Fertility Astrology

I have a good friend named Jessica who went through IVF around the same time that I did. She was one of the few people I told about our infertility journey at the time. Her situation was similar to mine; we married our husbands later in life, we had spent many years trying not to get pregnant, and had not had, shall we say, the most healthy lifestyle we may have in our 20’s and early 30’s. But we were both loving people with a lot to give and a strong desire to be mothers now that we were settled down with the men we belonged with.

Jessica was always into astrology. I can remember doing our charts together over bottles of wine in her apartment when we were in our 20’s. She seemed to know so much about what it all meant and I would listen to her describe what each planet’s position in my chart meant and tried to make sense of it all. I was always extremely skeptical of astrology. I believed that you could find something in every astrological reading that could make sense to you if you looked hard enough.

So, I was not surprised when Jessica told me about her plans to consult fertility astrologer when she and her soon-to-be husband were starting their journey. At the time I dismissed it as something silly that my sweet and quirky friend was doing. I remember her telling me that what she got out of her session, more than anything else, was a time frame in which to do her IVF. Jessica only had one shot at an IVF because her insurance was covering it a single time. She wanted to be sure that she gave herself the best possible chance so being given a window in which to do her treatment was very important to her.

I had done my first IVF around this time and had gotten pregnant so I let this information just filter out of my brain. When I miscarried that baby a few months later my husband and I made the decision to fly to Hawaii at the very last minute to attend her wedding. Just seeing her and wrapping my arms around my beautiful friend on her wedding day helped me to feel a little better in my ocean of grief.

A few months later I had moved to Abu Dhabi and had my unsuccessful second IVF. I was starting to feel desperate. My husband and I had decided that we would do three IVFs and that left us with only one left. I decided that I would push myself past my comfort level and ask Jessica for the astrologer’s information.

Nicola Smuts Allsop is a highly regarded and educated astrologer and she’s based in both the UK and Cape Town, South Africa. She does her consultations over Skype and all I had to do was go to her website to book a time. If I was somewhat skeptical then my husband was extremely skeptical. He has never had any time for things like astrology and considered it all to be a waste of time at best, and a cruel way to separate a desperate fool from her money, at worst. But he was as heartbroken and anxious about our prospects of becoming parents as I was so he agreed to participate if it would make me happy.

I had to send Nicola my birth date, place, and time as well as my husband’s several days before our session. And that was it. No medical history, no other biographical information. She suggested that I download some software that would record the Skype call for me so that I could listen to it later. I paid online and we booked a time.

We had our call about a week later and it was fascinating.

I won’t go into too many of the specifics but I will tell you about a few things. She completely nailed a few details by only looking at our charts. She told me that it looked like I had irregular periods, a thyroid condition, and that my husband likely had mumps as a child. All of those things are true. She said that we would probably need to have aggressive treatment in order to get pregnant (i.e., IVF) and that the fertilization of our embryos would need to happen “in exile” (i.e., a petri dish).

There were some things she told me that did not apply to us our or our situation at all. She said that I could possibly have an unusual response to fertility medication (I did not), that I was likely to have endometriosis (I don’t), and that my husband could need to have sperm extraction (which he did not).

I will always remember that she told me something that I found extremely comforting. She said that my husband and I were “averagely infertile” and that there was nothing too serious about our charts that would make her think that we wouldn’t eventually conceive a healthy baby. Those words have been in my head for three years and it was really interesting to listen to the recording of the call again the other day and hear her say it exactly as I remembered it.

All of that was super interesting and affirming but the real value of what she offered came during the second part of the call. What she does is create a list of dates that show the most advantageous times to try to conceive based on the charts she’s reading.

She was able to give me a range of dates when my husband and I both lined up for the best chances of conception. Now, keep in mind, I had never told her anything about our fertility journey up to that point. I think it’s safe to say that she assumed that we were having issues conceiving since I had booked a call with her in the first place, but I did not tell her anything at all about our history of fertility treatment. These dates she was giving me could have been for timed intercourse or for an IVF cycle. She did not know.

The orange highlighted line is the date she told us to try to aim for during out next cycle.

Luckily for me the next best date for us to try again was exactly when we had been planning our next cycle for. Almost to the day. If she had given me a date months in the future I honestly don’t know what I would have done. It would have been a really hard sell to get my husband to agree to postpone our next IVF because of something an astrologer had told me. Plus, my 39th birthday was creeping up at that time and I didn’t feel like I had much time to wait.

She told us that the dates had a few week window on either side so that anytime in the general vicinity of the date would still be positive for us. We ended up having our egg retrieval two days after the date she suggested for us. I got pregnant with our twins that cycle.

Did I get pregnant that cycle because I had consulted an astrologer? I’ll never really know. It was an interesting and unusual tool that I used during my infertility journey and I will never regret it.

If you are interested in learning more about Nicola and her practice you can visit her website. She has very kindly offered to be of service to our group and is ready to hear from you