117: Sophia Wren on Young Motherhood, Post Partum Depression, and Finding Comedy

Comedian and writer Sophia Wren joins The Baby Tribe to talk about becoming a mother in her early 20s, the shock of a precipitous labour, and what nobody tells you about the emotional aftermath. Sophia shares a painfully honest account of postpartum intrusive thoughts, fear, shame, and the moment she realised she needed help, plus how medication and support helped her rebuild her life from scratch. Afif and Anne explore why aftercare and being heard matter so much, how matrescence can trigger an identity quake even in “perfect on paper” situations, and why mental health treatment deserves the same normalisation as any other medical care. Sophia also tells the story of how a comedy course during a later crisis accidentally launched her career, leading to her acclaimed show Princess Melancholy. Funny, frank, and unexpectedly healing. You can find Sophia and all her shows throught her insta! https://www.instagram.com/sophiawrencomedy/ Proudly sponsored by https://www.happytummy.ie/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This show is part of the Head Stuff Podcast Network.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Welcome to the Baby Tribe. I'm your host, Afi Felkafash, neonatologist, pediatrician, and lactation consultant, and my co-host is Anne Deharty, obstetric anesthesiologist. This episode of The Baby Tribe is sponsored by Happytummy.ie and Biogaia Ireland. Biogaia contains the probiotic Lactobacillus routeri, the only clinically proven probiotic to help infants with colic. They also have probiotics suitable for the whole family, like Biogaia Prodentis for Oral Health, one of my favorites. Let's get on with the show. Welcome to the Baby Tribe, dear listener. Today's guest is a comedian, a mother, and proof that if you become a parent young enough, you don't ease into adulthood, you're violently shoved into it with a nappy bag. And no instructions. See my timing there? I paused for the last. She's one of Ireland's sharpest comics. She's here to talk about motherhood, mental health, identity, and how comedy is sometimes cheaper than therapy. Sophie Yorin, welcome to the baby tribe.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Oh, thank you so much for having me. And let me tell you, choosing the baby bag was one of the main parts of becoming a mother for me. That was the accessories were very important. A hundred and the the travel system. Very important. Very important. My favorite parts.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

Oh my god, you spend hours.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Honestly, yeah. I didn't understand how people were into cars or motorbikes until I started researching travel systems. And then I was like, oh, they have those wheels. I was like, I got so into it, and the type of baskets you'd need. And yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45

And the not the accessories would still be a enjoying to look at what type of thing. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, it'd be nearly worth having another child just for the yeah. Just for the accessories. I couldn't afford it now. I'd have to get it on Klarna. The child I mean. I'd have to pay in installments. But um, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:58

They are bloody expensive.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, and pregnancy is hard. It'd be grand if they came flat pack or something, and I could I don't know. I figure it's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_05 2:04

That'd be grand in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Wouldn't it? Yeah. Have they not designed how to make them in like tubes yet or something?

SPEAKER_05 2:12

And then they come with all these like um Scandinavian names. Yeah, that'll be grand.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Ericsson, or yeah, yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I don't see the pregnancy, you can name it. Yeah, you've done it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Yeah. I feel like I'm gonna be a third weirless. No, not at all. Not at all. So Sophia, welcome. We're so delighted to have you. We have this now series of having comedians on the show, and I think it's such a breath of fresh air, especially when you have parenting experience. And before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

I grew up in Newbridge in Calder.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Okay. Yeah. I have a friend from Newbridge.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Oh goodness me. Probably are we related? Probably, probably. Probably. You can say their name and cut it out if I she's before your time.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

You're like still a child yourself. I am, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I'm only I'm barely born myself. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

So what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

It was fun. Do you know what? I didn't realise I was a cultie until um I was excited. Excuse me. Yeah, I didn't know because I was just like, we live in a town. What are you talking about? I thought cultis were just like you live near the cows and the fields and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05 3:13

But I was a towny as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, but like I just thought, I was just like, well, we have a cinema and uh loads of pubs. I was like, so that's I practically live in a city and I go to Dublin twice a year, excuse you. Do you know what I mean? So I was like, I didn't realise until I went to college or whatever that I was like, oh no, this is the city, okay, this is a different way of life. So um yeah, I guess there wasn't a lot going on, especially for I wasn't really into like sports or GAA or any of that typical thing going on. There was a lot of musical stuff, but I wasn't a very good singer. So it wasn't until I was a teenager and I discovered there was like a local youth theatre. And then once I discovered that, I was like, okay, found my people. There was a there was a a theatre built downtown. I found a youth theatre, and then I finally kind of clicked for me then.

SPEAKER_05 3:52

I was like foreman's creativity, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Because up to then I was a little bit it was it was fine. I just didn't really find my tribe as such to really fit in, you know, until yeah, so and I found I didn't realise you could have theatre without singing, you know. So I was like, you can just talk, which is my favourite thing to do. So um good place there. Yes, professional chatter, so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:13

I was I was a towny as well, Devin Mayo, like so I I I definitely knew though that bigger cities were where I wanted to build up, especially when I was younger, you know. I definitely have a hard relate to the Insta stuff that you put up about like the quirky culture because that was my life growing up. A hundred percent. All of the kind of um, you know, people don't get depressed, they go on tablets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh they're not neurodivergent, they're just characters.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah, they're just quirky, they have their ways. You leave them be now, they're just themselves. Exactly. That's it, yeah, yeah. And no, he just he just he doesn't he doesn't need to go into the hospital, he just needs a rest. He's gone in for a rest. That's it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:56

Well, that was my life. It was hilarious. Like my mother went through a phase of like bringing random people home that she found like in distress, and you had no idea who you would find in the kitchen randomly. And I remember one day coming down, and we still talk about it myself and my siblings. I came down to the kitchen one day and I said to my mother, who is it? There's like a random man at the table, and he looked a bit worse for where. And I said to my mother, Who is that man? And she went, Be quiet. And I said, What? And she goes, He doesn't know himself. Asking him his name would be rude because he was unaware of who he was at the time. And it was just some person she had found who was obviously distressed. But like that was my life. You'd no idea who's going to be in the kitchen from one day to the next. My mother had this hardcore group, I call them the Golden Years, because on a Saturday or a Sunday, we'd have this hardcorecore group of this motley crew of characters that my mother had collected over the years. One was like a parish priest, one was a very old nun who loved telling saucy jokes. One was seriously, one was um Sounds like the start of a joke. Seriously. These are the people at the kitchen table, my dad and my mum. And one was a kind of ex-hell's angels biker who'd be sitting there in his leathers and his bandana.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

My goodness.

SPEAKER_05 6:14

And then um one was uh uh a guy, a Brit, who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Oh my goodness. Yes, I think that's rare enough.

SPEAKER_05 6:24

No, but did they have to give the soup back or what? I did, it did, and they would all sit at the table and try and kind of like kind of irk each other and poke each other just for the crack.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

And we just sit down, eat popcorn, essentially watching all this crack going on.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

It was growing up in a play.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

Seriously, it was the best crack, yeah, and that was the house, so I totally relate to this story.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

And I had the privilege of witnessing kind of the latter years of this the golden years, yeah. The golden years. And I remember when we decided when we when we were getting married, we're like, okay, we'll do a Muslim wedding, we'll do a Catholic wedding to appease all of the above, you know, the parents.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

All the groups.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

And we met the priest, and the priest was like, Muslim. Muslim, because he had to fill in the forms. I was like, Well, at least you're not a prod.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah, but that's it. Yeah, yeah. There's a hierarchy, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're down below, yeah. So that's so funny.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

I was like, I'm glad. So Irish.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

It is so Irish.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

It is Irish. So that's why we so relate to your stuff, yeah. Because that is exactly but I kind of like that sort of sense. A lot of people responded to those videos because they were like, I love that sense of community. There's no alienate, because I think there's a lot of stigma that come with different mental health issues and your diagnoses or whatever. And I they have their place and they have their purpose, and the people need treatment and their help and support. But there is something lovely about going, that's just him. He's lovely, or they just need a bit of help. There's a kind of a no-judgment. I was in the guard station two nights ago, we just had to get forms filled out, and there was a fella there, and he was just had to get forms filled out.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

Actually, bring me in. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I was there voluntarily, and I could leave anytime I want. Yeah, I could stop anytime. But it was just there, and it was just so nice. There was a lad there in just a fella in there, and he was in such a bad way, and he just wandered in because he was just like, Does somebody mind bringing me home? And I was so funny. And then you wouldn't have that in New York City, like the guard the cops being like, What do you think you're doing? But in the guard station in the country, and you can just go in and be like, I've lost I've I've lost myself. And uh could you bring me? And it was just like this lovely Irish thing. I don't think I'm not sure if they did or not, but we just thought it was a nice notion that he went, shall I check what the guards are doing? Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 8:22

One of my friends one time on a night out in town, she hopped into the back of a taxi and she realized that the taxi driver was actually the Bangarda. And she said, Noula, when did you start driving taxis?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

So even the guards are having to do like freelancer. She'd gotten in a guard a car.

