Our £55,000 little miracle!
Longed-for baby arrives thanks to IVF … and two bank loans
‘We couldn’t be happier’
IT took eight years, cost £55,000, and included a journey to an IVF clinic in Spain and the heartbreak of two miscarriages.
For Joe Thorp, however, every moment was worth it when she finally gave birth to her ‘miracle’ baby Marshall 16 months ago.
Miss Thorp, 49, and her partner Tom Legg, 34, had always wanted a family and began trying for a baby in 2009.
But they struggled to conceive naturally and after three years the couple, from Addlestone, Surrey, turned to IVF.
They spent their £ 10,000 life savings on private treatment in Britain, and when that failed they took out two bank loans worth £ 45,000 to pay for a further six rounds of treatment at home and abroad. Miss Thorp, a training manager, and Mr Legg had begun to consider adoption after spending £32,300 on failed IVF in the uk when they learned about the Instituto Bernabeu, a fertility clinic in Alicante, Spain.
There, they spent £11,200 on two rounds of treatment and a further £3,200 on flights and accommodation. Eventually, after a miscarriage at six weeks – the second time this had happened to Miss Thorp – she became pregnant with Marshall with the help of an egg donor.
But the ordeal did not end there. Marshall had to fight for his life in hospital for 51 days after being born 11 weeks early weighing 3lb 3oz, before being allowed home a month before his actual due date.
Miss Thorp said: ‘We couldn’t be happier with our dream family. I met Tom when I was 39 and he was 24. We both desperately wanted to have a family, but it was harder than we could ever imagine. Our only hope left was IVF. We were on a mission to have a baby and weren’t going to let anything stop us.
‘It became evident my own eggs were infertile as the IVF failed twice. We were considering adoption until our uk consultant suggested using an egg donor.’
The average price of egg donor IVF in the uk is £7,000 plus medication, but the couple – who had spent £2,480 on other medication and scans in the uk and £5,800 on traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture – found the cheaper practice in Spain. Miss Thorp said: ‘I was pregnant at the first attempt. Sadly, I miscarried at six weeks, but we still had two frozen eggs to use.
‘We flew back to Spain and it was another success. It was the best feeling in the world when the pregnancy went a week past six weeks.’
After the drama of Marshall’s arrival, he was able to leave hospital in time for Christmas. His mother said: ‘He may not have my DnA but he is my biological son. It will never change how much we love him.’
The nHS typically offers two rounds of IVF but many wouldbe parents pay privately to beat queues, with hospitals charging around £3,500 per cycle.