Becky Kearns was 27 when she and her partner started trying for a baby. After being turned away twice by her GP and told to keep trying, she was eventually diagnosed with premature ovarian failure and began a taxing path through IVF, eventually turning to egg donation, and she and her partner now have three daughters. That journey turned her into a patient advocate: she founded DefiningMum, the online platform Paths to Parenthood, which she runs with Hayley King – who is herself donor-conceived and probably «the very first IVF sperm donor conceived baby in the world» – and, together with fellow HR professionals Natalie Silverman and Claire Ingle, the nonprofit Fertility Matters at Work. 

Kearns was named Best Fertility Advocate at the 2025 Fertility Care Awards. That same year, the Paths to Parenthood team won the Best Fertility Educational Project Award.

In this episode of the podcast Eleonora Voltolina, journalist and founder of The Why Wait Agenda, meets Becky Kearns to discuss what led her to build a community for donor conception and the line that has guided her work: «Shame dies when stories are told in safe spaces». Kearns discusses the emotional weight of choosing an egg donor, and why she has come to believe that «the role of mum or dad is what you do day in, day out», not biology. She reflects on how her own views on donor anonymity have shifted, arguing for open-ID models now that «DNA testing is so prevalent» that true anonymity can no longer be guaranteed. She also addresses the countries, including Switzerland and Germany, where egg donation remains prohibited even as sperm donation is allowed, and explains why Fertility Matters at Work is campaigning in the UK Parliament for a statutory right to time off for fertility treatment.

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Best Fertility Counsellor 2025 award winner and BICA Chair Angela Pericleous-Smith joins The Why Wait Agenda to talk about the stigma still surrounding counselling, why she would never suggest a patient stop treatment, and the hope and fear that coexist in every fertility clinic.

Behind every fertility clinic's doctors, nurses and embryologists there is often another professional working further down the corridor, out of sight. Angela Pericleous-Smith has spent two decades trying to change that. Pericleous-Smith is Chair of the British Infertility Counselling Association (BICA) and Counsellor Representative of the British Fertility Society. She has specialised in fertility counselling since 2004; at Eshre 2025 in Paris she was named Best Fertility Counsellor at the Fertility Care Awards, established by the European Fertility Society to recognise the most influential figures in global fertility care. Eleonora Voltolina, journalist and founder of The Why Wait Agenda, met Angela Pericleous-Smith in Paris to record this special episode.

«There's this real huge sense that they're sharing their most innermost thoughts and feelings with me. They're at their most vulnerable moment», Pericleous-Smith says – caught between «that hope of the family that they want to build» and «that fear that they're not going to achieve that». Patients still worry that requesting counselling might be read by clinicians as a sign «they can't cope», and men, she notes, have become far more present in her practice since sessions moved online, describing their more pragmatic coping style as a «flowchart process».

«People recognise the doctors, the nurses, the embryologists, but the counsellors are quite often tucked away down the corridor somewhere», she says. Her message to anyone starting fertility treatment convinced they can manage alone: «there's no harm in kind of going to see the counsellor» – it «is not a sign that you're not coping on your own».

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By age 37, 90 percent of a woman's eggs are already gone. Professor Joyce Harper – reproductive scientist and former infertility patient – joins The Why Wait Agenda to talk about the trauma of treatment, the age that matters, and why feeling healthy isn't the same as being fertile.

Joyce Harper has dedicated her career to closing the fertility information gap. She teaches Reproductive Science at University College London's Institute for Women's Health, and is the co-founder of the UK Fertility Education Initiative and of the International Reproductive Health Education Collaboration. She is also the author of Your Fertile Years: What You Need to Know to Make Informed Choices (2021) and of Your Joyful Years: Empowering Good Health and Happiness Beyond 50 (2026).

Harper is not just a scientist; she has also been a patient. It took her seven years and IVF to have her first child at 39. «Those years of what I experienced, they leave their mark on you», Harper says. «That trauma will stay». She recalls the word that kept returning to her during treatment: «I thought, I'm barren. My body is not going to make a baby».

