Journalist and podcast exec Rachel Corbett joined hosts Cam and Ali Daddo for an episode of the Nova Podcast The Heart of It to talk about her decision to become a solo mum by choice.
It’s has been a steep learning curve with judgment on a Greek fishing boat to feeling unseen in the maternity ward and in parenting classes.
From the episode:
Ali: What’s been your strangest or funniest reactions from people that when you’ve said that you’re a solo mom and you’ve decided to do it all on your own?
Rachel: Well,the strangest is, I took a trip to Greece when I was pregnant… we were out on this boat one day [in Greece] with this old school, you know, he’s a fisherman, and we’re out in the boat. He kept offering me wine all day. I kept saying no, no, and then eventually I said, look, I’m pregnant. Oh, you’re pregnant. Congratulations. And he’s sort of in his broken English that’s asking me about the father and I said, oh, and there’s no man just, you know. I mean, he was next level, like, could not believe it, to the point where the actual sort of escalation of his reaction was when he hurled himself out of the boat to express his shock and horror at what I was doing, and was at me all day long on this boat, to the point where my mates and all of the people that were on the boat were just like, are you okay?
And in hospital:
Rachel: I found that at the end of my time there, I had a bit of a moment with the nurses. Because one of them came into me and said, I don’t think you’re doing as well as we thought you might be in here.
Cam: In what way?
Rachel: I just really hit the skids, because I was on my own for six days, and I had gone into a private hospital because I thought, I don’t have anybody at home, so I will have staff there, people helping, people telling, you know, me what to do. And the hospital was in overflow at the time, so they had more people than they had beds, and I was just completely got forgotten, like nobody showed me how to change a nappy, bath a baby. You know, I turned up to a lactation class because I’d had a really bad night on that night two cluster feed, where they’re sort of trying to feed, and there’s nothing coming out. And a midwife came in, and I was asking for help, and she just turned to me and said, well, this is what night two is like. And I was like, okay, and I’d almost dropped her three times. I was just, this is just the worst. And so I turned up to this lactation class, and the first thing the lady said to me, everybody’s there in partners, and I would never care about that, wouldn’t even register, but the first thing she said to me is, where’s your partner? I just thought, could we assume that not everybody has one?… I don’t want to explain my life choices to you.
New episodes of The Heart of It are released weekly on Sundays and can be found on the Nova Player or wherever you get your podcasts.