REWILD + FREE - Navigating Queer Motherhood, Birth, and Identity, with Dana Struthers

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

How do you navigate the complex world of relationships, parenting, and identity while embracing your true self?   This week, I'm joined by Dana Struthers from New Zealand, who answers this million dollar question for us through the lens of her own matrescence journey.  Matrescence has been no straight road for Dana. The journey into and through Motherhood saw Dana experiencing pregnancy loss, severe postnatal depression & anxiety, a changing career, a break up in her marriage, and having her own sexual realization and Queer awakening. In this episode, Dana opens up about her decision to end her marriage,  her journey into dating women, and her vastly different birth experiences, while exploring the importance of being mindful of our biases and the opinions of our ego in the birth space. With her now-partner, Rebecca, we discussed their experiences during lockdown, navigating relationships and parenting, as well as Dana's experience with postnatal depression and the significant changes she went through during this period.Finally, join us as we delve into the balancing of divine masculine and feminine energy within a woman-loving-woman relationship and how it shows up within the partnership and household. Dana's valuable insights on the importance of standing in your own truth and being aware of your own biases serve as a powerful reminder for all of us to live life unapologetically and intentionally.Connect with Dana on IG (@BirthCraftNZ)  & TikTok (@danabirthcraft)Dana is a Transition to Parenting Educator & Seasons of Matrescence Guide.  With BirthCraft, Dana creates and delivers evidence based  info with a holistic approach to expectant parents as well as a project in a high school with students (who are not pregnant!).   Based in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Dana does face to face as well as zoom sessions with clients in NZ as well as the world for Antenatal Education, Birth Planning & Support as well as Matrescence connections. Dana's free resources can be found online at www.BirthCraft.co.Nz Connect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer)Apply to be a guest on the show hereSupport the showConnect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer) Want to be a guest on the podcast? Fill out this form

There was no real clear role modelling or blueprints around queer relationships and them being successful. And I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a mother. So we just didn't see anything outside the possibilities in that. So there is a part of me that it really mourns not exploring that in my youth. Welcome to the Not Just a Mom show, where we have open and honest conversations about the vulnerabilities and the victories within entrepreneurship and new motherhood. If we haven't met yet, I'm Nicole Pazier and I'm going to be your host. Here on the show, we don't subscribe to perfection. In fact, being present is the new perfect and showing up messy is the new norm. My hope is that this podcast serves as a safe space for me and inspiration for you

to stop living life watered down. Together, we will uncover versions of our most potent selves where we show up unapologetically, intentionally, and without filter. We are worthy, just as we are, as all that we are, not just the label we put on ourselves. We are more than just a mom, and I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back to another week on the podcast. I can't believe this is already episode 12, but here we are. And this week is super cool because I'm joined by, I think, my farthest guest yet, and that is Dana Struthers. Dana is joining us all the way from New Zealand, and in this episode, Dana shares with us her own matricence journey. And as we know, motherhood and the

initiation into it is unique for all of us. And Dana's story is no exception. She's going to share with us the vast amount of identity shifts that she was undergoing when she became a mom, including a massive change in career, actually breaking up her marriage and having her own sexual realization and coming out as queer in the middle of a pandemic, which was shortly after the birth of her second son. And Dana's story is beautiful and a humbling reminder of the importance of standing in your own truth and being aware of your own biases. We also hear Dana's vastly different birth experiences, the first being a home birth and the second actually being a hospital induction. And she reflects on just the importance of not attaching to a certain birth outcome and being

really mindful of not just your biases, but also the opinions of your ego and how that shows up in the birth space. And make sure you listen to this episode in its entirety because I asked Dana what it's like balancing the divine masculine and feminine energy within a woman loving woman relationship and just how that shows up within the partnership and the household. And I just want to thank Dana for volunteering to be on the show and for being so open and vulnerable and sharing her story with us. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Great. So kia ora, my name is Dana.

I am based in Auckland, New Zealand. We have indigenous culture here called the Māori. So there is a lot of part of my practice is incorporating that language and that welcome and also signifying where we are. According to the Atlanta, New Zealand and Auckland are very colonial words, whereas the city I live in is Tamaki Makaurau and the country we call Aotearoa and Aotearoa is the land of the long white cloud so when they voyage from the Pacific Islands they saw a lot of snow here and they'd never seen that before so. That's very cool yeah um so I am a mama to two boys I have an eight-year-old called Jet and my youngest Franco is four and I share 50-50 custody with them with their dad

so we split up um very early on in my youngest um life So he was about eight months old when we called it quits. And that was a nine-year marriage, a 13-year relationship that I just sort of came to a head to. At that time, I was battling really severe postnatal depression, which was undiagnosed. So I had been hiding it in many different ways. I think a lot of us have this idea of what postnatal depression which was undiagnosed so I had been hiding it in many different ways I think a lot of us have this idea of what postnatal depression looks like and I kind of just thought something was wrong with me because I love my baby I was connected to my baby I was breastfeeding my baby I was getting them to school and daycare and everything that they needed to do. But there were other parts of my life that I was really trying to control in not so healthy ways.

