Thank you Chana for helping us build our family
IAM DAN. I am 27 years old. I grew up in Ilford and you can usually find me with my mates at the centre of the action. If not, you’ll find me on the football pitch. This is how it has been for as long as I can remember. We do everything together. We went to yeshiva together, we went to uni together, we got married around the same time, and now everyone has started having children. Everyone except us.
Honestly, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as male infertility. It’s just not something you come across. When my test results came back with concerns, I was sure there had been a mistake. I redid the test, thinking everything would be OK second time around. When the doctor explained the results, I was so in shock I had to ask him to explain it again. I have got a serious problem with my sperm known as oligospermia. It was clear that we would need to have IVF with the extra intervention of ICSI to give us a chance of my wife Abigail falling pregnant. I went to my appointment on my own, and I sat outside the doctor’s office in my car, staring out the windscreen, thinking how I was going to break this news to Abigail.
She was in shock at first as well, but she was incredibly supportive, and positive — maybe overly so. I knew that this was obviously hugely disappointing for her. As the evening went on, it started to sink in that starting our family was going to be difficult, painful, delayed, and potentially very expensive. The more we learned about the IVF process, the more I began to understand what Abigail would go through both physically and emotionally. The feeling of guilt was crippling. I knew it wasn’t reasonable, but I started to feel like I was failing as a man, and as a husband. All my friends had babies already, to my knowledge no one had struggled, and there was no one I felt I could talk to about this.
A friend of Abigail’s who had had IVF suggested that we call Chana. Our experience changed significantly from there. Within a few days of contacting the helpline we had had our first meeting with a support worker. It was clear they had seen this all before — it made us feel normal for the first time in months. They offered me individual sessions that gave me a space to work through my own feelings without burdening Abi and they offered counselling for us as a couple, which supported us through the challenging treatment process.
We were lucky to be eligible for one round of treatment through the NHS. When treatment finally started, there were many medical and halachic questions that Chana helped us to address, easily and with professionalism and discretion. As the process unfolded, so many different pieces had to line up for everything to work. It wasn’t easy for either of us. I had to have a surgical procedure, on top of the regular IVF protocol and it was a big physical and emotional investment. Thankfully we were able to create six viable embryos, but after we transferred the first embryo we found out Abi wasn’t pregnant and the IVF cycle had failed. We were both devastated, and our support workers really helped us make it through that time and assisted us in forging a path forward with private treatment.
Then there was the cost — we were absolutely floored by the estimated cost of treatment. There was no way that we could cover those costs on our own. Chana was unbelievable again, stepping in to fill in financially where we just couldn’t manage. The funding process was carried out in such a dignified manner that made it somehow easier to accept the support.
We would do it all over again for our little boy Charlie, who brings us more joy, love and pride than we could have ever imagined. Amazingly, Chana has assured us they are here for us when we are ready to give Charlie a sibling. Our experience has taught us how easily we can fall into taking our blessings for granted — we are so acutely aware of how much goes into creating every life — and how a charity like Chana can transform the lives of couples struggling with infertility and help them to build the family they might not have achieved on their own.
We are acutely aware of how much goes into creating every life