Gordon Ramsay’s wife Tana, 49, opens up about IVF, saying sons Jesse, 8 months, and Oscar, 5, are ‘almost like twins’
Tana Ramsay isn’t shy about sharing the ups and downs of motherhood.
The cookbook author and husband Gordon Ramsay share children Megan, 26, twins Jack and Holly, 24, Matilda “Tilly,” 22, Oscar, 5, and Jesse, 8 months. On an episode of the Postcards from Midlife podcast with Lorraine Candy and Trish Halpin, Tana, 49, opened up about her pregnancy and IVF experience.
“I think it’s important to say that it’s like breastfeeding. No two people are exactly the same,” Tana said when asked about welcoming a child at 48. “I don’t think it’s necessarily age-related.”
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When she gave birth to her first child, Tana said it was a “very simple pregnancy,” but welcoming twins was “complicated”
“I had blood clots during pregnancy and started bleeding around 14 weeks, so that was very scary. Then Tilly came along, and she was my only natural pregnancy where I didn’t know I was pregnant,” she explained to Candy and Halpin. “I was actually almost four and a half months pregnant before I even realized it.”
In 2016, before giving birth to Oscar, Tana miscarried her son Rocky at 20 weeks. “He was born with a strong heartbeat but too weak to survive,” she shared previously.
Now on the podcast, she says, “Of course, as you get older, you worry more. When I was pregnant with Rocky, everything was going so well, and I thought, ‘I’ll just exercise through the pregnancy,’ and then of course, it went horribly wrong.”
“Her pregnancy with Oscar – I had one or two scares, but it was very straightforward,” she says. “After you’ve had any scares, it makes you paranoid… I was more careful; my energy levels were good.”
Tana, who has polycystic ovary syndrome, used in vitro fertilization to conceive Oscar. She shared an interesting tidbit about how Oscar and her youngest son, Jesse, bonded even years before Jesse was born in November 2023.
“When I had IVF when I was pregnant with Oscar, they checked everything afterwards, did an egg retrieval — Jesse was actually a frozen embryo from that time. He was our little frozen embryo. He and Oscar are almost twins because they’re from the same collection,” she said.
After the family lost Rocky, Tana said she and Gordon, 57, found a lot of happiness with their youngest child.
“There’s a little bit of Rocky in Jesse, and that makes us all feel whole again,” she said.
While raising six children with such a large age gap may not be the most popular, Tana said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I was the youngest mum at the school gate and obviously I’m the oldest mum now, but I don’t think that stands out. There are a lot of older mums and I think we’re all a little bit calmer, actually,” she said.
Learning not to “overparent” was also key as they welcomed more children in middle age, Tana added. Gordon spoke to PEOPLE in May and echoed his wife’s sentiments.
“I think I’m a better dad the second time around, if I’m honest,” he said at the time. “Tana’s always been a great mum. But I think, if I have to be self-critical, I know I’m better now that I’ve had the experience.”
