Today I'm joined by Amber, a seasoned makeup artist in the film industry and mother of two. Amber bravely shares her journey of juggling her professional life with motherhood in a non-traditional work environment. She opens up about the challenges she faced while trying to breastfeed on set. Her story highlights the importance of finding what works best for each individual, and shines a light on the mom guilt she felt when her husband became the primary caregiver, and why it's essential to follow our inner compass to find our own way and to avoid the comparison trap.
Amber's story is a reminder that every parenting journey is unique and it's important to be kind to ourselves as we navigate this path.
Episode Highlights:
Do you have a story to tell?
If your breastfeeding experience has been transformative for you and you'd like to share it with others, then please let us know! We're always looking for new stories to let other people know what's possible. Just send your name and a short overview of your journey, or even just your words of wisdom for new parents.
Also, if you need support and want to connect with other parents who understand what you're going through, check out the Nourished Young Community so we can help support you on your journey.
Visit www.nourishedyoung.com to learn more.
Today I'm joined by Amber, a seasoned makeup artist in the film industry and mother of two. Amber bravely shares her journey of juggling her professional life with motherhood in a non-traditional work environment. She opens up about the challenges she faced while trying to breastfeed on set. Her story highlights the importance of finding what works best for each individual, and shines a light on the mom guilt she felt when her husband became the primary caregiver, and why it's essential to follow our inner compass to find our own way and to avoid the comparison trap.
Amber's story is a reminder that every parenting journey is unique and it's important to be kind to ourselves as we navigate this path.
Episode Highlights:
Do you have a story to tell?
If your breastfeeding experience has been transformative for you and you'd like to share it with others, then please let us know! We're always looking for new stories to let other people know what's possible. Just send your name and a short overview of your journey, or even just your words of wisdom for new parents.
Also, if you need support and want to connect with other parents who understand what you're going through, check out the Nourished Young Community so we can help support you on your journey.
Visit www.nourishedyoung.com to learn more.
00:00 - Avery (Host)
Hi, I'm Avery Young and this is the Nourished Young Podcast. From the subway train to the soccer field, everywhere I go, people have a story to tell me about their experience feeding and caring for their new baby, and so I decided it was time to amplify those voices so we can all know what's real and what's possible, and make those who are beginning their parenting journey feel a little less alone.
So today, I'm going to be talking with Amber as she shares her story about learning how to be a parent for her two children, Zoe and Lydia, and how she struggled with feeding and her journey to be the working parent in her household in a non-traditional work environment too. Hi, Amber, it's so nice to have you on here today.
00:54 - Amber (Guest)
Hi, thank you for having me. It's nice to be here.
00:57 - Avery (Host)
Yeah, so why don't you tell us a little bit about your work environment, because it's pretty cool, and also your story?
01:04 - Amber (Guest)
Okay, Well, I am a makeup artist in the film business. I worked on a TV show, and a couple of different TV shows for over eight years, and then I have two very unique stories between one baby and two babies. The first baby that I had. It took us a while to get her. I had some fertility problems, but then, when we finally did get pregnant with her and then I had her, I was bound to determine to be super mom, which is not exactly feasible, but I was trying and I was still on my TV show at the time and I was the makeup department head on that show, with producers I had worked with for a long time, so at least I had comforts around that.
01:53
Now my second baby I was pregnant the whole time on that TV show, but I had her just as the TV show was ending, the series was ending. So when it was time for me to go back to work, it was a completely different scenario. I was going back into the world of day playing, which basically means you're a daily hire, you get called to see if you're available, which has a lot of challenges for someone that has a baby at home and I ended up with a toddler. My husband is a stay-at-home dad, and that poses some challenges too. We're not young parents. We are what they call advanced maternal age, so you don't have the same kind of energy and stuff like that that you did when you were in your 20s.
02:50 - Avery (Host)
I like to call that advanced maternal wisdom. By the way, advanced maternal wisdom is, I think, a more appropriate name for that.
03:00 - Amber (Guest)
That is actually very, very true. I always talk about that, how you know so much more about life and things like that. I just wish sometimes that the energy levels were matching with the wisdom. But you work with what you got.
03:19
I also felt like for me and for a lot of other mothers that you hear about but you just can't know until you're in it that one baby is one baby and that's hard, but two babies feel like 20. I work 12 to 15, 16, sometimes 17 hours a day and my husband is here all day with the girls, with zero reprieve. With one baby that's a toddler that won't nap and the other one that needs several naps and feeding and all that kind of stuff. It's definitely challenging. And then you add another layer of trying to breastfeed and things like that on top of that. It's extremely challenging.
