Woman's Hour - Being the 'other' mother, CMV

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

The comedian Jen Brister talks about what it was like becoming a non-biological mum. She had twin boys with her partner Chloe four years ago after several rounds of IVF, and it was Chloe who gave birth. She talks about the reaction of friends and professionals, and what she felt like herself having babies in this way - experiences she has written about in her book The Other Mother.With the rebel alliance of MPs attempting to prevent a no deal Brexit before parliament is prorogued next week, who are the women to watch, what are they thinking and how will they act this week? We're joined by Helen Lewis, staff writer for The Atlantic and Katy Balls, deputy political editor of The Spectator to discuss.Why a targeted screening programme for a common virus could help new born babies with hearing loss. It's called CMV. Most of us have had it, harmlessly...it feels like a cold but if you're pregnant it can have serious consequences - most commonly deafness. It's more common than Down's affecting 1000 babies a year in Britain but few health professionals know about it. Paediatrician, Dr Tamsin Brown has gathered health professionals together in the East of England and set up a targeted screening programme which she hopes will support the case for nationwide screening.Another in our series about young people at risk of getting into trouble and the people trying to help them. At a busy private stables in rural Worcestershire Steph works with girls who have been excluded from mainstream education – they have been offered a Changing Lives Though Horses course run by the British Horse Society as alternative way of educating/reaching/calming them. Jo Morris met Steph and the riding teachers Dan and Karen there with Britney, Emma and Libby. Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Jane Thurlow Reporter Jo MorrisInterviewed guest: Helen Lewis Interviewed guest: Katy Balls Interviewed guest: Jen Brister Interviewed guest: Tamsin Brown Interviewed guest: Anna Hope

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. virus called CMV. It was new to me and you can hear all about that on the podcast today. We'll chat too to the comedian Jen Brister who's had twins with her female partner and there's more from Jen at the end of this podcast as well. But we start today with politics. Where else can we start really? MPs are going back to Westminster this afternoon, that's Tuesday afternoon. Now in the most simple terms imaginable the Prime Minister says he doesn't want another general election, but he will be, quotes, forced to have one if MPs block a no deal Brexit. Boris Johnson has said he will not put off Brexit under any circumstances. And indeed, he's taking it to the wire. He's threatening to expel conservative rebels from the party. So we chewed the fat this morning in the company of Katie Balls,

the deputy political editor of The Spectator, and Helen Lewis, who is now a staff writer at The Atlantic. I put to them that it all seems a bit testosterone-driven, all this. And I asked Katie whether she would say that was true. I mean, I wouldn't use those exact words. No, I didn't.

In a game of chicken. And I think there is this strong sense in number 10 that they are not going to blink. And they think that Theresa May's fault as a leader was the fact that she would often talk about doing things and then fold or move away from it when she came into opposition from figures in her own party, or a cross party group of MPs who didn't like no deal. When you had groups legislate against no deal, she accepted that. And this new number 10, led by Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, his most senior aide, take a very different approach.

And I think they're actually very happy to actually almost run towards conflict. Boris Johnson did have the reputation, the image, before he became Prime Minister Minister as a kind of a swashbuckling cavalier type. I've got to say, that wasn't how he came across yesterday afternoon outside Downing Street. No, and I think outside Downing Street, I personally thought he seemed a little bit off put by the fact that you had such loud chants about this being a coup, negative responses from protesters. But he was trying to play down this idea, he was trying to appear serious for one, but also play down this idea that he wants a general election. Now, I don't think that has anything to do with the likelihood of a general election. I think, if anything, it went up after that statement.

He is just trying to play a game of shifting the blame onto these MPs who are planning to rebel today. OK, we've mentioned Theresa May. There's one woman. But I don't see a lot of women around. I'm not hearing a lot of female voices, Helen. Well, actually, there have been some women doing some incredibly interesting things behind the scenes. So Joanna Cherry, who's both a QC and an SNP MP,

she's been behind this cross-party attempt in the Court of Session in Edinburgh to be against suspending Parliament. Yeah, now where are we at with that? That is being heard again today. Gina Miller, the anti-Brexit campaigner, is doing the same in London. That's being heard on Thursday. So people are kind of trying to pull the other levers that are available, even if parliamentary timetable kind of runs away with itself. But you know, there are women doing things by just stepping away and having nothing to do

with it. We heard Justin Greening, the former cabinet minister, the first openly lesbian cabinet minister for the Tories, say she wasn't going to stand again at the next election. Her constituency partly voted 70% remain. She's likely to lose that seat anyway. But that means that there is, you know, as Katie was saying, these kind of very macho, don't blink tactics only work if people are kind of frightened of you. And actually, there are a considerable number of people in the Conservative Party who think that they have nothing left to lose. They're never going to get a cabinet position again. They're at the end of their careers.

