WEBVTT 00:00:00.439 --> 00:00:05.045 This is Boris Solis interviewing interviewing Deborah Sussman Cesser on 00:00:05.078 --> 00:00:09.126 June 24, 2015 at 00:00:09.159 --> 00:00:16.337 6:47. All right, so, um, maybe you could take us back to around the time 00:00:16.370 --> 00:00:20.467 that you were pregnant or of the labor and delivery, just something to 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:26.497 situate us? Was it like a hot summer or? So I actually um found out I was 00:00:26.530 --> 00:00:31.157 pregnant in Charlottesville, Virginia, which is where I had graduated from 00:00:31.190 --> 00:00:39.190 grad school and I met the man I married. There And 00:00:39.868 --> 00:00:45.237 We had been seeing a fertility specialist. We'd actually been having some 00:00:45.270 --> 00:00:53.076 trouble getting pregnant. And Um, The day we found out we were pregnant, I 00:00:53.109 --> 00:00:57.815 think was also the day, if I remember correctly, that he. Passed his 00:00:57.848 --> 00:01:03.195 dissertation, they were like really sort of close to each other. And then 00:01:03.228 --> 00:01:09.516 within months he had a job in Arizona and we left Charlottesville and all 00:01:09.549 --> 00:01:17.549 of our friends. And landed in Arizona in July, I think, and I was pregnant. 00:01:17.799 --> 00:01:20.736 And it was a little. 00:01:20.769 --> 00:01:28.126 Jarring Um, Looking back I realized just just how isolated I was because I 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:32.486 think it must be really nice to go through a pregnancy with your friends 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:39.007 and your family around you to support you. Um, I was very fortunate I had 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:41.135 . 00:01:41.168 --> 00:01:44.706 A couple of names, people I was supposed to look up when I got here and 00:01:44.739 --> 00:01:47.775 one of them was a guy named Dennis Gillingwater who teaches in the school 00:01:47.808 --> 00:01:53.717 of art. And Dennis's wife, it just so happened. She was an OB nurse. That 00:01:53.750 --> 00:01:59.206 was what she did and. You know, I'm not sure how much I believe in this, 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:02.147 but it really was like. 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:07.686 Um, It was really fortuitous. It was, I was very, very lucky to meet her 00:02:07.719 --> 00:02:10.467 and so she. 00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:15.505 told me, you know, which OBGYN to go to, which hospital to deliver it, the 00:02:15.538 --> 00:02:22.436 whole thing. I think otherwise, um, it would have been a little scary. 00:02:22.469 --> 00:02:25.166 So, um. 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:32.536 I felt I think pretty secure in that and I, I found a doula because I very 00:02:32.569 --> 00:02:37.577 much wanted not to go to the hospital until I had to and I wanted to have 00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:42.327 as close to a natural childbirth as I could, you know, short of delivering 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:46.797 in my living room. I did want to go to a hospital. Just in case I, you 00:02:46.830 --> 00:02:53.396 know, I worry, um. And um so I found a doula. The interesting thing was. 00:02:53.429 --> 00:02:57.207 Most of the sort of doulas and midwives and people that I knew were very 00:02:57.240 --> 00:03:01.936 liberal. And this woman was not, as it turned out. I think it's sort of 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:04.536 like the homeschooling movement, like you get some people who are really 00:03:04.569 --> 00:03:06.866 liberal and then you get some people who are like fundamentalist 00:03:06.899 --> 00:03:10.457 Christians and don't want their children to be contaminated. Yeah, and she 00:03:10.490 --> 00:03:15.436 was, so she was a little bit. Right of me on the political spectrum and 00:03:15.469 --> 00:03:18.755 she liked country music and, you know, it was, it was interesting getting 00:03:18.788 --> 00:03:22.305 to know her, but I felt like she knew what she was doing and she'd seen 00:03:22.338 --> 00:03:29.096 people deliver before and. Um, so that was, that was reassuring. 00:03:29.129 --> 00:03:35.066 And the whole pregnancy was very smooth. I'd had some depression before 00:03:35.099 --> 00:03:40.786 the pregnancy and somehow. When I was pregnant, it's like my moods 00:03:40.819 --> 00:03:48.225 stabilized. I was just even keeled. You know, excited about having a baby 00:03:48.258 --> 00:03:56.258 , um, excited to meet her. And um Yeah, really no sort of complications 00:03:57.240 --> 00:04:02.085 whatsoever, um, kind of effortless, you know, up until the end when I mean 00:04:02.118 --> 00:04:08.446 , it was typical, but I also sort of felt like, oh I, I see why. People 00:04:08.479 --> 00:04:12.636 are less scared of giving birth as they approach, you know, you just want 00:04:12.669 --> 00:04:17.257 the baby out. It's like, OK, it's that your home is too small, you need to 00:04:17.290 --> 00:04:23.276 come out into the world. And um and it was 2 weeks late. No, she was a 00:04:23.309 --> 00:04:29.447 week late. That's right. The due date was um the Ides of March. March 15th 00:04:29.480 --> 00:04:32.877 And she was born March 22nd. 00:04:32.910 --> 00:04:38.526 I had about 24 hours of, I don't know if it was false labor or Braxton 00:04:38.559 --> 00:04:46.257 Hicks, but my body kind of doing something and um I had a friend who was a 00:04:46.290 --> 00:04:52.296 midwife interestingly enough I had made a couple of friends just in the 00:04:52.329 --> 00:04:56.455 time that we were here. One of them was somebody in the religious studies 00:04:56.488 --> 00:04:59.817 department who was also pregnant and had a baby shortly before I did and 00:04:59.850 --> 00:05:03.296 then the other woman was this midwife. She was from the East Coast and she 00:05:03.329 --> 00:05:06.015 hated Arizona and she didn't stay here long but she was here just long 00:05:06.048 --> 00:05:09.137 enough to help me and she checked me and she's like, yeah, you're, you're 00:05:09.170 --> 00:05:12.296 dilating, you know, but you're not at the point where you should go to the 00:05:12.329 --> 00:05:17.447 hospital, so. Um, I did a lot of, you know, sitting in the bath and 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:22.687 walking around and then we went for Chinese food because there's an old 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:27.486 wives tale that Chinese food precipitates labor. I thought I'll try 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:32.717 anything, so we went to Chinese food. And That evening, you know, after 00:05:32.750 --> 00:05:36.236 about 24 hours of this false labor or whatever it was, I genuinely went 00:05:36.269 --> 00:05:44.007 into labor. And I called the doula and she came over to our house and she. 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:49.805 Um, just helped me through the um. 00:05:49.838 --> 00:05:52.656 The contractions because they weren't really close enough yet to go to the 00:05:52.689 --> 00:05:56.736 hospital and I'd heard stories about women going to the hospital with 00:05:56.769 --> 00:06:00.856 contractions and being sent home and I didn't want that and I didn't want 00:06:00.889 --> 00:06:04.015 to spend more time in the hospital than I had to. I figured as long as I'm 00:06:04.048 --> 00:06:11.906 home. And I'm comfortable and I'm OK. I'll stay here. Um, and I think we 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:18.366 went to the hospital like 4 a.m. something like that, 5 a.m. Um, and then 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:22.325 it took another 12 hours. 