The Start of Our Journey
Our journey began when after two years of trying to start our family, we still hadn’t had any luck. We decided it was time see the GP for help, and hopefully, some answers. Unfortunately, we got the answer no one wants to hear; our GP told us we wouldn’t fall pregnant naturally due to Terry’s test results showing his sperm had a low morphology rate and high antibodies. I also had numerous tests and scans which revealed that I had polycystic ovaries (but not the syndrome) and a retroverted womb.
When the GP told us Terry’s results, I burst into tears. Terry comforted me and didn’t seem too worried until a couple of days later when he went into depression. Terry found this news extremely difficult, as would any man or woman. He felt he wasn’t able to give me what I wanted and was scared I would leave him.
Turning to IVF
I was adopted at birth so having a family of my own is something I have always dreamed of, but understood if we couldn’t fall pregnant, we would have to look at other options such as adoption. We eventually come to terms with needing IVF, and as the weeks passed, we were both so excited to start the journey.
In July 2019, we had our first appointment with our consultant at Care Fertility Tunbridge Wells, and we were advised we would require ICSI. Neither Terry nor I had heard of this before so after it was explained we left feeling extremely positive.
After our appointment, we were told once my period arrived, we could start treatment. The one time I wanted my period to come, and it took over 60 days to arrive! I had to take Norethisterone to bring my period on.
Beginning IVF Treatment
Finally in August 2019, we started our two-week treatment plan. Our treatment included Menopur, Fyremadel, Suprecur and Utrogestan. Menopur was the first injection I had to take. Terry was extremely supportive and administered my injections for me, which had to be given at the same time every day. I then began taking Fyremadel early in the morning again at the same time each time. After my baseline scans and being told my follicles were growing and where they needed to be, I was told when to take our trigger injection, ready for egg collection!
Egg Collection and Fertilisation
The Tunbridge Wells team managed to collect an amazing 14 eggs at egg collection. This was incredible, but the waiting game now started, and we had to wait until the next morning to see how many eggs had fertilised. When we received the call, we were told we had 9 fertilised eggs!
Three days after egg collection, we were told that only one egg had slowed down, so we now had 8 top grade embryos and could have a day 5 transfer! The surreal feeling knowing your potential baby could be growing at the clinic was incredible – we couldn’t wait for our transfer to take place.
The Embryo Transfer and The Two-Week Wait
On August 28th, 2019, our top-grade embryo was put back inside me! At that moment, I was officially pregnant until proven otherwise. The dreaded two-week wait was ahead of us. We tried to keep occupied and carried on as normal. The two weeks dragged, and it felt like it was the longest wait of our lives. Eventually test day arrived and to our amazement it was a positive result!
The Joy of Seeing Our Baby
Now the countdown to our viability scan was on, the weeks leading up to it felt like years! But eventually the day arrived. It was really difficult to hear that, although we had a positive pregnancy test, it was possible that our pregnancy was not viable, and we wouldn’t know (or be shown the screen) until they found a heartbeat. The seconds felt like hours, but Terry squeezed my hand, and tears began to roll down his face. There was our beautiful baby, the most precious little heartbeat I had ever seen. The moment we had waited so long for - it took a couple of days to sink in.
Pregnancy Milestones
As time went by, we had our 12-week scan, and it was amazing to see how much our baby had grown. We were then able to announce the pregnancy to family and friends on my 30th birthday! It was the most magical birthday present ever.
On December 27th, we had our 20-week scan to be told we was having a baby boy. Terry and I were over the moon to know the sex of our baby. We started preparing, with our family buying clothes and all the rest for months! Finally, the time had finally arrived for our baby to be born.
At 39 weeks (on VE Day), I went into labour. With COVID-19 restrictions in place, sadly I was unable to have my second birthing partner with me, which should have been my mum. Due to being adopted, having my mum with me was something I had always dreamed of and sadly the pandemic took this away from me. I did still have a water birth as planned at Maidstone birthing centre, and it was an amazing experience – my midwife allowed us to FaceTime my mum during the birth which is something I’ll forever be grateful for.
A Beautiful Surprise at Birth
At 8.18am on Friday 8th May 2020, I gave birth to our beautiful baby. However, we were shocked to see we had a baby girl! It was the most magical moment of my life and finished our journey off with such a huge surprise.
Midwives and doctors couldn’t believe we had been told we were having a boy. I had a personalised outfit with “Archie” written on and everything we had was blue! The midwives were incredible and found a knitted pink outfit for us.
It took a couple of hours to re-think of a name for our beautiful baby girl, but we decided to go with the name Poppy, as she had been born on VE Day.
Our family and friends were so happy with our news and sent parcels for Poppy – full of girls’ clothes this time!
A little message from myself and Terry is to never give up hope – your dream will come true.