January 12, 2025 • 57 mins
What’s it like having five kids under eight while running multiple businesses? Chontel Duncan knows firsthand.
Matty J and Ash chat with Chontel, the powerhouse behind HIIT gyms across Queensland and the Neuform fitness app.
Chontel shares how she manages her "home circus" with her husband, Sam, dives into the challenges of a high-risk twin pregnancy and opens up about a terrifying moment every parent dreads.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ash Matthew, could you imagine having three more kids in
your life?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Shutsy, beautiful mouth.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're getting sweaty just thinking about it. Oh, Chantel Duncan
and her husband Sam, they have five shut up, not two,
not three, not four, Five kids all under eight years old.
Plus she's running like several businesses. Well, does she have
a sakata problem? She doesn't know what it's like, Matthew.
(00:28):
As the owner of hit gyms across Queens and founding
new form a fitness program app, Chantelle has generated a
massive following amongst other mums who just want to keep fit.
I think she's got like over a million Wow, really
follows on social media.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Crazy Chantel gets into how she runs the circus at home,
how she met her longtime partner fellow hunk Sam.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
That's very arrogant.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, just reading the script, I hate the game, not
the play.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How she got through her high risk pregnancies with her twins,
and how she experienced a moment that he's every parent
worst night man.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thankfully the story as well, but it's a great reminder.
Considering we are in the thick of summer, let's get
into it. Welcome back to two doting dads and one
(01:24):
doting mum. I am Maddie Jay, I'm Ash and I'm
Chantal Dunkin And this is a podcast all about parenting.
It is the good, it is the bad and the relatable.
And Chantel, we do not give any advice myself.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
And Ash, no, we're not allowed to.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We have to always just flag that with the listeners
because we are not the experts here. But if you
have any advice to give, please we will be the
sponges and absorb it all beautiful. We always like to
start the podcast and find out what you were like
as a younger person. And Ash and I were talking
this morning in the car and the drive here, and
the one thing that stands out to us for yourself, Fontel,
(02:01):
is discipline. You scream discipline, do I Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
you're the fittest mom we've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That's pretty much.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I was going to say, yeah, we always so driven
and so strict with your routine and your fitness as
a kid as well.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
As a kid, I lent more into sports just purely
because well recently I found out I have ADHD and
that makes a lot more sense now looking back at it.
But I found that I thrived in sports, and so
I had very little focus.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
And interest on the mundane.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
And I guess that's kind of where it led me
to have that as a career.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Shall I say, if pe in sport was your best
subjects at school, what would be your worst history?
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Okay, I mean it's done fair enough, fair enough, very logical.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Were your parents, you know, very sporty or were they
very encouraging?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Was there anything you picked up from them?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
No? I mean my dad did play rugby league. I
have vague memories of it because by the time I
could retain that memory, he was kind of getting to
the point where el just getting out of plane. You know,
body's a bit broken. But no, I did not come
from a sporty family at all. I was almost like
the odd ball in the family.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
You shall say, you mentioned that you had your diagnosis
with add When you look back when you were a youngster,
were there any symptoms that you go, oh, that makes
so much sense now, so much What were they focus?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I remember reading books and I could read everything that
was in front of me, But would it make sense
and would I retain it? Not?
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Really?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
If I was interested in it, I would be top
of the class. If I had to do an oral presentation,
meaning I could explain it the way that I saw
it and use my creativity to do my demonstrations, then
I would ace it. If I had to write something
and read a book, I would try go around and
watch the movie, which will never be exactly what the
(04:00):
book's like. And I became very solution orientated based from
having I guess those limitations. But yeah, I look back
at it now and I can see why I thrived
in things like math and science and sports. I didn't
in history and English. I just was not interested. And
if you're not interested, you don't hyperfix on it and
(04:21):
you don't retain it.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
What led you to get diagnosed? Then, after all this time,
my son.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
They kept saying in kindergarten that maturity for young boys
is delayed up to two years almost, And when he
was in kindergarten, he just wasn't focusing. He wasn't naughty,
he is so beautiful, he is such an honest kid,
but he could not focus and he'd do silly things.
And I remember saying to my husband, that's not like,
(04:49):
that's not.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Normal, and what is normal?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
But I just always have this analogy that you can't
build a gorgeous, beautiful, incredible mansion on a shit foundation.
So if I don't create the great, solid foundation for him,
then he's not going to be able to flourish in
whatever he wants to do.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
So I know.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
I probably could have had a better kickstart if I
had a stronger foundation, But I guess the blessing was
I had to become solution orientated and I learned the
power of hard work. But I always want to try
build that foundation for them so that whatever it is
that they're interested in or that they're great at, they
just have a really good starting point. And I just
couldn't understand why he wasn't retaining things. He couldn't remember names.
(05:32):
I'd be like, this is you know Sarah who works
at the gym. You see her all the time. This
is you know And he just wouldn't remember their names
or remember like situations that we've done, maybe last year
we went on holidays anyways. And then his younger brother,
because I had the children so close in age, I
did all five of them in under six years, and
(05:54):
I just remember his younger brother started coming to the
mark and remembering things and having an excellent memory and yeah,
retaining information or like their memory is part of ADHD.
So I just said to the teacher, what do you
want to do, like what's where does he stand out?
And she said, we'll do a series of tests and
then you can send those reports to the GP. You
(06:15):
can go to the GP and have a look at
investigating further into an OT and they can have a
look to see if he's on the spectrum for anything,
if there's anything that he's challenged with. And to me,
I'm like, ADHD is a power. It is a superpower.
A lot of geniuses and huge entrepreneurs tend to be
on the spectrum to be real. And my husband, his
(06:36):
two younger brothers, he comes from a family of four
kids they had ADHD. So I thought, genetically, it's a
strong chance. I did not think I had it because
I was so organized. I was over organized, I was
disciplined and things like that, but I was that because
I had to. Anyways, Yeah, he got diagnosed and then
she said, well it's generally genetic, like it's always going
(06:58):
to be genics. Sorry, And as they go into it
and list all the things that he's doing and the
things that he has, it just started to I almost
was ticking everything for myself. Wow, and then I thought, shit,
maybe I'm the problem.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
So when I got tested and.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
One of us has begun the process, Chantelle.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I'm very early on, but I think we're starting the process.
It's so long and tedious. I feel like it's all
one big test, you know what I mean, Like it's
I don't know if.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
We joke about the fact that if you can complete it,
you don't have it. Yeah, it's so hard.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
I'm not gonna lie, but I doing the DIVA test,
skimmed so many questions just to get a finished And
then psychiatrist said, how did you go completing the test?
And I'm like, to be real, I'll be honest, I
didn't really read much of it. And he goes, oh,
that's a huge but that's a huge indicator right there.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I was going through like the first steps and it
was like, you know, getting like character from people close
to me, and I was.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Kind of like, oh, butterfly.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
You know, I was just so distracted because I was like,
I can't focus on this. How how am I supposed
to complete something to figure out to tell me whether
I've got ADHD or not?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
What is what not to sound really naive here, but Chanta,
what is the test? What does that look like?
Speaker 4 (08:21):
It's very hard to know why he asks his certain questions.
That's a psychiatrist when you do the sit down appointments,
because at the beginning, yes, they can give you a diagnosis,
but I believe it's always tentative until they trial the medication,
and then they see how you spun because you'll either
go one way or the other. And they do school
reporting so they get all your history.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
They obviously asks.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Like parents or people who knew you as an adolescent,
and then they get you to complete the DIVA tests
as well, so they're the main ones that I had
to do, and then it's just trial and error with
medication to see do you feel like you're getting better with.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
That since your son's gone through the process. Do you
see a really big difference?
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Massive.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I can not vouch more for parents getting their kids
tested if they have an ink clean or a gut
feeling that your child is struggling. It is in no way,
shape or form shameful if your child has some form
of challenge when it comes to focusing. Because if you
(09:27):
had diabetes, you'd get medication for it. If you could
not see, you would get glasses. If you had crooked teeth,
you'd go get bracest. If your brain is not functioning
the way it needs to function, you would get medication
for it.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
It's just another organ.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
It's really nice to hear because my wife and I
sort of our son really similar to how you described yours.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I feel like can't focus.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
There's things he's really really really good art, and then
there's things he's really like struggling with that I can see.
So it's really good to hear that your perspective and
that you know there isn't anything be ashamed of, for sure,
not to.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Put you on the spot ash Do you think the
test for yourself will be completed or yeah, look.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I want to finish it. I'm trying my absolute hardest.
Too many distractions.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
It's like, you know, you survived so far and done
so well, like you've built this character based on being
truly special and like in so many cool ways that
people admire. I mean, it's definitely a blessing. But if
it helps you build projects and get to the next
level that you might be working on, then perfect, then
(10:37):
the medication will help.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I feel like I'm a therapy.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
We did. We've got a glimpse of your beautiful husband
Sam before we started recording. I don't know if he's
in the room still, but he is a gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Man's a handsome man.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
He's laughing.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I think I heard a giggle in the battle.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I can sense it.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
When did you and Sam first meet?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I was fourteen when he asked me out?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Wow, he was also a similar age.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I'm hoping he was.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
He was.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
He was fifteen with the baller.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Where was the asking out? Where did it take place?
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So we met in school. He was the great above
me and we were kinder. It was so funny. Me
and my best friend liked him and his best friend
and so we just would sleek out of the house,
go to parties and on the weekends or on Thursday night,
got a late night shopping because that was such a thing.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I like the local Westfield.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Well we went that bougie. We're from the Redlands, so
it was Capellabar.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
And the skate park and yeah, I was quite the tomboy.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
And then we would always go to on to the
Wellington Point Beach which has a jetty and you'd go
jetty jumping and have hot chips and things like that
and all like skateboard and ride your bike set. But anyway,
so we would always find ways to see each other
outside of school as well. And it was Christmas Day
we did. We had Optus mobile phones, and the reason
why we had Optus is because it was free after nine.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I remember that. It seems wild flashback, young kids, like,
what do you mean it was free after isn't it
always three?
Speaker 4 (12:28):
If you and your person you're ringing had Optus then
and you had at least a dollar credit, we'd always
hang on to that last dollar because you could.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Call for free after nine o'clock.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
So we would speak for hours in our bedrooms from
nine o'clock. And it was Christmas Eve. My girlfriend and
Sam's best friend parks each other out on Christmas Eve,
and we didn't want the same anniversary, so then he
unks me out twelve oh one on Christmas Day and
then cue the next day. Our families ended up celebrating
Christmas at the same location. So we just knuck off
(12:58):
and we're like.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Hey, wow.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So when you're that age, though, you know, when you're
fourteen fifteen, the last thing you're thinking about you know,
you're kind of it's young love, but you're not really
thinking about getting married and starting a family. Do you
remember when you guys started having those types of conversations.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, I think it would have been well after we
started our business.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We'll talk them eleven years to propose to me?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Eleven years? Well, you were fourteen.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
Side, are you on?
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Look?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I think like if you met when you're twenty, it
would have only been five years if you put it
that way.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
So like team Sam, I see something.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
You've got someone in your corner.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Mate, I got you, I got your mate.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Yeah, so look we I reckon.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
After we opened our first business together is when we
were actually feeling like adults. Were like, shit, we're full
blown adults here. Now let's talk about us. Before that,
we were in the honeymoon period for so many years,
which I love because we got to grow up together,
We got to go travel together, Like, yeah, I just
(14:10):
cut all the drama out that I would watch Vikarasi
through our friends and yeah, we were just so content
with not having to double into that and just always
have each other. And his mates were always, you know,
friends with all my girlfriends, So it just kind of
worked it was like this big Jersey shore.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
In terms of popping the question, do you want to
give us how that went down?
Speaker 5 (14:31):
It was so over the top.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
He went so far. He got a helicopter ride for me,
and it was a friend who owned the Institute of
Fitness that I got qualified through or he got qualified
through as well. We became really good friends with the owner.
