IVF for CEO's - ‘love like you’ve never been hurt’ ‘do IVF like you’ve never had a miscarriage'!

It’s always the way, when you don’t want something it’s easy to get, and when you do, it’s so much harder!

I know I don’t look it but I’m just the other side of 40! 😉 This article is about my IVF journey (so far) and how having a business has effected the process and some tips I would give to anyone doing IVF that I wish I had known!

After starting my company in 2012 (at 30) I hadn’t really ‘seriously’ thought about having babies. I was never massively maternal. I think nowadays with ‘type A’ women, or anyone who wants to have a career, babies are almost an after-thought. We seem to be breeding women who don’t have time to ‘fit in’ having a baby.. until perhaps it’s too late. It’s yet to be seen for me.

When I was younger I said ‘it’s fine I will have babies by the time I’m 30’ thinking I had so much time. When I hit 30 it was ‘it’s fine as long as I have them by the time I’m 35’.

I’m not sure if anyone else was like this but I worked out the maths (controlling planner alert). Ok, so I’m 30 now, if I meet someone in the next 2 years, that gives us 3 years to have un-child friendly

fun, and then I can have a baby!

There are two issues there, 1- actually meeting someone you could see yourself being with forever, let alone wanting to make a human with! 2- being able to conceive when you’re a ‘geriatric’ mother, which is my category apparently!

However, I struck gold! I met my husband in 2016 when I moved to Bath, aged 35! He was, and is, literally the man I would have ‘ordered’ if I could have! So, working out the maths, I was on track for a baby by 38 or 39! I had the ‘forever man’ who has noticeably 'very good genes'. (see below picture if you want to confirm!)

We got married in 2018 in September, and one month later we opened our first business together. I run a Lead Generation company (since 2012) and my husband had then opened his first Brazilian Jiu-jitsu gym in a town just north of Bristol. I was very much involved. Not only was I running my main company in the day but at night I was at his martial arts school running the front desk, doing social media etc etc.

In 2019 we started ‘trying’ for a baby. I’m not a massive fan of that terminology.. it sounds like it was a drag, or some kind of compulsory activity. The truth is, it did make doing ‘the act’ less romantic. Not the ideal scenario just after you have got married!

At the same time as ‘trying’ we had the normal stresses of running businesses. I think my overriding thoughts were ‘maybe it’s a good thing it’s not happening yet’ and ‘it could be my body saying it’s not the right time’. There was only so long I could keep up that narrative before it was apparent I was becoming closer to 40 and no pregnancy happening.

In the middle of 2021 we went to the doctors and they said because I was under 40 I could have IVF for free! I still find it so strange, because of your postcode you can either foot a £20k bill or have a free pass!

We were all set to do the IVF but a month before our date to start I became pregnant at the end of 2021 NATURALLY!! Yippee! All sorted I thought…

Sadly at 8 weeks I lost the pregnancy. At the time my husband who is also an actor, was down to the final two to get a part in a big Netflix series where he was going to be away for 6 months… when I found out I was so distraught as we had my business, which took up all of my time, and we had his business where he worked all the coaching, it was relatively new so him leaving would have (in my eyes) been catastrophic. I was so happy for him as this was a major break, but on the other hand worried for how I would cope. We will never know if this stress caused the first miscarriage and I’m sure it didn’t, but it made us realise we needed to be more secure in ‘leaving our businesses’ for when we had a baby!

So! Back to the IVF. Much to my surprise, because I had a natural pregnancy (and lost it) I then couldn’t have IVF for free… I kick myself now as if I hadn’t told them I was pregnant at the doctors I would have still got it for free! (£20k later!)

We started the IVF… and man! The hormones!! I am a hormonally challenged person by nature.. and to artificially bring on the menopause, and then artificially stimulate all of your eggs to the size of two small clementines in your belly was a rollercoaster… As a business owner you wouldn’t want to worry your staff that you might be pregnant, clearly they all know I’m on the IVF journey now as we have had too many staff parties to keep it quiet. IVF does pretty much consume you whilst your doing it!

Luckily I ‘harvested 7 eggs on my first go! This was great, and from this I got 3 embryos! Some younger people get about 20 eggs out, but, as the nurses say ‘it just takes one’ to make a baby.