00:06:22.358 --> 00:06:28.986 I didn't want. An epidural. I had a number of friends who were pretty 00:06:29.019 --> 00:06:33.836 crunchy, very lovely people, but. It was all about natural childbirth. It 00:06:33.869 --> 00:06:38.245 was all about not introducing any. 00:06:38.278 --> 00:06:43.495 Um, chemicals or anything, you know, into your body and. Doing it 00:06:43.528 --> 00:06:49.455 naturally, I had a friend who was actually. Shortly thereafter she started 00:06:49.488 --> 00:06:54.296 studying midwifery at um Basil in Seattle, and she had been looking into 00:06:54.329 --> 00:06:58.455 this and she and another friend had recommended spiritual midwifery by Ina 00:06:58.488 --> 00:07:03.656 McGaskins. And I'm not usually a very crunchy person, but this book made 00:07:03.689 --> 00:07:11.356 sense to me and. Part of what it talked about is. That We tend to think of 00:07:11.389 --> 00:07:17.067 pain as a sign that something is wrong. And the pain of a contraction is 00:07:17.100 --> 00:07:20.467 different. The pain of a contraction is telling you that everything is as 00:07:20.500 --> 00:07:27.437 it should be. And so what you need to do is Ride it out, so our tendency 00:07:27.470 --> 00:07:34.257 with pain is to stiffen up. And retract and what. Um, my friend in the 00:07:34.290 --> 00:07:37.217 book explained is you have to see the contraction like a wave and you have 00:07:37.250 --> 00:07:45.250 to dive into it. Um, And it's interesting once. Once I, cause I knew 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:49.015 theoretically what I was gonna try and do. And I remember being in the 00:07:49.048 --> 00:07:52.176 waves in California when I was a kid and the whole like you really do have 00:07:52.209 --> 00:07:57.447 to dive into the wave or it will smack you down so you have to just trust 00:07:57.480 --> 00:08:01.486 that if you dive under you'll be OK whereas if you stand there scared 00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:07.317 you'll get smacked um. And that it helped. It worked. I mean, I can't say 00:08:07.350 --> 00:08:12.476 it wasn't. Painful, but it just is. It's a very different kind of pain. My 00:08:12.509 --> 00:08:15.356 daughter's terrified of childbirth. She says, I don't wanna have kids. I 00:08:15.389 --> 00:08:21.036 know it's gonna hurt. And I say I know it's hard for you to understand, 00:08:21.069 --> 00:08:24.447 but it's just a different kind of pain. 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:32.480 So I walked. And walked and walked, and I think I had a shower and. Um, 00:08:33.178 --> 00:08:35.775 Eventually. 00:08:35.808 --> 00:08:41.917 They informed me that I was stuck. I was 10 centimeters dilated on one 00:08:41.950 --> 00:08:46.836 side and 8 centimeters dilated on the other one and I wasn't progressing, 00:08:46.869 --> 00:08:52.686 and so they wanted to give me an epidural and then Pitocin to get things 00:08:52.719 --> 00:08:55.307 going again. 00:08:55.340 --> 00:09:00.265 So I said, OK, and um. 00:09:00.298 --> 00:09:06.275 That at that point, I think I was ready to have. Anna and ready to be done 00:09:06.308 --> 00:09:12.505 with it, um. Anna's father said that that was the part where it became 00:09:12.538 --> 00:09:18.265 sort of scary for him because there were needles and I was, you know, on 00:09:18.298 --> 00:09:26.298 the bed. Like a patient, um. So they gave me the epidural. And about 20 00:09:26.989 --> 00:09:29.596 minutes later I gave birth, they didn't even have to do the Pitocin they 00:09:29.629 --> 00:09:32.596 gave me the epidural and I guess my body relaxed. I feel like I've just 00:09:32.629 --> 00:09:37.797 been working so hard to get this baby out wanting to do it right and um I 00:09:37.830 --> 00:09:45.830 need to relax so I had the epidural and yeah about 20 minutes later. 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:52.885 Anna Anna was born, um. And it was strange to be told to push and to not 00:09:52.918 --> 00:09:55.346 really know. 00:09:55.379 --> 00:09:59.505 Whether I was actual, I mean, I knew I was kind of doing the things with 00:09:59.538 --> 00:10:03.765 my body that I would normally do when I was pushing. But it's it's 00:10:03.798 --> 00:10:07.366 different. You don't feel that happening. You just have to trust that 00:10:07.399 --> 00:10:12.417 you're that you're doing it. And that was strange. 00:10:12.450 --> 00:10:15.486 And um 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:20.736 And she came out and. I had been anticipating a small dark-haired child 00:10:20.769 --> 00:10:24.706 because I was a small pale baby with dark hair and my brothers were small 00:10:24.739 --> 00:10:31.375 , pale babies with dark hair. My mother and father in different. Countries 00:10:31.408 --> 00:10:36.057 had been small pale children with dark hair and she had copper hair. She 00:10:36.090 --> 00:10:43.846 had like flame. Colored copper Hair and I just realized this, this is a 00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:49.446 person, this is not, I imagined. What it would be like, but you, you don't 00:10:49.479 --> 00:10:54.287 know until your child is born that. 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:59.196 This is A whole other person. This is an individual who's going to turn 00:10:59.229 --> 00:11:04.586 into her own person, so no longer just somebody who's part of your little 00:11:04.619 --> 00:11:11.787 projected fantasy about motherhood. Um, this is a person. And that was 00:11:11.820 --> 00:11:16.917 exhilarating and. Then I would say within the next 24 hours kind of 00:11:16.950 --> 00:11:19.145 terrifying. 00:11:19.178 --> 00:11:26.537 Cuz in your fantasy, right, you're still you, you just have a kid and. Um 00:11:26.570 --> 00:11:34.570 The reality of I am fully. And almost solely responsible. For this small 00:11:35.629 --> 00:11:41.576 person who will become a grown up, that's. That's big and I think for a 00:11:41.609 --> 00:11:46.417 woman especially that's. You have to go through a readjustment, you know, 00:11:46.450 --> 00:11:52.336 I. I joined a writing group called Mothers who Write. Pretty early on and 00:11:52.369 --> 00:11:57.936 I tried to write. About how I felt that. 00:11:57.969 --> 00:12:02.395 I had given birth to Anna, but Anna in a way had given birth to to to me 00:12:02.428 --> 00:12:07.846 as a mother, in other words, not literally, but. She, she made me a mother. 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:13.057 I mean, this was like a whole different self. And without Anna, that 00:12:13.090 --> 00:12:16.255 never would have happened. I don't think it's better or worse, you know, 00:12:16.288 --> 00:12:21.047 it's. Very, very different. 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:28.135 And Not for everybody, you know, my father said life without children is 00:12:28.168 --> 00:12:32.836 not complete. And I internalized that, but I also at the same time knew I 00:12:32.869 --> 00:12:38.986 wanted to be a writer and an artist and. I had never. 00:12:39.019 --> 00:12:44.145 I was never one of those kids or girls who played marriage, who wanted 00:12:44.178 --> 00:12:52.178 babies. I didn't play with dolls. That was just not part of my dream. And 00:12:52.500 --> 00:12:57.635 So having an actual child is a much richer and more complicated experience 00:12:57.668 --> 00:13:01.047 , I think, than what. 00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:06.086 I thought it was when I was a little girl. Um, 00:13:06.119 --> 00:13:11.525 I, I wanted to stay me and I wasn't sure how I could. Become a 00:13:11.558 --> 00:13:15.625 stereotypical, you know, mother of what I saw as a stereotypical mother 00:13:15.658 --> 00:13:21.586 and still be me. And and that's part of the reason I think that. I took 00:13:21.619 --> 00:13:23.907 Mothers who write and then I ended up teaching mothers who write and I've 00:13:23.940 --> 00:13:28.967 been teaching it for. I don't know, like 15 years or something, um, 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:32.677 co-teaching it with Amy Silverman. 