I also started working for him straight after I got qualified,
so this really good relationship with him and we would
talk to him about business and things like that. So
(14:57):
it made sense when he said he wrung me the
owner and said I want to take you out on
my helicopter and take you and Sam around the Gold
Coast that's where he was from. And yeah, I just
want to say thanks because you've grown your social media
so massively and you've sent hundreds of people through to
my institute and encourage them to get into the field.
So it's the least I could do. And I'm like, legit,
(15:19):
this sounds great. I mean, my husband's going to love this.
He loves helicopters. For me, I was like a day
off and I've got to go to the Gold Coaster. Okay.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
I was so tired running.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
This company, and I'm like, no, that's fine, that's so
lovely of him. So I got in a beautiful dress.
It was like a summer dress. He told me to
take it off. He's like, why are you wearing that?
Just like chuck some shorts on, which I'm so annoyed
because he had a photographer the proposed one.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
I was wearing just the ugliest outfit. And yeah. So
we got into the helicopter.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
We're flying around and he started hovering and he's like, oh,
can you see the shark sound there? And I'm like
looking down trying to find it, and he's like over there,
pointing to the beach.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Did not see it for so long?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And then he like physically turned my head and he's like,
look at the sign on the beach and there was
this griinenormous sign with all my friends and family.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Will you marry me?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Then I turned around and he was like he went
I want and just paused, shaking like a little baby back,
and then just said marry me, like could not say
what he wanted to say. I started bawling my eyes out,
and it's awkward because our friend is in between us.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
He's like, hey, guys, let me just.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And he stams in the back um of the front
kind even kiss him, can't of hug him. It was
so funny. And then when we got out the helicopter,
they had a photographer there, champagne popping, everyone was there.
We went out to lunch and it was really beautiful.
In my shorts and a single.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Weather appropriate appropriate. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Well, that's probably one of the most boogie old like,
yeah out there.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Story as we've had. We've had some good ones. That's great.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Graduate take note of that. We do have to say,
and I mean this in the most polite way possible,
you are a little bit crazy in that I don't
know any family with young kids with more than three
little ones. You've got five. Talk me through that.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
It was not planned, but it is the most incredible
blessing that has happened to us because we both have
a very small families on the outside and in a
quick nutshell, we don't have relationships with our parents or
anything like that, and so it's really small and for us,
we always wanted to redo life and do it the
(17:40):
way that we wish we could have had as kids.
And you'd always well, for us, we always admired watching
families and our friends have that perfect you know, they
do holidays, they sit down for dinners, they don't have
parents rock up to things, and.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
Like, there's just this network.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
There a unit, there's a unit there, and it's really beautiful.
And that's what we didn't have. It was very messy.
So for us, we had very similar common interests when
it came to our future, and we always said, let's
go four kids. Let's go four kids. Went the first
one and it was a perfect, literally textbook pregnancy. Then
we had I think I was nine months postpartum and
(18:19):
we fell pregnant with the second one, and I was like, amazing.
I only wanted boys because I just saw how easy
going all the boys were. In Sam's house. They would
punch on and then in ten minutes they would be
together again playing. They never had a grudge against each other,
they were best mates. They got over things so quickly.
And I was such a tomboy. I'm like, I just
can't deal with girls with simple creatures. Yeah, absolutely take
(18:42):
my head off, but kills me at the same time.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
I was like, yeah, four boys.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Great.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
So we had the first two and then I was like,
actually I kind of feel like I want a daughter.
I would love a daughter, but I don't want to
go through another two pregnancies. Maybe we could have twins,
you know, because if my this is all going to happen.
And I said to Sam, let's go see our ob
and just ask him what's the chance of us possibly
(19:08):
going for twins? How do you get twins? You know
what's put your best foot forward. You never know, you
got to learn. So I spoke to him and he
just basically said, your field of fitness, I would not
recommend you have twins, will absolutely destroy your public floor.
You won't be doing your kickboxing, your box jumps, you're skipping,
you won't. You know that's going to be gone and
it's going to damage your body as well.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
So just keep that in the back of your mind.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Also, if you want to pick your gender, you're gonna
have to go overseas and do that.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
We don't do that in Australia.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
And also if we try to do twins and put
your eggs like fertilized eggs and you they can split.
And that's how as an example, that's how Octo Mum
came about. Is that how that I was like We'll
just go back.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
To the normal.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
It's all good.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Thanks so much. You've like terrified me.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, and yes, I was like, okay, we'll just do
the norm. There's hard and nupshewe and get over yourself.
Just do it. You know, anything worth having is going
to be hard work. So we went and had our
third baby, and it was a high risk pregnancy, and
that just rattled me. It was called a threatened miscarriage.
(20:17):
So your body tries to miscourage the pregnancy, but your
cervix doesn't open, so it's kind of like a ticking bomb.
You're just a ticking bomb. You gotta lay down and
keep your legs up. You can't do anything that's like
even sneezing is really dangerous. And that comes from twelve
weeks all the way through. He came at and they
come early as well because the sack that they live
(20:38):
in thins and eventually the waters will break and you'll
have the baby. So I managed to keep him in
there till he was thirty five weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Do they pick that up on the twelve weeks scan?
Speaker 4 (20:47):
No, It basically I just started hemorrhaging like I was miscarriaging,
and they checked and they're like, look, the baby's still alive,
but this is a miscarriage, and you're just going to
have to go home, hope for the best, come back
in twenty four forty eight hours and we'll check to
see if the baby survived. And I'm like, oh shit,
that's ruthless.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
That's so ruthless.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
That's all you get told. And so yeah, that was
a really dark period just laying there and ignoring basically
anything outside. It's like an outer body experience and you're
just basically living in the shell. For it was a Friday,
it happens. I have to wait till Monday.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
And when I came back Monday, I'm like, the bleeding's
kind of slowed down. It's like getting better. Is everything good?
And you're just waiting to hear the heartbeat and they're like, yeah,
everything's good, but you have a huge hematoma. So that's
the big hemorrhage, like the big bruising in there, and
we can't guarantee anything. So yes, baby survived, You're just
going to have to lay down and just stay down.
And for me, I'm one adhd I know it. At
(21:48):
the time, running multiple businesses, have two young kids, under.
I don't know how old they were then. Anyways, they
were so young and then being so active. I trained
at least once a day minimum, and all my staff,
and then online presence on social media, and I was
on an app called Sweat at the time, and I
(22:09):
had to be actively promoting online and so it was
just so annoying and heavy and massively character building, but
we survived. He got to the thirty five week period
and came out six pounds, which is small but fine
for a thirty five week are absolutely perfect.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
And here's our go getter, here's our wild child.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
And he's like our little nugget, a little runt of
the family. He's just wild. And he came out perfectly fine.
And I said to Sam, done.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Done, Do not ever want to do that again? Three
kids be healthy.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Done.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
He was eight months old and my girlfriend put me
on this flow app. I don't know if you boys
would even know what that is?
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Do?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yes, I don't. Is it?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
It's a cycle app?
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Right, It's a cycle app so basically tells you when
you're ovulating, which my husband didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Only like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Anyways, she put me on this app and she's like, Seannie,
I know you're done having kids, so hop on the
flow app. I can't believe you never track, So here
you go. You can track because you're and Sam seen
before pregnant on the toilet seat these days.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Just good at it all right.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Now you're really like pepping and.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Up he So anyways, I was like perfect, looked at
it and I was like, oh, cool, we're not I'm
not ovulating.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
I'm like so far out of it.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
So one time, one time we were just like drinking
or you know whatever, and you know how babies are
made and tweens, so.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Talk about tempting fake with that conversation with you. Ob Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Feel like anything I think of happens, I keep manifesting.
I just need to stop.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
What's the feeling like going okay, well we're pregnant. All right,
we're gonna have to deal with this. We're gonna have
a fourth and then it's like, nope, you're gonna have
a fifth as well?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
What's that field I had? My My friends are renovating
the house and they have four kids, and I was like, oh,
don't go rent a house, just come live at mine.
I have one spare room and a big lound room.
They typical islander vibes, right, this is me. I'm like,
everyone lives at my house. All good, come here, put
your fridge in my dining room. Like we'll be fine,
We'll like have this beautiful Brady bunch. And so I
(24:28):
had them living with me, and I remember coming down going, guys,
I'm pregnant. And I threw the test at Sam when
I found out you.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Did this.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Typical, And then I went down I told them and
I eventually had I had so many shoots I had
to do, and I had to go to Melbourne and
like film all this content. And I couldn't understand why
I was so unwell. I felt dizzy, like I needed
to faint all the time. I had nausea, and I
just was like, I'll get to the scan appointment, I'll
book it and I'll figure it out. But you know,
(25:03):
fourth pregnancy, I'm just not eager to run and go
figure it out. It's not so new, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
And I was really busy.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I was just with the issues you had that.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
I've done this before. They just need you know, I
know what it's like.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And eventually I made it to the Q scan appointment,
which you guys would have been at, and they show
you the little blob on the with the little ticker,
and I remember the lady set me down and she goes,
first baby. I'm like, no, fourth baby. Yeah, And I've
(25:36):
been in this exact ruin exact seat.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
This is the fourth time doing this.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
And she's like okay, And I was like having a
little joke, right, And I said to her, please just
tell me there's only one baby, otherwise I'm going to
get up and throat punch my husband. And she's like, okay,
did not turn the screen on in front of us
she was doing her scan. I can't see her screen
And I said, oh, could you turn that on please.
(26:01):
She's like, oh, I can't reach.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I can Oh no.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
And I'm like, can you turn the screen on? She goes,
oh no, no, no, I'll figure out in a second. Sorry,
this is just how I need to do it this way.
And I'm like, I'm calling you. That's not right anyways.
Then I'm thinking, all right, something's wrong. That's why she's
not showing us. And she turns around and she goes,
I need to go get my manager. Oh, And I'm like, oh, okay.
(26:28):
So she leaves the room and I looked at Sam
and we it was cod like real heavy into COVID
at that point, so we had a mask on and
I'm just like and then he's just looking at me
with these big, like islander eyes, like I'm either going
to be hit in a second or I'm going to
have to consolidate my wife in a second. Like the
poor man's just not sure what's going on. And the
(26:50):
manager comes back in and she goes, all right, I
want you to hold your husband's hand, and I was like, oh, bitch,
come on, what want I'm freaking out. I hold his hand.
I look at him and his eyes have got him
whiter and bigger. And she turns the TV on and
I'm like, is that split screen? And because I left
(27:14):
it so long, they went blobs with a ticker, they
were full shapes, arms, legs, everything, And I was like,
is that split because I was two sacks, two separate
little babies, and she's like.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
No o havings And I just cried, so embarrassingly cried,
and I'm like I can't do this and she's like, oh,
you'll be fine.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Manager has no idea who I am? What my situation is.
And I'm like, I've got a ten months or like
a no seven month old or something. And then I
just had a listing off the other ages and a
three year old and a four year old, and she's like, do.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
You have help?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
I don't have a relationship with eta parents. Okay, well
I'll leave you for now and just left ever room
with the.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Y Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
There, what did we do? And then ladies like, just
so you know, they are the healthiest type of twins.
You can have separate sacks percentas are not even near
each other. They will not take each other's nutrients. They
will be so big and healthy. And I'm just like,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Want to hear that. I want to hear that.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
I was so I was just like dying inside. I
get in the car and then I just let it
out profusely, crying like Kim k heideous my best friend
on FaceTime. She just thinks the worst has happened. Then
she gives me this big like bitch, wipe your face
if there's anyone who can do this, and gives me
this full pep talk, and then I'm like, okay, Sam's like,
(28:44):
should I.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Not go to work today?
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Just sitting next to me on the car, like he
doesn't exist. I'm just on the phone with my best friend.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
I was like, oh, yeah, you're fine.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
I like Sam's sort of like the cares so much,
but will pat me. We always have this ongoing jokey
we're like, were you hugged as a child?
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Like yeah, just like.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
His love language is gift giving and doing things for people,
not so much like physical touch. And I'm like that's okay,
Like I've got as, It's all good. Babes, go to work.
