Well, well, well, well, look who's going to buy this episode out today?
It's us and our guest today fresh from the Jungle, It's the Queen of Gosford, herself, Julia Morris.
Lady Julia Morris.
She is a seasoned Ossie comedian who I've loved for a very long time.
Ash.
She has one heart as a beloved co host of the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here and Matt.
She's also a doting mother of two young ladies in their teens, Ruby and Sophie.
And as I think it's safe to say that we had no idea what we're getting ourselves into.
Julia takes us on a journey from her recent divorce to experiencing a miscarriage mid flight and dealing with the chaos of menopause during live TV.
But Ash, we kept up with her every step of the way somehow. Enjoy Welcome back to two doting dads and one doting mum.
I am Maddie, Jay, I'm Ash and I'm Lady Julia Morris of Gosford.
This is a podcast all about parenting. It is the good, it is.
The bad, and the relatable and.
Normally we do not give any advice, none whatsoever. But Julia, maybe I feel like you were bursting at the seams with advice to get you.
She came in with the books. Is like advice, advice, advice.
I'm always full of news. I've got a suggestion at every turn of the weird rolodex in my head that just keeps squirting forward sentences and not every sentence makes it.
We will be sponges that you keep squirting. Hopefully by the end we'll be coming out of this a lot wiser than before. And I do have to say, looking divine and mustard so.
Much or mota as we say, France has made that up.
I'll just stick with mustards.
I think it's best.
It's nice, it's a nice it's a lovely hint of yellow.
It is. It's really I think.
I took my green jump Rock becsuse. I thought we might look up the whiggels too much.
In colors. I was like, oh fuck, I just put my shirt, leave a white shirt.
It looks perfect. I popped in this morning to get a higher car with a non spawn high car company, and I was in the company colors photo of myself, but because I was waiting. They're like, sorry to keep you waiting. I'm like, no, you're not keeping me waiting. I'm in the company colors. Everybody turns around to look at this maniac is now yelling from the back of the non spot.
Were people being just returning to my keys are much?
Why is that elderly lady.
Julia.
If we go back, let's go back to the beginning. I want to know if a young Julia are much younger Julia. Even if Julia, let's say, in a teenage years, was she similar to how Julie is now.
I'd say exactly the same, but now with the confidence to let some of those ideas out of the head rather than just keeping them to myself. But I definitely knew I was going to be a parent. I never really thought about how I wouldn't. That wasn't talked about
when I was in growing up. Sort of within the seventies and the eighties, no one ever talked about the option of not being a parent, So I just knew it had happened at some time, and so by the time I met my partner in my early thirties, we didn't have our babies till I was thirty eight and forty for my second one. Okay, so that was quite late for well for gossip, no judgment, that was that. Oh yeah, we picked it up and put it there.
We did.
That's too far, but we'll get in the right protection exactly protection and did lots of babysitting. And I always enjoyed that. So yes, I didn't. I thought that. I thought that I would be a really chill, amazing ready mum, when did you get.
Your first taste of tea?
Oh? At seventeen, I was at Santa Sabina and Strathfield at school doing the HSC and I snuck away from school and did an audition for New Faces. Yeah, because I thought I could sing. I never had a lesson. I'd never sung in front of anybody, did a lot of you know, mirror time obviously in my own private or anywhere any locations A lift?
What was the song you sang?
Holding out for a Hero?
I wish we had that audio it.
Was here, it would have been I mean you'll hear it. It's on the world wide Interweb.
Oh hope you've got it.
Julia Barros from your South Wales.
Look love, please make a open Okay, what you're looking at here is I borrowed that top from my mum's friend Margot because I had sparkles on it. We were to show this family and I've got my mother's graduation black jets on whenever gone to brag where are the good maga? And where I was growing out? What looks like the exact hair doo I've got Now it's a full Bob seventeen.
She's lifting at.
A really good singer.
I mean, you're very good. When I when I when the letter came from Channel nine to say you're in the show, my mother was like, what is this because she'd open the letter, So what is that?
They didn't know you auditioned?
No, So I literally snuck out from school and went and did the audition in my kilt in my school killed and we had a bowler hat. Jesus was a good look.
It's hot on the side, hot.
On the station. Actually sometimes you're stand on streftfoot stratfield station and you could be kilt someone if you did the right run up and got the little clip on the side loose to school. So mean I was kilted.
I was standing and that's how my first child was.
But also standing in a stocking sock. You know, I'm a non all town station or somewhere like that. I was like, no, it's not ideal.
And so did you confide in anyone did you look for you know, your friends and say I'm thinking about doing this audition. Do you think I should should not? Or did you just run with it?
I don't think so. Like I have got a as a massive people pleaser, I also have a really odd sense of self Like I just wake up happy most days, just going I'm unreal, Like I genuinely feel like that. Obviously you see a photo and you're like, wow, I wonder who that strange fat boys in my dress? But do you know what I mean? Like, just don't know the photos? I think is the is the key there? But I have it's like a it must be a mental.
Health condition self confidence.
