After years of trying and heartache, Chloe Fisher shares her experience of falling pregnant
After trying for four years, and suffering multiple miscarriages, podcaster Chloe Fisher and husband DJ Paul Fisher have opened up about their difficult journey … and finally, their pregnancy joy
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It took a whole lot of darkness to get Chloe Fisher to her light. The former model and fashion designer and husband DJ Paul Fisher had tried for four years to have a baby, suffering four devastating miscarriages – including one set of twins – eight rounds of IVF, countless needles, surgeries, stress, pain.
All of this while travelling the world for Grammy-nominated Paul to appear at some of the world’s biggest gigs – Coachella, Carnival in Brazil, in Las Vegas and Ibiza among many others – some he cancelled to be by Chloe’s side when she needed him.
Today, she is beaming. Mere months away from delivering their miracle baby, the couple will soon have what they’ve always wanted, and baby Fisher – already a backflipping ball of energy like his or her dad – can’t come soon enough. “There definitely were some dark times, for sure,” Chloe, 31, says.
“Seriously – I honestly was just like, ‘If I can’t have a baby, I don’t see any purpose in being here.’
“I’ve definitely had really dark moments – but then I also had these moments where I was like, I have to have this positivity in myself … what I’ve learned through this whole process is you have to be your own number one supporter, because at the end of the day, everyone’s doing their own lives and in their own lane, so you really have to be rooting for yourself on the inside.
“And no matter what I did, no matter how many doctors’ appointments, or how many IVF appointments – deep down, I knew … I envisioned it for years – I’ve seen myself in labour, holding the baby for the first time, so I always knew that it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when it was going to happen.”
Among other entrepreneurial pursuits like the couple’s Burleigh Heads-based alcohol brand Hard Fizz, Chloe co-hosts raw and real podcast Darling, Shine! with best friend Ellidy Pullin. They have been each other’s source of strength through the hardest of times – including the death of Ellidy’s husband, Olympic snowboarder Alex “Chumpy” Pullin, who died in a freak diving accident near their Gold Coast home in 2020.
Chloe and Ellidy had been forever friends, and were both trying to fall pregnant at the same time – so when Chumpy died and Ellidy used sperm retrieval to bring their child, a now very happy, healthy and determined two-and-a-half-year-old Minnie, into the world as a single mum, Chloe knew it was time to redirect their focus on getting their friend through the grief.
“We lost Chumpy and everybody’s world came completely crashing down,” she said on their podcast recently.
“Eventually, Minnie was born and Paul and I were able to step up – there’s no way that we could fill the void of Chumpy – but we were able to help El out.”
The couple then started seeing an IVF doctor who discovered Chloe had endometriosis, and later was diagnosed with the rare condition Asherman syndrome. But still she didn’t give up, and major surgery last year in the US, where she and Paul, 37, spend a lot of their time, was another step in the right direction.
She’s still not sure what made this time “stick” – the surgery, coupled with a holistic retreat and a break in Bali, hand-in-hand with the fact they’d spent the last six months going down the surrogacy route, and were about to meet their selfless saviour for the first time just days before the shock of a positive pregnancy test. And incredibly, conceived naturally.
In her own words, timing is everything.
“We ended up going down the surrogacy route, and that was a really hard pill to swallow because you have to really digest that you might not give birth to your own baby,” she says from the couple’s Gold Coast home when the doorbell rang with their first baby delivery – a pram. She squealed. “But at that point, we were just thinking, we just wanted a baby in our arms – that was the end goal,” she continues.
“And if this is our journey, then this is our journey.
“But in the back of my mind, I was always going to keep investigating what was going on and why I couldn’t fall pregnant – there was not one per cent of doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going to carry my baby, it was just a matter of time.
“I just kept on drilling into myself when I’d meditate every day, just going, ‘Divine timing is always happening – everything is happening for a reason, and my time will come.’
“And I still can’t believe it’s literally happening – it’s wild, so surreal.”
And her time did come. Despite the trauma and heartbreak after such loss over the last four years, perhaps that was her journey for a reason, she muses, because sharing her struggles publicly has helped countless men and women not feel so alone while battling infertility. Even now, she’s conscious of those still suffering. Although theirs is a story of hope, she wants couples so desperately craving the same to know they aren’t alone, and to keep faith, even when it can feel impossible to keep going.
