Real Stories | Alex Matthews: Mayonnaise and white blood cells: the science of babymaking

Struggling to bring home your babies in the 2020s is a strange combination of ‘unlucky’ and ‘lucky’.

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On the one hand, I am frequently overwhelmed by how shit the hand we’ve been dealt is. Not only are we ‘infertile’ - we have only conceived naturally once in the last three years we also belong to the ‘one in one hundred’ - the one percent of couples who suffer from recurrent miscarriage. In my book, that’s pretty bad luck

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However, I do feel fortunate; I’d rather be infertile and struggling with miscarriage now than at any time in history. Developments in fertility and miscarriage treatment mean that there is hope for couples who would have been written off as ‘barren’ a hundred years ago - even fifty years ago. I remember reading a play called ‘La Casa de Bernarda Alba’ for my Spanish A-level and being struck by the despair and social stigmatisation of the women in the play who couldn’t have children. Thank God I live in the 21st century. I am generally not thought of as a failure or less of a woman because I cannot have children without significant medical intervention and quite possibly the help of another woman, and I can also benefit from huge advances in reproductive science in the last 40 or so years. This is particularly true because my husband and I are lucky enough to be able to afford the investigations and treatment we need, as long as it doesn’t go on for too much longer.

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I have certainly felt like I am in the midst of a science experiment over the last two and a half years. Even ‘straightforward’ IVF is an assault course of blood tests, injections, pills, nose sprays, scans, operations and pessaries. With each of our eight transfers we have layered on more tests and more treatments: some of them standard, some of them experimental. I thought I would share some of those tests and treatments, because some of you may encounter them at one stage or another on your journey, and also because, frankly, some of them are weird! Please excuse any inaccurate terminology or non-scientific language: I’ve tried my best, but I’m a marketer and writer with qualifications in the humanities and the arts, about as far from biology and medicine as it is possible to get. The following are all my understanding of our issues - you should of course always consult with your doctor before drawing any conclusions about your own situation.

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Initial testsWhen we started worrying that we weren’t conceiving, my husband and I had our initial tests with our GP. I think they actually ended up missing some fairly crucial ones for me (AMH and FSH, for example), but they checked my general health and my liver and kidney function, and carried out a trans-vaginal scan to check my uterus. Everything looked fine (oh the innocence…). ‍ My husband had a semen analysis, which showed that while he...