SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey Village! Before we dive in, if you haven't already, hit follow on your favorite podcast platform. It takes two seconds, it costs nothing, and it means the world to me. Right, let's go. Hi, I'm Maeva and this is Raising with the Village, a podcast where real parents share real stories so we can all feel a little more connected on this wild journey of raising children. Before we begin, I want to take a moment to let you know that in today's episode we talk about infertility, IVF, pregnancy loss, and the emotional journey of egg donation. Please be gentle with yourself as you listen and know that the resources to support you are in the show notes. There are episodes that stay with you, and then there are episodes that change you. This is one of those. Today I'm talking to Lizzle, and I want to be honest with you before we begin. This conversation moved me deeply. There is pain, there is a roaness that I did not want to edit out because it's real and it's true, and it deserves to be heard exactly as it was spoken. Lizzo and her husband wanted to become parents, and for twelve years that dream was just out of reach. Twelve years. Let that land for a moment. Twelve years of trying, of hoping, of appointments, of protocols and rounds of idea that it did not work, of picking themselves up again and again and again and again and finding the strength to try once a bit more. Of grief that doesn't have a name because it is a grief of something that hasn't happened yet, but that you want with every part of yourself. And then eventually eventually a door opened that they hadn't been able to walk through before. Not not not because it wasn't there, but because they were not quite ready to see it yet. Egg donation. Now I know that for some of you listening, those words might land easily. For others, they might land heavily because egg donation is one of those topics that when you first hear it suggested as an option for you you can feel like the ground has shifted beneath your feet. It touches something so deep, so fundamental, your identity, your sense of self, when it means to pass something of yourself onto another human being. It asks you to revisit everything you thought you knew about what it means to become a parent. What makes you a mother? Is it your DNA? Is it the body that carries a child? The heartbeat you feel beneath your hand? The love that exists before a single breath is taken? And what does science, what does epigenetics tell us about the bond that forms between a mother and a baby, regardless of genetics? These are the questions Lizzle sat with. The questions she and her husband had to answer for themselves in their own time in their own way. She said something that stayed with me since we recorded this conversation. She said that she may have heard about Egg Donation before, but they could not hear it until they were ready. And I thought about that for a long time. Because maybe there is someone listening to this today who is exactly where Lizzie once was, who has heard those words and felt them bounce off, who isn't quite ready yet. Or who is right on the edge of being ready and just needs one more story to help them find their footing.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

This episode is for you. Lizal trusted me with something extremely precious today.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Her pain, her journey, her truth. And I want to honor that by saying that whatever you are carrying as you press play, you are not alone.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

So here is Lison. Hi, how are you?

SPEAKER_03 5:22

I'm good, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

How are you?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

I'm I'm very good, thank you. I love it. Every time I ask that question, I kind of I'm not expecting people to ask in return, but I'm like, I'm good as well. Um so yes, I'm very good, thank you. Um shall we start with some quick introductions? Who are you?

SPEAKER_03 5:41

My name is Liesel, and I am 49, and I am the mom of a four-year-old going on, definitely 14-year-old, little girl, um, and a dog mummy. And uh Who is how old is Doggy? Doggy is six.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Six, ooh. Yeah. Oh, okay. So they're quite close to me. Um perfect. Do you have any big plans for your birthday party next year?

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Yes, I'm hoping to go to a game reserve in in Africa to celebrate with my family.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Ooh, okay. Well uh what do you want to see? The big five? Or I mean always, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Honestly, just immersing myself in in Africa and home. Yeah. Maybe you need to come back to tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Because I want to hear about that. All right. Um, what is your story today?

SPEAKER_03 6:43

I guess it is about um my journey to have my daughter and yeah, the the journey through IVF and ultimately egg donation and lucky for us, a happy ending.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yes. Yes, indeed. All right. So let's dive into the story. Shall we start at the very beginning? Because you said lucky for us. Um, so do you have a partner? I do, yes. I do. Do you want to tell me about how that started? This is a good story. Okay, I'm ready for it.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Okay. We met um 25 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

It's a very good number.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Very good number. It is, yeah. It's it's almost our silver anniversary. Yeah. Well, it is. We didn't get married straight away, but um yeah, so we met. I I used to work in the same place as he used to live. And we met uh one evening. I was out with my work colleagues um in a Spanish tapas. Oh, actually, it was just a Spanish restaurant and nightclub had turned into. And anyway, we at some point got kicked out and, you know, closing time, off we went. And so we were huddled on the pavement discarding where to go next. And these two chaps came up to us and said, Would you like a taxi? And we were like, I was like, no, thanks. I can only afford night buses. Um, so that chat up line didn't work. So then he said to me, uh, my friend and I are having this debate, which is cooler, an elephant or a rhino. So I said, Oh, well, of course I know because I'm from Africa. And obviously elephants are cooler.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Okay, I wanted to know. Really?

