The Postpartum Essentials: Part 2 With Cub & Kin

This season is all about the evolution of you, exploring growth, change and what it means to step into the next version of yourself. 

Cassie Davenport is a experienced and degree qualified naturopath and nutritionist, Cassie is passionate about co-creating achievable and sustainable solutions with her clients. Her approach involves combining the latest evidence based research with traditional herbal medicine methods and believes small changes can create a big impact.

The information shared in this episode is general in nature and is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for personalised medical, nutritional or therapeutic advice. Cassie is not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this episode. Always consult a qualified health professional before making changes to your health, diet or lifestyle. If you loved this episode, follow Cassie on Instagram Follow Cassie here  for more, and HERE to learn more about working with Cassie one-to-one.

Kat & Jess aka Cub and Kin join Cassie to chat all things pregnancy, birth and early motherhood with honest and personal reflections. 

Kat & Jess are are deeply passionate about supporting and educating mums-to-be, Whether you are preparing for birth, finding your rhythm in the early days, or simply looking for steady guidance in a brand new season, we are here for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And then we transition to motherhood that's like most often be vulnerable, ask for help, but nobody's really showing us or taught us how to do it. The baby doesn't need another two outfits, that's when they've got so many. What does truly supported first experience feel like for a woman? Welcome back. In part one, we opened up some really important conversations about first speaking and postpartum. In this episode, we're dividing into postpartum, what it really looks like, how to prepare, and how to build the support around you. What are some of the things that women can do before birth, I guess, to set themselves up for a more supportive postpartum period?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

I think listening to Jess Speak just then, I think one of the other things that has changed and maybe is very particular to Western culture is the way we live as a society. I think we're very like independent livers. Not an academic, I don't know like the historical like realm of this, but the insulated secular home as like individual pockets rather than community. Yeah. And I think that the one of the biggest learnings I think that I've had to go through in motherhood is you know accepting help and asking for help and being able to put myself out there. And I think that's a massive thing to kind of think about before you have your baby about who are your people, who can you kind of uh lean on for support. I was very lucky myself that we live with my parents who, when we had a baby, decided to retire. Well, one of them was already retired, but the other one was like, that's it, I'm never working again. I am grandma. That is um, which is uh like a massive privilege. But the idea of living in this like semi, I don't know, like communal living with grandparents was a massive benefit for me in my own postpartum and seeing that in other people and seeing or maybe seeing the lack of that in other people's lives and in how you know you have to learn to lean on your friends or like your random neighbor, but even that we don't like talk to our neighbors anymore.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Like I they're all serial killers through, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

So yeah, I don't know, it's just something that came up for me thinking about like the the um why I guess the care falls off during the postpartum we have this massive thing of pregnancy, and you can it's really visible. Obviously, you've got this giant bump, things are changing, things are happening, and then this postpartum kind of gets tucked away into the privacy of your own little nook. Nook is only you and your partner who have never gone through this before. That's really hard. Um so hard. Yeah. So I think one of the things that I would I don't know, prioritize if you were if you're listening to this and you're your first time pregnant and you're gonna go through postpartum is kind of, yeah, having a little list of like who's gonna support me, who can I turn to? If like my mental health is shitting itself, like who's who can I have that honest conversation with? Or if there's no one in your life knowing what the numbers are to make those phone calls, or you know, checking in with your partner, if it is just the three of you checking in with your partner to be like, what are the signs that I might be not doing so good? Like, yeah, or talking to your friends. I think one of the biggest things is everyone loves a baby. Everyone loves you've had a baby, that's amazing, everyone loves it, that's so exciting. It's so cute. The little clothes are cute, everything's fun. And you'll also your friends want to support you. Like your people want to support you, right? But they don't know how to do it. They maybe they haven't done it before. I think often you'll find the mums turn up, and the mums are the ones who support the new mums because they're like, oh shit, I know. But those mums are also I know where you're at. Yes, but those mums have also got their own kids and their own families to also look after.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

