ITV news presenter Andrea Byrne has said she felt “so guilty” when she was told by doctors she would not be able to carry her and her husband’s child.
Byrne, 45, and her husband Lee Byrne, 44, struggled with infertility for seven years before she gave birth to their daughter Jemima in 2019, who was conceived naturally against the odds.
But when she was first informed she would likely never be able to carry her own pregnancy, Byrne said she worried that her husband would be “better off” without her.
She told the BBC: “You feel so guilty. I remember those feelings all the time of thinking [Lee] would be better off without me.”
The emotional rollercoaster the couple went through over the years of trying to conceive through IVF and other methods took a toll on their relationship, Byrne said.
“I like to think that we’re really strong because of it, but boy, at the time it’s really difficult,” she admitted. “There are times when we wondered how we would stay together because it’s so difficult emotionally.”
Byrne, who has been a presenter for ITV’s Welsh and network news since 2008, recalled telling Lee he should “go and find somebody else, somebody else could do this more easily, just go and find another woman”.
But Lee “used to get quite cross” with Byrne when she expressed such sentiments and told her: “Goodness, we are in this together.”
Byrne and Lee were married on New Year’s Day in 2012, when they were both in their early 30s. She said they began trying to conceive right away, but went to a fertility clinic for tests after a while with no success.
The results of the tests were devastating for Byrne, as it was discovered there was a problem with the thickness of her womb lining. In her new book Desperate Rants and Magic Pants, the broadcaster described the issue as an “unfixable rare genetic defect”.
They went through years of tests and procedures, as well as multiple rounds of IVF. Eventually, the couple were told their only hope of having a child of their own was through surrogacy.
Despite a huge disappointment when they found out the embryos they hoped to use for a surrogate were not viable, Byrne said that a few months later, she fell pregnant naturally.
“It was unbelievable really,” she said. “We were without hope and they said the chances are you will never be able to carry your own pregnancy.
“So [Jemima] really did defy everybody, all the medical advice we’d been given, she came alone and said, ‘Nope, I’m going to make it through’.”
Infertility can be extremely difficult to cope with. According to Fertility Family, everyone has a different journey, but some of the common feelings people might experience are worry, shame, envy, longing, sadness, anger, and grief.
The organisation adds that fears about infertility can be “debilitating” if they go unaddressed, such as fear of not becoming a parent, fear of the unknown, fear of medical procedures, or fear of losing your partner.
Byrne’s advice for other couples going through the challenges of infertility is to be kinder to themselves.
“I think it’s very easy when you get some bad news about a cycle, or you’re having a bad time dealing with it, that you catastrophise and think 10 steps ahead,” she told the BBC.
“Nobody knows what’s going to happen 10 steps down the road, so just try and deal with what’s happening in that moment. I wish I’d done that more.”
She added that she wished she had been kinder to herself at the time too. “Take that time to find little bits of joy where you can and take time out if you need to from it.
“Because it can be all-consuming, friendships-wise, family-wise, it affects everything. So you really need to be kind to yourself.”
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