00:00:00
Speaker 1: Gay everyone, Welcome to her conversations. My guest today is Libby Trainer Parker. Libby's a writer, comedian, journalist, teacher, and cabaret performer. They're her words, okay, but you know behind that scene of hilarity and jocularity and entertainment is a sad story of a lady who's had a lot of trouble conceiving. In fact, Libby has had eleven miscarriages. Try to conceive, you can. Probably she's found some humor in that, but it's a really serious topic about which she's written. And her book is called A Common Misconception Surviving Miscarriage, Infertility and Grief. Libby train or Parker, welcome to the program. How are you?
00:00:41
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me?
00:00:42
Speaker 1: Trainer was the married night, Train is the married name. It's a serious book. You don't disguise at all the grief or the trauma that you experienced, but you do try to lighten it with some humor in there. And I know you wrote into some people thought, well, it's not a not a subject about which you make jokes, but you have an accounter to that, don't you.
00:01:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I feel like a lot of these books, a lot of the resources. They're quite dry, they're very clinical. That can be quite scary, and so what I wanted to do was create something that's gonna it will help. It will give you that information that you need, give the facts, some of the science, not being a scientist myself, but some of the stuff that I wish i'd known at the time, and a bit of a giggle in a hard time.
00:01:29
Speaker 1: Well, there was definitely there's definitely humor in it, and it does make you. It sort of jolts you back to some sort of reality. This is a real person trying to make the best of a bad situation. So when did you first start trying to conceive and when did you first realize you had major issues with fertility?
00:01:51
Speaker 2: Well, when I was a lot younger, I got married quite young to a lovely man. The marriage didn't last very long at all, but we did try to have a baby and we didn't succeed that And I wasn't sure whose problem was. He was Type one diabetes diabetic, so I thought perhaps it might have been that I didn't realize at the time I had endometriosis, and it wasn't until the later, I think my mid thirties, perhaps that I got together with my current husband, who say current like, I'm going to get a new one. He's on notice. But he and I tried. He's in the book, that's right, he's in print. He's got his own chapter.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: He's very proud of that.
00:02:34
Speaker 2: Yes, but you called him mister Libby. He was fine with it. So he and I tried within a couple of years of being together, and we the first pregnancy that we had, we got pregnant straight away. So as we started trying, and that was a corner elect topic pregnancy which was on the outside of my uterus, and that actually it rotted my uterus, and I didn't know that I had it at the time. I just thought I was pregnant. And by the time I got to hospital with that, I was in a bit of trouble because it had been decaying. So I had cesarean surgery to remove that. And then we thought, well, that was easy to get pregnant that time, we'll try again, and it was just followed by ten more losses.
00:03:14
Speaker 1: Well it wasn't diagnosed well. And there's a theme throughout the book. You're not overly happy with the medical profession. It's about as best as I can put it.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: Some Yeah, well look, not all doctors, but some I had a difficult experience with. And I will admit that I should have been a lot more educated about my own body and about the things that can happen when you lose a pregnancy. But I don't think many of us do know that stuff. I had no idea how many types of miscarriage there were. I didn't know quite how difficult it actually is to get pregnant. When I was in high school and we did sex education, I thought that you just had to stand near painous to get pregnant. I didn't realize that it's actually not that easy.
00:03:56
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of unintended pregnancy.
00:03:59
Speaker 2: That's true, is true, But I guess the older you get, you know, and the harder it is to have a baby. And I think I thought that was a little bit nonsense in a way. But I learned. I learned a lot, and I learned a lot more when I was writing this book, and I thought, gosh, I wish I knew all that at the time.
00:04:15
Speaker 1: Can we go back to the start. I mean, a lot of your awareness comes from your childhood, how your raised mum and dad's discussion about sex education, schools and the like. When'd you grow up?
00:04:28
Speaker 2: I grew up in Canberra, spent a few years in Papua New Guinea, back to Canberra and then to Adelaid when I was fourteen.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Well that's a story. You can't just skip over that.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: That's a good one of that.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: So what did your dad or mum? What was the mum who went?
00:04:43
Speaker 2: Well? Actually, they went on a holiday. So dad's an accountant, mum's a teacher. Both retired now, but they went on a holiday because dad's sister lived over there. Her husband was He worked for s or one of the big companies over it. Yeah, and so they had a really lovely, like huge place I live, Yeah, La Papa ne Guinea. So we went over there for a holiday and my parents said, we really love this and they decided to move there.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: So what year was that? It was after independence?
00:05:11
Speaker 2: I guess it was Gosh, that would have been nineteen eighty one, which is weird because I'm only twenty five. But no, it was about early eighties and it was great. It was gorgeous at the time.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: I don't want to aid you, but how old were you then when you went.
00:05:28
Speaker 2: I reckon I was four. I had my fifth birthday when we got there.
00:05:30
Speaker 1: I remember it, okay, yeah, so it was a land of privilege for you, moment day with the servants, and.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was. And then a few years later it started to get a bit rough and a bit difficult, and so they took us back to Canberra.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: Then okay, well, so what was for you were old enough to realize that it was getting a bit unpleasant, a bit tense.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: Were you, Yeah? Yeah, And I think all of my friends were leaving as well at the time, so you had to wonder why. And yeah, parents, did you.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: Work for up there?
00:06:02
Speaker 2: You know, Price Waterhouse I reckon at the time. Yeah, and mum taught at the local primary school that we went to.
00:06:09
Speaker 1: Did you have friends of all races?
00:06:11
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was a racial minority in that class, and it was a it was a bit of a surprit of a shock to the system when I went back to Canberra and I was like, we're all white. This is odd. I felt, yeah, very strange because yeah, we didn't so very.
00:06:26
Speaker 1: Observe Papoiguinna now and then contemplate the plight of the population that it seems so lawless and corrupt. I mean, do you make those observations.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: It makes me sad. It was it was such a beautiful haven when I was there, but I mean I was living in absolute privilege, so there was that. Yeah, it's it's really really sad. It's such a gorgeous place. And I do feel a real affiliation with the Tropics now because of the three or four years that I lived there when I was a kid.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: I did the Kakoda track a few years ago with the group, and the one thing look apart from our heart it was but that was by the way, the beauty, the beauty of the well, the mountainous centre that we traversed. But and you'd like to go back there, but everything you hear about at the moment is so negative.
00:07:15
Speaker 2: It's scary. Though. Did you feel safe there?
00:07:17
Speaker 1: We definitely felt safe. In fact, they told us not to come. The hotel was in a compound and they told us not to go out. But a couple we had to get some equipment from a hardware store, so we did wander around a little bit. But they advised you very seriously not to do that. But no, I didn't. We didn't feel threatened. There was quite a bit group of us. So that sort of made it a bit easier. So you come back to Australia, settle back into this all white pretty much.
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Canberra cold.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: So what ambition do you grow up with?
00:07:51
Speaker 2: What ambition?
00:07:52
Speaker 1: What ambition?
00:07:52
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a performer, I want always, yeah, always, I wanted to be on the stage. I wanted to be a writer. And then yeah, my parents, I was a bit march. I was a bit much as a child. I was very easily distracted, a bit naughty, very just yeah, I couldn't sit still. I was a rat bag. So they put me into drama classes. They went, yeah, this is where I belong and it was it was great. I loved that and I want to do that all the time. It's not as easy to get into it as I thought at the time.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: So you finish high school and you go into a a tertiary.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: I didn't finish high school. I dropped year eleven and I did a hospitality course. I dropped. I was a bit. I was chaos and I'm only about four years ago. I was diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, which spoke everything makes sense now. That might be the next book if I get round to writing it. So I did hospitality for a few years and then I thought, oh no, I want to be I want to do more to use my brain walks. Was hospitalities fine, it was a lifestyle.
00:09:05
Speaker 1: That's just waitressing. Yeah, I don't mean just wait but I was.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: Working bars and I was running, you know, I was working clubs and bars and stuff. So it was a late nights and not healthy living. So I went to UNI. I became a teacher, and I think that's that's where I really found myself in that. I became a drama teacher so I could I could be immersed in that as well as I love working with kids and helping kids, and that was really fun. I enjoyed that.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: And of course you're an author as well, and your latest book is about a really serious topic. We're trying to make some levity of it. I don't know whether that's appropriate or not, but we'll see how that progresses. Libby Trainer Parker is my guest in the studio. Book is called a Common Misconception. It's about miscarriage, infertility and the grief associated with those issues. Back half the break, I guess in the studio, folks, if you've just tuned in. Is a lady called Libby Train or Parker? I keep getting his train, But you had a park maiden name.
00:10:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I already had a surnames when I married him. I thought I don't need his because I already had one. But it was actually he's got two daughters from a previous marriage and we were talking about it and they said they quite like me to have their name as well. So popped it in the middle.
