Updated, 16th of December, 2024
Laura and Dan set for a perfect Christmas with baby Charlie
Christmas will feel extra special this year for Laura and Dan – it will be their first spent as a family of three.
The couple, from Exeter in the UK, welcomed beautiful baby Charlie into the world this summer following treatment at IVF-Life in Alicante.
Now four months old, and with plenty of adorable festive outfits in his wardrobe, little Charlie is ready to help his parents celebrate their best Christmas ever.
Laura said: “I’ve got a very small family, so it will just be my mum and my sister for Christmas, and I just can’t wait.
“It will be the first Christmas where we haven’t had a loss or a failed round. It will be the best Christmas.”
Laura and Dan were selected for Fertility Road’s Fertility Journeys Project in spring 2023. When the couple applied, they were still reeling from substandard service from their previous clinic and bruised from three difficult years of unsuccessful treatment.
Laura recalls: “I wish we hadn’t had to go through it. But we did and now we’ve got Charlie and wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m glad that we didn’t give up and winning the competition at the point that we did was life-changing for us in terms of being able to continue and even being anywhere near being able to have a baby.”
She added: “It just feels like a different life now. I still look at him pretty much every day and I can’t believe he’s here. I can’t believe he’s ours. He’s so perfect, and he’s just gorgeous.”
The couple was full of praise for IVF-Life, which went the extra mile to help them achieve their dream of starting a family.
“They were faultless, as far as we were concerned,” said Laura. “They were really thorough.
“Right from the very first appointment, they were really inclusive of myself and Dan. And I know for Dan this was really different from his experiences at other clinics, where he had been a side part of the whole thing. They included him as much as they could.
“Our first round with them wasn’t successful but even then we got the impression that they had meetings to think about what might have gone wrong and what they could do differently for the second round in terms of changing medication, and the doctor told me her theory about what she thought might be happening.
“That was really different to the UK because our previous experience was that they decided it was my age, even though our embryos were always rated really high quality and we just weren’t keeping them. There was never any further investigation, they just repeated exactly the same thing every time. And then it’s probably not surprising we got exactly the same outcome.”
Now Laura and Dan have come to the end of their Fertility Journey, Laura encourages anyone who is considering IVF abroad to look to Alicante.
“We always trusted that IVF-Life had our best interests at heart,” she said. “The doctor was really positive, while also being honest and transparent about the treatment we were having.
“I can’t recommend them highly enough to anyone who is going abroad. They were fantastic.”
Updated, 3rd of December, 2024 by Kirsty Nutkins
A Journey to Parenthood: Laura and Dan’s Story
On August 6th, 2024, Laura and Dan, a couple from Exeter, England, joyfully welcomed their beautiful baby boy, Charlie, into the world. Their path to parenthood was made possible through IVF treatment at IVF-Life, after being selected for Fertility Road’s Fertility Journey project in the spring of 2023.
In a heartfelt video interview conducted by a fertility journalist Kirsty Nutkins, Laura and Dan share their inspiring story, reflecting on the challenges they faced, the hope they held onto, and the incredible support they received throughout their journey. Their experience offers encouragement and insight for others navigating the complexities of fertility treatment.
Below you can read full transcript of this interview.
Congratulations on the birth of Charlie! How old is he now?
Laura: He’s 17 weeks old today. And he has slept through for the last three nights, which is amazing. The world feels like a very different place!
You have had a long journey to become parents, haven’t you? So how did it feel when you learned that you had been selected as finalists for the Fertility Journey project with Fertility Road?
Laura: Dan took the call because they couldn’t get hold of me. I was at work.
Dan: It was a bit of a shock, because it was sort of done on a whim. It was quite late at night, and Laura just applied for the competition, and I didn’t know a great deal about it. She said she’d entered the competition, and I was like, ‘Right, okay’, and then I was at work one day and got a phone call. I couldn’t believe it, to be honest. I was like, ‘Really?!’ It was mad. You almost don’t believe it, either. You think, ‘Is this real?’
Did you have the thought that this might be a life changing moment for you, as a couple?
