From Teen Mom to Military Wife | Hannah's Family of Five

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My doctor was not real happy that I got pregnant again as quick as I did. But I said you know what? We thought it was going to be at least six months and then it was a month.

When mommy was a little girl and mommy left her dad, and when daddy was a boy, he got bullied really bad. When mommy met daddy, they felt something neither had. Then mommy became a mommy and dad became a dad. Now you're screaming at your brother in his Lego underfoot. We're trying to do the best we can, but it's not very good. Daddy's really sorry. He didn't mean to shout. We all get a little touchdown. We all get a little. We all get a little. We all get a little touchdown.

Okay, today we have Hannah. Hannah has five kids, two from her first marriage and three from her current marriage. Sorry, I didn't get your location. Whereabouts are you from, Hannah?

Well, I'm actually from South Carolina in the US, but in the last month my family has moved to Mississippi. Awesome, Because my husband is active duty army.

Okay, cool, so you will be my third guest with active duty husband my third guest with uh active duty husband.

Well, this is this is. He was previously a school teacher. Um, and I don't know how much you know about the education system in the us, but teachers don't get paid very much yeah, it's essentially active duty in america anyway, isn't it?

yes, it is so. He has switched jobs. So this is the first time we've moved and it's an adjustment, because I split custody of my oldest two with my ex-husband and they actually are going to be living with him for the school year, which means I'm going to be going months without seeing them, so that's hard.

We will definitely get into the hardships that that's going to present. First of all, thank you for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate your time and yeah, so why don't we start off with telling the audience a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your family? All right?

So I am 36. I think you and I are the same age?

We certainly are, yeah.

Um, I have. I'm married to my husband, matt. He is, like I said, active duty army. I have a 16 year old daughter and a 14 year old son from my first marriage, and then we have a four year old daughter, a two year old daughter and a nine month old daughter. So it was funny. I just finished listening to your episode with your wife earlier and I'm like, okay, we met the same year, we met the same way. We have kids that are roughly the same age, as we got married within six months of each other. So it was just interesting to hear all the similarities. One of the big things to know about me is I am diagnosed bipolar. I also have generalized anxiety disorder and a major depressive disorder, so medicated and in therapy for all of them. Um, I'm a stay at home mom. I was a working mom with my older two when they were younger, so I've done both.

They're both hard, um, both very hard, Um, it's just different hard, um, and just kind of navigating, um what the term that I've heard is straddle parenting, when you have a set of kids and then you have a big age gap and then you have another set of kids, um, so, like I have, my oldest is getting ready to start driving, um, and my youngest is still getting a bottle when she goes to bed.

Yeah, massive, massive age gap. Was the three from your current marriage planned all three, or were they oopsies?

The oldest was. The oldest was we had been trying for six months, weren't married, but we had been trying for six months when we got pregnant with her. Actually, we got married when I was 19 weeks pregnant with her. Our second one we assumed it was going to take about the same amount of time to get pregnant Happened the first month, so she came a lot closer to her older sister than we thought she was going to. And the last one was a complete surprise because I was on birth control.

oh, no miracle baby yes, she was. She was very determined to be a thing yeah and uh planning on any more or well and truly done uh, no, I think I think we're pretty much done.

um, there was, and probably still is, a little part of me that's like I would love to have a little boy with my current husband, because we only have one son and we have four daughters, um, but obviously there's no guarantee that we wouldn't get another little girl, um, and with each subsequent recovery for me has gotten more difficult, definitely the last one being over 35 and having her. It was taxing and I still can tell that I'm not anywhere near back to, I guess, what I would call normal for me. So, yeah, I think we're done, which is why we had my husband go get a vasectomy.

Oh, he got the snip.

He did. He went when I was, when I was pregnant with the last one, just to make sure.

Yeah, I've, uh, I've gotten the the nod from my wife to go get the snip. Um, and now the ball's in my court and I've made like five different doctor's appointments and each time I just don't go.

Well, it was funny, like he went to the consultation and then we're like I'm on birth control, like there's not anything that we really need to worry about, but then I got pregnant again. So then we're like, okay, um, apparently we need to get him taken care of, cause that was our second failed birth control. The reason our two-year-old was born is I had an IUD that basically decided it wanted out, and then we just never went back on birth control and decided to try to have another one then. But he went about a year and a few months after the consultation for the actual procedure and they gave him Valium for beforehand at my request, um, so he was loopy and just hilarious on the way in there, um, but it definitely needed to happen, because apparently my body doesn't like medically being told what to do.

Yeah, and I think, after all of the sacrifices and all of the all of the changes and pain that you put your body through, as mums out there, the least we can do is get our balls cut open a little bit, go through a little bit of the pain that you guys have to deal with.

