IVF Success Story After Failed Cycles – 6 Year Journey to Pregnancy

After 6 years of IVF, a long-awaited pregnancy

This is a real IVF success story after years of failed cycles, low fertilisation rates, and repeated disappointment.

For many couples, IVF is often presented as the next step, but when it doesn’t work as expected, it can leave you feeling confused, exhausted, and unsure where to turn next.

Lucy’s journey is one of persistence, finding the right support, and understanding that sometimes the missing piece isn’t more treatment, but a deeper investigation into what’s really going on.

“We were 28 when we started trying for a baby, swept up in the excitement of it all and aware we were lucky to be in a position where we could try whilst so young. After a year of monthly disappointment, we did the only next step we knew of which was to speak to the GP.

Seeing the GP

The GP ran a basic blood test for me and sperm analysis for my partner and told us everything was fine and normal enough, but wasn’t able to answer our questions and was honest they didn’t know much about the details. We were referred to a consultant through the NHS to discuss further testing and the possibility of IVF, which was all incredibly daunting.

The NHS Treadmill

I remember the year or two we spent on the NHS journey being frightening and stressful. My partner was pretty much ignored, whilst I had various uncomfortable tests including a HyCoSy and MRI. Nothing came out of this other than the fact that I had a uterine septum, which was dividing my uterine cavity almost into two, and that I had scar tissue ‘likely from my previous C-section birth’, which was bizarre since I’d never been pregnant before… We had months of waiting between each appointment. Our consultant retired without telling us and we didn’t find this out until we followed up to find out what was taking so long to hear back. We’d been forgotten about completely and time was just slipping away. We didn’t get on with the new consultant who wouldn’t look me in the eye and performed a hysteroscopy to confirm if there actually was scar tissue and a septum. No scar tissue, but the septum was large. Some studies showed this may make me more susceptible to miscarriage, but the evidence was slim. She offered to cut the septum out there and then, which I later realised would have been a risky thing to do, especially outside of an operating environment and without a specialist professional. I remember being told by a nurse in this period to “enjoy trying” whilst they continued their investigations… there were so many instances of poor training and empathy for people going through this heart-wrenching journey. We felt like nobody understood what we were going through.

IVF treatment with the NHS and COVID-19 interruptions

Years gone by and still no results or answers. All that could be suggested to us at this point was IVF, so we chose our most local clinic and went head-first and terrified into a long treatment cycle.

After 2 months of medication and what seemed like excellent results in terms of follicle numbers (38 follicles, which in hindsight was probably far too high), we honestly expected it to be a breeze, with plenty of embryos to have a go at transferring. So it hit us really hard when I found out I had COVID-19 the day before egg collection. They couldn’t perform the collection and we had to cancel the entire round. The devastation was more than I can put into words. Luckily they allowed us another round through the NHS to try again, but we went straight into it the next month without any recovery period after we had been through so much physically and emotionally. They collected almost 30 eggs, 15 of which were mature. Only 2 of those 15 fertilised. They couldn’t explain why, other than telling us how very rare this was. It was clear by day 3 that the 2 fertilised eggs would not progress into blastocysts, so our NHS round was over and our hopes shattered once more. When asking the clinic what went wrong and what we could do differently next time, they simply replied that they would try the same thing again… so we decided to swiftly move away and research alternative clinics for private treatment.

Game changer

At this point we utilised our connections, which was where the world opened up new promising professionals through private care. We met with various consultants and were often still given contradictory opinions and results, but one key connection I made at this point was a friend’s referral to Verity Paz, and at the same time to a consultant at CRGH in London. We finally started having conversations that felt new. We discussed new methods of treatment at CRGH. Our first round with them was again unsuccessful, but we did learn a few things. My partner’s sperm was worse than ever in this round (following COVID-19 again which we learnt by this point drastically affected his sperm motility for a few months after catching it). He had agglutinated sperm so it was sticking together, making it difficult to work with, and they struggled to access some of my eggs due to a large cyst on the left ovary. Their new treatment methods allowed us to fertilise a higher number than before but none resulted in blastocysts. We believe most of the embryo development failure was down to the sperm quality, but it was also suggested at this point that my eggs were soft and not great quality either. I was also told my uterus was ‘toxic’…