So kind of bring it on, really. Well, in the 10 o'clock news, we heard Amber Rudd, Work and Pensions Secretary. Also, we shouldn't forget that she's the Minister for Women and Equalities as well. Now, what is her position exactly? You spoke to her yesterday, didn't you, Katie? He was someone who was right against a no deal Brexit at one point. Yes, it's been prescribed to me by someone in government as Amber Rudd performing a graceful pivot, which I think was quite kind when she moved from opposing no deal to deciding to serve in a Boris Johnson government where there is a good chance of no deal,

no matter what Boris Johnson might say. Amber Rudd's current position, as she explained to me yesterday, was that she still thinks that the only way forward really is a Brexit deal. That's what she wants. But she thinks the best way to get that is by following Boris Johnson's tactic, which appears to be peak brinkmanship. She's staying in Cabinet. But she has, I think, gone slightly off message by saying that she is not happy with this deselection threat on many of her close colleagues, actually.

Because if you look at the people we expect to have the whip removed this week, people like Philip Hammond, David Moore. By having the whip removed, what does that mean, Lou? So they would no longer be Conservative MPs in the Commons. And they could not stand again. And on top of that, they wouldn't be allowed to stand in an election, which we expect to be quite soon, as a Conservative MP. So ultimately very hard for them to keep their seats as an independent. And a lot of the people who might have that happen are figures that Amber Rudder's very close to, at least was a couple of months ago in her One Nation group. She's displaying a sliver of an independent streak without actually threatening her own position.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's all Conservative MPs right now, I think, face a dilemma. And you see figures like Justin Greening, who have ultimately decided the Conservative Party no longer represents them to the point that they don't even really want to fight to change it. I think someone like Amber Rudd is still thinking it's better to be inside the tent. I think the question is, how much influence do you have with this current number 10? And at the moment, it doesn't feel as though that influence is particularly significant if you look at the things coming from that building. I think, honestly, the tent is on fire.

So it doesn't really matter your relation. I would be as far away from the tent as possible, personally. But, you know, talk about this idea about, you know, wanting to do brinksmanship and run down the clock. Well, the thing is, everything allegedly depends on the backstop. This is about the Irish border question. There are no new substantive proposals on that. You know, Boris Johnson talks about wanting another deal, but people in Europe say, well, hang on a minute,

what proposition do you have for it? At the same time, he said, you know, we have to be ready for no deal, which, you know, the government's own analysis said would cause severe disruption to food and medicine supplies. But they're not doing that work either. They've kind of got a fancy website and a few billboards, but, you know, you need enormous infrastructure work. So what's currently happening is the clock is being run down with these statements like Boris Johnson's yesterday, but with no other real idea about what their plan

is. But at least there is a plan, many people would say. Well, in that case, I would love to hear it. Probably by plan, I meant tactic. The tactic is to force the EU to make a concession. Maybe this is the only way it can happen. Right. But you can kind of say that's by doing that, by saying you're holding a gun to your head and saying, I will shoot myself. Actually, how much of a threat is it to the other person when it's going to damage you significantly as well? I think that's the trouble. Let's talk about Labour MPs too. Interesting positions for so many of them. By interesting, I mean really complicated. If you are Lisa Nandy, who's a Labour MP for a constituency that voted to leave, what do you do today, Katie? I think Lisa Nandy, we've heard her recently over months, I think, say that she isn't happy with no deal, wants to respect the result, but wasn't happy with Theresa May's deal. Ultimately, the only thing this House of Commons has managed to agree on is the idea of delaying decisions. I think that if you look at the wording of what's being proposed, it is quite

tricky for some people in leave seats, because it does seem to hand quite a lot of power to Brussels on the terms of this extension, on in some ways also the length. And I think for someone like Lisa Nandy, my hunch is ultimately these people are party political first. And to actually side with someone like Boris Johnson is more difficult than siding with someone like Theresa May. And given that Lisa Nandy didn't come to Theresa May's aid with her Brexit deal three times, I think for many Labour MPs, the optics of voting for anything to do with Boris Johnson, who has seemed to be much more of a Brexiteer. So there is a toxicity about Boris Johnson that there wasn't quite the same feeling about Theresa May?

I don't think there was the same level. But, I mean, there was still clearly a problem there because she couldn't do it. But I think it is a new level when it comes to Labour and Boris Johnson and also how they, you look at the SNP too, how the opposition parties want to label Boris Johnson as this unacceptable politician, a far on the right.

That makes it much harder to work with this Conservative Party. I think there are some Labour MPs who genuinely regret that they didn't vote for Theresa May's deal at some point, because actually they would like the whole thing to be over and they think it's just going to be much more disruptive the way it is. But if you're going to talk about the most important women in the country i think another one who stepped away ruth davidson stepped down as leader of the scottish conservatives that has got implications not just for any possible election you know theresa may's ability to govern rests on having the on gaining seats in scotland remind me how many um effectively ruth davidson won it was about 11 or 12 yeah yeah and then you know the by-election last week the candidate ran as ruth davidson's conservative she had a huge brand you know kat the by-election last week, the candidate ran as Ruth Davidson's Conservative. She had a huge brand.