00:10:23
Speaker 1: It rolls off the tongue easily, doesn't Libby Train or Parga. But don't call you Elizabeth.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: But don't call me Elizabeth. No, I hate it. Only get Elizabeth if I'm in trouble or you know, getting one of those letters that you don't want with a fine on it. Yeah, never been Elizabeth. People have tried to call me Lizzie. That's just what my parents called me when I was younger, and for some reason, it's just one of those things that I've really hung on to that I don't like being Elizabeth much of a being Libby.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, son, people who called you Elizabeth, But as I read in the book, you just ignore people.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: Well, you know what they say, what's your name? And then what's your preferred name?
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Okay?
00:11:10
Speaker 2: And if you say if you get them preferred name, but they still call you. The other day it was like, why did I write it? What did I bother? Do you have a name that you don't like being called?
00:11:20
Speaker 1: I actually do? Yeah, what is that going to tell you?
00:11:25
Speaker 2: I'm not going to use it against you? But other people might.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: People say grey gray, grey gray, and I hate that.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, is it crazy or greg grey? Yeah? Okay, So now.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to be caol. You know what, Listen is going to ring up.
00:11:39
Speaker 2: And he loves it. Don't call him that. He loves it.
00:11:43
Speaker 1: Okay. So your drama teacher and you get married, you don't try and conceive the first time for this lovely guy who I guess you divorced.
00:11:52
Speaker 2: Him, You lovely guy. I did divorce him. Yeah, I was too young to be married and he deserves better than me. To you, I hope he's very happy. He's a lovely guy. Jumped into him once on the street and we were polite to each other. But no, it's been a long time. We don't move in the same circles. But he is very lovely and I hope he's doing really really, well.
00:12:19
Speaker 1: You should have told me that my my own business.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: Question an open book. You've got it right in front of you. Agent.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: It's a serious it is a serious book. So you you try to conceive and you can't. But you probably don't think initially that it's anything unusual. You deal with the pain and the torment, but it's not grief at this stage. Is a grief Not.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: At that stage. I think I just thought, well, obviously that wasn't meant to happen. All meant to be. We weren't meant to be parents together. We split up anyway. We actually, if we want to get deep into this way, we split up because I got held up at NiFe point and I was working in a convenience store and I got held up on a Sunday morning. I was working on my own. The young guy came in and he kept going around and picking things up off the shelf and then putting them down and going to get more and putting them down. And I was really kind to him because I thought, I don't know, there was something wrong, good sense, there was something wrong. And then I started to get annoyed because he was being annoying. He was coming back, going and he was working up the courage to hold me up. I didn't realize that. So it was when I dropped my kindness and I looked away and I dropped that eye contact with him that he ran around the side of the counter and held me up with a knife, the kitchen knife.
00:13:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are you feeling?
00:13:45
Speaker 2: I was panicking because we've always been told when you work in customer service, just press the no sail button and stand back from the till. But because he'd brought all these things, there was a coke at Mars Bar. He asked for a pack of cigarettes, and I'd scanned them, so when I was pressing no sack, I couldn't open it till because there was a sale. So I had to think really quickly, just put it a dollar amount, pretend that he's paid, and then and then pulled the cash draw open and stand back. But all of that was annoying him. He was getting angry, and so he was, you know, pushing the knife a little. We didn't cut me, but he was right up against me, and so I had to just think on my feet. I was quite proud of myself because I survived. But I stood back and he took the money and off he went.
00:14:27
Speaker 1: Wherebouts what's that?
00:14:29
Speaker 2: There was a convenience store on Hut Street.
00:14:31
Speaker 1: In Haut Street the city.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: Now I live near that, Now I can go in there now he never used to be able to. Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, did they catch the guy.
00:14:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did because he was staying at the backpackets. He was an English backpacker who ran out of money, so he thought he'd come in and try his luck. So he took the money. It wasn't much. It was a Sunday morning, and apparently he had wanted to do it the night before, but he chickened out, and so he came in. It was ten thirty on a Sunday morning. You just wouldn't think that happened. I've got some lovely people who were coming in and buying the paper and carton and milk and saying good morning. When this guy comes in and it was just me and him in the door, and he waited to do that. So he was a backpacker. He took the money to the casino, so he was on all of the cameras and everything, and the police amazing, and they went to all of the backpackers in the area. Because I thought we reckon, this is this guy's backpacker, and.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: Think that did he speak to you? And so?
00:15:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jack so, and he just I think because there was backpack of places on the street, they thought they know what they're doing, so they went in there and he'd stolen from a whole heap of other people. So they were pretty quick to throw him under the bus and say this is you know did you have no he That was resolved pretty quickly. They got him, they charged him, they sent him home. Yeah, he did his time.
00:15:52
Speaker 1: Did he go to jail here?
00:15:54
Speaker 2: And I think so, I don't think he's I don't know. I think I remember he got locked up. And the only thing I remember from it is that that he wanted to tell them to say sorry to me. And that really annoyed me because I didn't get a right of reply.
00:16:11
Speaker 1: What would you have said?
00:16:13
Speaker 2: I think I would have asked him why, And I think I also would have probably told him if he brought in his resume, we probably would have given him a job rather than his knife.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be asked to you, his apologies to be passed on to him.
00:16:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so did his parents. They wanted me to know that they were sorry. Yeah, it did, but I just, I guess in a weird way, I wanted to know that he was okay, and I wanted to tell him to make better choices. That was where I was at. But what that has to do with my marriage at the time is that I pulled myself away from everything and shut myself off a lot, and so the marriage went Yeah to pot after that.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: Because I so, how old were you then?
00:16:57
Speaker 2: Twenty three? I think, yeah.
00:17:00
Speaker 1: So you're still teaching that or a.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: Bit not much because I'm an entertainer now, so I say rude words.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: And that stage you were still then?
00:17:07
Speaker 2: Was it Uni? Yeah, that's why I was working in the convenience still. So I had a couple of different jobs. Yeah, so I was. I was working. I was at UNI then starting to be a teacher.
00:17:16
Speaker 1: So when do you branch out into this difficult world of comedy. I can't imagine what it's like to stand on stage and and be a stand up comedian, like.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what it's like to play football. So when you did that, like you know, it's one of those things that if you got it, you do it.
00:17:35
Speaker 1: Where was your first gig?
00:17:37
Speaker 2: It was actually at what was the Promethean And it was it was a charity thing. I've been doing a lot of cabaret comedy, so I hadn't done stand up specifically.
00:17:49
Speaker 1: Act like a skip.
00:17:51
Speaker 2: Songs songs and yeah, my husband and I write songs together, so we were doing cabaret shows for fringe, funny songs. Funny songs. Yeah. That actually came about because of the first pregnancy loss. So we started. We watched a lot of TV because we were at home a lot because I was recovering from had cesarean surgery for that that ectopic pregnancy, so I had a lot of time at home. So we started binge watching TV. And at the time, it was when you'd go to the video store and you'd borrow box sets. So we started doing that and.
00:18:23
Speaker 1: Just bing We had to rent them in our day, Yeah.
00:18:27
Speaker 2: You rent them, Yeah, and pay for them. Yeah, I've eve forgotten how to do it. I had to read them, you know. So we would binge watch and then we'd make up silly songs to them and sing them to each other. And we thought this was really funny, and Matt said, let's do a show.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: Do you use original music or do you do it just do standard tunes and put your own lyrics to it.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: We used to do parody songs, so we used to do it to songs that people knew and that was really fun. And then we started writing originals, so.
00:18:58
Speaker 1: Now we runs it always worked.
00:19:01
Speaker 2: We wrote a song you know, the day the music died, American Pie. Yeah, And it was at the time where Breaking Bad was huge, and so we wrote this song that was because why why Why did Heisenberg die? It was all about and I had written about every season of the show.
00:19:21
Speaker 1: So if you didn't watch Breaking Bad, you didn't get it.
00:19:23
Speaker 2: You didn't get it. But also if you want to didn't want spoilers you.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: My guest on Conversations is Libby Trainer Parker, and we're skirting all around the issue because it's a really serious issue of surviving miscarriage in fatality and the grief associated with losing a child and doing it repeatedly. Libby's had eleven miscarriages. It's too terrible thing to contemplate. Actually, back after the break folks, Welcome back everybody. If you've just tuned in, My guest in the studio is Libby train or Parker. Trainer is a married name Parker is a maiden name. She's combined both of them, as a lot of people do. She's having an interesting life as a teacher, a comedian, a singer, an author. But the topic is really serious because Libby's had eleven miscarriages in trying to conceive a child off her own. You described the first one, that ectopic pregnancy that you had, and it's just it's just so well, I don't I want to use the word gruesome, but I don't know whether it's appropriate, but that's the word that comes to mind when you've felt and apparently when they were operating inside it look because you had to have something like a cesarean section to ease it. And they say that your you to have said deteriorated.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Back it turned blue. Yeah, it deteriorated and it was decaying, is what he said. Yeah, he said he had to tie it up and had to cut the corner off it. So that was was going to cause issues later on if I if I had multiple births, for example, that would have been tricky. I would have had to be induced at early because my uterus was not a complete uterus after having the corner of.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: It, whether in that situation, you still could conceive.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously they had a history where where it had not you had, but it had.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Been Yeah, they said it was possible. Yeah yeah, And I was willing to take that chance at the time. Yeah, but I just kept trying to have a baby, and I never thought for a second that I wouldn't yeh Ever, and I still I still get shocked. I still can't believe that I didn't.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: One becomes two, two becomes three, three becomes By that stage, you're becoming disincharted, no more than disincharged, devastated. I would have thought.