Laura: Yeah, I think so. It came at a really key time for us. We’d been through so much treatment, and anyone who goes through that finds it really, really challenging. And we had just got to the stage where we had started to talk about whether we needed to give up because of the finances and the emotional side of it. So we had had those discussions, and were trying to process that. We obviously were not okay with that decision, but we were trying to be okay with it. And then one night, I think it was 1.30am, I was scrolling online and came across the competition and just entered it randomly when I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t really think much else of it, and then we got the phone call. So yeah, it was a real shock. And for us, it meant the difference between us carrying on and having hope versus where we were, which was stopping treatment. We were four years into treatment at that point. So it came at a an amazing point.
Tell me about your first visit to IVF Life. What were your initial impressions of the clinic?
Laura: Oh, we loved it. We absolutely loved it. I think it was also nice just to get away from it all in Spain. When we’d been doing treatment previously, we weren’t having holidays or weekends away because we thought I might be pregnant, or we might be having a transfer. And we couldn’t afford it, because we needed to pay for these things. So even just the whole experience of getting to go to Spain was lovely! And on our first trip, the team were great. They were all really attentive, and when we walked in they gave us flowers, and treated us so nicely. And our doctor, Dr Herrera, was so thorough and explained everything. It was just brilliant.
You had some bad clinic experiences before, so this must have been like a breath of fresh air?
Dan: The thing that got me was the positivity. For our doctor, not having a baby wasn’t an option in her head, or that’s how it came across. Everything was worded like, ‘When you have your baby’. Whereas with the treatment we’d received previously, we were always given all those lines like, ‘There’s a high chance this won’t work’. It was just a totally different experience.
Laura: She was also honest and transparent, like, ‘This is what we need to do, these are the tests, this is why we’re doing it’. We were using donor eggs rather than my own, and they were open about why they were recommending what they were recommending for us.
How did you feel on the day of the embryo transfer? Can you remember anything that was going through your head?
Laura: Charlie was actually our second transfer at this clinic. Our first transfer resulted in a miscarriage. We found out about that loss in September 2023, and again, this is where the clinic was fantastic with us because we spoke to our doctor quite quickly. And I guess what made us feel really reassured is that they had a meeting to think about why it may not have worked for us, and then they changed the treatment and the medication for our second transfer. That was something that was really different, because in the UK, where we’d had treatment, they had decided with us what the problem was and we had just had repeated transfers, and nothing ever changed. I guess we went into that second transfer just feeling really reassured that the clinical team had looked at what might have gone wrong and what they could do differently to try and make the outcome different. Also, we probably learned to detach a little bit from the transfer; you get into that zone where your life, without sounding dramatic, is all about medical appointments and medication, and it was back to back treatment for us for about four or five years by the end of it. So it was just something we did. But I know that we went into this transfer feeling very different. I spoke to the doctor and was like, ‘I just want to be pregnant for Christmas, just get me pregnant for Christmas’. I remember her just putting her hand on my shoulder, going, ‘I’ll get you a baby’.
She sounds amazing.
Laura: She was really lovely. So we kind of went into it just feeling as confident as we could be, I guess.
And how was the two-week wait?
Laura: I was on a lot of medication. They upped the meds quite a lot. But yeah, it was as it always is… it kind of goes by in a bit of a blur.
And what was your reaction when you found out that the pregnancy test was positive? Can you describe the emotions of that moment?
Laura: It’s a year ago tomorrow that we found out. When we had had the first transfer that had ended in miscarriage, I’d had the blood test to measure my HCG levels. My HCG had come back positive, but it was low. And with Charlie, when we had our first HCG, it was so high – well over 250. I remember getting the results from the hospital to say that the blood test came back at that level, and we were just really surprised and happy.
Dan: You get excited, but then you bring yourself back down again. And going through the pregnancy still wasn’t easy, because of all the things we’d been through. We didn’t relax until he actually arrived.You stay quite nervous all the way through.
Laura: I went in for quite a lot of emergency scans over last Christmas, so you always have it in the back of your mind that it might go the same way as other ones…
But here he is, a little miracle.
