Can you believe we've reached the end of the season! My last guest for season 13 is the very lovely Kelly Fitzsimons – formerly known on Instagram at least as MissEllaMayandMommy. Kelly had her daughter Ella aged 19 and her following online grew as the two of them grew up together. Sharing outfit posts with matching dresses, their mother daughter relationship was (and is!) goals. Kelly went on to have her son Mac in her early thirties, leaving a 13 year age gap between her two children. We...

I was so so grateful to this week's guest for joining me on the podcast. The lovely Dominique Nugent so bravely chatted to me about her experience, earlier this year, of late stage miscarriage. Dominique was a day short of 16 weeks when she delivered her baby, who had not survived in utero. She so generously decided now was the time to talk about it, start to finish, with me and with the listeners to the podcast, saying that she knows if listening will help just one person through their own...

My guest this week is my lovely friend, author, and journalist Liadán Hynes, who is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to parenting, and life in general really. She's a single parent to one daughter who's 9 years old. She's self-employed and works flexibly to be as present as she can for her little girl and writes often about her experiences as a working single mother. We talk about everything from facing what could be lonely weekends without your child or children, the imbalance that exists...

My guest this week is Carla Kelly, who is one of the founders of Ask The Midwife, a company that aims to support parents from pregnancy through to postpartum and beyond. A midwife herself, we asked you guys, our cherished listeners, to put questions to her that you might need advice on. We talked about an incredible grandparents refresher course that they run (totally genius if you ask me) their various antenatal and postnatal classes, how they help build a community of mothers so no matter...

My wonderful friend Caroline Foran is my guest this week, and a returning guest to Everymum the podcast. This time, we talk about her most recent struggles with her son Caelan, and how she has recently undergone assessments with various clinical assessors to help better understand her son's unique needs. We talk about the anxiety over a potential future diagnosis, how guilt can be associated with wanting a straightforward life for your child, and how she cries every night at bed time out of...

My guest this week is Shannen Bulman Joyce, who was previously known on social media as Big C and Me, because she used her platform to document her cancer journey. Over the course of her adult life, just the past ten years, she's been diagnosed with and survived cancer three times. She's now the healthiest she's ever been, and is thriving and living life as a single mother to her daughter Roisin. We chat about everything from health anxiety and mam guilt, to what it was like having to explain...

My guest today is model and mam of three, Rosanna Davison. Over the past few years, life has changed dramatically for Rosanna. From going through a tragic 14 miscarriages and believing she wouldn't be able to carry a pregnancy to term, she and her husband sought the help of a surrogate from Ukraine to make their dream of having a family come true. She talks to me about the anxiety of knowing her baby was in someone else's body in a completely different country, and how she coped with that....

Kelly Donegan is my guest this week – you might know Kelly, if you're a millennial like me, from Tallafornia, a reality show she starred in 12 years ago now. If you've been following her online, you'll have seen her go from reality TV star to fitness expert to now, a mammy of one. Since her daughter Cherry arrived, Kelly's plans for motherhood haven't quite gone off as she'd hoped. We talk about the disappointment you can feel when your birth plans go the exact opposite to what you'd hoped,...

My guest this week is Ali Deasy, who is famous where she lives as the mother who is shadowed everywhere she goes by her gorgeous triplets, Bruce Ted and Lenny. Ali has been a guest on Everymum in the past, but I saw recently she spoke online about her mental health struggle when the boys were between the ages of 2 and 3 years old. I caught up with her as soon as I heard that, because often I think postnatal depression or motherhood-related depression might only be associated with the...

Warning: This episode discusses baby loss. My guest for this episode is Jessica Bourke, otherwise known as The Fertility Detective. She's known among her followers and patients for her honest, straightforward and compassionate approach to all things fertility, and as she says online, she has nearly two decades of experience helping people to get and to stay pregnant. Before you start listening to this week's episode, I must let you know – we speak extensively and in detail about what it's...

My incredible guest this week is the OG sleep coach in Ireland, the person with thousands of hours of pacing hallways and bedrooms with babies in her arms – Kelly Geoghegan. Kelly's business, Sleepy Stars, is all about helping babies with sleep. But her fascinating career has featured superyachts, helicopters and changing time zones twice in a week, all the while caring for babies that need their sleep. She chats to me about her celebrity and high net worth clients, how she approaches trying...

This week I spoke to Sarah Ockwell Smith, a parenting expert who has written 15 books on parenting over the course of her career. While we could've covered a number of topics, what I really wanted to speak to her about was the idea of gentle parenting and what it really is. Like you, I've seen Instagram memes and Tiktokers talk about gentle parenting, and most of what I saw left me more confused than enlightened. But speaking to Sarah really gave me a clear picture of what it means to be a...

