IVF Whats love got to do with it
on the 25th
of july 1978
history was made given hope
and options to all those yearning for a
baby
that thought it wasn’t possible you see
on the 28th of july 1978
the first ivf baby was born a beautiful
healthy baby girl by the name of louise
brown since then
five million avf babies have been born
now in thinking of the cycle of life
which is a series of changes that we all
go through throughout our life
including reproduction it is widely
thought
by many that they will reproduce within
their life cycle
however are we really defined by our
ability
to reproduce the world health
organization states
that just over 15 of couples struggle
with fertility
the emotional and mental impact of this
is profound my name
is emma weaver and i would like to share
with you
my ivf journey and a time when i had to
show up for myself
we decided quite early on in our
relationship that we wanted to have a
baby
so with lots of love plenty of passion
and enthusiasm we decided to set about
making magic happen
after the first month i remember
laughing to myself thinking
did i really think it was going to
happen that quickly
however as the months went bay after
that
the disappointment and the sadness and
the pain that i felt when it didn’t
happen was hard
at this stage two family members were
pregnant and we were busy
celebrating their pregnancies deciding
not to tell anyone about our struggles
after 20 months of trying and we tried
everything
ovulation kits reflexology
acupuncture legs in the air different
positions
even loose male underwear and that
wasn’t for me
we had tried everything so feeling
very vulnerable and at a loss i decided
to contact the gp
who then sent us on to a consultant
there was lots of examinations and
questions
and intimate details and i was now
having conversations that i hadn’t even
had with myself
never mind openly with other people in
the room
it was hard we were then referred on to
the fertility clinic
and it was there that it was deemed that
we could not achieve
pregnancy ourselves
now let that sink in we were unable
to conceive naturally
every emotion runs through your body
shock
sadness disappointment anger
and grief now even though we potentially
had options
we still had to mourn the fact that we
were unable to do this ourselves
and we found that very hard
we were then told that there was
potentially a two-year waiting list
for the health care service treatment
two years and you only get one roll of
the dice
imagine this issue is so prevalent that
there’s potentially a two-year witness
and yet i never heard anybody talking
about it this is the first time i was
even having these conversations
anyone insensitive enough to ask us when
will you be adding to your family
we just brushed it off and said we were
too busy
however these comments are not helpful
and you truly
never know what people are going through
at this stage we decided we didn’t want
to wait the two years
so we thought we’d go down the private
route and hopefully have a baby within
the two years
the four hour round trip to our local
fraternity clinic was a strange one
and we would have conversations of hope
and enthusiasm about becoming
parents it was decided
after more examinations and tests
quite evasive ones at times that we were
potential
candidates for exe which is a form of
where they take the sperm and directly
insert it into the egg
leaving nothing to chance we were taking
no chances
this was going to work for us
after that a schedule was then made up
everything
very meticulously scheduled around my
menstrual cycle
this is a strange thing about ivf you
wish for years
that you mentioned cycle won’t come
because that potentially means that
you’re pregnant
and all of a sudden here we are hoping
that it will come
so that we can start xa to hopefully
fulfill our dreams of having a child
the injections i found particularly hard
they were very stingy and you had to
take one in the morning
and one in the afternoon and they just
took over my whole thought process
all day all i could think about was
taking these injections
i had to dig deep and find the courage
to continue to inject myself i tried
different things
i tried ice cubes on my tummy to try and
freeze it
i used to pull an elastic band on my
wrist
to try and divert the attention to
inject in my tummy
i tried different things and eventually
it was two and two and gum that worked
but you know whatever works
the idea of the injections is to
stimulate your ovaries
to create lots of follicles to release
the eggs
for the best outcome
we were delighted we got 18
beautiful grade a embryos
we couldn’t have asked for better and we
were so happy
however unfortunately the roller coaster
that is ivf
i had been overstimulated and had to
freeze our embryos
we were devastated
at this stage my tummy is like a pin
cushion
and my beautiful skinny jeans no longer
an option for me to wear
all i could wear was skirts and dresses
and whilst in the grand scheme
