Sally Obermeder has given an interview to Sydney based lifestyle site, The Grace Tales.
Obermeder is the co-host of Channel Seven’s The Daily Edition and author of Australia’s best-selling green smoothie recipe book, Super Green Smoothies, which you can buy from her online store, SWIISH.
If you get the impression that the former investment banker might be busy, you’d be right.
In her interview with The Grace Tales, Obermeder talks about her career, being a mother and her Sydney beach lifestyle.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure these days to be able to ‘do it all’,” Obermeder says of being okay with not being Superwoman.
“We want to have the perfect wardrobe, attend all the school events, be successful at work, stay fit and make it to every social outing. But the truth is, it’s just unrealistic! It’s one thing to try and do everything to your best ability, it’s another thing to punish yourself if you can’t.”
She also talks about being diagnosed with cancer while pregnant with her daughter Annabelle.
After several years trying to have a baby, Obermeder and her husband Marcus successfully conceived daughter Annabelle through in vitro fertilisation. Obermeder was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer late in the pregnancy. Annabelle was delivered the next day, in October 2011.
“At first when I got the news, I was in utter shock. Then I just cried and cried. I was overcome with grief and it really took me a long time to accept it. Not only did I have to get my head around the fact that I had cancer at the age of 37, but I was also petrified I would be too sick to look after my newborn baby the way I wanted to,” Obermeder tells The Grace Tales.
10 days later, Obermeder started chemotherapy.
“For about the first two weeks, there was a lot I had to go through. Scans, tests, MRI’s, blood tests, swabs – I was poked and prodded and I went blindly where they told me to go.
“I was shocked and felt a lot of grief and even guilt – did I do something to cause this? Did I work too hard? Did I hold my mobile phone too close to my body?
“I lost almost all of my energy and struggled to accept the fact that I wouldn’t get any of the motherhood experiences I had longed for with my new baby.
“Whilst I had the best doctors and my friends and family rallied around me and supported me during my cancer treatment, what I ultimately discovered was that there was no one who could fight the battle but me.
“I found a kind of strength and determination I have never felt before. But the flipside is that it taught me that life is delicate, precious and sacred. It’s to be appreciated and enjoyed. It’s a gift.
“There were a lot of days where I felt like I didn’t know what was going on. My world and everything that I knew had been shot to pieces. But every time I looked at my new baby, I knew that I had to keep going. I didn’t always want to keep going, but I did it anyway.”
Earlier this year, the Obermeders announced they’re expecting a baby via a surrogate.
“I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that it’s far too dangerous for me to be pregnant again, in terms of the cancer returning,” Obermeder has previously told New Idea. “I acknowledge that I’m extremely lucky to have one child … But the yearning and desire to be a mum again is so strong and it has not passed.”
At the end of the piece on The Grace Tales, Obermeder shares a “little list of loves” which includes the olive sourdough from Sonoma, C Lab & Co Coffee Body Scrub and Mamamia’s very own podcast, I Don’t Know How She Does It.