Life Uncut - Poppy Has Popped! Laura Had A Baby!

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Hey Lifers! Laura is back and she’s brought Poppy in so we can all hear about how Poppy entered the world! But firstly, we had a really scary moment with Delilah and the vets last week. There were mixed emotions, preparation for surgery and even a souvenir. Laura shares how she was hiding a bit of anxiety about having her 3rd baby and how she was gearing herself up to be miserable for a year. She also speaks about how varied your experience can be based on the support you have around you and whether your baby sleeps and eats.  We chat about: The difference between private and public birth The Push It Real Good playlist  The song Poppy was birthed to Laura’s induction and what she didn’t know about epidurals How Poppy came out The most horrifying part - the post birth poop How Marlie Mae and Lola have adjusted to having another sister What’s changed in Laura’s relationship with Matt The difference in how mums and dads connect with newborns What Laura didn’t expect  Not being able to swim post birth Whether Laura feels as though her family is ‘complete’ Britt also opened up about how frustrating it is that she has not felt the ‘maternal pull’ that everyone says you will feel when the people who are closest to you have a baby. She speaks about feeling broken for not having this thing that is apparently the ‘most natural’ thing for women to experience. You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! XxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode was recorded on Camaragal land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany, and I'm very excited to introduce our guest today. She is the guest that we've had on, I guess, the most times in podcast history. She's had one week off. We like to call her the milk maiden. I've already been shat on, spat on, vomited on this morning. And that was just from Brittany.

The baby's not even here yet. He just wanted to welcome her back. Laura Byrne, back in studio after, I think, 10 days? Thank you. It's been, yeah, I've had a really restful break. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, in my defense, I did tell you to have longer off, but you wanted to come back, and I understand why.

FOMO's a real thing. Keisha and I have been having a lot of fun, but not too much fun. No, I was like, I'll just get the birth story out the door before people don't care anymore. It's so true. No, there's been a lot of questions about when this birth story was coming. I'm getting a lot. Have they?

Who has asked you? I think just Keisha. I was like, has anyone, does anyone care? Am I, is this just self-fulfilling? People definitely care. No. I honestly, and I really want to say this, like all the life is through in the discussion group because like I had Poppy and then it was probably like four days until when we

posted or said like, you know, she's born. And I got into the Facebook group on day four and people were freaking the fuck out. And I'm so sorry because everyone was like, what's happened? Is something wrong? Has something gone wrong? And it's because we were quite vocal and then we just went quiet. But it's because my vagina got decimated and so I just needed a bit of downtime to recover. It checks out.

People knew when you were due. We talked about it. So everyone's dying to hear the news. And also people knew I was in labor because I posted, yeah, Matt posted this like interpretive dance reel. Don't get me started. And then so people knew that the day was imminent. It was happening.

And then nothing happened afterwards, which I didn't really think it through. I wasn't trying to bait you guys. I just, it's a lot. Giving birth is a lot. Laura baited me. She was messaging me and being like, is she or isn't she? Is she or isn't she? And I was like, just tell me.

I'm like, is Poppy here? Did I? No. I was like, I don't think that happened. What? I was like, that was definitely the epidural still going on. Laura, I run the podcast now, so these are my stories. No, so I mean, we're going to get into it, but we're on a time difference.

So I was in Italy and I was constantly messaging like, how's it going? You in labor yet? but I mean we'll talk about it but Laura and I were we were doing business deals the whole time that Laura was in labor and I was trying not to but she's like it's fine I can't feel much yet so we were we're talking we're emailing we were we're doing things that we should absolutely not have been doing during a labor which is the same like I don't know how I managed to get myself into these situations but we've joked about it before when I was in labor with Lola I was still emailing and doing work and everything else and also I've said this before I'm not trying to say this because

I'm a hero I have very good epidurals and they're extremely effective if anyone ever wanted to know how effective they are you can still run a business meeting after you're in active labor at the start I thought just don't worry about it you take a break I've got this like you can trust me we've been doing this for six years you can trust me but then we facetimed and she was great she's like feel nothing just chat we're chatting it through she had I was like okay we can keep talking because you are okay but to set the scene of today we're in studio Poppy is on my lap being the angel child that she is she did just poo like three times yeah standard though but I I feel elated I'm having a great time yeah so we're going to go through Poppy's birth story all the questions

that you guys have written in because you have been writing questions in sporadically how sloppy was Poppy you know I know you've all been curious well I thought we were trying to drop that nickname poor poor sloppy Britt actually asked last week if we could call this episode Poppy has popped that's fine what sloppy poppy got vetoed so well before we get into all the birth story details and like some of you are so pervy because I did put up a question box no I put up a question box and I was like you guys ask me whatever it is that you want to know and I'll answer all the questions the number one most asked questions was did I or didn't I shit myself which I know we're close and I know we're friends and I will answer it for you I don't think that's

perfect it's the number one question yeah but that i think that checks out you know why a lot of women poo themselves as we know but i think so many people don't talk about it that the women that poo themselves are like oh how embarrassing i'm a an anomaly but no one thinks they're not no i'm gonna free the shit yeah yeah here to destigmatize but we'll get into all that what has been happening in the whole 10 days that i've been gone oh my god no i've been gone for like two weeks by the time this comes out yes we've had a week off since we've been back i had 10 days overseas as you know it's weird because Matt's taken over my job on pickup it's all been happening he or he's hustling for you to be out yeah I can tell it's fine he's like I think that's

really great for a male to have a vibe in here I don't know if Laura needs to come back the only thing we haven't told you like the only update we haven't told the life is all you Laura and that's because like it was pretty tumultuous and it took us a little bit of time to get over but um when I can tell that that's a joke already so I'm like what happened no there was a moment in time where it wouldn't have been a joke and I was genuinely emotionally distressed yeah so Keisha has Delilah when I go overseas and probably I don't know like five days in I get a picture from Keisha that's like hey have you seen this on Delilah is this normal and it's a picture of her mouth and she's like pulled down her lip and on her gum is this like it's really really ugly looking black mark

I did see this but Keisha sent this to me as well and was like she's got a growth on a gum Yeah. And so I was like, no, I'm pretty sure that wasn't there. And it looks, it looked really nasty. I'm pretty sure that wasn't there. And Keisha's like, yeah, I'm almost certain it wasn't because I've been admiring her smile lately. Delilah's a very smiley dog. It was just coincidental. It was two days beforehand. We were waiting at the traffic lights to cross the road. And Delilah looked up at me with this beaming smile on her face. And I looked at her teeth and I was on the phone and I actually made a comment to a friend being

like, she's just got the most perfect little tiny teeth underneath. And so I kind of took note of the fact that I was like two days ago pink gums now today quite a big black like really dark and also not symmetrical spot had formed on her gums and an additional thing is that because Delilah has the albino gene like I'm kind of hyper aware of the fact that she is more prone to get skin cancers I was freaking out and so we were like oh that looks really nasty Keisha's like yeah is it okay i know it's okay but like give me the okay to take to the vet and i said yeah whatever you need to spend spend it of course so she takes it to the vet sends me some more close-ups takes to the vet the vet was like oh it looks like it could be a mass so keisha's updating me and i'm

like okay drop whatever money it is it's fine and then we start talking through it we're like a mass like like cancer basically well that was kind of what was freaking me out to be honest so at the vet they were saying you know like oh yeah it does look abnormal you know and i was kind of holding Delilah's mouth open and she was having a look at it and she said it was a Wednesday and she said we can biopsy it next Tuesday and I was like no this thing has come up in the space of two days like this needs to happen this needs to happen today or tomorrow so Keisha and her really good friend Nat who's been on the podcast before they start like basically phoning around everybody to see who can get her into a specialist the next day both of them it was amazing in the meantime

they've messaged they know that dr chris brown obviously bondi vet they messaged him with the details i had simultaneously been messaging chris i always message chris and i'm like hey delilah's eating a poppy seed muffin is she gonna die so we'd been messaging chris these pictures and he's like look it's really hard to see over a camera but he's like it could be a mass but it could be like the root is dying like underneath it could be a few things he's like i haven't been seen or i don't know and i can't see in person but if the vet has looked at it and touched it and monitored it and they've said go to someone he's like yes I think you should go to a specialist so Keisha found somebody that got her in the next day now mind you I'm in Italy crying thinking Delilah's

