The Ultimate Joy and the Unexpected Anxiety of the Postpartum Experience - with Amy Diehl, PhD (Transition to Motherhood Series #2)

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy, while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:30  

Hi, everyone, welcome to the Transition to Motherhood Series. I am so excited to share this with you, I decided to create this special series because a lot of women in my orbit are having babies right now. And I remember whenever I was pregnant, and about to become a new mother, I listened to podcasts all the time, and particularly ones where women were telling their stories. One of my favorites was The Birth Hour podcast because it was women telling their birth stories. I just felt so much more empowered, when I knew what to expect. And I heard from people who had done it before me, and telling me what really happened. So that's why I wanted to create this series, I really feel that motherhood widens our range, we experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows, it's just a much wider range than, at least for me what I ever experienced before. And I think a lot of times, we only talk about the highs. And that's really what you see on social media is all of the highlights and all of the wonderful parts of motherhood. And I think that's so wonderful to see. And also, I think it's important that we are open and honest about the full range of the spectrum. And so in this series, we will be talking very openly about some of the challenges of motherhood, particularly for career focused achievement oriented women. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:12  

So the first three episodes are going to be interviews with women who are newer moms, they were all very established in their careers before they became mothers. So these are all executive moms. And then the second part of this series falls in May, which is maternal mental health month. And we will be talking to some experts and authors on the topics of postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and just some of the other challenges of that transition to motherhood. I want to acknowledge that the women in this series are all executive moms with means for childcare with partners who contribute with remote work situations and flexible environments. And that was also my situation when I transitioned to motherhood. And I felt kind of an extra layer of shame and disappointment in myself that I didn't feel that I was doing a good job. Even though I had these circumstances, that should have made it easier for me, even though I had set myself up. And had created a really ideal situation. And I know that not everybody has that. And I think it's important to acknowledge. And I think it's important to acknowledge that even when we have support, and we've set ourselves up well, and we've prepared as much as we can, it's just still a really hard thing. And so if you're feeling that in your transition to motherhood, or if you felt it in your transition to motherhood, I just want to validate that it's just hard. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:49  

Also, if you know a new mom, or someone who is about to become a new mother, please share this series with them. My goal is really to help and empower more women to kind of know what to expect, know what to look out for. And also know that they're not alone if they're feeling a certain way, or if they're experiencing certain things. I just think it's so important that we talk about these things. And if you have made that transition to motherhood at some point in your life, I would love to hear from you about what resonated for you or what you also experienced if it was the same or different than what you're going to hear about in these stories. So thank you so much for tuning in. And now on to our episode.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:39  

Hi, everyone, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today. Today, I am really excited during our Transition to Motherhood focus series we are talking to women about what their transition to motherhood was like has been like and I have a very special guest today. Amy Diehl, PhD, who joined us for a previous episode about her gender bias research. So go back and listen to that if you've had a chance to yet I'll put the episode in the show notes so that you can access it quickly. It was a really great conversation and Amy has graciously agreed to come back and talk about her personal experience since she is a new mom. So let me tell you a little bit about Amy. Amy is an award winning information technology leader, currently serving as Chief Information Officer at Wilson College in Chambers, Pennsylvania. She is also a gender equity researcher and author of the new book Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work. Her writing has appeared in numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters as well as in Harvard Business Review. Fast Company and Miss magazine. She is also a sought after speaker, consultant and lawsuit expert witness. You can visit her online at Amy-Diehl.com. Welcome, Amy. So glad to have you back on the show.

Amy Diehl  6:10  

I'm so glad to be back, Leanna.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:12  

Thanks so much for being here. I am excited and honored that you're here to talk about your personal experience. I know last time we talked all about professional stuff and all of your research. And so I appreciate you being open to sharing your personal journey as well. And I think hearing about it from someone who is an expert on all of the gender bias that exists, I'm really excited to hear your perspective today.

Amy Diehl  6:39  

I'm so excited to share it. It's always interesting to my me personally, when I become the subject of my own research. That's the case with what we're discussing today.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:50  

Absolutely. So and thank you for being willing to do that. Let's start off I'm just curious kind of about, you know, your journey to becoming a mother and you know what it was like before, like, had you always wanted children? I know that you spent a lot of time you know, getting your PhD and focusing on your career. So kind of tell me a little bit about, you know, what, what that was like for you?

Amy Diehl  7:15  

Yeah, so when I was a child, I always assumed that I would become I would become a mother. And I remember being a teenager and thinking, well, I want to be married by the age of around the age of 20, maybe 23 to 25, be married for a couple years and then have two kids.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:31  

We have the best plans, right? 

