Miranda Burns  0:00  

This is a shocking thing, but I had one doctor, I was telling him, and I was like, Oh, I get really bad pain during sex. And he genuinely said to me, Oh, you must have become the queen of blowjobs then.

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Amber Izzo  0:11  

Hello! You are listening to misconception a Gaia Family podcast. My name is Amber Izzo, and I am your host. Each week we release a new episode talking about the various paths to parenthood, from community stories to conversations with experts, we've got you covered. Gaia's mission is to make IVF more accessible for more people with a financial plan that allows you to start and protect your IVF and access to a community who just get it. We're here for you. You can request a free personalized quote at gaiafamily.com. This week, we are talking to Miranda Burns. Miranda is a radio presenter for Capital South Coast, but she's also an endometriosis, IVF and baby loss advocate. She's the host of IVF podcast Test Tube Baby with her husband, and has candidly shared her journey with endometriosis, IVF and baby loss on her social media and YouTube channel. Miranda experienced a heartbreaking loss when she gave birth to her daughter Amberley, when she was just 18 weeks pregnant. Miranda has gone on to have IVF and has since had another daughter. I've personally followed Miranda's story for many years, and she is truly inspirational. And we're so pleased we're able to talk to her today and share that conversation with you. Let's bring her in. Miranda, Hello!

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Miranda Burns  1:34  

Hello. 

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Amber Izzo  1:34  

Thanks so much for joining us. How are you?

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Miranda Burns  1:36  

I'm really well. Thank you. I'm buzzing for this. Thank you for asking me. I feel honored. How are you?

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Amber Izzo  1:40  

I'm all right. Thank you. It's really nice to speak to you. I feel like we've followed each other for a long time, but never actually sat down and had a conversation. 

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Miranda Burns  1:47  

This is criminal. That is not okay. I know it's been a very long time coming. I was so excited. I was chatting to my husband, Tristan, literally, about you last night. I was like, she's great. She's such a breath of fresh air. She's so inspiring. We're gonna have a chin wag. We've got so much in common. I don't know how we've never spoken, long overdue.

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Amber Izzo  2:04  

I love it. Thank you. But yeah, really, thank you for joining us. This morning, I am going to throw you straight into the deep end and ask you if you can tell our listeners effectively, your story. So just kind of, I've introduced you a little bit before we started, but I love it when people kind of explain the story from their perspective. So yeah, over to you. Okay?

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Miranda Burns  2:24  

Right! I will try my very best. It's wild, isn't it, because when it's your life, and there's so much that's happened, and you try and condense it down, I'm going to miss something up. Try my best. So

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Amber Izzo  2:34  

All the time in the world. 

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Miranda Burns  2:36  

Thank you. So my name is Miranda burns. Little bit of background. I'm a radio presenter. I'm actually married. I've got husband, and I was struggling with women's health problems. I'm just going to use a really broad term there. For so long, so long, I was going back and forth with doctors. I had heavy periods. I won't bore you with all the details, but I'm sure that you can imagine what that may have looked like. And eventually I got recommended to go and see a doctor back in, I want to say, June of 2018 and that's where I got the diagnosis of endometriosis. And I will hold my hands up to you. I was so ignorant. Right? Ignorance is bliss. I didn't know much about this at all, but when I suddenly had this laparoscopy and was diagnosed with endometriosis, so much of my little life made sense. I was like, Oh, my goodness, that's why I'm in so much pain. That's why, like, I was bleeding after sex, all this kind of stuff, stuff I've been dismissed over and over again by different doctors, different, you know, consultants and whatnot. I finally had an answer for it, but then I continued on in my little ignorance is bliss bubble, until I met my now husband, Tristan. And It's so cheesy, but we were very much that, oh, you're my one. Very, very quickly he was a mutual friend. And the mutual friend was like, oh, you should come out. Come out for pizza. We're going for a meal. You should come to and I was like, Oh, I don't know if I want to go. I'm not sure. And it was like the universe intercepted my brainwave. That was like, Miranda, you need to go. You need to go for this pizza. I was like, why? I don't understand. But okay, I feel compelled. So, yeah, as corny as it sounds, I was like, This guy's lovely. I really like this guy. And, long story short, we started talking, we never stopped. We fell in love. And it was at that point that I was like, right? I want to have children with this guy. I want I see this future I want to start a family. Up until that point, I'd been so career driven that it hadn't crossed my mind so much. I am such a family person like my family are just my absolute world. So I think it was always in my future. Well, I hoped it always be in my future. I hadn't actually thought about the ins and outs of that process until I met Tristan. And again, I'm not going to bore with the gory details, but I had a cyst on my ovary burst, which, oh my I do not recommend very, like, very painful, awful, awful experience. But that happened, and that made me go back to my previous consultant that diagnosed me with endo the following year. So this was all in 2019 so I've been diagnosed in the 2018 went back to him, and I was like, I'm still in pain. I think the cyst's ruptured. He was like, yeah, it has ruptured. It's like, leaking. Not good. Stuff could be damaging your egg reserve. This is not good. And that was the first time that fertility in general came into my little existence. I just hadn't been thinking about it at that point. So I had an AMH test. I had a second laparoscopy. I had my a dye test through my fallopian tubes. You know, Triss had a sperm test, and we basically got diagnosed with infertility. Off the back of that, the words that my doctor said to me was, it's going to be basically impossible for you to conceive naturally. And I remember at the time, like trying to, you know, well, my big girl pants, and be all brave, and be like, Oh, wow, okay. And then going home and just like sobbing in bed next to Tristan, thinking, How can this be? Like, I've met the one, like, we're meant to have a family together. And, like, what? Like, infertile, this is just, this is, this is a lot. My AMH was 4.7 so I was 25 at the time I think. 

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Amber Izzo  6:45  

So the AMH is your egg count, isn't it? 

