.jpg)
Mom Talks
Mom Talks
Mom Talks E1- As Sponges Buckets Do Pt1
Jeanette Lehmann, mom of two and owner of Brainchild Creations Community Academy is completely raw, real, and relatable as I interview her about life, motherhood, and business!
For even more from Jenny and other moms, please like, subscribe, and leave a review!
For exclusive episodes and content, early episode access, and more become a Mom Talks Patron for as little as $3 per month!
Okay.
Speaker 2:Looking for support, advice and inspiration from moms. Just like you. Welcome to mom talks where we delve deep into the struggles, messiness and beauty. A real hashtag mom life. Here's your host, fellow Mama and health and fitness expert, Sarah Denton. Hello.
Speaker 1:Welcome to mom talks here was their identity. I'm also here today with our fellow mom, Jenny[inaudible] and she has two incredible kids. She also has brainchild creations. Um, academy is it academy? Jenny, I want to make sure. Community Academy Community Academy. That is a mouthful. I'm big into titles. I love it. No, it's perfect. I love it. And so does my daughter Lily. She absolutely adores it and so we will definitely be learning a lot more about that as we go further on. Um, it is, so let me just go ahead and start. Um, this is going to be our first podcast and first mom interview. So thank you so very much. I was having some technical issues a little while ago and you were so patient and kind and I do appreciate it and as I appreciate you just volunteering to be part of this podcast. It makes me feel welcome. Yeah, it makes a huge difference. Um, moms out there, you know, it wasn't until after I had children that I realized how lonely I was and how isolated I felt, and then after meeting other moms realizing how many similarities we actually had. So I thought it would just be a wonderful idea to bring moms together and help support and uplift each other and share stories. And especially, you know, we've talked a couple of times now and after talking to you, your story is just truly remarkable and I am thrilled and so excited to have you share that. So I'm excited too. Thanks for letting me be here first.[inaudible] me too. So I asked my ladies, um, what they would like the title of their podcasts to be. So let's just get into this because this was like, this just happened and it was so entertaining and just so cute. So what did you choose as your title, Jenny?
Speaker 3:I chose a line from one of my favorite poems and the line is as sponges buckets do. And, uh, it's from an Emily Dickinson poem I adore, uh, called the brain is wider than the sky, like wide with, um, and I fell in love with it my freshman year in college. I wanted to like drop majoring in graphic design or anything else and just focus on Emily Dickinson, um, her poetry, um, for awhile. And my parents wouldn't let me do that, but this one just stuck with me. Um, it has for, Gosh, 20 years now and I'm sure if any of my friends that have known me a long time listen to this, there'll be like, oh,[inaudible] talking about that book. But it talks about how like everything that exists kind of exists in our head because if we won't, you know, if we don't allow it to exist in our head, it doesn't kind of thing. Um, in so many ways. And, but in the second stanza it says the brain is deeper than the C for hold them blue to blue. The one the other will absorb as sponges buckets do. And I feel like
Speaker 1:very fitting. It's very fitting for you being an educator
Speaker 3:and that just fits you perfectly. Thanks. It's, yeah, I, you know, I think I focused on the first stanza for like the first 20 years of knowing this poem and it's just recently that it's like, oh, it's the second stanza. And maybe that's where I'm at in life now where it's like now that my kids are both four for the next month and a half. Um, they're little sponges and yes, they're kind of like sponges and they absorb everything and then when they're squeezed a little bit, like with stress or emotions that all of it comes out just in the way that like if you've cleaned up your bathroom floor and then you squeeze out that sponge into your tub, you see all of that good[inaudible] you're at that phase now where sometimes my kids are absorbing lots, um, and that's great, but once in awhile the things that come out of them are very disturbing to me, especially when I know that like, oh, that definitely came from me. That's exactly how I would have said that in that situation. Yeah. And it was inappropriate.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you realize that that's when you see all of your faults in your own personality is whenever you like have kids. Absolutely. That's where that came from. But it also gives you a chance to learn and grow because they will still learn and grow from you.