Transcript
Speaker: One, two, boobies.
Speaker: One, two, boobies.
Speaker: One, two, boobies.
Speaker: One, boobies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hi everyone, I'm your host, Molly Ryder.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast, More Milk Please, baby feeding stories from Moms Plus, like me and you.
Speaker: This podcast is designed to be a safe space for women plus to come together and share baby feeding stories.
Speaker: Whether you are expecting or thinking about having kids, a mom, non-binary, an aunt, grandma, or a caregiver, you are welcome.
Speaker: because we hear it all.
Speaker: From breastfeeding and pumping to tube feeding, bottles, formula, frozen milk, and weaning, our worldwide community is here, connecting over some of our most nerve-wracking and intimate moments.
Speaker: I am so glad you're here, dear listener.
Speaker: Oh my goodness, my mom's plus.
Speaker: I hope that you find connection and belonging as you listen.
Speaker: And if this podcast or me or our guests or the stories mean something to you, it would mean the world to me if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to rate and review the podcast.
Speaker: It helps new Moms Plus find us so these stories can support even more baby feeding adults in
Speaker: out there in the wild world of parenting.
Speaker: To do this, just go to the More Milk Please show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and just hit the plus sign in the top right-hand corner.
Speaker: Of course, the more stars you're willing to give, the better.
Speaker: And I so appreciate hearing your thoughts.
Speaker: So if you could please leave a comment, that'd be amazing.
Speaker: I check and read them all and feel immense joy over each one.
Speaker: So thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: So much love and hugs.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Today, I am so excited to be interviewing an incredible woman that I have known since I was in fourth grade and I signed up for the local Parks and Rec track and field.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we did like pizza relays around the track.
Speaker: And then later on in high school, she was my cross country coach and she led us to New England champions.
Speaker: Such a cool year.
Speaker: I have so many incredible memories with this woman.
Speaker: So please help me in welcoming Barb Higgins.
Speaker: Barb, welcome to More Milk, please.
Speaker: Thank you for being here today.
Speaker: Molly, it's amazing.
Speaker: I was just looking through Facebook and email and things, and we have such a long history, like forever history.
Speaker: And I remember when Gracie was born, you and Ember were like a huge piece of bringing me little maternity outfits and coming to see Gracie and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And that was a long time ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, my history with you was forever and ever.
Speaker: I remember teaching Ember to drive and we went to your house and she drove off the road and we had to dig her out of the snow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So many good, so many good memories.
Speaker: So first of all, two congratulations on Luna.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I know how fun, how exciting and fun and terrifying it is to have a baby.
Speaker: And you're the exact age that I was when I had Gracie.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: That gives me hope.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, Barb, can you start by sharing a little bit about you and your family?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So I'm Barb Higgins and I live in Concord, New Hampshire, which is essentially where I've lived my whole life.
Speaker: I spent 10 years in Boston when I went to school at BU.
Speaker: And I was never going to have kids in terms of my relationship to this podcast and this topic.
Speaker: I had a really rough childhood and a lot of abuse and I was like, I'm stopping it.
Speaker: And so I thought by the way to stop it was to not have kids.
Speaker: And so I waited a long time.
Speaker: I was well into my thirties before I met Kenny and
Speaker: And actually my first pregnancy, I didn't even know about or plan.
Speaker: So had that not happened, I probably would never have had kids.
Speaker: I was a school teacher for 20 years, actually more than that, because I teach at an online charter school currently, track and field and cross country coach.
Speaker: Now I'm an author, a podcaster, a blogger, a CrossFit coach.
Speaker: and a million other things.
Speaker: But number one, number one job for now and forever is being a mom.
Speaker: So I've given birth to four babies, two live in heaven.
Speaker: So baby Gordy was born sleeping.
Speaker: And I'll talk about him in a bit more detail.
Speaker: A year before I had Gracie, that was in the summer of 2000, even before I got, a year before I got married.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was the summer of 1999.
Speaker: And I was 36 at the time, 35 turning 36.
Speaker: And so I was considered a geriatric pregnancy.
Speaker: Little did they know then.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then after that experience, he was 25 weeks in my tummy.
Speaker: After that experience, we had Gracie in April of 2001 and then Molly in April of 2003.
Speaker: Molly died in 2016.
Speaker: And this Molly right here was instrumental in raising a tummy.
Speaker: ton of money for my family, which allowed us to function without worrying about work for several months after Molly died.
Speaker: That was, I will never be able to express my appreciation for that.
Speaker: And so shortly after that, I started having all these weird dreams, which I'll also get into more in a bit.
Speaker: So I had Gracie at 38, Molly at 40 and Jack Jack at 57.
Speaker: So 57 year old bodies can grow and deliver babies in case anyone asks.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: Well, so before, before you had any babies, what was your thought process around breastfeeding or not breastfeeding?
Speaker: So my mom breastfed all of us and all of us were born in the sixties.
Speaker: And that was a time where women were discouraged from breastfeeding, like really discouraged.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: given vitamin K shots, given anesthesia and knocked out the surgeons, removed the babies.
Speaker: Like you would just, it was just this sterile impersonal, the dads just dropped the mothers off and went home.
Speaker: But my mother nursed all of us.
Speaker: And I remember actually bringing a nursing bra for show and tell when I was in kindergarten.
Speaker: So my kindergarten teacher retired the year after I had her and she had been teaching for 40 years.
Speaker: So I was in kindergarten in 1968.
Speaker: So she started teaching in 1928.
Speaker: So she thought my mother was a hippie and she, you know, the whole thing disgusted her.
Speaker: But I brought this nursing bra in, which, you know, you could unhook it and out came your boob and you didn't have to take off your shirt.
Speaker: And so when I was explaining it and when I explained the milk coming out, I was very specific that it shot in every different direction, that it wasn't just one little nipple hole.
Speaker: It went everywhere.
Speaker: So I got let out of the classroom by my braids.
Speaker: So even though I spent most of my teen and early adult life thinking I wasn't going to have children, it never crossed my mind not to breastfeed or at least go down that route.
Speaker: As you know, the babies decide.
Speaker: So always, and I had a very, very healthy attitude around it.
Speaker: My biological father is an OBGYN and he was very, very insistent that breast is best.
Speaker: And that's cool.
Speaker: We're luckier now than even then, but there are some pretty amazing formulas now, which sit better with me.
Speaker: But, you know, and again, I know that for me, breastfeeding is how I want to do it.
Speaker: I have incredible faith.
Speaker: So I have a friend group.
Speaker: There's four of us.
Speaker: Two of us breastfed, total earth mothers, family bed, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And the other two are like, nope, nope, nope, business, business, business.
Speaker: And we all have amazing kids, right?
Speaker: And our kids are loved and supported and healthy and well.
Speaker: But I knew for me that I just saw myself nursing my kids.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's so cool.
Speaker: I love that show on health story.
Speaker: I got in a lot of trouble.
Speaker: The principal loved me.
Speaker: She's like, what did you do now?
Speaker: I'm like, well, I talked about boobs.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know if you want to start with Gordy, but like sharing your first birth experience and how it went with the fact that your boobs were engorged.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I have from 1999 to 2021.
Speaker: So that's 22 years time between first delivery and most recent delivery.
Speaker: I won't say last.
Speaker: So I know better now.
Speaker: And so when I, you know, my pregnancy with baby Gordy, I was on the pill and every April I would go off the pill and to get my period.
Speaker: Cause I was running and thin and I didn't get a period when I took the pill.
Speaker: So I just felt like my uterus needed to do its thing.
Speaker: At least once a year, I had a big heavy period at the end of April and
Speaker: That year went back on the pill in may and I had all these weird changes in my body and I thought it was just okay Maybe I need a different pill.
Speaker: I was my boobs were huge Which I didn't mind so much, but I didn't understand it and I kept gaining weight and I was just in a foul mood and I woke up one morning at the end of june And I was lying on my stomach and I just knew i'm like wait a minute
Speaker: There's something in my stomach.
Speaker: So I did a pregnancy test and the line just exploded.
Speaker: So I went to my doctor that day.
Speaker: I needed blood work and I was 14 weeks pregnant.
Speaker: So I didn't even, you know, they did an ultrasound and all this measuring and stuff.
Speaker: So I didn't even know I was pregnant for 14 weeks.
Speaker: So because I was old at 30, 35, turning 36 or 36, turning 37.
Speaker: 36 turning 37, I had to have an amniocentesis.
Speaker: So they take a big needle into your belly to take out amniotic fluid and they test for all sorts of things.
Speaker: And it was at that test that I found out that baby Gordy had an incredibly convoluted and complicated heart defect.
Speaker: Two chambers, not four.
Speaker: The heart was upside down.
Speaker: So the ventricles were, yeah, the ventricles were on top and the atrium was down here.
Speaker: So the suction wouldn't work.
Speaker: And then the great arteries were transposed.
Speaker: So the pulmonary artery and the aortic artery were backwards.
Speaker: So it was basically upside down and backwards and only two chambers.
Speaker: which is fine when you're a frog baby floating along in amniotic fluid and living like a fish.
Speaker: But the moment that baby would have been born, Gordy, he would have just slowly drowned.
Speaker: So the six weeks I knew him, yeah, about maybe seven, from the beginning of July until the end of August.
Speaker: That whole summer, of course, I told nobody that I was pregnant.
Speaker: I mean, I'm getting bigger and bigger and wearing baggy clothes and all, but I only knew him for a couple of months.
Speaker: And I only knew him by watching him on the ultrasound.
Speaker: And I will say he was, he sucked his thumb.
Speaker: He grabbed his peepee.
Speaker: He put his feet in his mouth.
Speaker: Like they just do the most amazing things.
Speaker: But every test just revealed one more thing, one more thing.
Speaker: So I made a very, very difficult decision to induce labor, which I know a lot of hardcore anti-
Speaker: abortionists would consider murder.
Speaker: He didn't last even two hours into the first round of contractions.
Speaker: I had the liminaria put up into my cervix.
Speaker: I went the next day, had Pitocin.
Speaker: He was, believe it or not, my longest labor.
Speaker: One pound, nine ounce baby Gordy was like 16 hours from the first shot of Pitocin to when I finally sneezed him out.
Speaker: It just took a long time, but he was perfectly formed.
Speaker: He had
Speaker: Some funny facial issues and ear and things like this, but we made the next hard decision to donate his body.
Speaker: So we donated his body to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia because they have an amazing neonatal cardiac research hospital and care unit.
Speaker: We were able to find out that it would have just been a slow, you know, five minutes to 15 minutes, slow death, you know, sort of drowning situation.
