[encore] When Postpartum Psychosis Hits

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Hi everyone, we're here today for a really exciting episode with Ayan Lage.
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She is a freelance writer, a content creator, and a mom of two.
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And we are really interested today in talking to her about her experience with postpartum psychosis.
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She's been incredibly open and incredibly brave about talking about what she experienced after giving birth.
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So we are just so excited to talk to you today.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm so excited.
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Of course.
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It's great to meet you.
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Can you tell us a little bit about postpartum psychosis?
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What is that?
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We hear a lot of things in the news, but I don't know if there's a lot of misinformation out there.
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But what is that?
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Yeah, so postpartum psychosis.
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I mean, I'll add a disclaimer that I'd encourage anyone to like look it up themselves because I'm no expert at, you know, I lived it, but I'm no expert.
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What's the condition characterized by delusions, hallucinations?
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Um basically a break from reality, what you think of when you hear the word psychosis that affects between one and two out of a thousand um women who give birth.
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So yeah, it doesn't happen super frequently.
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I'd never really heard of it outside of the terrible, tragic stories you hear about women who have a break from reality and hurt or kill their children.
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So I knew of it in that context, but not as anything that would ever happen to me.
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Can you take us back a bit?
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Because I know that when I read your story, I know you mentioned having a history of mental health conditions.
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Can you tell us a little bit about kind of how you prepared yourself to become a mom, how you prepared yourself for pregnancy and postpartum, knowing how vulnerable you are mentally in those periods?
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Yeah, I had a long history of depression and anxiety before getting pregnant.
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So one of the big choices that I made was to stay on an antidepressant throughout pregnancy.
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And I was just very, I felt like I was very on top of things.
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I was very aware of postphotum depression, aware of the symptoms, of the risk factors, of the potential for me.
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So that throughout pregnancy was something that I felt very on top of.
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I had a therapist, I had a psychiatrist, I had an amazing family, an amazing support system.
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And so I felt very prepared for whatever was going to come my way.
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Did you always know that you wanted children?
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Was it something that you thought of for a long time before you decided to have your first?
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Kind of.
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I I didn't like grow up so much like thinking, okay, one day when I'm a mom, which I know a lot of people do.
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I I knew like innately that like eventually one day this will be what I want to do.
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So I um so I had a miscarriage before I had my daughter.
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Um, and so I got pregnant at 25, had a miscarriage, and then had her when I was 27.
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Um, but yeah, I I had an idea, especially after the miscarriage, of how much I wanted to have a baby.
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So I was very, very happy to be pregnant.
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Did you experience any depression after your miscarriage?
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Not, I don't know how much of it was grief, honestly.
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I was in grief counseling for a little bit, but I don't know that it was a diagnosable depressive episode, but I definitely struggled.
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I had a hard time.
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I feel like my whole journey with fertility has been a little bit harder than I expected.
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Just the whole getting pregnant, staying pregnant, giving birth, all of that has just been a little bit more tricky than anyone told me it would be.
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Yeah.
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And that's why we're here, is because nobody told us how hard it all is.
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Yeah, no, I love it.
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I love the name of the podcast and I love what you guys are doing.
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Thank you.
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I think I was obviously familiar with your story, but I didn't know you were so young when you had your miscarriage.
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I had a miscarriage at 29.
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And I think one of the things that I really felt in that moment was how isolating it is to have a pregnancy loss or a fertility challenge in your 20s when everybody around you is either actively avoiding pregnancy or getting pregnant immediately, because there is a relationship between age and fertility and age and pregnancy outcomes.
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Was that something that you experienced as well?
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I definitely felt looking back, I was so young.
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And so that's what strikes me about the whole thing.
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Like through that at 25, I'm like, I was, I was just so young.
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Just that's just all that I can think.
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But yeah, it was very isolating because I didn't know until I opened up and started talking to people about it.
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I felt like everyone around me, like you said, either kind of had their happy, perfect family or were well on the way, or were like nowhere near thinking about having kids.
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So it was a weird time for me overall.
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So I can I can relate to what you experienced for sure.
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Yeah.
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It's so crazy to me how regionally there are so many differences in timeline.
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Sam, I'm guessing that for you, it was probably everyone around you was doing it later.
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I am amazing.
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Her friends are just starting to have kids, and my kids almost five.
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Yeah, and I think I'm probably somewhere in between.
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I was in Chicago when I was going through the whole getting pregnant and being pregnant thing.
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And Chicago was very much like when you turn 30, you have a child, and you there's mass exodus for the suburbs with everyone in the city, but it's so funny.
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Yeah, I feel like for me, granted, I live in the suburbs.
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I grew up evangelical Christian, so that definitely plays a role.
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But um, I had my, I just had my son last year at 31 and having kids, so my second and my last.
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And I felt I didn't feel obviously 31 is not old to have a baby, but looking around at the people that I surround myself with, I was like, everyone had babies in their 20s.
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Either a lot of my friends are still at the point where they're like figuring out whether or not I want kids, or they, you know, already have kids.
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But a lot of my mom friends were done having kids by 30, which I know is like not a universal experience.
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So this makes I I binged mom talk or what the secret lives of more this weekend.
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I didn't watch season one.
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I caught a couple of clips and I was not interested, but I had friends who were like, you have to sit down and watch it.
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I was shocked that some of them had children when they were like 15 or 16, and you have like four kids by the time they're 25.
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It's so to your point, Zara, the different regions just within the US of how how different it is.
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Yeah.
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Um, so you had your second child.
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Do you have any struggle, mental health struggles like prenatal or postpartum with your son?
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I had a lot of anxiety.
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I think honestly, I still might have more anxiety than I had before getting pregnant, but I think because the first experience was so remarkably bad that it's still it just paled in comparison.
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So I felt like even though I wasn't doing great after having giving birth, I literally told everyone I was like, I feel amazing because I, again, I felt so bad the first time.
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And that was my only experience or reference.
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So even though the second time was a little bit challenging, I still was so grateful that I wasn't in psychosis again.
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So, yes and no, I guess depends on how you look at it.
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So, for people who maybe don't know your story, can you just tell us a little bit about that first pregnancy and you know, oh, you realized you were in psychosis because sleep deprivation, I know for a lot of new moms, you start questioning your reality.
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And so I'm curious to hear it from you for the audience.
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Yeah.
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So I think the interesting thing, honestly, the dangerous thing with postpartum psychosis, at least in my experience, is that things are weird after you have a baby.
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You might act strangely, you might be thinking strangely at baseline.
