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This is a Global Player

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original podcast. Welcome

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to this episode of Dirty Mother Pucker. I'm

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your host Anna Whitehouse, the founder of Mother

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Pucker. And it is, who is it? Polly

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Hazelwood. There she is. I am here. Say

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your name, say your name. Coming

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up, we're going to be talking

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to the brilliant Shakira Akaboosi. She's

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going to be talking about the

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pre- the post-natal period. That moment

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where you feel like you're losing

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control, losing maybe your

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mind, losing yourself a bit. How to

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get back to yourself, how to find

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that resilience, that strength. So

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I have been quite angry

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of late. You know this, right?

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Quite, quite angry. Just like, and I

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said to Polly the other day, I said, I'm

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just feeling the weight of the world at the

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moment. Like it's all just a bit much. I

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feel like I'm sort of sharing that weight a

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little bit with you. Totally. A little bit. Hand in

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the air. And I said to

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Polly the other day, I was quite, you

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know, I'd like to say self-reflective of my

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mood of late. And I said, I

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feel like one of those wind-up toys, you know, just

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wind it up and it's just hurtling towards a cliff

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edge. And Polly just went

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too over eagerly. Yeah, absolutely. That's how you

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are. Yeah, that's exact. And I looked at

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her and I was like, sorry, you agree too much

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there? She's like, no, no, no, not at all, not

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at all. My boyfriend said at the moment, you're a

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little bit like, you know, there's

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radiators that's sort of whistling and you just ease the

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tension. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was like. Again, do

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we think that's a good parallel to draw? No, I

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don't think it is. Looking at it, he goes, oh,

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I'm taking it back. Take it back. No, as you

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were, as you were. I love

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how he is now in your life. Yeah,

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he actually rings you up and goes, I've made a massive

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mistake with this one. I'm like, babe, you're on

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your own now. Yeah, you've got this. I've passed the

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bat on and you're all right. It's part of your

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training. Yeah, just take those stabilizers off and I'll give

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you a big old push and off you go. You'll

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be fine. She's not coming back to me. No, never.

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But the thing is the subtext of all of this

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I went to bed two nights ago

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and I had a dream where

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I lived. It's actually a great dream I hate

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people talking about their dreams normally, but just bear

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with me I had

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a dream that I moved into a commune

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with a friend Mimi Polly and a couple

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of others and We

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moved in this commune. It was beautiful Like

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luscious grounds amazing house like

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everything was working beautifully and

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I just said to Polly, would you mind plucking

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the carrots from the patch? Could you just could

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you just get some carrots? We need them for dinner. I Asked

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Polly about 20 times in my dream She

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could get the carrots from the patch and

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the carrot didn't materialize. I woke up honestly

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see like see this see thing Yeah, I

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can't I couldn't get the rage. It was

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like a mist and I said God

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she never got the carrots. Well,

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yeah, you're so seething You sent

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me a voice note about this

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dream and how absolutely furious you were

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with me I was like I felt like I'd done

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so I felt I had to go and take myself

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onto the naughty step Like I felt like I'd literally

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done something wrong. What did let me just listen back

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to that Telling I hope you

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well. I love you so much. It's

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I had a really intense dream last night that

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All of the good ones, you know, like

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you Al me me me I

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mean that's pretty much it There's

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a whole group of us who moved into

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a commune, you know the commune near where

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you live in suffer the detail I thought

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we moved in and I got

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so much rage at the moment. I

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woke up utterly furious with

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you like See things

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You hadn't Put the heritage

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carrots out of the patch Heritage

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carrots And I was

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like, please, we're not gonna have carrots In

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my dream I was going, please, where are

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the carrots? This is about four minutes

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bro Four minute message Like

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me just Sorry. Yeah, that's

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right. Obviously, that's not true. And

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you would have always contributed to

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the carrot retrieval. I know

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that. So she's to clear the

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air on that one on a dream that you weren't part

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of. And I love you. Thank you

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for that. I love you. I love you. Can

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I say I get messages like that on

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a daily basis, like 12 minute messages.

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Right. I've really, really, really furious with you

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last night. And here is all the reasons

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why in a message. And anyway,

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I do love you now. And that's part.

