About me

So, who am I?

I’m Carly, hi!

I’m 41 years old and have been married since 2017 to a very wonderful curly-haired man from Yorkshire. I work happily in an admin and communications role at a university in Manchester.

I’d say I’m a pretty regular woman. Or at least, I’m regular in most ways, apart from my fertility life

Unfortunately, I’m in that rare group of women who’ve had 4 consecutive miscarriages. I’m also half of a couple dealing with male factor infertility, and we’re about to go through the IVF ICSI process.

Why am I writing this blog?

When I had my first miscarriage, I became obsessed with getting pregnant again. It was all I could think about, the only way I believed I could move forward. I truly thought that if only I could get pregnant again straight away, I could pretend that the miscarriage never happened, that it was just a blip. That isn’t what happened.

My second miscarriage, a ‘persistent pregnancy of unknown location’ – and suspected ectopic – brought with it significantly more worry than the first. I was in constant fear, my nerves on high alert for signs that my fallopian tubes were starting to rupture. I spent a lot of time reading posts about the biology of ectopic pregnancies on forums, as well as trawling through countless research papers trying to make sense of what was happening. It was all very scientific and I read little about the emotional side of the experience.

When that interminable second miscarriage finally ended and I began to deal with the grief, I found that what I desperately needed was to read about other women going through miscarriage. And while the forums had provided me with some much-needed support initially, I now needed more than just a series of questions and answers, which were very often left open-ended and without a conclusion.

I craved stories from other women explaining what they had been through, how they felt, what they learnt, and how they planned to carry on.

It was during this time that I began to read other women’s blogs about miscarriage.

The first time I read one, I was in floods of tears, for the writer, for me, for everyone who has to deal with this pain. And I often still shed tears, even after many months of reading them, and after suffering my third and fourth miscarriages. But as painful as they can be to read, I also find these blogs to be immensely valuable.

What I’ve found is that women can provide the most beautiful support network for other women. We often see ourselves portrayed as disloyal, self-serving, jealous and judgemental, but my overwhelming experience has been one of support, comfort and love. The fertility community is overwhelmingly a beautiful place to be.

And so I reached a point where I wanted to add my own voice to the many others, for three main reasons:

1. As a way to help me figure out how I feel about my four miscarriages and why I feel that way
2. As a way to share my ‘fertility journey’ as I move on through male factor infertility to IVF
3. In some small way to help grow this online support network that I have relied on so heavily and gained so much from.