“We felt the healthiest we had ever been and got pregnant quickly and naturally. Our only regret is not finding The Fertility Breakthrough Program™ and starting earlier.”

We had been trying to conceive for approximately 6 months when we decided to get some tests done in our home country of Italy. When the results came back, no significant fertility issues were identified, and we were told that to have a baby, we just needed to relax and take some time off to reduce stress, like a holiday. We were being told this was the only reason we could not conceive. 

A year later, we moved to Australia and started to investigate our fertility situation properly. We found out that I had endometriosis (straight away, I had a Laparoscopy surgery to remove it), and my fallopian tubes were blocked. At the same time, my husband was diagnosed with severe DNA fragmentation of the sperm, plus the semen analysis revealed very poor sperm performance with many abnormal parameters. 

At that point, we were told that due to all these fertility issues, we would not be able to conceive naturally and might have some success with the IVF/ICSI process.

I had spent all my life dreaming of being a mum, and the day I would hold our baby in my arms. And I remember feeling that my worst nightmare was becoming real. My heart dropped, and I felt as if I was drowning. The doctor said our only chance was to start IVF as soon as possible since our ages were working against us.

With this looming over our heads and a bad semen analysis, we quickly decided to jump straight into IVF/ICSI. Unfortunately, our first cycle was a big failure due to a polyp found on my uterus and a very small amount of eggs collected. Immediately after that, I had a polypectomy but had to wait 3 months before restarting any other treatment.

Our world felt like it was collapsing around us. We thought this was it; surely our ONE chance at becoming parents and creating our family was over. We had paid so much for all these procedures, reasoning that the doctors must know what they were doing, but it wasn’t working. The doctors had said ICSI was our only chance at becoming parents, so our only thought was, why wasn’t this working? Does it mean that we’ll NEVER get to be parents? 

I remember feeling so small and helpless. I didn’t have any answers or ideas for what to do. We had to put all of our faith and hope into the medical system, and when it didn’t work, we didn’t receive any answers or understanding about why or what should be done next to help. I had a horrible feeling that we would just start repeating the same cycle repeatedly, and I was terrified.  

The doctor suggested that my husband take supplements to improve the DNA fragmentation even though we’d been told there was no treatment for that condition. As we understand, this pathology makes it very difficult to conceive at all, and should you become pregnant, miscarriage is very likely due to the fragmentation of the genes. This was all soul-crushing information, and we felt we had no hope.

We took six months to implement changes in our lives and increase my hormone levels before trying another ICSI cycle. We collected 15 eggs from this cycle but created only one embryo. Immediately, the embryo had to be frozen because I had papillomavirus and required another surgery. Four months later, we did the embryo transfer and became pregnant but then miscarried at just 9 weeks.

We were devastated, and it felt like my world was crashing and falling into a million pieces. To go through that many extreme lows and highs but not feel like our doctor cared about solving our situation or what this entire process was doing to our lives was so isolating. 

Ten days after miscarrying, I was diagnosed with precancerous cells in my uterus and needed immediate surgery to remove them. I was utterly overwhelmed and beyond despair with everything that was happening. I’d been diagnosed with severe depression, and my husband and I were living our darkest days. We felt so broken and scared that our envisioned life would never be ours.

The IVF clinic contacted us, suggesting another cycle in 3-4 months. I asked what would be done differently for the next round, and they simply said, “Nothing, it’s just a numbers game.” They told us we had to try again and hope it worked this time. 

After everything we’d gone through up to this point, I wasn’t willing to put my body through that whole process again without digging deeper into what was going on with our circumstances. I knew we needed a better understanding of why what we’d tried hadn’t worked, and we needed to make changes based on that. 

But we didn’t know anyone who approached this process that way. So, we saved our money and started thinking about fostering children.