Our Journey to Becoming Parents IVF & Babyloss

My name is Beth and for the last 4 years, my partner and I have been trying become parents. It has been one of the hardest and darkest journeys for us and has meant that we have experienced things we never expected aged 32 and 34.

Our journey started in 2019, whereby we tried to conceive naturally but sadly after 2 long years we were diagnosed with infertility but with no explanation. After being told we would need IVF we were over the moon to find out in 2021 that we were blessed with our first ever positive pregnancy test after our first transfer. This was the best day of our lives and carrying Marleigh Rose was the most incredibly empowering, wonderful experience. I felt so proud that we had done it! However, sadly on 23rd January 2022 after 16 weeks of carrying Marleigh, we lost her and it was the worst day of our lives. We were informed that this was due to an incompetent cervix, following LLETZ surgery to remove Grade 3 abnormal cells when I was 24.

I was not diagnosed with this before or during our tests for fertility, even with my previous medical condition. These things were not taken into account when i was pregnant with Marleigh and due to a lapse in care and guidelines not being followed, my waters broke far too early and we lost our beautiful little girl.

We appealed the 'post code lottery' decision of only being allowed 1 round of IVF due to where our house is located. We had one more embryo to have transferred in July 2022 after loosing Marleigh and to add to our heartbreak this failed. We were out of embryos. We applied for another round and were informed that regardless of the complications and miscommunication that caused us to lose Marleigh we were not entitled to another round of IVF. This broke us.

This whole process has been extremely overwhelming, lonely and I have felt like i am in battle with myself day to day, minute to minute. I felt like a failure, to both myself and my partner. I was exhausted. Trying to conceive left us feeling stuck, isolated, hopeless, angry and worthless. Feeling scared every step of this journey. I got to a point where i wasn't even sure who i was anymore. We were now worried about the financial burden as in the UK one round of ICSI can cost up to £15,000 and this is just money that we do not have.

After lots of research both at home and abroad we found the most amazing Fertility clinic in the Czech Republic. We decided to put all our eggs into their basket, literally and figuratively and flew over in April 2023 for treatment. This has gone on to cost us over £10,000, with the cost only going up. To our amazement we managed to get 7 embryos which are now frozen and waiting.

Sadly, the first resulted in an early miscarriage in June 2023, but we are hopeful for that one of these frozen embryos will be our baby. Trying to plan and look into the future has been difficult with so much uncertainty, however, one thing we know for sure is that it's going to cost us around £2000 per transfer. Due to this we made the difficult decision to cancel our wedding. This was another heartbreak as we felt it was the one thing we could have in the diary we know we could look forward to. As much as it’s been a difficult decision we know that we want to be parents more than anything and will make as many sacrifices necessary to live our dream of having our own little family.

This journey has been tough, with tremendous highs but the lowest of lows. Sadly, the financial strain is only adding to this.

This has been extremely difficult for me to write and post on a public page such as Go Fund Me in order to ask for help. If you would like to support us in our journey to becoming parents we would be forever thankful. Please do not feel obliged to donate if you cannot (i know its difficult times for everyone) but if we could ask that you share this with your friends and families to spread our story we would be so appreciative.

I also have a instagram page for anyone who is interested in following our story: @infertilitywillnotwin and if you know anyone who is also struggling with infertility please feel free to put them in touch with my page. In this time of sadness and darkness i would like to share some light and create a community where we don't feel so alone.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story,

Beth and Ross xxx