After previously searching for success stories throughout my IVF cycle I wanted to share my story to help others.
I have stage 4 endometriosis and we later found my husband also has low sperm count, so we were referred for IVF within 12 months of trying.
Due to my stage 4 endo I was down regulated for 3 months on zoledex to shut down my ovaries. We finally got given the go ahead to start our round and we eagerly started the IVF injections.
At our first scan 7 days after we have started our stims we were told I had not responded well to the meds and unfortunately my endo had reacted to the stims and created chocolate cysts on both ovaries which was blocking access to my follicles and so our cycle was cancelled. We were devastated to say the least and felt so lost.
We went back the next day to discuss our options and I was told to have my ovaries removed and to use donor eggs from abroad because of my low egg count. By some chance the consultant couldn’t read my scans and asked to redo an internal scan which revealed my follicles had doubled overnight! He wanted to carry on with the cycle as he thought he could collect 3 or maybe 4 eggs. We had been given a second chance but was still anxious. Our chances were still very low.
We had 7 eggs collected, 6 were mature, 4 fertilised with icsi and 1 embryo made it to a day 5 blastocyst- and that embaby (graded 4AB) by some miracle decided to stick and I’m currently 16 weeks pregnant!
I know everyone’s journey is difficult but I really hope that our story gives hope to some of you reading this - wishing you all the best of luck!