Tanya Hennessy’s Hard-Won Pregnancy Announcement

You're listening to a Mother and Mia podcast. Mama Miya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded.

On 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 a 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 lane Brook and today I'm sitting down with Tanya Hennessy. Tanya 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, coming a mother. In this conversation, Tanya opens up about the heartbreak, the hope, and the quiet moments that tested her strength.

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's 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 oh 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 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

What does that? 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 okay, kicks, so it's at the front. So basically every time you can have at the back or the side, but the front is where they kick 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 lake.

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 scans. My brain can't compute that that's in me. And I am in therapy.

It's a really is it's really working.

It's really working, my therapist.

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

You're just a fan. That was a great cover, by the way.

Yeah, And you know it's it was that that was so scary. Kate like, who oh god, 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.

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 this off deadline.

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

You were invisible at forty and at thirty nine, pregnant feels you know, it's the weirdest thing.

I'm on the pres.

My birthday will be three weeks before my fortieth birthday, three weeks before I give birth.

It's like, that's bizarre.

So I'm like turning forward in 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. First, 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 my my doctor was cranky at me because I did a different protocol and he was like, Tanya Irish or Scottish, Tanya, 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 help you, and you know, like it's vulnerable.

You're like, hey, I just need help, and people are 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.

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, And Gus has had two babies since then. By the way, that's 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

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, eh. Yeah.

So Tom taints younger than me. He's only thirty two and I'm thirty nine.

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?

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, 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 shut 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, and 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, what a work addict who takes podcasting equipment?

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 shollow or social video and it's sort of more orchestrated where she just exists and it's funny and brilliant.

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 character who's a sixty year old hairdresser and Baptist who has not trained since she went to tape in the eighties. And I just really wanted to do someone who just wasn't going through fertility challenges

None, so confident.

I love her like and she she doesn't have fertility struggles. She 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 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 kateon 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.

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 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 worthing. 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 person alive. And my younger sister haveves 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 Royal Australian 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

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 Hellier at the Sydney Writers Festival was on session, and I didn't want to tell Pe because I want to stress him out or like make him feel like I wasn't capable of hosting him.

Because you kind of get to a point with IVF.

You get stuck in the rounds, you get stuck in the es, you get stuck in the embryo quality, you get stuck in the is 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, and 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

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.

Christmas yours Christmas?

Right, So this year would be our eighth Christmas without a baby. And Christmas has always been a really tough time a year because I love it so much, and you know, every is a marker of time, and it's like, damn it. You know, we didn't have a 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 ellef ELpH Santa. I don't 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 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 pollypocket in there. I was 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.

Of 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 help 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 Film. Yeah, three Rounds of IVF.

Was this the doco 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.

Zeero Oh was the idea to follow you, Yeah, because I wanted to show the reality IVF and like the funniness because sometimes it's funny, like you know, once they did.

You know, they did the thingies up the bomb. What do they call the oppositories for painkiller? They didn't like a scan for the eggs internally, right, They took blood out of me 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,

I think she had HG.

She had really bad morning sickness, and 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.

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 threw I threw a vase this day because I was like, they said, I'll called up and said no brios 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 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. And 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 we you diagnosed with.

That like twenty twenty two? Are that late? Yes? 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 a job position.

Sorry, And and I was like, I have ENDO and she's like, yes, 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 they, by the way.

But oh okay, yeah, so one'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 in their 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 a Celeb, 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 on TikTok 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, 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 year 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 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, ampt you're being funny. I'm actually achieved attempt 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 well?

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

Yeah that's way. 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 I know, but because really, 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 percent 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 in so 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 or anything.

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

Like I don't 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 I'm speaking on my personal.

Life 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 aunt 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 round six of IVY and I was like 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. 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 aught 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, 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 cool thing, and you'd press record and play at the same time and record your own voice and had a little microphone attached to it's 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 immediac. There's an immediac that really suits you.

Yes. And same with social.

Social really opened up the world for me in terms of creating because it's I 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, I live not into womb 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 confus about Tom's issues with family, right, Like I have long lack hair and all the like, Bro, what's this about.

Let's well, there's not that many choices.

