DNA

A friend visited our home the other day and whilst looking at Kayden she said how much he looked like Neil and asked jokingly if there was any of my DNA in him.

She then went onto say that I just housed him for 9 months. Firstly I would like to state that this friend meant no hurt in her comments and was only joshing light heartedly.

However her words resonated with me and I thought about how for the majority of woman they fall pregnant quickly with or without trying and their pregnancies progress as expected.

Although Neil and I have had the experience of falling pregnant quickly our pregnancies have never followed the routine progress. This pregnancy where we brought Layla and Kayden home was so far from just housing them for 8 months (not 9).

This pregnancy was through IVF. We chose this due to our age and following losing one fallopian tube previously, even though we had fallen pregnant naturally following that procedure.

Therefore before I could “house” our babies I had to follow what is called a long protocol of IVF. This was to collect my eggs ready for them to be put with Neil’s sperm in a dish.

Before we could even start IVF we had to fill out forms, declare if we have ever had any involvement with social services and have a HIV test. Something people falling naturally are never asked to do.

Day 1 is the start of the woman’s period and when you start to inject. Neil injected me into my stomach twice a day for 4-6 weeks. That’s a minimum of 56 injections.

These injections are to stimulate the ovaries. During this stage I was checked via ultrasound scans and blood tests to monitor the growth and development of the follicles. Of course the ultrasounds were internal not external on my stomach.

When the scans showed the growth to be sufficient I was given an exact time to take a trigger injection. This is so that I could have the intrusive procedure to collect my eggs. As pictured below to give you an idea.

We were told straight away how many eggs were collected (16). We surpassed the doctors and ours expectations. We got a phone call the next day to say if any of the eggs fertilised with Neil’s sperm. The norm is half the eggs or just under. However some couples get great numbers but end with none being fertilised. We were told that 9 fertilised.

However then comes the gruelling 5 days wait to see if they mature to blastocyst stage ready to be transferred. Some couples don’t get any eggs to this stage and have none to transfer come day 5. Again we were very fortunate that 6 of our eggs made it to day 5.

During this time I continue with further injections preparing the lining of my womb for the eggs to be transferred and hopefully implant. I also had the pleasure of inserting pessaries into my vagina twice a day for weeks to help with the lining of the womb.

As we had been successful with getting to day 5 we then had to go to the clinic for the eggs to be transferred into my womb. Due to my age they recommended two eggs be transferred as it gives an extra 5% chance of a pregnancy happening.

Our first round we didn’t make it to our official test day as I bleed before then. It was a miscarriage of one of the embryos. The other went into my Fallopian tube.

There is only a 2% chance of this happening during IVF. The risk is so low that our clinic didn’t even mention it. Unfortunately this meant that I then had to have an operation as no one picked up I was in fact pregnant but the baby was now nearly 7 weeks old growing in my tube.

I lost my tube and we lost the baby. I can’t explain how devastating it is to see a baby growing perfectly with a heart fluttering only for it to be thrown on a cremation pile along with my tube and other peoples limbs etc.

I then had to come to terms that my chances of conceiving naturally at my age with one tube had just dramatically fallen to only 13% chance.

Of course we had two rounds before we were blessed to bring home Layla and Kayden so this meant two transfer procedures and a further 50+ injections and numerous more pessaries. This time it is a short protocol, we did all of the same minus the egg collection as we already had our 4 embryos in the freezer.

For us it was our second round that was successful resulting in a twin pregnancy. This was our 5th pregnancy in just over two years.

During my pregnancy I had to continue the pessaries up till 10 weeks of pregnancy. I then had to take aspirin from week 10 every night throughout the whole pregnancy due to hitting risk factors.

Also because I was deemed at risk in my pregnancy I had to start taking blood clot injections form week 20 till 6 weeks after I gave birth.

This was another further 154 injections this time into my thighs rather than my stomach. All of this does not include the birth which itself was very traumatic.

So I guess from my perspective I did so much more than just house our babies for 8 months. I had so many physical bruises from injections and then there is the strain of cost over £15,000. We were not entitled to any NHS funding as I had fallen pregnant naturally with Kora and Ava.

The emotional impact is just so hard to explain. The hormones that you inject plus the waiting, worrying and often heartache. You also don’t want to know how many of my knickers were ruined from the pessaries.

This short blog does not do any justice to IVF and how incredibly taxing it is emotionally and physically. However I hope that it gives a little more understanding of just what some couples endure to bring home their bundle of joy or joys in our case.

There is no guarantee after all those injections and pessaries that you will even get a positive pregnancy test or that you will bring home your baby/babies. As a 40 year old woman I had only 9% chance of IVF being successful according to the NHS statistics.

I feel incredibly blessed to have what we have and to watch them grow and develop. I honestly can’t shout out enough to all of those going through IVF or similar just what amazing warriors you are!