May 19, 2022 • 49 mins
Sarah Drew joins Katie to reflect on the pregnancies of her two children, and both the sorrow and joy experienced during some of life’s greatest moments.
The “Grey’s Anatomy” alum opens up about what it was really like being back on set just two weeks after giving birth, and the Dr. April Kepner storyline that triggered her own severe mom guilt.
Sarah also shares how her 10-year-old and 7-year-old have wrestled with God and purpose, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, and the open talks she and her husband Peter have with them to help them navigate.
Plus, are you looking for some tips on how to help your children to get along? Sarah has a couple of pointers for you: listen for details!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda Land Audio
in partnership with I Heart Radio. So I'm in the
nick You and I had met this one mom and
her baby is so much smaller, so much tinier than
my baby. During one of the moments in the Nick You,
I'm I see her. She's being delivered some news by
the doctor and she's in the corner of the room
by her baby and is just shaking and crying. Her
(00:25):
husband isn't with her. I felt myself compelled to move
toward her and I held her and I literally said
all of the words that my character had just said,
you will be able to survive this. And I was
in that spot with that woman in that moment because
my daughter came early and there's no other way that
(00:48):
that meeting would have happened. Hello everybody, and welcome back
to Katie's Crib. You guys have been asking for this
particular guest for a very long time and finally late
got her. I am talking about the one and only
(01:11):
Sarah Drew. You guys know where has dr April Kepner
on Grey's Anatomy. She's actually gonna be returning to the
ABC Drama for its season eighteen finale, which airs May.
What Uh. Sarah was also on Freeform's Team drama Cruel.
Summer is Cindy Turner, Kitty Romano on the ABC drama
series Madman. She's been on Cold Case, Lawn Order, Glee,
(01:34):
Private Practice. The list goes on and on and on
and on. She's doing awesome things. She just inked a
two picture deal with Lifetime. You can catch her on
Apple TV's Amber Brown, which is premiering later this year.
She lives in LA with her husband Peter. They have
a ten year old son, Micah and a seven year
old daughter, Hannah. Sarah, thank you so much for coming
onto Katie's crib. Hello, Hi, so nice to seem so
(02:01):
nice of you, And you were such a mentor to
me and a soul sister being on a Shonda Land
show having a baby. Did you have Mica on that show? Also?
I had both of them. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So
I took Sarah d out and I said I didn't
have any children yet, and I had heard that Shonda
(02:23):
will help, it will be okay. Like when you're an
actor in Hollywood, you're like, oh God, don't ever get pregnant,
it will ever hire you again? Yeah, it's a scary.
I mean I remember even when I went to tell
her that I was pregnant, I was like stressed out
of my mind and she was like, you look so
good and so young. It's stupid. I love you for
(02:45):
saying it. I have so much insecurity. Oh please, you
look on freaking real, I mean, unbelievable. Did you always
want to be a mom? Always? Yes. I grew up
in a pretty conservative situation and the daughter of a pastor.
My parents were married when my mom was twenty and
then she was still in college. I wanted to meet
(03:07):
my husband at my Christian youth camps that I went to.
And the funny thing is I did meet my husband
at one of those camps. We were leaders at it,
and it was during my college experience. And I did
get married right out of college. And I always always
wanted to have kids, always wanted to be a mom,
but it took me like we didn't We waited nine
years after getting married to have kids. So do you
(03:31):
mind telling us, like, what was the hold up? Was it?
Career stuff? Was totally career stuff. I found myself having
like panic attacks at all my friends baby showers because
I was mad that I felt like they were ready
and I wasn't. And there was something in me that
wanted so badly to be in the space where I
was ready to do it, but I wasn't, and for
(03:52):
some reason, it like it messed with my head. I'd
go to all these baby showers and I'd be like
an anxious wreck and I'd be like, when is the
moment going to be for me? When am I going
to do this thing? I know I want to? When
did you feel that it was time? Like? How did
you know? So I became a series regular on Grays
(04:13):
and I they didn't know. I had this whole thing
in my head when I was young, and like, starting
off in my career path, I'm like, I'm going to
be Reese Witherspoon, Right, I'm going to have babies while
I'm a movie star. Sure, sure, plan that was how
it was going to go. And then that didn't happen,
(04:34):
Like I did not become a movie star. Never how
you plan it. So then I was like, Okay, well
what do I do now? Like and it's not convenient
ever to do this thing when we're doing what we do,
um and I remember being, you know, coming up on
my hiatus after my first year as a series regular
(04:54):
on Grays, thinking oh, well, now I'm going to be
a movie star because I'm a is regular on Grades
and then as soon as I become a movie star,
then I'll be able to have kids because that's what
makes sense. And hiatus hit and nobody was interested in
they gave me a movie star. Well, you just start
to realize that it's never enough. There's never going to
(05:17):
be the career thing that makes it like now is
the time to have a baby, because there's always something next, yes,
And it's never enough not only for the big decisions
of like when am I going to have a kid,
When will I get married? Like all those like big
life questions, but it's also never enough in terms of
when will I be happy as an artist? There is
(05:37):
never ever that place you get to where you're like
now I'm there and now I can rest, Now I
can relax. It was an awakening for me during that
hiatus when I was like, oh, this isn't the plan
I created in my brain, and if I don't do
this thing that I know I want to do, I'm
(05:57):
just never when am I going to do it, you know,
and so we got pregnant right away. I mean it
was like an immediate kind of thing. Yes, hallelujah. And
then it worked out so brilliantly. Your son was like, Mom,
I've been waiting for nine years, like exactly, you've been
with my dad for a hundred years since we were counselors.
(06:20):
That So, Mica Emmanual Lamb for gorgeous, beautiful name. How
was your pregnancy so? Um, I'm not I was. I
did not enjoy pregnancy either of the times. Um, the
first time, you know, I wasn't like horrifically sick. I
(06:42):
was nauseous for the first you know, for like sixteen
weeks or ten weeks or sixteen weeks or something like that.
But I just in general not like lugging around that
extra load sore. It's exhausting. You feel like you're climbing
a mountain every day. And then I was shooting long
hours every day. Um, with both of my kids. It
(07:06):
was a lot. And then I had like an incredibly
horrible time fighting with the breastfeeding thing with Michael when
he was born, to the point that it was like
it was like ten weeks of battling that this is
a different topic. I just wanted a different topic. It's
very triggering for people. I mean breastfeeding. We we've talked
about it a lot on Katie's Crib, a lot of
(07:28):
people listening. You know, you can go back to season one,
We've we've done so many episodes on breastfeeding. But I
always think it's it's never enough. I have so many
friends who have just given birth, like during COVID, and
breastfeeding still continues to be this ride for some women
that is um really stressful, incredibly painful, and not rewarding
(07:50):
and makes them feel like failures and it sucks, Yes, totally.
There's so much judgment about it and you feel walking
into it that like I'm not real. I'm not a
real mom unless I do this thing. Yes, but we
but we do that with eight thousand things related to motherhood.
I'm not a real mom. If I have help, I'm
not a real mom. If I go back to work,
(08:12):
I'm not a real mom. If I didn't labor, yeah,
I'm not a real mom. If I if I took drugs,
if I did you know the pain pain drugs? Yeah,
there's like so many ways that we can beat the
ship out of ourselves. That's right, that's right. We're just
looking for ways to decide for a failure, just to
just decide that we are. I don't know why we
(08:34):
do this for ourselves, but for me, I had to
have because I had lactatian consultants making it worse, not
helping the situation, making me feel more horrible, and like, oh, well, Sarah,
you know if you don't if you if you just
go to the pump and he doesn't suckle, then you're
going to dry up and then he just won't have
(08:54):
breast milk, and breast is best. None of that is true. None,
none of it is true. I know men who pumped
for a year because they were back at work and
they never breastband and they're like, well, I I didn't
really breastfeed. I was like, you fucking yes, you did.
That's what I did. At week ten, I found myself
standing outside of church with all the other moms like
(09:15):
bouncing their babies, like while the certament is happening and
weeping to this like commune of women that all had
very different philosophies on breast like they'd all done different things,
all of them, and every single one of them said,
why are you torturing each other? Just relax, like formula
(09:35):
is awesome. Do you know how awesome formula is these days?
For it allow yourself to bond. It's like I needed
permission from those women or somebody. I needed someone someone
to hear it. Yes, I needed somebody to tell me
this is okay, You're not a failure, like I have
these I have these memories of like shirtless bouncing on
(09:59):
a bound singball, sobbing with like the breast shield, trying
to get into latch. And then every time somebody else
would take him, you know when I was working, maybe
like your baby so sweet, he takes the bottle so well,
and he just would scream on me because this breastfeeding
thing was such a battle. It was so weird. But
I when I received that permission, all of a sudden,
(10:23):
I had this incredible freedom and I started just pumping,
and I, like, all of a sudden, started creating tons
of milk because you weren't stressed and you're happy, and
you were connecting with your baby exactly. So they had
(10:46):
a story haddah, Molly Rose Laper, you were very pregnant,
and then your character April was struggling with like a
bad situation, right, Yes, my character April had a baby
who had to ask you a genesis imperfecto type two,
which was basically like in utero. Baby's bones were breaking,
(11:09):
baby was in pin in utero, and there's like a
zero percent chance of survival or a very minuscule chance
of survival. So then the big question between April and
Jackson was do we terminate because babies in pain? Do
we carry a full term? My character's super pro life,
(11:29):
So we shot my you know, my character ultimately comes
to the decision that she's going to terminate, and I
do this labor delivery death scene that takes ten hours
with Jesse William only because yes, yes, um, and I
(11:49):
go home and ten hours later I go into premature labor.
And how early were you? A month? So I didn't
have a room ready for her. We were planning to
close off our den and have builders come in, and
then we had it was still a den, it was
still couches. I had no clothes for her, I had nothing.
