Florence Pugh shares her emotional journey to preserve her dream of becoming mom
Florence Pugh, who received a nomination for an Academy Award and two for BAFTA Awards, recently shed light on a tough decision she had to make.
Pugh appeared on the SHE MD podcast, where she told Dr. Thais Aliabadi, who is recognised as Dr. A, about the journey to freeze her eggs at 27 when she was diagnosed with PCOS and endometriosis, a condition that makes it difficult for women to conceive.
The Black Widow actress said, “I had this sudden feeling that I should go and get everything checked. I’d had a few weird dreams; I think my body was telling me.”
The 28-year-old star went to see Dr. A, where she was asked, “If I’d ever had an egg count done and I was like, ‘No, what do you mean? I’m so young. Why do I need an egg count?’”
After checking her egg count, Dr. A told Pugh that she had PCOS and endometriosis, which can affect fertility, and advised her to freeze her eggs.
Recollecting the memory, the Thunderbolts star shared, “It was just so bizarre because my family are baby-making machines. My mom had babies into her forties. My gran had babies throughout … And then of course, I learned completely different information, at age 27, that I need to get my eggs out, and do it quickly, which was just a bit of a mind-boggling realization, and one that I’m really lucky and glad that I found out when I did because I’ve been wanting kids since I was a child.”
Pugh admitted that she was aware of the term PCOS but “didn’t think that it was something that is common. I really just thought that it was something that you’d feel and that you’d know you had and that it wasn’t really a worry.”
“And then of course you find out you do have it, and you realize you have to change your lifestyle, you have to be proactive and think ahead into the future. I think [for] lots of young women, that’s not really necessarily what you’re thinking of doing when you’re in your 20s,” she noted.
Pugh went on to reveal that she had some symptoms such as “acne…hair that shouldn’t be in certain places,” which she considered a “part of being a woman, and also living a maybe slightly stressful life. I didn’t think constant weight fluctuation would also be a part of it.”
Stressing on the awareness of PCOS, Pugh stated, “If you have a dream of maybe one day being a mum, these things are so important, much like learning how to find lumps in your breast.”
“It wouldn’t be that hard to educate everybody on this when you’re at school. It’s something that will be the defining factor of whether you can have children or not,” the star of Oppenheimer concluded.