Right, where do i start! I will try and condense this as much as possible, no one could quite believe what we went through so bear with me.
As soon as we were married, we were certain we wanted to start a family. This was in Oct 2003. We hit a set back in Feb 2004 as my wife had to have major surgery as she was a sufferer of Ulcerative Colitis. For those not familiar with this condition, it basically involved the removal of her bowel, she had the most aggressive form of the disease.
This obviously put things on the back burner, but as soon as she was well enough to try again, we did.
Unfortunately, nothing came naturally so we were referred to find out what the problem was. Alas, during surgery for her UC one of her fallopian tubes was blocked. This started the ball rolling for us to go for IVF. I took about a year to see the Consultant, our Health board had a low waiting list.
We got our first consultation in Nov 2007 and started our first cycle in the Spring of 2008.
Our Health board allowed us 3 attempts at IVF.
Our first cycle produced 13 embryos, we were absolutely ecstatic. Due to my Wife's condition we could only have one embryo implanted, no chance of twins for us!
The other 12 were frozen for future tries.
Once the embryo is implanted, you have the dreaded '2 week wait'. 2 weeks before you go back for a blood test to find out if it has been successful. Let me tell you, this is the worst 2 weeks of your life. You pray and hope that the embryo has bedded in and that you are on the way to be parents.
We went back to the hospital, gave the blood sample then went to home to wait for the phone call( they don't tell you there and then). The call came, BFN(Big Fat Negative). Soul destroyed doesn't even come close to how we felt
We were desperate to try again with the frozen embryo's, the wait was excruciating.
Unfortunately, we had no success with the frozen ones either.
1 cycle, 2 attempts gone.
We started again and had 2 further BFN's from the 2nd cycle.
At the 3rd attempt form the 2nd cycle, we hit the jackpot, a BFP(Big Fat Positive!!)
I can't tell you just how that felt, to hear the news that you've been dying to hear.
We were so giddy, we were going to be parents!
You go back 6 weeks later for the scan, to check everything is going smoothly.
The day for the scan was my birthday, April 2009.
What we got that day was the last thing we were expecting. The scan showed that the baby's heart had stopped beating and had 'died'.
The world ended for us that day. We were so close, been through every emotion only to have it snatched away from us. My wife was inconsolable for weeks.
To make matters worse, her Brother announced that he and his girlfriend(of 3 months) we're expecting a child within weeks of us losing our baby. An arrow through the heart it felt like.
That seems selfish to say such as thing, it was her Brother, my B-I-L and also my best mate. We covered it up, wished them teh best but couldn't hide our disappointment. We had to see someone in the family go through what we should have been. It was very dark days indeed.
We went for more tests as the Hospital wanted to see if there was anything else stopping my Wife from becoming pregnant. Cue the next piece of bad news.
They tested for any chromosome imbalance, my Wife also had faulty chromosomes, 13 and 14 had fused together to create something called 'Robertsonian Translocation'. You have a 1 in 3 chance of the baby being normal, 1 in 3 chance of it being a carrier or 1 in 3 of it being born with a birth defect such as cleft pallet.
As if this wasn't hard enough, another obstacle was put in our path.
We were then put on the list for PGD. What that means is they screen the embryos to see if they are carrying the faulty gene or not. They pick the non defective embryos and implant them.
As that was another list, and we were due to start our 3rd and last course of normal IVF, they suggested we try again anyway. With nothing to lose anyway, we proceeded with our 6th attempt in 2011.
This is where my story starts to look brighter, i promise!
BFP followed by a scan that showed a heartbeat meant that we were past the hurdle that we had previously fell at.
Everything went swimmingly until the 30 week mark, my wife had a major bleed. I was out that night at a Sportsmans dinner, that phone call to tell me she was in hospital sobered me up better than any caffine. We thought we had lost another baby.
Fortunately nothing came of it
, totally bamboozeled the Doctors it just couldn't be explained!
On November 24th 2011 came my Son, Brodie. As every man who's had a kid can testify, the single greatest moment of your life!
8 years of natural and assisted conception proved to be very, very rewarding.
What can i say to those going through it/about to go through it? Stay positive, even through the dark days, be supportive of one another it's both menatlly and physically draining and most important, believe you will become parents.
Now, i'm off to bed later than expected as my human alarm clock will be going off around half 7! I love him to bits though