A Leyland mum has designed a series of greeting cards aimed at people undergoing fertility treatment.

Laura Lonsdale was inspired to start Laura Lonsdale Designs after struggling through IVF treatment in the UK and internationally.

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Laura, previously a marketing manager, endured six rounds of IVF with her husband both in the UK and Greece. Laura said the battle for a baby took a toll on her mental health.

Finally falling pregnant with baby girl Penelope – who they describe as their IVF miracle – in July 2019, Laura then lost her job to redundancy just nine weeks into her first trimester.

As a result she began looking into other options, but with lockdown looming Laura described the hunt for work as ‘really stressful’.

With her husband, an IT manager at Ribby Hall Village being furloughed as a result of the pandemic, Laura decided to take their experience of IVF and turn it into something positive as she recognised the lack of support for people struggling with infertility.

Thortful, an independent designers platform for greeting cards, advertised for new creators to come forward. Being from a family of creatives herself, Laura designed five cards to support people going through IVF and sent them off.

Laura’s designs were approved and a year later she’s hit 2,000 sales on the popular site, with over 700 of those sales coming in the last month alone.

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She said: “It’s a really positive thing to come out of a series of negative events. If I hadn’t struggled with IVF I wouldn’t be so passionate about it now. If lockdown didn’t happen there’s no way we’d have the time to do this.”

Laura’s ideas come from different sources, from light bulb moments in the middle of the night, to family and friends pitching cards they would purchase themselves.

Laura said: “I love having something like this to do that can pay the bills too! It is just so accessible; I have been on maternity and my husband furloughed and we have created this business from nothing.”

After selling just one card in the first month, Laura now says her business is doing really well.

You can look at Laura’s cards on the Laura Lonsdale Designs website.

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What do you think of Laura’s business success? Let us know in the comments.