Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Putting Your Needs First with Laura Guckian

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

TW / Miscarriage and SuicideLaura Guckian, founder of MindMommyCoaching shares her struggles as a first time mum and how she overcame these and put her needs first for her children. We discuss how you aren't the only one feeling this way, and how to stop feeling guilty for putting yourself first. --- A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm sure as parents we all know how messy things can get whether that's around the house during meal times and even when it comes to our little ones themselves when it comes to wiping Alf's messy face and body I want to be sure that what I am using is the best choice for his skin with baby eczema and nappy rash being common conditions using wipes for sensitive skin is a must we've both been loving water wipes. We've actually used them since Alf was born and they gently clean and help protect delicate newborn and premature baby skin. They're made of just two ingredients, so 99.9% water and a drop of fruit extract. That means they are the best wipe choice for sensitive skin. Alf loves them and I even find myself using them.

Well hello happy Monday and sorry if I sound really breathy. I feel like I've reached that stage of pregnancy where you walk around and you just can't catch your breath and I had train problems getting into the studio today and I still feel like even though I got here quite a few minutes ago I just can't catch a breath so I hope this doesn't sound like absolutely horrific to listen to but I'm really excited about today's podcast episode. I feel like I need to put a trigger warning at the beginning as we will be discussing themes around miscarriage and also suicide and suicidal ideation. I woke up this morning and I read a article which actually I wish that had been around when I was in that kind of I'd say the dark days of motherhood which for me came around six months postnatal with Alf and it was actually actually on the mail online it's not often

that i'll be here praising articles on the mail online and it's in the female section and it is an article that was actually written anonymously or at least under a pseudonym and she said i spent eight years and a hundred thousand pounds to have a baby so why did i loathe being a mom one brave woman breaks the ultimate taboo and says achieving her dream made her feel like she's ruined her life and I just wanted to touch on how amazing I think it is that someone has written about this because I remember from like say one to six months I was on cloud nine with Alf. I couldn't imagine why anyone would have any complaints or worries about motherhood. And then I think a combination of moving away from my friends, moving out of London.

And I think just like when the tiredness and the permanence sort of kicked in and trying to get back to work, but still breastfeeding and Alf not taking a bottle and various things. I remember just thinking, what have I done? to get back to work but still breastfeeding and after not taking a bottle and various things I remember just thinking what have I done that I used to love my life and everybody kind of when I said I didn't want children everyone kind of insinuated that my life could never be complete unless I had a child and now I have a child and I feel like I've completely ruined my life and I remember I used to feel awful guilt because I'd sit up in the night feeling so depressed and googling like is it normal to regret having a child and what's really interesting in this article they spoke to a psychologist a chartered

psychologist and parenting specialist and she said it's difficult to talk about how common this reaction to the culture shock of motherhood is as it's so taboo to admit that things aren't how you thought they'd be but she believes the combination of chronic sleep deprivation and loss of identity felt by many career women when they have had a child contribute to many new mothers feeling this way i should also add that a close friend of mine who lives in my area who went through a long lengthy expensive IVF journey who isn't a career woman now she gave up her career in order to have a child she also had these feelings of regret as well so I would just interject that and say I don't think it's just career women that go through

these feelings and it's something I really want to talk about because I think the word postnatal depression is thrown around and by the way very very serious and I'm not undermining postnatal depression but it's interesting that there it's like the culture shock of motherhood because I ponder whether or not I had postnatal depression or whether I just had no idea of literally the culture shock so I'm really excited about today's guest she is a mum of three herself so has definitely been through all stages of motherhood and she is the founder of mind mommy coaching so she's a life coach for mums and her name is laura guckian and she supported over a thousand mums in achieving positive mental well-being laura thank you so much first of all

for coming on the podcast it's such a well-timed guest you're basically yeah a well-timed guest to have on and i can't wait to not only hear about your own journey but also how you're working to support mums in the workplace. Yeah. And thank you so much for having me here today, Ashley. Like everything you're describing there in the intro, I'm like, yes, yes, yes. There's so much to talk about. And I think it's really key to start off this podcast by saying like you mentioned there,

I'm a mum of three. I'm a life coach for mums. My business is Mind Mommy Coaching. I'm a mom of three. I'm a life coach for moms. My business is Mind Mommy Coaching. But really, the core of that is where it all started was a massive promise I made to myself at probably the lowest moment of my life, sitting in hospital. And the promise was, if I manage to pull myself out of this, I am going to do everything I possibly can to ensure that no other mom experiences this or feels like this. And I've kept that story private for almost six years, actually.

And today, I'm going to share every piece of that with you. And I'm so nervous, but I need to share it because there's moms out there that are experiencing this, that have experienced it. And even if they haven't experienced the full extent of my journey they're going to connect with something I'm saying and we need to talk about it because while my story has a really sad and heartbreaking beginning it has a beautiful ending and I want that for every mom listening today oh well first of all I'm so grateful that you're choosing to share your story um with us but also please don't feel nervous I was saying to you just before as well like you know I understand it is nerve-wracking to tell personal stories but I feel like there's

so much solidarity and unity and the more we talk about things the less you have you know people like me new mums googling at four in the morning am I a monster um and am I the only one who feels this way or what's wrong with me and it's's so great. And yeah, why don't we start? So you said the lowest time of your life. So why don't you start by telling us your story? It started like most mums. I was very lucky to get pregnant really quickly with my first child, Leo. He's now six years old.

