Thread by @greg_jenner

Hi! OK, BIG PERSONAL NEWS...

You may have noticed I’ve had a lot of down days on here. In 2014, I married my wonderful wife, after a decade together, and we began trying to get pregnant. It didn’t go as we’d hoped. First, 2 years of nothing. Then in 2016, 2 miscarriages...

Then in early 2017, an ectopic miscarriage. I can’t tell you how devastating it was to feel hope then despair on a loop.

The next step was IVF. NHS criteria at the time, in Surrey, required we wait 3 years, all the while our natural fertility decreased. It’s a catch 22.

We had a very kind doctor who got us in as soon as was allowed. We were funded for two rounds of IVF on the NHS. But both rounds failed. It was doubly heartbreaking because IVF is utterly brutal and watching my wife suffer for no end result was truly horrible.

We started to look into adoption, and decided it would be our next step if more IVF failed, but chose to gamble our life savings on private IVF. We set a budget - we would stop when it ran out. Biggest decision of our lives.

Just FYI, this coincided with the lowest-earning year in my 15-year career. I was trying to write a book full time, but it’s so hard to be creative & funny when you’re really sad & stressed about money. It was a battle for both of us to carry on working when we felt so hopeless.

We did 4 private rounds of IVF in 2018. The doctors kept tinkering with the medicine. Eventually, the last one worked. We were pregnant! But immediately we began fearing another loss; 4 years of grief conditions you to constantly expect bad news. Every growth scan was terrifying

But we didn’t get bad news. This was a viable pregnancy. But there was still a sting in the tail. My long-suffering wife got landed with nature’s least-funny joke: hyperemesis (pregnancy sickness from hell)

She endured nearly 20 weeks of vomiting 8-12 times per day. She lost so much weight, and was hospitalised twice for dangerous dehydration. It was not fun. She was still working full-time. She felt like death warmed up. But the pregnancy stuck.

Buoyed by fresh hope, and suddenly aware I had a baby-shaped deadline, I found renewed energy, and stayed up to 4am for 6 weeks in a row to finish my book 10 days before the baby’s due date. It had taken 4 years to research & write, and I feared I’d never finish it

And on Thursday night, thanks to my wife’s incredible courage — and the kind support of friends, family & medical staff — and, after 15 years together, and 5 years of pain, we finally held our baby. She’s called Esmé, she has a ridiculous amount of hair, and she’s amazing 🥰

I’m sharing this story because infertility is an agony often felt in private. People rarely knew how to talk to us. It sometimes made me angry there wasn’t more awareness. But I get why that is because I kept it hidden. I was scared. And I still don’t want to talk about it now

So, forgive me if I don’t respond to your tweets. I’m not strong enough; I don’t want to relive it all, and I don’t want to be some IVF spokesperson, or a news story, and I’m not qualified to give infertility advice. I’m sharing this because i feel I should, not because I want to

But I do want to say I’m grateful to so many of you for the twitter conversations that were a welcome distraction. You often helped without realising it. Thank you. Twitter is a kind place, as well as a hellhole full of Nazis. But I’m now off to hug my wife & baby. Goodnight x

Oh my god, I wasn’t prepared for your replies. I’m bawling my eyes out in the lounge. Thank you, Twitter. Thank you from the bottom of my heart xx

I’ve woken up this morning to an astonishing torrent of kindness and love. I can’t believe our beautiful daughter is trending on Twitter! I’m so sorry I can’t reply to your messages; I’ve read every single one and they mean the world to my wife and me. Thank you so much xx 🥰