I'm like, I'm just having a moment. And then yeah,
it came to terms that we were having it. But
then it turned out to be a threatened miscarriage again.
So only weeks later that I started hamorrhaging. Went back
into the doctors and they're like, unheard of, but you're
(29:31):
having the exact same thing again.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Legs up, do not move, and twin pregnancy is going
to be worse.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
So then I went through it all again, knowing exactly
what I was going to expect, knowing what to expect,
and then also having three little kids now to mentor
and my husband just was phenomenal, just took everything over
for me, helped run the business more. I was pumping
content online for my app that I was working under.
(30:01):
I had so much backed up content, so I was
just trying to avoid the truth online and just survive.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
And yeah, then they came early.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
They came so early. They came at thirty one weeks
on the dot.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Can I be really stupid for a second. How many
weeks is full term?
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Thirty seven is healthy? Man?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Every good thing?
Speaker 4 (30:23):
You Yeah, with twins, they're smaller than a single ten sorry,
technically not the same size as a normal thirty one weeker.
So they came out and I remember getting rushed to
hospital and saying to my doctor, I'm like that I'm
not in labor. I'm fine, I'm fine, and he's like,
you're in labor. Did that hurt?
Speaker 5 (30:44):
And like you could just see the markers going up and.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Down And he's like, look, they're gonna come out, but
I just need to prepare you that they could come
out on separate days, because it was eleven PM at
the time or around eleven, and he's like, are you
prepared to have twins on the separate on separate days?
I was like, don't take them out, Like I don't
even care about that about day.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
It's at least that my worry.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I've never heard about that.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I've never heard that ever happening where they're twins, but
the birthdays are different. They don't ever think about that.
But like Mike, he was born at like eleven thirty
at night. If he was a twin, he could possibly
be the cave.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Possibly.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So did your waters break, Chantella, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
My water's broke.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Then I started like camorrhaging and it was just a
massive ordeal. We had to quickly get rid of the
children and just dropped them at my friend's house and
I was like, please just feed them, bath them. There's
nothing there. We just got to go in the ambulance
straight to the hospital. And then yeah, it was just
(31:44):
kind of fast. It just kind of all happened. And
when they came out, it was and I'll be honest,
it was disgusting. They were translucent, they were so little,
and then they wrapped them in these bags to keep
them warm, and I'm just like, this is so foreign
for me because I don't know with your children's first
(32:06):
But they come out, they do checks, maybe a bit
of oxygen, maybe a bit of sucking, and then they
give them to you, and you go into the first
little stage of recovery with a baby on your bed yep,
and then you get moved into your suite and it's
like your whole new world for you, Like this is
a whole new ye.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Sam's kind of like where do I go.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Do I stay with my wife who is literally going
through it, or do I go with baby one? Or
do I go with baby two. There's thirty plus people
in the room because they need a whole unit for
one child.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
It's really chaotic.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Then they start wheeling them away and I'm just like,
I am fine, I've done this, like choose a child
go and so he's disappeared. I'm just laying there. I
have no idea and I think that's that was fed.
That was really really hard. You go to recovery and
the all the nurses are like, how's your baby, And
(33:02):
I'm like, I don't know. I had to actually, like
you feel so empty. You feel like you were doing
so well surviving for these little ones, and then all
of a sudden, you don't have anything and you don't
even have your husband.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Next year, it's just you.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
No control of information either, You're not sure you're in
recovery and like as Dad's experience watching our wives in
recovery and how tough it is for them. So I
can imagine you laying there thinking, Okay, I'm in recovery.
I don't know where my kids are. I don't know
how they're feeling. I also don't know how I'm feeling
and how my husband's feeling either.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I can't imagine how that would have been for you.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
And in an ADHD Praine, that was the first time
I had to surrender. I had to put my trust
in strangers. Yeah, I had to completely surrender and just
trust at the universe just what had to happen. Like,
for whatever reason, this is my path and you just
need to lean into it and trust it and pay attention.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I'm assuming you're waiting for some kind of information about
what state the kids are in. Do you remember who
that came from?
Speaker 5 (34:04):
No, it was such a blur.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I don't even remember wo much about that first twenty
four hour period other than nine hours after I had
the cesarean. I attempted to stand up and get up
and take the catheter and everything out, and I've just
had a cesarean, But I remember the only way I
could really see the children. Is if I could show
them that I could get up and hop into a wheelchair,
(34:27):
and I would milk it for twenty four hours. After
the first three berths, I was terrified of standing up, Yeah,
and my guts falling out and things like that. And yeah,
I was just so determined and got up. Proved them
that I could sit up straight. I wasn't going to
pass out.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
I could go.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
You have to prove that you go to the toilet
and everything like that. So I healed remarkably fast with
that pregnancy, purely because I got my body moving. And
this is what they always encourage is don't lay down,
get up and move.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
The power of the mind is remarkable.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
And when your face with the temptation of like you
can do the hard and you'll get to see your kids,
don't do the hard. You just have to miss out
right now. And I, yeah, got up, went to go
see them. And then I realized for sure how tiny
they were. And I remember I could put my wedding
ring over their hand, and yeah, it was they were
(35:25):
covered in everything. You couldn't really see their face. I
didn't know what they really look like. And then when
they're like you're ready for your first skinder skin experience.
And I'm trying to hop into this bed and reclimb back,
and I'm just like, my God is killing me. But
I don't want to show that I'm in that much
pain because they're going to tell me to go to
your room.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Yeah, I just pull through, You'll be fine.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
They do it for the kids. When they put them
on me, I was like, what is actually physically touching me?
I can't even feel them touching me. There was so
much on them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I remember seeing a photo chantel and they have the
oxygen marks masked over their face. It was And they're
so small as well. It's almost like equal parts medical
equipment to the baby.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Yes, premie babies. You don't lightly touch, you don't just
brush them. You just got to put pressure on them.
It's not like they don't like being tickled or Yeah,
it's different, like you don't feel like you can be
soft and gentle with them. You kind of just feel
like you just got to put a warm blanket on
and just like firm cuddle. Yeah, it was so weird.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
It was really hard.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
How long until you were able to go home?
Speaker 4 (36:25):
I milked as long as I could, and I got
to stay. I think it was five days or four days.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Again, it was such a blur.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's not that long, no, is it. So you could leave,
but you had to leave them behind.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Wow, That's when it hit you because at that time,
you're still technically under the same roof. Like logically, I'm
still in the same house, even though I sleep in
a separate room. I had a TV screen that I
could watch them on the TV screen and see them
like there. As soon as I'd wake up, I'd quickly
have my brakey and go straight downstairs and just tag
team cuddling each one. And then Sam obviously left, he
(37:03):
had to stay home here with the three kids, so
I'm doing this on my own. He'd come up as
much as he could, plus obviously take over the workload
that I.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
Would normally do when it came to leaving.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
That's when it really hit home because where we had
them was in the city where we live was about
fifty minutes away. So where you have them at the Mata,
you can't walk to the car parket It's like huge
hills and you're just not really in that fit form
at the moment to do that.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
So a lot of the moms.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
They sit at this bench seat under cover bench seat,
and there's a drive up point, almost like a ballet park,
and then the fathers come and they take the baby,
take the mom and if they go and scoot off.
So I'm sitting there waiting for Sam to get the car,
and it like walking up the hospital horrible, and then
sitting there and just being reminded by watching other parents
(37:53):
leave with their babies that you don't have that. That
was like just they get through it for whatever reason,
lean into it, surrender they need. Like to be honest,
I wouldn't want them home. I didn't know what the
hell to do with these babies. I didn't know how
to look after them. They were so tiny. So at
the same time, you're like, I need you to stay here.
(38:16):
I need to attend to three other kids. But it
really sucks.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
It's that feeling I can't imagine of leaving after all
of that, and then thinking, shit, well I'm not even
getting to leave with them.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
At the moment, you feel, yeah, you feel a bit
like empty.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Ah for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
And how long were they there before you could bring
them home?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Almost six weeks.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
It's a long time.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
It's a long.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
Juggle because I can't drive for seven days or a
little bit longer. Then that's a fifty minute community, fifty
minute communit that we've got to sort out the other kids,
but we also have to go into work and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So to talk about it, I'm like a tough situation
being made even tougher.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Now I can understand when children are sick and parents
have to relocate why they would relocate because the cost
of parking, the commute, the time it takes away from
the other kids, and it's huge.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
And we only had to do it for five and
a half weeks.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, when you did have all five kids at home,
how was that logistically? Because I'm one of five, but
we're really spaced out the youngest and oldest. I'm going
to get this way wrong. If my family listened to
this and we're like, what are you talking about? But
it could be. I think it's about twelve or thirteen
years between youngest and oldest, so really spread out. So
we were fortunate that the eldest was able to step
(39:28):
in and help out, whereas your situation was different because
your kids are so young. Yeah, how the hell do
you guys manage with five little kids.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
It was terrifying to say the least. And my five
year old, who was the oldest at the time.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Get to work.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
He could barely remember where he put his shoes. I mean,
he's got ADHD like his working memory is shocking. And
he still needs help to do certain things as well,
and still gets out of his bed when we're trying
put him bed. Like there was so much to navigate around.
But the blessing in this is I was given two
(40:08):
babies that were fully routined hospitals NIKI like they routine them.
They are on a schedule, they get fed at a
certain time and then they're not carried all the time.
They're made to sleep in bright light, heaps of like noise.
Of course, there's always monitors going off. They are bathed
the same way all the time. They have bandages getting
(40:30):
ripped off them. Their heels are horrendous from getting blood
test pricks. They're just poked and prodded and resilient. As
they're the most resilient kids. So when they came home, yes,
they would kick on and scream like they had a
little situation with reflux. And I don't know if you
(40:51):
had reflex babies, but it's pretty bad. But other than that,
they were routined and I didn't breastfeed these two. I
chose not to, just for sanity and for logistically working
as a family. That was probably my saving grace because
I had my husband to help and I didn't get
sleep deprivation because I was able to know when I
(41:12):
could sleep and when I couldn't, whereas with breastfeeding, it
was feed on demand. Yeah, and I'm the only one
that can do it. And there's same point both of
us being tired. But yeah, so when we got home
and had all five, it was just survive.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, honestly, I'm just going to say, you guys have
done such an amazing job. It's so hard with two kids.
I'm imagining adding three more in a mix, those two
of which are twins, and you're trying to run your
own business, which is you know, it's a lot harder
than a normal nine to five.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Well done, Thank you, thanks so much, huge effort.
Speaker 5 (41:46):
It definitely builds you up as a parent.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
And I mean, as you said, you two, you have two,
and it's hard. Two was hard for us, Don't get
me wrong. Three was hard for us.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
They were all hard.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
And my husband always says that to people that approach
him is like they were all hard. All ages were hard.
It's just you have no choice but to make this
your new heart for your.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Teeth and get it done. But now that you're at five,
have a six.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Really keep it on that flow app alright, you.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Don't need to worry about flow because flows in the bin.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Five weeks postpartum, I and Sam booked in for him
to get the snip.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Okay, good.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
I could not get my chiefs tied in Amata hospital
without a medical reason for it, because it is.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Surely kids medical.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
I try, but yeah, religious. For the religious reasons, that
hospital won't let you do it. And that's fine. So Sam,
when I took one for the team at five weeks postpartum.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
You're the real hero, Sam, I've been.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I've been snipped as well, and I walk around my
house like a hero. Sold be.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Your point was, so you're going to understand this what
I'm going to say. He went to the appointment and
Sam rings me. I'm in the car park and he
goes He's called doctor Dick.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
His name's Richard.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
You come to the right place.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Went to the same college as our Obi like random.
But anyways, he goes shout. He's saying, you can come in,
you can actually watch the surgery.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
I'm like, on it here, try watching.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
Holding his shoulders and like going, you've got this. I'm
at that end of the bed. And then he goes, no,
come down here and take some videos and photos. This
guy's hilarious and I'm like okay. So I stand theary's
chest and he's like, do you want to do the
honors and snip it? And I'm like no, because if
that thing reattaches, I'm good.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
I'm like remembering it, don't just snip it.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Remove it. Anyways, so I'm filming it and it's just
so funny.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
He's playing with It's just really.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
I'm like, wow, we're really flipped the tables. Anyways, he
gets it all done. I video at SA Sam Conchot
the bras nice and we get to the recovery bit
where the nurse is like, okay, sorry, here's the aftercare.
