My (raw and vulnerable) birth debrief with B from Core and Floor Restore

Hey loves, four months now since I gave birth to our third child, Sonny. His birth was a little different to what I expected and it has taken some time to make sense of it - but a birth debrief with B has helped me to understand my feelings around it.

In this totally raw and unedited chat we go through my birth experience and dive into the feelings beneath the events. Surprisingly my unprocessed feelings were about far more than the birth itself.

If you would like to explore a birth debrief for your experience see B at www.coreandfloor.com.au

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TRANSCRIPT

0:00:00

Hello love and welcome to the Mama Chatters podcast. If you're keen to ditch all of the parenting shoulds and want to uncomplicate sleep and parenting, you are in the right place. I'm your host Fiona Weaver, founder of Mama Matters, and through honest chats with experts and each other, we'll help you to cut through all of the noise and to love the heck out of your imperfect and authentic parenting. Wherever and whoever you are, you belong here. Now let's have a chat. Hello my loves, my goodness it has been a long long time. It is, where are we? We're in October. I haven't been here since just before I had my baby boy back in June and I had planned to keep this up but I mean how naive, how naive. I am just deep in baby at the moment but it is wonderful. It has taken us a few months to really find our feet as a family of however many there are, what are they, five of us now. The big kids have taken some time to adjust and I have just kind of come out of that newborn daze. So even though I have so much to catch you up on I think we are going to start here and that is with my birth story. Sunny was my third birth obviously I have two older kids and it just didn't go as planned it wasn't terrible but I couldn't quite make sense of my feelings around it for a while. So I booked in a birth debrief to share with you with Bea from Core and Floor Restore. Bea is a midwife and a personal trainer and she has tons of online classes and programs for mothers in pregnancy and the postpartum period. She also offers birth debriefing which is very popular because she is booked out for six months, but she was so kind to do this with me on my podcast so that you guys can get a feel for what this process looks like and this is a super vulnerable and raw chat and I am definitely going to be waking up with a vulnerability hangover after this airs but I think it's important to really honor all types of births and any feelings that you have around births. She completely helped me to make sense of my experience, put it in a pretty little bow and I'm so grateful for this. I will say also that I have not edited this chat whatsoever so there might be some long pauses or just imperfections. Make sure you check Bea out at Core and Floor Restore on Instagram or visit her website at www.coreandfloor.com.au. Welcome Bea, I am so happy to have you on the potty. Thank you so much for joining us today.

0:02:56

Thank you so much for inviting me, it's such an honour, so nice to finally connect with

0:03:02 you.

0:03:03

Oh, I'm excited. You have so many super fans, so many women in my community like, yes, Bea, I can't wait to listen, I love Bea. And I think, as I was saying before, I think it's your authenticity, you're down to earth, you're so unapologetically you and I know that people just love that about you. Oh thank you, thanks everyone listening who's so supportive and has been so supportive. Yeah you got a few fans. So we are here today to have a little bit of a birth debrief and I had my son Sonny a few months ago now, and I had mentioned to you in my email reaching out to you about this, that it wasn't necessarily a traumatic birth, but there's something that I haven't quite made sense of and it just wasn't what I expected. So I thought it would be a good opportunity, rather than me just talk to myself for a while, to have your insight and your guidance around making sense of that birth. So that's what we're going to do today. Epic. Epic. So I would start with what I normally start with and just say this space is yours. So please do whatever you need to do to make yourself comfortable and also that all your feelings and all your story is welcome here. And you don't have to apologize for being being a human being, you can bring whatever you need to bring to this space. So I will sit and just listen and take it as we need to go. But yeah, just also acknowledging that you're doing this on a recording and that element part of it can sometimes feel big for some people and not for others. I know even for me, you know, it's like, oh, people are listening to how I do these, like, you know, just acknowledging that little part that may be there for both of us or not. Yeah. And just thanking you for the honour of being able to listen to this and to share it with others too. Thank you. That is so lovely. That's just sets the scene for a nice, warm, welcoming space. I am feeling a bit anxious and

I'm not particularly anxious about telling the story. I don't know. I don't know. Probably just a bit of a vulnerability, anxiety, because I haven't really worked through it

0:05:24 yet.

0:05:25

So do you just want me to tell you about it?

0:05:27 Can I just...

0:05:28

Yeah, say you start where you want to start, but just acknowledging that you have turned up today and your willingness to share and the feelings that come with that because I think most people who turn up to a debrief What there is often fear of is just that fear of uncertainty of what is this gonna bring up? How is this actually gonna feel? Yeah, and and acknowledging that you know a lot of our feelings do actually feel uncomfortable and that can often bring us a little bit of What is what's gonna be here today, what's this going to feel like. So just acknowledging that part of you and just saying that you get to take this wherever you need to and feel sorry. And so you do whatever feels right for you as you tell it.

0:06:18

All right, thank you. Well, Sunny is my third birth and I had two other physiological births. My first was intense, really super-duper intense, very intense contractions, involuntary pushing the whole way. I didn't know what to expect as well, so just that element of, holy shit, I didn't know the body could do this. Watching the clock the whole time, having no idea how long that intensity would last. I ended up having him in the water after about nine and a half, ten hours, I think. And then I had retained placenta, so we were then separated while I went to surgery. That birth, definitely I had a bit to work through because in that time that I went to surgery, all of my family came. Like there were, it was first birth, so I was like, yeah, cool, I'm so chill, come up to the hospital, everyone can come. And they were all just, you know, passing the baby around while I was in surgery. They were there for the first change of clothes, the needles, all of that. My husband was there. But yeah, there was definitely some grief around that. And then when I was taken back, my midwife was trying to advocate for her to come into theatre with me. I mean, sorry, for my baby to come to theatre with me, but they wouldn't let her. And then when I was taken back, they were supposed to bring my baby up to recovery and they didn't. And then they were supposed to take me back to birth suite, but they didn't. They took me to maternity ward and I had had an epidural from the placenta getting taken out, so I couldn't move my legs or anything. And then I couldn't find anyone, so they didn't know where my baby was. They didn't know, they thought that they were going to be back on maternity ward and they were still in birth centre and I couldn't contact anyone because they were like, no, no one's answering the phone or whatever. So the midwife on the ward was giving me her phone. I ended up getting in touch with my mum because my mum was super reliable and answered a call from a private number, thinking it might be the hospital. So then from there, they brought the baby up and it was fine. But there was definitely that period of like, I feel so out of control. I don't know where my baby is. No one's helping me. No one's listening to me. I can't even move my legs to walk down and get him. And all of that was just not a very nice ending to an otherwise pretty straightforward birth. But that was done and I worked through that. And then my second birth was quite lovely. It was long during the day because she was in the wrong position. She was, I mean, she was probably right where she needed to be, but she was posterior all day. And so she spent all day, I was contracting, but it was mild. And then by about four or five o'clock, we went to the hospital and then they did a stretch and sweep and she got into position and she just shot out at that point. Like once she was on, she was on, I hopped into the bath and had her in a couple of contractions.

