Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 218 | postpartum depression.

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

In today’s episode we talked about postpartum depression, something that affects nearly one in seven women and 10% of men in the postpartum period. We hope this episode resonates with any parents out there who are really in the thick of it. If you or someone you know is struggling with postpartum depression please consult with your doctor, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can also fill out the brief form below to contact a professional:  https://www.postpartumdepression.org/about/contact/ We love you guys, Shawn and Andrew Follow the Couple Things Instagram  ▶ https://www.instagram.com/couplethingspod/?hl=en Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. Did you forget the rest of it? We don't do it anymore. Oh, we cut it? Don't give me that. Are you a part of our meetings? No, you're right.

Well, sorry, it takes a while to break a habit, dude. We've done 220 episodes of that same intro. Now we're just going to pivot and you expect me to roll with it. You're like, did we cut that? I just, it's jarring. Oh, my gosh. We're sitting in the chairs. I kind of just, I'm on autopilot.

for that intro and I'm sorry I'll get out of it I need your filing cabinet system in your brain to start remembering our conversations I need your forgiveness filing cabinet to be wide open baby this is an important episode today we are talking about postpartum depression yes this is important and relevant if you hear me try to like laugh things off I'm trying to like make it a little lighter Yeah, we do consider this an entertainment-based show. But we try to talk about important topics in it. And so we're going to try to blend those two so that it's not super sad to listen to. But maybe just to warm us up a little bit, should we just do a debrief of the last week because, boy, was it epic.

It was magical. Yes. So we went to Indianapolis. hometown where Andrew and I's generation of cousins on his mom's

side of which there are a lot 13 including me hosted a kid's summer camp and it was I thought it was gonna be

chaotic I didn't know what to expect and it was just pure magic there's no other word there were 30 some kids ages you know like 12 and under

pretty much. They all got along. We were fishing, horseback riding, riding tractors. We did like a mission where we went to a ministry. We went to a golf course.

We did so many things and the kids had the best time of their life. And it was so cool. So it was self-orchestrated. My brother came up with this idea. Shout out guy. He's also the guy

that hooked us up on our first day. But he said, hey, you on this family culture and family legacy. And my grandpa did an awesome job at hosting these events multiple times a year where everyone would get together. And my grandpa passed away in 2016, the year we got married. And then my dad passed away. And so it was just an opportune time for us to take the lead, kind of take the baton and do this. And he did an awesome job. Essentially what he did. And I want to interview him about this. Because,

I think it's actually a scalable idea that everyone should do I think you know Is that how your brain operates? Like every opportunity? It's not like a business thing. It's like

families could benefit from this because I learned so much about my aunts and uncles and my cousins in this process. Essentially what the camp was was a series of job shadows of people's careers

in the family. So like my uncle has a farm. We went to his farm for a day, rode horses did a tractor ride when fishing my other uncle works in trucking and so we took everybody to go see these big semi-trucks and learn about them your grandpa has a golf course so we spent today at the golf course yeah and learned about the grounds crew and like the different types of seed and how they take care of the grass and all this stuff and um it was it was really fun but like so you're learning and the kids are running around having fun and they're golfing and they're fishing doing all the activities but you're also learning about

your family members in the process and you have conversations that you otherwise might not have it's one thing to say hey uncle john how's how's your week going how's work and then he's like oh you know it's going good it's another thing to say here are the trucks that we're working on you know this is a new truck and this is exciting Lamborghini tractor which was so cool did you know the Lamborghini started off making tractors I didn't I did not either but I got the whole spiel from him beautiful tractor it was really fun Why are you cheesing at me like that? I just think you're absolutely adorable.

I just get fired up about this. It was so special. I can smile at you because I think you're amazing. Thank you. It's really cute to see where your passions fire up. I do want to interview my brother about this because... I want to interview your brother. I was really just taken aback at how well he did it and then just kind of the ripple effects of it.

