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Tom and I met when I was 31, so later than I'd imagined meeting my future husband. We got married in 2015 and decided to have fun for a year before trying for a baby. Plus my best friend was turning 30 in 2016 and that was when she wanted to start trying. So we started at the same time. After 6 months my friend was pregnant and I was having irregular periods. I went to the DRs about something unrelated and ended up chatting about trying for a baby. He immediately referred me for tests as I was over 35 by that point. I found out I have PCOS. So we started the first of three different ovulation inducing drugs, all of which technically worked, but we didn't get pregnant. In April 2019 we made the difficult decision to start IVF. We were both so scared. Scared of the effect it would have on me physically and mentally (I've suffered from depression and anxiety since I was 17), and the effect it might have on our marriage.
Luckily we were able to access a free cycle on the NHS. We had our first egg collection and got 4 embryos. One went inside and the other three were frozen. We got our BFP on official test day. And I started bleeding two days later. We were devastating. But we took a couple of months to regroup and started a frozen cycle. This time we got another BFP and no bleeding. Then I randomly tested at 6½ weeks and it was negative. Confirmed by blood tests at my clinic. Another loss. We had 2 embryos left and made the decision to transfer them both in January 2020. On official test day we got a BFN. This was the hardest blow. We couldn't afford private treatment. Our journey was over.
We started the adoption process. We did lots of reading and research, chatted to other couples who have adopted. Got through stage one with flying colors. Then we were finally honest with each other and admitted this wasn't the journey we wanted. We didn't want to share our child with their birth family and a stream of social workers. We wanted our own baby. Once we admitted this, we researched the cost of a private cycle at our clinic, and asked family if we could borrow some money. So in October 2021 we did our first private egg collection. Despite collecting 21 eggs, we only got one high grade embryo and three low grade. Two were transferred and the others discarded. Official test day came round and we got a very faint BFP. The next day I started bleeding. I did another test a few days later just incase we'd only lost one baby, but it was 100% negative. £7,000 wasted. Nothing in the freezer. No money left.
Then a few things happened. Tom got a promotion and a bonus, and I got a pay rise. At the same time, I shared on a couple of my infertility groups that we'd reached the end of the road. Two separate women from two different groups messaged me privately and asked if I'd ever considered Mild IVF. I had no clue what this was, but decided to look into it. I'm now forever grateful to these ladies who reached out to me. We attended an online seminar, researched what was involved and took some time to work out if we could stretch to this financially. We could. Just. We started treatment a few days after my 40th Birthday. Everything went well. We got 12 eggs, all fertilized, all made it to day 5. We put one back inside and 4 in the freezer. I'm now 18 weeks pregnant (as of 6/10/21) and everything looks amazing, and I'm having such an easy pregnancy. We're in a place I never imagined we'd be. And the treatment actually strengthened our marriage. We found out we're having a little boy and Tom is already planning football classes! I can't wait to see our little Water Bear when he arrives this autumn 💙