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's a beautiful title and especially now that you explained it when you first told me, I was like, oh, that's so cute. And this cow though, you explaining it and reading that second stanza, it makes perfect sense. Especially just after talking to you and getting to know you a bit better. Yeah, it's great. And I passionately want to talk more about brainchild creations, but before that I, um, I just want to talk about you, Jenny. Okay. Yes. Much more to you. Um, I mean, being a mom is obviously one of the most important jobs that anyone has ever blessed with. Um, but there was a Ginny before kids. So tell me, um, tell me just a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Okay. Um, well, let's see. I recently turned 40. That's a big deal for me. I don't know why. So I feel like I started every conversation with that. Hi, I'm Jenny. I'm 48, but I'm kinda loving it. Um, but before that, uh, I grew up in, uh, Spencer County, Indiana. So not far from Evansville, um, like keep going east from Newburg and you'll run into it. Um, actually started out in Dale, uh, so in North Spencer and it was a pretty tumultuous life, uh, for my family at the time. My Mom and dad, uh, got a divorce when I was three, but then got remarried when I was four. So a lot of that I don't necessarily remember. Um, what I do remember is that we had a season pass to holiday world and we live 10 minutes away. So we went, oh yeah, that's an Emory. And my mom had, who was a nurse that had stopped working as a nurse for awhile and there used to be, when holiday world was Santa Claus Land, uh, when I was little kid, uh, there were these little, um, sort of old fashioned stores, like almost like general stores in a strip, um, across the street from Santa Claus land. And my mom worked at one of those and I went to work with her and sat behind the counter and, or talk to people when they came in. And it was just full of odd little knickknacks and it had a wall of cuckoo clocks. And that's how I learned to tell time. That's great. Despite being this, uh, very tumultuous time that I think my brother who's four years older than me clearly remember, is I remember a lot of the really fun, magical parts of that instead. Um, after that, when my parents got back together, we lived on our family farm for a little bit in Christiany and that was super fun. And then eventually we moved to Richland. So in South Spencer and I, my mom still lives in that house. And, um, my dad recently passed away and now I'm on that little farmhouse in Christiany. Um, and uh, let's see, elementary school was okay. I was really creative, but my brother was almost, he was four years ahead of me in school and he was like the straight a student from kindergarten to college graduation. Um, so there was a lot of unwanted competition there and I'm like, my mom purposely had us far enough apart that we wouldn't be compared in school the way that she and her sister who were like 16 months apart, that they were always compared, but it didn't matter. We were still comparing. Um, and you know, like creativity's great to teachers but not as great as academics. So that was a little weird. Middle School was awful cause middle school, we're all[inaudible] stuff and I was, yeah. And I was awful too. Like it wasn't like it was, everybody was awful to me. We were all awful to each other and sometimes it was great, not the awful parts, but other times it was wonderful. Let's see. And then high school was a mixed bag. I mean I think I was, yeah, I was class president my sophomore year because I kind of ran for it as a joke, um, and gave some ridiculous like almost like a standup comedy special as my election speech. And I won that. I was involved in everything. Um, but athletics and even that I was, I still stayed involved but like as a basketball manager for the girls team, because I've never been athletic. Well I've never been coordinated enough to be good at athletics, you know, so like had they had something like, I don't know if they had had an athletic program where you didn't have to be coordinated and have depth perception, I would have been great but I wouldn't have, I never made it past conditioning before. I was like, can I just be the manager? I want to hang out with these people but I don't want to run. Everybody has their different gifts. Yes. But I was in show choir and all the plays and musicals and I was editor of the yearbook and stayed pretty involved in a lot of stuff, which is like completely possible in a small school cause like they need, they need kids to fill in lots of spaces and a lot of times it's the same kids. So that was great. I had one teacher, my speech English journalism teacher that I feel like in a lot of ways like saved my life through like those dark times in high school. Um, she was just there. She listened to me. She seemed to trust me probably at times when she shouldn't have with, you know, like the master key to her room or with, I don't know, like gobs of cash from selling your books. And in a time where, I don't know, I was really searching for things and it's like, here's this. I trust you. Like me. You trust me. Thanks. I'll take this directly to the office because I don't want to disappoint you. Yeah. So that was pretty good. I started dating a right as I turned 16 and uh, had never dated really, and definitely got, uh, I don't know, like became obsessed with it in kind of making a situation work that wasn't, you know, like I'm gonna like this guy and he's gonna like me and were desperate to be liked by someone, so we're gonna make this work to happen just so that it happened. Right? Yeah. Yup. So it was fine. First Boyfriend, um, and then my second boyfriend, we dated all the way. So I guess the first one we dated for about eight months or something. Pretty significant. Um, but not necessarily like the heart breaking break