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Miranda Burns  6:48  

Yeah, that's right. So it's not a depiction of the quality of your eggs, which is so important to remember, it's just about it's an estimate for how many you've got, right? So I always say to people when they come to me, or I talk to them about AMH, and they're like, Oh God, it's really low. I'm like, please don't think too much into it. It's impossible not to but don't think too much into it, because it's quality over quantity. And I very much learned that later on. So yeah, AMH was low. Tristan's morphology, so the shape of his sperm, we always see his funny shaped sperm. They were swimming in circles like they weren't cutting it, bless his heart. And my tubes were blocked. The dye wouldn't get through the tube. So that was that. And so we were like, right, okay, it's now or never. Let's do IVF. Let's go for it. And this was in January 2020, and I don't need to tell you what happened in the months following, but the IVF cycle was canceled. Like we literally, we'd signed on the dotted line. I was ready. I was tracking my cycles. I was like, let's do this. We found a brilliant, you know, our consultant that diagnosed me with my endometriosis. He's an amazing guy. He's called Mr. Baghdadi, Mr. B we love him, but we were just ready and raring to go. And then covid hit, and it all got canceled, and the world just plummeted into that silence. And so we just waited. And it was during that period of not knowing when IVF was going to start back up again, that we fell pregnant naturally, which still to this day, we don't understand how that happened. I called my consultant again, and he was like, he's like, I don't have an explanation for this, right? That he's like, this isn't science. This is like a miracle. This is a miracle. And it was the like, happiest four months, you know, of my life. It was just joyful and exciting, and it was a secret that we kept, and it was so precious, and we went for scans, and everything ever things looked good in the beginning, but by the point that I went to my 12 week scan, our daughter was she was measuring like a little bit small. And I knew, because I tracking my cycles for IVF and because of all my health problems previously, like I literally knew the day that she was conceived on. So I knew how old she was, and they were telling me that was wrong and but I again, like, I didn't know anything at this point. I was like, Okay, fair enough. Like, I've got my dates wrong. My 12 weeks ago, I went along and I did have a really unpleasant, uh, sonographer lady, basically tell me that I was wasting her time, because I'm not 12 weeks yet. Like, I'm not even 11. Like, go away, come back, I was like, I'm sure I'm like, 12 and 5, like, that doesn't make sense. And we carried on in the pregnancy, and we got into the second trimester, and I started having, I'm not, again, I'm not gonna go into too much detail, because this can be triggering for people. But I just started having, like, bleeds and stuff wasn't adding up. And we were actually at a private scan to do like, a little like, gender confirmation. We already knew from a blood test that she was girl, but we just wanted to go along for that process again of having her scanned. And it was at this private scan that the sonographer said, I'm going to refer you back to the NHS. I'm concerned that your amniotic fluid levels are really low. This doesn't look right to me. What like, but I want to have my cute scan photos. What do you mean? We're not taking pictures like such an idiot. And I went, we went back to our NHS hospital. I think it was two days later, and again, this was during covid, so Tristan couldn't be with me, and he was waiting outside in the car park, and I was in the waiting room, and the signal was really poor, and we were trying to text each other, and I was having to go for walks to try and get signal to chat to him. And I was getting I was getting more and more anxious. They were running late. I think they ended up seeing like, an hour and a half late, so I was just sat by myself. It was the summer, stiflingly hot, and eventually I got seen. And it was during that scan that they told me that our daughter was seriously unwell, and I don't remember a lot of what happened afterwards. I know that I was kind of like I shoed, I think, like through a side door or something into like the room, the room where they take you, and it's like bad news, and they're trying to sort of hide you from other pregnant people. And Tristan got a call from the unit saying, Miranda's had bad news. Can you come inside? He's never been in the hospital before. He has no idea where I am. He's running down corridors trying to find me. Doesn't know what's happened. Eventually gets, I know it's just awful, really hard. I'm really passionate about how partners get neglected, especially during covid. This was so heightened, but people seem to forget that it's like, it's like two of you, a lot of obviously, you have, like, single mums, 100% but a lot of the time it's like two people that are on this journey together. And our experience when we had Amberley, our daughter, is that Tristan just got, like, forgotten about he just got and he loved her as much like he loves her as much as like I do, and we did in that moment before we lost her anyway.

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So he got ushered into the room. I was sobbing, and we got told that we had to go to a fetal medicine unit, a specialist, place where we then went. We had further scans, further tests, and Amberley was diagnosed with something called Triploidy, which I, again, I knew nothing about. Essentially, I asked the doctor, what's her chance of, like, survival, like, I don't understand, how does this work? And he was like she has a less than 0% chance of survival. It's a miracle that your body has kept her this long, full stop, you probably should have miscarried her back at like seven weeks.

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Amber Izzo  13:12  

Oh, wow.

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Miranda Burns  13:13  

I know. I know. So yeah, like, it's weird, because I try and find, not necessarily positives and things, because there aren't positives in these kinds of situations, but I try to find like, like light in the dark. And one of the things that brings me light is that, like my body, held on to her for so long, and like that. That is so beautiful and so special that, you know, everything will have been telling my body, like, this is a non viable pregnancy. And yeah, like, we kept her for my my notes will say 18 weeks, but we know it was more like 20 weeks, but she wasn't going to survive. She was very, very, very unwell, and the risk was that if we continued on in the pregnancy, that I could potentially miscarry later on. We didn't know what kind of complications that could cause for me. It could put me into danger. We didn't know what well. We knew that at some point she was going to start feeling pain. That was the real concern of mine. So we had to make the decision to have a termination for medical reasons. I say make the decision. You're not making a choice in that situation, are you? Like, it's a... you're basically just given these facts, and you just have to do what you think is the reasonable thing to do. So yeah, we had to have a, like, medically induced miscarriage. And she was born on the 19th of August, 2020, and she's called Amberley Ann Hall. And yeah, she's the, like, little girl that made us parents, and she'll always be my firstborn, and I carry her with me every day. And yeah, like, that is, you know that that is the story of Amberley. And it was just, it was so awful and so soul destroying, and especially because, like, she was, like, the miracle baby, like, oh my god, they got pregnant, they were infertile. That's great. Like, how did it happen? And it had happened for us, but during that time, because I chose to talk about it really openly on my Instagram page, and you know what? I'm so glad I did, because the amount of people that reached out to me and said, I've experienced the same thing. I've been there like, I'm so sorry, but I understand. Like, I know, I get it, and that solidarity was kind of like, what kept me going in some really dark, dark places, and people telling me your world is over right now, but like, I promise you, like you are going to smile again, you will, I promise it's going to happen. And people saying things like, I love the phrase like, if love could have saved her, she'd still be here. Like, you know what I mean? Like, just these beautiful things, the real kindness of humanity, like came out and was shown to me, like complete strangers just finding and messaging me. So, you know, we got through it, and Triss and I are, like, forever, just bonded by that awful, sad situation. And the next, like, five months, I don't really remember them like, I think I was sort of in some kind of self preservation mode where I just was, like, suppressing it all. I know I had a panic attack at one point, but, like, a lot of it is just sort of gone. I was, like, functioning. I went back to work, like, on Instagram, other than, you know, obviously posting about her and whatnot. Like I would have looked like I was okay, but like, I just I wasn't okay. And the thing that brought kind of positivity back into my life was we then decided to start IVF again, and it was like channeling all of that just negative energy into something productive, like I just needed to distract my brain with something so the documents were already all signed, already, you know, said we were going to do it, and we've had our clinic, And we had our consultant, we're all good to go, and we started back up IVF. And that's a journey, isn't it like that is absolutely yeah, you're an experienced queen. You know all about this. That is something else. Tristan won't mind me saying he's got a phobia of needles, so I had to inject myself, which, do you know what I'm very proud of, that I'm very, um, yeah, it's not, it's not an easy thing. It doesn't come naturally, does it? I mean, it doesn't.

