Experiences of conceiving, IVF, surrogacy and adoption

I went on to study at university, on to a master's degree and everything was going very smoothly for me. I met my husband at university as well, studied the same degree; both did really well and ended up with really good jobs afterwards.

One of my interests has always been travel and I ended up being able to work in marketing in the travel industry, which gave me opportunities to travel to some really amazing places around the world, even down to Antarctica. So, you know, things were going very, very well and my husband and I got married and then thought, 'Okay, time to start trying to have a baby'. I was never really someone who wanted children - I knew I wanted children but it wasn't something that I really yearned for. So, it took us over two years to get pregnant but that wasn't something that was stressing me out because we were in such a great place that we weren't necessarily in a hurry.

And as is often the case, I found out, at a point where we started to think, 'Hmm, maybe something's not quite right', and decided to get a referral to see a specialist, I found out I was pregnant [laughs] which I know's a very common experience, both for people who have that struggle, maybe adopt or go on to have IVF that, things just - when that pressure comes off, things just tend to happen.

So I think it was about two and half or even a bit longer after I met him first that we actually became a couple and, we were married five years - six years ago, sorry [laughs] you start to lose track of these things. Six years ago and my daughter is now three so we were trying from about five years ago to get pregnant, so it took about two years to get pregnant.

For six years I suffered infertility, I didn't have any child for six years, so I was diagnosed with PCO, polycystic oval [sic] syndrome, but it was not the case, it was a wrong diagnosis. Something else was - was happening and the doctors couldn't understand it. Anyway, after six years and after having several cycles of IUI which is one stage before IVF, [husband name] and I decided to adopt a baby and we thought, okay, maybe we cannot have child of our own so why not adopt a baby, we decided...

So, we decided to adopt a baby, my husband and I, but the month that I decided to adopt a baby I found out I am pregnant [laughs]. So, I don't know why it happened, still it is a very big mystery for me. Maybe because I was relieved of a stress, I stopped going to doctors and doing all those treatments. So, after one month I found out I am pregnant and I was pregnant and when I was pregnant I went back to my mum's home in north of Iran because it was not an easy pregnant, it was very difficult for me with all those morning sicknesses and I was alone. So, my husband stayed in Tehran and I moved to my parents' home. For nine months I rested there and I stayed there and my child was born there too. So, my child was born in June 2009 and when she was born my husband and I were too busy packing up and moving to Australia, so doing the visa things, applying for visa and buying the tickets and selling our household furniture, so we are very busy.

So we tried for about a year, to have him, and then we eventually, we got pregnant after, we had fertility issues with me, but we did get naturally pregnant. But, it was a bit touch and go whether it was going to happen. So that was a bit of pressure on having kids. So we'd been here for almost four years before we actually had him.

Well, to start off with I was really upset when I found out that I'm polycystic and I had a big cyst in my ovary at the time, when we were trying to get pregnant. It was the size of a cricket ball. So of course I was really upset [laughs] when I had the ultrasound and found out, 'Yes you have something in your uterus, you have to have surgery to remove it before you can get pregnant'. But everyone said, "Oh no, you can still get pregnant, there's not a problem". I was more upset to be told that it was going to be hard to be pregnant than if it had been my decision not to have a child. So I was upset that that was taken out of my control. And I'd said to my husband, "If I don't get pregnant within a year I'm not doing IVF, I refuse to try IVF because of the hormones", and I just wasn't, I just really didn't want to have IVF and I didn't want to put my body through that. But my husband was very insistent that, 'If you can't have children we're going through IVF' [laughs]. So I did get him tested to make sure everything was all right and to see if it was only my problem. But, we got through it and we did get pregnant after what, 10 months, going on to a year. So we didn't need to go that further step. But the next step would've been follicular stimulation instead of going IVF first, I think.

We were told to give it six months and see how it went, and I was booked in for surgery to have the cyst removed. [Laughs] I could never get hold of the surgeon, it was like phone tag, and then because I didn't have private insurance to cover that, at the time, it wouldn't kick in until later, that it just never happened. And by the time I found out I was pregnant I was like, 'Oh I don't need the surgery anymore'. Then I was worried what the cyst would do to the embryo, and then the cyst burst when I thought I was having a miscarriage, I wasn't sure what was happening, but the cyst burst at work with a lot of pain and I guess the cervix being closed, 'cause I was pregnant, absorbed the liquid back in, and when I had the next ultrasound everything was fine.