up. It was like, yeah, we don't really like each other that much. But my second boyfriend, we dated through the rest of my high school, he was already in college, so he was just two years ahead of me. And then we dated all the way through college at Purdue together. And then we got married and were married for I think like five, five to six years before I kind of realized like, okay, this, I'm not in high school anymore. And I think people grow. And my mom and dad had split up my, I think after the, my freshman year of high school that summer in between freshman and sophomore year, but they didn't actually get divorced until my senior year of college. They just lived separately and, uh, kind of coexisted. But in doing that, there was never any, um, question of custody. It was just, of course I was going to live with mom. That's who I would have chosen. But there was never like a forced visitation in like, you may be mad at your dad, but you've got to spend every Wednesday and every other weekend with him. And because of that, I mean, and he knew I was mad at him, so he didn't ask and I wouldn't have wanted to go, but because he didn't ask, I also oddly felt like he didn't want me there, which is understandable. So yeah. And I think it would've been great for us to have had to have had those, those weekends, whatever together. I think we would have worked out a lot of anger, hopefully. But who knows, it may have made things worse. I'm not, I'm not sure, but my ex husband, he was, he was like the guy in high school that he drove a suburban. He was the designated driver for every party for everyone. And he made sure everybody got home safe. Uh, and he was just a really good stable kind of guy. He saved, he worked really hard. He always had jobs, multiple jobs, and he saved his money and would take me to nice dinners. Like not like it was just for the food, but it was, he was very mature for high school guys and even for college guys. So I don't think it was until I turned about 25, 26 that I kind of realized, I think I had been not using him for money. I mean that does cloud things when people give you nice gifts all the time. But I think more for like a father figure or the same time my dad left, my brother had graduated from high school and moved to college. So I think I was replacing those male figures in my life with him. And you know, it sounds creepy I guess, but I think a lot of us do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We absolutely, anytime that we have a, especially a parent, but any type of significant relationship, like as a child that was with an adult and that part is missing, I feel like we all search for that and it kind of manifests itself in different ways. And I think many times that happens in relationships and people that you're drawn to, you needed somebody that was stable and that offered that security and that, okay, this person isn't going to leave. That's right. Yeah. I can absolutely see why that would, you know, feel crucial, especially as you're moving into womanhood.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I, you know, at the end, like I desperately needed to, you know, like I think I was changing in ways that he wasn't, I think he was always what he was and everything. But you know, and this is also the guy that I think the first, one of the first times we went out on a date, he was like, Oh, I've got to, you've got to come to my grandparents' house with me. And his grandmother had Parkinson's disease and had had had it for a few years, I think, you know, I thought we were just going to go visit and you know, grandma and grandpa might make, I don't know, bring out snacks or something the way the grandparents do. But he went, we went and he was like a caregiver for them and we're 16 and 18 and he's fixing like the week's worth of pudding cups for them. Huh. Like real boiled pudding definitely. And journey would be appealing. Right. And sorting out their pills and, and he and his grandpa had this amazing train collection that was just massive, like museums were and he would dust all of them or sort them. And you know, it was just incredible. And I thought, my gosh, like this is the man I'm married. And I did. But things definitely got hard for him after his grandfather died. It had been a few years after his grandmother. And I think when you lose somebody that you're that close to, you just want to hold on to everything they had in touch. And that included a massive train collection that came in our house in addition to his existing toy collections that I think his grandfather fostered a lava in him. And I don't know, eventually it felt like there's not room for me here and I don't really want to be here anyway. And in the way of you said earlier like that, I was thinking, oh, this guy is not going to leave. Um, it became, uh, a bad thing for me where it was like, matter what I do, he's not going to leave. I'm gonna have to leave because I don't want to be here anyway. And it was a like, just a heartbreaking in that like, man, we should've just been friends. We should've just stayed friends or friends with benefits. If that had been a thing then whatever, it would have been better than I think putting each other through the, I don't know, pressure cooker or whatever that, that marriage is when it's just not working, you know? I don't know.
