Dr Edna Lekgabe has a name for what happens when a woman becomes a mother. She calls it matrescence, basically puberty 2.0: messy, hormonal, profound, and almost completely unnamed.

Edna’s a Melbourne perinatal psychiatrist whom I have so much respect for. We talk about the developmental earthquake none of us are warned about.

I became a mum at 25 with no idea what was happening to me… the brain rewiring, the threat system switching on. We discuss what happens when birth trauma and matrescence collide, why accepting care is so much harder than giving it. We talked about how the same threat system that protects a newborn also sharpens a mother's boundaries, and get into perimenopause and menopause, and ‘the gold’ Edna says is waiting on the other side. She wants every woman to have a buddy a few steps ahead and behind her, the same way ...