Elizabeth Day (7:09)

It's like a form of magical thinking.

Sarah Pascoe (7:11)

It is magical thinking you because there.

Elizabeth Day (7:14)

Is a lack of explanation. And similarly to you, I had unexplained fertility and no reason for it and nothing definite. And it's very difficult then not to fill that, especially if you are a storyteller, which you are with your own stories. And if you are a woman, then generally those stories are going to be extremely self critical. And then on top of that, if you're a woman who's been socially conditioned to believe that it's A biological imperative to have children. And that people fall off a log and get pregnant.

Sarah Pascoe (7:44)

All of that obsessed with. They've got a special name, but people who didn't know they were pregnant so they gave birth. I'm still obsessed with them. Yeah. And then you start thinking, should I fall off logs more? Yes.

Elizabeth Day (7:54)

Let me Google falling off a log and whether that's spiritually aligned with getting pregnant.

Sarah Pascoe (7:59)

Yeah.

Elizabeth Day (7:59)

Google is not your friend.

Sarah Pascoe (8:00)

Well, it's not. It's really not. It's a really sad place. It's a really sad place. And then. And again, a little bit like the bad reviews. You can't unlearn those things. Other people's sadnesses, other people's traumas, other people's emotional attachments to things or theories on things. There's part of it that's great that it's a collective. They're so common, which is what I talk about in my show. My second half is about having my son. And I want to say it. I'm always so aware of, like, there will be people in my audience. Why I don't talk about a miscarriage, actually is because I kept thinking, there'll be someone who's having one. There's someone who's having one, who's come out to cheer up. And it just made me think, I'm just not going to do it.

Elizabeth Day (8:34)

I'm so sorry.

Sarah Pascoe (8:35)

That's okay. Sorry. I've done more to get to this point without welling up.

Elizabeth Day (8:39)

You have. I know.

Sarah Pascoe (8:41)

You came. Yeah. And the COVID time. So what was good was, were you doing ivf?

Trinny Woodall (8:46)

Sorry?

Sarah Pascoe (8:46)

We started ivf.

Elizabeth Day (8:47)

That's when you started. Okay.

Sarah Pascoe (8:48)

And my husband and I have to say I'm grateful to him because I told him I can't do anymore. And he. He said, please, he said, can we give two more years and do this properly with doctors? Really try and. Two more years. 40 to 42. Sorry to interrupt.

Elizabeth Day (9:03)

So your miscarriage predates the IVF?

Sarah Pascoe (9:06)

My miscarriage, unfortunately, was while we were waiting to start ivf.

Elizabeth Day (9:09)

Okay.

Sarah Pascoe (9:09)

And so, you know, you have that thing where as soon as you get your period. This is the cruelty of it in terms of the story, because it was a really early miscarriage and I'm not diminishing what I went through, but after. After such a long time, never getting pregnant. I'm so sorry. Please don't be sorry. But also, I wanted to say that just because you then have a child, it doesn't go away. I know. I think, like, lots of people have miscarriages. You just Stop talking about it, people. Stop asking you. After two months, our IVF was put off. It was so shit, because I was 38 when we started, which in where I live, I'm on the border of Haringey and Islington, you can have ivf. We could get one round of the nhs and then, because it was moved because of COVID I was then too old. But Islington, they layered habit of 40, which again, is a very unfair thing because it's just a richer. So we had to move doctors because it wasn't where you live, it's where your doctor is. So we moved doctors from there to There, you know, 100 meters now, we could have an IVF on the NHS, but then it got cancelled because of COVID so we went private. And again, unfortunate. So we're getting the phone calls. Yeah. Ring us when you've got your period. And I've had late periods, very cruelly, you know, up to sort of 35, 37 days, that horrible, horrible week. So 32 days, still don't have my period. They said, have you done a pregnancy test? And I said, my period's always late, I don't do a pregnancy test. But 35 days, I did a pregnancy test and it was pregnant. And that's the only time. That is the only time we ever celebrated.

Elizabeth Day (10:37)

I know, yeah.

Sarah Pascoe (10:38)

Because after that, it's never ever a celebration ever again.

Elizabeth Day (10:42)

It is such a thief, Joy.

