Made in Chelsea's Lucy Watson shares 'never-ending' fertility struggle after pregnancy announcement
Lucy Watson has opened up about her fertility struggles, after announcing earlier this week that she is pregnant with her “miracle baby”.
The former Made in Chelsea star hosted a Q&A session on Friday through her Instagram Stories to answer questions from fans about her pregnancy.
Watson, 32, shared her and husband James Dunmore’s happy news on Wednesday with a sweet photo of her and James cradling her baby bump while holidaying in Mykonos. In the caption, she wrote: “Our little miracle.”
But her pregnancy journey has not been easy, as she revealed that the couple have “had their struggles” over the last few years and faced “bad news after bad news”.
“There were times when it felt like bad news after bad news, it was never-ending and the light at the end of the tunnel felt faint,” she said of her and Dunmore’s attempts to conceive.
“We have seen so many specialists over the last few years and there were times when I wasn’t sure if this could ever happen for us. We know there are people out there who have it worse and for everyone struggling, I see you and feel your pain.”
One fan asked why she described her pregnancy as a “miracle”, to which Watson answered: “A lot of people asking this. I genuinely believe every baby is a miracle, but yes, we did have our struggles. I think we went into it like most, thinking it would happen easily. It was most definitely not the case for us.”
Asked how far along she is, Watson replied: “I hope everyone understands I won’t be sharing specific dates but I will say we are having a little Pisces baby.” Pisces is the zodiac sign for people born between 19 February and 20 March.
Read more: Most searched-for fertility questions answered by a doctor (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)
Watson also received a thoughtful question from a follower, who asked: “How can I support someone who is struggling to conceive?”
She said: “I love this questions. I can be a very lonely and depressing time. I know for me, it was all-consuming. It can be hard for friends and family to know what to say… I get that…
“Sometimes, too many questions is too much and then not asking at all makes you feel slightly unseen. I think just letting someone know you’re there for them, checking in on how they are feeling.
“I would avoid saying things like, ‘If you just relax, it will happen’, or ‘When you stop thinking about it, it will happen’. These kinds of things are unhelpful. Also avoiding them or the topic, not nice. People need to know you’re a safe place and they will open up about it if that’s what they want to do.”
Aside from Watson, another celebrity has opened up about not realising how long it could take to conceive this year.
Read more: Three-person babies, artificial wombs and other groundbreaking fertility treatments in the works (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)
Former Love Island star Montana Brown said she was surprised at how difficult it was to conceive when she and fiance Mark O’Connor were trying to grow their family. She gave birth to their son Jude in June.
In an interview with Giovanna Fletcher on the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast in July, Brown said: “I thought, ‘We’re young, this is going to be really easy’... for the first four months we’d used ovulation sticks, and then I’d do a pregnancy test and it’d be negative.”
She said she thought there was “something wrong” with either her or O’Connor. Both of them went to a fertility clinic and found that while “everything was fine”, there were several things that could have affected their ability to conceive.
“So Mark loves going in the sauna and also he’s an avid cycler, two things which are not good for sperm, which I did not know,” she said, adding: “I also found our I had no oestrogen and no testosterone. It kind of left me a bit like, ‘Oh, I can be young, fit and healthy, and still really, really struggle to conceive.”