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It's normal to not feel like yourself acting with a baby.
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I had my daughter, I went into labor spontaneously at 36 weeks, then I had an emergency C-section.
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So it was overall a very terrible, traumatic experience.
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So I think that the people around me maybe waited a little bit longer than they would have if I wasn't postpartum to kind of flag or sound the alarm, like, hey, something is might be seriously wrong here.
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It's all that to say that I was hospitalized 10 days after my daughter was born because of it.
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I was in a psychotic episode.
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It happened that quickly.
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Yeah.
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So it does come on very quickly by the time that you are most episodes occur within the first six weeks postpartum.
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So I was actually with my second child at six weeks postpartum.
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They were kind of like, okay, this probably won't happen again.
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So it is usually the first days or weeks of postpartum that someone would experience an episode.
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So for me, it kind of started a couple of days after giving birth, was first really, really happy and just like feeling on top of the world.
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Like I remember telling one of my friends, like, why did anyone tell me that giving birth was hard?
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The first two days I was recovering from the c-section, I was miserable, I was all the things you'd expect to be after kind of a difficult birth.
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But after a couple of days, I felt amazing.
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And I started to wonder why people said that my c-section scar was gonna be or my c-section incision, all that was going to be hurting, like why I was gonna be having trouble walking and moving and all of that.
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So that was kind of where I was at.
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Uh the big warning sign, I guess, is that I didn't feel the need to sleep.
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I was just up all night, even when my daughter was sleeping.
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I was just up.
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I was on my phone, I was doing different things, I was watching TV, I was sending people pictures of my daughter.
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I was just kind of living my life.
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But things took a turn probably around five days postpartum.
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I started to have really weird big mood swings where I was hurled into a ball on the ground, like crying, and then I was totally fine.
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And again, I think that for the people around me, this amazing support system that I have, so much of so much can happen postpartum.
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No one's thinking, okay, she needs to go to the hospital because she's crying.
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So again, it was just, I think, chalked up to maybe this is a depressive episode, maybe there's something weird happening, but no one knows.
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So my behavior just became more and more erratic.
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I got paranoid.
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I didn't want anyone around my daughter but me.
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Iron, right?
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You didn't want your head.
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Yeah, no one, I didn't trust anyone.
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And I just had like a deep feeling that some a deep kind of deep down feeling something bad was going to happen to her.
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And then around eight or nine days postpartum, so leading up, the hospitalization is kind of on the horizon because things were getting progressively worse.
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I started to hear messages or say that I was hearing messages from God.
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And that was, I think, the um point where things just took a turn very rapidly for the worst, some the worst.
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I don't know, I just was kind of losing control of my grasp on, you know, reality.
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So I think once I started hearing messages, I um I my family realized okay, something is seriously wrong.
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They took away my phone, they didn't allow me to be alone with my daughter.
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Um, so I kind of was in this weird limbo where I was seriously experiencing something, but they didn't know what to do.
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And then so for context, I had my daughter in August 2020.
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So this was the peak of the pandemic.
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So I'd been hospitalized before for mental health reasons and had a very traumatic time.
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And I think that my husband especially knew that if I he felt like I would never forgive him if they took me to the hospital and I couldn't see my daughter because of pandemic restrictions.
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10 days postpartum, what mother wants to be separated from their baby?
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But um, I suddenly, again, I was pacing the house, just very louding things, very erratic.
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And I remember all of this.
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And I had a moment where I said, I need to get to the hospital right now.
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And I said that out loud.
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And I think because I was all over the place, my family was like, Okay, you're gonna be okay.
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We're gonna, we're gonna talk to your psychiatrist, we're gonna work on medication, all that.
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And so I said to them, I'm going to kill myself if you don't take me to the hospital right now.
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I'm going to kill myself.
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And obviously, I think that that just something just changed in that moment, and the like severity of the moment became very clear.
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So they rushed me to the hospital.
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And once I'm in the ER, that's the moment that I start to hallucinate.
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So I honestly look back at that and I always say that it felt like, you know, God, the universe, fate, something in me knew that things were about to get much worse and that I couldn't be at home when things got bad.
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And maybe that's just me romanticizing the situation.
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I mean, I wasn't completely coherent, so who knows why I said it.
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But once I got to the hospital, I immediately was just completely incoherent, not at all aware of what was happening around me.
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And then, as I mentioned, hallucinating.
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So they sedated me when I got to the hospital, and then I basically woke up in the psych ward.
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Well, what were the hallucinations like?
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I've only ever hallucinated on like mushrooms, so imagine it's a pretty different experience.
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I mean, so I've never I've never done any sort of drug that would cause hallucination.
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So I can't compare it, but I I mean how people describe like a bad trip, I imagine that that's probably similar to what I was feeling.
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The voices of everyone around me were distorted, their faces were floating in the air.
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It's even hard for me to remember or explain.
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Shadows and things.
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Yeah.
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I was just, I was just, I felt like I was in a horror movie.
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Oh god.
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Your intuition knowing to take you there.
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I I feel like our intuition is really, really strong, especially women.
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Um, to just know, hey, I have I have to do that.
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How long, how long were you in the psych ward?
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So and was your daughter allowed to visit?
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No, no visitors.
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Yeah.
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What did they did they diagnose you with anything there and try any new medications?
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They cycled through a lot of medications to try to stop the psychosis.
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Um, and it just nothing was working.
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So they were starting to consider the long-term residential situation or electro, god, I don't remember the official term, but electro therapy, electroshock therapy.
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And then they tried me on an old school antipsychotic called Haldol, that they put me on a ridiculously high dose of.
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My psychiatrist says, Yeah, this is the highest dose I've ever seen of someone on this medication she's been practicing for a long time.
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And then that was enough to not even fully break the delusions, but to bring me back enough that I was able to recognize, okay, some of this isn't true.
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Not everything that I've been feeling or saying is true.
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Wow.
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Is this something that always requires treatment, or are there cases where it kind of resolves when your hormones begin to stabilize?
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I think so.
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I mean, it's considered considered a medical emergency because specifically because of the danger that women pose to their children in that period.
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So I mean, I think maybe it can resolve without medication.
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I mean, I'm not honestly sure, but I think that because you have no grasp on reality, if if your voice telling you to hurt your child, then I mean, you you know how the story ends.
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So I mean, I think that it's recommended or strongly, strongly said, to take someone to a hospital to receive treatment if you expect post-warum psychosis.