Our second time around, it's been a bit harder conceiving, and that's sort of been a longer journey for both of us. So I think that sort of does impact post as well, because it's a sort of - had a bit of a hard time and you know, you're sort of still processing that once you've had the baby and so that sort of emotional energy is taken up by that. Although sometimes you don't realise that until a bit later I think. So, I suppose that's an emotional dimension that wasn't there the first time round.

I think there's been a study recently, probably saw it, might even be at [hospital name], around the need to support people that have - I mean we didn't end up having IVF but, that have had IVF and had conception difficulties and different journeys to their conception afterwards. And I think my experience would probably support that in terms of just having a bit more understanding and support around that. I think there's sort of a tendency and maybe it's something we do as women to ourselves more than people imposing that on you.

But you know, you should be happy, you've got the baby, what are you complaining about? Which obviously you are happy that you have got the baby, but there's still that aspect of, 'Well that was, phew, looking back that was a really hard journey'. And there's no time to stop and process that I think because you're straight into caring for a newborn and especially if it's a second one, and to child or toddler [laugh]. So I suppose that maybe one thing that might be helpful and I guess, in whatever way possible, giving women the permission to feel that and to go through that I think's really important.

So I think, well for me, it was having the miscarriages and having trouble having the second baby, you know, was really hard emotionally obviously. Everyone experiences differently, but the loss of a possible pregnancy is sad, and you're not expecting that necessarily and when it happens more than once it's even more, even harder. And I think there's not necessarily - people don't talk about it a lot. I'm sure they talk about it more than they used to. And you feel differently each time.

So, I guess time moves on and so does the modern world and ways of people having babies has changed, I guess. So, [laughs] in my mid-thirties I tried for a couple of years to have a baby with lesbians, because at the time it seemed to be the only way to have my own biological child. But it did mean that I wouldn't be really the sort of full time parent. Unfortunately that didn't work out. My friend produced two antibodies to sperm, so she just couldn't fall pregnant in the more natural ways. And then we went through IVF and miscarried twins at 12 weeks and then tried again for another half a dozen times and then that relationship - friendship kind of ended, I guess, around that.

And maybe that was a good thing in terms of that not working out, because it meant that I had to explore other ways. And, surrogacy came along. And I kind of looked into it for a while, on and off for over a couple of years in between relationships and things. And then decided when I hit 40 [laughs] I'd better do something soon because I wanted to be a parent. So, not that my clock was ticking, but, you know, just being energetic enough to raise children.

I investigated surrogacy in India and decided that that's what I was going to do. And signed a contract. I think it was in December, and then the following March went over to India and had organised an egg donor and an Indian surrogate and then that all sort of happened. And my daughter was conceived straight away, first attempt, which was really exciting, and nearly nine months later was born [laughs].

So we decided we'd go on this venture together so we went down the path of looking for a donor and we asked some of our open-minded male friends who have female partners and some who don't and nobody turned away from us for asking such a thing but in the end everyone was like, 'Ah, maybe not' [laughs]. And so we were on an e-group, which was part of a group of parents of all different sort of sexual orientations who were considering parenthood.

And we actually - there was a message that came up on one occasion from a man purporting to be someone who just wanted to help a couple by donating sperm, and we immediately were just thinking, 'Ooh, you know this could be not what it seems, we need to check this out', so we checked it out. We spoke to this gentleman, we met him, we then met his wife as well because we wanted it to be all above board and she said, "Well, this is just his way of wanting to help some people in the world. This is his helping project to donate sperm to a same-sex female couple", so that's what we did.

So, he donated his sperm, I self-inseminated and on the second month that I attempted that, I became pregnant, and I'd been you know tracking my ovulation cycles for some months previously so I could get the exact timing. Because you know we had to, sort of connect with him somehow at just the right time of the month for me. It's not like he was hanging around in my bedroom you know [laughs] the whole time, the whole month so. He was hanging around his wife's bedroom so... [laughs]

So I got pregnant on the second month.

My partner and I had decided before we actually went through with anything that we just wanted to be parents. We didn't want a third parent. I think when we had initially approached one of our friends who we're very good friends with, him and his wife and kids anyway, I think we discussed - and we'd all talked about whether we wanted him to sort of be a parental figure - and then it all just sort of sounded all too complicated [laughs] and they decided they didn't want to be part of that project anyway.