Sarah Pascoe (10:45)

And then the stupid thing, the reason it feels like a failure is because then I had a pregnancy. And again, that word, successful. And I'm really lucky that I didn't have huge health complications with him. He was massive. There wasn't worries, my pregnancy, but it was horror because I kept thinking he was going to die. I did hundreds of pregnancy tests and I haven't been able to throw a single one away. And I was thinking yesterday, if there ever is, when there is eventually a climate catastrophe and we're all underwater, I'll be able to make a little raft for my children. Out of all of the thousands of pregnancy tests I did, I was doing several a day. It was the only way I could reassure myself I was pregnant. Because the progesterone makes you feel pregnant. Yeah, But I'd had that before. Yeah. And then the symptoms had gone and then I'd started bleeding. So the progesterone, you can't trust it. It's a horrible thing about ivf. You feel pregnant as soon as you start doing those bloody pessaries. Hundreds of pregnancy tests. And then I got obsessed with the Ones which can tell you, like, plus three weeks or how much you are, but then you sort of age out of that. I went for scans all the time, private scans. And as I walked from the room, I would think, well, what if he's died now?

Elizabeth Day (11:48)

Yeah, you poor thing.

Sarah Pascoe (11:50)

You poor thing. I think it's so common. I think it's so common.

Elizabeth Day (11:53)

I totally thank you so much talking about it, because you've articulated things that I have felt in such a brilliant way and I've never heard anyone else do it. And part of the reason that I have given up, my. Not given up, but let my fight for a child go is because I can't bear the thought of another miscarriage. I've had three. And I also. I'm too scared to get pregnant because I know I like you. I would feel terrified every single moment. And like you, I have a drawer full of pregnancy tests from those and they fade over time.

Sarah Pascoe (12:32)

They do, yeah.

Elizabeth Day (12:33)

Which is actually a sadness because, like, oh, it's sort of the final fading of something that did exist, but to all intents and purposes, the world doesn't think it does. And how is your pregnancy now with your second baby?

Sarah Pascoe (12:46)

So, number one, I thought it would be easier. I actually felt more neglectful because I've not been able to focus as much anxiety on him. And whenever I do, I feel anxious. It is anxiety.

Elizabeth Day (12:56)

How do you cope with the anxiety?

Sarah Pascoe (12:58)

How do you get through it?

Elizabeth Day (12:59)

Because nine months is just.

Sarah Pascoe (13:00)

It's forever a fuck of a long time. The first thing I do in the morning, you know, like, people check their phones. I literally just check the fertility app and I see it plus one day, and you're just plus one ing towards viability, even though you know that's no guarantee of anything.

Elizabeth Day (13:12)

Yeah.

Sarah Pascoe (13:12)

And then you're just plotting it and the app tells you, oh, this week they can do this. And eventually, at some point, it says their lungs are ready to breathe oxygen. And I don't think anything helps you deal with the anxiety. And I know that this is common for women who are infertile. Like, it doesn't. I really hope there are women listening who, like, no, that didn't happen for me. I loved it. I got so jealous of people who thought a line on a pregnancy test was a baby.

Elizabeth Day (13:35)

Imagine having that much uncomplicated faith in the world.

Sarah Pascoe (13:38)

There's a horrible documentary on Netflix about a woman who is murdered by her husband. And it's horrible because she's been murdered by husband and she's got three children. She's Pregnant with her fourth. And she's doing a video for her Facebook. And she says, on the way to the first scan, so excited. Because at this point you're always thinking, is it one? Is it twins? And I was like, is it F?

Trinny Woodall (13:54)

What?

Sarah Pascoe (13:55)

There's some people thinking, is it twins? Not is its heart actually beating? Is it growing? Poor woman, poor woman. But there are some people who literally go, oh, shit, I'm having a kid.

Elizabeth Day (14:04)

I totally hear you. It forever changes the way you view the world. And even that thing of baby announcements on Instagram, sharing the scam, having baby showers. These are things that I would never had, I ever got a lasting pregnancy, I would never have done.