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I just keep thinking about how dangerous the lack of surveillance around new mothers is.
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So many cases, our partners are back at work, right, without paternity leave.
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The village hardly exists anymore.
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And as we talk about culturally, there is such a focus on making sure the baby is okay that no one's really looking out for the mother.
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And in, you know, stories like this, it just shows how dangerous that can be.
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But also, I mean, how lucky are you that you had people around you who were able to kind of hold you in that moment, right?
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Oh, yeah.
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I mean, my psychiatrist has told me you were the perfect example of someone who should not have been hospitalized after giving birth.
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I had a doula, psychiatrist, therapist, my sister is a nurse, you know, my parents are very involved, my husband is very involved.
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We had extended family, friends.
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There was nothing else that I can't think of anything, any other resource that I could have had, which is unfortunately not the case for most new mothers.
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So I think how much more difficult would it have been to go through this without the support that I had.
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Even um, this isn't a funny story, but it's just something that I always kind of go back to is that I found out after I was released that my dad had catered meals sent to both the day shift and the night shift, the hospital, because they were worried that I wasn't getting the care that I needed in a psychotic episode.
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And he said, People started returning our calls fast after, which is terrible.
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It's terrible.
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But I also like having people around me and in my life who were so involved and so concerned that they were brainstorming, what can we do to make sure that they know that she has people who are in her corner, who love her, who are waiting for her to get home.
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Not everyone has that a lot.
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So it's it's I can't think of how much worse it would have been if I didn't have the situation that I'm in.
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I think like your case is obviously very extreme, right?
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Psychosis, but I think a lot of women, I know myself, there's a very fine line between the intrusive thoughts that you get and like how how close that can get you to the line of I remember being so anxious with my son that one time I was like, I can I can't watch him alone.
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I didn't think I was gonna do anything, but I was so scared I was going to.
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And it's like this really weird thing.
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And you're like, why, why do I think I'm gonna do something that hurts him?
00:17:41.699 --> 00:17:56.500
Like, I think a lot of women feel that way and nobody talks about it because I remember feeling very much like if I tell anyone that I'm having weird thoughts, they're gonna take away my child, and that's you know, and I I'd be, yeah.
00:17:56.740 --> 00:17:58.740
Have you heard since you've come out with your story?
00:17:58.819 --> 00:18:02.500
Have women told you similar things where they had weird thoughts too?
00:18:02.819 --> 00:18:09.939
Yeah, I've heard from a lot of people who were diagnosed with post-horm psychosis, which has been honestly just so great.
00:18:10.099 --> 00:18:13.939
I can't think of another word to know that I'm not the only one out there.
00:18:14.099 --> 00:18:21.459
After I had the episode, I joined Facebook groups, I read books, but having people directly message me to say, hey, I also went through this and I'm okay.
00:18:21.619 --> 00:18:25.859
My kids are adults now, or I had subsequent pregnancies were totally fine.
00:18:26.019 --> 00:18:27.539
That was so helpful for me to hear.
00:18:27.859 --> 00:18:35.539
But I've also heard from people who suffered from postpartum rage, postpartum OCD, all of these conditions that we don't know anything about.
00:18:35.779 --> 00:18:43.379
To your point about intrusive thoughts, if you are suddenly picturing what if I hurt my baby, then you think, oh my God, I need to be locked up.
00:18:43.539 --> 00:18:45.779
Who, what kind of mother would think about hurting their child?
00:18:45.939 --> 00:18:46.579
You know what I mean?
00:18:46.659 --> 00:18:52.740
So even apart from psychosis, there's so many things that you can go through that we just really don't talk about.
00:18:53.299 --> 00:18:53.939
Yeah.
00:18:54.339 --> 00:18:59.459
Even the the not sleeping, how you expressed that you really just felt like you didn't need to sleep.
00:18:59.699 --> 00:19:02.500
Did people chalk that up as just adrenaline?
00:19:02.899 --> 00:19:05.859
Yeah, I think that again, you get a lot of this is good.
00:19:06.019 --> 00:19:08.019
You get a lot of leeway as a new mother.
00:19:08.179 --> 00:19:20.980
In my case, it was not great because I think that I would have been hospitalized sooner had anyone really stopped to think, okay, this is really out of character for Aano.
00:19:21.379 --> 00:19:23.299
Something just doesn't feel right about this.
00:19:23.459 --> 00:19:31.699
I I mean, I don't fault my loved ones because after a baby, you're all over the place and you've got postpartum blues, you've got the hormones coming down, you've got sleep deprivation.
00:19:33.539 --> 00:19:41.059
So I think that yeah, I um I think that everything could easily be explained away until it couldn't.
00:19:42.579 --> 00:19:50.099
Do you know if this tends to psychosis impacts women who have c-sections more frequently, or is there no probably no studies on it?
00:19:50.179 --> 00:19:51.699
But do you know anything about that?
00:19:52.099 --> 00:19:52.819
I don't know.
00:19:52.980 --> 00:20:00.419
I know that I read something about traumatic birth experience can be linked more to postpartum mood disorders.
00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:01.459
So yeah.
00:20:01.619 --> 00:20:02.740
Um, so I mean right.
00:20:03.139 --> 00:20:04.980
I know three types of in your head.
00:20:05.139 --> 00:20:07.379
Yeah, you know, it yeah, it all varies, right?
00:20:07.619 --> 00:20:08.259
Yeah.
00:20:08.899 --> 00:20:09.539
Yeah.
00:20:10.339 --> 00:20:10.659
Yeah.
00:20:11.139 --> 00:20:13.699
Do you know how rare postpartum psychosis is?
00:20:13.779 --> 00:20:16.419
Do you have any stats kind of off the top of your head?
00:20:16.819 --> 00:20:21.619
Yeah, so it's one to two out of um a thousand women who give birth.
00:20:22.339 --> 00:20:24.099
That's not terribly rare.
00:20:24.419 --> 00:20:24.899
Yeah.
00:20:25.459 --> 00:20:38.740
I'm sure postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety are far more common, but the amount more attention that we give those conditions culturally versus psychosis is it can be dangerous, right?
00:20:39.059 --> 00:20:44.659
Yeah, you know, I think that if you hear of a one in one thousand chance of something bad happening, you feel comforted.
00:20:44.899 --> 00:20:46.419
I mean, I would have felt comforted.
00:20:47.779 --> 00:20:51.379
Even when I had my miscarriage, I miscarried at 13 weeks.
00:20:51.539 --> 00:20:54.980
So the risks of miscarrying were very, very low.
