Our miracle IVF baby

You always assume you’ll fall pregnant naturally. When we first started trying, IVF didn’t even enter our minds. But honestly, at a certain point you start to think: Is this ever going to happen?’ It was important that we supported each other – when one of us was down, the other was trying to be positive – and if anything, our relationship and our marriage became a lot stronger as a consequence of what we went through.

Martin and I were married in Sydney in 2003, but we’ve been together for 14 years. We’d been trying to conceive for 18 months with no luck. We’d been to a naturopath for a natural alternative, with no result. We were then referred to an IVF specialist, who discovered I had a couple of polyps – but he didn’t believe they’d stop us from conceiving. The polyps were removed, and we were told to come back in six months if we still had no luck.

I’d read that acupuncture might help so, in conjunction with the IVF, I saw a woman who specialises in fertility problems and IVF. It was frustrating, as the doctors could give us no reason why we weren’t falling pregnant. We were offered counselling at our initial consultation at an IVF clinic, but we declined because we’d seen a naturopath and tried acupuncture, so we felt we were both already doing everything we could from a health perspective to fall pregnant.

Martin got used to going to the clinic for his sperm collection, which is done immediately after egg harvest. No pressure! He went six times, with some collections to check the sperm’s motility (are they moving fast enough) and morphology (do they have normal form and structure).

We joked about it, which I think is the best way to deal with the strangeness of the whole thing. We were hopeful, but to be honest at times we did feel like giving up. At the beginning of a cycle you’re filled with all this hope and anticipation, only to be left disheartened and devastated when you don’t end up with a positive pregnancy test.