The IVF Journey Part 4 - Egg Retrieval

I was awake early on egg recovery day; a combination of excitement and anxiety about the unknown ahead.  Plus, our appointment was booked for 10.30am, and I wasn’t allowed to drink anything beyond 8.30am so I was up in good time to fit in my essential morning cup of tea!  That was all I was allowed though, well that and water, but nil food by mouth from midnight so no breakfast for me.

We were also told not to wear perfume, aftershave, hairspray and/or strong deodorant when attending for egg recovery. Apparently embryos held within the adjacent laboratory are very sensitive to the chemicals contained in the products so it’s important to avoid using them. I’m all up for the natural approach in any event, but it does make you consider how much these products may affect sensitive hormonal balance and your health generally.

I spent the journey from Surbiton to the clinic (Wessex) in Southampton channelling Reiki onto my tummy, hoping to infuse the growing eggs with as much loving, healing and energising Reiki energy as possible. I was just really hoping that the eggs were going to be good enough to grow into healthy embryos.  It was exciting certainly, but I was still silently praying that it would all go well - it really is a test of one’s ability to stay positive and have faith.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect that morning, I’d read the notes in the booklet provided by the clinic, but I was still nervous about what the procedure actually entailed. Fortunately, we only had to wait a few minutes in the waiting area of the clinic before we were led downstairs and into a small consultation room. Here I was asked to change out of my clothes and into a gown provided by the clinic before covering myself with my own dressing gown, which I had been asked to bring.

A small cannula was then inserted into my arm. This was probably the most uncomfortable part of the whole procedure as the nurse had to make a few attempts. Finally, the cannula was in place and before I knew it, I was kissing E goodbye and being led by the nurse across the corridor to the small theatre for the procedure.  It was probably a good thing it happened so quickly as it didn’t give me too much time to dwell on what lay ahead.

I was welcomed into the theatre by the consultant and her assisting nurse, both of whom I knew from our previous appointments.  I appreciated the continuity of care, although I’m not sure you get that so much these days with IVF now so popular. At that time however, it made a huge difference in putting me at ease and we were able to chatter and joke with some familiarity. The theatre itself wasn’t threatening either, as far as I can remember it just contained a bed with a stool beside it and a large scanning system at the foot of it.

There was a sense of purpose in the room and after our friendly exchange I was asked to remove my pants and sit at the base of the treatment bed. It was then that all dignity went well and truly out of the window as I lay back and my legs were padded and strapped up into stirrups. I wasn’t expecting this and it’s certainly not an experience I’m in any hurry to repeat.  Still it wasn’t long after this that I was administered a sedative, which sent me straight to sleep.

I was oblivious to the procedure itself, I’m told that the it’s not particularly lengthy, perhaps 10-20 minutes, it depends really on how many eggs are being retrieved. The recovery of the eggs from the follicles is generally done using a vaginal ultrasound probe, which guides a needle to aspirate each follicle. It’s incredible when you think about it and amazing that science facilitates this.

Once the egg is retrieved it’s studied under a microscope and given a grading, with each clinic having its own grading system. The emphasis is on quality rather than quantity, especially as not all the eggs retrieved will be fertilised so the number doesn’t necessarily give an indication of how many embryos may result. However, to a greater extent, the more eggs the clinic have to work with, the greater the chance of them fertilising so it’s all relevant.

Once the eggs are retrieved, they are put together with the sperm in the laboratory (in-vitro) about 4 hours after egg retrieval, or, as in our case, the sperm are injected individually into the eggs (ICSI). The eggs are then checked the next morning for evidence of fertilisation. At Wessex, statistics indicate that there’s a 5% chance that none of the eggs will achieve fertilisation. This does mean however that 95% should be ok!

I remember waking up in the recovery room and being surprised to find that it was all over, it felt like it had been seconds since I had laid down on the bed in the theatre. I was also amazed by the number of other ladies in the room with me as I had been unaware of them upon arrival at the clinic.  There was a lady in the bed next to me and I could hear a couple of other ladies chatting beyond the thin curtain that separated us – the nurse confirmed that it was indeed a busy morning. 

I was very excited about this as there was full moon due later that evening. Not only do I literally worship the Goddess of the Moon but she is also the Goddess of fertility and the full moon is a time when women are (in theory) most fertile. I found it fascinating that despite us all taking fertility drugs, our “cycles” were somehow still connected to the moon. Furthermore, I was jubilant at the auspicious nature of the timing with my eggs being fertilised within the energy of a fertile full moon!

I was keen to share my excitement about the full moon IVF gathering with whomever would listen. The poor lady in the bed beside me couldn’t avoid my ramblings and I was delighted to educate her about the connection between the full moon and fertility, and the auspicious timing of us both having our eggs retrieved on this day. She told me that this was her third attempt at IVF, the first two cycles failing. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like and I hoped that the moon was working some magic for her. Unfortunately, I shall never know whether she conceived but I like to think so.

The nurses were less interested in my moon tales, I don’t think they really understood the significance, it was just another day for them. There was a time when I too didn’t really know much about the moon, and I certainly didn’t understand or recognise the correlation between the moon cycle and my own cycle. Nor did I appreciate the power of the menstrual cycle as it moves us from girl to woman, through to wise woman and on to Crone, it was just something that happened every month.

Further, I had no idea of the way in which we can use our menstrual cycle to connect with our innate feminine wisdom – the wisdom of our grandmothers and great grandmothers and all the wise women that have lived before us – and the fact that this is available to us all the time.  It’s something that every woman should be taught when they first begin menstruating, because it offers us so much insight into how we’re living our lives and can be deeply empowering – imperative for any lady with menstrual issues.

Since I discovered the wonders of the Goddess of Moon, I have been honouring her, praying to her and dancing with her whenever I can.  Quite literally too. There is nothing quite as uplifting and indeed wiring as dancing naked in the light of a full moon.  I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to deepen their connection to her, and feel her energy, especially anyone with fertility issues. If that’s not your bag, then just stand under her light with your arms held high and be moon touched instead.

But be prepared, she likes to shake things up a little in her quest to bring out the light in you (so that you may shine as brightly as she does when full). She’ll ask you to dance with her and shake yourself loose, surrendering to the moment and all that holds for you. She’s a blessing and brings blessings with her too. I was excited about her appearing on egg retrieval day – it was answered prayers and this strengthened my faith in the magic of the Universe.

After an hour sitting in one of the armchairs in the recovery room, drinking tea and literally recovering from the procedure, I was allowed to leave. It really was that simple, although the clinic insist that someone collects you as you’re still recovering from the sedative. I changed back into my clothes and E came down to collect me. It was then that our kind nurse met us and told us that they’d retrieved 11 eggs during the procedure and these were now with the embryologists for grading.

She told us to return in 3 day’s time for embryo transfer and that was that. It was exciting but I was very aware that the eggs may not fertilise or indeed be of a fertilised quality that would allow for embryo transfer.  IVF really is a waiting game, from one procedure to the next.  It can get so exhausting just waiting to hear the results of the various tests and procedures, and never being quite certain if you’ll be able to move on to the next stage or not.  

Still I was feeling positive – the moon was full and I was quite sure her energy would work some magic and help to fertilise the eggs.  Plus, I was rather hyper off the combination of the sedative and the relief of surviving egg retrieval. This meant I talked non-stop to E all the way back to Surbiton, it was like being giddy off a glass of champagne – I’d like to bottle that feeling!  Poor E was also relieved that the procedure was over and was looking forward to a few days lying on the sofa and resting his back, which was still very painful.

The clinic advice you to do very little, certainly no driving, no alcohol and no signing of legal documentation in the 24 hours following egg retrieval. They mention that you may experience some discomfort following the procedure with a swollen and sore abdomen and some cramping that may require strong pain killers.  They also advise you to abstain from sexual intercourse until you have received the result of the pregnancy test as the ovaries may remain enlarged and intercourse can potentially damage them.  Furthermore, some eggs may remain uncollected and these could potentially give rise to significant multiple pregnancy.

For me, between now and embryo transfer, it was absolutely all about healing from egg retrieval and preparing my uterus to receive the fertilised embryo(s). I saw it as a bit of a mission and set to work as soon as I got in the car, taking some high dosage arnica and channelling Reiki into my tummy. Back at the house in Surbiton, I continued with the Reiki while nestled up in bed with a hot water bottle on my abdomen. I like a good mission and I like healing work so I was looking forward to seeing how I could heal myself within this short time period.

Ditch the New Year's resolutions and get yourself some intentions instead

If I’ve one piece of seasonal advice for you it’s this, don’t bother making any New Year’s resolutions! They’re a waste of time and energy as they just make you feel worse about yourself than you did to begin with. Furthermore, they put negative energy out into the Universe and that’s not a good way to begin the New Year.

The trouble is most New Year’s resolutions centre around giving something up, or making some drastic change in a bid to become happier, skinnier or more at peace with yourself. Further they are often unrealistic and work with willpower alone, thereby setting you up for a big fail when your willpower wavers, as it tends to do.

They also work from the basis that you are not ok just as you are, or that you are lacking in some way and merely serve to highlight your own dissatisfaction with yourself and your life. They simply provide you with yet another stick to beat yourself up with and that’s not really going to help you begin the New Year on a positive note.

Ideally we should all be waking up (in more ways than one) on New Year’s day with the intention of being kinder to ourselves, of loving ourselves that little bit more.  It’s time that we all started to recognise and realise our own magnificence (yes you are magnificent!) and the fact that we are each – yes each one of us, you too – a gift to the world.

Our beating ourselves up and highlighting our inadequacies does nothing to promote a happier and more peaceful state of being, nor does it help to raise the collective consciousness and help make the world a happier and more peaceful place to live. The more we give ourselves a hard time, the more the world appears a darker place to live.

However, if we approach life with a more loving attitude towards ourselves, counting our blessings rather than our inadequacies, then we’ll start to notice how the world loves back at us.  It really is so simple. Loving thyself first and foremost and the rest will take care of itself!

So here’s an idea.  How about undertaking a burning bowl ceremony to let go of all that stuff that prevents you from being your lovely magnificent self. Write it all down – that’s all your negative tendencies and behaviour patterns, all those draining and judgmental people in your life, your depressing and dead end job, all activities which exhaust and disempower you and anything which no longer brings out the best in you.

Whatever it may be, write it all down on a piece of paper under the words, “I (fill in name), let go of the following from my life”. Really tap into how it would feel to let go of all this stuff from your life and commit to it too. Then burn the paper and let it all disappear into the ether, leaving you feeling lighter and brighter as a result.

Once you’ve done the letting go you’re ready to invite in the new. Now this is where it gets really exciting because you get to choose what to bring in.  So dream big and in alignment with your truth!  Get yourself a piece of paper and write something like this, “I xxx (fill in name), have the following intentions for 2017”. Then write down your intentions in the present tense as if they had already happened; for example, “I practice yoga on my mat at least once every week”.

Please don’t underestimate the power of intention, its powerful stuff! I’ve worked with intentions the last few years and am always amazed at the way in which they help to transform life in a more positive direction and with grounding too. It’s the same with counting your blessings, this practice can really help you to feel joyful about life.

The thing is, the more you do to transform yourself into a more joyful and positive person the more joy and positivity you’ll put out into the world. And don’t forget we’re all connected and we all have a role to play (and responsibility) in making this world a more joyful and positive place to live. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “be the change you’d like to see in the world”. It begins with YOU.

It’s for this reason that I encourage you to begin your list of intentions by making “I love and accept myself JUST AS I Am” number one and “I live my life in touch with my true and unique self” second on that list. And then add on a whole heap of other joyful and happy stuff too, things that make you feel good, whether that’s spending more time in nature or seeing more of your friends, perhaps attracting a new job that’s more aligned with your soul, helping with a charity and/or buying your own home. Whatever it is make sure it is heartfelt and not from the ego.

Once you’ve finished with your list, you might write, “with thanks” or something to show your appreciation for the gift of intention, before folding it up and popping it in an envelope.  Then put it away in a drawer, get on with living your life and be open to the new opportunities that the Universe may now provide. But don’t try to control this, just let things unfold in their own way and in their own timing. It’s exciting!

Of course I can’t write about the New Year and New Year’s intentions without suggesting that you put “yoga” on your list too. If you’re reading this then take it as a sign, it may very well be the answer to all your prayers.  Want to lose weight? Practice yoga. Want to get fitter? Practice yoga. Want to be a kinder person? Practice yoga. Want to live life more in touch with your truth? Practice Yoga.  It’s easy (yes I know I’m biased!)

But remember that talking about it isn’t the same as actually practicing. All too often people tell me they practice yoga, and then on closer examination it turns out that they haven’t actually taken their mat out of its bag for the last 6 months, if not a year.  In their heads they think they practice yoga but I’m afraid you have to actually do the practice to get gain the benefit. It’s like Pattabhi Jois said, “Practice and all is coming”. Just get on your mat!

So you see beginning the New Year with a list of heart-felt intentions is far more exciting and uplifting then setting yourself some depressing New Year’s resolutions.  Hopefully now you’ll wake up on New Year’s day feeling joyful and positive and loving yourself.  It’s in this way that we will each play our part in making the world a happier and more peaceful place to live.   

On that note, I shall leave you with an extract from the inspirational Anita Moorjani:

“Always remember not to give away your power – instead, get in touch with your own magnificence. When it comes to finding the right path, there’s a different answer for each person…when we’re true to ourselves, we become instruments of truth for the planet. Because we’re all connected, we touch the lives of everyone around us, who then affect others. Our only true obligation is to be the love we are and allow our answers to come from within in the way that’s most appropriate for us.”

