Victoria’s Fertility Journey

I always wanted to have children and assumed it would be an easy process. A lot of my friends had fallen pregnant easily, so why should I be any different? I was told to “try” immediately after coming off the pill and was convinced I was pregnant that first month, courtesy of that all-too faint “is it there or not” pink line, which plagued me for the next four years.

Almost immediately after that first, relatively encouraging month, my cycles changed from the hormone-induced 28-day “norm” that I was used to from being on the pill. At this early stage, I had very little understanding about how the menstrual cycle worked, so to suddenly start having longer cycles was a cruel twist of fate, because I always thought a late period meant I was pregnant.

My GP was no use, and couldn’t really offer any answers. I had been charting my basal body temperature and showed the doctor the charts, which clearly showed I wasn’t having the usual spike in temperature that indicated I was ovulating. I had to do so much research, and I really wish I’d had access to a resource like this website back then.

We had private healthcare, so I was able to get a scan within six months, which confirmed I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). I was devastated at this news, and assumed I would never be able to conceive naturally. Nothing prepares you for being told you may not be able to get pregnant. Surely, we are all put on this planet to reproduce? So I felt like such a failure. My husband’s sperm count and mobility were within the normal ranges, so it really felt like it was “all my fault”. Clearly, being stressed and depressed wasn’t conducive to getting pregnant, as many well-meaning people kept telling me.

I looked into so many different options, and know how easy it is to desperately cling to every fragment of hope that the next supplement, procedure, treatment or therapy could get me that ever-elusive “pink line”. I had a laparoscopy to ensure my fallopian tubes were clear, and to remove some of the cysts. I was encouraged to take Clomid (clomiphene) for the next three months, but sadly that also proved unsuccessful. I started having acupuncture at this point, and taking herbs, along with folic acid and other random supplements, as my desperation grew.

To add insult to injury, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer soon after I found out about the PCOS, which compounded my grief at being unable to bear a child. I was so consumed by the desire to become a mum, that I went into self-sabotage, and unbelievably, given my mother’s diagnosis, I started smoking again, along with copious amounts of alcohol. So, stress, depression, fear, cigarettes, alcohol and an auto-immune disease… hardly a perfect recipe for conception! My husband could have been more conscientious of his alcohol intake too, especially in the three months leading up to the transfer.

Needless to say, my first IVF cycle didn’t work, and neither did the subsequent frozen one. The clinic wasn’t very good at emotional support, and I felt like a rabbit in headlights, just pumping my body full of hormones with the vain hope that I would conceive.

But everything changed in early 2010, when I cleaned up my act regarding drinking and smoking, and had a shift in consciousness after reading “The Secret”. With my new-found positivity, I just knew with 100% certainty that my next IVF cycle would work.

I had one wobble following the transfer, where my breasts didn’t hurt as much as they had previously, but other than that I kept the faith. We waited until day 15 post-transfer to test, and thankfully we had a positive result, which culminated in my eldest son being born prematurely at 31 weeks. I had a placental abruption and started to bleed, which resulted in an emergency caesarean section. Fortunately he thrived after a period in SCBU and Intensive Care.

He struggled with birth trauma (commonly referred to as Colic) and reflux, so I took him to see a Craniosacral Therapist, who worked wonders energetically on him, and subsequently on me. This therapy went on to cure my PCOS and led me to conceive my second son naturally, two months after having a treatment where my ovaries literally “unwound”. It felt like an old-fashioned sewing machine unwinding, and I know this is what led to the natural conception.

Incidentally, I have recently discovered that PCOS and other fertility issues can be caused by sexual trauma, and being a victim of childhood sexual abuse myself, that inevitably created some major energetic and emotional blockages that adversely affected my fertility. The craniosacral therapy I underwent, after the birth of my first son, cleared enough of it to enable me to fall pregnant naturally with my second. But recent work with Lee (energetic and psychological) has now cleared it all and I am much more in tune with my regular cycle.

As a consequence of my own personal struggles and subsequent successes with fertility, I am acutely aware of how incredibly sensitive our bodies and menstrual cycles are, and how stress, fear, trauma, disappointment, desperation and even negative thoughts can adversely affect our fertility. Basically, our bodies can either be “in growth” or “in fear”, but not in-between. When we are in fear and stress, our reproductive system is one of the first to shut down.

Very little information was readily available to me when I was struggling with my fertility issues, so I went into IVF completely uneducated and unprepared. For example, I didn’t know that egg and sperm quality could be improved, let alone how to do it. Or that energetic healing could significantly improve fertility and support pregnancy. Since then, I have gathered so much information and gained so much knowledge on all the facets of the fertility puzzle.