Sam & Alice Vanderpump: Becoming Parents While Waiting for Life-Saving Surgery

0:00Do you know what gets me through February? Wine? Yes, wine, but also booking a holiday. The minute I know something's in the diary, my whole mood lifts. Oh, same. It's that little boost that helps you survive the freezing school runs and bitter Saturday footy mornings. Which is why we're thrilled to have Jet 2 Holidays as our sponsor. Because nothing beats that just booked feeling with Jet 2 Holidays. Exactly. A low deposit now, something lovely to look forward to later, and suddenly a soggy school run feels more manageable. coming up please welcome sam and alice vanderpump welcome i do think there is something quite amazing about being the first time your baby ever touches i think that's amazing you called me a fat hairy hobbit and laughed it was a joke i'm sorry darling oh guys don't make any jokes that she's in labor i was told i was going to need a liver transplant a few months ago i could get a phone call at any moment saying we've got a liver for you I'm so sorry.

1:01It could be a donor. Can you imagine? And that's literally why I have to have my phone on loud. Not knowing when he might have a liver transplant and having a young child is slightly concerning.

1:21Hi, Hannah. How are you? I feel like a bag of s*** today because... You don't look like it, babe. Oh, Louise, my daughter was up vomiting all night. And I mean, from when I went to bed at 11 o 'clock until like every, I was sat, you know, in the rocking chair and she's like two and a half. But I think she's had like a bit of a cold, a bit mucusy, loves a dummy, gag reflex, wasn't working out for her last night. So she was vomiting like every half hour. Oh my God. And I went through eight, eight towels because what I was doing is holding it to her mouth and collecting it. and then like almost like making it into a parcel getting the next bit and holding it waiting for a bit more and then I was doing yeah yeah did it did a wash load well because I was trying to wipe it from her mouth and by the time I'd got up the first time with her I just picked up a pile of towels and just put them in there so I mean I could have just got our baking bowl from the kitchen that everybody just sick bowl baking bowl put it through the dishwasher it's good to go it's anti-backed um so I think like last night was it I got two hours and 13 minutes of unbroken sleep and you still look fabulous you still turned up looking glorious I feel like I drank 10 pints of Wetherspoons last night vomited and then got punched in the face and then got up at 5am here I am but you know it's like as you go I know good old Wetherspoons but it's like as a working mum you these things happen people think the newborn phase is like oh my god it's so tricky you never asleep and then you get to the toddler phase where they wake up and you can't just go go back to sleep because they're like i get up now and it's like no annabelle it's quarter past one in the morning and you're vomiting and then she wants to go and see her brothers who are asleep and i had to shout my husband a few times last night did he help get the up well he doesn't like sick so when annabelle was being sick he was going and i was like just take that towel pass me another one like let me wipe her face and and i'm like annabelle you're okay you're fine good girl you're so brave and then i was secretly going to the side and it's not like we used to eat like you know fish fingers and chips it's like that's kind of a not a horrible smell but it's like chickpeas and vegan lentils like all that kind of kids are eating like loads of broccoli and spinach and it's like i mean that actually my fail is food related um so it turns out that chutney and strawberry jam look very much alike.

3:43Oh no. Who did you feed? Packed lunch, sandwiches. Oh Christ. Chutney. Like an onion and red ale chutney. Yeah. So Louise, a couple of weeks ago we were chatting and you were a bit emotional because you are a normal working mum. I'm normal. And having children, the mental load, work, everything is just a pressure cooker in the old head. how are you feeling now a lot better I think it's really important to offload um there was a lot going on like behind the scenes um with school and home life that you know we don't usually share on our social media our social media is usually kind of very upbeat and yeah funny but actually we are real people it's funny because afterwards you were like I'm so sorry and we were all like what are you sorry for?

4:34You are a mum. Like everybody, we all get like that. Like a small tipping point and then it just, the floodgates open. It's like a grenade goes in your head. Yeah. And that's it. And it's funny actually, my best friend, we call it a Billy Elliot. And it's because we watched Billy Elliot when it came out and we cried at it. We were like, oh my God, that's amazing. And then we could not stop crying and it was just like, oh! They were like, what are we crying for? We don't even know. But it feels so good to get it out. It's cathartic. And yeah, so every time that we have these mental load, overstimulated, everything, overwhelmed breakdowns, we call them our Billy Elliot.

