In this episode I’m back after an unplanned break sharing a life update. The last few months have felt heavy. Mental health has taken work. Money has felt tight. The cost of living is no joke and juggling our small business, nanny shifts and school logistics has been a lot.

The kids are in big seasons too. Jamie’s riding those intense leap phases that flip the whole house upside down, Sophie is deep in her independent two year old era, and the sibling bickering is next level. I’m trying to be intentional with one on one time and keep everyone afloat.

There are good things coming. A mum’s retreat. Bali. A date night. More gym. More us time. And I’m ready to properly lean back into the podcast with more guests and an honest chat with T Squiz about mental load, resentment and intimacy.

Let’s stay connected 🤍

If you loved this episode, the best way to support the podcast is by following the show and leaving a quick 5 star review. It helps more mums find these real, honest conversations.

You can find me over on Instagram at @doulamarley where I share all things motherhood, birth, relationships and the behind the scenes of real life. You can also connect with the podcast page at @becomingboth.

Prefer email? Reach me anytime at marley@motheringthemama.com.au — I genuinely love hearing your thoughts, feedback and story.

Thanks for being here. It means more than you know 🤍

In this episode of Becoming Both, I sit down with the lovely Jordi, a 29-year-old mum of two from Adelaide, to talk honestly about OCD in pregnancy and motherhood. This conversation is real, raw and a huge reminder that not all anxiety is “just anxiety..

Jordi shares how OCD quietly shaped so much of her life for years before she was ever diagnosed, from intense fears around sickness and contamination to the constant need for certainty and reassurance. What looked like anxiety on the outside was actually something much deeper, and pregnancy with her first baby amplified everything.

We talk about the panic episode at 32 weeks that finally led her to a perinatal psychiatrist, receiving an OCD diagnosis late in pregnancy, and the huge emotional weight of navigating all of that while preparing to become a mum. Jordi opens up about starting sertraline, choosing an elective caesarean birth, and the shock of postpartum intrusive thoughts, including frightening fears of harming her baby, and how extremely isolating that experience can feel when nobody talks about it openly.

This episode also explores what changed the second time around: entering pregnancy with more understanding, the right support, medication already in place, and the difference that early intervention can make.

More than anything, this conversation is about honesty. About how scary thoughts do not make you a bad mother. About how OCD can hide in plain sight. And about why mums deserve specialized, informed support — not dismissal.

If you’ve ever felt consumed by fear, trapped in reassurance-seeking, or ashamed of intrusive thoughts, I hope this episode makes you feel less alone.

If this episode brought anything up for you, please know support is available — and intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and OCD in pregnancy/postpartum are far more common than many mums realize.

Helpful supports:

• PANDA – Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia Mon–Fri support line for parents during pregnancy and postpartum. 1300 726 306

• Beyond Blue 24/7 mental health support and counselling. 1300 22 4636

• Lifeline Australia 24/7 crisis support. 13 11 14

• International OCD Foundation – Perinatal OCD Resources Helpful information around intrusive thoughts and perinatal OCD.

If you’re feeling dismissed, keep seeking support. You deserve care that takes your experience seriously!

You can find me over at @becomingboth or @doulamarley. I would love to connect! Leaving a review or comment helps others find me. If you'd like to join me - feel free to email me marley@motheringthemama.com.au as I am always looking for guests to share their story xx

I’m Marley, and this episode was actually recorded previously… only to realise my two year old had somehow hit mute on the microphone. Which honestly feels pretty on brand for this season of life.

We’ve also just come out of what felt like an endless sleep deprivation spiral. About eight weeks of chaos that only really started improving after seeing a sleep consultant. So if I sound slightly delirious in this episode, that’s why.

From there, I get into returning to work and childcare, and how loaded and personal the whole conversation can feel once you become a mum.

I talk about the pressure a lot of families are under financially, and how daycare often ends up being the only realistic option because it’s the only thing subsidised. I also share my own weird guilt around using daycare three days a week while I nanny and study, and how I still catch myself feeling like I need to justify it.

We get into the research around children and primary caregivers in those early years, while also acknowledging that some kids genuinely thrive in care. Like most things in parenting, it’s not black and white.

I talk through some of the pros too. Identity outside motherhood, adult conversation, routine, financial relief, independence. But also the harder parts that people don’t always say out loud. The guilt, constant sickness, breastfeeding logistics, the mental load of organising everything, and trying to navigate workplaces that aren’t always supportive of mothers.

There are listener stories in this one too, which honestly made me feel less alone reading them.

And I share some practical things that can help. Gradual daycare transitions, having more honest conversations with employers, and why splitting the load at home matters so much more than people realise.

This episode isn’t really about telling mums what they should do. It’s more just an honest conversation about how hard it can feel trying to make decisions for your kids while also trying to survive modern life.

If you’ve been enjoying the pod, leaving a quick review genuinely helps more people find these conversations. And you can always come chat with me over on Instagram @doulamarley and @becomingboth.

Hi everyone! Tonight I chat to Mel about all things step parenting. Mel’s been a stepmum for seven years to her stepson (who’s now 13 and has autism), and she also has two young daughters with her husband. So she’s right in the thick of the juggle.

We talk about how misunderstood stepparents can feel. The “evil stepmum” narrative, the constant second-guessing, and the amount of behind-the-scenes stuff that just… goes unnoticed. School drop-offs, dinners, appointments, emotional support — all the things that make up parenting, but without always being seen as “the parent.”

Mel shares how she’s built a relationship with her stepson over time (especially through his interests), and how much patience that’s taken. We get into the walking on eggshells feeling that can come with discipline, boundaries, and trying to find your place in decisions that don’t fully feel like yours to make.

