CYBEX Hot Mom Walk Podcast

CYBEX Hot Mom Walk Episode #19: Sam and Allie’s Story with Theresa Hudson

• CYBEX • Season 2 • Episode 19

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Welcome back, CYBEX Mama Mentor, Theresa Hudson (@eastcoastivfmom). 


Theresa’s friends Allie and Sam (@allieandsam) are joining today’s episode to share how they became moms. As same-sex parents and partners, they discuss their fertility journey, the roles and responsibilities each mom had, and the importance of finding time to enjoy yourself and your partner.


Show notes: 
https://www.instagram.com/cybex_usa

https://www.instagram.com/eastcoastivfmom

https://www.instagram.com/allieandsam/



Hello and welcome to the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast. Cybex started this series as a recent study found that 80 % of women at three months postpartum say they feel more alone than ever. Designed to help mitigate feeling isolated, the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast series aims to help moms across North America cope with the feeling of isolation and the huge identity shift that comes with parenthood. Welcome to the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast.

It's Teresa Hudson again from Halifax, Nova Scotia, one of the Cybex Mama Mentor Search winners. And today I am having some special guests for the podcast, also from Halifax, and some of you might follow them online and their names are Allie and Sam. Thanks for having us. We're so excited to chat with you. Awesome. So first off, do you have any children? Which I know the answer to, but they will tell me they do. And what are their ages?

We do. We have twin boys and they are almost 20 months old. Crazy, right? It's wild. It goes so fast. Crazy. So I talked about this a little bit on the last podcast if anyone listened to it. If you didn't, don't worry. I'm not going to judge you. But I met Ali and Sam through Instagram as one of my support people who helped me through my whole IVF journey miscarriages, losses, transfers, and Ali and I actually got pregnant almost at the exact same time. What was it? Four days apart? Two days apart. Two days apart.

days apart. Yes, yeah, which is wild. So we were very much comparing our testing strips and such. But before we get into all that, maybe you guys can tell how you became moms. Yeah, you can tell them. So it was a pretty long journey. I think it took us about two years all together.

Yeah, so you can probably hear that we are two women. So we are obviously missing sperm and needed to seek out fertility treatments to grow our family. We ended up doing three I .U .I .s to start with donor sperm. Also, picking a sperm donor is like online shopping and it's so weird. It's so weird. It's so weird. Yeah. Just like I dabbled into egg donors like just kind of looked at it because I thought that might have been our route. Yeah. And it is. You see like photos when they were a kid, photos when they were an adult.

Or it's like personality traits. Like online dating. Yes. That's right. You get their star sign, you get their interests, you get their audio interviews sometimes. no way. Yeah, we haven't. It's wild. That is cool. I didn't know that. And yeah, for someone indecisive like me, it felt like the biggest decision in the world. And it is a big decision. it's huge. It's a massive decision.

But yeah, we did decide on a great donor and yeah, we did three IUIs and then we decided to move on to IVF. So we did a round of IVF and ended up getting nine frozen embryos. Yeah, we were very excited about that. Yeah, it felt like it was a lot of chances. Huge, that's amazing. Yeah. But we didn't end up testing them. We like genetically testing them to see if they were... What the word? Genetically normal or genetically abnormal or prosaic? Yeah.

All the different terms there are, yeah. Yeah, so we didn't do that and just decided that we would transfer them and see what happened. So we did three frozen embryo transfers for me personally, because I was the one that always wanted to be pregnant. Ali, you kind of had no interest in it. No, I didn't. So we did the three frozen embryo transfers and then the first two didn't work at all. The third one, I ended up having a missed miscarriage. So at eight weeks, we went into the fertility clinic for an ultrasound and found out that the baby had stopped growing and my body needed a break.

But we were getting desperate and we just wanted a baby. So Allie decided that.

she would try just one time and one time only to get them. Yeah, I said one time, no needle. And luckily they were out of the PIO injections. They were. Yes, because I, well, we did it at the same time, like we said at the beginning. And I had also had gone through miscarriages and had researched up the wazoo and I wanted the needles. Right. And I bought them from Toronto and shipped them here. So even though Halifax was out, I went with them and you went with the suppositories. I did, yes. And I was excited. Yeah, and I hated the suppositories.

