The Netmums Podcast - S1 Ep13: Steph Douglas from Don't Buy Her Flowers on why less is more when it comes to being a new parent

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

Listen as Wendy and Annie discuss the secrets to life with new babies. While Steph started her (very successful!) business with three tiddlers in tow, she says the key is ... doing nothing and having zero expectations. Oh, and listen to the end for her hilarious birth story. She's nothing if not honest, our Steph.

You're listening to Sweat, Snot and Tears brought to you by Netmums. I'm Annie O'Leary and I'm Wendy Gollage and together we talk about all of this week's sweaty, snotty and tearful parenting moments with guests who are far more interesting than we are. So we are Sweat, Snot and Tears. Any Sweat, Snot or Tears in your house this morning? Well as it would have happened this morning, my youngest Frank who is two and a bit decided to blow his nose on my coat. Your nice coat. Yes.

So I was wearing my smart coat because I was seeing people today. That's you. And he blew his nose, but then he kind of just cackled and looked up. And then the older two are cackling. They know that's not okay because they're seven and nine. They should know better. They know better. But he is entertainment, isn't he?

Of course he is. Because you can't get really close with him. He'll grow up to be a comedian. You know that really successful one. Yeah. Oh, it's constant. So yeah, so I was covered in snot all over my shoulder. Did it come off?

Well, I kind of wet wiped it. Did you wear it? Yes. Of course she did. She's a mum. What do you expect? I think the only payback for that is when he's 16 and about to go on a date, you just walk up to him and blow your nose on his not this is for when you were two yeah yeah i keep

a log a mental log i don't write it down i don't write it yeah that would be taking a bit too far so you're with us because you are fabulously successful aren't you yes mrs woman uh with don't buy her flowers we know that on netmums one of the most searched uh questions that people look for answers for on netmums is how to find term time jobs was it about working around the kids was that why you launched it yeah i think it's a mixture so i had the idea when i had my first so buster is nearly nine um so i had him and was sitting on the sofa just feeling like you do with that first baby. Just completely overwhelmed, weepy, leaky. What the hell just happened? Angry at my husband.

And flowers kept arriving. And I hadn't even thought that gifts would turn up. So that was like, oh. It is quite strange the number of gifts that come, especially with the first. First, oh yeah. I mean, it dies down third and no one cares. But it's all the old aunties that come out of the closet, send to you carnations. It's always carnations.

I think that generation definitely feel like they have to send something. And they're beautiful, well-meant, and I don't mean it in a very ungrateful way, but I just thought that's a really weird gift to give somebody who's just had a baby because you are doing as much caring as you possibly can and then you've got to care for a bunch of flowers. And they're not useful in any way are they no and you never have

enough vases no I think I probably would have had two and I think I had about eight bunches of flowers so that was like the seed of the idea and then um I if all my friends were kind of having babies so I would give them chocolate and a magazine and send it in the post and just say I hope you're okay and it was always like the sentiment was all about them yeah and that was kind of the where the idea started it was like what I think new mums need is some TLC a bit of looking after things that will encourage them to have a bit of a sit down and and also I think the the idea that someone is thinking of them when you feel quite isolated and lonely gets it all you want is that someone gets it don't you and that that's the bit of the business which now obviously we cater for

loads of different occasions and the market is a considerably bigger loyal customer good thank you Annie um but I think that that that's what I underestimated or just didn't even really recognize that the bit that is really powerful is that sentiment that someone's going i know what you need you need a bit of something that looks after you i was really struck but the first person i sent it to was my aunt who had breast cancer for the third time and i'd kind of run out of ideas for presents to send her by then do you know what i mean yeah and i sent her um the mug and the you know the thermos mug yeah that package and she was so blown away yeah it was just so much more thoughtful and she's like oh you know I can take it up the allotment and yeah it just meant so much more but it was actually really easy for me because I just sat

on my bum on the computer and I think that's so the whole thing is now around thoughtfulness and and gifts that are thoughtful and I think we've we've like we work with stand up to cancer and we did a package with them and we've done we've got loads there's loads of different occasions but actually it's so there's so many reasons when and but it's always around saying i hope you're okay or you could do with a bit you know a really good gin and tonic and some cashmere socks or whatever it is when can't we do it yeah but it lends itself to being to the sad occasions as well when you don't know what to say to somebody again that's really true the bereavement and actually we really quickly had people saying i want to send this to someone who's had a

miscarriage and that's not you know that wasn't in my business plan that wasn't something that we thought of and we obviously are quite careful because I'm not gonna you know our advertising campaign isn't gonna revolve around going hey if you know someone who's died it's really sensitive but our customers because they're thoughtful they totally get it and we had one lady once who'd messaged us messaged um via like Facebook saying I'm going through a miscarriage and I've got flowers coming out of my ear. Like they're all around me. And all I want to do is sit on the sofa and cry and eat chocolate. And why is no one thinking of. But it's the same thing.

It's like you need looking after. There's certain times. So do you have a package for that? We've got like an unwind package. We've got. What are the best sellers? Tell us. So the top, top, top seller is chocolate buttons.

