Our struggle with infertility has been a long hard four years and it has been a bumpy road to say the least.

Almost a year into our relationship my husband and I knew that we wanted to start a family, I was in my late 20’s and he was in his 30’s so we decided for me to come off the pill and see what happened. A year went by and there was still no baby for us. Then two years went by and still no bundle of joy. It was around this time that I started to worry. I knew my periods could be slightly irregular at times but I never thought it was a major issue; I was never in pain and believed it was just part of being a woman.

After two years of not falling pregnant we decided to try ovulation kits and online cycle trackers and making sure that we had sex every other day to really try and maximise our chances. The ovulation sticks were a nightmare and I never saw that smiley face that shows that you are ovulating and this is when I decided to seek help. I went to my GP who performed all of the necessary blood tests and surprisingly everything came back clear and normal. However, although everything was normal the GP, thankfully, decided to refer me to a fertility specialist as he was concerned that I hadn’t fallen pregnant in almost three years.

My first appointment with the fertility specialist wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. For a man who works with women going through fertility issues he didn’t really have the best tact. However, he booked for me to have a hysterosalpingogram where a dye is injected through your cervix while you have an x-ray. The dye helps to check if there any blockages on your fallopian tubes and low and behold my tubes were perfectly clear! This may seem like good news, but for me it just meant that there were still no answers as to why I wasn’t pregnant yet. So instead of feeling relieved I felt really frustrated. The consultant gave me two options after this. He said that because it had been almost three years with no pregnancy he would refer me straight for IVF or I could try the drug ovulation stimulation drug Clomid. He believed that because no issues had been found so far Clomid would do the trick. The local hospital provided treatments such as Clomid and intrauterine insemination (IUI) but not IVF; I would have to be referred to a neighbouring hospital for that. So I agreed to try Clomid.

I have to say I found this drug really harsh on my body, however, even though the drug made me feel awful I responded perfectly. After four months there was still no pregnancy and now I was really starting to struggle emotionally. In this time all of my good friends were starting to fall pregnant and this really affected me so I decided to ask the consultant if I could stop the Clomid and be referred for IVF.  I really thought that this would be the beginning of the end of our struggles for a family.  I genuinely thought that IVF was our answer.

Read the full story by downloading our PDF.