Tag: hormones

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Episode 70SN: Losing your Identity in Motherhood: Marnie’s story

Today’s guest had a number of challenges with the physical aspects of pregnancy–she and her partner had trouble getting pregnant initially, and her third child was born in June of 2020, very much in the heart of covid, which invited it’s own challenges; but what really surprised her was the loss of the person she used to be.  She found motherhood to be both beautiful and completely overwhelming and had to work hard to reestablish her boundaries and her life after kids.  Her experience becomes the motivation for a new company in an effort to help other mom’s navigate this enormous transition a little easier.

To find Marnie’s company Rumbly, click here

Audio Transcript

Paulette: Hi welcome to war stories from the womb

I’m your host paulette kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls

Today’s guest had a number of challenges with the physical aspects of pregnancy–she and her partner had trouble getting pregnant initially, and her third child was born in June of 2020, very much in the heart of covid, which invited it’s own challenges; but what really surprised her was the loss of the person she used to be.  She found motherhood to be both beautiful and completely overwhelming and had to work hard to reestablish her boundaries and her life after kids.  Her experience becomes the motivation for a new company in an effort to help other mom’s navigate this enormous transition a little easier. Let’s get to her inspiring story.

Paulette: All right, thanks so much for coming on the show. Can you tell us your name and where you’re from?

Marnie: Yeah. My name is Marnie. I am from Toronto, Canada.

P: Oh, thank you. I was a Greek city right I love Toronto.

M: You know, I I had grown to love it. After I’d gone off to for university and came back I started to really appreciate it. I think I just saw it as an adult and I started it in a different light than I did growing up. So now now I get here.

P: Excellent. That’s a well chosen. Order. And everything. So morning we’re gonna talk about we’re gonna talk about your business which is related to your birth experience. So we’ll get to that and I’m gonna go further back and ask a question about the family team from imagining that influenced kind of what you thought you wanted going into creating a family did you grew up with siblings?

M: I did. I have three sisters. So I’m one of one of four, one of four girls.

P: That’s pretty lucky. And are you all close in age?

M: We are all about three years apart. So fairly close. So we’re similar life stages, I guess growing up.

P: Nice. Where are you? In the lineup?

M: I remember three, oh, and middle child and a lot, a lot of personality traits of that stereotype.

P: I’m also the third of four so i 

M: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. 

P: So growing up, did you think I want kids? I will want kids

M: Yes. 100%. I always wanted kids but it wasn’t my lifelong mission. I just knew when I was ready, it would come so I wasn’t like I had some friends who was just we’re trying to go through the process of going to school and getting there just so they could finding a partner just so they could have children. And for me it was it was a very more selfish journey, I guess of achieving what I wanted to achieve personally before kids came into it but knowing that family is something that I absolutely, absolutely want. Absolutely.

P: Okay, so when you when you were going to get pregnant, what did you think pregnancy would be like?

M: Like Emily’s? I Anna and I have to say that I didn’t. I’m someone who doesn’t really think about much. I kind of just go for it. But I thought I was just something I wanted so badly. I never thought much about it. I just thought it’s gonna be great. It’s just I want the end result. So I think I was just very focused on whatever it is to get me to that point. So I’m gonna get pregnant. I’m gonna grow belly and I’m gonna push baby. And that was kind of all I thought I really think much else about it. But knowing that I’d have this fries at the end, which would be my future children.

P: Yeah, that’s kind of a having talked to many people is kind of a smart way to go into it without very many details already worked out in your head of what it’s going to look like. So was it easy to get pregnant?

M: No, it wasn’t. It was very stressful. But we did and I cannot feel more thankful lucky, fortunate. Happy to have three children.

P: So for the first one, walk us through that one because usually there’s a lot learned on the first one.

M: So I actually had incredibly wood to get pregnant or

P: just the whole walkthrough that one slowly and then you can pick and choose about the other two.

M: It just timing perspective. It just to each one took I would say like a year or two longer than I would have liked. So it was it was a waiting game and of course, the longer you wait, the more frustrating it gets and, you know starts to the process of impacting your relationships, whether it be with your partner, or a lot for me, my friends who were able to get pregnant really easily are starting to build their families out and then that jealousy which again, I never had, because I was never in like a rush to do it. That that really creeped up on me. And then that started impacting I think a lot of my relationships with my friends. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard

P : to look around you it looks so easy, right? Yeah,

M : it’s it’s so easy in it and again, it brings out these these these these character these characteristics in you that you didn’t notice as I was never jealous person, but as I noticed everyone around me and I felt like getting pregnant like this this jealousy type of rage inside me with just kept growing and that was that was really hard and I didn’t like it. It was something I battled but I don’t think it wasn’t something that I could really quiet at the same time. But needless to say we did eventually get pregnant and like I said, I’m so fortunate to have free beautiful, healthy, amazing children today.

P: So let’s let’s talk about getting pregnant the first time did you find out with a home kit? Are you involved with doctors or how does that all go?

M: Yeah, so we took pregnancy tests with all them confirmed it with doctors kind of a very, I guess, linear path after that.

P :But so exciting to get the positive pregnancy test?

M: Oh, like I couldn’t control myself love like tears and joy and my heart racing. I did my chest in with all of them with all of them. It was it. Each one was truly an equal blessing that I felt.

P: And did you guys end up going through? Did you think there was something wrong in that it took that long or were doctors like no, this is what it takes?

M: Yes, but it wasn’t equipped with the education I think to know to really question that. I think today’s Today’s a very different environment. And I think I would have seeked help earlier on. In my process hadn’t had I known that was an option or to actually question these things rather than just kind of internalizing it and keeping it between me and my partner.

P: So it sounds like in part because you’re surrounded by people who are getting pregnant easily. It’s not obvious to you that that this is a medical issue and maybe you should go and talk to a doctor

M: right and you know, and social media wasn’t as strong then and there wasn’t as many conversations around fertility which there’s an infertility which there’s there’s so many more conversations and and companies and and ambassadors and people now speaking out on it. So I think you know, for for kids today or even just generations younger than me, they’re becoming their awareness of of fertility and the entire process and the education behind it is a lot stronger than it was even just for myself about just under a decade ago.

P: Okay, that makes sense. It that is frustrating though, and it is hard if you’re I mean not that it would have been a snap if he’d gone to medical people but that is that’s its own separate ride but it is I can imagine very frustrating if it’s just you and your partner and we can’t figure out what’s going on.

