gone into war zones and been shot at. Like I was big, you know, and then I wasn't. And I wasn't big. I was the small, insignificant, invisible human who lived in a condo and was forced to take care of a child she didn't understand, who is the reason that I can't do all those big things anymore. Yeah, is is how I, you know, interpreted it. And and I'm not connecting with him, so I'm not like, this is the most magical time, you know. Um and it just made it it made it harder because I was like, here's the list of all the things that his existence took away from me. And I blamed him through my this is what I always say. And those of you who are clinicians who are hearing that, like, this is such a great line, your depression is lying to you. Your depression is lying to you. And so these are all the things that I'm saying, they're not true, but that's what I was telling myself. And if it's coming from my brain, then it must be true. And I couldn't differentiate between like the depression lying to me and like my actual reality.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

So from the the very beginning, you know, you have your first, you're in the hospital, they're already screening stuff, or even by your six-week visit, do you remember kind of checking those boxes and being in and what were you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Um, I was at a birth center where I delivered. So like all naturally with midwives and stuff. Um and the only time, so like this this really bothers me. The fact that you have your six-week checkup. Yeah, forget like the baby and the pediatrician, like just you. You don't go back until you're six weeks. Right. And then when you go, they're like, Great, you can have sex now. Off you go. Because that's the first thing on your mind right now. Um, and that's like the only thing that we care about. Like, really, that's that's it. Like, you just want to tell me I can continue to procreate. I I don't I don't understand, or just to please him. Like, I don't what, like, why is that the only thing we're talking about? So that really, really bothered me. And then simultaneously, at some point, I can't remember, maybe it was like four months, at the pediatrician. Um, they give me this paper to fill out that's like, How are you feeling today? You know, what's your essentially it's like a little mental health quiz. Here's the problem with that little quiz. Depression is not you're not like Eeyore, where you're like in a constant state of sadness, right? Like you'll have good days and you'll have days where you can kind of function. And because for me, I didn't know I had postpartum depression, I just thought correlation is causation. So the same time I became a mom was the same time I became depressed, but I don't know that I was depressed. So this these feelings just equate what motherhood feels like.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

So I just thought, like, well, being a mom is very difficult, obviously. Everybody tells you it's difficult, but you can't like internalize the feelings of what that is. So you just assume that these are the feelings of what hardship is in motherhood. So you go to the doctor, you're having a particularly good day, let's say, and then you're checking it off. Well, in hindsight, you're thinking about like your meltdown yesterday, where your body was so heavy and you were aching and you had regrets and you you couldn't think straight, and they were just like this black hole and you were sinking into it. But today you're not having that. So when you go to fill out that stupid piece of paper, you're like, you know what, it wasn't that bad. I'm okay. I'm exaggerating. I just well, mom, life is hard. So I I kind of like invalidated my own feelings.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So that's that's one problem. The the second problem is you are supposed to be okay. You're supposed to be able to take care of this this little guy. So you can't go around telling people that you're not okay. There's a lot of women that I talked to who were like, I was afraid they were gonna take my baby from me, so I lied on it. Uh, you know? So, because you're thinking like uh there's just there's just so much fear.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

So plus the hormones. Oh my god. Plus you're sleep deprived, plus plus, plus, plus yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

So you're supposed to fill out this paper and be like, everything's fine, I'm fine. Or if you say anything other than that, that could be problematic. So I unknowingly lied. I lied because I was downplaying my feelings, not because I was afraid if he was he was gonna get taken away from me. I was just like, you know, it's it's all it's all right. So I don't like that test. I don't think that they screen us right. This is what I this is what I want. I don't know if this is possible in the US because everything about the healthcare system is horrible.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

I had a Ukrainian friend like come here from the war, and she was pregnant. She was like, she sat down, she was like, Can you tell me about the American healthcare system? And I just laughed. You're like, no, no, I cannot. I was like, here's the number to my birth center. There you go. Just move on, don't go to the hospital because it's just too much. So, anyway, um, what I want is I want to be, I want a new mom to be like smothered in resources. I want her to be so freaking overwhelmed with all of the options that she can't think straight because she's like, What do I do? Which do I choose? Who's gonna take care of me? Yeah, postpartum. That's what I want. Right now, what happens is you are spiraling, you are in a depression, you can barely take care of yourself, and you have to take care of a baby. And then you have to, if you find the mental capacity to even do this, go out and search for something to take care of you.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah, you know what's funny? I had a guest on recently that um her background, she was from Malaysia, and she was telling me about um in the in the Far East and in China, they have rest periods for 40 days and they have these centers. And and we were talking talking about kind of how the the pros and cons of that, because on one side you can go and have all of these resources available. Um, but if you're the the con was like on the other side of 40 days, if you've done nothing, that's not so great either. So we need to find kind of like that happy medium of you get the help, but you don't have to work so hard to find those resources or you know, like where do you begin? So, so for you, like if you think back on one of those typical first days, and I I still remember some and and having some not so great thoughts, like what still remains in your mind about what you remember about some of the bad days?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