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Amber Izzo  17:47  

And I think it's very much like for me, it was about the control, like I wanted to do mine myself. And I found, I actually found the injection part of the entire process, the easiest bit, because it's the only bit I can control so it was a real I don't know it was a real thing for me.

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Miranda Burns  18:04  

You're so much more hardcore than I am. I literally, I had to be so hyped up. Tristan would like say to me, right? If you do this one, you can buy a dress on ASOS afterwards. Not that he was giving me permission to buy a dress I would have bought anyway.

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Amber Izzo  18:20  

Bribery in its finest form, 

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Miranda Burns  18:24  

Absolutely, you know, we did it. We got through it. And from that cycle, we did the short protocol. We got four eggs, of which all four fertilized, and three made it to day five and were able to either be frozen or implanted. 

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Amber Izzo  18:49  

So the short protocols like,

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that's about five to seven days, isn't it? Yeah. Well, a little bit longer than that. You don't need to do the down regulation before and shut your system down.

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Miranda Burns  18:57  

Exactly that. Yeah. So, yeah, it was, it was like a wild two weeks from the first sort of appointment and getting the meds and then the periods on all of that. So when I got, when I retrieved four eggs, again, Instagram is a wonderful place, but it's also like not always a great place, because comparison is the thief of joy. I was seeing so many people getting, like, 27 eggs and and then I was like, oh no, I got four. I was like, oh dear. But this is when quality over quantity comes into play. Like we managed to fertilize all the eggs, and we managed to get three embryos from those eggs. So I'm I'm ecstatic. I was so I was like, I'll take that. That's brilliant. Some people don't get any eggs at all. I'm so grateful.

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Amber Izzo  19:51  

Did you do ICSI because of the sperm issues?

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Miranda Burns  19:53  

Yeah, that's right, yeah we did ICSI. 

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Amber Izzo  19:55  

So just for the listeners. That's kind of when they inject the sperm directly into the egg, rather than letting them just do their own thing in the dish. It's very much, yeah, quite common when there's sperm issues.

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Miranda Burns  20:05  

We describe it as, like, the sort of IVF, as you would imagine it. It's like a little cocktail shaker where they, like, put the little egg and the sperm again, and they give a little shake and, oh, and they have a little, like, nice dance together. Whereas, yeah, with ICSI, it's very much like you say, like you're injecting it in. Poor Tristan and his sperm. He had to do two, bless his heart. He had to do two samples because the first one didn't work and they, well, it was okay. They weren't great sperm. This is the thing. This is, the poor man, and this is the worst thing. So he did the first one. It's, oh yeah, got it. That's great. Smash that out. It's gonna be good. And then they come in and they were like, it wasn't good enough. Do it again. And he's like, no, I have extra pressure. Yeah. So and again, he will not mind me talking about this because we've talked about it at lengths online, or it isn't. You can find it already out there, but yeah. So yeah, we did the ICSI and that way, oh my goodness, we were fortunate. They called us each day and they told us, like, how things were progressing, how many embryos we still had, yada yada yada. There are some girls that I know that were messaging me, that were going through the same thing, and their clinics weren't calling them at all. And I didn't realize, I know, yeah, so they would, they've gone in, they've had their egg retrieval, they've done whatever the fertilization, and then they don't hear anything for five days, and then they get called on the fifth day to say whether they've got any embryos or not. Awful, because we were clinging to, you know, for those like little calls, that phone call that would come each day to tell you how things were progressing.

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Amber Izzo  21:44  

I can't remember how often, I think mine was consistently with all of us. I think we got a phone call the following day to let us know how many fertilized. Then on day three, we got a call to say how many had progressed. And then the day before, we got a call to say what time we needed to go in, right? Yes. So yeah, I think three, three out of the five days we got we got calls

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Miranda Burns  22:04  

Which I think is reasonable, yeah, imagine not knowing. Imagine the clinic just being like, we'll let you know on if, if and when I heard of that. That's super interesting. I feel like this was a while ago. I feel like, from memory, they might have been in the States, so I don't know if I needed to know. I needed to know what was going on. So, yeah, we transferred one of our embryos. Two are currently on ice in the freezer next to the chicken dippers. Obviously, they're not, they're in a scientific freezer, and they're very safe. But that embryo. Oh, my God, we're so lucky. She implanted and it became a viable pregnancy, which like when, when you know the odds of IVF and the fact that it worked for us. First time. I am so aware of how fortunate we are. I do not take that for granted whatsoever. And so, yeah, that little embaby became Penny, Penelope, my now two year old daughter, which is just, you know, so wild. And yeah, so I'm a, I'm a, I'm a girl mom. I've got two daughters, one in heaven and one Earth side, and Penny is just an absolute bundle of joy. She is very loving, funny, enthusiastic, very strong willed and opinionated a lot like myself. I can never complain if she's being a little bit too determined, because she gets that from me, and she's just my best friend. And I feel so lucky. Feel so lucky. So, you know, I've talked for what, like 20 minutes, but it's hard, isn't it? Put your life story into, yeah, condensed version.

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Amber Izzo  23:51  

But it will help so many people. And I think, you know, you obviously said, when you were talking about Amberley, about how that support on social media was so vital for you, and I think it like community is everything. And I think when so many people are going through this, they look for stories like their own to relate to and understand. So I do think sharing your story like you've done it so candidly and so openly. I mean, have you ever wished that you didn't have you ever wished that you'd kept any of it private? Or are you really glad that you you did it this way?

