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Two moms discuss the challenges of parenting and the importance of kindness. They also touch on pregnancy, sharing their personal experiences and some interesting facts. One mom found out she was pregnant when her husband noticed her symptoms. They both had complications during their pregnancies but have healthy children. They talk about the ups and downs of pregnancy and the joys and challenges of motherhood. The episode ends with some fun facts about pregnancy. Welcome to another episode of Wizarding Moms in a Muggle World. I'm your host, Rachel. And I'm Cheryl. And today we are getting into the fun topic of parenting. We are both parents and we both have our trials and tribulations that we've gone through. Yeah. And we want to kind of go through from the beginning of finding out when you're pregnant all the way up until current time. So there's a lot of things to kind of dissect. We're going to put this basically into two podcasts. Yeah, because otherwise we would be sitting here for hours trying to give all this information. And then trying to edit out half of what we have to say. Yeah. Pretty much. That's about how it goes. So I do want to say out there for everybody that if you're a parent, if you're not a parent, parenting is an everyday learning curve. I want everybody to hear that one more time. Parenting is an everyday learning curve. You will not have the answers for every day. And that is fine. You are the best person you can be for your kids. Yeah. So that being said, I heard something today that I wanted to tell you. Okay. I was watching a morning show, and I will not say what it is, but I was watching a morning show and they were talking about being parents. Right. And they were kind of getting, which is I thought really convenient because we're having the podcast today. Right. So they were talking about being a parent and what it means to be a parent. And the best definition I heard was you're not going to ace it. No, you're not ever. But as long as your kids are kind, you've aced your exam. I agree with that 110%. And I usually hate saying things like that, but I absolutely agree with that because you're not going to get everything figured out. It changes day by day. Your kids change day by day. You change day by day. So nothing is ever going to be exactly the same. Something that worked yesterday isn't going to work today. But if your kids are happy and they're nice, that to me is a freaking win because I don't want to raise children that are bullies. The biggest thing that I think I took out of the show when they were talking about all of it is not only if your kids are kind, then you're winning as parents, but I think the biggest thing that I took out as a whole was that we have to stop putting ourselves in categories where we're trying to one up each other. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't compare my parenting strategy to mine, to yours, because it's not the same. Our kids are different. We are different. We all grew up different. My brother grew up different than I grew up. There are things you're going to learn as a parent that you're going to take on each day and you're going to use it as a building block to get better acquainted with the material. Right. Pretty much. Yeah. You've got to look at it as almost like a subject in high school. Learning as a subject in high school that your final exam just won't come until they're 18 years old. And even then, you're not done. Even when, my mom and I had this conversation, even when your kid turns 18, you're not done because you're still going to worry about them. You're still going to want to make sure they're okay. You're still going to be there if they need help or somebody to confide in. So even when they turn 18 and they can leave your house, your job's not done and it never will be. So I had some fun facts that I did on my research. I went online and I went onto a website and they actually gave me a list of like a hundred things that people don't know about pregnancies or like common things about pregnancies. Yeah. So I found out some really interesting things on there. I'm just going to go over a short couple of them. So the first thing I found really interesting is that one in eight couples are going to have trouble either getting pregnant or sustaining a viable pregnancy. Okay. Okay. 32 people out of 1,000 people are twins, with one third of twins being the opposite sex situation. Right. And the highest twin counts come from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. So if you reside in one of those states and you are of child-bearing age, just buckle up buttercup. You might have some twins on the way. And I'll tell you, that was like my biggest scare when I found out I was pregnant was that I was going to have twins because twins isn't, it doesn't run very high in our family. However, I get the short end of every stick in my family, so I feel like it would have happened to me if it was going to, and I looked like I was going to have twins with my first one. And with my second one, I looked like I was going to have triplets. Yeah. You were probably just waiting for that ball to drop for them to be