I had nothing prepared for this baby, and obviously I
(12:13):
was super traumatized because I felt like I had done
this to her because I had allowed myself to tell
this story, and I had pitched this story before I
was pregnant, and they've given me an out and told
me I didn't have to tell the story once I
once I discovered that I was pregnant, and I still said, no,
I want to do it. I want to do it.
You know, I didn't know. Oh, I would never either.
I'd be like, of course I could do it. And
(12:34):
it's so gray, there's so much gray area, so interesting
and chalk filled with like pro life and abortion and
choices and when and why and what and faith and
belief and what like, Like the story happened to friends
of my parents who are pro life. They like went saw,
(12:54):
you know, counsel from my parents about what to do.
My parents like walked through the whole thing with them,
and everybody agreed that this was the best choice to
make in this scenario, was to do this induction termination. So,
you know, to have that as a storyline between someone
who is a person of faith and someone who is
you know, is not a person of faith, there's so
many amazing conversations that could come out of that, of course,
(13:18):
So you really go forward in the shooting of it,
where You're like, you're not pushing, no, no, but you're
obviously stressed and stressed, so stressed, and your body, like
your body doesn't I mean, you know this, your body
doesn't know the difference. When you're working yourself up into
a panic for a scene, all the things in your
(13:38):
body start happening that would happen when you're in panic.
Your body is really screaming and really crying. Yeah. I
can remember during Scandal when Carrie was pregnant, like someone
shot someone I can't remember who, and she was like
Olivia Pope was like screaming, crying, and we I remember
like between takes us all going over to her stomach
and just like petting her belly and being like it's
(14:02):
we're just making pretend this isn't real, you know. And
also because of you, I'm pretty sure that when Quinn
gave birth, because Quinn was really pregnant, when I was
really pregnant with Albie, they just did it where I
was my character was put under anesthesia and the baby
was there. That was why why choice? Okay, so you
(14:23):
put your body not like you were actually pushing, but
you were stressed. You were quiet, But I I mean,
I'm literally holding my dying baby. He squeezes my finger
and then he lets go, and it's ten hours of weeping,
just ten hours of desperate, miserable sadness. We've never worked together.
(14:45):
I hope, I'm so lucky to do so. But how
did you show up to work that day? Are you
someone who can really separate that? Or do you show
up at work and you go to like a really
fucked up place. I go to a dark place. I mean, like,
it's not like calling me by my character name. I
can't laugh at between tags. But I place myself, with
(15:08):
my imagination and my body as deeply as I possibly
can into the reality of the situation, and I have
a very vivid imagination for it, and I have a
deep well of emotion. I built that I'm a four
on the angiogram. I am like I eat sadness for breakfast,
Like I I think I'm a nine. What's a nine?
(15:29):
You're a peacemaker. Don't like conflict? No, it's hard to
make decisions horrible, Okay, so you eat so obviously you can.
So it's not like your met really, but it's like
your you can really tap in and go to a
dark imagination place. So ten hours later, you're like, is
(15:50):
that a contraction? Yeah. Ten hours later, I'm at my
kitchen table and I'm doing like my expense sheet for
the end of the year, and my nanny's in the house,
and I keep get up and like like needing to
like oh because I'm I'm like, yeah, I'm sure it's
just Braxton Higgs. But like it keeps happening. And then
it's like happening every five to seven minutes, and Molly's like,
(16:14):
I feel like you're getting up a lot and you
seem uncomfortable a lot. I don't know what's going on,
and so I call the doctor and I explain what's happening.
They're like, come in. I'm sure you're not in labor,
but come in. So I go to the hospital and um,
and I'm four centimeters dilated. So they're like, you're having
(16:36):
a baby now. I was like, what, I'm having a
baby now? Now I'm having a baby? Yes. I think
about the like anticipatory energy that my kids feel as
Christmas approaches. Can we just skip to Christmas Eve? Christmas
Eve is my favorite day of the entire year. You
want to skip to Christmas Eve? I just the waiting
is just intolerable, Like the the anticipation is so excited
(17:00):
eating and that's just like the littlest glimmer of what
it is when you're anticipating the birth of your child.
I've never experienced in my life that looking forward to
incredible heightened excitement like I did with my kids. You
know they, I mean, you know, but yeah, So it
(17:20):
was mostly excitement and mostly and mostly like, oh, this
is this is a surprise, this is different, this is
not the plan, this is interesting, and it was mostly okay.
And I've labored like I didn't get to labor with
Michael because I had toxemia and I had to be induced.
What's toxemia. It's like preclampsia. So I went in with
(17:40):
like upper abdominal pain and it was like proteining your
urine and certain enzymes or something. I don't know. Your
placenta is basically poisoning your body and the only the
only cure is to get the baby and the placenta out.
That's what happens with toxemias. So that's happened with Mica.
(18:01):
So I never felt labor. I never experienced labor pain.
I didn't know what it was, so I did with
Hannah for a while and then I got the epidural
and whatever. So everything was exciting and wonderful until they
whisked her away after five minutes and took her to
deal with flung stuff. And and I didn't expect that
that was going to happen, Like there was no sort
(18:22):
of prep of you know, because she's this early, she
may have to go to the Nike. You like, she
was far enough a long and she was big enough
they could tell if you're thirty six weeks right, or
you were thirty six thirty five weeks or something, you're
right on that cop And it's so much lung development right,
Like the element is the biggie. It was that. And
(18:42):
then also I had gestational diabetes diabetes during my pregnancy
of Hannah, which sucked. If anyone's had gestational diabetes, it's
the worst. Oh my god, so many people get gestational diabetes.
I feel so bad that you're like pregnant and you
like are on a diet. Yeah, you can't eat anything.
Just the worst. Justational diabetes is just that you have
diabetes during the pregnancy then it goes away. But basically
(19:05):
it means that your body is not processing sugar well
during pregnancy, and so you can't eat like any bread. No, no,
it's a very or or like fruit or any dairy
like anything that turned into sugar. Like you are fucked,
which is like, are you joking during pregnancy? Thank you
very oh god. So at first when they took her away,
(19:26):
it was because blood sugar things were out of whack
for her, so they had to do that. But then
they brought her to the nursery, and then at the
nursery they were realizing that her oxygen saturation was low,
so then they had to do a chest X ray
and then they saw that there was like some spots
in the lungs or some fluid like so they were like,
we don't know if it's just that they need to
develop a little bit more. I've talked to a lot
(19:47):
of moms who who have done the Nike thing, and
it's like it's its own just it's its own beast.
It's and and how long was she in the nicke
you like eleven days? Anybody who's done it, or like,
oh you've done it? Yeah, oh yes, I know what
that is. But it's what's so hard about it. There
are a lot of things that are hard about it.
I mean, leaving the hospital without your baby is hard.
(20:09):
You know, after the two nights that you're there, that's
all I hear is that you can't believe that you're
walking home and you don't have your baby. Yes, that's hard,
that's really hard. Scrubbing in so weird um, but it's
the it's the little like improvements. And then and then
the back steps. You're hanging on every phone called breath
an everything, and it's like, oh, it's going to be
(20:32):
three days. Actually, well, you know, we try to take
her off the oxygen, and then and then she decided
so now we actually need to do another course of
whatever and and up the oxygen again. And and then
the other thing was she was eating with a feeding tube.
So I was like, I guess I'm just never gonna
get to breastfeed. How she gonna latch if she started
(20:52):
her life on a feeding tube? But she latched so easy.
I breast fed her for a year, like amazing. Yeah.
As soon as it was clear there were health issues
and I wasn't going to get to bring her home
right away, there was just this like niggling little worm
in my brain that was saying, this is your fault.
(21:16):
You brought this upon her, like she wasn't ready to
come early, and you made it happen because you didn't say, Okay,
let's do a different storyline, and you came up with
the storyline and then you went got pregnant. Like I mean,
all the blame to the point that I was having
some panic attacks when I was back at work and
I was back to work, you know, so soon after
giving birth and I am and I had to work
(21:38):
some stud to work some stuff out with a therapist,
I had to take some medication. Like it was, it was,
it was intense with did you have postpartum depression or
a postpartum anxiety? I mean and not like not diagnosed,
I would say, like with Micah at four o'clock every afternoon,
I would cry every single day at four o'clock, I
(21:58):
would cry the witching hour, arsenic hour, the witching hour,
or whatever you want to call it. But it's like
that's yeah, it's not good, that's yeah. Attext to yeah,
oh really, god, oh my god. I had horrible postpartum
depression anxiety with my with Vera horrible, but four pm
was like a ringer that's the worst horrible. My therapist
(22:20):
was like, really, so many people feel good because they're
only like two or three hours away from dinner. I'm like, oh, no, no, no,
I like we're living in fear. So you weren't diagnosed,
but you had to work out some guilt. No, And
it was more just like kind of gloom. It was
like gloomy stuff with Mica, but with Hannah. I'd be
hit with just like waves of anxiety and like just
(22:41):
my body would just revolt against me. And I had
a couple of moments on set where I just was
panicking so bad. I couldn't remember my lines like I was.
I usually remember like a vivid memory of like waiting
outside the hallway where I was where I supposed to enter,
waiting for action, and just like literally hyperventilating, like oh
my gosh, I don't even I can't do my job.
(23:02):
I can't do my job because I did this to
myself and I brought this upon myself and I did
all of this and it's my fault and like how
do I get out of this? And um my? My
doctor prescribed me xan X for like just the attacks,
and that helped a lot. I mean, it's really hard
to work those hards. It's hard to work with panic,
it's hard to work with zan x. I know they're
(23:24):
both different, but like, what are you gonna do? I mean,
you know, it's why we're fighting so hard for you know,
paid true maternity leave. Oh my gosh, yes, women, because
like obviously you were having panic directly related to feeling
like you were at fault for having your daughter come early,
(23:45):
which I personally think it was all meant to be. Yes,
And I'm curious to see how you feel about it now,
you know, but I'm sure it was. I always think
about other women and other lines of work putting stress
on their bodies who make also go into labor early
for whatever reason, you know, and them having to go
back to work like way too soon soon and not
(24:07):
being paid, and the stress of that also having panic
attacks because they're just gave birth and their bodies a
hormonal roller coaster of insanity. It's like, I don't understand
how any any of us are walking. Um, how do
you feel now about that whole thing? I mean, it's
(24:28):
seven years ago, which is shock, and you're coming up
upon her seventh birthday. It feels just like more like
a wild chapter. Um. And there's no lingering shame or guilt.
