Kathryn’s New Frontier

Kathryn Thomas tells Andrea Smith about being a mum and why it’ so important not to lose yourself in motherhood.

TV presenter Kathryn Thomas is at a lovely, but busy, point in her life, as she has two beautiful girls, Ellie (4) and Grace (5 months), her own business with Pure Results fitness retreats and a vibrant broadcasting career.

The chatty, vivacious Carlow woman has had a great televised career between travelling the globe on No Frontiers and presenting Operation Transformation. Becoming a mum wasn't straightforward for herself and her restaurateur husband, Pádraig McLoughlin, who has a grown-up son Conor from a previous relationship.

“We knew that we needed help and we went under Mary Wingfield at the Merrion Fertility Clinic, and I’m just so grateful that medical science allowed us to have a family,” she says, “We had many disappointments and had experienced miscarriage, and we said we'd give it one last try as I couldn't emotionally go through any more heartbreak or disappointment.” Kathryn admits to being a real “yes“ person who loves her work, but the busy mum has come to the realisation that she has to make decisions now around what's right for her family.

“You know, we can do it all as women, but it's very bloody difficult,” she says.

“There's days and weeks where you don't know your arse from your elbow, of course, but I remember feeling that on one child as well. And Pádraig is brilliant and he's a really hands-on dad, although we’ve both laughed at times and said, in hindsight, parenting is a young man's or woman’s game.”

The presenter says that being a mum is “the greatest job in the world,” and she is prepared to put herself in the backseat for a little while. She is very grateful that Ellie took to baby Grace so well. Rather than being put out by the new arrival, the little girl is very protective and hasn’t shown any jealousy.

“She loves fussing over her and we couldn't get over it because we were expecting tantrums and tiaras at dawn,” she laughs. “We thought we’d have to batten down the hatches but she's like a little granny.” Ellie is currently in the naoinrá at school, and Grace will be starting at the childminder’s two days per week soon. Kathryn was grateful that she was able to bring her to the set of Operation Transformation earlier this year. She fed

Grace during the breaks and although everyone was prepared to stop filming if Grace became unsettled, it never happened.

“She's a really placid baby and she doesn't really cry, but now that I’ve said that out loud to you, I’ve probably jinxed it,” she groans.

“I was breastfeeding and formula feeding as well, and my breastfeeding journey with her has just come to an end after fiveand- a half months. It's kind of bittersweet because I loved and felt very privileged to be able to do it, but it’s such hard work and you've got to have really good support just to start the process and keep it going.”

GOOD NEIGHBOURS

Kathryn loves where she lives in Dublin 8, as it’s an old area with a great sense of community. She and Pádraig were considering moving down to Kildare or Straffan in recent years, but have decided to stay put as they have made great friends there and it's a very handy location for getting to the city centre.

“Ellie’s little school is across the road, and we have our own sports and social club in the estate and movie nights on the green,” she says. “We have great neighbours as well, and I’m very good friends with my Ukrainian next-door-neighbour Luda and we've always minded each other.” Once the decision was made to stay put, Kathryn decided to do some work on the house. Spending two years at home made her want to give it a new look, so she repainted it and got a little studio built down the end of their garden.

“We needed an extra home office and a kind of escape room from the kids,” she jokes. “The house was dark and navy and gold, and I just wanted to paint it all, so we just lightened and brightened everything and I love it.”

Kathryn was surprised at how important making friends with children has become to her since she became a mum. She has become great friends with some of the other local mums, and says that it's such a comfort to be able to pick up the phone and ask somebody to collect Ellie from school if she’s running late. “And I’d do the same for them,” she says.

Now 43, Kathryn says that a lot of her close friends have children who are a bit older, including her 12-year-old godson Tom, who is the son of her best friend Antonia “We were quite late to the game,” she says, of herself and Pádraig. “Although one of my best friends Jill had her daughter Charlie the day before Ellie was born, and we ended up in the Coombe hospital together. We were the two “geriatric mothers” - that's what was written over our beds. I had Ellie early on a Friday and had an emergency Caesarean section.”

“Jill brought Charlie to my room that evening and we were sitting in watching The Late Late Show. I couldn’t move from the bed and she was there changing my one’s nappy for me. And I was like, ‘­ This is far from the Friday nights we’re normally used to!’”