And I was just like, I cannot believe that all went so well. And my placenta came out and I was just like, that's how birth could be, how amazing. And so the third birth, I honestly just thought it would be wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. I pictured it, I knew what it was going to be. It was just going to be like in and out, get it done. I was at birth centre again, so I had pictured just everything happening really, really quickly. So we have to be really onto it and go straight to the hospital. And then I would just have them and then I would be home for morning tea. And it just was not like that. And it was, there was a lot of stress leading up to it as well, because I was past dates, which is fine, but I don't have family here. So my parents had come up from South Australia. They're in their caravan. They came all the way up and were staying at a caravan park and they were on call. They were still 25 minutes away from our house. And I was worried about going into labor during the night because I was worried about what the kids, how the kids would go with that. I was worried about them not getting there in time. I was definitely not feeling totally comfortable with the situation versus just being able to call my mother-in-law when she lived here. So there was definitely some anxiety around that. And then I was going into my midwife every few days and we'd do another stretch and sweep. I think, it was sort of on and we were visiting my parents at the caravan park and I thought, I feel a bit far away from home all of a sudden, I feel like we should go home, I think something's happening. And then I was having really mild contractions that night and I went to bed and then I woke up at midnight and they were five minutes apart, but I was still manageable. But I called my parents anyway because I thought this is going to happen so quick. And so my parents came. By the time they got there at two o'clock in the morning, it had fizzled out. And I said to the midwife, I said, just come up anyway because I can check you over. We might be able to get things going. Once you can relax when you're in the birthing space, we should be able to sort you out. And also, if you're thinking about an induction over the next few days anyway, I wasn't at that point anyway yet, but being 10 days over, I just felt like I had to get it done because my parents were up, they were leaving the next day, which put pressure on it. We went to the hospital and it really had kind of fizzled out and we did another stretch and sweep and then it was back on for a little bit and then it fizzled out again and I just started getting really upset and just being really disappointed. It was also really boring, so boring, walking around a labour room and nothing is really happening. And she sort of said at that point, we could break your borders or you could even go home and come back when it's stronger. And I was just so deflated by that. I didn't want to go home because I just like, Knox had got up as well. When my parents came, it was two o'clock in the morning, he got up and I knew that he would just be sitting on the couch awake until whatever happened. And I know that that shouldn't impact where I'm at in birth, but I did feel pressure around that. I was like, well, my parents have to leave tomorrow. Knox is already up and he's waiting for a baby. And I've talked it up and said, I'll probably be home later today. And I just didn't want to do all that again. I didn't want to do the stress of getting them there and working the kids around that because they were so anxious waiting for something to happen when they don't know when it's going to happen. And so I said, no, let's try to break our waters, break my waters. And they couldn't. So there was just a lot of internal things happening to try to break my waters. And in the end I said, stop, I can't handle that anymore, that's too uncomfortable. But in that she gave me a really good stretch and sweep anyway, so it kind of kicked things off again. And then I started getting excited and things are happening and we had just good vibes, we had the music going, and I'm like, yes, we're on, it's happening. And then at one point we're like, all right, we're doing this. I hopped into the bath, the midwife got the second midwife and they all got their gloves on, they set up the bed for baby and that must have been at 8 o'clock or something, 9 o'clock, I don't know, two and a half hours of being in the bath, contracting and nothing really getting any more intense. Every time I would contract, I could feel the pressure coming down but it didn't feel strong enough. I still don't really know what was happening, but it didn't feel strong enough to do anything. So I was just having these contractions and then I'd get up and out of the bath and sit on the toilet for a bit and then walk around for a little bit and do a little dance and a wiggle and walk up and down the steps. That bit was hard because the midwife said to the student midwife, who was amazing, you never take your eyes off a primate, oh sorry, off a multi, because you don't know, and in the end that is what happened. But it was just this unspoken pressure that my body was not doing what it was supposed to be doing. And it was getting uncomfortable for me

to just feel like nothing's happening. And then I ended up in tears again. And then I was like, what does happen from here? What if nothing else happens? And then the next step was, I'd been hand expressing as well, but nothing was really getting it going. And I said, we could try again to break your waters because she thought that maybe that's what was happening, that the waters were in front of the baby, but the contractions weren't strong enough to break them. And, or we can keep going and see what happens. And I said, let's just try one more time to break my waters. And that time I did manage to break them. And that must have been my, we got there at three o'clock in the morning, I think this would have been about 12 or something by that time that they broke my waters. And then I got up and went and sat on the toilet, like with my hands on the back of the toilet on a pillow. And I just felt like that was a place where it was opening things up. And then I had a really big contraction that I sort of wasn't coping through. And then I said, I'm just so tired. Maybe I do want an epidural. I've never had one before. But I got to a point where I was so tired. And then my husband was there with me, obviously, and he was like, just, yeah, you know, breathe through the next one, whatever. And then the next one, I started kind of panicking a little bit and then the midwife came back in with a cup to do some more hand expressing to try to kick things off. And she was like, oh, we're having a baby. And then they had to lift me off the toilet onto the floor and then he was coming out. So I don't really understand that. I think that's that then he's restricted, isn't it? So he couldn't breathe. He was trying to breathe, but he couldn't breathe. So then they had to manually just bring him out before the next contraction. And that was the bit that was just awful. She was really lovely in telling me what she was going to have to do. And I understand that she had to do it, but just the hands up there and turning him and pulling him out, that's what I remember, just feeling really horrible. And I felt like a cow. I grew up on a farm and I just watched my dad pull calves. And that's what it felt like. Yeah, it was just unpleasant. And I know that it had to happen, but that bit wasn't very nice. And then once he was out, he took a long time to take another breath because he was a bit shocked. It just happened so fast. And then we were in shock. And I was like, what the fuck just happened? What the fuck just happened? And then, yeah, that was it. And then we hopped onto the bed and I was just in shock. I was like, fuck, that was just not how I, that was not how the start of the labour was looking. And then it just all happened on the toilet floor. And I was really surprised at the amount of blood as well. I was like, that's a lot of blood, that's a lot of blood. But they said it was normal. It was just because my other births had been in the bath, so I hadn't seen it as much. But I found that really confronting, just with the way that he was born as well. And then afterwards, I just, I really struggled with the after stuff as well. I really struggled with the fact that you I think it was all the internal examinations, the stretch and sweeps, the breaking of the waters. I felt like it didn't I just didn't like it. I was going to say violate it, but I didn't feel violated. I felt very supported and informed through all of it, but I just hate hands up there. I hate it. And then after you have a baby, after you go through all of that trauma, then you have hands up there checking things. And I had a couple of stitches, so I have, they said, there's only one stitch that needs to go actually, and you can either have the stitch with some gas or I can give you the anesthetic with some gas and then do the stitch. So I said just do the stitch and the gas. But yeah, I didn't like it either. And so afterwards I just felt... I'm grateful that it was still, you know, it didn't go to anything else. I'm grateful that we didn't have to use forceps or vacuum or anything like that. But it just, I was left feeling really let down or something, or just disappointed. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I did feel supported the whole way through. And he wakes up.

