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Kate, a busy London lawyer, found herself at a crossroads, after the sudden loss of her Mom. She and her husband moved Dublin—ready to start their own family, BUT they soon found out it wouldn’t be so easy. Learn how Kate went from low AMH, autoimmune thyroid issues, miscarriage, and repeated treatment failure, to DOUBLING her eggs collected, learning how to surrender…and getting pregnant NATURALLY.
Transcript:
Hey, Gorgeous. If you want success on your fertility journey, you’ve got to have the mindset for it. It’s time to kick fear, negativity, doubt, shame, jealousy, and the whole clown car of low vibe fertility journey BS to the curb. I’m your host, Roseanne Austin, Fertility Mindset Master. Former prosecutor and recovering type A control freak perfectionist.
I use the power of mindset to get pregnant naturally and have my baby boy at 43 despite years of fertility treatment failure. I help women across the globe beat the odds on their fertility journey just like I did. Get ready for a quick hit of confidence, joy, feminine badassery, and loads of hell yes for your fertility journey.
It’s time to get fearless baby, fearlessly fertile. Let’s do this. Welcome to the Fearlessly Fertile Podcast, Episode 124, From London Lawyer to Dublin Miracle Mama. Loves, I am so excited to share yet another absolutely inspiring and extraordinary story from one of my miracle mamas. I can’t wait for you to meet Kate.
I could just carry this woman around in my pocket like all day. I just love her. You are going to hear how this amazing woman went from grinding it out as a thriving London lawyer, just working crazy hours. to coming to a fork in the road when in 2013 she tragically lost her mom and found herself in a place where she knew something had to change.
So she and her husband packed up everything and created a new life for themselves in Dublin, Ireland, and they decided they wanted to start a family. But when things weren’t working out the way that they thought they would, this once, like, serene, not obsessed woman went into sheer panic. She found herself with low AMH being thrown at her, thyroid problems, miscarriage, canceled cycles, treatment failures, you name it.
And she found herself in a place knowing that she needed a change. She knew in her soul that she was meant to be a mom, but she knew she couldn’t do it this way. So you’re going to hear how this amazing woman loved herself and loved her dream enough To turn it all around and you’re going to hear how she not only did this within weeks of Completing my fearlessly fertile method program, but she did this in a way she didn’t think possible So if you’re struggling with unexplained fertility issues, I can’t wait for you to be inspired by Kate Woman, it’s so good to be with you.
I’m so excited to have this conversation. So we’ll jump right in. And I know you’re, you’re, you got a baby grown in you. So, you know, I know, I don’t want to, thank you so much. Like, it’s so good to see you. It just takes me straight back to that place. And just, it’s such a good moment meeting you. Well, so why don’t we start out by, why don’t you share like a little bit about how you found yourself on this journey?
Right. Well, I think for me, I have to take you back to 2013 when I was working as a lawyer in London. I was working long hours, but my career was going really well. And out of the blue, my mother had a sudden brain hemorrhage just before Christmas. And she was, um, on life support for about four months before she finally passed.
And In hindsight now, I kind of feel like everything sort of relates back to that. But at the time, my husband and I, we decided to have, you know, I think we must have realized the toll it had taken on us. And we had a real reset and we moved to Dublin, Ireland. We, uh, quit our jobs. We bought a house and renovated it.
Um, so it was all very positive. Um, so we started trying to conceive, got married, started trying to conceive, and In the beginning, we were really relaxed, and if anything, I think I was obsessed with not being obsessed with, because you see, so many people tell you the best thing you can do is think about it, just let it happen.
So, sort of, a year went by, and I was doing a creative writing masters, so it wasn’t the sort of, the focus of our lives. In a way, I feel that wasn’t the right thing for us anyway, because by the time it became apparent that there was a problem, this serious amount of dirty doubt had sort of crept in of, why is this not happening?
And suddenly it was like, it’s been a year and not an inkling of a pregnancy test, you know, a positive pregnancy test. Um, so that was the beginning, went to the GP, general practitioner, and she just did some basic blood tests. And I really wasn’t expecting, I’m very healthy, I’ve always, I’ve never had any health problems.
And I just remember I got this panicked phone call, voicemail from her, and she said my AMH was really low, and that I had an underactive thyroid. Um, so it was kind of, it went from nothing relaxed to being a patient, urgency, medicalization, panic. So yeah, it’s to get our heads around that, but at the same time, they were kind of like, well, we’ll just put you on thyroid medication and keep trying.
