The Power Of Surrender

A story about fertility and the power of your mind.

This is not the kind of post I would usually write.

I’m a recovering digital content creator! I write lists! I write easy to scan and easy to digest information! I put the focus on the reader rather than me, the writer!!!

But I’ve been feeling the urge to put this story down on paper. Just in case it helps someone.

This is the story of how I went from a total sceptic to a believer in my ability to manifest the life of my dreams.

It’s also the story of how I struggled to fall pregnant for 18 months.

Content warning: this post talks about my experience with fertility and mentions miscarriage. If this is part of your own story, please be gentle with yourself and only proceed if you feel strong enough to do so right now.

It starts when I was 30

When I was 30, my partner and I sold all our stuff, took a year off work and travelled around the world. Great, right?

It was great, I have so many amazing memories. My partner and I often exclaim, completely out of the blue, ‘remember that time we did [insert something ridiculously fun here].’

But at the time, I was conflicted between wanting to buy a home and have babies or going on this big trip. I remember lying in bed one night, head on the pillow, about to drift off, saying to him “won’t this set us back”. He reassured me, “it will be worth it, we’ll never get the chance to do this again.”

We had both done plenty of big trips on our own, but never together. This was our make or break trip as so many people liked to comment.

Point is, I was in two minds and spent a lot of time worrying about our future. In fact, I spent a lot of the last three months of the trip wondering when he was going to propose. Wondering if we should start trying for a baby while we were still travelling.

I had a job to go home to, but he didn’t, so he was worried about money and providing for a baby. I understood, but still, I basically wasted away the last three months of our holiday willing him to change his mind.

And then, after travelling all over Central America and through parts of Asia, I managed to get really truly sick in New Zealand of all places.

I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition when I was 20 and it had been in remission for the past five years. No drugs, no nothing. Just gone. Then in New Zealand, I contracted E. Coli and set it off. ‘No big deal’ I thought, ‘I’ll just go back on my medication, right?’ Not so much.

Cue us getting home, him proposing, COVID hitting and us deciding to try for a baby instead of plan a wedding amidst the uncertainty of lockdowns.

Trying for a baby

After several months of no positives on all those pregnancy tests I’d been peeing on, I managed to get an appointment with my specialist doctor who told me my autoimmune condition was worse than we thought.

After months of increased medication, new medication, lifestyle changes and more, still no baby.

After some disappointing visits to my regular GP, my specialist gives me the name of a new GP. This new GP discovers I have Hashimoto’s Disease, an autoimmune condition of the thyroid which has a huge impact on fertility. She also suggests I might have developed coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition of the gut which, if not managed by eliminating gluten from your diet, can result in fertility problems.

To test for this I’d have to eat loads of gluten and - if I did have it - completely annihilate my chances of getting pregnant.

At the same time, I was seeing a fertility specialist and he had organised for me to have a test to check everything was in working order. I had heard you often get pregnant after this test because they flush fluid through your fallopian tubes, potentially unblocking anything in the way.

There was no way I was going to make myself more sick when this might be my chance.

Two months later I was still not pregnant.

I gave up hope of getting pregnant without assistance.

We booked in a date to start IVF and I completely surrendered.

Goodbye house deposit, hello hormone injections.

On the day I was meant to start taking the drugs, a pregnancy test came back positive. My body had done it.

Six weeks later, I miscarried that baby. My little Scorpio baby was not meant for this world.

That miscarriage was one of the most awful moments of my life. But it taught me something.

Discovering magic ✨

While all of this was going on, a friend got me on to a podcast about manifestation.

A year earlier I would have scoffed. But I was desperate. Science and medicine was not helping me. I would have (and did) try anything.

I started writing down my life as I wanted it to be. I started using I Am statements instead of I Want statements (e.g. ‘I am the mother of a healthy baby’ instead of ‘I want to be the mother of a healthy baby.’)

I meditated, I visualised, I prayed to the universe.

I seriously upped the ante on my gratitude practice.

It didn’t happen immediately.

It’s not actually magic, shocker!

The magic is in your mind.

After about six months of doing this work, of training my subconscious to believe good things can happen, of undoing all the negative thoughts I’d embedded in the depths of my brain while we were travelling, I got pregnant.

That was my Scorpio baby, the one who got away.

That miscarriage was awful. But seeing the positive pregnancy test was a sign that I could keep trying. A very powerful sign to my subconscious that my body could fall pregnant.

I continued to do the work. I also continued to take my medicine and kept healthy in every way you could possibly imagine - nutrition, movement, supplements, meditation, elimination of hormone disruptors. You name it, I was doing it.

I gave myself three months to get pregnant without assistance and booked in a date for IVF after that. I was totally at peace with going down the IVF route now.

Two months later I was pregnant. That baby is now a toddler.

This was not a ‘miracle baby’. I can understand how the science types in the room would explain this away. I, in fact, can easily explain this away. I was sick, my body needed time to recover before I could get pregnant.

But it was my miracle baby.

Something in my brain had clicked. All of a sudden, I knew I could train my brain to do anything. It won’t always be fast or easy, it won’t always be exactly what I wanted, but I can get where I need to go with the power of my mind and a little helping hand from the Universe.

And I truly believe that so can you.

---

If you’re struggling with fertility, please know you are not alone, and know that there is help out there. I highly recommend speaking to a therapist (preferably one with experience in this area).

If a therapist is unavailable to you, try to find support groups who have positive stories from real people who have been through it. I found a local Facebook group that was particularly useful for me.

---

Until next time,

A