Speaker: You know, so I like to think in my tummy that the contractions didn't hurt him, but his body didn't withstand them at all.
Speaker: It didn't take long at all for there to be no heartbeat.
Speaker: So we had a very emotional goodbye.
Speaker: And then I came home and put it away.
Speaker: So the breastfeeding piece of this is no one even talked to me about it.
Speaker: that the fact that I might have a rush of milk.
Speaker: And I went from like a 34B on a good day to these massive, huge, engorged, painful boobs.
Speaker: And I didn't even know what to do.
Speaker: I called my OB and he was like, well, you know, you could take a warm shower that would alleviate it, but the milk will come out.
Speaker: So you'll keep producing milk.
Speaker: And so essentially I was just told to wrap them up as tightly as I could stand and ice them.
Speaker: And eventually it would go away.
Speaker: Knowing what I know now about milk donation, I would have happily pumped my boobs for a couple of months to give other moms milk.
Speaker: But that wasn't even on the table in 1999.
Speaker: So I will say it was fascinating to me that my little teeny runner boobs were like...
Speaker: I can't even, I remember hugging a girl named Kathleen Jones.
Speaker: I don't know if you ever knew Kathleen.
Speaker: She's ahead of you, I think.
Speaker: And she hugged me and she goes, dang, you got some boobs, girl.
Speaker: And I'm just like, yeah, I've gained some weight.
Speaker: Like, you know, what do you say?
Speaker: You can't, I can't use, but that pregnancy and that time falling in love with this invisible human in my belly made me realize that I wanted to have kids.
Speaker: And so I,
Speaker: After his delivery and the body donation, we got an autopsy report that confirmed our fears.
Speaker: And then a couple of years later, we got an update that they were able to utilize to take his little teeny tiny heart and replicate it like on a 3D printer.
Speaker: So they can fix it.
Speaker: So they can do like surgery before the babies are born now that fixes it enough to give the baby time to have surgery once it's born.
Speaker: So like 11 babies with this particular defect have been able to be born.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I have to feel okay about that.
Speaker: You know, I mean, I'm not okay about losing a baby, but there was a method to it.
Speaker: Like at least his death could help someone else.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was, that was Gordy.
Speaker: And then, and then when that all happened and Kenny and I sort of wrapped our heads around it and got through it, we just focused on being really healthy because we all know as mothers, we own it.
Speaker: If something goes wrong.
Speaker: So I, like, I changed my diet and I stopped consuming alcohol and I did all of these things to just become super healthy so that when we decided to make a baby, that everything would be fine, even though the defect was just one of those anomalies of nature.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Gracie came along 2001.
Speaker: I got pregnant with her in August, almost a year to the day after losing baby Gordy.
Speaker: And she was born in April.
Speaker: And again, with her, I knew that I would nurse.
Speaker: I did childbirth classes and I did a little bit on breastfeeding.
Speaker: And there was a lactation specialist in the hospital.
Speaker: But I have to be honest, this book was written like...
Speaker: you know, in the 1970s or eighties, and it's called the womanly art of breastfeeding.
Speaker: And even the title is just so old school.
Speaker: That book, I had so many questions answered in that book.
Speaker: I don't even know if it's in print anymore.
Speaker: And I read that what to expect when you're expecting, but you know, I just, I was busy.
Speaker: I was coaching.
Speaker: I was coaching you at the time.
Speaker: That was your senior year.
Speaker: And so I just, you know, I was busy with a million things.
Speaker: And one of the things I was busy with was growing a baby.
Speaker: Gracie came out and the first thing she did was latch onto the boob and she stayed there for about 12 weeks.
Speaker: The only place she was happy was there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I had all your standard, typical like little scabs on my nipples.
Speaker: Cause she nurse and nurse, you know, just nursing.
Speaker: When I think, when I read now about tongue ties, that was a word that didn't even exist either for me.
Speaker: No,
Speaker: babies, no babies were diagnosed with tongue ties.
Speaker: It was just difficult to nurse.
Speaker: Why don't you do a bottle?
Speaker: Gracie, Gracie was only, only nursed.
Speaker: She got plenty of milk right away, but it beat the, beat the crap out of my boobs for a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I had plenty of milk.
Speaker: The milk would rush in.
Speaker: I remember starkly remember the first time I had really noticeable letdown and you get the tingles under your armpits and then the milk.
Speaker: And I'm just like, Whoa,
Speaker: Like all of it was just coming to it from an athletic standpoint.
Speaker: I just felt like my body was the coolest thing.
Speaker: Like, Oh my God, like it grew this thing.
Speaker: And now it feeds this thing.
Speaker: You know, um, I will say Gracie was overwhelming.
Speaker: She was very needy.
Speaker: She wanted to nurse.
Speaker: If I was home, she could smell me.
Speaker: I swear.
Speaker: I had to be holding her and she had to be on the boobs.
Speaker: So I very quickly realized that my boobs were now available for public viewing because I wasn't, I wasn't going to make her cry because I might offend somebody.
Speaker: And so I nursed her everywhere.
Speaker: I nursed her in the press box at track meets.
Speaker: I nursed her.
Speaker: I went to my stepdaughter, Katie softball games.
Speaker: I just looked up my shirt and nursed her.
Speaker: I mean, I, I didn't take my shirt off, but you know, I just, we had a coach's meeting and Bill Whitmore, the athletic director was like, you know, you can go to the hall and nurse her.
Speaker: I'm like, or I can just nurse her right here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, like, okay, am I bothering you?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: I said, look the other direction.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You can look at him while you talk.
Speaker: So I have to say I'm unbelievably lucky in that breastfeeding came very easily to me.
Speaker: My one experience with a lactation consultant at that time is that she came in and I didn't really need help.
Speaker: I'm like, nope, I'm doing fine.
Speaker: She's nursed.
Speaker: My milk came in really quickly and she just felt compelled to make sure I was doing it right.
Speaker: And I remember she like grabbed Gracie's head and just shoved her face onto my boob.
Speaker: Like really Gracie cried.
Speaker: It hurt.
Speaker: And I'm just like, what, what is that?
Speaker: Well, she's not on there firmly enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, well, let's let her decide.
Speaker: Like, you know, she, when I pick her up, she roots, you know, she looks for me and she was getting plenty of milk.
Speaker: So, so I found it, that was really bothering to me.
Speaker: Like it just irked me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The other memory that's strong.
Speaker: And I've just, I got this from your last podcast episode is when you're away from your baby.
Speaker: So they had to take her to do, maybe to give her a shot or do something.
Speaker: And Kenny was coming to visit.
Speaker: And I, all of a sudden I'm like, okay, it's been like, where is she?
Speaker: So I go out in the hall and my Johnny and I'm just looking around and
Speaker: And Kenny's like, you were just looking like you lost your best friend.
Speaker: I'm like, because I just needed her back.
Speaker: Like it was just so odd not to have her.
Speaker: So I remember that as well.
Speaker: So nursing wise, Gracie was super easy.
Speaker: The milk came right away.
Speaker: Pumping was difficult.
Speaker: Again, that was something I hadn't even really heard of either.
Speaker: And the pumps leading up to, you know, pumps you could plug in or have batteries were
Speaker: were these hand pumps, you squeeze them.
Speaker: And my mother said, pumping is horrible.
Speaker: If you don't want to pump, don't do it and all this.
Speaker: But what worked for me was first thing is I do co-sleeping.
Speaker: So I felt like I had to sit up and nurse her at first.
Speaker: And so I'd be like half asleep and falling asleep and trying to nurse her.
Speaker: And then one night it was summer.
Speaker: I took my shirt off because it was hot and I just laid down on my side with her.
Speaker: And I woke up like three hours later and she found it all by herself.
Speaker: Like I woke up and she was nursing and I'm like,
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: It's like a self-serve.
Speaker: It's like a drive-through.
Speaker: It's the best thing ever.
Speaker: So I would nurse all night on one side.
Speaker: So I'd wake up in the room with one very empty boob and one giant full boob.
Speaker: And I would pump that boob.
Speaker: I would just pump the milk.
Speaker: So I would get six to eight ounces every morning.
Speaker: And then the next night, Kenny and I would switch sides and I would sleep on the other side and nurse her all night on that one.
Speaker: and pump the other one.
Speaker: It took about eight weeks.
Speaker: I was home, so I didn't need to pump so much, but I wanted her to be able to drink from a bottle.
Speaker: And so we gave her bottles long before she needed them.
Speaker: And she was great.
Speaker: As long as it was my mother or Kenny feeding her the bottle, she drank it right down.
Speaker: So that was easy.
Speaker: In those early weeks when she was really tearing up your boobs, did you find that any like, like Vaseline or coconut oil or what?
Speaker: Yeah, I use again, coconut oil didn't exist either.
Speaker: I use like, yeah, lanolin and then another one.
Speaker: And I use sometimes chapstick, no lie, like Burt's Bees.
Speaker: And I would just like chapstick up my boobs.
Speaker: Carmex, that's really minty and sharp.
Speaker: So I didn't use that a ton because it would bother her mouth.
Speaker: But yeah, I used anything that you would put on like chap lips or whatever.
Speaker: And I remember one time nursing her and she opens her mouth and there's a little scab on her tongue from my nipple.
Speaker: But that went away and it never happened again.
Speaker: If you're a breastfeeding mom thinking about breastfeeding or are an underproducer like me, get your hands on my free 10 best breastfeeding and pumping tips because you deserve an easier pain-free experience.
Speaker: Seriously, I want you to feel victorious in your breastfeeding and pumping.
Speaker: So go to mollywriter.com forward slash top 10 milk tips to get your copy today.
Speaker: So Gracie stopped nursing at 14 months.
Speaker: Let me also say all she had was breast milk for 10 months, nothing else.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Just the boobs.
Speaker: And again, I'm lucky.
Speaker: I don't say that to be boastful or to show off.
Speaker: No, but it's still impressive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then she nursed until she was 14 months.
Speaker: And then what happened is I got pregnant with Molly in my, actually like 16 months.
Speaker: And then my milk changed.
Speaker: I think it just changed a bit, which can happen.
Speaker: She didn't like it anymore.
Speaker: So of course, when you have, when you have your next baby, if that's in your plans, all you can do is picture the baby you have, right?
Speaker: So I'm growing Molly.
Speaker: But I'm picturing Gracie and I'm remembering all my experiences with Gracie.
Speaker: And then Molly comes out.
Speaker: And so I'm expecting her to go right on the boob.
Speaker: While Molly had meconium in her water, they had to break her water and she had pooped in there.
Speaker: So they had to bring all this heavy machinery in and everything else.