Laura: We still look at him sometimes and just can’t actually believe that he is here. And he is just so gorgeous.
You mentioned your pregnancy was filled with some apprehension. But were there any joyful moments?
Laura: Yeah, there were. I was really poorly through most of the pregnancy, which took me by surprise. I’d been on medication for so many years and I’d mostly been okay on IVF medications, even with high doses, and so I’d thought I’d be okay with pregnancy. So I was quite shocked at how poorly I got. But I also thought I was going to be incredibly anxious through the pregnancy, and overall I wasn’t, and enjoyed being pregnant.
When you say you were poorly, was that with morning sickness?
Laura: Yes, I had morning sickness for quite a long time and an iron deficiency. And then for the first three months, I was still on the IVF medication as well and that was quite high – things like blood thinners. So I was on quite a lot of different medications at different points, and anti sickness tablets too. But overall, I did enjoy being pregnant.
Dan: She smashed it.
Did you feel supported by the medical team at IVF Life during your pregnancy?
Laura: Yeah, they were brilliant. Our patient coordinator was lovely. They would check in periodically and I always knew that if you emailed them, they would respond quickly.
Dan: You wouldn’t hear from them for a few weeks and when they’d be due to talk to you about a change in your dose of medication or something, the night before you would just get an email from them. You’d think they’d forgotten about you, but they never did. They were in a different country and probably dealing with lots of people, but they would always send you a personal message. I thought they were absolutely amazing.
Can you share your experience of your labour?
Laura: I had a planned C-section, because of lots of different risk factors. I was really anxious about that, because I had never had surgery before, but it was brilliant. Our surgeon and clinical team over here were amazing; I must have looked absolutely terrified, because they did everything to put me at ease. The surgeon came and gave me a hug before we went in, and was like, ‘Right, what can I do to make this less scary for you?’ I must have looked like a rabbit in headlights, but they were just brilliant. We had our own playlist on and they chatted to you the whole time, and then, within half an hour, they were handing Charlie to us. I wasn’t anxious until it got closer to the date that he was due. I think it’s because I couldn’t imagine somebody actually handing me a baby. That’s when all the past stuff kicked in, I couldn’t imagine it was all going to be okay. So there was a lot of anxiety. But the C-section happened quickly.
Dan: It’s crazy. They were like, ‘Come in at half past eight and you’ll have your baby at nine’.
Was there a specific moment during labour or immediately afterwards that really stands out for you?
Dan: When they put Charlie on Laura’s chest. We sat there and it was just us three for a bit.
Laura: But it all happened in such a blur!
How has life changed since Charlie was born? What are some of the little things that bring you the most joy on a day to day basis?
Laura: He is the smiliest baby! At every baby group we go to, he just doesn’t stop smiling. He is beautiful. And he can be sobbing, and if you make eye contact, he will just sort of grin at you through the tears. He’s just lovely and he’s got proper chatty, and he’s at that stage now where he seems to be changing on a daily basis.
Is there anything that you can share with other couples who might be considering IVF or a project like Fertility Journey?
Laura: Gosh, I think it’s just to fill the form in, isn’t it? You never think it will be you who wins it. And like I said, we just entered it on a whim at 1.30am in bed, when we couldn’t sleep and didn’t really think much of it. So I think you just have to go for it. I think it’s really difficult to give advice to other couples, though – I don’t want to put a dampener on it, but not everyone gets a happy ending. I think that IVF and fertility is such a traumatic and complicated journey, and the one thing I wish we had done sooner was to change clinics. If your clinic doesn’t feel right, then move. And I think that for us, in hindsight, it’s the one thing I wish we’d done sooner. The UK clinic didn’t feel right, and I didn’t trust when they weren’t changing the treatments to help us; if you repeat the same thing, you’re probably going to get the same result, and that’s what happened to us. And when we went to IVF Life in Alicante, it was a completely different experience. And even when the first round was unsuccessful, we still trusted them to do the best they could by us. And that’s really important. So if you come across the forms, absolutely fill them in, but also have consultations with other clinics until you find one that feels right, because that’s something we didn’t do early enough.