But this is a big year for our family, both our immediate family. and extended family, meaning my cousins. So we did this big summer camp last week, and then we're doing another trip to East Tennessee on Labor Day. I'm so excited about that. And that's kind of how we settled. I think this phase of life, it's actually great to vacation with your siblings,

their cousins, like our kids' cousins, and then just like family. It gives it a good vibe. So we did that. And we came back. We had an epic Friday night. The NHL wanted us to make a video for the, Stanley Cup playoffs it was hilarious we strung it together had a blast doing it

literally did it in like two and a half hours from the moment we learned we were going to do it yeah I don't want to take all the credit for this bump but I saw a headline saying that the Stanley Cup viewership was up 43% from last year you think it's because of our Instagram real I do I just look anyway okay anyway oh and then I guess it was a weekend before that we hosted it was our first time doing this the Atlas free charity event which was incredible we hosted it for the very first time so it was um Donald Miller yes and his wife Betsy sex trafficking yes to fight to fight human sex trafficking and it was really really special it was basically all of our friends which is really cool and we 4xed their highest

like profitable event we over quadrupled this thing we brought on an auctioneer we orchestrated these different events like private musical concert private jiu jitsu lesson uh whatever it was really fun yeah it was fun to brainstorm different experiences that we could auction off to people that otherwise wouldn't have access to it and over quadrupled yeah their previous donation amount the record it felt good so that was our last week uh was that a good I think it's a good debrief. Yeah, and then we did a bunch of hosting, and it was fun. A bunch of things.

But let's roll into this episode. Yeah. Let's start by saying, if you are someone, or if you know someone who is, who you think is struggling with postpartum depression, please support them, encourage them, get around them, take them to see a doctor, you know. Yeah, maybe this conversation and this podcast is like the jumping off point for you to learn more or maybe have like a relative. revelation of like oh maybe that's what's happening yeah it's nothing to be ashamed of um we do have notes in the um our resources in the notes below if you guys are needing a resource for someone you know or for yourself i do feel like this is relevant to moms and dads as well and our hope for this episode is to share our personal experiences to shed light on it honestly

there's not a lot of i spend a lot of time in the internet there's not a lot of stuff about postpartum depression no on there where people talking about what it's like and whether it's your first or fifth child having a baby really does take a toll on the mom on the dad on the family it's a lot it's like a jarring experience right it's you're bringing a life into the world and there's there's ripple effects to that but we want to kind of share our experience with it and um anyway i i did want to first maybe start with the definition of what postpartum depression is. Hit me. So the Oxford Dictionary defines postpartum depression as depression suffered by a mother following childbirth,

typically arising from the combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue. Fatigue. Does any of that resonate? Yeah. You want to read through some of the stats that we found? Did you guys know that everyone experiences postpartum? Departum depression referred to as PPD differently feeling sad, anxious, overwhelmed are some of the signs. And if these feelings last only a few days to two weeks, it's usually considered the baby blues.

But if it lasts longer than two weeks, it is usually considered postpartum depression. So from the date of birth, the baby blues can last up to two weeks. Yeah. But past the two week mark. It's usually like postpartum depression. Okay. According to postpartum depression.org, one in seven women experience postpartum depression in the year after giving birth. With approximately 4 million live births occurring annually in the United States, this equates to almost 600,000 people diagnosed with PPD.

The prevalence of postpartum depression has increased dramatically over the past decade. Super interesting. I wonder why. But postpartum depression generally lasts three to six months. however this can vary and it's estimated that nearly 50% of mothers with postpartum depression are not diagnosed by a health professional so it says 600,000 people are diagnosed with ppd that might be double is that am i reading that right no no no no we need to work on terminology there but uh because one in seven yeah it's still yeah the math then and it does say

80% of women with postpartum depression uh will achieve a full recovery. Some other stats, I know we're going through a lot of stats, but bear with us. I think it's important to paint the picture. Yeah. Some studies have shown that the rates

of postpartum depression and adoptive parents can be comparable to rate some biological mothers due to the stresses of becoming a new parent. So this is for adoptive and biological parents.

