Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - What No One Tells You About Infertility - with Kerri Northcott

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

On This Week's Mum's The Word:Georgia Jones is joined by Kerri Northcott (@LifeWithIvyCoco) to chat all about her struggles with infertility They'll Discuss:What no one tells her about the struggles of having a second child?What advice Kerri would give to other mum's struggling with the same issues?The importance of doing your OWN researchGet In Contact With Us:Do you have a question for us? Get in touch on our Whatsapp, that's 07599927537 or email us at [e-mail] for Listening---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to Mums the Word, the parenting podcast. I'm Georgia Jones and I'm your host for this week. So this week I spent a lovely mummy Sunday with Cooper, but I beat myself up about it later on in the evening because towards the end of our lovely day together, my attention went, I started thinking about things I needed to do things I hadn't done people I needed to get back to and um I didn't feel fully present and I've actually been beating myself up about it ever since but what I'm hoping is lots of you are going to message me and say you do the same thing but what I am going to do in future is put my put my phone on flight mode and ignore the world whilst I'm with my little boy um so yeah that is that is what I'm going to do moving forward

anyway today's guest on mum's the word is Kerry Northcott better known as life with ivy coco on instagram she is a mum professionally trained makeup, skilled seamstress and has a love for all things fashion and interiors. Her fashion style is fabulous, give her a follow, it's purely for that. She currently has one little girl, Ivy, with her husband but has been open about her desire for another child on social media alongside her struggles with that. So welcome to the podcast, Kerry. So lovely to have you on. Glad to be here. So Kerry, I've already done the big intro. By the way, I did not know you used to be a makeup artist. Yes, I did. I always think whenever I watch you on Instagram, God, she's really good at doing

her makeup how talented i'm probably really sweaty in here now you're gorgeous i always think you do a really good ah you do a really good like thank you practice makes perfect but yeah i know i used to do mainly bridal and then i really wanted to get into special effects but then it was put everything into a career or have a baby yeah so baby one yes um so you've got one little girl yes ivy yes who is how old now she's gonna be 10 in july gonna be 10 i can't quite believe that it's quite daunting it is isn't it yeah mad like how much they grow up i saw you posted um like a video of her when she was like little oh i can't remember what she was doing she was putting on lipstick i know and now it's like so weird because she's

asked to have like a dressing table in her room for like to do her hair and i've started noticing like the other day she had a friend's party and she went to put on a bit of eyeshadow and i was like where did she get that eyeshadow brush from she's got bobby brown eyeshadow brush she's got it out of my drawer has she and like my brushes and like my hair wax is now like in her like i've started to notice like all my things that go missing turning up in her room and it's like we've come full circle of when she would just play and now it's like and now it's not play now it's not real life she's like i'll do my own hair now and i'm like i'm ready for this oh god it's so cute i remember that was like one of my fondest memories when I was a little girl,

was watching my mum do her makeup. Yeah. And her like teaching me, even though she wasn't particularly amazing, I just thought she was. I was like, wow. As in amazing at makeup, she is amazing. And I was just like, wow, this is amazing.

I remember she gave me this palette that was like her prized possession. She handed it down to me and I was literally, honestly, it was the best present I think I've ever got. It was just brilliant. So moving on from makeup. Now, Kerry, one of the big reasons I wanted to get you on the podcast is because you have been and are on a journey of becoming a mother for a second time or wanting to become a mother for a second time yeah so for anybody that doesn't follow you or doesn't know your journey can you give us a little kind of lowdown on what's going on and where you're at in your journey yes it was really weird because when i was pregnant with Ivy I was like I'm just gonna have one yeah did you yeah that was always I was always just going to have one

because financially like we were comfortable we was fine like we could have like afford to have like one little holiday a year and cover the bills and do you know what I mean so I was just like I just think financially we're better off just having one that was your comfortable yeah yeah and I wanted her to have like as much as a nice life as what I could give her yeah then I obviously had her then just before she turned four we decided that we was going to try and we wanted another one yeah um like our situations just changed financially and I was like no you know like I I don't feel done like I feel like I want to grow our family and for her to have the brother or sister and I stupidly thought and I remember I never forget what my husband said to me he was like I've got a feeling we might have a struggle this time and it took me

