Photography by Juno Calypso
It wasn't meant to work out like this — making a baby. The game plan was supposed to be romantic, fun, full of matching underwear, weekends away, Prosecco-buzzed on a remote beach. It was supposed to just happen. But here we are, all fertility clinic appointments and acupuncture and disappointments. And we're not alone. Yet it feels so lonely.
After five failed rounds of IVF with PGD (genetic screening), I knew I needed to make something, if not a baby. I needed to turn this rejection to motherhood into something positive. So, I decided to build the platform that I longed for while we blindly navigated our way through the “what now?” phase in our slog to create a small human being.
The result is co—creators, a collection of stories of those who've been through fertility hell and come out the other side – from IVF, genetic screening, sperm donors, egg donors, to surrogacy and adoption. A space that speaks honestly about the involuntary guttural reaction on hearing another person's pregnancy announcement, feeling like an asshole for giving a stranger with a “baby on board” badge an icy look, and a 101 on what to expect when you go into IVF.
While everyone's got a different story, it turns out there's a whole lot of stuff we share. Struggling to make a baby sucks in every language and every accent. Sure, the logistics, the fertility options, funding, laws, and attitudes vary – from forward-thinking Denmark to cultures where infertility is completely taboo. But all that human stuff feels the same. And so does pumping your ovaries full of hormones until they're the size of grapefruits.
By opening up the conversation, we can empower people with information and destigmatise the less conventional ways of making a family. And that's what the co—creators is all about: people coming together, cheerleading you through the shit, from those who get it. Because no matter where you're at, let's get one thing's straight, we're all on the same team. And we’re rooting for each other.
