Kristie and Oli

What is it about Valentine’s Day?

Kristie and Oli couldn’t believe the coincidence. For two years in a row, life-changing events took place on February 14th. What will happen this year?

Kristie takes up the story:

“Myself and my husband Oli both work with children. I work in performing arts, as a children and young performers’ talent agent. My husband is a children’s paediatric nurse. As you can imagine, having a family of our own was something we both wanted very much.

“We started trying for a baby as early as 2014, but it wasn’t until after we were married, in 2016, that we started to wonder why we hadn’t got pregnant. I was having bad cramps and my cycle was all over the place. Something wasn’t right.

“My GP organised tests and I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Unfortunately, infertility is one of the symptoms, so my GP prescribed a drug to balance my hormones and trigger ovulation. A year later, I was prescribed a stronger drug and this usually cracks it but I still didn’t get pregnant.

“Eventually I found myself sitting opposite a hospital consultant, being told that IVF was our only option. We were asked, where did we want to be referred to? Oli knew about the fantastic reputation of Oxford Fertility and it was just around the corner from the hospital where he worked, so it made sense to stay local.

“And I’m glad we did because the first consultation I had was with a very lovely male doctor. He was very honest, kind and calm. He prepared us for what was to come and said there were no guarantees. He was lovely.

“We got the ball rolling and February 14, 2020 was our egg retrieval day. This proved to be the first of our lucky Valentine’s days. Forty eggs were taken, seven were fertilised and then by day five there were three left which were viable. Three hopeful embryos.

“Then, of course, because of my irregular cycle, I had to wait for fifty whole days before the transfer could take place. But transfer day was lovely. We were looked after by Kelly, a nurse. She was the nicest person in the world. My husband was holding my right arm and Kelly was holding my left arm. And the doctor was superb. He talked through everything and we saw the transfer of the egg going in.

“Then we had a two week wait. It was torture. Every twinge or symptom made me ask, is this a good sign or a bad sign?

“Test day came and it the result was positive. We did another test. It was still positive! Oli went to Tesco and got another batch and I kept testing every day! We thought, oh my gosh, we can’t believe it. We didn’t want to jinx it. Then the clinic scanned me and we could see a little baby. We’d done it!

“The pregnancy wasn’t the easiest as I got gestational diabetes but my gorgeous Arthur was born in January 2020 at 8lb 8oz.

“But this wasn’t the end of our story, as we had two embryos left. We waited a year, as advised, to let my uterus return to normal, then we got the ball rolling again.

“We decided to have both the embryos transferred at the same time. It was a risk, for sure, but we couldn’t afford another round of IVF (the NHS had funded our first round, we were funding our second) and, added to that, I felt that three pregnancies in a row would just be too much. More than anything, though, I just couldn’t bear the thought of someone else choosing which of the two eggs to transfer.

“So, we went for it – and on Valentine’s Day 2021 we got the pregnancy test result. We were pregnant!

“We went back to the clinic for a scan and the nurse said, ‘congratulations on your babies’. Two babies! When I say we cried, we were actually in floods of happy tears. The nurse had to leave us for five minutes and then she came back with our discharge letter and said good luck with everything.

“My second pregnancy was amazing. There were no hiccups and our babies Imelda (6lb 14) and Noah (6lb 2) were born two minutes apart on October 1, at 37 weeks.

“This has all been such a great experience - our family is complete. All the eggs worked! I just can’t believe it. I think my problem was that I couldn’t get pregnant but, once science helped me with that, my body did really well.”