July 20, 2023 • 45 mins
Producer Jordana Mollick (HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS, Netflix’s THE LOVEBIRDS) presents her personal experience of peripartum cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation during pregnancy.
The Semi-Formal’s co-founder addresses the two terms, and how she, her doctors, family and friends reacted to complications before, during, and after delivery. She also discusses how she continues to recover today, and how motherhood has been going so far.
Plus, did you know that watching Grey’s Anatomy helped Jordana realize something was up with her heart in the delivery room? Tune in for the story.
Executive Producers: Sandie Bailey, Alex Alcheh, Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang & Gabrielle Collins
Producer & Editor: Casby Bias
Associate Producer: Akiya McKnight
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All of a sudden, everything started changing, Like I'm just
sitting there and the doctor's like, are you nervous? Why
is your heart rate so high? And I was like
I don't know, Like I'm about to I'm about to
like to be awake, and like my doctor was like,
cardiology needs to get down here, like right now. And
they were like on speakerphone and she was like, I
(00:29):
cannot do the surgery if there's not like a crash cart.
I need cardiology. And I was like, huge Chonderland fan.
I have watched, yeah, every episode.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Of and I was like they're calling it a crack.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I was like a crash card Like what And I'm
like there.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to Katie's Crib. My guest today
is a longtime friend and someone I very much look
up to. We are talking on today's episode about having
a baby on your own. One of the most wild
birth experiences I've ever heard. And I've heard a lot
(01:14):
and we've all heard a lot on Katie's Grip, but
this one may go down is the wildest because this
birth experience included Perry Pardam cardiomyopathy and a trial fibrillation
during pregnancy, all of which I had never heard of before.
This awesome person has been a friend of mine for
a long time, and I'll love her and she's an
(01:35):
incredible mama, And I am talking about Jordana Molik, who
is Semi Formal's co founder and the president of Development
in production. She comes from a background in theater, film, television,
digital media, and literary management. Some of Jordana's credits include
producing Susanna Fogel's first film, Life Partners, as well as Hello,
My Name Is Doris, for which she won the Producer's
Award of the Independent Spirit Awards. She produced Netflix's The
(01:56):
love Birds, which released in May of twenty twenty. Most recently,
Geordie executive produced Who Lose Emmy Award winning mini series
The Dropout which I Love and spoiler alert, a film
I also Loved and Sobbed my Eyes Out, which was
a film for Focus Features starring Jim Parsons and Sally Field.
Her upcoming work is titled The Idea of You, and
Amazon Studio's feature starring Anne Hathaway and Jordana has one
(02:19):
incredible daughter who my kids love, whose name is Celia
blu Mollis. Welcome, Jordana. I'm so grateful that you are
making the time because I know you are busy. You
have a daughter, you have a full fucking time job
(02:39):
that is very full and a very full life. It
just seems like you're doing a lot of stuff. And
I had to have you on to tell us your
journey also because I was saying in your intro, I
don't think I've ever heard a birth story like yours
or an experience like that ever, let alone. You are
a single mom and you were doing it with out
(03:00):
a partner. Thankfully you have an incredible support system. But
we're going to get into all of this. Okay, this
is Jordana.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I'm so happy to be here. I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
How did we first meet?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think feel like, okay, I've known your husband for
a while. I don't even know how, maybe even through
Leslie Headland, like years of yeah, probably years ago, and
then I don't know. We were in our Rebecca group together,
but I knew who you were.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yes, that's where I got like felt such a strong
personal connection. But I remember you were producing like one
act festivals in LA where all the money was going
to charity. I was never good enough to get in one,
but I went and supported and saw them you.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Were good enough to get in them.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And it was also literally like a bunch of us
casting any actor that knew us and being like, do you.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Want to be at a play unscreened? That's right screen
But that's where I first became aware of like whoa,
this girl's like you're just like very of self made producer,
which is like incredible. When did it occur to you?
Like I also would like to be a mom, and
how did it all of a sudden get realistic.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I always knew i'd be a mom later, Like I
always knew it was going to be like career was
really important to me, and that I'd be a working mom,
and it was probably by the time I was in
my early thirties. I also had decided it would be
something I was willing to do on my own when
(04:38):
the timing was right, because at that point i'd like
dated so much. I was not at all interested in
dating like dad material. You know, I just probably should
have dated many nice guys instead, but I didn't, And
so I feel like I knew that it might not
happen in that order for me, and it was something
(05:00):
I was willing to do. And when I was in
my mid thirties is when like egg freezing became a thing.
It was like an experimental procedure, and then around when
I was like thirty four, it became something that people
started doing. So I did it, and I didn't do
it with the intention of having a kid right away,
(05:22):
but I just did it knowing I wanted that option.
And then after I did that, I was in a
relationship with someone for a few years who already had
a child and didn't want more kids, And so eventually
this was.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Like something opposite went different ways. Yeah, so you have
these eggies on ice? Yeah, are you feeling the pressure
of like, not only do I want to be a mom,
I really would like to carry myself like personally, like
I want to be pregnant, I want to go through
(05:59):
childbirth where those huge life experience things that were big
to you.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I mean I think like when I first made the
decision to freeze eggs, I went into it being like,
I know I want to be a mom. I know
I don't know what this will look like for me,
I'm going to get information about my body and my
fertility and all that stuff. I didn't have any fertility issues,
so I didn't use the eggs that I froze when
(06:26):
I was thirty five. I then lived my life and
had this knowledge which kind of helped me keep moving forward.
And then when I was approaching forty, I was like,
I'm ready to do this on my own, like lots
of dating, lots of therapy, lots of like things to
(06:49):
make the decision, because I think the when is really
hard and career mm hm.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
You were in a really like good place where you
felt like you were a steady expected getting great work.
Had me your own come like you're a producer.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Totals is good. Yeah, yeah, I think it was that too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So you make the decision and then what happens.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I mean, it's really weird because I made the decision
that and I.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Talked to my fertility doctor and my decision was to
start in March twenty twenty with IUIS, which is tricky
based or method like not doing IVF. I picked up
my sperm a few months before.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Tell me how the sperm donor process was for you.
Was it like getting a catalog and being like eyes, color, type, age,
what are you thinking about?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Really?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like now, it's amazing because it doesn't even matter. But
it was such a tough thing for me. I started
a process thinking, my daughter has nine godfathers. Should I
do this with a friend because I cared so it
was really hard to accept my story was gonna be
(08:00):
what I knew. My parents are still married, my brother
and sister are married, Like there was a path that
I understood, and this was very, very different from that path.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's so impressive to me. I just think it's so
fucking brave.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
When you're a little girl and you're looking at your parents'
marriage or your brother's and sister's marriage, and it's very traditional,
and everything was in the sort of lineup that we
know it to be, and you're brave enough that you
want something bad enough and believe in your own ability
to do it on your own, and you take this
left turn to rewrite like the whole way in which
your daughter came into your life. I don't think I
(08:37):
would have been that brave.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Now I look back and him like, I'm brave, Like
I understand it, but it didn't. I'm lucky to have options, like,
I'm lucky to be in a place in my career
where I could do this. It's really I know there's
people that do it that have very little financial stability
and familial support and community, and I have all those
things you do, and I'm really lucky. But it's definitely
(09:02):
like putting one foot in front of the other. And
so in March twenty twenty, I was going to start
doing IUIS, but the pandemic hit and they banned doing
IUIS because it was like an elective procedure and no
one knew the result this would have on pregnant women
and fetuses and all the things. So I talked to
(09:24):
my doctor. I was like, Okay, I'm going to chill
approaching forty, I'll wait another month. And then in April
they still weren't doing iuis. And then in May, at
the end of May, I was going to turn forty
and they still weren't doing IUIS, and I started freaking out,
like I was just like, this is crazy. I can't
even go to a bar and get knocked up by
a stranger. I'm locked in my house, like, and I
(09:47):
want to have a baby and I'm ready, and I
can't so I called my doctor and I was like,
what do you think should I try a home insemination?
And she was like, that's not going to tell you
anything about your fertility and you're quality because there's such
a high probability of just doing it wrong and time,
you know all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Sure, yeah, it's hard to get pregnant.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, it's like down to the hours that you're like
perfectly ovulating. And I'm sure they can really see if
they have the ultrasound machines and all that shit.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yes, So she recommended. She was like, I think that
you should make embryos and you have eggs, but you
could also do a fresh round of IVF if you
don't want to use those eggs, and we'll get an
indication of your fertility that way. And I was very
big wanting all my options. I'd always like to have
(10:38):
lots of options, so I wanted to save those eggs
in case I wanted a second child with a partner
when it was actually too late, because I was like
in this approaching forty and knew that I had a
lot of eggs, but I didn't know the quality of them.