I mom guilt continues into the future, and I have a lot of guilt around the fact that I blamed Sammy, my little my baby, for the way that I was feeling. I like, and it seems so illogical to blame a baby. Like in hindsight, that sounds so stupid. And if you haven't been depressed and you hear this, you're like, what's wrong with you? But I I was so like I told you at the beginning, I'm really analytical. Like I made the decision to have a baby using logic, not feeling. And then suddenly that wasn't really a main character in my brain anymore. The main character was this depression who was a psychopath, um, who just told me everything that was wrong. And it was really, really um, it was really strange. And what was really strange is that it was like really tiny things that would set me off. So after that, I sort of created like a new pattern in my brain where small things set me off. Like now I get really upset about small things.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Um, like what would set you off, for example?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Okay, so like I just posted this on Instagram the other day. Um, I I I titled it the one where I can relate to Ross. And uh you do you remember the episode of Friends where somebody stole Ross's Thanksgiving sandwich? Yes. Okay, and he was like, that was the only good thing going on in my life. He ate the only good thing going on in my life. My father-in-law did that to me with a drink from True Food. Like we ordered food, and I got like, I don't know if a lot of women have this with their postpartum, but I became like really obsessive. So um I I ordered food. He was like, Oh, I'll pick it up, like order whatever. So I ordered food and I ordered this cucumber refresher. And I just had I decided that that cucumber refresher was the best thing that was gonna happen to me ever in my whole life. And I did that, and it was just it was amazing. And I had to have it. And I just like sat there like a like a fiend, waiting for my father-in-law to come back with this with this food. So he gives me the he walks in and he gives me the bags, and I run to the kitchen and I start like trying to do that thing, and I'm listening to him in the living room tell my husband, oh my god, true foods has the most amazing customer service. It was excellent when you sit there waiting at the bar for your cucumber water while you wait.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Excellent service. And I was like, What did you just say?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I lost my I lost my shit. I lost my shit, and they're laughing.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

That's like me with DoorDash now. I'm like, I I'm ordering this food from there because I want this one thing, and then they don't bring the one thing. That's so annoying. It's like they know, but wait, but when that's the thing that's going to get you through the day, yeah. My mine was um Starbucks grande soy chai. That's what I we could only go to, we didn't have where I live, we don't have drive-thru. It's very strange, um, because everybody's so like close together. Why would uh uh outside of uh DC and Arlington, we have one Starbucks drive-thru, but that wasn't there. So we would go to the safe way that had the Starbucks in it because my son could only handle one out of the car and back into the car. So we had to kill two birds with one stone. And if I could get that drink, yeah, I could get through the day. And I and if I didn't, then it was not a good day.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yes, those little things really, really matter. The frustrating part is when people don't understand that that really matters. So, like when he drank my drink and him and my husband laughed because they thought it was funny that he mistook it for like an excellent customer service. That was like I'm sitting here crying and they're laughing. And the fact that they didn't understand, which isn't their fault, you know, but they didn't understand, and I felt so alone and so isolated. And I know, I know, like it sounds weird. If you have not experienced this, this sounds really weird. You're like, it's just juice, man. Get over it. But no, like no, it's not, it's it's the only good thing going on in your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, yeah. At what point, like when you woke up in the morning, I you know, it probably depending on the day, it may or may not have been of your own accord. Like, did you wake up kind of already having that feeling, or would it kind of just start to sneak in as the day progressed for you? Like, how did how did that kind of how did you notice it?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

The physicality didn't help. So I would wake up in the morning and I had what felt like fibromyalgia. And that's what I had, but that's if I had to describe the the the feeling, that's what it is. I would get up, and this was you know, this was after like the whole baby blues period. This is three, four weeks in and on, and I would get up and I'd put my feet on the floor, and it would hurt to put my feet on the floor. And I could hear my baby crying and I'd have to like go and pick him up, but my fingers ached. And I still had to pick him up. And so, like the the the pressure of like being in physical pain, but then still having to move because he needs you. Yeah, already like at the very beginning of the day, I was like, Oh my god, oh my god, like how am I gonna do this? You know, so that's not a great start to my days. Um, and I didn't understand why. Did I tell anybody? No.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Well, so so at that point, are you like, okay, this is just how this is, I've got to work through it, or you're like, oh, I should go, you know, tell my doctor about this, or I should be more active, but like, what's what's going through your brain at this point?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

This is how it is, I have to work through it. This is just what mom life is like. I just went through I, you know, mine was all natural, and I just figure, like, that's that's traumatic on your body. You know, we we kind of dismiss the fact that women have babies because it happens all the time, but that's all that is trauma on your body. We're sitting here, like, all right, carry on. And uh that's it, it was just a lot. And so I just assume that this was just how it is, and you know, yeah, just kept it going. I really, really am not a very good self-advocate. I mean, I'm getting better, obviously, but I was never really good at standing up for how I'm feeling. Um, I also come from a family of immigrants, so like I didn't want, I felt like if I complained or whatever, um, I felt like I was being ungrateful and like a little weak.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I wanted to ask you about that. Like culturally, you know, the stories that you hear from, you know, your mom and aunties and things like that. What what was kind of the impression that you were given how this was supposed to play out and what role you were supposed to kind of take on?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