Katie's talked about the toxicity, perceived toxicity of Boris Johnson. Ruth Davidson did a lot to detoxify as a kickboxing lesbian. You know, there's not a huge number of those in the Conservative Party. She did a lot. And that's a big blow to them. It's also, let's be honest with you, I think made the idea of Scotland becoming independent much more likely. Because actually, who are the kind of really creditable unionist voices in Scotland? And the SNP will inevitably say

that a Boris Johnson government is not what Scotland wants and no-deal Brexit is not what Scotland wants, Scotland voted to remain. Well, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, what cards does she have to play actually this week or any week in the near future?

Well, we're now into the zone where Tory ministers are openly saying, well, actually, maybe we wouldn't take any notice of laws that are passed in Parliament, which is sort of effectively what Michael Gove said at the weekend, then what is stopping the Scottish government from holding a kind of SATs independence referendum with no sign-off and then insisting that the result of that be offered,

or at least enforcing that issue? You know, if we're going to talk about the kind of breakdown of our unwritten constitution, then there are huge implications to that. Casey, you're checking your phone there. You haven't heard something, have you? You're just bored by me. I think it's worth pointing out that there are some women in Parliament who actually do prefer this new regime. So there are many who are in the Conservative Party who don't feel it reflects them anymore. Amber Rudd is having a dilemma. But I think that if you look

at, for example, Priti Patel, if you look at Andrea Leadsom, I think that the current direction of the Conservative Party, both of these women's campaign for leave, is probably more in keeping with their values than it was under Theresa May's. So I don't think it is completely one-size-fits-all on almost even the strategy coming from Number 10.

OK, of course, there'll be full coverage of whatever happens today on Five Live, obviously, and on the news programmes here on Radio 4. But I'm going to ask you both what you think is going to happen, I'm afraid. We need to get some predictions. So, Katie? I mean, I think it sounds like the rebels have the numbers and I think ultimately it will then come down to, I don't think number 10 are going to move away from this threat of actually trying to force an early election if their hands are tied

on Brexit. So it comes down to how Labour MPs and others vote and whether there is two-thirds in favour of this election. My current reading, and this might change within the next two to three minutes, so who knows, is to say that, as Kay says, I think that the idea the rebels have the numbers to block no deal,

take control of the order paper and pass that. Actually what's changed since yesterday is I think Labour are much more queasy about the thought of voting for an election. Under the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, you've either got to lose a confidence vote as a prime minister or get a two-thirds majority in the Commons. You can't just call an election like you used to be able to. So actually, Tony Blair said yesterday an election would be an elephant trap because the date of it can be moved. Once you've agreed to have an election, then the Prime Minister can then move the date. So what's to stop Boris Johnson saying, well, actually, we'll have it in November the 4th,

and then there's no parliamentary sitting time in order to scrutinise any legislation, stop no deal. So Labour have got a lot more wary about that. So Boris Johnson's kind of, I don't want to have to call an election. It might not be his decision. It's also worth saying a couple of weeks ago in Listener Week, we did a whole series of discussions on this programme suggested by the listeners.

And the thing, the subject that got the most reaction, certainly that I did, was about housing, was about renting and the hopelessness of people who could barely afford to save a penny. The idea of trying to find money for a deposit for a house was just unthinkable. The truth is, Katie, that for many, many people, this is just semantic tosh gone round and round and round for years now. They just do want it over and they want the country to be able to move on. And maybe we're nearer the end of the beginning. What do you think? I think ultimately we are heading to a general election where we know the number 10 want to fight it on this Brexit platform. But for the reasons you just mentioned, it's very hard to predict what decides an election and actually domestic issues like housing are likely to be very high on that agenda.

And at the moment, I don't think that's even in number 10's top three domestic priorities. But I do think this election is going to ultimately clear the decks to some degree and decide on a firm course. I think you're right about the housing thing because it is one of the reasons that the Tories are struggling so much among young people. There is a big divide in voting between people who rent in the private sector and people who own their own homes, and actually people who own their own homes are much more likely to vote Conservative. The Labour Party, the FT, have been scrutinising their plans for government. They've got essentially a plan for kind of right to buy for private renters. They think, you know, there's 2.6 million people are landlords in this country, so it's going to be quite a controversial proposal. But it is, you

know, they are squarely aiming their policies at people who don't feel they have any stake in capitalism because they don't feel they have any capital and you can say what you like about you know we shouldn't have um you know house prices being houses being an asset but fundamentally people are thinking well how do i pay things like my social care if i don't have an asset at the end of my life to sell and pay for that people want the security of owning their own house because you know our economy is set up to reward that brilliant to hear from you both um it's going to be an exciting day if you're remotely interested People want the security of owning their own house because our economy is set up to reward that. Brilliant to hear from you both. It's going to be an exciting day.

If you're remotely interested in politics, and I suspect most of our listeners are, then you've got to follow what's happening and you will be able to do so, of course, on BBC Radio throughout the next day. Thank you both, Helen and Katie. Good to have you on. Any thoughts on that? And by the way, I meant what I said about housing and renting and mortgages and deposits. Such a big reaction. People are still talking to me about that conversation we had on the program a couple of weeks ago now CMV is a virus you've probably had it actually without even noticing it is mostly harmless that's the important bit of information to get across but it can be dangerous for unborn babies and is said to be responsible for a quarter of all hearing loss in childhood. Now this is eight-year-old Naomi Parker. Here she is explaining the impact on her

after her mother Stevie picked up CMV when she was pregnant. My left ear is fully deaf. My right ear is a little deaf so so yeah. Sometimes people want to be like me because they like my hearing aids and I'm like, trust me, you don't want to be like me. If I have balancing problems, that means so many other things that I can't do. Like, I can't do it, like, I just can't do normal things that other people do. Well, you can hear more from Naomi and her mother on the BBC's Inside Out East programme, which you can, of course, find on the iPlayer.