So that little baby is now a little boy. And everything was great. She got pregnant really quick, which I've now learned is an absolute privilege. Had, generally speaking, like a good pregnancy. I had a few little hiccups, but generally speaking, it was fine. I was really excited about becoming a mom, actually. Like everything I read about was, this is going to be the best time of your life. When your baby arrives, you're going to get this gush of love. It's all going to be magical. And life was good. I was at the peak at the time of my marketing career. I had just got married. My husband and I lived in

this beautiful apartment in Dublin. Like life was good. And then Leo arrived. And the only way I can describe it is, so I had my labor. He was handed to me. I just remember it's like a light switch went off, actually. It was like, this doesn't feel like I thought it would feel. Where's this gush of love? Suddenly this fear just took over and I couldn't quite explain it. And I already felt like I must be doing something wrong here, right? I was told this would be amazing. It's not. And the first few months with Leo were extremely tough. So Leo had severe silent reflux. And if anyone doesn't know what that is, it's basically where their esophagus acid reflux keeps going up and down and they can't feed,

they constantly cry. So essentially I was handed as a first time mom, a really, really sick baby who refused to eat, who cried 24 seven, who didn't sleep. I literally couldn't bring him for a walk. And I remember thinking like, nobody told me this would be this hard. And I had to fight to get him diagnosed. He was three months old. Every specialist I went to said, you're just not winding him right. All babies cry. It was really dismissive. And during this process, I could feel myself becoming more and more unwell, right? And at the same time, I was like, I know I'm not feeling well, but I need to take care of him. I need to get him diagnosed. I'll take care of myself when. And I just felt like I'm the only mom that feels like this. Why am I finding it so hard? Everyone else is finding it so easy. And little by little,

I was becoming so unwell. And I remember him being diagnosed at three months and me like hugging the consultant pediatrician going, I knew that's what it was. As his mom, I knew. And what followed then were like probably six months of a really tough journey where he still didn't get better. He was waking every 20 to 30 minutes at night. I couldn't bring him for a walk. I couldn't leave the house for him. It was really, really tough. And I suppose to sum up where it got to, it ended where he was about nine months old. And it was probably, and I shared this with you initially, like the most defining moment of my life where it was a Sunday morning. And I just realized I can't do this anymore.

I have asked every health care professional. I have been screaming for help and nobody is helping me. And I remember thinking because at the time, a lot of my friends didn't have kids. So I was one of the first and I was like, it's a Sunday morning. I need whoever I ring to pick up. They have to pick up. And not only that, they have to help me because I can't do this anymore. I rang my best friend, Claire, and she says it to this day. She just said something was wrong. Like after two rings, she picked up and her response was just, are you okay, Laura? And I really honestly said, Claire, I'm really not. I need

you to help me. I'm not good. So best friend Claire literally made sure I was okay and Leo was okay. And she rang me back a half hour later and was literally like, this is the plan. This is what I need you to do tomorrow. And I was like, okay. So the plan was I went back into the GP who wasn't listening to me with my husband and with baby Leo. And it was basically like, I need you to refer me into a psychiatric hospital. And I need you to do it now. And the GP was notably startled. She was like, I, it was like, she was the first mom she ever saw this distressed. She said, OK, leave it with me. I'm going to call you back in the afternoon. We went home.

And bear in mind, I was someone who was studying psychology at the time. I had been volunteering with a mental health charity. So I was someone who would be quite aware of mental health, mental illness and what to do. And even for someone like me, I couldn't access the support I needed. So that was the first thing. So she eventually rang us back that afternoon. And initially I had requested to be referred in as a day patient. And she called back, I'm laughing saying this now, it's not funny at all. And she called back saying, look, Laura, I found a way to get you in quicker. Now, I don't know if this was a strategy of hers, but it's going to require

you to stay overnight. And I said, okay, fine. That's great. That sounds wonderful. Because bear in mind, I was severely sleep deprived. All I was thinking was, this is amazing. I'm going to go and spend a few nights in a hospital and I'm going to get sleep. So that was the plan. A few days later, a bed became available. And as I'm saying this now I'm literally it probably doesn't even sound like a big deal but when I think back of it it breaks my heart so my mum and dad came up I was there like packing my bag and I was texting one or two of my close friends to say look this is going to sound way worse than it is but I'm just going into a hospital for a few nights now I'm just kind of doing it to cheat the system I'll be back out again I'm just going in for some rest because I'm not really that unwell I just need sleep

so like I remember the moment it was time to go and I can remember Leo just like screaming for me and my mom and dad just kind of taking him and going for him a walk like bringing him for a walk and it was just the defining moment of, oh my God, that's my little baby. I can't take care of him anymore. Like I now have to leave him because I've ignored my needs so much so that I now can't function. And my husband and I just stayed in the apartment. My mom and dad took him out for a walk. And I remember as we walked out of the apartment, I remember slightly seeing my mom and dad in the distance and me thinking, it's okay, Laura, it's okay. You're doing this because you need to be okay to take care of him. You're doing this for him. Just keep going, keep walking, just go. And it was this moment, we were a little early

and my husband and I were sitting in a coffee shop before I checked into hospital. And it was this weird moment where the two of us were like, this is the first time we've been alone in nine months. And what tragic circumstances where we're now alone because I'm basically dropping my wife off to a psychiatric hospital. We went into the hospital. And I think it's really important to talk about this because before I went to hospital, I would have thought psychiatric hospital, what do you think of like padded cells and all of these really scary thoughts. And it was nothing like that. All I was thinking is, can I leave at any time? And they were like, well, technically, yes, you can. But if at any point we feel like you're a danger to yourself, we keep you here. I was like, okay, that's fine. fine so answered all the questions and went upstairs and

I remember at that point my husband Brendan had to leave me and I remember I was still in the mind frame of I'm actually fine everyone else here is on well but I'm just really here for a few nights sleep I'm explaining this level of detail because I think people need to understand that I talk about every day through MindHomie, the importance of prioritizing your needs as a mom and taking care of yourself. And I've been saying that all along without people understanding why I'm saying it. And yes, I am the extreme of what can happen. But as moms, we have to take care of our needs because there's real consequences. I remember being there and Brendan is gone and I'm still sort of smiling,

going, this is great. I'm going to get a night of sleep. And I'm starting to search my bag. And that's when it really hit me. They were like, they took now, I don't know where I thought I was going. Actually, I had my hair straightener, my makeup. I clearly thought I was going on a girl's weekend. And I remember them taking my hair straightener and razor off me. I was like, why are you doing that? And they were like, oh, well, you can't have them, Laura. It was just a moment of, oh, maybe they're taking it because someone else might harm themselves with it. But I'm fine. So they took all of that stuff off me.