What was kind of implanted in the similar to the things that you hear here about um like moms are just moms never rest and they just do everything. Most of my like the my aunties and my mom, like they were all in the home, they didn't have careers outside of the home, but they just never stopped moving in the home ever, ever, ever. And they were so good at everything that they did. Um, the only thing they probably weren't good at is like emotionally connecting to their children. What what country were they from? My family's Palestinian from Bethlehem. So um, you know, like just emotional connection is not really a thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

We come from a line of like Bedouins where you just like have to make it through the day. Like my grandparents didn't have a refrigerator, and you know, and so um they slept outside at you know at nighttime, like because that's they didn't have a place to to live. Um, well, not to live, but like just the structure of the building. There was no sleeping quarters. So um they had you know all that stuff. And so for me to like, oh, and they live under occupation where sometimes they get their water cut off for as like collective punishment. So for me to be like, I'm sad in Scottsdale with my baby, it's you know, it sounds like I'm bitching, and I didn't like that. And so I just sort of grew up like being so grateful to even be in this country, right? That it seemed so ridiculous that I would sit here and like whine. And that's how it sounded in my head. In my head, I was whining.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

So you're you're in just a different version of fight or flight, but feeling guilty because it's it's you're you're basically comparing your fight or flight to what you came from.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Still in fight or flight. Like you're yeah, your nervous system is still not happy about the whole scenario.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

And I'd love to talk to you about this because of your clinical background, but like I I really, really believe in ancestral muscle memory, and they call it ancestral trauma, but I called it ancestral muscle memory. And you know, you you live in a place where every day is really hard, and that stress that's inside of a woman like just gets passed down. And my mom was always really, really stressed. Um, being a young immigrant and the background that she had just growing up, you can't tell me that that wasn't like inside of me and my siblings. Um, so it's almost like your predisposition to have that.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Well, what I I see a lot, just because the DC area, we have a lot of people from all over the world. And um, I see a lot of first-time moms, and I think this is across the board, when you're trying to live up to someone else's experience and expectations.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

And I think, you know, maybe second, third, however many times around, ideally, we we start to realize this is our experience and whatnot. But that first time, I think it's really tough because um, you know, you you you do have a connection to that history. You that the person that you know, you know, the the best in this situation, you know, can be a mom or nauntie or something like that. And you're comparing your experience to them, or you're trying to set your experience up like theirs was. I think there's a lot of stuff that that can come through with that for sure. Um, so for you, at what point in this were you able to say the word depression? Were you able to put your finger on it and be like, okay, this is more than just this is what motherhood is like. This is like I I this is not okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Okay, so so I try talking about it with people. I'm an introvert, but I also love talking, it's very confusing. So um, I would be like, This is a dream. I have to wake up, I can't believe this, ruined my life. You know, like I'd say these things, and the people would be like, No, thank God he's healthy. No, everything's fine. What a blessing he, you know, and I would I'm like, Okay, you're not hearing me. So I just shut up. But I had some friends that have dealt with depression, and when I explained later my Symptoms or whatever, they were like, I'm not a mom, but all of these symptoms sound like you might have depression. And I early on dismissed that idea because I had never been depressed before. So why would I have a mental health issue now? Right. That doesn't that like didn't make sense to me, you know? Yeah. Um, so but it kind of just stayed in my head, and then I started to notice those symptoms and those cues that were kind of like, oh, huh. Maybe that, like, maybe that is what it is. But it took somebody being like who's actually experienced depression to tell me this sounds really familiar.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

And these are like girls that I've known really intimately. And so when I look back on like their experiences that I knew of, you know, and the darkness that they felt, and they'd go like radio silent for weeks. I was like, oh, oh yeah, no, like I was there for all of that. Yeah, it's exactly what you were.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

How did I not see it?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Well, I think it's forced for the trees, and then also context, because if if that was their depression, yeah, but it wasn't related to this, you're gonna be like, oh, well, it's different. It's not, I that's not me. I think it's so easy to just be like, oh no, that that's not how this is, and and you're in it and you're not even realizing it yourself. I think that's one of the things that moms, we try and be like, oh no, we're all good, it's all fine, but you know you're not.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

You can diagnose other people, but like you can't see it in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Oh no, I I swear half the time when I'm talking to my clients, I'm like, I'm telling you this. So, like the big thing right now is, and your your boys are how old? Six and eight. Okay, so you're you're going in it. I don't know if you guys have like crazy like summer camp schedule like we do here, where like summer basically we it's not a different schedule every week, and it's it's insane. And so I'm like, you you're not gonna get anything done in the summer, don't plan anything, just like it's it be happy when they go back to school again. And so I'm like telling my patients this that they have kids about your kids' age, and I'm like telling myself that too. I'm like, it's okay. Because I'm the basic that's hard.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Well, again, again, I so you guys don't have that whole crazy summer camp like everybody's doing.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

