My guest on today’s episode is Melissa Hemsley, a former private chef turned best-selling author, including her most recent book Real Healthy – Unprocess Your Diet With Easy Everyday Recipes.
In this episode, Melissa shares:
- Her fertility journey
- What she’s doing to prepare for her next embryo transfer, including how she’s nourishing herself
- The wise words her dear friend Emma Cannon, the renowned fertility acupuncturist, shared with her
- Why she’s gone back to school to study nutritional therapy and what she wants to afterwards
- And of course, the story of her first period
Melissa says that it’s so important to find lovely people in your life that you can speak to, not be afraid to lean on and ask for help when you need it.
Thank you, Melissa!
Get in touch with Melissa:
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise Brothers: Thank you so much for coming onto the show, Melissa. I’m really excited to speak to you, but let’s start by getting into the first question I always ask, which is tell us the story of your very first period.
Melissa Hemsley: I’m very happy to be here. Thank you. And I got my first period the day after my 11th birthday, so a memorable date. And so we’re talking 19, I can’t do the math. I was born 85, so we’re talking 2001, is that right? Oh my gosh. Okay. No, I have an AS level math, whatever. It was my birthday and I had gone through. The height, puberty, you know, characteristics early.
Melissa Hemsley: I was the tallest one in my class. I was actually about this tall as I’m now age 39, 5″9 as I was then. So I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise to some, but I think back then it was really young the day after 11th birthday. And that’s my little, my little girl just on the chat. I hope no one minds.
Melissa Hemsley: And yeah, it was, it was quite shocking at the time and I didn’t have any other of my little friends who were going through it. So I remember thinking, well, I had my big sister and I had my mum and my parent. My family had never been one to talk bodily fluids or, you know, I couldn’t tell my mum about pubic hair.
Melissa Hemsley: It’ll be interesting to see now she’s a grandma. She seems so much more open and different, but yeah, I remember it being a very. Exciting thing. And you know, I remember my, my breast tissue changing and just being, you know, I remember I grew up in a very Catholic house and I remember praying to God to take it away.
Le’Nise Brothers: Wow. Yeah.
Melissa Hemsley: I was like, take away my boobs, take away the blood. I, I, maybe I didn’t feel ready. It just, for me it was more about the difference. And I have a feeling that others in my class didn’t catch up with me for a, for a whole load of time.
Le’Nise Brothers: You were praying for it to be taken away. And you said it was about the difference.
Le’Nise Brothers: was that just because you wanted it to be similar to everyone else? Yeah. Or was there any shame in that as well?
Melissa Hemsley: I think I wanted it to be different.
Melissa Hemsley: Well, I already was quite different because I was, I looked different. My mum is from the Philippines, and my dad is English, and I happened to be at a school at that time with a lot of very small blonde white girls. Like really? I, I feel like I had a lot of small white girls as, as my close friends. There weren’t many other in the group, in the, in the thing, you know, I was very much the, the, the brown girl, which, you know, I’m only, I’m only half, but I was very much the brown girl and so I think I already felt different.
Melissa Hemsley: In many ways. I was also I, I remember feeling really un not itchy, but I remember feeling not right in my skin for a long time growing up, so I think all of that and the period just added more to, and I just, yeah. I, you know, with my little girl in my lap now, who, you know, will, will probably, you know, be absorbing some of this great chat. Age two. I, I hadn’t thought much about it till you and I started chatting on email and getting a date today.
Melissa Hemsley: I’m excited for her to understand her period and her cycle, and sometimes thinking about it now, I feel, oh my gosh. I mean, I don’t want to, I don’t want to add this to a list of things that I’m annoyed at my mum at. She did her best. She was also, you know, an immigrant bringing up two girls in another country, in another continent with all of her Filipino family away from her.
Melissa Hemsley: And also she brought us up in an army household. So it was like an another culture on top of another culture because the army has its own weird ways, just like every other family. But I, I wish she had told me a bit more about it.
Melissa Hemsley: It, and you’re probably going to talk to me more about it because I know how your amazing chats with your guests can go or not go, or surprises. But when I kind of think about my period now, I get a bit annoyed that I was so ill-equipped for many years, many, many, many, many years.
Le’Nise Brothers: say a little bit more about what you mean by ill-equipped and why.
Melissa Hemsley: Ill-equipped?
Le’Nise Brothers: Why that? Yeah. That lasted for so long that, that sense of not knowing,
Melissa Hemsley: well, you know, obviously at some point it’s my responsibility. You know, when I, when I, I don’t know, it’s not about turning age 18 and suddenly you’re expected to have your shit together. But as a 39-year-old woman, you know, with my baby here who is from a frozen embryo and I have, I’m lucky to have other frozen embryos in the freezer and, and fingers crossed that will be, I think I actually just have my last period because.
Melissa Hemsley: I’m about to get ready for my next transfer. So it was quite a bittersweet end to my last period. And I really enjoyed having my period because I don’t know if anyone listening has had a lot of IVF, you go through a lot of time not having a period. And so when my period when I was free bleeding for about three months, I was like, wow, I haven’t had a period that’s not been hormonally controlled by my gynaecologist for about five years.
Melissa Hemsley: Anyway, I got distracted. I think it took me until I was working out my fertility plan as to how I could have my first child successfully because I was losing my pregnancies at like 7, 8, 9 weeks.
Melissa Hemsley: Period. And so that’s, that’s age 34, let’s say. And it wasn’t until probably age 32, 33 that I really realized that my extended periods about 42 to 45 days were above the normal-ish length. And, and just something to keep an eye on and maybe something to be aware of. So I feel ill-equipped. And I also feel, I feel like I know, well, you know this, like I’m doing my first year of exams at the College of Naturopathic Medicine.
Melissa Hemsley: I actually just got my results. 75%.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yay. Yay, yay.
Melissa Hemsley: And I could have bet you a million bucks that I failed them because I had an almost panic attack. But that’s a story for another time. I need some, some tips from you on how to keep, keep up, keep it cool during the stress of an exam. But, um. You know, I, I feel like through my work, I’ve always been interested in nourishment.
Melissa Hemsley: I’ve always been I, I feel like I know more about my thyroid than I know about my uterus then anyway. Now I know more. Yeah. But I feel like it was easier for me to access information about my thyroid. Or maybe it was me, maybe, maybe somehow I just said, oh, this is just what periods are. Periods are confusing.
Melissa Hemsley: Periods are unpredictable. My period is what it’s but I remember at age about 14, I got, I was on the contraceptive pill because I had such heavy periods dysmenorrhea but my mum who really wouldn’t let not Iet me go to school unless I was in a horrific accident is like you are going to school because she had no childcare option. But I remember she, a couple of times she had to sign me off and I remember her writing dysmenorrhea and I even then remember thinking, mum, why are you so weird? Why can’t you just say she’s got a heavy period? What the hell does dysmenorrhea mean?