It was also like what else am I doing? Like
I'm locked in my house at the beginning of this pandemic.
(10:59):
Might as well go to the vigility clinic every day
and talk to a person at least.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, you're like, this is my social life exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So I basically took the last batch of eggs in
my thirties, took them out like the week of my
fortieth birthday, and made Celia.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
You must have been like the end of my decade.
My thirty decades is being wrapped up in a bow
with another round of IVF and getting these last thirty
something eggs out of my body. Picking the sperm donor,
we very quickly got a touch on that. What was
the hardest decision of the sperm donor was a like age?
(11:38):
Was it mental shit? Like what? I wouldn't even know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I was really lucky because I used California Crowdbank and
I had a sundance lab mentee years ago who's now
wife stepmother, was the president of the California Crawbank, and
she put me in touch with her and she talked
me through it a little bit in a real way
of life. That helped me get over myself. We call
(12:03):
it an unknown donor. We don't call it like anonymous
anymore because obviously there's twenty three in me and you
can everybody can figure everything else out. But she was like,
just think of some qualities that are important to you.
If I was having a child with a partner, I
wouldn't be like, I am not gonna have a child
with you because your great grandfather was an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
It's like, of course I love my husband. I wanted
to have babies with him, and also depression runs into
his family.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Right, and you're not gonna be like, sorry, I cannot
do this with no way because I would have picked
someone two inches taller you just I do joke and
call her my designer baby, but like you are like
doing that a little and I was like, don't do
this stuff. Find somebody that looks like not that different
from you.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Celia is your twin, exactly like you, and she's gorgeous.
So you were like, someone who's like me, looks like me.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
At the time, I was like, I want someone that
also looks a little bit like the people that I date,
And at that point my brain is different. But I'm like,
what if I meet someone and like they want to
adopt my child? And that's changed so much since having
a child, but at the time that was a little
bit in my brain. And I had a bunch of
friends over and we like drank a bottle of wine
(13:22):
and smoked a joint and we were just like, let's
make this fun. And I like curated the friends because
I was like, these are the people that know the
type of.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
People they love this party.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So it was just kind of keep me from getting
heady and overthinking it.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Too bogged down, and like, really, I think in your case,
it's like finding the joy in this process was probably
very important. Okay, so you get you do it's fucking COVID. Yeah,
you get another round, Thank God for you. Fertility was
on an issue. You had a lot of eggs, embryo
is getting mixed in peatrie dishes. Obviously they take the
(14:03):
best one, yes, And the only people you're seeing are
these doctors.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I know, the only people I'm seeing are these doctors.
And like, I think it was a popular time because
even from having a baby. Also in this time, like
a bunch of friends of mine were on this secret
pregnancy chain that's now like a mom group of hundreds
of people. But we were like there were so many
people I think that work a lot that are like
(14:29):
women that are directors or producers or actors that were like,
this is like the world giving me a moment to
like have a baby.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
So I did make it my priority right now? Yeah, yeah,
how did you find out that it worked? So did
it work the first time?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
It did?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So I took like the next month, like my body
off from having done IVYP and then the next month
they transferred the best embryo, which I knew I had
tested for any chromosomal abnormality. So I also knew that
she was a girl, which was something that I felt
weird about because I didn't really want to pick. But
(15:08):
I also was like very scared of like penis.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Like I was just like I'm a girl alone, Like what, yeah,
you like you know, yes, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
And then I they implanted, and then you have that
two week wait that everybody has when they're trying and
know what's going on. And I went to Joshua Tree
with my friend and her ten year old at the
time daughter and tried to be then about it. You
have to like shoot yourself up when you do IVF
(15:41):
for like the whole first trimester. And then I found
out it stuck and then the journey began.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now I want to hear about your pregnancy and then
the craziest birth thing I've ever heard in my life.
How did it feel being pregnant? Was it what you thought?
What would you have done differently? What would you have
done the same?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
At no part of my pregnancy was I like this
is amazing. And I also didn't feel like super connected
to my pregnancy, so I was like freaked out, like
this thing I wanted so badly. I never really felt
kicking that much. I was constantly like googling trying to
get like information. I was really nauseous in the first trimester.
(16:34):
My parents, who I'm very close with, bought an RV
and they drove from cross to see me. Yeah, they
drove like all around the country to see all of
their children and my grandma who recently passed but she
was a hundred.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, They're like, you can't.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Keep up the wild all of them. That's awesome. You
felt like shit, and I like hearing that, Like you
were like this thing you had obviously fought very hard
for and not just bang whoop god pregnant drunkenly one
night like you this was a this was expensive, this
was a priority, this was something you fought for. And
(17:13):
then you're like, wait, I'm not feeling all like Earth, mother,
goddess of the planet right pregnancy. I there are some
women that really have that. I did not either. I
was scared the whole time.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I was trying to feel good. I'm doing everything I could.
I didn't gain like a ton of weight in my
pregnancy like I thought that I would, and I did
look how I had hoped in my head I would look,
but no one was seeing nice one to my stomach,
Like I was like totally fucking oh crazy. And I
(17:46):
had all these fantasies that now have come true, but
felt impossible when I was pregnant, which was like I
had built this community that was going to help me
raise my child, and I was like, had all this
stuff and everything was closed and everything was taken away
and I felt so just isolated.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And that's how I felt too.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
It was a tough time.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So when you went into labor, tell talk to me
about the end. Did you make decisions of who was
going to be in the room with you? Was that
like really important.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I always knew that I was going to have to
have a sea section because I had fibroid.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Removed like a few years before.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
That I needed to do in order to be able
to get pregnant, and the doctor was like, we recommend
a sea section because your uterus was stitched and we
don't want a rupture or something. So I had already
come to terms with that. So much of like pregnancy
and like early motherhood is like coming to terms with
things not looking like what you think. So for me,
(18:46):
there were like lots of steps of that. So I
had a planned sea section that turned into an emergency
see section, but I knew I was.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Going to have that.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
At the end of my pregnancy. In my early third trimester,
I patted with some friends in o Hi, which was
like the last good days, Like I hyped every single day.
I was like this mythical creature that was like walking
around in a floral dress, pregnant, like on the hilltops.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Fuck yeah, in o High which for all of you
listening who don't know, oh Hai is an hour away
from la and it's like mountains and streams and orange groves.
I love it there. It's like my favorite LA close place.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So that was like month seven and then I came
back I had this cough and it was just like
really bad. I'd bring it up to doctors, I'd bring
it up to my acupar, like bring it up to everybody,
and people are like, it's a post nasal drip, it's whatever.
And then I also was feeling like I couldn't sleep
(19:50):
at all, and I was like short of breath. But
everybody was like, I know the third trimester, like everything
gets smushed and you get really tied and you uncomfortable
and you can't sleep, and all of these things that
were happening to me were like signs of a really
bad third trimester. But for me, I'd never been pregnant before.
(20:13):
I didn't know any different. But I was just starting
to feel like more and more helpless. I was shooting
a pilot for this show I love that for you.
Every single day I'd get in the car to go
to set and I would turn back around because I'd
just like cough until I threw up, and I feel
(20:34):
so miserable. My friend's a DP and she was like
operating a camera at nine months pregnant. I was so like,
why can't I do this? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Some people literally have a cold their entire pregnancy. In
your case, it was all signs to something really fucking serious.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yes, So then my parents were flying in. That was
the initial plan, was my parents were gonna fly like
a couple weeks before the plan C section, my sister
was gonna come in. It was still pandemic, so you
couldn't have more than one person in the room, and
I had decided that was going to be Rebecca Urdula
(21:14):
and then she'd switch spots in the recovery room with
my mom. But I just didn't because it was a surgery.
I was like, let's let the professional people in the
room and then yeah, once I moved, I'll have that.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So I was thirty two weeks or so, thirty three
weeks was when like at those appointments, the baby was
always great, healthy. Towards the end, I gained like twenty
pounds in a week and I wasn't eating any food.
(21:51):
I'd maybe gained twenty pounds like the whole pregnancy, and
then all of a sudden, it was like twenty pounds
in a week and then like fifteen pounds in the
next week, and I finally thank God for honestly, pre clamsia.
