Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 49: Harriet Gibsone

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Harriet Gibsone is a freelance journalist and mum of a much-longed-for one year old. She recently interviewed my mum and I for a lovely Guardian feature called Flashback. But even before that meeting I liked her immensely as I had come across an incredible article she wrote about her journey to becoming a mum. At 31 and newly married, Harriet started suffering the symptoms of the menopause and, as soon as she was diagnosed with POI, she was on a race against time to try and have a baby. We talk about the confusing and dramatic symptoms that took her to the doctor originally, and how she went all-out to have a baby with the help of her sister, before having her son through an egg donor.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello darlings. I speak to you from the streets of Aberdeen.

I am here for a gig tonight with Steps. Just come from two nights in Manchester, which was really fun. The gig last night was wicked. Loved it. And I'm on my own doing the thing I like to do where I Google the nearest or the best vintage shops in town and use that as a way to get me out of the hotel and walking around. So I've been out now for about an hour, I think, maybe an hour and a half, pootling about. It's a very handsome place, actually, Aberdeen. I like it. And, yeah, bought myself a nice little turquoise 60s-esque frock.

And, oh, there's a small chance I'm walking in the wrong direction when I'm talking to you. I'm going to look at my map while we speak. Let's see. Where is she? That wasn't me talking about myself in the third person. That was me finding out where I have to be. I'm only three minutes from where we're going to be. Oh, great. I was actually going in the right direction. That's refreshing. I'm normally not. Whoa.

It's actually quite cold here, like maybe 10 degrees, and I just walked past some girls in tiny little frocks. They looked young, and they looked cold, but they looked sweet. So this week's guest is a really lovely woman called Harriet Gibson. And Harriet is a journalist. And I read an article that she'd written. And I think it was retweeted quite a few times because it was really beautifully written all about her going through early menopause and her journey to motherhood. Oh no, it's getting windy. Richard's going to hate that. Sorry, Richard in the studio.

Or you're going to go past a busker in a minute as well. It's all happening on the streets of Aberdeen. Anyway, can you hear that? Well, that guy is having fun. So anyway, I thought, oh, when I read the article, I thought, oh, I'd love to speak to Harriet for the podcast. She'd be brilliant. And then a couple of weeks later, I was doing a photo shoot with my mum. I might have to tip into a doorway. Rich is going to hate this wind on the microphone so much.

It's going to make him very sad. Hold on, hold on. I can stand here. Does that work? Anyway, yeah, a couple of weeks later, I was doing a photo shoot with my mum for the Guardian really nice thing where they took a picture of my mum and I from about oh 35 years ago and then we recreated it now a kind of then and now thing and we spoke to journalists and I thought that journalist looks familiar and after my mum said oh that's the woman from the article you liked.

So I was like, oh, my word. So I said to Harriet, I'd love to speak to you in the podcast. And she was a bit taken aback, I think, but also really chuffed. So anyway, she came around to mine. And now I'm going to play for you the conversation that we had, which was really wonderful. the conversation that we had which was really wonderful and I'd like to thank Harriet for being so beautifully uh open and honest about her experience because I know that those conversations really do help people listening in to if they're going through something similar anyway over to you Harriet and me from a few weeks ago. See you on the other side.

What exactly are you up to at the moment? That's a really good question. I go to Boots quite a lot and look at the skincare ranges. What do I do? So I was an editor at The Guardian for a while for about eight years and then I left in July to um I don't know become a writer in some respects I'm still sort of figuring it all out um I do a ghost writing column for the Guardian still and then there are a couple of other projects that I'm sort of working on and probably aren't ready to sort of say yeah just in case everything falls through and I look ridiculous um but yeah I'm

enjoying sort of exploring new things and uh just getting out of the grind of working at a newspaper was great because I was exhausted quite frankly yeah I just don't think I've got it in me to do that every day um and there are no sort of relaxed days you don't get bank holidays off or anything like that it's just full throttle every day and how long were you in that were you in that sort of cycle so I worked on the music desk for four years and that was a daily you know I had to pump content into the ether for for hours every day for four years and then I worked for a weekly which is uh quite sort of rigorous but um not as intense you don't have to worry about George Michael dying on Christmas day or

anything like that um but yeah it's it's good and I don't know if it's because I've just had a baby but all the menopause stuff but it's just good to not have to be tied to getting up at a certain time and being really alert at specific times I can sort of have periods where I'm a bit hazy if I need to be. Yeah, and your little one is still really very little. He's only 20 months. Yeah. So do you feel like that has had a bit of an influence in wanting this maybe a different time?

I suppose you've also had lockdown as well. There's been a lot going on, hasn't there? Yeah, it's a good question because I actually put him in childcare care an extra day when I left the guardian so I I feel like I still I get less time with him if I'm honest um but it is nice to be able to see him every day after nursery and I think I'm probably a bit nicer to be around yeah which is you know happy mum happy baby that thing yeah um so probably benefits everyone in our house I think that I've done this um but I don't know in a year's time I might be terrified and pulling my

hair out but who knows no I think you know if you're if you have the ability to I mean we're talking about me before we started recording about being flexible and having a little bit of given take with you know ebb and flow with the sort of parameters of how that all works and it sounds like having done the sort of desk job aspect of writing which must be a muscle you just have to keep flexed all the time if you're writing that much that now it's quite a good time to kind of take stock and you have been through a lot in the last little while that's given you lots of chances to take stock and the reason I wanted to speak to you was quite a lot of nice serendipity involved as well so I'd I'd read you the article you published in June this year which we'll talk about in a second and I was really

struck by it and I forwarded it to my mum I'm like this is a really beautiful article and then we ended up working together with my mum and I it took me a second for the penny to drop because when I saw your face, I was like, I know that lady's face from somewhere. And then I was talking to my mum and she's like, you know, that's the article you forwarded me. I was like, oh my goodness. So we did that really nice piece where she was talking to my mum

and I think it was the first one they did. Yeah. So it's a photograph of my mum and I that we recreated from when I was really little. They're really fun to do those things. They're very satisfying. And it's a nice I that we recreated from when I was really little. They're really fun to do those things. They're very satisfying. And it's a nice interview that we had about, well, actually we spoke about quite a lot of things,

but I suppose primarily about the relationship I have with my mum. But yeah, I was really so moved by your article because, you know, there are so many ways to become a parent. And obviously, you know, there's one that is presented as the most easy option, but that's not the one that everybody gets given to them. So did you always want to be a mother anyway? I think so, but it wasn't, I didn't have a burning desire. I wasn't sort of desperate to build a family.