of all of this that might sound very
trivial it was yet another
option taken away from me
waiting again then for my menstrual
cycle to come around
such as the roller coaster of avf to get
the exe started for the transfer
it’s very strange the embryo transfer
you potentially get to see
your baby being conceived so when you go
into the room
you lay in the bed and you watch on a
screen beside you
as they insert the long tube with the
embryo in it
and they release it and you get to see
all of this
well we just thought that’s it it
went where it’s meant to go and
perfectly healthy
beautiful blastocyst which means we were
able to create it to five days which
gives you the best option
and there it was we’ve seen it on the
screen
we had it home for the dreaded two
week wait this is where you have to wait
two weeks before you can take a test to
see if it’s been successful
during these two weeks we decided to be
kind to ourselves and we went for lots
of walks
and i yet loads of pineapple because i
read somewhere on the internet that it
helps the embryo implant
however after the two weeks we got a
negative
we were distraught strange really
considering it’s only about
20 to 35 percent of people that this
works for a first time
but we were devastated and it was
beginning to take its toll
still we decided to tell nobody about
our journey
and the pain that we were experiencing
we decided to take stock and have a
better time before we would go again
after all we still had our beautiful
blastocyst embryos waiting on us
when the time was right we decided to go
again hadn’t backed down that same road
and we went through another procedure
however we got another negative
it didn’t work so after two losses
the strain was beginning to show we
really didn’t know what we were going to
do
about four or five months later a letter
came in the post
from our health service to say that we
were now eligible to go forward
for free treatment in the fertility
clinic
we were excited and hopeful but we
decided this would be our last goal
we wouldn’t go through this again we
just weren’t able and it was taken its
toll
we decided to do things a wee bit
differently this time
we decided to be kinder to ourselves so
every time that i had to inject myself
which was twice a day i’d give myself a
retreat
we also decided that we would reduce all
the stresses in our lives
and this was lots of different things it
included
people it included working extra hours
it also included situations and
environments that caused us stress
you see when you start your healthcare
around and even though we still had
beautiful
embryos sitting we had to go back to the
start so you had to go back through all
the treatment again
and sometimes not talking about it
was painful and talking about it was
painful
so really we just kind of kept our heads
down and kept going
sometimes i would take the four hour
trip on my own and i would blast music
the whole way up the road and the whole
way down the road just to build that
feel-good factor within myself
the waiting rooms were full full of
people
on the same journey as us with the same
blank faces
the same knowing that we were all going
through the same thing
and yet nobody was talking about it
nobody talks about it
in august 2015 we headed down the all
too familiar road
feeling nervous because this was it for
us
into the packed waiting room
different faces every time we entered
with the same look on their faces we
waited to be called we were called in
and i lay on the bed as i had done twice
before
and the doctor comes in he doesn’t speak
not
one word doesn’t speak as i’m lying
in the bed he inserts the long tube with
our beautiful
embryo in it and we watch on the screen
as we had done twice before
and just like that we see a flash
of white light
an unmistakable flash of white light
appeared on the screen when the embryo
was dislodged in we couldn’t believe it
we just looked at each other and smiled
in recognition
of what we’ve just seen it was amazing
the doctor then just gets up and says
okay
good luck that’s you then so up we get
and head back down the road again for
the dreaded
two week wait
i’m going to have to admit i didn’t wait
the two weeks
this time i couldn’t and after 10 days
i snuck up the stairs and took the test
again
and you know what it was positive
we got a positive test and i have goose
bumps every time
i say that we were delighted and in 2016
our beautiful baby was born all
nine pound six ounces
looking back on this journey i’ve
learned so much from it
i’ve changed as a person and how would
you not
what a different experience we would
have had had we have felt comfortable
enough
to talk to other people about our
journey and not feel judged
be kind to everyone you meet because you
truly never know what people are going
through
and this doesn’t work for everybody not
everybody gets a positive outcome
i learned to show up for myself and not
for others
what’s love got to do with it well
don’t you see it has everything to do
with it