Restrictive eating and just feeling really empty inside. And so it was Mother's Day four years ago that I sort of got to the end of the night, got the kids to bed. And I was was just like I'm done like I'm not doing this anymore um and called it quits then uh and it was just this real I was working I worked so hard with this um motherhood identity and wanting to prove myself in that motherhood and be seen in that motherhood and that mother's day just really highlighted for me how separate we had become in our experience in transitioning to parents and where I had had all the drastic shifts and changes he did not so when after the birth of my first boy, I got made redundant from my role. I had a corporate life, if you can imagine that, and worked for a bank and I did a lot of adult learning and development there. And after that happened, I was like, I can't imagine going back to that corporate world.

And I become quite a birth nerd as well well I had a home birth with my first um and really had a really beautiful euphoric experience through that uh and then with my second I had been induced at hospital with preeclampsia so two very different experiences but um became such a nerd in that um and so pairing the two passions um birth and adult learning uh it was only natural for me to then seek out how I could become an antenatal educator um and in doing in doing that um I wanted to start volunteering at our local parent center. So we've got this organization here where they do the antenatal classes. They're quite famous in that. And they hadn't been doing any of the training for antenatal educators for like five years.

And so the best way to sort of get a foot in the door was to start volunteering there um in the classes and I had asked um my kid's dad if he could come home one night a week to um parent his children so I could um volunteer and do this and he said no and that really just broke me because it was like this one thing I wanted to do this light at the end of the tunnel um and um then I was like I'm just I'm just going to do it anyway and we broke up very shortly after that no and that was a huge contributor for it um and so started volunteering there did that for a couple of years and then when the cohort um the first cohort going through after they'd redesigned it um I got I was able to get into that um and so I graduated in 2021 from that and that was a whole a wild experience as well going back and studying I'd never done

um um more tertiary education past high school um here so having to figure out how to be a student and mother and be a single mother um and that was quite wild um but when after we'd broken up for um we'd been broken up for a while and I started doing some other things to fill my cup and do some self-discovery. I did a sisterhood, like confidence thing online. And when like going through that and reading, reading heaps of books, we read, we read Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, as well as Byron Katie's Loving What Is. Going through that and reading that and having some self-discovery in there, I had this remembering of feeling quite queer or bisexual at high school. And having that experience at high school, it was really minimised, I think, in the early 2000s.

Bioreasia was quite real. And it was just seen as wanting attention or being greedy. And it was kind of like you had to pick a side. And there was no real clear role modelling or blueprints around queer relationships and then being successful. And I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a mother so we just didn't see anything outside the possibilities in that so there is a part of me that it really mourns not exploring that in my youth and maybe I would have been able to have different experiences but then you can't can't change these things anyway um but so we after after a year after our breakup I was ready to start dating again and very quickly realized I was not interested in men like at all um and because you've been with your husband for a while haven't you so even

we've been together for yeah very long time so like I don't even know what dating would entail these days because we've technically been together since we were in grade nine um yeah so I can't even imagine and then on top of all the other massive identity shifts you're going through new motherhood being a student again now taking on this role of single mother but now also venturing into the dating world it was it was wild and um I also this was always also in 2020 um so we had just gone into like this massive lockdown um so here in New Zealand we had really really strict lockdowns um that lockdown was for two months um and yeah you can just go to the doctors and to the supermarket and that was it um and the first um few weeks of that lockdown um I was home with the

kids for two weeks without sharing them with their dad so he had actually only just moved out the weekend before the lockdown went like he moved out on a Saturday and we went into level four lockdown on the Wednesday um so my poor boys like they like their whole world got rocked and shifted used to seeing their dad all the time too two weeks of no contact yeah because we just we were there was so much fear and it was like well if you've got it over in your bubble um or if we've got it we don't want to cross that um so it's like a two-week quarantine and then we started doing um 50 50 um during that uh and I think I had gone on a couple of dates before the lockdown I'd gone on one date with um a guy and one date with a girl but and before that I'd had like a one-night stand um I don't mind sharing that I had a really a terrible one-night stand my first ever one-night stand and my only ever one-night stand which was just

with a woman the first and the last the first and the last um and uh it was yeah I'm not never recommended for one I'm not made for one night stands I don't think um but yeah when like just chatting to guys on um online or on tinder and stuff I was just like this is disgusting like there is absolutely no respect and I think that's where this I think that's where sexuality can be quite fluid because I know quite a few women who have left marriages recently especially in the lockdown and have come out as queer um and in the dawn of that and it's one thing is we're seeing a lot more of it um in the media and it's becoming I guess a little bit more socially acceptable and I think another thing is too we um after having children that for me in my matricence journey the connection I wanted with somebody in

a romantic relationship was also um a lot deeper and emotionally connected and I and I'm not I don't want to dismiss men that you can't get that with them but it wasn't there wasn't a level that I was able to connect with men on that level that I wanted in a partner going forward um so yeah just I had my little ho phases um and yeah went on heaps of dates with women I had a little a little situations, especially like lockdown situations where everything kind of gets compounded because it's this whole, you can't see each other, but you're talking all the time and there's nothing else really going on. And it's almost like this force, like all or nothing, like commitment. Yeah. So yeah, I had some run-ins with that, but I think after the big lockdown, so I had been living on the same property as my parents. So we rented off of them, but we had separate spaces, but all on the same Kōreika section. And they found out about me dating women during this lockdown and

