ESTHER
Hi Esther,
We’ve been loving the heart and honesty you bring to your online space. Your recent reflections on postpartum life and motherhood really resonated with our team.
At SweetNest Tea, we believe in slow sips, deep breaths, and supporting mothers through every chapter. We’re currently rolling out a new Postpartum Wellness Blend designed to nurture calm, clarity, and connection, and we’d love to collaborate with you.
Here’s what we have in mind:
Campaign: “Mugs & Moments: Honest Motherhood”
Role: UGC Creator & Host
Deliverables:
- 1 cozy home gathering with 4–6 local moms (your friends/followers)
- 1 Instagram Reel (can be cross-posted on TikTok)
- 5 lifestyle stills (cups, conversation, laughter, etc.)
- 1 captioned testimonial for our website
What we offer:
- $500 CAD content creation fee
- Full event package: tea bundles, mugs, setup items
- Optional makeup artist + photographer support
- Spotlight on our social channels (we reach 75K wellness-minded women across Canada and the US)
We’d love for the tone to be warm, raw, and unfiltered, exactly what you do best. Would you be open to chatting this week?
Warmly,
Lana Mensah
Influencer Partnerships Lead
It wasn’t a million bucks. It wasn’t even about the money. It was simply the validation. Someone was seeing her work.
The kettle hummed on the stove as Esther rinsed a slippery plate, the scent of simmering beans curling through the air. Afternoon light poured through the kitchen blinds, lighting up the countertop. She worked quickly, trying not to clatter and wake Dara, who was deep into his nap.
Behind her, Kunle hovered like a bored shadow, opening the fridge, closing it again, rummaging in the pantry, then reappearing at the counter with a fistful of trail mix. She could hear him crunching behind her, slow and loud.
She’d been afraid that pivoting to motherhood and lifestyle content would slow down her social media growth and in many ways, it had. Pregnancy had forced her to pull back. As much as she loved creating content, she’d learned that pregnancy was a fragile season, especially after her first miscarriage.
It wasn’t a time in her life she liked to revisit. Sometimes, she wished Dara’s presence could erase the memory of the baby she lost.
She still remembered that morning: going to pee and spotting pink in her underwear. She was eleven weeks along and had been so certain everything was fine…until it wasn’t.
She hadn’t even known how much she wanted that baby until she lost it. Getting pregnant again became her mission. It consumed her. She downloaded every fertility app she could find, tracked her cycle obsessively ,and four months later, she finally saw a positive test.
The first twelve weeks were hectic for her, she almost, almost, took time off from the office to protect her baby’s life. She woke up each morning, expecting the worst even though the doctor had told her the chances of having a second miscarriage were slim.
Eventually, at fifteen weeks, she began to feel like she could breathe again, like the lump in her chest that had been growing alongside her bump, could finally dissolve.
But now Dara was here, napping quietly in the next room, and this offer felt like a small crack of sunlight in what had been an uncertain tunnel.
Esther’s phone buzzed again, the screen lighting up with the email she’d already read five times. She smiled.
“Why are you smiling?” Kunle asked.
Esther turned her phone over on the couch cushion, like the message might disappear if he saw it. But the smile lingered, soft at the corners of her mouth. “It’s nothing,” she said, then paused. “Actually… no, it’s not nothing.”
Kunle looked up from where he was leaning against the counter, his fist curled over his trail mix.
Esther wasn’t sure how much to share. The memory of their last fight still stung; the one about the brand that wanted to feature Dara.. She’d eventually turned down that offer after weighing the pros and cons. They weren’t paying anything, only sending her some products, plus she had checked out the brand and didn’t feel like their goals aligned with hers.
If she was going to defy Kunle, she had to make sure it was worth it.
“I got a collaboration offer,” she said, trying to sound casual. “It’s this postpartum wellness brand. They want to send over tea and mugs and have me host a little gathering for moms. Like, at our place. Something cozy. I will create a reel and take some pictures for them.”
She stirred the beans, bracing herself for his reaction.
Kunle raised an eyebrow. “You mean… an influencer thing?”
Esther knew he was trying to be supportive, he was trying to recognise and respect what she was doing, but she couldn’t help flinching at the way he said influencer thing.
She nodded slowly, rinsing the spoon under warm water.. “Kind of. But it’s more than that. It’s… someone seeing what I’m doing and thinking it matters. That it could help someone else.”