M : Absolutely. You know, and then it’s it’s, it’s always you feel like it’s you would always feel it’s the woman who’s who’s who’s the problem and you know your partner feel would or maybe not always but at least in my situation, I think we both kind of felt like oh, something’s wrong with me because I’m not the one getting pregnant. Right? Versus what we’re starting to learn now is you know, it really does take two people to make a baby and, and nothing that it was or wasn’t but you know, it just, it put a lot of the heavy emotions I think on me throughout that whole process, where a partner just made it more of like an impatient waiting game.

P: Yeah. You know, I interviewed a reproductive endocrinologist and she herself use IVF. And we were talking about if you go the IVF route, which I have no personal experience of so she’s educating me on it. They can look at the embryo immediately and look at it. As it grows from one cell, the T cells to three cells or whatever. And I was saying to her, Do you think there’s going to be a time where we can examine that embryo so meticulously that we can say, Yep, this is going to work. This embryo was perfect. And she said, No, because she’s an even if you know that you still have the uterus, you still have all the moms chemistry. There’s so complicated and there’s so many things going on, which is one thing that makes it hard to identify what’s wrong if something’s wrong, and hard to get pregnant, because it’s just there’s so many variables none of what you control.

M: Yeah. It’s so amazing. It’s so amazing how complex it is. And, you know, this is something from the dawn of time that that humans have done you know, it’s so it’s just amazing to hear all that you know, and how far even just the sciences and that we can’t still predict that kind of like we have a success, right?

P: There’s just so much we don’t know, right in this in this realm that it’s, you know, I don’t know what to somebody agree, I would think it’d be much easier if we could say, oh, it’s Bernie’s fault. Okay, I have no idea right? It’s, anyway, so you get pregnant and the first pregnancy. What’s that one? Like?

M: Amazing, honestly, like, it was, it was just, it was I wanted it in my head perfect. It was. At first the only thing I struggled with was that you know, I couldn’t vote because I’ve wanted it so badly for so long. That I didn’t believe it was real. And then I got incredibly incredibly nauseous in my first trimester. 24/7 and I was like, You know what, this is it. This is great. This is like my, my son and I embrace this because this is telling me that okay, I’m actually pregnant and now as I did that, it was really like textbook. Easy, simple. I felt great the entire time. My water broke two weeks early. I had a vaginal birth and and everything was really it was really great. It was a really easy good pregnancy.

P: That’s awesome. And the one thing I will say about the first trimester is there is this weird dissonance where you’re like so much has changed. And it’s there’s no physical evidence that you can see, unless you’re really sick, in which case you you know, it’s like a confirmation to yourself that something’s

M: happening. It seems like a it’s a very strange, you know, it’s a very strange symptom that like, you don’t want it. But in my case, I really wanted it because I Yeah,

P: yeah. I can totally relate to that. I can totally relate to it after the fact why you would have wanted it but I’m sure when you’re in it. It’s like a little bit miserable. No, I

M: honestly like I was but I was like no, this is good. This is good. I needed it. I needed it because I needed to. I needed to start to feel it. I needed after like that wanting it for so long. I actually did it as strange as that sounds and that was the same and that carried for for my other two following that I would almost wait for and I’m like, please, please bring on that now as you know that like it’s this is real. And it’s you know, because you can’t just look at it test. So but so my first pregnancy it was really it was really great. So, you know, I came into it that this is something I want more than anything and I had a great pregnancy and our family plan like we really wanted three children and you know after one I couldn’t be couldn’t be more love couldn’t couldn’t be more in love. I had a boy and he he was just teaching transform my insurance for my life. And after that my second pregnancy was it was health wise. There were some little like scares but everything turned out okay in the end, so I would say it was a pretty good pregnancy otherwise, my hormones were the only thing that were awful. I truly, I truly had no control over my hormones, which is something I didn’t experience my first pregnancy and like I really didn’t like myself that way

P:. How was that? How did you experience that? Was that when your hormones were right. I was so short tempered.

M: I was yelling all the time. And I was rude. I was I was like the worst version of myself.

P  It sounds like There’s like there were like mood effects.

M : Yeah, yeah, all mood and I really I didn’t feel like myself. Like when I spoke when I talked and how I acted to people acted around people and treated people. And I couldn’t I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find it. You know, it was one of those that you lie in bed after and you’re just like, who am I? Who am I? But I had no clue what was going on. I didn’t even know pregnancy could call this like I had no previous education that like, I mean, I knew something’s gonna happen, but I didn’t know I didn’t read I didn’t know anything that pregnancy could cause such a shift and change, like my hormones to to, you know, cause these sorts of reactions for me all I knew is that I really for the 910 months or whatever it was really didn’t like myself at all.

P: Did you talk to your doctor about that? Or like, oh, wow, we know how do we know now that it was hormones? Like we’re

M: because there’s there’s higher education? No, I know. I know. I know. I wish I did. I didn’t I It never occurred to me to talk to my doctor. And you know, one of the reasons which we’ll get into later is that it my dad tried to harass me I was I never knew anything was about me. It was all about the baby. So it had nothing to do with how I was doing. It was just weak. I’d go to my go to chat with my doctor and it’s How’s baby how’s the growth and development of baby? I am that’s all it’s nothing more than that. So it was it didn’t I was never asked and I never thought that I should be asking or seeking support or it kind of just like was the way it was in my head. Okay,

P: so let me ask a question about that. So so the context explaining like, what the relationship was with your doctor makes total sense. Now I can understand why you didn’t bring it to your doctor. But you clearly because you’re lying in bed questioning like what’s going on? I don’t feel like myself. You notice that something was different. You just thought I’m different now or like what did you think at the time? 

M : I just kind of bucket it in like well, just the way it is like this is pregnancy like, you know, like, I don’t know, like I’m just like, I don’t know, I really I I don’t have I don’t have a an answer that that I can really like put my finger on it. Like I just I just didn’t I just kind of sucked it up. Like for whatever it didn’t question myself. If that makes sense. I just It just happened. Like I question myself. Until after.

P: Yeah. Because Because after a breaks right, it goes away.

M : Yeah. And you know, I started to feel myself again, you know, it’s like I went through this like really dark hole and a new was happening, but I couldn’t I wasn’t conscious enough to question even myself and to seek help. Or ask if this is normal, or even among friends or anything. I never I never I never got to the point. I just kind of live with it

P : Well, and to be fair to you, you have a toddler and you’re pregnant. So you’re busy, right? You’re focused on other things. Yeah. So do you feel better at the birth or months later or

M: at the birth? Yeah, it was right after the birth. I started Yeah, I just myself, like not not fooling myself. But I think I had more. I should say not myself, but I had more control over the things I said and the way I reacted to things and how I treated people

P : do you reflect on that now and think that was some kind of Peri Partum Depression?

