Our IVF Story

You might already be aware that this previous week was National Infertility Awareness Week. This week last year, I announced my pregnancy with my miracle girl, so this year during National Infertility Awareness Week, it seemed like a good time to share our IVF story.

(Sidenote – this was originally going to be a 2 parter but I decided just to keep it as one. So this is a loonnnng post, but hopefully worth the read)

I think infertility and IVF is one of those things you hear about, but know very little about and don’t give much thought to until you have to go through it yourself. It’s one of those things that “happens to other people”.

So this is a story I didn’t ever imagine I would be writing when I was a teenager and frightened by the very thought of finding myself with an accidental pregnancy. “Just one time is all it takes” was the line touted by teachers, parents and magazines.

Nor did I foresee myself writing this when I was in my twenties, enjoying myself, partying, working abroad, seeing the world, and hopping from job to job before finally meeting and settling down with my husband.

In fact even one year into our “TTC journey” I was still so full of optimism and hope that our baby was just around the corner that I didn’t expect it would come to this.

We started trying for a baby in 2014, right after we got married. Coz that’s what you do isn’t it? House, wedding, baby and life all goes to plan and it’s lovely and perfect. Except when it’s not.

Oh how I laugh when I think back to our first month trying. It was October and I thought that a November pregnancy the following month would be perfect as that would result in an August baby, which as a teacher would mean a long holiday during the final trimester.

But I figured we weren’t going to be THAT lucky we would get pregnant the first month so we should have a try in the October too, and that might mean by the desired second month we would have more luck. And how wrong was I… Soon it came to the time when AF (period to you normal people) was due and it didn’t turn up! Oh my goodness, I WAS one of those super fertile miracles that could get pregnant just by sleeping in the same bed as a man.

So I excitedly bought some tests. Actually, in all, I probably bought about ten. One for each of the days that my period was late. And Mother Nature sat back and laughed and laughed, until she thought enough was enough and sent AF along to burst my bubble.

Now, looking back, I do have to laugh at my innocent naivety in thinking I could control what month I would be having a baby, or that I could have been that lucky to have gotten pregnant first time round.

So, onto the next month. And the next, and the next and so on and so on. When we reached 1 year, we found ourselves on the wrong side of that statistic that says that 85% of couples will get pregnant within a year. So off to the doctor we went, which started off a long succession of appointments and tests and of course tears, until we’ve reached the point of being referred for IVF.

We were officially given the diagnosis of “unexplained infertility” in May 2016, which either means nothing is wrong, and we’d just had really crappy luck; or that something is wrong that just hasn’t shown up on any of the tests they’ve done. We were referred to the NHS IVF waiting list, and in December 2016 we had our first appointment to discuss starting our treatment.

Even once you reach the top of the list there’s still so much to go through before you actually get to the treatment part. Blood tests, swabs, consent forms, weigh ins, injection teaching, etc etc. After our first appointment in December, it was April before we actually started treatment.

I’m going to insert a quick “Dummies guide to IVF” in here, because I know that some people have no idea what is actually involved. I genuinely didn’t until I needed to know. And now that I do know, it honestly blows my mind that pregnancies can occur spontaneously!

There are so many hurdles for those little sperm and eggs to cross, and even with medical assistance things can fail at any stage. Hence why IVF is such an emotional rollercoaster. It definitely isn’t the quick fix that many people seem to think it is.

So IVF is basically in 3 parts. The medication and process can differ for each couple depending on their individual needs – for example someone with low egg reserves will have stronger medication than someone with PCOS. There are a million variables but the process generally follows this guideline –

Stimulation – this is the part with the injections you hear about. The mama in waiting will inject herself with drugs and hormones to stimulate as many eggs as is healthy for her. You also don’t want too many, because it’s “quality over quantity” and also because over stimulation can have very serious side effects. It’s a bit of a balancing act! The more eggs you have, then in most cases the more chance you have of a healthy embryo.

