the fertility plot twist no one warned me about.

This past year has brought its fair share of challenges. But one of the biggest and most personal has been realizing that my fertility story isn’t what I thought it would be.

For half my adult life, I tried not to get pregnant - only to reach the finishing line wondering: how will I ever fall pregnant? And how many months do I have left?

In December 2024, I found myself sitting in a fertility clinic again. It wasn’t my first visit, but it was the first time I felt it was necessary. I had just turned 36.

For years, I’d tucked my low hormone levels into a dark mental drawer labeled deal with later. Knowing my levels aren’t strong. But ignoring the fact that with age they won’t get any better.

What the doctor told me after my first blood work came back, wasn’t what I was expecting: very low AMH (so low that a hormonal therapy doesn’t really make sense anymore), very high FSH, early perimenopause. Things I didn’t even fully understand at first. I was shocked, I was devastated, I was very sad. I was thinking: Not even the doctor wants to make money with me.

No one really prepares you for this. No one tells you how it hits your sense of identity: how womanhood suddenly feels like something you’ve failed at. I felt my biology had suddenly ghosted me.

Feeling ashamed, less female, thinking what’s wrong with me and why is my body not working the way a female body is supposed to work?!

For days I cycled between anger, grief and panic.

A sudden reminder that, no matter how healthy or intentional you try to be, some parts of life aren’t within your control. And I tried to be very healthy the last couple of years.

It’s that exact moment when you ask yourself: Did I lose time? Did I make the wrong choices? What if I meet someone who wants kids? What if I can’t give him one?

And the hardest one: Can I find peace without ever reproducing my own DNA?

Still, I didn’t want to give up. I was looking for answers. I knew I couldn’t change the number of eggs I had left, but maybe I could change their quality.

I remembered Filippa Harrington, a naturopath I’d met online a year earlier. We’d both lived in Cape Town once, and I’d always felt strangely connected to her. She instantly made more sense to me then what the fertility doctor ever tried to put into words. Or not.

We started working on rebuilding my body. I changed my diet. I started eating meat again. I was eating sardines - lots of sardines. I stopped fearing carbs and started giving my body fuel. I tried acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, supplements that probably cost more than my rent.

My acupuncturist told me I was like a car running on no oil - for a very long time already. So I became my own mechanic. Yellow glasses at night to block blue light, tracking temperature every morning, peeing on a stick to see if I was ovulating. Googling every miracle fertility supplements on the internet.

I wanted to buy time.

Six months later, I went back for my first egg retrieval attempt: a low-dose protocol using Letrozol, usually prescribed for women rebuilding hormones after cancer therapy. My doctor called it “the last resort.”

We expected 1–3 eggs.

By day seven, there was progress. By day thirteen, we retrieved “five”.

Only one was mature.

I called it Nemo.

One can say: all we need is one, strong egg. Sure, but I could do the maths. You usually need fifteen to twenty eggs for one healthy baby. I felt devastated, again.

I took a break, then went full speed. I visited almost every fertility clinic in Berlin to find the one who specializes in a low egg reserve. So called „low responder“. I talked to Hamburg, Spain and Cape Town.

I asked three different doctors for a protocol. I got three different answers.

Overwhelmed and exhausted, I went back to my original doctor, probably out of pure frustration and convenience. I wanted to go all in. I insisted on the full hormonal protocol, I “prescribed” it myself: 300 I.E. Meriofert.

Result: two eggs

Approx. 7k€ and a lot of tears and a drained body later, I had my little frozen fish family: Nemo, Dory + Marlin.

I decided to pause for now and give my body time to recover. And also my mind.

This whole journey has been a mirror, a teacher and a reminder that control is the most seductive illusion we have.

And so is time.

Right now, I’m shifting my focus toward hormonal health, community and education - supporting other women to feel less alone inside their own messy, miraculous bodies.

If you’re reading this and quietly counting your eggs (or your what-ifs), know this:

You’re not broken. You’re just human.

And even one tiny Nemo can change everything.

I want to believe that all it takes is one, strong egg.

xx viktoria