And it was unexplained infertility. Uh, we were referred to a fertility clinic and they did all the tests. So my husband and I, and. Nothing came back. So they said, well, it’s nothing, no reason why you can’t conceive. Just keep trying as, as you are. Uh, but that doubt was there then, you know, and yes, I know. I mean, that unexplained infertility is a label, isn’t it?
And it was. So hard when month and month went by and just nothing happened and there’s no explanation. You feel entirely helpless and passive and that, which is totally not who you are as a lawyer. No. Right? Like, like. out of control, passive, like that’s, that goes against every fiber of your being and your training.
Exactly. And then I think I was put, we were both putting on this brave face where we were like, Oh, we’re relaxed. We’re relaxed. And all our friends were getting pregnant. My brother had a baby. And, but it, by doing that, I was denying the real pain that I was going through and not acknowledging that. Those thoughts, you know, you could call them jealousy.
I refuse to admit that. And the comparison with others, it was a real dark place where you’re not only feeling those things, but you’re not letting yourself feel them. And you’re beating yourself up and you’re bullying yourself for feeling them. So you just, yeah, you’re just in such a dark place and it creeps.
So gradually you sort of fall down this hole before you realize of no faith in your own body, not being authentic with. your own desires. So one of my big issues was, I think I felt so much. gratitude for the life I’d built with my husband in Ireland. We had this beautiful home. We got a puppy. I knew I had, I love, I’d married the love of my life and I’d sort of escaped a job that was killing me in London.
So it’s sort of, I had a lot of things that people would. Would love to have, and it felt almost like asking for too much was I, was I, you know, being greedy by wanting a baby as well? Uh, so there’s all these dark thoughts and you don’t even realize that you are on, you are, you are starting the thought patterns that are negative and limiting until you’re quite far down the road, I think.
Uh, so all that came to a point where we did started IVF in 2019, and that’s. It was really just a horrible year because, because it was unexplained, they sort of said, um, well, you were still young and it gave us the percentage rates, you know, and they were high. And it was sort of like, well, this will work.
This is the magic pill. And of course, like what I know now, I was, you know, I was. I had so much trauma from what had gone on that I needed to work through and, uh, so we did, um, several rounds of IVF and they were canceled, trans canceled cycles and thin uterine lining. And I ended up after one transfer getting pregnant, which was the first pregnancy test I’d ever, positive pregnancy test I’d ever had.
It was sort of bittersweet because, uh, they, as they said, congratulations, you’re pregnant, but you’re going to miscarry. You know, they knew, they knew the numbers from, so we did a nurse carried about six, seven weeks for that one. And that just was a confirmation of all this. My body’s broken. Like they don’t know what’s wrong.
Something’s not right. Um, and it really became, I was just so emotionally depleted. Uh, I felt like I was. I was completely under the control of the doctors. I wasn’t doing anything from my, with my own agency. You know, if they said, take this pill, do this, take, you know, uh, I didn’t. And it all goes back to not trying not to be obsessed.
But you’d think by the time you get to IVF, you should probably be getting a bit obsessed. So. We reached a breaking point at the end of that year, uh, when we’d had another cancelled cycle and we took ourselves off to the Seychelles and really called a halt and we said, look, how do we, how do we find ourselves again without giving up on this dream?
Because we’re not giving up. Like we, we want to be parents. And we believe that that’s in our future. But how do we get there without killing ourselves? It’s the big question. Uh, and that’s when I found your podcast. I was on, I was in the airport. On the way to the Seychelles and I discovered your podcast and by the time I got to the Seychelles, like 12 hours later, I’d binged about 10 episodes, you know, inhaled it.
That makes me laugh. I hear from women all the time. Oh my gosh, I was doing XYZ when I found you. You are the first sister on the way to the Seychelles. It was a good moment. Yeah. Well, so let’s talk about that. Like, tell me a little bit about, like, what caught your attention about this whole mindset thing?
There must have been something that kept you listening. On a flight to one of the most gorgeous places in the world. Like, what, what sparked your attention? And like, what made you start to wonder about this whole mindset thing? I think the way that you were unapologetic about saying hell yes. I don’t know if it’s because of my English roots, but there was something that I, the whole way through.
