we are just so excited for this conversation we know that you guys have such meaningful stuff
that's going to help our listeners and you guys have just been so open and candid about
what it's been like having a newborn and so we really want to just talk about the real side
of parenthood today and we love that you're both on the podcast so let's start off in those early
postpartum stages you know the ones we don't really talk about as much and just you guys
have been really open about that stage ashley you've talked about the hormonal shifts and how
it's been hard to kind of just come to terms with the body changes and all of that so what would
you say was the hardest during that time or what surprised you most and chris what would you say
how did you support her during those periods yeah i think that i think the most surprising
well i think i've talked about that a little bit on frenchie was that i think it was all
surprising because no one really talks about that period of time everyone like is so excited when
you're pregnant and you put a huge emphasis on the labor and what that's going to be like physically
emotionally you know mentally but no one ever says oh yeah and then after there's like these
two weeks that it's like horrible like worse than the actual labor so i found out about it from a
friend who had just gone through in a couple weeks and she was like just so you know no one
explains this to you but the two weeks postpartum is like horrible and i was like what and so she
explained to me and i had a little bit of like okay like none of my mom friends told me about
this not even my sister like no one talks about this stuff and the uncomfortable stuff
um so i was a little prepared but i think that i also had a really weird symptom that
was um was that i had acid reflux and it was chronic at that point
so i think that was the most surprising that i had a symptom that isn't normal like symptoms i guess
um and postpartum but that kind of just tells you that everybody goes through it differently
and deals with different things and i think that was the hardest thing for me wow i mean the fact
i think so many people have those experiences too because when we talk about postpartum stuff
it's usually like the quintessential things that ob gyns or doctors have heard of but so many of
us have all these different types of symptoms that are related there's there are big hormonal changes
that happen and there's a lot of stuff that can trigger things like that i think the hardest part
is like what do you do i think we all come home as parents and we're like all right we just had
a baby now how do we do this it's like it's not like someone just gave us a manual and we can
just go through the steps it's like all right i need to learn my baby figure out my baby and
and how do i even begin to think to do this and so i think that's a whole another thing is like
okay yes we want to support each other and we're supporting each other and doing what we need to
do but it's also like that phase of figuring it out together which is like a whole nother
step in the relationship when i first met you actually i'll never actually forget this
is that you were so comfortable about the birth you're just like jess the birth stuff
i've got lori bregman but i've come to terms like i don't have a lot of fear around my
birth but what i don't know is what do i do when the baby actually comes home you know there's no
owner's manual like haley was saying so much of why we started this is because i think there's so
much of a dearth of information when you come home so what has helped you guys what resources have
you used what surprised you the most how did you navigate that period um i mean we just text you
the entire time we're like jess what does this mean sending pictures um
no i mean obviously i think the biggest thing that has helped is
you know just obviously friends you um we have an amazing pediatrician
but i think at the end of the day my intuition for me has really guided me because i do suffer
from anxiety um and it can be either you know like chill like the entire pregnancy i was like
super present and it's it hasn't been really crazy like i haven't had any kind of i've had
a little flare-ups but for other reasons but um but i think because i like listen to my intuition
with the baby it's like more calming so there was one night that like something that like
had happened and chris came in kind of really scared and nervous and when he's
scared there's something wrong because like chris is the most like calm like peaceful
like non-stressed person and he was like babe something's wrong he's like i'm feeding the
baby and like milk was like pouring out he was had the bottle and milk was pouring out of her mouth
just like so weird and he was so scared and he was like it was so strange it's like she's not
swallowing and she forgot how to swallow and i'm like what once i saw her she looked fine
and she was like she's fine she was fine she was looking at me like why are you worried why are you
concerned there's like milk pouring out of her mouth i'm like this is exorcist what is
happening right now he was like so and he was like every single time i feed her she looks
like she's swallowing and then it comes right out it's like ounces of milk i'm like that is so weird
but then i like took the bottle and i noticed the nipple was cut like i think when we were somewhere
someone is cleaning that we won't name names but someone's pretty clean someone aside from
us was cleaning a little too aggressively the bottleneck and then split open a little bit and
so um so basically there was milk pouring into her but she's so babies are so intelligent and
so smart they know how to get that to come out because she was trying i was like man i'm like
keg standing my daughter right now she's just like i'm trying it was yeah but she was completely fine
you