Speaker: So I didn't get to have her from vagina to tummy.
Speaker: She had to go and get cleaned up and all that.
Speaker: So by the time she came to me, she looked like, what the hell?
Speaker: I didn't sign up for this.
Speaker: And she didn't nurse for like two days.
Speaker: She was very comfortable.
Speaker: She she'd cry a little bit, but she didn't want the boob.
Speaker: And I didn't have this big rush of milk.
Speaker: And so I remember thinking that maybe something was wrong.
Speaker: So I was a bit panicky.
Speaker: But then I would say she was born on a Tuesday afternoon by Thursday morning, which is when we were leaving the hospital.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She had her first big nurse and then the milk just came.
Speaker: So I went home with my big old milkers.
Speaker: And again, Molly, Molly had no trouble nursing either, but she was completely different than Gracie.
Speaker: She didn't need it all the time.
Speaker: When she was done nursing, she was ready to be put down.
Speaker: She didn't need to just stay and stay.
Speaker: Gracie would just stay on the boob.
Speaker: Like, okay, I'm done drinking, but I'm going to hang out at the bar and talk to the bartender, you know, like she didn't want to leave.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Molly was very happy to have her milk and be on her way, which was a relief because I was balancing Gracie and Molly now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Gracie was a super picky eater, like didn't like anything.
Speaker: She ate like five foods for the first three years of her life and they were all yellow and they were all yellow.
Speaker: like processed.
Speaker: Molly ate everything.
Speaker: If Kenny was having like salmon, you know, she'd eat salmon.
Speaker: Like she was just a very different eater.
Speaker: So she also was strictly breast milk from April 1st when she was born until December.
Speaker: And then I had some kidney stones and I was in the hospital overnight and I had to,
Speaker: have the dye and all this.
Speaker: So I couldn't nurse her for a couple of days.
Speaker: So, and I hadn't pumped ahead.
Speaker: And so she did some formula for a couple of weeks, like liquid formula by then, cause she was older and then, but then right back to nursing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My big breastfeeding story with Molly was new England's outdoor track and field.
Speaker: So she was born April 1st, new England's or June 13th.
Speaker: So, you know, she's,
Speaker: 10 weeks old.
Speaker: So I'm going to be gone from six in the morning until 10 at night.
Speaker: So I was, I, so I had frozen milk.
Speaker: She was all set.
Speaker: So I packed a breast pump.
Speaker: I packed bottles.
Speaker: I packed coolers, all these things to pump on the bus during the track meet off.
Speaker: I go to Connecticut.
Speaker: So it gets to be like two in the afternoon.
Speaker: I'm like, Oh my God, I have to pump.
Speaker: And I can't find the bag.
Speaker: So I call Kenny and sure enough, I left it here.
Speaker: And
Speaker: So the bus driver was great.
Speaker: He's like, I'll go to Walmart if you want.
Speaker: I'll get your breast pump.
Speaker: And I'm like, no, I'll be fine.
Speaker: So I put a second sports bra on.
Speaker: It got to be six o'clock.
Speaker: We're getting on the bus to come home.
Speaker: We're driving and it's a three hour drive.
Speaker: And it was the longest three.
Speaker: Every time we hit a bump, I was like, oh,
Speaker: So, so then I took an ACE bandage out of the med kit and I wrapped that around.
Speaker: And then one of the shop putters said, do you want my, want another sports bra?
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, I put the sports bra on like over my long sleeve.
Speaker: Like Chelsea Pollack, did you know Chelsea?
Speaker: She was, she was on the team then she was a senior.
Speaker: So I had the bus drop me off here at my house and I had called ahead to Kenny.
Speaker: So I had several breast pumps and some of them were like little single ones.
Speaker: So I could do one boob at a time.
Speaker: So you can put one bottle.
Speaker: I had a double breast pump, so you could do them at once.
Speaker: So Kenny had them all set up on the kitchen table and he put it in.
Speaker: I sat on the toilet seat in the bathroom because there was a plug right there.
Speaker: He put like towels down and everything.
Speaker: So I did the double one first with eight ounce bottles.
Speaker: And seriously, it was like four pumps and the bottles were full.
Speaker: The milk was ridiculous.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So in the time that the bus driver dropped me off until Chelsea came back with my car and the keys, I pumped 64 ounces of milk.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: 10 minutes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was like, okay.
Speaker: I nursed her and there was plenty of milk.
Speaker: So we all have those little stories that we just will never forget.
Speaker: And I remember saying to Chelsea, someday when you h ave a baby, you're going to remember this because they walk in and they're like, what are we looking at?
Speaker: Cause it's like bottles and a bunch of four ounce bottles.
Speaker: And, and I have no bra on at all.
Speaker: Now I'm just wearing a t-shirt and I'm like, yeah, it was pretty amazing.
Speaker: And Molly stopped at two and a half.
Speaker: I had to have surgery and it just seemed like a logical time to stop.
Speaker: It was the end of August.
Speaker: School was starting up and I had to have a hernia repair.
Speaker: And so I just said, okay, Badoot's all done.
Speaker: Let's say goodbye.
Speaker: And she was good about it.
Speaker: She was really hardly nursing at all, morning and night primarily.
Speaker: I mean, she was ready.
Speaker: I mean, it was fine.
Speaker: And I had a little bit of a hospital stay.
Speaker: So it was a few nights where she broke the pattern.
Speaker: And that was that.
Speaker: So I thought that would be my breastfeeding story.
Speaker: When you were in the hospital, then was because you guys were breastfeeding so minimally, did it not hurt as much?
Speaker: Or did you have to like wrap again?
Speaker: Do you remember?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: My hospital stay with Molly was, was, was fine.
Speaker: Like the, when the lactation folks came in, I'm like, nope, I'm all set.
Speaker: She's doing great.
Speaker: And I was a little concerned that she hadn't nursed yet, but I didn't voice it because I didn't want them to shove her face onto me.
Speaker: Like I didn't want them to assume that it had to be a certain way.
Speaker: And when I talk to moms about nursing now and breastfeeding, I just always say, advocate, advocate, advocate your boobs, your baby, your
Speaker: And there's sometimes we have to not overtake instinct.
Speaker: Mothers and babies have been nursing for since the beginning of humanity.
Speaker: And there weren't lactation specialists when we lived in caves and in the woods, we figured it out.
Speaker: If we couldn't nurse a wet nurse did like, you know, there was ways to figure it out.
Speaker: And so I always tried to fall back on instinct first.
Speaker: And I mean, that's my nature.
Speaker: I didn't like, I don't like being told what to do.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Even if eventually I do what I'm told, it's a process for me.
Speaker: And so I didn't share too much about, I'm like, nope, she's nursing just fine.
Speaker: She's doing great.
Speaker: And she did.
Speaker: She nursed just fine.
Speaker: So it was sort of more of the same with her.
Speaker: I did the same pumping strategy, nurse on one side, pump on the other.
Speaker: And that worked really well for me.
Speaker: And those were just, I think they were Medela pumps.
Speaker: They're the kind you just go buy at Target, nothing fancy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then when you went in for surgery at two and a half years, did you, while you're at the hospital, did you have to do anything for?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: It was, we, she had weaned enough that I didn't, I had no trouble.
Speaker: Like I didn't, I didn't have any engorgement.
Speaker: I didn't have any, nope.
Speaker: It just, my, my boobs actually totally disappeared for a while.
Speaker: And I lost like eight pounds for no reason, except that I wasn't nursing anymore.
Speaker: Um, and I remember going back to school and everyone's like, dang, you lost a lot of weight.
Speaker: And I was worried that I would just be completely flat chested.
Speaker: And I have to say after a few months, you know, everything, my body sort of got back to normal and I had, uh, bigger boobs after two babies than before, which is often the opposite.
Speaker: My, my track team from BU, we all get together and share stories and stuff.
Speaker: And I'm the only one who's hit with, of us that have had children that had bigger boobs when I was done.
Speaker: Yay for me.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: I mean, big 34B on a bad day now instead of a good day.
Speaker: That's my version of big.
Speaker: No, I feel you.
Speaker: I similarly am like triple A, you know, and we're still breastfeeding, but I'm like, oh man, is this going to like, just be really pathetic after, but it's nice to know that there's hope, like maybe a few months after that it could come back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They come back.
Speaker: Maybe they'll come back.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Just a B would be really, I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you know, awesome.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well then a long span of time and Jack, Jack.
Speaker: And then along comes Jack.
Speaker: So also with Gracie and Molly and with baby Gordy, quite honestly, I love being pregnant, minimal troubles with pregnancy, no morning sickness.
Speaker: I had food aversions, very different ones, each pregnancy, Gracie, I couldn't stand meat.
Speaker: Molly, um, actually with Molly, I could, I had no food aversions at all.
Speaker: And I ran, I worked out, like I was never, ever uncomfortable.
Speaker: I really liked being pregnant.
Speaker: Jack, it was an IVF process, so it's totally out of your control.
Speaker: They control everything.
Speaker: So actually I'd already gone through menopause.
Speaker: And so it's easier on the fertility doctor's side
Speaker: for someone like me, cause they don't have to shut anything down.
Speaker: They're not fighting my body.
Speaker: They're just plugging it back in.
Speaker: So it's all, you know, shots of estrogen, pills of estrogen, progesterone, all the balance patches.
Speaker: You have all these different things.
Speaker: Change the patch at two o'clock, do a shot at six o'clock, take the pills at midnight.
Speaker: Like, you know, it's all this, this intricate balance of, of hormones and control.
Speaker: Did you have to find a doctor who was willing to do this?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So I had all these dreams and it was after Molly died.
Speaker: And so of course I thought I was nuts.
Speaker: Like, okay, I'm losing my mind, but they were very, very persistent.
Speaker: When you lose a child, I will say, and I know it's hard for new moms, especially, but any mom to hear about child loss.
Speaker: But if that ever happens to anyone that listens to this podcast, I am a phone call away 24-7 because all we can do is share our experiences.
Speaker: And what I noticed after Molly's death is that I became very connected to whatever the afterworld is or the other side or the energy of the universe that transcends our physical reality because I had to believe that she was somewhere.
Speaker: And so what's happened is I have this incredibly keen...
Speaker: connection now to energy like love.
Speaker: So I just tried to tune into that when I started having these dreams that I should have a baby.
Speaker: Like, okay, maybe it's nothing to do with Molly.
Speaker: Maybe it's nothing to do with me.
Speaker: Maybe it's just some universal message that this is supposed to happen.
Speaker: So I have a doctor here.
Speaker: Dr. Shattery was my local OB.
