Inspiring IVF Stories (eBook)

Chapter One

Sally (35) and Dean (36)

A happy-go-lucky couple who met in their early twenties, it never occurred to Sally and Dean that falling pregnant would be difficult. As time dragged by, they told most people they weren’t ready yet in answer to questions about whether or not they wanted kids. Meanwhile, in the privacy of their home, they wondered what was going on. After years of trying, IVF resulted in baby Thomas. In a cruel twist of fate he was stolen from them on the day he entered their world. They grieved for their beautiful baby boy and then courageously continued on their journey for a family. Their love for each other never wavered; in fact, it grew stronger. This is their story…

Sally’s Story

At twenty-three weeks and one day we lost our beautiful Thomas. We held him before we let him go, and we later farewelled him at a private funeral at our house with just ourselves and our parents. It was important that we did this. He was our little boy.

We are now six months pregnant for the second time. When people ask me if this is our first child I sometimes stumble over the answer. I’d like to always say “no, this is our second,” out of respect and loyalty to Thomas, but that starts a conversation I’m not always ready to have. Sometimes I’m sad that I can’t experience the unrestrained excitement and joy that most first mothers feel in the latter stages of pregnancy. My joy is mixed with worry, which I do my best to quash. We are due in April, and we cannot wait to meet the baby growing inside me. Our baby is coming after a five-year journey to get pregnant.

Dean and I met in April 2000. I was twenty-three and he was twenty-four. We met on a night out with mutual friends. We clicked and were instantly inseparable and decided to go on a ‘date’ the next week. After two years together we bought a house. Life was great!

In 2005, I was twenty-eight and Dean was twenty-nine, and we decided to go off the pill, no pressure, and see what happened.

2007, still waiting, I saw my GP and had a few tests to see if I was ovulating. Apparently all okay. Just give it a few more months…

2008, still waiting, my GP sent me for more tests and an ultrasound to see if any major problems. All okay. Just give it a few more months…

Later in 2008 we decided that three and a half years was a long time not to get pregnant. We realised we might need help. By the time we got to the stage where we sought specialist help, I was fairly worried and feeling helpless and somewhat desperate. It had been thirty-six months of disappointment. Each time I got my period and realised I STILL was not pregnant, the pressure accumulated. Life still goes on but it was always in the back of my mind. I tried to not get upset, but I hoped and hoped anyway. By this stage, the question of “when are you going to have a baby?” got a bit hard to answer. We would basically lie to most people and say “we’re not ready,” or “one day, maybe,” as we didn’t want our friends to pity us while they were all popping out their babies. It was easier to lie than to say “yes we would love to have children, but I’m reproductively challenged and can’t for the life of me get pregnant!”

When we were home alone, I would have the big cries and the ‘what’s wrong with me?’, and the ‘why are we being punished?’ Sometimes I’d get philosophical and think ‘is it God’s way of saying I would be a crap Mum?’

Then I’d pick myself up, wash my face and go to that baby shower I was invited to.

We never really talked to other people about the difficulties we were having getting pregnant, as I guess we felt inadequate and embarrassed. Eventually I did start telling a few select friends, and let me tell you it made a difference! I remember one day at work, a male workmate asked me THE QUESTION “so when are you having kids?” and I gave my standard answer “one day, we aren’t ready just yet.” He had a go at me and said “typical! Here we are having troubles getting pregnant, and when you finally decide to have kids you’ll get pregnant straight away!”

I opened up to him and said we were just about to start IVF. He then confided in me - they too had an appointment to see an IVF doctor. With our common bond we would often then laugh at our reproductively challenged situations. They got pregnant just before they had their first IVF appointment. I was truly happy for them and kept hoping it would happen to me too.

I also had to deal with friends, friends of friends and workmates getting pregnant. As genuinely happy for them as I was, it still secretly hurt. I would come home and tell Dean so and so is pregnant, cry, and then get on with it. The way we handled it was to vent to each other, and pretend to the rest of the world all was okay. It worked for us. We also looked at all the great things we had, instead of what we didn’t have. It was sometimes hard, but easier than becoming a victim, which we were NOT!