Today's guest is Karen Ferguson, head of nursing and clinical services with SIMS IVF. I'll be completely honest, my knowledge of all things fertility and infertility was minimal, that is – before I spoke to Karen. We went back to basics, and discussed things like the stigma around talking about fertility struggles, what exactly is involved in an egg retrieval, common myths and misconceptions about fertility treatment, and how to be sensitive to friends or family members going through an IVF...

I was joined for today's episode by Kathy Milliken. Kathy is a baby, birth and post-partum expert in so many ways: She's trained as a doula, she's trained in breastfeeding counselling, she's a qualified pre- and post-natal yoga instructor, among other things. And yet, with all her experience, she told me she didn't really KNOW what motherhood would be like in practical terms until she had her children. Three children, all brought into the world very differently, taught her so much that she...

This episode had me wide-eyed with my jaw on the floor, as returning guest Aisling Kearns shares the story of her home birth. Aisling's son Tommy was just four weeks old when we recorded, and slept like an angel throughout. Having spoken to a doula and read a book about childbirth as a rite of passage, Aisling decided a home birth was for her, even though it was her first pregnancy. She talks about the home set-up, who was there, how it all went and how she hopes her choice to do it (and her...

This week, I was so pleased to be able to speak to online parenting sensation Payal Desai, who joined me all the way from New Jersey (albeit on a slightly glitchy Zoom call for which I blame my own dodgy broadband) where she lives with her husband and two little boys. Payal is a middle school teacher and content creator who went insanely viral with her 'dusty son' videos. For anyone who has yet to see one, she captures teachable moments with her young sons, typically about gender roles and...

My guest this week is Rob Burke – Rob is a friend of mine, and one of the most articulate people I know, and so I knew that he'd be the perfect person to speak to about the experiences of a new dad. From pregnancy, where he says he felt his duty was to take care of his wife, to the delivery suite and cutting the umbilical cord and being a human stirrup, to his daughter Pippa's first six months of life, he's gone through the ups and downs of parenthood alongside his wife Becca, and shares...

This week I speak to Irish model and mother of one Kelly Horrigan. Although Kelly delivered her beautiful little boy almost 14 months ago now, she is still feeling the long-term effects of her delivery. After her son's birth, Kelly found she had something called pudendal neuralgia, which sees her in constant nerve pain from her episiotomy scar all the way down her leg. She still struggles with it and attends physio, and could even have to have procedures in the future to stop the pain,...

Today's guest is influencer and first time mam, Siobhan O'Hagan. In her previous life as a fitness influencer, Siobhan's goals and values were always crystal clear: She enjoyed the freedom that came with her life moving from Bali to Thailand to London and back to Ireland. She was vocal about her choice not to have children, and for a long time that completely aligned with her value system. Until, one day, it didn't anymore. She had what she calls an 'existential crisis' and after becoming...

For our first episode back for Season 12, I'm joined by fashion influencer and stylist Lorna Weightman and possibly our youngest ever guest, 9 week old Arthur was also on the Zoom being an absolute angel. Lorna and I discovered that we both approached parenthood with a "will I or won't I?" mentality – we weren't 100% convinced it was for us, until of course, we were. So if you're on the fence about whether to try or not, this episode might help you. We also chat about Lorna's whole birth...

We're already on our last episode of Season 11, and I can't wait to bring you more episodes as we head into season 12 really soon. But we wanted to round out this season on a high and I think we may have achieved it... What a total and utter joy it was to interview this week's guest. A dream podcast interviewee, I spoke to Giovanna Fletcher, author, mother of three boys and host of the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast. She's also married to Tom from McFly so if you're a millennial mammy like I...

This week, Dr Doireann O'Leary joins me to talk about her experience of motherhood so far. Her son is nine months old, and while she doesn't share his name or face online, she is very open about how she's finding the transition into parenthood. We chat about taking time for yourself and letting go of the guilt around that. She says quite rightly that you can't pour from an empty cup – that if as mothers we're well rested, feeling supported and given time to be ourselves, we're better parents...

This week's episode I'm joined by Talya Benjamin. She's a new mother, living in New York, and when she was discharged from hospital after having her first baby, she checked in to a postpartum retreat called Boram. Research shows that dedicated postnatal care improves the health and well-being of mothers and their babies – and that's exactly what they provide. Talya checked in with her husband and their new born, and for three days and nights were given nourishing foods, access to lactation...

Joining me this week on the podcast is Youtuber, author and mother of two Melanie Murphy. Melanie's approach to parenthood really resonates with me, and we talk a lot about both feeling very strongly that whatever way you want to parent is your choice, and no one else's. She discusses her choice to bedshare with her babies, her choice to talk about breastfeeding online – which brought a whole new level of criticism to her door – how her past experience with eating disorders has shaped the way...