like, uh, it's twins. You're like, no. Everybody was like, are you sure they looked in the ultrasound correctly? I heard that a lot with my first as well, all the time because I was so, my thing was, I was so tiny before I got pregnant. And when I got pregnant and I immediately like started to blow and I got, I can't tell you how many times I got asked that. And here's the thing, people don't want to get asked that question because that immediately will bother their pregnant mother because you don't want to hear that you look that huge that people think you're having twins. So what I thought would be a really cool idea for this episode, we both have children as you are all very well aware, and we are going to tell you the amount of pregnancies we've had, amount of live children we have, if there were any complications during the pregnancy and how we were, how we birthed them, whether it was through cesarean or natural birth. For example, myself, I have had two pregnancies, two live births. I have a, two healthy girls. I had cesareans with both of them and for the most part they were on their due date or very close to their due date. And I did have complications through both of my pregnancies. I caught a condition called cholestasis. I'll go into that here in a little bit. So what about you? I have had two births, two live pregnancies, both my boys. My oldest was natural delivery. My youngest was a C-section, not by choice. I had complications with both, a lot of complications, which is why we're not having any more kids because I thought when I was pregnant with my oldest, that one was hard. That did not compare to my second pregnancy because I had gestational diabetes, placenta prevaria, I hemorrhaged and lost an extreme amount of blood after having my youngest after they did the C-section. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. So we were like, no, we're going to stop there. I needed to be there for my kids that were already alive and not adding any more on. Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you, I hated being pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. I hated it. The first go around, I got morning sickness in my first trimester and my third trimester. And this is with just my first. And then, like I said, I caught Koli's stasis, I didn't catch it, but I got Koli's stasis. And then, like I said, I will go back into that, what it is and everything else later. Right. But I caught that with her and then had her a week before her due date. Oh, yeah, that was the thing I forgot to mention. Both of mine were three weeks early, both of them. And it was funny because their birthdays are in the same month and five days apart. And when they picked the C-section date, they had picked five days after my oldest birthday. I thought that was amazing. Anyway, sorry. That's okay. I wanted you to know. So we had my oldest, we had her like a day before her due date, I think it was official. Yeah. And my youngest, we had a month before her due date, but that was a planned cesarean. Yeah. So we did that on purpose because of the Koli's stasis. Right. Because I caught it again during the second pregnancy. Right. Funny enough. So, short story, how did you find out you were pregnant the first time? I am forever going to laugh about this because I am not the one that figured out I was pregnant. Oh. My husband did. And we had only been together for three or four months max. And we were going to the gym together, working out. And we were there the one day and I was like, man, like nauseous, like I keep getting these like waves of nausea. And he's like, oh, maybe you're hungry or maybe, you know, you're not feeling well, whatever. And I was like, oh, like my chest hurts. And he was like, yeah, we did do some like arm workout and chest workout yesterday. That's, that's normal. And then I had said something else and he looked at me and went, go get your stuff. Meet me at your apartment. And I was like, what? He walks in my apartment with a pregnancy test and hands it to me and was like, go take it. And I was like, no, because I'd always been told I can't get pregnant. I can't have kids. I had cervical cancer, you know, like I went through a whole bunch of crap in my early 20s. And they were like, sorry, you're probably not gonna be able to have kids. And then all of a sudden, here is this big old frickin positive pregnancy test. And I was like, what? What just happened? I, I, I will forever be baffled by that because, again, I wasn't the one that figured it out. It was him. My friends had an inkling that I might be and it is the craziest story of my life. I love when other people figure it out and you're completely clueless. I was oblivious. Now, mind you, I was older, right? I didn't have my babies until I was in my early 30s. Because again, I got told I could not have kids, right? I had cysts really bad on my uterus when I was developing and they just told me that it wouldn't, I wouldn't viably be able to hold a pregnancy. They were wrong. Extremely right. So we had, my husband and I were not together. We had just been casually dating and we had dated before in the past and we got back together after we had slept and I used to go out almost every single