Yes. Interesting. Also, approximately 10% of new fathers can experience symptoms of depression during the postpartum period. And studies have found that around 50% 50% of men who have partners diagnosed with postpartum depression will go on to develop

depression themselves. So obviously mental health has been a popular topic of discussion the last couple of years. And depression is a serious topic. But from a hormonal, psychological, fatigue standpoint, I'm curious, why was this a topic that we, felt like we should cover with our audience why do you think is a topic i get smiling awkward when i feel vulnerable so bear with me yes i think this is probably one of the first times i experienced postpartum depression um this postpartum definitely felt different my body felt different like my my mind felt different i felt different i felt like i was impacted the most with the third baby and I want to be very careful around that because I don't want to

talk about bear as if bear caused this and I don't want him to grow up thinking like hearing stories of like I think I think we could separate the baby from yeah from the pregnancy yeah and the experience so let's separate those two yes this pregnancy yes different this pregnancy felt different and I will say going into this pregnancy and delivery, we were more equipped and more surrounded by a supportive community than we have ever been with any child yet. So we had every possible resource under the sun and it still hit differently this time. And most recently, I've even, like in the past week, just started doing all these like new supplements and vitamins and I feel so much better. because I truly reflecting on the past six months did not feel like myself.

I felt off. I felt hormonally off. My brain, I couldn't think. I couldn't feel like normal emotions. I don't know how to say that. I was sad. I was confused. I had a lot of rage.

I had a lot of anger. And it truly just felt like my hormones were on an absolute roller coaster and could not regulate. now walking backwards after i had bear i don't feel like i had the baby blues like the first couple weeks i was very happy um i don't feel like it really set in then i think what kind of triggered my postpartum depression was bears colic that he had for like the first 10 weeks took anything that was remotely unstable in my mind and body and just amplified it so much so that like when he cried or when he was uncomfortable

I felt like I was truly in our in a fight or flight situation and so much attention so much of my attention and obsessive thoughts around him pulled or like so much my attention was pulled to bear trying to figure him out and help him it took away from Andrew it took away from my kids the other two kids and so I just felt like I was on an island am I making sense I don't feel like I'm communicating I'm I'm learning a lot of this from you the first like we have not really talked about this intentionally yeah because we were very much in it yeah we're just about at the six month mark yeah I do feel like I have come out of it.

I feel like the sky is blue. I feel emotions. I feel happy. The rage is gone. I truly feel like I've cleared it. But I will say for like the solid first three months, I felt like I was in a dark hole. And it was really difficult. Can you continue to explain more?

Like what do you mean? You felt like you were in a dark hole? what is that what leads to that I don't know how to explain it other than one I put so much effort to like take care of bear and figure out his issues that like in my mind when I wasn't able to figure them out for like the first two and a half months I felt guilty and ashamed and like I couldn't parent well and I felt guilty that I was putting so much attention into the into our infant and not be able to like give a lot of attention to our two toddlers it was making me really snippy with you it was causing us not to be able to bond with bear very well because if he was awake he was just screaming and uncomfortable I felt like I was starting to literally go crazy because I was going to all these different doctors appointments and they were like oh he's fine or oh he's not fine and

but it wasn't fixing it and breastfeeding was really hard because he ended up having a tongue tie and I couldn't figure that out for a while and there was just nothing was like smooth in regards to him even though we knew so much with the third kid and it's like I thought we did that that's what was so hard for me was like my thoughts and emotions were so tied to his well-being that I had such confidence with him when we had him and then it just made me second guess myself and all of those like negative thoughts just started to like torment my mind and because of that we weren't getting a lot of sleep and then it just was spiraling since I wasn't able to breastfeed

I was really anxious and I was stressed out and it just was a lot thank you for explaining yeah a couple thoughts as I'm reflecting on this period that does seem like it's ending one this is also the first time I'm doing this and I know that I've gone about many things imperfectly and I apologize if that contributed to the psychological overwhelm I'm also trying to figure out and it is an overwhelming experience let me also add it's the best like having a kid I'm reminded of the Drew Holcomb quote

that joy and pain go go hand in hand and you can't have one without the other and that's the whole kind of experience with having children so it is amazing but it's also my first time and I know that I've made mistakes so I apologize for my role

in that. Your first time parenting having a third kid you know? It's like Like, we're both stumbling through this thing. Yeah. And it's humbling and there's so much grace that needs to be reciprocated and forgiveness. And anyway, I know that at times I contributed to things.