00:21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I didn't really stop to think about how devastated I was. I think I was just counting days until the next time we could try again, or just you know, getting through, or you know, all the things that we were trying to do at the time. I was also becoming a performer, so I had that to look forward to. Matt daughters are just beautiful human beings, so I was enjoying life with them and then just trying to have a baby. And then, yeah, I guess it. After quite a few hits, it was bringing me down. I was getting angry, but I just didn't I thought the next one would be the one.
00:22:16
Speaker 1: You weren't diagnosed with the demetriosis until you were in your mid thirties. Why was that? Why not?
00:22:23
Speaker 2: I don't know. I had my appendix removed when I was about twenty one or twenty two because I was in pain, bright pain, and I actually collapsed on the floor of the doctor surgery and they whisked me off to because I was actually living in the snowfields at the time, doing a season.
00:22:40
Speaker 1: Over there White False Creek.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: Or in Genderbne. So yeah, New South Wales parish of Blue So I was up at Blue Cow Mountain and I was running the bistro there, so that was good fun. And then yeah, I woke up in really bad pain, passed out on the floor of the doctor surgery, and they took me off to Kuma, the big smoke, to have surgery. They just said, it's your appendix because this payment.
00:23:04
Speaker 1: I would have known when they took your appendix out that if it wasn't inflamed.
00:23:07
Speaker 2: They So what the doctor said was I've just taken out the most beautiful, healthy, pink, squishy appendix. Nothing wrong with that. And I said, what's wrong with me? Then? And he said, you've probably just got in Nickers in a twist over something.
00:23:20
Speaker 1: He said that.
00:23:21
Speaker 2: He said that.
00:23:22
Speaker 1: Throughout the book is there's this theme of medical incompetence. Now that's not your words. You haven't put anything in writing that's going to defame the doctor whom I have. But there's that theme that I suspect, this issue of medical incompetence or disinterest.
00:23:39
Speaker 2: Maybe dismissal, gas lighting, all of those things. I think there's aye. I'm not the only one who's had those experiences. The other people I spoke to in the book also had very similar experiences.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: So when was the end demetriosis? How was that diagnosed?
00:23:56
Speaker 2: That was diagnosed after the cornerlact topic. So after I had that cesarean surgery, I was in so much pain, more pain than ever. And I've been going to doctors all of that time since that, you know, the appending's removal, and I've always had pain. But every time I went to the doctor, they said it was anxiety, it was stress, it was depression, it was you're bored, any of those things, anything other than it was potentially a cycle thing. So yeah, I went kept going back to the doctor after the corner lact topic and I said, I'm in so much pain. I think you've left your scalpel in me or something like I mean. And he said, you're grieving again again. It's in my head. You know you're grieving, or you know you're healing. We did a lot of work in there. It was a big operation, which is true, and I was grieving. Yes, that's also true, but this was so physical. And I said, no, no, I really need you to help me with this one. This is I'm not right. And he said, fine, okay, I'm going to have a ride in and said fine, he said, and I think he went a fine and he said, I'll do an operation, but we're not going to find anything. And after that operation, he came into my hospital room and he said, I have never seen so much endometriosis. It was everywhere, so this is like it was incredible. He was excited. His eyes lit up, but he couldn't believe it. He said it was going up my urators, up to my kidneys. So he said yeah. He said it was a bit scary. He thought he'd have to put a stint in because there was so much of it and it would just like it would have been growing wild for years.
00:25:32
Speaker 1: So there's no real cure for there isn't so what about relief?
00:25:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's things you can do. I mean, you can have surgery, but the more surgeries you have sometimes the more pain you can be in. So I tend to not have so many. I think I've had three or four and he directed me. Also doesn't cure it. It can also like ause, you get chronic pervict pain in the end.
00:25:55
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:25:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so no, there is pain relief. I don't like taking painkillers terribly. I find it makes it worse sort of sense.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: What makes it worse when the pain, when the pain relief wears off, I would think, Yeah, so where are you at now with the endometrio system.
00:26:14
Speaker 2: It's been a while since I had my last surgery, so I'm probably due for another one. I might have the big one and just have it all taken out, just evict it because it's not doing any good anyway. What's the big one, hysterectomy, Get it out, that.
00:26:30
Speaker 1: Will fix it down.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: Well, it might give some relief. Maybe some people find that it really helps them. Some people don't.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: There's so much more awareness about it, and I think young girls, well young teenage postmens through being diagnosed and does that help early early interventions so much?
00:26:48
Speaker 2: And I'm thrilled to bits that they are being helped a lot more than we were told. It's just your lot, you know, It's just what you deal with as a girl. My mum had really bad period pain. My sister did as well, so it was just that's that's what we deal with. So when I was diagnosed, I actually got together with the Pelvic Pain Foundation of Australia because they looked like they were going to do some stuff in education. So I said, hey, do you want me? At the time, I was a speech writer in parliament. I left teaching, had am i teaching contacts and I also had parliamentary contacts, and I'd been working in media. I was a domb my journalism degree by that. So I said, I've got these skills. Do you want me? And I said yes. So we wrote PEP Talk, which is period's painted edmetriosis program. We lobbied the government state in federal and it's now national so it goes out to schools. It's a free schools program to educate people, boys and girls.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: And what sort of percentage of the young ladies reporting with it.
00:27:42
Speaker 2: When I started doing this, it was one in ten people ten women had endemetriosis. Now we're down to it's one in seven. So there's more and more people who are being diagnosed. It's not that there's more and more people who have it, it's just that they are getting diagnosed now.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: I should make you wonder, going back fifty sixty, seventy eighty ninety, one hundred years, what sort of pain that women had to endure?
00:28:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just got on with it, I guess.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: But just is the historical knowledge about it how far?
00:28:14
Speaker 2: How yeah it's been It's it's kind of scattered with it. More in the sixties was when it became a bit more prominent people that they put a name to it and started doing things about it. But yeah, it's actually on papyrates talking about period pain. So yeah, so's there's actually record of people talking about pelvic pain and uterous pain way back then, but just not enough. And I think that that's you know, that's a women's health thing, isn't it.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: My guest today our conversation is Elizabeth Training, Great Gray Libby Trainer. Parker's my guest. She's written about those almor it's a common misconception. More about the serious sitting when I'm both serious, but the issue of miscarriage and infertility. Back after the break, folks, I'm speaking today with Libby train Or Parker. Do not call her Elizabeth out in the break. I can't do that. And she's written about miscarriages and infertility and the grief associated with that. The book's called a common Misconception, Surviving Miscarriage, Infertility and Grief. And Libby's had to do that eleven times. When did you give up? I mean, I've asked obvious, after eleven times, you've given up?
00:29:26
Speaker 2: I gave up at ten and then it fell pregnant again and lost that at ten. By ten, I actually had found a doctor that I loved, and she said that she thought she could really help me have a baby, and she was across all the best things in fertility, and she's at the top of her game, and I trusted that she could. She was so confident that it would happen. So we were about to start IVF. And because I've got something called antiposphilipid antibodies, which means that and I've got this, sometimes a uterus might throw out foreign matter. So you've got something in your body that thinks anything that goes into it shouldn't be there. And so I was miscarrying that and I didn't find that out until quite late. She said, no, we can actually do something to you know, with an IV trip and we can build a lining for you. And I think we can do this, and she was so so great, but we're about to start the IVF and I just said, I need to stop. I can't do this. And I find when I tell fertility doctors that, because sometimes I speak at conferences, they just can't believe it. They're like, but you had your chance, And I said, yeah, but I just needed to control something. I think. I think that's why I just couldn't do it. I was tired, so tired, My body was tired, Matt was tired. We just do you regret that now? No? No, because then I said I want to be a foster parent, and Matt said, so do I, and we just blurted it out and we registered to be foster parents the next day, went through the training, which took about almost two years, and now we have a foster son. He's seven.
