12 Pods of Insta
As this year has been such an Instagram fest for me, making new friends and finding more fascinating stories to share, it seems an opportune time to finish the year with the 12 Pods of Insta. They aren’t done in order of preference, just showcasing my highlights.!!
When I found out we needed treatment, my best friend who had been through three rounds of IVF treatment before falling pregnant with twins, told me to avoid the online forums as they were depressing, so I did.
I never looked online, I just asked my pal about everything. I mean it was ideal, she was amazing and I was able to play the same role for two more of my close friends who sadly had to ensure treatment.
I was lucky I had my friend but if I didn’t I would have gone online more. Like many more people are doing today. There are a wealth of online communities where people #TTC support each other but the Instagram ones seems, for me, to be the one I spend most of time in.
What has been quite remarkable for me is to be able to speak to someone I’ve met on Instagram about their journey and then continue to watch it unfold as they continue to share it. In the past when I’ve met people on other social platforms, of course I’ve been able to keep in touch and even meet in person as I get more involved in various events within the fertility industry yet Instagram invites people to share even more it seems.
So first up, I want to introduce Sheema,
Who is @one_in_seven who is an incredible lady, with extremely stylish eyewear and all round fabulous style. Sheema caught my attention on insta after she’d shared a post about pregnancy loss and also how she was working through how it felt to use an egg donor. Sheema shares her story below, and I’m delighted to say that the treatment she talked about in this episode was successful and Sheema and her partner have just welcomed little Fari into the world. Sheema had such a tricky pregnancy and was so open and honest about her fears, and I know she will have had such an impact on those who follow her and probably encourage others to share more. Thank you Sheema xx
The 11th Pod of Insta is Christine
aka @InfertilityIllustrated who spoke to me in February this year ( 2018) she’d been celebrating, as she had just passed the 1k followers mark. As I type this she is past 8k, which shows how amazing her work is and how it’s getting more and more recognised within the Insta community. Christine has the amazing knack of drawing what we are thinking, all to often I’ve seen one of her posts and thought, YES, I’ve been there! I know you feel the same.
The 10th Pod of Insta
whilst we’re talking about putting the humour into infertility, then Karen @hilariouslyinfertile has aced this as so well. A school teacher by day Karen’s posts are spit your drink out funny, or is that just me? We chatted in June this year, ahead of Karen’s book release which was in August. Karen had approached publishers only to be told there was no market for what she was proposing. Her 40k Insta following says otherwise and she has since self published.
On the 9th Pod of Insta…
it can only be… RELAXGATE where three Insta lovelies spoke on national TV about their infertility experience to be told to ‘Relax’ by a TV GP. I think this conversation was a real turning point for how we speak out about infertility on social media and within the press as the hashtag #relaxgate quickly became a thing by the end of that very day. A switch was quite rightly flicked within the TTC community, it was like the straw that broke the camels back.. can I fit any more analogies in.
If you’re not already following Cat Strawbridge, Keely Dwight and Kate Meaks then a quick visit to any of these ladies profiles will show they are very involved within the #TTC community, Cat holds regular Insta lives, and this year has had successful IVF treatment and is expecting her first child. Keely has been putting on stunning looking events, selling wonderful natural makeup products as well as sharing her journey through treatment and Kate has been speaking out about secondary infertility which I spoke with her separately about, as well as being incredibly brave and has recently shared the devastating news that her husband Phil has had to have brain surgery. I also got a male perspective on this whole debacle from Tonky Dad – the other half to Julie aka Tonky Mum on Insta who and has been sharing her journey. The pair are and is at the time writing this post within their 2WW. We have everything crossed xx
I am blown away by this community and the women within it. Every single person is doing something to help someone else, you maybe. I think Instagram has become this reassuring friend for many of us, a lifeline that we didn’t know we needed but all have welcomed.
Being able to follow each other and learn and support – this connection is priceless.
The 8th Pod of Insta
is more of conversation with Kate Meaks who I mentioned in the last post. I wanted to talk more with Kate about her feelings about belonging and her journey and after reading one of her blog posts I ‘Where do I belong’ Having had fertility treatment and suffered several miscarriages Kate talked about feeling guilty when she shared pictures of her son Austin on Instagram and having started sharing her life as a ‘mummy blogger’ she now has found herself still finding solace within the #TTC community yet is unsure of which part of it she belongs to. As I mentioned above, Kate and her husband Phil have been working through finding out Phil had a brain tumour and has since undergone surgery. Kate shared their decision to freeze his sperm, ahead of any radiotherapy and is continuing to share Phil’s recovery within the community.