Speaker 1:So then after, um, basically after that relationship, I know that you're married now and you have two beautiful babies. So tell me a little bit about that and your pregnancies and if you had any issues or if you, okay, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Um, okay. So Kyle and I met, I don't know,
Speaker 3:pretty soon, pretty soon after I had, I had moved out, lived alone for several months and I know we knew each other by the time that like the doors was fine, but I had been out of the house for a while. So it was one of those complicated things. But we didn't know each other when, when I left or when I had signed up for the divorce or signed up for it, whatever. But he definitely wasn't the reason I left cause I hadn't met him. But somehow in that way, like he was the type of guy I was looking for, like almost down to the look, the attitude, like the humor, everything. So when we did meet, it was, it wasn't love at first sight because the first night we met we didn't like each other at all. But I think the second night we left was when we're like, okay, let's just go get married someday. And we dated for not long before we moved into an apartment together. It was like a loft apartment downtown in Evansville and for first apartment with a couple, it was, it was just one room with a bathroom and the bathroom had a glass door. Yes. But it was, it was on like main street in third. So hammerheads was still there so we could like walk out our door and then down to buildings and we could be at hammerheads or we could walk down to the people or it was great for me because my ex husband was such a like t total or he didn't drink or do anything like that. I missed all of that voluntarily through almost all of the end of high school and college. So this was kind of my late adolescence again, except I was 26 and I had a steady job as a teacher at a public school. So I had to be careful. I wasn't about to like go drinking and driving or anything like that. So it was, it was nice to be able to, you know, go out and then just walk a couple blocks home and, and be safe. So that was, that was great. And then we decided, okay, this is fantastic. Let's, let's make it more fantastic and move to a new place. And at least for me, Kyle lived Kinda all over in several states and, uh, we decided to move to Charlotte, North Carolina. He had lived there before and I'm sure it's beautiful there. It's just, just a beautiful city. I got a teaching job there at a teaching expo, which in the big cities, they have these big hiring events where they have to hire like 2000 teachers for the next school year, but all them now. So I'm super nervous about going into this thing, like really, really nervous and I get a job at, uh, international baccalaureate middle school in like the first 15 minutes. And, um, I'm so awesome. Super Proud of myself. Name, job,
Speaker 2:enjoying the show, become a patron and receive access to exclusive content and additional episodes. Visit mom talks, patron page today, and help make motherhood matter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was great. And I'm sure people from Charlotte, Mecklenburg schools might be angered by this, but I think when you have to hire 2000 teachers in a day, you're kind of desperate. I wasn't, yeah, not that I wasn't con, you know, that, that I couldn't teach. But I grew up in Richland, Dale, Chris Nee, Indiana. I went to South Spencer and then I went to Purdue, came home and got my masters at Oakland City, and then I'd only ever worked at South Spencer, Middle School, South Windsor High School, and writes a FJ rights in Evansville. And now I'm teaching at an inner city magnet school in Charlotte. And I'm thinking, I'm not gonna have any problem with this. I've, you know, I've watched dangerous minds a lot.
