Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - MUM'S THE WORD BEST BITS: Georgia Jones

Episode Date: August 11, 2024

On This Week's Mum's The Word:Georgia Jones sits down and reflects on what her favourite moments has been from our guests across Season 2 of Mum's The WordWe'll Hear From:Ollie & Gareth Locke + their surrogate Bex WardKerry Northcott, Dr Martha & TakkiesAnd many more guestsGet In Contact With Us:Do you have a question for us? Get in touch on our Whatsapp, that's 07599927537 or email us at [e-mail] for Listening---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers internet. Visit rogers.com for details. We got you. Rogers. Hello and welcome back to Mums the Word, the parenting podcast. I'm Georgia Jones and welcome to my best bits from season two of Mums the Word.

To kick things off, let's start with my chat with Lottie Drinnen, best known for her hashtag bloat-friendly wardrobe back in 2018, which soon became viral and her blogs, The Tummy Diaries and You've Got This. It took me a long time to realise that I was not coping and I wasn't happy and you know skipping through motherhood like everybody kind of makes how you should be doing or you know the world does yeah tv yeah um it took me and it took me a long time to realize and when i finally did and it's that moment where you kind of look back on yourself and i feel like this is a lot of people

like you don't realize until you're out of it a little bit yeah the oh god i i was not doing okay there that was like look at that like i look at my eyes and if you get oh sad eyes yeah i was glazed over and i'm smiling with this makeup yeah beautiful baby and i think i was not okay in that picture same like ridiculous like and i couldn't i don't know whether you were the same but at that time i couldn't verbalize it i found it very difficult to tell anybody yeah do you know what i'm not okay because i think as well you don't really know why because like you said you're so happy that you're a mum like god you love your baby there's all you know you there's all these wonderful emotions that you are still feeling some of the time not all the time yeah but like i was and you said you were but then there was

this just this overwhelming like sadness oh definitely as well and like anxiety and just feeling feeling down yeah that you kind of just powered through with definitely and we had penny in september and i feel like up until around christmas it started off as little pockets for That you kind of just powered through with. Definitely. And we had Penny in September. And I feel like up until around Christmas, it started off as little pockets for me of the pain. And then it just got big. I don't know if that's how it happened with you, but it just got bigger.

Mine got bigger, yeah. Yeah, and bigger. And at first it was, yeah, it was more at night times and there were certain triggers, et cetera. But then it just got bigger. And I remember it was around after Christmas. And I just found myself like just sobbing and feeling so much physical but mental pain yeah um yeah it does and yeah like you say you're just like but why and and it's hard to verbalize it to your partner as well you might have been different but with danny he was like what's what what's wrong why do you

feel this way i was like i don't know i don't know why i feel this way but i feel this way and i can't seem to get myself out out of it i mean i did and i didn't probably should have gone on some kind of antidepressant or something at the time i think because i was but even back then there would have been more stigma like cooper's only what four five is he he's five yeah but even back then a lot's changed in those years yeah isn't it oh yeah completely like it's mad how things become more and more acceptable as time comes on which is great for like our children for the future but yeah like everyone just thought i was doing okay and i think i made out to everybody that i was doing okay yeah like the one bit of advice i would give to anybody that is feeling like that or thinks they're feeling like that just a bit

unsure of like what's going on with their mental health just vocalize it and talk to the right people as well because like there might be somebody you say it to that's just like oh yeah but aren't you lucky i think because when you were saying like you didn't know why how to vocalize it i guess for me the difference i had was I had the birth that I think played a really big part. So I had something not to pin it on, but I could explain that a bit. Like, I think it's that that might have happened anyway and might have got the depression, anxiety anyway. I think I had that at that, which really helped me speak to Ross about but yeah for friends etc the same they they just didn't know why it was happening. My next guest was Ollie and Gareth Locke their struggles when it comes to a surrogate birth was well documented on Made in Chelsea however they've now become dads to, thanks to surrogate mother Rebecca Ward.

So how did you find, because Bex, Rebecca, but you call her Bex. Bex, yeah. Yeah, Bex. She was the lovely lady that carried the babies for you, wasn't she? How did you even go about, like, finding her? How does that process even begin? We were lucky. In Britain, it's not the easiest situation because the laws are

quite archaic and they're quite difficult and they're just they just need renewing basically i've talked about it quite a lot but we happen to be on maiden chelsea talking about the fact that we were going to go through this journey and uh and she dm'd us did she and we had quite a few dms and we spoke to different people and it ended up that Bex, we'd had a surrogate before who had DM'd us as well, but after a couple of failed attempts we were advised by a doctor to maybe just try someone else just in case it was a problem. Anyway, luckily Bex had messaged us and we spoke to her.

There's a lot of tests you have to go through, a lot of psychology bits. Counselling. Counselling, all sorts of stuff. Really? Yeah, legally, yeah. Right. With her yeah legally yeah and um with her and her family basically as well like her partner she's got children hasn't she she does yeah you to be a surrogate in the uk legally you have to have had children so basically you can understand what it is going to be even though

even though it's not her egg and basically we put an embryo in her that nothing dna wise to do with that um oh okay you have to understand you know you're going to go through this process you have to have understood what it is to have a child a bit and then we do all the counseling with her because you're going through this thing together like she she carried our child for best part of seven months they'll promise you all but best part of seven months you know that's a long time and it's there which is with them the entire time So you have to understand the gravity of what it is that you're going through. And it's not just her. It's her family.

