Julie’s Journey
When Dave and I married we had already been together for 8 years.
A few months before our wedding we decided it was finally the right time to try for a baby so I stopped using contraception.
I’d always dreamed of having 4 children, it was just a matter of fitting them in to our lives, or so I thought. I had pregnancy tests at the ready, but month after month my period would arrive and our initial excitement started to dampen.
A year passed and I wasn’t pregnant, so my GP sent me for blood tests and scans at the hospital.
I was told I had scar tissue outside of my fallopian tubes and ovaries and was explained my options.
Have an operation to remove the scarring or go straight on to the IVF waiting list. In my mind IVF was pretty much a last resort and I certainly wasn’t ready to accept that I was at that stage.
After the initial shock, I opted for the surgery which had a 1 year waiting list compared to the 2 year wait for IVF. At this stage I was still really hopeful that I would become a mum without IVF.
Whilst waiting for the surgery I found out that I was pregnant, but before we even got the chance to celebrate I sadly miscarried at 12 weeks. Dave”s sister and I had become pregnant at the same time and our babies were due within a week of each other. She went on to have her beautiful baby and I was left with thoughts of what could have been. Six months after the operation I still wasn’t pregnant and started to become really depressed.
It was heartbreaking watching women close to me falling pregnant and having their babies. I tried to be happy for them but all the time I was grieved that it wasn’t us.
When I look back I remember those years were dominated by trips to and from the hospital,each appointment a confirmation that I was somehow lacking-failing. I took clomid for 3 months followed by 5 months of scans to monitor my ovulation. Then there was 6 months of fertility injections to stimulate my ovaries which meant we would have to have sex within hours of each injection. That didn’t work so the next step was hysterosalpingogram (HSG test) which detected that my left fallopian tube was blocked. I finally felt that I was getting somewhere.They removed the scarring and found that the left fallopian tube needed to be removed. At least once that was removed I would stand a better chance of becoming pregnant. The last 5 years had been difficult to say the least but I was not ready to give up.
I’d undergone a laparoscopy and was just coming around after the general anaesthetic and was still feeling woozy and feeling sore when the specialist came round to see me. She explained that they had removed my left fallopian tube as planned but during the procedure they found that my right fallopian tube wasn’t working properly either.She then delivered the final blow, the words, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to conceive naturally…..All those years of heartbreak and I was back to where I started- having to go on the IVF waiting list. I broke down and cried my heart out for the baby I so desperately longed for.
I was totally devastated. I felt as though someone had ripped out every last shred of hope,and the last 5 years had been for nothing. A couple of weeks later Dave and I went over to his mum’s and she mentioned she’d heard about a therapist who was pioneering a new approach to help couples diagnosed as infertile. Dave said it was a load of mumbo jumbo and I was only going to get my hopes up to be crushed again. I know he was just trying to protect me from more heartache but I didn’t have anything to lose? My only other option at this point was IVF which was 2 years away, so I took down the details and booked an appointment. Keith explained that the methods had been 99% successful with all of the women who had applied it and that they either had one session or simply read the information. He assured me that as long as it was biologically possible for me to have children the information could work for me and I could practice it in my own time as little or as much as I wanted.
Throughout the session I felt deeply relaxed as if I was watching a film of myself where I was pregnant. An hour later I left feeling calm and more positive than I had felt in years. I practiced the method every night for a few minutes before I would go to sleep.
It was February 14th,Valentine’s Day, and my period was a few days late. I remember thinking I could do a test, it would be a great Valentine’s day suprise. When it came back positive I just stared at the stick not sure whether to laugh or cry? I did two more tests just to make sure then almost screamed the house down. Dave was out so I put the pregnancy test in an envelope and left it on the bedside table while I popped out. I sent him a text when I knew he would be home telling him to go and look at his Valentine’s day suprise. It took a while to convince him that this was for real and yes- we were finally having our baby. There were tears of joy and sheer relief as we gradually shared the news with our friends and family. After six years desperately trying to conceive, I was finally going to become a mummy. I know all the tests and surgery were necessary for me to understand what was stopping me from becoming pregnant but I had so many tests, injections, pills and invasive procedures that it just kept confirming how difficult it was going to be to fall pregnant. After that session I felt refreshed and less stressed. Whether the IVF would have been successful or not, thankfully we will never know, I was pregnant within a couple of months.
Lisa’s story
I’d had it all planned out in my head from ever since I can remember. I wanted to be married by the time I was 21 and have at least 3 kids, if not 4. I met Dom and fell head over heels when I was 21 and it didn’t take either of us long to know that we were meant for each other. Our personal circumstances meant we had to wait almost four years before deciding to start trying for our first baby. For months after I came off the Pill I’d find myself daydreaming about being pregnant, how would I cope with labour, whether we’d have a boy or girl and what kind of parents we’d be – the normal stuff.
