You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.

Hello, I'm kateline Brook and welcome to No Filter.

This summer, we've curated a special No Filter playlist with some of our most unforgettable conversations, and this one feels especially joyful to revisit.

Tanya Hennessy is one of Australia's funniest and most beloved creators, but behind the laughs, she's had a really long, painful road to motherhood, years of IVF and heartbreak, and always she maintained hope.

When we recorded this conversation, Tanya was finally pregnant after eight years of trying.

She shared the reality of infertility with raw honesty and humor, some of it dark, and she spoke about her dream of spending Christmas with the baby she'd waited for so long to meet.

And now all this is give him me goosebumps.

That dream has come true.

Tanya and her husband Tom have welcomed their little miracle.

So today we're revisiting the full conversation that touched so many hearts, the story of what it takes to keep believing when everything feels impossible.

Here is Tanya Hennessy.

Christmas has always been a really tough time of year because I love it so much, and you know, every it's a marker of time, and it's like, damn it.

You know, we didn't have the baby this year.

Nothing happens like it's passing time and I'm aging and that's.

Not a good thing in the clinics, you know, it's.

And I'm actually due on Christmas Day, which feels like such a gift.

Hello, Welcome to No Filter.

I'm Kate line Brook and today I'm sitting down with Tanya Hennessy.

Is funny, she's relatable, she's endlessly honest.

But behind the laughs, she's faced a very long, very hard road to one of life's most cherished milestones, becoming a mother.

In this conversation, Tanya opens up about the heartbreak, the hope, and the quiet moments that tested her strength.

She talks candidly about her battle withindometriosis, the challenges of infertility, and how she brought her audience along with her every step of the way, sharing the raw, real, often messy journey.

And then, finally, the moment she got the baby news she'd been waiting for, a moment of joy that's deeply personal, yet a reminder that every journey to parenthood is different, and that hope, courage, and perseverance look different for everyone.

Here is Tanya Hennessy.

Tania Hennessy.

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to No Filter.

Oh my god, this is a good podcast for me because I was not born with a filter.

It gets me into trouble sometimes.

No, it's perfect for you.

But let me welcome you by saying this, Hello mama.

Oh girl, don't I'm so emotional, but I can't cry figure that one out?

Oh?

Are you just get me to know?

Though?

Yes, I think the process of IVF and loss has made it really difficult to connect to my I can't try.

It's so weird, it's so bizarre.

Do you think drives me up the wall?

Because you have spoken very openly about the seven years ooh of fertility treatments and loss, as you said, and you've had endo.

You've been really lucky.

My god, how much money can I spend on this unborn child?

I know, almost one hundred and twenty grand, which is like outrageous.

I don't have a house, and I don't have much savings because I've made some fertility choices.

But yeah, like, I really think that if I hadn't have gone through all of this nonsense with fertility, maybe I'd be connected slightly more.

I'm a little bit worried about it, kay, to be honest, because I'm worried that this baby's gonna come out and I'm going to be dissociative with it because it's like, I also have an anterior placenter, so I can't feel them kicking.

What does what does that mean?

I don't.

I don't know much of biology though I've had four children.

Anterior placenta, so anterior outside something oh no, oh.

Okay, yes, where would it normally be.

It's on the front, so oh okay, it kicks, so it's at the run.

So basically every time you can have at the back or the side, but the frunt is where they.

Kick kick, and you can't feel anything.

So it's I'm like, I also just look a bit chubby, which is fine, but I've been this size before, so like, I'm.

Like, are you there?

Are you there?

Yes?

Yeah?

Right, you haven't had that moment yet where you've kind of popped and you go I look to the world like a pregnant lay.

Yes, And even the scans I reckon my brain can't quite understand that that's in me because it looks like a film or something.

You know, everyone has this scan, but I've never had the scan where you said the baby right.

Ever, I've always just had empty, empty scan.

My brain can't compute that that's in me, and I am in therapy.

It's a really it's really working.

It's really working, honest, my therapist.

Just like saw you on the cover of that Body and Soul, I'm like, girl, are you therapising?

You?

Just a fan?

Like that was a great cover, by the way, Yeah, and.

You know it's it was that was so scary.

Kate like, who oh god, oh but I did it.

I did it well.

You know, everything that you've done is sort of scary, including uh, once you decide, if you decide that you want to have a baby, and then you find out that you can't or that the path is going to be littered with so many obstacles, that is really scary.

Looking into the abyss of that is scary, and particularly for women because we're so conscious of the concept of time m and being on borrowed time.

Especially in this industry.

I think you do find that as well.

Like my whole life and I don't know about you, but you know, I used to be wanted to be an actor, particularly back in the day, and it was very much like.

Oh so did I really Yeah, you have to forty.

You have to forty, you have to find forty felt like off deadline.

You couldn't act anymore, you couldn't do anything.

You were invisible at forty and at thirty nine.

Being pregnant feels, you know, it's the weirdest thing.

I'm on the precipice.

My birthday will be three weeks before.

By fortieth birthday, three weeks before I give birth.

It's like, that's bizarre.

So I'm like turning forward and having this turn of life at the same time as giving life.

And my brain is like, but I'm really excited at the same time, but terrified, which I think is kind of normal.

It's interesting because when we were setting up the tech here, I was just watching you and you were so still and composed, and I thought, oh, it's a it's another nuance of Tanya Hennessy.

Oh the stillness.

Yeah, m do you feel how do you feel different?

Okay, there's so many things I want to discuss with you.

Let's go to the moment, the moment where, and in IVF procedures because they're so invasive, there's no secrets, are there.

Nah.

And when my embryo was going in my my doctor was cranky at me because I did a different protocol and he was like, Tanya Lyrish or Scottish, Tana, do you not trust me?

And I was like, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't have much mental space left.

And if this doesn't work, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I work in comedy, bro Like, I got no jokes.

I've got no light left in me.

I've got to try everything.

It's not personal, it's drag like I'm trying to get this done.

Also, I don't know how professional that is, although I do, you know what I mean.

I don't think this is the point when you're having an embryo transfer at which the doctor should make it about them.

Yeah, But being through like the medical system, I don't think people like, yeah, I have a lot to say about it, and how misdiagnosed situations get and how things get forgotten and how much you have to advocate for yourself to be honest, being on the other side of fertility is so nice because I don't have to go into a room and fight for myself like I have had to do.

And it's wearing and exhausting, you know, going in and being like please help me, believe me, and telling your story fifteen times, and you know, people taking money from you and saying they're gonna help you, and you.

Know, like it's vulnerable.

You're like, hey, I just need help, and people like, yeah, sure, if you pay me six hundred dollars and then I'll put you on this thing and it might work and it might not yo.

And then because you've done this for a long time, pretty well since you got together with Tom, or not long after you got together with Tom.

