We fell in love when we were teenagers and, more than half of a lifetime later, here we are – raising a family together. Our little boys are five years old and are fraternal twins, and then we have little girls who are three – also fraternal twins – and a one-year-old baby. We live in Folkestone, which is an artsy town on the South-Eastern coast, and the children love exploring our local area and using the magnificent high-speed connections to travel in and out of London, where our families still live.
I started writing Meet the Wildes during my first pregnancy; we were the first of our friends to become pregnant and the only two-mum family I knew in real life. I wanted to document our experience on a personal level, but it felt important to me to ‘legitimise’ our family dynamic by sharing our existence with a wider audience – “See us!” I wanted my blog to shout, “We are here!”. That was in 2014 and, six years later, I am proud to share that our ‘modern love story’ has been featured in mainstream publications such as the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, won or made the finals in numerous blogging awards and – most importantly – we regularly receive messages of gratitude from young women who are grappling with what their sexuality means for their future and whom are reassured by Meet the Wildes that they can still have the family they’ve always anticipated, or by two-mum families like ours who have also felt isolated in their experience of raising children as a lesbian couple. It is a tremendous privilege to have touched so many people’s lives and to have offered a point of connection or encouragement to so many women at a time where they have felt vulnerable.
Who are we?
Amber and Kirsty are in their early thirties, London-born but first-time home-owners in Folkestone on the Kent Coast. This blog is mostly written by Amber – that’s me, hello!
My main love is documenting our children and, more widely, our family life. At the weekends, you can usually find me ‘exploring’ with my extremely adventurous young children, camera in hand. I’ve won the Britmums ‘Brilliance in Blogging’ award twice now in the Photography category, and the truth is that I absolutely love to document their precious, fleeting childhood and our experience of being their mothers.
I’ve never set out to be a social media ‘influencer’ and, in fact, maintaining Meet the Wildes is simply a hobby for me – something that I am passionate about, and that I’m jolly lucky to sometimes be able to make money from doing. In my ‘real life’ I have a full-time job in London and an almost four hour/day commute from the coast during which time I cultivate this blog and chat far too much on instagram!
When I’m not working, either at my ‘real job’ or this blog, I’m usually making the most of my children – I don’t see nearly enough of them! We live a ten minute walk from the sea and we love splashing in the waves all year round – somebody ALWAYS falls in so I’ve learnt to take at least a couple of changes of outfit with us else we go home drenched! We love exploring our local area and seeking out the best coffee and cake, and we’re making an effort to document more of the fun things that we do.
My partner, Kirsty, is a knitter, a pianist and the stay-at-home mum to our children. She is the peace and calm of the family, and she makes me feel happy whenever I glance her way. We’re not married and we don’t have a civil partnership, but we do plan to do one of the two… eventually.
Our children are our greatest joy. They are called Balthazar, Lysander, Embla, Olympia and Vita.
Balthazar and Lysander are twins born in 2014 and Embla and Olympia are twins born in 2016. Vita was born at the very end of 2018.
They were conceived using IVF with donor sperm and they are genetic full siblings as we used the same sperm donor with all of them. They also have four genetic half-siblings (that we know of), where other mothers have used the same sperm donor as we did, and a would-be full sibling who is frozen in embryonic stasis at our fertility clinic.
One of my favourite ever blog posts catalogues our family growth from 2014 to now.
This is Merryweather, Merry. He is my unicorn, my noble steed, my most trusted friend and my sanctuary from the chaos of modern family life! I bought him in July 2021 and he is a lemon-and-white cob, which is the name given to the somewhat heavier-set horses whom might historically have work on farms but are now all-round riding horses. He is only six years old and still has a lot to learn, but we are loving our adventures and exploring the Kent countryside together, and longer term we’re enjoying improving our schoolwork and looking forward to getting out to some fun shows. The children are learning to ride as well but Merry is rather too fast and too strong for them at the moment; I would love to add to the family with a munchkin-sized pony for their enjoyment in the future.
About ‘Meet the Wildes’
Meet the Wildes was a finalist in the MAD Blog Awards 2015 (Best Photography Blog, Best Pregnancy Blog) and 2016 (Best Baby Blog). It won Best Photography Blog in the BiBs 2016 and was a finalist in the Inspiration category of the BiBs 2018. It also won the Brilliance in Blogging Awards 2019 in the Photography category.
You can find us on instagram, twitter, facebook and – occasionally – youtube.
Or you’re welcome to email us at meetthewildes@channelmum.com
We are passionate about encouraging the representation of LGBTQ people and families in mainstream media. Consequently we are open to being contacted by brands and PRs about advertorial campaigns. If this is you, take a look at our Work with Us page and then contact us on meetthewildes@channelmum.com