Trying to conceive… for 20 years!
Wendy can finally celebrate!
Saturday 1st March 2008
Who'd be a mum? First, there's the morning sickness, stretchmarks and swollen ankles. Then, the sleepless nights, dirty nappies, and the prospect of never having a moment's peace again. I knew it wouldn't be easy. But I was still desperate for every exhausting moment of it.
Sadly, my husband, John, 43, and I hadn't been that lucky. We'd started trying for a baby a year after we got married, in August 1987. I was 21, and sure I'd be sporting a little bump in no time. But here I was, almost 20 years later, in September 2006, a week away from my 40th birthday, and it still hadn't happened.
Over the years, we'd tried everything. And I mean everything. But finally, we'd decided enough was enough. We couldn't carry on trying forever. We had one frozen embryo left from our latest round of IVF, but when that didn't work, we'd decided on one final go.
'I think we should make this our last try,' I'd told John.
He'd looked at me with tears in his eyes, and nodded. Weirdly, in all these years of trying to be parents, we'd never spoken about giving up. I suppose we'd always tried to deny we'd ever get to that stage. But there are only so many years of disappointment you can take.
A year after we'd started trying, my GP had diagnosed polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). It meant my ovaries were covered in tiny cysts, so I didn't ovulate regularly. 'It means getting pregnant will be a bit harder,' the doctor explained.
He hadn't seemed overly worried, so neither were John and I.
I'd been referred to Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, then given hormone tablets to encourage my ovaries to release eggs. After six months, I hadn't fallen pregnant. So the consultant moved me on to hormone injections. Every lunch hour, I'd leave my desk at the timber firm where I worked as an admin assistant, and make the walk up to the hospital to have the hormones injected into my thigh.
Slowly, the months passed by.
'Why isn't it happening?' I'd cry to John, every time my period came.
'It'll happen one day,' he'd reply.
But it wasn't until 10 years later, in February 1996, that it finally did.
We'd gone on holiday to Malta, and I'd kept eating bags of salt and vinegar crisps.
'I can't get enough of these,' I'd told John.
We'd looked at each other, and smiled. A craving? Back home, a scan at Friarage Hospital confirmed I was six weeks pregnant.
'There's one heartbeat…' the nurse smiled. 'And another.'
Twins? We'd have been more than happy with one baby, but two was beyond our wildest dreams.
We were told to come back in a week for a further scan. Back at the hospital, we were still smiling as the specialist ran the scanner over my stomach.
'There aren't two heartbeats,' he said. 'There are five.'
An instant family, after a decade of trying? But it wasn't good news.
'Your body will never support quintuplets,' he said. 'I'd advise you to terminate some of the foetuses, or you'll lose them all.'
John and I were distraught. But we decided to go with the doctor's advice and terminate three. Even so, neither of us could hold back the tears as he inserted a needle into my tummy, and we saw the heartbeats disappear.
'We have to stay positive for the twins,' John said.
But positive thinking wasn't enough, and, at 16 weeks, I miscarried them as well. John and I sat and cried together for hours.
'We can't give up,' he said.
So we decided to try IVF. We had three rounds paid for by the NHS, and another two costing £3,500 each. But we still had no baby. We decided to try naturally for a while, which didn't work. Nor did the next bout of IVF we had six months later, at the Cromwell Clinic, Darlington, in March 2006.
So now, here I was, facing 40 and still not a mum.
'We'll just have to come to terms with the fact we weren't meant to be parents,' I said, the words catching in my throat.
After my 40th birthday, in September 2006, I went back to the Cromwell Clinic for a scan, to check that all was well with my womb before our final go at IVF.
This is the last time I'll do this, I thought, as I lay down on the scanner's bed. I wasn't even paying attention as they ran the scanner over my tummy. Then suddenly, I noticed a flickering on the screen. My heart missed a beat, and I shot the doctor a look.
His face broke into a smile — and then I heard it.Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
'Is that a… a…?' I stuttered, my voice trembling.
'Yes,' the doctor smiled. 'It's a heartbeat. Congratulations, you must have conceived naturally.'
I was about six weeks gone. So I'd been pregnant on my 40th? Because it was just a routine scan, John hadn't even come with me. I practically sprinted to the car to phone him from my mobile.
'You'll never guess,' I said. 'I'm already pregnant!'
'N-no!' John stammered back.
'But… how?'
We both cried together, as we'd done so many times over the years. But this time, they were tears of joy. Of course, we were terrified. We'd been here before, only to end up heartbroken. And when, at nine weeks, I started bleeding, I was sure I'd lost yet another child.
But this little one hung on in there, and the 20-week scan showed the baby was developing perfectly normally. I finally had my own bump, just like the ones I'd envied over all those years. Then, two weeks before my due date, on 1 June 2007, my contractions began. We drove to Friarage Hospital, still not really daring to believe we were going to finally become parents.
But after six hours of labour — and 20 years of hoping — I gave birth naturally. John cut the cord, and passed me my daughter, Olivia. And even now, words can't express how I felt at that moment. The feeling of holding Olivia in my arms was a million times better than I'd ever imagined.
As I stroked her cheek and her hand gripped my finger, I couldn't believe she was really mine.
'My baby,' I said, tears streaming down my face. 'You're finally here.'
She weighed 7lb 13½oz, and had fuzzy dark hair and pink cheeks. Perfect.
When we took her home the next day, John and I couldn't take our eyes off her. Olivia's 8 months old now, and a model child. She hasn't even put me through those sleepless nights I'd been looking forward to. Sometimes, I peek at her while she's asleep, just to be sure I haven't dreamed her. And at last, this Mother's Day, I have something to celebrate.
After 20 years of waiting, I'm finally a mum. And you know what? It's the most wonderful feeling in the world.
The full stories appear in Pick Me Up magazine, out every Thursday. For more amazing real life stories, check these out from Pick Me Up's Story Library:
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