Yeah, so like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, like you're in a studio with Angus O'Laughlin and we used to do radio together and we were trying then, and Angus and I have not done radio together since twenty nineteen, and like he would know, and he's probably listening to this, but he would know.

I used to come in and be like it's not working.

It's not working, you know what I mean.

That's a long hours time, right, Angus has had two.

Babies since then.

By the way, that's what I'm talking about.

It in that term is really interesting too.

And then what did how are you navigating the You know, when you are in a relationship with someone and you decide that you are committed enough to each other that you want to have children, and then it seems that it's a possibility, which I think before you have a child, a lot of women think I'm not going to be able to have a child, and I think men probably think the same thing, only they're right.

They can contribute.

But you know, the women are the pig in the bacon and eggs, like we committed.

The chicken is participating.

That is the funniest That's one of my mothers.

Really stupid.

I love it so much.

The chicken is just participating.

But the pig is committed.

Yeah, the figures in there.

Yeah, so Tom tinks younger than me.

He's only thirty two and I'm thirty nine, right, so he's young.

So we were like, oh, he won't have any problems.

And you know, we were told for a really long time, you're really young and healthy relatively, it should be fine.

So yeah, because that's thirty two, is young to start.

Yes, yes, and he was twenty what seven twenty six twenty he was younger that seven years younger than thirty two whatever that is.

I don't do math.

So we were just told, like constantly, just keep trying, just keep trying, just keep trying.

And then eventually they.

Did a I begged.

I begged for an internal I was like, there's something wrong, like this is insane.

He's like, you're stressed.

And I was at that time, I you know, I was doing a I did a reality show and that really messed with my head.

And I was going like backwards and forwards between jobs in Melbourne and Sydney and overseas.

And what was the reality show?

Oh I'm a still ah right, okay, the the UK one?

Nor did the Australian one.

The Australian one?

Yeah, okay, but that was rough.

I found that show so hard, Like I don't know.

People love it, but like I hated it and still think about it and hate it.

Oh that's interesting.

Why did you hate it?

Because you can't stop the door.

And I'm so painfully annoyingly creative that I hated not being able to create anything.

I just wanted to draw in the dirt or like write something, and I wasn't allowed to It's like just to have a chat with somebody else.

I'm like, but I don't want to talk to I don't want to do that.

I want to create something.

And one of those things about I mean, one of the things about the job that we do is that you can't just see a people.

You have to look for the diamond in the people in people.

Yes, but some people are just rocks and if that yeah, yeah, and so that's a long time to spend with rocks.

Yeah.

And I took my podcasting equipment in there, and like that was kind of fun.

So I got to interview people as a part of you know, that was my luxury item.

By the way, tell you like a work addict who takes podcasting it with.

Me, what's wrong with me?

But I like, at least I was sort of doing something that felt proactive because reality people like Charlotte Crossby, she's amazing, but she's really good at just existing and making content by existing, whereas I'm a little bit more curated, like I want to make something like a book or a show or social video, and it's sort of more orchestrated where She just exists and it's funny and brilliant, and I just didn't have that capacity.

And I would look and there was Maths guys and Love Island guys and they were really good at it.

And I just felt like, oh, I don't know how to just exist.

I'm more curated than existing.

I'm not very interesting.

And unless I'm curated, maybe well, Tracey's.

Got to make it an outing, is what you're saying, is because you have, you know, people that live inside you.

Yes, not just the baby.

You know, it's so weird to think there's like a whole spine in me right now, Like how weird.

But Tracy actually came out of being so sick of myself that I created this car who's a sixty year old hairdresser and Baptist who has not trained since she went to Tafe in the eighties, and I just really wanted to do someone who just wasn't going through fertility challenges.

And she's in development for television, so you know, sometimes darkness brings out rainbows.

And I always thought that I probably wouldn't have children just based on what I'd been through, and I thought this would this is going to be the last round this one.

If it didn't work, I was just gonna I would I would just have to be satisfied with my life.

I was going to find satisfaction.

But Tracy coming out of the darkness has actually been one of the best things for me, because she's amazing.

We're into this woman because also she's even in the you know, our conversation so far that you are beset by doubt as a lot of creative people are, and she has none none.

So confident.

Her like and she she doesn't have fertility struggles.

She's not overly complex, which I love, you know.

I'm like adhd deep as a well, very existential, like I think about thinking all the time, and Tracy's just sort of like, oh, this is what's in front of me.

I'll just deal with it.

Whereas I go, oh, what's the meaning of life?

Terracy's the known nuance When.

You say, so this was going to be your last cracker, he's trying in an assisted way to have a baby.

Yeah, had you allowed yourself to go down the path of if it didn't work, how your life would look?

Oh, yeah, I've been Yeah, and Tom and I both went down that path, and we kind of had gone so far down it, which is probably why it's hard to cry.

But we were like, well, let's go to Mexico and let's do a Kate and live in Italy for a year.

And you know what I mean, We sort of had decided to find other things that would, you know, enrich our life and our experience.

But we knew that there would always be like a certain level of grief, right.

I just wanted to know.

I wanted to know what it was like to be a parent.

I have this thing with and this.

Is the thought of existentialism, is that, like, what is the human experience?

I want to have the whole thing?

You know, I've got a tattoo, and not because I wanted one.

I want to know how it felt.

How does it feel to have a baby, How does it feel to be a parent?

Like I want to have the whole gamut of the human experience.

At what point did you say to Tom, this might not be a possibility if you are to stay with me, You know that that you're so cognizant of the fact that there's another person that may be denied something because of the vagaries of the human body.

He was always like, don't worry about it.

We'll have a great life anyway.

You know.

It was actually him coming the other way because I was like struggling and annoyed and frustrated, and he was like he was over it too, because it is it's and it's draining on a level that and he was just like, you know what, it's not worth it.

Your mental health isn't worth it, your body isn't worth it, and gained a lot of weight, and I was very uncomfortable, very unhealthy, and I was so sad, and he was like, Tanya, don't worry.

If we can't have it, we can't have it.

So like let's grieve and we'll move on.

Let's go to the zoo and have a couple of lines.

You know, Like he's he's very mature for his age, but he also has three sisters, so I think he really understands women.

And what's the formation of your family.

I know you've got your sister.

Yes, I'm the eldest, so which just makes no sense because I'm the most immature personal live and my younger sister has like the older sister, right, you know, she's got that sort of more mature vibe.

You know, she works in the raft like the Royalistory Air Force.

And you know, the other day I made a video about perfume where I wasn't wearing a bra, you know what I mean, like with creative and really logistical brains.

Sort of happened that way.

And then I've got a brother, a little brother, and his wife is due to have a baby, I think tomorrow, so oh, we'll have cousins really close four months, which.

Was part of your fantasy, it was.

And I think we'll only do one slash.

I don't only think I can't have another one.

I don't want to do this again.

I cannot do this again one and are we really stoked?