Speaker 1:You're a professional,
Speaker 3:right? Right. Yeah. I was going to go in and be, you know, Michelle Pfeiffer and it's middle school. I thought middle school would be easy. I'd only, I had student taught middle school and I had been a middle school librarian, but I hadn't taught middle school full time. But I thought, well, it'll be easier than high schoolers because they're 11, 11, and 12. Right. And that backfired a lot because 11 and 12 year olds say everything that a high schooler can say and uh, they can be really fearless about it and, you know, say really pretty hateful things, um, when they went to, but they're also still at the point of if, if you snap back at them, even without using their words, without swearing, whatever, they'll still cry. Really. So
Speaker 1:you're teaching us things now for part that ladies, for those that have, you know, um, elementary school age children that are moving up to middle school, they'll start to act like teenagers. Uh, extra sensitive[inaudible] old enough to second things. Yes. Wow. Yay. Thanks Jenny. I'm looking forward to that. It's super bad,
Speaker 3:but part of it was just great. Like it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, like, I don't ever want it to be like, oh, it was a thing or anything like that. Because I remember saying like, probably within my first week, like, I don't want to teach just all white kids again. Like, this is awesome. Like, these kids are so funny. And you know, I just like these, like these city kids, like they know so much more that like, I didn't know until I was in college kind of things about life, different things. Um, I've, I just really loved a lot of it, but at well, and Charlotte, uh, or North Carolina doesn't have a teacher's Union and people can feel however they want about unions, but like, teachers really need it to protect teachers so that they're okay because if your teachers aren't okay, they're probably not okay enough to be in front of kids all day and night. Just exude, I don't want to be here and I'm cracking that kind of thing. And there was so much paperwork and pressure and uh, you had like, you know, I was used to having a coffee machine in our work room just for the English department. So you, you know, you couldn't run as many copies as you wanted, but you know, you still had access to run a couple copies if you wanted to. And this was one little coffee machine that we all stood in line for. And if you left your ream of paper in the coffee machine and somebody else was gonna use it and you only got on give, it was, you know, provided by the school for each grading period. So it was very limiting in that way. And
Speaker 1:I don't know to say like teachers are so important and that's just proof right there. I how we, you know, I mean this could be a whole topic in itself so we won't spend too much time right this moment on it. But how undervalued and underpaid or under, you know, without the supplies that you need to function because teachers are humans too and they can't have their breaking points as well. And they're dealing with all of these little minds that, you know, we would like for those that are not teachers would not be able to have the patience for, but then these other people, you know, we're blessed to have the teachers that we are, it's just a shame. It's a shame. It is. It really is. And the, yeah, but I was definitely, I think starting to crack
Speaker 3:a little under the pressure class. We were in like a very test heavy year because our school was a magnet school where kids got kind of pulled from their home schools that were underperforming within the city and they got to come to this school because they had tested well, well a lot of the kids didn't want to be at this new school. They wanted to be with their friends and they knew that the reason that they got there was because they tested well. So the likelihood that I was going to get these kids to test well again was really hard because they didn't all want to be there. So I was starting to kind of crack under the paperwork, uh, pressure. And then, and I giggled there, but it's not a funny thing, but nervous Gigaler um, I had this seventh grade student come to me and tell me that she was afraid to go home because her dad had gotten angry at her that morning I believe, or maybe the night before and was throwing things at her and he didn't ever hit her with anything or actually hit her, but he was like throwing flip flops at her, which sounds silly, right? Like how much damage does a flip flop going to do? But it's not the flip flop. It's that she's having angry things thrown at her out of range. And I knew this kind of rage because I grew up with that on my dad. Like he never hit us, but I remember thinking, well, I wish he would because then I would have a bruise or something and I sometimes have it because nobody's gonna, nobody's going to do anything about, well so-and-so or you know, my dad threw my, um, spelling book at me or something like that. And it just kind of unlocked memories, everything else. And when I told the counselor because she couldn't even like keep it together in class at all, she's just fallen to pieces. So I tell the counselor and I kind of tell her the whole situation and then at the end of the day she comes back to get her stuff cause she's been in the office I guess with the counselors most of the day. And she comes back to get her bag and I'm like, so what did they decide? And she's like, I don't know. My Dad's coming to pick me up now and they've told him how