Eleonora Voltolina, journalist and founder of The Why Wait Agenda, met Joyce Harper in Paris, on the sidelines of the 2025 meeting of Eshre, the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, to record this special episode.

Harper points to a specific age as a turning point for reproductive planning. «For most women, the really important time is around our mid-30s; that's when our fertility starts to decrease», she explains – not a cliff, but a gradual decline that accelerates sharply after 35. «So we've got to start preparing well before age 32».

Asked how to navigate fertility misinformation online, Harper recommends scientific societies over influencers: Eshre, the ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine), the British Fertility Society, the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority). «They're not selling anything», she says, «and are the reliable ones to go to».

Harper is also a fierce advocate for reproductive health education, including a topic young people rarely connect to fertility: sexually transmitted infections. Her message to young women today: «be aware of female fertility decline, no matter how young you feel».

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Fertility awareness is not taught in school. Most people only learn about contraception — never about how fertility actually works, or what can go wrong.

Zoya Ali is trying to close that gap. At 23 she opened an Instagram account and started posting. «There was no thought», she says: that account, Uteropedia, has since grown into one of the most trusted voices on female reproductive health, followed by almost 100,000 people.

Eleonora Voltolina, journalist and founder of The Why Wait Agenda, met Zoya Ali in Paris, on the sidelines of the ESHRE 2025 meeting, to record this special episode.

In her day job, Zoya is a Senior Research Associate at Hertility, a women's health company, and one of the editors of the ESHRE Journal Club. On Instagram, she takes on the topics that sex education leaves out: how the menstrual cycle actually works, why untreated STIs can silently block the fallopian tubes, and why so many people only discover a fertility problem when they're already trying to conceive.

«What you do today, your body will remember», Zoya says. The conversation moves from the gaps in school curricula to the real, everyday cost of that silence: people who spend years trying for a child without understanding why it isn't happening, simply because no one ever explained how their own bodies work.

Zoya Ali's message is direct: reproductive education shouldn't stop at "how not to get pregnant". It should also cover how to actually understand your own fertility — before it becomes an emergency.

https://www.thewhywaitagenda.org/

The public conversation around infertility remains almost exclusively focused on women. Men sometimes get tested, receive a diagnosis – but after that, are largely sidelined.

Ian Stones wants to change that. A fertility acupuncture therapist and one of the founding members of the Zita West Fertility Network, Stones is one of the co-creators of Test Him, a podcast dedicated to male infertility. Launched in January 2023, Test Him has grown won an award at the Fertility Care Awards 2025 gala in Paris, organised by the European Fertility Society.

Eleonora Voltolina, journalist and founder of The Why Wait Agenda, sat down with Ian Stones in Paris, on the sidelines of the ESHRE meeting, to record this special episode.

The fertility industry is worth billions, but it is almost entirely oriented toward women. «We're still missing a huge part of the equation by not actually talking to the men and making sure they're an equal part of the conversation», Stones says.

Test Him covers reproductive medicine, nutrition and emotional well-being, encouraging men to explore their options before entering a clinical treatment pathway. «It's not all science! We're just three guys who want to share experience and knowledge».

In the episode, Stones shares the story that has moved him most: an email from a listener, sent almost live from a hospital maternity ward, thanking Test Him for information on varicocele repair that helped him have a child. That listener later became a guest on the show.

Stones also speaks candidly about the emotional toll of male infertility and breaking down the idea that men «have to be strong». Infertility strikes deeply at men's core, ego and identity – yet men are rarely empowered to ask what they can do to change their situation.

The message is simple: your infertility does not define you as a man. It's okay to be depressed, it's okay to cry, it's okay to feel like a failure – there are people out there who can help.

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Approximately one in every six people experience infertility in their lifetime. In this episode of The Why Wait Agenda podcast we discuss the main causes of infertility – a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse – with Karin Hammarberg, an Australian fertility expert and Senior Research Fellow at Monash University.