Anyone who's ever done it, it's gross. It's so best. Yeah. my gosh. I take so much time. But yeah, that was our fourth embryo transfer, but my first. And for that one, we decided to transfer two embryos because we were getting desperate at that point in time and felt like there was something wrong with the embryos was what we got in our head. Yeah. But maybe they were genetically abnormal. Yeah. They kept like, they couldn't find anything wrong with you. And we just thought like, maybe it's the embryos. Why don't we do too? And I think they felt.

very bad for us at that point. And you had sunk a ton of money into it as well. That's the thing. And time, and mental. And the wait times. So yeah, it was a very last minute decision to put two in. And they both ended up sticking. And I don't think we really believed it. Until they were born. Until they were born, we were not convinced. Okay, and I saw your belly, so you should have believed it. I know, but we were convinced something bad was going to happen the entire time. me too.

yeah, you're on pins and needles the whole time. You're waiting for the next scan. You're hoping for the next thing to be good. Yes. And then you get the scan. Yes. The next one. For that day. Yeah. The next day you're back. Yeah. Yeah. totally. That's like the worst. Yeah, we're very lucky that you have your boys. Yeah, we have our boys. Which is wild. And our boys are like...

I don't know, three weeks apart? I think. You had a planned cesarean second with twins, obviously, a whole lot of other things going on. And I think I was one day late. That's wild. It's so cool. It's so cool. It's crazy. I still can't believe it. Sometimes when we have late apes, this is really going to sound weird, but I tell Clarky, I'm like, Clarky, you'll go meet your freezer buds today. Freezer buds. I mean, they might've been in the same cave.

my gosh, she's never thought of that. That's so cool. And like the same week when they were like taking them out, they were also getting Clarke ready to come out. my gosh. That's so cool. Wild. It's so special.

It's so wild. Okay, well that's your story. My story took like 30 minutes. So if you listen to it, I'm really glad that you guys gave the Coles notes because people were probably like, my gosh, I gave them the story. The other thing I wanted to ask you guys about because I think some people might find that all officially moms out there in the postpartum vibe of their life, era is what the kids say, the cool kids say in their postpartum era. Is that it? Can people say that? I don't know. You Sam,

did not carry the twins, but you breastfed the twins. And I think that is like the coolest thing ever that you were able to do that. Can you explain that a little bit? So I induced lactation and I have no clue where I even heard about it the first time, but it got in my head once I realized that you were pregnant and not me and I still wanted to breastfeed and Allie didn't want to breastfeed. Yeah, it worked out. It worked out. So I basically researched everything I could about inducing lactation because it's honestly something a lot of people don't know about.

And when I started sharing my journey, I actually had so many lactation people reach out or comment on my socials saying that it's not possible. Give up. You're giving people false hope. You have false hope. Like so many negative comments. You got some.

Healthcare professionals. Yeah, no way. It was shocking and we were pretty discouraged because we thought is this gonna work? So we had very, very low radiation. It was hard to find a doctor that specialized in it and would be willing to help me with the process and specifically prescribe the medication. So I was prescribed something called Domperidone and luckily found this amazing breastfeeding doctor here in Halifax. I'm also sorry.

She's amazing. And she had experience with inducing lactation, which is very uncommon. And she has a ton of experience and so much experience that she actually has her own protocol, which she thinks works better than the standard protocol. And it worked great. So basically I had to pump a ton leading up to the twins birth. So I think for two months before they were born, I woke up around the clock because I pumped every three hours in the day.

Knowing there'd be twins coming. Right? I'm tired thinking about it. It worked! And by the time the twins were born, I was making over 40 ounces of breast milk a day and I was able to breastfeed them for 10 months. Amazing. Yeah, so I'm proud of myself. Also, side note, super amazing, Sam's the best. That is awesome.

However, if you are like me and also were on that drug and also saw all the doctors and were never able to make enough milk, it is totally okay. Everybody is different. Yes. And everybody's capable of different things. But if you are in a partnership or you're even adopting anything where like you're not the person who's pregnant and you want to breastfeed your child, it is awesome. It is. It's amazing. It's so cool. So cool. You are also writing a book about your journey to becoming motherhood and all of the things you guys went through, which is really cool.

Yes. So we're currently in the writing journey and it's looking like it'll be published sometime next year. So that's amazing. No, like that's like seriously stay tuned. You can follow them. Allie and Sam's look on that. You'll find them. Stay tuned. Buy their book. I think my biggest tip is going with a low and not thinking you can't do it because it took me a long time to take the twins out by myself. Yeah. And once I started, I realized A, it wasn't the smartest I thought and B, if it was, you could just go. Yeah.