And I was probably in hospital two or three days, just going about everything, thinking I'll be out of here in a few days. And I think it was on day three where literally, I can't describe what happened. I just collapsed to the floor crying. It's like it all just came out. And I remember one of the nurses came in and just, she literally just didn't say a word. She literally got on the ground with me,

held my hand and just said, Laura, you're in hospital. We're going to take care of you now. And it was at that moment I realized, right, Laura, you're not okay. You're in a psychiatric hospital and you need to get better so that you can get back to your little boy. And I still thought at this stage, I'm probably going home this weekend. It just wasn't, it was such a surreal experience actually to be in a hospital. And I remember then the next day so there's like a multidisciplinary team that you meet with it was quite intimidating you go in

and they're in this semi-circle and you have like your consultant psychiatrist and your psychologist and your registrar and you might have like a social worker and a nurse and I remember walking into this beautiful glamorous consultant site like psychiatrist and said, hi, Laura. And I said, hi, thanks for having me. What time can I go on Friday? And she put it to me, well, Laura, our priority now is to take care of you and make sure you get better. And we need to understand what's caused you to be in here. And typically, when people come here, they stay here for maybe eight weeks. And I literally nearly fell off the chair. And I remember coming out, ringing my best friend, Claire, and saying, they're going to keep me here for two months.

And I was still in absolute disbelief. And so I ended up staying there actually for over two months. And while I was in there, they very quickly determined, wait, we don't think this is postnatal depression, as we understand it, for many reasons. We need to figure out what's going on with you. It was full of so many different people. Lots of them were women and lots of them were moms, actually. And the key team I noticed was, again, if you're in a psychiatric hospital, it's a common thing of what are you in here for? Why are you here? And I kept saying, I don't really know. They're trying to figure out. They thought it was postnatal depression,

but they're trying to figure it out. And so many of the other women in there, the moms, were saying the same thing. I don't know why I'm here. And they weren't just moms of newborn babies. They were moms of teenagers, moms across the board. I don't know why I'm here. teenagers, moms across the board. I don't know why I'm here. So I was there for almost two months. They discharged me. And I remember the morning I was being discharged and I was standing at reception with one of the friends I made there. And Brendan was coming to collect me. I was almost like, I don't want to go. And I remember my friend saying so clearly, Laura, you were going to walk out of here and you are never going to come back because they can't help you. And I remember my friend saying so clearly, Laura, you were going to walk out of here and you are never going to come back because they can't help you. And I thought, you're so right.

I need to go and figure out what happened. And I need to put myself back together. And I left that hospital probably as broken as I was going in. But I wasn't as exhausted. They had somehow put me back together enough so that I could say, right, how do I put my life back together? The thing we don't realize probably is when you leave a hospital like that doesn't mean you're better.

And I think that's a real misconception out there. It means you're just beginning your journey. And another thing we don't realize is when we don't take care of our moms, actually, it just has a massive ripple effect it wasn't just me it had an impact on my child in every way it was such delayed bonding delayed connection everything we had to move out of Dublin back to my hometown um which I always say is something I needed to do but not what I wanted to do and I think sometimes in life we have to do what we need and not what we want I feel emotional listening to this mainly because I relate it to my own experience and my own thoughts

during this time but also probably similar to you this kind of overall sadness that so often mums are overlooked and even me in my first pregnancy you know I was thinking when I'd hear people talk about the struggles how I would translate that would be I just hear negativity and I was like mums are so negative mums are so negative I'll cope because you know I'm hard working and I'm resilient and I'm under no illusions and I don't need sleep because I spent my 20s in nightclubs and I just had no real empathy or understanding of how hard it was. And when you say that you are unwell, do you mind kind of saying exactly what you felt? It started with feelings of, if you imagine the little inner critic in your head, the

stuff you're talking about there. So my reality of motherhood is not matching up to what the narrative of motherhood is. Therefore, I'm doing it wrong. I'm not good enough. I'm a bad mom. I can't do this. I'm weak. I'm ungrateful. That sort of escalated to a point where I would wake in the morning, a sense of absolute dread. I don't know how I'm going to do this. Like the effort to get out of bed, to shower. I wouldn't say that I was suicidal in that I didn't want to live anymore. And I think it's really important to touch on this because I've heard this from so many moms. It's not that I didn't want to live anymore, but it was a feeling of I can't be here anymore. Right? This is so hard. I can't be here anymore.

And there were feelings like you described at the very start. I think I've made the worst decision of my life being a mom. Why did I do this? I regret it. And then you're filled with absolute guilt of you shouldn't be saying that. You should be so grateful because I did love my child. I absolutely adored him. But it was just this sense of this is so hard. I'm screaming for help. I don't understand what's happening to me. All I decided to do was have a baby. Why has my world suddenly ripped apart like a grenade? It just continued like that to a point where slowly over time, actually, I couldn't function. And it was happening so subtly. My husband started working from home, which wasn't a thing then.

This was six years ago. I suddenly just couldn't do the things I normally could, really small things in my life. And it did literally boil over that morning with that phone call to my friend. And I honestly don't know what would have happened if she hadn't got me the help I needed that time. And I think every mom feels this at some level. That's why it's important to say it. Every mom has felt guilt. We have felt, I can't share how I'm really feeling because if I do, it means there's something wrong with me or I'm ungrateful.

