Ryan Opens Up About a Big Personal Decision...

0:28Oh, sorry. We're ready? The people so often brush under the carpet. Be ready for an honest chat. Yes. Where are we going today? I love this because it's the only time I get to actually learn about you. Yeah, okay. What would you like to learn today? Oh, I have a lot that I want to learn. We get deep into your soul, Rai. Well, should we start off with Leo's favourite word of the week? Which one? It says a lot. His vocab is really developing quite well at the moment. So which one? Well, I've now heard him use the word willy, which I actually find really sad. Why? Because we always used to call it a wee-wee.

1:12Ah, he's sort of progressed. He's progressed. But is he allowed to say willy? In the dictionary, what is the actual word for a... For sure, a penis in the dictionary. Is it actually? It has to be. That's the biological term for it. Is it? Yeah, but I don't want my four-year-old son to start rolling out that word. It's such a gross word. Yeah, actually it is, yeah. I don't know if vagina's much better, in truth. No, but actually we did get in trouble once for talking about different names for vaginas and people were like, why can't you just call a vagina a vagina? Oh, well, there we go then. But I think it's kind of endearing to have different names.

1:46No, I never really had a nickname for my penis. Did you not? Not really, no. Do you have friends that did? I feel like people just call it a Johnson's. Oh, yeah. Imagine if your name is Johnson. That's the default name for it, yeah. In fact, that's the next progression for Leo. He's going to go from Willie to Johnson. When did you first recognise that you had a Willie on your body? First knew I had a Johnson? Probably when I did the whole crossing swords thing for the first time with a mate from nursery, I would imagine. I don't remember which mate, but I would have definitely crossed swords. Have we spoken about crossing swords before?

2:26No. Does everyone know what crossing swords is? okay so for all the girls that are listening you definitely won't know what this is until you have a son you and a pal go for a wee together lift up the lid on the uh on the toilet and loo loo yeah and you just hate the word cross swords with your yeah basically like i saw leo and his cousins you don't touch weeing together no but your wee touches yeah but that and william's a bit older than Leo and he was like oh should we cross swords and Leo loves going to the loo and with other people and weeing and they it's like they like yeah they create a cross with their we stream it's like the it's like the toddler version of me and Sam on the roof with the lightsaber it's like should we cross swords dude it's like yeah let's do it I don't mean we but let's do it between men and women like can you imagine if women were like trying to wee on top of each other that's so gross like that's a different speed boys are quite relaxed like you're quite happy to see your junk junk your little guy friends like in the changing room and in the locker room like you just let it all hang out wait wait wait don't you well i think as a child you have like just complete innocence and curiosity about the whole thing so you he did it to me the other day i pulled out the whole package instead of just the johnson he's like what's that and i was like no no you've got the same it's just you haven't quite developed yet and he's like you've got a big fat something there i'm like you're talking about my balls dude well you said you've got a big fat something yeah he didn't know what it was and i was like um usually me and him would cross swords with just the johnson out but you've got you've crossed swords with leo all the time oh my god i did not know that except now he's gone a bit weird he stands on the loo seat and he sort of like shoots a single shot down himself no crossing leo will clamber onto the loo so he's standing two feet on the loo seat and peeing from like a metre up in the air.

4:18Do you know what? I wish I could do that. I wish I could get away with doing that. Do you? It's just fun, isn't it? That's just boys. At what point do you start like feeling a bit of shame where you look around and you think, why wee wee is smaller than that? No, I know. I actually know the moment. And now I can't be naked in the changing room. No, I can actually tell you the moment. Post rugby training at school, boarding school in South Wales, all stripped off, went into the showers and I looked up and I just saw like an array of mighty boosh around me and they were quite big schlongs as well and i was like oh my god i'm bald as a coot and i'm like i'm not packing any size out of that and i was about 11 and i at that point i knew because i was like wow i am far behind on the whole oh wait you were in the same year yes i was in the same year these guys had hairy bushes and you know some of these guys as well yeah you always talk about your best friend yeah but it's not just him there was about four of them what and so you'd see that they had loads loads of pubes mighty boosh and you'd have a single pube completely completely like not even one yeah oh my god oh but i guess that is like puberty isn't it yeah but i i think i don't think i was certainly late to arrive at the whole puberty stage how old were you um wait what actually what is not 11 but what is the like signal for guys so oh i find this so fascinating your voices break yeah that's something you don't really catch though that's not like a you don't wake up one day with a because people used to joke about it like girls would be would would say that a guy's voice would go from like really high to really low and then quite squeaky in the middle yeah again i don't think that's that's not really something you catch you do have to catch the sudden sprouting of a bush and what so one morning you just wake up and you got a bush.

6:09No, it's definitely, at least not for me. It wasn't an overnight thing. And what, but you're just like, can I just let everyone that's listening know that you have now caught up and you're doing really well? Well, I think people can probably tell that. I've got a slug on my lip, so. I'm not talking about that. Oh my God. Well. Oh my God, there's so many places I want to go. I'm talking about an 11-year-old Ryan here. Slightly different to a 36-year-old version. Okay. Do you know what we used to do? We used to get our shower gel in the, because these shower blocks were huge, right? I mean, big enough for like 15, 20 boys.

6:42We used to get shower gel. Yeah, we used to get shower gel on the floor and we used to body slide from one side to the next, completely naked. And that would be us for like a good 15 minutes after rugby training every day. What, so all like 15 people naked in a shower? It was like something out of Happy Feet, just like penguins everywhere. I love how innocent that is. And in my mind, I'm like, are you having like an audience? Did you ever used to hook up with other boys at school? Mate, are you... what kind of school do you think I went to? We used to. We used to go and lock ourselves in a common room and like sit in a circle and then kiss.

