Hi, I’m Laura – a certified fertility health coach, author, wife and mom, and IVF success story.
Read about my Journey from Infertility to Motherhood
Before I was a fertility coach, before I was a mom, before my life revolved around fertility treatments…I had a very different life, and yet many things remain quite similar.
In 2003, I decided to train for my first marathon. This was nothing short of shocking to family and friends. Prior to this announcement, I had never shown interest in running and wasn’t particularly athletic or physically motivated. I did, however, have a goal to make some changes in my life. I felt lost and unsatisfied professionally and personally and lacked any direction of how to feel better. Training for a marathon would take months of consistent training, focus, and dedication to prepare my body, it seemed like a good place to start. The entire experience, from the first days of training up to race day, provided a shift in my physical and mental health that became the map I had been looking for. I went on to raise thousands of dollars for charity through running, work with a non-profit running team, meet life-long friends (as well as my husband) and finish 16 marathons before I retired from distance running. This was my first piece of evidence that we have great power within ourselves to control our own destiny. With consistency, belief in our own power, and support, we can make incredible things happen.
Related Read: Shifting to a Positive Mindset
My professional career grew with non-profit organizations planning events, working with volunteers, and educating the public about the work these groups did for the community. I loved being a part of a greater mission to help people and contribute to the world in a positive way. In 2016 I married my husband, Jared, and we immediately began trying for a baby.
My journey to parenthood was not what I had planned. After a diagnosis of diminished egg reserve, I attempted several avenues to get pregnant. Under the care of a talented doctor, we tried medicated cycles, IUI, and three IVF cycles, I also experimented with supplements, fertility diets, acupuncture, and a dramatic purge of toxic cosmetics and skin products. I can’t say none of it worked. The supplements, nutrition changes and the purge supported my general health. I still do acupuncture regularly – I talk about a lot. These were healthy adjustments to my life, but I wasn’t pregnant. It was our decision in 2017 to pursue egg donor IVF that was the key to our family’s success.
Read: Should I Consider Using An Egg Donor?
After our son was born in 2018, I started sharing our story. I wanted other women struggling to conceive to read something that would give them hope. Almost immediately I became a resource for friends, and friends of friends, who were using medical intervention to start their families. I was a sounding board for their fears, I helped translate some of the medical jargon, I answered the questions they were too shy to ask at the clinic. Helping these women brought me so much joy so I continued writing for my personal blog and online magazines.
Soon, it was time to try for another baby. A positive pregnancy test after a frozen embryo transfer in late 2019 made me believe a sibling for our son would be easy. How fortunate we were to have success again right away. Unfortunately, the pregnancy was complicated, and we lost identical twins at 10 weeks. I was eager to move on but the trauma of this experience has stayed with me.
The next transfer was unsuccessful, and the next resulted in a chemical pregnancy. I began to wonder if we were meant to be a family of three, but we were certainly going to keep trying. I was cautiously hopeful after the next embryo transfer and was thrilled to discover while vacationing in the smoky mountains of Tennessee, that I was pregnant. It was wonderful news, but pregnancy after loss proved to be a challenge for my usual optimistic self. I felt so strongly that this was going to be the baby I would hold, but terrified that our hearts would break again.
I had to find a way to take control of my anxiety. I sought out professional help and built myself a toolbox of calming exercises that worked for me, such as yoga, exercise, acupuncture and talking through my concerns with a counselor. I wrote about this experience too.
A year after our daughter was born, I received a thank you note from a friend. When we met, she had just had an unsuccessful IVF cycle and was feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable seeking out support. I gladly shared with her my own experience and answered questions but more importantly, I listened and was able to validate the anxiety and stress she was feeling.
“You’re very good at this,” her note said. “You should do this for more women. It should be your job.”
It was as if she read my mind. For a while, it had been nagging at me that this should be my next chapter. A way to increase my reach and share everything I had learned along the way. This is what I should be doing. I can really help these women.
Even after receiving my certification as a fertility health coach, it took a lot of sleepless nights and mental strength to silence my crippling imposture syndrome. It’s very loud and it’s won some battles in the past, but I fought back by remembering what it was like to struggle with infertility. The isolation, the shame, the awkward conversations about when we would start our family. I would have loved someone who was knowledgeable, experienced, and compassionate to hold my hand and help me navigate the journey. I would be that person for the next scared woman who so desperately wanted to be a mother and needed to believe she would be.
Read: What Is a Fertility Coach
In July of 2022 I officially launched Positive Fertility. After many months of considering my message and mission I decided to focus on making the family building experience less stressful and more positive. Using a method that encourages physical, mental, and emotional health, my clients are able to take back control of their fertility journey and increase their odds of conceiving. Positive Fertility is not just ‘thinking positive’, it’s identifying the most effective solutions for each client to encourage a positive experience. Confidence in their treatment plan, faith in their own strength, and trust that their body is ready for pregnancy. An opportunity to express feelings, fears, hopes they may not be comfortable sharing elsewhere.
Just recently, I took a walk with that friend who encouraged me to start Positive Fertility. She was pushing the stroller where her baby boy was sleeping, and I was filled with joy for her. My role in her story was to listen, provide answers, and make the load lighter allowing her to look forward to this moment and believe it would happen. What an honor to be a part of her journey and witness her dream of being a mom come true.
It’s a privilege to work with all of my clients. To be trusted with their personal experience and given the opportunity to share what I have learned, what I know and what I have personally lived through, to help them navigate their own path.
I can’t guarantee a perfect outcome to everyone, but I can promise a more positive and hopeful journey to the family they have always dreamed of.
That young women who decided to train for her first marathon would not have anticipated where we are today, but it was that first step to wanting a better life experience for herself and trusting that she was in control that put her on this path. Exactly where she is supposed to be.