Yes, And I wonder if that is having a childhood where I was from a family where there wasn't flowery compliments in those days, the parenting was done in an entirely different way, and it was sort of perfunctory.
You know.
The idea was to get the children busy so that you could have some time, which I mean hasn't changed much better. A lot of that time, as long as the children were away, that was parenting. As long as there's their silence was successful parenting back in those days. So you know, it wasn't the how do you feel of these of these days which are important times? How do you feel as important?
So how did your parents respond to you being on TV?
They were kind of like, well, they did not say can you even sing? But they were like, well, I don't.
Know they musically inclined.
No, no, My dad was track manager at Gosford Race Club, but my mom worked as a secretary for Re Surger. Yeah, not like I'm going to go on showbiz. We had to fly down. We didn't have much money growing up. There was enough to survive and trailer lah, but so my mum had to get the Channeline got me a flight to go down because I was seventeen to shoot the show in Melbourne. But we couldn't afford for my mum to get the big fancy ticket of anset off
Thrilling Airlines. She had to do this what we called back in the day a mail run where you get on the plane in Sydney, then you stop in you know, Golban. You stop at Wogga, then you stop in west Wind do that, yeah, and then you and then she was delivered at a similar time to me in Melbourne. That's how we time those flights.
Four weeks.
She just had to get a twelve and I was like, I'll be up the front if you need me, so and then we were in Melbourne. It was so exciting. I've never been on a plane before and came down and did the show and got a tie. First. You killed No, it's very d Yeah.
Full disclosure. We listened to we watched that before. You can all stuck in our heads and like we need to get it there.
Says if you can't get a song out of your head, give it a big finish.
We really need.
Out for Hurrah. It's definitely gone.
Now help with with boys coming off the back of that performance.
No, because I was loud. I was loud, and what I now suspect maybe ADHD, which I know every young person is kind of like, well, yeah, just have a look at you and listen.
To the rhythm sentence.
But I feel like in looking into that over the last couple of years, I'm kind of not for me. But I've been looking into it for me, but as I started to read all the research, I'm like, oh my god, that's my daily We.
Were talking about TikTok before and I watched one ADHD video because I'm very suspect to myself, and then it's just like, you must love this shit.
I'm just like I have that I.
But then those with diagnosis get super cross with the US who just assume I don't be rude. But for the moment, I just don't want to drop the two grand on the test.
Yes, yes, ASH did do an online test like a disco find questions the website.
You need help so as a business, so you decided to use the money out of the business to make sure.
Well, what's interesting is the A and ADHD actually stands for Ash, and that's what I know about this whole scene.
Has it ever been a battle between wanting to be in showbiz and then wanting to be a mum.
Because she's a great question. No, because in my life growing up, they ran alongside, they wrapped. My mother always worked, so that was absolutely modeled behavior for me, and I knew say if I was away for Let's use the jungle as an example where I'm away for six weeks, and I knew that the children were with my husband in their home, in their schedule, doing their things. And there's one thing, of course, part of my brain thinks
everyone wants to come to Africa. They can just hang away till I've finished work and then we can walk around whatever. No, because the kids have got no business with it. Certainly, I feel like for the first nearly ten years, all they want is that routine so they know where they're up to. But it's my brain that goes, we need a holiday, should we do something? But the kids, even my teenagers, have just recently let me know we don't want to go away any for the rest of the year with you.
I don't want to pry too much into the split, but I am intrigued to know, at what point do you look at the relationship and go, do you know what, it's just best if we go our separate ways.
I reckon I felt that way. I saw it back in previous interviews for nearly ten years well, and after we broke up. My agent said to me at the time, the agent that I had at the time has remained a great friend, she said, you said ten years ago how is this. I don't even remember this. You said ten years ago, I would leave him, but he would get the kids. I was like, I don't remember saying that. I remember feeling like that, but I don't remember saying
that out loud to another human. Because when you're married, it's just you two doing that sort of chap back and forth until you work it out in your head. And you know, if you are lucky enough to have the window into a psychologist that you trust, and you definitely get to sort out your own mats in your own head. But I was like, wow, I mean that was well now longer, like twelve years ago.
So looking back at that, do you remember why you would have potentially said that?
Do you know?
I think we were in a smart ass pattern, as in, like we would saw if we had any issues with each other, it'd be sorted out in a smart ass fashion.
Yes, so looking back my wife's but a lot.
Of that time, I think in those first ten years, you're just trying to hold on and get through the day, and you cannot believe you'd never been so busy in the whole of your life. And I get so tired in the whole of your life. I liken it too. I'm working on the Jungle. It's six weeks. It's a brutality that knows no bounds. It's like six days a week, fourteen hour days. It's hardcore, right, And by the end of the shoot and we're in South Africa and we're having the best time, but all you want to do
is go home. And it's not that you want to go home, it's that you want to break from the relentlessness.
Yeah yeah, So.
I'm like, no, I'd rather I'm happy to stay in South Africa and then do some more work maybe at the end of next week. But so I think parenting feels like that, you actually just want this nightmare of everything to calm.