night. I was a lush pretty much and I would go out and drink white Zinfandel and fireball shots. And my friends would always look at me like, you've got to be like weirdly pregnant or something because that is the weirdest combination and trust me guys, it doesn't taste good. I bet not. It was, it was gross but like for some reason that's what I was craving. And then one night I had gone out and I did not feel good and I thought I was going to puke and my friend was like, you just need to go home. Something's not right with you, you just need to go home. I was like, okay. And I went home that night, thought nothing of it, went to bed, next morning, woke up, sneezed and thought my boobs were going to explode. And I had been having other cravings but I didn't realize that I was having cravings and I was getting nauseous every day at the exact same time. Again, people, I don't know if I wasn't just brilliant back then like I am now or what, but I couldn't put two and two together. I was the same way and, but mine was, I was on birth control at the time and again, when you're told so many times that you aren't going to get pregnant, that never crosses your mind if you get sick because you have that thought stuck in your head. You're like, I can't get pregnant, that is not what this is. And I had actually not been on birth control because I had been engaged prior to that and we were talking about having kids one day and I had the IUD so we took it out because we knew that there was going to be an adjustment period of the hormones. Right. So we had discussed and took it out and then, of course, our engagement didn't work out and I started casually dating my now husband and it was so funny because I had gone to work that night and at the time I was a manager of a hair salon and I was walking and I felt a shot of pain go straight down my leg and I was like, something's not right. And I had been losing weight. I, you know, we were having a biggest loser competition at our work and I had lost 11 pounds that day and I was so proud of myself and I sat down at work and I went, you know, it would be really hilarious if I could be pregnant. You jinxed yourself. I didn't jinx myself, I did the math. Now, the story, trying to make it a little bit faster, but because this is the funniest part, my best friend at the time had called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to dinner and I said I did and I wanted really, really, really bad. I wanted mashed potatoes. Do you not like mashed potatoes? No, I was on a diet and couldn't have them. Oh yeah, that makes sense then. So I wanted mashed potatoes. So I told my best friend at the time, let's go to Golden Corral. I had two big plates of mashed potatoes. I had other things too, but I had two ginormous plates of mashed potatoes. Right. And I don't think about it and I'm on my way home and I bought a pregnancy test earlier that day and messed it up and when I got home from my starch-filled diet that night, it just happened to be on the top of the trash can with two lines on it and I called my best friend who I had just left and was like, I think I'm pregnant. And she's like, how did that happen? And I went, well, when a guy and a girl break each other. And she was like, no, you dipshit. Like, we just saw each other. How is this, like, not... Like, how did we not talk about this at dinner or something? And comes to find out I was and I bawled like a baby. My dad was the second person to find out besides me and was dancing around the house like a fool when I called my parents. Oh. My mom freaked out because I'm the oldest. Right. And I'm the baby. So it was completely, like, it's opposite for me. Like, I'm the baby of the family. But my parents were ecstatic. I was so afraid to make that phone call. My mom had just left. Was it that morning or the day before to go down to Florida? And I had to call her. And she's like, why didn't you tell me yesterday? I'm like, I didn't know yesterday. But I was terrified to call and tell my dad. Because it wasn't that I didn't think he would be excited. But again, we were only together for a few months. I was like, he is going to kill me. You were together. Right. We were. But again, we were. I'm a daddy's girl. Like, we knock heads like no tomorrow. But I am a daddy's girl. I'm a daddy's girl. I always have been. I always will be. And anytime I have to tell that man anything, I get terrified. Because I'm like, he's going to murder me. Like, even I'm in my 30s. And I'm still like, shit. If I have to tell him something bad, like, he's going to kill me. I still, to this day, cannot tell my dad. And when I tell my mom, I have to say, hey, don't tell dad. Because we know, number one, my dad and I are horribly twins. And we fight about everything. We cannot be in the same household for longer than a few hours span at a time. Because otherwise you're fighting. Right. Yeah. So it was crazy when telling my dad and him being the first person. And it was crazy. But when we found out, I didn't tell my husband for another two and a half weeks. What the hell made you wait that long? We didn't live together. He lived on the opposite side of town. So I didn't have to see him. Right. And his cell phone only