Hello my lovely family and friends,

I am writing this to ask you for your help. A lot of you know about my quest to motherhood and the bumpy road that it is taking me on, but I am also aware that some of you may not know anything about it, and as it’s a bit of a long story, I may as well begin…

The only thing that I have ever wanted in the whole world is to be a Mum, it has always been such a strong desire of mine and as a child I was obsessed with babies. I would beg my parents to take me to visit my cousins, and family friends who had babies. I would feed them, change their nappies and rock them to sleep. When I was around seven, I encouraged (or forced, depending on how you see it) my best friend use her pocket money to buy nappies for our dolls (she is the long suffering friend in the photo, I can only vaguely remember making her do this, sorry Linzie, although it could be seen as a good thing as I was clearly a dedicated dolly parent)! My baby dolls went every where that I did (even on holiday to Spain with their own little suitcase, nappies, sun hats and baby bottles), and my favourite time of year was when the new Mothercare catalogue came out and I could plan what I was going to buy for my babies once I was a grown up (yes I actually did that)!!! My ultimate heroes were Dr Miriam Stoppard, Claire Raynor, and Penelope Leach, I loved their parenting books, they were not a typical eight-year-olds night time reading but the outcome was that at a young age I was already well knowledged in subjects such as how to bath a newborn, wean a baby, and the perils of potty training!

I chose a career centred around little humans, which has brought me so much happiness and fun (and occasional hair pulling moments of course)! I have been, and still am lucky to spend time with other peoples children, but inside me there is sadness because I do not have any children of my own.

As it happened, life and it’s unpredictable nature meant that I didn’t end up meeting anyone who I wanted to settle down and share parenthood with. This in itself posed as a slight problem in that it takes two to actually create life (you know the biology)! Then I discovered that there is a way around that, so here I am!

Anyway, after lots and lots of thought and consideration to the realities of this choice, at the end of 2017 I found myself in a fertility clinic, full of optimism, with the plan to conceive a child using donor sperm. Little did I realise that the journey would not be as easy as I had first imagined. After two failed IUIs and a cycle of IVF that ended in early miscarriage, I am now ready to conquer what will likely be my final cycle of IVF (unless I win the lotterty)! So what I need from you lovely people is your help to try and make my dream come true. My parents have already contributed generously, and now with this lovely pot of gold emptied and my savings gone (all treatment had to paid for privately), I need to raise at least £2000 for the medication and a few other bits in my IVF attempt for which the actual IVF cycle is paid for as part of a package, but I hadn't realised quite how much the medication and any extras would be.

As I am not getting any younger, time is of the essence (tick tock tick tock), I am hoping to go ahead with treatment in the new year. I work full time and I am trying to raise the cash myself by being extra frugal, and by doing extra work in the evenings and weekend.

So this is where you come in… if you have any money to spare then I would really really really appreciate a little donation, I am utterly desperate to be a Mum, I have no shame in saying that, none whatsoever, I want this so badly. I want what most of you are so lucky to already have, and if I have a child it would be so so loved. If you are able to help me then you could be making my dreams come true AND you could be helping to create a brand new tiny human as well! How cool would that be?

Lots of love, Amy.