And often at capacity themselves.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah, definitely. But I think your your other friends, your other people in your life still want to support you. So I think there's a bit of there's a bit of intentional work to be done in preparing for postpartum if you um are kind of looking for that village that we all talk about. Um, you know, it's not just gonna appear on your list. You really have to spell it out. I think it has to be a really open and honest conversation of like, this is what I'm gonna need, or can I please call on you? Or like, you guys are my people. Can I call on you if I need you? Or getting Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Will you be part of my home crew, my home team of like close-knit?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah. Maybe you don't have a village right now, but you head head into rhyme time, and maybe you do need to make a little announcement up the front of rhyme time of like, hey, I'm really struggling and I'm quite lonely. Is there anyone else in the same boat? And can we do bathtime, dinner time, bedtime together once a week? You know, like, or can we make a double batch of spag bowl and I'll drop it off at your house for Wednesday dinner? There's so many mums who are so lonely and struggling, you know, you really have to, you have to seek it out. But everyone's in the same boat, every mum.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Interesting, there's almost this juxtaposition in terms of what women are potentially told or taught or picked up even subconsciously in teenage years to early adulthood of like get an education, be independent, stand on your own two feet, don't rely on other people. Like, make sure that you have yourself set in stone to an extent, like get your career sorted, do all of these things. And then we transition to motherhood. It's like, no, soften, be vulnerable, ask for help, but nobody's really shown us or taught us how to do it, what it looks like. Yeah, for sure. And it's such a transition.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

For sure, it's huge. I think that um, yeah. Yeah. And it takes a lot of vulnerability. Like you've asked for help once, and I think that's easy to do. You know, like, hey, I'm in the thick of postpartum. We see this, like you've got a one-week hold and everyone's dropping meals over, but to continually show up and ask again, hey, I'm actually, you know, it's the four-month sleep regression. So now I need double the help I needed when I had a newborn. My partner's gone back to work and I'm drowning, or my baby just turned one and their sleep has gone to total shit, but now I have to go back to work. I need help again. Like having to constantly ask for it, unless there's people in your life who intuitively know that stuff, which again, like you know, Kat and I have been there to help each other, but we're also had newborns at the same time. And so, like, how can you help each other when both of you are struggling? Yeah. I think a wider note though, which is something that I also feel passionate about, is you know, that idea that like to be to have a village, you've got to be a villager. And like, yeah, we can't just expect it to happen all of a sudden. I think we it is a massive time where the village is needed. And I think it's probably one of the biggest times, unless you've gone through like sickness or um like a death in the family or something like that, at like some sort of traumatic event prior to having your kids. I think this is the first time that you really go, like, oh shit, I need a lock-in, I need people, I need I need to be better at like doing this and like and juggling my own self, but also like reaching out to those in my life. Um so I don't know. I don't that doesn't really answer the question or come into play, but I just think that idea of like it's not just in this time that we need that, we need to be better at that like long term and yeah, keeping those lines of communication open and checking in so then people reciprocate and check in on us. Yeah, yeah. I think it's yeah. And like I think in my own life, I think of friends who don't have kids or do have kids and maybe go through tough times with work or sickness or something like that. And I'm like, oh well, like now's the time when we need to show up. Like, yeah, it's not just at the first week of newborn life, it's oh the whole family's got gastro and like someone needs to drop me a meal because I'm looking at the kids and I want to vomit. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Yes, it's it's yeah, and mums are always the last one to drop, and when everyone else is getting hungry again, they're like, Mum, what's I want toast? Like, if I even look at the bread now, like you're gonna have to do it yourself. Get the knife out. I trust you, I believe in you.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

You can do this.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

You can do it. I think that's a really important distinction to make. I'm so glad that you brought it up because I do think that that is often something we maybe potentially miss in terms of the newborn phase and everything's so cute and pretty, and you know, you want to go and drop the clothes and drop the present, you're happy to drop a meal down. But there's so many milestones that are tricky, like that four-month sleep regression, or you know, after they've had their needles, or toddlerhood. Like toddlerhood can is full of minefields. And so it's not just that getting them through the first six weeks, it's really that first couple of years. I don't really feel like, I don't know if you guys are the same, but I didn't really feel like I started feeling like myself again and that I had a handle on thing until my eldest was four. And I remember thinking, like, he can do stuff and be independent. I don't have to worry about him like running head on into traffic or like seeing a wave at the beach and just wanting to cuddle it and run straight into the open water.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, no one's how game-changing it is for your toddler to take off and put on their own seatbelt. And now what is unbuckling my youngest and they all just get out of the same door with me. It's calm, guys.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Oh the I do it phase though, when they want to do it themselves, and you're like, you can't, you cannot do it, just let me help you.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

