'Our motto is: You are not alone'

A new online community has become a place of shared support for Donegal couples experiencing infertility, IVF or miscarriage.

Fertility is a sensitive topic for many people and is not often discussed openly. Yet, more than one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage and 14,000 women in Ireland endure a miscarriage every year.

One Donegal-based couple has experienced the heartache of trying to conceive a baby over the past three and a half years.

After a devastating miscarriage this summer, they have decided to blog about their experiences in the hope of helping others.

The Roses and Rainbows group is an anonymous page for the founders and contributors to share personal accounts, advice and information on health, procedures and finance.

The group has planned a meet-up this Sunday 25th August and will host information and meditation evenings in the months to come. Details of the events and locations are available by privately messaging the page.

Here, the Donegal woman behind the group explains why she wanted to let people know that they are not alone:

Myself and my partner have been three and a half years trying to conceive, we’ve been through all the test and were referred for IVF in the form of ICSI over the past few years.

On the 6/8/19 we suffered a miscarriage after our second frozen embryo transfer.

Heartbroken and lost we decided to set up “Roses and Rainbows” a way of helping us heal and helping others going through the same by telling our story.

The page itself is a personal blog of what we have been through so far and continue to deal with, the financial cost of IVF, the emotional side of infertility, IVF and miscarriage.

Roses and Rainbows can share anonymous accounts of IVF, miscarriage and infertility

Followers can feel free to message in privately with their stories, and if they like we can publish them in the hope of helping others (this can be done privately with no names attached to the stories)

We have some amazing professionals writing blogs on fitness and health tailored towards fertility and durning and after IVF and miscarriage.

Finally we realised there was a lack of a local support network here in Letterkenny and Donegal on infertility, IVF and miscarriage so we are delighted to say we have set up a monthly meet up.

The first one is on Sunday 25 August and a meditation evening on Tuesday 8th of October.

(For privacy of individuals on such a sensitive matter all locations will be given by private messaging the page)

Our motto is “you are not alone”. Even if you decide to go through any of these journeys.
without telling family or friends there is a local network of support in place to listen and help.