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Yeah. So he said, Well, no, actually, rhinos are cooler. I was like, well, no, elephants are the only mammals apart from humans that cry. So they are definitely cooler. And then I was like, Oh, that's a bit of a stupid thing to say to No, I love it. Anyway, he's like, No, no, rhinos are prehistoric. They look like, you know, they've definitely descended from dinosaurs, they are way cooler. We agreed to disagree. And then he said, Oh, well, my friend and I, we're gonna get head off and get some cheesy chips. Uh, can I get your number? So I was like, sure, give me your phone, because you won't be able to spell my name. And I typed in my name and my number and gave it back to him. And yeah, that's how we met. And then I didn't hear from him for about a week. And then coincidentally, we were both at the V festival, not knowing that we were there at the same place at the same time. But anyway, he his his message was, I think you were right about the elephants. Do you want to hook up for a drink? So I was like, okay. That's a good line. It's a good line, even though he was lying. He still he still prefers rhinos. Um But yeah, so then we met up and we had our first date in the same place that we well, not this in the same town that we met. Um, and actually at a tapas restaurant this time. And yeah, it was a really good it was a really good night. He kept making me laugh. I kept blowing out the candle that was between us because I was laughing so much. And um, yeah, it was a good night. And yeah, when I think back to that time, I'm like, oh, Spain was always there for us.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah. Just took us a while.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Just took us a while to figure that out anyway.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Oh I love this connection. I didn't think about that. Um yeah. Go tap us.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Go Spain. Yeah. So that's that's where it all began. And yeah, onward and upward from there, really.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

So how old were you when you um when you two met up?

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Um I was twenty-two. Yeah. And he was twenty-three. Well not yet twenty-three. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Okay. So two two youngsters in your early twenties, and then can I have a very brief summary of the, you know, of how the couple situation evolved from meeting up to, oh, let's, you know, create our own little family.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Yeah. So um I think we were both at a place when we met where we just like, yay, life is great. Let's just live it and have fun and do cool things and work if we have to. Um and so we did that for a a while. Um I guess we well we were together for seven years before we got married. I'm just thinking we moved in together much sooner than that, though. I think I think we probably moved in together probably a year after we met. Thereabouts. Um my husband bought a flat um and we moved into that at some point. Yeah, and then yeah, we were together for for that time as a couple. And then we yeah, seven years later decided to get married. And then we kind of nine got married in the July, and then we in the March afterwards, so about nine months later, we decided we'd take a year out and go traveling. Um So we we did a world tour um together, which was very, very cool. Hard work, but awesome um to do that together. Were you camping or what were you doing? Um no, we we never camped, but we did lots and lots and lots of hostels. So it was basically everything on a shoestring. Um and some hostels were much worse than others, and some places were much worse than others. Um, but yeah, we we traveled through South America and New Zealand and Australia and Japan and Asia, and then we finished off in South Africa, um, where my family is from, and then we came back from there the sort of January 10 months later, and went to Northern Ireland where my partner's from, um, did a little bit of touring around there, and then we came back home um, yeah, I guess 11 months later. So it was nearly a nearly a full year out. Wow. And yeah, it was probably towards the end of that time that we figured, okay, let's let's get started with the family. Wow. We're ready. We've had our fun.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

It was such an adventure.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

That's really cool. Top three places that you like best?

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Definitely Rio. Uh-huh. Definitely. That was an awesome city. Um, just aesthetically beautiful with stunning beaches and mountain, very similar to Cape Town in South Africa. Um and then countrywise, probably Japan, just the people were the most respectful, gentle, kind people. And also it was my first time ever in Asia, so it was just beautiful to see all those lovely temples and there, that whole eastern um yeah. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Um and then uh what would be a third highlight? Oh well, we we did several big hikes along the way um in South America and in Asia. Um probably the highlight was uh Anapona South. So that's um it's it's one of the mountain ranges in the Everest, and it's in the Himalayas, but it's not as high as Everest. Um but yeah, it was just beautiful to get to the top um of where you could get to and just look around you and hear absolutely nothing and just be surrounded by beautiful mountains with snow and yeah, it was just exquisite.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

You make me want to jump on a plane. I don't think that's happening anytime soon. Or not right now, at least. Okay, well, let's go back to um to your story. So at this point you are in your sort of early 30s, married or turned or not, I don't know, coming back from your um big trip around the world. Well, actually, no, maybe your last stop being Northern Ireland, maybe the tan had gone at this point. Um Love Bellfest. Um but um so you're back home and you're thinking, right, we've kind of like done all the wild things that we wanted to do. Let's have a baby, is that yeah, sort of the thinking. Um okay, so at what point did you start to think something's a bit off?