00:13:32.710 --> 00:13:39.467 It's because when you become a mother. You realize I have one thing in 00:13:39.500 --> 00:13:44.025 common with other mothers, but I don't have a lot necessarily in the same 00:13:44.058 --> 00:13:48.217 way that before you had a kid, you had something in common with women, but. 00:13:48.250 --> 00:13:52.086 And so to find a place where there were women who were mothers but who 00:13:52.119 --> 00:13:55.967 also wrote who saw the world through that writer's perspective and saw 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:00.015 motherhood through that writer's perspective that was really reassuring 00:14:00.048 --> 00:14:04.125 because it's like oh we can talk about the crappy stuff we can talk about 00:14:04.158 --> 00:14:10.895 postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety um. You know, feeling like. When 00:14:10.928 --> 00:14:13.616 are we ever going to be able to get back to our own creative selves, you 00:14:13.649 --> 00:14:18.936 know, all of this stuff that. There's not a lot of room for, I think, in 00:14:18.969 --> 00:14:25.047 the traditional. Notions of motherhood. Um, you know, there's no Mother's 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:32.787 Day card for that mother, it's. The selfless Mother who, you know that 00:14:32.820 --> 00:14:40.375 that giving tree mother, that's, that's the mother that Um, And I feel 00:14:40.408 --> 00:14:45.436 really fortunate to have put together a group of friends. Many of whom are 00:14:45.469 --> 00:14:51.015 mothers and. We love our children fiercely, but I don't think we're any of 00:14:51.048 --> 00:14:58.726 us. That Tree stump 00:14:58.759 --> 00:15:03.557 Um, when I had August, I totally went through an identity crisis, like a 00:15:03.590 --> 00:15:08.706 severe crisis. It was really hard, and it wasn't the depression. It was 00:15:08.739 --> 00:15:10.816 like. 00:15:10.849 --> 00:15:15.816 That's what I, I had, I think it was a kind of identity crisis and I, I 00:15:15.849 --> 00:15:17.967 realized. 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.346 And maybe it's not true for every mother and every father, but it really 00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:24.427 seemed when I looked around that. 00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:29.700 For mothers having children, having, having children, right, having a baby. 00:15:29.719 --> 00:15:31.719 You You gained something critical but not in the short term you lost 00:15:35.298 --> 00:15:39.307 something, right? And so you had to sort of cope with that loss. Whereas 00:15:39.340 --> 00:15:43.616 for fathers it was like. Do you know what I mean? I, I had a child, like a 00:15:43.649 --> 00:15:48.226 mother gives birth. You give something away in a sense, right? And you get 00:15:48.259 --> 00:15:54.395 it back tenfold, but initially. It's losing something, literally the baby 00:15:54.428 --> 00:16:00.576 out of your body and then also a sense of kind of who you were, right? Um 00:16:00.609 --> 00:16:07.736 , I mean, I remember You know, looking at women's magazines, I don't know 00:16:07.769 --> 00:16:11.076 if it was, you know. 00:16:11.109 --> 00:16:14.275 All lure, you know, whatever it was, but those were a guilty pleasure of 00:16:14.308 --> 00:16:17.797 mine. And after I had Anna, like in the weeks after I had Anna, I just 00:16:17.830 --> 00:16:21.167 looked at those like I can't make heads or tails. I don't, who are these 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:23.525 for? They make no sense. It was like they were written in a foreign 00:16:23.558 --> 00:16:27.625 language. Because what I was looking for was information that was so much 00:16:27.658 --> 00:16:35.658 more kind of primal and. Um, just about how to survive and I did have 00:16:36.048 --> 00:16:41.846 postpartum anxiety and um I was told postpartum anxiety wasn't a thing. 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:45.586 That that really postpartum depression, but there wasn't really people 00:16:45.619 --> 00:16:51.635 didn't really get postpartum anxiety, so. I had to cobble together my own. 00:16:51.668 --> 00:16:58.686 Remedies Um, one or two sort of older friends with kids said, you know, 00:16:58.719 --> 00:17:01.287 because it was around the witching hour, it was around 5 when I would 00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:06.887 start to get that panic. And Anna was an easy baby. Anna was not colicky, 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:11.766 but I'd get this rising panic and so I'd have a beer. It's like, OK, have 00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:16.766 a beer, just relax. I don't know what it was, it was this sense of being 00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:24.799 trapped. Um, that was really frightening. And interestingly enough, about 00:17:25.789 --> 00:17:30.276 a week and a half after I gave birth. 00:17:30.309 --> 00:17:34.176 And uh um. 00:17:34.209 --> 00:17:37.467 We still don't know what happened, but she started pooping blood, just 00:17:37.500 --> 00:17:41.627 like straight blood. My husband's parents had come to see her for the 00:17:41.660 --> 00:17:45.795 first time. They were visiting and the whole day they were there, I kept 00:17:45.828 --> 00:17:49.867 saying, Anna seems she's too quiet. You know what I mean? She was really 00:17:49.900 --> 00:17:52.147 like she was sleeping. I was like, oh good baby, she's sleeping, but she 00:17:52.180 --> 00:17:54.575 was too quiet. 00:17:54.608 --> 00:17:59.486 And his parents left to. Get groceries for dinner or something, and I 00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:03.535 changed her diaper and there was just blood just. 00:18:03.568 --> 00:18:07.726 You know, like raspberry jam, just like in the diaper and. So I called my 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:12.506 husband and said we need to go to the, you know, so we. I must, I'm sure I 00:18:12.539 --> 00:18:18.035 called the uh OBGYN or the pediatrician first and they said go to the ER. 00:18:18.068 --> 00:18:23.335 And we did And she spent a couple days. 00:18:23.368 --> 00:18:28.456 Um, at the hospital, you know, they, they, um, we went in through the ER 00:18:28.489 --> 00:18:34.996 but then they. Um, took her into the hospital. And 00:18:35.029 --> 00:18:40.186 They couldn't really figure out. What was going on. They said later, after 00:18:40.219 --> 00:18:44.746 , you know, a couple of days of testing and X-rays and MRIs and all that 00:18:44.779 --> 00:18:50.026 stuff, they thought that either she contracted some sort of stomach virus 00:18:50.059 --> 00:18:55.026 and not been strong enough to. Kind of withstand it, you know, because 00:18:55.059 --> 00:18:58.585 grown-ups can throw up, right, but babies can't or she was allergic to my 00:18:58.618 --> 00:19:03.387 breast milk. And I had been going to Leeche League religiously before 00:19:03.420 --> 00:19:06.026 giving birth, so I was like, there's no way she's allergic to my breast 00:19:06.059 --> 00:19:09.506 milk. That's not possible. And all the Leleche league ladies I called said 00:19:09.539 --> 00:19:16.607 , no, no, no, that's not possible. But um 00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:22.436 What I found was that when she went into the hospital. When we had to go 00:19:22.469 --> 00:19:27.897 to the ER. I didn't have that panic. I was. 00:19:27.930 --> 00:19:32.397 It's interesting. My husband could handle it, he kind of couldn't be there. 00:19:32.430 --> 00:19:38.117 And I just I don't know how to explain it, but it was almost like a 00:19:38.150 --> 00:19:41.276 biological imperative. It was like, this is my kid. I'm, you know what I 00:19:41.309 --> 00:19:45.117 mean, with my kid and we're figuring out what's going on and I'm here for 00:19:45.150 --> 00:19:51.075 her and I'm not going anywhere. And 00:19:51.108 --> 00:19:53.776 I know it sounds goofy because she was only 1 week and a half, but she was 00:19:53.809 --> 00:19:57.285 so strong and so brave. 