Tommy Tiernan Show recap: Richie Sadlier on fertility, fatherhood, and vulnerability
Richie Sadlier on the Tommy Tiernan Show
Psychotherapist and football pundit Richie Sadlier spoke on the Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night about his and his wife Fiona’s fertility struggles and his life as a dad to baby Sam.
Last month Sadlier became a father after a long fertility battle. He and his wife were told they could not conceive and underwent IVF treatments over four years before discovering they were expecting naturally last year.
Sadlier told Tiernan he underestimated the heartbreak of IVF when it did not work but said after seeing his son being born, their struggles to conceive faded from his mind.
“None of that matters now. It just doesn't matter,” he said.
After Tiernan quizzed him a good bit on the intimate mechanics of IVF — particularly what it feels like for a man to deposit sperm in a clinical setting — Sadlier said it was nothing compared to what Fiona went through.
“It's a bizarre scenario, but in comparison to what Fiona had to go through, you kind of go this is small fry.”
Tiernan noted that Sadlier seemed comfortable in sharing vulnerabilities and the former Republic of Ireland player said it came after going for therapy and later training to become a psychotherapist.
“I would get into the stuff in therapy for years and would feel lighter, would feel less troubled and started to learn how to be a therapist,” he said.
“You just see the benefits of talking in a particular setting with someone who's trained to give you a dig out. I just opened up and it became a bit easier being me.”
Sadlier said the most vulnerable he ever allowed himself to be in public was when he published his memoir Recovering in 2019 and shared that he was sexually abused as a child.
“In the book I talked about having been sexually abused when I was a kid and it was the most vulnerable, the most exposed I think I've ever felt.”
Tiernan also heard from Ukrainian model Tatyana Bryk who moved to Ireland after war broke out in her home country.
Bryk said she moved to Ireland at her parents’ urging and she works to send money to them as they remain in Ukraine.
She said it was surreal waking up to the sound of bombs on February 24, 2022.
“I ran to my mom and said ‘Mom, what is going on?’ And she said war just started. Can it happen in the 21st century? We heard that something may start but we all were thinking, oh my gosh, it's something crazy — 21st century, which war are you talking about?”
Bryk said she feels guilty being in Ireland and checked every morning to see when her mother was last active online.
“It's hard to start a new life somewhere outside knowing that your parents are not safe.”
Finally, stand-up comedian Jimeóin spoke about living in Australia for 34 years and his relationship with his parents, who went on tour with him for a while.
“My mum and dad used to tour with me, it was kind of funny. We would drive around in the car, staying in a hotel. They got sick of the show, they’d sit in the green room. But the drives after a gig were really interesting and just hanging over them.”
He said his mother died soon after going on tour with him and his father later died of pneumonia.
“After my mother and father came on tour with me, my mother passed away quite quickly, thank God — one of those exits where you look back and think it’s kind of good.
“And then my father had pneumonia or something and he wasn't handling being in the house on his own so I took him on a plane back to Australia and he lived with me for the next two years before he passed away, and then we repatriated him in Ireland.”
