Against all odds

My sense of smell was heightened. I was retching at the dog poo bin. My appetite was decreased but when I was hungry I felt sick. All the signs of my previous pregnancies! My menstrual cycle wasn’t due for another 2 days but I went to the toilet that evening as I had enough of feeling sick and although in the back on my mind I thought I was pregnant, I thought the chances were very remote.

It had been just 3 months since I had surgery to remove my Fallopian tube and the baby. My menstrual cycle had been ridiculously early one month and stupidly late the next month. I felt like I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I had brought ovulation tests (something I have done very rarely) just to check I was accurate with my ovulation times. The strip had confirmed that I was still tracking correctly.

I had never given up hope of conceiving naturally after all Kora and Ava were natural along with another pregnancy in August 2019 which was a biochemistry miscarriage. My third pregnancy was twins again via IVF which resulted in the operation in January 2020 as mentioned above.

The odds were now against us. Before IVF we had no fertility issues. We chose IVF due to my age and it had resulted in my Fallopian tube being removed. So now I am 40 years old with one tube!

Ectopic.org.uk states “It affects 1 in 80 pregnancies in the UK and women who suffer have to face the physical trauma of major invasive treatment, their own mortality, the impact on their future fertility and the sad loss of losing their baby all very quickly. This can be a very frightening and distressing experience”.

They also state that our fertility or rather our chance of conceiving naturally is now 70% rather than 100%. You might wonder why it is not halved. An egg released on the side with no tube can travel down the other tube as it can move to collect the egg!

So 70% is ok odds but if you then add my age and our chances of falling pregnant each month when ovulating having only one tube the percentage is 13.6%.

I have never given up hope even if the odds were against us. We have a healthy sex life and it has never been about just making a baby. We do track when I ovulate because of my age but that is all we do.

Due to Coronavirus our IVF was cancelled and we were ok with that at the time because we thought it was about protecting the embryos due to unknown affects of the virus. We agreed we would continue as normal naturally but we knew our chances were low (we were also come to terms with this especially as we have 4 embryos in the freezer).

So I peed on the stick. Although I felt pregnant already I was sure I was going to see a negative so I hadn’t even asked Neil to be there. Instantly the test was positive! Looking at me was a cross. I asked Neil to come to the bathroom and I showed him the result. His reaction was similar to mine, disbelief.

We have been in this position before in August 2019 when I tested early and got a positive only to test again 2 days later (I felt different) to see a negative instead of the positive.

As you can imagine with what we have been through over the last two years we felt apprehensive. So needless to say we tested the next day with a digital test to see it say PREGNANT 2-3 weeks! We tested again the next day and the next day and the next. Our anxiety is heightened as we have been the 1 in 4 on three occasions. Our happiness is shadowed through anxiety but there is a hope and we see the rainbow!!! Fingers crossed this is our rainbow.