Crowdfunding to pay for IVF cycle

● Miscarriages nightmare leads family to appeal for treatment fund

The family of a woman who has suffered nine miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy have launched a crowdfunding appeal to pay for a further course of IVF treatment.

Pamela Mackenzie is looking to raise £6,000 to help pay for IVF as she does not qualify for a free round of treatment on the NHS in Scotland as she has had two previous cycles.

The 36-year-old said that she was “determined to keep trying” despite a heartbreaking round of miscarriages stretching back over 17 years and the agony of an ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo implants itself outside the womb.

Pamela, who has been together with her husband Ian for 19 years and married for nine, was diagnosed with Polycysticovarysyndrome(pcos) – a condition that makes it difficult to get pregnant, when she was just 13. She was told by her local GP that she would need help to conceive a child and not to wait too long.

Pamela started trying for a child when she was 19, suffered

0 Pamela Mackenzie, who has had nine miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy, is looking to raise £6,000 her first miscarriage aged 21, and was left heartbroken by the experience, having thought she would have a healthy pregnancy with a baby at the end.

The couple did not try for a few years as Pamela says she was “scared” the same thing would happen again, but at the age of 25 she was rushed into hospital with an ectopic preg- nancy which she described as “devastating”.

Pamela told how she has wanted to be a mum for her “whole life” and that husband Ian wants to experience fatherhood.

She said: “I’m determined to keep trying because there’s something in me that just wants to keep fighting to try and get pregnant and have a kid. Every time I think about giving up I end up keeping going.

“I just think that until I’ve tried everything possible I don’t want to give up. It would mean the world to me, if you asked me what I wanted to do as a job when I was young – I would have said ‘be a mum’. It’s been something that I’ve wanted to do my whole life.”

The criteria for eligible patients who are new referrals for IVF treatment under the Scottish Government scheme introduced in April includes infertility with an appropriate cause of any duration or unexplained infertility of two years for heterosexual couples. Fresh cycles of treatment must be initiated by the date of the female partner’s 40th birthday, and all subsequent frozen transfers must be complete before the woman’s 41st birthday.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “IVF treatment can be a difficult time for couples and that’s why we want to give more people the opportunity to conceive.

“Since April, new patients referred for IVF on the NHS may now be eligible for three full cycles. NHS IVF access in Scotland is by far the fairest and most generous in the UK and the changes were implemented following recommendations by the National Infertility Group.”