Speaker 1: So if you guys have been following along with my
Speaker 1: fertility journey, it's something that I've been going on. I
Speaker 1: mean it's been going for the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: I've been speaking very openly of the years about my
Speaker 1: egg freezing purely because I'm in my mid thirties now,
Speaker 1: my fertility, as most people does around this time, starts
Speaker 1: to deteriorate. So I did the egg freezing a few
Speaker 1: times and I haven't spoken about this yet, but last year,
Speaker 1: mid to the end of last year, so I decided
Speaker 1: that with in my situation and with my fertility and
Speaker 1: the way it was going, that I should be freezing embryos,
Speaker 1: not just eggs. I should make real babies and put
Speaker 1: them on ice because you have more of a chance
Speaker 1: of success in the future.
Speaker 2: Britan embryo is like when you inseminate an egg from
Speaker 2: you with your partner Ben's.
Speaker 1: Sperm, So I, well, you can do it with anyone sperm,
Speaker 1: you can do a donusperm. But I did this experience
Speaker 1: with my partner Ben, who lives in Scotland, so he
Speaker 1: came over here to do it, which was amazing, and
Speaker 1: we just decided as a couple that that's what we
Speaker 1: wanted to try and do, and then I literally thought, cool,
Speaker 1: I've made the decision. We'll make an embryo. I'll forget
Speaker 1: about it. There is no part of me that thought
Speaker 1: I would walk away from that situation with no embryos, nothing,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what happened. And I guess I was
Speaker 1: faced with this. I knew my fertility was not great,
Speaker 1: but not one percent of me thought I would walk
Speaker 1: away empty handed. And it was a real slap in
Speaker 1: the face. So basically, I got a few embryos. And
Speaker 1: the way it works is you get them on the spot,
Speaker 1: right walk you wake up from the anesthetic, then struck them.
Speaker 1: They make them right there. Yeah, it's amazing embrya Well
Speaker 1: you can yeah, yeah, you can walk out when you
Speaker 1: wake up from the anesthetic, and your doctor will tell
Speaker 1: you how many she thinks you're going to have, But
Speaker 1: that's not how many you end up with, because that's
Speaker 1: how many on that day. But what happens is it
Speaker 1: takes like six days for them to grow in a
Speaker 1: little petri dish, and like, some of them won't grow
Speaker 1: all the way, some of them will make it, some
Speaker 1: will have an normality or whatever. So I started with
Speaker 1: a couple, so I was feeling really good, and then
Speaker 1: come day six, I only had one left. And then
Speaker 1: we did some genetic testing, and I paid extra to
Speaker 1: do the genetic testing, which was just a choice that
Speaker 1: we made, and unfortunately it came back with a really
Speaker 1: really rare abnormality that I think like twelve or thirteen
Speaker 1: kids in the world were born with it because most
Speaker 1: most of these embryos won't make it to gestation, they
Speaker 1: won't make it to a live birth, and if they
Speaker 1: do make it to a live birth, they don't last
Speaker 1: very long.
Speaker 2: Oh Earth started devastating.
Speaker 1: It was really devastating. So I remember getting that call
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night because I was overseas
Speaker 1: at the time, and my geneticis called me and it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, but your one embryo hasn't developed and
Speaker 1: we won't be going further with it because it's not
Speaker 1: viable with life. At some point that that child will die,
Speaker 1: whether it's miscarriage or early days of life. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't ready for that because firstly, I just thought, what
Speaker 1: do you mean, there's none like how But I just
Speaker 1: paid all this money and science and I did hormones
Speaker 1: for three weeks, and I've gone under for like the
Speaker 1: third under and nine and sake for a third time,
Speaker 1: and I've extracted it and I've waited for six days
Speaker 1: and I've watched it and what do you mean, there's
Speaker 1: none She's like, there's just none, Like it's sometimes that's
Speaker 1: how it is. And I just got this real a
Speaker 1: feeling that I can't explain. And I guess that's why
Speaker 1: it's taken me so long to talk about. And I
Speaker 1: know so many women go through this ten times more
Speaker 1: than I have, Like they do so many rounds, and
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine what that feels like when that's
Speaker 1: all you want, the feeling of, like not just disappointment
Speaker 1: and shock. But I was like, oh my god, I've
Speaker 1: let my partner down. Yeah, like I all this pressure
Speaker 1: for a family. There's two people here and he can't
Speaker 1: do anything, and it's my body that's not working quote unquote,
Speaker 1: and there's a real feeling of the weight of the
Speaker 1: pressure of failure and ruining someone else's life if they want.
