We have set up this page for anyone that would like to help contribute toward us doing our 4th IVF round/ frozen embryo transfer.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with our story here’s a quick(ish) break down......

Myself and Rudy got married almost 4 years ago and decided to start trying to have a baby straight away- but we didn’t want to put any pressure on it and said we’d just let it happen naturally.

After 6-9 months of trying I began to suspect there might have been a problem and TTC soon became all consuming and it felt like a dark cloud entered over our heads- that unfortunately still hasn’t left us.

After years of unhelpful GP appointments, waiting, tests, jumping through hoops, cancelled appointments and a lot more waiting we finally received our NHS funding for one fresh cycle of IVF in May 2017 - after almost 3 years of trying. Things finally started to feel more positive and I started treatment immediately. Learning to perform multiple injections on myself daily was super bizarre and terrifying to start with, but I quickly got used to it.

We were incredibly fortunate that the whole cycle went super smoothly for us and we ended up with 4 really good quality fertilised embryos (eggs) at the end. One of which was placed back inside my uterus and rest were frozen.

We had no expectations for our first round working and having had friends that had done IVF, we knew it was pretty rare for it to work first time. So we truly were shocked to discover that I was pregnant from our first cycle. After doing around 100 negative pregnancy tests over the years it was quite a magical moment finally getting a positive reading.

The start of my pregnancy all went smoothly, with the usual sickness and aches that I expected and on my 30th birthday I received the best present I could have asked for when I had my 7 week scan and we got to see our babies heartbeat for the first time.

From 8 weeks things got a bit more complicated as I experienced heavy bleeding as well as a huge internal bleed in my uterus and then at nearly 11 weeks, during a dizzy spell I had a bad fall down a flight of stairs that resulted in me breaking my ankle. I suspected this was game over for our baby but with each scare she fought back.

I had several scans in my first trimester due to all the scares, but at each one her heart beat was strong and we were told everything was looking normal.

We stupidly presumed all was fine as we completed our first 3 months and believed that our dreams had finally come true- we even went and had a photoshoot done to use as our announcement photo.

So obviously our world was completely and utterly torn apart at our dating scan, at almost 13 weeks when we were told that our baby had a very rare and severe brain defect that affects around 1 in 500,000 babies and that it was unfortunately terminal. Our only real option was to terminate the pregnancy, otherwise we knew there would be worse heartache further down the line.

The day of the scan was the worst day of my life and it still haunts me daily now.

To make the situation even worse, because I was over 12 weeks they couldn’t perform the termination locally and there was also a waiting list. We had to wait a further 3 weeks and go to Bournemouth to have it done.

In the mean time we went on holiday to try and escape and start to process it, but my bump was growing by the day. I was being sick 4+ times a day and I had really bad heartburn- of course these are all normal pregnancy symptoms and if I’m ever lucky enough to get pregnant again I will embrace them fully- but when you’re on holiday with your family, carrying a baby that you’ll never get to know, it’s pretty heartbreaking having a constant reminder of what was still to come.

On the 13th of September 2017 at 16 weeks we had to say goodbye to our daughter that we named Juniper.

Trying to muster up any positivity to move forward was hard. But ultimately we weren’t ready to give up on our dream yet.

So in November last year we went ahead with a frozen IVF cycle and kept everything crossed that it would work as well as our first- it didn’t and on Christmas eve we found out that our 2nd cycle had failed and I wasn’t pregnant.

It was of course devastating, but we tried not to wallow too much and we borrowed some money from my family to go again with round 3. We went into the cycle in January with the mentality of ‘new year, new start’ and all those positive mantras. However we discovered last week (2 days after Juniper’s due date and a few days before what should have been my first Mother’s Day) that our 3rd round has failed as well.

Devastated doesn’t even come close to how we’re feeling right now. We would just like a bit of good luck to come our way soon.

IVF is super tough emotionally, physically and financially. So for now we’ll be taking a break to let my body and our minds deal with all the trauma and disappointment we’ve faced. But we’re not giving up on our dream and will carry on the fight.

We only have one frozen embryo remaining, which means this will be our last attempt at pregnancy, at a lower more affordable rate of £2000 rather than a fresh cycle at well over double that.

Unfortunately we don’t have that kind of money to be able to go again with our 4th cycle and won’t have for a long time with the money that we’re able to save each month.

This is why we have set up this page. We hate asking for money from people but I know a few of you guys have offered to help us out before- so we thought it was worth a shot.

We know it’s a bit of a bizarre concept - basically asking people to help buy us a baby (or at least the possibility to try and have a baby) but we have to put our pride to one side and allow people to help support us in our dream.

We aren’t expecting a lot but a few pounds here and there would definitely help to get us to cycle number 4 a lot quicker.

So far I’ve done 79 injections on myself, let’s hope 110 will be the lucky number!

Thank you so much in advance for those that do decide to donate and thank you for taking the time to read our story! Big love Team Zissou xxx