5:17I love that. I'm going to start doing that as well. Right. I have a win of the week. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. I know we always have our fails, but someone who is more optimistic than us has sent in their win of the week. Here we go. My six-year-old daughter is obsessed with the era's tour. Oh my God, so am I. I love Taylor. My win is I have somehow managed to turn bedtime into eras. Bath era, PJ era, story era and sleep era. She was so committed to completing the eras, she didn't even argue. And I got a rare 8pm sit down. This woman is a genius. What a genius. And what a win. That's a great idea.

5:56I feel like any tips that anyone has, like for bedtime routine, as the kids from the age of like six, seven. Oh, God. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. From that age, it's really, you don't get your evenings anymore. No, my evenings are gone. Babies to bed, seven, 7.30. Ooh, they're going to be in bed for that. Well, I say for 12 hours, hopefully. Yeah. But when they get a bit older, they keep coming downstairs. Oh, Basil doesn't go to bed till like 10 now. Yeah. He's up with us. And then you're like, but where's my evening gone? I know. You can't have it in. Off. Yeah. Well, what a win of a week that was. Amazing.

6:30I love these wins. They're brilliant. Keep sending them in. Very good advice. Yeah. Chocolate. Woo! Chocolate. What are you doing? Just getting into the holiday spirit. But it's February. It might be February, but I've already booked my family summer holiday with Jet 2 Holiday. So I'm officially in full holiday mode. Today we are joined by a duo that is bringing a serious dose of Chelsea charm and West Hollywood royalty to the studio. He's a breakout star from E4's Maiden Chelsea, a savvy entrepreneur and yes, the nephew of iconic Lisa Vanderpump. And joining him is his stunning wife and model and influencer who has taken social media by storm.

7:13Please welcome Sam and Alice Vanderpump. Welcome. Welcome. Oh my God, that's actually the first time I've heard you introduced us. Because normally it's Sam Vanderpump had a reaction. I know. That's crazy. Oh, really? Oh, is that nice then? Yeah, this is the first time hearing it. We actually got a card the other day, which was to Mr. and Mrs. Vanderpump. From your cousins though. Well, welcome guys. Welcome to the podcast, No Parental Guidance. How are you? Really well, thank you. I've got to say, you're our first couple on the show that is pregnant for the first time. absolutely no idea what's coming as parents freshly freshly married you've got no idea what's coming pretty much yeah absolutely no idea but we are here to help we're not like chuckling in the background like you have no idea good like no no it is you know it is wonderful but we are here any questions i've got a lot so good have you fire away so you are how many weeks pregnant are you 35 weeks and i've got to say you'd look look at you no more than me and i loved how we were talking before we started filming and like Sam was saying how pregnancy is for him, how the pregnancy is for you.

8:20It's been easy. Really light work. Do you know when you said that? I could do this again. When you said that before we came in, there was a few women stood around and we were like, how's the pregnancy for you? And you interjected and you were like, well, do you know what? And we're like, oh, shut the f*** up when I'm f***ing you. It's not about you. And Alice is there like, f***ing shut up. You should have seen him in the first trimester. I'd be lying there and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't move. I feel so sick. I'm hungry. And he'd be on the sofa having a phantom pregnancy doing the same thing.

8:49So my husband had a phantom pregnancy. It was a thing. Honestly, with all three. And it would be a case of towards the end of the pregnancy, I was like, if you say that, I'm gritting my teeth. He'd be like, oh, do you know what? I feel a bit sick. Yeah. Oh, my God. Absolutely. I'm like, oh, my back. I'm like, can we not? No, no. But you've had a few sickness issues. It's not been like the easiest pregnancy, has it? I'm still taking morning sickness tablets today. Yeah. Oh, my God. I've been sick the whole time. You haven't had the smoothest of pregnancy runs. I do feel quite sorry for her. How's that for you?

