In this bonus episode, I talk to Ruth Brennan, whose periods started to change when she was 36 years old, and who eventually went on to be diagnosed with POI (premature ovarian insufficiency). We talk about her journey to a diagnosis, what it was like to realise that she was infertile, navigating treatments and bone health issues, and the psycholog…

Jenny Cooper has experienced more loss and grief than most, and in this episode of Bits of Me she shares her story of having four consecutive miscarriages, followed by a full-term pregnancy that ended in the birth of her daughter, Georgia Penelope, who died in the womb at 38 weeks' gestation. It's about love and fear, about anxiety and loss, and ab…

In this episode, I talk to Margaret O'Connor, a counsellor and psychotherapist who is childfree by choice. A few years ago, she decided to set up a dedicated service called Are Kids For Me, specifically for those trying to make the decision whether or not to become parents. We talk about the factors that influence the decision, the reasons why it's…

Is breast always best? Can mastitis always be treated with cold cabbage leaves? And if we talk about the uptake of breastfeeding being too low, what does that even mean? In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to podcaster and mother of one (very soon two) Laetitia Gordon-Furse, who went through hell pumping relentlessly for weeks when her first son …

In this episode, I talk to Anita Elawure, who was diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) at just 19, meaning that she entered premature menopause. We talk about what it was like to be told that she would be infertile and had to go on HRT at such a young age, what it means to enter menopause prematurely, her encounters with healthcare …

Jen Hall is the social media and website coordinator at The MASIC Foundation, which supports women who have suffered serious injuries during childbirth. Jen suffered a third-degree tear after a forceps delivery in 2013, and shares her story of the birth, the consequences, and her work with MASIC. We talk about the Ockenden report, the culture that …

What happens if you have to choose between period pads and crucial food items for your weekly shop? What should period education look like, and why is it still the worst thing in the world for a girl to bleed through at school? Friday the 28th of May was World Menstrual Hygiene Day. This week's episode deals with related issues as I speak to Claire…

Linda Kelly is a Trade Union Official by day and a long-time women’s rights campaigner, now also the founder of Women Ascend and member of the Better Maternity Care campaign. She gave birth to her second baby during lockdown. Emma Carroll is an environmental scientist and farmer who had her first baby at the start of the pandemic, and since Septemb…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to mother-of-two Dee Naughton about her experiences of papillomas, lobectomies and a mastectomy. She was pregnant with her first child when she started having some unusual discharge and eventually started bleeding from her nipple, and she shares her story of a short stint of breastfeeding, of navigating the cha…

How do you know when you're ready? What does that even mean? Will it hurt? Where did your libido go? What about episiotomy and C-section scars and all the physio-related issues? What if you're just feeling touched out and you can't stop thinking about nappies, breastmilk and whether you're running out of bananas? How do you even begin to talk to yo…

In this episode, I talk to clinical negligence lawyer Hannah Seignior about her experience of having numerous smear tests come back with abnormal test results from the age of 18. She shares her experience of advocating for herself, going through a painful colposcopy, learning from a healthcare professional while a gang of student doctors were stand…

In episode 34, I talk to Melissa Plunkett, a midwifery student and mother of two. She shares her experience of being induced at almost 42 weeks, and the drawn-out, confusing birthing experience that followed, ending up in an emergency Caesarean section and a lack of faith in her own body's capacity to give birth 'naturally'. Melissa went on to have…

This episode of Bits of Me feels quite special, because Helen Ledwick is a mum of two who decided to start a podcast about women's health after learning that she had pelvic organ prolapse – which, if you know anything about the origins of Bits of Me, you'll know is exactly what I did! Anyway – Helen is just lovely, and in this episode she generousl…

In this episode, I talk to Irish-language children's author, TV production assistant and researcher, and all-round maker and creative, Sadhbh Devlin, about her two ectopic pregnancies. Sadhbh has polycystic ovarian syndrome and had very irregular periods, so conceiving wasn't easy for her in the first place – but then she had both her fallopian tub…

Anna Fitzgerald is a mother of three, but her journey to motherhood was far from straight-forward. She suffered two miscarriages along the way, and all her three babies were born prematurely. In this episode of Bits of Me, Anna shares her experience of going into labour early, of her waters breaking at 20 weeks, of spending weeks in the NICU, pumpi…

