Mel'story: Intended solo Mother by choice, Sepsis Survivor and IVF warrior

At the end of 2019, I completed a solo trip through Europe, and not long after I returned home I decided that I wanted to embark on my next big adventure, solo Motherhood. I loved being an Aunty to my nieces and nephews, but I wanted to be a Mum. I hadn’t found anyone to have children with, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from creating a family. So in early 2020, at the age of 37, I was referred to a fertility clinic and we began the process. Because I had no known fertility issues, and a healthy AMH (egg reserve) my Doctor suggested we start off with an IUI. But first, we had to do a hycosy. I was not prepared for how painful this procedure was! But I got through it and it showed that my tubes were clear and everything looked good and the following month we proceeded with the IUI.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work. After more discussions with the doctor, I decided that IVF might be a better way forward for me because ideally, I would have liked to have two children… so I was going to try and create embryos both to transfer and to freeze for a potential future sibling.

The first round of stims went well, I responded to the medication and we got 14 eggs, 11 of which fertilised. However, by day 5, every embryo apart from one had stopped growing in the lab. We transferred a lovely little “early blastocyst” on day 5, and I got the call the following day that nothing had made it to the freezer. At around 6dp5dt I had a bit of cramping and spotting and I had a feeling it was implantation bleeding, the following day I got my first faint positive test, and the day after that the line got even darker! I was so excited but also really confused because even though the line looked really strong, the bleeding also got stronger. Beta results confirmed this term that I have come to hate - I was experiencing a “chemical pregnancy”

I was heartbroken. I left Brisbane (where I was receiving treatment) and returned home to Rockhampton. Some people can jump right into another round of IVF and do back-to-back treatments. I’m not one of those people. I needed time to get over the loss I had experienced, and also to decide if I wanted to put myself through it again. IVF takes so much from you… not only physically, but financially and emotionally.

Getting through Christmas the following month was hard, I had envisioned announcing to my family that I was pregnant, but instead, I had to suck it up and celebrate Christmas, when all I wanted to do was hide away from the world.

Trying again after a loss

I knew I had to keep trying, but life and work circumstances prevented me from trying again for another 11 months. Finally, it was time for my second round. This time we used a slightly higher dose of the stim medication. At the follicle check-up scan, my Doctor found a “chocolate cyst” and asked me if anyone has ever mentioned that I might have endometriosis. I said no, never, and he explained that these cysts can sometimes indicate endometriosis. We decided to push on with the IVF cycle, and ended up getting the same amount of eggs as the first time, 14! With 11 fertilised. By day 5 this time the embryos were a day behind, they had only reached the Morula stage. My doctor agreed to transfer two embryos because they were pretty sure that nothing would make it to the freezer. We transferred the two Morulas and one little embryo surprised us and it ended up becoming a blastocyst on day 6.

This second egg retrieval was very different to the first. I was in a lot of pain post-egg retrieval. And the pain didn’t really go away. Unfortunately, my worst fears came true, this double embryo transfer resulted in ANOTHER chemical pregnancy.

I was almost in too much pain to care though. My pelvic pain was put down to possible OHSS and then to the early miscarriage. Huge, horrible painful bleed.

But the pain didn’t go away. My fertility specialist in Brisbane suspected now that I might have a pelvic infection, and after I spoke to him late in the afternoon I presented at the ED to get checked out. They gave me a referral to come back for an ultrasound, but while I was there they Covid swabbed me (because I had bronchitis) and sent me home. I didn’t go for the ultrasound the following day because I was waiting on PCR results. The next day I woke up in the morning and the pain was so bad I couldn’t even get dressed properly when I got out of the bath. I had a high temp and felt really breathless. I actually felt like I was dying, had a huge sense of dread come over me and I just picked up my phone and called an ambulance.

By the time I was admitted to the hospital, I had a temp of 40 degrees, extremely low blood pressure and was tachycardic. I had developed Sepsis from a Pelvic infection caused by my egg retrieval, and I was very very sick.

The next few days are a bit of a blur, I have never vomited so much in my life. I couldn’t eat, they couldn’t get my fevers or pain under control and I was incontinent. I felt like I was dying. They found it really hard to get blood out of me because I was so dehydrated, and my arms became so bruised from all of the attempts to put a cannula in. Two days after I was admitted, they did another ultrasound and suspected that I had a twisted (Tort) ovary, and took me in for emergency surgery. I sent one of my best friends a voice note before I went in. It actually took me months to be able to go back and listen to it, because I knew how I felt at that moment, I was scared that I was going to die, or wake up to find they had needed to remove my ovaries.

They ended up saving my ovaries but removing my right Fallopian tube. My whole abdominal cavity was full of infection and adhesions, but the doctor couldn’t free the adhesions as their main goal was to wash out the infection and save my life.

Unfortunately, the doctors couldn’t tell me if the adhesions were from Endometriosis or from the infection itself. After surgery, everything settled down, I was able to eat again, I didn’t spike any more fevers and after six nights in the hospital, I was able to go home and recover. I had almost three months off work in total. The sepsis took a lot to recover from, both physically and emotionally.

Cycle number 3

I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to do another egg retrieval, but eventually, my doctors convinced me that what happened to me was a lightning strike and was really unlikely to happen again. Before I did another round of IVF though I wanted to make sure my body was healthy, and I engaged with a specialist fertility dietician and exercise physiologist. I made big lifestyle changes to my health and worked on improving my gut health for 4 months prior to my third cycle. I knew that this would likely be my last round of IVF, so I gave it everything I had, and worked really hard. I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol for nearly 6 months, and managed to celebrate my 40th birthday booze free!

My third cycle began at the end of September this year, and off to Brisbane, I went again! This time I also had a different doctor, as my original Doctor had retired. Leading up to the egg retrieval I was feeling really anxious, but my Doctor was there to reassure me while the anaesthetist put me to sleep through tears. I woke up and they had collected 11 eggs, 7 of which were fertilised. This time I asked if we could transfer on day 3, as day 3 is when my embryos usually started to struggle in the lab. I was on my way to the transfer in an Uber when my doctor called me.

“I’m sorry Mel, it’s not good news” and she went on to explain that none of my 7 embryos were developmentally where they were supposed to be for 3-day embryos. She agreed to transfer two cellular stage embryos, a 4-cell and a 5-cell. Embryos are supposed to be between 6-8 cells on day 3.

I cried on the way there, through the procedure and all the way home. I frantically searched Facebook and Instagram for 4/5 cell embryo success stories and thankfully found a few which gave me a little bit of hope. Unfortunately, the remaining embryos all stopped growing in the lab. I went home to Rocky and waited, but I wasn’t even getting a faint positive line on the first response tests. My period arrived two days before my blood test was due, and just like that, it was all over.

What comes next

I have decided that is it for me, I’m 40 years old now and I haven’t got any more rounds of IVF left in me. My one little blastocyst remains frozen in Brisbane, and I’ll transfer that early next year. My doctor is going to treat me as if I have endometriosis, so we are going to down-regulate before the frozen embryo transfer. If this transfer doesn’t work, then I’ll be moving to donor embryos, probably from overseas, as they are really hard to come by in Australia.

I have recently engaged a psychologist because the last two years have been a lot. I’m walking around and I feel traumatised. I have been to hell and back, to put it nicely. The first session really helped and part of my homework was to write down everything that has happened to me in story form. So this is it.

My journey to try and become a Solo parent is far from over, but I’m certainly closing the chapter on my IVF cycles. Hopefully, I can come back soon with a positive update :)

Mel shares her story from Queensland, Australia.

Thank you for sharing x Emma & Lynette.

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