Our story

I'm Belinda, I trained as a doctor and spent years trying to become a mother.

My husband Chris and I did 6 rounds of IVF before having two daughters.

If you're here, reading this, you probably already know how exhausting and isolating this journey can feel.

This is the story of what changed - and how we hope Fertility Hero can help you.

The beginning

Chris and I started trying for a baby just over ten years ago, when I was working as a junior doctor in a London hospital. We were relaxed about the timeframe at first, but after a year of trying our GP referred us for blood/sperm testing and scans, all of which were normal. We were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. 

Time moved on, lots of our friends had two children already and I'd still not seen a shadow on a pregnancy test. After two years we tried two rounds of stimulated IUI - still nothing. After three years, we decided to proceed to IVF. I was heartbroken as I had always hoped it would work naturally but I was so desperate for it to finally happen, terrified that it might not and exhausted by the constant cycle of hope and failure. When we eventually started IVF, it was a kind of relief.

"Lots of our friends had two children already. I still hadn't seen a shadow on a pregnancy test."

Three rounds, and a turning point

We did three rounds of IVF in London: one NHS-funded, two private. Each time, we lost most of our embryos between fertilisation and transfer. On collection day, we'd start with a good number. We’d still have most on day 3. But by transfer day, we'd have only one or two left, suboptimal, and nothing to freeze. Two negative tests. One early loss.

After three failed cycles, something shifted in me. I stopped deferring to everyone else and started doing my own research. I have a medical degree and was working as a doctor in hospital so I'm used to evaluating data and weighing options but this wasn't academic any more. This was existential. Looking at the possibility of a future without children brought my priorities into sharp focus. Everything was secondary to the desire to get pregnant and have a baby. I became obsessed: scientific papers, books, podcasts, clinical data. I wanted to understand why this was happening to us and I wanted to know that I had left no stone unturned.

We switched to a clinic in the US with world-leading IVF success rates. Their approach felt different from what we'd experienced before. Alongside our treatment, they talked to us about the things we could think about outside the clinic too, and supplements became part of our routine. It made me realise how difficult I'd found it to get clear, trusted information about this side of preparing for treatment. Even with my medical background, working out which ingredients to look for, what to take and which brands to trust felt surprisingly complicated.

We flew to the US for a day of tests in November 2019 and made a plan to return for an egg collection in March 2020.

By then, COVID was dominating the news. The day I boarded a practically empty flight to the US, the pandemic was declared.

Our plan had been that Chris would finish up his work commitments and fly over in time for egg collection. This plan now looked in doubt. I was worried that I’d flown there alone and injected lots of expensive medication for nothing.

Amazingly, Chris made it on one of the last flights and despite snowstorms and the clinic’s increasingly stringent COVID regulations and a flat tyre, we managed to complete the cycle.

We had always planned that we would return to the UK after egg collection to allow any embryos to be biopsied for PGT-A. We came home to a country in lockdown.

A few days later, we heard from the clinic that there were 5 good quality blastocysts. This was incredible news given our previous results.

"The clinic in the US actively encouraged us to take a specific protocol, including high-dose CoQ10, for three months before starting. Our previous doctors hadn't mentioned it."

What changed

After three unsuccessful IVF cycles, I felt there was still so much I didn't understand about everything that happened outside the treatment itself. My medical training meant my instinct was to research, and when we moved to a new clinic, I was introduced to a much broader approach to preparing for treatment. Supplements became part of our routine, but even with my background, I found the whole category surprisingly difficult to navigate — which ingredients to look for, what to take and which brands to trust.

Why Fertility Hero exists

After six rounds of IVF, we eventually had our two daughters. The experience stayed with me, particularly how overwhelming it had been to find and choose supplements at an already difficult time. Fertility Hero grew from a simple idea: to create the kind of supplement experience I wished we'd had during our own fertility journey.

After everything we went through, and how long it took, we began to believe that it would never be possible to have a child, let alone two. It was the most difficult and lonely part of my life which is why we want to support others who are going through the same thing.

You don't have to figure it out alone. Start here.

Belinda
Dr Belinda Adams, Founder of Fertility Hero
Dr Belinda Adams Founder, Fertility Hero
"I don't want you to spend years figuring it out the way I did."
  • Built for you, based on our experience So you don't have to figure it out alone.
  • Evidence-led, not label-led Every ingredient chosen for what the research actually shows, not token amounts to tick a box.
  • Clean formulations, no shortcuts No magnesium stearate, no industrial oils, no synthetic fillers. Nothing we wouldn't take ourselves.
Our journey — Fertility Hero timeline