Melissa Hemsley: Anyway, so I got put on the contraceptive pill really early for that and I also feel a bit cross about that and I actually brought it up to my mum the other day and she said, no you didn’t. And I was like, mum, I did. It was age 14, I got put on it. You know, we have, we all have different me. Yeah, we all have different memories
Le’Nise Brothers: But still from being on the pill at age 14 and. Also coming from a Catholic background. Yeah. Was there tension in that decision?
Melissa Hemsley: No, it was, it, it it, there was no conversation about the contraceptive pill being like, it was just like, you’re going on this pill for your periods. It didn’t, it didn’t occur to me, it didn’t occur to my mum. Like there was no conversation had about that.
Melissa Hemsley: And yeah, it didn’t make me want to start having sex earlier. I mean, to be honest, I was just terrified of sex for so long. Like a lot of us, I guess thinking I’m going to have sex once and get pregnant. But I remember going on it and you know, again, we’re talking a million years ago. I’m a kid. Maybe other options were discussed, but my gut instinct says that was it.
Melissa Hemsley: I was just put on the pill as a way of, you know, the GP doing their best to help me not have such painful periods and miss school. That was just what happened. I think I had a few Forehead spots as well. But nothing, nothing like looking back now, I just wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I would be finding alternatives for my child, I really feel.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. So how long were you on the pill?
Melissa Hemsley: So then fast forward to about age 24, I read somewhere about being aware of not being on the pill for 10 years. And I remember thinking, oh, well I’m 24 and I was in a serious relationship at the time and I was like, I don’t want to be on the pill. Um, what if it affects my future, chances of having a child.
Melissa Hemsley: So I came off it. And to be honest, my periods have never been age twenty four to say Early thirties when I really started trying to work out what was going on because I was struggling with my fertility. They weren’t, they weren’t particularly heavy. I can’t say I looked forward to them. It took a long, a number of years before I looked forward to them. I really looked forward to my first period after my, I finished breastfeeding, and as I just said, like I, I felt, I felt tender saying goodbye to the period again.
Melissa Hemsley: And it’s funny because this last period didn’t come three weeks longer than I thought, and I’ve, I’ve really had a really rough three weeks for it. I’ve been saying, I was saying to my boyfriend, I just, my period, I just want my period to come. And we were laughing and giggling going, you know, the number of times I’ve dreaded it because it meant I wasn’t pregnant.
Melissa Hemsley: And I went to see my acupuncturist, who I, I have probably been to acupuncture Three times a month for the last six years with various people. I lived in East London for a time, loveliest super affordable acupuncture, and now I live in North London and I have found a lovely lady here and I walked in and I just went, I just want my period. Please. Anyway, um, normally I lie on my back and she needles me. And it’s funny because I said to her, I really feel like I want to be on my front. I don’t know what it is.
Melissa Hemsley: I really want to be like feeling as cozy as possible. And I find the summer months though I know loads of people long for them. I actually love like womb, like dark rooms. I get depressive feelings if I’m in them too long. Summer and I had a bath last night. And yes, we had a bath last night, did we? And um, it was seven o’clock and it was bright outside. And everyone else I knew from the FOMO of Instagram was out like drinking in the park, and I was like, I just want it to be dark outside so I light my candle and have my bath.
Melissa Hemsley: So I, I, I feel like I need darkness to unwind. And now I’m really, when my period’s coming, I really go into myself. Like I treat myself so well. And I was again, trying to explain to my boyfriend the other day about how when I was pregnant with Summer and other times I’ve been pregnant before, I’ve lost, I’ve never looked after myself so well, and now I also feel with my period that whenever it’s my period coming, I mean just in general, in, within a month. Within a month, I try as much as possible to honour my body. And so in a way, now, I, I’m definitely no menstrual expert, but I, I feel like it just, I’m just kinder to myself. I’m like, oh, okay. I’m feeling edgy, I’m feeling tense. I’m, I’m struggling to sleep. I didn’t sleep well. I was hotter last night. I could feel it. Okay. I’m going to just make sure I take a little bit of extra time to, and open a window and make sure my sheets are just right and let my toes peek out because I know that that’s going to really help me.
Melissa Hemsley: And I’m going to maybe avoid that crime thriller tonight because I definitely don’t need to go to bed for those kind of vibes. I like watching you nodding. Does that feel right?
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah, it, yeah, it feels totally right. And I love that there’s just tuning in to what you need. Because so, often we just kind of get told to push it away, don’t worry. You know what, you experience the pain and the heavy beating is normal, you know, just push it away and have this kind of external focus and being able to tune in is so helpful. But what I think is so interesting is what you said about looking forward and really noticing your periods now, and being able to be really aware of that time in your cycle versus when you first got them.
Le’Nise Brothers: It’s kind of this pushing away and I don’t want this, I, I wanted to kind of pray. Pray. You said pray you wanted to pray it away.
Melissa Hemsley: Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: It’s just such a fascinating shift and I definitely noticed that like I’m deep into perimenopause.
Melissa Hemsley: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: And I just thought of okay, soon it is going to be my last period.
Le’Nise Brothers: And even though my periods aren’t the best, it’s like, okay, I actually need to sit with this a little bit and really honour this call from my body to slow down a little bit and really enjoy ovulation when it does happen. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your fertility journey. Mm-hmm. Some of the things that you’ve learned, because I think it’s so powerful when you hear people who are in like this public space talking about fertility and miscarriages and being really open because these conversations have been shrouded in secrecy for such a long time.
Le’Nise Brothers: So would you be able to share some of the thoughts that you’ve had and what you’ve learned?
Melissa Hemsley: I’d love to.
Melissa Hemsley: I don’t know when this is coming out, but I’ll be doing my next transfer in the summer. I had one transfer in November that didn’t work. I was about to say the word failed transfer, and I’m really trying to be mindful of my language because that word is loaded.
Melissa Hemsley: So, you know, it it, it didn’t work out. And I, it’s funny thinking of I love what you just said about listening to the call of your body because I was convinced I was pregnant when you, when you transfer a five day old frozen embryo, so they defrost it and the embryo is frozen at day five. Just to recap, in case people aren’t as familiar, because I certainly wasn’t, I knew nothing before I got into it and I had to learn a lot.
Melissa Hemsley: And there’s still tons, I don’t know. But for me anyway, there’s lot of different ways to do IVF but for me, we collected eggs and then they matched them with my partner’ s sperm. And I remember when I came out my egg collection and I was out of it on drugs, they said to me, do you want to do ICSI?
