The only needles I had had stuck into me in the past were injections and I expected to be put on a bed of nails when Hilary started acupuncture. But hey, if this would get me a baby, I would even have swallowed nails!

Needless to say, I didn’t feel a thing and Hilary laughed at the way I had screwed up my face in anticipation of the pain. I had gone in as a sceptic, not expecting to feel any different, but at the end of the session, I truly felt far more relaxed, with this sense of … well-being is the best way to describe it. When Hilary eventually left Harley Street and concentrated on practising in Richmond, I decided to stay her patient, because I trusted her professional expertise implicitly.

Hilary focused on my diet and my lifestyle. She prescribed vitamin supplements, discussed a blood group diet with me, lent me her books on nutrition, advised me on what sort of exercise to do, and was always on hand to encourage me. IVF is fraught with unnatural highs and lows. A tiny follicle on an ultrasound scan can send you into terrors if it’s too small or too big. The mega-doses of hormones can make you moody, aggressive, depressed and even suicidal! Hilary saw me through this horrible emotional seesaw with good humour and advice, as well as specially-tailored acupuncture sessions to increase blood flow to the uterus, stimulate egg production, improve egg quality and reduce stress.

A seminal German study (link to research page) has shown that a specific acupuncture protocol has been known to increase IVF success rates by as much as 50%. It has to be performed 20 minutes before embryo transfer and 20 minutes after. Hilary was greatly in favour of trying this. I asked my fertility clinic on Harley Street whether I could bring an acupuncturist in to perform this protocol. They initially said “No” because “they did not have a policy on acupuncture”, and didn’t have space for Hilary to set up her instruments.