No, we do nothing.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

We do nothing. I have they have one week next week, only because we're going out of town, and I was trying to give my mother-in-law a break when she's watching them. So I'm like, we'll go to camp every day and then come back to you.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Oh, okay. But you got mother-in-law, that's helpful too. That's nice. Camp mother-in-law is I hear that's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So it has its pros and cons, but we'll talk about that in a different podcast.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That would be a different podcast. All right. So you're finally putting this together. And how many months postpartum are you at this point? No idea.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I can't tell you. I in my book, I truncated it. Um, but by the way, my book is a it's a dark comedy, but it's written in the form of journal entries. And I did that very, very specifically because of what I just said, where like I would try to talk to people and people wouldn't listen to me. So I felt like the best way to do it for you as a young mom to hear what I'm saying and to really take it in and for it to be unfiltered was for you to just be inside of my brain with me. So I wrote it in the form of journal entries so I could just say all the things that I wasn't allowed to say out loud. So it's very, but anyway, so I truncated it um just for the sake of the story. Yeah. But um, it was probably like a year before I realized I had it and started to talk about it. And there was this really terrible moment between my husband and I where he was like, Do you just want to leave? Like, do you want to just go like take money? You think he's ruining your life and you're not acting anymore? Like, go to LA, go for a year. I'll find somebody to watch the baby and just go. And I was like, Am I that bad? Like, is it this horrible that you think that I actually want to leave? Yeah, what are you seeing that in me that I can't see? Right and um, that was really hard to hear, but it really opened my eyes to the fact that there's some there was it was worse than I realized. Yeah, he told me that he would stay home sometimes from work and work from home, not because he would be like, Oh, I have a light day, like you know, I'm just gonna work from here, but it that wasn't why it was because he was keeping an eye on me. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that. He would just, you know, of course, he can't tell me that. So then I finally opened up and I was like, Hey, I think I might be suffering from postpartum depression. And then that was great because now he was like, Great, now we have like something that we can work towards, like our personality is a problem, and yeah, we can off of that. But you just like spiraling, it kind of almost looked like I'd like hidden a part of myself and then I became a mom, and then I like exposed the rest of who I am. Um, yeah, but it was just because I didn't know how to talk about it. And again, I expected this. I just thought this is what mom life was like.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah, I I see that it I see a lot of moms that use different coping mechanisms kind of during that time. I I work with a pretty active population, and I have moms that um they will use physical activity to try and cope with it, which if you recall immediately postpartum, there's a lot of challenges to physical activity, and you can really kind of put yourself in a in a you know tricky situation. Um, for you, do you look back and you see ways that you were trying to cope that just you know weren't helping?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Uh I also had anxiety, but I didn't realize that drinking coffee made that worse. Oh, geez. Didn't know. Nobody tells if you don't know, and I wasn't like this was eight years ago, so you know, I wasn't like getting all my information from TikTok and Instagram like you are.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Right. No, exactly, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

So I didn't realize that. And it was this was how I coped. You know, I drank my coffee and it made me feel better. And it was like my moment when the baby napped or whatever. Um, I read fantasy fiction till today because that's my escapism. Um, I cannot ever like just sit in silence because that's too terrifying to me because of my anxiety. Like the silence is really scary. So, um, which again I'm working on that. Um, so I would like constantly need distraction. The healthy thing that I did is that I did go work out a little bit. But the problem is, is I found this really cool place called Modern Milk. It's here in Scottsdale and it's a place for mamas and babies. So I could like go take a yoga class or a bar class, but my baby would lay at the top of the mat. Yep. And I could like just stop and sit down and unhook my bra and nurse him in the middle of class, and it was fine. Um, they even had like baby yoga. And so I would go to those on the days that I felt like I could leave the house. But if there were days where like my depression was too much, yeah, probably the best days to go work out, like I couldn't get myself to do that. So I couldn't make the connection, like, hey, I promise you, you will feel better if you can get yourself out the door and go to this class. You will feel better. I couldn't do that. And so I just wish somebody was there to like move my arms for me or something. Um that's what's really hard about being an advocate for yourself. You you have to be strong enough and have the mental capacity to say, hey, something's wrong. I need help. And then you have to have the energy to like go find it and do the work, and that's asking a lot.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Well, just getting out the door logistically is one whole challenge. Right. Two is to do it when you don't feel like you want to do that. Um, we again, I have that those conversations a lot with moms. I'm like, okay, I don't care if you do one exercise. Let's at least just get your foot out the door and at least get that ball rolling because it's gonna start to set up those habits and that stability that sometimes can kind of kick start things in the right direction. But it comes up a lot because it's just it's hard, period. And then with you know, mental health challenges on top of it, it just it compounds it. It compounds it.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

It's not something that you're gonna think about when you're spiraling, you're in that dark hole. No, you're not thinking, like, here, what are some tools I could use right now to pull myself out of it? You just that's why it's a spiral, you just want to keep spiraling and spiraling into that hole. Um, and finding your way out of it's really hard unless somebody like walks into your house and he yanks you by your hair out the door.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I th I think it's safety too. Like, I my oldest did not sleep probably the first five years of his life. I still have yeah, I mean, he's he's 12. Like I I love you, honey, if you ever watch this. Um you still drive me crazy with your sleeping. Um, no, but I very distinctly remember like um we have a little interstate close by, and I would drive a loop in the afternoon, and um I would drive this loop, and I very distinctly remember looking at a telephone poll and just huh, that's interesting, and then realizing what I thought. And I'm like, okay, I need to go home now. Um, and I always it's it's one of those things that like on one hand, you're like, okay, you know, I don't want anybody to think I would hurt my kid, but on the other hand, like that's the severity of where you're at with things and you don't trust yourself to be out because maybe you do something, you know. And I I think that's the part that like we need to be so much more vocal about is okay, yeah, you want me to get me out of the house, but there's just as many problems out there too as if I stay in the house. Oh my god, it's just landmines everywhere. Yeah, kind of well, I mean, I I think that's parenting period, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Well, it's it's it's asking a lot.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

