When I was growing up, IVF was still quite controversial. I gave a speech about it when I was in Year 11, arguing, “Who are we to say whether it’s right or wrong for someone to use technology to have their own precious baby? If the technology’s there, why shouldn’t we use it?” There were quite a few raised eyebrows in the audience. IVF was still relatively new then and many people thought we shouldn’t interfere with nature. By the time I did IVF, it was so common place, people would say, “You’ve got twins, which clinic did you go to?”
I was 23 when I met Colin. It was on a day trip to the reef outside Townsville and he was the dive instructor and took me on my first dive. He had bright blue eyes and a huge grin. There was immediate chemistry between us. He invited me to a party and was shocked when I said ‘yes’. He was a lot of fun and we soon became besotted with each other. Colin and that first dive made such an impression that 18 months later I became a qualified instructor too and we started our own dive business on Magnetic Island.
Then about six or seven years later, I was suddenly hit with the hormone stick and desperately wanted to have children. Colin was twenty years older than me and already had a family from a previous marriage. He never dreamt he’d have more children and had had a vasectomy. We realised we’d need to do IVF, when the time was right. Our diving business was all consuming, so taking nine months off work wasn’t viable then.
But when I was 30, I had treatment for endometriosis and the gynaecologist said to me, “If you’re going to have children, do it now, rather than later.”
Thinking this was just a ‘boy’s problem’ we went to see an urologist. I remember this tiny man behind a great big desk who sat us in chairs much lower than his with our knees virtually under our chins. It was really quite funny. It had been 15 years since Colin’s vasectomy and a reversal didn’t appear viable. After listening to our story, the little man said, “Your best bet is to go straight to the gynaecologist downstairs and organise donor sperm. You’ve got no chance otherwise.”
I felt such a goose when I said, “Actually, I saw this technique on TV, where they extracted the sperm from the testes and injected it into the eggs in a petri dish. Could we try that?” I didn’t have much information and he was very disparaging that my sole medical source was ‘Oprah’. Anyway, we saw the doctor downstairs and he said, “That’s rubbish, you don’t need donor sperm,” and he gave us some information about alternatives. We contacted the IVF clinic in Brisbane and asked if they did ICCSI, the technique I’d seen on TV. They said, “Yes, of course, we know all about it and use it here all the time.” So we decided to move to Brisbane and give it a go.
We started with treatment for my endometriosis. I had heavy periods, which sometimes made sex painful. Every month I’d miss a couple of days’ work because of the pain. The doctor tried a couple of laparoscopies to laser the endometriosis, but it was in a difficult spot to reach. I ended up on drugs for six months that made me feel homicidal. My husband said it was like living with a rabid blue heeler. He was afraid I’d bite off his hand if he looked at me the wrong way!
Once we started IVF however, there was so much excitement and joy that it was finally happening I didn’t notice the side effects as much.
We committed ourselves wholeheartedly to the process. We gave up coffee and chocolate and took vitamin supplements to make ourselves as healthy as possible. We saw it as preparing for a special mission. To us, IVF was a unique opportunity and not an ordeal. We entered it with a heart full of joy and not too much anxiety. I found it helpful talking to people about it too. We were surrounded by people’s well wishes and positive energy, which put us in a good mental state to tackle the clinical process.
The doctors had a few plans to get around Colin’s vasectomy. The first was to go into the tubules in his testicles and hopefully find a few partially formed sperm. All they needed was the nucleus, not even a whole sperm. If that didn’t work, they would take a piece of testicular tissue and hope they’d find a few in there. The last resort was to have donor sperm on standby.
I was upset by the prospect of having to use donor sperm. There was something about Col’s beautiful blue eyes that melted me. I hadn’t realised until then, that part of my dream was to see those eyes in our child. The clinic gave me a catalogue of potential sperm donors. There were only two with blue eyes and they sounded nothing like us. One had auburn hair and was much shorter than us while the other had dark hair and was a giant. There was less information about them than in the personal columns and somehow I was supposed to find a suitable biological father for my children. It listed their occupation and education level but I wanted to know what made their hearts sing, whether they laughed at Gary Larson comics, whether they liked diving or what they thought of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ It was touching that someone was willing to donate to make our dream come true but it would have been a slightly different dream and I was surprised how much that mattered to me. Fortunately, in the end, we didn’t have to go down the donor sperm path.