I agree. We have family members that don't feel that way and I am just mind boggled at it that the, I guess the old school thinking that it somehow makes him less of a man. I'm like why does being able to have more children determine your manliness?

Yeah, yeah, it's a. It's still very much a man's world, isn't it, when it comes to a lot of those types of ideologies and ways of thinking. Uh, quite silly really, considering that it's completely reversible surgery exactly and I mean to put it completely and utterly bluntly what's less manly about not having to pull out and not getting pregnant?

exactly, it makes things just easier. We'll go with easier.

I think, I think men have a really cartoonish way of thinking about vasectomies. It's like the whole saying shooting dust, I think. I think that they literally think that's what happens. It's like that there'll be nothing that comes out, and I think that scares them a little bit, because that is a test of manliness, isn't it?

It just and a lot of people don't know like that pretty much everything stays basically the same afterwards. But a lot of people aren't aware.

Yeah, the fluid remains, but the living things inside the fluid do not, exactly Okay, anyways, that's a different topic for a different podcast. I think Awesome. So why don't you run me through? You said that the last pregnancy was particularly hard on your body. Why don't you run me through the births of your five kids? All right, particularly the hardships. Obviously, everyone likes to hear the dirt.

Yes, so, like I said earlier, I just finished listening to you and your wife talking about the birth of your three children and I realized how different every birth is. And you would think, after having five kids I would know that. So my oldest, I was 19. For the majority of my pregnancy with her. I had her nine days after my 20th birthday. So I like to say I was a statistic. Up until the very end. I was a teen pregnancy.

Um, she was an induction. Um, everything went fine until it was time for me to push, and I pushed for over two hours and I give birth to very big headed children. And she I just couldn't push her underneath my pubic bone and out, so she was a vacuum extraction which, in case anybody listening doesn't know, they basically take a little suction cup and attach it to the top of the baby's head and while you're pushing, the doctor pulls on the cord that's attached to it, which sounds you're pushing, the doctor poles on the cord that's attached to it, which sounds absolutely barbaric. Um, but it worked fine. They have. They said we have three shots at this and if that doesn't work you're gonna have to go for a c-section. Um, and they got her out on the first try. She was my biggest baby. She was um eight pounds eight ounces, which is not a huge baby, but for your first is pretty decent size, and she had a giant head. So so that was. That was not the easiest thing.

And I remember everybody talks about the magical moment when they put your baby on your chest and you just instantly fall in love. And I remember sitting there thinking something was wrong with me because they put her on my chest, and I remember looking at her and feeling absolutely nothing. I remember thinking I'm tired, this hurts, and that was pretty much it, and I thought there was something wrong with me. And then the first night we couldn't get her to feed and the lactation consultant had to come in. It was just a disaster and obviously those feelings changed. I love my daughter to death, but it was just. It was scary because I thought that I had done something wrong or that there was something wrong with me. Um, I was never diagnosed with it but looking back, I had pretty severe postpartum depression with her Um. Thankfully it didn't go into psychosis, which we have a family history of Um, but it just it wasn't the magical moment that I had been expecting that I had wanted for so long. I have, um, siblings that are a lot younger than me, so my youngest sibling is only five years older than her. So I helped raise them when they were little. So I kind of knew the beginning stages of being a mom and I knew what I thought, I expected and it just wasn't what happened.

Um, and then with my son, um, we had moved cross country and we're in a completely different state and I had a OBGYN that had been a midwife in New Zealand for well over a decade and had a very different mentality. We still ended up doing an induction because I was verging on preeclampsia, went in four hours from start of meds to when I delivered him. He comes out, everything's fine. The family had been there all morning. They were hungry, so they went to the cafeteria to get something to eat and my doctor can't get my placenta out. Where's the bottle? It is? It's probably next to the chair downstairs. Which chair? There's one in the dishwasher, okay.

Okay, Hi husband. I love that very sweet little whisper like where's the bottle.

He's great. They couldn't get my placenta to come out. And for those that don't know, the placenta has to come out for your uterus to clamp down like it's supposed to so that you can stop bleeding.

So I'm bleeding everywhere. All of a sudden I go, I'm going to throw up and then I'm going to pass out. And it's just me the nurse and the doctor and I almost passed out. They kept me awake, finally, got the placenta out and I'm resting. And then a few hours later, after you have an epidural I had epidurals with four of my five kids they want you to get up and go to the bathroom and make sure you can walk, that kind of thing.