And looking back, what, what does being part of the Fertility Journey project mean to you and your family?
Laura: That’s really impossible to put into words. It’s given us everything we ever wanted. This was all we’d worked towards. All our dreams came true. And for us, the way our treatment always fell, we were pretty much having a pregnancy loss around November or December. So Christmases were always quite challenging. This is the first Christmas we’ll have with Charlie. So yeah, it means everything and we will never be able to tell them how grateful we are for the opportunity, because we probably might have given up at that point otherwise.
Is there a message that you would like to share with the team at IVF Life or with others who have supported you along the way?
Laura: IVF Life were just fantastic, they were faultless – the clinic, the atmosphere, the setting, the advice, the tests, and how inclusive they were in terms of explaining the treatment and what we were doing. And that hadn’t always been the case with other clinics we’d been to. We’d also like to just say a massive thank you to our doctor, Dr Herrera.
Updated, 28th of August, 2024
Laura and Dan welcomed their beautiful baby boy Charlie into the world on August 6th 2024.
The couple, from Exeter, England, were selected for treatment at IVF-Life as part of Fertility Road’s Fertility Journey project in spring 2023.
Now, just over a year later, the couple’s dream of having a baby has come true.
Laura said: “We really can’t put into words how happy (and tired) we are.”
“I just sit and stare at him for hours and I can’t believe he’s actually here and ours. He’s utterly perfect.”
“We will be forever grateful to Fertility Road and Dr Hererra at IVF-Life for picking us and making our dreams come true. The biggest thank you from us.”
Congratulations Laura and Dan, from everyone here at Fertility Road!
Updated, 14th of February, 2024
There was a very special early Christmas present for Laura and Dan when the couple discovered they were expecting a baby, following an embryo transfer at IVF-Life in Alicante.
Fertility Road caught up with Laura last week, just after her 12-week scan.
Laura said: “We had our first viability scan on December 22nd and it was the best Christmas present ever.
“Our hospital booked us in for regular scans to monitor me, given our history. “By the time we got to our 12-week scan, we had already had four scans, three were with the hospital for monitoring. They have been absolutely brilliant. “We are doing great. I’m trying to embrace feeling like I have the worst hangover every day! I’m living on toast and orange juice – hopefully the ‘pregnancy glow’ kicks in at some point!”
The couple had their first embryo transfer at IVF-Life on September 11th last year. The transfer worked, but the hCG levels were low. Unfortunately, the pregnancy was ultimately lost.
“We had our meeting with the clinic and we were quite keen to restart treatment as soon as possible,” says Laura. “They decided that it might be immunology problems that have caused us to have so many losses and so they changed my medication slightly. We started medication quite quickly and we went back for our second transfer on November 24th.”
This time the clinic gave Laura an intralipid infusion on the day of her transfer.
Laura explains: “It is a synthetic solution widely used in healthcare and contains soybean oil, egg, phosphate lipids, and glycerine. The fusion is administered intravenously through a vein in either the hand or the arm, and then research has suggested that women who failed to conceive or maintain a pregnancy as a result of abnormal natural killer cell level or function may benefit from the use of intralipids.
“Some types of infertility may be caused by a slightly overactive immune system where the immune system attacks the egg. So they wonder if that’s what’s been happening and why we’ve had losses with good quality eggs and then obviously with a donor egg as well. “Clearly, I’ve got no problems with getting pregnant. It’s maintaining the pregnancy and the losses happen very early.”
Ten days after the second transfer, Laura had a blood test which showed hCG levels of over 200 – more than six-times the levels achieved following the previous transfer.
She added: “I was ridiculously excited to see such a high hCG number. And obviously that doesn’t necessarily mean a lot on its own, but it just felt very different from the pregnancies that we’ve had before.”
Laura underwent two more intralipid infusions at a specialist clinic in Birmingham, the UK, in December and again in January.
Laura and Dan have been full of praise for the team at IVF-Life, saying the experience has been a world apart from their past treatment at their UK clinic. “I know it sounds really silly, but we’d walk in and just wouldn’t want to leave the office! They are so approachable. “We had Dr Herrera for our treatment and she’s great. She’s really caring and really direct as well, so it’s easy to understand what’s going on. She’s really transparent.”
