Defining Mum - Interview with Becky Kearns

Today Zoe speaks to Becky Kearns, also known as the defining mum! Becky shares her journey into parenthood which resulted in using donor eggs to conceive her three beautiful girls. Zoe learnt so much from listening to Becky and found her story fascinating. Listen in today for an emotional and insightful episode.     KEY TAKEAWAYS   Becky met her husband after being in a long-term relationship, they were introduced by friends and hit it off straight away. They both knew what they wanted from life which meant things moved quite quickly and after a little of two years they started trying for a baby. As Becky came off contraception to conceive she started to realise that her cycles didn’t seem normal. After seeing the GP three times the Drs ran some tests, expecting nothing to be wrong as Becky was only 27. It turned out that Becky’s FSH was a lot higher than normal, after seeing a private specialist for some answers she was told it was likely that she was experiencing premature ovarian failure and that her egg reserve reflected someone who was in their late 40s. Becky started IVF quickly and fell pregnant on the first round. She started having some abdominal pains so went for a scan but devastatingly she found out it was likely that she had miscarried. A week later the sad news was confirmed. After four failures Becky and her husband asked for some hard statistics from the specialists, it was being told that using Becky’s eggs would only give them a 5% chance of having a baby that started to lead them down the path of donor eggs. Becky began to shift her mindset, this is how defining mum was born. Rather than focusing on what she would ‘lose’ in terms of a genetic connection she instead focused on what she would still gain. After another failed cycle with Becky’s eggs, they found a clinic in the Czech Republic and were matched with a donor quite quickly which led onto a successful pregnancy and a second twin pregnancy further down the line, they now have three beautiful daughters. If Becky’s girls want to try and find their donor when they are older, Becky and her husband will support them completely and be honest and help them with all that they can. Becky and her husband recognise there is a lot of complexity around this kind of journey to motherhood and how you talk to the children as a result. All their children are under 4 and already know in a child friendly way that their ‘mummy’s eggs were broken’. As they get older they will give them more information and detail. Now having the girls, Becky sees more and more every day how much she is passing on to them, genetics is such a small part. If she’d known this more before, she feels it would have made her decision much easier, which is why she endeavours to share as much as she can with the world via definingmum.com It’s so important that we talk about people who have gone through infertility and that at the end of the day they are just a normal family. Things are going to be hard sometimes, you aren’t meant to enjoy all of parenting. It’s ok to be tired and frustrated sometimes, we are all human.       BEST MOMENTS   “That was a huge moment in my life, at the time I don’t think I realised how big it was”   “It’s like you’re in limbo”   “It’s being a parent though isn’t it, you make the right decision at the time with what you’ve got…You did the right thing at that time and that’s all you can do”   “We talk about it in a positive way and I don’t want them to feel any shame around it in any way, I want them to be able to talk about it with pride”   “I would be a lot kinder to myself, recognising how big a deal it was. I would also have accessed some more specific counselling”   “It’s an absolutely beautiful story, thank you for sharing it”   “As a mum, you always think you can’t do it but you kinda just do!”       VALUABLE RESOURCES www.definingmum.com   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Happy-Together-Science-Positive-Psychology/dp/0143130595/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=happy+together&qid=1609229452&s=books&sr=1-1   www.petalscharity.org www.tommys.org www.arc-uk.org www.sands.org.uk     ABOUT THE GUEST Becky Kearns IG: @definingmum @paths_to_parenthub     ABOUT THE HOST Zoe Cresswell Devoted mother of two (and a big hairy dog), UK trained midwife, doula and personal trainer, specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Zoe was born in the UK and before moving to Dubai in 2013 and worked as a midwife in central London, both in a birth centre and a very busy NHS hospital. Although late to the scene, Zoe is an aspiring athlete having won numerous triathlons and representing Great Britain where she placed within the top 10 on the world stage. With her husband James, the couple will soon be launching their cloth nappy company, Bop & Bee, where they hope to inspire families to swap a few disposable nappies a day for the more planet friendly option of cloth. Zoe’s goal is to share her knowledge and experience, tell real life stories, manage expectations and open up those often difficult conversations. Zoe’s own motherhood journey has been full of twists and turns as she put everything on hold and went through numerous miscarriages and rounds of IVF.   CONTACT DETAILS Instagram : @zoecresswell_me Facebook: Zoe Cresswell LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-cresswell