Sara Pascoe is ‘determined’ to normalise IVF through her comedy-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

Sara will ‘always understand what it’s like to be ‘infertile’ (Picture: Brian J Ritchie/Hotsauce/Shutterstock)

Comedian Sara Pascoe is on a mission to create positivity surrounding the topic of IVF after struggling to conceive.

Instead of seeing IVF as a negative, the 41-year-old wants to reframe it as being ‘a privilege that science can help us this much’.

The comedian and her husband, Australian comic Steen Raskoloulos, tried for a baby in her thirties but it ‘wasn’t happening’.

Although in February 2022 the pair welcomed a baby boy, after suffering a miscarriage previously, Sara says she will ‘always understand what it’s like to be infertile’ now.

She also still sees a therapist who specialises in baby loss.

Speaking to Women’s Health UK, the stand-up star and host of The Great British Sewing Bee said: ‘It was tough, made more so by those around me who seemingly got pregnant easily.’

To Sara, everyone else seemed to get pregnant so easily in their thirties (Picture: Rachel Sherlock)

Looking back, the comedian winces at her attitude towards parenting at the time.

‘When I see my stand-up from that time, my defensiveness about others having kids is cringey,’ she said.

‘I feared honesty would make people feel sorry for me – not ideal for a comedian.’

Sara is now determined to share a positive story of IVF through her comedy, but, of course, with ‘grumpiness and jokes rather than uber-sincerity’.

Sara finds her old material cringey now (Picture: Rachel Sherlock)

The worry of infertility wore Sara down (Picture: Rachel Sherlock)

Having a child is providing Sara with many gags, as she admitted there is a lot of ‘unintended comedy’ in motherhood.

She said: ‘People say it gets better after four years of misery – imagine getting that advice in any other context. The one thing I miss is tiredness you can fix with sleep.

‘These days, my tiredness is stubborn.’

The new issue of Women’s Health, starring England football star Leah Williamson, is out now (Picture: ‘Rosaline Shahnavaz / Women’s Health)

But not knowing whether she’d ever get the chance to experience motherhood bothered Sara in her thirties.

She said: ‘My worry was: my life is really great now, but I don’t want to regret (not being a mum) when I’m 50. It was like making a hypothetical decision based on a sadness I hadn’t felt yet.

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‘The way society ties women’s success to marriage and babies weighed heavily on me; I think women are complicit in reinforcing it.’

The full Sara Pascoe interview can be read in the January/February issue of Women’s Health UK which is on sale now.

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