No. The second thing, one of the questions is, do you feel like there's a stigma attached to postpartum depression? I almost think part of the difficulty for us and for you specifically was the stigma or the expectation of having a kid you imagine it as being wonderful cuddles and a cute little baby wrapped in a swaddle and that's that it's not always the experience and so there was a dissonance and a fracture between the expectations and what we were experiencing that I think amplified it and just like led to this feeling of this is not how it's a supposed to be which then you can take that path to dark places and the third thing that comes to

mind is from from my conversations this sounds par for the course but usually there is one parent who responds to crying better or more stoically maybe and one parent who is more viscerally affected by it And it does seem like when there's a child crying, your perspective shrinks. Yeah. And it is like this fight or flight, like panic. It's like a combination of the noise that can be there. Also the guilt and like the, what can I do about it?

And then it is overwhelming because it feels so urgent. And you're like, I need to take care of this now and nothing else matters. And then you have a ton of demands on you of people asking, hey, can we film this or can you do this interview? you and it's like that adds another layer of stress so it's not easy like that there's so much tension there and uh yeah i think something that i really struggled with for the three four months was this idea you asked about you were talking about the stigma i do think there's a stigma around it i think moms feel like one you should be able to take care of your baby

and it be okay. So I feel like moms could feel ashamed to have postpartum depression because it feels... With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime.

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That's not how it should work, you know. But I would say for me personally, I could kind of tell something was wrong. I could kind of tell that I didn't feel like myself. I could tell that I was like, I cared zero percent about anything outside our family because I felt like there was something wrong that I needed to fix. And it affected everything. And I was being pulled in all these different directions, even by work. and like even though I was on maternity leave

and I like the world was dead to me and I know that was not handled well at the time but I was in like an emergency mode of I have to fix this before I can operate anywhere else but I would say the stigma

for me personally was I didn't feel like I was allowed to have postpartum depression and to explain that a little further we lead a very very bougie life blessed we have every possible blessing under the sun we had a night nurse that we were able to use my mom was there we had Griffin I we had friends dropping off cooked meals you were taking shifts so that I could sleep more like we had every possible resource

and in my mind I was like this is not allowed for someone in our position like this isn't it just didn't feel fair to anyone else I just I don't know how to say these words I'm trying what you're saying I felt so guilty in my mind I was like I literally remember saying to myself how dare you do this like it just felt like such a privileged inconvenience. I don't know how to say that. That I felt very ashamed of myself. Which probably does not help.

No. No. If I may, just compliment you and your honesty of feeling that and also compliment you in continually, growing and changing that perspective. I think navigating towards a more hopeful, more beneficial to both you and our family's perspective. I think you've been oscillating towards that. And I hope I have not contributed to that feeling at all. I was thinking about that phrase, like it takes a

village to raise a kid and and reflecting on your experience with having so many voices of your mom or in-laws or like consultants or the internet say oh you should try this or honestly one small hiccup can can leave a lasting kind of fracture emotionally too of like hey your mom says something wrong that could really hurt for a day right saying something like well how can you be sad or you have all this stuff whatever it is that's purely hypothetical but like the the effect of that can also be isolation of like i don't want to hear any of these voices they don't really know anything what's going on they don't understand what i'm experiencing and then you retract yourself from that village um which is kind of what i did

and the cacophony of of all the opinions and like then that also exaggerates the depression, I think. By the way, I'm not going to be speaking about mental health accurately. I'm sure I will be making mistakes. So apologies for that. This is strictly experiential and anecdotal. It was, from my perspective, pretty confusing time as I was navigating this new child and like the dynamics that come with that and it's like oh i have these two kids the two older ones that