00:20:55.220 --> 00:20:58.339
And I felt comforted by that statistic until I wasn't anymore.
00:20:58.419 --> 00:20:59.059
You know what I mean?
00:20:59.139 --> 00:21:03.779
So it kind of just reminds you that these things can happen to anyone at any point.
00:21:03.859 --> 00:21:07.699
You know, none of us are really immune from just having really bad luck.
00:21:08.019 --> 00:21:08.819
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:09.059 --> 00:21:13.139
For for your second pregnancy, you you mentioned you struggled with some fertility.
00:21:13.459 --> 00:21:15.779
Did you have secondary infertility?
00:21:16.099 --> 00:21:17.220
Nothing diagnosable.
00:21:17.299 --> 00:21:21.379
Honestly, it wasn't, it wasn't really, I shouldn't have probably used the word fertility.
00:21:21.459 --> 00:21:26.500
It was just more so with my daughter trying to have a baby after the miscarriage.
00:21:26.579 --> 00:21:36.579
It was just every period just felt like a reminder of I should be this this far along, and I'm not, and I didn't get pregnant this cycle.
00:21:36.740 --> 00:21:40.099
So it didn't take a terribly long time to get pregnant the second time around.
00:21:40.259 --> 00:21:48.099
But I think that I just felt like it was so unfair that I wasn't pregnant at the time that it had a really big impact on me.
00:21:48.419 --> 00:21:49.779
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:21:50.019 --> 00:22:01.859
And so was there a difference between your two pregnancies once you um between your son and your daughter, I should say, um, that you felt like was one easier, one harder?
00:22:02.659 --> 00:22:20.579
I think that my second or my third pregnancy, right, with my son, my second child, was I had a lot of worry about postpartum psychosis that I, you know, so with my daughter, I was, as I mentioned, preparing for postpartum depression and thinking about it, but it was still this very far off.
00:22:21.220 --> 00:22:23.699
You know, there was no recurrence rate for me to think about.
00:22:23.859 --> 00:22:28.099
There's no me having an existing child who relied on me thinking.
00:22:28.419 --> 00:22:31.779
Thinking what will happen if something bad happens again and I have to leave her.
00:22:31.939 --> 00:22:36.339
So I think that I was just really, really anxious about all of the things that could go wrong.
00:22:36.500 --> 00:22:41.779
I um I prepared with my son as much as anyone could ever prepare for anything.
00:22:41.939 --> 00:22:50.179
So I think that I felt comforted by that, but then also so much is out of your control, um, just in life, but especially with pregnancy and childbirth.
00:22:50.419 --> 00:22:52.899
What do those recurrence rates look like?
00:22:53.779 --> 00:22:57.220
Gosh, um, I don't know off the top of my head.
00:22:57.379 --> 00:22:58.899
I want to say fine.
00:22:59.059 --> 00:23:04.179
I want to say 50 up to 50%, but don't quote me on that.
00:23:04.500 --> 00:23:08.339
Was there anything you did specifically to try to mitigate that risk?
00:23:08.659 --> 00:23:17.220
So the big one was that we hired um an overnight duo, an overnight help to watch the baby so that you know we could sleep.
00:23:17.379 --> 00:23:23.059
And then my husband handled all of the night feeds for the first month so that I could sleep uninterrupted.
00:23:23.220 --> 00:23:31.539
Honestly, my most well-rested month ever was the month after giving birth to my son because I wasn't getting up for anything at all.
00:23:31.699 --> 00:23:38.500
Um, and then I also didn't try to breastfeed, which I think I went straight to formula, which I think was really, really good for me.
00:23:38.659 --> 00:23:49.539
I struggled to breastfeed with my daughter, and I don't think it contributed, but it was just another added stressor that um I'm glad I didn't have to worry about the next time around.
00:23:49.939 --> 00:23:58.339
Yeah, and I think we also don't know enough about what the hormones of breastfeeding do to incidences of perinatal mood conditions, right?
00:23:58.500 --> 00:24:02.259
I don't think we really have any information about that.
00:24:02.579 --> 00:24:04.819
Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely something.
00:24:05.379 --> 00:24:11.539
I'm now in a rabbit hole about postpartum psychosis episodes and like things that they say um are common.
00:24:11.619 --> 00:24:20.980
And it says women who have a sister who has bipolar are 10 times more likely to have a psychosis, postpartum psychosis, which is interesting.
00:24:22.099 --> 00:24:23.299
And people with bipolar.
00:24:23.459 --> 00:24:26.339
Yeah, so it's it's interesting because it's even with the studies.
00:24:26.419 --> 00:24:28.659
I had HG, which obviously is very different.
00:24:28.819 --> 00:24:37.539
No, and not even in that place, but there's just such little research on, and I know Zara had PUP, which I had never heard of before, I didn't know what any of this stuff was.
00:24:37.779 --> 00:24:42.179
There's just so little research that when you see these things, it's like, oh, well, it's caused by this.
00:24:42.339 --> 00:24:45.379
Oh, well, it's this, and there's no real true answer.
00:24:45.699 --> 00:24:49.699
Yeah, it's very discouraging, even with like the recurrence rate situation.
00:24:49.939 --> 00:24:52.179
Yeah, this study found this, and this study found that.
00:24:52.339 --> 00:24:58.819
I mean, for me, just knowing that it could happen again and that it was more likely to happen again was enough for me to freak out a little bit.
00:24:59.059 --> 00:24:59.379
Yeah.
00:24:59.619 --> 00:25:01.699
Did you wait a while between your two kids?
00:25:02.179 --> 00:25:05.699
You didn't need time to sort of wrap your head around everything.
00:25:06.019 --> 00:25:13.059
Yeah, there was a there's a four-year gap between my kids, and um, I wasn't sure that I wanted to have another just because of everything.
00:25:13.220 --> 00:25:27.539
And so for the first two years or so after having my daughter, I was very much like, you know, I'd always thought that I wanted more than one child, but if I didn't have another child, I would be fine with it because I just I didn't enjoy pregnancy.
00:25:27.699 --> 00:25:35.779
You know, childbirth was very stressful, and which I mean it always is, but with the emergency C-section, her being born early, then postpartum was hell.
00:25:36.019 --> 00:25:38.819
What finally got you over the hump to have another one?
00:25:39.939 --> 00:25:41.699
Honestly, so cliched.
00:25:41.779 --> 00:25:48.099
I think it was just time and me feeling like, okay, I I could prepare for this, you know.
