My journey through infertility

I want to put it out there, writing this blog is very personal and very scary. Doing something like this means exposing yourself to the world and opening yourself up for all of the good things plus the bad.  However, the overriding reason why I am putting this out there is because when I was at my lowest point during my journey, searching desperately for answers or some comfort or even that I am not the only person who was going this horrible torment; I couldn’t find anything. Yes, there are books out there and Yes the standard answer when you seek advice is “go and see councillor, they’ll fix it” but this just didn’t cut it for me. I needed to hear words, from someone who was in my situation, who had been through it or going through it to say “what you are feeling is completely normal, understandable”. I needed someone to say to me “scream and cry if you need to, it’s ok”.

So here I am, telling anyone that needs to hear it. I am with you. I was there, I know how absolutely unfair and shitty this feels and it’s ok to feel cheated and angry. It’s ok to feel jealous of everyone around you who had had children naturally, seemingly without any issues or troubles. It’s OK to not want to be around friends with children for a while, it doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad friend. It makes you HUMAN.

I really struggled with that, as I am an empath by nature. I struggled feeling the way I felt, because in the other breath I was beating myself up for being selfish and having these “self-centred feelings”. Isn’t it the most ridiculous thing in the world? To deny how you are feeling because you think it’s selfish? What sort of weird world to we live in that we, as women would feel like that? That our feelings are selfish? Bizarre!

I had to somehow try and re-centre myself, reprogram myself, while dealing with the fallout and unspeakable grief from 3 unsuccessful rounds of IVF and a miscarriage. At 44 years of age, all of my “school friends” and cousins etc had (now grown up) children, and many of my husband’s (who is a few years younger than me) friends were just starting their families. Why am I the exception? How did I find myself in this BS situation?

When I was in my 20’s I went through the rounds of engagement parties/weddings/births, wondering and hoping when it would be my turn. I have always had no doubt that I would have children, it was just a matter of when (and with whom). I had a partner of 10 years at the time, so I naturally thought that I was “next in line”. However, as my 20’s turned into my 30’s it was increasingly obvious that my turn wasn’t coming (with that fella anyway). It was really hard to go through the process of being excited for everyone around you, but it never happening to you. Especially when you REALLY want it. It was soul destroying; I’m not going to lie.

So I cut that man-child loose and decided to move on and find the person who I would “have it all” with. I was in my early 30’s and assumed that I had plenty of time, and that there was nothing to worry about.

As my mid 30’s came and went and I started staring down the barrel of 40, the anxiety started to increase. Maybe it would never happen. Maybe I would never have my dream of being a wife and a mother and give my parents the gift of grandparenthood. My own grandparents would never meet my future husband or children. The grief hit me like a freight train. At this point, I actually did book in to start seeing a councillor to talk things out. I think I just needed to verbalise it, and it did work to a degree. But as with all of these things, you need to do the heavy lifting yourself.

Fast forward a few years, and I met my now husband, at work while he was on a working holiday visa in Australia. I was 37, he had just turned 30. We dated for a bit, got engaged and decided to relocate (back) to the UK, 18 months later. We made it back here in 2019, just before the world shut up shop for Covid in 2020.

At this point, I was satisfied that my life was pretty much in order. I had my forever person, we were planning a wedding and we were living in the UK. However, 2020 was looming as my “Everest” year. Turning 40, realising that the clock was DEFINITELY ticking, but being locked in a 1 bed flat with a partner who was covered head to toe in Psoriasis and unable to move and shedding skin like a snake. Bye Bye romance!!!

I told myself that I still have a few years and to not worry, but the anxiety wasn’t going away, the feeling like the guillotine was hovering overhead ready to drop on my womanhood. I actually started grieving for that part of my life at that point. My husband was getting more and more frustrated because he was not only finding it difficult to understand my moods but frustrated that he couldn't (literally) do anything about the situation due to his infirmity. It was a massive strain on our relationship.

Fast forward to after Covid, April 2022 and at the first opportunity, we got married and decided to take time out and just enjoy married life for a while. We went on 2 honeymoons (courtesy of our parents and wedding gifts) and gave ourselves permission to enjoy life for a bit. His Psoriasis had subsided by this point, and he was feeling much better. In 2023 we decided to start thinking about a family again. I was now 43 and thinking that I had about 12 months before “time would be up”, so we decided to go full throttle on it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t happening naturally, so we started investigating IVF. Oh boy, was that a mine field.