gonna die I'm like oh my god she's got cancer in her mouth what's gonna happen and in my head I'm like am I gonna have to remove half of her jaw like because it's this huge thing and I'm like what are we gonna do Keisha's beside herself crying the specialist is like yep I can see you in the morning moved appointments it was gonna be very expensive and I was like it's fine I don't care yeah she's prepped for surgery she's at the specialist I've given her my credit card Dr Chris is messaging being like keep make sure you keep me posted with everything that's happening I'm sorry I can't be there I haven't seen it Keisha gets her into the specialist who's cleared the schedule and she walks in specialist puts her on the table she's like we're ready we're

ready to put her under biopsy and if we need to operate at the same time we'll figure it out once we're in and we're like yeah 10 seconds in you know what they do they pull her lip down they touch the mass the cancer that was going to kill Delilah and in fact they pull out a dreadlock it was a dreadlock sorry sorry I didn't know that part of it but surely the first vet needs to be held accountable what did the first vet do they pulled out a dreadlock it wasn't cancer it was her own dreadlock that she ate I feel like people who are listening to this and not watching it on YouTube will be like are you the most stupid person like how can you possibly mistake that when you see a photo of it I feel like you'll have more understanding as to why I

thought it was something it had calcified and like kind of stuck to her gut because I'd obviously tried to move it absolutely but surely the first vet could have yeah I'm not a vet could have tried a bit harder that person went to school for a long time no I don't know where that first vet got their degree from the cancer that was going to take her life was a dreadlock of her own that How much did you go back to the first vet and ask for a refund? I don't know, but bless Sydney pet dentistry. He looked at me and I looked at them straight away and I was having such mixed emotions. The main one was relief, but the other was like, I probably look like the stupidest person

that's ever walked through this door. And I looked at them and I was like, is this, is this the silliest thing anyone has ever come to see you for? And they laughed and they were like, no, but it's definitely up there. And then they turned to me and they were like, don't worry, we're not going to charge you for this appointment. So, like, thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. Wait, what was the name of that business again? Sydney? Sydney Pet Dentistry. Oh, yeah, shout out. Honest, shout out the fact that you were ready to save my dog from cancer, but then double shout out that you didn't charge us when the cancer was a dreadlock.

No. He also turned and he was like, do you want to keep it? And I said, I think I better take it with me so I can send a photo to Brit and tell her that everything's okay. Wait, did you keep it? Is this kind of like, okay, how long are you going to keep it for? I feel like we should frame it as like a, you know, a gratitude for what could have been.

But what a tumultuous ride. What a ride that was over a couple of days of thinking you're going to lose your dog but that she just is eating her own hair. Okay, I'm glad that Delilah is okay. I'm sorry for the scare and I'm very, very grateful that they didn't charge you because that would have been an expensive dentist appointment. I'd love to hear what your dogs have eaten though, guys. If your dogs have eaten something that you've ended up in the vet,

please tell us. But anyway, besides that, like tumultuous ride, all is well. So let's get into your tumultuous ride or childbirth. I don't even know where to start. I mean, the last time we talked, I was telling you that we kind of didn't have a birth plan. I was being induced. I hadn't packed a bag and I was just completely disorganized. I think it was pretty much like the, that's the summation of the last time we chatted everyone.

Yeah. And it stayed true to that. Nothing changed. I guess let's start with you, not Poppy. Sorry, Poppy, you can come in a minute. But like, how are you feeling now? we talked about this the other day when I came I came and visited Brit and Keish we were at your house and if I'm honest with myself and it's something that we didn't really talk about on

the pod at all because I didn't really realize it until after having her I think a lot of my what was wrapped up in me being like I'm being realistic this is my third child I'm just like preparing myself for the worst I actually think I genuinely thought I was going to be a bit depressed after having her. And I want to be careful how I say that I was prepared to have another Lola and Lola was a really bad sleeper. She was really tricky. She didn't eat. There was no support because it was during COVID. Like it was a really, really hard time to have a baby. Well, for context quickly, Marley was the dream boat. Yeah. She was a unicorn.

Which is why Lola came so quickly. Cause you're like, I could do 20 of these. And Lola was just a hard baby. Yeah. And Matt was doing Dancing with the Stars. So he was never around. And like, it was just a really, really hard time. And if I'm honest with myself, I think I was quite, I don't want to say depressed because I was never diagnosed, but I was quite down after having Lola and I definitely had the baby blues and I definitely struggled a lot. Like I struggled a lot after her. And so I think I just convinced myself that this was going to be really hard and that this was going to be the same. And adding a third to the mix, like, well, I mean, just purely the numbers game of having a third, that's going to be fucking horrible.

And do you think that this was sort of wrapped up in, because you were often saying, I'm not as excited for this one, but it's because I've done it before and I'm busy and I'm busy. So I'm just not as excited, but I'll be good when it's here. But do you think that you were using that as a bit of a cover because you were scared you were going to have these maybe post little blues? And even worse than like not being excited, I was not feeling connected to the pregnancy at all. Like I was not, you know, every people would say like, are you excited?

And I'd be like, yeah, really wasn't excited. it wasn't that I didn't want to have a third and it wasn't that I wasn't you know looking forward to having Poppy and like meeting her I just didn't have this like the warm fuzzy feeling or the excitement around pregnancy and I definitely didn't feel connected to the baby that was in my belly and so I think I kept on coming up with other excuses but now that she's here and now that I've been through the birth I realized it was actually just a lot of fear and that I was like very very worried about what life was going to look like and I had mentally prepared myself to be miserable for a year. So creative anxiety about what it could be. So I was like, okay,

I'm just going to accept the fact that I'm going to be really stressed out. I'm not going to have any sleep and I'm probably going to hate my life for a year and then we'll get good. Then it'll be fine. Then I'll be able to, you know, claw back some sort of, yeah, some sort of normality again. After she was born, I was like, okay, well, we know, I know day two is going to be really hard because I mean, for a lot of people, if you have kids and you've gone through birth, day two is kind of when the baby blues hit because you've had this like absolute rush of endorphins and then there's nowhere for them to go except be gone and then you're completely depleted so I was like okay day two's here today's the day I'm gonna feel sad and then I was like oh okay I just I don't feel

that sad and then I was like maybe it's gonna be day three I'm gonna be really sad and then it just didn't hit like I didn't have that down in the same way that I thought I was gonna have it like of course I had the feeling of being tired and everything else but it wasn't it wasn't what I was expecting I honestly think that I was preparing myself mentally for the worst but I wasn't actually expecting the best outcome either if that makes sense so I know how sometimes you go oh I'm preparing myself for the worst and hoping for the best yeah I think I was preparing for myself for the worst and expecting the worst so then when it didn't hit I was like oh oh that's right you can have a baby and be really happy afterwards oh I'm gonna be okay I forgot and then I messaged Matt

on day three and I was like this is so great maybe we should have another one and he was like Matt did say that. He told me that he's going to go and book the vasectomy and told me to go fuck myself. Which you'll have to do for the rest of your life. You will have to do. Yeah. I'm down.

