ON BABY LOSS… With Sara Pascoe and Trinny Woodall

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1:13Welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. Today, I'm diving back into the archive to bring you a curated selection of some of my favorite conversations, moments that are honest and deeply human and sometimes even funny, often with the idea that they make you feel less alone. Now, the 9th of the 15th of October is Baby Loss Awareness Week, so it felt only right to reflect on two episodes which cover this topic sensitively, sharing personal experiences and how those individuals coped. It's a particularly important topic for me because of my own personal experiences, and also because I'm so honoured to be an ambassador for the Miscarriage Association.

1:59Firstly, you're going to hear from Sarah Pascoe, who talks emotionally about her miscarriage and then the anxiety she experienced when she successfully had two children. Then we hear from Trini Woodall, who talks about her multiple pregnancy losses and her nine rounds of IVF before she had her daughter, Lila. It's a story of extreme resilience, amazing strength, and it is totally inspiring. I hope that if you relate to any of this, or if you're going through something right now, that these stories bring you either a little comfort or reassurance. Let's get into it. First up, here's Sarah Pascoe.

2:45Okay, so third failure is pregnancy. and it's a in terms of again the cross-section with success the days that you get your period when you really thought it was you were pregnant and that kind of thing and when it happens at work and sometimes with comedy you can have really fun jobs or really big jobs and your personal life cannot come into it so I did have circumstances where things were going well at career but was very undermined by my repeated failure to get pregnant so three relationships I started trying with a boyfriend when I was probably just starting stand-up about 27, 28 and I'm really glad now looking back that I didn't have children with him or with my next long-term relationship but at the time that wasn't what it felt like and also it felt like it was a big part of those relationships fizzling out or you know becoming a lot less fun.

3:41I hear you. I'm not having future those kind of things but the thing that I did which I again I don't know if this is a regret I just I didn't go for investigations I didn't try and find out why I wasn't getting pregnant I thought if it was meant to happen it would happen which actually means I gave all of the power to something else which meant it then became very intertwined with worth am I good enough to be a parent or is the universe saving me from being a parent or saving like these possible children from a bad parent and so I kept reinforcing it wasn't supposed to happen and then and also I thought things like a trade-off I thought well the universe has given you all of this with your work how dare you say I want something else as well I really did think it was a trade-off and every month I always got my hopes up especially with Steen Steen when before we even kissed told me he wanted a family and I knowing what I've been through said you know are you open to adoption he's like I really want to have biological children he's Australian Greek I think he's been asked since he was 18 where's the baby it was really massive for him so the right at the beginning of our relationship was this and especially because of my age where I must have met him in my late 30s it wasn't like we've got five years to go travel have fun together it was you know we're going to try really soon if not immediately halfway through every month I always bang on just like it's now I can feel it and I would look in my diary to look at the stuff that would be impossible because I'd be having this baby that's not going to work and then when I wasn't pregnant I would look again at the same jobs like well at least I can do that now like at least oh I will be doing that then I always sort of this trade-off and worse and then because of Covid like lots of people I had all my work cancelled in two phone calls a year worth of work basically we were in Finland doing a documentary I got a phone call from my agent which was about you know the first stuff being pulled and then by the time we landed it was the rest so the really good thing was that I'd always had 40 as my cut-off point like um sheila hetty in her book i loved 40 being the line because i needed a point where i just recovered and went okay didn't have children and also the other reason i think of it as a failure is what is so shit when you're going through it is not having a definite answer that you can just react to and just go i can cope with definiteness or i can't cope with is not knowing i can't cope with maybe or unexplained unexplained miracle accidental and then again the narrative getting to say to this like prospective child guess what I'd given up I was 41 and you get told so many things like relax get drunk on holiday stop trying so much and it's so much space in your brain so much space in there constantly where you are what could be happening should I have a glass of wine should I have a cheeky cigarette because you know second half of the cycle and then I think things like no no because if you don't have a cigarette I love a drunk cigarette if I don't have a cigarette then I definitely won't be pregnant but if I do have it then I will and then I'll be furious with myself and I there's trade-offs constantly it's like a form of magical thinking it is magical thinking you because there 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 there's all of that i got so obsessed with they've got a special name but people who didn't know they were pregnant so they gave birth so obsessed with them yeah and then you start thing is should I fall off logs more yes let me google falling off a log and whether that's spiritually aligned with getting pregnant yeah and google is not your friend 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'll be people in my audience why I don't talk about my miscarriage actually is because I kept thinking there'll be someone who's having one the son who's having one who's coming out to cheer up and it just made me think I'm just not going to do it I'm so sorry that's okay sorry I've done not to get to this point without wiling up you have I know you're saying yeah and the COVID time so what was good was were you doing IVF sorry that's when we started IVF that's when you started okay 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 so your miscarriage predates the IVF my miscarriage unfortunately was why we're waiting to start IVF okay and so you know you have that thing where it's ring us 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 such a long time, never getting pregnant.