00:25:48.259 --> 00:25:58.899
I I um it's possible for me to for there to be a good outcome for me to picture like a situation where things work out for the best.
00:25:59.220 --> 00:25:59.939
That's awesome.
00:26:00.099 --> 00:26:01.220
I'm so glad that it did.
00:26:01.379 --> 00:26:04.819
Is your work situation different than it was when you had your first one?
00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:07.619
Do you have a different job or different type of work?
00:26:07.939 --> 00:26:09.059
No, it's actually the same.
00:26:09.139 --> 00:26:11.059
So I'm still um self-employed.
00:26:11.220 --> 00:26:14.419
A little bit of this, a little bit of that, as anyone who's self-employed knows.
00:26:14.819 --> 00:26:19.379
Zara and I know a thing about that, the mental fortitude that you carried through.
00:26:19.539 --> 00:26:23.619
I have to acknowledge that because to me, that is just you're so mentally strong.
00:26:23.779 --> 00:26:29.939
I'm sure people tell you this all of the time, but um, I'm really curious what motherhood has looked like for you.
00:26:30.899 --> 00:26:34.819
In the first year or so with my daughter, it was really difficult.
00:26:35.139 --> 00:26:40.019
I resented myself for missing her first month of life, basically.
00:26:40.099 --> 00:26:43.859
And then when I got home, I had to recover, which was a month-long process.
00:26:44.019 --> 00:26:53.059
I didn't really, which I know it's normal to not feel like yourself until you're, you know, however long postpartum, but I truly did not feel anything like myself until over a year.
00:26:53.139 --> 00:26:59.859
And so I felt like I'd kind of blacked out a little bit and not given her the experience that I wanted her to have.
00:27:00.099 --> 00:27:01.699
So that was really difficult.
00:27:01.779 --> 00:27:10.740
But overall, I mean, I think that motherhood has been more enjoyable than I expected with all my anxieties and just thoughts about all the things that could go wrong.
00:27:10.899 --> 00:27:12.179
Overall, most things have gone right.
00:27:12.259 --> 00:27:13.699
And I try to remember that.
00:27:14.419 --> 00:27:23.379
When you came out of the psych ward, were you was that an adjustment to kind of get to know your daughter over again after those 17 days?
00:27:23.699 --> 00:27:24.339
Yeah, for sure.
00:27:24.419 --> 00:27:29.699
I mean, I was still heavily medicated, so that was a problem when it came to lynching normally.
00:27:29.859 --> 00:27:34.980
And I um, she was obviously seven days old when I when I got out.
00:27:35.139 --> 00:27:49.939
Um, and I definitely felt like everyone else around me kind of had a bigger or more significant connection with her than I did, which wasn't necessarily true because she was a literal newborn baby with no grasp on any of that.
00:27:50.179 --> 00:27:50.339
Yeah.
00:27:50.740 --> 00:27:51.779
Just a little potato.
00:27:52.019 --> 00:27:58.179
Yeah, I think I was still really worried about what my separation might do to her long term.
00:27:58.659 --> 00:28:02.019
Did you, you shouldn't, but did you blame yourself at all?
00:28:02.179 --> 00:28:04.740
Did you feel any guilt or any shame around that?
00:28:05.059 --> 00:28:05.619
I did.
00:28:05.779 --> 00:28:17.459
I think that I kind of it was in therapy that I had to accept that, okay, if you want to be a parent who protects your child, what can you do in that situation other than remove yourself?
00:28:17.619 --> 00:28:20.579
You know, if I'd stayed, anything could have happened.
00:28:20.819 --> 00:28:30.099
I never had any voices or messages telling me to hurt my daughter, but I think that I could have possibly tried to hurt anyone who I felt was going to hurt her.
00:28:30.259 --> 00:28:30.419
Yeah.
00:28:30.579 --> 00:28:34.019
So it just would have been a really bad situation.
00:28:34.099 --> 00:28:35.619
So I kind of try to remember that.
00:28:35.779 --> 00:28:37.299
In what world would I have been able to say?
00:28:37.459 --> 00:28:39.139
It would have to be an alternate universe.
00:28:39.459 --> 00:28:39.779
Yeah.
00:28:40.019 --> 00:28:46.259
And I keep thinking about parents who have NICU babies for a 17-day or longer period.
00:28:46.500 --> 00:28:52.179
I do think that when you have a NICU baby, there is a level of guilt and shame too, because you feel you failed in some way.
00:28:52.259 --> 00:28:55.939
But I don't think it's to the level that maybe you experienced.
00:28:56.019 --> 00:29:07.379
And it just says so much about our culture where it's okay if you're doing something to take care of the baby, but we have this idea that when you become a mother, it's not okay to do something to take care of yourself.
00:29:07.539 --> 00:29:07.779
Yeah.
00:29:07.939 --> 00:29:15.220
And I think your story is such a powerful example of how taking care of yourself is taking care of your kids, right?
00:29:15.699 --> 00:29:16.740
Yeah, for sure.
00:29:16.980 --> 00:29:23.299
I think that I had no choice but to put myself first, which was it as a mother, you sacrifice.
00:29:23.379 --> 00:29:32.659
And I don't, I a lot of that is true, but I also think that we can glorify the idea of giving all of yourself for your children until there's nothing left.
00:29:32.819 --> 00:29:38.740
And so I was forced to learn that lesson very early on that sometimes you have to come first.
00:29:38.980 --> 00:29:39.220
Yeah.
00:29:39.459 --> 00:29:42.740
Did you have a V back or did you have a scheduled C-section for your son?
00:29:42.980 --> 00:29:48.659
I did a scheduled C-section, and the main reason for that was that I wanted as few unknowns as possible.
00:29:48.980 --> 00:29:49.379
Totally.
00:29:49.459 --> 00:29:49.619
Yeah.
00:29:49.779 --> 00:29:52.339
So I was worried about sleep deprivation.
00:29:52.419 --> 00:29:57.779
If I did end up with a really long labor, I was worried about another emergency C-section.
00:29:58.099 --> 00:30:07.539
And so yeah, I struggled with the decision to have a repeat C-section, which is so silly to struggle with, but I still felt like I might be making the wrong choice.
00:30:07.619 --> 00:30:10.259
But it was definitely the best thing I could have done.
00:30:10.579 --> 00:30:14.980
Zara and I are both C-section moms, and I remember having so much shame.
00:30:15.059 --> 00:30:20.579
Like, why I read Aina May's book that was like, just loosen your sphincter and you'll be fine.
