Turner Syndrome meant accepting I'd never have a biological child, but egg donation gave us our family

Aged just 15 years old, Abigail had to navigate the world of infertility when her lack of a menstrual cycle and dwindling energy levels led to a diagnosis of Turner Syndrome. Despite accepting that being a Mum might not be a part of her future, Abigail and husband, Richard, welcomed baby girl Grace in January 2026 through the life-changing gift of egg donation.

Abigail & Richard’s story

Up until the age of 15, Abigail and her family had no reason to believe she was any different from her peers at school. But when she still hadn’t reached puberty and began struggling with her energy levels, her family became concerned that the two may be connected.

Raising these concerns with their local GP, Abigail was later referred to an endocrinologist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital where her lack of a menstrual cycle and an underactive thyroid led to the diagnosis of Turner Syndrome.

“I’m not sure I’d ever heard of Turner Syndrome prior to my diagnosis,” says Abigail. “And throughout our whole fertility journey, both Richard and I have been surprised by the lack of information available online, particularly real life stories.”

“As a teenager, I don’t think I necessarily understood the weight of the diagnosis or the long-term impact it would have,” she admits. “But the biggest impact has been the infertility and learning to accept that I would never have a child that was biologically mine.”

“Knowing I’d have to have that conversation with someone new definitely delayed me meeting someone.”

Since her diagnosis, Abigail has been on hormone replacement therapy to help balance out her oestrogen levels and initiate a regular monthly cycle. Despite these interventions, Abigail had to accept that she was infertile from an early age as her underdeveloped ovaries as a result of the condition led to premature ovarian insufficiency, meaning that she does not ovulate.

With the prospect of children a concept far into the future, Abigail admits pushing her concerns of how she would start a family to the back of her mind. But as she got older, she began to realise that it was having more of an impact than she initially thought.

“Subconsciously, I do think it played a part in delaying me from finding someone to settle down with,” she admits. “I tried to ignore it for as long as I possibly could because I worried about having to tell someone new and how they might react.”

That all changed when Abigail met Richard in 2017. Having gone to the same school years before, the couple was reintroduced by mutual friends and would go on to get married in 2023.

“I’ll admit that it was difficult when we first got together, but once we became more serious I plucked up the courage to tell Richard and he’s always been very supportive.”

“It took a while for me to accept that egg donation is how we would build our family.”

At the age of 18, Abigail’s care was passed over from the Birmingham Children’s Hospital to an adult clinic at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It was there that her endocrinologist explained to Abigail that using an egg donor would be her only option for conceiving a child in the future.

“I think until you’re in that position you can’t necessarily say how you’d react. I was devastated to begin with, thinking that by using an egg donor the child wouldn’t be mine. Only now do I realise how wrong I was,” shares Abigail.

Over the years, Abigail became more accepting of this route to parenthood and in 2022, she and Richard began the process with the NHS for funded fertility treatment using an egg donor. Unfortunately, due to a national shortage of egg donors in the UK, the couple found themselves still on the waiting list 18 months later.

By early 2024, the couple had decided to look into privately funding their treatment and this led them to TFP Oxford Fertility.

“We considered a few different options, including one that was recommended to us in London, but we liked that TFP Oxford had a satellite clinic in Worcester that we could go to for scans,” explains Richard.

“In comparing data between a few clinics, we also found that they were treating a higher volume of patients. Having both done science degrees, we understand how to analyse data and even though one of the clinics had exceptional success rates, they’d only treated six patients so it wasn’t a fair representation.

“We also read a few of their reviews and patient stories and found that they’d treated a number of patients with complex cases. Despite there not being many real life stories in the UK about people conceiving with Turner Syndrome this offered us reassurance. And in the end, our consultant had a really good understanding of the condition so we knew we were in good hands,” says Richard.

“We were told it would be easier to find frozen eggs which offered us hope.”

Shortly after their first consultation, Abigail and Richard’s journey to parenthood began with the search for an egg donor. To the couple’s delight, they were matched to a live donor within a few months and commenced treatment in June 2024.

Initially, the egg donation was deemed successful - 13 eggs were retrieved from the donor and fertilised using Richard’s sperm. At the same time, Abigail began an additional regime of hormone medication to help prepare her body for transfer and hopeful implantation. But five days later, only one egg had developed into a mature embryo suitable for transfer. Sadly, this was unsuccessful.

“It was upsetting to say the least, especially after having so many eggs at the beginning,” admits Abigail. “We were then advised not to use the same donor a second time which also felt like a bit of a setback.”

Richard adds, “We had a really detailed follow-up with our consultant after the unsuccessful round and even though we were now back to finding another suitable donor, it was expressed that using frozen donor eggs and the ICSI procedure would be beneficial in our treatment so it felt encouraging that we still had other options.”

“The third time is the charm as they say.”

By January 2025, Abigail and Richard were excited to start their second round of IVF, having chosen donor eggs procured by TFP Fertility from a donor bank in Argentina.

Six eggs were donated to the couple’s treatment, but devastatingly this second cycle would go on to be postponed after Abigail fell ill from a virus the night before their fertilisation was scheduled.

“It was all a bit dramatic to be completely truthful,” says Richard. “It was another knock that we couldn’t have anticipated but we understood why it had to be postponed. Ultimately, we wanted to ensure Abigail was healthy enough going in for the next round and that we stood the best possible chance.”

In the months that followed, the couple overhauled their nutrition, focusing on eating a balanced diet to help support their fertility journey. Abigail also had a few sessions of acupuncture to help alleviate any stress. In May, they returned to TFP Oxford Fertility with optimism for their rescheduled cycle. Of the six eggs donated, three grew into healthy embryos, one of which was transferred to Abigail’s womb.

“There’s no way of knowing what benefit the diet and acupuncture had, however, it allowed us to feel a little bit more in control going into our third cycle,” says Richard. “It was exciting but also stressful.”

“It was every sort of emotion,” agrees Abigail. “We were hopeful but we also didn’t want to get our hopes up too high in case it didn’t work again.”

“It’s hard to describe that period of waiting between the transfer and taking a pregnancy test too. You’re sort of living in blissful ignorance,” muses Richard. “We didn’t want to test too early and risk a false negative that would only lead to more heartbreak.”

True to their word, the couple tested two weeks post embryo transfer and basked in the joy that their treatment had been successful. In January 2026, Abigail and Richard welcomed their baby girl Grace to the family after years of uncertainty.

“We’re enormously grateful to our egg donor. To have put themselves through the process of egg donation to enable us to have a child is such a wonderful act of generosity and we will always be thankful to them,” says Abigail.

“Once upon a time I really didn’t believe that I’d ever have a child of my own and now that Grace is here, every moment leading up to her birth has been so, so worth it.”