Melissa Hemsley: And I was like, huh. I was like, what does that mean? And I remember my boyfriend just going, what? You’re in charge of all of this? Like, and I was just like, I’m, I’m outta it. I don’t know what’s going on. And they said, you got 20 eggs, which was unbelievably great. I, I, again, I’ve got a tendency to think the worst.
Melissa Hemsley: And also, so long story short, just a few days before that, again using the word failed, my gynaecologist had said we might have to abort this cycle because they give you so many drugs. And one, some of my follicles were ginormous. And the rest were tiny and they want them to be, don’t quote me about 8, 9, 10, numbers like that.
Melissa Hemsley: And I had one that was 24 and some that were 2 I, and so they said, look, your, your big ones are basically sucking up all the drugs and to put you through an egg collection and to put you under, we need to have good odds and we just don’t think you do. So do you want to leave at another night? And by this point I’d had about 21 days of drugs and all of the stress and multiple scans.
Melissa Hemsley: And I remember speaking to someone I knew who had had successful embryo transfer and she said, anything can happen overnight. And I was like, yes, you’re a positive person, but I don’t think these tiny little follicles are going to all of a sudden get juicy and big overnight. And guess what they did?
Melissa Hemsley: I just couldn’t believe it. So then when they turned to me and said, do you want to do ICSI, I was like, I don’t know what that means. And long story short, they can either put your eggs, these are freshly harvested eggs with the fresh sperm and they can just let them at them so the sperm can go for it on the eggs.
Melissa Hemsley: I’ve since discovered it’s not the sperm going for the eggs, it’s the eggs deciding which sperm she lets in, which I think is the best thing ever. And she decides who she likes the best and who she’ll let in, which I love. So of course the embryologist and the gynaecologist don’t tell you that. So they basically said, right, you got 20.
Melissa Hemsley: We can either let your sperm at your egg. Or we can pick what we think look like the best looking sperm. So they’re looking at motility, mobility, shape, there’s five different characteristics of the sperm they’re looking at. And we can select them and we can sort of, inject them type thing themselves.
Melissa Hemsley: So we’ll pick the best looking sperm. And then they said to me, I remember them saying to me, so we privately funded this because it was during COVID. I wasn’t going to get a chance at this for a long time on the NHS, so there was a risk. So they said, if you want to do ICSI, per go, it’s going to be another, I think it was 250 pounds. In my out of it state I said to myself, well, if it’s more expensive, it must be better, right? If it’s more expensive option, it must be the better option. And at that point you’re like, I will do anything. I will do anything. And I was also out of it, so in the end we decided let’s do 10 ICSI and 10 free. And guess what happened?
Melissa Hemsley: By the end of it. Long story, long story. Long story short, we had six embryos. And of the six embryos, I think four of them were from the nat, the natural ish approach, which was the, the egg selecting her own sperm as opposed to the embryologist. So if I had to do it again, this is just my, from my own personal data, I would let my, my clever wise eggs pick her favorite sperm, but I had no idea.
Melissa Hemsley: Can you believe that? Of all of that. No one told me till when I’m outta it. And they’re like, you need to decide now. Like the sperm, you know, they’ve just come out, the eggs are ready. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Anyway, sorry. That was a really long-winded thing. So anyway, uh, we ended up with six wonderful embryos. And the reason why I was telling you this story is because they let them get to day five. So of the 20 eggs, we got 10 embryos, and then they get them to day five. So every day they’re like, don’t call us, we’ll call you. The clinic call you up and say, right, this is how many embryos you’ve got left.
Melissa Hemsley: Because some, some don’t divide well, right? So they’re watching them divide and I actually have videos of them dividing. Wow. So it’s amazing. And of the six, Summer in my arms right now.
Melissa Hemsley: I waited six months. Some people go straight into it, but one, I had a book out, so I was like, I’m not going to add the, I don’t want anything to, I mean, you can’t control all stress. But I was like, I’m not going to put this on myself. And also someone said to me, you know what? If you can, by freezing, you bought yourself a bit of time.
Melissa Hemsley: That’s one of the things about this. So, you know, for me, always, I felt this lack of time, like lack of time in the universe, lack of time to be pregnant, lack of time to, to get the chance to be a mother. And I’ve really tried to work on stop thinking so much of lack. So I was like, I’m going to wait six months.
Melissa Hemsley: And so Summer went in me September the 26th, and here she here, she’s now, and then we tried again in November and it didn’t work. And so we were, so when you think about the odds, for Summer to have been born successfully the first time is amazing. So when it didn’t work in November, and as I say, I could have sworn I was pregnant, but of course I’m full of fake drugs, aren’t I?
Melissa Hemsley: Not fake drugs, but I’m full of drugs. I was full of injections, patches, pessaries up my bottom pessaries and you know, uh, what else was I on? I was on oral pills, you know, so my body thought I was pregnant. And then when I got the test, I was like, no way. No way. And you know, when I was pregnant with her and I got the test, I was like, no way.
Melissa Hemsley: No way is this successful. And then when it wasn’t, I was like, no way. No way. So, my instinct was to just go again straight away. I was like, I remember calling up my guy, gynaecologist, going, how quickly can we transfer the next embryo? And he was like, you could just have one period to shed. What’s built up?
Melissa Hemsley: And then in the end I said to myself again, stop thinking. Like, and so, and you know what’s interesting? My acupuncturist said, she just said as a, as a passing comment, she was like, maybe it’s really lovely to have an embryo transfer in the spring, you know, rather than in the winter. Because I was thinking, should I do it in January?
Melissa Hemsley: I was like, maybe it’s really nice. Maybe your body will be, you know, a lot of it’s about having a warm womb. Again, I spent as a very hot-blooded person. I’ve spent a lot of my life having cold drinks thinking that was good for me. And actually now I understand that although a cold drink on a hot day or after a workout feels really refreshing, maybe it’s not necessarily long-term the best thing for your womb, which now I am, I’m the person that’s like rubbing my kidneys.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah.
Melissa Hemsley: And, and hot water bottling.
Le’Nise Brothers: Talking about things that you did, like these warming techniques, what are some of the other things that you did to take care of yourself? Kind of actually a nice way to get talking about nutrition.
Melissa Hemsley: Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it. Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: How did you take care of yourself food wise during this time?
Melissa Hemsley: Well, remember I told you my mum’s from the Philippines, so my mum is from a very, very hot country. But yet all year round it’s, it’s warming soups. Broth. They’ve got a ginger tea called salabat. It’s, it’s a lot of cooked food. Of course there are some raw food, but it’s, it’s mostly cooked food.
Melissa Hemsley: And so that is how I grew up eating anyway. And how, if anyone has read any of my cookbooks, you know, I have always got a version of a daal. I’ve always got a rice soup. I’ve always got noodle soups. I’ve always got slow cooked, this and that. I’ve always, I’m always into batch cooking. And I, I eat rarely raw salads.
