Life Uncut - Talking miscarriage

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

There is a lot of stigma and guilt that is attached to miscarriage and despite how common they are, they are not commonly spoken about. In this episode Laura speaks openly about her two miscarriages, pregnancy and loss. JOIN THE DISCUSSION on our facebook page or follow @LifeuncutpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany and I'm Laura. Laura, what a time to be alive. It was Easter last week. We ate our body weight in chocolate. I didn't do anything for Easter. I am a terrible mother, but I'm also taking solace in the fact that Marley is not even one yet.

She will not remember this. We are pretending like 2020 never happened. Well, 2020 didn't happen. Also, I think it's totally okay to not give Marley Mae chocolate because she's one. I think that's fair. We don't need to encourage this. Not yet. So we didn't do anything for Easter.

It was actually just felt like another day. we went for a walk that we got our one hour of exercise ain't nothing gonna stop us it's Groundhog Day isn't it I don't know what day it is I don't know what week it is I don't even know what time it is I don't even have a clock I don't look because I don't know where to be who are you what are you doing who actually am I every week I have been saying that we are going to get some at-home recording studio equipment so that we can bring you this podcast from the safety of our bedroom and I have finally done it we are recording this remotely so if the sound quality is weird at all please forgive us we'd never know what we're doing even when we're doing

it in a studio let alone trying to do it from home when we have no help I'm currently sitting on my bed which is where the magic happens and by the magic I mean this is where I sleep and I'm also on my bed where the magic doesn't happen but where one day it will also I feel like I'm 16 again like I'm calling my girlfriend being like hey babe except actually this is going to go out to thousands of people right and can I just say we pimped out our equipment we got the best well I don't know if it's the best we got the best stuff that we don't know how to use it has so many colorful shiny buttons that we will figure out but for now we're going to stick to the basics I mean this is my favorite question right now what you've been up to I have something for today's

question of what have I been up to this is also a really really highly recommended recommendation funny that your alliteration is on point when matt was living in the uk he became really good friends with a guy named fergus and fergus is his name really fergus yeah it's fergus great great name fergus love that for you fergus is a magician and not just like a daggy like can do a little card trick magician he performs at edinburgh fringe festival so he had all these massive gigs lined up and then obviously corona hit and everyone lost all of their especially people who work in like the arts industry and especially magicians all of them they're all out of work guys no one wants to actually touch your deck of cards someone think of the magicians so what he's

doing is fantastic he's doing these personalized zoom magic shows the other night we signed up he popped up in our lounge room I was swilling my little wine having a pinot of course you were and he did a full magic show and it was I tell you like I I would have said to you that magic is super daggy but it was so fantastic it was like one of the best nights so that we have had like what sort of things was he doing like a card trick still and you would just like virtually pick them yeah virtual card tricks like illusion tricks how does he take your watch off your wrist I crack myself up sometimes where are my pants Ferg this is awkward um no but it was it was actually so I was so impressed I loved it so much and so guys if you are thinking of something

to do on a Saturday night or maybe you want to catch up with your family but you want to do something that's not just sitting there going can you hear me over zoom what you can do is you can jump onto Fergus magician I'm going to check that because I'm not sure if it's correct oh it was definitely not correct it's magic Fergus you can jump onto magic Fergus I love that jump onto his Instagram page and book yourself a live magic show and this is not just because it's Matt's friend I I was blown away so I guess hot yeah he sounds like he would be you were just paying out his name before Brit but that's why I reckon he's hot I reckon not many people can pull off Fergus I reckon you've been in isolation so long sexy I'll take anything right now guilty um well

that's been happening in your world great recommendation for you I mean great recommendation from you i tried something new last week was cooking made the gnocchi three ingredients killed it this week i did my first tiktok yeah getting down with the kitties it was so hard it took me like three hours to even learn how to do a tiktok i don't know what the kids are doing these days anyway um can i just jump in if it took you three hours to record a tiktok video then i'm gonna just guess that maybe you're too old for TikTok oh oh without doubt that's not even a question but I really wanted to do that um my my Instagram is filled with that flip a switch um flip a switch you did it you guys did it um so I wanted to do it didn't have a boyfriend so I just made it up

and put some clothes on a hanger I thought it would be funny and it took me three hours but that was just to sign up the actual tiktok dancing took me like 20 seconds but anyway i just felt like i really accomplished something this week and i feel like i'm in with the cool kids now you're truly living your iso dreams oh my god speaking of iso dreams or just dreams in general i have big news channing tatum back on the market this this post that brit is talking about this tiktok post she posted it on life uncuts instagram so if you go to at life fun cart podcast you'll see this silly tiktok dance she did she also tagged silly she also tagged channing tatum because she is trying to thirst trap him from isolation desperate times

guys desperate times i also thought it was funny because channing tatum has been a theme for me throughout the podcast since we started and any of you og listeners know that i have a little crush on him so i thought it would be funny to tag him in the hopes that in the 25 million tags he gets maybe he'll see it it is on my instagram guys um britney underscore hockley if you need um but it's also on life uncut so you can go and check it out it's definitely not a thirst trap it's i it's not sexy but it's interesting look do you know what i want to say though i'm i'm usually so quick to hate on social media like i think that there's a lot of shit that comes out of like for the choice of better word there's a lot of shit that's on social media but i really feel like during this

time of isolation it has forced people to be a hell of a lot more creative and a hell of a lot more fun with their content and I know like I put something up just recently and I was saying that Gwyneth Paltrow had come out saying that you should use this time in isolation to find a new hobby or learn a new language or be super productive and there is that conversation going on on Instagram at the moment but there is also the antithesis of that and the total flip side of that, which is people saying, you know what, it's actually totally okay if you don't achieve anything during this pandemic and you just actually survive and get through. So I think you kind of have to pick the type of social media that is best attuned to how you're going to live your