Gin and tonics. um space masks someone and everyone i know please listen well it gave me gin and tonic and chocolate buttons i'd be blown away we're about to launch that's my dream friday night we're about to launch a bestseller package in the run-up to mother's day and because there's about 16 products that are really popular beyond you know above everything else so there's a real mix we like we've got books and stuff like that but the the things that are really easy little lifts like a gin and tonic or space masks and we've got pajama you know there's so many things now we've got packages for men um but i think so it when i first started it was gifts for new mums yeah um but quite quickly we kind of evolved to cover lots of other things so does it work though around having kids yes so um

because I always think when mums say I've had this idea for a business and I'm like do you know how hard it is to get a business off the ground that is not the ideal job i did not know how hard it was i've never worked hard in my life like hands down but and i think sometimes as well when you're caught in it and you're worrying about you know i've got a team of 10 they've all got to get paid that responsibility suddenly feels really big see i wouldn't be able to sleep i don't i slept really well last night for the first time in a really long time because everyone was paid because i went to a spa day on my own yesterday so we can come on to self-care but i i said the life of a founder ain't no that was a real treat that was a voucher i got given for christmas and i was meant to do it three weeks ago and all three kids got real i've got vouchers i

was given last christmas but i still haven't used. One of the things I worry about, like I do quite a few talks with people wanting to start businesses, and women in particular wanting to start businesses, and I think everyone thinks that they need to do something with their maternity leave. Like they've got to write a blog or they've got to start a business. That's interesting. And I think that's quite scary because actually having a kid is quite a big deal. It's about looking after a baby and yourself. And yourself.

That is doing yourself back together. It took me that long to put myself back together. Yeah, I think it's, but I suppose maybe it's because people think it looks easier than it, or, you know, it looks easy because people go, oh, you know, I'm a mum boss. Well, no one sees the work. Yeah, and actually it's not. And I'd say that that's, so I think I did a talk this week in Birmingham and that we were going around a circle this woman was saying you know I'm I don't I feel like I'm

on a treadmill and I don't I don't think I'm doing enough and then it turned out she had an eight month old she's about to go back to work she had a toddler and she was doing this kind of on the side business but that she wanted to become and I was like wait stop anyway we all end up crying because it was like everyone there who had slightly older kids remembers that point when you've got small ones and I think especially if you have your second one you're almost harder on yourself like well I've done this before I know what I'm doing but it's so much harder every time you add a child into the mix yeah and and it took me into my third to to look after myself and it made such a difference yeah i i was following you by then on instagram and i was really inspired by your quite strict structure

with yourself about the pulling up the drawer pulling up the drawer bridge because naps do save lives they do they really we're big on sleep we both fall apart when we haven't had enough sleep yeah i cry yeah don't sleep and i become really irrational really like i can't see ragey do you get ragey not necessarily ragey but just everything is a huge crisis and she just went i get really ragey with my husband it doesn't take lack of sleep it's either that i need to eat or sleep or both usually um do you did it really take off the whole now safe lives and pulling up the drawbridge? Yeah, I think I still get, I got a message this morning.

I get messages all the time from people who have read. So I wrote a blog post. And the idea, I can't, I'm not the brains behind it. My mum had said to me when I had my first, and I was doing the classic meeting up with the NCT people and trying to, you know, and obviously trying to do everything and breastfeeding was hard. I found it hard the first time we and we got there but all those things that you're trying to do but I felt like I had to get out and be a good mom do this and this is what

we're doing everyone else is doing it and trying to fit into your clothes and blah blah and my mom I rang my mom crying and she said what have you done today and I'd done too much I'd gone and met people she's like you don't need to go anywhere I had like a three month old or whatever she was like just pull up the drawbridge don't you don't have to do something every day or if you do fine but don't commit to things that other people are then reliant that you're going to be yeah and then don't do anything the next day yeah exactly exactly um it took me quite a while to and then every now and then you get a message from someone going well I need to get out. I need to see people.

It's like, that's fine. Like on the day, if you have a decent night's sleep or ish, whatever you get when the newborn. As decent as they get. As decent as it's going to get. And you get, and you want to go out, great. But if you wake up that morning and you've had a terrible night

and you're feeling really blue and the last thing you want to do is go out, you can cancel or just don't arrange it in the first place. And I think just like eating well and not worrying about whatever you're wearing and all that, I think the hindsight thing is that with the third kid it made me realise how quickly it does actually go. And I know that's a really like what you know older women say like

oh it's gonna go so far and i don't mean cherish every moment because i don't think that's when people say that i had someone and i shouldn't identify them who i hung out with a bit when one of mine was a baby and someone else we were hanging out with got really tearful and upset about having not slept one day. And afterwards she said to me, you know, I just don't think we're so blessed to have these children. We shouldn't be crying about it. And I was just like, are you for real? Do you remember the Daily Mail?

Oh, Fish Fingers. It's on. Yeah, Fish Finger Gate. So this is when a few of us got. One morning I woke up and I leave my phone downstairs downstairs because again, that slightly helps with the sleep. Like not waking up and looking at it. You're so disciplined Steph. Well, I know why you're successful. Because otherwise I go off the other side and I'm a complete nightmare.

So I keep my phone downstairs and then I came down and I had like literally hundreds of messages, missed calls from friends, loads of things on Instagram tagging me in. And this woman had written an article in the daily mail so it was in paper and online great saying i had a similar moment when i once woke up and me and michael go over on the front page because i'd slacked him off anyway but it said about something about slummy mummies and it said um it had me the un-mumsy mother four of us are scummy mummies there are a few different people and it said um it had me the unmum's mother four of us the scummy mummies there were a few different people and it said how we were basically playing to the idea of being slummy and we were highlighting didn't it have you as gin swigging yeah vicar's daughter vicar's daughter which i am but it was

just i love that that was in my intro my dad was like oh god and um but what happened was what and what i felt really strong it's like wait if you tell women that they're not allowed to say any of the negative stuff what are we like you that's really dangerous it's actually dangerous if everyone's got and there's already been that for years where people have kind of thought like when our head teacher at my kids school came up to me the next day and was like good on you when I was had my kids and her kids probably 10 or so years old as you know like a slightly different generation yeah if we had people coming around we cleaned up we were at you know we we it was all

about how it looked and we were trying to present that we had it all together and everything else she's like good on you because it was awful and I just thought exactly I'm not we're not living you know it's not we're not totally slumming it but to be able to joke about it or to be able to say it's not all roses yeah I think your um clothesline is as famous as you are yeah I know I always feel very reassured when I see your hair but isn't that ridiculous because I get messages from people saying oh it pleases me to see your washing. It pleases me. Where the hell else am I going to put it?