worked when he was at work. Because it was a Wi-Fi cell phone. So it only worked when he was at work. Oh my gosh. And he was on Wi-Fi. So I couldn't call him and just be like, hey, by the way. So you really did just have to wait. And one thing nobody ever tells you about pregnancy is that that first trimester, all you want to do is sleep, eat, and puke. Yep. That's it. You don't want to do crap out. Yes, there are great times in it. Don't get me wrong. But for the majority of the time, all you want to do is sleep. I feel like with pregnancy, I didn't know beforehand that basically your first and third trimester are exactly the same. That second trimester is the only time you might get some wonderful bliss of being pregnant and getting to be a mom. Because it's like, oh, you get to feel the kicks and all that. And you're not dealing with the morning sickness and stuff. But that is so short-lived that you're like, I don't ever want to do this again. And then you do it again. And you're like, well, I don't want to do this again. And kudos to anybody that has more than one or two, because. So I have more pregnancy facts. And these are my fun facts. Uh-oh. So the longest pregnancy ever recorded. Guys, I couldn't even make it to my due date. Yeah. This is the longest one ever recorded. A normal gestation for a pregnancy is 280 days. God, when you say it like that, that is like, it just, it's gross. Wait till you hear this next part. This poor woman was pregnant for 375 days. How? How is that even possible? I don't know the poor woman. It is on record through Guinness Book of World Records as well. Oh, you poor thing. Oh my God. The highest recorded ever of live babies shouts out to Oktober. Oh my God. No, she is the only living person to give birth to eight live babies. No one else. That is insane. I don't care for her, but she did it. And being pregnant with just one at a time? Oh, I know. Like, how? I don't know how people can, like, I couldn't imagine having twins or more, because having two pregnancies with just one child each was more than enough for me. Now get this last one. Uh-oh. The oldest pregnant woman recorded, age of 66. Now, I'm sorry. My mom, right now, is in that age. Like, could you imagine your mother calling you up and being, Hi Cheryl, you're going to have a brother or sister. No, no, like, didn't we just do a podcast and talk about, like, menstruation and menopause and all of that? What the hell? Yes, as long as you have an active menses, you can become pregnant. No, thank you. One of the greatest things about being pregnant was not having a period. Oh my god, that was, like, the best thing. I will say, though, I would rather have a period over the constipation. See, I didn't have the issue with that. But, man, not having it for that long. And then I got it a lot sooner with my second than I did my first. I almost want to say it was almost a year before I had it with my oldest. But my second, I got it within a couple months. And I was like, man, I did not miss this at all. Oh, see, mine was almost like that you have that big bleed right after you're done having that baby. And that can take you for a tailspin on its own. Yeah. But then everybody was like, oh, I went, you know, I went. One of my friends went two years before having an active menses after having her child. I went, you lucky bitch. Did she breastfeed? Yes, that's why. I pumped, but I got my period three weeks after having the baby. Yeah. And it has, like, it was the same after my second pregnancy. It's crazy. I don't, I envy you ladies that didn't have it for so long afterwards. Right. Mine was just like, hello, I'm here again. I'm here. I'm back. You missed me, bitch. You know, you did. No, we didn't. But we didn't trust us. So I said I was going to say what poliostasis was. Yeah. So when you're pregnant, poliostasis is a leak of bile in the mother's bloodstream. Whether it be from baby or from mom, they're not 100% sure. Right. But when you're pregnant, it's the amount of blood that you have in your body increases from 40 to 50%. That's not just for baby. That's because of the oxygen that is needed. Right. To develop everything, for you to finish developing, for all of this stuff. Right. During that process, bile gets into the bloodstream. Now, it usually becomes more apparent later in the pregnancy. For me, for my first, it became prevalent at 32 weeks. You feel like ants. Yeah. Are underneath your skin. And I was at one point with my second, taking five Benadryl a night. Because it was that bad. And it still didn't touch it. Yeah. And that was just sleep, because I couldn't sleep. Because Jeff would be like, babe, you've got to stop. And I couldn't. I was taking oatmeal baths. I was taking potassium. I took one potassium pill at my parents' house, and they swear to God, they were like, are you going to die? And I'm just like, I was, there was no relief until the moment she came out. And then it was like, instant. It was instant. Like, with my oldest, it was like, as soon as she was out, and they put me into the recovery room, I was done itching. Right. With my second, it took a little bit longer. But it was the most uncomfortable I've ever been. I would take the nausea, the vomiting