And I don't think I'm sort of enormously maternal in that way I'm the youngest of three and I've always been the baby so I was always a bit like oh no I'm gonna lose that status now if I have my own I have to be responsible are you the last one of the three to have a baby yes yeah yeah they've both got two each my brother and sister um but uh my husband and I were you know we just got married and I knew at some stage I'd really like to have a baby but I was having quite a lot of fun truth be told and I quite liked going out and I liked going on holiday and having fun and so I sort of like I took it for granted entirely my fertility because I think you often do really.

Well, so you were young. Yeah. You're like late 20s, early 30s. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, I started getting some unusual symptoms, which made me question a lot of things. And then I eventually found out I wouldn't be able to have children which then inspired me to sort of get on that path to figure out how to do it um shall I fill in the gaps yeah well either you either you can or I'm just gonna start asking like a ton of questions basically

you go for it so I suppose we should start at the very beginning of that journey which is that so you find yourself looking back you could see that the first symptoms were in your like so 28 29 so you're getting a few feeling sweaty moments and you think you're just not coping very well with stressful situations yeah yeah that's exactly right I was um it was a very sort of aggressive heat that sort of was very prickly and caused throughout my body very um suddenly um it often happened when I was trying to get to sleep or if I had to have a sort of challenging conversation with someone um I felt it was like almost like having a lie detector test yeah attached to me because immediately my neck would just be everything gives away how you're

feeling inside and um I was you know I'm a bit of a stress head well I was anyway and so I presumed it was me sort of trying to put a lid on my sort of very intense imposter syndrome at the Guardian and um I thought it was fine I'd go on holiday sometimes and it would disappear and I thought it's just anxiety yeah but that sounds really natural if there were moments where it would go yeah totally and also the coincide with not being in the work environment or stressful situations in that way yeah and I still really don't understand what the connection is between that and the menopause but I mean my periods were really erratic and that's since day one so yeah was that an unusual thing no it was it was just it's always been very stop and start like I'd get them my first periods

would go on for two months and then I wouldn't get them and you know I thought it again that was based on stress or mental uh issues rather than physical ones so yeah carried on regardless um and then I started getting really sad um at really unusual points in my day. And I suppose it was the contrast between having a really lovely experience with a family or with my friends. And it was offset by me just really aggressively crying. Oh, no. I'm laughing, I know. But it is kind of mad when I think about it, if anyone were to witness me doing it.

But did people witness that, or was it something that was quite secret? Yeah, I was really, really good at being sneaky about it. Sneaky, aggressive crying. Yeah. Sounds noisy. Yeah, it was. It was, yeah. I think I've learned I'm quite good at hiding all of these things

because I didn't want to alarm anyone, really. And because I didn't know why I was crying, I didn't think it was really worth me bringing it up with anyone. And also the thing I'm thinking as well is that it's extraordinary, really, that you can have what sound like really quite stark, really unpleasant symptoms and attribute all of it to stress. And actually that sometimes is just what's happening. And I'm thinking what a crazy situation

most of us put ourselves in with things like you're saying about imposter syndrome. I feel like I can so relate to just going, well, I've just taken too much on and I'm stressed about this actually. And I've always had a latent anxiety about a lot of this anyway. So sooner or later it had to come to the surface whereas actually that's a really really stressful way to live with

all that going on and not really just thinking it's just work and you just got to get on with it yeah it is bad isn't it and I think I think we're just sort of yeah I mean it always ends in something quite dramatic happening health-wise if you don't address it but I I don't know, unless you're like really, really, really impaired, it doesn't seem worth bringing it up really, does it? And also hormones are so chaotic often for women anyway that you're like, oh, this is just, I'll just adapt to whatever hell my hormones have loaded on me today. Well, actually there's a line in your article that really stayed with me

where it said something like to survive the chaos of the female anatomy, you need a really sensitive, you know, wise, you know, presence in like a doctor or someone you find. But actually, I think quite often we don't find that person. Yeah. And when you first do go to see a GP or something, you know, there's so many stories, aren't there, of people just getting a fairly dismissive or tactless response I mean I know you know my mum when she went to the doctor about her own menopause um that guy she saw was basically like well this is just what happens at this age so you've just kind of got to get on with that now and she was like uh hang on that doesn't sound right at all but you know the fact that you'd even get to that stage in your life and still be sort of fighting to kind of have the conversation you actually need to have rather than the one you've been given it's like

I know quite extraordinary but we can come on to that later because I think that that's a whole other yeah aspect really but so that's all building and you get married in amongst these things happening is that right yeah well yeah they sort of the crying happened after I got married um and then things really accelerated about five months after I got married actually. I just, yeah, I just noticed a significant shift in my brain and what I was able to do with it. So I lost all the agility that I once had, not that I'm this incredible sort of raconteur or anything,

but it was impossible for me to access words that I'd learnt throughout my life. That must have been horrible. It was really scary, especially being a journalist or even interviewing people. It suddenly was very terrifying to sort of engage with even friends at work because I was worried that I would forget what to say halfway through a sentence.

And my imagination was also really deadened by it. And I think that's the sort of joy of life, having sort of nice sort of daydreams or even sex and stuff like that. It was all the sort of additional things in life that sort of keep you going, where suddenly just everything got really muffled and a bit hazy

it's regarded as it's known as brain fog which I think is quite a good description of is that what it feels like then? so you just sort of haven't got the ability to kind of float off into anything yeah exactly I likened it to coming back from Glastonbury

after four days so you're still a bit spent a bit, I likened it to coming back from Glastonbury after four days. So you're still a bit spent, a bit rinsed. Yeah, yeah, totally burnt out. And that's very stressful if your job requires you to be articulate. It's lonely as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I was incredibly lonely. And my husband is really supportive, but I was scared and we couldn't figure out what was happening.

And he would say, you just seem completely normal to me. But I knew inside it was all going weird. So then other symptoms started happening, like I was in a lot of pain in my joints. It was really, you get fidgety legs, so it's really hard to relax at the end of the night. And then I had insomnia, which I need a lot of sleep to function and it was just wasn't happening I would just be incredibly alert before bed and I'd wake multiple times in the night because of the hot

flushes so I'd begin every day just in a state of total panic because I knew I hadn't had enough sleep to just get me through the day with the brain fog on top of it um so at that point I was like I need to see a GP um and they'd always been really great my my local GP but um I think we're only now sort of having more nuanced discussion about female hormonal health so they did lots of tests um they thought I might be depressed but um I just was very conscious that it wasn't depression and I don't know how I just I suppose I know lots of people who have had depression and this felt very it felt like an illness or a condition that wasn't strictly mental health it felt like a full-bodied something is attacking me yeah um so it was about a year or so of going back and forth to doctors

different doctors um until they sent me to an endocrinologist who um called me in and said look we finally looked at these test results it's the fsh levels and the amh levels and they measure how fertile you are essentially um and he said you've got a condition called premature premature ovarian insufficiency um which means you've got a less than five percent chance of conceiving naturally and you'll need to be on HRT until your 50s when you can eventually come off and you know your body just naturally is in a post-menopausal state. And he said it in such a sort of casual way that I was confused about sort of absorbing the news.