Dr Tamsin Brown is a paediatrician based in Cambridgeshire, and you have got a special interest in children who are deaf, Tamsin. Why the special interest, first of all? I think that I do specialise in community paediatrics, which is a lot of long-term conditions. And not only does hearing loss itself become interesting, but also it's part of a lot of other complex medical conditions. So I end up finding it very interesting.

Plus, there's just so much that's being done at the moment in children's hearing loss. I mean, it was 15 years ago that we started the newborn hearing screening programme, and that's made a vast difference. So it's an exciting time to be within audiology. Yes. Well, tell me about that. Why, I must admit, I didn't remember that I hadn't had a hearing test

for my children when they were born. Why did it take so long to establish that? That's right. Well, it's all happened within our lifetime, really. They discovered that you could do a little hearing test in babies which didn't require a response because the ear will actually do a tiny echo back and you can pick up that tiny echo.

And as soon as that was discovered, then we were able to test newborns. And before that, children with deafness were picked up at the average age of about two or three years old now we know because we all have had experience of what it's like for children who then have struggle with speech and language development and social communication and other developmental skills and so when as soon as the newborn hearing screen arrived and we were able to catch children early and give them hearing support earlier, it made a huge difference. Well, CMV is a virus.

Now, I said we've all got it, we've all had it. Is that right? How would I have got it? Yes, you're so right. It's one of the kind of common viruses, like a cough or a cold. It can cause you to have a bit of a swollen glands. You feel a bit feverish or even possibly even milder than that. So we tend to get it through. It's transmitted through bodily fluids.

So children tend to be the bearers of all things that are, you know, of lots of coughs and colds and illnesses. They're like little Petri dishes, aren't they? So it tends to be that women who either work with children or have a family themselves who tend to be at risk because when a child has this particular virus, they're probably fine with it other than getting the kind of usual cough and cold symptoms.

But they can excrete the virus for a few months afterwards. So it's just important for mothers who are in contact with young children that they just take a few preventative measures, such as washing their hands when they change a child or clean a child, and then try not to share food and cutlery and drinks like we all have done. Of course, and it's a particular problem if you have an older child, a toddler,

and then you're pregnant, presumably. That's where the issue's going to come. You're so right. Or, of course, if you work in a nursery setting or something like that or with young children. So your screening programme, it's quite new and it's confined at the moment to the east of England. Why is that? I appreciate you work there, but is that likely to stay that way?

So what we're trying to do is, the exciting bit has been that some research has been showing that if we give antiviral treatment or we could offer antiviral treatment to some babies within the first month of life, and when that research started coming out which was quite recently then it became important for us to there was something we could do and of course it's always valuable to pick up things early because you can put in useful management very early on and make helpful decisions about what next investigations or look out for other symptoms or signs but what we did was we've tried to move the test to as early as we possibly can for any child that looks like they have the any any type of hearing loss because hearing loss is the most common symptom of that um of babies that become infected uh with cmv. So if we can pick up that,

then we're hoping that we can pick up as many as possible. You're absolutely right that there's that whole possibility that there's a school of thought where people are saying, well, maybe we should be screening more babies. Maybe it should be more widely available. And I think that there's going to be some exciting research that comes out between the UK and America about giving us a little bit more information about that. And we hope that maybe our data will be able to contribute as well. Is there any way when your child is newborn that you could have missed the hearing test or is it carried out without you or the child being aware, actually?

Well, we're all pretty exhausted after we've had a baby, aren't we? So you might, it might be difficult to remember. But it is one of the things that will be done. You don't have to ask for it. It's simply carried out. That's right. If you happen to have a home birth or if you were discharged very quickly from hospital, then you will be contacted to have that newborn screening to go to a clinic, a local clinic to have that done. So yes, everybody should be

offered that. Yeah. And it does, I suppose to many people listening, it will just seem odd, bearing in mind how isolating deafness can be, that there isn't a national screening programme. I know you say there might be research, things could be changing but but surely we shouldn't have to have this conversation at all um you make a very good point um and i think that um it's because this actually cmv is more common than down syndrome but you know virtually no one has heard of cmv um whereas people are more familiar with with conditions such as down syndrome so um i think that we're starting from it's difficult, of course, if people don't know about it, then it's difficult to fund the right research. It's not only is national screening being something that's being raised at the moment as an important issue, but also that we need funding to work more on producing possibly a CMV vaccine so that we could prevent because it's a cause of children with disability and it can cause not just hearing loss but other