ISO life. But I love that there seems to be less narcissism on there at the moment. There seems to be less thirst trapping. There seems to be less posing with a product. There seems to be less just posing in general. And I really feel like the ethos at the moment has shifted a little bit and the content is fun and funny and relatable so I am loving Instagram right now it's definitely a lot more amusing as soon as I open my Instagram up because I'm not actually believe it or not I'm not usually a swiper on Instagram I use it for myself I have certain people that I will literally type in to look but I'm not someone that spends hours and gets deep in there mate I looked at my screen time the other day and I had spent nine hours nine hours in 24 hours

on instagram not instagram just on my screen laura i was on a screen what are you doing on there i have a child how did i do that your porn hub must be through the roof you need to cancel that subscription we've spoken about that before honestly we've got to cut corners and save money somewhere but i don't even know we're still getting the meredith scotes cheese but the porn hub has to go honestly i was like this can't be correct this actually can't be right it would be great i love that for me i don't i don't even want to know i don't even want to look but um besides that i i'm not gonna lie i haven't done a lot this week that's totally relatable i feel like that's going to speak to the masses but you know what do you know what i did do

i hope you're proud of me i cleared our inbox um for instagram again guys it's um we we perpetually have 100 messages at all times and I set myself a challenge to clear it to zero and I did it and I'm sure when I look in an hour it's going to be back to 100. But also just on what we have achieved this week and I really want to point you guys in the direction of our Facebook page which is Life Uncut Podcast. We have well and truly got the Facebook page up and running now. We are doing everything we can to build that little community online but we have this great intention for the Facebook page to really be a place where just say you have an ask uncut question that you feel confident and okay with sharing with other people you know you can post that question to the Facebook

group there are some really clever sassy intelligent switched on amazing women and men in that group apart from me you guys are all on there as well who can answer your questions and if we can't get to your question in ask uncut then there is there is a wealth of a community out there who can help to kind of give you advice it's also just a great place if you guys want to get on there and share your crappy dating stories the worst thing a guy's ever said to you during sex if you've got any good like dating and isolation stories like the episode we last talked about get on there and share them as well guys because it's there for some good support but it's also just there for a good laugh there are some some rules and the rules are that

there is no judgment judgment free you can speak about anything and when you're giving advice to other people we just we want you to give your honest feedback but just always maintain a level of respect if you don't we're going to be booting your ass out i have something else i want to say last week we sort of put some feelers out and asked you guys to tell us some cute dating stories because we did a segment on online dating and how dating has changed in iso we got some really cute responses but there was one that just like gave me goosebumps i sent it to laura gave her goosebumps all the feels and there was this girl wrote in and she sent us the video in and it was her birthday so she jumped on this like huge house party zoom call type thing and there were like 20 people

maybe all in their little boxes and she was just chatting away and everyone was like happy birthday blah blah blah blah and then on zoom her boyfriend proposed to her the cutest thing ever it was so cute because she had no idea and it was all caught in front of all of their friends because he had plans to do it and he was like you know what i'm not gonna let iso stop me so i'm gonna try and find that video again and i'll post it on a page because i think good things are coming from iso we also said in that episode the Brits referring to if you guys have been doing any cute social distancing dates then send us your date ideas and one person had actually written in and they said that they had met a guy on hinge and one of their first dates that they had which was over zoom

they decided that they were going to have a bottle of wine and they were going to draw each other and draw each other's portraits didn't you guys do that on the bachelor yeah we did but which is also why I loved it but I think it's such a cute date I think it's so cute it's such a nice way of breaking the ice with someone they said by the end of it they were just pissing themselves laughing which you would like I'm sure that neither of them were Picasso but but it was just a nice way for them to meet each other properly and do it in a way that also makes it not quite so stifled and awkward I think that's I think that's brilliant I love hearing that those ideas we had another girl writing and just say they've been doing trivia with her partner long distance and I

think that's really fun too because it's it's light-hearted and it's it's easy and it's engaging and so they were two really cute ideas that came in this week so I'm chuffed with that but guys if you have any more ideas then you can send them on to us or get on the bloody Facebook page and write them up there okay guys it is time for accidentally unfiltered basically this is just where we share all of your most embarrassing stories anonymously of course that you have written into us yeah have you picked one I picked one have you got one too I've got I've got a really sweet, very G rated one this week. After all the sex and all the thirst trapping, I was like, okay, it's time for just something that's a little bit Nana friendly. Okay. Well I'll keep

mine on Nana friendly. Okay, perfect. Let's kick this off. My partner and I were quite kinky in the bedroom. Now I'm talking vibrators, butt plugs, strap ons, the works. We were coming to the time where we were due to vacate our rental property and we had to agree for an open inspection time with our landlord initially we agreed on a date and a time but due to work commitments i had to reschedule so i emailed the real estate to reschedule a new time unfortunately the real estate did not check her email in time and she proceeded with the original open inspection time everything that we used in the bedroom was on display i'm talking the butt plugs the lubricant that was in the bathroom we had vibrators on the bed we had dirty undies you name it

It was there. Now, what makes this scenario even worse is that I worked for a really well-known company and one of my work uniforms with my name tag was on display and everyone would have seen it. The next day, I received a very apologetic email from the real estate that asked if I could possibly have another open inspection with my unit slightly tidied up. Oh, my God.

