Inspiring IVF Stories: 24 Men And Women With Strength, Commitment And A Dream

Carolyn

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 was the middle of winter. When I looked at the time and saw that forty-five minutes had past and I still hadn’t given myself the injection that was supposed to happen at 7:00pm, I got even more freaked out.

That is when Dean took control. He took the needle, made me calm down, and inserted it gently into my stomach. I felt like such a big girl! Maybe I should have been embarrassed by my behaviour, but I wasn’t. Dean didn’t care, and told me that together we’d be fine. That’s how we got through our first injection.

At all the IVF appointments, the specialist, nurses and counsellor all told us that the first round of IVF is basically a trial run to see how we would react to the medications. They said it was unlikely we would get pregnant from the first go, and with all IVF cycles, at any stage, if my body had a bad reaction, we may have to stop the cycle, and this can even happen right at the end after all the injections. Dean and I are both positive people and I had a ‘feeling’ it would work on the first go.

After seven more days of needles my belly had swollen up a bit, I was uncomfortable, and looked like I was twelve weeks pregnant. I’m not complaining, it was for a good cause. We tried to inject the needle at a different spot each night because if we hit the same spot it hurt.

My first ultrasound to see how my follicles were going went well (Ed note: eggs grow inside follicles; eggs cannot be seen during an ultrasound, but the follicle can be measured). Three more days of injections, another scan, and I would be off to hospital for egg collection.

They say that during IVF is not the best time to move, renovate, or start a new job. So what did I do? Started a new job on trigger injection day! I had worked with my new boss previously, and told him we were doing IVF prior to accepting the job offer from him. I felt I couldn’t just spring it on him later. To do the trigger injection, we were given a needle, a few glass ampoules, and had to mix up the medication ourselves. It had to be given precisely thirty-six hours before egg collection.

I was feeling confident about doing the medication mix. I laid everything out, but when I got to the ampoules, I had a massive mental blank and couldn’t remember if you put your thumb on the dot, or away from the dot, to crack open the glass (Ed note: always check with your own doctor or nurse as medications vary). I got it wrong and smashed the glass everywhere! Same thing for the second ampoule! Tears … panic stricken and well past my deadline, I phoned the after hours nurse and she talked me through the opening of the ampoules. Thank God they gave me spares!

Dean came into the operating theatre for egg collection. I was scared and nervous and …cried. Dean was used to this by now. The nurses, anaesthetist, and the specialist were all great. They put a cannula (tube for administering the anaesthetic) in my hand, explained that they would write the number of eggs on my hand so I could see it as soon as I woke up, and that’s all I remember of the operation. Dean said it was amazing to be in there and see everything. I woke up to a number twenty-two written on my hand. ‘Wow, that’s great,’ I thought. I’d heard that eight to fifteen eggs was considered good.

We went home and I relaxed for the next two days. There was a bit of pain after the egg collection. On the day after egg collection, I was able to call the clinic to see how many of our eggs fertilised. It’s pretty funny calling and saying hi, it’s Sally and I’m calling to see how my embryos are going? Mental note, don’t make this call in public.

Two days after egg collection, I started a vaginal gel that I had to insert twice a day until the pregnancy test. On the day of embryo transfer, we only had one embryo suitable; there were none for freezing. After the transfer we had to wait ten days to do the pregnancy test, but I got my period on the ninth day. We were upset, but were reassured by reminding ourselves that the first cycle is a ‘trial run.’

We began our second cycle in August 2009. Some people wait, but I wanted to keep going straight away. We got almost exactly the same result as the first time. Seventeen eggs collected, one embryo to transfer, and none suitable for freezing. Once again, I got my period before the pregnancy test was due. We were sad, but we talked about it and both felt that the last few years we had dealt with monthly disappointments, so how was this any different? We wanted to go again straight away. I think if we had given ourselves too much time to think we might have bailed out.

The third cycle took its toll big time. I was an emotional mess. I’ve always had anxiety issues and they surfaced in a big way. I quit my job, but thankfully, they didn’t take me seriously.

For this cycle, the specialist suggested we do an ‘antagonist’ cycle. They usually do this if you do not make enough eggs, or if you make too many. I was the latter. For this cycle, you do not take the pill first, nor do you use the Synarel spray. Rather there are five days of one injection, followed by a further five days of two injections per day (Ed note: this can vary from person to person, again, always consult your own doctor regarding your individual care).

At the ultrasound, they discovered that I only had three follicles big enough to go to egg collection. For only three follicles we were advised that it wasn’t worth the expense and the effects of an operation to go to egg collection. We were given the option of artificial insemination, but were told that the chances of success were slim. We decided to try the insemination as we had tried everything else. By this stage I had kind of stopped feeling. I wasn’t sad, nor upset. I was numb I think. I think I was losing hope.

