In the beginning

I grew up overseas, living in third-world countries. I loved it – with so many new places and cultures to explore, it was an exciting time. We moved back to the UK when I was 15 and that’s when things started to slide.

Switching education systems didn’t do me any favours. I left school with few qualifications and no idea of what to do with my life. I knew there was something out there for me, something I could feel real passion for, but until I found it, I felt a bit lost.

A life-changing discovery

When I was 25 I came across a course called New Opportunities in Holistic Studies. It started a life-long journey in healing and therapy and changed the course of my life.

The course explained that we all have an innate ability to heal our bodies, and I spent the next 5 years learning how to access it. I soaked up every aspect of the holistic world, studying all the alternative therapies I could find. It became an absolute passion.

Flying the nest

When I turned 30, I heard my inner call of travelling and headed off to Africa. Over the next few years I offered my body work services from a beautiful lodge in Malawi. Bizarrely, I also ended up managing the lodge – along with its 50 staff – after only a month of staying there, which was a fantastic (and steep!) learning curve. I learnt so much.

During this time, I started a relationship with an Australian man, Greg, and four years later when he returned to Australia, I went with him. I could never say no to another travelling adventure!

I continued my therapy path and worked at a chiropractor’s clinic, soon attracting a full client book, which was a huge honour. I became particularly interested in what really makes people heal, and why some people heal better than others.

It led me down a path of learning as much as I could about the mind, and how it governs our lives. It was around this time that I was introduced to the Journey, which had such a powerful effect on me.

The Journey

As a young girl, I’d suffered many years of sexual abuse from a family member. I didn’t know how to tell anyone. As I grew into my late teenage years and early 20s this experience manifested itself in all the wrong ways: anger, depression, alcohol abuse, seeking for love in the wrong places, interest in drugs, self hate and lack of confidence.

At the time, I didn’t understand what was causing such self-sabotage. It was only when I started learning about Journey techniques that I acknowledged – for the first time – that my childhood experiences had changed my whole being. I was desperate to learn more, and became a Journey practitioner.

Greg and I got married in August 2005 and soon after we moved to Canberra. I continued offering therapy at a clinic called OmShanti, where my work deepened and the clients I helped taught me so much.

By now, I was 36 and the time was right to try for a baby. We tried, and we tried. And after 16 months, we realised something was wrong.

The quest to finding answers

We then embarked on a 10-year journey, where my entire focus was finding the key to getting pregnant. We underwent 6 rounds of IVF, I tried acupressure, acupuncture, TCM (I tasted and drank the most horrible potions), kinesiology, reiki, workshops, naturopathy, homeopathy, emotional healing, reflexology, meditation, mediums, tarot readers… There was nothing I was not willing to try or experience just in case it worked.

I packed a lot into those 10 years. I continued studying and learning, and completed a full NLP course prac, masters and trainers training. I became a master hypnotherapist, master timeline therapy practitioner & master coach. I studied the bush flower essences. I studied gestalt therapy, past life therapy, genealogical therapy, constellation work and a variety of coaching techniques. I learnt a lot along the way!

I left OmShanti in 2009 and started my own therapy practice clinic called Body and Mind Healing. Within 3 months I was full, helping clients to create amazing changes. As always it was an honour to help people realise that they already have all the answers inside them. We just need to tap into them.

Moving on

After 7 years in Australia I learnt that my mother’s health was declining. It was important to me to be with her in the latter years of her life so I arrived back in Bath, England in July 2010. It was lovely to reunite with my mother and family. It was also the catalyst of yet more change.

Soon after we left Australia, my sister-in-law fell pregnant in her first round of IVF with a sperm donor. I knew I should have been happy, but I was devastated. We’d already looked into continuing our fertility journey in the UK, but being over 40, found out we’d receive no financial help. It just wasn’t going to work. We started to realise it was time to give up.

Despite feeling utterly broken, this turned out to be the best thing that could happen. It was the incentive I needed to wholeheartedly give up. And I did. With every ounce of my body and mind. I told myself that parenthood was not the path for me and this was the time to finally live my life, sleeping in late and spending money on myself.

Understanding and working with fertility

I threw myself back into life in the UK, reconnecting with family and friends and making new ones. I started my therapy and coaching business again and this grew over the next 7 years. I was also introduced to networking, which has been one of the best ways to grow – not only as a business, but also as a person. It’s was a great business tool and one of the most fun and exciting things I’ve done.

I found I was attracting lots of women with stress-related issues who would then casually mention, ‘Oh, and I want to get pregnant’. I realised that I truly understood the plight of these women and could fully focus on supporting them. It allowed me to start specialising in this field, within my therapy and coaching business.

