For Years I Struggled With Infertility And Loss. Then I Had A Life-changing Call With A Psychic

On 29 December 2022, I received a text. ‘Hi mum I’m texting you disconnected a friends telephone I’ve smashed excavation and their phones astir to die, tin you WhatsApp my caller number x’ I was successful a rental car erstwhile I sewage it, my partner astatine nan instrumentality adjacent to maine arsenic we drove down an anonymous agelong of motorway. Both nan entity and nan roadworthy were grey. It was that indeterminate abstraction betwixt Christmas and New Year erstwhile nan days go sludgy and diffuse; a clip erstwhile teenagers meet up pinch their friends to spell shopping aliases stitchery successful each other’s homes and station Snapchats aliases speech festive rumors while pretending not to vape. It was nan clip of waiting – for nan adjacent point to happen, for nan promised excitement of New Year’s Eve and snogging underneath leftover mistletoe. So it wasn’t a peculiarly different matter to receive, particularly not fixed nan trademark teen deficiency of grammar and punctuation.

There was conscionable 1 thing.

I wasn’t a mother.

Not yet.

Because I was besides waiting, suspended successful silvery threads of an ambiguous hope. Three days previously, my husband, Justin, and I had flown to Los Angeles for our latest information of fertility treatment. This time, we had opted to effort for gestation utilizing an ovum donor. We’d had nan embryo transferred nan greeting aft our level landed.

‘In nan grip of existential uncertainty, I had begun exploring a different benignant of logic. I had started looking for signs’

I’d had a wholly sober festive play until that point, sipping non-alcoholic vino to travel nan Christmas roast. My cocktails had been a cautiously calibrated operation of oestrogen and progesterone alternatively than nan benignant I mostly preferred, which were served successful ice-cold martini glasses pinch other brine.

Justin and I hadn’t chosen for this to beryllium our Christmas, but erstwhile you spell done fertility treatment, you realise that timing arsenic it exists for different group is beyond your control. You are astatine nan mercy of hormonal fluctuations, nan thickness (or otherwise) of your uterine lining and nan inconsistent vagaries of menstrual cycles.

And so, successful nan grip of existential uncertainty, I had begun exploring a different benignant of logic – 1 that existed extracurricular nan parameters of rationality. I had started looking for signs. Call it superstition, spirituality aliases plain aged stupidity, but I saluted pairs of magpies and took attraction not to locomotion nether ladders. I went to a shaman successful southbound London who performed rituals pinch feathers and pieces of rock. I wrote a missive to my early child. I tried to meditate and manifest and deliberation affirmative and talk successful a patient measurement to my ain body. I saw meaning successful everything – a dream, a floating feather, a robin redbreast who turned up successful nan plot 1 unseasonably lukewarm time successful July. All of this, I told myself, was sent to show maine something. The beingness was signalling that I was destined to person a child.

At immoderate level, I realised this was unhinged. I understood that, successful nan oversea of my ain sadness, I had latched connected to immoderate passing portion of driftwood to support afloat. In a precarious world, certainty – conscionable for illustration dream – is an addictive placebo.

On I clung. I told myself that receiving that matter calling maine “mum” was nan surest motion yet that I was connected nan correct path. I recalled listening to a podcast that claimed successful manifestation relied connected acting arsenic though you already possessed what you astir desired. This was a test, I realised. I had to show that I was tin of maternal love.

So I replied pinch other attraction and kindness to that chartless texter utilizing their friend’s WhatsApp number. I said they’d sewage nan incorrect personification but I hoped everything would beryllium sorted out.

As I returned my telephone to my pocket, I thought backmost to nan preceding years of unsuccessful fertility curen and recurrent miscarriage. I thought of nan slow-motion condolences they had caused me; nan belief that I would ne'er beryllium fulfilled unless I had a baby. I thought of nan difficult determination Justin and I had taken to prosecute ovum donation. I thought of nan embryo now nesting wrong me. And I thought: it was each meant to be. It led america here.

This would move retired to beryllium true, but not successful nan measurement I had anticipated. Because it would beryllium a psychic, alternatively than a baby, who would alteration my life for ever.

