IVF a 'painful mistake', says singer Lisa Stansfield

Lisa Stansfield says IVF was a ‘mentally hard’ and a ‘painful’ mistake.

The 52-year-old British singer-songwriter, who first rose to fame with hit single ‘All Around The World’, describes going through the fertility treatment process in her early 40s.

She reveals this in conversation with Kate Thornton, as part of the podcast ‘White Wine Question Time’, produced by Kate Thornton in association with Yahoo UK.

“Because my mum had recently died I thought I’d try to maybe replace the death with a life - but you don't realise you're doing it at the time,” she says.

READ MORE: Half of women aged 18-24 consider freezing eggs

Lisa, who went through three cycles of IVF, reveals she wishes she had “never gone through” the process. Her husband, Ian, was the one who administered the daily injections of follicle stimulating hormones.

“He would do the big injection in my bum,” she says. “I used to bend over and he used to pretend he was doing darts. That was something I went through and wished I’d never gone through it.”

Her regret came after she realised she didn’t want a child – a revelation that led to the decision to stop IVF.

“Some women can go 12 cycles of IVF and not have a problem. They love babies.

“They want to have a baby – it’s all encompassing. I did it just three times and then I was out. I realised that I didn't want a child.”

“It was the most expensive lesson that I've ever made,” she adds.

She also opens up about the toll it took on her relationship with her husband, Ian.

“[We] have a very, very strong relationship but I can imagine a lot of marriages end because of IVF.

“It's just that's all you think about. Everything you eat, everything you do, it’s all encompassing.

READ MORE: Women aged 34 and older are being denied IVF

“The other thing is you’re not allowed to have sex – and you get really quite horny.

“When they’ve implanted the embryos, and your husband’s played darts on your arse, you want to do everything you can to keep it in there.

“They said it’s very dangerous to have an orgasm! You're not allowed to have sex, you're not allowed to fancy your husband.”

How does IVF work?

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a common medical procedure for couples struggling with fertility issues.

It involves an egg being removed from a woman’s ovaries, fertilised with sperm in a laboratory, and then returned to the woman’s womb to develop, according to the NHS website.

Private IVF treatment can be expensive – costing around £5,000 per cycle. In fact, a recent study found a third of couples who struggle with infertility risk their finances to have a baby.

While some couples are eligible for three cycles of IVF on the NHS, others do not qualify under their local healthcare guidelines – creating what has been dubbed “an IVF postcode lottery”

Listen to the full episode of this week’s ‘White Wine Question Time’ with Lisa Stansfield below.