James and Annie

Hello, my name is Annie, and together with my husband James, I have decided to write a blog about our experiences of fertility treatment, in the hope it will be of use to others.

The story so far..

Our wedding day was one of the happiest days of our lives (so far!) The sun was shining, everybody was happy, smiling, congratulating us and wishing us all the best for the future. Shortly after our honeymoon May 2005 we started trying for a family. Something we both wanted so much.

“We had already talked about having children and it just seemed like the obvious next step after getting married, we were both looking forward to it. We had recently moved into a two bedroom house, converting the attic to create a third – a perfect size for us to start our family. To think I thought getting the house and finances in place to start a family would of been the hardest part, little did we know.” – James

My menstrual cycle had never been that predictable, not one of these women who has their period every 28 days on the dot, so I knew that it probably wouldn’t be that easy and that I was unlikely to get pregnant straight away. Three months passed, then six months, still nothing. Every delayed period meant us spending money on pregnancy tests, some cycles I used more than one test. My longest cycle lasted 70+ days. Everyday of that cycle thinking I must be pregnant, becoming so very aware of my body, every little pain, niggle, thinking they were symptoms of pregnancy. You become obsessed. Not only do you tune into your own body, you seem to tune into every woman who passes you. They all seem to have bumps or be pushing prams. This cycle, nearly two months, resulted in a visit to see my GP. In the surgery I gave my Dr a urine test, even then, watching her do the test thinking ‘please be positive’, hoping that all the previous tests I’d used had been wrong. The test was negative.

“It’s true it did start, if not to take over our lives then certainly our daily thoughts. You begin to become aware that has a month has almost passed and any day now we should know, watching Annie to see if she had any sign of her period starting, treading on egg shells until we get the negative outcome and then trying to be positive and wishing the next four weeks away so we could try again.” – James

We tried again a couple more months then made another appointment for us both to see our GP together. I had always wondered if James (my husband) would be able to father children as he has a severe scar low on his abdomen, after an operation he had as a child for undescended testicles. So much so I mentioned to my Dr a few years previous and he just said many men go on to have children and there should be no problem. Our Dr agreed to do a sperm analysis , but said there should be no problem and just to take our time.

“Obviously I knew I had the operation as a baby and had one of my testicles removed, perhaps naively I never thought this would effect my chances of having children. I had been told from the time I noticed and asked my mum that it would make no difference and I could still become a father, as my mother had been told by her doctor all those years ago. I still have mixed feelings about that, obviously I understand why they said it, maybe some children do go on to have children, it was along time away and why worry my mother when there was nothing that could be done. Also I don’t know how knowing the truth would of changed the way I grew up and acted towards relationships. Perhaps I would never of got married to Annie, knowing I couldn’t have children naturaly – would we even of started a relationship? – these are the questions that drive you mad while you are sitting on the bus/typing at your desk/eating your lunch/getting on with life.” – James

I still remember the call James made to me the day he got the results, what time of day and what street I was on. After a false hope from the Dr, initially making a mistake and telling him the sample was average (normal) but then realising she had read the wrong part of the test result, making the whole situation worse. James was told he had zero sperm showing in the sample, something known as Azoospermia. The worse case scenario.

“It’s funny how you do remember where you are when you here news like that, like people recalling when they heard JFK or Princess Diana died. I was in a side street in town, the sun was shining, I was on my lunch break from work. I had to call my doctor to get the results. It seemed my stand-in doctor was new to giving results and she mistakenly read out the example results and not my own. I was so relieved for a second until she admitted her mistake and revealed that infact my results were not as I thought ‘average’ but far from it. I had no sperm in my sample at all. Nothing. Not ’slow’, or ‘not very many’, something you could hold onto and still have somthing to hope for. I remember shaking as I finished the call and dialled Annie. I felt so bad telling her, like I was failing her, I felt so dissapointed for us both. One thing we had spoken about before we both went for tests was that this is no-ones fault, what ever the outcome we have to be strong for each other. There is nothing we did to make this happen, these are the cards we have and we have to try and make the best of them. To find out you cannot do the most natural thing in the world, to extend your blood line is unbelievable and hard to take in. It seemed that ideal family I had in my head was disappearing. But of course it wasn’t, you have to adapt, come to terms with the reality and find another way, and we will have that family one day soon.” – James

We were referred to our local NHS hospital for further fertility tests. Some routine, and some which needed some effort on our part. I had to take a urine sample, the same time every week for 10 weeks, then hand it into the hospital – this meant keeping the samples in the freezer over that time, not something you like to have next to your frozen vegetables! Once the test had come back from the lab, we had another meeting with our consultant. The results showed James testosterone levels were low and that due to the undescended testes as a baby, the consultants conclusion was that sperm had probably never been produced at all. My results showed that over the ten week period I only ovulated once, and not twice. This wasn’t too bad as the Dr said missing an ovulation can happen sometimes due to various factors such as stress. The main worry was James’s results. We asked the consultant what our options were, he told us the next step would be Adoption or IVF using a sperm donor. We were longing to be a family and for me to be pregnant so had thought about donor sperm. We had discussed it over the weeks we’d being doing the tests and both decided that using a sperm donor was the best option for us. The problem was there were no donors.

