By Shola Ogundipe

After seven years of trying to conceive, Anita is finally pregnant and expecting her first child in the first quarter of 2014. When she and Ben her husband met almost eight years ago, he had two young children — Stephen aged 5 and Sheila, 3, from a previous marriage gone sour.

Vasectomy reversal

On their third date, Anita, who was then 30, was already convinced she wanted to be Ben’s wife. Her feelings about the 44-year-old divorcee did not change even when he told her that he might not be able to have more children due to a medical condition that required him to have a vasectomy soon after his second child was born. However, Ben opted to have the vasectomy reversed, and as a couple they didn’t give up trying to have more children when they got married so as to expand the family.

Broke

Anita and Ben didn’t have a lot of money at the time so jumping into assisted reproductive technology didn’t cross their minds. It wasn’t even an option because they did not think about it. For a couple of years they tried to conceive naturally, got a few books and found out that there was still a chance even against the odds. They decided to have a different doctor to do another reversal, and this time it technically worked, but Anita was still not expecting.

Infertility

Soon, they were becoming more familiar with all the infertility terms. They had read all the books on infertility more than once and found a good centre where they went for counseling sessions and had opportunity to interact with several other couples. They started cleaning up their diet, taking every supplement under the sun and doing acupuncture, but nothing worked.

This went on for a while until they met with an infertility specialist who suggested IVF. Now that they understood it, they wanted it but the biggest hindrance was the high cost. They didn’t have the money and decided they could probably afford Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) for a few tries, but when that didn’t work they were broke and frustrated.

Break

Ben convinced her they should take a two-year break so they could get their finances together to do the IVF. It was a really hard choice. Anita really wanted her step-children to have a sibling closer in age and as each year passed that dream was slowly fading. However during the two-year break she was to accept that the age difference between wouldn’t matter. They would all be a family whether or not they were four years apart or 20.

IVF cycle

Two years finally passed and they took the plunge and did their first round of IVF. Anita was so excited to have the cycle. It was a life saver. Besides the high cost, another reason they waited was she was uncertain about putting her body through the process of IVF. Anita had anxieties, but the fertility clinic helped her relax and feel somewhat “normal” about going through this completely “abnormal” process. It complemented the cycle nicely.

Positive test

To their surprise, they got their first positive pregnancy test result ever and were ecstatic. There were eight eggs retrieved. Just one matured.  It was devastating!! They had an Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, ICSI, in addition for double measure. Several of the eggs were post mature and others immature. They tried to fertilize the immature eggs after they matured overnight but they just didn’t fertilize. The one egg that did fertilize was their last hope. However it was short lived as Anita had a miscarriage at 12 weeks. The doctors were particularly concerned about her egg quality. They said it could be caused by a chromosomal translocation in her and tried a different type of stimulation.

Mutation

Ben and Anita advocated that for the chromosomal test because they paid for two fresh/two frozen cycles. The results were not what the doctor expected. Her chromosomes were absolutely normal; it was Ben that had a mutation!! Was it passed down from his parents? No it was quite unlikely because they never had problems having children. Actually they had seven children. One doctor suggested use of donor sperm. But of course, that was out of the question. No way, Anita affirmed.

Pregnancy

The couple tried a Frozen Egg Transfer, FET cycle a few months later and to their surprise, she was pregnant again. On the second cycle, seven eggs were retrieved. Four matured, three came from follicles that were too small so they were not ready. Three fertilized. There were eight cells and already starting to develop into morulas (embryo at an early stage of development). The third embryo was seven cells and was kept it under close watch to develop into a blastocyst (an embryo that has developed for five to six days after fertilization). It did, on day six. Ben and Anita were overjoyed!!

Living with infertility

Anita did not do any home testing opting to wait till the clinic called to announce that she was pregnant. It was the greatest news! It is still unbelievable. This time they were much more cautious. Anita truly did not have super tender breasts or a lot of cramping. She felt “heavy” and strange sensations but nothing like cramps. She had heart burn and brown/pink spotting once or twice. But the pregnancy registered.

It must have been implantation spotting!! Anita is currently over 20 weeks pregnant and very hopeful things will work out. Living with infertility has changed her in many ways, and over the years she has learned her strengths and weaknesses in terms of what she can handle throughout this process.  But one thing is certain — the long journey to her IVF success story is destined to have a happy ending.