I moved to Sydney in 1998 for University and lived in College where I met many beautiful people and also came to know Jesus as my Lord and Saviour - Understanding God's love and sacrifice for me changed my life!
I married my wonderful husband when I was 22 ... I was a bit naive about Contraception and instead of going on the pill had an injection to stop ovulation... this screwed around a bit with my hormones... and a couple of months in I changed to taking the pill... We didn't think that we were ready for children ... that would come later (or so we thought, hoped) I went to see a Naturopath in our first year of marriage to see if he could help with the chronic headaches that I had been facing... he thought the pill was evil, and so I went off it... thus started the "well we're not doing any thing to stop pregnancy occurring" Trusting God that if it was his will we would have children (or not).
After some time (about 5 years), and me seeing a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy counselor for anxiety we ended up having tests and seeing a Fertility Specialist, where we found out that we couldn't have children naturally.. due to MF Antisperm Antibodies.. well there was 1% chance of natural conception. As Christians we fully trust God and know that with him anything is possible, but medically speaking we were Infertile.
We did a few rounds of IVF. We were not comfortable freezing embryos and so we asked that they only fertilise 2 eggs each time (as the clinic was happy to transfer two embryos at a time). This only happened once.. the other times there was only one embryo that lived till transfer date .. and the last time we had frozen eggs but only one thawed for fertilisation and that embryo didn't live more than a couple of days. So overall across 2 years we had 6 little embryos .. one positive pregnancy .. which miscarried VERY early at only 5 weeks... rather devastating.
Without children we have freedom to do so much more than we could with children and we know that God will enable us to be content and persevere sans enfants - yet the desire for me to be a mum is so strong... the heartache so deep... I have not given up hope that it could happen however time is running out .. soon I will be too old.
At the beginning of 2018, we saw a new Fertility Dr (who works with Genea) and decided that we would try IVF again... Due to the generosity of family we are able to consider and pursue this. Alone we just could not financially afford it! The Dr said we would need to lose some weight first and come back in a few months.. so the weightloss journey started with a vengeance - it's quite embarrassing being told this even though you already know in your mind. I lost about 17kg and the Dr was happy for us to go ahead with IVF.
We did our first round (actually it's the 6th attempt overall) with the new clinic in August and sadly no eggs fertilised. They found a polyp in my uterus during the scans and I had to have a day surgery procedure to remove it.
We did out last round of IVF (PICSI) in October 2018 and 2 precious embryos were created. Unfortunately only one was progressing for transfer and that one didn't survive.
In 2019 I turned 40 and this I my mind had been the cutoff for IVF/ conception but there’s plenty of new mums around in their 40s and whilst I fully knew that if children wasn’t in Gods plan for us then he would help me cope with that but honestly I just couldn’t imagine it that way. We found out through my fertility acupuncturist about a bulk-billing clinic in the city and so after much discussion, thinking and praying decided to make an appointment.
So we saw the GP there and the Fertility Specialist abs they thought it worth going ahead. After many agonising decisions we decided that we would let them fertilise all the eggs this time and trust God with the outcome (given the odds that I would likely not have more than 6 eggs anyway). This idea was super scary for Hubby as his main concern was what happens to them if something happened to me (given we believe they are little lives and deserve all chance of growing)
So we ended up with 10 egg .. unbelievable ... only 7 were suitable to fertilise though and out of those 6 fertilised!! At Day 5 we had two beautiful little blastocysts to transfer and sadly the others had not reached the stage they need to be at to freeze so the lab watches them another day - they didn’t make it :(
From our two beauties transferred one implanted and I had positive pregnancy tests and at 7 weeks saw a precious heartbeat Amazing! What a miracle and answer to the prayers of many and especially my cries to God over many many years! Our baby girl is due in December 2020!
Who would have thought that after all these years we would conceive in the middle of a global pandemic.
It certainly makes things different and it makes our personal journey at this time filled with so much joy amidst the chaos.
My heart and Prayers are still with those battling infertility and trying to conceive and I am here for anyone who might be in need of an ear or a friend at this time. Xxx
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