To describe the arrival of Laura Bloomberg’s first child 19 years ago as bittersweet is something of an understatement. The day before the birth, she had been at her father’s funeral “and I literally went straight from the shiva house to the hospital.

To hold the baby was incredible, but I had very mixed emotions.” The baby was named in memory of her dad, but she has another namesake as well. “Our daughter’s Hebrew name is after our Muslim gynaecologist. We took the first letter of his name and put it at the start of her name since if it hadn’t been for him…”

The journey to becoming a mother had not been an easy one, which is why she now supports other women as a fertility coach. “I wanted to give something back that I never got, but which I would have benefited from hugely,” she says.

Her story is one that many women will find familiar. Both of her ovaries sit on the right-hand side as a result of childhood surgery, and when she was older, she was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome).

Nevertheless, she still wasn’t prepared for the news that IVF was her only option. “The doctor said to me: ‘If you were my daughter, my advice would be to not even waste your time on anything else because natural pregnancy is highly unlikely.’ It was quite a shock.”

She describes the process of IVF as “an incredibly lonely, isolating journey”, partly due to “the horrific treatment”, but also because of the mental space it takes up.

laura bloomberg

Laura Bloomberg

She says the infamous two-week wait between embryo transfer and a pregnancy test are “the worst two weeks of your life”, adding: “You are looking for all sorts of little signs. You’re scared to go to the toilet in case you bleed. You ask yourself: ‘What’s this pain I’m feeling?’ ‘Why do I have sore breasts?’ It’s a whole mind game.”

She and her husband were thrilled when the first round of IVF worked. But this was shortly followed by devastation when, at the 12-week scan, they were told there wasn’t a heartbeat. “Miscarrying for anybody is awful, but to miscarry after having IVF was horrendous. We were back to square one — it wasn’t like I could just jump back into bed again next month!”

After a couple more unsuccessful IVF attempts, she spotted a friend’s birth announcement in the JC and got in touch. “I knew she had struggled to get pregnant and had needed assistance. She told me where she had gone for IVF and how amazing this person was.”

After just one round of IVF with the new gynaecologist, Laura’s daughter was conceived.
A year later, she and her husband tried for a second baby, again using IVF, but after several
unsuccessful attempts, they took the decision to stop.

“IVF puts a lot of emotional and physical strain on the body. We thought: ‘We’re blessed. We’ve got the one. Let’s just be happy.’”

But the former primary teacher said that several months on, she “had a hunch” that if they tried IVF again, it would be successful.

“I said to my husband: ‘I’ve got really strong vibes’, but I almost had to sign a contract to say: ‘I promise if it doesn’t work this time, this is it’ since he was so concerned about the physical impact it was having on me.”

A huge difference between this experience of IVF and the previous ones was her mindset. “I was much less stressed about it. In fact, I was excited. I felt really positive and was doing lots of visualisations and affirmations.”

The IVF was successful and led to the birth of her son, now 14. “Thank goodness I followed my instinct. I don’t believe that it was mind over matter, but I do think it was partly because my mind was in a positive place and I generally felt more relaxed.”

It is this optimism and calm mindset that Bloomberg now wants other women to experience while they are going through their own fertility journey.

Having previously trained as a support counsellor with a fertility charity, when Covid hit she decided to go a step further and become a fertility coach.

“I wanted to give something back that I never got, but which I would have benefited from hugely.”

During lockdown, Bloomberg, who lives in Bushey, immersed herself in training, qualifying as an NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) mindset coach, a hypnofertility therapist and an EFT (emotional freedom technique) practitioner. “EFT calms the amygdala, the stress centre of the brain, right down and lowers the stress hormones.”

She is also a certified specialist in the Freedom Fertility Formula Programme, a type of coaching, as well as being a hypnobirthing practitioner.

What makes her approach unusual, or possibly even unique, is the “powerful blend” of the various techniques it includes.

“It gives you tools and strategies not to squash down your emotions, but actually to be able to use them in a positive way. I can’t guarantee you will become pregnant — no one can — but I can guarantee that you will feel more empowered and emotionally in control. This will not only improve your chances of falling pregnant, but will also help with life in general.”

During a bespoke eight-week programme, she explores possible stress-triggers in the client’s life such as work, relationships and health.

She also examines what she calls “limiting beliefs”, explaining: “Maybe the client’s mind is telling them that they’re not fit enough to be pregnant or that their body isn’t healthy enough, but these negative thoughts are actually impacting the fertile environment.”

She is clear that if someone has medical issues, these need addressing first and foremost by a medical practitioner.

However, she adds: “It is important that the relationship between the mind-body connection is not ignored. If you are living in a state of anxiety, the body will release stress hormones, such as cortisol, which will affect fertility success.”

Infertility problems can in themselves be a huge source of anxiety, which for Jewish people is often exacerbated by being part of a community where having children is an expected rite of passage.

“There’s a lot of pressure. Judaism is very much about passing on the tradition through the family.”

It can be particularly difficult when it seems that everyone you know — in real life or on social media — is revealing a new bump, and despite increasing openness surrounding infertility, it still remains something of a taboo.

“The worst thing is when it is the elephant in the room. They know you know, you know they know, but no one wants to talk about it.”

The distress of not being able to conceive naturally, an inability to share these feelings with one’s nearest and dearest, plus gruelling fertility treatment can lead many “into that downward cycle of despair”. Bloomberg’s mission is to enable women who are struggling with fertility “to regain enjoyment and love of life again”.

A couple of days after the interview, she sends me an email titled: “Best News!”, announcing that someone who recently completed her programme has fallen pregnant.

It sounds as though she is as excited as her client is. If truth be told, having experienced first-hand the heartache of infertility, she probably is.

For more information, visit
fertilityavenue.co.uk