04:13
I just happen to have a whole pack of mother friends that are other makeup artists in our business. Okay, that whole situation has been wonderful because I have a village there. But then there's also this feeling of comparison that you want to be as good as them or you don't want to do certain things that they may have done and it can really mess with your mind.
04:42
So and then when I went back to work, I have a colleague of mine who we were working on a show and I had decided that I was going to wean breastfeeding because it was so difficult to go back to work and do it with my particular situation with my first one. So when I was going back with my second one, especially with all the different things that I was doing, man, I weaned like a week before I went back to work, which was crazy. But my other friend was still doing it and we were like in the middle of the field in Savannah, like on a beach, and she would go and leave every two or three hours and then ask to put her milk in a fridge somewhere and she is a better woman than me, because I found that so hard with my first one and the fact that she was doing it with her second one too.
05:40 - Avery (Host)
Yeah.
05:41 - Amber (Guest)
It was just amazing. But then, like I said, it's this comparison thing where it's like, well, why can't I do that?
05:48 - Avery (Host)
I think that's that sneaky guilt where often lots of women find the most resistance in workplaces from other women, and it's other women's stories that are saying why didn't I do that? That other person's choice is sort of triggering, even if we don't realize it, it's making us have thoughts about what they're doing when it's just their pathway and ours is completely fine, being something different. Right? Your pathway for you was 100% right for you even when hers might have looked a little different.
06:25
Did she get pushback for that, or was it easy for her to? Was she supported and leaving, or was there a little bit of like, yeah, you can leave, but there was eye rolling because everybody had to come to a pause for that too.
06:35 - Amber (Guest)
There are some people that are very supportive, and the thing is what we were doing on that particular show is we were working in the background. It was a period film, so there was like 15 or 16 of us makeup artists and like three or 400 background actors. So in that respect, she really could just step out and it would be okay because there were so many other makeup artists. But see, when I was nursing and pumping my first daughter, I was the department head on a TV show and I was busy all day and it was so hard to keep that two-and-a-half three-hour schedule.
07:22 - Avery (Host)
Yeah.
07:23 - Amber (Guest)
And the step out and I would be in the middle of the makeup and you know, nobody's on my time. I'm on everybody else's time, so it doesn't matter how wonderfully supportive people can be, it's just, you know, I still have a job to do, you know and it's not about necessarily, if you know, my actors or my producers or anything else, was not supportive. They are supportive, but again, there's still a job to me that needs to be done and unfortunately, a 200, 300, you know person production is not going to stop for half an hour to 45 minutes because let's not pretend that it's just X amount of time. You have to clean the pot, you have to pour the milk, you have to put it in the fridge or whatever. And my producers were wonderful. They got me my own trailer, and I was able to put it in a little mini fridge in there. It was private, it was comfortable. It was a really, really wonderful experience. And again, even though I had all that support, you know, support just was really really tough and I did it for six months and I promised myself that I would not hold my feet to the flames with my second one and I still did.
08:46 - Avery (Host)
It's because feeding our babies is such an emotional thing, right? We can't separate the logical side of what we want from the emotional side of how we feel about it.
08:58
So, even women that are super empowered and super like, professional and super logical about it once that baby comes, what you want and even when you have all the resources right, what you want to do in those moments and what you feel like you should be doing are so different things and that feeling causes so much stress and guilt and anxiety and worry, and it's so damaging because we're hearing this narrative all the time of like what a good mother does, this is what a good mother would do, and it's not true, and it's so hurtful because you did that for six months, which was incredible, and it also didn't have to necessarily happen in order for you to be an amazing mom for your first baby.
09:50 - Amber (Guest)
Yeah, and then it was extremely emotional and so hard with my first one and again, like I said, I promised myself I wouldn't torture myself with the second one. And not only did I torture myself, but I tortured myself probably even more with the second one because I was bound and determined that I was not going to exclusively pump, which is what I did with my first one.
10:17
I got so obsessed with making sure that she got enough. Weighing her after every feeding and stuff was not an option for me and I knew that if I could pump it out I could at least see how much I was getting. So I knew how much she was getting. It became like a control thing and even then I still didn't produce quite enough. She was requiring about 24 ounces to 26 ounces a day and no matter what I did and again, I'm very type A and I tried literally everything on the planet, that's how I got her, because I had fertility problems and everything to get her and I achieved it I could not pass the 21 ounces a day, no matter what I did, and so I was okay with giving her one bottle of formula a day, but I knew that she was getting a majority of my milk and then I passed it off to my husband and he would feed her and then rinse and repeat.
