Honest Postpartum Q&A: The Roommate Stage & Baby #4

fall never arrives all at once first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross Are you planning on baby number four? You're looking at me. I'm not willing to talk. I'm waiting for you to talk first. I feel like we're mostly roommates postpartum. That's so sad. No, I think that's part of it. Right now, we are in a little bit of a roommate stage. But I love you. Sometimes Matt spoons me after a feeding, and I'm like, what are you doing? What's the VBAC versus C-section recovery like? It's still crazy that I watch all of your internal organs get taken out. I heard that's a myth. They don't get taken out. Whatever I saw, they were taking stuff out. But I saw lots of guts, and blood, and lead. It was crazy. Welcome back to Unplanned. What's up, dudes? We're so, so happy that you're here. If you've been with us since the beginning of the show, can we just give it up for you? Can we just give you a round of applause? Because you're loyal, OK? We've literally been talking into these mics for hundreds of hours on the internet. And the fact that you're still with us, thank you so much. Pretty cool. In case you guys didn't know, today, we are going to be responding to questions from you guys about postpartum. We're doing an honest postpartum Q&A. And we've got some really good questions submitted from you guys on Instagram. So thank you to everybody that's following the Unplanned Podcast Instagram account. Yeah, and thanks for your questions. Before we do the questions, should we kind of give a little-- A little life update? Yeah. I think we should. Let's do it. What have we been up to, babe? I'm just thinking about the fact that our dog is currently in surgery. Pretty sad. She's not sad about it, though. I'll tell you that. Yeah. She's so happy. That dog loves going to the vet. She is just thrilled. She's just thrilled. She's like me. She's just down for an outing. And she loves the veterinarians. At her office, they're so nice. And yeah, I do realize that I feel more maternal towards Pretzel than I would have thought. Yeah. Because I was going to post on my story. I was sad that Pretzel was going to the vet to get Spade. And then I was like, this was my train of thought. I have to admit this. Then I was like, well, no, I can't do that because there's no verification process of who's picking up Pretzel. So then I was like, someone could see that. Oh, my God. And dognap our dog. Goodness. Like, go to the vet. So I was like, I need to post that not in real time. But you weren't going to post the actual vet location. I just thought that they could figure someone might recognize that office and they might be free today and might just happen to go. Dognap Pretzel. At the perfect time. And I was like, that was a crazy line of thinking right there. That was a spiral thought. I can't believe that she's already one years old. I know. Yeah, she's one years old. Do you say one years old or one year old? One year old. I don't know. That sounds right. How did that happen? We just snapped our fingers. It was a long year. Okay. That first year is long for dogs. I feel like she's still extremely hyper. She still jumps on everyone. If anybody comes into our house. At any point, like jumping on you for sure. Yeah, I love her so much, but I'm like, it was a long year. Like, we had a lot. She had a lot. She had to learn this year. Yeah. And it hasn't quite all sunk in. How many of our kids toys have made it through her digestive system at this point? Oh, my gosh. Every once in a while. I just turn on. She's like. Yeah. I'm like, oh, that's a magnet tile. That's no. She hasn't gotten a. That's a Lego. She could eat. She's like a little guy. The off brand. She's a goat. I bet if we bought the off brand, she could get her little chompers on there. Yeah. She'd swallow a magnet. That'd be really bad. She'd get stuck to the fridge. The magnets in her belly would take her. No, Matt. That would actually be really bad. I know. That would be bad. No, she's doing good. She's just getting her ovaries out. Yeah. It's actually so sad. I know. And the other thing is the fact that she swims in our pool so much that she got. What is it called? She had an ear infection or is it a double ear infection? She has matting behind her ears and she has a double potentially double ear infection. They're going to test. She's sedated. Yeah. And then if she is like if they are infected, then they're going to treat them. And then also she's getting her one year old vaccine. She's just going through it. We're not going to knock it all out while she's sedated because she will never stay still otherwise. Okay. You know what? Really? You don't really annoys me. What really bothers me is the fact that you're going to say for our dogs, veterinarian care or taking her to the vet is so much simpler and easier of a payment process. Then our, our medical system, you would never believe before we got everything done. They itemized everything for us. And we agreed to everything that they were doing and the cost of it, but the, like before the procedure day. Yeah. Can someone explain to me why consent, why is it that the vet can let us know beforehand what the price is going to be and because there's no one itemize it. I think it's the insurance system that muffs with everything and then it changed it inflates prices. It deflates price. Like it messes everything up. No, but I think like we obviously, I think. The insurance is important. You know, you need, you can't just have no insurance and if you get cancer, then you're out. Like then how are you going to pay back millions of dollars in medical bills if you don't have insurance and you were someone that has cancer, that would be crazy. But just the fact that they can like point blank tell you, oh yeah, here's the itemized list. Here's everything that you're going to pay for. We already know what it, like what's going to happen, but with anytime we go to the doctor, it's so annoying having to like wait literally months to get anything in the mail to see what you have to pay. And sometimes things come years later. I think you just like, it's too fresh in my mind, but I don't want to talk about it for very long because it actually really grinds my years. But yeah, yesterday got another bill. First of all, I got a bill for four over four years ago, just the anesthesia from my delivery because everything, I can't even go into details why all these things got so messed up because there's also a million different reasons. But I got the, I got the bill for an epidural that I got over four years ago that came in the mail. There's also another bill a year later for my miscarriage for $32,749. And I got so many DMS after that they're like, it's been two years and I'm still dealing with this. Like it was already like the worst day of my life and I still keep going back and forth with them about this. Like there's so many complications. And then here's the thing when I call anytime I'm like, Hey, how will I know when this has been resolved? Because they're like, we're going to send forward a file, we're going to file this change. And I'm like, okay, well how am I going to know when something's different? They're like, well, you just have to call back. And I was on the phone for over an hour and I, so I'm like, I'm just gonna have to call back. When can I expect this? They're like 30 days. So I'm going to call back in 30 days to see if they have refiled my bill. I'm like, you can't let me know. You can't send something else in the mail. Dealing with that crap can be like a part time job at times. Full time. Honestly give it 40 hours a week. Goodness. Yeah. Anyway, it's fine. Yeah. It's just really frustrating. And I just like. I just hate that so many of us are in this boat, but, but it shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be that way. Like the, the fact that the vet can do things the way they do them. I just don't understand why, why is the, why is it easier to get medical care for a dog? And it's not that different when you really think about it. No, it's not. I was looking at those line items. I'm like, I've had that before. Exactly. And like, do we want to have a higher level of care for humans? Of course. So it needs to be like slightly more complicated. Does it need to be slightly more complicated for humans? I'm sure it does because we, we don't want anybody, you know, dying from anesthesia if they have an allergy or something. It's all so similar. Like I literally signed a resuscitate thing. Like if she goes into cardiac arrest, like resuscitate her, please. We would like her. Also the difference in pricing too, like you look at, so I think for everything that our dog's being done is, was it $1,700 that it came out to? Well, it depends on so many different things, like if she's in heat or not, but I think it'll be like 1600. It's a, it's, it's so much less money. Yeah. At the vet than it is. Truthfully. For human care. Oh, and other news. You guys, what my parents ended up staying with us when they came to visit us, which was awesome. Yeah, it was nice to have their help. So nice having their help. My dad wanted to fix everything. He was like, can I touch up your walls for you? Like he was just asking all these different things and he actually, he put together my bench in the garage, which is, you know, I thought the kids had misplaced the screws and so I was putting it off and he was like, actually they're all there. So he put it together, um, which is awesome. So shout out to John. Thank you, John. You need to become a little bit more handy like your dad. You know, I, I actually don't really have desire for that. I mean for, for some things, sure. Do it purely to impress your wife. Okay. There we go. Cause I just think it would be really great if you could operate a drill. When I built the half pipe in our backyard, were you impressed? Were you like, wow, that's a man right there building a half pipe for me. Well, I was, I was impressed. Yeah. It was not, it was the half pipe was for you. No, I think it was for, I'm like, I'm building my own toy, so I'm like, well, great job. Thank you. Thanks. But I, it was very impressive. Thank you. That was a huge project. That was a mega project. Yeah. Shout out to John. We not only did he do that, but then, uh, he figured out my, my power blocks, those weights. I, I bought them off Facebook marketplace and they were so rusted. I just did not do my due diligence making sure that they were good. 