It was the new year 2011 when my husband and I decided we wanted to start a family. It was time, we were 30 plus, loved each other, we’d been married a year and had good stable jobs that provided us with a comfortable lifestyle. It was perfect timing.

In my early 20’s I always told my friends I was the one that would have at least 7 children. In my mind, a large, close-knit family is something I craved to experience and I thought it would be a form of security when I got old. The stunned looks at that statement are something I wish I had caught on camera.

My husband, on the other hand, is a man who was meant to have children. For anyone who knows him can clearly see the caring, patient and kind individual he is. He was always sure, from a very young age, that getting married and having kids, being a dad, is a life he couldn’t wait to have.

Although, we had very different reasons for why we wanted children but the one thing we had in common was that we wanted this with each other and no one else.

My experience with trying to conceive not only became my greatest secret, but also the greatest teacher and the universe starting me down a path of healing all the things I’d buried and locked away.

If you’ve been trying to conceive for more than 6 months, medically speaking you fall under the infertility category. And little did I know, I was to receive this label. But it was not just the personal struggle with the conception that I had to deal with, it was constant questions from family, judgement from relatives, the pity of colleagues and my own sense of feeling like a failure in giving my husband the only thing he wanted.

To make our journey even more perplexing, was that there was no real cause of infertility in our case. We both have an ‘all green’ in every single test we’ve ever taken.

For couples who are having a hard time conceiving there are so many decisions to make, physically, emotionally and financially.

The ovulation tracking, pills, medications, eating carefully, moving carefully, punctures left by needles, multiple runs to the doctor’s, miracle massages, herb portions and powders…

Slowly but surely, all this took its toll. As months went by, I started to become more secretive about my struggle, pushed back hard towards family, portrayed a nonchalant attitude, sabotaged my relationship, my ovulation tracking, avoided certain people and situations.

I didn’t want to talk about, I didn’t want to think about it, no one understood how I was feeling and it left me in a deep hole, all alone.

Until the day I decided I deserve better than this. I had gone so far out of alignment, so far from being happy, I knew I couldn’t, I shouldn’t conceive in that state of mind.

Landing on a sweet spot with my life’s journey and making peace with where I am has been a work in progress for half a decade. Uncovering and healing the emotions and the turmoil has helped my husband and me to grow together in ways we never thought possible.

Once I freed myself from what normal looks like, from the limited view of how it should be, I found a peace and calm within me like never before. Learning to coexist with your emotions and healing the hurt from the past has left me strong, confident and open.

There is more than one way to birth your creation into the world and I find that I am living mine. My story is not finished, there is a lot more to come but the difference is that I am actively creating my life’s experiences and loving every minute of it!

I cannot explain in words the shift in energy, the change I feel as I overcame some of my deepest, darkest pains. It was early 2017 when finally I ‘met’ my ‘baby’ during a Vipassana meditation session. The decision to get pregnant and bring a child into this world is the most spiritual experience of a woman’s life. It has taken me a lot of guessing and feeling alone to get to a place where I feel empowered. I know now the energy blocks that held me back from conceiving and that it was my cosmic journey to heal that energy.

I am offering this course to help women seeking a path forward after years of struggle, those who lack confidence, are emotionally drained and feel unsure and alone. I want them to know they are not alone and that they need not struggle in the darkness like I did.

From the outside, it may seem that Joy and I have had very different stories but the core that remains common is the fact that we both had to find peace within, choose our thoughts, heal the pain and surround ourselves with people that are uplifting in our journeys. And that is why we are doing this together, to support others like us.

Ruby is a Certified Coach from International Coach Federation and Good Vibe Coach Academy. She is also a Certified Yoga Trainer from Tulsidalam School of Yogapada, Kerala, India and a Certified Antenatal (Prenatal) Yoga Teacher from Param Yoga, Pune, India .

She infuses her coaching with a distinctive combination of Yogic wisdom, Law of Attraction, Natural Remedies and Quantum Physics. Ruby coaches’ clients to manifest external experiences using spiritually led inner transformations.

Her five-pronged approach to coaching deals with key aspects of an individual’s life; how they relate to others, relate to themselves, their relation to the physical form, the mind, and the spirit.

As a behaviour trainer she has trained workshops on DISC, & Habits of Highly Effective People, Belbin Team roles, and other management workshops.