things but it's a spectrum so some children are very mildly affected some children are more more severely affected but hearing loss tends to be the thing that's the most common to to all of them so um you're right that it's it's something that people are addressing at the moment and for any uh pregnant listeners uh obviously we are here to reassure not to petrify what should they be aware of yeah i can't i can reassure pregnant mums that um that actually even if you get the virus, it doesn't mean that you're going to pass it onto your baby. So in about a third of cases,

the virus passes to the unborn baby. And so that means two thirds don't. And even if the virus does pass the baby, then there's a spectrum. So your child could be not affected or could be affected um and we hope now that we're um raising awareness so that um midwives and um doctors can pick it up early and treat early um if if treatment is the right option for them um and then and and manage and manage usefully in that we'll be able to have a look for any more subtle features

and investigate further if we're able to pick it up early. And we know what a big difference we can make to children if we pick up a hearing loss while they're young. Of course, and as you're here, and you obviously are an expert, if you feel your child might have hearing loss, what should you look out for? It doesn't matter what age they are, but what do we need to be aware of perhaps long before they might be expected to verbally communicate? Yes, and that's a really good point because although children are picked up on the newborn hearing screen, some still aren't in that it might be that their hearing loss deteriorates

a little bit and they were fine when they were first born. So if anyone does have any concerns, then things to look out for are the more obvious bits where people they're asking you to repeat. But I suppose when your children are very young, it's about their speech and language progress. And a lot of the time, speech and language therapists will refer children for a hearing test if they're concerned that any speech and language delay might be caused by hearing loss. But if a baby is, I don't know, nine months old and they don't appear to pay particular attention to sudden noises, for example, what about that? Yes, exactly. That would be a very good point.

And nine-month-old babies are babbling a lot. And if they're very quiet or they haven't got that kind of a babble of lots of different you know tuneful babble with lots of different sounds um then um and parents are very good often at looking out for um their response to to their name or uh someone walking into the room Yes, and you're right, very easy to go to your health visitor or GP and can be referred very easily for a hearing test. And a listener has emailed the programme to ask whether or not you can transmit CMV through breast milk.

Yeah, you're right. It is possible to transmit CMV through breast milk. And that, of course, thenv seems to affect unborn children so it's something to do with them um being growing in the womb and getting this virus so the rest of us whenever we've had um we we've by by the time we're all 80 years old about 80 percent of us have had this virus so um in fact if a child gets it afterwards it might make it very confusing if they then get a hearing loss and you're trying to work out if they had it before or not but um yes it's less of a worry okay great yeah thank you um obviously people are listening

and questions are cropping up as you go along so i appreciate that very much thank you very much tamzin and if you want to um see that program it's available on the iPlayer. And it is the BBC Inside Out East programme featuring the voice of Naomi Parco. Sounds absolutely lovely, doesn't she? The eight-year-old girl. Now, tomorrow on the programme, the impact of high-profile equal pay cases like that of the BBC's former China editor, Carrie Graceie. And on Friday, women tend to be regarded as the big spenders, the consumers or people who just get landed with the responsibility of spending the household budget. If that is you, do you feel or are you indeed under additional pressure to curtail your spending, to watch what you buy in order to help the environment? That's on Friday's edition of Woman's Hour. Now, another in our series about young people at risk of getting into trouble and the adults who are trying to step in to help them in a variety of ways.

We're going to go now to rural Worcestershire, where Steph works with girls who've been excluded from mainstream education. They've been offered a Changing Lives Through Horses course run by the british horse society joe morris is our reporter she met steph and riding teachers dan and karen with britney emma and libby this is ginny hole it's um 30 acre nature reserve we try and keep it really peaceful down here it's just a really really pretty pretty place. Beautiful lake, trees. These are my girls. Yeah. How were you feeling on your first day when you arrived, Emma?

Scared, nervous. What are you scared about? The horses. I kind of fell off the horse and it trampled on me or kind of kicked me or bit me. Have you been bitten by a horse? No, I have. Have you been bitten by a horse? No, I have. Have you? Yeah.

Twice. Twice. White trainers. Brilliant. You didn't bring your well again, did you? Have you seen the status of the floor? Nervous, because obviously it's new surroundings and new things. What were you nervous about?

Meeting new people. I didn't know if I would have clicked with them or... I don't know. Before you came here had you ever ridden a horse? No. No? No. My family has horses. I've never ridden one or anything but... So you're from a

traveller background? Yeah. So they've got horses? Yeah. I just like horses. I think they're nice animals. That's it. Keep it moving. Good girl. Well done. And walk. Sit up. Where are you going with them shoulders?

I stood up, mate. I stood up. No, you didn't. No, I weren't. I didn't. So what have Steph and Dan been helping you with? Well, Dan has been a rodent instructor and he's helped us. He's taught us how to canter, how to trot. Karen's taught us, like, how to brush, how to wash a tail, how to plait the mane.

Are you surprised by what you've learnt? Yeah. From, like, when we first started, we didn't know anything till now. We know a lot. We've just all been in it together, haven't we? All of the girls that come to me have been excluded from mainstream education. For what sort of reasons? Mostly behaviour.