over the itching and that intense feeling. Yeah. Any day of the week. Yeah. Any day of the week. And so one of the things that a listener actually reached out to me and said that she wanted me to mention in this podcast, we know our bodies. Yes, we do. Better than anybody else on this planet. And if your doctor refuses to listen to what you are telling them about how you feel, get a second opinion. Absolutely. And if that doctor doesn't listen, get a third opinion. Your feeling is validated. You become a mom from the moment that you have a positive pregnancy test. Sooner, but you don't know that. Right. But from that positive pregnancy test, you are now a mom. Yeah. Whether that baby be alive outside of the womb or not, you are that mom. Right. Okay. You have this, your body has this incredible ability to make life from two little things. Yeah. Okay. So we have the ability to trust our own bodies when we say something's not right. I'm not supposed to be feeling like this. Or my body is not supposed to be doing this. Right. My mom used to yell at me all the time because I would rub my belly in a clockwork motion or just in a circle when I was pregnant with my first. I would sit there and I would be in like line at the grocery store and I would just sit there and rub my belly. It was the only time she would stop moving. But to my mom, I looked funny and I looked weird and I looked like I'm trying to point out, hi, I'm pregnant. You know, like trying to make a scene of it. Yeah. Don't talk to me and tell me what I need to do. Listen to me when I'm saying this is helping me. Because you know what you're doing and you know what it does to your body. So exactly. Like you listen to your own body. Don't take the advice of, I'm not saying don't take advice, but if it's not something that lines up with what you know of your own body, then you don't have to listen. You don't have to listen to anybody's advice. You know yourself, so listen to you and do what you need to do for you. And trust that your mother instinct has already been there. Yeah. So you already know you're taking care of that child. Right. Now, there are also things that are sensitive to talk about when it comes to that initial pregnancy feeling. Mm-hmm. I was just getting started in a career. I had just taken over managing a salon. My career at that point was my golden child. And to be 100% honest, I didn't want kids. Right. Because after finding out for so long, you can't. Yeah. Like I said, you get in that mindset where you know that you can't have them. So at that point, you're happy with where your life is, and you eventually move on from it. Some people do. Some people don't. And that's okay. But if you've managed to move on from it, you know that you can move on and focus on your career and focus on your relationship and all of that other stuff. And when you have that focus and everything else like that, you don't think the last thing on your mind is, especially if you're not in a relationship, is I'm going to have a kid. Right. So never once did I ever think, okay, I'm going to terminate pregnancy. I didn't think that. And I am a firm believer in... I'm against abortion. Yeah. There are certain things you agree with. I think you're about to say exactly how I feel, so I'm not trying to interrupt you, but I'm like waiting for it because I'm about to be like, yes. I agree with abortion in murder or in rape, in incest. I do not agree with abortion. If you are a consenting adult and you open your legs and you agree to have intercourse, then you are grown up enough to take care of that child. If you are not financially stable enough, number one, condoms are like 25 cents. Exactly. It's less expensive to buy a box of condoms than it is to take care of a child that you're not ready for. And number two, there's always adoption. Yes. Because there are a lot of people out there that cannot have children and are looking to adopt. Now, that being said, the foster care system, I think in this country... Is a fucking joke. Yeah, it absolutely is. Because I feel that those are kids that are so forgotten, but there are so many people out there that are spending thousands of dollars and having medical treatment. And I'm not saying that it's not right for you to have your own child. Right. But you could also find a child in utero and be there from that pregnancy. It might not be your body. Right. But you could be there from that pregnancy and move it on. Just that helps with the foster care system. I agree. I absolutely agree with you. And my husband and I have talked because when I had my C-section with my second, I also had my tubes tied. And we had said that if we ever did want to have another child, we would adopt instead. But the problem with it is, A, adoption is so freaking expensive. B, the process of adoption is insane. And I understand why they have the process, because you don't want these kids to go to somebody who's going to be bad to them. I agree with the process and the length of the process for certain things. Right. I don't agree with the cost. Right. Because to be honest with you, that is why people turn to medical treatments, because the cost of foster care and of adopting a child is so outrageous. I