Radio Host Reveals Pregnancy After Tough IVF Journey
Congratulations are in order for Emma Barnett. The beloved broadcaster and host of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour shared the exciting news on Saturday that she and her husband are expecting their second child early next year after suffering a miscarriage at the beginning of the year and following fertility treatment.
Barnett shared the happy news in a new post to her substack blog, where she has documented her struggles to conceive, revealing that she and her husband are expecting another child after a sixth and final round of treatment. In the blog post, titled "Trying With Emma Barnett," Barnett wrote, "all being well, early next year, my husband and I hope to have a baby. We are expecting to. And trying to believe this will, might, could, happen. Six rounds of IVF, one miscarriage and two-and-a-half years later, this is where we find ourselves." She added, "in some ways, it is eerily ironic that this round worked, as it was genuinely the last time we were going to try.
In the post, Barnett went on to detail her and her husband's struggle to conceive. After giving birth to her son four years ago after a single round of IVF, subsequent attempts to have another baby failed. Amid the process, Barnett said she decided to share "the horror of infertility contemporaneously, while trying to conceive my second child," writing that "the cycle of injecting, endless early morning blood tests, egg retrieval, embryo transfers and then the negative pregnancy test result hitting you in the face – all while keeping down a job and trying to manage the toll it takes on your relationships. Time and time again." Describing the process of IVF, Barnett said it was "isolating," and she tried to keep "IVF-me in a box."
"Finally falling pregnant at the end of last year, only to then lose the baby, on our fifth round of IVF, felt like the slap in the face I couldn't ignore. I couldn't keep pretending that this was a normal way to live. So I cracked myself open," she continued. "I penned an article and started this weekly newsletter, Trying, in a bid to explore the many things that are trying in life – from unspoken truths about infertility to keeping decent friendships."
Now expecting her second child, Barnett also addressed her "socially awkward" responses when people congratulate her on becoming pregnant, writing, "'I remember telling one of my bosses at the BBC last time around that I was expecting, with the follow-up line: "But let's see, eh? We don't know if this baby will make it. Let's not get ahead of ourselves." She concluded, "and yet no one has IVF for it not to work. No one. So while I don't have the words and you perhaps don't either, there it is. For now. Until then, whenever then is, I will be the one mock spitting on the ground, trying to process what the hell just happened, and hopefully, I'll be allowed to accept it."