six months to fall pregnant with Ivy did it right and i was like could you think and then i remember the first month of trying in my head i was like i think we've i think we're pregnant yeah yeah like you do like an absolute nutter i think you always think you're pregnant when you're trying don't you my boobs are a bit sore yeah i'm hungry the symptoms are exactly the same period right yeah exactly the same and if you have an eye twitch and you google i've got an eye twitch does that mean i'm i'm early pregnancy symptom it's like yes that is the symptoms i just sneezed twice today is that yes that is that is pregnancy there's a symptom out there for like everything is a symptom in early pregnancy yeah absolutely so you send yourself mad with it anyway here we are nearly six years jesus christ into it which is

mental and for a long time i was like no i'm fine like work's taking off i'm getting to travel and you know like we're trying but like not obsessively trying yeah and then i remember i went to the doctors and i was like it's been two years now right two years i'm still not pregnant yeah and i don't know what's going on it was just before actually was it two years now right two years I'm still not pregnant yeah and I don't know what's going on it was just before actually was it two years or three years I can't even remember now the pandemic also put it all into a blur it was just before the pandemic yeah and I remember they sent me for some blood tests and I remember driving back from the hospital and realizing that we had we fell under the category of like infertility issues and secondary infertility.

Right. And I remember driving back down the road and it just hitting me like, shit, like. This is real. Like facing up to it instead of just being like, it's fine, you know, like it's just the universe. It's just not right for us yet. And then actually facing up to the fact actually like this isn't happening for us and we've got problems and it could be something I think when someone tells you as well when somebody says you fall into that that category I think a lot of people they always have that like hope of oh it's just it's just it's just

timing it's just we're being unlucky maybe you know we're not having sex at the right time and all these things and and actually then when somebody tells you and you're like oh okay so this is real yeah this is actually happening and then actually having to realize that we've now got this whole journey ahead of us yeah and I suffered so hard in lockdown so hard well because not only was lockdown just bloody hard in general and lonely and completely unknown and just hideous you've then got all that added yeah stress of the you know fun under the infertility category they wouldn't clash it as like completely infertile you're just in the category of it not being it not being it's just not happening yeah and it was very much like you know you're you're young sure it will happen just relax we'll run some tests how do you feel when somebody says to you just you need to relax i want to punch them in the face I can imagine and I think the thing we've locked down as well is that

we all sort of lost our identities and I was stuck with my faults and my best friend at the time was pregnant oh and I just would like be on the phone and like I was so happy for her but then also at the same time like but then get off the phone and my heart would absolutely break yeah for myself yeah and i remember laying there once and he walked in and there's nothing he's got better over the years that knowing that there's nothing to say he just needs to show up for me and like give me a hug and allow me to rant and have my emotions just hold you really he turned around to me he was like oh do you do you think it's because when we was 18 you like you'd had two terminations oh and i was like i can't believe you just said that to me oh god i bet you wanted to divorce him there and then

yeah he's definitely like learned over time like how to be with me. And then in lockdown, I went to the doctors and said like, I actually think I'm depressed. I am not coping at all with it. I think it was after lockdown, I can't remember. But they basically told me she had a grin on her face. And when, maybe just lose a bit of weight. Oh my God, are you joking? No.

Was this a GP? yeah gp wow and i just don't think they're geared up for it do you know what i think some of them do not have the social skills either like i remember my sister's doctor yeah and when i went to um visit her at university the amount of people studying medicine i was like god if i came up against you in a gp surgery yeah i god forbid because they've got no so a lot no cat like categorizing a lot of people that are that intelligent yeah don't have great social skills and i just think as well with fertility this they're still so dated about it yeah oh so dated because because we don't get researched on our notes women are like at the back.

Oh God. And this is why I talk about it because like we have to really advocate for ourselves for testing. Yeah. And one of the things that she said to me as well, which I mean, you just have to laugh about, is she said that, you know,

like you could have another child doesn't mean that your daughter and that child are going to get on. What's that got to do with anything? I was like, listen, I know this, but that is irrelevant. What the hell are you actually coming out with? It was just bizarre. Was she your mother? Did you ask her? Did you say, do you have children?