'cause I should have never bought them. They just were not a good quality. And, uh, he bought, uh, oil to oil the weights so that they can, um, I wouldn't even have known that that's what would get it off. I know. I think he was taking even like steel wool and just, and, and getting them to fit together because the power block weights, it's the type of dumbbells where, uh, they can, you can change the weight. So if you, you have this, this like little, um, insert to change it from, you know, 20 pounds to 50 pounds, or if you want to even do 90 pounds, you can do, you can make them 90 pounds. And I get that. You don't understand it. No, there's all these different inserts. And so like, it's like, it's, it stacks on each other. So, oh, you have to put it together. Yeah. Yeah. So when they're all together, it weighs 90 pounds. But then if you, if you want to lift only 10 pounds, you take, you know, all the inserts off. If that makes sense. Yeah. I'm not explaining it the best. No, that makes sense. Now I am excited to work out. Actually, you know what? I'm really just mostly sad that I can't go to the mom's twerking class on Friday. Oh, I'm sorry. All my friends are going. I could just go and watch. Do you even know how to twerk? But that's kind of weird. No. You don't know how to twerk. It doesn't stop me from doing what I can. If you want me to teach you, I could. I know you could. If you know how to walk, if you want to have a wall twerk, that's my specialty. That is, I think I'm going to have to consult you on that. Caleb. Wow. That is special. That's a special memory. What's funny about it is he's actually really good at it too. I actually have seen that. You've actually seen it, yeah. Unfortunately. Okay. Okay. Our family is a little too close. No, wait. We forgot to say we also had Augie's birthday party. Oh, yeah. Augie's birthday party was amazing. Yo-ho, yo-ho. Pirate's Life for three. And it was so fun. If the YouTube video isn't out yet, it'll be out soon. And it was a really fun day filled with so many people. I think we had more people at our house at that party than ever. It was like 70 people. I don't know. 60? Yeah, maybe. It was a lot of people. Just so many kids. There's so many kids. Because we counted. How many adults did you count? Not including kids. I counted over. Over 30. Over 30 adults. And most of the adults came with two kids. Minimum. So, we're talking 60 plus people. That was crazy. We should also tell the story. Because your dad is so helpful. What happened? But it is a funny story with the food. Oh, yeah. Let's make fun of my dad. Okay, what did he do? No, we're not making fun of him. We love you, dad. He was so helpful. And honestly, he kind of came up with a hack. This is a Chipotle hack. Thank you to John Howard. It's called. Take someone else's burger. Accidentally steal someone else's order. This is the hack. So, okay. We sent Matt's dad. Because he's so helpful. And is always asking, like, can I help? And I'm usually like, no. Just, like, because I feel bad. Like, I feel like they come to visit. And I hang out and enjoy a trip. And then he just, like, does stuff the whole time. But we're like, you know what? You can go pick up the catering for the party. And so, he goes. We just got it from Chipotle. Which actually is a great place to get catering for a party. Oh, 100%. And he goes. And he comes back. And he has, like, two bags. And I ordered. Like, more than that. And Matt is like, Abby, this is not enough food. We're not. It's fine. I'll just go get some pizzas. And I'm like, I'm so confused. Because I paid, like, almost $400 in Chipotle. Like, this just does not look like $400 worth of Chipotle. And he's like, they said Abby. We look at the tag. And it was, like, Abby Guzmond. Or something like that. Yeah. Just this random. He grabbed a takeout order. This random lady's takeout order. And so, I called Chipotle customer service. Thank goodness they figured it out. It was not Chipotle's fault. Please clear Chipotle's name. Yeah, Chipotle didn't. It's not your dad's fault either. They did nothing wrong. No, it was definitely my dad's fault. Well, he just. He just heard Abby and was like, yeah, right here. Yeah, I mean, I. And then the difference in the order size. It's a crazy coincidence. He came back with, like, two bags before. Like, boxes. Came back with massive boxes of food. Because we bought. I mean, we bought enough food to feed 30 adults. And somehow we had food left over. I think it was because we had. It was because we got to keep the other order that your dad picked up from Abby Guzmond or whatever it was. But we would have ran out of food if it wasn't for that. So, John actually saved the day. Thank you, John, for saving the day. Sorry to Abby Guzmond. That probably wasn't even her name. But that was just so funny. We're like, sorry, get back in the car. This is not going to work. But it was a great party. It was so hot. So, we just. Everyone was in the pool. Katie Church, who we had on the podcast. Yes. Has that been posted yet? The podcast? Katie made us a. You didn't know that our podcast with Katie Church went out already? Oh, it's already live. That was out a while ago, Abby. I've been a little busy. Okay, you're right. She made a mega pinata that was so fun. The kids had a great time with that. They still talk about the pinata. She stuffed that thing. That was a good pinata. It was so good. That probably was the best pinata of all time for a birthday party. So much good candy inside of it. There were like full-sized. I personally can't get out of the candy. The candy was really good candy, too. Like, she did not skimp. No, she did not. And then the pinata was huge. And it looked really good. She did a great job. They had so much fun. Yeah. And so, there's that. And, yeah. Anyway. Our kids have started a hip-hop class. Yeah. It's really wholesome. Yeah, it was sweet. I didn't know how they were going to react to going to hip-hop class. They loved it. They talk about it all the time. They're like, it's hip-hop open right now. They love hip-hopping. It's like 9 p.m. I'm like, nope, it's not open right now. And we. I don't know if I told you this today, but we had a dance party before school. And we turned on some music. And we did some of our hip-hop moves from class. That's amazing. Yeah. Get some practice in. Getting the practice in. Well, okay. Life is in full. That is our life update for the day, you guys. And now, we're going to dive into your questions that you submitted about postpartum. You ready to do this? Yes. Okay. The first one is from Ryan. She said, was Abby right about Fisher being a chill dude? Yeah. So chill. I would say he's a chill dude. Yeah. Compared to past children in the newborn stage, so much chiller. Yeah. But he also. I mean, he's a normal baby. Like, he's like. He doesn't necessarily just like fall asleep. Oh, yeah. No, he's still a full-on newborn. But I feel like if we measure the decibels of his cry versus Augie's cry, I think Augie's cry would be like three times louder. Yeah. And he's more able to like. He's just more content in general than. We've had it in the past. So I would say by our baby standards, he is chill for sure. He doesn't need a binky, so that's been nice. I would like for him to take a binky, I think. Oh, really? So he doesn't use you as a passy? Yeah. Okay. But you know what? We'll cross that bridge another time. I was on ChatGPT as much as I don't want to admit that, looking up how to get a baby to take a binky. I love how when ChatGPT came out, you were like so against it. And now you're using it, I think, every day. Not every day. Every other day. And I only use it for things that I would Google. But then now Google is doing ChatGPT. It's called Google Gemini, babe. Now Google is doing Gemini. We did an ad for Google Gemini like a couple months ago. But that was more for the student angle, not like the mom trying to figure out how to get their kid to take a binky or how to air fry chicken breast tenders in their Ninja Crispy. Those are my common searches because I always forget. This is from. So yeah, he's chill. This is from. He's so cute. Carlyce. She said, how did you come up with the name Fisher? We just liked it. Basically, we realized that our first two kids are named after DJs. And we were like, what's another DJ name that we can name our kid after? And we were like, Fisher is a DJ. He is a DJ? Yeah. Is Augie a DJ? I actually don't know if Augie is a. I'm pretty sure there is a DJ named August. Wait, our kids are not named after DJs. That's just maybe just a coincidence. Yeah, I was just joking about that. They're actually not. It's just kind of a coincidence. So to tell you the truth, we just liked the name. Yeah. And when I say we, I mean me. I've come up with all of our kids' names. And then Matt just is like, yes or no. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you guys know us, you know that we're huge fans of therapy. We both have been to individual therapy. We've done couples therapy. And I think there's so much that literally everyone can gain from going to therapy. I actually went just a couple of days ago. And it was so good just getting to talk about where we're at. And this is. It's a newborn stage. And one of my favorite things about BetterHelp is they are entirely online. They have a survey for you to fill out. So you can be matched with somebody who is going to be a good fit for you. But if you decide, you know what? I want to try somebody else out. You can switch at any point free of charge. It's so convenient. BetterHelp works exactly for your schedule and the comfort of your own home. Better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/UnplannedPodcast. That's BetterHelp.com/UnplannedPodcast. Next question we have is from Kristen. She said, "Transition to three boys. Weeks away from having my third boy and interested about the change." It's so fun. It's literally so fun. Right now, obviously, it's not. It's just basically like two boys. And then a baby, you know? But I just can see ahead what this is going to look like. I also have a lot of friends randomly that have three boys. And I would just say in general, the transition from two to three is like by and large from the people I've talked to, a much easier transition than zero to one and one to two. And that's definitely been the case for us. And I love the fact that they're all boys that can, you know, have shared interests and play together and. Yeah. My favorite part is how. It's great. multiple kids, they just kind of are aren't phased by adding more yeah like i think and they're not phased by much too like something can you can hear like a a you know a loud bang in another room and your kids are playing okay a loud bang in another room would get me off the couch well okay you hear you hear a suspicious noise in a different room you know what worries me more is the silence actually oh yeah actually when it's silent you're like what are they covering on the walls are they uh taking all the toilet paper and like yeah it's usually something involving the toilet it's yeah it's toilet paper coloring on the walls something in the pantry something suspicious in the pantry yeah sometimes they'll pull out like pour out all of our chocolate onto the floor and eat the chocolate chips from you know the chocolate chip container so you gotta you gotta be aware of those things when it's quiet but i would say like people just aren't phased when you have a lot of kids but parents of one kid like one little tiny thing happens and it's like all hell breaks loose because there's there's nothing else to raise your cortisol levels right like that that's the only that was the case for us for sure oh yeah we can call ourselves out yeah we were we were we were that way too at that time for sure yeah and now i think we just you kind of just have to adapt you know well they also we have a like i can rest assured knowing that a kid is gonna come tell me that something is wrong yeah like before if there's just one kid like