we're having like so much fun with we're going to the park we're ripping bikes around everywhere i but there's tension because i also want to you know be with this baby that might be our last child that we have and i know this face like goes so quickly so there's you know all those type of dynamics uh as well as like oh this one this baby's crying and these two are are laughing why would I it's hard you know as well as

the confusion of how can I best take care of you right like that that was the the thought that was on the top of my mind always and it's hard when

dangling from your eye thank you that was good I needed a distraction there that's the thought that was a priority. And again, I don't know what that looks like. So, okay, I'm extrapolating based off our other two kids that we have, but this one was way different and unique and had different challenges. And the solutions to the first two are not the solutions to this one. So you have to

just kind of like figure a way through it all. And that's confusing. Also, I'm trying to like give you my all and you were so internally. focused with the baby that like now i feel isolated and like you know there was hurt that we've talked about of like i want to be we're best friends dude you're my best friend you know i spend all day with you and i'm hurting your feelings and i don't want that and it's confusing don't i don't i was I was not expecting to cry. The first few months were really hard. I was just thinking, like, you are, my best friend,

we're such good teammates, and it did not feel that way. There was so much friction. And I think the side effect of that friction was, Sean and I argue, for sure. You know, we get on this podcast, we have fun most of the time. When you see us on the internet doing these ridiculous, challenges and whatever but there's you know beef behind the scenes but usually it's like manageable you kind of have a expected window of emotional effort that you're giving right and the

volatility of our arguments is really what struck me as like having been amplified in that window where it's like wow there are severity of emotions being shown here severity of emotions being experienced by me that led to harsher and again this is all crazy because this is our third kid you think about like yeah the first one is hard

yeah the second one is hard okay the third one's going to be just the hard and it just it was unique it was just unique there's no cookie cutter way to go through this so I did a big post on

you know how we try to prevent the baby blues, the post-perm depression. And that was the other confusing thing is we were doing most of those, staying outside. We only watch comedy movies. Again, I know there's not like psychological backing to that, but it's like, let's try to hit the dopamine as much as possible and laugh and all that. And let's move and let me let you rest as much as possible. And all of that kind of felt empty and felt like it wasn't effective.

but now we're here and i'm really thankful to be able to look back on the past almost six months and say we're better for it and that's cliche but like dude we went through the valley together you know that was freaking hard i could rest my head at night knowing that like as imperfectly as i did it I tried to love you, you know, I tried to love you. And some of that you felt, some of that you didn't. But, like, I was freaking, when every fiber in my body wanted to, like, pull back and say, fine, you do it by yourself, you know, because there's moments of frustration like that. It's like, continue to engage, continue to engage, continue to be that beneficial adversary,

be there, show up, freaking put another day in. it's going to get better that hurts but like we're here and we're we took all the the actions that we could to get us to this side we started counseling which has been a game changer and I'm proud of us I'm proud of you because you freaking kept showing up day after day and you kept giving me grace and forgiveness and look at our kids kids now freaking crawling around cheesing at us sitting up drew busting into my office naked swinging a dress around saying she's ready for the park this is why you do it i was also saying we were both saying i think having a baby in the winter was harder because i was just fighting for my life

trying to figure out this little guy. And we were butting heads a lot because, like, I was the only one at the time who could, like, calm him down because I was nursing him, which was also really, really difficult. And I just remember there were so many times where, like, you guys would be outside playing in the snow. And I'd be inside with him, and he'd be screaming bloody murder, and I'd finally get him to sleep.

And I was just like, oh, I just wish I could go, like, play with you guys. and just like the isolating feeling was really difficult and didn't help and there was this like frustration of myself of i could feel myself like pushing you away and the kids away which didn't feel good but there's also this feeling of i felt like i had i was like neglecting myself a lot trying to put in so much effort to take care of him that I was like making myself worse and I didn't even have the space to

at the time like I didn't have space to figure out I had all these like people and doctors and whatever saying like oh maybe it's something you're eating or maybe it's something you're doing or maybe it's something you're drinking and in my mind

I could tell if something was off and I was like well maybe if I could just eat some vegetables or take some vitamins or whatever or work out it would help it help this like get better but i couldn't do that i couldn't eat vegetables because maybe it was upsetting his belly i couldn't take vitamins because that would affect his belly it couldn't work out because it would dip my supply i it just like there was all these thoughts of i could tell something was wrong with me but there was zero room to take care of me at the time.

