My wife Jacey and I had been talking about having children for some time. We decided that we wanted to start the ball rolling in 2018 so I began searching the internet for information. During my research the London Women’s Clinic came up time and time again. Our best friends had also recently used the London Women’s Clinic to conceive their baby and highly recommended them.

Because of this we booked ourselves onto an open evening at the LWC Bristol in January 2018. I remember going to this with such excitement. It really felt like the first step of our journey. The evening was fantastic. So informative and personalised to what we wanted and needed to know. Being a same sex couple we both wanted to be involved in the process as much as possible, so we were looking into intra-partner egg donation. The process was explained and all of our questions (there were a lot!) were answered. We were so impressed and assured that that this was the right clinic for us that we booked there and then that night.

The following week we met with the consultant, Dr Chandra Kailasam, and discussed our treatment and drugs. Again we were put at ease at every step of the way. We knew intra-partner egg donation was the right treatment for us. After the appointment we purchased our donor sperm from the London Sperm Bank.

Our treatment began fairly swiftly. I began a course of medication and then not long after so did Jacey. It was so magical to be going through everything together. The nurses were just a phone call away if we have any questions or queries. During the treatment we visited the clinic a few times. We enjoyed these appointments and would get excited for the next step.   

The time came for Jacey to have her egg retrieval procedure. Everything went really smoothly and 12 eggs were collected. Over the course of the next few days we were kept up to date by the embryologist. It was such a nerve racking time. Luckily 5 of the fertilised eggs made it to blastocyst stage embryos.  Shortly after we proceeded with the embryo transfer, where the embryo was being transferred back into myself. 

Unfortunately, this round didn’t work, however, we felt so supported. We had a follow up appointment the week after the negative pregnancy test result. Dr Kailasam went through absolutely everything and we felt reassured and positive to try again with our remaining embryos.

We started the second round two months later. We have such fond memories of the embryo transfer and even have a photograph of the blastocyst. Two weeks after the embryo transfer we had a positive pregnancy test. We were trilled!

I gave birth to our son in April 2019. We both found the process of IVF a magical one. Each step and process amazed us and we loved knowing all of the details.  We feel so lucky to be able to have created a family and are so grateful to the LWC Bristol for everything. We look forward to growing our family in the future with the London Women’s Clinic.