TORONTO – Comedy star Aisha Tyler says she’s had an “extraordinary” response to her recent tearful admission that she and her husband have had fertility problems and have stopped trying to get pregnant.
The 43-year-old co-host of The Talk, who will perform standup comedy in Toronto on Friday, said on the series last month that she and Jeff Tietjens had gone through many procedures and spent a lot of money to try to get pregnant. But their chances of conceiving were slim and they recently decided it’s not worth it to try anymore.
Tyler says the confession elicited more fan mail than she’s ever received in her life and she’s glad she made it.
She also feels the revelation was “really valuable,” not only because viewers have responded so positively, but also because it may help those going through the same situation feel empowered to do the same thing.
“One of the main reasons that I did that was because … you always hear like, ‘It was so difficult and then I finally conceived,’ and it’s always this happy ending, and I wanted all the women out there for whom it wasn’t a happy ending — because honestly, for about 95 per cent of women it isn’t a happy ending — to know that they weren’t alone and that also it was OK to decide to remain child-free,” she said in a recent telephone interview.
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“There’s this incredible pressure to go through that, and also for a lot of people, once they start and they start spending all that money, they can’t stop, it becomes this kind of runaway train, and I wanted all the women out there who were struggling with that decision to know that it’s OK to stop.
“It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t want to put my body through this, I don’t want to put my relationship through this, I don’t want to ruin my finances over this.'”
The affable San Francisco native said she didn’t try to get pregnant in her 20s because she wanted to focus on her career.
She doesn’t regret that decision and notes she’s “not looking to be the poster child for infertility.”
“We made the decisions we made, and then when it was time to get what we wanted out of a family, we had run out of road. And that’s the reality for a lot of professional women, and I don’t think that they should be made to feel badly or inadequate because of it.”
Tyler is also used to being open about her life in her standup routine.
“Comedy is like a constant ripping off of a Band-Aid, you know what I mean?” she said with a laugh.
“It’s just over and over and over again, and it’s always more scary than painful. Once you rip it off, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m glad I did that’ — especially if people laugh.”
As Tyler’s new book Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation explains, her bravery onstage was encouraged by her parents.
“There was no conservatism in my family in that way, like, ‘Well, maybe you want to be a nurse, maybe you should get a typing skill,'” said Tyler, who had a recurring role on Friends in the ninth and 10th seasons.
“It was always just like, ‘Go hard, go all the way, you only live once,’ and that resulted in quite a few broken bones. But I’m very grateful for that, because I think creative bravery especially is the only way to ever do anything interesting or memorable.”
Tyler said she performs standup a couple of weekends a month and is getting ready to shoot another comedy special for TV — a remarkable feat given all the other projects she has on the go.
Her secret?
“Just relentlessness and a lot of coffee,” she said.
“I really love being busy. I’m at my best when I’m almost like overburdened, I think that’s when I excel,” she added, noting she doesn’t take this fruitful period for granted.
“I’ve had long stretches where I was doing a lot of creative scratch baking, so I remember vividly what it’s like to be not busy at all.”
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