The 'Ted Lasso' actress explains why she turned to eastern medicine to be able to conceive, saying that she was turned off by the chemicals used in western treatment.
- Oct 22, 2023
AceShowbiz - Hannah Waddingham took Eastern medicine to get pregnant after being told she had "no chance" of conceiving. A decade ago, the actress, now 49, had medical tests and later turned to a holistic doctor for help, which led to her increasing her magnesium copper levels as well as having acupuncture and Reiki.
"Because the Western doctor was trying to fill me with chemicals, but the Eastern practitioner was a very kind, positive man who gave me acupuncture and Reiki too - and when I visualise him and the treatment, I remember it being a holistic, warm 360 approach," she told Glamour magazine.
A few weeks later, Hannah - who was 39 at the time - fell pregnant with her daughter Kitty, and she brought her baby girl home from hospital on her 40th birthday.
The "Ted Lasso" star - who won the entertainer prize at Glamour's Women of the Year Awards on Tuesday, October 17 - described motherhood as her "greatest achievement", and explained she was keen to wait until she was "ready and to not resent that child for taking me away from my career."
She added, "Because the greatest gift in the world is a child and they are complete, beautiful, green innocents. There's no doubt you definitely have to be ready for it, because it's right that they should take over, because they need to. But being a single mother in your forties is not easy! I'm not going to lie, it's quite exhausting."
Hannah - who split from ex Gianluca Cugnetto when Kitty was just two years old - admitted the self doubt sometimes creeps in, but she has learned to take "pride" in her work to pass that onto her daughter. She said, "It felt like the rug was pulled from underneath me, but I had to make the decision not to be weakened by it."
"I distinctly remember feeling like my daughter and I were on an upturned dustbin lid, like a flying saucer, holding on for dear life - until the waters were calmer! Ironically though, my career has skyrocketed ever since. I do believe that when you painfully shut one door, the sun shines through the cracks of another and you have to go to it."