I’d spent nan erstwhile 12 years failing to person babies. During my first marriage, I’d had 2 unsuccessful rounds of IVF followed by a “natural” pregnancy, which I mislaid astatine 3 months. I was successful infirmary for that miscarriage and tin still callback seeing nan blotted, bloodied remains of my much-longed-for kid successful a kidney-shaped cardboard tray nan nurses had fixed me.

Some months later, that matrimony ended successful nan throes of a peculiar sadness: simultaneous condolences for what was, for what mightiness person been, and for what had ne'er existed. I thought I was dealing pinch it but, successful truth, I was numb. There seemed to beryllium nary measurement of communicating nan magnitude of nan loss. Not backmost then, anyway, erstwhile miscarriage and infertility were still hardly talked about. A loved 1 advised maine to dainty it for illustration a dense period. Another questioned why I’d told anyone I was pregnant earlier nan three-month mark, arsenic if not speaking astir it would person made it little real.

And so, for illustration galore women who acquisition misplaced shame, I readily group astir internalising nan nonaccomplishment arsenic my own. The doctors told maine my infertility was “unexplained” – a test truthful blank that I could rather easy shadiness it pinch my ain self-loathing. It was, I determined, each my fault.

In my precocious 30s, I did a rhythm of ovum freezing astatine a different clinic. Once again, I was told my results were disappointing: 2 eggs, wherever astir women my property could person expected astir 15. By nan clip I met Justin, I was 39 and he was 43, pinch 3 children from a erstwhile relationship. I decided I would effort to beryllium happy without a babe of my own. But past we sewage pregnant people conscionable aft my 41st birthday. That ended successful miscarriage astatine 7 weeks. We were some truthful devastated we realised we wanted to effort again. We travelled to Athens, to a caller session and a caller group of protocols, and I had an cognition to region a uterine septum. Within a month, I was pregnant again. At 7 weeks, we had a scan and saw and heard a heartbeat. At 8 weeks, nan heartbeat had gone. By now, nan UK was successful nan grip of its first nationalist Covid lockdown. I took pills to trigger a miscarriage astatine home. The symptom was horrendous. Of my 3 miscarriages, this was nan worst to get through.

‘The expert made it look straightforward. All we had to do was find a suitable donor, for which he recommended hiring a “fertility consultant”’

I took a fewer months disconnected nan ceaseless trying successful bid to consciousness my measurement backmost into my ain body, to reconnect pinch who I was erstwhile I wasn’t riding a activity of gestation hormones, aliases having my insides prodded and scanned and examined by unfamiliar hands. When Covid restrictions started to lift, I was allowed to book a sports massage astatine location via an app. The masseur was Polish and erstwhile he began moving connected nan left-hand broadside of my little stomach, I gasped. He had pressed nan nonstop constituent wherever I felt nan aching, yawning tenderness of gestation loss. It was a very circumstantial sensation, starting successful nan womb, past spreading done my synapses. I thought I mightiness faint.

“You person a batch of sadness here,” nan masseur said.

“Yes,” I replied, eyes closed, trying not to cry.

Lockdowns lifted, vaccinations rolled out, and fertility clinics resumed their normal business. We had been recommended a spot successful LA by friends. This clinic, we were told, was astatine nan forefront of fertility medicine (“Because tons of Hollywood stars get to their precocious 40s and nan acting parts barren up and past they determine they want a child,” said 1 of my much cynical acquaintances).

The clinic’s website looked awesome and claimed to connection respective cutting-edge procedures that weren’t disposable anyplace else. In October 2021, Justin and I joined a Zoom telephone pinch 1 of nan starring consultants, who apparently had a legion of personage children to his name. He was robotic successful manner, listing each nan ways successful which he could guarantee higher than mean occurrence rates. He advised ovum donation.

The expert made it look straightforward. All we had to do was find a suitable donor, for which he recommended hiring a “fertility consultant”. This personification would measure applicable aesculapian histories and beingness traits successful imaginable donors to guarantee their compatibility. In nan UK, it is forbidden to salary personification for their eggs but donors tin person up to £985 expenses per cycle. Donor-conceived children past person nan correct to entree identifying accusation astir their philanthropist erstwhile they move 18. But successful nan US, nan laws are different – donors are paid a interest (typically, $5,000 to $10,000, but sometimes tens of thousands of dollars), and you tin entree hundreds of websites containing extended profiles and photographs. It was surreal and a small dystopian scrolling done pages upon pages of beautiful women whom you could select according to height, education, hairsbreadth and oculus colour. The women answered questions astir their favourite books (The Alchemist and Harry Potter were celebrated choices and, for maine I’m afraid, automatic origin for disqualification). They besides listed their preferred foods and hobbies. It felt for illustration a unusual benignant of velocity dating.

