Emma Barnett on infertility, IVF and endometriosis
Big Fat Negative: TTC, fertility, infertility and IVFShow Notes
Emma Barnett is the host of Woman's Hour and Newsnight - and she's also struggling to conceive her second child. In May this year she wrote a tell-all piece for the Times, in which she described her six (now seven) rounds of IVF and the miscarriage she suffered. Here, she tells Emma and Gabby what she's been through, how she holds down her career with debilitating endometriosis, and why she keeps going. Also - a drinking game!
Meanwhile, Prof T stages his glorious return, and Emma has Some News.
Swears throughout.
To read Emma Barnett's Times piece, click here (or go to https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/emma-barnett-five-rounds-of-ivf-one-miscarriage-and-no-baby-257tkztct). You can sign up for her newsletter, Trying, at emmabarnett.substack.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Big Fat Negative: TTC, fertility, infertility and IVF
Genevieve Thurley is a busy woman, what with her 1 million followers and career as a makeup artist and content creator. But today, she's making time to talk to us about her experiences of infertility and IVF.
Cathy Adams is the travel news features editor for The Times and Sunday Times -- and also a person who has spent years trying to conceive her second child. Now, she's at a crossroads: give up IVF and reconcile herself to having one child, or keep adding to the £40,000 it's already cost her? Secondary infertility has never felt so difficult.
This week we're joined by Tristan Taylor, the founder of Mandrology, who is biohacking his way to sperm health. He explains why sperm quality is a biomarker of health, in the same way that heart rate and blood pressure is -- and what you can do to improve it.
Oonagh Pickering is one of the research nurses at Tommy's whose study on graduated miscarriage care has already changed how the Scottish NHS approaches care after pregnancy losses -- and now they want England to make a change, too. Oonagh joins us to talk about how offering extra care following first and second miscarriages, including progesterone for threatened miscarriages, extra scans and mental health care, could help to prevent up to 10,000 miscarriages a year in the UK.
The sourdough baker Martha de Lacey joins us this week: she has run the full gamut of infertility experiences, from going solo to recurrent miscarriage to secondary infertility. "It's so difficult when you give yourself this story of why things happened and the meaning behind it," she says. "Actually it's just nonsense. It's all just luck."