Press releases and adverts were trying hard to increase the number of sperm donors, following the new that law came into force resulting in sperm donors loose their right to anonymity. Local news and press releases revealed there was only one sperm donor in the whole of Scotland. Things were going from bad to worse.

We came out of the hospital and spent fifteen minutes in the car holding each other and crying. Only to be back in work half an our later acting as normal and if nothing like this was going on in our lives.

“It is easy to slip into a feeling that the world is against you when you find out the law has recently changed so sperm donors could be traced by concieved children, seemed to stop the number of donors coming forward overnight. We had just come to terms with the fact we would use donor sperm as this was the closest to becoming naturally pregnant. As compared to adopting we could both go through the pregnancy together. But now no donors. The pressure on us both was becoming intense and I think we needed to tell someone. Taking breaks off work, going in late and getting away early was getting harder, going through emotional termoil and having to hide it away like a flick of a switch was exhausting for both myself and Annie.” – James

Keeping it to ourselves was becoming a strain, we needed to tell our families. What we really wanted was for us to be normal, and to be able to tell our family and friends good news, that we would be a family soon. We decided to tell our families about our fertility trouble. I met my mum in town, again, I clearly remember where I was and remember the whole day as if I was watching it on TV. Walking along Princes Street, I said “mum, I need to tell you something” I think she probably thought the news was going to good, before I knew it I was a bubbling mess and my mum was consoling me, cuddling me as we walked along the road. We went to Starbucks for a coffee and I told her the whole story from the beginning. Little things had been urging us to tell people the situation, me getting upset at comments people would make about starting a family. My sister, obviously unaware about what we were going through, stated whilst clearing out one of my nieces bedrooms, “well, I can chuck that out, you two aren’t going to make me an Aunty any time soon”. I was so upset when I went home. So telling mum, everything, was a great lift of both of our shoulders. My sister felt really guilty about what she had said, but it wasn’t her fault, James and I had just got into a routine of keeping it to ourselves and making no comments about starting a family or really wanting children, as we just wanted to be like most people and just announce when we new it was going to happen.

After I had gone through the whole story, my mum turned to me and said “just don’t tell your dad, you know what he’s like”, she didn’t want him to worry and he hated seeing his family upset. To be honest I probably wouldn’t have told him right away, but I never got a chance, a month or so later he died of a heart attack.

James still had to tell his mum, so he called her to break the news, she was really upset as she distinctly remembered, after James’ operation as a baby, the Dr telling her that he would have no problem having children of his own. We mentioned this to our consultant at one of our many appointments, he said unfortunately some Drs (especially 30 years ago) tell the parents this to save them anxiety and guilt, and to give them hope. We felt so angry and so did James mum, lying all those years ago just gave us false hope and prolonged our anxiety and pain.

“I remember listening from another room as Annie told her sister, her mum was there, her nieces out playing. I remember them talking and consoling Annie. I broke down in tears, you are filled with a huge sense of anger at how unfair it all is. How did we deserve this? The usual feelings I guess people go through before finding some golden nugget like ‘this will make or child so much more special’ to help you cope and move on. One thing I did realise is how lucky we are in other areas, as if to balance it out. We have an incredibly strong relationship, we tell each other everything and I think this has helped immensely over the last few years. We have our health and financially we are doing okay, you have to remember these things when your confidence is dipping. I phoned my family, my mum was so upset that her doctor hadn’t been totally honest with her. It was good to tell someone other than Annie and I think that is very important as from then on there is always someone else to go to when you need a chat.” – James

A day after James phoned his mum, his brother Ray called to say he was coming up from England to visit us. This was quite out of the blue, we don’t often get short notice visits! I asked James if he was going to tell his brother about our fertility problem, he said he would, and we discussed the possibility that he may already know via a family member. When Ray arrived I was cooking dinner, I even remember what I was cooking. Some things just stay in your memory. We had previously discussed the possibility of help from James brother, but were adamant that the offer of help had to come from him, we were not going to ask him. Mainly because, Ray had no family of his own, and such a big decision, we felt, had to come from the potential donor.

I stayed in the kitchen and despite straining, I couldn’t hear a thing except the sizzling of the pork chops. I suppose it was like waiting to hear the news of a birth – but this was much earlier stages. Ray asked James to tell him everything from the beginning, when we, what the hospital had said etc. he then offered to be our sperm donor. He had given it thought and was sure this was what he wanted to do. James came to tell me the good news, we were over the moon, at last a glimmer of hope to have a family.