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Um well, I suppose technically they say if you've been trying for a year and you're still not pregnant by yourself, then something is not quite right. So I guess a year after wanting to start a family and still not being any closer, we were like, oh, okay, let's get some help with this.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

So what were the doctors um saying? Were they did you feel like they took you seriously from the get-go, considering that you were in your early 30s at this point? Or did you feel that they were saying sort of like, just, you know, just wait, it's gonna come, or take some vitamins or you know, supplements or whatever?

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Well, I think we we ourselves had already been down that route. Um we'd been we'd tried supplements, we'd tried homeopathy, we'd tried all sorts of you know, acupuncture, whatever we could think of. Um so yeah, when we when we knew we needed help, we I think everyone took us seriously and we're like, okay, fine, refer you on to your local um hospital.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Okay, so is that what happened? So so where did you go? You went to your GP?

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah, started off with our GP, they referred us to the local hospital and then yeah, to the fertility team there.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Okay. I know it's a little while ago, but do you remember roughly how long that took between um sort of seeing your GP and actually um being in front of the fertility team at the hospital?

SPEAKER_03 17:57

I don't really, to be honest. Yeah, it was a long time ago. Um but yeah, I I don't think it was a massively long wait from what I remember.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Okay. So not not something that would have worried you, at least not something that would have scarred you in a way that you would remember, like, oh, I remember it took forever to see someone.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Okay. No, we were already already anxious enough. So yeah, it was just another thing to add to our list of worries. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

So at this point, when you meet with um the fertility team uh at the hospital, do you remember again? Obviously it was quite a while ago, but do you remember how the process starts? Are they testing you separately? Are they um what what happens at this point?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yeah, that's so they would do um they did blood tests for me and for my husband, as far as I recall. Um I think for me they were looking at they call them the AMH levels, so how your kind of ovarian reserves, what they were looking like at this point. Um and they did sperm count for my husband just to see how that was all looking in terms of numbers and quality. Um and then yeah, putting together a plan to to begin the IVF journey. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

And so at this point it's all um public service. It is. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Yeah, with our local con our local health team, um we were eligible for one one round with one round of IVF with them. Okay. Um for free.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

What is one round? Is that one insemination?

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Or is that so I guess you uh there's different options. You can do um I'm trying to remember this all now. So that you can do egg collection and then fertilization outside of the body and and then transfer from there. And then I think there was also another option, um XC, where they they fertilize they try and fertilize inside the body still. So we we went for the IVF part, which is outside, um, I guess maybe because of our age and so on. I I already had low ovarian reserves, apparently. Um, so yeah, so that was felt to be the best option for us. Um and and then yeah, so uh it started with the collection, fertilization, and then implantation, which I think we did all in that first time. Um, but then yeah, that didn't work.

unknown 20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Do you remember roughly how long this first round took?

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Um generally it takes as long as a cycle because you um they didn't they weren't doing any freezing of the embryos, they were just taking them out, fresh eggs, fresh sperm, hopefully make some embryos, hopefully get them back in ASAP, so that was all stimulated and produced within one cycle. So that that doesn't take long.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Okay, okay. So it's fairly quick. Yeah. Okay. So obviously you mentioned that unfortunately that was not successful. And you've also mentioned that under the public system you get one round for free. So I guess at this point you are at the end of the first round. You sit down, maybe you sit down with the professors, the doctors there. What's the conversation and what is the next step at this point?

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Um, so the conversation usually goes, so why didn't that work? And they usually go, Oh, we don't know. We can try again. And so it goes. So um yeah, it d very seldom you got a helpful answer to a question. Um yes.