I'm like, I'm having the time of my life. But no, I mean, like, yes, he is probably going to go and have a vasectomy. But I have just been, like, so blissfully happy. And I think there's so much information out there and there's so many conversations around how hard motherhood is. Like, we know that that is a very real outcome for a lot of people and it's been one of my outcomes of three kids now I'm only a couple of weeks in so I don't want

to say I don't want to say it's too good too early but I mean she's been sitting on my lap this entire time it hasn't made a peep she's such a good eater like I think when you have those like main pillars down pat the eating the sleeping oh now she's gonna say hello they're eating the sleeping and all those sorts of things if they fall into place early on makes it for a dream yeah and you have support so I had a very different birth experience this time to last time which I'll explain as well it was like night and day night and day I mean the last thing you want is knowing that the next year of your life is going to be like your personal hell that's not to say you don't love them but like it can make or break you if you're not sleeping at all and you have a baby that is

crying with indigestion constantly and like it affects your entire life it's when you don't know why they're crying yeah and they're clearly in pain or they're clearly uncomfortable and the only time that they're going to sleep is if they're strapped to your body and it erodes everything it It erodes your relationship with your partner. It erodes your relationship with your other kids because you can't show up in the way that's like positive and happy. So I think anyone who has ever had a bad sleeper or a baby with colic, like, you know how full on that is and how hard it is to kind of like get your head around what it's going to be

like. You really wanted to go natural this time. You wanted your waters to break. You wanted to have that feeling of like going to spontaneous labor, but it didn't happen for you. It did not happen. I had all the stretch and sweeps. even i mean as you know brit offered to give me some i'm still waiting for my stretch and

sweep you don't have to be pregnant for me to do it we can do it anytime i don't know what the outcome would be but yeah sure it didn't happen i didn't go into spontaneous labor i was induced basically i so when you're induced you call up the hospital in the morning you check if they have space for you so you make sure like someone hasn't gone into an emergency labor or something else so we woke up at 6 30 in the morning i called the hospital i was like today's the day and the lovely midwife on the phone was like yeah come on down so we got the kids ready for school we dropped Lola off at daycare we dropped Marley off at school it's such like a normal day it's weird because you're like you know that your life's about to change but you're still just

packing the lunchbox totally it was so weird like I was literally making a ham sandwich in the morning and then I was explaining to the girls that mummy was going to go to the hospital and had the baby so we dropped off the kids at school went to the hospital I met my sister there so my sister came and she was there for the entire time as well which someone messaged because I did do a call out and I was like what are you like what are your pervy questions and someone was like wasn't that weird having your sister in the room like where did she stand she stood at the business end she got to witness all of it but she's been there for she was in the room for Marley's birth and then I was in the room for both of her births she couldn't be there for Lola because COVID baby

I also think it depends some people might find that really weird like can't believe your sister was in there weird but that depends on your relationship with your sister I mean you're so close with your sister you see her every day you work with her your business partners and you You grew up, you know, really, really tight. You grew up in the same house? No, I was going to say you grew up really close. You grew up with the same parents? No, because there's plenty of people that have siblings

where you could never imagine them being in your life. Yeah, totally. Having a sister doesn't necessarily mean having a friend. They don't equate to the same thing. Like imagine having one of your brothers in the room with you whilst you're giving birth. I was going to say something sick then. You saw my brain, hey.

I went for a sick joke and I was like, not going to do it. I would have my sister in there with me, easy. Is there a part of you that even like regardless of how great your partner can be if you're in a hetero relationship is there a part that you still want a woman there? No not really it's like I had a great experience with Matt being in the room for Lola. His interpretive dance was great. And it was just him but Matt doesn't take he takes labor seriously at go time but I think because I have an epidural and there's a lot of waiting once you've had an epidural and really like if you have a good epidural like you don't really feel anything like I know we joked about it but yeah

I was doing emails. Alicia and I were talking about work. Matt was filming TikTok fucking interpreted dance reels. Like you really just have a lot of time to kill. But there is something that I found very interesting because I went, so I went private this time, didn't go public. And I had heaps of questions around what did I prefer? And I want to be really careful with this because firstly, private and public have their

own benefits and negatives, right? Both of them do. Privates, negatives being that it's fucking expensive. Yeah, yeah. Which is why you went public twice. It's so expensive. So I've been public twice and both of those experiences were fine, right? And would have been good if I didn't have my own complications, which probably would

have been the same outcome had I been private or public. The thing about public though, is that you don't have a lot of aftercare or as much aftercare in hospital. There's like, you only have one or two days in hospital and then you go home and the aftercare happens at home. Well, because someone else needs to have their baby. Yeah. And there isn't as much space, right?

Right. And you also often have to have a shared room afterwards. So you go into a shared room with other mothers and other babies, and there's not really room for your partner to stay. So, and I'm sure other hospitals are different, but that's the experience of the hospital I went to. I went home after about 12 or 13 hours. So for me, it was like, I had a baby, I went home. So the hospital experience was fine, but it was the lack of aftercare at home. Yes, the midwives come and visit you at your house, but when you've got another baby at home, you're not laying down and resting in the same way. You're not recovering. Whereas going private, I stayed in hospital for like almost five days.

I stayed there for the full time and they bring you high tea, like all day you're being taken care of in a room that's your own. And that is obviously private. I had a $20,000 private bill was worth it for that cup of tea. But it's so expensive. So we didn't have private health and health insurance, as you guys know, and you pay, obviously you pay your obstetrician firstly. So you pay them over the course of your pregnancy, which is around $9,000 for that's what the

total bill is throughout all your appointments and everything. but it's kind of broken up by like $500 increments because of your appointments with them it's like a package yeah and then you go to hospital and you have like so to stay in hospital uh and to like have your birth in a birthing suite is $7,000 or $7,500 but then what I wasn't aware of is that you pay for all the additional so when the pediatrician comes and sees and does a check on the baby you just get an email of a bill when you have an epidural you get an email for a bill That's sneaky because you think you're just paying for the stay that's inclusive, like an all-you-can-eat. They're add-on extras.

I didn't realize that everything was an add-on. So, like, the epidural. Were your high teas charged individually? Matt literally said that. He was like, are we going to get a pocket tea? Do you want another tea? We can charge another $200. He's like, if I get an extra bill for an egg sandwich, Laura, I'm not enough.

But, yeah, so you receive bills afterwards, which is obviously probably okay if you've got private health insurance. So my recommendation would be if you are going to have a baby and you do want to go private and you have the luxury of time, make sure that you do that one year of paying the higher levy through your private health insurance. So that way you're covered for pregnancy. Whereas if you're not covered and you have to pay all of those additionals, then yeah, it's expensive. But it was like staying in a health retreat, guys.

I genuinely was like, I never want to go home. I want to stay here with this lovely midwife. There's a lot of Asian countries. It's amazing. seen it i don't know if you've seen it like they're trending at the moment on instagram and tiktok and stuff but what they do is is really look after the mom when they have birth you go to a two to three week actually it could even be a month long it's almost a retreat like you take your baby but they have people there that look after your kids all day you are looked after you

are getting massages you're getting the best food you're sleeping and there's like a there's like a night nanny and a day nanny and the idea is we will look after you for a month so that you are so in such a good space to go home and start your life as a mom and I'm like brilliant and that's not like a oh I have to be a private health insurance it's like just a really they just look at mothers different I think that there is such a broad spectrum of how the postpartum experience can be for people and I really like I said I want to be really careful because I don't want to shit on the on the public system the public system is incredible you receive all of that for free you can go into a hospital in Australia you can have a baby for free with

incredible midwives you can be so well taken care of but you do have to go home faster and it depends on what your at-home situation is like and if your at-home situation sucks or you've got other kids that are climbing all over you it's really really hard like and I think that that's what sets a lot of women up for feeling as though they're overwhelmed and I remember and I've said it before I remember getting home 12 hours after having Lola Marley was only 19 months so she's in a nappy she's like running around she's all over me and it was COVID there was just zero support and I remember sitting on the side of the bed Lola hadn't stopped crying since she'd come home and thinking oh my god we've ruined our life like what have I done like I remember those

feelings I was so sad the difference of had I been in a hospital situation and I'd felt like that I could have buzzed a midwife and been like I feel really not okay I feel really really sad what can I do and someone would have been there to support you you know or just help you for a in it yeah but when you feel like that you also don't want to burden your partner with those feelings either so I just sat by myself feeling horrible and being like oh my god what do I do with this feeling yeah I had a very different experience and it was incredible and it cost the price of a small secondhand car but it was fucking worth it for me and I'm really I feel incredibly privileged that I have the ability to pay for that now I couldn't have afforded it with

