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