I was like, oh, maybe this is fine. And I had this sort of moment of sort of thinking, I need to say something, I need to question this. And I was like, well, I'll surely be able to do IVF. And he said, no, you don't have, your ovaries aren't responsive enough, so you'll have to get a donor. And, yeah, it just suddenly detonated my brain, really.

I just couldn't really absorb the information that was being given to me. And you were with your husband at the meeting as well? I was on my own. You were on your own? Yeah, because we'd been to so many appointments, and it was just getting a bit exhausting, as well I was on my own you're on your own yeah because we'd been to so many appointments and it was just getting a bit exhausting so I just went on my own and um thought it would be another sort of dead end um well that's a lot to take in it was in my brain it took it took about four months for my brain to properly grieve the um the news about the

infertility um and I was sort of trying to address the menopausal symptoms. That was the most urgent sort of thing in my mind, is how do I get through my days with all these symptoms that are preventing me from being normal? But I rung my sister, who's my best friend, and I told her what had happened. And she immediately, without skipping a beat, offered to donate her eggs to me.

And I was like, great. Which is such a, it's so beautiful that. It is. And I love how completely instinctive that was for her as a response. Yeah, it was gorgeous, actually. Such love, isn't it? So just thinking, when you're with the doctor, and he said insufficient, no, premature ovarian insufficiency.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did he use the word menopause then? No. And is that the same thing as menopause? It's not. It isn't? No. We call it the early menopause because it sort of does have the exact same symptoms,

but it's not, I don't know, I'm not very scientific, so I can't really explain it. It's a, I don't know, I'm not very scientific, so I can't really explain it. It's a really good question. Clever people on Facebook groups I sign up to can explain it, but I don't know. I lost them. Because I was just thinking as well that whilst there's still a lot of mystery around menopause,

I wonder if that would have helped your brain to hear a familiar word amongst a lot of other words that are all new. Yeah, I did. Once I heard that word, I was like, well, I'm going to tell people that. Also because if you Google premature ovarian insufficiency, one of the first symptoms that comes up is dry vagina, and I didn't want people going,

oh, let me have a look at what Harriet's got, and going, oh, bloody hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's having a rough time. That little nod, the tilted head, I'm so sorry. And I just thought, yeah, people get it. People don't really understand what menopause is, but they sort of get vaguely that they want to keep away from me,

maybe for a bit. So, yeah, I did use that language instead. But, I mean, what followed was, I know I sound so dramatic saying this, but kind of a massive existential spiral after that. Just in terms of my identity as a woman, I just, I mean, I still feel a bit confused by it all now, but I felt deeply sort of asexual and outsider, a bit of an outsider all of a sudden and um

yeah I I was really unhappy um but also it was tricky because my sister had given this brilliant opportunity to Mark and I so I was incredibly grateful for that but um I was sort of battling with these two sort of things at the same time. And things moved very quickly with the fertility treatment. We got an appointment with some brilliant doctors and we just got tested to see how my womb was, to see if it would hold a baby and it was fine. And I had to start on all these hormones to sort of get my

womb ready Mark had to uh jizz in a pot a bit he was fine as well and my sister was also yeah everyone everyone was like fit and healthy um but it was more about yeah getting me ready for it so I had to take HRT um and it made me not feel good, actually. HRT is brilliant. You have to take it when you're menopausal or have POI because it's important for your heart and bone health. When you don't have enough oestrogen, they're really at risk. So it's really essential.

But you have to work hard to find the right stuff for you. Yeah, and the dosage is really bespoke isn't really really bespoke and i just had to take this stuff to get my body ready for the baby so it wasn't really a time for me being like but i also cried a lot you know it was like let's just get the womb ready and then we'll figure out how to make me feel good in the long term so yeah that was about a year there's a lot to think about all at once and i i actually think i've already started thinking a little bit about what you're saying about your identity as a woman I think particularly in our young lives I don't think you realize how intrinsic the sort of aspect of fertility is to so much of

femininity not I'm not saying whether or not you want to be a mother it's not about being maternal it's about I suppose it's about like your sense of self and I think it's just something that it's laced throughout so much of female culture without really even realizing yeah I think about that being an aspect of what it is to be a young woman even if that's not something you're prioritizing but it's not necessarily even about having babies I agree and i mean i sort of feel like motherhood is really fetishized sometimes as well i think that was the thing that confused me a bit because i never saw motherhood as you know i've never judged anyone for not having children and i've never considered myself in order to be a woman i have to be a mother but i totally agree

i think also i think some of the most maternal people I know don't have any babies yeah I'm exactly the same yeah it's um it's a really uh yeah loose connotation in my head with that but I think you're right it is really fetishized and it's I think it's a weird time and I mean there's a lot of um aspects of motherhood that I think are better now in terms of um there's just a lot more role models actually for being a different for everybody's uh way of interpretation of being a parent. And I know that when I became a mum, I didn't really feel like I saw much reflected back at me of what made me feel like I was doing,

you know, the sort of mum I wanted to be. But at the same time, it's taken really far with some aspects and it's sort of, you know, the balloons and beige and aspects of, you know, that aspect is like, yeah, yeah. That aspect is like, oh, I don't think that's me at all. Yes, yeah, I relate to all of that, definitely.

And, yeah, just sort of looking at my body on a kind of daily basis, which I ended up not doing anymore because I was just, I don't know, I just got very, yeah, just sort of disgusted with myself, if I'm honest. I just, yeah, I just, I was struggling to sort of look after myself properly because it just takes quite a lot of energy to wash sometimes when you're feeling low. And, yeah, and I just, yeah, I felt really uncomfortable in myself. I felt very estranged from my body because it was you know

behaving in a bizarre way and also it just been told it couldn't do this thing that you're brought up to believe is really essential as a woman which it's not but you know the side effect what the symptoms you're having are horrible i mean and they're right in your head yeah yeah they're affecting you know like the fact that you couldn't articulate things or feel imaginative imagination those that's as you say those those aspects of how we live are what takes elevates every aspect of just getting by yeah yeah that's the fun stuff right there it is and um i think uh i can imagine as well when you've had such a diagnosis that you'd be doing something fairly mundane and you just want to be like you don't realize though

i've actually i'm going through all of this on the inside. I look the same but there's so much going on. I know, I mean I was like that but I was really embarrassed to be, like in retrospect, I was just really desperate for, I suppose a conversation like this, I really, really wanted to tell everyone all the time