So at this point, you're like, all right, I'm gonna do something. What I I think the next part is always what do you even do once you put a name on that? Like, how do you find help and what does help look like?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Oh lord. Okay. So people ask me in podcasts, they'll be like, So tell us what you'd like, what you did to move on from your postpartum depression. I'm like, you guys, this is a cautionary tale. Notice I didn't ask that. Well, I started to smile and I'm like, that's not what she said. Okay, like you, I didn't get the prompt I was looking for. Um people asked me that, and I'm like, no, this is this is like a do as I say, not as I did, because I didn't do anything right. Um, and in that's why I wrote the because of hindsight. I was like, oh, I really needed help, and I had no idea how to go about doing it. So later, like with my second one, they're two years apart. So my second one, like my anxiety increased. I finally went to therapy. Um, and I uh therapy was great. It was just really great to just sit there and like word vomit um safely. So I really, really appreciated that time was a huge factor, like just because I waited so long to even think about helping myself that it started to wean after a while. Um and the uh the other thing, like I noticed my panic attacks decreased after my second one when I had sent my first one to school like three half days, just so I had alone time with Ronan. Because I was like, oh, the you know, the first one, Sammy got all this alone time, like I should get it with Ronan. So um I uh sent Sammy to school three half days. So three half days, I'd sent him to school, and there was like a two-hour window in that time where Ronin would take a nap because he was only a few months old. So I had decided at that point, because with your first baby, you're like, okay, it's nap time. I could, I could clean, I could take a shower, I could do the dishes, I could make something to eat, you know, and you're like, what do I do? And every time, every nap for a whole year, I was like, What do I do? What decision do I make?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Oh my god, and then they spin in the circle for like 25 minutes and then they wake up.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

That's so horrible. So with the second one, I'm like, fuck this, I'm not doing anything. And I would grab my book and I would grab my anxiety-ridden coffee, and I would sit down and I would have my time. And that really, really, aside from the coffee, really helped me. The reason being is because it gave me the opportunity to um to recharge in the middle of the day. And I say this a lot, you can't, I don't think, you can recharge at the end of a day. That's not a thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

No, thank you for uh no, because the witching hour is coming. And I have a whole chapter on the witching hour. Oh my god. And then if you have a two-year-old going into and then a three and a half-year-old boy, like we could have a whole podcast on that. Like that, no, that you you don't recharge at the end of the day. That's second shift.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

And then there's the third shift, which you're terrified of of waiting. Night time. Yep. So so I you don't recharge. And then, like, sometimes you know, people will say, like, you know, my husband would be really sweet, but he doesn't know what's going on. So he'll be like, Hey, in three months, I want you to go on a to go visit your sister. And I'm like, that's so nice, but what the fuck do I do for the next three months? Like, what? No. Anything for three months, like crossing off the days and blood on the calendar. Um, so I needed those breaks. So I when I realized, like, oh, I haven't had an anxiety attack or panic attack in a while. What was different? It was that. So I started to make sure that I had, and sometimes it was like going to the grocery store by myself one hour, like go to the grocery store, come back. I would take my time looking for letters. Um, but I came back and I was like really enthusiastic to see the children, you know? Um, but it was just that time in the middle of the day by myself, especially as an introvert, like you recharge alone. If you were an extrovert, maybe you wanted to recharge by like getting on FaceTime with a girlfriend or something like that. But for me, I needed to be alone um with my books. Yeah, so that was how I did it. And that really, really helped kind of just like calm me, calm me down and help me reset.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Cool. If if we backtrack a little bit to to finding a therapist, that's the one big issue I have with moms is like where do you start? Like, did you Google, I need a therapist for a mom who's like, you know, losing it, or like what what do you do? Like, what do you how did you even find one? Who did you ask?

