Fertility Friday started out as a bit of a half-baked idea, but it has grown into something very, very special. When I started the series I contacted a few women who I knew had stories to tell. One of them was Viv; I contacted her with some hesitation because I knew her story would be incredibly painful for her to relive. Viv told me she would think about it, and as the weeks passed and I didn’t hear from her, I thought that she had decided – understandably – that she wasn’t able to share her story. Then, last week, out of the blue her story landed in my inbox. It is a story of incredible love and unimaginable loss, told with humour and grace. Viv, you are an amazing, courageous woman. On behalf of everyone who reads your story, thank you.

This is going to be a long story …

After meeting my Mr Right at 34, we decided to start trying for a baby after about eight months. Given my advanced age and all we thought maybe sooner would be better, just-in-case. Well, Justin proved to be a bit of a bastard. After trying for six months without success, we decided to go and get checked out. Turns out I had a fibroid the size of a grapefruit, which wasn’t exactly helping the whole process, so out it came… Once all that was over we went back to the specialist for a review to be told that if we wanted to have a baby then IVF was our only option. BUT, we should still take contraception, just-in-case.

At that point were undecided about how we felt about IVF, and in the end we just figured that a baby wasn’t in the plan for us… so I went and bought a motorcycle. It was a Triumph America, 960cc motor, and as comfy as a lounge chair, and we made a plan to ride (my husband was a veteran motorcycle rider as well) down to Melbourne for the October 2010 Moto GP at Phillip Island. We made five-star bookings at all the wineries we fancied all the way down to Victoria, and then a week before we were due to leave, it suddenly dawned on me that my period was late. So I peed on a stick, and lo and behold, it was positive. We were so shocked that we got on our bikes and took a ride to the country for breakfast. On the way home we made a pit stop at the pharmacy and bought more pregnancy tests, as you do, just-in-case (you gotta love Justin) we got it wrong the first time. Needless to say, the motorcycle was summarily parked, the winery trips were cancelled, and I flew to Melbourne as my husband rode past fields of yellow canola.

We welcomed our little Thomas on 24 May 2011 with a kiss, and whilst the obstetrician sewed me up standing on a box (he was a little on the short side), we were told that Thomas had Down Syndrome. The nuchal scan and blood tests done at the 13 week point in the pregnancy gave us a 1 in 400 chance of Down Syndrome, but nonetheless it was still a surprise.

As Thomas blossomed we started thinking about another little one because we didn’t want Thomas to be an only child. For a while I was plagued with ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ nightmares in that I was afraid that I wanted another baby for the wrong reasons (I’m a bit of an overthinker…).  Anyway, ultimately we decided to give it a go, so back for fertility advice we went, and the Clomid merry-go-round and IUI started. So did the detailed plotting of my husband’s murder, much to my angst. After a few months of the hormonal and emotional roller coaster we decided to give it a rest for the last couple of months of the year, and lo and behold, we fell pregnant in January 2013. Back to the obstetrician we trotted and, in utter surprise, he asked ‘how did that happen??’

12 weeks came and went and all was going well until our morphology scan. We found out that our baby had a diaphragmatic hernia that meant her stomach was in her chest cavity, which was causing her heart was pushed over to the right side and to not be developing properly. This in itself wasn’t a total kidney in an esky, but after an MRI at 26 weeks we learnt that there was a bigger issue with her heart than originally thought, in that there was a break in the aorta. The ‘not a kidney in an esky’ situation suddenly changed, but we needed to wait until they could do a chest ultrasound after her delivery to know for sure. Then decisions would be made as to what to do about the hernia in her diaphragm. Regardless, we remained hopeful that the situation wasn’t as dire as all that. At 32 weeks we moved two hours from our home into Ronald McDonald House at the Mater Mother’s hospital in Brisbane, and our Bailey was delivered on 22 October 2013. Immediately, Bailey was taken to the neonatal unit and I was summarily dispatched to the ward after hearing that she was doing better than expected (oh the relief…). The following day we met with the team of specialists who told us that her aorta was intact. Oh thank God… the relief… and then they told us that there was a problem with her mitral valve, and they could do nothing to fix her. And so we had to make the decision that no parent should ever have to, and we kissed her good-bye on the morning of 25 October 2013.

Shortly after, we heard about a legendary fertility specialist by the name of Dr Warren de Ambrosis… so I called in November 2013 and burst into tears on the phone when they told me that they couldn’t fit me in until July 2014. I’m not sure whether it was out of ‘Ohmigod there’sahystericalwomanonthephone’ pity or what, but they managed to squeeze me in around March. And so the IVF journey commenced… After two egg collections, a few failed cycles and countless self-administered injections of blood thinners, growth hormones, cycle suppressants, ovulation stimulants, blood circulation pads, pills etc, we still weren’t fortunate to have any viable embryos after PGD (pre-implantation genetic testing) was carried out.

After the last round of disappointing news, sitting at the dining table with my step-niece, I told her that I thought that the most challenging thing in life was having to accept that there are some things that you just can’t change, no matter how determined you are and how much you try, and I told her what had happened. With tears pouring down both our faces she offered to donate her eggs to help us given that she didn’t want kids herself. Well, that was Thursday morning, and needless to say, we didn’t need much convincing. By lunch time Thursday I had an appointment for her to see Warren de Ambrosis on the Friday (thank you G20 summit for freeing up all the appointments!) at which time he tried to convince my niece to get her mates together for an egg donation party. We then had an appointment with Queensland Fertility Group and a counsellor the following Monday. She then flew to Melbourne on Tuesday to start a new job with a bag full of IVF drugs. Her new employer was, incidentally, a fertility endocrinologist. After a few months she decided to move back to Queensland and got a job in Brisbane, about 5km from Warren’s offices, so things became a little easier for us.

At the end of February 2015 she had her first egg collection, and we ended up with two viable embryos after another round of PGD, and managed to finally arrange a transfer of the embryo. Well, needless to say I was howling after that, all the way through the shot of drambui I had been instructed to bring along to the procedure. A week later we got the news… the embryo had taken. Wow… Warren’s referral to my obstetrician of choice was a one liner – ‘She beat the odds’.

The pregnancy progressed but was fraught with tension and concern, and a lot of bleeding in the first trimester. Second trimester I lost two-thirds of my hair, so much so that I was convinced it was all going to fall out! The morphology scan was fine, but the worry was still persisting, even though we had a scan every month.

On the morning of 17 November 2015 we dropped Thomas at kindy. My parents in-law were kind enough to come and stay in our home with our son so that we could make our way to Brisbane’s Mater Mothers’ Hospital (the Fetal Medicine Unit had been caring for us through the pregnancy and we were fortunate to have the head of FMU as our obstetrician). I cried all the way to Brisbane, I’m not sure if it was because I was leaving Thomas or if I was terrified…

By mid-afternoon on 17 November 2015 we were crying lots, and kissing and cuddling our little Shelby, which we have continued to do for nearly 11 months, along with a few ‘OMG what’s in your mouth’ statements lately. She loves her bother to distraction, along with his trucks, legos and his glasses (much to his pain and grief), and I’m pretty sure he loves her too. But the gift in the middle will always be missed, and will never be forgotten…