EMMA BARNETT: My IVF Journey & Why I Felt Like I’d Failed at Fertility
Great Company with Jamie Laing
Jampot
4.5 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emma Barnett is an award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster, with more than two thousand interviews under her belt and a seat on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Emma was encouraged to ask questions from a young age and she’s built her entire career around them. Whether she's holding a politician to a 12-second silence on live radio or interviewing the Prime Minister, she’s known for running towards difficult conversations, not away from them.
She’s also become a powerful voice for women. In our conversation, Emma opens up about her IVF journey and the miscarriage that left her so defeated she nearly didn’t go through another round of treatment - the one that led to her daughter.
In this episode, Emma shares:
- What it's like interviewing the UK's biggest politicians
- Her IVF journey and why she chose to speak openly about treatment when it failed
- Remembering the people who wanted children and can’t have them
- How she shut down a troll and their surprising response
- What intimidates her most in the world…
Emma is proof that the best interviewers aren't the ones with all the answers, they're the ones brave enough to keep asking the questions of others and of themselves.
Emma Barnett is Great Company.
You can follow Emma on Instagram HERE
Listen to Emma’s podcast, Ready To Talk, HERE
Discover Colour Your Streets - Emma’s family colouring book company HERE
If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us:
Instagram- @greatcompanypodcast
TikTok - @greatcompanypodcast
Jamie - @jamielaing
And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: greatcompany@jampotproductions.co.uk
THE CREDITS
Producer: Helen Burke & Faye Lawrence
Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins
Video: Josh Bennett
Senior Social Media Manager: Laura Coughlan
Audio: Rafi Amsili Geovannetti
Executive Producer: Ewan Newbigging-Lister
Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | When your friends are having children and you can't, |
| 0:02.3 | it has a particularly difficult flavour to it |
| 0:05.5 | because you want to be happy for your friends |
| 0:07.5 | and you are happy for them. |
| 0:09.0 | But you're mourning, either a miscarriage or another failed round. |
| 0:13.2 | I nearly didn't do the last round, which led to our daughter, |
| 0:16.5 | because we had a miscarriage. |
| 0:18.4 | And I was done, Jamie. I was like, I am, you know, spent. |
| 0:23.5 | Just for someone who is listening, who's going through IVF, as a friend or is that |
| 0:27.4 | individual, what can you say or do to help them? |
| 0:29.4 | Somebody might say this is confrontational, whatever, but it's just true. |
| 0:34.5 | Hi, I'm Emma Barnett, and I am in great company. |
| 0:38.0 | Award-winning BBC journalist and one of the sharpest interviewers in Britain. |
| 0:42.1 | So how much will it cost? |
| 0:43.2 | The way you interview is so great because you are not afraid to ask the tough questions. |
| 0:48.3 | I held somebody's eye contact for 12 seconds while they tried to answer the question. |
| 0:55.5 | Who was it with? |
| 0:56.2 | So there's the two. |
| 0:57.4 | You have to hear about both. |
| 0:58.2 | My producer Darren's looking at me and he's going like this. |
| 1:01.4 | Please talk. |
| 1:02.7 | Please talk. |
... |
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