Melissa Hemsley: I rarely eat raw. And so it was kind of just more of the same. It was. And what I love about cooked foods is they tend to be more easily digestible. Mm-hmm. And so I think when you’ve got a lot going on in your life, when you are stressed or when you’re busy, or when you’re certainly not giving yourself enough time to chew, which hands up, I still don’t, even though I know how important chewing is for me and all of us, I don’t think anyone would not benefit from not chewing more.
Melissa Hemsley: You know, they, they can be a really nice thing to do when you know that you are, like, for example, today I’ll be having soup for lunch. I’ve got loads of lovely food to eat, but I know when we finish I’m going to rush into something else. I’m like, you know what? Heating up that soup, pouring it into a mug and sipping on it that’s a good, that’s a good shout for me today.
Melissa Hemsley: And it’s a working day. I don’t sit.
Melissa Hemsley: Do as I say, and not as I do. I look at my daughter and I’m so conscious of how much she’s absorbing from me, and I’m like, we said to my partner, we can’t be so wolfy with our food because she’s watching us. She’s matching our speed. She thinks it’s fun. She thinks it’s a game to get it all down her. Yeah.
Melissa Hemsley: Anyway, so more of a warming food. More like, I love an iced coffee. I love like a hibiscus iced tea. I, like I said, I really run hot. Mm. I And it’s actually you know, I’m only in my first year of, of my nutritional therapy, but I, I think I’ve got a lot of damp in me and so, I don’t know a huge amount about chi, traditional Chinese medicine, but.
Melissa Hemsley: I know again, when I’m run down to not have too much yogurt and dairy. I mean, I eat everything, but whenever I’m feeling run down or my allergies are playing up, it’s so funny. I have my whole life had like that kind of triangle of eczema, hay fever, just general allergies and they flare when I’m run down and the year I was pregnant and the year I breastfed nothing.
Melissa Hemsley: And I guess that sound to right my lowered immune system because my body doesn’t want to reject the fetus. Anyway, so this was the first spring. It came back with a vengeance. My hay fever was like, hello, we’re back. How are you doing? Runny nose, eyes, is everything just itchy? And I was like, okay. Back to my basics, what I call just like the basic reset, which is less dairy.
Melissa Hemsley: Definitely all cooked. .
Melissa Hemsley: I, even though ginger can be quite heat forming and I’m already hot inside, for me it suits me. Easy on the caffeine, easy on the dark chocolate, easy on the nuts as well. I find that’s just what I anecdotally feel is best for me. Yeah. And back to the fertility side of it all is so lovely speaking to you about this because I have been meaning to write more about things like this through my social media and so on, but I actually find it because you are so warm and lovely to speak to you.
Melissa Hemsley: I actually found it really hard to just sit and get my thoughts down on paper because it was, you know, I’m sort of smiling here again with my baby in my lap, but it was such a sad, hard time that if it weren’t for you asking me about it. I would probably, I, I just find it really hard to talk about it. But at the same time, it’s a blessing to be talking to you about it now because I’m in my 10 week countdown and so you’re kind of helping me refresh in my brain what I know I already know to do.
Melissa Hemsley: So here’s the thing. Beetroot. Beetroot is said to be very good for our blood and very good for our liver, right? So I need to, I’ve got a Riverford organic veg box, right? I don’t know if anyone else has a veg box and you can have alerts for veg. So I have an alert for beetroot because I don’t love it. Of all the veg in the world, I don’t love.
Melissa Hemsley: So I need to, I need to take it off my alerts because now I need the beetroot. And I think it comes from when I was younger. I think I was living, in Shoreditch I thought I was some sort of cool girl. I went out, got drunk, and the next day I went to a juice bar and I bought a beetroot juice and threw it up. So I think that’s one of the reasons why I went off beetroot for a long time. I have a dear friend who has now, who passed away two years ago called Emma Cannon. I don’t know if you’ve ever Yeah, yeah, yeah. She is. I mean, I talk about her like she’s still here. I totally feel her. And she was very well. She, she had cancer for a long time, but I was about to say she was unwell with it.
Melissa Hemsley: She, she’s, she’s somebody that just was just so, like this does not define me. So she, she would not like me saying she lived with it or suffered with it. But she, she helped me make Summer and she helped many people make Summer and she was a sort of like called sort of the fertility whisperer in London.
Melissa Hemsley: And I met her before I was even knew that I was having fertility challenges. And then, you know, she’s one of the first five people I messaged when Summer was born and she met Summer four times. towards the end of her life and got to spend time with Summer. And she is an acupuncturist. She also work with, she found me, my gynaecologist.
Melissa Hemsley: And the reason I’m talking about her, well not only because she played such a role in my fertility, not only did she spend so much time, she was, she was one of five sisters. So she always says someone always had their period. So she’d love your podcast. And she’d, she’d be, she’d be laughing down us right now and she would write.
Melissa Hemsley: And so she wrote so many books. She was really ahead of her time. One of them is called Fertile. That’s the one that spring to mind. She’s had The Baby Making Bible. Anyway, she was really passionate about women feeling fertile, whether they wanted to be pregnant or not. And that idea of fertile applying to different parts of your body and not just your womb.
Melissa Hemsley: And that feeling of being connected to Mother Nature all year round. And again, whether you wanted to have children or could have children or not. So she was big on the word fertility and fertile and the big word that she used to tell me was about surrender. And I remember as somebody, you know, we met each other, both as people in the so-called wellness world.
Melissa Hemsley: And I say that as in so-called, because I do feel firmly in the well wellbeing world, but not in the let’s commercialize a lot of it, which I know the same for you. Like we, we, we love it. We, we, we we’re, we’re educating ourselves for the joy of understanding it, not just so that we can add another list of letters to our name and, and, and charge more whatever.
Melissa Hemsley: She would always say to me, don’t let the world tell you that you’re broken and need to be fixed. So she was a big part of my journey into not thinking of words like failed and abort. And I remember saying to her when I had a miscarriage I hadn’t quite started the traditional IV F but I was already on a lot of drugs.
Melissa Hemsley: It’s quite difficult to know when the actual IVF journey starts because you’re put on a lot of, there’s so many different stages anyway. And I remember the gynaecologist saying to me, well, you know, you’re only X weeks and we’re, we’re just at the start, so, you know, let’s just go again. And he was, I was just in bit, and she, I remember, I remember saying to her, I don’t want to be with him anymore.
Melissa Hemsley: He doesn’t get it, you know, it’s put me off him. You know, because you really have to trust these people, not only with your body, but whether you are spending your own money. Or you’ve been fortunate enough to have access to the National Health Service or maybe private health insurance through work. You’re playing with all of your hopes and your body and your dreams. You’ve gotta be able to trust people. And I remember her really being so sweet and saying to me, you know what, at some point when you are ready, I’ll help you. We can tell him how that comment made you feel, because how was he going to know unless we show him and she’s like, this is not on you to educate this man.