I don't have 45 minutes for you to sit here and buckle yourself in. I have to close my eyes and walk away because otherwise I'm like, eh, let me just can I just just one yeah. But you can't get to the independent takeoff my own seatbelt until you've done the I can do it, but they can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

I do it, I do it. I'm in the I do it phase. I'm not allowed to do anything. I do it. I do it. I'm like, can you though? Like you want to do it and like there's there's a gap here. Yeah. Confident and confident. Um, there's a there's a mismatch. The skill and the confidence don't match. What about what is something a partner or family or friends, what's one practical thing that you think would make a meaningful difference for any postpartum period? And when I say postpartum, when I see women in clinic, postpartum for me really is that first two years. Like two years, if I see a woman who's 18 months and I say, Oh, you're postpartum, she's like, No, no, the baby's 18 months old. I was like, You're postpartum. Your hormones are not back, like everything's still in flux and in shift, like you're still postpartum. So that first two years, if we look at that over that window, what is something meaningful or that would have made a meaningful difference to you?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Something my I was very blessed, my mother didn't hate, doesn't like newborns, not hates them, but it's just very out of her comfort zone. She's like, you know, when they're old enough, I'm gonna be craft nana. I'm you know, I I've got a puppet's throat. But the newborn she was really uncomfortable with, like, didn't even want to hold my babies. Um you know, like me and my sister are alive, right? Like you you did that then. You did it. But she would come over once a week and deep clean the house. Just with my first, with my second, she didn't do that, which I needed it so much more. But anyway, but like because you you're spending your time like tidying, that's where your effort and your you know energy is going. But for some the the holes of like where what the gaps are where you're kind of falling through, that would be that's was really helpful for me to have. Or if you don't who likes cleaning, like maybe you do spend the extra money on a cleaner once a clean.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yeah, I was gonna say that. Pulling your money in, like the baby doesn't need another cute outfit. Trust me, they've got so many. Pull your money and get them a cleaner for the first month of what their choice. What about you, Kat?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

What about me? As I said, I'm I'm very lucky that we lived behind my parents. And so for us, one of the massive winners was that if we had like a fresh meal cooked for us every night, it'd come down on the plates and then deliver it to the door. Oh, bless them.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

They sound like earth angels.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yes, they were very, they're very good. Um that but that was huge. Having meals cooked for us was massive, and and that obviously doesn't have to be done by someone in your home. You can deliver a lasagna to the doorstep and and run away, you know? Um, but also I think one of the things that someone did for us, which was really helpful, was they just take one of our friends just texted and was like, Oh, can I come over? I'm just gonna take your dog for a walk. Like, and I was like, Oh, yeah, because I forgot we had a dog because I'm looking at the baby. Like, please take the dog. Someone loves the dog, like that was really helpful. And I've seen it in other people's um, I don't know, in conversations before where they talk about sending the text that says, Hey, I'm coming over. Can I do can I take the dog for a walk? I'll do a load of washing, or do you want me to bring a meal? And then the person who does not have the brain capacity to think, how do I need help? I know I need help, but how do I ask? Or where do I need the help? Can just say, Yeah, great, do A, do B. Please do all three.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's giving that multiple choice answer to somebody is can be so much more impactful than the just like, I'm here for you, let me know if you need me. Because you're like, I do need you, but I actually can't even focus on my own thoughts to give you a straight answer of what I actually need.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Or you know what in this moment might be too big to ask. Yes. Or like, are they just saying that? Or no, genuinely, I need you to come and scrub my bathroom right now. Like, did you actually mean it when they said it? Yeah. So giving options gives you the confidence to feel like, oh, they're they're keen to do this.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

And then I guess drawing on your own experiences, is there something that you would have done differently to prioritize yourself in the season of postpartum? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

