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Aussie woman's baby joy after five year IVF struggle
A woman has shared her joy at becoming a mum after heartbreaking losses and eight rounds of IVF.
Amy Campbell was diagnosed with Endometriosis at 19 and was told she would never conceive naturally which prompted her to immediately start saving for fertility treatment.
The now 38-year-old salon owner, from Sydney, forked out $50,000 to achieve her dream of having a baby.
“I sacrificed my social life throughout my twenties to ensure I had savings,” Amy said.
“I assumed Scott and I would need one round of IVF in 2014 and then we would have a baby.
“Sadly, I did two back to back cycles in 2014 and they both failed which was really sad and disheartening.”
The couple had a two year break to save for more IVF before trying again for a third time.
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“We were feeling positive as I fell pregnant for the first time - we were over the moon,” she said.
“But I instantly knew something was wrong at our eight-week scan but I didn’t know what as I could see a heartbeat.
“Within minutes, I was being rushed into theatre to have my fallopian tube removed as it was an ectopic pregnancy.
“It was traumatising and the worst thing to ever happen.”
Amy opted to have both tubes removed to prevent it happening again. In October 2017, she had another round of IVF which sadly failed.
“Trying to get pregnant was like having a full time job,” she said.
“I was constantly injecting hormones and making sure I wasn’t drinking caffeine and staying active.
“I couldn’t help but question ‘why us?’ when the tests came back negative.”
However, in January 2018, she had another round of IVF, which was successful.
“We were excited because without my tubes - we thought nothing could go wrong,” she said. .
“But there were issues from the start as the baby wasn’t growing and then at eight and a half weeks - there wasn’t a heart beat.”
Amy endured her second miscarriage on the same night, with the devastated salon owner saying: “We were in disbelief and couldn’t believe this was happening to us. We were absolutely heartbroken.”
“It was horrific - nobody tells you about the pain you endure when having a miscarriage,” she said, revealing it felt like it was ‘a race against time’ as she approached 37.
She envied friends and even strangers who had babies as she so desperately wanted to become a mum.
After her sixth and seventh rounds of IVF that same year failed, Amy underwent a laparoscopy to remove the endometriosis from her uterus.
“I had another procedure which involved shaving the lining of my uterus called a hysteroscopy,” she explained.
“The doctor was shocked and said the environment wasn’t healthy for a baby to grow which explained a lot.”
Four weeks after the procedure she went for another round of IVF, confident that she would fall pregnant - and she did.
“My body had a clean up and a baby began growing,” she said.
Amy and Scott welcomed their baby girl, Alinta, into the world on November 1st, 2019, with Amy saying that giving birth felt like she had “finally won the battle with my body”.
“We are so blessed to have such a cool kid. Scott and I are the proudest parents ever,” she said.
Amy urges other women to speak out when they are struggling with infertility.
“It is quite a lonely time - you feel like you’re alone but actually there’s a lot of women going through the same,” she said.
“Being able to speak about it - helped a lot. There’s no need to feel shame or embarrassment.”
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