SPEAKER_01 35:51

I think you have to go in looking for a therapist, knowing that it's like really expensive dating.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

It is, it's a dating. I was gonna say, it comes up a lot.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Because you have to vibe with them to be able to divulge all that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah. Yeah. The my first one, the one who was diagnosed me with postpartum depression, she was a lunatic, like a straight up wack-adoo. And I could not like she made assumptions about me very quickly that I didn't. I'm like, I I told you three things. Do not diagnose me with social anxiety disorder and like all that stuff. Like, just because I'm an introvert doesn't mean that I have social anxiety. Right. And so that like I was like, you're not listening. Yep, you know, and that really, really bothered me. So um, if I were smart in hindsight, I would have looked up like postpartum depression therapist, but I didn't do that. I just looked up like I just wanted a female therapist. Right. Now my therapist is somebody who focuses on IFS internal family systems, because that's what I want to work on now.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

And I like I sought a person specifically for that, but it took me a lot of money before I well, and and again, I think there's so many barriers here in the States. Like it takes time to find a therapist, period, who's taking patients, especially, you know, after the past, you know, three, four years. I think it takes time to um find somebody that you get along with. It takes time to have that appointment. That's why I'm so adamant about continuing telehealth services, because for me it's been amazing to have moms that like their kids have been constantly sick for, I don't know, the past however many years, for them to take one more and have to cancel one more appointment. I'm like, no, we just switch gears. We just switch to telehealth. You shouldn't have to put yourself on the burner. Like if those benefits go away and moms have to actually physically go somewhere, take that time out again. Again, it's just another barrier. Um, it's like the system is set up to basically make it so that we can't care for ourselves. It's like, yes, you should take care of yourself, but we're not gonna give you any easy way to do that. We're gonna make it as hard as possible. Right. Right, exactly. Exactly. So that I I think so many moms they get to the point where like almost your kids' age, we're like, okay, kids are finally in school. Yeah, okay, maybe now I can do something for myself, but how many, you know, how much has gone under how much water has gone under the bridge before that happens?

SPEAKER_01 38:17

I think also a lot happens by the time your kids are my age. This is just my own personal experience. But I learned a lot about myself as a child.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

By the time they, you know, they're they're say, because like every every year I look at Sammy when he was three, and this like really weird thing happened to me and my sister when we were three and one, and that's how old they were. And I was like, oh my God, I cannot believe my mom even put me in that situation. Like, how could she do that? You know, and I'm and and and so there's like a lot of like work on yourself that comes up. You're like, oh, maybe that's why I'm like this. Yeah, because this thing happened to me when I was three, that is insane and shouldn't have happened, you know? Yeah. There's um, there's a lot there where then you start to like work on yourself, and then you're also like, don't ever do that to your child. Like you're gonna fuck with it.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Right. Yeah. No, I I think we totally uh sell women down the river when we're like, okay, yeah, you just got to get through these first couple of years and then you'll be fine. I'm like, no, this is like they can wipe their butt and feed themselves and get snacks right now, which is awesome. But like you said, you're you're processing your own childhood, you're processing how you know your parents parented you and how you want to do something different. And then trying to guide these little, you know, grenades that come home and you don't know if they're gonna explode in your face or not. You're just like, okay, what's coming home today?

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah. And I started thinking like I started working on love languages, and I was like, what are my kids' love languages? Because I told you, like, you came from a culture where like emotional needs weren't really a factor. So now I'm like, oh, Ronan needs constant physical touch all the time. Like all kids need physical touch, but Ronan's like exaggerated, you know. He need he'll just come out of the room just to hug me and then go back. He really and I started noticing that. I really did. Sammy's not like that. Sammy, I have I go and I hug him because I know that's what he needs, but he doesn't like seek it out. Yeah, but Sammy seeks quality time, he wants me to like sit there and be really interested in dogman with him. So now I can tell you everything about dogman. Man, I got you. Like, I will take the quiz. I will, I'm so good.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Dogman, even it's funny now. Again, my my oldest is 12. And anytime like dogman or cat kid comes out, like I still have to pre-order it on Amazon. I mean, don't read it in literally about four minutes. I mean they must have it, they must have it.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Yeah, and we reread them, and I was like, Sammy, which book does ADHD come in? And he's like, Oh, book three, and he immediately like grabbed it and opened it to the page. Like he just knows. Also, I love that he's called ADHD.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

I know, isn't that funny? Do you guys read Infest in uh I think it's investigators? They're really into that one too. No, oh yes, you need to go back and check that out.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

So if they like dog man, they might like this.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Oh, totally. It's it's the same kind of series too. So I get you're welcome for the book recommendations. We're getting through them really fast.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

The investigation.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Well, that's again, that's the problem, is they go too fast. And my kids are old enough now where they still want to read the story, but I'm like, okay, this is about a million times below your reading level, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna it brings you joy. So we're going for that's awesome. So in the rear view, um, as much as you can right now, understanding there's a lot ahead, um, looking back, are there things that you know that you you know try and bring forth in the book to to to help moms kind of um find answers sooner?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

I again because it's in journal entries, it's super candid.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

And I just like will say these things and then I made sure to show you the ups and downs. So I'll show you like one chapter is like he laughed today. This is amazing. Oh my god, you know, and then the next day it's like the world is bleak, there is no point, you know what I mean? So I I tried to do that, um, so I could show you like the chaos of it. Yep, the chaos of the what the internal struggles are. Um and you know, the whole like omniscient thing. So I'm I'm the god of the story, and I know that she's experiencing postpartum depression, but like she doesn't know it for the first portion of the book. So, you know, I like I like I will put little clues in there that that if you have experienced it or you're currently experiencing it, you understand, but I was unaware of. So it was like there's like little Easter eggs in there that that kind of help that are really relatable. And a lot of women were like, Oh, if you took out your name and put in mine, that's my story.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Yeah, it's so cool to hear.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

