Couples facing fertility problems experience a rollercoaster of emotions when embarking on investigations and treatment. The stresses vary in degrees but can be emotional, physical and financial.
Was it all worth it?
Without hesitation:
YES!
The following account is directly from a patient treated at Spire Gatwick Park Fertility Clinic. Amanda and Gareth Brown give a detailed account of their fertility journey, which despite many hurdles and a lot of determination along the way, led to the couple achieving their ultimate goal.
Amanda and Gareth Brown's story
When you make the decision to start a family, you think it’s going to be easy. After all, why wouldn’t it be? Humans have managed it for quite some time now and you only have to walk into town to see the numbers of buggies, small children and pregnant women to prove that it is still happening. Everywhere.
Unfortunately when you’re trying for a baby and things just aren’t working for you this is all you can see around you. Buggies, babies, small children and pregnant women. To start with you think “It’s just taking a while. It’ll happen. Relax.” But how long do you carry on trying with the inevitable failure month after month and the strain this is putting on your relationship? My husband and I let it go on for some time before we admitted there may be a problem. Well, before I admitted there may be a problem. My husband had already mentioned it to our GP, who had advised him that, given our ages (I was 37 and Gareth was 38), both he and I should be checked out fairly soon. After several more miserable months of peeing on a stick with no positive result, I let Gareth book us an appointment to see our GP together. It was the best thing we could have done and I wish we’d done it earlier.
Time to see the experts
Our GP was wonderful and gave us a choice of fertility experts to see. If accepted onto the NHS fertility programme available in our area, we would qualify for one round of IVF. We had no idea who was good, so picked the nearest and most convenient. It took another 6 months to get an appointment, and this is when we first met Dr Youssef. We discussed all possibilities and Dr Youssef arranged for us to undergo several tests – Gareth’s results were fine, mine were not so conclusive. Dr Youssef suggested I have an investigative operation, which took place a couple of months later. It appeared I had lots of scar tissue and that my tubes were quite blocked, so not ideal. I had a further operation, this time at Spire Gatwick Park, to try to clear the blockages and remove as much scar tissue as possible. The surgeon was terribly kind and gave me huge confidence, even when he told me that my insides had been “a bit of a mess”, that he had only been able to unblock one of my tubes and that the scar tissue was almost certainly endometriosis. He suggested “going for gold” over the next six months before my insides furred up again. All through this process we had further appointments with Dr Youssef to discuss possible treatments when the time came.
Starting the process
After giving my body time to recover from these operations – a matter of another couple of months – we returned to Dr Youssef. Not being a particularly slim person, I had lost the required amount of weight necessary to be accepted onto the NHS IVF programme and we could begin. It’s amazing what you’ll make yourself do and what you can achieve when you are so focused on a particular goal. Michelle showed me what I needed to do – when to take what drug and how to take it. I’ve never liked injections (who does?), but managed to inject myself first once a day and then twice a day over I think a four or five week period, whilst having several blood tests and going for scans with Dr Youssef. It’s rather exciting to see the eggs form and grow over this period. (I hasten to add that as my problem was blocked tubes, and not the production of eggs, for some women, this process might be more tortuous).
Having the embryo transfer
When the time was right, Gareth and I headed up to London. I had been hoping for general anaesthesia for the egg collection procedure as I find even smear tests undignified and painful, but I had a very heavy cold and had sedation instead. When I came round, Gareth had already done his bit and the lab technicians were ready to do theirs. We were very lucky with the number of good quality eggs I produced and we ended up with seven above average embryos we could use. I had two put back during the embryo transfer procedure and we froze the other five.
Am I pregnant?
After all the internal scans, blood tests and injecting oneself the worst bit by far is the two weeks you have to wait before you can take a pregnancy test. You listen to your body like you’ve never done before. What am I feeling? Do I feel different? Are my boobs bigger? Do they hurt? Yes? Hurrah! I sort of knew it had worked although I didn’t quite want to believe it. After the agonizing two weeks I could take a test. It was positive. Needless to say we both cried and both Dr Youssef and Michelle were delighted for us.
