Tell us a bit about yourself?

My name is Corinne, I am 30 years old, and I was born and raised on the South Coast of Tuross Head. I moved to Canberra after finishing year 12 and within a couple of years of being in Canberra I met my now hubby, Aaron. We have been together for almost 11 years, and I am so proud of the life we have created together.

Living here in Canberra I started working in hospitality whilst studying photography. I then moved into Dental Nursing and Dental Surgeries and pursued that for 6 years. I then started a career in Real Estate working at a large Construction and Development Company which I only recently finished up with to work for hubbies business full time. However, whilst working those jobs I started up my own business called You're Truly Desired which was inspired from or DIY wedding and has no flourished into a very busy and rewarding business and I cannot get enough of it, it's my passion and my life!

Family is very important to me, and I would do anything for them. But another very important family member of ours is our beautiful big boy Bronson, he is a 70kg African mastiff (Boerboel).

I am an emotional person; I cry at literally everything.

I love to talk things through rather than bottling it up or keeping it to myself and this helped me with our most recent journey into motherhood.

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant with our first little miracle and cannot wait to meet our little one.

What were you doing before babies?

For the past 4 years my business has taken up ALOT of my time, so if I wasn't working full time or styling events I would be catching up with friends, going out for drinks and dinners, lake walks and travelling.

How did you come to be a mum?

(sorry this will be a long one haha)

Whilst I am still not quite an earthside mumma just yet, our journey to this point hasn't been easy.

I share our story in the hope that is helps someone else and raises awareness as infertility and loss need to be normalised.

Trigger warning for anyone experiencing infertility or loss

I am 1 in 5 women who go through unexplained infertility.

Hubby and I had been married for about 1-1.5 years before we started to talk about trying for a baby. We discussed and I went off the pill. Shortly after hubby expressed he may not be ready just yet (expecting that after going off the pill the next day I would fall pregnant) and so I quickly went back on the pill.

A couple months passed and after talking about it with hubby I again took myself off the pill noting that my body would need some time to adjust from being on it since the age of 16.

We started by just having unprotected sex, a few months after that I started to log my cycle and when I was expected to ovulate in an app, that's when we started to actively try by having unprotected sex when I was "ovulating".

Months later I decided to see my GP as we had no luck. She had me complete blood tests and a papsmear, everything appeared to be ok.

She advised me to try an at home ovulation kit, for another 6 months we tested my ovulation however the strips were telling me I was not ovulating at all. At this point my GP referred us to a fertility specialist.

We couldn't get in to see our specialist for approx. 4 months. In this time I stopped testing at home as I was starting to get stressed and very concerned.

Our specialist started us off with bloods and sperm samples to check our count, levels, health and whether I was ovulating. To my surprise I ovulated that cycle and the nurses advised us when to have sex. Everything else tested was healthy and within normal.

Although we had been together for so long, the first-time having sex as directed by the nurses was awkward. The entire time I was thinking is this going to be it. My poor husband said to me, "It's just not like having sex is it?". And that's where our infertility journey really started.

I've had approx. 45-50 blood tests, for ovulation tracking, for egg count, to check oestrogen and progesterone levels and many other things.

I started acupuncture, yoga, counselling, hundreds of vitamins, naturopaths, etc.

I changed my working hours at work.

Sex became a chore. I started to shut people out.

It felt like everyone around us was falling pregnant.

I changed my diet, cut out things I loved.

I shed endless tears.

Listened to podcasts and read books related to infertility.

I stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine (which had people making jokes about me being pregnant )

I didn't attend certain events as I didn't want people to ask "When are you guys having kids"

I had to go to work and pretend like I was ok when really, I just had a break down in my car on the way to work.

We dealt with Covid like everyone else however were at higher risks as if affected by Covid or isolation we would completely miss that months cycle and must wait another entire month before trying again and anyone going through infertility knows that those weeks feel like a lifetime!

Each discussion with my hubby that my period came again this month got harder and harder for us both.

I had to overcome my ultimate phobia and had a HyCosy which was extremely traumatic for me.

Blood test, track/check levels, have sex, not pregnant, repeat. This was our life.

Although that may not sound too full on to some, it really was. We struggled to conceive for 1.5 years of actively trying to conceive. That's at least 17 times we didn't conceive.

When you need to track every single day, take vitamins, visit doctors and nurses, wait for their calls to advise of your levels and when to have sex, etc it is so emotionally and mentally draining and eventually takes a toll on your mental health. A feeling I've never felt before and find impossible to describe.

All our tests came back with no issues, no concerns. And at this point I wished we had some kind of confirmed diagnosis to actively treat. I was put on oestrogen and progesterone, one had to be inserted vaginally and its side effects were unfortunately pregnancy symptoms.

This by far has been the most difficult journey we have been through, but we didn't give up and after further help from our specialist we fell pregnant.

We were preparing to start IVF in 2022. But first our specialist had me give myself a trigger shot needle in my stomach. This shot released by egg at a certain time, in the thought that maybe my egg was dropping too late.

We had to schedule in intercourse that entire weekend.

The dreaded 2 week wait felt like 2 years! And by November 7th 2021 my period hadn't come. I am normally like clockwork, so I took a test whilst hubby was in the shower and to my shock, I was clearly pregnant!!

I secretly got his announcement gift ready and put my phone on record, called him into our bedroom and surprised him with the great news. It was such a beautiful moment, and I am SO glad I recorded it.

We are now 32 weeks pregnant and although my pregnancy has been an absolute bliss and I have loved every single moment of it, it wasn't until more recently that I have finally felt confident in bubs progress. When you experience loss or infertility, whilst your extremely happy to finally be pregnant, those first 14 weeks and even after are hard. In the back of your mind, you're thinking the doctor is surely to tell you that something is wrong, you're constantly checking for blood when you go to the bathroom, you're subconsciously thinking the pregnancy can't be this easy, something bad is going to happen.

To all the women and men who have been through it, I am proud of you.

And all the women and men who are struggling with infertility and loss, I'm here for you.

Let's raise awareness.

What has sleep been like in your house?

Before pregnancy I slept the entire night through with no issues. I now wake up from about 3am each morning because my legs are going numb and hips started to get painful, or I suddenly wake up because I notice I am sleeping on my back and need to roll to the side.

The hardest bits…

The emotionally journey of infertility and the stigma that society has created regarding infertility or loss.

The best bits…

Watching and feeling bub in my belly. And learning about my own body on a much more personal level.

How do you make time for yourself?

Given I haven't had bub yet this isn't too difficult. I think once bub arrives, I will really need to support of hubby and family for this.

What’s next for you and your family?

We want to focus on the safe arrival of our little one and put our business' aside for a couple of months whilst we enjoy those precious moments with bub.

If you could talk to your pre baby/kid self, what advice would you give?

Take the time to learn about your body/the female body. To remember that everything really does happen when it's meant to and you will get your little miracle so don't be so hard on yourself.