The IVF Journey Part 3- Scans and Injections!

I don’t think you can ever get used to having transvaginal ultrasound scans as such, but by the time I began the IVF Antagonist cycle I had already had two of them, and I tried not to think too much about it. I just had to consider that these scans are all part of the process to achieve a certain outcome - pregnancy.  It was all about the outcome after all, and staying focused on this helped enormously. Not to say they weren’t still intrusive, they are, they’re incredibly intrusive but I just couldn’t allow myself to think too much into it.

E was great and attended every specialist appointment with me scan or no scan.  I just felt that I needed the moral support and he felt that it was important to be part of the process too.  We were trying to conceive after all and that involved bits from both of us so we gave it our all, body, mind and soul.  Thus after my next period started I had to go to the Medical Specialist Group here in Guernsey for a transvaginal ultrasound scan of my ovaries to check for cysts before I could begin the IVF cycle.

I wasn’t expecting the specialist to find any and he didn’t, but it’s still a necessary part of the programme before you can be given the go ahead to start the medication.  It’s perhaps worth sharing here that there was a time when I did have cysts on my ovaries.  I share this only because I know that others experience this, and the cysts can make it tricky to conceive naturally and can complicate the IVF process (or so I believe).  I managed to heal my cysts naturally and it was a lesson for me, not only in terms of how we can hold unprocessed emotions in our bodies, but how we may perhaps heal these holistically.

As I have mentioned previously, I developed an eating disorder when I was 17 years old. It began with me starving myself so that my periods stopped.  Then when I went to University later that same year I fell into the nasty trap of starving myself and then binging, so that I actually put on weight and every day my life was consumed with what I was eating.  It went on for too many long years.  The trouble is that once an eating disorder has taken root, its very difficult to let it go.

By the time I was approaching my mid-twenties I knew that something had to change. I was still caught in a cycle of obsessing about what I ate and starving and binging myself in equal measure while exercising excessively. Essentially I didn’t really like myself very much and both my relationship with food, the PMS and the bouts of depression I experienced were all consuming at times and utterly exhausting.

Fortunately, after running the London marathon, I found yoga.  My body was in a mess and someone mentioned to me that yoga may help.  I had already read that yoga can help with PMS and depression, so it seemed to make sense to give it a try.  I had nothing to lose.  So that’s what I did and the rest is history really. Yoga made me feel better.  For the first time in a long time I was encouraged out of my head and into my body.

Without doubt yoga saved my life. It was through yoga that I came to discover Reiki, which was truly life changing for me, and also presented a world of healing, crystals, angels and good nutrition. I started seeing a local nutritionist who was just brilliant. She was very no nonsense and prescribed a hormonal balancing diet and a selection of supplements, which made an incredible difference to how I felt, I couldn’t believe it!

Until that point, I ate what I ate depending on what I felt it would do to my weight, opposed to what I felt it would do for my health. It was incredible really, to finally understand that much of my PMS symptoms were due to my diet, and I came to realise that we truly are what we eat, and with that there was a huge shift in my relationship with food and with myself, but sadly eating disorders do not disappear over-night and there are always trigger events.

A trigger event for me was immersing myself in the Byron Bay yoga scene, which was full of skinny yogis who ate very limited diets under the guise of being healthy.  I tried many of them, from a vegetarian diet to a raw food vegan diet from juicing to a fruit-only diet. After a stay of 5 months one time I returned home to Guernsey the skinniest I had ever been and with that my periods had stopped again and my mind was utterly consumed with my weight. 

I knew without doubt that something had to change.  My Reiki Master happens to be a professionally qualified hormone expert so I undertook some saliva testing, a service she offers, to investigate the lack of periods.  The results confirmed her suspicions - they indicated I had polycystic ovaries and with that I took myself off to the doctor.  However, the doctor took a good look at me and disagreed with the diagnosis as I wasn’t overweight (quite the opposite), I didn’t have spots, and there was no excess hair on my face. 

Still, she sent me for a scan and sure enough this showed that I had a whole heap of tiny cysts covering both my ovaries.  The doctor was surprised and I was slightly alarmed as I knew that on some level I was responsible for this. There was no allopathic treatment for the cysts as such, the doctor just mentioned that having cysts may make it trickier for me to conceive but we’d have to wait and see and address the issue then if necessary.

I decided I wasn’t going to wait until I wanted to conceive and with that decision I set out to heal myself naturally.  My Reiki Master, the hormone expert, prescribed a treatment plan, which involved taking a whole heap of supplements and using natural progesterone cream so I started with this.  However, I recognised that there was an emotional element to the cysts - and the underlying eating disorder which I didn’t mention to anyone and no one raised with me – and I knew I needed to address this too if I hoped to heal.

I had recently read a popular self-help book by Brandon Bays called “The Journey: A Practical Guide to Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free”, which I had found inspiring. Brandon was diagnosed with a basketball-sized tumour in her uterus and refused drugs and surgery. Instead she discovered what she described as “a powerful direct path to the potent healing power of the soul”. Six and a half weeks later, she was tumour free and this book shares her story and her pioneering vision of an entirely new paradigm of healing.

 “The Journey” has apparently been used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to awaken their own infinite potential and set themselves free. It sells itself as “a powerful, step-by-step means to find direct access to the soul, the infinite intelligence that is within us all”, and through that medium to heal. I liked what I read. A lot.  And now, for some reason, I just couldn’t get “The Journey” out of my head and when I investigated the location of practitioners, I was delighted to find that one lived on Jersey, a neighbouring Island.

So I took myself off to Jersey on the boat for a day-trip to see this lady.  It was funny really because I was living with my parents at the time and while I told them I was going to Jersey for the day to see a lady for a healing treatment, I asked them not to ask me anything about it, because I knew they wouldn’t understand and would think me crazy.  Not that that would have put me off, sometimes you just absolutely know that you have to do something and even though no one else may understand why you’re doing it, or they judge you for doing it, you know you have to do it anyway.

When you have a knowing like this, when you have absolutely no doubt about the decision you’ve made, it can feel like you are being guided by some higher power. When this happens, whatever it is you have to do tends to happens very easily and effortlessly - it’s like all the doors opening for you along a corridor or all the traffic lights being on green along a main road. I’d had that experience when I first went off on my yoga travels. To this day I don’t know what drew me to Byron Bay but something did and despite the fact I had to extricate myself from my life in Guernsey first, it happened very easily and I felt supported every step of the way – little did I realise it would be quite so life changing.

“The Journey” was life changing too. Sitting in a comfortable chair in her private treatment room, the friendly practitioner guided me into a meditative state and took me on a journey to my ovaries.  There, with her guidance, I was surprised to see that eating away at my ovaries - quite literally - was a resentment I had been holding on to for some time, since I was 17 actually, and an incident which I believe may have triggered my eating disorder in the first place.

Initially I was surprised that this particular episode of my life and my reaction to it had ruled my life for so many years. I mean it kind of made sense to me, but nonetheless I was alarmed at the impact it had been having on my health and wellbeing. I was only relived that I now had the opportunity to recognise this so that I could get to work forgiving, making peace and setting myself free from it, before it impacted any further on my life.

In many respects it was a blessing as it taught me a huge lesson about how our thoughts and unexpressed emotions can be literally held within the tissue of the body, negatively impacting on our health and wellbeing, and potentially leading to - and indeed creating - dis-ease. It was also a huge lesson in how we can heal ourselves if we are ready to do the work, to face our demons, to dig deep and get down to the nitty gritty of it, finally addressing whatever it is we were unable to address and process at the time the experience/incident took place.

I complemented “The Journey” with Ayurveda. Meaning “the science of life” Ayurveda is exactly that, viewing health in four dimensions including the physical, sensory, mental and spiritual. It is centred on preventative medicine and bringing a person back to balance.  It shows how an imbalance in one part of a person’s being will affect them in another, i.e. if a person isn’t being true to their life path (dharma) then physical and mental illnesses can arise which cannot be effectively treated with modern medicines but can be helped by Ayurveda.

Ayurveda uses elemental medicine which means that they balance out earth, fire, water, air and ether in the body.  These are divided into three doshas or types - Vata, Pitta and Kapha - which are the basis of a person’s constitution and also the factors that can create imbalances.  Ayurveda places great emphasis on diet, lifestyle, yoga, meditation, massage and herbal medicines to bring a person back to health and keep them there.

The Ayurvedic doctor, a truly lovely Sri Lankan lady based near Gatwick, prescribed a nourishing diet that would suit my natural constitution. This alone was very healing as it meant I started to view food differently, not on a calorific/weight basis but on an energetic and balancing basis. She also prescribed me a selection of ground herbs that I had to mix with warm water and drink first thing in the morning, before and after meal times and before bed. I also attended the clinic for a half day nourishing and healing Ayurvedic massage.

The Ayurvedic approach is very much aimed at healing the root cause of any imbalance, which for me – the imbalance that is - was presenting itself as the cysts and PMS.  While the herbs were smelly and tasted disgusting, they encouraged me to eat regularly, which was not something I did ordinarily and was healing by its very nature. All together, the diet, herbs and massage certainly shifted how I felt and amazingly my periods soon started again and eventually synched with the moon. I was also aware that I was ovulating once more too, or at least producing the secretions which indicated this!

I have fairly much followed the Ayurvedic diet for my constitution ever since then.  It fascinates me because whenever I move away from this, I notice that my fire element gets out of balance and with that all sorts of changes occur. My mind gets very busy, nothing is ever right, I anger easily and I get very blinkered in my way of thinking. When this happens I know its time to get back on track again.

There is no doubt that Ayurveda has been as life changing for me as yoga and Reiki. As a yoga practitioner and someone fascinated by energy and healing, it resonates on every level. I really like the Ayurvedic doctor I see, she has counselled me spiritually and has certainly towed me into line when it has been necessary over the years. She is also a fertility expert and I would certainly encourage any lady experiencing fertility issues to speak to her.

The combination of all this healing work helped me to heal my ovaries from the cysts naturally and this was one of the reasons I was surprised we were not able to conceive initially. Still, we were where we were and it was with some relief that the specialist confirmed that as far as he was concerned we were all good to begin the IVF treatment the next day. Wow! I was excited, it was really happening, we were about to embark on IVF with the intention of conceiving new life. We were one step closer to realising our dream!

The next morning marked the beginning of my first IVF cycle and I began injecting. Only that I didn’t actually do the injecting myself, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, it didn’t really feel right somehow, so E kindly did it for me.  He was happy to do it too, not to cause me pain (obviously) but to be involved in the process and I found it easier leaving him to sort out this side of the treatment. This meant that each morning he would measure out the quantity of daily drugs that needed to be injected. He would then inject these into my tummy, trying his best to ensure minimal pain and bruising – it became like an art and there were good days and bad days!

The first medication was called Gonadotrophin, which is a stimulation medication containing two hormones, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), which are normally produced by the pituitary gland. These hormones stimulate the ovaries to produce a follicle, which contain an egg. It’s rare to experience side effects from this ovarian stimulation medication but occasionally a mild skin reaction can occur around the injection site, and more commonly abdominal discomfort will be felt as the ovaries are stretched by the developing follicles (bearing in mind that you usually only produce one in a cycle, not multiple).

At the same time, I started taking a high dosage of arnica prescribed to me by a homeopath. I am sure this remedy helped to ease the bruising from the injections. Mentally, I was very much working on the basis that there was no real reason that I should experience any untoward side effects from the medication. I deemed myself healthy and believed that the drugs would do what needed to be done – I was keen to flow with the process to achieve the intended outcome and let go of any resistance to this.

I continued working in the office as usual during this time, although I was fortunate to be working on a part-time and flexible basis where I could come and go as I pleased depending on my workload.  I also continued with my usual yoga teaching schedule, which helped to distract me from the IVF – not only have I always found teaching yoga energising for me but it brings me completely into the present and I think of nothing else but what is happening in the class in that moment.

I continued to provide Reiki treatments for this reason too. As a channel for the Reiki energy, not only do you receive it while giving it, but being in a quiet and peaceful environment for an hour or so can be restful and rejuvenating. I did however make every effort to protect myself from negative energies and to ground and cleanse myself after each session. Generally, though, I was keen to protect myself in life generally and I tried to avoid situations and people with negative and draining energy. I felt that this helped me to keep my own energy levels and vibration as light and stable as possible.

To enhance this, I took to my mat daily, not only to practice asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises) but to do a Yoga Nidra using the Sankalpa, “my eggs are growing and ripening”, “I am pregnant with a healthy baby” before sitting and meditating for 20 minutes. I tried to take lots of walks and spend time in nature too. I continued swimming in the sea too – I find this so cleansing and grounding, and believe it enhances one’s sense of wellbeing.

I already drank lots of water and ate a healthy diet but I increased my protein intake. I was also already supplementing with oil of evening primrose, which is known to encourage the development of cell membranes. I still drank the occasional glass of sparkling wine, but was aware that the medication was already taxing my liver so I supplemented with milk thistle tincture to support this.  

I made an effort to rest as much as I could. I was growing eggs after all and I needed to do all I could to enhance this process. So I invested in the Downton Abbey box set and watched a couple of episodes every evening with a hot water bottle on my tummy (in Chinese medicine, warmth is considered necessary for the development of a baby). I took relaxing baths with aromatherapy oils and tried to take early nights, a novelty for me as I had a tendency back then to stay up very late working on my laptop!