I feel good. I don't feel any of that. Um.
It just was the experience that I had. So it
was so crazy. So many things happen. I feel like
(24:49):
in my world where I experience like the sorrow and
the joy hand in hand, and I've experienced that a
lot in the last few years. Of just like, wow,
that was really hard, but this beautiful thing happened, and
so I wouldn't trade it for the world. But you know,
you get to know sometimes the mom the other moms
in in the Nike you the other Nike moms. And
(25:10):
so I had just told a story right before I
had gone into labor and gone to the hospital. The
episode that we were shooting, my character is trying to
make the decision about whether to terminate or not, and
she has this experience with a woman who just lost
her fiance and she's just been wandering around the hospital
every and she's been changed and described because she was
(25:31):
covered in blood when she came into people think she's
a doctor and she hasn't been able to tell anyone
she's not. And so I wind up finding her and
like giving her this hug because her she just like
can't handle what happened. And I'm holding her and I'm saying,
you are strong, you are brave, you can you, you will,
you will get through this. And I don't even remember
(25:52):
exactly what something was, but it was something like that,
just holding her while she shook and cried until she calmed.
And there was something in that moment that enabled April
to say, the right thing to do right now is
to let little Samuel go because he's in pain right now.
And so that's when she makes the decision to go
and do this scene that then led Hannah right. So
(26:15):
I'm in the nick You and I had met this
one mom and her baby is so much smaller, so
much tinier than my baby. She knew the show, so
she had sparked up a conversation. But during one of
the moments in the nick You, I'm I see her.
She's being delivered some news by the doctor and she's
in the corner of the room by her baby and
(26:35):
is just shaking and crying. Her husband isn't with her.
I felt myself compelled to move toward her, and I
grabbed her and I held her and I literally said
all of the words that my character had just said
three days prior, because those were the words that were
present in my brain and in my heart, and I
(26:58):
felt her body calm, and we just sat there and
like embraced in this communal moment of shared what the fuck?
Like this is so traumatic, This is so scary what
we're doing right now. But you know what, you will
get through this. You are brave, you are strong, and
you will handle this. You will be able to survive this.
(27:21):
And getting chills thinking about it again, Like I was
given those words to say by the storyline that I
chose to tell, and I was in that spot with
that woman in that moment because my daughter came early
and there's no other way that that meeting would have happened.
(27:42):
Such a gift in such a dark time, but such
a this that like, I just feel like so much
of life is that you're holding both of these things. Right.
If we just stay in the like I'm only going
to look at the positive, and then you don't deal
with the gravity of the pain, then where are you.
You're living in a fantasy world if you get stuck
(28:02):
in the pain of something and can't kind of find
some little sliver of light or brightness or diamond. Then
you just get sucked down deep and life is both
always always and also so much of parenting. I mean,
I just have never like loved something so much. And
(28:22):
at the same time, it's so scary that some one
creature my children could hold in their hands my entire livelihood,
my good and bad, and everything rests in their in
their hands. It is such a crazy ride. And it's
(28:45):
also a crazy ride, and just you, you're witnessing in
them the reality of what the world is. This like
both sides of everything all the time. Because you just
have to watch a tantrum of a four year old
and then have them turn on a diamond start laughing
as day. It's something else to know that this is
a perfect picture of the reality of life. Yes, so okay,
(29:20):
you go back to work, you're having panic attacks, you
were able to talk to somebody and get help, thank god,
And you are working on a place where I'm sure
you were loved and supported by your co stars. And yes,
I was on set shooting exactly two weeks after giving birth,
where so she had been home for three days when
I was on set shooting an eight hour day because
(29:42):
they thought you were going to a Yeah, I was
supposed to finish all this storyline stuff I was supposed
to be there for. Oh my god. I didn't even
realize that same thing happened with Mike because Mikea came
a week early and I was supposed to shoot that
whole week. So two weeks after giving birth, I had
to go to work and shoot one day to knock
all these scenes out that we're written in the previous episode. Wow,
(30:05):
was everyone like like shocked that you would have the baby?
Like what was the energy? Really? Just like delightful? Can
we peek at the baby? Because you know baby was
in my trailer. That's the best thing about Shaunda Land.
It's like your baby's there, you you go breastfeed. They're
like very amazing. And I actually had one one um
(30:27):
situation on set where we had like worked, you know,
a Faturday, and I didn't have help on the weekends,
and there was no way to recover from a Faturday
with the newborn, Like just there's no way to recover,
Like I I, you know, you get home and then
you've just lost a whole night of sleep. So I
called Shanda and I was like, I don't think I
(30:49):
can do this, Like I can't do Fraturday's. I need
Hannah to be sleep trained. I need like the I
need the first half of the year of her life
and then I can do satur Days again. But I
can I can't do. And people who are listening Faturday's
is like you work until three or four o'clock in
the morning on a Friday night. Yeah, and then your
(31:09):
baby's up at five at five, yes, and you don't
you just haven't slept and you and I didn't. I
don't have help on the weekends. Like that's just I
had a nanny five days, you know, five days a
week Friday. You know, I've had to have an incredible husband,
super involved husband. But like you still have a new born.
I still do feel they're at hell and breast connected
(31:30):
with her all those things. So I remember calling Shanda
just being like, can can you help me out here?
And so she made a rule. She was like, yep,
from until the end of the season, you are no
longer working any Friturdays. You're never up last on a
Friday night for the rest of the season. It was
just like done, it was just done. I'm like handled handled. Yes,
(31:53):
I was like I love you so much. Thank you,
and also good on you for asking for what you need,
because a lot of women don't do that either. Right,
did you feel this pull that you should be home?
I never wanted to. In fact, both times that I
had to go to work after two weeks, I was like,
thank you, baby Jesus. I would like to go see
some humans that are grown ups. I would like to
(32:15):
do this thing I love to do for me. My
happiness in life rests entirely on balance. Yea, I cannot
be only working. I cannot be only parenting. Have to
have both. How do you work life balance? It like
you needed help obviously right from the jump, because you're
(32:36):
to work. So I mean, we're in a total tragedy
right now because our nanny of nine years, who is
like a family and has had two kids while she's
been working for us, and they're like my kids siblings,
is moving. This is the last week I know. So
we're are you kid so sad? We're so sad. I know,
(32:57):
it's devastating. We're going to have to do that search.
Although that search, like Hannah and Mike have already been
like I want no one else ever, you know, we
also lost our dog this year, like sixteen years and
so and then they were also like, no more pets
ever again, no pet Like they're so attached and the
thought of the thought of moving some on to someone
else is just betrayal for them. Are they both in
(33:21):
school though? Like full time? That you don't really this
is sort of your opportunity to We moved down to
part time. Okay, got it? Got it yet? So you're
already down to part time? How we were down to
part time although during the summer and during COVID, like
she was here, she was here full time during COVID.
She was able to do all of the at home
learning for eighteen months like and she brought her babies
(33:44):
with her and everybody benefited. It's been like the little
village that we've gotten to have here has been incredible.
That's awesome, especially during COVID times when kids like to
have that socialization. Tell me about siblings to You're doing
a really good segue for me, because I have older
boy and a younger girl. What is that like? Because
(34:05):
I'm terrified. I grew up in a house where the
girl I'm the oldest and my brothers the youngest. So
we didn't really like fight. And my son is very
physical and crazy with my daughter and that terrifies me.
And also, how do you make sure they get along
and treat each other with respect? Well, they're not gonna
get along and treat because they're siblings, you know. I mean,
(34:28):
it's so funny because they'll they'll have these incredible moments
where they're super angelic with one another, and you know,
I mean, they are one another's favorite person on the planet.
Obviously they love playing together, but they also like love fighting.
Mica loves to quietly pick at her until she explodes
(34:51):
with emotion, and then she I think likes the feeling
of the explosion. She's a lout like me, and and
he is the same thing that my brother did to me,
which is like pick quietly so that nobody knows what
you're saying, but like until she's like, oh good, you
say that. But then she stays right next to him
(35:14):
while he continues to do it, and we keep saying,
just go, just move away. Is there any physical fighting?
Is there any fit wars there at a different time,
and there there has been some, but we have such
strict policies on that. Tell me, how do I do
that one are the strict policies. I mean, it even
just happened the other day where he like created a
weapon out of a racetrack and cardboard and duct tape
(35:37):
and just whacked her on the butt as she walked by.
And we're like done with that for I don't know
how long. That's probably going in the dumpster. Threatening to
throw away the creations put them in the dumpster is
like a very big motivating factor. That's called logical consequences,
where you take whatever it is that's being currently used
as a weapon or whatever. And my son sometimes does
(36:00):
have anything, but he'll like, you know, like push her
at you know, she'll she just started walking, so now
she can like actually go towards the toys that he's
currently playing with, and he likes to push her away
or like, mom, she's coming through my stuff and like
a really hard or so then I say, up, okay,
then you're not allowed to play with your sister anymore,
and I'm gonna pick her up and I'm going to
remove her to her room across the hall, because if
(36:21):
you can't treat her body nicely, then you can't play
with her. And then he's like I like this is impossible,
and I'm exhausted, and everyone just get out of my face. Obviously,
they go through stages, for sure. I've gotten to the
point though, where there are times where I'm just like,
(36:41):
you guys, work it out. You know, you only have
one another to play with today, but there's nobody else.
There's nobody else, there's nobody else to hang out with.