No, because I was literally sitting there an absolute wreck. And I've got this woman sort of smiling at me, telling me to lose weight and that they probably wouldn't it's not guaranteed that they're going to get on and like each other anyway wow I mean just a little bit like in shock about it all so yes so then I was able to get referred to Kingston who I have to say their fertility department and it's such a postcode lottery have been incredible like the calls and the support even today like they are just such a wonderful wonderful team and i'm very very grateful for them they sent me for a high cozy what's that um so basically they go in and they fill your tubes with a foam to see if there's any blockages right right but the issue with this is that your body sort of like can protect itself and close up ah okay so it can look like there's a blockage but there may not be it'd just be like a contraction so like your

body's like this is foreign like yeah and sort of tenses up because it's really painful oh gosh horrendous were you were you fully awake then yeah happened right okay yeah fully awake when that goes on yeah and mine did that so I went then had to go in for a colposcopy to go inside and see yeah and I had some old endometriosis scarring I'd had a flare-up when i was younger right but then they said there wasn't any blockages so technically there was no there's no reason why you should now that we shouldn't be getting pregnant fast forward more time yeah i did some research into clomid which is a medication for women that suffer with polycystic ovaries or like just don't ovulate yeah and there was information saying that even if you do ovulate this can also help with trying to get pregnant if you're having

issues because at this point we were you kind of just left with there's nothing else we can do yeah because they've gone in and looked and they're like everything's fine so everything looks fine there's no reason right and and your partner had been checked as well yeah he's yeah he came back the doctor was like these are the best results i think i've ever seen did that make you want to punch him as well a little bit well done you that's great and he was like oh yeah like like a like a proper lad like dead chuff that he's got super sperm yeah so yeah so he'd been checked fast lots of them all good yeah so no reasoning with him so that's when i did the research into the clomid and i pushed and i was like but you

ovulate we don't think you need it i was like i don't care can we just try it and fortunately there was like yes you can only have six rounds of it as a woman. Right. Because of the effects of it. Well done for pushing. I think that's something like that. Anyone listening should be aware of. Push.

You have to advocate for yourself. You have to. You can't just sit back and rely that these doctors who look after X amount of people are going to be out there advocating for you because they're not. They're doing their job. Yeah. And they're overworked, under underpaid understaffed yeah not every doctor's wonderful but you know majority of them are and like my sister always says to me she's like you

need to ask for that yeah they have to prescribe it for you you're like i'm like oh well i've never been given that option she and lauren my sister is always like well no because that probably costs a lot more than this does you know i got put on a pill that i shouldn't have been on because it's cheap i was like i should be on this one and and it was a struggle to get the one that i should have been on yeah purely because it was really expensive that's why i'm saying like you have to advocate for yourself you have to do and even like you can't even just go off with like when i talk about stuff i don't want other women to just go off what i'm saying this is what i researched and this is what i felt was going to work for me yeah she was like okay we'll do it here's the clomid yeah i did four months the side effects were horrendous and

how do you take it so you take it on the second day of your cycle yeah and is it a tablet it's a tablet yeah take it to like for like three to five days on the second day of your cycle. And this is supposed to overstimulate your ovaries. So this month I've been on it. I did four months and then I'd had a chemical pregnancy with it. So I took a break from it because it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Is there side effects to it then?

Yeah, it affects your eyesight. Oh, wow. You basically are a raging lunatic they call it the cloning crazies because it does something to your brain does it where it makes your body think that you're not correct me if i'm wrong releasing any of the hormone to ovulate right okay so it over releases so it over stimulates so your hormones are probably like going absolutely wild. I'll be laughing and then the next second I'm crying and he literally walks in and he's like, I'm going to go to the gym now.