And hopefully the baby will be good friends and close with their cousins so they can have like, you know, close relationships, because I just I won't.

Do this to myself, which aspect of it.

Or first of all, the first trimester is for no one, Like why are we painting pregnancy like it's you know, I don't know, like people on the beach in overalls being.

Good yes, flat, decorating a nursery with a roller and delightfully artfully splattered with paint.

Yeah, I'm like, I barely moved for twelve weeks and just survived off twisties and second trimester.

I've definitely gotten better, but I've been on zol off the whole time.

But I feel bad about winging about being pregnant because I took me solent to get pregnant.

So I don't want to be seen as being a dick about it, because I am very grateful and very thankful.

But it is not as nice as an experience as I.

Thought it would.

I genuinely thought it would be nice.

A lot of people have a really terrible time when they're pregnant, and yet there are seven billion people in the world, so you do know that the payoff has to be quite spectacular.

Exactly exactly And did you have bad morning sickness?

Yes, yep.

And I was hosting Pete Haller at the Sydney Riders Festival.

Was on session and I didn't want to tell p because I want to stress him out or like make him feel like I wasn't capable of hosting him.

But I threw up before the session, after the session, like the whole before we got there in the car, you know, And this is wild, how amazing women are really is what it does to your brain, not only to survive like the endurance of infertility, but then to go through the experience of successful pregnancy and be like whoa this is Like I feel like my brain is like what is happening?

Because you kind of get to a point with IVF.

You get stuck in the rounds, you get stuck in the yes, you get stuck in the embryo quality, you get stuck in the is it going to sticky?

Is it going to stay?

And then all of a sudden you kicked out of the IVF clinic.

They're like say, yeah, go to an OB.

You go to your OB, and then you sort of on another path very rapidly after years and years of being stuck in sort of neutral and all of a sudden you're in third year and you don't know what to do.

But I'm kind of enjoying not knowing what to do because I'm a bit of a control freak and I.

Kind of love that.

I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen when this kid comes out of me.

How am I going to change?

That's kind of it's scary, but I'm also like ready for the change.

Next Tanua reveals how Christmas became more than a holiday.

It became the promise of a family she'd fought so hard for.

Have you projected yourself into the future space of being a parent with Tom and worked out what sort of parent You're going to be?

Like?

What is your I think there's always like a Hallmark movie moment that is your on your mental vision board or whatever?

Christ is yours Christmas?

Right, So this year would be our eighth Christmas without a baby.

And Christmas has always been a really tough time of year because I love it so much, and you know, every it's a marker of time, and it's like, damn, you know, we didn't have the baby this year.

Nothing happens like it's passing time and I'm aging and that's not a good thing in the clinics, you know, it's.

And I'm actually due on Christmas Day, which feels like.

Such a gift.

I know that is That's a movie.

So then I think about like fun Christmas names, But then I'm like, no, you can't call your kid Noel, or can you?

I don't know, well, Nol was a proper.

Name in Nol is cool, but like Holly is missletoe, too far.

Probably elf ELpH Santa, I don't know, just got a fierce But so Christmas is something like we you know where, like people who went to New York for Christmas because we just love Christmas.

I decorate the four Christmas trees.

One is pink.

I've got a Christmas book.

I love Christmas.

It's my thing.

And I've been buying Christmas presents for this baby for so long, so it's gonna be nice to actually get them out.

I bought them a good Christmas sack, like maybe Stocking twenty sixteen, and I've just hung onto it and put stuff in there for years.

Oh, really like a glory box for a baby.

Yeah.

And what's in there?

Oh, there's like blankets and like random toys and just you know, like a puppy surprise, because it's more just as I like stage pollypocket in there.

I wasn't sure what I was going to have, so I just got a bunch of stuff.

But it's more sometimes when the transfer works and then you have a chemical for that three days, your brain gets tricked into believing you're going to be a parent.

So a lot of it's been purchased during those times or Yeah, but you know, the amount of gifts that we've gotten from family members that bought them eight years ago is like the coolest thing because you're like, these gifts, even though they're kind.

Of allow, people are bringing them out.

Yeah, and people held onto them like Wow, they had so much faith and hope.

Like I think that if there's one thing that, like, you can take almost anything from me anything, but like you'll never be able to take my hope or creativity.

And they're the two things that have helped me survive, hope.

And I don't know how how I managed to go through this because I look back on it now and I feel very sad for myself, Like you, poor bitch, what you've been through, Like, hope is loud.

You must have had a time during the process in which.

You felt that hope was lost?

Or did you never?

Yeah, there's a video of it.

I lost my mind.

Yeah, I actually filmed a documentary on it.

It was called Sticky Filmed Three Rounds of IVF.

Was this the doco that that didn't end up getting shown?

Was that that much?

Yeah?

No one bought it, And.

I understand why no one bought it now, because I mean that was filmed in twenty twenty and it didn't work till twenty twenty five, so that would have been a long investment for a potential zero.

Oh was the idea to follow you?

Yeah, because they wanted to show the reality of IVF and like the funniness, because sometimes that's funny, like you know, once they did you know, they did the thingies up the bomb.

What do they call the repositories for painkiller?

They didn't like a scan for the eggs internally, right, They took blood out of meat and then they go, now, we also need to do a COVID test.

I was like, what orifice will you not go in today?

And the answer is all of them?

You know what I mean?

I said, why can't Tom do the bloody COVID test?

He his anus has not been taken a frigging painkiller?

Like come on, it's like that's always better for the woman to do it.

But yeah, like rough rough Town McGee.

But I understand why I want picked it up.

But the footage was quite cool because Amy Schumer did a documentary about her experience being pregnant.

I think she ha hg.

She had really bad morning sickness and then she was touring comedy, and I was like, wouldn't it be cool to see the process of fertility?

But also I was working.

You know what I mean, Like I was like hosting the actors for the digital section, and I was, you know, making sponsored.

Content at the time.

I was doing a lot of panel shows, and it was like interesting to have these two sort of diametrically opposed things running together.

And I was like, that would make a great doco, but everyone said no to it, and I was like, Jesus fucking.

Christ, that's right.

But also that's the industry.

That was in it response to when you lost hope.

Yeah, I want to find some meaning and maybe if I could turn my pain into purpose it would be somehow worth it.

And I think as a content creator and a radio announcer and a writer, to have all.

This sadness and no lesson or no.

Nothing I could gain out of it just felt so worthless and pointless.

Girl, These these I like through.

I through a vase this day because I was like they said, I was called up and said, no embryos, nothing, and I was like I just gained like twenty kilos nothing is what like this is?

This is wildly unfair?

Because you normally go to the doctor and the doctor goes, you've got a broken leg.

Here's what you do about it.

You go, hey, I got broken fertility and they go, we don't know, but we are going to use you as a human test dummy for the next twelve to fifteen months and we can't promise anything.