unknown 22:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

So then our next step was, okay, let's try again. And I think we did do another round with that same hospital, but we had to pay for it that time. Um and I I think they slightly changed what they did, but I can't exactly remember what that looked like. It might have just been a change of med slightly for the stimulation part of it. Um and yeah, again, didn't work. Okay. So then we were like, okay, let's not go to the same place. Let's now that we have to pay privately anyway, let's see what other, you know, what else is out there and what people recommend. Um yeah, so then I guess so began the the quest for the holy grail of successful IVF. Um we found I can't I think it was through a friend of ours who I think she had either she had used them before or she had used them as uh friend had recommended it to her, or whatever, you know, how these things happen, word of mouth. Um so we ended up in a a private clinic and you know, it all seemed very nice. They, you know, made all the promises they could make. Um and we began with them. But yeah, yeah, it's um it all had the same ending for us. Um and so it went on. I think, you know, like every different consultant that you saw would have a different take on things. You know, they'd one would want to get as many eggs as they could so that you could, you know, from say the twelve that they collected, you'd maybe make six that fertilized, and then you'd maybe have three that got to blastocyst, and then maybe you get to one. Like that's literally the odds you dropping 50% every time then you get to the next stage. Um, so some people were like, oh, let's let's try for maximum egg collection, and then other people were like, oh, let's try, let's not overstimulate, let's just take what we can get naturally and see how that works, because that's a bit more like your natural cycle. And we're like, oh, okay, that sounds interesting, let's try that. Um and you were, yeah, I suppose you were always drawn into a different technique because you hoped that whatever didn't work the last time, if you if you slightly tweaked the next time, you'd have success. Um, and you were going, you'd be led by supposed experts in their field, and you believed that you know the next time would be the right the successful time. Um but yeah, we that particular clinic, I don't know, I think I can't remember again details because it this all started in say 2011 and then carried on. We probably did maybe three or four cycles with them, slightly different each time. But and and not you'd sometimes do collections and you'd uh or you sometimes try for a collection and then there'd be nothing ready. Or you'd get some eggs and then they wouldn't fertilize, or you'd get some eggs and they fertilize, but then they didn't go to the next stage of blastocyst, or you'd get to blastocyst and then on the day of transfer, it just not, you know, whatever reason it wasn't gonna happen, or you know, there's always there's often disappointments along the way, frustrations along the way. Um Yeah, so uh eventually at some point we we realized, okay, it's not working here, let's try somewhere else. Um and so we went to another clinic. Um I think we only used two in the end. Um but yeah, again, you know, new consultants, different way of looking things. Um we felt like we kind of were getting closer with the next clinic. Um, well, they were recommended to us because friends of ours, good friends of ours, had successful uh birth of twins through them. And we're like, wow, okay, now we really know people who it's worked for. Let's let's go with them. They obviously know what they're doing. Um we did make some headway in that some of the blood tests that they ran for me were much more thorough and picked up that I had what they call um killer cells, like higher than normal killer cells, which potentially meant that any anything that wasn't already in my body was just terminated because it was seen as a foreign object, not welcome. Um, so that meant that they could then try um, they call it an intralipid transfer. So it's like a it's an infusion, like a blood transfusion. But it's really weird stuff. It's made up of like soya milk and um eggs and weirdness. It's just like this white liquid that you basically feed through your blood system to kind of dampen down the killer cells. Um I've kind of fast-tracked a little bit to where we got to, but anyway, we got to this point where um I did get pregnant and um yeah, it was what was 2019.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Actually no, 2020. And it was my own egg and my partner's um and it was all looking good. Um we had a couple of scans through the clinic and there was the fetus developing. Um and then you know how you get the magical 12 week where you can start telling everyone.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

The day before that I started bleeding and went to the local hospital and I had a miscarriage. I'm so sorry. So so sorry. After so many years and so many triumph and so many hopes.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, that was a real a real kick in the teeth. Because yeah, as I say, you know, because my my egg we were so close. Um and I should have been phoning my mum and dad the next day to say, guess what, we're pregnant, and instead I was phoning them to say that we just had a miscarriage and they didn't even know we'd been trying again. Um yeah, that taught me not to keep secrets from my mum aga through this journey because that was not fair for them. Um But anyway, yeah, so we we lost that baby. And I'll never forget that scan where there should have been a heartbeat and there wasn't. And every yeah, I can never look at scans without that trigger. And you know how you often see people showing their lovely 12-week scans. That's wonderful for people who can show them, but that's not wonderful for those who have had losses. Especially when you've been that close.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Anyway, that's just a a note at yourself and others. Um yeah, so I think it was it was probably at that point that we were like, okay, this is not not working for us with my eggs. Um and so we needed to find another solution. Um obviously along the way before that happened, we'd stopped trying IBF, we'd stopped trying everything else that we could think of, you know, special diets, special supplements, special this, special that. I mean, yeah, my body was literally a temple of purity um in the hope of success.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

But anyway. Um and then we talked about um adoption, we talked about surrogacy.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