Without boring you with the details, as I am not a British citizen, I didn’t qualify for IVF on the NHS, so we had no choice but to do it privately and along with that comes the cost. I am not going to lie, it made my eyes water. How on earth were we going to afford it? But at the same time, how can you put a price on becoming a parent? If we didn’t do it, would we regret it and could we live with that decision? Yet another layer of angst to add to everything else.

We decided that we would go ahead with the process because we didn’t want to live with regrets. Bring on the testing. The invasive, exhaustive and quite onerous testing. The outcome of this, was again, a weight to bare. We found out that my eggs probably weren’t of a quality that I could use them, and that my husband’s swimmer count was low. DOUBLE WHAMMY. We got the results, walked out of the clinic and cried. The best word to use was shellshocked. We couldn’t actually believe that this was happening, despite all of the clinical evidence and we were definitely not ready to confront our new reality. The reality of infertility.

After a bottle of wine and a few more tears, we had a decision to make. The biggest issue coming out of these tests was the quality of my eggs. You can deal with sparse swimmers, but egg quality is the biggest catch. So now what? Either persist with my own eggs and have a 2-5% chance of it working (after spending all of the time, money, meds and weight gain) or go with donor eggs. It was something that had never even crossed my mind, that my own child, that I carry for 9 months might not even have my DNA. Would not look anything like me, “sticky-out ears” and all. In that event, would it even be my child, and how would I feel about that? How do I then tell a potential child that they are not technically, biologically mine? How would they feel about that?

All of these questions were bubbling to the surface and if I am honest, I wasn’t really ready to confront them. So instead, I went hunting for information. I wanted to research about mother-transfer DNA and how that works. I looked up case studies of egg recipients in IVF and what their experience was like, but I kept coming up with random “how to get pregnant at 40 by using wacky herbs” or “change your egg quality by drinking this mixture” kind of quackery. Needless to say, this did not help me in any way, shape or form.

Fast forward a few months, having been on an egg donor list for about 6 months and following some pretty tough discussions between us, and we found ourselves a donor and we were ready to go. IVF here we come. I was still dealing with the loss and grief of knowing the DNA wouldn’t be mine, but at least it would be half my husband. After a further 9 months of invasive ultrasounds, injections, tablets, pessaries (don’t ask, its vile), 2 negative tests and 1 chemical pregnancy, and nearly £20K lighter in the bank account, we had hit rock bottom. It hadn’t worked and I was blaming myself as the “defective vessel”. I was seriously now doubting whether we would have children. Clearly, I couldn’t carry a pregnancy, despite all the tests being fine. I even go to the point of telling my husband that he should divorce me and find someone younger and fertile to have a family with. My heart was absolutely broken.

Here we are in 2025, and it has taken me a good 6-12 months to deal with the emotions that have been a part of all of this. Deal with the loss of that part of my life, knowing that I will never be pregnant and carry a child, which is what is conditioned into us from day dot. Trying to get over the fact that I felt defective as a woman, that I had failed in my base function, which is to procreate. Feeling that I have let my parents and family down, by not giving them grandchildren, which they richly deserve (they will be awesome!). On top of this, being 7 years older than my husband and is friends, I felt a bit of a stigma that he had chosen me and that now he may never be a father. This was all in my head of course, but it was not any less real (to me).

We took some time (and a couple of holidays) to really come to grips with it and it was during this time that we really said to ourselves; why do we want to be parents? I mean, really. Why? The answer was so that we could leave a legacy, so that we could pass on all of our knowledge and raise a child to be a wonderful global citizen. To give joy to our families and to ourselves. We thought on this for a long time, and then it hit us. If these are the reasons that we want a family, why does the child have to have our DNA? Could we not give a child a wonderful life and fulfil all of our dreams as people and a family if it didn’t “come out of us”. Well, of course we could! So, we started dabbling with the idea of Adoption.

We did some research on our local authority and booked into an information session to find out a bit more. After the 2 hours zoom call, we had already made the decision. We were absolutely going to do this.

So here we are, about to start the journey, having gone through a huge amount of pain and growth during our fertility journey but we are now ready to take on the challenge.

Stay tuned as I document our path to Adoption, and all of the crazy, intense and wonderful experiences to come.

Love, light and big ol’ hugs,

The Cotswolds Girl

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