And it's like it's not their fault, but you're like it makes you incensed within, like you're furious about like why why can't anyone help me or promise me?

And you're just looking around going, well, someone tell me if this is going to work in the answer is no one can.

So that's why the hope is so necessary to get through.

But yeah, I had rough times where I was like, that's why I have to take like eight months off.

Just to survive.

And what was the infertility was attributed to your INDO?

Yeah, which when were you diagnosed with that?

Like twenty twenty two?

Oh that late years that's why?

Oh yes, oh what girl?

It was on the scan.

So when they did the internal that I begged for.

In the internal, they were like, girl, you've got really bad endo.

How do you Your periods must be awful?

And I was like this is just the radiographer or whatever, you know, she's doing the internal scan.

I'm not sure if there were job positions.

Sorry.

And and I was like, I have ENDO and she's like, yeah, it's on your bow, it's everywhere.

I was like, she's like, yeah, this is like stage four.

She's like, I'm not allowed to diagnose though, but you can.

It's very it's bad.

How many stages are there, by the way, five?

Oh okay, yeah, so onne's four, which means on another it's on another part of your body.

So I've got it in my.

Uterus and bow, or you can have it on your lungs, you can have a new kidney, you can have it.

Some people get no brain their heart, like it's crazy because they don't quite know what it is.

Right, So it's just it's this excess tissue.

Yeah yeah, but it's inflammatory as well.

Right.

So Tanya, so twenty twenty two, you have been exploring the obstacles to your fertility for four years?

Yeah?

Four years?

Yeah.

Has no one, no medical professional at any time during that for two years?

Yeah.

So after I did the Jungle, after I did i'm Celab, there was a lot of like, oh, you've got you know, you keep traveling and you're missing cycles, but you're young and you're healthier chicken, you know what I mean.

That's that's where that conversation came from.

The first two years we were doing with our medical assistance, and then the second so I was just doing I saw on TikTok.

To be honest with you, but you've still seen a doctor.

You've seen a doctor and has nobody said at this point this is a good starting place for women who are experiencing fertility issues, is let's have a look at what's going on.

Didn't happen, No, And that's why that's yeah, it makes sense sense.

This was what I'm saying about advocation, Like I wish I had a known that endo was even gonna do this to me, Like I thought my pain was super normal.

Also like I don't know, I'm kind of like the ENDO is annoying, but I can survive it.

What I couldn't survive was not being a parent.

And I'm not real good at taking no as an answer, Like in general, if I want something.

Yes, but the no could have been a maybe or even a yes earlier.

Oh yes, yeah.

I like, why didn't they find it when I was a teenager and I had to take two days off from school most of my you know, ten eleven twelve.

Why didn't when we first go to the GP, they look at that, but it was, oh, you've got to lose weight, you know.

It was every excuse instead of like, let's do an internal, and that's what I begged for.

The internal.

That's when it really all shifted.

None out of surgery and then straight to IVF.

And then I went on a menopause drug, a synthetic menopause drug that which was really messed up.

I took that flick six months and it basically stops your menstrual flow, so it stops your eggs from getting amongst the endometriosis and the inflammation.

But as a result you go it two synthetic menopause.

I'm not looking forward to menopause.

After like six months of it, I was like, wow, Like, you get the hot flushes, you get really emotional, your boobs go up and down, all of the symptoms of menopause, but you're trying to achieve the opposite.

So through all of this, you're being funny, attempting to be you're being funny.

I've actually achieved attempting.

Like it's amazing.

And I say this as someone whose son had leukemia and I did my job, which was also being funny for four years and people would always go, I don't know how you did it.

But now I'm saying to you, yeah, so true.

But I understand because in my.

Cause you see, yeah what you will.

Well, in my case, it was sometimes the only I was doing breakfast radio with Hughsey.

Yeah, that's why it was breaky.

Yeah, it was breaky.

And very often I couldn't make it to the studio.

I'd have to be at the hospital or home with our other three children for various reasons when things were really terrible.

But when I did make it there, it would sometimes be the only time in my day, in my week, in my month that was not about cancer.

Oh and do you find that, did you find that blessed release?

Oh for sure, because yeah, like one thing I loved.

About doing full time radio and I'm not done full time radio on a long time now, but god, I loved it back in the day when it was there's.

Only eight people doing full time radio.

I know, but because you really, like, no matter what was going on in my life, I could always go on air and it would just disappear.

Everything else would disappear.

And you know if it's the antidote to anxiety really because you're so present, because you have to be, you have to be right there in the moment, listening, responding, reacting, live and one hundred per one hundred percent content creation and you know, doing film, television, books, books, book tours, whatever, podcasting.

It became my safe space and fund space because it was like nothing else.

You've also had.

You know, there are parallels in our experience since as far as that goes, but you also had it going on within your body and the flattening that can happen with hormonal surges and treatments and whatever is like nummy, I know.

But Kate, like, I freelance so I can choose whether or not I do and don't work, which not all the time because sometimes you need money to.

Live and rent to this concepts, But like I think when you.

Work in a team, like how you know you were with hughs, it's so hard to not come into work because you do feel like, oh no, you know, I'm like the team and the team and this and you hold it differently to when you're a freelancer doing it solo.

But I mean, yeah, I had to cancel a lot.

I still I don't like to cancel a lot like or at all, because I still have that and I don't know if you have this still.

I'd be interested to know, because I do see a lot of myself in you imposter syndrome, Like I'm so scared to say no to an opportunity because of what if it never comes up again.

So that's why I never want to cancel all a thing.

That's a freelancer thing.

And I think showbies generally as well.

If you're not a NEPO baby and you haven't been born with this clear pathway to you know, the yellow brick road that leads to OZ, then I think you always have a thing that I need to accept this opportunity because this opportunity may not come again, And it's true that certain opportunities only come once.

Oh yeah, I had this amazing opportunity the other day.

I lost my mind over it.

It was an animation.

Can you deal doing it?

An animation?

It's like my freaking dream.

And it was a villain.

It was a cartoon villain, and I was like, oh my God, and I auditioned, I did the whole thing, and I got it.

And I've auditioned a lot and got nothing, Like I'm not even kidding A probably audition for one hundred and twenty things back in the day and got literally nothing.

I am actually incredibly talented at not getting auditions, unbelievably skilled, honestly, I should write about it.

But I got this job, and I was so sick, I was so mourning sick.

But I was like, I'm going to take everything possible and I'm going to pretend.

And once I got behind the microphone, you know, I was, you know, going through it, but I was like, come on, come on, this is like and it was the best day.

It was the best day of my career.

And I got to push it away for like a bit and get there.

But like it's so different.

This pain, like not pain, but like this, you know, the difficulty of pregnancy is nothing compared to the difficulty of infertility.

Like I prefer this.

Then, well because also one is finite and one is infinite.

Oh yeah, real infinite, And that's the hardest part of it.