My blood pressure started getting a little high, but it
was like a weird kind of high. So my doctor
(22:11):
was like, get a blood pressure monitor. Let's monitor your
blood pressure. I do think we're going to try to
get you to thirty seven weeks, but I think this
baby's going to be like before forty weeks. I called
my parents and I was like, I think you guys
should make your tickets next week. This is going to
be happening sooner. And at this point, I was so happy.
(22:32):
All I wanted was this baby out of me, Like
I felt.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, I'm so nervous at this point. Yeah, so you
feel like.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I'm like, thank you, take it out. Take it out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I bought the blood pressure thing. I called my doctor
because there were a couple times that it was high.
She was like, let's have you go to the hospital.
We'll give you these like steroid shots for the baby's
lungs and like all this stuff. So I go to
the hospital, they test me for the pre clamsia, they
send me home. But there were little things that were weird,
(23:03):
like the heart rate thing would like keep beeping in
weird ways. They thought it was because I was coughing,
so they turned it off. There were a lot of
little things that were odd, but that at this point
I just was like so used to all of it.
So then I went home and then the next day
it was also like a little bit high, and my
(23:26):
doctor was like, all right, we're gonna have you go
back this time. I would say, maybe pack a bag,
you might be having this baby. My friend Nathan took
me to the hospital and then they're like, you have
like severe preclamsia, so we're going to take this baby
out like in the next hour.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And I was like, oh my god, like I'm psyched,
though I definitely.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Like was like, oh wait, like my family's not here yet.
I had had a night like a postpartum doula, Like.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You're a producer, you like, I already produced this, I've
planned everything, the cast is set. This is not my
fucking plan.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
What the fuck exactly?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I called are the doula and she was like, Okay,
I have to go get a COVID test. She literally
ran into the operating room like just in the.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Next jet out of here. This is Rebecca Beninati, who
you all know and love if you're Katie's criblist, So
she was my duela as well, and It's how I
really got closer with Jordana because we were in the
same Mommy me class. Once Celia was here.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yes, And I also was like starting to get a
sense that things were wrong because like my doctor was
very big on only one person in the room pandemic,
and I when I said it was going to be
my doula, she was a little bit like, you're having
a c section. I don't know if you need a
duel in the room. The nurses are going to be there.
Maybe you should have a beer, mom. And all of
a sudden, my friend Nathan could have been in the
(24:46):
room if I like she was like allowing there were
things that started to feel weird. They're about to give
me the anesthesia, and the anesthesiologist is like, her heart
rate is one eight. Something's going on. That's when, like
all of a sudden, everything started changing, Like I'm just
(25:07):
sitting there and the doctor's like, are you nervous? Why
is your heart rate so high? And I was like,
I don't know, Like I'm about to I'm about to
like surgery and be awake, and like I I guess
I'm nervous. I've been out of breath for a long time.
So I just didn't know what was going on. And
then all of a sudden, it was like everyone in
(25:30):
nice voices.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
We just talked to your mom.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
She's on a plane, she's coming tonight, she'll be here
by eight in the morning.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Who the fuck have you found out? Are people calling people?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So then all of a sudden, like more and more
people started like gathering outside, and my friend Nathan, he
was going to be communicating with people, but then my
doctor was like, cardiology needs to get down here, like
right now. And they were like on speakerphone and she
was like, I cannot do the search if there's not
(26:00):
like a crash cart I need cardiology. And I was
like huge chondralin fan. I have watched h every episode
of episode.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
And I was like, they're calling it a crash. It
was like a crash.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Card like what And I'm like there.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And then cardiology came down and while they were taking
the baby out, they're like doing an echo cardiogram and
they're like saying out loud, there's damage on the left side,
there's damage on the right side. Her heart is functioning
at twenty percent capacity. And Rebecca's like rubbing my temples,
taking deep breath taking pictures. It was crazy. And then
(26:38):
they took the baby out and she was beautiful and healthy,
and they're like, okay, we need to take the baby
to the nic.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
You because it was almost thirty six years early.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, I mean not that early, but thank god, not
that thank God.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
And they're like, we need to take Jerdiyana to cardiac.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I see you.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Rebecca asked them to give meat while they were prepped
the room, so like can she said, can you just
put the baby on her for twenty minutes? I know
I'm gonna cry to God, but so and I didn't
even like occur to me what was going on, and
the baby was just like gone. She was like taken away.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Sorry, No, don't be sorry. I love you. No, I
know you from a crime, but I don't like like
I remember. I mean, I remember being in Mommy and
Me class over a zoom with you, and you you're
such a doer and you've handled your whole life and
you take your life in your own hands and you
make shit happen for yourself, for your projects, for your motherhood,
(27:37):
for all of this and now because you had Perry
Pardam cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation. You were rendered completely helpless
and literally everyone around you had to do everything.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It didn't occur to me that we were going to
be like separated, that I was in such a diet
place like that. Basically they like took me away and
took her away. And then I woke up in the
morning in the ICU and I felt so much better,
and a doctor came in and was like said a
(28:17):
bunch of things what I had took away from it
was like, You're gonna be okay. I heard aphib and
my dad had APHIB and I heard like pieces, but
I didn't have anyone there. My dad's a retired doctor,
and so I'm so used to having like a translator
when it comes to this stuff from him.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh, I can't imagine doing that on your own.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, So I just like turn it all and it
was like, I'm gonna be okay. My mom came a
few hours later, and that's when I like learned They
gave me the name of what I had, and I
was texting like my pregnancy chain mom group giving people information.
People's reactions were like terrifying, and I just don't think
(29:02):
I realized like the extent of it no one knew
until like months later, if I was gonna be a
survivor or not. It's the leading form of death postpartum.
It's oftentimes not uncompletely missed. Yeah, it's completely missed.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Why does it happen?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
They don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It's when a pregnant woman's heart becomes weakened and enlarged.
It is the most common type of treated heart arrhythmia, right,
and an arrhythmia just for Layman's terms, your dad is
not here right now. But an arrhythmia is when the
heart beats too slowly, too fast, or in any sort
of irregular way. So that's not heart was operating.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, so that's like I mean, it is connected. I
went into a trio fibrillation because my heart.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Was because of the Perry partam cardiomyopsis.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes, two different things that I was dealing with from this,
the heart feel piece, the Prairie part of cardiomyopathy is
basically just that my pregnancy attacked my heart and no
one knows why. They don't know if it's genetic, they
don't know, if it's like hormonal, like, they don't know why.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
You have to have never had.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
A heart condition to be diagnosed with this form of
heart failure, but it just happened. There's so much still
that's a mystery, Like I'm not allowed there's like a
ninety five percent chance that it would happen again if
I got pregnant again. My heart is completely healed, which
is amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
It took a.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Year for it to completely heal, and my eight fifth
just had an oblation a few months ago to try
to get rid of that and it's seeming like it's working.
But yeah, so it's like one of the only forms
of heart failure that people really do just can completely
recover from. And they don't know if that's just because
my heart was really strong before. It wasn't like this
(30:55):
long period of time that I was in this condition.
It's just all so unheard of. I also went on
a lot of medications that I'm now like on some
for the rest of my life, mainly just because they
won't know if I would have just healed on my own,
if the medications helped me to heal. It just was
such a weird, mysterious.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Thing, and so I saw no one stopped coming.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
When did you finally get Celia loud to the room.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
For almost a week.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
And they were like, you can't hold her, right, No.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I couldn't see her. I had to be so heavily
monitored and hooked up to things that they couldn't take
me there to the nick you to see her. Even
though I felt totally fine. They were like would take me,
like started taking me on like walks, and I was
like trying to talk the whole time so they wouldn't
think I was head all out of breath and like,
(32:01):
just let me see my child. So what ended up
happening is they released Celia. She got released from the
hospital before me. They released her to my mom, and
they let my mom sleep in the last night I
was in the hospital room with me and the baby.
I could hold her, but I couldn't like leave the
hospital room with her. The problem was that I was
(32:22):
hooked up to these heart monitors that like went up
that beaped anytime your heart rate went above it might
have even been one hundred or one twenty or something,
and because I was an APHIV, it was constantly beeping.
I would move and it would beat, and nurses would
run in and I would pick her up and it
would beat, and nurses would run in and take her
(32:44):
away from me.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So it was like a very horrible time.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
And when I came back from the hospital, I wasn't
allowed to get my heart rate over a hundred. I
wasn't allowed to drink more than two like two big
water bottles of water. I was on an extreme low
sodium diet. It was really hard.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And who was your support system? Who did you have?