For episode 30, the first episode of Bits of Me with two guests, I spoke to Fiona Dunkin and Aoife Frances, two friends who created a zine about fertility, motherhood and beyond earlier this year. We talk about their own experiences of the above, from early activist ventures including a campaign to make the morning-after pill more accessible, to Fi…

For this week's episode, I spoke to Ireland's first menopause speaker, Catherine O'Keeffe, about what to expect when the peri-menopause hits and what you can do to help yourself with the journey ahead. How do you know when it's starting? Can and should you stay on the contraceptive pill? Should you consider HRT, do you need to take supplements, and…

Orla Kerbey is a fundraising professional, runner, yoga teacher, dog fanatic, and lover of sea swimming. We recorded this episode in October 2020, when she was heavily pregnant with her daughter, who was born a few weeks later after a long journey with endometriosis, cysts, and IVF. We talk about the pain and procedures Orla went through before get…

Are we putting female beauty above female mental health? Bits of Me is back with season two! In this episode, I talk to Anna Jacob, who's had acne throughout her teens and adult life. When her acne started to negatively impact on her self-esteem, she was prescribed the contraceptive pill, Dianette, which cleared up her skin – but it had disastrous …

It's the end of the first season of Bits of Me, and we look back at the 25 episodes I've published so far, talking about everything from urinary incontinence and birth injuries to endometriosis, infertility, PMDD and ageing. Thank you to all the women featured in this season and this mini episode: Sarah Sproule, Kate Brayden, Lynn Enright, Elisha C…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Monica Heck, a mother of two who was diagnosed with Graves' disease after having her first child. She started experiencing symptoms of hyperthyroidism about four months post-partum and has since been on different medication to help with thyroid dysfunction as well as antibodies as a result of her auto-immune…

Elizabeth Sankey is a film maker, mother, and one half of the band Summer Camp. After giving birth to her first child back in August, she started suffering from severe anxiety and suicidal thoughts, and was eventually taken in to a Mother and Baby Unit in London. In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Elizabeth about what those early weeks were l…

Angela Coraccio is a writer and editor who was involved in starting up the Abortion Rights Campaign in Ireland. In this episode of Bits of Me, she shares her experience of infertility: from fighting for an endometriosis diagnosis and coming to terms with the fact that her husband was not sold on the idea of trying for a baby, to measuring and sched…

In this episode, I talk to Michelle Mayefske, a mother of five and birth and post-partum doula with a passion for advocating for pregnant women in bigger bodies. Michelle shares her birth experiences, from a straight-forward but far from empowering hospital birth in America, via a non-consensual membrane sweep and an unassisted birth, to some wonde…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Simone, a 21-year-old university student with a stage-three uterine prolapse. Simone found a bulge in her vagina when she was 18 years old, but she was too embarrassed to go to the doctor about it at first. She shares her story of showing her mother a photo of her vulva, going off to Denmark for studies abro…

Sandy Connolly is a mother and independent post-partum doula supporting people on their reproductive journeys and post-partum experiences. She was told at a reasonably young age that she would never be able to have children, but then she went on to get pregnant and have a daughter, Juno. Following that, she suffered a number of losses and years of …

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to activist, creative and mother-of-two Jac Sinnott, who started experiencing feelings of uncontrollable rage and low moods after weaning her youngest child. She shares her story of being misdiagnosed with post-natal depression, googling in search for answers, trying to find the right pills to help her, and get…

Around the world, there are more people suffering from incontinence than hayfever, yet both urinary and fecal incontinence are still shrouded in stigma and shame. In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Luce Brett, author of PMSL: or How I Literally Pissed Myself Laughing and Survived the Last Taboo to Tell the Tale. We talk about antenatal classe…

Emer O'Neill, a teacher, model and now mother of two, was heavily pregnant when the first lockdown hit. In this episode of Bits of Me, she shares her story of going into labour and giving birth at a time when partners were only welcome on the labour ward for very limited periods of time; of getting support and advice when figuring out breastfeeding…