0:20:45

Yeah, so we were talking, firstly I just want to say thank you for sharing all that and just honoring your mind and body and what they've been through and also him and it doesn't surprise me that he's waking up at the part where he's born. Yeah, right. Yeah, we spoke a little bit off air and you know, about how babies often, you know, really react in birth deep race as well. But just taking a minute to acknowledge that all of that happened to you and to him, that feeling of disappointment, would you say that's the overarching feeling of the birth?

0:21:32

I think there was definitely shock in there at how it happened. It just all happened like a really dramatic five minutes, not even five minutes. So there was definitely some shock around how it happened and just probably a sense of loss of the birth that I had envisioned. Also probably feeling a little bit naive. I should know that everybody said as well, the third baby's a curveball. And while it's good to have some realistic expectations, I don't see how preparing for a curveball would have helped me. I was just imagining that mine would be exactly the same. Like, it's so silly because it's not ever going to be exactly the same as another birth, but that's just what I had envisioned and it was just a lot harder than I had expected. And I think just the lead up to it as well was not as nice. It felt clunky, trying to organize the kids and myself.

0:22:56 Yeah.

0:22:57

Yeah. And you talked about having all that pressure. And I just really want to highlight here how big that is at the end of pregnancy, right? That end of pregnancy is meant to be this space where we feel this oxytocin climb and climb and climb, right? That's the end of pregnancy. The end of pregnancy is meant to feel safe and supported where we're nourished and oxytocin can build and build and build and then it peaks and we go into labour. And what you've explained, whilst your situation is incredibly unique to you, it's what most women in our society feel in the lead up to birth now, is pressure. And you know, what does pressure feel like in your body? So if you could go back to that time and imagining Fiona pregnant, you know, trying to navigate how her family is going to be here for the birth, who's going to look after our children, how long it's going to take for them to get to your house and you to get to the hospital, and are you all going to make it in time, and who's going to wake up and who isn't? What did that feel like internally, that pressure? What did it physically feel like?

0:24:15

It felt stressful. It felt anxiety provoking, and I felt like people were depending on me and my kids, I was so worried about how, I know my son especially, he does not do well without a plan and there is no plan to when a baby is coming or what that will look like. And really interestingly, it took Zali, my daughter, she's four, it took her a month to say to me when we're lying in bed one night because I ended up having to stay on the ward that night as well. So I didn't come home as I thought I would. So I stayed on the ward because he was really little, which makes me think he wasn't ready. That was another thing that I stopped growing a lot in those last few weeks. I started measuring a couple of weeks behind and I really didn't get caught up on it. But looking back, that probably played into my anxiety a little bit. And I had the flu really bad at about 36 weeks. So she thought maybe when that happened, it just took a bit of a knock or I don't know. But that was happening as well. But yeah, lying in bed a month later, Zali said, out of nowhere, why did it take you so long at the hospital to come back? And she hadn't mentioned that at all, that that was an issue for her that I had to stay overnight. And it was my husband came back to be with them that night. So it wasn't like they were with Nana and Papa who they don't spend a whole lot of time with on their own. It was with Dad, but yeah, that was kind of hard for her.

0:26:04

Yeah, and for you too, by the sounds of it. Just knowing that that was going to be there for your son, especially. And it's the mental load of birthing our babies away from our community, which so many women do over and over again. You think about for two million years or however long we've been here, I've lived in a village in the Solomon Islands and have seen birth in that village environment and it's a community event. The logistics of it, it doesn't have to be worked out because it's a community event that happens all the time and you just go with whatever the flow is and the children have many mothers and many fathers and so all of that logistics that of our modern birthing culture isn't there. And so at this time where we're meant to feel nourished and supported and calm and feel

safe to welcome our babies, right, that's the end of pregnancy. It's meant to be this part of us that, you know, instinctively says, I feel safe enough to receive this baby into our world. It doesn't look like that for the most of us, for the majority of us.

0:27:17

And even just the... because I was with the midwifery group practice, so I had continuity of care with a midwife, just the last two times I've had a baby, I haven't had the same midwife who has looked after me in pregnancy. And I honestly didn't mind this time because I was like, I love all of them. They're all so aligned in their values and I feel very confident and safe and whatever. But even just the jokes in those appointments, like, well, I've got Friday to Sunday off, so you've got two days. So here's what I'm envisioning. I reckon you're going to go in the next couple of days. Oh, and that kept happening too. I reckon you're going to go in the next couple of days. It has to be the next couple of days. And then it never was. We do that and midwives I think do it a lot, doctors do it as well, all the predictions that we put onto women and we do it so lightly that it is received with a lot of load. Yeah and not even consciously. I genuinely didn't feel pressure but even my husband, he was getting stressed out, because he tends towards anxious. And that was not in the plan for him. So he's like, when is this baby coming? Why I can't deal with this? I said goodbye to everyone at work on Friday, thinking we'd have it over the weekend, now I have to go back. And then he had to go back again. And it was just like, I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't know what's happening And this is you know, we do all the time all the heads low You'll have this baby by the end of the week and you know, this is still That incredibly sacred life event that can't be planned in a world where everything is Controlled and planned where you can find the answer to anything at the hey Siri on your phone or you can type anything in and get an answer. There aren't answers here, even when often births can be, or those births that are a little bit more planned, like inductions and caesareans, there is still a huge element of uncontrollability in those. birth in this In our modernity is quite uncomfortable for a lot of people Because it's so uncontrollable and then I wonder here all those little comments for you What did you make it mean? What do you feel like you made that mean? At the time I didn't I don't think I think I held them lightly. I don't think I got too caught up in them, but I was just feeling, I was so over being pregnant as well. I really didn't enjoy this pregnancy. And for me, I was just thinking about everyone else. So thinking about my parents, almost feeling bad that they weren't going to get any time with the baby because it was school holiday, so their booking ran out and they had nowhere to go. So in the end, they were here to look after the kids, but then they had to go the next day and come back a couple of weeks later for a couple of days. So I was just, I definitely was taking the focus off myself and trying to think about how everyone else was going to be sorted.