they were really not okay with it which really shocked and surprised me um and they I think they would kind of say that it was because of the way I was behaving and my mum was saying that I was, it reminded her of when I was a teenager, which if we think of matricence and adolescence and all the shifts and everything that happens and changes, like, of course. hearing that at all that felt um really dismissive of my experience and also um a reflection into I guess that bi erasure that I was battling with from um my teenage years as well so you think there was a bit of friction there was a bit of tension a lot of that going on um and I ended up moving out out and moving closer to the side of Auckland that their dad was at, which was like being a teenager all over again. I had this cute little two bedroom flat that was all mine and I just loved it. And re-established sat in there really figured out who I was what I wanted finished my studies did the mama thing um and then yeah had another situationship

that broke up um and then started dating my nail partner from that. And so that was all very, in very quick succession, I did. I like to joke to her that I was having another ho phase and then she came along and tipped it upside down. But it's been, yeah, it's been a really interesting ride. And I think still forever shifting and changing what's happening in those processes. Because during that time I was finishing uni, finishing my diploma, figuring out work and parenting and that balance. And then I did the, we went into another big lockdown in 2021 um so we we got together so it's only two years ago we got together became official and everybody

jokes about like women loving women relationships like what do what do two lesbians do on a date like they hire a u-haul and move in together and well while we were like very aware of that and wanting to slow down especially with children involved um we kind of got put in this pressure cooker of um in the august that yeah we went into this other level four lockdown um and we thought this was we're like this is great we can have a little free trial of like living together and seeing how all that works out um and because we thought it would just be another couple of weeks because we'd had like little lockdowns in between the first big one and we just expected it to be for a week or two no that went till December so you end up living together for like almost four months with like without the plan in place without the plan in place um and and it was really cute because

um the boys like they they got to know each other quite well as well so we did 50 50 with their dad and it worked really well and we would we would have the boys for two nights and then he'd have the boys for two nights um and then we would have we would be at Rebecca's house my partner's house for two nights um and then they'd go to their dad um for two nights and then we'd have them at my house for two nights and then so they were bouncing between three houses and we were just bouncing between the two um and then we're like okay like there is no way when we go back to um our sense of normality that we can't be living together so by the by the time the lockdown was over we'd had all plans about moving in together in the December of that year um so we've pretty much been living together for

almost two years now but officially just over a year and a half um and it was really cute because my oldest um he he wasn't that that snuggly or anything with her, but my youngest, because he'd only just turned three at that time. So he was more affectionate and very free in his like giving cuddles and all that sort of stuff with her. And we'd had a conversation about like, oh yeah, Jep will get along with you, but like he won't, he might not break that barrier.

But within a couple of weeks in lockdown he was like snuggling up to her on the couch and watching movies and we played a lot of board games and stuff so they really built this beautiful relationship um I think I think she's his favorite parent like he calls her the the co-parent um and he he looks a lot more like his dad than he does me but interestingly um because he's got darker hair and darker eyes and so does she so if they were out and about people if even if the four of us were out and about that i would think that jet was her son not mine that's so interesting that's really cool to hear how quickly they were able to get comfortable with her. Because I imagine that would have been a big fear of yours is, okay, well, now this new person is coming into their lives.

And obviously you have chosen to be with this person, but they might not be choosing that. From my own experience, my parents got a divorce when I was not even a year old. So I am very familiar with the co-parenting lifestyle and being at mom's house and then being at dad's house. And I'm also familiar with when my parents would be dating and my mom remarried not once but twice. And so I'm familiar with having that new adult figure in your life. And I would have been a little bit older and had, I guess, maybe more of an understanding of, well, okay, this is my dad and this is my mom. And the little version of me was like, well, I don't want another dad. So I had a really hard time letting a stepdad

come into my life. So it's just really cool to hear your boys be so comfortable around Rebecca so quickly. And I'm sure the age has a lot to do with it, but I'm also sure her being and her personality and how she is around them has a lot to do with it too. What do they call her now? They just still call her Rebecca. My youngest would call her Rebecca at first. And so I think a lot of people shorten Rebecca to Bex or Becca. And so a lot of your friends call you Bex. I always call her Rebecca.

But she was never Becky. But she would let Franco call her Rebecca, but she was never Becky. But she would let Franco call her Rebecca. That's cute. They still call her Rebecca or they'll call her mum by accident. But, yeah, we'll see if that develops into anything else as time goes on. But it's what I love learning about the matricence and the seasons of matricence and who, who goes through matricence. It was really beautiful to actually identify that as a stepmother, she was going through her own season and her own initiation into matricence because Rebecca doesn't have children of her own um but she has been step-mom before

so she was in another relationship um with a man who had two children so she was very familiar with the role um and I think that that is really significant because there can be so much hurt in that when you are the step-parent and if that relationship breaks up then you also are saying goodbye to those children so there is that tension that push and pull with your heart because I know that that is um that is something that that is with her absolutely they go through their own initiation and then they are also facing this potential of grief if there is a breakup and it's not just losing their relationship with you, it's losing their relationship with these kidsing the seasons of matrescence and just the identity shifts and understanding how our sense of identity is not just how we view ourselves, but also how others view us. with whatever adult relationship you had. But did you also notice that, because I've noticed this with myself, like since becoming a mother,

my values seem that much stronger and that much more clear. And my voice has gotten louder in the sense that I just don't care as much what other people think. And I'm able to actually stand in my unapologetic truth so I'm imagining that you've experienced some of that too and that would have made it easier for you to to shift identities there yeah I think um we are very preoccupied with what other people think and how other people view us and yeah there's that sense in motherhood it is quite