Down, just for a moment, just to calm down.
Absolutely, So you're in the cycle of smart assles.
Yeah, so smarter. So then we then we'd make up and we would have a lovely time, and then I guess the pattern of the smart ass would start again, and then a bit of meanness and then the sweetness again. So you know, and I think, if if I do have ADHD, I might not have noticed all of those things happening, because then we just get to a nice bit again, Oh I got my husband back.
When it came to the separation, At what point did you decide that it was the right time to tell all the kids?
Oh?
Well, we had we actually had a very nice experience for the breakup moment because I had been to the psychologist. I was just like, I cannot be back here again, because I kept going back to the psychologist going is this over? And then somehow I'd just be like, oh well, but just the basic maths of the breakup, I'm like, I don't even know how to unweb that web. I just not that I was staying in a dangerous situation,
neither with my children. Let's speak definitely about that. But I was just likeing it was literally too hard admin wise to leave because because when we would have fights, I'd say, hey, listen, that's the door, so that's got a handle on it.
It's not that easy.
If this is all not working out for you, how about your head on your way because we will survive beautifully. So that threat I reckon I did every year for ten years.
Wow.
But I know now that you know, threats within relationships are bs. They're just a stupid move to get whatever reaction it is that you need, or you know, whatever nurturing or response that you need. So it was a Saturday morning and I stayed in bed because I was doing my like I just can't speaking to a mold a stone bed for hours. And then I called him up and I just said, hey, hey, listen, do you know what. You're not happy and I'm not happy and this is not really a way for us to live.
So I think we should consider separation. And I didn't know how he would react. I didn't know if you're going to get super angry. Is he going to laugh, is he going to I don't know. I didn't know what he was going to do.
Did you have to build the courage up to have that conversation? We just at a point you were ready for that conversation.
But it was the culmination of all my flight and fight and people all that, and so I was pretty calm about it. And he said, oh, thank god, because I feel the same way.
I was like.
And then we sat on the bed together and because we decided we'd heard this thing called nesting, where you can if you are in the luxurious position enough to be able to afford even one bedroom apartment. I mean as if anybody can afford a second place, but you're
going to have to getting a divorce. So we used that each parent would change and we let me left it looking like a service department with our little bits and pieces in it, and then week on, week off, so the children stayed in the house and we would move and then I would pack our bags and we would go.
Kids were informed. They weren't just like where.
Answer to your question? We told them the next day, Wow that quick, Well we just everything was about it?
Or did you just get around the table?
The reason I asked that, yes, my wife her parents got to they're great. They're great friends now, which is great. But they were on a cruise ship and and April was sorry.
April were telling this story. By the way, April's mom announced.
It at the captain's table.
But I picture the announcements.
Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, me and.
Your father are getting divorced.
After many years of tennis.
This will be the last ship. We said. They were.
They were kind of interesting because they were they were thirteen and fifteen as Abril. They kind of took it in and then they had a little cry, and then they popped upstairs because that was kind of their sanctuary, their own bedrooms were where they you know, felt I guess safest in life, as we all do. And then they have told me since many times we were just like it was a matter of time.
After you've made the decision, You've told the kids, it's all out there with the family.
Did you feel a sense of relief.
Because you asked? You go through a similar to getting married, you go through a honeymoon period. So you're just like you are, I just want the best for you, love and because there was no there was no cheating or spookiness or whatever.
It was just run its course.
Yeah, and probably did a long time before that.
It as a honeymoon period. Yes, post breakup.
So this slagh period, well.
I think what happens is one partner usually goes out and has a role around with literally everybody, and then the other one, I don't know, does the cleanup. I don't know what goes on.
Were you were you the cleanup or were you the.
I was very I was very busy in my twenties and my early thirties. I feel like I had my ration of roots and so.
Who says you need a Russian roots?
I mean everyone ration roots these days, you know we're in difficult times.
Yeah, great depression.
I did not feel that at all. I was just like, all of a sudden, I had to learn how to do the maths. Like I hadn't done any of the bookwork in twenty years. I hadn't put a tax return in my you know, my company did all that. So instead of having a bookkeeper, my ex did all of that. So I all of a sudden had to learn who we bank with. And I know there's lots of people who are like these days, you're like, never ever lose your own bank account. You must always keep your own
bank account. But like we were together for twenty years, we just all goes in and I don't know, that's just how it was sort of easier for us. So just getting all of that separated, I reckon when I say honeymoon period, I didn't quite realize that the admin avalanche was coming.
We chat about like the responsibilities that we have in the house. So Matt, for example, when it comes to the cars registration, getting them service.
Laura has no fucking clue.
Imagine all these things you have.
I mean, it's everything.
I kind of want them sacking an employee were you working and they're like, oh, you've got to do their work now.
Absolutely, I feel like I might have let go one of the best executive assistants. So the other thing is it's very difficult to know how to parent through that moment, I think.
Because you're like, who was your reference point for how to do that right?