He can't do any heavy lifting, and I'm just like,
I'm still got I just had two kids taken out
(44:15):
of me five weeks ago. They're still taking They're still
in the NICU at the moment, I'm like the poor
Sam over here with the one.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
Stitch, poor guy.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Like it was, it was heavy and it was like
really confrontings.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Did they They also mentioned that how, I mean, you've
got what three months and the X amount of ejaculates
before you've got to get tested?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Did he go back and get tested?
Speaker 4 (44:36):
So she's she's looking at me and she goes, okay,
So Han, he needs to ejaculate twenty seven times.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
I'm like, I'll cut you here.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Why are you looking at me? And she goes oh,
And Sam's like, Shannie, shut up.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
If you leave it to him, will be done in
three days.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
Excuse me.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
I just gave birth to two babies, babies four and five.
They're all under six, and that was five weeks ago.
He will be getting himself off twenty seven times. And
She's just like okay, So Sam and Sam's just like challenge,
excepted say, shunning is.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
S song grasing? But yeah, no, I haven't been retested
me either, so kid you not.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
Probably one person I know that's had it done has
actually had the retest done, but him and his brother
need to go get retested.
Speaker 5 (45:22):
And I thought that could be a cute thing they
could do together.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Watch each other.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Sean, tell there's a story that we found out about
your situation. I know this is a bit of a
traumatic when it's it's probably every parent's worse fear. Yeah,
but it involved which one the swimming pool.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
Two years ago.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Pretty much in a couple of weeks, it will be
two years to the date that, Yeah, that was you.
Just you know, it's a possibility. You know how to
protect everything, you do everything by the book, but there's
things that you cannot control. And one for us is
(46:04):
the fact that we have older there's more than one child.
We could be as safe and shut front doors, shut
garage doors, shut poolgates, fix things, put things away, but
you can't see what the older ones are doing and
what they're forgetting to put away or what they're forgetting
to check all the time. And that was the twenty
(46:27):
second or twenty third of December. We were prepping the house.
Sam and I were running around like headless chooks while
the twins were sleeping or not crying and trying to
clean the house and get it ready for all our
family to come over. And I just remember seeing Paris,
our third child. Here is the bravest kid. He literally
(46:51):
has no fear, and this is how it happened.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
This is the issues.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Our boys are so boisterous and they have no fear.
And I remember watching him jump on the trampoline. They
do it after they go for a swim to dry off,
and they call it like being a lizard.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
They lay down on the mat on.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
The tramp and they were all jumping, and then I
remember looking back and he wasn't in the trampoline, and
he's so loud, so you know where he is. And
I turned and I noticed that the pool gate was
slightly opened. There was a toy in the way, like
a seat thing, and I just remember dropping my phone
(47:25):
and then walking close. I couldn't see anything in the
pool because he was so tucked up against the wall,
and I remember walking and I saw the head and
I just screamed, like bloody murder, Sam's name. It was
like the worst exorcism voice that came out. Neighbors everyone
heard it. I jumped in, grabbed him and he was
this dead flop, like complete flop. Oh my, my husband
(47:46):
came running out and I almost just like dropped him
into his arms and then he's screaming. Called the ambulance,
called the ambulance and I couldn't find my phone. I
didn't know what I did with it, and so I'm
running inside trying to check everything and could not find
a phone.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
And he's yelling call the ambulus.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
As he appliing that's performing CPR, and then I find it.
I'll call them. And by the time the answer I
turn around, Comparis is up and Sam's holding them and
he's just like crying, but he's like fine, So I'm calling.
I'm telling them what's happened. They're coming straight over. We
(48:25):
were able to check the camera footage so that we
could tell them exactly how long he had gone under
for and also for the counsel.
Speaker 5 (48:31):
That they come and they checked for negligence.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
So really, you know, we had everything to make sure
that we were to the strict Queensland safety guidelines like
our pool and everything like, you know, it wasn't our
negligence and how that happened to the child and he
was under for two minutes ten fuckah, so long and.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Like goose bumps that.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
And he was only two two years old, He's tiny.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
He blacked out at one minute twenty. You can see
him just give up. I could have watched the video.
Sam sent it to me when I was in hospital,
but I didn't watch it, but he watched it, and
I don't think i'll ever watch it, to be honest.
But we went into hospital. They did all the checks,
they did all the scans, and they come in and
this is the end of our journey there.
Speaker 5 (49:22):
We'd stayed overnight.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
They're like, Okay, the report is there is not one
single thing wrong with your son.
Speaker 5 (49:29):
We can't find a single thing.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
He has blocked his He's like completely blocked, so no
fluid went down, nothing went in his lungs. He's not
at risk of pneumonia anything. There's no temperature on your child.
There is nothing. He's passing all the like neurological chests
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
And I'm assuming they're kind of saying this.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
They're like, that's a miracle.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah, oh yeah, gosh, I need to take any water
in to his lungs.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Nothing his body, like.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
A muscle contracted.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Yeah, but it doesn't normally happen and definitely not at
that age.
Speaker 5 (50:05):
We walked out of that hospital.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
Literally both just walked out of that hospital, and they're like,
count your blessings and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
And I was like, holy shit, did you like to
away after old have like on green at the bull up?
Speaker 5 (50:18):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
We were like and we didn't have to tell our
boys because they were shocked.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
They were they saw the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (50:26):
We went straight online and I was like, if there
is one thing that I can do to try redeem
the situation, is everyone's gone and going to be around
a pool for Christmas with their friends and family, and
they're all going to drop the ball. They're all going
to turn a blind eye. They're going to be more relaxed,
they are going to they're not going to think about
what the older kids.
Speaker 5 (50:44):
Might be doing.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
And so we went online and we just spread, we
like fully spread the awareness of you need to watch
pool gates, you need to be on the ball, You
need to allocate someone to consistently watch the kids in
the pool and check the gates.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Like yeah, you know, if it makes you feel any
any better. But when Marley was really young, we only
had I think Lola might have been a newborn. At
our old house, we had a little paddle pool and
stupidly we know not to fill it up any like
any higher than like ankle deep water. But we filled
it up really high. We had friends over and it
(51:21):
was one of those situations where you're kind of entertaining.
You got friends over. Laura and I kind of got
lost and who's looking after Marley. We had a front
and a backyard. The paddle pool was in the front,
and it got to a point where we said, where's
Marley And we were looking around, couldn't find her. And
luckily she was just too small. She was trying, she'd
been trying to climb into the paddle pool which was
filled up like she and she was only you know,
(51:44):
she was crawling at this stage. And you know, we think, gosh,
it's so easy to just lose them for a split second,
and you think you mentioned before, you're like two minutes ten,
that's a long time, but you think, gosh, it could
have been, could have been so much Worse's.
Speaker 4 (52:00):
Can change in an instance, and you just never ever
want to take take away the joy in each day
and the opportunity to have each day. I think that's
what really brought us closer as a unit, is like
it might be really hard to have five kids, but
we would never change it for the world. And to
(52:21):
have that dangled in front of us with the twins,
and then also with that situation, it was like we
are so lucky and so blessed, like we would never
ever complain about having five kids.
Speaker 5 (52:31):
Ever, I don't think anyone would.
Speaker 4 (52:33):
But I just I know that those moments have really
shone forward for us to be so appreciative of the
blessing and the opportunity to have five healthy babies and
to have these situations that have managed that we've managed
to take lessons away with without having the full hardship
of what could have been.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah, I gotta ask chan. Tell my good friend Ash
over here is just joined the gym, and not to
put them on the spot, but I you know, if
ever there was a time to ask an expert on
the topic of fitness, we're talking to one of the
fittest moms in the country. Do you have any advice
for Ash right now? He was getting back into the gym.
Speaker 4 (53:12):
Well, first of all, I have my own app new
that's my nameless plug jump on, get it going. No,
but honestly following a program going there and thinking I'm
going to go in there and do chests on Monday,
chests on Tuesday, chest on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
That's my exact plan.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Because the bigger the chest, the small the shirt won't.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Touch the tummy.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
That's actually nice. I'm going to run with that.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
No, So first of all, follow a program, making sure
that you've got structure. You're training with a purpose. There's
intention behind your training, not pushing a new film. There
is a low impact strength program which is all scientifically
back that program so it's very it's got the repetitiveness
to it so that you can consistently work on edging
out improvements, heavier and getting that progressive overload which is
(54:02):
just going to build you up, which is obviously an
easier way to burn fat than having to do hours
of cardio. But the other thing, nutrition is key and
hitting your protein, so making sure that you eat the
right amount of protein each day to compliment the both.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
So how much protein is a matter.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
And if I hit my protein goes through beer's that
count absolutely not.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
But you will fight.
Speaker 5 (54:26):
That's a good galance, there's good.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
You're gotta have low stress, so I mean if that
lowers your stress, perfect, But no, hit your protein and
train in a structured way that is intentionally making sure
that every time you hit the gym, you're actually training
with progression. You're not just going there because it's fluffy
and it makes you feel good and you get away.
Speaker 5 (54:47):
From the kids.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Remind us the name of the app.
Speaker 4 (54:49):
It's called new Form n eu Form and it's available
on Apple Android. It's got a seven day free trial,
and yeah, it's my baby. It's the way that we
have trans formed hundreds and hundreds of lives throughout our
gym history, and now we're making it available for people
around the world.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
And we'll leave it in the show notes of this
as well. And thank you for the advice. Actually I
needed that.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
I can't wait to see the new ash.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I'm going to be jacked.
Speaker 5 (55:17):
Take before photos because marketing we.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Just released a calendar that's got plenty of before photos.
Trust me, I did see that.
Speaker 4 (55:24):
I would like to get one for my husband because
now you guys need to be worse friends.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
We will send one to Queensland. Don't worry about that.
He last question before we go, We always asked our guests,
what would be the one thing you want your kids
to remember about the house they grew up in.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
Oh, I want them to remember they had just so
much spontaneous fun. Like growing up there was so much
spontaneous fun. Whether it's like we're about to go to bed,
screw it, Let's go on the pool.
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Let's have an night swim, or.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
You know, let's have a dance party because someone had
a bad day, or let's just go for two nights camping,
like let's just take a couple of swags and all
do the crued sleeping pile technique. Just random spontaneous fun.
Because my husband is an absolute clown and he keeps
me like living life to its fullest. So I just
hope my children can see that in our family.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
I love that. I know I've said it before, but
I've got to say it again. You guys are doing
such an amazing job, not just with raising a family
but also with your business as well, So keep it up.
It's bloody impressive.
Speaker 5 (56:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (56:26):
I appreciate it, guys, and I appreciate it coming on
and having a.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Chat five kids. I don't know how you do it.
Speaker 1 (56:30):
It's crazy, it's crazy, but chantelle, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (56:34):
Appreciate it, guys.
Speaker 4 (56:35):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Dad is one of the more intense conversations I think
I've had a didn't plan on it being that hectic,
but hearing about a child almost drowning. You're like, holy shit.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I do recall looking at myself in the camera and
my facials were.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Pretty draw on the floor. Holy shit. Such an awesome chat.
Huge thanks to Chantelle for jumping on the pod. If
you have enjoyed this conversation, we would absolutely love it.
We would froth to the highest order if you would
subscribe and give us a review. Couple of stars, few comments.
You know the drill.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Join us on socials as well. We've got Instagram, TikTok.
They are also thriving, just like Chantelle's businesses at.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Two Doting Dance across all socials.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yeah, Facebook group, come and find us, find us.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
We'll be waiting life An Noway.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Two Doting Dance podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country
throughout Australia and the connections to land, see and community.