Melissa Hemsley: But I think it’s a really good thing when you feel ready. Obviously I was miscarrying at the time. Let’s tell him, because he needs to know that that language is not helpful.
Melissa Hemsley: With all of his degrees and experience how you feel about it. And I, I loved that about her. Anyway, forgot where we were when you asked me about warming foods and I’ve just gone off on one. No, here we’re, yeah, Emma beetroot She’d always be on the beetroot and she had a recipe called beetroot risotto.
Melissa Hemsley: And the two things in my life, I’m not huge fan of, of risotto and beetroot, but together I was like, no, no, no, no, no. It’s not that I dislike them, but like they’re my least favorite of all of the amazing foods in the entire world. But I will be upping my beetroot I will be just thinking warm and cooked as much as possible.
Melissa Hemsley: I’ll be thinking slow down as I eat. Her big word is surrender. What makes you feel safe and surrendered? I think for a lot of people in life regardless of whatever subject we’re talking, we want to feel safe. So she was always big into what makes you feel safe. And I think me lying on my front and acupuncture that day that I just suddenly went, oh, can I lie my front today?
Melissa Hemsley: That was my version of feeling safe. I think me liking having my blinds down and feeling like womb like is my version of safe. So I think a big thing that I’m working on is safe. So to food for a second, I’ll be eating all the foods that my comfort food, which might be different for all of us, but for me, you know, like I.
Melissa Hemsley: I, I really found myself craving a lot of red meat. I don’t love liver, so I’m taking liver supplements at the moment. But, you know, there’s all of these things about, we just don’t know what’s safe or not, you know? So, you know, at a certain point just before transfer, I’ll ease up on a lot of things.
Melissa Hemsley: Mm-hmm. And you know, in some ways when I do, when I’m studying for my degree, I actually, like at the moment I’m doing the nervous system. I’m doing the second module. Is this taking you back?
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. Big time.
Melissa Hemsley: Yeah. And we’re learning about neurodegenerative diseases and so sobering and sad and tragic. And I’m actually, even though I’m quite behind on my studies at the moment, I, I actually have decided that it’s not great for me to be reading about these case studies and these illnesses right now because it’s really stressing out.
Melissa Hemsley: Now that’s not to say it’s a bit like the news. There’s got to, of course, it’s important to understand what’s going on so we can do the right thing and be, not just turn our backs on stuff. But I think there’s a also a point, especially when you’re trying to do something like feel safe to bring a new life into your body where I’ve just gone, whoa, this, this module on neurogenerative diseases is quite terrifying and sad, and it’s, we’re not just learning about cellular structures this week.
Melissa Hemsley: It’s really, really sad things that people are going through and suffering from, and I can’t look at it right now. Yeah. But in general, when I’m looking at our biomedicine semesters, it’s so funny what it comes back to. It always comes back to so much of the time, right? Warming foods, anti-inflammatories, rest, acupuncture, homeopathy, drinking more water, seeing more sunlight, moving your body in a way that feels good. And I just, I just chuckle at the end of every like, natural prescription.
Melissa Hemsley: And I know so many amazing GPs who not because they’re my GPs, I don’t have multiple GPs, but I know people that work in general practice or work for the NHS and they’re like, I just wish we were able to prescribe more of these things.
Melissa Hemsley: You know? Yeah, just anecdotally, you know what, this is not an official prescription, but I really think that if you can include a bit more soup in your life, like one of my favorite soups, especially because again, in our degree we’re, you know, think leafy greens because a lot of people eat veg. A lot of people with healthy diet, healthy eat a lot of the, the go-to vegetables, right?
Melissa Hemsley: Like the broccoli, the carrots, the peas, all great vegetables. Um, maybe now sweet potatoes are having a bit more of a moment, which is gorgeous bloody love, sweet potato. But we kind of have like our favorite 5, 6, 7 veg. And it, a lot of people will say, especially for women, like go for leafy dark greens. I wouldn’t say they’re necessarily my absolute favorite.
Melissa Hemsley: So what I tend to do when I make a soup, if I’ve got time to make one soup week, I will buy frozen kale or frozen spinach and I’ll have frozen peas and I’ll have frozen edamame and I will throw the on and in the time the kettle’s on, I’ll roughly chop onion, I’ll roughly chop ginger and garlic or maybe grate them straight into the pan and they get a little head start.
Melissa Hemsley: Also leeks, because they’re prebiotics, you can buy bags of frozen leeks and if you can’t buy them, chop your own. Amazing. And then I throw all the frozen green, then top it with water, maybe add some bone broth if I’ve blitz up lemon. And then.
Melissa Hemsley: And then I’ll heat it up during the week. So maybe one day I’ll heat it up and as it’s heated up, because I don’t want to destroy the, the goodness and the miso, I’ll just stir some miso through in a mug. So one day maybe it’s got like, so it’s a base green soup, so maybe one day it’s got some miso in it.
Melissa Hemsley: Maybe I hold the ginger on it in the cooking in my base, and maybe the next time I put some pesto in it. So I’ll just like flavor up. I, I love, I’ve got this, I need to see what the brand is, but I’ve got this little lovely shaker of seaweed salt. So I’m trying to include a bit of more seaweed in my life.
Melissa Hemsley: And oily fish too. And, and you know, I, I’ll add a bit of liver into something like a bolognese, but I don’t love it. And so, yeah, the liver capsules, the organ meats, I feel quite good on them. Yeah. As but as capsules.
Le’Nise Brothers: I want to just ask you a little bit about this transition. So you have had a lot of different hats in the nutrition, in the kind of healthy eating wellbeing world.
Le’Nise Brothers: And now as we’ve just been talking a little bit about your degree that you’re studying for in nutritional therapy, what made you decide to do the degree? Because it’s quite a big, as I know from personal experience, it’s a big undertaking. And actually what’s funny is that my son was the same age as your daughter when I started doing, oh my gosh.
Melissa Hemsley: How please, how did you do it? How did you do it?
Le’Nise Brothers: I did it part-time.
Melissa Hemsley: Same.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. And I was even then, yeah, I was working part-time as well. Oh my gosh. I was still working in advertising back then, and I had to be really disciplined. I had to, like, any time that I could carve out to study, I had to just, I had my cue cards.
Le’Nise Brothers: I would sit on the tube and I would review my cue cards, but I would just very, it is very stressful. It was very stressful.
Melissa Hemsley: Tell me, does it get easier, what was your most, or is each year different? A bit like each year? Motherhood Each year?
