Coasteering - A Short Film

Coasteering is an upcoming short film about one couple rediscovering joy at the end of an unsuccessful fertility journey. With part-funding secured from Screen Ireland's Actor as Creator award, and Virgin Media's Discover award, we're looking for €5000 to help complete our budget and make our film.

Reframing Failure by Orla Sanders (Project Lead)

My IVF journey began in 2014 and ended in January 2020 when I completed my last round of IVF. After seven years and five cycles, my husband and I were faced with failure yet again.

Initially, we were very excited to do IVF because we believed that this was the solution to our problem but as each round failed and our bank account emptied, our hope turned to despair. The financial impact, topped with the physical and emotional strain of IVF created the perfect storm in our lives. The future was bare and the present was unbearable.

I knew something had to be done. I needed to turn that bare future into something colourful. I turned to running and therapy and was able to reimagine my future without children, a hopeful place full of excitement and potential, something I hadn’t felt in years.

We constantly hear of IVF success stories while the stories like mine tend to fall into the abyss and anything we do see, like the play ‘Yerma’ offers nothing positive to take away, as if only those women who have their baby get a happy ending. My ambition for this project is to give women like me the happy ending they deserve.

It’s so rare that we hear a positive outcome from the unsuccessful IVF journey. So much of that industry is built on hope of a family but so little of it is mindful of appreciating the family you already have. For all the euros we spent on drugs and treatments, and hormones and tests, not one bit of it went into mental health checks, or counselling sessions or any aftercare for our wellbeing and longevity as a couple regardless of the outcome. I wanted this film to give real-life insight into the journey – the humorous moments as well as the hardships, because at time the only way to cope was to focus on the ridiculous.

We took these videos during IVF as a way to show our IVF babies how they were created, though those babies never came to be, I decided that I could use those films to help other people who are experiencing infertility. There is real power in the fact that people get to glimpse inside our personal lives and see what actually happened in an unfiltered way.

Donations / Tiers / Rewards

For anyone kind enough to donate, we are suggesting the following donation amounts, each of which will be matched by a reward should we successfully reach our fundraising target.

* Include your email address when donating to avail of this reward.

**Anna Haugh, Chef & Restauranteur. Anna opened Myrtle in 2019, after 20 years in some of London's best restaurants working with the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Phill Howard. Myrtle Restaurant has been described as an innovative Irish restaurant. Anna uses the best of Irish produce and often takes traditional Irish recipes, making them lighter. A more up-to-date version of Irish Cuisine.