And when you imagined your life, I know that you said you and Tom, Tom was always like, we're going to have a great life.

What was it that was so important about having a child?

To you?

I feel like a part of me just wouldn't have felt whole.

And I hate saying that because I know some people can't have children, they don't want to have children.

But I'm speaking on my personal.

Life, of course, And can I just say as well, there's a real tendency for us not want to not want to hurt other people with what we have, and I do think you need to set that aside because not everyone can have everything.

It's really hard, it's terrible.

We all have friends who have not held in their arms.

It's a little one that they wanted to hold.

Yeah, isn't that Blue episode?

That blue episode where the ant cast day because she can't have children?

God, that episode is so meaningful to me because I felt like I've not been the best aunt.

When did you see it?

Where were you at when you saw it?

I think I was like around six of IVY and I was like no, no, no, no, no, five five, and I was like, oh god, and I wasn't getting anything as my eggs kept breaking because the quality was so bad.

And so then just yeah, I don't know.

I think I've always wanted to be a parent because I want to know how it feels.

I want to know what life is like to be a parent.

I want to see the world through a child's eyes.

I don't know.

I feel like I just need to see them.

I need to meet them.

What do they like?

What are they?

Do they like cricket?

Do they like them?

For your sake that they don't like cricket?

Girl?

If on a Sunday, I can't, I am anyway, But no, you know, I'm like, I'm just fascinated to know.

After this break, Tanya gets real about the fears that linger even as she counts down to becoming a mom.

What were you like when you were young?

Oh my god, chit.

I was a little shit.

I'm so afraid for myself.

I was so naughty.

I was so like opinionated.

When I was three, I had my own radio show, you know what I mean, Like I was, you know those.

Like little It was like a Fisher and Pike call thing, and you'd press record and play at the same time and record your own voice.

And I had a little microphone attached to it was like white plastic with a Fisher and Pike sort of red and blue.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, you had that yes, And I used to say words that rhymed with duck, you know, just for entertainment for my parents, and they.

Were like, go away, and I was a real little teenage nightmare, very opinionated, very creatively stuck.

Radio saved my life because I I could finally be creative in my own terms.

Really, because being an actor you wait for opportunities.

Radio Yes is just.

Do yes, and there's an immediacy.

There's an media see that really suits you.

Yes and say with social.

Social really opened up the world for me in terms of creating, because it's I'm find creating insatiable, Like I just want to make and create, Like I wrote five books this year.

It's August.

I've been pregnant and done around the five years and had an endo surgery.

I just am very addicted to stories.

I love to tell stories, write stories, connect with people, and I just I want this baby to grow up in the I don't know magical way that I did.

You know, I had such a great childhood and my pop was so present, you know, I want them to be like a part of my parents' life.

And my brothers and sisters.

And you know, how is Tom's family?

What's his family situation?

So he's the youngest of four and yeah, all girls, and they have all had children, like long, long time, Like the oldest is old.

Ah, so you've got babysitters.

Yeah, but they live in Bloody to Woomba ah, not into warm Yeah.

Yeah, but I'm sure they'll come down.

They're all really pretty.

Tom's sisters, they're all very attractive.

But they all have long, dark hair, and so do I, which makes me slightly confused about Tom's issues with famili.

Right, Like I have long dark hair and all the sisters like, bro, what's this about?

Let's talk.

Well there there's not that many choices.

No, you're right, I mean really, it's it's not that strange.

And Ted Bundy love to a girl with long, straight hair.

So does he call you sis?

Twice?

He has no Sometimes I call him mum though, because he does so much for me.

And he's a chef, right, so his love language is foods, so he's like making food all the time.

I'm like thanks, Mom, Like Jesus, Nope, that's not okay.

Is your plan when the baby comes?

What's your work plan.

Tom's gonna be a stay at home dad, so he we've structured it so he'll not work for twelve months and I'll probably work within three months of uh giving birth.

But I'll do a C section.

Not saying that that's easier.

I think it's actually going to be harder.

I'm not sure what's going to happen there.

I've got to have to see a midwife because I'm like, what happens after it's out?

Like, do you chat to it for a little bit.

It's obviously varied it.

Ah, if you're are you having a C section?

Yeah?

Well I know about that because I've had four of them.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah, so I don't have the option because of my endometriosis.

Yeah yeah, yeah.

So they'll they give the baby to the alleged father, yes, as I call Peter Lewis, and then you they kind of clean you up and stitch you up.

Yeah, very important to stitch you up.

Yeah, and then sometimes it's quite sort of quick, maybe an hour, but I had one that was a bit wonky and that was maybe two and a half hour until I saw Peter and the baby.

Oh, so they kind of go away with the baby.

Yeah, they yes, because they're not in the operating room or you're getting all that done, and then you see the baby.

I'll turn your hair nessy, I mean you see the baby straight away.

When you have the baby, they put the baby on your cheest so you have that moment, and they dangle the baby over the screen.

Yes, I love a dangle that the dangle is great.

And then Tom will probably be up because I said I didn't want Peter seeing my innerds.

I don't know how you are about that, but I'm like, it's already.

I never wanted him down that, you know, business end, which was once was the party end.

Party end.

And then he'll be there like stroking your head with a little with your hair net on, and then hopefully one of the kind people in the operating theater will be filming it for you, also once again omitting the parts in which you're cut open like a whale.

Yeah, I didn't want to see any of those.

I can't.

And then they hand you the baby, and then the baby is on your chest and then you're like, oh, my goodness, this is who you were all the time.

How did I not know it was you?

You make perfect sense, don't Okay, that's that's going to be you.

Yeah.

It's so bizarre because you go you see them as it as an embryo on a screen, you know, and they're oh gosh, they're like a pin prick right like it's nothing, you can't see it, and then all of a sudden it's it's got a heartbeat, but it's just a jelly bean and then it looks like a lizard for a couple of months, and then it sort of looks like a person.

What size are you at now?

It's the size of there was a Cantalob night, a Cabrey Easter bunny.

I've gone with the chocolate because where you can pick things.

Like I do fruit, I was like, nah, I'll do I'll do the chocolate Cadbury Easter.

Yeah, but what the big bundy are the bunny like, you know, like the elegant rabbit.

No, not the elegant one, the bogan money just like not the elegant one that's red, sure, sort of the one down from that, like the middle side.

Okay, and you know what you're having?

I do?

I do?

Yeah?

And are you keeping that under wraps?

Yeah?

And I think a lot of it has to do with fear.

I'm like, what if I say it out loud and then they don't come?

I don't know.

Yeah, it's like that strange thing about not not buying baby clothes.

I've not bought anything myself yet, like I have in the past, but not currently.

We do have a pram at home that we were sent, which was like the wildest thing.

I was like, who sends a pram?

This is who did send a pram?

A company?

A company?

Oh lovely, Yeah, I'll take.

