with Phoebe Bell from Sage & Clare
Today on with the show, I’m chatting with the wonderful & warm Phoebe Bell, the woman behind the incredibly iconic brand (which I’m sure you’re all familiar with) Sage & Clare. We recorded this back at the beginning of the year before I birthed my daughter Banksy.
Phoebe wasn’t a woman who was certain she wanted kids until she fell in love with her partner and realised how important it was to him. Eventually, she had a moment of certainty and they began trying to conceive. But, much to their dismay, their first baby took close to 5 years to conceive which was eventually successful through IVF, her beautiful son Jude.
Her Daughter Heidi was also born via a natural IVF cycle a few years later using embryos remaining from her first IVF experience. Phoebe talks about how disruptive IVF is to a person’s life, and how you can’t plan and schedule in advance, you are at the mercy of the entire process. She says it was almost a part-time job doing these fertility treatments but luckily for her, managing life was much easier for her than it may be for others, as she was running Sage & Clare and could choose her own hours.
Phoebe experienced major burnout about 6 months after her son was born, as she admits she thought she was superhuman, trying to do it all (which I, and I’m sure many others can relate to). She felt disconnected from the mother’s group as she was the only Mum utilizing childcare so that she could work, and she felt shame about that.
“There’s a relentlessness to motherhood. It’s not a sprint.
You need to keep something in reserve. “
Her daughter, Heidi, was born during covid 2020 (3.5 years later) so that was a stressful and disruptive time for her business. Though she talks of how her second birth and postpartum period helped to heal what she had experienced the first time around. Phoebe found the shift from 1-2 easier than 0-1, and though she feels like her identity wasn’t impacted as much as other women, she feels softer, more nuanced than she did before becoming a Mother.
Phoebe talks of her version of success being: working towards a harmonious family life with both herself and her partner working in the business, and prioritizing the family as a unit rather than one person above another. Phoebe also discusses many medical conditions during this episode, including her IVF process, including hyper ovarian stimulation syndrome, chronic mastitis, hip dysplasia, chronic pain.
This is an episode rich with experience, inspiration and it’s a real affirmation to those of us who are under the illusion that some Mothers are able to do it all – reality check, we’re not supposed to! We need to ask for help, we need a village, and this episode will help you to understand how to ask for support.
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SHOW NOTES:
This episode is sponsored by Noonie. Revolutionary postpartum recovery care invented and designed in Australia. Enter MotherOther to get 15% off your order at noonieaustralia.com.
Sage & Clare Website
Original Music by J. Dale Pearson.
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