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But you know, like when I said I rang up

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to say, sorry for being so angry at you, I

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was still so angry with you all day. I

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couldn't shake it. I know you can't.

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I'm still angry with you. Look, I

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don't think I've lift. It's not lifted.

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I think there's always a bit of

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anger in you towards me, like always.

4:52

Yeah. It's just always there. And it's OK. Yeah.

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We can breathe through it. Did I tell you my dream about

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you? No. My God,

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I can't really tell you this. So we were

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in a tiny little house with patio outside. Very

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different to my grandiose mansion. I'm

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dreaming of. Yeah. With heritage carrots. And no,

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little patio outside. And I dug it up

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and I put you inside it and then

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I buried you. What?

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That's the end. Buried you under the patio.

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When was this? Oh, it was after the

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dream about your heritage carrots. You're

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so dark. Beware. So

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we've got Shakira coming up, Shakira Akaboosi,

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and I can't wait to talk to

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her because she speaks so

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much sense about that postnatal period where,

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you know, you just handed a baby.

5:47

Oh, my God. Zero roadmap. And you're

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like, good luck. So if you go,

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what am I supposed to do with

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this? And you're kind of OK

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for the first 24 hours because

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your hormones are so. that

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it kind of propels you into motherhood. Well, it's

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like that surge of adrenaline, isn't it? You don't

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know, well, you don't know at that stage what

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is going to happen from the following day onwards.

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Like you have no idea. So you're sort of

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just riding the adrenaline wave and it's all very

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exciting. And then you wake up and it's like,

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oh, oh God. This is my reality. It's just

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me and them. That's

6:20

it. Okay, great. I remember waking up

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one morning, two days after

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giving birth, just thinking, I'm fine. Oh my

6:27

God, why is everyone complaining about this? Yeah.

6:30

Good God, I'm fine. Look at me fly. And I said to my partner,

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I was like, I'm just going to walk down the road. I

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literally just had a C-section. I was on high as

6:37

a kite on drugs. And I was like, just going

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to go, do you know what? I

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think my eldest daughter needs a Milky Way. Do

6:44

you know what? This is that thing. So you, I'm surprised you

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didn't get on a Boris bike and decided I knowed. And

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I was sat there in this cafe and

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I remember feeling that first bead of sweat

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like just meandering down my forehead. And

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my reality almost in the sort of, it

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was a really hot day. I

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had stitches, major

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abdominal surgery, which no one really

7:07

recognizes or prepares you for. Can you imagine any

7:09

other surgery where you'd be wheeled out 24 hours,

7:12

that kind of surgery, they'd cut you open like

7:14

a tin can. Oh yeah. You know, two days

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later, I'm a, you know, like with my Frappuccino

7:18

thinking everything's fine. You know, the Milky Way in

7:20

one hand and a baby in the other. And

7:23

suddenly that reality, I remember the sweat came

7:25

on and I started

7:27

thinking, what are you doing here? You

7:30

know, like, it was like, why are

7:32

you here? How did you get here? Are

7:35

you okay? Is this my life or is

7:37

this? Yeah, no, I totally get it. I

7:39

remember going home and we ended up having

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a nurse come back to us. She just

7:43

looked at my mom and I as we

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walking out with these babies. And

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we'd just been given this like five second,

7:50

I mean, honestly, five second tuition about

7:52

how to insert a needle that's about 12

7:54

inches long into your baby should they have

7:56

this particular reaction. And I'm like,

7:59

sorry. what as I'm holding the,

8:01

you know, two car seats and then this

8:03

needle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

8:06

fine. And then anyway, she'd obviously

8:08

picked up on that and she ended up

8:10

such a sweet lady coming home until one

8:12

o'clock in the morning and organizing all our

8:14

medication drawers for us because we had, I

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mean, they had both had like 12 medications

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at the time, but oh my

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Lord, if she hadn't, I don't know what I'd

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have done. Can you imagine me like a walking

8:25

pharmacy disaster? Well, you just

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start losing all sense of

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time and space. You

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know, when people say good night, I

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remember just thinking, sorry, don't anyone, no one dare

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say to me good night, it is good luck.