Um my husband was never interested in adoption for him. He he'd his mum had been adopted, and um it was a very unhappy experience from beginning to end, and he just had no trust in the system. Um, so it wasn't even a go-er for us. Um And yeah, in hindsight, maybe it was the right choice for us because I know even adoption doesn't always go as well as people hope. Um for many reasons. Um I saw an acupuncturist at one point who told me that I should seriously consider surrogacy because my womb was a hostile environment and it would never make it make a baby. So obviously I never saw her again because I knew that actually I could make a baby. I knew that my body was strong and could do this. So I didn't and and I just I couldn't get my head around the idea of surrogacy. I just I wanted to be, I wanted to grow the baby, selfishly or not, that's what I wanted to do. Um so yeah, we we had to navigate through all of those discussions and decisions and things. Um and then when this miscarriage happened, um I, you know, we you always get this sort of debriefing conversation with the consultant at the clinic. And I'd already had enough of that person, and I wanted to speak to like the practice manager, and I just said, you know, look, this is p this is ridiculous. Like we've going around in circles. Um like, you know, we've tried all these different options, it's still not working. Like, what else is there for us to try? And she said, Well, what about egg donation? And I was like, hmm. Okay. That's a tough one. Uh, because it's not my my DNA anymore. Um, but if it works, then at least I can still carry a baby and pass on through my through my blood and my being um as much as I can. Um and yeah, and then I think from there, I you know, we talk talked about all, you know, who offers donation, where where do we start on this quest for a donor egg. Um and this particular practice manager recommended, or she said, you know, you can obviously do it in the UK or you can do it abroad. Um in the UK, as far as I'm aware, um, if it's still the case, you you will always know who your donor is. Um and often they you what you'll see, a picture of them, you'll you'll know some details about them. Um they will often write a little thing about, you know, what their interests are and what have you, maybe what they would want their child to be like, I don't know. But it just felt a little bit too um, it felt like too much information. And whereas in Spain, um the the donor is completely anonymous. So we we will never know the lady's name, we'll never know where she lives, we'll never know what she looks like, other than that they tried to match as many of my qualities to her. So we know she has brown hair. She had blue eyes, whereas mine are green. Um she was a similar height, not quite as tall as me, similar weight. Um and I think I think that's about it, other than she said she loves to sing. Which as it turns out, so does our daughter. Um so yeah, so we thought this sounds better because I suppose it's a similar thing to adoption in a in a sense, in that I would just worry that if our daughter one day fully understood how she came about and said, Oh, you know, I want to find the donor, we can honestly say we we don't know, you know, and there's no way we can ever help her in that quest. Um I I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but it just felt like a safer thing because I would hate her at some point to turn around and say, you're not my real mum, or something like that. I still worry about that.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Um but hopefully that won't happen.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Was that the first time you heard about egg donation as an option from this uh clinic practition, or is that something that you were familiar with?

SPEAKER_03 37:27

I think it was well, yeah, I'm not sure. Cause obviously we'd, you know, we'd run through a lot of things in terms of options. I think it was the first time I heard, like took it in, absorbed the information and said, okay, maybe this is where we've got to and this is what we now need to do. But maybe we'd come across it before and I was just like, oh no, we don't need that. Yeah. Um But yeah, at this time I realized actually, yeah, if we did really want a child of our own, this was probably the last and only option for us.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

How is your partner feeling about this option? Because you've said obviously that from your point of view, there is the loss of the DNA in terms of the transmission. How is your partner feeling about that?

SPEAKER_03 38:23

I think yeah, he he seemed okay about it. Um it wasn't as big a loss for him as it was for me. But um but ultimately like it was going to hopefully bring us a child, and that's that was kind of the end game. Um so whilst he was sympathetic of my loss, he I think he he still saw he's a very looking forward kind of person and problem-solving kind of person. And for him, you know, if this meant success, then yeah, let's just do it. It wasn't it yeah, it wasn't something he was not sure about.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

So now you have this information and I guess you've um you've had the conversation um between the two of you and you've made your decision to move ahead with this um process. Can we uh can we dive a bit into uh what happens next? Because I think I have so many questions. Obviously, you've mentioned about um um the donor, but I feel like maybe there are a few steps before that. How do you connect with Spain? Because you don't just sort of say, you know, talking to the skies, please connect me to Spain. Who do you talk to in Spain? How do you find a clinic, a professional? How does that work? Do you get a recommendation from your uh clinic at home to say, I don't know, we have connections with this clinic. We we've sent um couples there, we've sent women there before. How does that work?