Egg Collection and Fertilisation – During stimulation phase you’ll have lots of internal ovary scans, and once they think you have enough follicles, plus the right level of oestrogen in your blood (again, not too high and not too low) then they’ll schedule you for egg collection, and you have to hope that all of those follicles contain an egg. IF the follicles contain eggs they will extract them, IF they are mature they will fertilise them. IF they fertilise they will store them and watch them closely to see if they grow and develop as they should. IF all the above goes to plan, you’ll move onto the final stage…

Embryo Transfer – This is definitely the most exciting part of the whole process as it’s the day you become PUPO (Pregnant until Proven Otherwise) which for most people undergoing IVF is the closest they’ve ever been to pregnancy. You have a real, living embryo implanted and the hope that it gives you is unreal. In this stage they’ll select your healthiest embryo and insert it into your uterus, hoping it will embed and grow into your future baby.

Now as I have briefly touched on in that quick guide to IVF, there are a lot of hurdles to cross, and unfortunately we hit quite a few of those hurdles during our 3 cycles. Obviously we got there in the end so I try not to dwell on that but at the time, each hurdle you hit felt like an absolutely devastating blow. It’s horrible feeling so out of control of your own future, and it leaves you feeling desperate and hopeless.

In April 2017 we embarked on the first round of IVF, and although emotionally I was feeling sort of ok, the thought of the physical side of IVF was utterly terrifying. It was all just the fear of the unknown, as I had never experienced internal scans or self injecting before.

I remember sitting there with the first injection, wondering how I could possibly do this. However once that first injection was done with, I actually enjoyed the fact that I was being pro-active and doing something towards having a baby when everything had been out of my control for so long.

We had a few scans that week, with a blood test each time. After 6 days on my injections, on my 2nd scan, they indicated that I didn’t have as many follicles as they would hope, and that if more follicles didn’t appear then there was a good chance our cycle could be cancelled. I went back 3 days later, on day 9 of injections and they confirmed that my oestrogen was low, and I still only had 6 follicles. 6 follicles could be a good result for some, but I had higher than average egg reserves (AMH), so it wouldn’t be considered a good result for me and they made the decision to stop the cycle there.

I was so heartbroken that after so much waiting, and finally getting to this point, that all those scans and injections had been in vain. However because we didn’t reach the stage of egg collection, it didn’t “use up” one of our NHS cycles, which was a silver lining.

Our second cycle was in August 2017, and it started out much more positively. They increased my stimulation medication to hopefully increase my follicle numbers and oestrogen level, and thankfully that went to plan. They predicted that I would have 12 or 13 eggs collected. It wasn’t until we reached egg collection that things started to go wrong.

The first problem actually occurred DURING egg collection when they couldn’t access one of my ovaries. They extract the eggs with a needle through your vaginal wall but unfortunately my bowel was blocking my left ovary meaning that they had to leave half of my eggs behind. In the end they managed to get only 6 from my right ovary. When I woke up from the sedation and was informed of this, I was gutted. Our chances were halved already.

I spent that evening google success stories with those kind of egg numbers. Statistically, with ICSI (which is a process of fertilising the eggs) the fertilisation rate is usually 50-80% so I thought we would hopefully get at least 3 embryos, and hoped that they would be decent quality.

The following morning we reviewed our fertilisation report from the lab over the phone, and that’s when we were delivered the next blow. Of my 6 eggs collected, all 6 were mature, but sadly only 1 had fertilised. 16 percent fertilisation. I burst into tears immediately on the phone. They scheduled me in for a day 3 transfer (the optimum is day 5) and I spent the rest of the day googling (bad idea) and crying (even worse idea).

I was terrified our wee embryo wouldn’t even make it to day 3. If all the rest of my eggs were so awful that they didn’t even fertilise, what were the chances that this one could possibly make a baby. But amazingly, that wee embryo was a wee fighter, and when we turned up for our transfer they told us it was a top quality embryo for a day 3. We saw the little speck of light on the screen as it was transferred, and just for that moment I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe this was to be our time.

The next 2 weeks were the longest, most nerve wracking weeks ever. I spent every drive to work chatting to my wee embryo, hoping that maybe if I bonded with it, and was thinking positively, then I might have a better chance.

