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JW's Story
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Like many others I’m sure, I read the letters in the Friends of IVF and there always seems to be some part of every letter that rings true to me.
This was true of the letter by V.W. in the summer edition.
It took lots of tests and lots of years before we started IVF, our first cycle being in 2004. After 3 failed attempts, 18 months later, I was emotionally and physically exhausted from the process and at the age of 38 I was facing the very real prospect of a childless future.
We have friends who’ve never tried to conceive, and they looked at us as if we were mad - we had good jobs, a nice house, we could afford expensive holidays - where’s the problem with that? The truth is we always assumed we’d be parents and in reality everything else seems to be poor a substitute.
Being so totally drained by the experiences, and feeling unfulfilled in a major part of my life, I took a step back and re-evaluated things. I’d reduced my hours to 4 days per week at work to help me cope with IVF, and now I decided to use the extra time for other things. I’d always been interested in the natural approach to health, and enrolled on a reflexology course. The course was exactly the right thing for me to do and not only did I qualify as a reflexologist last year, but I found a whole new world had opened up in front of me. Through a better understanding of nutrition I lost weight (without particularly trying) and people said I looked well - apparently I had the sparkle back in my eyes. I understood a lot more about the body and the mind, and most importantly how to be happy.
I no longer felt the same desperation for a family, and wouldn’t have considered a fourth full IVF cycle - I’d found a new direction for my life and it wasn’t such a poor substitute. We were lucky, though, to have 2 embryos from our 3rd cycle that were good enough to freeze. We were nervous of the impact the process of implantation would have on our newly improved life, potentially upsetting the equilibrium, but we knew that we couldn’t just leave them. They both implanted successfully and we now have 2 beautiful baby girls.
So another success story, but it so nearly wasn’t. I’m convinced if we’d gone for implantation of the frozen embryos immediately after the 3rd cycle it wouldn’t have worked.
To anybody with fertility problems, and particularly anybody contemplating IVF, I would definitely recommend some form of holistic therapy. I say holistic, rather than alternative or complementary, because the key is to consider the whole body, and the mind as well. Whether it’s reflexology, aromatherapy, reiki, nutritional therapy or anything with the word 'healing' in it, they all look for the imbalances that cause infertility, and they can help to supplement fertility treatment. It all costs money, but in relation to the cost of IVF it’s very little, and, in my case, made all the difference.
For many years I used to dread Christmas & New Year - another year gone and still no children. The turning point for me was two years ago when I was happy at Christmas because I was in the middle of my reflexology course and feeling very positive about it. And this year? Well you can imagine…
J.W.
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