Kentish Express Ashford & District
‘Miracle’ of mum told she was sterile
A woman who was told she was sterile but underwent successful IVF treatment - despite her husband having been diagnosed with cancer - has told prospective parents “miracles can happen”.
Louise Fowler, 35, and husband David Fowler, 38 respectively, had their hopes of raising a family crushed in 2013 when David was told he was suffering from the disease.
Earlier that year, on returning from holiday in Turkey, the pair discovered a lump on David’s neck but assumed it was caused by a minor swimming injury.
Tests revealed David, an office administrator, had contracted Hodgkin lymphoma, which develops in the lymphatic system.
Louise, a learning support assistant at Ashford’s Wyvern School, said: “It was a scary time. To see someone you love go through that is painful and it was particularly upsetting because we had recently decided to try for a family.”
Putting their plans for a family on hold, David underwent a sixmonth course of chemotherapy.
It works by killing cells in the body that are dividing quickly, and since sperm cells rapidly multiply, they are easily targeted by chemo.
The cancer was caught early and in 2014 doctors gave David the all-clear, furthermore, he was still fertile.
But in a cruel twist further tests revealed Louise was sterile.
“It was unbelievable because we had already been through so much.
“The toughest thing is when your friends around you are all having children and people are constantly talking about their children. It just feels like a stab in the heart,” the ex-Towers School pupil said.
Doctors discovered Louise suffered a hormonal inbalance causing irregular ovulation cycles, the pair went on to seek help of a Canterbury fertility clinic.
And so months of her life would be spent on Clomid, a medication used to stimulate ovulation, but it proved unsuccessful.
She continued: “I was on it for about six months but nothing changed, nothing happened, it felt hopeless.”
The couple, who live in Shaftesbury Avenue, Folkestone, decided then to try In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) at Care Fertility in Tunbridge Wells.
Louise said: “It was our last hope really, by this point we’d been trying for a child for four or five years. Then, on the third cycle I fell pregnant, it was an unbelievable feeling.”