Casey Donovan reveals IVF journey ahead of 50-date national tour

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As Casey Donovan lists the hectic schedule of her life as a showgirl, the singer and actor casually drops she’s working on a very special production with her fiancée Renee Sharples. In between gigs all around Australia and planning the biggest tour of her career, Donovan has been undergoing IVF treatment. “I feel footloose and fancy free not being locked into a musical at the minute. And then life as I knew it before musicals kicked in and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s right. That’s how busy it does get,’” she said. “I’ve been doing the gigs with Marcia Hines. I’ve been working away in the background getting the This Is Me tour released. I took a month off. I’ve done back-to-back IVF egg retrievals. Yeah, it’s been busy.” Donovan and Sharples have been together since 2020 when they met on a dating app and got to know each other remotely during the pandemic. They were engaged in June last year and had discussed starting a family together. “We’ve spoken about out and Renee is now over 40, so she’s gone through and done her retrievals and whatnots,” Donovan said. “And then I was like, well, I need to find some time to get mine out. This has always been an option, and now I’m just starting to action everything because I’m not getting any younger, as the doctors keep telling me.” Juggling the schedule was tough. Donovan was due at the clinic in Melbourne a few weeks ago on the same day she was performing a show at the Sydney Opera House on the Marcia Sings Summer tour. She managed to switch her egg retrieval appointment to the day before but was warned she might not feel up to doing the gig. And for show girls like Donovan, the show must go on. “The nurse said ‘you might not be able to do the gig.’ I said ‘That’s not an option for me. So let’s try Thursday,’” she said. “But that’s the thing. Life doesn’t slow down for women, or anyone in general. But when you’re trying to calculate IVF, drugs, injections, live music, writing, you just somehow managed to fit it in. “I was on stage on Friday night after collecting 28 eggs on the Thursday, and going, ‘Oh, that’s a bit sore.’” Because Donovan suffers from polycystic ovary syndrome, she was at risk of a rare IVF complication called Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. “I had it on my first retrieval. I managed to put like I think it was six kilos of fluid in a week,” she said. “On the first retrieval, I got 26 eggs and the second one was 28. So that’s a big thing for your body to have to go through and then get back up on stage.” The couple have yet to plan an egg transfer but it will likely be next year when there’s a window in Donovan’s This is Me tour. A celebration of her career from winning Australian Idol in 2004 through to the songs from the musicals she has starred in over recent years, the tour has already grown to more than 50 shows running almost every weekend from late February to November. “Having a national tour booked in is such an exciting thing,” she said. “People gig while they’re pregnant all the time, so it’s just kind of a beautiful balancing act. “And my manager KL is such a genius when it comes to putting things in place. So I’m excited for what next year holds, including the tour and possibilities of a little two-legged Donovan running around.” The potential setlist for the shows is dizzying. There’s the Idol songs. The Sister Act and We Will Rock You and Chicago and & Juliet songs. And those scene-stealing big anthems that have made Donovan the Queen of New Year’s Eve on the annual concert from the Sydney Opera House. As an independent artist, the performer is taking all the risk in mounting such a huge tour but she’s going to where her fans are around the country, finding them everywhere from clubs to entertainment centres, festivals to theatres. She wants to do something this big because singing is “fun, it’s healing, and because it brings joy.” “Live music is an interesting beast, it ebbs and flows for me like everything in life. And as an independent artist doing musical theatre as well, this tour is where I can just go out and sing and be me,” she said. “Is this crazy, doing this? No, because I’ve been doing eight shows a week for four and a half years!” Tickets for the This is Me tour available at www.caseydonovan.com