Yeah, I'm in fact 100% behaviour, really. They've either had a run-in with the teachers or misbehaved or fighting, swearing. And how much do you ask about what's happened to them at school i think that's got to be when they trust you i don't think you can start quizzing them too much you've got to weigh up what sort of girl you're you're dealing with it comes out in snippets by the end of a year of working with them we've probably known most of it so why do we push them away from us live you remember what can't they do if you push them away from

you when you turn them tread on your toes well done you look really confident out there like you like you own it you just get on now without thinking don't you i guess before it wasn't she was you've not missed a week here really have you and you absolutely smashed your changing lives program and now you've gone on to an mvq level one so you're going to get another qualification how's it different coming here to being in mainstream school a lot more relaxing. And I think you learn more here. How did you used to feel when you were in mainstream school? I used to hate it. I never wanted to go.

I wish I wouldn't have got kicked out. I wish I could have dealt with it, like, differently. But, in a way, I'm glad that I did get kicked out because I have done so much better. And they don't give up either. No, they have a lot of time for us as well. We weren't golden when we first come here. No.

And I can admit that. I thought I was the best and stuff. But they laid down rules, but not in a disrespective way. They just said, like, this is the boundaries and this is what you can and can't do. And then from there, I just calmed down and they're just amazing. So you weren't golden? No.

I was mouthy. Do you find it hard to keep out of trouble sometimes no I've got to know any yes yes because I don't know little things get me angry still now I wouldn't just go out there and flip out for nothing but I've got a bit of an anger issue. What makes you angry? Anything. Like, if I can't do something, or if I think someone's looking and sniggling about me, that gets me angry. But it's life, innit?

And what on that leads to...? I don't know, just stuff. How easy do you find it to trust people? I don't trust a lot of people. I hardly trust anyone. Because the world's cruel, isn't it? Like, you can't trust no-one. Even family do you wrong nowadays.

Yeah. So... And why aren't you both in mainstream school? Because I got kicked out. What happened? Do you mind me asking? Well, this girl, because I'm from a... ..from a traveller background, this girl kept calling me a dirty gypo.

And obviously it offended me and it upset me, so I retaliated back and... What did you do? Smacked the girl. And then I was the one that got kicked out for it. How old were you when that happened? I think I was about 12. All of them have said, the first time we came we were

nervous because horses are big impressive there's all sorts of things to fear their vulnerability is immediate and we have to work with that because that's the time that we are kind of leading them if you will break when you're ready trot on for me. That's it. And sometimes that's quite a nice way to learn because particularly if you've always thought that you've had to fight for everything these girls actually just slowing down

and just going at the horse's pace and realising we're here to help right lib we're going to start over our poles now so we're going to start doing some turns twist turn twist turn yeah twist turn go on my love right we're going to go to the red and white first you can't dictate because that's what they're used to in school there's a big horse its face is at the door you've got to go in and put a head collar on it the first few weeks that's the fear of god into them so a lot of their learning will be us going try it that way and give them a little bit of a chance to have a go at a couple of different ways

and that's a great way of learning have you you got a favourite horse here? Molly Jane. Molly Jane. Oh, I just love her. She's just a calming horse. I learnt how to canter on her and trot. I didn't think I could do it, but I could. I had no confidence. Yeah.

Same as me. Right, when you go over a pole, though, Lib, Lib, you've missed a pole already. I am, so I can go over this way. Okay. They were quite tough when they first came, weren't they? Yeah, they were hard. They gave us some hard times. We had days where it was like, that's it, I want a new job.

They just didn't want to... I'm defeated. You don't feel like you're getting through to them? They don't want anything to do with you. The way we treat them is the way they treat us in them, almost. So if they're just going to lounge, I want to lounge next to them. And we'll just have the way they treat us in them almost like so if they're just going to lounge i want to lounge next to them and we'll just have a bit of banter with them and then they respect you so much more yeah we're not strict with them it's not right do that

now do that now i think they're still in the early stages but i get where they come from so when i was at school i was quite naughty at school um and i came here on a day release before i started working here full-time so i sort of get where come from. What do you mean you were naughty at school? So I'd walk out of class, things like that. Still naughty now? Yeah well, sometimes. Come on old pony! Live concentration, come on. I wish I was stuck there having me a fag now.

You will have a fag when you finish. And you'll make me a cup of tea won't you? Joke! It's up to me eh? Oh I'll fix it for you in a bit. when they arrive and they go i'm not putting my right now on i'm not in and i don't want to even be here i can't break the rules they have got to put the riding hat on i can't magic the mud away their white trainers will get dirty and so the process begins Do you feel like adults listen to you? Some adults.

How has Steph treated you compared to other adults? Yeah, Steph talks to us like she's known us for years. She talks to everybody the same, her customers, her staff, she just treats everyone the same. It amuses me because you don't get that from most adults. Steph does and Karen and Dan. They can do what they're told and they can follow instructions and they can be pleasant. When you first came I used to keep you well away from the customers didn't I? Yeah. Why? Did you know that she was doing that? No not really but thanks Steph. I was a bit posh and i'm not posh yeah the customers are posh yeah and they're a bit old

but at the end you had the the chat with them yeah we actually did didn't we use my cup cities as well yeah so they were charming with my customers and when my customers round and a few of my customers ask after you so that to me is a massive massive achievement and once you felt kind of appreciated and safe things blossomed i don't think it's me and my staff i think it's the horses that made the girls think actually we really do want to keep within the boundaries because we want to come back i do like the staff too yeah but it is the horses you heard heard there from Brittany, from Emma and Libby and Steph, who was working at that centre, and our reporter there was Jo Morris.