Who was around you to help with Celia? Also like
did your milk come in? And you like, yeah, that's
a part of it, right, because you're on so many medicines,
Like there's no way.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
When I was in the hospital, the lactation consultants would
come and showed me how to pump, and there was
plenty of milk, Like I would try to pump because
it's like the only thing that made me feel closer
to this baby that I was separated from. They brought
the milk to her, I think maybe one time, and
(33:41):
then my obe was like what are you doing. They
put me on a lot of different medicines and they
were all technically safe to breastfeed on, but I was
on a water restriction. I like wasn't being given much food.
She was like, I don't think you should do this.
Obviously as to your chow. And I hadn't made a
(34:01):
decision yet until I had gotten home from the hospital
and I went to the pharmacist and I was on
cumidin which you're allowed to breastfeed on, which is a
blood thinner, but it's a tough blood thinner to be on.
You can't eat leafy greens. You have to constantly be
monitored and adjusted. And the pharmacist was like, can I
(34:24):
ask you, if you don't breastfeed, you could just take
this pills or alto, which I'm on still once a
day and you don't have to worry about how much leafy.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Greens do you greens and all this stuff, but it's.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Not safe for breastfeeding.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
And that day, like I went home and I was like,
I'm just not go I hadn't breastfed yet, and I
was like, like, it was a very hard decision, but
I made the decision to not do it because of
the medicines and because I couldn't I was never going
to be able to do it without supplementing formula because
I couldn't drink enough water to even.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Make the milk. Like this is great, Like what did
the after experience look? Like, who was your support system?
I know you have she is nine godfathers. Your parents
are super involved. I know you're close with your siblings,
but like, how did that look?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
My parents were here, my sister came a few days later,
my friend Nathan, he was there. I mean I had
like meal trained beyond meal train of like so much food.
I had the night nurse, and she called another night
nurse so that they could shift because I needed more
than like the package I initially got. I hadn't figured
(35:32):
out the nanny situation versus like takecare and like what
I was gonna do yet, because this was also a
month early, and so I ended up having hiring a nanny,
and like one of my friends who was pregnant but
had art like with her second she like interviewed people
for me and found my nanny. And I didn't know
(35:53):
I was like such a hot commodity for a nanny
because I was like a single mom. I don't have
to deal with the partner.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Newborn baby girl, so we like lucked out. We have
the best nanny in the world, and like eventually things
started looking up and it felt like it was like years,
but it was probably like within the first three months,
I was like cleared to exercise again. My heart was
getting it wasn't yet healed, but it was like, I guess,
(36:25):
if it starts to show improvement, it means you are
likely to fully recover.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
So the aphib took a lot longer.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
That's been like a couple of years of just figuring
it out because I was in it persistently and then.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
And that's what I remember so well in that Mommy
and Me class, you were like to have to ask
for help all day and all night for myself and
for my daughter a month's on end, I'm sure was
just such an experience for you that was humbling and
also in gratitude and complete surrender to experience and just
(37:02):
I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Still work on that with like therapists, asking for help
is like not my thing, and it's never been my thing.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Not in your dea, and I love to help. Thank
Heaven's your heart starts to go in a positive direction, Celia,
Thank God is thriving totally. When I look at your
Instagram and you're flying all around the country alone, solo
with your baby girl who's now a toddler, but her
(37:30):
whole life she's been flying around with you. She's on set,
she's got godfathers and uncles and all this shit who
are like huge parts of her lives and taking her
to brunch and all this stuff. I mean, she's like
so magical to me. How is it going? How do
you feel about motherhood? Is it what you thought? What
are you good at? What are you bad at? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I love it. I love being a I really love it.
And I love being a solo parent. I just think
being a new parent is hard. So it's like we're
all in the same boat, and you learn how to
do it however you do it. So I feel like
I have friends that partners go away and they're like,
I don't know how you do this. My partner is
(38:11):
going away for a month or like going on tour.
For me, it was very much like I figured out
right away because I had to. Like I always think
about when I used to cocktail waitress and in New York,
like in my early twenties, and how you have all
of the drinks balanced on the tray, and if someone
(38:32):
came along and took a drink off the tray to
try to help you, it would all crumble. That's how
solo parenting is like you've got it figured out, and
it's hard to let people help you because you're like.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
If you take the stroller like out of my arm,
then I'm gonna drop the.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Baby like my weight is not. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, And.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
You figure out how to have people.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Help you.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Quick things. I want to ask you. I don't want
to take too much of your time. What is something
you're really good at in parenthood that surprised you.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I think I'm good at being present, which I like
never thought I would be because I work all the time.
I always say that I would love to be a
full time mom and I'd love to be a full
time producer. And I feel like I'm weirdly succeeding at
doing both with that, and I'm tired. It's not like
(39:29):
I don't feel burnt out, but like I do feed
off of both things. So I think I am when
I'm with my daughter. I mean, it's not like I
don't like sneak sneak some peaks at my emails and
text messages as they come in back.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
But you're good at life. I'm going to be with her.
I'm going to be with her right now.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
I love that what's something in parenting that you need
to work on?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
There's so much that I need to work on. What's
the What's one thing I wanted to learn like ry
and do the right technique? And I didn't. It's like
against my nature. But because I tried to do it,
I was like aware of how much I like praise
my daughter for like pooping.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, and they're like not into that.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So I feel like, even though I don't need to
go all Rye, there's certain things that I don't want
to put weight in that, like I find really hard
to not do because I look at her and I'm like,
I love you too much.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, Like you're perf You're fucking adorable and gorgeous, and
I love what you're wearing. I know, Rye. For people
listening like Rye sometimes has like too much praise is
a bad thing. I think Ray would even say any
praise is a bad thing. But the fact that you're
even aware, right.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I feel like that's all I can do is just
be aware. Yeah, that's all I could.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yes, my daughter took a peep in the pod yesterday
and I was running around the fucking house like it
was like New Year's Eve, and I was like, oh god, whatever,
we're all doing our fucking best. Okay, it sounds like
Celia's really into ballet these days. Is she into it?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
She is?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I mean this is where I'm like, am I a
tiger mom? Like I just the earliest you could put
them in.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Ballet with the last ballet.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Months and I like, eighteen months to the day, I'm like,
we're doing ballet. She had just started walking.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
To me, Were you a ballet kid? Okay, yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
But I like I was Also I got tall, and
I got boobs. My career ended before it started, and
I was fine with it because I wanted to like
do things with my friends. And eventually you're like not
going to go to ballet four times a week. I
just think it's so funny, like watching her, like she's
constantly twirling and she doesn't really know what she's doing,
(41:43):
but she It just is so funny to me. So
it's really just my own satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
But why, I mean, this is the only time you
can do because I'm certain age she's going to refuse exactly.
I have a feeling you're not going to force her,
so like, no, this is the only time that you
can do it. I' missucker for it too. I mean
Vera's in fucking ballet and music. It's more for the two,
Like the outfit that I the one video I made
(42:09):
for my mother that I'll have till the end of time. Yes,
what's the one registry item you couldn't have lived without.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
There's this thing for moms that are bottle feeding or
combo feeding or whatever called the baby Breza, which is
like a krig machine for formula, And that was like
I didn't register for it, but I got it after
formula became a thing. It was truly a lifesaver because
you just like press a button and like it mixes
(42:39):
perfectly and it's whatever temperature you want it to be.
Real life saver.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Love it baby Breza. Oh, I want to question, how
did the Nine Godfathers make the cut?
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
So basically for me, it was like, I I have
a great dad and brother, and I I I'm from
a like a heteronormative, like traditional family, and there was
something for me that was really hard to think about
not having a male figure in her life daily. And
(43:13):
I also don't even know what that looks like because
I'm not with my person. So I just knew that
I had all these great men in my life, and
also many of them don't have kids of their own.
It's amazing to have other parent friends and mom friends.
But I have found that my friends without kids have
been the most detrimental to me and Celia's life because
(43:38):
they're the only people that love your kid more than
anything else in the world. But the Nine Godfathers were
like my best friend Nathan and my old business partners
when I had a company called Haven and Show Walter,
who's my partner now, and people that like, I'm like,
you can do different things with her and she'll get
(43:59):
to see what a man is through my eyes.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Who are love like over a little healthy male role
model influence energy is in her life.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yes exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I'm so grateful for your time and for your like
your story and sharing it with all of us Katie's
crib listeners. I just think it's so inspiring and epic.