So many things.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Tell me, Jess, share your wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

I my husband had two weeks off with my first, and I also had booked in like a service to come and give me massages, which probably it was nice, but I probably should have just gone prioritized more wellness rather than just like nice massages. So I would have liked to go to like acupuncture after birth and and maybe get a naturopath involved or spending my money there rather than a nice massage after birth, like making it intentional. But I needed the support when breastfeeding went downhill, and my husband was well and truly back at work at that point. So I don't know how you wouldn't you wouldn't preempt that. But I think just being honest with like actually now I'm falling apart and I do need you to take annual leave right now. And I, you know, we need a good few weeks to work on this. Yeah. I don't think at the time, like I I did call my husband home from work quite often. He'd go to his boss like there's another emergency. Jess is crying again on the phone when breastfeeding was falling apart, but he would come. But I I say to every woman now, like, I say to every partner, if breastfeeding's not going well and she wants to make this work, you need to drop everything, you need to double the support, get the meal train back on, get the cleaning back in. This she just needs to lie in bed, be fed hot food, and be skin to skin and naked with her baby 24-7. Like, yeah, just making it a bit more fluid. We do the partners do take, you know, the first few weeks off. That's very nice, but like, but but what else?

SPEAKER_02 16:34

You know, where else? Where else?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yes, I think that's and I don't know if you're a fan of this or if you've heard of it. Have you heard of the the Thompson method? Yeah. So I did that with my second. I didn't do it with Parker. Yeah. It made such a difference because I had something to go by in terms of touch. And I think every time I had a midwife come in, they would give me different instructions. And I remember being so overwhelmed. I was like, no, but I just got taught how to do it this way with this hold. And then the next time, well, she was like, why don't we try it this way? I was like, okay, cool, but I actually still don't know how to do it the last way. And I had such bad nipple damage, like I had horrendous nipple damage that I got home and I was like, I half know 17 ways how to breastfeed, and I actually don't know how to feed this child. So having something in my head of okay, the symmetry points of the face contact and where to position them and videos that I could go back and reference being like, okay, my nipple looks like a lipstick. That's obviously an issue with the latch. Like, how do I actually fix that? Like having that resource, I just felt like I was drowning in this thing that I was supposed to know how to do and was clearly failing at.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, I mean, that the Thomson method is like great access to breastfeeding education, right? And it's it's continuity in that postpartum period, even though it's online and the recorded videos. If we could get one LC to every woman and you're like assigned electricity consultant at birth and they follow you through, it would be just as good. Or if you could pick like this is kind of how I want to do it, I'd really like to mix feed, and so you pick an LC that aligns with your views, and yeah. So the Thomson method is just great stuff to access in terms of like these are all the problems to troubleshoot. This is what I'm doing, I'll go to this video, and yeah, which you know we need in person as well. But yeah, we totally agree. Yes, yeah. But most of the time it's for mums who've had trouble with their first going, oh, I'm actually really going to prioritize and learn breastfeeding the second time round.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah, I remember being like, I'm not doing this again. I was breastfeeding and expressing before I went to full-time pumping. I was feeding as much as I could until my nipples started to bleed, putting the shield on, continue trying to feed, getting told that I was confusing the baby because I was giving him a nipple and a shield and a bottle and a dummy at that point as well. I don't think I don't think I gave him a dummy for the first four weeks. So like, you're confusing him. And then I had this beautiful LC going, like, doll, he's confused anyway. Like, if it's going to make your life easier, just give him a dummy. Like, don't worry, it's not the end of the world. So there's, yeah, there's there is so much, there's so much information, and you just have to take what you need and leave the rest. Because I think there's something that's going to always resonate and land with somebody, and I guess that's the benefit of having so much information in our world as you're like, okay, that actually really worked for me, and I'm just gonna drop that because that didn't really resonate or land for me at all. But when you're in the moment and your hormones are at an all-time low, and you've just had a baby and you're sleep deprived, it can feel so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

