Jayne Azzopardi: ’We experienced pregnancy loss and it’s agonising’
Weekend Today presenter Jayne Azzopardi gives an honest interview about her miscarriages, IVF treatments and the FOMO she’s felt being on maternity leave during the most significant news event of her career.
Stellar
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Being a news reporter is like having a front-row seat from which to witness the highs and lows of life. One day you’re covering a triumph, the next a tragedy – and as Jayne Azzopardi points out, seeing either up close makes a person grateful for everything they have.
But that’s not the only reason the Weekend Today newsreader exudes happiness as she cuddles her baby son Joey for a shoot with Stellar.
Over the past couple of years, Azzopardi and her cinematographer husband Trent Butler have learnt firsthand what it is like to experience both the best and worst that life can throw at you.
The best is that the couple eventually welcomed their little boy. That he’s proved to be so relaxed is a bonus. As Azzopardi, 40, tells Stellar: “My mum said to me the other day, ‘Jayne, he’s the sort of baby that would spark a baby boom ... that would make everybody want one.’”
In fact, when seven-month-old Joey had a rare period of whingeing, her mother had to explain that was the norm for most little ones.
But before becoming a mother, Azzopardi endured periods of deep pain and sadness as she and Butler, 35, dealt with miscarriages along their quest to become parents.
“We experienced pregnancy loss; we experienced it more than once and it’s agonising,” she says.
“We ended up going the IVF route and it can be very lonely. You also know there are people wondering when you’re going to be pregnant, which is why you keep that journey private. Because you almost don’t want to make other people sad as well.”
Azzopardi didn’t meet her husband until she was 37 – they were introduced by mutual friend and Q+A host Hamish Macdonald – and while she was never desperate to be a mother, as the relationship blossomed both realised they wanted to have a family.
“We knew pretty early on that we were each other’s person,” she says.
“I was aware that we don’t have forever [to have a baby].”
Even when it appeared that her pregnancy with Joey was progressing well, Azzopardi was considered in how she announced the news, both on social media and on the air.
“It wasn’t an easy road for us to get here so sending all our love to those hoping for their own happy news one day soon,” she wrote on Instagram.
She says she wanted to be mindful of how it might make others feel.
“I knew from personal experience that you’re happy for other people but it can feel like everybody in the world is finding it so easy to get pregnant. It was important to acknowledge that it didn’t just happen. There was a lot that had gone before.”
Azzopardi loved being pregnant and even when Joey’s breach position meant she had to have a caesarean, she was only concerned for his wellbeing.
“People would ask how I was feeling and I realised I hadn’t even thought about myself. You’re so worried about whether he is sleeping and pooing enough, you forget you’ve gone through a major physical event.”
Like a lot of women who gave birth earlier this year, she has missed out on the usual round of mother’s groups and playdates. But a friendship with Nine Network colleague Sylvia Jeffreys, whose son Oscar arrived a few days before Joey, has seen the pair swapping notes – even at 3am – on everything from sleeping to solids.
“It’s been so reassuring to have a friend going through it,” she says.
Jeffreys tells Stellar that the friendship has grown from professional admiration to a deep, shared connection.
“She’s been a security blanket and a sounding board for me in so many ways,” says Jeffreys.
“We’ve been great mates for a long time, but now we share an even lovelier bond that will surely grow stronger as our boys grow.”
Although maternity leave was to have provided a break from the news, around which her life has pivoted for nearly 20 years, Azzopardi found herself glued to the television while she breastfed.
“I did have a bit of FOMO,” says the formerly Canberra-based political journalist who, at eight months pregnant in January, filled in for Peter Overton on the 6pm news at the height of the bushfires.
Even though she spent six years working in London for outlets like the BBC and Al Jazeera, Azzopardi says the pandemic has been the most significant news event of her career.
“It was weird not to be at work and covering it.”
She went back to Weekend Today when Joey was four months old, but despite being up to speed on the news, she still found it confronting to leave the baby bubble.
“The first time I went to work I had to put petrol in the car and I was wondering whether to touch the pump, and checking if I had hand sanitiser.”
Two months on, she’s enjoying the balance of work and home life, and loves returning home to find Butler playing with their son.
“Watching him with Joey is the best thing ever,” she enthuses.
“He can make Joey laugh and giggle, and it’s different to the way I interact with him. You see the love between them. It’s lovely to see.”