M: I don’t know how to. It was something I don’t intend to put that title like towards it. It was absolutely something. I don’t know what.

P: Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I mean, it sounds it just sounds pretty distinct. Especially since you know, it’s easier to reflect on that where you’re out of it. So I’m glad you got out of it. And how far apart are your kids?

M  Do you say? They’re two years apart? Two years Exactly. Two years and two days.

P  Oh wow…So birthdays in the same season? It sounds like two days apart to the third pregnancy offers something different entirely or

M : their pregnancy was in an exact reflection like first. Okay. Easy, simple, beautiful. I felt amazing. The whole time just kind of went through the process. And it was it was it was great. I had my daughter in June of 2020. So right after the onset of COVID Wow. And that that made it for a little bit. Interesting experience, of course, being that my partner couldn’t be there for he was there for the birth but immediately kicked out of the hospital. Right after I got off that birthing table. And that that was interesting for me because I was really okay with it before. It’s like, you know what, we, this is our third you’ve been there before. I know what it’s like I know it. I know what I’m going into. My pregnancy has been really easy up to this point. And you know, it’s for me to stay in the hospital for 24 hours. You know, I don’t need you I’ll be okay. And when they kicked him out, essentially before moving me to the maternity floor, I the pain me I can cry to this day thinking about it. That separation was horrible. It was horrible. It’s like a very strange, I don’t know, feeling similar to like, loneliness but he is telling it’s just like ripped away from you. And you just you just birth the child together and to not have them be in there, though that was only hard, challenging part of it. But the rest of the pregnancy itself was again it was very lucky that it was very similar to my first and really easy and I was really happy throughout the whole time.

P: That’s great. Wow, that sounds like outside of the birth experience that sounds like you know, the best possible the best possible experience you could have especially given COVID

M: Yeah, it was it was and it’s really interesting like why I’m here today and like what my like new mission in life is and it’s all it’s all a really, I think, like larger reflection on the whole process of everything that was going to while I say I had beautiful pregnancies, there was so much going on, but I’m I’m still struggling to get through that I didn’t realize while I was in it, even even though things were so, so great. And I really felt so great. But there’s there’s a lot that I’m still dealing with now that really started from from my first pregnancy.

P : So let’s talk about that. It sounds it sounds a little bit like what you’re saying is that motherhood is not what you thought it would be.

M: It motherhood. Motherhood is incredible. I absolutely adore my children. I absolutely adore being a mother. What’s hard is is losing yourself in the process. So I knew identify in to most of society, my friends, my family, I identify as mother, but not but not Marnie. So while I gained this absolutely beautiful life, I lost myself. And that’s where I didn’t realize why that was happening until very recently. So my youngest is almost two and it took like, till she was about a year for me to realize this. So this is about six years, six, seven years in this process where I feel like Hey, I I’m I’m not me, I’m I’m just a mom. Like I’m that that’s that’s that’s when people see me that’s how I see myself that’s, you know, how my partner sees me my colleagues, but there’s no money in that. And that that’s, that’s been a big focus of mine, I would say in the past. In the past year and a half to understand that and to change that.

P: So let’s talk about the you before the kid that was a person who was focused on career it sounds like yeah, it’s very clear.

M: Very, so. Very, yeah, just very, I think like, focus all around like very, very self identify, like totally new, but I was really glad to I was I had lots of interesting hobbies. I was definitely very, very career focused, but also very socially focused.

P: And motherhood displaced them both. Absolutely. So what what you’re struggling with is the loss of this former self and trying to figure out how to regain it or how to reshape it or

M: Yeah, I think it’s how to, we don’t need to be just one. I don’t need to be just a mom. I can still be I can identify I can have a lot of identities, you know, and being a mother is one of them. You know, being being a wife as well and a sister as one a friend is one a colleague is one, you know, so I think that people can have multiple identities, but oftentimes what happens is when you become a mom that almost becomes your leading identity. And what you need is to keep your core identity and realize that that is one part and it can be strong and amazing. And it can mean the absolute absolute world to you. But not at the sacrifice of losing like who you are. You as like the person.

P: Yeah, totally agreed. So So where are you on this journey?

M: So you know The first is like, the first step was, I think, just understanding it and and kind of going back in time and where we’re lost myself and trying to re identify who I was and what was important to me and what was I really passionate about enjoyed doing in thinking and, and where I am today is I feel like I’m in a I’m in a good place. I mean, I don’t know how to describe it otherwise, but I’m very conscious of not letting myself or others like my identity as a mother kind of take over everything else. And trying to like when my friends call me like they’re like Hey Mama, and I’m like, no, no, my name is Marni like I really just like the the mama culture. You know people who wear this like and I’m this is just me and I think it’s great for other people but because they’re so proud and they shouldn’t be proud to be mothers but for me, it’s pushing people around me to be like, okay, me first like I am person outside, outside of my children. You know, if you’re gonna give me a gift for my birthday, it doesn’t have to be like a necklace with all my children’s initials. Like, there’s something maybe for me too, as like a small example.

P: So why don’t you tell us about the company that you started?

M : Yeah, so the company’s rumbly and rumley started on this notion that women are not the priority in pregnancy. And they’re seen and treated through culture and our medical system as as merely vessels and the the market is saturated with maternal and baby products and nothing is really focused on the woman and the emotional journey that she’s on. You know, fertility has changed and postpartum has changed yet pregnancy has remained the same. So rumbly is is a brand that is to prioritize women’s health and experience and support them on this emotional journey, not just the physical journey. And it’s really to set them up for better outcomes after baby after baby arrives. At launch from these going to launch with a pregnancy subscription box, where half the items in every box are for the woman you are and the other half are for the mom you’re becoming and there’s three core goals with the subscription box and that’s just spoil and shower mom with gifts and that’s really to help celebrate every month every month is a milestone and and the reason to, to celebrate with items that are focused just on her. It’s also there to help prioritize herself again in pregnancy to help her not lose herself in the process, and then make the transition to motherhood a little less overwhelming because it’s extremely overwhelming. But also a little bit more fun. And again with the ultimate goal of setting her up for a better outcome and the end. So as a brand that I hope that women do see rumbly is more than a subscription box. It’s just a it’s a new way to experience pregnancy and to treat it really it’s as it’s a tool to help her in that journey. And the goal is to share more realness, more love support throughout the entire journeys. That’s when that positive test and then eventually going into her experience after delivery. And the aim to be a source of more truth and emotional support and ultimately women’s biggest cheerleaders

