Tami

My story started 10 years ago, when I turned 30 yrs old.

For several years prior, I was on and off again with my boyfriend who is now my husband. We met working onboard Princess Cruise ships. I am a Canadian from Vancouver and he is a doctor from England. He asked me to come to England to be with him. Within 3 weeks things were souring, and I found myself pregnant. I returned to Canada to have my daughter. By the time she was 7 years old, my ex wanted to see if we could work things out and asked me to marry him and come to England.

We married in the Philippines and came back to settle in England. I am 38 years old by this point and, since I had one child so effortlessly, I figured we would have no problem having another child. My daughter was at the age of asking for a brother or sister.

In September, 2012 I became pregnant the first month living in England. I managed to get to my 12 week scan on Dec 24th, 2012 in which the nurse told me that there was no heart beat. So on boxing day I was having my first D&C in a country that was not my own.

The procedure was done in a day surgery, so I was put with all sorts of patients with no empathy towards my loss. Upon waking from the procedure, I was in serious bowel pain and ended up having to stay in hospital until late evening. I was basically told to just try again and that miscarriage was common. I proceeded to get pregnant the very next cycle with no period in between. As quickly as becoming pregnant, I was having another miscarriage at 6.7 weeks of pregnancy. I asked several different GP’s about tests because of my age and 2 miscarriages. They kept sending me away, saying that I need to have 3 miscarriages before they were willing to investigate. One male GP actually said, “You are not a priority as you have one child already.” I kept pushing to try and to get tests done. I started seeing a Naturopath and paid to see a private gynaecologist. The gynaecologist ordered some blood clotting tests and suggested a hysteroscopy. These were all normal, so she suggested a natural killer cell biopsy which showed high killer cells. After my hysteroscopy I got pregnant for the 3rd time. This pregnancy ended at 5 weeks. I kept fighting the GPs for a miscarriage workup, which took 7 months at 39 years of age to get in. I was almost ready to fly home to Vancouver to see my own doctor. During my wait for my miscarriage work up, I got pregnant for a 4th time. My private gynaecologist put me on steroids for my high killer cells and I managed to make it to 8 weeks of pregnancy with the baby measuring only 6 weeks. I opted for the medication rather than another D&C. My private gynaecologist basically told me there was nothing she could do and that was it. “Go away” was the impression I had. I tried to ask about IVF with PGS testing and she told me that it was too expensive.

I didn’t know what to do. No one would help me in this country. Last summer, I flew home and saw my own doctor who pulled in her connections and got me in to see a fertility centres in Vancouver in only one day. The doctor was so nice and knowledgable and discovered in 10 minutes, that I have low ovarian reserve through a scan. Could none of the doctor’s in the UK have told me this 2 years ago? I have been sent away time after time, wasting my precious fertility window. I am now 40 yrs old and I am fighting for any last good eggs they can find. On December, 28th, I start oestrogen and testosterone priming for 21 days and then IVF injections in January back home in Vancouver. We hope to be able to retrieve enough eggs for PGS testing. It has been devastating trying to hide these pregnancies and miscarriages from my daughter, who is now 10 yrs old. Many people do not understand and it’s taboo to speak about miscarriage. People get uncomfortable and I finally stopped talking about it with many friends and family. I have been told “maybe your mother could carry your baby?” My mother is 65 yrs old with her own health issues. There are rude comments from supposed friends that don’t think you should be doing IVF. We are hopeful that the IVF with PGS testing will work, and that I will be able to carry a baby to term.

I am hoping to overcome the anxiety of the positive pregnancy tests and the scans that I have developed from 2 years of bad news. If they are able to retrieve enough eggs for PGS testing, my goal is to have some peace with getting two pink lines though IVF.

A recent update: 2 attempts at an aggressive protocol of IVF failed in Vancouver. My doctor has recommended that I try to get pregnant on my own, or, I may try a ministimms cycle which works with your cycle to get only 1 or 2 eggs. She has recommended that I do not try IVF again. This is extremely disappointing, but I don’t plan to give up yet. I am setting up a schedule for acupuncture and Chinese medicine to try and focus on the things I can do.