And like I had a woman a few months ago who's a grandmother who read it, and she was like, I wish I had that, this kind of access when I was a young mom, because I had no idea that that's what I was, I had no idea I didn't climb depression until I read your book.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Yeah, it it makes you look at your mom in a different way, I think, sometimes too.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

I have a lot of grace for her now.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I often call and apologize. I wasn't the bad child, I wasn't the problem child, of course. But were you the oldest? No, I'm a middle child. I'm a middle child, so that beautiful little middle child that does no wrong, and they should have just quit with me, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, but they just don't mean.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah, my sister's two years older, and then I have a brother that's six years younger. So um, we we've we've got this the spread. So all right. So for you, kind of now, what's your favorite activity kind of at this point since becoming a mom? Before it was like you've got all the acting, that was kind of who you are. What's your kind of favorite thing to do now?

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Well, um, one of the reasons I chose to write a book, other than you know, I really wanted to talk to moms about this, is I was really seeking creativity. And yeah, I didn't know how to be creative. And I started um it was a pastime of me and my husband to write. Scripts.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

So I really liked writing, and in film scripts, it's predominantly dialogue driven. And I realize that I'm I'm actually pretty good at dialogue. Like that's in a skill set of writing, like that's where I write the best, is in dialogue. So um it's just very believable, very realistic. So uh I in the in the journal entries, you'll actually come across dialogue where you'll hear it, you know, it reads like a novel.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Because I really like that. In all the journal entries, people are like, So did you pull is this your real diary? And I'm like, no, no, no, I made it all up. Like all the stories were real, all the events actually happened. But you know, I don't remember what me and my husband talked about in the bathroom while we were getting ready that day for this event. So, but I so but I created all the dialogue for it, which was really, really, really fun for me. So I really liked being able to be creative in that. Yep. Um, I picked up the piano because I knew I was I knew that that would help me like with um oh my god, writer's block. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

I forgot the word for writer's block. This is what happens when you get older too, by the way. There's like a 45 second delay. They're like that word.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

It'll happen on podcasts. I'll be like, okay, two things.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Number one, and then I get to number two, and I'm like, oh, then it it I have all the sympathy in the world for that.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

They say like it starts in pregnancy, you lose gray matter, and then it comes back after two years, but it never came back, Carrie.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Where'd it go? Well, and then the vision too. I I picked these up during uh you know the first year of COVID. So the vision, the brain cells, it's all oh my god. It's all good. I I do, I, I, I, I don't hesitate to blame my children. I'm like, you did this to me. So the nice thing now is they give it back to me, but when they were little, they're like, You did what? I'm like, no, no, no.

unknown 45:42

What did I do?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Um, so yeah, I picked up the piano. I just kind of fiddle around. I've got one down here um that helps me if I'm like really stuck, then I'll go there and I'll I'll play, or I'll do some yoga and move and just not think. And then I'll be like, as I'm moving, something will just pop into my head. I'm like, oh, that's how I'm supposed to do it. So I have two more books that I want to write that have nothing to do with this. I just realized that I really love writing and acting is like a village um job. Like you have to you have to have all the components, the editors and the directors and the and the boomers and everything. There's just so many people. Um, I I can still be creative as a writer and not rely on anybody else.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

So I really so this just kind of became accidentally my new career.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

But that that's awesome, though. My my actually, my brother and sister-in-law, um, they did the acting scene in in New York. So I'm somewhat familiar with how that all plays out. And he does, I think it's like ethicus and diversity training now and writes scripts and all sorts of stuff, which is kind of cool. But I digress. I think the the thing with that, that I the point I want to make here is that you've it wasn't exactly the same, but you found that thread that was so important of that creativity piece. Um, like I I used to write a lot before, and that's honestly where I started to do a lot of like my Instagram and things like that. It doesn't come from like, hey, I want to create content, I want to do that. It's it's it's I want to write about the experience. And I think that's such a good point that moms need to find that thread, whether it's through activity or creativity or that sort of thing. It's not gonna look identical, but you can still find that piece of you again and and start to make space for that, which is awesome. Another question I always ask my guests at the end is um, what one piece of advice that you have for new moms?

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Don't be a hero. If somebody offers you help, you say yes, thank you. Yeah. There's no the um the village that it takes to raise a child, that village is for the mama.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

So she can continue to be a good mama and take care of that baby. She needs a support system. And there are people who don't know how to offer help, but there are people who do. You just you just have to say yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Yeah, no, I love that. And then last thing for you, what does it mean for you to be an active mom in postpartum?