Amy Diehl  7:33  

Yes. That didn't happen. What happened for me was I went to college, I graduated, I then got an MBA, I went into the workforce. And I started working on my career. And at this time I was interested in men I was interested in dating, I was interested in, you know, fulfilling that, that idea of getting married in my 20s. But what I found was I was I just wasn't meeting men that they wanted to date me. I mean, that was my first like the what it seemed to be, from my perspective. Looking back on that time, in my 20s and my 30s, when I was single, I really think that a lot of men were intimidated by me and my professional career. I think that there were some men that in particular wanted to have a woman who would, wanted to have a wife who was stay at home or whose career was secondary. And that wasn't that wasn't me. So that was my interpretation of the the reasons why I wasn't married until I was in my 40s. But what happened during that time, though, was that in my mid 30s, I decided to pursue a PhD. And I pursued this PhD in administration and leadership and I wrote a dissertation and the dissertation was about women in higher education leadership and all the adversities that they had going through. After I completed the PhD, I met Leanne Dzubinsky, Dr. Leanne Dzubinsky at a conference and we started researching, putting our research together, which culminated after 10 years culminated in our in our book Glass Walls. But what I found during that time of working on the research was that I really had a passion for it. I really enjoyed it. And so I was working my full time job in information technology, and then in the evenings and weekends I was working on on research and writing. And so that was filling up my time and my day. 

Amy Diehl  9:19  

And then so then I met, when I was in my early 40s, I met my now husband. And you know, we had talked about we want to have kids and or do we want to have kids and my husband wanted to have a child and and I was I was ambivalent, but I was ambivalent on the side of like, probably, but it wasn't, it wasn't completely, you know, 100% sold on it. So I went into the journey of you know, becoming a mother. By the time I was in my 40s. Of course, I had to use IVF to get pregnant but I kind of went into it with this this from a place of ambivalence, which meant that I wasn't somebody who was coming in into it as like, I definitely have to be a mother and if I'm not a mother, then my life is unfulfilled. I didn't feel that way at all. I felt that we're going to try IVF if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, perhaps we'll look at adoption, we'll come to it, you know, we'll cross that bridge when when we exhaust the IVF option, but I wasn't going to allow the success or failure of becoming a mother to define me. I knew that I had other things in my life, that if it didn't happen, it didn't, it didn't happen. And I would still be a, you know, fulfilled person. And you know, and part of having other things in my life. I have children in my life, other children, that is my nephews. I have three nephews who I very much adore and am close to. But to make a long story short, we we started through the IVF journey, and we were successful. And I was able to get pregnant on our first transfer. And I had a very, I'll say, easy pregnancy, even though it was in my in my 40s, my late 40s, the pregnancy was as easy as I think you could probably get, and there were no complications. I had heartburn, but otherwise, I had good energy. I was cycling, I was hiking. And, you know, up until the I delivered, I was still feeling really good.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:08  

So it sounds like you had an easy pregnancy. And I think about so when I was pregnant. I was 35 I was labeled geriatric, and you are in your late 40s. I guess like how was that experience for you? Did you feel any or notice any kind of bias or discrimination or any anything about kind of that experience of being a quote unquote, older, pregnant woman?

Amy Diehl  11:37  

I really, to be honest with you, I really didn't. It's been after it's been only after I had the baby, I had one person in my family tell me that they were very, very concerned about me, because of my age, and how old I was when I was pregnant. And they were just like, praying for me daily. You know, that there would not be any complications and everything because of because of my age. And I was just like, like, what like, because, you know, going through the process, and learning, you know, I learned a lot of things through the IVF process. One is that, you know, while our, the quality of our eggs decline as we age, our uterus can still carry a baby. In fact, people who have gone through women who have gone through menopause can still carry a baby if they have their uterus. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:16  

Oh, interesting. 

Amy Diehl  12:17  

And in fact, that's how older women in other countries have carried children. They don't I think they don't allow it for ethical reasons in the United States. But most fertility clinics will only work with folks up to age, women up to age 51. And then there were a few that will work with women in their within their 50s. But regardless, because I had this knowledge that I was, I knew I was healthy. I knew I was fit, I wasn't like, really too concerned about it. And there was nothing in every doctor's appointment and everything was fine. So you know, other than these comments that I got afterwards, from people, and it wasn't just this one family member was a couple of people that said something to me about. We were just so surprised, Amy, that you were you know, because they knew you know, approximately how old I was. But I didn't really feel it while I was, while I was pregnant, people were very happy for me and at my workplace as well as in my in my family. In fact, I think some of my co workers were one of them said to me, she's like, Amy, I think I'm even more excited for you to have this baby than you are. 'Cause she just loved babies so much. So yeah, I was fortunate in that regard.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:20  

Yeah. So you have the baby delivery was smooth. 

Amy Diehl  13:25  

Yeah, smooth. That was vaginal delivery. That was grueling delivery, three hours of pushing is not fun for anybody. After being in the hospital for two, two full days, because it was an induction. But so I had the baby and I come home and of course, I'm exhausted as everyone is when they go through that process. But I had assumed something before I had the baby because of how I felt when I was pregnant. I had assumed that, you know, give me two weeks and I'll be fine. I'll be ready to go. I'll be back feeling physically okay. One of my doc- one of the OBs that I met with kind of cautioned me about that. She basically just said, just she just cautioned me she was like I was you know, I was suggesting wanting to get her opinion on you know, how quickly to return to work out quickly to return to public speaking and she just cautioned me and, and I was like, I didn't believe her though. I thought I feel fine now. Like why? 