He's like, okay, I'll go back out, shall I? But this month I was like, I'd done it those four times and I'd had an early miscarriage, which anyone who isn't trying for a baby would just think their periods come late yeah okay but you knew because i'm obviously i test on sticks like nobody's business yeah and i was having positives so we knew that okay i don't fall pregnant that easily but we know i can fall pregnant it's just not sticking not sticking so i did some more research oh in between this i decided to crash diet and

lose two stone because they told me to lose weight and then that would happen didn't happen put the most of the weight back on well you look fabulous thank you i mean the fact someone ever told you to lose weight is mind-blowing because they run off the bmi yeah well you could have big tits like it could be anything definitely not me it's not me that's my ass I think I've just got heavy bones yeah it's my bones yeah but I honestly BMI is so so ridiculous yeah they just go off the BMI so did that in between so I researched into more tests that I could do blood tests that aren't necessarily overly invasive and I found out ones that you could find that could have show up whether you've got an issue

with your blood that's affecting pregnancy sticking and falling pregnant yeah so there's three tests that they're supposed to do and they then run those tests again three months later because you can get false positives okay so when i got back from being away in june last year yes did you just go away for like a reset were you just going off to i'm always going away for a reset i i'm a massive advocate of that we've been talking about that off air haven't we yeah i'm going home to be mummed by my mother yes 100 because you need to switch off from reality sometimes and we are i will never be not grateful for the privilege that one that's something that i get through my work with instagram but one that we can also afford to do as a family i can take myself away from the stress and the struggle of fertility stuff yeah and switch off try and

switch off just sort of be me and like it's such a routine as well for us yeah yeah i can't remember the last time we had sex because we actually wanted to oh god yeah and that's just a bloody killer as well isn't it because it just takes the fun out of it yeah yeah and even for him i know he's like starting to struggle i know my sperm is super but again really so i found out about these tests so we literally got back from holiday and the next day i went and had these blood tests right which then i always found like going to the hospital over long when i hadn't been there recently was also such an emotional trigger because it's also the same hospital i had iv in right it's it's scarring like it's really it's really hard going back to somewhere that has like all these fond memories but also is full of

like heartbreak dread like dread like oh this again and like just a reminder that you've got fertility issues and you can't and you grow up your whole life being told if you have sex you're gonna fall pregnant oh my god if you don't use contraception you're going to fall pregnant honestly i i mean obviously i will i mean i've got a boy but if i had a girl i'd be definitely hammering that into her because it does stop you yeah however like yeah i was the same it took took me five months to fall pregnant. And I was panicking within those five months. I was like, I mean, they tell you, you can just like get a bit of spunk on your knee and you'd get pregnant.

Well, this is the thing with it as well. It doesn't matter how long you have been trying. Yes, someone that's been trying for X amount of years, it's harder and it's worse, but it's still horrendous. Even when you're trying and it doesn't happen in the first three months the first month that two-week wait of where you can't be productive and proactive into trying to get pregnant yeah and you just have to hope yeah

everything aligns and it's going to happen yeah is absolute torture because even after that first month of trying actively trying you cannot help but go to that place that goes, oh my God, maybe I can't get pregnant. Yeah. Maybe I'm infertile. Yeah. Instantly. I'm pretty sure everybody that hasn't got pregnant first month.

Because we're conditioned. Because we're conditioned that have sex, you'll get pregnant. Yeah, yeah. That's far from what actually happens. Yeah, it really is. There's so much that has to align for that to happen, so. actually happens yeah it really is there's so much that has to align for that to happen so do you have an insatiable fascination with the paranormal brace yourself for the supernatural world is about to reveal all of its secrets on the paranormal

activity podcast and who better to guide you through this hair raising journey than myself Yvette Fielding, renowned paranormal investigator. Every episode of Paranormal Activity takes you on an unforgettable adventure into the unknown. But that's not all. The true heart of this podcast lies in the stories, evidence and questions shared by our devoted listeners. Will you dare to join me? Listen to Paranormal Activity with me, Yvette Fielding wherever you get your podcasts from so you were you had these tests so I had these tests done and then I was supposed to get the results they said in a few weeks sort of just went along lived

my summer did you though or were you like was it all all all consuming is that how you say it all I'm not gonna lie there's been quite a few months when I've said to him do not come near me because I want to know that this month my cramp is because of periods coming oh really yeah I want to know that I'm having a period and there's not that dread especially when she's off for the six weeks holidays yeah I want to be present with her I don't want to be thinking about i mean that's kind of quite sensible for you and your mental health in a way isn't it because otherwise you just overthink every like every single symptom yeah oh i've got a twitch in my eye maybe i'm pregnant yeah and then that's all you focus on that's all you focus on it's so i mean even this month i read early pregnancy symptom blogs as if i'm reading it

