IVF Warrior xxx
I met Ashleigh and Andrew for their photo shoot and after hearing their story I asked whether they would mind sharing it with you all.
I can’t even comprehend the journey they went on but I do know that I feel completely honoured and overwhelmed to have been able to create these images for them to treasure and I can’t wait to meet them all again and capture more magical moments for them
So our Ivf journey started in 2014, We had our first round which I got pregnant, we were amazed and thought We were the luckiest couple on earth, to actually get pregnant first time, was a miracle. unfortunately this ended with a miscarriage so this is where our long journey continued.Our 2nd and Third round of Ivf didn’t work , eggs just didn’t take. By now another few years had passed and I was beginning to loose hope, the more time went on the more I just wanted to give up. The whole process was so hard and I had been so poorly from hyperstimulation but I wasn’t ready to give up.
Some People don’t understand how much goes into Ivf, it takes a lot of time, months of preparation, a lot of hormone drugs, it makes you feel physically drained and you start to beat yourself up cause you think you just can’t do it.You begin to think you don’t deserve kids and look around at the people that can have lots and the few that don’t really care much for kids and think it’s so unfair.the more time went on the more people around you got pregnant, I would of course be over the moon for them but at the same time just sad for me.Our 4th round, now nearly 4 years on I got pregnant again, we had our first scan, saw our little heart beat and thought finally this is it but unfortunately on our second scan we were then told there was no heart beat, I felt like everything just crumbled down and this was now our time to give up.
I couldn’t face more heartache but we still had our fertilised embryos in the freezer, 4 to be exact, which they tend to put 2 in at a time to up the chances being pregnant in the first place.So we then had our 5th go, I had a negative reading, but then tested again as I felt I was pregnant and this test was then positive, to cut a long story short that day I had 3 positive readings and 4 negative in one day, again more confusion, more doubt and more heartache and suffering, Ivf is like jumping hurdles, u jump one but then sometimes trip on the way and fall back. This ended up with blood test from the hospital which they picked up pregnancy hormone (indicating I was pregnant) but the levels were low so I had to wait 5 days to have another blood test, if the levels had dropped then basically it’s a early miscarriage (if you can call it that) it’s known as a chemical pregnancy, basically meaning the egg attached itself but is now giving up growing and this is basically what happened. I wasn’t pregnant again. I thought something was wrong me, that I couldn’t carry but I had all the test, there wasn’t.
Why was it so hard, the more I couldn’t have it the more I wanted it. Now coming up to over 7 years we had our very last 2 fertilised eggs left, one last go, I honestly thought and said I didn’t want to do this anymore but at the same time I couldn’t walk away from our last 2 fertilised embryos waiting in the freezer for us. We now both had the mindset it just wasn’t ever going to work and We just needed to focus on life without kids and with this in mind, I decided I would use them and then 2021 get on with our lifes with no more ivf. Anyway november 2020 we were pregnant again from our very last 2 embryos, it was so hard to be excited, some didn’t understand why We weren’t but to be honest we were both so terrified of loosing it again or something going wrong.Our first scan came and we were told we were pregnant with twins, this was a miracle but again we been here before on the first scan so to be excited was just to hard. Our second scan came and all was good, could this be real, we’re really having twins. It almost couldn’t sink in. Had Our prayers finally been answered, nearly 8 years of treatment, 6 rounds of ivf, were we actually getting somewhere.We were still so terrified the whole pregnancy.
Anyway our miracle, rainbow babies were born 6.7.21 Thomas and Edward,and of course We had to have a photoshoot with them and I’m so glad We did, these photos were just beautiful, just seeing them being photographed made me cry happy tears. There absolutely gorgeous. Mel did such an amazing job (Thankyou mel) Mel was so gentle to place them in different positions, dress them, wrap them up, not once did they cry, we spent nearly 4 hours with mel creating the most beautiful, perfect pictures I’ve ever seen. I would highly recommend her. We can’t wait to return to do our boys 1st cake smash. X