upset I am and now I'm sure he's going to be really sure he's picking me up from school. Yeah. Like wow, I should have just kept my mouth shut because now he, I don't, it's just that impossible situation as a teacher sometimes when you can't take them home with you. And not that you'd necessarily, not that I would've necessarily provided a great home, but you have that feeling of, I just want to protect this kid and I can't, you know, and I, I see pictures of her on Facebook now and she seems to have a lovely life. But shortly after that, I remember my brother calling me to tell me my dad and grandma had gotten in another like epic fight, which was common. That's like, well it's a Tuesday. Um, my dad and grandma grew up more as brother and sister, so they were just a constant quarrelling couple and they always fought huge fights. But this one was different and I had talked to my, AH, okay, they're both dead now, so I'm just gonna let him. So my grandma loves aunt Lois, loved animals more than people. And my dad had a dog out at the family farm, which was five minutes away from her house and all day long she would come out and give the dad the dog canned dog food outside in like the middle of August in Indiana. So it just attracted a lot of flies. And you know, a dog doesn't necessarily need three cans a day. So a lot of it just would sit right and gather flies. And my dad had told her repeatedly like, don't do this. We're trying to help the dog lose weight. And he's like way overweight so don't do this anymore. And I'm sure he did not say anything that nice of a way. And she kept doing it. And when she came at, I guess for like a barbecue or something, some of their mutual friends, my dad saw this bowl as fostering dog food covered in flies and asked my grandma to lean down and look at it. And when she does, he dumps it on her head. Oh No. And he thought it was funny. And when I called my grandma she cried and sobbed and said, you know, it was in front of everybody and he's that awful f word and it was in my bra. And when I call him, he's telling it like it's the best practical. But those two things happened. Like the little girl scared to go home because her dad and then this, this incident with my dad. And grandma, those things happened maybe a day apart and it just broke me and I didn't finish the school year. I quit at the worst possible time economically because Charlotte was kind of, I don't know if it was flooded with people, it was 2008 so there was a lot of economic problems then in Charlotte's a bank in the city. So I think it, it hit that city really, really hard and Kyle and I couldn't find jobs anywhere, anywhere. Dollar store distribution center would have thousands of people in line to wait for two minute interviews though we eventually moved back home. We had just enough money I think to rent the you haul, but not to put gas in like that was our level. And we moved back home to Chris ne where my grandma had some rental trailers and we got to live in one for free. Not, not the loveliest point in our life, but yeah. And that's kind of how the next I stayed. Nine years would go like it would go really good, things are great. And then about the time that we were comfortable, then the bottom would fall out and something would happen or we'd move again and think it was a good move and it wouldn't be. But we were like, no matter what, we still had to be together. So that was kind of great. Like where even makes even our worst. We still knew we.
Speaker 1:That's amazing because that's what, you know, they talk about the five things, the five major life stressors and money and moving are two of them, especially when it comes to marriage. So if you can get through that and still be a team, I mean the odds in your favor for sure. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, and then we got the third one. Health is the other big one that they much about. So I had developed migraines when I was in fourth grade that kind of mimic the stroke, but I stopped having them when I was 16 about and had never had them in all the time that Kyle and I had live together and moved around and we'd been together at this point, I think like six, five or six years. Well maybe not, maybe three. It seemed like a long time because we moved around so much, but he didn't know about them at all. And One night I'm like drinking tea or coffee late in the evening because I'm grading papers and it all just comes out the side of my math and I'm trying to tell him that I'm burnt myself and all my words are coming out wrong and he thinks, oh my God, she's having a straw. And he calls my mom and she's like, no, it's a migraine. Give her a Tylenol. She'll throw up about 10 minutes later and be fine. She'll just need to sleep in a dark room and like, yeah,
Speaker 1:we talked about this a little bit. Those are the same type of migraines that I had. So if anybody listening has those a are real and you do go, they're scary. Find your speech you like, it's hard for you to see. And what are those? You told me the name of those, what are those called? And sometimes they'll call them complicated. They are Greens. If you have