for the first time yeah and i do it every month with hope each time right like just constantly obsessively reading forums yeah every night about where people are at 12 days past ovulation and you know all of this is so consuming oh it is and you can really really make yourself believe that it's happening this time can't you like the amount you read or believe that it's not happening either way but it's and also like the signs of being pregnant can also be the signs of miscarrying yeah you know and that's what's just so stressful for anybody trying yeah is that you can just go into such a hole with it yeah into a dark place yeah so so i do find occasionally taking off the odd month and saying you can't come near me because i don't want i'm obviously not going to waste his super sperm um i just want to know that like

i can just not have to worry and think about and overanalyze so i was they never actually called me with the results oh really strangely and then i got to november and i was like i never got those blood results because they did say it was going to take a while so maybe they haven't got them yet anyway i called up and they they called me back and they said yes you've tested positive for one of them which is the lupus anticoagulant blood test which means they hadn't let you know no okay but what i sort of think it was a good thing because just once you get your test results back you're supposed to wait three months and have the tests redone right okay so it'd already been because i'd already gone over the three months i

could have the test straight away okay i mean yeah quite good for anxiety so I didn't have to worry about that or wait that three months yeah to have another test and then it did come back that again I was positive for this blood thing so then my head goes into overdrive about this because it's a blood clotting condition so then I'm on google and then I'm just dreading i'm not even now thinking about pregnancy and getting pregnant i'm now thinking am i going to die of a blood clot just to add to everything now now there's an issue with blood clotting yeah because when you when you look into it online that's where your head goes then every sort of feeling and twinge i'm like it's that blood clot oh I just got a stitch in my heart yeah what's going on Kerry

you and me are the same people but like honestly Danny my husband he literally is like why are you doing it to yourself why do you do it and I'm like I don't know but literally I cannot help but go on Google Google is the worst ever it's honestly Google is the absolute worst anything health related never ever google no never never because you're always going to be dying always even the other the other day i was getting changed and ivy was like oh what's that and i had this massive black bruise but i couldn't see it because i'm so bloated at the moment from chlomid it's sort of like under my stomach yeah just above my vagina this massive black patch and i was like oh i don't know then i'm on google blood clot oh god i'm like oh turns out it's not it's just from where i have acupuncture what is she and because i'm on blood thinners

you bruise easy i bruise easy right yeah but obviously i'm thinking oh god should i go to a and e now i've got a dark bruise and I've got a blood clot. Yeah, I think that's it. And he's like, no. No. I'm sure it's fine. Hold on, maybe that's a sign of pregnancy. Oh God, yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Then he's looking, he's like, look, there's pregnant people with bruising. I was like, oh God. I can't cope with this. It's just a spiral. It's a spiral. So then they said, take baby aspirin. Right.

This is probably the reason why you do fall pregnant, but your pregnancies don't stick. Yeah. Okay. So I'm like, right, okay. Not good to do. Sorry, just quickly. You know, you mentioned the word lupus. Does it mean you've got lupus?

Well, I've been tested now for lupus. Yeah. It does coincide that if you have lupus, you're more than likely going to have this blood condition. Right. Okay. My results came back inconclusive, but lupus is so hard to get a diagnosis on.

Right. Because you sort of really need to be having a flare up. Okay. For it to show in your blood. Yeah. So you can't, it's just, it can take years to get so that yes there's chances that i could actually have lupus but just to throw that in the mix i can't have that in love have we googled it don't actually have the headspace for that one at the moment

so we're gonna put a pin in that i can just go over there i'm just gonna go over there for now you can deal with that with diet and i know that as soon as i really focus on my diet and what i'm eating like my bones feel better because i've got scanned as well for osteoporosis yes because you're quite a bone breaker i sound like a state don't i jesus christ honestly you don't if i listed all my health concerns that that would make you feel a lot better yeah don't you worry i am a bone breaker yeah yeah last year i broke my wrist previous that i've broke both ankles oh god and do you have quite a lot of toes no yeah oh god danny's a toe breaker yeah i've broke quite a lot of toes because of the vitamin d is an estrogen

it's all sort of linked and i do have a low amh early menopause runs in my with my nan my mom it sort of runs in my family yeah right i do have a low bone density but menopause runs in my with my nan my mom it sort of runs in my family yeah right i do have a low bone density but not as low as to come into that okay that category yeah can cross that one off of course i still need to be careful be careful walking down the street but yes don't have that so they recommended for me to have baby aspirin to thin my blood yeah and that will help the babies stick the eggs fertilized eggs stick so we started that in november yeah december i was i always take december off right okay because you want to enjoy christmas well because yeah i want to enjoy christmas and my cycle always runs that my periods always do on Christmas Day.