00:31:11
Speaker 1: Do you find the female obstetricians or specialists a bit more compassionate understanding than the male ones.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: Not really, I've got I think I've had good about him him both. Yeah, not really. I think because my gynecologist at the moment, he is incredible. He's so highly skilled and he's excellent, and I really really like him. So yeah, not really. It was sort of wasn't gendered for me. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't care if I went to a male or a female doctor as long as they had a degree and they could help me. So yeah, it wasn't so much gendered. I know.
00:31:49
Speaker 1: People should read the book and there's little not I want to say, hints, instructions, I suppose, guidelines of what to do and how to handle it. I was taken by one chapter, the accidental.
00:32:04
Speaker 2: Orgy is that.
00:32:10
Speaker 1: Said, what on earth is an orgy has got to do with the book on miscarriaging?
00:32:16
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's all about trying to get pregnant. I was not really, No, no, just.
00:32:22
Speaker 1: Now there's such things.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: That thing that was about setting boundaries, and that part in the book is about yeah, learning to say no, one's setting boundaries. So I when I first started my business as a copywriter and in media. I thought, I really want to learn how to set some boundaries. I want to learn more about being stronger, because I kept getting clients that wouldn't pay and I just wasn't tough enough, and I wanted to learn some new skills, and so I looked around for some training and this this workshop came up that was about about setting boundaries and consent and things like that, and I thought, well, that's interesting. And I will say that I said earlier, I do get very easily distracted. I didn't really read past the first paragraph, didn't read the fine print. The fine print would have said that it was actually it was a workshop, but the workshop was something you had to attend before you attended a sex party, an orgy.
00:33:24
Speaker 1: Yea, they have such things.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: They have such things. I don't know what I thought it was. I thought it was business professional development. I didn't know. So we went along and because I contacted the person who was running it, and she said, did you bring your husband? And I was like, what a good idea? Because he was helping me out with the business. I thought that's great. We can both learn about what an excellent idea. So we both went along and we met. There were a lot of couples there. This is wonderful. They were very friendly, really friendly, really friendly. Have you done this before? And I thought, well, you know, as a teachers we had to do a lot of professional development. Were oh, yes, we do this all the time. This time, we do this all the time. And then and then they started talking about how to put in place some really good boundaries and how if you do if you do something because you think it's important to you, then it's not really beneficial to somebody else, or if you're trying to do it because you think they want it. So if I do if I is something nice for you because I think that you want that, but you don't really want that, and I get mad that you that's not really serving anyone, is it. So and that's what she talked about, which I thought was really interesting because you.
00:34:43
Speaker 1: Know, I've still applied to your profession.
00:34:45
Speaker 2: It did. So it was actually really really good and I got a lot out of it. We didn't attend the orgy because we were busy with the kids on the weekend, but I learned a lot about that and it's one of the things we put into a relationship where instead of you know. We Yeah, we don't make muck around with that.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: We'll move on. We'll move on. Dialogue seems important. Dialogue when you're speaking to somebody who has suffered a miscarriage or enduring it. What do you mean by the dialogue? I mean you're talking to some people make as I read it for some people, make try it comments, Well, it wasn't meant to be. You know, how important is that dialogue when.
00:35:23
Speaker 2: You because we don't tend to we don't really know what to say to people who are grieving. We don't we know to say, I'm sorry for your loss, but you don't really know what to say next and what that person needs.
00:35:35
Speaker 1: And this can be anything, It could be anything.
00:35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, just ask them what they need or if you if you can't help them, then you can tell them. I don't have the capacity for much at the moment, but if there's something I can do to help you, then let me know. It's it's hard because we don't really have the language to talk.
00:35:55
Speaker 1: Did you want people to acknowledge that you suffered or we happy for them to go there and you go your way. Was it important for you that they acknowledged your grief?
00:36:05
Speaker 2: Dependent on the situation. If I knew them, yes, if I didn't know them, you know, I was happy to not talk about it so much, especially when it came to unsolicited advice and people say, oh, yeah, my aunt usually had this many mischaracters and she's got six kids now, and you think we're good for her. Thanks helped.
00:36:24
Speaker 1: It's not funny.
00:36:27
Speaker 2: I got that, got that quite a lot. Yeah, people are just trying to help, you know, Oh, you should see this doctor, you should do this, or why don't you just why don't you just was always why don't you just go on holiday? Why don't you just stop trying?
00:36:42
Speaker 1: So I could really say, like it really says, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't know what to say next though, I'm sorry.
00:36:50
Speaker 2: That's really shitty. Sorry, I am I allowed to say that.
00:36:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're allowed to say it. There's anything I can do, just let me know, but you're not going to ask me.
00:37:00
Speaker 2: See that's perfect, Graham, that's perfect to say that, you're not really not going to ask, but you know, just know that I can do it if you want. Yeah, that's perfect.
00:37:10
Speaker 1: You're right in the book, Libby that there's three things I needed when I was living through loss. Can you tell me what they are? Do we have to buy the book?
00:37:17
Speaker 2: You have to buy the book? Well, you can tell me what they are. I can't remember what I say.
00:37:21
Speaker 1: It's basic stuff. Be a nice person, acknowledge their loss, listen to them, and give them what they need.
00:37:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's what Pink Elephants Support Network stamp for. So Sam Paying started that and they've been going for ten years and so she builds everything around those three pillars, and I think that is incredible. So she's doing so much work.
00:37:42
Speaker 1: So acknowledge their loss, listen to them, give them what they need. Yeah. How can I give you what you need?
00:37:49
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on what people. Do I need space? Do I need resources? Do I need you to come around with a bottle of red wine and some soft cheese and shellfish that I'm not allowed to have when I'm pregnant. No, I don't advise that you do. My one of my very very good friends would come around and she'd give me all that kind of pregnancy contraband when I'd have a loss, to bring around the soft stinky cheese and the deli meats and gorgeous selves on that.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: I listened to the means listen to them. And so I'm asking you what you need. I'm sorry if you're lost what you need? What can I do? So you listen and then make sure you do it.
00:38:32
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, do you want to talk about it or do you need some space? Are you feeling like you want to vent about things? Do you want me to go to an appointment with you? Or are you happy to sit and watch Telly together?
00:38:44
Speaker 1: And they talk about the three pillars validation, empathy, and connection. Validating that it's.
00:38:53
Speaker 2: Seriing to you.
00:38:54
Speaker 1: You can't just dismiss it flippantly like some people don't.
00:38:58
Speaker 2: So validating your grief is real, that your loss is important. And because some people will say how far along were you? And if you're only a few weeks a long, they'll go, oh, that's that's okay. Then it's not okay. So that grief is real and those feelings are important.
00:39:14
Speaker 1: Not everyone grieve's a miscarriage, Sam says Sam from Big Elephants. You can't assume everybody's going to feel profound grief, and not everyone experiences grief straight away. How did your grief manifest itself?
00:39:28
Speaker 2: Because I didn't sort of stop to grieve and acknowledge every loss. Because I just kept going. I realized at the end just how much grief I had actually gathered along the way, which then kind of became trauma actually because I didn't work through it at all. So I say quite a lot in the book. Please stop, acknowledge you and validate those feelings.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: But don't be flippant about it.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm flippant sometimes, but those feelings are deep, and connecting with people is so so important to about it. Talk to people who understand and who greet the same as you. I guess because not everybody grieves it that some people grieve really deeply.
00:40:08
Speaker 1: So what do you hope to achieve by the publishing of this book? What do you hope to achieve from it?
00:40:14
Speaker 2: I hope that it can be the resource for other people that I needed. I've gotten what I want, what I needed. I wrote this book, and I just feel so much lighter now that it's out there. It was really cathartic for me. It was great therapy for me to write.
00:40:32
Speaker 1: So every mother of young young girls or girls come approaching puberty, and it's almost as though they should read the book.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like it to be shared. And it's one of those books that you can flick through. You don't need to read it cover to cover. You can read the bits that you want when you want. And I think what a lot of people that I spoke to said was it that they wish that they'd known what a miscarriage was going to look like. And I wish I had too, because the doctor would just say, it's a non viable pregnancy. I'm really sorry, Off you go. It should pass through in a week or two and give us a call if it gets scary, and that's all you get. And that's what I had so many times, and it always it's always scary, and every time it was different. So I didn't know what it was supposed to look like. Once I had a DNC and they left pregnancy matter and me and I went toxic and I got very very ill. So I didn't know that, and I would like to know that kind of thing, and I would like other people to be able to know that so they can keep themselves safe.
00:41:33
Speaker 1: And the book describes that the book it is called a common misconception Surviving Miscarriage in Fertility and Grief Libby train Or Parker Elizabeth, we are friends.
00:41:45
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Greg Gray.
