Sara Pascoe Opens Up About Her IVF Struggle At The Age Of 44 After Aborting First Child At 17

Sara Pascoe is a famous British comedian, actress, presenter and writer. She has built a massive legacy for herself with her work. She has started her journey through UK panel shows and stand-up. She later gained recognition with her comedy stint, and a recurring topic of her gigs is often her IVF journey. Pascoe isn’t shy of joking about declining fertility with age.

Sara Pascoe revealed why she joked about IVF 

At the age of 44, Sara Pascoe is not afraid to talk about the rollercoaster of dealing with IVF, and its success rate, including the high financial cost. She uses her own experiences in the gig to encourage people to talk about declining fertility and to take care of their reproductive health. It is worth mentioning that Sara Pascoe conceived her sons born in 2022 and 2023, through IVF.

Recently, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Sara talked about IVF treatment in her stand-up routines. She has openly talked about her personal struggles through her gigs and has mentioned the same in her autobiography. Not many know that she had an abortion at the age of 17. 

Talking about the IVF treatment, Sara shared that it is a big thing to put one’s body through the intense procedure of weekly injections. Anyone who chooses to follow the road should be proud of themselves. She added that to make the conversation seem normal, she talked about it in her on-stage performance. She said:

“It’s such a big thing to put your body through. Anyone who does it should be so proud of themselves – and that’s what I tried to do when I was talking about it more on stage.”

However, Sara admitted that when she and her comedian husband, Steen Raskopoulos, first started trying to have children and opted for IVF, it wasn’t easy at all to joke about it. The emotions were raw and she had taken her time to finally talk about it. Sara revealed that she joked about her infertility once she had children. Another reason for her was that she could not make fun of it until she knew the ending. She didn’t address the infertility issue till her eldest son was eight months old. She said:

“I only really spoke about infertility once I had children, and it was reflexive. I also think that’s because I couldn’t be funny about it until I knew the ending. It was really like: ‘I definitely have a son. He survived. He’s alive, he’s here.’ And I then felt I wanted to share things with people who I knew would be at different stages of it. The other thing with comedy is that people won’t laugh unless they know you’re OK. You can’t tell them the stuff you’re not OK about.”

Pascoe further revealed that when she was writing her 2016 book, Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body, her agent had advised her not to talk about her abortion at the age of 17 in the book. She added that it was important for her to share the details rather than keep it private. She claimed that she wasn’t embarrassed, but she was comfortable talking about her life. Earlier, in an interview, Sara revealed the reason of terminating her pregnancy at 17, and said:

“Even if that [terminated pregnancy] was my chance to have a baby, then that’s the narrative. I couldn’t have had one. I didn’t want one then… Because my mum had me so young, it wasn’t like I hadn’t considered being a young parent. I absolutely knew I didn’t want to be one. My mum didn’t get a life because she had children so young and had to financially support us… I had my son at 40, which is old for a mum, but I’d had my mum’s whole entire life again – 20 years.”

For the unversed, Sara Pascoe started her stand-up comedy in 2007. She has also been part of shows such as Have I Got News For You, QI and Would I Lie to You.

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