How I hid my IVF heartache at the age of 46 by Tatler editor
She was in ‘black hole’ before birth of twins
MILLIONS were charmed by her cheerful personality as editor of Tatler in a BBC documentary about life at the society magazine.
But behind the scenes, Kate Reardon was hiding her heartache as she battled to have IVF babies in her mid-40s.
Miss Reardon, 47, said none of her close-knit staff nor the TV crew knew what she was going through as she injected herself with fertility drugs in the toilets.
To avoid suspicion, she had to hide her sadness and remain ‘cheery and fun’ as she failed to become pregnant for months.
She said acting happy while privately yearning for a baby was the ‘toughest thing’ she had ever done – and sometimes left her in a ‘black hole of misery’.
But she claimed positive thinking carried her through, and she eventually gave to birth to twins at the age of 46 after several failed attempts.
Her advice to people in similar situations was: ‘Fake it till you make it.’
Miss Reardon said the year she spent having fertility treatment was the closest she has ever come to ‘being truly heroic’.
Her comments come at a time when more over-45s are giving birth, with fewer women willing to take early career breaks.
The high- flying journalist revealed her struggle in a speech at her former school, £30,000-ayear Stowe in Buckinghamshire.
Emphasising how remaining cheerful can help people overcome adversity in life, she told pupils: ‘Last year I gave birth to twins. I was 46.
‘A 46-year-old woman is unlikely to have babies without a lot of highly- trained medical assistance. So I spent a year having IVF.
‘Fertility treatment is without doubt the toughest thing I have ever done. It’s the closest I will ever come to being truly heroic.
‘Every time it didn’t work I felt as though I was being swallowed by a black hole of misery.’
During her treatment, she was also being filmed for the BBC2 documentary Posh People: Inside Tatler, which was shown in three episodes last year.
Miss Reardon, who has been married to bloodstock agent Charles Gordon-Watson since 2013, said she had to learn to ‘control her thoughts when life is truly shocking’.
She added: ‘No one knew. No one in the office, no one on the film crew.
‘I would have to sneak out of meetings and inject myself in the bathroom at work. And month after month I didn’t get pregnant. The point of telling you this is that I was forced to control my thoughts.
‘Every single morning I had to walk into that office and be a glossy magazine editor. I had to come up with fun ideas in public. I had to be cheery, see the funny side and have a laugh.
‘And believe me it helped. Try it. When life is hard, fake it till you make it.’
She claimed her sense of humour had helped with the stress of being an editor, adding that she would probably be sacked eventually because being a magazine editor is ‘like being a football manager’ – ‘always ends in tears’.
Miss Reardon told the pupils she expected to be led sobbing from the Tatler offices, but that ‘learning to laugh helps you put life in perspective’.
She advised them to be ‘enthusiastic and fun’ in job interviews because she was ‘sick of charting the progress of the nervous rash’ on many candidates, adding: ‘Those people who are able to laugh at themselves tend to be more cheerful.’
Miss Reardon, who was born in New York, also attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College but rejected a place at university so she could go straight into journalism.
She began her career on the US edition of Vogue as its youngest ever fashion assistant, and was made fashion director of 307year-old Tatler at 21 – also its youngest. She was appointed editor in 2010. Her comments on IVF come amid a rise in Britain of births to women over 45 – who had 1,989 babies in 2014 in comparison with only 909 in 2004.
Experts say advancements in fertility science, coupled with improvements in women’s prospects in the workplace, are likely to be behind the trend.
Factors including the higher cost of living for young people and more instability within relationships could also be an influence.
According to the NHS, around a third of couples in which women are over 35 have fertility problems. This rises to two-thirds when women are over 40.
Those over 35 are also less likely to become pregnant as a result of fertility treatments, including IVF, and are more likely to have a miscarriage if they do become pregnant.
‘Fake it till you make it’