It's her sons, her partner, everything that has to deal with everything when we're not there. Yeah, with a very pregnant woman. And lots of hormones going everywhere. And the fact that she is not keeping the child at the end, even though it's not biologically her, there is obviously a sentimentality when it comes to you carrying the baby and she has to be physically and mentally prepared that that baby will be given to someone else yeah of course that you've grown but we've i spoke to her this morning even i i i speak to her a lot yeah i've met her actually you've met her yeah yeah she is lovely and she's coming down in a couple of weeks and

we'll spend some time with her and it's important. And is she going to stay quite in the baby's lives then? Yeah, she'll be auntie Bex. Auntie Bex. And her kids are like cousins to them, essentially. Oh, that's... So it's really sweet. I love that. Well, you've got to remember they were all born in the same...

They were grown in the same tummy. Yeah. So when you say... So the embryo... The egg, sorry. Did you... How did... What what happens i'm confused so can you explain so you go to an egg bank yeah um and you go and you go through profiles and

whatever right so you you kind of choose you're not allowed to see their face you can see the color of their hair whatever they're built etc but it's it's one of those things in the uk where there's this sort of fine line between them over commercializing it and making it too accessible and a few sort of red flags for them so one of the big things they don't allow you to do is see the face because they kind of just want to probably make it a bit more difficult and a bit more of a sort of choice to do but if you're a lesbian couple you can see the sperm donor well or even you know you don't have to be lesbian you can be anyone getting sperm yeah i mean so you can see the sperm donor but you can't see their egg donor correct yeah which is

complete inequality and sexism i was gonna say that's completely flawed right so flawed completely flawed how do you know it's so interesting though because people that aren't going through this process have no idea about this it's not talked about as much because it is still and i tell you why it's not talked about is because it is so incredibly expensive and the nhs won't do it yeah for if you were a a male gay couple in britain going through this um you won't be able to the nhs you're not allowed to because you're allowed they say well you can make the embryos we can do that for you that's fine but you're not allowed to use a surrogate. So there's nowhere to put it. There's nowhere to grow the embryo.

Wow. And so you have to spend money. So if you're a low income family in Britain and you are married to a man and it is exciting and wonderful and you want a family, I'm afraid you're at the end of the road. Gay couples that go through this IVF thing, and bearing in mind it took us a while to do, so obviously your motivation is you these kids so much and you've got so much love in your life that you want you want to have children and actually we met we met a couple Rob and Seb the other day who've got two wonderful sons both eight years old both twins from IVF and you meet the children of people who've gone through IVF and it's such a long process even if it's down to male female like infertility thing it is such a long process, even if it's down to male, female, like infertility thing. It is such a conscious process that is a lot of heartache on the way that when you get those kids, you love them so much and you put so much into them that these kids are actually really exceptional.

Like they're really interesting to talk to. Obviously, their parents give them loads of time because they love them so much and they've wanted them so much. So for me, even like this is toss-up because obviously nhs like doing gay surrogacy is it you know is it it's gonna cost too much etc whatever however you've got these two parents that want kids so much and you're gonna give so much love to a kid how can you not allow something like that jesse king joined me who is the founder of welcome to babyhood and a very good friend of mine a platform to support guide and empower parents through their first 40 days i really feel like we've kind of gone so far

away and especially with like the incredible body confidence era that has kind of happened and whatever but i'm exactly the same however i do it for my mind my body and my future self and I genuinely have had such a like it's almost shifted like flipped my perception on moving and my mum talks a lot about it about how when you're 80 you want to be able to run with your grandchildren or take your dog for a walk or travel around the world and be able to carry your own suitcase or all these things that actually are so much more important than like putting on a bikini right now and having 12 fabs but it's just so nice to have that like awareness and that respect for our future us. Yeah. So when I created Babyhood, I wanted there to be four pillars, body, brain, feeding and sleep.

And my your body's best friend in Babyhood, which is an online video course, is Claire Bourne. And she's a phenomenal postnatal physiotherapist. is Claire Bourne, and she's a phenomenal postnatal physiotherapist. She talks a lot about keeping, like, the lack of strength you feel after a vaginal birth or after a cesarean. I can only speak from experience, and I had a cesarean. You are literally starting what feels like from scratch, but you're only building on what you already knew. But it's almost a time to look at it and go, right, this is like full on recovery. How can I do things properly? How can I prevent injury? How can I feel as strong as I possibly can so I can pick up my daughter or son whilst I have shopping? And all these things that really do just make you appreciate everything after pregnancy because I was so sick during

pregnancy I couldn't even move I think I did maybe three workout sessions in nine months and when I say workout sessions I think I was just on a bike and um and so now I'm like how lucky am I to be able to move my body without pain without sick, without having a massive bump in front of me. So I think it's just all these things that happen, you really do, and it's like a daily thing. It doesn't just happen within a snap. You have to really, like, just, like, you have to expand your idea on, or your ideals.

Yeah, so you had, what was it called? That's it. Say it with confidence. Hypomys gravidarum. It's literally like a spell. Hyperemesis gravidarum. That's it. So yeah, for anybody that doesn't know,

a chest suffered with that, didn't you? When you were preggers. Yeah, pretty gross. Just being sick lots and lots and lots of times. And I didn't even know it was a thing until I was experiencing it. And I think it is quite, maybe not unknown, because like my auntie said, you're very lucky suffering with what the princess suffered from.

And I was like, oh, that 30 times a day, like being sick 30 times a day is pretty lucky actually um yeah I feel good yeah if the royals do it yeah if the royals do it then you're yeah I'm a king so I'm in that bracket but it was pretty debilitating and it definitely definitely made me question having another one and it's one of the reasons why I've left it a little bit longer than a lot of my friends. You being not one of them because you're very sensible. But a lot of. Yeah. And I think we've had the conversation multiple times. Like just being like, is this it? Am I am I just extremely grateful for having one healthy child? And is that enough for me?