P: That sounds awesome like give us a sense of like what’s in the first month box

M: because women Some women find out a very different times when they’re actually pregnant. Instead of doing monthly the first box is is covers the first trimester. So months 123 in there I have a couple of branded items. So one of them I have a I have a calendar, a custom calendar flip calendar that we created every week it has either prompts or some insights into things that are going on some things to make you smile to make you laugh different things for the week. It’s kind of like a rumbly take on you know any of the apps you get like with the fruits like babies the size of this, it goes a little deeper in that but again like weekly kind of what’s going on and it’s a flip chart and it’s beautifully branded as something that you put on your desk to keep track of it. Of your pregnancy. Another item in there is a AEV have a felt folder and it’s your go to pregnancy organizer I found when I was pregnancy I got tons of papers and products and ultrasound pictures and it’s kind of one folder that you can keep everything in. I was kind of putting things all over the place. There’s a bracelet it’s a gold bangle that has two parts and it’s a beautiful piece of jewelry and it’s to help women just feel good. You know jewelry puts for many women a smile on their face and feel nice and the double hearts very symbolic of you know, you know, have another heart beating inside you so you kind of have two hearts at once. There’s a water bottle to encourage obviously hydration drink a lot. There’s a lip balm, there’s some vegan organic mint gum, there’s a a felt letter board where you can put like for pregnancy announcements or you can track your growth or whatever you want any input some personal like self love or any kind of your own custom messages on the board. And that that rocks up everything in that first box. So there’s seven items in there. And those again, are really kind of being in thought of what’s going on for you just in that first trimester. while also being a little bit more general to women’s experience. During that time. Of course everyone will have a very different first trimester but initially at launch, we’re trying to to appeal to the most common experiences that women have during that time.

P: This is cool, and it’s such a cool idea. It’s interesting to me that that is your experience in Canada because, you know, as someone who lives in the US, I think of Canada as our more rational cousin. So I would have imagined that the experience of being pregnant there would be different and somewhat better. If you’re being you’re in Toronto, like you’re in one of the major cities. So that’s your best shot and having experience with with the medical team where it’s more holistic.

M: Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s it’s very not the case and I think maybe it’s because of our healthcare system. we get to get two ultrasounds, Three reasons It’s a very process. One of the biggest things that every box is so their products and those products to support you in your journey.

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Episode 58 SN: The Power of Hormones, Hyperemesis & Postpartum Depression Visit a Pregnancy: Laura’s story

Today’s guest had a pregnancy marked by extremely easy things and significantly hard things. Getting pregnant was consistent with the kind of fertility you see in a romantic comedy instantaneous, but the first trimester morning sickness was more like a sci fi thriller, totally extreme and requiring all kinds of medical help. And after a pretty challenging pregnancy, she ran into postpartum depression after the birth but her’s is a story of overcoming. She found help and recovered and she’s deeply immersed in the joy only a five year old child can bring.

(image courtesy of https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/blog/articles/pregnancy-hormones/)

Links to some of Dr. Meltzer Brody‘s work

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6CCrvBEAAAAJ&hl=en

Audio Transcript

Paulette : Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls. Today’s guest had a pregnancy marked by extremely easy things and significantly hard things. Getting pregnant was consistent with the kind of fertility you see in a romantic comedy instantaneous, but the first trimester morning sickness was more like a sci fi thriller, totally extreme and requiring all kinds of medical help. And after a pretty challenging pregnancy, she ran into postpartum depression after the birth but her’s is a story of overcoming. She found help and recovered and she’s deeply immersed in the joy only a five year old child can bring. After we spoke, I talked to a fantastic psychiatrist who’s done lots of research on postpartum depression, and gives us a sense of what the field might look like in the future. One more thing to add. My dogs were desperate to be a part of this episode. So you’ll hear their contributions at certain points, which in no way reflects the many efforts I made to keep them happy and quiet. Sorry about that.

Let’s get to this inspiring story. 

P: Hi, thanks so much for coming to the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you live?

 

Laura : Sure. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Laura Nelson. And I live in San Francisco, California. 

 

P: Nice, lovely. And Laura, how many kids do you have? 

 

L: I have one child and one husband.

 

P: well said and before you got pregnant, I’m sure you had an idea about what pregnancy would be like. What did you imagine it would be like?

 

Laura : Oh, well, I imagined I didn’t imagine it would be magical. I didn’t imagine it would be like a fairy tale. I think I took worst parts of pregnancy depicted on TV and media and went yeah, that’s probably what it’s gonna be like.

 

P: Well good. There’s only up from there. Right? That’s that’s a good way to start. 

 

L: Yeah. 

 

P: And did you get pregnant easily the first time?

 

Laura  2:09  

Oh, yeah. First first try. We pulled the goalie pregnant.

 

P: Good lord. You’re the story we all hear. Everyone. Everyone thinks they’ll get pregnant as soon as they try. But it doesn’t happen all the time. Right? But this is the perfect example. That’s so good. I’m glad that was easy. And you found out with like a home pregnancy test.

 

L: I found out I was I was house sitting for my parents and their dog. And I went to I didn’t know I was pregnant, obviously. But I went to Long’s and I got I was like, I really needed some kulula And why not like a pregnancy test? So I had some grua and I took some more pregnancy tests and all of them are positive. And I was like, well yes, that’s that’s what it is. You know, truthfully, I was like, I was a smoker. And so I was like, I called my best friend and I was crying. So it’s just like such a shock. And I was smoking. I was like, it doesn’t count until the doctor says it right. And she’s like, you’re fine. 

 

P: Yeah, that’s kind of a shock. 

 

L: Yeah, but it was it was nice. It was good. And a good reason to quit smoking. So how about that?

 

P: And how was the pregnancy? How did it start off?

 

L: What was it like? Oh, the pregnancy was in a word traumatic. I think it started off with violence, never ending nausea and vomiting. So throughout the course of my pregnancy, I lost 30 pounds. 

