Smalltalk Autumn 2015 | Page 29

Worcester and Droitwich Branch First-Time Birth Story When I married Rob in 2001, we decided to try for a baby straight away, unfortunately like many couples nature had its own plan for us. Rob‟s work took us on an exciting 3year secondment to Singapore. Although we had a fantastic life, there was just one thing missing. After 12 months of trying for a baby, I went to see the doctor about how my breasts would strangely lactate a little when I had not been pregnant or had a baby before! They did some tests and diagnosed a pituitary tumor which was causing a hormone imbalance and hyperprolactinemia. It sounded a bit scary to us to start with, but once it was explained that these types of tumors are benign it really wasn‟t a problem. We were advised to see a fertility specialist. I was put on the contraceptive pill for 1 month to kick-start my cycles again, as it came to light that I was in fact ovulating during my period! After a few months with no luck, I went on to Clomid for 6 months – still no luck. We had a little break and tried naturally, but to no avail. So with some degree of disappointment we went back to our „gynee‟ and he advised IUI which is the next step down from IVF where the sperm is inserted through a catheter into your uterus. I still had to take hormone injected drugs to boost the amount of eggs produced to increase our chances of conception. I wasn‟t keen on the needles to start with, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn‟t so bad. Worcester and Droitwich Branch Autumn 2015 29