Victoria Derbyshire has opened up about the devastating moment she suffered a miscarriage on a plane before going straight back to work.
The 56-year-old TV presenter, known for her tough interviewing on BBC flagship shows including Panorama and Newsnight, has previously spoken about difficult topics, including being the victim of domestic violence and abuse.
The mother-of-two said she had kept the experience a secret for years, as she shared the impact that the revelation had on her sons.
“I actually had the miscarriage on a plane,” she told the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast.
“I was so practical and pragmatic I was like, ‘Well this is happening now and I’m going to work’ and I just carried on; it’s absolutely bizarre.”
Despite being a self-professed “talker” the BBC host said that it was the one thing she struggled to be open about.
“I’m a talker, I talk about everything. I’m very open – maybe it’s partly because of the way I was brought up; we talked to my mum about all the crap that was going on,” she continued.
“That was one thing I couldn’t talk about for about five years; it was so odd, I could not speak about it.”
Derbyshire says two sons, aged 20 and 17, with her husband Mark Sandell, whom she married in 2018. She explained that they were aware of the experience and wondered what it would have been like to have had a sister.
“My boys know I had that miscarriage and they think fondly, ‘What if that had been a sister?’” she explained.
“I know what we’d have called her; they would have liked to have a sister.”
Reflecting on her experience of being pregnant at the time, she said: “I was happy to go through the pregnancy. Happy to eat loads of food and you know, put loads of weight on. I loved it.”
Despite being in her 50s, and not having had a period since chemotherapy for breast cancer, she said she feels she could still have another baby.
“I feel like, obviously I can’t now, I’m in my 50s and I haven’t had a period since chemotherapy, [but] I feel like I could have a baby now, isn’t that mad? I love being the mum of a newborn.”