And I remember turning around and nobody had thought to clean the blood up off the floor. So I turn around and there's just this huge huddle underneath the bed and I remember the nurse grabbing me because I just looked at it and started getting really woozy. And then it turns out the next day I ended up having a blood transfusion and after that everything was fine. The only thing he was circumcised and they don't really explain to you what it's going to look like after they do it. So I got home after they did his circumcision and went to open his diaper and I'm like, oh my gosh, that was not what I was expecting it to look like and it was fairly brutal, looking A bit confronting.

Yes, but he's perfect. They're both giant children. He was normal size, I think he was seven pounds ten ounces, and then there was a decade between that baby and the next one cool.

So just before we get into the, the next decade, I've got a few questions. Circumcision was that, uh, religious choice or personal choice, or do you mind going into?

the decision. Personal choice. Yeah, Um kind of went with what a lot of people do, which is went with what dad was at the time.

Um, and Did you get any pushback from friends, family?

We didn't Um, thankfully, I think it was still. We were in uh rural Montana, which is Northern Western half of the U? S. Um rural montana, which is northern western half of the us, um, so I think it was still pretty standard in the community there, um, but I'm not sure I would make the same decision now.

Didn't have to worry about that that was going to be my next question. Was there any? Uh, just uh, not regret, but if you could have a do-over, would you do it again?

um, for him, probably just because it it would have negated any conversation of why does dad look different than I do?

yeah, um that was the only reason we had um when it came to my son, but ultimately, yeah, we decided against it, and I'm not judging you in any way, shape or form.

Every family's different and you're free to do what you wish um exactly I mean, yeah, that was the decision that we made and the kind of only pro was so he could be like his dad. Yeah, um, and you know, I have no memory of of having it done as a kid, so it's it's not really a big deal, but yeah, I know that it is a very, very uh, hot button topic in today's society it is yep, and my current husband and I went over that a lot.

Um then didn't end up having to make that decision, but I don't think we had even come to an agreement on it before we knew that they were all girls very good, okay, so skip to the next decade. Baby number three, all right next decade, so I was 22 when, I had my son.

I was 32 when I had my second daughter Perfect pregnancy, no issues. Getting towards the end where you feel like you're going to be pregnant forever and it's so funny because I post it on Facebook and I laugh every year when I see it On March 31st I'm going to be pregnant forever. And I remember being in the kitchen all day, batch, cooking the free stuff before the baby came, and just feeling gross, like just not feeling good. But I hadn't felt good for days, so it wasn't really any different than what I had been experiencing. Um, we went to bed at like 11 o'clock that night and I woke up at one the next morning. Um, and went why am I wet? And so went to the bathroom. I'm like did I, did I pee myself? I didn't think I did, but went and got cleaned up, went and laid back down, and then it happened again A few minutes later. I'm like nope, nope, I. I think that that is fluid. So went and did the mom thing, let the dog out, cause I knew that if we went to the hospital he was going to be in his crate all day called the doctor's service, cause it was one in the morning. They're like well, the really the only way we can tell is if you come in and we test it and see if it's fluid.

So woke my husband up, got in the car we didn't have the older two. They were with their dad that week and I remember sitting in the car on the way to the hospital and I looked at my husband and I said it's April 1st and he's like, yeah, I'm like nobody's going to believe that I'm actually in labor. So we get to the hospital, they put me in a bed, they test it. They're like, yes, it's fluid, you're in labor, but I wasn't contracting contracting and they would come in every 30 minutes. Are you having contractions? No, are you having contractions? No, so I think at 10 o'clock they're like okay, you've your water's broken. You know at some point it's going to start being a risk of infection, something like that later on.

So let's get this party started.

So they put me on Pitocin to start contractions, um, and came in shortly thereafter and did my epidural and it was great. And then I remember the one thing that was different than with the older two is the baby was still really high up. So they had like this thing it looks like a yoga ball you had squished in the middle. It was shaped like a peanut. They're like we're going to put this between your knees to open up your pelvis so the baby can drop down. And we did that for I don't know 45 minutes, 30, 45 minutes.

So like, okay, she came down, we're going to go ahead and have you push, and I think it was three pushes and she was out and she was fine and everything went great with her. Her only thing was that she came out so fast that it didn't give her enough time for all of the fluid to be squished out of her lungs, which I guess is a big part of what normally happens when they're coming through the birth canal. She was in there for such a short period of time that it was still in her system, so she was a little spiddly for the first day and it sounds awful when they're gagging.

Did they have to suction her?

They did a little bit like gagging, Did they? Did they have to suction her? They did a little bit. A lot of it was a little bit further down and had to work its way up, which meant that I was just watching her constantly for the first 24 hours.

It's scary though.

And then she was fine.

Yeah, as you said, you'd listened to the podcast with me and my wife. So yeah, we're very, very aware of the dusky episodes and the fluid retention in her lungs and stuff. It sucked. It just sounds like they're dying.

I know I heard that. I'm like it was the opposite problem, but basically the same thing. She was in too long and had stuff in her system and was not long enough and still did. I'm like darned if you do, darned if you don't.

So was she born April 1st or April 2nd?

April 1st or April 2nd. April 1st she was born at 2.22 in the afternoon. Ah, damn it, I'm April 2nd, we have multiple friends that are April 2nd and I was hoping that she would go to that day. But I have a former friend that I'm not friends with anymore that had her birthday that day, so I'm kind of glad that she has her own day.

My wife went into labor on my birthday with Hendrix, my oldest. I know I saw that, yeah, but she wasn't born until five days later.

Your wife is an absolute beast.

A warrior, absolute warrior. She is amazing.

Yes. And then with the next one, my doctor was not real happy that I got pregnant again as quick as I did. But I said you know what? We thought it was going to be at least six months, and then it was a month, yeah. So we found out, our four-year-old turned one on the first the next year, and then we found out we were pregnant on the 23rd I think, and that was 2020.

So I was pregnant during all of well, we lived in the southern US, so lockdown was kind of a joke. Lockdown was kind of a joke, um. But through all of that, all um, my husband came to, I think, two doctor's appointments and they were both ones where we did ultrasounds, um. Other than that, I was by myself. Um, I did have. I almost forgot Um.

So we were grocery shopping and I'm like I have to go to the bathroom. And this was when I was about weeks pregnant. I went to the bathroom at the grocery store and I looked down and I'm bleeding. So I come out. I'm relatively calm considering, and I told my husband. I said I think I'm miscarrying. He's like, well, do we just leave? I'm like, well, no, we need groceries regardless. Nobody's going to be able to stop it if I am.

So we got done with our grocery shopping, we called the doctor's office and like, yeah, it sounds like you're miscarrying. Go to the emergency room. So we went to the emergency room. It was the height of COVID so he couldn't come in with me. So I'm sitting there, I'm in like these paper pants that they gave me, in these like the big mesh underwear, because that's what they had available that they give you after you give birth. They gave me some of those and they said you know, we're going to take you back for an ultrasound. And I remember laying in there and I don't know if it's the same over there, but in the US ultrasound texts aren't supposed to tell you anything. You usually have to wait for the doctor to go over everything with you when you're done. And I remember this absolute angel of an ultrasound tech. She goes. I still see a heartbeat and she turned the screen towards me and you could see it. And basically what had happened? It's called a subchorionic hemorrhage and what'll happen is sometimes, where the sack implants in the wall of the uterus, it'll pull away a little bit and it starts bleeding and then the blood gets stuck in between the two things. And so you'll bleed a lot at first and then you'll continue to bleed off and on over the next few weeks. Um, but that was that was scary because it was still early on. There wasn't anything we could do about it. There wasn't a guarantee that it wouldn't completely separate, which means obviously we would have lost the baby. Um, thankfully we didn't. Um, and it comes to December. Um, I was supposed to be in my best friend's wedding.

That day rolls around. I think I'm in labor. So I call her and tell her I'm like I I'm sorry, but I you're three hours away. I can't come up there if I'm possibly in labor and then not be able to get home and end up having to have a baby in another hospital with another doctor, ended up being six days later.

But I remember I again was cooking all day. I cooked two dinners because I had stuff I had to use up and I went to lay down that night. I'm like huh, that feels kind of like a contraction, having never had any on my own before. I wasn't real sure Because both my oldest two were inductions and my third I never contracted on my own until they gave me drugs. So I pulled up my little app and started timing it. I'm like yeah, I think I'm having contractions. And I told my husband. He's like why didn't you tell me that before? I took sleep medication? So I called the doctor's office and she's like go into the hospital. So I went in. They monitored me. They're like yep, you're in labor. Got me in a room, labored in there for a while. I remember having a few really good contractions. My husband's passed out on the couch because he took sleep meds A few really good contractions.

Anesthesiologist comes in, does my epidural. Um, I continue to progress. They're like do you want us to break your water? Yeah, that's fine. Um, because it just wasn't breaking on its own. None of mine ever did. Um, I think I have the same thing as your wife where I have really tough waters. Um, and early morning comes around. They're like you're, you're completely dilated, let's go ahead and push. And it was the same as her sister. She had a smaller. She, I think, was my smallest headed baby, so she comes out really quickly. Again. I ended up having the same problem where it didn't expel all the fluid from her lungs, but the funniest thing with her delivery was after I got my epidural. They're trying to get my feet up into these stirrups on the bed and I'm like, oh, here I'll help, except I can't feel my legs. So my leg goes flying up and kicks the nurse right in the face.

Oh no.

I'm so sorry. And then the baby comes out and has one of the raunchiest, nastiest smell and farts ever as soon as she comes out and literally everybody in the room starts gagging. I'm like that is a sign of things to come. We're all in trouble. But she was she. Everybody was like she's got so much hair and all I remember thinking is I don't care, just get her out. But she did. She was my full head of hair, baby Um and we I think we're there both with both my four-year-old, my two-year-old. We were in the hospital for a day and then they let us go home, um. And then then we come to my baby Um. I was 39 weeks pregnant.

I did an elective induction, um, just because obviously induction doesn't work well for everybody. But my body seems to do well with Pitocin. It actually jumpstarts me better than my own body hormones do, apparently. So we were supposed to be there at six in the morning. I woke up at four. There was a message from the hospital Give us a call. I called them. They're like we don't have any beds. There was a bunch of people that came in the night before because it was a full moon. Call us back at eight. Okay, I called them back at eight. Call us back at 11. You understand that I'm supposed to come in and have a baby today and I'm super pregnant and you keep telling me no, this is going to get to be a problem. Finally, call at 11. They're like come in at one. So I did. I'm cranky because I haven't eaten anything, because I don't know what's going to go on, and they knew that they didn't want me to eat prior to when I was coming in at six. Um, we get there. They still don't have a room for us. They're cleaning it right now. Okay, fine, um, we finally get into a room.

At about two in the afternoon they come in and, as I'm sure you know, when you're being induced, they ask you every medical question under the sun. It takes like an hour to answer all of the questions so they can make sure that all their bases are covered. This great nurse who had been a nurse for like 50 years she comes in. One of the other nurses comes in. They run my IV, get all that started, start giving me fluids. Um, I also was group B strep positive for this pregnancy, which, um, isn't an issue for moms but can be an issue for baby um if it's not treated. So they start you on IV antibiotics, um, once they start your, your IV fluids, um, and so we started that. They're like we need four hours of it to infuse, um, while you're on the Pitocin and while you're laboring. It should, you'll be fine, it'll be plenty of time, um. So they start me on the Pitocin at about three in the afternoon and we're waiting. I'm watching home reno shows on the tv, my husband's reading a book and they're like we're having contractions, a couple like nothing really big um. So they come in.

At what time is it? It was at 6 15. It's my doctor's not on call today. It's the hospital's ob staff, so it's a resident, which is I don't know if it works the same in australia. They are, they are a full fledged doctor, but they work underneath the head doctor.

She comes in with my nurse. They're like do you want to break your water? You're not really progressing. We can either break your water and call for the epidural, or give you the epidural and then break your water, or just wait and see how things go. Well, I'd always had my water broken first and then gotten the epidural, so I went that route. So she breaks my water, they all leave. It's getting ready to be shift change, which anybody who's gone through this knows nothing. Nothing gets done at shift change, um, because everybody's trying to finish up all their stuff and I'm sitting there and, literally within two minutes of them breaking my water, I am just walloped by back-to-back contractions. I can't talk. I'm writhing on the bed. All I can do is moan. My husband's like I don't know what's going on. We hit the call button, nobody comes. So he runs out into the hallway and he's got one of those voices that when he wants to yell, the bellowing dad voice, yes, gets attention of everyone, so they come back down.

The head nurse comes down and she just peeks in and she looks at me. She goes can I get my nurse and the resident back down here now? And they come in and it's been five minutes at this point and I'm not sure how she managed it. But she checks my cervix again. I'd been four centimeters dilated for a month. It'd been five minutes. I was seven centimeters. Now they're like um, okay, uh, we're still gonna try to get your epidural.

And my nurse and the head nurse start fighting because I haven't had all the fluids I was supposed to have before. I can do that and and there's just all this going on. Meanwhile I'm just trying to focus on getting through each of these mondo contractions that are like off the chart, on the little piece of paper that I'm looking at. And then they're like turning me, trying to get things to slow down so they can get the anesthesiologist in there. And I remember looking at my nurse like going, I'm not going to make it, am I? And she goes no, you're not, but it's going to be okay, this is going to go really fast and you're going to be fine. And then I remember yelling oh, my God, she's coming. And it was so embarrassing even in the moment, cause normally I'm really quiet, like I'm focused, I'm quiet during delivery and I am at this point screaming.

So they check me again and I'm 10 centimeters. They're like you can go ahead and push on the next contraction. So I push, and I push and she's out, which is great, she, she's out, everything's fine, she's fine. It hurt. But it's weird because when contractions are that bad, pushing actually lessens the pain. So you are focused on that instead of on the pain that comes from, you know, expelling a human being. Yeah, so they get her out. They take her over to the little warmer, start working on her yeah, so they're like we have to get it out. So they give me I. I have no epidural, so I feel everything. So they give me the shot of something into my leg and they're like okay, oh, it was dilaudid, which didn't lessen the pain, it just made my head foggy. So then the head doctor finally came in. She goes I have to get your placenta out. I said okay, and all of a sudden I'm basically a human puppet because somebody has her hand up inside me getting the placenta out, scooping it out which.

Yep, which, with no pain meds, was probably the worst thing I have ever experienced in my life. And I'm trying not to kick this woman in the face, but it is so hard because I just want her to stop. And then, meanwhile, the nursery nurse is trying to shove the baby into my arms because, you know, skin to skin contact is the big thing, and I'm like I can't. I am in so much pain right now. If you give me this child, I'm going to drop her on the floor. And so, finally, my husband got fed up with this woman. He looks at her, he's like give me the fucking baby. And she's like no, I got no. Hand me my fucking child. Yeah. And so he grabbed her, um, and he, he's all proud. Now he's like I, I got to hold her first. Yes, you did. Um, they finally get me taken care of.

Um, thankfully, I didn't bleed as much this time, didn't end up having to get a transfusion. Um, I will say, recovery when you haven't had an epidural is a lot more quicker initially than it is when you have one Cause. Um, um. I ended up with a spinal headache with our four-year-old, which was absolutely debilitating.

Um, and then, uh, everything went fine with the other ones, but, uh, it was just like I could get up, I could walk around, I didn't have to. I mean, they made me go in a wheelchair to the other room, but I didn't need to be in a wheelchair. Um, the only thing was is it was only three hours from when they started my antibiotics to when she was born, so it didn't have enough time for the group B strep antibiotics to fully go through my system. So we ended up being in the hospital for an extra day for them to monitor her, and then we ran into a discrepancy on her birth weight. So she was monitored a lot more closely because it looks like she lost a ton of weight from birth to when we left the hospital. But my husband and I are both of the mind that that same uh nursery nurse that was trying to shove her into my arms uh, misrecorded her weight because it was right before her shift was going to end and she wanted to get out of there.

So, um, they were all very different those those hospital staff, hey, god bless them for the work they do, but sometimes they just they need to understand when they're burned out and they need to take some time off.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it's the same as every other part of life. You're going to have people that are great. You're going to have people that are awful. Most people go somewhere in the middle, but you're going to run across all of them at some point.

Yeah, yeah, it's. The one thing that I can say about hospital staff is that sometimes they just need to take a step outside of what they're doing and remember that we're people and we're not cattle, and it's not just a number. This is life-changing stuff we're going through and it's not just a case of like get them in, get them out, get them dealt with Like we're not cattle.

Yeah, it's us Exactly.

We had just to make this story about me for one second. We had a breastfeeding consultant come into our room I think it was with Hendrix, off the top of my head. Her name was Jo J-O-H. I don't know why I remember that, but we call her Jo to this day. And Jo comes in and says I'm a breastfeeding consultant, is there anything I can do to help? And my wife's like no, I think we're going okay, she's having a bit of trouble latching, but she's had her dusky episodes.

And Jo, dear Jo, just out of nowhere decided to walk up beside my wife, pull her breast out of her top, grab baby's head and just whack it straight on there Like no consent, no previous questions. And then once baby latched, she was like cool, well, my job's done and left. And both of us were just like does she even fucking work here? I think this lady's just walking around, she's just coming from the street and she's like I'm going to see how many tits I can grab today. And it's still a running joke. It's just like we weren't even people. We weren't people to her. She was just like this is my job, you're just a part of my job, I don't care about you as a person, but your breast is what I'm here to do exactly this is what I'm focused on.

It was absolutely wild that is insane.

Um, I will say, from the older two to the younger three, when it comes to the lactation consultants in the hospital, they, they definitely have gotten less militant about you must breastfeed and more about is baby fed? How are you feeding them? Is it going okay?

Yeah, that age-old breast is best and fed is best kind of deal.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes, yeah.

I think so. For our first two we had in the same hospital, and then the third was a different hospital and the third they were very, very much fed as best yes, centric Whereas the first hospital I believe they were leaning more towards breast as best. But with Hendrix, because she had jaundice and had to go in the humicrib for 24, 48 hours or whatever, I was just giving her like top up bottles and they supported that anyway. But yeah, a lot of it comes down to like a lot of doctors and nurses and pediatricians and stuff. They really like to interject their own personal opinions instead of their educated opinions, which angers me to no end opinions, which angers me to no end, I had with my oldest.

I ended up stuck with an OB. That was this 75 year old man, yes and he. I was so young and I didn't know any better and at that age you don't really advocate for yourself very well, and his nurse was.

She was a bitch I mean there's no real other way to say it and I had um really bad morning sickness with her um ended up having to get zofran just to function during the day.

Um, and I remember calling and asking for a refill and nobody ever really got back to me. So then my husband called later and she calls me back on my, on my phone from the other room while he's still on the phone with the office and starts berating me for not telling her how serious it was. And I just remember hanging up the phone and like chucking it across the room and crying and from that point on I said I don't want her to help me. If that means I have to switch doctors, that's fine. I didn't actually, actually, they just had the other doctors nurse help me when I came in. But I'm like people are at their most vulnerable, especially with their first pregnancy, when you've never done this before and you don't know what's going on and you're gonna come out a problem like that, like I have personally wronged you. What is the matter?

yeah, I think, um with with client facing like that, especially like in the medical industry, I think employees should have mandatory therapy to ensure that their own personal shit stays their own personal shit and it doesn't bleed over into their clients, because it can really make or break something as already hectic as pregnancy and birth and delivery and you know like we've got enough shit to worry about. We don't have to, we shouldn't have to worry about your shit on top of that and how that's impacting us Exactly.

Like fuck man. So yeah, I mean five very different but also quite similar pregnancies and births. So I do want to talk about you and your mental health and how kind of your past, pre-parenthood has shaped you as a person, as a mother, as a partner. What things have you implemented into your parenting life that were kind of contradictory to how you were brought up? How are you parenting in today's society?

Okay, so just real quick history. First diagnosed with depression when I was 16, got put on a medication that shortly thereafter came out was actually terrible. Put teens on and actually increased suicidal ideation instead of decreasing it. Ended up in a psych ward with a suicide attempt at 16. Then was on and off meds based on insurance, because that's how it works here over the next few years. Then I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder in my early 20s. Same thing on and off meds based on insurance and what all that looked like. Um. And then got divorced and lost my insurance and was not medded at all Um for a long time and just kind of muddled my way through. Um, kids were always paramount even at that point.

Um so were you primary caregiver after divorce.

So we have always shared custody equally, just because we went into our marriage from families of divorce both of us and made it tantamount to us that the kids were not to be used as bargaining chips, that what was best for them is what we would do, regardless of what we thought. So at that point was struggling mentally didn't really realize it in the moment, but because I was struggling financially, I was struggling in every way you possibly could. So that unfortunately took a back burner. Look back on a lot of the decisions and behaviors I had at the time. I'm like, yeah, that was bad and that was things going on that I didn't know about at the time had my four-year-old and then, when she was three months old, had another suicide attempt and that was when I got my bipolar diagnosis and everything made sense. And I've been on medication and in therapy ever since then. Medications have changed, so I think we have it pretty dialed in at this point and I am now looking for a new therapist because in the States a lot of therapists are only certified or credited or licensed in specific states, so I have to find one to work with. Where I am now, parenting has changed as I've aged, probably more than as I've been diagnosed with more things, but my diagnoses definitely play into my parenting.

I'm not nearly as patient as I would like to be with any of my children I never have been and with my older two because we were struggling financially even when I was married and I worked full time. Um, it was, it was more about just taking the time that I did have with them, because I was at work all day um, and making the most of the time that I have with them and trying to give them the kind of life that I wanted them to have with the resources that I had at my disposal. Um, they're both really good kids of life that I wanted them to have with the resources that I had at my disposal. They're both really good kids we didn't have a whole lot of. We had little two-year-old and three-year-old snippets, things like that, but no big behavioral issues out of either one of them. I just I feel like I missed a lot of their childhood because I was having to work full time to make sure that we could provide for them and it just it's so hard because you're like I'm working to pay somebody else to spend more time with my children than I do, and it's just frustrating. And then I got divorced and, I think, got even more lax in my parenting because I felt guilty for getting divorced and I also had a lot of people around me that were a part of their lives, that were not the greatest people, as it turns out, and probably had more of a hand in being part of their lives than I should have let them. So I think that they've turned out great.

I love they're both great teenagers. They're not overly attitude-y. My oldest is probably a little more naive than she probably needs to be at this age, but as far as I'm aware, I know teenagers tend to be secretive. No drug exploration yet no sexual activity. We've talked about that a lot and I said just tell me so that I know, so we can make sure you have what you need, because I don't want you to come to me after the fact to be like I'm pregnant or I got somebody pregnant and now we have to figure out what to do about it when I'm still a teenager, um, which is ironic coming from me, um, but they, uh, they help a lot with their young. Well, until we moved here. Help a lot with their young, well until we moved here, helped a lot with their younger siblings, um, out of their choice, and I always made sure that it was their choice to do that.