SPEAKER_05 8:41

She was just a bit worse for wear. But in fairness to Noula, she realized how bad she was and she took her home. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Anyway, Sophia, so you always wanted to be a comedian.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Well, I do know what it wasn't actually no, I didn't know is the answer. I didn't think that it would be a career one could pursue. I didn't know, I didn't have any like modeled for me in my life. I didn't think it was a thing. I what I thought I could be was an actor because I was in youth theatre. I knew people who were professional actors, and I thought there's a path to that. You go to drama school, you can do auditions, you can get, you know, you could start with ads, be an extra. I knew how to do that. I didn't know how people went from being normal people to comedians. I just assumed they picked them up in asylums or whatever. I don't know how it happened. Turns out that's closer to the truth than you would think. Yeah, and that's what happened. And so the van to St. Path is outside for me. I better go in half an hour. No, but like I didn't know how to do that, so I never really explored it as an option. And people said it to me a lot, like in my family, they'd be like, Go tell that story again. Do you know? Especially my nanny, she'd always get me to drove me mad when I was a child. I would tell them the story about when your arm went numb. And I'd be like, That's so stupid, but I tell it funny. And then as an adult, people would say to me, God, you're very funny, you should do comedy. And I just went, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but never considered it until I accidentally stumbled into it, and I went, This is what everyone was talking about. Okay, and so but I think I came into it at the right time. Yeah. I think if I'd started it straight out of school, I would have nothing to talk about. You know, I would have to do that.

SPEAKER_05 10:07

Well, that's the thing, yeah, because it's it's the people say darker life experiences that give you the humour. Absolutely, yeah. That's one of the reasons I love comedy and I love Irish comedy because I think we do dark stuff very well.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. We love it. Yeah, we love a moan, and we love and there's something I think about going like crawling through the depths of the psyche and coming out the other side that kind of liberates you in a way. Whereas I think if I was well, I wouldn't be able to get on stage. Do you know what I mean? I'd be thinking about oh mortified if I was well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:40

If I was well in the head, I'd be able to get it.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

If I had all my facilities about me now, I'd I'd have a real job. That's what'd be happening. No, I'd be earning money.

SPEAKER_05 10:47

You'd be in an office.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, but I'd be more concerned about, yeah, God forbid. I'd be more concerned about like I'll go, what would my mammy think because she heard this? Or what would so-and-so think? But I think once you've gone through the dark darkness and it you come out the other side, it's almost liberating. You're like, fuck it. Do you know what I mean? If the options are the abyss, or fuck it, I might as well get on stage. I know what that abyss looks like. Yeah, so it's optional. Yeah, I can always go back to the abyss tomorrow if this game doesn't go well. I always have the option, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

100%.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

But uh no, I didn't I didn't think it was going to be a thing from a child. I loved comedy and watching uh like Billy Connolly when I was far too young to be watching Billy Connolly with my cousin and I remember Tommy Tiernan when I was very young. I think his first DVD came out when I was only about uh 11 or something, and being obsessed, and I thought they were all improvising for their whole show because I was so impressed by these geniuses who would just walk out on stage and start a conversation with the audience and go on for an hour and a half. Um, but luckily apparently you're allowed write and prepare, which is a relief.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

I actually thought a lot of it was ad-libbing. Yeah, you know, and and but it it it just shows you the skill of the comedian to make you think that they're just having these things you know, having these thoughts and just kind of ruminating and thinking of all these funny things as they come. But even being able to adapt and all of that, and I think, like you said, I don't I don't know, um, but I'd say many comedians don't grow up saying I want to be a comedian. They probably have the instinct and have the ability, the observational skills, and they probably go through something a trigger, you know, a trigger, and then you end up um you know going on stage and being a natural at it because it's not easy. No, no, it's not easy and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I think it was an it I think Jimmy Carr has a thing where he says when he meets a comedian, he asks him which one of your parents was ill or which one of your parents needed to. Yeah. I think and Carl Spain, an Irish comedian, he's amazing, he told me the same that his mother was unwell for a lot of his childhood, and he just spent his childhood trying to cheer her up, trying to like make funny jokes, and so it's either a way of a dysfunctional home where you had to be the jokester or yeah, or a traumatic experience in your adult life where you had to use humour as a deflection or an escape or something, because I don't think it's something you can necessarily learn. I think it has to be already an innate and and and the thing I've been talking about recently with comedians is that is not doing comedy an option for you? And if you say no, this is absolutely what I need to do, either for my coping mechanism or whatever it's giving to me, I cannot stop doing it. Then it's you were always gonna be a comedian.

SPEAKER_05 13:13

It's interesting because like there is definitely some form of catharsis for the performer when they get to and we've seen that with Eva Dunn when she was here as well, talking about her show and stuff. And it's it's when they get to write all this stuff down in a way that addresses it, but is palette like it is is palatable for their community, and people leave feeling better about it all, even though it's so dark, like that. I can see why it's addictive in that way, you know, and it's it's therapeutic. Yeah, it's a lovely thing.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

So tell us about your motherhood journey and how did that all happen?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Okay, so when a mommy and daddy love each other very much, yeah. I thought you'd have known this.

SPEAKER_05 13:58

I've tried to explain this to them a few times. I've only managed to get them to I've only managed to get it to make sense twice.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Okay, yeah, I know, yeah, yeah. Maybe next time, you know. Um, obviously, I just I used their both professionals, you know how it works. Um, yeah, you the the daddy puts a seed in the mammy's belly. Um I remember, I remember when when when our son first realized when our son first realized you've done it more than twice.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

That's disgusting, isn't it? It's absolutely putrid, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:29

I explained this to my son, right? A long time ago. Yeah. When he started asking questions, but he was very young, so I just gave him kind of the bare bones, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yeah, yeah. And uh stop saying that's how it happens, it's the bare bone goes in, yeah. You can't have a baby without a bare bone. That's very true.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Sorry, sorry. I don't need to stop talking.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

I really do. I don't know what's happening. No, it's good. We're on the same page.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

It's good, it's good, yeah. But he won't mind me telling this. Well, he screwed, we control the edit button, and we won't mind. You made him 100%. So I I explained it to him, and then um a few weeks later I get an email from the school asking me to go over the details with him again, please, because he had decided that because the man had the seed, that clearly men could also have babies grow in their tummy because they had the seed. Okay, yeah. He spent an entire day at school trying to get pregnant. No, explaining to everyone in his national school class, yeah, very young, some of whom had never even asked the question in the first place. Okay, yeah, that men could have children and he knew because both his parents were doctors and they worked in a maternity. Yeah, well, that makes sense. Thank you very much. Did you know he was so ahead of his time? Seriously, the teacher was like, A, can you explain it to him properly? And B, can you tell him to stop talking about it?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

And now and now teachers get fired for questioning questions.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

I know, yeah, that he was ahead of his time. But I love the authority he got from having two doctor parents because I had an aunt who was French, and the authority that gave me, I remember sitting in the iron one day eating grass, and they were like, You can't eat grass, and I was like, excuse me, my aunt is French, and she eats grass all the time. And I was like, anything I did, I was just like, She's been to France. Have you not heard? So I understand the authority, you know. Sorry, I'm right.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

Yeah, yeah. But that's sorry for interrupting you. So you were explaining to a fief how babies are made.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

So then yes. Uh yeah, thank thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yes, okay. So I shook the tree and the baby fell out. Um, yeah, so no, I got I got pregnant um uh when I I literally just graduated college and moved to New York, and I said, I'm gonna be on, I'm gonna be a star. It was very I was very success. Absolutely. I think the show Girls had just come out, and I was like, obviously, they need a psychology grad from Kildare in their cast. So I was like, I'll fly over there with no money and see what happens. And then uh in New York was um Hurricane Sandy happened, remember that? Oh god, yeah, yeah, and then and that and and that impregnated me.