Do I really want to put myself through that again, mentally, physically? And I think we both experience, obviously we're both each other's therapists when we're together. And I just love that. Like you can pay a stranger to listen to your problems, but actually sometimes your best friend

is all you need to chat to. Emily Norris is known on YouTube and Instagram for her no-nonsense hacks to make life easier and her down-to-earth approach for parenting. Her book, Things I Wish I'd Known, My Hacks for a Tidy Home, Happy Kids and a Calmer You, became a bestseller and earned her the nickname Queen of the Mothering Hack.

But I think early on, I found routines because it was a way for me like clawing back a little bit of control. So I found the early days of motherhood like quite difficult. But as soon as I started a routine, I just felt better that I knew what was going on. My baby was happier. So yeah, routines for me really did did help I know that's not for everyone but for me I was like I just need you know I went from being like a bit of an organized person to life just being so chaotic and yeah you know you have to really lower your expectations I think we were very similar in that in that sense because I'm the same like everything had a place in my home prior to having a child and I always

knew where everything was everything was always like spotless and I remember all my friends and family saying George you know it's like this is going to be tricky when you have a baby you're going to be doing like seven rounds of washing a day there's going to be stuff everywhere and I was like no it won't I will everything will have its place everything will have its order and then I had Cooper and I was like okay yeah and actually it was quite I found it quite difficult to be out of control in that way yes so did I yeah and I did everything to try and prep for that like I had meals in the freezer and things like that but you just you can't imagine how much is going to completely change everything yeah and yeah I think for me at the beginning,

it was quite difficult. And I was sort of like seeking that perfection. Like if friends would come over to see the new baby, I would be like up making the tea and getting the biscuits and I trying to, you know, everything great. And then when I had my second and third, I was like, you know what? If there's a massive pile of clean laundry

in the laundry room that I'm choosing my clothes from every day, that's absolutely fine. Like I'd rather. I think that's it as well it's like the um you know the way you look to everybody else because if you've been a certain way and I felt the same as you is that if you've been a certain way and everyone you almost feel like everyone expects that to be the way you're going to be so I felt so much pressure and also like I hated it when someone would come around to my house and it wasn't how they've always seen it totally wasn't how they always expect it and how Georgia has her house and that's how it's always been yes and I really struggled with that and I almost didn't want people to come around I was like they're gonna see yes the imperfect me but

actually I've done a lot of work on this in therapy because i've got this like child mentality of wanting to keep things like it perfect you know like a perfect little house and everything's neat and everything's tidy when actually when you become a parent or even if you're not a parent just life sometimes when you're busy yeah you can't you can't be that like perfect person all the time. Totally. But you can do things that might help, which is what you look. Yes, yes. So these are like the strategies and things that I've put in place that have actually made a difference or helped. So like, you know, meal planning, meal prepping, batch cooking, all those.

There's just ideas in there that you can try. But definitely when I became a mom, I quickly, well, I actually didn't feel better until I lowered my standards. Until was like you know what you know for the next 10 years I am not going to have a very clean house and actually now we're kind of on the other side of it we we sold our big ugly grey couch recently and we've got a cream couch and I actually cried so much when we lost that horrible there's probably things growing on it but that horrible yeah that horrible couch because I was like this is literally the end of you know yeah you know the very young years like it's done I have a beautiful cream sofa and I'm just sad about it now so I totally understand that you know we're similar we've got like this awful leather sofa and you

know when something as you've had something for so long the bit you sit on is a completely different color to the bit that isn't ever seen to the world like the underneath of the cushion i'm like wow is that the color my sofa used to be and like there's water stains and everything but i'm quite attached to it because like all these little stains have been made hopefully all of them yeah some some of them maybe not made by cooper yeah like they were from you know i'm sitting on there with his water and it's leaked or like having a snack and he smudged it into the sofa and yeah um which god before i had him if somebody said to me i'm going to put a child on your sofa and it's good he's going to leak water on it and he's also going to potentially eat some food on there there'll be crumbs i would have been like absolutely not i

will not allow that in my house and now i'm like yeah it's fine exactly the same anything for an easy life sometimes and then like you know when they're poorly yeah you just want to cuddle yeah you're like do you know what you sit on that sofa yeah have some toast yeah if all you can manage today is toast on a sofa i'll let you have that yeah harriet shay smith author of Mumminate and the host of her own podcast Unfollowing Mum in the book she celebrates the fact that we are human that nobody gets it right first time and her podcast often deals with the hard-hitting issues toxic family and dysfunctional dynamics what I did want to ask you as well with obviously, you know, making that decision to cut contact with your mum, how was it for the kids and how did you navigate that with your children? we were not going to cut contact for the children that the kids would be able to you know have some kind of relationship and then my mum's behavior towards them became really quite toxic like

sitting down with my then five-year-old and saying you need to help me look for a house because mummy's throwing me out and this kind of thing so we were like that's that's gonna be a no yeah so what we did was I'd we'd gone for a walk and I remember the kids, they will, kids will ask you the best questions. And they don't pull their punches. And I remember the kids saying to me, what's going on with Mama is what they called her, not Grandma. And I said to them, you know, OK, look, she's going to be moving out because that's what's best for all of us. And they said, well, are we going to be able to see her? And I said, I'll be completely honest with you at this moment in time I don't know and what I made sure to do was to explain

to them in a very child appropriate way what was happening yeah without bad mouthing and I think that's one of the biggest key things was her behavior is not very kind towards me at the minute and I don't feel like I am particularly kind when I am around her and that's not healthy for me so I have to think about what's best for you guys and what's best for us as a family and that's going to be to not have her in our lives at the moment that's an incredible way of saying it I mean it beats saying you know she's awful yeah yeah she's horrible she's a bit of a dick your grandma yeah she's just a bit of a dickhead it was true and it was fair and it was accurate because I don't feel that my behavior was great when I was around my mum either I think I don't