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. No, each year is very different, but actually I found biomedicine the trickiest.
Melissa Hemsley: Yeah. Thank you. Okay, so maybe this is going to be the hardest bit.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. Because once you get through the first year, you also get a sense of how it all works and you remember how to study.
Melissa Hemsley: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a big thing, right? Just, I mean, again, in this world of immediacy and distraction to sit and study is really tough.
Melissa Hemsley: I mean, I, I even have a science background in the sense that I did a, A level chemistry, biology, and physics because I wanted to be a doctor. And you know what, I, I think age 18, I think I might have had a, a break, a nervous breakdown. Some, I mean, no one diagnosed it. I didn’t have anyone professionally there to support me at the time, and I wish I had, but I about, yeah, age 16, 17, basically the years I was doing my mocks, I had some sort of breakdown and I failed some of my as, sorry.
Melissa Hemsley: No, I failed some of my mocks. And if, if anyone listening remembers that world, that time of our lives, you needed to get good mocks to show your Teachers and your tutors and universities, what you were on track to get. And so no one was putting me forward or writing me recommendation, like no one was going to take those mock mock and those as level results.
Melissa Hemsley: They were like super disappointing. And I had come from, at that point, I had been top of my class. I actually had had a bursary at a private school for a number of years related to my academic results. So I was always very academic. And again, you know, I’ve since been diagnosed with ADHD. I think that the way I was able to be so, so called academically successful was because I was harming myself in other ways.
Melissa Hemsley: I was just obsessed with, with grades and results and I wasn’t necessarily learning in the right way. I wasn’t necessarily taking it in. I think I was good short term and I was good at exams. Any who when, why did I decide to do it? So for years and years and years after my crisis of confidence, you know, even 18, I was like, okay, I’m going to take a year out.
Melissa Hemsley: I’m going to I’m going to reapply. I’m just going to reapply. You know, I ended up getting really good a, a level results in the end. I was like, heck, I can apply. I can get, but, but, you know, I was, I was shook up and my plan of being a doctor, which I had, which I.
Melissa Hemsley: Be, you know, uh, stereotypical. But as a Southeast Asian mother, you know, who’s an immigrant, she was very excited at the idea that she might have a doctor in the family. And, you know, now that I’m doing my nutritional degree, nutritional therapy degree, I’m like, I’m very excited that we’ve got a nutritional, a future nutritional therapist in the family because, you know, and already it’s so funny, all my friends, what shall I do for this?
Melissa Hemsley: I was like, well, I’m not qualified yet, but, and then I go back to it, I’m like, you could get a lot from rest cooked foods, reducing stress. Like, you know, we don’t need a degree to say that. Um, but anyway, so for years and years and years I was like, I’m going to reapply for med school and then of course life you down and work.
Melissa Hemsley: Also my friends peers, uni, I felt ahead of them because. Studying and they were maybe having part-time jobs, and I was like, oh, I’ve got enough money to rent in London. Now I can. I can take you guys out for dinner. You know? So that’s quite a powerful feeling when you’re 18, 19, 21, and then all of a sudden they graduate with degrees and you’re like, oh, I missed out on all of that fun and the sex and like that.
Melissa Hemsley: That kind of exploration that I think a lot of people get at uni that when you’re sort of living at your mum’s and then starting to rent and basically working your arse off to afford the rent, like I just didn’t have that kind of fun. Don’t get me wrong. I know that that’s not what university is just about, but I felt like my friends were having a great time.
Melissa Hemsley: And then I was like, okay, well I’ve missed my boat now. How? Now? I’m 22, 23, now I can’t do it. Long story short. And then of course, the government came in and decided to just charge everyone tons of money. And by that point I was like, okay. And then, then the next moment, uh, you know, my head’s going, oh, well now I want to be a mum.
Melissa Hemsley: So now I’m not. And then I, and then I really realized also in terms of being a doctor, I was like, I am, I mean, I, I, I don’t know how I, you know, and even this is the thing, as I’m studying for my nutritional therapy degree, I, I have thought a few times, oh my God, what’s it going to be like to hold space for people who are really unwell in a clinic run with you or online?
Melissa Hemsley: And what are we going to, what, how is it going to feel for me to be able to say, I can’t help you, or it’s going to be a long journey, or I can’t help you. Or, you know, I, I thought to myself, what is it going to be like to have that responsibility? And how will I, how will I be able to also be a great nutritional therapist, and how will I also be able to be a great person and mother when I walk away from work that day and try to release that?
Melissa Hemsley: I mean, I guess they’re going to help us do that in other years of studying, right? Yeah. I mean, what do you, how, how has it been for you?
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah, so it, I mean, the fact that you’re even thinking about that is an important thing because you have, you. You have to be able to say, actually I think X person would be better to suited to help you.
Le’Nise Brothers: Or I think you start with your GP and then you go from there. You are able to, and some of this comes with time being able to say like, actually this is out outside of my scope of practice, or This is what I think you should start to do and then come back to me in six months. But it’s like being, having those thoughts.
Le’Nise Brothers: Already is important to be able to say like, I’m holding space for someone. It’s really valuable. I don’t want to steer them down the wrong path. It’s really valuable to even have that mindset to begin with because you know that you can’t, you can’t help everyone. And that’s really, really important to be able to say like, this is my specialism.
Le’Nise Brothers: Um, or these are the type of people that I can help and I think, I think my colleague X is, would be better suited to help you. But yeah, it is valuable. You know, you mentioned the nervous system earlier tending. You are helping others with their, supporting their nervous system, but tending to your own at the same time and knowing that you’re giving in this profession, you give out a lot.
Le’Nise Brothers: You be need to be able to kind of say, okay, this is what I need to do to soothe my own nervous system.
Melissa Hemsley: Mm-hmm.
Le’Nise Brothers: To kind of make that shift, you know, out of fight or flight and just soothe and calm things down. But yeah, you can, all of these things, they come with time. And that’s actually what I say to a lot of people who are just starting out because it’s, you’ll see this next year when you start to have clinics where you feel like you want to tell people everything.
Melissa Hemsley: Oh God. Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah. But you can’t, you have to kind of think, well, how, how will they actually do this? And you know, even now when I see clients in some consultations, they’ll leave with like one or two things to do and that’s it. Because that’s all. Mm-hmm. Sometimes they have the capacity for, again, that comes with experience.
Melissa Hemsley: Yeah.
Le’Nise Brothers: Yeah.
Melissa Hemsley: I mean, I know that, I know that, I know that on a base level, if I ask someone for directions and there’s more than two turning right? I’m like, nah, my brain’s given up. I can follow two parts of this. Yeah. I’m, I’m trying not to get ahead of myself and think, oh my gosh, am I going to be good at this?