SPEAKER_05 17:07

Oh wow, so I got pregnant there.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Um, and obviously I was over New York and only young and had no money, and I thought I cannot have a child in America, that's insanity. Um, so I flew home and I remember being funny at the time because that was back before we had repealed the eighth, and so over New York there was you know choice and options. I remember consciously thinking I'm actually flying home and losing human rights technically as I flew over the sea, but I had uh luckily I had made my choice, and that's why repeating date is so important to me because I was like, that was my choice, and I left, took a moment to continue. That's a good point, yeah. Yeah, it's really and it's gone the other way now.

SPEAKER_05 17:40

Yeah, it's it's really interesting actually, because like obviously I I work in a maternity hospital, yeah. Um, so crisis pregnancies and unexpected pregnancies, they're not the same thing, yeah. But you can have either or both of those at any point throughout your entire life.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Absolutely, it's not just for teenagers.

SPEAKER_05 17:59

Nope, yeah, 100%. And it's it's wild. Like, I've seen people who have really struggled with pregnancies even within a marriage, even within all of the things that we grew up when we were much younger, being told would be this is your safe place, this is your safe time. It's not true. So, like having women have their like autonomous control of their own body is really important. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely important. Yeah, but I again crisis pregnancy, unexpected pregnancy, not necessarily the same thing, and it's not age related.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Can I ask, was there judgment or support or a bit of both?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Um, do you know what I was so terrified of coming home and telling everything, everyone? But I think mainly because I had made such a song and dance of like, I'm getting out of here, I'm moving to New York, I'm gonna go be a star. And then I came home and I was like, Well, actually, I'm knocked up. So um what am I muggins over here? Oh, what am I like, you know? Because like uh I was just like salam suckers. Um but like, yeah, so I did feel a lot of shame. Um and looking back, I was like, what did I have to worry about? But that's just obviously immaturity and low self-esteem that you have in your early 20s, and it was obviously just like a not ideal situation as well. It was quite a traumatic situation, so um, yeah, so I I did feel fear of judgment, but I didn't really feel judged a lot. It was actually kind of okay. I was very supportive, but my family are very supportive, and it was that was that side of it was great.

SPEAKER_05 19:26

Um did it help that your aunt was French?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, she's a badge was back in France at that stage, yeah, yeah. She was just like, Yeah, well, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:35

Well, my aunt is French. Yeah, actually decided that.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

This is actually how the yeah, you think I'm not having my career, this is how the French do it. So um 100%. Yeah, so um, so yeah, came home, had the baby in Ireland, and um yeah. And now she's 12. 12. I know, yeah. Time flies. It goes too fast. It's so funny because I remember thinking, like, oh my god, I think you didn't call her Sandy by any chance, did you? No, so many people said that to do that, right? But here, and this is quite dark. Very Brooklyn Beckham of you. Very no, but can I tell you the very, very dark reason why that was like apart from I don't really like the name, okay, but um, like two or three weeks before Hurricane Sandy, we had just experienced the Sandy Hook shooting. Oh yes, alright. They happened within the same like month, and we were in New York, and people were like, You should call her Sandy. I was like, You don't know what we've been through in New York. Like it was a traumatic couple of months, um, you know, and I wasn't even you know even close to it. So I was just like, But it's so funny people say that. I'm just like, no, no, absolutely not. But um, no, so she uh but it's so funny because at the time I thought I'm so young, I'll never have a career, I'm not gonna do anything. I'll it's like a whatever. And I spent the last 12 years obviously trying to build a life and build a career. And now if I were to try and have a second child, I'm almost in geriatric pregnancy. And that happened within it was so the window's tiny.

SPEAKER_05 20:50

It's terrible, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

But I do, but it's so funny. You spend the first you spend the first few years of your adult life like desperately scared of pregnancy and how it'll ruin your life, and then like barely you know, seven years later, you're like, we better hurry up. And it's like TikTok tock. It's so much pressure on either side, you're like booked-ended by this pressure that it's like it's so easy to make the wrong decision either end, and it's it's insane, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 21:10

It is it is crazy. It's it's and I think it's I love when people talk about it to be honest, because I think that women have to kind of own the narrative on all of that now. Um because you know, we we do we are choosing not to have our children back in our teens and our twenties when it's a choice. A lot of people do actually choose to have their their children in their twenties, but the average age in Ireland now is about 33. Yeah. So, you know, it's it is that's for your first child. And I see women having babies um in my workplace well into their forties. And I think maybe one of the older people that we had come through was into their fifties. Yeah. So like it's and obviously there's some fertility assistance and stuff with that, but it the journey is very, very different now, and I think the narrative needs to change a little bit. Absolutely. Yeah, it's the whole like your role in life is defined by your fertility window.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

I hate that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:06

I hate it. You know? So anyway, that's only one appeal. I'll stop.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

But it is 'cause it's a very like pregnancy central c society or something, what it is. It's very much I don't know. Like women are reduced to that a lot, I think, their fertility status, like you were saying. So it is yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Yeah. I mean, on the other on the other hand, we need it for survival. Because despite my my my son's knowledge, men still can't get pregnant.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

This is true. You know, this is true.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

So yeah, but it isn't a female power.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

It is it is it is magic. We have magic portals.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

It is a female power.

SPEAKER_05 22:41

But I do get the whole narrative around the fertility thing, and I don't think men like well, men are definitely not subjected to the same, even though um like for a woman when you're pregnant, you have to eat right, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to be judged on your decisions, you have to be all of this kind of stuff. Whereas men, when they are if they're kind of trying to get their partner pregnant, there's not the same emphasis on their work. But isn't there evidence now that it does expect the affect the quality of the hair, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah. But there's huge pushback against that narrative.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

But we can't be see be policing men's bodies. No, God. Imagine.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Apparently that you know.

SPEAKER_05 23:21

You don't even have an opinion on that. Are you mad?

SPEAKER_03 23:23

It may impact it up to three months before you want to conceive.

SPEAKER_05 23:26

This is a feeling, yeah, because that's the duration of that that's sperm life. Wow. Yeah, three months.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Yeah, so no wonder we're all mental.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Tell you my dad wasn't on the folic acids in the 90s, I'll tell you that. No wonder I'm mental. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

We're taking a quick break to thank happytummy.ie, the official distributor of Biogaia probiotics, for supporting the baby tribe.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

Biogaia's probiotics are a game changer for baby health. Their protectus formulation with L-roterize strain is clinically proven to reduce crying time in colicky infants by up to 75% in just three weeks.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Just a few drops a day can make a big difference, and their baby drops come with vitamin D, which is one less thing for parents to think about.

SPEAKER_05 24:06

And they're not stopping at tummies. Biogaia now offers probiotics as a handy-to-take minty lozenge for oral and gum health support too, with their new preparation, Biogaia Prodentis.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Visit happytummy.ie to learn more and give your crew the gift of a happy tummy and a healthy smile. Hey there, Baby Tribe listeners. Did you know that we've got some amazing bonus material just for you? Baby Tribe Shorts is here. Quick evidence-based breakdown of all things science when it comes to mum and baby. You can find it as part of the Headstuff Podcast Network. You can subscribe to Headstuff Plus for as little as 5 euro a month. We'll give you quick evidence-based takes on science behind maternal and infant health.

SPEAKER_05 24:45

And the best part is it's just 5 euro a month, which helps support us and supports Headstuff and all the incredible shows they produce.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

You can find all the details on HeadstuffPodcasts.com. How did you find that?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Well, yeah. Well, you were you were in your twenties.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think it was there was I was extremely naive about it though. I did think like, oh, that's gonna know. It's gonna be like it is on telly, and you know, it'll be quick, efficient. In terms of the labour, yeah. Well, in fact, my my pregnancy was really straightforward because I was so young and I it was very easy. My body was well able for it. It was great. I can't, I really can't complain. It was fine. Um the labour itself, again, it was very fast. Like it was, it wasn't easy, but it was it was fast, it was almost traumatic how fast it was, though. Okay, because I think um I was overdue and um I was so stupid, I shouldn't have known. I went for a walk the night before and I kept having this shooting pain and like my legs collapsing. I kept being like, what's that?