Speaker 3 (57:36):
We pay our respects to their elders past and present
and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestraight Islander
people's today.
Speaker 2 (57:43):
This episode was recorded on Gadigle Land
Ash Matthew, could you imagine having three more kids in
your life?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Shutsy, beautiful mouth.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're getting sweaty just thinking about it. Oh, Chantel Duncan
and her husband Sam, they have five shut up, not two,
not three, not four, Five kids all under eight years old.
Plus she's running like several businesses. Well, does she have
a sakata problem? She doesn't know what it's like, Matthew.
(00:28):
As the owner of hit gyms across Queens and founding
new form a fitness program app, Chantelle has generated a
massive following amongst other mums who just want to keep fit.
I think she's got like over a million Wow, really
follows on social media.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Crazy Chantel gets into how she runs the circus at home,
how she met her longtime partner fellow hunk Sam.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
That's very arrogant.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, just reading the script, I hate the game, not
the play.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How she got through her high risk pregnancies with her twins,
and how she experienced a moment that he's every parent
worst night man.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thankfully the story as well, but it's a great reminder.
Considering we are in the thick of summer, let's get
into it. Welcome back to two doting dads and one
(01:24):
doting mum. I am Maddie Jay, I'm Ash and I'm
Chantal Dunkin And this is a podcast all about parenting.
It is the good, it is the bad and the relatable.
And Chantel, we do not give any advice myself.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
And Ash, no, we're not allowed to.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
We have to always just flag that with the listeners
because we are not the experts here. But if you
have any advice to give, please we will be the
sponges and absorb it all beautiful. We always like to
start the podcast and find out what you were like
as a younger person. And Ash and I were talking
this morning in the car and the drive here, and
the one thing that stands out to us for yourself, Fontel,
(02:01):
is discipline. You scream discipline, do I Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
you're the fittest mom we've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That's pretty much.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I was going to say, yeah, we always so driven
and so strict with your routine and your fitness as
a kid as well.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
As a kid, I lent more into sports just purely
because well recently I found out I have ADHD and
that makes a lot more sense now looking back at it.
But I found that I thrived in sports, and so
I had very little focus.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
And interest on the mundane.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
And I guess that's kind of where it led me
to have that as a career.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Shall I say, if pe in sport was your best
subjects at school, what would be your worst history?
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Okay, I mean it's done fair enough, fair enough, very logical.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Were your parents, you know, very sporty or were they
very encouraging?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Was there anything you picked up from them?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
No? I mean my dad did play rugby league. I
have vague memories of it because by the time I
could retain that memory, he was kind of getting to
the point where el just getting out of plane. You know,
body's a bit broken. But no, I did not come
from a sporty family at all. I was almost like
the odd ball in the family.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
You shall say, you mentioned that you had your diagnosis
with add When you look back when you were a youngster,
were there any symptoms that you go, oh, that makes
so much sense now, so much What were they focus?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I remember reading books and I could read everything that
was in front of me, But would it make sense
and would I retain it? Not?
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Really?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
If I was interested in it, I would be top
of the class. If I had to do an oral presentation,
meaning I could explain it the way that I saw
it and use my creativity to do my demonstrations, then
I would ace it. If I had to write something
and read a book, I would try go around and
watch the movie, which will never be exactly what the
(04:00):
book's like. And I became very solution orientated based from
having I guess those limitations. But yeah, I look back
at it now and I can see why I thrived
in things like math and science and sports. I didn't
in history and English. I just was not interested. And
if you're not interested, you don't hyperfix on it and
(04:21):
you don't retain it.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
What led you to get diagnosed? Then, after all this time,
my son.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
They kept saying in kindergarten that maturity for young boys
is delayed up to two years almost, And when he
was in kindergarten, he just wasn't focusing. He wasn't naughty,
he is so beautiful, he is such an honest kid,
but he could not focus and he'd do silly things.
And I remember saying to my husband, that's not like,
(04:49):
that's not.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Normal, and what is normal?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
But I just always have this analogy that you can't
build a gorgeous, beautiful, incredible mansion on a shit foundation.
So if I don't create the great, solid foundation for him,
then he's not going to be able to flourish in
whatever he wants to do.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
So I know.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
I probably could have had a better kickstart if I
had a stronger foundation, But I guess the blessing was
I had to become solution orientated and I learned the
power of hard work. But I always want to try
build that foundation for them so that whatever it is
that they're interested in or that they're great at, they
just have a really good starting point. And I just
couldn't understand why he wasn't retaining things. He couldn't remember names.
(05:32):
I'd be like, this is you know Sarah who works
at the gym. You see her all the time. This
is you know And he just wouldn't remember their names
or remember like situations that we've done, maybe last year
we went on holidays anyways. And then his younger brother,
because I had the children so close in age, I
did all five of them in under six years, and
(05:54):
I just remember his younger brother started coming to the
mark and remembering things and having an excellent memory and yeah,
retaining information or like their memory is part of ADHD.
So I just said to the teacher, what do you
want to do, like what's where does he stand out?
And she said, we'll do a series of tests and
then you can send those reports to the GP. You
(06:15):
can go to the GP and have a look at
investigating further into an OT and they can have a
look to see if he's on the spectrum for anything,
if there's anything that he's challenged with. And to me,
I'm like, ADHD is a power. It is a superpower.
A lot of geniuses and huge entrepreneurs tend to be
on the spectrum to be real. And my husband, his
(06:36):
two younger brothers, he comes from a family of four
kids they had ADHD. So I thought, genetically, it's a
strong chance. I did not think I had it because
I was so organized. I was over organized, I was
disciplined and things like that, but I was that because
I had to. Anyways, Yeah, he got diagnosed and then
she said, well it's generally genetic, like it's always going
(06:58):
to be genics. Sorry, And as they go into it
and list all the things that he's doing and the
things that he has, it just started to I almost
was ticking everything for myself. Wow, and then I thought, shit,
maybe I'm the problem.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
So when I got tested and.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
One of us has begun the process, Chantelle.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I'm very early on, but I think we're starting the process.
It's so long and tedious. I feel like it's all
one big test, you know what I mean, Like it's
I don't know if.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
We joke about the fact that if you can complete it,
you don't have it. Yeah, it's so hard.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
I'm not gonna lie, but I doing the DIVA test,
skimmed so many questions just to get a finished And
then psychiatrist said, how did you go completing the test?
And I'm like, to be real, I'll be honest, I
didn't really read much of it. And he goes, oh,
that's a huge but that's a huge indicator right there.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I was going through like the first steps and it
was like, you know, getting like character from people close
to me, and I was.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Kind of like, oh, butterfly.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
You know, I was just so distracted because I was like,
I can't focus on this. How how am I supposed
to complete something to figure out to tell me whether
I've got ADHD or not?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
What is what not to sound really naive here, but Chanta,
what is the test? What does that look like?
Speaker 4 (08:21):
It's very hard to know why he asks his certain questions.
That's a psychiatrist when you do the sit down appointments,
because at the beginning, yes, they can give you a diagnosis,
but I believe it's always tentative until they trial the medication,
and then they see how you spun because you'll either
go one way or the other. And they do school
reporting so they get all your history.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
They obviously asks.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Like parents or people who knew you as an adolescent,
and then they get you to complete the DIVA tests
as well, so they're the main ones that I had
to do, and then it's just trial and error with
medication to see do you feel like you're getting better with.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
That since your son's gone through the process. Do you
see a really big difference?
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Massive.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I can not vouch more for parents getting their kids
tested if they have an ink clean or a gut
feeling that your child is struggling. It is in no way,
shape or form shameful if your child has some form
of challenge when it comes to focusing. Because if you
(09:27):
had diabetes, you'd get medication for it. If you could
not see, you would get glasses. If you had crooked teeth,
you'd go get bracest. If your brain is not functioning
the way it needs to function, you would get medication
for it.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
It's just another organ.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
It's really nice to hear because my wife and I
sort of our son really similar to how you described yours.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I feel like can't focus.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
There's things he's really really really good art, and then
there's things he's really like struggling with that I can see.
So it's really good to hear that your perspective and
that you know there isn't anything be ashamed of, for sure,
not to.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Put you on the spot ash Do you think the
test for yourself will be completed or yeah, look.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I want to finish it. I'm trying my absolute hardest.
Too many distractions.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
It's like, you know, you survived so far and done
so well, like you've built this character based on being
truly special and like in so many cool ways that
people admire. I mean, it's definitely a blessing. But if
it helps you build projects and get to the next
level that you might be working on, then perfect, then
(10:37):
the medication will help.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I feel like I'm a therapy.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
We did. We've got a glimpse of your beautiful husband
Sam before we started recording. I don't know if he's
in the room still, but he is a gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Man's a handsome man.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
He's laughing.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I think I heard a giggle in the battle.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
I can sense it.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
When did you and Sam first meet?
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I was fourteen when he asked me out?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Wow, he was also a similar age.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
I'm hoping he was.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
He was.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
He was fifteen with the baller.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Where was the asking out? Where did it take place?
Speaker 4 (11:25):
So we met in school. He was the great above
me and we were kinder. It was so funny. Me
and my best friend liked him and his best friend
and so we just would sleek out of the house,
go to parties and on the weekends or on Thursday night,
got a late night shopping because that was such a thing.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I like the local Westfield.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Well we went that bougie. We're from the Redlands, so
it was Capellabar.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
And the skate park and yeah, I was quite the tomboy.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
And then we would always go to on to the
Wellington Point Beach which has a jetty and you'd go
jetty jumping and have hot chips and things like that
and all like skateboard and ride your bike set. But anyway,
so we would always find ways to see each other
outside of school as well. And it was Christmas Day
we did. We had Optus mobile phones, and the reason
why we had Optus is because it was free after nine.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I remember that. It seems wild flashback, young kids, like,
what do you mean it was free after isn't it
always three?
Speaker 4 (12:28):
If you and your person you're ringing had Optus then
and you had at least a dollar credit, we'd always
hang on to that last dollar because you could.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Call for free after nine o'clock.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
So we would speak for hours in our bedrooms from
nine o'clock. And it was Christmas Eve. My girlfriend and
Sam's best friend parks each other out on Christmas Eve,
and we didn't want the same anniversary, so then he
unks me out twelve oh one on Christmas Day and
then cue the next day. Our families ended up celebrating
Christmas at the same location. So we just knuck off
(12:58):
and we're like.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Hey, wow.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So when you're that age, though, you know, when you're
fourteen fifteen, the last thing you're thinking about you know,
you're kind of it's young love, but you're not really
thinking about getting married and starting a family. Do you
remember when you guys started having those types of conversations.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, I think it would have been well after we
started our business.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We'll talk them eleven years to propose to me?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Eleven years? Well, you were fourteen.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
Side, are you on?
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Look?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I think like if you met when you're twenty, it
would have only been five years if you put it
that way.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
So like team Sam, I see something.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
You've got someone in your corner.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Mate, I got you, I got your mate.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Yeah, so look we I reckon.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
After we opened our first business together is when we
were actually feeling like adults. Were like, shit, we're full
blown adults here. Now let's talk about us. Before that,
we were in the honeymoon period for so many years,
which I love because we got to grow up together,
We got to go travel together, Like, yeah, I just
(14:10):
cut all the drama out that I would watch Vikarasi
through our friends and yeah, we were just so content
with not having to double into that and just always
have each other. And his mates were always, you know,
friends with all my girlfriends, So it just kind of
worked it was like this big Jersey shore.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
In terms of popping the question, do you want to
give us how that went down?
Speaker 5 (14:31):
It was so over the top.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
He went so far. He got a helicopter ride for me,
and it was a friend who owned the Institute of
Fitness that I got qualified through or he got qualified
through as well. We became really good friends with the owner.
I also started working for him straight after I got qualified,
so this really good relationship with him and we would
talk to him about business and things like that. So
(14:57):
it made sense when he said he wrung me the
owner and said I want to take you out on
my helicopter and take you and Sam around the Gold
Coast that's where he was from. And yeah, I just
want to say thanks because you've grown your social media
so massively and you've sent hundreds of people through to
my institute and encourage them to get into the field.
