OUR LUCKY NUMBE

Nikki Hughes, 33, from Derbyshire, would argue that Friday the 13th is a day to celebrate, rather than to fear...

Sitting on the edge of the bath, I looked over at my fiancée Lauren. Neither of us could speak, and we couldn’t take our eyes off the pregnancy test in the sink.

Looking up, I met Lauren’s eyes and gave her a smile.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Nervous.’ We knew very early on in the

relationship that we wanted children, and had decided that after we bought our house, we would start trying IVF.

After four happy years together, we had found our perfect home in October 2020, and began IVF in December.

‘It’s time,’ I said. As Lauren, 33, turned over

the test, her face dropped. With shaking hands, she

passed it to me. It was negative. It was devastating – we were

so hopeful. The clinic had told us we had

a good shot at getting pregnant. They had told us we were both healthy and now was a great time to try.

‘Lauren…’ I started, but I couldn’t finish.

We sat in silence for a while, and as heartbroken as I was, I realised the best thing was to try and stay positive.

‘If it’s meant to be, it will be,’ I said, and Lauren nodded.

Giving Lauren a hug, I promised it would be OK.

‘We can try again,’ I soothed. Only I was worried it

wouldn’t work. IVF was so expensive and

now we were both 33, we didn’t have much time.

The NHS does not offer IVF to same sex couples in our area, and because of this, it cost £8,000 for treatment.

After work, Lauren and I sat down to discuss the future.