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Miranda Burns  24:22  

I think I'm glad I did it this way for a few reasons. Reason number one is that when we didn't share about our pregnancy with Amberley, we lost we actually, we found out that she was no longer, you know that it wasn't going to result in a healthy child on the day that we originally planned to announce that we were pregnant, I know it's just so awful and dark, but it meant that when we sort of decided to tell the world that we had been pregnant and we'd lost our baby, like people were finding out that we were having a baby and. And had lost her like in the same breath. And it meant that some people, I would imagine, struggled to sympathize, because this was just like a concept that just came and then went in the moment. And it meant that when we were pregnant with Penny, I was like, I want to tell people. I think we announced on Instagram at maybe like eight weeks, which I appreciate, is quite early. Some people would think I was like, but if this pregnancy isn't successful, I'm not going to pretend like she didn't happen. Like for me personally, I still want to share about, you know, both my daughters and again, I totally understand that some people, they go through miscarriages, and then they choose not to talk about it, and that's their decision. But me, like, I'm such a, like, a, I don't know, a communicator. I have to talk about things, and that's my form of therapy. Is just like talking and talking and sharing and keeping that memory alive. And I love it when I hear people like, use Emily's name like it just it brings this little spark of joy into my heart. And so yeah, like I was like, we're going to share everything. And that was a mutual decision that we made together. We're going to share everything that happens. Because if it does go wrong, then I want people to know about that as well, because that's just going to be part of who I am moving forward. I don't want to hide it. And then also, like we've already touched upon, just the community I have made so many like, bonds with people like, you know, like yourself, like I've met amazing, inspiring people because I shared and when I was going through everything in 2020 and I could see other women and couples and, you know, all of these people that were coming to me saying, oh my gosh, I've gone through it too. I was so grateful for that. I was like, I owe it to future people to share my story so that I can be that comfort, like, I want to repay that kindness back, you know, so if all these people that were strangers to me, came and were like offering solidarity and their stories and support and kindness. Like, I want to repay that if I can in the future. So like, I began just sharing and sharing and sharing, and I get people message all the time who have experienced baby loss or who are going through IVF, and they're not even coming for advice. They're just coming to like, share and someone who understands and like, I will always try and be that person who will listen and understand and like, don't get me wrong. Like, it's I'm not saying like, I'm some kind of saying, like, I get something from it as well. Like, I love sharing. I just, that's what, like, makes the world go round, you know? I mean, like, making connections with people. So, yeah, it's just kind of, I think, I think I would have always shared I'm naturally an overshare. It's in my DNA. It's part of who I am. But, yeah, I don't think I have any regrets about it,

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Amber Izzo  27:55  

This kind of 12 week rule that people have. Obviously, you touched on the fact that you shared that you were pregnant with Penny at eight weeks, and you'd said, you know, that was quite early on for some people. And I think you know this 12 we know that most, most losses do happen in the first 12 weeks, which is typically why people say, wait until the 12 weeks. But what are your thoughts on that? Because I think there's an element of it, almost, from my perspective, keeps it a taboo, and when people are going through these losses, they need that support. They need that community. And yet it seems if people are waiting until 12 weeks to even announce it, that actually finding that support is a lot harder. 

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Miranda Burns  28:31  

Yeah, it's such a personal choice, isn't it, because I also know people that have had miscarriages, some of them before 12 weeks, some of them after 12 weeks, and they've chosen not to talk about it because it's too painful for them and they'd rather just rather just close that chapter of their book, in which case they, I suppose, would be grateful that they hadn't announced it so it. I think it all boils down to the kind of person that you are in general outside of life. Are you somebody who shares? Are you somebody who takes solace and like talking to others? Or are you somebody that's naturally quite private, and you can make the decision, I suppose, using that kinds of information personally, from my own experience, you know, which is the only one really I can use by not sharing until post 12 weeks. It's almost giving your experience of pregnancy like a disservice. It's almost like, it's like, you can't be, like, a little bit pregnant. You're either pregnant or you're not pregnant, right? Like a loss is a loss. A loss is a loss. And by announcing, oh, believing in society, it's such a societal, you know, construct, like you say, because of the whole once you get past 12 weeks, your baby is more likely to make it full term. But yeah, like, it's by, by not announcing it, you're suggesting that it didn't. Really count until you got to 12 weeks, and I just feel like that undermines so many people's experience. And personally, I just don't think that's fair. Like you can lose a pregnancy at seven weeks, for example, and be absolutely distraught, like once you got that positive test, you know you were thinking of names. You were imagining a nursery. You were daydreaming about your future you have, like the tests kept in a little box you bought your first baby girl. You know, all of these things. And so whether that happens at eight weeks or 14 weeks, it's still like, if it's going to be soul destroying for you, it's going to be soul destroying earlier or later, and by not telling anybody, of course, it's your choice, but you know it's, it's as though it just didn't happen. And I just think, I just think that's sad. If that's it's that, if you're that way inclined, I hope that makes sense. You know what I mean? Because it's so personal, it's someone's choice. I absolutely don't want to suggest that one way is better than the other, because it's not you have to decide, you have to decide what's right for you. But just personally, I was always going to talk about and believe, and though that she's, you know, not here next to me. Yeah,

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Amber Izzo  31:12  

It's one of those, I think, when you're going through IVF as well, and people know you're going through IVF, if people are, you know, I, I don't know how many people, when I told them I was doing IVF, actually looked into the process of IVF, but people had an idea of when I would be testing, and people have an idea of when, you know, and then people are waiting, and I almost feel like that adds a little bit more pressure. I mean, did you actively? I remember your Instagram updates when you were doing IVF, but I can't remember if you did it in real time, or whether or not you delayed that slightly. So did you, how was that, and what was that kind of...?

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Miranda Burns  31:48  

So from memory, so we did it real time. We were sharing real time, like on egg retrieval day, everybody knew that I was going in for egg retrieval and whatnot, and when, like, you say, everyone knew exactly, like you could work out, if you'd read into the process, you knew exactly the day that we were going to be testing on. And so we decided to kind of put it on, like, hold, pause it. And I think I either did a post, I know in the podcast, the podcast we were sharing slightly retrospectively, that was like a week delay. But I think I might have put a post up where I said, we're going into our two week wait. Like, thank you so much for your support. Like, we're just going to be quiet and you know, normal service will resume as and when I think and I carried on, like chatting on Instagram and just sort of being, you know, like normal Miranda, and it was when we had our scan. So we had the positive test, and then we went for a scan. It was post the scan that we decided to announce it. And actually people really, really, really respected that. Like when I said, yeah, it was nice when I said, we're not going to say anything. For the time being. I don't remember getting any messages in the however many weeks it looked three or I can't remember how many weeks it was afterwards, from people being like, oh, what's happened? I don't think anybody did. I suppose people know that it's such a sensitive such a sensitive situation to be in. And a lot of the people that were following me either were doing IVF, had done IVF, are part of the endo community. You know, a lot of people are empathetic and so respected that and understood that. I maybe wanted some like quiet when we when we do it again. I don't know. I enjoyed the thrill of sharing real time, because it is exciting. You know, people are like, really in it with you and you obviously, if you want advice, you can get advice immediately. So for example, when I shared that I'd only got four eggs, I was disappointed. And I get loads of people commenting and messaging being like, no, no, no, but it's quality over quantity, and I needed to hear that in that moment. And if I shared retrospectively, I suppose I wouldn't have got that. But again, you know, privacy is important. If it's not successful, do I want some time to process it first before I share? I don't know it's a very fine line, isn't it? 

