Mario Falcone, whose wife Becky suffered a miscarriage following their first round of IVF treatment, said men do not understand the “toll it takes” on a woman’s body and emotions.
The reality TV star, who previously appeared in The Only Way Is Essex, has toddler Parker Jax with Becky, whom he married in a ceremony in Sorrento, Italy, this summer.
Falcone, 34, described the couple’s struggle to conceive a second child, while appearing on his sister Giovanna Fletcher’s podcast Happy Mum, Happy Baby, alongside their other sister Giorgina.
He said: “When we were trying for baby two, with this added pressure we felt like we were letting Parker down, that he was so ready for a sibling when he’s around his cousins and then comes home and says ‘Why haven’t I got a brother or a sister’.
“And that kills you, it literally kills you inside because you’re like ‘I can give you anything you want as my son, but this is the one thing I actually can’t give you’.
“So we both felt really guilty as time was flying by, it was getting a lot worse, putting a bit of pressure on our relationship and stuff as well.”
Falcone said the process of getting to the stage where Becky could have an embryo transfer was “months”, but she eventually fell pregnant with baby number two after her first round of IVF.
He said: “She finally fell pregnant with IVF, we had one thing at seven weeks where she had a bleed, but we went to have it checked and everything was fine.
“Then about a week and a half later it happened again and we went in for a scan thinking it was all going to be fine, but it wasn’t, she had a miscarriage.
“That was probably the hardest thing I think that we’ve had to deal with in our relationship, because it’s the disappointment of yourselves, because we got really excited about telling our families at Christmas – we had these little cards made that unfortunately came the next day.”
Falcone said men do not see “how hard it is” when a woman suffers a miscarriage.
He said: “I saw Becky broken and I think that’s the only time in our relationship where I haven’t been able to lift her. I felt like I couldn’t lift her out of that and that was really hard.
“As men we don’t actually realise the toll it takes on your body, but more importantly your emotions, and how much even though we feel disappointed, times that by a million (for her).”
The couple decided to take time out to enjoy their wedding in the summer as the joy about the prospect of having another baby had “become a burden,” Falcone said.
“It had taken centre stage of everything in our lives and there is so much good in our lives that we weren’t focusing on and we were putting so much emphasis on having another baby that it just became really unenjoyable,” he said.
Falcone said after the wedding they tried IVF again without medication and it “didn’t work at all” but the third time Becky fell pregnant – which the couple revealed in an Instagram post last week.
He said: “This time it has felt a lot more relaxed. It sort of feels like we got to recharge and re-prepare ourselves.
“Because everything felt so different this time we were a lot more confident taking Parker to the scans and when he heard the baby’s heartbeat he got excited and he saw it on the screen and it was one of those moments where it made everything that has happened in the last year and the journey and the disappointment is really worth it.
“When the next baby comes, even thought it’s been hard, we will appreciate that baby so much more.”
Falcone agreed with Fletcher, who asked if talking about fertility was harder for men than for women.
He added: “As we know, when it comes to men they do generally just struggle to speak openly, whether it be to their friends or to anybody.”
Falcone has previously credited his sister with saving his life when he struggled with depression and attempted to take his own life.
He will appear in Fletcher’s upcoming ITVBe documentary series Giovanna Fletcher: Made In Italy.