Speaker: And actually first I went to a nurse practitioner that I'd gone to for a long time and she yelled at me.
Speaker: That is irresponsible.
Speaker: I just yelled at me.
Speaker: I just sat there looking at her like, how dare it?
Speaker: Like, you can disagree with me, but I'm not like I so I changed practices.
Speaker: I took I when I went down to check out, I said, I'd like all my records, please.
Speaker: I'm not coming back.
Speaker: So I went to Dr. Chaudhary and he was great.
Speaker: He's like, well, if anyone could pull it off, it'd be you and let's do some blood work.
Speaker: So I went into trauma induced menopause.
Speaker: Molly died in May.
Speaker: We were all having our periods together, Gracie, Molly and I. And then I went to Dr. Chaudhary in October because this dream wouldn't let up and I hadn't had a period since then.
Speaker: And he said, this is 2016.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he said, your blood levels don't indicate menopause, but the fact that you haven't had a period, you know, you're right on the cusp here.
Speaker: And so he was bummed out that he couldn't sort of facilitate the whole IVF process because Dartmouth Hitchcock stops at 49.
Speaker: You have to be under 50, but he had worked with a couple of women in their fifties because they had come to his practice already pregnant and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we said, you need, you'll just, you're going to have to find a, uh, there are places that do over 50.
Speaker: So I have a good friend, Polly, who has had a lot of feminine health issues.
Speaker: And so she's well connected in the Boston area and she connected me with her OB down there.
Speaker: So I called and she said, we don't do that here, but there's a, there's a clinic in Stoneham Cardone reproductive health.
Speaker: So Vito Cardone, this,
Speaker: Wonderful Italian guy.
Speaker: Just talk about understanding and admiring and honoring the human, the female body.
Speaker: He always says Americans have no clue.
Speaker: They honor the wrong things.
Speaker: You have this amazing machine.
Speaker: That's beautiful to look at that creates life.
Speaker: And he saw his life's work as facilitating that for anybody.
Speaker: So he was really, really open.
Speaker: So I was 53 then.
Speaker: And I did all the testing, all the physical testing.
Speaker: There's a whole bunch more that goes along with it, but all the physical testing.
Speaker: And he said, absolutely.
Speaker: But it was thousands of dollars.
Speaker: I still wasn't working.
Speaker: We were only six months out from Molly's death.
Speaker: And so I remember just saying, no, I can't do this now to the, whoever was telling me.
Speaker: And the dreams went away.
Speaker: My head was quiet for a couple of years.
Speaker: We got through our medical malpractice lawsuit.
Speaker: And when all of that settled down, I had the dream again.
Speaker: So I was on the porch having coffee and Kenny came down like, Hey, Kenny, guess what dream I had last night?
Speaker: And he's like the baby dream.
Speaker: And I'm like, Oh,
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so we, we picked it up again and, and started the process again.
Speaker: Um, a lot of people will say that I was taking a lot of risks, like, like it was risky and why would I put myself at risk?
Speaker: And what if I died?
Speaker: And the steps you have to take to be approved for IVF and every single medical test you take allows the next step to happen.
Speaker: So it's not like you're jumping into the abyss of medical danger, you know, you,
Speaker: Every, everything, everything requires that you pass a test, whether it's a colonoscopy or a mammogram, whether it's a psychological evaluation, whether it's blood work, whether it's an EKG, all of it, I had all of it.
Speaker: And then you do months of estrogen and progesterone, you go in once a week for a vaginal ultrasound.
Speaker: So they can see how your uterus lining thickens.
Speaker: I mean, there's so much to it, which was to me fascinating.
Speaker: You know, again, that athletic mindset.
Speaker: And the ultrasound tech said, I wish I could just take your uterus and put it in every woman here because I just, I, yeah, I have a really thick, healthy, healthy uterine lining.
Speaker: So we did an IVF transfer that didn't work.
Speaker: That was in 2019.
Speaker: And so in the meantime, Kenny had had a kidney transplant.
Speaker: So we got some kidney transplant sperm and we tried again in 2019, 2020, and it took, you know, it took.
Speaker: So again, I look to those IVF moms that are on round 10.
Speaker: I don't, I don't treat any of this lightly or with an ego.
Speaker: I realize how fricking lucky I am.
Speaker: But it was, it's, it's exhausting all the steps that you go through.
Speaker: I mean, you know, I made Gracie and Molly having fun in the bedroom with Kenny, right?
Speaker: About anything except how great I felt, you know, with IVF, it's like you have a whole host of people involved in the conception of your child.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that, so that pregnancy was also,
Speaker: Perfectly fine.
Speaker: I didn't tell anybody for 22 weeks.
Speaker: We weren't allowed to say anything.
Speaker: I mean, I could have told the world, but Dr. Chaudhary just said, you're going to be judged anyway.
Speaker: So why tell the world you're pregnant?
Speaker: And then you lose this baby at 22 weeks and you're going to have an entire world of people telling you, see, and, but, you know, right.
Speaker: You know, all that kind of judgment.
Speaker: So I didn't say anything.
Speaker: I told my CrossFit coaches, that was it.
Speaker: So I kept working out, lifting weights, doing CrossFit.
Speaker: I lived my life as, as normally as I had been.
Speaker: you know, whatever normal is for me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I had to have 9 million tests, every test imaginable.
Speaker: I had a million ultrasounds.
Speaker: I had blood work.
Speaker: I had, I worked with the high risk pregnancy doctors up in Hanover, which was perfectly fine.
Speaker: I mean, I, I, I give me every test you can.
Speaker: And yeah, the best part of that is the computers don't tabulate it.
Speaker: Like they, they, they plug the data in and it would, would reject my age.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It wouldn't take an age over 50.
Speaker: That was the highest age.
Speaker: It's like, why would you even put an age in there?
Speaker: Or like limit it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then my insurance company, I'd get ultrasound, 13 week ultrasound claim denied.
Speaker: And the reason would be diagnosis inconsistent with age of patient.
Speaker: Like, okay, well we looked at a baby like,
Speaker: So those, those were some of the funny things where medical technology isn't keeping up with 57 year old ladies having babies, but everything was fine.
Speaker: All of it was fine.
Speaker: The most stressful test was the fetal echocardiogram.
Speaker: That was the final test I had on baby Gordy that really, really drove home the fact that he couldn't be born.
Speaker: So I had to go to the same hospital, same glass walled hallway, all of it.
Speaker: So of course it was a stressful day.
Speaker: I told the ultrasound tech all about it, like all about baby Gordy and then about Molly.
Speaker: She knew of Molly because Molly's brought up a lot in the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical, just because they don't want another Molly, you know, so there.
Speaker: And so the cardiologist comes in and she sits down and she looks all serious.
Speaker: So I think, oh no, no, no, I want it.
Speaker: It's bad news.
Speaker: And
Speaker: She goes, tell me again about your first baby.
Speaker: And so I told her about him and tell me about the heart.
Speaker: And she said, so you were here, you were seen here.
Speaker: Was it Dr. Rockenmacher?
Speaker: And I'm like, yes, yes.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, yes.
Speaker: And she said, I used to work at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and I performed the autopsy on your baby.
Speaker: So here I am 20 years later.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, and she, so Kenny and I couldn't even function.
Speaker: Like we're just like, say what?
Speaker: So it was an interesting, yeah, it was pretty amazing.
Speaker: That's what I mean though.
Speaker: Like the whole universal connection and putting you where you need to be.
Speaker: And she wasn't supposed to work that day.
Speaker: She got, she got called in cause someone called out.
Speaker: She doesn't do peds anymore because it's, you know, she was all those years in a pediatric NICU.
Speaker: And so she, um,
Speaker: saw my name and saw my age and thought it must be a mistake.
Speaker: Can't be a, can't be a prenatal ultrasound because she's 57.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: So those were some of the aspects of Jack.
Speaker: I developed preeclampsia.
Speaker: So your friend that you just had on delivered in week 34, I had just, I was in week 35.
Speaker: I was 35 weeks, three days.
Speaker: I went, worked out in the morning.
Speaker: I felt great.
Speaker: I had a couple of doctor's appointments and then I went to my afternoon, you know,
Speaker: protein in the, in the urine check, which was like every week now, because Dr. Chaudhary just wanted to be ahead of it.
Speaker: And I had protein in my urine and my legs had like suddenly swelled up, like really huge.
Speaker: And I thought that was weird.
Speaker: And I was insistent that she'd be, that he'd be born in April because Gracie and Molly were, and this was March, like it was like St.
Speaker: Patty's day or.
Speaker: So I got really angry, like, no, I'm not having it now.
Speaker: Like the first time I tried to control it up until then I was like, whatever happens.
Speaker: But so they gave me a shot of steroids and sent me home, but my platelets were really low, which is a sign of preeclampsia.
Speaker: And my blood pressure was like one Oh, 195 over one Oh five, which apparently is pretty bad.
Speaker: So I had to go, I had to go in the hospital Friday.
Speaker: So I wasn't ready at all, at all.
Speaker: I hadn't done prenatal picture, like, I mean, pregnancy pictures.
Speaker: I hadn't, I hadn't done anything.
Speaker: So I came home to pack a bag and I called my friend and we took like, you know, we did a quick photo shoot and like all these things that I thought I would have three more, three, four more weeks to do.
Speaker: Cause he was due April 13th and he was born March 21st.
Speaker: So not, not too far ahead.
Speaker: Well, April 13th was as late as they would let me go.
Speaker: That would have been 39 weeks.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If he wasn't born then, they would have induced me primarily because that last week, the amount of stress just because of my age and such.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which I was, again, I was fine with all that, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The preeclampsia.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So of all four pregnancies, Gracie and Molly were eight hours start to finish.
Speaker: Jack, I went into the hospital.
Speaker: I had magnesium for my blood pressure and the preeclampsia.
Speaker: And then they gave me, they actually didn't give me Pitocin right away.
Speaker: Strip my membranes, which is horrifying.
Speaker: It's like a scene from the handmaid's tale is how I felt.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But I woke up in the morning and I thought, oh, I guess we're not having a baby because I slept all night.
Speaker: Kenny was still home.
Speaker: There were still COVID restrictions around visitors, how many visitors.
Speaker: So Kenny didn't come until he knew we could just stay.
Speaker: So I ordered breakfast and I get my breakfast and I'm eating my breakfast and watching the news and drinking coffee and chatting with Kenny.
Speaker: And the nurse comes in and she's like, oh, how are you feeling?
Speaker: And I'm like, are we not having a baby?
Speaker: And she says, you went into labor without Pitocin on your own at two in the morning.
Speaker: And I'm like...
