It’s funny how the worst thing that happens to you can turn out to be the best thing.
At the age of 31 I was diagnosed with unexplained infertility. This was devastating news as I had always wanted children. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would then embark on a ten-year journey to conceive a baby with countless fertility procedures and five gruelling rounds of IVF. Not only that, my first marriage collapsed in the middle of it all, I had a miscarriage, and I was desperately trying to juggle fertility treatment with my HR career.
My story did end happily in the end. I finally fell pregnant on the last round of IVF – with not one, not two but three babies! Incredibly, I had triplets at the age of 41 but I will never forget the pain and mental struggle of my fertility journey.
When you decide you want a baby, it becomes the main priority in your life. After all, we were put on this earth to reproduce and it’s one of the most natural experiences we can have. So when you are unable to conceive, it’s devastating. Not having the baby you long for can lead to a host of negative emotions – from anxiety and grief, to loneliness and anger.
After my fourth IVF failed, I had a meltdown. I was approaching 40 and my dreams of starting a family were disappearing. I had tried everything and nothing was working. I was exhausted from wearing the mask like everything was fine and it was becoming impossible to juggle my Head of HR job with all the fertility treatment. I knew I had a decision to make. Either I draw a line under the quest for pregnancy and find a different kind of life, or keep going with it somehow. But, as anyone who has been on this journey knows all too well, it’s not easy to give up. There is always hope and I knew I wasn’t ready to stop. I also knew I couldn’t keep going without something changing.
Back to this story and fast forward a few years, the triplets were toddlers and I went back to my HR job in a part time role. I lasted about 18 months before the challenge of juggling an office-based job with triplet babies became too much. The final straw was when they all had chicken pox, one after another, and I was barely in the office.
I needed a break and time to recover. Not knowing what else to do, I took some time off work. We had recently moved house and I threw myself into the renovations. It was so nice to be at home and recover from the IVF – physically and mentally. During this time, I started reading. I’d always been into self-help and I was trying to find something to get me out of this hole. I started reading about mindset and how what you think about impacts your emotions and how you behave. I realised that although I was doing everything I could to try and get pregnant on the outside, inside it was a completely different story. Externally I was looking after myself and doing all the treatments, but mentally, I had lost the faith and there was a little voice deep inside of me telling me that it wouldn’t work and I would never be pregnant.
This was a lightbulb moment for me. There was so much written about the mind / body connection and how to improve your mindset. I developed a handful of tools that worked for me and I gave it everything. Not long after, we decided to have one more go at IVF. With my newly positive outlook I found myself pushing for things to be done differently and I felt in a completely different place mentally. Fast forward a month or so and not only did the IVF work, but incredibly one of the two embryos split in half. This meant I fell pregnant with triplets. I had a healthy pregnancy and gave birth to identical twin boys and a little girl at 35 weeks. Then the fun and games started, but that’s another story!
Back to this story and fast forward a few years, the triplets were toddlers and I went back to my HR job in a part time role. I lasted about 18 months before the challenge of juggling an office-based job with triplet babies became too much. The final straw was when they all had chicken pox, one after another, and I was barely in the office. With a heavy heart, I decided to pack my job in and retrain as a Coach, something I had wanted to do for a long time. I naturally fell into Career Coaching and over time built up a new career that was not only rewarding, but flexible around the children. At the same time, I started a hobby business as a Fertility Coach, supporting women facing infertility and helping them with their mindset. It was a topic close to my heart and I shared the mindset tools that had helped me. The coaching got great feedback and some of the women even became pregnant.
Around the time of the pandemic, I decided to write all my thoughts down, and this is how my fertility book began. I had always loved writing, but never thought I would be writing about something so personal. In November 2023 my first book was published called ‘Fertility: Mindset & Meltdowns’. The book is an insight into my own journey and a guide to managing the emotions of trying to conceive. There are many medical and nutritional books about fertility, but very few about how to cope mentally. The book has had a wonderful response and it’s been so special to receive messages from people saying how much it’s helped them. Now, my triplets are 11 and I have more time to dedicate to my coaching and writing career. I will never forget the heartache of my fertility journey, but I am grateful that it has taken me down a wonderful career path that I never would have imagined.
About the author
Lisa Ashworth is a writer and career coach, and author of the book ‘Fertility: Mindset & Meltdowns’. Learn more about Lisa at https://lisaashworthcoaching.co.uk/