 

P: Wow

 

L:  and then I think, so weeks, six through about 20 is going to the hospital three times a week for IV infusions, because I couldn’t even hold down ginger ale and crackers. I was just unable to eat food without taking. I ended up taking what was called Zofran. I took sublingually as well as intravenously. So if you are experiencing severe morning sickness and you’re worried about Zofran I took it pretty much the whole pregnancy and there were zero adverse side effects other than I could pull down food, which was nice.

 

P: so that seems like a violent entrance into a pregnancy like what it happened once and you thought, Oh, this is just once or like, did you react to a food or it was all food or how does it work?

 

L: It’s all food, all food and all smells and I was throwing up Bile or food. On a good day. 10 times I was throwing up.

 

P: Wow, that sounds unbelievably intense. So did it. It happened one day and you went to your doctor like how did it how did you kind of sort it out?

 

L: Oh, it happened in happened for a few days in it. I thought like, Oh, this is morning sickness. Right? Like This must be what everybody talks about. And then when I was showing signs of dehydration, and I like couldn’t actually function and was feeling very sick. I went to my OB and she said, Oh yeah, no, you need to hyperemesis Gavardiam you need to get fluids we need to give you medicines or you can eat and we need to give you something so you can not be nauseous all the time.

 

P: So they think like oh, maybe you have the flu or because it’s pretty distinct. 

 

L: yup

 

P: So even though they gave you the medicine you lost all my weight.

 

L: Yeah. So I gained again Yeah, back towards months, eight and nine, nine and a half. Right. But But yeah, in the beginning, it was dramatic

 

P: That sounds super unpleasant. And where are you at? Were you working? 

 

L: I was I was working. I was going into the office. I you know once I was able to announce my pregnancy, which I had to do earlier than I wanted, because I was so sick. You know, it would just be I’d be talking with people about plans and then I thought oh lord is gonna go vomit and I’m gonna throw up and then come back and keep working. But yeah, I was a very understanding very parent focused company. So I was very lucky that, you know, the CEO had kids and everyone I was working with was already a parent.

 

P: Yeah, that sounds intense. And so it sounds like it got a little less prominent later in the pregnancy. 

 

L: So weeks 20 to about 32. I would say I was normal. So I was eating food walking around. I had a good normal pregnancy and then weeks 33 to 42. It came back and then

 

P: No, no, is that normal? Was that what they say?

 

L: Yeah, you’ll either have it just for the first semester or you’ll have it for the first semester and we’ve got like school for the first trimester or you’ll have it for first trimester in the second trimester and the third, so I was lucky that it got a little less severe. For the second semester, trimester. But It came back.

 

P: Oh my god, I’m so sorry to hear it. Good Lord. That must have been so disappointing the first time you threw up after you have the break.

 

L: for sure, 

 

P: and so you get to 40 weeks and what happens?

 

L: I get 40 weeks and and nothing happens. You get to 41 weeks may be scraped the inside what’s it called an induction 

 

P: Yeah. they strip the membranes or something or 

 

L: yeah, they stripped the membranes and then they send you home so they gave me an induction I was induced. They said go home out should start happening. When it’s less than five minutes apart. Come back. 

 

P: so this is this exciting. Because you’re done.

 

L: Oh, I am ready to not be pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. So I go home as they’re happening and laboring, and it never retiming them. It never gets closer than five minutes eight eighths and spicy food. And it still stayed farther apart than 4-5 minutes. So I called and they said no, if you if you came in, we wouldn’t be able to admit you. I said okay. So 41 weeks, 2 days, I go back. We’re doing health checks. They’re doing the screens. They induced me again, go home labor. bounce on a ball. again It doesn’t stay closer than five minutes. So finally at 41 and five, said okay, well it’s time to come in. so We went down. We checked into hospital it was so I think the one of the nicest and most surreal things about going to the hospital knowing that you’re going to have the baby is you have this like brand new car seat. That you take with you. And you’re like, Okay, we’re taking carseat with us and like we’re leaving, we’re entering the hospital as just us and we’re gonna leave as a family like that. That’s just like it’s definitely a beautiful moment. So

 

P: let’s talk about your labor for a second. Were you like imagining a natural labor or I want to be in a bathtub or what was your you’re already shaking your head? What were you hoping for?

 

L: No, I took some birthing class classes with liars. They all said they wanted natural childbirth with flowers, and I said, my vision was epidurals just all of the like as many natural drugs as you can give me. Yeah. Was my natural birth vision. Plan. 

 

P: good, I feel like you’re moving in the right direction then.

 

L: Yeah. So we go I’m in. I’m induced, they give me they give me Pitocin. I labor for about 12 hours. So that’s fine. We’re just me and my husband all night or just watching 30 Rock and I’m like, a little bit of pain, but not too bad. Then the doctor comes in and checks on me and she says, All right, you’ve been laboring for 12 hours and you’re not even one centimeter. And at this point, I was like, No, like really? Are you kidding? And so she said very plainly. She was a wonderful, wonderful doctor. She said, we think your baby’s really big. Can you either labor naturally over the weekend, and if things get bad, we’re going to have to do an emergency C section. Or we can get this baby out of you in the next two hours 

 

P: oh wow

 

L: and do a C section right now.

 

P: yeah, I’ll take the door marked baby now.

 

L: I said yeah, let’s get this baby out. Like right now. And so the so it just went from a having a baby in two hours. So anesthesiologist came in and the anesthesiologist assistant who looks like Jessica Alba it might have been the drugs I was on but I swear I still tell my husband I’m like man do you remember that anesthesiologist. She was just she delivered kisses from angels with the epidural and she’s out of this world attractive. So anyway, I had the epidural. Seeing your partner scrubbed up in scrubs is just like, interesting.

 

P:  I sort of felt like it you felt like you want to do an SNL skit 

 

L: a little bit 

 

P: come in with all the blue scrubs in that and hair cover and stuff. It’s so weird.

 

L: Yeah, just like Alright, we’re gonna go have a baby and then I didn’t expect can’t have your husband in when they give you the epidural. So you’re on your own and they’re having you bend over. You’re like gigantic pregnant belly. Yeah, this point I’m like basically 42 Weeks Pregnant I would say again to our baby and me. As the room is so cold, and you’re naked, your butts expose. Just jabbing  you with a needle 

 

P: It’s glamorous. 