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Amber Izzo  34:17  

Absolutely, it's such a personal decision. And I mean, you've touched on there when you do it again. And I know that when you've done Q&A's, people have asked you, you know what your plans are, whether or not you will try for a sibling. So I mean, A, how do you feel about that? And B, how do you feel about people asking the question like, how do you how do you deal with that,

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Miranda Burns  34:35  

Well, do you know what I controversial statement, I don't actually mind so much when people ask me if I'm trying for a second one, just because a lot of the time when people do ask me, I know that it's coming from a place of excitement for me. Learning. Love. Sometimes people are just nosy buggers, obviously, but a lot of the time I know it is just coming from 'Oh Penny, such a delight. Would you like a second?' Yeah, I appreciate that. Not many people, I like to tell myself anyway, maybe I'm very naive and optimist, but not many people are intentionally malicious and nasty in the world, you know, and like, when they ask that question, I think they're just trying to be kind. They're trying to make conversation. Also, some people ask because they're going through, like, IVF or infertility struggles themselves, and they're like, When are you planning on trying again? Because, like, I'm thinking about trying. And so that's coming from, like, a point of, I don't know they're looking for advice or solidarity, so I definitely don't mind that whatsoever. So I know that's a little bit controversial, because personally, I try to never ask people when they're Yeah, they're trying for a second, because I know that it can be really upsetting and triggering, and lots of people are one and done, and it sort of suggests, like, if you ask for some you ask somebody or when are you having a second? It's like their first baby wasn't enough. And like, every baby is enough, What a ridiculous thing to think. So even though I'm not practicing what I preach, as in, I don't ask people, but I don't mind people asking me,

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Amber Izzo  36:12  

it's easy small talk, isn't it? Like, I think it's one of those, like, you know? I wish nobody would when we were diagnosed. I wish nobody had asked me, What am I having kids, because I always found that a really triggering question, but I know that it is a conversation that people have to find out if they've like when you're in the workplace, Oh, do you have kids? It's almost like a relationship building question, isn't it? But I think when people do know, and then people keep pressing, then that's when it gets harder I think.

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Miranda Burns  36:40  

Yeah that's crossing a line, especially if you have further information about the person that you're talking with, and you're not being sensitive to that situation. Yeah, that's not okay.

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Amber Izzo  36:50  

There's a difference isn't there between, do you have kids and when are you having kids? I think, I think they are very different questions, and depending on who they come from, and really alter how they're perceived. But I love your perception on that. I think that's a really great positive kind of outlook to have.

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Miranda Burns  37:06  

I try, I try. I mean, I do. I'm not always positive. My mum wouldn't mind me saying this. I was much, much, much, much younger. I think I was just going through that, like Grumpy teenage phase, and, you know, done that. Yeah, a bit of an emo. I had the big fringe the skin. Yeah, I was listening to My Chemical Romance. I love I still. I love it. But I was sat at the dinner table sulking, being brooding, mooding or moody, or whatever, whatever. And my mum said to me, Miranda, you're such a glass half empty kind of person.

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Amber Izzo  37:41  

I would have never!

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Miranda Burns  37:43  

My God, it stuck with me. And like she, I think at the time, I don't know, should you say that as a mother, but I'm so glad that she did, because I am a very like, quite defiant person. And like, I like to prove people wrong. She said that I was like, how, how could you like? Well, I will become positive. I will become and it literally, it changed my life. It's one of the most orbitive things that someone ever said to me, ever, and now she's really smug about it. She's like, well, I bet you're glad that I said that to you. I try really, really hard where I can to be positive, to try really hard. I can't always do this, but to try and not hold grudges. Believe, I know it's not always true, but believe that most people are not coming from a place of nastiness. Maybe they're coming from a place of ignorance instead. And so, yeah, I try. Do you know what? I think life is easier when you are positive, and you try your hardest to see joy in little things, if you can. And trust me, I do not always manage it. I do not always succeed. Sometimes, Tris, as I walk around the house with like this little cloud above my head, and he tries to blow it away, like your clouds there. And I'm like, Oh, I know. And before my period, I definitely I get low and sad, but generally my outlook on life is to be as open minded and positive as I can be, because I just think it's easier. Do I mean, when we lost Amberly, I went into a really dark place, and I was very angry. And I still have that in me. I have, I think it's so unfair. How could it happen to us? Why didn't it happen to them? They don't understand, and all these kinds of things. And so I don't know that is still part of me. It's part of my fiber. I do have that there, but like, where I can be positive. I try, yeah,

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Amber Izzo  39:39  

I think, I mean, if we go back kind of to the beginning, where you were first diagnosed with endometriosis, you said you had a laparoscopy, which, for people who don't know, is keyhole surgery, where they kind of go in with a camera, blow your stomach up with gas and have a look around. I mean, how was that entire process of getting diagnosed? Because I know that endometriosis is one of these conditions that can take up to like, 10 years to actually be diagnosed. So how was that kind of journey from realizing that something wasn't right through to getting diagnosed? Like, Were there particular pain points there or frustration points that actually made it harder to get diagnosed?

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Miranda Burns  40:19  

What a question. Yeah, um, yeah. I mean, you've hit the nail on the head there. Like, I think the stat is currently, one in seven people assigned female at birth has endometriosis. Please don't quote I think that's right. Personally, I think it's worse, and that is because it takes so long to get diagnosed. So I don't think it's like one, and I think it's, I want to say it's seven. I should have checked this before I came on. But if it, let's say it is seven.

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Amber Izzo  40:50  

Check it and I'll put it in the description.