7:18We had very different schools. This explains a lot. We'd go round and then everyone would be like, oh, we'd like rate each other's kisses. It's actually really inappropriate. Mate, no, we were crossing swords and doing belly flops in the showers and then normal boy stuff. Okay. When did you first realise that you were, In fact, were you an early developer or a late developer? Did you have a mighty bush at 11?

7:45No, I was a late developer. You were a late developer at what? But it is funny to me that as a guy, you wanted to get a bush when you were quite young. Well, because it's a flex and it's like a, yo, I'm growing. You're a man. Yeah, I'm a man, yeah. As a girl, we didn't want to. Like, we didn't want to get hairy. and then i guess that's continued up until the present day where there's this expectation that women need to get rid of everything like all of their body hair but quite thrilled that actually the bush is coming back what's your preference i actually never ask you this this is so intense i i'm not a body hair person anywhere just just just be gone with the whole lot what just like smooth as a seal, like a dolphin.

8:33Well, everywhere. Yeah. Imagine I was like, no, I'd like you to just leave a little bit on the old shins. Yes, everywhere. That was very PG-13 of you. Yeah, I'm not really... But each to their own, I suppose. No. I actually like guys to have a bit of hair. You haven't asked me, but I'm going to tell you. Because sometimes you'll shave your arms because you're doing a swimming challenge. and try and get that extra speed he actually is and i'm like you don't need to do that like i don't i don't want a grisly spiky hair i don't want to stubble on your legs oh hang on on the subject of hair leo this morning said why have i got hairy armpits and you don't you said that yeah he said that to me because sometimes he's pulled me up for having hairy armpits and i'll say why have you got hair on and i'll be like uh the bush is back anyway back to the point about um puberty quickly because you did ask whether I was an early or a late developer.

9:30I, much like you, was a late developer. I didn't get my period until I was 14. When's the usual age? When do people usually start that? I think probably any time between like 10 and 16. As young as 10? That's quite a lot. Your niece is 10. That would be, when you get your first period, that must be terrifying. I think for the people that are early developers, probably yes. But if you're later, people are like, yeah, don't worry about it. Well, I remember getting to a point where all of my friends that I was sharing a room with, I think we were in a dorm of like 12 people and they all got their period.

10:04And I was really... Because that's the thing as well, right? You've got sort of like, you all follow the same timings, right? Yes. But I think, yes, I think for any girl, it can be quite scary when you, yeah, when you first get your period. Like I didn't really know what to do. No one had taught me about tampons or pads. Do you, I love getting you to try and explain what a tampon is. What's a tampon? what was the other one you said tampon and tam and the pads well the pads is a bit more self-explanatory I would imagine what's a pad I would imagine it's like a nappy almost that lines like the scoop of your I don't know goes god is it like a

10:53it doesn't go inside your thing you put it on the outside I'm getting myself tied up here what's it called a tampax tampon no okay what's a tampon then so I think what you're trying to say is a pad is like it sits in your pants it catches the blood that comes out every month which sucks by the way I'm guessing that that's not the most commonly used option I'd imagine the tampon is the option right where you are fucking... Yeah, no, say it. What is a tampon? What is a tampon? I don't... I actually don't know what's... You do, because you've tried to explain it to me before. No, it's the white cotton bud thing, I suppose, that you shove up the woo-woo, and I'd imagine it expands as it captures the blood, and then it's the string to pull it back out.

11:44Well done, Ryan. Right, which... Bravo. Holy smokes. Are you going to pass out? Well, no, because now I'm thinking of, like, these horror stories of not being able to get them out, or you forget they're up there and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, it can be complicated. Is that? It's actually been four years since I've had to, five years since I've had to use one, which is crazy. I remember not understanding how to use one when I was 14 and spending a long time in the loo trying to figure it out. And it was really painful. But actually some of them have applicators. So it's plastic and it slides inside and then you just push it up and it sort of goes in really easily.

12:23well that does make a lot of sense yeah an applicator yeah and and other times when i was like this just isn't working i used to just fold tissue up and and like triple stack it and then put it in my pants that sounds pretty intense well i actually just didn't even know like i just actually didn't have the confidence to go and buy salutary products from boots tissue paper lube paper is too thin to be doing that surely you would have like fold it over like a lot of times and then what and then and then what isn't that awful and then like i remember once it like fell out and i was like oh my god because we were we'd have to wear skirts as part of our uniform just sort of slid out i didn't claim it but yes a lot of horrible experiences with periods like all the things we're talking about now as children and young teenagers i don't know at some point the curiosity and the natural kind of like exploring your body at what point does that turn into like oh i'm a bit self-aware i'm a bit conscious he's got a mighty boot i haven't at what point does that happen the whole like body image distortion thing i think as a girl yeah it's definitely puberty like when you start comparing like bra sizes and stuff yeah so as your boobs grow a little bit they never got that far in my case you then yeah you then look at look around and what other people have got and then you notice what other people find more attractive and then you start to feel less than so puberty is where it all starts in that whole comparison to others it doesn't really actually i think puberty yes but also then when you start having an interest in the other sex because then people start like dating boys yeah you're more interested in what they like so actually as someone that was in all girls boarding school when we weren't with boys like we really didn't care what we looked like we never wore makeup we always look like shit basically yeah i think i think it's when you start dating boys and girls you start dating i'd say that's when when you start to become more self-conscious what about you you were at a mixed school no yeah i was yeah i don't have the answer i was i'm just curious about that when that happens because i just think that that moment of like when you start to compare and assess and wear yourself against him or her that's that's the beginning of that journey of do you know what i mean yeah and i think some people get lost in that well i think you've always been someone that seems very confident on the outside yeah but you know that internally as a child i was not confident no in fact and you've just had quite a mega procedure done I think people would be quite shocked by you of course already know this but the listeners will definitely not know this unless they've done some recon on some of these social media clips where you look at the back of my head and you're like that's a pretty intense haircut for right when you look like pika blanders pika?