But what does that say about how people feel that they can be to show that you've got the washing out? That's a good point, Wendy, yes. You know, you can't possibly hide the washing when you've got a baby because there's just so much of it. Exactly. I don't understand still where all that laundry comes from because they only wear tiny little things.

It's the poo. No, it's the poo. Yeah, it's the numerous outfit changes a day. But also there's three kids in our house. And now everyone, you know, we've got rugby. I keep wanting to ask this. Is it a heated era, Steph? Now we've upgraded.

Somebody bought me a heated era. Because it has changed my life. I don't have one. Oh, Wendy, are you serious? Oh, God. Yeah. Now I know. I don't have one. Oh, Wendy, are you serious? Oh, God. Yeah. Now I know why I'm getting heat fever. I don't tumble dry.

I don't like tumble dryers. Which is good. I don't tumble dry. So, but the heated error is pretty special. We now at Netmums, when someone goes on mat leave, we give them a heated error. Do you really? We do. Maybe we should think about doing them in our packages.

I might start my own hashtag, heated errors save lives. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah yeah because i think it would be good for the the kind of gold standard package so obviously you're famous do you feel famous actually that's a word no no people stop you on the street and go hi stuff no occasionally where were we doug and i was oh doug and i we were in the gym the other morning and we were having a row about something. I've forgiven you for being in the gym by having a row in the gym. Someone came up and she went, I've just got to say,

she was running into a class and she was in a proper, I've just got to say, and we both stopped. And she went, I just, I really enjoy your Instagram. You, you, you know, it's very honest.

And I was like, we're just having a row. And she was like, I know you were. I love it. Like you were doing it's very honest and whatever and i was like we're just having a row and she was like i know you were i love it like you're doing it for her yeah well the dog was like at least people know that this isn't you're not you don't do it you don't make up content like pretend but that's the thing and i think this is why people like following you you're so real and not in a hey i'm being real today yeah honesty is my thing i've taken my makeup off yeah yeah yeah for one shot a year yeah um is does it feel like a chore though no that's what I think that's why because I don't and also like I'm not I don't particularly want more followers like it's it's

not my job isn't being an influencer so you don't like have a meeting with yourself once a month going right come on how many we don't do come on he's like how do you get more followers i was like oh you have to do you'd have to do things like doing your makeup you know i think you have to wake up with yourself on the daily mail website yeah that helps i think and also my priority and this has got clearer to me in the last year i think because last year was a weird one for instagram and people doing ads and and I don't I and I understandably I think generally um people who are following people start following them because they like who they are and the authenticity and stuff and then if they're suddenly getting a lot of free stuff I can understand why that's going to make someone feel a bit uncomfortable well it makes them feel a bit

like well I don't get that and they're a person. That's why I'm following them. I think also if you're a normal person who doesn't live in London, there's a lot of, lots of people think that anyone who is an Instagram influencer lives in London, they live this really great life where they get to go to posh hotels for launches. Yeah. And it kind of makes you not as relatable. No. Somehow. No.

And I think, yeah, and that I'm not an influencer in that. That's not my job. My job is don't buy flowers. And I've got a response, I think, especially in the last few months, the team's grown. We've moved to a new big warehouse. I've got responsibility to not cock that up. I've got, you know, I've got people who have salaries who need to pay their mortgage so if I'm floating about doing ads like for myself is it tempting though

what's the best thing you've been offered and turned down I don't know but I've turned down holidays and things because I think holidays are a really big deal for people if they haven't got a lot of money or say they've done something else that year with their money and they can't that's the first thing to go right holidays so to then watch someone else who has enough like i can we can afford a holiday if i then get an extra one just for whatever and it's a free one i just think and it would well i wouldn't enjoy it depends on your personality isn't it I'm a total stress head

so I would spend the whole time stressed that and but thinking oh god I've got to post something I don't want that on holiday like holidays

I need you know you need that we need it as a family so I think but I think it's got clearer to me in the last few months that that's not

where I want to be I think there has been a shift hasn't there and it's very different if your job is you're an influencer and you are riding that cash cow and that you know and and that's your focus that's your actual job and your income that's a different thing do you think it's ever going to end yeah I think oh I think it's changing already because I think it used to be that brands would go instead of spending money on

like a tv ad or whatever they've that's a big pot of money that they can go if I divvy that between 10 people who are going to put my message out and they each do a post do you know like in it so they could pay quite a lot of money and someone would do a post but I think what I would rather see is more connections with brands where someone is in a longer term relationship with a brand like I worked with Purcell and that was a longer term thing but also I use them and I'm always washing like it's not it's not a big leap it's not glamorous well you are known for your heiress exactly so I think if you can make sense of I think what happened for a while in the last year or two there's just a lot of people have been offered money and understandably

they've done posts but it's not necessarily something that they believe in or use or and i think people see that but what do you do do you get do you read the bad comments do you get many bad comments i don't do too badly i think um there was delete? I've never really... On your own feed? Yeah, like if someone says... You can hide them? I hate you. What do you do? You can hide them,

but it's like WhatsApp. When WhatsApp says, Wendy has left the conversation, it shows that you've hidden them. It's going to be me. Do they tend to DM you? Like actually message you? Yeah.