Melissa Hemsley: And I’m, I’m really enthused to know that you think that, that, that thinking these things is a good sign. But, you know, I really, going back to your question, which I’ve just like gone every which way from, I had the most incredible functional doctor support me with my thyroid and my fertility. And she is a GP and a functional practitioner.
Melissa Hemsley: And she was just really easy to talk to. I’ve never met her in real life. She basically got me to where I needed to go. And I feel now that, you know, at some point in my life I will, I’ll need her again in, in a different scope. But she really, that really inspired me and I love that she would tell me, you know, that, that with her GP hat on. And then she would tell me another alternative.
Melissa Hemsley: Um, and I remember also her you know, once I did get pregnant, I, again, I didn’t realize this with my gynaecologist, at a certain point he says, okay, I can’t even remember what point it was. I think it was after the 12 week scan, uh, which I just, you know, was just my heart was in my, my heart was in my mouth for most of my pregnancy, to be honest.
Melissa Hemsley: I feel like I’ve only just, she’s almost two. You know, there, there’s other things, there’s other things to worry about now, but was in 12. Okay. Basically go, you get handed. And my mid midwife, you know, and my hospital was, was uc, UCLH, because I’m in North London. And I remember thinking, huh. And of course he’s a gynaecologist.
Melissa Hemsley: He’s not going to look after me after that. And of course I didn’t need him after that. Anyway, I had, I had a really fantastic experience. I ended up having a really wonderful, I never saw the same midwife twice. I think that’s quite usual. But everyone I came across I actually, not only was I lucky enough to, to have found a doula I loved, I had two doulas. And the reason is, is because the doula I met, and I think this is quite usual now, again, I knew nothing about doulas. They, they have a backup. They have a buddy doula so that if for some reason they’re unwell or their child is unwell, when you do go into labor, they’ve got someone else.
Melissa Hemsley: So I ended up having two amazing people support me and I decided on a, I wanted the water birth at the hospital rather than being at home. I didn’t feel, I really did in my heart want to have a home birth. But the way my anxiety was, I decided that it was better to go for the water at the hospital anyway, I ended up having an emergency c-section story for another day.
Melissa Hemsley: But what I wanted to say is, you know, everyone that I met medically from my functional doctor to my midwives in my first appointment with my midwife.. You know, you write this massive long list of everything. And I wrote, I’ve got diagnosed ADHD and diagnosed anxiety GAD, generalized anxiety disorder.
Melissa Hemsley: And the first thing my midwife said to me was, this is like the check-in midwives. Because again, I didn’t realize you have your midwives that work more like in the clinic with you, and then you have your midwives help you give birth midwives after birth. You know, so many different types of midwives. And this midwife, the first thing she said was, do you want me to turn the light down lower?
Melissa Hemsley: Because she knew that one of the characteristics could be of my ADHD, and she was right, was that bright light and especially white hospital lights overhead are very overstimulating for me and make me really stressed and talk like this and do all of this. And she was like, do you turn the light down?
Melissa Hemsley: And I was like, oh my God, yes, please. And then she said, to me, by the way, we have a designated mental health midwife and here’s her number. They, there’s a couple of them and they share the mobile. So at any point during, and I, I actually, that person, I actually didn’t need to contact them, but knowing that there was somebody who I could contact who would specifically be able to talk me through things if I was having like, the buildup to a panic attack or whatever, or just knowing that, that, that, that was available to me.
Melissa Hemsley: And then another thing, again, it was there off their back. They said to me, would you like to come and have a tour of the labor ward before? So it was so, so, so I guess I’m slightly going off topic, but for me what was really wonderful was the more open I was about, about things that in my life, my cultural and familial upbringing was like, that’s a weakness.
Melissa Hemsley: Don’t talk about it. People will judge you unfairly for that. Or people will just, people won’t want to work with you if they think that you are a bit erratic. Or people won’t work with you if they think you’re a bit broken. They, instead, were just like, Hey, would it make you feel better? We’re here for the safety of you and your child, your future child.
Melissa Hemsley: Would it make you feel better to come and have a look around beforehand? So it’s not a shock on the day, I was just so impressed. And again, all of that leading up to the question you asked me, I think meeting so many amazing medical professionals just really made me go, do you know what it’s now or never? I want to study, I want to learn, I want to have a beautiful menopause. I want to have an amazing, beautiful old age. I want to be strong and fit. I want to be able to know how to support me. I want to bring my child up. Not just going, okay, let’s just shove some Calpol. Because, because that’s how I was brought up.
Melissa Hemsley: And no judgment for anyone that does. But I was like, if I, if there’s other things I can try as well, I want to know. And I’m, I know that studying was going to enable me to do that. And so I had all, I had given cooking demos at CNM before, so they were on my radar. And then there were a couple of different colleges and I just started researching them and thinking who can I, who, who would give me the best flexibility?
Le’Nise Brothers: Have you thought ahead and, or like maybe you have a little bit when the, what you say, were saying earlier about when you see clients and you need to, you know, send them to other people. But have you thought about what you want to do when you finish your degree? Will it be about integrating it into your other work? Will it be about having a private practice?
Melissa Hemsley: Well, you know how I said earlier on, like, I try, I, I try not to jump too far ahead because I feel like I live too much in the, the planning. And we all know planning it doesn’t always work well, often doesn’t, but. One of the things that I had to do to justify, of course, the huge amount of financial cost and the financial pressure it puts under my whole family because we all have, in order for me to study, I’m sure you can relate this, so many different people have had to step up the extra cooking, the extra chores, the childcare and all of that.
Melissa Hemsley: So it’s like, it’s kind of like, you know, we all had to agree that I was going to do this degree. So I thought about it and there’s loads of different ways I think I would like to take it. But I have always, always wanted to have some sort of community or being, not necessarily me running it, but be involved in some sort of community space where we’re growing vegetables.
Melissa Hemsley: Not anything like, not anything extremely elegant or extremely. Large, but some sort of community space where we’re growing and there’s things growing that people actually want to eat while at the same time being interesting enough that people can come and learn and children can come and learn. And I mean, people often think about children, but like loads of grownups don’t, haven’t seen veg growing and it’s not our fault.
Melissa Hemsley: We just haven’t been shown these things. We haven’t been given the education. And so I, I would love that kind of space. And then, there’s a food offering every day. No surprising. I want a soup. So like, there’ll be soup, there’ll be homemade bread, and there’ll be an element of pay as you can for it so that everybody is invited and everybody gets to benefit from nutritious food.
Melissa Hemsley: And maybe somehow with my food contacts and my industry contacts, I can also use this beautiful space as a place that earns money so that commercial side pays for the educational community side. What’s funny? Oh, I think someone likes this idea. I’ll be getting her to work there when she’s older.