feel like I was able to be the best version of myself because we're constantly defensive constantly waiting for her to shout at me across the dinner table in front of the kids or to have to challenge something because of her behavior. And that's not a healthy way for anyone to live. And I want my children to understand that regardless of who someone is, you don't have to have them in your life. And something that a lot of people find a pushback with is people will say, you're teaching your kids to cut off their parents and it will happen to you and my response to that is I'm teaching my kids to cut off toxic people and if my behavior is toxic they have every right to cut me off yeah and that's going to be really hard but that will be for me to work on myself and to be accountable for that exactly because you wouldn't want that to happen to the point where if anything like that

happened in your head you could go well i need to change which is where your mum didn't didn't so she didn't have there's no accountability yeah and that's where the no ability for that no the other thing i wanted to ask you because where we grew up, sorry, and where you still live is a really small town. And our town, you know, everybody talks. That's what happens in small towns. Like, how did you deal with that as well? I've often wondered this, Harriet. Like, was there a lot of gossip?

Was, like, did you see your mum all the time, like accidentally? Yeah, not terribly often. Not terribly often, to be fair I did have in the very beginning a few incidences of kind of people saying I saw your mum and that's where your boundaries have to come in of saying to somebody oh okay well I don't need you to tell me that right I'm not really you know I'm not really interested I hope that she's well I'm not really interested in you telling me that and put those boundaries in place. I'm a big believer in putting boundaries in place. And yeah, there were the few odd comments. I remember going and

collecting a takeaway once and the person who worked behind the counter knew your mum from having worked with her years ago, not like in a close relationship, but just in like a passing kind of, hi, how you doing? And she was was what you will find is that people who are in those positions suddenly become like a vehement champion of your parent of you must get in touch with them extend the olive branch and I'm like if you only knew and I just sort of had to say because every time I was going in to collect any kind of takeaway or just going to get my dinner, it would be, have you spoken to your mum? And in the end, I had to say to her, I haven't spoken to my mum

and I'm not going to be speaking to my mum next week when you ask me either. So I am going to ask you to not keep asking me because it's really uncomfortable. And whilst I appreciate you might have the best intentions, I'm not here for that. And it's so awkward and uncomfortable. And I think people think that boundaries are quite scary, but setting boundaries is always going to be uncomfortable, but it's worth it for your own peace of mind. And clear,

concise boundaries are the kindest thing that you can do with people. You know, you're letting them know where you can stand, where you stand and how you want to interact with them. And if you want to save relationships and you want to be able to have healthy relationships boundaries are the key to that that's such incredible advice harriet and like honestly i think so many people listening will because there's so many people that will be going through this and people just don't talk about it because they're embarrassed or ashamed or i think they are potentially wrong and it's really important to be vocal about it and let people realise it's not uncommon and it's not wrong to feel a certain way about, you know, your parent or your auntie or uncle or grandma.

Kerry Northcott, better known as LifeWithIvyCoco on Instagram, she currently has one girl with her husband, but has been open about her desire for another child on social media alongside her struggles with that how do you feel when somebody says to you just what you need to relax i want to punch them in the face i can imagine and i think the thing we've locked down as well is that we all sort of lost our identities and i was stuck with my thoughts and my best friend at the time was pregnant and I just would like be on the phone and like I was so happy for her but then also at the same time like but then get off the phone and my heart would absolutely break yeah myself yeah and I

remember laying there once and he walked in and there's nothing he's got better over the years knowing that there's nothing to say he just needs to show up for me and like give me a hug and allow me to rant and have my emotions just hold you really he turned around to me he was like oh do you do you think it's because when we was 18 you like you'd had two terminations and i was like i can't believe you just said that to me oh god I bet you wanted to divorce him there and then the end yeah he's definitely like learned over time like how to be with me and then in lockdown I went to the doctors and said like I actually think I'm depressed I am not coping at all with it I think it was it after like i remember but they'd basically tell me

she had a grin on her face and when maybe just lose a bit of weight oh my god you're joking no and then was this a gp yeah gp wow and i just don't think they're geared up for it do you know what i think some of them do not have the social skills either. I remember, my sister's a doctor. Yeah. And when I went to visit her at university, the amount of people studying medicine, I was like, God, if I came up against you in a GP surgery.

Yeah. God forbid, because they've got no, so a lot. No. Like categorizing. A lot of people there, that intelligent. Yeah. Don't have great social skills and i just think as well with fertility they're still so dated about it yeah oh so dated because because we don't get research done on us women are like at the back oh god and this is what this

is why i talk about it because like we have to really advocate for ourselves for testing yeah and one of the things that she said to me as well, which, I mean, you just have to laugh about, is she said that, you know, like, you could have another child doesn't mean that your daughter and that child are going to get on. What's that got to do with anything? And I was like, listen, I know this, but that is irrelevant. Like, what the hell are you actually coming out with?

It was just bizarre, just bizarre. So at that point, I thought- Was she your mother? Did you ask her? Did you say, do you have children? No, because I was literally sitting there at an absolute wreck and I've got this woman sort of smiling at me,

telling me to lose weight and that they probably wouldn't, it's not guaranteed that they're gonna get on and like each other anyway. Wow, I mean, just, just i mean in shock about it all so yes so then i was able to get referred to kingston who i have to say their fertility department and it's such a postcode lottery have been incredible like the calls and the support even today like they are just such a wonderful wonderful team and i'm very very grateful for them they sent me for a high cozy what's that um so basically they go in and they

fill your tubes with a foam to see if there's any blockages right right but the issue with this is that your body sort of like can protect itself and close up. Ah, okay. So it can look like there's a blockage, but there may not be. It would just be like a contraction. So like your body's like, this is for, and like, and sort of tenses up because it's really painful. Oh gosh, was it? Horrendous.