Speaker 2: Kids, their opportunity to have children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really hard.
Speaker 2: That's such a huge responsibility that you feel as though
Speaker 2: you're taking on in that moment, because it's not I mean,
Speaker 2: you went through and had another round of testing and
Speaker 2: also of like trying to create embryos. But I just
Speaker 2: feel for any woman out there who feels as though
Speaker 2: that the sole responsibility falls onto them and that they're
Speaker 2: a failure if they can't provide this, because it's not
Speaker 2: the only reason why you're not put on this earth
Speaker 2: is to have children. Like, there's so much value to
Speaker 2: your relationship and to your life regardless of whether you
Speaker 2: do or don't have kids. How did Benny take it?
Speaker 2: Your partner?
Speaker 1: Was he all right, Oh, Ben's incredible. He really wants
Speaker 1: to be a dad, but he doesn't have put pressure
Speaker 1: on me at all, and he has said like he
Speaker 1: was perfect in that moment. I didn't wake him up
Speaker 1: and tell him. Actually, I remember going out to the
Speaker 1: land room and I just cried the whole night and
Speaker 1: I slept out there, and I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: that on him, so I just like, and I did
Speaker 1: all this research about the chromosobal at chromosomal abnormality that
Speaker 1: embryo had. I just like spent the whole night looking
Speaker 1: it up because I was like, oh my god, does
Speaker 1: this mean all of our children are going to have
Speaker 1: this because I didn't have enough time to go through
Speaker 1: it with a specialist. But he was amazing. He said,
Speaker 1: I want kids, but I want you more, like it's
Speaker 1: not a choice. It's not a choice for me, Like I.
Speaker 2: Was such a beautiful yeah response.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, I will because I get that kids
Speaker 1: are non negotiable for a lot of people, like in
Speaker 1: a relationship, there are people that just the be all
Speaker 1: and end all. But I think it's different when it's
Speaker 1: not a choice. It's different when I'm not saying I
Speaker 1: don't want them. I was just saying, look, I couldn't
Speaker 1: provide you with that at this time. But what I
Speaker 1: do want to say is I don't want this just
Speaker 1: to be a real doom and gloom. It was, and
Speaker 1: I know for a lot of women it was. But
Speaker 1: we let a couple of months go by and then
Speaker 1: we did it again and my specialist gave me like
Speaker 1: double the hormones and it was the worst couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ever. I was all right previously, but with the
Speaker 1: extra hormones, it was really really tough, and my partner
Speaker 1: Ben flew over and because he was worried that I
Speaker 1: would get a bad result again.
Speaker 2: And going through it alone.
Speaker 1: So he flew over just for a couple of days
Speaker 1: to look after me, and I am very happy to
Speaker 1: report that with this extra embryo, with the extra hormones,
Speaker 1: we did get three embryos, So after like six months,
Speaker 1: we did get a couple. So we do have three
Speaker 1: that there for one day when I wanted to trust them,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to say it only because I
Speaker 1: know so many women go through this and it's not
Speaker 1: spoken about, and this enormous pressure that's put on ourselves
Speaker 1: by ourselves and by society. It's it shouldn't be like that,
Speaker 1: and I just want people to know that if you're
Speaker 1: going through it, you're one hundred percent not alone. You've
Speaker 1: been talking about this on this show for like the
Speaker 1: better half of the year, so you can podcast it
Speaker 1: too on iHeart.
Speaker 2: If you on Life un Cut, your podcast, you've been
Speaker 2: speaking about it for a long time.
Speaker 1: It's a big episode on Life Uncut that we did
Speaker 1: just last week. If you guys want to go and
Speaker 1: hear more, we'll see all tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Goo bye, guys.