Speaker 3:the numbness on one side, but the headache on the other side, they'll call it hemiplegic like hemisphere and yeah, yeah. But they're scary and they're scary for people to see that don't know. So I used to carry around like a, like one of those medical bracelets that had like a little thing inside that you can unfold and be like, it's a migraine. But I don't think anybody would ever actually unfold it. I think they just think, oh, this person's having a stroke. They have a medical bracelet, call the ambulance and you can only afford that. So many times it's difficult. We don't, we don't go to the er or anything for those anymore. But they just started happening again and the next and it didn't happen for a while. And then like the week after we got engaged, we got engaged. While I was on spring break with teaching at Henderson County high school, having a great school year. Like it was stressful but like I had honors classes. Finally I also had reading classes, like actually teaching high schoolers that are struggling with reading, like reading words, working with them. And we had finally developed a good relationship. So it was really getting to a pretty good point in the school year. Mine is teacher teachers, stress paperwork, stress. But otherwise it was pretty good and we just got engaged and I had just gotten a haircut and some nice clothes cause it'd been my birthday and so I got new clothes. So it's just that one of those things where it's like, it's spring, I'm feeling good, I got some sleep and then it all came crashing where I like almost like that kind of Migraine. But over a week, an entire week and I couldn't concentrate in class and I'm the teacher and didn't, it just eventually got to a point where I, again, mid school year just broke. But this time it was, it wasn't emotional, it was neurological. It was, you know, it was in my head but not in writing, just my mind I guess. And so I spent a week, I think in the neuro ICU and Evansville and then was transferred to[inaudible] medical center and Andy, cause I was having a lot of physical problems as a result. Finally got out of there and spent, had kind of a euphoric summer after that cause Kyle and I decided to get married after I got out of the hospital and like a month, I think we planned this big wedding in maybe a month and a half, but it was really short and it was a beautiful wedding in Louisville and like this white hall, like old mansion, not in a garden. It's very um, Alice in wonderland. All of these things I hear, I was on so many medications then antiseizure medications that I don't know that I really ever needed, but that's what the doctors prescribed. So my short term memory was just garbage. My tone of voice is like, look at those pictures, was that me? That sort of thing. And I was apparently a bride Zillah like crazy to my friends and family and I, it's hard for me to really think that I did that. But I think part of it is on this medication, my tone of voice didn't have inflections. And with my friends especially, I'm really sarcastic and you can't be sarcastic. Nobody knows if you're staring with a monotone. It doesn't sound like a joke. It just sounds like you're, yeah. Cause it just sounds like that was hard. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think that was a part of it. I had no concept of time, like five minutes, five hours, no different. And um, and I couldn't stop having ideas long enough to complete one. So I think it was like five minutes before walking down the aisle and I'm still like, oh, the programs here are, they are, can everybody put rubber bands on these? That kind of thing. So yeah, it was chaotic. And then after that we went on our honeymoon in the next week I went back to teaching still in that state of mind, super creative, super heightened, creative. And all my senses were heightened. It was crazy. I could tell when Collagen light bulbs were going to go out at school, like I could walk into somebody's room. It'd be like, oh, that light bulb is going to go out. Like, what are you talking about? It's not even Blinken. And I'm like, I don't know. I can, I can hear it and see it a little bit. They'd be like, okay, you're nuts. And then I'd go back to my room and the next day they'd go, they'd come in and go, you'll never believe it. That light bulb went out. Yeah. So those meds are crazy. I was losing a lot of weight though, and I had tons of energy, so I thought it was the wonder drug. And everybody else around me was like, I think Jenny's on speed or something. And probably to this day, a lot of people at that school probably think that I stopped teaching because I was on drugs. I don't know. I would have definitely thought that if I was watching me, you know, and I was, but they were on prescription drugs. It's what the doctor told me to take. So I eventually, I didn't finish that school year either. So after that I was determined to find out like, okay, what is wrong with my brain? There has to be something there. This point, we've done too many MRIs and CT scans that, you know, we're, we can't do more. But we started doing like sleep studies trying to get into neurologists, which is really hard cause you get in, it takes about three months to get in and then when they see you, they say, okay, I'll see you in six months. I tried counseling then ms stress. And that sort of just exacerbated everything because it did bring up a lot of things. I don't know, it was just super hard and I didn't work again until at least work consistently again until I, when I started this business again and that was 2010, you know, thank goodness we had kids
Speaker 1:tell me, because I do, I definitely do want to talk a little bit more about your, uh, your medical condition and get a little bit deeper into that and we'll definitely do that. But I also wanna make sure that we talk about Jack and scout and how they came into this world open and then, yeah, no question.
