Emma Barnett has opened up about her gruelling IVF journey after her endometriosis diagnosis meant she couldn’t conceive naturally.
The former Woman’s Hour host, 39, welcomed a son with her husband Jeremy Weil via IVF in 2018, before giving birth to a daughter last January.
But speaking to The Sunday Times, Emma revealed that while they had their son after just one attempt, conceiving their daughter was a much tougher process.
The couple endured six rounds of IVF fertility treatment in the lead up to their daughter’s birth, after experiencing a heartbreaking miscarriage in early 2022.
Emma suffers from endometriosis – an excruciating condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside of it – meaning she could not have children naturally.
She said: ‘It took two and a half years to have our son via IVF in 2018 and another six attempts to conceive our daughter last year – we had embryos left so we just kept going.
Emma Barnett has opened up about her gruelling IVF journey after her endometriosis diagnosis meant she couldn’t conceive naturally
The former Woman’s Hour host, 39, welcomed a son with her husband Jeremy Weil via IVF in 2018, before giving birth to a daughter last January
‘IVF was tough, I’m squeamish about injections,’ her husband Jeremy added.
‘There is no way I could put a needle in my body and I could barely watch her doing them, she was black and blue.’
Back in March, Emma spoke of the impact of not having a record of her baby loss amid her IVF attempts until recent changes.
Emma revealed she had applied for a baby loss certificate under a new voluntary Government scheme, which records deaths before 24 weeks’ gestation, after it was launched for England in February.
In a BBC News article, she said applying for official documents to record her loss, which happened in January 2022, was ‘far more than emotional than I had anticipated’.
She wrote: ‘That whole period had become a grief-infused blur. A time where days and dates mattered little.’
Emma said she had to look over ‘old messages to family and friends’ which ‘catapulted me back into that stark place’.
‘In the fog of misery, I was trying to make what had happened seem real, important and proper,’ she added.
But speaking to The Sunday Times, Emma revealed that while they had their son after just one attempt, conceiving their daughter was a much tougher process
The couple endured six rounds of IVF fertility treatment in the lead up to their daughter’s birth, after experiencing a heartbreaking miscarriage in early 2022
She said ‘living in the after was grim and tearful’ following her visit to the sonographer in London, but she ‘didn’t want to move on’.
‘Beyond medical forms, conversations with my stunned and deeply saddened husband, my texts to people about our loss and my memories of such a bond, there was nothing else to show the whole episode happened,’ she added.
The new certificates, which are not compulsory, are not legal documents – but Emma said she ‘felt weirdly satisfied, almost vindicated’ by having ‘some physical proof’.
In an emotional post in January 2023, Emma broke the news she had welcomed her daughter to fans.
She told followers on Instagram: ‘She’s here. Last week we welcomed a daughter to the world. The embryo that took. The one that stayed. The shell that finally opened.’
Alongside the announcement, Emma posted a photo of her bump painted by pregnancy artist Emma Allen.
The artwork painted directly onto her pregnant belly showed an underwater scene featuring an oyster shell opened to reveal a pearl inside.
She revealed she was expecting a baby via the i newspaper in September 2022, after suffering a miscarriage at the beginning of that year.
Emma suffers from endometriosis – an excruciating condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside of it – meaning she could not have children naturally
The journalist said in the article that she and her husband had decided their sixth attempt would be their last – describing it as ‘eerily ironic’ that it had then been successful.
She also said that, following the end of Covid restrictions, her husband was allowed in the room with her when the embryos had been inserted, following several lone trips to the fertility clinic during the pandemic.
Writing on her substack blog, Emma argued women are ‘shamed’ into silence about infertility issues, adding she found herself ‘pretending this was a normal way to live’ as she continued to have IVF.
However, after suffering the miscarriage at the beginning 2022, she said the loss was ‘a slap in the face I couldn’t ignore’, which influenced her decision to write about her experience.