So it's the least I could do. And I'm like, legit,
(15:19):
this sounds great. I mean, my husband's going to love this.
He loves helicopters. For me, I was like a day
off and I've got to go to the Gold Coaster. Okay.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
I was so tired running.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
This company, and I'm like, no, that's fine, that's so
lovely of him. So I got in a beautiful dress.
It was like a summer dress. He told me to
take it off. He's like, why are you wearing that?
Just like chuck some shorts on, which I'm so annoyed
because he had a photographer the proposed one.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
I was wearing just the ugliest outfit. And yeah. So
we got into the helicopter.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
We're flying around and he started hovering and he's like, oh,
can you see the shark sound there? And I'm like
looking down trying to find it, and he's like over there,
pointing to the beach.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Did not see it for so long?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And then he like physically turned my head and he's like,
look at the sign on the beach and there was
this griinenormous sign with all my friends and family.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Will you marry me?
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Then I turned around and he was like he went
I want and just paused, shaking like a little baby back,
and then just said marry me, like could not say
what he wanted to say. I started bawling my eyes out,
and it's awkward because our friend is in between us.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
He's like, hey, guys, let me just.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And he stams in the back um of the front
kind even kiss him, can't of hug him. It was
so funny. And then when we got out the helicopter,
they had a photographer there, champagne popping, everyone was there.
We went out to lunch and it was really beautiful.
In my shorts and a single.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Weather appropriate appropriate. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Well, that's probably one of the most boogie old like,
yeah out there.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Story as we've had. We've had some good ones. That's great.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Graduate take note of that. We do have to say,
and I mean this in the most polite way possible,
you are a little bit crazy in that I don't
know any family with young kids with more than three
little ones. You've got five. Talk me through that.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
It was not planned, but it is the most incredible
blessing that has happened to us because we both have
a very small families on the outside and in a
quick nutshell, we don't have relationships with our parents or
anything like that, and so it's really small and for us,
we always wanted to redo life and do it the
(17:40):
way that we wish we could have had as kids.
And you'd always well, for us, we always admired watching
families and our friends have that perfect you know, they
do holidays, they sit down for dinners, they don't have
parents rock up to things, and.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
Like, there's just this network.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
There a unit, there's a unit there, and it's really beautiful.
And that's what we didn't have. It was very messy.
So for us, we had very similar common interests when
it came to our future, and we always said, let's
go four kids. Let's go four kids. Went the first
one and it was a perfect, literally textbook pregnancy. Then
we had I think I was nine months postpartum and
(18:19):
we fell pregnant with the second one, and I was like, amazing.
I only wanted boys because I just saw how easy
going all the boys were. In Sam's house. They would
punch on and then in ten minutes they would be
together again playing. They never had a grudge against each other,
they were best mates. They got over things so quickly.
And I was such a tomboy. I'm like, I just
can't deal with girls with simple creatures. Yeah, absolutely take
(18:42):
my head off, but kills me at the same time.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
I was like, yeah, four boys.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Great.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
So we had the first two and then I was like,
actually I kind of feel like I want a daughter.
I would love a daughter, but I don't want to
go through another two pregnancies. Maybe we could have twins,
you know, because if my this is all going to happen.
And I said to Sam, let's go see our ob
and just ask him what's the chance of us possibly
(19:08):
going for twins? How do you get twins? You know
what's put your best foot forward. You never know, you
got to learn. So I spoke to him and he
just basically said, your field of fitness, I would not
recommend you have twins, will absolutely destroy your public floor.
You won't be doing your kickboxing, your box jumps, you're skipping,
you won't. You know that's going to be gone and
it's going to damage your body as well.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
So just keep that in the back of your mind.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Also, if you want to pick your gender, you're gonna
have to go overseas and do that.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
We don't do that in Australia.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
And also if we try to do twins and put
your eggs like fertilized eggs and you they can split.
And that's how as an example, that's how Octo Mum
came about. Is that how that I was like We'll
just go back.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
To the normal.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
It's all good.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Thanks so much. You've like terrified me.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, and yes, I was like, okay, we'll just do
the norm. There's hard and nupshewe and get over yourself.
Just do it. You know, anything worth having is going
to be hard work. So we went and had our
third baby, and it was a high risk pregnancy, and
that just rattled me. It was called a threatened miscarriage.
(20:17):
So your body tries to miscourage the pregnancy, but your
cervix doesn't open, so it's kind of like a ticking bomb.
You're just a ticking bomb. You gotta lay down and
keep your legs up. You can't do anything that's like
even sneezing is really dangerous. And that comes from twelve
weeks all the way through. He came at and they
come early as well because the sack that they live
(20:38):
in thins and eventually the waters will break and you'll
have the baby. So I managed to keep him in
there till he was thirty five weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Do they pick that up on the twelve weeks scan?
Speaker 4 (20:47):
No, It basically I just started hemorrhaging like I was miscarriaging,
and they checked and they're like, look, the baby's still alive,
but this is a miscarriage, and you're just going to
have to go home, hope for the best, come back
in twenty four forty eight hours and we'll check to
see if the baby survived. And I'm like, oh shit,
that's ruthless.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
That's so ruthless.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
That's all you get told. And so yeah, that was
a really dark period just laying there and ignoring basically
anything outside. It's like an outer body experience and you're
just basically living in the shell. For it was a Friday,
it happens. I have to wait till Monday.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
And when I came back Monday, I'm like, the bleeding's
kind of slowed down. It's like getting better. Is everything good?
And you're just waiting to hear the heartbeat and they're like, yeah,
everything's good, but you have a huge hematoma. So that's
the big hemorrhage, like the big bruising in there, and
we can't guarantee anything. So yes, baby survived, You're just
going to have to lay down and just stay down.
And for me, I'm one adhd I know it. At
(21:48):
the time, running multiple businesses, have two young kids, under.
I don't know how old they were then. Anyways, they
were so young and then being so active. I trained
at least once a day minimum, and all my staff,
and then online presence on social media, and I was
on an app called Sweat at the time, and I
(22:09):
had to be actively promoting online and so it was
just so annoying and heavy and massively character building, but
we survived. He got to the thirty five week period
and came out six pounds, which is small but fine
for a thirty five week are absolutely perfect.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
And here's our go getter, here's our wild child.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
And he's like our little nugget, a little runt of
the family. He's just wild. And he came out perfectly fine.
And I said to Sam, done.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Done, Do not ever want to do that again? Three
kids be healthy.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Done.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
He was eight months old and my girlfriend put me
on this flow app. I don't know if you boys
would even know what that is?
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Do?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yes, I don't. Is it?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
It's a cycle app?
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Right, It's a cycle app so basically tells you when
you're ovulating, which my husband didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Only like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Anyways, she put me on this app and she's like, Seannie,
I know you're done having kids, so hop on the
flow app. I can't believe you never track, So here
you go. You can track because you're and Sam seen
before pregnant on the toilet seat these days.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Just good at it all right.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Now you're really like pepping and.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Up he So anyways, I was like perfect, looked at
it and I was like, oh, cool, we're not I'm
not ovulating.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
I'm like so far out of it.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
So one time, one time we were just like drinking
or you know whatever, and you know how babies are
made and tweens, so.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Talk about tempting fake with that conversation with you. Ob Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Feel like anything I think of happens, I keep manifesting.
I just need to stop.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
What's the feeling like going okay, well we're pregnant. All right,
we're gonna have to deal with this. We're gonna have
a fourth and then it's like, nope, you're gonna have
a fifth as well?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
What's that field I had? My My friends are renovating
the house and they have four kids, and I was like, oh,
don't go rent a house, just come live at mine.
I have one spare room and a big lound room.
They typical islander vibes, right, this is me. I'm like,
everyone lives at my house. All good, come here, put
your fridge in my dining room. Like we'll be fine,
We'll like have this beautiful Brady bunch. And so I
(24:28):
had them living with me, and I remember coming down going, guys,
I'm pregnant. And I threw the test at Sam when
I found out you.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Did this.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Typical, And then I went down I told them and
I eventually had I had so many shoots I had
to do, and I had to go to Melbourne and
like film all this content. And I couldn't understand why
I was so unwell. I felt dizzy, like I needed
to faint all the time. I had nausea, and I
just was like, I'll get to the scan appointment, I'll
book it and I'll figure it out. But you know,
(25:03):
fourth pregnancy, I'm just not eager to run and go
figure it out. It's not so new, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
And I was really busy.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I was just with the issues you had that.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
I've done this before. They just need you know, I
know what it's like.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And eventually I made it to the Q scan appointment,
which you guys would have been at, and they show
you the little blob on the with the little ticker,
and I remember the lady set me down and she goes,
first baby. I'm like, no, fourth baby. Yeah, And I've
(25:36):
been in this exact ruin exact seat.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
This is the fourth time doing this.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
And she's like okay, And I was like having a
little joke, right, And I said to her, please just
tell me there's only one baby, otherwise I'm going to
get up and throat punch my husband. And she's like, okay,
did not turn the screen on in front of us
she was doing her scan. I can't see her screen
And I said, oh, could you turn that on please.
(26:01):
She's like, oh, I can't reach.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I can Oh no.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
And I'm like, can you turn the screen on? She goes,
oh no, no, no, I'll figure out in a second. Sorry,
this is just how I need to do it this way.
And I'm like, I'm calling you. That's not right anyways.
Then I'm thinking, all right, something's wrong. That's why she's
not showing us. And she turns around and she goes,
I need to go get my manager. Oh, And I'm like, oh, okay.
(26:28):
So she leaves the room and I looked at Sam
and we it was cod like real heavy into COVID
at that point, so we had a mask on and
I'm just like and then he's just looking at me
with these big, like islander eyes, like I'm either going
to be hit in a second or I'm going to
have to consolidate my wife in a second. Like the
poor man's just not sure what's going on. And the
(26:50):
manager comes back in and she goes, all right, I
want you to hold your husband's hand, and I was like, oh, bitch,
come on, what want I'm freaking out. I hold his hand.
I look at him and his eyes have got him
whiter and bigger. And she turns the TV on and
I'm like, is that split screen? And because I left
(27:14):
it so long, they went blobs with a ticker, they
were full shapes, arms, legs, everything, And I was like,
is that split because I was two sacks, two separate
little babies, and she's like.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
No o havings And I just cried, so embarrassingly cried,
and I'm like I can't do this and she's like, oh,
you'll be fine.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Manager has no idea who I am? What my situation is.
And I'm like, I've got a ten months or like
a no seven month old or something. And then I
just had a listing off the other ages and a
three year old and a four year old, and she's like, do.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
You have help?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
I don't have a relationship with eta parents. Okay, well
I'll leave you for now and just left ever room
with the.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Y Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
There, what did we do? And then ladies like, just
so you know, they are the healthiest type of twins.
You can have separate sacks percentas are not even near
each other. They will not take each other's nutrients. They
will be so big and healthy. And I'm just like,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Want to hear that. I want to hear that.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
I was so I was just like dying inside. I
get in the car and then I just let it
out profusely, crying like Kim k heideous my best friend
on FaceTime. She just thinks the worst has happened. Then
she gives me this big like bitch, wipe your face
if there's anyone who can do this, and gives me
this full pep talk, and then I'm like, okay, Sam's like,
(28:44):
should I.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Not go to work today?
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Just sitting next to me on the car, like he
doesn't exist. I'm just on the phone with my best friend.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
I was like, oh, yeah, you're fine.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
I like Sam's sort of like the cares so much,
but will pat me. We always have this ongoing jokey
we're like, were you hugged as a child?
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Like yeah, just like.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
His love language is gift giving and doing things for people,
not so much like physical touch. And I'm like that's okay,
Like I've got as, It's all good. Babes, go to work.
I'm like, I'm just having a moment. And then yeah,
it came to terms that we were having it. But
then it turned out to be a threatened miscarriage again.