isolating anyway and then when you are shifting into these different areas different avenues um that kind of break that comp head mold it's not you now I look so queer. I dress very queer. I often will have rainbows on me somewhere. And I found that there is this part of me that is putting up these walls to be like, I am unashamedly who I am and standing strong in that. But then also, I don't know if I'm feeling safe in the world with that so I will come I will be quite bristly in situations around my queerness so I'll be at school pickup and I'll notice that like there are a lot of mums that are all together and they they look the same they dress the same they um you know are doing the

soccer mom thing and then there's me who was like wearing dungarees and is like um has like half a shaved head and like these mums don't talk to me and they don't like I didn't I didn't feel like included into the fold um and is that because of how I look or is it because of the energy that I feel and that I'm emitting backwards it's it's hard to know because then every now and then I'll talk to um some of the other mums and it's absolutely fine um but there's this there's this um part inside of me that is constantly telling me oh you're different and people aren't going to accept that because that has been what it has felt like for a really long time well and the the school pickup or school drop-off example um physically

because you know you look different and you know that they know you look different like it's not it's not something that anybody can argue like I know exactly what you're talking about and like the soccer mom vibe like either you you embody the soccer mom vibe or you don't a previous version of yourself would have wanted to just cover that up and dress yourself in a way so that you physically would fit in and obviously you're not doing that anymore so yeah I think it's just I just continue to show up and try and be my fullest self um but it is it is an ongoing process it is a lot of work because it I think there is so much uh self-confidence that I still need to build and I see that in a lot of mama that I work with

as well because all these things shift and change and yeah there's this part of us that is always seeking and wanting this external validation but when we unpack that and really look deeper we are all just looking for some connection like we're connection seeking beings um and yeah when when we let the defenses down that's when those connections can be made I love that it's so true and so applicable I think for anyone no matter what shoes you're in exactly exactly we're all I think you see these funny things online all the time it's like it doesn't matter if you've breastfed bottle feed your baby if you um use disposable nappies or cloth nappies like we've all um banged our kids head putting them into the car seat you know like we we always making mistakes and none of us are perfect um and so it's just trying to um

I guess recognize that and I think for me it is also um probably taking a lot of my own bias and my own um snobbiness out of it because it's it's kind of like this reverse snobbiness that I that I hold because I come from um a part in Tamaki Makaurau that is um a lower socioeconomic area so it's like it's West Auckland or Waitakere that I live in and because I moved closer to where my kid's dad was that was on the other like the other side of Auckland. So I've got like a 40 minute commute without traffic to drop my kids at school. And it's a more affluent area. And so out west, when my kids were at school in Kindi, like it was the school in Kindi that I went to growing up.

And we have a really large Pasifika population here. So there's a lot of Māori and Pasifika, so Samoan, Tongan, like beautiful community here that I'm really comfortable with. I'm white, I'm Pākehā, but I'm really comfortable. I know how to operate in those in those rooms and with those people um but then moving to this school it is a very white school so I get there and I'm like where are where are all my Pacifica aunties and grandmas and people that I know how to talk to and um communicate with and there's none of them there and um so for me there's this shift of like okay

so I feel less than as well because I I am not I don't have the townhouses and the million dollar houses and I don't drive the BMWs and the Kia Sportages that they do here so I'm already feeling less than and and that's on me because I'm like I am I not where I want to be like I'm feeling really shy around what my social standing is in this space because I'm not in this space and how are they going to feel if they find out that I'm commuting from Henderson I'm commuting from West Auckland um like are they gonna have a problem with that like they don't yeah right like are they are they gonna see you as a fraud and um yeah yeah like and that's like a totally real and valid fear because like you said we as humans like we need connection. And so that fear of not belonging basically is disconnection.

So of course, we're going to seek belonging in some way. I really like how you said that reverse snobbiness and how you're able to actually acknowledge your biases and recognize that you are also putting these people in boxes, right? Just like they are potentially putting you in boxes, so are you. And I think we all do it. And really, instead of trying to pretend we don't, it is better to just acknowledge it and be aware of our own biases and then have compassion for ourselves when we are potentially reacting or making judgments with those biases. Like that's when the hurt can come in is when there's judgments with the biases. But I think otherwise, like it's natural to have biases

because that comes from our own perspective and our own background and our own experience and all the things and I think and just I think when we when we can acknowledge where there is bias if we try to say no I'm neutral you're actually you're disconnecting yourself more from not only reality but other people because if we can acknowledge that bias then it's like addressing the elephant in the room. And then you can be open to the conversation rather than holding on to it with dear life without acknowledging that it's there. I totally agree. Like this neutrality. And I think a lot of people, for some reason, that's their goal.