 

L: Yeah, then I had what’s known as a gentle C section. So I was able to listen to music which was nice we put on Lyle Lovett and put on allow love it playlist. So I was now they put up the curtain and they tested they said let us know if you feel this and just looked at my husband and said it’d be funny if I said it out. And he’s like, No, it would not be funny if you sat down. So we listened to music. Baby came out beautifully and immediately instead of wiping her off or when her they just immediately her on my chest and I was able to breastfeed her while they sewed me up. 

 

P: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. 

 

L: So that was really beautiful. And then they weighed her. And, you know, whisked us off to the recovery room. Once everything was all done. It was life changing in a lot of ways but I think having that gentle entrance into the world surrounded by so much chaos was just very nice bookend and blessing. 

 

P: I was thinking gentle C section was marketing, but that sounds like a gentle C section. That sounds really nice.

 

L: Yeah,they  just give you the baby right away. 

 

P: That’s awesome. 

 

L: Being able to breastfeed even though like I couldn’t feel my arms was nice.

 

P: Maybe the best way to do it. So you up, you’re in recovery. And then how long do you stay in

the hospital? 

 

L: I was in the hospital. She was born on the 10th and went home on the 13th. 

 

P: All right. And how do you feel when you go home? 

 

L: Oh, I was loopy for sure. I think one thing that I was grateful for from just another friend who was a mother was I was taking the stronger pain medicine. It wasn’t Vicodin. I think it was Percocet and was actually causing like panic and me taking such a strong as soon as my friends had stopped taking Percocet, only take Motrin and so I switched to Motrin, and immediately the panic went away.

 

P: Oh good. I’ve never heard of that. That’s interesting to know that. It’s like well known enough that someone could give you a nice,

 

L: yeah, it was very good advice. Yeah, went home. tried to figure out how to be parents, and it was it was nice, but it was also very hard because I had a C section and I was on the I lived on the third floor walk up. And so the doctor says don’t do don’t take any stairs or I live on a third floor walk up. You know in retrospect, they after the kid is born, they have you come back or the next day or two days later for a sort of wellness check to weigh them and make sure they’re eating and maybe even get another shot. In retrospect I should not have gotten to that appointment into that with my husband. And if I had to do it again. I would say I’m gonna lie down. You can take the baby to go get a check up

 

P: because it was painful to manage the stairs and all that.

 

L: Yeah, the stairs were just brutal. I ended up popping a stitch. 

 

P: Oh No. Oh my god. 

 

L: but, that’s okay. I mean, the grand scheme of things. It was worth it. 

 

P: What’s it like in the fourth trimester when you’re home? 

 

L: Oh, yeah. So the fourth trimester be brutal for me, who loved my daughter? I think know that I had a lot of unhealed trauma from both the pregnancy and the birth that I didn’t address and being isolated in apartment–not that I couldn’t go outside but that going outside meant downstairs and eventually you know popping a stitch and hurting myself. A lot my husband took two weeks of paternity leave and to care for me and and us and the first day he went back he was let go. 

 

P: Oh, my God that is crazy. Yeah. 

 

L: So I had, I’m a mom, and I’m the sole breadwinner and I feel literally trapped in my apartment. So I should have seen The chips stacking up earlier than I did. But it wasn’t until it was about six or seven months old. I realized I was not well, I had severe postpartum depression. And I just had a breakdown one day where I just could not stop crying and it wasn’t that I didn’t love my child because I did I loved her so much was that and I thought of postpartum depression. The only things I thought of were very black and white. It was you had it or you didn’t. There was no gray area of you have it a little bit and then drawing on media and growing up. The only postpartum depression that I’ve ever seen talked about was that woman who drowned her kids in the bathtub. 

 

P: Oh, wow. Yeah. 

 

L: And I thought well, I don’t want to drown my kidney bathtub. So I obviously don’t have it 

 

P: I brought the topic of postpartum depression to an expert. Today, we’re lucky to have Dr. Samantha Meltzer Brody, a psychiatrist who’s the director of the UNC Center for Women’s mood disorder, and the author of many, many scientific papers on the topic of perinatal, and postpartum depression. Thanks so much for coming on the show Dr. Meltzer-Brody. 

 

Dr. Meltzer-Brody: Thanks for having me.

 

P: Harming your children is one small one small aspect that might present but there are probably many ways many things that postpartum depression can look like. So maybe you can define it for us.

 

Dr MB: Absolutely. So postpartum depression is a mood disorder that occurs in the postpartum period. However, it comes with often many co occurring symptoms, including anxiety, also, according to the DSM can start during pregnancy. So oftentimes, hear the word Peri, partum, or perinatal, used to define symptoms of anxiety and depression. That occur either over the course of pregnancy or postpartum. If we’re talking specifically about postpartum depression exclusively, oftentimes, you’re not seeing symptoms creep in until late pregnancy or they start in the postpartum period. They can have a range from very mild to very severe with everything in between. So if someone is having the most severe symptoms, they may have suicidal ideation and tenor plan. Most rarely, you have co occurring psychotic symptoms that can be associated with postpartum psychosis which is not postpartum depression. It’s a severe postpartum psychiatric disorder that is thankfully because it’s so devastating, more rare and can be associated with thoughts of harm to the baby. But then can have a range of symptoms that can include anxiety, worrying, or being able to sleep even when the baby’s sleeping because of worrying about the baby not being able to enjoy the baby feeling keyed up on edge, feeling overly tearful, feeling completely overwhelmed having difficulty concentrating. Again this can be on the more mild side to the to the severe side but in general, they are going to last more than two weeks it is not the baby blues, so most women immediately upon giving birth are going to feel more emotionally exhausted because birthing is very powerful, profound time. Most moms will get their sea legs if you will, but for the one in eight women that continue to have clinically significant symptoms or up to 15% of women postpartum. It’s much more complicated. So what you will hear the terms, perinatal or postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. You’ll hear the term maternal sort of mental health, maternal mood and anxiety disorders to sort of be more broadly inclusive. So we’re not having any one woman gets stuck on one particular symptom as you stated that doesn’t resonate with her

 

L: but I did and I think that there’s so many different layers of postpartum depression that people don’t talk about. People don’t understand there wasn’t even you know, the right level of support even now, looking back that I was able to get, you know, I broke down i i called my doctor and I said, I’d like a really need help. And so I did three months of intensive outpatient therapy. So I was going in three days a week to the hospital to get talk therapy and medication and art therapy and group classes and group therapy and it really just only let me heal and focus but just realize that I wasn’t alone and that there’s nothing wrong with me as mom. There’s nothing wrong with what I was doing as a parent or how I was loving or how I was living. It was literally a cat, something’s wrong with your brain and you just have to fix it or work on it. So eventually, I found the right mix of medicine

