ON BABY LOSS… With Sara Pascoe and Trinny Woodall

Welcome back to this How to Fail special, where we revisit powerful moments from the archive that offer insight, perspective and - hopefully - a sense of comfort during life’s more difficult chapters. This week, to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week (9th to 15th October) and Elizabeth’s new role as ambassador for The Miscarriage Association, we're reflecting on two deeply moving conversations that explore miscarriage, fertility struggles and the resilience required to endure them. First, you'll hear from Sara Pascoe, who speaks openly about the heartbreak of miscarriage and the anxiety that followed during her IVF journey and eventual pregnancies. Then we turn to Trinny Woodall, who shares her experience of multiple miscarriages and nine rounds of IVF before the birth of her daughter. Trinny’s story is one of extraordinary strength, persistence and hope. Whether you're personally affected or simply listening with empathy, I hope these stories bring you comfort, connection or a new perspective. Listen to Sara Pascoe’s full episode of How to Fail here: https://play.megaphone.fm/czmoofleqk6brln-hzfzqw Listen to Trinny Woodall’s full episode of How to Fail here: https://play.megaphone.fm/cubcpqghs06qmd5_v64wgq 🔗 LINKS + MENTIONS: The Miscarriage Association: www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk Elizabeth’s Substack: https://theelizabethday.substack.com/ Join the How To Fail community: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content 💌 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories 👋 Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @howtofailpod @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod @elizabday Website: www.elizabethday.org Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things we talk about a lot on How to Fail is how difficult it can be to take that first step, and starting a business is no exception. With Black Friday approaching, it's a great time to turn an idea into reality. Shopify makes launching an online store easier with ready-made themes and AI-powered tools, including Sidekick, its AI assistant, which helps you set up your shop and plan promotions without needing coding skills. Whether you're exploring a new venture or finally acting on an idea you've had for years, Shopify gives you the tools and support to get started with confidence and make the most of the busy shopping season. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.co.uk/fail

• 0:45Elizabeth Day?

  to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first...

• 0:57Elizabeth Day?

  Confession time. I have a tendency to postpone certain decisions for far longer than is sensible. Not the big life decisions, oddly enough, those I can usually handle. It's the smaller ones that somehow become disproportionately complicated. For me, rugs fall squarely into that category. I've known for a long time that a rug can completely change how a room feels, but I've always found sizing for a space tricky. That's why Ernesta appealed to me. Ernesta makes designer-quality rugs custom-cut to the exact dimensions of your space. So instead of making do with something that's close enough, you're choosing something made specifically for your home. I also love the fact that you can order five oversized 12 by 12 samples for just $10

• 1:42Elizabeth Day?

  before committing, and Ernesta's design team will help with sizing completely free of charge. Visit Ernesta.com and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 towards any rug of your choice. That's Ernesta, E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com.

• 2:09Elizabeth Day?

  Welcome 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 favourite 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 night 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,

• 2:49Elizabeth Day?

  and also because I'm so honoured to be an ambassador for the Miscarriage Association. Firstly, 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 Trinny 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.

• 3:34Elizabeth Day?

  Let's get into it. First up, here's Sarah Pascoe.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Okay, 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 boy Friend when I was probably just starting stand up about twenty seven, twenty eight. And I'm really glad now, looking back, that I didn't have children with him.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Or with my next long term relationship. But at the time, that wasn't what it felt like. And and and also, it felt like it was a big part of those relationships fizzling out or, you know, becoming a lot less fun.

• 4:36Elizabeth Day?

  I hear you.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Of 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 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 worse. 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?

• 5:19Speaker 01

  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'd been through, said, you know, you're 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 eighteen, 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 I must have met him in my late thirties. It wasn't like we've got five years to go travel, have fun together, it was, you know, we're gonna 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 gonna work.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  And then when I wasn't pregnant, I would look again at the same job site, well, at least I can do that now. But at least, oh, I will be doing that then. I always thought this trade off and worse. And then because of Covid, like lots of people, I had all my work cancelled and two phone calls, a year worth of work, basically. We were in Finland doing a documentary, 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 forty as my cutoff point, like Sheila Hetty in her book, I loved forty 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.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  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, what I can't cope with is not knowing. I can't cope with maybe or.