So I just wanted to cuddle up in a corner and say someone help me, but I needed to help him. I wanted to help you. I know. You did a wonderful job. I'm just glad we're through it. Are we through it? I think this is going to be a clear indication or not.

I wanted to help you. You did. You did a phenomenal job. I have this. You took care of our two older babies so beautifully. It was so amazing to be able to watch because I was, I missed them so much the first couple months. And I just wanted to, like, hold them and cuddle them and take care of them.

And you did that, which helped me a lot. we gotta stop crying bro i love you i love you okay i have this memory of us being out in the front yard

playing in the snow building snowman's going off the ramp and that was the day that you and bear were in the front window you were holding him through the glass and there's like this tarnished reflection that I was seeing and that's that's how it felt emotionally too whereas like through the window I will also never forget we just we were having such a hard time navigating each other and the kids and I remember what was that at four months I was so tired

and I was just like of trying to figure it out on my own and I know you were there and I know you were helping and you were helping so much but I just like internally I was trying to figure out myself and I couldn't figure it out and I remember sitting down to like have another argument pretty much and my brain just turned off and I was like I don't have the energy to argue and it was the day you said we should sign up for counseling

and it's been not because like our marriage was in jeopardy I don't want that to sound like no headlines out here people but it just was really nice when we started that to have something to start taking care of me and us again.

At least deviate us from what had become our status quo. I think why we felt like we needed to go subconsciously was like we have kind of a normal way to navigate through arguments. We have a normal. We have an emotional intimacy that we got used to, which is, different than every other couple out there i think everyone's is unique but like we weren't at that emotional intimacy and it didn't seem like we could work our way back there and so we needed to find some new strategy and this this has been a good step for us but we've always said four months was the turning point for us I think it's maybe been expanded each kid yeah but we've said four months is

is when you settle into a routine with a new child you kind of you kind of understand what life looks like you kind of fully embrace your role as a parent and the communication and logistics and all the things associated with it it's felt like recently for this one so five or six months but I

I'm glad that we made it too I did have you want me to share this list of things that we share yeah created yeah

so I shared a short video on this we can talk about these again of the six things that we do Andrew's list after we have a baby to maybe prevent this the first is watch comedy movies we don't want any sad or stressful shows we also keep screen time really light because we're trying to be outside and be present with the kid as much as possible there is like I think we did intentionally practice like escapism a little bit you needed to remove yourself

a little bit so whether that's social media I don't know that's how we were two get outside as much as possible doesn't have to be anything crazy we were taking like five minute walks just get some air and sunshine for a few minutes the third is try to eat as healthy as possible

recovery however you do pregnancy and delivery is tough on the body so working on recovery fueling properly staying hydrated Sean is tough at that but making or ordering food that was healthy for a nutritious boost I was I also remember it's weird that a lot of it seems like a blur I feel like I've already blocked a lot of it out but I will also add on top of everything that I said this one by far the most painful recovery yet i was in so much pain that just it was the cherry on top i literally couldn't sit down because like it had to do with my scar my C-section scars they had to cut a lot of

scar tissue out and like clean things up and it just hurts so incredibly bad like close to like Like I told you my legs were literally shaking trying to walk for like four weeks because it hurt so bad. Do you think that it's a bad thing that you felt what it's like to be at the razor's edge of human performance and you know that that feeling is having competed at the highest level and then having to go through this, which is kind of the opposite side of the spectrum? You know what I'm saying? Like, you're familiar with what it feels to be elite. Yeah. Is that not part of it? Not necessarily.