 

P: One tricky issue with postpartum depression is it seems like it might be hard to identify in yourself or to rely on someone else to identify for you. I’m wondering if something like biomarkers might help here

 

Dr MB: well the use of a biomarker is, you know, variable depending on what biomarker you’re talking about. But for example, ideally there’d be a biomarker that would show women who are either at risk or to have someone start treatment in a preventative way or start path that would prevent symptoms from happening. Or biomarkers can be used to track response to different treatment or you know, indicate that someone’s going to be differentially responsive to a certain antidepressant or whatever it may be. So they can be used in lots of different ways at this point We do not have a reliable biomarker that’s ready for primetime. And so that’s an interesting area of investigation, both looking at genetic signature, but then looking at other types of biomarkers that can either help with diagnosis or help dictate treatment to be most targeted and effective. And that’s often when we think of precision medicine, or precision psychiatry, rather than saying, you have postpartum depression and we don’t know what treatments going to be most effective for you. So we’re going to, if we say pick an antidepressant that may or may not work for you, biomarkers when they are more sophisticated, can really help guide a specific line of treatment to be most effective.

 

L: I’m A huge fan of Lexapro I’m like a lexa pro cheerleader. But yeah, the days are brighter and heart is healed and I’m just so full of love and of being a parent, but I think one thing I would say to everyone who’s either expecting to have a child or just had a child and it’s in the fourth trimester is there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. If you are feeling a little sad if you are feeling like you can’t make it if you’re feeling like things just aren’t adding up to help because it’s really easy and there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re doing a great job.

 

P: I think that’s a great message and I’m impressed that you were able to see it in yourself. And I’ve talked to a lot of women who have talked about postpartum depression and a lot of them don’t recognize it or think this is just what motherhood is, or I’m just a bad mom, or some version of that. 

 

P: I talked with Dr. Meltzer Brody about some of the challenges inherent in identifying PPD: I’m imagining we don’t have a biomarker and we don’t know which medication would help you if you require medication because postpartum depression is really a constellation of things. And there are many, many roads lead to postpartum depression. So it’s not this this one thing. In the same way you’re describing all these different symptoms that could be sort of a postpartum depression diagnosis. Because there are many ways to get there. Is that Is that accurate?

 

Dr. MB: I think that there’s not going to be any one reason a woman would have postpartum depression. So in the same way, that there’s not any one type of breast cancer either, so I think one of the things we’ve seen as we get much more sophisticated in other fields of medicine in terms of precision medicine, as we get very tailored and targeted on the specific treatment, that’s going to lead to the best outcome. So 25 years ago, most women with breast cancer you may have gotten the same treatment. It turned out that didn’t work very well at all. And we now are much more specific and targeted based on you know, receptor type and hormonal responsiveness and any number of things where I hope we can get to with postpartum depression and all forms of depression is similarly so that there’s not one form of depression and that people are going to become depressed for any number of reasons and that there’s going to be obviously the psychological psychosocial factors that render someone more vulnerable, but ultimately, it’s going to be the biologic processes, right? So is it immunologic in origin? Is it inflammatory markers in origin? Is it genetic in origin? Is it epigenetic, you know, or dysregulation of the HPA axis or dysregulation of a specific neurotransmitter system? So all of these are hypotheses. It’s very likely going to be an interaction of those but also that some people differentially are going to have a specific sort of past that’s driving there’s for which a specific treatment may be most effective. Now, we are not there yet at all, but I think the hope will be that we can be looking forward to that in the next I would, I would like to say aspirationally decade,

 

P: generally speaking, it seems like postpartum depression is thought to arise from hormone shifts, during or after pregnancy, in particular, a big drop in progesterone but it sounds like all these other bodily systems are affected immune system HPA access other systems. So it does that contribute to why it is tricky to establish a link between hormone drops and postpartum depression.

 

Dr. MB: So I think that we know that all women who give birth have rising and then falling levels of estrogen and progesterone, female ganando hormones, that’s a normal part of physiology. They rise dramatically during pregnancy and they fall at the time of delivery and that is part of physiology and so there’s no difference in the rise and fall in any particular way that’s been studied for someone that has postpartum depression or not, what the current theories are, and you’ll hear the the expression, differential sensitivity meaning a woman who gets postpartum depression may be differentially sensitive to the rising and falling the normal, rising and falling in a way that someone else is not. Now, we haven’t necessarily gotten able to refine that exactly, not even close. And it’s very likely that some women are differentially sensitive to the rising, falling and they have postpartum depression for that. rising, falling and they have postpartum depression for that reason, it’s also very likely that other women have postpartum depression because of a different trigger. So, the dysregulated system is not necessarily going to be hormonally based it may be something else and so this is an active area of investigation is understanding what are all the different factors and how they interact and what may be driving that for any you know, individual person

 

P: In Laura’s experience she have really significant hyperemesis I’m wondering if someone like Laura, who is presenting with evidence of a sensitivity that’s really strong to changes in hormones is more likely to get something like postpartum depression because obviously her system is sensitive to these fluctuations.

 

Dr. MB: So there’s there’s some data and we actually looked at this in the Danish registries and published out there is data showing that women that have hyperemesis gravidarum are at higher risk of having perinatal mood and anxiety complications than women that do not have it for an individual person who experiences hyperemesis gravidarum. It’s an extremely miserable experience, and I think it is just psychologically miserable. The second thing though, it also makes sense that whatever is happening in that individual person that makes them more sensitive to have the severity of symptoms in that way. There may be something happening in their body that works differently, that may make them more susceptible to other things. So I think it makes sense in a number of different ways. But we don’t understand deeply and at the biological level, exactly what’s going on. And I think that that’s what’s exciting right now is trying to get much more precise and dive deeper into the underlying pathophysiologic processes. So if I looked back over the last number of decades in our field, it it took decades in this country for even routine screening to take place and for us to move towards seeing this as a one of the greatest complications of pregnancy. And the postpartum period to do routine screening and all pregnant and postpartum women, to have it become part of public awareness to you know, work to decrease stigma so that people could talk about it. So we could get more women screened and more women into care and over what we’ve seen in the last 20 years is pretty remarkable in terms of a positive sea change in that direction. So where we need to go next is taking our understanding of what’s driving it, what’s the underlying pathophysiology, what are continued to be novel ways of diagnosing and treating, how can we be more precise and targeted and doing that and there’s a lot of work being done, which makes me encouraged on what may come next.