“We have been so impressed with the clinic and so unbelievably grateful for the opportunity that we have had,” Laura added. “If we hadn’t won the competition, there is no way we would be in this position now. We are so grateful.”
Congratulations Laura and Dan, from everybody here at Fertility Road!
Updated, 16th of September, 2023
The big day finally arrived for Laura and Dan this week – embryo transfer day at IVF-Life in Alicante.
The couple flew from the UK to Spain over the weekend ahead of the transfer on Monday (September 11th). The couple had four good-quality embryos waiting for them at the clinic.
Laura said: “We had one embryo transferred and that was rated 5AB, so it was a good quality embryo. The transfer went well, although my lining was measured at seven millimetres, which I don’t think is as big as it could be, so they have upped my progesterone medication to take over the next few weeks.”
Although the couple were pleased with how the transfer went, Laura admits the run up to it had proved to be a huge emotional rollercoaster.
“I found the lead up really difficult, I think because it was quite a long process, having the biopsy in the middle. And all those doubts start to creep in,” she said. “I’ve been swinging between ‘I might be able to paint the nursery soon’ to ‘don’t be so ridiculous, I don’t think I can handle another negative pregnancy test, why have we done this?’. I’ve been really struggling with that.”
Dan added: “It’s hard to get too excited, because there is that other side of it.”
“I think we ended up overthinking it,” Laura added. “You need to hold hope in this mind-body link. You need to be positive. But you also want to protect yourself because it’s been so hard in the past. It’s a really tricky balance.”
But one thing that has made the process easier is the superior service from the team at IVF-Life.
Laura said: “The service has been great. They’ve been really helpful, always sending emails saying ‘reminding you that you will stop this medication today or you’re starting this medication today and take it like this’. And that’s just been great.
“The practical side of that is just really helpful and that they’re holding you in mind is really sweet and different from what we’ve experienced before.”
Dan added: “Our first patient coordinator came running down yesterday to find us because she heard we were in the building to say hello and that was really lovely.
“And our other coordinator came and found us before we left and said good luck. It was really nice.”
Laura said: “The clinic was so happy and positive, it’s really rubbed off. I need to go and visit them every week!”
The couple are now enjoying some more annual leave this week before returning to work on Monday.
A blood test will be booked later in the month to confirm whether the transfer has worked.
Updated, 9th of June, 2023
Laura and Dan jetted off to Spain this week for their first appointment with IVF-Life.
The couple were greeted with flowers and chocolates when they arrived at the Alicante clinic and both were immediately impressed by the team of staff that had offered them such a warm welcome.
Laura said: “The first appointment went really well and everyone was lovely. The doctors were great and explained everything really well. It was really efficient and well organised.”
Laura had an ultrasound scan and underwent various blood tests, including an immunology test and a test to check her TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels. Dan also had bloods taken before providing a sperm sample for testing.
“We then went in to see the doctor and she went through all the different areas that can affect the outcome and talked about what the tests would show up and what they were looking for,” said Laura. “Then she went through a timeline with us in terms of when we would have to be back next and what further tests she wanted us to have.”
Laura and Dan are scheduled to return to IVF-Life for an endometrial biopsy on July 25th. This test will check whether there are any issues with Laura’s uterine lining and confirm the best time for the embryo transfer.
Although the couple admit they initially found their first clinic visit overwhelming, they left feeling that they were in good hands.
“Everything was explained and it all made sense. It felt like a really clear and transparent process,” said Laura.
“So even though today was really overwhelming, it did feel really inclusive and patient centred.”
The embryo transfer is scheduled for September 11th.
Updated, 18th of May, 2023
From the Covid shutdown to substandard service from their chosen fertility clinic, Laura and Dan have encountered more than their fair share of obstacles on their IVF treatment journey.
But the couple, who live in Exeter, England, experienced a change in fortune this week as they became the latest couple to be selected for treatment at IVF-Life as part of Fertility Road’s Fertility Journey project.
