The lantern keeper doesn't stand on the shore and wave it. She's in the boat, on the water. I'm in the sea, again, with you now.
When starting Fertile Seas, I was looking back at everything I had been through.
Four years dismissed. "Just lose the weight and come back when you're ready to have a baby." No diagnosis. No path forward. Just a command that felt impossible and a closed door. That was trial one.
When we started trying, I knew in my bones that something was wrong. I was a scientist with a masters degree. I knew how to collect data. I was not ovulating. I was not believed. "Keep trying. Come back in one year." Trial two.
So I went into the cave. Did ALL THE THINGS alone. Figured out what worked entirely by myself. The loneliest stretch of my life.
Five years of symptoms finally earned me a referral. "You don't have the PCOS symptoms we look for. Lose ten pounds. Here's an RE." The RE ignored my partner's results entirely. After every test imaginable -- unexplained infertility. The most unsatisfying diagnosis ever given.
Then a hysteroscopy. "No need for medication. Your uterus has no nerve endings." Liar. On that table, with my last breath before I blacked out from pain, I told him to stop.
We left. We found someone who listened.
"Of course you have PCOS." Apologies for four doctors' oversight. A new protocol. Two months later, pregnant -- but progesterone too low to hold without intervention. I held my breath for the entire first trimester, terrified to exhale and lose what I wanted more than anything.
We prevailed. Me, my partner, and our son. He held on. We were in it together.
Polyhydramnios. Gestational diabetes. PROM. Induction. Thirty seven hours. A c-section.
The morning he was born, our house flooded.
I would have never chosen this story for us. And yet, I am so grateful for the perspective it has given me. Looking back, there is nothing I would change about my story.
There's a trope that so many women experiencing primary infertility hope to find themselves in -- needing intervention for their first but getting pregnant easily afterwards. For the majority, this is not a story that plays out.
It's not mine either.
I lost the postpartum weight. Twenty five pounds below my starting weight before my first pregnancy. The thing four doctors told me for years was the answer?
Turns out it wasn't the cure they promised.
Secondary infertility is a different game.
You know the terrain. But it all looks and feels different the second time. The landmarks have shifted. The grief is complicated by gratitude in ways that are hard to explain to anyone who hasn't stood in both places at once.
I was determined to do this differently.
First: assemble my dream team like they were auditioning for the Avengers. Because they basically were.
Then I turned inward. I became a fertility coach and became a certified hypnotherapy practitioner. Because the hypnotherapy work I did to prepare for my first labor allowed me to walk through something genuinely traumatic and emerge changed forever, but not traumatized. I used those same tools during my HSG and SIS procedures and learned that hypnosis works well for procedures and the stresses that come with a fertility journey.
After using it myself to great success, I knew I needed to offer this to my clients.
I want to be the torchbearer. The one I wished I'd had during my first journey. And going through it again, by the time of this writing, gives me a perspective very few fertility coaches can offer.
I'm not writing from the shore. I'm still in-between. Still becoming. Lighting the way.
I would never again sacrifice my sovereignty. Not to another provider. Not to my own people-pleasing.
Because I'm in the sea, again, with you now. And with these fresh eyes I know how imperative it is to be seen. Be understood. To be held. This foundation has to be laid here and now. And brought to the future.
Let the record show, Fertile Seas Coaching began with its sole mission being to be present for every heart on a fertility journey who needs what I so desperately needed years ago. Someone with the wisdom of the journey, paired with compassion and knowledge of the tools that make the most impact when you're in the sea.
My title is coach. But I don't see myself that way.
I am a lantern keeper.
I will light your way no matter what way the winds blow your sails.
Nicole holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Health with a Certificate in Community Health, and a Master's degree in Health Informatics. Her graduate thesis evaluated a Brief Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program. She brings three years of clinical research experience and over five years in academic research. Nicole is a certified Hypnotherapy for Fertility practitioner and is currently completing her DNT Fertility Coach certification.
If the Fertile Seas mission is something you need right now
You don't have to navigate this alone.
Let's keep in touch. I'll reach out when I have something worth sharing.