I also received regular Acupuncture, reflexology, holistic massage and Reiki, most of which I was able to barter for yoga – the joy of having friends who are holistic practitioners!  All of the energy work helped to further relax me, keep my energy as light and clear as possible and help me – I hoped - to grow healthy eggs. In short, I was visualising healthy eggs, dreaming about healthy eggs, and living and breathing healthy eggs.  It was absolutely all about the eggs!!

On day seven I had to start taking Cetrotide, which is an antagonist injection. This is used to prevent premature ovulation (early release of eggs from the ovary). This drug rarely causes side effects other than a potential skin irritation around the injection site. Fortunately, I didn’t experience this although I suspect the arnica helped to reduce my susceptibility to any irritation. It was around this time however, that I started to feel a little irritated with all the injecting.

I’d been trying to stay positive but self-pity was creeping in and with that the “why me?” mentality and the “I don’t want to be putting these drugs into my body” way of thinking. There was fear there too, and I caught myself buying into it a little as I questioned whether the drugs were working and caught myself analysing the subtle changes I was feeling such as increased tiredness. I also started fretting a little about the fact I didn’t feel quite myself, which felt a bit strange having spent so many years of my life trying to feel normal and hormonally balanced.

Fortunately, I had the motto “do not give in to self-pity” clearly ingrained in my mind. This was soon joined by another one, “suck it up”, which my IVF friend had said me when I started to complain a little to her.  Both these mottos worked a treat, especially the “suck it up” one, because it’s true, if you’ve made the decision to do IVF then you need to suck it up and get on with it. It’s never going to be easy or plain sailing, but its all about the outcome and my friend was right, self pity and feeling sorry for myself was not going to help, I literally had to suck it up and get on with it. 

On day ten I attended the Medical Specialist Group for blood tests and yet another transvaginal ultrasound scan to see how I had responded to the stimulatory injections.  The specialist measured the number and size of the follicles, which he recorded and faxed immediately to Wessex. This scan essentially provided an indication of the number of eggs being produced and gave an idea as to the potential timing of the trigger injection and egg recovery. I also had to have blood test to check the levels of oestrogen in my blood.

At this stage of the treatment there is a risk that you produce very few or no follicles, so that the cycle has to be abandoned.  There is also the risk that you produce over 20 follicles (over stimulation), and again the cycle may have to be abandoned because to continue could prove a risk to health. This is one of the many reasons that IVF can be stressful because at every stage of the process there is the risk that it’s not going to plan and that you may not achieve the outcome through no fault of your own – its not an exact science after all - and the build up to an appointment can make you feel anxious.

Still we were lucky in that everything appeared to be going to plan and Wessex told us that I would now need to attend a scan with them at the clinic in Southampton on day 12, two days away.  We had hoped that this would be the case, so we were prepared to a point - I had already booked the time off from work and now we could book the ferry. We decided we would take the car with us this time as we knew we would need to be in the UK for a few days awaiting egg retrieval and then a further few days until embryo transfer (on the basis the sperm fertilised the eggs).

We had arranged to stay with one of E’s best friends who was living on his own in a lovely house in Surbiton, Surrey at that time.  It was only an hour and half drive away from the clinic, which was fine, and meant that we could experience a home-away-from-home environment and keep our costs down, because ICSI is certainly not cheap.  At that point, February 2013, the treatment, including the initial consultations, screening, testing and now ICSI had cost us £5,885, excluding any travel costs and expenses.  Of course the expense merely adds to the stress of it all!  So we were very indebted and grateful to our friend for putting us up free of charge for the remainder of this treatment cycle.

We left Guernsey on the Thursday teatime and took the overnight boat to Portsmouth. I remember feeling rather excited that it was well and truly happening and that I should be having my final injections the next morning. The injections do begin to get a bit waring to be honest and that’s after only a short time - some IVF treatment plans can be rather lengthy in comparison. Still, I was just hoping that the scan at the clinic would confirm the end of the injecting and we could now get on with the whole egg retrieval process.

Injections aside, we had a whole other focus going on in our lives that evening. E had put his back out. Talk about timing!  Mind you perhaps it’s no surprise really.  IVF is stressful for everyone involved, including partners. Admittedly E does have a weakness in his back having broken it twice, but that aside, I am fairly convinced that it was emotional – the lower back has some connection to us feeling supported and stable, grounded then.  I’m not sure that IVF lends itself to a supported, stable or grounded state of being! Emotional or not, the pain was manifesting physically and E was in quite some pain, not ideal on a 12-hour boat crossing!

We arrived into Portsmouth at 6am the following morning, which was some relief for E – it had been a long night trying to sleep comfortably.  We drove around for a bit before parking in a relatively empty underground carpark, which is where E administered what I hoped would be the final morning injection. It all felt a bit suspicious and seedy being injected in such an environment but needs must. We then had a few hours of waiting ahead of us until my appointment at Wessex where I was due yet another transvaginal ultrasound scan so the consultant could determine if my eggs were ready for retrieval.

E was now experiencing acute pain and getting himself a little anxious about it.  I was sympathetic but also found it rather fascinating that the closer we got to potential completion of the IVF process, the worse his back was getting! There was inevitably some fear there about the life changing nature of this whole procedure and I began to question whether on some level this is the reason that some women have unsuccessful cycles – the fear of the life changing nature of becoming pregnant and the inner resistance this creates. It’s a complicated one.

E was of course adamant that his back pain was merely physical and with that he was concerned that movement was making it worse.  He was getting shooting pain down his left leg and was worried about potential nerve damage.  We discussed our options and E decided that he wanted to go to Southampton General A&E to see a doctor and get peace of mind – and some painkillers – if nothing else.

I can’t say this was an ideal way to spend the time we had before the Wessex appointment but I guess it saved us driving around aimlessly killing time.  Instead we sat around aimlessly killing time!  It may have been early in the morning but the A&E department was already busy and triage certainly didn’t consider E a high priority.  On the one hand this was good as it merely served to confirm my belief that much of the pain was emotional, but it also meant that I had to go to Wessex on my own, and have my first scan without E being there with me.

It was clearly the day for challenges.  The female consultant who undertook the scan decided that my eggs were not quite ready for collection, they needed a few more days to mature further.  My heart sank and I had to really hold back the tears. I didn’t want to think that the eggs weren’t developing properly. I also really didn’t want any more drugs injected into my body. I was done with them. Still, I had little control over this and the consultant prescribed another dose of the medication costing me £84. One starts to get a little flippant about the cost, merely handing over one’s debit card and hoping for the best!

E was waiting for me by the time I made it back to the hospital. The doctor had undertaken some tests and concluded that his back wasn’t bad enough to warrant any additional treatment. He was sent on his way with a prescription for some strong painkillers instead. E seemed calmer now he’d seen a doctor and I guess I was also calmer now I’d seen the consultant. While taking additional drugs was not ideal, it was just one of those things and a reminder that IVF is not an exact science and everyone responds to the drugs differently. Funny that we should both now be on drugs!

From Southampton we drove straight up to Surbiton, an hour and a half away, and settled ourselves into our friend’s welcoming home. Aside from the familiarity, I also enjoyed the fact there was no Wi-Fi in the house at that time.  While this does take some getting used to if you are used to frequently going online, it is actually incredibly refreshing. I felt like I could properly retreat from the world and focus on me! This may sound self-indulgent, but I believe there is necessity to this when undertaking IVF. I joked, however, that E was determined it wasn’t all about me, because his back was making it a little all about him too!

All this self-indulgence meant I spent my evenings enjoying a relaxing bath and watching Downton Abbey in bed on my laptop while channelling Reiki onto my tummy.  I practiced a lot of Reiki on myself during this period, I was keen to energise the growing eggs with as much energy as possible to ensure that they were as healthy as possible.  Not only that but Reiki is healing and relaxing by its very nature so I was able to use it to help to heal the bruising from the injections and ease myself to sleep.

The next morning, Saturday, E administered the last Cetrotide antagonist injection, hoorah! I celebrated that afternoon with a yoga class with Aram Raffy at TriYoga in Chelsea.  I had discovered Aram a few months previously and loved his active vinyasa style of teaching. I find this style really helps me to get out of my head and into my body. Aram is a popular teacher and I enjoyed being in a busy class with all that group energy. It was just what I needed at the time and I was buzzing for a good while afterwards – the joy of yoga!

Back at the house in Surbiton and later that evening, 10.30pm to be exact, E injected me with the final injection of this IVF cycle, called Ovitrelle. This synthetic hormone helps to trigger the release of the eggs by the ovaries (ovulation) and stimulates the final maturation of eggs during the IVF cycle.  Hoorah! This meant I was done with the injections and that much closer to the outcome.  I cannot tell you the sense of relief I felt and the joy that followed. No more injections!

I was fortunate though in that I didn’t experience too many side effects, or at least, I didn’t allow myself to succumb to them. As I’ve previously mentioned fertility drugs stimulate the production of follicles in the ovaries and the production of the hormone oestrogen. High levels of oestrogen can cause side effects including breast tenderness, headaches, tiredness and vaginal discharge.

Also, when the ovaries are distended with follicles, abdominal discomfort may result from the stretching of the wall of the ovary. I don’t know whether it was the acupuncture, or the Reiki, or the yoga, or the Arnica, but I didn’t feel any pain. Yes, I knew something was going on, but I didn’t experience any discomfort as such, just irritation at having to have injections each day! But here I was now, injections over and almost there, only another day to go, without any medication (hoorah!) and then we were due at Wessex for egg retrieval.

On the day off from medication – the Sunday – I chanced upon a workshop at TriYoga in Chelsea with Steward Gilchrist.  I knew nothing about Stewart when I booked the session, but I quickly discovered that he is indeed a rare gem and is a Scottish version of my initial yoga teacher, Lance, an inspiring Australian. The session was all on balance, which was definitely a happy coincidence as I needed all the balancing I could get ahead of egg retrieval the next day.

The class was super busy and super active and absolutely perfect for my needs in that moment. I thought of nothing else but how I was placing my body on the mat and how I was breathing. I would highly recommend this approach to preparing for egg retrieval. I felt cleansed of the residue from the drugs.   I also felt that I had done what I could to energise my eggs with as much prana and light vibrational energy as possible.  I was hoping that now those eggs would be shining brightly and would go on to form beautiful embryos full of life. I certainly felt like I’d given it my best shot, and now it was just a matter of getting on with the next stage of the IVF cycle.

The IVF Journey Part 2 - The Clinic and Testing

Our appointment to attend Wessex clinic in Southampton for the procedure that would, one way or another, determine our future, was booked for mid-January. It was exciting and I couldn’t wait to just get on with it now.  I was still feeling positive and had begun the New Year completely focused and intent on a successful process so 2013 was – as far as I was concerned – all about faith, trust, fertility and getting pregnant.

Living on Guernsey, where fog is always an issue, we flew out to Southampton the evening before the appointment to ensure that we wouldn’t miss our booking. At the time E was a member of the Best Western, so we booked ourselves into the Chilworth Manor House in Southampton, which turned out to be a bit of a gem and I would highly recommend to others who have to go to Wessex. 

We didn’t get there until late in the evening, and while the hotel itself is a little quirky in lay-out, it wasn’t until the morning that we got to see that the gardens are something else. It may sound silly but the opportunity to calm ourselves in nature was well received, because despite our best efforts, we were both feeling a little anxious.  So after E had eaten breakfast and I’d taken that time to practice yoga on my mat instead, we ventured out into the grounds of the hotel and did exactly what we needed, grounded ourselves a little.

The hotel is located within 12 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds and right next door to a conservation area. It’s truly stunning. I will always remember our wanderings that morning. It was one of those bright, crisp and very cold winter days.  The ground was frozen hard, there was a layer of thin ice on the pond and our breath smoked in the air. It was ever so quiet and peaceful, just us and the odd dog walker, and the sound of our feet crunching across the hard and icy earth.

We came upon a collection of tall Cypresses trees, which had been planted in a circle and created what looked like a sacred site within.  We later discovered that this was a deer circle used to herd the deer, but to me it seemed more appropriate as a ceremonial area and clearly others felt the same as there was evidence of a fire in the middle.  I was rather uplifted by our find and took myself right to the centre to feel its beautiful central energy for some ritual yoga and prayer; I could almost feel the eyes of the wood sprites upon us as we walked away!

Back towards the Manor House itself we came across a very old Cedar tree with an absolutely enormous trunk.  It’s understood that the tree is approximately 420 years old, which is some age, apparently the oldest tree in the UK.  Well this was a bonus for us, there’s nothing quite as grounding as hugging a tree and especially not one that is that many years old – wow.  Can you imagine the changes that tree has seen, and all the time its just stood there doing its thing – incredible!  You can learn a lot by spending time with the trees and it made me consider that we too just have to do our thing wherever it leads.

We took a taxi to the clinic and were surprised to find it a little incongruous, set in a residential area and back from the road a little, with no evidence from the outside that it is a fertility clinic as such.  It made me realise that there still is – or was at that point in time – such stigma about fertility and fertility clinics and yet to me, it just seemed to be something you did if you couldn’t conceive naturally, no big deal.

Still, I have a dear friend who had gone through IVF to conceive her first born and was very keen that no one knew that she and her partner had had to have IVF and so they tried to keep it a secret for fear of what others may think. I’d never really understood this myself, because I’d never really seen it as an issue. However, seeing the clinic building made me consider that maybe I was the one who had got it wrong, perhaps there was a need to be secretive about this way of bringing new life into the world and perhaps I would encounter negativity if I mentioned it to others. 

There again, it crossed my mind that maybe I needed to be the one who didn’t worry about what other people would think, and could help others going through a similar thing and also assist a little in removing some of the stigma that still exists. I don’t feel that it needs to be secretive, there is certainly nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about, the outcome is the same regardless of the process so what does it matter? It was certainly too late for us anyhow, we’d told most of our close friends that we were having trouble conceiving naturally and they knew we were meeting with the clinic for further investigations.

