Pride Month: Taking Pride in My Fertility Journey

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be writing about my own coming out journey, and my own fertility journey, and how the two are linked, I would have thought you had lost your mind.

Let me explain.

A traditional childhood

I am the eldest of five children (the eldest and the best, I always like to say). So growing up, I was surrounded by kids. I cuddled and played, held them, babysat them when they were older, snuggled them when they were tired and fed them mushy food when they were hungry. I grew up with kids, so it was no surprise at all that I wanted them myself one day.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I lived a fairly typical life for someone with my background. A mum and dad, large family, not rich but not poor, and went to a standard state school (in the UK, this is a non fee paying school, rather than private school which has fees). 

My extended family was Italian, and so we were raised very much in the traditions of an Italian Catholic family. Church at the weekends (sometimes going to an extra service, or mass, in the week), and my brothers dabbled with being altar boys while I did the occasional church reading.

Given our family background it made sense for us all to attend Catholic school. It was traditional, there were nuns on the teaching staff (teaching Christianity of course), and when it came to Sex Education things were kept simple and the message was clear. You go to school, study hard, meet a man, do not have sex before marriage, get married, have children and keep the faith alive.

There was no mention of alternative religions, let alone alternative lifestyles. And legally, there couldn’t be. Section 28 was a law that stopped schools and councils from talking positively about being gay. It made a lot of LGBTQ+ people feel invisible or ashamed while growing up. In my case, it meant that it didn’t even occur to me that (a) there are millions of us in the queer community (b) I might be one of those fabulous folk who are part of the queer community and (c) that the queer community can actually have children.

Married life and family planning

So I did what many “good girl students” do; I studied, got good qualifications, and went to university. I joined the karate club and got my second dan black belt, went to the gym, started running, dated guys, graduated with an MPhil in Psychology and eventually found a lovely man that I married.

We had a fantastic time together, travelled the world and had a lovely honeymoon in Sicily. Then we did what so many “good straight couples” do next and we started trying for children.

I knew in advance that this part of our story could be problematic. PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) ran in our family, and despite coming off the pill two weeks before our wedding, I still hadn’t had a period. No period means no ovulation, which means you can’t get pregnant naturally.

And this is where our fertility journey began. Five years of medical appointments, fertility medication, three pregnancy losses and finally we had our two lovely boys.

A realisation

For a lot of married couples, this is where the “and they all lived happily ever after” part sets in. However, if I say to you that our second child was born in 2020, you will no doubt realise that this was of course the time of the global pandemic. And whilst the pandemic doesn’t have a direct impact on my fertility journey, it does have an impact on my coming out story.

The global pandemic took away our freedom. We couldn’t travel. We couldn’t socialise. We all coped with this in various ways. For me, it gave me time to think. Time to listen to podcasts. Time to read books. Time to reflect. And time to finally start to listen to the nagging feelings I had been harbouring for years.

Now, this may sound easy on paper. It may sound like I just sat down one day and decided to actually think about these feelings, have a mini therapy session with myself and suddenly figure everything out. But of course, nothing is easy. First, I had to let myself acknowledge that I wasn’t happy. In many ways, this was harder than acknowledging why I wasn’t happy. Because once I acknowledged how unhappy I was, I had two choices. I either did something about it, or I didn’t. I knew, for the sake of my boys, that I had to choose the former.

Allowing yourself to accept that you are gay can be tough. Allowing yourself to accept that you are gay when you are married to a man can be incredibly difficult, especially when that man is lovely and a great father to your children.

Coming out

And that leads to the questions everyone asks: How did I not know I was gay?

Believe me when I say I have thought long and hard about this. Did the Catholic upbringing have something to do with it? Probably. Did section 28 have something to do with it? No doubt.

But one of the biggest things that I believe contributed to me not knowing I was gay was the fact that I wanted children and I couldn’t have them. At least not without medical intervention.

Once you are on your trying to conceive journey, it is all encompassing.

First, there is the realisation and acceptance that you may never have children and managing the trauma that a diagnosis of infertility can bring. Then comes the fight to have your baby, and as many women will know, this is a hard fight, with an unlimited time span. For some it takes months, for most years, for some others many years.  The cycle tracking, the meds, the grief and all the unexpected twists and turns that come with the fertility journey is exhausting. It leaves no room to think of anything else, and that includes your sexuality, or even whether you are actually happy or not.

My trying to conceive journey clashed with my coming out journey. Whilst many people realise they are gay in their teens and early 20s, not everyone does. For many people it doesn’t happen until they are older, and by that time, society expects us to be married and have children so that’s what a lot of us do.

I’m one of the lucky ones. My husband was incredibly supportive and I have no doubt that that was in part due to the fertility trauma and difficulties we had been through together. This isn’t to say it was easy. Coming out to my husband was awful. It was hard and devastating and a very difficult thing to do. But now, a few years on, we get on very well, we co-parent our boys and we enjoy spending time together. We are our own little family and that works well for us.

Embracing today

Pride month is special for many reasons. It is a month where we celebrate the queer community. It is a month where we celebrate people being their authentic selves. It is a month where our allies support us. And it is a month where we can talk about our coming out stories and celebrate the stories that make us unique.

For me, my coming out story is intricately connected to my fertility journey, and I have come to accept that that is okay.

Our experiences make us who we are, and I now have the joy of helping other women, queer women and straight women, on their own fertility journeys. I am probably one of the few fitness coaches out there who has experience of living in both the straight and the queer world! So whether women are going through IVF or trying to conceive naturally, my goal is to help them to get fitter and healthier so they can have the baby they have always dreamed of. As I always say, your health is your fertility and your fertility is your health.

I love my work and I love how inclusive Fertility Fitness Coaching is. It is an honour to help women from all different backgrounds on their own trying to conceive journey.

Happy Pride month everyone!