Melissa Hemsley: And so it’s like, it’s got food, it’s got nutrition. There’s a mental health aspect because we know that using our hands and getting them in soil and being in touch with nature is really good for our gut microbiome. It’s good, our mental health, it’s good for community. And I know because I work a lot with charities like the Prince’s Trust, which is now called the King’s Trust, that when I’m with young women and they’re like, I don’t want to take part in your cooking workshop.
Melissa Hemsley: I don’t want to cook, or My mum cooks, all she does is cook. I want more for myself than that. And I’m like, yeah, absolutely. Fair enough. I’m like, but can you help me make lunch for you all? 40 of you just come and gimme a hand. And we start chopping. And then that action of chatting side by side, we start talking about bigger things or some people want to learn how to cook, but they just feel like it’s a skill that no one ever taught them and it’s passing by and they feel.
Melissa Hemsley: So they, they’re not confident to nourish themselves with a meal. And so when by the two hours later we’ve made something really delicious and familiar, it’s nothing that’s like completely unfamiliar to them. They’re like, oh my God, I can cook. Like, yeah, of course you can cook. We can all cook. And that is such a confidence piece boost for people when they’re like, oh, I, I’m, I’ve literally, I’m going through life and I don’t know how to cook.
Melissa Hemsley: So I love that. So I want, I want it to be this amazing space where everyone is able to dip in however much they want. And I haven’t really come across places like that. And, and so back to your thing, you know, part of a lot of me would like to work with kids, but a lot of me would like to work with, with, with the elderly because we know that loneliness really accelerates aging of body and mind.
Melissa Hemsley: And so yeah, there’s loads I’d like to do with that. I’d like to get, maybe get involved with food policy. Every few years somebody tries to convince the government. Yeah. And my last book is about the rise of ultra processed food and how we can not be the nation in Europe that eats the highest amount and the numbers growing.
Melissa Hemsley: You know, maybe when I’ve got this degree behind me, it will enable me for my work to have a bit more impact in the way that it doesn’t, people will listen to me now from a food point of view, but, but maybe they’ll listen more.
Le’Nise Brothers: What’s the one thought you’d like to leave listeners with?
Melissa Hemsley: Well, you know, having just. I had an amazing chat with you and just having like, just you’ve, you know, I’m, I, I’m really not just saying this because I’m really not just saying this, but just having, being able to speak, being able to be listened to and chat with someone so amazing as you is, is something that I hope all of us get the chance to do.
Melissa Hemsley: It’s really nourishing for me. I hope I’ve really nourishing for me, I hope I’ve managed to, so selfishly I have really enjoyed myself and I’m really grateful for you asking me on and like asking me such amazing questions that I feel lighter having shared things with you and it’s helped me consolidate what my priorities are.
Melissa Hemsley: I hope in turn you ask would leave listeners that if people have lovely people in their lives that you can speak to. That you don’t be afraid to lean on them and ask them for help and, and help them brainstorm things with you. Because sometimes you do know what you want, but you just need someone to help you ask questions to get it out.
Melissa Hemsley: And, you know, whether you are listening to this and think, oh, I’d love to do a nutritional degree, but there’s absolutely no way I’m going to be able to find the time or have the money or the opportunity to do it. I would say there’s still so many amazing ways that you can access for free lots of information.
Melissa Hemsley: I’m sure you’ve got lots of resources to direct people to. And that I’m actually reading a book at the moment called Unwell Woman. Have you heard of it? Um, I can’t remember the author. Yeah.
Melissa Hemsley: Eleanor. Eleanor, yes. Yeah.
Melissa Hemsley: Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, I get maybe the chance to read half a page once a week, but it, it, it gives me a fire in my belly to just be like, we so deserve to be able to look after ourselves.
Melissa Hemsley: And the NHS are incredible at helping us when we’re in crisis, but good food and rest and knowledge about herbs. I’m, I’m the, I’m the mum at the playground with the arnica. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone’s like, is that like some special potion? I’m like, it’s, you can get it in, you can get, you can get it, you can get it in the supermarket.
Melissa Hemsley: And you know, obviously I’m like, it’s your responsibility to use it like it, you know, but at the same time, so many people like, you know, just that little act of like putting it on the kid’s booboo or like their knee or their head and everyone’s like, it just, it’s distracting the kid. It’s making the mum or dad feel better.
Melissa Hemsley: And, you know, I believe hundred percent it works, but. I, we, a lot of us never grew up knowing that there was an alternative to that. And that’s just a really simple thing that just comes out. My handbag, I have like one in my handbag, one in the buggy, and you know, my pots of herbal teas, you know, some people are like, there can’t be that much therapeutic levels in a herbal tea.
Melissa Hemsley: And I’m like, really? You know, you, you could be surprised. You know, or, or people thinking a veg, a veg box, an organic veg box is a luxury. Well, in many ways it is, but it’s one that I believe is, is an important one to budget in. And I’d rather go without certain things to prioritize very much my meat and dairy and my animal products and my eggs for sure.
Melissa Hemsley: So again, I’ve just gone off on one, but, but I guess, I guess my main thing would be, it could be really overwhelming to start self-research, but I think it’s worth it. And I think that one of the things I’ll be.
Melissa Hemsley: Helping get to know her body and her period without, you know, pushing too much on her. I don’t want to, I don’t want to be like, well, lemme tell you all the things I never learned…
Le’Nise Brothers: but that education, it’s so young and like doing it in a really age appropriate way. Yeah. And then just continuing to answer the questions in just an open, honest, age appropriate way is just, is so valuable. And I know that you’ll be fantastic at it.
Le’Nise Brothers: Thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it and if people want to get in touch with you who, um, are learning about you from this show, where can they, yeah. Where can they get in touch with you?
Melissa Hemsley: Well, thank you to anyone that’s, that’s listened and would like to, to keep in touch.
Melissa Hemsley: I’m on Instagram @ Melissa Hemsley, but you know what? I haven’t done anything for about two weeks, which is huge for me. I mean, that sounds so silly, but I’m like, Ooh, I think I’m sort of moving away. Um, let’s see. But I’m also on Substack and I have a page called Things that Make My Heart Sing. So. Do you know what?
Melissa Hemsley: Let’s do a little screenshot photo, you and I, so I can put this picture up. Okay. Let’s do a little smile. Okay. Excuse us listeners. We just need the picture. Yay. That’s an amazing screenshot. And I’ll be posting this. So yeah, basically on on that, on that page thing that make my heart sing, I write about like, yeah, podcasts.
Melissa Hemsley: I’ve listened to, things that have inspired me. I don’t talk so much about food or there that is always, obviously recipes woven in and things like that. But it’s more, yeah, exploring, exploring quite a lot of what we talked about here. Cool.
Le’Nise Brothers: Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. It’s been so brilliant talking to you.