STRONG WOMEN

Kathryn and her sister Linda are currently organising their five-night Pure Results retreats, which aim at optimising participants' health and wellbeing. ­ The forthcoming ones are taking place at the Parknasilla Resort & Spa in Kerry, Breaffy House Resort in Mayo and Seafield Hotel & Spa Resort in Wexford.

­The Mayo retreat culminates in climbing the majestic Croagh Patrick in May, and Kathryn is relishing the challenge. It isn’t compulsory to go all the way to the summit, as they will have guides with them who will tailor the climb to people’s fitness levels and personal choices (see PureResults.ie).

Sadly, Pádraig’s parents have passed away, but Kathryn says her own parents, Anne and Gwynne, are both great with her daughters. Even though her parents’ marriage ended 20 years ago, it's all very amicable and they get on very well together as a family.

Anne, who has a “roundy” birthday coming up, is very independent, and Kathryn admires her spirit of adventure.

She has arthritis and the sun helps with that, so she goes off to places like the Canaries, Tunisia or Morocco with friends or by herself.

“My mother will talk to the leg of the table, so she makes friends wherever she goes,” says Kathryn. “We’re both very strong women and very independent, so we can disagree and get on each other's wick a lot and that’s the absolute truth.

We wouldn't be able to live with one another, but do I love her at the ends of the earth and back?

Yes, absolutely! She is always there for me when I need her and she gives great advice. She means everything to me.”

Anne was an English and French teacher and was strict around homework, early nights and education. You could go to her with any problem and she’d help, and Kathryn’s friends often went to her mum for advice too.

“Mom was the disciplinarian in our house as my dad was a walkover,” Kathryn laughs. “I’m the strict one in my house too as every time they open their mouths, Pádraig just melts, but I think I'm more of a hybrid of my two parents. Ellie will go over to him and whisper, ‘Does Mom know you have those jellies in the cupboard or is that our secret?’”

While it all worked out in the end, Kathryn remains grateful that she had the girls and says it would have taken her a long time to get over it and make peace with it if it hadn't happened. “We had tried so hard and got so close so many times,” she points out. “I think that having been pregnant on two or three occasions, it would have been hard to accept that it wasn't meant to be.”

TABLE DANCING

Kathryn wasn’t in a relationship in her mid-thirties, and she looked into options like freezing her eggs and getting her AMH (Anti-Mullerian Hormone) levels tested to check her ovarian reserve. She advocates for women in their twenties getting checked if they think they might want to start a family at some point.

“I had my levels checked and they were fine, so I never went ahead and froze my eggs, but if you figure out in your twenties that you might have trouble with fertility, there's so many different options available to you,” she says.

Mothers can tend to feel a bit lost in the first few months after a new baby, and this was the case for Kathryn. “It's very challenging and it's tough and all-consuming,” she admits. “And you do lose yourself as you have to give so much of yourself physically, emotionally and mentally, but while your life is your kids, it can’t be all of it.”

Kathryn has great friends, and she says that they all feel quite like her, in that they don't want to lose themselves in motherhood. When Kathryn and Pádraig went away recently on a ski holiday in

Austria with her siblings, David and Linda, and their dad Gwynne, her mum Anne came up from Kerry to stay at their house to mind four-year-old Ellie and five month- old Grace.

“I hadn't been away from Grace before, so that's why we only went for five days,” she says. “I was running home from the airport to get back to them, and although the first two days are really hard when you’re away for them, you realise that they’re grand and they don’t miss you.”

­The plan was that Ellie was supposed to stay with Kathryn’s friend who has a daughter of the same age for two nights, to make things a bit easier on her mum, who also had the family’s two pugs, Peter and Polly, to mind.

“Ellie ended up staying there for the four nights we were away as she was having such a ball,” says Kathryn. “Every time I phoned to talk to her, she was too busy having the craic to come anywhere near the phone, so that made me feel grand.”

“So was I dancing on a table in Austria having had way too much wine and lunch? Abso-feckin-lutely,” she laughs. “I hope that fun, inquisitive, curious, independent side of me won’t ever go. ­ The way I see it is that you have to go away and have your date nights and go for dinner with the girls. And you have to dance on tables at lunchtime sometimes.”

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