11:20
I even had to go to a funeral in Detroit, which is where I'm originally from. My grandma had died and I felt so empowered that I pumped the entire time. I was in Detroit and froze all that milk and brought that milk home through the PSA and all of that kind of stuff and I felt so amazing that I did that for her.
11:43
And with the second one, I was bound to determine that I was not going to do that to myself and I was going to nurse her on the breast. Was I going to pump? Was I going to pump more than once a day? If it didn't work out? It didn't work out. Me and myself over there, so your plans that you set ahead of time, you weren't able to carry them through once you had that baby, because I was just a little older, or my hormones had changed, my chemicals had changed, but it was such an emotional roller coaster with my second one, even more than the first one, and I knew what to expect, but it was really, really intense and every day part of me wanted to give up because it was so hard with the second one. It was hard with the first one, really hard with the second one, but I had this overwhelming feeling that, like the equivalent of giving up and not nursing her, because those moments are so wonderful and special when they work out felt on the equivalent if someone died. Those emotions were so strong. And then I thought to myself when I was having a logical moment, not an emotional moment, but I was like this is nature's way of making sure that you feed that baby.
13:15 - Avery (Host)
That's a great point, right?
13:17 - Amber (Guest)
That is such a great point.
13:18 - Avery (Host)
And I think it's so important that women hear that because we aren't always in control of those emotions. We can't control those, and that means we also shouldn't and can't blame ourselves for how we feel in those moments right?
13:33 - Amber (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, but I nursed my second one for four months and then, in like four months, two weeks or something like that, I was completely for when I went back to work, so, and I still had feelings about that, but I was logical enough in my mind to know what worked for me when I went back to work and it just it was hard enough to go back to work anyway.
14:00 - Avery (Host)
I bet.
14:01 - Amber (Guest)
So, and you add that layer, I don't work a nine-to-five job or anything like that. So, I don't work in conventional like an office job or even a retail job where I can go to the back. I have no set schedule. I can start work, like when I was doing that job in Savannah the first on that Monday when we went, my call time was 3:12 AM. Therefore I can't keep on a schedule because the next day my call time was 6 AM and the next day after that was 11 AM. There's no sleeping schedule, no eating schedule, no going to the bathroom, much less trying to work in a pumping schedule. So that's what I said to my one friend that was doing it.
14:52 - Avery (Host)
She is, and, yeah, superstar, yeah, I mean women are pretty badass in general, and like for her to push through that and do that is amazing, but I think the fact that you fought through like what was hard for you and fed your baby for four months is equally amazing. Right, like it's not a pie. Like this person worked harder or did more. This is your story of what you wanted to do for your baby and what worked for you. So you breastfed up until you went to work and then weaned quickly and then went right, put on the working parent shoes, and went right into work. Is that right?
15:31 - Amber (Guest)
Yeah.
15:33 - Avery (Host)
I bet that is amazing and I mean, and also like dealing with a job like yours.
15:39 - Amber (Guest)
it seems like it has a lot of uncertainty with it too. Uncertainty and that's the thing, is that because I was working on those TV shows for all those years, that gave me a sense of like of certainty there. I knew I always kind of knew what my schedule was going to be like. I know that it's going to be erratic, but I also know that I will work Monday through Friday, from, you know, October to August.
16:06
You know, and I did that year after year after year since my TV show had ended just in time for me to have my second baby. When I did go back to work, it was me just being like I had to. Just I didn't reach out to anybody. I put it out into the ether that I was ready to work, and then I started getting phone calls. It was really strange. And then I kept getting more phone calls, and more phone calls. But a lot of it is are you available tomorrow? Can you come in tomorrow at 6 am? Yeah, and then you know, and so I don't even know really when I'm working until I get a job where I have a full-time time, which I didn't have a full-time job till mid-February and I went back in November.
16:47 - Avery (Host)
Oh, wow.
16:48 - Amber (Guest)
But having said that, when I was doing that movie in Savannah, we did two weeks, two and a half weeks in Savannah and then I came back to Atlanta and we were doing the rest of the movie here and then I was supposed to go with them to Florida but I didn't because I started another movie. But I did basically work full-time on that. But I didn't know I was working full time.
17:10 - Avery (Host)
Yeah.
17:11 - Amber (Guest)
I could be, I could work, they could book me for two days and then, two days later, be like we don't need you these days, but we need you these days, and then the next week is. It was just so erratic all the time to put one more thing in the mix of you know, I already have the fresh new baby and who's not sleeping, and didn't until she was one year old.
17:31
And then you know a toddler that's working her emotions out, and then you know, adding breastfeeding on top of that was just something that was really, really challenging for me to do, so I had to do it right for me.