15:26stop pulling me out for speaking with a weird accent the truth is Louise and everyone listening I had a hair transplant at the end of last year which I think was a really good time because it meant that I could just lay low and just adjust to my new haircut for a while do you feel quite liberated for saying this out loud yeah i do yeah i think you're quite brave yeah listen i am aware that and you're you actually had this view um and i'm i think many other people will i probably wasn't the most obvious candidate for a hair transplant because i do have a lot of hair but that doesn't mean that i didn't have this sort of underlying feeling um where i was semi-conscious about my hairline i've always my hair by the way my hair my hair's quite difficult to uh to tango with which is why i wear hats in truth i don't wear hats to conceal my receding hairline i do it because my hair's like moss and it's just so hard to style instead of like going all like sexy and wavy it just goes that way like wolverine and it's like i'll just put a hat on you don't like your own cats the musical yeah in a costume um but yeah i think i think it's i think i think i think like cats yeah yeah i think it's important in a really cute way by the way i love your hair i wish i had as much moss on my head i think i think the i think the hair transplants this is an important thing to talk about because for me at least in my mind this is a bit like a metaphor or a visual representation of men sort of sitting with something that's eating them up.

17:06So I think I first noticed my hairline being a slight issue was probably, I don't know, let's say 24, something like that. I wasn't losing hair, but I was just aware that my sort of the receding here was a bit further back than I wanted it to be. and it was it didn't eat me up to i was i didn't avoid social situations i wasn't losing tremendous amounts of confidence but it was always a thought in the back of my mind and when i'd watch movies whether it was disney or like action or superheroes i couldn't help but like notice the hair and it was and it was never it was never really oh he's got a receding hairline it was more like holy smokes he's got like long flowing blonde locks or something like that because of everything that's happened in my world over the past four years and I've become really aware of men struggling to articulate what they're suffering with and you know probably looking for more permission in certain environments and scenarios to to talk about it and act on it I decided to take a slightly crazy decision to have the hair transplant where they basically shave the back of my head and they took some of the follicles and they and they put them into the front of my head here it was an amazing procedure and i did it with a guy called dylan fernando at the treatment rooms clinic in putney really lovely bloke in fact seven of my mates now having seen how simple and you know um less scary and less intense that you might think they've all gone for consultations now

18:45but i know a lot of men and that's a that's an indication for you seven of my mates in my world seven i don't really have many more than seven they've all gone for consultations because they had their consultations yeah because they are i think they've been waiting for someone in their world to sort of take the first step into that territory and it just i think i mean i seem to be that guy at the moment i'm taking the first steps into different territories it's it's crazy to me how few men speak about it so i hope you don't mind but i told one of my really good girlfriends you did what on the weekend that you had one because they were like how's ryan and i was like yeah he's really good and then i was trying to think of juicy things to say and i was like oh he had a hair transplant and she was like oh my husband also had a hair transplant last year and i was like she never would have told me if i hadn't shared so i think now you speaking honestly about it means that you know it's really great to break down that like uncomfortable thing and to encourage people to speak up about it i remember when about so you had yours done over christmas which is quite nice for you and us timings wise because it meant that you it felt quite discreet because we didn't do a huge amount over christmas because the haircut is interesting like you came out fairly unscathed compared to some other people that i know and everyone jokes about like people flying back from Turkey with huge skull caps and bandages.

20:14We know a few people that have done that. Yes. I actually took the piss out of myself a little bit on the podcast and through that made a connection with this wonderful surgeon who said, I can help you if it's a problem. Are people going to judge me for this? And I asked him, I was like, am I a candidate? He's like, yeah, you're a candidate, mate. You could do some... so he told me that so you know i i decided to do it but i didn't want this to occupy any more space in my mind on a daily day on a day-to-day basis because that's what it does and this is what men sit with these things occupy spaces in our mind and we as men need to first of all accept it and acknowledge it and then remove the fear of judgment i think i think men think that you know speaking from my lived experience a man a man losing their hair is a terrible thing for their confidence they feel they feel that it's making them less manly less um alpha less less themselves and to go through a surgery or a cosmetic surgery that comes with am i going to be judged for this is this going to make me even less attractive to my partner or future partner and it's a it's an over-analysis cycle of doom that men get themselves into and having lived through it and done it and had a really really good experience i hope that men don't sit in silence and let it just chew them up about this particular thing it's really interesting to hear from the perspective of a woman because i would never know that there were men out there that were sort of sitting at their desks working away even considering the way that they look like we just assume that it's not something that you guys would struggle with and i never knew that you actually struggled with this it was always in the back of my mind it was always in my mind i didn't that must be exhausting having something in your mind and the fact we often talk about the impacts to women of watching you know of playing with barbies where they have you know perfect figures hourglass figures and long skinny legs and, you know, and Disney characters being beautiful.