Speaker: what?
Speaker: So she put the monitor on and sure enough, I'm having, so my tummy felt hot, but I didn't really feel like contractions.
Speaker: So I called Kenny and he came up to the hospital.
Speaker: So that was now about 10 in the morning.
Speaker: So they broke my water and boy, did the contraction start then?
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: And so I had about 90 minutes of really, really intense contractions.
Speaker: And then I thought, you know what?
Speaker: I'm too old for this.
Speaker: I want an epidural.
Speaker: And they just kept looking at each other like, no, you don't need an epidural.
Speaker: You don't need an epidural.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, how long, like, where am I at?
Speaker: Like, they couldn't really tell me.
Speaker: Like, it was just bizarre.
Speaker: So I had an epidural, which did nothing because 10 minutes later I had Jack.
Speaker: So, you know, after the whole shot that gave me no numbness whatsoever, I laid on my back and she's like, oh, I actually think he could push right now.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I said, okay.
Speaker: So I did a little half-hearted push and she goes, his head's right here.
Speaker: Just give me a big push.
Speaker: So, you know, the next time the contraction came, I pushed and Audi came.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So like one push wonder.
Speaker: And then my lunch got delivered.
Speaker: So I'm like breakfast, have a baby, have lunch.
Speaker: Start to finish.
Speaker: He was about eight hours.
Speaker: 10 hours to 2am to noon.
Speaker: But for me, active labor, it felt like it was like a three hour stint where suddenly there he was.
Speaker: And he was teeny 513 and 18 inches.
Speaker: Did you know that 90% of mothers felt lonely after having children and 54% felt friendless after giving birth?
Speaker: This according to a recent UK survey of more than 2000 mothers.
Speaker: I can definitely relate.
Speaker: I had a hard time after my daughter was born.
Speaker: which is why I've started my free private Facebook group for Moms Plus called More Milk Please, Strong Supportive Mamas.
Speaker: Come join us at facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash more milk, please, and find the connection and belonging you desire.
Speaker: Look forward to seeing you there.
Speaker: And he was my most interesting feeder.
Speaker: And it comes from a lot, a lot of areas.
Speaker: And this is where in listening to your friend whose baby was in the NICU, and I have a good friend now whose baby's in the NICU.
Speaker: And, you know, it's such a balance between what's medically safe, medically safe, and what we think.
Speaker: And this woman is, you know, pumping up and pumping and pumping.
Speaker: And if you don't bring it in with a certain amount of time, they won't use it.
Speaker: And there's all these regulations around breast milk.
Speaker: And it's like,
Speaker: I just, I just put my face in my hands.
Speaker: Like, come on.
Speaker: Like the milk is, there's nothing better than this.
Speaker: Like what is wrong?
Speaker: And, and then hospital donated breast milk to hospitals is like homogenized.
Speaker: They do something to it.
Speaker: It takes everything out of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They sterilize it or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so you're missing all of those immune system and all that stuff that's in breast milk, all that magic is sort of removed from it in the, under the guise of safety.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Jack had his suction was okay.
Speaker: It exhausted him though.
Speaker: Cause he was just, he wasn't quite there.
Speaker: He needed two more weeks in the, in the, in the tummy.
Speaker: And I had no letdown at all.
Speaker: So I wasn't sure if I would be able to pump.
Speaker: So he came out, he spent, you know, a few hours just sort of on me and everything.
Speaker: So I put him to the breast and he suckled and suckled, but he had like the weak esophagus.
Speaker: So it closes up.
Speaker: Now the minute you inhale or exhale, it opens.
Speaker: It wouldn't stay closed.
Speaker: Like they're not in danger of suffocating in their sleep.
Speaker: because the teeniest bit of an inhale opens it right up again.
Speaker: But it just, so he sounded like, like he constantly sounded like he had flem in his throat.
Speaker: So it was alarming.
Speaker: And so he would nurse and they have to take a break because he couldn't nurse and breathe at the same time.
Speaker: So that's very, that's a common side effect of early babies is just having the strength to eat.
Speaker: And then you burn more calories nursing than you get to
Speaker: eating.
Speaker: So it was that balance.
Speaker: So I had this one doctor, she was older and she just said, it's irresponsible for you to nurse.
Speaker: You're too old to nurse.
Speaker: You're not going to be able to feed your baby.
Speaker: You just need to pick a formula and stick to it.
Speaker: Like she was just drove it home.
Speaker: And I said, well, I think I'm just going to disagree with you.
Speaker: So I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I'm going to nurse my baby.
Speaker: So they brought in a breast pump and I thought, well, why don't I try to stimulate my breast by pumping?
Speaker: So I pumped one and out came the
Speaker: totally normal looking breast milk in my right breast.
Speaker: It looked like chocolate milk.
Speaker: I'm like, Oh, it's brown.
Speaker: Totally freaked me out.
Speaker: And he's like, all right, chocolate milk.
Speaker: And I'm like, Oh, so I didn't, I didn't save that milk.
Speaker: Cause I just was worried about it.
Speaker: They're like, it's fine.
Speaker: You know, it's just, there was some reason.
Speaker: No, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm like, is it milk that's been hanging out in my boobs for 20 years?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: What is it that that went away?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's like rust, you know, going from metal pipes to PVC.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it was so in the hospital, I took the breast milk they had on hand there.
Speaker: I nursed and I did formula.
Speaker: So we kind of did all three.
Speaker: So what we would do when he was hungry, we would put him to the breast first so that his ferocious suckling would stimulate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'd nurse him for like three or four minutes or until he really sort of stopped being, and then I would immediately give him like two ounces of either breast milk or formula.
Speaker: This was in the hospital.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I would pump.
Speaker: So I started to develop a routine that way.
Speaker: And I felt like that was pretty good.
Speaker: And the lactation specialist this time around, granted Molly died in that ER, in the ER of that hospital.
Speaker: So I was treated like royalty, you know, like
Speaker: What do you need?
Speaker: What do you need?
Speaker: What do you need?
Speaker: What do you need?
Speaker: So they were very, very supportive of my efforts to want to breastfeed and to really do it my way.
Speaker: I had one nurse that sort of stood there and stared at me while I pumped and nursed.
Speaker: And I'm like, I don't need a babysitter.
Speaker: And she was just indignant that she makes sure I do it right.
Speaker: And I, and I think that one doctor that really pushed the formula and then this nurse, I just think they had an opinion about the fact that I was having a baby at 57, you know, like I just think they didn't support it and it would, they did not do a good job of keeping that to themselves.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I received a lot of critical comments about having a baby.
Speaker: Well, it's fine.
Speaker: Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you don't tell a new mother.
Speaker: Don't need to say it out loud.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Keep it.
Speaker: They're called thoughts for a reason.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Jack was given, was, had certain things he had to do before he would be released.
Speaker: He didn't need to be in the NICU.
Speaker: He was with me the whole time.
Speaker: So 48 hours at Concord Hospital from time of birth to when the day you get discharged.
Speaker: So I had him on Saturday.
Speaker: So I would have been discharged on Monday, but Dr. Chaudhary.
Speaker: So he didn't get to deliver Jack because he was on a ski vacation because he booked an early vacation.
Speaker: So he'd be around in April to deliver Jack.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he came back, he showed up Sunday afternoon, like in all his ski gear.
Speaker: And he says, yeah, I'm going to give you an MRI tomorrow night.
Speaker: I want you to stay in an extra day.
Speaker: So I had had brain tumors removed from my head.
Speaker: And he's like, you know what?
Speaker: I don't think anyone's going to argue with giving you a quick MRI before you go home to make sure you don't have anything going on related to labor and delivery and
Speaker: And that way you can stay with Jack because he, because of his being only in his 35th week, like not having finished that week, that is a real turning point.
Speaker: 34 weeks, then 35 weeks.
Speaker: They're not considered preemie anymore.
Speaker: They're early.
Speaker: And then once you clear 35 weeks, now they're 36, 37, 38, 39.
Speaker: That's considered normal, at least in Concord.
Speaker: That's how it was.
Speaker: So he was just like five days shy of that.
Speaker: So he was in the early category.
Speaker: They get an extra day at the hospital.
Speaker: So if I had been healthy enough to go home, they probably would have let me take him home, but they would have highly discouraged it.
Speaker: They would have wanted him to stay a night.
Speaker: But I didn't want to not be with him.
Speaker: So Dr. Shardy was great.
Speaker: He's like, no, I'll just book it for tomorrow night at eight o'clock.
Speaker: So I got to stay Monday and Monday night I had the MRI.
Speaker: This was another story that was funny.
Speaker: In the meantime, my friend Tony, who works for a website called Patch, came and did a story, interviewed me on the phone.
Speaker: I sent him pictures.
Speaker: So it went into the Patch, the website.
Speaker: So of course, then it hit sort of like WMUR and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So I'm getting wheeled down for my ultrasound by, you know, like a teenage, like, you know, an 18 candy strip or whatever.
Speaker: And she's talking to her friend and she goes, oh my God, did you hear?
Speaker: There's a lady in this hospital that just had a baby and she's like in her fifties and it's me.
Speaker: So I'm like, this is
Speaker: So it was just those things, those things were fun.
Speaker: Like I just chose to enjoy them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we went home and, and I have to say it was, this was the hardest.
Speaker: I just felt like everybody had an opinion and everyone kept interrupting.
Speaker: And so I couldn't develop a rhythm, which would help him develop a rhythm.
Speaker: That's how I felt.
Speaker: We had a visiting nurse.
Speaker: She came, she came every other day, which was wonderful actually.
Speaker: She'd weigh him.
Speaker: We would nurse.
Speaker: She'd weigh him again to see, you know, and then we bottle feed him and weigh him again.
Speaker: And so he definitely gained weight slowly.
Speaker: So I have a problem with this as well.
Speaker: I spent my whole life being skinny, accused of being anorexic.
Speaker: We don't all gain weight the same way.
Speaker: His color was good.
Speaker: He peed up a storm.
Speaker: He had plenty of tears.
Speaker: His energy level was high.
Speaker: He was just gaining weight slowly.
Speaker: And they call that failure to thrive.
Speaker: He's not failing.
Speaker: He's gaining weight, but it wasn't fast enough for somebody's chart.
Speaker: And I know this sounds harsh, but it was just so frustrating to me.
Speaker: I just felt like none of my life experience mattered.
Speaker: Some piece of paper with a graph on it was more important than what I was looking at.
Speaker: Um, so I went for an appointment.
Speaker: It was May 7th, which was the day, the anniversary of the day that we unplugged Molly and he had had no weight gain for like three days.
