An IVF Journey: Day 5 – Finally, pregnant at last

The Owens started their third and final NHS-funded IVF treatment in the summer of 2013. Due to the poor quality of the embryos during the first two IVF cycles, they had been advised to use a sperm donor for half of the eggs collected from Claire during the third attempt.

On the day of the embryo transfer, the Owens had to decide which two embryos to implant – those fertilised with Si’s sperm or the donor’s. While Si’s embryo was slightly lower quality than the donor’s, they decided that he should have one final chance to become a biological father to his own child.

In the penultimate extract of Claire’s IVF Journey, she reveals the results of her final pregnancy test on 8th September – and what happened next….

Day 5 – Finally, pregnant at last

It’s worked. It’s only gone and bloody worked. I’m pregnant! After four and a half years, two sperm retrieval operations, two failed IVF cycles and more hours of emotional trauma than I can count, I am finally With Child and I can’t believe it. If I’m honest, I was fairly sure I was pregnant because this cycle’s two week wait was so different to the first two. But I know how this tricky business works and I knew I could have the positive feeling whipped away from me in a heartbeat. But thankfully it wasn’t and we’re absolutely over the moon 🙂

Si and I decided that I would test as soon as I needed the loo this morning and that I would bring the pee stick into the bedroom so we could look at it together. I did wake up at 2am but thought I should probably hold out a little longer! At 6.30am I woke him up to let him know, and did what I needed to do. My hands were shaking and I said to myself “I bet it’s negative,” even though I’d been so sure I was pregnant. I just couldn’t believe we could be one of those lucky couples I’ve been so envious of all this time.

I made sure I didn’t look at the stick when I brought it back to the bedroom, and we waited a few minutes to make sure the result would have come up by then. It was immediately very clearly positive and Si just burst into tears, bless him! Weirdly I didn’t feel anything immediately, it took a few minutes for me to start crying too and start to take in what we’d seen. There were almost as many tears as after a negative! But in such a lovely way, so amazing.

I’ve spent most of the day on the phone to those really close friends and family who’ve been with us the whole way through this long, stressful journey. There were lots of tears, squeals, shrieks and excited voices which was lovely, plus loads of nice messages. They all know how long we’ve wanted this and how much it means to us. It was so touching to see how much they cared.

We obviously need to be quite cautious over the next few weeks – anything could happen in the first trimester so we don’t want to get too excited. But whatever happens, to have a day filled with such unadulterated joy after such unbearable pain is just amazing.

I am so happy. I genuinely never, ever thought this would happen, especially with Si’s sperm, and I’m so, so grateful that we’ve been lucky on our very last chance to have our own baby. There’s a long road ahead of us, but at last we’re on it, when we never thought we would be in a million years.

Huge smiles ?

Claire’s IVF journey continues see related post below.