How infertility changed my career from Naturopath to Website designer

Just over twelve months ago I was doing really well in my Naturopath clinic. I was achieving the patient numbers I needed to contribute to our household and was creating a good referral network.

But outside of the clinic, I was grieving. I had just been through our first full round of IVF in which the first embryo resulted in a miscarriage (while I was volunteering at the Australian Naturopathic Summit) and the second embryo transfer didn’t take at all. To top it off I was also diagnosed with CIN3, all within two months.

I was well on my way to burnout but still seeing patients between travelling 7 hours to the gold coast for treatment. Putting on a mask to hide what was really going on and constantly stressing about money after just paying $15K and still no baby.

Seeing patients was causing me more anxiety and I knew something had to change. I needed the flexibility to take time off when I need it, without letting my patients down.

In October 2018 I was in Bali with 40 other practitioners and realised I don’t need to only use my qualifications to help patients, I can actually help other practitioners get their message out and in doing this, can work from anywhere in the world, with complete flexibility on when I work too.

It wasn't perfect for me in the beginning.. It took me a while to find out exactly how I wanted to support praccies and after a blighted ovum/miscarriage in March along with Laparoscopy surgery to remove Endometriosis, I knew i wasn’t quite in my full zone of genius yet. It’s amazing how lessons in one area of your life, make other areas so much clearer. 

In high school I had always loved Art and Graphic design, so over the last 12 months of supporting praccies, I have come to realise I love design, especially web design. It's like finding the right puzzle piece so that you can portray a story or message on how you can help someone. It’s meditative for me and I can get lost in it and come out hours later like it had only been 15 minutes. 

In June, we started another full stim round of IVF again. It felt different this time. I knew our double rainbow baby wasn’t far, especially when literally a  double rainbow followed me home one day between egg pick up and transfer. As always, it was a long two week wait to find out if it had worked…… and it had. Those first twelve weeks were tough. The anxiety of loosing another pregnancy consumed me and I stepped back from my business and the universe listened that I needed to only work with my long term clients for a while. 

But here I am, at twenty-one weeks pregnant feeling my baby boy kicks regularly and I am actually back in Bali right now, where it all started.

It was a long and hard four-year journey but I learnt I needed to have creativity in my daily life in order to create a baby.

If you’d like to see our full journey to get an understanding of what your fertility patients may go through, i have shared our journey below

I hope my story has inspired you to re-evaluate areas of your life that aren’t working.

Be well,

Elle

P.s. did you know the pineapple is the international symbol for a fertility warrior? (and swingers… so don’t get confused :p )