And at this point we’d been sort of, it was three years in sort of thing. And I was so embarrassed by the fact that we had the lengths that we’d have to go and the efforts we’d made. And I could see it in my friends, my family’s faces, you know, they, I’d lost myself a little bit along the way. I was, Constantly swinging between wanting to burst into tears and just being very fragile to sort of self denial like everything’s fine, you know, and part of that I think now looking back was because I didn’t think I could just say this is the most important thing in my life right now.
I really, really believe that being a mother is in my future and I want. To make that happen. Instead, I was all sort of like, Oh, maybe it happened. And, uh, you know, apologetic. And so we’re listening to your podcast. It was just, it was so far away from that. And it just gave me permission to say, no, it’s time to get obsessed, get smart, cover your bases, you have permission to dig in and, and that strategy there as well, it’s not just.
Being a passenger and letting things happen to me, it’s, uh, taking back control, but at the same time, surrendering control over things that you can’t control. Like, the timeline was a big thing for me. I suddenly, listening to these podcasts, I suddenly realized the timeline, I had to grieve the, the kind of, the, the vision I’d had.
It’s an imagined reality, really, of getting pregnant easily and straight away. Like, I still believed that was going to happen. Each month, I think, was a trauma because each month, because it was unexplained, it was like, maybe this month, maybe that month. And I listened to your podcast, I just had to say, no, okay, I’m on this journey.
I am on a healing journey and I have to embrace that and accept it. It’s just, I mean, it sounds so simple to say out loud. It gave me permission to forgive the health choices I’d made in the past and being on the pill for that long and all the things that you torture yourself. You agonize about if only we’d done this sooner or we should have done that or we should have done this and it’s a reset.
It’s a complete reset button. So then I read your book, and then I, then I knew I had to talk to you. Well, so, okay, Kate, because like, let’s take this from the top. So, you’re, you’re trying for three years, you address the thyroid issue, you’re, you, you’re being diagnosed with low AMH, you’ve had repeated rounds of IVF, cancelled cycles, miscarriage, all of these things.
Like, what made you say I have failed all of these times, but I’m willing to try this because there’s this crazy American woman, like shouting at me, you know, over these podcasts, like what made you say, fuck all of that. Like, I’m going to give this a shot, like, because it’s really easy when we faced a lot of failure to not want to try one more thing.
So what was that with you? Like, what was that for you? Um, I think the first thing was, I remember your phrase, come out the closet as a woman who wants a baby.
So that was, that was absolutely key. And then there was the bumper squad. So I think, uh, my mother had been a doctor and I think I had this sort of reverence for the medical profession. And I still think they are. incredible what they do, but that’s the key thing, what they do, they, they don’t do everything.
And I certainly wasn’t covering my bases by just listening to my consultant. And so in terms of failure, really, um, I was only at the beginning of the road. I suddenly listened to your podcast was like, I haven’t even begun to, to embrace all the possibility on this journey. Uh, so once I got, we got back to the state from the Seychelles.
I said, look, my husband and I had a chat, you know, they’ve just given you thyroid medication for this thyroid. But, but why, why is it underactive? What is the cause of that? And then doctors couldn’t give me an answer. Oh, it’s just, you know, it’s something you have to live with. That’s not really good enough.
And I was like, fine. But his answer is, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They do their bit, go to them for what they do and go to a specialist and a professional for everything else you need. So I then found a functional nutritionist and did a raft of tests to kind of dig in and explain the unexplained. And she found, she found answers.
And it was incredible because And I always thought, like, it would have been a miracle if I had got pregnant, like, previously. And, uh, there was, for me, working with you, there was a lot of, uh, forgiveness, uh, for my, my forgiving myself, my body, um, and perhaps even my mother for dying on me and causing a lot of stress and trauma.
Um, so it turned out for the functional nutritionist that I had, my underactive thyroid was autoimmune, uh, which the doctors hadn’t actually said, and there was a huge amount of inflammation and high antibodies. And so we just started working on it. We, we, I worked on my gut health. We, I’d started taking, uh, specific supplements and reducing, uh, stress in my life in a sort of really active way.
Uh, I remember you saying like, it’s okay to be unproductive, which for a sort of type a lawyer, it’s just completely not how we normally live our lives. No. It was making an active choice to slow down and, and those antibodies you can see on the bloods, they just went down and down and down and I mean, so the next round of IVF I did, which was when I was working with you, it’s the first one, I’d got four eggs collected.
The second one, I got 19. Yeah, the last one I got 19. Remember? It’s just so, so there’s a counter intuitive element that I was more fertile two years later than I was You know, two years earlier, because I was nurturing myself, I was looking after my body and I’d always been healthy, but it was a sort of different type of, of nurturing.