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Speaker 1  40:54  

Thank you. Yeah, I'll check what the stat is. Yeah. If it is one in seven, I think it actually is probably more like one in five or one in four, because it, yeah, it takes, on average, an obscene amount of time to get diagnosed. And I'm a part of that statistic like I think it took me close to a decade to get diagnosed, and I was presenting like so many symptoms, and I was going to doctors relentlessly. I had a GP in particular who was just so unpleasant and not understanding. And do you want to know the shocking thing? She specialized in women's health, like she went, she, like, ran a clinic or something at a hospital nearby, which was, like, specialized in these kinds of conditions. And I would go to her, and I was like, you know, I'm getting pain during sex, I'm bleeding during sex. I'm bleeding after sex. And she literally said to me, she was like, Miranda, these things sometimes they just happen, and there's not an explanation for them. And she didn't like she didn't do any kind of testing on me. She just dismissed me. And that, I think, is shocking, and I've had to because I've thought so many times at wanting to, like, write and complain and be like, you did this. Now I've got my diagnosis, but I've just had to, like, close that chapter, because it's too infuriating for me to sit with. But she was just an example of so many different doctors that I went to. Some of them were lovely and understanding and were a little bit more sympathetic. Some of them, again, were just dismissive. I had so many interactions with different medical professionals and nobody, like, worked it out I'd had problems with my bowels from, like, really early on. I remember I would always get like, I'd always get constipated. I mean, this is going way, way back now, but my periods were really heavy. They were really, really painful. I got put on, I think it was called, I want to say, memic acid. I bet I've butchered that, but it's like a pain relief drug. So, like I personally now with hindsight, all those signs were there, and it wasn't until I got recommended to go and see my consultant, who ended up being the consultant that did our IVF, and I got recommended to see him by a friend that I got this diagnosis, and endometriosis even got mentioned to me in the first place. It was a lot of periods are just painful. These things happen. Wait till you get pregnant that will fix it. I mean, that one makes my blood boil because a lot of people that have this condition can't get pregnant. And also to suggest that having a child is a solution to curing a medical problem full stop is just so ridiculous, because you do realize you then have that child for the rest of your life. Like, let's say hypothetically, that having a kid cured endometriosis hypothetically, it doesn't, but let's say it does. Once I've had that baby and my endos cured, like, what's happening to that? Oh, I just have a child now. Yeah, then what is such a silly thing? What does make any sense? So yeah, and it was only then when I met Mr. B in 2018 and this had been going on and on that yeah, I he suggested I had laparoscopy, and he went in and he was like, you have severe endometriosis. I think again, it was a long time ago, but I think my bowel was, like, stuck to my abdomen or something. Everything was stuck together. My ovaries were twisted round behind each other. I had had a scan where they couldn't see one of my ovaries because it was like twisted and hidden behind something else. It was an absolute mess. And the surgery was meant to take, maybe it was an hour or something, and it ended up being, like four and a half. It ended up being a really long, major surgery, whatever. And you can't help but think, had I been diagnosed earlier, if somebody had bothered to, you know, look into this earlier. Could it not have been as bad? May my tubes not have become blocked, may my AMH not have dropped like, we'll never know. And you can't torture yourself, like thinking about it, so, yeah, like, I think that period of my life I was less positive. That was, like, that was quite, I got, I got into quite, like, a dark place with it, because I think when your health is so poor, you it's very difficult to be like, happy. Do you know? I mean, if you wake up every day in chronic pain, yeah, every day you wake up with it, how are you meant to remain cheerful and chipper? Like, it's just, it's it's just not possible. So that was, like, the process. This is a shocking thing, but I had one doctor. I was telling him, I was like, oh, I get really bad pain during sex. And he genuinely said to me, oh, you must have become the queen of blowjobs then, and my mum was in the room at the same time she'd come with that is shocking on so many different levels, like we could dissect that for 30 minutes about how awful that is of a thing to say. This is also just prioritizing someone else. I can laugh now, at the time, I mean, I laughed in the room because I didn't know what to say. I've grown, I've, like, grown such a backbone like this experience. Now, if someone said that to me, oh my god, I would call them out immediately. At the time, I was like, you didn't know what to say. 

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Amber Izzo  46:30  

I'd have been exactly the same. Yeah, I don't, I don't know how I'd have ever responded to that. Oh my goodness. 

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Miranda Burns  46:36  

And then when you're in a room and it's their office and they're the consultant or the doctor or whatever, there's like this sort of superiority thing. It's like being a teacher and a student at school, like you just listen and you nod. And so it's difficult to fight yourself, especially when it's about something so personal and so intimate, such as your health, and it can make you really emotional. Like every appointment I ever would go into, I would end up crying because I was just at such a loss. So yeah, just wild. I had another woman say to me, you just need to get you to be like a cat and have a litter of kittens, as in, just keep churning out babies and then that will suppress your problems. Ridiculous thing to say.

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Amber Izzo  47:18  

Whoa

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Miranda Burns  47:20  

I know it's awful.

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Amber Izzo  47:22  

Yeah, goodness me, that's really shocked me. I did not expect that at all when we logged on this morning. Oh my goodness.

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Miranda Burns  47:31  

No, it's awful. It's so bad. And like, I've come to that individual looking for help, and that's why, you know, got met with,

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Amber Izzo  47:41  

Yeah, blimey. I mean, how, like, how do you when you had the laparoscopy, how did you kind of deal with the recovery from that? Like, what was the recovery like when you'd obviously had this laparoscopy being diagnosed? Because there must have been, obviously, the physical side of recovering from a laparoscopy at the end of the day you've had surgery, but also the coming to terms with the diagnosis and what you've been told, hopefully this time without any wildly insensitive comments.

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Miranda Burns  48:07  

Oh yeah, do you know what? I'm glad to say... They're sort of in the past. So it's a bit bonkers, really. It took me probably about two weeks to start feeling like myself again. Some people, you know, I think I was it Molly Mae had a laparoscopy, and apparently two days later was like having a photo shoot, looking amazing. I mean, all power to her. That was not me. No, I was wearing the same nighty with my bloated stomach for like two weeks. I probably smelt really bad. I didn't wash my hair. I felt awful.

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Amber Izzo  48:36  

Same, wow. Could not imagine. No, yeah.