On the day of insemination, Dean went into the clinic a few hours before me to drop off his sperm sample. We have a sloping driveway at home and he slipped over walking to his car. Luckily, he somehow managed to keep his ‘sample’ intact. Had he dropped it, it would have been a disaster. Since that experience, he has always done his ‘sample’ at the clinic so there wouldn’t be any mishaps getting it there.

Artificial insemination is just like an embryo transfer, except instead of an embryo they inject sperm. I was in the lab and the nurse asked me to identify the sperm. I was holding the test tube and examining it very closely and said well, it could be Dean’s, I don’t know. They all looked at me and laughed and said no, not the actual sperm, but the label on the side. I cracked up laughing. Maybe that was the key?

Our pregnancy test was on 11 November 2009 and I was feeling confident. I felt so sure that I went against the nurses’ advice and bought a home pregnancy test and it came back positive. I did a second one and it was positive too! I called Dean. We were excited but we also knew that the medication in the body can give a false reading. I went to the clinic for my blood test and at 4:00pm that afternoon the nurse phoned and said you must have really wanted to get pregnant, I don’t know how it happened but you’re pregnant! I just kind of screamed and kept asking if she was serious and if she had the right file and if she was sure. Dean and I were so excited! Four years and one month later we were officially pregnant!

Over the next two weeks, I had three more blood tests to ensure my progesterone and HCG levels were going up, and they told me they were very high, and a sign of possible twins. We were even more excited with the thought of twins; a ready made family.

On 28 November I had the worst pain ever in my stomach. My eyesight went blurry and for a while I couldn’t hear properly. I laid on the floor for forty minutes or so, unable to talk, with Dean feeling helpless at not being able to do anything. However, I recovered and felt better.

Two days later, on 30 November, the same thing happened but not as bad. I put it down to being pregnant.

On 4 December a scan confirmed that we were having twins.

On 14 December we knew something was wrong at the scan when the sonographer went quiet. One of the twins’ heartbeats had stopped and we were told that since it was so early in the pregnancy the baby would simply ‘disappear.’ As sad as Dean and I were, we were thankful to still have one baby. We looked at the positive and decided if there had only been one baby to start with it would have been a miscarriage and we’d have no baby at all. We were lucky.

That night, Dean surprised me with the most thoughtful thing ever. He lit a candle and wrote this beautiful memorial to help us feel better.

This is a memorial for Terry or Tammy the twin. Your life wasn’t in vain as you sacrificed yourself so your brother or sister could have the best chance of life. Thank you, and we will not forget and we will not dwell.

At the twelve week scan all was good for our remaining baby. Seeing our three-month-old child in that scan was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. The lady who did the scan had a tear in her eye, as did I. She said it was beautiful to see someone so excited to be having a baby. Often she sees girls who are upset that they are pregnant. I felt the baby move for the first time at sixteen weeks and one day.

At twenty-three weeks pregnant, on 24 March, Dean took a picture of me to send to his family. I was huge. That night, I removed all the IVF medication from the fridge. Dean had been hassling me about it, but for some reason I just hadn’t been able to get rid of it, until that night.

The next day 25 March 2010 – That day, 23.1 weeks pregnant

That day was like any other day. Dean went to work, and I got ready for work. The night before, Mum and I went to the gym and did a Body Balance class (Yoga and Tai Chi). I had one of the best night’s sleep I had had in ages, and the baby was as active as ever. I was just about to get our dog, Jimmy, his breakfast when I had this overwhelming feeling that I was getting diarrhoea. I ran to the toilet, and before I could even get my pants fully down, this huge gush of I don’t know what (liquid) came out. I now know it was my waters breaking. I called the midwives who said to come to the hospital to get it checked out. I called Dean to let him know, and phoned work to say I would be late. I felt fine.

The midwife listened to his heartbeat and it was 160bpm. Perfect. I texted Dean and said ‘baby’s heartbeat good so don’t worry.’ The doctor came in and said they would do an ultrasound to see how the baby was. Another emergency came up, so they had to leave before they did the ultrasound. I was alone for about an hour. A midwife came back and listened to the baby’s heartbeat, and found that it had skyrocketed. The room suddenly filled with doctors and midwives and they then did the ultrasound. They found that my waters had broken and there was no amniotic fluid left. Baby was okay and his heartbeat had now slowed. A doctor then did an internal examination to see if the umbilical cord had started to come through. It had. There was complete silence. No one said a word, and I had no idea what all this meant.

The room again immediately filled with doctors – obstetric gynaecologists, neonatal specialists and midwives. They told me to call Dean. They reassured me that none of this was my fault and said sometimes these things happen. They told me that, had the baby’s head blocked the entrance before the cord came through, I would be on bed rest to keep him in there as long as possible.

This wasn’t that situation unfortunately. They said he needed to be delivered.

I tried to call Dean but he was down the coast, and I couldn’t reach him, so I called my Mum. She and Dad came straight over. Dad kept trying to get onto Dean and by this stage it was an emergency. I was now getting contractions and could barely talk, so when we eventually got in contact with Dean, the