So it was looking like it was going to be someone we didn't know and we decided that we'd just like to find someone who was happy just to donate without expecting to have a parental role. So we discussed that with the donor and he was happy for that because he's got his own two kids and his own family. So far fortunately everyone's stuck to what was discussed and I know again from speaking to other families that it doesn't always work out that way, and that people can have discussions and then a child comes into the world and changes everyone's feelings and it can get very complicated.

So again, we feel very lucky that we've had someone who's stuck to what they said they were going to do. One discussion we did have with the donor was that if our child ever wanted to meet their biological father at some point when they were older, which I know that children often want to do, that our child would be able to meet that person and so the donor agreed to that and that hasn't come up yet, but it may well.

I'm a gay man and when I came out I suppose when I was in my 20s, early 20s, I got quite a bit of difficulty coming out accepting my sexuality 'cause I didn't want to give up the chance of having a family. That was quite hard at the time but I did give up that chance. And then perhaps eight years ago, when I was in a steady, long-term relationship, my partner and I decided we'd maybe look at having children and we did a foster care course in [city name]. And it took about eight weeks or something and we passed that but then [partner's name] decided that, no, that was going to be too hard in case a child had to go back to its parents.

He didn't think he'd cope with that very well, so we ended up saying, 'No, we won't go ahead with taking any children'.

Then we moved to [city name] a few years later with the whole idea often then, we met some couples here in [city name] who had children via surrogacy and we've always thought surrogacy was too expensive 'cause you had to go to the USA. I think we met some people who had done that and we also met some people I think who had been to India and maybe it wasn't quite as expensive there. And we decided we'd invest in that.

And we did some research online and we talked to some people who'd had children via surrogacy and we made a trip over to India and met with a clinic over there and gave some sperm for the clinic and we chose an egg donor, an overseas egg donor. We decided at first that we'd use a donor who was Caucasian because we thought being a gay family maybe it would be hard having a mixed race baby.

So we arranged with another agency to fly an egg donor in, a white donor. At the same time, we did the sperm and we made then lots of embryos there and then we came home. We told our parents we'd just been on holidays. We didn't want to tell them what we were doing at the time. We weren't sure. Actually, we told them pretty quickly after that actually once we came back what we were doing. And I think the first embryo transfers into the surrogate mum we were working with didn't work and we had maybe a third go - I think the doctors asked us to put four embryos in, three or four for the third go and two of those took and so our surrogate was pregnant with the two and things were going fairly well.

So, for me - for women I guess, it's just that thing of the biological clock. So, meeting the right person and then I guess I met a couple of not right people for me in my 30s. Timing wasn't right, you know.

They were divorced and had children, they had vasectomies or they didn't want more children or whatever the reason was. So then, really got to a point where, okay, started to think about doing it on my own, on IVF using a donor and I kept putting it off thinking, 'Oh, I'll meet someone, I'll meet someone', and it just reached a point where I was 36 and I thought, 'Okay, no maybe I won't. So I have to start looking into it 'cause this could take years anyway'. So I was 36 I think when I first had my first appointment and turned 37 soon after that and started IVF, so I'm glad that I did start when I did because it did take a while.

And, yeah, I already had fertility issues in any case.

I had this condition which, within IVF, you have to have a counsellor allocated to you as part of the process as a standard thing and the counsellor explained, "Oh, there is a one per cent chance that you might have this reaction where your ovaries are hyperstimulated". I was thinking, 'Oh, one per cent - what are the chances of that happening?' But because my fertility issue was polycystic ovaries, so if you have that condition, you're in a higher likelihood that you will get ovarian hyperstimulation from the drugs that they give you, and, so I was in the one per cent as it turned out and had an awful reaction.

And then they put one of those embryos in and, within a couple of days, I just started to feel like I could feel myself retaining fluid and - because I hadn't had treatment for a little while and because this was a higher dose than in the past, I just sort of put it down to, 'Oh, this is just my body getting used to it'. But as it turned out, it was the early stages of this hyperstimulation syndrome, so I ended up putting on seven kilos in four days and was in a lot of pain and, it came on like within a 24-hour period, so it was just this dramatic increase in the fluid retention.

So I had to go into hospital and I was in hospital for five days and they had to literally drain the fluid away from you. They have to keep weighing you to work out how much fluid you've lost and then it wasn't coming away quickly enough 'cause it can get in around your vital organs and, you know, it can be quite dangerous. Your breathing becomes laboured and so, in the end, they had to put a drain tube in [laughs] which was excruciating. And I remember saying to the doctor, "Oh gosh, I hope no one else has to go through this", and he said, "Well, actually if you had ovarian cancer, you have to have this done all the time".