00:19:57.318 --> 00:20:01.266 And so determined not to be there, they put her under a, I think it must 00:20:01.299 --> 00:20:05.256 have been an MRI, some kind of scanner, and they had sandbags to keep her 00:20:05.289 --> 00:20:10.236 from moving, you know, because she was a newborn. And she was pissed and 00:20:10.269 --> 00:20:15.236 she was crying and she wriggled out like at 1.5 weeks, she wriggled out of 00:20:15.269 --> 00:20:17.545 the sandbags 00:20:17.578 --> 00:20:22.276 and had to take the thing up and like put her back in and I just got a 00:20:22.309 --> 00:20:26.476 sense of this person, you know, a really strong sense of this of this 00:20:26.509 --> 00:20:30.156 person. Um, 00:20:30.189 --> 00:20:32.347 And 00:20:32.380 --> 00:20:37.236 They told me not to breastfeed, that I should put her on Alimentum, which 00:20:37.269 --> 00:20:42.236 was this very expensive formula that came in a can. And of course all the 00:20:42.269 --> 00:20:45.075 Leleche league ladies said, oh no, you can't do that. You can't do that. 00:20:45.108 --> 00:20:51.565 You must breastfeed her. So, um. I started with the elementum, but I was 00:20:51.598 --> 00:20:55.085 pumping breast milk too, right, because you know she was going to need my 00:20:55.118 --> 00:20:59.726 breast milk like that. So I was. And the Laleche League ladies, I mean, 00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:02.686 God bless them. I'm sure they meant well, but they said, Oh, well, you, 00:21:02.719 --> 00:21:05.647 you need to pump, you need to mimic the baby's feeding cycle, so you need 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:10.486 to be pumping every 2 hours, like even at night, right? So. So I'm trying 00:21:10.519 --> 00:21:17.315 to feed the baby. The bottle and pump every 2 hours and my husband is like 00:21:17.348 --> 00:21:22.387 , yeah, and I'm going out of town. I was just like. 00:21:22.420 --> 00:21:25.736 In the end, somebody, maybe his mother talked him into canceling that trip 00:21:25.769 --> 00:21:30.815 was just like you, you, you can't do this right now, yeah. And then my 00:21:30.848 --> 00:21:37.526 mother was the one who said you're making yourself crazy. You Need to just 00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:45.559 give her the bottle and she's OK. Um, And and she was, but I continued. 00:21:45.809 --> 00:21:49.426 Pumping breast milk and occasionally trying to put her back on the breast 00:21:49.459 --> 00:21:53.996 milk, and every time I did the blood returned. They had given me a little 00:21:54.029 --> 00:21:59.526 kit so that I could test. Her feces to see if the blood was there and it 00:21:59.559 --> 00:22:02.967 was microscopic, but it was there. And eventually I just thought, you know 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:08.285 , it's not worth it. It's not this sort of stubborn insistence. 00:22:08.318 --> 00:22:11.706 That, you know, breast milk would be better for her. I need to let go of 00:22:11.739 --> 00:22:16.137 that. So, but we had breast milk in the freezer for oh months, months 00:22:16.170 --> 00:22:20.926 because I was like, it's liquid gold, we can't just throw it away. And uh 00:22:20.959 --> 00:22:26.085 , you know, 3 months after I gave birth, my sister-in-law, my brother's 00:22:26.118 --> 00:22:31.666 wife gave birth to twins. Very difficult pregnancy. She had, I think, 00:22:31.699 --> 00:22:35.666 preeclampsia. I mean, it was scary, and she came home from the hospital 00:22:35.699 --> 00:22:41.535 with the two babies and we went to visit and. My mother was there in 00:22:41.568 --> 00:22:45.367 Boston helping out, so my mother was giving the babies, you know, a bottle 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:51.335 at night and I've been so brainwashed by the Lieche league that I had the 00:22:51.368 --> 00:22:55.456 temerity to say to my mother, who had delivered, by the way, me and then 00:22:55.489 --> 00:23:00.526 twins, right, and raised us, you know, pretty capably. Yeah, uh, should 00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.127 you really be giving them a bottle? Like, what about nipple confusion? 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:06.367 Like really should breast milk, it shouldn't they? OK, so here's this 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:08.776 woman who's come out of the hospital, she's very, very sick and she's got 00:23:08.809 --> 00:23:16.377 twins, and I'm trying to convince my, yeah. And I, I look back and I 00:23:16.410 --> 00:23:18.805 realize. 00:23:18.838 --> 00:23:22.575 Especially that first baby, I mean, I didn't. I had a miscarriage. I 00:23:22.608 --> 00:23:25.656 didn't have a second child, which in the long run was a very good thing, 00:23:25.689 --> 00:23:33.446 but. That first baby, you're just grasping. You have no clue really, and I 00:23:33.479 --> 00:23:38.097 didn't have that village around me of, you know, friends who'd had babies 00:23:38.130 --> 00:23:45.656 or aunts or none of that. And so, you know, you're looking for gospel, 00:23:45.689 --> 00:23:50.156 right? And so you kind of take it where you find it and then I think if 00:23:50.189 --> 00:23:57.456 you parent. Well, you sort of realize. No 00:23:57.489 --> 00:24:01.026 Baby should be parented by one. 00:24:01.059 --> 00:24:06.387 Gospel or with one approach, you need to tailor your approach to the to 00:24:06.420 --> 00:24:11.156 the child and what the child needs. And 00:24:11.189 --> 00:24:15.055 My mother being English was very sensible. I mean, she really was sensible 00:24:15.088 --> 00:24:20.347 and my mother breastfed us in the 60s when that really wasn't done. And 00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:22.946 she said, I don't care. I'm gonna breastfeed them. I mean, I don't think 00:24:22.979 --> 00:24:28.756 she did it for very long, but you know. She sort of 00:24:28.789 --> 00:24:35.426 Very rational. And it's really easy in those early days of motherhood. 00:24:35.459 --> 00:24:40.805 To lose that rational. Sense of yourself, of the world perspective, the 00:24:40.838 --> 00:24:46.906 whole thing just goes. Upside down, it really helps to have. 00:24:46.939 --> 00:24:52.967 Other people there you trust. We had one neighbor who had two older girls. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:24:59.256 And she would come by and check on me, and she loved babies and she. You 00:24:59.289 --> 00:25:05.186 know, would take Anna. And so to see somebody holding Anna and delighting 00:25:05.219 --> 00:25:08.825 in her, you know. 00:25:08.858 --> 00:25:12.147 That helped me ease up a little bit, that helped me relax a little bit. 00:25:12.180 --> 00:25:16.476 And she was one of the people who said it'll go really fast. Which of 00:25:16.509 --> 00:25:22.127 course you don't believe at the time, but here I am 17 years later, so. I 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:27.436 think somebody said the. How did the How do the weeks go by so quickly 00:25:27.469 --> 00:25:32.476 when the days go by so slowly, you know, it's that weird. Bubble gum time 00:25:32.509 --> 00:25:38.137 , you know, of early. Motherhood. Kind of none of it, none of it makes 00:25:38.170 --> 00:25:43.335 sense. And my guess is the second child, you kind of know a little bit and 00:25:43.368 --> 00:25:48.196 you're more comfortable with it, but. Everybody says being a grandparent 00:25:48.229 --> 00:25:53.887 is great because then you could just enjoy it. So you know, someday I, I 00:25:53.920 --> 00:26:01.920 hope. If we're lucky enough, I'll get to. You know, really revel. In 00:26:02.098 --> 00:26:07.107 Having a baby in my life and. Instead of sort of fighting that encroaching 00:26:07.140 --> 00:26:13.906 panic. Um, Which interestingly enough, I don't, it comes back when I 00:26:13.939 --> 00:26:20.476 remember the specific details. Of giving birth, but 00:26:20.509 --> 00:26:24.857 You know, describing it for Anna or talking to Anna about, you know, her 00:26:24.890 --> 00:26:29.406 birth and delivery and. The doctor who delivered her was named Doctor Moon 00:26:29.439 --> 00:26:33.016 , and that became like a story in our family, Doctor Moon, and then when 00:26:33.049 --> 00:26:37.617 Anna was old enough, you know, she's a teenager now, so when she was old 00:26:37.650 --> 00:26:40.976 enough to need to go to, you know, the gynecologist, you know, she went to 00:26:41.009 --> 00:26:45.256 Doctor Moon and it's sort of amazing to say like, OK, this is the doctor 00:26:45.289 --> 00:26:49.776 who delivered you and and now you're going to have your first Pap smear. 