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

And Ted Bundy loved 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 going to be a stay at home dad, so he we've structured it so he will not work for twelve months, and I'll probably work within three months of uh giving birth. But I'll do a sea section. Not saying that that's easier. I think it's actually going to be harder. I'm not sure what's happened 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. 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, all 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 it's 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 hours 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 chest, so you have that moment, and they dangle the baby.

Over the screen. I love a dangle. That's the dangle is great.

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

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 scenes, don't. Okay, that's all 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 even 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 cant Live Night.

A Cadbury Easter Bunny. I've gone with the chocolate because you can.

I've got an app where you can pick things like do you do fruit? I was like, nah, I'll do I'll do the chocolate Cadbury Easter.

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

No, not the elegant won the bog of money.

Just like not that that's red Shure sort of thee 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 a what else?

Yes, a 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, Tan, here's say 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 boat 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 this. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I work.

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

Has led you to here.

Yes, one hundred us 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, ah 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 one has lasted. It's some serious exfoliation, but yes, she said everything's temporary, so.

Like it will end.

So once you become great of 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 Oh, Tanya to tell you?

Can I tell you?

I were 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 recreational.

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

You're better to have meth than cigarettes. Oh.

I was like, imagine, imagine me just casually what like. 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 world. 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, the 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 hit hard with some botox, retinol, every kind of.

Alcohol, and a drive through Maca's 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 it was 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 like 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 gonna have a baby. I thought i'd have a far 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.

Yeah, 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 o K. Because I just like make social media contact by myself. You do radio by yourself.

Sort of thing. You know, it's very like, you know, and then all of a sudden people know who you're on.

You're 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 in space for anyone

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 nearly died, so I don't know if it's because of that that I'm not particularly Yeah, but I was outside a 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 boo quick because I've written kids books. 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 Pinky's to coming out.

In Easter.

Well, you know the child is an extinsion of you and an extension of Tom. So the child is going to be more Tom's.

Such a lovely man.

God, I hope they 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 wile I was like, it's chemical, it's not worked again. And then we called the ivy F 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

What is your name? What is your name?

Did you know your kids' names? Do 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

Yeah.

Yeah, are you doing family names or well?

See, I quite like I was saying this is 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 Azili.

Nay, 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.

It's just people must be like, is it a non binary baby?

It's not.

It's just 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

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, IVE got to stand up for myself because I want my kids to stand up for themselves and not just keep bowing 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

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 it's 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 promised. 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.

Girl. 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 where 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 from 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.

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.

See your heart is great?

Yes, oh smile even though it's.

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

Yeah, beautiful of that song. Oh that's a beautiful song. You've made me crying.

You're like you're desiccated, like a 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.

The other way because I've already waited so long. This is my eighth year, you know. 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.

Great positive parenting, Yeah, well, I think I don't know about that.

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

I'm also going to make my kids watch care Bears or kid like, I'm going to make him watch eighties staff you will be watching the Land before time?

Why wouldn't they got the news shows? Not if you cut off the wi fi? So true?

I'm like, oh, so weird. The WiFi 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. I can't cry anywhere. Really, everyone found out the gender couldn't cry really.

Okay, And I'm very connected to my feelings, so I don't know what it's. It's a self protection on another level. Yes, okay, good, But Liz, I'm telling you that list. I'm telling you that it's like I'm aware that it's 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 reagon 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, that's 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 Louis and I, oh my god.

This kid is cool. Yeah, you're like a sassy kid. 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 for kids kids.

Yeah, and five days earlier, I just had an endo surgery, so I was in a bit of pain and on end 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.

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 fifty three kilos.

Yeah, yeah, I look, you lost a person and gained a person. Oh my god, I did too.

So I timed the endometrios 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 better for endometrios. 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 have you seen those those cribs that sort of like lay next and you can put them up and down, and I just was 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.

They can't run.

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 and just imagining that really crystallized in my mind. And then I was doing a lot 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 went without deodorant rank but I didn't want to have any scent. I changed a natural deyoda 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 Noah's Ark. I just won't stop crying, Like I think kids are 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 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, 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 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 all 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 girl, 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 and 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, so I was.

I'd only had.

One friend left and they started later as well, So that's interesting. Most people have had two or three babies in the time that I've tried to have one, which these timestamps 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 looks like.

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

You've done quite a lot right, a little bit more than them, 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 shared the hard.

Beats, 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 lit 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.