So only weeks later that I started hamorrhaging. Went back
into the doctors and they're like, unheard of, but you're
(29:31):
having the exact same thing again.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Legs up, do not move, and twin pregnancy is going
to be worse.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
So then I went through it all again, knowing exactly
what I was going to expect, knowing what to expect,
and then also having three little kids now to mentor
and my husband just was phenomenal, just took everything over
for me, helped run the business more. I was pumping
content online for my app that I was working under.
(30:01):
I had so much backed up content, so I was
just trying to avoid the truth online and just survive.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
And yeah, then they came early.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
They came so early. They came at thirty one weeks
on the dot.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Can I be really stupid for a second. How many
weeks is full term?
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Thirty seven is healthy? Man?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Every good thing?
Speaker 4 (30:23):
You Yeah, with twins, they're smaller than a single ten sorry,
technically not the same size as a normal thirty one weeker.
So they came out and I remember getting rushed to
hospital and saying to my doctor, I'm like that I'm
not in labor. I'm fine, I'm fine, and he's like,
you're in labor. Did that hurt?
Speaker 5 (30:44):
And like you could just see the markers going up and.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Down And he's like, look, they're gonna come out, but
I just need to prepare you that they could come
out on separate days, because it was eleven PM at
the time or around eleven, and he's like, are you
prepared to have twins on the separate on separate days?
I was like, don't take them out, Like I don't
even care about that about day.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
It's at least that my worry.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I've never heard about that.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I've never heard that ever happening where they're twins, but
the birthdays are different. They don't ever think about that.
But like Mike, he was born at like eleven thirty
at night. If he was a twin, he could possibly
be the cave.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Possibly.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So did your waters break, Chantella, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
My water's broke.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Then I started like camorrhaging and it was just a
massive ordeal. We had to quickly get rid of the
children and just dropped them at my friend's house and
I was like, please just feed them, bath them. There's
nothing there. We just got to go in the ambulance
straight to the hospital. And then yeah, it was just
(31:44):
kind of fast. It just kind of all happened. And
when they came out, it was and I'll be honest,
it was disgusting. They were translucent, they were so little,
and then they wrapped them in these bags to keep
them warm, and I'm just like, this is so foreign
for me because I don't know with your children's first
(32:06):
But they come out, they do checks, maybe a bit
of oxygen, maybe a bit of sucking, and then they
give them to you, and you go into the first
little stage of recovery with a baby on your bed yep,
and then you get moved into your suite and it's
like your whole new world for you, Like this is
a whole new ye.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Sam's kind of like where do I go.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
Do I stay with my wife who is literally going
through it, or do I go with baby one? Or
do I go with baby two. There's thirty plus people
in the room because they need a whole unit for
one child.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
It's really chaotic.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Then they start wheeling them away and I'm just like,
I am fine, I've done this, like choose a child
go and so he's disappeared. I'm just laying there. I
have no idea and I think that's that was fed.
That was really really hard. You go to recovery and
the all the nurses are like, how's your baby, And
(33:02):
I'm like, I don't know. I had to actually, like
you feel so empty. You feel like you were doing
so well surviving for these little ones, and then all
of a sudden, you don't have anything and you don't
even have your husband.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Next year, it's just you.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
No control of information either, You're not sure you're in
recovery and like as Dad's experience watching our wives in
recovery and how tough it is for them. So I
can imagine you laying there thinking, Okay, I'm in recovery.
I don't know where my kids are. I don't know
how they're feeling. I also don't know how I'm feeling
and how my husband's feeling either.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I can't imagine how that would have been for you.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
And in an ADHD Praine, that was the first time
I had to surrender. I had to put my trust
in strangers. Yeah, I had to completely surrender and just
trust at the universe just what had to happen. Like,
for whatever reason, this is my path and you just
need to lean into it and trust it and pay attention.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I'm assuming you're waiting for some kind of information about
what state the kids are in. Do you remember who
that came from?
Speaker 5 (34:04):
No, it was such a blur.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
I don't even remember wo much about that first twenty
four hour period other than nine hours after I had
the cesarean. I attempted to stand up and get up
and take the catheter and everything out, and I've just
had a cesarean, But I remember the only way I
could really see the children. Is if I could show
them that I could get up and hop into a wheelchair,
(34:27):
and I would milk it for twenty four hours. After
the first three berths, I was terrified of standing up, Yeah,
and my guts falling out and things like that. And yeah,
I was just so determined and got up. Proved them
that I could sit up straight. I wasn't going to
pass out.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
I could go.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
You have to prove that you go to the toilet
and everything like that. So I healed remarkably fast with
that pregnancy, purely because I got my body moving. And
this is what they always encourage is don't lay down,
get up and move.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
The power of the mind is remarkable.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
And when your face with the temptation of like you
can do the hard and you'll get to see your kids,
don't do the hard. You just have to miss out
right now. And I, yeah, got up, went to go
see them. And then I realized for sure how tiny
they were. And I remember I could put my wedding
ring over their hand, and yeah, it was they were
(35:25):
covered in everything. You couldn't really see their face. I
didn't know what they really look like. And then when
they're like you're ready for your first skinder skin experience.
And I'm trying to hop into this bed and reclimb back,
and I'm just like, my God is killing me. But
I don't want to show that I'm in that much
pain because they're going to tell me to go to
your room.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Yeah, I just pull through, You'll be fine.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
They do it for the kids. When they put them
on me, I was like, what is actually physically touching me?
I can't even feel them touching me. There was so
much on them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
I remember seeing a photo chantel and they have the
oxygen marks masked over their face. It was And they're
so small as well. It's almost like equal parts medical
equipment to the baby.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Yes, premie babies. You don't lightly touch, you don't just
brush them. You just got to put pressure on them.
It's not like they don't like being tickled or Yeah,
it's different, like you don't feel like you can be
soft and gentle with them. You kind of just feel
like you just got to put a warm blanket on
and just like firm cuddle. Yeah, it was so weird.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
It was really hard.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
How long until you were able to go home?
Speaker 4 (36:25):
I milked as long as I could, and I got
to stay. I think it was five days or four days.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Again, it was such a blur.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's not that long, no, is it. So you could leave,
but you had to leave them behind.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Wow, That's when it hit you because at that time,
you're still technically under the same roof. Like logically, I'm
still in the same house, even though I sleep in
a separate room. I had a TV screen that I
could watch them on the TV screen and see them
like there. As soon as I'd wake up, I'd quickly
have my brakey and go straight downstairs and just tag
team cuddling each one. And then Sam obviously left, he
(37:03):
had to stay home here with the three kids, so
I'm doing this on my own. He'd come up as
much as he could, plus obviously take over the workload
that I.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
Would normally do when it came to leaving.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
That's when it really hit home because where we had
them was in the city where we live was about
fifty minutes away. So where you have them at the Mata,
you can't walk to the car parket It's like huge
hills and you're just not really in that fit form
at the moment to do that.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
So a lot of the moms.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
They sit at this bench seat under cover bench seat,
and there's a drive up point, almost like a ballet park,
and then the fathers come and they take the baby,
take the mom and if they go and scoot off.
So I'm sitting there waiting for Sam to get the car,
and it like walking up the hospital horrible, and then
sitting there and just being reminded by watching other parents
(37:53):
leave with their babies that you don't have that. That
was like just they get through it for whatever reason,
lean into it, surrender they need. Like to be honest,
I wouldn't want them home. I didn't know what the
hell to do with these babies. I didn't know how
to look after them. They were so tiny. So at
the same time, you're like, I need you to stay here.
(38:16):
I need to attend to three other kids. But it
really sucks.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
It's that feeling I can't imagine of leaving after all
of that, and then thinking, shit, well I'm not even
getting to leave with them.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
At the moment, you feel, yeah, you feel a bit
like empty.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Ah for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
And how long were they there before you could bring
them home?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Almost six weeks.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
It's a long time.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
It's a long.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
Juggle because I can't drive for seven days or a
little bit longer. Then that's a fifty minute community, fifty
minute communit that we've got to sort out the other kids,
but we also have to go into work and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So to talk about it, I'm like a tough situation
being made even tougher.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Now I can understand when children are sick and parents
have to relocate why they would relocate because the cost
of parking, the commute, the time it takes away from
the other kids, and it's huge.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
And we only had to do it for five and
a half weeks.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, when you did have all five kids at home,
how was that logistically? Because I'm one of five, but
we're really spaced out the youngest and oldest. I'm going
to get this way wrong. If my family listened to
this and we're like, what are you talking about? But
it could be. I think it's about twelve or thirteen
years between youngest and oldest, so really spread out. So
we were fortunate that the eldest was able to step
(39:28):
in and help out, whereas your situation was different because
your kids are so young. Yeah, how the hell do
you guys manage with five little kids.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
It was terrifying to say the least. And my five
year old, who was the oldest at the time.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Get to work.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
He could barely remember where he put his shoes. I mean,
he's got ADHD like his working memory is shocking. And
he still needs help to do certain things as well,
and still gets out of his bed when we're trying
put him bed. Like there was so much to navigate around.
But the blessing in this is I was given two
(40:08):
babies that were fully routined hospitals NIKI like they routine them.
They are on a schedule, they get fed at a
certain time and then they're not carried all the time.
They're made to sleep in bright light, heaps of like noise.
Of course, there's always monitors going off. They are bathed
the same way all the time. They have bandages getting
(40:30):
ripped off them. Their heels are horrendous from getting blood
test pricks. They're just poked and prodded and resilient. As
they're the most resilient kids. So when they came home, yes,
they would kick on and scream like they had a
little situation with reflux. And I don't know if you
(40:51):
had reflex babies, but it's pretty bad. But other than that,
they were routined and I didn't breastfeed these two. I
chose not to, just for sanity and for logistically working
as a family. That was probably my saving grace because
I had my husband to help and I didn't get
sleep deprivation because I was able to know when I
(41:12):
could sleep and when I couldn't, whereas with breastfeeding, it
was feed on demand. Yeah, and I'm the only one
that can do it. And there's same point both of
us being tired. But yeah, so when we got home
and had all five, it was just survive.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, honestly, I'm just going to say, you guys have
done such an amazing job. It's so hard with two kids.
I'm imagining adding three more in a mix, those two
of which are twins, and you're trying to run your
own business, which is you know, it's a lot harder
than a normal nine to five.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Well done, Thank you, thanks so much, huge effort.
Speaker 5 (41:46):
It definitely builds you up as a parent.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
And I mean, as you said, you two, you have two,
and it's hard. Two was hard for us, Don't get
me wrong. Three was hard for us.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
They were all hard.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
And my husband always says that to people that approach
him is like they were all hard. All ages were hard.
It's just you have no choice but to make this
your new heart for your.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Teeth and get it done. But now that you're at five,
have a six.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Really keep it on that flow app alright, you.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
Don't need to worry about flow because flows in the bin.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Five weeks postpartum, I and Sam booked in for him
to get the snip.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Okay, good.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
I could not get my chiefs tied in Amata hospital
without a medical reason for it, because it is.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Surely kids medical.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
I try, but yeah, religious. For the religious reasons, that
hospital won't let you do it. And that's fine. So Sam,
when I took one for the team at five weeks postpartum.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
You're the real hero, Sam, I've been.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I've been snipped as well, and I walk around my
house like a hero. Sold be.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Your point was, so you're going to understand this what
I'm going to say. He went to the appointment and
Sam rings me. I'm in the car park and he
goes He's called doctor Dick.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
His name's Richard.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
You come to the right place.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Went to the same college as our Obi like random.
But anyways, he goes shout. He's saying, you can come in,
you can actually watch the surgery.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
I'm like, on it here, try watching.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
Holding his shoulders and like going, you've got this. I'm
at that end of the bed. And then he goes, no,
come down here and take some videos and photos. This
guy's hilarious and I'm like okay. So I stand theary's
chest and he's like, do you want to do the
honors and snip it? And I'm like no, because if
that thing reattaches, I'm good.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
I'm like remembering it, don't just snip it.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Remove it. Anyways, so I'm filming it and it's just
so funny.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
He's playing with It's just really.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
I'm like, wow, we're really flipped the tables. Anyways, he
gets it all done. I video at SA Sam Conchot
the bras nice and we get to the recovery bit
where the nurse is like, okay, sorry, here's the aftercare.