Were you fully awake then when that happened? Right, okay. Yeah, fully awake when that goes on. Yeah. And mine did that. So I went, then had to go in for a colposcopy to go inside and see and i had some old endometriosis scarring i'd had a flare-up when i was younger right but then they said there wasn't any blockages so technically there was no

there's no reason why you should know that we shouldn't be getting pregnant fast forward more time yeah i did some research into clomid which is a medication for women that suffer with polycystic ovaries or like just don't ovulate yeah and there was information saying that even if you do ovulate this can also help with trying to get pregnant if you're having issues because at this point we were you kind of just left with there's nothing else we can do yeah because they've gone in and looked and they're like everything's fine so everything looks fine there's no reason right and and your partner had been checked as well yeah he came back the doctor was like these are the best results i think i've ever seen did that make

you want to punch him as well a little bit well done you that's great and he was like oh yeah like like a like a proper lad like dead chuff that he's got super sperm yeah so yeah so he'd been checked fast lots of them all good yeah so no reasoning with him so that's when i did the research into the clomid and i pushed and i was like but you ovulate we don't think you need it i was like i don't care can we just try it and fortunately they was like yes you can only have six rounds of it okay as a woman right because of the effects of it well done for pushing i think that's something like that anyone listening yeah should be aware of. You have to advocate for yourself.

You have to. You can't just sit back and rely that these doctors who look after X amount of people are going to be out there advocating for you because they're not. They're doing their job. Yeah. And they're overworked, underpaid, understaffed.

Not every doctor's wonderful, but the majority of them are. And my sister always says to me, she's like, you need to ask for that. They have to prescribe it for you yeah like i'm like oh well i've never been given that option she and lauren my sister is always like well no because that probably costs a lot more than this does you know i got put on a pill that i shouldn't have been on because it's cheap i was like i should be on this one and it was a struggle to get the one that i should have been on yeah purely because it was

really expensive that's why i'm saying like you have to advocate for yourself you have to do and even like you can't even just go off with like when i talk about stuff i don't want other women to just go off what i'm saying this is what i researched and this is what i felt was going to work for me yeah she was like okay we'll do it Here's the Clomid. I did four months. The side effects were horrendous. And how do you take it? So you take it on the second day of your cycle. Yeah.

And is it a tablet? It's a tablet. So you take it for like three to five days on the second day of your cycle. And this is supposed to overstimulate your ovaries. So this month I've been on it. I did four months and then I'd had a chemical pregnancy with it so I took a break from it because it's a lot yeah yeah is there side effects to it then yeah it affects your eyesight oh wow you basically are a raging lunatic

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so you can go all out without going over. Don't wait. Our back-to-school offers are only available for a limited time. Go to Fido.ca or a Fido store near you and save all semester long. Fido, at your side. Tacky's originally from South Africa, now lives in the UK with her two daughters, Suri and Sana. She champions body positivity and is just a great all-round role model for mums and women in general. I think when you start like

actually seeing the benefits of working then you feel like you can just relax a little bit more as well when you've got kids. Yeah. Like the pressure to make sure you are providing and you have you know enough money to give them the life that you want to give them exactly and not only that like for my girls i want them to know what hard work is i don't want them to think money falls from trees they even know like if i have to leave the house i'm like girlfriend mama's going to work because the spring is not going to buy itself you know that's exactly what i say to cooper like if i was like oh mommy do you have to go to work i'm like well do you want nice things and do you want a roof over your head? And do you want food on your plate?

Because if you do, then yes, mummy does need to go to work. And that's, like, that's just life. And that's what we have to do. And it's the perfect age to introduce it now. So that as they get older, they'll want to, like, I don't know, go sell cookies in the corner of the street or, I don't know, or make juice. Maybe not in England. Oh, you guys want to do that?

Oh, in South Africa. You can post up on the corner of the street have your cookies your chips oh yeah you can just sell to whoever walks past I think we'd just be moved on by the police here they'd be like you haven't got a license for this like bye get out of here I don't care if you're six no that's crazy so you have to buy a building before you can sign anything yeah you've got to have a street license you've got to have a seller's permit that's wild I mean I wish they did that yeah because there wouldn't be so many people begging on the street oh I know I believe in job creation and you know making money for yourself in the most creative ways but yeah again yeah like little lemonade stance yeah well I have actually I don't know what you whether you do this with the girls because your girls are on you you show their faces and they're in your campaign sometimes

same as coops is with me and um i started actually paying him a little bit of money so when he does like you know helps me with a with a shoe i'll say to him like you know you obviously deserve to be paid for this so i'll pay you a little bit and go and you piggy bank. You can save it or you can spend it on some Lego or, you know, whatever. I always wonder whether people think that's a bit strange. But I think it's like quite a good way of teaching him that, you know, you have to work and then you get money. You don't just get it. Yeah. Oh, I believe in that.

I mean, even with the girls. So even things like doing little chores around the house. I'm like, if you do chores and, you know, help mama out, I'll put something in your little piggy bank. And they, like, get straight into it because they want to make something to buy what they like. Yeah, exactly. And even, like, with saving, I'm teaching them about saving.

I'm sure you're doing the same. I think it's the perfect age to do it. And I don't know for you, but for me, growing up, I didn't really have that. I mean, I did have that concept of having a piggy bank but I think I wasn't like taught from an early age to save money or this is how money works I was the last born I got what I asked for so right yeah I was quite spoiled how many is there of you it's just two of us and I have an older brother right um and he's five years older than me. Yeah. So I got, like, spoiled. And you're the girl. Yeah, because you're the girl as well.