Speaker: And so they're like, we have to hospitalize you until he gains weight.
Speaker: I'm like, you're not taking them away from me.
Speaker: You can call the police.
Speaker: I'm not, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker: And, uh, this is Molly's anniversary.
Speaker: Like, are you kidding?
Speaker: So they arranged it that I would stay with him, but we had to, I had to check into the hospital.
Speaker: So I go to the pediatric unit.
Speaker: We're right next to the room that Molly died in essentially.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: And I'm just, so I walk in, it's one of those big metal, horrible hospital cribs.
Speaker: And I said, I can't sleep in that.
Speaker: And they're like, oh no, we'll bring you a chair.
Speaker: I said, no, get a bed in here.
Speaker: He's going to sleep with me.
Speaker: Well, we don't, I said, I don't really care what you do.
Speaker: Bring a bed in.
Speaker: You can leave this crib in here if it eases your mind or bring me a cradle from the, from the, you know, maternity unit and he can sleep.
Speaker: No, but I'm not, I'm not putting him in that crib.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they, they, I sat and held them and they went and got a bed and did all that for me.
Speaker: So I only spent one night, but it was the, you know, it was 2021, the fifth year anniversary of Molly dying.
Speaker: And everyone's at the cemetery with lanterns and I'm sitting, you know, 10 feet away from where she died with my new baby.
Speaker: So, and guess who the doctor was, the formula doctor.
Speaker: So yeah, she was, she was just, you know, so he lost two ounces at the hospital.
Speaker: I'm like, why do you think he's lost two ounces?
Speaker: Because he's in a stressful place.
Speaker: I'm stressed out.
Speaker: But this miraculous thing happened.
Speaker: A nurse comes in to take care of me and I hear a noise, like a little bit of a humming noise.
Speaker: I'm like, what do I hear?
Speaker: And she goes, oh, I'm pumping milk.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: So she had one of those real thin pumps that you can put in your bra.
Speaker: I couldn't even tell from, it didn't look like I have a willow, which is giant.
Speaker: So I couldn't wear that in public because you could totally tell.
Speaker: But she, and I'm like, why are you pumping milk?
Speaker: Do you have a baby?
Speaker: And she goes, no, I donate it now.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: So she, and she said, I'm not allowed to share this with patients.
Speaker: but I'm going to share it with you because I think it's why you're here.
Speaker: And so she gave me a Facebook group called human milk for human babies.
Speaker: And then New Hampshire breastfeeding moms.
Speaker: These were just face group groups.
Speaker: And she said, when you get out of here, you need to contact somebody here because you know, we,
Speaker: So that was a chain, a game changer.
Speaker: It wasn't like the, you know, the pumping in the formula, because I just felt like if I, he would become too dependent on formula and I, and he, the formula didn't sit right with him.
Speaker: He'd throw it up.
Speaker: He'd have like, he'd cry when he pooped, you know, and none of that happened when he nursed.
Speaker: So I, I went on the website, I got home from that visit.
Speaker: So he was born March 20th.
Speaker: That was May 7th.
Speaker: So, you know,
Speaker: we went to Disney world in the, in the middle of all that.
Speaker: So he went to Disney at five weeks.
Speaker: So it wasn't like we were totally struggling, but I went on that website and just said who I was and what my situation was.
Speaker: And this woman wrote back, her name was Jackie.
Speaker: And she said, I've watched your story about Molly from the beginning.
Speaker: And she had a relative that had died a similar way at a young age.
Speaker: And
Speaker: She said, I can't believe it's you.
Speaker: So we're moving.
Speaker: I've weaned my daughter.
Speaker: She had like three coolers full of breast milk, like hundreds of ounces of breast milk.
Speaker: So I met her at the Tilton Outlets, like in the parking lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we just came home and put, we put, we put it on our freezer and then in like a lid, like a top loading freezer.
Speaker: And that was a game changer.
Speaker: I stopped at that point.
Speaker: I just stopped pumping because I just felt like all I have here is amazing breast milk and her children were these chunky, delicious, beautiful little babies.
Speaker: So I would nurse Jack whenever he got hungry, I'd nurse him first.
Speaker: And then I would thaw a bottle and, and give him breast milk.
Speaker: And then, then Gracie started taking him to, we call it big boy school, but she works at a childcare center.
Speaker: So two days a week, she would take him for a few hours while she worked and I would just send bottles with him.
Speaker: And then my milk would build up and build up.
Speaker: So sometimes I pumped, but I never felt like I had to, I know because I had, and I just relied on the breast milk.
Speaker: And then a friend of mine named Kelsey had a baby in May right after Jack.
Speaker: And that woman produces milk like, Oh my gosh.
Speaker: So
Speaker: When I, when I ran out of Jackie's milk, which was probably like October every week, Kelsey would come with her with, she has five kids and they would write little messages.
Speaker: Hi, Jack, enjoy the milk, like on the bottles, on the bags.
Speaker: And so she, she kept me in breast milk for like a year after that.
Speaker: So I didn't even know this existed.
Speaker: Like Jack is my most poignant breastfeeding story.
Speaker: And it was, you know, crying and oh my gosh,
Speaker: I pumped milk and I brought it upstairs for Jack and it was like an ounce and all this.
Speaker: And Kenny's like, I need a bottle.
Speaker: I'm like, I just brought one up.
Speaker: It's right there on the bed.
Speaker: And he's like, oh my God, I dumped it out.
Speaker: Because he thought it was an old bottle.
Speaker: And it was like fresh from the boob.
Speaker: Oh, I cried and swore.
Speaker: Like, are you, oh, I was out of my mind because it was just so hard, so hard worked.
Speaker: And that was just prior to having, we didn't have the frozen, the donated milk yet.
Speaker: So, and the women I've met in these breastfeeding groups are unbelievable.
Speaker: They just, they just, like when there was a formula shortage, I had two or three friends that couldn't find formula and I hooked them up.
Speaker: And these moms gave milk to women that had been using formula just because here, and it was pretty amazing.
Speaker: Like, it just, it's,
Speaker: Being a mother can be so competitive.
Speaker: Like I'm firm in how I feel.
Speaker: And so I'm, if I'm next to somebody that's completely my opposite, I want to feel like they're wrong because I couldn't do it the way they're doing it.
Speaker: And I think sometimes we just attack each other and we don't mean to, we're just being ferocious mother bears protecting our cub, you know, and, and this group, this breastfeeding group,
Speaker: group.
Speaker: It's, it's just mothers helping mothers.
Speaker: Like, here's what worked for me.
Speaker: It doesn't mean it will work for you.
Speaker: How can I help?
Speaker: What do you need?
Speaker: Constant, constant support.
Speaker: It was, I've never felt so loved as I did from these women.
Speaker: So that's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hugely amazing.
Speaker: I don't know if these, if these programs or groups exist where you are.
Speaker: I can't imagine they wouldn't.
Speaker: I just think breastfeeding is much, much more accepted and universal now.
Speaker: And I will also say I'm amazed at the variety of formulas that exist now, both in the United States and other countries.
Speaker: I think sometimes the ones from other countries are a bit better, but it, it's gives me ease of mind for moms that can't nurse and really wanted to, because, you
Speaker: you know, lucky us, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's so awesome.
Speaker: And so now Jack is two and a half.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: And you're still breastfeeding.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'm going to send you a picture.
Speaker: It was today.
Speaker: I don't have it on my phone or I show you Kenny took it, but I got home from, um, I just did some errands.
Speaker: I came upstairs here and, uh, Jack's like boop in a white chair.
Speaker: And I said, all right, well, mommy has to pee boop in a turlet.
Speaker: So I'm like, Kenny, get in here.
Speaker: I'm going to send this to Molly.
Speaker: I actually, on your Facebook page, I responded to one of your posts.
Speaker: I think it was when Luna was saying, you know, more milk, more milk.
Speaker: I put a video of me from this summer.
Speaker: I was on the toilet in a hotel and Jack is, I'm like, tell Sissy what you want.
Speaker: I'm filming and he's like, boop in the toilet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: it.
Speaker: So that's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: And I'm, I, I'm exhausted.
Speaker: Like part of me wants to wean him, but I'm 60 years old and milk comes out of my boobs.
Speaker: So I'm just going to nurse him as long as he wants.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It does amaze me.
Speaker: Not that it's me just so much as the human body is for him.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I love, it makes me love everything about being a woman.
Speaker: or being a mother or whatever, you know, I, I take great comfort in it and, and I'm in awe of nature.
Speaker: Like it,
Speaker: it still blows my mind all these years later that your bodies can do this.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: And I just, I love, thank you so much for hearing the story about, you know, like having to go into the hospital on Molly's anniversary of death, because even just how you advocated for yourself in the room, like, no, you're going to bring a fricking bed in here and I'm going to sleep.
Speaker: I'm sorry, but I'm not sleeping in a chair.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think it's just so important for women to hear, like you can demand things just because someone says it doesn't mean that has to be that way.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We still, unfortunately live in a culture that thinks it's okay to tell women what to do or assume that women will do what they're told or assume that they'll follow a role.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, I look back to Molly's experience and I just think if she were a boy, I think it would have been very different.
Speaker: I know it would have been very different.
Speaker: Another former Concord High runner, her daughter has, she has tics, pretty significant tics.
Speaker: And I said, well, does she have Tourette's?
Speaker: And the answer was sort of that had been blown off because she didn't have verbal tics and all this and that.
Speaker: And so I said, her name is Rachel.
Speaker: I said, Rachel, ask your doctor what she might do differently if Kate was a boy.
Speaker: And she's like, oh, I never thought of that.
Speaker: Sure enough, two or three different tests.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So, so sometimes gender is important and sometimes it isn't, you know, but when you look at a girl or a boy and you can't find an answer, I think every doctor should make believe in their head that they're the other gender.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I see a little girl here presenting this way.
Speaker: Nothing's working.
Speaker: If she were a boy, what might I think?
Speaker: And then try those tests.
Speaker: Cause if I think if any of Molly's doctors had said, well, if she was a boy, I would have assumed she hit her head.
Speaker: I'd give her a cat scan, you know, right.
Speaker: That scan, it would have saved her life.
Speaker: So I don't, I don't put up with much anymore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not always, I try not to be rude.
Speaker: I try to be mindful, but you know, I, I wasn't allowed to trust my gut with Molly.
Speaker: I will always trust my gut from here on out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Speaking of Molly, I know you just published a book and I have it.
Speaker: right here.
Speaker: And I'm only a chapter in, but it's so good.
Speaker: And just like right from the beginning, super gripping.
Speaker: And I can so hear your voice.