Lola and Marley you know that's why I didn't even entertain the option I actually think there's a bigger conversation here though and like COVID is a kind of a specific set of isolation that was incredibly isolating but I know that a lot of other cultures you know they say it takes a village to raise a kid and especially in that very early stages I think they do it a lot better than us you know they have a lot of people rally so that the mum can sleep so that there's people there to support you know and I know that a lot of this is like female based like a lot of it is the women come around the mum at the time but I actually think that we need to be borrowing from those other cultures and change the way that we kind of approach motherhood totally when I went

to the um I had like a specialist appointment with her just a couple of days ago and um the woman I was speaking to who was a midwife she was like the levels of postpartum depression during COVID were the highest that we've ever seen like women presenting with postpartum depression because the isolation was so high so I do think it was a unique version of postpartum but yeah this just felt it actually felt joyful and there was so much about this birth experience when people told me or have told me in the past that they've had like a really positive birth experience that's been that they've felt happy from and they've felt joyful after I was like you're you're like liar yes yes I was like that's no I was like motherhood is great but that's a lie yeah because

birthing sucks and then I experienced it this time and I was like okay I literally laughed this baby out between contractions we were all in the room hysterically laughing which to me just goes against every version of what i thought birthing could be um so it was really might have been the playlist it was the fucking playlist guys okay let's talk about the real good let's talk about the playlist for a second so we did a call out for you guys to help us create the most epic birthing playlist and it is called push it real good and it is for all the lifers giving life thank you for putting that in it was there was a couple of specifications with this like we opened it up to all of you to add your songs I wanted to listen to this whilst I was having like in labor I wanted it to feel

like a party I love a pun so if you wanted to like make it birth semi-birth related I was like all for that there were a couple of questionable ones in there whoever put poopoo bum bum in there really has some explaining to do poopoo bum bum yeah it's like a kid's song I think that because I created the playlist I can see who's added what oh no I deleted poopoo bum bum because I was like if this plays again I'm gonna I'm gonna have a conniption my kid can't come out to poopoo bum them but it was the best playlist from the second we got in the room it felt like a party you know what i wish i put on there but i forgot eminem lose yourself you better it was on there it was on there oh great it was on there also someone put informer do you remember

so good the word that no one knows any words except boom the reason why that just like so deeply took me back to a place of nostalgia is because as a kid you know the bridge part which is like I know it so I'm gonna sing it for you I was hanging out the cool with my tippy tippy girl please not my cool they got my power lock me up so I can't do a thing pick up the harm on the telephone ring I like sat in there and I was I just had this moment of childhood nostalgia and I was so filled with fucking joy and then I was rapping the whole thing and Matt was even he was like who is this person and also my sister knows the whole thing so her and I were just having this real bonding moment and um the midwife walked in and thought we're insane she was like oh I like

this room but I'm a bit scared she's like has Alicia also been on the gas are you guys sharing the gas there was no gas so yes it was a lit playlist however she was crowning she was like out like her head was three quarters of the way out and then I became very cognizant of the song that was playing and I was like change the fucking song I refuse to give birth to vanguard boys I am not pulling this child out of me to the vanguard boys yes and everybody's jumping so whoever put that on the playlist it was great but it wasn't the crowning moment Matt's like I'm in the middle of my interpretive dance I can't change it the obstetrician was like push and I was like I will not give birth to Vengaboys.

Laura sucks it back up. She's like. Matt runs over mid-contraction and he's trying to. And he's like, what song? I was like, I don't fucking care. Just put the start of the playlist back on. So he put it back to the very start. And the very start, Keisha is.

I'm coming out. I want the world to know. Got to let it show. I'm so honored. I'm going to remember that forever. I'm going to tell Poppy that at her 21st. Yeah, so I pulled her out of me and put her on my chest to I'm coming out. It would have been better, actually, to have the Lion King.

No, no, no. I recommend it, though, guys. If you are having a baby anytime soon, if you've got a friend who's going to be in labor. Get health insurance. Get health insurance. And then get a playlist. Postpone it for an entire year and then go on this playlist because it is a five and a half. We had the best time in there.

It's got 1,800 saves. So someone also wrote to us saying that it was a really good running playlist. Birthing or running? I mean, both of them are endurance sports. Yeah, I was going to say maybe I'll play it for my baby making playlist. It's like, push it real good. Oh, yeah. But then, like I said, there's some weird ones on there.

I don't think it's a love making playlist. I think. It's banging though. Yeah. The banger boys. The banger boys. Okay, anyway, let's move on. It's definitely a banger.

Hey, let's chat labor length. Okay. so firstly the only other thing I wanted to add before we kind of get too far off the private public conversation so with Marley and Lola who were both public I had been told that I had to be in established labor in order to get an epidural so I had to be in fully established labor and look that's fine I'm not too posh to push and I'm not like saying I don't want to have any pain but both of my children are posterior which means their spine is against my spine plus I've been induced. So the pain is not a normal labor pain. It is very, very, very intense and results in

every contraction I'm vomiting. So it's an awful experience. I've also learned recently that if you go into like a labor naturally, you have like chemicals in your body that actually do provide some pain relief. I've heard that it can be a lot more painful if you were induced. Yeah. Because like it mimics the chemicals, but it doesn't do all of them. Well, it's just a lot more intense and it happens a lot faster and also if your baby's posterior you're already having a real hell of a time because there's the nerve endings of the spine on spine is really painful so I had been told we cannot give you an epidural until you're in established labor turns out that is not true and I felt really angry and I felt really gypped because I was like well it had

always been my birth plan to have an epidural with all of my births so why wasn't I able to have it from the very beginning when you knew I was going into into some sort of labor when contractions had started it's probably not that it's not true it's probably just true for the public system because they have less people on hand so it's more like hey these are our set of rules unfortunately we can only do it once you're in labor because they don't have enough people to constantly be coming for everyone and so i think that it's not that it's a lie in terms of labor but it would be the public system's truth yeah i i understand you know what i actually i'm glad that you said that because i did feel like i'd been a bit gaslit like i did feel like i'd been

lied to because the way it had been said to me was exactly that we can't give it to you until you're in established labor which for me filling in the blanks I understood it to be well it's because it can only be done at this point in time but it's really hard to have an epidural when you're in intense pain because you have to stay completely still and so there's more chance for something to go wrong because you move because you're having a fucking contraction the anesthetist came in and he was an absolute vibe and a half like he was great and I was like look realistically I want to feel as little of this as possible and he was like well we'll just do it now and I was like what do you mean you can do it now and he's like well just is if you know you're gonna have

it he's like we'll just do it now and I was and would you like some high tea I was like but I'm not in labor and he's like he's your curry dang sandwich he was like well you've had a few contractions you're fine and he's like I would prefer to do it now so that I'm not trying to do it when you're in active labor and also he's like you're gonna be in active labor you're gonna be calling me it's gonna take me 25 minutes to get here he's like I'll just do it now and you'll be, you'll be sweet. So it was just such a different time because as soon as that was in, I was like, woo! Dream. Absolutely. The banger bus is coming and everybody. Yeah. So that was disco life. So I think the thing with private is you have more opportunity of choice. That's what

feels different to me. That's what you're paying for. Yeah. You, you have more say. And that was my experience. It might not be the case for everyone, but mine was that I felt a little bit more in control. I felt like I had more options and I felt like I had been given a little bit more time and explanation. So what's the around about, what is the cost for someone to go private knowing that you didn't have health insurance for those playing at home? Oh, it's crazy expensive. It'd be about $20,000. Yeah. I would say about 17,000. That's what I would expect. I think that's not going to shock people. I think that that's probably what we think is pretty standardized for a private experience. Really? I think it would shock people. That's

more than what I thought it would be. I always thought it was about 20 grand without insurance. yeah which is why I'm like if you have the health insurance like yeah yeah if you don't I don't reckon it's something that's feasible for most people to do and I certainly like I mean it's my it was my last hurrah okay but also it was too late I didn't get a push present you're already too deep because you thought you had the insurance you'd already locked it in you're like oh well totally so then okay look I mean moving into the actual birth situation so I'd had my epidural the three of us were just in the room for a really long time like it was about nine o'clock at night and they hadn't checked me yet so like I hadn't been checked to see if I was fully dilated or

anything and I really didn't feel like I was like I didn't really feel like anything was happening you had an epidural yeah but I guess you probably of course you didn't feel it I think you're warming your body right you know your body you just feel like nothing was changing at all yeah I don't know I think you can still kind of tell that like stuff's happening a bit faster and a bit more like it doesn't make you completely numb you can't like stab a knife in your leg and you don't feel anything. No, you feel pressure. If you stabbed a knife into your leg, you wouldn't feel any pain. They do an ice cube test, don't they? Yes. Yeah. They run an ice cube down your sides to see. So anyway, you know, you see your obstetrician, they've sworn in, they have a look,

they've sworn out. They're not there for the whole time. Every obstetrician right now is like rolling over in their bed being like, this fucking chick thinks this job is easy. No, my obstetrician was amazing. But what I'm saying is, is if it's an easy birth, it's a great job. If it's a tricky birth, oh my God, you want a great obstetrician. But if it's an easy birth, They literally left 25 minutes, then they're gone. I remember, so obviously the time difference in Italy, I remember it was like early evening and I'd messaged Laura knowing that she'd already been in labour for a long time and I was like,

what's, where you at, what's the progression? And you were like, I've been labouring for a few hours, not yet, but can't be that long. And I remember thinking, oh, cool, it's bedtime for me. By the time I wake up, there will be a baby. I'll wake up to a baby message because it's like eight hours. I woke up and you were like, no, nothing yet, not fully dilated. And I thought, what the hell?