00:26:49.809 --> 00:26:52.246 Or not, I don't think they did a pap smear. I don't think they do that 00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:56.085 until, but uh your first sort of vaginal exam, you know, to make sure that. 00:26:56.118 --> 00:27:01.607 All your bits are working in case you ever wanna do that, you know. So, 00:27:01.640 --> 00:27:03.726 um, 00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:09.717 That um kind of the evolution of our identity and character is fascinating 00:27:09.750 --> 00:27:13.967 to me, you know, like what you're saying and just imagining her becoming a 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:19.246 woman and, and, um, becoming a mother and then becoming a grandmother and 00:27:19.279 --> 00:27:23.006 you know how our identity just changes so much over the course of our 00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:27.686 lives in a much more profound way, I think, than some men experience and 00:27:27.719 --> 00:27:33.236 secondhandedly. Experience right? And that and and and yet, so my father 00:27:33.269 --> 00:27:39.666 was incredibly nurturing and incredibly invested in. 00:27:39.699 --> 00:27:43.627 Family and having children and that was a huge part of his identity and 00:27:43.660 --> 00:27:46.627 the one thing he would always say about his father was, you know, he may 00:27:46.660 --> 00:27:52.236 not have been successful in other ways, but he was a tremendous father. 00:27:52.269 --> 00:27:57.325 And yet, even for my father, I feel there was. There was only a sense of 00:27:57.358 --> 00:28:02.736 addition, not a sense of of subtraction. And my mother, I don't know, my 00:28:02.769 --> 00:28:08.285 mother. Interestingly enough, so my mother, you know, tests. As male on 00:28:08.318 --> 00:28:13.127 the Myers Briggs, you know, she was not the touchy feely one, so. Maybe 00:28:13.160 --> 00:28:17.736 for her it really was just. I don't mean to minimize it, but I don't know 00:28:17.769 --> 00:28:21.535 that she felt that same sense of loss. I think it was OK, and now I have I 00:28:21.568 --> 00:28:27.357 mean I'm sure it was difficult, and I'm sure there was probably some 00:28:27.390 --> 00:28:32.176 Anxiety. I think, I don't know that she necessarily connected that to 00:28:32.209 --> 00:28:35.617 having children, but having 3 kids under 3 and a husband who was gone a 00:28:35.650 --> 00:28:41.906 lot, I now understand why her voice sometimes edged toward. You know, 00:28:41.939 --> 00:28:44.946 hysteria. 00:28:44.979 --> 00:28:52.206 I know, yeah, and uh. But I don't, I don't know. And I've never really 00:28:52.239 --> 00:28:56.266 tried to talk to her about that sense of. 00:28:56.299 --> 00:29:02.347 Kind of losing yourself. Um, And I don't know whether she would say, yeah 00:29:02.380 --> 00:29:08.565 , I. Experience that or you know, oh, don't be silly. 00:29:08.598 --> 00:29:15.607 You know, Um, how did you experience pregnancy and your, the physical 00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:20.815 changes? I mean, did you feel? Good about that experience. I felt great 00:29:20.848 --> 00:29:25.055 about all the physical changes that came with pregnancy. I had one friend 00:29:25.088 --> 00:29:30.196 who put on a ton of weight. She was unrecognizable. And, um, you know, she 00:29:30.229 --> 00:29:34.516 had 2 kids and it was the same both times, very difficult. Um, I had a 00:29:34.549 --> 00:29:41.117 friend who had gestational diabetes, you know, so I had no idea going in. 00:29:41.150 --> 00:29:47.416 Uh, and it was. It was easy. It was so. 00:29:47.449 --> 00:29:52.117 So easy. I had some morning sickness, if you can even call it that, um, 00:29:52.150 --> 00:29:55.597 the first trimester, but what I figured out was I would get nauseous when 00:29:55.630 --> 00:29:58.756 I was hungry and I just needed to have some crackers or something and then 00:29:58.789 --> 00:30:04.295 I'd be OK. Um. Certain foods I loved, I did not love when I was pregnant. 00:30:04.328 --> 00:30:08.295 Like I had to leave a friend's house when they were making sweet potatoes 00:30:08.328 --> 00:30:11.575 for dinner one night cause I was just like, and I love sweet potatoes, but 00:30:11.608 --> 00:30:14.926 I was just like, I cannot handle that smell. I need to, I had to walk out 00:30:14.959 --> 00:30:18.506 into the street, um. 00:30:18.539 --> 00:30:22.906 But there wasn't a lot of that. There wasn't a lot of I can't eat this or. 00:30:22.939 --> 00:30:27.696 And um, you know, my breasts got bigger, which was delightful because I'm 00:30:27.729 --> 00:30:34.976 not a wildly large breasted person and. People would say that I looked, I 00:30:35.009 --> 00:30:37.696 was very skinny and, you know, I kind of looked like I swallowed a 00:30:37.729 --> 00:30:43.535 basketball like that was sort of the only place where the weight. Showed 00:30:43.568 --> 00:30:51.236 And Yeah, I just I just felt, I felt good. I felt really good. I felt 00:30:51.269 --> 00:30:55.795 healthy, um. You know, I'm sure not smoking had something to do with that 00:30:55.828 --> 00:31:03.828 cause as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I just quit, um. And uh 00:31:06.410 --> 00:31:11.397 I had a just a, it was like a project. It was like my body had this really 00:31:11.430 --> 00:31:16.436 interesting project and I was kind of following along and I kind of, I 00:31:16.469 --> 00:31:24.469 kind of couldn't believe that my body was doing that. And I think 00:31:24.769 --> 00:31:31.766 I had some, you know, body image stuff and. Um Like a lot of women, I 00:31:31.799 --> 00:31:36.045 think, you know, I, I didn't like my body and. I thought it needed to be 00:31:36.078 --> 00:31:41.236 different and. After I gave birth, I was like, no, my body's good. This is 00:31:41.269 --> 00:31:46.075 good, my body did a good thing and I also felt much less embarrassed about 00:31:46.108 --> 00:31:50.676 , you know, not having clothes on around people. Like I really didn't care. 00:31:50.709 --> 00:31:54.436 I grew up very, very shy, didn't really want to wear shorts because my 00:31:54.469 --> 00:32:01.276 legs were skinny, you know. Um, And uh 00:32:01.309 --> 00:32:05.196 Yeah, after having Anna, it was like, OK, my, my body's a machine that can 00:32:05.229 --> 00:32:10.075 do an incredible thing and um, you know, it's also fabulous, but you know 00:32:10.108 --> 00:32:14.075 there was much more, I felt much more connected to my body. I think that's 00:32:14.108 --> 00:32:18.516 what it was. I don't think I'd ever felt particularly connected to my body. 00:32:18.549 --> 00:32:26.325 I wasn't really in it a lot of the time. And having Anna change that. 00:32:26.358 --> 00:32:30.976 Being pregnant, I think, changed that. 00:32:31.009 --> 00:32:35.256 Cuz I needed to be there. I needed to be in touch with this. Person 00:32:35.289 --> 00:32:43.289 growing inside me and it was cool. To be present. And uh Joyful. 00:32:46.130 --> 00:32:50.637 That's really well said. I feel like I fought against it the whole way. I 00:32:50.670 --> 00:32:52.887 do 00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:56.276 so much of it, and I would be like laying in bed and I'd have to sleep 00:32:56.309 --> 00:33:00.006 with ice packs because my legs tingled every night and they kept me up 00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:05.045 like just just the littlest things I thought were challenging in ways that 00:33:05.078 --> 00:33:10.085 were to overcome but that might have been, I mean like I knew women who 00:33:10.118 --> 00:33:12.256 had. 00:33:12.289 --> 00:33:18.217 Um, intense nausea. The whole 9 months. It's like I'm sorry, I don't think 00:33:18.250 --> 00:33:24.045 I'd be able to do that. You know what I mean? That just intense. Nausea, 00:33:24.078 --> 00:33:31.706 vomiting for 9 months up until they had the baby. And um I feel I just 00:33:31.739 --> 00:33:36.285 feel really, really grateful cause I'm. I'm not somebody who doesn't 00:33:36.318 --> 00:33:40.107 complain. So 00:33:40.140 --> 00:33:43.266 You know, I 00:33:43.299 --> 00:33:49.516 And it was an easy pregnancy and, and Anna was an easy. Baby, and I 00:33:49.549 --> 00:33:56.117 wouldn't necessarily have predicted that. Um For myself, I don't know that 00:33:56.150 --> 00:34:00.246 I was an easy baby. I think I had stomach issues. Very little and there 00:34:00.279 --> 00:34:08.279 was um screaming. And I just remember my mother. 