agree with you. Jess and I were talking the same thing. We were talking about if we wanted another child, we would adopt a boy. Right. Because we don't have a boy. It's the same for us. We have two boys. And I had always said I wanted a boy and a girl. I always wanted a boy first. But also, the problem with adoption is a lot of the kids who are in there waiting to be adopted are older. And people don't want to adopt older kids, because it's like, well, I want somebody that's from a baby. Well, no. There's still perfectly great children out there who are waiting for a family and who would be everything that you want them to be. But nobody wants to give them a chance, because they might be five. And, well, they're not a baby. Well, guess what? I would rather take a five-year-old over a baby. Well, sometimes. We'll talk about that next episode. I say that because my eyes are still glued up to the ceiling, thinking I should not have said that, because it's not true in my case. But the children deserve better. They do. I absolutely agree with you, Jess. That's what I was doing. All right. So now we take everything as a culmination from when we were pregnant, and the emotions and that rawness that you feel. Because, guys, when you find out you're pregnant— It is something that you can't ever describe. You'll never have another feeling like that ever again. And the second one is special. It's different, but it's special in its own way. Right. It's something that you can expect. Yeah. But when you first get that very first positive test, and you look at it, and you go, oh, shit. I'm pretty sure that is exactly— Ryan was standing outside my bathroom door, and he wanted to— I was like, no, I want to see this for myself, because he had me super excited that there's a chance that I could be pregnant. Oh, my God. But that is the one thing I wanted as a kid growing up. I've always wanted to be a mom. I never knew, actually, how fucking hard being a mom is. But— I would do the military over again in a heartbeat. Yeah. Like, it's something they—no one ever tells you— Basic training-wise, I would say. Right. No one ever tells you how hard being a parent really freaking is. And guys, we're going to get into more of that next week. Like we said, we're tying these episodes into each other. But that feeling of looking down at that test and seeing that it was positive, and I went, oh, fuck. And he's like, what? And I walked out and showed it to him, and I was just bawling. I think that's one of the main things that I'm happy Jeff wasn't there for. I'm so—I would love him to have been there to experience that and to have been like, oh my God, we're pregnant. Right. Or, I'm sorry, you're pregnant. Because he can't be. But you're pregnant. Right. But I took that time in that moment to be like, oh, fuck, my life is never— Never going to be the same again. Going to be the same. And those feelings that you go through, you can't explain. There's no— Description. Guys, I can't tell you what emotions I felt during this time because it ranged in every letter of the alphabet that you could imagine. It was the most intense I've ever felt until I had the baby. Yeah. And again, we're going to get into that. Oh, wait, no, we're talking about— That's a completely different feeling that, again, nobody ever tells you. And you—because you get so overwhelmed with this love that you have for this tiny person that has been in your body for nine months or, in my case, was eight in a week. But you've had this connection with this little person. Because I don't know if you did. I know you said you would rub your belly. I used to sit and talk to my belly, and I would sing, and I would do all of this stuff. I sang, I talked, I rubbed on my belly. Just not so much. It was more me. But my feeling at birth was different. Right. I had been in labor for 36 hours. Oh, hell no. Before I finally said, I'm done enough. Get her out. Because I had had an epidural. I could—ladies, your body goes through a rush of emotion right after you have birth, and your body will start shaking like a—literally like you're having a seizure from the hormones that surge through you. And I'm shaking on the table. And you know when you see your child for the very first time, and you're so overwhelmed with love? Mm-hmm. Oh, my God. I'm straight-up tearing up right now, because I'm literally thinking of that first time that I saw my oldest, and oh, my God. I was like—I was like, I don't know if I'll ever love something as much as I love this child that I— I'm envious, because I didn't. When I saw my oldest, I saw her—now, don't get me wrong. I was in love with her. But it was like a 50-50 thing. Right. It was, you are out of me. You're mine. You're my child. You are everything to me. However, I have never been more happy in my life to stop being so fucking miserable. And you coming out of me stopped me from being miserable. And we're taught our entire life that if something is inside of you that makes you feel miserable, you gotta get it out. Right. So I had that flood of emotion. And you will have that emotion. Oh, and it doesn't just stop, either. You go through so many hormonal changes that your emotions and everything is so messed up for