Amy Diehl  14:20  

So anyway, I had the baby, I'm very tired. And for the six first six weeks, I was just very tired. Okay, and, you know, having, another part of my story is that I chose not to breastfeed. And I know there's a lot of controversy, people have different opinions about breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. For me and myself and my family, we decided to bottle feed and what that meant was that my my husband could help with the overnight feedings. And so I had the best in some ways, I had the best possible situation. I had my husband helping me I had my mother helping me helping us, but I was still exhausted for those first six weeks, and I was becoming increasingly anxious, but I didn't, I didn't recognize it. And I was trying to continue to do a lot. 

Amy Diehl  15:05  

Now, the other part of my story to people who don't know is that my, my book, Glass Walls was published three weeks before I delivered. And I had naively assumed I had done all this publicity for the book before it published, I had naively assumed that that would die down after the book was published, but instead it only ramped up. And so I kept getting requests for to do podcasts and and media appearances and things. And I had to decide what I could do and what I couldn't do. And fortunately, I had a co author that I could say, Hey, can you do it? Can you take some of these because I just, you know, I just can't. But I was becoming increasingly anxious. And I was another part of my story that was very interesting to me is that when, part of the reason I was becoming anxious was because my eyesight had been affected by the delivery. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:50  

Oh, interesting. 

Amy Diehl  15:51  

And I know, people say that's weird. Or maybe they think that's weird, or thinks that's something that can't happen. But that morning after I delivered, I had my contacts in and I could no longer see my computer screen, it was blurry. It was like, blurry, it was almost like I needed better reading glasses or something. And I had gone back to the eye doctor, and he had suggested a prescription and it wasn't working. I said, Hey, this prescription isn't working, he gave me another one. That one didn't work either. And it just making me crazy, because I could not see my computer screen. And so if I couldn't see my computer screen, then I couldn't, like do any work, right. And so all of that at week six led to a full blown anxiety state, I'll say, and the good thing for me good or bad is that I've been through anxiety before where it's like kind of reaches a clinical state or what I would consider a clinical state where I've been on medication before, the SSRI medication. So I once it kind of went over the edge, I recognized it was over the edge, so I contacted my doctor and he put me right away back on the SSRI medication. 

Amy Diehl  16:51  

But if you know anything about that medication, it doesn't work immediately. It takes at least a month, before it truly, completely kicks in. And that was the case for me. So what was happening during that time period was with the anxiety was I was feeling afraid, afraid of everything. And it wasn't so much I didn't really so much have a fear for my baby, because I had my husband and I had my mother and I knew he was in good care whenever he wasn't when I wasn't physically, you know, taking care of him. But it was just fearful of like, what do I do with my day? Like, I'm getting up this morning. What do I do? It was just like, it was unknown new lifestyle. And it was in my own home. And I'm like, why? And then it's like, why am I afraid of like, I don't know, you know, just doing whatever I need to do. Like, it's like, I didn't know what I needed to do. Like, I was used to getting up in the morning, getting dressed, going to work, having meetings, doing emails, getting off of work, you know, I had this routine and now you're now you're a mother with this, you know, infant that has needs that you feel unpredictable. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:52  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  17:53  

And also having all the other hands around was helpful. But then it was like I didn't know when was I supposed to step in versus when were they supposed to know step in. Whole other piece of the whole other piece to the anxiety component was I wasn't sleeping. And it wasn't because of my baby that I wasn't sleeping. But when I started to get anxiety that I couldn't move, maybe the sleeping lead or the not sleeping lead to the anxiety, or maybe it's just a circle, maybe just a circle 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:16  

A cycle, yeah.

Amy Diehl  18:17  

But I could not sleep. And so every night I would try to sleep. And so I actually started to have people come over to help, I had close friends come over and stay overnight with us to help my husband take care of the baby, feed him during,  get up and beat him during the night. So I could try to sleep even though I'm laying my bed wide awake, because my own body won't let me sleep. So the thing the interesting thing about that was you know, going into again, I thought I'd recover much more quickly. And I also I knew to look out for postpartum depression and in fact, my care, the caregiving team, the hospital, the health care providers, they all have their their standard procedures where they are screening for postpartum depression and so I knew to look out for that. I didn't know that anxiety could be, could result from you know, the the event of having a baby and being postpartum. So that was very surprising to me. And I think it also because I didn't know that that could happen like I kept you know, sort of was pushing myself I was pushing myself and and other other ways physically, like back into physical therapy, back to or went to physical therapy, I should say, two weeks after I delivered because I knew I needed to work on my pelvic floor, I needed to work on my ab muscles. And the physical therapist was very very good about saying you know, just do gentle exercises don't do too much but I wanted to get back out there I wanted to ride my bike I wanted to go hiking I wanted to and so I would so I'm like I think I can do, but it was just too much and I didn't I didn't recognize it. So it was all these things that kind of led to the anxiety and then once once it like the anxiety went over the cliff then I felt like I couldn't control you know, control it because it was just these anxious spells would come on and you just felt fearful and you just wanted to go away and you know, My poor husband, I would wake him up in the middle of the night and say I would say to him, I feel afraid and he was kind. And you know, would, would soothe me. But in the end, it was not a lot he could do better than certainly be there for me because it was something going on inside of my own. My own body.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  20:10  

