My journey as my muse - (in)fertility.

“What inspires the themes behind your work?” A variation of the question I often receive as intrigued admirers ponder my ceramics. My art celebrates womankind, sisterhood and the experiences that touch so many of us. My leading muse has been the fertility journey I’ve shared with my partner and how this has informed the woman I am today. Sharing my art has been like sharing a little piece of our story, which for me has been incredibly empowering.

Fertility? Subfertility? Infertility? I have had so many question marks around my fertility and finally landed with undiagnosed infertility.

I always knew I wanted to be a mumma. I come from a long line of reasonably sized, very fertile families and I myself am one of four sisters. Having a family was always something I envisioned for myself and (I’m sure like many other women/couples out there) it never occurred to me that it may be a difficult journey for us. Until it was.

November 2014 was the year we decided to open up our world to the potential of having our first child. A casual yet meaningful decision was made for me to go off the pill and we would “see what happens”. What did happen, was I quickly became a teenager again with excessively oily skin and breakouts everywhere as well as heavy, irregular and relatively painful periods. Not to mention the mood swings.

Months passed and I quickly became very anxious. The fact that we had not conceived somehow shocked and terrified me. My focus quickly turned to tracked cycles, ovulation kits and old wives’ tales (legs in the air anyone?). Months turned into years and I am sure my tears became rivers. When it came to my own expectations for myself and my body, I was not in a very good place and the pressure I had inflicted on myself was building.

Having questions around your fertility can be extremely daunting, difficult to come to terms with and incredibly hard to navigate the options available and what might be right for you. It took some time before any doctors seemed to take our concerns seriously as we were both young and healthy. Finally, almost two years later we were referred to see a specialist.

Some months and a series of (invasive and not so invasive) tests later and all of our results had come back as ‘normal’ which was strangely difficult to hear. There were times where I hoped they would find something wrong with me just so I felt like we had ‘something’ to work with. We had no diagnosed reason to indicate why conceiving was so hard for us.

They suggested we try a few rounds of clomid with closely monitored cycles. I found the next few months incredibly stressful and clomid took a real toll on my body and mind. After reconsidering our options, we decided to take a break from ‘trying’ so we could recentre, enjoy each other and focus on getting me back into a good headspace.

This was one of the best things we ever did. We each started seeing a naturopath who found that I had completely thrown my body into turmoil with stress. She helped me completely shift my lifestyle, diet and in turn my mindset. I had been focusing so much on trying to conceive and live up to the expectations of a life I thought people expected of me. This included my job at the time, maintaining a very busy social life, not putting my own needs first and of course my own self-expectations that I should be a ‘fertile goddess’.

It was divine to focus completely inwards and listen to my body. I completely cut out alcohol, gluten, refined sugars and slowed right down. It was definitely tough to get used to and my diet was quite restricted for a while as we removed and reintroduced certain foods. I was taking a large variety of specially tailored herbs and supplements to assist my body in healing itself from the inside out. We saw our naturopath for around 10-12 months and we have continued on with the lifestyle changes in a much more relaxed and sustainable way.

Although we didn’t fall pregnant during this time, it certainly was one of the milestones that set me on the path to self-discovery, personal growth, an even bigger lifestyle change and of course gave us the strength to take on IVF. I’ll explore some of this in my upcoming journal entries.

For now – the universe knows!

- Rachel x

Note: these journal entries are just my own experiences and not recommendations for what might be right for others.