00:34:08.389 --> 00:34:11.336 Coming to see Anna for the first time and spending time with her and and 00:34:11.369 --> 00:34:17.675 holding her and she said, this is a good baby. 00:34:17.708 --> 00:34:22.217 You know, and uh she is, I mean, she's. 00:34:22.250 --> 00:34:25.095 She has not had an easy time of it, you know, there've definitely been 00:34:25.128 --> 00:34:31.695 challenges, but she is the same sort of. Strong, resilient. 00:34:31.728 --> 00:34:38.517 Kind of lovely person. She always has been. And sometimes I tell her 00:34:38.550 --> 00:34:45.526 stories about that strong resilient. Baby. Because I think it's easy to 00:34:45.559 --> 00:34:49.086 remember just the part of the story about having to go into the hospital. 00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:53.026 With something wrong with you, which is scary. But the other part of that 00:34:53.059 --> 00:34:58.977 is you were strong and You emerged 00:34:59.010 --> 00:35:04.577 Healthy, I remember. Saying to the pediatric gastroenterologist, I really 00:35:04.610 --> 00:35:12.276 want. Anna to have breast milk. And she said You're being ridiculous, she 00:35:12.309 --> 00:35:17.356 said, if this were a third world country where the water was compromised, 00:35:17.389 --> 00:35:23.236 you know, of course, breast milk, but The the the differences are sort of. 00:35:23.269 --> 00:35:25.956 Minimal and you should feel fortunate because there are other children 00:35:25.989 --> 00:35:32.860 who've come in with very, very similar. Symptoms who may not leave here. 00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:35.360 Right, so. You know, my kid was in for 2 or 3 days and then was able to go 00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:40.736 home. 00:35:40.769 --> 00:35:44.986 And yeah, she was on crazy expensive formula that came in a can that we 00:35:45.019 --> 00:35:47.385 had to pack in our luggage anytime we went anywhere because we weren't 00:35:47.418 --> 00:35:51.905 sure they would sell it where we were going, but 00:35:51.938 --> 00:35:58.606 She was fundamentally healthy. So Yeah, we've interviewed women in 00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:03.646 different eras and. They did not have formula. 00:36:03.679 --> 00:36:09.606 They just made stuff up with like some cow's milk, some cream of wheat, 00:36:09.639 --> 00:36:13.885 like mixed in and just the strangest concoctions trying to figure out, and 00:36:13.918 --> 00:36:17.727 the kids would, the babies would just be like throwing that up until they 00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:22.236 just found the right formula of things just to. To give their child 00:36:22.269 --> 00:36:27.756 nutrition so that they survived. I mean it was really amazing. So I agree 00:36:27.789 --> 00:36:32.517 we should be grateful for the, you know, the advances that we've made and 00:36:32.550 --> 00:36:35.997 that we have something like that for a circumstance like that that you 00:36:36.030 --> 00:36:39.456 actually have the ability to use. And I had a friend in New York who was 00:36:39.489 --> 00:36:43.925 really insightful, and she's a staunch feminist. 00:36:43.958 --> 00:36:51.316 And She, her sort of opinion was that this whole. Breast versus bottle 00:36:51.349 --> 00:36:55.595 thing was ridiculous, you know, some women will breastfeed, some women 00:36:55.628 --> 00:37:01.227 will bottle, bottle feed. It's a little bit like the stay at home mom 00:37:01.260 --> 00:37:04.385 versus the working mom, right? I mean, we're all mothering, we're all 00:37:04.418 --> 00:37:11.816 parenting, we're all, so I almost feel like this. This need to critique 00:37:11.849 --> 00:37:14.416 the person who's doing the other thing comes from this tremendous 00:37:14.449 --> 00:37:19.416 insecurity that I may not be doing it the right way, so I must criticize 00:37:19.449 --> 00:37:24.256 the other person. And some of that societal pressure for sure, absolutely 00:37:24.289 --> 00:37:30.175 , right? You know, blame the mom. It's always the mom's fault. But I also 00:37:30.208 --> 00:37:34.365 think it's up to us as women, as mothers. 00:37:34.398 --> 00:37:39.057 To say this person mothers differently. 00:37:39.090 --> 00:37:43.816 And that's OK. I mean, they're not beating their child, right? They're 00:37:43.849 --> 00:37:50.967 feeding them. Formula. Um And, and 00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:59.000 That's their choice and um the sort of looking down the nose or. 00:37:59.148 --> 00:38:03.345 It's not OK and it doesn't serve anybody in the long run because the 00:38:03.378 --> 00:38:07.385 pendulum swings, right? The pendulum 11 moment the pendulum is, you know, 00:38:07.418 --> 00:38:10.385 on the side of the women who are breastfeeding and the next minute, right 00:38:10.418 --> 00:38:15.086 , early 60s when women were working it was on the side of. Formula. I mean 00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:18.155 breastfeeding was old fashioned. It was backwards. It was why would you do 00:38:18.188 --> 00:38:24.905 that, right? So it's always going to swing. And it's My husband's mother 00:38:24.938 --> 00:38:28.385 died when he was um just after he was born, and he was completely raised 00:38:28.418 --> 00:38:33.747 on formula. He's like the smartest person I know, you know, the healthiest 00:38:33.780 --> 00:38:40.345 person I know. You know, so. But the guilt surrounding every decision we 00:38:40.378 --> 00:38:44.706 make is really, oh, the guilt about not being able to breastfeed Anna, 00:38:44.739 --> 00:38:48.615 that was. Oh yeah. 00:38:48.648 --> 00:38:52.236 Terrible. 00:38:52.269 --> 00:38:57.227 And I At a certain point, really let go of it. I think I really got, I got 00:38:57.260 --> 00:39:00.046 angry. 00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:04.365 At the people in the Laeche League who kept trying to push me to put her 00:39:04.398 --> 00:39:08.006 back on breast milk because I realized this is not about my baby. This is 00:39:08.039 --> 00:39:14.396 not about what's best for my baby. This is about their 00:39:14.429 --> 00:39:17.146 Um, 00:39:17.179 --> 00:39:23.816 What's the word I want kind of. ideological beliefs about what's. What's 00:39:23.849 --> 00:39:28.787 best, which doesn't take into account, you know, my child. Who's pooping 00:39:28.820 --> 00:39:34.316 blood? And so I got angry and. 00:39:34.349 --> 00:39:37.675 Those people sort of abandoned me like once I couldn't breastfeed and I 00:39:37.708 --> 00:39:40.695 wasn't part of the club. You know what I mean, we didn't have anything to 00:39:40.728 --> 00:39:45.376 talk about. We really didn't. Cuz I was doing something that they really 00:39:45.409 --> 00:39:48.776 didn't think was right. 00:39:48.809 --> 00:39:50.827 So 00:39:50.860 --> 00:39:56.077 Instead of Feeling rejected, I felt angry. It was good. It just made me 00:39:56.110 --> 00:40:01.146 think, well, OK then. Fuck all y'all. 00:40:01.179 --> 00:40:05.595 I'm gonna do what's right for my baby and. Which is what being a good 00:40:05.628 --> 00:40:11.595 mother is, I think so. I, I write, it's trying to figure out what's right. 00:40:11.628 --> 00:40:16.327 For my, for my baby. Trying to figure out what's right for my baby 00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:20.655 without completely sacrificing myself, right? So the very early like I'm 00:40:20.688 --> 00:40:24.916 going to pump every 2 hours and give my child formula was kind of crazy. 