9:20Yeah, how are you doing? It's been really difficult, that part of it, you know. No, I'm joking. I've been good support. Have you been physically throwing up or just feeling nauseous? The tablets that I'm on are doing quite a good job at stopping the actual sickness. But if I miss a tablet or if I overdo it, I do still like throw up even now. Is there anything that stops it? This is literally the 1 % where if she didn't take the morning sickness tablet, she'd be sick the whole way through. Yeah. Because if she stops taking it, yeah, she's really... And then she's had urine retention, UTIs, kidney problems.

9:54Oh, you're having a great time, aren't you? It's not been great. We've been to the hospital a fair few times, actually, haven't we? Oh, we... I mean, there's a running joke in my family, and they think they're so funny. They're like... Because we live two-minute walk from the hospital, and they're like, you guys should have just moved in the hospital because we're in and out of the hospital so much. Well, they're like, it's our second home. Oh, it's your second home. It's like, guys, the dad jokes are awful. But you're due on Valentine's Day, aren't you? Oh, that's lovely. And you're having a boy?

10:20Yes. That's amazing. And you've chosen a name? Marmaduke. Oh, yeah. Marmaduke. Brilliant. What was that? Brilliant. I love that you've chosen the name already. We've been referring to him as Duke. Yeah. I just hope he looks like a Marmaduke, because if not, we're out there now. Well, that's so nice, because usually we've always said, I'll wait till the baby comes, see what the baby looks like. But you've got meaning behind the name, haven't you? Yeah. So my dad wanted to call my brother Mama Duke Vanderpump. And the reason for it was because when my brother was to become prime minister, and my dad had already decided this when my brother was born, apparently, he wanted him to be called Mama Duke.

10:59And they thought it'd be a cool name for a prime minister and Duke Vanderpump for short. But yeah, it's so special for me because my dad's obviously no longer with us. And I thought it was, I actually, I like a unique name and I think it's, he really wanted it. And I think it's a, yeah, it's in memory of him. That's lovely. How does your mum feel about the name? She, her face dropped. I think everyone's not used to it now, but the first reaction from everyone's not been. Yeah. She was like, there's a reason why I objected to this name and there's a reason why no one likes it. So there were a few members of Alice's family that turned around to her and was like, took her aside and went, Alice, if you want, you can talk to us about this.

11:37oh my gosh has sam bullied you into this name like you can have a conversation you can tell us you can tell us you're vulnerable you're pregnant the one thing that that we agreed on is that i have full autonomy over the next name oh what is the next name well we don't know we have a few ideas depends if it's a girl or a boy i don't want to give the name of middle name oh no i think we're doing Marcus for the middle name again for my dad so at that point everyone was like how comes you've got both names and then I was like okay well if we go Marmaduke Marcus then it would be for autonomy would go to Alice for the next and I'm really hoping the next one's a girl so yeah he wants to have Irish twins he's like let's pop another one out straight away and I'm like I think I need some time I really think I mean there are pros and cons to that I mean I didn't do that my all my kids think you're the same Hannah our kids about three years apart ours are literally like yeah age yours are slightly older but we have the same age I think that's a perfect age gap but for our second wedding I don't I don't want to be pregnant during that one so I'm like yeah the timing I'm like I just don't know also I realized with my kids age gaps because I've got three of them that I do the school I'm doing the school run for 12 years oh yeah that's a live sense that's a lot of whatsapp groups louise it's too many already yeah and that's a lot of cake sales that is funny uh but i do have friends who had kids they've got three under three and their school run is like do that though i don't know by a thread i don't know i think is the phrase i need to ask you though like what what are your expectations um for for parenthood you know if the baby if when the baby wakes in the night you know who's going to be getting up have you got visions you know you have to breastfeed or you're not so concerned about it what what's your vision for the next i would love to breastfeed but i think we are both so last minute and so relaxed that we haven't planned i think we're going to just take it as it comes i don't think there's anything that we've thought out that we're like we must do it this way i think that is the best way absolutely also subconsciously kind of know certain things you know we know i'm going to be doing the late nights and alice is going to be doing the early mornings just for my natural I don't know if I'm going to pump or not.