22:26Like every single Disney main character lead role, whether it's Elsa that Leo's now - Pocahontas. Pocahontas. Little Mermaid. I can go all day. Obviously he mentioned that one because that's the one he fancies. Pocahontas, Jasmine, another one. But that is, you know, that sets us up. To have these ridiculous standards of what we should all be looking like. But the same goes for the men. It's crazy that it affects men and women equally. Let me give you some examples. Aquaman, Thor. let me Hercules even Aladdin's got long flowing hair who else Tarzan Tarzan this is something that's like really stuck with you well I'm just I'm a big Disney fan so that's where the excitement's coming from like I said before this was not like I wasn't crippled by this situation and I'm going to take my hat off right now and just show everyone the situation I've got a lot of hair I've got hat hair now this is a really bad example but my hairline went back so I've had so I'm taken from here and I've had it put in there.

23:20Yeah. It's okay. I mean, it's okay. It's going to be okay, everyone. It's going to be okay. But what I will say is that you've had, you have had like a slight dip in confidence this last week. Oh, well, I can tell you for why. Because you've reached a shedding phase. I'm in the shedding phase. I'm like a snake at the moment. So let's just break it down really quickly. Actually, you did explain. They basically shave off the area that they need to pull the follicles from. They took... Do you want to tell them about my follicles? 1300. Ryan calls it follicles. It's follicles. no no it's about the density of mine so they take out from you they took 1300 follicles right and they moved them to the V's that you were that was sort of surrounding that what's it called like a widow's peak well I have a widow's peak a widow's peak yeah oh no okay so if we're gonna spend some more time on this so they look at my face right and they get me to raise my eyebrows they see where the wrinkle line finishes they look at my actual hairline which you can still make out but it's receded a little bit so they draw the lines on and they take their time over it then they take you upstairs and they shave your head with the clippers and they try and do it as tastefully as possible but I look like a Peaky Blunder and then it's the extraction part where they put your face down, they numb your head which I thought was going to be terrifying and painful it wasn't at all so they drug you up?

24:34yeah, I had some Valium so Ryan came back from the hair transplant the nicest he's ever been to me and you can't remember the things that you were saying so they obviously gave you some good stuff they must have done you were so woozy and you were like luis i just want to say i've never thought about this before but i just think you're really remarkable for everything that you've been through i would like i've just had a hair transplant and it was a lot okay let me add to this because this is worth mentioning i got myself really worried about this whole procedure because other than my hand situation i haven't beat we'll get to that i haven't had any operations or spent time in hospital for myself right and here I am like willingly put myself into an environment where I've got to have injections and medications and I really got cold feet about the whole thing I told you about it before yeah you actually you didn't speak for a week before Christmas was really fun on the day on the day we had a wild Christmas on the day of the surgery I told I told Dylan I was like I'm I'm really quite nervous about this and I you know I'm not great with needles etc anyway as soon as soon as as soon as i was sort of in process of the whole thing all i could do was think about you and it made me super super emotional because you went through so much more than what i was going through do you know what i mean so i had to when i came out i had to tell you like oh my god i've been i've literally been thinking about you all day because i've been uh the reality by the way i was on my back watching netflix and i watched three movies Yeah, he actually had the best day ever.

26:07I was solo parenting and Ryan was high, watching shit TV all day, lying down. The surgeons were like, don't even worry, this is finesse. They were like, this is artwork for us. This isn't really that serious. And I'm like, let me tell you this. Do you know you fancy Jurgen Klopp? He's had a hair transplant. So is Steve Carell. So is David Beckham. Okay. So is Daniel Craig. Jurgen Klopp is very fit. He's also had a full face of veneers. Well, every celebrity has. no but I'm just including you love fuck's sake that's the second bomb you've had about six I'm gonna come in with some added content I've got four veneers because I had my front teeth smashed out with an elbow playing rugby okay no I know I'm not judging I'm using Jürgen because I know that you fancy Jürgen which is fine he's a pretty cool guy yeah but I knew the teeth thing but then I did some research on like who's actually had a transplant and kind of kept it under the radar Jürgen Klopp straight up there nice so anyway well maybe lots of people will come out of the woodwork now we'll put a list of celebrities in the show notes to out them and ask them if they want to come on the pod and do a confidence.

27:08Can we give some stats quickly before we move it on? Well, I was reading an interesting piece in the Times a few days ago that said that 95 % of the people, of men that are now having hair transplants are under the age of 35, which I found quite shocking. But I suppose if we look at it like the kind of like, you know, the equivalent is so different, but women have access to all of these different treatments. you know women are regularly not regularly but lots of women have nose jobs if they're very lacking confidence because they don't have the nose that they want boob jobs botox people have facelifts i mean you see it all over social media now people are having vampire facials like they basically just like peel their whole face off and just get someone else's foot on i mean it's It's crazy.

27:57And so for men, you don't really have the obvious thing. I suppose this is the equivalent. This is like the surgical equivalent that you can lean into to boost your confidence. So add to your stat, there's been a 65 % hike in the last three months of hair transplants. Wow, well, there's going to be an even bigger one now. I kind of hope there is. We saw that guy. So the week before Ryan had his, we were out having lunch around Sloane Square and there was a guy who looked like he was fresh out of uni super confident with all of his friends and he'd obviously just had a hair transplant Leo did point at his head and really quite loudly be like what's happened to his head and I was like shh can't say that because bless him like it's obviously like quite a lot to go through but good on him for just wearing it with pride and then I said we kind of laughed because we knew that you were going in for yours the week after I wasn't laughing the reason I was like freaking i always thought my dad lost his hair really young yeah but he kind of wears that like monk hair style with pride and i do i didn't think that you needed one but now i understand the reasoning for why you've had it i can i'm so on board when you look at the people because we had this conversation over lunch where you were like yeah but all the most attractive men have this like long flowing hair because i was worried now you've got you've had a hair transplant that you're going to grow your hair really long and have like some ponytail.