And first-time mums, we don't have the confidence to drop different advice. If you invite someone, this is the most important thing for your baby, then we're gonna do that, whether it's the worst thing for us. You know, second, third, fourth time, you're like, everyone shut up and sit down. I'm doing my own thing, and that feels to have that confidence. But it it can be dangerous as a first-time mum getting so much conflicting advice, you don't have the guts to pick what works for you until maybe it's too late, or you're in a heap on the floor and a breaking point, and then you kick away. But we're trying to kind of please everyone because we want what's best for our baby.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

And I think a big part of it is normalizing all different feeding types because I think perhaps my journey might have been different had I had Kat's experience of like, yes, I I bottle filled, or yes, I formula fed, or it didn't work for me, I couldn't get the hang of it. I had so much attachment and I guess pride wrapped up in my identity of breastfeeding, because that's all I'd ever seen. My friends, like I'd never had a friend bottle feed. I'd never my mum didn't, but like I had never seen it before. So for me, I was like, if I can't do this, that means I'm failing. And it becomes such a personal vendetta, I guess, against yourself around your what you can and can't do. But normalizing, like, okay, if this doesn't work, these are the things that we can try, and that's okay. Like, there is a large portion of women that actually do this.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah, for sure. I think that's super valuable. Feeding you, I think feeding my babies has been one of the hardest, most opinionated things I've ever done. And I feel like I got out of it pretty, pretty good. Didn't have too much emotional trauma over it, but it's still one of the hardest things I've ever done and had so much opinion around like outside of myself. So, yeah, having just like really open, honest, normal conversations about all the different ways that people feed their babies, I think is really important. And I don't think the like magnificence of breastfeeding is lost because we all know, we all know there's There's great benefits to breastfeeding, absolutely, and and breast milk is amazing and the way it's connected to us and our babies is huge. But yeah, being able to have those open conversations without the necessary, necessarily, I don't know, harsh opinions in the middle of it is yeah, it's invaluable.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Yeah, the judgment that comes.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah, I guess it's like, you know, you're getting some benefits of breastfeeding if it's working, but if it's not working and you're stressed and depressed and anxious and tense, you're not getting the benefits. You'd be getting different benefits from formula feeding. So it's up to you to think like, okay, is the benefits I'm getting from, you know, the immune protection and things from breastfeeding worth me sobbing through every breastfeed? Probably not.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

And partially losing my mind and sanity. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

It's so hard. Okay, I've got some rapid fire for you both. How do you feel about some rapid fire questions?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Quiz. Where's my buttons up?

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Quiz! Okay, here we go. One thing that women stress about before birth that actually matters less than they think. The nursery.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Jesus Christ. And I was the same. I was there hand painting scallops on the nursery wall. I wish I you don't use it. It's a storeroom. Just forget about it. Don't put any energy into your baby's room. Paint it when the baby's here and they're a toddler and they actually appreciate when you put fairies on the walls. Like your newborn does not care. Yeah, true. Yeah. Um, what do I think? I mm maybe this is a bit dodgy, but there's no such thing. The perfect birth plan. I think the the the perfect what am I trying to say? The perfect birth plan in the sense that it has no movement for what might happen.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

I think you need flexibility.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Yeah, I think that we can get caught up in saying this is the way I want it to be, and that is the only way that it's gonna be. And there's no sort of space for movement or questions or what have you through that. And that's not to say that you have to throw everything out the door and just listen to whatever and whoever walks through the door in your labor. But um, yeah, just I don't think it it matters as much as we're putting on it in this current moment.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

And I think there's so many moving parts to that as well. You can come up with the most, and I use this around nutrition as well. I was like, you you can have the most perfect diet and be eating and hitting all of your macros, but if you're not absorbing it, then the bigger issue is that. But with birth plans, I think there's so many moving parts like hips are opening, cervix dilating, baby actually like rotating and twig. There's so many things that have to happen well. Uh and and there's so many elements that can, I don't want to say go wrong, but there's so many points where things can get off track and you need good support to bring it, bring it back, but also being open to the fact that we may need to pivot and change direction.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Okay, one thing women don't prepare for that ends up being far more important than they expected.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