So I think getting over the mental block of like, my gosh, because everyone tells you twins is gonna be so hard. It's gonna be so hard. Yeah. So I think mentally in your head, you think this is gonna be really hard, but then we didn't find it as hard as we expected it to be. And I think it's just like a bandaid. I think the more you do things, easier guess. And also ask for help. Yeah.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. We did and it, I think, saved my mental health. yeah. And accepting help, like actually accepting it when people offer it and not be like, it's fine. Right. Was huge because we needed the help. We needed it. We really couldn't have done it without help in the early days. Yes. And also it gets easier. I find every month easier. I agree. Yeah. Like all the stages get easier. Of course there's like toddler tantrums now. To be honest, they're kind of funny. I'm sure they won't be so funny. It's so hard not to laugh.

They throw themselves on the floor because they wanted the red crayon and you're like, well, it's time to eat supper. They want to nourish your body and they're like, like it's so... Yeah, it's hard to laugh. But it's so much more fun. it's so fun. And you sleep more. You sleep way more. yes. Which is really good. Yes. Yeah. Also, if you don't have family members help, you can always hire help. Yes, we did. Which is what we did. Because we don't have family locally and our friends are amazing, but...

busy with their own lives. And we didn't expect them to come help in the night with us. So we had a doula, we had two doulas. Our first doula just stopped with us last week. She was here once a week for three hours. So we could work, which was because we went right back to work. And you're both full time working while parenting with no childcare. Yeah. So you needed it. We needed those few hours. Yeah. And then we also had overnight help a couple nights a week at the start. And it was amazing. It was expensive, but we saved up for it and it was worth every penny.

Especially since you were both working. That's the thing, like you couldn't function if we had been up all night every night. So having those quality, it was just.

And it's a huge expense, but I know that our postpartum doula is mentioned that something that a lot of people do is for like their baby shower instead of people getting gifts. So they contribute to like a postpartum doula fund. That's really smart. Yeah. And yeah, I think it is important. Because a lot of the time, the gifts are great, but a lot of the time you just get like used ones, these or whatever, you know, you try to get stuff from friends or pass on to you. So yeah, that would be like, put that on your registry. Just one registry item. Like one night sleep. Yeah, exactly. No, that's awesome.

that kind of almost leads into my next question, which is what we've been talking about the whole time. And you probably already answered, but during the postpartum kind of phase, both of you had different roles. Like your body was healing Ali and you were breastfeeding. how did you survive? What did you do? What were you? I think that was the key. The key was that I got to recover and then you kind of took on like that body load because I found the pregnancy so hard on me, like physically and mentally. So I don't think I could have handled. Yeah.

breastfeeding because I see how hard it is. Yeah. I just couldn't have done it. I don't think. Yeah. It's a lot of work. A lot of work. So I think having me be able to rest and then you being the breastfeeding mom was the key and also having support. Like your mom helped us. My mom came and then our doula is just amazing. Right. And going with low again, just having low at the end. And we also

We've always been good at dividing tasks. Yeah, we don't work well on the same tasks. We thought we did for the first five years we knew each other. And then we realized, no, we can't work together. We have to work separate and we work together. So we need to divide tasks. And I think we've learned what our strengths and weaknesses are. And we were also lucky enough to nanny together the same kids. Like we lived with the same family. That's huge. So we already knew.

that like, I have not a lot of patience, I need a lot of sleep. I'd rather like do the house stuff than, you know, deal with all time kid stuff. So we just knew that. Yeah. And so we were able to kind of discuss it beforehand. And that was another big thing was talking about expectations before it happened.

and like going through all different scenarios like what if we'd gone to the NICU, what if one baby was in NICU, what happens when I lose nights of sleep and I can't function and I'm obese? Like what do we do? So it was really good. I didn't even think that you may have like one parent at home with one baby. It would be so hard. It would be so hard. Yeah and that's if you had two parents. Single mother or single father. Yeah. Single parent. Wow. Things I never thought about.

I will never also have to think about because I will never have any more children, so I just sort of miss. Okay, so this question I think really relates to a lot of the people maybe listening to this podcast, trying to go for their walk, which sometimes that's a bit of a nightmare and you just want to get out for your walk and you don't end up going or you do, which is great, but you have to run out halfway through. But you are not only mom, you are also partners and you're also your own person. The reason I'm asking this question too, to give a little context, I feel like you guys are very good at finding time to be yourself.