Speaker: So yeah, I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I had a lot of help writing it.
Speaker: I had a published author, Virginia McGregor, and I initially asked her to ghostwrite it for me.
Speaker: And then what happened, because I can tell the story, but to organize it into a cohesive, readable book,
Speaker: I just, they're from England.
Speaker: COVID caused them job loss.
Speaker: They had no income.
Speaker: They couldn't go back because of COVID.
Speaker: They were sort of stuck.
Speaker: And I said, I have an idea.
Speaker: Why don't you write my book?
Speaker: You know, I'll give you some money.
Speaker: You write my book.
Speaker: And so it became a year long journey where, um,
Speaker: I sort of, we went for a walk one day and I told her the whole story.
Speaker: And so she listened and listened and listened.
Speaker: So then she would ask me questions in chunks and there's an app called Voxer and I would Voxer her the answers and she would transcribe the Voxers and that became the book.
Speaker: So people who read it like you and say, I can hear your voice,
Speaker: That's a talented author in Virginia because she was able to, I mean, she's British.
Speaker: Her turns of phrase are different.
Speaker: When you hear us talk, we sound nothing alike.
Speaker: And she was really able to pull it off, but it became a journey for us together, like a journey of motherhood together.
Speaker: And we wrote the whole story.
Speaker: We wrote all about...
Speaker: the care that Molly didn't receive.
Speaker: We wrote about the lawsuit.
Speaker: We wrote about my deposition and how those attorneys brought up the fact that I struggled with alcohol five years before Molly died.
Speaker: Like, okay, what does that have to do with how ugly it was?
Speaker: And we couldn't publish any of that.
Speaker: But I felt that I had to tell Virginia the whole story.
Speaker: I couldn't tell her pieces and parts or none of it would be authentic.
Speaker: So we wrote the whole story.
Speaker: The initial book was over 300 pages.
Speaker: And then I took it to my attorney and he's like, okay.
Speaker: And he just put X's on the pages that had to go away.
Speaker: So the editing process was difficult because I felt like I was erasing her.
Speaker: But what I realized, and when you're done with the book, you won't feel like you missed anything.
Speaker: You won't know that there's lots you don't know.
Speaker: You'll still get a really complete picture of Molly and of Jack, even though lots and lots of details couldn't be put to print.
Speaker: Yet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At some point to tell her story, but it was, it's been amazing.
Speaker: And so far people that have read it have really, really liked it.
Speaker: And again, my whole mission with it is to give voice to women.
Speaker: It doesn't even have to be child loss.
Speaker: It can be whatever your trauma or your tragedy is that you
Speaker: forever and always I'll have one foot in happiness and one foot in sadness.
Speaker: That will never change for me.
Speaker: People can't tell me not to be sad.
Speaker: I have a dead freaking kid.
Speaker: I'm going to be sad, but I'm also unbelievably happy a lot of the time.
Speaker: And you just learn to walk.
Speaker: I always say it's like having a picket fence between your legs.
Speaker: So on good days, the picket fence is short, no harm, no foul.
Speaker: And on bad days, the picket is, you know, right up there and you're trying to balance on a picket and pay attention to life.
Speaker: And
Speaker: So that's my sort of funny analogy, but it's an accurate analogy because that's how much it hurts when it hurts, but that's, that's part of it.
Speaker: And I'm still alive and managing to function somehow.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And share the story, which is so powerful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I have to say this podcast, I love everything about it.
Speaker: I love that you're doing it.
Speaker: I love that the, the gist of it is not only your story and your reality, but all the stories of other mothers, because
Speaker: All the moms that don't have the voice to speak up, all the moms that aren't allowed to speak up can listen to these stories and pull the pieces and parts of it that relate to them and get help.
Speaker: I love podcasts.
Speaker: They're free.
Speaker: You don't have to pay to listen to podcasts.
Speaker: And so it's like wonderful advice for anybody that just wants to listen or look at it.
Speaker: So-
Speaker: When I saw that you were doing, I'm like, oh my God, I want to be on.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yay.
Speaker: I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker: This is such a good story.
Speaker: And I know you also did your own podcast, A Thousand Tiny Steps.
Speaker: Can you share a little bit about that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was after Jack was born.
Speaker: So I had some, a little bit of postpartum issues, not so much after mom.
Speaker: Grazie was overwhelming.
Speaker: The first six weeks, I wondered why the hell did I have a baby?
Speaker: Like, and no one tells you that.
Speaker: No one says, beware for the times that you look at the baby and think, what the hell did I do?
Speaker: Why did I do this?
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I must have apologized to Kenny a hundred times.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: Your kids are big.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: And then, same with Molly, it's just hard for the first six or eight weeks.
Speaker: You're not sleeping, you hurt, things are crooked inside, nothing works.
Speaker: And so after Molly, I had some big depression and I stayed in bed for about two weeks.
Speaker: I just couldn't function.
Speaker: And then Kenny's dad got sick and I sort of snapped out of it.
Speaker: And so after Jack, I had like five or six weeks of just horrible anger.
Speaker: I was just angry, not angry at Jack.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I just had all this anger and I took some time to myself.
Speaker: I went and stayed in my sister-in-law's mobile home in Exeter for like two weeks, just by myself.
Speaker: I went for walks, you know, just trying to soothe myself.
Speaker: And at that time, I just realized I have too much to say.
Speaker: I have to tell somebody.
Speaker: And that was when the idea for a podcast was born.
Speaker: And so I found a podcast editor that was just starting out, a boy that Gracie grew up with.
Speaker: And so I'm like, hey, Jace, I'll be your first customer.
Speaker: He's like, great.
Speaker: And so we spent that summer sort of planning it out and putting it together.
Speaker: And I just told my story.
Speaker: And that's how it sort of started.
Speaker: Now I'm sort of picking and choosing things to talk about.
Speaker: I've talked a lot about the book in recent episodes.
Speaker: But I'm just honest.
Speaker: I tell all those embarrassing, inappropriate stories that...
Speaker: No one else will share.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: So, um, and it's been a blast.
Speaker: I love, I love podcasting.
Speaker: What I love most about it is I've met amazing people.
Speaker: I did an interview yesterday with a woman who's a CrossFit athlete in her fifties.
Speaker: She emigrated as a child from El Salvador to LA.
Speaker: She has the most interesting life.
Speaker: And I wouldn't know her if it weren't for podcasting, right?
Speaker: Because
Speaker: She lives in Pennsylvania and I'm here and you know, our paths just wouldn't have crossed.
Speaker: And she does a CrossFit podcast for older women in CrossFit and it's, she's wonderful.
Speaker: And she has so much to share.
Speaker: We talked all about this.
Speaker: I told her about this podcast and she nursed both her babies.
Speaker: So they were three, you know, she was like, ah, I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: We talked about you on her podcast.
Speaker: So, yeah, so it's, you'll, you'll meet amazing people.
Speaker: I promise not just your guests and people that reach out, but as you, as you sort of navigate the world of podcasts and you've probably listened to a lot more than I had when I started, I don't listen to music at all in the car anymore.
Speaker: I just listen to podcasts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love podcasts.
Speaker: Those are like always on in my ears.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Same, same, same.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I know you've given a lot of tips and resources, but is there any sort of like last minute tips, resources, products that you want to mention or just call out?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, it's funny.
Speaker: I, everything of Jack's is secondhand.
Speaker: So every carriage, I mean, car seats, you have to buy new, I guess my, my biggest, always my biggest, biggest tip, and this is for new mothers or grieving mothers or new boyfriends or new girlfriends or whatever it is in your life where you're navigating something new is
Speaker: is to be open and to trust your instincts.
Speaker: You know, there are, it's like election day.
Speaker: There are all these candidates and no one candidate is better than another.
Speaker: What makes you a good candidate is the one that you feel understands you and listens to you.
Speaker: And I feel that way with a motherhood journey.
Speaker: If everyone says buy this kind of breast pump, but you like that one better than buy that one.
Speaker: You know, if everyone says, oh, you should feed them this brand of baby food, but your baby doesn't like it.
Speaker: Well, then there's nothing wrong with your baby.
Speaker: Do different baby food or mash up apples and don't do baby food at all.
Speaker: You know, like, like I think sometimes,
Speaker: especially now your generation and later is raised in this information ready society and you get overwhelmed with, with information, do this one, no, do this, no, do this, no, do this.
Speaker: There was no internet.
Speaker: There were no, there was no constant barrage of information for me.
Speaker: I had to look for what I needed.
Speaker: And while that was sometimes tedious, um,
Speaker: Sometimes looking for what you need, you find what you need, as opposed to having to choose between 50 things you don't understand.
Speaker: So the best product that a new mom has is her mind and her heart and surround yourself with people that support you using those two things to make your decisions.
Speaker: That would be...
Speaker: That's my product.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We're going to do a little fun, little rapid fire question round.
Speaker: So I know you talked a little bit about Gracie's five foods, but when your kiddos were little, what were the first foods that you fed them?
Speaker: The yogurt, like yo, yo baby vanilla yogurt from Stonyfield pirates, booty cheese puffs, both Molly and Gracie loved those things.
Speaker: So puffs and yogurt and cows, you know, they drank cow's milk and then chicken noodle soup.
Speaker: and pasta of any kind.
Speaker: That's all Gracie forever.
Speaker: Molly would eat everything else, but she would fall back on that.
Speaker: And then Jack, he, again, I think his little baby mouth and he took a long time to grow teeth.
Speaker: So it just, he still eats a lot of just pouches.
Speaker: I can get them at the health food store, just veggie pouches, fruit pouches, yogurt pouches.
Speaker: He, he just really likes the, the pouches and he's now found chocolate, which is a bad thing.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So in Jack likes rice and he likes pasta.
Speaker: Jack is a fan now of crock pot meals.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: Modeling our kitchen.
Speaker: So we have no stove.
Speaker: So we have a crock pot.
Speaker: So you make a big stew on Sunday and each day you add things to it.
Speaker: So it lasts all week.
Speaker: He loves it.
Speaker: He just eats the big crock pot meals and he feels all grown up.
Speaker: That's good to hear.
Speaker: We actually, my husband and I were just talking last night about like, we should do like soups and stews.
Speaker: And we're like, I wonder how Luna would like, Oh, they love it because it's all those flavors and it's easy to navigate.
Speaker: It fits on a spoon.
Speaker: Like we take out the big chunks of potatoes and the big chunks of chicken.
Speaker: So there's rice and corn and veggies and sauce.
Speaker: And, uh, Oh gosh, he eats a whole bowl more, please.
Speaker: So it's, yeah, it's good.
Speaker: He likes that.