Jen Brister is here, the comedian. Welcome, Jen. Good to see you. Author of a book called The Other Mother, which is about your journey to parenthood in the company of your partner, Chloe, and you had twin sons. How many years ago now? Well, they're going to be five in a few weeks.

So, yeah, almost five years ago. So you had two rounds of IVF. Two rounds of IVF, but there were three goes of sort of sticking it up there, so to speak. I'm sure that's not the technical term. We're not a medical programme. I think most of our listeners will know what you mean. So it was actually Chloe who had the boys yes she did yeah and that's in a way that is the interesting thing about your book because which is written from the perspective of the other mother so just tell us

about that dynamic first of all how were you treated by the authorities with whom you necessarily come into contact at these times well we went uh it was IVF that's how we did it and we went we went to um two different clinics and and both clinics were absolutely fine I think the uh the only time that we experienced any kind of I suppose homophobia was when Chloe went to her GP and asked to have a fertility test and they were like well are you trying to have a baby and she was like well no not trying to have a baby and she was like well no not yet but we will be and she was like and your husband or your partner is he fertile or whatever and Chloe said oh no my partner's a woman and her GP just said just

laughed in her face and went oh I don't think you can I don't think that's something you can do and we were like god have you not heard of IVF of course you know there are this was only like I don't know like six years ago that the idea that a lesbian couple couldn't get pregnant and the fact that she laughed in her face I think was a pretty pretty horrific was that the worst thing that happened in terms of the way you were treated yeah yeah I mean our treatment was absolutely fine I mean also when you're at an IVF clinic you're spending a huge amount of money so they'd better be nice to you yeah it, it's in their interest. Yeah. You described the births brilliantly. I mean, you're there as the sort of on-site photographer. Oh, God. I'm not

sure how welcome I'd have found your presence, by the way. But anyway. Well, I mean, I was literally under orders to make sure that I got the moment. I got the moment. And to be fair, the midwives were really great. It was the obstetricians that were like, what is this woman doing? Which is fair enough. They're trying to keep it, you know, sort of sterile. And there I am with a camera trying to take a video, actually, of a baby being wrenched out of an open wound.

Yeah, thank you for that. You're welcome. I hope you're enjoying your coffee. Have a lovely hobnob won't you um so um i'm so those of us who've had children um in heterosexual relationships there will have been moments for everybody yeah it does it's relatively common um and you have that um no i'm more tired than you are conversation uh and i might have imagined that the dynamic would be different when there were two women. So?

Yeah. Look, the dynamic in terms of the childcare, I'm going to be honest, is pretty much 50-50. But the dynamic in, you know, dealing with children that didn't sleep for three years is the same. And that is that you will get into a competition about who has had the most or the least amount of sleep. And as everyone does, you know, and there's no winners in it because neither of you are sleeping. But, yeah, those sort of conversations are the same whether you're in a heterosexual or a homosexual relationship. It's just, you know, the actual childcare, I think, in terms of the way we manage our children, I would say is, and I'm going to say this, better. But what is it like to see your female partner, not just going through the birth, but then doing the feeding and being thought of, I imagine, as the uber parent?

But you tell me. Well, she was definitely the uber parent. She was double breastfeeding our sons she had to undergo surgery to have children you know she still has a scar she bore them for nine months I mean there's no way I can sort of compete with that and all what I want to and certainly you know there were definitely moments where I thought god what is the point of me I mean you know I'm just sort of hanging around but I was very of use practically and I think that was really important to my partner that I was able to get up when she couldn't in the night change their nappies lift them up and take them to her so that she could breastfeed them so it was really important

that we worked together and it was quite symbiotically and it was definitely tough because I didn't have the hormones that she was having. She did look fantastic and I looked haggard. Yeah, you do say repeatedly how wonderful she looked. She looked fantastic. In the afterglow of the maternal success story. I mean, that did wear off. I hope she's listening. So the boys now, how do they treat you any differently how

does that work well I think that for the for our children whatever our dynamic is is perfectly normal to them I mean I I um I don't think they fully understand how they were born I know that one of my sons recently said to Chloe that um uh she showed him a picture of her pregnant. And she said, and who's inside mummy's tummy? And he said, oh, and he mentioned his brother. And Chloe was like, and you, you know, and he was like, no, no, I was in mama's tummy. So they haven't fully kind of, they don't fully understand, you know, how they were conceived and how they were born. You are unsparing in this book, Jen.

I particularly like your observations about how, well, we all know how terrible soft play areas are. I mean, by the way, for anyone listening who works in a soft play area, what is that like? What a hellhole. There's never any windows. They're hellish places. You do say that they are the place you go...

