‘I’d have loved them to the world and beyond’: Sue Perkins shares moving thoughts on the children she never had
Appearing on the How To Fail podcast, the presenter speaks candidly about the 'babies she never had'
Broadcaster Sue Perkins has spoken poignantly about "missing the babies" she never had, reflecting on the sort of mother she might've been.
She also shares insight into the pituitary tumour that led to infertility, and how she felt unable to advocate for herself over treatment when she was diagnosed.
Speaking on Elizabeth Day's How To Fail podcast, Sue is asked by the host whether she misses "the babies you never had."
Candidly, Sue replies, "I do sometimes, yeah." Speaking about the sort of mother she thinks she could have been, she adds, "I think two things about what I'd have been like as a mum - I would have been a fun mum, and I'd have loved them to the world and beyond."
Sue also delves into the level of anxiety she thinks being a parent would have brought with it. "I'd have been a very anxious mum," she explains, sharing that while watching her six-year-old niece, she often thinks, "Don't fall," when she's running.
"I could feel this pain in my chest, and I got emotional because I thought, 'That's what you'd have been like with your babies,'" she shares.
She thinks her children probably would have responded to her anxious behaviour by telling her, "Mum! You're too much." She continues, "Maybe I'd have been too much because I do feel such incredible protective anxiety about children."
Despite not getting the chance to have children of her own, Sue does suggest she's found a level of peace with her situation.
"I think it's my role in this life to be a great aunt and to be a great godparent. It wasn't for me in this life," she says, adding, "There's a moment in that that we have to sit with, but there's also an acceptance."
Sue was diagnosed with a prolactinoma, a benign pituitary tumour in 2007, but didn't publicly share this until 2015.
The growth disrupts her hormone levels, preventing her from having children while also affecting her memory and focus. "It's taken me a lifetime to really try and understand this condition," she says of the complicated diagnosis.
Sue continues, "I'm sure people who have it will appreciate how difficult it is because it touches on the endocrine system, and nobody really has a clue how that works, not even the specialists really."
She was asked by healthcare professionals after her diagnosis, "Do you have a husband? Do you have a boyfriend?", and when she answered "no," was given the response, "Oh, well, that's fine then, because it's going to affect your fertility."
Reflecting on this, Sue, who was in a seven-year relationship with fellow presenter Anna Richardson until 2021, shares, "My fertility has nothing to do with my partner. It has nothing to do with my sexuality."
Recounting her "failure" in this moment, Sue reveals, "My failure was to not advocate for myself and to go, 'Sorry, what is this about?' In that moment, I accepted that I was not worthy of being medicated."
Due to issues related to class, culture and gender, the presenter says, "Those factors mean in the moment when you are being spoken to by a member of the medical profession, you don't ask questions, and you just accept."
For the next few years, Sue experienced what she calls "all kinds of psychiatric horrors as a result of this extreme hormonal brain dance, neurological soup."
She had to find out for herself that "the tumour depletes whatever dopamine I had," and that the medication she could've been given "gives you dopamine." Seeking a second opinion, she was told, "We've always had pills for this," and she'd not been prescribed them.
"Had I been put on it if I'd wanted to, it would have reversed everything," she shares. Sue concludes, "I could have come out of the menopause that I was put in immediately. I was not worthy of being medicated. I did not challenge that."
