MUM’S THE WORD ANDREA BYRNE
BABY TALK After spending an ‘excruciatingly isolating’ seven years trying to conceive, Andrea Byrne has started a podcast talking about all things fertility
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“I’m on a mission to try to demystify the world of fertility”
his January, to enthusiastically herald the new year feels more necessary than it’s ever been. The year 2020 is one that will go down in history for all the wrong reasons, and so, making the right promises to ourselves and each other in 2021 takes on a whole new level of poignancy. After all, the resolutions we make will play their part in the world’s big recovery. For me, 2021 is about honesty. That’s not to say I’m casual with the truth. Far from it. The very code which dictates my job as a broadcast journalist orders that each and every story I tell is fair, balanced and accurate. That goes without saying. Honesty is at the heart of what I do. But, while I am constantly asking viewers to sit down and open up to me about all sorts of sensitive and often traumatic elements in their lives, sometimes it’s not so easy to be honest when it comes to my own story. Now, with the hope of helping others, I’ve decided to practice what I preach, and I’ve started a podcast talking about all things fertility. My husband, Lee, and I spent seven years trying to have our daughter Jemima, and while we kept it very private at the time, we found the experience excruciatingly isolating, because infertility is still considered a pretty awkward conversation at the office watercooler – or these days, at the virtual coffee break, I guess. However, more than one in six couples has trouble conceiving and so, for everyone who finds themselves one of those statistics
– and for their friends, families and work colleagues – I’m on a mission to try to demystify the world of fertility a little and create a wider understanding of both the exhausting treatment couples go through and the spiralling feelings they’re forced to deal with. My podcast series, Making Babies, will have a mix of professional expertise and personal stories and I’ll try to tackle issues across the whole spectrum including miscarriage, male infertility, surrogacy and polycystic ovaries. Jemima is almost two now; to hear her giggles echo round the house this holiday season was nothing short of miraculous. She is living proof that fertility science still has so much to learn because, in the end, she was conceived naturally. And we are thankful for her every minute of every day. That gratitude is a constant reminder that so many other couples are navigating the isolating road of fertility, with no guarantees of what their ending will be, but if we talk more openly about infertility, maybe we can all make their trauma a little easier for them to bear. This year, let’s act upon those tidings of comfort and joy we have all been singing about. The statistics say that you will know someone dealing with infertility. So, let’s normalise the fertility conversation and get chatting about all the ways to ‘make babies’. To hear the podcast, visit: www.anchor.fm/andrea-byrne Follow our Cardiff Life columnist Andrea Byrne, news broadcaster, on Instagram and Twitter: @andreabyrnetv
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