29:25And no, I really, really don't want that. Watch out, everyone. But if I don't find that attractive... Oh, you will. No, I promise you I won't. I'm going to come summer, I'm going to wear a butt flap and I'm going to have long flowing hair. What's a butt flap? It's what Tarzan wears. Oh my God. Ryan's obsessed with Disney, everybody, if you can already tell. So Brad Pitt fit with short hair. Does he have short hair in Troy? No, long hair. No, Rankin Troy, fit in like Fight Club. Is he in Fight Club? Yes. Yes. So it's a taste thing. Yeah, but he didn't have a receding hairline. He had a wonderful hairline.

30:02So a shaved head on Brad Pitt is remarkably good. Not so much on Ryan, but it will be once I've had this regrowth. So are you going to shave your head? I'd actually love you to shave your head. Well, maybe I'll come in as Brad Pitt from Fight Club then. Okay, great. Happy days. I got to actually get some action. but just i feel like the generation of your dad and my dad and the old school blokes very different mindset different opportunities in front of them less pressures less social expectations no social media they would have just accepted it and be like doesn't matter internally it might have mattered but they there was not the environment or opportunity there was zero permission for men back in the day to really open up about this for people like me 35 36 years old there's options and there's there's there's more acceptance and people can do things so you know do you think that they then had to like compensate in other ways well they probably they probably did compensate in other ways yeah it's a it's a very different existence i'm thinking of of your dad's life versus mine and him at my age i don't know it's just it's different it's very it's very different it is i think it i think having hair transplant is the equivalent of wearing hair extensions i would imagine lots of girls wear hair by the way i don't mind i got no issue with hair extensions i know that you wear extensions just out with you but that's almost like it's almost like a secret move that women have available to them they can just clip them in or sew them in however you do it and it's like no one's gonna know really because they're so clever how they just kind of happen but men don't really have that option unless you go for either a i don't know a toupee or a hair extension a hair extension um a wig a hair transplant so i don't know i'm so here for it i think people should just be able to do whatever they want that makes them happy and feel good well that that's the bottom line like my hair has been through so many different cycles i mean i've been on every every medication that i've been on has had hair loss as a side effect.

32:12Like a pretty big one. Yeah. Like all of them. Do you remember when I came out of hospital having had my colon removed? Three months later, I developed something called telogen effluvium. So niche. Telogen effluvium? My hair all fell out. Like clumps in the shower. Like my whole head of hair. I can't remember that, yeah. That was quite scary. And I think that was like purely because my body hadn't been able to absorb any nutrients for a long time then when I was in hospital. You handled that well. We deal with quite a lot as well. No, listen, I get it. And actually some women do get really bad hair loss.

32:49I think about 15 % of people that are getting hair transplants are actually women. But this is the thing, at the clinic that I went to, and by the way, people are going every day and it's a mixture of men and women. I didn't know that. Really? I found that so, I don't know, eye-opening. I was like, wow. Should we talk about, because obviously last week we announced, if you like, our journey with IVF and surrogacy yeah do you want to maybe give more context to that

33:24so yeah so last week we addressed the fact that we are going on this surrogacy journey which feels like a really long road to be honest because there's so much that we need to learn um it's it's a fairly atypical route to growing your family but it's an option that is uh we're really really grateful that does exist for people like us that where you know plan a hasn't worked plan b hasn't worked you know it's sort of plan zed it's like it's a last resort and to kind of guide you along with us it maybe makes sense to start from like when we first started trying to preserve our fertility so I think we've mentioned before that it's taken Ron and I like three between three and four years to get to a place where we feel like genuinely really ready to grow our family um I knew that as a woman I wanted to freeze some eggs and some embryos because our fertility declines every year that we're alive so we're born with a finite number of eggs and they diminish every year and actually i did write down a stat because this shocked me and i think i read this this morning this is crazy so by age 30 most women have only about 12 percent of their ovarian reserve left and by 40 it reduces to three percent oh my god isn't that i know and i thought that actually i know that sounds really stark and i'm not meaning to sort of scare anybody but i think for you as a man to hear that i think that it might help you understand like why i feel in the position i do that i and why i maybe have been not treating it with some urgency but like putting a little bit of pressure on the situation i understood why you felt the time sensitivity around it but i didn't i didn't know those stats that's i actually didn't expect them to be so low yeah the numbers yeah so and there's a lot in the media there's so much noise around like women's sort of dropping off a cliff after the age of 35 and and well there's a lot more to discuss about men's and i think we'll get to that um but we decided that we were going to freeze some embryos together which feels really positive i wasn't able to start that journey properly until september last year because I've had various surgeries that I've then had to recover from and each recovery really takes like six months to feel properly yourself again and really stable and we know that because when I had my cola removed and then also my perforation the doctors have always said like even if you wanted to proceed with the next surgery which might be having my rectum removed they're like everything inside what's me say it's like a slippery snake like the tissues aren't strong enough to withhold another surgery like you have to let everything properly heal so the idea of then going and having even the IVF cycle just felt too scary for me and also I was on a medication to help with my inflammatory bowel disease which and you couldn't run them at the same time you couldn't I couldn't run them at the same time so they call it teratogenic which is you know sounds like a complicated word essentially it means that there's not enough research to show that it won't affect a growing fetus so i've moved on to a medication that is is suitable for that teratogenic means oh there's something that the medication yeah so it might like cross and so i i've sort of found an interest in researching all of that uh then i wanted to kind of get stable again and last september we we did an ivf cycle for anyone that doesn't know what IVF is, I probably will say this wrong, like in vitro fertilization, essentially using science to combine eggs and the sperm and to then create an embryo to then hopefully kind of put it back inside you or worst case scenario, somebody else.