You know when a house is devalued because someone's been murdered in it? I feel like this is similar. like i'm sorry can i get a rent deduction or price deduction on this because there's a butt plug on the bed i feel like there'd be some people that are like i will pay extra to keep the butt plug don't wash it it's fine just wash your hands we've had so many of these where it's been like a vibrator accidentally left out but it's never been the whole kink collateral no it's been all of the above all right give me okay so i have one so so this one in comparison is very g-rated but I actually love this. And when I read it, I laughed out loud. So my dad and I were swimming

in the public pool doing laps. We were doing the lengths when I spotted him taking a breather at the edge of the pool. So I swam up behind him, put both my hands on his bald head and dunked him under the water. I was holding him there, ignoring his flailing arms. And then I saw my dad actually swim past me oh my god pass me the panel now panel that's my new addition everybody aboard the lola coaster oh that is so funny could you imagine i i read this and i lost it and i was walking with matt at the time and then i read it to him and he also started crying so i was like this is a good one it's actually so funny it's like when you're a little kid and you're in the supermarket and you go up and hug your parents

and you know that moment you look up and it's not your parents' legs and you're like, oh, my God, my life flashed before my eyes. Like, who is this stranger? I had a kid do that to me actually not so long ago. We were at the checkout in Woolies and this little boy just held my hand and I'm like, this is weird, but okay. He just held my hand and then he looked up and you could just see the pure fear in his face.

I was like, pal, it's okay. I'm sorry. I feel awkward as well. When you write in these, when you send them in to us, either on the Facebook page now or at Life Uncut Podcast, when you do send them in, they don't always have to be like really dirty and saucy and salacious. I mean, we love those ones, but they can just be super innocent and cute too, because we do thrive on those also. All right. Keep those ones coming in. But for now, I think it's time to jump into the episode.

So guys, we do have a different kind of episode for you today. and you may remember about two months ago we actually couldn't get an episode to you one week and we had to take a break and we we did sort of tell you that life happened sometimes life happens and that was one of those weeks um you guys were so understanding which was amazing and we felt really bad that we couldn't deliver you an episode but we did have a very very good reason and I'm going to pass it over to Laura today to talk about that reason and I hope you guys really get something out of this and I just want to start by saying I'm just really proud to put out this episode with you today Laura. Today's episode is a bit of a different one and it's

something that is very very personal for myself and it's something that touches a lot of women and that topic is miscarriage. I've spoken pretty openly in the past and for anybody who has followed my pregnancy journey with Marley then you might already know that Matt and I, we did have a miscarriage before we actually had Marley and I've spoken about it because I really do feel that there's still this stigma that's surrounding miscarriage and I remember when I first had a miscarriage, how I felt just so incredibly alone. I didn't, I didn't feel that there was a community of people who I could go to. I felt a lot of guilt and I felt like there must be something wrong with me. And the reason why this has come up again, and this topic has been something that we wanted to,

you know, have on our channels and share with you guys is because more recently, just two months ago Matt and I went through our second miscarriage and that still feels raw and very very bizarre to even I guess say out loud because it's not something that I have really spoken about it's not something that I've talked to many people about but I feel very very passionately that miscarriage is a conversation that needs to be had in an open forum I just really want to put it out there before we get into this episode that this conversation is not at all for sympathy it's it's not for attention and I know that you know that and I just really, really believe that it's an inextricable part of some people's pregnancy journey and it is painful and it

is lonely but it doesn't need to be quite so lonely and the more that we talk about it and the more that we de-stigmatize it, then I feel that other women who are going through the same thing may feel more supported. The lack of conversation around this topic is really what creates this oppressive silence and that silence really adds to the feeling of what's wrong with me. So this is what we're talking about today and I think this episode does need to come with a bit of a trigger warning, going to go into some depths about it and I think that maybe if you're pregnant or if this is too close to home for some people, then maybe

this isn't the episode for you and maybe you'll come back to it another time, that's totally fine. although my first thought was that you know it may not be relevant to women who don't want to have babies or to men I then realized actually it's really relevant to everyone because even if you are never in a position where you experience a miscarriage yourself you may be in the position where someone you love goes through miscarriage maybe it's a sister maybe it's a best friend and so I think it's also really important to be equipped to how to respond to someone when they tell you that they are experiencing miscarriage because I think that there can often be unhelpful

conversation that happens from very well-meaning people when they give their love or their advice or their feedback when you tell them that you've had a miscarriage so we're going to get into that as well later in the episode. It is a really a really tricky conversation to have and Laura I'm so grateful that you have decided to share this because I do think it will help a lot of people and like you said it will help people even like myself who haven't experienced it but but you my friend went through it and the fact that I can ask you now a few months down the track how should I have responded did I respond okay is is that the sort of thing you would want to hear from a friend because I think that these are things that could help a lot of people going forward so I guess we

should start at the start you that's always a good place to start yeah you you before Miley May your first miscarriage I guess what were what were the feelings like then and how can you compare them to what you felt the second time around oh okay so I guess with when I I'll kind of like tell the story maybe that's like for anyone who doesn't know so when um Matt and I first found out that I was pregnant we weren't trying we it was a surprise it was a very very happy surprise um but I found out I was pregnant we were both so excited and we were booked in for our scans and our and our um dating scans and we'd had those and then I miscarried at around the nine week mark and the thing that I really struggled with in that pregnancy was the fact

that I almost felt like I wasn't allowed to be so upset because it wasn't planned felt like it was unreasonable for me to feel that much pain about something and that much loss that I hadn't planned and so I didn't really think that my friends would understand and so I didn't tell a lot of people about it I also felt incredibly alone I didn't know anybody who had had a miscarriage my first thought was there's something wrong with me even though the doctors had said there's nothing wrong with you and statistically most people go on to have really healthy babies after a miscarriage. So I knew logically that everything was okay, but there was a massive part of me that was like, well, you don't know for sure. And so Matt and I had, we had gotten