Yeat.

Yes, I was Suzuki.

What can I what can I take?

Yeah?

Like it's it's it's scary still, it's I'm scared most days.

Okay this to you, yes, ma'am.

When you become a parent, you also become the carrier of a parcel of fear.

Oh great, you just do.

Because there are certain.

Things in the world that when it's involving you, you feel that you have some autonomy over all, that you can handle it or whatever.

But when you have a baby, you're putting your little ship out to see in the stormiest of waters whatever.

You don't know what that little bows is going to encounter.

I know, I know, I see with my friends all the time, and like, kids.

Get bullied and whatever.

Can you not go down to the school and bash them?

Like so, well I have I have done a bit of the yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but iye work.

But part of it as well is you have to have the faith that you had that has led you to here.

Yes, and most people in the world are deserving of that faith.

Yes.

And if there's a gift that you can give your unborn child, it is to give them that faith and instill them with that faith in the world.

Yeah, someone told me something really interesting, long story, but I randomly played a drug dealer on Bump the Christmas movie.

Oh yeah right, ahu regnant by the way, aha.

Ah, rolling around playing this drug dealer with tats on my face like it was actually really iconic.

But I said to Claudia carbon I was like, do you have any advice for me because you have kids?

And she goes, everything is temporary, and I was like, that is excellent.

Including the tattoos on your face.

Well on one has lasted.

Did it's some serious exfoliation?

But yes, she said, everything's temporary, so like it will end.

So once you become great at being a toddler mom, goodbye.

They're they're at school, and then you you know it's temporary.

And I was like, so true.

When do you think you'll allow yourself the luxury of leaning into it and believing that.

It's going to happen when they cut it out and dangle.

Oh, I just hope they're okay.

I'm just like, are you okay in there?

Am I eating the right food?

But also I mean people, Oh, meth and her tanyah, tell you can I tell us we're a fertility specialist way back at the day.

And I said, she goes, now, do you smoke?

I said no.

She goes, great, that's really bad for you.

Do you do any recreation of drugs?

Meth?

What do you any of that?

I said no, as a recreation drug meth?

And I said no, and she goes, well, to be honest, meth isn't the worst.

You better to have meth than cigarettes.

Oh.

I was like, imagine, imagine me just casually.

What So it's back to the other thing that I think is it's a massive industry frightening women when they're pregnant.

Oh, yes, about what about everything about what you can eat and what you blah blah and you.

Oh and there's too much information out there.

The word there is, and it's a list that they're like always adding to.

Yeah.

Yeah, but once again, I go seven billion people in the world, and there's a lot of soft cheeses that have been eaten, right.

Yes, I because I've had such a crazy road, I refuse to eat anything bad.

I'm like, I will not eat the soft jeep, I won't eat ruddy eggs.

I won't eat ham in saying that the day this kid comes out of me, I am going to be it hit hard with some botox, retinoal, every kind of alcohol, like.

And a drive through macas meal.

Oh god, I love McDonald's so much.

I never loved it more.

I guarantee no matter where you have the baby, there'll be a McDonald's nearby.

It's the rule of hospitals.

I hope.

So actually that is true.

You know what's been really nice?

Okay, Like where I go to the pharmacy.

I used to go get all my fertility meds, right, and then I went to get all my end demetrios surgery, you know, my painkillers, and then I went to go get my as all off so they know that I'm pregnant before anybody else.

And the women in the pharmacy are just so beautiful and they all got together and they're like, we know, oh my god, you.

Know all the nurses that saw me for my endo surgery and every like both of them, and you know, it's so lovely how how much love I've been shown and how much support I've been shown, And I feel so grateful for people giving a shit about this story, to be honest, Like when I shared it, I thought it was going to be like twenty minutes later I was going to have a baby.

I thought i'd have a five year old by now.

The whole story just kind of I really didn't see it lasting this long.

But you know why, because you have invited people in and it resonates with you know, it's a universal desire.

True.

Without the desire to have children, that's the end of us.

And it's particularly unusual for someone who has a profile to share so openly, yeah, their pain.

And it's also because.

You hold a place of affection in people's hearts because of your comedic work.

Maybe people are just so lovely And I'm constantly shocked at how many people care, like even just like we go for walks and people stop us on walks.

I guess the thing is, sometimes I'm very confused as to how many people know who I am, Kate, because I just like make social media contact by myself.

You do radio by yourself something, you know, it's very like you know, and then all of a sudden people know who you are only like oh, okay, whoops, sorry I forget.

And why are you surprised that people are so loving towards you?

Oh, I just didn't think people would kind of care like for people like thumbs up, move on.

You know, it's so lovely that people hold space for you.

In a world where time is a commodity, caring is like you know what I mean, Caring is hard for when you know we've got no time and space for anyone or anything other than ourselves.

Often, you know, because life is hard and stressful, and so the fact that.

Someone could remember my name and remember that I went through a struggle then can remember that I got.

It to work is kind of amazing in this day and age.

It really is.

But also because life is hard and stressful, that's why you need a baby.

So true, that is just the that is the It's like looking into a fire.

Do you miss your babies?

Like, do you miss your kids as babies?

Ah, I'm not very nostalgic, and I don't know if that is because one of my children really died, So I don't know if it's because of that that I'm not particularly But I was outside of primary school the other day and I went, oh, do I miss that aspects of it?

I do, I think, But also I'm really glad I don't have to do school pickup?

Oh my god, But I don't.

Want to put you off.

School's great schools.

It's not at all like you're going back to school.

Girl.

I'm so bad at mouth and stuff like that.

I don't know what I'm going to do in saying that.

I think I'm going to go really narcissistic foot bok quick because I've written kids book.

There's no way my kid is not going as Pink Santa.

I am going to use my child.

There's a little bit of marketing there, got pink Easter coming out.

Guess what pink Easter.

Well, you know, the child is an extension of you and an extension of Tom, so the child is going to be more toterrating.

Tom's such a lovely man.

God, I hope they more more Tom than me.

Well, how is he, by the way, when you told him?

And when did you tell him?

Was he with you?

Well?

Am I bled on Easter?

And so I was like that was four days or five days after the transfers.

While I was like, it's chemical, it's not worked again.

And then we called the IVF clinic went in for bloods HGG levels rising and they were like, no, it's actually very positive.

Your hCG is almost twins.

It's really high.

So the blood is nothing, don't worry about it.

And so I think people do expect this moment where you tell them, but it's more like like a clock, it's just slowly ticking and say, with my mom and my siblings and stuff like that, there's no moment because they were there.

They were there when I planned.

And so I was like, okay, so it's positive, but we're not sure and no one, No one goes who because it's six seven days.

So it is.

It is definitely different to a traditional pregnancy.

And when I see people do these big announcement videos, I'm like, oh, I'm so kind of jealous in away, but I would never take back my experience because what I have is so great, But it's definitely different to that reveal or like when he comes home with a pregnancy test it's positive, Like I more tested.