They're forever draining, so they literally - you're fully conscious, they just put this tube into your side. They cut a hole and the whole thing was just disgusting, and it was unfortunate too that the IVF doctor I had at that time - he didn't have a very good bedside manner at all and I think he was angry with himself because this had happened to me because it doesn't happen very often. The fact it had happened with one of his patients was probably a point where he felt he'd failed but he took it out on me.
So I changed doctors and I changed to someone who [clears throat] I was recommended by a friend who was also on IVF at the time and he was amazing.

And he actually identified other issues for me at that time in terms of a fibroid which, when he did an ultrasound, he - which is standard again that they do to see how everything is looking.

He said, "I don't want to put any more embryos in until we get rid of this fibroid because it's going to be impeding your chances of conception by about 70 or 80 per cent". So the fact I'd even managed to get pregnant in itself was amazing 'cause I actually was pregnant as it turned out when I had the hyperstimulation in hospital. The pregnancy exacerbates the condition, and then I miscarried, so it was a very early miscarriage.

So anyway, during that time, it was another year and we still hadn't fallen pregnant. So I went back to the doctor and she was like, 'Well, if it hasn't happened now, your best option would be to go to IVF', which we just thought was, 'What?' You know, after having two natural conceptions, to have to go down that route. And we thought, well, we really didn't want to stop at just two. The plan was that we'd have four kids, you know. Well, that was my wish anyway. My husband only wanted two, but I always get my own way. So, IVF it was. We went for the first consult and I thought, 'Oh, this will be really easy', because, you know, hey, we've fallen pregnant before. It's no big deal. Hmm, how wrong I was.

My hats go off to people that have no children, that go through IVF, because it is the most invasive, soul-destroying thing I've ever done. It's so impersonal and clinical and you've just got to check your dignity at the door. I mean, for me, I'd had kids. Had doctors check out every orifice and it's - no big deal now, because, well, once you've been through a labour and delivery, you sort of - there's no dignity left, is there? You've done everything. So it was confronting. It was just horrid. And we did our first cycle and I remember how devastated I was when I got my period, because it didn't work. And I was like, 'Well, why?'.

I just couldn't understand why, when we'd had no problems falling pregnant on our own. Why wouldn't IVF work for us? [sighs] We had to go through seven cycles of IVF. That was two and a half years of IVF. A lot of people give up by then, but I'm a stubborn bitch. Pardon my French. I really am. I was determined. The doctors would have to tell me they couldn't do it and until that came I was just going to plough on. And it was all-consuming during that time. I feel my first two children were quite, I don't want to say neglected, but I feel like they were on the back burner, because for two and a half years IVF was my focus.

It was [sighs] horrible, really horrible, and I feel I can't give them that time back, there's a bit of guilt there over that. Because I feel like I was an absent mother, because I was concentrating on something else. But, you know, it was selfish, it was purely for selfish reasons. I wanted my third child and I was going to get my third child at all costs, basically. It put a lot of strain on our family. Financially obviously, because it's not cheap. Emotionally, because you've got to do this, that, and, you know, everything's by the book, by the clock. You can't have sex now, you've got to do it here, then.

All our intimacy disappeared and then of course I was dealing with a mother who was sick. Those two years were horrible. Anyway, then I got to the stage where I think it was Christmas in 2005 and I'd just done my sixth cycle and the doctor had rung up to say that all my embryos had shut themselves. None of them - none of them survived and I was gutted and I just thought, 'Oh, it can't get any worse'. Yeah, well, it did, because then I found out my mum was going to die and that was - I couldn't - they were trying to - the doctors were trying to book me in for a new cycle and I just thought, 'You know what? I just have to - I can't'.

So I said, "Let's do one final cycle of IVF and that'll be it". And literally a month to the day after we'd buried my mum and I got a positive pregnancy test. And I just thought, 'My God', I just - I believed - I'd like to believe that my mum had something to - she had a part of that. That she handpicked this baby for me, because she knew what we were going through. So for that year I was - those nine months it was such an exciting time. It was almost like being pregnant for the first time again. It was - it was really exciting - and my older two kids were so excited about having a sibling and I thought, 'Well, all this has been worth it'. You know, all the struggle to see them being so excited about it, it's good.