‘Almost a year later I wasn’t pregnant and my periods were scant so I started to question if something might be wrong. My doctor sent me off for blood tests which showed my hormone levels were low so I was referred to a specialist at the hospital. The tests made us both a little anxious but we expected at worst that I’d be prescribed a fertility drug to correct my hormone levels.
‘We were called into an appointment with one of the fertility specialists to discuss the test results. He asked lots of questions about my cycle and then dropped the bombshell. My periods were light and irregular because I was going through early menopause and would need to start taking HRT immediately. I went into shock. I couldn’t accept what he was saying – it didn’t make any sense. “He must have got my results mixed up with someone else’s,” I thought, “I’m only 25.” I felt sick to the stomach. When I looked over at Dom he had tears running down his face and it hit me that we might never have our own kids.
‘Its hard to explain just how deeply devastated we were- it was like being told someone close to us had just died. We would spend hours talking, crying and comforting each other. The HRT tablets were a daily reminder that this wasn’t just some bad dream I was going to wake up from. It was a really tough time for both of us. Having a family was something we so desperately wanted and now our most realistic option was egg donation.
‘I sat my younger sister down and asked her if she would consider being my egg donor. She was the closest I was going to get to having my own baby. We paid to see a specialist to talk about egg donation and he threw up loads of scenarios we hadn’t even thought about. What if my sister was my egg donor but later couldn’t
have kids of her own? Would that change how she or we felt about our baby? What would we tell our baby when she grew up and if so how might that affect our relationships? We left the appointment knowing it would take some time to make any serious decisions.
‘We tried to get through each day as best as we could but everywhere you turned you’d see reminders of what had been taken away from us.
Then, out of the blue, I got a call from a friend who knew our situation. He told me he had the number of a local therapist who was helping women who were struggling to get pregnant. He didn’t know the ins and outs of what he did but passed on the number. I talked it over with Dom that night. “What’s the point?” I said, “Its not like he can stop me going through the menopause is it?” But Dom gently encouraged me to at least give it a try – as he pointed out – we didn’t have anything left to lose.
‘I made an appointment to speak to Keith after a brief chat with him on the phone. During the session he made me feel at ease and I found the methods simple and easy to follow. At the end he explained that he was more than happy for me to contact him again if I got home and was unsure about how to practice by myself. I joked that if I fell pregnant I would get back to him – I wasn’t expecting any miracles. I practiced the methods every now and then but pretty much put it to the back of my mind.
‘About 5 months later we’d returned from a really relaxing holiday but as we were unpacking that evening I moaned to Dom that my belly felt really bloated and uncomfortable. I thought it might be some side-effects from the HRT tablets or maybe just that I was constipated. We were lying in bed the next morning when I showed Dom my belly. He put his hand on it and said, “Lisa, do you think you could be pregnant?” I was taken aback at first. “Don’t be silly,” I said gently, “it’s probably just constipation.” But the more I looked at my swollen belly and thought about what he’d just said the more it seemed possible. We rushed out of the house and went to buy a pregnancy test from our local Tesco’s. Dom went to use the men’s toilets while I went to the ladies to pee on the stick.
‘I went out to meet him just outside the toilets. People were rushing around doing their shopping while I stood there with my hand shaking showing him the pregnancy test. “Oh my god – look at this!” I showed him the test and we just stared at it. I couldn’t get my head round it so I rushed off and bought another one and went back in the ladies. This time we sat outside on the bench building up the courage to look at the second test. It was positive. Dom was so excited and happy while I kept repeating, “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant!”
‘We agreed to not tell anyone until it was confirmed by a doctor which was bloody hard because it was the weekend and we were seeing our families. First thing Monday morning I went to see my doctor who knew both me and Dom and all my fertility history. He asked me to lie down so he could examine my belly. He felt round it and listened with his stethoscope and then with the biggest smile said, “you’ll be pleased to know you’re almost 5 months pregnant!” He let me listen to the baby’s heartbeat and as soon as I heard it I burst into tears – I was over the moon. I rang Dom straight away and we were both crying and laughing down the phone.
‘I rang to tell my mum that we wanted to pop over later to share some exciting news – she told me afterwards she thought Dom had proposed. When I told her I was pregnant she rushed over and gave me the biggest hug and we all had a good cry.
“I can’t imagine our lives without Liam – he really is our miracle baby. Becoming a mum is something I took for granted and I know how close I came to not having my own baby. I don’t know how the methods worked but it did and for that I am forever grateful. I recommended Keith to a friend who had polycystic ovaries and was struggling to get pregnant and she fell pregnant a month later.”
“I get asked all the time, by people who don’t know what I went through, when I’m having my second child. I just smile and agree that I shouldn’t leave too much of an age gap, inside i’m thinking, you don’t know the half of it.