SPEAKER_03 40:14

Yeah, so the the practice manager at the clinic um said, you know, if if you're wanting the anonymity of a donor, then we we know of this particular clinic in Spain because we've sent people there before and they've had success. Um so we can put you in touch. And that's what they did. Um they gave us their details, they sent, um, I think they sent through all our notes. Um and then we did a, I think it was a Zoom or whatever, online consultation with a consultant there. Um and yeah, really, really nice guy spoke perfectly good English. Um, so it was easy to kind of discuss the options and how it would work practically. Um and then we ha we did a kind of collaborative um, yeah, we worked in collaboration with the London the other clinic, um, because the clinic that I was still with, um they were they had agreed to carry on with the um intralipids, the kind of immune suppressant stuff side of things, and they agreed to do the monitoring scans here locally. And then when everything was ready and looking good here, then we would fly over to Spain for the collection. So so Spain would prescribe all the meds. Okay. It would go to a pharmacy here, I'd pick them up, um, administer the meds myself, or usually always injections, self uh self-injecting, and oral tablets. Um and yeah, I mean, my gosh, the number of things I was taking along the way, um, not only for the ovarian stimulation, but also for the suppressants. So I had to take steroids and so on. Um But yeah, the two clinics worked together, and then when my body was ready for collection, that was all a bit stressful because you like you could only book your flight and go like two days before kind of thing. Um but then yeah, it was it's just seamless. I arrived in Spain, um, stayed in a hotel near the clinic, went round in the morning um for bloods. Um, and by the way, the bloods and medication are cheaper in Europe than they are in the UK. So that was also a bonus. Um and yeah, they they did the collection there and then.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Does that um include also the sperm donation? Does that happen in Spain? Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Yeah. So so my husband went out there ahead of me. Okay. And he had blood tests and left what he needed to there. And then when it was when things were ready for me, then I went over and did the collection of it.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

So it's a case when you say he goes over before you, so it's just that he's gonna stay there a few more days than you uh and then you're flying together. It's not a case of he's going, then coming back, then you're going together again.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Kind of, yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry, I've just realized I've been talking about still the ovarian stimulation, which didn't happen, obviously, for me. For this series, you'll have. Edit that out. Sorry. But um okay, so let's start again. So my husband went out um to provide the sperm sample. Okay. And have blood tests and stuff. They'd like the they always check for HIV and various other things, hepatitis B and so on. Um then I think bef at some stage around then they were doing the simulation and egg collection with a donor. So they'd sort of matched this donor to me and then did the collection. So I think they I think they collected 12 eggs from her, um, which they then froze, and then they waited for the sperm to arrive, and then they did the fertilization. Um and yeah, it went from um 12 eggs to six fertilized to three blastocyst. And then we'd also decided to invest in um basically where they they check the DNA of the embryo, PGCA or something like that. I'll need to double check, let you know. Um and to basically check that genetically it's it's all viable, because there's no point putting an embryo back in that's not going to survive. Um so of the three blastocysts, one was viable, deemed viable. Um so we literally had one chance um for it to work. Um so yeah, that was all happening in Spain, and then London locally were checking, you know, my that my ovaries were quiet, nothing was gonna pop out unexpectedly to confuse the matters, that the lining was the right thickness. Um has to be at a certain thickness before they do implantation. So they're still following your cycles. Yeah, they're still following my cycles, a natural cycle. Um, with some extra stimulation, extra progesterone, ex estrogen and so on, just to kind of help with everything being primed for reception. Um and then yeah, and then when everything looked good and ready, then I went over. And yeah, that was just super, super straightforward. So arrived the the day before, um, woke up the next morning, went to the clinic, had the bloods done, implantation, done, and back to the hotel, chilled up by the pool, had a nice lunch, went home that night. Um Okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

So you don't even need to go back for them to check anything.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

All of the follow-up was done locally in the It's the thing at home. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Um I mean, I guess, you know, if you could afford it and you had the time off and so on, you could you know, it'd be probably nicer to stay stay in Spain and and be there for that those first two weeks of the that critical window. Um but yeah, that wasn't a possibility with my work and so on. So yeah. And and anyway, I went on my own, which was my choice to go on my own. I always wanted to be there. You know, no yeah, no distractions, no just just me. Can I ask?

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Um you mentioned earlier about sharing news or updating your family um and your circle. When you decided to go into this process, did you share the news with your with your parents, with your close friends and family?

SPEAKER_03 48:13

I did with my parents um and my brother. Um and then I I may have told one or two of my very, very, very closest friends um for this particular cycle.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:31

Um but yeah, it it's always one of those things where you kind of you do and you don't really want to tell them because the more you the more you tell, the more you have to not so much untell, but it's just it's hard to to then have to share the heartbreak when it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Um So sometimes like there were many times where we just got to the point where we're like, we don't want to tell anyone what we're doing because then we have to tell everyone what didn't work again for the, you know, twelfth time, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Um so yeah, it was it was hard. But after that miscarriage, I was like, okay, I can't I can't not tell my parents at least.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

So you go to Spain on your own.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

It's a very, very quick trip. You stay there for what's that, more than twenty-four hours, but less than forty-eight, something like that. Um and then you come back home. When you come back home, you link back with your clinic at home and they check um what blood and blood tests and scans or yeah, so the first two weeks is just the the waiting um before you can do a pregnancy test.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