SPEAKER_02 25:53

And like the five days overdue, and I was like, that's really weird, and I wanna know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Anyway, I don't know how much a movie, and I was like, oh, but my legs kept buckling beneath me, and like never obviously pregnancy, Brandy, and I was like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

I'll ring my mum tomorrow. Like, what obviously it's the start of labor, you idiot.

SPEAKER_05 26:08

Um, and then the fact that you were like someone able to walk, and you're like, I don't think about what to do about that tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

It was like a like a lightning bolt, and my legs are buckled. I was catching the person beside me, and I was like, So weird. Will we go down the pump? Or like what's we want? Hurricane, will we go down the pump? Um so I was like, whatever. Um also couldn't sleep, really weird. She couldn't sleep, and I was like, so weird. But it's honestly so like weird because like for the week two, for the month beforehand, I was like bouncing, I was like dying to get it going. And the immediately it starts, my brain was like, What's for lunch? Um obviously probably denial or whatever, but like the pain wasn't that bad. And then um I remember couldn't sleep at five o'clock in the morning. I was watching Step Brothers and I laughed so hard I thought I pissed myself. And I was like, Oh my god, I'm after pissing the bed. And you know that and I was like, and I was sitting on the toilet and I was like, God, it's still going. And I was like, Oh, they wait, it's so naive. I was just like, Oh no, it's obviously just my water's broke, and I was like, That's gas, maybe we should go to the hospital, you know, just maybe. So I went into the hospital. You did go to the hospital, yeah. Because obviously I went, but that's not coming from the that hole, it's coming from the other hole, and it's just it was flowing, and I went, okay. And I just stood there at reception, like just like leaking. And they were just like, Do you need something? And I was like, Well, I think something's happening. Yeah, and I was like, Maybe, I don't know, there might be the symptom, you know, whatever. And um, so they said, but they said there was absolutely nothing happening. No, I don't know why you call dilated around them like that. There was nothing happening, and they were just like, I guess go home. And I was like, Okay, so I went home again and did my tan. I was just like, but I wanted nice photos. I was like, if labour just happens, I was there.

SPEAKER_05 27:47

Like soaking wet, but I was like so 22.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah, and I was like, so I was there, like barely able to do the places, but I was like, gonna look good, like water's still flowing out, like ruining the tan as I go and I was like, I'm gonna look so good.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

It's gonna be streaky, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Yeah, and they were like, if nothing happens, uh come back in at seven o'clock and we'll induce you. Because obviously, whatever. So yeah, my waters had been broken for about 24 hours at this stage, and not a thing was happening. Yeah, I was like, okay, I better go in and um tan, perfect, perfect. The legs they were in bits. Um, and then I had worn, it was very 2013, I had worn a flower crown.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

Oh, gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

And I remember going in and like they were just like, we're gonna just have a little walk, you know, we'll go up and down. And I was chatting with the midwives, and they were just and I said, Oh, okay, so I think it's um it's actually a lecture picnic next week. And they were like, Yeah, and I was like, Oh my god, if I have her today, maybe I can go.

SPEAKER_04 28:35

Right?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

I was like, that was like I remember them looking at each other going, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

And I was just like, Well, that's really good timing, actually, whatever. And they were like, like obviously not even in labour yet. Because I was like, Oh my god, that'd be such good timing, and I'm gonna my flower crack, like the absolute naivety.

SPEAKER_05 28:49

I love it. Yeah, but you know what? You're a hundred percent you.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah, that's amazing. And the thing is, this is what I think it's important to talk about labour and stuff, because I had no idea what was about to come. Because I was just like, this is so easy, and I was like, I don't know why they're so dramatic in the movies. This is I'm just strolling around. I was like, this is fine. My tan is good, yeah, and other crown looks great. Yeah, and all of a sudden, I was getting the odd sweep all this, you know, which I was at this stage, I was like, sweep away, like you know what I mean? Like put a broom up there, what nothing at this stage, like, don't give a shit. Um, but then nothing was happening, and I remember my friend who had said to me, she was pregnant at the same time, but she was 10 years older. And she hadn't she wanted to meet up with me to be like, okay, what's our plan? She's very like academic and she's very obviously different to me in my flower crown, thinking about where I'm going next week. And she was just like, or she knew it was really important to like learn how to advocate for yourself in child labour, and she had like her partner prepared and like the hierarchy of what she wanted, didn't want. And she said, I do not want to be induced if I can help it, if there's no risk. She knew all this stuff. And I remember listening to her going, like, whoa, she really knows what she's talking about, you know. Um, I was just more concerned about the travel system and whatever else. Uh, but I remember her saying, if you can help it, don't get induced. I remember she put that fear into me. So when they said we're going to induce, I remember saying, like, only if it's the last option, and they were like, It is, you're at risk of infection, you've been, you know, water's broken for 24 hours. They're gonna put me on the drip. I can't even remember what that drip is, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 30:06

Oxytocin, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah, and I was like, Okay, fine, if there's no other option, we'll go for that. And so they put me on the drip, and I remember being like, This is fine, I'm still chatting away, so naive. And then, like, after a few minutes, it was like Yeah, and this was the pain shot through me. And I remember looking up at the person and other person I was with and looking at me going, and from then on, I couldn't even make a noise. And the tears started, and it was like, and I swear to god, it was one long contraction for an hour and a half. It went from zero to ten within like an hour, and I was lying there and I couldn't move. And because I was thinking people told me there'd be a contraction and then it'd stop, and you can chat, and maybe maybe ask for an epidural. And I remember being like looking around with eyes wide, going, is nobody gonna do something like what what the heck is this? And then when I could manage to talk, I asked for an epidural, and I remember they were kind of like going. I remember one of them going going to the other one and saying, She's very early labour, she's very early labour and kind of going, Oh, like this, whatever. And they came in and they were like, Fine, we'll do an epidural, but like you're not gonna, you're not gonna. I almost felt like I felt ashamed for asking. Oh god, and then they came in and they did, and I found the epidural very traumatic actually, because there was no gap between the contractions, so they were like, Stay still. It's so hard to position when it's just yeah, it was just it was literally just this. And looking back, because she was born so fast, I just went like this in fucking an hour. Yeah, and so now they raised the bed up, which nobody warns you about. It's very scary when you don't know what's in the bed. They move well, they moved the bed up, I didn't know what was happening, and like I was just very hard because they gave me gas and air, and I was like, anyway, they did the epidural, they brought me back to, and they were just like, Okay, we need to check you. I still had my underwear on, yeah. And I remember like not being able to move the pain, was so bad. And they said, Okay, do we have permission to like cut your underwear off? And I said, I was just like nodding, and they checked and they went, She's 10 centimetres. Wow, they were like, You had to put, and I was like, the epigral hadn't even kicked in, and it was so it just happened so fast, and they're kind of dismissive. And anyway, she was literally born within a few minutes. And so when and and looking back at the charts only afterwards, it was an hour and a half from so far to her born because I remember them wheeling me out, and one of the other medwives going, Is that the one that's going to electric picnic? And they were like, No, she's out already. They were like, Oh Jesus, she might actually maybe she will get her electric picnic, yeah. But it was just it was very fast, but it was the pain was just incredible.

SPEAKER_05 32:15

So yeah, those kind of precipitous labours is that what it's called, yeah, where it just things move very fast, yeah. Um you just don't get a break, like that's the hard bit, and you're kind of in your brain, you're thinking you're gonna have a contraction, and like part of it is just the oxytocin from the drip kicking in and all that kind of stuff, but then I yeah, I feel for you trying to position in that much pain, and it is really, really difficult trying to position for an epic. Could barely move like it was there's no left because I thought I'd watch the TV and then the disorientation with the bed moving while you're on the gas. That's it, yeah. Because the brain is kind of like just going, What in the world is going on?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

And that's and they were trying to talk to me at one stage and I had to take it up because I remember I was like that, and I was like, I said, like, whose voice is that? I quite I didn't know who was talking, that kind of because you are kind of off your head a bit with the gas and air, and like it was so intense, and I was just so unexpected at an hour. I was like clobbered with it. But anyway, she was out then. It was great. How did you process all of that? Not very well at all. I found it very traumatic to process, and I think what I found now, obviously years later, and have had having had traumatic events in my life, I think it's not the traumatic event itself that can leave you traumatized, it's the aftercare or lack thereof that can actually cause more damage than that. So I think it's even if small things with our children happen, it's really important to talk about it afterwards and process whatever because you don't know what's going to leave a mark if you don't get the proper aftercare. And I feel like it was the days afterwards that meant and they said something, I'll come in and chat about it if you want, but it wasn't them, it was the whole situation and how I dealt with it that led to I just didn't deal with it very well for like a year after that.