I think they think neutrality is a way that I won't step on anyone's toes and I won't hurt anyone's feelings and I won't hurt anyone's feelings and I won't make anyone feel a certain type of way. And I think the truth is, is we need to step out of that because first of all, we're not responsible for how other people feel. We are only responsible for ourselves. And second, like you said, like actually like acknowledging and showing our biases is how we can connect. That's how we can actually like be on the same level with someone and be seen and feel safe and heard and acknowledged and recognized and all the things that we need for that sense of belonging I love that yes I think even even like coming out in my like with my parents um they so I never I didn't feel like it was um

necessary to come out because it's just one of those things like I don't have to make a big announcement if I'm dating a guy why should I be making a big announcement if I'm dating a girl I'm trying I'm trying this on I'm seeing if this is what I want or not um so with that I think there was a lot of hurt from their side but again not wanting to show anything like trying to be like neutral but you can feel there is the tension there um and my mum even said to me a year after the fact she was like I don't care if you want to turn around and be a lesbian now and I was like that is so dismissive because well a I haven't identified as a lesbian I haven't come out to you and I haven't said that that is not a term she's jumping conclude like jumping to a conclusion already making assumptions yeah and then secondly like if you actually work um genuine

and authentic in that response like oh this isn't what I knew about you. This is not what I expected about you. Let me just reprocess that. Then that would have been real and we could have had a conversation and then there could have been space and time for that. And I could have been allowed to be upset that that hurt you. But then the dust would have settled and then there would be a deeper connection because you know you don't you don't build really strong relationships with people by always agreeing and having a smooth time and being neutral like it's that rupture

and repair like it breaks but then it builds back closer and stronger and we need to and that's where having being aware of your bias and having honest reactions about things um that having those blow-ups and then having us resettle down is um is going to teach all of us how how and where it's safe to be in that world. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love that. I want to rewind a bit back to, you spoke briefly about your two births, the first being your home birth and the second being an induction. And I have to admit that when you told me that you've had a home birth and induction, I automatically assumed, and I, yeah, I automatically assumed that it was the opposite and you would have had the induction first and the home birth would have been some sort of redemptive birth. So I would love to hear just quickly, I guess, what that would have been like for you. Cause I can only imagine

coming from your first birth and having this um positive on paper home birth and then having a vastly different second birth like did that change your view on birth and your view on mothering and just kind of how all of that interweaves into all of this so I was really lucky we're the same we're like oh what's the birth story give me all the tea I want to hear it um so with my first I was really lucky that I had a colleague um who had also the year before had had a home birth um and had a really positive experience and so I was like oh that's really cool um let me look into that as well and my the midwife that I chose was somebody who has a um higher than the national

average um home birth rate just because that's something that she supports as well and I had taken the approach that there was nothing wrong with me I'm not sick so I don't need to go to hospital I don't need to go to hospital to um birth. And if anything goes wrong, I live 10 minutes from the hospital here. So that would be absolutely fine. And I did have people telling me, you can't have a home birth. It's your first child. You don't know how you're going to react and respond. And I don't know where it was in me that this wahine toa,

like this warrior woman that was just like no like I'll show you like let me show you how I can do it um and yeah it was he was 11 days overdue um I didn't need to be induced I went into spontaneous labor um and and managed to have him at home. And it was beautiful. It was euphoric. You know, when people talk about orgasmic birth, I was just like, who on earth is having an orgasm while they're in that much pain?

But I think, so I don't think that's the right term to use. Well, not for me, but I'll say euphoric birth, because there was just this real natural high from all those endorphins and your body doing what it needs to do um and that that connection and love and everything that um comes after these babies are born too and just thought oh my god I did it I showed them um but yeah I did it yeah yeah something you said something you said I just want to pick up again because I really resonated with it and you said um well just want to pick up again because I really resonated with it. And you said, well, with reference to this being your first birth and people saying, well, what do you

mean you can't have a home birth? This is your first. You need to see how, like, if your body can even give birth. I have a similar story in the sense that I also had a home birth for my first, well, my only baby. And it was me, my own mind chatter telling myself, well, who do you think you are to be able to have a home birth for your first? You should make sure you can do it first. And I really resonate with what you said about, well, watch me. I'm going to almost wanting to prove to yourself or to others that you can do it. I think that was a big motivating factor for me as well. And I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I'm just recognizing that that was definitely a big motivator we internalize that I think in here in Aotearoa we have what we call tall poppy syndrome so anytime anybody sort of sticks out they rise up

we chop them down so so if yeah you get this tall poppy syndrome of like oh look at me I can do this it's a really high pedestal to chop yourself down from so if we think about what that could do to your postnatal mental health uh and all those things it can be really significant yeah yeah oh that's actually really interesting you say that because every time I've shared my birth story, it's always like, well, I had this picture perfect birth, but I feel like I almost fell flat on my face postpartum. And it almost makes sense because, yeah, I would have put myself on this high pedestal. And then in my mind, I failed.

Like I didn't, like I didn't actually fail. Looking back, like I can see that I wasn't actually failing but to come from such a high and then it wasn't even that I was coming down to a low I was almost just coming back to normal but to just it felt like I was drowning in the natural waves of motherhood and yeah had I maybe not been on such a high and viewed myself as this, whatever it was, maybe those waves wouldn't have felt so, so drastic. Yeah. Yeah, because I think for us, I really love the spiritual side of birth and the liminal space that we are in bringing these babies earthside um and I really experienced that in that birth with my first I have really clear visualizations of um being like visualizing at

the beach and I felt like I had this whole spiritual support team behind me um helping me shift and bring this baby into the world. Because in reality, the people in the room weren't there for me. They were there to just be part of the birth. His dad was asleep in the corner snoring. My sister was there and just really keen to be involved. But even afterwards, after she's had her first, she was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry for the way I behaved in that birthing room. My, my mum and the midwife were gossiping, and it was just, like, very, like, surrounded by people, but very alone, and just transcended into this different space, um, which, which is phenomenally beautiful, but then at the same time is also, really disconnecting from like reality um so potentially not that helpful um and but I did love being there and and feeling that and experiencing that and

bringing Jet into the world that way um and so I was I did plan a second home birth for my youngest um we got Jet all ready. He wanted to cut the cord. He would have been four at the time. He was really excited about it. Four years old? Okay. Almost four, yeah, almost four.

