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Dublin Live
Dublin Live
National
Kim O'Leary

Dublin TD Paul Murphy 'delighted' as he and partner welcome first child after IVF struggle

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy has welcomed a baby with his partner Jess.

The Dublin politician and his partner, Jess Spears, have been trying for a baby since 2018. The couple have gone through a long journey and several rounds of IVF treatments and frozen embryo transfers over the past few years.

On Saturday, Deputy Murphy took to social media to share the lovely news that he and his partner are now parents to baby Juniper. He wrote: "Jess and I are delighted with our new arrival! Juniper is healthy and well.

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"Thank you all for your supportive messages! I’m going to be taking some time out of work for the next few weeks to focus on being a Dad," he added. The proud new dad shared a sweet photo of himself and Jess with their new baby, and he also thanked all the staff at the Coombe Hospital.

Social media followers were quick to congratulate the couple on their bundle of joy. One person wrote: "Congratulations to you both. Welcome to the world baby Juniper."

A second said: "Well done Paul and Jess, wishing u much happiness for the future." A third person commented: "Lovely news, congrats to you both."

Last April, Deputy Murphy and Ms Spear appeared on Today with Claire Byrne on RTE Radio One to discuss their journey so far with IVF. Deputy Murphy said the couple first started trying to have a child four years ago and discussed how their path to starting IVF treatment.

He said: "I think it was a gradual thing for us to come to that conclusion. The first thing you're doing is trying naturally and they say you need to do that for six months.

"Then we were dealing with particular things in terms of Jess' thyroid levels and we dealt with medication for that for about a year or so, trying to get on top of that. Then by the time you're on top of that, quite a lot of time has gone past.

He added: "We were very fortunate to be in a position to decide to go down the route of IVF and say 'okay if we get to that stage then that's what we'll do'. "We started that process close to two years ago."

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