The story of life......

Life begins as soon as the sperm enters an egg, and the embryo or embie as we say on the web site begins it journey, that nine month journey in which a beautiful wonderful, baby is born.

For some of us this journey is not at all easy to start, my husband and I have known one another since we were four years old, of course playing getting married at that age we could never have thought we would be doing it for real 23 years later.

Just before we got married we decided that we would try for a baby, as we loved each other so much and wanted to start our own little family as soon as we could.

The first thing that interfered with conceiving was pain, not the emotional pain of being unable to conceive, but physical pain, a pain so bad that I curled up in a ball and wept for days, weeks and months. After many investigations and scans, the pain that I was suffering was a cyst, now being a nurse I knew what ovarian cysts were, but the fear that I had one was still unbelievable to me. The cyst that had formed was the size of a melon and I had to be admitted to hospital for the removal of this cyst as soon as possible.

A few weeks later, I was admitted to hospital and had the operation. After waking from the mornings operation, I just sobbed and sobbed my heart out as I knew that one of the things preventing us from having our baby was the cyst and that I had seen the consultant who told me my fallopian tubes were so badly damaged that I would only be able to have a child if we had IVF.

IVF – now first hearing this term ‘you will need IVF’, I was astounded, I had never thought of what it meant to myself, the first thing that came into my mind was that I have let my husband down and my parents and everyone else that was waiting so patiently for us to announce to them that we were going to have a baby. This is when reality hit and I was experiencing a different kind of pain, a pain so forceful that I felt as if my heart was literally breaking. How was I ever going to explain to people why I am not pregnant and why I have no children?

Learning – learning about IVF, so much information to take on board, I never knew a thing, I am fortunate that I work in a hospital, so I got information from the infertility clinic and the gynecology ward. I was amazed how vast this new area was and how much I didn’t understand.

After several months had gone by, we visited our GP, now this is a whole new story as our GP wasn’t interested when I first went to see him regarding my pain and then there was no menstrual cycle, he told me as I wanted to get pregnant so much, my mind was playing tricks on me and that it was all in my head. Now after the operation to remove the huge cyst that had been growing – obviously during the time when I had first started seeing my GP about my symptoms, he was now telling me that we had to wait till I was 27 years old to go on the waiting list for IVF, then it would be a further 5 years on the waiting list till we get our IVF treatment. Devastation, that word doesn’t even touch the feelings I had, I wanted to shake this man, tell him how much I hated the world for doing this to me, I had feelings I had never before encountered, and all this was taking place while I was doing my nurse training, doing the one thing that I knew I was good at and I could make a difference to others lives, my course suffered because of my infertility and nearly cost me my whole life of wanting to be a nurse, but I was lucky I had good friends and a strong husband. I pulled myself together and was determined that I would finish my course and become the nurse I had always wanted to be.

First IVF – I had qualified as a nurse (yippee), I was so happy that I had achieved this goal despite everything that had happened. We decided that while we were waiting to go on the waiting list for our treatment we would do an egg share programme, we had researched all we had to know and started our treatment, we were nervous and excited at the same time, I was so close to having a baby I could feel all the excitement building up in me, I told our parents and my close friends what was happening, we had support there for us. The injections were a nightmare, I had to have injections, not nice, an injection into my bottom every night was not what I wanted, but we coped, my follicles were growing nicely, I had 22 when it came to egg collection, 12 for me and 12 for the other person, I was happy. When it came to egg transfer I only had 3 eggs that had matured and I was told only one would be put back, another disappointment, but that was enough to get pregnant, so I went away feeling very sure our life was about to change.

2WW – This is bad, two weeks to rest so that my little embie could rest nicely into my womb, during the 2 weeks, all the twinges and slight pain I was getting was making me nervous, the pain associated with the menstrual cycle I was getting more and more, it wasn’t going well…………………… no bleeding had occurred and I was optimistic that it may have actually happened, the trip to the hospital was nerve wrecking, anticipation had set in and the nurses face said it all ‘I am sorry – it hasn’t worked’, after that I don’t remember what was happening, the hole in the ground was looking inviting and I just wanted to jump right in and let it swallow me, I wanted this huge pain I was feeling to go but it wouldn’t and it was making me feel sick. The journey home was terrible, no thoughts were in my mind – I was numb, I couldn’t be consoled and I didn’t want to be, I wanted to grieve for something that wasn’t even there and I wanted to just sleep, sleep and never wake up.

