A £55,000 heartbeat

For Rhona Brown, 43, her little girl was worth the 12-year wait to become a mum

- EMMA ROSSITER, TRACY GAYTON

Walking into the doctor’s office, I took a deep breath and sat down. I’d waited two weeks for this appointment, prayed over and over that today would finally be the day doctors would tell me I was pregnant, and I wouldn’t have to feel that familiar, crushing disappointment. Eventually, the doctor sighed – another negative test. ‘Will we ever be parents?’ I thought sadly.

By now, in November 2015, my husband Nigel, then 42, and I had been trying for a baby for almost a decade, and it was always the same result.

When Nigel and I had met back in 1998, while both working at a bank, we had big dreams for the future. We wanted to build businesses of our own – me as a florist and Nigel as a landscape gardener – buy our own home, then fill it with children.

By 2006 we had the businesses, a small home in Bishop’s Stortford and we were married. The only thing missing from our picture was a child.

Yet, despite trying, my period arrived every month like clockwork. Concerned, we began to investigate and, in 2009, a doctor confirmed Nigel had a low sperm count. ‘It significantly reduces your chances of conceiving naturally,’ the doctor said.

We refused to give up, yet three years passed and, still, we were no closer to having a baby. Then, in July 2012, Nigel’s mum passed away suddenly and it made us realise how important having a family was to us.

‘I think we need to consider IVF,’ Nigel suggested.

Though it wasn’t the way I’d pictured falling pregnant, I ached to be a mother, to feel that tiny baby wriggling and kicking inside me. It was expensive, too, and we didn’t qualify for NHS treatment. I worried we couldn’t afford it, but I knew we had to try, whatever the cost – and that cost was £6,000 per cycle.