00:41:47
Speaker 1: Libby train Or Parker was my guest. Folks, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Gay everyone, Welcome to her conversations. My guest today is Libby Trainer Parker. Libby's a writer, comedian, journalist, teacher, and cabaret performer. They're her words, okay, but you know behind that scene of hilarity and jocularity and entertainment is a sad story of a lady who's had a lot of trouble conceiving. In fact, Libby has had eleven miscarriages. Try to conceive, you can. Probably she's found some humor in that, but it's a really serious topic about which she's written. And her book is called A Common Misconception Surviving Miscarriage, Infertility and Grief. Libby train or Parker, welcome to the program. How are you?
00:00:41
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me?
00:00:42
Speaker 1: Trainer was the married night, Train is the married name. It's a serious book. You don't disguise at all the grief or the trauma that you experienced, but you do try to lighten it with some humor in there. And I know you wrote into some people thought, well, it's not a not a subject about which you make jokes, but you have an accounter to that, don't you.
00:01:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I feel like a lot of these books, a lot of the resources. They're quite dry, they're very clinical. That can be quite scary, and so what I wanted to do was create something that's gonna it will help. It will give you that information that you need, give the facts, some of the science, not being a scientist myself, but some of the stuff that I wish i'd known at the time, and a bit of a giggle in a hard time.
00:01:29
Speaker 1: Well, there was definitely there's definitely humor in it, and it does make you. It sort of jolts you back to some sort of reality. This is a real person trying to make the best of a bad situation. So when did you first start trying to conceive and when did you first realize you had major issues with fertility?
00:01:51
Speaker 2: Well, when I was a lot younger, I got married quite young to a lovely man. The marriage didn't last very long at all, but we did try to have a baby and we didn't succeed that And I wasn't sure whose problem was. He was Type one diabetes diabetic, so I thought perhaps it might have been that I didn't realize at the time I had endometriosis, and it wasn't until the later, I think my mid thirties, perhaps that I got together with my current husband, who say current like, I'm going to get a new one. He's on notice. But he and I tried. He's in the book, that's right, he's in print. He's got his own chapter.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: He's very proud of that.
00:02:34
Speaker 2: Yes, but you called him mister Libby. He was fine with it. So he and I tried within a couple of years of being together, and we the first pregnancy that we had, we got pregnant straight away. So as we started trying, and that was a corner elect topic pregnancy which was on the outside of my uterus, and that actually it rotted my uterus, and I didn't know that I had it at the time. I just thought I was pregnant. And by the time I got to hospital with that, I was in a bit of trouble because it had been decaying. So I had cesarean surgery to remove that. And then we thought, well, that was easy to get pregnant that time, we'll try again, and it was just followed by ten more losses.
00:03:14
Speaker 1: Well it wasn't diagnosed well. And there's a theme throughout the book. You're not overly happy with the medical profession. It's about as best as I can put it.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: Some Yeah, well look, not all doctors, but some I had a difficult experience with. And I will admit that I should have been a lot more educated about my own body and about the things that can happen when you lose a pregnancy. But I don't think many of us do know that stuff. I had no idea how many types of miscarriage there were. I didn't know quite how difficult it actually is to get pregnant. When I was in high school and we did sex education, I thought that you just had to stand near painous to get pregnant. I didn't realize that it's actually not that easy.
00:03:56
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of unintended pregnancy.
00:03:59
Speaker 2: That's true, is true, But I guess the older you get, you know, and the harder it is to have a baby. And I think I thought that was a little bit nonsense in a way. But I learned. I learned a lot, and I learned a lot more when I was writing this book, and I thought, gosh, I wish I knew all that at the time.
00:04:15
Speaker 1: Can we go back to the start. I mean, a lot of your awareness comes from your childhood, how your raised mum and dad's discussion about sex education, schools and the like. When'd you grow up?
00:04:28
Speaker 2: I grew up in Canberra, spent a few years in Papua New Guinea, back to Canberra and then to Adelaid when I was fourteen.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Well that's a story. You can't just skip over that.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: That's a good one of that.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: So what did your dad or mum? What was the mum who went?
00:04:43
Speaker 2: Well? Actually, they went on a holiday. So dad's an accountant, mum's a teacher. Both retired now, but they went on a holiday because dad's sister lived over there. Her husband was He worked for s or one of the big companies over it. Yeah, and so they had a really lovely, like huge place I live, Yeah, La Papa ne Guinea. So we went over there for a holiday and my parents said, we really love this and they decided to move there.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: So what year was that? It was after independence?
00:05:11
Speaker 2: I guess it was Gosh, that would have been nineteen eighty one, which is weird because I'm only twenty five. But no, it was about early eighties and it was great. It was gorgeous at the time.
00:05:25
Speaker 1: I don't want to aid you, but how old were you then when you went.
00:05:28
Speaker 2: I reckon I was four. I had my fifth birthday when we got there.
00:05:30
Speaker 1: I remember it, okay, yeah, so it was a land of privilege for you, moment day with the servants, and.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was. And then a few years later it started to get a bit rough and a bit difficult, and so they took us back to Canberra.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: Then okay, well, so what was for you were old enough to realize that it was getting a bit unpleasant, a bit tense.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: Were you, Yeah? Yeah, And I think all of my friends were leaving as well at the time, so you had to wonder why. And yeah, parents, did you.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: Work for up there?
00:06:02
Speaker 2: You know, Price Waterhouse I reckon at the time. Yeah, and mum taught at the local primary school that we went to.
00:06:09
Speaker 1: Did you have friends of all races?
00:06:11
Speaker 2: Yeah? I was a racial minority in that class, and it was a it was a bit of a surprit of a shock to the system when I went back to Canberra and I was like, we're all white. This is odd. I felt, yeah, very strange because yeah, we didn't so very.
00:06:26
Speaker 1: Observe Papoiguinna now and then contemplate the plight of the population that it seems so lawless and corrupt. I mean, do you make those observations.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: It makes me sad. It was it was such a beautiful haven when I was there, but I mean I was living in absolute privilege, so there was that. Yeah, it's it's really really sad. It's such a gorgeous place. And I do feel a real affiliation with the Tropics now because of the three or four years that I lived there when I was a kid.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: I did the Kakoda track a few years ago with the group, and the one thing look apart from our heart it was but that was by the way, the beauty, the beauty of the well, the mountainous centre that we traversed. But and you'd like to go back there, but everything you hear about at the moment is so negative.
00:07:15
Speaker 2: It's scary. Though. Did you feel safe there?
00:07:17
Speaker 1: We definitely felt safe. In fact, they told us not to come. The hotel was in a compound and they told us not to go out. But a couple we had to get some equipment from a hardware store, so we did wander around a little bit. But they advised you very seriously not to do that. But no, I didn't. We didn't feel threatened. There was quite a bit group of us. So that sort of made it a bit easier. So you come back to Australia, settle back into this all white pretty much.
00:07:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Canberra cold.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: So what ambition do you grow up with?
00:07:51
Speaker 2: What ambition?
00:07:52
Speaker 1: What ambition?
00:07:52
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a performer, I want always, yeah, always, I wanted to be on the stage. I wanted to be a writer. And then yeah, my parents, I was a bit march. I was a bit much as a child. I was very easily distracted, a bit naughty, very just yeah, I couldn't sit still. I was a rat bag. So they put me into drama classes. They went, yeah, this is where I belong and it was it was great. I loved that and I want to do that all the time. It's not as easy to get into it as I thought at the time.
00:08:28
Speaker 1: So you finish high school and you go into a a tertiary.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: I didn't finish high school. I dropped year eleven and I did a hospitality course. I dropped. I was a bit. I was chaos and I'm only about four years ago. I was diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, which spoke everything makes sense now. That might be the next book if I get round to writing it. So I did hospitality for a few years and then I thought, oh no, I want to be I want to do more to use my brain walks. Was hospitalities fine, it was a lifestyle.
00:09:05
Speaker 1: That's just waitressing. Yeah, I don't mean just wait but I was.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: Working bars and I was running, you know, I was working clubs and bars and stuff. So it was a late nights and not healthy living. So I went to UNI. I became a teacher, and I think that's that's where I really found myself in that. I became a drama teacher so I could I could be immersed in that as well as I love working with kids and helping kids, and that was really fun. I enjoyed that.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: And of course you're an author as well, and your latest book is about a really serious topic. We're trying to make some levity of it. I don't know whether that's appropriate or not, but we'll see how that progresses. Libby Trainer Parker is my guest in the studio. Book is called a Common Misconception. It's about miscarriage, infertility and the grief associated with those issues. Back half the break, I guess in the studio, folks, if you've just tuned in. Is a lady called Libby Train or Parker? I keep getting his train, But you had a park maiden name.
00:10:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I already had a surnames when I married him. I thought I don't need his because I already had one. But it was actually he's got two daughters from a previous marriage and we were talking about it and they said they quite like me to have their name as well. So popped it in the middle.