How are you still able to be the Allie and how are you still able to be Sam? Like how do you carve out time to be your own? We schedule it in, then that's like a huge thing. So I knew that I'm a very anxious human and that when the twins were born I was, I knew I was gonna feel really anxious and I knew I wasn't gonna want to leave them and I knew that from therapy that it's good for me to get out and do things and show myself that it's not as bad as I think it's going to be and that it gets easier every time. So I signed up when the twins were very little.

for painting classes. I'd never painted before. I had never done anything artsy like that. So once a week, it was in my schedule that I would go to a community center and paint for a few hours. And I've kept that up. So I have done painting and pottery and it's just like a once a week thing. I go out and I have some like me time. I like to go for my walks, like you said. And runs. And I used to go to spin, but I just gave up because I don't have it in me anymore. So I decided, you know, I can just walk or run. Yeah, that's good.

But I think being flexible, that's the thing. And I can take the boys with me on my walks too, and my runs sometimes. But I think the biggest thing for me was getting back out and being social with friends because that's how I recharge is like a one -on -one time with friends. And we often will go for a walk or a coffee. And sometimes I bring the boys, but often I try to go alone. And that's been the biggest thing for me was knowing I just knew before we had boys, like that was something I needed.

And it's good, like we're always able to make time for each other to do the things that we need to do for our mental health. And then the animals too have been like a good thing for me because I still get to get them out for their field runs, their walks. They need their mental health walks too. And so that is good too for me. Between animals and friends. But it's good. Yeah, we're able to make time for it. Yeah. And I also feel like since the twins have had a steady bedtime and they go to sleep,

Evening time, I get to meet a whole person again. It's night and day. I remember... That's when we're recording, by the way. After all of our toddlers are in bed. Now they're all in beds. This is when we booked this session to record. Which is funny because this is the most convenient time to do things at 7pm. It's so funny. And I remember I thought we will never see each other again without them. And I was probably quite sour.

I think I was you were mm -hmm because I just wanted a little bit of time where there was no other human being here And it's great. I just love having our evening. It's nice like we don't even always hang out like sometimes I'll go and do something or sometimes you'll take a bath and I'll read a book piano that's another thing

been doing. It's like once a week with one of my friends we try to play music. that's awesome. We've been trying to do it for 10 years I think. We're finally doing it. We finally are. Now that you have twin toddlers of course is when you have the time to do it. That's so funny. We have the time and you read a lot. I read a lot. Which I also watch all of your YouTubes on your reading by the way. that's so nice. Okay I wish I was a reader.

Well, I guess I listen to audio books. Adonis, does that count? Yes. Okay. 100%. Because I don't want to have the attention span to fit in and read a book, but I really love listening to books while I clean or while I go for walks or while I'm at school setting up the gym. I often watch your videos and I'm like, I want to read that. And then I put it into my to -be -read on my audible. And then I'm like, yes. And then sometimes I'm like, that doesn't sound like my thing. I'm not going to read it. Which is great. It's really nice to have a little input into it. Anyway, so thank you for doing this. Thank you.

for watching. I legit do. I'm not even just saying it. That's one other thing that I've done for myself or a fun little thing is I started a book YouTube just randomly in January. I was like, I'm going to do this. It's so fun. I love reading. Yeah, exactly. I love it. You read so much. I do. Yeah. I'm so jealous. My friend at work is the same as you. I follow her on whatever it is, Goodreads or whatever it is. And she's

always got like six books on the go and I'm like girl I can't keep the characters straight in the one book I'm reading like I feel like you're very similar in that sense. You always have lots of books on the go. I do. Yeah which is amazing. Okay and then my last real question would be do you have any thing that you want to say to moms that are currently you know either in the postpartum phase or in our phase like anything you want to say? I think

Just that they're doing a good job and I think there can be such a mental to -do list all the time and nothing is recognized ever. So they're doing a good job. Like all the unseen things are meaningful. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it gets easier. I know all the phases are so different and they all have their own hardships, but I have found it's gotten so much easier and you feel more like yourself.

with every month that passes. And of course, it's not always the case, but I think, yeah, just know that things can get you. Yeah. No, that's a really good thing. No, I feel the exact same way. I thought zero to four months was a nightmare. Yeah. So if you're in zero to four months and you think it's a nightmare, it's okay. Yeah.

