A Place in the Sun star Scarlette Douglas has revealed she shared her egg freezing journey in an effort to help other black women.
The presenter, 37, was hesitant to share the life update with her fans last year, but decided she ultimately wanted to raise awareness of fertility. Last year, she candidly discussed the fact she had travelled to the Caribbean island of Barbados to visit a fertility clinic and revealed why she felt she had to take action.
Scarlette hinted the fact that she is in her late 30s acted as a contributing factor into her choice to take action to improve her chances of conceiving a family. The I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! star also explained how she wished she had more information about how eggs can degrade with age long before her journey began. She was flooded with support for her honesty and openness about her own experience, yet Scarlette almost didn’t share her journey with fans.
Speaking to the Mirror, Scarlette shared: “I think when I first decided I wanted to do it, I was umming and ahing over whether or not I should talk about it on my social media, because it is such a private topic. But I’m in the public eye as it is anyway and if I have a profile, I need to make sure that there’s an awareness, especially within the black community, because I think we don’t really talk about medical issues that much.”
“So as a black female, I guess I took it upon myself to document it,” she shared. “It was the 19th of March last year, that I had my eggs out, so nearly a whole year. It was two days before Ideal Home Show and I’m not going to lie, it was a very difficult two days of the show because of everything I had just been through.”
Despite the difficulties, Scarlette, who now splits her time between the UK and Los Angeles, admitted it was the “best thing” she could have done as she now feels like a weight has been lifted. She told us: “It means that I can continue focusing on my career. I can be over in Los Angeles and not have to stress that I need to find a husband really quickly and I need to find a man so I can have a child.
“It just means now I can breathe. I can settle down a little bit. And then when the right time comes, I know my eggs are there and I can try going through the next process and the next step is to actually have children.” Despite her relief now at her decision, Scarette, who will be at this year’s Ideal Home Show with brother Stuart Douglas, doesn’t wish she had made the move sooner.
She explained how she is “very career driven” and has spent years focusing on her presenting and property development work. “I actually had time last year to do it,” Scarlette explained. “I know for a fact I wouldn’t have taken the time off all the years before that. I had one particular friend, the one kept telling me for years, you should do it. I was like, ‘yeah, yeah, I’ll get round to it’.
“But I actually think I was in the best headspace to have done it last year and the best space overall to have done it. I think if I’d done it any sooner. I might not have been as okay as I was doing it last year. I think every day we grow as people and definitely last year I felt I was ready to do it. I don’t know if I would have been ready to have done it before.”
Scarlette & Stuart Douglas will be appearing at the Ideal Home Show, on hand to offer lots of top tips, live Q&As and demonstrations throughout the 17-day event at Kensington Olympia. Scarlette & Stuart’s fun insights can all be learned about at this year’s Ideal Home Show.
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