We started trying for a baby in March 2020.
Lockdown had begun. The world had suddenly stopped and, in a strange way, so had we.
I was working as a DJ. My life had been touring, late nights, drinking and constantly being on the move. When the pandemic hit, my career shut down overnight.
Eleanor and I were living with her mam while trying to save for a house. Suddenly, we had nothing but time.
So we thought: why not now?
We were ready. We wanted a family.
How hard could it be?
That sentence still haunts us.
A year of trying naturally with no answers
We tried to conceive naturally for a year, but nothing happened.
Then came the NHS appointments, the initial fertility tests and a diagnosis that did not really feel like a diagnosis.
I was told I had low sperm morphology. We were also given the label of unexplained infertility and referred for IVF.
There was no deeper investigation. No clear explanation of why we were struggling to conceive.
It felt as though we were simply being told: here is your IVF referral—off you go.
Discovering male infertility factors that had been missed
Eleanor began researching everything she possibly could. That is who she is. She went down every fertility rabbit hole and found questions that had not been raised during our initial testing.
Further investigations revealed that I had high sperm DNA fragmentation and a varicocele that I had known nothing about.
A varicocele is an enlargement of the veins within the scrotum and can sometimes affect sperm production and quality. I underwent a varicocele embolisation in the hope that it might improve my fertility.
However, the fertility clinic we had been referred to did not seem interested in investigating what those findings might mean for our treatment.
They did not appear to take the DNA fragmentation or varicocele into consideration.
We were moved straight into our first round of IVF.
Our first IVF pregnancy ended in miscarriage
Our first IVF round worked.
We became pregnant.
And then we lost the baby.
I still do not have the words to explain what pregnancy loss does to you.
You spend months holding your breath, waiting and hoping. Then suddenly, there is nothing left to hold onto.
We were devastated.
We tried again using a frozen embryo transfer.
We lost that pregnancy too.
Two pregnancy losses, back-to-back.
After each loss, the clinic called, said they were sorry and asked whether we wanted to book another round.
That was the whole conversation.
There was no meaningful discussion about why the pregnancies may have ended. There was no emotional follow-up and no sense that anyone wanted to pause and look at the complete picture.
New diagnoses brought more fertility treatment
Eleanor found another fertility clinic and underwent further investigations.
She was diagnosed with PCOS, now sometimes referred to as polycystic ovary morphology or PMOS, alongside a small amount of endometriosis. Doctors also found a uterine polyp, which was removed.
Four rounds of ovarian stimulation followed.
None was successful.
We became pregnant again once, but it was a chemical pregnancy.
During the final round of letrozole treatment, Eleanor ended up in hospital and needed morphine for the pain.
Her immune system seemed completely depleted. She developed oral thrush and was physically and emotionally exhausted.
I sat beside her and genuinely did not know how much more either of us had left.
The lowest point of our IVF journey
That was our lowest point.
We were three or perhaps four years into fertility treatment by then, and it had destroyed us.
There had been procedures, medication, pregnancy losses, waiting, uncertainty and repeated hope followed by grief.
Throughout all of it, nobody within the fertility system really spoke to me.
Feeling invisible as the male partner during IVF
Not once during an appointment did anyone turn to me and ask how I was coping.
I attended every appointment.
I provided sperm samples. I sat in waiting rooms. I drove us home in silence after losses. I watched the person I loved go through injections, procedures, pain and heartbreak, while feeling completely powerless to help.
Yet I felt like a spare part in my own fertility journey.
There were no fertility communities for men that felt relevant to me. There were no spaces that felt like mine.
I had nowhere to put the grief, helplessness and guilt.
There is a particular kind of guilt that can consume you when male infertility is part of the picture. You begin to wonder whether your body is the reason the treatment is failing or whether the person you love is suffering because of you.
I stayed strong for Eleanor because that is what I believed I had to do.
But inside, I was breaking.
And I had nobody to tell.
How infertility affected our relationship
By 2024, we were running on empty.
Our relationship had taken the full force of almost five years of fertility treatment, loss, hormones, hope and repeated grief.
Infertility affects much more than your chances of having a baby. It can change the way you communicate, the way you see your body and the way you relate to the person closest to you.
