MY FERTILITY JOURNEY
So after sharing My Endometriosis Story, I felt it was important to share my struggle with getting pregnant and how I dealt with it and how I ended up becoming a health coach myself. I do want to recognise that I know that my journey is minor compared to so many hundreds of thousands of women out there who have had to undergo multiple rounds of IVF and terrible miscarriages. I know I am one of the lucky ones as I did finally get pregnant, though it was by no means easy at the time. So get a cuppa, as it is rather a long post but worth the read (I hope!).
It finally happened in my mid-30’s after much waiting and searching! I met and married the love of my life. I was so incredibly happy! We both wanted a family and I knew that I needed to come off of birth control quickly if we were to make it happen. So this is what I did, I came off it not long after my 36th birthday.
I knew that it would take a while for my body and hormones to become regulated, as that is what everybody tells you. I just didn’t realise it would take so long. As soon as I came off the hormone treatment, I started to get the painful and heavy periods that I had had in my teens and 20’s.
It’s rather weird trying to write about my fertility journey, particularly now I know what I do. Some of what I did or didn’t do seems so obvious now. The thing is, these obvious things were not obvious then. This is why I want to write this blog article and why I want to educate women to understand more about their bodies, periods, fertility, hormone treatment, and Endometriosis, as there is so much that allopathic medicine and doctors simply do not tell you.
COMING OFF HORMONAL BIRTH CONTROL
So we obviously started trying to get pregnant once I came off hormonal birth control. After 18 months of being off the pill and a year of actively trying to conceive, we went to the doctor to find out why it wasn’t happening. I wish I had known back then, that over 35 you can go to the doctor after 6 months of failure to get pregnant.
The doctor asked some questions but basically referred us to the fertility clinic to go and have some tests. I remember being scared by what we might find out but also relieved that something was being done. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long but certainly long enough (about 2 months) to get an appointment to start investigations. We went for all the usual fertility tests and scans. My husband was told he was in good working order, whilst they couldn’t find anything wrong with me to say either way.
The thing was, looking back I realise we were never sat down together as a couple and asked for a detailed history of our health. I never met a fertility consultant, only the nurse, despite being written to saying I had appointments with him and then always meeting with the nurse. I kept saying that I knew there was something wrong. I felt in my gut there was something wrong with my periods and I had done for years, but she insisted that they had found nothing on the scans to indicate I had a problem. I didn’t have a thyroid issue and my hormone tests were all fine. Basically, she said I had unexplained infertility. I think this has to be the worst diagnosis – as it is not a diagnosis, but it is felt that this is an adequate thing to tell couples and then they leave you hanging. You are told that IVF is the only option.
I remember asking if there was anything I could do to help myself and the nurse advising me that I was old and needed to panic basically and get on with IVF as our only option. I didn’t need to be told to panic, as I already was. I can’t tell you how angry I was with that nurse and how she treated me.
The problem was, at that point, we had been told that my husband’s next military posting was to be overseas in Jordan for two years and we were moving in 5 months. So not only was my body clock ticking, but the option of having IVF also appeared to not be clear, and I would be 40 when I come back and over the age limit of most NHS IVF clinic criteria. So as you see, it wasn’t just a case of applying to our local clinic, as we were not going to be in the country.
I decided that I didn’t believe the unexplained fertility diagnosis and I needed to investigate further myself.
TAKING MATTERS INTO MY OWN HANDS
I did two things to help myself feel in control – which is how I best seem to handle things.
“Could I do anything to improve my fertility myself?”
First, I started investigating if there was anything I could do to improve my fertility myself. I wanted to know what complementary treatments could help. I had done this years ago when I suffered from Chronic Fatigue (or Endometriosis as I believe it was now) – where I had found craniosacral osteopathy and lymphatic drainage treatment combined with yoga had worked wonders. It suddenly occurred to me, that maybe I could help myself in other ways. It was then that I found an acupuncturist, called Rachel Bolton, specialising in fertility, who was literally 3 miles down the road from where I was living. I remember being SO excited and FULL OF HOPE! Rachel also ran an online 3-month fertility group coaching programme called ‘Plan Yourself Pregnancy’. So I signed up for both acupuncture and the coaching programme – yes, it cost money, but it was nothing in comparison with having to pay for IVF if we were overseas. Little did I know how much my life would change because of it!