It's like a fog. I don't even remember it. I just remember sitting on the couch and then sleeping half the night but not sleeping and watching like a Star Wars show. And we binge Welcome to Rec, which is an amazing show if you haven't watched it with Ryan Reynolds soccer team. Anyways, yeah. And I just remember we'd be like, okay, you want to watch a show? And then we'd look at the clock, it'd be 3 a and we're like, why? There was no concept of time. No, there's not. And Clarke was a nightmare, but like we got through it. Yeah. I just, you just get through it. You do.

And looking back, you think, how did you survive on that? Like how? How did you do it? Because now we missed a few hours. The twins only started sleeping through the night pretty recently. I think they were 15 months old. Did they wake up from food or just wake up? Well, we fed them. Did they leave them? I don't know. It was the quickest way. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. So we were prolonging it. I think. I did the same thing. But yeah, we got COVID and they started sleeping all night. Perfect. Yeah.

And they went to one nap. Not perfect, but it worked out well. Yeah, and the one nap transition. The one nap's amazing. It made a huge difference. Once you get to one nap, you're like, now I don't want the one nap to end. I know. I don't want him to not get that. I know. Because when? They're wild. And I'm like, when's my downtime? Right? wow. I think they'll do quiet. I think they'll still be like at like, yeah. Because I think they do that even if they don't nap. They do like quiet. That's smart. But like, damn. That's smart. I don't know. I think. I'm going to have to ask. He's not that old yet, so I don't know. He still sleeps for two hours.

Yeah, we have a little while yet. Yes, we have time to figure it out. Yeah. Anyways, I think that's about it. I think we hit everything I wanted to hit about your guys' journey, how you became moms, how you did your lactation, which is amazing, your twin moms getting through postpartum, finding yourself.

Motherhood, which you guys are amazing at. You're also amazing at date night, which I commend you guys on. It was, I think I was, so we were both nannies and babysitters and there was a family I worked for for like seven years and every Wednesday it was like clockwork. I would go 530 and they would be ready to hit the road. Yeah. And they went on their date every Wednesday. That's amazing. And I saw them go from two kids to three and it was like three weeks old, the baby was, and they went on their first date night and I was like, this is amazing.

Sometimes they'd go to the grocery store. Sometimes they'd go to the movies or dinner. And I always said we have to be like them. And we did three weeks after the boys were born. Do you still do weekly dates? No. We don't anymore. It's honestly just expensive. It is expensive. And babysitters, aren't you ready? It's too expensive. To save money, essentially. But then you end up buying something. But isn't the babysitter called the babysitter? So we're pretty good though. We'll do stuff at home. But we do still go on.

dates and if your mom's here, we'll often take advantage of that. So we don't go once a week anymore. At the start we did try. Yeah, we were pretty good at it and it was important at the time too. It's scary to leave them.

But tip, if you have parents or in -laws where you live, instead of Christmas gifts, this is what Kyle and I get, my partner, we get coupons from my parents, one per month, or the year, for a date night. So instead of getting gifts, we cash in our coupon, they come and watch the dark, they do also give us money towards the end of the month. That's amazing! my gosh! So like it goes towards our bill. That's amazing! Of course you don't have to ask your parents for that. We didn't ask for it, they just created this. That's so neat. And then every month we'll say, what about Friday this day? Does it work for you? Or Saturday this day? And then they come and they babysit and we go for our date.

We get dinner and usually put the money towards the dinner or the movie and then come home and yeah. That's so good. Yeah, who wants more Christmas? Well, I guess some people want more Christmas gifts, but I feel like I don't want stuff. That's probably the best gift you could get. Like I want, that's perfect. And they get to spend time with them when they want them. That's an amazing idea. I recommend that as a gift. That's really good. Yeah, do it. Okay, I think that's it. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. This is so fun. I know, it's great to chat. And where can everyone follow you? Because I feel like that's important. It's just Allie and Sam. A -L -L -I -E and Sam.

Perfect. On all platforms. And after listening to you, I'm sure everybody will because you guys are amazing. You are. You are. Yeah. Well, thanks for having us. Thanks for chatting with us. Thanks for tuning in to the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast series. Follow the Cybex Spotify channel for more updates and for new episodes.