Punk Rock, Irish Twins, and Postpartum Realities: Leah’s Story

Yeah.

And I went back to work as well.

And I was a therapist at a methadone clinic.

And so, again, it was a lot.

Yeah.

I absolutely, though, I will say I did enjoy the work as well.

It was like there was something very rewarding.

And it's interesting, too, because I heard a lot of stories from clients as well who was a lot of women who talked about their postpartum depression and anxiety, how their recovery might have suffered because of, you know, struggles in motherhood or, you know, the systems that we're in, especially with some of the health care professionals, like at the hospitals and the stigma that these women would have to go through because of just their own struggles of going like having challenges with substances right like you know it's one of those things where a lot of like sometimes it's like yeah you get hurt and the doctor gives you something and then it just kind of goes from there right but just because like the mental medical professionals should not treat women like that or anyone like

that no no so

like I heard and again it was still interesting because a lot of these women still felt like you know because of these systems they didn't get a lot of the help that they needed through their pregnancy or postpartum or even when they did experience a loss, it was very much like, well, it was your fault, right? And it's not, you know, even like going through my experience and what I experienced I went through, right? As someone who is privileged in a lot of ways and then seeing how it also really affects women any birthing person, I should say, right? Birthing person in so many other areas, that was some, especially like in this area, I was like, I need, I want to learn more about this, right? Like my therapist brain was like turning.

I was like, yeah, this is interesting.

So I did a lot more research on my own.

I started taking trainings.

I took Karen Kleinman's training who wrote Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts as one of my favorite postpartum books.

Then I started doing PSI trainings and just got myself immersed in this population.

And realize and learn so much of the struggles that birthing people go through.

All the time in any population, right? Birthing people in the LGBTQ plus community, right? Dad, people who are struggling with substances, right? And not just, you know, that depression, right? It's more of all of the other disorders that can affect people who can give birth and, you know, what they experience, birth trauma, right? how you know go trying to conceive right um IVF and what that can do right and it's definitely you know these topics people might not want to talk about but it's important that we talk about it and bring light to these things so we can you know really like help people feel less isolating yeah

because that's

another thing too when I was going through my postpartum journey It was a very isolating experience, even though I had family around, friends around.

Right.

You still feel like during the day it's like there's so much to do, but there's nothing to do.

And I'm so right.

And then when I got pregnant again, I was really scared and I was like, I don't think I could do this again.

We always wanted more than one child.

We're like, we definitely want to, you know, give my, you know, give our daughter a, like a sibling.