DIMITY'S STORY

Next on my list of success stories is Dimity's story . . .

Thanks Dimity for taking the time to write your story to share with us all xox

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My fiancé and I had been trying to conceive for about 6 months when we first found out I was finally pregnant. I couldn't believe it! We were only 21 and it had taken longer than I thought so I was so glad to finally see two lines on the 4 tests I took! We were so excited and oblivious to the outside world for weeks. I finally saw my GP and booked in for a scan at 10 weeks. We'd just told some family and close friends at our house warming party when I felt some awful cramps, a stabbing sort of pain and went to the toilet. There was blood and lots of it, I started to panic and called out to Jeremy my fiancé. Needless to say the housewarming was cut short.

I booked into my GP the next morning and he sent me straight off for a scan,.I’ll never forget those words from the sonographer "No sign of a viable pregnancy, get dressed when you're ready" and that was it. All over just like that. We'd lost our baby at 9 weeks.

We eventually began to try again, however this time it was taking longer.....alot longer. My GP assured me it can take time after a miscarriage so we just kept trying for another few months. I began to get quite concerned that nothing had happened yet (and everyone around me was pregnant!) so I got a second opinion from another GP and he referred us to a fertility specialist.

Our first visit to our FS consisted of a family history, poking and prodding, peeing in multiple cups, blood tests, tests and 'samples' from Jeremy. We felt quite confident that we'd just need a bit of a nudge in the right direction and we'd have our family. We could not have been more wrong!

We got the call from the nurse at the clinic to come in for our results 1 week later. Jeremy was at work and I thought I could handle it so I confidently went in by myself. As soon as I walked in through the door to his office I knew something was not right. You know 'that' look people get on their faces when they have nothing but crap news to share....well that was the look I got from our FS. He went through my results stating all I had was a simple Thyroid problem that could be corrected with some medication then went on to ask if Jeremy would be attending the appointment. I said 'No' and was told to call him in as we both needed to hear the news. So I rang Jeremy and he was at the clinic in a matter if minutes. The news was not good - he had a 0 sperm count. I can only explain the feeling by saying my heart fell to through the floor....I started bawling and couldn't stop. We were gutted. Our FS said he'd like to perform more testing on Jeremy (a testicular biopsy) and see how we go from there. So into the room he went and came out hobbling and whining with pain after the biopsy. Our results would be back within a few days.

We received the call to return to the clinic one week later to get our results, with everything crossed we walked through the doors to his office only to see 'that' look on his face again....I immediately started to cry. The results told us Jeremy only had a couple of swimmers and they were of such poor quality any pregnancy would end in a miscarriage. Our options from here on in were adoption, give up trying for a family or use a sperm donor. It didn't take us long to decide on the fact we wanted to look into using a donor.

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Our next step was to grab the info we needed on the donors and start narrowing down our options and choosing one as close to Jeremy's physical appearance as we could. After a few weeks we had finally decided on the right donor....our donor. Our FS insisted we try Artificial Insemination at first before moving on to IVF. Great we thought, it's much cheaper and we have a good shot at this! We had 4 goes with AI, all failed. The two week waits were absolute hell. Every time returning in a negative result. We were absolutely gutted; infertility was taking over our lives and completely consuming us. So we decided to take a break.

After a long 4 month break we saw our FS who decided it was time to start the IVF procedure. I started all the drugs (which made me a dragon to live with and be around) then after some time along we went to the hospital at 6am for my egg collection. I can't remember ever being in so much pain in my life! But it wasn't long and I recovered and the aneasthetic wore off long enough for me to hear the results. 13 eggs collected, 3 immature, 10 were inseminated using the ICSI procedure and 8 out of those 10 actually fertilised!!

Three days later we had one of those transferred and the remaining 7 were frozen. The two week wait began. I took it easy, feet up - Jeremy waited on me hand and foot catering to my every need. It was such a long two weeks but eventually it came to the last day. I could take that test in the morning!! I went to bed slightly excited as I had no symptoms of getting my period. During the middle of the night I woke up feeling some terrible cramps and knew it hadn't worked, sure enough I had got my period. I went back to bed crying and all Jeremy could do was hug me. I honestly felt defeated and like it was all over for good.

We rang our FS the next day to tell him the bad news, he scheduled another consult time for us to come in 2 weeks. So that's what we did. I'd already said to Jeremy I’d had enough of this crap, 5 goes and all big fat negative results, I wanted this to work desperately as it was really taking it's toll on us. We walked into our FS’s office, sat down and before he could say anything I blurted out "I want two transferred and that's that"! I think I took the poor man by surprise as he simply said "Ok", planned our next cycle for us and said good luck, see you in 1 week!

This time we went into the clinic feeling like this was our last chance, 2 of our embryos didn't survive the thawing process so we were left with 3 in the freezer and two on board after our transfer. Then came another dreaded two week wait....I swear this was the longest two weeks of our lives. I used good old Dr. Google every 5 minutes to diagnose my 'symptoms' which I know were all in my head. I asked friends who had children or were pregnant to remember how they felt and various other forms of insane ways to keep myself occupied!

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Finally testing day came, I got up and went into the bathroom armed with 2 pregnancy tests. Yes I was planning to pee on 2 sticks! I did what I had to do and waited 5 minutes in the lounge room with the sticks facing down so I couldn't see a thing. After 5 mins I quickly flipped them over and saw 2 sticks with 2 lines each.......I was pregnant!!! I was in shock. I picked the sticks up and walked back into the bedroom. I woke Jeremy up and gave them to him...he turned the light on and stared at them...."Oh my....oh my God" was all he could say. For the rest of the day we had massive smiles on our faces. I went off to the clinic for a blood test to confirm our results, the nurse phoned later on that day greeting me with a "I hope you have an obgyn picked out...you're pregnant"! We were over the moon with excitement but scared at the same time, my levels were very high but we were still worried about an early miscarriage.

6 weeks later we returned to the clinic for our first scan with our FS to make sure the baby was where it should be and there was a good strong heartbeat. I was lying on the bed waiting for him to get the ultrasound equipment ready when he said "your levels are quite high you know, I wouldn't be surprised if it was twins.....” We laughed it off secretly hoping he was right but waiting to see our baby. He performed the ultrasound and said "yes there's the heartbeat, nice and strong". Then he paused and said "and there's the second heartbeat....you're having twins"!!.

We both burst out laughing, we couldn't believe our luck and still to this day can't believe it.

I'm due on the 20th December with our twins and am 15 weeks pregnant so far. I’ve had a hard time with an illness called Hyperemesis (basically severe and constant morning sickness) but apart from that I am loving every minute of it.

I still feel the pain of infertility even though I am pregnant. I feel it for my friends; it's as raw as it was 2 years ago. I honestly don't think I will ever forget how it feels the only difference now is I know there is actually hope and an end to infertility.

All I can say to those who are still trying is please, please don't give up. When you think you're at your wits end keep pushing, you can get there. Take a break when you need it, drink that coffee, have that glass (or bottle) of wine and go again when you're ready. Don't let infertility break you, you're stronger than that. You've come this far and you will get there in the end. xxx