 

P: I have spoken to a couple of people at UCSF I don’t know if that’s where you were but they were saying that they are making an effort to have way more postpartum visits that aren’t normally scheduled because it is pretty spare.

 

L: Once you have a baby, it’s all about the baby and then six weeks, six week checkup, they’re like, Okay, hey, mom. You know,

 

P: and it does seem like it’s almost entirely physical. Have your wounds healed, and then we’ll send you on your way. 

 

L: Yup

 

P: You know, having been through it, which seems bizarre.

 

L: Great. Yeah. UCSF has they have a really good postpartum depression group. I wasn’t able to join it. But I would have if I could have,

 

P: Yeah I’m guessing where and from whom you get care may make a difference because there’s a lot going on in the field of postpartum depression. 

 

The future of postpartum care may not look much like the past I asked Dr. Meltzer, Brody about new medications. One thing she talks about is GABA, which if you’re not familiar with it is a chemical messenger in your brain that has a calming effect. 

 

It looks like in 2019, the first drug was approved specifically for postpartum depression. Is that right?

 

Dr. MB: Yes. So in 2019, the drug Brexanalone was approved for postpartum depression. It was the first FDA approval for a drug specifically for postpartum depression. And it’s a novel drug it’s a neuroactive steroid. So it works on GABA, which is different than other drugs. And it’s actually a proprietary formulation of allopregnanolone, which is the neuro active metabolite of progesterone. So you have levels of allo that normally rise very high during pregnancy, just like progesterone does, because it’s a metabolite of it and then fall rapidly. Postpartum. And so we were able to do the first open label study and then proceed through the double blind placebo controlled studies of using brexanolone for treating postpartum depression at at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s an IV drug. It’s a 60 hour infusion. It’s powerful. And you see this rapid onset of action within the first day and so we continue to have a robust clinical program. We’re continuing clinical trials and then there’s also an oral being drug being developed by Sage therapeutics, which is the pharmaceutical company that’s developed brexanolone And now is arann. Alone. Saran alone is also a neuroactive steroid, but it’s different. It is not an oral form of bricks and alone. It’s not an oral form of allopregnanolone it’s a bit of a different interactive stereo. And there’s been multiple positive studies showing its effectiveness after a two week course for postpartum depression, that that could be a new tool in the toolbox available in a year plus.

 

P: Well, that’s super exciting.

 

Dr. MB:  it is a really nice example of using pathophysiology to develop treatments leading to new treatments and a new tool for postpartum depression. And I think that approach hopefully, can be used in lots of different ways. Who’s going to be most responsive? For whom is this drug going to be the best fit? Or drugs like this and as we get much more refined understanding what treatments are going to be best for an individual patient that will lead to the best outcomes and brexanolone works fast and it works really fast. And so that’s so important in the perinatal period in the postpartum period, and having a rapid acting antidepressant that can work within a day is powerful and unlike most things on the market, a number of current therapies that we have take time. take days to weeks to months or longer, and then we unfortunately have people who don’t respond to the current therapies. So having new tools and new treatments that can act quickly and more quickly than what we’ve previously had, and then can increase effectiveness or be more effective to peep for people that haven’t responded to other treatments is really important.

 

P: How old is your daughter now? 

 

L: She’s five and a half.

 

P: That’s so fun. That’s a great age what she into.

 

L: So if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she will tell you she wants to be a mom, doctor, astronaut scientist. So she’ll go to space, but she’ll still be able to drive her gets to school.

 

P: well that’s the dream isn’t it? Seems like the right ambition. She sounds busy. is very busy. 

 

L: She’s very smart. She’s I think she’s smarter than me. She’s five and a half and I’m pretty sure she’s smarter than me. She’ll be like, Mom, do you know what the biggest magnet on Earth is and no one should be like it’s Earth. Like okay

 

P: I feel like she needs a YouTube channel. These are just some real nuggets.

 

L: We’re not gonna stage mom her yet. We’re gonna try to keep childhood in its little bubble 

 

P: is she goes to kindergarten or is it high?

 

L: So we did distance learning we did like a week of online kindergarten, because we live a half a block away from our public school. We found out very quickly that Zoom learning is not the way to go. It’s just not she hates it. enforcing it was not worth it. So we are in another year of transitional kindergarten, which is private and falls under the preschool rule so it can be in person rich, she’s thriving. And moms are think of

 

P: I think of  kindergarteners socializing. And so that’s a hard, hard thing to do. So I’m glad that you guys have worked it out so that she can be out.

 

L: Even in the core things to work on like she’s an only child so sharing can’t can’t even do that in person preschool now because they all have their own pieces of art supplies and paper so they don’t contaminate.

 

P: Hopefully next year, 

 

L: fingers crossed back to normal. 

 

P: So if you could give advice to your younger self about this process what do you think you would tell her? 

 

L: Oh, I would say two things. One, I would say Laura depressed get help. So okay. Yeah, because if I got help sooner, I just think it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was. The other thing I would say is, you’re going to be a great mom, don’t worry about messing her up. In 2020 it’ll all make sense. Because I feel like everything I could have done and did do like once we had to just pause and have her home and be a family and just sort of figure it out like it’s really mattered, you know? 

 

P: Yeah, it is nice to have her home at this age. Right because five is so fun. I remember my when my oldest was five or went to kindergarten, I missed her so much. 

 

L: uh huh

 

P: And she got she had walking pneumonia for like a week and a half and it wasn’t like that was technically the diagnosis but she didn’t seem very sick. And I was like, walking around with my arms in the air like this is the best week ever to get her back. So it’s kind of nice. 

 

L: It was sad to knock at the end of preschool when she was turned five during this when she was four and a half. And we were lucky to be like Okay, let’s see, like there’s no, there’s no school. You’re gonna stay home with mom and dad. And she’s like, great. No school home. I get to stay home with you and dad. Cool. 

 

P: that’s Awesome. Well Laura, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story today. I really appreciate it.

 

L: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

 

P: Thanks again to Laura for sharing some of the challenges in her pregnancy and the really really about her experience in the postpartum period, her recovery and her ultimate joy. And a big thank you to dr. meltzer brody for sharing her insights on the current state of PPD and what the future may look like.  I’ll link to some of Dr. Meltzer Brody’s work in the show notes if you want to read more about these new medications for PPD.

 

Thank you for listening.

 

We’ll be back soon with another story of overcoming