I returned to the clinic fully intending to go ahead with IVF, but about 30 minutes after buying the drugs, something in me realised that their approach wasn’t for me. But, because I was managing to fall pregnant, they were keen for me to continue trying for a year and see if anything happened. I went to ARGC and after undergoing their initial tests, they expressed concerns about my Natural Killer (NK) cells. By this point I was just over 38 years of age. At this point, I started to feel like it was my body that was killing the foetus. Following this, I got pregnant again but miscarried straight away. The Professor thought the problem may be due to my husband’s weight, and so he underwent sperm DNA fragmentation but the results showed no issues. I returned for a scan at five weeks but there was nothing to see – I had miscarried. I became pregnant and was prescribed a low-dose of aspirin.
It was at this point I was referred to Professor Lesley Regan, who carried out a series of tests – the results came back and didn’t show any anomalies. He wanted me to try for a baby three more times to see if it would take, but I wasn’t able to sustain a pregnancy for more than two months and kept on miscarrying. My gynaecologist attributed it to bad luck and put me on aspirin – which is given to women with recurrent pregnancy loss – and Clomid. After that, I got pregnant again and carried to 28 weeks, but unfortunately had a stillbirth. History repeated itself and I had another miscarriage. When Leo was one year old we started trying for our second child.
It would be a full five years, 9 miscarriages and a stillbirth before we’d have a successful pregnancy. Little did we know, I would be one of the 3-5 in 100 women that experience recurrent miscarriage. When we were ready to start trying for a second baby, it didn’t occur that we may find it difficult. We were very fortunate in that – with the exception of a tiny bit of bleeding – he was a textbook pregnancy. We continued trying and about five months later, I fell pregnant with my son, Leo. Unfortunately, eight weeks into the pregnancy I suffered miscarriage and lost the baby. My fertility journey first started back in 2011 when I first fell pregnant. After after 9 miscarriages and a stillbirth, she has finally welcomed into the world her daughter, with the help of controversial fertility treatment, immune therapy. Katie has a son but suffered from secondary infertility when trying for another baby. If you’re considering immune therapy for miscarriage you may be interested to hear the story of Katie Grynberg, a patient of The Fertility & Gynaecology Academy.