maybe he's trapped in or something there's no one there's no witnesses 100 but there's gonna be a a kid that's going to be like hey they need you and then you can come that is nice too like having kids that actually can talk to us now yeah because i think it's a game changer yeah because like i don't know maybe maybe there's a like a time where we're like cooking dinner and we both could be like helping do that in the kitchen and used to i feel like one of us would be like closely watching the the baby is everyone okay but but now like griff we can be like griffin is fisher okay yeah he's chilling like it's just like we we don't need to be like monitoring him you need to see it with our own eyes exactly you know yeah because we have other reliable sources sources in the form of three and four year olds they're so reliable exactly this is from uh gosh dang it i'm so stupid can you read this name i can't pronounce it i don't know why i should be able to where is it you're way smarter than me question number five that's ariana i'm an idiot this is from ariana how has the adjustment been for your older boys i'm just stupid okay so uh the adjustment for our older boys they've been great like they've been so sweet to fisher they've been like nothing but loving and kind and they yeah they asked to hold him every day right at least griffin does augie not so much um but they ask about him all the time they want him to come with us places the only thing that i feel really bad about is there's a lot of like i can't do that right now because i'm feeding baby fisher i can't do that right now because i'm holding baby fisher like there's a lot of that and so i think today that kind of um is what started like some big emotions in one of our kids because they wanted us to play and yeah i was like i can't because i have to eat really fast so i can feed baby fisher and then like there's like my time is just being pulled away from them more so and so um i don't think that they are like unaffected by the transition or like like there was definitely a rougher patch right at the beginning especially when we were in the hospital they did not like us being gone in the hospital us coming home and like since he's like become more and more like integrated in our routines they've done amazing they've done so so well uh you saying that made me think of this comment from destin on our most recent or on the episode we did about the the newborn stage and she said pro tip have the older boys hear you tell fisher to help uh to wait to help them with something even if baby is sleeping fisher you gotta wait i'm helping griffin with something oh yeah yeah exactly like that okay isn't that kind of i thought that was kind of like a smart idea yeah that is a good idea just i don't know make sure it makes the our older boys feel you know like they're also a priority yeah exactly yeah that makes sense also um we did tell the kids that fisher got them superhero costumes because they are superheroes to him and that for some reason really landed with them i wasn't sure how they're because i feel like sometimes they're really literal like they they love like magical things or like fun things like they have big imaginations but i just didn't know if like they would just look at me and be like he can't give us anything because he's a baby yeah but that really landed with them and so that really helped like the fact that they are realizing like i don't know that they have like a a big role in his life and so like that just kind of made everything a little bit more fun and exciting that was such a good idea by the way thank you i just came up with that one on the cliff you like you was there any inspiration or did you just think of oh they need to be superheroes for griffin or for fisher i just came up with that one i knew they really liked superheroes so i was really good and they wear those superhero outfits all the time all the time next question is from jess she said how do you show up for the boys when sleep deprived any tips um caffeine we just we drink caffeine every day multiple times a day and we have energy drinks we have coffee uh what are you doing other than that is that is that pretty much um i just really try to go to bed early yeah that too that matters uh maximize the amount of time that you can can like be bedtime so then when you're woken up and you're like losing hours of sleep you're starting from a surplus if that makes sense yeah um so i don't feel super sleep deprived but i do think the caffeine definitely i honestly in the morning nothing in the world is more like satisfying than that first sip of coffee right about now oh yeah um you're on your is that your second cup that you're on right now yeah but they're half calf so i'm counting it as that's like one cup then yeah but that'll probably be the last caffeine i have the day i'm nursing so i'm trying to be because it's what 85 85 milligrams of caffeine per espresso shot i thought it was 60 i think it's like 85 oh i thought it was 60 60 per shot 85 you're thinking it's 85 per shot so then i'm getting a lot of a cup of coffee is 85 milligrams per shot of espresso is less caffeine than a cup of coffee really 64 and a shot of don't even okay there you go you're right i was wrong about that i've been adding this up um this is from sapka she said compare your postpartum experience in general with your previous ones hormones etc hormonally is has been the biggest difference between my first two and this one like hormonally i feel way better and i cannot tell you i'm not gonna sit here and say oh it's this one thing i think there's probably multiple reasons why and then also partially just luck i think the village that we have now 1000 and those placenta pills i think there's something in there something between those two things makes a big difference i think like hormonally i feel way way way way way better oh yeah than the first two times night and day difference honestly yeah i mean it's like i think the times that you've had you know hard nights it like i don't even yeah you can't even compare this time around to the past two yeah postpartum yes so yeah you've been doing great you've been doing awesome um so that has probably been the biggest difference i haven't like started getting back to like working out or haven't started getting back to real life yet i would say yeah um so i can't really speak to like the full breadth of postpartum because that's like literally lasts like a year so how important do you think it is to get out of the house when you're postpartum for me it's really really important because i'm like i'm like it's really important and now they're that's just so different for each person though because there's this whole philosophy on postpartum that you're supposed to spend like five days in bed five days like next to the bed like in your bedroom and then five days like in your house or something like that if i would have stayed 15 days cooped up like that that would have really hurt my mental health i think yeah yeah and um you know historically mental health has been harder for me than like my physical well-being post-birth so that would not have been a good fit for me but people swear by it like they like love that so it just it's everyone's different so what was what was it it was just about your experience postpartum i mean i think getting out of the house really helps yeah you've been getting out of the house a lot um you've been going on walks like you obviously can't go on walks right away but as of today it's in it's been four weeks since you gave birth and gosh i mean just you've been walking a lot yeah i go out with our dog every morning with fisher you've been going uh meeting friends for coffee meeting friends you've been you've even like gone and done like play dates with friends at like trampoline parks i think you might have done that a little too early because that was around when you were having a lot of bleeding a little too early but uh you know again you when you start taking those placenta pills when you have other kids the bleeding stops right away which is that is true yeah i'm not saying the placenta pills didn't work i yeah yeah obviously there's risks like if you if there's i don't know if your kid what's it called like marconium or something if there's like poop all over the oh i didn't know i just knew that if you tested positive for the group b strip yeah like there's that's why you have to properly sanitize the placenta if you're going to get it encapsulated encapsulated you want to work with someone that's actually done it before and knows what they're doing like you i'm not me you did mine i did yours with the under the direct supervision of someone that was certified but um no this one has been way easier i cannot tell you all there's probably multiple reasons why that is but it's been um like i feel a lot better this time around and do you think working out as hard as you did throughout the pregnancy do you think that helped the way you're feeling now surely but i don't think i worked out like crazy hard like you were just consistent i mean you were going to the gym five days a week yeah yeah you five days a week is consistent most people i would say maybe do like two days in the gym a week yeah i did like five or six and then i would go on a walk the off days you - like i was oh i would like do a lot of movement i feel like that helps that has to help also being postpartum after loss that definitely had had to have influenced it right like i think like we are literally the sum of all of our life experiences and so like having that new experience like in between my two previous postpartum experiences and this one definitely just changed my perspective on like postpartum i'm like yes this is - like yes this is what i'm talking about - like yes this is what i'm talking about - like yes this is hard and this is a difficult thing but what a gift it is to be in this hard this type of hard because i know of different version of hard that i would much prefer this version of hard than the version without a baby you know what i mean - also i think the really scary part was everything leading up to the birth because i we were both not really voicing it but we were both scared s-h-i-t-less about the the about everything happening again yeah so the birth going smoothly and us getting to meet our baby alive was so good and so i i mean i think the the main thing after miscarriage for you is just the fact that we're back to the month that everything happened um a year later now which which sucks really um and i don't think anything can make that better other than the fact that you know it's it is nice that we have another baby now like that's totally that's encouraging yeah yeah i do i definitely think that post-loss like the gratitude that i feel also lifted like the heaviness of postpartum for me like it was just like well i can't i'm just so grateful that that just made everything like a little lighter but then like you're saying to entering like september again and then like as we've approached like the actual date i just feel like like holding my breath yeah and it's one of those things where it's like i don't even like oh my gosh i got so many people hate when i say the word like