I'm so grateful that your heart is on a very
great road recovery, and that Celia Lou is the best
and she's so stinking cute, it's insane. Oh my god,
(44:34):
thank you, thank you, guys. So much for listening to
today's episode. I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns.
Let me know. You can always find me at Katie'scrib
at shondaland dot com. Katie's Crib is a production of
(44:57):
Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
from shondala And Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shondaland Audio in
partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All of a sudden, everything started changing, Like I'm just
sitting there and the doctor's like, are you nervous? Why
is your heart rate so high? And I was like
I don't know, Like I'm about to I'm about to
like to be awake, and like my doctor was like,
cardiology needs to get down here, like right now. And
they were like on speakerphone and she was like, I
(00:29):
cannot do the surgery if there's not like a crash cart.
I need cardiology. And I was like, huge Chonderland fan.
I have watched, yeah, every episode.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Of and I was like they're calling it a crack.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I was like a crash card Like what And I'm
like there.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to Katie's Crib. My guest today
is a longtime friend and someone I very much look
up to. We are talking on today's episode about having
a baby on your own. One of the most wild
birth experiences I've ever heard. And I've heard a lot
(01:14):
and we've all heard a lot on Katie's Grip, but
this one may go down is the wildest because this
birth experience included Perry Pardam cardiomyopathy and a trial fibrillation
during pregnancy, all of which I had never heard of before.
This awesome person has been a friend of mine for
a long time, and I'll love her and she's an
(01:35):
incredible mama, And I am talking about Jordana Molik, who
is Semi Formal's co founder and the president of Development
in production. She comes from a background in theater, film, television,
digital media, and literary management. Some of Jordana's credits include
producing Susanna Fogel's first film, Life Partners, as well as Hello,
My Name Is Doris, for which she won the Producer's
Award of the Independent Spirit Awards. She produced Netflix's The
(01:56):
love Birds, which released in May of twenty twenty. Most recently,
Geordie executive produced Who Lose Emmy Award winning mini series
The Dropout which I Love and spoiler alert, a film
I also Loved and Sobbed my Eyes Out, which was
a film for Focus Features starring Jim Parsons and Sally Field.
Her upcoming work is titled The Idea of You, and
Amazon Studio's feature starring Anne Hathaway and Jordana has one
(02:19):
incredible daughter who my kids love, whose name is Celia
blu Mollis. Welcome, Jordana. I'm so grateful that you are
making the time because I know you are busy. You
have a daughter, you have a full fucking time job
(02:39):
that is very full and a very full life. It
just seems like you're doing a lot of stuff. And
I had to have you on to tell us your
journey also because I was saying in your intro, I
don't think I've ever heard a birth story like yours
or an experience like that ever, let alone. You are
a single mom and you were doing it with out
(03:00):
a partner. Thankfully you have an incredible support system. But
we're going to get into all of this. Okay, this
is Jordana.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I'm so happy to be here. I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
How did we first meet?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think feel like, okay, I've known your husband for
a while. I don't even know how, maybe even through
Leslie Headland, like years of yeah, probably years ago, and
then I don't know. We were in our Rebecca group together,
but I knew who you were.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yes, that's where I got like felt such a strong
personal connection. But I remember you were producing like one
act festivals in LA where all the money was going
to charity. I was never good enough to get in one,
but I went and supported and saw them you.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Were good enough to get in them.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And it was also literally like a bunch of us
casting any actor that knew us and being like, do you.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Want to be at a play unscreened? That's right screen
But that's where I first became aware of like whoa,
this girl's like you're just like very of self made producer,
which is like incredible. When did it occur to you?
Like I also would like to be a mom, and
how did it all of a sudden get realistic.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I always knew i'd be a mom later, Like I
always knew it was going to be like career was
really important to me, and that I'd be a working mom,
and it was probably by the time I was in
my early thirties. I also had decided it would be
something I was willing to do on my own when
(04:38):
the timing was right, because at that point i'd like
dated so much. I was not at all interested in
dating like dad material. You know, I just probably should
have dated many nice guys instead, but I didn't, And
so I feel like I knew that it might not
happen in that order for me, and it was something
(05:00):
I was willing to do. And when I was in
my mid thirties is when like egg freezing became a thing.
It was like an experimental procedure, and then around when
I was like thirty four, it became something that people
started doing. So I did it, and I didn't do
it with the intention of having a kid right away,
(05:22):
but I just did it knowing I wanted that option.
And then after I did that, I was in a
relationship with someone for a few years who already had
a child and didn't want more kids, And so eventually
this was.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Like something opposite went different ways. Yeah, so you have
these eggies on ice? Yeah, are you feeling the pressure
of like, not only do I want to be a mom,
I really would like to carry myself like personally, like
I want to be pregnant, I want to go through
(05:59):
childbirth where those huge life experience things that were big
to you.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I mean I think like when I first made the
decision to freeze eggs, I went into it being like,
I know I want to be a mom. I know
I don't know what this will look like for me,
I'm going to get information about my body and my
fertility and all that stuff. I didn't have any fertility issues,
so I didn't use the eggs that I froze when
(06:26):
I was thirty five. I then lived my life and
had this knowledge which kind of helped me keep moving forward.
And then when I was approaching forty, I was like,
I'm ready to do this on my own, like lots
of dating, lots of therapy, lots of like things to
(06:49):
make the decision, because I think the when is really
hard and career mm hm.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
You were in a really like good place where you
felt like you were a steady expected getting great work.
Had me your own come like you're a producer.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Totals is good. Yeah, yeah, I think it was that too. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So you make the decision and then what happens.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I mean, it's really weird because I made the decision
that and I.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Talked to my fertility doctor and my decision was to
start in March twenty twenty with IUIS, which is tricky
based or method like not doing IVF. I picked up
my sperm a few months before.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Tell me how the sperm donor process was for you.
Was it like getting a catalog and being like eyes, color, type, age,
what are you thinking about?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Really?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like now, it's amazing because it doesn't even matter. But
it was such a tough thing for me. I started
a process thinking, my daughter has nine godfathers. Should I
do this with a friend because I cared so it
was really hard to accept my story was gonna be
(08:00):
what I knew. My parents are still married, my brother
and sister are married, Like there was a path that
I understood, and this was very, very different from that path.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's so impressive to me. I just think it's so
fucking brave.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
When you're a little girl and you're looking at your parents'
marriage or your brother's and sister's marriage, and it's very traditional,
and everything was in the sort of lineup that we
know it to be, and you're brave enough that you
want something bad enough and believe in your own ability
to do it on your own, and you take this
left turn to rewrite like the whole way in which
your daughter came into your life. I don't think I
(08:37):
would have been that brave.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Now I look back and him like, I'm brave, Like
I understand it, but it didn't. I'm lucky to have options, like,
I'm lucky to be in a place in my career
where I could do this. It's really I know there's
people that do it that have very little financial stability
and familial support and community, and I have all those
things you do, and I'm really lucky. But it's definitely
(09:02):
like putting one foot in front of the other. And
so in March twenty twenty, I was going to start
doing IUIS, but the pandemic hit and they banned doing
IUIS because it was like an elective procedure and no
one knew the result this would have on pregnant women
and fetuses and all the things. So I talked to
(09:24):
my doctor. I was like, Okay, I'm going to chill
approaching forty, I'll wait another month. And then in April
they still weren't doing iuis. And then in May, at
the end of May, I was going to turn forty
and they still weren't doing IUIS, and I started freaking out,
like I was just like, this is crazy. I can't
even go to a bar and get knocked up by
a stranger. I'm locked in my house, like, and I
(09:47):
want to have a baby and I'm ready, and I
can't so I called my doctor and I was like,
what do you think should I try a home insemination?
And she was like, that's not going to tell you
anything about your fertility and you're quality because there's such
a high probability of just doing it wrong and time,
you know all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Sure, yeah, it's hard to get pregnant.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, it's like down to the hours that you're like
perfectly ovulating. And I'm sure they can really see if
they have the ultrasound machines and all that shit.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yes, So she recommended. She was like, I think that
you should make embryos and you have eggs, but you
could also do a fresh round of IVF if you
don't want to use those eggs, and we'll get an
indication of your fertility that way. And I was very
big wanting all my options. I'd always like to have
(10:38):
lots of options, so I wanted to save those eggs
in case I wanted a second child with a partner
when it was actually too late, because I was like
in this approaching forty and knew that I had a
lot of eggs, but I didn't know the quality of them.
It was also like what else am I doing? Like
I'm locked in my house at the beginning of this pandemic.
