Fly high – Saying Goodbye to our Embryos and Fertility Journey

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was just coming round from a routine laparoscopy, when my surgeon came to see me.

I knew what was coming. I’d been a patient of Dr Google long before I was officially diagnosed with endometriosis, and I knew what it can lead to.

The Endo had won. Both tubes were fully blocked and badly damaged by the illness that had taken so much of my life already. This meant that even though I was ovulating, my eggs couldn’t actually leave my ovaries due to all the blockages. Great :/

I was officially infertile and the only way I’d ever have a family would be through IVF. My heart sank. I’d dreamed of having a family since I was 12 and was blessed with the most gorgeous nephew.

Mr Plinky and I had only been dating for a short while, so we hadn’t really been trying for a family, although we’d decided to “see what happens”. The dream of becoming a daddy was ripped from his fingers in a split second. I felt sick and disappointed for us both. I felt like I’d failed him.

We got home, and I was sent to bed to finish my recovery from my op. I checked Facebook and was instantly faced with the news that there was a new baby born in the family. I was pleased, don’t get me wrong, but my gosh it smashed my heart into even more pieces that the news from the hospital that morning.

I hated that day.

That feels like a lifetime ago now though, and we’ve obviously, eventually come out of the other side of that hell, but not without a fight.

Soon after my operation we’d been referred to the family planning section of the hospital to discuss our next move and journey into the world of IVF. It was the worst appointment that I’ve ever been to. The doctor hadn’t even read my notes and honestly said that “obviously you’ll be having trouble getting pregnant if you’re only seeing each other one weekend a month”. It wasn’t until I quite bluntly pointed out that I wasn’t able to get pregnant because both my tubes were f****d that she read through my notes and then asked more questions based on the actual facts, not what she was just assuming.

After my details and notes were sent off to the CCG it came back saying that we qualified for IVF funding on the NHS as we met all their criteria.

We were allowed to choose any clinic in the UK as long as the treatment didn’t cost the NHS any extra money. The closest clinic to me at the time was Exeter, but Mr Plinky still lived in Liverpool, and there was the Hewitt Centre in Liverpool Women’s hospital. We rang the Hewitt to make an initial appointment to meet one of the nurses and have a chat, and she showed us around the clinic. Oh my gosh it was gorgeous and the staff were so lovely and reassuring.
We also booked an appointment at Exeter and although it wasn’t as technically forward at the Hewitt, it was close to home and my family and friends, so it seemed like the logical choice. But I knew in my heart it wasn’t the right choice.

We were granted one attempt at IVF on NHS funding. We ended up with an ok number of eggs, and 5 of those had thankfully fertilized and became our most cherished pips. The clinic had decided to put two of our pips back inside my “baby hotel” and we chose to freeze the remaining 3 for future use. Our precious pips were named Patrick and Jane (I had my final trigger shot whilst watching the Mentalist – which I still miss, FWIW and as these wouldn’t be the babies official names, it felt natural to call them this. Boe’s bump names were Pip and Roger, just in case you wondered lol). Unfortunately at 6 weeks pregnant, we miscarried one pip and then the other. Obviously we were devastated.

We still kept our initial three frozen, but I’d decided to can IVF for the foreseeable future. I knew at that moment in time my heart was not strong enough to go through all of that again with no baby guaranteed. Plus, have you seen the price of IVF lately?? We’d just started planning our wedding, so we didn’t have a few spare thousands of pounds lying around…..

That was in 2012 – 5 years ago.

A lot has changed since then – after much convincing by Mr Plinky, we headed to the Hewitt after I moved to Liverpool – they refused to touch our 3 frosties in Exeter because they were such bad quality, so the CCG granted us 3 NHS attempts (the postcode lottery sucks, BTW). But Exeter would count as one of those attempts, so we were really only allowed 2 extra attempts. Thankfully we ended up with our little Boe and a spare pip (of decent quality) to be frozen.

We continued to pay for our frosties in Exeter, even though we knew we’d probably never use them. Regardless of how many people tell us “they’re not real babies”, sod off, they are – they’re our little pips. They’re little tiny embryos that we were fortunate to get through the miracle of science. They were part of us. They were part of our story.

So we kept them frozen. We just couldn’t let them go. Even though they’d not survive the thaw. Even though we’d never get to use them. We still kept on paying for storage.

But then Boe came along. He was perfect, and I was 100% sure I was “one and done” with him. I didn’t want to share my love with another baby and take part of me away from him. I didn’t want anything to come between us and the bond we had. Plus my fibro (or endo as it was originally thought at the time) was kicking off big time. There’s no way I could parent two young kiddos with the amount of pain I was in.

It took a long time to convince myself that the money we were spending on 3 eggs that we’d never use would be better spent on Boe. Even though we had officially ended the Exeter cycle, I still couldn’t bring myself to say no when the freezing renewal letter came in the post. My head knew it was the right thing to do, but my heart just wasn’t ready.

I kept telling myself that if Exeter had the in-house research option then I’d have been happy to donate our pips to them to use in the hope that it would help people in the future. But they don’t. So the only options were to donate them to the world where no-one had any control over where they went or if they were even treated humanely, or to have them destroyed, which was why it was such a hard choice to make. Keep them for no reason other than to keep them “alive”, or stop having them frozen.

Eventually, on 19th September 2015 Mr Plinky and I decided that we had to end the Exeter cycle and stop keeping them frozen. And it was one of the most heartbreaking choices I’ve ever had to make. Because they WERE my babies. My prescious pips. My miracles. My snowflakes. Regardless of what anyone says.

And I had to say goodbye to them.

We gave them a good send off… the three of us went to Stockpoort and threw leaves for each pip we’d lost in the journey over the pier. It was a fricking windy day though, so I’ve no idea what way the leaves flew off to, but meh… it was still a cute way to say goodbye and close our IVF journey for good.

I thought I was ok with it all, but recently, even though I’m 100% one and done still, my heart aches. I’m at that stage where I’d love to be pregnant, but I’d not be able to bring another baby into the family mix yet. I couldn’t do that to Boe. And I’m happy with that choice. But it still hurts.

And then tonight (in my stress of not being able to sleep yet again) I decided to check Facebook memories just after midnight. The date hadn’t dawned on me until this popped up in front of me:

It’s today. No wonder my heart has been really aching this last week. And it didn’t hit me until now what date it is.

I miss them three. Well, not them specifically, because they were snowflakes. But I miss our little Patrick and Jane. I miss wondering what they might have been, as well as the 3 amigoes. The wonder always comes flooding back…. would they have been boys or girls? Would they have been as perfect as Boe is? Would I have become a drunk mum, slurping Blossom Hill just to keep going? haha. What would have happened if they’d all grown into actual real babies running around and playing with snails?

Who knows. We can all count the “what if’s” in our lives, can’t we. We can all wonder how things would be if just one thing had happened differently and if our life was a Sliding Doors movie.

We can all wonder. We can all dream.

But it won’t ever change the outcome.

There’s a number of stars twinkling bright in the sky just for us. And I hope they miss us just as much as we miss them.

Twinkle, twinkle, little stars,
I hope you know how loved you are
✨?

Plinky and Boe (and Mr Plinky too) xxx