So once I found out, I probably went through like seventy pregnancy tests because I would test three or four and if the line got lighter, i'd have a yeah.

Like so I'm just like, please stay, please stay with me, and they come to me sometimes in a like acupuncture and stuff like that.

I don't have to do that much anymore, but I still do it for stress relief, but I'm asking, what is your name?

What is your name?

Did you know your kid's names?

Did they present them to you?

Or?

I think by number three we were having trouble.

Yeah, and because they came quite rapidly, Yeah, it was the same thing, I think.

And because I had my babies quite late, and you know, you hear so much about declining fertility or whatever, we just weren't prepared that when you open the damn wall, what can be waiting behind there.

So by number three we had trouble.

But Lewis Lewis was self evident.

Yes, fierce Sunday Lewis.

We knew because Sunday would have been Lewis's name, if Sunday was.

If Lewis was a girl, then we had Artie Honore Lewis, who's number three, and then Yanni after my dad.

Yeah, yeah, are you doing family names or well?

See, I quite like I was saying this to your fair.

I quite like Hennessy, which is my last name as a fair, which is.

A beautiful name.

Girl?

Is it not?

Nasa?

So like, I feel like I'm so up why I feel like people be like there's a Zilian.

Name, but but you know what, people smile?

True?

Like really, although would it be it wouldn't be Hennessy Hennessy, No, but.

That would be kind of fierce.

Very Lewis Lewis, Yeah, very Lewis Lewis.

I love it so good.

You named her him?

Just like, is that a non binary baby?

It's not.

It's just an easier way for me to communicate it because I want to say the gender is so bad, but I don't want to muck myself up.

No, don't, and I won't make you.

What have you learnt about yourself?

Do you think that's surprised you?

I've always thought I was resilient, and now I know I'm resilient.

I think that I've been in parenting boot camp since I decided that I, well, we decided we want to have kids, which was seven years ago.

So I feel like, if there's one thing I've learned, it's patience, which I've always struggled with as somebody who does content and creation immediate with immediacy, So patience is something I really struggle with, which is why I have not done film or television because it's very long and it's very annoying.

But I've learned patience.

I've also learned more better boundaries.

I'll tell you the second I got pregnant, I feel like my boundaries and people pleasing.

Shifted hard how well.

I was like, I no longer can just like listen to people say things that aren't true and just not along because it's easier.

I was like, no, I got to stand up for myself because I want my kids to stand up for themselves and not just keep over to people and people pleasing and just agreeing to be you.

Know what I mean.

And I think the other thing I learned is that even before you become a parent, you need a community, Like it takes a village to raise a mother.

M It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to raise a mom.

And I feel like I've grown up a lot.

Sometimes I didn't want to grow up, but I did.

I wish it.

I wish I didn't have to go through this experience.

I wish most people didn't have to go through this.

Yes, it's a very lonely agony.

It's also really annoying just having to go to the IVF clinically six days a week.

Yeah.

And you know, the faith that you were talking about before, at the very least you would think that you can have faith in your body and you don't have that.

Yeah, And that's a terrible thing.

And just nothing is promised, you know, nothing is as you grow up.

First time I had sex, Kate, I made my boyfriend at the time wear two condoms because I was like, I will not be a teen mother.

Girls, that didn't matter.

I would not have been a teen mother.

I could have slept around a lot.

But you know, you don't know that.

And you but the narrative we're sold is don't have sex because you'll get pregnant, And so you go, I will have children.

I will have children.

So then it's very shocking to find out that you potentially won't because you think it's going to be your choice.

But guess what I know say it.

I will be having a baby.

Christmas will be a rough money Christmas.

I hope it comes.

I hope it comes so I can have.

Had Oh my god, you're all twisted up like a pretzel, and yet you're as loose as a goose girl.

You are exactly as you should be.

Do you reckon?

Yeah?

Yeah, this is it.

Welcome to not knowing anything.

I mean I've never known anything, so now I feel very very comfortable.

Hey, what will you whisper to the baby when you meet the baby?

I have a song?

What's the song?

Do you know?

Smile by Michael Jackson.

Your heart is breaking, Yes, smile even though it's breaking.

Oh, when there's a tune that there's a time you must keep on trying.

Smile.

Ye.

Beautiful of that song.

Oh that's a beautiful song.

You've made me crying.

You're like you're desiccated, like ain't nothing coming out of here.

I feel bad for you.

I would say, I would say I've waited my whole life to me because I have.

I really have waited my whole life to meet to meet them, and I I'm actually like counting the weeks because people count, you know, like, oh I'm twenty two weeks.

I'm nineteen weeks till I can meet them.

I do the other way because I've already waited so long.

This is my eighth year, and I'm like yeah, because it's I'm like, hurry up, I want to meet you.

I want to take you to Disney.

Wow, Tanya Hennessy, you will be in motherhood as you are in life, maniac, a maniac full of joy.

It might be a bit stressed next time you see me.

I might look older and grayer.

I don't think so.

I think it's having kids keeps you young until it kills you.

Oh great, positive parenting, Yeah wow, I think I don't know about that.

To be honest, I'm a fan of Oh me too.

I'm also going to make my kids watch care Bears, well kid, like, I'm gonna make them watch eighties stuff.

You will be watching the Land before time.

Why wouldn't they, Well, I've got news shows.

Not if you cut off the Wi Fi?

So true, I'm like, oh, so weird.

The Wi Fi is down all you can watch is Moms, tiktoks.

Oh.

I wish you every.

Joy, Thank you so much.

I'm I'm hoping that my my my tears come, if I'm honest with you, because it feels like I'm a bit blocked and it hurts.

It hurts to not be able to cry.

Don't come.

Sometimes I put my eyes up to the hair conditioning just to try and make myself cry.

It doesn't work.

What about when you're watching emotional things?

No, I can't cry in therapy.

You can't cry anywhere.

Really, everyone found out the gender couldn't cry really.

Okay, And I'm very connected to my film, so I don't know what it's a self protection on another level.

Yes, yeah, good, But Liz, I'm telling you that, Liz, I'm telling you that.

It's like I'm aware that it's happening.

I'm not just some stoic asshole.

You are a bit stoic though, Oh you reckon?

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

I love the stoics.

Do you not normally stoic?

It's just respects them.

It's this point, but you look at what you've done for eight years.

You're a stoic.

Do you driven that you are as well in a way.

Yes, I definitely am the Dutch.

You know, you're so grounded.

You're way more grounded than I have ever been.

It's my heavy wooden shoes.

Sorry.

In a strange what's that expression?

Synergy?

You met Breathe, the producer of No Filter, on a Disney cruise earlier this year.

Yeah, and she had taken her niece and nephew.

I think, oh my god, they're so cute.

The nephew.