Yeah, it was a long time. But basically the midwife came in. So we had one midwife. She finished for the day. We had another midwife come in who was lovely. And she was like, look, let's just have a look. Let's have a geyser. So she goes down there, has a squeeze, and she's like, oh, you're 10 centimetres.

You're ready. Next contraction, start pushing. You're like, say what? She was so chill about it. And it was like the whole. You're like, I'm not prepared. I'm not ready. I'm not ready.

Is it really coming right now? I don't want to push it yet. I want another sandwich. I was like, that chicken pie was really good. No, so she looked down there. she was like yeah next contraction just give a push and I was like should we get the obstetrician down and she was like nah you'll be fine just give it a push she's like we just start moving the baby down so anyway next contraction came push and then I think there was like two contractions

that I was pushing through and Matt was like do you reckon we should get Bobby like the obstetrician to come down now she's like yeah I've called him he's on his way he walks in I've like pushed for two contractions by then and like I said it we were honestly pissing ourselves laughing so at the at the end of each contraction someone would say something that was funny and it was just everyone was laughing I mean it was a really like really amazing environment and then I think I pushed for maybe five contractions or four contractions that was it that was it and then I could feel heaps of pressure and I was like oh could you top up the epidural and the midwife was like no point sweetheart she's like the reason why you can feel that is because there's a head

there put your hands down yeah nothing's stopping and I put my hands down I was like oh my god there's a head there and uh then bobby the obstetrician was like do you want to pull her out and so and i didn't have a good hold so like what so yeah you pull them out of you do yeah you like pull them out surely that's why there's other people in the room like if there's one thing you don't pay you twenty thousand dollars pull it out you fucking pull it out it's nice for you to pull it out it's nice no it is nice but i had a really bad grip they're so slippery you're like I'm not an athlete I never played you were never ball sports girl they're so slippery and you can't see what you're grabbing and then you're also like oh my god someone support the head and so

she's like not quite what I thought she'd look like so I grabbed her but I grabbed her in this really weird angle I like had like one finger underneath an armpit and like the other ones like in her ear and I didn't know what I was grabbing and I pulled her out and I put her on my chest and to be fair she has just been the chillest baby since she was born she she didn't cry at the start at all and I was like is she okay like everyone's laughing and I was like is she fine someone I was like someone make the baby cry like oh she was a bit blue but they're always a bit blue they come out kind of gray yeah covered in slime it's not hot at the start yeah she's just on my chest and after a little while I was getting a bit like sorry guys is she okay yeah someone

look at her and the midwives were like everyone she's fine everyone's fine it's all fine and and then she took a big breath and she cried and it was perfect and then they're all fussing down around my hoo-ha like they were just all down there as they always are like pushing on your stomach and trying to get the placenta out and and I was like is everything fine down there and they were like yeah you just lost a bit of blood we're just keeping an eye on it because so when they come out really quickly you're more inclined to lose blood and like you know you lose up to a liter of blood before they even care before they even are worried about it they're like anything under a liter you're fine this is a really good time to talk about blood donation they need blood

donation for people yes go go and donate blood so I lost 700 mils you only have about five liters in total for reference yeah I was like that seems like a lot of blood and they what they do is they take the pads away and they weigh the pads so they weigh how much blood is coming out at any one time and then you have to actually birth your placenta as well so you've birthed the baby and then you have to you don't push with contractions but you definitely have to like they kind of half pull it out it's a process the whole thing the whole other thing that has to come out of you is it really weird watching something take its very first breath like is that actually quite beautiful but do you know what i mean like it's amazing yeah the whole thing is amazing it's the most

natural crack you're ever gonna have because as soon as you do it you're like i could do that again. I don't know if you've high pressure hosed before. I don't know if you've DIY painted a bedroom, but yeah. I did buy a pressure hose on the weekend. I'm not going to lie. I used it. Just get like the most like intense feeling of euphoria post having a baby that I'm like, woo, let's go again. So yeah, I want to have another. Let's quickly bypass that feeling. So everyone's question, did you shit yourself? Okay. Number one question that was asked, Did I shit myself? No.

I'd happily, proudly say that I've gone three for three and have yet shat myself during a pregnancy. I mean a birth. Don't say proudly because there's nothing wrong with shitting yourself. No, we did say that we're here to de-stigmatise, but unfortunately I'm not part of the crew of pooping myself. Yeah.

However, I have been in the room when people have pooped themselves during labour. Nothing wrong with it. You're Alicia. You've just outed Alicia. That was so funny. I was like, there's only one birth you've been in. My sister did shit herself during her labour.

No. But they're so good. Who cares? No, that's what I'm saying. They're so good that the second somebody has pooed themselves, it's gone. The midwives have cleaned it. You don't even know. They usually don't tell you.

They don't tell you. They just whip it away, weigh it, and off they go. Nothing to say here. But I think that it's more normal to do it than not to do it. Yeah. And also, like, who cares? Like, everything else is coming out from downstairs. Why do you worry?

Well, while we're sitting in this conversation, and, like, feel free not to answer it, but I know it's a question a lot of people want to know and it's not often discussed so Laura and I were on the phone chatting maybe two days later and you were like oh my god I've got to go it's time it's time for the first post-birth poo oh it's and you were like I don't want to do it I don't want to hang up I'm scared because it's there's this idea that the first poo that you do after a baby is not great so is that true that it's like so much more painful you're not the only person I messaged Vanessa I sent it to about five people I was like I was traumatized it for me it was terrifying is that do you know why is it because the body's hormones have like changed the

consistency of your next bowel movement like does it it's like your body stops it for a while I just didn't go to the toilet for two days because I was like and then I was backed up you're supposed to drink move a coal and I just didn't drink enough move a coal and I was like I gotta go but it's gonna hurt I'm scared and already you feel like your insides are falling out so I don't know I don't know if anyone else found it as horrifying as I did no it is I've heard it from multiple people I've never enjoyed the first poo after birth to be fair I would say for the first week it's kind of oh she's laughing I would say for the first week it's kind of a bit full-on and a bit scary but then you your body starts to figure it out again I wish doctors and obstetricians and

midwives tell you talk to you about that a bit more I wish that anyone had said to me especially after Marley hey you've just given birth but you're going to give birth again and that's going to be without an epidural it's going to be worse it's going to be in 24 hours or 48 hours and it's going to be a number two and that's going to be an experience. And so whatever support you need to get you through that, we're here. I wish someone had had that conversation with me. You would think after three, I would have thought through it, but I didn't. And it was, I think I was 48 hours and it was- On the toilet? No. Do you know what the other thing that people don't talk about? It's called afterbirth pains.