The first embryo was put in, in February 2022! You are meant to wait 2 weeks to do a pregnancy test but (like the type A, impatient person I am) I was taking pregnancy tests every day from 3 days later! Clear blue, I recon I have spent about £1000 on tests, I must be one of your best customers!!

And I was pregnant!!! At this time we had just opened another martial arts school!! At my company I was still really integral to the day to day work within the company, but I thought it would just all work out in the end, but there was an undercurrent of worry.

A few weeks later I was rushed to hospital in agony. I remember crawling along the floor screaming with pain. I must be having a miscarriage… when I was seen (8 hours later) they said I had a burst cyst on my ovary from all the hormones… and that the baby had a heart beat but it was measuring ‘a bit small’. I saw the nurses face and although my husband was optimistic (as ever) I knew something was wrong.

We went for a scan the next week and they said it was measuring much too small and it would stop having a heart beat soon. Until I knew the heart beat had stopped we still had a glimmer of ‘well you never know’! But April 2022 at around 9 weeks I had another miscarriage.

There seemed to be a trend forming here!

One of my members of staff called me on the same day and said that she had just found out a few days earlier she was pregnant and she had a miscarriage, of course I didn’t tell her I was in a similar position, but I remember consoling her on the phone and saying ‘have the rest of the week off’ and then putting phone down and crying…

After a few months we unfroze one of the other embryo’s (after more drugs to mess up the hormones). One perished when being thawed out, but we still had another.

Yes! Pregnant again!! This was towards the end of 2022… We went in for our 6 week scan, by then we knew the measurements it needed to be from what happened before and Dr. Google.

We both sat there in the scanning room and could see the nurses face as she measured. I knew it was the wrong size, I knew it wasn’t growing. She said in the next 2 weeks I would miscarry again. That was pretty sad, we stayed in that room after she had left for ages, feeling defeated.

That’s 3 in a row.

From there we have had tests done for ‘sticky blood’ where the blood clots so quickly it can’t feed the placenta hence a baby not growing past a certain number of weeks.. I didn’t have that.

We have now opted to have chromosome testing with our next go..

It’s a pretty draining process and doing this on top of running businesses is super stressful. My husband is amazing and has said at any point if it’s too much for me then we can stop.. it’s nice to know, but I’m not quite done yet. I don’t know how long I can carry on, but I know it’s not the end for now.

If I could give any advice to an older mother, it would be to get all these tests done on the first go, if I had known about the chromosome testing I would have paid to get it done rather than have all this happen to trigger it.

So, here we are April 2023, I have just done my trigger injection (to release the eggs after hormones for a month) and we are about to go for our second round of harvesting this week, and from there we have paid to check the chromosomes! Apparently in women at 40, only 20% of embryos will have the right chromosomes, hence there being high levels of miscarriage. I just hope we have one that’s in good working order!!

The decisions we would have to make if we didn’t have any would be really hard. I’m not a quitter, but there has to be an end to this.. hopefully it’s me ‘avec bun in oven’ ..

I feel like I am more ready than ever and now is the time (ever the optimist)… I am making space mentally and physically. You know what they say ‘love like you’ve never been hurt’ ‘do IVF like you’ve never had a miscarriage’!!

We have now just opened a third Martial arts school but this time we have employed full time staff and over the last 2 weeks we have changed the other marital arts schools to have full time coaches and program directors there too! Its Easter Monday and all weekend I have been writing business plans for the new structure and interviewing and offering jobs to multiple people accross multiple businesses. This means if my husband gets called away for any acting jobs he can go and there will be no issue!! And… more importantly if we do get a baby!!! he can be at home at night and be with us. Before he would have been working each night..

In my business I have just employed an Account Director which means I would be able to have time off of work if I needed to! Employing a high level Account director to manage my accounts with me was the best move I have ever made and there is no looking back now!

I do feel more ready than ever. I’m not saying that means the little fecker will stick in there this time.. but mentally I am ready.

Let’s see… to be continued!!

As a side note, this piece is not for getting any sympathy, its actually just a factual documentation of an IVF journey for an 'older person' trying to get pregnant teamed with running a business.

This video is me (with messy hair in my PJ's) doing my trigger shot ready for my egg harvesting this week!! 10th April 2023!