And so I was taking care of the physical, the physiological, and then I realized that would take me to a certain point, but there’d been so much trauma and pain that I’d got into these negative thought patterns. that I needed extra support. So that’s when we started doing the calls and they were a game changer.
I know. Well, you know, it’s so funny when you just what you were sharing was this four eggs. You start doing all of this work you I mean, because think about the mindset shift you had to have had in order to say, especially with the upbringing that you have with a mother as a physician, you know, obviously, you know, good leader, highly educated, you know, this is the world that you live in.
And you were able to see that two things could be true at the same time, you can have. Like the, the physical and the physiological, the medical aspect of it. But there was a part of you that clearly said, Hey, this is some, but this is not all I want to cover all of my bases. I’m going to look at this mind thing because I mean, something very dramatic happened.
for you in order to go from four eggs to frickin 19 and to see that direct result of taking care of yourself at a higher level with the antibodies going down, down, down, and really having this mindset thing working for you in the background. So what do you think, like, so you described it as a game changer.
What was game changing about? Adding this mindset piece to the puzzle. How long have you got? I got all day sister. I, I just can’t, it was like, um, it came back an addiction. Like I, I was looking, I looking forward to your Saturday calls. Like so excited because I knew that each call I was going to have an aha moment and I was going to come away and Colin and I would sit down afterwards and he’d be saying, what did you learn?
And I was like, wow, this and this and this and this. So the, and it was, I just have to say it, it was really powerful in itself just to speak and listen to other women speaking who were very similar sort of type A people from all over the world. Going through similar things and you just not letting us get away with anything like calling our bullshit Calling the narratives.
I warned you Hey, I might call you out But that was the coolest thing about you though is because you loved yourself and you love this dream enough to be willing To be called out on your bullshit. Yeah, I thought I needed it so much. Um, you know, and listening to other women talk, I started hearing my thoughts.
You know, you, you sort of, you, it’s very hard to hear what’s going on in your own head sometimes. But when you hear other women making excuses or beating themselves up, and you suddenly, you want to sort of say, No, you know, it’s not like that. And, and so it was really useful. So I think, um, okay. Key things for me, I remember you saying, be a historian of your successes and not just your failures.
That was a moment, uh, where at some point, all you can see is what hasn’t worked, what’s gone wrong and where you’ve made mistakes or failed better commerce. And. Once I started working with you, I realized that although progress is not linear, I had come so far from that woman who just came off the pill and Like, you know, in a physical way, my periods were not painful anymore, whereas they’d been painful.
I could tell where my fertile window was without needing any basal thermometer, which You had liberation from the basal body temperature. Exactly! You know, it was doing what it was supposed to be doing for the first time. Um, and so Some of these thoughts that you have and you, you recognize where you say, well, if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now I’m running out of chances each month.
You can completely reframe that and you can say, well, actually I’m more fertile than I was then. And each month is another opportunity to work on my health and my wellbeing and my fertility. I’m getting closer to my baby each time. And that the hardest thing was the the uncertainty of the timing. So I think I’d had to give up the imagined time frame where I was trying to keep up with my friends and my family.
And I had to say, I’m running, running my own race. Um, I’m on my own journey. If I’ve had to deal with things. That have set me on a different course, like potentially, you know, that working in that job with the stress of what happened with my mom, it, my, my immune system just went crazy. And actually I had to have be happy, quite compassionate, uh, to myself.
My poor body, not just previously, I’d been thinking. It’s broken, but actually it was working completely perfectly because it was, it was protecting me, you know, if I’d got pregnant, it wouldn’t have been a healthy pregnancy. And by the time, you know, I, I realized, and I worked on myself, the baby would help be healthier, you know, there’d be so many blessings to come out of it.
And I remember you saying, don’t stop trying to think things are happening to you, but maybe they’re happening for you. And for someone who’s not religious or that spiritual, had to really connect with that. And it’s a sort of faith in uncertainty. That’s quite a hard concept. But once you surrender to that, and, and it’s, it’s, that’s the most empowering, empowering moment, because in that uncertainty is the possibility of change, of something different.
It’s not like the past is just a verdict and you can’t move on from it. You can’t change anything. You know, when it said to me, it would be different if you know, your, your tubes are blocked and you’re never going to get pregnant that way, you know, the certain medical things that do prevent someone from getting pregnant naturally, but they’d not found anything for me.