Entering the clinic, I noticed that the walls of the entrance hall and either side of the stairs leading up to the reception area are covered in photos of babies who have presumably been conceived through IVF at the clinic. I guess it helps to reinforce the reason we were there and I hoped that one day a picture of our own biological baby may also make it on to the walls, as proof that it really does work, IVF that is, and that it is possible for dreams to come true!

The staff at the clinic were very friendly and welcoming and we took our seats to wait for the appointment. It is only a small clinic, or at least it was back then (not that I have a comparison) and the small waiting area was filled with a few other anxious looking faces. It was strange to think that we were all there for one common goal, to conceive, and yet presumably all of us having some different complication that was preventing this from happening naturally. It gave me a sense that fertility issues are more common than I may have previously realised, and that we were certainly not alone in our quest for conception.

There was a part of me that couldn’t believe that we were here.  It was all so new to us at that point, a whole other world that we needed to learn about. I’ll never forget working with a Reiki client a few years earlier who was having trouble conceiving and was undertaking IVF.  That was my first real exposure to anyone having IVF and I remember it as if it was yesterday as something about it made me take note, not least because it was even more secretive back in the day, but because I really felt that the Reiki would help her conceive, but also because it seemed so stressful for her and now here I was going through the same process myself – its funny how the Universe leaves signs along the way.

IVF itself stands for in vitro fertilisation: in vitro means “in glass”. Essentially it involves an egg being fertilised in a Petri dish in a laboratory under very carefully controlled conditions. It’s quite amazing that science allows scientists to do this - and that’s said by someone who has never really been interested in science per se. I know not everyone agrees with this process, and perhaps that’s the reason some people are secretive about going through IVF, but it’s a miracle of science really.

I remember reading a book about gentle mothering, in fact it could very well have been entitled that, and in it the ‘spiritual’ author suggested that if you found out that you could not conceive naturally, then perhaps that was the Universe’s way of saying that you are not meant to conceive in the first place and instead you should try and reach some level of acceptance and either look at adopting or finding a child-free path instead.  She was very anti-IVF and made it sound like it was the work of the Devil, simply because it wasn’t a natural approach to conception and thus had no spiritual element to it.

The author’s comments touched a nerve because I suspect in the earlier stages of my spiritual journey, I too had probably felt that science lacked the spirit.  However, my perspective has shifted enormously since those earlier days – the Universe has continuously provided me with situations that have encouraged me to become a little more open minded to science and the value it brings to life, and indeed the fact that the spirit resides in all life, in scientists and in non-scientists too! Now here I was being given the opportunity to learn that IVF can be a spiritual journey – it is all about perspective!

In a woman’s normal and natural cycle, usually only one egg ripens within a growing follicle - an ovarian follicle is a fluid-filled sac that contains an immature egg, during ovulation a mature egg is released from a follicle. The egg is released and, if fertilised in one of the fallopian tubes (penetrated by sperm therefore), it travels to the uterus (womb) where – in theory - it implants and grows into an embryo, which eventually becomes a foetus at week 11 of gestation (9 weeks after fertilisation).

With IVF the aim is to cultivate multiple follicles to harvest many eggs, which are surgically extracted and fertilised with the sperm outside the body. If all goes well, the embryos are transferred into the uterus three days later. Depending on the age of the women, and because it is difficult to predict on day three which embryo is more likely to produce a pregnancy, it is not uncommon to have two embryos transferred in the hope that at least one will result in a live birth.  The downside (depending on your perspective) is the risk of multiple birth, which brings with it its own risks in terms of complications during pregnancy and the emotional and financial demands this can place on couples.

For some couples there is also the option of blastocyst transfer. A blastocyst is a highly developed embryo that has divided many times to a point where it is nearly ready to implant on the walls of the uterus. A blastocyst has come a long way from its beginning as a single cell. During maturation, an embryo rests inside a protective shell called a zona pellucid. You can think of this protective shell as being like a chicken egg, only that, unlike chicken eggs, the human embryo does not remain within a shell.  Instead, the embryo hatches (breaks out of the shell) on the fifth or sixth day so that it can attach to the uterine wall (implantation). Just prior to hatching, an embryo becomes a blastocyst.

It is known that embryos developing to the critical blastocyst stage have a much greater chance of implanting successfully and resulting in an ongoing pregnancy. This is because these embryos have passed an important test.  During the first few days, the embryo relies on the mother’s egg for all its nutrients. However, in order to survive beyond day three or four, the embryo must activate its own genes.  Not all embryos are successful. Those that are successful are understood to be more highly-developed, healthier and stronger and have a higher implantation rate when compared to day three embryos.

It perhaps goes without saying that the ability to develop embryos to blastocyst stage allows clinicians to have greater certainty about which embryos are more likely to implant. Still, blastocyst grading standards are still under development and it is difficult to accurately predict which blastocysts are destined for success. That said, if clinicians have the opportunity to allow embryos to develop into blastocysts before being transferred back into the uterus, then this is the preferred option.

Regardless of the science to it all, I was also well aware from my holistic research that you can have perfectly healthy blastocysts, but your uterus may not provide the ideal environment for them to grow - it could be too acidic for example, or the uterine lining not as thick as it is meant to be thus preventing implantation.  In short there is absolutely no guarantee with IVF that the process will result in an ongoing pregnancy – it is absolutely not an exact science!

Furthermore, IVF is a highly technical procedure and I was only too well aware of the huge demands that the IVF drugs places on the body. I don’t like to take pharmaceutical drugs at the best of times, and now here I was hoping to be given the go ahead to start IVF and be prescribed huge dosages of them to supress my natural cycle, so that my body could be manipulated to stimulate ovulation and grow as many follicles as possible. A delicate hormonal balance would then be maintained artificially to allow the eggs to ripen but prevent ovulation from occurring before the clinic has a chance to retrieve the eggs. All of this controlled by high-dosage pharmaceutical drugs with serious side-effects.

The thing is, side-effects or not, when that is your only option to conceive, well you overlook all the stuff that would ordinarily have you saying, “no, no, no”.  It’s not ideal but I was very aware that there wasn’t a holistic path available to us, no amount of Ayurvedic herbs or Chinese medicine, let alone Bach Floral or Homeopathic remedies were going to help us to conceive. That’s not to say that they wouldn’t compliment the IVF process, but they alone were not going to create a baby. If they could however, well I would have chosen that option first, I don’t feel that anyone should put their body, mind and soul through IVF until they have exhausted all other more natural options!

Still at that point we weren’t entirely sure that we could conceive through IVF either and this was the reason we were here at Wessex in the first place. Our earlier test results in Guernsey had implied that we didn’t have between us what was needed to conceive our own biological baby. However, our consultant was fairly confident that with some further testing – invasive testing at that - they could find what was needed, so here we were for that invasive testing.

The testing was focused on E at this particular appointment, and I shall never forget the moment that our friendly consultant joined me later on that morning in the then-empty waiting room.  She excitedly told me that the good news, that the results of the testing were positive and that while a medical condition would prevent us from conceiving naturally, there was every chance that we could conceive a biological child through IVF. I could have jumped with joy, what a relief; instead I went outside and telephoned my parents and duly burst into tears conveying the good news!

I think often people forget that there are two people involved in conception, at least in terms of requiring both healthy sperm and healthy eggs and when IVF is mentioned, people tend to presume it’s because the woman has fertility issues.  Studies indicate that in the UK, infertility affects at least 20-25% of couples who are of reproductive age. This means that 1 in 5 couples you know will be affected by some degree of infertility. Of the couples having IVF treatment, 50% will be due to male infertility and 50% due to female infertility.

These are interesting statistics and I have become aware that male infertility is often another reason that couples keep their IVF journey a secret. I guess its more of an issue to men from an ego perspective than it is to women to have to admit that they are unable to impregnate their partner naturally. Furthermore, the infertile man may often feels a lot of guilt that their healthy partner has to pump herself full of strong pharmaceutical drugs and go through the stress of IVF to fulfil her dream of becoming a mother when there is actually nothing wrong with her fertility wise.

E and I have certainly gone through our own angst with this and while from an IVF perspective we present as an infertile couple, we are fortunate that the sperm provided by E were good quality. From my side while tests suggested that I was ovulating, we wouldn’t know until we began the IVF treatment whether my eggs would be of a sufficient quality to create a baby. Only time would tell.

Sitting in the waiting room awaiting E, I reflected on the irony of our plight.  I had spent years and an awful lot of time and indeed money trying to balance my hormones naturally.  At the age of 17 I had developed an eating disorder which had caused my periods to stop for a few months and ever since then I had struggled a little with PMS, which became much more intense during my twenties and led to bouts of all consuming depression.  It was PMS and the depression (and running the London marathon and the detrimental effect this had on my body) that led me to yoga and Reiki in the first place back in 2003.

I have worked with both yoga, Reiki intensely and extensively over the years, so too Ayurveda, homeopathy and other complimentary therapies, to help to heal the root cause of the hormonal imbalance naturally. I haven’t suffered with PMS or the bouts of all consuming depression for a good few years as a result of this healing work.  And now here I was about to pump my body full of very strong and very high dosages of pharmaceutical drugs, to control and manipulate my hormonal balance so that I could conceive new life in a test tube in a very clinical environment.  It certainly wasn’t the stuff of dreams.

However, despite the nature of IVF, I was still feeling very positive and extremely excited about the fact we now had the opportunity to try it.  I believe when you’ve had to consider that this may not happen, it’s just a relief to know that there is a way, a possibility, some solidity or grounding then, to the hope that you’ve been feeling.  I recognise that I am lucky and I need to make that point, because I know other couples, friends, family and students who have not been so lucky, who cannot, even with the help of IVF, conceive naturally (at least not their own biological child) and I appreciate that that can be a heart-breaking reality.

While I am a believer that everything happens for a reason, I do struggle a bit with understanding why some people are able to procreate and others do not have that opportunity physiologically.  Accepting that you cannot have your own biological children must be tough. I don’t know what we would have done if we had found ourselves faced with that reality – just it even being a possibility was enough to challenge me. I have seen those who cannot conceive go on to adopt or take donor eggs/sperm, and others decide to take a different path in life and immerse themselves in their pets or nieces/nephews instead.  

I have seen others become angry and bitter so that they cannot bring themselves to communicate with those who have children or who have managed successful IVF cycles. I guess we each have our own way of dealing with what life throws at us; some manage to find some peace and others struggle to find the level of acceptance required to experience this. I have a huge amount of respect for people who have to go through this and cannot imagine the strain it places on relationships, let alone on one’s faith.

For me, my faith was strengthened as the consultant told me that we were good to start the treatment when we were ready and that this would involve using ICSI (Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection). In conventional IVF at least 100,000 sperm must be placed with each egg to have a realistic chance of achieving fertilisation. ICSI treatment involves the injection of a single sperm directly into each egg, which is really rather incredible when you think about it.  The treatment leading up to and after ICSI is identical to the conventional IVF cycle.

I was keen to get going with the treatment as soon as possible and the clinic were happy for me to start on my next cycle in February.  This felt right somehow, not least because it was the earliest we could begin and I am impatient, but more so because it was the beginning of Spring and from my perspective this was important energetically. Spring is all about new beginnings as nature begins to awaken again from her winter sleep and new life arrives daily so that you can feel the lighter vibrancy of this ‘new life’ energy in the air.

Even Zita West in her fabulous book, “Fertility & Conception” writes, “In my experience, IVF seems to work better in spring and summer, the time for growth and renewal within the natural cycle. In autumn and winter nature is dormant and the body needs rest and sleep rather than action. If time is on your side and you have the choice, opt to begin treatment in spring rather than winter”. So I guess there must be something in it; intuitively it just felt right for us regardless.

I knew it was essential to prepare for IVF to give the process the best possible chance of success and I had been doing this already but now it was time to up the stakes so to speak. I was also aware that it was vitally important to maintain the positivity and to believe in the IVF process. It may not be ideal, it was certainly not the way I had imagined or indeed dreamt of conceiving but it was a way and I was very aware that I needed to seek out any resistance I had to this and let it go if I was going to stand a chance of getting pregnant. 

Sadly, I have witnessed this resistance resulting in repeated failed IVF cycles for some couples.  It comes back to one of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given in terms of IVF and it was given to me by a good friend who has successfully conceived through IVF.  She told me that under no circumstances was I to ever give into self-pity during the IVF process. I have found this to be incredibly true, because the moment the self-pity sneaks in, the more you give your power away and lose your focus on the outcome.

This is not to say that self-pity did not sneak in, or at least the opportunity to recognise it appeared. Despite all my positivity and excitement, a week after returning to Guernsey from our Wessex appointment, I had a bit of a down moment. I had to go to MSG here in Guernsey to meet with a local nurse to pick up my prescription for the drugs, run through the treatment schedule and be shown how to inject myself.  It was while she was demonstrating the two different ways in which you inject yourself with the medication that I had been prescribed that I burst into tears. 

I had done so well up until then and had managed to remain fairly level headed, but all of a sudden the reality dawned on me that I was really going to do this, I was going to consciously inject myself with incredibly strong pharmaceutical drugs. I know it sounds silly, because I knew this was the only way I would achieve the outcome I desired, and I thought I was ok with it, but all of a sudden I wasn’t ok with it after all. I was only too well aware that some of the prescribed medication has side effects as serious as recognised links to uterine, breast and ovarian cancer – not ideal that you are consciously injecting that risk into your own body!