17:45 - Avery (Host)
Yeah, I think that is. That's the empowered part, is stepping into the permission and not just stepping into the logical permission, but really embodying that permission that what's right for you is right like full stop period.
17:59 - Amber (Guest)
Right, right, exactly.
18:01 - Avery (Host)
Yeah, so you mentioned earlier that you are gone for long, long days and you come home and, your husband, has been with your children the whole time. I'm curious about that because that happens that that's the kind of role reversal that is more typically seen right and often women who are in the state home position feel really guilty about passing their babies off to their husbands when their husbands come home because their husbands had a long day of work. And I'm curious if you feel like you are more empathetic to what he's going through, as opposed to if that role was reversed.
18:42 - Amber (Guest)
Well, one thing that we've come to realize, you know, in our plans of this, is just how different my husband and I are. I approach parenting the same way I've approached my career. Even though I'm older, I have an abundance of energy. I am a born multitasker. I just do things differently and my husband gets a little bit more overwhelmed than I do. So, we just didn't notice that. The one kid I don't know why, but the two kids, especially with a very needy toddler. And then again, you know, my second baby. My first baby was a very chill baby and then became a very needy toddler, and then my second baby was a very, very, very needy baby and we're seeing how she is with the toddler because she just turned one. So you know, just navigating that has been challenging for both of us. But again, it just shows how different our approach to parenting is and it shows, like, how our personalities are with it.
20:02 - Avery (Host)
So yeah, do you think your parenting experience has made it easier for him? So do you come home and take the babies right away to give your husband a break? I would imagine that it's easier for you to really understand how hard a full-time job he's also doing when he's at home too.
20:18 - Amber (Guest)
I didn't as much until the film business had been on strike for the last six months.
20:28
So, I've been unemployed for the last six months and unfortunately, my husband has also developed some health problems. So for him to rest and stuff, I've been trying to take the reins. And then it was from there that I really noticed how hard balancing the two is. And it was funny because what we what? I did a lot during the strike because we're not trying to spend money, of course. So we go where we have memberships, everywhere you know. And I swear to you, everywhere I went I had some person come up to me and be like you have your hands full.
21:06 - Avery (Host)
Yes, and those comments are never helpful, right? You're like oh, I hadn't noticed. Thank you so much.
21:15 - Amber (Guest)
Never helpful. And then another thing is, too, is like we would go. We joined the YMCA pool and I did that so that I could take the girls to the pool and it was me so low with the two girls a lot this summer and I had a special carrier that was like a swim carrier that I kept the baby in she wasn't quite walking yet, and then I had the two-year-old that I was constantly chasing and I would always have some other mom come be like what can I do to help you? I always had some person I don't know if I looked that desperate, or if I always looked frazzled. I always thought that I had it with grace, but apparently, I don't.
21:59 - Avery (Host)
Or maybe it was just women that were like oh, I'm not in those shoes right now, but, oh my gosh, I know what those feel like. How, how can I help this woman in a way that I wish somebody had come to help me in those moments too, right?
22:12 - Amber (Guest)
And that's actually how I operate now. I have quite a few girlfriends who also happened to be in the film business and are now starting to have kids too. They're part of my tribe and one of the things that I keep offering to my friends who are now having second babies. I was like I will take your first baby and they can come and play and you can rest, 'cause even if you do have the second, the second baby kind of has to be there if you're nursing and all that kind of stuff. But like just to hit offer to watch someone's kid 'cause we don't have that, other than friends that will say to do it is so invaluable offer to watch my kid, that's like the greatest gift.
22:53 - Avery (Host)
They could take a shower. It would be amazing.
22:56 - Amber (Guest)
Yeah, and when I had my second baby, Lydia, I had a girlfriend and her husband and they have two little kids two little girls as well, and they're in the same age bracket as my babies and they're like, what can we do will help you? We'll take Zoe for you and then, like I just remember those feelings people that will bring you food and people that will bring you things to help nourish your body after you have a baby, and people that bring you things or like take your children so that you can rest, or the things that sat so much with me and now I try to do that for other people.
23:29 - Avery (Host)
I Love that. That's amazing. And now your babies are three in one and you've got them differently and today they're great.
23:39 - Amber (Guest)
Even though we were all three or all four of us, the family four. We're really sick. For like two weeks and it wasn't COVID, we had some kind of bottle turned into infections. I will say, for the most part, my babies don't get sick a whole lot in comparison. I think some of it is the. The toddler started preschool, so you know she's building her immunity anyway. But yeah, I can't help but feel maybe that had something to do with it, where I stuck with it those first few months for them and then also when my, when Lydia was only nine weeks old, the whole family got COVID and I was still nursing and I thank God for that because she got a sky-high fever and that was scary, but I was still nursing and nursing, and nursing and she didn't, she was a whiney or cry, she just had this fever and she was able to recover and thank God because that's scary. You have a nine-week-old baby.
