A heart-felt message from my fertility coaching client
As a fertility coach, I’m honoured every time a client entrusts me with their journey to their baby. Because I know exactly how important every decision you make, and every month you spend, is.
When you say YES, you share your life, your struggles and are vulnerable in a way you usually aren’t able to be with your friends and family.
I know I shouldn’t say this, but I truly care about my clients and become fully invested in their success.
And success comes in many different forms. Of course, we all want a baby to be the ultimate result. But sometimes success is merely waking up every day without a storm cloud hanging over your head. It’s being given permission to cry and say out loud how much this sucks. It’s knowing that you’re not crazy and that you’re not alone. And it’s starting to see how incredible and brave you are.
One of my beautiful clients has asked me to share her story and the work we have done together. When I read it, I cried.
I may have taught her a few things, but she did the work and has inspired me in so many ways. Her bravery and courage to keep putting one foot in front of the other, despite the obstacles in front of, and behind her, is nothing short of incredible.........
“Our journey to parenthood started remarkably quickly and without a struggle. I hesitate to tell you in fact that after only the first month we tried, I became pregnant with twins. I was 34 years old and my husband was 40, and, seeing how friends around us had struggled, we couldn't believe our luck! Tragically, my beautiful boys were born at just 22 weeks and 3 days. With no chance of survival, they spent their last minutes warm and on their mother's chest so they could hear what had been so familiar to them; my heartbeat.
Two months later we started trying again - as soon as we were medically allowed. I had tasted motherhood and was desperate to get out of that limbo. Am I, or aren't I? My body screams that I'm a mother, but I have no baby to hold. Nowhere for the love to go. Not even my body showed any signs anymore - except some small scars from all the needles that had been inserted into me in the hospital.
After 12 months of trying, 12 months of that little death month in, month out we all know so well, I contacted Jennifer Robertson through the "Your Fertility Haven" Facebook group and became a private coaching client. Just two months later I got those two little lines on a stick indicating that a new life was growing within me.
I understand that, for some, the fertility journey is year upon endless year. That despite the life-shattering loss, I may even have reason to be envied. But by the time I came to Jennifer I was broken. The depth of the certainty I felt that it would never happen for my husband and I was immeasurable. I struggled with everything that went along with it; the longing, the despair, the anger, the jealousy, the shame.
Long before contacting Jennifer, at four months of starting to try again, I had booked in to see a Fertility Specialist for another two months in advance. I did it just in case. Surely we wouldn't need it by then I thought. Well, the six-month mark rolled around and we still weren't pregnant so we met with him. It was so wonderful to have my fears acknowledged for the first time. It was wonderful that we now had a process in place.
We did the expensive DNA test that checked both of us for conditions we could pass down. We tested my husband's sperm, we took blood and we also did a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) to see if my tubes were blocked. A nice side effect of the last test was that it generally improves your fertility afterwards so I was keen to do it!
It was the blood test that found something - my boys had left me with a parting gift: post-partum thyroiditis. We didn't know that bit yet though; the test just indicated that my thyroid was working super-overtime. I'd need to see another specialist. The endocrinologist's office was kind enough to "squeeze me in urgently" (because I cried to the poor receptionist). "Just" a two month wait. "Only" two more cycles.
The specialist prescribed something to bring the levels back to normal and told us to stop trying in the meantime as our chance of miscarriage was elevated - no time scale. Indefinite months and cycles loomed ahead. Our chances of conceiving weren't zero, just a lot lower. In the end, it took three months until we were given the go-ahead to try again. Three precious cycles. I wanted to scream!
Upon getting the all-clear, I went straight in for a second HSG, wasting no more time. I had my timeline set: HSG x 2, IUI x 2, then IVF x ???, surrogacy, adoption, foster. If one didn't work, then by God the next would! I was now 36 and I was done with "just be patient"!
When I first looked up Jennifer's website, I was gripped by her words that stated she could help people feel okay about pregnancy announcements. She promised that by working with her I could begin to enjoy life again without first becoming a real mum. "That's great", I thought. "She probably can help people do that, but she hasn't met me yet. Challenge accepted!"
