Ryan and Samantha Avery

Dr Walker said we could start as soon as my next cycle so, on October 26th 2017, I took my first injection. We were adamant this wouldn’t consume our lives (who were we kidding, it did kind of!) so, with Dr Walker’s agreement, we still continued with our plans for the foreseeable. This included a 5 day trip to Paris and anything I could do to remain positive and relaxed, Dr Walker was all for it including the odd cheeky wine or two (only while on down regs, once I started my second lot of injections that stopped completely). It was tough going physically, mentally and emotionally.

Our egg collection date was November 28th 2017 where we got just five embryos. Here is where the amazing Helen came in to play again. I was heartbroken – I was meant to be the one who was all ok so it was down to me to give us the best shot (that was my belief, my husband did not share that mentality at all) and I felt like I’d let us down with such a small number of eggs as opposed to the twenty or thirty plus I was seeing women get on IVF/ICSI support groups on social media. Helen listened to me then said it is quality over quantity – it is better to have few great quality than lots of poor quality. That helped me have hope again.

Fast forward to Feb 2020 we decided that it was time to look into relieving CARE Bath (as it had since become) of their babysitting duties of one our frosties. We wanted a sibling for Luna but who gets lucky twice right? We saw Dr Walker in Feb 2020 (we also took Luna in to say hello) and he explained that as we were a pretty straight forward case with only one issue that we could go down the natural frozen embryo transfer route – winner! No or few meds, no injections and much cheaper than our fresh round.

We’d planned to start in the Spring but Covid hit. All I had to do was track my ovulation, wait for my positive surge (cheapy ovulation sticks from Amazon did the trick) then book a blood test for six days after that to check my progesterone levels. I had to do this blood test privately in a pharmacy as, when I was pregnant with Luna we moved back to Kent to be near to our friends and family as that is where we are from. So even though this time we were looking at a three hour plus commute one way to the clinic, we didn’t trust anyone else to look after us.

My progesterone levels were slightly lower than what Dr Walker had advised but, because we’d had first time success, my cycles were still regular and had a healthy baby from a full term pregnancy (twelve days overdue – she was clearly comfy!) we’d stick with my natural cycle and just had in progesterone pessaries twice a day post transfer. So, in October 2020, I tracked my cycle again and booked transfer in for six days after my positive.

On the 26th October 2020, with a three year old in tow, we made the six hour round trip in one to have a frostie popped back in. Again, the two week wait commenced and I’d almost convinced myself it wouldn’t work because we already had Luna. On the 9th November we found out it had worked again. I was pregnant with our second child. Amazing! At the viability scan we learnt that there was another little jelly bean in there with a strong flickering heartbeat and we would be due on 14th July 2021.

A week later, on 21st July 2021, our second amazing, beautiful, miraculous daughter arrived at home at 09:01am. She was the opposite to her sister – fair hair, beautiful big blue eyes and instantly she felt like she’d been with us for ages (she had, she was just on ice with our Care family babysitting here for a few years!) Violet Amelie Avery was the miracle I didn’t really believe was real until I held her in my arms.