I am a lesbian mom with two kids, ages 6 and 4.

My partner and I had been together for about two years when we decided to start a family the following year. Being a lesbian couple, there are lot of decisions to be made in terms of how and where to get pregnant, what kind of donor to use, how to finance it etc. We hadn’t talked any of that fully through, we just knew we wanted to become pregnant and have a baby.

I believe in deliberate creation and on New Year’s Eve of 2009 I sat down with my journal. I had made the decision that I wanted to become pregnant the second half of 2010. The thought was so exciting and yet accompanied by many hows, and buts, and also worries. I wrote down a journal entry from the perspective of one year later. I went into the feeling of what it would be like to be pregnant, embrace these good news, and share them with friends and family. It was important to me not only to get pregnant, but to already have passed the (in my mind scary) three month mark.

I still have that journal entry and I love it. The fact is that one year later I was indeed four months pregnant. We had actually tried getting pregnant a few months earlier. Yet my pregnancy matched my journal entry to the date. And with only two actual tries I got pregnant fairly quickly. I gave birth to Eliasz Jamil on July 4th of 2011.

Before and during that first pregnancy I immersed myself in positive images around pregnancy, watched Youtube clips daily with positive affirmations around pregnancy and lots of baby pictures to help me visualize.

For the second pregnancy, we had early on made the decision it would be great to have the kids about 2 years apart. We decided on the actual month to start trying just a few months ahead, yet not knowing how to finance it. As soon as we made our decision friends offered to lend us the money, which we gladly accepted.

I was absolutely confident I would have another child, and knowing what it felt like to be pregnant, it was easy to tap into those feelings. It was just a few weeks before our first try that I sat down and made a journal entry again. This time writing directly to the child, inviting him/her into our lives. And writing to my son Eliasz, that his sibling is on the way.

I got pregnant on the first try. Milosz Jinan was born at home 2 years after my first son.

I love having an amazing partner and kids. Yet it was hard for me to realize, that my kids are also my greatest challenge. After the birth of my second child I suffered from post-natal depression and two years later I had a complete parental burn-out. I have grown immensely from these experiences yet continue to figure out motherhood each day.

Becoming pregnant went pretty smoothly for me, so why am I offering a course for women, who have a hard time conceiving?

The mere decision to become pregnant, meant to detach myself from other people’s judgement of what I should or should not be doing with my body and my life. Unlike in the US, where sperm banks and donor insemination are available to women, regardless of sexual orientation or marital status – in Germany these are not legal options. Being a lesbian woman and wanting to become pregnant required self-confidence, determination, and lots of self-love.

There are a lot of decisions to make. There are a lot of people out there, who have a strong opinion about what is right or wrong. There are so many different options in terms of choosing a sperm donor, getting intrauterine insemination (IUI), traveling to a different country, and taking a medical approach with ovulation monitoring & hormone intakes or not…

My own mother, told me that if I would become pregnant with the use of a sperm bank, it would not be her grandchild and she would not consider my wife the mother of the child.

The story I told you above was only possible, because I let go of other people’s judgements, and focused on self-love. I learned to be at peace with myself and with my partner. I learned to trust in our ability to make the right choices. I let go of people, who were not supportive, and focused on all the great people who were.

I actively used deliberate creation (or the law of attraction) to support myself in getting pregnant – and I am happy to share what has helped me and what I learned from it. Yet, deliberate creation is not about manifesting a certain outcome – at the basis it is about feeling good and at peace with yourself – and that is what Ruby and I are here to support you with.

Joy Zalzala-Soyka – Relationship & Career Coach.

Joy Zalzala-Soyka is a relationship & career coach with great love and respect for misfits and rule breakers, who expect the best for themselves and the world.

She offers you tools, perspective and space to let go of habits, emotions & limiting beliefs, that no longer serve you, so that you can evolve as a whole person.

She has 8+ years of counseling and management experience in organizations focused on helping women, who have experienced sexual and domestic violence as well as organizations serving people from lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* communities.
As a law of attraction coach she offers individual coaching by phone/skype & online courses in English and German.

Joy believes in deliberate creation, loves turning ideas into action, and following unconventional paths. In 2016 she went on a 9 month world trip with her wife and two small kids seeking happiness and ways to thrive with family, entrepreneurship, community and travel.