13:55So I'm not sure on that one. But I think nighttime is not really a problem because he doesn't sleep until three in the morning. I go to bed at like 10, but I can wake up like that. So I don't think that that's going to be, I don't want to speak too soon, but I don't think that's going to be too much of a problem. How nice that you've both recognized that as well. Because that's sometimes half the battle with couples where it's like, you know, if they both go to bed at 10 and then they both wake up at the same time, it's like, well, who's going to get up in the night then? I don't think I don't think I have that problem like I don't think it's not going to be like well I did it last night you've got to do it tonight I really don't think that would be a problem for us if you stick to that routine it sounds like a winning combination we are incredibly lucky though and this is one thing I must say we are so fortunate that both our professions you know we obviously work in social media and reality TV as well but everything most of what we do is from home I think we thank the stars for that and we are looking we're looking forward to Duke so much and we know we're going to really get to enjoy this.

14:53Oh, that's lovely. Oh, I feel a bit emotional here. It's so nice. It really is. I feel like broody. Do you, Louise? Yeah, I do. It's not going to happen. No, it's because you never know. You never see another. I really love seeing a pregnant woman. I just think, oh my God, it's just magical. It's such a magical time. Especially when they look like you. I mean, you are insane, glowing. Glowing. Look, I've seen your Instagram and it is just pristine. I mean, how are you going to feel about getting Poonami explosions and you're going to be covered in s***? You ain't going to be wearing white, hun.

15:22Yeah, how do you feel? What do you think about this? We've just bought a new sofa and it's white. No, don't tell me. Don't tell me. Do you know what? Milk stains. Put some blankets over it and it'll be fine. Can I say something weird then? I don't know if you felt this, Hannah, but I actually quite liked the smell of poo. Yeah, the mustard chip. Wait, what? Because it's not. You need to see a soft stuff. It's just milk poo. It's sweet. And I quite liked the smell of it. And the smell of the newborn baby. You know when they do a little scrunch. It's only when they start eating solids that they're poo-dressed from like...

15:52Yeah, I literally heaved. We were at our friends, Ollie and Gareth, yesterday. They've got two-year-olds. One of them obviously dropped a bomb and it stuck so bad. You're actually going to make me heave. This is a horrific chat for a first thing on a Monday. Welcome to No Parental Guide. The conflict that we've had so far about parenting is who's going to be doing most of the nappies. I don't think either of us want to do that. Have you seen the videos of dads where they're like... Like actually heaving. it changing everyone does tell me and I hope this happens as much as I don't want to become normalized to poo you will be you will desensitized you'll have it on your eyes yeah it's fine yeah apparently when it's your own child you'll love the smell of poo or something it is true you'll probably start changing your mate's baby no no or your mates you know or your mates yeah I've actually said to Ollie and Gareth Locke because they're like, oh, no, it's absolutely fine.

16:50We'll do it. And we're like, fine. You live down the road. You can be over every single day. You look close to them. Yeah, literally two minutes away. Oh, perfect. We literally walked to theirs for Sunday lunch yesterday. You know that their kids sleep. I was just going to say, all the time. Is that actually true? It's not sleep. It is true. It's not normal. Is it actually? They didn't have a nap yesterday and I think they'd woken up. They had to wake them up just before 11 and they'd been put down at 6. Just to let you know, that's not particularly that normal. Let's not normalize that. Just to make you aware as well, my daughter is the same age as Ollie's twins.

17:27And when he was on our podcast and talking about this outrageous sleep routine, we were like, what? This can't be true. So now you validate that. We nearly kicked him out of the studio. Yeah, we did. We were cross about it. But last night, my daughter was awake on the hour, every hour, vomiting, crying. and I feel like today I had 10 pints in Wetherspoons last night and somebody's punched me in the face and here I am and it's like she's two and a half gorgeous you look gorgeous yeah you look amazing oh thank you guys I'll say it again stop it but it's that the reality of um being awake in the night I remember when I found out um when I had my firstborn I was like so when the baby's fed every two hours um but by the time you've got the baby up change the nappy you've had and then the baby is like awake once you fed and it's like when when does like mom or dad sleep i genuinely didn't realize a baby feeds every two hours the first week what do we expect in terms of sleep i actually don't know because some people say don't wake a sleeping baby and some people are saying every two hours you've got to wake the baby up yeah i i feel like a baby is instinctive you know that's all they've got yeah they're very beings are instinctive very and you follow their lead A baby will tell you through their cries.