00:40:24.949 --> 00:40:29.736 And it comes back to the whole idea. I, I, I remember having this 00:40:29.769 --> 00:40:32.776 revelation when Anna was little and we were on an airplane and now people 00:40:32.809 --> 00:40:37.336 talk about it quite a bit, right? When the oxygen mask comes down and 00:40:37.369 --> 00:40:42.006 you're with a child, what do you do, right? You put it on the kid first. 00:40:42.039 --> 00:40:45.227 No, no, you don't. You put it on yourself first because if you put it on 00:40:45.260 --> 00:40:49.046 the kid first and you pass out, you're useless. So you have to put your 00:40:49.079 --> 00:40:54.296 own oxygen mask on first. You have to take care of yourself. And that too 00:40:54.329 --> 00:40:58.217 , I think was another lesson that I learned. I really had to value myself 00:40:58.250 --> 00:41:04.376 more and I really had to take care of myself if I was going to be able to 00:41:04.409 --> 00:41:09.396 take care of Anna, and if I was going to be able to. Set any kind of 00:41:09.429 --> 00:41:14.316 example for her to follow. Right, because 00:41:14.349 --> 00:41:16.675 Kids 00:41:16.708 --> 00:41:20.997 Do what they see, not what they're told. That's, that's how they learn. It 00:41:21.030 --> 00:41:24.796 doesn't matter what you, I mean, you can say to your child, take care of 00:41:24.829 --> 00:41:30.606 yourself until you're blue in the face, but if you set an example. Of Self 00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:32.787 neglect 00:41:32.820 --> 00:41:39.345 Um, Doesn't matter what you say. So that in a way gave me permission to 00:41:39.378 --> 00:41:46.385 take care of myself, to value myself. Cause I, I kind of hadn't. Before 00:41:46.418 --> 00:41:48.856 then. 00:41:48.889 --> 00:41:51.456 Yeah, that's huge. 00:41:51.489 --> 00:41:56.345 I'm pretty grateful. 00:41:56.378 --> 00:42:00.316 I'm pretty grateful and I do. 00:42:00.349 --> 00:42:03.986 The marriage did not end well. Anna's relationship with her father is not 00:42:04.019 --> 00:42:11.037 good. But I wouldn't I wouldn't do it differently. I, I can't imagine my 00:42:11.070 --> 00:42:18.577 life without. And in it, and I lost my father a few years before Anna was 00:42:18.610 --> 00:42:21.977 born, which was. 00:42:22.010 --> 00:42:29.206 Really difficult because grandchildren would have meant so much to him. Um 00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:35.925 But in parenting Anna and being there for Anna, so much of what I do. 00:42:35.958 --> 00:42:40.956 Comes from what I learned from my father. My mother too, but my father, my 00:42:40.989 --> 00:42:47.925 father was very nurturing. Very steady, very loving, just unconditional 00:42:47.958 --> 00:42:55.958 love. And so I feel my father. With me. In some way when when I'm with 00:42:57.110 --> 00:43:02.776 Anna. Just the way I feel about Anna, I kind of feel like I get a sense of 00:43:02.809 --> 00:43:10.017 how my father felt about us. And that's really Reassuring and and lovely. 00:43:10.050 --> 00:43:17.017 It's almost like having a. Some time with him again. 00:43:17.050 --> 00:43:22.865 It's beautiful. I, yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I view my mother 00:43:22.898 --> 00:43:26.796 completely differently now that I've become a mother than I did before, 00:43:26.829 --> 00:43:30.436 you know. I'm much more forgetting of my mother now. My mother and I did 00:43:30.469 --> 00:43:36.416 not get along partly because we're so different, you know, my mother is. 00:43:36.449 --> 00:43:43.827 A very practical English economist and I'm. Kind of dreamy ADD. I don't 00:43:43.860 --> 00:43:46.666 know about dreamy, but do you know what I mean? Like I'll go off in a 00:43:46.699 --> 00:43:51.925 strange direction or I'll Here's a small example that sums us up. I have a 00:43:51.958 --> 00:43:55.595 very keen sense of smell, and my mother does not. And so for years my 00:43:55.628 --> 00:43:58.115 mother thought I was making it up. If I said something in the fridge 00:43:58.148 --> 00:44:02.816 smelled, you know, say, oh, don't be ridiculous, you know. And finally, my 00:44:02.849 --> 00:44:06.497 mother has recognized that I can smell things that she can't smell, right 00:44:06.530 --> 00:44:12.695 ? And so she's come to appreciate that. It's like I. Just because I sense 00:44:12.728 --> 00:44:15.256 something or feel something or smell something that she doesn't doesn't 00:44:15.289 --> 00:44:20.986 mean it doesn't exist. And 00:44:21.019 --> 00:44:26.236 I guess when you become a mother, you realize. Oh wow. My mother was a 00:44:26.269 --> 00:44:31.287 person, like a whole, she had a whole life before she had me. I am not the 00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:34.557 center of her universe, was not the center of her universe. She did not 00:44:34.590 --> 00:44:39.827 exist solely to take care of me and, you know, be a great mom to me. And 00:44:39.860 --> 00:44:44.385 she and I were very, very different people, and I had twin brothers 2 00:44:44.418 --> 00:44:51.646 years younger. So that's a lot to deal with. And 00:44:51.679 --> 00:44:54.967 2, I think the older you get and the more you see how parents fuck their 00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.646 kids up. I mean radically fuck their kids up. 00:44:59.679 --> 00:45:03.977 The more you look back and you think, wow. You know, I had it pretty good 00:45:04.010 --> 00:45:08.376 . I mean, I knew my parents loved me. I knew my parents were there for me. 00:45:08.409 --> 00:45:12.017 My mother and I operated very differently in the world, but I have a huge 00:45:12.050 --> 00:45:16.595 amount of respect for her. And 00:45:16.628 --> 00:45:22.365 Anna gets along really well with her. She and Anna Sort of understand each 00:45:22.398 --> 00:45:28.046 other and they both, it's very sweet. They, you know, Anna loves horseback 00:45:28.079 --> 00:45:32.675 riding and horses, as did my mother. She rode in England. I was never a 00:45:32.708 --> 00:45:35.756 horsey girl. That was not. I was like, yeah, horses, horses, horses were 00:45:35.789 --> 00:45:41.267 for girls, right? But they have, they have this sort of bond that's, 00:45:41.300 --> 00:45:47.526 that's really lovely. Um, so I definitely feel like I understand my mother 00:45:47.559 --> 00:45:53.206 a lot better. And, and she and I respect and value each other in a way 00:45:53.239 --> 00:45:57.827 that we did not. 00:45:57.860 --> 00:46:01.635 Boy, I would say it was a combination of my father dying and Anna being 00:46:01.668 --> 00:46:09.456 born that sort of forced us. To recognize each other. And and forge a real. 00:46:09.489 --> 00:46:11.517 Relationship 00:46:11.550 --> 00:46:18.135 Um, not that it wasn't real before, but A deeper relationship. It's nice 00:46:18.168 --> 00:46:22.925 for us to recognize each other. Don't you think? Yeah, I mean, on my 00:46:22.958 --> 00:46:27.126 birthday, it's not about me. I call my mother. I'm like, thank you so much 00:46:27.159 --> 00:46:31.327 for giving birth to me, right? Because it's, it's her day as much as it is 00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:34.686 mine. When you're a kid, it's all about you and the cake and the presents 00:46:34.719 --> 00:46:41.506 and you don't even think about like this woman gave birth to me. So yeah, 00:46:41.539 --> 00:46:47.456 I love, I love that shift in perspective. Yeah, it was like, you know, 00:46:47.489 --> 00:46:52.017 right, I remember right before. Being pregnant and having that I would see 00:46:52.050 --> 00:46:54.456 women in the grocery store. They'd have like 3 kids, you know, like 00:46:54.489 --> 00:46:57.977 hanging on the carts and stuff and you'd be like, Oh that's cute, or my 00:46:58.010 --> 00:47:00.767 gosh, the kids are heathens or whatever my opinions were. And then 00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:05.296 immediately afterwards it was like, wow, she has 3 kids. The person with 00:47:05.329 --> 00:47:09.727 the screaming baby on the plane, right now it's like, oh, I feel so bad 00:47:09.760 --> 00:47:15.037 for you. And when other people complain, you know, about the screaming 00:47:15.070 --> 