And if you're that mom listening now, I need you to hear me in. We are absolutely criticizing ourselves and killing ourselves because the pressure we're putting ourselves on to be this perfect mother or to meet that societal expectation of motherhood, and it doesn't exist, Ashley. The reality is more like what you and I have experienced. And I believe every woman experiences it on a spectrum. Yes, mine is the extreme, but we have all felt it, Ashley. And we need to start talking about it and we need to normalize it because the more we do that the more we can prepare women for what's to come. I feel emotional listening to your story and I can hear how emotional you are and I remember for me when we

moved it was during the Euros and bear in mind we were just coming out of lockdown and I think coming out of lockdown was a big kind of catalyst for my feelings because I felt like all everyone else's life went back to a kind of normal, a pre-lockdown normal. And that's when it hit me how much my life was not normal anymore, as normal as I knew it before lockdown. Bear in mind, I went into lockdown and I didn't live with Tommy. I always said I didn't want to live with a partner and you know then I feel like we kind of all went into this like weird state where we weren't really seeing anyone and there was no social life there was no socializing

nobody met Al for the first four months of his life and then suddenly everyone else was back partying celebrating and I'd gone from seeing my friends like four times a week to suddenly not seeing them at all and the euros were on and Tommy kept wanting to go watch football on the weekend with all his friends in like these big day parties and I remember thinking in my head you can't leave me like I can't be on my own with here without but then feeling too guilty to be able to voice that because I was like how can I stop him from socializing just because I can't because of the breastfeeding or whatever it was and I remember one day like the kind of catalyst of it all I started having like these really

repeated suicidal ideations and I would say similar to you it's not really that I think I ever would have yeah committed suicide and bear in mind I lost a friend to suicide just before lockdown but I was like my mind kept going to that it was like this obsessive imagery that was replaying in my mind and I was so scared to be on my own but then when I thought about that I felt so guilty about that a because I'd lost a friend that way and I know the loss that it leaves but also the guilt because I was like well then I can't even do that because then Alf will be out without mom and then that will cause all these like and I was I'm trapped I'm trapped I don't want to be here but I can't like and I can't tell anyone and I think like similar to what you said so much of how I felt was because I sacrificed myself for Alf and for his happiness like

everything from the you know the lack of sleep breastfeeding around the clock all of those things I didn't see a way out of it but I didn't want anyone to know that I was struggling because I didn't want them to think it meant that I wasn't a good mum because I it was because I was such a good mum in a way I know you can be a good mum and not run yourself to the ground but you know I was trying to I was putting Alf's needs and Alf's first and foremost for so long that I felt I had nothing left and I remember ringing my friends Charlotte and Steph who I hadn't seen for months and I don't know what I said on the phone but they drove straight to mine and they took me out for

the day um and yeah but I think it's so important and to me like even before you know when I got pregnant I was like I'm not gonna be one of those mums who talks about being a mum all the time and has a mum podcast and now here I am but it's because I want to tell these stories and similar to you because I don't want people to feel like what I felt which is that they were like completely on their own for having these weird and horrible thoughts it's that sense of not wanting to feel alone. And once we realize we're not alone, then we're not broken. Then it's not us. Then it's actually the bigger piece of maybe this is the reality of motherhood and we're just not talking about it enough. The sad fact is, is right. We know that suicide is the leading cause of of maternal death we know that as

women we go through matrescence I'm not sure if you've ever heard of that but I love the term matrescence got me through actually the whole journey I'd say now I'm out on the other side which is also why I felt like you know I was in a position to do it all over again because yeah I feel like I've kind of come through that journey and out the other side yeah and again i didn't know that saying and i wish i did know it but if you scan a woman's brain you can see if she's carrying a baby to full term so the facts are there we change wow i didn't know that yeah if you scan a woman who's carried a baby to full term, we change. What, is it our brains change?

Our brain change. So the makeup, like we emotionally and psychologically change. The brain, I'm not quite sure what changes, but they can tell. So they're the facts, right? And when we become pregnant and have our child, we are the most vulnerable we ever will be in our life from a psychological perspective. So what that means is if you were ever prone to a little bit of anxiety, if you ever had an underlying condition, even if you never experienced a mental health challenge in your life, this is the time it's most likely going to happen. And you're going to feel a

tenfold. So they're the facts. That's not me making that up. That's part of what I've learned in my journey over the last few years. But yet, that doesn't match up or match to the care we give to in the antenatal or postnatal period. It's all based on the baby. And which is also important. But where's the care of the mom? Where's the education around this? Because in my experience, I was handed a leaflet on the baby blues and postnatal depression.

And that's just not going to cut it, Ashley. We need so much more than that. We need support and education. I don't know what it's like in Ireland, but even the fact that, you know, we're not getting physical checks, so essentially we're left scared of our bodies, whether that's C-section or vaginal. I remember going to the six-week appointment and it was mainly all about ALF. And then I remember being like, oh, sorry, my stitch is okay and they they didn't check them but they then started talking to me about contraception and I remember thinking like I'm shitting myself literally and figuratively and I don't know if my stitches are healed I'm too scared to like even touch down there like and you think that I'm thinking about sex right now it made me feel yeah it made me feel dismissed about my genuine physical recovery but also it kind of

put that pressure that's already there in society that like well your partner should be getting sex by now so you know are you thinking about it and And I remember saying to Tommy, like, by the way, I just want you to know, like, I'm just not ready yet. And Tommy was like, do you think I want to have sex with you? He was like, Ashley, I literally watched you. I heard the sound of your vagina ripping. Like, do you not think I'm scared of hurting you? And that was the first time I'd considered it from a non sort of caveman beating his like penis around being like man nude sex or I'll leave you and I was like oh yeah like of course men deserve

better than that narrative as well like but I remember hearing it all through my life like you know from whoever or whatever like oh yeah you know after she had kids she didn't have sex anymore so he had an affair but you know you that you need to still provide you need to put your husband first or whatever it was and that was kind of like drilled into me so I remember being like kind of so relieved when like Tommy was like I don't want to go near you either and also I'm knackered too like why would we want to have sex when we could go to bed 20 minutes earlier. And I think that's a key point you're touching on there that again, the narrative needs to change around this. I did a recent poll on my Instagram page and like 95% of my followers said they experienced massive conflict in their

relationship after they became parents, that like the whole dynamic of their relationship changed. I think that's really important too, because that has an impact on our mental health as women. Motherhood is not this glorious picture that we've been told. It's full of changes. We change as people. Everything changes. And that has a stress.