As a result, I found myself questioning what I was doing. However, I knew that I had little choice if I wanted to conceive and with that, I was a little saddened at the seeming injustice of it all and the self-pity crept in.  How come it was so easy for so many of my friends and family members to conceive naturally, and why was it so difficult for E and I?  What was the Universe playing at?  It all just seemed so unfair.  I was going to have to do the very thing I had spent years standing against (here was the lesson, right?!), not least the pumping of my body with drugs but also accepting allopathic care and allowing my body to be viewed as just that, without much of a heart or soul, just another statistic, another woman who needs intervention to conceive.  I was heart broken really.

The nurse was very kind and softened the blow as best she could.  The trouble is there is a degree of pity involved in this whole sorry process because IVF is absolutely not an exact science and as a nurse said to me years later, it’s a little bit like taking a roll of the dice. You can do all you are told to do by the clinic but this still may not result in a successful pregnancy and as such you are often pitied. However, I suppose it was this bit, this little flaw in the science of it all (in that it wasn’t an exact science) that gave me a reason to bring my heart and soul into the process, and helped to strengthen my faith.

Here was my chance to truly tap into my spiritual approach to life, and also to the complimentary world, which is called that for good reason as it compliments allopathic care and healing. So in many respects I began to see IVF as another mission, a little like healing from depression, or the eating disorder, and all the other physical, mental and emotional challenges life has presented to me. And believe you me, IVF demands of you not just physically but most definitely emotionally and mentally. And for many, whether they realise it or not, it has a potentially huge spiritual element to it too.

I guess it was in that moment, in tears with the nurse at MSG, that I came to recognise what my friend meant when she had told me not to buy into self-pity.  And it was in that moment that I resolved to let go of any resistance I had to the IVF process, to the drugs and the allopathic care and all the stuff I don’t usually invite into my life, and just surrender to it.  While IVF was not on my list of ways one connects more deeply to spirit, I was coming to recognise that in doing IVF, one has the opportunity to connect more deeply to spirit in the lessons it provides – and the ability to surrender (and therefore let go of the way you believe things should be) is a huge lesson in this.

I decided that while I would read about the drugs on the patient information sheets provided by the clinic on the risks associated with the drug treatment, I would not research them in depth on the internet.  Nor would I be consumed by the side effects, other than just recognising what I needed to look out for in case I had an adverse reaction to them.  I would simply trust that the Universe had my back so to speak and do what needed to be done from a place of love rather than fear. This in itself, I was realising, is a huge lesson too.

I also felt it important to have some understanding of what they were meant to be doing to me, in terms of being able to feel and recognise this in my body - for example were they shutting my system down or stimulating it.  I am well aware that the mind plays a pivotal roll in the workings of our body so the more I could do mentally to support the process the better.  I felt that if I was resistant to the drugs mentally, then there was a chance that the drugs would not work as effectively as if I just embraced them and allowed them to do what they needed to do to achieve the intended outcome.

After seeing the nurse, I only had a week or so to wait until I was due to begin the treatment in earnest so I tried to settle into my zone. I was already practicing yoga and meditating daily, and doing Yoga Nidra where I could, just that now I tried to incorporate an 18-minute version of this healing and relaxation technique into my daily schedule and I started working with a new Sankalpa (resolution).

For me now, it wasn’t so much about getting pregnant (although of course this was still my intended outcome) but more so about producing quality healthy eggs. I was determined to live, breathe and visualise healthy eggs! Without healthy eggs then there was little chance of me getting pregnant, so this seemed an important stage in the process and to me it was all about stages and dealing with each in turn. Thus my Sankalpa now was, “I produce good quality and healthy eggs”.

A woman is born with all of the eggs she will ever possess and egg health is understood to be the corner stone to fertility and thus they need to be nourished to be able to mature, ovulate, fertilise, implant and result in a baby. Evidently the amount and quality of the eggs are genetically determined and reduce over the years, although the environment that the eggs are growing in can be affected by lifestyle factors just like any other cell in the body.

The egg cell is the largest significant human cell in the body and is just visible to the naked eye. It is also the roundest cell, and therefore has the largest volume in relation to its surface. Sperm cells are the smallest of significant human cells and are the straightest cells. Egg cell and sperm are each other’s opposite, large versus small, round versus straight, cytoplasm versus nucleus.

The differences between sperm cells and egg cells are great, yet at the same time opposites attract and they belong together if we perceive the ovum as a sphere and the straight sperm as the corresponding radius.  It’s the coming together of the universal male, positive, yang energy and the universal female, yin energy. The male energy from the heavens and the female energy from the earth, or at least symbolically!

An egg lives for up to 24 hours, which is a short time frame, and it needs to be as healthy as it can be during this time. Furthermore, the right hormones are required in the right amount at the right time during the menstrual cycle to grow, mature and ovulate an egg. During IVF the hormonal levels are manipulated with synthetic drugs to increase the chances of a woman growing, maturing and ovulating at least one good quality egg. There is much we can do to assist this process and increase the chances of good egg health including:

·      Reducing sugar consumption;

·      Eating a diet rich in antioxidants to neutralise free radicals (which damage cells);

·      Ensuring adequate levels of B vitamins, zinc, Omega 3 and Essential Fatty Acids;

·      Eating a healthy diet and avoiding foods contained within cans or packaged in plastic (which contain toxins and affect egg health);

·      Maintaining a healthy weight;

·      Drinking plenty of water;

·      Ensuring adequate sleep and rest;

·      Taking adequate exercise especially yoga and walking;

·      Reducing stress levels;

·      Eliminating activities and people who exhaust and take from you; and

·      Making positive lifestyle choices.

Also, a number of studies have been conducted that have found a positive link between acupuncture and successful IVF cycles for some people. It is possible that this is due to the fact that acupuncture can help to increase blood flow to the pelvic area and the ovaries, and if the blood flow is good, then more nutrients are able to get through and increase the health of eggs. In addition, acupuncture may promote a sense of relaxation and positive thinking which can improve a person’s overall sense of wellbeing and increase the chances of pregnancy.

I had already been receiving regular acupuncture and certainly felt a benefit in my general sense of wellbeing and energy levels, so I increased these sessions to weekly and made them the main focus of my complimentary work. I had also been receiving regular Reiki, reflexology and massage in the lead up to the IVF and increased the frequency of these to help balance, ground and relax me, and increase my general sense of wellbeing and mental stability. I was fortunate, I should add, in being able to swap many of the holistic sessions (which were given by friends) in exchange for yoga classes with me.

Also, I was well aware that it was vitally important for me to maintain positive thinking and with that mental balance and clarity. Positive thinking is essentially a mental attitude in which you expect good and favourable results – it is a process of only allowing thoughts that create and transform energy into a positive reality.  This works on the understanding that we manifest situations, events and conditions in our lives based on the thoughts we are thinking; thus the more positive the thought, the more positive the situation created in one’s life.

Therefore, I tried to pay attention to my thinking and notice when I was slipping into either negative thinking or self-pity and with that I would try (try, try) to let the negative thoughts go and focus on being more positive instead. It is not necessarily an easy process but it can be very interesting as you start to recognise habitual thinking patterns and negative tendencies. It becomes easier with practice and with this new found awareness one realises that we are the creators of our own destiny depending upon the nature of our thinking.

It is my experience that positive thinking can be further helped by visualisation and in particular vision boards. Basically a vision board involves you putting together a sheet of photos or images of whatever it is you would like to attract into your life.  For example, if you would like to become pregnant and have a healthy baby, then you may stick images on your vision board of you with a pregnant tummy and you holding a healthy baby – you may need to do some cut and pasting! 

It is important that there is an image of you somewhere on the vision board so that there is a link between the images and you. It is also important that you feel what it would be like to manifest your intentions (images) in your life – or at least how you imagine you would feel! Vision boards have always been very powerful for me in terms of being clear visually about what I would like to attract into my life and the positive feelings attached to the images (and the ability to manifest accordingly).

Once you’ve finished your vision board, you should put it somewhere you may see it regularly so that you can remind yourself what it is you are trying to manifest in your life. The process of putting a vision board together may also help you to recognise any unconscious resistance you may be harbouring and which may unintentionally block the IVF/conception process. Such resistance may include you feeling that you don’t deserve to get pregnant and fulfil a dream, or that you are unworthy of bringing new life into the world.

Through my healing work I’ve also noticed that some ladies have unconscious resistance as a result of their upbringing. For some they may have had a difficult relationship with their mother so that they worry whether they can be good mother themselves, or they are so busy mothering other family members that they don’t have the energy necessary to focus on being a mother and creating a family of their own.

Others are bitter about something that has happened to them in their childhood and carry the victim and blame mentality into adulthood. Unconsciously they create some internal resistance to happiness - if having a baby would make them happy, then on some level they resist this, so they can continue to play out the victim role and blame others for their continued unhappiness rather than taking personal responsibility. Healing work is often required to address these deep seated issues so that the individual can forgive and move on.

Another thing that really helped me with the visualisation was placing a statue of a family – man with arm around woman, holding a baby in her arms – on my altar and practising yoga, meditating and praying in front of it. I found this really helpful in being absolutely clear about what it was I was trying to bring into my life and seeing it daily.  It was the same with the fertility bracelet that I bought a good 6 months before we began the IVF process and wore daily. This contained rose quartz, pearls and rhodonite - all crystals which help to promote fertility and which I hoped would put out a clear message to the Universe!

There were lots of other things I did to prepare myself for the IVF and you can read about these on the self-help page on my website under “fertility issues”. This meant that by the time it came around to beginning the treatment, I felt that I had done all that I could to prepare myself and now it was a matter of getting on with it. For the first time in a good 18 months my period could not have come soon enough, I positively welcomed it as it brought with it a new stage on the journey to conceive and with that the beginning of the IVF Antagonist cycle.

Jill's recipe for Thai Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 butternut squash weighing about 1 kg unpeeled

1 tin coconut milk

Fresh ginger – about one inch

1 red chilli (omit if you don’t like it too hot)

A teaspoon Thai red curry paste (be cautious, you can always add a little more later)

About 1 pint vegetable stock (from powder or cube is fine) or chicken stock (if you’re not vegetarian!)

Salt & Pepper

Olive or vegetable oil

Fresh coriander

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How to make

1.     Peel and deseed squash and cut into smallish chunks (it cooks quicker)

2.     Peel and chop ginger finely.

3.     If using, cut stalk off chill and chop finely (if you want to limit heat remove seeds)

4.     Put tablespoon of oil in pan and on medium heat add ginger, chilli and paste.  Stir for a few minutes then add coconut milk and stock.

5.     Add squash, bring to boil and then reduce heat and simmer until squash is soft – or begins to break up.

6.     Remove from heat and either liquidise with ‘wand’ or allow to cool and then liquidise in a goblet.

7.     Reheat when needed and check seasoning before serving.

8.     Chop coriander and sprinkle on top of each portion.

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Health benefits of butternut squash

Squashes (and indeed pumpkins) are amongst the most nutritious autumn foods.  Low in fat they provide an ample dose of dietary fibre, making it an exceptionally heart-friendly choice. It provides significant amounts of potassium, important for bone health, and vitamin B6, essential for the proper functioning of both the nervous and immune systems.

Squash's orange/yellow hues reflect an abundance of powerhouse nutrients known as carotenoids, compounds which get turned into vitamin A in the body.   They also contain lutein, a carotenoid that is shown to protect against heart disease. What's more, with only a 1-cup serving, you get nearly half the recommended daily dose of antioxidant-rich vitamin C. 

As if this weren't enough, butternut squash may have anti-inflammatory effects because of its high antioxidant content and a low glycaemic index score, which means they are absorbed slowly and help to keep blood sugar levels steady.

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How to buy

Choose an unblemished fruit that feels heavy for its size with a matte, rather than glossy, skin. A shiny exterior indicates that the fruit was picked too early, and it won't be as sweet as a fully grown squash. Store whole butternut squash in a cool, dry place (not the fridge) with plenty of ventilation; it should keep for up to three months. Cut squash will stay fresh for up to a week, wrapped, in the fridge.

The IVF Journey Part 1 - The Very Beginning

It was one of those moments that will be forever etched in my mind and on my memory, one of those moments when time stands still and life suspends.

Here we were, E and I being told by the specialist that we may not be able to have children of our own.

Not have children of our own.

Not have my own children.

The words went around in my head as I tried to process them.

I had yearned to have my own children for as long as I could remember. It was a lifelong dream.  And now here I was, sitting in the specialist’s office in Guernsey, being told that that dream may never become a reality.  No part of this dream had come easily to me so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised; I knew something wasn’t right, but hearing those words, well they’re not really words that you want to hear.

Needless to say the rest of the appointment drifted over me; there was talk of donors and adoption, and of more tests so that there was still some hope. The specialist was relatively upbeat and joked about the advert from one of the main supermarket chains in the UK, saying that we too should embrace the concept of “every little helps” as he patted his bum as they do in the advert.  I’ll never forget that, not least because he was trying to be positive, but because it’s true, and it has stuck in my mind ever since.

The moment I reached the car I burst into tears. It wasn’t so much that I was thinking (at that moment) that we really wouldn’t have children of our own, just the reality that it was not going to be like I had imagined. I’m a spiritual being and I had in my mind the conscious spiritual conception with rose petals and gentle music – well ok perhaps not the rose petals, but you know what I mean!  Furthermore, I’d been preparing my body for months and months, and yet that was not enough.