SPEAKER_05 33:46

Yeah, and it's funny, we're finally starting to learn that now from listening to women that it's actually the processing in context that makes a huge amount of difference. In the acute event, it's a feeling that you're not being heard, yeah, that nobody's listening to you, and you don't have a voice that actually really triggers that trauma. So it's not even the physicality of it, it's not even the pain. Yeah, it's if you feel that you don't that you're not being heard or you don't have a voice followed by then not having access to kind of contextualized um processing. So thankfully, we're hopefully starting to do better now, but we always have a way to go. But yeah, it's a perfect example, so I'm really sorry. Yeah, I'm really sorry that happened. It wasn't your fault, but I no, but it's it's crappy that it happened.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

But I think it was also my age, I know people do it younger, and it's fine, or but like it's just for me, whatever the combination of circumstance or not being properly sported at the time. Um, and I remember in the days afterwards, um, like I was back in the do you know like the nappy changing room where everyone goes into, and I remember I was just sitting there with the baby, and even I'm gonna think back at that time as I wasn't my daughter, it was just that baby. Do you know the kind of way it was just sort of like an alien, depersonalized sort of feeling?

SPEAKER_05 35:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

And I was just sitting there just crying my eyes out, and there was a dad coming in with their new baby, all joyous, and they looked over, and there was this like witch in the corner, like, oh, like just crying my eyes up. I remember thinking nobody really cared. They were just like, You're you know, I felt very judged, I struggled with breastfeeding, and I felt very judged for that. And I just but it was my low self-esteem probably compounded it all. But I just if I were to do it now, yeah, oh my god, it'd be totally different. I'm just so much more confident. I know myself, I know how to advocate for myself, I'd know what I'd say, I'd know not to judge myself. Okay, I'm not I can bottle feed, it's fine, I'd know all that now, but at the time I was just I found it very emotionally traumatic, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, it's the it's the not being listened to, yeah, and then nobody not not feeling that people have compassion for you in the situation that you're in. You know, and that's very hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

When did you I mean it seemed like this began to happen very quickly after birth. You know, the you know, when when you began to feel not right, when did you sort of realize that you know I may have a depression or PTSD? A PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Um I'm I honestly not really for months because I had just told myself, oh, this is just what motherhood is. Yeah, this is your life has changed, it's your own fault, you've gotten pregnant, and that's just your life now. Because I remember saying eventually going to the doctor and eventually saying that, going, This is just how I'm gonna feel forever, and they were like, Oh no, no, this is not normal. And I went, Oh, I had just like lived with it for months. Yeah, and I had gone to very, very, very it descended to a very, very dark place, and I just accepted because I knew my life was gonna change. And I felt like I'm I can't really moan. I've done this, you know, like if you've gotten yourself pregnant, you've ended up like this. I felt this that sort of a shame where I was like, I can't really moan. I've you know, this has happened to me now, and so it wasn't for months later when I was like, I said to the doctor, I was like, I don't know if I can keep going because I can't feel like this forever. And they were just like, Oh, you shouldn't. Come here now, we fix this.

SPEAKER_05 36:50

And I went to somebody who would actually listen to you.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Yeah, yeah. So um thank God.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

And what triggered you to seek help at that stage?

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Well, I think honestly, I just got into such a dark place that um it was kind of like five it's a few days, you're sort of in the baby bubble where it's and everyone's visiting you and everyone's like bringing things and doing, and I I remember being not not um happy, like being like crying a lot, crying constantly, but like it was fine when people were visiting or whatever. And then and after about few days, I got this like this. I I don't really suffer from anxiety, but I remember I got this almost like borderline panic attack feeling in my chest about uh death and mortality and just the constant presence of death. And I don't know whether it was because my brain was trying to process the fact that I brought a life into the world or what it was, but I remember thinking like this is insufferable. I can't live like this, this constant fear of death. And I thought, well, I'm gonna die anyway. Why am I prolonging this? What am I waiting for? And then the baby's gonna die anyway one day, and like obsessively feeding, worrying about cot death, just becoming all these obsessive thoughts, measuring every ounce that she drank, like um, I wanted a baby wear and I couldn't because I'm gonna fall and squish her, like just this constant, constant fear. If there was, it was August, if there was a wasp in there, they were making a beeline for her, we're all gonna die. And I remember thinking, So those thoughts just ruminated for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks until I thought, well, I am belonging this. This is no way to live, and I'm gonna die anyway. What's the point? And then I thought, well, she's actually one day gonna die too. What's the point? And I knew that was like, okay, these aren't normal thoughts to really go down that darker place.

SPEAKER_05 38:16

You had that insight. Yeah, and I was yeah, those intrusive thoughts, yeah, to some degree, they're actually quite common postpartum because there's an awful lot going on and it's a fearful time. Yeah, but when they become really, really intrusive, those those kind of ruminations become very, very intrusive and really negative. It's it's very hard sometimes for some people to separate them and have that insight that hang on a second, this isn't this isn't typical, and we've moved past that point. Yeah, and yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

No, I was gonna say if anybody is actually listening to this and wondering if people are gonna listen to me, or am I being silly for bringing this up? Don't because please go and get help because it's not. Yeah, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it. And and the reason I'm bringing it up is I have to say your way of articulating it is incredible. Yeah, because you've made it so real, so human. And I ha like I was just sitting here listening to it, and it really hit me because I've never heard it being described how you've described it.

SPEAKER_05 39:18

Really?

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Yeah, honestly, it's um it's you're so forthright.

SPEAKER_05 39:22

It's very striking, and it's so explicit. It's like thank you. Um, but it's it thank God you found somebody who would listen to you. Yeah, yeah. Because that's uh and I I worry, I always worry that people talk to people, and if they don't get heard the first time they say, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

But I think absolutely if I wasn't heard that time, I would have gone, well, I'm not that that'll learn me. I won't do that again. Yeah, but I I would also add that I was also in an unideal situation. I was dealing with kind of like financial issues, I was in debt kind of thing, and I had you know, I was I was trying to go back to work too soon and things like that. I was trying to get a job, it was a lot of complicated things going on as well. So I knew I could I couldn't focus on improving my life in those ways because I was so mentally unwell. But I when I look back, it's like not those things you shouldn't be dealing with them when you have a newborn baby. It was a lot to do, and I'm not gonna go into it too much because I think it might be my next show. Yeah, that'll be funny. It'll be hilarious. Um, do you know what it will be? Because that's the thing. I'll make it funny, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:19

It will it'll come out that way.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

That's how we'll deal with it. But I remember just finally um for me having to make like personal changes to improve my life, but I couldn't do that without the help of medication because I just couldn't get out of the sloop, my brain, I couldn't focus, I could barely have conversations, I couldn't, I forgot how to be a person. I felt like I wasn't who I was anymore. I was just like this hollowed-out husk of a person. I was just like, I'm feeling very depersonalized in terms of like everyone loves this baby, and I'm a piece of shit, which I know sounds self-but, but you're like, but there you are. It's just like I no longer matter, and not because people weren't treating me badly, I just thought that's just the fact of life. Secondary, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:01

I'm just like whatever, and I'm just purpose is mainly to just sustain this other life, and your your identity and your sense of self is just gone. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm nodding along because I remember feeling that way, and I had a really good support system, yeah, and I still felt that way. Yeah, and I always say with my daughter, like okay, first of all, I had a medical degree, I was older than you were when you had your daughter.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

Um you had a pediatric husband who was useless.

SPEAKER_05 41:31

You were doing your best, and I still had you here, yeah. Um and I still struggled, and it took me a couple of months, like definitely five or six weeks anyway, to even start to feel like I could feel anything. Yeah, right. And I and I talk about it, and I've said it to my daughter, and she knows I love the bones of her life, you know, that's unquestioned, you know. But I felt shell-shocked after the birth, and I had all of that context and information, but I still never really applied it to myself. Yeah, so and I totally understand. So to hear you have all of the mental health issues that were ongoing with those really intrusive, kind of really destructive, horrible thoughts, plus all of the other social kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Just the practicalities of the situation was hard. Yeah. I went I went out to start working in a bar when she was eight weeks old because I just thought I needed money. Yeah, and I remember feeling I remember looking at the time a few months later, going, Why didn't somebody fucking help me? I was like, I shouldn't have been out working in a bar. Yeah, it was so stupid. By the time I was like, Well, I can't ask, I couldn't be like, Can I have some money? Do you know what I mean? You feel like I'm doing this, I'll do it by myself. I've got myself. Do you know? You feel like you're it's like that shame on you know, unwed mothers from back in the day, so like a hangover, even though even though like my people close to me weren't even saying weren't demanding like demonizing me, but myself and my brain, I was like, the shame of it.