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That is all I need right now, it is

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good luck. Good luck, you've got this baby. It's

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like you've got you in the sleep sheep in

8:44

one hand, you are shushing like you've never shushed

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before. You are reading everything on the internet about

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why that infant isn't sleeping. And the reality is

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it comes back at you, slaps you in the

8:53

face and go, because you've got a baby. Yeah.

8:55

And the reality is they don't do that.

8:58

There's nothing you can, it's the big thing in

9:00

the middle of that. And then, you know, you

9:03

get that, I think the loneliest

9:05

I've ever felt was when my

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partner was sleeping and I was up with the baby.

9:10

Like, I think that's when I started to,

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I hate saying words like lose your mind,

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so I think it's really not correct terminology,

9:17

but you know, it's a bit

9:19

like saying you need fixing postpartum. It's not you

9:21

need fixing, you need understanding. It's not that you're

9:23

losing your mind, but you are, I think, postnatally

9:26

unraveling somehow. And it felt

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like no one was

9:30

there to qualify those feelings of unraveling. If

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someone had just said, this is what

9:35

you're gonna feel, when I say about a

9:37

roadmap, I'm not talking about the baby, talking

9:40

about the mother. Like, I wanted someone to

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say, you are gonna feel irrational rage towards

9:44

your partner. You are gonna feel completely

9:46

lost and lonely, probably the loneliest you've ever felt, even

9:48

though you're with someone 24 seven. Yeah.

9:51

You are gonna feel exhaustion like you've never felt, but

9:53

it's gonna impact you in that you might not feel

9:55

safe across the road. You know, things

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like that. I just needed a checklist of things.

10:00

I would feel and I didn't feel like I got

10:02

that. I agree with you to an extent, but I

10:04

also think, my God, if anyone told me what was

10:06

in store, I'd have been absolutely terrified. I don't know

10:08

what, yeah, I don't know whether I'm going to do

10:10

that. So you were just more of a head in

10:12

the sand person. I was 100% head in the sand.

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I remember just pouncing. How's that worked out for you,

10:16

mate? You know, it's just how

10:18

I live my life. Denial. Head in sand. Just speak denial. See

10:20

what happens, you know, in the next five minutes. That's kind of

10:22

how I roll. Shall I just say, do you know who I

10:24

want to ask in your life

10:26

about if denial works? Yeah. It's

10:28

your postman. I feel

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there's one person who

10:33

could say, if I went up to him and if

10:35

I just, sorry, what's his name? Do you know? Eddie.

10:38

Let's go with Eddie. Eddie, sorry. You've

10:40

obviously been postman for the last sort of

10:42

years. Just tell us

10:45

a few little snippets, a few little scenes along

10:47

the way that you've come across. Well, I mean,

10:49

back in the trenches, it would have been

10:51

the Amazon guy. That poor guy, I

10:53

mean, he would just... What did he see? Well,

10:56

what didn't he see? He saw it

10:58

all. I never had any clothes on, ever,

11:00

apart from... What knickers? Well, those giant compression

11:02

pants. I had a pair of those giant

11:05

compression pants, but I had those, what do

11:07

you call them? The suckers, the milk suckers.

11:09

What's that called? Breast pump. Yeah. I had

11:11

two of those on attached at all times.

11:13

See, this is where denial doesn't serve you.

11:16

The milk suckers. Even

11:18

non-parents have that down. Breast pump. Okay.

11:20

Well, there's a lot going on. Anyway,

11:23

he would come to the door and he'd

11:25

always have about 15, 16 different sort of

11:27

packages. And I'd just open the door with

11:29

these suction things on my boobs. And

11:32

I'd just be like, just, yeah, anywhere. Put

11:34

them in there. Yeah. Chuck those ones down

11:36

there. Had he felt like, right. Yeah. Yeah.

11:38

Like, yeah. That guy saw it

11:40

all. Sometimes I'd be bouncing on those

11:42

jimbals, you know? And I just have tears

11:44

because it was a lonely time. And the

11:46

tears, I used to think about this suctions

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on the boobs. I'm on

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the breast pump on the boobs. I'm there

11:54

bouncing on this ball. And I'm sort of

11:56

thinking about how the tears are like dripping

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in time with the bounces.