I think if anything, it makes me understand it more. Because, like, I've gone through the recovery and rehabilitation process through my career. I think if anything, it does kind of, like, exaggerate. I know probably I'm more aware of the imperfections of weaknesses and vulnerabilities so it's like I can take

an inventory a lot more in a more detailed way you're not like setting your standard or benchmark at that point no no do you set your standard of benchmark it Hey, I want to get back to feeling like I did before I had this kid? Yeah.

Is that a good thing? Yeah. I have always shared with people. Like, I'm not one that's like, oh, I need to get back on the scale and drop the pounds and like whatever. I think you and I share this thought of like, I just want to feel strong and healthy again. Like I can do a sit-up. I can carry my children. I can chase them around without feeling like I'm going to pull something or.

out of breath or like I want to feel strong I don't care what the scale says yeah the fourth thing back to our list that we try to do is allow Sean to indulge in simple pleasures as much as possible so for you it's like a cup of coffee doing a little puzzle having a little warm shower just something that takes a couple minutes that can give you a little lift and bring you joy and in the mundane Sometimes. Fifth is ask for help as much as possible. This is where we're super fortunate. We have in-laws and friends and so many people around us that are willing to help. I think that's also where you mentioned like not that was hard for you. It's hard to ask for help to begin with. And it's it's hard when you don't even know what help to ask for because you haven't figured out the thing yet. anyway the six is dream about the future as much as possible kind of try to just get yourself mentally to some point in the future and create something to look forward to talk about new projects or goals get the juices flowing for excitement and then a couple of other ideas you guys

actually sent in that are great are restrict visitors when needed offer foot rubs take vitamins pray together, sleep whenever you can, start a new book, remind yourself, this is only a season, and it will get easier. You did a phenomenal job, babe. You literally supported me in every possible way, and I did see it. I'll also never forget one of my favorite things. I remember I was having a hard day with Bear, and I walked out into the garage,

and he went and set up chairs for me in the sun while you worked out so I could sit there with you because I just wanted to be by you and it was really sweet that was the other confusing thing it seemed like you really wanted to be by I was one of the only people you didn't want to retract from

I'm my person I know but also I felt like I was annoying you so it's like the tension of okay she wants to be by me but it's just hard it's hard dude and if you want one last kick in the throat on the way out the the end of breastfeeding that whole like week two week transition yeah the hormone adjustment was also difficult for us you did such a good job though shana's breastfed each one

of our kids an amazing amount a perfect amount thank you that's let me have this as my closing statements if you will there are so many studies or opinions about the best way to raise a kid and it's things like make sure you breastfeed right because iqs are supposedly higher or whatever or well i wasn't breastfed yeah or make sure that your your baby's on course to do x y or z or make sure that you're not eating this as a mom and i think in all of this what I hope you felt from me and what I encourage each of you who may have just had a kid or going to have a kid to press into is having a game plan being prepared and planned and thoughtful about the whole thing but holding on loosely right giving yourself

grace when you need to get the tongue and lip tied cut right yeah we didn't want to do that that was a big thing oh you're going to have surgery on your two-month-old yeah yeah we have opinions or yeah when you need to call on a consultant hold on loosely have grace it's like the best way to build a long and lasting marriage to show up another day the best way to build a family that's together and the long term show up another day and like this two shall pass right this is a phase show up another day you can't choose what happens to you can respond and like controlling what you can control is merely saying okay this is not fun but i know what leads to joy that's my thought those are my closing thoughts and you did a phenomenal job

and it was such a treat to be able to sit front row to you going through this and i hope i was your biggest fan you were hey thank you for sticking with me i know it wasn't easy i love you i love you You're cute. It's good to have you back. It's good to be back. I'm starting to feel like myself again. How was this episode for you to do? I have not wanted to do it.

Have you noticed? Yes. We sat down to do this one for eight times. Yeah, it feels fine. Feels good. Let us know your thoughts on this. Again, we probably spoke about all this way wrong. but I hope to even just one of you it was helpful thanks for watching that's all we got I'm

Andrew I'm shot see you next week