“A happy birthday after 7 years battling infertility”

There’s a story behind each of our patients.

Stories of women, couples, dreams, disappointments, pain, joy, hope, etc. All your stories matter to us because they are also our stories.

However today, 17 June 2021, we want to tell you the story of Mª Carmen and Roberto, and their son Alejandro, who turns one today. 

Yes, like many others, this is a story with a happy ending. But before being able to celebrate Alejandro’s birthday, Mª Carmen and Roberto had battled infertility tirelessly for 7 years.  

Their story dates back to August 2013 when Carmen, 30, and Roberto decided to try for a baby. After 9 unsuccessful months, they visited a National Health Service doctor and found that her tubes were blocked. By performing a hysterosalpingography, they were able to unblock one of her tubes. But the baby still wouldn’t arrive. Therefore, in November 2014, and despite the endometrioma that Mª Carmen had undergone, they embarked on three cycles of artificial insemination in a row. All three were negative.

The next step was in vitro. So, at her referral hospital in Albacete, she had her first transfer in May 2015. Despite the embryos being good quality, the beta was again negative.

Endometriosis accumulation and negatives

At this stage, Carmen’s endometriosis was added to the hydrosalpinx. She had fluid in her tubes, so needed to undergo surgery to remove the tubes and facilitate embryo implantation. “This surgery came as a shock due to fear. I thought I could no longer get pregnant on my own, that it would have to be through in vitro,” Mª Carmen explains.

Despite surgery, genetic studies, and good quality embryos, the next two cycles with the NHS were negative.

“Meanwhile, the endometrioma were growing because of the treatment. Periods became painful. Each negative was a bad feeling. The realisation that it was the last chance, and that we had to pay to do things privately made us even more nervous. Still, I knew I had to keep going and I wasn’t going to stop until I got there.”

The clock was ticking.

Mª Carmen and Roberto decided to put their faith in a renowned private fertility clinic. They’d conducted new studies and undergone the first in vitro, which was positive. “It was a relief after so many years. I finally got pregnant!” Mª Carmen happily recalls the feeling that sadly ended in the 21st week of pregnancy, when little Raúl’s heart stopped beating. Anaemia caused by parvovirus infection put Mª Carmen in the worst possible position and with a pain that she still lucidly remembers.

The caesarean section forced them to wait longer. The endometriosis worsened during this period. Even so, the clinic transferred one of the two remaining embryos. After yet another negative, they tried with the last one. The beta was positive, but so low that it ended up being a biochemical miscarriage.

Mª Carmen was getting increasingly desperate. “I had no more embryos, was back to square one, had spent more money, and had grown to distrust the clinic for hiding some of the results from me. I was led to believe something that wasn’t true. They gambled with my money, my health, and weren’t particularly professional. But throughout all this, I kept telling myself not to give up.”

A new strategy.

In January 2019, Mª Carmen and Roberto visited the Equipo Juana Crespo.

“I was hopeful, excited to meet Juana. I had a feeling she was going to get the job done, and she did. From the first visit, I noticed that my story mattered to her and when she did the ultrasound and took a look at me… OMG! – she told me, “You’re in a bad way.”

“She recommended having surgery to clean the endometriosis. I accepted because I knew it was the best thing to do before starting a new treatment. She also recommended egg donation because my ovaries weren’t working either.”

Both needed time to come to terms with the surgery, the genetic grief, and to heal the anger over the time lost. “We followed the instructions. I lost weight, and we came back in a few months for the operation. Everything went well. They removed my left ovary and most of my right ovary. They cleaned me up properly and we filled out the egg donation paperwork.”

Until we found a suitable donor in September, Mª Carmen was in induced menopause to avoid having menstrual periods and the risk of endometriosis growing again and damaging the embryo implantation. “At the time I was still sad that this baby had nothing of me, but I knew that egg donation was my only choice. On 8 October, I had a very good blastocyst transferred and 10 days later I found out that I was finally pregnant.”

Everything was going well, but in the middle of the pregnancy a new threat emerged: Covid-19. “Having lost my first baby, Raúl, to parvovirus, I was afraid that another virus would cause a new loss or a premature birth. I was terrified, but fortunately everything worked out fine.”

The pregnancy went perfectly, and Alejandro was born on 17 June 2020 via a scheduled caesarean section. “A year later, I still can’t believe it! The first few days, when I looked at him, I was in tears. It was a unique sensation, a mixture of feelings, of everything I had to go through in 7 years to finally have him in my arms. I would do it all again a million times over. Despite being scared of needles, the tests, the disappointments, the setbacks. I’d do it all again. We’re extremely happy with him. He’s the best thing that’s happened to us.”

“I’d recommend that any women in the same position as I was, having doubts about egg donation, scared, sad, etc., not to overthink things. At the end of the day, the child is yours. You carry him in your womb. You raise him and that’s what matters. Not whether he looks like you.

With patience, hard work, and perseverance, you’ll get there. You have to fight and work with the leading specialists such as Juana. I’m sorry I didn’t find her sooner, when I still had good eggs and the endometriosis was not so advanced. The important thing is that we can enjoy the little one. We hope that in a year’s time we can return to Equipo Juana Crespo and bring Alejandro’s little brother or sister into the world.”

At Equipo Juana Crespo, we hope to see you soon and we wish you a very Happy Birthday!