And I think that was a really beautiful age gap. It just happened by accident. But he, yeah, at 40 weeks, I got diagnosed with preeclampsia and I didn't realize how um how significant that is and how dangerous that is um but the midwife was like no you need to come to hospital um now it was like 9 30 at night I was like what do you mean I have to come to hospital now I'm I was hoping I could maybe just go to sleep and go into labor overnight and just have the baby at home and not have to worry about it it's like no no you have to come um and so I think that really just started things in in deep shock um I got the shakes I started crying I couldn't say goodbye to Jet because I

didn't want to wake him up um but I needed to get to hospital and it was yeah a few days of being induced and being monitored there and one thing I didn't know about induction was what I'd heard we'd heard the stories about how when you get induced the contractions can come on a lot stronger and faster um and they were coming on really strong and fast um after they started the oxytocin drip um so that's sometimes called like syntocin or pitocin um but basically synthetic oxytocin and um I couldn't be in the water whereas I had the water with um jet so I couldn't be in a pool I had um the probe on baby's head after they broke my waters so that they were monitoring his heart rate um which was wild to feel that moving against my leg because his head was moving coming down the birth canal just really really weird gross things um and so I was at a point and I was like oh these

contractions like I this is familiar to me um I'm not at the beach with the support people but that I can know that this sensation um and it's really hard it is hard and it is faster and it is more strong than before um and the midwife was the hospital midwife was like well you're you're not actually in active labor yet like the like the pattern and the contractions are not active labor like go sit on the toilet for five minutes and then we'll see how dilated you are um and then I was only three to four centimeters dilated and I was like what the hell like how is this possible um and at that stage I think everything just sort of shattered my mum my mum was in the room and she was like oh well we're going to be here for a while so she went and took a break went for a walk and then when she was gone things just

ramped up and I was just like I can't do this um and I felt really betrayed by my body because I was so confident that I could do this and you had done it before I'd done it before and um all these things but um what what had happened is that I'd gone from three to four centimeters to 10 centimeters in half an hour so it just sped up um he just came down the birth canal like crazy um and all of a sudden I was pushing my mum walked back in the room so she didn't miss it thankfully um and the midwife was literally like don't push like I need to put my gloves on so I can catch this baby um and yeah he was born like in another push later um don't push like my body could tell me to stop um and yeah he was there and it was beautiful and I was so stoked to meet him um and he was really really cute and gorgeous but I one of the things from studying now that i understand and i

realize is that when you put synthetic oxytocin into your blood that can't cross over to the brain barrier so if and then your your brain gets really pissed off with you because you it's like well if you're going to get oxytocin from somewhere else then i'm not going to make anything for you so you're not getting any natural oxytocin on your brain which then also means that you're not getting any endorphins so you have zero natural pain relief so basically in my head I was I thought I was doing everything to avoid like any further intervention whereas actually those interventions would have been really necessary and really kind to myself if I had gotten an epidural as soon as they put that drip in because yeah my body my body is probably feeling betrayed

by my brain because it didn't get any pain relief whatsoever it just raw dog labor and is sitting and we're both sitting there going, what happened? Yeah, I love that perspective shift of what actually it would have been really kind to my body if I would have got the epidural and just this conflict that your body and your brain would have been in and also like your ego, right? The part of you that was, I did this this before so why can't i do this again and i think that ego is the big thing because and i know even with the hospital staff they were all really aware that i had planned a home birth so maybe there was their own biases there

um where they were like well there's nobody offered me an epidural. And I'm like, as soon as you are giving somebody that oxytocin drip, I would be very upfront with my bias. And I say it in my classes when I teach antenatal classes. I'm like, if you're getting oxytocin drip, get it and the epidural at the same time. Like, you don't need to – don't do that to yourself. Like, there is no first prize. There is no ego worth um holding that for well and i think it is really important like you pointed out that when

synthetic oxytocin pitocin is running through your body that is impacting the hormonal um cascade drastically and yeah that means there's no natural endorphins. That means there's no natural pain reliever that also is impacting the hormones that are going to baby. And so when we're talking about showing compassion to your body, we might also want to consider showing compassion to our baby. That's a whole other story. We don't need to get into that right now. But it is just really interesting because our egos can get in the way of wanting a certain outcome. And I think that is applicable to birth, but also applicable to many other parts of our lives, right? And that hormonal cascade, because we hear of this cascade of intervention, which is like this, if you don't know anything about it, it sounds really big and scary.