Was it just like it was a general fear, you just felt things were off, and that felt really scary? It sounds like it wasn't a something specific, like it wasn't of something happening to your baby or something bad happening. It was just,

Amy Diehl  20:25  

It was just it was a generalized fear about everything like I would have. One day I had a very close friend come over to visit. And I felt like that day that  my anxiety was under control. And I love spending time with my friends. I mean, it's one of the most enjoyable things I do. But while she was there she was she was very kind, she's like, tell me what's happening. You know, I was telling her, but I felt this anxious come over me. And I'm like, I'm sorry, you know. So it's just doing like regular things. 

Amy Diehl  20:53  

So the anxiety started at like six weeks postpartum, I had four more weeks off of leave. And I'll talk about that for a moment. Because that's I think might be interesting. We know in the United States that there are there is no federal legislation requiring or mandating employers to offer paid leave to people who have had babies, men men or women, people of any gender. I mean, I'm also living in a state that doesn't have any any mandates. There are some states that do mandate it, but not the state that I live in. I was fortunate that my about two years earlier, my employer had put into place a parental leave policy, covers both both parents, about four weeks. And this was the first time they'd ever had a parental leave policy. And so I applaud my employer for doing as much as they felt that they could do at that time. Although we know more is always better. And hopefully, you know, they'll get to the place of being able to provide more, but four weeks was something. So what I had to do, though, to get to 10 Weeks was I had to cobble together that four weeks, plus I was paying for short term disability, which gave me two more weeks. Plus, I used four weeks of my own vacation sick and vacation leave to get to 10 weeks, which is not common for people who are as fortunate as I was to be on paid, fully paid leave. There are so many women that don't even have that, that option. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  22:12  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  22:12  

They are unpaid. And so they either are unpaid, or else they go back to work very, very quickly, or basically right away. So once my 10 weeks were up, it was time to to return to work, I was still dealing with the anxiety. And what that meant was that so I had this job that I had done for the past 20 some almost 30 years, right, this type of work that I was very familiar with, I was very comfortable with. But I was very scared, very scared and very anxious about going back to work. And because the anxiety was was really affecting me. I was very open about it with my my supervisor and the people that I worked with. And across the board, everybody was very supportive at my at my workplace and, and understanding, which was very, like very helpful. It wasn't something I felt like I needed to hide. But I always like sit down to have a Zoom meeting. And I would feel like first of all I would feel like I think partially because of just being postpartum, like my brain wasn't was operating. And I don't know whether that was anxiety or just, you know, general being postpartum. But yeah, I remember one day working on a spreadsheet, budget spreadsheet, there's nothing difficult about this spreadsheet. But I was having trouble like focusing on the spreadsheet and like figuring out like, the column the why these columns weren't adding up. And, and I'm like, what, like, what is wrong, like, I feel like my brain is just not fully, you know, fully functioning. I'd go into meetings and important like ahead of few in person meetings, and I would just be like, so anxious going into this meeting. And like, like I said, I thought like, that's all I knew it was like, in my career. 

Amy Diehl  23:44  

So the postpartum period was much, much more traumatic, transformative than what I could have ever, ever imagined. And interestingly enough, you know, as I said, I was very open about being anxious. And so sometimes I would be on Zoom calls with with with people, and I would say, with women in particular, and I'd say, Well, I just had this baby, and I'm dealing with anxiety, and they would be like, Oh my gosh, I had that too. You know, they would be like I went through a period of anxiety after I had a baby. One woman said to me, she said, I was just afraid of everything. And I was like, That's it. That's exactly what I'm feeling afraid of everything, you know, you know just normal day to day life. You know, it was, you know, normal day to day things were making me fearful and causing, you know, they seem to be triggering triggering triggering anxiety. 