So every time you breastfeed, your uterus contracts. With every child you have, those afterbirth pains become more intense. So you breastfeed and then as you're kind of think of like period cramps, but as you're breastfeeding, your uterus is contracting and those contraction pains, afterbirth pains are so painful. Like they are so, so uncomfortable. How did it go introducing Marley and Lola to Poppy? They're obsessed with her. They are absolutely obsessed. I didn't have a baby for myself. Lola had a baby. This is Lola's baby. They love her so much, but Lola is struggling a little bit. I think it's probably the best version of it. She's not jealous of Poppy. Like she's, she loves her sister and she wants to hold her and be like

completely absorbed in everything that she, you know, she just wants to hold her a hundred percent of the time. The very first morning after I came home, I was in bed with Poppy feeding her and Lola came and got into bed with us. I'm very conscious about making sure that Lola gets a lot of me time and a lot of like, you know, cuddles and everything else. But I was feeding Poppy and also you know obviously giving Lola a cuddle in one arm and I had Poppy in the other and Lola looked at me and she started crying and she goes I wish I was Poppy and I was like why do you wish you were Poppy and she's like so that you would cuddle me like that too and I was like oh sweetheart I'm not cuddling her I'm literally a milkmaiden I'm feeding her like she needs this

to survive but she she she's just such a sensitive little soul and she just wants her mum so much and so she's not jealous of Poppy but she wants more of me and so I'm trying yeah she's not jealous of Poppy but she's jealous that her time is hard has been cut yeah like there was nothing else to focus on she can come into bed whenever she wanted there was nothing else in the bed yeah she's sharing her whole life is changing so I mean I'm sure there'll be an adaption process that's very normal but Marley seems fine like Marley's a bit older though yeah and she also like gets a lot through it she also gets a lot from her dad like she's quite happy to be like oh dad hug me like you know mom's busy but Lola doesn't get that and so she's like she's definitely

the one that is struggling the most and it's yeah and it's not in the way that you would expect like I thought she was gonna have she's definitely having big tantrums and whatnot as well but I thought that she would be a bit like I don't want the baby get the baby out of the way she loves the baby but she wants me obviously I've been doing radio now with Matt for the last week but Matt was saying that her emotions right now are just not matching the situation like her reaction is so extravagant to like the smallest catalyst really like she's very volatile and I think that these these are the adjustments also being a middle child is character building you're going to turn out great like you're going to have the resilience I'm a middle child I'm fine you're

going to be fine right I'm fine right someone anyone I think that there's benefits to it in the long run but at the moment it's definitely adjustment an adjustment period okay so that's how the girls have adjusted or like in the process of how have things gone with Matt have you felt any shift in like your relationship I mean I think there's always a shift in the relationship when there's a newborn baby not because you love each other any differently like you just don't have as much time for each other you're not like you know you can't snuggle in bed or the sleep is affected for everyone so at the moment I'm up every at least every two hours in the night time Matt is in the bed with me but then he gets called into Lola's bed so he kind of starts off in our bed

and then he ends up in Lola's bed and I think you just have such little time for each other in those first few weeks of postpartum so I probably get touched out too do you I'm actually feeling pretty good I'm not feeling touched out at the moment but I do worry that it takes a little bit more for and I don't know whether this is Matt specific and I don't know whether he'd even agree with this I worry that it takes him longer to feel connected to a newborn baby and to Poppy because he just doesn't get the contact time like she's always on me he's got the bigger kids and so I'm kind of like you know do you love her like are you excited like look how cute she is and he's very supportive and he's very much like yeah she's gorgeous and like he's he's like she's such a good baby it's

been really really easy this is really enjoyable but I don't think he feels the way I feel like i'm obsessed with her i think that's and i'm like i'm like i just want to climb inside your skin and he's like here's the baby is she exclusively breastfed yeah yeah yeah okay i just feel like so overwhelmingly in love with this baby you also have the hormones right now and the endorphins and you've carried her and you birthed her and you pulled her out and you felt it all and you're feeding her and matt's the husbands and the partners are they're just there in terms of they don't have that same roller coaster ride which is why i also think for a lot of men you know we don't talk about postpartum depression but for men and obviously it presents very

differently it's it's a reaction to the situation it's not hormone driven but I do think that that's a very real thing and it's because like you know sometimes as women we have the benefit of the hormone attachment sometimes it doesn't work out that way as we know but for guys like they just have to have the attack it has to just appear you know the or the non-birthing partner it just has to appear and so I do kind of I don't like I said I don't want to speak for Matt because he says he feels connected but I don't think he could feel as connected as I do you know and I like I said I am totally obsessed with her I did not think I would be this obsessed I actually thought I thought it would take me a really long time to feel like this and I thought I would feel

a little bit resentful that Matt was getting to spend all this time with the other girls and I would get stuck with the baby you know that's what I was really worried about but I'm I'm like so in love with this postpartum experience in comparison to what I've had before can I tell you for somebody that's up every two hours you look less tired than you used to before you had her you look fantastic like you look amazing you're obviously healing well and I feel good I feel really good and maybe that is because you're happier this time as well yeah and I you know if I look back on the other you know experiences I've had this has been by far my best and most just I think there's something being really healing in this postpartum experience it's

like renewed my faith that like having newborns can be really joyful and it can be I don't want to say it's easy because it's never easy but we get told so much about how hard it's going to be and I did fall down that rabbit hole a little bit with Lola even though with Marley I was always like no having babies is really fun and there's so much joy in it and now I feel like that's been restored again. It's just hard because there'll be people listening right now that have had both there are people that have just had the dream and there are people that are like have had the worst experience ever and they just don't have an easy or a good baby well i think the thing is is if you had that for your first birth like if i'd had a lola for my very first time around i don't know

if i would have a second baby i don't know if i would have had more because i don't know if i would have put that pressure on myself but knowing that like marley was the unicorn then we had like a tricky sleeper and colicky baby and now we've had another you know quote unquote unicorn even though it's two hours sleeping windows but it's just is what is with a newborn I think that that's what gives me this real sense of like oh I can do this I can manage this and I emotionally and mentally can manage this whereas I totally understand why some women who don't experience that and have a really tricky one first up you can't see what it could be like either and like why would you go back for a second if that's been your experience bit of a PSA as well for people

I didn't really know this I didn't know the time frame you put something on your Instagram and you've had a lot of people respond to you saying like what are you talking about that you can't go swimming in the ocean for like six weeks post-birth this to me was such a education piece so yeah I put up on Instagram the other day we were down at Parsley Bay and I was like oh it's just torture being at the beach not being able to swim for six weeks it was also 30 degrees yeah it was 30 degrees and I was at the beach with the baby and I was like just want to go in the water and so many women who have had children themselves like vaginal birthing women and I'm talking like people who friends with me, people who I don't know, but I know that they have kids were like,

what do you mean you can't swim? Just wear period underwear and go swimming, just wear period swimmers. And it made me realize how much information is missed in that post birth aftercare. I didn't realize that with my first baby either. Like I didn't know the information with Marley. I think Alicia might've told me, my sister, but yeah, you can't, well, you're not supposed to swim for four to six weeks, especially if you have stitches or especially if you've had of vaginal birth because your uterus is still open and you have a massive gaping wound in your uterus where the placenta is detached. So going swimming means that you could get seawater up in your uterus, which is like, you know, non-hospital, you introduce microorganisms. Like an infection.

The misconception is that it's about blood in the water and blood loss and that's not what it is. No, it's about getting an infection in an open wound and you're still healing. So you're supposed to go for a four to six week appointment with either an obstetrician or your healthcare or whatever it is whatever it's also put herself up for that one i have yet to check your forehead and that's when you get the approval as to when you shouldn't shouldn't swim you know to make sure that everything's healed so that was shocking to me that so many women who have had children or so many women who are pregnant didn't know that that was the case but it just shows you that there's such a gap i think that often especially when there is poor continuity of care doctors

think oh they've been told this by a different doctor and so they don't rehash things but that's where information gets missed and especially if it's your first time doing it like unless you proactively are going out there and finding this information yourself sometimes you just don't know you just don't know this question was written in by someone called Whitney hello Whitney Whitney Whitney Pockley Whitney Pockley that wants to know um you said before you had Poppy that you felt like something was missing and you weren't finished Whitney Pockley would like to know do Do you feel more of a sense of completion that your family's complete? It's like, do we need to prepare for another?

And also, Pisha Letit wants to know. I really thought after having Poppy, I would have this overwhelming sense of like, our family is done now. Oh my God, Britt, it didn't go how we thought? No. And what was the feeling that you had? And I don't have that feeling, but I've just, I've accepted the fact that maybe I won't be that person who will have that feeling.

You know, the playlist in my head right now is, darn it, darn it. no no no no when the jaws shark comes to you that's what I just felt no minus one more time I want to celebrate yeah okay so okay cute so you're not done that's that's a lovely no it's not that I'm not done I'm gonna need a bigger house I think I am done because I think logistically relationship wise financially like having kids is so expensive yeah everything lifestyle I think the realities of life tells me that I'm done. I'm also, you know. Do you know what we could do?