I think it's because how how are they to know? But I do want to go back to choosing the right model of care for you. They don't prepare for that in the slightest, and that is the undoing before you've even hit the birth unit. And before you've even, you know, your model of care affects how your breastfeeding journey goes too, and who your midwife is or your doctor is and how much they prioritize that. So it kind of flows on from everything. Everything.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, I agree with that model of care.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Model of care. One belief about pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding that you wish you could completely dismantle.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

I think that birth is an obstetric emergency is ingrained to our very core in everything we do, everything we watch, everything we see, that is how we are raised, that women's bodies are broken and that they need saving. And the people to save us are, you know, the experts. But we are the experts of our body, and we should be collaborating with the people who've gone to uni to learn more in depth. But birth is a normal physiological event that we are built and made to do, and sometimes it needs extra support from midwives and doctors, but we are not on occasion, yeah. That women, we are strong and we are not broken.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

We are fierce, we are not broken. We are incredible. We're like transformers, we just like come apart and it gets put back together just for it to bring new life and build every organ inside that little life.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

And that is a very deep-rooted belief on birth, right? So we've got a big job to do. I think we're moving forward with the feminist movement, but birth is not where it should be. Birth has been left behind in the feminist movement, but birth should be at the very front of it. Forget about burning bras. We should be burning down the maternity system and rebuilding it to suit us. Yeah. That the way we birth determines how our strength as a mother, how we feel coming out of our birth, whether we can step into our full power. So it lays the foundation, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's a pretty epic foundation, or it's a really shaky foundation. Really filled with shame and guilt and trauma, or it can be epic foundation. So that's out there as cub and kin is to try and get you a great foundation for mothering.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yeah. What's your cat?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Uh, I think one thing that I think should be done with is the idea that natural is easy. Um, and I think you can kind of get that through a different uh range of different things. Like birth is natural, but that doesn't mean it's easy. That doesn't mean you don't work hard. Um, you know, breastfeeding is natural, but that doesn't mean it's just gonna happen. You've you've again hard. Um motherhood having babies and being a mother is natural, but it's not it's not particularly easy. Um so I think, yeah, just the thought that natural is easy. I'd like to get away with that. I think I think you might have said it, Jess, that um natural like walking, not natural like breathing. Like breathing just happens and it's a natural thing that happens, but walking is also natural. But we have to learn it, we have to work at it. We have those little lows of time, you know, watching a child learn to walk and fall and over and into every surface possible for the last few months, but that doesn't make it unnatural, like yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah, I love that. That's a great analogy as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I didn't come up with it.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Okay, in one sentence, what does truly supported birth experience feel like for a woman?

SPEAKER_01 29:23

What does it feel like for them?

SPEAKER_00 29:29

I think it feels like a safe place where you can you're in charge of the pivoting, or you're in charge, you're surrounded by people who support you and love you and trust you and understand your goals. And if things need to pivot, that you're the the leader in that.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah. It's a safe place to fall and know that you're gonna be caught, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:55

I think it feels pretty transformative. I think that you know, Jess has spoken a couple of times about how your birth experience can really set you up for what your mothering experience kind of looks like, particularly those early days. There's no saying that you know, if you've had a traumatic birth experience, you're gonna be a terrible mother for the next hundred years. Like that's not what we're saying. But the benefit of having a really positive, supported birth experience is that you enter this huge time of change and transformation feeling really good and really positive. Yeah. Still sore. Oh yeah, still tight, sore and vulnerable and wearing your adult necking. But no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Do you know what, Jess? I thought because I had I had a vaginal birth, I was fortunate. I had really great births, but I had a vaginal birth, and I remember walking around after thinking, I had a vaginal birth. I do not have any stitches. Like I'm really fucking lucky. Why am I in pain? Nobody told I thought if I did this, that meant I didn't, I wasn't in pain. I was like, I feel like I've done like 17 rounds with Muhammad Ali.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yeah, which yeah, that's what your body feels like. I remember that too, thinking after my birth, like the full body muscle pain. And I was like, no, no, you need to go to the gym. Like, why? Yeah, what is happening? Oh no, I was I was pretty much like walking around the room and doing scots for 12 hours and pushing a baby out. Like, yeah, you're doing something. Makes sense.

unknown 31:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Okay, do you have a favorite quote or mantra for women, either in birth or motherhood or just in life?

