S2 Episode 8: The Infertility Trifecta . Queer, single and infertile.

When Holly decided that she wanted to have a baby, her journey to parenthood was anything but straightforward. Holly discovered that she had the ‘Infertility Trifecta’. Unable to conceive naturally due to an ovulation disorder, Holly was also considered ‘socially’ infertile as a Queer person and as a single woman. Undeterred, Holly embarked on the arduous journey of IVF and single parenthood by choice. Holly shares with us the joys and challenges of solo parenting, as well as the trials of navigating the infertility and hospital systems as a queer single person, in a system that is designed at every step to assume the pregnant person is one half of a traditional family unit.

Holly also shares with us her experience of contracting COVID-19 in 2020 and passing the virus onto her partner, a trans man with cystic fibrosis who was nine months pregnant. Holly and her partner were placed into mandatory isolation in hospital with their children, and were not allowed to leave their rooms, even to visit each other. Her partner gave birth during this time in hospital and they made medical history as the first non-caesarean COVID birth in the world. Holly shares the trauma that persisted after her diagnosis of Covid, and the stigma of contagion that followed her and her partner out of hospital, drawing parallels to the history and politics of ‘Queer Fear’ and the stigma of infection.