I have this weird innate feeling that I'm having twins. You could have one. No, look, if I take it seriously, the realities of life tell me that I'm done. Like all the things that surround the situations of my life tell me, okay, that's enough. It's enough. I don't think I'm ever going to have the feeling that a lot of women describe when they're like, I birthed this child and I just knew my family was complete. I don't think I will have those feelings ever I think I will miss having a newborn I think I will

miss going through the stages and I was thinking about it this morning that's probably the one thing that makes me emotional about the whole thing is that it's such a shame that you have to live life all at the one time and what I mean by that is is as a woman I know that my job is important to me and I wish that there was a situation in life where you could go okay I'm going to take 10 years to pause that thing and I'm going to do this thing and I'm going to give this thing everything I have because if I could just fuck off and be a trad wife for 10 years and don't get me wrong I don't mean like I don't mean you know an actual trad wife but I mean if I could just be with my kids and and have five kids and like you know live on a farm and

grow vegetables like I fucking would love that of course I reckon you wouldn't and I am not you and I don't want to tell you how to feel you just are such a working machine it's like you your cup is filled from work as much as it is from kids I reckon the idea of it for you sounds good but I think you'd miss the work of balance I agree but I that's what I mean by not doing it at the same time I don't want to forgo that like I don't want to not have that in my life I don't want to not be ambitious and have my career I just want to do it in 10 years but I know that it will not exist in 10 years like I know that it would be a sacrifice so the one week you've had wasn't that I'm not willing to make the one week we get what's that saying it's like you can have it all

but you can't have it at the same time and I think like if I could choose how I live my life right if I could someone could say okay you've got an extra 10 years what would you want to do I would probably be like cool let's have two more kids let's live somewhere where it's not expensive like that would be absolute joy for me like I love being a mom it's my it's my favorite thing but I know I want a career and I love my career and I know that just being a mom won't be enough for me in life yeah do you know what I love about hearing that though Laura is that you weren't necessarily the person who in your 20s was like my biggest dream is to be a mum no you know like and so it's so nice to hear that you're like that's the best thing I've ever done they're just

like it's amazing I love being a mum but like I said you know it's not going to be the only thing that's fulfilling to me it just feels like sometimes you feel like you've drawn the short straw when you're doing it all at the same time because I know that like this little bubble that I'm in right now where I'm like I get to have a couple of weeks off work and spend time at home with the kids like I know that that has an end date to it and like right now Poppy's a mate like she's literally sat on my lap this entire record hasn't made a peep she is now she's hungry but like I would love to postpone this and be able to do this for longer but I know that I also really want to have a career and I love our job and I love everything that we get to do so I want to

do both I just wish there was more time to it you know so I know I'm done and that definitely the day after he was like I will book that for sex me so so funny because it was the other used to be the other way around it was like you that wasn't quite ready yet with the difference in their age and Matt was like begging for another one oh it's also early days like you're still in a hormone bubble as well so you don't know what you're going to feel in six months or a year in terms of like I'm not saying that's not going to be good but I might I mean like you might have that feeling of like oh I do feel like I'm she might satisfy you but yeah I know it's coming hey no I don't mean that I mean like you might feel more satisfied when it's not just a few

weeks in and she's a dream like when it's when she's a bit more established in her life I wonder and I do want to throw this out to you guys like if you've had kids and you kind of found yourself at the end of that journey I hate that word but are you someone who didn't have that sense of completion and you just made the decision because you got to stop somewhere right like I feel quite complete is that normal I don't know I don't because I I feel like in my situation in my friendship circles everyone I know has been like I am fucking done like they are so 100% done like my sister was like the second I had Tassie I was done my girlfriend Kaya absolutely done it's subjective too and I wonder if there's more people who are like I didn't feel done but I knew I was

if that makes sense yeah I think it's I mean how long's a piece of string what what are your family circumstances what are your financial circumstances what other kids do you have at home like there's so many things that are going to so many things add up to your feeling of completion for somebody so I think it's like I don't think it's something that you could just like make a blanket statement on how many people feel complete you know it's so subjective to your personal circumstances how do you feel Brett now because I know like I mean I'm still I said this to somebody in the last day or two and I cannot for life of me remember who but I'm spending a lot of time with my sister obviously I've met Poppy everyone keeps saying that like when you're around people that are

close to you and they're little ones it makes you want them more I just still haven't had it I just yeah I just don't I'm gonna cry again I just want it and I don't have it it doesn't come like I don't feel I don't know why I get so upset every time I think about it it doesn't make me say I don't want them but I'm just like now's the time I'm like when I was gonna meet Poppy I was so excited and I was like it's gonna be what gives me that rush and that feeling and it just doesn't come and it makes me so upset because like I'm desperate for it to come some things you just can't force but I also I don't think that that's that uncommon I don't think yeah frustrating it's frustrating I'm frustrated I definitely felt a little bit when Alicia had Archer like I felt a

little bit of like oh that's that's really special but I'm not attached to other people's children I don't get it I don't get it from other I look at other people's newborns and I'm like ew. No, I don't feel that. I love them. No offense to any of Laura's friends. No, I love them. I do though. And I know. I'm looking at Ness right now. Ness, block your ears. I don't mean ew as in, I mean like ew as in like, I don't want that. Like I don't want that. It's not. No, I don't want your life. No, it's terrible. Because you know why it was even more intensified? Because we met up, there were a few of us. It wasn't just us two. There were some other people there as well, other women,

same age as me and when we left one of the women were like wow it just makes me want it so bad doesn't it make you want it I felt like a sociopath I was like not really zooming out I actually think that it's because and this could be me deeping it a bit too much I think it's because we have been told that it is the most natural thing for a woman to feel is to want to be a mother and so if you don't actually have that feeling take over your body there must be something not feminine about you or like something that's a bit broken because you don't seem to have that pull yeah because it's supposed to be this natural thing that happens to women where it's like your body starts to tell you that this is what you're here for and it gives you the hormones and it

gives you the flood of feelings and like I'm willing myself to feel it and I think that's why I gave it more upset because like I'm so in control of my life in every other aspect and that's the one thing I cannot figure out and there's so many sacrifices that come with it And the reality is, is you don't know how you're going to feel about it until they're here. I never had, and I know we covered it very briefly, but I never had that maternal pull. And I say this because when I say, ooh, I'm like, I happily like want to hold my friend's kids and I can see that they're beautiful.

And I can see that my nephew and niece are beautiful. None of that gave me the feeling of wanting to have them myself. It just didn't. It didn't. And so like, I would be like, yeah, it's cute. Cute for you. Give it back. I love that for you.

there has been something deeply different about my own experience of motherhood and having my own children like there is whatever that feeling is is is an indescribable feeling but the problem is is I know it doesn't happen for everyone and so then you then you still feel like you're taking that punt you know you're taking the you're taking or making that decision around well will it hit me if I just have the kid you know it is the feeling of like I don't want to say that I'm broken I know we say that a lot when it's like when you go through IVF and you don't have feeling she's like oh my body's broken it's not that i think it's broken but i do feel like it's a semi-abnormal feeling and it's the number of people that have told me in the last few years

just you wait until your sister has a baby it's just different like it'll make you feel something different because it's the closest thing you will have to a baby right is like my auntie well especially just to somebody like my sister because we we shared the same room until we were 16 we have never had an argument we've traveled to 60 countries together we worked in a hospital together for a decade you've never met two people that are more entwined than my sister and i like in terms of siblings but when that many people tell you just wait it'll come and it doesn't come that's when you're like have i got a gene missing like is there something in my dna that is not clocking that i'm supposed to have these attachments or want to procreate and i'm not saying women

appear to procreate evidently i'm the person that is flying the flag the other way in a way but there is I'd be lying if I didn't say that that is super upsetting to me that I cannot even make it come if you don't have those feelings at all and tell me if you don't answer this if you don't have those feelings at all and the thing that makes you the most upset is wanting to will those feelings into existence do you entertain the alternate of being like well maybe I don't actually want them and I just think that I want to have a kid yeah and that's part of why I get so upset and why I think about it so much because I don't have it clear cut because when I if you say to me do you want a child right now I say god no I don't know how I'd fathom that if you say to

