# 23 I thought they said 4th times a charm!?

They say everything happens for a reason. But could someone please kindly tell me what that reason is?!

Today, I sit here with tears streaming down my face as I share with you, my next experience of fertility treatment. I have always tried to be honest and keep as light humoured as I can to stop them from being all doom and gloom. I can't promise that in this one. I'm lost and confused. I'm a 35 year old woman who prides herself in holding her head high and has been a good girl all her life. I've never done drugs or been a rebellious bad girl. I've looked after myself, I don't smoke, rarely drink. I stopped my career whilst I thought I was still young enough to have fertility treatment. Yet I still can't be a mum?!?

When we held our dear darling boy in our arms forever asleep, our need to have OUR child became even clearer. We knew that this was our dream more than ever. So, we called our fertility clinic once the grief settled down. They booked us in for counselling and talked us through our options. We looked at my husband's diary. With Covid, his line of work has unfortunately been difficult and he's finally getting back to it, we just needed to make sure he would be around at the time of needing... well...you know! June/July looked free. I was initially hesitant, July 8th was Billy's due date. But it soon made sense. Surely getting myself prepared mentally and physically over a time where I could have sat and felt sorry for myself, means that I could turn a negative time into a positive time. Last treatment I was on 300 IU Menopur and 0.5ml Fyremadel. With a trigger of 500IU Gonasi. This produced 5 eggs on collection and 3 were mature enough to use, 2 fertilised. One made it to a blastocyst but sadly was of a poor quality so was not suitable to freeze. The other was transferred on day 3 and created our Billy.

Our doctor explained to us that he would do exactly the same. It created our Baby, it was just (those words again) "BAD LUCK". We all agreed that we would like a few more eggs, to give us a few more options hopefully. This time we decided to change the medication to Meriofert and up the dosage to 375 IU alongside the Fyremadel and trigger again on Gonasi. I'm still on maternity from our stillbirth, it's the perfect time. I have the ability to relax and have ‘me’ time. I've even taken up yoga!

It was a long wait for my period to show itself, a few days late...The irony!! I've always wished for my period to not show itself and for me to take a positive pregnancy test, now I was eagerly awaiting for it to actually show itself so I could start IVF again. Friday 18th June, whilst my husband and I took a couple of days break, it arrived. Saturday 19th June, 12 weeks to the day after our son was delivered, I took my first injection. With excitement pumping through me again, I knew this was the start of our new beginning. We were due some happiness. This is it, this is going to work!

Friday 25th June, I had my first scan. 2 large follicles. 3 smaller follicles and many tiny follicles. This was not part of the plan. This is not how it was supposed to look. Keeping positive, we took it in our stride. So, surely quality eggs are going to be better than a large number of poor quality eggs. 'Its fine', I kept telling myself. The nurse couldn't understand that if my AMH was at 17, why am I not producing the follicles to show for it?!

Monday 28th June, the 2 large and 3 smaller follicles had continued to grow and the tiny ones were still too small. Not great, especially when not every follicle contains an egg. When she asked if there were any questions, I briefly asked if it was possible to do chromosome testing on the embryos? Knowing our previous outcome, she went to speak to the consultants. Leaving me in the scan room trying to take deep breaths, she came back after a long 10 minutes. One specialist flagged up a concern that icsi could have caused Billy's chromosome problem. (This had always been my fear that we caused his condition) They were not comfortable with us going down that route again, (in my head I was screaming, 'we were told it was de novo, it was bad luck') but when someone mentions something that huge you have to sit up and listen. "Ok", the nurse said, "let's continue anyway". All the specialists agreed that the best idea would be to up my trigger injection. 1000 IU of Gonasi. I took that on Monday evening (it stung like hell and left a ball under my skin for 24 hours). It took a whole afternoon and an entire morning for the consultants to make a decision. They spoke to the genetics team at Liverpool and pulled up our notes. They put the clinic's mind at rest as they had done us and said it was highly unlikely it was caused by the IVF treatment. So, what to do now. If we did IVF the chance of success was lower, but the chance of a healthier embryo was higher. Or the ICSI could produce more embryos with a tiny chance of poor embryos. We all decided to go with the evidence of science. To wait and see the quantity of retrieved eggs and my husband's sample. On Tuesday my husband and I chilled and I wished the day away.

Wednesday 30th June I was awake before my alarm went off at 6am. I was nervous and hopeful all at once. Let's face it, we've done this enough times now. We know the score, what's about to happen. The discomfort of the day ahead, but the hope and waiting to hear how our embryos do over the next few days is exciting! 'We are about to make our baby!!!' Singing at the top of our lungs "it's coming home" the night before with a double meaning! We set off for Liverpool and arrived really relaxed. My husband's sample was the best it's ever been, lots to work with, this was amazing to hear. It was my turn, after I came around from my sedation I was told instantly that they managed to get some eggs, but were checking what they had. Once back in my hospital bed, I could feel I was bleeding more than I had previously before. Bless them, they searched and searched, knowing our desperation, they looked so hard causing the pain and bleeding I was feeling, but still only managed to collect 3. This didn't come as a shock. I had suspected 2/3 would be the outcome. We decided to go with the ICSI as we had originally planned. We needed to make embryos, this was our best chance with so few eggs. The clinic did something they never normally do and phoned us in the afternoon to let us know what was happening on the day of retrieval. 2 of the eggs were mature enough, but the 3rd was graded as M1, meaning it's not mature enough, however they left it to be inseminated by IVF. So all 3 eggs were still treated. Feeling tender and very sore I held my tummy and told myself 'it's got to work, it's going to work, it's coming home'.

Thursday 1st July, 1 week before our son's due date. We sat by our phone for hours. Finally at 10am the phone rang. Our world has crumbled yet again. NO embryos have been created. None. We have in all these years never not made an embryo. I knew as soon as I answered the phone. It was not an embryologist, it was the consultant. I could hear it in her voice. I briefly looked into my husband's eyes and shook my head as she spoke her first few words. Then the words we dreaded came out..."I'm so sorry, I have no good news". The first egg degenerated after insemination, the 2nd egg started to create but sadly stopped and the M1 egg that wasn't mature enough sadly had 2 sperms enter and caused it to be faulty. That's it. No embryo. No transfer. No hope. No happiness. No baby.

My husband's eyes filled with tears as he helplessly watched me sob all morning. "I'm done, he instantly said". But soon I saw him reaching for my IVF bible (my huge folder of all we've gone through, appointments, medications, clinics etc) to see what other options we could have and how much we could stretch to, I knew something in him wasn't done. I can't speak for my husband, but what I can say is that I would give ANYTHING to feel my baby inside me again. My dream though is to be able to look into my babies eyes and see them smile back at me. To watch them breathe. To hear them. To feel my baby's warm touch.

Why can't we have our child?