I've been there

I know this road because I have walked it.

I'm Shaun Greenaway, a male fertility advocate, accredited coach, speaker, co-founder of The Male Fertility Hub and dad to twins through donor conception.

A bit of an introduction

I'm Shaun. I live in Cornwall with my wife Jenna and our twins, Ray and Evelyn. Before any of this, I was a detective. Now I spend my time talking about something most men are taught never to mention: infertility.

I never expected this to become my work. But life had other plans, and I've learned that some of the hardest chapters end up shaping the most meaningful ones.

Shaun with his wife Jenna and their twins, Ray and Evelyn

Donor conception and family

In 2018, I was diagnosed with azoospermia. No sperm. I went through investigations, a varicocele embolisation, and eventually a microTESE that didn't work. Every step felt like another door closing.

Jenna and I talked about what we wanted, and where that left us. We chose donor conception. It wasn't the path either of us pictured, but it was ours. Ray and Evelyn are now the reason for a lot of it. Watching them grow has never made me question the decision we made.

I don't lead with our family story because I want sympathy. I share it because I know there are men reading this who are exactly where I was, wondering if the ground will ever feel solid again. It does. It just takes a different shape than you expected.

Why I started speaking publicly

For a long time I didn't tell anyone what was happening, not even those close to me, because I didn't think they would understand. I wanted to talk to men who did understand, but when I went looking, there was no one. No stories like mine. No voices I recognised. Just silence.

I knew exactly how alone that silence made me feel, and I didn't want another man to feel like that. So in 2021 I started an Instagram account, @knackered_knackers, and began sharing my story, hoping it might help just one other person. Then the messages started coming in. Men who'd never told a single soul what they were going through. That's when I realised the need was so much bigger than I'd understood, and it's what has driven me on ever since.

All these years later, I feel like I'm only just getting started.

What I do now

Today my work sits across a few different things, all pointed at the same problem: men do not get enough support through infertility.

I coach men one to one, working through everything from a fresh diagnosis to the decision to pursue donor conception. I co-founded The Male Fertility Hub with Ciaran, a free community for anyone going through this, because this kind of support should be there for everyone who needs it, and for some people it becomes a lifeline. And because partners carry this too, not just as bystanders, a lot of what we've built supports them as well.

I speak at workplaces, clinics and conferences about what male infertility actually looks like from the inside. And I co-host The Male Fertility Podcast, because conversation is still one of the most powerful tools we have.

A bit more about me

Before any of this, I was a detective. I spent years listening to people on some of the worst days of their lives, asking the right questions, and staying calm when things were difficult. It turns out that training didn't stop being useful when I left that job. It shows up in how I coach, how I speak, and how I sit with men who are struggling.

Outside of work, I'm just trying to keep up with our five-year-old twins and figure out the rest as I go, like everyone else.

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