It was ironic really because actually it hadn’t just taken months and months, it had taken years and years. That’s years and years of me searching the world to find the man with whom I may want to have children (only to find him right under my nose here in Guernsey) and a few more up and down years with him to get to a point where we both accepted we were ready to settle down and commit, and another year before he finally agreed to the idea of having a child. And now here we were, a further year down the line, being told that we may not be able to have one after all.

If I’m honest I knew that something was amiss. I’m fairly in touch with my body, in fact it was hormonal imbalance and resulting depression that initially got me into yoga and Reiki and which helped me to connect more deeply with my body and with its wisdom.  Over the years I have done a lot of work on myself, on all levels really, to try to heal the root cause of the hormonal imbalance and the depression which had plagued me on and off for most of my late teens and twenties.

So I had some understanding of my body and I had worked with a hormone specialist to balance my hormones and more recently with an Ayurvedic doctor to enhance my fertility naturally, so when I didn’t fall pregnant I knew something was wrong, albeit I didn’t know what it was at the time. I was intimately aware of my cycle, of its connection with the moon and the manner in which my mood and energy levels changed throughout the month. I was aware therefore – or so I thought – of when I was ovulating and when we should attempt to conceive.

But sadly it didn’t work and the arrival of my monthly period was a source of great sadness and disappointment, marking yet another month of being that one month further away from fulfilling my dream of being a mother. As one month became three months, became six months, became nine months, well it became soul destroying because you start questioning what you are doing wrong.  And the whole time your friends are getting pregnant and you try your best to be happy for them but it just eats you up on the inside and then the fear kicks in so you question whether you’ll ever get pregnant in the end.

It’s poignant really because so many of us women spend some part of our lives trying not to get pregnant so that when you do want to get pregnant, well you assume it will just happen fairly painlessly and when it doesn’t, well it’s a kick in the teeth really. And try as you might to keep the conception as conscious and as special as possible, well truthfully it becomes a bit mechanical, something that you have to do to try and achieve an outcome. Over time it becomes emotionally charged too because you become demanding of your partner, and they feel a pressure to perform. It certainly wasn’t a highlight in our lives, that’s for sure!

So we kept trying for a year, because that is what you are encouraged to do before you seek medical advice, but it felt like an awfully long time and I was desperate for some help.  It was June, just before my birthday, when I finally went to see my doctor and as I explained our predicament to her, I burst into tears at the frustration of it all.  She was incredibly understanding and wasted no time in getting us into ‘the system’.  There were initial tests which both of us had to undertake, to try to gain an initial understanding of what may be amiss and in the interim we were encouraged to chill out and practice!

Sadly, those initial test results indicated that we had a significant problem in our ability to conceive, so we were immediately referred onto the Medical Specialist Group (“MSG”) here in Guernsey. It wasn’t until August, a few months later, when we finally had our first appointment – time takes on a new urgency when you are trying to conceive and the months tick by waiting for appointments! We were assigned to Mr Nzewi, who was new to Guernsey at the time and very passionate about access to fertility treatment, which is not available directly on the Island.

It was at this appointment, as he looked at our results, that he shared the concern that we may never have children of our own. He was very matter of fact about it, because that is what the facts suggested and he mentioned that there may be other options for bringing a child into our life if we were faced with that reality.  But that said, there was a chance that the test results were flawed so he sent us off for repeat tests and in the interim, he advised us to do as much as we could to promote our fertility – healthy eating, exercise, less wine, more rest, the stuff we had been consciously trying to do anyway.

So I tried to remain upbeat and fortunately it was the summer so we were kept busy with all that entails. However, all the worry did finally get the better of me – and I know, I know, worrying is a complete waste of energy as it changes nothing, but it can be difficult not to worry sometimes! At the end of August, we joined friends at a house in France for a weekend of birthday celebrations and on that first night, sat out on the lawn in the late afternoon sun, I drank far too much sparkling wine (so much for moderation!) and got very upset and told our friends what was going on, which was almost a relief really, because it gets to you keeping it all bottled up inside.

You see the thing is I have had my fair share of challenges in life – that’s what makes life life – but this was a particularly challenging time for both of us. For me there was an all consuming ache to become a mother and the pressure of the biological clock ticking, and for E, a pressure to help make that a reality. At that point, like quite a lot of other men we know, he could take or leave it, having a child that is, he didn’t have quite the same burning desire as me, he was just following my lead. But for me it was all I could think about.

Needless to say, hangover aside, I felt much better for the release, and in many respects it was good to have the support and understanding of our closest friends who all live off Island and who all have children of their own. They were all really keen for E and I to have children of our own too and were positively jubilant that our relationship had finally made it to that point, and they were all truly positive that one way or another we would make it a reality.

Despite the sadness, and the underlying concern of it all, I too was still doing my best to keep the positivity high. I just had this feeling that this challenge was all part of the process of whatever we both needed to go through, on an individual level and jointly, as part of the big Divine plan. During my whole life, but more so latterly, I had come to recognise that I was being continuously tested in patience, trust and faith, and really this was yet another test in all three. That didn’t necessarily make it any easier, but I did feel supported on a spiritual level at least.

I appreciate that my take on the whole infertility issue may sound a little crazy.  But this is how I have come to view life (when I remember!), from an elevated perspective, with the belief and indeed understanding, experience then, that things happen for a reason, that there is no good or bad per se, and that often these challenges are blessings in disguise because they provide you with an opportunity to grow spiritually and to deepen your connection with the Divine. Time and time again I have been reminded that our dreams (if we truly believe in them) can come true in the end, but rarely in the manner in which we intend.

Something was telling me to trust in the process and that was good enough for me! But that is not to say that this trust wasn’t continuously challenged – that is the nature of lessons, they will return again and again until you have recognised the teaching, and trust has always been a big one for me.  And when I say trust I don’t mean some airy fairy notion of “putting it out there to the Universe” and sitting back and seeing what happens; I believe it needs greater grounding than this, crystal clear intention and taking action - and indeed some responsibility - when necessary, and trying to let go of the worry, fear and the doubt that can cloud the mind and intuition.

Sadly, the second set of test results we received during the first week of September came back identical to the first.  I was expecting this, but it still came as a reality check because it proved that there weren’t any problems with the test data itself per se, it just seemed that we didn’t have what we needed to conceive a baby, simple as that really.  Only that it’s never as simple as that, which in this case was a good thing because advances in science mean that there are now options for those of us who are considered infertile and have trouble conceiving.

There was little that Mr Nzewi could do for us other than refer us to a fertility clinic for further tests.  At that point he was trying to establish a better working relationship between MSG and Wessex Fertility Clinic in Southampton to make it easier for Guernsey patients to undertake fertility treatment. All fertility care in Guernsey is private so his intention was to try and help to reduce, at the very least, travel costs and inconvenience where possible, in respect of needing to go over to the UK simply for a scan or a blood test as part of that treatment. 

Luck was on our side in terms of the timing because we were fortunate to be included in the first handful of patients who received appointments with Wessex on their first trip to MSG so that we didn’t even need to leave the Island for our first consultation. Ironically we were due to be off Island that day so I’m not entirely sure that it was any more cost effective for us, but nonetheless we appreciated the contact in Guernsey and the ease with which this happened for us, albeit not until early October which meant another month of waiting!

The consultant and nurses we saw were just great, both very welcoming, positive and calming. The consultant studied our results, looked at us both and concluded that there was indeed hope, we appeared healthy and looked like we most probably both had what we needed; I guess she must get a feel for this after years of working in the fertility world!  She proposed carrying out a procedure the following January which would seal our fate, well our initial fate, one way or another.  In the interim we were welcomed into the world of fertility treatment and all that that entails, namely a ton of forms and seemingly endless screening tests.

It was pretty full on but we were delighted that we had a chance, not as we had intended of course, but a chance nonetheless – the motto was most definitely, “trust in the process”.  I remember very clearly completing those forms.  I was sitting at a table with E and one of the nurses who was guiding us through them and in one of them it asked us whether I would consent to my eggs and embryos (if created) being used for training purposes, and I remember thinking, “wow, this is real”, and “it’s not something I’d usually do, but I’m so desperate to be helped that anything I can do to help others in the future is worth doing, so yes, yes, yes, tick the boxes, yes”.

Then there were questions about what would happen in the event of your death or mental incapacity and what would happen to your eggs and/or embryos, and for E, what would happen to his sperm, and whether you consent to your partner using them, or them being used for training purposes. We briefly discussed our position but to be honest we were so jubilant to even have this chance, to be talking about us having eggs and sperm and embryos and the like that we were happy to sign away on this too, “yes, yes, yes”.

There were also forms to ascertain the welfare of the child, where you had to disclose whether there is any serious violence or discord within your family environment, whether you have any drug or alcohol problems and whether there are any aspects of your life or medical history which may pose a risk of serious harm to any child you might have or anything which may impair your ability to care for such a child.  In many respects I considered that perhaps everyone should have to compete one of these forms before conceiving a child, not just those having IVF!

Then there was the concept of a multiple birth.  Being 37 at the time it was recommended that we have two embryos implanted at the same time to increase our chances of success. It goes without saying that this would also increase the chances of us having twins and all the risks associated with multiple pregnancy.  Still, I don’t remember us giving this too much thought.  Again we were happy to go with the advice being given to us and we ticked the box, “yes, yes, yes, bring on the twins!! “

To me that kind of summed up the situation.  I never wanted to have fertility treatment – let’s face it who does – but here were Wessex providing some hope and I was willing to do all I could to make that hope a reality. That’s the trouble with hope isn’t it.  I know its frowned upon in some spiritual circles as it has no grounding, no certainty, but hope gives life a reason to be lived and that was good enough for me! The fact we were even considering these options before we knew whether it was even possible was uplifting in some way.

So after seeing the clinic, feeling positive, we had to embark on a number of screening tests including Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV for each of us and Chlamydia, Rubella antibodies and Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) for just me. As you can appreciate this all gets rather expensive and rather time consuming fitting in all the appointments.  Not only that, but having an HIV test for the first time, for example, is quite full on really so there is some anticipation that comes with these additional screening tests, and some of these, the HIV for example, needing to be repeated annually.

Still it was all part of the process and with all the tests and the paperwork we were given to read we were soon well and truly in the IVF zone and we now had a few months to prepare ourselves physically and – just as importantly – mentally and emotionally for what lay ahead. We were given an information sheet with pre-conceptual diet and lifestyle tips which included the following:

Weight - Ideally you should be as close as possible to the recommended weight for your height when trying for a baby. Apparently being underweight or overweight can reduce your chances of conceiving.

Food - Studies have shown that foods and fertility are linked in both men and women. For that reason you are encouraged to improve your diet three months to a year before conception. The Food Standards Agency recommends eating a variety of foods while trying to conceive including:

·      Fruit and vegetables – aim for at least five portions a day.

·      Carbohydrate foods such as wholegrain rice and bread.

·      Protein such as lean meat and chicken, fish, eggs and pulses.

·      Fish – at least twice a week, including some oily fish, but not more than two portions of oily fish a week.

·      Dairy foods such as milk, cheese and yoghurt.

·      Iron-rich foods such as red meat, pulses, dried fruit, bread, green vegetables and fortified breakfast cereals, to help build up your resources of iron in preparation for pregnancy.

Supplements – Folic acid - this B vitamin has been linked to a lower rate of heart attacks, strokes, cancer and diabetes. It also reduces a baby’s risk of being born with defects to the spinal chord such as spina bifida. Make sure that the supplement you use does not contain Vitamin A or fish liver oil.  In addition, it is good to eat folate-rich foods such as dark green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, nuts, wholegrains, brown rice, fortified breads and cereals.

For women a supplement for pregnancy before you conceive.  For me, a vitamin preparation containing Selenium Coenzyme Q whilst zinc may be beneficial for sperm health and production.

Alcohol - In terms of alcohol the advice at that time was to drink no more than one or two units of alcohol once or twice a week.

Caffeine - Evidently there is no consistent evidence to link caffeinated drinks to fertility problems however studies have shown that having more than 200mg of caffeine per day may be linked to miscarriage and low birth weight.

To avoid - The Foods Standards Agency also recommends that women who are trying to conceive should also avoid the following:

·      Too much Vitamin A – you need some Vitamin A but too much during pregnancy could harm the baby;

·      Fish containing mercury – high levels of mercury can harm an unborn baby’s developing nervous system.

·      Smoking – cigarette smoke contains harmful substances to eggs, sperm and developing embryos.

Excessive stress – this impacts the way the body functions. Prolonged periods of pre-conceptual stress should try to be avoided to help conception and improve fertility. A hectic, busy lifestyle with little time for relaxation, attention to diet or socialising – a less busy schedule generally promotes more happiness and a greater sense of wellbeing leading to improved pre-conceptual health.

To be honest we were already eating a healthy and balanced diet and we had made a conscious effort to reduce our alcohol intake.  If anything my major issue was stress and a hectic lifestyle.  Ironic really because as a yoga teacher and Reiki practitioner, you’d expect me to have a grip on this, but I am so passionate about yoga and Reiki that I have always kept myself very busy sharing my love of both with others where I can, while also keeping up with the office day job, albeit part-time.

It was at this point that I read Zita West’s marvellous book, “Fertility and Conception” that I recommend to anyone interested in increasing their chances of conceiving whether naturally or with intervention. It really is a fabulous book with lots of useful tips.  And silly as it sounds coming from a yoga teacher, but it was reading this book that encouraged me to re-prioritise my time and incorporate daily meditation and Yoga Nidra into my hectic schedule.

I am absolutely certain that it was these practices that helped me to maintain my sanity during this time and keep myself focused and my spirits high. I began to look forward to my daily sitting, just twenty minutes if I could, but this was more than enough to feel that it made a positive difference; I just felt clearer and calmer too, there is no doubt that my mind was stronger as a result of this, and I felt more level-headed, focused and less emotional somehow.