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Now, Carrie, when you say active, and I know you're all about it.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

It's rel it's relative, my dear. It's relative. Everybody always apologizes. They'll come in, I'm like, oh, I don't do crossfed on to run. I'm like, I don't care. What does active mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Um, I'm not active, Carrie.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

This is no, but you are. You got up, you you wrote, like that's active. Like you got up, you did your things. That's my point, though, is it all kind of looks different. I do squats in my room.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

I will do squats and push-ups and planks in my room. You said you did yoga for creativity. I love that. Like it's like three minutes. Like, I'll move and I'll be in down dog, and then I'll be like, aha, like that's my point.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

That's my point, though, is that it looks different for everybody. You don't have to be like doing ultra marathons or doing all this crazy stuff. It can look like a couple minutes, and then that spawns some creativity, and that's what it is for you because that's what you need it to be.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

I wish I was more active. I wish I like, I wish I was an athlete of some sort. Like, not I don't need to be like a professional tennis player, but I wish I was like excited to go hiking or I live in mountains. And I've never like, I don't it never it never occurs to me to go hiking.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Well, you know, I was out um a lot of my stuff kind of got it kicked a little bit later. Uh one of my best friends from PT school, she and I actually we we did um rim to river to rim last November um up at the Grand Canyon, and um, which I've always kind of wanted to do something like that. And she just called me up last summer and she's like, Hey, do you want to do this? And I'm like, Yeah, sure. Um, not thinking anything of it because I'm like at a swim meet, not paying attention. And the next day she sends me the picture of her plane tickets in the hotel reservation. That's happening. So, but that that's the thing too that's coming up. I mean, my kids are nine and twelve. Like, there comes a point where um, like I did my first half marathon this year. It's like, okay, there's this whole other kind of renaissance that comes once you kind of get through that sort of beginning. Yeah. Um, so I I I love talking to people with like newborns and then also on the other end, like friends that so she's got her kids are going to college in the fall, and just to see what that looks like, and it doesn't look the same. You you have challenges through all that it's not the same, but you have these opportunities to to find new things and do whatever. It's just whatever that that kind of time you know brings to you. So who knows?

SPEAKER_01 50:22

A list of like, here's ways to stay active when you don't like being active. Because like my pastime is reading. I like to read, you know, if I have a lone time, that's what I'm saying. I don't I don't know what it I don't know how to do anything else. Late this last week, because it's 117 degrees here. I don't know. Yeah, I heard you guys are getting killed. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I I'll go into the pool in the evenings, yep, and I will just like swim a couple of laps and then I'd be out of breath because I don't exercise and um it's horrible. But I'm like, at least it's something. At least I'm like moving my legs.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Yes. I actually I'm gonna record a podcast next week with um, we have a big summer swim team culture here that um I think it's other places, but it's like really quick. And so I'm doing a recording with some swim team moms where literally there's this one mom that she drops the kids off and then she starts walking around the pool and the buildings, and she just walks. And the eventually what ends up happening is the mom that's like sitting poolside, she'll get up and go walk with her. And then there's like this whole group of moms that'll just they'll just walk because otherwise, what are you gonna do? You're just gonna sit there and stare at your kids, swim back and forth and back and forth, and back and forth. Like, that's the shift that I I think I I wish somebody had told me was coming because you you you only have this idea of like, I'm gonna go back and do what I did before, but it looks different because you're running back and forth. But like there are these other ways of doing things, and I think having examples for moms of like, hey, I don't have to sit and watch my kid do soccer practice all the time. I can go for a walk around the soccer field or I can do this. It never occurred to me. Yes, yeah. So now, see, you've got investigators now, and now you're gonna go for a walk when it's not 117 degrees.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

That's your homework. I have five months to prepare for this walk. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

No, but pool walking too, so fantastic. A friend of mine, um, we met at the pool the other day, and she's uh an amazing triathlete and for the Coast Guard. And she I'm like, I can't keep up with you. And she's like, Do you want to just walk laps? I was like, Yeah, let's do that. We just got caught up and we walked walking in the pool, yes. It's great cardio, it's like aqua jogging. You just you walk. I don't even know what aqua jogging is. I what what are you saying to me right now? Okay, this might be a whole other episode where we take Suzanne to the next level of activity. Oh my god. Look, if I can do it, anybody can do it. This would be like a great performance. It's walking in a pool. That's it. Literally all that it is. See? Now I found this whole new thing, and and so I don't have to like run laps and be out of pool. Oh god, no.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

I can't after two, I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

So start with two. This is thrilling. I'm glad to hear that. All right, so I'm glad we planned our next couple of podcasts. Yes, yeah. If you want to find more about Suzanne and her book, it's postpartum me. Um, you can go to her Instagram, Suzy. Um, I'm can you say that?

SPEAKER_01 53:18

Yeah, okay. It's actually Suze. So Suze is what most people call it. Ah, yeah, I know. Uh people who don't know me on Instagram will like reach out and be like, hey, Suzy. And I'm like, that's that's not what you're uh it's I can't stop laughing. Um it's Suze Yateam Oslam. I see that makes more sense.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

But I wanted it to be Suzy.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

It's okay. You can call me. I told you I have an identity crisis with my name.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Awesome. I'll call you Susie. We'll do some aqua jogging and you can read investigator. Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you so much, Carrie. Did you enjoy the podcast? If so, leave us a five-star review on iTunes and tell a friend to do the same. Are you a postpartum mom or postpartum pro wanting to know more about getting back to running after babies? Check out all my free videos on carriepacta.com. This podcast represents the opinions of Dr. Carrie Paclana and her guests to the show. The content is not particularly medical advice, and it's for educated of physical studies. Always consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions.