Setting up your Post Partum Care with Anna Cusack

In this episode Shelley chats to motherhood revolutionist, Anna Cusack.  As a postpartum doula and motherhood support mentor, Anna's work in the world guides new and experienced parents through pregnancy, the fourth trimester and beyond. She reaches thousands of women every year through her work both in person and online as an author, podcaster, blogger and speaker,  with evidence-based information, searing social commentary and inspirational, actionable content.
 
In this episode you'll learn about:
- why it's a good idea to plan and create a support network around you postpartum especially if you're not good at asking for help
- Anna's personal journey into Motherhood and why she is so passionate about birth advocacy and birth rights
- the emotional and spiritual aspects to consider in postpartum care to compliment the practical care
- why it is imperative to heal and rest early postpartum to ensure not only your physical recovery but emotionally, mentally and spiritually as well
- understanding the physiology of what's happening hormonally and physically postpartum
- the topsy-turvy way pregnant women tend to invest their resources and how to switch it

If you are wanting to prepare yourself with the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual needs you'll be navigating for birth, then this is the podcast episode for you!

21 days of play course
Anna's book - Mama, you're not broken

Continue the conversation with Shelley here:
https://www.facebook.com/shelleyclarkemindbodyparenting
https://www.instagram.com/_shelleyclarke_/

Find Anna Cusack here:
https://www.annacusack.com.au/
https://www.instagram.com/annacusackpostpartum/
https://www.facebook.com/annacusackpostpartum

This podcast is produced by Nikki O'Brien from Quintessential Being

Transcript

 Shelley Clarke  00:00

I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands I live on. I pay my respects to the Kaurna people elders past and present, and honour their ongoing traditions. Welcome to the mind body parenting podcast. I'm your host, Shelley Clarke. Here I talk about all things mind and body and how this relates to ourselves and our parenting. I envision a world where children are seen and heard, and parents feel supported and less alone. Join me here in the power of story, expert knowledge and lived experiences. Let's dive in.

00:40

Today's episode is brought to you by Kids in Adelaide. For all the best events, activities, places to visit and things to do with your kids in Adelaide and around South Australia. Visit www.kidsinadelaide.com.au. Welcome to the mind body parenting podcast. I'm your host Shelley Clarke. And today I am excited to be chatting with our guests and Anna Cusack, she's a motherhood revolutionist, an author podcaster, blogger and speaker she reaches 1000s of women every year with their content. She's an advocate for birthing mothers, a doula postpartum care provider and helps women with their post birth planning, both in person and online support and mentoring for mothers. So welcome, Anna.

01:29

Thank you for having me, Shelley.

01:31

Thanks so much for being here. We've known each other for a couple of years now through kind of online circles and through nourishing the mother and I've been on your podcast. So

01:44

go to that episode. I feel like that's, it's such a practical episode, that one where you're talking about connection and attachment play and all of the things that you go into more detail here. It's like, the first taster of that for a lot of people.

02:03

Yeah. And that was one of my first podcasts. I think I've only done one other guest interview. And so I was like, oh my god, someone wants me on their podcast.

02:13

Now you're everywhere.

02:15

Yeah, now I have my own. I do love. I do love this medium, because I just get to have really deep, rich conversations with people about things I love. And so I think I've often said to my husband, I think this is the thing I didn't know I needed this podcast, because I get to have all these beautiful conversations. And then I'm not kind of chewing his ear off all the time with all the things that

02:39

Yeah, I think actually doing the writing and interviewing and things that I do, has helped my marriage immensely. Because he's not copying my tirade. It's about all of the things that would be, yeah,

02:55

that you're passionate about. So would you like to start with telling our listeners a bit more about what you do and how you came to be doing that in the world?

03:06

Yeah, absolutely. So I am over in New South Wales, in Lake Macquarie area, which is a wonderful country, beautiful part of the world. So we've got the lake and the beaches, not too far away, sort of at the foot of not mountains, but you know, nice, natural wilderness area, too. I have a three year old daughter. And my partner and I are expecting another Bob soon, as well later on this year. And I suppose I came to the work of, of mother and parent family support, like many people do after their children come along. For me. It was actually a case of that I had quite a good experience. I had a fantastic home birth, I had a wonderful postpartum that I'd put quite a lot of time and emotional energy into planning and creating a support network around me because I knew that I wasn't very good at asking for help when I was actually in a crisis. And yeah, a family history of postnatal depression. I really didn't want that to be my scenario, either. I ticked a couple of the risk factor kind of boxes, and I went, you know, I've been there in one sense or another before and I don't want to go there again. So let's try and do what I can now ahead of time. And that was really building a team around me that was going to help me feel supported. And yeah, I had I had a great time and around me, people were not having a great time. And that doesn't mean the first year and beyond was or has been easy by any stretch of the imagination. I had a period of that I would consider to be present. I don't anxiety around about the four five month kind of age, I had a really difficult time around eight or nine months old again. And on reflection, I don't think I could have made it through those points in time without being in serious despair if I hadn't had a chance to recoup and recover and rejuvenate. After, after my baby was born. And before my daughter came along, I was working in a hospital. I come from a health background moreso in physical health and rehabilitation, but also in kind of behaviour change and lifestyle. Management isn't a great word, but I'll go with it.

05:47

Yeah, so yeah. So

05:52

in the Allied Health, staffing across different community health, practice, and hospitals, and all of these things, I've seen many coming in for one ailment or another, around the time that their children get to primary school. And when you get talking to them, it's like, yeah, of course, this is happening because you didn't have support straight after this birth. And then you've had another child, and then you haven't slept for like seven years, and you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, because you are the default person, when you are the birth parent. And, you know, we're adding career and all of these things on top of it. And I just felt like, coming from the, like, a health side of things I'm also very interested in, in sociology, so, you know, finding the work of Dr. Sophie Brock, and all that she talks about in relation to the construction of motherhood as a role that we step into rather than the experience of mothering and raising our children. And then combining that with the sort of traditional care and reverence for mothers. That's part of the postpartum doula training that I did in my maternity leave period, that all of these things coming together, made a really a blend that just felt really good for me. That's how I've latched on this. Yeah, this line of work right now.

07:30

Hmm, thank you so much for sharing that about your journey to this point. Now, I think it's always wonderful hearing how people have got to where they like where they are now. And I love hearing about, you know, I know you're an exercise physiologist in the past, and then bringing in all the different studies and all the different things that we that you, you know, you bring in and then make your own and you land in your own way of working with people. I really love that. So let's talk a little bit more about what it looks like to create the birth support. And what would it you know, why would people want a postpartum doula? That's probably the first place to start.

08:13

Yeah, so I don't actually attend births. I'm not a birth educator. But I am very passionate about birth, birth advocacy, birth rights, I, you know, I read books about birth, and listen to podcasts about birth for fun. So I think that to prepare for your postpartum, you do actually have to get your head around birth. First, it's really hard to look at what postpartum might be like for you, if you're stuck behind our society's wall or barrier of the fear based culture around birth. You know, and I think also, we have to really recognise that the way that we birth does impact our postpartum if I'm working with a family. I know that if somebody's had a really empowering birth, my job as a postpartum doula is going to be really to nurture them and to enhance their blissful experience, essentially. But if I'm coming into a family where there's been birth trauma, I'm going to be maybe picking up the pieces is too strong a word, but there's going to be a lot of holding and grieving rather than expanding into a beautiful, blissful state. You know, that bit can come later. Yeah. Well, that's the early weeks, it can be really heavy going. So either way, it's a holding, listening. Nurturing touch is really important to eye contact. And yes, there's practical things like yes, I can help with a baby. I can help to a degree with breastfeed. Then concerns and flag if more professional support is needed in there, I can come and make you some lunch and give you a massage and all of those things. But really it's like, just to be seen in exactly how it is right now is the key thing. Yeah. And having somebody who is a completely non, someone who's not involved in that family dynamic, who is just there for you, you know, I'm working with a family at the moment who the dad has extended leave this time five or six weeks. And a lot of the practical stuff is taken care of. So in some ways that it looks and feels like, I'm not doing much. But the point is that I'm there for exactly what that woman wants me to be there for. Because she's, she needs all of that emotional and spiritual holding, not just the fact that the laundry is done.

11:06

Yes, you make such a really, really powerful point that we don't tend to have set up in our society at all, unless we really, really consciously build this in. And even then it like you said, it can be more of that practical sense of, you know, having food delivered, or, you know, the job's done, or the other kids kind of looked after. But that piece just then around just being there with the mother, and just holding her in her all of her emotions, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually holding her. That is so incredibly powerful. And it's just not very common.

11:53

No, it's not. And it's interesting, because when I started doing this work, particularly looking at postpartum planning, I thought that the people that I would be speaking to were first timers, and almost without fail, it's people having subsequent children who have gone, I don't want to repeat this. I know how it was before. And now I have another child. And that also is going to need me during this time period. And I know that I need someone to look after me.

12:33

Yes, yes.

12:34

Yeah. So it's interesting, because, you know, I came to the work thinking that I would be in a preventative lens, and in a way I am, but it's kind of secondary prevention, after they've already had a rough first time.

12:51

Yeah, first experience. Gosh, wouldn't it be amazing if every single woman or birthing person had this postnatal support from our very first birth?

13:04

Yeah. And I think the mindset of most people who work in the postpartum care space is that we would ideally love to do ourselves out of a job, we don't actually want this to be a separate profession, we just want, we want it to be built back into the community and into the social fabric that we have here. That is, you know, separated because people have to go to work, or because we live in separate places, and therefore, you know, it's winter as we record this, so the germs are separate, as well. And, you know, you don't necessarily want that person coming over when their kids snotty but once upon a time, we were all living on top of each other. Yeah. And yes, the child might get sick, but you had all of the support there to help with the sick child and things rolled on. Yeah, there are pros and cons of every situation. But yeah, yeah. I have myself and many that I speak with. It would be great if our job didn't exist.

14:04

Oh, wouldn't it where we just and that's, I was talking with Cindy Fenn. I've just jumped off of a live with her actually, on Instagram, and she's been on a earlier podcast as well around creating the birth that we desire. And we've talked a lot about the way we set up the way we support our new mothers really can set up that family and a different experience for that mother and child relationship and then therefore the child's experience that they have growing up. Would you like to talk a bit more about how important having this support and I'd like you said ideally, this is not provided by one person that's coming into the home ideally, we get back to a village or community where we have this in Built in our social structures, but until then, do you want to talk a little bit more about, like how important this is? And then how that impacts on the child and that relationship?

15:14

Yeah, so traditionally, across the world, regardless of which continent, you're on cultures before, this big expansion of capitalism, colonialism, all of those things, commercialism. emotionalism, yeah, however, you want to frame it, patriarchy, all of those things. Traditionally, there are certain practices that a common across the world to look after people after they've given birth. And that has been really important because, you know, considering there haven't been antibiotics till recently, we really had to minimise the risk of infection, we really needed to make sure that that baby was really protected in the early times as well. So it was important for both mother and baby to be really kind of secluded and waited on and recover, because they couldn't just get up and go four days later, because if they had any wounds or something that wasn't healed, and it got infected, they'd die, and therefore the baby's milk supply would die too. So formula may be available, like has been available for a limited amount of time, but artificial supplements have existed for a long time as well. And those have generally not been safe until recent years, either. So we needed this early period of recovery to make sure that we in the baby survived, and that our milk supply and breastfeeding relationship became established. So generally all around the world, there's a three to six week period, that is kind of lying in confinement, whatever, whatever you want to call it, where mom or birth, parent and baby adjusting their own little duo, or dyad, it's cold. And they are cocooned from the rest of the world. Somebody that comes to stay with them, or a team of villagers, community members comes around to make sure that all other children are cared for. All her food is looked after. She is, you know, massaged or nurtured in whatever physical touch ways relevant for that culture. She's kept warm. And she's listened to in her experience of what it's like becoming a mother. And all of these things combined, as well as unrestricted access to the breast for the baby to prop her up hormonally. Because we know about some of those day three blues were about day three to five, after you've had your baby, your oestrogen and progesterone, it's been absolutely sky high just drops down to zero. And you get teary and you don't know why you're crying. And some people call this worse than others. But it's a phrase that you may have heard off before day three blues. But up until that at least six week point, those hormones are still offline. So we need something to be propping us up in between. And one of the main hormones to do that is the hormone of love, obviously Tosun and you might have heard of oxytocin before because that's it's a hormone of labour makes the uterus contract Syntocinon or Pitocin. It's used to augment labour is the synthetic form of that. So we get this hit of our love hormone, whenever we are feeling loved. Whenever we are, you know, having a giggle with a friend whenever we're being hugged, and whenever we get let down of breast milk, so we need to be having all of these things in place so that we have mentally Okay, until that point in time when oestrogen and progesterone start to help stabilise us again. And that is about the time that the hormonally driven milk supply transitions to a supply and demand based system as well around that between that six and 12 week kind of period. So it was all on a very,

19:31

a very sensible kind of trajectory. It was all very synchronous. And you know, when that process is disrupted, like when the process of birth is disrupted, it's pretty hard to get it back on track. We're gonna have to be supplementing or augmenting or propping up in some different way or you know, or it becomes that emergency situation that in the case of postpartum it's not going to be another emergency so action, but it's like, oh, you know, you go to the doctor and you're not coping and, you know, instead of saying, Well, you've been by yourself with a baby for six weeks, and no one's really been fully able to support you in the way your biology expects, we might just give you some sleeping tablets, awesome antidepressants. And there's certainly like, I think medication Absolutely. has its place. Yeah, I think it is. You know, there are a lot of authors and researchers in this field. I know Dr. Oscar Serrallach, who wrote the postnatal depletion cure is one of these people who says that a lot of the cases of postnatal depression that we are seeing is more about a normal expected response to an abnormal lack of support.

20:58

Yes, yeah.

20:59

So if we see that, that's the basis that we're starting from. And then we overlay kind of, you know, very hit and miss breastfeeding advice, sleep advice, worry about the baby's not putting on weight at this exact time, because they're under the 50th percentile. But you and your partner are both only 30 percentile humans anyway, you know, all of these things add up, even before you get to a point of being like, Oh, well, actually, our paid parental leave is inadequate, are you going back to work, oh, your partner works, shift work, and no one else has been able to come around because they also have their own work to do, or we live 500 K's away from our family support, or the family that we do have here aren't able to support us, either emotionally or practically in the ways that is required biologically, by asking this time, you can see how this then starts to flow through into perhaps the amount of trust that the parent has in themselves, looking for external kind of solutions, because they haven't had any support to learn to really bond and, and trust with, you know, that bond between themselves and their baby. And how that flows through into the way that we parent, our children, the health of those children long term, the way that we integrate or have the reserves to advocate for our children in different environments. It's really, you know, it just, it sets us up on kind of our mainstream social treadmill of martyrdom, motherhood. And so somewhere along the line, we have to decide if it's the way that we want to keep doing this or not. And for those people who are approaching the birth of another baby, the very first thing that might be is making different plans for your birth. Or it might be about getting the support that seems perhaps expensive and extravagant in postpartum. But is the thing that's going to set your family up for the long term in that post birth period. Yeah, or it might be having to do a really big reset, because your kids are already 10 years old, and you're having thyroid problems. And that's kind of what I was saying my exercise physiology role some of the time was that I would have those mothers coming in with thyroid conditions and weight that just wouldn't budge. It's like, Yeah, I wonder why. No, it's not a surprise. It's not a surprise when we see it playing out from that very early. Point. Yeah. Well, and

23:59

I really love all of what you've just said, then because it really does set up, set your body up your immune system, your nervous system, your mental, emotional state, you know, when we are supported in this way to heal and rest in this early postpartum period, you build your energy and your reserves back up again, ready to then like, you know, be there for our children and, you know, ongoing, then I certainly have a very similar experience with the clients I see. With them being, you know, 234 years down the track and in that depleted state, because we've, we haven't had that support in place and we just think then there's something wrong with us. Were the only parents that mothers that can't kind of cope or can't, you know, can't do it on their own, but actually, we're not meant to do it on our own.

24:58

Oh, why am I so Angry, huh? Yeah. Yeah, because it really should be a case of like, you know, our culture is like, bounce back and I saw a post the other day that was a health fund and a nutritionist or dietitian working together. And the very first point of their, you know, pointers for postpartum moms was number one was Make Friends with Salad. And it's like, I know that that's kind of a joke, you know that like, you don't make Friends with Salad song? Yeah, yeah. Like, salad is the opposite of postpartum food. You want to be thinking like rich stews and soups and things that you would provide to someone who was sick. Yeah, you need rebuilding food. And yeah, our culture is focused on bounce back when my my postpartum doula teacher, Julia Jones talks about really the only jobs that we should be doing in the postpartum period, are learning to breastfeed and falling in love with our baby?

26:05

Yeah. Which is

26:07

not to say that breastfeeding is the only way there are people who, who exclusive formula feeding is the absolute best thing for their family and other families when mixed feeding, with a combination of breast milk and formula is perfect. But the point is that we need to be spending a lot of time horizontally. And that's another thing from the exercise physiology stuff that I was the state, so much of, is this idea of, you know, in the standard research literature, there's stuff around looking at starting your abdominal retraining for diastasis recti, which is that, you know, six pack muscle kind of separation within the first week postpartum. And it's like, well, actually, if I was getting up and moving about too much in the first few weeks, I can guarantee you, I would have ended up with some kind of uterine prolapse or really long term incontinence issue. And it's only these kind of knowledge bases coming in together, that I was able to make some of these plans that were protected for myself. Yeah. And then now have the capacity to share those.

27:16

Yeah. And I will ask you more about what those plans actually are. But I wanted to make, like touch on something you just said then, that in terms of the recovery process from birth, we can actually still be doing like we can still be getting a prolapse and things you know, bladder prolapse, or a prolapse, from what we do post natal as well, not necessarily only from our birth, so this is where, like resting

27:45

the too much too soon. Yeah. So if you imagine basically, that the womb, when you have birth, your baby, the womb is like a big empty balloon. And it's sitting on top of the vagina, like, you know, a tube essentially. But that womb, by the time the baby is born, can't remember the exact amount, but it weighs something like a kilo. And it's sitting on top of this tube, that's just been massively expanded. Yep, to get the baby out. Yeah. Or if you've had a C section, that's still, you know, having to scar and he laughed, and it's still balanced on this pelvic floor. That's been, it's been stretched and strange. So, yeah, this big balloon is sitting on top of a stretched out or weakened tube. And it's very possible that those edges of the uterus start to fall further and further down into that vaginal canal. And the more time that we spend, upright, and even if that is just standing at the kitchen bench, or the more weight we add on to that, so we add on the weight of our toddler or our new baby as well, or a backpack of things that we're carrying into daycare and like all of these things are waiting, that heavy wound down on top. And a lot of the, you know, the time that the womb is shrinking down the most is the time when the bleeding is heaviest. So we really particularly need to be sure those first couple of weeks, even the first three weeks, really that we're spending a lot of time like down Yeah, fade up. It's really not that long ago that even in Western cultures, the same was a week in the bed, awake on the bed, awake around the bed. And this is something that my mother in law remembers as well. She had a week in hospital with each of her four babies, even though they were completely physiologic uncomplicated deliveries, because she could be horizontal and her kids were being cared for by someone else and she wasn't expected to go Are women do too much too soon? Yeah, she could establish breastfeeding, things that are kind of, you know, again, traditions about keeping the mother warm and feeling contained, like belly wrapping is something that same across most cultures of the world. That was even something that used to happen in Australia and the UK would that was just done by nurses and midwives in the hospital using bedsheets? Like, it's not things that are, we don't have to be poaching from, you know, traditional Chinese cultures, or the African ways of doing things like this is part of our history, too. Because it's been known by wise women since forever, that this is what we need to be okay, after we have a baby.

30:48

Yeah, and we've just gotten fast, haven't we like, now it's a year out in like, two days, Matt, you know, it's really short that you're out and back home again, and looking after family or other kids, or I'm just thinking back to each birth of mine. With each of my births, I've developed more of a postnatal care plan. Because the first I had none, and I had no idea, really. And I was like, right, I'm gonna go for a walk. And I think we walked Oh, my gosh, I look back now. And I think what was I thinking? We walked to the shop to buy some baby outfits, but it was like a 5k walk. Oh, my goodness, what was I think it was like day three, I think I was still on that high of the first few days. And now I go, Gosh, my poor pelvic floor. And I wonder I ended up with a prolapse. And that has been there now. 10 years of, you know, I got my prolapse with my first child.

31:50

Yeah. And then you have to think of that and manage that through each pregnancy following Yep, you know, you have to think of that. And these things can be managed through specialist pelvic floor physiotherapy, it's not, you know, it's not a death sentence by any means. There's various exercises, various internal pessary kind of support options. There's surgical repairs, there's all sorts of things. But the thing is that it can be avoided by us not fasting ourselves. And yes, I was using the the uterus as an example before, but any prolapse is anything that kind of falls down lower than it should. So you can also have a bladder prolapse that sort of, then falls against that stretched vaginal wall and kind of cuts off some of that cavity there. It can also be a rectal prolapse from the back passage going forward. Yeah, we need to be careful with ourselves. Yeah. And then we're not taught

32:42

it. No, it's like and I was I'm a physio so I had no, like, I didn't even think about postnatal care for my first and I've actually there's a podcast episode with a pelvic floor physio. If people want to listen to that, I will say that, while I remember

32:57

do their friend much more up to date on their pelvic physiotherapy than I

33:01

know, but it's good to go over. And it's good to talk about too, but more. So. I'm just reflecting on the fact that I didn't know about resting and it wasn't ever spoken about 10 years ago, we did not have the internet like we do now. 10 years ago, like I don't we didn't have podcasts. We didn't have people talking about postnatal recovery and support and doulas like that it was all you know, we might have but I didn't do it wasn't in my face enough to see it. And I prepped a fair bit for the but hadn't thought much about afterwards. And then with each of my kids have been better and like, learn more about postnatal support and, and care and rest. And you know, I've read lots of books and love supporting women now, in that time, but we can always be doing we can do, we can always do a bit more I suppose each time. I know that there's been times where I'm like, Okay, I want more support than I got last time. Okay, that that's what I would change next time.

34:06

Yeah, and for me at this point, I'm starting to think as well like, Okay, we didn't have paid support postnatally last time, but I'm looking across the people that did support us and going okay, well now that care is going or that support is most likely going to be in the form of supporting my daughter, and it's still going to be me and a baby. So yes, there are things that you know, I'm probably going to be much more relaxed about feeding and sleeping and all of those things that you are more relaxed about second time around, but the same thing applies that my baby my body will have just grown a bit maybe and I will be in a hormonal state of flux and I will be needing to be horizontal. So how is that all gonna work? Yeah, yeah. So

34:59

what What does that look like? Let's talk a bit about that with someone. You know, and we've talked about that, like support and coming in and doing some food and a massage and things. But what? How do you practically go about this? If someone's listening and they're pregnant, or if they've had a first and they they're pregnant again, or even thinking about having another baby at some point down the track? And I've listened to this and go, Oh, yeah, what, like, what do they need to think about? And how do you go about planning it? Like, what's the steps?

35:31

Yeah, sure. So I actually have on my website, I have like six steps to plan your postpartum kind of guidebook for free that's on the homepage. Great. So I probably have to really talk about it explain some of what I just talked about in more detail. So regarding, you know, what's actually hormonally going on and biologically expected by you and your baby in the early weeks. And then, yeah, like how partners can be supportive or primary support people and how you can then expand your, you know, if you think that, that dyad of the baby and birth parent is in the centre, or perhaps a pebble that's dropped into a pond, and all the ripples that then come out around that. So the partner or primary support person is the next ripple out, and how, like how many ripples how many people in each of these layers can we get. And so these will be things like looking at how many balls you actually have in the air at the moment. So things like you, and if their partner is around, that you would write down literally every job that you do together across your family, and seeing which of those things is realistic for the two of you to cover, which things could be offloaded temporarily, which things could get dropped off the list altogether. And how you're going to ask personal or professional networks to step in. So often, the easiest thing for a while is, is around food. So that could be a combination of having meals frozen ahead of time, having your grocery order, moved online and delivered a recurring order each week. And also having a like a meal roster. So there's various websites and things that you can use, there's one that I like called meal train.com, there's another one meal baby. And you can just go in there and set up a free account with a calendar. And then you send that link to whoever you want and say, you know, we're expecting our baby in the month of May, it would be lovely if instead of a gift, you could contribute by bringing us a meal or perhaps if they live far away, by, you know, putting towards having takeaway meal one night or something like that. And so they can choose if they get involved or not. Some of those services as well, you can also pay $10 or something. And then it opens up a whole lot of other categories and criteria that you can ask people to contribute to as well. So that can be things like, you know, we had to get a bit creative when lockdowns were happening. So food robots are great, but you could also pick up a handful of laundry and go and do that. It could be that, you know, something that doesn't get thought about too much is that if the partner goes away for a while, it might be too physically difficult to take the beans out. So it's, you know, it's not that hard to ask a neighbour that you don't know that well to just be like, for the next couple of weeks when you do your beans, would you mind doing mine? Because my belly is still really sore? And they probably do it like it's, it's, it's practising asking for little things often. Yeah. And, you know, we have to be aware that we're going to have to bust some of our stories about being too much. And yeah, about not wanting to be a hassle. And about being a good girl and an independent woman and realising that all of those things that we've been told about how, how we can do anything that a man can do blah, blah, blah, that really doesn't apply when we have a new baby.

39:15

Yes.

39:16

And yeah, so I can't remember all the six steps off the top of my head, but they're the kind of things that we start with. So understanding the physiology of what's happening, and also getting our head around a little bit what normal baby behaviour is in regards to feeding and sleeping and these things having zero bearing on whether the sun is up or down or not. And how are we going to, you know, the idea of saying, Yeah, well, my daughter will be at daycare two or three days a week. Like that's great. She says to get there and back. She still has to have a lunchbox she still has to have clean clothes to wear. They're like there's extra steps that we have to remember. lay it all out, see what's doable, see what's not, and then figure out how how and who you can ask. Yeah, so, yeah, it is a project and you do get better at it. And there are professionals that can step it out with you to help you be feeling as rested as possible. Yeah,

40:21

because it is so important. And I really love what you said before around, you know, people might not my people might see like the cost of have bring in some external support of like, why do I need that unnecessary cost, but it's really strange. This is where I find our society a little bit, it was still a bit topsy turvy, turvy around this, in that we're quite happy to go and spend $1,000 on a new cot or decking out the baby nursery in all these different things yet, we're not willing to spend on care that will then set up our like, the whole family dynamic for the rest of their lives.

41:07

Yeah, sometimes, sometimes if people ask things like, oh, which pram should I get? I'll ask them how much it is and then say, okay, can you go and find me three to five, mum friends, and ask them with this money in retrospect, what would you have used it on out of these options? And they'll almost always say, more help more care, a cleaner a meal delivery as something that is actually for them? You know, in terms of my own preparations, I'm not setting up a nursery. No, I don't even know that I'm going to bother moving my older child into our own bedroom. Like we'll probably just all being together. And that's just how it is. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it set up a room before and the cart just got used as storage forever. I think the most useful time it was actually helpful for was when I had to iron some things, and I put her in the cart. So she definitely wouldn't get burned. And she screamed for every minute of it. But she was physically safe, then that was it. And I might have a baby with a completely different temperament this time, who does want to sleep in a bassinet and a cot and that's great. I can get one of Gumtree for $50. Yeah, I don't need to set up all these things ahead of time, that I may or may not ever, ever use. Yeah, that's another thing when it comes to thinking about, you know, a traditional baby shower is very baby focused, but doesn't really honour the journey of the mother or the caring parent. So thinking of how can we not only like waving some ritual there, but have something that helps people feel really connected to that baby that makes them want to continue to be involved and to think of ways to serve. And that could be something you know, you might not want to do, you might really love the idea of a normal baby shower, like that's, I have friends who, curing COVID, they really grieved that they couldn't have a standard baby shower. And that's fine. If that's what you want, I would just suggest things like, instead of giving a little gift bag at the end, put whatever you are going to do in a takeaway container with a little note that says, I'd love for you to come and meet my baby. I'll let you know when we're ready for visitors. And would you mind bringing this back with some leftovers or a meal for us? Little bits that will mean the fresher will get taken off? Yeah. So yeah. There's plenty of ways we just have to think outside the very, very narrow box that our society presents us with.

43:48

Yes, and I love that. And that's why I love these conversations. Because without hearing it without thinking about it. We were it's just so normal for us to go and spend, you know, lots of money on prams and cots and carriers and you know, things to put our babies in. Yeah, and I maybe containers. Yeah, I have a big thing about the container society like container parenting, where I like basically would have no thing nothing. I'd have a carrier that I can hold my baby in and have them close to me. But then there's just so many things that we don't need with newborns that were sold, or we're told we need. And then there's so many things that we don't get that we actually need, which is all of this beautiful support and closeness and connection and time and sharing and rest. And so that's why I love these conversations. Because if I'd heard this when I was a new first time mom, I would have been like, Oh, God, no one even told me about this. I hadn't even thought about that. Or I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, exactly. So it's raising that awareness.

44:55

I've been actually interviewing for my podcast, I've been interviewing a whole range of people who work in birth, postpartum care, parents, mental health support, things like that who are also pregnant and about their own preparations. And it's very much like the majority of doulas are having their own dollar, the majority of midwives are having their own midwife. The majority of psychologist having their own psychologist involves like, when you are doing the work, you see the value in it. And for me, I don't know if I will have a postpartum doula as such yet, or if I will be choosing specific practitioners that have certain skills that I want the support with. I know there's a really good mobile massage therapist in our area. Yep, who specialises in pregnancy and postnatal massage. I've already flagged with my perinatal mental health, social worker, kind of counsellor person ahead of time that usually it's only a case of like, if something comes up and I want an appointment with her, then I'll contact her. But as I said, I would like once a month appointments from this time period and just flagged with her ahead of time, there's a couple of services that I've kind of put, either put my interest or a deposit on for because I know again, that it's something that needs to be done ahead of time, or I may not do it. I will be booking in my pelvic floor physio, first check and appointment actually, before I have my baby, because again, like you coming from that rehab kind of background, it still took me until 12 months postpartum to go and get a proper physio check. So I know that I need to book it in for six to 12 weeks before I actually have that baby. Yeah, or I'll find reasons to not get there. Yeah. So yeah, there's just stuff that I'll have in place that will take the pressure off. And I have other tools that I recommend as well, that kind of helpful in seeing how you're travelling. So there are some different questionnaires that you can use on the Pandora website, which is perinatal anxiety and depression, Australia. And there's different ones for moms and for partners and, or during pregnancy where you can just go on and do a quick answering the questions and it gives you a bit of an idea of your score and what that might mean and how you're tracking mentally. And that might then indicate for me if something's not going as well as I think it is. Because sometimes when you're caring for a baby, you actually don't notice how you're going. And yeah,

47:42

I love all of that. I love that. And that's the prep stuff. You know, like, like you said, you might not necessarily have your own postpartum doula, but you have a breaking down this support, and making sure you're getting it from the avenues that feel, you know, aligned to you and feel the most, like a yes for you. And I think that that is the stuff that we that we can be doing. And that's the, you know, who would have thought to put your physio appointment in and have it ready to go six to eight weeks post, post birth, but that's then you know, it's one thing you're not having to think about with, with a newborn and, and, you know, a three year old, because, yeah, like those things, making a phone call and booking an appointment for me even, you know, having a newborn, I still find those things really hard to do.

48:33

Oh, yeah. Then you go like, Oh, well, how do I, you know, I've got to make sure that there's care for both of them. Yeah, transport and all of these things. And oh, it's just too hard. I'm not going to do it. Yeah. And a lot of this obviously plays into the fact that you do actually need someone present a lot of the time. So really hammering home, that this is an important time to take as much leave as humanly possible and that if your partner or primary support person is not going to be available for longer than a week or two, even if there's an uncomplicated birth, we need to be finding some backup people to be physically present. Yeah,

49:15

absolutely. I really agree with that. So we've just been talking about postnatal care and all the things that we can do for when we have a baby, I am interested to hear your thoughts on what can someone do if we're down the track, like if we are listening, if someone's listening to this, and their, you know, their baby, like five or I've got a 10 year old or they're well down the track of the newborn stage. And we're thinking, Well, I didn't do any of those things. And I didn't get that and oh my gosh, you know, first of all, I always say to parents to have compassion and love for ourselves. If they hear anything that's bought up feelings or brought up anything And while you know while they've been listening, so to have compassion, firstly, but also, I was wondering, what do you suggest? Or is there things that people can do to, you know, around around this?

50:13

Yeah, it's interesting, because I think a lot of the strategies that were put in place for the newborn period are still the relevant ones. If we feel like we need to catch up later. Yes. So it is taking as many things off your plate as possible. It is resting as much as possible. Yeah, it is asking for extra support, and delegating. And, yeah, it may sound a bit. Again, luxurious or indulgent or woowoo. But basically making a little, little nest or retreat for yourself, that can be a hormonal reset, where we have to learn how to be still and be slow again, because we've probably been in Rush mode since forever. So there are a few authors who talk about this kind of thing and look at it from an integrative medicine kind of approach and looking for nutritional and naturopathic, and bodywork kind of support all involved in this in being able to reset your systems, which is so different from that medical model where you have if you're finding it, like that example I gave before difficult to shift weight that they'll send you to a dietician and an exercise physiologist to knuckle down and, you know, have a diet plan and exercise and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's really like becoming Steel's so your nervous system can not be under so much stress anymore. So I'd have a look at there are a few books and authors that I'd get familiar with. So the postnatal depression cure by Dr. Oscar Cerelac, which I mentioned before, is a really excellent place to start. There's another one rushing woman syndrome by Dr. Libby Weaver, which is that one's a good one as well, because it's relevant, regardless of if you've had children or not. Yeah. So yeah, for women who haven't had babies, I'd look at that one as well. And Kimberly, and Johnson is another person that I'd take a look at, as well. So she's quite a holistic, good kind of professional who also includes think she's got some thoughts around things like somatic experiencing. Yeah, yeah. drama around birth, trauma, healing, and things, things that have been kind of stuck, buried under lots of layers as a protective mechanism that are potentially starting to cause troubles now, which is why you're starting to think of it now rather than early on, where you could kind of get by now reach instead of a point where you're like, I actually don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to feel like this anymore. So have a look at those three, as well as kind of reassessing what bits do actually don't serve you.

53:13

Yeah, and I love that. And I would second that, because that's from a craniosacral point of view, and a body work point of view. I see that all the time. Yeah, where we've gotten out of that real busy period, survival mode, you know, three kids under five, or whatever it might have been, and they're getting to school, and we're, then our health sort of falls apart of it. But it is coming back to these principles. It's really the same principles of of a post partum kind of period of rest and slowness and stillness and and allowing our body the chance to heal, and to reset. So I really love that. And I'm so glad that you mentioned mentioned that because it's really important. So even if you're further down the track, and don't have a newborn, that some of these things we've been talking about are really relevant.

54:04

Yeah. And it could be that something's got to give so that you're in bed an hour earlier. Yeah. It could be around. It could be the things that we really don't want to look at, like our caffeine intake. Yeah, stuff that we've used as a way to keep us going. But we need to cut something so that we can let our body do what it needs to do. Yeah. Yeah. So true. It might be therapy, that you don't even quite know what you need that for, or Yeah, breath work. It could be it could be a whole lot of things. But I would go and explore those three kinds of authors and say what bits you feel are relevant for you.

54:50

Yeah, thank you so much for that. That is so helpful. I wanted to ask you about your book and get you to talk a little bit about that because it is a really really important book and you talk about the spoken emotions of motherhood, invisibility, loneliness, and overwhelm, and probably the ones that I really wanted you to share about, a bit more about. So even just telling us about your book, but it's so incredible that this resource is out there for mothers, because these are all feelings that these are feelings that we all have. And often they are unspoken. I know, they certainly were for me when I was a new mum 10 years ago. Yes. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? Because it's really important. Yeah, sure. So

55:41

my book is called mama, you're not broken, unmasking the unspoken emotions of modern motherhood. And it's divided into 10 chapters. And each of those chapters is based around a certain emotional theme. The first is guilt, because I think an understanding of how guilt operates as a, as a tool to make us keep striving harder and harder and harder, is a very powerful thing. If we can get if we can get free of some of the mom guilt, then it makes all of the rest of everything else so much easier. Yeah. Because you're not trying to live up to some imagined standard that's never going to be attainable. Yeah. And then it goes through uncertainty, invisibility, fear, over overwhelmed and anger, grief, boredom, contentment. And there's probably one or two more that I've forgotten. But that's, that's pretty much how we work through. Because even content when at the end, like it can be hard to say that you are feel really awkward to say that you're enjoying yourself, if you're in a month group and the first nine months have said like, how horrible a time they're having. And you're actually having a nice time. But you don't really want to say that. Yeah, so that you don't get hated on or making anyone else feel worse.

57:04

So,

57:05

yeah, invisibility, I think is kind of a plays into what we've been discussing already. Because our needs are generally invisible in the early time. And the really difficult parts of mothering are generally invisible from the rest of the world, because they're done behind closed doors. Yeah. They're the bits that happened in the middle of the night. And they're the babies that you don't see out in public because they're too difficult in the car, or because they might be put down into a pram or any of those things. You know, I was at a baby Expo fair thing on a stall a couple of weeks ago. And all around me, were these babies like happily gurgling and prams are sleeping easily, or, you know, they'd wake up and they wouldn't cry. They just look around. And I just thought, if I had seen only this kind of stuff, when I was pregnant with my first and then had the baby that I had, I would have thought that her or me or both of us were completely broken. It's like you only see that easy key. Yeah, out and about, for a reason. Because it's too hard to have a normally behaving baby in an adult environment. Because it's not, you know, emotions aren't accepted child children's emotions aren't even accepted, let alone outs. Yeah, so,

58:38

yeah, yeah, it's invisible

58:40

visibility of all our work, you know, all the effort and the time and the hours and the love and the sleep deprivation and everything that we put in that doesn't get seen. And then you run into someone and they say, Oh, how are you enjoying your time off, you're like, This is the hardest I have ever worked. Or when you go somewhere and your parenting is completely just assumed. But you know, I know, when my partner takes her out, he'll get comments of praise about doing certain things, but there's not a chance that I would even be noticed as doing them because it's normal for months to do them that he'll get like, mom's day off or so great to see dad's doing x y Zed or your generation blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, you know, he's equally genetically involved in this child. But apparently his parenting is praiseworthy, because, you know, penises mean you're incapable of parenting. So and

59:38

that's the thing, right? We you go out you wouldn't necessarily praise a mother for having kids at the playground. But then when the daddy Oh, they're so involved in

59:47

like a mother of three there who'd be completely looked past but he's there with one toddler and he's the one getting the praise for pushing the swing. Yeah, you know? Yeah. And meanwhile, he's probably doing that. Seeing because she only wants me overnight. And I'm having a two hour sleep in the day because otherwise I won't be able to function. So, yeah, various levels of invisibility, also the invisible kind of juggle of when you're a mother who works, that idea that we have to mother like, we don't work and work like we don't have children. That kind of double pressure. Yeah. And yeah, I'm sure there other bits, yeah, not all of these chapters kind of interweave on each other. Yes, good. Because you can, you can just get to the exact chapter that you're wanting. And often I find that people will go straight to anger and then come back to a lot of the others. Because that's a really kind of taboo, one, particularly in spaces of gentle and respectful and conscious kind of parenting. Or perhaps gentle parenting that hasn't quite found what that responsive and conscious parenting can be like, Yeah, still in that tussle of being like, ah, you know, why can I just have the patience? If I try harder to blah, blah, blah, I'll just become like, that's not really that I?

1:01:19

Nope. No, I certainly, you know, I was that was me write it. I had read, like outrage, so much outrage that I didn't know what to do with it. I thought, Oh, my God, it scared me. I didn't know what I got. Why am I so angry? Where's this coming from? And it was just all my unmet needs, not not being heard and not being supported? And, but also then thinking, gosh, where do I put this rage? Because I've got to hide it, or Yeah, I was ashamed of it. But actually, it's beautiful. And having a space to express that and ways to move that through has changed my life. So yeah, I like how you frame that of like, we haven't yet found that the the piece because calm isn't always the answer. With conscious parenting. It's being connected to ourselves, and aware of our internal states and having spaces for those to be heard and supported and seen. So that then we can, we can, in those moments respond to our kids in a loving way.

1:02:21

Yeah, as often as possible, and knowing that we're still going to screw up sometimes they literally were human. And they Our job is not to be perfect, I see our job as taking whatever of our stuff and our conditioning and taking as many layers off that as possible. So our children inherit as little out of it as possible, knowing that they'll gather their own stuff that we won't be able to be to pass them on as a completely clean slate from us either. Yeah,

1:02:47

absolutely. I love that. And that's exactly how I see it too. It's so that they grew up with less of our thing, you know, less of the conditioning and less of the stuff that we're passing down. But also, importantly, so they grow up with tools that they can work through their own stuff, you know, we're learning these tools now, as you know, adults on how to, you know, be aware of our own internal states and our own feelings and what's coming up. But if we, it's about having, you know, they get to adulthood with these tools already. there for them.

1:03:26

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's it, we are at a point where, for those people who are interested in gentle or responsive or respectful kind of parenting of whatever form of philosophy that takes, I think we're in a pretty good state of awareness of that our children's feelings are okay, and seeing why they arise and being willing to try our best to hold space for those feelings and to help them move them through their bodies. But we're still not completely sure of why our own feelings are coming up at different times. So I suppose my book is providing the context as to why certain things are cropping up for you, so that you can be able to process those feelings without the shame and just being like, oh, yeah, you're here. And it makes sense as to why so I can now see that you will soon pass and that I'm not a terrible person for having that and it doesn't mean that I'm a bad parent either. No. So what was it uncertainty one of the other secret Oh,

1:04:31

no, just Yeah, invisibility was the other one alone. Our loneliness I think and we've talked a bit about that already with like having support in these early days around because we can be alongside someone and you've said this in your book like you can be right next to someone but feel really lonely. You know, you can you can be kind of doing stuff around you for your kid but still felt incredibly lonely. And I think that was such a important point for parents too. And new mothers and new parents too. hear.

1:05:01

And I think as well, that a lot of the time, we're expected to form connections based on certain characteristics of our children. So, like mother's group is the obvious example. Some people have a great mother's group, mine was a completely wasted time kind of experience, I don't keep in contact with anybody, the structured support from the health department was full of misinformation. And I just couldn't deal with it and I left. And yet, it's really about how we need to be forming. Rather than just being all chat together by Oh, you live kind of close, and you had babies within a couple of weeks of each other, which some of those can be, can be helpful connections. But also, maybe we should be finding things that we actually have interest in valuing. And our kids, so just

1:05:57

go on. Yeah, yeah.

1:06:00

Yeah, very small at this point in time. Yes, I don't love music. Don't take your kid to baby music class, like, that's where all the people who value like, you have to be going party for you. And then you'll find some people to start to bring in to your network. But the loneliness is a more systemic instructional one too, because we can talk about building our village and all of these great ideas. But because we are separated by our little siloed, off houses, in the suburbs, or wherever we are, and particularly if you're living very regionally or remotely, then it doesn't take much for your best laid plans to old Fall River. It can be harder as well, when you are parenting in a what is a countercultural kind of way, which probably a lot of your listeners are because then not only are you trying to find places where things, pique your interest and match your philosophies, but I don't know about everyone else, but I get really picky about I really want to be spending my time around people that I feel really comfortable and that my child is going to be emotionally safe with. Yep. So it cuts down your options to a degree, which for me, it's probably okay, because I'm someone who values a few deep connections over many passerby kind of ones. Yeah. Yeah, for people who need a lot of social input all the time, it can be really challenging. And I understand why some people choose to go back to work earlier than they expected. Because they need that, and they need to be around adult conversation. I get it.

1:07:51

Yeah, I get that too. And that's why I wanted to touch on that. Because it's so important that this piece these pieces around, you know, connection and finding, finding what you need and what fills your cup up as a parent because it we can we can be kind of in our family in our lives, but still feel quite lonely. And I just thought that was a really important chapter to touch on with your book. So yeah, thank you for sharing that.

1:08:20

Like hearing the bits that stood out to different people.

1:08:23

Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit more about your what offerings and where people can find you? On all in all the places?

1:08:33

Yeah, sure. So on online, my website is www.annacusack.com. Today, you can you can find, you know, my book and that e-guide that I was talking about before the six steps to peaceful postpartum. And my various services there. So generally, I do in person doula support for the postnatal period around Lake Macquarie and Newcastle, Maitland kind of area. I don't know exactly when I'll be starting my mat leave, or quite how long that's gonna go for. So that's kind of up in the air at the moment, but the online stuff is definitely continuing. So these are private, postpartum planning sessions for if you are expecting a baby, and wanting to get all your ducks in a row as much as possible. Maybe have someone else explain to your partner kind of why you need certain things so that you don't feel like you're doing the educating to a degree as well. Yep. Great. And then the kind of mentoring support that I do is zoom calls and perhaps voice message app kind of follow up if that's something that you're after. And we talk through sort of that mature essence period, the transition to motherhood that takes years not just days or weeks because it's a process of unravelling and piecing yourself back up and figuring out what's actually important to you. Yeah, which is also, you know, a big period of flux around your relationship, not only with yourself or your intimate partner or your close family relations, but also that changing relationship with your baby and potentially changing relationship with work and career and return to work and identity and all these kinds of sticking points that we come up against. So it's the kind of conversations that you might just want a fresh perspective of, or a different set of listening ears, stuff that doesn't put it out that you really don't want to rehash with your partner again, but is not necessarily the kind of thing that you take to your psychologist, either. So it's that walking with you to help you unpack kind of what's been making you feel in a jumble so that you can find what feels more like a clear path for you to go down.

1:10:59

I love that. Oh, that sounds amazing. And we'll put all of those shownotes I'll put all those links and things in the show notes for people if they want to connect with you and come and have a look at your things and buy a book. Because yeah, that's really important topics and great information there. So thank you so much.

1:11:19

And if anyone wants to jump across and keep chatting with me one way or another, Instagram is the place that I hang out on social media, too. Yeah. Thank you, @Anna Cusack Postpartum. Yes. And if you want to go way back in the archive on the Anna Asks podcast, that's where you'll find Shelley's interview from 18 months ago or something.

1:11:38

Yes. And I have that I have that a podcast on my website, actually. So that's there for people to listen to, too. And you've also got your podcast you want to say a bit more about the podcast, too.

1:11:50

Yeah, sure. So the podcast is split into various season. So some of the interviews on season two actually read out the whole book. So part of what I'm really passionate about is equitable access to support and resources because obviously, the way that our society is structured means that there are various levels of privilege and marginalisation. So the book is available to purchase in physical form, obviously, but you can listen through my podcast at any time for free. And yeah, part of that commitment is also the any of my online or remotely delivered services on a pay as you can basis as well. So you can you can nominate the value you see in the service and the funds that you have available at the time to access my support.

1:12:45

Yeah. Which is so incredible, because I agree, you know, having information and support. It's so important for that to be accessible across all, all people. Thank you so much for your time for this conversation. It has been wonderful. I've loved chatting with you. And I look forward to speaking

Shelley Clarke  1:13:12

to you again soon.

1:13:13

Thanks, Shelley speak with you soon. Bye.

Shelley Clarke  1:13:16

Thank you for listening. This episode was brought to you by 21 days of play my self-paced course to help bring more play into your every day. Thank you so much for listening. I would love to know your thoughts and feelings and to continue the conversation. You can connect with me on Instagram at Facebook @_Shelleyclarke_  If you'd like to keep in the loop for all my resources and offerings as they happen you can join my mailing list at www.shelleyclarke.com Thank you for all you are doing. Your parenting is important and powerful. Have a lovely day. Bye for now.