Greg Wise and Dame Emma Thompson's marriage was strained by failed IVF before therapy saved it
Greg Wise and Dame Emma Thompson faced repeated heartbreak as attempts to have a second child during their daughter Gaia's second year of life ended in failure
Greg Wise and Dame Emma Thompson's marriage was put under strain by repeated failed in vitro fertilisation (IVF) attempts before therapy helped them find a way through the difficult period.
The couple welcomed Gaia in December 1999 when the actress was 40, but they faced repeated heartbreak when attempts to have a second child during Gaia's second year of life failed, taking an emotional toll on their relationship and leaving them disconnected until the actor turned to therapy.
On the latest episode of the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, Greg, 60, recalled: "We had been together for three or four years. Decided we wanted to start a family and found out that we couldn't.
"Took the tests and went to New York to do the IVF and saw a four celled large collection there. Three were put back in.
"I think almost exactly on her 40th birthday we found out she was pregnant and this four-celled thing became our daughter.
"In Gaia's second year of life we tried again and failed and then tried again and then failed.
"It's brutal anyway, IVF, and it brings so much baggage. It's the most authentic feeling of failure ever because this is why we're here, to procreate and you're not a man or woman if you can't. We're brought up with the fables that all boys grow up to be fathers and all girls grow up to be mothers."
Greg and Emma, 67, who tied the knot in July 2003, struggled with the grief of their repeated failed IVF attempts to have a second child for a long time.
The Crown star remembered: "It took us a very long time to dig ourselves out of that hole, and we didn't get help with it, and at the same time, we had our gorgeous daughter.
"The pull of that, the exquisite love we felt for her and jarring pain that we wouldn't be able to provide her with a sibling and for us to have another child."
Elizabeth, 47, asked whether the pair had been "able to find each other in that" and talk about their struggles, but Greg admitted he and Emma could not, as they "were dislocated".
Greg felt helpless watching the Nanny McPhee legend endure the gruelling experience of IVF.
He explained: "It's more than that in the process, in the process it's all about the woman and filling them with the various hormones to stimulate things and the harvesting. As you know it's a brutal process.
"Where I was in myself at the time, the saviour figure, I couldn't save Em. There was nothing I could do. Dispassionately it wasn't my gig. She was undertaking all of this.
"All I could was to support and to try and soothe her rather than myself. So, you get into this terrible spiral, this cycle."
Greg is grateful that he and Emma "found our way through" the difficult experience, acknowledging that he knows "couples who were unable to remain couples after failed IVF".
The Sense and Sensibility entertainer continued: "IVF is about creating a human, the process is utterly dehumanising. Because you have an incompetent whatever, or geriatric. Em was 40 with dried up eggs or whatever, with the weight of injection that completely transforms one's system.
"The madness of all that while trying to stay resolutely calm and available."
Greg credits Gaia and going to therapy for saving his and Emma's marriage.
He said: "Here we are. Luckily we are a family, we do have a child that we love.
"We also bring the idea what a family should look like by the family that we came from. So, we both came from families of two siblings.
"That's a family. That's what it looks like. Mum, dad, two kids. We've only got one. We're not a family. We've failed. It takes a while. It takes a while. And of course with a little person, your heart is so open."
Greg added: "And I went into therapy. Therapy saved my life and our marriage. Without a doubt. I would not be sitting here without therapy."
Gaia is the couple's only biological child, with Greg and Emma informally adopting Tindyebwa "Tindy" Agaba Wise in late 2003.