It took america complete a twelvemonth to find our donor. We sewage adjacent a fewer times, but past we’d uncover immoderate incompatible aesculapian rumor aliases they would alteration their minds and propulsion out. We besides sewage defrauded by nan advisor we’d hired, and nan session was shockingly mediocre successful its communication. The full point costs an inordinate magnitude of clip and money, and I’m alert of my privilege successful being capable – conscionable astir – to spend it. Still, it was 1 of nan astir stressful periods of my life.

Eventually, we recovered an astonishing young female (favourite book: Plato’s Republic) who wanted to thief us. We stay truthful incredibly grateful to her.

The donor’s ovum retrieval was scheduled successful LA. On nan different broadside of nan Atlantic, my rhythm was synced pinch hers. The eggs were past fertilised pinch my husband’s sperm, resulting successful 4 embryos, 2 of which were deemed to person a bully compartment number, minimal fragmentation and optimal symmetry. The embryos were awarded an AA grade, arsenic if they were premium hotels. Apparently, these 2 had nan highest chances of implantation successful my womb (and were presumably offered precocious checkout and in-room spa treatments).

Justin and I flew retired to LA connected Boxing Day 2022. The upwind was unspeakable – 1 of those freak patches of torrential rainfall that sometimes beset nan metropolis – and our windscreen wipers squeaked and slid crossed nan solid arsenic we drove to nan clinic. I changed into a surgical gown and laic connected a gurney earlier being wheeled into theatre to person nan embryo transferred via catheter to my womb. Before I was sedated, our expert beamed a image of our chosen embryo connected to a TV surface hung precocious up connected nan wall.

“An perfectly beautiful embryo,” he said.

I squeezed Justin’s manus much tightly.

This time, I thought, I had done everything right. I had taken each nan narcotics and undergone each nan basal surgical interventions and been monitored intimately by nan champion aesculapian professionals. I had gone to acupuncture and yoga and followed nutritional proposal and eaten shedloads of macromolecule and taken nan correct supplements. I had done each nan belief activity I perchance could. I had followed everyone’s advice. All nan signs were there. This time, I tried to person myself, it was going to beryllium OK.

In nan 10-day waiting play that followed, Justin had to return to London for activity and I stayed successful LA, pinch a quietly blooming emotion of cautious optimism. I had each nan gestation symptoms – mid-afternoon exhaustion, nausea, sore boobs, vivid dreams. I went for a locomotion on Venice Beach 1 day and wrote nan sanction we’d picked retired for our kid successful nan sand.

On nan allotted morning, I went into nan session for a blood trial and was told I’d beryllium phoned that day pinch nan results. Instead, they sent maine an email. They had analysed my bloods. I wasn’t pregnant. “Cease each medicine immediately,” nan email read. Those symptoms I’d been experiencing? They were simply a result of nan hormones I’d been taking. And each those signs I’d believed had been sent from nan universe? They hadn’t meant a point either.

Justin cancelled everything and flew backmost to LA truthful we could beryllium together – an enactment of love, if ever location was one. But I felt unmoored and exhausted and horribly sad. I retrieve FaceTiming pinch my champion friend, Emma, soon aft we’d sewage nan news.

“What’s incorrect pinch your eyes?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Why?”

“They look a spot … funny.”

I glanced astatine myself reflected successful nan surface and could spot consecutive distant what she meant. My eyes were glittery and disconnected, arsenic if I were viewing nan world from nan seabed of a heavy ocean. I didn’t recognise my ain features. I didn’t recognise myself.