37:24And I think - Is it worst case or just another scenario? Well, it's another scenario. Yeah, actually that's a really nice way of reframing it. And one in 32 children now are actually born via IVF. Really? Wow. Yeah. And so that's near enough like one in every classroom. that's also crazy isn't that crazy but also great bad crazy great that people have the option yeah see i actually thought it would be higher than that because i know so many people that are going through it my best friend and i'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying she did ivf to have her first so a lot of my friends had went through the ivf process before us i think the guidelines um sort of like the nhs guidelines are that if you've been trying for a year to get pregnant naturally and you can't get pregnant naturally then you might look into whether you're suffering with some form of infertility and IVF then is like the next route I have a question is do you have to pay for IVF at every so we do there's no NHS free version of it is there is yes only if you don't have a child so you can access IVF on the NHS if you've been trying for over a year and you don't have any living children and i know i only know one person that's doing it through the nhs i think they make it very very tricky to be able to access because it's very expensive well i think like every trust and also every gp surgery has a budget that they can allocate to certain things and so like if they're getting too many requests in one area they'll just make people jump through hoops in order to access it which it doesn't feel fair does it again you know then it becomes this postcode lottery so there's lots to say on that maybe we could get some people in who are some experts.

39:02Maybe you should go and give more in Britain for us. Shut up. Okay. So yeah, in September, we decided to do our first cycle, our first round. And we did it at Chelsea and Westminster, which is the hospital where I've had all my surgeries. For you, that was quite hard to understand why I would make that decision. But they'd sort of umbrellaed my care. And they were actually the team that were able to get me to switch from one medication to the next. so it felt safe and close to home so we committed so I suppose the process is that you go in for like a couple of scans so you actually said the word the other day when I came home you went have you had a transvaginal Brian literally I came home and I looked a bit disheveled and I was like oh just like another appointment and he went oh have you had a transvaginal I'm never thrilled that you know the name of it now yes you have a transvaginal scan where they put a big probe inside your vagina and they can see what's going on.

39:58So they can see your ovaries, which sit either side of your uterus. It feels like a real science lesson. And then you see these follicles growing inside the ovaries. Then you wait to start the treatment until day one of your period, which for someone like me is quite hard to track because I don't really get a period. Like I haven't really had a period. And that's due to the birth trauma? Yeah, because I've got... Your womb never really rebuilt as it should. Yeah, so there's just a lot of scar tissue. So there's no lining that can really build up and then shed. and then yeah you go in on day one and they do some measuring and then you get given these injections and it's FSH there's another thing that happens on that day one is that the focus goes out of nowhere onto the man in the room to say are you good to hit the production room or come back and do a few tests I found it I was so not expecting it in the experience of what you're describing now, our first round of IVF, in truth, I thought I was a passenger.

41:02I didn't really want to be in the building anyway. So I thought I'll just go there and sit and be quiet. And I wasn't checked out of the conversation. I was there, but I was not expecting the doctor to turn the focus onto me quickly. So what was her first question? Probably something along the lines of when was the last time you ejaculated? Yeah. I was like, uh. like quite fast and i know i was really interested because i was like it's definitely not been around me so when was it right and and where was it and how did it go like anyway she and then and then that's when you realize that oh you've actually got to now do some tests yourself so you've got to do the whole semen analysis which again sounds like something you can laugh at and we can laugh about it by the way but it's such a bizarre experience and it's quite a high pressure situation as well because you get you get led to this room that they call the production room and it's just a it's just a side room on the corridor so you've got all the noise of other appointments next door you've got all the staff going past you've got cleaners brooms like tapping the door and i'm like i'm in here and then you do your thing and you you open the hatch and you put your semen analysis you ring the bell and you fucking run out and then you think you can run out and then someone stops you and asks for payment and you're like oh god this is the worst experience of my life what do you actually what did you what happens in that room that is probably not content for the podcast for me to know and you should never find out use your imagination on what happens in the room do you have any material that you take in or you can just use your memory answer the question well they have wi-fi in the building so you could okay fine you could watch something yeah oh my god i'd love to know what you watch anyway that really is tmi let's just remind you that my mum watches this show oh god highlander oh no well actually it's good because my mum actually this morning was like sorry i forgot to ask you about your sorority infertility update i just thought listen every wednesday morning just tuck in all the info you need to know is there so we basically I took a whole bunch of injections home and I have to inject every night I think when I'd heard other people speak about IVF there's this sort of whole mystery around it until you actually do it and until you get like a sheet of paper that breaks down the process and because unfortunately people that embark on this journey often have to do it for a long period of time and do face huge amounts of really traumatic infertility that can end up being really expensive and very upsetting in my mind i assumed that the actual cycle process was several months long and that i'd be like battling this journey in the hormones for a really long time i thought that would be did you think that as well whereas everybody's cycle is different and you start these injections they then monitor you after five days of taking the injections to see how you're responding to the medication the medication makes your follicles grow much much quicker um than your natural hormone levels would and they can then sort of see whether they need to make tweaks with the medication if it's working effectively or not and then and then it becomes like i guess like one of the stresses is the convenience factor because you have to go for scans every couple of days and some clinics will make you go for a scan every day which is obviously good because it means they're paying really close attention to the growth of these follicles but also So it's really inconvenient and everybody wants obviously the morning or the late, you know, the morning or the evening slot to work around work, work around their schedule.