a while. When they brought her to me when I got out of surgery, because I didn't get to hold her during the surgery. My husband took her. Yep. I got to give her her first kiss and everything else. I don't feel like I bothered. See, with my oldest, I got to hold him immediately. They pulled him out. They laid him on me. And we did the skin-to-skin and everything. And then after about an hour, they took him away from me. And then for 24 hours, I didn't have him. So I struggled with that a lot. And I was really upset because I just wanted that baby. You know what I mean? With my second, they did the C-section, pulled him out. And their first thing was, oh, he's a redhead. And then they had my husband come over. And he was looking at him and everything. I did not get to hold that baby for hours because of the hemorrhaging and almost dying. And then going in. I did. And I literally remember laying there just staring at my husband, Ryan, and my youngest. And he's literally holding this tiny little thing. And I could feel when the hemorrhaging started because all of my blood literally just rushed. And I felt this tingling from my head to my toes. And I said, something's not right. And I just remember laying there looking at my husband going, please don't let me die because I can't leave him with a newborn and a kid who's literally just turned four because they're four years apart. And it still is one of the scariest moments of my freaking life because I was afraid that my husband was going to have to raise these two little boys on his own. Whereas with my first, I didn't have all of that bad shit that happened. So I got to enjoy it more. But I completely understand where you're coming from with the bonding thing. Because I find it kind of funny that he got to hold him first and had all that time with him. How is your youngest super bonded to Ryan? So he is very bonded with both of us. But I have also noticed that with my husband, he listens to him more and things like that. Whereas with my oldest, he is loving and very affectionate. And he is such a sweet kid. But he is a mama's boy. Absolutely. I don't get that feeling from my second. He's not a mama's boy. He's not that cuddly, affectionate kid that my first is. So that could have nothing to do with it. It could just be a personality. But I think that bonding when you literally have that kid is so important. I think it has everything to do with it. Because my oldest is highly bonded to my husband and listens to everything he says. And I legitimately come out of her mouth. I am the mean mom. Yes. Whereas my youngest is 100% mama's girl. Wants to be near mama all the time. Mama, do this with me. Mama, I want to do makeup. Mama, will you do my hair? You know, that kind of stuff. But my oldest is just like, yeah. Okay, cool. That's nice. Like, we have music in common, my oldest and I. Yeah. But we didn't really bond. Like, it was weird. Yeah. We have since. Yeah. And I mean, so has my youngest and I. Like, clearly, I spend all of my time with him. So we get that bonding. But I love that little boy. He is definitely my hard child. But I do have to say that I think it makes a difference if you get that initial bonding experience versus if you don't. And these are things that you wish you knew. Because if I would have known that that's how it was going to be, I would have immediately been like... And that's the other thing. I've always seen people that have their C-sections and immediately have their child on them. Whereas I didn't get that. And I hated that. See, and I didn't. Like, they did not hand him to me at all. They took her out. And for some weird reason, she had a double-sized umbilical cord. And the doctor was like, we're saving a piece of it so we can study it. Right. It's huge. It was. And shockingly enough, my husband didn't cut my oldest umbilical cord, but he cut my second. And as soon as he did, he was not allowed to kiss her. And that was another thing in the first pregnancy, or in the first birth, too. He was not allowed to give her the first kiss. The mama gave the first kiss. No ifs, ands, or buts. The baby was brought to the mother, to the face. The mama gets the first kiss. No ifs, ands, or buts. Then daddy can hold baby and give baby kiss. But they put her on my chest. And he held her there. And sat with me during the C-section. Right. But I also didn't have any complications during my pregnancy, or during my C-section. So that's probably why. It could make a big difference, and I'm sure it does. And I will say, this is something that I wish I would have done with both of my kids, is I've always heard people talk about like their birth plans and stuff like that. And I honestly wish that I would have had one in place, because I think things could have went differently in both situations for me. And obviously the medical emergency, you can't do anything about. You're always going to say what ifs. Right. And you can't change. But I think it's important that people know about things like that. Go to LaVos classes, too, people. I never did either of those, and I wish I would have. Jess and I went to a LaVos class. We knew when we went into the hospital, they took you on the tour. They showed you everything