I don't know how you do it right. Nobody knows how they're doing it right. Even the experts will tell you what to do right, even they're not sure because only you know your.
Kids and what works for you. Guys to absolutely, and you mentioned earlier, it sort of helped you build this really good relationship now with your daughters.
With the teenagers all of a sudden, I oh no, this is going to sound bizarre, but they sort of became my partner the time and effort and conversation, and so just as soon as they've registered.
My car, register insurance, they so instead.
Of sitting on the couch what by myself watching a movie good times, I'll duck up and be like, do you want those the things? You know? Like, so I sort of become actually the reversal of roles. I've become their pa. I become their loving PA. But I have been definitely putting much more loving farer time into them because so that entire section of your life that does take up time that you want it to take up, time you want to step out and update nights, you want to be That's all I wanted to do was
just faster, hang and be together. So you know, yeah, putting that time now into the children and teenagers are fantastic, I think with boundaries so they'll be like, you can leave the room.
I was going to ask, do they welcome that? Yes?
Enough if I get like I take take a twenty second travel tax hard if they cross my path, I see, I'm literally the only way, the only way you can get your hands on like teenagers literally, oh my god.
Please let's think about that sentence. What I mean is, of course, I had one of my teenagers tell me this is big two years ago when all the upheoval was going on, and she said, I would like to be asked permission for hugs, And I was like sure at the time, excuse me, And there is And we were definitely raised by parents who had that sense of ownership. Us think so and it makes sense, like you know, I have created every living moment for your life for the last however long.
I will get a fucking hug whenever I want.
I'll be stepping up anyway, of course I can. You can hear all of that as I'm saying it now, So then I'm like, hang on, you, I couldn't just walk up to someone on the street and have a.
Hug, so why you can?
So I'm definitely in that age group of one foot in the how very dare you will hug me when I want? And the age group of you are absolutely entired to put your boundaries in it. If you don't feel like being bear hugged by big old Mama, then absolutely so they have been able to teach me lots of new ways, to be sure. And but Sophie is mad for a hug. So she gets the twenty she gets the twenty second travel tax hug, and then Ruby when she's ready, she likes she.
Shows a lot of maturity.
Yeah, well she'll stepped forward. Oh my god, Ruby's like the guru. Ruby is like a full guru. So I'm speaking to her in the jungle a couple of weeks ago because they were a home with a sleepover nannie. That's the one thing about having older children. You don't need a nanny, but you do need an adult in the house. So they don't want to be told what
to do. They don't want to bed time. They you know, they're happy to prepare their own dinner and potter and do their own well it's they do their own washing. But I came under thirty one lads of washing. Thirty one lades of washing. That thirty one I can't stop. Oh mind you I did. I got it to ground zero and no tom and four days non stop, day and night.
Lockdown.
Yeah, yeah, it's not ideal Anyway. When I rang Redy, you had these phone calls where we start and how are you? And did it and having a chat and then all of a sudden like seriously, but love, can we do or if that bin doesn't go out, it's gonna stink after two weeks or whatever. The pedestrian conversation was that we were having and she said, hey, mom, when you call when you're away, I reckon focus on the things we're doing.
Right, Gosh, she's good school, just good.
So then you're like, I got off the phone from that. So when I was married and years ago, I would have been like, don't speak to me like that. Excuse me. I think you'll find like all of that. But since that big shift, I'm kind of like, you're absolutely right. But I went away and thought about it and thought, I do that all the time. Are the bins out did it? Double checking the fifty lists of already left
for them? They've already done it. They don't do it when I'm at home because they're slow, and I'll do that and try to, I guess, but they kind of turn into the you know, they kind of turn into their flatmates. Yeah.
Absolutely, If I don't do it, no one's going to do it.
But it's a very interesting window into parenting actually for children at any age. So instead of like, don't don't swing on that because you're going to fall off and hit your head, and a little like we do is just to go because the swing goes high, you're to be a great job of it. Are you feeling secure on it? Unreal and allowing them to be part of the decision process because I think.
And then figure it out.
I mean for fifteen and beyond years as parents, we take so many of their decisions away from them. They're simply not allowed. When they're little, you can just pick it, pick them up, and remove them from that situation.
I love the power.
But then guess what every I think it is like terrible twos. But if you don't deal with your terrible twos three, stand by for ten three, and then if you haven't dealt with them for ten, stand by seventeen, and then if you're still haven't dealt with it by See, they knew it's someone who loves to get off their nut in their twenties, be on their capabilities so that the learning to say no to children kindly and properly. I think it goes a long way to helping some
of those stages, because they literally just turn again. You're like, oh, we're back to baby, throw yourself on the floor package practically yeah.
I said to my five or nearly five year old, I was like, are we going to have to get you a cot?
And he whatever he was doing, he stopped it immediately. Such baby. I was like, little sisters and a you're on a swap and she can have a big bed.