44:39And so sometimes you have to go in the middle of the day. And I know women that have had to take a whole week of work off and kind of use that as their annual leave. Like they just can't commit to their like day job at the same time as doing this. Because it does take like, you know, three hours out of each day if you haven't traveled to the clinics and stuff. so anyway I got really excited because I thought my body was responding really well and I saw lots of follicles so given that I had these 25 follicles I thought then when we had the egg collection that I'd get 25 eggs that's the problem that's that that is the problem by doing the whole comparison and looking at what other people are getting because you you set yourself up for an expectation that might not be yours you're right and I even as well and I hate to admit this but I did go on chat gbt as well and try to look at like average statistics which they break everything down and I was having full conversations with chat gbt as if it was my friend and my doctor and like you know giving me access to like millions of other women who had who have been through this process before so when we came to the egg collection because I was so scared about the procedure I did actually have a specific day that the eggs needed to be collected on because they were going to take me to theater and put me to sleep because I was scared that like the sedation wouldn't be enough and what happened if something went wrong and so they very kindly really accommodated my needs and um and actually the procedure obviously was fine because I was asleep and I woke up just feeling very groggy but I was very upset and disappointed when they told me that i'd only got eight eggs from the 25 follicles i see i i just i didn't i didn't see that as a negative because how many do you need to make it work i think uh well it's a really good question you need one and you had eight so in my mind i'm thinking what's the worry well no but from eight eggs they then fertilize them the following day so they inject your sperm into the egg using something called ICSI so they can specifically like pick out the sperm so IVF I guess technically is where they let the sort of survival of the fittest they'll let the sperm race to the egg whereas if the sperm is not looking maybe as healthy as it could they can hand select the best looking sperm and they inject them directly giving it the best chance of working and technology right there yeah isn't that cool using like insane magnifying glasses and glasses insane magnifying glass and then from the eight that were fertilized there's then this drop off over five days so they call you on the first day they call you on day three and then they call you on day five and by day five we had just one happy embryo but again you say that as if it's like bad news i'm thinking how many do you need one and that's the really uplifting way of looking at it is that you only need one one good embryo to have a baby sometimes okay and you have been really positive throughout the whole thing and actually you did the cutest thing which i just wanted to mention on the podcast because i know that you didn't find that first whole process easy and we didn't really talk about it a lot and there were times where you're like i'm just don't feel like i'm ready for this and i think when i was then you know taking these regular calls and I was so invested in it and like really wanted to get good results you probably struggled a bit with that feeling like you were 50 % of of every bit of good or bad news um it meant a lot to me when when I came home and you'd like bought me a bunch of flowers written on it saying was it like one in the freezer for safe keepies because like before that point like we had not had a nice moment really talking about it and i know that i i don't know i feel as though you'd like avoided wanting to talk about it or like to join any of the calls for the regular updates but like knowing like seeing that note for me just meant that i knew you were like that you were in it that's me all over though but i might i might at times give you the impression that i'm not aware or in it but i'm in it and i'm i can see exactly what's happening so i i i knew that i had to do something to show and i could see how much it meant to you so yeah that's why the whole flowers and the card with the one egg and the freezies when i could yeah and to make it into like a nice like nice thing like something slightly less like medically yeah right the like way you worded it was really nice i think to your point about you know only needing one embryo for it to work i know that's not the end of the story i know that you've then got to put it into the baby hotel and that's not a guaranteed no i understand that but i'm just trying to i'm trying to keep the process positive because i think that with actually everything in life i think it's all fed by the energy right so if we if we send this embryo on its way with positive optimistic energy i think it's got a better at least in my mind it's got a better chance i love that whereas if we if we send it packing with well we've only got one so don't fuck it up you know i mean it just adds like a oh my gosh i don't know it's just a different way of it's a different and is that actually like how you were thinking so you're thinking more positively versus like i don't want to go through this process again both statements are true but the priority is send it packet packet on its way with some positive blankets around it okay it's nice to know that you're actually just coming at it from like a really woo woo positive way i'm getting real woo woo i think i guess like for so what people would normally then do if they got one embryo or like typically would do is that they would re they would then go for an embryo transfer and they'd have it put inside the woman as in you yeah but that's not the route that we're going down because i don't have like a hospitable womb no so there's no lining and every embryo needs a lining to cling on to like you know the period basically that's in there that needs to support the growth of the embryo so so for us as you baby hotel i guess it's actually a nice way of phrasing no that's not mine i took that from someone it was very it's a very sweet way of she said it as a description to help me remove the the sort of medical the oddity behind it and she she packaged it that way and i was like that's really helpful so one of the reasons why then we did another cycle even though we had one embryo is because with me not being able to carry it it means that we have to find somebody else to carry it that requires like an immense amount of trust and planning and also depending which route we go down which it's looking like i mean the options that are available to us they call them pathways with surrogacy which makes it feel like a sort of work project yeah when it's something that's so much more intimate than that but the options i guess are like you know doing it in the uk or doing it abroad split into two camps in the uk there's something called altruistic surrogacy which is our only option so you can't there's no surrogacy here is not commercial so you can't create a commercial contract so you can't technically pay anybody to carry your child for you so someone has to do it from the kindness of their heart which is the altruism but you can cover expenses so medical expenses and sort of expenses for loss of i guess like certain privileges and i think you can pay for like a few holidays and things for if the carrier has got a family and that sort of thing so i think on average it costs about 20 000 pounds for the uk for the UK or you can go abroad um and there are various options that are more popular than others so a lot of people go to I say a lot of people some people go to the US popular destinations are places like San Diego but that is prohibitively expensive for most people that are struggling with infertility because it can cost 150k plus which is really really inexpensive way to grow your family it's an expensive it's a really expensive it's an expensive hotel but then you are staying for nine months um so it's it's the most expensive hotel that you can pay for people now are choosing to go to mexico city instead because it's about half the cost um and i know some same-sex couples that have gone through that process and had a really successful time doing that um and then we're also having a look at another option which feels a little bit closer to home which I feel like this is quite a lot to like say out loud because it's really making it real isn't it it's a lot yes there's a country called Georgia which is about five hours away and they have a couple of good surrogacy agencies there as well so before the war broke out in Ukraine I know a few people that were looking into Ukraine I know somebody that had their embryos in Ukraine and then when the war broke out they had to find somewhere else so they transported them to georgia and then they had a successful well they got they got them out of ukraine did they yeah they managed to yeah and it's crazy to think that our literally our potential children or child will be like an embryo is like sat in a vessel like a freezing vessel somewhere that is able to be moved like internationally isn't that wild and people there's someone's job to carry them so they get on an airplane and like that's that person's full-time job is they're like a cryo chamber carrier oh let me just tell you where i'm at because a lot of this is um not new information but i'm gonna say something that i don't know if it's gonna annoy you or not but it let's just say um that we're gonna go forward with this baby hotel in georgia right i don't think uh regardless of how many conversations we have about this whole thing and however warm and gooey and accepting i become towards this whole surrogacy thing i don't think i'm ever going to get to a place that you you probably want me to get to and what i mean by that is i think i need this to be as clinical and transactional as possible i don't necessarily want to go to georgia i'm not even sure if i want to meet meet the person i don't know if i feel it necessary to build a relationship with the potential surrogate because if i can put a face to this process i'm going to start to build expectations from this face from this person this is a mammoth mammoth thing to process and the idea of trusting someone strange to carry my child is an almost impossible task and i think the only way i'm going to do it is if i have a feeling that you'll probably want to go and spend time with this person build a relationship because that's the sort of style you have i don't i don't think from my lens that i can go through that it is a lot to get your head around i want to do this with you and I want to fly out on said day and I want to come home with our baby do you think that that's because of like the lack of control and the worry that like you can't do anything to impact this person that's carrying our DNA it will open up a completely new motorway and web of thoughts that won't help anyone in the situation that might change by the way this is where I'm at now and I have to tell you this now because I'm probably not going to tell you this at home i think it's good to get an update on our journey because we i suppose the truth is it's such a heavy and real time event for us we don't always get the time to do it at home and i like admittedly i probably don't make it the most accessible conversation so this is a good opportunity to talk about well also let's like being really honest we get to the end of a long day you picked up leo i'm cooking dinner and then it's like bath time and bedtime and we're so knackered that the last thing we want to do is like get into having to talk about this because it can be uncomfortable totally but yeah it's nice to have the opportunity to make some progress yeah i also came across something recently which i haven't shared with you but i think you might like it so you remember remember the whole kintsugi thing that japanese philosophy that we learned about yeah so i found another japanese philosophy ritual something that we can maybe apply to this surrogacy thing and it's actually having this conversation I was thinking about this whole concept of misogi and I haven't actually until now seen the relevance or connected the two together so I'll tell you what it is misogi used to be traditionally it'd be like a quite an unpleasant thing that people would do as a way of sort of geeing themselves up so cold water immersion so people would stand under a waterfall to cleanse their mind, body and spirit.

