No need for Prince Charming

39:03

S5:E32 - Sam & Bubba

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/10/05

She always knewSam walked into a fertility clinic at 24 with her friend as her fake partner, because she assumed single women weren't allowed to do this alone. When the counsellor handed her a booklet with a section on solo mums, she had a quiet revelation: she didn't need to pretend anything. She went on the donor waitlist that day. Then she waited three years. Sam is an emergency department nurse in Canterbury, New Zealand, who grew up in a family with a cycle of difficult relationships and

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59:04

S5:E31 - Fertility Counselling & Donor Conception —...

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/09/28

Every woman going through donor conception at a fertility clinic in Australia is required to attend implications counselling. And almost every one of them turns up expecting to be assessed, judged, and told whether they're worthy enough to be a mum.Narelle Dickinson has been working in this space for 30 years. She finds that deeply sad. Narelle is a reproductive psychologist, fertility counsellor, and the director of Lotus Health and Psychology in Brisbane. She specialises in the prenatal and

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51:05

S5:E30 - Claire & August

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/09/21

The Plan Always Had a Next StepClaire always knew she'd be a mum. She told her mum at 18 that if she didn't find someone, she'd do it on her own. Her mum said she wouldn't need to. Claire filed that away and thought: well, if I do, I'm fine with it. At 30 she decided she was financially ready, had ticked off enough of her travel list, and started. She didn't make a big announcement. When she eventually told people, nobody was surprised. What followed was not the quick journey she'd hoped for. A

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64:32

S5-E29 - Brooke & Mia

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/09/14

The wake up callBrooke spent most of her 30s in a relationship with a man who already had a child and didn't want more. She told herself she was okay with that. She spent 10 years telling herself that. And somewhere in those 10 years, quietly, she started filling out IVF paperwork in the background. She never did anything with it. COVID arrived. She went back to it in 2021. She saw a counsellor, got on the donor waitlist at Melbourne IVF, found the Facebook sperm donation groups deeply

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82:31

S5:E28 - Alex, A & Ollie

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/09/07

From the Very First Try to Six Months InSome women come to this decision with a clear plan. Alex came with a deadline: if I'm still single at 30, I'm doing it on my own. She hit 30. She went to Bali to celebrate. She came home and got her AMH checked. It was on the lower end of normal. That was enough. What followed was three years, a recruited known donor in Victoria, two early miscarriages, a laparoscopy that found stage two endometriosis she never knew she had, multiple egg retrievals across a

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62:50

S5:E27 - Alisha & Alexandra - part 2

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/08/31

Four and a Half Years Later — Alisha's UpdateA note: this episode mentions the loss of Alisha's son Jeremy, who was stillborn 12 years ago today. She shares it with gratitude and without distress — but as always on this podcast, take care of yourself first. When I recorded my first ever episode of No Need for Prince Charming, Lexi was almost two. She is now six and a half. A lot has changed. I've been meaning to do this update for a while, and today felt like the right day — because it's the 12th

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75:59

S5:E26 - Kate & Amelia

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/08/24

She never gave up!Some journeys are long. Kate's is one of the longest we've shared on this podcast — and one of the most quietly remarkable. Kate came to solo motherhood later than she planned, and for reasons that had nothing to do with not wanting a child. For much of her 30s she was managing Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a chronic pain condition so severe she was on strong medication whose effects on a foetus were not yet known. She finished three masters degrees, achieved a third-degree

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67:13

S5:E25 - Acupuncture and Fertility with Dr Michelle...

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/08/17

Acupuncture for IVF & Fertility — What Solo Mums Need to Know | Dr Michelle Smith, Ova AcupunctureMost fertility specialists will tell you to try acupuncture. Very few of them explain why. This week I'm joined by Dr Michelle Smith — acupuncturist, Chinese herbal medicine practitioner, and director of Ova Acupuncture in Brisbane. Michelle specialises in fertility and women's health, has two clinics in Brisbane, and sees women from all over Australia, including many solo mums by choice. She's

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58:21

S5:E24 - Kaitlynn & Sully

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/08/10

Nine People, One Tiny Town, and the Boy Who Brought the House Back to LifeKaitlynn was never much of a dater. In her early 20s, her mum — who, as mums do, knew her best — floated the idea of going it alone. It took another six or seven years of on-and-off conversation before Kaitlynn, now 29 and living in a four-generation household in remote Tasmania, finally sat down and started putting the pieces together. When we first spoke to Kaitlynn, she was weeks out from her first fertility appointment —

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41:17

S5:E23 - Choosing Rose with Beth Sadowsky

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/08/03

Every donor-conceived child from an SMBC will ask it eventually. Mummy, why don't I have a daddy?Most of us lie awake at some point worrying about how to answer it. What words do we use? How much do we say? What if we get it wrong? This week I'm joined by Beth Sadowsky — solo mum by choice, life coach, and author of Choosing Rose, a children's picture book written specifically for SMBC families. Beth is based in Florida, USA, and her daughter Lily is 7. The book started as a letter Beth wrote to