Can I ask if we go back to when the kids are a bit younger, and I do. It's a very cliche term, and everyone throws it out all the time, and I'm going to do it, so I apologize in advance. But the juggling act of being a parent, for you, it was a bit more full on because you've always worked incredibly hard. Yeah, and you've had periods where you've been in the States, you have period where you've been
in the UK. What was it like trying to juggle all that whilst also trying to raise two girls until.
They're five that you I was under the impression they just come with you, we just go together.
So you just took them everywhere pretty much. Wow.
But what I think that did now looking back, mental health wise, is that that gave them too many changes. They'd make friends, and we'd move countries. Then they'd make friends and we'd move countries. And so if I had my time over, I'm not sure I would have pursued more global stuff at that time. I think I would rather have now, be hindsight, I would have just gone into one place and stayed there and started that safe nurturing earlier of like, everything's fine, nothing's going to change.
We got to the point where we'd moved house, so houses so many times that when we would move house, the girls would get beside themselves thinking some of their stuff would go missing, because in the early days we were thought we were clever, we'd get rid of all this shit we didn't like in the movies to the movie and then we'll be like, I don't know where the you know, the Turlember, the seven foot turtle went.
I remember the most random ship.
And also then they start to get worried that their stuff is going to go missing because there's just no reason for it. So that's it, you know, all those tricks that we think we do, like if you don't go to school, the police are going to come, all of that sort of stuff. It just I'm telling you it's coming back to buy.
Your That's clever, because we did.
We did talk about that and people are like, no, no, you need to make sure that they that they look at the police like.
They're there to protect you.
Yeah, scared, And I was like, what if we're going to threaten them with And also, to be.
Fair, a lot of that parenting between what two and five is kind of threats, bribes and maybe a little bit of reasoning. So but but I also think the continued jumping all over subjects. There's no way off IDHD. We're all because I got that there. You know, I've been very present in my parenting, but I think moving all over the place, I'm not sure was one of the better decisions that we made.
Well. One thing that I struggle with as a parent is on Thursdays, I've got both girls and it's it's our daddy day, and it's one day of the week where I can. Laura's at work, and so it's easier for me to give them attention, for them to want
the attention from me when no one else around. But I struggle with the fact that because I'm working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, work just kind of spills over and I'll be trying to play like a picnic with the kids, but I'm trying to check my emails or I've got When.
You're running your own business like that, huh do you ever?
Did you ever struggle with that type of guilt when you're you've got a big show coming up and you're trying to play with the girls, but at the same time you're worrying about, oh fuck, I've got a huge stand up gig where I'm opening it.
You would just you just do your parenting, because that's that job that you just do. And then I go to the shows at night. I always knew if the family came to if I was doing a comedy festival, for example, I knew it was going to be a punish because every other comic sort of can have a little sleep in or if you know, you can step out after the show. Whereas when you're family at home, guess what, those kids up early, so you can't know. I can't get into bed later than you get all the.
People performing at night too, Then you, yeah, chinighed too.
Late for your maximum level of energy at between nine thirty and ten thirty. Fuck, I know, I know. And then and then oh, let's go to the park.
I like to see.
I'm going to get on that film. And then I joined in the gig. I'll be so wingy. That's the other thing. When you do have a partner, I think, I think you just get really wingy. I'm so so wingy, so getting anything just like this guy today, you shouldn't have said that, or the girl.
There's one particular story when you talk about you've got work, you just got to show up, get it done, move on. There's one particular story that I heard about. It was a long time ago, but you're on a flight by.
The South Africa flight.
Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't.
For I'm a celebrity. It was okay. So Dan and I were not married. We were engaged to be married, and then I fell pregnant and I had to go to do the Cape Town Comedy Festival.
So it's just pregnancy number one.
Yeah, and so the Cape Town Comedy festivals for six weeks. So I didn't want to, you know, annoy them by telling them, but I was still looking after myself and doing that, so, you know, having it's all, well, this is exciting. We knew we were going to get married anyway, so this, you like, is just a different order. No one cares. So six weeks in Cape Town meant that
we were just in you know, phone contact. London had been that big bombing the buses and the normal line, and so I went to fly home after the six weeks. The comedy festival was a great success, and I was tickety boo and I got onto the flight and I realized that I thought, oh, I'm bleeding. As I was getting on the flight. Nothing with me, no preparation, no, nothing, and it's a nine and a half hour flight, right.
Yeah.
So for some reason I went to the bathroom and I was like, oh okay. So I was in the bathroom of age and I'm like, okay, this is happening. That's okay, this is happening.
So did you think instantly like this isn't good or this is I.
Just assumed if you're bleeding, it's not good. And we hears you do hear lots of success stories as well where there was bleeding and then you know twins have been born or whatever. So yeah, definitely you can definitely have the presence.
Someone with two kids. I'm very green on this subject.
So I was sitting next to the comedian Andrew Maxwell, who is very funny Irish comedian, and I came back from the bathroom and he goes, how long was the pooh that you had? But you were in the bathroom. Sorry, sorry, we do have a little bit of gallows humor in comedy world. And I just thought of I was, but I was so totally forgiven for the Joe. I had no idea and I just said a miscarriage and he had a child, he already had he was a partner and a child, so he was just like, Okay, what
do we doing sort of swung into action. Do you want me to go? And what do I need to find?
