A woman from Bristol credits a friend she made while travelling in Bali in 2016 for the baby boy she gave birth to five years later.
Headteacher Vera Bernard said she was inspired by the pragmatic approach of a friend she met on her holiday who told her she’d recently had her eggs frozen because she wanted a baby in the future and was worried about her fertility declining with age.
Vera said: “This chimed with my own situation. I was 35 at the time and in a new relationship, so not sure where that would go – but I didn’t want to miss out on the chance of having a baby when the time was right.
“I came straight home from Bali, started researching local fertility clinics, chose BCRM and embarked on my first round of egg freezing in November 2016.
“I was 35 at the time and my first round of treatment resulted in eight frozen eggs, with a further 12 being harvested a few months later, giving me a reassuring total of 20 eggs preserved for future use.
“The staff at BCRM were wonderful, especially their director of nursing Carrie Lomax who was so knowledgeable and understanding.”
Vera had just had her first round of treatment in 2016 when she started going out with Jon, and when they married – shortly before lockdown in 2020 – he was aware of the precaution Vera had taken to protect her chances of a future family.
Initially the couple tried to conceive naturally, but having had no success by the time fertility clinics started offering treatment again after Covid they decided to start IVF using Vera’s frozen eggs.
Vera said: “I was 39 by then, so time was not on my side. What’s more because the frozen eggs had been extracted when I was a few years younger, their quality was likely to be better than any eggs remaining in my ovaries, and we wanted the healthiest possible baby and pregnancy, so it made sense to return to BCRM.
“Their recommended approach was to use ICSI, which entails each egg being individually injected with a single sperm, and we ended up with three healthy embryos available to us for implantation.
“I was unbelievably tense throughout the whole thing – there was such a lot riding on this treatment – and we were having daily conversations with embryologist Heather Griffith who provided just the right amount of scientific detail to keep us informed about how matters were developing.
“On 1st April 2021 one of those precious embryos was transferred into me, in synch with my natural cycle.
“I was fortunate because I had no complicating health factors, and our surgeon Valentine Akande was brilliant: calm, matter-of-fact, positive and encouraging.
“And we were so lucky because the procedure resulted in a positive pregnancy test first time.
“I loved being pregnant, and our beautiful son Stefan was born in January 2022, two weeks before my 40th birthday, weighing 6lb 8oz.
“We are so thankful to have him, because at one stage we had thought maybe we wouldn’t be able to have a family, and I find the fact of Stefan’s birth – using eggs I’d had frozen four years earlier as a precautionary measure – really mind-blowing.
“We want to say a huge thank you to the wonderful team at Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine, and to share our story to give hope to others who find themselves in a similar situation.”
BCRM www.fertilitybristol.com is the longest established fertility clinic in Bristol, helping people from throughout the South West and Wales with fertility treatment for both private and NHS patients. The clinic is involved in innovative research and has one of the best success rates with IVF and other fertility treatments in the UK.
