Nathan, aged 2, has two mums, showing how IVF is enabling greater diversity in families. Nathan was one of the IVF babies who came to Bourn Hall’s Essex clinic in Wickford to celebrate the clinic’s fifth anniversary with the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown.
Nathan’s mum Jess says: “He is an absolute blessing, and the whole family just adores him.
“Fran and I have been inseparable since first meeting at university 13 years ago. As soon as we got back from our honeymoon two and a half years ago we knew that we wanted to start a family straightaway.
“Both of us were pretty adamant that we were going straight to a fertility clinic because we wanted everything to be monitored and the reassurance of the support a regulated clinic can offer.
“We made an appointment at Bourn Hall in Wickford because of the favourable reviews. When we got there and met the staff they were just so lovely, making us feel so welcome and explaining to us what tests would need to be done and what our options were; we just thought ‘yes, let’s get the ball rolling!’”
The couple found out they were to become parents after a successful Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET).
“The day our pregnancy test was positive was crazy. We woke up at 5am and I ran into the bathroom and did it and put it face down and we waited,” says Jess. “When it was positive it was like ‘oh my God!’. It was funny because I didn’t cry, although I had thought that I would, but we were just over the moon; there were no tears, it was just happiness.
“And then we quickly, at 6am, drove over to my mum’s house and we let ourselves in– she was still in bed and she thought there was something wrong. We just said ‘oh, you know – we are pregnant’ and it was a really happy moment!”
Many options for LGBT+ fertility treatment
Bourn Hall’s state-of-the-art fertility centre in Wickford, Essex supports patients across Essex and beyond. Lead Clinician Dr Arpita Ray says that the LGBT+ community have a range of fertility options:
“Females with regular periods can become pregnant with IUI, and this is less invasive and cheaper than IVF treatment. IVF is more costly because it requires medication to stimulate the ovaries to produce many mature eggs at the same time, and these are then fertilised with donor sperm. The success rates with IVF can be higher and there may be frozen embryos available for further treatment or siblings. We always talk through the patient’s options and help them to select treatment that is right for them.”
Bourn Hall also supports same-sex male couples who may require surrogacy, and transgender people for fertility preservation.
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