00:30:20.659 --> 00:30:22.019
And I remember having so much shame.
00:30:22.099 --> 00:30:23.859
Like, why couldn't my body do this?
00:30:24.019 --> 00:30:34.339
And so it's like no matter what happens, whether it's an emergency section or planned one, or there's always something, or if you do give birth vaginally and something goes wrong.
00:30:34.500 --> 00:30:38.740
But I have heard women who have a planned c-section, it tends to be less traumatic.
00:30:38.819 --> 00:30:42.579
I don't know if that's true or not, but anecdotic and how do you say that word?
00:30:43.059 --> 00:30:51.539
Anecdotally Zara, yours was yours was planned and then not, right?
00:30:51.859 --> 00:30:55.220
Mine was yeah, planned and then it just happened earlier than was planned.
00:30:55.619 --> 00:30:56.099
Yeah.
00:30:56.579 --> 00:31:07.299
Um is there anything that so your recovery obviously was different mentally after your second birth, but physically, how was that recovery from that second c-section?
00:31:08.579 --> 00:31:15.059
So interestingly enough, it was worse than the first time around, only because I think there was so much going on.
00:31:15.220 --> 00:31:19.220
And then obviously I was in the state where I wasn't feeling any pain and felt invincible.
00:31:19.379 --> 00:31:24.740
So physically, the first time around, I don't the first two days I remember it being really, really difficult post-c-section.
00:31:24.819 --> 00:31:30.500
And then I have no recollection of the pain because yeah, it was just very low in the totem pole of things happening.
00:31:31.459 --> 00:31:37.619
But I emotionally I definitely felt just more even keeled and just more ready.
00:31:37.779 --> 00:31:47.619
So that was nice being able to prepare and have all the c-section recovery pillows and you know binders and all of that ready so that way I didn't have to I didn't feel thrown into it.
00:31:47.779 --> 00:31:49.779
I felt like okay, I know what's coming.
00:31:50.099 --> 00:31:50.740
Yeah.
00:31:50.980 --> 00:31:51.379
Yeah.
00:31:51.459 --> 00:31:53.699
I Zara, how was your recovery?
00:31:53.939 --> 00:31:55.059
Was your recovery?
00:31:55.779 --> 00:31:57.379
I don't really remember.
00:31:57.619 --> 00:31:57.859
Yeah.
00:31:57.939 --> 00:31:59.699
I think that's relatable.
00:31:59.939 --> 00:32:00.259
Yeah.
00:32:00.419 --> 00:32:03.939
I don't think it was as painful as I thought it was gonna be.
00:32:04.339 --> 00:32:11.619
But I think similar to you, I think it the pain was kind of low on the totem pole because I I had a very complicated postpartum.
00:32:12.339 --> 00:32:17.539
I think that that in some ways, I was like, I don't, I'm not even worried about my incision right now.
00:32:17.779 --> 00:32:18.179
Yeah.
00:32:18.500 --> 00:32:25.939
I remember I had to get a stool to put my kid in the crib because I did not know until he was out of his crib that they drop down and come up.
00:32:26.019 --> 00:32:27.859
Like we had I had no idea.
00:32:28.019 --> 00:32:36.659
So I had a stool, and for the first few days, my husband had to put him in because I couldn't, I'm very short and I couldn't put him in, and I was like, this hurts so bad to put him in.
00:32:36.819 --> 00:32:40.339
And then so for anyone listening, those cribs go up and down.
00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:43.139
I wish I would have known that.
00:32:43.459 --> 00:32:45.859
I think we're all very short in this conversation.
00:32:46.259 --> 00:32:46.500
Really?
00:32:46.659 --> 00:32:46.899
Yeah.
00:32:47.220 --> 00:32:47.379
Yeah.
00:32:47.539 --> 00:32:51.939
I I feel like we talked about this actually last time we spoke, Ayana.
00:32:52.259 --> 00:32:52.659
Yeah.
00:32:52.980 --> 00:32:53.459
Are you?
00:32:53.539 --> 00:32:54.179
I'm five-one.
00:32:54.500 --> 00:32:55.299
Yeah, I'm five two.
00:32:55.539 --> 00:32:57.059
So we're we're in it together.
00:32:57.299 --> 00:32:59.779
I like to say I'm five three, but I'm five two and a half.
00:32:59.939 --> 00:33:01.699
Probably shorter since pregnancy.
00:33:01.859 --> 00:33:03.539
My feet got bigger and I got shorter.
00:33:03.699 --> 00:33:06.659
How has how has your relationship been with your husband through all of this?
00:33:06.740 --> 00:33:11.379
I mean, you guys have been through so much, I don't know how long how long were you together, and did you have a solid foundation?
00:33:11.539 --> 00:33:13.220
I just asked you like 15 questions in one.
00:33:13.699 --> 00:33:14.339
No, it's fine.
00:33:14.419 --> 00:33:17.220
I can answer, I'll answer them all in a couple sentences.
00:33:17.539 --> 00:33:19.939
So my husband and I are going on 10 years of marriage.
00:33:20.019 --> 00:33:23.059
We got married when I was 22, which is like kind of wild.
00:33:23.220 --> 00:33:27.699
I don't know that I'd recommend that to like as a general rule, but it worked out for us.
00:33:27.859 --> 00:33:30.819
So we've basically been together our entire adult lives.
00:33:31.059 --> 00:33:35.539
And he um was just incredible throughout all of it.
00:33:35.699 --> 00:33:43.779
Um, he basically raised our daughter for the first, I mean, I would say three or four months without very much help from me.
00:33:45.299 --> 00:33:53.539
So I definitely feel felt so grateful and so appreciative and and loved him even more because we've been through so much together.
00:33:53.779 --> 00:34:04.579
Um, so yeah, I think that also I can't honestly, like this is kind of I don't know, it's probably easy to say because no one will ever be in this position.
00:34:04.659 --> 00:34:11.860
But I think that I rather be in the hospital or in his position, knowing I'm in the hospital and not knowing if I'll get better.
00:34:12.019 --> 00:34:28.099
Honestly, I think I would have rather things stay the way they are because I cannot imagine how excruciating it is to kind of not be able to see your spouse or your partner know that they're in a psychotic episode and have the hospital telling you they may need to be transferred to a long-term care facility.
00:34:28.340 --> 00:34:30.500
Um, I I don't know how I would have done that.
00:34:30.659 --> 00:34:39.140
So I not that, you know, not that it has to be either or, but I he was in a really I was in a bad position, but he was in an even worse position, in my opinion.