Like, the youngest. Exactly. The girl. Yeah. Girls get everything. They do. Exactly. So I didn't have that.

But I think the older I got, I was like, no, you know what? I want to switch it up for my girls. I want them to know from a young age. Because also with schools, yeah, I don't think they really teach that, right? No. I mean, honestly, I think that this should be one of the main subjects taught in school, like finances, how to deal with your finances. Of course.

I remember when I first started earning and dad was like, oh, don't forget, you know, you've got to put a certain amount away for tax. I was like, what's tax? I didn't even know what tax was. And he was like, oh, well. And I was like, what? They take our money? I was like, what and i was like what they take our money i was like what this is not fair and why am i not why am i not prepared for this and i remember it was such a shock and i was like why are they teaching us like about i don't know trigonometry

i don't want to know that i need to know how to do my tax return that's what i need to know how to do need to be prepared yeah maybe maybe they do do that in school now i don't know because obviously our kids aren't yeah they still age yeah i hope they do because i mean in school i didn't have that no no we didn't we did have a little thing where you could go in so it was like once i can't remember how often and we all had our little bank account booklets okay it was for a bank called yorkshire bank i don't know if it was still going and we would go in and you could um deposit your money so you'd give it you'd hand your money over and they would put it into a bank for you oh that's brilliant yeah so i remember i don't know that anyone else any listeners had that but yeah we

had that when we were growing up fun i just remembered i wonder if they still have it because that's brilliant it's a good idea yeah and you could take in however much you wanted and you take it into school i mean to be honest now if people were kids were taking money into school it probably gets nicked wouldn't it oh yeah yeah yeah back there back then it didn't rebecca ward better known as bex was the surrogate for ollie and gareth lock's two children cosima and Apollo. And she joined me after such a good reaction to the episode with Olly and Gareth. How did you feel when they were like, yeah, there's two heartbeats there?

I can remember being on the bed, having the scan. And at that point, you're just like, I just hope there's a heartbeat there. I hope there's something there, that something's taken. We've got the positive pregnancy test, but that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, there is hope there's something there that something's taken we've got the positive pregnancy test but that doesn't necessarily mean you know there is something there so that was my biggest thing and then she was so blase the girl who was like oh yeah so there's two as if I already knew and then I just went what it was just a bit of a daze and all I kept thinking was I want to get

out of this room and ring them. Because they weren't with me. They were away. I think it was in France or somewhere they were. And I thought, I need to get out. I need to get out just to ring them and tell them that there's two there. Because they'd always dreamed of two. Had they? And obviously we'd had a miscarriage before the two.

And so just the fact that we'd lost one but then we'd gained two and just things happen for a reason I believe and yeah and I just I just couldn't wait and then the reality set in afterwards to think I hated carrying one baby I'm gonna carry two oh my gosh yeah and I was thinking these could be big babies I'm gonna be massive and then that reality set in of double the hormones and stuff like that but yeah that all came in after the like excitement that we actually had a baby in there I mean god that would petrify me if I found out I was carrying twins I don't know I think I'd pass out it's just on your thing because you I mean you you know when you've got one in there yourself how how do you fit one in how because I remember when I was getting

to the end of of being pregnant with Cooper and I remember thinking I think I was six months I think I was six months pregnant at this point I remember thinking to myself how on earth is my skin gonna stretch anymore there's no way it can get any bigger and then obviously it gets a lot bigger and you're like wow i think i got to five months and i was like this was the size i was when i give birth to both of my sons and they were big babies and i've still got a long time to go and then it's here and then the head here it was very weird surreal feeling but it all worked and happened fine so that's good you said then that um there'd been a miscarriage first so the first baby didn't survive how far along were you when you miscarried with the first

baby was only early because you're obviously your embryo is already formed so I think that takes you past however many weeks so like it's sped up sort of thing but I think it was you know we were still only under the like I think it was like round about four to five weeks mark so it's still very early days that was another one where you it was just the test that we had and it was positive and you just that's it we've done it it's amazing and then unfortunately finding out at the first scan that there wasn't and then it's heartbreaking because I've rang them and I've told them and sent them pictures of this positive test and that I did it for them and then having to

relay the next phone call to them was just heartbreaking I can imagine looking back now though you're just like even though how heartbreaking it was it happened for a reason because they wouldn't have two babies that they have now Dr Marta better known as Dr Marta Psychologist on Instagram, is a clinical psychologist and also a mother of two and an adventure sports enthusiast. I mean, the other thing is about apologising, but that's not something we say to our kids,

but it's something we say to each other, right? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm crying, I'm sorry. Yes. It needs an apology, just because you're feeling something. There is no apology needed. And with our children, it's not about saying stop crying because what we're trying to do there, hopefully, is help them through their emotion,

not actually truncate it and kind of bottle it up. Because if we say stop crying to our children, we're saying, I can't tolerate your tears. Stop making that noise. This is intolerable to me. Yeah. And children will learn to suppress. They especially little boys, they learn to suppress very quickly because they don't tend to see men or boys crying and therefore crying becomes something that's a bit odd. And so the more we say that to a little boy, the more they suppress.