that was going to be used, all the instruments that would be in the operating room with you, in the delivery room, after birth. And we have to start wrapping it up. But I'm going to end this on one more note of things that I never knew until I actually had to go through it. After pregnancy, labor. Guys, I'm not talking about the liver and that placenta. Nope, you're talking about the actual... You go through labor. If you have a C-section, your body still has to go through a labor. And you just sped it up. So you're going to go through labor pains all over again. Yep. After you have a baby. You can have it again after you have a natural birth, but it is a hell of a lot more common with a cesarean. Yeah. And oh my God, is it the worst. I was holding my daughter when I started having the contraction again. Yeah. And no one was in the room. My parents had just left. My husband had just left. The nurse had... I paged her because I was too far away from the bassinet. To be able to... And I couldn't get near anything. And I thought I was going to drop her. So I was pushing the button. Yep. And the nurse wouldn't come into the room. And when she did, funniest thing she ever did. She looked at me and she goes, Oh my God, honey, you just got a poop. And I looked at her and I said, Honey, if this is poop, I swear to God, I'm going to kill it when it comes out. Because this is... No. And then the doctor told me it's after birth. You have after birth labor. So just a heads up, it happens and it sucks. Yep. Yeah. Actually, there are a couple of things I wish I would have known for pregnancy and birth. One of them, my husband and I still laugh about. I don't know how many of you know this, but did you know you only need an extra 300 calories while you're pregnant? You're not really doing the eating for two thing. That's just an excuse to eat that extra piece of cake. Yep. So there's that one. And then back labor, I wish I would have known about back labor because that was worse than the actual freaking labor. That for me, for my first, killed me. I was so over it. I did. And my husband decided to eat a bag of pretzels as I was going through back labor. And I don't deal well with chewing and I like lost my mind. My husband, I'm going to do you, and men, if you're not married yet, I'm going to do you the best thing I can ever tell you. When your significant other is having a baby in the hospital, don't bring anything for you. Don't bring anything for yourself. It's all about her. I could give a goddamn less if you have to sit there for 36 hours and do absolutely nothing because you're bored out of the... I'm birthing a human. Now, luckily, I sent my husband home. I sent mine home with both at night for him to sleep because I knew he would snore. So he did go home for that, but he would come back first thing in the morning and then spend the day with me. And thank God my husband was there through my second because he was my rock. And I was about to walk out of the hospital 12 hours after giving birth because I was like, I'm fed up. So those are two of my things I wish I knew about with them. Well, with that note, we've got other things that we've got coming up that we can tell you about that we didn't know that we wish we did. Yeah, next week's episode, we're going to talk more about things that we wish we knew, but it's going to be more getting into... We're going to talk about the things that we wish we knew throughout all of it. Also, we're going to talk about baby, toddler, and kids. We're going to talk about our experiences, but we do want to touch on some things that we wish we would have known throughout all of it ahead of time that can affect things that you never would have thought of. And guys, we always want to tell you guys, please reach out to us on any of our social medias. We have everything linked below, including our email. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, topic ideas, or you would like to get your opinion across to what we're talking about on this episode, please let us know. Oh, yeah. Because we can add it into a future episode. Yeah, and we love getting the feedback from everybody and also love everybody's responses so far to last week's episode about body dysmorphia and taking the picture, getting dressed. Oh my gosh, we have gotten multiple. Multiple, and it's amazing. I love it. I love that people are interacting that way, and that's what we want. We want you guys to hear our interaction, but we want your interaction too. Absolutely, and we want to make sure that you guys' voices heard as well. So if you do have anything that you would like to say, please let us know. On that note, next week again, we're going to be getting into talking more about parenting, but after baby comes home, what do we do? And how we felt and other things that we needed to know that we should have known. Yeah, get ready and buckle up because it's going to be fun. You guys, I hope you have a wonderful, magical week and join us for our next episode. Yeah, we will see you guys again soon. And remember, new episodes come out every single Monday and available on all platforms. Yes. So with that, we will see you guys soon, and we hope you enjoyed the episode. Bye. Bye.