Each week I interview someone who has experienced infertility firsthand. This week, I’m chatting with Cam and Simone from Bubbles and Bumps. They talk about going through infertility together, co-authoring a blog, and keeping friendship alive when one friend gets pregnant. Enjoy!
Q. Tell us a little about yourselves.
Simone: I’m a 35-year-old British TV producer born in Liverpool but now I live in LA and love it here. I’ve been married nearly 3 years and started writing Bubbles and Bumps with Cam when we were both struggling to conceive at the same time. I also started an online health business, as I’m passionate about fitness, meditation and yoga. I’m also obsessed with food (secretly that’s why I’m really friends with Cam as she’s an amazing chef!). I also have a Yoga Alliance 200-hr yoga teacher training qualification.
Cam: I’m a 35-year-old Southern Cali girl who grew up in the O.C., got a BA in Communications at UCSB, then moved to LA in 2001. I grew up in a very non-traditional American family, being that my father is from Germany and my mother from Indonesia. This gave me the passion for traveling, food, and culture. After over a decade of working in the TV production world, I recently transitioned my career path to becoming a private chef (I previously was in culinary school). I love my new creative outlet! I met my husband at work, and we got married in 2013 and had been trying to have a baby all last year. We encountered many bumps in the road and through the help of my very good friend, Simone, we put our heads together and started writing about our stories and our research in fertility. I am fortunate to say that the IVF route paid off for us and we are expecting a baby girl this July. The worries are still never-ending.
Q. Tell us a little about your struggles to conceive.
Simone: After we got married in May 2012 we decided to be ‘relaxed’ about trying for a baby. Eventually we became more specific about ovulation timing and it was around 1 year of not getting pregnant we went to see a doctor.
My cycle slowed down to once every few months so although we felt something was wrong the doctors never did hormone tests. They tested for everything else and couldn’t find a major problem. Eventually, one doctor said that a lower sperm morphology was a good enough reason to have IVF and we were told we would need ICSI. The 1st IVF worked but there was no heartbeat at 8 weeks. For two years we’ve had other unsuccessful treatments including Clomid and IUI’s and we are about to have our 3rd IVF cycle.
Cam: We actually didn’t try at first, which doesn’t seem like the shocker after hearing so many stories. We naturally got pregnant on our honeymoon (without even know about ovulation yet), but then it sadly ended in a miscarriage. Soon after we tried again, in which we succeeded… but then had to undergo a D&C after our 9-week scan said we didn’t have a heartbeat. We then tried naturally again for months with no luck and then decided to seek help from a fertility doctor. After tests, medication, more tests (3 months), we gave IVF a shot (no pun intended) because it was our only best bet according to our doctors. Both our levels were off to conceive naturally and the thought of having another miscarriage frightened me. The whole process from miscarriages to fertility to pregnancy took about a year (but seems so much longer).
Q. How have you taken care of yourself during your infertility struggles?
Simone: This process has forced me to take care of myself more than ever before. I always ate well and exercised but loved to party and eat junk food on a hangover… But every failure has forced me to look at myself and make changes. I eat better than ever (organic, fresh, high protein, lots of water, no alcohol, caffeine or sugar etc) along with a multitude of vitamins and supplements. Because we’re not out drinking we sleep well and I do regular yoga, hiking, cardio, and I meditate most days. We see a therapist to help us get through the tough times – which I think is blessing and highly recommend it. Our lives are totally different and it does sound extreme/ dull… who knows if will help but I just need to know I tried everything.
Cam: Yes, I was a big social drinker and always felt like that could have been a culprit (being a hypochondriac), so I definitely slowed down and started to eat very healthy. “Conscious eating” is what I like to call it. I gave up alcohol entirely as soon as my IVF medication arrived as well. As for being fit, I’ve always been addicted to working out, so keeping in shape wasn’t a problem for me. I actually was told to calm it down a bit so that I can build a little bit of fat to up my chances of getting pregnant. After my IVF transfer, I cut out sugar, carbs, drinking (of course) and it gave us a BFP. Something paid off.
Q. How did you come up with the idea of co-writing a blog?
It started when we both went through miscarriages and a D&C within a week of each other, we then ended up with the same fertility doctor for IVF. We are great friends so would tell each other our experiences but also looked for advice and support online. We realized there was a lot of confusing and quite scary information out there so felt lucky to have each other to compare notes and offer support. Going from knowing nothing about the world of fertility treatment we learned so much so wanted to share that, we started by writing some fun ‘top 10 tips’ – the kind you would send your friends and it grew from there. We hoped we could help others in the same boat as us by sharing our story, even if it was just to know they aren’t alone.
Q. What can readers expect from your blog?
An honest and clear account of what we went through – with a sense of humour.
Q. Cam is in the early stages of pregnancy. What have you learned about maintaining a friendship where both women have struggled with infertility and one gets pregnant?
Simone: We all went through so many ups-and-downs together that we just prayed that it would eventually work for one of us. When it did we were overjoyed for Cam and Toby, they deserved this happy news and it was a wave of positivity that made us believe in the process. IVF does work.
Naturally at times when you see the stages of any friend getting pregnant and having babies you feel frozen in time and worry what if it never happens for us? That’s the really hard part but we just have to believe that it will happen for us too and be very, very patient. Having the support and love from your friends also keeps you going.
When it comes to maintaining a friendship we just have to be honest, supportive, celebrate every piece of good news and make each other laugh through the tough times.
Cam: I feel that even though I did have success with IVF and am now pregnant, Simone and I are very much in all of this together. We joke that we are actually each other’s wives-on-the-side because our husbands work so closely together. I give Simone credit for helping my pregnancy become a reality because she pushed me go to the fertility office and informed me about so many possibly problems out there. I am so grateful and thankful that she has come to the States to be my wingman, business partner and life long friend. I couldn’t imagine going through all of this without her. I am her biggest cheerleader, and even though she’s still going through fertility treatments, I strongly believe the tides will change and she will get her BFP so soon we won’t even remember what it was like to have had that spontaneous, free-flow life without responsibility. I have to say we had a kick-ass “last hurrah” summer together that we will be talking about for the rest of our lives! But yes, being honest, caring, and staying positive helps both of us throughout this entire journey together.
Q. Have you been able to find the “silver lining” in your infertility?
Simone: By being forced to face this struggle I have learned and grown as a woman in ways I would never have done – I have a deep belief that it was all to make me a better person and mother. We are still hoping for our silver lining, but are feeling good about this next cycle.
Cam: Yes, absolutely. If I hadn’t experiences my miscarriages, researched fertility, gone through extensive tests, been put under the needle… I would not have been this grateful and appreciative of my current pregnancy. I am so blessed to now to have so much knowledge, strength, and purpose in becoming a mother… it was truly a year of learning, testing patience, and now having the most gratifying present given to my husband and myself.
Q. Anything else you’d like my readers to know?
We are new to the blogging community and are just overwhelmed and blessed at the response we have been getting from complete strangers. We would absolutely love to say thank you to those who have reached out to us and have supported us throughout our journey. It’s humbling to know that there are so many women out there to help each other and we hope to continue to write good posts that serve a purpose to others, even if it’s just to make people laugh throughout the struggling times.
Many thanks to Cam & Simone for sharing their story with us. Please leave a comment below to let them know you appreciate them! If you liked this interview, you can see all my previous interviews here.