A little surprise

Towards the end of December 2014, I was feeling terrible. I was now 45 and knew it was the start of the menopause. Seeking advice from the doctor, she made me take a pregnancy test. After a few minutes, she started to giggle. It wasn’t the menopause. I was 9 weeks’ pregnant!

I was in totally shock! How could this happen? Really me? Really now? I’ve finally accepted it’s not going to happen and have changed my life around! I just couldn’t understand it – I was in such shock.

At my 12-week scan, I could see it was real, and all the emotions I’d suppressed came flooding out as I burst into tears. Oh my goodness, there is actually a baby in there!

It was quiet and dark in the room until the doctor switched the lights back on. In the blink of an eye, everything changed. He said he was really sorry but things didn’t look too good. There was too much fluid at the back of the baby’s neck. The nuchal translucency should have been 3.5; it was 4.8. Because of my age and our previous issues, we were looking at some kind of genetic problem or chromosomal complication.

It was as if the world stopped. What does all that mean? It was too much for me to take in.

Luckily my husband was there and we were ushered into a small room, where they explained it again. I started to take it in this time, but still couldn’t hold back the tears. The doctor said my little baby could still fly through it all okay and recommended we undergo tests to find out.

So off I went with the nurse for yet more blood tests, past everyone in the waiting room with tears running down my face. From the most amazing jubilation at seeing our baby on the screen, we sank to the depths of despair in just a few minutes. It was a difficult day; all I could think was how do we get through this?

Breaking point

When we got home I went to my therapy room, which was a place of sanctuary and peace. I fell to my knees and prayed. I completely fell apart, allowing my entire core to break into tiny pieces. I felt like I needed to release every single emotion so I could just think clearly.

I still had a little being inside me, and there was a reason she was there.

How could I handle this in the most healing way possible? I knew fear and anxiety produced acid in the body, making it less inviting to stay. I needed to create a more alkaline environment so this little being knew how much she was loved and welcomed.

The present moment

A friend put me in touch with a healer, Hari Ma, who focused on working with pregnant women with difficult prognoses. Working with her was confronting, as we went deep into personal issues, but also totally amazing. Right at the start she said I needed to focus wholly on this baby, sending clear messages that it’s okay to stay. It was a deeply spiritual experience and I learnt so much about myself.

In such a time of uncertainty, I knew how my mind could send me into all sorts of fear and pain.

So I created my present moment awareness motto. Whenever my mind wanted to fly off to a place of pain and sadness, I would say, ‘Right here, right now all is love. I am love and I love my being and my little light is welcome to stay’. This would bring me back into the now.

And several times a day, I would let my little light know that I wanted her to stay – if the time was right for her. We all have our paths to follow and sometimes we only need to shine for a small amount of time. If now wasn’t the right time, it would break my heart, but I could accept it. That was my prayer and kept me together during a really uncertain time.

By 24 weeks she’d passed every test and, apart from having a thicker skin at the back of her neck, was totally fine.

Baby Willow

At the age of 46, I gave birth on 27th July 2015 after chanting and omming little Willow Rose into this world. It was quite simply the most unbelievable thing I’d ever done. I had no painkillers, just an amazing doula who was out of this world!

We walked in as a couple and came out as parents. Woohoo! I never, ever thought that was going to happen. And now she’s two-and-a-half, I still need to pinch myself that she’s actually here. The saying, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will come’ feels so true now. Not until I’d learnt to be me, to be happy, to be connected, did my teacher – in the form of a baby – come to me. Life really is a funny old thing!

Moving back to Australia

On returning home with baby Willow, my mother’s health declined and she passed away peacefully in August 2016. We had always planned to return to Australia, so after spending a busy year sorting out the family home of 50 years (as well as supporting many fertility clients!) we moved back in December 2017.

I’m now restarting life with my little family in Australia, which I must say is very exciting! I feel proud of myself for going back to look after my mum, which, in its own magical way, also gave me the chance to have a child. Now this is my time to grow and succeed.

So here I am with a beautiful niche in fertility. I love helping other women and couples to have the family and life that they really want. And to stop them from having to go through the pain and anguish that I did.

More than anything I want women to know that what we think is impossible, can actually be achieved if we’re willing to go through a bit of discomfort to heal our soul and restore our spirit.

When we’re willing to let go of our story of pain and anguish, we can allow any emotional blocks to disappear and enable what we really want, to flow to us.

I would love to help you. Please get in touch and we can have a chat or perhaps you would like to look at my fertility packages to see the ways in which we can work together.