As for Yoga Nidra, well I have always been a huge fan of this but the IVF made me dig deeper into the practice and I would encourage anyone else with fertility issues to tap into this as I have no doubt that this helped me enormously.  Essentially Yoga Nidra is a powerful meditation technique inducing complete physical, emotional and mental relaxation.   During Yoga Nidra one appears to be asleep but the consciousness is functioning at a deeper level of awareness so that you are prompted throughout the practice to say to yourself mentally, “I shall not sleep, I shall remain awake”.

Before beginning Yoga Nidra you make a Sankalpa, or a resolution for the practice.  The Sankalpa is an important stage of Yoga Nidra as it plants a seed in the mind encouraging healing and transformation in a positive direction.  In practical terms, a Sankalpa is a declarative statement, resolution or intention in which you vow to commit to fulfil a specific goal, in this instance to become pregnant with a healthy baby – “I am pregnant with a healthy baby”.

Sankalpa or resolution holds a special and highly esteemed place in the ancient teachings. The concept of Sankalpa appears even as early as the Rig Veda, the most ancient of all the Vedic texts. The ancient concept of Sankalpa is based on the principle that your mind has measureless capacity to effect the quality and content of your life. As the Buddha said, “The mind is everything. What you think you become”. That said, it is also important that you feel how it would feel to achieve your Sankalpa so there is some felt-sense, some sensation then, related to it.

Furthermore, a Sankalpa provides you with an opportunity to notice any resistance that may be holding you back in creating/manifesting what you dream in your life.  For example, if you are struggling to conceive and there is no recognised medical reason for this, working with Yoga Nidra may help you to realise any unconscious resistance you may have to getting pregnant or becoming a mother.  You may not initially recognise this consciously, but over time, the unconscious element of this will become conscious (bring it out of the shadows) so that you are able to recognise it, if you see what I mean.

It is very powerful indeed and I cannot recommend this enough for anyone wishing to conceive.  Not least working with a Sankalpa, but also just taking the time out for self-care and to rest – this in itself presents many physiological benefits such as lowering of the heart rate and blood pressure, the release of lactate from the muscles that can cause anxiety and fatigue, a more restful night’s sleep and, ultimately, a calming and unwinding of the nervous system, which is basically the foundation of the body’s wellbeing.  So you see our physical health and sense of wellbeing can improve too, which can only help to support the fertility process.

Needless to say all of this certainly helped me to drop even deeper into my spiritual practice.  I already had a daily mat-based yoga practice, but I carved out more time to make this an absolute priority prior to the meditation and Yoga Nidra. For me daily silence is essential too and I’m fortunate in that I have the space to achieve this at home. So each day I would take to my mat; sometimes I needed to move my body and practice actively and other times I needed to practice more gently, quietly or restoratively.

But what became very important to me during this time was prayer.  Now I’m not religious but as I’ve mentioned I am spiritual, and for me prayer has always been a way to connect more deeply with the Divine and with the angels, and now here, I found it essential to my grounding and wellbeing to commune daily with these aspects of being and self. It made a huge difference to me to align on this level and feel even more supported by the Universe, (however you define that), and therefore deepen my trust and indeed faith in the process and wherever it was leading us.

There were other things that I tapped into including She Oak, which is one of the Australian Bush Flower Essences that is very beneficial in overcoming imbalances and bringing about a sense of wellbeing in females. It is said to benefit women who feel distressed about infertility and it helps therefore to remove personal blocks that prevent conception. For me this was essential, doing what I could to ensure that I was ready and receptive on all levels, making sure that I had addressed all aspects of my being, not simply the physical, but the mental, emotional and spiritual too.

I also started Acupuncture.  I had heard that while there is no scientific evidence to support the link, there does appear to be some correlation between acupuncture and successful IVF.  If nothing else it enabled me to take time out of my schedule to lie down and chill out, although I did notice a positive uplift in my energy levels after each session.  I complimented this a little with Reiki, massage and reflexology, fortunate as I was to be able to swap this for yoga and Reiki with friends.

Treatments and spiritual practice aside, life carried on much as usual the rest of that Autumn. I kept myself busy with a combination of my existing yoga teaching and Reiki channelling schedule, and the office job. At that time the company I worked for was being sold to a larger company in the UK and as company secretary this meant many more hours in the office than usual – a welcome distraction from our fertility issues and helped me to earn extra money to be able to pay for the treatment (more on that later!).

Before too long it was Christmas and we decided to make the most of this as we were quite certain – positivity and all – that this would be our last Christmas just the two of us.  We decided that we would enjoy ourselves and have lots of fun.  We even took ourselves away for a night of partying in London, to kind of get it out of our system, knowing that from 1 January it was absolutely all about IVF and conceiving and we were feeling really focused in that 2013 would be our year.  It was just a waiting game really until the next round of tests in late January.

We don't need no education - at least not as we know it!

“We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the class room

Teachers leave those kids alone

(yells) Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!

All in all, it's just a

Nother brick in the wall”

(Pink Floyd)

It’s been a challenging autumn thus far; it was perhaps inevitable really as the change in season from Summer to Autumn has brought with it some pretty intense moon cycles. Not only that but Autumn always brings with it new beginnings, which affects so many of us as our routines change to accommodate the new school and University terms.  I don’t know about you but there is a smell in the air in early September that still catches me from time to time and reminds me of that feeling of getting ready to go back to school again.

For many years I also used to get this in late September too with the arrival of the University term and it used to throw me a bit.  School I loved but University was a little more challenging for me as I used to get really homesick and would miss my family and friends and our life on Guernsey. For a few years afterwards, I’d smell that smell and find myself feeling a little anxious – it was a relief when I got over this and the smell of Autumn meant nothing more than exactly that – a change in season, all negative associations gone.

This September was an interesting one for us as Elijah was booked to begin pre-school, which would not only bring with it a change in routine for all of us, but would herald the beginning of integration into the main stream conforming world of education and all that entails. I can’t say I have ever been comfortable with the idea of him going to pre-school, not only does he still seem so little but he has lots of fun in his existing daily schedule and I wasn’t convinced that pre-school was going to add any value to his current life experiences, at least not in a positive way.

Needless to say I held off for as long as I could (he will be turning 3 in November) but I was very aware that most of the toddlers we have mixed with through baby yoga and playgroup etc. were either already in pre-school or due to start this September too. It’s been a popular subject for a while now, most conversations with other mothers involve a question about pre-school so you could say that I felt some societal pressure to ensure he was signed up for one before all spaces got filled.  It’s been a huge lesson in that actually, the doing things just because others expect it of you and tell you it’s the right thing to do even though your innate wisdom as a mother tells you otherwise.  Bad Emma, I should know better!

So we signed Elijah up at a lovely pre-school recommended to us, and with a heavy heart we awaited D-day and the new chapter in all our lives.  We weren’t the only ones with heavy hearts though and while some of these heavy hearts were also to do with pre-school, I have a work colleague and some friends who were also experiencing heavy hearts on account of their children heading off to University for the first time, right at the other end of the educational system.

We laughed about the different experiences us mother’s experience (this separation and togetherness is complex indeed) what with toddlers not wanting you to leave them at pre-school and clinging on for dear life, and on the other side, University students desperate for you to leave them so that they can get on with their new lives apart from you as you try to cling on to them instead! I remember this only too well from my own experience as my own family had to adjust to life without me back in the day.

My poor Mum was bereft and even the cat was sad on account of the fact (or so the vet said) that I had died as my Mum stripped my bed and did all my washing immediately I left, so there was no smell of me left for the cat to expect me to return – it was a lesson learned quickly, thereafter my bedding remained unwashed every time I returned to Uni until the morning of my return! My brother was thrown amiss too by the changes, he’d lost not only his partner in crime but also his driver and was stuck surfing at Vazon unless he could get a list to the other surfing breaks with my parents! 

D-day finally arrived, Elijah’s new Tractor Ted rucksack was packed and the obligatory photo was taken before we all piled into the car and journeyed to the Pre-School together.  Even now thinking back makes me feel a little uncomfortable because I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.  There was my poor innocent little boy sitting in the back of the car completely unaware of what lay ahead of him while we tried to keep things jovial but were consumed by a sense of trepidation in the background. The truth is we hadn’t really considered the enormous change about to take place. 

Now we are absolutely not fans of parenting labels, we have never read a parenting book between us and certainly haven’t done any research on the supposed long term effects of various approaches, we’ve simply done what has felt right for us all, as a family, and checked into our innate wisdom along the way.  This is not to say that I am not aware that parenting styles exist – you have only to google, “how can I get my toddler to sleep?” to be bombarded with a variety of viewpoints on the best way to achieve this depending upon parenting approach, but we have never followed any of them for the sake of following any one them – the fact he still doesn’t sleep is probably proof of that!

But that aside, if I was forced to define our parenting approach, I guess you could say it is gentle and slightly along the attachment parenting lines, but unintentionally so! This means that in practice we have fairly much co-slept from day one with no sleep training (any attempt to get him in his bed for the whole night fails miserably, he always ends up in ours at some point during the evening), extended breast-feeding until he was 2 (and the only reason I stopped was due to IVF treatment), lots of carrying (the pushchair has sat fairly empty this whole time) and lots of one –to-one attention simply because our schedules and extended family allow this.

We are lucky in this regard, we have flexible jobs so that we can manage childcare with more ease than most, and more importantly we have free childcare courtesy of my parents who are fortunate to have a small holding and lots of outdoor space so Elijah gets to do a lot of outdoor play – not only that but all three grandparents are ex-teachers so there is a degree of learning that comes from them simply because that’s how they’ve lived their lives; educating!

Thus Elijah has never been left with anyone other than me, E, my parents or E’s Mum. No one has ever put him to bed other than one of the 5 of us. This is not unusual as such, just that expecting him to just fit into an alien environment with children and adults he doesn’t know was a little, hmm, naïve of us I guess. In fact, it was plain right stupid and I gave myself a bit of a hard time about it for a while, although I appreciate that everything happens for a reason now that we’re coming through the other side of it!

That first morning Elijah ran straight into the pre-school distracted by all the toys as we said our goodbyes and left him to it figuring that we’d gotten away with it all very lightly as other children were dropped off crying. However, when we came to pick him up 3 hours later he was very upset, in shock if anything actually.  Let me just make the point that this was not the fault of the pre-school, they were great and were doing all they could to ease the situation, there is a recognised settling in period and I hold my hat off to the staff for trying to manage this.

He sat sobbing in his car seat all the way back to my parent’s house clinging onto my bra straps as I sat beside him cuddling him as best I could with him sitting in his car seat.  The bra strap thing started when he was breastfeeding, its like his comfort blanket and I always know he is out of sorts when he starts reaching for them! He carried on this way for a little while longer back at my parents’ house before he eventually bounced back to his normal self thankfully.

During that first session he had stubbed his toe on account of not wearing his shoes outside. We live in a shoe-free house and he is not a fan of shoes at the best of times and has spent most of the summer barefoot, we’re all totally comfortable with this as it is better for his physical development (or so we feel), and its up to him essentially, it’s his body wisdom.  He also doesn’t like to wear jumpers unless absolutely essential as he is rather warm blooded and we all honour this.  

Still, I realised as we picked him up that second day crying again and wearing his shoes and jumper that here he was beginning societal conditioning before he’s even reached the age of 3.  I totally understand the pre-school’s need to do this as they have health and safety regulations they need to follow, but I guess perhaps it just served as a reminder of the world we live in, not only from a health and safety perspective, but in terms of how, from such a young age, we have our own innate wisdom knocked out of us because we are told that to be a fully functioning member of society we absolutely must do certain things – like wear shoes and jumpers when we go outside to play.

The next week he was rather sombre in the morning and it was an effort to get him to eat anything.  He complained that he missed Mummy and didn’t want to go to school, and he started to get tearful in the car on the way to the pre-school.  At the pre-school itself he got very upset and I felt sorry for the poor ladies trying to comfort him (and the other children) as he would take one look at them and howl into my chest.  To say it was heart-breaking leaving him is an understatement and I know I was not alone – there were other mothers looking equally upset in the carpark.

The pre-school staff were kind enough to send me texts each morning, although sadly on this third session it seemed he was struggling to settle, albeit that they didn’t think it warranted my early collection of him, there were just tears on and off all morning. Suffice it to say he was upset when I collected him and I felt dreadful because something just wasn’t feeling right about all this regardless of the fact all the other mother’s I talked to about it said it was normal and you just have to go with it, it can take weeks to settle them in apparently.

The trouble was, he was worse the following session, the tears started upon waking and he cried his way to the pre-school and howled on entering to the extent that I actually wondered if I should take him back home with me.  The ladies were busy comforting other children and as lovely as they are and as much as they tried to make it easier for me to leave him, it just felt so counter intuitive to leave him distressed and howling with – essentially – a complete stranger while I returned home to an empty house and my parents sat around awaiting for his return at lunchtime.

As I’ve tried to stress, none of this was the fault of the pre-school, absolutely none.  It is a popular and happy place, only that my son was not enjoying it.  He was crying when I collected him and while one of the ladies had been kind enough to show me a photo she had taken of Elijah playing on his own and not crying, this almost made me feel worse because he was on his own and he can be on his own at home – one of the reasons I felt pressured to put him to pre-school was to encourage the social interaction which everyone tells me is so essential to his development.