Back successful London, I wasn’t judge what to do next. We still had 1 embryo left. The session advised america to effort again consecutive away, perchance pinch a surrogate, but I conscionable couldn’t look it. Well-meaning strangers would mention adoption, without realising that nan take process is itself acold from straightforward and could return years. I was already 44 and felt mislaid and letdown. I was angry pinch our doctor, angry astatine nan callousness of nan clinic’s email, angry astatine nan full fertility industry, and angry pinch anyone who had ever had an uncomplicated gestation that ended pinch a patient kid being born. But, astir of all, I was angry astatine nan illusory stories I’d believed – each those beautiful lies I’d told myself.

I went for meal pinch a friend. She had precocious divided from a semipermanent partner and, successful passing, mentioned a psychic who had fixed her a freakishly meticulous telephone reference successful which a early romance was outlined successful detail.

And moreover though I thought I was done pinch that woo‑woo stuff, I conscionable couldn’t thief myself.

“Could I speak to her?” I asked.

My friend gave maine nan psychic’s number and a fewer cardinal pieces of advice: matter to put nan appointment; don’t springiness your afloat sanction (no anticipation of her Googling); and erstwhile she calls, don’t inquire her immoderate questions (too leading).

I followed her proposal to nan letter. The psychic, whom I will telephone Alexia, called maine astatine 7pm connected a Wednesday evening. Her sound was warm, her accent American.

“Is Elizabeth your existent name?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“OK, let’s spot what’s present for you.” A pause. “Well,” she chuckled. “You emotion words.”

I did! I loved words truthful much! At nan astir challenging points of my fertility journey, I often counted myself incredibly fortunate to person a penning profession I was passionate about. I had written 8 books erstwhile I said to Alexia and my ninth was astir to beryllium published. She went connected to opportunity respective different things that were spot-on, including identifying that my partner’s sanction began pinch a J and describing what he did for a living. Alexia asked if my mother had knowledgeable cervix symptom precocious (I later checked: she’d conscionable booked a convention pinch an osteopath aft putting her cervix out).

“OK, truthful you constitute books but do you besides do thing else?” Alexia continued. “I’m getting … it’s almost like, I don’t cognize … you’re a life coach helping group done their failures aliases mistakes?”

Since 2018, I’ve had a podcast called How to Fail, wherever I question and reply guests astir 3 times they’ve grounded successful their lives and what they mightiness person learned on nan way. Not rather life coaching, but not a cardinal miles distant either. To reiterate: Alexia didn’t cognize my afloat sanction truthful wouldn’t person been capable to look maine up online. Might she person recognised my sound from nan podcast? I felt it was improbable fixed that she was American, and astir of my listeners are UK-based. Also, if she had really been capable to investigation me, wouldn’t she person been much nonstop and simply stated outright that I was a podcaster? Similarly, though she could show instantly I was a writer, it took her astir half an hr to place correctly whether I wrote books aliases movie scripts – again, pinch nary guidance from me. Not erstwhile did she mention journalism, moreover though that is 1 of nan first things that comes up if you do Google me. All of this gave maine assurance successful her, moreover successful my recently sceptical state.

Then, aft astir 40 minutes, Alexia said: “I consciousness arsenic if you’re grappling pinch letting spell of a lifelong desire. You don’t cognize whether to fto it spell aliases not.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, connected nan different extremity of nan telephone line. “That makes sense.”

“I don’t cognize whether it’s to do pinch children but, if it is, I want to show you – and I don’t ever talk astir past lives, but pinch you I get a very beardown consciousness that you were a mother successful a past life. You were nan mother of six and it almost melted you.”

It was specified a striking building that I noted it down afterwards. “Melted” was nan precise connection she used.

“And I consciousness this life has been offered to you to unrecorded connected your ain terms,” Alexia continued. “Which might be why, if you’ve tried to person babies earlier now, you could person knowledgeable fertility issues aliases miscarriage.”

I was dumbstruck. The number six was peculiarly important. I’d had 3 miscarriages and undergone 3 unsuccessful rounds of fertility curen and each rhythm had ended aft an embryo transfer. Essentially, I’d had six grounded pregnancies.

“Be observant what you wish for,” Alexia carried on. “Sometimes, erstwhile we push really, really difficult for thing we deliberation we want, and location look to be lots of obstacles successful our way, it’s because we’re being protected.”

She told maine a communicative of her own, astir a comparative whose child had been successful a car mishap and who was now successful a persistent vegetative state. It had been a living tragedy, Alexia said, and so, really, location was nary guarantee that having a kid led to nan happiness we yearn for.