• 6:55Elizabeth Day?

  Unexplained.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Unexplained miracle accidental. And then again, the narrative, getting to say to this like prospective child. Guess what? I'd given up. I was forty one. And you get told so many things like, relax, get drunk, go on holidays, 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? Cause you know, second half of the cycle, duh, duh, duh. And then I think things like, no, no, cause 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. These trade offs constantly.

• 7:33Elizabeth Day?

  It's like a form of magical thinking.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  It is magical thinking.

• 7:36Elizabeth Day?

  Well, 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.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:59Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  I got so obsessed with, they've got a special name, but people who didn't know they were pregnant, so they gave birth.

• 8:13Elizabeth Day?

  I am still obsessed with them.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then you start thinking, should I fall off logs more?

• 8:18Elizabeth Day?

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

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:24Elizabeth Day?

  Google is not your friend.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Well, it's not. It's really not. It's a really sad place. It's a really sad place. And then, and again, a little bit like the bad reviews, you can't unlearn those things.

• 8:33Elizabeth Day?

  Never.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  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. There's someone who's having one, who's coming out to cheer up. And it just made me think, I'm just not gonna do it.

• 8:59Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so sorry.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  That's okay, sorry. I've done not to get to this point without whirling up.

• 9:04Elizabeth Day?

  You have. I know your pain.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the Covid time, so what was good was.

• 9:09Elizabeth Day?

  Were you doing IVF, sorry? That's when you started, okay.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  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. But he said, can we give two more years and do this properly with doctors, really try, and two more years, forty to forty two.

• 9:27Elizabeth Day?

  Sorry to interrupt, so your miscarriage predates the IVF?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  My miscarriage unfortunately was why we were waiting to start IVF.

• 9:33Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  And so you know you have that thing where, ring us as soon as you get your period, da da da. 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. No, after such a long time, never getting pregnant.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm so sorry.

• 9:51Elizabeth Day?

  Don't, please don't be sorry.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  But also I wanted to say that just because you then have a child, it doesn't go away.

• 9:56Elizabeth Day?

  I know, I've been.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Like, and people, I think lots of people have miscarriages, you just stop talking about it, people stop asking you after two months. Our IVF was put off, it was so shit, because I was thirty eight when we started. Which in where I live, I'm on the border of Harangue and Islington, you can have IVF, we could get one round of the NHS. And then, because it was moved because of Covid, I was then too old. But Islington, they lay it up to forty, which again is a very unfair thing, because it's just a richer. Thing, so we had to move doctors, because it was the way you live, it's where your doctor is, so we moved doctors from there to there, you know, a hundred metres. Now we could have an IVF on the NHS, but then it got cancelled because of Covid, so we, we went private and, and again, unfortunate. So we're getting the phone calls, yeah, ring us when you've got your period, and I've had late periods.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Very cruelly, you know, up to sort of thirty five, thirty seven days, that horrible, horrible week. So thirty two days, still don't have my period, they said, have you done a pregnancy test? And I said, oh, my period's always late, I don't do a pregnancy test, but thirty five days I did a pregnancy test, and it was pregnant, and that's the only time. That is the only time we ever celebrated.

• 11:01Elizabeth Day?

  I know, yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Because after that, it's never ever a celebration I've broken.

• 11:07Elizabeth Day?

  It is such a thief joy.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:46Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  But I'd had that before.

• 11:48Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  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 pregnant as soon as you start doing those bloody pessaries. Hundreds of pregnancy tests and then I got obsessed with the ones which can tell you like plus three weeks or how much you are. But then you sort of age out of that. I went for scans all the time, private scans, and as I walked from the room, I would think, well, what if he's died now?

• 12:12Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. You poor thing.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  I think it's so common. I think it's so common.

• 12:18Elizabeth Day?

  I, 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.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:43Elizabeth Day?

  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.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  They do, yeah.

• 12:58Elizabeth Day?

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

• 13:10Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:20Elizabeth Day?