The fact he was not thriving with the new arrangements, however, became apparent over the weekend. The mere mention of the word ‘school’ set his bottom lip trembling and the tears would quickly follow as he told me and my parents (E was away) that he didn’t want to go to school. He started grinding his teeth which he had never done previously.  He also became ridiculously clingy and was very restless at night, difficult to settle and insistent on sleeping with me but requiring “big cuddles” on an hourly basis. He wasn’t even sure about being left with his grandparents, simply because he needed the extra reassurance that I would return for him.

It was a little traumatic for all of us to witness the change in him like this, he was usually such a happy go lucky and cheeky little monkey and now all of sudden he was anxious and clingy, and a little sad really. I guess in his eyes we’d abandoned him and he really didn’t understand the reason for this. We had hoped that by putting him into pre-school he would thrive but he seemed to be wilting instead and while, yes, it was early days, there was something telling me that this was not right.

So I spent that weekend doing lots of online research on pre-schools and schooling generally and my parents and I discussed the matter at length. As previously mentioned, my parents are both ex-teachers, my Dad having headed up a local Guernsey primary school before he left education to pursue an alterative – and less exhausting – career. He remains very passionate about education, and had come across an article on “unschooling” which even he had found interesting and did make him question his perspective on education, especially now witnessing the effect of pre-school on Elijah.

I have to say that I found the article on unschooling very interesting too as it gave me a name for something that has been on my mind for a while now.  While I have looked into home schooling and joined on occasion the local home schooling community, there is something about this that doesn’t resonate quite so much with me.  It has been explained that all unschooling is home schooling but not all home schooling is unschooling because while home schooler children follow a structured curriculum, unschoolers have almost total autonomy over their days.

But what does this mean in practice?  Well Earl Stevens, whose children are “unschooled”, writes the following: “Our son has never had an academic lesson, has never been told to read or to learn mathematics, science, or history. Nobody has told him about phonics. He has never taken a test or been asked to study or memorize anything. When people ask, "What do you do?" My answer is that we follow our interests - and our interests inevitably lead to science, literature, history, mathematics, music - all the things that have interested people before anybody thought of them as "subjects".

A large component of unschooling is grounded in doing real things, not because we hope they will be good for us, but because they are intrinsically fascinating. There is an energy that comes from this that you can't buy with a curriculum. Children do real things all day long, and in a trusting and supportive home environment, "doing real things" invariably brings about healthy mental development and valuable knowledge. It is natural for children to read, write, play with numbers, learn about society, find out about the past, think, wonder and do all those things that society so unsuccessfully attempts to force upon them in the context of schooling.”

I have to say that I recognise some truth in this. We too follow our interests, me with yoga, E with gardening and Elijah with tractors and together we learn.  I have learned so much from E about nature since I met him and have developed a complete love of being outdoors at every opportunity, I can even name a few trees!  From me he has developed a love of sea swimming and even learnt stuff about yoga, crystals, healing and angels (whether he’s wanted to or not!)! From Elijah we have learned an enormous amount about tractors and diggers and farming; where once a tractor was a tractor, now it’s a Massey Ferguson or a New Holland and we know about telehandlers and combines let alone about harvesting the maize and what happens on farms!

With my parents Elijah learns a lot about growing and working outside, my Mum cooks and paints with him and reads to him, my Dad plays with him at length, both lost in the moment of their imaginary world, making incredible train tracks that stretch through the living room and beyond, and spending hours on their electric/petrol fuelled tractors out on the land. This summer we’ve spent hours on the beach playing and collecting shells, and also identifying the type of sand we need to make the optimum sandcastle, let alone the rather impressive tractors that my Dad now specialises in.

With his grandma he sings and sits plonking at the piano, they spend time watering all her hundreds of potted plants in the garden and they go to the Model Yacht Pond and identify the boats – he knows them better than I do! They go out on the bus and into town. When out with Daddy and Grandma together there are regular visits to garden centres and to the parks, let alone shopping and going to the Bank and all that stuff that teaches them a little about how life works.

I absolutely know we are not alone, that is not my reason for sharing, more so just to explain that for us, we love doing and experiencing things, whether that be on Guernsey or on our travels off Island.  This way of living has provided me with an opportunity to witness how much children learn from just being – from playing essentially, not only on their own but with others, albeit that those persons are older than them! In many respects why would Elijah want to go to pre-school when he has his grandparent’s undivided attention and gets to do so much playing whether that be on their land, in the house or on the beach.

Of course the unschooling approach is not for everyone, and I’m not saying we’ll be doing this, more so that I can understand the reason that parents decide to offer this style of “education” to their children. It does massively go against the grain though, especially as we are so conditioned to believe that education has to be a certain way.  The truth is there are many different ways to educate children, it really should depend on the individual and what works best for them.

I am fascinated by the Finnish education system for example. For the past decade Finland has consistently performed among the top Nation’s on the programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardised test given to 15-16 year olds in 65 nations and territories around the world.  Yet here their education system is very different to ours in the UK.  The children do not start school until 7, and can attend voluntary play-based kindergartens prior to this where all they do, quite simply, is play. The idea is that children learn far more from play than being forced to learn in the more traditional sense, and by the age of 7 they are said to be like sponges, absolutely thirsty to learn.

Furthermore, there are no school inspectors or league tables, no examinations for any child under the age of 16, there is no private tuition industry and charging school fees is illegal. Teachers are all educated to master’s level and have autonomy, they are called by their first name and there are no school uniforms. There is no homework either, children are encouraged to get outside and play.

Not only that but I like the whole “equality” ethos behind the system where they support everyone and don’t waste anyone’s skills. Regardless of a person’s gender, background or social welfare status, everyone is given an equal chance to make the most of their schools. They really believe that for young people cooking, creative pursuits and sports are really important. They teach the meaning of life and community skills so that they recognise their role in the greater whole.

Essentially therefore, the Finnish have created a school system based on the concept that we are all one, that we all have a gift, a strength, a thing (whatever it may be) to offer to the world however different that may be, and they do their best to help children tap into this so that the whole community and indeed society can benefit – let alone helping to empower that individual and provide a way for them to express themselves, regardless of whether this is academic or non-academic.

This is at odds with our own education system here in the UK, which has a strong focus on testing and academic results.  Now please don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that this works for many – it worked for me for example, but there are lots of children who suffer as a result of this approach to educating, my brother being one such case. While I thrived with my Grammar School education and absolutely loved studying (I know, crazy), my brother “failed” his 11+ (despite having a higher IQ than me, but he had to contend with dyslexia) and has considered himself a bit of a failure academically ever since then.

The truth is his education at Les Beaucamps was far better than mine at the Grammar School in many respects.  I may have been able to pass exams, but I certainly couldn’t retain the knowledge and I left school with very few life skills - I went to University unable to cook and therefore feed myself, I had no idea how to work a washing machine and clean my clothes, I didn’t know how to change a light bulb or sort out bills, I had no idea how to budget or to manage my money, I couldn’t sew a button let alone darn a sock, it was a miracle really that I made it through those three years, it was certainly a massive shock for me.

My brother on the other hand had been better prepared.  He knew how to cook for a start and has been good at it ever since.  He also knew how to exist outside the academic bubble – to this day my best friend’s husband still jokes about the bubble I live in, because I missed out on so much life experience in my earlier years due to spending so many hours sitting in my room or a library studying – and was far more sociable and well rounded in his general knowledge, the fact he had a general knowledge was a step up from me!

Now you could argue that my parents should have better prepared me for the big wide world and perhaps they should have done, but I truly believe that school should have been doing this too. I’m not convinced there’s much advantage to answering questions and writing essays on Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” (I know, I’m sorry all your English literature lovers) when I couldn’t even feed myself at University.  And yes, I’m sure there must be some merit to learning how to make a pink fluffy seal in my first year of home economics, but the fact I can’t really sew a button indicates that perhaps we should have been focusing on the basic – and indeed important – stuff before trying our hand at something as, hmm, well, as interesting a seal then!

Actually the list goes on, because I’m not convinced that Algebra has ever really helped me in the real world, and to be honest it never helped me in school either, apart from making me feel very inadequate because I didn’t understand it or have any interest in studying it. Geography on the other hand, well that was a different matter, it was relevant to real life, it taught me about people and places and was very much alive, that’s probably the reason I went on to study it at University and have spent quite a lot of my adult life travelling and embracing different ways of life and culture. 

But history and learning about the Peel government, yawn, yawn, yawn, and as for physics, well that was an utter turn off. The funny thing is I now spend quite a lot of my life working with energy so I have developed a keen interest in physics, well at least from a metaphysical perspective, and am quite sure that if I studied it now – and with relevance to the energy work particularly –I would be thoroughly engaged.

And that really is the ethos behind the unschooling.  The fact that you learn what you’re interested in when you’re ready to learn it rather than being forced to learn something just because someone has decided that that’s the curriculum. I recall an incident in chemistry that I shall never forget that supports a little this theory – I absolutely loathed chemistry too at school, I was useless at it to be honest, but there was one time that my brother and I got our hands on one of those home chemistry sets and we got really into it, learning through playing with it. 

We happened to be studying a similar thing in class and all of a sudden I was far more engaged than I’d ever been previously and for the first time ever I put my hand up to answer a question – and I got it right. The teacher was understandably surprised and that term I got a D2 for chemistry which made me laugh because I usually got a D4 (I only ever got Ds in chemistry, even physics I managed a C!) and it made me chuckle because while I was still useless at the subject, at least that term I started to put in a bit more effort, simply because I had the freedom to learn from my own mistakes as I played around with a chemistry set at home.

I think that the word “freedom” is the bit that stands out for me in terms of education – and indeed how I like to live my life generally, perhaps it’s a yogic thing!  And I like very much what Ben Hewitt writes about this when explaining the price his children pay to be unschooled “...perhaps the best answer I can give to the question of what price my children might pay is in the form of another question: What price do school-going children pay for their confinement? The physical toll is easy enough to quantify. Diabetes rates among school-age children are sky-high, and the percentage of 6-to-11-year-olds who qualify as obese has nearly tripled since 1980. And what do children do in school? Exactly. They sit.”,

But, in truth, what I most want for my boys can’t be charted or graphed. It can’t be measured, at least not by common metrics. There is no standardized test that will tell me if it has been achieved, and there is no specific curriculum that will lead to its realization.

This is what I want for my sons: freedom. Not just physical freedom, but intellectual and emotional freedom from the formulaic learning that prevails in our schools. I want for them the freedom to immerse themselves in the fields and forest that surround our home, to wander aimlessly or with purpose.

 I want for them the freedom to develop at whatever pace is etched into their DNA, not the pace dictated by an institution looking to meet the benchmarks that will in part determine its funding. I want them to be free to love learning for its own sake, the way that all children love learning for its own sake when it is not forced on them or attached to reward. I want them to remain free of social pressures to look, act, or think any way but that which feels most natural to them. I want for them the freedom to be children. And no one can teach them how to do that.”

Too often in life I can’t help thinking that we are forced to be and to live a way that isn’t natural to us, that doesn’t bring out the best in us.  I know first hand how this can be detrimental to our long term health and wellbeing, I suffered with depression for years until I finally managed to align my life a little closer with my inner truth and live in a way that felt more harmonious to my heart and soul.  I know that sounds awfully flaky to some, but there is a lot of truth in how we have been conditioned by our upbringing based on someone else’s concept of what they deemed right/wrong for us and how this later may negatively impact on the choices we make in our lives and how this then impacts on our general health and wellbeing.

For many economic success has been the motivator for life choices from pre-school through to University and onwards into careers whether those careers suit or not. I know an awful number of people who studied hard to get the good career to earn the good money, but who are essentially very unhappy. For many they have to work long hours to sustain their “success” and miss out on seeing their children growing up, or having any connection to themselves, to nature and/or the wider world we live in and compromise their health and wellbeing in the process. 

It is only when something goes wrong be that with their health, their relationships or perhaps the blessing of redundancy, that they “wake up” and consider that there may be another way of living and that economic success is not always the path to inner peace and happiness. While this may be hard to come to terms with initially, it is often the point where people suddenly find this renewed energy for life and their lives take on an entirely different direction that they may not have considered possible previously – some even start living the dreams that they gave up on years previously.

Still it takes all sorts and I appreciate that we all have different motivating factors for the choices we make in life.  For some they absolutely thrive in pre-school and the current UK/Guernsey educational system while for others there is an awful amount of struggling and unhappiness that comes with it. It is not for me to judge anyone else’s choices just as it is not for anyone else to judge our choice, we all make decisions based on what we believe works best for our individual children and for us as parents and families too.

I truly believe that there will be shifts in how we educate our children as more and more people begin to realise that there are options and that the current system is not working for everyone. In Guernsey we are certainly being forced to address this as we battle on with the 11+ issue. For us, for now at least, we are happy with the decision we have made to take Elijah out of pre-school and we’ll see where this takes us in the future, as long as he’s happy then that’s all that matters really.

References

Earl Stevens http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/earl_stevens.html

Ben Hewitt (http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/why-you-should-take-your-kids-out-of-school/)

Photography - courtesy of Rosemary Després

Jill's recipe for aubergine chutney

Ingredients

2 teaspoons pickling spice
2 lb aubergines -unpeeled and cut into thin slices
12ozs onion - finely chopped
1lb cooking apples (after peeling and coring) - chopped
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 pint vinegar
1 1/4 lb brown sugar
 

1. Tie the spices into a muslin bag.
2. Put all ingredients except the sugar into a pan and simmer until really tender.
3. Remove the spices and stir in the sugar.  Boil until thick (I don't like mine too dry, so stop whilst there is still some liquid), stirring often.
4. Spoon into hot jars, seal and store.