and now i'm saying it it's okay it's because i haven't said this before i like it when you say the word like i think it's cute thanks matt yeah it makes me sound so i like you i like you a lot great um i feel myself like in a way like holding my breath and it's not something i'm consciously aware of like there is just something about like anticipating like these these anniversaries i just i remember so my parents experienced a loss before having me and i remember learning about like that date and like how that date was really hard for my mom yeah and i never really quite understood that i was like wouldn't it always be hard like why would it be uniquely hard as like it's just like your i really believe this like your body like your spirit has like a pinpoint like has like a thumbtack and they know like your body knows in a way that you're not consciously aware of yeah that you're like trying to protect you from this scary thing that happened at the same time a year before two years before three years before and like it doesn't i don't i don't anticipate that ever stopping so like as we're arriving that day of that first anniversary i feel all this like i don't even know how to put the like the feeling is like someone's like squeezing my neck yeah like it's like you're holding your breath and i wanted to clarify too what your parents experienced wasn't even it was so much more than a loss it was a stillbirth it was literally carrying a baby to full term and after all that so that's just absolutely horrible yeah absolutely horrible thank you to upwork for sponsoring today's episode the most successful business owners don't do it all themselves they delegate upwork lets you build a team of highly skilled specialists for every function your business needs so you can focus on what you do best and let experts handle the rest i'm a fan of upwork i've used it before to help us find and connect with editors that are very talented at editing youtube videos that can be a difficult job to fill oh yeah and it's really cool that upwork can connect you with that perfect person upwork gives your business fast access to highly skilled specialists with deep expertise so you can fill critical skill gaps launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full-time work so if you're a business owner and you're a business manager and you want to build your business you can go to upwork.com/shortlisting and you can browse profiles review past work and get help scoping the role so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly with business plus you can access the top one percent of talent on upwork ai powered shortlisting delivers a curated shortlist of top freelancers matched to your goals and under six hours no endless searching required visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free that is upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow that's u-p-w-o-r-k dot com upwork.com any pelvic floor issues at all um i was having uh some peeing my pants moments i never had that postpartum the first two times i this was that was a special new thing this time around like it was like when i had the urge to pee i literally had to go right then or else i was not gonna make it or if i even just stood up too fast i was peeing my pants so i was like wearing pads partially for pee at the beginning which is so too team too much information but at least you weren't experiencing the poop side of things yeah yeah yeah that would be unique i know that some women experience that and that would be not there's a special place in my heart for them god can you imagine just like yeah i did after i had surgery i put my pants and that was not a good feeling yeah i forgot about that well yeah you're right more than once that's it that did happen and i don't want to go back you're clawing my leg sorry i did not mean to claw your leg i just wanted to have my hand on your leg i'm sweating do you are you um this oh but i did stop peeing my pants let's just put that out there and um i don't know if i have other pelvic floor issues it's i don't know i don't know there's no i don't there could be uh next one is what has been your experience with recovery and learning about it and what has been your experience with learning how to love your body postpartum i would say it's very normal recovery experience like i feel like i did tear i had stitches like that and i was sore for a while and then now i'm like really not experiencing much pain that took about three to four weeks to get there you know are you having trouble loving yourself the way that you are i would say i definitely like look in the mirror and i'm like man i don't want this to stay this way forever but i'm not like i'm amazed by my body and i'm grateful for my body and i'm not like oh i hate the way i look now the thing that i don't like doing right now is wearing regular clothes like i only like to wear like comfy clothes athletic clothes stretchy clothes when i tried to like get like more ready i start to feel really weird like i just feel like it's like a weird like out of body experience but i'm like we're so fresh like let's just stay in the comfy loungewear to find clothes that can fit that are like nicer like yeah like you know like jeans oh jeans are tough a regular bra like i don't want to wear a regular bra do you ever feel like you want to put on anything that you wear while you're pregnant or is that not that's all i've been wearing okay it just looks a little different but like the the nicer clothes though like dresses that you wore that when you were pregnant and stuff like that not so much just because of nursing like wearing a dress when you're nursing is like really really hard but if i wear a big baggy t-shirt i can just put the whole thing over the baby and i can like have more freedom yeah nursing really keeps you from wearing dresses i remember that you didn't wear dresses for a long time what am i gonna do lift my whole dress up exactly yeah yeah because i remember you used to wear dresses like almost every day yeah when we were in college especially with you being a teacher like you know going into teaching yeah and so i was just so used to seeing you wear dresses but then you stopped wearing them postpartum and i'm sure you're probably going to follow that same that that same way of doing things this yeah i'm definitely excited to get back into like working out but it's not like my my excitement for working out is not real like necessarily tied to body transformation like i'm excited to like go let out some steam do something for me like feel what it feels like to move again without a bump like that's just such an exciting feeling like when you've worked out for 40 weeks pregnant you know what i mean so um yeah i think that i i feel a lot of like empathy and for people that like for women after you've had a baby like it's it is a really weird period where you're like what's going on with my body i just think the fact that i've had two kids before like it doesn't send me for it says it probably upset me more the first time than it does the third time yeah and once again also just being post-loss like these things just feel i'm realizing that it's like such a small thing like the way my body looks but i definitely am not like flattering towards like the appearance of my body right now uh next question is from somebody that is scared to have another c-section so she said like what's the the v-back versus c-section recovery like like what's the difference there i mean the the recovery is so much easier with the v-back to recover right yeah the c-section recovery is insane it's intense yeah super intense would you say was would you describe your c-section recovery as more intense or your hernia your double hernia repair recovery as more intense i mean i think that i felt more pain in my double hernia repair thing or double hernia repair surgery but the fact that you have a c-section and then you have to care for a newborn directly after yeah that's pretty crazy that's pretty intense so they're neck and neck you know um yeah i mean the c-section recovery is quite a bit harder for me i would say like i would say the average experience is yeah that's gonna be a lot harder yeah uh crazy it's still crazy that i all of your internal organs get taken out like that's what i heard i heard that's a myth they don't get taken out i saw whatever i saw they were taking stuff out i don't know what i don't know what it was that i saw but i saw lots of guts and and blood and red yeah it was it was but i should say i also look back on my c-section experience positively okay like i don't look back on it as like oh my gosh never ever want to do that again in fact i fully got pregnant thinking i was gonna have a c-section and i thought there was a zero percent chance i was gonna have a v-back so i don't look back on it as like the recovery was so difficult that and also i feel like the recovery was not as long as i expected it to be like i felt really good at two weeks after my c-section so i just want to just put that out there like if you are in a position where you have to have a c-section or you for whatever reason that's what it looks like you're going to be experiencing i don't want to put that fear in you like just take the painkillers i should have done that so since the soul the since the shoulder dystocia happened again do you think that we'll opt for a c-section next time or try to do another v-back if if if we ever if there is ever another time i mean i'll have to talk to my doctor about that like i haven't even had my six-week appointment but based off of what she said even the day that he like shortly after he was born she kind of made a comment that made me think that it would not be wise to pursue a v-back ever again okay okay does that make you sad maybe a little bit yeah because the c-section sucks honestly no it's just like it's not as like we had such a positive birth experience that was like so exciting and fun and like there's like this element of like like i don't know excitement that i don't know that you there's a like it's so exciting to have a baby yeah but the birth of a of a scheduled c-section isn't necessarily as exciting because you know what i mean sorry i'm yawning over here just the the newborn knock it off right now no i'm so yeah i didn't say i was tired i said i was yawning i'm not allowed to say i'm tired um so yeah i guess i would say that is a little sad yeah but i also want to make the safest decision for our babies yeah it's it's crazy to me like the more babies you have just how much easier the deliveries get though so i know that's why i'm bummed out for you because like my mom said that well now we've now we've had three boys my mom had three boys but like she just said that the births got progressively easier yeah and definitely from the first vaginal delivery to the third vaginal delivery so much easier completely different experience yeah for you and like not only did the labor last like what was it like we said it on the last episode where we talked about the birth is over 24 hours of labor right just a completely night and day different experience yeah and it was fun like it was a fun experience um but you really could have done i honestly think you could have