  How do you cope with the anxiety? Like, what's your, how do you get through it? Cause nine months is just.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  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 wanting towards sort of viability, even though, you know, that's no guarantee of anything.

• 13:36Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  And then you're just plus 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 infertile. Like, it doesn't, I, I really hope there are women listening who like, no, it 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.

• 13:59Elizabeth Day?

  Imagine having that much uncomplicated faith in the world.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  There's a horrible documentary on Netflix about a woman who is murdered by her husband. And it's horrible because she's been murdered by 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.

• 14:28Elizabeth Day?

  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. These are things that I would never, had I ever got. A lasting pregnancy, I would never have done.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  I still don't like them and I, and I've had a child. People show their bumps in ways that I consider, I get a really odd reaction to it. And for years and years when I just couldn't get pregnant. I had blinkers on, actually, I just didn't see stuff. I was really spiky. I was especially spiky on stage. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. I thought all my audiences were coming to my shows going, 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 premise 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.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Cause I've got a leg in both camps, right? I'm a cuspian, I'm an infertile woman who then had a child and I still don't identify as. I couldn't even do N C T 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 like to you. It's not true.

• 15:51Elizabeth Day?

  You've never known love like.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  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. Cause 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're thinking, I do like them. I think, I think partly it's that.

• 16:08Elizabeth Day?

  And it happened to me at a wedding.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I know, I know, it's a wedding. That's what I was imagining. Cause I've, I've only been out once since I had my son, which was Emma Forest 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 forty 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.

• 16:29Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  It's drudgery. And I think, 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 could just say the shit thing. He did a shit. He's a, he's a horrible boy. You could say that. I think they're trying to convince themselves when they say that out loud. I think the language is too simplified.

• 16:55Elizabeth Day?

  Hmm.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  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 with a way, you've never known love like it? You're telling yourself that. You're telling yourself you made the right life decision or it's okay or you can cope and you can go back. It's drudgery.

• 17:11Elizabeth Day?

  I love you. Love is the appropriate word.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yes, okay, yes.

• 17:16Elizabeth Day?

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

• 17:23Speaker 01

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

• 17:24Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, sorry. I like, I cannot thank you enough. I just can't thank you enough. Like, thank you for.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  I really am denied about, I really am denied about whether to put it on because I obviously, from your work and. I'm aware what you've been through as well. And then I, 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 time, put up a post on Instagram to say that I felt really odd. You know, I get sent pictures of myself when I'm clearly pregnant. I wasn't saying even I was pregnant on stage. I felt so conflicted. About it and I felt so conflicted about sharing it with others and I got contacted by women who had had pregnancies but had had remained in the place before, that it doesn't go away, it doesn't wipe away and that there are resources and the people on podcasts are just about parenting after loss or parenting after trying for years to conceive, well there's

• 18:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 18:29Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Now I can sit at weddings and go.

• 18:32Elizabeth Day?

  Never know love like it.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:34Elizabeth Day?

  Well, no one will ever know love like the love I've experienced as 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.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 18:53Elizabeth Day?

  And I, 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.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:04Elizabeth Day?

  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, Trinny? Like when you look at Lila now, all of the pain and all of the courage that that took, do you think, oh my goodness, thank goodness, I kept going?

• 19:35Speaker 02

  The time in which you decide you want to be a mother or what makes you think you want to be a mother, and that's a profound thing to think about because I didn't think in my twenties I'd never have a burning desire to be a mother. In my early thirties, I didn't have a burning desire to be a mother. Um, Susannah was being a mother and I found it a. Inconvenience to the growth of our business.

• 20:00Elizabeth Day?

  But did you find it painful as well? It must have been quite, no?

• 20:03Speaker 02

  I found it irritating. I've been really candid, I found it irritating. And, and then I sort of woke up one day, whether we call it biological clock or whatever, age sort of thirty five. 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 ten 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.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  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 a very different one raping for the next. And this is also like two thousand and three, so fertility has come a long, long way. But they said you have unexplained infertility, such a great catchall, 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.

• 21:20Elizabeth Day?