0:30:56

Which is that primary caregiver role that so often we take, right? It's thinking about everybody else and not ourselves. What would you have liked time to have

0:31:08 looked like?

0:31:10

I would have liked people to just be here without having to be here for it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just felt, I'm so grateful to my parents that they, like my mum would just drop anything, hey, to come and spend two weeks up here to help us like that was so incredible. But it was uncomfortable that we had to make sure something happened in a certain time frame. But that's just that that's not something that could have been changed. That's just our situation. My parents-in-law live a couple of hours away as well, so they would have dropped everything to come and be there for it too if they needed to, and they would have only been two hours away. But yeah, it just felt hard in that way. So yeah, I don't know what could have been different, honestly, except that maybe had I known that he might have just not been ready, like I would have maybe waited. And I don't know if that is actually the thing. He was small, like he was in the fifth centile when he was born. I don't know whether he

was just small or whether he just wasn't ready. I don't know. But I wish that I had known. Yeah. And again, that's that part of wanting to control it, right? Like needing more information, which is a basic human need. We always have this need for information to be able to make the right decisions that feel good for us. In terms of what did you want it to look like, and probably need to rephrase that, what did you want it to feel like. I guess slow and nurtured, which doesn't really happen before you have the baby when you have other kids. And even after the baby, as much as you want it to be slow and nurtured, I was nurtured for sure. But I'm also mindful that I have two other kids who are also going through a huge life change. And it's really nice to just, you know, I hear about the 40 days, what's it called? 40 days postpartum. Yeah, where you spend a lot of your time in the bedroom and whatnot, and I took any opportunity to just lie in bed with my baby, but I also knew that my kids' worlds had been rocked and they needed me as well. And so I don't have any regrets about not trying to be with them as well, because I think that's pretty fair enough. But yeah, you can definitely long for that. If I could have stayed in bed for two weeks, I would have. And that would have felt so beautiful. But I just really cherished any time that I did have to do that. Yeah, I love that.

0:34:36

I love that you really were present in those moments that you wanted to be present in and really gave yourself that when you could but also acknowledging that you had other little lives that you wanted to connect with during that time and be there for as

0:35:02

well. Yeah it is hard but I just yeah I think that's just the way it is when you've got more than one, especially when you've got two others.

0:35:14 Yeah.

0:35:15

So when I hear your whole story, there's a couple of big themes that I'm kind of like hearing and pulling out, and I'm just going to say this and we'll see how it lands for you, but that pre-birth and even during the birth, that big theme of just feeling pressure, just feeling this need to perform to keep everybody else happy? Is that what it kind of felt like to to be able to meet everybody else's needs? Your children, your parents, the midwives, your partners. Like it feels like there's you in this first story and then the bigger picture is everybody else's needs that you were trying to perform, aka have your baby for, so then everything else would be okay. Is that kind of...

0:36:03 Yes.

0:36:04

Does that land? Yeah, that does land. And again, not consciously. I didn't feel like I needed to think about other people and please them and work around them, but it was in my mind that, yeah, it kind of has to go a certain way, otherwise we don't have another plan. Or we did have other plans, but they didn't feel as comfortable. We had friends who we could call, but it didn't feel as comfortable as the original plan.

0:36:30

Needing it to go this way in order to feel safe.

0:36:33

Yeah, to be able to relax about them so that I could focus on myself. Yeah, but then not ever actually getting to focus on yourself.

0:36:42

And so then that overall feeling is now just a lot of disappointment of, hey, it never went like that. So I never got to actually drop into it and relax and just enjoy it because I was constantly being the project manager.

0:37:02

And I think once I got to the hospital, I did feel like I had that space to do that. But then nothing happened. It's just such a mind game when you are in labour and then you're not. You feel a bit silly. I felt a bit silly for being in the hospital, but I just did not want to leave until I'd had the baby because I just didn't want to go through all that organising and waiting again.

0:37:34

And did that feeling silly, was that just an isolated event or was that kind of there in periods too, like I feel silly that I haven't had the baby yet or I feel silly that I've had so many stretch and sweeps and my body hasn't done this or was that just a one-off?

0:37:54

Yeah, there's probably a way onto something there. Like, feeling mindful that our parents know that we're having a baby but we don't have anything to tell them yet. Feeling, yeah, I don't know if it's like I'm letting them down or my body is letting me down or I'm, I just shouldn't be here. It's obviously not happening yet. I don't know. I don't know.

0:38:35

If Fiona who, and I'm just acknowledging that you're breastfeeding here, so you're actually doing all the things at once again, but just if it feels right to, if Fiona who's pregnant, 41 weeks pregnant, and I want to say she wasn't overdue, she was still in her normal pregnancy. If she was sitting there next to you right now, and there was just this loving space for her to actually be heard, what would she want to say? What would she want to say in her own words? What does she want to say around what she's thinking or feeling? What does she want to say to everybody?

0:39:21

Go away. Go away. Just trust that it's okay. And I'd be talking to myself as well because I was getting antsy and wondering what was happening and wanting it to happen as well. So, but if there had been...

0:39:46

Just go back to you first, without any judgement or without needing to say anything to her first. What does she actually want to say? What does she want to let out? And feel free to actually drop into the feeling here if you can. Just say, go away.

0:40:03

Yeah, probably just go away, leave me alone. Let me just do this on my own without all of the noise. That was funny, farting on me. Without all the noise, without the pressure. Don't tell me my due date. Like, I don't know. I don't feel like I wasn't heard. So I don't feel like there's anything that I wish I could have said or I wish people heard. I felt supported in that. I think it was just me getting antsy as well and with all of the other pressures logistically, not feeling comfortable to just wait. And so what often happens is we go into that stress response, right?

0:40:55

And, you know, that go away, that's that beautiful, most of us want to freeze. Like, just let me come into, you know, come into my space, come into me. And often we don't even realize consciously that we're not doing it, but we're not speaking our truth. And the truth at that time is probably, this feels really shit. This feels really hard. This is not what I expected. This is not what I wanted. This is not

what I imagined for myself. This pressure is feeling big to carry, and I don't want it to feel like this.

