Liz Ellis: ‘I miscarried three times’

SHE was a champion on the netball court — but the battle that the sportswoman had to wage to fall pregnant would prove to be particularly devastating.

Liz Ellis: “The worst thing... is to have your hopes get dashed.” (Pic: Wade Edwards for Stellar)

SOME of the darkest moments in Liz Ellis’s life came when she was trying to fall pregnant with her second child. Looking back, she can remember days that were filled with nothing but grief, and nights when she would cry herself to sleep.

For a woman who thrives on humour, fun and “achieving goals” — she’s a champion former Australian netball captain, lawyer and TV commentator — her struggle with fertility tossed up a heartbreaking life obstacle.

When her first child Evelyn was eight months old, Ellis suffered her first miscarriage. Then, after a six-month period of trying to conceive naturally, she chose to go down the rabbit’s hole of IVF treatment at age 38. Even when the implantation of an embryo was successful, she and her husband Matthew Stocks’s feelings soon turned from hope to grief.

“I miscarried three times while trying to get pregnant again,” Ellis tells Stellar. That third miss was particularly excruciating — she can recall seeing the baby boy’s heartbeat on the monitor. In her new memoir, she writes that “it was like that little beating heart was winking at us, telling us to sit tight because he was on his way”.

Liz Ellis: “The worst thing... is to have your hopes get dashed.” (Pic: Wade Edwards for Stellar)

One week later, during her next scan, the radiographer frowned and apologised. Nothing was there. Ellis was bereft, falling into Stocks’s arms and howling for the son she would never have. “It’s the most devastating thing,” Ellis says. “The worst thing... is to have your hopes get dashed.”

All up, Ellis endured five years and five unsuccessful rounds of IVF — the mix of pain, isolation, guilt, confusion and ridiculous moments of levity along the way have inspired her to now share her story. “I would hate for anyone else to go through what I went through without any information,” Ellis says. “I was hurtling down the highway without a GPS.”

During the early days of fertility treatment, Ellis searched the internet for answers, and quickly realised the resources were limited.

Ellis with her team after their win. (Pic: Getty Images)

“Every time you Googled something, the first lot of results were people trying to sell you something,” she says. “It was everything from IVF to fertility smoothies... it was so hard to find solid information.”

So, in turn, Ellis undertook her own painstaking research to produce a manual for other women faced with the same obstacles. She cold-called and then spent time with IVF specialists, scientists and obstetricians to begin putting together her eventual book. And as she looked back on her blackest days, she realised it was often humour that rescued her at her lowest moments. “I like to think I am funny,” she says. “Not all people think I am funny — my husband is one of that lot.” She laughs. “Infertility can be so overwhelming... if you don’t laugh, you go mad.”

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After her fifth attempt at IVF, Ellis was understandably lost. At this point, what was she supposed to do? It was her sister Kath who provided an answer: she offered Ellis one of her eggs. “She just called me up one day and said, ‘Why don’t I do a donor cycle?’” It made sense to both of them. Kath’s daughter Bridie is basically a younger version of her aunt — as Ellis puts it, “She is my clone.” (It helps that she loves netball and books.)

With husband Matthew Stock and daughter Evelyn.

The sisters were well into the donor egg process when Kath pointed out to Ellis something she herself had failed to notice: her period was late. Kath suggested a pregnancy test. So Ellis took one, and learnt that she and Stocks had, in fact, conceived a baby naturally. Ellis couldn’t quite believe it so she went to meet her husband — who was working at a farm nearby — to tell him the news. “He looked at me like he didn’t understand,” Ellis says. As for her sister, Ellis admits, “She was about the only person that wasn’t ecstatic about me being pregnant! She really wanted to be part of the process, she wanted her skin in the game, she wanted to contribute.”

With pregnancy came hope, and that hope brought anxiety. Ellis had relished every moment of her first pregnancy, but this time around she was fearful. “To protect myself, I would say, ‘This will go the way of the others,’” Ellis says. At 20 weeks, she could feel the baby moving. “Then I started to bond with him.”

“When you fall pregnant, it’s not the end of your infertility journey,” Ellis says. “The way you think about it, how excited you get about it... it’s a vastly different pregnancy.”

In April 2016, Ellis gave birth to her son Austin. Now, she and her family live on a farm outside Ballina in NSW’s Northern Rivers region. She says she loves being “a farmer’s wife” and commutes back to Sydney for her commitments to the Nine Network, which include netball commentating and her analysis of big sporting issues on Sports Sunday.

Liz Ellis features in Stellar magazine.

When she speaks to Stellar, she’s home on the farm with two-year-old Austin (who is napping), while Evelyn, now six, is at school. In her spare time, Ellis stays busy tending to vegetables, cattle, chooks, and pigs — and she delights in Stocks’s love for the spread they have created. “If my husband never had to leave the farm, he would be happy,” Ellis says. “It’s so nice here. The kids have a life with a huge amount of freedom... we spend a lot of time reminding ourselves how fortunate we are.”

Ellis says her five-year challenge ultimately taught her the same thing, along with new levels of patience and strength. “I thought having Evelyn taught me [those things], but I’m a type-A personality,” she says. “I’ve had goals all my life, and when you’re suddenly infertile, your goal is to fall pregnant and have a baby. It taught me to stop and accept and value what I have got.

“You think you are strong as an athlete,” she reflects. “You push your body, but to actually push your mind like fertility pushes your mind? It gives you a greater sense of achievement. You don’t understand until you look back and think: ‘I was so strong.’”

If At First You Don’t Conceive by Liz Ellis (Pan Macmillan, $34.99) is out Tuesday, April 24.

Originally published as Liz Ellis: ‘I miscarried three times’