{"id":174601,"date":"2025-11-11T08:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T08:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/174601\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T08:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T08:15:07","slug":"im-lucky-to-have-eight-children-after-suffering-secondary-infertility-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/174601\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m lucky to have eight children after suffering secondary infertility\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miriam O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> gets why having eight children is a source of fascination for people.<\/p>\n

In the past it may have bothered her to be referred to as a \u2018mum of eight\u2019 when the parental status of her male peers was never mentioned.<\/p>\n

But today (and to use a notorious \u2018girlboss\u2019 era phrase) she now leans in to the descriptor. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe older I\u2019ve got I think so, what? It is unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Miriam O\u2019Callaghan: \u2018Receptiongate was the most stressful moment of my entire career\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The RT\u00c9 broadcaster has recently released her memoir titled \u201cMiriam: Life, Work, Everything\u201d, all of which we delve into in the latest episode of Conversations with Parents.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan is at pains to tell host Jen Hogan that she understands how lucky she is to have a large family.<\/p>\n

After having her first daughter she suffered secondary infertility, undergoing fertility treatment to eventually conceive six years later. <\/p>\n

\u201cI tell that story… because I\u2019m conscious, Jen, that so many people can\u2019t have children and I don\u2019t want to look like it was always easy, because it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan also reveals she had a number of miscarriages, including a later pregnancy loss, and a frightening complication on her last birth.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the most traumatic and formative events in her life was the loss of her sister Anne, who died of stomach cancer at the age of 32.<\/p>\n

She and O\u2019Callaghan had babies close in age, and spent their early years of mothering together \u201cas a unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[Her death] had a devastating impact on me. I call it, and have always called it, my BC and my AD.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne\u2019s passing jolted O\u2019Callaghan into realising life can be deeply unfair, impressing on her the need to live every day knowing nothing is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

She decided to leave her marriage, later marrying a colleague and going on to have four children together.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan insists she never had a life plan, including one that involved a large family, and refuses to worry about anything unless it\u2019s a serious or terminal illness.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0RTE\u2019s Miriam O\u2019Callaghan on family, feminism and fame in her candid new memoirOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing else is an issue, I believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this episode we also discuss her aversion to conflict with her children, building up their confidence in advance of the teenage years and how instilling good manners was an important value she wanted to inculcate.<\/p>\n

You can listen on the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n

Presented by Jen Hogan. Produced by Aideen Finnegan.<\/p>\n

Brought to you in association with Avonmore Super Milk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miriam O\u2019Callaghan gets why having eight children is a source of fascination for people. In the past it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,16035,2973,11997,1181],"class_list":{"0":"post-174601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-miriam-o-callaghan","13":"tag-parenting","14":"tag-parents","15":"tag-rte"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115530073779604751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}