And it's it's amazing that already in two weeks you would know one way or the other. Like that's always surprised us. It's through in IVF as well, obviously. Um But yeah, so that's the two-week wait is is just waiting, hoping, praying, all the things that you can do to try and keep yourself calm and distracted and hopeful. Um and then yeah, and then you then you go up for the scan, uh sorry, for the blood test. Um and and then you come back home, you know, like three hours out of your day for a blood test, and then the wait again for the phone call to say yes or no. Um and yeah, on this occasion it was a yes, you're pregnant. Um, so that was astounding. We were like, oh my god, what? Like this is our first attempt at a donor egg, and we only had the one egg and it worked. Like this is unreal. You know, this is why didn't we do this before? But yeah, that's a whole nother question. Um, because I think we we only we were only ready to go down this route where we had fully, fully, fully, fully exhausted all the other routes. Um yeah, we're obviously cuttons for punishment. But yeah, so then it was just up to the clinic here to monitor from there on um for any monitoring scan to see how if and how the baby is progressing, and um keep her tabs on the blood levels that it's the right num amount of progesterone and the right amount of this and that. And and then obviously doing these infusions. I think I had to do one before the implantation, one and then two at least two afterwards if it was successful. Um yeah, I'm trying to remember all the the nitty-gritty facts, which is really hard to remember when it's 12 years just all merged into a mess of memories. Um But yeah, so they they then did the monitoring and then um and then it's when we got to the I think it was the 10-week mark with our daughters, they were like, okay, you don't need us anymore, you're back to your local hospital.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

And then How did you feel with them letting you go back to, you know, quote unquote regular hospital at 12 weeks? Sorry, at 10 weeks.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

Um well, terrified because um because of the previous miscarriage. Um then I had a complete arse of an obstetrician who when he did my first scan here locally, said, Oh, do you know you have a massive big fibroid in your womb? And I was like, Well, I didn't know I had a fibroid, but he's like, Oh, well, you know that that really increases your risk of miscarriage. And I was like, No, I did not know that. Thank you for telling me that. Brilliant. Like, you know, and then I was like, oh my god, this is all just gonna end in tears again. Um, but luckily it didn't. And I changed obstetrician straight away. I made a massive complaint about him, and my wood one of the midwives I saw along the way recommended a much better obstetrician who was faultless, brilliant, brilliant guy. Um, and we just kept a very close eye on the fibroid, and um it it moved around a little bit, so by the time we got towards you know, the nine-month mark, um, it was right down blocking the birth canal. So I was like, uh, there's no hope of me having natural birth. That would have been nice, but you know, nothing straightforward for me. So hey ho. Um so yeah, we booked in a planned cesarean. Um, and yeah, when our daughter was born, the fibroid was removed at the same time, and it was literally like the size of her head. It was huge. Oh. Um, so we were very lucky. So at what point did that develop? It developed after the it I it was already in the womb. Um, at some point, like maybe around implantation time, maybe within the first few weeks of pregnancy. It's it's hard to know exactly. I think at some point I remember saying, Oh, there's a someone saying, Oh, there's a fibroid, but it, you know, they didn't make a sort of sing and dance about it. It was just a factual statement. So I wasn't worried with the pri it private clinic didn't flag it. I wasn't worried until the local clinic in at home, you know, closer to home uh flagged it as a a risk. Um what was my train of thought? Um Yeah, so so basically fibroids feed off estrogen, and I was pumping my body full of estrogen to support this donated egg. So yeah, the irony was not lost on me. But luckily, luckily, it all worked out and our daughter was born.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Healthy little girl.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

So how do you feel when you finally held your baby?

SPEAKER_00 56:12

Your baby. Your baby. Yeah. That was absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

After all those years of wanting and hoping and trying and watching friend after friend have babies and grow bigger families, and we were still at ground zero. Yeah, it was pretty pretty awesome. And I carried her full-term my body, which I knew I could.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

So yeah, it was it was amazing. Well done. Well done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

What would you say if you met the Lisel from I don't know, fifteen years ago, sixteen years ago? What would you tell her about the journey?

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Oh, I would say you need all the luck in the world and it's not gonna be easy and it's gonna be bloody awful most of the time. Um and you need to be strong and resilient and patient and it's it's brutal. It really was for us brutal.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

And I don't know if I will ever um fully fully recover from it.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Um but putting a happier ending to it is that for us it was it was worth all that heartache to finally have our own daughter. Yeah, we never gave up. My brother was astounded, he's like, How are you guys still trying? How are you still sane? How are you still married? How are you still alive? Like, you know, it was really, really hard. But yeah, we are still married, we are still alive, and we do have our daughter.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

I think there's a very important question here. What does she like best? Elephants or rhinos? Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Probably neither. She's very much an independent thinker. Probably cheetah.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

There you go. We thought about the same.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Yes. I guess our story doesn't quite end there because we we did want to have more kids, obviously, as most people do.