When you've run out of options. All other options have been, and you know the forecast i first got into the weather forecast when i had small kids because i never cared before what did it matter i'm still obsessed by the weather i know because well the weather just dictates what you can do with your children and if it's like the summer is so much easier to do stuff with your kids but in the winter you're like i just don't know what to do with a with a lollipop and some glitter so what we're gonna have to go out. What's funny is that your kids did not like sand. Now, beach holidays are meant to be terrific fun for all the family,

but actually is a lie because kids often don't like sand at all. Well, kids don't actually like holidays. What kids like is being at home. And then you take them, you whisk them off away. You spend loads of money to whisk them away to a holiday that they detest in a place that they don't like without all of the usual gear that you've got to make it easy for you. Yet we went on holidays to Portugal and it was a sandy beach and my son wouldn't get off the towel. So he was just sort of, yeah, just stuck on a towel for like two hours.

Holidays are overrated and maybe you should just park them. I agree. Just forget holidays for a couple of years. I think so. Don't bother. Don't go on a long haul flight. Why does anybody ever do that? I don't understand why anyone would go abroad unless you absolutely have to, to go and see family.

Just stay at home and just like make your life easier. Now, the smaller of your two sons really had a struggle with and i think this is important actually had a struggle with a particular allergy am i right he was allergic to milk protein right um so because chloe was consuming dairy that was being passed through her breast milk and we had no idea and so what it was doing is it was causing him acute pain and actually had she continued or had we continued to give him dairy it could have caused sort of bleeding in his intestines or so he was in a lot of discomfort and so he was feeding but every time he fed he would he was really distressed and so he wasn't putting on weight in as quickly as or as much or as much as we'd hoped and we kept going back to the doctor and they'd say it was

colic or heartburn and we knew something was wrong and it wasn't any of those things. And it was actually Chloe that figured out what it was and sort of made a demand to our GP. But I think sometimes you have to sort of take a stand because they do. There is a tendency when you go to a GP, particularly when you've got small babies, that there's a lot of eye rolling. And oh, here we go. Some helicopter parent, because they must get it a lot. But I think if you have an instinct, you should stand your ground. You do actually consult, I don't know whether, forgive me, whether it was your parents or Chloe's parents,

but either way, apparently they don't remember any issues with their children. And I remember encountering this myself. No, we had no problems with you. And you think, what? I mean, we were talking to Chloe's grandmother and she was like, oh, yeah, all of my children were potty trained before they were a year old. And we were like, how? On God's green earth. Well, I think actually they did do that.

But how? No, well, it's an old fashioned miracle. But there was a way of dangling a child over a potty. I remember various elderly women telling me exactly the same thing, partly because they didn't have the nappies, so it was in their interest, they didn't have the disposables. Get them out, get them trained ASAP. I think we would have been a lot harder with the old potty training

had we had to wash our nappies. There was absolutely no way we were going to do that. And a word on dummies, which certainly the older folk in the family were not keen on dummies, but you went for them in the end. We had to because they wouldn't stop crying. And we weren't sleeping. We were getting 45 minutes of sleep in a row at a time. And then they would wake up and then we'd get another 45 minutes sleep.

And then because the little one was so upset and we didn't realise he had this protein allergy, it was the only way we weren't hearing a child crying for 24 hours a day. So I know we went in with all of the, we're earth mothers, we don't believe in dummies. And then we soon were like, stick one in, stick it in, stick it in now. Yeah. And then the dummy fairy comes eventually

when the child's 17 and everything's sorted out. Yeah, you bribe them. A quick couple of emails. Thank you very much, Jen, on our discussion on Brexit. Andrew found it civilised, thoughtful and courteous, he said. Thank you very much, Jen, on our discussion on Brexit. Andrew found it civilised, thoughtful and courteous, he said. More of this sort of thing, please. Stephen says, whilst English MPs and ministers were mentioned in the discussion, as were Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon, there was no mention of Arlene Foster, arguably the tail that wagged

Theresa May's dog on the backstop. An interesting omission. Stephen, Mayor Culpert, we should have mentioned Arlene Foster. You are quite right. Janet says the referendum was democratic. What part of democracy don't the Ramonas understand? The more they knock the result of the referendum, the more we stand together. I hope they all lose their seats, she says cheerfully.

And somebody else said we've had enough and I really hoped Woman's Hour would be a Brexit free zone. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's getting really irritated. I can do nothing. Most of us can do nothing. Filling all programmes with the subject makes us all depressed and anxious. Thank you for that, Leslie. May your depression and anxiety lift. Although the way things are going, I don't think I'll lift imminently.

Anyway, thank you. And the program is back tomorrow. Jenny's here two minutes past 10. And of course, you can catch up with her on the podcast as well. I'm Simon Mundy, host of Don't Tell Me the Score, the podcast that uses sport to explore life's bigger questions, covering topics like resilience, tribalism and fear with people like this. We keep talking about fear. And to me, I always want to bring it back to are you actually in danger?

That's Alex Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning film Free Solo in which he climbed a 3,000 foot sheer cliff without ropes. So I mean a lot of those you know social anxieties things and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life. I'm like oh no like I could never do that and it certainly feels like you're gonna die but realistically you're not gonna die and that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me The Score, full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.