(10:59):
Might as well go to the vigility clinic every day
and talk to a person at least.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, you're like, this is my social life exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So I basically took the last batch of eggs in
my thirties, took them out like the week of my
fortieth birthday, and made Celia.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
You must have been like the end of my decade.
My thirty decades is being wrapped up in a bow
with another round of IVF and getting these last thirty
something eggs out of my body. Picking the sperm donor,
we very quickly got a touch on that. What was
the hardest decision of the sperm donor was a like age?
(11:38):
Was it mental shit? Like what? I wouldn't even know.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I was really lucky because I used California Crowdbank and
I had a sundance lab mentee years ago who's now
wife stepmother, was the president of the California Crawbank, and
she put me in touch with her and she talked
me through it a little bit in a real way
of life. That helped me get over myself. We call
(12:03):
it an unknown donor. We don't call it like anonymous
anymore because obviously there's twenty three in me and you
can everybody can figure everything else out. But she was like,
just think of some qualities that are important to you.
If I was having a child with a partner, I
wouldn't be like, I am not gonna have a child
with you because your great grandfather was an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
It's like, of course I love my husband. I wanted
to have babies with him, and also depression runs into
his family.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Right, and you're not gonna be like, sorry, I cannot
do this with no way because I would have picked
someone two inches taller you just I do joke and
call her my designer baby, but like you are like
doing that a little and I was like, don't do
this stuff. Find somebody that looks like not that different
from you.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Celia is your twin, exactly like you, and she's gorgeous.
So you were like, someone who's like me, looks like me.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
At the time, I was like, I want someone that
also looks a little bit like the people that I date,
And at that point my brain is different. But I'm like,
what if I meet someone and like they want to
adopt my child? And that's changed so much since having
a child, but at the time that was a little
bit in my brain. And I had a bunch of
friends over and we like drank a bottle of wine
(13:22):
and smoked a joint and we were just like, let's
make this fun. And I like curated the friends because
I was like, these are the people that know the
type of.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
People they love this party.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
So it was just kind of keep me from getting
heady and overthinking it.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Too bogged down, and like, really, I think in your case,
it's like finding the joy in this process was probably
very important. Okay, so you get you do it's fucking COVID. Yeah,
you get another round, Thank God for you. Fertility was
on an issue. You had a lot of eggs, embryo
is getting mixed in peatrie dishes. Obviously they take the
(14:03):
best one, yes, And the only people you're seeing are
these doctors.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I know, the only people I'm seeing are these doctors.
And like, I think it was a popular time because
even from having a baby. Also in this time, like
a bunch of friends of mine were on this secret
pregnancy chain that's now like a mom group of hundreds
of people. But we were like there were so many
people I think that work a lot that are like
(14:29):
women that are directors or producers or actors that were like,
this is like the world giving me a moment to
like have a baby.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
So I did make it my priority right now? Yeah, yeah,
how did you find out that it worked? So did
it work the first time?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
It did?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So I took like the next month, like my body
off from having done IVYP and then the next month
they transferred the best embryo, which I knew I had
tested for any chromosomal abnormality. So I also knew that
she was a girl, which was something that I felt
weird about because I didn't really want to pick. But
(15:08):
I also was like very scared of like penis.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Like I was just like I'm a girl alone, Like what, yeah,
you like you know, yes, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
And then I they implanted, and then you have that
two week wait that everybody has when they're trying and
know what's going on. And I went to Joshua Tree
with my friend and her ten year old at the
time daughter and tried to be then about it. You
have to like shoot yourself up when you do IVF
(15:41):
for like the whole first trimester. And then I found
out it stuck and then the journey began.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now I want to hear about your pregnancy and then
the craziest birth thing I've ever heard in my life.
How did it feel being pregnant? Was it what you thought?
What would you have done differently? What would you have
done the same?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
At no part of my pregnancy was I like this
is amazing. And I also didn't feel like super connected
to my pregnancy, so I was like freaked out, like
this thing I wanted so badly. I never really felt
kicking that much. I was constantly like googling trying to
get like information. I was really nauseous in the first trimester.
(16:34):
My parents, who I'm very close with, bought an RV
and they drove from cross to see me. Yeah, they
drove like all around the country to see all of
their children and my grandma who recently passed but she
was a hundred.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, They're like, you can't.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Keep up the wild all of them. That's awesome. You
felt like shit, and I like hearing that, Like you
were like this thing you had obviously fought very hard
for and not just bang whoop god pregnant drunkenly one
night like you this was a this was expensive, this
was a priority, this was something you fought for. And
(17:13):
then you're like, wait, I'm not feeling all like Earth, mother,
goddess of the planet right pregnancy. I there are some
women that really have that. I did not either. I
was scared the whole time.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I was trying to feel good. I'm doing everything I could.
I didn't gain like a ton of weight in my
pregnancy like I thought that I would, and I did
look how I had hoped in my head I would look,
but no one was seeing nice one to my stomach,
Like I was like totally fucking oh crazy. And I
(17:46):
had all these fantasies that now have come true, but
felt impossible when I was pregnant, which was like I
had built this community that was going to help me
raise my child, and I was like, had all this
stuff and everything was closed and everything was taken away
and I felt so just isolated.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And that's how I felt too.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
It was a tough time.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So when you went into labor, tell talk to me
about the end. Did you make decisions of who was
going to be in the room with you? Was that
like really important.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I always knew that I was going to have to
have a sea section because I had fibroid.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Removed like a few years before.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
That I needed to do in order to be able
to get pregnant, and the doctor was like, we recommend
a sea section because your uterus was stitched and we
don't want a rupture or something. So I had already
come to terms with that. So much of like pregnancy
and like early motherhood is like coming to terms with
things not looking like what you think. So for me,
(18:46):
there were like lots of steps of that. So I
had a planned sea section that turned into an emergency
see section, but I knew I was.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Going to have that.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
At the end of my pregnancy. In my early third trimester,
I patted with some friends in o Hi, which was
like the last good days, Like I hyped every single day.
I was like this mythical creature that was like walking
around in a floral dress, pregnant, like on the hilltops.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Fuck yeah, in o High which for all of you
listening who don't know, oh Hai is an hour away
from la and it's like mountains and streams and orange groves.
I love it there. It's like my favorite LA close place.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So that was like month seven and then I came
back I had this cough and it was just like
really bad. I'd bring it up to doctors, I'd bring
it up to my acupar, like bring it up to everybody,
and people are like, it's a post nasal drip, it's whatever.
And then I also was feeling like I couldn't sleep
(19:50):
at all, and I was like short of breath. But
everybody was like, I know the third trimester, like everything
gets smushed and you get really tied and you uncomfortable
and you can't sleep, and all of these things that
were happening to me were like signs of a really
bad third trimester. But for me, I'd never been pregnant before.
(20:13):
I didn't know any different. But I was just starting
to feel like more and more helpless. I was shooting
a pilot for this show I love that for you.
Every single day I'd get in the car to go
to set and I would turn back around because I'd
just like cough until I threw up, and I feel
(20:34):
so miserable. My friend's a DP and she was like
operating a camera at nine months pregnant. I was so like,
why can't I do this? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Some people literally have a cold their entire pregnancy. In
your case, it was all signs to something really fucking serious.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yes, So then my parents were flying in. That was
the initial plan, was my parents were gonna fly like
a couple weeks before the plan C section, my sister
was gonna come in. It was still pandemic, so you
couldn't have more than one person in the room, and
I had decided that was going to be Rebecca Urdula
(21:14):
and then she'd switch spots in the recovery room with
my mom. But I just didn't because it was a surgery.
I was like, let's let the professional people in the
room and then yeah, once I moved, I'll have that.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So I was thirty two weeks or so, thirty three
weeks was when like at those appointments, the baby was
always great, healthy. Towards the end, I gained like twenty
pounds in a week and I wasn't eating any food.
(21:51):
I'd maybe gained twenty pounds like the whole pregnancy, and
then all of a sudden, it was like twenty pounds
in a week and then like fifteen pounds in the
next week, and I finally thank God for honestly, pre clamsia.
My blood pressure started getting a little high, but it
was like a weird kind of high. So my doctor
(22:11):
was like, get a blood pressure monitor. Let's monitor your
blood pressure. I do think we're going to try to
get you to thirty seven weeks, but I think this
baby's going to be like before forty weeks. I called
my parents and I was like, I think you guys
should make your tickets next week. This is going to
be happening sooner. And at this point, I was so happy.