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Um and we did because we didn't have any eggs left from that from the donor, we went back to Spain and they went back to the donor and she agreed to donate more eggs.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Um and we yeah, we did another transfer uh when was it? Um two years after she was born. And um I got eight weeks pregnant and then had another miscarriage.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

Um and then we still had another because with in her case uh for the second donation we had two viable embrewers. So we're like, okay, one more, one more shot. Um and we did last year, last summer, we went again. This time we went as a family, all of us, for the collection. Um, and it was quite special, like taking our daughter to the clinic where she was created. And um, yeah, anyway, we did another transfer and it didn't even implant this time. And we were like, okay, we don't have any more eggs, we have finally reached the end of our journey. Thank God, because yeah, it's just it's not been fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Um, and it's as hard as it is to just be here and to still be wanting more. Um we know that we've done our best, we gave it everything we could, um physically, emotionally, financially, everything. Um yeah, when when our daughter says she wants a sibling, which she does often say, we can hand on heart say that we tried and we too would love her to have a sibling.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

But sadly she can't, and but we know hand on heart that we've we did our best for her to try. I think we're probably at the end of your story.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

I can't thank you enough for sharing this story. I think it's such a special one because it's so not obvious. I think it's also not very well known. And so I can't thank you enough for sharing your story because I'm sure that some people, whether they need to look at this option at some point or not, I'm sure they'll be you know, just stronger for knowing about this option because who knows, maybe they need it, maybe they don't, but maybe they know a little somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Who needs it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:54

Yeah. I mean I think maybe had we started the donation journey journey earlier, we may maybe we would have a bigger family, or we would just have well, we would be younger with our daughter not feeling as old as we do. Um But e equally, I think yeah, I don't know, my husband and I just had had to go through the journey we did to get to that point of accepting it as an option.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

Um Yeah it takes as long as it takes, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:39

Some people might get there much quicker than us. The whole fertility journey is is so individual. There's no yeah, it's it's really hard for people to to know which route to go down, for how long to go down it. Some people are done and dusted first time with a happy ending, some people, you know, try it a few times and then walk away. And yeah, some people like us ram their heads against a wall for a long time. I don't know, it's just such an individual journey. But hopefully, hopefully someone out there, if they are anxious about egg donation, can know that it can work. It's an option amongst other options.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Um, and it yeah, hopefully they have a happy ending like we have.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Alright, I'll speak to you soon. Sure. Bye-bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

Lizzle, thank you. Thank you for trusting this space with something oh so deeply personal, so hard won and so precious. I know this conversation was not easy to have, and I want you to know that every tear, every pose and every moment of vulnerability in this recording is a gift to every person who needed to hear it today. Twelve years. And at the end of it, a family yours. Completely, entirely, undeniably yours. Because this is what this conversation has made me feel more certain of than ever before. That parenthood is not defined by DNA. It's not defined by the path you took to get there, or the number of rounds you went through, or the heartbreak you carried along the way. It is defined by the love, the showing up, the choosing every single day to be someone's parent. Lizel and her husband became parents in their mid-40s, after twelve years of trying, after more loss, more grief, and more resilience that most of us will ever be asked to find. And while their family may look different to what they had once imagined, smaller perhaps than they had hoped, it is no less whole, no less full, and definitely no less theirs. If this episode reached you today, if you are somewhere in the middle of your own journey, exhausted and uncertain and wondering if you will ever get there, I want you to sit with what Lizzie said that she couldn't hear it until she was ready. And that when she was ready, everything changed. Your time may come in a way you haven't imagined yet. I know it's not a consolation, but that is the possibility worth holding on to. Resources to support you through fertility challenges, IV of an egg donation or in the show notes. Please reach out if you need them. Lizzo, your child is so lucky, and so are we for getting to hear your story. As always, thank you for listening, thank you for being part of this village, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye-bye. Giving me the space to keep bringing you thoughtful and honest conversations. You can find all past episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you usually listen. And you can follow the show there so new episodes link straight into your feed. If you'd like to get in touch, share feedback or suggest a story, you can find me on Instagram at Raising with the Village. I always love hearing from you. And if this podcast has resonated with you, one of the best ways to support it is by subscribing, rating, leaving a review, or sharing an episode with someone who might need it. It truly makes a difference and helps these stories reach the people who need them most. Thank you for being part of the village, and I'll see you next time. Bye bye!