‘It cost me £80K & 18 years to be a mum’
After 18 years of A fertility treatment, costing £80,000, Louise Warneford, now 50, finally became a mum last year.
She says, “When I met my husband Mark, 55, a driver for the Ministry of Defence, in 1999, we knew we both wanted children, but Mark had had a vasectomy following the birth of his two daughters with a previous partner.
“It couldn’t be reversed so we chose to have IVF, using donor sperm. I knew it wasn’t going to be a straightforward journey, but I didn’t realise how hard it would be.
“As Mark had daughters, we weren’t eligible for NHS treatment, so we went private in 2001. The drugs were awful and I had so many mood swings, but when I tested positive, I was thrilled.
“However, at ten weeks, I lost the baby. I knew I had to carry on and I told myself that it would work next time.
“Over the next 10 years I went through a further 17 rounds of IVF, all of which ended in miscarriage. We scrimped and saved to afford it. It was hell, but the drive to become a mother consumed me. I could get pregnant, but I couldn’t hold on to the baby. I had test after test, but doctors couldn’t find anything wrong.
“In 2010, after my 18th round of IVF, I suffered a late miscarriage at 14 weeks. I went for a routine scan and they told me the baby had no heartbeat. I started screaming. I couldn’t take any more. I was 42 and I thought it was my last chance.
“But, after reading about killer cells that attack foetuses, I found out about specialist centre, The Miscarriage Clinic, in Epsom. I went for a test and it came out positive. I was then told they had a treatment with an 85 per cent success rate.
“I was too old to have IVF in the UK, so in 2015, we travelled to Prague to use a donor egg and sperm and then continued treatment at Epsom throughout my pregnancy.
“After falling pregnant for the 19th time, William was born on 1 June 2016. I was smitten. William’s now 16 months and he’s just gorgeous. All the years of heartache and devastation were worth it.”