because I just was, I can't process this on my own. I felt really, I mean I went to the Brit Awards I just was I can't process this on my own I felt really I mean I went I went to the Brit Awards um when I was a music journalist and uh had a few drinks and then went to an after party and saw a friend I hadn't seen for ages and um she was like oh um Hattie I've I've spoken to Tim I've I've heard about what's going on and I was like it's awful isn't it and I sort of started unloading all my sort of trauma onto her and she was like oh no no I'm really sorry I meant Tim's cancer diagnosis and I was like oh yeah sorry that's probably more of a

priority than me sweating quite a lot um so I was just very needy and that's not needy because actually what you're doing what you're going through is a really big deal and and you know and I also I bet when you were visiting Dr Google I bet a lot of roads led to cancer anyway so that's it yeah yeah because that's where all Dr Google always takes us first it's true but I think um I think again there's, sorry to misquote you back at yourself, but there was a line about talking to people and menopause not being quite dramatic enough to actually get from people what you really needed to hear. Yeah, yeah.

When you're talking, if you're at a party or speaking to someone and you share what's going on and they just kind of go, oh, I'm really sorry, that sounds awful, and then just sort of move on to the next, and you no no this is yeah it's worse than that next level up please that's so true I think well my mum was certainly incredibly stoic with her menopause and I just remember her being slightly hot one Christmas but maybe also menopausal symptoms aren't always really savage but um it wasn't talked about really. So understandably, people didn't understand the level of maybe difficulties I was having.

And it wasn't until that article came out that people, like, I had no idea it was that, all of that. I thought it was just a bit of sweat because I had a desk fan and stuff. So people knew that was a symptom. But yeah, I don't know you did find a community though I did yeah yeah Daisy the Daisy network yeah I I I went to how did I I think a doctor suggested I spoke to a therapist who specialized it and who then suggested I signed up to this network called the Daisy Network and they've got a Facebook group and it's filled with other women

who are going through something similar. And they are really great at just talking about, sharing sort of HRT stories and also just being open about what they might be facing symptom-wise. But then I sort of did egg myself on, I think, sometimes. If I was having a really bad time, I would just find some sort of weird message board somewhere else and I'd get really stuck into other people's difficult times and I'd wallow in it a bit.

That's quite tiring as well, isn't it? You sort of wander deep down those corridors. Yeah. I suppose I was just really lonely and I needed to connect to someone um so these poor women were the ones to do it um and they've been really useful um because there isn't enough information really in most GPs because they're probably understaffed and they don't have you know specialists working for them so you can sort of get some help in terms of how to treat yourself really. There's also quite a small percentage of women that go through something like this isn't it? Yes one one percent of women under 40 but you know since that article came out I've spoken to so many people that I know who've gone I've been diagnosed with that I wonder if it's more and

I don't know I think you know what that's right I've been diagnosed with that. I wonder if it's more, I don't know. Yeah, actually, you know what, that's right. I mean, they only get that percentage through people that actually figure out what's going on. That's the thing. I think we're really used to, women are used to living through quite a lot of discomfort. Yeah, and you could easily have just been put on antidepressants and go all around those roads

before, you know, realising that that's not really getting to the root of it. Totally. And I think that's the problem with hormonal stuff is that it's lots of strange things that you don't necessarily draw another dots up of. I mean, nothing like yours, but I have an underactive thyroid. Oh, me too.

Really? Yeah. Oh. But that is bad. That is not good for energy and all that. No, but that, again, like all the dots of that, they're all over the place. So you can think, well, I mean, I didn't realise

because I just had a baby and I thought, well, that's why I've got extra weight and I'm really knackered and feeling a bit sludgy and a bit eeyore. I didn't really understand that it might be anything different. I think there's not, like, your hormones in your body are crazy for how they can affect everything. And, you know, the glasses, you actually see everything.

And I think menopause in general is something that I don't think is being talked about enough. It's such a significant thing and can make so many women feel like they're going absolutely crazy and aren't keeping up with themselves. And it sounds like there's a lot of anxiety that can be associated with the things that you used to find fine and and then my mum said that she found suddenly like going to the airport she'd just be really nervous about travel out of the blue like that was never really her before and suddenly like just made her feel really sort of lots of palpitations and yeah yeah like really physical because I'm a warrior you know I don't have you know clinical anxiety but I was always a real warrior and over-preparer.

But it was the physical feelings of anxiety, so the heart palpitations and pain and my left arm would go completely numb, which apparently is connected to it. So yeah, it was quite trippy, really. Just before I forget, I have to say the other people who've got underactive thyroids. Desiree, Gigi Hadid and Sean Ryder. Oh, cool. So we're in a cool club.

That's great. I'll DM them later today. Yeah, you should. Sorry, derailed that. Well, if I ever find myself sat next to them on a dinner party, I've got the icebreaker. Did you take your thyroxine this morning? Actually, I get in

trouble with my mum quite a lot because I'm really bad at remembering to take it I know it is really bad it's awful and you'd think

after 17 years of taking a medicine but yeah it's not I remember talking to another friend about something she was taking

and my mum was in the room and I was like oh don't worry just take it when you next can it's like me with my thyroxine my mum just popped up no it's not you should be taking it every day don't worry it's fine I will be back I'll keep on it um so did you feel a little bit as well like actually I wonder it in some ways was the fact that menopause has got this sort of

association of older women just having hot flashes was that actually quite an unhelpful association when clearly what you're going through sounds actually really awful oh what in terms of um i suppose how people receive it and also just just actually the depth of what you're experiencing versus the sort of that's a good point version of what we know i forgot a big part of my symptoms was my anger as well so I love the story about you going to the ashram I mean there are loads like that there are lots I couldn't really include of me flipping out but I um yeah so I suppose what you're in response to what you just said I think um like your period they're kind of punch uh punch lines to jokes the menopause period so with the menopause it's you're hot and you're angry and I definitely felt like a little bit of shame because

I was now part of that crew um I mean the anger I'm really it is funny in retrospect because I am a very chilled out peaceful human being in terms of um my anger responses I just it takes a lot to get me furious but um yeah I was very angry my husband had a lot of a lot of difficult interactions with me and I just I just felt this desire to smash it up constantly like I don't want to just throw things against the wall and I was confront, which actually I think is quite useful. And I'm, you know, I think I've probably spent too much of my life not being like that. So I was quite, in some ways, I was quite into it. But it was erratic and it was scary.

