Hi Vicky here, a Freedom Fertility formula specialist, coach and infertility survivor
I say survivor because Infertility claims so many lives to not mention it.
Women and men ending their own lives due to not having the right support mentally and emotionally as well as physically and to the people who have lost their lives in surgery and from debilitating conditions that affect their fertility.
I wanted to start by introducing myself and what has led me to where I am today
I eventually got diagnosed with endometriosis and poly cystic ovaries when I was about 19 years old. I had suffered almost from day 1 of my menstrual cycles with excruciating pain that left me in bed for at least the first 3 or 4 days of each period. When I was diagnosed, I was working in a school and studying to be a teacher. My endometriosis caused not only physical pain but as you can imagine, it began to really affect my studies and my work with the amount of time I was out of action.
Even though I worked with nearly all women, It just wasn’t understood and definitely not appreciated as I was consistent at 1 thing only and that was letting them down.
It was quite apparent from early on in the diagnosis that I would have considerable trouble trying to conceive. I paid privately to have the endometriosis removed and it was through that, that I was also diagnosed with severe dyskaryosis! Pre cancer cells that are picked up in the smear tests. I wasn’t of the age to even go for smears, let alone be diagnosed as severe!
I’d already started to live with physical pain on a daily basis but also suffered tremendously with shame, guilt, worry and a real sense of negative self-worth and self-esteem.
So counting my lucky stars it got picked up early and fast forward the countless operations and treatments to reduce effects of all the conditions and removal of the dyskaryosis and constant cysts and endometriomas, a year later I began fertility treatment.
I was Put on clomid, which hyper stimulates the production of your eggs. It worked! I fell pregnant. Elated and relieved but the joy became joyless as I began to be sick morning, noon and night.
Well hello hyperemesis! So glad to meet your acquaintance (side eye glance) It was pure evil, and just so unfair. I was in hospital on a drip pretty quickly as I became dehydrated but the pregnancy didn’t continue past 8 weeks and I lost the baby.
Here is when a new level of heartbreak entered my world
Fast forward 4 years and countless operations for cysts, endometriosis and laparoscopies, I eventually started IVF – I remember this one doctor just looking at me and saying, “right that’s it, it’s been 8 years now, lets go for IVF” I remember feeling just over joyed and light again in my heart to hear those words.
By this point I had lost 3 Pregnancies and was just lost and feeling hopeless. Will it ever be me? Will I ever start my life? Am I not meant to be a mum? What had I done wrong, why did I deserve this? And then the pleading started, please, please if there is a god up there, please, I promise I will be the best mum in world, I’ll never pray for myself and ask for anything else ever again.
It breaks my heart to think back to that girl who was so desperate and heartbroken
IVF started and I had all the confidence in the world, I did the injections, I carried on working and I felt for a brief moment that this might just be my time. I was so wrong, this was not going to be my time, it wouldn’t be the next time either, or the next.
Here we go again, IVF treatment and then the dreaded 2 week wait that felt like an eternity! And then the BFN. That 1 single line, desperately waiting for the second line. Checking in every light for the faintest of lines to be seen. Nothing but heartbreak and the whole cycle of despair starts again. From trying, to hope, to fear and then despair.
I remember doing a frozen cycle of IVF and I had been taking all my injections, eating healthily, taking supplements only to turn up at the clinic with all the other embryo transfer ladies and as the nurse called name after name on her list to go upstairs for the collection of their little embabies, my name didn’t leave her lips.
My heart sank and I just wanted to run away. I was called in by the Dr to a little side room and told that my embabies didn’t make the thawing process.
I left that Clinic just defeated and actually quite numb
The heartache kicked in eventually as I texted family to let them know of the news and I just sat and cried for a whole week.
It was at that point I realised that this fertility rollercoaster was consuming my entire life. There was not one part of my life that wasn’t ruined by the never ending fertility onslaught.
The Clinic called me and wanted to schedule in the next round of IVF. I was one of the lucky ones who wasn’t negatively impacted by the postcode lottery. Will never accept the logic in this!
I did something that felt right but also felt so wrong. Up until this point, my treatment was just relentless. All the operations and treatments, one after another. Never letting the grass grow under my feet, I kept going and going and going, until the words “ I’m going to take a break” fell out of my mouth. I literally covered my mouth with my hand after I said it. What was I saying!
I took time out for once, I gathered myself, healed and started to live a little. Knowing I could have the night out, the holiday the anything that I had put on hold. Not the wedding though, or the moving house! No that was a bit to far at that point but I did make a start and it felt good.
I started doing gradual research, not the google frantic version I was so used to. I found out other ways to start gaining myself back, my life and through that process I really started to heal physically and but most importantly emotionally.
I had a therapist in every corner! Reiki, reflexologist, hypnotherapist and coaching/counselling therapy
I started to rebuild. I started to get me back, the old Vicky started to shine through and it felt good, really good
I was extremely lucky to have such loving family and friends around me but It’s a whole other ball game to talk openly with a therapist, knowing they have no attachment to you and your life. I didn’t have to worry about holding it in in fear of upsetting loved ones who cared for me.
So I went back a year later, and went for my last round of IVF. This time, 4th time, it worked
Pregnant eventually with twins, an early ultrasound revealed. I was back in hospital on that drip! Dehydrated to the point of hallucination. Severely unwell and just hanging on with a glimpse of hope of the happy ending I’d always dreamt of.
4 and half months later, I was let out! Institutionalised, I couldn’t adjust to being back home at all! I couldn’t sleep and I felt uneasy all the time, almost missing the hospital and it’s routines and noises.
I wobbled myself out bed, still weak and felt a warm trickle down the inside of my thigh! I thought I’d had a little accident but it then transpired after getting checked out at the hospital, to be amniotic fluid. The babies were coming but this was not the joyous occasion that’s usually filled with excitement, this was full of fear and dread, shame and guilt. It was too early for their arrival, I was 27 weeks pregnant not 40 weeks!
I was rushed to a specialist hospital about 50 miles away from home and the babies were delivered by emergency C-section
The battle then became theirs, not mine. I sat and watched on, helpless as they fought for every breath in NICU for the next 3 months. I felt like I failed them, my body a failure all over again. My heart and mind wanting one thing and my body giving me the middle finger basically! I had always felt so disconnected to my body.
They are healthy, happy 9 year old girls now and I don’t think I will ever be without that story in my life. It is part of me but the difference is now it is a story that is part of my life, not something that holds me prisoner anymore thanks to coaching and therapy.
So It’s my turn, I get to give back from what I’ve been through
I studied hard, I took all the courses to be the support coach and mentor to others like I had myself, like the ones that made the difference in my life. It’s my turn to help others who face lives every day that aren’t the ones they dreamt of.
Who are feeling all the feelings I felt, who wake up everyday never knowing if there is light at the end of their tunnel, who feel like they don’t recognise who they are anymore, who’s lives aren’t anything like how they want them to be or how they imagined.
I can help by being the best friend who really gets it, to honour and appreciate your feelings, and guide you in taking back control
The freedom fertility formula is extremely powerful in the way it allows you to consciously process your emotions so that we don’t live in the emergency state for long periods of time, which negatively impacts our whole life
It allows you to reclaim the joy that infertility so cruelly steals away from us. It’s living in the wait rather than waiting to live and in turn enhances our pregnancy success.
I’m passionate about supporting people through their journeys and helping them gain emotional empowerment, as I believe this is the missing piece!
Love Vicky x
If you would like to talk to Vicky, drop her a line at freedomfertilitycoach@gmail.com or on instagram @freedom_fertility.coach
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