  Oh my god.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Like, you know, the gonad F was like in my thought. And I was like the professional. I mean, I remember when I very first did it, it was like Johnny got the surgical gloves on, we did the injection and, you know, by the time I was doing it the first time, I was like, oh, oh, you know, whatever. So it became mechanical and I remember when I once did an interview then when Johnny was still alive and they said, did it affect your womanally? And I was like, a bit. And Johnny was like, so fucking much. Probably I turned into a really hormonal cow and I think I was very 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.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  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 eighteen 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

• 22:23Elizabeth Day?

  Sorry, that was that a mistake?

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Because there was some problem, but he just said, I can't do a DNC, you have to give birth. I can't remember why, but I just remember this kind of, I have to say I have blanked a bit of this out Elizabeth because I just think

• 22:36Elizabeth Day?

  Fucking surprise.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  You just kind of then like, you're just like on this, okay, so and then I did three more, full IVF and then I had frozen some of Johnny's sperm. We're getting really detailed here, but if everyone listens to this, but

• 22:48Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  An element of fertility. 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. Wren called me up and she said, Trinny, I've got some of Johnny's stuff. Do you want me to throw it away or not? And I was like, don't know what's gonna 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 stirrup, 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

• 23:31Speaker 02

  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, Trinny, why haven't you come in? Because usually I was like, day eleven, I was like, can I come and stay? Can I come and stay? And she went, no, you've got to wait till day thirteen, you know, it was like, oh. And she called me up and she said, Trinny, it's day, day a hundred and twenty. I don't know. It was really later. What the fuck's going on? And I was like, I've lost it. She said, well, just come in. And I was pregnant. And I was like, oh my God. And she said, okay. And then she sent me 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 injectors every day. I hated taking and they stung me and I was like, oh. I really thought, I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep it.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  But I then went to America and I did the Oscars with Susanna, we're 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 of flat feeling. And then I heard her heartbeat. Then I was like, oh my god, you know, I so didn't expect to hear her heartbeat. I think I had a scan every two weeks. Because she was also the wrong way round and upside down. And she was born with with talapis in both her feet.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  So she didn't push her feet out that much because she had very, you know, 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 a sort of month and a half early. I didn't know what kind of mother I'd be, like when you spend that long, Elizabeth, you don't quite know. Hmm. Will it be that natural, like I had Susanna as a role model, who to me was this most incredible mother earth mother. Her kids came first, she was, but she didn't sort of treat them preciously. She was like, sort of get on with it, country style upbringing of don't be precious, you know, brilliant mum.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  And she taught me a lot about being a mum. I mean, she had three by then and I had one, so I was obviously always going to be more precious with Lila. Yeah, she taught me a lot. I think what made me feel fully maternal was that I breastfed Lila for a year. And I did start working after three weeks of having Lila. And when I look back, I think, do I wish I'd spent longer not working? But I kind of didn't have the option because I needed to earn money and I was the main breadwinner. But there were times when I was in America, doing a TV show, living in this house and there were cables, everyone, Jenny would come up. So I could go and breastfeed and take her away and it's just like the weirdest thing.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  But that breastfeeding of Lila, that moment of intimacy at the beginning of the evening, the end of the evening. Which I had for a year of just whatever else and however full life was, because of the circumstances 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 learnt to be a mother in that first year because when you're not ready to be a mother and then you think you want to be a mother and then you you try to be a mother and you can't be a mother, you let go of the fact, can you be a mother?

• 26:53Elizabeth Day?

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

• 27:08Speaker 02

  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 root of is it that I really want to be a mother? So there are many other ways of being a mother and what does that look like? And then you sometimes don't know, do I want to be a mother or do I want to be a blood mother? And how different are they to me as a concept? I have friends who are all those things, they're surrogate, they're nothing to do

• 27:49Speaker 02

  with the baby physically, they didn't have it even inside them. They're all are mothers I look at who all mother in a different way, who I really love and respect. And it's a choice, it's just your choice of of what you want to do with your life, because it is going to be what life you give somebody else, but it's also what you want to do with your life.

• 28:09Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, Trinny, thank you so much for what has been a really beautiful interview.

• 28:21Elizabeth Day?

  Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.