With girls, we tend to say it too but there there is like a gender difference in emotions with girls we try and shut down their anger so we don't like it when they're angry that is so interesting because it's so funny when you just go through life you don't even realize those things but that is so true like little boys don't really see their daddies crying that much unless you've got a particularly emotional dad but women do cry more than men yeah and some people have said things which are myths by the way this is not evidenced in any way that you know men and boys cry because they're just less emotional and actually it's absolutely not true there's a lot of

brain science that shows that emotions the way that they're co-constructed on girls and boys is a socialization so we're learning about emotions in our interactions with others which is why saying stop crying is so negative yeah because we're basically saying crying is not something that is okay yeah yeah and then we grow up with that right there's there's the apology i'm sorry I'm crying like I'm sorry I'm doing this to you and crying is so beneficial to our bodies it's really important for children to cry it's regulating so it helps their body come back to calm and it's the same for us but it also like it sends out really good hormones in our body which have shown to be like

painkillers it's like our natural painkiller well it's so true though because like you know when you've had a good cry and you're like oh my god i feel so much better after that cry yeah and but it does it almost like releases something like take some pressure out of your body doesn't it yeah and they've done some science on like if you hit yourself you know like when little kids like fall over and they cry and often as i just wear it you're fine yeah what we're trying to do is be like be resilient you know be brave it's fine but actually if they cry a little bit it's good the tears also allow some of some stuff happening in the body is quite complex but it goes to where the pain is and it

heals it so it actually helps the pain, wherever it is on their knee, go away if they're crying. So it's important that we just let the tears out. So what I say to my daughter, and I try and say it to myself as well, is just let it out. So when I've started, because it's something I say to my kid a lot,

I've started to internalize it. And I do think we should all be doing this more. Well, we say the same things to our kids, kids to ourselves because we need to give our emotions space as well so if I'm really upset about something I'm like you know what just let it go and when you give yourself permission you cry but there's an ending to it because your body just like relaxes into it you're allowing it exactly as opposed to stop crying stop crying where you like force yourself and then it's like harder to stop. Feel it in your throat, can't you?

When you're trying not to cry. It's like when you watch a film and you're trying not to cry and you're like, why am I trying not to cry? Why don't I just cry? Yeah, it's fine. But it's so true about that when like your kid hurts himself. Like I've done it so many times, Cooper. Scoots him up and gone, come on, you're fine. Yeah, like you're absolutely fine, darling.

Off you go. And actually, I should be like, if you're not fine, it's okay. Like, you let it out. And I guess I'm going to say this as a caveat. It's also okay to do what you do. Like, it's also okay to be like, hey, you're fine. Come on, let's go. Because sometimes you do just have to let go.

And it's about flexibility. You can't always just sit there with a feeling. Because people say that to me. But do you sit there with your daughter's tears all the time i'm like not all the time like but there's a balance there's there's a knowledge there yeah and like you know at least you can exercise it sometimes yeah even if it's not all the time because sometimes we're just really tired and you know we might go against what we normally would do because we're just knackered yeah absolutely so the calm down we've kind of covered that one use your words actually i do say this to people like come on use your words tell me what tell me

what is wrong because obviously he's six so he has words that of course so in my head that's like i thought that was like quite a good parenting thing to say use your words but explain to me why that maybe isn't like the best so most of the time when adults say to children use your words it's when they're whining yeah when they're maybe crying you know like you're like what you're trying to say to me and so you're're like, focus, tell me with your words, you know, so I can understand. So again, it's for us. We're saying, you know, do it for me because I don't know what you're talking about. Often we're in a rush, but often again, if they're whining, you know, And it's not helpful because when we say use your words to our children in those moments, they can't. If they could, they would. Like, as humans, we communicate through language mostly. So it's more effective for them to use their words.

But in that moment, they are flooded by emotion. And I always go back to brain development development but children aren't mini adults. Kaylee Sherburn is a 35 year old mum of two boys. She was diagnosed with OCD back in January 2020. She's better known on social media as DIY mum which started as a lockdown escapism and has now become her full-time job and she loves every minute of it. I think it's very key for kids to understand how you're feeling. So if you're crying or if you're angry, they can see that but then go to them, sorry I was like this because this is why I was like it.

Yeah, exactly. And so they understand. So I think if you just ignore it and they're left to kind of think, well, why is she acting like that? And that's when it kind of like gets. We actually had a therapist on the show, a child, I think she was a,

she was a child psychologist and she had said that, um, it's fine for kids to see you arguing, but always explain to them why you've argued. Because I remember growing up, like mum and dad would argue, not loads loads just occasionally and you'd think they were getting a divorce every time they argued wouldn't you it's like that's it

it's over and not next morning they'd be fine or they'd be a bit off with each other or you know but nothing was ever explained it was never don't worry mummy and daddy are fine it's just daddy didn't put the bins out and it really annoyed mummy but which you get now when you're older of course you get it now you understand undevelop really annoyed Mummy. Which you get now when you're older. Of course you get it. Now you understand. As a child, of course. You have a developed little brain. You don't get it, do you? No, you completely catastrophize whenever your parents argue.

So you do, you almost want to protect your children from it, but sometimes it's quite healthy for them to see it and then for you to be like, this is why. It was interesting because I didn't want to split because I didn't want to mess the children up. I didn't want to break a family up and make them go to therapy when they're older. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then a light bulb moment came into my head. I was like, well, my parents are together and I'm absolutely doolally. So that's not the case. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's fortunate. Actually, they're together. So it doesn't define me at all.

No. I'm crazy with or without them being together. Of course you do. I've grown up really happy. I'm actually, you know, I can't play Mario Kart with or without it. So,

I love it. Moo Moo Fam was my only level of Mario Kart. So, do you remember Moo Moo Fam? No. That was, that was like, well,

that was the lowest one. Were you rubbish? Yeah. Are you rubbish on them? Yeah. Oh, I know. I play you because I beat you and I feel great. Oh, no.

I don't even know whether I'd know how to use the controls. Coop was great. You could play him. Is he? Yeah. Me, no, not so much. Kayleigh, we've come to the end. We've tried too much.