“When my brother came up to see us we thought maybe he new. It was arkward at first because as Annie says we would never of asked for him to be the donor, although we had thought about it and that maybe helped. When Ray did offer it was such relief, it meant we could now move forward and ‘our family was back on’. Although my brother simply sees it as a simple decision helping his brother out we understand what an amazing offer it is and what a selfless act it is to help us make this happen. I admit the whole idea seemed a bit strange at first, but it seemed to us both that this was the best possible outcome available. Obviously for myself and Annie to make a child together would be the ideal but this wasn’t possible. My brother was the closest person to me, same blood line, similar looks and some say personalities. Obviously it could cause problems in the future but we have watched plenty soap operas to see secrets and lies have a tendensy to come out, (usually at Christmas round a family table). We discussed this with Ray and he had at first thought we could keep it secret but could see the damage and heartache it would bring if it came out once our child had grown up. We will tell our child that I had a problem making him/her and that we needed help from your Uncle Ray. As they get older we can explain in more detail. I think honesty is the only way to go.” – James

As James and I had discussed this option, we had also discussed in detail the problems that it could bring. We decided that we would want our child to know right from the beginning that he or she had been conceived using donor sperm. The thought of covering up the truth and it leaking out in the future made alarm bells ring. We discussed our feelings with Ray and he agreed it was best that we were open about it.

Both our families know the situation, most of which were as open to the idea as us, a couple of people thought it a bit strange but as time went on realised it was the best option for us, and that we are completely settled with the idea.

“We also told a few close friends, that we were having trouble concieving that is. There was no need to go into detail but just so close friends no not to keep asking ‘when are you guys having kids’ etc. Also it helped Annie to discuss things with her close girl friends. I guess they understand and can relate more about her hormonal and bodily feelings. I too told a couple of pals that we were having treatment. I remember being so nervous about admitting that I couldn’t have children, like it is such a failure. But as these are not talked about and hidden away you feel ashamed and build it up in your head. It is a relief to tell someine and you find people are supportive and genually caring, afterall they are your friends and want whats best for you. Having said that neither of us want to tell everyone, not that we are ashamed but more that it is personal. I wouldn’t want people caonstantly asking us how the treatment is going, or seeing us in a different way, feeling sorry for us. And just as it is important to have people you can talk to who know what you are going through. I think it is equally important to have friends and colleagues who have no idea, where you can, for a few minutes at least, forget what we are going through.” – James

Our next big hurdle came when we approached our NHS hospital about treatment. We had overcome the problem of no sperm donors in Scotland, we had found our own donor. However, they still couldn’t help us. They said due to the fact there were no sperm donors meant the donor centres and facilities had closed, and that there was no where for known donor sperm to be stored. We were gutted. There seemed to be one obstacle after another. I asked what we could do, the only option was to go private, expensive but we weren’t going to give up. Then came the next hurdle, there are no private fertility clinics in Edinburgh or Lothian.

We were recommended a clinic in Glasgow. After initial consultation, loads more tests for James and I, counselling for James, Ray and I, sperm analysis and blood tests from Ray, approval from HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority), sperm stored for 6 months then a second lot of tests for Ray, we were finally given the go ahead to start treatment in April 2008.

“When we started going through to Glasgow I was so excited, we were finally starting the treatment and things were going to happen. I felt so bad for Annie, with all the tests and injections. It seems it is my ‘problem’ and she is the one having to go through all the treatment. She once joked maybe the doctor should stick something where the sun doesn’t shine so we were both going through discomfort. We started IUI which is basically ensuring Annie has enough follicles of the right size, then she is given a hormone injection to encourage ovulation. Timing is crucial so a specific time is appointed for the doctor to then inject our donor sperm into Annies uterus. The trouble is there are a number of points in the cycle when the treatment can be cancelled. For instance if Annie doesn’t produce enough follicles, we don’t want to waste the donor sperm. Similarly if there are to many follicles, this can cause Ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS) which can be dangerous for Annie. Then there’s the size of the follicles, not too small and not too big. If that is okay then we can go ahead with the final stage of inserting the sperm. Then we go home and wait. So far no good news, but we keep everything crossed, well not everything:-), and hopefully soon we will have the news we want so much. I hope this helps other couples starting out on the same treatment. The main thing I think is to tell each other everything, be honest with each other and you will be okay. We always remember we didn’t get together to have children, we fell in love and that behind us will get us through this. We have decided to write a blog, as we go into our next stage, IVF. If you have any questions we wil be happy to try and answer them, we are not medically trained but perhaps just as importantly we have been through, and are still going through the treatment, and if we can help we will. When we first found out about this we scoured the internet and would of loved to of found a site like this where we could of asked even the most trivial questions to try and put our minds at ease. I hope we can help people now in the same situation.” – James

This is our story so far, read the blog for up to date instalments of our fertility treatment.