“I had thought I was reasonably healthy, but I soon began to realise that I really wasn’t“
The programme was AMAZING, it gave me so much information on how I could improve my own egg health, womb lining and general well-being. I realised there was so much I didn’t know. So even though I didn’t know what was wrong, I had something I could do – which for me always helps me mentally. I started slowly making the changes. I remember first cooking with coconut oil and being pleasantly surprised. I remember trying out recipes from Deliciously Ella’s cookbook – some were amazing and some were a bit weird – like black bean brownies! I had thought I was reasonably healthy, but I soon began to realise that I really wasn’t and there were a lot of changes that could be made. I realised I had a daily habit of a bag or two of crisps, and a sweet tooth, which just wasn’t good. I also had an unhealthy work-life balance that I had always known about, that really was going to have to change somehow.
What was really going on with my body?
Whilst I was going through the coaching programme, I decided to see if I could find out more about my fertility. I was lucky enough to have private health care through work, though only for four more months as I was leaving my job. I managed to persuade my doctor to refer me to an endocrinologist, as I wondered if there was a problem with my hormones.
When I was living in Oman before I met my husband, I had had crazy periods despite being on hormone birth control – sometimes they were two months long and then nothing for two months, with horrid headaches, fatigue, dreadful spots and many other symptoms. The doctor there had run some tests and nothing had come up, except my cortisol was off the charts. I had remembered this, and wondered if there were links – I didn’t know then that yes, of course, there is a link between cortisol and your fertility hormones – if you have high cortisol, it causes the shut down of your reproductive system.
So I had some very detailed tests – unfortunately, nothing untoward came back, so I was disappointingly back to square one. It was at this point that my mother had heard the Radio 4 programme on Endometriosis, and I decided to go back to the doctor to ask for a second referral to an Endometriosis specialist. The outcome being that the specialist strongly believed I had Endometriosis, and I was diagnosed after laparoscopic surgery a month before moving (see my blog post “How Being Diagnosed With Endometriosis Made Me Cry With Relief“).
So even though at this point I was relieved to have finally found out what was wrong, I also felt like I was up a (shit) creek without a paddle. I knew that having Endometriosis meant that the chances of getting pregnant were reduced, not to mention being 38. I did have hope though. The specialist had told me he had removed the Endo lesions using ablation and that typically there was a good chance of getting pregnant within the first 6 months.
THE CHALLENGES OF MOVING OVERSEAS
The last month before moving to Jordan was a busy and stressful period. I had just about recovered from my Endo laparoscopy. I had finished working for the company I had worked for 10 years and started my own business as a freelance Environmental Consultant. I also completed my final exams to qualify as a Holistic Massage Therapist (part of my plan to change careers at some point). We packed up our house into storage and an overseas shipment and said goodbye to our beloved dog who was staying with family. It was certainly a period of adjustment.
Arriving in Jordan was fun and daunting. I was still doing group coaching with Rachel, this was really grounding and supportive for me – as I had people who understood my fertility journey and somewhere I could express my worries alongside the stresses of moving. We were still not pregnant though, and I won’t lie, I was silently panicking though didn’t want to express it. I had to make changes whilst being in a new country – such as trying to find organic and unusual produce – which was very difficult and very expensive. I persisted though.
“I started to have Endo pains and bloat again”
However, not long after arriving in Jordan, I started to have Endo pains and bloat again, and really badly this time. It had only been about 6 or 7 weeks post-op. I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t happen once but kept happening. I was dismayed. The doctor had told me at least 6 months, and it was clear that the Endo was back. Looking back, the stress of the move and the fact he had only done an ablation must have been some of the triggers. At this point, my hope started to dwindle again. This is normal. It’s like riding a rollercoaster. You are up and then down, and of course it’s like this on a monthly basis every time you get your period. You are positive after you period that it will happen this month, then you hold your breath, then all hope is dashed as you spot your period has started again. But to find out the Endo was back, we were overseas and we did not know what the health system was like, nor if the British Military would support us on our fertility journey.
I was devastated. So I did my usual. I googled, and googled….
….and googled, till I was too tired to google anymore. I researched everything. The academic in me always has to find out more, as I didn’t know what else to do. I found out about the IVF clinics in Jordan – I was nicely surprised they were the best in the Middle East and people travelled to them from all over the region, including from the US. It was then that I wondered if anyone coached about Endometriosis – I felt that I needed to know more, and though the fertility coaching was great, I wondered if I was missing something. I did eventually find someone, another amazing woman – Melissa Turner, a naturopathic doctor, who ran EndoEmpowered from New Zealand. She had an online coaching programme for women with Endometriosis, that took a year. We arranged a chat. Melissa was so lovely, I immediately warmed to her and could tell she had a wealth of knowledge.
It’s always daunting, wondering if you can trust someone over the internet with your money, but I think you just get a gut feeling. It felt right and I felt like Melissa was a long lost friend. The ‘year’ bit of covering this much material daunted me as I was desperate to get on and get pregnant. I did wonder how much more I could learn, as I had learnt so much from Rachel, but Melissa assured me that there would be things to learn how to manage my Endo and heal my body. Yes, it was more money, and I remember thinking it was quite a lot, but it really wasn’t, especially as I spaced out the payments and compared to IVF.
