Ready or Not

[CW: episode discusses postnatal depression and pregnancy and postpartum struggles]

Gemma Smith is a perinatal counsellor and a mother of two. She’s also a recovering perfectionist who was rocked by the intensity of new parenthood.

She did all the prep you can imagine a perfectionist doing - she hired a birth doula, did pregnancy pilates, birth classes, yoga for labour and birth, hours of reading and the list goes on… but, none of it really helped, because what she really needed was just to be able to talk to someone about the whole experience.

It comes as no surprise then, that her work today is deeply routed in helping women find their flow in motherhood. What I loved about this conversation with Gemma is that she somehow finds a way to talk about the heavy stuff while making me laugh.

Here, she shares the challenges she faced, why you don’t have to love every bit of mothering to love being a mum, and how her experiences have informed the way she helps mothers today.

She also talks about the identity shifts and struggles that come with falling pregnant on your first time trying, which is a really interesting and important perspective that most feel too guilty to talk about.

If you're in Australia and need mental health support in your conception, pregnancy or parenting journey, you can call the PANDA National Helpline (Monday to Saturday) 1300 726 306

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it’s Maara Collective. an Australian luxury resort wear brand that works closely with Indigenous artists and creatives, drawing inspiration from Country to present within the context of contemporary fashion.

With every product purchased they give back proceeds to support digital training and education in remote Aboriginal communities.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shterna Glick is a midwife, lactation consultant and mother of five. Through her Instagram page, @melbourne_lactation, Shterna has gained a following for her knowledge and experience as both a mother and a professional, and for her practical, informative posts on all things breastfeeding.

Her approach to supporting breastfeeding parents is sustainable and supportive, and what I love most about this conversation is that Shterna’s advice is mother-centred, because as we know – or at least have been told but maybe forget – is that when the mother is happy, the baby is happy too.

Breastfeeding, bottle feeding, pumping, weaning, returning to work and all that comes with it is pretty stressful for parents.

So here, Shterna answers all your burning questions in the hope to make you feel a little bit more relaxed in your feeding and return to work journey.

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it’s Maara Collective. an Australian luxury resortwear brand that works closely with Indigenous artists and creatives, drawing inspiration from Country to present within the context of contemporary fashion.

With every product purchased they give back proceeds to support digital training and education in remote Aboriginal communities.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amy Bradshaw is the head of Australia at global media agency, Vayner Media. She’s worked in New York, London, and now back at home in Sydney, where she lives with her partner and two children. What I loved about my conversation with Amy is how pragmatic, honest, and genuine she is. She doesn’t dramatise the struggles of being a working parent, but she doesn’t over simplify it, either.

In this episode, we talk sailing around Croatia with a newborn, setting up Vayner Media’s Australian arm, the need for workplace flexibility for not only mothers but for all people and the importance of letting go in order to share the parenting load.

Amy returned to work four months after her daughter Romy was born, so this is a good one for those parents returning to work on the earlier side of things or while still breastfeeding.

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it’s Young Aunties Haus, a creative space for First Nations women & LGBTQI+ mob to access mentoring and development opportunities across the creative industries

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CW: this episode deals with loss, illness and hospitals. You'll also hear the odd swear word.

From the outset, the focus of this podcast has been the working mother or primary caregiver. But, what happens to your career and identity when you lose your own mother? Last week, a LinkedIn post by Jaala Alex had me questioning this.

Many mothers naturally link part of their identity to their children and their role as a mother.

But, just as profound can be the way in which our mothers shape our own identities, aspirations, and the way move in the world. So, how do we go on with work and life after losing our own mother? What does return to work after grief look like? How do our priorities and world views shift? We’re very lucky that Jaala has decided to open up about this painful experience, in the hope is that it will help others feel a little less alone.

Books we discuss: Untamed by Glennon Doyle, It's Okay That You're Not OK by Megan Devine & Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it's Aboriginal Art Co. Check them out on Instagram here.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rana Hussain is a social inclusion specialist, broadcaster, presenter, writer and one of the Outer Sanctum podcast crew. She’s also a program director at Champions of Change and makes regular appearances on ABC radio and television.

She’s also a mother and a very good person. She does the sort of work that I can’t help but think it’d be hard to switch off from, because the scope is so big and the outcomes so important.

So, as a mother, how does she find balance? How did she break into the highly competitive sports media industry? And, as a Muslim woman, what has not being represented in media and society taught her about how she wants to foster her daughter’s identity, goals, and aspirations?

Whether you’re a parent or not, we can all learn something from Rana and we really could’ve chatted for hours. But she’s got work to do.

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things. This week, it’s Pay the Rent, a Collective based on the lands of the Kulin Nation in Victoria, Australia.

The Pay the Rent collective acts as a centralised distribution body which can make decisions about how best to support Aboriginal people, supporting grassroots First Nations people working to strengthen any one of the five interconnected pillars of Aboriginal sovereignty and belonging: Land, Law, Kinship, Ceremony, Language.