Oh, oh, yeah, no, we don't want to be getting that disappointment on Christmas Day. So I want to know what I'm coming into with that because I've done that one year when we tried and it just ruined Christmas. Oh, God, I can imagine. Poor me. Yeah, I can imagine. I bet you, and also because of IV, you've got to try and put on a front

and make it special for her. Also, as well, I find these... I find birthdays, I find Christmases the hardest part of the year. Because it's kind of like almost grieving, right? Oh, I will never forget. I can't have a cry.

Do you know what my mum does? If ever I'm crying, she goes, let it all out. And then it stops. You know when the crying is stopped? Yeah a cry do you know what my mum does if ever i'm crying she goes let it all out and then it starts i will never forget what elf ever in the emptiness said to me she said oh she lost a baby didn't she had a stillborn yeah and then you know she's she's got her little girl and i know she's had her issues as well we're trying for a second and I'll never forget what she said to me she said it's like you're standing on the sidelines and you're seeing everyone else like level up and move

forward with their life and you're just there on the sidelines and you can't and you're stuck and you have in your head all these visions of Christmases with your kids telling your family like that yeah I get that so for Christmas for me when I have this picture in my head of Ivy with the sibling and then Christmas comes around and it's not that again it is literally like a sucker punch i sometimes feel like i've been robbed of enjoying christmases with her well you have i mean you have hanging over me yeah of course of course and the only time that this is ever gonna stop is either one if you get that baby or if you decide enough i've said this is the last year yeah i can only we've done it for so long and i just feel like i have to you know like she's coming into we'll be starting secondary school and i know i'm gonna be into a whole other whirlwind

of parenting with that. Yeah. Especially because she wants to go to an all-girls school. Oh, does she? Oh, wow. Which I don't know how I feel about that. This has to be the last year. I have to give it everything.

We have baby grows hanging in the bedroom. We have mood boards. You've got your vision boards there. Like, come on, universe. Every day I try and envision it. Reiki, reflexology, acupuncture. Doing everything. Everything that I can give.

And, you know, like I've taken a massive step back, I think, from Instagram and work because I need to have times where I'm just relaxing and not putting pressure on myself. And that's what I've done this month and really taken my foot off the gas so when we started baby aspirin for me I was like I'm going into it now with new eyes this is the nugget yeah and the reason of why we've not been able to fall pregnant yeah so you're kind of going in with that positive attitude of, right, this is it. This is it.

This is it. This is the reason. Like, even when I've spoken about it, I'm like, no, I sound delusional, but I know this is the month and this is going to happen for me. It's like I have to talk it into existence. Of course you do. And you have to just, if you didn't talk it that way to yourself,

you would go into the negative place. Yeah. And you don't want to go there you want to stay you want to stay in this happy place or try and stay in this positive place might not always be happy but yeah you know the positive mental attitude rather than the negative side of things yeah because god everyone always says you've got to remain positive and it's very very difficult it's so hard and you know what and I'm so grateful because I've, I honestly feel like I don't know how I would feel about if I didn't have the community on Instagram that I have

because like people don't even have to message and say anything. It's just so nice when people just acknowledge. Yeah. Or they offer, even if it's like advice that's unsolicited. Yeah. That it's only coming from a place of good intent yeah and it's better advice than what i have yeah exactly but you know i sometimes do find that

like someone will say something to me on instagram like i just had a random flare up with like x-men on my eyes or allergic reaction or something i actually think it's stress god the advice from people i was like and the the support of how many people of also dealing with that. And I was like, okay, good. I'm not alone. And it does. It makes you feel like you're not alone in all of this. And that people go through this. And it's awful because you don't want to be like, you know, benefiting from other people going through it.

