Real-life inspiration:
Ovulation stimulation success stories

As these stories show some couples will do anything to have a baby! Be inspired and enjoy their stories, and we hope you experience their good luck.

MICHELE: 'We nearly gave up - and now we've got two!'

All along we'd decided that if we couldn't have children, IVF wouldn't be for us. It was stressful enough taking drugs and having scans and blood tests, without going through all of that too.

We were just about to give up trying completely and move abroad for good, when I found out I was pregnant - the drugs had worked. But little did we know what a surprise we had in store for us!

All about me…

Name: Michele
Age: 37
Job:Full-time mum
Lives: Powys
Significant others:Husband Paul, 32, Jade, 3, and Eve, born October 2001
Type of treatment: Clomid, then conceived naturally
Trying for: 5 years

Try not to lose faith, as it can and does happen. Luckily we persevered through the doldrums and it paid off-twice!

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Paul and I married in Jan 1993 and I fell pregnant straight away. Unfortunately I miscarried at around seven or eight weeks. We then moved abroad and left things to their own devices, but I never conceived. In 1995 we realised something was wrong, and to be honest I already knew it was me, as by this time I was 31 and had no children despite hardly ever using contraception with my past partners and my husband. My husband has three children by a previous marriage.

We decided to return to the UK to sort things out. Our plan was to see if anything could be done, and if not, we would move to Israel permanently.

I was soon diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and started to read up on it. I got quite depressed as all the available information was quite negative. I used to feel a failure when my period arrived as yet again, my body had let me down.

I started on a course of Clomid and had to take my temperature every day and go for ovarian scans. Unfortunately, despite ovulating once, after six cycles nothing else happened.

In 1997 I had ovarian drilling and it regulated my periods. Still had regular ovarian scans and whilst waiting for my next appointment with my consultant, I had another miscarriage, again at seven or eight weeks. I was devastated. I felt like I'd rather not get pregnant at all than to conceive and then have all that hope snatched away.

Well-meaning friends and family would say stuff like, 'well at least it proves you can do it' and 'never mind, you can try again'. Not very helpful when all I wanted was the baby I'd lost.

In Sept 1998 I began Clomid again and went on the waiting list for the next line of treatment - injections this time. We were just getting to the stage where we were contemplating giving up, because the hospital appointments, blood tests and scans were all getting too much, when I found out I was pregnant.

Our lives changed right away. We used to practically live in our local pub, but I stopped going out straight away. I didn't want to risk a thing.

After the eight-week mark we started to relax and after a really easy pregnancy and a six hour labour I gave birth to Jade, weighing 7lb 11oz on August 25 1999.

Then out of the blue, while I was still breastfeeding Jade, I found out I was pregnant again. We were so happy. It really was the icing on the cake! It was completely out-of-the-blue… and completely natural too. Eve was born weighing a whopping 10lb 4oz, after another totally problem-free pregnancy on October 17 2001!

Though the pregnancies were problem-free, after what I'd been through, they were far from worry-free. Both times I worried all the time that something would go wrong. Every time I went to the loo I'd check for bleeding. But both pregnancies were identical - no morning sickness, no high blood pressure - absolutely textbook.

We are now taking no chances, in fact, my husband is having a vasectomy! We would love to try again, but feel that it's best to treasure the two we have instead of worrying about ones we haven't. At 37 the risks are higher and I may not have such an easy pregnancy as the last two, so we're quitting while we're ahead.

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