Like a lot of women, Lara Solomon believed she would end up being a mother at some point, one day.
It wasn't until she hit 45 and was still single that she knew she had to take things into her own hands.
She went on to fork out £20,000 on IVF and although it was unsuccessful, the exhaustive process sparked the idea for her next business venture.
The 47-year-old, who previously ran a children's book company, was sick of using so many plastic pregnancy tests when trying to conceive and was dumbfounded by how many other women she saw taking countless tests just hours apart that would ultimately end up in landfill - with one study suggesting 12.5 million home pregnancy tests are completed in the UK each year.
When Lara was stuck in hotel quarantine in Sydney last year and after seeing yet another negative pregnancy test, she thought there had to be a better way - and there came Hoopsy - an eco-friendly paper pregnancy test that uses a strip test method.
While Lara hopes it means women who are trying to conceive can make more sustainable choices, she hopes to raise awareness of fertility hurdles that some younger women may not realise.
"I didn't feel pressure to have a baby - I always just thought I've got time and I never really stopped to think about it properly," Lara, who is from Salisbury but moved to Sydney for her ex-husband who she married at 33 and later divorced, tells the Mirror.
"I always thought 'I'll meet someone else'. I always thought I'd have children and get married again. And I always thought I had loads of time.
"My sister had her last child at 43 so you think maybe it runs in the family. I never thought about it and the impact."
It wasn't until a friend of hers, a year younger, began IVF - which is one of several techniques available to help people with fertility problems have a baby - that Lara suddenly felt confronted by her biological clock.
"I thought, actually I don't really have any more time and I looked into it, and they only let you use your own eggs up to the age of 46. So it was just like, oh okay, so if I really want this I've got to do it now," Lara continues.
"It was all a bit rushed and it sounds ridiculous, but it was just a sudden realisation that I was actually older than I felt."
Lara met with a private doctor in August 2020 and had her eggs harvested three months later in November following a period of brutal hormone injections.
Despite what felt like a 'million' scans, doctors didn't pick up that Lara had a perimenopause ovary, which lowered her chances of being able to conceive. On top of this, of three eggs extracted, only one matured.
Chances of her being able to conceive were as low as one per cent, and devastatingly, the IVF didn't work.
Lara remembers finding out about the disappointment at the beach, which left her in floods of tears for days.
"I guess you always hope because if you don't have hope, then what's the point in doing it?" she asks.
"You hear all these stories - like I have a girlfriend who only had one egg from IVF, it fertilised and made it to day five - she's now got a daughter.
"You hear all these kinds of stories and think why can't that happen to me? And then when it doesn't, it's just really, really upsetting and it's a shock.
"Even though you've been told that the chances are slim you always think it could be you... why can't it be me?"
After realising how difficult it was for her to get pregnant with IVF, Lara tried embryo donation at a clinic in Barcelona, Spain, in June 2021.
Women in Spain get paid around one thousand euros to donate their eggs, which the entrepreneur agrees with due to how gruelling the process can be.
Doctors matched an embryo with Lara's physical attributes and she waited for 10-days later to see the outcome.
"The test was negative again. I was disbelieving," Laura, who then had a blood test to confirm the result, admits.
"I really really thought it would happen and they didn’t know why.
"I spent a day and a half crying and then I was worried about all the money I was spending on it and amid Covid, I had to keep paying for PCR tests to travel too."
Eight weeks later she tried embryo donation again - this time with the support of her brother at the clinic with her.
She had told all of her family and close friends that she was expecting to become pregnant as she felt she needed support doing the process alone.
When doctors took photos from the ultrasounds, the transfer looked promising, leading Lara to believe it was finally going to work.
She flew back to Sydney - where she continues to live as she loves it so much despite splitting from her ex - and carried out her 14-day hotel isolation.
Whilst alone in her room with nowhere else to go, whether or not she could be pregnant was all she could think about.
She tested early on days eight and nine, and on day 10 - all came back negative.
But when a doctor was sent in covid-secure gear to take Lara's blood test, they found her to be pregnant.
"I was like 'this is unbelievable, this is great," Lara says.
"I had spent all of Monday crying and this was now like Wednesday or Thursday and it was suddenly like 'wow it's happening.'"
She was experiencing morning sickness but later discovered this was due to the progesterone drugs she was taking.
When her blood was tested out of quarantine, her HCG levels were back down, indicating she had miscarried.
"It sounds funny but I was getting really excited about being sick because that's the sign of pregnancy but actually, I wasn't pregnant. It was hard," Lara recalls.
Despite the emotional and physical turmoil, Lara is still undecided if she can put herself through it again.
"I always thought I'd be a mother and I've had so many people over the years say 'you'd make a great mother,'" Lara says, who can extract eggs until she is 51 - which concerns her as to how old she would be by the time the child turned 18.
"If you haven’t been through it, people don’t realise. I just don’t know now. I have six nieces and nephews under 11 - maybe I can get my mothering fix from them."
Lara has looked into adoption, which can also take years, she says, and into fostering - which is another challenge as authorities say she can only leave the country two weeks a year, prompting further difficulties as her family is based in the UK.
When trying to conceive, Lara admits to only using around 15 tests in total, compared to other women who were using 10 each time cycle, she says.
"I was in these Facebook support groups and loads of women were uploading pictures of rows of tests lined up with different time frames," Lara explains.
"I was just shocked how much plastic was being used."
She searched online to see if there were plastic-free pregnancy tests out there but only found one company in the US that had discontinued its product.
She sought out a manufacturer and began developing a paper design - with Hoopsy officially launching just a fortnight ago.
"I was thinking, 'we could just do a bigger version of the strip test.' And I was just like, 'why couldn't that be an option?'" Lara says in disbelief that it hadn't been achieved before.
The paper test can be cut in half - where the part the person urinates on goes in the bin and the other half in paper recycling.
The urine then moves up the card to give the result, and once dried out, it becomes a solid piece of card.
The tests, approved for sale in the UK and Europe while Lara is awaiting Australian approval, have an HCG sensitivity of 25mIU/ml and are over 99 per cent accurate from the day of the expected period.
Clinical trials have taken place to prove the accuracy and laboratory tests to ensure the sensitivity levels of the tests.
While Lara doesn't consider herself an eco-warrior, she makes mindful choices when it comes to being kind on the planet, recycles, and as she swims in the ocean, is alarmed by how much plastic she sees in the water.
"We don't really need this to be in plastic and it doesn't have to be that way. Why can't it be different?" Lara adds.
Her long-term hope is to take over from the midstream plastic pregnancy tests but also to raise awareness about fertility hurdles for some women.
"I never thought it might be an issue (fertility) and always thought it would just happen - I think a lot of women think like that," Lara raises, who also highlights how some companies offer payment plans for egg freezing.
"When I was younger I thought there were always options, but IVF is no guarantee.
"I've spent quite a lot of money on IVF, probably about £20,000. I guess at the end of the day, how important is money really when it comes to having a baby if that's important to you? If you leave it longer, it's actually going to cost you so much more.
"Getting women to think about that, while they are young enough that they still could freeze their eggs if they think that's an option or, you know, just start to think about it... the earlier you're aware of these things, the more you can do about it."
Hoopsy pregnancy tests are available in Kamsons Pharmacy stores from next week and in the next fortnight, Chemist4U. They’re available to buy on the website with free shipping at www.hoopsy.co in packs of three tests for £14.99.
This article has been updated after publication to remove the reference of Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approval.
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