A couple who had previously suffered three heartbreaking miscarriages have shared how they’ve welcomed twins after spending more than £82,000 on IVF.
Irish couple Amy and Gary O’Keefe had been trying for a baby for some time but their endeavours sadly resulted in three miscarriages and nine failed IVF attempts.
Thankfully, just as they were about to give up hope, their tenth round of IVF was successful, and they welcomed twins Maisie and Jared.
‘Gary and I are both teachers, we absolutely love kids and couldn’t wait to start a family of our own,’ explains Amy.
‘We have been together 11 years and been married for six. We started trying for a baby after we got married, and fell pregnant during our honeymoon which sadly ended in our first miscarriage.
‘We’d fallen pregnant easily, so we didn’t expect we would have any issues in the future, but after 14 months of trying again, we had no joy.’
The first miscarriage left Amy and Gary questioning their fertility – so both went through testing to uncover the problem.
‘We never received an official diagnosis and our struggles were put down to unexplained infertility,’ Amy says.
Amy fell pregnany in October 2018 and January 2020, but both sadly ended in miscarriages.
‘It was devastating going through the same thing over and over again,’ recalls Amy.
The couple also tried IVF treatment and believe they spent nearly €100,000 (£82,000) on the ten rounds they endured.
‘If we hadn’t gotten pregnant by the tenth round of IVF, we agreed that we would bow out as the odds were more than against us,’ Amy says.
‘We were almost making peace with the idea that maybe we just wouldn’t be able to have children of our own.
‘We were both working extra on the side of our jobs to fund the IVF. It became part of our household budget.
‘Sometimes we’d have to delay cycles while we saved up the money to pay for it.
‘We had our tenth embryo transfer in November last year where we transferred two embryos, but we had no expectation of them taking.
‘You can’t test for two weeks but within a week of the transfer, I started feeling really unwell.
‘I just thought I’d made overdone it this time and pushed my body too far, but out of curiosity I decided to do a pregnancy test and I saw a strong line on the stick.
‘The clinic wouldn’t test us so we decided to go to our GP who asked us if there is any chance it could be twins, but after everything we had been through we’d never imagine we would be that lucky.’
The couple’s first scan was five days before Christmas last year and they were terrified they were going to receive more bad news.
Amy says that her heart was in her mouth and she couldn’t believe it when the nurse told them she could see a second baby.
‘When we saw the two babies, there were lots of tears,’ she adds. ‘We were both crying and so was the nurse, as I think she was so scared she was going to have to break some bad news to us before Christmas.
‘It was so unexpected because the odds were against us.
‘Our families were overjoyed when we told them. I think they felt a huge sense of relief after five years of bad news, and if it was ever good news it turned to bad news.
‘So although everyone was happy, it came with a warning. It was bitter-sweet.
‘I was terrified to have too much baby stuff in the house until towards the end of my pregnancy because I was constantly scared about whether we would bring the twins home.’
Thankfully, the pregnancy was a success and Amy delivered two healthy babies.
‘The pregnancy went smoothly,’ she says. ‘I carried the babies to 37 weeks and had to be induced.
‘I delivered them naturally on different dates and they are both different star signs.’
Maisie, 5lbs, was born just before midnight on 22 July and is a Cancer, and her twin brother Jared, 5lbs 8oz, was born just after midnight on 23 July and is a Leo.
Amy adds: ‘We didn’t find out the genders of the babies, so we were so happy when we discovered we had a boy and a girl. It was the icing on the cake.
‘We took our babies home three days later and it was the best feeling in the world. We finally got our happy ending after all this time.
‘The twins are two little fighters. They are thriving and certainly living up to their star signs.
‘We couldn’t be happier.’
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