When I first met Claire, she already had two biological daughters from when she was married and in a heterosexual relationship. I always knew that I wanted to have biological children, to have the full experience of motherhood and at 34 I also knew that I didn’t have forever to start a process – whatever that process would be. Claire’s girls were 11 and 18, so she didn’t think she would have more children and until she met me, she didn’t want any more. She knew, however, what the experience of being a mother was and didn’t want to deny that privilege to the woman she loved. So on the basis of knowing that we had a stable relationship and were going to be together forever, we made the decision to add more children to our family, with me getting the opportunity to carry our child. We were so lucky that Claire’s girls were thrilled at the idea of being big sisters; in fact the youngest, Olivia, said that her wish for Christmas was to have a baby sister.
And yet when we embarked on our “trying for kids” journey we were surprised when I got pregnant almost immediately. We therefore assumed that the doctors had been wrong and that the endometriosis had not affected my fertility. I experienced my first miscarriage a few weeks later, followed by four further miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy. It was a harrowing journey of hope, fear and sorrow, every time.
The ingredient that we were clearly lacking buy sperm on the internet, like we’d seen in films. It was important to us both that even though the child would be biologically mine, that there was a ‘connection’ to Claire, so we decided to look at donors who shared Claire’s interests and had a similar colouring and educational background. In our naivety, we were also clear that we wanted to use an anonymous donor so that our baby would never know the person who donated and we would avoid another adult being involved in how we brought up our child. We thought a known donor might have more rights than Claire and I think we were scared that we would lose our child one day to a man that we didn’t know. A child that we had put so much effort into having.
We started looking at sperm donation options from both the Californian Sperm Bank and also Cryos in Denmark. It was like a dating catalogue and fascinating how much information we were able to see. We managed to find some options and eventually ordered sperm from Cryos [something it is not possible to do any more]. I researched about ovulation timing and bought endless ovulation sticks from eBay. The pressure was unreal, as once the sperm was delivered it only had a certain shelf life (days). We did laugh and do laugh now, at how it arrived in a triangular tank and how the smoke came out when opened – like something out of an alien movie. When it arrived we already felt a connection to that sperm, so much so that we didn’t want to hide it away somewhere, as if it was already our baby. Before ovulation happened, we would often talk to our tank and acknowledge it. We even kept it in the office with us while we worked, so it wouldn’t be alone!
We tried the process of home insemination three times and each time it didn’t work. There were many tears and the financial cost was great, so we knew we needed some more help. We decided to go to an IVF clinic. The first clinic was terrible. We just felt we were ‘a number’. We had appointments booked and they would be changed. It just didn’t seem professional, so we decided to try a different clinic. We settled on the Priory Clinic in Birmingham and it was there that I had a diagnosis that answered years of questions for me, that no doctor previously had discovered.
My doctor informed me that I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). I was both scared and relieved when I found out. Firstly, I was scared that I would not be able to have children, yet relieved that I had answers to the fact that no matter how healthily I ate or how much I exercised I couldn’t seem to shift or lose weight like other people. It was a constant demoralising battle. I was so disappointed that I, like others, had only just found this out and doctors had never discovered this in me before. In fact, it saddens me now, how many women do not know that they have this condition, when roughly 1 in 10 of us have it, to different degrees. However, after having done my bloods, the doctor informed me that there was definitely the possibility to have children. I was over the moon! Wow, looking back now, there were so many ups and downs and emotions!
We were initially devastated when the clinic informed us, that due to UK regulations, we would have to have a non-anonymous donor and could not use the sperm we had spent hours agonisingly selecting. However, the nurses at the clinic suggested we did some research on the possible impact for the child of choosing an anonymous donor and when we found out that having an identifiable donor would be better for the wellbeing of our future child, this changed our mindset. We were happy to re-select and for our baby to know where they came from.
We followed the IVF process, even though it felt frustrating and slow at times. Like many people we were desperate to have our baby and we felt we’d already been through a long journey trying to conceive at home. We managed to get 8 blastocysts from our IVF cycle and this felt amazing as we believed that we had plenty here to have more than one child. After the fresh transfer didn’t work, we were lucky enough to fall pregnant with the first frozen blastocyst and welcomed our beautiful daughter Cleo into the world on the 24th October 2019.
Claire had her worries about whether there would be a connection through not being biologically related to our child and the pregnancy was difficult for her from this perspective. Although very good at our clinic, some other healthcare professionals involved in the pregnancy process could have made it easier for us by including Claire as the other parent. We were surprised at how much paperwork seemed antiquated and how often they referred to ‘the father’ despite knowing our situation. However the instant Cleo was born, Claire held her first and had that bond. I knew that we would want at least two children if we could and felt like I couldn’t let our little blastocysts just perish or send
them to research – we saw them as our babies. After lockdown, we decided to try again as ideally, we didn’t want a big age gap between our children. We had three blastocysts left, so looking at the stats, we thought we would get at least one more baby. Sadly, that wasn’t to be. Only one of the 3 remaining embryos survived the defrost and that last try just didn’t work. There were lots of tears.
We cried for the ones we had lost. After receiving our negative pregnancy test, I had so much going through my mind…should we just stick with one and leave the physical and gruelling mental IVF battle behind or do we try again? I remember sitting there the day after I found that I wasn’t pregnant with so much going through my head, “do we or don’t we?”, “Will Cleo be OK not having a sibling close in age?”, etc, etc, the questions kept on rattling through my brain. I frantically searched Google for answers. Then I thought about it and talked with Claire. I was so sad at the thought of not being able to have another child. It was the little things that stung me, as I sat there thinking, like not being able to pick another name. I felt that we were not done, that our journey was not over.
“I know that all that matters is love and there is bucketloads of that in our family.”
We contacted the clinic to inform them that we would like to try IVF with donor sperm again. We feel that our family would be complete with just one more child, a sibling close in age to Cleo and we are pleased that we are able to have the same donor so Cleo will have a full sibling. I think due to Covid and so many other restrictions in place, the process will be longer this time. But it is what it is. Now knowing that we were given such a gift, we have decided that we would be happy to donate (if any) blastocysts that we do not use, to other people desperate to have a child.
We know that our family is different in many ways and that Claire’s girls have a father they see and that Cleo and any future sibling will be in a different situation. Yet I believe that we do not give children enough credit. They are accepting of how things are if they have not known anything else. You only have to look around and see that families are made up in lots of different ways. The most important thing for any child is a safe home filled with love. I have always had an inherent belief that family does not always have to be blood and so I knew that genetics didn’t matter. I see Claire’s daughters as my daughters too and they see me as their ‘mama’. I know that all that matters is love and there is bucketloads of that in our family. Our journey towards the completion of our family carries on.
