Raising children can be difficult. And, for many couples in Scotland and around the world, conceiving them can be difficult also.

No one knows this better than south sider LJ McRae and her husband, Findlay.

Laura-Jane, 35, (known as LJ) and husband Findlay, 39, from Newlands, have been trying to conceive for four years.

After two years of trying to conceive naturally, and another two years of trying through IVF, LJ has made a BBC documentary Making Babies, which will air on Monday night in an attempt to start a narrative and shed some light around the process of conceiving through IVF.

“It came from an idea I had had a wee while ago, starting off with something small. My husband and I were struggling with fertility, and I realised that there was a massive world out there of people in the same boat and not a lot of people were speaking about it.”

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Making Babies sees LJ follow several couples as they begin IVF treatment at Ninewells Hospital, in Dundee, after discovering they, like LJ and Findlay, have unexplained infertility.

“My husband and I were very open and vocal about the fact that we wanted kids, and were trying” says LJ. “Once you say ‘I get IVF’, it’s like a scene from Spartacus – a sea of people in front of you will have a similar experience, but you wouldn’t have known that.

“In some cases, people don’t want to talk about it because they think they are different or not normal. Actually, it’s very common.

“If there was more of a dialogue about it, it may normalise it. Telling people, for me, set free all my worries of being left behind or being different.”

For those who do not know, IVF is a long-winded and physically arduous process.

“You have to have been trying to conceive naturally for two years before you can be eligible for the treatment” explains LJ. “There are lots of hurdles to get through.

“Trying to conceive and it not happening, month after month, is like a constant cycle of hope, hopes dashed, and repeat. It can be really detrimental. By the time you get to IVF, you feel like hope is reignited.”

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A large part of LJ’s focus in ‘Making Babies’ is not just on the process of successful IVF, but also those times where it is unsuccessful - a common occurrence, as the current success rate sits at only 33%.

“It’s luck of the draw for anybody” says LJ. “It doesn’t work every single time, and for a lot of people it never works.

“The only time we seem to talk about it is when it works, so when you say to people I’m on IVF, people will say ‘Oh great, I have a friend and it worked for them’. If you’re sitting there having gone through four cycles and it hasn’t worked, you feel further isolated than you did before.

“It comes from a well meaning place as people want you to know that there is hope, but actually, if you look at the statistics..it might not work for you and you have to be aware of that”.

LJ has had four embryo transfers which have not taken, and her and Findlay are still undergoing treatment.

“We’ve had a good old go at it, and we’re still going” says Laura. “There is no guarantee and you have to still come to terms with that.

Laura believes that despite it all, there is still hope as well as a fully satisfying life with or without children.

“I have got a brilliant husband, and life.

“If we don’t have kids, it’s just one of those things. I am so lucky with what I do have. But when you’re in it, it’s really hard to find that perspective, or come out the IVF closet.

“It was such a privilege to stand in the room with other couples, and be invited into their world. They were amazingly brave.”