18:42I know this from my book reading. They'll tell you whether they need one or three things. Feeding, diaper change or burping. I've got the third one. Yes, exactly. So if they're going to tell you those three things, if they're not waking up to tell you that, they probably don't need it. So I would be on the... The only thing I have to say that caveat is that is my mum let me sleep through the first night and apparently I slept for eight hours and I ended up back in hospital because I had low blood sugar. Oh. Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe we'll set like a limit to max five hours or something. It depends, I guess, obviously like we're not medically trained, but you know if the babies are underweight, so my second born was like went underweight, so then they were saying you need to wake him up to feed him.

19:24Isn't the ideal situation then for Alice to just be able to pump for days and then have loads of it stocked up and then let's say, for example, I, she could sleep for 10 hours and I could feed like five times through. But it concerns me that not everyone can breastfeed the same. Some people don't like to pump or it hurts too much or they can't produce milk. Well, we squeezed your boob the other day and milk came out. A colostrum. Did you really? All right, guys. We don't need to know what's been going on in your bedroom. It's amazing. It took me really by surprise. Oh, I love that. No, I love that.

19:54I didn't. Because my breast milk was, I couldn't like pump and pump and pump. Yeah. I really wanted to. I have some friends that like, I think, You actually donated your own milk, didn't you? A lot, yeah, a lot to the NHS, yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, you donated it. Some people, I know people selling it. So much. Well, I didn't realise that you could sell it on eBay and stuff, otherwise I wouldn't have given it to the NHS. Before I forget, sorry, because we talked about this on last week's pod, apparently, and I don't know what truth is in this, but placentas apparently worth 50 grand. Apparently. FYI.

20:30I don't know. How do you feel about that? I mean like I'm all here for making money and I am I'd sell my uh my left kidney for a bit of money if I didn't need it well unfortunately mine are a bit weak yeah well come on to that but uh yeah I don't know how I feel about you're you're some because all I imagine is some weird person out there in really enjoying Alice's place no it's because people think there's so many Weird, weird, weird. The research I've done into placentas is that actually you're more likely at risk to get an infection from a consuming placenta than you are to get any benefit.

21:1050 grand? Let's sell it tomorrow. Duke don't eat it. Hannah and I both ate our placentas after. No, you didn't. No, see, I'm not for that. No, it turned up into pills. I wouldn't eat it like steak and chips. Hey, the baby's just come out while you're getting stitched up. Legs are in stirrups. I spoke to someone and they said that by the time it's been dehydrated, that there's no benefit to it anymore. The only thing that benefits you is iron. A lot of the newer studies are saying absolute wasting your time. Fantastic. Well, here we are. Did it and, you know, whatever. Did it help? But there are moments where I think, I just gave you my placenta, which is apparently worth 50 grand.

21:48Have you just given me just flour? Yeah, you never know. Oh my God. Yeah, if you use some like dodgy company, They kept you up to the centre and they gave you like some flower pills. God, these taste like talcum powder. Alice is going through this debate at the moment. She's been, for the whole time, for the whole of her pregnancy, she's been saying, I'm going to be doing a water birth, no pain medication, no epidural. Not because I don't want pain medicine, just because you can't have it if you have a water birth. My mum looked at her and laughed. Everyone has. Anyone that's birthed a child said, just get the epidural.

22:21Can I say though, I gave birth my first at home with no drugs. Really? See, my mum didn't have with either of hers either. Not that I need a medal for that, but it is possible. No, but it's nice to hear for you to say that. I think everyone's really quick to talk about negative pregnancy birthing stories. No one really wants to talk about the nice stuff. And I, out of my three births, well, they were all natural, but two out of three were really lovely. You know, it's really interesting. We had this conversation last night with Ollie and Gareth. but you mentioned natural but now that's a bit of a taboo word to use natural I'm not going to say the other word why is that the natural way some women are offended because they believe that having a c-section is still natural so vaginal so I've had three vaginal births but then saying vaginal I don't like saying vaginal my nine year old is like hey mummy does the baby come out your vulva and it's like just say your flower Your vagina.