00:10:23
Speaker 1: It rolls off the tongue easily, doesn't Libby Train or Parga. But don't call you Elizabeth.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: But don't call me Elizabeth. No, I hate it. Only get Elizabeth if I'm in trouble or you know, getting one of those letters that you don't want with a fine on it. Yeah, never been Elizabeth. People have tried to call me Lizzie. That's just what my parents called me when I was younger, and for some reason, it's just one of those things that I've really hung on to that I don't like being Elizabeth much of a being Libby.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, son, people who called you Elizabeth, But as I read in the book, you just ignore people.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: Well, you know what they say, what's your name? And then what's your preferred name?
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Okay?
00:11:10
Speaker 2: And if you say if you get them preferred name, but they still call you. The other day it was like, why did I write it? What did I bother? Do you have a name that you don't like being called?
00:11:20
Speaker 1: I actually do? Yeah, what is that going to tell you?
00:11:25
Speaker 2: I'm not going to use it against you? But other people might.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: People say grey gray, grey gray, and I hate that.
00:11:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, is it crazy or greg grey? Yeah? Okay, So now.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to be caol. You know what, Listen is going to ring up.
00:11:39
Speaker 2: And he loves it. Don't call him that. He loves it.
00:11:43
Speaker 1: Okay. So your drama teacher and you get married, you don't try and conceive the first time for this lovely guy who I guess you divorced.
00:11:52
Speaker 2: Him, You lovely guy. I did divorce him. Yeah, I was too young to be married and he deserves better than me. To you, I hope he's very happy. He's a lovely guy. Jumped into him once on the street and we were polite to each other. But no, it's been a long time. We don't move in the same circles. But he is very lovely and I hope he's doing really really, well.
00:12:19
Speaker 1: You should have told me that my my own business.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: Question an open book. You've got it right in front of you. Agent.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: It's a serious it is a serious book. So you you try to conceive and you can't. But you probably don't think initially that it's anything unusual. You deal with the pain and the torment, but it's not grief at this stage. Is a grief Not.
00:12:44
Speaker 2: At that stage. I think I just thought, well, obviously that wasn't meant to happen. All meant to be. We weren't meant to be parents together. We split up anyway. We actually, if we want to get deep into this way, we split up because I got held up at NiFe point and I was working in a convenience store and I got held up on a Sunday morning. I was working on my own. The young guy came in and he kept going around and picking things up off the shelf and then putting them down and going to get more and putting them down. And I was really kind to him because I thought, I don't know, there was something wrong, good sense, there was something wrong. And then I started to get annoyed because he was being annoying. He was coming back, going and he was working up the courage to hold me up. I didn't realize that. So it was when I dropped my kindness and I looked away and I dropped that eye contact with him that he ran around the side of the counter and held me up with a knife, the kitchen knife.
00:13:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are you feeling?
00:13:45
Speaker 2: I was panicking because we've always been told when you work in customer service, just press the no sail button and stand back from the till. But because he'd brought all these things, there was a coke at Mars Bar. He asked for a pack of cigarettes, and I'd scanned them, so when I was pressing no sack, I couldn't open it till because there was a sale. So I had to think really quickly, just put it a dollar amount, pretend that he's paid, and then and then pulled the cash draw open and stand back. But all of that was annoying him. He was getting angry, and so he was, you know, pushing the knife a little. We didn't cut me, but he was right up against me, and so I had to just think on my feet. I was quite proud of myself because I survived. But I stood back and he took the money and off he went.
00:14:27
Speaker 1: Wherebouts what's that?
00:14:29
Speaker 2: There was a convenience store on Hut Street.
00:14:31
Speaker 1: In Haut Street the city.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: Now I live near that, Now I can go in there now he never used to be able to. Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, did they catch the guy.
00:14:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did because he was staying at the backpackets. He was an English backpacker who ran out of money, so he thought he'd come in and try his luck. So he took the money. It wasn't much. It was a Sunday morning, and apparently he had wanted to do it the night before, but he chickened out, and so he came in. It was ten thirty on a Sunday morning. You just wouldn't think that happened. I've got some lovely people who were coming in and buying the paper and carton and milk and saying good morning. When this guy comes in and it was just me and him in the door, and he waited to do that. So he was a backpacker. He took the money to the casino, so he was on all of the cameras and everything, and the police amazing, and they went to all of the backpackers in the area. Because I thought we reckon, this is this guy's backpacker, and.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: Think that did he speak to you? And so?
00:15:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jack so, and he just I think because there was backpack of places on the street, they thought they know what they're doing, so they went in there and he'd stolen from a whole heap of other people. So they were pretty quick to throw him under the bus and say this is you know did you have no he That was resolved pretty quickly. They got him, they charged him, they sent him home. Yeah, he did his time.
00:15:52
Speaker 1: Did he go to jail here?
00:15:54
Speaker 2: And I think so, I don't think he's I don't know. I think I remember he got locked up. And the only thing I remember from it is that that he wanted to tell them to say sorry to me. And that really annoyed me because I didn't get a right of reply.
00:16:11
Speaker 1: What would you have said?
00:16:13
Speaker 2: I think I would have asked him why, And I think I also would have probably told him if he brought in his resume, we probably would have given him a job rather than his knife.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be asked to you, his apologies to be passed on to him.
00:16:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so did his parents. They wanted me to know that they were sorry. Yeah, it did, but I just, I guess in a weird way, I wanted to know that he was okay, and I wanted to tell him to make better choices. That was where I was at. But what that has to do with my marriage at the time is that I pulled myself away from everything and shut myself off a lot, and so the marriage went Yeah to pot after that.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: Because I so, how old were you then?
00:16:57
Speaker 2: Twenty three? I think, yeah.
00:17:00
Speaker 1: So you're still teaching that or a.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: Bit not much because I'm an entertainer now, so I say rude words.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: And that stage you were still then?
00:17:07
Speaker 2: Was it Uni? Yeah, that's why I was working in the convenience still. So I had a couple of different jobs. Yeah, so I was. I was working. I was at UNI then starting to be a teacher.
00:17:16
Speaker 1: So when do you branch out into this difficult world of comedy. I can't imagine what it's like to stand on stage and and be a stand up comedian, like.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what it's like to play football. So when you did that, like you know, it's one of those things that if you got it, you do it.
00:17:35
Speaker 1: Where was your first gig?
00:17:37
Speaker 2: It was actually at what was the Promethean And it was it was a charity thing. I've been doing a lot of cabaret comedy, so I hadn't done stand up specifically.
00:17:49
Speaker 1: Act like a skip.
00:17:51
Speaker 2: Songs songs and yeah, my husband and I write songs together, so we were doing cabaret shows for fringe, funny songs. Funny songs. Yeah. That actually came about because of the first pregnancy loss. So we started. We watched a lot of TV because we were at home a lot because I was recovering from had cesarean surgery for that that ectopic pregnancy, so I had a lot of time at home. So we started binge watching TV. And at the time, it was when you'd go to the video store and you'd borrow box sets. So we started doing that and.
00:18:23
Speaker 1: Just bing We had to rent them in our day, Yeah.
00:18:27
Speaker 2: You rent them, Yeah, and pay for them. Yeah, I've eve forgotten how to do it. I had to read them, you know. So we would binge watch and then we'd make up silly songs to them and sing them to each other. And we thought this was really funny, and Matt said, let's do a show.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: Do you use original music or do you do it just do standard tunes and put your own lyrics to it.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: We used to do parody songs, so we used to do it to songs that people knew and that was really fun. And then we started writing originals, so.
00:18:58
Speaker 1: Now we runs it always worked.
00:19:01
Speaker 2: We wrote a song you know, the day the music died, American Pie. Yeah, And it was at the time where Breaking Bad was huge, and so we wrote this song that was because why why Why did Heisenberg die? It was all about and I had written about every season of the show.
00:19:21
Speaker 1: So if you didn't watch Breaking Bad, you didn't get it.
00:19:23
Speaker 2: You didn't get it. But also if you want to didn't want spoilers you.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: My guest on Conversations is Libby Trainer Parker, and we're skirting all around the issue because it's a really serious issue of surviving miscarriage in fatality and the grief associated with losing a child and doing it repeatedly. Libby's had eleven miscarriages. It's too terrible thing to contemplate. Actually, back after the break folks, Welcome back everybody. If you've just tuned in, My guest in the studio is Libby train or Parker. Trainer is a married name Parker is a maiden name. She's combined both of them, as a lot of people do. She's having an interesting life as a teacher, a comedian, a singer, an author. But the topic is really serious because Libby's had eleven miscarriages in trying to conceive a child off her own. You described the first one, that ectopic pregnancy that you had, and it's just it's just so well, I don't I want to use the word gruesome, but I don't know whether it's appropriate, but that's the word that comes to mind when you've felt and apparently when they were operating inside it look because you had to have something like a cesarean section to ease it. And they say that your you to have said deteriorated.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Back it turned blue. Yeah, it deteriorated and it was decaying, is what he said. Yeah, he said he had to tie it up and had to cut the corner off it. So that was was going to cause issues later on if I if I had multiple births, for example, that would have been tricky. I would have had to be induced at early because my uterus was not a complete uterus after having the corner of.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: It, whether in that situation, you still could conceive.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously they had a history where where it had not you had, but it had.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Been Yeah, they said it was possible. Yeah yeah, And I was willing to take that chance at the time. Yeah, but I just kept trying to have a baby, and I never thought for a second that I wouldn't yeh Ever, and I still I still get shocked. I still can't believe that I didn't.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: One becomes two, two becomes three, three becomes By that stage, you're becoming disincharted, no more than disincharged, devastated. I would have thought.
