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.