The One Where I Talk To Entrepreneur, Lara Solomon

In this week's episode of Spinsterhood Reimagined, I talk to entrepreneur, Lara Solomon. 

Lara, a Brit living in Sydney, Australia, is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Hoopsy, which manufactures 99% paper eco-pregnancy tests to help counteract the sheer amount of plastic pollution the midstream plastic tests usually create. The tubes are also made of cardboard which are fully reusable and recyclable. At the age of 45 and single, Lara decided she wanted to try and have a child so she embarked on a mission to get pregnant. She initially had IVF which unfortunately didn’t work as one of her ovaries was diagnosed as peri-menopausal - so she decided to go down the embryo donation route. She settled on having her embryo donation procedure at a clinic in Spain and whilst she did get a faint positive test, she then miscarried the embryo. It was during this process that Lara realised how many times women who are trying to conceive test using plastic pregnancy tests. 

In this episode, Lara and I talk about her former marriage - which took her to Australia - and her subsequent divorce; her feelings around her current single status; her experience of dating in Sydney including the time she went on fifteen dates in one week; and how so many people stay in dead end relationships because they’re afraid of change, or they don’t want to sacrifice a particular lifestyle.   

We also talk about how Lara’s three siblings are all married with children, and one of her nieces is named after her; how she does experience feelings of loneliness but deals with them by spending time with friends every day; and how she always assumed that she would be a mother, but found herself aged forty-five single and childless.    

Lara also tells me all about her journey of trying to conceive alone, despite never having wanted to do it without a partner; how she was told that the chances of her conceiving through IVF at her age were 2% but she was determined to go ahead anyway; and how devastated she was when she was told that she wasn’t pregnant following her embryo donation procedure in Spain, despite having initially had a positive pregnancy test. 

Finally, we talk about Lara’s new company, Hoopsy, the name of which comes from the old Dutch word ‘hoop’ which means hope; and how young women need to be better educated about the potential challenges of getting pregnant. 

Hoopsy Website: https://www.hoopsy.co/ 

Follow Lara on Instagram: @hoopsyco

Follow Lara on Twitter: @hoopsyco

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