(22:32):
All I wanted was this baby out of me, Like
I felt.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, I'm so nervous at this point. Yeah, so you
feel like.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I'm like, thank you, take it out. Take it out. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I bought the blood pressure thing. I called my doctor
because there were a couple times that it was high.
She was like, let's have you go to the hospital.
We'll give you these like steroid shots for the baby's
lungs and like all this stuff. So I go to
the hospital, they test me for the pre clamsia, they
send me home. But there were little things that were weird,
(23:03):
like the heart rate thing would like keep beeping in
weird ways. They thought it was because I was coughing,
so they turned it off. There were a lot of
little things that were odd, but that at this point
I just was like so used to all of it.
So then I went home and then the next day
it was also like a little bit high, and my
(23:26):
doctor was like, all right, we're gonna have you go
back this time. I would say, maybe pack a bag,
you might be having this baby. My friend Nathan took
me to the hospital and then they're like, you have
like severe preclamsia, so we're going to take this baby
out like in the next hour.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And I was like, oh my god, like I'm psyched,
though I definitely.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Like was like, oh wait, like my family's not here yet.
I had had a night like a postpartum doula, Like.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You're a producer, you like, I already produced this, I've
planned everything, the cast is set. This is not my
fucking plan.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
What the fuck exactly?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I called are the doula and she was like, Okay,
I have to go get a COVID test. She literally
ran into the operating room like just in the.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Next jet out of here. This is Rebecca Beninati, who
you all know and love if you're Katie's criblist, So
she was my duela as well, and It's how I
really got closer with Jordana because we were in the
same Mommy me class. Once Celia was here.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yes, And I also was like starting to get a
sense that things were wrong because like my doctor was
very big on only one person in the room pandemic,
and I when I said it was going to be
my doula, she was a little bit like, you're having
a c section. I don't know if you need a
duel in the room. The nurses are going to be there.
Maybe you should have a beer, mom. And all of
a sudden, my friend Nathan could have been in the
(24:46):
room if I like she was like allowing there were
things that started to feel weird. They're about to give
me the anesthesia, and the anesthesiologist is like, her heart
rate is one eight. Something's going on. That's when, like
all of a sudden, everything started changing, Like I'm just
(25:07):
sitting there and the doctor's like, are you nervous? Why
is your heart rate so high? And I was like,
I don't know, Like I'm about to I'm about to
like surgery and be awake, and like I I guess
I'm nervous. I've been out of breath for a long time.
So I just didn't know what was going on. And
then all of a sudden, it was like everyone in
(25:30):
nice voices.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
We just talked to your mom.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
She's on a plane, she's coming tonight, she'll be here
by eight in the morning.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Who the fuck have you found out? Are people calling people?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So then all of a sudden, like more and more
people started like gathering outside, and my friend Nathan, he
was going to be communicating with people, but then my
doctor was like, cardiology needs to get down here, like
right now. And they were like on speakerphone and she
was like, I cannot do the search if there's not
(26:00):
like a crash cart I need cardiology. And I was
like huge chondralin fan. I have watched h every episode
of episode.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
And I was like, they're calling it a crash. It
was like a crash.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Card like what And I'm like there.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And then cardiology came down and while they were taking
the baby out, they're like doing an echo cardiogram and
they're like saying out loud, there's damage on the left side,
there's damage on the right side. Her heart is functioning
at twenty percent capacity. And Rebecca's like rubbing my temples,
taking deep breath taking pictures. It was crazy. And then
(26:38):
they took the baby out and she was beautiful and healthy,
and they're like, okay, we need to take the baby
to the nic.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
You because it was almost thirty six years early.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, I mean not that early, but thank god, not
that thank God.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
And they're like, we need to take Jerdiyana to cardiac.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I see you.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Rebecca asked them to give meat while they were prepped
the room, so like can she said, can you just
put the baby on her for twenty minutes? I know
I'm gonna cry to God, but so and I didn't
even like occur to me what was going on, and
the baby was just like gone. She was like taken away.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Sorry, No, don't be sorry. I love you. No, I
know you from a crime, but I don't like like
I remember. I mean, I remember being in Mommy and
Me class over a zoom with you, and you you're
such a doer and you've handled your whole life and
you take your life in your own hands and you
make shit happen for yourself, for your projects, for your motherhood,
(27:37):
for all of this and now because you had Perry
Pardam cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation. You were rendered completely helpless
and literally everyone around you had to do everything.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It didn't occur to me that we were going to
be like separated, that I was in such a diet
place like that. Basically they like took me away and
took her away. And then I woke up in the
morning in the ICU and I felt so much better,
and a doctor came in and was like said a
(28:17):
bunch of things what I had took away from it
was like, You're gonna be okay. I heard aphib and
my dad had APHIB and I heard like pieces, but
I didn't have anyone there. My dad's a retired doctor,
and so I'm so used to having like a translator
when it comes to this stuff from him.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh, I can't imagine doing that on your own.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, So I just like turn it all and it
was like, I'm gonna be okay. My mom came a
few hours later, and that's when I like learned They
gave me the name of what I had, and I
was texting like my pregnancy chain mom group giving people information.
People's reactions were like terrifying, and I just don't think
(29:02):
I realized like the extent of it no one knew
until like months later, if I was gonna be a
survivor or not. It's the leading form of death postpartum.
It's oftentimes not uncompletely missed. Yeah, it's completely missed.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Why does it happen?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
They don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It's when a pregnant woman's heart becomes weakened and enlarged.
It is the most common type of treated heart arrhythmia, right,
and an arrhythmia just for Layman's terms, your dad is
not here right now. But an arrhythmia is when the
heart beats too slowly, too fast, or in any sort
of irregular way. So that's not heart was operating.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, so that's like I mean, it is connected. I
went into a trio fibrillation because my heart.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Was because of the Perry partam cardiomyopsis.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes, two different things that I was dealing with from this,
the heart feel piece, the Prairie part of cardiomyopathy is
basically just that my pregnancy attacked my heart and no
one knows why. They don't know if it's genetic, they
don't know, if it's like hormonal, like, they don't know why.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
You have to have never had.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
A heart condition to be diagnosed with this form of
heart failure, but it just happened. There's so much still
that's a mystery, Like I'm not allowed there's like a
ninety five percent chance that it would happen again if
I got pregnant again. My heart is completely healed, which
is amazing.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
It took a.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Year for it to completely heal, and my eight fifth
just had an oblation a few months ago to try
to get rid of that and it's seeming like it's working.
But yeah, so it's like one of the only forms
of heart failure that people really do just can completely
recover from. And they don't know if that's just because
my heart was really strong before. It wasn't like this
(30:55):
long period of time that I was in this condition.
It's just all so unheard of. I also went on
a lot of medications that I'm now like on some
for the rest of my life, mainly just because they
won't know if I would have just healed on my own,
if the medications helped me to heal. It just was
such a weird, mysterious.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Thing, and so I saw no one stopped coming.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
When did you finally get Celia loud to the room.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
For almost a week.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
And they were like, you can't hold her, right, No.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I couldn't see her. I had to be so heavily
monitored and hooked up to things that they couldn't take
me there to the nick you to see her. Even
though I felt totally fine. They were like would take me,
like started taking me on like walks, and I was
like trying to talk the whole time so they wouldn't
think I was head all out of breath and like,
(32:01):
just let me see my child. So what ended up
happening is they released Celia. She got released from the
hospital before me. They released her to my mom, and
they let my mom sleep in the last night I
was in the hospital room with me and the baby.
I could hold her, but I couldn't like leave the
hospital room with her. The problem was that I was
(32:22):
hooked up to these heart monitors that like went up
that beaped anytime your heart rate went above it might
have even been one hundred or one twenty or something,
and because I was an APHIV, it was constantly beeping.
I would move and it would beat, and nurses would
run in and I would pick her up and it
would beat, and nurses would run in and take her
(32:44):
away from me.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So it was like a very horrible time.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
And when I came back from the hospital, I wasn't
allowed to get my heart rate over a hundred. I
wasn't allowed to drink more than two like two big
water bottles of water. I was on an extreme low
sodium diet. It was really hard.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And who was your support system? Who did you have?
Who was around you to help with Celia? Also like
did your milk come in? And you like, yeah, that's
a part of it, right, because you're on so many medicines,
Like there's no way.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
When I was in the hospital, the lactation consultants would
come and showed me how to pump, and there was
plenty of milk, Like I would try to pump because
it's like the only thing that made me feel closer
to this baby that I was separated from. They brought
the milk to her, I think maybe one time, and
(33:41):
then my obe was like what are you doing. They
put me on a lot of different medicines and they
were all technically safe to breastfeed on, but I was
on a water restriction. I like wasn't being given much food.