«Infertility, no matter if primary or secondary, is pretty devastating» says  Hammarberg, a registered nurse with twenty years of experience as clinical co-ordinator of in vitro fertilisation programs: «Sometimes people with secondary infertility feel guilty about wanting to have another child, when people might tell them "well, you're lucky, you've got one child – or two children – already". But if you actually had a real hope of having two or three children and you only have one, the grief you feel is pretty profound, and I'm not so sure it's even helpful to try and compare the two».

As Hammerberg stated in an article about late pregnancy storylines in tv dramas, previously featured in the Why Wait Agenda – "Mothers over 40: it seems easy enough on TV, but what about real life?" – the chance of pregnancy is lower for women in their late thirties and forties. «Infertility has a range of causes, but one cause often under-reported is what we call age-related infertility» stresses Hammarberg: «It's becoming a more and more common cause, unfortunately».

Hammerberg doesn't think that people know enough about infertility – nor about fertility, for that matter. That's why her «strong passion in life» is to work on «what people can do to actually promote and protect their own fertility, and to make sure they give themselves the best chance of conceiving without having infertility treatments».  And that's precisely what she's doing by collaborating with the website Yourfertility.org.au, a national public education program managed by the Fertility Coalition and funded by the Australian Government's Department of Health and the Victorian Government's Department of Health.

«Often infertility is presumed to be a women's problem, but in fact one in three cases of infertility is because of a male factor» points out Hammarberg, who's also Deputy chair of the International Reproductive Health Education Collaboration and a member of the scientific committee of the European Fertility Society: «I hope that with more and more advocacy and information and awareness raising, we can reach a point where everybody understands that it's no one's fault. It's just sometimes biology, sometimes a disease, but it's not a personal responsibility – and no one should be blamed or shamed» fo it.

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What have Constitutions got to do with people’s decision to have babies or not? Well, for example, the Italian constitution has an article that states: «Working conditions shall allow women to fulfil their essential role in the family», placing working women in a subordinate position to working men, who are free to work without being forced to fulfil any «essential role».  And an unequal household division of labour and attitudes about egalitarian roles can influence the timing of first births, according to the paper “Why do people postpone parenthood?” by professor Melinda Mills (also a guest of our podcast, twice!) amongst others.

«Working conditions shall allow women to fulfil their essential role in the family», then. It wasn’t all that shocking seventy years ago, when the Italian Constitution was written. But it's quite different now.

The guest of this episode is Carla Bassu, one of the youngest full professors of Comparative Public Law in Italy, and an ambassador for egalitarian roles. For years she fought – and recently won – a major battle: the one to empower both parents to give their surname to their children in Italy.

«We need to consider the contest [our Constitution] has been formulated in»  professor Bassu says, «It reflects the historical and cultural background: in 1948, when our Constitution came into effect, most people found it hard to recognise a position for women away from domestic work». So, being an historical document as all Constitutions are, the Italian Constitution simply reflects the spirit of the time.

But a lot can be done now, Bassu explains, «by interpretation» of the said Constitution, and «through education» of the younger generations towards gender equality and equal parenting. Because, even if it's probably a bit of a stretch to blame the Italian Constitution for the fertility gap – the imbalance between how many children people would like to have and how many children they actually end up having – it's fair to say that it certainly hasn’t helped.

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Becoming a parent is first and foremost a decision to make. A choice. But what happens when our mind and our heart long for a baby, and our body simply does not cooperate? When it comes to fertility, wanting is not enough – choosing is not enough:  only 85% of couples will conceive naturally within a year of regular unprotected sex. No less than 25 million citizens are affected by infertility just in the European Union.

This episode's guest is Jessica Hepburn, the author of the memoir "The Pursuit of Motherhood" and of “21 Miles: swimming in search of the meaning of motherhood”. Her books focuses on the need to talk openly about the stigma of infertility and unsuccessful IVF, that Hepburn experienced firsthand going through multiple rounds of in vitro fertilisation, suffering miscarriages and even an ectopic pregnancy.