Clinical psychologist Laura, 42, and carpet fitter Dan, 40, married in July 2019 and started trying for a baby shortly afterwards.
Laura said: “After six months of nothing happening, we went to the doctors and were advised to have a number of tests. The tests, in early 2020, found that my egg quality was poor, even for my age.
“And then Covid hit and put a stop to treatment. But our clinic was pretty good and, because of my age, prioritised us.”
The couple’s first round of IVF at the end of 2020 was successful, but sadly they experienced an early pregnancy loss shortly before Christmas. Two further rounds were unfortunately unsuccessful.
After the third round in April 2022, the clinic recommended that the couple should use donor eggs.
Laura said: “I wasn’t sure how I felt about that at first. We did a lot of reading and research about what having a donor egg would mean and we decided we would like to go forward. “We started researching Spanish clinics, because that’s what our UK clinic recommended in terms of quality of care and waiting lists.”
Unfortunately the couple received substandard care from their chosen Spanish clinic – something that added unnecessary stress to their IVF journey.
Laura recalls: “The care we had from the clinic was really poor. It was just a nightmare.”
The couple visited the Spanish clinic in November 2022 and were told they would return for egg transfer on February 14, and would receive fortnightly updates from their patient coordinator about the donor selection process. However, things did not go as Laura and Dan had hoped.
Laura said: “I was told to start taking medication and to book scans in line with our protocol, which we did. Transfer date was fast approaching, and we had never spoken to our coordinator and hadn’t received any updates on the donor selection and whether we would be travelling on the identified date.
“After raising concerns with the clinic, we were told they hadn’t found us a donor. The impact this has on our protocol was never discussed with us by the clinic. Two days after we were told they hadn’t found us a donor, I received an email telling me our donor had dropped out and to stop taking the medication immediately, which was really confusing to us as we had been told we didn’t have a donor yet. I finally managed to speak to our patient coordinator following this who accused me of taking the medication without the agreement of the clinic, stating I should never have started the medication without them first confirming they had found a donor. I had to provide all the email evidence to show the clinic had told me to start the medication and I had only done what they asked me to do.
“We spoke to a manager at the clinic about building relationships and trust and to take some time to get to know a new patient coordinator, which we were happy to do. However, 24 hours after this phone-call, we were informed that they had found a new donor and had started her stimulation. We were then asked for our decision about whether to proceed and then received a final call saying the donor was going in for egg collection and they needed a decision. “It was really difficult as we still didn’t have a relationship with the clinic or any faith in the process as we hadn’t been involved in any way.”
Laura and Dan made the difficult decision to walk away. “It was really upsetting after feeling we could be so close to finally falling pregnant and would now have to start the whole process again,” Laura said. “The whole experience was really overwhelming.”
To add insult to injury, the clinic only refunded some of the money, keeping a significant amount for tests and so-called ‘admin fees’, leaving the couple substantially out of pocket.
But thankfully, this week Laura and Dan received the happy news that they had been selected for free IVF treatment at IVF-Life in Alicante as part of Fertility Road’s Fertility Journey project.
Laura said:
“The news came at a really amazing time following our experience at the other clinic. I think we really didn’t realise quite how much we needed some good news.”
And Laura and Dan are already noticing a huge difference in their experiences with this new Spanish clinic.
Laura said: “It’s already made a real difference.
“I know the treatment might not work, but I think just getting the news that we won, it’s just made a massive difference to us.
“We’re just really excited and all the emails that we’ve had from the clinic so far have been absolutely adorable, so sweet, just really friendly.
“The clinic looks fantastic. We’re not nervous, we’re looking forward to getting on with it!”
Dan added: “IVF is incredibly stressful to go through and we’ve had many years of it and we now feel like a huge part of that stress has been taken away. The financial aspect of treatment can take away from why you are doing it so now we can focus on the goal and try to enjoy the process more.
“The clinic has really included me in everything so far, which is very different from our past experiences and it has really made a difference to how I feel.”
Laura and Dan’s first appointment at IVF-Life is scheduled for June 6th.