We also talk about how becoming a mum herself shifted things — especially her perspective and empathy towards her stepson’s biological mum, which is something I don’t think gets talked about enough.

There’s a bit in here around a listener question too — fears around abuse statistics, dating someone with kids, and how overwhelming that can feel when you’re thinking about stepping into that kind of role.

If you’re a step-parent, thinking about becoming one, or just curious about what it actually looks like behind closed doors — this will probably resonate.

And if you’ve been listening along, leaving a quick review helps more than you’d think. You can always find me over on Instagram @doulamarley and @becomingboth.

Hello friends!

Well, well.. Sophie’s sleep has gone completely rogue.. bedtime battles, random wake-ups, the co-sleeping convo making a comeback, and one very funny (but also painful at the time) monitor moment with Tyron. We are… not thriving on the sleep front.

We’ve just done back-to-back birthdays for Jamie (5) and Sophie (2). We skipped the big parties this year and kept it low-key, which was actually way nicer. I run through what we got them — Lego, walkie talkies, books, a little VTech camera, Baby Born — nothing wild, just things they’re genuinely into.

There’s also that weird feeling of the baby stage ending. Like I’m sad about it… but also don’t know if I can (or want to?) start again. I talk about the whole “third baby” thing .. wanting it in theory, but real life (money, capacity, everything) being a different story.

I touch on nannying and how it constantly reminds me every kid and every family is so different. What works for one just… doesn’t for another, and that’s been sitting with me a lot lately.

And then the heavier bits — feeling overwhelmed, the identity shift that still somehow catches me off guard, yelling and then feeling like crap after, body image, all of it.

I also chat a bit about moving more into counselling for mums and why that feels like the right direction for me right now.

If this feels like your current season, you’re not the only one in it.

If you’ve been listening, leaving a review actually helps more than you’d think. And you can always find me on Instagram @doulamarley and @becomingboth.

In this episode I’m chatting with Kenny, bless him, my first male guest (outside of Tyron 😅) and we get into what parenting looks like when you’ve come from a really tough childhood.

Kenny shares his story of losing his dad really young, growing up around drug use, constant moving, and a pretty unstable home environment. He talks about the emotional impact of that, including being pitted against his sister and how that’s affected their relationship now.

We also talk about him leaving home at 16, being taken in by a friend’s family, finishing school, and eventually cutting contact with his mum. He did try to reconnect later after becoming a dad, but it didn’t go how he’d hoped and they’re no longer in contact.

Becoming a parent brought a lot of that past stuff back up for him, especially around things like coping with his daughter crying, which led him to start therapy. He shares a bit about that process and how it’s helped him show up differently as a dad, with a lot of support from his partner Mary.

We also get into the bigger stuff.. men and emotional vulnerability, the pressure of work and family life, and how communication can either make or break things in a relationship.

It’s a really honest chat and I am so thankful to have had him on!

Find me over at @doulamarley @becomingboth

I would love to hear your feedback! Feel free to leave a comment and I would be so honoured if you would leave a review, it really helps xx

Okay friends! It’s Friday night, I’m solo parenting, one kid asleep, one doing that thing where you think they’re asleep but they’re not… so here we are.

I chat about what’s been going on, starting my diploma of counselling, slowly building my website, picking up nannying/babysitting to help with the cost of living, and getting excited for a Bali trip (which honestly feels very needed).

Then I get into intimacy after kids.

Because it changes. HEAPS.

And it ain't just because you’re “not trying hard enough” but because you’re exhausted, your hormones are all over the place, you might be breastfeeding, you’re touched out, your body feels different, and half the time your brain is running through a mental checklist of everything that still needs to be done.

And if your partner isn’t really sharing that load… it’s hard not to feel a bit resentful.

I read through some of your messages (which gave so many perspectives!), and talk about what’s actually helped for us.. not from a place of authority but just sharing, ya know.

Things like: communicating without it turning into a dig actually asking for what you need finding connection during the day instead of waiting until you’re both wrecked at night little resets like a six-second kiss checking in with each other beyond just “what’s for dinner tomorrow” and even just admitting when things feel off

and also… sometimes getting extra support if you’re really stuck!

It’s not about forcing it or “getting back to normal” it’s more like figuring out what connection looks like now.

Let me know what you think. Find me over at @doulamarley @becomingboth I would love to connect xx

This episode is a real one.

I’m Marley, and in this episode of Becoming Both I chat with Kate — a mum to a 13-month-old — about the messy, very real side of motherhood… especially when you’re doing it without much family support.

We get into a lot in this conversation.

Kate shares her experience with long-term anxiety and depression, and how that showed up through pregnancy (after a previous loss) and into postpartum. We talk about what actually helped — a supportive partner, consistent midwife care, therapy, and eventually medication — and how stigma within her family made reaching out for that support feel even harder.

But the bigger thread running through this episode is estrangement and boundaries.

Not the dramatic version people expect — the quieter, more confusing version where things just don’t feel right.

We talk about:

• navigating a complicated relationship with your own mum
• how becoming a parent can bring up a lot of self-worth stuff you didn’t expect
• the grief of not having the kind of family support you thought you would
• when daycare becomes more than childcare — it becomes a lifeline
• the pressure and entitlement that can come with “grandparent access”
• how family dynamics can feel performative, surface-level, or even unsafe
• the way all of this quietly impacts your relationship and your mental health

And the part people don’t say out loud — you can hold boundaries and still grieve the relationship you wish you had.

This isn’t about telling anyone what to do with their family. It’s just an honest conversation about something a lot of people are living through, but not always talking about.

If your version of motherhood doesn’t include the “village” everyone talks about… this one will probably hit.

CONNECT

IG: @doulamarley Podcast: @becomingboth