The reason that we spoke to each other because the nephew was being sousey and like he was like, guess who I saw the lily And I was like, oh my god.

This kid is cool.

Yeah, you know, like a sassy kid.

And I was like, is this boy yours?

And she was like, no, it's my nephew.

And I was like, this kid.

I love their energy.

I love kids like that, you know, who just walk up to a stranger and tell them some random fact.

But at that point, so that was January, You're on a Disney cruise which is.

Full kids kids.

Yeah, and he's five days earlier.

I just had an endo surgery, so I was in a bit of pain and on en don't But the thing is everywhere is full of children, and it's hard because you're like, I wish I could have this, and I want this, And you see all the parents at the pool and like looking up them and they're getting them ice cream and like someone like Disney Cruise, it's like these kids are having the best time.

It's not just a fun time, it's like the ultimate life.

And you go, that's why I want to give my kid this so bad.

So an experience like that makes me well.

It made me like, I'm going to take these bloody intralipids and I'm going to time everything perfect perfectly to make sure that this one stuck as much.

As I could.

That was did you have a sense that, yes that he did?

For sure?

Yes, done everything right.

I took off all this time.

I lost fifty three kilos so and that was an inflammatory thing on top of the end.

Of what a response.

Was that a response to the drugs or yes, that's a lot, that's a person three killers?

Yeah?

Yeah, I look, you lost a person and gained a person.

Oh my god, I did too.

So I timed the endometrious the surgery and I was like, buggert, I will be going on a Disney cruise, and then I timed we embryo banked at the end of last year, so it would be a fresh transfer a frozen transfer, which is a bout for endemetri.

So I did a lot of.

Research and then I did the BONDI or the protocol on top of it.

So it was like I just was like, this will work.

And I changed my mindset.

And I'm not saying that that works for everybody.

Yeah my mind right.

I had to go, how's it going to look when I put them to bed?

How's it going to look when they're you know, when I'm holding them?

How am I going to swaddle them?

How am I going to breast or bottle feed?

And when I really started to imagine it, that's what I think changed for me.

How is it going to look when you put them to bed?

I wanted to have them next to me in that.

Have you seen those those cribs that sort of like lay next and you can put them up and down.

And I just like, oh, I'm.

Going to put them to bed and I'll sing to them.

You know, it's an audience of one and they have to enjoy that.

You will enjoy the High School Musical two soundtracks sung by me, and you know that was really and just watching them go to sleep and their little face, imagining that really crystallized in my mind.

And then I was doing a lot of kinesiology where you ask the baby to come to you.

Ah.

The lady said.

When I did kinesiology this last time, which was two weeks before the transfer, She's like, you don't need any help because you've done it all the work.

And I was like, I know.

And they put the best embryo in there, and I was like, you will last.

And I didn't have any deodorant.

I didn't drink Yeah, literally I did went without deodorant rank but I didn't want to have any scent and I changed to natural deoda and I didn't drink any cold water nothing like I.

Yeah, I'm just looking.

Like she did.

No, I'm just looking at you.

I'm just looking at you.

It makes me really happy when when you finally cry, what's going to happen?

It'll be like, uh, Noah's ark.

I just won't stop crying, Like I think, it's all like open the flood gates and it won't end.

Are you more of a sad crier or a happy crier?

I will cry at anything, and that's why this is so frustrating, and I'm h I hate it.

I hate that I can't really I feel like I can't get any release.

And also it drives people insane because people like want me to cry and I can't.

My friends and stuff, they're like, they cry all that.

My best two best friends every time they see me, they cry, like my two best mates.

They've both have children, and every time they see my belly they cry because they've been through it with me.

My brother cried.

You know, he's thirty two.

He's not a cry And my brother found out like it was.

It was a long process.

But when he thought, you know, when I was up the twelve week mark, he cried at breakfast.

My sister in law cries all the time, and they're like, why can't you cry.

I'm like, I know, it's annoying, you're saving yourself.

Yes, well, you know, my mom my dad.

It was four years since he died yesterday and my mom has not cried.

And she's also puzzled by the fact that she hasn't cried.

And I'm talking about we cried so much at his funeral that the chapel ran out of tissues.

So we were all crying.

The boys got up and spoke, and everyone was just bereft.

And he was old.

He was eighty nine, and they obviously think old people don't you don't love.

Old people, don't get loved as much as you know, you'd expect to cry like a young person's funeral.

But we were just awash with tears.

And my mother nothing dry as a dingo.

Yeah, and still not, and she doesn't know why.

Yes, I thought, maybe there's only so many tears you get in life, and I've already used up on my tears on pregnancy.

Oh, you're an idiot.

You wait, you're going to be crying like a little bitch, I hope.

So I need to rub this with me.

You know it's going to make you cry.

Tom with the baby, even Tom he holds the dog, and I'm like, oh, that's so cute.

Yeah, because he talked.

But seeing Tom with the baby, you're gonna cry like someone left the cake out in the room.

Hey, one more question.

Actually, because you've.

Been on this uncharted track, there have been other people that have been on it with you that you would have gotten to know.

How how do you feel?

How was it telling them that you've finally had success when maybe they haven't.

In my experience, every person I had been through the journey with of infertility with and they'd been doing IVF simultaneously.

To me, I was the last basically the.

Last one really except for one friend, and I told her end.

I didn't dread it because I was like, I've just got to tell you and just be really honest and straightforward.

Yeah.

Literally every other person that was on the journey with me, one has a five year old.

Like I'd only had one friend left, and they started later as well, So that's interesting.

Most people have, yeah, had two or three babies in the time that I've tried to have one, which these time stamps are cooked.

Well, you know, time just passes.

But like you said earlier, if you measure it with a child, you're like, oh, that's what five years like.

Yeah, And I'm like, all I've done in five years is sort of just go to and from Donut King, Merrickfield Metro.

You've done quite a lot, right right, a little bit.

More than beautiful.

Get me out of here.

Otherwise I'll just talk to Kate till the end of time.

Tanya Hennessy is one of those people that, to me feels like she's always been around.

She's made us laugh, she's made us cry, she's reminded us just how messy and beautiful life can be.

And she's shared the hardbats, which are sometimes the most difficult parts to share, her endometriosis, her fertility struggles, the long winding road to the destination of this baby, with an honesty that's unflinching and real and touching.

Today we celebrate her joy, but her story isn't just about a happy ending.

It's about resilience and love and the courage to keep going even when life doesn't make it easy, and as always, a little laughter along the way helps more than just about anything else.

Be sure to subscribe to No Filter to hear more extraordinary stories from the people who have lived them.

The executive producer of No Filter is Nama Brown, The senior producer is Bree Player.

Audio production is by Jacob Brown, and video editing is by Josh Green.

This episode was recorded with Session in Progress Studios and I am your host, Kate Langbrook, and I thank you so much for listening.

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