SPEAKER_05 42:48

I was like, raised in that context.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah, exactly. It's just this like society, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:54

When you like we when did the last mother and baby home close in the 90s? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, like yeah, it's it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

So I remember thinking like just oh just you've you've done this to yourself, and just go on out now, whatever. And then I remember like, oh, it was just it was it was a horrific experience. And I know because I feel like I got people have had worse. You can't really moan because people have had worse. But now, but now it's 12 years later.

SPEAKER_05 43:15

It's educating people's bad experiences because again, and we've had somebody on who is a trauma counselor, she's phenomenal. Um, and she talked about again things like you know, trauma comes when you feel like you have no voice, yes, and you feel like and PTSD comes when you feel like you have no voice in your life is at risk. Yes, you know, yeah, and it they're the common threads, and it's not about the context of the situation, it's not about the facts of the situation, it's about your experience of the situation, you know, yeah, and you were in a really, really vulnerable position and a really, really vulnerable place. So, how did you come out of it?

SPEAKER_01 43:54

So, uh moved back in with my mum went on antidepressants, okay, and then over the kind of the 10 to 12 months in that period because I remember she because she was saying to me things like, Come on, I'll teach you to drive and you can do this. We know we've got a kind of thing, like practical things to sort of open my world up a bit. Uh, but I couldn't. I just I remember the day I knew the antidepressants started working because she was teaching me to drive, and I was like, I went, she I followed a sentence you said, and that led to another sentence, and I could focus again. And I went, Oh my god, I couldn't even I couldn't understand anything people have been saying to me until one day I knew, and I don't particularly enjoy being on antidepressants because it does sort of take the edges off the world a little bit. I remember one day thinking, okay, I'm I'm not so sad anymore, but I really'd love to laugh or like cry laughing again.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

It's a little bit flatter for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

So that's what I found. But I remember thinking at the time it was so effective in that I was like, oh, okay, I it was just like this stopped being so the extreme. Yeah, it wasn't the extremes weren't happening anymore. I wasn't like, I was crying at the drop of a hat, I was crying all day every day. And I remember being able to focus long enough for my mum to give me a driving lesson, and I was like, oh my goodness. And so then I just was able to take these practical steps to sort of dig myself out of the hole. Do you know what I mean? Because I was, you know, I was in debt and stuff. So I was able to learn to drive, apply for a job, you know, kind of just build my life from scratch again. And I remember being really proud of myself, how I did build it. Because I thought, I'll never have a career, I'll never work again, I'll never meet somebody, my life is over. And looking back, I was like, You were 22. It's so much time. You know, you don't you think, well, that's it now. I'm growing.

SPEAKER_05 45:20

Your thought is processing at that time. Yeah, because it's it's a biochemical issue. Yeah. So I it's so funny, I had postpartum thyroiditis, right? Um, with both of my children, but I was only diagnosed on the second, right? Because the first one, um my god, when I think about it. So I had her, right, by C-section, um, an emergency C-section, and then I was trying to breastfeed her and struggling, and we were doing combination feeding, and I felt really bad about it that I wasn't able to kind of just breastfeed her exclusively and stuff and do what the books were were saying.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

It's heartbreaking though when you we have your heart set on it and it's not working.

SPEAKER_05 46:01

I just thought it was what I should be doing. And it's not that I had my heart set, like I wasn't going, I'm gonna breastfeed her because it's going to be amazing and a blonding thing. I was gonna like I'm gonna breastfeed her because that's what the book says it should do. Yeah, yeah, that is the best thing. Like, because I was a booky girl, you know, yeah, yeah. So and then um so I wasn't even fully breastfeeding her, and I was eating all around me because you know that's what you do when you stuck at home with a baby, and then about six weeks after I had her, I was like into clothes that didn't even fit me before I got pregnant. Okay, yeah, right? Okay, because my thyroid function, I did not realize it, had skyrocketed, right? So I was hyperactive from a thyroiditis, and then at about three or four months after I had her, my thyroid ran out of hormone and it just plummeted, my thyroid function plummeted. So then I went hypothyroid, okay, and I was so unwell. And then the same thing happened with my son, but it was worse. So I got diagnosed. But when I was hypothyroid, oh my god, I was so unwell. I was trying to write a paper, write a medical paper on my maternity leave. Um I think back, and I couldn't think my way through a sentence in a paragraph. And I took the I was diagnosed, I took the thyroid hormone, and about a week later, it was literally like a veil had lifted. Yeah, wow, and somebody was handing me back the ability to finish a sentence, yeah, to listen to a conversation, to be part of a world that wasn't completely internal, blunted, and like extended within millimeters of my skin. Yes, and it was just I remember that that change. So I relate to that. And but like the mine is thyroid, yours was a different biochemical issue. It's just neurological or yeah, it's a biochemical issue. Yeah, so you take the medications that you need, exactly your biochemistry, and give you back your your mind, your your brain function, so you have control on your life again.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

But that's exactly it. I just needed that to, you know, if you need a cast on your arm to hold bones together, and I have no problem describing that for somebody else. But then, I mean, if I have mental health issues even now, I kind of go, God, this is a bit embarrassing. I'm a grown-up, and it's like, no, if you need to go to the doctor, do you need you need to take a solid?

SPEAKER_02 48:25

You know, you need to, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05 48:27

Would you, would you like look down on as an asthmatic for not being able to really looking for attention with that inhaler again? Well, you take a deep breath there like yeah, I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Try counting to ten. Yeah, I know it's ridiculous, isn't it? Just feel better. Yeah, just like yeah, stop being so lazy.

SPEAKER_03 48:47

Yeah, I knew it was gonna be a third wheel in this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

It was just it was just yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

But um, we need to finish up because where did we go? Oh my god, already. Yeah, you've been. Oh no, we've loads more to talk about. We need to get to the fun comedy stuff.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Comedy stuff is here.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

You're a comedian. How did that happen? Oh my god, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

I'm also I'm also really funny. I'm better now, and yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

I think it's inspirational. I really do. Oh, thank you. And I think that there's going to be so many women out there who are struggling or who have struggled and who struggled with um processing it or identifying it, or fitting that person, that really vulnerable person who they were into the greater context of real life and stuff, and all of that is really, really constructive and positive and useful for people. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

I hope so, because I do think uh it's a bit of an identity crisis becoming a mother, even if it's planned, even if it's you have your older ducks in a row and you have the mother or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_05 49:41

Matrescence, you know the way it is of adolescence, it's an internal identity that and so much of it has to do with your societal stuff as well. How society has told you that you're going to be versus what your experience is, versus the reality of it and all that.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

Yeah, because I think a lot of it was compounded by the fact that I went, I can't tell anyone because this is not what I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be, oh, you're gonna be in such a love bubble, you're gonna feel such love. Oh me, you're not the feeling that's gonna come upon you the minute she's born when you look at her, and I was like, oh my god, I'm broken. Yeah, I don't have this. I'm like, well, I don't know who this is. I you know, it was like this. I was, I'm not doing it like I'm supposed to be doing, I'm a piece of shit. I can't breastfeed, my nipples are wrong. Oh my god. If we were in the wild, she'd be dead by now. And I was just like, I'm a piece of shit. That sounds like I wouldn't be able to feed her if society collapsed. I'd just be like, we can't, there's no fucking SMA in the forest.

SPEAKER_05 50:27

Wet nurses and goat's milk was for like.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

I know, I know, but next time I did, I'm getting a wet nurse, that's for fucking sure.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

Please please do not feed your kids fresh goat's milk anymore. It's not recommended. No, no, it's not right. Goat's milk formula is fine.