So unless you want to just be miserable and lonely,
work it out. And we have a very big thing
on making peace. Like I had a friend UM tell
me about. Instead of saying no, you don't do that,
(37:02):
you and and go apologize, you say, go check in
on her, make sure she's okay, because what you just
did with your body hurt her body. Can you go
check in on her? And it's just that step forward
without feeling that like I'm bad and I did something wrong.
It's I think spurs on just the empathy bone. Yeah,
(37:23):
I tried it. That's really good. I try. She'll make
a sound of like, oh hey, you hear that. It
sounds like she's really not enjoying how you're touching her, right, Yeah,
it sounds like she's making it known that she's not happy.
That's a really good I'm practicing on you. You see that?
Can you check in and see how sisters doing and
see how she's feeling. I don't think you're right, Okay,
this is very helpful. So Mica has now gotten to
(37:46):
the point where like it's something if they're playing or
whatever and he does end up whacking her and it's
an accident. He's like, oh, oh, han, are you okay?
And then he runs agains her an ice pack and
brings it to her, Like there's like those little things
or really go that we started doing, like go check
in on her and see if she needs anything. If
she needs does she need an ice pack? Why don't
you go get her an ice bag? So then and
(38:08):
then after that there's like a we can't be at
peace and we can't be at harmony in our family
until you've made peace with her and making and making
and we don't go to bed until we've all made peace.
Like sometimes you know, we have fights with them too,
and so it's like make you got we got we
gotta come together, we gotta sit down and have a conversation.
Figure out this is they're older though, this is once
(38:28):
they're old. Yeah, I'm literally only quiet because I was like,
oh right, I'm like in my head and like, oh peace,
that's good. Like I just take that. I like that's
the thing that I've done with Peter, like our entire relationships,
like never let the sun go down on your anger,
so you always all you know there if there's anything sitting,
you stay up until however late you need to stay
(38:50):
up and get to a place at peace. Well that
I don't like either. I'm like, I am so tired
it's you. And my husband is such a negotiator and
a talker, like he'll want to talk something through until
it's fucking dead. But okay, tell me this is the
other thing. You and your husband are religious and you
(39:12):
how do you instill that in your children? Like was
it such an easy thing because you were raised your
dad as a pastor, so obviously that was how you
were raised, is it? Do you are you finding yourself
raising your children with similar values or they very different? Um,
talk to me about that. Yeah, I mean, like my
(39:33):
faith journey has evolved significantly since when you were a kid,
when I was a kid, and and same with Peters
and so like we've never forced anything on them. They
do have to come to church with us on Sundays,
that's the thing. But they can bring books and they
read and you know, they have friends that they love
to play with. They always make a think about it,
(39:53):
but then they love playing with the friends and eating donuts,
so you know, and it's something to do and like
wonderful and you feel connected. Yeah, and it's interesting. I've
had a lot of My son is like an extremely analytical,
deep thinker and feeler. And if he's mad and he
wants to make me, like wants to hurt me because
he's mad at me about something, he'll be like, God
(40:16):
doesn't even exist, He's just a dumb guy in the skies.
Then why are you even believing him? You know? And
and and children are children are amazing push the buttons.
But but he had, especially during COVID, some very big, deep,
hard times of just wrestling with like what is happening
(40:38):
in the world? What are we doing here? Why? Why?
Does it must have really felt that we all were
feeling that we were all Ye, that's the thing is
he was able to articulate all the things that we
adults were all feeling. But he's able to He's been
always been able to articulate, very complicated emotions, and so
(41:00):
you know, he'd be like, I'm so sad right now
because there's nothing to look forward to. And if I
don't have something to look forward to, then what is
the point? You know, Like, yeah, that feels. Yeah, you
hit the nail on the head, buddy, Like we're all
feeling that is sitting in our house and it's the
same every day and we can't go do stuff, and like,
(41:23):
looking forward to something is a lot of what brings
us joy in life, and this is hard for that reason,
among many does he ask you had a lot of
analytical questions of like who is God? And you're like,
this is what I believe, and like yes, and and
because Peter teaches comparative religion, he's like, I mean, there
are lots of different faith traditions, and so we've talked
(41:45):
very openly about how not everybody believes this, this is
what this is the this is what we believe, and
it's really it's going to be your own journey to
kind of walk through it and find how you want
to engage with the world. But but it is interesting
seeing some of the things that crap up, Like he'll
have these big deep questions about it and be like
(42:07):
and at one point he we had this heartbreaking he
just was in a moment, in a very sad moment
during COVID and and at one point he just goes,
I just need some evidence. I just need some hard evidence.
If you could give me some hard evidence about the
existence of God, then maybe I could see your point
(42:29):
of view. Like weeping while saying this to me, But
what a gift. This is why this kid is your kid? Yeah,
do you know what I mean? Like they say, you know,
we've had chef Tali Savari on this podcast that she
wrote this book called The Conscious Parent, and you know
her big thing is like, you know, you're you're gifted
the kid that's made to bring you to higher levels
(42:49):
of consciousness, like and like like you nailed me. Number
nine angiogram hate conflict. My son is a confrit flicked lover.
He loved really he runs towards the fire and the flames,
loves to create it on his own. And I'm forced
to look at that ship every fucking day. I'm the
mom on the on the thing with the kid hitting
(43:12):
the other kid and biting. That's my kid, and I
have to let all my people pleasing. Yes, Like you
have someone sitting down being like I want to talk
about every single thing. You guys believe in daddy who
studied comparative religion and has a PhD. And you're like,
holy shit, wow, Like this kid is a critical thinker,
(43:35):
Like he's very very critical thinker. But the funny thing
is if he can't sleep because he's scared or he's
having a nightmare, the only thing that comes down him
down is if I come in and pray for him.
So it's so funny. It's like he has these very deep,
like epic conversations about is this true? Is this not?
(43:55):
I don't know. If I can't touch it, how can
I believe? But he also loves it, loves transition or
loves the safety and the Yeah, there's something about like
if I feel afraid, I want I want to believe
that God is there and God will hear my prayer
and God will be with me. And meanwhile, Hannah, Hannah's
(44:16):
like a big insult. She likes to lob it Mico
when he's being a pill toward hers. Well, you don't
even believe in Santa, our God. Unbelievable. I feel like
you're doing a very, very great job at raising your children.
I really feel that. I think you're so grounded and
(44:36):
smart and like progressive and also have such a wonderful
value system, and I just feel like I'm a floundering
idiot and you're not. This is the thing about parenthood
is that most of the time you feel like a
floundering idiot, and then you have like a moment where
(44:57):
you're like, I nailed that mom moment. I did a
good job, I said, I had a great conversation after
I exploded. Yes, it's called repairs. The repairs are big repair.
All about the repairs. We have learned that Katie's Crib
from Dr Dan Siegel. It's all about if you have
any sort of what is it called any flare up
(45:20):
or anything like that, It's all about the repair. It's
the number one therapist has always said. And I go
back to that all the time. And I've had some
amazing conversations with my kids from a place of utter humility,
just like from like I yelled loudly and I got
so mad and I reacted. I had such a bad
(45:41):
reaction to that. And let me tell you where that
came from, because it wasn't about you. It was about
these other things. And then I took it out on
you and that was not okay for me to do,
and I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me? And then
and then and then like also just in I'm noticing
that when I'm able to track through the journey of
(46:01):
of what got me to that place where I was reactive,
and I can say those words out loud to them,
they've now kind of learned that skill, so I can
have that conversation with them. So Hannah will be like, well,
she'll track through. I got so mad at this moment,
but then when your voice got stern, it made me
nervous about this other thing, and so then I got
(46:23):
even more upset. And then when I got even more upset,
I got nervous that my that my tears wouldn't stop
when I saw my friends, and then I'd feel embarrassed,
like she literally like took the journey about every twist
and turn of the big tantrum that she had and
where it landed, and that's why she was feeling that way.
And I'm like, I totally get it. I would feel
(46:44):
that way too. That's so great. Is there any last
piece of advice before we jump off. Last piece of advice. Okay, um,
I would say, make sure that you are doing life
with other parents while you're trying to do this thing. Um,
and parents that you trust and that like are not
the not the judge kinds, but the ones that will
(47:07):
speak good truth, you know, to you and and and
be like, hey, this worked for me. You want to
try that. Oh my gosh, my kid is going my
kid is doing the biting thing too, Like let's let's
talk about it. By the way, that doesn't mean you're
a failure. And these are the steps that I took,
and this is what happened, you know. So I just
think trying to parent in isolation, just with your partner
(47:28):
is just a recipe for death. Just utter. We're supposed
to be doing this with appos, be doing it in
a village. We're supposed to be doing it in a village.
And then the other thing, and we just talked about
this is repair is like that's the biggest thing. I
think so many kids and adults now are in therapy
because their parents never apologize to them, like they never
(47:51):
parents kind of thought that they had to be this like, well,
I'm the voice of authority, and so what I say
is and I'm always right, you know. And I think
we're in a generation now where parents are learning like, oh,
you know what, I really messed up earlier today, Like
I yelled at you and exploded when I that wasn't
about you, is about something else, and I used my
loud voice and I really sorry, I did that exactly,
(48:13):
And then you move on and the kid also learned
to apologize. The kids to apologize, then they know how
then they You've given them the skill of taking responsibility
for their actions so that they go out into the
world and they're not total assholes, which is what we're
trying to do on Katie's crib. We just don't want
to put more assholes into the No more assholes, now assholes,
(48:34):
Sarah Drew. It is a pleasure and honor a dream.
We need to have you back on your such a
cool mom, and my god, our listeners are gonna be
so happy that you are here, Like I just and
I feel like you're just You're I need to hear
everything you're doing because your kids are like ten and seven,
and I feel like it's going to get better. It is,
(48:54):
I think so no you're still in the weeds. Man,
You're in the weeds your youngest. You're in the weeds
until your youngest is like four. A kind of intense.