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44:36

S5:E22 - Jessica & Teddy - Part 2

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/07/27

She Chose Her Mother's Coffin With Her Newborn in the Next RoomA brief note: this episode includes the death of Jessica's mum from cancer during Teddy's first year, and a hospital stay for Teddy shortly after. It's heavy in places — but told with real warmth, and it ends somewhere good. Jessica brought Teddy home five days after his birth, straight into a household COVID exposure that saw her evacuated to her brother's for a week. It set the tone. Over the following eight months, her mum's cancer —

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43:22

S5:E21 - Jessica & Teddy - Part 1

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/07/20

Ten Years, One Afternoon, and a Donor She Wasn't Supposed to Find That FastA brief note: this episode touches on Jessica's mum's terminal cancer diagnosis, which arrived while she was starting IVF. Nothing graphic — just wanted you to know it's there. Jessica always knew she'd be a mum. What she had, that a lot of solo mums don't, was a role model: her aunt, a solo mum by choice back in the early '90s, back when it wasn't spoken about at all. Jessica set herself a deadline — 32 — and spent the

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62:22

S5:E20 - Emma & Franklin - One appointment changed...

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/07/13

One appointment changed everything Emma never romanticised motherhood. She spent her whole career caring for other people's children — as a live-in nanny, a live-out nanny, and eventually a kinder assistant — and somewhere along the way she started asking herself whether she'd regret not having a child of her own. The answer was yes. And that was enough. She didn't come to this with urgency or grief or a ticking clock. She came to it with clarity. When her best friend's AMH results came back

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68:09

S5:E19 - Krisina, Otis & Ari

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/07/06

Two Kids, One Heart Condition, and No Regrets A brief note: this episode mentions a miscarriage between Kristina's two pregnancies. She shares it with grace and without distress, but we wanted you to know it's there. Kristina spent her 30s doing what she loved — living in different countries, working big marketing jobs, going out, seeing things. Children were always in the plan. A partner never quite materialised. And then her mum — a retired GP who had spent her career delivering babies — started

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72:35

S5:E18 - Lindsay & Aric

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/06/29

First Try, Water Birth & Teaching Full Time Lindsay is the kind of person who, when she decides something is happening, makes it happen. She promised herself at 27 — the day she left her marriage — that not having a partner would never mean not having a child. She promised herself again at 30, moving to Scotland on her own without knowing a single person. And she promised herself at 35 that if she was still single, she would make it happen that year. She was. She did. One round of IVF at

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76:05

S5:E17 - Renee & Aria - 7 years in

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/06/22

Most of the stories on this podcast start at the beginning. This one starts seven years down the track — and it's one of the most valuable perspectives we have. Renee made her first appointment at 37, after a colleague finally said the quiet part loud and told her to just do it already. She did two IUI rounds, had a bad experience with her first IVF clinic and walked away, found Dr David Wilkinson at City Fertility, and on her third and final round — a frozen transfer she specifically advocated for

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39:08

S5:E16 - Ashleigh & Z - Eight Months from Egg...

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/06/15

Eight Months from Egg Freezing to PregnantAshleigh's story is one of those ones that will genuinely reassure anyone who is at the very beginning of this journey and quietly terrified about how long it might take. She was 33 when a friend planted the seed about egg freezing. She went to an initial clinic consultation — more curious than committed — and on the same day, a colleague at work mentioned she'd just had a baby via IVF with a sperm donor. Two seeds in one day. Eight months later, Ashleigh

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80:50

S5:E15 - What you need to know about being induced as...

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/06/08

Nearly half of first-time mums in Australia will have their labour induced. Most of them have no idea what that actually involves until they're in the middle of it. This episode is here to change that. I'm joined by Nat — Melbourne midwife, solo mum of three boys, and someone who has had three very different births of her own (including one that ended with her in ICU — more on that in her own episodes, which are linked below, but maybe save those for after you've had your baby). Nat works in a

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71:05

S5:E14 - Maree & Ellena - From the very first...

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/06/01

When Maree came on to record, she had just had her very first IUI. She was 35, freshly into treatment, overwhelmed by the scan schedule, quietly terrified, and moving back in with her parents to make it financially possible. We recorded Part 1 that day.Then we waited. Part 2 picks up on the other side — after two unsuccessful IUIs, a full IVF cycle with PCOS that produced 29 eggs and four embryos, a frozen transfer that worked on the first attempt, and the arrival of Ellena via a planned

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61:40

S5:E12 - Lucia & Gabe (part 2)

No need for Prince Charming ·

2026/05/18

Part 2: 160 Days, and Then Home Trigger warning: This episode discusses premature birth, NICU and neonatal medical procedures. Missed Part 1? Start with S5:E11 — Luce's IVF journey, multiple losses, and the night her membranes ruptured at 22 weeks. Gabe was born at 10:35am on a Wednesday morning, weighing 598 grams. He was 30 centimetres long. He came out flat and silent, and a team of eight people swooped in immediately. Luce didn't know he was a boy for five full minutes. By quarter past twelve,

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