And, yeah, I mean, not nice to be around, probably. And, yeah, I did push some men around at a gig. But then I was like, come on. Yeah yeah I did push the men around at a gig but then I was like come on yeah I suppose with the anger thing I think it's just when you feel like you're set to cross and then things just annoy you and then you're just highly irritable and in that mood where you don't really like how you're acting that's the side of that that mood that's really unpleasant yeah and it was all aimed at men yeah I don't know why but it was all aimed at poor men I'm sure they love because they wouldn't wouldn't go through that yeah yeah

yeah yeah it is that yeah right you nailed it yes um and I think yeah I know I know that feeling and you as you say some of it's almost you sort of take at the time it's almost take a bit of glee in just how angry you are yeah that fury has almost got its own of it's almost, you sort of take, at the time, you almost take a bit of glee in just how angry you are. Yeah, yeah. That fury has almost got its own, like, it's an energy source, isn't it? Yeah. It's just when you know that you're doing it

that it's disproportionate and people are looking at you a bit like, uh, and you can't wind it back down. You cannot, no. You're just stuck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess you, it must have been a very intense time

because just hearing your diagnosis and dealing with what's happening with you is enough. But also back to baby. Oh yeah, the baby. Oh yeah, the baby. That became the focus in terms of what the conversations you were having mainly. Yeah, yeah. And the appointments you were having mainly. Yeah, loads of work was great great and, you know, understood.

And you have to go to lots of appointments if you're doing any form of IVF. So I was in the hospital a lot. And we were all geared up to do the egg transfer in November 2017. So... It's from your sister? Yeah. 2017 so it's from your sister yeah so my sister had two weeks of um doing those injections um which stimulate your ovaries and get them all ready for being extracted um and then we all head off to the hospital one morning um mark goes into a cubicle and does his business i mean actually he

did miss the cup and he had to scrape it off the wall. So my baby is technically the scrapings of a... It must be powerful. I mean, powerful stuff that he's got, really. So they then put it in... Sorry, I'm so bad at explaining science stuff. My sister had her eggs removed and then they joined it up in a uh thing hang on what's it called they took my sister's eggs and my husband's

sperm put it in a laboratory and we waited overnight for it to fertilize and you want to get a blastocyst which is a really strong embryo it's one that's most likely to survive um uh but we got a phone call the next day saying that we didn't actually have any they'd all died overnight um so I was completely broken by that and then the next day we got another call saying actually something's changed overnight you've got one you've got a healthy embryo let's let's pop it in so mark and i rushed over and they put it in us in me um and then um you have to wait two weeks to find out if you're pregnant so you're just very careful and you just don't touch anything and you know walk really slowly to work um but um we didn't get pregnant that time and it was really difficult telling my sister because

um the hormones are powerful they actually do make you feel menopausal so it was a lot for her to physically go through with two small boys and it was really expensive and I think we're all we'd been prodded and regulated for so long that I just needed some time out and I was really sad and my sister was ready for round two she was like we'll do it again we'll go again and I just thought I can't put you through that so we met a wonderful doctor and he said and this is through the NHS as well he said why don't you consider egg donation um I was really horrified by that and I thought that's disgusting i don't want another woman's body inside mine is that so that was your first response was just yeah just horrified um i didn't know anything about it and it's stupid really but yeah mark was very pro it

this doctor was pro it and um i was really annoyed i think i was also coming down off all the hormones and the stress of it all so I just wanted everyone to leave me alone I suppose as well your experience have been with your sister and that's familiar and there's already so much about that relationship that's what you don't even need to articulate it it's just there so the idea of it being someone completely different that's true yeah it's a really different different thing to get your head around it is and Libby and I are really similar and I knew there wouldn't be any weirdness if our baby you know looked like her or behaved like her

because yeah we've got a really um uncomplicated uh relationship my sister and I and that's always been the case yeah that's so lovely that's amazing I really love that she's a lot, my sister and I. That's always been the case. Yeah. That's so lovely. That's amazing. I really love that. She's a lot older than me, and I think she is just a good egg.

I'd like to see her all around in all senses. That could be the name of a book. I like to think I would do the same for my siblings as well, without even thinking about it as well I think that is something that happens with that those people in your life

that you have that bond with definitely it's just without it's not even a question mark you just go yeah of course that's what should happen because you want

especially if your sister's already a mother and knows that's what you want you just think I want that for you if that's what you want I think that's quite an instinctive thing really and that's amazing that it affected her so much she's got young kids as well that must have been a lot to process and probably at the

time there's all this momentum of the next appointment how it all works and it's only really now you can look back and think wow we actually did all that and it all happened and yeah and I really have to you know I don't want her to ever feel like she failed because it wasn't anything to do with her it's just you know people go through fertility treatment for decades it's brutal this is the thing that's so crazy isn't it that that we have in so many ways so much benefit in modern science but that really when it comes down to making that baby it's still really tough to do it's a miracle yeah truly it is a miracle yeah it's it's bonkers it's not just add that to that and away you go it's it is actually

quite mind-blowing that there's so much that's kind of unknown about how that all works i know it's incredible isn't it it is and um the next i mean the next i i sound quite flippant about it or i'm sure lots of other people have difficult journeys sort of coming to terms with even using their siblings or eggs or whatever but felt very calm and just let's get on with it but yeah it did take me a while to process the next step but I think I sort of had to shut a bit of my brain down and think if I really want a child this is the only option and then you know would pursue adoption obviously but that would take a while as well so I just had to sort of turn

off any worries or weirdness I had going on and Mark was really pro it you know the process would be very quick because we were going to be quite pragmatic about these sort of things and just yeah yeah he is really pragmatic and um he's really good at like he doesn't play poker and think he's he's good at knowing when to chuck everything at something yeah and he'd just be like do we want to do this or not yeah yeah you want a baby this is how to get this might work yeah which is good because i'm not you know i'm not like that so it was handy um and we um we were suggested a clinic in Spain. So we had a few phone consultations with them.

They were really fast, really efficient. There wasn't, you know, it wasn't that touchy-feely or anything. They just asked me, do you want dark hair and light eyes, which is what I've got, and I said yes, please. We didn't know anything about the donor. I think in some other clinics you can choose, you know, if they're good at chess or whatever, but... Oh, my goodness.

I mean, I just wanted... I didn't, you know, I didn't need any additional information. Do you think they're good at chess? Or, like, you know, good at... I've just gone for someone who's quite tidy, I think. Oh, yeah. Just easy to live with, please. It's so true, yeah. easy going i know i think yeah i think if you start down that route you can just probably get lost like oh yeah what do you want

i mean yeah so they don't i mean you don't have to say if it's too personal but they don't go as far as like gender and things like that because i know spain sometimes that is a place wow i didn't know that no i think spain is one of the countries where you can do um you can decide what gender baby you have crikey no it's not legal in the uk where's that no i'd never heard of that luckily yeah so we just went for it um and then mark and i uh trotted off to madrid for a weekend which is when we were going to do the egg transfer. I hope I'm not skipping through stuff, but it was just sort of a boring story of taking hormones and getting, again, doing lots of scans

to see if my womb was thick enough. Which is really, actually, I'm really skipping over that, but it's really stressful. You have to have bleeds at certain times. Your body has to do things like clockwork, and it's slow and boring and really stressful which is like the worst combination. Or getting yourself ready for everything.