The fucking fours, I like to call them. The fucking
fours are so fucked up. It's so hard. Much worse
than the Terrible twos. I agree. I agree. Thank you
(49:20):
guys so much for listening to today's episode. I want
to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns. Let
me know. You can always find me at Katie's Crib
at Shonda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a production
of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from Shonda Land Audio, visit the I
(49:40):
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda Land Audio
in partnership with I Heart Radio. So I'm in the
nick You and I had met this one mom and
her baby is so much smaller, so much tinier than
my baby. During one of the moments in the Nick You,
I'm I see her. She's being delivered some news by
the doctor and she's in the corner of the room
by her baby and is just shaking and crying. Her
(00:25):
husband isn't with her. I felt myself compelled to move
toward her and I held her and I literally said
all of the words that my character had just said,
you will be able to survive this. And I was
in that spot with that woman in that moment because
my daughter came early and there's no other way that
(00:48):
that meeting would have happened. Hello everybody, and welcome back
to Katie's Crib. You guys have been asking for this
particular guest for a very long time and finally late
got her. I am talking about the one and only
(01:11):
Sarah Drew. You guys know where has dr April Kepner
on Grey's Anatomy. She's actually gonna be returning to the
ABC Drama for its season eighteen finale, which airs May.
What Uh. Sarah was also on Freeform's Team drama Cruel.
Summer is Cindy Turner, Kitty Romano on the ABC drama
series Madman. She's been on Cold Case, Lawn Order, Glee,
(01:34):
Private Practice. The list goes on and on and on
and on. She's doing awesome things. She just inked a
two picture deal with Lifetime. You can catch her on
Apple TV's Amber Brown, which is premiering later this year.
She lives in LA with her husband Peter. They have
a ten year old son, Micah and a seven year
old daughter, Hannah. Sarah, thank you so much for coming
onto Katie's crib. Hello, Hi, so nice to seem so
(02:01):
nice of you, And you were such a mentor to
me and a soul sister being on a Shonda Land
show having a baby. Did you have Mica on that show? Also?
I had both of them. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So
I took Sarah d out and I said I didn't
have any children yet, and I had heard that Shonda
(02:23):
will help, it will be okay. Like when you're an
actor in Hollywood, you're like, oh God, don't ever get pregnant,
it will ever hire you again? Yeah, it's a scary.
I mean I remember even when I went to tell
her that I was pregnant, I was like stressed out
of my mind and she was like, you look so
good and so young. It's stupid. I love you for
(02:45):
saying it. I have so much insecurity. Oh please, you
look on freaking real, I mean, unbelievable. Did you always
want to be a mom? Always? Yes. I grew up
in a pretty conservative situation and the daughter of a pastor.
My parents were married when my mom was twenty and
then she was still in college. I wanted to meet
(03:07):
my husband at my Christian youth camps that I went to.
And the funny thing is I did meet my husband
at one of those camps. We were leaders at it,
and it was during my college experience. And I did
get married right out of college. And I always always
wanted to have kids, always wanted to be a mom,
but it took me like we didn't We waited nine
years after getting married to have kids. So do you
(03:31):
mind telling us, like, what was the hold up? Was it?
Career stuff? Was totally career stuff. I found myself having
like panic attacks at all my friends baby showers because
I was mad that I felt like they were ready
and I wasn't. And there was something in me that
wanted so badly to be in the space where I
was ready to do it, but I wasn't, and for
(03:52):
some reason, it like it messed with my head. I'd
go to all these baby showers and I'd be like
an anxious wreck and I'd be like, when is the
moment going to be for me? When am I going
to do this thing? I know I want to? When
did you feel that it was time? Like? How did
you know? So I became a series regular on Grays
(04:13):
and I they didn't know. I had this whole thing
in my head when I was young, and like, starting
off in my career path, I'm like, I'm going to
be Reese Witherspoon, Right, I'm going to have babies while
I'm a movie star. Sure, sure, plan that was how
it was going to go. And then that didn't happen,
(04:34):
Like I did not become a movie star. Never how
you plan it. So then I was like, Okay, well
what do I do now? Like and it's not convenient
ever to do this thing when we're doing what we do,
um and I remember being, you know, coming up on
my hiatus after my first year as a series regular
(04:54):
on Grays, thinking oh, well, now I'm going to be
a movie star because I'm a is regular on Grades
and then as soon as I become a movie star,
then I'll be able to have kids because that's what
makes sense. And hiatus hit and nobody was interested in
they gave me a movie star. Well, you just start
to realize that it's never enough. There's never going to
(05:17):
be the career thing that makes it like now is
the time to have a baby, because there's always something next, yes,
And it's never enough not only for the big decisions
of like when am I going to have a kid,
When will I get married? Like all those like big
life questions, but it's also never enough in terms of
when will I be happy as an artist? There is
(05:37):
never ever that place you get to where you're like
now I'm there and now I can rest, Now I
can relax. It was an awakening for me during that
hiatus when I was like, oh, this isn't the plan
I created in my brain, and if I don't do
this thing that I know I want to do, I'm
(05:57):
just never when am I going to do it, you know,
and so we got pregnant right away. I mean it
was like an immediate kind of thing. Yes, hallelujah. And
then it worked out so brilliantly. Your son was like, Mom,
I've been waiting for nine years, like exactly, you've been
with my dad for a hundred years since we were counselors.
(06:20):
That So, Mica Emmanual Lamb for gorgeous, beautiful name. How
was your pregnancy so? Um, I'm not I was. I
did not enjoy pregnancy either of the times. Um, the
first time, you know, I wasn't like horrifically sick. I
(06:42):
was nauseous for the first you know, for like sixteen
weeks or ten weeks or sixteen weeks or something like that.
But I just in general not like lugging around that
extra load sore. It's exhausting. You feel like you're climbing
a mountain every day. And then I was shooting long
hours every day. Um, with both of my kids. It
(07:06):
was a lot. And then I had like an incredibly
horrible time fighting with the breastfeeding thing with Michael when
he was born, to the point that it was like
it was like ten weeks of battling that this is
a different topic. I just wanted a different topic. It's
very triggering for people. I mean breastfeeding. We we've talked
about it a lot on Katie's Crib, a lot of
(07:28):
people listening. You know, you can go back to season one,
We've we've done so many episodes on breastfeeding. But I
always think it's it's never enough. I have so many
friends who have just given birth, like during COVID, and
breastfeeding still continues to be this ride for some women
that is um really stressful, incredibly painful, and not rewarding
(07:50):
and makes them feel like failures and it sucks, Yes, totally.
There's so much judgment about it and you feel walking
into it that like I'm not real. I'm not a
real mom unless I do this thing. Yes, but we
but we do that with eight thousand things related to motherhood.
I'm not a real mom. If I have help, I'm
not a real mom. If I go back to work,
(08:12):
I'm not a real mom. If I didn't labor, yeah,
I'm not a real mom. If I if I took drugs,
if I did you know the pain pain drugs? Yeah,
there's like so many ways that we can beat the
ship out of ourselves. That's right, that's right. We're just
looking for ways to decide for a failure, just to
just decide that we are. I don't know why we
(08:34):
do this for ourselves, but for me, I had to
have because I had lactatian consultants making it worse, not
helping the situation, making me feel more horrible, and like, oh, well, Sarah,
you know if you don't if you if you just
go to the pump and he doesn't suckle, then you're
going to dry up and then he just won't have
(08:54):
breast milk, and breast is best. None of that is true. None,
none of it is true. I know men who pumped
for a year because they were back at work and
they never breastband and they're like, well, I I didn't
really breastfeed. I was like, you fucking yes, you did.
That's what I did. At week ten, I found myself
standing outside of church with all the other moms like
(09:15):
bouncing their babies, like while the certament is happening and
weeping to this like commune of women that all had
very different philosophies on breast like they'd all done different things,
all of them, and every single one of them said,
why are you torturing each other? Just relax, like formula
(09:35):
is awesome. Do you know how awesome formula is these days?
For it allow yourself to bond. It's like I needed
permission from those women or somebody. I needed someone someone
to hear it. Yes, I needed somebody to tell me
this is okay, You're not a failure, like I have
these I have these memories of like shirtless bouncing on
(09:59):
a bound singball, sobbing with like the breast shield, trying
to get into latch. And then every time somebody else
would take him, you know when I was working, maybe
like your baby so sweet, he takes the bottle so well,
and he just would scream on me because this breastfeeding
thing was such a battle. It was so weird. But
I when I received that permission, all of a sudden,
(10:23):
I had this incredible freedom and I started just pumping,
and I, like, all of a sudden, started creating tons
of milk because you weren't stressed and you're happy, and
you were connecting with your baby exactly. So they had
(10:46):
a story haddah, Molly Rose Laper, you were very pregnant,
and then your character April was struggling with like a
bad situation, right, Yes, my character April had a baby
who had to ask you a genesis imperfecto type two,
which was basically like in utero. Baby's bones were breaking,
(11:09):
baby was in pin in utero, and there's like a
zero percent chance of survival or a very minuscule chance
of survival. So then the big question between April and
Jackson was do we terminate because babies in pain? Do
we carry a full term? My character's super pro life,
(11:29):
So we shot my you know, my character ultimately comes
to the decision that she's going to terminate, and I
do this labor delivery death scene that takes ten hours
with Jesse William only because yes, yes, um, and I
(11:49):
go home and ten hours later I go into premature labor.
And how early were you? A month? So I didn't
have a room ready for her. We were planning to
close off our den and have builders come in, and
then we had it was still a den, it was
still couches. I had no clothes for her, I had nothing.
I had nothing prepared for this baby, and obviously I
(12:13):
was super traumatized because I felt like I had done
this to her because I had allowed myself to tell
this story, and I had pitched this story before I
was pregnant, and they've given me an out and told
me I didn't have to tell the story once I
once I discovered that I was pregnant, and I still said, no,
I want to do it. I want to do it.
You know, I didn't know. Oh, I would never either.