There was no happy ending for her: that's why her voice is different, maybe less sugar-coated than your typical fertility ambassador, but honest. Jessica Hepburn has come to represent the people who have not and will not be able to conceive, even with all the medical aid currently available. And she's living proof that infertility can be overcome not just in the obvious way – by having a baby – but also by finding other ways to fill that void.

Hepburn is now a fertility activist and ambassador: she has been a trustee of the charity Fertility Network UK; a patient adviser to the HFEA, the UK’s independent regulator of fertility treatment; and a member of the Fertility Education Initiative. In this episode of the podcast she discusses with Eleonora Voltolina, founder of The Why Wait Agenda, the huge effect of infertility on relationships, the difficulties of sex after a round of failed fertility treatment, the secrecy and shame that still surrounds infertility, and the need to raise awareness about this topic. 

https://www.thewhywaitagenda.org/

Postponing parenthood is now a strong trend. The average age of women giving birth to their first child is steadily increasing: in the EU in 2020 it was 29.5 years, peaking above 31 in four European countries – Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

The rise in the average age at first child recorded worldwide does not favour women wishing to become mothers: the higher the average age when the first child is born, the smaller the window of fertile years the potential mothers has. This, combined with the lack of fertility awareness, may cause – and does cause – a lot of suffering and frustration among people. The “fertility gap”, indeed.

In this episode of The Why Wait Agenda Podcast Eleonora Voltolina, founder of The Why Wait Agenda, asks professor Melinda Mills, author of the paper “Why do people postpone parenthood? Reasons and social policy incentives” back in 2011 and now director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford, to assess the social policies – baby bonus payments, family allowances, tax exemptions, child tax credits, maternity and paternity leave… – that can affect the timing of the first birth.

“Baby bonuses”, for instance, are simple and may seem a good option, but in fact they do not work as well as one could think: «In Quebec they did that, and there’s little evidence that it worked». It seems to increase the fertility «of those who already wanted to have children, or already had large families»; it did allow them to have them slightly faster, «but not necessarily more children».

Voltolina also discusses with Mills the frontier of egg freezing – «It’s not the first thing most women in their twenties are thinking about», also because «it’s really expensive»: so «at the age you would want to engage in that technology you don’t have the money for it, and if it’s not covered by insurance, you’re not going to do it» – pro-natalist doctrine – «We’ve seen it in Hungry, in Italy, even in Sweden more recently: this movement is not new, and it continues to happen» – and certainty in the labor market as a key-factor to make young people feel comfortable with the idea of starting a family.

A heartfelt thanks to Matthieu Mantanus for the amazing theme song, especially written for The Why Wait Agenda podcast!

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Why do people postpone parenthood? Well before being the driver of The Why Wait Agenda, this question underpinned an academic paper published by a group of researchers to present the findings of their study of the causes, consequences and possible solutions of the significant delay in childbearing.

Melinda Mills, now Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science of the University of Oxford, was one of those researchers; in this episode of our podcast she discusses with journalist Eleonora Voltolina the most common reasons for the postponement of first births.

In the last few decades there has been a drop in fertility worldwide, «particularly in Europe, North America, and East-Asian countries». This is «very much related to the timing of fertility», according to Mills, for on average the age at first birth in Europe is now «around 29.5, but it’s much later in countries such as Italy and Spain, where it’s over 31».

Having children seems more and more challenging, almost out of the question unless one has sorted out their  professional, housing, economic situation. Even when all the pieces of the puzzle match up, it's often still not enough. Putting off the decision of having a baby when the desire to become a parent is strong is a painful choice, though – that may come with risks attached.

A heartfelt thanks to Matthieu Mantanus for the amazing theme song, especially written for The Why Wait Agenda podcast!

https://www.thewhywaitagenda.org/