It was all unexplained. And wishy washy. And so instead of believing that it wouldn’t happen, I decided to believe it might happen again. I found faith, sort of, confidence in myself again. Isn’t that funny? Yeah, I mean, it’s like, everyone freaks out about an unexplained diagnosis, but I always told women that means anything is possible, like, even the good shit!
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Wow. And, and then when you talk about surrendering to that uncertainty, that is, it’s quite, you have to be quite fearless because you are saying, I have this knowing that it’s in my future, and I believe I’m going to be a mum one way or the other, I can’t control when that happens or how that happens.
And that’s, you know, you have to be quite fearless to sort of let that go. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it is the fearlessly fertile method. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that fearlessness is a fairly critical part. But you don’t give up. That was the key thing. I always thought surrendering meant You did, you have to not want it anymore or not try and get it anymore.
But actually it sort of meant the opposite working with you. I sort of had the permission to dig in and commit to it to say, this is my husband and I are willing to do what it takes to get there. And that takes the pressure off because. one way or the other, you know, we, we were open to surrogacy. We were open to donor if we needed to, but it, you remember, you sort of saw that one step at a time, like, you know, don’t kind of future trip.
You don’t need that yet. You’re still way at the beginning of the journey. I did get in there, Kate, didn’t I? Yeah. And another one of your phrases was, is that actually true for you? That was a good one because, uh, sometimes you say things. I would say things, uh, or other ladies would. And you, hold up, like, is, is that actually true?
Or have you just chosen to view it from a certain angle and tell yourself a narrative? And often, Something that’s negative feels more credible or maybe more comfortable and actually leaning into the discomfort of believing in something positive. Can you imagine? Can you believe that? Isn’t that hilarious?
Yeah. Wow. Wow. And then with the gratitude stuff, um, I realized that I’d been using gratitude because I am a positive person and, you know, that’s probably why it was quite difficult to, to come to terms with infertility because I wasn’t wallowing in misery from the beginning. Uh, I suddenly believed each month that next month’s an opportunity and.
Um, when I sort of said all the things I’m grateful for, I was sort of using it to make me small. I was like diminishing what I wanted by saying what I had, what I had. And I remember you saying, ask for what you want or more. Yeah. Yeah. I bet that totally offended your English sensibilities. Yeah. You were like, Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that.
Like or more, like more than one child. But that was all about. Allowing myself to receive, uh, and I was coming from a deprivation mindset and not from an abundant mindset. And you sort of helped me realize that doing my gratitude each day. So I started every morning writing down things I was grateful for and not using those as ways to keep me small and sort of in a sort of self judgment.
Good self loathing way. Like, right, right, right, right. Um, but sort of saying this is what’s possible. This is how good things can happen to me. Good things have happened to me. And that was an aha moment when I realized some psych, some sort of subconscious level, I had a very good life in London and everything was going well.
And then it was taken away when my mom passed, you know, in a lot of ways. everything changed very quickly. And it would, I had somehow computed, if I have too much good in my life, bad things happen. And I had to unpick that with you and accept that good things were possible and good things Would it necessarily need to ban things?
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s receiving. Well, yeah, definitely. And we sometimes get in this trap where we think that there is this, it’s required that there’s an even exchange. That if I’m asking for this massive blessing of a baby, then it must come with equivalent misery. Mm hmm. Right? It’s this complete, um, it’s, it’s just push struggle.
Fine. Yeah. Yeah. So something, and I remember, I mean, you were always there, Kate, like right there, ready to go pop up, you know, like you, you really, it doesn’t surprise me that things turned out for you the way that they did because you were so in it to win it. You were so in the game. Something rather miraculous happened for you very quickly.
Can you share that? Because that’s just, I mean, it blows my mind whenever I think about your story. Yeah, so I think it’s important to say that there was a sort of a blip in working with you in the middle before the good thing happened. I remember! I remember! Yeah, so, so, but I think it’s important to say because, um, it showed how far I’d come.
on the mindset path. And it was a big dip. So, um, we were working together and you sort of, when I signed up with you, I said, you know, I’m going to go for another round of IVF. It’d be, it was a pandemic year. So we’d have to take a break for 2020. We’d have to take a break while the clinics were closed. So you felt ready for another go at it.