I'd be like, of course I could do it. And
(12:34):
it's so gray, there's so much gray area, so interesting
and chalk filled with like pro life and abortion and
choices and when and why and what and faith and
belief and what like, Like the story happened to friends
of my parents who are pro life. They like went saw,
(12:54):
you know, counsel from my parents about what to do.
My parents like walked through the whole thing with them,
and everybody agreed that this was the best choice to
make in this scenario, was to do this induction termination. So,
you know, to have that as a storyline between someone
who is a person of faith and someone who is
you know, is not a person of faith, there's so
many amazing conversations that could come out of that, of course,
(13:18):
So you really go forward in the shooting of it,
where You're like, you're not pushing, no, no, but you're
obviously stressed and stressed, so stressed, and your body, like
your body doesn't I mean, you know this, your body
doesn't know the difference. When you're working yourself up into
a panic for a scene, all the things in your
(13:38):
body start happening that would happen when you're in panic.
Your body is really screaming and really crying. Yeah. I
can remember during Scandal when Carrie was pregnant, like someone
shot someone I can't remember who, and she was like
Olivia Pope was like screaming, crying, and we I remember
like between takes us all going over to her stomach
and just like petting her belly and being like it's
(14:02):
we're just making pretend this isn't real, you know. And
also because of you, I'm pretty sure that when Quinn
gave birth, because Quinn was really pregnant, when I was
really pregnant with Albie, they just did it where I
was my character was put under anesthesia and the baby
was there. That was why why choice? Okay, so you
(14:23):
put your body not like you were actually pushing, but
you were stressed. You were quiet, But I I mean,
I'm literally holding my dying baby. He squeezes my finger
and then he lets go, and it's ten hours of weeping,
just ten hours of desperate, miserable sadness. We've never worked together.
(14:45):
I hope, I'm so lucky to do so. But how
did you show up to work that day? Are you
someone who can really separate that? Or do you show
up at work and you go to like a really
fucked up place. I go to a dark place. I mean, like,
it's not like calling me by my character name. I
can't laugh at between tags. But I place myself, with
(15:08):
my imagination and my body as deeply as I possibly
can into the reality of the situation, and I have
a very vivid imagination for it, and I have a
deep well of emotion. I built that I'm a four
on the angiogram. I am like I eat sadness for breakfast,
Like I I think I'm a nine. What's a nine?
(15:29):
You're a peacemaker. Don't like conflict? No, it's hard to
make decisions horrible, Okay, so you eat so obviously you can.
So it's not like your met really, but it's like
your you can really tap in and go to a
dark imagination place. So ten hours later, you're like, is
(15:50):
that a contraction? Yeah. Ten hours later, I'm at my
kitchen table and I'm doing like my expense sheet for
the end of the year, and my nanny's in the house,
and I keep get up and like like needing to
like oh because I'm I'm like, yeah, I'm sure it's
just Braxton Higgs. But like it keeps happening. And then
it's like happening every five to seven minutes, and Molly's like,
(16:14):
I feel like you're getting up a lot and you
seem uncomfortable a lot. I don't know what's going on,
and so I call the doctor and I explain what's happening.
They're like, come in. I'm sure you're not in labor,
but come in. So I go to the hospital and um,
and I'm four centimeters dilated. So they're like, you're having
(16:36):
a baby now. I was like, what, I'm having a
baby now? Now I'm having a baby? Yes. I think
about the like anticipatory energy that my kids feel as
Christmas approaches. Can we just skip to Christmas Eve? Christmas
Eve is my favorite day of the entire year. You
want to skip to Christmas Eve? I just the waiting
is just intolerable, Like the the anticipation is so excited
(17:00):
eating and that's just like the littlest glimmer of what
it is when you're anticipating the birth of your child.
I've never experienced in my life that looking forward to
incredible heightened excitement like I did with my kids. You
know they, I mean, you know, but yeah, So it
(17:20):
was mostly excitement and mostly and mostly like, oh, this
is this is a surprise, this is different, this is
not the plan, this is interesting, and it was mostly okay.
And I've labored like I didn't get to labor with
Michael because I had toxemia and I had to be induced.
What's toxemia. It's like preclampsia. So I went in with
(17:40):
like upper abdominal pain and it was like proteining your
urine and certain enzymes or something. I don't know. Your
placenta is basically poisoning your body and the only the
only cure is to get the baby and the placenta out.
That's what happens with toxemias. So that's happened with Mica.
(18:01):
So I never felt labor. I never experienced labor pain.
I didn't know what it was, so I did with
Hannah for a while and then I got the epidural
and whatever. So everything was exciting and wonderful until they
whisked her away after five minutes and took her to
deal with flung stuff. And and I didn't expect that
that was going to happen, Like there was no sort
(18:22):
of prep of you know, because she's this early, she
may have to go to the Nike. You like, she
was far enough a long and she was big enough
they could tell if you're thirty six weeks right, or
you were thirty six thirty five weeks or something, you're
right on that cop And it's so much lung development right,
Like the element is the biggie. It was that. And
(18:42):
then also I had gestational diabetes diabetes during my pregnancy
of Hannah, which sucked. If anyone's had gestational diabetes, it's
the worst. Oh my god, so many people get gestational diabetes.
I feel so bad that you're like pregnant and you
like are on a diet. Yeah, you can't eat anything.
Just the worst. Justational diabetes is just that you have
diabetes during the pregnancy then it goes away. But basically
(19:05):
it means that your body is not processing sugar well
during pregnancy, and so you can't eat like any bread. No, no,
it's a very or or like fruit or any dairy
like anything that turned into sugar. Like you are fucked,
which is like, are you joking during pregnancy? Thank you
very oh god. So at first when they took her away,
(19:26):
it was because blood sugar things were out of whack
for her, so they had to do that. But then
they brought her to the nursery, and then at the
nursery they were realizing that her oxygen saturation was low,
so then they had to do a chest X ray
and then they saw that there was like some spots
in the lungs or some fluid like so they were like,
we don't know if it's just that they need to
develop a little bit more. I've talked to a lot
(19:47):
of moms who who have done the Nike thing, and
it's like it's its own just it's its own beast.
It's and and how long was she in the nicke
you like eleven days? Anybody who's done it, or like,
oh you've done it? Yeah, oh yes, I know what
that is. But it's what's so hard about it. There
are a lot of things that are hard about it.
I mean, leaving the hospital without your baby is hard.
(20:09):
You know, after the two nights that you're there, that's
all I hear is that you can't believe that you're
walking home and you don't have your baby. Yes, that's hard,
that's really hard. Scrubbing in so weird um, but it's
the it's the little like improvements. And then and then
the back steps. You're hanging on every phone called breath
an everything, and it's like, oh, it's going to be
(20:32):
three days. Actually, well, you know, we try to take
her off the oxygen, and then and then she decided
so now we actually need to do another course of
whatever and and up the oxygen again. And and then
the other thing was she was eating with a feeding tube.
So I was like, I guess I'm just never gonna
get to breastfeed. How she gonna latch if she started
(20:52):
her life on a feeding tube? But she latched so easy.
I breast fed her for a year, like amazing. Yeah.
As soon as it was clear there were health issues
and I wasn't going to get to bring her home
right away, there was just this like niggling little worm
in my brain that was saying, this is your fault.
(21:16):
You brought this upon her, like she wasn't ready to
come early, and you made it happen because you didn't say, Okay,
let's do a different storyline, and you came up with
the storyline and then you went got pregnant. Like I mean,
all the blame to the point that I was having
some panic attacks when I was back at work and
I was back to work, you know, so soon after
giving birth and I am and I had to work
(21:38):
some stud to work some stuff out with a therapist,
I had to take some medication. Like it was, it was,
it was intense with did you have postpartum depression or
a postpartum anxiety? I mean and not like not diagnosed,
I would say, like with Micah at four o'clock every afternoon,
I would cry every single day at four o'clock, I
(21:58):
would cry the witching hour, arsenic hour, the witching hour,
or whatever you want to call it. But it's like
that's yeah, it's not good, that's yeah. Attext to yeah,
oh really, god, oh my god. I had horrible postpartum
depression anxiety with my with Vera horrible, but four pm
was like a ringer that's the worst horrible. My therapist
(22:20):
was like, really, so many people feel good because they're
only like two or three hours away from dinner. I'm like, oh, no, no, no,
I like we're living in fear. So you weren't diagnosed,
but you had to work out some guilt. No, And
it was more just like kind of gloom. It was
like gloomy stuff with Mica, but with Hannah. I'd be
hit with just like waves of anxiety and like just
(22:41):
my body would just revolt against me. And I had
a couple of moments on set where I just was
panicking so bad. I couldn't remember my lines like I was.
I usually remember like a vivid memory of like waiting
outside the hallway where I was where I supposed to enter,
waiting for action, and just like literally hyperventilating, like oh
my gosh, I don't even I can't do my job.
(23:02):
I can't do my job because I did this to
myself and I brought this upon myself and I did
all of this and it's my fault and like how
do I get out of this? And um my? My
doctor prescribed me xan X for like just the attacks,
and that helped a lot. I mean, it's really hard
to work those hards. It's hard to work with panic,
it's hard to work with zan x. I know they're
(23:24):
both different, but like, what are you gonna do? I mean,
you know, it's why we're fighting so hard for you know,
paid true maternity leave. Oh my gosh, yes, women, because
like obviously you were having panic directly related to feeling
like you were at fault for having your daughter come early,
(23:45):
which I personally think it was all meant to be. Yes,
And I'm curious to see how you feel about it now,
you know, but I'm sure it was. I always think
about other women and other lines of work putting stress
on their bodies who make also go into labor early
for whatever reason, you know, and them having to go
back to work like way too soon soon and not
(24:07):
being paid, and the stress of that also having panic
attacks because they're just gave birth and their bodies a
hormonal roller coaster of insanity. It's like, I don't understand
how any any of us are walking. Um, how do
you feel now about that whole thing? I mean, it's
(24:28):
seven years ago, which is shock, and you're coming up
upon her seventh birthday. It feels just like more like
a wild chapter. Um. And there's no lingering shame or guilt.