Kunle was silent for a beat. “Is…will you have to show Dara in the reel?”
“No, it’s about mums this time”
“So… what happens to him? Where will he be while you host?”
Esther resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You survived Mother’s Day, didn’t you?”
“Barely!”
She nearly laughed at the despair in his voice. Yes, that day had been brutal for them. She’d left and hadn’t thought about them while she was with Tara, but by the time she’d checked her phone, there were multiple missed calls from Kunle, and a desperate voice mail that contained mostly Dara’s screeching tears.
She’d found him pacing the lawn with Dara in his arms when she returned.
“It’s the only way he kept quiet,” Kunle had said giving an exasperated sigh.
“Good on you for figuring it out,” she’d said, genuinely impressed.
Maybe she had been coddling him. Maybe he just needed to be thrown into the deep end and left to float, like so many mothers had to do without applause.
“You’ll be fine,” Esther said now. “It’ll just be for a few hours.”
He just looked at her, as if trying to read between the lines. “Do you want to do it? The influencer thing?”
She rinsed her hands under the tap, turned, and met his gaze. “If I don’t plan to go back full time after maternity leave, then yes, I need to start treating this seriously. Don’t you think?””
“You know I can support us. You don’t have to…”
“Kunle, it’s not about the money,” she cut in, drying her hands on a dish towel. “It’s about me. I don’t want to lose myself in motherhood.”
There, she had said it, the thing that had been stretching inside her for months.
She’d seen it happen often; women with wild dreams and ambition who suddenly shrunk into motherhood, or let motherhood shrink them. Her mother had been like that; a girl who finished secondary school and whose dream of higher education was cut short by an unplanned pregnancy, and subsequently, marriage.
She’d waited three years before having Dara. She’d wanted to build something before motherhood forced her to her knees in surrender.
She was nothing like her older sister Naomi who from the time she was five when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, had raised her head proudly and said; “a mother.”
Her answer had stayed consistent through the years, and on career day at school, Naomi always dressed up with a doll tied to her back and a spatula in her hand.
“What are you? A chef?” her teacher guessed the first time.
“No, a mother,” Naomi answered with self-confidence.
And now, years later, at thirty-eight, Naomi was indeed a devoted mother–to five children, married to a man who shared her vision and was comfortable being the breadwinner.
“You’re doing a great job,” Kunle’s voice brought her back to the present.
“I know, babe, but I want to do a great job at other things too,” she said.
She could see him chewing that over, trail mix momentarily forgotten. Why didn’t he get it?
“I’m great at marketing, branding, all of that. I’ve done it for companies.Now I want to do it for myself. And I want to be there for Dara while at it,” she explained.
Kunle nodded slowly, leaning his hip against the counter. “Okay. What’s your plan?”
Esther’s face lit up. “I’m going to host an intimate tea party. Just a handful of local moms, cozy setup, candid conversations. I’ll do the content myself, or maybe see if they’ll cover a photographer. I want it to feel real.”
“Get a photographer? Won’t that cost more than what they’re paying? Wait, are they paying?”
Esther turned off the stove, “yes, they are. But that doesn’t matter. You have to spend money to make money, right?”
Kunle sighed.
“At least pretend to be supportive,” Esther snapped.
“Fine, fine. And these women, where are you going to find them?”
“I’ll have to think about that. I mean, I can invite my Nigerian mum group.”
“Do you think they’ll come if they know it’s for content creation?” Kunle asked.
“Who says I’ll tell them?”
Kunle leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. “So, you’ll trick them into showing up?”
Esther frowned. “It’s not tricking. It’s… curating the experience. It’s still going to be meaningful.”
“Meaningful for who?”
She grabbed a dish towel and started wiping the counter with more force than necessary. “You know what, forget it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Babe…”
“No, really. I’m doing this whether you believe in it or not. I’ve spent the past few months keeping this baby, your baby alive, keeping this house running, keeping myself together, and I’m finally doing something for me.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable. The kitchen felt smaller, the air warm from the heat of the stove and their conversation.
“I don’t know what to say to you. I’m not the enemy here. I’m sorry it feels like I am.” Kunle said, after a while.
“You may not be the enemy but you certainly are not cheering me on. You’re judging my choices and decisions everywhere I turn. Gimme a break, Kunle, please!”
She left the kitchen without another word, the towel still clenched in her hand.