Do you know, I haven't... I'm going to get a load of abuse after this. But I don't get a lot i know that um i suppose you've got to think that if people are angry with somebody on social media it's usually something to do with their own circumstances it's not actually about that person but it doesn't feel nice if someone is saying mean things and when someone said that did it ever did it make you think i want to take a step back i didn't like this or were you just like oh it's part of the course whatever i think it i i it it hurts a bit you know you kind of think oh i'm trying i don't think i am an awful person

because i always think if i woke up tomorrow morning and i was kate middleton because that's the sort of thing we all think about every night beyonce yeah well even more like um that i just wouldn't read any of it and i wouldn't be that bothered but it it must hurt a little bit you'll forgive me steph but real celebs yeah yeah yeah no you're all right obviously read it and do obviously get but the ones who are most got their head screwed on probably don't no i just don't think i would bother no i don't really care i think if i was younger i think if i was in my 20s or 30s still i'm ancient now by the way um i think i would probably care more but i'm just at a phase in my life i really if people like me great and if they don't i really

don't care but it reminds me that our kids are gonna care yeah they that's a big difference well hopefully that is something that happens as you have how old's buster now nine has he got a phone no what are you gonna? What's your plan? Oh, God, I haven't really thought about it yet. I know, but it panics me, you know. Because has he got a phone? He's got one of our old phones instead of an iPad so he can watch YouTube on it on a Saturday.

They get an hour of screen time on a Saturday and an hour on a Sunday. But it's not a phone phone yet. But he likes the idea of it. Oh, yeah, but of course they do because they see us on it all the time. I know, but the thing is, I'm really torn. Is the way to manage it to keep them off it or is the way to manage how old so he's only eight so we've got a bit of time or is the way secondary school seems to be i know

they all seem to get them like on day one yeah or is the way to manage it to teach them to sort of slowly drip feed it to them so they learn how to manage it as they go. And I don't know. Well, the thing in my daughter's school now is most of the parents are getting kids' mobiles in year six of primary school, which gives them a year to twat about with it and get over the... Oh, look, I can send my mate a picture of my bum. For the boys, or whatever it might be.

I don't think boys ever grow out of that. No. And then, so by the time they start at secondary school hopefully they're a bit less obsessed with the kind of novelty of it and it is i don't want to think about mom the bus hasn't turned up come again oh yeah and i have big worries about porn yeah porn's just too accessible now yeah less i can't go there and you know with a teenage boy and a mobile phone buster said the other day i don't know if this is one we want to share. I could hear, I was going, so I want to, I go to Netball.

I've just discovered Netball. God, is there anything you don't do? No, I'm terrible, I'm terrible at it. Book me a guest. I'm terrible at it. Because as a kid at school, I was really chubby and I did drama. I'll show you pictures. I did drama and mime club yes mime oh my god and so

I wasn't I can feel it I wasn't I wasn't doing but I wasn't doing sport I didn't I avoided like like sport and PE lessons and stuff mime club school runs one in Stroud posh and no no it wasn't it's the comp and then, I can't even remember. Oh, and then I, so I was going off to netball where I can't throw or catch. Thing is I'm fit because I've got fit now, but I can't throw or catch. So it is a problem. And I don't know any of the rules because I didn't do it as a kid. But I got sacked from netball. So why exactly do you short? Oh yeah. I really enjoy it. Do you know what what because it's not like going to the gym where you're kind of going with purpose it's and it's a load of women who are all like my age or like

into their 40s and like we played against a teen the other day who was 16 to 18 year old women it was so funny well they all came in shorts and skirts you know they're young because we're all in leggings but jazzy ones jazzy ones but we're all in leggings and Jazzy ones. Jazzy ones. But we're all in leggings. And we had to do like a 20 minute warm up because otherwise everyone gets injured. And these girls were just like flitting about

hanging around and they're like we look like we're taking this really seriously but what's actually happening is we're old and if we don't lunge a bit first

we'll break stuff. The hips will go. I bet they don't wear two sports bras just to not get black eyes anyway i was on my way to netball and so doug has to get back at a decent time and he was bathing the kids and i could hear bus buster asking about sex but in a in a so um i i think you and mum might have done it i know maybe well done i could just i could hear and i could i could feel dog's face would be like

oh god i'm not sure what i don't know because i left i was like i've got to go bye um but no it's just quite funny but it's other kids at school had obviously been saying things so he's way off porn but i guess that could happen at any time and also the thing that worries me is the whole fomo thing like if we if you weren't invited to a party or whatever you wouldn't know till the monday morning and it might sting a bit a bit in registration and but then you'd get over it but to have to see it play out in real time that must be dreadful i think it must be yeah i hope i'm hoping with social media just full circle and everyone it's like we we got given it and we all went nuts for it i'm excited and like we we don't have we haven't put controls in place i don't think it'll ever be as unregulated as it is now it's very wild west

yeah and also like there was no guidance on how many hours would be good idea a day or anything like that it's just constant and you kind of hope that that will change also i i feel like i've not all the time but sometimes i'm like right i've got to just not look at anything today because i've got things i've really stepped away from it recently over christmas i was at my mom's there's something about being there that just feels very sort of lo-fi so I did really didn't enter into it at all and I have actually tried hard not to go back in the back onto it in the new year because it just makes me feel rubbery well that's the thing and then you everyone talks about oh create your feed and don't it's hard to not things come up don't

they you're always seeing things and there's not very many people who post only miserable stuff with their washing in the background I know one does there's always gonna be things. And there's not very many people who post only miserable stuff with their washing in the background. No one does. You're not miserable. No, no. But there's always going to be some glower to people's posts. Although the week the three kids were ill, you were miserable. And I feel your pain.

