Help us towards our dreams to become parents

Hi there if you don’t know me already my name is Nadine! Thank you so much for looking at our fundraising page to help support our fertility/IVF journey!

 

My husband Kyle and I would desperately love to become parents and we have been dreaming of this since getting together over 10 years ago! From very early on we both knew all we wanted out of life was marriage and children. We had started picking names and planning to have our mother’s maiden names as our babies middle names. We just knew we wanted to spend our life together with a growing family.

We got talking to our GP about fertility help and we couldn’t believe it just before we got married in 2019 we fell pregnant 4 months before our big day but sadly we lost our precious baby.

Fast forward past a few horrific years which involved me getting a second degree burn across my chest, being a passenger in a car accident, being hospitalised and getting diagnosed with a bowel condition called diverticular disease, then again being hospitalised and diagnosed with a brain condition called Idiopathic intracranial hypertension which led me having to have brain surgery, experiencing my first seizure which then brought on 2 more in the space of a month. I was heavily medicated for around 3 years so it wasn’t the right time for us to keep trying for a baby plus we knew the NHS wouldn’t help us due to my weight.

Now I’m 35 but at a healthier weight my conditions are under control, we thought it’s time to continue with our dream journey of becoming parents. Since loosing the weight advised by the GP we are now faced with more restrictions as the goal posts have moved due to Covid which has now made it more difficult for us.

After speaking to our fertility specialist she made it very clear that if we were to undergo IVF privately she would happily take us on and support us with our journey as she thinks I’m a perfect weight to child-bare. I’ve already lost a significant amount of weight due to a gastric sleeve surgery. But as I’ve previously mentioned since Covid they’ve made the restrictions a lot harder for people.

I have a long history of miscarrying including having 2 missed miscarriages and one I lost at 3 months so I’ve recently been seen in the recurrent miscarriage clinic. This is where my husband and I under went tests to check his sperm count and my bloods. My husband’s results came in and he was advised to take some supplements which are £70 a month which he has now started. Now my results came back and one thing has raised concerns and that’s my prolactin levels! A non pregnant woman prolactin levels are under 25 and a pregnant woman/just given birth levels can go up to 800… now mine is 1,519! That can indicate a tumour on my pituitary gland so I’m now waiting for an urgent MRI (please bare in mind this is completely unrelated to my IIH). Prolactin can actually make you infertile as well!

I am still waiting to hear back for some other results. But we received a letter from our recurrent miscarriage specialist (also a fertility specialist) that the only way we will ever fall pregnant is probably only through IVF so she advised me to contact my doctor to be put on weightloss injections to help me loose that last bit of weight as I’ve already load a significant amount and my biological clock is ticking! I contracted my GP and basically told I’m not overweight enough to have the injections and they can only offer me weight loss tablets which basically make you pass oil and be on the toilet a lot! Between me and you that’s no ideal for someone with a bowel condition so the only way I’ll be able to get them is privately.

But my specialist did say before pushing my body to loose any more weight I should take an AMH blood test which basically tells you what my ovarian reserve is (how many eggs I have left). I paid £124 for the test and my results came back the following…

“Nadine's AmH level has reduced. This means that the number of eggs are less so even if she has a regular cycle, not every follicle will have an egg in it. This reduces fertility and increases the duration of trying.”

We now have to book an appointment privately to get more answers about my AMH blood results and further testing for my husband.

It will be 3 weeks on 22nd November since our appointment and we’ve already spent £394! This doesn’t include the prices I will have to pay if I start the weight loss injections and they start at £135 to £185 a month!

We had no idea about all these hidden costs and if anything it’s making our journey seem further away than actually bringing it closer!

This whole situation is soul destroying and I want nothing more than to be a mother but there’s nothing more than what I want is to make my husband a father. We’ve both been through hell over the past 4 years and we just for once have a shot at this.

We understand the cost of living but we appreciate absolutely any support whatsoever. Thank you so much if you’ve made it down this far!