so excited about the prospect that we were going to have a baby and we had started to envisage what our life was going to be like. And we had started to get excited about that. And then that was taken away from us. And so that really shifted our perspective on what we wanted in life. And then that's what made us go okay well all bets are off now let's just keep trying and see what happens and we were so incredibly lucky to then have Marley May. Part of that though was that my entire pregnancy with Marley was really overshadowed by the fact that I had had that miscarriage and I really felt like I wasn't able to enjoy being pregnant in the same way that I think I would have had enjoyed it if I hadn't miscarried the first time. And you fell pregnant with Marley

quite soon after your miscarriage is that that's right isn't it yeah so we were really lucky like and we have always been quite lucky with falling pregnant I guess for us it's the staying pregnant part that's been a bit of a struggle so I fell pregnant about two months after I'd had my miscarriage the problem with my pregnancy with Marley was that I bled throughout my whole pregnancy so it happens to some people and they can still go on to have really healthy pregnancies but it was this constant looming fear that I had and I remember being at I remember being at Melbourne Cup um two years ago and I was pregnant and we hadn't come out yet and said that we were pregnant and I started bleeding at Melbourne Cup and I just was filled with so much sadness because I thought

it's it's happening again like how do I stop this it's happening again and we ended up leaving and coming back home to Sydney and and I was just so so sad because I kept feeling like this is everything is happening again we were really lucky like I'm I did bleed through my whole pregnancy but but you know we went on to have an incredibly healthy beautiful baby but I do feel like that pregnancy was fully shadowed by the fact that we had already had a miscarriage absolutely and I guess the fact is of course you're so lucky to fall pregnant again so quickly because that often doesn't happen but the fact of the matter is it was it was so soon after you just went through this traumatic experience that of course you're going to have that fear and stress because it's

literally just happened yeah like you didn't really have the time to to I guess I don't know did you mourn properly or was it just like oh my god it's happening again so quickly but I also think I don't think it really changes I think that if you've had a miscarriage once then that's always going to taint your ability to enjoy your second pregnancy there's always going to be some fear attached to it I was saying to you earlier Brit when we were talking about this episode I didn't really have the understanding of what it was to have a miscarriage I didn't really have the level of empathy I was kind of I kind of thought like how can you be so sad about something that only existed for eight ten weeks you know I didn't quite it didn't quite click and then what

happened to me I was like oh I get this now it really allowed me to have a total different understanding and perspective on what miscarriage is and the loss that goes along with that feeling well I imagine I guess for me I haven't experienced it so for me to try and put myself in that position I guess it's like when you have a breakup even if that's not even if you haven't been with that person for long sometimes you mourn the loss of what could have been and the idea of the life you had and what you had planned what you had thought about and what you would had imagined so I imagine it's the same thing sure it was eight weeks but you had your whole life had just changed and your whole thought process had included now this amazing little human the other

part of it as well and I guess like the part that I really wanted to have a conversation about is that there is this secrecy that surrounds the first three months of pregnancy you know we're really told don't tell anyone because you might have a miscarriage and then the issue with with that is that if you haven't had a conversation with your family or your friends about the fact that you're pregnant then when a miscarriage happens it means that you're not able to have a conversation about the miscarriage which which I found really difficult because I was like I can't go to work I can't go and do things with my friends because it's so visceral and physical which we'll get into because I think it's really important to talk about in detail what it feels

like and you know what it is but I felt like okay this huge thing has happened to me and I can't talk about it now because nobody even knew I was pregnant in the first place there was this feeling of like invalidation that kind of went with it as well. I guess it's a bit of a catch-22 isn't it because the reason they tell you not to go and tell the world about it until 12 weeks is because you have the highest risk of miscarrying in that first 12 weeks but then like you said you don't tell anyone and you go through it and then you don't feel like you can tell anyone so that's a bit of a catch-22. I imagine it's important to tell a few close people to you and I think most people would probably do that so that if this ever does happen you do have somebody to sort of lean

on it really cuts me deeply when you say you felt so alone which is mind-blowing because miscarriage is so common the statistics at the moment sort of say that one in five women who are pregnant will have a miscarriage but it doesn't feel like that like when it's happening to you it really feels like well where where the frig are these other women like like holy hell I haven't met them yet but like I said as soon as it had happened to me and I kind of joined this club as you would say like I felt like people were so much more open to talk about their experiences and then I found out that friends and family members and people who I never knew had had a miscarriage would talk to me about it I guess like that that whole story kind of brings us to

two months ago and what happened was is um Matt and I have been trying it's a pretty non-unique story in that it happens to a lot of women but basically I found out I was pregnant and I told you and sorry Matt I did know before you I told Britt and I and I told told Matt and once again like we had gotten really excited about it and we had booked out dating scans and everything and then and then a week later I felt different and I knew something was wrong and I knew it was happening again I guess I never thought I would be someone who would have one miscarriage let alone did I think I would be someone who would have two miscarriages to me it's been really important to talk about miscarriage because it's been an inextricable part of my pregnancy journey

and I do also think that it does a disservice to just be like hey I've got a beautiful healthy baby because maybe there's another woman out there who's struggling to have children and you see pregnancy announcement after pregnancy announcement on Instagram and it seems like everybody has it so easy and so I think it's really important to talk about the dark side and the difficult side because they go hand in hand they really do and we do have a lot of people actually write in to us saying, how do you deal with that? A lot of people, a lot of women are writing in saying, I really want a baby. All I'm seeing are my friends falling pregnant. All I'm seeing everywhere I look on social media are babies. So I think this is really nice to know