And you're like oh no as soon as I get something like all of a sudden I'm going to have a four-step cesarean delivery like which is not anybody's um probably first first pick um but actually like it's that's not what it is at all um but then yeah if we layer a hormone um and cascade from there then it's just what what are we doing to support the best um parts of ourselves for this yeah yeah I love that approach because I think well from myself coming from kind of the more natural birth world it can be really easy to, again, put yourself in this box of, oh, well, I want everything natural. And I don't even want to, like you said, like you weren't even offered the epidural because of the, we can assume,

the biases of the people in the room thinking, oh, well, she's going to want an as natural as possible birth because she was planning a home birth. And well, she's going to want an as natural as possible birth because she was planning a home birth. And yeah, that's not always the case. Like I think, I think permission here to pivot when you need to and yeah, just show yourself compassion and whatever that looks like in the circumstance is really important. So I love that reminder. Honestly, my ego in that time wouldn't have accepted an epidural. So it's probably good it wasn't offered because then I might be feeling certain other ways about it. But I think this is where actually informing yourself and completely understanding all those things can be really helpful as well and I I wonder there

isn't enough longitude studies that I've read about around having the synthetic oxytocin and um if there is any correlation to postnatal depression um but there it would make sense that there would be some links because, again, I really bonded with my son and, like, he's just the cutest thing ever. But, yeah, the depression for me was a multitude of factors and um when I when I look back now um in hindsight there was probably a lot of signs of postnatal depression in my first um motherhood um journey with Jet that it was a lot easier to hide um and that it just got a lot more compounded I guess adding another child into the mix and then having a very different birth experience um and not the expected outcome from that yeah absolutely do you feel like looking back were your two experiences like in the early postpartum days similar or was the support

and um everything pretty similar for both it was actually really different and um interesting like with my with the first when um after jet was born he was born on a friday and his dad went back to work on the sunday like he didn't take any time off he didn't um do i don't think he even changed nappy until jet was about three or four months old like he was just like this is what you're doing i just needed to provide for my family um and he was trying to prove himself a bit more with Franco but when yeah with Jet I was in a very fortunate position where I had my best friend um living very closely to me and um so she is she's my absolute soulmate like she is my person and I love her to bits and pieces and which could sound very strange me now being queer but there's never been any romantic um interest there but it's purely platonic but like we just get each other

um and so it didn't matter that Mark wasn't there because I had Anna and Anna um was showing up to cuddle my baby she was showing up to cuddle me and get bring me tea and and feed me um but then before before I got pregnant with Franco she moved to Thailand and has been living there um for five years now and it's just been really rude so and it was actually Anna on on the um we were having a phone call after I called her and I said, I've left Mark, like I've broken up with him, like this is it. And talking to her about stuff on that Mother's Day four years ago. And it was her all the way in Thailand saying, something's going on.

I think you need to talk to a doctor because it's more than just this, Dana. Interesting. Yeah. Huh. on I think you need to talk to a doctor because it's more than just the standard interesting yeah huh isn't it interesting how sometimes we do need that outsider's perspective to help us recognize something and reflect something back to us and I mean often we might not be in a place to listen but I think I when it comes from the right person, and so in your case, she would have been the right person. When it comes from that person, we're often more available to listen. So it sounds like it's good she said something. Oh, yeah, it was pretty severe. Yeah.

So she saves my life. Oh, I love that um another question I wanted to ask you and you just reminded me of it when you mentioned that your um ex-husband was kind of in the mentality that he just had to provide for his family I've been dissecting I guess like masculine and feminine energy and just kind of realizing that we live in a very masculine culture, right? The masculine energy is much more supported than the feminine energy, I would say. And in terms of the typical roles that we see with like a mom and a dad, and it sounds like Mark was under this umbrella too, thinking that, well, as the father, like I just need to provide for my family. And that often looks like financially. to female female and so potentially to more like the feminine feminine versus feminine and masculine does that make sense i hope i'm asking that question correctly no no i i know exactly what

you mean um because i think i really when you think about the um the divine feminine and the divine masculine it is very yin and yang so the yin yeah with the female is very slow and it's very connected and it's very um it's more emotions based than it is productivity whereas the yang when we get into this yang energy it's very much do and produce yeah and um capitalism at its finest yeah um yeah exactly and i i love the divine feminine um and i also love the divine masculine i think i both those live in me um not quite as symbiotically as I would like. And it's really interesting to see it played out in the contrast of those two relationships because I think with my comp het,

so that compulsive heteronormativity thing in my mind, I was like, I've just got to find the most masculine manly man in the world. And that's exactly what I did. to find the most masculine manly man in the world and that's exactly what I did I found the most masculine manly man you have ever met um he like yeah he is just all yang um and he's just do and he like he owns a gym he owns a crossfit he does like the power lifting the olympic lifting like he's testosterone on on a stick and um that is so the opposite to me I am not I am not crossfit I am um and but I try to fit into that um right like real like really hard really really tried to squeeze myself into that box um

and I think with it the um when if I was ever feeling something he would just want to fix it. Like that is that yang energy. And there is so much in my 4D experience as a woman that I don't need to fix. I just need to sit and feel. And this really further created a divide in us because on top of having those two very different births, I'd also had two miscarriages and both those miscarriages there was no sitting in that feeling and having any sort of ceremony or ritual or acknowledgement of that with him because to him that was just too sad he doesn't want to be sad he doesn't want to cry. I just want to be happy. That's the emotion I'm choosing to be and that's all I'm going to be,

which is great. That's great for you. I can't tell him that that's not the experience he should have, but for me that was just 2D. Like there was no depth to that um and that that really I guess shines a light on how we were navigating in the world I wanted to um yeah have have some process have some ritual around us and he just never wanted to talk about it again. Well, and speaking of boxes, like it sounds like he's really putting himself in that box of I'm a man, I can't feel anything except happiness. And so anytime any other emotion would come up, he's