done it naturally i don't think i know that i could have because you have when you have to do something oh yeah have to do it uh but it was nice seeing how the epidural just made you feel i know i guess i wonder what i would have said in that moment if they were like okay you just have like you literally have 45 minutes left what i would have done but the plan was always to get the epidural especially being uh v-back like the plan was to get an epidural because we just didn't know in the instance of a uterine rupture i wanted to have that in but um thankfully we didn't have to experience that this question is from riley she said what was the biggest help your doula provided i mean so many things i can think i don't know why the first she filled in any gaps like anything any time where i like wasn't like quick to do something she would just know to like i don't know like say she would say something to you to like encourage you or so um speak up when a medical concern arose and and we needed some sort of decision to be made she she just like deals with that stuff on the daily so she knows what to say she knows how to fill you in and fill in the gaps and so it was really helpful like even for me as the husband i felt so much more confident in my support for you because she was also like giving me ideas she was like matt like rub abby's back right here or do something like that and i was like i don't know what to do with that i don't know how to do this for abby and so that was really helpful because i'm not a birth expert i'm like i haven't gone to class like all these classes on how to do this but you know that's that's her profession so having her guide me on how to support you was so helpful yeah totally i think there's so many things that because usually doulas are coming from the angle of the fewest interventions possible yet i don't know that i would have gotten epidural if it wasn't for having a doula like she could tell from where i was in labor without anyone checking me that i was in entering transition and then she knew that it was going to start going really really really fast from there and she knew that i needed to get fluids before i could get that so she was when it was like you need to we need to get this now and so i don't know that i would have had an epidural if it wasn't for her because we just didn't know what like transition looked and sounded like and then also i just remember there's like times where she just like had the magic touch like i was in a lot of pain and she's put her hands on my knees and i don't know why like in that moment that was exactly what i needed yeah and it was just it also just felt like there was a piece in the room knowing someone so experienced was never going to leave our side whereas like nurses they can't give you their 100 they have other people they have to tend to and so like that she was not going to leave and she was there the whole time that just that just gave us a sense of like feeling like in control it is something that can otherwise feel outside of our control and she bought us culvers she got culvers brought us chocolate shakes and burgers she was also so encouraging too like she's like you're doing so good like i was like i really felt like i could do anything because she was like encouraging so that was so nice she knew the words to say for seriously have you ever suffered from postpartum anxiety like not wanting to share your baby etc this is from claudia um nothing diagnosed possible i would say but i definitely had anxious thoughts postpartum i think what what type of anxious thoughts like my baby's gonna stop breathing oh yeah that that's that's a common i still get that yeah i get that one sometimes it's someone's gonna take my baby it's chilled out too like i i've learned that a lot of times with with sids which is just like so scary to say it's oftentimes people just not following safe sleep protocol or you know sleeping sleeping with the baby yeah we're very diligent about that we're very careful to keep the swaddle below the neck that way you know that's not getting all up in their in their breathing area ultimately sleeping on their back yeah you don't want your baby to sleep on their belly as as much as our colicky babies with baby one and baby two wanted to sleep on their bellies we just had to always put them on their back and so you just got to just follow follow the rules and um but yeah that those anxious thoughts of like thinking your baby's going to sleep on their baby's gonna stop breathing in the night that's scary i mean even i have anxious thoughts he's not even a month old and i'm like he's gonna roll he's gonna roll off isn't that weird like i forgot that they can't even roll over right now yeah so there's just you know those happen those happen i've never had like i would say anxiety is probably something that is like more like something that you can't control you can't you can't like kind of speak to those anxious thoughts and like talk yourself down yeah and probably for a moment and then you're like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god prolonged period of time but um it's unfortunately super common this question's from lily she said she's pregnant with her rainbow baby but she's worried about the emotions to come it's emotional it is really emotional i would say don't be worried about it i feel like that's that's your sign that you're human like i feel like i had to really make peace with like every feeling that i've felt and not like judging them as like oh i shouldn't be feeling this way or i shouldn't this is like not like something i want to think or like all these types of things i think there's definitely something to taking your thoughts captive but those like emotions that you feel are literally just a sign that you're human that you're alive and that you care there's something on the line and um like our emotions are probably like our one of our strongest things that we can have as moms you know so we don't have to be worried about them definitely have someone you can talk to and definitely like if you have a thought that you're like you need a voice i would say like therapy has been a really good sounding board for that for me and also my friends like i've been able to say things or like oh like for me like i was really anxious about going to the hospital yeah the same hospital that we had emerson and so like saying that i was anxious about that even just saying that alone just getting that thought or that scary feeling like putting it out there i immediately felt so much relief just because when we're like they're just bouncing around inside your brain like it just it's hitting so many sensitive points where it's like if i could just say it it felt like we could share it a little bit yeah and it wasn't growing okay next question i lost most of my friends during postpartum why is that wow were they moms that's a really good question i'm gonna guess no my guess is if if this person lost her friends probably people in a different stage of life yeah it's so hard and some of that is just like that is sad that's hard like you gotta agree with that but then also like you're on a completely different schedule now yeah that just makes things difficult and maybe it's not personal at all it is sad like a logistic issue like it's hard to have friends that don't have kids now that we have kids it just makes logical sense you're like oh you want to hang out after 7 30 right how are we gonna make that the only time the time that i hang out with other dads is either an early morning dad workout before the kids are awake or we're like taking the kid to the park or the indoor jump park and our kids are playing and then we can talk then but like it's it's rare that we're hanging out with people that are single or married without kids just because they're on a completely different schedule than we are yeah it's like not personal it's just a scheduling thing that doesn't mean it's not like it's still definitely worth it to go outside of your way to have friends that are in different seasons of life and that's really good and we should also be better about that oh for sure but also don't i would say be slow to think that it's like someone just doesn't want to hang out with you anymore or that you like they don't like you anymore or it's because you gotta be like x y or z like don't jump to those conclusions but that is that is a natural thing that happens and it doesn't make it not sad next question is from maizey she's wondering what type of breast pump you use um i use the spectra i don't even know what it's called the one that they sell at target we just bought it because you couldn't rent the pump from the hospital this time i know i was planning on renting that one but this one also said it was hospital grade so i was like booyah booyah baby and i actually think it works just the same as the one that i rented from the hospital yeah so um i really like the spectra now i also got a wearable that i like wanted to like love i personally am not a wearable pump girl like if i'm gonna do a pump it's gonna it's usually i'm just i'm we only pump twice at night yeah i don't know why the wearable i just could not figure out where to get it on the right spot yeah we've we bought like i couldn't see where to get it was it was trying to suck in the wrong thing and i was like get that out of there and then i just couldn't figure it out i think i just need a little bit more learn i need to learn it a little bit i have not seen you wear the the wearable one i also don't want to wear it because i already feel like oh yeah those those things are already so big i'm like i don't want putting the wearable i also need i need to get a better bra to do that with i just think i didn't really give it a good shot yeah but for right now i'm not like super interested in using a wearable but probably down the line i will okay it's just logistically confusing to me for some reason yeah i don't know where to i don't know i can't figure out how to line it up um was it was it sucking up like your regular skin something was wrong what did it there was like no milk in one side okay i mean actually this is when i was just pumping colostrum but there was no colostrum in one side and i was like i just wasted all of that time sucking in something that wasn't the right part could you not see if it was going into the the milk you can't tell if the right thing is in the right hole can you like look in a mirror can you just like no you don't have visibility on that part but apparently i need to do a different can you use like a a camera like like your phone and like look at different videos no it's hard to explain that but it's it's blocked it's not clear there see to me it shouldn't be that they should make the whole thing clear when you really think about it yeah hey if you manufacture wearable pumps please make it clear it's such a genius invention i just need to get i just need to get with the program it sounds like you're the problem here i do love the spectra i am the problem and i just honestly feel like we're probably going to be more nursing than anything once he sleeps through the night we're just going to nurse thank you to yodo for sponsoring this portion of today's episode