24:39
What happened is my husband had stepped out for a minute just to grab something from his sister, and his sister my gosh didn't know that she had COVID and then the next day tested positive and then the next day he's a feel so good, and then he got sequestered to the one room and then the toddler, who's a nut a, woke up and was like really lethargic and that's just not like her, and all of a sudden she just projectile Bommeted while I was home and then it was like I told my husband you might as well come out.
25:23 - Avery (Host)
I mean there's only so much we can't truly put ourselves in like bubble wrap and you know, even with our babies, like you said, it was the hard thing with COVID and still is like nobody can really truly be a hundred percent.
25:40 - Amber (Guest)
Right. Well, it wasn't a scare like my first baby. She was born December 2019. Yeah, so that is when COVID happened, right, and then we got shut down March 14th ish, 15th ish, and that is when my you know, my daughter was only three months old, so we were terrified. Yeah, you know, she had hardly any per shots or anything like that yet and we weren't going anywhere or doing anything you know what back then?
26:07
We just didn't know you know, so the experience of having a baby, two babies, in a COVID world, but one baby at the beginning of COVID, one baby like where we kind of were figuring more things out and stuff like that, was a very interesting subject to. But, as I said, there is something about knowing that I was giving them breast milk both in those times to Kind of like in those antibodies felt reassuring to me.
26:33 - Avery (Host)
Yeah, I think that's amazing that you figured out how to make that work for you. So if you have any advice for new parents who are pregnant right now, what would you do?
26:43 - Amber (Guest)
Let me see here. I would say that try not to get too discouraged in those first three months because those first three months are the most blissful time in your life, but also like you are just in survival mode, and if you can get through that, it does get way better. You will eventually start sleeping, you will eventually start eating, you will feel, you will eventually start to feel better and then, once they develop little personalities, it's, it's super, super fun. What else? If you don't have a family support system, try to cultivate one with your friends. That has been so invaluable for us because we don't have a lot of family down here and you really, you know they think takes a village, it really does.
27:50
And if you don't have that village, because in there are modern times where more and more isolated, and then you add a layer of COVID and stuff on top of that. You know, when I was pregnant or when I had my first daughter, it just was so challenging. So if you can, if you can cultivate some kind of village, even just with friends, or try to find people in mom groups or something like that. That is really what's gotten me through things. So try to get yourself some support if you don't already have it. Also, you know we couldn't have known what parenthood looked like with our first one, and we did know what parenthood looked like, you know as far as our support system, with our second one. So I don't think that it is accidental that with our second one, I really cultivated my little village.
28:45 - Avery (Host)
Because you knew what you needed.
28:49 - Amber (Guest)
Also, another side note what like that little village of makeup artist friends that I have, we were always kind of friends but we we started getting on this text thread and there's like seven or eight of us and that was started by a friend of mine who was pregnant at the time and just wanted resources from other moms and stuff in our business. And then it kind of gelled into this wonderful mom group where we like have parties and play dates and support each other and bring each other food and I really like to bake, so I've been making like lactation treats for all of my friends and I have been doing like stews and lentils and things like that and also helped to produce breast milk and I'll deliver those to my friends because my friends did that for me and then also because I wasn't producing enough the second time around. At first, two of my friends had a huge stash of breast milk in their fridge and they brought it to me and that's when I realized what kind of support I had. I cried, I was like so emotional and taken aback by what a selfless act that was.
30:04 - Avery (Host)
I think, like when, when somebody else helps you feed your baby, there's a level of intimacy that happens between you and gratitude that sticks with you for the rest of your life.
30:19 - Amber (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, it's a really important thing.
30:25 - Avery (Host)
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your story and your journey with us. This has been really awesome to listen to and I am so grateful that you took your time out to tell us this today.
30:40 - Amber (Guest)
Yes, thank you so much. I always want to help another mommy.
30:45 - Avery (Host)
I think the other amazing thing that I have found working with mothers is how much every mom just wants to help other moms too. Well, thank you so much have a nice day.
31:04
Do you have a story to tell? If your feeding experience has been transformative for you and you'd like to share it with others, then please let us know. We're always looking for new stories to let other people know what's possible. Just send your name and a short overview of your journey, or even just your words of wisdom for new parents to stories at NourishedYoung.com, and if you need support or want to connect with other parents who understand what you're going through, then make sure you head over to NourishedYoung.com and check out the Nourished Young Community so we can help support you and your journey too.