When I started getting pains a week later and had started to spot, I knew something was wrong. After speaking to Michelle several times, we went to A&E where, after a considerable delay, we found that there was an embryo, but it was ectopic and I would need to have surgery to remove both it and the my one healthy(ish) fallopian tube that it was growing in. We were assured that we were lucky that it had been caught very early on. I certainly didn’t feel very lucky. How do you get over something like that? I’m not sure, but you do. It certainly helps when you have people like Dr Youssef and Michelle who keep you positive and don’t mind how much you cry!
Our next cycle - the frozen cycle - was very disappointing. Only one of our very good five embryos survived the thawing process and had lost a number of its cells. We had the embryo put back and waited the two weeks before taking the test. I tried to convince myself that all was well, but it didn’t work for us.
During the operation to remove the ectopic pregnancy and my fallopian tube, the surgeons had looked at my other tube. I was advised that it was in pretty bad shape and I should think about having it removed electively. After the failure of the frozen cycle, I went back to Dr Youssef to plan our next move. He advised that an unhealthy fallopian tube can actively prevent pregnancy taking place and that it was best to have it removed. I found the thought of having no fallopian tubes, and so pregnancy through IVF being our only ever possibility, very hard to accept.
Going the private route
Dr Youssef and Michelle were, by this stage, running the private fertility clinic at Spire Gatwick Park Hospital and the thought of seeing anyone else just didn’t cross our minds. After all, I considered both Dr Youssef and Michelle more as friends now. So after taking Dr Youssef’s advice and having my other fallopian tube removed – which, as it turns out, had been in a very bad condition – I returned to him, this time at Spire Gatwick Park. I have to say, it was a revelation having blood tests here rather than at the NHS hospital. I didn’t need to arrive by 7.30 in the morning in order not to be too far back in the queue, but could just have it done immediately when I was ready after any scan that I might be having. Dr Youssef was still working with The Bridge Centre, so when it was time for the next egg collection and transfer procedures, Gareth and I knew the ropes and we weren’t amongst strangers. I didn’t make as many eggs this time, but we still had a number of good embryos we could use. I had two put back again, but we were advised following our poor frozen/thawing experience not to freeze any of the remaining. Some couples have embryos that survive well, others don’t and we probably fell into the latter category.
Unfortunately this attempt didn’t work. It was a huge blow as we all had been absolutely convinced that this was the one. I knew I was coming to the end of my emotional strength as far as more attempts went. I probably had two left in me at most. Our savings were not going to last much longer either as we’d been paying for everything since the freezing of our first lot of eggs. We really did have to start trying to come to terms with the possibility of not having children. I think this was the hardest time - for me certainly. I couldn’t see a pregnant woman or young baby without wanting to cry. So when we saw Dr Youssef and Michelle again after this third attempt, we decided for me to have another ‘clear out’ operation (not it’s medical name, obviously) as after the first operation it had worked – albeit ectopically.
Fourth time lucky?
I had the operation with the same surgeon as before, again at Gatwick Park Hospital. Again he was terribly kind and again he advised trying again as soon as possible. We waited for my body to recover from this latest assault and went for our fourth round (third fresh) as soon as we could. We also decided that during this attempt I was not going to work - I am freelance and had had a couple of relatively well paid short projects leading up to the operation. In fact I wasn’t even going to think about work, but try to relax as much as possible. So we went through the scans, the blood tests and the injecting all over again. Apart from almost losing my mother a few days before the transfer procedure, I managed to keep relatively relaxed. Dr Youssef put me on further drugs - yup, more injections – to take during that two week waiting period, and which I would then have to continue if all were successful.
I knew it had worked. All the signs were there. After the ectopic the year before, we just couldn’t celebrate. Not yet. I started to spot again, but not with the pain this time. I was told it was too early to scan me (even though it hadn’t been the time before), so we had an agonizing wait until I was six weeks to see if it was a viable pregnancy or another ectopic.
He is finally in the world
I’m delighted to say that was early June 2009. It’s now July 2010 and my almost five month old son is playing in his gym as I type. Archie is the most wonderful thing to happen to Gareth and me. He just wouldn’t be here without Dr Youssef or Michelle. We cannot thank Dr Youssef or Michelle enough for their expertise, their advice, huge support and love throughout this whole exhausting time. Was it all worth it? Without hesitation: yes.
Amanda and Gareth Brown from Horsham, West Sussex