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Miranda Burns  48:39  

So yeah, to me about two weeks ago, a little bit better. It was really, really nice to be told that I wasn't going insane and there were actual things wrong with me that was incredibly reassuring. Like I found having a diagnosis, like it felt powerful. I was like, thank God. Like, I have have reason. I understand it makes sense now. Yeah, actually. So this was 2018 in August, September 2018, I launched a breakfast show on the radio - I'm a radio presenter. I launched this breakfast show down in Brighton. So I was actually looking for flats in Brighton and running like practice radio shows and things during my recovery. And I didn't tell anybody, like I didn't. I don't think I talked about my diagnosis really bar with my immediate family and friends for like, a year afterwards. I don't think I shared it. So I started this new job, and I moved cities, and nobody knew what had happened. Nobody knew about my diagnosis, nobody knew that I just had like, major surgery, which is a bit crazy now to think about that. I just didn't talk to anybody about it because I moved so far away from my support system and just had to function by myself of this new thing that I was, like, living with and had the weight of on my shoulders. So, yeah, like, liberating in the you find out. You've got a diagnosis and everything makes a little bit more sense. There is then the well, what next? Because endometriosis doesn't have a cure. I had the Marina coil put in, and it doesn't work for everybody, but it worked for me. It definitely helped. I had less painful periods. My periods became so much lighter, pain of sex reduced or it was beneficial to me, but I appreciate it doesn't work for everybody, so I was grateful for that. But, yeah, I don't know, like life just kind of carries on. You have this massive diagnosis, and then you feel like the world needs to stop or something. But it doesn't. Everyone just keeps functioning, and you just, you just get back on and you, you continue. 

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Amber Izzo  50:38  

How is it now? How do you how do you deal with it now? Like, is it still quite a problem for you? Are you still experiencing pain to the same extent, and especially being a mother? 

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Speaker 1  50:48  

Yeah it's hard. It's hard. There's this, it's not true, but people say like pregnancy will cure your endometriosis, and it absolutely doesn't. I found pregnancy itself was very painful. I can't remember exactly which trimesters were better and worse. Now, I think in the first trimester, I had a lot of pain and cramping, and I would come back from work and I just have to, I couldn't merge and lie on the sofa and to be still for like, the rest of the evening. Second trimester, as my stomach began to grow, I got like stretching, pinging pains. So you've got there was, like, scar tissue. I actually felt one of them rip at one point, like it popped, and I got really bad, searing pain, which wasn't pleasant, and I could only walk short distances and then post having Penny. It's absolutely not got better. My periods have returned to being really heavy. And do you know, I don't know whether my periods are as painful, maybe that is potentially better, but I still, I get really bad ovulation pain. I get awful bloating. I still have problems with my bowels. I get fatigue. I have a lot of the same stuff that I had. Some of it may be slightly better, some of it probably quite a lot worse. I it's very hard to give advice on, like, coping with endometriosis, when you're a parent. I just, I have days where I stick the telly on and Penny and I sit on the sofa and we just snuggle and I'm just still and I have my like, heated like blanket or hot water bottle around me, and that's what we do. And if you ever find yourself in that situation, that's okay. It's absolutely fine. You don't have to be super mum all the time. It's not your fault. It's tough. Yeah, it's it's difficult. I wish I was one of those parents that had like, endless energy, but I just don't. My body is continuously fighting something, and as a result, I get really tired a lot of the time. I have days where I'm in a lot of pain, and I just do my best. I keep her fed, I keep her watered, and I keep her, you know, warm and alive. And that is, you know, that's enough. You don't always have to be doing arts and crafts and baking and like all these, you know, taking her to the zoo and all these, you know, those things are wonderful, but don't put pressure on yourself, especially if you're having like, a high pain day. I want to put the Merina coil back in at some point, but with hopefully we'll see trying for a second, you know, implanting one of those embryos. I hope before the end of this year, I don't really see the point. Like, I don't necessarily, I don't really want to put it in to then, like, have it taken out again within six months. It's like, I would imagine it would be quite painful, and I don't. I had my first one put in during my laparoscopy, so I'd be awake for this one. And I don't think I necessarily want to do that if there's no point currently.

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Amber Izzo  53:37  

No, absolutely. I mean, how are you finding that processing kind of preparing for a frozen, frozen transfer? Are you finding it different to preparing for a fresh or?

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Miranda Burns  53:48  

No not necessarily different from preparing for a fresh I think I'm really acutely aware of how lucky we were that like Penny worked first time, so I'm kind of bracing for not to work. I'm like, we've had our luck. Do you know what I mean? Like, we got Penny and, yeah, part of me wants to check my AMH, so I want to get my like, egg reserve, like levels checked, because if it's depleted further, if it used to be 4.7 and it's now, for example, 1.2 I think what I'd rather do is go for another egg collection, because, and do that first, because time is, time is, like, precious with these sorts of things. And I'm, I don't want to, you know, do two frozen embryo transfers, then both fail, and then think, right, let's go for another round of IVF. Let's retrieve eggs and, like, have nothing left. It's really frustrating. Is it? Do you find this, like, I would love to just, like, get pregnant naturally, and like, have that moment. I don't want to stay in the obvious, but like, that excitement of, like, just getting pregnant and then, like, surprising your partner, and we like, Oh my God. Like, I want. Have that moment like I want, that's what I want to do. I think it's like, it's really naff to think that there's medicine and money and cost involved just detracts a little bit from the magic of it, doesn't it? 

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Amber Izzo  55:14  

Yeah I totally relate. I really, really relate. I mean, we have four on ice, and it's like, we will not use all four like we know that, and it's very it's a really complex decision, I think, and it's really difficult to try and come to terms with that. And I find it harder maybe now, to know that I'm not going to just get pregnant naturally than I ever did before. I think we have a similar diagnosis. My tubes are completely blocked, but mine don't exist anymore. Mine were removed. So it's a really kind of difficult thing to come to terms with that every month you get that period, even though every month you sit there and think, oh, maybe this will be the month. And even though it's impossible, your mind will still play those, those things, you still kind of deal with those, those feelings. Yeah.

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Miranda Burns  55:58  

It's so hard, isn't it? It's really sad. Like, really.

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Amber Izzo  56:01  

How have you found the whole process, like with the clinic? Like, in turn, I know that you obviously speak so highly of Mr. B your consultant. I love it, but I think in terms of, I know that obviously when people are choosing a clinic, people find that quite hard, because there are so many and what do you look for? And then you have the whole kind of the the whole cost side, that they sometimes have a list on their website, but then what you actually end up paying is something completely different, knowing what to pay for and knowing what might crop up during I think, can be quite difficult. But how have you found your clinic? How have you handled that? Do you feel that they have been transparent, that everything has been quite clear and you know what to expect?

