It is with a lot of heartbreak and angst that I announce the very final round of the Fertility Warrior Intensive, and the closure of my business.
The last 12 months have been incredibly rewarding for me as I’ve seen the first babies of my clients born, but also guided some of my clients through their lowest moments.
And I’ve truly enjoyed every minute being by your side. I’m filled with gratitude that you’ve allowed me to be part of your story.
But, the time has come for us to move onto new beginnings here at robynbirkin HQ, a decision that has not been taken lightly, but one that I know is right.
If you’d have asked me about how my life was in May, I’d have told you it was roses.
But cracks began to show in June.
My parents went for a holiday and my sister began working full-time again after a sabbatical.
And the only feeling I can describe to you about that time is an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and isolation. I felt like the four walls of my house were suffocating me, and I realised that I’d lost touch with many of my friends through circumstance. It felt heavy.
Infertility, the chaos of having two children, and putting every spare moment I had into supporting women struggling to fall pregnant with the business, blog and podcast meant no time for friends, or my own well-being.
And here’s where I need to come clean.
I’ve been struggling to keep my head above water since having Olivia. At first I thought it was me on the brink of falling into post-natal depression following her disaster birth and hysterectomy.
But I now feel that it is largely a reflection of my physical health. Antibiotics, cortico-steroids, aspirin, baby-related sleep deprivation and stress have resulted in a range of ailments. Three visits to the Doctor later, it turns out that in June I tested positive for a rare auto-immune disease called Scleroderma.
It was a wake-up call that something in my life needed to change.
And then like kismet, a connection of mine emailed me to say that an unadvertised Marketing Manager position was available, part-time, and asked if I’d like to put my hat in the ring.
And I said yes.
Down-time during the drive to work to be able to listen to podcasts and audiobooks, the connection of a team of workmates who I could see daily and share my life with. Basically, the chance to breathe and escape my house. It sounded (and is) nourishing to my soul.
But in August and September, Olivia, my daughter landed herself in hospital three times with viral wheeze (kind of like Asthma but not) and then on Wednesday 6 September, my husband, Ross fell gravely ill.
Ross managed to rupture his spleen and suffered massive internal bleeding, and came very close to dying in the emergency room triage. In fact, at one point, I thought he had died in my arms. And it was scary… a week later, and he had developed a staph infection, a reruptured spleen and a collapsed lung. His recovery will be months in the making, and I spent the month of September between two hospitals for my family.
In the short space of a few months and even days, my life has changed drastically.
My very ordinary life, feels like an episode of the Bold and the Beautiful!
As I say to my clients, we only have a limited amount of physical and emotional energy. We can only juggle so many plates before they start to drop.
And I’ve been dropping them left, right and centre lately.
My aim with my business has always been to deliver light bulb moments and next level support to women struggling to conceive. To help women feel loved, normal, sane, educated, empowered and hopeful.
But I haven’t been able to provide the support I would like to.
And you deserve the best.
But back to the train wreck of recent times….
You can’t pour from an empty cup and the antidote to overwhelm is almost always to simplify.
So, many will not have noticed, but a short while ago, I quietly wrapped up my one-to-one services and made many of my products automated in an effort to rebalance my business and my life.
But my clients were my lifeblood. Supporting you in your darkest moments, and in your incredible breakthrough and happy moments has been the core of my business, and my why. Once I removed that, it didn’t feel the same.
And the trouble is that the machine still needs feeding. No business is ever truly passive. There are still posts to write, questions to answer, social media updates – and the reality is I don’t have the capacity to provide it on an ongoing basis.
So I’ve made the heartbreaking and difficult decision to close my business, blog and podcast.
To my readers , listeners and clients
Over the coming months, my podcasts and posts will be moved over to my free Thinkific Library.
Our Facebook Groups will not change – The Fertility Warriors Support and Chat Group, Our Pregnancy + Mama Group, and our Fertility Practitioners, Bloggers and Coaches groups will remain, although I will be most active in the groups for my paid programs, The Fertility Warrior Intensive, and Fertility Business School.
Thank you as always for your love notes on email and Instagram messages. They warm my heart and help me feel like I have contributed some good to this world. I don’t always get the time to reply, but I read every single one. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Lastly, I am a passionate believer in my Fertility Warrior Intensive Program.
If you had been intending to join, but hadn’t yet, I will be running one final round, beginning now, as an ecourse. The intensive is life-changing. The lessons will serve you for months, and even years to come. Everyone who has experienced this course has changed, and the interviews and yoga series are simply amazing.
I have tears in my eyes because I know what incredible value and the immense impact this can have on your life, and words cannot describe how proud I am of this program. I hope we can finish with a bang – I’ve made the price for this round incredibly affordable to make it as accessible as possible.
The doors are open now. Please consider joining us for this final round. I will be giving it my all.
A final note
If I can leave with one final note, it is this: please support fertility businesses and their products.
Even a small $10 or $20 purchase from you, can be the difference between their business staying open or remaining shut. Every follow on Instagram, every like and comment on a social media post is noticed and appreciated, and I would have LOVED to have known about these women (and men) in the midst of my journey.
If there was anything I would have done differently, it would have been not seeking out more of their support and services.
These businesses can make a profound difference to your fertility journey – to your anxiety and stress, to your hip pocket (I will always wonder whether things would have been differently had I engaged the services of Sarah Clark – or many of the other functional medicine practitioners out there), and to how quickly (and if at all) you fall pregnant.
And their costs are often significantly cheaper than what we pay at the fertility clinics.
If you want these businesses to stick around, please lend them your support. They’re flying the flag out of a deep passion to help you.
And on that note, a final thank you for all the support you have provided to me. You have helped support me and my family and filled my heart with gratitude, and while I say goodbye with a heavy heart, I know that this is the right decision, and that now is the time to close this chapter in my story.
With love and light.
Robyn
P.S. The doors close for my program at the beginning of December. I’ll drop into your inbox a few more times with some more information, but if you choose to sign up today, you’ll have instant access. If you need help now, you’ve got it!