Do you want to get off.
A pad or something. He was just this glorious human who got it.
I think turned into a paramedic.
You've got a child. Every man who has a child, who's been there for the birth, you kind of are a paramedic.
So I wasn't there for mine.
You're you're in the air.
Yeah, and I know it's eight and a half hours to go. And then the pain started, like the proper period pain weirdness where you think the bottom of your pelvis is going to fall off.
So there was really take your word for it.
I kind of just had to sit there and that long yeah, And I was sort of I did. I guess I was sitting there along as kind of the sadness of oh, but I also knew we'd try again. I got home from that big tour and I was tired anyway, and a little bit like I am now I've just finished the jungle, and you're so kind of erratic and chatty and whatever, and I just Andrew Maxwell and his partner picked me up at the airport and drove me straight to the hospital, and my partner met
me there. So then you just do all the grown up stuff at the hospital and you kind of go home and just think, well, this is shit. Yeah.
Do you remember that feeling? Yeah?
I I also as buoyed by the thought I'm just going to get back on it, like I just I would like to be pregnant. I was thirty eight, and then I started to think, which again, fertility wasn't talked about as much as that. This is you know what, I'm my fifty six, it's just eighteen years ago.
Your math is outstanding. That's ridiculous. This was great.
I even got at maths.
So that's not ideal. That's what I'm doing the accounting guys. Yeah, and so yes, kind of, I don't know. I think I took, however, many weeks on the couch to just you know, feel sad and sorry and have a dry glass of dry white wine, and I think, yeah, I think I was just like, oh my god, my body's not working. I hope this is not how it's going to be.
Yeah.
Yeah, But I'm also like the roller deck just keeps rolling. In my head, So I'm kind of like, I actually just want to feel better, but it's weeks of sitting there feeling sad and sorry.
Laura has had two miscarriages and I went through a period where I was sounds really weird and if anyone who has experienced it may not understand, But I mourned my child, which was you know, when we lost it was it was very very early in the stages of pregnancy. But did you feel like you had to mourn this child.
That I I don't. I don't think that I felt. I did feel that sadness of loss, so I can't of course that's morning, but I don't know. I feel like I was, like anything in my life that I haven't done well or that I haven't been able to succeed, that I was just keen to try again. Yeah, okay, So I don't think I had it because it was it was. Yeah, I'm just not sure that I had fully absorbed the idea of it into my life yet
because of the don't tell anyone for twelve weeks. I mean, I literally just hit the twelve week no moment.
So no one your really close friends that they didn't know, so on the Mouth of the South.
I told everyone no, but then you've got to bring around and tell everybody there.
I reckon that's better. I reckon. People say don't tell anyone to twelve weeks, I say, shut up, tell everyone, because otherwise people don't know what you're going through and say, why is Laura in a mood this week?
Is not calling me that?
Yeah, because we.
Just lost the I think when you're actually going through stuff, I find I'm very talkative about all sorts of issues in my life, which is when I'm actually going through it, it's like it's a you know, media shutout. It's like a full lockdown. I just don't really talk about it everywhere. And I'm not really a person who would pick up the phone and just go I'm not doing well. Would you come around? So I don't reach out like that.
I kind of self source. I think I know that hyperindependence is for a reason.
Back on Matt's point, where it's like that for those first twelve weeks where you're you know, both mum and dad or whatever the situation, you're like.
Don't buy clothes, don't buy clothes like you're doing. All that was just so excited because you know, we wanted it so much.
I feel like it should be way more spoken about those times, the conversations you have with your friends about what's happening, what's happening now, what's coming up, what you're doing, how you're feeling.
It should be should be.
I remember April being like, don't tell anyone, and at the time you're like, yeah, that makes sense. But now in hindsight, looking back and some of the struggles to see people go through, and especially doing this podcast now where we get to meet people that you have had this and I've never had that situation, I think it should be like, celebrate your ins, talk out your loss.
Yeah, definitely.
Whoever made that rule of twelve weeks don't say anything? Fuck you?
Yeah, it's that old fashioned. So that I mean, maybe the twelve weeks gives women a chance not to be fired.
Maybe, but that's also illegal.
No, I spoke the words, so I didn't see it, so we don't have to pay for it. Yeah, but I think within twelve months we've had Ruby. But the thing is, I would love people to speak about it more because what it will give us is a proper spectrum windows snap, whatever is the expression into the many
different feelings you can have about it. So like you say, when you're talking about the morning, the loss of what could have been within our family, whereas I was in a different headspace of I just want to get on with trying again because I want that sad us to go away, because that sadness will be replenished by the happiness.
I think a lot of young couples are shocked with the amount of variation.
It's one in four pregnancy exactly right.
And it's kind of like you were saying, people need to talk about it way more, which is so true, so that you kind of know and you have your expectations are there, like for me and I hate being that guy where it's like, you know, we had two successful pregnancy.