Colin was quite good about it. Obviously, he wished we could conceive naturally and felt it was his fault we had to do this. I also wished it was easier and cheaper. On the other hand, Colin was thrilled to be given a chance to have another family. He’d never dreamt it was possible and I was happy he was prepared to do it with me.
Colin gave me the daily injections because I was too squeamish. But on the night of the extra large needle to trigger ovulation before egg pickup, he wasn’t home and I had to inject myself. I sat staring at the syringe for almost an hour trying to summon up courage. Once I finally did it, I wondered what the big deal was.
We got thirteen eggs from the harvest and seven fertilised, which is pretty good. The night of the egg collection I dreamt I was woken by the noise of a rowdy party at the bottom of our paddock. I went to investigate and stood at the door watching a crowd of people in medieval dress, laughing and dancing around a huge bonfire. There were horses and dogs there too. When they saw me, a couple of people hugged and waved goodbye to their friends and then rode up to me at the house. Their friends continued their party by the bonfire, toasting them and waving farewell and good luck. I interpreted it to mean the souls of our embryos were setting off for their new incarnation as our children. It seemed like a good omen.
Although the embryo implantation was quite a difficult transfer it was also rather funny. I had my legs up in stirrups and I remember watching what the doctor was doing in the reflection of his glasses. He had his tongue poking out the side of his mouth with concentration. The technicians and nurses kept wandering in and out and at one stage there must have been eight people in the room. There I was displaying my wares and someone was chatting about going on holiday. If I hadn’t been semi-naked and in stirrups, it might have been a pleasant social gathering!
It certainly wasn’t the most romantic way to conceive. However, eventually when the two embryos were transferred, everyone left and Colin and I had the room to ourselves. It was supposed to be a magic moment but it was such a strange atmosphere, I couldn’t relax.
We decided to donate our other five embryos. I couldn’t bear the thought of them not having a chance, only I didn’t fancy having seven children. It was a heart, not a head decision. I wanted to share my joy. Having children was something I wanted so badly for so long and with a flick of a pen I could make that possible for someone else too. I don’t think that is such a big ask.
Under Queensland law the offspring of a donated embryo, egg or sperm can contact you when he or she turns eighteen. During the required counselling session, before we agreed to donate, the counsellor asked, “What are you going to tell your other children about their siblings if they turn up on your door step one day?”
That got me thinking; so over the years I’ve kept a folio of newspaper articles and information about embryo donation and IVF, which will hopefully make it easier to explain.
Also in the folder is a long letter I wrote my children the night before they were born. This is an extract:
“…then we had to wait two weeks to do a pregnancy test, to be really sure you’d stuck around. I felt mixed emotions, the same you get waiting in line for a roller coaster; desperate to do the test, but terrified of the answer. During the waiting period, we interpreted every little sign as an omen. The bird of paradise in our garden produced two beautiful flowers that week; it has never flowered before or since. We finally did the test at 1.00am and it was positive! We were thrilled and overawed by the enormity of this new knowledge and also a little intimidated. Then we got on the phone because there were lots of people who wanted to know, as soon as we knew, even at 2.00am!”
The next day we did the official blood test at the clinic. We’d grown so close to the staff, they cried with us when the test came up positive. You need a blood HCG hormone level of more than 25 to be pregnant. My first test had a reading of 150 and two weeks later it was 2000 so obviously there was more than one baby. I was thrilled to be having twins but Col was horrified. I thought it was such a bonus. We’d waited so long and now to be pregnant with two was to be doubly blessed.
My pregnancy was mostly a dream run. Although I had a complication from the IVF at nine weeks when my fallopian tube twisted. It’s not very common, but if you’ve got longish tubes, they can twist from the added weight of having had so many stimulated follicles. I hadn’t heard about it before and it wasn’t something we’d been warned about. One minute Colin was racing me to casualty, while I was puking, doubled up with pain and thinking I was losing the babies, then the next, my fallopian tube righted itself and I said, “Oh, I’m OK now!” It was a strange situation – terrifying and then a little embarrassing. But we had another scan at the hospital, which fortunately showed everything was normal.
The rest of the pregnancy was fine up until 35 weeks when I developed pre-eclampsia. They gave me steroid injections to prepare the babies for an early delivery. Our beautiful boy and girl were born via caesarean section at 36 weeks. We named them Hamish and Georgia. The sense of bliss at their arrival is still with me today. And wouldn’t you know? Hamish has his father’s beautiful blue eyes.
Extract from ‘Making Babies – Personal IVF Stories’ by Theresa Miller