My name is Alice, I’m 36, and I live in Devon. I have been with my husband T for nearly 13 years and we got married two years ago.

This is our story about trying to have a baby. It was hands down the hardest part of my life so far and the biggest test of our relationship.

It’s taken me a long time to feel brave enough to talk about it openly. I think this is because I felt like I was failing at the most fundamental and natural thing in human life. We kept our trying to conceive struggle a secret for years. Since then we have found out that so many people we know have been through it, some had it a lot tougher than we did too.

So I am writing this because I want to record and remember what we went through and how I felt, and am sharing it in the hope that voicing our experience will help others in similar situations.

Why White Rabbit and Flamingo? A nod to my namesake Alice in Wonderland. The White Rabbit, always rushing, in a hurry, running late, behind schedule. The White Rabbit is my bloody biological clock tick tocking. But a White Rabbit is also a symbol of hope, of new beginnings, embarking on an adventure, taking a leap of faith. Follow the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole and you will fall down a well that seems to go on and on forever but you end up in Wonderland. And flamingo because sometimes having a baby felt every bit as impossible as trying to play croquet with a flamingo.

If what I write speaks to you or someone you know, please do feel free to share my blog and get in touch. At the time, I felt strongly that it was an intensely personal and private experience, but looking back perhaps it would have made things a little bit easier to hold my head up high and let in a few friends and family.