And. I had your, you know, your weekly calls. And so I was in a really good place and that was a completely different round of IVF, as I said, you know, like we’re 19 embryos. And I want to think we’ve got 10 day five embryos. So it was just, it couldn’t have gone better. My lining was nice and thick for the first time, you know, and, um, yeah, so positive, positive, positive.
And then they transferred to really perfect. Grade five embryos, day five embryos and, uh, worked through the two week wait with you, um, did everything and was feeling good and they didn’t take. I ended up with a negative pregnancy test, uh, which felt. It’s just so surprising where, you know, I really thought it was going to work.
That was the moment where you had, where all the work we’d done mattered, because like you say, it’s not linear. It’s not outcome based, you know, there’s no, if you do this, you get that. It’s a journey. And there were so many, you know, you taught me to celebrate the wins. So there were so many things about that, that should have been little victories, little successes.
and were because they were so, it was such a different round. I was, I was just in a different place and the outcome was, was sort of irrelevant because there was so much possibility for next time or, and I remember you saying, well, okay, so you, so you didn’t get pregnant this month, but why wouldn’t you get pregnant next month?
I didn’t really have an answer. You know, because, yeah, I was, it was proven on paper that I was more fertile than I had been six months previously when I had been six months previous to that. So it was working with you, I felt. So much more resilient. I was obviously heartbroken. We both were again, your little phrase, two things can be true at the same time came into play.
Uh, so I, I can make, made space for both of them. And you know, it was, I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t incredibly hard. It was a daily practice, daily choice to acknowledge the pain and not be a victim to it and it’s, it’s. you know, something you’re gonna have to work my whole life on to, to manage that.
And because it is a skill, but thank God I had you at my back while that was happening. About a week after I found out we hadn’t, the, the two embryos hadn’t taken, my brother and his wife blessed them. They had to call me off and tell me they were expecting twins. So, my God! So you were under attack, right?
Yeah, I was, the universe was, was, you know, testing me, really was testing. And, oh, if I had, if that had happened a year previous, like, Being in an institution, I think, it was, it was, it was really hard. So they, yeah, so I, at that point, um, we took stock, Colm and I, and we, we went on a little staycation in Ireland and we, you know, we sat with the pain, we cried, we laughed, we drank lots of wine, we, you know, we, we sort of, um, we weren’t, we, We were open to other possibilities.
So we, we actually, um, contacted a surrogate clinic, surrogacy clinic, and we were talking to the doctors about more immune tests. That was really powerful because. It felt there wasn’t one option that wasn’t like this or nothing. It was this or everything. Like there was so many different paths. We had so many.
We were so lucky. It’s so fortunate to have the financial means and the space in our lives. And I was still young. I know I was 34. There was so much still out there. It wasn’t time to give up. And that’s where, you know, you’re saying hell yes. Commit to the vision. What’s your authentic intention? That is to have a baby.
And I’m and I’m not giving up. And I remember saying to my husband, the little mantra that you taught me, my name is Kate, and I’m not leaving without my babies , and I’m not, I’m, I’m not leaving without them. And he’s like, no, neither am I. So that all said. Very next month, no medication, no IVF, got pregnant.
So just complete magic. Okay, see this is so important because what you’re teaching us right now is the past is no predictor of the future. Your current circumstances are not a verdict, nor are they going to be the thing, you know, that necessarily has to take away any of your dreams. Because think about it in very short order.
You went from two grade five, double A, sparkly, like champion embryos, that not working to getting pregnant naturally. The next month. The very next month. And how many weeks are you now? 36.
Yeah. But yeah, that was my first, first natural positive pregnancy test in four and a half years. So, like, there was no kind of logic to it, except the only game changer was my mindset. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy because you’re living proof of what’s possible when you just make a decision. Because if we, if we trace.
Like this progression in your life. It truly was about making a decision that you weren’t playing footsie with your dream. And you know, there’s something that you said before that I think is really powerful. And I want to go back to, because there’s a tendency in us to say that if I am blessed in a bunch of different ways that I, well, you know, things are so good for me.
Like I, you know, I’m very grateful for having the means to do all this. But if your mind wasn’t right, you might not have even seen that. No. And I, I remember when, when we first went for IVF in 2019, kind of feeling embarrassed to tell people because I thought it even, I can’t, it’s hard to even put my mind back there, but sort of apologetic that, we were willing to spend this money on ourselves and on our dream when it’s, it’s, it’s hard to think back to because it seems with my current mindset, quite difficult to compute.