that sure, you do have Molly Mae and she's incredible, but you have had two huge losses also. I think it's really important for everyone listening and seeing that and feeling like it's suffocating them that not everything is what it seems and you it's just really important to focus on your own little journey I remember when you told me you were pregnant and it had been such a tough week you had been going through a lot of other things as well your pop was really ill at the time and you had a lot of stresses and Laura and I I don't know if I was like this because of you you know when you hang around someone a lot and you you cry because they cry Laura was crying I was putting dumping all of my emotional energy onto you and we would walk into the podcast room

and Laura would be really upset and then I would just cry as well like I don't know why we were so emotional and then she gets in the car one day she looks at me she goes I know why I've been crying I'm like why and you're like I'm pregnant and I was like what about the podcast um but no I do I do remember that and then I guess it wasn't that long after a few weeks after and then obviously your whole world was turned upside down again I guess my question at right now is is the feeling the second time around how did it differ from the first time in everything I want to know how it differed physically like did you feel the same things did it take the same amount of time emotionally was it the same thing so I guess it's just like I'm asking from a point of

I have no idea I'm gonna ask as if I'm the general public that hasn't been through it And I'm, I'm genuinely interested in, in what happened, you know, and what you felt and what you went through. So I think like, firstly, it is a huge emotional whiplash. You for one day feel so excited and happy. And then the next day you're like, oh, okay, that's gone. But the thing that was different the second time around to the first time around is that I almost hadn't allowed myself to get excited yet like I had really just compartmentalized the fact that I was pregnant and put it into a bit of a box in the side of my brain and being like cool well we'll only check into that and allow my I'll only open that box once I know that everything is okay if that makes

sense I remember you actually saying I said how are you going to tell Matt are you going to tell him tonight and I remember you saying oh I might just hold off a little while I'm not ready to get in there yet like I've got so much work to do you were sort of like I'm gonna put it aside because I know once I tell him it's on he's he was gonna be yeah I'm like Donkey Kong and I think that like the first time the first time that I was pregnant the first time I told Matt I was so excited and I was so happy and the thought of a miscarriage never even entered my my brain space I was like what that happens to you know other people everyone but me what is that and then I guess this time around I was like oh actually do you know what I'm not going to get excited about it

and I will just kind of ride this out and see what happens and that that affected me in a lot of ways because I did tell Matt that I was pregnant but it affected the way that I told Matt that I was pregnant had I allowed myself to get excited I would have gone and like gotten cute booties and like done a cute little like a baby reveal we're having a baby instead we were sitting on the couch this one night and we just ordered pizza pepperoni pepperoni pizza from memory from Galveston's down the road and it was really spicy and it because I was pregnant it tasted a bit weird and so I had a mouthful and it tasted really strange and I was like oh this this this pizza tastes like soap and Matt was like no the pizza tastes fine and I was like well no the pizza

tastes like soap and he was like Laura the pizza tastes great and I was like well I'm pregnant so it tastes like soap okay yeah like that was how I told him but it was me being defensive because I was so in my mind so fearful of the thought that maybe I was going to have another miscarriage so I was like well no if I can't be excited about it no one's going to be excited about it you know I guess like there's different thoughts on everything maybe I manifested it if if you want to go down that train of thought but I felt the exact same way with Marley like I didn't allow myself to get excited properly excited about Marley until she was like six months in my belly I guess this time it's taken the shine off it um it's taken the shine of pregnancy it's taken the excitement

of pregnancy and that's it's sad really I want to just touch on something you just said and I know you didn't really mean it but when you said maybe you manifested it because you didn't want to get excited you absolutely did not manifest it you were just you were just reacting to a situation you had been through before and that's that's how we live and learn in our life so you had adapted to a situation and you knew not to do it but you do not manifest things like that um and i know i know and the sensible part of me knows that but but isn't it funny like i would never in my normal life think that think this like i would never think and put guilt on something like that but even by saying I manifested it, or there was a, even trying to use that as an excuse,

I'm still harboring some guilt for it. Which is why I want to feel, I know I can tell. And that's why I want to point that out that I can't imagine the feeling a lot of women must feel is that like, what's wrong with me? And why couldn't I provide a home for this baby? And why couldn't I carry it? And what could I have done differently? You kind of start racking your brain and you go, oh my god was it the was it those few glasses of wine I had before I found out I was pregnant or was it the fact that I did a like a hit class or you start thinking all these things that are totally irrational and which research says none of it actually would make a difference but you still kind of want something to blame from a physical conversation about what it feels like

when I went to the doctor they talked about it they explained to me what had happened and they, they gave me my option as to whether I wanted to be medically induced or whether I wanted to go through the process of passing you myself or, um, or they could give you medication to speed up the process. I decided that I would just wait and they didn't prepare me for how physically painful and taxing it is. And so not only are you going through like the sadness side of things, it is, I know that everyone is different. And so I can only speak for my own experience but it is such a painful full body experience in that you feel like you're having contractions you pass really big clots like they can range anywhere between like the size of a 50

cent piece up to the size of an orange like there's such a spectrum so forgive me for my ignorance but I'm just going to say things as it happens when you're saying like you're passing the clots what let's start at the start what what's the first thing that happened that you said okay something was not right was it bleeding was it pain was it so for me I had a sharp pain in my left side that wouldn't go away just kind of like a stitch like a little bit of a days for a few hours okay for a few hours and this is like like I said this is totally different for every single person some people get spotting first and then there's people who have spotting and that's totally normal but so I had this pain and it wouldn't go away and then I started getting a bit more cramping in