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Speaker 1  56:39  

Yeah. I mean, I actually had to go back through my whatsapp chats to work it all out, to remember we got told originally it was going to be around three thousand pounds, and it ended up being closer to seven grand. So it was a lot more money than we anticipated. We were fortunate, so fortunate that we had savings, we had help from parents and we had help from grandparents. So it wouldn't have been possible otherwise. So that's how we funded it. And it had, like, let's say it had been just three grand. We could have funded it ourselves. And it scares me the thought that we could have been, you know, in this process, and it ended up being so much more, and being caught short. I mean, like, if I hadn't had help from my parents when it ended up being more expensive. What? What do? What do people do? Like, I feel very grateful that, you know, it worked out that's like, a massive concern, especially if you're anticipating paying a certain amount, and it ends up being like, over double that. But that being said, I like, loved my clinic. It was weird. We didn't choose one. So my the consultant who diagnosed me with endo, like I said, was a consultant that did my IVF. He's, like, a fertility specialist. That's his thing. That's what floats his boat. So it just made sense to go with him. I always said I was like, he literally knows me inside out, like he knows what my insides look like. So, yeah, he's seen it all. It just makes perfect sense. He'd like he will be so experienced in that department. So we just, I didn't even research other clinics. I just went with him because he's who I knew, and it's so personal, like he was familiar and we had a good relationship, and so, like, I wanted to go with somebody that I knew me and I knew them, and I don't have any complaints. Everything is different. People have different experiences. People may well have gone to my clinic and not enjoyed it or not had success and want to move and you know, that's so fine. I was just fortunate that it did work out, bar the whole it ended up costing, like, so much more in total than we, like, could have possibly anticipated.

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Amber Izzo  58:47  

Again, it's so personal, isn't it? It's one of those things that, you know, not everybody looks for different things, and I think that's that's really important, that you know what's kind of right for you. And I think it's really interesting that you followed a doctor like I don't think that says it's something that may be more common in the US, but in the UK, people tend to look for the clinic rather than the doctor.

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Miranda Burns  59:06  

How did it work for you? How did it all play out for you? 

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Amber Izzo  59:09  

Well, we chose our first clinic privately, and we because we didn't get any funding at this point, so we were kind of, we looked based on cost effectively. And that's it's one of my biggest regrets, really, because I feel like we we were quite blindsided by we knew that it was probably going to take more than one we didn't, we didn't know, but we were a little bit blindsided by that. We were very lucky, in the same sense that we did have help from family to pay for it. I have no idea how we would have done otherwise. I think at one point, I worked three jobs to fund it, and my husband was working too. It was wild, but we we chose that clinic didn't have the best experience, and then the NHS funding did come back, and we were very lucky that they didn't do it in house. It was outsourced to different clinics. The clinic that we went with was one that we had looked at privately we loved but couldn't afford, but we were very, very fortunate that they were on the list. So for us, it was a no brainer, but we in between our second and third clinic. Well my second cycle fell just as we went into lockdown. So we were kind of forced into quite an extended break, but it gave us time to recoup some money. And yes, you know, look after ourselves. We saw a nutritionist, we got further tests done, etc, etc, etc. But we looked at about five different clinics in that time. We had multiple consultations, and I think from my perspective, it was always very much, I didn't mind paying for those consultations with different clinics, because I was a little bit like I'd rather offset the 350 pounds now and then choose the right clinic, than go straight into treatment with a clinic, spend 1000s of pounds and not like them. So for us, it was kind of weighing the risk against that.

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Miranda Burns  1:00:52  

Yeah, you almost have to see that initial consultation fee, I suppose, as an investment, for sure, you're investing in making the right decision, and it's frustrating if you then don't go with that particular clinic, but that's a, it's still a worthwhile investment, because you now know that that's a clinic that you're not interested in.

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Amber Izzo  1:01:08  

That's it. And it is, you know, it is expensive, and I think it is, you know, a shame, like, I know a lot of European clinics do free consultations, but here we don't do that, and it's so it is so different. But yeah, for us, it was a real kind of it was, it was definitely difficult. Like, I didn't know what to look for, but I knew what I didn't want, and I think that's how it helped with me. But yeah, it's a strange old journey, isn't it? 

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Miranda Burns  1:01:32  

Yeah I feel grateful that I didn't have to, like, go through that process, because I'm so indecisive and, like, I can, like, lead with my heart a lot. So I might have, like, met a receptionist who was a little bit grumpy and be like, that's not the clinic for me. And that's probably not the wisest way of, like, approaching such a monumental decision. So it's, it's nice in the way that it was, like it was laid out for me, the decision just kind of felt like it was already been made.

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Amber Izzo  1:01:56  

Yeah, there was one clinic I liked because it was next door to a cafe that did really nice sausage rolls. It was one that I was like, Oh, well, if I go there, I can go to this coffee shop. Bit more than a sausage roll here, Amber.

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Miranda Burns  1:02:10  

A good, a good sausage roll is hard to find.

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Amber Izzo  1:02:15  

I agree. I agree. It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you, Miranda, so thank you so much for joining us. Just to end tell everybody where they can find you.

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Miranda Burns  1:02:25  

Oh, yes, so I'm on Instagram. It's Miranda dot burns b, u, r, N, S, as in Burns, flaming hot. I know that's so corny, but everyone spells it with a y, so just think of fire. Yeah, you just spelled burn with a, b, y, r, N, E, I think it might be the Irish

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Amber Izzo  1:02:46  

I've always said that as like something else, yeah, I know somebody was that surname. I didn't know it was Burns. There you go.

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Miranda Burns  1:02:56  

So, yeah, Miranda dot Burns. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Tiktok, but I'm such a millennial, I post every now and then, and I very rarely, then do afterwards. So you can find me same, same, handle - Miranda dot Burns and yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I appreciate it so much. I'm sorry. I feel like I've just like, dumped all this information.

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Amber Izzo  1:03:17  

It's been great, and I'm sure that our listeners will love it like it's you're so relatable and you are glass half full. In my opinion, it's lovely. So thank you so much for joining us.

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Miranda Burns  1:03:28  

Oh, well, thank you. I really appreciate it's been lovely. It's like a form of therapy, isn't it? I feel lighter. I will leave this feeling lighter and more joyful.

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Amber Izzo  1:03:37  

Thanks so much, Miranda. Thank you. Miranda Burns everyone. Isn't she wonderful. I loved speaking to Miranda this week, and hope that if you relate to any of Miranda's story, it's been comforting to hear her tell it. We'll be back next week with another incredible guest and another episode of Misconception. So in the meantime, make sure you subscribe to our podcast followers and socials at Gaia Family Official and check out our website at gaiafamily.com We'll see you next week. Goodbye.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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