He can't do any heavy lifting, and I'm just like,
I'm still got I just had two kids taken out
(44:15):
of me five weeks ago. They're still taking They're still
in the NICU at the moment, I'm like the poor
Sam over here with the one.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
Stitch, poor guy.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Like it was, it was heavy and it was like
really confrontings.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Did they They also mentioned that how, I mean, you've
got what three months and the X amount of ejaculates
before you've got to get tested?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Did he go back and get tested?
Speaker 4 (44:36):
So she's she's looking at me and she goes, okay,
So Han, he needs to ejaculate twenty seven times.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
I'm like, I'll cut you here.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Why are you looking at me? And she goes oh,
And Sam's like, Shannie, shut up.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
If you leave it to him, will be done in
three days.
Speaker 5 (44:57):
Excuse me.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
I just gave birth to two babies, babies four and five.
They're all under six, and that was five weeks ago.
He will be getting himself off twenty seven times. And
She's just like okay, So Sam and Sam's just like challenge,
excepted say, shunning is.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
S song grasing? But yeah, no, I haven't been retested
me either, so kid you not.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
Probably one person I know that's had it done has
actually had the retest done, but him and his brother
need to go get retested.
Speaker 5 (45:22):
And I thought that could be a cute thing they
could do together.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Watch each other.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Sean, tell there's a story that we found out about
your situation. I know this is a bit of a
traumatic when it's it's probably every parent's worse fear. Yeah,
but it involved which one the swimming pool.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
Two years ago.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Pretty much in a couple of weeks, it will be
two years to the date that, Yeah, that was you.
Just you know, it's a possibility. You know how to
protect everything, you do everything by the book, but there's
things that you cannot control. And one for us is
(46:04):
the fact that we have older there's more than one child.
We could be as safe and shut front doors, shut
garage doors, shut poolgates, fix things, put things away, but
you can't see what the older ones are doing and
what they're forgetting to put away or what they're forgetting
to check all the time. And that was the twenty
(46:27):
second or twenty third of December. We were prepping the house.
Sam and I were running around like headless chooks while
the twins were sleeping or not crying and trying to
clean the house and get it ready for all our
family to come over. And I just remember seeing Paris,
our third child. Here is the bravest kid. He literally
(46:51):
has no fear, and this is how it happened.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
This is the issues.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Our boys are so boisterous and they have no fear.
And I remember watching him jump on the trampoline. They
do it after they go for a swim to dry off,
and they call it like being a lizard.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
They lay down on the mat on.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
The tramp and they were all jumping, and then I
remember looking back and he wasn't in the trampoline, and
he's so loud, so you know where he is. And
I turned and I noticed that the pool gate was
slightly opened. There was a toy in the way, like
a seat thing, and I just remember dropping my phone
(47:25):
and then walking close. I couldn't see anything in the
pool because he was so tucked up against the wall,
and I remember walking and I saw the head and
I just screamed, like bloody murder, Sam's name. It was
like the worst exorcism voice that came out. Neighbors everyone
heard it. I jumped in, grabbed him and he was
this dead flop, like complete flop. Oh my, my husband
(47:46):
came running out and I almost just like dropped him
into his arms and then he's screaming. Called the ambulance,
called the ambulance and I couldn't find my phone. I
didn't know what I did with it, and so I'm
running inside trying to check everything and could not find
a phone.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
And he's yelling call the ambulus.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
As he appliing that's performing CPR, and then I find it.
I'll call them. And by the time the answer I
turn around, Comparis is up and Sam's holding them and
he's just like crying, but he's like fine, So I'm calling.
I'm telling them what's happened. They're coming straight over. We
(48:25):
were able to check the camera footage so that we
could tell them exactly how long he had gone under
for and also for the counsel.
Speaker 5 (48:31):
That they come and they checked for negligence.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
So really, you know, we had everything to make sure
that we were to the strict Queensland safety guidelines like
our pool and everything like, you know, it wasn't our
negligence and how that happened to the child and he
was under for two minutes ten fuckah, so long and.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Like goose bumps that.
Speaker 5 (48:58):
And he was only two two years old, He's tiny.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
He blacked out at one minute twenty. You can see
him just give up. I could have watched the video.
Sam sent it to me when I was in hospital,
but I didn't watch it, but he watched it, and
I don't think i'll ever watch it, to be honest.
But we went into hospital. They did all the checks,
they did all the scans, and they come in and
this is the end of our journey there.
Speaker 5 (49:22):
We'd stayed overnight.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
They're like, Okay, the report is there is not one
single thing wrong with your son.
Speaker 5 (49:29):
We can't find a single thing.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
He has blocked his He's like completely blocked, so no
fluid went down, nothing went in his lungs. He's not
at risk of pneumonia anything. There's no temperature on your child.
There is nothing. He's passing all the like neurological chests
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
And I'm assuming they're kind of saying this.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
They're like, that's a miracle.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah, oh yeah, gosh, I need to take any water
in to his lungs.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Nothing his body, like.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
A muscle contracted.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Yeah, but it doesn't normally happen and definitely not at
that age.
Speaker 5 (50:05):
We walked out of that hospital.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
Literally both just walked out of that hospital, and they're like,
count your blessings and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
And I was like, holy shit, did you like to
away after old have like on green at the bull up?
Speaker 5 (50:18):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
We were like and we didn't have to tell our
boys because they were shocked.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
They were they saw the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (50:26):
We went straight online and I was like, if there
is one thing that I can do to try redeem
the situation, is everyone's gone and going to be around
a pool for Christmas with their friends and family, and
they're all going to drop the ball. They're all going
to turn a blind eye. They're going to be more relaxed,
they are going to they're not going to think about
what the older kids.
Speaker 5 (50:44):
Might be doing.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
And so we went online and we just spread, we
like fully spread the awareness of you need to watch
pool gates, you need to be on the ball, You
need to allocate someone to consistently watch the kids in
the pool and check the gates.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Like yeah, you know, if it makes you feel any
any better. But when Marley was really young, we only
had I think Lola might have been a newborn. At
our old house, we had a little paddle pool and
stupidly we know not to fill it up any like
any higher than like ankle deep water. But we filled
it up really high. We had friends over and it
(51:21):
was one of those situations where you're kind of entertaining.
You got friends over. Laura and I kind of got
lost and who's looking after Marley. We had a front
and a backyard. The paddle pool was in the front,
and it got to a point where we said, where's
Marley And we were looking around, couldn't find her. And
luckily she was just too small. She was trying, she'd
been trying to climb into the paddle pool which was
filled up like she and she was only you know,
(51:44):
she was crawling at this stage. And you know, we think, gosh,
it's so easy to just lose them for a split second,
and you think you mentioned before, you're like two minutes ten,
that's a long time, but you think, gosh, it could
have been, could have been so much Worse's.
Speaker 4 (52:00):
Can change in an instance, and you just never ever
want to take take away the joy in each day
and the opportunity to have each day. I think that's
what really brought us closer as a unit, is like
it might be really hard to have five kids, but
we would never change it for the world. And to
(52:21):
have that dangled in front of us with the twins,
and then also with that situation, it was like we
are so lucky and so blessed, like we would never
ever complain about having five kids.
Speaker 5 (52:31):
Ever, I don't think anyone would.
Speaker 4 (52:33):
But I just I know that those moments have really
shone forward for us to be so appreciative of the
blessing and the opportunity to have five healthy babies and
to have these situations that have managed that we've managed
to take lessons away with without having the full hardship
of what could have been.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Yeah, I gotta ask chan. Tell my good friend Ash
over here is just joined the gym, and not to
put them on the spot, but I you know, if
ever there was a time to ask an expert on
the topic of fitness, we're talking to one of the
fittest moms in the country. Do you have any advice
for Ash right now? He was getting back into the gym.
Speaker 4 (53:12):
Well, first of all, I have my own app new
that's my nameless plug jump on, get it going. No,
but honestly following a program going there and thinking I'm
going to go in there and do chests on Monday,
chests on Tuesday, chest on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
That's my exact plan.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Because the bigger the chest, the small the shirt won't.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Touch the tummy.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
That's actually nice. I'm going to run with that.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
No, So first of all, follow a program, making sure
that you've got structure. You're training with a purpose. There's
intention behind your training, not pushing a new film. There
is a low impact strength program which is all scientifically
back that program so it's very it's got the repetitiveness
to it so that you can consistently work on edging
out improvements, heavier and getting that progressive overload which is
(54:02):
just going to build you up, which is obviously an
easier way to burn fat than having to do hours
of cardio. But the other thing, nutrition is key and
hitting your protein, so making sure that you eat the
right amount of protein each day to compliment the both.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
So how much protein is a matter.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
And if I hit my protein goes through beer's that
count absolutely not.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
But you will fight.
Speaker 5 (54:26):
That's a good galance, there's good.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
You're gotta have low stress, so I mean if that
lowers your stress, perfect, But no, hit your protein and
train in a structured way that is intentionally making sure
that every time you hit the gym, you're actually training
with progression. You're not just going there because it's fluffy
and it makes you feel good and you get away.
Speaker 5 (54:47):
From the kids.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Remind us the name of the app.
Speaker 4 (54:49):
It's called new Form n eu Form and it's available
on Apple Android. It's got a seven day free trial,
and yeah, it's my baby. It's the way that we
have trans formed hundreds and hundreds of lives throughout our
gym history, and now we're making it available for people
around the world.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
And we'll leave it in the show notes of this
as well. And thank you for the advice. Actually I
needed that.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
I can't wait to see the new ash.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I'm going to be jacked.
Speaker 5 (55:17):
Take before photos because marketing we.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Just released a calendar that's got plenty of before photos.
Trust me, I did see that.
Speaker 4 (55:24):
I would like to get one for my husband because
now you guys need to be worse friends.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
We will send one to Queensland. Don't worry about that.
He last question before we go, We always asked our guests,
what would be the one thing you want your kids
to remember about the house they grew up in.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
Oh, I want them to remember they had just so
much spontaneous fun. Like growing up there was so much
spontaneous fun. Whether it's like we're about to go to bed,
screw it, Let's go on the pool.
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Let's have an night swim, or.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
You know, let's have a dance party because someone had
a bad day, or let's just go for two nights camping,
like let's just take a couple of swags and all
do the crued sleeping pile technique. Just random spontaneous fun.
Because my husband is an absolute clown and he keeps
me like living life to its fullest. So I just
hope my children can see that in our family.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
I love that. I know I've said it before, but
I've got to say it again. You guys are doing
such an amazing job, not just with raising a family
but also with your business as well, So keep it up.
It's bloody impressive.
Speaker 5 (56:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (56:26):
I appreciate it, guys, and I appreciate it coming on
and having a.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Chat five kids. I don't know how you do it.
Speaker 1 (56:30):
It's crazy, it's crazy, but chantelle, thank you so much.
Speaker 5 (56:34):
Appreciate it, guys.
Speaker 4 (56:35):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Dad is one of the more intense conversations I think
I've had a didn't plan on it being that hectic,
but hearing about a child almost drowning. You're like, holy shit.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
I do recall looking at myself in the camera and
my facials were.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Pretty draw on the floor. Holy shit. Such an awesome chat.
Huge thanks to Chantelle for jumping on the pod. If
you have enjoyed this conversation, we would absolutely love it.
We would froth to the highest order if you would
subscribe and give us a review. Couple of stars, few comments.
You know the drill.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Join us on socials as well. We've got Instagram, TikTok.
They are also thriving, just like Chantelle's businesses at.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Two Doting Dance across all socials.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yeah, Facebook group, come and find us, find us.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
We'll be waiting life An Noway.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Two Doting Dance podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country
throughout Australia and the connections to land, see and community.
Speaker 3 (57:36):
We pay our respects to their elders past and present
and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestraight Islander
people's today.
Speaker 2 (57:43):
This episode was recorded on Gadigle Land
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