When we spoke for the first time I told her I didn't think she'd be able to help me. I asked her to prove me wrong. In the depths of my soul, I wanted so desperately to be wrong.
Even as a scientifically minded couple, this process had thrown us into the path of many alternative therapies, searching desperately for help and grasping at anything. By then I had tried (not in order) tarot reading, herbs, crystals, a psychic healer, oils, and acupuncture. I had even knelt in a church and promised, sobbing to a Catholic God that I don't believe in, that my child would be baptised if it was conceived that month and that month only.
When I spoke to Jennifer, I found the thing I'd been searching so desperately for. She wasn't "woo woo". I didn't have to change my core beliefs to make it fit. She was warm and gentle and gave practical no-nonsense advice. As I mentioned before, by now I was in such despair that I thought I was beyond help. I asked timidly if she would even take me on as I felt I was such a difficult case. She never showed hesitation.
As a private coaching client, you can message Jennifer as often as you like, any time of day, even the wee hours of the morning. She will, however, reply at a reasonable time! And gosh did I make her work those first few weeks! I was in touch several times a day. We would have "text rallies" as I would probe and dig, trying to get to the core of the beliefs, trying to fast-track my way into that locked room of enlightenment, to brute-force my way to happiness. Of course, it doesn't work like that and it took some sustained effort.
Jennifer has a way of showing you that all those thoughts and feelings around infertility - the ugly ones (my intimate friends by then. You know them too; tell them I said 'hi' btw) are a normal part of the grieving process. Grieving for the path to parenthood we thought we would get. She helped me realise I wasn't alone. She helped me see.
Upon meeting Jen I was dead-set against the idea that my mindset could possibly play a part in my fertility, even to the point of being offended by the suggestion. But the work we did together - and it does take work - was transformative.
We started small with setting a morning routine, a good breakfast, some self-time (perhaps meditation) and movement (for me that was pilates). Next up was a set of structured questions and answers digital workbook which I worked through alone, then we spoke about on our weekly video calls.
Somewhere along the line, I began to trust again. I'm reminded here of a line in Pride and Prejudice where the protagonist, Lizzie is talking about falling in love with this man she had initially hated. "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began," she says. The trust that everything would one day be okay was much like that.
I went in for that first IUI. It failed. We had been delayed long enough and had changed our plan to IVF for the next cycle afterwards but it didn't feel right. "Not yet!", my body screamed. This thing I had been steaming toward for months without pause was finally upon me, but I had changed. I had been taught the value of space, and though I hadn't yet found my ultimate goal of peace, I had found just a little patience. I needed a break. It was a really tough decision, but one my husband and I made together. We decided to stop for just one month and see how we felt afterwards.
By this time I had a few little tricks up my sleeve to survive the months; I hated finishing each packet of prenatal vitamins. It represented a passing of time. "Congratulations! Another 100 days of barrenness", it seemed to taunt. So I would buy a new pack before the other ran out and shove the tabs from the new pack into the old, so I wouldn't get to the end and know that another 100 days had passed.
Every month I would buy myself a bottle of champagne and put it in an ice bucket with a handmade label saying "POP IN CASE OF PERIOD". And that's what I did so that at least every time that inevitable period came around - I'd even stopped pregnancy testing by then - I'd at least have something to look forward to.
The month we didn't try, the month we were supposed to start our IVF, was the month I didn't have to pop that bottle. I was three days late by the time my husband finally convinced me to do the pregnancy test and the line was so dark I was scared it was twins again. (it's not). It's still early days, as of 30 August we're only 19 weeks. We're not on the home stretch by any means, but there is hope, and there is colour in the world again.
I still work with Jen and she is still valuable to my journey. My husband and I both firmly believe that without Jennifer Robertson's help we would not now be in this position. I know it's not the same for everyone; there are all kinds of medical things some of us have to battle through, but for me my biggest obstacle was myself.”