00:21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I didn't really stop to think about how devastated I was. I think I was just counting days until the next time we could try again, or just you know, getting through, or you know, all the things that we were trying to do at the time. I was also becoming a performer, so I had that to look forward to. Matt daughters are just beautiful human beings, so I was enjoying life with them and then just trying to have a baby. And then, yeah, I guess it. After quite a few hits, it was bringing me down. I was getting angry, but I just didn't I thought the next one would be the one.
00:22:16
Speaker 1: You weren't diagnosed with the demetriosis until you were in your mid thirties. Why was that? Why not?
00:22:23
Speaker 2: I don't know. I had my appendix removed when I was about twenty one or twenty two because I was in pain, bright pain, and I actually collapsed on the floor of the doctor surgery and they whisked me off to because I was actually living in the snowfields at the time, doing a season.
00:22:40
Speaker 1: Over there White False Creek.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: Or in Genderbne. So yeah, New South Wales parish of Blue So I was up at Blue Cow Mountain and I was running the bistro there, so that was good fun. And then yeah, I woke up in really bad pain, passed out on the floor of the doctor surgery, and they took me off to Kuma, the big smoke, to have surgery. They just said, it's your appendix because this payment.
00:23:04
Speaker 1: I would have known when they took your appendix out that if it wasn't inflamed.
00:23:07
Speaker 2: They So what the doctor said was I've just taken out the most beautiful, healthy, pink, squishy appendix. Nothing wrong with that. And I said, what's wrong with me? Then? And he said, you've probably just got in Nickers in a twist over something.
00:23:20
Speaker 1: He said that.
00:23:21
Speaker 2: He said that.
00:23:22
Speaker 1: Throughout the book is there's this theme of medical incompetence. Now that's not your words. You haven't put anything in writing that's going to defame the doctor whom I have. But there's that theme that I suspect, this issue of medical incompetence or disinterest.
00:23:39
Speaker 2: Maybe dismissal, gas lighting, all of those things. I think there's aye. I'm not the only one who's had those experiences. The other people I spoke to in the book also had very similar experiences.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: So when was the end demetriosis? How was that diagnosed?
00:23:56
Speaker 2: That was diagnosed after the cornerlact topic. So after I had that cesarean surgery, I was in so much pain, more pain than ever. And I've been going to doctors all of that time since that, you know, the appending's removal, and I've always had pain. But every time I went to the doctor, they said it was anxiety, it was stress, it was depression, it was you're bored, any of those things, anything other than it was potentially a cycle thing. So yeah, I went kept going back to the doctor after the corner lact topic and I said, I'm in so much pain. I think you've left your scalpel in me or something like I mean. And he said, you're grieving again again. It's in my head. You know you're grieving, or you know you're healing. We did a lot of work in there. It was a big operation, which is true, and I was grieving. Yes, that's also true, but this was so physical. And I said, no, no, I really need you to help me with this one. This is I'm not right. And he said, fine, okay, I'm going to have a ride in and said fine, he said, and I think he went a fine and he said, I'll do an operation, but we're not going to find anything. And after that operation, he came into my hospital room and he said, I have never seen so much endometriosis. It was everywhere, so this is like it was incredible. He was excited. His eyes lit up, but he couldn't believe it. He said it was going up my urators, up to my kidneys. So he said yeah. He said it was a bit scary. He thought he'd have to put a stint in because there was so much of it and it would just like it would have been growing wild for years.
00:25:32
Speaker 1: So there's no real cure for there isn't so what about relief?
00:25:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's things you can do. I mean, you can have surgery, but the more surgeries you have sometimes the more pain you can be in. So I tend to not have so many. I think I've had three or four and he directed me. Also doesn't cure it. It can also like ause, you get chronic pervict pain in the end.
00:25:55
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:25:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so no, there is pain relief. I don't like taking painkillers terribly. I find it makes it worse sort of sense.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: What makes it worse when the pain, when the pain relief wears off, I would think, Yeah, so where are you at now with the endometrio system.
00:26:14
Speaker 2: It's been a while since I had my last surgery, so I'm probably due for another one. I might have the big one and just have it all taken out, just evict it because it's not doing any good anyway. What's the big one, hysterectomy, Get it out, that.
00:26:30
Speaker 1: Will fix it down.
00:26:31
Speaker 2: Well, it might give some relief. Maybe some people find that it really helps them. Some people don't.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: There's so much more awareness about it, and I think young girls, well young teenage postmens through being diagnosed and does that help early early interventions so much?
00:26:48
Speaker 2: And I'm thrilled to bits that they are being helped a lot more than we were told. It's just your lot, you know, It's just what you deal with as a girl. My mum had really bad period pain. My sister did as well, so it was just that's that's what we deal with. So when I was diagnosed, I actually got together with the Pelvic Pain Foundation of Australia because they looked like they were going to do some stuff in education. So I said, hey, do you want me? At the time, I was a speech writer in parliament. I left teaching, had am i teaching contacts and I also had parliamentary contacts, and I'd been working in media. I was a domb my journalism degree by that. So I said, I've got these skills. Do you want me? And I said yes. So we wrote PEP Talk, which is period's painted edmetriosis program. We lobbied the government state in federal and it's now national so it goes out to schools. It's a free schools program to educate people, boys and girls.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: And what sort of percentage of the young ladies reporting with it.
00:27:42
Speaker 2: When I started doing this, it was one in ten people ten women had endemetriosis. Now we're down to it's one in seven. So there's more and more people who are being diagnosed. It's not that there's more and more people who have it, it's just that they are getting diagnosed now.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: I should make you wonder, going back fifty sixty, seventy eighty ninety, one hundred years, what sort of pain that women had to endure?
00:28:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just got on with it, I guess.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: But just is the historical knowledge about it how far?
00:28:14
Speaker 2: How yeah it's been It's it's kind of scattered with it. More in the sixties was when it became a bit more prominent people that they put a name to it and started doing things about it. But yeah, it's actually on papyrates talking about period pain. So yeah, so's there's actually record of people talking about pelvic pain and uterous pain way back then, but just not enough. And I think that that's you know, that's a women's health thing, isn't it.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: My guest today our conversation is Elizabeth Training, Great Gray Libby Trainer. Parker's my guest. She's written about those almor it's a common misconception. More about the serious sitting when I'm both serious, but the issue of miscarriage and infertility. Back after the break, folks, I'm speaking today with Libby train Or Parker. Do not call her Elizabeth out in the break. I can't do that. And she's written about miscarriages and infertility and the grief associated with that. The book's called a common Misconception, Surviving Miscarriage, Infertility and Grief. And Libby's had to do that eleven times. When did you give up? I mean, I've asked obvious, after eleven times, you've given up?
00:29:26
Speaker 2: I gave up at ten and then it fell pregnant again and lost that at ten. By ten, I actually had found a doctor that I loved, and she said that she thought she could really help me have a baby, and she was across all the best things in fertility, and she's at the top of her game, and I trusted that she could. She was so confident that it would happen. So we were about to start IVF. And because I've got something called antiposphilipid antibodies, which means that and I've got this, sometimes a uterus might throw out foreign matter. So you've got something in your body that thinks anything that goes into it shouldn't be there. And so I was miscarrying that and I didn't find that out until quite late. She said, no, we can actually do something to you know, with an IV trip and we can build a lining for you. And I think we can do this, and she was so so great, but we're about to start the IVF and I just said, I need to stop. I can't do this. And I find when I tell fertility doctors that, because sometimes I speak at conferences, they just can't believe it. They're like, but you had your chance, And I said, yeah, but I just needed to control something. I think. I think that's why I just couldn't do it. I was tired, so tired, My body was tired, Matt was tired. We just do you regret that now? No? No, because then I said I want to be a foster parent, and Matt said, so do I, and we just blurted it out and we registered to be foster parents the next day, went through the training, which took about almost two years, and now we have a foster son. He's seven.
