Radio host and tv presenter Amanda Keller has opened up about her own journey with IVF whilst she navigated life in the spotlight.
The 60 year old touched on her personal struggles with conceiving whilst discussing Jennifer Anninston‘s interview with Allure Magazine where Jennifer’s journey with IVF was widely discussed.
In the interview, Jennifer shared an intimate look into her struggles to become a mother.
”I would say in my late 30s, 40s, I’d gone through really hard shit, and if it wasn’t for going through that, I would’ve never become who I was meant to be”.
Adding to the personal pain of what she went through was the ”narrative that I was just selfish,” she said.
”I just cared about my career. And God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child. And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn’t give him a kid. It was absolute lies.”
Amanda got candid live on air on the Jonesy and Amanda show.
(IMAGE: WSFM)Keller said Jennifer’s story was parallel to her own experience.
”I know what it is like to do IVF and not want anyone to know. I was on IVF for years, I would have a general anesthetic in the afternoon, come back to work the next day and nobody would know.”
”I remember when I announced on air and finally got to say those magic words, I’m having a baby and received an email from a listener who said, I was wondering when you would be brave enough to take the leap, and I thought, you have no idea what I’ve gone through to take this leap.”
On average, only 40 percent of IVF rounds are successful.
When reflecting on Jennifer’s now public journey, Amanda called the former Friends star ”brave”.
”To go through that with all the judgment must’ve been so hard and now she’s speaking out about it because she says I’ve got nothing to lose. I hope what we can take from this is to be kind to people, you never know.”
Jennifer Anniston famously had a baby on Friends, but has struggled to concieve in real life.
(IMAGE: Getty)The on air discussion is not the first time Amanda has publicly discussed her fertility struggles, sharing the challenges on the road to motherhood in her memoir, Natural Born Keller back in 2015.
The TV Week Gold Logie nominee mentioned that she naturally assumed that she’d become a mother one day, but the process wasn’t easy or straightforward as she’d expected.
She underwent fertility treatments for years, and dealt with much heartbreak before she could get pregnant.
”But one hung in there and finally, after so many sad visits to the ultrasound unit, our lives changed tack in the best possible way” she wrote.
”We detected a heartbeat. A tiny flashing speck amidst a sea of what looked like submarine signals. Evidence, finally, that there was something there.”’
Amanda now has two sons Liam, 20, and Jack, 19.
(IMAGE: Instagram)Amanda said that whilst she was blessed with her two now adult sons Liam, 20 and Jack, 19, her previous fertility struggles were far from the back of her mind.
”I’m not far from those days where I thought it would never happen. That is still a big part of me. It’s still raw in there somewhere.”
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