suppressing those emotions and trying to fix them and trying not to feel them. And I think socially like that is accepted versus holding space for those emotions and slowing down and having ritual and ceremony around them that isn't as accepted. That's a bit more counter-cultural. Yeah. And it's all this really counter-cultural stuff that when you start to unpack it, we can see where the patriarchy and where this toxic masculinity is really killing us from the inside out. Because I think even in that, when you're looking at just that productivity and that drive and that go, I mean, that's great when you are in a a spring or in a summer season but we can't have summer forever right we can't we you need to go back um it doesn't matter how masculine or how much testosterone you've got we we still need we still need to drive and feed that and you're just further you're further removing yourself from humanity and your own humanity when we do that but it is so acceptable all these things that are really culturally

acceptable um when it comes to that yang and it comes to that even how you're looking after your body um i think if we pulled back a lot of that wellness culture and a lot of that gym culture, we would see that there are a lot of controls that are not um I get in my opinion um that are not part of a real human experience yeah because again they are almost being told that they need to be on overdrive and autopilot and continuing to show up a certain way and in this case continue going to the gym and make to show up a certain way and in this case continue going to the gym and make their bodies look a certain way and be in this do do do produce produce produce get bigger stronger faster mentality yeah scary when you think about it what is socially acceptable to look like what percentage of fat can be in your body and then if anybody's overweight

then you're the unhealthy person whereas if I mean if you're 5kgs overweight you're you're all right you're you're gonna survive you'll get through winter if you're 5kgs underweight you your risk of mortality goes extraordinarily up but like we're not having that conversation um yeah on any platform that is meaningful for insurance health care all those things it's so true yeah it's so true so tell me a bit more about um yeah just like the divine feminine and entering into a relationship with another female and what that kind of looked like I guess for you in your own roles but also yeah just like the perspective on all of that I would just love to hear more about that yeah I'm I guess just in our dynamic it will be very different for probably other women loving loving women, but where we are, we're both very emotionally charged females, emotionally charged wahine. female we come with so much trauma and that a lot of that trauma is stored in our body and

it comes from the society that is around us and generations generational absolutely um and there it can be it can be a push and pull with um sitting down and having like these big deep and meaningfuls that are just beautiful we do that quite often we have big deep and meaningfuls we have big cries we hold each other and all those beautiful things but then sometimes we both just need to be in the yang but we just get so caught in this yin and it's like yeah so much energy as well um going through the emotion um but it is probably the safest I've felt in um in myself that is allowing me to process a lot of trauma um because my body and my heart my spirit is all feeling quite beautifully held. Yeah.

And it's a good learning for me to then also recognize that in somebody else and that they need to be held. Because for so long, there wasn't room for me to hold that for them because they, Mark especially, he didn't want to express that. Right. Whereas I need to figure out how to, how do I have space for my stuff and then also have space for Rebecca's stuff.

And how do we. Right. So when we think of like receiving versus giving, like you've had to learn how to balance both and be on the receiving end of being held, but also be the holder and the provider. Yeah. Of the yin, of the energy, of...

Because otherwise I think for her, she just becomes superwoman and does everything and holds everything. So then she's just stuck being in the yang where it's like, no, a right yeah it's all about balance it's all about balance yeah we're trying to pull down these social structures and we are just being in this relationship yeah I love it um I'm mindful of the time this has been an amazing conversation we've already touched on so many different threads is there any final thoughts is there any final thoughts you'd like to touch on or quickly say or any other tangents we should quickly go down i would just probably have to do this another time because there's so much yeah absolutely the tentacles go out and then it's I think it's all just coming in I think um my my key takeaways are constantly and even in group environments is just that

um that trust and safety it is sharing stories um that are either your own or um you have permission to share and then then really recognizing that bias. And once we do that, we build that trust and safety and our connections with other people and are aware of that bias. It opens up so much more space and room for genuine connection. Absolutely love that. And for me, that's a big part of what this podcast

for me is about is having space for people to share their story, because I know how powerful storytelling can be. Okay, before we wrap up, do you want to quickly mention how people can find you and how people can work with you and just what you're doing in your own corner of the internet yeah so I've got my um I've got Facebook and Instagram it's just Boothcraft New Zealand or Boothcraft NZ um and on there I've got connections to doing online zooms and some other matricence connections as well as one-on-one antenatal education um the my current passion is trying to get famous on tiktok um that's just at dana birthcraft nz um and it's just fun doing a lot of just going on there and popping on doing lives and

um finding different unique ways to deliver information um so always happy for a follow share my website um is birthcraft.co.nz um I've started doing some blog posts on there as well just to help me do my verbal diarrhea um and then then make that into a nice little concise post that goes on instagram or facebook yeah yeah that's what my podcast is for the verbal diarrhea I love it I also love that you said like yeah and I love how you said that tiktok right now is kind of a place for you to to try different things on for size and maybe have a little bit more fun and I think that's kind of a theme with this whole conversation is not being scared to try something new on because it can be

so easy to just put ourselves in that box or or tell ourselves that we need to be a certain type of way so that we can stay connected and maintain that sense of belonging and no like that's just like crushing ourselves and it's keeping us small. And the story of my life is, no, I need to actually like expand and move to my edges and try things on. Permission to pivot, permission to change, permission to evolve. Hearing from you. So say hi, DM me on Instagram and give me a follow at NicolePasvir. Until next time.