All three. And Doug was away. Because it's real. But I don't want to see everyone's weekend in St. Lucia in January. Yeah. I mean, like, what? Go away. It just makes me miserable.

It's a funny place. I think it's... I don't know what the answer is, but for me it is, if I'm feeling rubbish, it's definitely not a good idea to go on social media. But it tends to be that's what we do

because you're feeling rubbish so you're sitting there and you start scrolling and it just makes you plummet into a worse place. But it's a negative feedback do because you're feeling rubbish so you're sitting there and he starts groaning and it just makes you plummet into a worse place but it's a negative feedback loop because yeah you go on you say some stuff you get some feedback from people for that stuff whether that's good or bad and it's just it keeps perpetuating yeah yeah definitely so they've done your neural pathway stuff aren't they all in full of one of the two you're quite honest about

your relationship on there as well, though. Does Doug mind? He, so, because I put a blog post out this week. He reads all the blog posts I put. I would show them to him first, because I think it would be a bit off if I put something out. That's very good of you. But he, Doug doesn't have any, he doesn't get embarrassed. He has no, he has no level.

Married the right man. I did. doesn't have any he doesn't get embarrassed he has no he has no level of right i did so he doesn't get embarrassed and he's quite as long as he's quite self-confident so as long as he's as long as i'm not making anything up if i was trashing him i think that would be another thing but quite often i think when i've written about your rows and stuff yeah but i'm quite often reflecting on it from both sides you're very honest about yourself saying, I was really mean to him. Yeah, or I've been mental because I was hungry or whatever. So I think that's the key bit. So occasionally he'll read and go,

I think this might be veering towards abuse and then we'll have to stay back. But again, I had the post I put out this week. I think the biggest thing that I've like, that I probably have written about with, in terms of relationships is that it's not all easy and it's not an upward curve i think and you've never arrived that's my new thought on relationships you haven't landed what you mean you never end there's no end there's no like oh and isn't it what perfect now we've done it we've it's just a

constant shifting exactly and i think that i did not know that when I got married. I thought the whole thing was, we'll get married. I don't think anybody knows that when they get married. So it's going to be an upward curve to more bliss. And actually, it wasn't. And actually, it's really up and down. And sometimes you feel really connected. And other times you're in the same house, but you're not really talking. Or you're kind of moving around silently

or kind of giving them death stares behind their bank or whatever other times than breathing mate she wants to kill them or eating like oh eating would you stop shoveling that he's like that mid bite like oh oh okay this is so i think but that i i feel all right to talk about that i think because when i talk when i to my friends about that you all open up but I think what's sad is I always get messages from people going I didn't realise that this is how lots of people felt

and then they were in there and that's why social media is brilliant because you do as long as you're following the right people you do get a glimpse of the reality behind closed doors that you're not the only one feeling absolutely. Whether that's like about your body or about your relationship or about motherhood. Or that you don't look like a goddess 24 hours a day.

Well, or in the other day. But I think that's, but I think that's, I think that bit of social media is really important. The idea that there's other people who might not be having a great time. And actually loads of those people who would then DM me, they don't want to share their own story and that's all right but they just maybe feel a bit better to know that other people might be and then lots

of people commented on it so there's other people there going oh my god i had this route this morning oh my god we we used to be because the blog post started that I went to home base with Frank the other week. And this couple swished in. But they just looked all clean. And they had nice clothes. And they were holding hands. They probably had sex that morning. You know, they looked young and happy.

And I was with Frank. Did they have kids? No, they were really young. But we used to go to that same home base and lived around the corner when we first got together and that would have been us probably and now we just don't now we're bickering about well I don't want to get a hamster he doesn't need a hamster about the kids or whatever and it's just a whole but we're in a different phase maybe one day we'll go back to swishing around but not when there's not when there's three kids and i think i think that i don't know i think reading and hearing about that is quite important because otherwise you are in a in a

really isolated bubble going oh my god my life's over i'm having a terrible time our relationship's doomed it's like or maybe your relationships just go up and down well yeah or you're desperately striving to make it amazing without realizing that not everyone's living a honeymoon every day no and also you can get bits of i think who is who's the um is he a psychotherapist alan du baton do you know him i don't know how he said so it was probably not but he talks about how we've come to relationships have started to become a thing where you look for everything from your part you expect everything from your partner. Well, I think internet dating has changed that a lot. So they've got a, like, your holidays are going to be really good with them,

you're going to cook nice things together, they're going to be your confident and your best mate, and he's like, actually, that's not possible from one person. No. So you might have, it might be that when you go on holidays with your girlfriends, you get something else from that, or, you know, which which you do don't you well yeah because you don't live in isolation just

with your partner no but what our expectations are and they will be an amazing parent alongside me and they will be coach me when my work's bad or and it's actually i think we have a duty as parents i don't want to get too serious but i do think you need to educate kids young on that kind of stuff i've got a friend who's a novelist and she was writing a book christen me about um falling in love and she wanted kids perspectives on it and she said what do you think your kids think about falling in love and i said i don't know i said but i would really what i want to teach you and you've actually made me realize this is that you wake up every morning and choose to love that person like it's not just a state that happens upon you and that's exactly it

stays with you forever yeah you have to actually you have to actually wake up and choose yeah you have to want to make it work and that doesn't mean it always does i think there's a difference between the other thing is i think there's a big difference between couples who kind of suddenly go this isn't as much fun. Like, where's the fun bit gone? And this is quite hard. And couples where there's like abuse or cheating or like that's a different thing.