00:34:39.380 --> 00:34:41.620
So I really admire him for that.
00:34:42.340 --> 00:34:47.539
Yeah, I can't imagine that either, being told your spell you have this brand new baby.
00:34:47.620 --> 00:34:47.780
Yeah.
00:34:48.100 --> 00:34:57.059
And the how, because I know they put you on that high dose of medication, but that's a pretty stark change from being like she's gonna need to go to a long-term residential facility.
00:34:57.300 --> 00:35:00.500
How quickly did that happen between those two decisions?
00:35:00.740 --> 00:35:08.100
Well, I think that their whole thing was that if the medication doesn't break the delusions, then the next step is going to be got it, the shock therapy.
00:35:08.180 --> 00:35:15.220
And then I think that that was also hand in hand with the long-term care because the psych ward is not designed to care for someone for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.
00:35:15.460 --> 00:35:19.300
So I think the mentality, at least the one I was in, was more of an emergent.
00:35:19.380 --> 00:35:22.180
I mean, most of the people were there for only a couple of days.
00:35:22.340 --> 00:35:25.140
Um, and you know, in and out, in and out.
00:35:25.220 --> 00:35:28.500
So I was there for longer than most of the patients that I was with.
00:35:28.579 --> 00:35:32.420
So I think they wanted somewhere more equipped to care for me long term if I needed that.
00:35:32.579 --> 00:35:35.460
But when I got home, I still wasn't well, I don't think.
00:35:35.620 --> 00:35:45.860
Just looking back at it, I think I still there were delusions from the hospital that I still couldn't shake, that I still had a kind of just nagging feeling of, okay, this might have been true.
00:35:46.019 --> 00:35:48.180
Someone could have been trying to hurt my daughter.
00:35:48.420 --> 00:35:50.579
I don't know, no way of knowing for sure.
00:35:50.740 --> 00:36:02.660
So I had some of those moments where I still wasn't 100%, but I was able, and my psychiatrist tells me that this is a sign that I was got better because I didn't tell anyone that I was having delusions.
00:36:02.820 --> 00:36:06.340
So she was like, There was a part of you that recognized, okay, this might be irrational.
00:36:06.420 --> 00:36:08.260
I'm not going to shout it out.
00:36:08.500 --> 00:36:14.500
Um, at one point I remember I wrote a note to myself toward the end, and I was like, I need to shut up.
00:36:14.579 --> 00:36:15.780
I need to stop talking.
00:36:15.940 --> 00:36:18.340
And that honestly helped me get out as well.
00:36:19.140 --> 00:36:21.620
Interesting, just being like, nope, we're not gonna entertain that.
00:36:21.780 --> 00:36:25.380
It is hard though, because it was telling Czar this last week when I was postpartum.
00:36:25.700 --> 00:36:27.380
We had just gotten moved into a new house.
00:36:27.460 --> 00:36:31.380
We got new blinds in the house, and when I got home with my baby, I realized they all had the cords on them.
00:36:31.620 --> 00:36:33.780
And I was like, oh no, that's not gonna happen in my house.
00:36:33.860 --> 00:36:36.579
And I told my husband, I was like, replace all of these now.
00:36:36.740 --> 00:36:37.380
And so he did.
00:36:37.460 --> 00:36:39.220
He got somebody in there to replace them all.
00:36:39.300 --> 00:36:44.100
And I mean, that's actually a pretty big hanging threat to your child as they get older.
00:36:44.180 --> 00:36:48.420
I think it was once he once he started crawling, that's when we replaced them.
00:36:48.660 --> 00:36:54.260
But I think there are so many threats that we see as mothers, especially, and it's hard to distinguish.
00:36:54.420 --> 00:36:59.300
Okay, this is a real one, so it's really good that you had the people in your life to help you distinguish.
00:36:59.460 --> 00:37:02.420
For me, I had my husband being like, Oh, yeah, that is a pretty big threat.
00:37:02.740 --> 00:37:04.820
Let's get that, let's get that fixed.
00:37:06.100 --> 00:37:08.340
Just yeah, another funny one that I had.
00:37:08.500 --> 00:37:14.100
I don't know if you guys will think this is funny, but I am a 90s baby, so I'm 41, so I am or an 80s baby.
00:37:14.180 --> 00:37:21.460
So I grew up in a time where a lot of the movies now, as I'm going back and watching them with my son, they have instances of babies getting stolen out of windows.
00:37:21.620 --> 00:37:22.740
And I never realized that.
00:37:22.820 --> 00:37:26.260
But so after I had him, I refused to let anyone have a window cracked.
00:37:26.340 --> 00:37:33.300
We had to get an alarm system, we put door things, and my husband's dad was the same way, so he was like, Oh, this is normal because you always have to have it.
00:37:33.460 --> 00:37:36.100
And so, but his sister was like, You guys are crazy.
00:37:36.260 --> 00:37:37.059
What is wrong with you?
00:37:37.220 --> 00:37:39.300
No one's gonna steal your baby from the window.
00:37:39.380 --> 00:37:40.100
You're on the second floor.
00:37:40.180 --> 00:37:41.059
I'm like, but they could.
00:37:41.140 --> 00:37:44.820
And then once we start watching movies, I was like, ah, this is where it came from.
00:37:44.980 --> 00:37:48.820
And there was a case of a girl who was my age getting abducted through her bedroom window.
00:37:48.980 --> 00:37:50.340
I don't think it all played in.
00:37:50.660 --> 00:37:54.420
When a lot of us think about postpartum psychosis, we think about Lindsay Clancy.
00:37:54.740 --> 00:37:55.059
Yeah.
00:37:55.460 --> 00:38:01.700
Who the woman who I think she was in the Boston area and she killed her three kids in an episode.
00:38:01.860 --> 00:38:03.860
And I believe she sent out the window.
00:38:04.420 --> 00:38:08.340
The one who sent her husband to go pick up food or something like that was fairly recently.
00:38:08.579 --> 00:38:08.740
Yeah.
00:38:08.900 --> 00:38:09.220
Yeah.
00:38:09.539 --> 00:38:17.539
And I think I remember at the time really feeling like we, as we should, gave her a lot of grace, right?
00:38:17.620 --> 00:38:22.660
I think we were able to understand that something was going on that was just completely out of her control.
00:38:22.820 --> 00:38:26.900
But I really wondered what would have happened if she had not been a white woman.
