Mother's Day Thoughts From An IVF Warrior

Read our guest blogger, Laura Smith’s, thoughts on Mother’s Day following her IVF journey…

I honestly never thought I would be able to celebrate Mother’s Day as a Mother. After deciding to start a family almost six years ago, with no sign of our longed for baby and after numerous medical investigations, we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. Which means they couldn’t find a reason for our struggle but offered us some ‘assistance’.

No-one talks about IVF – no one talks about the weeks of injections, tablets, medical procedures and side effects – all in the hope of getting a positive result.

No one tells you that you won’t sleep, will have palpitations and hot flushes. Will get angry or cry at anything and everything. That you will be so bloated that you feel constantly sick and your clothes won’t fit. That you won’t be able to walk without feeling uncomfortable thanks to your swollen ovaries. That you have to go through egg retrieval with conscious sedation and that, for some, it is agony.

They don’t tell you that you have to then wait for a day to see if you get any embryos. And then wait a few days longer to see if they survive long enough to be transferred back into you.

They don’t tell you that if you’re lucky enough to have an embryo or two transferred back, then you have to wait for two weeks to get your result, taking more medication two, three, sometimes five times a day, terrified to move in case you do something ‘wrong’.

And then, after two weeks of building your hopes up – no-one tells you about the phone call. The call that tells you the test is negative.

We went through five cycles of this. All with unhappy endings. I had pretty much given up hope and was desperately wondering what we would do with our lives instead of becoming parents. Until we decided to use our last cycle. The Seb cycle

So here I am, a mother to the most wonderful, precious little boy and despite his inability to sleep and my expanding waistline , I now know that my whole purpose in life was to be his Mother.

So Happy Mother’s Day for Sunday to all of the Mothers out there. Whether your miracles are all grown up or new arrivals, whether you have a brood or whether you have just one. And for those of you still struggling in silence and waiting for your miracle to occur and make you a Mother – hang in there. Just when you’re about to give up, life surprises you.

Happy Mothers Day (and God bless the NHS).