Yeah, like, so by this date you have to have a bleed otherwise we won't be able to do the next stage which is this and some, you know, you're like willing yourself. I used to go for massages and stuff to try and relax my body so I might bleed at the right time. I actually didn't realise any of that. It's a real faff. How does that affect your relationship with your body?

Yeah, I mean, it's just a very functional thing that you're just like, come on, please work. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I hated it a little bit. But then I suppose in some ways as well, when things do happen and you're already at your kind of marvel, the fact that you can be sort of organised like that. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, totally. I think you can get a bit sort of fixated on being healthy and stuff like that but i did i did go down that path i did stop drinking and i got really into hot yoga and did all that stuff um just to more to sort of cushion myself if it went wrong i wouldn't get too upset i'd be physically strong enough to sort of cope with stuff which i think is quite important um but i don't think you need to not eat certain things and all that i think just try and do whatever makes you calm and happy is my advice to anyone doing yeah fertility treatment um mark booked us into this um hotel in the uh the gay district in Madrid which was very funny because they were just like pumping

EDM constantly and beds were like massive bowls of condoms next to did he like look that's still a mystery very good reviews on TripAdvisor it was yeah it's a bit of a mystery while we ended up there but I mean it was a good distraction but it was just very sensual how in congress it was was quite a nice thing actually because it was like this is actually quite funny it's quite sometimes quite nice to have those moments of absurdity in amongst oh things are very intense yeah and especially when it's very medicalized I agree yeah there was nothing too sentimental about anything that was going on it was you don't go back and stay there once a year I would actually add a lovely rooftop bar but um yeah we headed off to the clinic and you have to not wee you have to have a full bladder

and it's quite a hard thing to sort of um judge because if you take it too far then you know you're in agony and they let me go for a wee just before I went in because I was I was about to wet myself in the reception and then I had to drink about seven pints of water, so I was back up to... Is this for a scan? This is for the implantation. Oh, OK. I don't know why you need to have a wee in your bladder, but...

I think I had to for my first scan. Did you? I don't think they do it anymore, but I think the first time I had a scan, you had to have a full bladder. I think it's something to do with how it makes everything present when they're... Oh, right, it's more inflated. Something like that, I don't know. I don't know. I was about to try and say what it is but i realized i don't know i didn't know anything i mean i was some women are really good at being on it i just was like

reacting to whatever was in front of me to be honest um it was really slick and great and they even showed us a little baby blastocyst on an iPad before we got it implanted. So, you know, I saw him at a very young age. And that's very reassuring, isn't it? This is just the thing that they get on with doing all the time. Oh, yeah, totally. And there'll be, you know, appointments before you, appointments after you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

And it was, you know, it was brilliant. And then went back, they popped it in me. Brilliant, it wasn't. They just stuck a thing inside my cervix or whatever. Don't even know where it went. Went back to the hotel, laid on the sort of silky leather sheets. And then went home. And two weeks later, I had a positive pregnancy test,

which was brilliant, miraculous. Incredible, yeah. Pregnancy was great, actually. Then the next adventure begins. Yeah, yeah. Pregnancy was great, actually. Then the next adventure begins. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was bad, actually, what happened. I didn't have a space to write this in the piece, but I had...

Pregnancy was fine, actually. It was quite scary because, you know, if we did have a miscarriage, it would have been a very expensive road back to where we wanted to be. So it was intense. Yeah, suddenly you realise that vulnerability of just how far you've come and how invested you are. And then it's kind of out of your control, that's the bit of it.

You're screwed, yeah. Just realise your heart could break very easily. Yeah, yeah. It's a really vulnerable time. But it was a nice being pregnant. And it was, you know, nice being pregnant. And I was actually a bit more feisty in terms of getting people off tube seats than I thought I'd be. I thought, I'm only going to do this once.

I'm really going to go for it. And then he was quite late, actually. Am I going to... Is this interesting, my birth and stuff? You can if you like. I'll be quick, but... I need to do, like do minute by minute or anything. Basically, it all just went a bit wrong.

His heart rate was going really low, so they broke my waters and they pulled him out with forceps and I had an episiotomy and all that stuff and quite a bad tear. And then I had to go into theatre afterwards and sew me up. Um, and then I couldn't breastfeed because it had all been so intense that I was slightly traumatised. Um, and then I, um, just, he got jaundiced. We had to go back to hospital, um, because obviously there was no milk coming out of my boobs. And then I spent a night in hospital with him

in which I was in a nappy filled with my own wee and then my scars, I can't believe I'm saying this, my scars from my episiotomy got infected so I had to go back to hospital. Oh, you poor thing. And then lockdown kicked off and I was sort of um oh golly trapped with all that um well someone I did get diagnosed with PTSD afterwards but I think had I been around my family and friends to talk about how mad it all was I would have

gotten over it but because I had to look after my baby and um we were in lockdown I just sort of internalized it all no I think that's very honest of you. And I think I've actually had it with a few friends who've had really traumatic births. And invariably it's the first baby or the only baby or whatever. And then you go and visit them and both of them, like, you know, look like they've been sort of like in a war zone or something. They look absolutely shell-shocked. And obviously you've got this beautiful new baby in amongst it all but they I've seen it in my friend's eyes where they just look like something is you know happened that they

can't quite process and I think I think you're so caught up in this thing of the baby's here and then the bit of the birth is almost just supposed to be like the anecdote you tell about how they made it onto the planet. But actually, if you have a traumatic birth, that is horrific. And if you think your baby might die in that moment, that's horrific. And if your partner thinks you might, all those things take a long time to even, because you're supposed to be just like, oh, we're into the next bit now. And how many weeks your baby? And there's so many other things to distract you. And you're now having to focus on this new person and being

responsible for them but i actually think there's a lot a lot of things that take a long time to process yeah it's nice maybe people don't even really ask you about it that much because you get discharged from hospital and then that's kind of right you're on to the next chapter now off you go yeah is everything okay with you physically? Okay, on you go. And actually, I think it's actually more unusual to not have an experience like that. I'm trying to think of anyone I know where it was just like, actually, you know what? It was amazing.