Speaker 3:Keep talking. I'm just want to make sure we talk about those babies too. And that way we lead into your brainchild creations because that's amazing what you two have done. So did you, um, as far as your pregnancies go, do you feel like they were normal? Were they, were you going through these medical issues during your pregnancies or were they before, how did that kind of play? Um, so you can't get pregnant on a lot of seizure medications because they're, I think they cause like really serious birth defects, like spinal types. So we would, I would go off a medication for a while. We tried to get pregnant then it wouldn't work, you know, like after six months, something like that. And then eventually I'd have to go back the doctor and be like, okay, can we try a different medication? Cause now these symptoms are back and it's worse. So, and then we'd kind of just do that loop and we did it for a few years. Maybe three or four years, honestly, and I don't know because they mess with[inaudible] your concept of time and short term memories. I really don't know. But I was also, I also stopped working about the time that Netflix started streaming, which is a bad templates and show working. Yeah. Yeah, just just me at home, just watching you know, good 11 hours of TV a day sometimes. Yeah. Right. I consider like a lot of those shows are like literature now to me, so it was all just, if I, if I said that I read 11 books in a day, I'd feel very proud of that. So I'm just going to say[inaudible] the same way. Audio books for sure. Definitely. Cool. I have not read, read a book since scout was born because yeah, I feel like there's always like, I don't know, I can't get my eyes to rest or maybe there is like one of their bodily fluids, just a bit of it floating in one and I'll allow you multitask for sure. Yes. Oh well, I mean it's reading the book. It's just definitely, yes. Oh, me too. And, and especially like if it's a book that I love this story but I can't handle the narrator or the the vocalists or whatever the, the voice recorder, then I'll turn it off and I'll go actually get the physical book. Yeah. Because sometimes there are the audio recordings where I just, I just can't handle the voice. But if it's a really good voice it just becomes like my favorite thing. But finally, I think it was a time like after a spa, a spur again, when I've gotten on the one medication that I always loved, cause it made me feel really good about myself and I didn't feel like I had the sim. Like I didn't have migraines as much that literally everyone else close to me hated me on it because I, I don't know, I never slept. I, I mean I think it was really like speed for me. I mean, I don't know cause I've never like search sought out drugs like that. But it was one that, yeah. And I think Kyle, I think he was like, okay, are you taking this medication again? And it was hope Max, which may be great for some people, but it just didn't bring out the best. Yeah. Or it brought out the best at first and then, and then it made it really awful. And these are like my closest friends, like friends I have had before I got sick and had throughout the illness and still, and yet some friendships like those people. But anyway, we find he was finally like, you can't be on this anymore. Like I really don't think there's much that I'll like ruin our marriage, but that medication will so you can't do that anymore. And I think after that it was like, okay, then I don't want to take any of it. Let's just focus on getting pregnant. And it didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. And I just remember the one, the last Christmas before we had Jack Thinking, okay, we're going to have to figure out how to do Christmas for the rest of our lives without kids. And this is like everybody's starting to do the Elf on the shelf stuff. And now Facebook has exploded and become the mom thing. And we're not going to ever have kids and we want them, but we're not going to be able to have them. And I don't think we're strong enough to adopt or foster. We couldn't adopt because we were so broke from medical debt, phrasing, medical debt. So it was just incredibly sad.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to mom tox. Yours support is invaluable. So please subscribe rate and leave a review for even more extras and bonus content. Be sure to visit[inaudible] tox patron page.