Amy Diehl  24:31  

It took about another two, two and a half weeks after that for the medicine to completely kick in. I had also started talk therapy as well. So I had a counselor that I was I was working with, but once the medicine kicked in, I did feel like I was finally back to my old self. So that was about three it was in the three months most parts of my baby was about three months old. I've heard now that I've been talking about I've heard some women say, It's  taken me six months or a year before I felt like myself. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  25:02  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  25:03  

like, I don't know their exact situation, I do feel that me getting on the SSRI medication when I did was the best possible thing that I could have done to help me return to a state where I felt like myself. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  25:16  

Yeah. I'm so glad that you were able to find a way through that and out of that, because that doesn't sound like a very enjoyable experience. And certainly, I guess, did you have the opportunity to really kind of bond with your baby, you know, like, kind of have that experience, like, get to feel the joy as well? Or was it just all fear was kind of taking over?

Amy Diehl  25:41  

No, I did enjoy, I will say, I did enjoy my time with my baby, the thing that I feel like I lost was that overnight time. My husband, who would have been there anyway, to get up and help me. But then I had these, you know, other people who were, my close friends are my mother, who was here, taking those overnight feedings. And I did feel like I lost out on that, you know, like, just those quiet times to be with the baby. As soon as I started feeling better, I was like, Okay, I don't need any more overnight support I can get up like, once I started sleeping. That was the thing that when I knew I was better, right, then that when I say the medicine kicked in, I started to feel like myself, once I had actually was only like two or three nights of solid night's asleep, then I felt like 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  26:19  

A whole new person. 

Amy Diehl  26:20  

Normal. Yeah. And it really was getting this anxiety under control, the sleeping under control, you know, sleeping back that they helped me with recovery. But as soon as that happened, I was like, I don't need any I can get up an hour in the middle of the night when I need to. And so now I have had that time. So I don't think it took away. It did take away a little bit, but but when I was with my baby, like during the day, I was caring for him, I felt I really felt the best during those times. And I was holding him and you know, just enjoying enjoying being with him. In fact, I have a swing in the front of my house. And fortunately it was the warmer time of the year it was in the summertime. So we would I would take my baby out and sit on the swing. And we would just enjoy. Enjoy, you know, watching the street the cars the people walking by. Enjoying the enjoying the outside. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  27:05  

Well. So I want to go back to one of the things you said that I think is really interesting. Because I think as high achieving career focused women, you know, we've established ourselves and we've established our routines, and you said, I didn't know what I needed to do, I'd always had this routine. And now, you know, I have this time where I don't know what I need to do. And I think that's a fairly common feeling. I actually am in some different women's groups and moms groups. And I saw the other day someone said, I'm on maternity leave. And I just don't know what to do with myself, I'm so used to working I'm so used to going going going all the time and like having things to do all the time. And now that I have all this space and kind of free time, like I just don't know what to do with myself. And so I think that kind of manifests differently in different people, you know, and for you, it sounds like that lead to a lot of anxiety and fear. And for others that might lead to depression. And for others, they might find that they really enjoy that and decide not to go back to work. Right, it could show up a lot of different ways for people. But what I'm so curious about is kind of that feeling of like, I need that structure. And you know, I'm so used to it. And then also, you said like I wanted to get back out there. And that feeling of like, like, was it that you felt like you were missing out? I mean, you had just launched your book, of course. So certainly there were lots of opportunities that you literally were missing out on. But was it that like you didn't want to miss out? Was it that you felt like it was going to set your career back? Like what was it that was really kind of driving that? 

Amy Diehl  28:45  

Well, there, there were two things. I mean, first of all, because I had the 10 weeks of maternity leave for my full time job, I was okay with that. Because like I had prepared my team, I prepared my boss I had prepared my colleagues for me being out. I had wrapped up everything and got it tied up was the best time of year that I could have, it was in the summer, it was the best time of year that I could have had that time away. And so barring any kind of like cybersecurity emergency, I was likely not going to be needed at at my job because I had delegated the responsibilities. So that was nice. And that that was put that was able to be put out of my mind. And my co workers were great, you know, they they knew they could contact me but you know they they didn't. That was helpful, too, so they weren't bothering me with you know, things that they could they could resolve. So that was out of my mind but I had two yh- two other things that were in my mind and one was my book. And it was like not wanting to miss out on all these opportunities that I was getting to promote my book and to you know get to spread the word about you know that like this had like I said, this was my passion. This is my still my passion, gender equity and making the world a better place for women. And you know, here I was getting opportunities that I couldn't take all of them. That was hard saying no I was not even when I was pregnant, I didn't have to say no to all the opportunities because I was just pregnant, I didn't have this, you know, the baby wasn't outside of me where I had to, you know, deal with him being hungry or you know, needing changed or anything like that. So that was one piece of it. 

Amy Diehl  30:15  

The second piece was my fit- like, my exercise is very important to me being active is very important to me. And it was getting my my body back so that I could continue to be be active and be outdoors and, and I knew that was also good for my ment-, like the exercise was good for my mental health, because the you know, the endorphins that it provides. So for me, it was this, there's two aspects. And I was, like I said, I was fortunate that I could just put my full time job aside. I mean, that was one of the saving graces that if I had that, if I had that on top of me as well, I don't, I don't even know. It would have just been all the worse I think.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  30:49  

Yeah. Well, you really have two jobs right. And now three, and now three. 