Fuck you sorry, how dare you?
I wouldn't I didn't know any different. I didn't know. I didn't know that there could be in all these variations.
And it's like now that you know, as a young couple going into it, if you don't know that and then all of a sudden, it's.
A big shock when it happens. Kind Of like I think, if you're talking about it more than you know what the expectation is and that it could happen.
All of that knowledge is helpful. I mean that doesn't stop the hurd or the moment or any of that sort of stuff. But you know, if if when you get the pregnancy test, you already know you I've sort of got twelve weeks that may or may not. I know, that's so harsh as I say it out loud, I think because I am long on the other side of it. But you know, I yeah, it's so individual, and it's you know, each couple. Sometimes within the couple, one person
is grieving a lot harder than the other. So you've sort of got to look after yourself a little bit at that time too, because yeah, no one knows how hardcore it is except inside your head.
For sure.
Did it impact how anxious you felt then when you feel pregnant.
Again, definitely, because I didn't believe it. So I'm like, this is not going to last. I was in that head space, this is definitely not going to last. It's not going to last. It's not going to last. And then you know, all of those correct targets started to go, and every doctor's appointment, every moment, every you know, even if there's you know, sometimes when you get a fluffy that moves around your stomach, that's trying to find where the bottom is, any movement, any movement, Like I said,
what's happening? So it definitely Yeah, it took six months in to believe it was.
Is that something I mean?
I think I am. Anyway, it's a fluffy on the moon, Julie.
This may come as a surprise to you, but the topic of menopause is one that Ash and myself don't have a lot of experience with.
The word itself. Men are pause and we have no idea what.
No one ever wants to pause a man because I've got so much good stuff.
To say, thank you, I've always said that, correct.
Look, I feel like there's a lot of chat about it more and more, which is fantastic. I think when it happened for me, I was forty five, which is very yack.
When it starts to happen, what are the first symptoms?
Okay, so what happens is basically it's the body slowing down because obviously no no longer needs to make a baby, right, so all of those areas go. You know, it's time for us to come shut up shop. So in shutting up shop. The body's like, no, I'm not letting go. I'm not letting go. In a turmoil, yeah, it's like no, no, no, no, I'm not letting go of my youth. So then it sends these surges of hormones through your body going not
letting go. I'm not letting go. And every time one of those surges happen, you're like, get your clothes off, get your clothes, and you feel like you've run a marathon. And also it has this skate it's crazy. And that's when the aggression can not for everybody. The aggression can start then where you've got absolutely zero patients. That's when I started to see a psychologist because I thought I am going to bash someone to death in the street.
That's how that's the term my inner turmoil. That's how I felt. I'm like, I'm gonna I'm going to fucking take someone out, excuse my language. So I went to see the psychologists and she's kind of like, have you seen the GP about And I'm like, now, I'm forty five, and she's not okay. So what happens is these are the stages you've got perimenopause, and that's when your body goes I'm thinking of shutting up shop soon. That can take I mean, perimenopause can take anything up to two
or three years of just the solid ad intensity. And I feel like you've reached this professional apex where you're this dreamboat of an employee for all of your life, and you hit that moment of perimenopause and you just turn into the absolute antithesis of everything you've worked for. I was nasty, how dare you? But like be impatient and it's an OMG. And then every time one of those surges happens, I feel like it surges up a little bit of aggression as well.
It's pretty hard, it's lovely.
Then your periods decide that they may or may not come. I might, I might be here this month or not hit next month.
Now, what's a period?
So they're like a really untrustworthy friend.
Ah, never turning up, turns up when you least expect. Oh, absolutely so. Then and once you are clear of the period for twelve months, that's when you are in menopause. But the thing, the question I still cannot answer you is I don't know when you're meant to go on hormone replacement therapy in all of that because I didn't know that. I didn't think to question that, and so I just went through the fury for I reckon about seven years.
On hormone replacement.
So that is an option for people, and then I think there was I when what that does is it evens out those surges, so the body just goes, Okay, I need some estrogen or whatever it's lacking. I think the hormone replacement therapy stuff literally just evens you and makes you a bit more smooth. Some women will say you can't because it's bad for you. Some women will say I didn't. I didn't know I was menopausal and I never had the hormone replacement therapy, But I have
lots of friends who didn't know. Like, how did you get through it without going on that?
So crazy? Yeah?
You turn nuts?
I can't wait?
And are you trying to like you got a job right? Are you working through this period?
Oh? Yeah, no, I could have been on camera and those heat surgeress.
Are you doing stand up?
Oh yeah, you're on you're on camera. Oh yeah, TV and you're getting a hot search.
Through the room.
You're just kind of like, oh, there's one. Oh, that's a big one.
How do you.
And also, like you know, sometimes when I'm getting through subjects and I forget the sentence that I'm going through, it definitely gives you a lot of that.
Yeah.
Right, So as we move into and I'm I'm fifty six, as i moved closer to say, a dementia age, I'm not going to be able to tell some of the differences because I'm already the brain's already left the building nearly.