23:25Like a vaginal delivery. It's like, look, the baby's out and it's safe. That's all anybody cares about. That's all that matters. But it's a good point, though. Is a natural another word for just, like, just, or is it like drug-free? A natural delivery. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, because some people don't class it being a natural birth if you even have an epidural. Oh, there you go. So you're into this whole realm. Yeah, yeah. I remember somebody said to me once, it's that, like, joke where they say, oh, that, you know, your f***ing lady looks like a punched lasagna after you've given birth. and I remember being like what a silly thing to say and then after my six week check up and the midwife was like don't look and then when obviously I had a look and I was like oh there it is I've had a weird thing happen to me in the last two days where I was like oh you know virginal birth water birth and then Sam did a what's it perineal massage on me I started crying after two minutes from the small bit of stretching and I thought I don't think I can do that I thought a melon coming out of me something the size of a melon.

24:24I thought, there's no way I'm going to be able to do a natural birth. And in the last few days, I've panicked and thought, maybe I want a C-section. Do you know when you are about to be sick and your body just knows? Yeah, you can't feel it. And you can't stop it and you're like, I'm going to be sick. And your body knows, right, it's coming up, something's not right and you throw up. It's the same when you're pushing a baby. Well, for me, when I was pushing a baby out, my body knew exactly what to do. Like it just did. I just worry about like pelvic issues after or incontinence because I already struggle with certain bladder problems.

24:52I'm like the last thing I want is incontinence or like a long going issue. Just put yourself in for like with a pelvic health physiotherapist. Get a mummy, call it like a, like not a mummy makeover, but you could like the pelvic health physiotherapist. A lady came around to my house and was literally fingering me in my living room a couple of weeks after I'd given birth. And she was like, do you know what? And she was pressing on all the pelvic muscles. And my dad was like, Hannah, do you want a cup of tea? And I'm like, dad, I'm just a bit busy in a minute. and then next thing next thing she's telling me do you know what the muscles are actually doing well and she gave me loads of exercises to do every day I did them and I still f*** myself no I didn't really no it really really helped so try and book somebody you went to your six week follow up and it still looked like a smashed lasagna how long does it take so it'll just heal it'll just heal and then when it heals you'll be like let's have another one and I'll do it again gosh you know what the men say it's like watching their favourite pub burn down It's not.

25:50Let's not look down there. Imagine you at the business end. Will you be down the business end? Yeah, with my meta glasses on. No, no, no. Yes, absolutely. We're filming a documentary here. Is it going to be filmed? Are you going to film the business end? I keep being serious about the meta glasses, but I'd rather you stay at the head end. To be fair, I make jokes and bad jokes. Too many jokes. Too many bad jokes. But in all seriousness, I do think there is something quite amazing about being down business end and being the first hand your baby boy or baby girl ever touches. I think that's amazing.

26:28You work really nicely now, but before he's going, I'm going to pull the baby out. I'm like, you're not doing anything. Thank you. These are my bad jokes. I'm like, I'm going to be down there and I'm going to be pulling the baby out. And she's like, oh my God. So I make bad jokes. You've got the dad jokes already before you're a dad. They've been going for the last 10 years strong. He's had one piece of advice, which is don't make jokes. And that is the one thing he can't follow. It was literally the first page of the book, the first book I read. And I was like, your jokes are not funny. He called me a fat hairy hobbit.

