Trinny Woodall went through “16 rounds of IVF” and suffered multiple miscarriages before welcoming her daughter.
The 61-year-old TV presenter became a mother for the first time in 2003 when she gave birth to Lyla with her late ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff, who died in 2014, and she’s now opened up about the agony of trying to start a family later in life.
During an appearance on Fabulous magazine’s No Parental Guidance podcast, she explained: “I did have 16 rounds of IVF – expensive.
“I didn’t have those yearnings to be a mum until my fifties. Maybe that was because my relationship with my mum was quite distant.
“I didn’t have that: ‘God, I can’t wait to be a mum’ feeling. I did start doing IVF because we had never used the Pill and so we weren’t getting pregnant.
“It worked the second time, but I had miscarriages.”
Trinny went on to reveal she kept her pain private despite experiencing miscarriages while filming her TV projects.
She said: “The first time, you feel that trickle and go to the bathroom and you think, ‘OK’ – and your heart just sinks. I don’t remember if I did tell anyone. I was quite private, always separating work and what was going on.
“I definitely would have told [co-star] Susannah [Constantine] , but I don’t know if I would have told the production crew. I just carried on because otherwise what else do you do?
“Also, when you do IVF, it could be that you’ve put two eggs in and one egg is coming out. You don’t know [if one has survived]. So there’s that sort of sense that maybe … that tiny bit of hope.
“And then I did a few more rounds of IVF and that didn’t work. Then I got pregnant, and it happened again but at 16 weeks, and so then I had to go and give birth. It’s very difficult.”
Trinny revealed she had almost given up on the idea of getting pregnant when she conceived Lyla and was thrilled to finally become a mother, but she experienced further heartache when she went through IVF again when attempting to give her daughter a sibling.
She explained: “I wanted to have another child and I did another five rounds of IVF, but I didn’t get pregnant.
“By this stage I’m 40 and I had no hormones. When Lyla was seven or eight, and if I had a bloated tummy, she would say: ‘That better not be a baby because it’s only me’.
“We joke about it now. She says: ‘God, if you had had another child, I wouldn’t have let it exist. So you know I’m OK’.”
