As lots of you will know, I’ve been doing IVF solo for 5 years now to try to have a child.

I’ve had to self fund all of it, which I’ve been able to do so far, to a total of about 50k, thanks to my previous salary from teaching overseas.

However all of those saving have gone, I’m at my overdraft limit and continuing to fund this is now proving really challenging.

I have one embryo left.

I absolutely hate not being able to sort this myself, but a few people in the past few years have reached out and suggested I set up a funding page, and expressed how they’d love to be able to give a little to help me try to become a mummy.

I really hoped I wouldn’t have to, but here I am.

Although I know that this last embryo might not work, I equally know that I have to try. That I won’t have closure and I won’t be able to move on unless I finish this and can tell myself I truly tried everything.

Each embryo transfer is £2500

My additional tests and treatments for the next transfer are around £4000.

I don’t ever expect to raise this much through this page, I’m being frugal and saving, but every little bit that someone wants to give would be amazing.

If you want to give £2, £5, £20 or nothing at all, I really don’t mind. I just thought I’d do this as an option for those who would want to, but I completely understand if you don’t want to or can’t.

During this, I have had immense support from so many people, even people I haven’t seen in years. People have showed their support in so many ways, and I can’t express quite how amazing it’s been, and how much it has pulled me through to hear positive and encouraging words.

That’s been invaluable!

I want to be really clear that you don’t have to show your support through giving on this.

I have always tried to keep most of my TTC/IVF off my FB and I have my dedicated IVF Instagram page @ivf_and_single for that reason.

But I thought I should give a brief history of what I’ve been through so far, for those that don’t know but want to.

In the Summer 2019 when I was 38, and living in Oman, I had my first consultation with an IVF clinic in Tunbridge Wells. They ran various tests, and I had lots of online consultations and genetic counseling appointments (because I would be using donor sperm) and I was all set to have my first IVF egg collection in the Summer of 2020, and planned to fly back to UK regularly for treatment in half terms, holidays or time off work.

Well, we all know how 2020 worked out, and it scuppered my plans for regular easy travel for treatment.

But I was one of the first clients through my clinics doors when they re-opened in May 2020.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a straightforward road for me treatment wise.

I had failed transfer after failed transfer, what they call RIF- repeated implantation failure. I pushed for every test going, and every test to date, as I’m still doing them, has always come back clear.

There is no obvious reason why it isn’t working for me.

Unexplained Infertility… who knew.

I naively thought my only problem was I didn’t have a partner.

I also had the problem of not being able to travel easily, thanks covid, and my school not giving me any unpaid leave to travel outside of allocated holiday times. Any opportunity for treatment became really limited.

So Summer 2022 I decided to give up my life and job overseas, and move back to England to be able to focus on my IVF treatment. I moved my treatment to a clinic in Leeds and started with them straight away.

In March 2023, with the last of my own egg embryos, I got my first ever positive. I was pregnant, only to suffer an early loss a few weeks later in April.

I knew going into that transfer that if it didn’t work, I wouldn’t be able to try again with my own eggs.

I was turning 43, and the chance of being successful with my own eggs was less than 5%. With the huge cost of an egg collection round I just couldn’t spend the last of my savings on such a low chance.

So Sept 2023 I started with my new clinic in Spain (cheaper and better treatment!!) and I started my path using an egg donor. Which meant for me, Double Donor as I was using a sperm donor too.

All the doctors in UK had always, repeatedly told me my issue was ‘just old eggs’ so moving onto using an egg donor made a lot of sense to me, and gave me hope again, especially as the success rate was now 60-70%.

I knew the embryos from my egg donor would be my last chance, after them I had no more money and more importantly, no more energy.

I had my embryos from the donor genetically tested, 4 out of 5 were euploid, genetically sound.

Feb ‘24 was my first donor egg embryo transfer which was positive, but I found out at my 7 week scan that the embryo had implanted in the wrong place, it wasn’t in the womb. It was a PUL- pregnancy of unknown location, a type of Ectopic Pregnancy.

In April I had the Methotrexate treatment, and because of this I wasn’t able to try again for another 5 months.

In Sept ‘24 my body was ready to go again.

Since then I’ve had two failed embryo transfers, a cancelled transfer, a hysteroscopy and biopsy and a new medication protocol.

So I have 1 embryo left from my egg donor.

It has been a long and difficult road, but it’s one that I’m nearly at the end of, one way or another.

Thank you for reading.