0:41:33 Yeah.

0:41:34

Probably all of that. And for the same, the same throughout the whole pregnancy really. I still didn't like it. I didn't like being pregnant. It wasn't particularly horrible, but I just felt blah. And I had a lot of, yeah, I was just really up and down in pregnancy as well. So it felt like it was a means to an end rather than a nice experience to be pregnant. It felt like it was just something that was slowing me down until I could have it. And then, and admittedly, I probably talked it up with the kids as well, that, you know, then mum will have the baby and mum will be able to run around and now I won't have to sit down so much. And actually you do probably have to sit down even more after you have the baby. You just also have a baby on you that they can't get to you as easily. So I think a lot of it was not setting the right expectations for that postpartum as well because I was just excited to have the baby and not be pregnant.

0:42:37

What you've beautifully identified there is often the themes that we carry with us at the end of pregnancy and in birth,

0:42:45

they're there the whole time. They carry through and they often continue to carry through postpartum. Yeah.

0:42:56

If you were to physically kind of explain that feeling of the pressure, is it something that has gone now or is it still there in postpartum a little bit?

0:43:14

I think I probably was feeling pressure afterwards, not from others. I felt really supported by others, but just with the kids. Just that pressure to show up for them, to hold space for them, that was really hard. And I think that I wasn't fully prepared for that, thinking I'd done it before with Noxie. Maybe I don't remember everything about how that transition went, but I remember it being a lot easier. And so I feel like I'd have, yeah, just pressure to make my kids feel safe and like they still had me. And I remember Zali saying, because I had the baby blues pretty bad as well, which again surprised me because I didn't have that with Zali, that never really happened. I definitely had it with my first, but yeah, this time I had them pretty bad and I'd had a couple of days where I just cried a lot. And I remember Zali saying to me, like, Mama, can you laugh? Can you still laugh? And it just killed me because I was like, you have just lost the mum that you thought you were going to get back. And it was just, yeah, that, I think that's where a lot of the grief comes up for me now, is how it impacted them. The middle one, more so than the big one. I feel like I have turned her world upside down a little bit. Just a lot of love around that first and thank you for sharing that with us. Do you feel like that pressure to have the certain birth, the certain way, was to really just keep everyone else happy and safe? Probably and a bit like yeah, yeah to make it easier for them probably. Like I'll be home soon and I'll have a good birth so my recovery won't be too bad and be back to you as quick as I can and everything will be okay again. Because yeah I've been a bit teary at times throughout pregnancy as well. Yeah.

0:45:39

And so if you don't, oh sorry, go for it. I was just going to say, I feel like that back pressure thing

0:45:45

definitely carries through, like I have to be,

0:45:47

I feel like I'm not, I'm often not giving enough to my daughter and I know that if I was a client I was working with and I know my wise mind, you can only give what you got. But it does feel like a cup runs a little dry sometimes and that's hard because she just loves me a lot. That's all it comes down to, like she just really, really loves me and that has taken away from her.

0:46:29

Yeah, I hear that.

0:46:30

I really hear that and I feel that as a mother of in a similar situation. So just a lot of love to that. Yeah. What I'm hearing here, and again, I'll throw it out and if it doesn't land, throw it back. But this pressure that you put on yourself, or this pressure that you felt in order to perform a certain way, by having this kind of birth that fitted into everyone else's schedule and felt safe for everybody else, because you didn't get that, does it feel like you've been that silly little girl that's failed, or hasn't met everyone's expectations or you haven't been able to be a good mum because you didn't come home straight away and you haven't been able to be a good daughter because you didn't give your parents that opportunity to spend time with the newborn. Is that what it feels like it translates?

0:47:32

Is that that deeper meaning of what is there or is it not there? Not the... I definitely don't attribute any good mum, bad mum stuff to my experience, but I think that I would have if I hadn't been sort of working on that for the last few years. I think there's definitely some performance stuff. Like, I have affectionism in not doing everything right at all, but I just, I don't know, that was probably part of my identity that I would just be super chill about it and just go get it done and come back and, I don't know, I'm not quite making sense of that yet.

0:48:28

Okay. If we... we'll go for it.

0:48:31

There's definitely... there's just definitely a lot of guilt around what it has looked like afterwards for... No, I don't even want to say guilt. It's just sadness. Because I don't feel guilty. Because I know that this is just... this isn't my falling short or anything, this is just the situation, this is the family and this is what happens, but I feel sadness for my daughter. That it's been hard for her. And I think there is a little bit of feeling silly for envisioning a different birth and just not having realistic expectations potentially. Lots of births are hard and go funny ways and whatnot, but I just thought that it would just be straightforward.

0:49:25

It's just giving us the big eyes there.

0:49:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:49:27

It's normal. Do you feel like, I really hear that there's some sadness there for your daughter. Do you feel like any of that sadness is there for you? Yeah. Yeah. What

0:49:44

do you think you're sad about? I think as my son has grown he definitely has a really amazing bond

with his dad and an amazing bond with me as well, but as he's an almost eight-year-old boy now, so they, I think that naturally happens and that's what's supposed to happen, that they seek out their father figure more and more, and it's beautiful and I love it. But my daughter was that for me, and I just feel so much... She just seems angry, like, um, well all the time she's got her sparkle but sometimes she's just, just feels mad. And she says sometimes that she doesn't like the baby and I'm okay with that, I'm like yes I know, I hear you, I know it's really hard. I have to hold him all the time and you know there's so much pressure and everyone who sees her on the street. Do you love being a big sister? Do you love your baby brother and that's just? What people do and I do it too right now, but? Just the whole focus on her baby brother Had their relationship is definitely growing Now and I don't put pressure on it. I just let it be and just try to give her everything I've got when I've got it. But yeah, I just feel I probably miss her just as much as she misses me.

0:51:26

Have you talked to her about that?

0:51:27

So I was just with Jocelyn. Yeah, I do.

0:51:30

She's got such good language, like she even says that, well, I don't not like him, I do love him, but you just have to hold him all the time. And you know, you know how I used to try to hurt him sometimes and I'd be a bit rough with him, it's just because I was getting used to him and now I'm more used to him now, but it's just hard. Oh, she sounds like a beautifully, emotionally intelligent little being. She is in so many ways. She is like beyond her years when she talks like that. But then other times I see her and I'm like, you are just a little toddler who just wants mum all to themselves. And so I think, again, it was just my expectations not meeting my reality as well. Just like the birth, my expectations didn't meet my reality. just postpartum with him, he's fine. We're fine. He met my reality, but just, I probably romanticized the bigger age gaps as well and thought that there would just be not that much of a transition. Again, feeling silly for that. I should know better.