But just to feel like you've got that support. Yeah. And other people are feeling that pain and finding it hard. Because it's so lonely. Oh, God. It and because it's so lonely oh god it's so lonely yeah like you just and this is the thing with it as well because it's secondary infertility there's a lot of like misconstrued sort of like opinions on it and everyone's like but you've got one aren't you just grateful you've got one and And it's like, but it's a whole different side of life that we as people who are suffering,

struggling to fall pregnant with their second or even their third, they have their idea of what they wanted their life and their family to be like. Of course. And to not have that. To have it taken away from you when, and it's not fair.

Yeah. It is not fair. No. And when it's what you when, and it's not fair. Yeah. It is not fair. No. And when it's what you want, it doesn't make any difference whether you've already got one child. But it's not even just my feelings and what I want. I've also got Ivy who is absolutely desperate. I was just going to ask you that. Yeah, I was literally just going to ask you that.

She's desperate. She is. So she wants, she wants. You know, like, and I talk really openly and i'm like i'm doing the best i can we're trying to get mommy's belly right and she's like is it right now oh is your belly right now is that why you're going to the hospital today to get your belly right will you find out if it's right yet if there's a baby in there have you ever sat down with her and said it might not happen yeah and i make sure her life is so full in so many other ways yeah yeah you

know like she's an only child but you'd never know she's an only child she's the most like caring kind-hearted little girl she's so sociable yeah i think only children yeah there's something to be said for only children because cooper's an only child yeah and that's my my choice but he's the most caring little boy i mean he doesn't quite understand the play fighting because he's not got a sibling no ivy doesn't ivy's like oh my god they've just done this yeah they've literally just jumped on each other yeah he's quite sensitive yeah ivy's as well yeah but i quite like that like i'm good it's quite cute that he doesn't quite understand play fighting but yeah and that's that's another

thing to add to like the stress of it for you is feeling that pressure that you want to give that, you know, for your little girl. And that's what she wants as well. And when I see her as well with like friends who have little ones, it's so hard. Yeah, I can imagine. Because it's like I've always envisioned for her to have that so now so you are how far into those the club club mid is that what you got so i've got two two rounds two rounds left this year i've just finished a round and which has resulted in a chemical pregnancy which is today which i just found out today this morning so i i sorry oh god i mean this is awful

like i've never cried so much today i was like get it out your system get it no it's good this is like a therapy session i've never more wanted to hug someone and i can't because i'm attached to some headphones and i'm around the side of the desk you don't don't be nice i did a message kerry this morning i was like listen if you if this is too much for you but kerry in true kerry style is coming she wants to talk about it she's putting her heart on her sleeve which is incredible kerry like i'm being nice to you sorry i shouldn't be doing this but you know the amount of women that are going to watch this and be so so touched and appreciate you so much for sharing this story it is going to make so many women feel less alone and that's incredible in

itself yeah no i know and that's why i was like i could sit at home and i can sit and wallow and yeah this is the it's not even like i could just eat what i want because i was pregnant yeah so i've had all of the symptoms yeah and then this morning they called up with my progesterone levels and basically said like they were so high when's your like and i said my periods come three days late and they said we think that you've been pregnant and you're it's the final bit just hasn't happened yeah so it's just coming away which is frustrating because this was the first month because in January he was away for work so that was a write-off this was the first month we was putting everything into it's the baby aspirin's gonna work and the same things happen so it's like what can we do now

so now are you going to do your like a little month break thing oh you're just going to keep you're going to keep going i've got another round of clomids yeah i will do that again yeah we know i'm releasing two eggs with that yeah so they're there they're there so yeah we just go again and then because like this is might be me being completely unaware but in terms of like IVF treatment yeah is there anything you can do on that side so we was actually planning on doing IVF last year yeah work and travel just sort of like took over yeah and I'm actually really glad that we didn't and the doctor said it was a good thing we didn't because obviously we didn't know about the blood thing and she said that it just wouldn't have worked yeah because the problem is as well that whenever i do fall pregnant i have to give myself heparin injections every day throughout the pregnancy to thin my

