Alex Jones has said she “didn’t want to be the television girl that turned up and just was there to observe” in her documentary series about fertility.
In W series Alex Jones: Making Babies, the Welsh TV presenter, 45, trains as a fertility assistant at one of the UK’s top fertility clinics.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast about the experience of working at King’s Fertility in London, Jones said: “I just really enjoyed the experience and felt like I had a proper role.
“Because I didn’t want to be the television girl that turned up and just was there to observe.
“But it wasn’t, it wasn’t easy.”
Jones, who regularly presents The One Show, explained how she had to delay the filming of the programme after finding out she had fallen pregnant with her daughter Annie.
“When this opportunity came about we were in the middle of the pandemic, and of course we couldn’t film in a hospital. But then I found out, to my absolute delight, that we’d had a lovely surprise, we were expecting little Annie,” she said.
“And I called them and said ‘I’m really sorry, I’m pregnant, so I can’t do it’.
“And I said ‘I understand if you need to get somebody else to front this documentary but I don’t feel it’s sensitive for me to be there’.
“Of course, they have members of staff who fall pregnant but I didn’t think it was right for me to be there. So we waited until Annie was born… And then we started filming when Annie was four weeks.”
Jones also praised the couples who agreed to take part in the programme and thanked them for helping to raise awareness of the IVF and fertility treatment processes.
She told presenters Sally Nugent and Jon Kay: “I can’t believe that the individuals and couples who we featured agreed to take part.
“It’s such a personal and epic journey, physically and mentally.
“And without them of course, we wouldn’t have a 10-part series. So credit to them for letting us share their story because all of those people took part felt quite isolated and vulnerable, very lonely as well going through the process because very often employers don’t understand what it might be like to go through it and extended family and friends don’t understand.
“And hopefully with this, more people will be able to be more supportive because they’ll understand what the process entails because it’s such a lot to go through.”
Jones previously fronted a BBC Two programme, Alex Jones: Fertility & Me, which looked at similar topics after she decided to begin trying for a baby at the age of 38 with her husband Charlie Thomson.
Although she has not received fertility treatment, Jones has spoken openly about having a miscarriage less than a year after the birth of her first child.
Jones has three Children, sons Teddy and Kit and daughter Annie.
BBC Breakfast airs every day on BBC One at 6am.