Camilla Franks reveals her IVF struggle after breast cancer

Australian kaftan Queen Camilla Franks has revealed how she has experienced another loss in a deeply personal new podcast.

Designer Camilla Franks has shared her new anguish at trying to become a mum for the second time after five rounds of IVF harrowingly revealed that not a single viable egg survived.

Mum to daughter Luna Gypsy Jones, aged three, Franks said she recently underwent more fertility treatment in a bid to expand her family and the timing meant she was having the eggs extracted the day before filming a TV reality show.

“It’s really tough. For me, what I probably didn’t measure up or calculate at the time is I’d just finished five rounds of IVF leading up to this,” she tells podcaster Tory Archbold.

“So the day before, I was actually in hospital getting the eggs taken out. And then, two days into shooting, I found out the eggs hadn’t survived.

So I was on my own personal journey, emotional pain, to have to put the game face on every day and show up. And it was hard. It was really hard.”

The world famous fashionista, often dubbed the Kaftan Queen, made the admission in a chat with Archbold for the smash Nova podcast series Powerful Stories.

Franks, 44, adds: “It’s either going to be fabulous TV or a beautiful car crash because I look back and I go, “What was I smoking?”

“Five rounds of IVF, and then straight into Celebrity Apprentice, where all your hormones are going crazy. But anyway, I did it and ticked it off the bucket list. And I’m proud of myself for doing it.”

Tory Archbold and Camilla Franks. Picture: Supplied

She also reveals new details about her breast cancer battle, reveals that she “went through the fight of my life .. and I made a contract to myself that I would do whatever it takes to try and create Zero Deaths by 2030. I want to make sure we raise enough awareness and funds for the research of cancer, because I don’t want my little girl going through what I went through.

She tells Archbold that she was diagnosed with malignant tumours in her breast when Luna was just three months old.

“I felt this lump growing on my breast and everyone just said to me, “Don’t worry, darling. It’s just mastitis.” And so, I just convinced myself that’s what it was. (Her fiance) JP goes, “But you know, babe, I really just want you to get that looked at.” So I sent him off on a flight back to the UK that morning. I went in to quickly get a test, not thinking anything of it, and then went to the office.

Camilla Franks at her Camilla Reef Collection launch held at Bondi Icebergs, Bondi Beach. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“And then, my GP called, and my GP always just tells me over the phone. And to be told, “No, you’ve got to get back to the surgery. We need to have a chat,” it was the longest wait of my life and the longest car ride of my life. I remember being with my beautiful assistant at the time, Tamara, who held my hand through so much of this journey. We had to wait. I remember driving. We weren’t quite there yet, but then the surgery said he’s running half an hour late.

“There was a pub across the street. We went in there and had a stiff drink together and just held each other shaking. When I walked in there, it was like the world stopped. It was so silent, eerily silent.

“And she (the doctor)_ said those words, “You’ve got stage three breast cancer.” It was like a fear, and a terror, and emotional pain I’ve never actually experienced before. I mean, I’ve got goosebumps talking about it now.

“When you’ve just given birth, the thought of not seeing that baby grow old, and not being part of all those beautiful milestones, for me, I couldn’t quite comprehend it.

“I was like, “This is not real. This is not real.” It’s like I got put on a ride, a horror ride that I didn’t buy a ticket for. And I just wanted to get the hell off. It was a powerful moment, probably the second most powerful moment in my life.”

Fashion designer Camilla Franks. Picture: Troy Snook

Telling her partner JP is still a raw memory.

“I got on the phone to JP. I remember telling him those words and it was like it wasn’t real. But it was so real when I just heard him bawling. To hear the love of your life just grieve. I think I was trying to pull it up the game face, but he was grieving. He literally, within 24 hours, he was back on a flight back home to me to be my lion, to lead me into the battle of dancing with the devil. I was so lucky to have him. I did a lot of treatment with women that had no one.”

On the podcast, she also tackles the early rollercoaster days of launching her business from one store on Sydney’s Bondi Beach into an international empire and how she leveraged her brand to stop women feeling ashamed about their bodies.

“I was everything from head of logistics, head of finance, marketing, designer, head of retail, everything,” she jokes to Archbold, who later says:

“So the phone would ring, I’d be like, “Hello, Camilla’s Beach House.” And they’d be like, “can you please transfer me to the finance department?”

“Just transferring you to the finance department.”

“Hello, the finance department here.” I’d change accents and it was smoke and mirrors from the start. But I needed to do that to get the brand off the ground.

“I learned that a lot of women have body shame.

“I would open the stores after hours to allow women to come into our stores, that had either gone through big treatments with cancer or whatever it was, or had abusive relationships, or had thyroid issues, and all of a sudden were size 28 and didn’t have the courage to come into a fashion boutique.

“So, making them feel like a goddess again that they are and were was one of the biggest gifts I got.”

Camilla Franks has spoken about her IVF struggle on a new podcast. Picture: Supplied

Archblold says in response: “I’m proud of you for sharing and being vulnerable because so much of your story will resonate with so many women and men out there as well.”

Since it was launched last year, Powerful Stories has fast become one of Australia’s top rating on the NOVA Entertainment Podcast Network.

Archbold, founder of empowerment agency Powerful Steps, says: “Women feel safe and protected to share their vulnerabilities on important social issues including mental health, redundancy, infertility and ageism that they haven’t trusted anyone else with.

“I know them, they know me, and our conversations are both intimate and far-reaching. It’s like listening to two girlfriends discuss everything that is important in their world.”

Camilla’s two tips for resilience:

PERSONAL SPACE IS A MUST: I manage it better when there’s space in my diary, and I give that personal space to myself in the mornings. But it goes completely tits up when everything’s overlapping each other and I’m not eating well, I’m not looking after myself. I’m really conscious now, even with alcohol, I know that if I have a few drinks, I’m not going to be the best version of myself the next day. So I choose my battles there, and I try to train five, six mornings a week. And if I can, two meditations a day.

USE YOUR POWER: I think cancer was the catalyst for me to become a student on a whole new self discovery about how we actually do have the power inside us that we just haven’t tapped into yet.

“When you’re in a fight for your life, you’re prepared to do everything and anything, and the wackier, the better for me. I basically got really interested in how the mind could heal the body. I got really into creative visualisation. And so, every morning, I’d go into my breast. I’d become friends with my tumor. I’d name her. I would shrink her.”