0:52:47

So firstly just acknowledging the sadness and disappointment and just saying that they're allowed to be here. They're so valid and so often they're there because something didn't happen the way we wanted it to. And growing up we're always told, well, they're starving kids in Africa or someone else has got it worse off than you. Yeah. And the reality is not getting what we want is deeply disappointing and it's allowed to be there. Thank you. Secondly, just seeing that feeling, right? If you were to physically come into your body and you may even just wanna close your eyes down now and just lower your gaze, is that feels safe while holding Sunny? And just see if you can physically identify the symptoms there, what it actually feels like?

0:53:41

It feels like tension. Where it was?

0:53:44

Like frustration in my,

0:53:46

my chest probably, but also just in my entire body,

0:53:51

like that real, similar to the frustration or tension I had in pregnancy, that irritability, like I could just snap, like nervous system tension. That's what that feels

0:54:20

Beautiful identification there.

0:54:25

Is this feeling familiar?

0:54:27

You said it was there in pregnancy, is it familiar prior to pregnancy? Yes, in just stress of life, like trying to do things when I don't have time or capacity, trying to get things done, like trying to be productive. Again, my performance stuff is about being productive and achieving things throughout the day. I don't do a lot of rest.

0:55:04

Yeah, I will never just stop and be.

0:55:08

So, that's kind of what I feel when I'm feeling pressured. Pressured comes up again. And that's when I get annoyed with my daughter as well, as if she's clearly needing me, and I'm clearly just trying to finish a job. And then I just get angry and just realize that I can't do anything. And then I come back from that. I don't get stuck in that. Probably because I've done the work and I know that when that feeling comes up, it's because I'm trying to get a job done and I can't. I'm being interrupted. So I stop the job. So what do you feel like this tension, if it could speak, what would it say that it needs?

0:56:08

I don't know, like an outlet?

0:56:11 Like, space?

0:56:12

Like, what comes to mind is like exercise, nature. Something that's going to fill my cup rather than just being on all the time.

0:56:21 Yeah.

0:56:22

And often it is, right? Like we're in those stress response, the body needs movement, the body actually needs that physical release, it needs to do whatever, you know, and this is what many of us don't do well in our society, is actually responding to our body's needs to the situation. Is it, you know, if you were to sit with it and kind of sit with that tension across your chest and that pressure feeling, that constriction all over your body, does it remind you of

0:56:55

anything else? Does it remind you of any other situation in your life at all? No, I can't think of that right now. But I also know that I'm probably dipping out a little bit because I'm mindful that I need to go to school pick up soon, so I'm probably coming out of that vulnerability just as a very...

0:57:29

Yeah, I was thinking that.

0:57:30

I've looked at the time and I was thinking that. I've looked at the time and I was like, she's going to have to pick up her children, we're

0:58:08

also breastfeeding and we're recording.

0:58:10

I feel like I could dip in there.

0:58:12

I feel like that is something I will sit and reflect on, but I can feel myself pulling myself away from it now. We often, I think there's many people who understand this, but there's a culture and many of us don't, that you know, Michelle O'Donnell often says, you know, birth is not in the pelvis, it's in the mind. And I'm like, no, birth is definitely in the pelvis. It's also in the mind, but it's in our heart and it's in our herstory. And so what we turn up to birth with is all our stories. And so you know, when you started talking at the start, you were like, oh, my birth wasn't traumatic or particularly traumatic. And it's really interesting because as a culture, I think now we're really starting to talk about birth trauma. And so people automatically define what they believe is a traumatic birth. I truly believe that we don't get to experience birth without our wounds being exposed, without our stories being opened. And within those stories there is often hurts and offerings. And this is why I truly believe that every single birth story needs to be heard and worked through, because it is such a big life event that brings so much of ourselves to the surface. And then we're just left with it. And we're not only just left with it, we're left with it at a time where we then have to keep other humans alive.

0:59:44 Yeah.

0:59:45

And so what I see, the beautiful offering of birth trauma, that can sound really triggering for people that are experiencing it, they do see beautiful offerings in it, is this ability to, if there's space and someone to hold it for you, to pause and go, okay, what happened for me?

1:00:04

And why was it there?

1:00:05

And what is the offering in this? Now, people often talk about third babies being a wild card or whatever they wanna call it, and again, that can set people up. So, just birth is what it is, and it doesn't matter whether it's your first or your 14th. There will always be two stories in that verse, yours and the baby's. And so post-birth, it's always this beautiful time to actually reflect and go, what did that feel like for me?

1:00:36 And why?

1:00:37

And what is the offering that I can come away from this? What can I learn about myself and us as a family, and then you two as a diad, you and Sunny, and go, what is here for us? And what I'm hearing is what you already beautifully know about yourself is this pressure

1:01:00

to have things a certain way so that people are safe

1:01:04

or pressured to perform. And there's that part of you that definitely birthed in the Silly Little Girl space, and it may have only been there for a little bit, but most of us do. Most of us go back and actually labour in birth in the younger parts of us. Many women birth in the fawn state, where they're constantly people-pleasing, right? They go along with jokes, they put up with comments, they say certain things in order to keep everybody else in that room happy. Really, what I'm hearing for you is there was that thorn, that was the pressure, right? If birth happens this way, then everything will be okay. And then we look at, well, what did that feel like for you? Well, it felt like a lot of body constriction, it felt like a lot of tension, and it led to probably, did it feel like you labored a lot intellectually rather than instinctively?

