Olympia Valance: ‘We’ve been trying to conceive for four years’

Former Neighbours star Olympia Valance has opened up on her and husband Thomas Bellchambers’ gruelling journey to parenthood, revealing how after two pregnancy losses and multiple rounds of IVF treatments, the stigma of infertility felt “like salt in the wound”.

Olympia Valance has opened up about her struggles to conceive. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

By her own admission, actor Olympia Valance says the assumptions she had long held about motherhood – and particularly what many women endure to get there – were profoundly naive.

But the past four years have opened her eyes, and after two pregnancy losses and rounds of IVF treatments, she is starting a candid dialogue around fertility in the hope that others will feel less isolated in their struggles.

As she tells Stellar, “Now I’ve spoken about it, I’m hearing all these stories. It helps.”

Starting a family is something that Olympia Valance and her husband Thomas Bellchambers have been talking about since their first date.

They both come from big families, and have yearned to one day fill their own home with the same sort of happy chaos that children can bring.

“Our relationship became very, very strong very, very quickly,” Valance tells Stellar with a smile.

“When they say, you know you’ve met the one, they’re right. It happened very swiftly and then obviously a conversation needed to happen in the beginning: do you want to have kids? Yes, absolutely. Family is very important to me. It is to both of us.”

“We need to talk more about the fact it can be hard,” Valance says of the struggle to conceive. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

While their romance took off at full speed – Valance began dating former Essendon AFL player Bellchambers in 2019 and they married in June 2022 – their journey to parenthood has moved far more slowly.

“We have been trying for a good four years,” she says.

“It was definitely something, when Thomas and I first got together, that was really important to both of us. And if it happened, it happened.”

The couple were elated when, in the midst of Melbourne’s gruelling Covid lockdowns in 2020, Valance discovered she was pregnant with twins.

Unfortunately, she miscarried both babies – one at eight and the other at 10 weeks. She has not been able to conceive again naturally since.

Although she was initially reluctant to go down the path of IVF, Valance, 30, eventually decided that it offered the best chance at starting the family she has longed to have.

Following an egg harvesting procedure (which yielded 28 eggs) in July, the IVF technicians were able to create nine embryos for the couple.

While the first embryo was successfully transplanted, within six weeks Valance would again miscarry.

Because it had happened before, she now admits, “I did not once get excited, because I just need to protect myself. And it won’t be until I reach 12 weeks that I will ever really believe that I’m pregnant.”

“I know 100 per cent that we’re going to have a baby. In my head, I’m optimistic and positive about the whole process,” Valance adds. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Telling her loved ones and in particular her mum, Tania Gogos-Wilson, that she had lost another baby was “probably the hardest part of all”.

“The people in our lives know how much it means to us, how hard we’ve tried for so long and the disappointments we’ve had,” she says.

“We told them the good news and that the embryo took, while bracing them for the fact that this might not work. So they were very, very supportive. But I know they will have hung up the phone and had a bit of a teary.”

Rather than diving back into another round of IVF straightaway, the couple opted instead for a getaway; Bellchambers surprised Valance with a two-week holiday to Orpheus Island.

The luxury hideaway, in the Great Barrier Reef, holds a special significance for the couple – it’s the spot where Bellchambers, 34, proposed to Valance in October 2020.

There, after spending months “being so bloody healthy” in her quest to conceive, Valance was happy to unwind with some cocktails by the pool.

The actor has also been busying herself with work, having recently filmed two new shows: the Netflix series Surviving Summer and the new Network 10 drama Heat, which was filmed on the same set as Neighbours, where Valance played series regular Paige Smith from 2014 to 2018, and returned for guest appearances and last year’s finale.

“I think everyone needs a little break in between [IVF rounds],” she says.

“Plus, there’s a bit of pressure off, knowing we have those embryos now on the freeze because, as females, we know the biological clock is ticking and we’re running out of eggs.”

“Whether it happens naturally or through IVF, it will happen. I know that,” she adds. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Taking control of her fertility struggle has also brought some comfort because “we weren’t just aimlessly going, let’s just try every month like we were. We were going forward [and] doing something proactive”.

Like many women, Valance assumed that when she finally felt ready to start a family, it would be more straightforward.

She says she wishes more comprehensive information about fertility was part of the sex education taught in schools, so that women felt more in control of their pathway to parenthood.

“I find it really f*cked up that it wasn’t until I was trying to get pregnant that I really understood how my cycles work – and I was 28 years old,” she continues.

“I don’t know why that is … I wasn’t a very good student. Maybe it was because when your sports teacher is teaching you sex ed at school, I didn’t want to listen. I just think it needs to be taught way better.”

Likewise, Valance wishes there was less of a stigma around infertility. When she was first struggling to fall pregnant, she would see pictures of celebrities smiling on magazine covers with their babies or watch those around her enjoying time with their growing broods. As she tells Stellar, “It was like salt in the wound.”

Now, and since she has begun to talk about her struggle to conceive on Instagram, she has been flooded with messages from other women who have faced the same heartache.

“Putting this out publicly and hearing other people’s stories and struggles, I’ve realised there are so many people who – and I would never have had any idea – had five or six miscarriages before they got those two children,” she explains.

“Or they have gone through several rounds of IVF. There is no way I would have ever known that because, the way that I see it, they just popped out perfect children.

“Now I’ve spoken about it, I’m hearing all these stories and it helps because, before that, no-one was talking about it,” she adds.

“So [I was] sitting here going, why is it so hard for me?”

As one of eight children, Valance laughs when she explains that she already has practice in a few crucial aspects of early motherhood.

“I have changed countless nappies and babysat so many siblings.”

However, it’s the reality of how many women get there that she believes needs to be better understood.

“We need to talk more about the fact it can be hard,” she says.

“I know 100 per cent that we’re going to have a baby. In my head, I’m optimistic and positive about the whole process. Whether it happens naturally or through IVF, it will happen. I know that.”

For support or information about pregnancy loss, visit miscarriageaustralia.com.au.

Originally published as Olympia Valance: ‘We’ve been trying to conceive for four years’