00:31:11
Speaker 1: Do you find the female obstetricians or specialists a bit more compassionate understanding than the male ones.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: Not really, I've got I think I've had good about him him both. Yeah, not really. I think because my gynecologist at the moment, he is incredible. He's so highly skilled and he's excellent, and I really really like him. So yeah, not really. It was sort of wasn't gendered for me. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't care if I went to a male or a female doctor as long as they had a degree and they could help me. So yeah, it wasn't so much gendered. I know.
00:31:49
Speaker 1: People should read the book and there's little not I want to say, hints, instructions, I suppose, guidelines of what to do and how to handle it. I was taken by one chapter, the accidental.
00:32:04
Speaker 2: Orgy is that.
00:32:10
Speaker 1: Said, what on earth is an orgy has got to do with the book on miscarriaging?
00:32:16
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's all about trying to get pregnant. I was not really, No, no, just.
00:32:22
Speaker 1: Now there's such things.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: That thing that was about setting boundaries, and that part in the book is about yeah, learning to say no, one's setting boundaries. So I when I first started my business as a copywriter and in media. I thought, I really want to learn how to set some boundaries. I want to learn more about being stronger, because I kept getting clients that wouldn't pay and I just wasn't tough enough, and I wanted to learn some new skills, and so I looked around for some training and this this workshop came up that was about about setting boundaries and consent and things like that, and I thought, well, that's interesting. And I will say that I said earlier, I do get very easily distracted. I didn't really read past the first paragraph, didn't read the fine print. The fine print would have said that it was actually it was a workshop, but the workshop was something you had to attend before you attended a sex party, an orgy.
00:33:24
Speaker 1: Yea, they have such things.
00:33:26
Speaker 2: They have such things. I don't know what I thought it was. I thought it was business professional development. I didn't know. So we went along and because I contacted the person who was running it, and she said, did you bring your husband? And I was like, what a good idea? Because he was helping me out with the business. I thought that's great. We can both learn about what an excellent idea. So we both went along and we met. There were a lot of couples there. This is wonderful. They were very friendly, really friendly, really friendly. Have you done this before? And I thought, well, you know, as a teachers we had to do a lot of professional development. Were oh, yes, we do this all the time. This time, we do this all the time. And then and then they started talking about how to put in place some really good boundaries and how if you do if you do something because you think it's important to you, then it's not really beneficial to somebody else, or if you're trying to do it because you think they want it. So if I do if I is something nice for you because I think that you want that, but you don't really want that, and I get mad that you that's not really serving anyone, is it. So and that's what she talked about, which I thought was really interesting because you.
00:34:43
Speaker 1: Know, I've still applied to your profession.
00:34:45
Speaker 2: It did. So it was actually really really good and I got a lot out of it. We didn't attend the orgy because we were busy with the kids on the weekend, but I learned a lot about that and it's one of the things we put into a relationship where instead of you know. We Yeah, we don't make muck around with that.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: We'll move on. We'll move on. Dialogue seems important. Dialogue when you're speaking to somebody who has suffered a miscarriage or enduring it. What do you mean by the dialogue? I mean you're talking to some people make as I read it for some people, make try it comments, Well, it wasn't meant to be. You know, how important is that dialogue when.
00:35:23
Speaker 2: You because we don't tend to we don't really know what to say to people who are grieving. We don't we know to say, I'm sorry for your loss, but you don't really know what to say next and what that person needs.
00:35:35
Speaker 1: And this can be anything, It could be anything.
00:35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, just ask them what they need or if you if you can't help them, then you can tell them. I don't have the capacity for much at the moment, but if there's something I can do to help you, then let me know. It's it's hard because we don't really have the language to talk.
00:35:55
Speaker 1: Did you want people to acknowledge that you suffered or we happy for them to go there and you go your way. Was it important for you that they acknowledged your grief?
00:36:05
Speaker 2: Dependent on the situation. If I knew them, yes, if I didn't know them, you know, I was happy to not talk about it so much, especially when it came to unsolicited advice and people say, oh, yeah, my aunt usually had this many mischaracters and she's got six kids now, and you think we're good for her. Thanks helped.
00:36:24
Speaker 1: It's not funny.
00:36:27
Speaker 2: I got that, got that quite a lot. Yeah, people are just trying to help, you know, Oh, you should see this doctor, you should do this, or why don't you just why don't you just was always why don't you just go on holiday? Why don't you just stop trying?
00:36:42
Speaker 1: So I could really say, like it really says, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't know what to say next though, I'm sorry.
00:36:50
Speaker 2: That's really shitty. Sorry, I am I allowed to say that.
00:36:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're allowed to say it. There's anything I can do, just let me know, but you're not going to ask me.
00:37:00
Speaker 2: See that's perfect, Graham, that's perfect to say that, you're not really not going to ask, but you know, just know that I can do it if you want. Yeah, that's perfect.
00:37:10
Speaker 1: You're right in the book, Libby that there's three things I needed when I was living through loss. Can you tell me what they are? Do we have to buy the book?
00:37:17
Speaker 2: You have to buy the book? Well, you can tell me what they are. I can't remember what I say.
00:37:21
Speaker 1: It's basic stuff. Be a nice person, acknowledge their loss, listen to them, and give them what they need.
00:37:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's what Pink Elephants Support Network stamp for. So Sam Paying started that and they've been going for ten years and so she builds everything around those three pillars, and I think that is incredible. So she's doing so much work.
00:37:42
Speaker 1: So acknowledge their loss, listen to them, give them what they need. Yeah. How can I give you what you need?
00:37:49
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on what people. Do I need space? Do I need resources? Do I need you to come around with a bottle of red wine and some soft cheese and shellfish that I'm not allowed to have when I'm pregnant. No, I don't advise that you do. My one of my very very good friends would come around and she'd give me all that kind of pregnancy contraband when I'd have a loss, to bring around the soft stinky cheese and the deli meats and gorgeous selves on that.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: I listened to the means listen to them. And so I'm asking you what you need. I'm sorry if you're lost what you need? What can I do? So you listen and then make sure you do it.
00:38:32
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, do you want to talk about it or do you need some space? Are you feeling like you want to vent about things? Do you want me to go to an appointment with you? Or are you happy to sit and watch Telly together?
00:38:44
Speaker 1: And they talk about the three pillars validation, empathy, and connection. Validating that it's.
00:38:53
Speaker 2: Seriing to you.
00:38:54
Speaker 1: You can't just dismiss it flippantly like some people don't.
00:38:58
Speaker 2: So validating your grief is real, that your loss is important. And because some people will say how far along were you? And if you're only a few weeks a long, they'll go, oh, that's that's okay. Then it's not okay. So that grief is real and those feelings are important.
00:39:14
Speaker 1: Not everyone grieve's a miscarriage, Sam says Sam from Big Elephants. You can't assume everybody's going to feel profound grief, and not everyone experiences grief straight away. How did your grief manifest itself?
00:39:28
Speaker 2: Because I didn't sort of stop to grieve and acknowledge every loss. Because I just kept going. I realized at the end just how much grief I had actually gathered along the way, which then kind of became trauma actually because I didn't work through it at all. So I say quite a lot in the book. Please stop, acknowledge you and validate those feelings.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: But don't be flippant about it.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm flippant sometimes, but those feelings are deep, and connecting with people is so so important to about it. Talk to people who understand and who greet the same as you. I guess because not everybody grieves it that some people grieve really deeply.
00:40:08
Speaker 1: So what do you hope to achieve by the publishing of this book? What do you hope to achieve from it?
00:40:14
Speaker 2: I hope that it can be the resource for other people that I needed. I've gotten what I want, what I needed. I wrote this book, and I just feel so much lighter now that it's out there. It was really cathartic for me. It was great therapy for me to write.
00:40:32
Speaker 1: So every mother of young young girls or girls come approaching puberty, and it's almost as though they should read the book.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like it to be shared. And it's one of those books that you can flick through. You don't need to read it cover to cover. You can read the bits that you want when you want. And I think what a lot of people that I spoke to said was it that they wish that they'd known what a miscarriage was going to look like. And I wish I had too, because the doctor would just say, it's a non viable pregnancy. I'm really sorry, Off you go. It should pass through in a week or two and give us a call if it gets scary, and that's all you get. And that's what I had so many times, and it always it's always scary, and every time it was different. So I didn't know what it was supposed to look like. Once I had a DNC and they left pregnancy matter and me and I went toxic and I got very very ill. So I didn't know that, and I would like to know that kind of thing, and I would like other people to be able to know that so they can keep themselves safe.
00:41:33
Speaker 1: And the book describes that the book it is called a common misconception Surviving Miscarriage in Fertility and Grief Libby train Or Parker Elizabeth, we are friends.
00:41:45
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Greg Gray.
00:41:47
Speaker 1: Libby train Or Parker was my guest. Folks, thank you for joining us.