1:01:57

Did it feel like you were in your, I really want to acknowledge that the mind is dispersed throughout the whole body, that that prefrontal cortex is where many of us labor and birth from, which is not the space that we're meant to dominate. And so a lot of the disappointment can actually come from, wow, I spent my labor and birth in a part of me that didn't feel good, which is the problem-saving brain, problem-solving brain, which is the prefrontal cortex, right? And so I like to call this that intellectual birth rather than the instinctual birth. Now, you've had the instinctual birth, you've dropped into your body in that second baby and you're like, wow, this is what birth can be. And so then to not get that that second time where you're actually, you know, and that probably is subconsciously happening here too, that comparison, and then to go into the shock, which feels completely different. And I just want to say I've had a beautiful physiological birth and also experienced shock postpartum and it doesn't feel good. And it does, you know, those baby blues and that can really be there from it because you actually miss out on that oxytocin because of that shock state. So when you have that labor that's like, are we in labor? Are we not? Are we in labor? Holy shit, I've just had a baby. What the fuck just happened? Bang, the oxytocin is gone because despite you not being in a life-threatening situation your body is in shock and so the dominant hormone there is adrenaline so those beautiful nourishing oxytocin hormones really go and again you spent so much of your labor in that prefrontal cortex just dominating in the intellect then you know would have really been shoved into your body very intensely very quickly and I just want to send a lot of love to your body and your baby for going through that. I've had a very intense birth myself and I think people who haven't had them really raise them up as wow that must be the most amazing thing ever to birth so quickly and it's not often. It's really it's a huge shock for both the person giving birth and the baby. So you're like intellect, intellect, intellect, instinct, intellect, right? Like this massive in my mind, in my mind, in my mind, holy shit, I have to be in my body now. What just happened back into my mind? And so there can be a lot of grief and disappointment around that, around actually not being in the body for what is meant to be a body experience. I don't know how that lands with you, Erin. I've just given you so much info. No, that honestly makes so much sense to me. That really does. That feels like that just, that is exactly what happened. And that is the difference between my birth with Zali. I was probably in the intellectual mind during the day with her, but as soon as I went into that space, I had a big cry. They just set up the space so beautifully, the music, the smells, the dark room, the candles. It was just perfect and I just really dropped into the body and I didn't talk and I felt really supportive about my husband and I just let it all happen. And then that's exactly it. Like, I hadn't been able to make sense of that. This one was just all in the head and then it just happened and I feel like I never got to that point of really... the room wasn't even as nice. That made a difference. I wanted to look into a home birth but my son really adamantly did not want to be here for it and I respected that because although I'd shown him a couple of videos and I tried to normalise it, he's sensitive, he just really didn't feel comfortable with that and I Was okay going through the birth center because I had such a nice experience last time, but this this room felt different and Yeah, you're right. It was too much talking too much thinking and problem-solving and making decisions and Thinking about others that I just never had that chance to really drop in So thank you. That's honestly been the most enlightening little explanation there. I also wonder how that birth was for Sunny. And I don't know how much you work around babies' trauma with their

births, but I would

1:06:21

be really curious to wonder about that. Yeah I feel like there's so much I want to give you now and keep talking with you about and a full disclaimer often when we do a birthday brief one kind of just skims the surface and then because birth is so big and it can bring up so much the story keeps unraveling so I'm not sure how long you've got but there is yeah there's definitely a big part of this for Bub as well. And so there's lots of different ways that we could go with this. We can do a reverse for you and actually connect you back into your body. And that may be something you feel comfortable to do, recorded or not. And we probably we don't have the time for it today. And it's something that's often really nice to do without Bub there, first of all. But just want to offer that, you know, I know you've done a lot of work and you could probably do this for yourself, so you can actually do that rebirth and allow that connection to the body. Because often that's what our trauma does, it disconnects our mind from our body. And often when the feelings are stuck, that connection needs to be reconnected. And so I often guide people through some beautiful visualizations and connection to their body and then a rebirth just to actually come back into the body and be with it and to get that experience. Because yeah, you were totally felt into the moment and then pulled straight back out of it and so there can be this real, the body is like, the body can feel very lost. And then our babies have their own beautiful story too and a big part of healing from birth. And I don't want to say birth trauma because I think we all need to. Birth is such a big experience that there is often healing for both of us that needs to occur just anyway, even if it was the perfect birth and I'm doing that in inverted commas and that definition is very much your own as well. But a beautiful thing we can do for our babies is actually talk to them. And you can do this, your baby is at that beautiful age where they're still really beautiful listening. And so you can tell them their birth story, or you can simply just hold them, even there's that quiet time just before they go to sleep and say, I'm here and I'm listening, if there's anything you want to tell me about your birth. And just allow them to actually make some noises or cry or anything like that. Often they will cry. I always say just creating that beautiful environment, it might be in the bath or the shower or somewhere where you can have just a little bit of skin to skin, where they're fed, you know, they're safe, they're warm, all the rest of it, and you two are just there together, and you might just want to retell the story. You can do it even when they're sleeping, so for those listening to this, if you've got older children, you can do it when they're six, they can eight, you might want to do it with both your older two as well when you lay there, because our brain is still very much open and absorbing when we're asleep. And it's fascinating to watch children in their sleep move as you tell them their birth story. So there's some beautiful things you can do. And then often, if we're just open to it, if we're just open to, I'm so willing to connect with you around our birth. I'm so willing for us to feel our feelings that we need to around this birth. Often children will bring things to us. So with babies it's a little bit different, but this really comes into trusting that our children and ourselves will heal when the time is right. And so you might notice that if you're open to it with your older kids, for example, they might come up and say, hey, I want to play out my birth again. And there's a lot of work that kids will do with slides and tunnels where they actually get to, or in the water in the pool where they actually get that rebirthing process. And you'll be like, holy shit, this is happening. This is what they talked about. This is that rebirth. I had a beautiful session with a woman once and they had another trip in the hospital many months, they had a home birth transfer and they had another trip in the ambulance many months later when the daughter was a lot older. And it was the original transfer, they had been separated and this transfer they were together. And she was like, we just had this incredible healing experience.

1:10:46

So just learning to think. I always wonder about my son as well, how much that separation impacted him as well. Yeah, there is a lot. So for him, for example, you might want to write him a letter that he never gets. But often once we move some things, it creates a space for them to then bring the parts of their story that they need to tell us, because it just enables us to be a bit more spacious to it. And our children are so beautiful at sensing when there's some space and they're like,

1:11:19

oh good, mom's got some space now, let's bring my birth story to her. So there's lots of beautiful things that you can do with each of the births and with each of your children if it feels right to create that spaciousness and heal with them. I'm a huge, huge believer in cranial osteopathy and allowing the body to have its story heard and especially for babies to allow the birth story to be heard. But for sure, our babies, it's their story. And sometimes birth is the way it needs to be because that's part of our baby's story and we're a passenger on that as well. And so it can be really beautiful to dive into what is there for them and what they need. But yeah, there is a lot of stuff that we can do around this, but I know that you haven't got much time for just really honoring how big it is, first of all, for you and for your babes, all three of them, and how much is packed into our births and the unraveling that needs to occur that so often doesn't have the space and time given to it. So just acknowledging that. And realising, while we talk about this, realising that it's not so much just about the way that he was born, it's everything leading up to it and everything afterwards as well.

1:12:37 Yeah.