right now our children currently are listening to their yodo they have full autonomy over the cards they put into their yoda box and as a parent you're always trying to balance what's educational what's good for them yodo is the perfect balance of all worlds and that's why i'm glad i discovered yodo a screen-free audio player for kids aged 3 to 12 that brings stories music learning and imagination together in one simple device kids just pop in an audio card and can take the lead themselves no cameras no microphones no ads just their own imagination running the show with more than 1300 audio cards including stories in spanish and french there's something for every age and interest that's one of my favorite things about the yodo is that it ages up with your kids what's also really cool is that we have family that lives out of state and they can create their own yodo cards for our kids to listen to so they get to hear their grandma and papa's voice the reason yodo has become such a big part of our routine isn't just because it's screen free it's because our kids genuinely love it if you're looking for a gift they'll actually use and enjoy head to yotoplay.com that's y-o-t-o and use our code unplanned to save 10 off all eligible items add a little more imagination and a little less screen time to your family's day with yodo thank you yoda for sponsoring this episode next question is from ranch she said what are your favorite things to keep you awake also i'm just assuming these are names and this is like this name ranch ranch 2026 like that's i don't even know that's not someone's name anyway that's not someone's name anyway what are your favorite things to keep you awake during night feeds um see that i don't nurse in the night for that reason i'd get too sleepy well i mean we're both getting up in the night for both feeding so i think like it's just a bottle you you go on your phone see i don't know how you go on your phone during the night feed because if i go on my phone that really wakes me up and then i feel like i'd have trouble falling back asleep i phone while i'm pumping so i don't fall so i just like i put the bottle's mouth and i just like sit there with my eyes closed and i just kind of like get through it and then i i'm wait i'm awake enough then to change his diaper and let me tell you we're not chatting yeah we're not no talking happening i'm actually usually meal planning your meal wine ordering groceries you're meal planning or responding to texts oh my gosh yeah i'm like responding to text because it's like what else am i going to do wow i also will say something about it is that like i go from asleep to awake to back to sleep like i don't know how you do that i'm not just like in a twilight state like matt is you always fall mad doesn't even open his eyes but he somehow changes the diaper you changed a blowout last night yeah then we had a blow the blowout with his eyes closed the onesie with poop all over is still in the sink i noticed that i need to get that thing cleaned up yeah um yeah i just can't fall asleep as quickly as you do like you fall asleep like 15 minutes before i do every single night so if i go on my phone during a night feeding then i'm going to be up for like another 30 45 minutes and i was reading my kindle but then that was putting me back to sleep ah so i i recommend reading the kindle i just don't have my hands for you to read my kindle like both my hands are on the baby i've got a bottle in one hand baby and the other it's not that long though he drinks a bottle in like five minutes so i feel like it like the the time that you pump and the time that i'm bottle feeding are like about the same i would say um once you add in like i pump for 15 minutes and you still beat me to bed and you get him up feed him a bottle change his diaper re-swaddle him like it's pretty quick yeah we do we do go quick but then why did it take the other night you i remember you were saying it's been 50 minutes like you our baby was not going back to sleep and i kept getting up and um walking him to help him fall asleep and i had to do that like it took him a long time to go back i do like three times and you're like it's been 15 minutes and i just didn't even know i don't that's the other thing for me i don't wear my smart watch i do not want to know how much sleep i'm getting it just f with my head like if i wake up and i see that i slept four hours it ruins my day so i don't want to know like if i got four hours of sleep i don't want to know and then in the night i don't want to know what time it is i don't care if it's yeah just my caffeine based off of what my watch says i slept oh see like i just i just want to think like hey i have no idea how much i slept and i'm going to just get through today and we'll be all right and if i'm feeling tired i will just not say anything and have some pre-workout before i go to the gym and that usually you know that's that's what i got to do um but yeah it's it's been weird he's been wanting more milk at night like we he's a howard somehow you guys i'm one thousand percent parents of newborns would probably understand this because we're just with our friends a couple weeks ago that have a newborn and they gave their daughter like a bottle with an ounce in it our newborn's eating five ounces he is four weeks old and he he literally eats five ounces and he keeps it down i'm almost scared to say that though because i know people are gonna be like that is way too well that's why he's having blowouts like he's homeboy once he's growing like a weed and i gave him four ounces uh two nights ago i gave him four he got pissed he was like crying and not and having trouble going back to sleep so i gave him another ounce tell you i was like because i nursed him all day i'm like he's getting a lot so he's getting he's probably getting five ounces every feed during the day too i don't know about that but he's going longer stretches at night so it makes sense for him to want a little bit extra i feel like sometimes though you you wake up a little you wake him up or not really do you wake him up anymore do you ever set your alarm anymore no you're not anymore no he he's he consistently wakes up at the same time okay gotcha i'm excited my boobs wake me up so maybe that's part of it like me and him are on the same yeah because sometimes like you're like man it's time to feed and then i'm like our kid our baby's he's silent he's out like unswaddling it's like a spidey sense your boobs start tingling and you know that they're but they're hungry next we've got um how how are you back to work so fast abby how are you back to work so fast well i'm not a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher yeah i'm in my house yeah so i'm in my house and my babies are right there so that and then i'm like oh my god i'm in my house and my babies are right there so that and then i'm like oh my god i'm in my house and helps a lot it's not like it's if i had a traditional job i would 1000 not be back at work yeah i've been taking as much maternity leave as i possibly could it's just the flexibility that uh you know what we do yeah i will say i do feel bad for you because don't feel bad it's totally fine well i do because even though you have this we're so blessed we're so lucky but like there's a lot of women that they work a job and they get six months of maternity leave and they're like oh my leave and they get maybe not six months but six weeks okay let's say six weeks of maternity leave and they get those six weeks just to like fully soak in everything with their baby and you kind of like since the day you got home from the hospital we're doing some work it wasn't a lot like on the day that you got back but you haven't really gotten time off other than to literally push the baby out well which then even that we were vlogging that so that i wasn't focused on the vlog i'll be totally honest that's there's pros and cons to being self-employed yeah there are because yeah if you're self-employed you know you can technically like manage how much time you take off i could i could not be back at work you could you could take six months off but i think we would probably have some problems with our podcasts if you just decided to take a vacation but i could make that decision you could you really could so i'm not going to complain about the decisions that i made uh next question is from ashley she said how is running a mascara business postpartum also is it available in canada yet so ashley we're so sorry the mascara is not available country that it will you can say that that's the first country that it will be available in so many people in canada want to buy the mascara and i feel so bad because we're trying it started yeah the process has begun we're working on that but there's just different regulations and loopholes we have to jump through and you guys we're loopholes not loopholes but there's there's just a lot we're doing it all the right way we don't want to do anything illegal okay so we're we're already like i didn't realize this when we launched this company you guys there's all these regulations in every single state in the united states and then within the states there's different jurisdictions within those states that you have to follow their regulations then there's taxes that you have to pay and then once you hurt hit the certain threshold called nexus then you owe those taxes and then you have to file in those states so you already lost me so we're dealing with all of that um or i guess i'm dealing with that i was gonna say let's reframe the question is it like running a mascara company matthew james um no we're doing it together yeah but i will say like my like my role you're you're abby's the product expert so if you're wondering why the mascara is so effing good it's because yeah my product has been established so yeah i get to kind of like she wasn't she wasn't gonna stop until she figured out the perfect formula and she was like this is the formula this is the brush we're golden and everyone's like if you look at the videos that people have posted online about the mascara i i haven't seen anything negative i think like it's just been so overwhelming everyone has their own taste totally like and if you don't like the mascara it's not gonna offend us like we know it will hurt my feelings just a little bit because i do view it as like in some capacity i mean i just something i've created like a baby i feel like every time i open my phone though it's like another person that's like this is the best mascara i've ever used yeah it really makes me it makes me so happy when people like i love the results and i know like what having a product you love especially like something like a mascara that just makes you feel put together like so quickly like having something that just can give you that little confidence which like really makes a difference so it makes me so happy when other people are experiencing that same thing um yeah i mean i feel like i'm so grateful for like we we can we're doing this together it's not like me doing this all on my own and we have other like outside help that we've we we anticipated august and september being like months that we fully wanted to dedicate to like adjusting to being a