Izzy Judd’s IVF & fertility journey, from PCOS to IVF, a holistic approach & more

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with author Izzy Judd, who opened up about her deeply personal fertility journey, including IVF and the emotional challenges she and her partner, Harry Judd of McFly, faced before welcoming their three children, Lola, Kit and Lockie.

Izzy shared insights into their family life, how they cherish their time together, and what the future may hold. As someone in the public eye, she is playing a vital role in breaking the stigma surrounding fertility struggles.

Having enjoyed her books – most recently Mindfulness for Mums, a beautifully put-together toolkit, packed with thoughtful ways to help you and your family feel calm, connected and content, and we were eager to learn more about her writing and the impact it has had.

Getting started

I married my husband Harry in 2012 and shortly after we started thinking about trying to conceive. Once we found out conceiving naturally wasn’t going to be straight forward due to my PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), what followed were some very hard and lonely years, until we conceived our daughter Lola through IVF in 2015.

During those years, I experienced so many emotions from fear to frustration, desperation to anger, guilt to loneliness. My world stopped, it felt like someone had pressed paused on my life.

I always believed that my diagnosis of PCOS never told the full story about our struggles to conceive and that actually my long-term issues with anxiety played a huge part.

The body and mind are so strongly connected and it was only when I started to accept that our route to parenthood wasn’t going to be the way we had hoped that I began to settle into the challenge of infertility and started a completely different and holistic approach which I share in Dare to Dream.

I realised that the fertility specialist would partly take over my body but I always had my mind and it was up to me about how I was going to manage expectation, disappointment and emotions.

Why do you think people tend to suffer in silence?

For me, it was so difficult to know how to start the conversation.

I felt very lost and confused, so trying to articulate those feelings to others is difficult. Every body is unique and each couple will have their own individual set of complications – the sliding scale of infertility is vast. I don’t know exactly what others go through, but I know the feelings that accompany so much of the struggle, the sense of isolation and failure, trying to manage the side effects from the fertility drugs you have to take and the fear that surrounds so much of the struggle.

For me, it was helpful to take one day at a time, to not project too far into the future and accept that I was going to have good and bad days. Acupuncture for fertility, being around nature and surrounding myself with the people that I loved and who made me feel better were really important.

Learning to say no is essential. Start to put yourself and project baby first. Do the things that make you happy rather than trying to keep everyone else happy!

Baby loss is common, but very difficult to talk about. Did it affect your relationships?

Miscarriage was something that I needed time to process.

Harry and I took it in turns to be strong for one another, it is hard when you are both going through the same sadness. He was my rock and made sure that I gave my body and mind time to heal.

I felt very responsible and often wondered what I did wrong. There were moments when I believed I wasn’t meant to be a mother and that somehow by having IVF I was tempting fate. Along with the grief, I constantly questioned why this was so hard and why every hurdle felt so high.

I still think of my first pregnancy as my first child and wonder who that little person would have been. During the pregnancies that followed, I wasn’t truly able to relax in fear that something might happen until each baby arrived safely in the world.

Being in the public eye must have been really tough – how did you navigate this?

I wasn’t open from the start, as not only did it feel very personal, I didn’t know what to say and I was trying to navigate my own way through it all.

I couldn’t understand why, when Harry and I were both young and healthy, we were having such difficulties. We decided to open up and share our fertility story, hopefully to help other couples who were going through the trying to conceive struggle in silence.

The response from others when we did share our story was overwhelming – fertility issues affect so many and, despite what our personal issues might be, many of the emotions we’re facing are the same.

How did you husband (Harry Judd) deal with the IVF journey?

In my book Dare to Dream, Harry wrote a chapter as I felt it was important to hear his side of the story. I often hear that much of the focus is on the women but actually the impact infertility has on men should be equally discussed.

Harry was always incredibly supportive. I felt very responsible but he made sure we took everything on together: he came to every appointment and, during IVF, he would give me my injections when he could.

Initially, Harry was nervous about IVF. I think he worried about how I would cope if it didn’t work. For me, IVF was hope and that was enough for us.

How did IVF go?

My first pregnancy was after our first round of IVF, sadly we did go on to suffer a miscarriage (rarely do people open up about baby loss) and Harry really encouraged us to have a break before going back for another round, not only to recover physically, but mentally too.

I am so grateful to him for this because my initial reaction was to go back as soon as possible, but I needed time to build up my emotional strength. We had two frozen embryos and so five months later we went back and Lola was conceived after a frozen embryo transfer.

My advice would be to not rush anything, give yourself time to prepare yourself and put your boundaries in place. Surround yourself with those who make you feel loved, supported and safe.

What was your mindset?

It’s so difficult not to feel like fertility struggles define you – it’s all-consuming and tough to manage all the different emotions.

Something that helped was to accept that this was our experience and to try to think of a positive each time anything negative came to mind. Try not to get lost in dated IVF blogs – get support and fertility help from communities, family and friends.

It helped Harry and me to think of a line to say to people who asked us if we wanted to have children which was simply, ‘we’re practising’. This said enough without us having to go into anything if we didn’t feel comfortable or in the right headspace to talk about it that day.

Tell us about Dare to Dream

What about an ’embaby’ – is your family complete?

After all we went through to conceive Lola and then with Kit coming along as a shock, I feel so lucky to be a mum because there were days I wasn’t sure if I would be.

We have one frozen embryo which I think about often. When I look at Lola I think ‘I might not have met you’, and then find it very difficult not to give our remaining embaby a chance.

It really is so hard and I have friends with multiple frozen embabies that feel so torn about it all. Who knows what the future holds?

Editor’s note: Since this interview was published, Izzy and Harry welcomed their third baby in 2021 through natural conception. They had initially decided to try naturally for six months before considering their remaining frozen embryo. Read the full story.

Up next: How Kind iVF are doing it totally differently: affordable, accessible, consultant-led care across the UK