“Looking back on it as a whole – yes, the journey has been so tough, but I don’t really regret any of it, and I don’t have any sadness for it anymore,” she says.
“I feel when Minnie was born – that time that we were trying as well, that time I needed to put my time on hold to help El, and Paul and I got the opportunity to – and we still do – help with Minnie as much as we possibly can. We definitely can’t fill the void of Chumpy but we can do our absolute best to help take the load off Ellidy.
“I think that kid’s confused because she calls us mum and dad too,” Chloe laughs.
“She calls Ellidy mum and dad – everyone’s called mum and dad, the females and males – she’s lucky in a way because she’s got like 100 people that are absolutely obsessed with her.
“We love her so much. She’s just the best, she’s taught us all so much.
“Outside of Ellidy and Minnie too, I wouldn’t be where I am today without the podcast and advocating for women who go through miscarriages.
“This journey has given me a whole different purpose in life – I could have gone on and I could have fallen pregnant straight away and my life would have been completely different.
“But I got served these cards and I’m actually in a way grateful that I did because I now have a different line of work that I wouldn’t ever have imagined – I’m just so passionate about helping people better understand this, because infertility is no joke.
“It’s something that you can’t control and sometimes you may never find answers and that’s the same as me – I still don’t really have a solid answer.
“I spoke to so many different doctors and every single doctor told me different things.
“I got sent in so many different directions and I’m really grateful that I fell into this position where it just magically happened, but there were so many parts and so many things that played a part in this pregnancy, I still can’t put my finger on any one particular reason why it happened.”
She and Paul now have bases in LA, Ibiza (Spain) and, of course, the Gold Coast, where she will have the baby. Queensland is now home – although it took Paul seven years to lure the love of his life up north and away from friends and family – she’s the eldest of four siblings – in Narrabeen on Sydney’s notoriously insular northern beaches.
“Paul grew up here on the Gold Coast, and it seriously took him seven years to get me to move up here,” she laughs.
“I was such a homebody and a home girl and I think it was originally because of our lifestyle and I was like, ‘How the hell does this work’ just wrapping my head around the constant travelling, so I always really liked having home base.
“But then eventually, when we got married, we bought our first home and it was on the Gold Coast and since being up here, I absolutely love it – I really don’t miss Sydney at all.
“I have my mum and my dad and one of my sisters living down in Sydney, but my brother actually lives just down the street from me and then my other sister lives just down the street, so I’ve got two siblings that live up here.
“Mum’s dying to get up here – we’ve just got to convince Dad to get out of Narrabeen.”
She and Paul – then a “broke-ass surfer” first met in Bali in 2012 – a place that now holds extra significance for the loved-up couple.
“He’s just so excited – and especially now that my bump’s growing, we just stare at it at night and go ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe there’s a person inside me growing,’” she says.
“The odds definitely weren’t on our side because Paul travels so much for work, but when I needed him most – when I was going through miscarriages or anything like that – he was always the first person to cancel shows and be with me.
“And he’s also not shy about it, because it’s so unspoken and men never talk about this stuff and for him to be able to post on his social media and his platform and be like, ‘Hey guys, I’m cancelling this show because my wife has had a miscarriage and I need to be there for her’ is massive.
“I actually feel just as sorry for them as the woman going through loss because they essentially are completely helpless, but they’re going through it as well, even though they’re not physically going through it.
“They’re going through it emotionally and no one really asks if they’re doing okay. They’re always expected to support the woman and what she’s going through, but behind closed doors, they’re experiencing this as well.”
In terms of more mini Fishers, the couple has two embryos frozen here in Australia and three in the US from their IVF journey to use down the track, whether that be by surrogacy or not. But the fact that zero eggs were retrieved when they last went through the gruelling process in the US in 2022 shows just what a miracle this baby is.
“Talk about divine timing,” Chloe says.
“We had a scan yesterday actually, and the sonographer was like, ‘Wow, this kid has literally not stopped moving for an hour’ – it just does backflips all day.
“It’s gonna be its father, an effing ball of energy,” she laughs.
“I really am just super excited for all of it – even the labour experience.
“To have that whole experience with Paul and have that bonding experience with him, and that initial moment of the baby on my chest – and just having Paul there and doing that together. I’m really excited to see that evolve and grow.
“The first moments of bringing it on a plane together and settling into our lives around the world and touring and bringing the baby to its first show – it’s exciting to let it experience the life that we live as this little family.
“That will be pretty special.” ■
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