everymum

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....

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 b...

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 ab...

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...

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...

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...

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 t...

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...

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 chil...

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 abou...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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 abou...

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,...

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 m...

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...

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...

Clare McKenna joins me to talk childhood nutrition. Clare is the OG wellness guru, having spent years trialling and testing the latest in wellness trends, diets, and fitness fads, only to discover a few years back that balance was key. As a parent, she wanted to be sure to foster a healthy relationship with body and with food in her two children. As presenter of Newstalk’s Alive and Kicking, Clare...

My guest this week is Audrey Dore-Geraghty. I first saw her story in the Irish Independent, where she spoke with incredible honesty about the heart-breaking struggle she and her family are facing with their son Harrison. Diagnosed with autism at two years old, he's now 9 and his behaviours have become increasingly physical and aggressive, to the point that Audrey said she can be frightened of her...

All the way from Fort Wayne Indiana, this week's guest is author, journalist and podcaster Rosemary Mac Cabe. We cover a LOT, but one of the most fascinating topics was the difference between maternity leave here in Ireland versus the states – when I say the US system is crazy, I'm not joking. We also talk about how motherhood has come naturally to Rosemary, and yet at times she still finds it cha...

Michelle O'Keeffe, co-founder of Platform 55, helps employees and companies balance the demands of family life with their careers. They guide companies around maternity and paternity leave practices, flexible working, and various family needs, by appealing to their bottom line – it costs so much more to rehire and retrain a talented employee than to retain your employee and support a talent you al...

Dearbhla Toal, or Belle Azzure, joins me to talk about all the challenges of motherhood, and how she's passionate about keeping things real when it comes to her own experience of being a parent. Expecting her second baby, Dearbhla is a parent to a toddler. She’s also a personal trainer, a Google marketer and an online influencer – you can imagine my first question was HOW? Dearbhla says it's not e...

Joining me this episode is actress Jenny Dixon, mum to twin baby girls, Bella and Capri. Herself and her husband Tom Neville went through a three-year-long fertility process, suffering losses along the way, but have found their happy ending with their girls. Jenny chats to me – in her infectiously positive way – about trying to stay positive and strong through loss, the magical moment she discover...