Hiya,

my name is Alannah and I am 27 years old.

I have wanted a baby since I was 16 years old but I knew I had to wait until I had a stable job, so I waited until I was 22 and decided I had waited for my dream for long enough.

I decided I wanted to be a single mumma as my trauma history makes it difficult to find a relationship and I didn’t want to wait to be a mumma.

I tried to get pregnant for almost 2 years with a personal donor, I fell pregnant on my second attempt but quickly miscarried just before 6 weeks pregnant.

I continued to agonisingly try each month but due to my PCOS this resulted in no success or a chemical pregnancy.

I decided I would do IVF as I was exhausted with the ‘when am I ovulating, did I ovulate, did the egg fertilise etc’

looking into IVF (I was living in NZ at the time) it was looking like the waitlist was going to be 3 years at least to even start the process. So I decided I would come visit the UK and get the procedure done here quicker. We as a family decided we would move back home to the uk as we missed it here but this meant all my savings for IVF were spent getting my dog and two cats over to the UK with me (no way I could leave them behind)

I knew I would have access to my pension savings after being out of NZ for a year so I spent the next year waiting and trying to lose the weight to be able to start IVF immediately.

during this process I had been to appointments and clinics and drained even more money getting tests done to be able to qualify for an egg sharing cycle (I would donate half my eggs) to allow for my IVF to be cheaper (otherwise I could not afford it at all!)

unfortunately when I finally got my money through, the clinic I had been working with no longer offered the egg sharing package. So I had to start again from the beginning.

I finally found a new clinic with this package and the process took another few months to be able to consider starting the IVF procedure.

we are almost at 4 years of trying/waiting since initially trying to get pregnant and hurting everyday that I have to keep waiting.

I was finally able to complete the procedure getting 18 eggs, 9 donated and 9 for me. Out of those 9 eggs, I only had 3 embryos that survived to 5 days blastocyst. I had mild OHSS after the egg retrieval and couldn’t do a transfer for two months. Then my first frozen embryo transfer failed. I had to waited another two months before I could try again.

luckily this time it stuck and it stuck well! I had a few scares with some minor bleeds and some falls down my stairs, fainting and some pretty rough morning sickness but I made it. I had never had a baby scan and seen a heartbeat and I got to do that! I made it to the 12 week scan and baby was happy, healthy and growing. I did an early gender sneak peek test and found out she was a girl, I later got a private gender scan to confirm this at around 17 weeks.

I was so excited to finally have my dream baby, all I ever wanted was to feel a baby move inside me (I had an anterior placenta so unfortunately didn’t feel any movement), I always dreamed of being a girl mum and my younger sister had my niece a few months after I found out I was pregnant so I was so excited for our girls to grow up together.

at my 20 week scan I went in excited to finalise and confirm she was definitely a girl to be able to announce the gender. When going into the scan I was told there was low fluid and they couldn’t see much to do the checks. I didn’t think this was that serious and honestly expected to maybe be told to drink more water or be hospitalised for fluids if necessary. I wasn’t really told anything at all. A week later I was referred to fetal medicine unit where the doctor told me I had anhydramious (no amniotic fluid at all) and baby likely had bilateral renal agenesis (no kidneys/urinary system) which meant that survival after birth was no compatible as the fluid would not be able to form and the lungs couldn’t grow. This meant baby wouldn’t be able to breathe when born. My only options were to choose non intervention and birth baby when she decided she was ready and she would suffer when born and die within minutes/hours due to no lungs, or to medically terminate.

I chose to medically terminate meaning I would have to have an injection through my stomach into my babies heart to stop it and then days later I would have to go into hospital to be induced and give birth to my stillborn baby girl. I gave birth to Effie Mae very traumatically on 24.04.26 which was so awful, then left the hospital with no follow up from a midwife at all. I ended up having a massively severe postpartum haemorrhage at 5 days post partum due to a retained placenta. I lost over 2.5L of blood and hit hypovolemic shock just as I got into theatre. I almost lost my own life and I almost had to lose my uterus but thankfully they were able to insert a balloon to try and save me from having to lose my uterus. I am beyond grateful to the people who saved my life (even if in the moment I felt like I should have just died and gone with Effie so she wasn’t alone)

unfortunately this whole process meant that once again I am without my earthside baby.

I have one embryo left (which may not even be genetically viable) which is going to cost me a minimum of £5000 to be able to transfer and try again. If it fails then there is no way I can afford to try the whole ivf process again.

I don’t even have enough to try my last embryo yet so all I am asking is if you have anything to spare, could you consider donating even £1 to help me get to be able to try again. I am already £10,000 in debt due to my previous transfers and can’t get another loan.

I hate having to ask for donations. I am the kind of person who has always worked for everything I have and had 3 jobs at a time to pay for what I need. So having to ask for help feels awful and shameful.

my heart is broken but I have to try again otherwise I have nothing to live for

you can follow my journey on TikTok at Alannah Dunn IVF&Loss Journey or on Facebook at Alannah Dunn • IVF & Baby Loss Journey by clicking the links below

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