8:53Oh, my God, 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 can tell. And people, I think lots of people who 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 smooth because of Covid I was then too old but Islington they lay it up to 40 which again is a very unfair thing because it's just a richer thing 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 we went private and i'm 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 you've 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 i know yeah because after that it's never ever a celebration ever again it is such a thief of joy and then the stupid thing the reason it feels like a failure is because then i had a pregnancy again that word successful and i'm really lucky that i didn't have huge health complications with him he was massive like there wasn't like 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'd 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 you can't it's a horrible thing about IVF you feel pregnancy 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 yeah you poor thing you poor thing I think it's so common.

11:21I think it's so common. 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 yeah 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 they do yeah which is actually a sadness like oh it's sort of the final fading of something that did exist but yeah to all intents and purposes the world doesn't think it does and how is your pregnancy now with your second baby 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 i mean it is anxiety how do you cope with the anxiety like how do you get through it because nine months is just it's forever 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 oneing towards sort of viability even though you know that's no guarantee of anything yeah and then you're just plusing 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 you do i don't think anything helps you deal with the anxiety and i know that this is common for women who are in 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 imagine having that much uncomplicated faith in the world there's a horrible documentary on netflix about a woman who is murdered by husband and it's horrible because she's been murdered by her 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 fuck what 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 I totally hear you it forever changes the way you view the world and even that thing of baby announcements on Instagram, sharing the scan, having baby showers.

13:44These are things that I would never, had I ever got a lasting pregnancy, I would never have done. Well, 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 a 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, but yeah why is she not having kids I was so projected out but now I find there's this gratuitousness about bumps and with the promo for the book sometimes people want to take full 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 cuspium 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 you've never known love 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 it happened to me at a wedding yeah I know it's a wedding that's what I was imagining so I've only been out once since I had my son which was Emma Forrest book launch and it was lovely I still wouldn't have said that to anyone and it 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 it's but I also think it's people trying to convince themselves because it's so fucking horrible.

15:33Yes. It's drudgery. And I think they say it aloud and they say it aloud to other parents and it's like, why do you need to add that on 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. He 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 and never know love like it?

16:09You'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. I love you. Love is the appropriate word. Yes, okay, yes. For how I feel about you. I am so grateful for your existence in this world. Well, thank you. I feel the same about you. Oh, Sarah. I cannot thank you enough. I just can't thank you enough. Thank you for putting that into words. I really undeniable about whether to put it on because I obviously, from your work, I'm aware of what you've been through as well. And 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.

16:54You know, I get sent pictures of myself where 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 place before that it doesn't go away it doesn't wipe them away and that there are resources and the people run podcasts that are just about parenting after loss or parenting after trying for years to conceive or 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 yeah now I can sit at weddings and go never know love like it yeah 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 on thank you

17:57And 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. And 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 a little hope is it worth it Trini 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 the time in which you decide you want to be a mother or 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 In my 20s, I didn't have a burning desire to be a mother.

18:53In my early 30s, I didn't have a burning desire to be a mother. Susanna was being a mother, and I found it an inconvenience to the growth of our business. But did you find it painful as well? It must have been quite – no. I found it irritating. Okay. I'm being really candid. I found it irritating. And then I sort of woke up one day, whether we call it biological clock or whatever, I just thought 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 unprotected sex for like 10 years okay I'd never got pregnant so I sort of knew I couldn't get pregnant actually for years but I 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 fucking 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 oh my god like you know the gonal f was like in my time 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 You know, by the time I was doing the first time, I was like, oh, you know, whatever.

20:42So 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? And I was like, a bit. And Johnny was like, so fucking much. I'd be turned into a really hormonal cow. And I think I was 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 that I have to say I have blanked a bit of the sound Elizabeth because I just think surprise you're just kind of then like you're just like on this roller coaster 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 for an element of agility I'm sorry to the boys who are like whoa but this is like a girl's chat and in fact a boy's 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.

22:10Wren called me up 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 the 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 um 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 Trini why haven't you coming 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 Trini, it's day 120.

22:58It 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, OK. And then she sent me 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. I hated taking. And they stung me. And I was like, 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 were both pregnant 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 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 with talipedes 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 um 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 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 But she didn't sort of treat them preciously.

24:38She was like sort of get on with it. Country style upbringing of don't be precious. You know, brilliant mom. And she taught me a lot about being a mom. 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 need 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.

25:18And there were cables. Everyone, 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 circus of 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 try to be a mother and you can't be a mother, you let go of the fact, can you be a mother.

25:57I 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. 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 a 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?

26:39So 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, their nothing to do with the baby physically, they didn't have it even inside them. They 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 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.

27:14Oh, Trini, thank you so much for what has been a really beautiful interview.

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