‘I started asking myself: what if my intent successful this life was not to beryllium a mother?’

“I dream you don’t mind maine sharing that,” Alexia said.

“No, no, of people not.”

In truth, I was grateful. So often during nan preceding 12 years, I’d told myself a 100 different fairytales of really completed I’d consciousness by motherhood. But successful a world wherever nan astir affirmative type of events exists, location besides has to beryllium nan anticipation of nan astir negative, too: a child who is sick aliases unhappy aliases who doesn’t emotion you back. Alexia gave maine support to ideate that. She gave maine support to extremity trying truthful difficult without it emotion for illustration weakness. When she gave maine that permission, I didn’t consciousness sadness; I felt relief. Because sometimes quitting, not persisting, is nan bravest point you tin do.

And nan point was, I had ever had a deep-rooted, concealed emotion that I knew what it was to beryllium a mother. I felt I had held babies successful my arms and taken a toddler’s pudgy manus successful mine, and smelled that milky, biscuity scent from nan backmost of a sleeping child’s neck. It was arsenic if my psyche remembered. So, no, possibly I wouldn’t beryllium a mother successful this lifetime. But possibly I had been successful nan past. Maybe I would beryllium successful another.

I’m judge location will beryllium group reference this who don’t judge Alexia was accessing immoderate corporate belief power to present maine nan connection I astir needed to hear. They will reason that she kept her observations vague capable that I could construe immoderate I wanted from them. And that’s wholly fine. I’m not trying to person anyone. If you didn’t person nan acquisition I did, you can’t cognize really utterly existent it felt to me.

After speaking to her, I started to wonderment whether each those signs from nan beingness (or immoderate you want to telephone it) were successful truth guiding maine and protecting me. It’s simply that nan destination wasn’t nan 1 I’d pictured, truthful I was interpreting them wrongly. And location was portion of maine – nan bruised, protect portion – that thought, well, moreover if nary of this is true, isn’t it easier for maine to judge it is?

I started asking myself: what if my intent successful this life was not to beryllium a mother? What if, instead, it was to speak for others who spell done akin symptom and to reassure them that location is dream connected nan different broadside of it? What if I chose to attraction connected nan abundance of love I already had successful my life, alternatively than nan absence of another kind? We cannot, each of us, person everything.

The adjacent day, I walked past a female pushing her child in a buggy successful nan street. I smiled astatine her. All nan bitterness and angst I had felt for truthful agelong had evaporated. It was magical; almost miraculous. At first, I didn’t deliberation nan sensation would last. Yet now, almost 3 years later, I still consciousness that aforesaid lifted peace. Of course, I besides still consciousness grief, but it’s not constant. Sometimes, nan sadness will rear up successful unexpected moments and I’ve learned to fto it, because I cognize it will pass. I’ve learned, too, that conscionable because we consciousness sad for nan life we didn’t live, doesn’t mean we made nan incorrect choices successful this one.

Although I haven’t felt nan request to interaction Alexia again, I’ve booked a number of sessions for loved ones going done challenges. Each time, they study backmost to maine and are astonished by her accuracy and nan comfortableness she is capable to springiness them. Each time, she says thing different. A friend who didn’t judge successful psychics, who gave a clone sanction for himself and his family members, has been fundamentally changed by what Alexia was capable to show him astir a sick relative, his profession and his relationship.

A fewer months aft my ain acquisition pinch Alexia, I started penning a caller novel. The crippled and nan characters came to maine successful a blissful rush. I wrote arsenic if the brakes had been taken off, arsenic if I were nary longer pushing a metaphorical boulder up an unforgiving hill. I wrote, successful short, arsenic if being myself was enough. It was nan astir nosy and creatively fulfilling acquisition I’ve ever had penning a book. It will beryllium published a fewer days aft nan babe whose sanction I wrote successful nan soil would person turned two.

And that matter I received from nan kid pinch nan surgery phone? I Googled it recently. It’s an net scam. I suppose it could person been a motion from nan beingness to extremity believing mendacious promises. But possibly it wasn’t a motion astatine all. Maybe our task successful this world is to build our ain meanings – for illustration fires lit from nan kindling of galore lives.