Amy Diehl  30:53  

And now three, yeah. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  30:56  

Yeah, well, I just I think it's so interesting, because I wonder about all the factors that play into that feeling like we can't take the time to rest and recover and recuperate. And feeling like we need to keep going, going, going, like how much of that is ingrained in us, you know, in our kind of capitalistic to go, go go always be progressing, always be producing kind of culture and society that we that we live in. And, you know, I think it makes total sense, you know, you want to continue exercising for your mental health, you know, but also when we've been going for 40 plus, to almost 50 years of going and go, you know, always having a million different things to do. I just think it's really interesting to think about how hard that rest can even feel like.

Amy Diehl  31:48  

Yeah, another piece of the talking about beings not knowing what to do was just the patterns in my own house, you know, my husband and I had to establish our own daily routines and our own daily patterns. I'm an organized person I like things things have their place. Yeah. And now you have this, like, third person baby that has all his needs, like his bottles, and his, you know, his clothing. And how do I know what I'm supposed to be doing what'smy husband supposed to be doing, that all fit into the postpartum anxiety until we got ourselves into a routine and could feel like we knew what our roles were and how we can juggle, juggle the baby.

Amy Diehl  32:28  

The other point I want to make is like I recognize how to say the word privileged that I am, having a baby having a fully available, fully supportive husband, who honestly probably does more than 50% of the work. Having my parents who are able to help me, I have other family close by. I recognize the privilege that I have to have the help that I have. And not every woman has that that amount of support. And so I just want to acknowledge, acknowledge that. Having gone through it, I recognize how challenging it was for myself. And I think about women that don't have the support that I have, and how much more challenging that it is for them.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  33:07  

Absolutely. And so it sounds like the real challenge here was like, What is my role in all of this? Like, what are our roles and kind of roles shifting with the transition. So now you have for the first 10 weeks, you're doing these two roles of mom and promoting your book. And then at 10 weeks, you returned to work. So now you've got that third role back. So how was that transition back? You talked a little bit about, you know, kind of having a really supportive coworkers and then still feeling that anxiety for the first few weeks. But what was that return to work like for you?

Amy Diehl  33:45  

That was that was the interesting setting aside the anxiety pieces. Return to work was very interesting for me, because while I was gone, my role in the organization had been taken over by others, parts of my role like not, there wasn't one person that could back me up. But different parts of my role had been taken by different people in the organization. And so I would, I would, I had to figure out where do I fit? And it was almost like this particular job that I'm in I had started three years ago now. And I remember when I started it was similar because I'm a chief information officer. They had been without a Chief Information Officer for a period of time, they had one and then this person left and then it was there was a gap before they hired me. So it was similar in that everybody had picked up parts of that CIO responsibility, and then some remained undonw. But when I started the job, I had to figure out where do I fit and it was just the same thing coming back from maternity leave after only 10 weeks. Where do I fit again, because this person has picked up this responsibility this person has picked up this responsibility some they were you know, happy to hand back. But others that seemed to make sense just to leave you know, in their hands. Just because of the role and the way that you know, the way that it does work to you know, delegate things to to the people under me, so I had to I had to navigate that and put insert myself back into projects, projects that if I had been there, I would have been coordinating. So I had to, like insert myself back in and say, Hey, I really need to be in that meeting. And, you know, get myself, you know, back in the, in the middle of it. 

Amy Diehl  35:14  

You know, the other aspect I mentioned, I did have anxiety, I mentioned that to my boss, she was very understanding. But, you know, the one of the first things that happened was that there had been some complaints about some portion of my portion of my responsibility that she had had some information on. And so she presented that, to me, the very first day that I came back, like, Amy, here's some complaints, and we need to address them, they were fair, you know, we needed to, you know, to work through them, but I'm just like, oh my gosh, like, this is my first day back. And you're you know, we worked through it, obviously, the work issue. It's funny, because when you're transitioning from thinking about your baby, full time, 24 hours, or almost 24 hours a day to now you have to think about work for, you know, eight hours, or how many hours, whatever hours you're working, it is like it is a transition, because you're in your you're a whole person, and you really can't divide ourselves between personal and professional, like, we have to do you know, whether we're a man or a woman, right. And so it was interesting, because I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking, the most important thing now is my baby. But now I have to transition myself to work and like divide my divide my priority and divide my attention. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:24  

Yes. 

Amy Diehl  36:24  

Again, another thing that helped me are that currently, my mother is taking care of my baby, while my husband and I work until he's a year old, and it will have him at least part time in a in a daycare type setting. But it's, it's really helpful, because I knew that he was I know my baby's in good hands, I didn't have to worry about his care, that was very helpful has been very helpful to me, as well. So then I was able then to make that transition to, Okay, when I'm focusing on the work, I'm going to focus on the work, you know, if something interrupts me, you know, or if there, I needed to do something else that will interrupt me, you know, like, if you know, something's going on with the baby, and I need to, you know, address that. I can. But that's basically how I handled it. 

