My guest this week is Katie Healy Nolan, whose life is chaotic but filled with gratitude, as she parents her five young children, ages 8 down to just six weeks. Her eldest child, her daughter Penelope, is living with a life-limiting illness and requires 24-hour care, with Katie provides, as she says herself "with a heart and a half". Katie and her husband Dave also parent their four boys, while advocating for the care their eldest needs. Penelope's illness is extremely rare and therefore isn't straightforward when it comes to accessing the supports she needs. Katie, through all of this, remains astoundingly positive, and is an absolute hero as far as I'm concerned, as she talks about how lucky and grateful she is to be able to have her family, and how a big family was always on the cards for both herself and her husband. Having survived the terrorist attack in the Bataclan in Paris back in 2015 which killed 130 people, Katie says her perspective on life is a little bit different and is grateful to have the choice to keep going, where so many others didn't and don't. A truly uplifting episode. Enjoy it, and I'll be back with the season finale next week.

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Joining me for this week's episode is Lisa McHugh, an award-winning singer-songwriter and one of the brightest stars in Irish country music. Beyond her music, she’s also an entrepreneur, a proud mam of two, and a voice of positivity and empowerment for women. Her two children, Milo who is two and Hallie who is just five months, are the centre of her world, but her parenting path has thrown up some real challenges for Lisa. After Hallie was born, Lisa spent ten days in hospital with her brand new daughter in the NICU, where she couldn't see Milo and couldn't cuddle her newborn as she was hooked up to a CPAP machine. Hallie's health had another challenge just recently too, and another stint in hospital was required. But through it all, Lisa remains positive, while also being honest about how hard is has been for her and her family. With her own parents in Glasgow, where Lisa was born, she says that having a break or some downtime isn't something she can remember having in recent memory. All of this, and a full-on career as a musician means that Lisa is my new inspiration! I hope you enjoy listening this week, and I'll be back with more next week.

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This week, I chatted to the incredible Deirdre McDonagh, a social worker who founded Five Rivers Fostering over 22 years ago. I knew very little about fostering at the start of our conversation, so I was coming to this topic with mostly questions, and Deirdre was certainly the right person to ask. We talked about the basic types of fostering, from emergency care to longer term fostering that might result in adoption, we talked about what circumstances might arise that would cause a child to be in need of all the various types of foster care, and we talk about the amazing families who selflessly take children who are in need into their homes and give them the two things they need most: Love and safety. I personally wanted to ask Deirdre how her heart isn't endlessly broken seeing the children leave their families, for whatever number of reasons, often not really wanting to leave but having no choice for their own safety – it really is a heroic thing to do to foster a child and I hope that after listening to this episode, anyone considering it might feel empowered to start the process. Thanks for listening, I'll be back with more next week.

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My guest this week was Tara Anderson, or as you might know her online – Tara Makeup. Makeup artist, model, actor, influencer and entrepreneur are all roles Tara has had in her life, but her job as mam to Gene and Jools, her 6 and 3-year-old sons, is the one we chatted most about in this episode. Tara talks candidly about her two very different experiences of pregnancy and birth, about how she's a private person in spite of being well known online, and how even for her, comparison can be the thief of joy at times. We chat about how parenting now is totally different to the parenting our own parents would've done, and how full of doubt we can be at times as to whether we're doing the right things. Tara is one of those people who you look at online and think 'how does she do it', but from talking to her I can tell that she's just like the rest of us: Doing the best for her family through the good and the bad. Thank you so much for listening today, and throughout season 14, and I'll be talking to you again soon.

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