my lower back and I was like this feels very very reminiscent of like period pain and I was like what is this and then I started getting spotting and that's when I knew like okay this doesn't feel right um something's really wrong so then over the course of the next 24 hours like the pain increased and the bleeding increased and it kind of increased to a point where I was like well it's undeniable what's happening and I called my doctor and had a conversation and what does that involve calling the doctor yeah like what what like what do they I guess it depends like some people will go to emergency some people will ride it out at home like there is such a spectrum I didn't go to emergency because my doctor had explained to me that there really is nothing

that they can do if you are miscarrying so I was like okay I will wait this out and see what happens. And, and, and it was like, it was undeniable. I knew what was happening. And then, then you start having the contraction waves, like this really intense, like buckled over pain. And then it kind of subsides a little bit and you'll have a gush of blood and then it will happen again. And, but I still continue to bleed for like three weeks after that, which it's just this constant reminder. It's this constant reminder of what is happening. So not only do you feel sad and shit but you physically feel so sad and shit and I just felt like I was so poorly prepared for the physical side of what it entails and I mean in both of my miscarriages I

was early like I was definitely first trimester I was relatively early trimester it was still so physically intensive that I can only imagine what it's like for women who miscarry later on in life so that's kind of from a physical perspective I must admit that I didn't know how long it went on for because I remember two three weeks down the track and you you'd say I'm still bleeding I'm still having to wear a pad um and I was really shocked because I guess I have never really spoken about it with other people either and I didn't know I knew that you passed a lot of clots and I knew you bled a lot but I didn't think it went on for so long and I think a lot of people probably don't know that and maybe for some people it doesn't and sorry for like

being so super graphic guys. Like, but I guess I know that for me, there just wasn't any information on this. Like I would get onto forums and I would read what other people had kind of written about it. But from like a girlfriend to girlfriend conversation, there just wasn't any of this sort of information out there. And I think had I had that information at hand or had heard someone say it before it started happening to me, I would have felt a little bit more emotionally equipped for it so in saying that the second time around I felt more emotionally equipped for the physical side of actually having a miscarriage because I knew what I was in for and I knew what to expect so that's what was different about this one versus the first one I mean you only told a few people

you were pregnant but I remember when you told me that you had miscarried you said it as in like oh hey um I'm gonna be a bit late I'm going through a miscarriage but like don't even worry about it I'll be there soon and and I was like I was like uh what I was like what you're late because you're miscarrying and you're like yeah but it's totally fine and I remember just being like Laura like it's not fine and you can sit in this and and let's talk about this but you were like um no like I'll deal with it later there's nothing we can do and you just wanted to get on with it because I think you knew this time around I guess that there is nothing you can do right now and, and it's going to go on for a while. And I'm a real coper. Like I'm not someone who sits

in my sadness and also takes me a little while to really process how I feel about things. I'm sure there's some, I'm sure there's some people who can relate to this, but when something bad happens, it takes me a while for my brain to go, Oh, you're sad. Or, Oh, this is how you actually feel. I don't really feel my feelings instantly. Um, and so it kind of took me a couple of days to process how I actually felt about what was happening. And that also ties into the fact that I hadn't really allowed myself to be happy about it in the first place. The more that people talk about it, the more that we normalize it, the more conversation that there is, then the less stigma that's attached to it. And there is this like real therapeutic healing that comes from having

a conversation about something and talking through an experience and seeing other people and meeting other people who have had that same loss because it makes you realize, oh, there's nothing wrong with me. Like that's happened to them as well. And I remember reading Michelle Obama had had a miscarriage and I remembered reading about it in great detail. And she really explained sort of how she felt and how far along she was. And she was quite far along in her pregnancy. And I was like, wow, she is someone with such huge influence in the world. And she's someone who I think is really, she's incredible. And I was like, she's talking about this and she's having a conversation about this publicly with no judgment, with no guilt, with no stigma attached. And I was like,

this is what we need to be doing because it's the only way for people to feel like they're supported and seen in this. How, I guess, did it affect Matt and yours and Matt's relationship? because I just wonder how often the husband or boyfriend or fiance is not left out of it but I guess it's hard for them they probably don't feel the attachment to the level because it's not inside of them but they would have a loss as well they would imagine their life with the child and I wonder if sometimes we forget about them that is so incredible like he has always been so so supportive of me he was the one that was really supportive of me talking about it publicly he was like you have these conversations because it gives purpose to the fact that it happened that we have

been through this now twice it's really galvanized our relationship it's really made us go through the amazing times together and also work through some of the really shitty times as well but also makes us realize that we want to have more kids you know every time that it has happened to us we're like no this is really what we want because because we wanted it yeah because we were so sad by it not happening so it really reinforces the choices and the fact that this is this is exactly what we want so moving into another direction you and I were just like going through what we were going to talk about today and it sort of came up how sometimes your friends or people in your life can can have so much like goodwill and have great intentions when they want to come and support you

but it doesn't quite hit the mark I guess what's your advice if there is someone out there that's friend is going through this what are some things that you found and if I did something you can tell me now well this is this is exactly it we're kind of talking about like all the different facets of what we could talk about in and around miscarriage and obviously there's going to be so many people who never experience it themselves but they will be in a situation where someone they love experiences it and I know from being in the situation myself that there there are not many things that you can say that will make the situation better but there are a lot of things that you can say that will make the situation worse all right so let's hope I wasn't in this

category what what is something what I what I really kind of wanted to say people very well meaning will say to you like oh well you know it just wasn't meant to be or maybe this isn't the right time for you and like I get that they're trying to be supportive and they're trying to be constructive but when you are going through miscarriage being told that now is not the right time it feels very dismissive of what is happening and it feels very much like well actually no now is the right time I I wanted this I was excited and happy about this so telling me that that now is not the right time or that you know obviously something's wrong and that's why it didn't happen it doesn't actually take away the feeling of hurt and sadness another one that um i think is really