I'm actually struggling to think. I think most of my girlfriends come away, you know, some of them have awful blood loss and tears and all sorts of things. And it's just awful and defining and quite private as well, actually. Because you're supposed to be just so elated that your baby's here. Especially when you've had such a big run-up to get the baby. Yes.

I was like, oh no, I sound really ungrateful. And also, my feelings about it, I'm quite bitter about the aftermath of his birth because I was so in shock and completely traumatised that I don't think I enjoyed those first few months of him being alive. And I'm really sad about that because I'm not going to do it again. And I feel like I've lost out on it. No, you haven't.

And I think that's really normal, I think, because so much of it is just such a big deal. And actually, I spoke to another lady who'd, I think, spent seven years doing IVF to have her baby. And she and her husband both had postnatal depression because this very long-form baby, they just both... Wow, I've never heard of that that's really interesting they both just were really unhappy in themselves for the first year because they just felt like we wanted this so much and now

it's actually quite tough and there might have been other things going on and they just both were really blue that's the thing about fertility treatment the run up is so exhausting that when you get to the toughest bit you're already knackered and again I'm saying this from someone who only did it for two years but yeah if you're having your treatment in the UK is it treated just like a normal pregnancy

after that or do they look after you that bit more because they know your history yeah it's high risk it was high risk because of that but actually actually it was fine. There wasn't really any that. So you have a few more appointments? Yeah, yeah. But is there sort of care in terms of like how you're feeling about everything? That's a good question. Not really. I mean, it was more just like we'd prefer it if you had it in the hospital rather than a home birth, which is fine because I was up for that anyway.

But yeah, no, no. I mean, I guess I just don't have time to be that touchy-feely about it maybe i don't think it's touchy-feely to check if you're okay i think it's just um it's just it goes right to your core a lot of this stuff you know and the emotions that come up and actually if you've already got you know a complicated journey that's been very medicalised, and then you also have a tricky birth, and then you also, I mean, lockdown. That's a whole other thing to add into the pot, isn't it? And I wonder how many people will be only just now articulating, maybe even to themselves, how tricky that's all been, you know?

Yeah. And you've broken a lot about saying it's your the only time you're going to do it is that a decision that was just an instinctive thing yeah like I just I'm not over any part of this journey yet and you know how I think you were saying earlier or maybe I was listening to someone else say it people just forget about that hard bit at the start and have another one but I mean all of it was so hard that I just couldn't do it I just could never do it again and also he's enough for me definitely like I feel like I've got it him yeah so um I feel like it's okay and yeah I think particularly

the birth I just yeah yeah and I think you're birth, I just... Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're part of a pretty... That club has got a lot of membership. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I know a few members, definitely. And also what can happen is you... Sometimes people decide to have another baby

and then it all comes up. And then they get very freaked out about the idea that they've got to deliver this baby no matter what and what will happen. I think maybe that's another discussion really. I think there's just so many things that are only just being spoken about in a more conversational way

rather than just behind closed doors actually. I know. They've got such an idea of how we're supposed to feel, how we're supposed to take to it, what's supposed to come naturally, what's supposed to come easy. But actually, so many people fall into the footnotes at the bottom of the pregnancy books about what happens if you turn left instead of right.

And then for you, that paragraph is the only reference to it. Yeah. And then you have to buy a different book after that. Yeah, I know, I know. You know, people are always like, oh, you shouldn't really talk about your birth story because it upsets other people but it's like it's like why would you not talk about getting in a major car crash or exactly you know we yeah I think we've got to have a little little chat about it occasionally but um I mean I remember telling my friends about what happened and they just no knew how to say it, to respond to it,

because the way I was saying it was unhinged and what I was saying was horrible, talking about my dead baby in front of me. So he was alive after that, obviously, but he died for a bit. But yeah, I just wanted to add as well that I did manage to relactate. I managed to get milk out of my boobs and we did it for six months how did you what after a significant yeah it was um after a month really yeah that's fascinating it's horrible really hard work just pumping yeah pumping pumping and i didn't actually know that could happen after a month yeah it's a lot of hard work but you can

we did it and i'm glad you know I'm definitely not an evangelical about breastfeeding, but I'm glad I tried and glad we did it. No, I'm just impressed at the human body, really. Yeah, same. And I think, I too, I would not, I think whether you're not breastfeeding is just so not interesting to me about other people. I don't care if you're breast or bottle at all. But I do think that particularly in very medicalised situations,

so when I had my babies early, for example, I fixated a lot on the breastfeeding because it was the only thing I felt I could do that was just my job. And, you know, I could have had donor milk or formula, but it was something I could do that showed I'd just have a baby, even though my baby wasn't at home. So I just, I'm very familiar with the pump yeah very familiar when you hear the noise of it it's very triggering isn't it yeah although they move with the times those pumps

and now you get these very quiet ones if you know that really I didn't know that yeah it's really yeah it's all changed since the beginning for me um but um why do i why should i take this now because i think there's so many things that have you've made me think about but i suppose i love the idea that you're saying here's enough i think that's a really beautiful thing about your baby i really love that and uh my children will never listen to this but that doesn't mean you're not enough darling yeah well yeah i'm in awe of other people who can do it again to be honest i think it's magical but i mean the also the important thing to say is that i was really nervous about talking about my baby as a donor egg baby because it's going to be a really complicated thing to explain to him one day and i want him to understand it properly.

But I think the overwhelming core of this is that he was so wanted. He is the product of years of work and all of our money. He is everything. We put everything into getting him. So I hope he knows that one day. He'll know it. He knows it already. When that's the environment you're born into, I think it's imbued in you actually and I don't it's funny I mean I hope you don't take this as me being really flippant but from where I'm sitting it's

just not that big a deal no I don't I don't think about it like that at all because this is just what happened on the way to you having your baby. But that baby is the baby you were meant to have. Yeah, I know. It's the only one you, you know. It always feels like that, I think. I know. It's all these secret, people have got all these secret stories about how they came to where they are

and we're just starting to talk about them more openly, really. Yeah. And also, I don't know if anyone would ever say anything otherwise, really. I think if anyone has an opinion that isn't like that, then it says a lot more about them than it would ever say about you. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's nothing to do with you, probably. Yeah.