Amy Diehl  37:08  

Another aspect, too, is, I'm sure many women have gone through this, is just having less hours in the day to work. So I was used to being able to work my full time job, I would take a break, at dinner time, I'd have dinner, I would work out and then have dinner, and then I returned right back to work on my my research, and on my writing. And then on the weekends, it was similar, I would certainly do things on the weekends, but any Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoons, I was sitting and writing. That evening, and that weekend, time is almost all gone. I have a little bit of time, here and there that I can do a little bit. But not like it's not like I can't I can't do the the long hours of you know, writing book chapters or journal articles, like I was doing before, because the time just isn't there. And, you know, for good or bad. Like, before I had a baby, part of my ambivalence was, I didn't want to give up that time, you know, to having to take care of someone else. But now that I have the baby, I'm like, I would much rather spend the time with him, you know, while he's awake, and while he's, you know, I'd much rather enjoy, you know, playing with him and helping him you know, feeding him, you know, giving him what he needs, than doing this work. So I actually enjoy the evening and weekend time better. And I find that I have to fit fit the reason I just have less time for the research. So I'm not able to do quite as much as I was doing before. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  38:31  

Yeah, I think that's what so many, workaholic women feel, right? And then I think it gets at kind of their value, you know, like, Am I still valuable to an organization, for example, if I had given that organization, and yours is kind of split between two. But you know, if I'm giving an organization 60 hours a week, and now I can only give them 40 or 45, then like, do I still bring the same value to the organization? And I think that ends up women then feeling very much like I'm letting down my organization. And then now I've got this baby, but I feel like I'm letting down the baby because I'm not spending enough time with them. And it's just like, feeling like we're never enough in either of the aspects of our lives.

Amy Diehl  39:19  

Yeah, yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I'm somebody that wants to do it all. I wish honestly, I wish that were there were like four, eight more hours in each day, you know, so I could I could do it do it all but you know, we all at different times in our lives, we all make choices about what's important to us. And you know, for me as my baby gets older, he's going to need me less and I will be able to ramp up or you know, you know, go back into doing the research or writing or whatever else, you know, whatever other other passions that I that I that I developed but you know, I certainly don't want to miss this time with him in lieu of working all the time.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  39:57  

Yeah, I think about it that way of like kind of this is a season, it's temporary. I think when we start to get, you know, feeling depressed or feeling a lot of that failure, a lot of times we are thinking that this is like a permanent state. And the reality is, is it's it's like one chapter in our book of life. It's the one. And it's relatively short, it feels long in the moment. And then looking back, I mean, how many times do people say like, oh, my gosh, how is my kid another year old? Oh, my gosh, how did they just turn 10? Like, where did the last decade go? So it kind of feels long in the moment, and then looking back, it's like, that flew by so much. So sometimes, we have the opportunity to recognize that, you know, maybe we just make different decisions, or we kind of prioritize differently at this time. And that doesn't mean it's forever. Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  40:46  

Yeah. Another thing that helped, helps me with the prioritizing of the time is that I'm currently in a role where it's a hybrid type job, in that I work from home as well as work from the office. 100% for flexible work, for hybrid work, and for remote work, for any jobs that can support it. But for me, what it means is that I don't have to go to the office every single day. There are some days that I do each week. But there's other days that I don't, that saves me on that commute time. My commute time isn't terrible. It's about 20 minutes each way. There were there are so many women, people that have much longer commutes. And, you know, what that means for me is I don't have to like that's 40 more minutes that I can spend with my baby, on the days that I'm work that I'm able to work, that I'm able to work from home. And I don't take that for granted at all. You know, and I think that's one of the positive aspects that's come out of the pandemic is many more organizations are more open to hybrid and remote work. Of course, we're seeing a lot of organizations, I always say with the older privileged white man at the top saying no, no, you must come back and work in the office where I can see you and can control, you know, control you. We're seeing that but but we're also seeing many more organizations that maybe aren't getting the publicity, that are remote first, that are you know, have completely transitioned to remote work or to hybrid work. And it's only benefiting people and everyone in their work life balance. And especially especially people with caretaking responsibilities.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:18  

Yeah, I actually, if everybody hasn't had a chance to check out, we did a remote working moms panel. And it was with myself and three vice presidents talking about how remote work and flexibility really helps them to be able to enjoy their motherhood and their career experience more and be able to do both simultaneously without feeling like they're giving up one or the other too much. And I think that that along with, you know, cultures of organizations that support working moms, I think is so important, and working parents, and I wonder, I would love to see research about just how the remote and flexible cultures helps, you know, support working moms and kind of keeps them in the workforce. And also, not just like that they're there, but also that they're feeling good about being there and that they're enjoying and that they're more productive at work.