You can check them out online here.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Georgie Dent is a busy woman. She’s a journalist, author, speaker, advocate, former lawyer, and a mother of three. She’s also the executive director of The Parenthood, a not-for-profit advocacy group on a mission to make Australia the best place in the world to be a parent. And, she’s a longtime contributor at Women’s Agenda.

Now the person I have just described might sound perfect, but Georgie has not coasted through life without her challenges and in her best-selling memoir, Breaking Badly, Georgie documents her decline towards a total breakdown that saw her admitted to a psychiatric hospital at age 24.

Here, we talk the balancing act that is being a working mother, writing and living Breaking Badly and her work as a passionate advocate for working parents.

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it’s Mabu Mabu, a restaurant in the heart of Melbourne. Mabu Mabu is a saying in the Torres Strait that means help yourself, and at Mabu Mabu, the food culture is all about sharing.

Nornie Bero is the head chef and business owner of Mabu Mabu. Originally from Mer Island in the Torres Strait, Nornie has been a professional chef for over 20 years. Nornie is on a mission to put Indigenous ingredients in kitchens across Australia. They want people to be using, eating and celebrating Indigenous ingredients every day.

I’ve eaten at their wonderful Federation Square restaurant in Naarm or Melbourne, and I highly recommend you do next time you find yourself there.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chatting to Yara Heary invokes the familiar comfort that one might feel talking to an older, wiser sibling. She’s a psychologist and a mother of two, but more importantly, she’s just a human doing her best. She doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, because she’s more interested in learning and growing than being right.

Here, she candidly shares both her professional and personal reflections when it comes to relationships, motherhood and career, as we talk dropping the plastic balls, enlisting support in whichever way makes sense for you, and why parents need to take time to care for themselves in order to care for their children.

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Thanks for listening to Ready or Not! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at readyornot.pod.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it’s Clothing The Gaps, a fashion label that have become particularly well known for their values-driven slogan tees that celebrate Aboriginal people and culture. You can check them out by searching Clothing the Gaps online.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It only takes a minute of conversation with Clare Kelly to realise the glass is always half full. You won’t hear her complaining about night shift or burnout or going through a separation and a period of single parenting, because she’s just not wired that way.

She is, however, wired to be a midwife. Her love for what she does is visceral. She’s fiercely passionate about caring for both mothers and healthcare workers, because both roles, as she knows all too well, can be a tough slog.

This was such a fun and frank conversation, and in it, we cover single parenting, midwifery, raising three boys, shift work, burnout and what’s to come for Clare in 2023.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each episode, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week, it’s Laundry Gallery, a multidisciplinary creative hub located in Darwin, Australia.

Housed in a reimagined iconic 70’s era laundromat, it represents modern iterations of Indigenous art and culture, providing an accessible pathway for age-old stories to co-exist with the modern world.

You can check out their beautiful art here or in person in Darwin.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trigger warning: this episode discusses pregnancy loss and cancer.

From being a small business owner to becoming a doula and surviving cancer to experiencing a pregnancy loss, Charlotte Squires (aka @thelivingdoula) has lived many lives in her 30 years.

In this episode, we discuss finding your “why” in work and in parenting, the importance of communication in sharing the load and why the principles of care and support relevant to the work of a doula should apply for life, not just the early postpartum period.

We also cover how her family sets up the week so there’s more time for work and fun, when she finds time for her doula work and how to set up support networks and make new friends as an adult.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each week, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week it’s the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, a national charity working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remote communities across Australia. I just ordered my son Ray a beautiful book about crocodiles from their online shop, which will support First Nations writing and stories in remote communities.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gabrielle Nancarrow went back to work the day after a D&C procedure following her pregnancy loss. It’s a far cry from the way in which she cares for birthing people as a doula today, but back then, she was flying high in the corporate world as the editorial director at Victoria’s Secret in New York.

Her life was fast paced, her work was exciting and her career was thriving.

Soon after that loss, another pregnancy would eventually lead to the birth of her first daughter, and with it, like so many mothers before her, a rebirth of Gabrielle.

The career goal posts started shifting in that postpartum period, and here, we talk returning to work full time at just four months postpartum, leaving her job and life in New York, and the new career she’s created for herself at home in Melbourne, as a doula, a small business owner, and a published author.

In acknowledging the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, each week, I’ll be doing a shout out to an indigenous business or charity doing great things.

This week it’s Common Ground, a First Nations not-for-profit working to shape a society that centres First Nations people by amplifying knowledge, cultures and stories.

I particularly love their yearly First Nations Bedtime Stories project, which brings dreaming stories as old as time into homes and classrooms around Australia.

This month, Ready or Not is proudly brought to you by Yoto. Use our discount Code: READYORNOT15 for 15% off your Yoto device [not to be used with any other offer, valid from 1st May - 5th June.]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.