Welcome to our first ever Partner POV from Bloom Stories. Too often, a father’s journey to parenthood is overlooked or trivialised—but dads go through an enormous transformation too, right alongside their partners. Both experiences matter, and both deserve to be heard.

By sharing real stories from a partner’s perspective, we hope to offer insight, support, and a sense of connection— to help fathers navigate parenthood with confidence. Because when both mums and dads are empowered, families can truly thrive.

One of the joys of listening to Lydia's story was hearing how critical and powerful a role her husband Simon played in supporting and shaping her journey, we think you are going to love this one.

If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s possible to have a truly joyful and positive, pregnancy, birth and post partum period, Lydia’s story is for you. I lost track of the number of times we use the word joy in this conversation - a testament to Lydia's resilience and can-do attitude, but also to her husband Simon who was an incredible champion throughout it all.

We think you’re going to love it.

Emily has had a whirlwind ten years. From relocating her whole life from Hertfordshire to the Midlands in order to live with her partner, to having three babies under five, to being made redundant whilst pregnant with her second child, to becoming self-employed and learning to juggle childcare as well as the very different needs of her three beautiful children. Emily has it all going on and she’s somehow managing to keep it all together without day to day support from family, who live on the other side of the country. We talk about her three c-sections and what her secret is to staying afloat.In this episode we talk about:

• Moving to the other side of the country and having no family nearby
• Being made redundant and becoming self-employed
• The fear before bedtime, not knowing what type of night you’re going to get
• Taking it slower and more gently third time round
• Trying to relax while there’s chaos around you
• Hoping and trying to get pregnant then feeling sad when it becomes a reality
• Finding it tough when friends aren’t in the same stage as you
• The experience of prior pregnancies giving you more confidence in your judgements and knowing when to worry vs not
• Buying other parent friends through NCT
• Waters breaking
• Being induced but nothing happening
• An emergency c-section
• Not eating for 26 hours
• Asking for morphine!
• Being discharged a few hours after a c-section
• A lockdown pregnancy and birth
• The unexpected joy of having no visitors in hospital
• A hole in uterus after the first c-section
• Painful post labour contractions with third baby
• Infected c-section scar
• Trying to rest and recover whilst having a toddler jumping all over you
• What to be careful of after a c-section
• Being tempted to rush recovery and it always being a mistake
• Life post third c-section
• Third child born at 38 weeks
• Feeling so much more confident third time round
• Struggling to introduce a bottle at four months following breastfeeding
• Learning to feel comfortable breastfeeding in front of family or in public
• The constraints of breastfeeding and wanting more than an hour to yourself
• Introducing one bottle in the evening and breastfeeding the rest of the day
• When your career stalls and your partners carries on
• Being made redundant while pregnant with second child
• Super grannies rallying round to help with childcare
• Catering to three children with very different needs