HOW I LEARNT TO THRIVE WITH ENDOMETRIOSIS
I was blown away by the detail of Melissa’s course. My knowledge went to another level. I started to get my hope back that I could heal my body and live with Endo relatively pain-free and go on and get pregnant.
My body did just that, it started to heal, my digestive system and liver in particular. There had been so many signs that I was not well and in complete dysbiosis, these gradually started to disappear, some quickly as I made some big shifts in my diet and lifestyle, and some slowly. I continued to practice what I had learnt from Rachel in terms of fertility preparation.
I think I went through a shift then, and really started to listen to my body. I started to explore other healing options, from fertility meditations, herbal teas, womb connection and visualisations etc. I was totally focused on healing. After 6 months of doing the Endometriosis coaching, my worry and anxiety were starting to come back, mainly because I was about to clock another birthday, my 39th, and I still wasn’t pregnant. I was putting things on hold, not wanting to book things, ‘in case’ I was pregnant. My husband strongly persuaded me that this needed to stop – we needed to live a little, not always in this limbo-land.
“So I decided to sign up for a marathon in Rome the following November as we were close by.”
I now had another focus, something to train for. I have always wanted to do a full Ironman but not having run a marathon has always stopped me! It felt good in a way to focus a little on something else for a while. I then did my first 10K race in some years, and also signed up for a half marathon in February in Tel Aviv.
We were back for Christmas in the UK, and I was told by a family member about a Chinese fertility acupuncturist in Maidstone who had had good results in assisting people they knew. I booked an appointment the next day – I was prepared to do anything. I had found I wasn’t previously ready for IVF – I think I felt I wanted to help my body heal a bit first, as I knew that IVF didn’t yield great results with Endo at my age. I had agreed with my husband we would start investigating at the beginning of the year. The Chinese doctor was the first person who wanted to see both of us, not just myself. She prescribed a ‘stinking’ herbal tea for me for the next 3 months, and tablets for Pete, along with acupuncture for both of us. She was great, as she wrote out the instructions in Chinese, so I could take it to the one and only acupuncturist in Jordan to continue the treatment. I’m not sure how much I believed in it, but for me, it was the last thing I was going to do before IVF. Luckily Pete was happy to go along with it.
THEN IT FINALLY HAPPENED
It was early March, my period was due to the same day that we were doing a team event, running 242km from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea! I was thinking that I was mad – either because if my period came, how was I going to have the energy to run, and if it didn’t, then I could be pregnant. I had a strong feeling that I might be – like I hadn’t before. My period didn’t arrive. I ran and maybe too much information, but my breasts were in agony the whole way! We did a test a few days later – I didn’t want to do it too early to avoid disappointment, and it was positive – the first one.
Oh the relief, I cried, so did Pete.
I was so so very happy and scared it wouldn’t stay. It had happened literally just before we went down the IVF route – it was going to be the last cycle we tried. Another long journey I know so many women take, one that I didn’t want to embark on lightly. I wonder, did my concern over the IVF hold block me? Was it my coming to terms with it that helped?
If you ask me now how we got pregnant, I couldn’t say it was just one thing.
I think all the steps I took were needed.
I needed to nourish my body and my mind.
I needed to cleanse it of all the nasties.
I needed to create movement in my body.
I needed to change my lifestyle and career as it wasn’t working for me.
I needed to ask for help.
I needed all the alternative therapies I tried.
I needed to focus on my healing.
I needed to then focus on life itself and my relationship with my husband.
I believe that my husband improving his health through the Chinese herbs and acupuncture was vital – as later we learnt he has Haemochromatosis, which does affect fertility.
It has been one hell of a transformation.
One I really wouldn’t change – as without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have then wanted to go on and learn how to be a nutrition and health coach myself. I wouldn’t have wanted to help women like myself to heal their bodies and thrive with Endometriosis and prepare themselves for conceiving, and then through their pregnancies.
Now I am where I am, there are so many lessons learnt. I want to pass these on and help others to not make the mistakes I made, and also to use the amazing things I have learnt to help them on their journey.
Today we have a beautiful little boy, who keeps us on our toes, a business that I am so passionate about, and I literally feel the best and happiest I have ever done despite the severe lack of sleep.
It has been a rocky road, but it is always about the journey, not just the destination – it’s just hard to know this when you are on it. If you are on this journey, have faith, try to find the silver lining hard, as hard as it may be, and see what it is you are meant to be learning about yourself.
Are you in need of healing so you can thrive with Endometriosis?
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