Speaker: So yeah, Molly ate anything, but Gracie ate those five things pretty much chicken and a biscuit crackers.
Speaker: That was another thing she liked.
Speaker: They came in a blue box.
Speaker: She liked them.
Speaker: I'm like, Oh my God.
Speaker: But my, my, her, their doctor, their pediatrician,
Speaker: Gracie and Molly too, didn't potty train.
Speaker: I just left them in pull-ups until they decided they were sick of it.
Speaker: And my doctor always said, you know, they won't go to kindergarten and pull-ups and they won't go to college and pull-ups.
Speaker: And by the time she goes to college, she'll eat more than five foods and she won't sleep in your bed anymore.
Speaker: So who cares?
Speaker: You know, don't worry about it, which was also wonderful advice.
Speaker: Like there isn't the perfect time to do anything.
Speaker: You're the mom.
Speaker: You'll know when it's time to do a, B or C. That's awesome.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Morning or night person.
Speaker: I am such a night person.
Speaker: And I'm also not a scheduled person.
Speaker: So Jack goes to bed and we go to bed and he wakes up when he wakes up.
Speaker: So if he's late for big boy school, oh, well, you know, like we don't, we just don't.
Speaker: And we did that with Gracie and Molly as well.
Speaker: The number of times I went to school and they were still asleep in the bed is too many to count.
Speaker: My mom would show up.
Speaker: I was lucky.
Speaker: She came to the house and I would leave and they'd still be in bed.
Speaker: But last night, Jack and I were snuggled in bed and it was like 10 o'clock before he was asleep, but he slept until quarter of nine.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Again, though, Kenny's retired.
Speaker: I don't have the stress and structure of everything happening now, a mortgage payment, a job, a body.
Speaker: I want to still look good naked.
Speaker: Like when you have babies in your 30s, everything's important, right?
Speaker: You're in the thick of all of it.
Speaker: You know, I don't sleep all night.
Speaker: I don't care if my boobs sag a while.
Speaker: They probably would anything, you know, like, like I don't have the attachment to a lot of external things that I did.
Speaker: If I have to call out of work, I'll call out of work.
Speaker: Somebody else can coach today.
Speaker: I'm not coming.
Speaker: So again, that's, and that's being 60, you know, plus I've earned the right to not care, you know, like I've lived long enough to be like, whatever.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So nighttime for us.
Speaker: And coffee, tea, water.
Speaker: Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, and water.
Speaker: I drink like 100 ounces of water a day, a ton of water.
Speaker: As you get older, and you'll notice this as you get older, water becomes the most necessary thing ever for things not to hurt.
Speaker: I also know the more water I drink, the more milk I have.
Speaker: which is like a really simple connection, but a lot of people aren't told just pound the water.
Speaker: And then I just love coffee and I love the taste of it.
Speaker: I love whatever connections coffee has for me.
Speaker: I just feel good when I drink it.
Speaker: So I'll only have like two cups of caffeinated.
Speaker: And then if I have more coffee, I go to decaf.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like tea, but I just don't drink it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, while we're on the topic of coffee, I, um, I wanted to ask you about the preeclampsia after you had Jack, were you fine?
Speaker: Did it go like, or did you have to do any follow-ups with that?
Speaker: It takes, it takes a while.
Speaker: So preeclampsia, there's nothing wrong with the baby.
Speaker: except that it's in your body.
Speaker: It's something in the body of the mother that causes, and they don't really know why some women get it and some don't.
Speaker: And nothing in my health history indicated I would get it.
Speaker: And I never had it with any of my other kids.
Speaker: It's not age related.
Speaker: I just happened to get it.
Speaker: So it's, it's high blood pressure.
Speaker: It's inflammation, big swelling.
Speaker: It's low platelets.
Speaker: Your platelet count and your blood drops way down.
Speaker: The only thing that fixes it is to get the baby out.
Speaker: So after Jack was born, my neck swelled up, like, like it,
Speaker: It came right out to my chin and it didn't make it hard to breathe unless I went like this, but it was alarm.
Speaker: Like it scared, scared me, but it's all, it's all part of it.
Speaker: And it took, it probably took two weeks for my blood pressure to stabilize and for my, all that inflammation to go away.
Speaker: I didn't have to take any medicine and I take magnesium as a supplement.
Speaker: So they like tripled my dosage because magnesium will lower blood pressure.
Speaker: So I came home and I was fine.
Speaker: And once all the swelling went away, I was completely fine.
Speaker: So no, I had no lasting effects from it whatsoever.
Speaker: I didn't like it.
Speaker: I didn't, it scared me, but it also was an incredible learning experience, you know, and the only thing that makes it go away is to have the baby.
Speaker: And I was lucky that he came right out.
Speaker: I didn't have to have a C-section.
Speaker: I didn't have any issues with delivery that would trigger the blood pressure.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Last couple of questions here.
Speaker: What is your go-to recharge activity with Jack?
Speaker: That would be going in the yard and believe it or not, he likes basketball and he likes baseball.
Speaker: So different than little girl babies.
Speaker: So just to get every ball we have of every size and a stick and a bat.
Speaker: And we just, I throw the ball and he hits it.
Speaker: I throw the ball and he hits it.
Speaker: Or we go across the street.
Speaker: Our neighbor has a real basketball hoop and I shoot hoops in the big basket.
Speaker: He shoots hoops in his.
Speaker: So just outside activity with him.
Speaker: Sometimes he'll just go play and I'll sit and watch him and he runs around.
Speaker: But it's getting outside and running around just being active.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I think is common for a lot of moms.
Speaker: Get me out of the house.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And what's one thing that your partner.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: So I would have to say there's a million things I could complain about around Kenny, right?
Speaker: They just are who they are.
Speaker: But Kenny has always had the ability to just get into the mindset of a child.
Speaker: Whenever we're at any sort of family event, it doesn't matter who the kids are.
Speaker: If you can't find Kenny, he's with the kids.
Speaker: And he's not just with them, entertaining them.
Speaker: He's with them.
Speaker: So for example, we were having some landscaping done and there's a big backhoe in our yard.
Speaker: So Jack's obsessed.
Speaker: It's a digger.
Speaker: I'm the digger man.
Speaker: So I went out there and stood on the digger while he climbed up and down.
Speaker: And after about 10 minutes, I was like, all right, I got to get out of here.
Speaker: Like enough on board, like get me off the digger.
Speaker: Kenny went out with a cup of coffee to relieve me and he stood on that digger for 45 minutes and Jack like he can just be in the moment.
Speaker: He's also retired.
Speaker: So I'll often be like, I know you had Jack all day yesterday.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: And he's like, are you kidding me?
Speaker: I have a blast.
Speaker: Like everywhere I go, we're the center of attention.
Speaker: Everyone knows him at the grocery store.
Speaker: So what I appreciate, and he didn't get to do this with any of his other kids.
Speaker: He was working 60 hours a week, driving a vending truck.
Speaker: So he missed out on tons.
Speaker: So Gracie's home too.
Speaker: She's living and just working part time.
Speaker: So like right now, the three of them are in the car.
Speaker: They go to Bass Pro Shops and walk around.
Speaker: They go to Target.
Speaker: They drive around.
Speaker: They go to an indoor playground called Sensory Seekers.
Speaker: They do all these things.
Speaker: And Kenny's having this whole experience.
Speaker: So he doesn't look like, oh, I'm helping or babysitting Jack.
Speaker: He's like, oh, good.
Speaker: I have two Jack days in a row.
Speaker: I'm psyched.
Speaker: So I think that's probably the biggest piece.
Speaker: And what happens at night is I'll just say, all right, Kenny, go.
Speaker: Eight o'clock comes around, go to bed, Kenny, go lie down, watch TV, do whatever.
Speaker: And I just take the overnight.
Speaker: Jack and I co-sleep.
Speaker: Now, I wish I could have Kenny there as well, but Kenny had a kidney transplant.
Speaker: So a lot of his medications cause him to be erratic in his sleep and really noisy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it just isn't safe.
Speaker: And he has a really soft bed.
Speaker: And I like a firm, especially with a baby in the bed.
Speaker: So Jack and I have our own room.
Speaker: He calls it his room.
Speaker: Jack does.
Speaker: So I can just close Kenny off into his room and he gets to just relax and recharge and sleep and watch all his cop shows and all the things that he wants to do.
Speaker: And I take Jack.
Speaker: So Gracie and I, we watch the wiggles, you know, we'll read his little, he likes any books about animals or trucks.
Speaker: He likes, he likes lift the flat books now, anything that he can manipulate.
Speaker: So we just have our nighttime stuff, but he'll say, let's go watch those wiggles.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: together.
Speaker: Let's do it together.
Speaker: We all pile in the bed and then he'll say, okay, sissy, the nights and he'll shoo her away.
Speaker: And then we have boop.
Speaker: So we have boop in the lap and that's when I sit in the bed and hold him and he goes, okay, mommy, boop in the bed now.
Speaker: And that's when he'll lie next to me and I'll lie on my side and there's something like that.
Speaker: So that's so sweet.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, if people do want to reach out to you, have any questions, how can they, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker: So my social media is just my name.
Speaker: Instagram is Barb underscore 444.
Speaker: And then Facebook is just Barb Higgins.
Speaker: And it's a public account.
Speaker: So I live in Concord, New Hampshire.
Speaker: And I have like a LinkedIn and TikTok.
Speaker: And it's all Barb Higgins, Barb Higgins, Barb Higgins.
Speaker: I have a website, A Thousand Tiny Steps.
Speaker: And on that website is my podcast and my blog.
Speaker: And then there's the Molly B Foundation website as well.
Speaker: And that has a book page for Motherland.
Speaker: But if you Googled any of those things, you would come up with all my contact.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, this has been so fun.
Speaker: Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your stories and all of your wisdom.
Speaker: I so appreciate it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: And thank you for doing this.
Speaker: It really is, you know, this is a big chunk of your time, but in, in it's podcasting is a service oriented industry.
Speaker: You know, we do it to help each other.
Speaker: Bless you.
Speaker: Suddenly having a coughing fit.
Speaker: It's very fun.
Speaker: Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker: Yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: And once you're settled in and stuff, I'd love to have you on my podcast as well.
Speaker: Because the gist of mine is ordinary people, extraordinary circumstances.
Speaker: And just this whole experience, I would love to share with my community your podcast.
Speaker: Yay.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: If you've enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, leave a comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts and share with a fellow mama plus.
Speaker: And if you're interested in coming on to share your own baby feeding story, head to mollyrider.com and click on share your story.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: See you next week.
Speaker: Bye.