common which i heard in my second pregnancy and i only heard it from a couple of people because i really only spoke about my miscarriage to a couple of people but it seems really common when you have one child to be told oh well like you're just you're lucky that you have marley and you're lucky that you have a baby and i am lucky that i have a baby i know that and i know there are many women out there who don't have that but just because you have a child doesn't diminish your right to feel grief over something that you lost just because you have one doesn't take away the fact that you have lost something else and I think the only the honestly if if you know someone who's having a miscarriage and they come and they talk to you about it the only thing that you can say

that is going to be good in this situation is like that fucking sucks and I'm really that was literally quote what I said to you yeah that fucking sucks and I'm really sorry and I hope you're okay how are you can I do anything for you do you need me to cook something do you need a hug maybe not right now social distancing but do you need anything and I think that that's enough I don't think you need to explain or try and you know I don't think you need to explain or try and tell people like oh like you'll get pregnant again this happened to my friend like none of that really matters in that moment the only thing that matters is to say are you okay and is there anything I can do yeah I think it's important not to try to justify to your friend why something

happened which is I think anyone in your life that is talking to you like that they mean so well and they do it from love and saying that like it's not your time it will come that's from a good place but it's not it's not helping you in your situation totally and I I say this out of love like I say this because I used to do this like I was that person and I would have that conversation thinking that I was doing the right thing and then when I was in the situation myself I was like I realized how tone deaf that was but it took me being in the position of someone who's experiencing it to go oh my god please stop lecturing me on how or why this has happened to my body like just shut up and say I hope you're okay but but I know it comes from the most well-meaning place but I think that

sometimes you know people react weird when they're put in a uncomfortable position and it's an uncomfortable conversation and we don't really know how to deal with other people's grief when it makes us uncomfortable well it's that idea again isn't it it's the idea of that you can't change that situation now like you can't nothing anyone can say or do is going to change what has happened so it's really I remember just saying to you that fucking sucks and then I was like and I am so sorry and I am you I am here any time of the day or night call me and then that's all you can do because you can't nothing else that you can do all you can do is be there for your friend nothing you you say is going to change the fact that it's happened so I think it's really

important just to be there and but and genuinely be there I really feel like I have covered everything that I set out to talk about in this episode in regards to my own personal experience and my own experiences with pregnancy and with loss and I just really I can't I can't stress this enough really that I don't think that my story is unique I think that there are so many women who have been through something very very similar and there is power in conversation and there is power in talking about that shared experience if just one person who has gone through something similar feels more supported and they feel seen and they feel like the their feelings and their their sadness is validated and they feel supported in this then there is purpose

to sharing this and I'm okay with being exposed and putting my small story out there in the world I'm I just am really proud of you that's all I want to say you're such an incredible woman and I mean seeing you go through it seeing everything else that you went through at the same time and you guys I mean I saw it firsthand and there's so much that Laura went through in that time that you guys don't know about and god I just like I just take my I just can't say enough about you right now and um I take my hat off to you for being brave enough to to tell your story on such a public platform and I know there'll be so many women out there that will be grateful and so many women that would have just learned so much and taken something from this and they won't feel

alone and for that i just love you i think you're amazing so thank you what do i do with that okay that's so cute i was like where do we go now what do we do i can't even hug i know ah jeez life guys throws some fucking spanners at you i guess whilst we are having the conversation about it we just thought if we're going to get onto this really personal level and laura's going to share the situation and the feelings and the experiences that she went through personally that maybe we should just touch on a few things from a medical point of view as well um because i feel like miscarriage is such a huge huge topic and I don't think we'll ever be fully revisiting it hopefully um for all of our sake so we just thought we would talk about I guess some reasons

maybe miscarriage happen um just so people don't feel like it's just their body so there are a few different things and a few different reasons that they can happen and again guys we are not doctors we have just done a little bit of research ourself and that's all we can do if anything if you are experiencing anything or you do have any worries of course go to the doctor and of course speak to someone I guess first and foremost like we said miscarriage is really common and most of the time it's a chromosomal abnormality yeah so like like I said earlier like one in five seems to be the statistic and it was mostly early pregnancy that that happens in um but from what I understand them from what I know about it is that majority of miscarriages that happen are

completely unpreventable it's not that you did something it's not that you ate something it's nothing that you have done lifestyle wise that's caused this there has been there's so many things that have to go right along the way for a pregnancy to be viable and for a a healthy child to be born that just something has gone wrong along that line and the the really disheartening thing is that often they can't tell you why they can't actually give you a reason um they just say like it's one of those things and that's what they've done for me for the last few times they can't tell me why it's happened maybe there is like some sort of compromise in your cervix or your uterus that's also something but that's a very physical thing that they can internally check and and actually

validate and give you a reason for but majority of times you will come out of this experience and have absolutely no idea why it happened in the first place yeah the doctors will actually say that it's just genetically abnormal embryos it's it it's out of your control like absolutely out of your control and something that i did read laura that i had no idea about and i don't know if you had any idea about it but i actually found it fascinating is that it's not just like as women age we all know that every doctor says that as you age as a woman it increases your chance of things going wrong in a pregnancy and i feel like it's always been put on the women your eggs are aging and you better get a wriggle on and all these sort of things that

just put so much pressure on you anyway i read that it's also men that age and their sperm as their sperm ages that can also increase your risk of miscarrying so a man they say from like 45 on their sperm can start to have issues and that can also increase your risk so i actually had no idea that that was even a thing isn't it funny that we put so much i guess there's so much conversation around women and our biological clocks but no one ever talks about men and men's biological clocks we just kind of I just thought sperm had a great shelf life you see all these men though that are like 50s 60s 70s fathering children and so you always feel like it's all the pressure and all the fault and all the blame is on the women but I just found that was a really interesting fact

and then there was one other thing that I that I wanted to touch on too and I guess you will know about this as well from a personal level but a lot of the questions that people write in women they're asking how soon is too soon just to try again when do you try again how long do you wait and from what I have read I'm not sure what the doctors told you but I read that one to two periods at least is like should be your minimal but also it's more of an emotional and a physical thing isn't it it's like when you emotionally recover and feel like you're in a good place no one actually told me that like I didn't know that I was supposed to wait a period cycle and my period never returned to normal after my first miscarriage.