SPEAKER_05 50:38

Hundreds, hundreds of years ago, hundreds of years ago. But yourself and your daughter are good now.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Oh, perfect, and she's perfect. Luckily, she's fine. Yeah, she's absolutely perfect. And oh my gosh, she's my bestie. Yeah, it's a I'm very lucky. And people keep saying to me, just wait till she's a teenager, and I'm just like, that sounds like that's your problem. Like I'm like, exactly. I'm like, maybe your shit, because my she's almost a teenager and she's perfect.

SPEAKER_05 51:02

They're so funny. Teenagers are the best. I'm sorry, I'm just gonna say this. I've loved every stage, I've loved and loathed, yes, every stage, okay. Mostly loved, but there's always something to loathe too. But generally, yeah, I've I've loved, I love teenage years, they're great crack. Yeah, you get to really explore who they're going to be. Yeah. Um, because really we've got like fuck all control on that, let's be honest. Exactly. We just have to kind of the main aim is not to turn them into assholes, and then we're weird. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

And um try not to fuck them up, yeah. But I I found as as my daughter grew, um, once I was not so mental, you know, I can actually finally and I found her toddlery is hell because she was just a feisty Tasmanian devil. But I think that's where I got all her feistiness, and she's just been perfect since because it was like I do know the way people judge those parents that have like those leads for their kids, whatever. But I was like, No, but I was just like, You've no idea. She's not tethered to something, she'll be off a cliff. She goes, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 51:57

Weird to say she'd be like this.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

And I remember not realizing she, I just thought this was a normal toddler until I took one of her friends and her to the cinema one day, and I started being ready to wangle them, wrangle them both. And I looked down, and the other toddler was just like walking gently beside me, and I was like, What's wrong with her? She's broken. I was like, She's just walking gently. It was like, is she okay? And they were just like, That's what she's like. And I was just like, Oh my god, mine's mental. Um, so I think she got all her mentalness out. But I remember every stage thinking, Oh, this is the perfect one, she's so cute now, this is brilliant. And then the next year I've been like, Oh my god, no, she's even cuter, and she's even more and then I was like, Oh my god, so you mourn for the stage that's gone, but she just keeps getting more perfect, and so I'm very, very lucky in that.

SPEAKER_05 52:32

Yeah, so she's just like and it's just to for people to hear that bond that you have with her, yeah, coming through all of that as well.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

But that's it was her and I from the start, you know, we're like a little team, and you know, what does she make of um the comedy? Um she I think she likes it, yeah. Because she she's lived kind of an uncommon childhood anyway. My my partner is a musician, and so she's been raised going to gigs, and you know, but we must love it. So we just we've always just brought her everywhere with us, and so she's just she doesn't realise how kind of cool her her childhood has been. That she's like, she's just kind of like, Oh, we always slag her, like we're gonna come into your school, and like um, you know, her dad's gonna do some songs and I'm gonna do this. And she's like, Oh my god, you guys are so cringe! And I'm like, I'm like, we're actually really cool, yeah. No idea, and she's just like ah, you know, and I'm like, one day she'll realize, you know, you've no idea how cool we are.

SPEAKER_05 53:19

Oh, she's so close because in she's 12 now in a few years. Yeah, and her friends are gone, oh my god, we're gonna start going to gigs. And she's like, Oh, I've been going all my life.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

But that's not her last gig she was just at was like in Vickery Street. Do you know what I mean? I was just like, and like obviously she's a little slightly underage, but I was like, we got her in anyway. And she's been in like so many like like VIP, like for her birthday last year, she was in like the backstage at electric picnic. Do you know? She has no idea. I'm just like, and she's just like, Yeah, whatever, get a real job. You know, but she doesn't say that, but she's just like, Well, my parents' moms have nine to fives, and I'm just like, Well, one day you're gonna really so I think she does think it's cool, and I don't like you don't realise how cool it is.

SPEAKER_03 53:52

Like, how it's yeah, and just even um her friends would be like, Can we go?

unknown 53:55

Can we go?

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Yeah, I'd be like they'd be asking for tickets to things and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

So you sort of answered this, but I wanted to ask you about the practicalities of touring with a child.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Um yeah, well, I'm very I'm very lucky, and I do acknowledge that um having this type of career, there has to be a certain amount of privilege that comes with it because I know if you have if you didn't have the support system I have, you wouldn't be able to do it. And so that's why, and it's unfortunate that having a career in the arts, you do need a certain level of privilege. Now, my I'm lucky because uh my partner is a musician, and so he doesn't he doesn't have a 95. He works, he gigs on the weekends, and that's it, and he's home all the time. Like because he has his own home studio, he records there, so he's home all the time. Um, I gig I gig a bit more than him because I'm still starting out, um, so I go out a couple more nights a week, and then my mum is so supportive and helpful as well, so she's always there, so we just work our gigs around each other. Like, I mean he's his take priority because he earns more money than I do at the moment because he's just obviously way more established in his career, um, and then my mum helps out a lot. But for example, last year when I went to Edinburgh Fringe, I went for an entire month, and I'd never been away from her for more than two days ever. And I struggled emotionally with that being away from her.

SPEAKER_05 55:03

I missed her so much.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

I did, I missed her so much, but she was fine, she was great. She just she stayed at home, and then my mum flew over with her for her birthday in August, and she loved Edinburgh. And if I go again now, she wants to come over for longer. Because I didn't know what I was going over to. I didn't know whether she could stay in the accommodation with me, but she's gonna be now 13 in the middle of it next year, so I'm definitely gonna bring her over for more.

SPEAKER_05 55:21

And it's so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

So, yeah, we are lucky in that way because I do think if I had to work a day job or pay for childminding, it would be so much harder to do this job.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

I mean, it's interesting. I I want to challenge your framing of it because it like we've had a lot of successful women with varied careers come on the show. And they always uh label the support they got as privileged and lucky, and it shouldn't be the case. You know, it shouldn't be it is supposed to happen. Do you know what I mean? I mean you shouldn't feel lucky that you got this. Um because I think they should be I think appreciative of the help is always good.

SPEAKER_05 55:57

Appreciate it, fine, but don't lucky should be a societal.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

No, but you're right though, because I'm appreciative of it, but I don't ever hear a male counterpart being just like, oh, my wife lets me go to my gigs.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Do you know what I mean? You know, I mean like the fact that your partner is contributing. I mean, we we talk about this a lot in that relationships are never 50-50 in that moment. Somebody always has to give 80, somebody has to give 20, and then as life progresses, as you continue, that will reverse. And yeah, if you look at the average over your lifetime, ideally, ideally it might be, but it might never be. But that's okay. And I don't think that women should feel lucky because they're supported by their partner, it should be normal. Like I would I didn't feel lucky when Anne took a step back so that my career can progress.

SPEAKER_05 56:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

You know, I will I took it for granted.

SPEAKER_05 56:47

And I mean you didn't take it for granted for too long because I did continuously remind you, but that's okay. Yes, no, but then but then but then when when my career was established and Anne's career was progressing, like I now he would do a lot more of uh heavy lifting in terms of cooking, organizing, all that kind of stuff, because our work has changed. Yeah, um, and our work balance has changed.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

And I certainly don't feel that I'm getting a raw deal now. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 57:15

And and guys shouldn't and I don't feel like he shouldn't be doing it because hey, I did it for the first ten years. Exactly. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 57:21

Yeah, it's just this feeling of and it's predominantly almost exclusively women that feel lucky for having it.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

But you know what it is, social nuts, yeah, it's it is it is an appreciation on my behalf. I do yeah, yeah, it is. I just appreciate it so much. Um, and just acknowledge that. But you're right that women do far too much in mind.

SPEAKER_03 57:44

Thank you for doing dinner. Yeah. Uh oh, them the kitchen's in a fucking mess, but thank you for doing dinner, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:51

He can't make a salad, but we have to move house pretty much. Why do why are they like that?

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Yeah. Seven pots for scrambled eggs. I'm sorry. Erla, just make an omelet without asking 17 questions. I mean, you know, grown men. Sorry, not you. Sorry. No, him, yeah. I'll go back to being appreciative now. Sorry, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 58:08

Okay, I was well, I was gonna ask, how did you become a comedian? But you're obviously Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

I'm just a snippy little bitch. Um no, I'm just I'm I'm just like I'm a rancid little bin fairy, and uh I'd I've been using comedy all my life to either deflect or cope or whatever. And so I um people have said to me, would you not consider going out and doing it? But I didn't know how to do it. Yes, and it wasn't actually until a few years ago when I actually found myself in another mental health crisis because I think I'm just to have one every 10 years now for the crack.