But I think that the relationships that I'm talking about are the ones where a lot of us are in, where you kind of go, oh, we're not, we don't seem to be very nice to each other anymore. Like the kindness is gone. And when the, you know,

and you have to make that effort well with kids it's all just about teamwork isn't it you're just trying to survive and get everyone alive through the week survival especially when they're little yeah i wonder when it shifts i mean speak to mum's teens yeah no don't oh really the mums i know of teens say it's much much worse well i think that's hormones hormones some i think sometimes people forget how intense that first bit is though so they kind of go oh it doesn't get any better it's like but at some point you get your brain back a bit and it's manual labor it's manual labor with no sleep like there's no other job in the world where you make someone do something physical and wake them

up every hour. Which, and I don't mean in that that having teenagers will be easy. I'm sure it isn't. But it's probably more of an emotional. It's emotional. Yeah, I can get that already with my nine-year-old. Really? Well, the connection, like, so my two-year-old is, I think, you know, everything.

Him of the snot. And him of the snot. Yeah, apart from when he snots on my coat. And he, I'm always there. And he puts his little chubby hand up and holds your hand stuff you know and then the nine-year-old will kind of give me a withering look or whatever and but there's less for us to connect over so i've realized i have to make an effort to find what that is i've got to find because he plays football and rugby and doug coaches the rugby and so he's like so they've got that they've got that

so i have to kind of create one or make an effort to find one or sit and watch Star Wars with him, which we watched the whole lot over Christmas, all nine. You're such a good mum. Well, I'd never watched them. I quite enjoyed it. I draw the line. So that begs the question,

was it a big decision to decide to go in for number three? Yeah, because you're hovering, wavering, trying to persuade Tim. Divorce, if I try. Well, so Doug was not keen. And we kept, and then he kept going, oh, maybe. And I think he, I remember coming home one day, and he was like, he'd been in someone's office, and they had a picture, and it had three kids in the picture.

And he was like, oh, maybe that would be really nice. And he kept swinging back and forth. Meanwhile, I got pregnant. But do you know what? I done i'm so done and i didn't feel like that when i had you've got quite a lot of brothers and sisters yeah five brothers and sisters wow so i kind of always wanted a big for two felt a bit dull and i know it's not because two every now and then now someone was like oh two would have been enough the thing is, I just couldn't go for that. I couldn't do a third pregnancy for a start because my pregnancies were horrendous. But I just, I'm out of the nappy phase. Everyone's at school.

Yeah. Like, I don't have to get up in the night with anyone if I don't want to. Squidgey little baby bums. I know, I know. I don't want to go back. I just can't go back. We, I think, we had quite a big gap. So Buster and Mabel were really close together. Yeah. 21 months. 21 months and then i had how old was mabel when you had frank then

five so i had quite a big gap because i would know and i was getting the business started and then when i had them when i had frank i was at a point where it ran with it runs without me because we've got the ops team so um but i that gap is actually really lovely so i you know you know because they're quite protective of hair they're really they're not lovely to each other because they're 21 months apart so they bicker and fight and poke each other but they're lovely to him so he kind of like when he's snotting on me this morning the two of them are in together laughing you know i mean it was all hilarious right does he totally rule the roost yeah a little bit he sits at the end of the table in his high chair banging stuff

flow runs our house like steph sat at the head of my table that's flow seat if she walked in now she'd be like what's steph doing in my seat that's yeah frank sits at the end and he know he knows that he's like when he lobs something across that there's's a... And then they'll laugh, and then he gets away with it. So he'll probably be an awful brat, but anyway. But no, that gap is actually quite lovely. Yeah. So you end... I'm surprised you say you would go for a third,

seeing as you had a difficult time with Grace. So this is... You share something, in that you've both had a run-in with cancer. Oh, okay. Not me personally. So Wendy's youngest... Wendy, I'll let you tell the story um

grace was seven months old when she was diagnosed with something called a wilms tumor which was became affectionately known as wilmer from there on in which is a kidney tumor so she had a kidney tumor the size of an ostrich egg which we had to make the consultant demonstrate what an ostrich egg was because i didn't know i'd go quite big it's a generous easter egg gosh is how he described it and she's absolutely fine she had it out it was stage one and she's now you're making it sound a lot more yeah i would know but um it's not what you expect when you take your seven-month-old to the hospital. She was seven months. How did they find it so quickly?

Because Wendy's an amazing mum. The doctors thought it was poo. So I spent six weeks with them telling us it was impacted poo. And giving her enough laxatives. She was literally just shitting everywhere. And then we decided that this big lump wasn't good and went to A&E and they gave I afterwards I I have afterwards met the junior doctor who I saw who said oh I knew what it was when we sent you no what an amazing doctor he was well he didn't tell us at the time he said I'll send you for a scan and he knew yeah and then i had that thing which i don't

pretend to know what it's like to have cancer myself but you go into a room and there's always a nurse and she always has a box of tissues and you that so you're sat there with this nurse and she kind of like she hands you a tissue and then the consultant starts speaking oh man they need to redo that oh well it's difficult though isn't it like what's the well and grace was like on my lap hungry and in a strop because it was bedtime yeah um so it was a fairly like but the difference between stage one like that's the key bit the difference finding it at stage one the reason i bring it up is because obviously yeah doug yeah so doug was diagnosed with cancer but his was stage three.