Because I didn't have that choice growing up, I was required to watch my younger siblings so that my mom and my stepdad could work and mainly my mom, because my stepdad was not a parent, so if she wasn't home I was the parent. I'm the one that took care of them, I'm the one that fed them and I didn't want my kids to have to deal with that. If you want to help with them or if you don't mind helping mom, that's great, but if you don't want to, that's fine too, was really my number one thing when we when my current husband and I started having kids, I said they are not going to be required to watch these kids, and that was one of the reasons why I quit working, is it? It took that off the table. I I was home all the time we were able when it was just three kids for us to get by on um his teaching salary that he had at the time, but then obviously, more kids, he needed more money.

So I think and I've always given my mom a hard time about this, about how she was easier going with my younger siblings than she was with me. But I see that in myself too and I think that that may just be age. You realize what you need to freak what you need, what you need to freak out over or what you need to focus on. Um, as you get older, as opposed to, you're gonna be very rigid and the kids are gonna do this and they're gonna do that and you're like, hey, just just let them play for a little bit longer, it's not gonna hurt anybody if they go to bed 20 minutes late.

Yeah, um, and it's so funny because obviously the baby is, her personality is still developing, but the older two are just night and day different personality wise. Our four-year-old is the most loving, you know, kind hearted, pretty chill child and our two-year-old is absolutely bonkers. She is. She would be on wrestlemania if they allowed two-year-olds on wrestlemania. She just runs around and if I'm not careful she's too rough with her little sister and I will count down from five for my four-year-old and she stops doing whatever she's doing. I count down from five with my two-year-old and she just stares at me. She's like what, what are you gonna do, you're not gonna do anything, which is not true.

Those emerging personalities are so incredible, yes, but also so frustrating to watch unfold, aren't they? I'm excited for the next stage, yes, and I do take solace in knowing that it's not just us. There's a lot of people out there that have gone through that. I just never expected it to be so hectic, so so hectic it is so full disclosure our four-year-old.

We're fighting right now to get her off her passy, which is she's four. She should have been off it well over a year ago. But then she has a little sister that has one, and now she has two little sisters that have one, and I have explained it away forever and so finally I'm like we just we have to be done with it. But she also sleeps in bed with us because she got sick once and was in bed with us while she was sick and then just never left. Now we're trying to figure out how to do that.

Yes, potty training, potty training, uh, was a hard thing. That didn't happen until just before four years old, um, but it's. It's. The same thing like this would have freaked me out when I was younger, and maybe it's because I'm medicated and in therapy now, I don't know um probably a little bit, um, but at this point I'm like, okay, we have to do it now, but it just, it hasn't bothered me.

I'm like she'll, we'll get there, like not a huge, a huge deal. But everybody's like, how did you get pregnant with another baby when she sleeps in between you? And I'm like you find ways, um, but yeah, it's a hard.

It's a hard thing really is. So I mean, thank you for sharing your birth stories and thank you for sharing your past and your mental health journey with everyone. I really do appreciate that. So, from then till now, we'll bring it to the current day and age How's mental health going? Are there any worries, concerns? Is there any big moves that are happening in life at the moment or anything that you personally want to share with the world?

I think I mean right now we're just still getting settled into the new location, the new house, the new dynamic, with older kids being gone a lot more than they have been. The little ones don't really understand obviously. They just know that they're not here right now and they want them here. I think mental health for me right now is good. I've had amazing therapists. I mean there is a little bit of concern about finding one that I click with. I know you've talked about that quite a bit in the past is having a therapist is great, but having a therapist that you actually connect with is huge, because otherwise you just feel like you're talking to some random person and you really don't get into the depth of a lot of stuff like you would hope.

Yeah.

I think the big thing that I have learned through age and through therapy and diagnosis and everything is everybody has a story. You don't know everybody's story, so just always know that there is probably something going on that you know nothing about and give them a little bit of grace, like I am. It actually probably is my own detriment, but I forgive people almost all the time just because everybody has been the villain in somebody's story. Um, everybody has done things to wrong other people and to sit there and judge somebody else for doing basically the same thing that you've done just seems the height of hypocrisy. And I just be understanding be kind. That is like my number one rule with our kids is always be kind. Defend yourself if need be, but always be kind.

So be kind until you need to not be kind.

Exactly.

Possess empathy, not sympathy. All really important stuff, awesome. Well, it sounds like you're doing a great job amidst all of the changes and the dynamic shifts and everything like that, so I reckon we'll wrap it up there. Is there any last minute things that you want to throw out into the world?

I don't think so. I think that was the majority of it Good good.

Well, thank you very much, hannah, for your time today and thank you for your husband for dealing with bottle bath and bedtime tonight, so you did have the chance to come on, absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

You're more than welcome, mate. You enjoy the rest of your evening.

You too.

Bye.