But again, as you say, when you went to your doctor, they were talking about contraception. It's so removed from what our reality is. And then that leaves you thinking, well, maybe everyone else is having sex. Why am I not having sex? You know, again, it's our reality is not matching the narrative. It's the narrative that's wrong. I'm sure as parents, we all know how messy things can get, whether that's around the house, during me during meal times and even when it comes to our

little ones themselves when it comes to wiping alf's messy face and body i want to be sure that what i am using is the best choice for his skin with baby eczema and nappy rash being common conditions using wipes for sensitive skin is a must we've both been loving water wipes we've actually used them since alf was born and they gently clean and help protect delicate newborn and premature baby skin. They're made of just two ingredients, so 99.9% water and a drop of fruit extract. That means they are the best wipe choice for sensitive skin. Alf loves them and I even find myself using them. What could people have done or said to support you better because i think about this a lot because i think there's a lot of like what we'd call toxic positivity so say if i ever tried to talk about

how i was feeling either it was met with well you know you're a mum now so of course you can't go see your friends four times a week like you used to and then i remember being like oh god so i have ruined my life then because i got because my friends have always been my family and if I can't see my family anymore or they would say oh well at least your health at least you know you survive childbirth or at least your child's healthy or you know you should yeah lots of people can't have children and it was always this kind of like well you should be grateful and then that would kind of put this extra guilt of like oh god am I not being grateful and appreciative like you, you know, should I just shut up basically? Yeah.

And also probably similar to you that a lot of my friends hadn't, well, most, none of my friends had had babies. So I genuinely didn't, I felt like they didn't necessarily relate or they couldn't relate. And even though they wanted to be there, they didn't know how to be there.

That's key about your friends when they're not at that stage yet. Because when my friends then became moms, they were like, oh my goodness, Laura, we get it now. And I think for me, the biggest thing was to be heard. Nobody was hearing me. So to feel heard and to get the support I needed. And it just wasn't there. But I think for someone,

if I had known what I know now, it would have changed everything. When I was in the middle of it, if someone said, actually, you're going through matricence. This is why you're feeling like this. Actually, all your beliefs and values have changed. You have changed as a person. Actually, you're grieving your own life and that's perfectly okay actually you're completely sleep deprived and all your basic needs are not being met this is a normal part of becoming a mom and you're going through it if someone had been able to name it I wouldn't have blamed myself thinking it's just me we always say now with the benefit of hindsight of motherhood like I wish someone had warned me or I wish someone had told me. But when I was pregnant, I was like,

why do people keep telling me negative stories? I don't wanna hear negative stories. How can you support new mums? And there might be people in their first pregnancy listening. And by the way, I hope none of this scares you. And I hope it, hopefully you never experience any of these things.

But if you do, I hope that when you do, you know that you aren't alone with it but what I find tricky now is a lot of my friends who are currently pregnant and there is a few it's almost like it is a bit like dealing not with children because that's not fair because but you know it's almost like they don't know yet so there's like a naivety they're still thinking in pragmatic terms like I did like well, my child won't be sleeping in my bed and I'll be back to work after two weeks and I'll be back to normal after six weeks and I'll be doing this and this.

And obviously you don't want to be like one of those like sort of negative people, because hopefully their experience is only positive. But how can we also help them? Or basically, can you just not offer them support until they need it yeah well i think there's two answers to that i think you know it's how can you support as a friend but then as society as society it's that educational piece actually it's not the that we're trying to scare women but it's the education and this is what's going to happen

this is how you might feel this is what you might experience this is what's going to happen to you. This is how you might feel. This is what you might experience. This is all normal. This is what you can do if this happens. I think that's really key that our antenatal and postnatal care needs to shift to care of the mom. The mom is the foundation. If she goes down, it has a ripple effect. Everything goes down. So she has to be taken care of. Like you look at other countries, Germany do this. When you're a mom, they actually give you, I'm not sure, is it a doula or a midwife? She comes to your home for, I think, I could be wrong in saying it's maybe 12 weeks

every day for a few hours to take care of the mom, to be there emotionally and to support her when I have physical things she might need. That doesn't exist in Ireland or the UK. Yeah, unless you pay for it. But even the option to pay for it, people don't know. I didn't know about Doula. Obviously, whether you can afford it is different, but you're right.

And even I think France, they have six weeks free physio afterwards. So at least you're kind of dealing, somebody is kind of listening to you with the recovery and not just giving you a leaflet on the baby blues and contraception exactly and I think that's key I remember traveling in Cuba when I was younger and they have this amazing thing there where when the moms are coming up to their due date they put them into this house and at the time I was like that's not very nice but when I became a mom I was like I would have loved that you were put into a little house beside the hospital. You had your baby and then you were taken back there for as long as you wanted, where they took care of you

and the baby. They cooked for you. They helped you rest. They basically built the mom back up so that she could then go home and take care of her baby. And that's just not considered here. It's like your baby is out. Great. We don't care about you now. We literally don't care about you. And I think from a friend perspective, it's literally just about really asking, how are you really feeling? Like, it's not how are you feeling? Like, how are you really feeling? Stop asking, how's the baby feeding? How's the baby sleeping? How are you feeling? What can I do to help? Is there anything I can do? And very much so, it's just about having someone to talk to about it. And I think that's really the two key things that if I had that, I don't think I would have ended up where I ended up. And that's what makes

me so angry about it. That did not need to happen to me, actually. But it happened because the health system in Ireland failed me. The professionals I was screaming for help from failed me. I mean, we rang up a mental health charity. They didn't know what to tell me. So I always feel torn when I say to mums, if you're feeling unwell, ask for help. Because I know that that help isn't always there. And that's what really scares me. It wasn't there for me.