We realised we had lost each other somewhere among the fertility clinic waiting rooms, two-week waits and phone calls that never seemed to say what we needed to hear.
So we took a year out.
We travelled. We stepped away from treatment and tried to reconnect with the people we had been before infertility took over our lives.
That time gave us each other back.
Deciding to try IVF one final time
In January 2025, we agreed to have one final round of IVF.
We had the conversation that so many people facing infertility eventually reach.
We said: if this does not work, we are going to build a happy life together, just the two of us. Whatever will be, will be.
Ten eggs were collected.
Six fertilised.
Only one embryo made it to the blastocyst stage.
That one embryo became Archie.
He arrived in October.
How the idea for aloomah began
The idea for aloomah came to us while Eleanor was pregnant.
I had been recording a podcast with someone who had created a community app for people in addiction recovery. Something about the conversation clicked.
I arranged to meet him for coffee and spent the afternoon asking questions about how he had built a community where people felt understood and supported.
As I was leaving, a woman stopped me.
She had overheard our conversation.
She was 38, single and freezing her eggs because she had not yet met the partner she wanted to have children with.
She had been through four rounds of ovarian stimulation. The first two cycles had resulted in no eggs being collected.
She was going through the entire experience alone.
She told me she had found nothing that felt right — no genuine fertility community and no online space where she felt safe enough to be completely honest.
I called Eleanor before I had even left the building.
I said: we need to do this.
That was the beginning of aloomah.
Building the tool we wished had existed
While building aloomah, one thing kept coming up in every conversation we had with people navigating fertility treatment.
Nobody knew what they were entitled to.
People were making life-changing decisions — which clinic, whether to go private, how much to spend — without knowing that where they lived determined how many rounds of NHS-funded IVF they could access. Some areas fund three full cycles. Others fund one. Some fund none at all.
We had been through it ourselves. We had navigated the postcode lottery without a map. And we had spoken to over 60 people on their fertility journeys who had done exactly the same.
So we built one.
clinics.aloomah.com is a free tool that lets anyone in the UK enter their postcode and find out exactly what NHS IVF funding their area provides — and discover HFEA-registered fertility clinics near them.
No sign-up. No cost. Just the information people deserve to have before they make any decision about their fertility treatment.
Because you should not have to stumble across your entitlements by accident. You should not have to spend hours searching government websites to find out whether your postcode means you get help or you are on your own.
The system is confusing. We are trying to make it less so.
Creating a fertility community where nobody feels alone
We built aloomah because we carried infertility almost entirely alone for five years — and we know what that can cost.
We built it for the woman in the coffee shop going through egg freezing alone.
We built it for every male partner who has sat feeling invisible in a fertility clinic waiting room.
We built it for everyone who has gone into work the morning after a failed embryo transfer or pregnancy loss and pretended they were fine.
We built it for anyone who has felt there was nowhere to speak openly about infertility, IVF, male-factor fertility, egg freezing or pregnancy loss.
You should not have to carry infertility alone
Fertility treatment can be isolating, even when you are surrounded by people who love you.
Unless someone has lived through the waiting, uncertainty, physical treatment and repeated grief, it can be difficult for them to understand the weight of it.
That is why finding the right support matters.
You should not have to carry infertility alone
Fertility treatment can be isolating, even when you are surrounded by people who love you.
Unless someone has lived through the waiting, uncertainty, physical treatment and repeated grief, it can be difficult for them to understand the weight of it.
That is why finding the right support matters.
You should not have to carry infertility alone.
No partner should feel invisible.
No one should have to hide their grief.
Nobody should feel they have to pretend they are fine when they are falling apart inside.
Nobody should have to go through this alone.
At IVFbabble, we couldn’t agree more
From the very beginning, our mission has been to ensure that nobody has to navigate a fertility journey feeling alone. Whether you’re trying to conceive naturally, undergoing fertility treatment, facing pregnancy loss or exploring your future fertility, there is real strength in finding people who truly understand.
That’s why we love what Eleanor and Jacky have created. Their passion for building a safe, inclusive community reflects something we believe wholeheartedly—that there is power in sharing our stories, supporting one another and reminding each other that there is always hope.
Together, we are stronger. Together, we learn. Together, we lift one another up.
Because no one should ever have to face a fertility journey alone.
Find out more about aloomah Fertility here