On the 7th Pod of Insta,
It has to be the one and only Alice Rose, who has taken the TTC community by storm, with her dedication to Insta stories, her ‘Think What Not to Say’ #TWNTS campaign educating people on what to say when talking about infertility, her public speaking, her TTC Liferaft podcast and her latest Christmas single! Alice has a little girl after several years of failed fertility treatment and is working on a book, as well as putting on mindfulness and wellbeing events and Alice also has some really exciting plans for 2019.
The 6th Pod of Insta is Jules Furness,
Who I met on here after seeing her sharing a negative story about being trolled for sharing her IVF failure on her YouTube channel. I guess I was naive about this, as I’ve not had any negativity about my work and I assumed we were in quite a safe space unless we were writing in certain tabloid newspapers, so I was keen to hear Jule’s experience. She works hard to educate people about her journey, having adopted her first son and has had to use a donor for her ongoing treatment. All the content Jules shares along with any profits she makes from her channel and her IVF milestone cards is donated to Fertility Network and IVF Babble Giving.
On the 5th Pod of Insta
Is Katy Lindemann talking about her book which she is writing, to document people’s experiences whilst going through infertility. We spoke about Katy’s own experiences of online forums, most significantly Mumsnet, all of which has lead her to create the Uber Barrens Club. This is a community for couples whose journeys can be longer, more challenging, and more unsuccessful than others. Katy talks about her community as being not just infertile but really, really infertile. ‘We’re barren.’ Katy has been pretty outspoken about her experiences, speaking and writing in the national press and gives a refreshingly honest perspective on difficult topics.
It’s PCOS for the 4th Pod of Insta
I’d been following Kym Campbell for some time and learning more and more about the PCOS community which affects so many of us and in such a variety of ways, that it was fascinating to find out Kym’s story and how much she has done to help more and more of us get our heads around the lifestyle changes we can make to help deal with PCOS. I also find it amazing that the medical professionals are so behind this movement, but hopefully we are seeing a changeKym’s fertility treatment involved six rounds of clomid, an ovulation induction cycle and she had to deal with several miscarriages and she explained how after such a long difficult time she decided to stop and look at a different route to parenthood. Kym went on a very specific mission to work on herself from the inside out and as she described it as a ” very slow journey to take it out of your diet”
On the 3rd Pod of Insta
it has to be the brilliant book worm Amber aka The Preggars Kitchen who had to start giving away her epic book collection on Insta after her husband insisted she had way to many and that is how we met as I invited Amber to come and chat with me about the books she had already been writing reviews for on her blogs. Amber is a keen cook and shares recipes she has found have really helped her manage her PCOS. After three years of infertility, Amber managed to self diagnosed her condition, as she was told by medical professionals she wasn’t fat or hairy enough to have PCOS. Helpful!. I’m delighted to say that after all their struggles, Amber and her husband had successful fertility treatment and in 2018 became parents for the first time. Amber shares the steps she took to improve her Gut as well as her day to day life whilst trying to conceive and we have spoken a few times, so do have a listen if you want to know more about useful books as they’re not all just fertility related, they’re lifestyle improving books!
On the 2nd Pod of Insta
I’m resharing a resent episode here as my 2nd Pod of Insta, my chat with Zara Dawson @littlezee123 as an example of the immense power of this community. Zara had been speaking out about her infertility and on her @littlenorfolkcottages feed where I was tagged. I wondered whether I’d won a stay in a gorgeous pad when I first saw it, as Zara squares are filled with her impeccable taste in interior design. However, she had shared the news of her pregnancy and how she and her husband had reached the agonising decision of having to terminate the pregnancy due to their baby having an extremely rare and fatal condition. I couldn’t believe the stress the pair had to go through during all of this and to be able to help a tiny bit, by sharing it will hopefully help you.
On the 1st Pod of insta
I’m sharing a chat I had about fertility education as this is going to be a big focus on my plans for this podcast, this year. If I knew then what I knew now is a cliche yet it’s so frustrating how little I knew about my fertility. The more I speak to you, the more I realise how we’re all now in this place of lifelong learning about our fertile health When I first read about Afton Vechery and Carly Leahy in an article in Linked In I was instantly impressed with their mission for Modern Fertility to get us testing our fertility at home, early. To get us talking about fertility health, early as commonplace as talking about our dress size. Imagine that.
Being in this TTC space means we know more about our egg reserve or lack of … NOW and we get the important of undetstanding our fertility health but the harsh reality is most women don’t.