To find Verity and have her be all ears to our very long story was such a relief. She had questions I didn’t know the answer to and asked about tests that hadn’t been done. We talked about hormones, lifestyle factors, nutrition etc. We started a whole new mindset from this point, and also started speaking to a therapist specialising in infertility. Verity pointed us in the direction of Mr Ramsay, and Dr George in Greece, who were the first consultants to give us the empathy and understanding we had longed for. We discovered my partners sperm had antibodies, and some bacteria that needed to be treated with antibiotics. He also had a varicocele which was treated through embolization in London. We finally felt like we were doing some things that might lead to progress. It was also in this period that I was diagnosed with endometriosis, and had three cysts. One 4cms on my left ovary, and two 2cm ones on the right. Through Verity and her team, I had reflexology and fertility massage, and followed their advice on diet and castor oil treatment. Amazingly, before our next round of IVF my endo cysts had reduced! The two smaller ones had gone completely, and the larger one had halved in size. My pre-period pain had also reduced almost to nothing. This was the round where we finally made our first blastocyst on day 5! We knew changes were slim with just one embryo but we were over the moon. Although it had been, and still was, an uphill battle, we were finally doing some things that were leading us somewhere and felt like we had the right people supporting us.

We tried another two rounds from here to try to ‘bank’ a few more embryos, making it 6 rounds of IVF in total including our first round that was cancelled before egg collection.

We only managed to get one more 6 day embryo in this time, and felt understandably exhausted. I decided I couldn’t go through any more egg collections so it was time to move on and prepare for transferring our first frozen embryo.

It was all hands on deck for transfer preparation! We felt by this point we had so much knowledge in how best to prepare mentally and physically. Therapy and appointments with Verity had put me in a good head space. Reflexology and abdominal massage with Verity Paz and team perfectly prepared and warmed my uterus. My septum operation was done through one of the best and was a huge success, and we continued to have support from the right people. I had reflexology with Verity every couple of weeks to prepare me for transfer. We tested my microbiome and was on probiotics for 6 months prior to transfer to improve my poor results of 0% good bacteria! I also had my natural killers cells tested, thyroid antibodies, and had an ALICE EMMA biopsy. We were ready in every possible way.

Frozen Embryo Transfer

We had the most beautiful transfer. It was first time my partner has been able to join me in the theatre. We saw a photo of our beautiful defrosted embryo before they implanted it, and all went well and was very easy. I felt full of love afterwards, and talked to my embryo every day, willing it to connect and take whatever it needed from my body. In the first few weeks I continued to see Verity regularly. She balanced my hormones, calmed me, gave me tissues for the tears, and encouraged our embryo with all her energy. She was one of the first to know the news when we got that positive pregnancy test. A strong dark blue line that showed up instantly before I could even finish on the toilet! What a special day. From that day she has continued to treat me and nurture our growing baby, telling me how strong and healthy he felt throughout. She can feel everything through my feet. She’s always spot on about how I’m feeling and where the baby is lying or kicking. We’re now 34 weeks with a strong healthy boy measuring a very good weight, and he still thoroughly loves it when I go to see Verity! We can both feel the energy. I can’t wait to introduce our born baby boy to her, and I know we will keep in touch as friends and she will certainly be involved when it comes to our second embryo transfer in the future.

Our journey didn’t start looking up until we found the right people. Anybody I speak to now going through something similar, I urge them to have a chat with Verity before getting stuck on the GP, NHS or IVF treadmill where a lot of the time people are treated like they are the same and there isn’t any element of bespoke consideration. A consultation with her can give you answers quicker, and before undergoing expensive IVF. If we could cut out the first 3 years of our journey and find her sooner we would, and I know we would have found success much sooner.

Don’t let the months and years slip by like we did and give Verity a call. You may well find you get new answers, new hope, and find success where you didn’t expect it. Best of luck to you! X”

Written by Lucy