Sarah Pascoe (14:20)

But I still don't like them. And I've had a child. People show their bumps in ways that I consider. I get a really odd reaction to it. And for years and years when I just couldn't get pregnant, I had blinkers on, actually. I just didn't see stuff. I was really spiky. I was especially spiky on stage. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. I thought all my audiences were coming to my shows going, yeah, why is she not having kids? I was so projected out. But now I find this gratuitousness about bumps. And with the promo for the book, sometimes you want to take full length photos of me. It's like, I do. I will never stand there with my hand on my. I will not do that pose. I don't identify as that person. That's not how I feel about this. There's something I wanted to say to you based on an article that you wrote when your friendship book was coming out. Because it was about people. Because I've got a leg in both camps, right? I'm Caspian. I'm an infertile woman who then had a child. And I still don't identify as. I couldn't even do NCT classes. I couldn't be around people who were just. Who were just pregnant, who thought it was this wonderful, beautiful thing. People say things like, our body's doing these amazing things. And to me it just feels like terror. It feels like an accidental terror that I'm not in control of. It was about someone saying about the love, right? To you, it's not true.

Elizabeth Day (15:26)

You've never known love.

Sarah Pascoe (15:27)

Like, yeah, it's not true. There's two things I have my problem with it. Number one, I think it's how parents feel when their kids aren't there. Because when the kids are there, you don't feel that way. It's when you're feeling a glass. A glass of wine at a wedding and a night off and you are thinking, I do like them. I think partly it's that.

Elizabeth Day (15:43)

And it happened to me at a wedding.

Sarah Pascoe (15:45)

No, no, it's at a wedding. That's what I was imagining because I've only been out once since I had my son, which was Emma Forrest's book launch. And it was lovely. I still wouldn't have said that to anyone. And isn't how I feel about him, actually. I think you have an emotional spectrum. And I had used up all my emotions before I was 40. When I had him, I had had all the emotions. But I also think it's people trying to convince themselves because it's so fucking horrible. Yes, it's drudgery. And I think. And I think they say it out loud and they say it out loud to other parents and it's like, why do you need to add that onto the end of every sentence? My son put like sweet potato that I just steamed him into my hair. And then they'll say, oh, but it's amazing, isn't it? It's like, no, we can just say the shit thing. You did a shit. He's a horrible boy. You can say that. I think they're trying to convince themselves when they say that out loud. I think the language is too simplified, it's too complex. No sentence covers it. Love is not the word. Oh, I don't know. It's not all of it. So I thought, why would you sit there? I've never known love like it. You're telling yourself that. You're telling yourself you made the right life decision or it's okay or you can cope and you can go back. It's drudgery.

Elizabeth Day (16:47)

I love you.

Sarah Pascoe (16:49)

Love is the appropriate word for how.

Elizabeth Day (16:52)

I feel about you. I am so grateful for your existence in this world.

Sarah Pascoe (16:58)

Well, thank you. I feel the same about you.

Elizabeth Day (17:00)

Oh, but Sarah, like, I cannot thank you enough. I just can't thank you enough. Thank you for.

Sarah Pascoe (17:08)

I really. I'm denard about. I really. I'm denied about whether to put it on because I obviously from your work and I'm aware what you've been through as well. And then I just thought maybe for people who come to you because you talk about it, because of what they're also going through with my first son put up a post on Instagram to say that I felt really odd. You know, I get sent pictures of myself when I'm clearly pregnant. I wasn't saying Even I was pregnant on stage. I felt so conflicted about it, and I felt so conflicted about sharing it with others. And I got contacted by women who had had pregnancies but who had remained in the the place before that it doesn't go away. It doesn't wipe them away. And that there are resources and people run podcasts that are just about parenting after loss or parenting after trying for years to conceive. Well, there's trying for years, I think, is the phrase that they use. There's a whole other side of infertility, which is it doesn't go away. What you've been through for all those years doesn't go away. And then you feel like a failure that you haven't gone. Now I'm an earth mummy. Now I can sit at weddings and go, never know love like it.

Elizabeth Day (18:10)

Well, no one will ever know love like the love I've experienced for Sarah Pascoe during this last hour and a bit of chat, I'm in awe of you. Thank you so, so much for coming.