I feel like we haven't got everything in. I knew just from following you that we'd talk a lot. I feel like we haven't really, have we got enough in there? We've got loads yeah i mean yeah do you know what to be honest i think for me like as soon as i saw that you had ocd i was like this is going to be like a really good subject to talk about because i think there's so many especially like mums out there that are parents that are probably struggling with something like this and like the whole that's the whole like premise of this show is to make people feel less alone and make oh my god you know realize that they're everybody have has their struggles they might look shiny and you know

perfect from the outside perfect on instagram like my my person when the boys were it was like look at me yeah photographer had a great yeah I had just, like, great photos of them. Yeah, yeah. But inside, I was like, right, that's not quite right, that's not right. Yeah, yeah. And I'd put my stresses onto them. Like, I'd be like, why has he got vein there? He didn't have a vein yesterday.

And I'd Google it, and I'd be like, it just, I couldn't settle. No, and that's it. And then you're like, oh, my God, but I don't want to put that onto them. And they start acting like, you know, they get it from me. Because you do, because you learn from your parents, don't you? You do. Totally. But yeah, everyone has this like shiny facade.

And it's so important to let people in and let them see like, actually, everything isn't perfect. And nobody's like that. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect. You can be perfectly imperfect. That's what I say. I bet Kim Kardashian's imperfect.

Yeah. I'm just trying to think. You're like, what could she be? She probably does really smelly farts. Yeah. Or something.

Bad breath. Bad breath. I don't know. She can't have it all, okay? Yeah, Kim. You can't have it all. Carla Freeman is a comedian and mother

who shares honest, unfiltered and hilarious content about her day-to-day life and surviving, and sometimes flourishing, as a parent in the UK. If you are pregnant, I'm so sorry, because you might have an amazing experience. But for me, the sensation, which is the word you're meant to use, the sensation overcame me and i

was no and all the gentle massage that your husband i was like get off yeah he i remember at one point he was trying to shove like haribo into my mouth and i was like just spitting it in his face like i've hurt you he's like you need to keep your energy up i was like poor they're so helpless aren't they like i don't know what to do they're literally like i'm just trying anything to like help and like and they've never seen their wives appearing like that before like it's awful yeah we like women possessed yeah they must be like oh oh my dear god what sweet lord i know like gearing up to joni's birth like griff was um he was really anxious he was like i was like okay. Like, we've done it before. He's like, yep.

Yeah, it's quite a traumatic experience for him as well. It really is. Danny rocks up in a pair of cream-sweared shoes when I give birth. Oh dear. And I give birth on the floor. I was like, this is a rookie error. And I'll never forget, I was like,

put some music on! And he was fannying about trying to get this speaker set up and he was like, I just remember seeing him in my peripheral. And he couldn't. Just panicking. He couldn't. A musician could not get the music to work. So he basically ended up just getting the phone

and holding it to my ear. And that was all he could do. He was like, I don't know what else to do i'm totally helpless i do feel for them though like the person they love the most in the world and their unborn child and they're like i can't do anything yeah there's nothing i can do yeah that's why it really baffled me you know when you see the husbands like that go out and they go to the vending machine on one born every minute which i used to be obsessed with. Same. Absolutely obsessed with. Cried at every episode.

And then they used to be like, Tom has gone to the vending machine. And his wife's like... I think the wife is just about to give birth and Tom has decided to go to the vending machine. Tom has a work call. Are you kidding? Tom's mother has arrived and he's gone to see her. Oh, could you imagine? He's decided to go and get some flowers for his wife like not now surely one of the midwives in

these hospitals be like um i don't think that's a great idea yeah probably the producer's just going that and make great telly yeah yeah it was probably two hours prior yeah what we're doing what we're doing yeah we'll throw tom under the bus tom can look like a dick for the sake of our ratings part-time he's like no you weren't tom you're getting a baby yeah or when they're asleep oh god when they're asleep next to the woman heaving and shoving and i'm like no you can't or or my favorite when you see all those ones of the men like going oh yeah i think that was my dad passing out yeah that was definitely my dad yeah he couldn't even get through the um what's it called antenatal class where yeah they played a video and that dad went green apparently that was it he was a goner he was there for the best but there you go he pulled his socks

up so just going back quickly to obviously we touched on the fact that you know the initial feelings when you first have your first baby especially and obviously the postnatal depression side of things how do you feel like you got yourself out of that or do you think it was just time I think it was yeah I I don't know like you said like it's only when you're better do you realize that you weren't okay I think I got out of my my little funk I like call it a little funk it wasn't a little funk it was it was properly sad but I I think it was time I think it was time and me getting confidence as a mother yeah and believing that you actually that actually it's okay you can do this and and just getting a bit of a sense of self back I think what and sleep it was sleep I remember it was week seven I really remember this and um my husband's an actor and he was so that was hard

because he's out every night doing a show yeah and and it's not every night it's like from three because you have to go in and you have to warm up and you know so and i remember him coming in one morning and going i'll i'll give you an hour before i've got to go to work and i just went in one morning and going i'll i'll give you an hour before i've got to go to work and i just went i've slept 45 minutes all night i need more than an hour i can't do this anymore i can't i i want to i'm scared of what i will do i'm so angry with her that i've slept 45 minutes and i can't and he called into work and he was like i i've got have two days off i've got and we went up to his his families um because my mum was a bit poorly at the time and we went up to his his family's um because my mum was a bit poorly at the time and we went up to the families and his mum and dad were just so amazing they took her and I remember

I slept from like 8 p.m till 4 a.m oh and I just felt like you're completely different isn't it thanks for listening to mum's the word the parenting podcast make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode we'll be back with another episode same time same place next week