Our first IVF appointment was in February 2009. The specialist booked me in for a laparoscopy the following week as everything needs to be ruled out before IVF is contemplated. The day of the operation, I was scared. Scared of the anaesthetic, scared of the after pain (as I’d heard it could be excruciating), and scared there was something wrong with me. They had earlier put dye through my tubes and found out one was a little slow. During the laparoscopy they discovered I had endometriosis (which explained my painful periods!). They removed it in the operation, but every time I have a period, it will start to grow back, so in the future I will probably have to have that fixed again. They also discovered that I have a tilted uterus, which means the sperm have trouble getting in as the right-angle makes it hard! All these things are not so bad, but combined; they were obviously causing a problem. At least now we had an answer as to why.

Since the endometriosis had been eliminated, the specialist suggested we try getting pregnant ourselves for another three months. Three months went by …and nothing. Well, not quite nothing. Dean proposed on the 27 April 2009. I had no idea. We had been together for nine years and had decided we didn’t feel the need to get married. The proposal was such a surprise! I drove to work and noticed the traffic seemed busy in one area, and there were a few honking horns, but I didn’t take too much notice as I was looking for lip balm in my bag at that time. My phone rang and Dean said “turn around and come home.” I panicked, thinking something was wrong. Driving back I saw Dean on a roundabout holding a massive sign with ‘Sally will you marry me?’ All the honking had been for him!

Finally, after four years of trying to fall pregnant, we started IVF. We gave ourselves a reality check beforehand, acknowledging that it might not work. IVF does not have a 100% success rate. We talked about a life with no kids. We talked about being parents, we talked about the what ifs, the maybes, and all the other options. Before we started our first cycle of IVF we made peace with the fact that life may just be us and our dog Jimmy. We were happy. Kids would perhaps make things more complete, but regardless, we were happy with life being only us.

When we began our first round of IVF, I cried at the initial appointment with the specialist. I had so many feelings – excitement, fear, hope, hopelessness. Actually, looking back, I think I’ve cried at all the specialist appointments. Lucky doctor.

Ironically, the specialist gets you to take the pill for a month as the first stage of the IVF cycle (Ed note: IVF cycles vary, some start with the pill for a month, some don’t). Eighteen days later, I started the Synarel nasal spray, which I used twice a day for nine days. It’s not that bad, but I had to sniff very hard as it felt like it would dribble out otherwise.

Just as I started on the Synarel spray we went away for what we thought would be our last holiday for a while if we got pregnant. We went to the snow and stayed at the most perfect place ten metres from the main chair lift. We figured this break would be just what we needed before we started on the more hard core stuff; like the injections. I consider myself tough and dismissed the suggestion that I may be affected by the medication. I should have listened. We were half way down a mountain when I suddenly felt immensely overwhelmed. I stopped and just started crying. I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t even know what I was crying about, but the crying went on and on. Dean made me feel better by teasing me about what a big baby I was being, and I got over it and kept skiing.

Dean couldn’t get away from work for the appointment at the IVF clinic when the nurse was to give us the rest of the medications for the injections, so I went by myself. Let me tell you … OMG! The nurse explained all the medication, how to prepare the needles, how to inject them, when to do it, and then explained the ‘trigger’ injection. She gave me a DVD to take home, and the number of an after-hours nurse to call any time if I had a problem.

We decided to do the injections nightly at 7:00pm. I’ve always been terrified of needles and cannot even watch someone getting one on TV, so you could say I was carrying a little needle baggage. I pumped myself up. I can do this! I sat on a chair and pinched some skin on my stomach, holding the needle as directed, and then …I freaked out, totally! I burst into tears and told Dean to leave me alone as I couldn’t do it with him looking at me. I tried to do it a few more times but just got more and more panicked. I broke out into a sweat even though it...