Where it all began...

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4th September 2010; the last time I felt truly carefree and excited about the future! It was also our wedding day! Adam and I had been together 10 years before we got married (he took a little bit of convincing but eventually saw it my way). We met at 18, bought our first house at 20 and spent the next few years moving up the property ladder, going on some amazing holidays and generally doing what we wanted when we wanted! By the time we got married at 27, a baby was firmly on my mind and thankfully Adam felt the same!
We had done all the things in life we had wanted to and this was the natural step for us so you can imagine my shock and horror when I wasn't pregnant by the time our honeymoon was over! I’m a planner type of person, I function better when I have a plan in place and suddenly my plan wasn't working out!

Obviously I was still pretty relaxed about it all and was enjoying "practicing" however we did decide it was time to get serious and spent the next year peeing on ovulation sticks and getting into action on the most optimal days!!

By December 2011, I was starting to panic a little and decided to make an appointment with my GP "just to be sure"! Little did I know this was actually the beginning of a very long, emotional and completely worthwhile journey!

My GP agreed to a referral to our local Fertility Clinic and organised some blood tests for me and sperm analysis for Adam. Suddenly the nights of lying with my legs in the air and falling off beds trying “guaranteed to get you pregnant" positions felt a bit silly and I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

My blood results all came back normal and showed I was ovulating despite my irregular periods however Adam's sperm analysis showed his little swimmers to be a bit on the slow side (no surprise given his own dislike for physical exertion)!

With this in mind and me being me, I couldn’t wait for the NHS appointment we had been offered for March so I set about convincing Adam that a one off private consultation would be enough to put my mind at rest.

Unfortunately this wasn’t the case as we were greeted by the most abrupt Consultant I had ever met whose £150 consultation consisted of him looking over our results, suggesting some further genetic blood tests and the words "you will never have a baby that is genetically yours"! And he said it exactly like that with no further explanation!

In the car park, we both sat is shocked silence. This was not the news we had expected and even though it was us that initially sought help, it never actually crossed our minds that we would need specialist help to conceive our much longed for family.

I think this was the moment we knew our journey to parenthood wasn't going to be as easy as we thought.

We arranged the blood tests which had been suggested (genetic blood tests called karyotyping - something we obviously knew nothing about and meant absolutely nothing to us at that point) and awaited the results of these as well as our appointment in March at our local Fertility Clinic.

We were contacted by our GP a few weeks later to say that Adam's result had shown a genetic condition called Robertsonian Translocation. Again something we knew nothing about. They told us they would pass our results to the clinic to see what they advise.

We attended the Fertility Clinic on 12th March 2012. It was at this appointment that the irony of having the Fertility Clinic based within the same department as the Maternity Unit suddenly hit me and has stayed with me throughout our journey.

It was also the first time I had a physical examination; with a male Doctor; with my husband sitting beside me! I was pretty mortified! He examined me with a probe and everything was normal. He went on to explain the results of Adam's genetic testing and suggested referring us to a Specialist Genetic Clinic in Glasgow for a more in depth explanation.

He then told us he would make a referral to the Assisted Conception Unit at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

Our only hope of having a baby of our own was IVF.

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