“The fear of childlessness, it just consumed me completely.” Jessie-May Perry
Jessie-May and Robert Perry started trying for a family as soon as they were married. When nothing had happened after two years, they went to their GP, who referred them to the fertility team at Life.
“I remember the very first meeting we went to,” Jessie-May says. “I’d been really excited to go because it felt like something really positive. Then when we got there and there’s the reality of sitting in a room with lots of other infertile people, this weird sort of mix of hope and fear in the waiting room just sort of overtook me and I just cried and cried and cried.”
They were diagnosed with unexplained fertility at that point, and went into their first round of in vitro fertilisation (IVF). That process moved quickly, taking two months from first injection to pregnancy test.
All the treatment was on Jessie-May’s side, first to quieten her ovaries, with injections every morning which essentially put you into menopause, then after three and a half weeks switch to stimulating egg production to harvest as many as possible.
Being just 10 minutes from Life meant they could schedule tests and scans to suit them. They could also ask questions and research how it worked.
“I went from understanding nothing about it to understanding every step of the way,” says Jessie-May.
They felt positive after the first process went well, collecting 23 eggs.
But, it wasn’t to be.
“Then they phoned and said, ‘all the sperm are dead’,” Jessie-May recalls. “My eggs killed his sperm. The sperm were fine on their own because they test those first. And that was the end of the round. Just like that. It was like hitting a brick wall.”
The Perrys were told a different technique – known as ICSI – might work for them.
This is the process that springs to mind when most people think of IVF, imagining the extreme magnified image of a single sperm being injected into an egg.
Although the ICSI approach allowed them to get around the initial problem, there was still no guarantee of success and two more failed attempts followed, including one with a frozen embryo.
After a third round of egg collection resulted in five embryos, they opted to have one implanted.
Throughout much of their IVF journey, they had to balance hope and realism, and manage huge anxiety underneath a huge drive to have a family. Jessie-May talks about feeling negative when going in for pregnancy tests.
“I went in and it was my favourite nurse,” Jessie-May remembers, “she was called Tanya, and she was taking my blood that day. She had sedated me when we had all the egg collections and she said, “why shouldn’t it be you this time? Why isn’t it your turn?”
It was Tanya who phoned later that day to tell Jessie-May she was pregnant – “I wonder if they get dibs on the good news!”, Jessie-May says.
That embryo became Flora.
“We took her in to meet Lynn, the embryologist – imagine that being your job and sometimes you get to meet the babies that you make. It was 10 years ago today that we took her in.” Jessie-May Perry
After Flora was born, Jessie-May and Robert went back to Life in the hope of expanding their family. In their final round they opted to implant two embryos, increasing the chances of success, but also increasing the chances of ending up with twins.
They were less anxious, and some of that sense of desperation and fear of not being able to have a family which had existed before Flora was born had gone, but they were still managing their own expectations.
“We just assumed it wasn’t going to work,” says Robert.
“We thought ‘If we’re really lucky we’ll get one…go on, chuck them both back in!’” says Jessie-May.
Just before the first scan of their second pregnancy, Jessie-May started experiencing severe morning sickness.
“They started laughing before they even turned the screen around,” Jessie-May says. “I can’t remember the name of the lovely sister, I can picture her so clearly. She was like “…and this will be why you’re feeling sick!”
The twins, Kit and Mabel, came from the same set of embryos as their older sister Flora.
The children all know the story of how they came to be, and despite Flora being older, share the connection that all three of their embryos were all created on the same day at Life.
One of the perks of IVF is they have a photo of them all as a bundle of cells at just five days gestation, as well as the usual 12 week scan.
“The twins know they were in the freezer, I have to clarify, “Not that one in the kitchen!”, but they know it was a slightly different process, and they know that’s the building they were originally created in.” Robert Perry
They enjoy visits to Life, and often pause by the fertility clinic before going into the science centre.
“They’ve been going to Life since they were toddlers,” Robert says. “Embryos!” corrects Jessie-May.
As well as being open with their children, the couple are also open with other people about their IVF journey, believing having those conversations lessens the stigma still associated with infertility and helps others going through the process and dealing with the challenges that go with it.
“We watched the Joy dramatisation on Netflix recently about the first test tube baby,” Robert says, “and it was just so interesting to see how some of it has changed, but how some of it hasn’t.”
“A lot of the stuff that hasn’t changed is the emotion,” he concludes. “These families who had no thought that this might happen for them and then there was this amazing science that made it work. People should know. People should be aware that that can happen.”
Life is celebrating 25 years! We’ve been reminiscing about some of our favourite memories since we opened and would love to hear yours!