And also it's hard, isn't it? Because sometimes you want to feel like you can talk but without necessarily somebody giving you a solution and what I mean by that is so I felt in my own personal feeding journey yes very lucky that I got to breastfeed but because um a lot of people's journeys finish for various reasons you know six weeks two months three months six months I felt in the kind of later stages which was when my mental health started to deteriorate that any time I said like I'm struggling with the demands of breastfeeding because I wouldn't take a bottle so I could never go I was seeing like mums that gave birth at a similar time to me going

out with friends for dinner again and doing all these things that I felt like I couldn't do and every time I tried to talk about it people were like well just give him a bottle just give him a bottle it'll be fine just give him a bottle and I was like but you're not listening to like that's not what I want to do but I almost felt like nobody just want yeah that must be really hard that and you know get having to turn down work or dj gigs or having to take alf to tv studios and by the way i fully understand the privilege of being of having that as an option but it was like this sort of vicious cycle that i wanted to get back into tv and djing because i didn't want to be like dismissed as being just a mom but then i was putting myself there probably too early and

therefore having to bring alf because i needed him then casey probably too early and therefore having to bring Alf because I needed him then Katie needed to feed and therefore I was on TV breastfeeding so it was almost like cementing my role as a mum even further and I remember just being like how does everyone else just go back and make it look so easy and who I remember even the childcare thing like who's looking after them like do they have how are they making it look like they can just go back to normal? And I can't, like, what am I doing wrong? And I think I wish that people would just be like,

do you know what? That actually sounds really tough. Like, do you want me to come over and we can watch a movie, even if you're breastfeeding, as opposed to, I feel like they're sort of the pleasantries of the beginning of like, oh my God, new mom, amazing. They kind of, people get a the beginning of like oh my god new mom amazing

they kind of people get a bit bored of it after a few months and then it's like when are we going to get the normal you back and I remember speaking to a friend and she said how's Alf and I started answering the question and I could see her eyes go blank and I was like oh god she actually didn't really care about the answer she was being polite so I kind of tailed off and then she was like so what else is new and I remember being like shit shit think of something think of something you don't want to be that person like you you promised yourself you wouldn't be that person that had nothing else to talk about and I remember thinking I've got nothing and I went there's there's not there's nothing else there's nothing and I remember going leaving feeling so deflated because

even though I understand why she asked the question it made me feel so shit because I was like I have nothing to give anymore yeah because your whole life had changed and that's the thing your whole identity changed your whole everything has changed and it's like when you become a mom a door shuts behind you and you can never, ever go back. The life as you know it is gone. And it's okay to grieve that. It's okay to wonder, have I made the right choice? It doesn't mean you don't love your child. It's just, if anything else happened in life where you went to bed as one person and woke

up as another, it would be a shock to the system. But yet we expect women to just transition into motherhood and just do it gracefully and do it all. And it's not possible because we have changed and we need to be supported through that. And I just think people don't know how to support women through that. That's the key. They don't know. So going back to your own story so that we can talk about you know what you do with mind mommy coaching so when you came out of the hospital you said that was really like the beginning of the recovery so what happened from there and how did you get to sort of such a strong point and to

a position where you were like do you know what i'm gonna have two to have two more children. Yeah, yeah. So that was really, and I think that's a really positive part that we talk about in a while for anyone that's experiencing this and scared to have a second baby. So I left that hospital probably as broken as I was going in. My husband then took another few months off work

and I started going into intense therapy. And I was going through all this therapy and I was like, it's still not working. I'm not connecting with it. And we moved home, left our lives in Dublin. All of our lives were in Dublin. Our careers, everything left. Moved home.

And for probably a year, I couldn't really function. I had my mom and dad would have to come and help me every day while my husband went to work. It's like I had become a child again. And I remember this moment in my life going, right, I want to have another child, but I'm terrified. I'm terrified this will happen again. And it was a decision of,

I need to do it because I love my child and I want him to have a sibling. And if it happens again, so be it. Longer term view is, I'll imagine them when they're 10 years old playing, I'm going to do this. And it was a really hard decision to go, I'm going going to do it again and I ended up having two miscarriages and while the logical part of my brain knew that was like a biological thing that happened and I

think that's the really hard part about having a miscarriage is you never get your answer why as women we go why did that happen what did I do wrong and we didn't do anything wrong I think is it one in three women experience I don't know it probably is I think they say one in four but I believe it's probably higher and again it's one of those things as women we don't share you know don't tell anyone you're pregnant until you're 12 weeks why if I have a miscarriage I want the support of friends and family so as those miscarriages were happening, I was like, right, I'm just not meant to be a mom. This is punishment. I don't deserve a child because I messed it up so much the first time. I don't deserve to have kids. I'm not capable of

being a mother. And it was at that moment, it was after my second miscarriage. And I remember it so clearly. It was a Wednesday at 4pm. And I remember it to that level. And again, it was one of those defining moments in my life. And just this rage built up in me. And it was like, this was two years after I had left hospital. So I had been really unwell for two years. I had to leave my career in marketing. Now granted, the organization I worked for at the time could not have done more for me. Actually, they went above and beyond. Likewise, the company that my husband worked for. But it came to a stage where I was like, I can't go back to work. I'm not well. And it was this moment of, I am so stuck. This cannot be my life. I am so unhappy.

I just refuse for this to be my life. I felt like I was in a game of chess. And it's almost like I hadn't made a move in a very long time. And it was just this moment of clarity of you're not living, Laura. You're not engaging in life. Stop looking for the perfect next step and just make a move. Make any move. You need to start participating in this game again. So that day, literally, I made a quick decision. I applied for a marketing role. It was a part-time role. It was more junior and I got the job. And I was too scared to tell them why I had been out of work for nearly three years. Because again, the shame, what will they think? They won't hire me. I can't tell them. They might be listening to this now going, why didn't you tell us, Laura? And in hindsight, I know they would have supported me. But as a woman, I was too scared to tell them. So I went back to work, which was

terrifying after three years. And it was more terrifying because I was holding this big, shameful secret of why I hadn't worked. And I got on great. I really enjoyed it. And I realized at that moment, what was missing in my recovery was having a sense of purpose and meaning and getting a bit of me back and getting back to work. So I did that. And then I got pregnant with Alex, who is my second little boy. And again, all of the feelings you feel when you've had a miscarriage, you're going to lose him.

