I took time off work for IVF after talking to my boss

 Blocked tubes stopped our plans

“I was one of those naïve people who thought I would fall pregnant in the first few months of trying,” says Amber, who was 21 when she and partner Josh decided to try for a baby.  

“We had had always been interested in being young parents and I had not given it a thought that we might struggle to conceive. My parents were 20 when they had me and Josh’s mum had her children young, so we assumed it would be the same for us, but after about six months I thought ‘oh okay, this is a lot harder than I thought’.” 

Hospital investigations revealed that Amber’s fallopian tubes were blocked and that she had so much scar tissue that the doctors could not locate her ovaries or fallopian tubes. The couple, who live in Norfolk, were entitled to have NHS-funded IVF and opted to have treatment at Bourn Hall Clinic. Whilst Bourn Hall has a clinic in Norwich the couple had to have their treatment at the Cambridge clinic as Amber’s scar tissue damage meant that she needed a general anaesthetic for her egg retrieval. 

Managing the stress

“Cambridge is over 2 hours drive for us so being able to have time off helped me immensely as it took away the external pressures and stress that comes with work. At the time I felt doing both would have been too much pressure for me to handle mentally and physically, so I was very grateful to be able to take a month off to give us the best possible chance. 

“We ended up with four fertilised embryos, one was transferred to me and three were frozen.   

When we did the pregnancy test two weeks later it was the first time I had ever had a positive pregnancy test and I completely freaked out, we just stared at it.” 

The couple’s daughter Hallee was born in July 2021. “I just felt over the moon,” says Amber. “It felt fantastic to finally be a mum.”