Hi,
I left you last after going through the birth of William and the death of his twin, Elouise. He’s recently just turned 7, amazing to think it was 7 years ago now. So, after that traumatic development, I felt cheated of a baby. It may sound selfish, after all, I’d just got the healthy baby I’d always dreamed of, but immediately, I wanted another baby. I remember being in the hospital with him and thinking, if I could try again right now, I would. I’d not long lost Amy either, and I’d thought I was going to have 3 children at home, so adjusting to just the one was mentally hard.
When you’ve had nothing but bad ‘luck’ before, and all your babies so far have not made it, I didn’t believe it at first that William was healthy. We watched him like a hawk. He didn’t stick his tongue out which was good, but being premature he was behind in his development. But if I adjusted for that, he was normal. Gradually I began to trust he was ok, and when he sat up and started developing more, I relaxed. When you’ve had a disabled or developmentally delayed child, a ‘normal’ child is amazing to you – when he learned to crawl it was fantastic! Until he started putting two discs in the DVD player or put my keys out the catflap that is. Even so, I delighted in all the small things he did and couldn’t wait to do all the things we’d longed to do when we started planning a family.
I still longed for another child. The clinic had misdiagnosed his twin as healthy, and although I knew there was a remote chance that this could happen, we were the first people it had happened to. I contacted them to ask if there was any way we could do another cycle, paid for as compensation. They agreed to fund it if we paid for the drugs and the HFEA fee (the human fertilisation and embryology authority), as they were costs out of their control. We agreed to this, but this time we didn’t tell a soul what we were doing for fear of anything going wrong or if it didn’t work. I couldn’t bear breaking any more bad news.
I breastfed William but not exclusively, after my experience with Amy where I’d struggled to get her to take a bottle and in desperation had given up, I wanted to make sure he took a bottle early on. As a consequence he had no trouble taking a bottle, but more and more bottles crept in and by 3 months I was mixed feeding and stopped breastfeeding altogether at 5 months. I also was so desperate for another child that I wanted my cycle to return as soon as possible. It took another month or so, then we were good to go.
The IVF Process with PGD second time around
This time, I had a pre-treatment scan and then started downregulating. To do this, you inject yourself every day and then go for a scan to make sure everything is quiet inside so they can start the stimulation process. When I went for this scan, I wasn’t quite where I should be, so I had to start again. The next time it was fine though, so I started the stimulation injections. Those ones you feel better about giving them to yourself because they’re stimulating egg growth. I had to go up to Nottingham for the 3-4 hour car journey (each way) every other day, this time with a baby in tow because I didn’t have anyone to babysit as it was a secret! He was a good boy though and would sleep one way. Finally I was ready and we scheduled in the egg collection. We booked a hotel and on the day, we got 7 eggs out that were mature. Again, we took William with us and somehow managed it so that he was looked after.
The next few days were tense, waiting for news to see if we were to get any embryos for transfer. To be honest, I can’t remember the fine details, I know there was more than one embryo affected, and that we ended up with two healthy carrier embryos. There was no way I was having two put back after the last time and all the heartache, plus one was more developed than the other, so that’s the one that was put back. The other embryo was frozen. My husband stayed home with William and I drove up by myself for the transfer. It was quick and painless, and then I drove myself home! A far cry from the last time when I was so careful and spent the drive home with my feet on the dashboard.
Life resumed back to normal (ish), and we waited. I felt some familiar symptoms, but didn’t want to get my hopes up. We went to the beach with family, I had my birthday, all the time keeping my little secret. Then, the day of the official test – Positive!! We were cautiously optimistic. Of course, I was going to undergo genetic testing again, to double check. I waited until the 8 week scan, where we saw a little bean with a heartbeat. Hurdle 1 down. We celebrated William’s first birthday, with no-one knowing a thing – luckily I didn’t feel too bad, just tired.
Eventually, at just over 12 weeks, I could have my screening done. It was a CVS, done at St Thomas’ hospital, by the same Doctor that had done William’s. We took him with us again. It’s horrible having a risky procedure when all you want is a baby, but I just couldn’t risk it. A few agonising days later we had the result we’d been hoping for – a healthy carrier baby. I hadn’t had any bleeding and I’d listened in to the heartbeat so things were looking good. I’d been self conscious of my growing mini bump for weeks so I was thrilled to be able to finally tell my friends and family the good news. This was the first time I’d been given good news by the genetics department too.
We didn’t find out the sex of the baby and were so excited when we finally welcomed our healthy baby girl into the world in March 2011. Phoebe. My second rainbow baby and my only girl, so special. She was the spitting image of Amy as a baby but as she grew she became Phoebe. My husband was terrified she would still have TSD and probably only let himself love her once he was sure, I was more confident. She’s sitting next to me now shelling peas into a saucepan, and I’m so grateful for these ordinary moments and more.
What about the frozen embryo? That’s the next part of the story 😉
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