Every journey to motherhood is very different. We have wanted to speak about fertility for some time, but wanted to make sure that we gave it the voice that it deserves. There is no better voice than someone who spent 7 years, going through 9 rounds of IVF spending over £100K to finally get her beautiful baby boy. It is our pleasure to introduce a 6 part series with our wonderful friend Keeley Dwight AKA @_Tryingtobeamum_..

There was a long time where I felt I didn’t belong to a club that I so desperately wanted to be a part of… motherhood. What I came to realise through my experiences, is that there are so many ways to mother.

BUT I’m getting ahead of myself!

Who am I? And why am I here?

I’m Keeley, a 43yr old Producer from East London, a lover of fashion, wine, poncy restaurants, mum to our miracle 9 month old Freddie, and I’m INFERTILE. Yup, even though I have a baby, I am infertile. Infertility is so common, it affects one in seven heterosexual couples in the UK,  and 48 million couples and 186 million individuals live with infertility globally (*WHO). Yet more often that not it is misunderstood, unacknowledged, and not discussed for fear of shame or embarrassment. It can affect you if you are yet to have kids, but equally can affect you if you already have them (secondary infertility affects 1 in 20 in the UK). These stats combined with the fact that 1 in 4 of us will experience miscarriage, is kind of mind blowing.

Given this platform is all about mums, women, connections and chatting about stuff with those that “get it”, it seems absolutely bang on that we chat about fertility. So that’s what I am here to do…. Although not an expert, i’m definitely a semi-professional. Having been diagnosed with “unexplained infertility”, I have spent over 7 years trying to conceive, going through 9 rounds of IVF treatment, one miscarriage, countless tests, scans and procedures, at four different clinics, in three different countries. Fertility treatment, in whatever guise, is relentless, exhausting, often heartbreaking and a complete rollercoaster of emotions. It’s both a physical and emotional assault on your body, even if you don’t necessarily realise it at the time, I don’t think I did.  After 8 rounds of unsuccessful treatment with my own eggs, we decided to change our path to parenthood. In 2019 we made the decision to move to egg donation. We wanted a family, to be parents, and this is the way we would make our family. There was a fair bit to process and making the decision, although a fairly easy one for us, doesn’t come without it’s challenges. I had to grieve the loss of my own genetics, we had to consider our future child’s story, and what sort of donor/ donation we were looking for. All we knew was that all of these decisions were born out of love. We were so fortunate, because although donation is likely to give you better percentages of becoming pregnant, it is not a guarantee. In October 2019 we travelled to St Petersburg (Russia) and we transferred a top grade embryo. It worked! I gave birth to my gorgeous miracle boy Freddie in the summer of 2020. He is beyond delicious, a happy, chilled and funny little thing and I can’t now imagine life without him in it.

I know, it’s A LOT, and now I share my experience to try and help others feel less alone, to talk about infertility with a smile and a sense of humour, to try and convey that infertility doesn’t need to define you, and to raise awareness of just how bloody common this is. Believe me, someone you know has been through it, or is going through it and you probably don’t even realise. It’s also about that vital support that you or friends might need, gaining an emotional intelligence around infertility – What do you say? What don’t you say?

I’m going to be spending time with you here, exploring the world of fertility. Talking to experts about a myriad of different topics, chatting to those who have lived it, and throwing in some hints and tips that might help from my own experience.

Starting with the simple question of “Am I infertile?” to “how to survive the two week wait” (whether that’s through fertility treatment or not). From “Every loss to matters” to “MONEY, MONEY, MONEY”.

Even if this doesn’t affect you directly, I can guarantee you will be better for knowing that this exists, that it probably affects at least one of your friends or family (if not more) and that by investing a little bit of time, will make more of a difference than you realise.

So cosy up in your loungewear (we all have an abundance now!), grab a cuppa, a chilled glass of something lovely,  or whatever you fancy, and join me in finding out some stuff. Some pretty great stuff.

K x