But sadly that little embryo was not the one. I feel quite emotional thinking about this, because that little embryo was the beginnings of a baby, and as much as I would have loved that baby, I wouldn’t have Poppy if that baby had been the one.

I was heartbroken. That wee speck of light was the closest I’d ever been to a pregnancy, and now that it was all over I was feeling hopeless and powerless. Even with medical intervention my body still couldn’t do what it was supposed to do.

In the run up to our next round I was an emotional wreck. It was our final funded round so it really felt like the pressure was on. I threw my everything into preparing for that round. I was utterly terrified we wouldn’t get many eggs, or that they wouldn’t fertilise or they would be rubbish quality. I just expected that history would repeat itself and I didn’t know if I could handle that again.

So I order to give us the best chance possible I gave up sugar and refined carbs for months, I was on a cocktail of supplements that cost me £100 a month, plus acupuncture weekly. I was making anti oxidant smoothies for me and my husband every day, and hiding veg in his dinners wherever I could. I also pushed the clinic to make some changes to my medication, even though they didn’t seem to care very much that our previous round had been such a disaster.

I lost complete faith in the clinic to be honest. I felt like we were just going through the motions and using up our final NHS round before I could move to the private clinic I wanted to go to. In fact I was so sure that we were facing another disaster that I booked an information evening at the private clinic for the month after our cycle.

Amazingly though, that third cycle was to be the one that would bring us our little girl. It was a complete turnaround from our previous cycle.

I responded perfectly during stimulation, my bloods and follicle numbers were bang on. During collection, they were able to access both ovaries, and they collected 10 eggs. 6 of those were mature, and we rocketed from a 16% fertilisation rate to 83%! We had FIVE little growing embryos. Five chances of a baby. I was in total disbelief.

They scheduled us for a day 5 transfer on Sunday 18th February, and I spent the next few days anxiously expecting a phone call at any time to say all our embryos had stopped growing. I don’t know if it’s just genuine fear or a defence mechanism, but I always seem to assume the worst. “Expect the worst and hope for the best” is a phrase that became a bit of a mantra for me.

But that phone call didn’t come, so we turned up anxiously on the day of transfer to find out the fate of our embryos. Out of the 5, one had stopped growing, but the other 4 had continued to develop normally into beautiful little blastocysts. They graded them and the one that was later to become Poppy was initially a 4AA, but then on the screen right there in front of us she started hatching from her shell and was upgraded to a 5AA. The most perfect little blastocyst. The other 3 embryos made it to the freezer, which means we have the opportunity (with no guarantees) of a sibling for Poppy in the future.

I was utterly amazed that we had had such a turnaround, but obviously at that point it was still an anxious wait to see if it had worked. Having the 3 frozen embryos took the pressure off ever so slightly – I would obviously still be heartbroken if it didn’t work, but at least this time I wouldn’t be back to square 1, with no embryos and no NHS funding left to boot.

And I suppose as they say, the rest was history. We got those 2 lines, we anxiously waited for each scan and every viability milestone, and eventually we held our precious girl in our arms. We thank our lucky stars every single day that our little 5AA embryo was the one to come along and mend our broken hearts. We finally beat infertility.

Infertility is something that doesn’t just touch your life but changes it completely. It changes the path you thought your life would take, removes your freedom of choice and impacts relationships. It affects what you eat, drink, spend your money on and stops you from doing things you might otherwise have been doing. It makes you feel bitter and horrible when you feel sad to see someone else’s pregnancy announcement, and it sucks the joy out of birthdays and celebrations because it just feels like another milestone of infertility.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully “get over” infertility, and I think that is something that only someone who has been in this position will understand.

1 in 8 people will experience infertility, meaning that there’s probably someone you know suffering in silence right now. As one of my goals in blogging is to raise awareness of infertility and support others going through infertility, our experience on this rollercoaster of a journey is something I will never stop talking about.

So please, share this post, let those hidden 1 in 8s know that you’ve got their back. Open conversations; offer hugs. Just be there.

I know this was a very long post but I don’t think that sharing half the story would do it any justice. So thank you for reading. As always, my inbox is always open if you have any questions, thoughts, or are in need of some support yourself ❤️