So what do you do?
How good are the stages of life?
It's crazy, Like we talk about, like, I mean, how amazing women are, like they be able to give birth.
We stub our toe and we were like, I'm like ten ten days recover.
You go through childbirth, and you go through having to raise a child, feed a child, and then all of a sudden, it's like after you know the kid through all the kids grown up, and you know yours are teenagers now, and then all of a sudden, it's like, here's something else.
It's amazing, it's amazing.
I'm blown away.
Oh it's such a journey. Look, I'm telling you it's about the destination.
Let's not forget that men do get bad needs we do get so it's an even.
No, that's true. It can get tricky of that partly, you guys have been so unwell do.
You come out the other end of menopause? Is it like you know, yes, you're different?
Is it? Yes?
But do you actually come out?
Yes?
In what way?
Are you different?
So lost?
So that once you've had no period for the twelve months and you are metopausal in theory, it all starts to.
Identify as No.
Well, I think you just kind of think just crossed. It's yellow brick roadship. You've got to get to the it's got to get to the other side. But what then happens is the clarity returns, and what seems to be the trend is that a swathe of women then from their fifties and beyond, well, we'll go back and study, they'll go upskill, they will find other ways to let their brains, you know, have a little run. So it actually then becomes quite a prolific time for women after going through that monster.
Where is that path going to lead you? Then, Julia, I don't know where's it going.
I'm going to Betty White that ship, Yeah, I'm just ship. No, No, I'm just going to work until I'm in the clogs and in the ground.
Oh yeah, planning on doing more stand up? Do you think?
Or every two years I do a big tour, so because I like the audience to replenish, and I like the material to replenish, because it's got to be brand new every two years. And then in the in the intram years, I will then do like loads of corporate gigs. But and then, you know, please God, the jungle still keeps rolling. With my new beloved Rob.
He's great, Oh my god, really grown into.
It was amazing a red hot series, by the way, not just a pasta ego.
No, I love it.
I thought it was fantastical.
We had an absolute ball. I think all of the iness was leaking through the screen. We had such a good time, So you know that's you know, that's always hard work, so it might as well be super fun.
I've always asked my mom, who is now seventy two, I've always said, do you think you're going to start dating again? Like, do you think it'll happen?
Is? What do you mean your mom? That's going to be a really bad I always like.
Us kids, us kids, Juliet would always want mom to have someone do your kids say mom, like you are, We're going.
To myself younger.
Going through a hot flash for.
Ages? How very dare I'm just trying to get a podcast done.
No are you girls saying mom, let's jump back on that horse.
Not at all, No way. So I literally I was getting a coffee yesterday and this woman came out to me. I know, she goes you, there's a whole lot of people around you look amazing. I said, do you want to know why I'm not married?
That's school.
I got so many laughs on that coffee line. I'm like, oh, hear your brother, that's a silent sleeping.
Time to stand up.
Silent sleeping is everything showmanship. I think. Also, I'm worried now that at fifty six, am I not moving into the sick years. I'm not taking care of somebody else's ass.
Oh yeah, you don't want to get you don't want to go into a late relationship.
And then they're like, oh, by the way, I can't whip you know what.
It's not that I'm closed to it and I'm always scanning. That's an old habit. You can't, you know, the snow leopard can only be asleep it can never really, But I don't even understand how I will get to the bit of the pash.
Just go for it, I say, But like, first of all, I got.
To fucking talk to someone. Excuse my language. First of all, I got to talk to someone, do you know what I mean? And then I'll be like.
Pretend to be interested.
I say. I feel like the talking part may not be a struggle.
For I think all I will be doing is looking for red flags.
Yeah, my auntie, after the divorce, she started dating a bike.
Did she YEA she would have told you it's by her a bike.
He was disgusting, was he? He came to Christmas once here.
Let's just say that if any bike is listening, we.
Look.
I mean, I've got a lengthy biking story, but it's not for now.
It's time.
It's a backstage story. But do you know, just ride those roads and little one to the top one of the bottom, because I thank you as you go past, and everyone's happy.
Julia, I have to say, and I'm not just saying this because you're sitting in front of me and I'm trying to be polite. I've been a huge fan of yours for a very long time. Thank you, and we have tried to get you on the podcast for a little while and I'm so bloody happy that it's happened. But you're here, so thank you very much, so much.
Pleasure, love until next time.
Do I dare say Ash that that was my favorite record so far? Do I dare say?
I dare say? Are you? Dare I dare we? All?
I've done it? If you think this is our best episode, hey, why don't you just an idea, just a suggestion?
You could leave a review?
You could five stars, a couple of comments us, some nice words about me Ash or Julia Julia.
Yeah, we will take them as our own.
We've got We've got a number now, so we'll be in contact. Any other suggestions guests that you would like us to interview on the podcast, please send them our way and we'll see you next week. Hei Two Doting Dads podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the connections to land, see and community.
We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestraight Island the people's today. This episode was recorded on gadagle Land.