Amy Diehl  43:15  

Yeah, there's a lot of, there's been a lot of survey data out there, that plays that out been quite a number of news articles that I've read that have reported on such survey data that have really shown that that's what that's what's happening. And that's why there's such a debate, I guess, around the remote, like, everybody that didn't make it on the employee side, everybody wants, you know, wants it, it's just again, these people on the management side, that want to return to the old ways, because that's what's comfortable for them, or because they have got leases, you know, on office buildings, the long term leases that they that they are set, and they don't want to disadvantage the real estate holders. That's, you know, my my perspective of it, I think that if you're a good manager, you're a good manager, and you can manage whether the person is working at a desk right beside you, or whether they're working at their home, or whether they're working in a in a in an office building that's in a different city. I mean, we had distributed work before the pandemic. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  44:15  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  44:15  

You know, it just became much more common and accepted since the pandemic, for the better of everyone. I think it's one of these transitions that it's like, it's like any transition, you know, there's, there's always like a backlash to it. And then after the backlash, things slowly evolve, right, you know, back to the, so I think that's what's gonna happen here. You know, like, if you think about the newer companies, why would they go purchase office space or get into a long term lease when they could save that money and how and save their employees that commuting costs and just have them working? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  44:49  

Yeah. 

Amy Diehl  44:50  

Working from their home location. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  44:52  

Yeah, I 100% agree. Yeah. And I think that as there are more environments that are more flexible, that's going to bring  the top talent to them. And then you know, that will create that competitive play space where it's like I have to be able to offer that in order to keep up, you know, with the market. Yeah. So I love hearing about your story, thank you so much for being so open about, you know, your journey with the postpartum anxiety. And I think that's so helpful for everybody to hear. Because like you said, when you talk to a lot of other women, they experienced that too. I know I had a bit of that as well, I was always worried about going anywhere, like leaving the house with my baby or without that something would happen to me or that something would happen to her so. So I hope that if any woman is going through that, that they also seek care like you have you have positive outcomes from. So I'm curious, any, anything kind of looking back on your experience that you would either do differently, or that you're really glad you did that you would like double down on and say absolutely recommend this? 

Amy Diehl  45:58  

Well, I don't know about publishing a book at the same time of having a baby. But the thing of that was, one of the reasons I was ambivalent was because I wanted to write this book. And I wanted to get the book written before I had the baby, which I met that goal, because I knew that I wouldn't be able to have the time to sit and write, you know, did the writing of the book. While I was having, you know, having to tend to us a small, small child. And I met that goal. I think if I could have like, worked on the timing, I would have like had the book published a year before something rather than like four weeks. But that being said, you know, I've learned a lot from this experience. I you know, I learned that an easy pregnancy doesn't mean an easy postpartum period. But I also learned something about that whole point about it the ambivalence. 

Amy Diehl  46:40  

One of the reasons I was so ambivalent, as I got older, I was so ambivalent about becoming a parent was because I was doing all this research. And I was like, hearing all these women's stories about how much work it was, and how, and also like things like the motherhood penalty where women were, they were earning less salaries, because of you know, have having a baby, whether through sort of subtle needs, or whether through outright discrimination, you know, women, I just read a story last night of a woman who was demoted, after she was on went on maternity leave. And the person that got her wall was a single, childless woman. So like, I knew about all of the downside, and that because that was like, you know, even just being on social media, and like, being on Facebook, and, you know, can being connected to your friends who are like, Oh, my child was up, and they were throwing up all night, and you know, and they're sick, and it's terrible, and blah, you know, all of that was part was feeding into my ambivalence, because I'm, like, do I really want to deal like, deal with all that. What I didn't see, but I didn't understand what I couldn't grasp was the joy and the laughter and the enhancement to my life that a baby a new child would bring. And I didn't get that until I actually had the baby. And the baby was like, not when I was pregnant, even it was like when the baby was like laying on my shoulder right after I delivered him. That was the first moment that I started to sense that, and then just having him in the house, and just every day, you know, he does something, you know, it's like wonderful on your camera, capturing it on photos and just laughing. But, you know, I didn't get that until I went through it myself. So, you know, I'll just say that for any anybody in any of your listeners who are out there who may be ambivalent, um, I can't make a decision for you. And I would never tell someone who doesn't want to have children to have children. But if you're, if you're on the fence, just know that there is another side to it. And that's just the absolute joy that comes from having having a child in your life that is yours. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  48:33  

Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Wonderful. Well, thank you so so much, Amy, for sharing your personal story. I know your, probably most of your interviews are about your research. And so I'm so appreciative for you for sharing the personal side as well. If you haven't already, I know I recommended it before. So I recommend it again to go out and check out Amy's book Glass Walls and learn more about her gender bias research. And thank you again, Amy. Have a wonderful day everyone.

Amy Diehl  49:00  

Thank you for having me.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  49:07  

Thanks so much for tuning into the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like, subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care