SPEAKER_05 58:38

But maybe for for um material, material mostly just uh attention.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

Attention, really.

SPEAKER_05 58:44

Material for your next show.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Yeah, but I I did I found myself um again just in a very dark place. We won't get into it now because I think I've talked enough about my one mental um crisis, but um I just knew this time because the doctors again wanted me to go back on medication and they wanted me to go on Prozac this time, and I remember thinking, I knew it helped me last time, but I thought this time I know what I have to actually, what steps I need to take, why I'm feeling this way, and it was like different symptoms, different condition, different whole thing. But I thought I know I'm I'm not going to do that because all I'm doing is numbing it, and it'll roar back again in 10 years' time. I need to change my life and become who I want to be to make myself happy. And so um just as a kind of a first step in that, I thought, right, I need to what I need, I need to start getting out of the house because my life had become very isolated, very small. I had become very small, I was obsessed with just it was it was food and exercise this time and completely just obsessive. And I thought I need to just what can I practically do? And I thought I need to get out of the house once a week. I need to meet people, I need to have a creative outlet, I need to take away that coping mechanism and slip in something else. So I did a little comedy course, and I thought that'll just be like a little hobby, I'll make some friends. And then, like you were saying, I did the five-minute showcase. And I said, I'm not even gonna do that, I'm just doing it to do something once a week. Getting a little home, I loved having homework because I loved college, I loved school, I was great at getting good grades. Absolutely. And so I was like, I gotta get a little homework, that's fine. And then I did the five minutes and I went, Oh, this is what I should have been doing. I was like, Oh, it just ticked all the boxes, it was creative, it was immediate validation, it was fun, it was adrenaline, it was meeting people, it was getting out, and I just went, Okay, I'll do this once a week. What a great new hobby! And then apparently I was very good at it, and like within a month, I'd been given bigger gigs. I was asked to do gig and wheelins, done whatever. At that gig and wheel-ins, I was seen by the man who eventually became one of my managers. All this I was signed to an agency within nine months, it was insanely fast. Yeah, and I just went, okay, and I felt like I was in a dream because I was like about to go into the abyss again, and 11 months later it was just like, or you could have this career, and I was like, Oh my god, my god, I didn't embrace the abyss again because now my life has completely changed. Fantastic, and I'm a like a full-time comedian now, and it's going well, and apparently I'm good at it, so I'm just like, this is amazing. So I love that.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:56

So the Sophia world is so big and beautiful that the abyss just couldn't tempt you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Yeah, it'll keep it'll keep trying. Um that's that's life. But that's it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

That'll give you, yeah, that'll give you motivation.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

Yeah, but I think if you're that way inclined, but that's it, I know. But I think I I I talk about my mental health. I think my brain is like a border collie. If it's not given a job to do, it'll start attacking, don't it be? Either itself or small children or whoever's nearby, it'll just you know, it'll be snapping. Yeah, it's brilliant. Because honestly, it's just like if you can't take your eye off it for one second, it's collapsed, or it'll do something. So I need to just be constantly occupied. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

So tell us about Princess Melancholy.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

So, yeah, surprise, surprise, but Princess Melancholy is the name of my show. So it's basically I took the the first two years of my stand-up, kind of all everything I'd written, because what I realized what was coming out of me was material that was like a sort of an almost a hyper-feminine, hyper-sexualized persona, which I think just came from my experience of from teens into adulthood. And um it's sort of I'm performing stand-up, but um it's almost like I can't believe there's an audience there giving me attention. I'm like, oh my god, what are you guys doing here? This is you know, but I'm just like, I can't believe it, and I'm so overwhelmed. But while I'm doing it, these intrusive thoughts are coming in through voiceover and saying, Who the fuck do you think you are? Oh who are you on the stage? And I'm like, oh you know, you know, you go it's you know, trying to block it out. And so as the show goes on, it honestly it's it's like borderline full mental breakdown, and like you don't know whether, oh my god, is she just gonna walk off the stage? She's gonna have a full mental collapse, or is the show gonna end well? You don't know. So it's like a kind of a dissociative sort of a mental breakdown, but it's very, very funny, and it did really well at Edinburgh. And so please anyone's listening, please do consider coming to see it because I still have tickets in Kilkenny, Galway, and Cork. The two Dublin dates are sold out, but like I keep saying, if enough people abuse Wheelands in Dublin, they might do a third date. So send your angry letters and emails to Wheelands, yeah, or just buy a ticket for one of the other ones. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Cork people, Galway. We have a lot of listeners in Cork, Kilkenny, and Galway. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Look, I'm sure there's enough mental people in Cork and Kilkenny and Galway that want to come see my mental show. I don't want to say it, but yeah. Well, come see it. It's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

And so before we finish, what would you tell your younger self now?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

I would tell her that she has so much more going for her than she realizes. That uh she has so much to offer, and you I she doesn't even realize how how much she has. And because I think my self-esteem is so low, and I put myself so long so low on the rung of any social situation, and looking back, I'm like, you idiot. You know, you all you could have done. No, it worked out in the end because I'm doing it now, but like I just think you need to just believe in yourself so much more and realise how much you have going for you, and to not you know, think so little of yourself.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:44

Yeah, um I think women just need a champion sometimes, like some either a female friend or any gender friend who who will kind of give them that little bit of self-esteem around that vulnerable time.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:59

So, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

So, uh please go and follow my Instagram at Sophia Ren Comedy. That'll be the main place. I'm on all the platforms, but Instagram seems to be the main one these days. It's not the Twitter's gone to shite, unfortunately. Uh thank you. So funny. Yeah, well, please, please do follow me on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

And guys, if you haven't seen them, see the three pinned posts at the top. They're just so funny. Oh my god, they're so funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:22

Like I said, hard relate as a male woman. Yeah. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:26

And if you're outside Ireland, it gives you a very good insight into what Irish life is like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:30

But there was the one that went mega viral. I had people being like, this isn't just Ireland, this is my family in Appalachia, this is my Venezuelan grandmother. Like, people are just like, no, they people like this exist all over the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

So it's interesting. I read a book recently before we finished the short thing about how to understand different cultures and how to communicate with different cultures, right? And it was written by an American, a North American um author, and she basically talks about how people communicate, how they receive criticism, how they get motivated, and each culture, almost each country, had its own thing. So she lumped like North America together, Latin America together, um kind of all of Europe together, and you know, Middle East, Asia, they all have characteristics. But what was interesting is that like I read it with like about la last year with this lens, and although she lumped Ireland as part of Europe, I was like, no. Oh god, like I grew they're like the Middle Easterns and the Asians and the Latin Americans. Like Ireland is actually an outlier in how people behave and like you know, because you're not the same as the UK.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Yeah. Or like the I think because we've been colonized and oppressed, we're we're less like the rest of Europe who were mostly the colonizers. So there's like a weird mix of it all going on.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:52

It was very it's just very interesting. Because I mean it it struck me when you said it, but I'd say a lot of people who contacted you probably came from those areas.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Yes, you know, rather than a lot of Latin American. I must go back through the comments now because everyone who mentioned it was just like this is my family.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

Yeah, it's the same, it's the same with Middle East, you know? Yeah, you you pray the depression away.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

Yes, yeah, right? It's all just coping mechanisms. Like, and do you know what it is? We used to have the Catholicism for years, we don't have that anymore. But that's but that's that's that's that's how they used to do. You couldn't have an existential crisis when one sniff of the pope would put you into a catatonic stage. Do you know what I mean? That's what we had with Catholicism for. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:29

So funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

And you wouldn't just have one baby and moan about it, you'd have 23 and you'd get on with it. You know what I mean? You wouldn't have time for pressure.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:35

Well, like, you know, when in doubt, just flat seven up, you know, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

Swinging out of the rescue remedy, you'd be grand.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:41

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. True percent. Well, so for it was it was an absolute pleasure to have you. Oh, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:49

I loved you so much for your openness and your frankness.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

Who knew that my oversharing would one day become an asset?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:57

The Baby Tribe is proudly sponsored by Happytummy.ie, the exclusive distributor of Bayagaya probiotics, providing support for gut and oral health for the whole family.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:09

This show is part of the Headstuff Podcast Network, a hub for the creative and the curious. Shows are produced in association with Headstuff and the Podcast Studios Dublin. To find out more or become a member at Headstuff Podcasts.com.