me look at your future do you see children I would say yes and those two things one of them doesn't add up like you can't have one without the other but I think it plays into the thing I was saying just before around this whole idea of having to live life at the all at the same time like I think so like having to make decisions that don't feel like they fit together but they have to be done at the same time because the window of your thirties is finite. You know what I mean? And so. Yeah. Especially now I'm 31. So I don't have a lot. I'm nine years late. I also wonder if, and I could be making this up as well, cause I've never had the feeling, but I wonder if now that my specific relationship with Ben,

because we are in unusual circumstances, we don't live in the same country. Adds pressure to it. Well, I think there's a part of it, not just that adds pressure. Cause I'm like, I can't imagine how it would work there's a part of me that's like I just feel a bit robbed in terms of and I hate to compare myself but let me let me explain it I feel robbed was Ben absolutely worth the wait like I met him at 35 and then the last three years we've never been together we don't do normal things we don't have a normal relationship I don't get to live the normal life I feel a bit robbed if I then had to have a baby now I feel like we missed some of the best parts

of a relationship of those early days of just being together, being able to experience just each other and not just have this baby that you know is going to change the dynamic of your relationship. So I feel like if I rush in and have, and not that it's rushing, it's three years and I'm 38, but I feel like if we add that baby now, I miss those years. Like, and I don't want to compare my relationship to anyone else's, you can't, but I look at my sister and I'm so jealous of her relationship with, with her partner, Jay. You know, the three of us were almost in a for a while. We've traveled the world together, but I look at their relationship. They have traveled the world as a couple. They work together. They like have all these experiences that I don't

get. And that makes me be like, if I just throw a baby now, Ben and I miss these moments that you can never get back. And it's, it's definitely something else. I'm like, well, do I move to Italy and then have a few years with Ben as a couple and then do it. But then all of a sudden I'm in my forties. And do I want to go down the track in my forties? Can I even do it? Will IVF even work in my forties? If I risk waiting, I might never have it. I might have to start the IVF cycle now that might take me threes and I'll be in my forties anyway. Like there's so many things. And then I get so overwhelmed in my brain that I implode and just don't do anything. I power down and I'm like, I can't deal with it. It's for another day. Life doesn't stop. And your

relationship doesn't stop once you have kids right and I think my biggest lesson with Matt obviously your relationship can be affected and like at some times your relationship takes a blow like things get harder definitely with different periods but if you choose your partner well and your partner is a proactive person in the parenting like you grow as a couple in parenting you know and I think that for us our relationship like we weren't dating for very long before I got pregnant with Marley we were only together for a year I think before I got pregnant year and a half maybe yeah so a lot of our experiences have been as parents you know a lot of our relationship experience we didn't have you know I mean I spent more time traveling with my exes than I ever did

with Matt at the start I had more experiences with them in time with them than what I ever had with Matt it's a good point you do get to name a star with Matt but I did I mean Matora is still out there but the reality is I think that you know you can prepare yourself for all the worst versions of what something's going to be and I think that's what I did with this pregnancy I prepared myself so over prepared myself for what the worst version of this was going to be and then often it is absolutely not that I didn't feel connected during pregnancy and I could not be more obsessed with being a mom this time around and like that's probably been the biggest surprise yeah that's not to say that that's an answer for you and my experience is not going to be what you

experience but I think there's only so much pressure you can put on yourself for your decision-making right now? I'm 99% sure that we're going to do it or at least try to do it. And I have come to terms with the fact that no matter when I decided I am going to be an quote unquote older mom, because you can't take back time. Geriatric is actually the term. I've been geriatric for four years. You're geriatric from 35. Sorry, that was just a dig that you probably didn't know. No, no. I mean, we laugh about it all the time, but you're geriatric from literally like 33 or 34 now. So I've accepted that like, if it happens, I will be an older mom. So I know people

that have had babies way older into their 40s and sometimes into their 50s so it's not necessarily that but personally I do not want to be mid 40s and starting because I just think it's hard it's harder you it's harder on you you don't have the same energy you don't have the same like life's just different and so I do definitely think this pregnancy has been the hardest on my body in terms of like it's the most wear and tear and I know that we spoke a lot about my labia pre like actually birthing this I would like to report that things once again have pretty much gone back to normal like it is I love that that's the headline you don't want out there is that you've got a fat labia you're like my labia's back I don't care I'm just like no no because I've talked about my

fat labia so much and and I fucking lent into the fact that it was a blue avatar like we talked about it all but honestly I thought that having three kids was going to do some like like you no irreversible damage. I thought that we were stuck fat lips and all, but honestly, it is shocking to me how much things change post-birth. One, I think that it's pressure related, but also, and I learned this. So when you have a huge amount of estrogen in your body, your labia increases in size. So your like literal labia is big up because of the estrogen. So what happens when you go through menopause is your labia shrinks and it shrivels up and some people lose their labia altogether so like you could go you could go from having like juicy lips to

nothing but you probably have to remember why it's why it does it too the body does everything for a reason it's there it's like a cushion it's there to protect it's there like it's doing a job it's not just fat to like fuck you i'm gonna ruin your sex life for the rest of you no but it's meant to be more desirable it's like yeah people get filler in their labia we get it chopped off because we don't think it's desirable but like our actual anatomy is meant to be like the bigger the better The only thing I'm thinking about right now is if you guys haven't listened to the episode that Britt and Laura did with my friend Nat, she spoke about the bonobo that has a giant bulging clitoris. Yes, it's supposed to because it's meant to be desirable. But we just have like, you know, because of fashion trends and everything else, we've like decided that big labias are not in fashion.

But like I'm telling you. We're going to rub our labias together like the bonobos do. If you have a humongous labia, it's because you've got a good estrogen girlfriend. You're like, it's great. Guys, I don't endorse this. I do not encourage it, but there is a trend right now. They're seeing a huge uptake in people getting filler in their labia. It's back.

Labia fluffing. It's back. Fluffing's back. It's probably because all these menopausal women have lost their labias and for so many years we complained about it and now all of a sudden we're like, fucking hell, let's shrivel it up. Let's just stop fucking the trends. Stop following the trends because they always come back.

But I did say that I was like considering a labiaplasty. I can't have one now. There's no labia to plasty. It's just shriveled back up. It'll be back. Yeah, I know, with the fourth kid. guys thank you so much for I mean Laura thank you for coming in thank you for coming in with Poppy like so I know I needed to be paid so I was like you know this maternity leave is really

gonna hurt the sides don't put that out there we are paying you the same amount there's absolutely you're the boss I own the company exactly you're the boss you could go for a year and you'd still get paid no that's uh that's a joke um I'm not I do the accounts I paid you the same I'm making I know I get paid no I love I love being here this is like my this is my joyful work yeah it is a lineup of people outside that are waiting to hold and meet Poppy so we are gonna wrap but I do have to get on with my day with your husband as well that's true and um and I'm going to I'm gonna start like coming back on so like I'll do you know I think like the way that we'll probably attack this is like I'll come back for like an episode a week I think I'll have another week

off firstly but I'll come back for like an ep a week and then we'll go from there but right now while she's sleeping through recordings i'm like i'm here baby i'm sure and i were i mean keisha mainly but she was like okay let's like prep the schedule for what the next couple months is going to be like and i said like look i can guarantee you we'll be back in two weeks max so like i just want you to know you can take as long as you need because keisha gets paid more while you're gone that is true however i don't want you to feel like in six months time and be like those fucking bitches they made me come back three weeks later because i couldn't handle it laura knows my job she wants yeah and i like for me and this was probably the most healing thing

throughout my postpartum with lola was being able to come and have adult conversation that wasn't just about a baby i know we've spoken a lot about pregnancy and a lot about everything else the last couple of weeks because being pregnant has kind of become my entire personality but that's done now and like i'm craving talking to my friends i'm craving having conversations that aren't just about being you know a mom so i love yeah i love doing this it's my favorite it's my favorite job we love having you back take as long as you want come back when you want you own the place so you can come and you can flounder in and out but guys this whole episode is on youtube if you want to pop see how amazing poppy was the whole time she literally is just an absolute angel there there

might be a little titty that flashes in but she did she just did poo on me but for everyone hold up that is she's so cute she's been an absolute angel she is an angel all right guys you know the drill say no see dad say dog to your friends and share the love because we love sloppy