00:47:20.066 baby on the plane. I want to say to them, I hope people were kinder to 00:47:20.099 --> 00:47:23.905 your mother when you were a screaming baby because you probably were, 00:47:23.938 --> 00:47:31.135 because most babies are at some point, you know, we just lose this sense 00:47:31.168 --> 00:47:34.195 of 00:47:34.228 --> 00:47:38.635 Kindness or compassion or kind of understanding, right? It's like no 00:47:38.668 --> 00:47:44.615 parent wants to be sitting on an airplane holding a screaming baby. Uh, it 00:47:44.648 --> 00:47:51.606 does sort of put you in context to the, the whole, um. Length of You know 00:47:51.639 --> 00:47:57.376 , Life, you know, I mean, you see everything in context of that, so like 00:47:57.409 --> 00:48:01.736 you see the old man, you think of him as a baby, you know, I don't think I 00:48:01.769 --> 00:48:03.986 ever felt. 00:48:04.019 --> 00:48:07.736 Quite as kind of. 00:48:07.769 --> 00:48:15.646 Close to death, right as. I did when when Anna was born, it's because 00:48:15.679 --> 00:48:23.037 you're at that. Door, it's the same door I was at when my father died. 00:48:23.070 --> 00:48:26.316 3 years before she was born, right? It's the door where you say hello and 00:48:26.349 --> 00:48:31.747 goodbye. And you can't be at that door and not think about. Passing 00:48:31.780 --> 00:48:37.497 through it. I don't think. I mean, unless you're of the generation of 00:48:37.530 --> 00:48:40.695 women that was just totally knocked out and then woke up like with a baby 00:48:40.728 --> 00:48:48.728 , although. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they felt, but. Um, 00:48:49.809 --> 00:48:53.037 It's, it's really. 00:48:53.070 --> 00:48:59.635 Altering profoundly altering. You know, now I'm married to a. A man from a 00:48:59.668 --> 00:49:07.155 Polish Catholic family who had. 8 siblings and I wonder, and his mother is 00:49:07.188 --> 00:49:13.916 so lovely and sane and even tempered, and I just want to take her aside 00:49:13.949 --> 00:49:21.316 and say, how, how And she lost a child. One of her children was killed, uh 00:49:21.349 --> 00:49:26.695 , you know, when he was, I don't know, 8. How the hell do you keep it 00:49:26.728 --> 00:49:34.276 together? For the other children. In the face of that, you know. 00:49:34.309 --> 00:49:39.615 I had one baby and was just completely upside down. 00:49:39.648 --> 00:49:46.227 You know, couldn't make heads or tails of it for a while. 00:49:46.260 --> 00:49:49.787 One of the other women we talked to today said that um having a child 00:49:49.820 --> 00:49:57.217 really you know. That you find this well of strength. It's reserve that 00:49:57.250 --> 00:50:01.135 you just didn't know was there, and I think that situation would be like 00:50:01.168 --> 00:50:09.168 that, you know, you just. There's no, there's no question. I mean, I. Hm. 00:50:10.378 --> 00:50:14.905 In some ways, I guess I knew I was resilient. You know, I'd I'd had a 00:50:14.938 --> 00:50:21.635 certain amount of depression, but not debilitating. Um, 00:50:21.668 --> 00:50:24.287 And 00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:28.807 Somehow somehow. 00:50:28.840 --> 00:50:36.840 Anna brought it out In me, um. I do, I feel much. 00:50:37.989 --> 00:50:40.186 Stronger. 00:50:40.219 --> 00:50:43.405 Um, 00:50:43.438 --> 00:50:49.175 And I don't know whether that's because I can't break down. I don't know. 00:50:49.208 --> 00:50:53.606 It's just not an option. It's not an option. It's not, and I don't mean 00:50:53.639 --> 00:50:57.376 to denigrate people with mental illness. I mean, you know, breakdowns 00:50:57.409 --> 00:51:05.409 happen. But I, I feel in my case. You know, 00:51:06.369 --> 00:51:12.385 There there is. I mean, for example, when, when Anna was 2 and I had a 00:51:12.418 --> 00:51:14.845 miscarriage. 00:51:14.878 --> 00:51:18.146 My therapist had been saying for a while, you know, you might want to 00:51:18.179 --> 00:51:21.787 think about going on antidepressants before this, right, because I've been 00:51:21.820 --> 00:51:25.905 grappling with depression probably since adolescence, but I felt like that 00:51:25.938 --> 00:51:28.546 was a cop out, you know, I don't want to take pills. I don't want, you 00:51:28.579 --> 00:51:33.077 know, and I'll change who I am. 00:51:33.110 --> 00:51:36.706 And I had 00:51:36.739 --> 00:51:44.739 The miscarriage and Anna was 2. And my marriage was not good. 00:51:44.750 --> 00:51:48.666 And I just started taking the. 00:51:48.699 --> 00:51:50.695 Antidepressants 00:51:50.728 --> 00:51:57.905 I thought, OK, I. This is not about what I prefer. I need to be OK. I need 00:51:57.938 --> 00:52:02.316 to function for Anna's sake. I need to be good. 00:52:02.349 --> 00:52:05.327 I took a very low dose. 00:52:05.360 --> 00:52:10.017 But it was enough. And 00:52:10.050 --> 00:52:15.327 You know, the marriage did end up collapsing. Pretty spectacularly. 00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:19.206 And 00:52:19.239 --> 00:52:24.006 I hung in there. I don't know that I was always at my best. 00:52:24.039 --> 00:52:28.566 But 00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:33.206 I didn't have the option of. 00:52:33.239 --> 00:52:36.925 Throwing my hands up or walking away or. 00:52:36.958 --> 00:52:42.405 You know, curling up in a ball and crying, I just Needed to figure out 00:52:42.438 --> 00:52:46.405 what to do for Anna's sake, needed to figure out what the right thing was 00:52:46.438 --> 00:52:50.345 to keep Anna safe. 00:52:50.378 --> 00:52:57.695 Yeah, absolutely. 00:52:57.728 --> 00:53:01.425 And 00:53:01.458 --> 00:53:04.327 Yeah. 00:53:04.360 --> 00:53:07.787 We've been um asking people because we're separating these stories into 00:53:07.820 --> 00:53:12.497 the themes if there's like a. A particular word or a small grouping of 00:53:12.530 --> 00:53:16.217 words that could kind of summarize your experience. It's a really hard 00:53:16.250 --> 00:53:21.796 question, but. Yeah, but I'm a writer, so I should be able to do this, um 00:53:21.829 --> 00:53:28.717 . A grouping of words. 00:53:28.750 --> 00:53:34.365 A group of words that's not like an egregious cliche. 00:53:34.398 --> 00:53:39.436 You've already given us like really I mean like specifically really good 00:53:39.469 --> 00:53:43.635 that would you know work in you want to tell me what they are and then I 00:53:43.668 --> 00:53:49.816 can work around them. God, there's so many. 00:53:49.849 --> 00:53:54.236 And she has all the notes of the good, the really good parts. I mean just 00:53:54.269 --> 00:54:00.336 like start the moment so. I mean, honestly, it was like. I think 3 or 4 00:54:00.369 --> 00:54:04.195 times I wrote end quote, end quote, end quote, like because they were so 00:54:04.228 --> 00:54:09.436 good good um. 00:54:09.469 --> 00:54:13.526 I didn't write down what they were though. 00:54:13.559 --> 00:54:19.646 Um, There's so many, um. Well, when you were saying she gave birth to you 00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:26.635 , that was really great, you know. 00:54:26.668 --> 00:54:29.796 I think 00:54:29.829 --> 00:54:37.467 Connection So Anna connected me. Back to my father. Who was the center of 00:54:37.500 --> 00:54:44.155 my world. She connected me to myself. In a funny way, that's where my 00:54:44.188 --> 00:54:46.695 father was. 00:54:46.728 --> 00:54:50.077 And 00:54:50.110 --> 00:54:55.776 She connected me. 00:54:55.809 --> 00:55:01.885 Forward in a funny way I feel. 00:55:01.918 --> 00:55:07.316 Like in the same way that my father is around, I will be around. 00:55:07.349 --> 00:55:14.276 Not literally, right, but. My father shaped me. I've shaped Anna. Even if 00:55:14.309 --> 00:55:18.916 Anna doesn't choose to have children. Every life she touches, every person 00:55:18.949 --> 00:55:24.365 that she has a relationship with, or, you know. That's the ripple, that's 00:55:24.398 --> 00:55:27.517 the ripple out. 00:55:27.550 --> 00:55:31.095 And so connected. 00:55:31.128 --> 00:55:38.250 Yeah, it's beautiful, it's great. That was, that was like the best way to.