Around one in ten women will at some point suffer from vaginismus, a condition that can make sexual intercourse and tampon use very painful or even impossible. In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Grace Alice O'Shea, a Galway-based relationship and sexual health educator who grew up in Kerry and suffered from vaginismus for eight years. She sha…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Kath Sansom, whose life was changed overnight when she had a TVT mesh implant to help with minor incontinence issues. Kath explains how the controversial mesh implants have ruined lives by causing auto-immune issues and chronic pain and cutting through organs like the bladder, bowel and vagina, and shares he…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Carly Bailey, a mother of two smallies and activist on social, economic and feminist issues including housing, education and repeal. She is now a Social Democrats councillor on the South Dublin County Council. Carly has PCOS and endometriosis and struggled to conceive. In this episode, she shares her experie…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Gillian Roddie, an Innovation Program Manager, Learning Specialist and mother of two. She is also the brain behind @evidentiallyyou on Instagram, previously Science Snaps on Snapchat, a platform where she discusses everything from biology and immunology to feminism, mental health and contraception. I asked G…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Kim Hanly, a computing student and mother of two. A cervical cancer survivor and the founder of Cervical Cancer Awareness Ireland, she shares her story of getting bad news from a smear, the scans and treatments that followed, and the journey to recovery and beyond. Kim explains what all the various different…

From hot flushes and vaginal dryness to anxiety and a distinct lack of joie de vivre, the menopause can bring about all sorts of struggles for women from as early as their late 30s. In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to divorced mother of two, Loretta Dignam, who is the Founder and CEO of The Menopause Hub in Dublin, Ireland's first and only cli…

What's it like to be a single woman at 40, and to think you want kids but know that you don't want to go it alone? What are the obstacles to motherhood for a single woman in Ireland, the expectations that make being single and childless tricky, and the other aspects of life as single at 40 that might make you "aggressively identify as single"? In t…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to pastry chef and mother of two Tracey Bourke, who has suffered from urge incontinence for most of her life but also ended up with pelvic organ prolapse after having a hysterectomy. We talk about what it's like to constantly manage the fear of wetting oneself, how difficult it is to get the help you need to ma…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Sarah Rose McCann, a freelance writer from Belfast who has been struggling with bladder pain for almost as long as she can remember. We talk about her coping mechanisms as a child, including developing anorexia to distract herself from the pain; the ongoing struggle to be taken seriously by healthcare practi…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Social Democrats councillor and soon-to-be mother of three, Catherine Stocker. Catherine struggled with depressive and psychotic episodes through her teens and was misdiagnosed as bipolar. We talk about the medical trouble-shooting in those early years, the 'aha' moment when Catherine realised what was reall…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to teacher and sexual health advocate Denise McAlister, who is using her own experience of living with a long-term STI to open up the conversation about sexually transmitted infections, the stigma that surrounds them, and the reality of living with one. She shares her experience of finding out that she had geni…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to mammy and feminist Rebecca Flynn about her experience of losing a baby to a missed miscarriage a few years ago. She shares her experience of the maternity care system, the frustration of realising that a miscarriage does not always present the way she had thought it would, the jealousy when people around her…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I talk to Elisha Clarke, a professional photographer and new mother, whose birth didn't go quite as she had expected. When we talk, Elisha's son Will is just over six months old, and Elisha is still dealing with the implications of an episiotomy and forceps birth and subsequent 3C tear, sphincter rupture and post-nata…

In her book, Vagina: A Re-Education, Irish-born author and journalist Lynn Enright busts a range of myths surrounding the vagina and vulva in an aim to educate and empower readers and shed light on the sometimes shocking, enraging reality of living with a womb and navigating the healthcare system while doing so. In this episode of Bits of Me, I tal…

This episode of Bits of Me comes with a trigger warning for sexual coercion and abuse, as Kate Brayden shares her journey of living with pelvic pain, struggling to find health care practitioners who would take her seriously, and saving up huge amounts of money for trips to London, Washington and Zürich to see specialists in the hope that they might…

In this episode of Bits of Me, I’m talking to sex educator and mother of three, Sarah Sproule. Sarah experienced urinary incontinence and recurring UTIs after her second birth, a VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesarean section) with epidural and subsequent catheter. We talk about what it’s like to feel alone in your experience, the shame many of us fee…

Trailer for Bits of Me - the podcast about women's bodies, all the things we should know about them, and all the stories behind them. Host: Linnea Dunne. First episode coming soon. Music: Ice and Snow by Icreage, licensed by Soundstripe.