Sarah Pascoe (18:21)

On how to Fail. Thank you.

Elizabeth Day (18:28)

And I wonder if I can ask you something else, which is more for the people going through fertility issues right now. And a lot of them I know listen to this podcast partly because I've spoken about my own. I know that you went through nine rounds of IVF before Lila and another seven afterwards. And I just again, want to pay tribute to the courage that takes, the titanic level of courage. But for any of us who need little hope, is it worth it? Trinny? Like when you look at Lila now, all of the pain and all of the courage that that took, do you think, oh, my goodness, thank goodness I kept going.

Trinny Woodall (19:11)

The time in which you decide you want to be a mother and what, what makes you think you want to be a mother? And that's a profound thing to think about, because I didn't think in my 20s, I didn't have a burning desire to be a mother. In my early 30s, I didn't have a burning desire to be a mother. Susanna was being a mother, and I found it inconvenience to the growth of our business.

Elizabeth Day (19:35)

But did you find it painful as well? It must have been quite.

Trinny Woodall (19:39)

No, I found it irritating, really candid. I found it irritating. And. And then I sort of woke up one day, whether we call it biological clock or whatever, age, sort of 35, and I thought, I really want to be a mother. Maybe it was when I'd sort of let go and got over all my mother issues, whatever it was, but I just had this, I want to be a mother now. And I had had arm protect sex for like 10 years. Okay. I've never got pregnant. So I sort of knew I couldn't get pregnant actually for years. But I had never thought, how much do I want to be a mother? So when I made that decision, I went literally that day to IVF because I knew there was a problem and I didn't know what the problem was. But Johnny and I had never conceived. So we went and, you know, we had really, like one day Johnny's sperm would just look like they were dead. The next day they were swimming the time, you know, the channel. So it was like, okay, I think he's fine, but you'd be very different one raving for the next. And this is also like 2003. So fertility has come a long, long way. But they said you have unexplained infertility. Such a great catch all, isn't it? And so I just started doing it straight away. And at the time I was earning quite a lot of money, so I'd do it. It failed, I'd do it again. I mean, I did like five in a year.

Sarah Pascoe (20:56)

Oh my God.

Trinny Woodall (20:58)

You know, gonal f was like in my thigh and I was like the professional. I mean, I remember when I very first did it, it was like Johnny got the surgical gloves on, we did the injection and you know, by the time I was doing the fifth time, I was like, you know, whatever. So it became mechanical. And I remember when I once did an interview then when Johnny was still alive and they said, did it affect you hormone? And I was like, a bit. And Johnny was like so fucking much probably I turned into a really hormonal cow and I think I was very, very difficult to be around. And each time it didn't work. So the first time it didn't work. The second time I got pregnant, then that one I just lost, lost. And then I waited like a month and then I did another one and then it didn't take. And then I did another one and it didn't take and then I did another one. So within 18 months that was probably. And then I got pregnant again and I then had to give birth because it was, you know, I don't know why I had to give birth. I had to give birth and. Sorry, was that because there was some problem, but he just said, I can't do a dnc. You have to give birth. I can't remember why, but I just remember this kind of. I have to say I have blanked a bit of this out, Elizabeth, because I just think, surprise. Just kind of then, like, you're just like, on this. And then I did three more full ivf, and then I had frozen some of Johnny's sperm. We're getting really detailed here, but if everyone listens to this. But an element of fertility. I'm sorry to the boys, who are like, whoa. But this is like a girl's chat. In fact, a boys chat because they have to go through it the other side, if you're in a relationship with a man. So Johnny was away. Johnny was away at a rehab. You know, that's where our marriage was at. Okay. And I remember Dr. Wren called me up and she said, trini, I've got some of Johnny's stuff. Do you want me to throw it away or not? And I was like, I don't know what's going to happen in life. I said, I'll come in. Just shove it in, you know? So I remember went in, put my legs in stirrups, shoved it in, and I left. And I literally left and stopped thinking about it. I was like. And then, you know, a month later, I bled. I thought, there we go again, you know, kind of like that. I was just like. Because things weren't great on lots of levels. I was like. And then I remember I get to the next month and I think, oh, I didn't get my period. And Mari Wren called me up. She said, trinny, why haven't you come in? Because usually I was like, day 11. I was like, can I come in today? Can I come in today? She went, no, you've got to wait till day 13, you know. And she called me up and said, trini, it's day. Day 100. I know, it was really later. What the fuck's going on? And I was like, I've lost it. She said, well, just come in. And I was pregnant. And I was like, oh, my God. And she said, okay. And then she sent me to this man in Wimbledon because she said, you have to go and do all this anti miscarriage thing. So I had to take these horrible steroid injections every day, hated taking, and they stung me. And I was like, oh, I really thought, I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep it. But I then went to America and I did the Oscars with Susanna. We're both pregnant.