blood right okay to make sure that it's viable yeah yeah and that there's enough blood rushing to it so we have said that this year like i have no travel plans what unless i pop to my dad's in spain but because i have to put everything into this is it i will be doing ivf it's probably not something i'll document until afterwards god i think whenever i do hopefully which i'm determined that this is my year of what I will fall pregnant I'll probably just end up staying indoors for five months and I'll announce it like I'm literally crowning by the way guys I'm in labor we did it and I feel so bad saying that because everyone is like I feel like it's not just me on this journey as sad as that sounds

because I have so much support from people on social media it's like you want to tell your friends and I feel like and I feel that way like I'd want to tell them straight away but I think for me like I have to you have to do what is completely right for you ultimately and if that's not telling people if it's telling people whatever it is yeah because sometimes people can be like really really open with everything like like you know like the day they do the pregnancy test and and that's fine if that works for them if that's what they need to do no problem if you need to go and lock yourself away yeah and just be on your own or with your family yeah um or just quite on your own have you seen those like cabins that are just in the middle

of nowhere and you can just go there that would be my dream yeah I am seriously considering going and locking myself away in one of them I think my only thing is

I'd get too scared at night on my own yeah because I'm a bit scared of the dark apart from that I would be the same I'm not the best

on my own maybe if like I had a friend in a cabin next door and then if I got scared I could just go in and be like hello

can I get in the bed with you please I always feel better if i've got ivy with me like i'm safe yeah for some reason god knows why i know you'll protect me yeah you're then you can fight off an intruder no that's what i'm like with cooper i'm like it's fine do you ever feel like that like sometimes when i'm um feeling anxious or sad or upset about anything I just need a cuddle from Cooper yeah I feel like he really regulates my like nervous system and I find it really weird because I feel like they're so in tuned with it like last night Ivy said mummy tomorrow morning will you wake me up at seven and I was like why is that she went so I was sitting talk with you in the kitchen oh that's just adorable and it's

like she's i did try to wake up at seven she did not want to wake up at seven she backtracked but i mean don't we all do that she just sort of knew she woke up in the night she was like can you come get in my bed she doesn't really do that anymore and it's like she just sort of sometimes i feel like no no i think they do i think they're so so aware of things like yeah you learned so much like from therapy like yeah oh god I'm so open with her like when I was having therapy I did 10 months of that yeah she was when she would be like where are you going or if I'd come back and my face would be an absolute wreck like why why have you been upset I just went to see the lady to talk about my feelings yeah and I had to pick up from tennis early one day to drop her around to our neighbors

because i had therapy and he was away with work she was like i've got to go now because my mom's got to go and see the person about her feelings oh i love it when they do that it's like when you're in the toilet mommy why why are you putting something up there oh god yeah we had to have the period of chat because obviously tmi certain stages of certain colors yeah oh my god she was like mommy why have you got poo in your pants why is it brown what's going on honestly the first time cooper saw me pulling a tampon out jesus christ he i think i've traumatized that child i actually garden for life yeah i actually try not to do any form of like feminine health things in front of him. I just don't think he needs to see that.

They're also so inquisitive as well now. Oh God. She's literally like, what's that? Yeah. So where does it go? She's like, when my period starts, I'm not using one of those. I will use a pad. I'm like, okay.

Okay, let's see. I was like, what are you going to do when you want to go swimming? She's like, what do you mean? It's like, you can't wear a pad in the swimming pool. It'll blow up like a big fat nappy. You'll sink to the bottom. Yeah, you can't do that. You're going to have to use the tampon, babe.

Oh, God bless her heart. Yeah. Kerry, we're at the end of our chat. I mean, to be honest, I feel like I don't want to be nice to you anymore. Don't be nice to me. I just don't feel like I want to make you keep crying. I don't want to be the person. That's all right.

It's been like a therapy session, so I appreciate yeah however it's so good to let your emotions out like and i'm so proud of you yeah you should if there's any if there's one thing that i can tell anyone that's going through it is just to allow yeah your feelings yeah don't try and be okay sit and feel them because it's worse when you don't i was going to ask you what you'd what advice you would give but that's and advocate for yourself yeah and yeah and also do research do research and go and demand yeah demand things and let the feelings in yeah thank you so much kerry thank you for having me thanks for listening to mum's the word the parenting podcast make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode we'll be back with another episode same time

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