00:38:27.220 --> 00:38:36.980
And I wanted to ask you, as a black woman, have you felt that you are more vulnerable to stigma and to criticism with everything you've been through?
00:38:37.780 --> 00:38:50.180
Yeah, I think that I got lucky and that I have a pretty, I mean, I don't want to say inspirational, but a pretty linear story, I guess, of like I got sick and then I got better and nothing really bad happened.
00:38:50.340 --> 00:39:15.620
But I mean, yeah, I mean, to your point, I think that a white woman living in, I think that it was a wealthy suburb, but if not, a very nice suburb in Massachusetts who's a nurse and who has kind of all of this going for her is going to elicit more sympathy because I feel like people feel like, oh, I can see myself in her in a way that a white woman may not feel that way about a black poor woman unless in the same situation.
00:39:15.780 --> 00:39:18.980
That was a really interesting, heartbreaking case.
00:39:19.140 --> 00:39:24.019
Even now I think about her, and because I think now she's injured still.
00:39:24.100 --> 00:39:27.140
I think she might be paralyzed, or because she jumped out of a window after.
00:39:27.300 --> 00:39:42.100
And so just and I think New York magazine, this is a tangent, but just did uh it was one of those, either New York magazine or the New Yorker did a profile on her husband, and it was just so heartbreaking just reading uh his perspective and how he's handling everything.
00:39:42.340 --> 00:39:50.340
But yeah, I definitely feel like the more privileged you are, the the more slack people are gonna cut you.
00:39:50.579 --> 00:39:51.059
Yeah.
00:39:51.539 --> 00:39:56.740
When I was growing up, Andrea Yates, I don't know if you've ever heard of Andrea Yates, but she was not given any grace.
00:39:56.820 --> 00:40:02.820
I think this is before we knew anything about postpartum psychosis or because she was also very religious, right?
00:40:03.220 --> 00:40:03.940
She was, yes.
00:40:04.980 --> 00:40:05.620
Interesting.
00:40:05.860 --> 00:40:09.460
Um I'm so I'm so glad that you've shared your story.
00:40:09.620 --> 00:40:15.940
I have sent it to a few friends who are planning to get pregnant, um, where I'm just like, hey, keep this in mind.
00:40:16.100 --> 00:40:24.180
Like, and I think the more we talk about all this stuff, the more people around someone going through this can be prepared and know one of the signs.
00:40:24.260 --> 00:40:27.700
Cause I think I I wouldn't have known like what is going on.
00:40:28.180 --> 00:40:28.420
Yeah.
00:40:30.260 --> 00:40:30.579
Yeah.
00:40:32.019 --> 00:40:36.260
Um, we have talked about a lot of really, really heavy stuff today.
00:40:36.340 --> 00:40:44.820
So, and I again I thank you, but on the other side of it, um, what is an unexpected joy that motherhood has brought you?
00:40:46.579 --> 00:40:48.579
Honestly, I think I'm surprised.
00:40:48.740 --> 00:41:00.660
This is gonna sound bad, but I think I the part of me is surprised at how much time I love spending with my kids because I think that beforehand just being around other people's children and like I was never a kid who babysat or anything, as I said.
00:41:00.740 --> 00:41:01.780
Like I never felt maternal.
00:41:01.860 --> 00:41:05.700
The first diaper I changed was my daughter's in the hospital, a nurse had to show me.
00:41:05.860 --> 00:41:16.579
So I think I had this fear of whether I was gonna be good at it or get bored of it or burn out, and obviously all of those things are very real realities that I've lived.
00:41:16.740 --> 00:41:20.420
But yeah, especially having two kids now, it's just it's a lot of fun.
00:41:20.500 --> 00:41:25.059
And I look forward to my evenings and my weekends in a way that I didn't expect to.
00:41:25.300 --> 00:41:26.740
It's just really lovely.
00:41:26.980 --> 00:41:27.860
That's awesome.
00:41:28.100 --> 00:41:29.380
Yeah, I love that.
00:41:30.740 --> 00:41:37.220
And then if your if a friend of yours came to you and said, I am about to have a baby, what advice would you give them?
00:41:37.300 --> 00:41:40.019
What's one thing you wish you had known before you had your first?
00:41:40.660 --> 00:41:42.579
I'm very passionate about this.
00:41:42.820 --> 00:41:52.740
And that is to take time for yourself, which is a privilege, and not everyone has a supportive partner or people, you know, a village, as you mentioned.
00:41:52.980 --> 00:41:58.340
But if you have the opportunity to do something for yourself by yourself, go for it.
00:41:58.500 --> 00:42:18.740
Like the guilt is um so easy to fall into, but I um I feel like I have never really I mean, I've struggled with it and I do feel guilty sometimes, but I have made a point to like one day a week I go to lunch by myself and it's just completely glorious and silent and it's just great.
00:42:18.900 --> 00:42:33.460
And then I'll take weekend trips with my husband or go on girls' trips, and I feel like that has helped me be as well-rounded as I feel that I am when it comes to parenting, um, that I don't routinely feel like exhausted by it just because I have opportunities to recharge.
00:42:33.620 --> 00:42:37.620
So again, I know unfortunately not everyone has the ability or opportunity to do that.
00:42:37.700 --> 00:42:45.940
But if someone says, Hey, I'll watch the kids, go do this, I would say if you have the desire to do it, just to do it.
00:42:46.420 --> 00:42:46.820
Yeah.
00:42:47.059 --> 00:42:47.380
Yeah.
00:42:47.940 --> 00:42:50.019
I agree that I think that's great advice.
00:42:50.180 --> 00:42:53.380
Even if it's I'll watch the kids, you go upstairs and nap.
00:42:53.539 --> 00:42:53.620
Right.
00:42:54.180 --> 00:42:55.140
Yeah, it doesn't have to be big.
00:42:55.300 --> 00:42:56.180
It doesn't have to be big.
00:42:56.260 --> 00:42:56.579
But yeah.
00:42:56.820 --> 00:42:58.900
Yeah, go watch a reality show upstairs.
00:42:59.059 --> 00:42:59.140
Yeah.
00:42:59.380 --> 00:43:00.340
I got the kids.
00:43:00.579 --> 00:43:01.780
Yeah, exactly.
00:43:02.500 --> 00:43:07.620
Well, Ayana, thank you so much for sharing your story again and thank you for being here and taking the time to chat with us.
00:43:08.180 --> 00:43:09.300
Yeah, thank you so much.
00:43:10.019 --> 00:43:10.420
Thank you.