Well, thank God I’m getting an intention. You will never go back to that bad neighborhood. Right? Yeah. It doesn’t matter how many blessings are in your life. If you don’t use your mind, right, you will miss them. You will not be a good steward of the blessings in your life. If you do not think like a woman who succeeds, you will shit all over those opportunities.
And I think I really want to give you a lot of credit Kate, because you could have just given up on that and said, Hey, I’m just too blessed. You know, whatever. I should be ashamed of this, but look at what happened when you said yes. And I want this and more. Yeah, absolutely. And that was something you’ve taught me, which I will carry through.
Hopefully for life is you do not have to believe your thoughts. You do not have to act on your thoughts, you just witness them, and then by the power of witnessing them, you can soften and let them go a lot more easily, and you can choose which narratives you listen to, and actively choose. You know, it’s a daily choice.
Of, okay, am I going to bully myself today? Or am I going to be kind to myself today? Yes. It’s a choice. It’s a choice. Well, so what would you tell the women listening? So, you know, maybe there’s women out there listening to this that are saying, you know, I’ve failed too many times. I’ve tried too many things.
They’re nervous about this whole mindset thing. They might be nervous about this pink haired American yelling at them lovingly. Like, what would you say to them? What would you want them to know? I think fear is very powerful. We’ve probably learned narratives. of listening to anxiety, doubt, worry, fear. And because they’re negative, they feel more credible.
Um, they,
they’re not, they’re a form of control. And it’s the wrong form of control. I think practicing choice to, I remember my mantra, and it was, my hope is stronger than my fear. And each, my, my personal experience was that I had never got pregnant in all that time, except for that one IVF that ended in miscarriage.
So the evidence suggested that I would never get pregnant. You know, if I was basing it on the past and it took a huge amount of fearlessness, you know, fearlessly fertile to, to believe. Not to, to trust, not in, in the doubt and the fear of what had gone, but in what was possible and what was, what was in the future.
And what there was this dynamic between my, the knowing that I had, that I was going to be a mother. Like I really, I really felt that, that some, at some point in my life, adoption, surrogacy. natural, I didn’t know, but I knew that I was going to be a mother. And there was that certainty, which was counterbalanced by the uncertainty of when or how it would happen.
And that is, it’s so easy for the fear of to let that be a fear, you know, will it happen? But if you have that knowing, then it will happen. You just don’t have control over the outcome. And that’s the exciting bit. That’s the bit you taught us to kind of embrace. A type A lovably control freaky former attorney, you know, could embrace uncertainty.
Yeah. But with, but that’s the caveat with the certainty that you’re not giving up. And some people reach the point in their journey when, when they’re ready or willing to change tact or, you know, but even that it’s not giving up. It’s changing priority, changing focus, you know, that it’s so different the way you, you can reframe something.
So for us, potentially at the beginning of our journey, you know, moving to surrogacy would have felt like giving up. But by the time I, I ended up with those two embryos that didn’t take. It didn’t, it felt empowering. It felt like I was, I was, had an active role in what happened next. And I was not just a victim of the outside world.
And I wasn’t a passenger. I was, I was in, you call it, um, there was autopilot and then there was pilot and I, and I think by the end I was in pilot mode, but then when I came to you, I was very much autopilot. Right. Well, very much so. And, but you are also a testament to the commitment that you have to your family and what a glorious.
origin story your children are going to have. And, and think about what you’re going to be able to teach them and, and how you won’t be teaching them from platitudes, Kate. You’re going to be teaching them by modeling it because you lived it and you know, like that’s, isn’t that huge? It’s huge. And, you know, I mean, I’m just repeating back all your little phrases here.
They’ve clearly gone in, but another one of them being saying was. the no’s preparing you for the yeses. And there’s no doubt, and it’s not a cliche to say that the journey has been a blessing. It’s not just putting a positive spin on it. It really is saying, I am a different person now. I’m I’m going to be a different mother.
I’m going to hopefully be a better mother. And you know, I deal with all sorts of things. Life is throws challenges at you all the time and you know, it’s not about thinking positively. It’s thinking helpfully and you have an active choice every day on how you react or respond to what’s thrown at you and how you decide to view it and frame it in your head.
And I, the only thing I’d say is. I didn’t think I realized until I met you how negative I had become. I’m a positive person by nature and this journey tested that and it’s very easy to fall down a trap of limiting beliefs. Right, right. Powerful. Well, and, and you’re, I mean, I think the other thing that you’re really teaching us here, Kate, is that it isn’t just about being positive, you know, you know, like that sort of cotton candy, sort of positive.
