Yoga teacher and wellness coach Kerry White was 48-years old when she finally decided to pursue her long-held dream to become a mother.
As a single woman, who had just entered perimenopause, the odds were stacked against her. Even so White, determined to try to become a parent, set about exploring IVF clinics at home and abroad.
“If I didn’t try… I would have lived with regret until the end of my days,” she explains on this week’s episode of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast.
Speaking to podcast presenter Róisín Ingle, White says she always saw herself having a family. “I grew up with the traditional fairy tale image of this is the way my life is going to go”. However, for various reasons, this dream of a “traditional” family, “just didn’t work out”.
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White used the method of double donation to become pregnant where the egg and sperm are both donated. She was successful on the second try at a clinic in St Petersburg in Russia.
In 2020, two months shy of her 50th birthday, her baby girl Freya was born. “I didn’t have a clue what to expect. I thought that I might have some special treatment in Holles Street because I was so old. But I didn’t. You were just treated like everyone else,” she laughs.
In this wide-ranging interview, White talks to Róisín Ingle about going it alone, the reaction from those closest to her and why she didn’t want to live with the regret of having never tried.
She also talks about the process of choosing egg and sperm donors, the options available for solo parents and how her work now focuses on helping other women navigate their path to motherhood.
You can listen back to this episode in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