So I never got a period. I got pregnant within two months of my first miscarriage. But my period had never come back. See, that's interesting. And so I didn't know I was pregnant. I didn't even know you could do that. Well, there you go. You can't.

So I didn't know I was pregnant. It wasn't until I was quite far along with Marley that I then found out I was pregnant because I still hadn't gotten my period back and I thought it was just my body taking a really long time to get back to normal and correct itself but really I was pregnant again. Guys, I know that this has been like quite a heavy episode

and quite a different episode to what we normally do but it is something that's so important and it's something that hugely affects relationships, it's something that hugely affects women and it is something that we just don't talk about enough and we have started the conversation and I hope now you all, if you feel like you need an out, you can talk on the Facebook group

but hopefully this has helped some of you and you can just reach out to your friends and again Laura I could say it a thousand times but I can't say thank you enough and I know there's a lot of women out there that will be so eternally grateful for you sharing what you just shared because it is I can't imagine how exposing it is and you must feel so vulnerable but no thank you for letting me hijack this episode oh it's all yours baby it is all yours all right guys so we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet and our suck and our sweet is basically just the highlights and the lowlights of every week britney what is your suck okay so my suck i mean it didn't really affect me directly but i guess i was i was quite

offended by it i'm not sure i don't remember if i were you're gonna take my suck right now i feel like you're taking my suck and using it as your own suck i don't remember did you can get sucked did i or did i not tell you about bennett street dairy cookies no my sister told me about it so stop trying to claim all of it i couldn't remember because guys i've had this obsession for a long time bennett street dairy cookies they're these incredible cookies from um a cafe close to us and they are like out of control good um laura also has had the obsession since iso they have started to sell the dough cookie dough yeah so it's like cookie dough crack it has been our sweets for a long time it's also very expensive like it's so expensive so laura bought like four logs the other

day we were coming home she bought four logs i was like i'm gonna buy some too anyway she bought them all she that's brit's suck then i messaged her and i was like there were no bloody logs left and she's like oh i got four come down and i'll give you one and i was like i'm not gonna take your log i don't want it that much i was just wanting to whinge anyway i see later that night on her story that she burnt her cookies black this is this expensive very rare cookie dough oh you did it you took my suck i because it was my suck too and you gave me the suck first So my suck was my heart breaking at the log that could have been. Wow.

I know. You did it. You really did it. Yeah, I did it. Look, it wasn't my best moment in life. I'm a freaking terrible cook. I just don't know why. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I purchased cookie dough, pre-made. All I had to do was put it onto a baking tray, put it in the oven for seven minutes on 180 degrees. I put it in the oven and then within two minutes of being in the oven Marley had hit her head and was having a tantrum so I took her into the bedroom to give her a bottle and a cuddle and then I came out like maybe 25 minutes later they take six minutes guys Matt was sitting on the couch he could smell that the house was on fire and he was still sitting on his cat on the couch on Instagram swiping on Instagram what are you doing the house is burning down we're homeless and have no freaking cookies guys if you hadn't tasted these cookies you would know that i know

this suck sounds ridiculous but it was heartbreaking but anyways what's your sweet my sweet is i guess now doing this podcast with you and and seeing you tell your story and just seeing even you over the last few months since it's happened and and how amazing you've been how incredible you've been and seeing you on this journey to get to this point though to get to this point it's it's not easy and seeing you just get it all off your chest and knowing that you're only doing it because you want to help someone else it's my sweet oh I don't I'm not worthy the compliments make me feel weird all right well you just get into your sweet then um okay so my my my suck my suck for the week it was the cookies was the cookies but maybe i can come up with another suck no i think it's

still the cookies and then my sweet for the week i mean apart from the magician show which was really freaking good i also think this is my sweet i i can't believe we had the same suck and same sweet there's got to be a rule against that we're spending too much time this is terrible we're not this is awful what a disaster i've said it a few times throughout this episode like it's I think it's therapeutic for me to be able to talk about it um it also is probably going to be something that even comes to a surprise to some of my friends who I still haven't had a conversation about so who I still haven't told so it's kind of therapeutic to be able to be like this happened and it's now out there in the world and it means it's okay for me to talk about it

and so to be able to talk about it and to hope that it helps somebody else then that gives purpose there's purpose in the pain and I really really have a lot of appreciation for that and guys if you got something from this episode leave us some love go and give Laura a bunch of little love hearts on it flood her dms don't don't do that flood her dms with love hearts colored love hearts if you have enjoyed this episode you know the drill jump on leave us a review with apple we love them we read them more we greatly appreciate every single person who does that also if you have a question for ask uncut please slide into our dms or send it through to us on the facebook page and we will add it to the list for this coming thursday's episode of ask

uncut also if you have any accidentally unfiltered you know where to send them shoot them through to our dms at life uncut podcast or you can throw them up on the facebook page now and i want you guys to help each other out give each other some advice give each other some love and share the Because we love love.