family of five and so we like in advance outsource some things obviously there's certain things that we will never outsource like for the business like we're like that we like for product development i'm like that one that one starts and ends with me ultimately like with the help of like actual chemists yeah um but yeah now that the product has been established obviously now there we're just like in the early stages for other products down the line that i've just like it's fun i just get to test out a bunch of makeup which i like love and so that's what we're doing now i don't know if i can say what they are uh maybe we'll keep it a secret or wait or do you want to say anything there's a teaser in one of the videos abby teases colors maybe a different color just now you're just telling people okay bleep it out if it's not okay no but um yeah there's some really exciting things in the works you guys for the mascara company and all that could not be prouder of you and i had a lot of fun you guys i stayed up till 3 30 in the morning a couple days ago redesigning the website and i love the way it looks so if you like the new website let me know another reason to be up in the middle of the night yeah that was actually it was nice though because like every time our baby weight woke up and needed a bottle you were ready to go i was ready i was already awake you were chatting with me for the first time in the middle of the night and then i was able to sleep in till 9 a.m because my parents were staying with us and they were able to wake up with the boys and and um yeah actually it was nice having my parents stay with us because they that was helpful in the mornings for sure um to make the long answer short right now what it looks like for me and my role in beauty is really just trying out makeup and that is so fun i'd be doing my makeup anyway yeah because that's what i love and for me i've just been doing like an audit on the business of like how can we make things better because here's the thing when you have that like you guys this is thousands and thousands of units of mascara that we're shipping out all over the country and so like if you take one percent of a thousand that's 10 people so if we if we have one percent where there's mishaps with an with an order where someone doesn't get their package on time it got lost at a distribution center or maybe our fulfillment center that we're partnering with is having trouble because some orders got misplaced or something like that so like we have to own that and take care of these people and so just we're right now we're just working out all of our systems and processes to fine-tune how we take care of people because number one we want to make sure that everyone has a great experience and if somebody doesn't have a good experience we want to make it right and do the right thing so we're just working out the kinks right now um which is also kind of a blessing that we have limited quantity yeah it is because it's like we do need to learn how to take care of everyone you know and thankfully there hasn't been hardly any mishaps but any new business there's gonna be growing pains hiccups and like we are learning and growing and i'm really proud of the service and like the quality of the product yeah but please please please if you love the mascara please leave us a review i think the way that most people have done that is through the shop app because like shopify you can download the shop app through shopify because we are our store set up through shopify um but yeah definitely leave a review you if you if you're curious and you want to know what the reviews are and read some go on on the website the biswell beauty.com website and you can actually read the reviews see the the videos that people have been posting about the product um yeah if you don't trust my results i know yeah trust the others because there are people out there that are like well abby's lashes are so good i don't think it's i don't know if it's actually that great and you look at the videos of other people putting on the mascara and you see how good it is but anyway don't take my word for it go look at the reviews and if you have enjoyed the product please leave us a review we would really appreciate that look at that supportive husband um okay so our next question that we have um how do you think you look like fisher you think i do yeah all my aunts and all my um uncles have been saying that baby fisher looks like me as a baby he has your eyes yeah he got my jeans our two boy our first two are like carbon clones of abby and maybe fisher's gonna be more of a of a dad look alike than a mom look alike that'll be interesting our kids are all adorable that's actually i've noticed that in other families too like in abigail's family her and her younger sister look more like her dad and then her older sister looks more like her mom yeah so you know some that's just how some families work you got some kids take after one parent and then the others take after the yeah it's not always 50 50 yeah okay um how do you stay connected to each other i feel like we're mostly roommates postpartum that's so sad no i think that's part of it i think that's part of it well i feel like we're more connected now than the past i also think i think um the first pregnancy was the first postpartum experience was just like wild second one was even wilder because it was just it just hit us and we didn't know what the frick we were doing and and there were like disagreements and then we were i was so dumb and was like hey how about because we're like authentic let's like talk about our disagreement on the internet and then so like now i feel like we're under a lot less stress um but it's still hard like sometimes in the night we wake up and it makes me fight in the night though we don't fight we don't talk well i mean it's just sad because it's like sometimes like we're like ships passing in the night with all the i agree i think that right now we are in a little bit of a roommate stage yeah and but i love you i still love you so much sometimes matt spoons me after a feeding and i'm like what are you doing i just want to hold you i just want to give you a hug it's sweet that you like are still because right now it's like i'm kind of pushing against that oh yeah that instinct of like are the babies okay are the babies okay are the babies okay and like reminding myself like okay i'm also doing this alongside someone that i deeply love and is like also my friend and so like having to just like be able to turn sideways and be like oh hey like i love you and finding little ways to encourage each other um but yeah i do think like especially the first six weeks like it it is kind of a roommate stage it's like it's all utility right and i think that's also romantic in another sense where it's like you guys are fully a team one unit like doing this big thing together and that in itself is like special like that is and it's only for a short amount of time so i know that as we get past that six week mark like we're gonna find ways to also prioritize our marriage it's not like we're not finding ways like we're finding ways to like we've been a meal together we got brunch together we got brunch and has fisher third wheeled on every single date that we've been on have we only been on two dates and one you know you do that's more than we probably did the previous times 100 uh this next question is how is abby always in a good mood how are you always in a good mood babe where did they get that impression that is my first question second question is um probably coffee i mean i was gonna say that and i was like that's such an annoying answer probably like a good coffee probably it's probably just your supportive husband is what it is probably that you're so stupid you're stupid um i wouldn't say that i'm always in a good mood so um but if i'm in a bad mood uh well you know what actually here let's be really realistic about this i feel like i've for the most part been in a good mood um i focus on gratitude yeah go on a walk every day yes i eat good three hearty meals a day a couple good snacks i look forward to i like to read books when i'm nursing that puts me in a good mood and just focusing oh friends community loved ones i surround i've been hanging out with a lot of people i feel like it's it you're putting out so much good karma by all the good things you do for other people that i think that they just want to do that back for you and so then i think that has like put you in a good mood in a way like just people everyone's looking out for you everyone's oh my gosh everyone's you know checking in so nice doing nice things but i think that's just because it's like you know what goes around comes around and if you if you put good out into the world i think it comes back i think that's what's happening well i am very very very grateful for my friends and family uh what's your favorite song to sing fisher do we we don't even really sing him songs actually sunshine you do i actually haven't really sang that to him i haven't sang him a song yet rude i need to it's sweet you guys i started singing songs for our boys before they go to sleep again and uh i didn't i guess i haven't done it for like a week or a week or two but like they started requesting it they would put in song requests at night because they wanted us to sing a lullaby just kidding they did ask me to sing i was like usually they don't ask me to sing but they actually wanted me to cradle them too and sing like i did with like i do with fisher but they're so big now it's funny if i sing along to music that's playing they hate it they're like that stop oh like they they want the actual music i don't like that but at night is when they want us to sing to them yeah they don't want us to sing to a song they just want us to do acapella um which is really difficult for mommy this question is from jamie she said what has the advantages of placenta bills placenta pills been so far how long will you be taking them till they're gone i guess which will take a very long time there's a lot of pills there i was not aware of how long this would take i mean months like let's be real this will take months um the advantages are hard to pinpoint as like you know there's so many variables yeah i wish that we could go back in time and have you take placenta pills with the last two pregnancies because i wonder if that would have like fundamentally changed everything i don't like in my head i'm like it can't have but i also i'm like this but like what happened didn't you get when you had low iron and you had different like low things in your body you would get headaches you would feel horrible and then when you started lightheaded you started taking magnesium iron all these things that your body needed and it fixed the way you felt so i don't know man there could be something i will say i would do it again like i would recommend it to people and i would say hey it might not do all these things but it also might so like why not just give it a shot yeah it's good um riley asked how is breastfeeding different for each child i will say like with fisher like when he would nurse like if he couldn't get it right away it would obviously he was like frustrated