Yeah. It’s. It’s being, making a decision about what you want, being very clear about what you’re going for, and saying, look, it doesn’t matter what comes my way. I am on this track. It’s, it’s actually about belief. I think it’s something far more substantial than being positive. It’s really about the way you think.
It’s, it’s thinking in a strategic. Success oriented way that that causes your actions to change and therefore your results to change because think about it like if we take this full circle and we look at who you became, you became a woman who was smart enough to have a bump squad. You had, you had your functional medicine people, you had your, your nutritionist, you had me, you had your regular physician, you know, your GP and specialists like.
You became a woman who was covering her bases and in order to facilitate her dream coming to pass. Like, do you, like the foundation of that is who you became and the way you think. Yeah, and I think you gave me permission to turn the volume up on that too. It wasn’t like the further you got into it, the smaller you had to become.
And the more sort of apologetic for keeping going when it was like, well, look, the evidence suggests this isn’t going to happen to you. So, you know, call it quits. It was, you know, every challenge I got sort of actually dug in more volume went up. Hell yes. Yeah. You’re starting to talk like a crazy American.
I love it. Yeah, exactly. And that was, I mean, that’s why you were the perfect coach for me because I needed someone. he was just completely on the other spectrum to me. You know, I, I was this kind of polite English rose
and you called my bullshit. Oh my gosh. And what an honor it was. to be with you. Like I just, I just, if I haven’t told you lately, Kate, I love you. And I love, and I just like, I love all of my ladies because it truly is an honor to stand shoulder to shoulder with a woman who’s on a path to making her dreams come true.
It truly is. I mean, you’re, you know, as a former attorney, you know that nobody leaves the law unless this shit is a calling. Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel, I feel incredibly privileged. To have met you and to have worked with you and I hope that I take some of the lessons you’ve taught me through to being a mother.
Oh my goodness, Kate, they’re clear. The hooks are in you, girl. The hooks are in you. And thank you so much for sharing your truth, sharing your story. And, uh, you’re going to be meeting this baby in a few weeks. And so, oh, you’ve got to make sure you send me a picture. So thank you so much, my darling. What, what a joy.
Thank you, it’s been a real honor to be on. Hey loves, wasn’t Kate the English Rose, wasn’t her story just absolutely inspiring? Think about what her story is proof of. She allowed herself to think, believe, and take action in an entirely different way. She went from absolute despair, thinking this was gonna never happen for her, to doubling the egg count that she had at her last collection.
Completely changing the way she looked at a miscarriage and ultimately getting pregnant naturally the very next month after years of trying. And this, this change came about in a matter of months. It’s so incredible what women on this journey can do when they finally get this mindset piece together, like despair to getting pregnant naturally.
And this is what’s possible for every woman that makes the decision she is going to be open and trust that the desire in her heart to be a mom is there because it was meant for her. What this proves is miracles are possible. You put your mind to something, you put your heart to something, doors are gonna open up for you.
And look, if you didn’t catch it the first time, think about what this woman was saying. Look at the proof that showed up in her life. She was way more fertile years later, okay, because so many of us try to beat ourselves up over age and time passing. When she got her mindset on board, she was more fertile years later than she was when she was years younger!
This is what’s possible when you really lean in to this desire in your heart to be a mom and you open your mind, you start thinking strategically, and you give the finger to the fucking fertility fear matrix, mama. Get out of that matrix that’s keeping you stuck and totally blocking you from your dreams.
And if you want to learn what I taught English Rose Kate, my Fearlessly Fertile Method program is for women who intend to get pregnant in the next 12 months and say, hell yes, to covering their bases. Mind and body like this amazing woman did. I work with women who are committed to success. To apply for your interview for this program, go to my website, www.FromMaybeToBaby.com and apply for an interview there. My methodology, as you’ve heard here, has helped women around the world make their mom dreams come true. Their results speak for themselves. Love, if you don’t have a mindset for success on this journey, you’ve got to fix that shit, baby. So you don’t look back on this time in your life with regret.
Time to be fearless, Mama. Till next time, change your mindset, change your results. Love this episode of the Fearlessly Fertile podcast? Subscribe now and leave an awesome review. Remember, the desire in your heart to be a mom is there because it was meant for you. When it comes to your dreams, keep saying hell yes.