When I was, or late stage three, when I was pregnant with our first. So I was 14 weeks pregnant. So we'd just done the whole, no, I told everyone. And how did he find out? So he had, he was like getting night sweats and had like a loose tummy and didn't't feel right but because he used to play rugby at quite a high level and so he was it's quite physical and quite fit and healthy and he knew his body quite well um and he went to the gp and the gp was like oh i think it's probably stress and he was walking out and he had and this is one of those like oh god he had his hand on the

door handle and he turned around do you know what i've got private health care through my work can you just refer me i i'd like to get it checked out it's one of those sliding doors yeah because apparently it's always the moment when they go out the door that like the most important thing gets said and i know that gps get taught that in their training they're like or the the bit they say is they're about to go out the door is the most important bit well and then he so he went for tests and stuff but he knew he knew he was like he said he i think he saw the face of one of the people no but also i nearly didn't go when he got the results because i was like i'm pregnant oh he's 30 he's really fit and he's but i've spoke to my boss this is my old job i spoke to my boss that morning my old job I spoke to my boss

that morning oh Doug's got some test results actually so I might I know and he's like Steph go with him and thank god because it was the tissue I mean Doug actually sat very stoically and was like I know I know what this is um but I was pregnant well the same I was this weeping sobbing wreck um so then he had to have like major surgery so his thyroid really rare thyroid cancer so i think there's lots of thyroid cancer most of them are very treatable um his was really rare so he actually still has cancer but this is like nine years on and it's not done anything so they removed it thyroid cancer apparently if you examine the thyroids of lots of people who die of old age

loads of people have it and have had it for a long time but it's just not but this is it's not a curable one and there's two different types and this is a medullary thyroid cancer it's really rare and it's really rare for someone at his age to have got it um but so now they monitor it he had like surgery six weeks of radiotherapy i went into labour the day after he finished radiotherapy. Oh my goodness. Do you think your body knew? Yeah, I think I was... That's so fascinating to me.

I think I was tense. Because basically the whole pregnancy after 14 weeks was tests. And you know what it's like with diagnosis. It's constant new information. Constant scans. Constant scans. New information. Oh, now we're going to do this.

Let's stay focused. And trying to keep up. And everyone wants to talk to you. And the whole, oh, they've got temperature. We have to go to hospital right now. That was the thing. We always had to be, if her temperature went above 37.9, we had to be in hospital within an hour.

And on IV antibiotics within 90 minutes or something. How did you not just hover over her with a thermometer all the time? I had another child. I had no time to hover over with a thermometer. And Grace, obviously Annie knows Grace. Grace is Grace. She is this indomitable force who will not be... She did what she wanted irrespective of what she had.

I remember going to see you and you were waiting to find out how bad it was when you went gosh and her just like crawling around on the floor and she and i just remember looking at her and just thinking how can this be this just can't be because look at her she never got the memo that she was ill she never got the memo and then even i can show you a picture the day they took her tumour she's got this great big shark bite scar all across her tummy. She hasn't eaten in 40 hours. They've blown her up with fluid.

She looks like the Michelin Man. She's just beaming at everybody. She was super sweet. Now she's an absolute little nightmare. But I think the impact as well of going through something like that, you probably wouldn't have even known at the time because you would have been,

especially with another child, you would have been especially with another child you would you would have been just managing and coping and this is well it's funny you say that one of my good friends has a experience with cancer as well she says the thing that always resonates with her is when people say how do you do it and the response is you weren't given a choice no it's a good response and you know i'm sure you guys know um deborah baobab yes and she um she and people go like how does she find the energy how she's like that's just who she is and she and she doesn't but she doesn't have much choice like she's powering through i think it's changed you yeah i don't know that we would have started the business

actually i think it gave because it's that you only live once kind of it is a bit like that it's a bit life is short like you literally don't know what's around have started the business, actually. Really, why? Because it's that... You only live once kind of thing. It is a bit like that. It's a bit life is short. Like, you literally don't know what's around the corner. Like, we've been married less than two years. I was 29, Doug was 30. I was pregnant. God, so young.

Really young. And just all we've been doing to that point was having fun. Yeah. Because that's what you do in the first couple of years. I wondered where you were going with that. Yeah. Well, and that. Yeah.

Ah, those are the days but and i think so it was it was such a shock and also i think it did have an impact like when we had our second baby um 20 months 21 months after buster i i really struggled and i think because like a delayed delayed reaction yeah i think with the first one, I had to keep going. Like, we had a baby. Doug was recovering from... Like, radiotherapy is a cumulative, so... But at the end of his treatment was when he then felt the worst and was really quite poorly.

Just in time for you to have a newborn. Yeah, and it was on his throat, so he couldn't really eat. He'd lost his voice and all that kind of thing and was waiting for results to find out you know was it hereditary and did like all this stuff that was going on so actually when we had our second and he was seemingly okay I think I probably had massive expectation of how it was going to be all about the baby and me and he was going to be really supportive and he couldn't possibly have lived up to that the lesson is that you can't really go through anything that big and it not have an impact obviously he drives me insane for lots of reasons and i talk about them all my

favorite is when he goes out and you make up his bed on the sofa the sofa hotel love it why would you let someone who's been out drinking oh no yeah no i wouldn't come and get in your bed i'm really strict about it too yeah that was but that was a marriage lesson that we probably a few years in learn don't try and just carry on you can't interestingly you're the only like parenting and stick around but influence a person who my husband follows he might have a bit of a crush on you but now sometimes I'll come in and he'll be like, Doug's been out. Which means that he's seen you put that on. Is he going to turn up in a minute and start swinging? Look, I put a glass of water there. There's a duvet

in the pillow. Unless I'm really tired and I've gone to bed and he's not supposed to have stayed. Like if it's all gone awry. That's when we have our worst route yeah unexpected late nights out i can't a friend of mine once her husband not husband partner didn't come home so she locked and double bolted both of the doors and she woke up in the morning to find him laying on the patio oh we've done something wrapped in the barbecue cover because he was so cold i think that sounds like bird grill barbecue covers what a clever idea well i'd have frozen to death but he knocked on the door she wouldn't let him in she heard what happened he woke up and had a shower and went to work and you don't mess with

kel that was just yeah let it be known let it be known again i bet he hasn't done it it's the when they're like i'll be home at seven eight 10. We don't do that really anymore. You used to do that more. I must say, I'm actually the bad one about that. I hilariously, two Christmas parties ago, sent a message that said, I'll be home at 12, and the timestamp on it was 4.10. Yeah. It's this total double standard.

