As most of you know, Nigel and I are lucky enough to have 2 incredible, exhausting, adorable, beautiful little girls who we love to bits! Lots of you know the long and difficult journey we went through to get them, but for those who don't, the "in a nutshell" version is that it took us 6 long years, including several failed cycles of IVF, a difficult and ultimately unsuccessful adoption application, and eventually IVF treatment using donor eggs and sperm over in Spain before we finally became the family that we had dreamed of all those years.

If you haven't had any personal experience of infertility it is pretty much impossible to understand how hard it is, but those of you who have been there or who have friends who have been there will know, it’s simply awful. The heartache, the grief and the constant failure and uncertainty is the hardest thing that either of us has ever been through, and we were lucky to have the support of a wonderful charity called Infertility Network UK who provide advice, support, understanding and friendship to anyone affected by infertility.

Through them we found the strength to keep chasing our dream and ended up with our fabulous Hannah and Mia, and we now want to give something back so the charity can continue to provide that essential support to more people, enabling them to hopefully go on to have their own happy endings.

A couple of years ago I started Open Water Swimming, and can regularly be found throwing myself into Bray Lake on gorgeous summer mornings. Through this I took part in some relay triathlons, and now I've decided to take on the challenge of a full sprint triathlon. This is made up of a 750m lake swim, a 20km bike ride and then a 5km run. I'm doing it at the end of September at Dorney Lake, so there’s not long now…

As if that wasn't enough, for some reason (it might have had something to do with a few glasses of wine!) I have also entered the Great South Run, which is a 10 mile run in Portsmouth at the end of October. Anyone who knows me will know that I'm hardly in peak athletic condition, so this is a somewhat scary challenge for me at the moment!

To spur me on in my training for these events it would be fab to know that I was raising much needed funds for a charity who have played a very important part in our life, so if anyone feels able to sponsor me anything at all then I would be very grateful.

For more information about Infertility Network UK and the great work they do please either speak to me or have a look at their website, www.infertilitynetworkuk.com

Thank you!

Nic x