This isn't going to stay. And he did stay. I had trouble. I had a massive bleed at 28 weeks pregnant, thought I was going to lose him. He arrived. I had a really traumatic birth. I had a massive postpartum hemorrhage. And I just remember the next morning,

so that happened on Friday night, the next morning they gave him back to me because I wasn't able to mind him. And I just remember looking at his gorgeous little face and he was calm. It was just this calmness, actually. This gorgeous little baby who wasn't screaming because he'd reflux. While I felt physically awful, I didn't feel that dread. And this moment of absolute sadness just washed over me where it was the realization of you didn't get this the first time around. You were absolutely robbed of it.

I never had that calmness. And it was just the most beautiful few days in hospital with him because my husband and I were like, he's just eating and sleeping. Look at him. We had never seen that. And I realized at that point, I wasn't broken. It wasn't anything I did. I was an amazing mom. I just had a really hard experience. So we had Alex and we brought him home. This is it, Laura. This is when you are going to deliver your promise to moms. You are going to do something to use this experience to help moms at all stages, make sure that their mental health is okay. So I applied for a life coaching course, did it,

became a trained life coach. And I still didn't really know what I was going to do with it. And it was just this moment of, I'll be a life coach for moms. I am going to be that person that will help moms of like through pregnancy or mom of teenagers understand what's going on in their life, get clarity on what they need and want and how to do it so that they're not feeling so alone in their journey as moms. And I did that. And then the week I decided to set it up, I found out I was pregnant with Anna. Massive surprise. And it was a complete shock because I was like, no, I was done with two. I was done. And again, that feeling of, well, mother nature is probably going to take over. She's probably not going to stay. And she did stay.

And it was almost like a perfect pregnancy in every level. And while I was pregnant, I was working really hard to build the business. And suddenly women from the UK and Ireland started connecting with me. And suddenly I had clients that were working with me and I was working with them. And it was like, wow, there's something in this, Laura. It's not just me who experienced this. And again, it wasn't just women who had gone through what I had, but women who were like, I've been a mom for five years.

I just feel like I've lost myself. I don't know who I am anymore. I have experienced mom guilt. I don't know what to do about my career. I'm just helping them get clarity on what they need and want in life and how to go about it. I think having Alex and Anna healed me in some way because I realized I wasn't broken, actually. And then it was sort of when Anna was born.

Alex was 18 months old. And I suppose I started noticing that he still had no words. And I was like, something's wrong here. Something's not right. And again, went to all the healthcare professionals. He's fine. I was like, I think he's autistic. I got him a private assessment and it turned out he was autistic. And that was really, really hard to hear because again, what did I do wrong? And again, I've learned so much about autism since that. Yes, there's hard parts to it, but there's

other amazing parts to it too. And he's such a little blessing in our life. And then I started looking at my eldest son going, oh, but if that's what autism looks like, could he be autistic? So then Leo was diagnosed with autism. When I look back at where I was five or six years ago, there is no way I would have been able to navigate the things I have navigated in the last 18 months. You know, a surprise pregnancy,

two of my children being diagnosed with autism, setting up a business and everything that goes with that. And I 100% credit life coaching for that. I went through intense therapy. It never worked for me. It wasn't until I went through life coaching that all of the parts just clicked together. And I was like, oh, that's what all of that means. That's what I need to do. That's how I can look after myself. And as a mom, I still have really, really hard days, actually. It's not like I'm this perfect mom who has it all together. I still have days where I cry in the toilet.

I still have days where I snap at my kids, where they get frozen pizza for dinner. But that's okay because I now have the tools to navigate that. And I now don't sweat the small stuff. It's not about giving our kids organic food all the time or not being 100% attentive all the time. It's the bigger picture, actually. And I want to create a world where my kids will be happy and where I will just be that person for them for the rest of their life. And yes, Leo and I had a little rocky start. We have the most amazing journey now.

And that's what I meant at the start, where it had a really sad beginning. And we probably didn't even go into as much detail as we could have in that, Ashley. But it was really horrendous. And I put myself back together. And now I use that to put other moms back together or help them figure out whatever challenge they're going through or whatever stage of motherhood they're at.

So that's the happy ending. If you're going through this now, you're going to be OK. If you felt any of this, it's going to be OK. Your story, I mean, it's brought me to tears, but you do not have to worry. I'm certain about any negative reaction. I'm sure that there'll be people listening who are feeling heard feeling understood and honestly if I could have listened to this during the times when I felt alone because I honestly felt like a total freak and there was this book about um somebody who wrote she was I

think she's German I can't remember her name now but she wrote about regretting motherhood and she was basically I think it was in the 80s or 70s and she was basically treated um by the public like a sort of monster and I remember thinking if I ever speak up about things like this am I going to be seen as a monster but the fact that you're you're here and you're telling your story and I know and also your help you're helping mums and as you said mental health sadly is you know it's on the rise we know that there's a huge mental health crisis and I think the more we talk about these things and raise awareness of it the more we create a more compassionate society and it's really interesting because I also trained as a life coach during lockdown and at the time it wasn't mums that I

ever thought I needed to help because I was still in that pregnancy of like I'm gonna have a baby and be back to normal in six weeks and I was meant to launch coaching platform after six weeks but obviously things just took a completely different turn and for me it was around um you know helping people in with like relationship statuses and um you know people especially in their 30s being single but I have to say the tools of life coaching are second to none. And for anyone who is listening, who feels like they do need more support or they do want help. Can you just share exactly what you do with Mind Mummy coaching? If you're a mum listening now and you are feeling like, oh, but I just feel a bit guilty or I just feel like this.

What you're feeling is very real and valid and you're allowed to feel it. You never have to justify your feelings. So that's the first thing. It's okay. Second thing is how I help moms. I'm so glad you said that because I think as moms, so I work with moms at all stages of motherhood, right through from pregnancy. My latest client has an 18 year old, right?

