Here is Part 2 of our Kate Did A Podcast series. To recap, the Duchess of Cambridge gave an interview to Giovanna Fletcher on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast. This interview was conducted during Kate’s whirlwind two-day launch of her Five Big Questions struggle-survey, so it was a few weeks ago. As we already heard, Kate talked about her grandmother, she talked about how it’s so important to her to spend time outdoors with her kids, and how she and every other mother experiences mom-guilt. Kate also spoke at length about childbirth, morning sickness, hypnobirthing (basically deep breathing, meditation, visualization and self-hypnosis) and how she was expected to do the baby-reveal photo-op three times. Some additional quotes:
She used “hypnobirthing” for all three of her deliveries. “I got very bad morning sickness, so I’m not the happiest of pregnant people. [It was] utterly rotten! I was really sick – I wasn’t eating the things I should be eating – but yet, the body was still able to take all the goodness from my body and to grow new life, which I think is fascinating. It was through hyperemesis that I really realized the power of the mind over the body because I really had to try everything and everything to try and help me through it.”
William didn’t help with the hypnobirthing: “There’s levels of it. I’m not going to say that William was standing there sort of, chanting sweet nothings at me. He definitely wasn’t! I didn’t even ask him about it, but it was just something I wanted to do for myself. I saw the power of it really, the meditation and the deep breathing and things like that – that they teach you in hypnobirthing – when I was really sick and actually I realized that this was something I could take control of, I suppose, during labor.”
She liked labor: “It was hugely powerful and because it had been so bad during pregnancy, I actually really quite liked labor! Because actually it was an event that I knew there was going to be an ending to! But I know some people do have really, really difficult times, and it’s not for everybody.”
She would have done things differently during her first pregnancy: “I feel huge responsibility because what I’ve learned over the last few years is so fascinating and I definitely would have done things differently, even during my pregnancy, than I would have done now. I found it fascinating to see the wellbeing of the mother – not just physically, you know there’s so much information about making sure you exercise and making sure you have a healthy diet and things like that, which, yes, is definitely important — but the emotional wellbeing of the mother directly impacts the baby that you’re growing. It’s difficult, and also with life’s challenges and everything like that, it really is hard but actually just being aware of it. I was a lot more aware of it third time around than I was the first time around.”
The first baby-reveal photo-op: “Yeah, slightly terrifying, slightly terrifying, I’m not going to lie. Everyone had been so supportive and both William and I were really conscious that this was something that everyone was excited about and, you know, we’re hugely grateful for the support that the public had shown us, and actually for us to be able to share that joy and appreciation with the public, I felt was really important. But equally it was coupled with a newborn baby, and inexperienced parents, and the uncertainty of what that held, so there were all sorts of mixed emotions.”
Her first childbirth: “Amazing, amazing. It is extraordinary as I’ve said. How can the human body do that? It is utterly extraordinary actually. And he was very sweet. And I was also sort of relieved that he was a happy, healthy boy.”
They didn’t find out the sex of their first: “I didn’t know, no it was a surprise. But also seeing… you know your husband, William, and things like that. Seeing the pure joy of his face, it was really special.”
She didn’t know how much a baby would change her life: “Particularly with your first-born baby, you think everything is going to go back to how it was. I totally underestimated the impact and the change it had on our lives from that moment really and I think, unless you’ve got children, you don’t realize. No amount of planning and preparation can get you ready for that moment….It took us a bit of time to get ourselves settled and going again but that’s the beauty, I suppose, of having a newborn baby. You are pulled to your toughest and most unknown places that you hadn’t necessarily even thought about before.”
The part about her uncertainty and mixed emotions about the baby-reveal of Prince George, that’s very interesting. I remember it took so long for them to come out with the baby and then when they did come out, Kate seemed so vulnerable, on display and trying to figure out how to pose with this new little person. That completely shifted by Charlotte and Louis – she knew what to expect, and she knew what the expectations were. I always thought that with the baby-reveals of Charlotte and Louis, she seemed so happy, confident and even radiant.
It’s not really news that Kate did hypnobirthing, it’s been widely rumored (and widely reported) that she did all-natural birthing techniques with all three babies, just as it was widely reported that with Charlotte and Louis, the deliveries were especially fast and easy. Kate honestly looked like she was ready to run a marathon after Charlotte. And how did I know that William wasn’t any f–king help to his wife during the deliveries?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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