I was listening to the Maajid Nawaz show on LBC on Sat 10th Nov, where he had a segment on infertility and miscarriage - following Michelle Obama’s interview where she revealed her own experience of IVF and miscarriage, and her feelings of isolation and shame.
He posed lots of questions to listeners for the phone-in: including whether we agreed with Mrs Obama that women did indeed suffer in silence - as well as the issue of delayed childbearing and egg freezing for women who wanted to prioritise their careers.
I called in while the fantastic Ruth Bender-Atik from the Miscarriage Association was on the line, and the researcher put me directly through to have my say.
Here’s the recording of my call - where you can hear me talking about:
the fact that even when people do talk about their infertility struggles or miscarriages, it’s almost always after they’ve been successful - because society doesn’t want to accept that not all problems are fixable (and as a result there’s a belief that IVF is a sure-fire guarantee)
challenging him about the reasons why women freeze their eggs - as the no 1 reason women freeze their eggs is because they’ve not met the right partner, not because they’re 'selfish career women’
why I’d recommend counselling and finding your tribe if you’re going through similar struggles