Episode description

Samantha Alice Leigh had hyperemesis gravidarum through two pregnancies. Sickness so severe she couldn't eat, couldn't leave her bed for months, and couldn't bring herself to celebrate either baby until she was 20 weeks along. This episode is about what that illness actually felt like, and what it took from her identity, twice over.

Sam grew up in Oldham, the eldest of three, learning early to hold things together. She spent over a decade building a life in Australia with her partner Paul before moving home to the UK where for a second time, hyperemesis gravidarum and new motherhood stripped her sense of self back to almost nothing - first it was physical, then, the second time, mental. She talks to Bethany Wright about dimming her light at school, the redundancy that reshaped her twenties, becoming a mum in a country far from family, and why she eventually decided to talk about all of it publicly and honestly on Instagram, as Motherhood Diaries.

Show notes

This is a conversation about the identities motherhood takes from us and the ones we have to rebuild in its place - sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once. Sam and Bethany talk through two decades of friendship and one very honest account of what hyperemesis gravidarum actually costs, physically and mentally, and what's left of you on the other side of it.

Themes:

• Hyperemesis gravidarum
• Identity and motherhood
• Isolation in early parenting
• Long-distance friendship
• Building a life abroad
• Learning to be "not there yet" without a deadline attached.

If you've ever lost your sense of who you are inside new motherhood, or wished someone had warned you what pregnancy could actually feel like, this one's for you.

Key takeaways

• Hyperemesis gravidarum is far more than "bad morning sickness" and the lack of awareness around it leaves women feeling like they're failing at something that's actually a medical illness.
• Identity loss in motherhood isn't a failure of resilience - it's a near-universal experience most people just don't say out loud.
• Community with people in the same season of life isn't a nice-to-have when you're isolated - it's often the thing that gets you through.
• "Quality over quantity" applies to more than content - Sam's approach to slow, honest growth on Instagram is really a philosophy about not performing a version of yourself you don't recognise.

Find Samantha Alice

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Find the The Not There Yet Project:

• ⁠Website⁠⁠⁠
• Instagram⁠⁠
• ⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠
• ⁠Substack
  

Podcast editor

⁠Charlotte Gunnell⁠