Kintsugi Heroes
Michael Hughes · 53 min
After fifteen years of failed IVF and a decade of grief, Michael Hughes turned his and his wife Vicky's profound loss into a global movement giving voice to the silently suffering childless community — especially the men no one thought to ask.
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Michael Hughes and his wife Vicky met at 16 and planned a future together. When they decided to start a family in their early 30s, they learned that Vicky had polycystic ovaries and Michael's sperm count was affected by his weight and health. For the next decade, they pursued IVF. The treatment filled them with hope each cycle, then devastated them when it failed. Michael watched Vicky suffer severe hormone hyperstimulation during their final round. At 40, he told her he could not continue. After a long conversation, they decided together to stop.
The years that followed were darker than they expected. They had spent ten years scheduling every holiday, every sick day, every moment around procedures and ultrasounds. Coming home to the same house meant confronting the ghosts of miscarriages and bad news in the same rooms. Friends with children drifted away or told them to get over it. But a trip to London changed everything. At Fertility Fest, Vicky found herself in a group of women who understood her loss. She told Michael, 'I feel like I belong.' That moment set him on a path to speak publicly about what most men never talk about: the grief of not becoming a father.
Michael started a blog on Mother's Day 2016 from a Florida highway. He has since become an ambassador for World Childless Week, co-hosts a podcast exploring childlessness in all its forms, and helps run a men's support group where childless men can develop language for what they feel. One in five women will be childless, he says, but most grieve in silence because they think no one cares. Michael and Vicky survived their first decade after stopping IVF through holidays, therapy, and learning to talk with each other about the hard things. Today, they show others that it is possible to come through.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
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