And very often in the corporate world of life coaching, you probably remember this from your training as well, what's your goal and what's your action? I'm a little bit different. I'm coming at it from the level of motherhood. Many moms come to me and they'll say, I don't know what I need help with. I'm just feeling a bit stuck. I'm just trying to make this decision and I can't, or I'm in recovery from postnatal depression, or I just have lost myself. I don't know who I am, whatever it might be. And what I do is I help them get real clarity on what is going on in their life, what they need and want, what it is they're trying to achieve. And then we figure out how to achieve it. And very often the biggest thing that's blocking moms in achieving what they want is guilt.

It's guilt or this belief of I'm not allowed to do that. And one of the things I really encourage my moms to do is prioritize self-care. I hate self-care. It's such a dirty word. But what I mean is it's the relationship you have with yourself. As moms, think about it. How much is that inner critic in your head all day? I shouldn't do this.

I shouldn't do that. I should have done this better. And it's about tuning into that and shifting that so that you're giving yourself permission to do what you need and want to do, not what you think you should. It's about what you need and want. So I credit life coaching for that. It's so powerful. And the moms I work with, they literally one or two sessions in are like, I didn't know what you did, but now I get it. And many of them will say, I've been through loads of therapy. I have actually got more from the last hour than I ever did. So it's about if you're experiencing any health challenge in pregnancy or beyond, it's a maternal mental health challenge.

You don't have to have postnatal depression to seek out for help. Guys, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch on WhatsApp. Obviously, you can send a voice message for free you can even do it anonymously if you don't want to put your name to it the number is 07599927537 or you can email askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com one voice note i do want to play before i finish the podcast is from sophie who is also a mum of three and it actually ties in really well because she talks about postnatal care which is obviously one of the topics while we both said we know we feel like there needs to be better postnatal support so I'm going to play that now

hi Ashley I'm Sophie mum of three and I've just finished listening to one of your podcasts where you had someone leave a voice note called Izzy who was asked talking a lot about how she was really passionate about there being more care postnatally I just wanted to let you know about an amazing course that I was lucky enough to do in Brighton and I just wish this was all over the country because it really did um save me after having my first child and feeling like I was going a little bit mad. It's called Mummy Shock and it's a 10-week course once a week for new mums and it goes through all the stuff postnatally. So you bring your baby along, they make you a cup of tea and give you a biscuit and each week they go through a different topic. So you'll start off with I guess initial stuff and you will go through stuff like talking

about your relationships. Everyone can share things if they want to they don't have to if they don't want to each week someone has a chance to share their birth story if they want to and I just found it the most amazing course because I was really struggling and it's about I think I went at about six weeks after having my baby and I just thought maybe I was the only person in the world who didn't enjoy having a baby and it was such a relief to turn up to a group everyone was feeling similar and um finding it really hard and just to be able to share but also really get some really useful tools of talking through with they're all like trained therapists I think the lady that ran it all is anyway just thought maybe you'd be interested in looking them up because maybe maybe some people be interesting to talk to on the podcast what inspired them to start the course and some interesting stories from it because I really

think this is what the this should be set up locally I feel like the government should be doing something like this and helping fund more charities like this the week before I went to the course saying to my husband I was just so fed up I wanted to put my baby in the bin and I felt awful and I turned up to this course I sat next to another girl and we were chatting and she said I feel awful but yesterday I said to my husband I want to put my baby in the bin and I thought I am so glad that I'm not this awful person it was such a relief and a weight um taken off my shoulders knowing that other people felt the same um and got through it and I've had two more children and I really think it was thanks to that that gave me the confidence to go again and enjoy my baby so yeah I'll send the link now bye when thanks to that that gave me the confidence to go again and enjoy

my baby so yeah I'll send the link now bye when you hear that it makes me want to move to Brighton I love Brighton anyway but wouldn't like why doesn't that why doesn't that exist you know why does it take someone going through what you went through uh Laura to have to set something up like it's so obvious when you hear it like that yeah actually I always say that so like on my Instagram page from Mind Mommy Coaching why does someone have to go online to get this advice why do they have to hear from me about retrescence and what you're experiencing as normal it's so so sad actually and I love that that lady shared her honesty over wanting to put my baby in the bin I love the

honesty because we've all had thoughts like that it doesn't mean you're going to do it it just means you're a human being you're finding this really really hard and that's okay yeah and thank you so much for um leaving the voice message as well and for anyone in Brighton um definitely look into I'm going to google it after this Laura honestly I loved today's episode I'm so sorry for everything that you went through but equally I'm so glad that it's led you onto this path and that you're now helping other mums so I'm going to put the details of mind mummy coaching is it is it just for people in Ireland or is it global most of my clients now are Ireland in the UK so it's all remote thanks to Covid it, it's all online. So yeah, I do like workshops. I do one-to-one sessions. I

do corporate talks because that's key. I support corporates as well. But I'm so grateful for you having me today, Ashley. I was nervous coming on, but you know what? I've set the story free now and I've set it free because I know I'm not the only one. I've always said there's nothing special or unique about me. I'm just talking about it and I need more women to talk about it. Talk to me about it. Talk to someone because you deserve to be happy. You deserve to take care of yourself. And if you take care of yourself, if you take nothing else from this podcast,

you need to take care of yourself in order to take care of them so stop feeling guilty do what you need to do that's all I say you said at the beginning you wanted you were going to treat this because you were nervous of two mums having a coffee and I feel like it's a shame that we don't actually have the coffee and we're not in a coffee shop but that's exactly how I felt so um I hope you guys loved it as well and as I mentioned before please get in touch and let us know. Thank you so much to you Laura for your bravery and sharing your story and I'll be back with another episode same time same place next week. I'm sure as parents we all know how messy things can get whether that's around the house during

meal times and even when it comes to our little ones themselves when it comes to wiping Alf's messy face and body I want to be sure that what I am using is the best choice for his skin with baby eczema and nappy rash being common conditions using wipes for sensitive skin is a must we've both been loving water wipes We've actually used them since Alf was born and they gently clean and help protect delicate newborn and premature baby skin. They're made of just two ingredients, so 99.9% water and a drop of fruit extract.

That means they are the best wipe choice for sensitive skin. Alf loves them and I even find myself using them.