So then we got married, and started to have, started to try for children, and it was about 18 months and nothing had happened. So my wife went to a specialist, because she'd had HPV, I think it's called, human papillomavirus, or something, earlier in life. And anyway that had created some ovarian cysts or something, and the scans revealed one of the fallopian tubes was blocked. And the other one was basically knotted and twisted to the point that nothing gets through, and the other one was that blocked that it wasn't funny.

So the only option was to go through IVF and get the eggs harvested. So we did - it was important for my wife. Obviously I've got a child already, and wasn't too fussed if I had any more at the time. My wife was on a very good wage as a manager, so it certainly made it a lot easier to be able to afford to do IVF.

So we were very fortunate in that sense. I'm also a very sort of practical and perhaps more frugal man than my wife is, because I've always had a lesser salary, so it was after quite a few attempts that we started putting in, going for two embryos in there, just to try and increase the odds of, of falling pregnant.

And then it wasn't until after the fifth or the sixth cycle through that my wife's specialist said that the very blocked, not the knotted fallopian tube but the very blocked one could be releasing some hormone that's not allowing the embryos to attach, so she recommended to have that fallopian tube removed. So she had an operation, and in the end it was flushed out and actually opened to a functioning level, at least to a level where this, whatever the hormone was that was seeping down didn't affect implantation.

And then the next round we implanted two, while being on the frugal, value-for-money option, not quite like the Octomom. And we were lucky enough that both the embryos implanted on that round, so we were very happy.

And then in the January we got called into Human Services for an interview and I just thought, 'Oh well, it's just another part of the thing', and we sat down with three people and they started talking to us about siblings and I said, "Oh", because we'd ticked siblings and we just talked openly and honestly and in my head I had siblings as two and we talked about two and then they said, "Oh well, it could be four. Sibling groups can be four, can be three, what are you thinking"? And we just had an open and honest conversation. I didn't know it was a pre-interview. And so that was in the January. Then in the February I got the phone call.

Now, the phone call always came from your social worker to say that you've been allocated. We didn't know the rules had changed. So I got a phone call from [name of Human Services employee] to say, "I need you to come in tomorrow". And I said, "Well, what's it about"? And she said, "Oh, I just need you to come in tomorrow". She goes, "It's about a possible allocation," and she said 'possible'. And it's funny because I still remember the phone call and everyone who's adopted remembers the phone call where they were.

I was in my office. I'm a [name of profession], I was about to have a meeting with a colleague from another campus and the phone - and I looked at the number and I thought it was someone else and I thought, 'Oh, I'll answer it,' because this person had been trying to contact me. And it turned out it wasn't this person, it was [name of Human services employee]. And then I got this, so I've run out to my boss and said, "I think I've just had the phone call". And so I didn't quite know what to do. I went into the meeting with this colleague who I didn't really know. I said, "I think I've just had the phone call. I don't really know but I've got to go to Human Services tomorrow".

And so then it was just I was in a whirlwind and came home and rang my parents and rang the family and said we think, because they didn't say. Normally they would say, "You've been allocated," but they didn't say. So anyway, Tuesday came and we went in and we sat down. And they said, "We'd like to talk about a possible allocation" and when they say possible it means you're not allowed to say yes straight away. You have to wait 48 hours. And so we were given a piece of paper and it was about a sibling group of three. The children were four, seven and ten, and we got a brief summary of their history.

They were lost on a train when [oldest child name] was six, [middle child name] was three and [youngest child name] was three months and they'd been at [orphanage name] for four years. And that's basically all we got was names, the brief history and then go and think and of course [husband name] burst into tears and said, "Well, it's a yes. I know we have to wait". I was completely overwhelmed and went, I just needed to let it wash, I needed to let it wash, and that's the sort of person I am. I'm not an instant yes person. I like to think. So anyway, we rang my parents and of course my mother's first reaction: "How will you ever afford three"?

Rang my boss, who's a very close friend and told her and she's going, "You really need to think about this, [French], you'll really need to think, three's a lot to take on". Unbeknown to me, she's talking to another colleague going, "if [French] doesn't take them, I will'. So everyone was like wanting us to be thoughtful through the process but also very excited. So anyway, it was always going to be a yes. It was never going to be a no. So that was on the Tuesday and then on the Friday it was photo day. So we went back to Human Services to say yes. And that's when you get your photos and you look and you go, "My God, these are my children".