Mummascribbles – Mummascribbles meets…Pure Natural Pregnancy – Mummascribbles
This week we meet the lovely Sarah who runs a podcast and blog over at Pure Natural Pregnancy. Thanks so much for taking part Sarah (and for the advice you have been giving me in my vbac quest!!).
Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family
Well hello, I’m Sarah! I grew up in Bristol, and have lived all over the place in my 30 years, but I’m in Leeds at the minute with my babies (George, 3 and Freddie, 5 weeks), my hubby Chris (a paratrooper) and our dog (Hector).
I met Chris when I was studying for my finals and he was on a course in Brecon. We met on a night out, on Valentine’s Day, watching England Vs Wales rugby – very romantic! What was supposed to be a fun fling has morphed into an old married couple fantasising about early nights and copious amounts of cheese and biscuits while the little ones are asleep. We are very rock & roll!
What do you like doing to be you, when you are not parenting, working (if you do), or blogging?
I’m a total geek and I love learning. I’m a chiropractor, and since having George I have taken a massive interest in the care of pregnant mums, their babies and kids. Although I’m not practising at the minute, I’m working towards a postgraduate paediatric chiropractic certification programme, which takes up a lot of my time.
As a family, we like to get out into the countryside for walks with Hector. We’re really fortunate to have so many green spaces here in Yorkshire, but I really miss the seaside, so I’m looking forward to moving back to Colchester, Essex next year. We also love visiting new places, and are planning a camping trip for August, which will be fun with a 2 month old baby!
What is your biggest achievement to date?
Taking the scariest experience of my life (George’s birth) and using it to help others.
From your own experiences, what do you find the hardest part of parenting and what is the easiest/most rewarding part?
As much as I love being a stay at home Mum and getting to be present in their daily lives, I struggled with being financially dependent on my husband. I went back to work when George was 15 months old, and I loved being able to have adult interaction, to use my brain and earn my own money. Sometimes it can be lonely as a new mum, and especially as a military spouse, being moved around all over the place. I think it’s really difficult when you’re stuck at home with this new identity (suddenly, you’re seen only as “a mother”) and you have to start to make new friends. It can be daunting.
The most rewarding part by far is seeing a little person that I have raised. To know that even though I’ve made mistakes, I’ve done my best, and they’ve turned out alright! George has such a beautiful personality, he’s full of love and affection, and it just makes me so proud that he’s a part of my life and that I’m privileged to be a part of his. Since his new brother came along, he’s had a few strops (he has my temper!) but he just wants to shower him with kisses, teach him about the world, and be his guardian angel all at once. It’s easily the most humbling thing when you are present with your kids and you realise what love really is.
Parenting in itself is no mean feat; how do you juggle everything you need to in order to get everything done on a daily basis
Honestly, I don’t think I do juggle it. I tried to, but it just stressed me out and honestly put a strain on my relationships with my husband and my babies. For me, the answer was to lower my standards. In the days before kids, my house was immaculate. I used to run around when I wasn’t at work, cleaning, cooking, basically making work for myself! Nowadays, I realise that there are so many more important things than cleaning the bathroom.
Other than that, we do lots of things en mass – batch cooking, blitz cleaning, washing days etc where we work together to try and blast the household chores. It helps if we can both spend an hour while the kids are quiet and get things done, rather than me spending about 5 hours to get half the jobs done (badly!) with one of them hanging off me! Generally though, we have the approach that there’s always going to be something else that needs doing. There’s no point at all in getting stressed about the house, the washing, or any of it. So long as we have something to eat, the rest can wait. Sometimes, if we’ve had a hectic week, or Chris has been working away, the most important thing to do is spend the day snuggled in bed with a film!
Why did you decide to start blogging?
I really decided to start a podcast, and the blog came around off the side of it, because I kept getting asked the same questions about things. People would listen to me rant and tell me I should write my thoughts down as it might entertain people, and it kind of came from that.
Tell me a bit about your blog?
In a nutshell, it’s lots of rants, experiences, opinions, with a few reviews thrown in for good measure.
I really started to use it to document my own pregnancy journey. When I decided I wanted a HBAC (Home Birth After Caesarean), I was met with quite a lot of resistance from midwives, GPs, family & friends. There were a few rants on the blog, and it seemed I wasn’t the only one experiencing it! I think people enjoyed following my story, from my fears through to my beautiful HBAC in June.
It’s been nice to be able to be open and honest about my struggles with mental health issues too. I had PTSD following my first birth, and suffered with anxiety and depression in my second pregnancy. I’m a strong character but also not averse to being vulnerable. I think it’s really important to be true to yourself, and accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. I try to keep it real, and I hope it shows.
What do you want your blog to achieve and where do you hope to see it go as it grows?
Initially, I wanted to create a space for women to learn more about physiologic birth, and natural health in pregnancy and beyond. Although I’m on my way to creating that with the podcast, there are still tonnes of people I’d like to speak to. I hope that I continue to learn more so that I can share more, and help more women to get information that they otherwise might not receive.
It all started because it’s a bit hit and miss trying to find good advice on physiologic birth. It tends to be blog posts of opinions based on nothing more than a single personal experience. By speaking directly to the birth workers, who help women every day, I’m in a brilliant position to be able to spread their expertise through the podcast. I’m basically sharing the knowledge that I wish I’d have had first time round.
One of the avenues I feel I need to go down with the blog is maintaining good health in children with allergies. There are a lot of people in the same boat who don’t know where to start so I’d like to give them a springboard! Although there’s plenty of “free from” food, it’s processed junk, but finding nutritious recipes can be tricky. It’s a steep learning curve – thankfully I love learning as I’m still reading nutrition books every day so I can help him the best I can!
What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a blog?
Make sure that you’re writing about something that really means a lot to you. It has to be a topic that inspires you, otherwise you’ll get bored really quickly. I have a million things I want to say. So that’s kind of a good sign!
If you could have dinner with three people (dead or alive), who would it be and why?
1. My whole family all together – because we never get a chance to do that (although that’s probably cheating!)
2. Prince – because he basically wrote the soundtrack to my childhood, and I would love to know how he was able to be so inspired for so many years
3. Michelle Obama – because she’s just amazing! She’s so intelligent, driven, articulate, successful and humble despite all that. I’d love to have a couple of glasses of wine with her over dinner, but I would never want to leave.
Tell me three random facts about you
1. I used to do shot putt when I was at school, despite being skin & bones
2. I was told by my careers advisor that I wasn’t clever enough to be a lawyer, which was what I wanted to do when I was 15, and that I should consider working in a shop instead! (What a way to inspire our kids to chase their dreams)
3. The best present I’ve ever been given is a voucher to skydive for our 1st anniversary in 2012…but I still haven’t managed to use it.
Along with her podcast and blog www.pregnancypodcast.co.uk, you can also find Sarah over on Twitter (blog and personal), Facebook and Instagram (blog and personal)