After the treatment that I had, I was getting more pains and the result of these pains were more cysts and as the cysts were being removed so was my right fallopian tube, I had what was called a hydrosalpinx, some fluid and blood had collected in the tube making it swell so big, I was lucky it hadn’t burst. Several months down the line another cyst and my other fallopian tube had done the same as the right one and filled with blood and fluid, all were removed and I was left with feeling so incomplete, another feeling that I had wasted and ruined my husbands life.

Time was going by and we eventually got an appointment for our one try of IVF on the NHS, excited I was again, another boost that I may actually be nearer to achieving a full complete family…………………… the hospital was nice, the staff were nice, I was feeling so optimistic, the only thing I was doubting was the scan I had booked, not looking forward to it at all, the scan room was a quiet little place, I saw the look on the nurses face, I had seen that look before, I had another cyst, surely my whole life cannot be one disappointment after another, they declined me for IVF, “the cyst needs to be removed and then we will review� were the words from the consultant, tears started filling my eyes, I wanted to run, run far away from this place, the hatred for the whole of the place was immense, as I stepped outside I cried, the tears would not stop flowing, my husband held me in his arms and assured me that everything was going to be ok, how could it, I had my chance of a baby taken away.

The near ending – After having the cyst out I am yet again waiting to see the consultant about whether I am a suitable candidate for IVF, this takes place on the 12^th Nov 2002.

I have been waiting 3 years now to have my go on the rollercoaster of an IVF cycle and I am so nervous about what will happen from now on, what does my future hold, I simply don’t know.

Appointment went well, ive been informed i have endometriosis now but that hasnt put the consultant off to help us and we are now starting IVF number 2 - lets hope this is the one, will be testing around mid February.

Done our second IVF which failed unfortunately but have 12 frosties waiting for there mummy - will be commencing an FET (frozen embryo transfer) sometime after April.

We finaly started our FET in April and were due to test on the 19th May - to our amazement it was positive on the 14th May, the reason for testing so early is that i had started to bleed and thought i had nothing to lose. Shock had set in and nerves had also, i was pregnant for the first time in my life. I started to have some bleeding shortly after my true test date and got scared it was all about to end, the hospital done blood tests which revealed a high level of HCG in my blood, i was told this could indicate a multiple birth, i was excited at this prospect.

At 6 weeks pregnant i had a big bleed, now i thought it was all over as the bleed was such a lot, i cried all weekend then on the Monday went for a scan at our local EPAU, they saw one little heartbeat but also saw an empty sac where a little twin had been, my mind was all over the place and it was a shock to the system but with the help of my family and husband and of course all of our fertility friends we got through this tough time.

I am still bleeding on and off and after lots of scans the baby is still here - the consultant is keeping a close eye on us as i have a cyst on my left ovay again that may get in the wa and they have also discovered a pocket of blood just below the baby.

Our baby is due on the 6th of Feb 2003 - miracles do happen and they will happen for all of us going through infertility, we just need to believe, i have heard many success stories now and met many women who are miracles themselves, you are all vy brave people. 

Since becoming infertile myself and my husband started a website ‘fertilityfriends.co.uk’ and all of the people who are on there are my friends, we have built up our own community of people who feel like I do, I am not alone, in fact far from it and they are the most caring people I have ever encountered in my life, I am fortunate to have these people around me and I hope that what I have gained being a nurse, I have used some of my skills to help those who are like myself.

A heartfelt thank you to all those who have helped me to understand and helped me through what I think is a heart wrenching ordeal to cope with, those people are amazing.

Written by Melanie.

Story was edited by Melanie on July 24th 2003