Acclaimed podcast for new parents, Birth, Baby and Beyond, returns for another season and this time it’s through the lens of a dad – for all new dads and dads to be!
Where previously the podcast has had the birth mother at its centre, this season focuses on dads – exploring the facts, fiction, questions, concerns and hopes of the dads who navigate their own unique, challenging and rewarding journey through pregnancy, birth and parenting.
The Chaser’s Chris Taylor is the dad on board for the new season sharing some of his most raw, challenging and hesitant moments as he becomes a dad.
In episode one (available from 19 June 2023) Mr Taylor tells how it took five years for he and his wife to fall pregnant, how he found it important to share their struggle, and how so many don’t.
“I think a lot of dads probably approach conception thinking, this is the fun bit where I get to have a lot of sex. Lots and lots of sex, and in nine months, we’ll have a baby. While I’m sure that’s true for some, I think a lot of other dads like me might discover that the reality can be quite different,” he says.
“We went five years without conceiving. It was quite a quite a journey … traumatic and harrowing and depressing, anxious, frightening, an existential crisis.”
Mr Taylor and midwife Cath Curtain talk about why couples traditionally wait for 12 weeks until they share the news of a pregnancy.
Ms Curtain says it’s a societal thing, tinged with old-fashioned hiding of loss.
“It’s if you lose the baby, then you don’t have to tell anyone, which is so bad because when you lose a baby, what you want is family around,” she says.
Throughout the episodes MTaylor holds nothing back – he asks Ms Curtain about masturbation, and should a man stop if trying to conceive, and in the second episode they talk about the miscarriage Taylor’s wife experienced, how it affected them as a couple, and him personally.
LiSTNR’s Birth, Baby and Beyond is one of the country’s most listened-to podcasts because of its trusted and relatable style. Midwife Cath Curtin brings more than four decades of experience to guide new parents through the highs and lows of pregnancy, birth and the complexities of parenting.
To listen to the first two episodes, visit: listnr.com/podcasts/birth-baby-and-beyond