I feel good. I don't feel any of that. Um.
It just was the experience that I had. So it
was so crazy. So many things happen. I feel like
(24:49):
in my world where I experience like the sorrow and
the joy hand in hand, and I've experienced that a
lot in the last few years. Of just like, wow,
that was really hard, but this beautiful thing happened, and
so I wouldn't trade it for the world. But you know,
you get to know sometimes the mom the other moms
in in the Nike you the other Nike moms. And
(25:10):
so I had just told a story right before I
had gone into labor and gone to the hospital. The
episode that we were shooting, my character is trying to
make the decision about whether to terminate or not, and
she has this experience with a woman who just lost
her fiance and she's just been wandering around the hospital
every and she's been changed and described because she was
(25:31):
covered in blood when she came into people think she's
a doctor and she hasn't been able to tell anyone
she's not. And so I wind up finding her and
like giving her this hug because her she just like
can't handle what happened. And I'm holding her and I'm saying,
you are strong, you are brave, you can you, you will,
you will get through this. And I don't even remember
(25:52):
exactly what something was, but it was something like that,
just holding her while she shook and cried until she calmed.
And there was something in that moment that enabled April
to say, the right thing to do right now is
to let little Samuel go because he's in pain right now.
And so that's when she makes the decision to go
and do this scene that then led Hannah right. So
(26:15):
I'm in the nick You and I had met this
one mom and her baby is so much smaller, so
much tinier than my baby. She knew the show, so
she had sparked up a conversation. But during one of
the moments in the nick You, I'm I see her.
She's being delivered some news by the doctor and she's
in the corner of the room by her baby and
(26:35):
is just shaking and crying. Her husband isn't with her.
I felt myself compelled to move toward her, and I
grabbed her and I held her and I literally said
all of the words that my character had just said
three days prior, because those were the words that were
present in my brain and in my heart, and I
(26:58):
felt her body calm, and we just sat there and
like embraced in this communal moment of shared what the fuck?
Like this is so traumatic, This is so scary what
we're doing right now. But you know what, you will
get through this. You are brave, you are strong, and
you will handle this. You will be able to survive this.
(27:21):
And getting chills thinking about it again, Like I was
given those words to say by the storyline that I
chose to tell, and I was in that spot with
that woman in that moment because my daughter came early
and there's no other way that that meeting would have happened.
(27:42):
Such a gift in such a dark time, but such
a this that like, I just feel like so much
of life is that you're holding both of these things. Right.
If we just stay in the like I'm only going
to look at the positive, and then you don't deal
with the gravity of the pain, then where are you.
You're living in a fantasy world if you get stuck
(28:02):
in the pain of something and can't kind of find
some little sliver of light or brightness or diamond. Then
you just get sucked down deep and life is both
always always and also so much of parenting. I mean,
I just have never like loved something so much. And
(28:22):
at the same time, it's so scary that some one
creature my children could hold in their hands my entire livelihood,
my good and bad, and everything rests in their in
their hands. It is such a crazy ride. And it's
(28:45):
also a crazy ride, and just you, you're witnessing in
them the reality of what the world is. This like
both sides of everything all the time. Because you just
have to watch a tantrum of a four year old
and then have them turn on a diamond start laughing
as day. It's something else to know that this is
a perfect picture of the reality of life. Yes, so okay,
(29:20):
you go back to work, you're having panic attacks, you
were able to talk to somebody and get help, thank god,
And you are working on a place where I'm sure
you were loved and supported by your co stars. And yes,
I was on set shooting exactly two weeks after giving birth,
where so she had been home for three days when
I was on set shooting an eight hour day because
(29:42):
they thought you were going to a Yeah, I was
supposed to finish all this storyline stuff I was supposed
to be there for. Oh my god. I didn't even
realize that same thing happened with Mike because Mikea came
a week early and I was supposed to shoot that
whole week. So two weeks after giving birth, I had
to go to work and shoot one day to knock
all these scenes out that we're written in the previous episode. Wow,
(30:05):
was everyone like like shocked that you would have the baby?
Like what was the energy? Really? Just like delightful? Can
we peek at the baby? Because you know baby was
in my trailer. That's the best thing about Shaunda Land.
It's like your baby's there, you you go breastfeed. They're
like very amazing. And I actually had one one um
(30:27):
situation on set where we had like worked, you know,
a Faturday, and I didn't have help on the weekends,
and there was no way to recover from a Faturday
with the newborn, Like just there's no way to recover,
Like I I, you know, you get home and then
you've just lost a whole night of sleep. So I
called Shanda and I was like, I don't think I
(30:49):
can do this, Like I can't do Fraturday's. I need
Hannah to be sleep trained. I need like the I
need the first half of the year of her life
and then I can do satur Days again. But I
can I can't do. And people who are listening Faturday's
is like you work until three or four o'clock in
the morning on a Friday night. Yeah, and then your
(31:09):
baby's up at five at five, yes, and you don't
you just haven't slept and you and I didn't. I
don't have help on the weekends. Like that's just I
had a nanny five days, you know, five days a
week Friday. You know, I've had to have an incredible husband,
super involved husband. But like you still have a new born.
I still do feel they're at hell and breast connected
(31:30):
with her all those things. So I remember calling Shanda
just being like, can can you help me out here?
And so she made a rule. She was like, yep,
from until the end of the season, you are no
longer working any Friturdays. You're never up last on a
Friday night for the rest of the season. It was
just like done, it was just done. I'm like handled handled. Yes,
(31:53):
I was like I love you so much. Thank you,
and also good on you for asking for what you need,
because a lot of women don't do that either. Right,
did you feel this pull that you should be home?
I never wanted to. In fact, both times that I
had to go to work after two weeks, I was like,
thank you, baby Jesus. I would like to go see
some humans that are grown ups. I would like to
(32:15):
do this thing I love to do for me. My
happiness in life rests entirely on balance. Yea, I cannot
be only working. I cannot be only parenting. Have to
have both. How do you work life balance? It like
you needed help obviously right from the jump, because you're
(32:36):
to work. So I mean, we're in a total tragedy
right now because our nanny of nine years, who is
like a family and has had two kids while she's
been working for us, and they're like my kids siblings,
is moving. This is the last week I know. So
we're are you kid so sad? We're so sad. I know,
(32:57):
it's devastating. We're going to have to do that search.
Although that search, like Hannah and Mike have already been
like I want no one else ever, you know, we
also lost our dog this year, like sixteen years and
so and then they were also like, no more pets
ever again, no pet Like they're so attached and the
thought of the thought of moving some on to someone
else is just betrayal for them. Are they both in
(33:21):
school though? Like full time? That you don't really this
is sort of your opportunity to We moved down to
part time. Okay, got it? Got it yet? So you're
already down to part time? How we were down to
part time although during the summer and during COVID, like
she was here, she was here full time during COVID.
She was able to do all of the at home
learning for eighteen months like and she brought her babies
(33:44):
with her and everybody benefited. It's been like the little
village that we've gotten to have here has been incredible.
That's awesome, especially during COVID times when kids like to
have that socialization. Tell me about siblings to You're doing
a really good segue for me, because I have older
boy and a younger girl. What is that like? Because
(34:05):
I'm terrified. I grew up in a house where the
girl I'm the oldest and my brothers the youngest. So
we didn't really like fight. And my son is very
physical and crazy with my daughter and that terrifies me.
And also, how do you make sure they get along
and treat each other with respect? Well, they're not gonna
get along and treat because they're siblings, you know. I mean,
(34:28):
it's so funny because they'll they'll have these incredible moments
where they're super angelic with one another, and you know,
I mean, they are one another's favorite person on the planet.
Obviously they love playing together, but they also like love fighting.
Mica loves to quietly pick at her until she explodes
(34:51):
with emotion, and then she I think likes the feeling
of the explosion. She's a lout like me, and and
he is the same thing that my brother did to me,
which is like pick quietly so that nobody knows what
you're saying, but like until she's like, oh good, you
say that. But then she stays right next to him
(35:14):
while he continues to do it, and we keep saying,
just go, just move away. Is there any physical fighting?
Is there any fit wars there at a different time,
and there there has been some, but we have such
strict policies on that. Tell me, how do I do
that one are the strict policies. I mean, it even
just happened the other day where he like created a
weapon out of a racetrack and cardboard and duct tape
(35:37):
and just whacked her on the butt as she walked by.
And we're like done with that for I don't know
how long. That's probably going in the dumpster. Threatening to
throw away the creations put them in the dumpster is
like a very big motivating factor. That's called logical consequences,
where you take whatever it is that's being currently used
as a weapon or whatever. And my son sometimes does
(36:00):
have anything, but he'll like, you know, like push her
at you know, she'll she just started walking, so now
she can like actually go towards the toys that he's
currently playing with, and he likes to push her away
or like, mom, she's coming through my stuff and like
a really hard or so then I say, up, okay,
then you're not allowed to play with your sister anymore,
and I'm gonna pick her up and I'm going to
remove her to her room across the hall, because if
(36:21):
you can't treat her body nicely, then you can't play
with her. And then he's like I like this is impossible,
and I'm exhausted, and everyone just get out of my face. Obviously,
they go through stages, for sure. I've gotten to the
point though, where there are times where I'm just like,
(36:41):
you guys, work it out. You know, you only have
one another to play with today, but there's nobody else.
There's nobody else, there's nobody else to hang out with.
So unless you want to just be miserable and lonely,
work it out. And we have a very big thing
on making peace. Like I had a friend UM tell
me about. Instead of saying no, you don't do that,
(37:02):
you and and go apologize, you say, go check in
on her, make sure she's okay, because what you just
did with your body hurt her body. Can you go
check in on her? And it's just that step forward
without feeling that like I'm bad and I did something wrong.