by it but like with with our other babies like they would get frustrated when they couldn't nurse and it would make them stop trying and so then we'd like have to be like okay well this one's gonna have to be a bottle feed like early on it took like like them like trying to learn like they're just their temperament was more like we're so frustrated that we can't do this like we're we're done trying like we'd have to like sometimes remember like if i would try to nurse it'd be like we'll just have to do a bottle yeah but like that's never happened with fisher like we've always gotten him to like end up doing it yeah but i also think a part of that is like me approaching the situation from a calmer perspective you know what i mean off subject your outfit is so cute where is it from you look from nudes okay that's an influencer brand heck yeah that's cool i have a nudes i have it in three colors i love that thank you you look so cute in it that's funny that you have three three colors that's awesome did they send it to you they did that's sweet i like it um how do you learn your baby's feeding schedule this is from a sunami mama named anna elizabeth robertson yeah this one i do have like i'm coming from a different angle than some moms so you have to figure out what works for you but i i do kind of keep my babies on a schedule from early on and i think that has become increasingly important with the more kids that we've had like i was just thinking about this today like if i didn't have some type of feeding schedule for fisher i could find myself needing to nurse during preschool pickup or drop off or during like any type of like we have places to be for our older kids schedule so it's really nice to be able to predict not to the minute you know but around when he's gonna feed and so i usually just have a set number of feedings that i do during the day and if they need i need to be flexible with where they come then that happens but i have a general roundabout of like when he's going to eat and we feed like every two to three hours during the day and then at the night we're at the point where we just like let him let us know when he needs to eat which happens twice consistently it's been twice and it's around the same times so um i think it does help to have a little bit of colostrum stored up so we wouldn't have to use formula in the hospital before my milk came in and i'm so glad we had that storage like it really helped i think with both of our other babies their blood sugars ended up dropping in the hospital and that didn't happen this time because we supplemented with colostrum that i had what are we gonna do with that extra colostrum it's still in the freezer we'll surely give it to you at some point just add it to a bottle for some extra nutrients gosh i feel like all that colostrum won't even add up to like two ounces even no it certainly won't it's not it's not that much just crazy how much their capacity grows to eat as they yeah as they you know even just with a couple days a couple days after the birth they're able to eat so much more than they were on day one seriously a lot of changes going on it's so cool yeah i think that's why that hence the blowout yesterday i think they're they're just he's just eating so much food now he can just throw some some crazy amounts of breast milk down seriously it's impressive okay um we've got one more question but before we get into that i just wanted to thank this very kind person who left us a review this is from funky notes she said matt and abby thank you guys for creating such amazing content thank you for being real parenting is not easy life is not easy you guys are hands down the right people to have this type of podcast keep rocking it so nice it's from funky notes so i don't know what your name is but thank you so much for leaving that review and to everyone that has left us a review on apple podcast so nice that's where you can write or out a review and if if you don't feel like writing out a review you can just tap the five stars on spotify and if you're watching our show and you don't enjoy it podcast oh yeah you can actually just like tap the stars on that and then uh so please leave us a review um but if and if you're watching the show and you don't enjoy it then uh my question would be why maybe go do something else with your time if you're like if you're gonna leave us a negative review maybe just watch a different show anyway um but i i think like everyone here is like super nice i that's the vibe i'm getting from everybody i mean that was such a nice review so anyway thank you everybody thank you funky notes okay and finally the last question we have is from sophia she said are you planning on baby number four you're looking at me you're i'm not wanting to talk for i'm waiting for you to talk first we have kind of just left that question to be discussed at a later date it feels like so soon to be making all these future plans heck this is the unplanned podcast um if we're meant to have another baby we would gladly welcome that baby and be so excited what type of answer is that we're meant to have another baby we would gladly welcome that baby and be so excited we're meant to i don't know if the if the stars align that's how i feel about it that's what will happen i think i mean i don't know at this point we will be like having prevention measures this time we don't we're i mean a surprise would be awesome we would we would love to have babies close in age but i think i think for right now we're like let's you know let's have some prevention prevention um because for sure because i think we all know at this point that we're that breastfeeding is not an effective form of birth control um we never use that form of birth control oh i know yeah it was never that was never our intent but we were like used a different form of birth control yeah and then we were also like okay it was one time like we're chilling like we're not like one time is it gonna make anything happen oh wait what information anyway um but all that be said i think like ah it's so tough you guys because there's like i love seeing our older boys interact i love how close they are i love that they're basically twins they do everything together they they are just play all day obsessed with each other and i want that for fisher so it's like but then it's also abby looked at me yesterday and said we have so many kids there's so many kids and i was like yeah we do we've got a and we have a dog like we're constantly i thank goodness that you're that during the week your mom comes over for a couple hours so i we can work done in the day because i'm like even even with having a little help from family i still struggle to like respond to work-related emails and like get design things done on the biswell beauty website because every every five minutes fit griffin and aug you're like running into my office like hey dad can you come check out this cool dinosaur sculpture i made and like in my room or hey dad can you join my quiet time or and i like i want to spend time with them so then it's like if we keep having more kids then how are we going to have the time for all of them which i'm sure we'd figure it out but i think what abby said is right i think we got to just give us some time to process to adjust to this new stage of life and maybe in 2027 we'll figure out what that that plan is for us yeah i mean here's the fact i'm 27 i have hopefully about 13 more years of child 13 more years options oh my god well i'm what do that's true yeah people have kids at 40 um so we're we're obviously really young we've had a lot of kids like close together there's not like a firm plan for like where we're at i think for so long especially after the loss it was like let's just get to this point yeah where we can see a pregnancy carried to term and have a healthy baby so there's never been like a plan beyond this point and there's still not a plan beyond this point um and i think that's a good point i think we love babies we love i love pregnancy i love newborn we love this whole experience i love having children um but we're also so satisfied with the family that we have right now yeah at this point in time so it's like there's no firm plan and we we're gonna just continue to talk about it and have like open dialogue and see what feels right i think the crazy thing there's no right answer the crazy thing about having a fourth though if we ever did cross that road some some at some point like abby's parents are both one of two kids my dad did not like he has one he has like a couple half siblings and like one you know full-on sibling like we we just don't really come from families where people are are cranking out that many kids unless we like go far back into the world and i think that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's you know it's just it's just crazy because yeah abby's one of two i'm one of three and so if we did send it that would be kind of like out of the ordinary i will say when we had to make any like future decisions as far as like car or just like any lifestyle things that we had to like commit to we went ahead and committed to like options that would allow for a fourth yeah but it's never like yeah yeah nothing is like definitive it feels crazy to even talk about at this point we have literally uh one month old it does feel early but there's just no plans for that at this point aren't people already asking you that question like isn't that already a conversation topic like women are just like i'm gonna try for a fourth like people have already asked me that i think a lot of people ask that because we have three boys yeah so the conversation is always like are you gonna try one more time for a girl yeah yeah so that's where that comes up in me yeah but i i can see where that would bother some people people get offended by that yeah just okay because it's like you're not happy with the gender that you have well maybe they're just like we're fully content we didn't want for that but you're seeing what i have is like not enough interesting but i don't know i didn't take i don't take it that way i don't take it that way yeah um but yeah i i sorry that's a really unsatisfying answer that's just the honest answer honestly like we're just kind of over here just so grateful to be where we're at and hey we have okay sarah sarah yeah we already and we already have a dog so um which is pretty much the same yeah a girl dog we have a girl dog so when people are like try for a girl it's like actually we already have a female dog so she just got her ovaries taken out so and and loves to swim in our pool all right well you guys this was a wonderful wonderful episode thank you to everyone that submitted those questions yourself i i just liked hearing you talk i mean i just think you're wonderful i like you i'm gonna stare at a pretty girl this whole entire time i told that i was like this would be really sad as if we talk more on the podcast today than we do in real life so no we get to hang out we're gonna hang out tonight i'm so excited to hang out with you hang out together with our kids it's gonna be great yeah i love you love you okay thanks guys we'll see you in the next 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