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I mean, mine's lengthy. It creates her, it forms and reforms her, it breaks her down and rebuilds her. It is who she is. And so birth is not just this throwaway thing where we can close our eyes and get it over and done with as quickly as possible. It will transform you. And how are you going to come out of that transformation?

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah, wow. I actually I love that because I truly believe that in my core, and I don't think I was prepared for that experience of transformation. I literally went into birth thinking I'm coming home with a baby and not realizing that a mother was being born in the exact same room. And that experience was it was interesting. It was challenging not realizing that it was coming.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yeah. And not having a name for it and not having the baby shower, but not having, you know, the women's circle or, you know, and having this moment for the maiden to say goodbye to her maidenhood and become a mother. We don't have to be so hippy-dippy with it, but birth is a rite of passage and it's a sacred moment in our lives. Um and we're losing that. We're we're giving it up a little bit to be comfortable. And so you lose the impact this transition can have, I suppose. It's, you know, yeah, it's it's a spiritual thing, birth. And I'm not wearing linen, running around the garden barefoot, but I still believe, you know, I'm a medically trained midwife. I still believe it's a really spiritual thing to go through our birth and be born as a mother.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

I it's just such a common term that I feel like is thrown around without much thought of women losing themselves in motherhood. And I remember repeating that to a friend who thankfully is like a human behavioral specialist and he's a neurolinguistic therapist. And he was like, I've heard you say that three times to me now that you've lost yourself in motherhood. And I was like, I have, I can't breastfeed, and it's like my whole world. And like I had a baby who had food allergies, and I'm a naturopath nutritionist, and I didn't know how to help him for a really long time, and I didn't pick it up, and so there was so much that was wrapped up in that, uh, particularly like the first six months. I was an absolute mess. And he was like, You didn't I remember him saying you didn't lose yourself. He was like, When you become a mother, your entire value system resets. And he was like, You've got this little thing that just became top priority of your whole world. He was like, I want you to think if you had the same values when you were five as when you were 25, but you were trying to hold on to what was important to you as a five-year-old, you would be in extreme discomfort. He was like, You would suffer doing that. And he was like, Why are you trying to hold on to the values that so highly before you became a mother and expecting that to slot into motherhood? He was like, It doesn't mean that they don't matter anymore. But he you you've transformed and he was like, they're rearranged and they're different, and that's okay. He was like, you just need to honor it.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

It feels really uncomfortable, and there's a So uncomfortable, you know, 16, 17, 18 months where you're like, ugh, what am I? Where am I? What's happening? And then it kind of clicks, and you're like, oh, I've upgraded, like, and and next is who I am, right? But it takes time to settle into that new self, and you do have to do some work around it. What did your birth mean to you? How do you feel about that? What did your feeding journey mean to you? Unpacking that, who am I now? And then who am I as a mother? And then next level, who am I now as a woman who is also a mother, who was also a maiden? Who who am I now? A hell of a lot stronger than I was before, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Sure. Yeah. And I do, I think I see that a lot when I see women in postpartum as well, they have they're they're expecting the baby to arrive, and the exception to that is they weren't expecting how much they would actually change in the process because I don't think it's talked about as much. I know I definitely didn't have any conversations around it.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, definitely. I think that I've been reflecting on this a little bit lately. My youngest is two now, and I think that I've just kind of come to this phase of being like, ooh, like, and this is the furthest away from birth I've ever been. You know, my kids have a 16-month age gap, so two years.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Wow, superwoman.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Yeah, um, is huge. And I've been like thinking, like, oh, who am I? Like, what am I doing? Like, where do I, what's my identity, and all this sort of stuff. I think I've I really thought I'd hear people talk about I lost myself to motherhood, my identity were before I became a mum. And I had this real expectation that it was just gonna happen overnight, that like I'd have a baby, and all of a sudden, oh, okay, you don't know who you are anymore, but bye. Like, but for me, yeah, like, yeah, this much more gradual thing of being like, oh, okay, like, no, I can I'm kind of still myself, that's fine. And then, you know, as parenting increases, as like the challenges get changed, you kind of go, oh, okay, well, I actually have to like really narrow in on this now, and like the outside stuff kind of takes a break. And yeah, I feel like it hasn't been until now that I'm kind of like, oh no, I have changed, I've definitely changed, but it was a much like more gradual unraveling process than all of a sudden I have a baby and now I'm a different person. Okay, bye. Like, yeah, so yeah, it's interesting. And with a newborn, you're like still holding on to things, right? They're very portable, so you're still holding on to hanging out with your friends at night and things, and so yeah, you are kind of slipping away from yourself. Uh, you know, in those early months, it isn't as instant. And yeah. And then when they wake up to the world and you're like, oh shit, nap schedule. Like, okay, that's actually really important, particularly if you haven't kids who you know need certain things to go to sleep or like whatever, doesn't like the car or anything like that. You're like, okay, ah definitely yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