She was like, I don't think you should do this.
Obviously as to your chow. And I hadn't made a
(34:01):
decision yet until I had gotten home from the hospital
and I went to the pharmacist and I was on
cumidin which you're allowed to breastfeed on, which is a
blood thinner, but it's a tough blood thinner to be on.
You can't eat leafy greens. You have to constantly be
monitored and adjusted. And the pharmacist was like, can I
(34:24):
ask you, if you don't breastfeed, you could just take
this pills or alto, which I'm on still once a
day and you don't have to worry about how much leafy.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Greens do you greens and all this stuff, but it's.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Not safe for breastfeeding.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
And that day, like I went home and I was like,
I'm just not go I hadn't breastfed yet, and I
was like, like, it was a very hard decision, but
I made the decision to not do it because of
the medicines and because I couldn't I was never going
to be able to do it without supplementing formula because
I couldn't drink enough water to even.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Make the milk. Like this is great, Like what did
the after experience look? Like, who was your support system?
I know you have she is nine godfathers. Your parents
are super involved. I know you're close with your siblings,
but like, how did that look?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
My parents were here, my sister came a few days later,
my friend Nathan, he was there. I mean I had
like meal trained beyond meal train of like so much food.
I had the night nurse, and she called another night
nurse so that they could shift because I needed more
than like the package I initially got. I hadn't figured
(35:32):
out the nanny situation versus like takecare and like what
I was gonna do yet, because this was also a
month early, and so I ended up having hiring a nanny,
and like one of my friends who was pregnant but
had art like with her second she like interviewed people
for me and found my nanny. And I didn't know
(35:53):
I was like such a hot commodity for a nanny
because I was like a single mom. I don't have
to deal with the partner.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Newborn baby girl, so we like lucked out. We have
the best nanny in the world, and like eventually things
started looking up and it felt like it was like years,
but it was probably like within the first three months,
I was like cleared to exercise again. My heart was
getting it wasn't yet healed, but it was like, I guess,
(36:25):
if it starts to show improvement, it means you are
likely to fully recover.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
So the aphib took a lot longer.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
That's been like a couple of years of just figuring
it out because I was in it persistently and then.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
And that's what I remember so well in that Mommy
and Me class, you were like to have to ask
for help all day and all night for myself and
for my daughter a month's on end, I'm sure was
just such an experience for you that was humbling and
also in gratitude and complete surrender to experience and just
(37:02):
I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Still work on that with like therapists, asking for help
is like not my thing, and it's never been my thing.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Not in your dea, and I love to help. Thank
Heaven's your heart starts to go in a positive direction, Celia,
Thank God is thriving totally. When I look at your
Instagram and you're flying all around the country alone, solo
with your baby girl who's now a toddler, but her
(37:30):
whole life she's been flying around with you. She's on set,
she's got godfathers and uncles and all this shit who
are like huge parts of her lives and taking her
to brunch and all this stuff. I mean, she's like
so magical to me. How is it going? How do
you feel about motherhood? Is it what you thought? What
are you good at? What are you bad at? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I love it. I love being a I really love it.
And I love being a solo parent. I just think
being a new parent is hard. So it's like we're
all in the same boat, and you learn how to
do it however you do it. So I feel like
I have friends that partners go away and they're like,
I don't know how you do this. My partner is
(38:11):
going away for a month or like going on tour.
For me, it was very much like I figured out
right away because I had to. Like I always think
about when I used to cocktail waitress and in New York,
like in my early twenties, and how you have all
of the drinks balanced on the tray, and if someone
(38:32):
came along and took a drink off the tray to
try to help you, it would all crumble. That's how
solo parenting is like you've got it figured out, and
it's hard to let people help you because you're like.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
If you take the stroller like out of my arm,
then I'm gonna drop the.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Baby like my weight is not. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, And.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
You figure out how to have people.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Help you.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Quick things. I want to ask you. I don't want
to take too much of your time. What is something
you're really good at in parenthood that surprised you.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I think I'm good at being present, which I like
never thought I would be because I work all the time.
I always say that I would love to be a
full time mom and I'd love to be a full
time producer. And I feel like I'm weirdly succeeding at
doing both with that, and I'm tired. It's not like
(39:29):
I don't feel burnt out, but like I do feed
off of both things. So I think I am when
I'm with my daughter. I mean, it's not like I
don't like sneak sneak some peaks at my emails and
text messages as they come in back.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
But you're good at life. I'm going to be with her.
I'm going to be with her right now.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
I love that what's something in parenting that you need
to work on?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
There's so much that I need to work on. What's
the What's one thing I wanted to learn like ry
and do the right technique? And I didn't. It's like
against my nature. But because I tried to do it,
I was like aware of how much I like praise
my daughter for like pooping.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, and they're like not into that.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So I feel like, even though I don't need to
go all Rye, there's certain things that I don't want
to put weight in that, like I find really hard
to not do because I look at her and I'm like,
I love you too much.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, Like you're perf You're fucking adorable and gorgeous, and
I love what you're wearing. I know, Rye. For people
listening like Rye sometimes has like too much praise is
a bad thing. I think Ray would even say any
praise is a bad thing. But the fact that you're
even aware, right.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I feel like that's all I can do is just
be aware. Yeah, that's all I could.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yes, my daughter took a peep in the pod yesterday
and I was running around the fucking house like it
was like New Year's Eve, and I was like, oh god, whatever,
we're all doing our fucking best. Okay, it sounds like
Celia's really into ballet these days. Is she into it?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
She is?
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I mean this is where I'm like, am I a
tiger mom? Like I just the earliest you could put
them in.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Ballet with the last ballet.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Months and I like, eighteen months to the day, I'm like,
we're doing ballet. She had just started walking.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
To me, Were you a ballet kid? Okay, yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
But I like I was Also I got tall, and
I got boobs. My career ended before it started, and
I was fine with it because I wanted to like
do things with my friends. And eventually you're like not
going to go to ballet four times a week. I
just think it's so funny, like watching her, like she's
constantly twirling and she doesn't really know what she's doing,
(41:43):
but she It just is so funny to me. So
it's really just my own satisfaction.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
But why, I mean, this is the only time you
can do because I'm certain age she's going to refuse exactly.
I have a feeling you're not going to force her,
so like, no, this is the only time that you
can do it. I' missucker for it too. I mean
Vera's in fucking ballet and music. It's more for the two,
Like the outfit that I the one video I made
(42:09):
for my mother that I'll have till the end of time. Yes,
what's the one registry item you couldn't have lived without.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
There's this thing for moms that are bottle feeding or
combo feeding or whatever called the baby Breza, which is
like a krig machine for formula, And that was like
I didn't register for it, but I got it after
formula became a thing. It was truly a lifesaver because
you just like press a button and like it mixes
(42:39):
perfectly and it's whatever temperature you want it to be.
Real life saver.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Love it baby Breza. Oh, I want to question, how
did the Nine Godfathers make the cut?
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
So basically for me, it was like, I I have
a great dad and brother, and I I I'm from
a like a heteronormative, like traditional family, and there was
something for me that was really hard to think about
not having a male figure in her life daily. And
(43:13):
I also don't even know what that looks like because
I'm not with my person. So I just knew that
I had all these great men in my life, and
also many of them don't have kids of their own.
It's amazing to have other parent friends and mom friends.
But I have found that my friends without kids have
been the most detrimental to me and Celia's life because
(43:38):
they're the only people that love your kid more than
anything else in the world. But the Nine Godfathers were
like my best friend Nathan and my old business partners
when I had a company called Haven and Show Walter,
who's my partner now, and people that like, I'm like,
you can do different things with her and she'll get
(43:59):
to see what a man is through my eyes.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Who are love like over a little healthy male role
model influence energy is in her life.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yes exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I'm so grateful for your time and for your like
your story and sharing it with all of us Katie's
crib listeners. I just think it's so inspiring and epic.
I'm so grateful that your heart is on a very
great road recovery, and that Celia Lou is the best
and she's so stinking cute, it's insane. Oh my god,
(44:34):
thank you, thank you, guys. So much for listening to
today's episode. I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns.
Let me know. You can always find me at Katie'scrib
at shondaland dot com. Katie's Crib is a production of
(44:57):
Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
from shondala And Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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