Trinny Woodall (23:56)

And I immediately called my obstetrician and I said, I'm bleeding. And I really thought I'd lost Lila. And I remember I came back From America and I went straight to St. Mary's Paddington, and he had one of those mobile ultrasounds. I think I had that inevitable feeling, I've lost the baby. Just like this sort of flat feeling. And then I heard her heartbeat. Then I was like, oh, my God. You know, I so didn't expect to hear her heartbeat. I think I had a scan every two weeks because she was also the wrong way around and upside down. And she was born with tallipede in both her feet. So she didn't push her feet out that much because she had very, you know, that all her feet had to be broken when she was born and she didn't kick. So most mums, they always hear the kick and feel the kick. And so she. That kind of. I never knew she was inside me easily. And then she was born early because I lost water. And she was born sort of a month and a half early. I didn't know what kind of mother I'll be like. When you spend that long, Elizabeth, you don't quite know. Will you be that natural like. I had Susanna as a role model, who to me was this most incredible Mother Earth mother. Her kids came first, she was, but she didn't sort of treat them preciously. She was like, sort of get on with it, country style upbringing of don't be precious, you know, brilliant mum. And she taught me a lot about being a mum. I mean, she had three by then and I had one, so I was obviously always going to be more precious with Lila. Yeah, she taught me a lot. I think what made me feel fully maternal was that I breastfed Lila for a year and I did start working after three weeks of having Lila. And when I look back, I think, do I wish I'd spent longer not working? But I kind of didn't have the option because I needed to earn money and I was the main breadwinner. But there were times when I was in America doing a TV show, living in this house, and there were cables everywhere and Jenny would come up so I could go and breastfeed and take her away. And it was just like the weirdest thing. But that breastfeeding of Lila, that moment of intimacy at the beginning of the evening, at the end of the evening, which I had for a year of just whatever else and however full life was because of the circumstance, our life, I think, made me so close to her in that very, very raw level when you just look at your baby as it's feeding. So I learned to be a mother in that first year because when you're not ready to be a mother. And then you think you want to be a mother. And then you, you try to be a mother and you can't be a mother. You let go of the fact can you be a mother.

Elizabeth Day (26:28)

I totally, totally understand that. And you think so much about it and you hear so much about it from other people that it becomes stressful in and of its own. Right, Thinking I'm fighting for this thing so hard and I don't even know whether I'm going to be any good at it.

Trinny Woodall (26:44)

Yeah, exactly that. And if you're somebody that by nature is such a fighter, you're a fighter, I'm a fighter. It's so hard to then decide do I let go or not? Because there's this fight for the sake of I need to fight for this because I feel this is a fight I should have not is this the fight I want? And the hardest decision is for those people who decide IVF is not the right route, then there's a route of is it that I really want to be a mother? So there are many other ways of being a mother and what does that look like? And then you sometimes don't know, do I want to be a mother or do I want to be a blood mother? And how different are they to me as a concept? I have friends who are all those things their surrogate then nothing to do with the baby physically. They didn't have it even inside them. There all are mothers I look at who all mother in a different way, who I really love and respect. And it's a choice. It's just your choice of of what you want to do with your life because it is going to be what life you give somebody else, but it's also what you want to do with your life.

Elizabeth Day (27:45)

Oh, Trini, thank you so much for what has been a really beautiful interview. Please do follow how to fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends this is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

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Sarah Pascoe (28:34)

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Sarah Pascoe (29:14)

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