What do we do now? And I um I really truly think I like that you said that, Kat, as well. Because I think if you've had somewhat of a, you know, a great birth for lack of a better word, and then your feeding journey is somewhat, you know, streamlined with there's always going to be bumps in the road. But if there's not nothing really huge that's there that as a hindrance, as baby grows and shifts and their need of you changes, that's when you kind of have that empty gap and that space of like, okay, they don't need that for me. Well, like, what do I what am I doing with myself now with this time that I used to not have because I was very much needed.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Yeah, boy. I'm like, my little baby boy is he's like a boy now. He's not a baby. He's like, he doesn't need me as much. He can just go, you know, throw himself off the veranda and he doesn't need me to be there. Like, yeah. Toddle on up. Yeah, see, yeah, I know his own a bit more. So yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Yeah. It is. And then what was your favorite quote or mantra cat? Did you have one?

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah, I do have one. My favorite kind of quote, I think, I don't know if it's a quote or a mantra, maybe it's a mantra, would be like, um, what's like an elegant way of saying it? Um, you know, if it works for you, then that's all that matters. Um that we've kind of mentioned before, particularly talking about breastfeeding, that you know, you can learn all these millions of things, and I mean it's not only for breastfeeding, it's for everything in parenthood. Um yeah, you've got that fire hose of information coming at you. And I think the priority of just taking what works for you and then letting the other things kind of let go is such an important lesson. And you know, as we talked about, it's not necessarily you don't necessarily learn that in your first pregnancy. And if you know if you could figure that out before your first baby, then that's amazing. And just having the contentment of being like, it's okay, I'm not here to please every parenting expert in the world. I've just got to figure out what works for me, my family, and we're getting on with it. That's nice.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Yeah. What's one thing every postpartum mother deserves to hear in that postpartum period?

SPEAKER_00 40:09

I had a woman the other day come into Birth Unit who was day six postpartum, and we'd gotten the call that her baby had lost weight, so she needed to come in for review. And I remember that feeling because my baby had lost weight too. And I think there's nothing more crushing in this world than a woman who's busting her ass trying to feed and nurture her baby and feels like they've failed at that. She came up to the desk and I just said, like, she didn't know me. You're doing a really good job. And she burst into tears. Oh, I would have to. Like, I don't care what's happening, what the situation is, you're doing a great job. I obviously knew she was here because the baby had lost weight, but it doesn't matter. We're just doing our best. And that baby race episode on Bluey, where you know, the name the Koodle Mom says to Chili, like, you're doing a good job. Every single time I watch that episode, I cry. Same. I burst into tears. I want that in our birth course, that episode of like, we're just doing our best. And it's enough. Your best is enough. You can look back and be like, I wish I'd done this differently. You wouldn't have though, and we're just doing our best.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Yeah, you're doing a phenomenal job. And this baby's really lucky to have you.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

For anyone listening who wants to connect with you or who would like to support your work, what's the best way they can get in touch with Cub and Kin?

SPEAKER_00 41:34

You follow us on Instagram. That is the best place to find us on TikTok. We're trying to branch out into TikTok. On Instagram, we have TikTok and A N Web. If you didn't want to go that way, we can absolutely just jump into our messages on Instagram. We are not popular enough to miss anything. So jump onto Instagram and have a chat. We can do that as well.