I mean, some people can be... It's always very revealing, I think, if people have got a very exacting idea of how things should go, and that's the right way. I don't follow that at all. No, no, no. Life is a lot more complex than that, isn't it? I wanted to ask, because I know when you were saying that you were starting the process of trying to have a baby,

that you were finding it really hard to be around, know pregnant people babies even family yeah kids birthday parties um and I wondered once you've had a baby and you've had a foot in that camp do you feel like there's still a foot in that camp yeah yeah and I don't want to ever you know you have to be careful to not be take up all the space when you've been infertile and then you've had a baby because there's obviously so many people who are still going through it and I never want to be that kind of person who's still sort of trying to hoover up all the sympathy but I definitely am really cautious about posting stuff on the internet and asking people about their own situations and um stuff like if I still worked in an office,

I might be a bit wary of bringing my child in because something like that would ruin my week if someone brought in a new baby and I'd been having a tough time. So, yeah, I'm really a bit wary of showboating even though you desperately want to do it because you're so proud of them. But, yeah, being a bit delicate and not knowing anyone's backstory is key I think and I'll always have that yeah I mean I know that um when I spoke to um Emma Barnett who spent a really long time trying to have a baby she has endometriosis and did IVF in the end and she said she can't understand she can't relate

when women have had a really tough time getting pregnant and then end up posting a lot about babies and pregnancy and their children at home and she's just she wasn't it wasn't even a judgment it's just an emotional response that I don't understand how you've now become into that camp it's tough isn't it because I think it's just sublime pride and love. And I think it's coming from a really innocent place. But I also see completely Emma's side. It's sort of mad that we do the thing that hurt us the most to other people. I don't know.

It's a minefield. The internet and babies is a minefield. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Yeah, babies and actually like lots of things actually like how we what we choose to share and what might actually have that effect on people and you just have you're not thinking it through in that way but then if you worried about the people that might perceive it that way you probably wouldn't really post anything ever because everything is just like why are you saying telling us about I mean I remember like last year I was like well I can't

post if I if I go on holiday. I won't share anything because it felt like there's so many people who can't go away. You know what I mean? Sometimes things kick in and other times I've probably done incredibly tactless things and not really thought about the people. They might go, why are you doing that?

Oh, I spend three hours debating whether or not I should put a picture of anything on the internet. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's an interesting one all that I suppose it goes back to what we're saying before as well about aspects of motherhood being sort of held up on a pedestal and then you worry that if you start going actually look at this amazing human

that you sort of become part of it but actually I think if as you say it's really sensitive to understand as well that the reason people do it is coming out of the is an innocent thing you're just thinking yeah yay look at my maybe they want to be part of this club that they felt excluded from and they want to tell the world and it's I think it's quite complex really the reason why we motivated to do things on the internet yeah um but that's interesting you said about even taking your baby to work or something would been like if that had happened at that time that would have just been like yeah yeah I was being hurt all the time and it was nobody's fault but I was just hyper aware of it yeah it felt very irrational for me and yeah just avoiding seeing my nieces and nephews was really tragic really didn't like that aspect of it at all but it was just self-protection mode really

a bit selfish but necessary no if it hurts it hurts and you just need time to get get to the point where you can be okay with that yeah you know yeah yeah yeah and now he's here as well which is lovely yeah he's ridiculous he's got a really mad mullet a mad lockdown mullet yeah yeah yeah is that a result of you trying to cut his hair or just the way my husband won't let me cut it and it is magical but it's just very straight hair so he looks like a we always compare it to sort of a greasy pub landlord well actually mickey my youngest has got really long hair and i've never had one wife just let his hair grow but I think because lockdown and everything because he was just over one when it started so the time when

I maybe would have taken for a haircut and then by the time he was allowed to it just became sort of part of how he looks now so he's got really long hair so they can hang out with their mad hairdos together I mean on a good day it looks lovely on a bad day it doesn't a little bit neglected that's fine he can just about see through it, so it's fine. I want to thank you so much for all your honesty. I honestly think these conversations are really important. And I think your article is so beautiful. And I'll make sure people head there.

But you articulate it. There's so much love there, not just with you and your husband and your baby, but also I can hear it through your family. not just with you and your husband and your baby, but also I can hear it through your family. It just shows you how valuable that is to buoy you up, actually. Yeah. And I bet your friends have been really amazing too and then they all know how special it is that he's here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's going to be a little spoiled runt. And with your sister, did it change anything afterwards in terms of your relationship? No. Yeah, I think we've both gone through this really big thing together. It's definitely brought us closer. I just want to thank her every time I see her that she did that for me.

But, yeah, I don't know, I'm just forever indebted. Even if it didn't work out, it just was beautiful. So that was lovely Harriet. Doesn't she speak so beautifully about her experience? Really appreciated her time and her honesty. it's lovely to hang out with her and to speak with her and yes you're right I'm still walking around Aberdeen I've been a little bit silly if I'm honest with you because I set off and I wasn't really thinking too much about where I was going and I've wandered all over and now I just want to be back at the hotel but I've got to Traipse

quite a long way to get back but you know I suppose it's good for me although part of me is a bit. I'm going to do my 24 hour challenge for children in need. And I'm feeling a little peculiar about it because I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to have done any training or not. I spoke this morning on Claudia Winkleman's radio 2 show with her and she said you can't train. And I spoke last week to Dermot O'Leary and he said you can't train. But Professor Greg White, who is a physiotherapist, he'll be with me for the full 24 hours. He sent me some exercises to do a couple of weeks ago. I don't know about you, but I was like, yep, definitely.

do a couple of weeks ago I don't know about you but I was like yep definitely he's like it's only about 15-20 minutes a day just core training and I was so sure I was going to do that every day and I don't think the five times I've done a plank since then really count so I guess now my fate is sealed I might as well just get on with it. But I don't know. I think I'm just going to be buoyed along by whatever it is that's going on at the same time. I just saw that Owen, the lovely Welsh weatherman, he's just completed a 24-hour drum-a-thon, which I think is really hard. And it was really joyous.

And he raised over two million pounds um but I'm also a bit confused because he was allowed to have lots and lots of people come in and drum with him which looked incredible by the way and I'm doing my dance-a-thon in the radio theatre BBC radio theatre and I'm not allowed any more than two people on stage with me and they have to stay three meters away and I'm not allowed to just have people drop in so I'm like how does this work who's making up these rules baby anyway don't worry well done to Owen because he did brilliantly and hey it's all going in the same pot and I'll do what I can. I'll dance through it. I'm a little bit nervous. It's all right, isn't it?

Anyway, fingers crossed next week I will have a podcast guest who very beautifully tessellates with my fundraising. I don't want to say any more than that because then I'll jinx it. But yes. Oh, thank you. I've just got some slightly more senior women. Let me overtake them. I'm quite a fast walker.

I quite like it. Get it done, I say. Anyway, I hope wherever you are, whatever you're doing with your day, I hope you're good. Thanks for lending me your ears and your time. And when we speak again, I'll have done my challenge.

It's going to feel good, baby. I want to be the other side of it now. Actually, I just want to be doing it. I kind of want to get on with it. And some of the songs in the playlist are really, really good. That's going to help. Anyway, lots of love to you. See you soon.

Bye. Lots of love to you.