It's I think spurs on just the empathy bone. Yeah,
(37:23):
I tried it. That's really good. I try. She'll make
a sound of like, oh hey, you hear that. It
sounds like she's really not enjoying how you're touching her, right, Yeah,
it sounds like she's making it known that she's not happy.
That's a really good I'm practicing on you. You see that?
Can you check in and see how sisters doing and
see how she's feeling. I don't think you're right, Okay,
this is very helpful. So Mica has now gotten to
(37:46):
the point where like it's something if they're playing or
whatever and he does end up whacking her and it's
an accident. He's like, oh, oh, han, are you okay?
And then he runs agains her an ice pack and
brings it to her, Like there's like those little things
or really go that we started doing, like go check
in on her and see if she needs anything. If
she needs does she need an ice pack? Why don't
you go get her an ice bag? So then and
(38:08):
then after that there's like a we can't be at
peace and we can't be at harmony in our family
until you've made peace with her and making and making
and we don't go to bed until we've all made peace.
Like sometimes you know, we have fights with them too,
and so it's like make you got we got we
gotta come together, we gotta sit down and have a conversation.
Figure out this is they're older though, this is once
(38:28):
they're old. Yeah, I'm literally only quiet because I was like,
oh right, I'm like in my head and like, oh peace,
that's good. Like I just take that. I like that's
the thing that I've done with Peter, like our entire relationships,
like never let the sun go down on your anger,
so you always all you know there if there's anything sitting,
you stay up until however late you need to stay
(38:50):
up and get to a place at peace. Well that
I don't like either. I'm like, I am so tired
it's you. And my husband is such a negotiator and
a talker, like he'll want to talk something through until
it's fucking dead. But okay, tell me this is the
other thing. You and your husband are religious and you
(39:12):
how do you instill that in your children? Like was
it such an easy thing because you were raised your
dad as a pastor, so obviously that was how you
were raised, is it? Do you are you finding yourself
raising your children with similar values or they very different? Um,
talk to me about that. Yeah, I mean, like my
(39:33):
faith journey has evolved significantly since when you were a kid,
when I was a kid, and and same with Peters
and so like we've never forced anything on them. They
do have to come to church with us on Sundays,
that's the thing. But they can bring books and they
read and you know, they have friends that they love
to play with. They always make a think about it,
(39:53):
but then they love playing with the friends and eating donuts,
so you know, and it's something to do and like
wonderful and you feel connected. Yeah, and it's interesting. I've
had a lot of My son is like an extremely analytical,
deep thinker and feeler. And if he's mad and he
wants to make me, like wants to hurt me because
he's mad at me about something, he'll be like, God
(40:16):
doesn't even exist, He's just a dumb guy in the skies.
Then why are you even believing him? You know? And
and and children are children are amazing push the buttons.
But but he had, especially during COVID, some very big, deep,
hard times of just wrestling with like what is happening
(40:38):
in the world? What are we doing here? Why? Why?
Does it must have really felt that we all were
feeling that we were all Ye, that's the thing is
he was able to articulate all the things that we
adults were all feeling. But he's able to He's been
always been able to articulate, very complicated emotions, and so
(41:00):
you know, he'd be like, I'm so sad right now
because there's nothing to look forward to. And if I
don't have something to look forward to, then what is
the point? You know, Like, yeah, that feels. Yeah, you
hit the nail on the head, buddy, Like we're all
feeling that is sitting in our house and it's the
same every day and we can't go do stuff, and like,
(41:23):
looking forward to something is a lot of what brings
us joy in life, and this is hard for that reason,
among many does he ask you had a lot of
analytical questions of like who is God? And you're like,
this is what I believe, and like yes, and and
because Peter teaches comparative religion, he's like, I mean, there
are lots of different faith traditions, and so we've talked
(41:45):
very openly about how not everybody believes this, this is
what this is the this is what we believe, and
it's really it's going to be your own journey to
kind of walk through it and find how you want
to engage with the world. But but it is interesting
seeing some of the things that crap up, Like he'll
have these big deep questions about it and be like
(42:07):
and at one point he we had this heartbreaking he
just was in a moment, in a very sad moment
during COVID and and at one point he just goes,
I just need some evidence. I just need some hard evidence.
If you could give me some hard evidence about the
existence of God, then maybe I could see your point
(42:29):
of view. Like weeping while saying this to me, But
what a gift. This is why this kid is your kid? Yeah,
do you know what I mean? Like they say, you know,
we've had chef Tali Savari on this podcast that she
wrote this book called The Conscious Parent, and you know
her big thing is like, you know, you're you're gifted
the kid that's made to bring you to higher levels
(42:49):
of consciousness, like and like like you nailed me. Number
nine angiogram hate conflict. My son is a confrit flicked lover.
He loved really he runs towards the fire and the flames,
loves to create it on his own. And I'm forced
to look at that ship every fucking day. I'm the
mom on the on the thing with the kid hitting
(43:12):
the other kid and biting. That's my kid, and I
have to let all my people pleasing. Yes, Like you
have someone sitting down being like I want to talk
about every single thing. You guys believe in daddy who
studied comparative religion and has a PhD. And you're like,
holy shit, wow, Like this kid is a critical thinker,
(43:35):
Like he's very very critical thinker. But the funny thing
is if he can't sleep because he's scared or he's
having a nightmare, the only thing that comes down him
down is if I come in and pray for him.
So it's so funny. It's like he has these very deep,
like epic conversations about is this true? Is this not?
(43:55):
I don't know. If I can't touch it, how can
I believe? But he also loves it, loves transition or
loves the safety and the Yeah, there's something about like
if I feel afraid, I want I want to believe
that God is there and God will hear my prayer
and God will be with me. And meanwhile, Hannah, Hannah's
(44:16):
like a big insult. She likes to lob it Mico
when he's being a pill toward hers. Well, you don't
even believe in Santa, our God. Unbelievable. I feel like
you're doing a very, very great job at raising your children.
I really feel that. I think you're so grounded and
(44:36):
smart and like progressive and also have such a wonderful
value system, and I just feel like I'm a floundering
idiot and you're not. This is the thing about parenthood
is that most of the time you feel like a
floundering idiot, and then you have like a moment where
(44:57):
you're like, I nailed that mom moment. I did a
good job, I said, I had a great conversation after
I exploded. Yes, it's called repairs. The repairs are big repair.
All about the repairs. We have learned that Katie's Crib
from Dr Dan Siegel. It's all about if you have
any sort of what is it called any flare up
(45:20):
or anything like that, It's all about the repair. It's
the number one therapist has always said. And I go
back to that all the time. And I've had some
amazing conversations with my kids from a place of utter humility,
just like from like I yelled loudly and I got
so mad and I reacted. I had such a bad
(45:41):
reaction to that. And let me tell you where that
came from, because it wasn't about you. It was about
these other things. And then I took it out on
you and that was not okay for me to do,
and I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me? And then
and then and then like also just in I'm noticing
that when I'm able to track through the journey of
(46:01):
of what got me to that place where I was reactive,
and I can say those words out loud to them,
they've now kind of learned that skill, so I can
have that conversation with them. So Hannah will be like, well,
she'll track through. I got so mad at this moment,
but then when your voice got stern, it made me
nervous about this other thing, and so then I got
(46:23):
even more upset. And then when I got even more upset,
I got nervous that my that my tears wouldn't stop
when I saw my friends, and then I'd feel embarrassed,
like she literally like took the journey about every twist
and turn of the big tantrum that she had and
where it landed, and that's why she was feeling that way.
And I'm like, I totally get it. I would feel
(46:44):
that way too. That's so great. Is there any last
piece of advice before we jump off. Last piece of advice. Okay, um,
I would say, make sure that you are doing life
with other parents while you're trying to do this thing. Um,
and parents that you trust and that like are not
the not the judge kinds, but the ones that will
(47:07):
speak good truth, you know, to you and and and
be like, hey, this worked for me. You want to
try that. Oh my gosh, my kid is going my
kid is doing the biting thing too, Like let's let's
talk about it. By the way, that doesn't mean you're
a failure. And these are the steps that I took,
and this is what happened, you know. So I just
think trying to parent in isolation, just with your partner
(47:28):
is just a recipe for death. Just utter. We're supposed
to be doing this with appos, be doing it in
a village. We're supposed to be doing it in a village.
And then the other thing, and we just talked about
this is repair is like that's the biggest thing. I
think so many kids and adults now are in therapy
because their parents never apologize to them, like they never
(47:51):
parents kind of thought that they had to be this like, well,
I'm the voice of authority, and so what I say
is and I'm always right, you know. And I think
we're in a generation now where parents are learning like, oh,
you know what, I really messed up earlier today, Like
I yelled at you and exploded when I that wasn't
about you, is about something else, and I used my
loud voice and I really sorry, I did that exactly,
(48:13):
And then you move on and the kid also learned
to apologize. The kids to apologize, then they know how
then they You've given them the skill of taking responsibility
for their actions so that they go out into the
world and they're not total assholes, which is what we're
trying to do on Katie's crib. We just don't want
to put more assholes into the No more assholes, now assholes,
(48:34):
Sarah Drew. It is a pleasure and honor a dream.
We need to have you back on your such a
cool mom, and my god, our listeners are gonna be
so happy that you are here, Like I just and
I feel like you're just You're I need to hear
everything you're doing because your kids are like ten and seven,
and I feel like it's going to get better. It is,
(48:54):
I think so no you're still in the weeds. Man,
You're in the weeds your youngest. You're in the weeds
until your youngest is like four. A kind of intense.
The fucking fours, I like to call them. The fucking
fours are so fucked up. It's so hard. Much worse
than the Terrible twos. I agree. I agree. Thank you
(49:20):
guys so much for listening to today's episode. I want
to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns. Let
me know. You can always find me at Katie's Crib
at Shonda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a production
of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from Shonda Land Audio, visit the I
(49:40):
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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