It all got out of control. Yeah, I'm terrible once I'm out. I didn't hear from you. Yeah, the world just... You think you're this doting wife and mother, don't you? Until you're out with three gins down and then they all just disappear from memory. So, Steph, we have some regular questions

that we would like to ask you. Best birth of the three. Is there such a thing mine were all good if as far i mean they hurt i'm not gonna lie it's smart but are they sunroofs or no they were all vaginal deliveries i love that word they were all they got quicker um i think the my probably the third was my favorite in that I could I knew what was happening so I could remember it and I could there's a lot to be said for knowing what's going to come yeah the first one I was and I didn't have I didn't I had gas and air with Buster and Mabel but frankly I didn't have anything because it was so quick but I was

really conscious of what was happening I was a bit spaced out with Buster had you done hypnobirthing no but my mum was a midwife and I think well the whole hypnobirthing I was off obviously I've got friends who teach it and I was offered it but I think it would have made me overthink it so I think I grew up with the view that having babies was quite normal and it hurts but it's quite so I wasn't afraid of it and I think for that reason that helped me just not get too stressed out about it but sometimes people can't help it because it's their body physically I've got a friend she didn't dilate um it just didn't just didn't dilate apart beyond like one centimeter and when I was about 37 weeks pregnant with Frank I went for a checkup and they went you are actually about um two to

three centimeters oh no was it two maybe two centimeters dilated i was like oh shit what is it happening am i in labor no no sometimes when it's your third you just are right i'm walking around dilate and i told my friend this who never dilate and she's like what for god's sake that's the thing isn't it it's so different it's so different i know a mum of four who said you never go back to undilated after the four oh god you just remain a little bit i think it's but i think it again it's another of those things like the combo feeding or baby it's like it has to have a label and then you've got to punish people that don't do it in the way that you do it yeah i know the group of people in the world are birth shamers anyone who comes down on anyone for the way they give birth but I've never managed to have a natural birth

because I had to have two caesareans and that was a big deal for you it still upsets me I still feel like I'm missing something trust me you're not if you've done it it's okay to say that but if you haven't there's always a bit of you that thinks it'd be quite nice to know yeah but there's upsides

I don't feel like i've done it properly oh it's weird but you've got and also like and believe me a cesarean's no walk in the park exactly exactly but i think once you get past a certain point no one you don't look you know same with i mean it's same with breastfeeding but you don't look at a class of kids and go well that one came out that way that one was someone i once spoke to said you never sit at a class of kids and go well that one came out that way that one was someone i once spoke to said you never sit at a wedding looking at the bride and groom saying i know he was a c-section yeah that one was clearly spoon fed yeah yeah exactly it's just rubbish isn't it yeah it is it's just another thing for everyone to feel guilty and stressed about and we don't have energy for

that like that's the energy to have headspace no too tired so the last question is what is your worst pregnancy moment or your worst pregnancy memory or the most embarrassing thing you did uh oh god you're talking to two women who both had hyperemesis so threw up in pretty much every place you can imagine no i didn't sorry't. Sorry, I didn't have sickness. I know that's really annoying. I know, because I remember when I first met you, you were pregnant with Frank and you looked gorgeous. But, and you were just like completely normal.

Like at that stage in any of my pregnancies, I was just lying on my back, throwing up with a drip in my arm. I think probably it would be something, no, well, does it, did labour? You can have labour? Just pooing everywhere with who was it with i can't remember i think it was this three blank i'm sure don't remember

no because i wrote about it in a book it was with mabel when i was in so because they were quite quick after my first and they'd take me into triage to get me checked and everything when i should have just been going straight onto the ward because that baby was coming out so with my second they'd said the same thing um and again they took me into triage and they're getting me to climb up on the bed and then I'd climb up and I'd have another contraction getting down and uh so they whipped us into this room there were all these couples in there who were clearly nowhere near I was the baby was coming out I was mooing there was I was mooing. There was a lot of noise.

I never mooed. I missed out on that. I'm really mooed, especially with my second. And there, so there's all these couples behind curtains, you know, like just quietly sitting

and quietly having contractions. And I come in and I'm like, oh, like mooing. And then, I'm shitting. I'm shitting. No, no.

And Doug going, we know, darling. Everyone knows. Because they could hear it. They could hear it splatting on the floor. No, you're joking. No, I'm not joking. And then these poor couples who were probably in the early stages of labour. Were also shitting.

This is coming. This is going to happen. They were behind these curtains. What did you want to know? What was coming in? I know the baby was coming. But the thing is as well, that's what happens when a baby's coming. I've never asked and I don't remember.

Well, I knew. I was very aware of what was happening. It was just the dog. We know, darling. We know. God, that man deserves a medal, doesn't he? I know. So that's probably, that was, I mean, I was still pregnant then.

That was a wonderful moment. That's worse than our vomiting stories definitely worse all right well on that joyous great we'll say thank you very much for being such a great guest