Radio host Amanda Keller has spoken on-air about her struggles with fertility – on the day her son turns 16 years old.
On WSFM’s Jonesy & Amanda this morning, Keller recalled when she announced Liam’s birth she felt a “a giant, wonderful, loving hug” from her Sydney listeners, who had been following her IVF journey.
“There had been years and years where I had been trying to have a baby. And when I announced that I was pregnant, everyone was on the ride with us – it was just wonderful,” she explained to her co-host Brendan Jones.
“I’m going to get all teary, but on the morning we announced his birth…just this giant, wonderful, loving hug from Sydney – that’s how it felt for me.”
Keller said Liam had grown into an incredible boy and she couldn’t be more proud of him.
“He’s a real gentle giant,” she said. “He’s massive, he’s a big unit – but yet he has the softest soul.”
“He’s like a renaissance man – he likes his sport, he likes his academic work at school, he’s funny… he’s a beautiful, beautiful boy.”
The 55-year-old said many of her fans still remember the day Liam was born.
“And I still have people in the street who say I remember when Liam – or Norbit as he was known in the womb – was born.”
“It’s almost like a touchstone for a lot of people that it was 16 years ago today.”
This is not the first time Keller has spoken about her infertility struggle. In her memoir, Natural Born Keller, which was released in 2015, she wrote about how she had always assumed motherhood would be a part of her life but it took years – and many heartbreaks – to finally fall pregnant with Liam.
“But one hung in there and finally, after so many sad visits to the ultrasound unit, our lives changed tack in the best possible way,” she wrote. “We detected a heartbeat. A tiny flashing speck amidst a sea of what looked like submarine signals. Evidence, finally, that there was something there.”
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“With joy came the most incredible fear. I knew how fragile this embryo was, how tenuous its hold on the world. Hold on little one, hold on.”
Happy 16th Birthday, Liam.