CHILD CARE 14

Success Rates Versus Stress Rates.

I Have So Far Experienced All The Sorrows Involved In The Failure To Get What Everybody Else I Know Takes For Granted. We First Realized That There Was A Problem Conceiving Nine Years Ago When I Was 20. It Seemed That The First Five Years We Were Not Really Taken Very Seriously By The Hospital Where We Were Undergoing Tests. We Eventually Moved And Signed Up With A Different Hospital. It Was The Best Thing That Could Have Happened. A Laparoscopy Was Performed Which Showed That Both My Fallopian Tubes Were Completely Blocked And Would Be Very Unlikely To Respond To Surgery.

               I Was Both Devastated And Hopeful Devastated That I Could Never Get Pregnant Naturally Or Out Of The Blue, Hopeful Because At Least We Knew Now What We Were Dealing With. We Were Immediately Referred To The Regional Nhs Unit As Prime Candidates For Ivf. There We Found We Had To Go On The Waiting List. Five Years Of Trying For A Baby, To Be Told We Must Wait For Another Two And A Half.

               After 12 Months Of Waiting, We Decided To Pay 2500rs For Treatment At A Private Clinic And Started In May 1992. Everything Seemed To Go Well But Then I Over Reacted To The Drugs And Hyperstimulated. Although 12 Eggs Were Recovered, The  Risks Were Too High For Me To Continue, And They Had To Be Fertilized And Frozen For Replacement In Subsequent Cycle. Nine Fertilized.

               My Husband And I Were Both Quit Confident At This Stage. We Felt That The Worst Was Over And I Suffered The Discomfort Of The Hyperstimulaton Gladly, With The Knowledge That Our Nine Babies Were Waiting For Us.

               A Couple Of Months Later, Two Frozen Embryos Were Thawed And Replaced. I Was Not Really Expecting Success That First Time. I Had Heard The Statistics And Knew That We Weren’t That Luck, And So When My Period Came, All I Could Think Of Was The Next Time. After Having My Blood Monitored For Ten Days, The Morning Of My Next Embryo Replacement Came. I Was Confident Excited And Happy As I Packed My Small Bag For The Hospital. I Went Downstairs To Phone Them As Requested, Just To Check Everything Was In Order Before Leaving. I Was Devastated To Be Told That The Two Embryos Taken Out Of The Freezer The Previous Evening Had Not Survived The Freeze Thaw Process And The Replacement Was Abandoned. Finally We Were Down To Our Last Two Remaining Embryos. I Was Checking In At The Hospital’s Main Desk When A Message Came Through That Once Again. They Had Died. I Walk Out Blinded By Tears. A Couple Of Months Later A Letter Arrived Telling Us That We Were At The Top Of The Nhs Waiting List And That We Could Ring In To Request Treatment At The Regional Ivf Unit. We Decided To Wait For A Few Months Before Launching Into It Again.