58:09Now it's much more than that. So Misogi is now seen as this one moment in the year that will define the rest of their year. And there's every chance that it might fail, but if it succeeds or if they succeed at it, it defines and it sort of transforms who they are. And to give you an example of like where Misogi might have popped up in my life previously, I think the Marathon de Sable last year was a Misogi thing. It was a one-time thing in a year. I could have easily failed it, but I didn't fail it. And because I didn't fail, it transformed me as a person. It's that sort of like line in the sand where it's like, this is me before, this is me after, and they are very different.

58:51And I think this surrogacy thing, I'm going to scratch my head. This is one-time thing in a year. It could fail, but if it doesn't fail, this transforms everything for you and me and Leo. when I read Misogi for the first time my mind went to okay so the Iron Man might be this this thing but it's not Misogi is not about physical endurance challenges or anything like that it's about something much deeper much more considered and forever lasting so I thought I'd tell you about that now this has got me now it's got me in the feels why because it applies really well and naturally to this such a wise old owl

59:42i wasn't expecting that to get emotional towards the end about miss ogi i love that though i think everybody should find that one big focus in a year that one thing that they think is going to really transform them as a person it's something that will force you to confront who you are not what you say you are different to goals goals is like a repeatable thing maybe it's a series of things misogi's a one-off singular event misogi is about identity forget all that noise it's about who am i inside so it's about identity the thing that's going to make you different to your new year's resolutions and goals this is much bigger this is a singular event in the year just wanted to get that okay nice well listeners if you want to send them in please email us we've got a new email address it's hsss at srproductions.co.uk oh that should be really lovely to see and also we have new bosses we are now with a new team and they've set targets so if you guys could really kindly follow across all platforms listen, subscribe do all the good stuff we're everywhere YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts Instagram and also give us a cheeky follow on TikTok.

1:00:55We've only got bloody 13 ,000 followers on there. Shameful. And next week, it's Valentine's Day. So, Ryan, you better come with a present. Don't you worry about next week. What's my favourite flower? White peony. No, white tulips, sorry. White tulips. White tulips. Sweet. You can pop a little one up on the set. Thank you, guys. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.