1:12:39

Because if your body was feeling that pressure,

1:12:42

you know, that can feel that way for him. Saying that with a lot of love, obviously. Lots and lots of love. And just really wanting to say here that it's never too late for any of us to heal. And our job as parents is not to protect our children from everything. Our job is to just be there and hold a space for them to work through what they work through their stories, just like we're working through ours. And it sounds like you are doing such a beautiful job with all your kiddos for that. So just a lot of love, especially around that second relationship because I really hear that there's some big stuff there which we didn't have time to dive into either, but I can hear it.

1:13:28

It's nice to speak about it.

1:13:29

Yeah, and that's so much a part of our births especially. I think people just go, it's a baby coming out of the body, but it's all the relationships that exist around it. Not just if we've got other children,

1:13:41

but parents and the midwife, the doctor, there's so much to it. And also for anybody who is listening and worried about the dynamics with their child, like it was not the same with my firstborn. He just really adjusted so well and surprised me at he adjusted to his little sister and for Zali, although I've spoken about the hard parts, there are many, many, many beautiful parts as well and we still have an amazing relationship and there has been some really nice moments and it's not all, you know, our relationship isn't ruined or damaged, it's just like a rupture that we continually repair. Yeah. And grow from.

1:14:21

Yeah, and that's part of both of your stories, as your connection with each other.

1:14:25

That's, you know, our children so often bring us those beautiful pieces that we need to move. Yeah. And, you know, that's just the journey that you two have together. And the goal here is not to be 100% happy and connected all the time.

1:14:40 No, no.

1:14:41

Uncomfortable feelings are so very much allowed. It's just having the space to be able to feel them and process them. You have given that to me today, so thank you so much, Bee. That's honestly so beautiful and so therapeutic, and it just feels like your explanation at the end there was really eye-opening for me in making sense of that experience. So I cannot thank you enough. I'm really grateful that you would do this for me, recorded.

1:15:20

I feel it's been, you know, you said you were a bit anxious at the start. I was like, yeah, I'm feeling it too. It definitely felt different to a session I would normally do. I think, you know, I got that performance anxiety too. You did great. Well, just yeah, really honouring that you've come on to tell your story and just inviting you to just tune into that tension. And you can even ask it, right? You can say, okay, what do you need to say?

1:15:53

And then you may even just want to do this now just to finish up with, can you ask it

1:15:57

what does it need to hear?

1:16:00

I'm trying to do that.

1:16:13

With a baby?

1:16:14

I'm feeling, yeah. It might not be the right time. Yeah, I feel like I've come out of it. Yeah. So yes, I will do that.

1:16:25

I will practice that. And the other thing that can be really nice too is if you do feel that tension feeling, just some beautiful somatic stuff where you like can shake or making that noise, but shaking is a beautiful thing, even just some beautiful tapping on the body, just you know, and it might be something along the lines of just giving yourself that beautiful validation of my worthiness is not wrapped up in my performance. Or I don't have to perform to keep everybody else happy. Or I am enough no matter what this situation, however this situation unfolds, I am enough. I'm just throwing out some things there, really whatever lands for you, that that tension needs to hear. And often when we say that tension, okay, what do you need to hear? It can so beautifully give us the answer. I truly believe the body has all the answers that we need. And if in that, yeah, and when we do that rebirth, I often connect people with their heart and their womb, and the womb is so intelligent. It has some beautiful answers. So if you feel like doing any of that, you can connect into the womb and just say, what do I need to hear? And see what it gives you. All right, I will practice all of that.

1:17:46

Thank you so much for your time.

1:17:47

Thank you so much. I appreciate you so much. So anyone listening who wants to do a birth debrief

with you, they can, right? That's something that you offer.

1:17:57

Yeah, I'm pretty booked out. I'm like six months booked out at the moment but I have a beautiful team that is working with me that offer exactly the same services and I'm now training more and more people in the techniques that we use with Lael Stone. So Lael and I together over at Motheration, our other company that we are co-owning together, are teaching birth debrief mentorships. So there'll be two programs next year for birth workers, social workers, anyone that kind of wants to learn the techniques. We do that, but yeah, I have a whole team that works with me. And you can, yeah, if you're booking with me, you can certainly book in with me too. Yeah, I do face-to-face and internal release work.

1:18:38

I do a lot of that now too through the vagina and giving that incredible sacred space its

1:18:44 power back.

1:18:45

So, as you said, just didn't like that everyone was in there. Just as your mind has a story, often, and this can seem a bit out there for a lot of people, but our vaginas have a lot of story. They hold a lot of story, and connecting with them through a really safe touch can be an

1:18:59

incredible way for them to actually have their story.

1:19:02

I feel like we have a lot more to talk about. We'll have to get you back.

1:19:06

For part two.

1:19:07

Thank you so much for having me on.

1:19:08

Thank you so much, Bea.

1:19:09

I can't wait to come into the membership and do some stuff there as well.

1:19:10

I know, we can't wait to have you. Thank you so much, Bea. Normally, I just say that this keeps unraveling and all the feelings can start to just really come to the surface. I always say just warn your partner. Bea said I might have a fight with you. I would never take it out on my gorgeous husband. It's just something I would never do.

1:19:39

Sometimes the big feelings can be there and what that can look like is us aggressing and

1:19:45

it can be with our children or our partners or some random down the street. It'll probably be both of them.

1:19:51

Or we can suppress.

1:19:52

Yeah, the dog.

1:19:53

The poor dog copset.

1:19:54

The poor dog.

1:19:55

Yeah, so maybe just send a text to the dog. Yeah, let her know.

1:19:59

But just what I always say is just go super slowly, really lots of compassion to yourself. Try and nourish your body and mind over the next couple of days because it will keep unraveling. And if there's any space to give those feelings some space to actually move. And so, you know, maybe it's exercise for you because that's what that tension feels like it needs. So just inviting you to just have some awareness around what it feels like in the next couple of days and give it what it needs, whether that's writing a letter, whether it's recreating your birth, whether it's just voice noting a friend and saying, you know what, actually that birth felt a little bit powerless and I'm really disappointed about that and I really wanted to be in my body and I didn't get to and I'm upset about that. Whatever is there, just actually getting it out.

1:20:46

Alright, thank you honey. Thank you so much, Bea. I'll talk to you soon.

1:20:51 Awesome.

1:20:52 See ya.

1:20:53 Bye.

1:20:54

Bye. Thank you so much for listening to Mama Chatters. If you enjoyed this episode, let's continue the conversation on Instagram at mamamatters.au. Be sure to share this ep with your family and friends, and don't forget, if you liked it, please leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. it, please leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you again, and I will see you next time.