26:59Yes, they are. Challenge accepted. He called me a fat hairy hobbit and laughed. It was a joke. Oh, my God. I sound like my father. My dad used to do that and it wasn't funny. We need to get you a new book of dad jokes, I think. we should maybe see if there's somebody else that has got some i feel bad i'm sorry darling oh guys we're like no don't make any jokes that she's in labor yeah but what are you what are you most concerned about what scares you the most about the journey over the next few years for me i think it's the timing of like having a child and then sam's got like some health issues going on as well so i'm like not knowing when he might have a liver transplant and having a young child is slightly concerning yeah what's the latest with that sam um well i i was actually put on the uh waiting list the transplant liver transplant waiting list last month yeah so yeah so i was told i was going to need a liver transplant a few months ago i'm now active i could get a phone call at any moment saying we've got a liver for you it's quite unlikely that i would get an urgent there are people who are much uh more urgent than me so but they do take a factor into it is the time on list so it does look like it'd probably be within two years um which i think gives us a lot of time to process um and prepare but um yeah i mean that's really the update i mean if i became more unwell then i would get probably get a transplant sooner and just to backtrack so when you were very little you were so at four i was diagnosed with congenital hepatic fibrosis and they said one day i may need a liver transplant but they also said we don't know you may never need a liver transplant live your life normally that's what we did and for 20 and they said you know with with tests and uh appointments over the years every appointment I'd go in for they'd go you are perfectly healthy you've got this disease it could go down here at any point right um but you're fine now and you know they when I was four they thought I could have a transplant at 17 and they were like the fact I was at 28 or 27 or whatever the age I was at the time and had never had a serious like infection anything was pretty amazing um but yeah I got an infection when I met Sam he was fine absolutely that's how long into it yeah how How long into the...

29:30Six months. So six months after we met, I suddenly just became very unwell. And I couldn't shake this cold, flu, in and out of hospital for little things along the lines of flu and asthma attacks. Couldn't shake it. And it got to a point where it really got bad. And I just didn't want to do anything. I was in bed. Alice came home. I wouldn't move. I was meant to be flying to Dubai that evening. Very lethargic. Didn't make much sense. And you kind of called the shots there to be like, actually, you need to get an ambulance. She spoke to my mum, didn't you? I was meant to be going to Manchester for work.

30:04So I called his mum. He'd been in and out of hospital so many times in the few weeks leading up to it that we weren't really sure what's going on. At the time, I thought it was that he was taking too much codeine. So I called his mum. His mum said that she would come up. Before I left again, I was kind of like, I really don't think this is right. I looked at him. His lips were so dry. He wouldn't really make eye contact with me. So I was like, no, I'm going to call 999 now. Not thinking it was actually going to be that serious, but just to be safe, really. And then, yeah. Thank God you did. Thank goodness you did.

30:38I mean, they said literally after I came out and I made a recovery, they went, if you'd got into hospital about 24 hours later, we don't think you would have made it. Holy s***. Wow, Alice, you saved his life. And the crazy thing, I guess, about a transplant is you need a donor. how many people are actually registered to donate, like organ donors and stuff. You've hit a real key point here. It's not about, you know, finding a good match is obviously a very big point, but finding matches is not the hard part. What the hard part is, is the amount of people on the waiting list for a liver, and not just livers, all organs, outweigh the amount of organs being donated.

31:25That's because 80 % of the population agreed to organ donation, but only 50 % of people are actually having their organs donated when they unfortunately pass away, when they're viable. And that's just because a lack of people making their families aware of what their true decision is. And obviously in these distressed states where organs can be viable for donation, families don't want to think about organ donation. so 50 % of the time they don't donate the organs and like one person could donate like quite a few seven organs really so you know there's a big thing that you know 80 % of people would actually donate their organs I would but when it comes round to it let's say you haven't had that conversation with your family or haven't made your decision let's say God forbid anything happened to you your husband would be too distressed to think about it and would actually go of course no I can't think about it and would pass and your organs being donated so it's a real massive thing I'm pushing for at the moment I'm so sorry it could be a donor oh my god can you imagine and that's literally why I have to have my phone on loud really?

32:38wow 24-7 he has to have his phone on anytime yeah they take most of the time to expect it in the middle of the night so apologies for that but I actually have you know what you have a good reason now that was a complete mistake and I probably would have put it on mute who was it? was it your auntie? it was an alarm was that to wake you up at 5am oh my god it was actually to remind me to take my tablet because uh yeah i just had my alarms on to take my tablet but i do want to know so how's your how did your love story start how did you meet we have very different stories when it comes to this i love this we want both narratives yes alice stared at me for a few hours straight alice what actually happening yeah here we go he slid in your dms you want and you thought you know what go on i'll go for a date we went to watch the uh euro finals um it was also my birthday july 14th 2024 yeah it'd be so funny if i got that date wrong right now it'd be so awkward i'd be so okay i got that right yes so yeah 14th of july 2024 watching the euros final and um i was actually with a good friend of mine, a few good friends of mine.