Betting on baby

Infertility can place huge strain on a couple, but with the right help and knowledge a solution can often be found

- ANNELIZE VISSER

FOR almost a decade, Thembi* dreaded the arrival of Mother’s Day – a heartbreaking occasion for women like her who struggle with infertility.

But this year will be different. The 32-year-old entrepreneur is expecting her first child and will be celebrating with a leisurely breakfast in bed, something she knows she won’t be able to do once her baby arrives.

Thembi married the love of her life in her early twenties and expected to become a parent almost immediately. But after two years of trying, nothing happened and Thembi began to avoid family gatherings where aunts and cousins, and especially her mother-in-law, commented on her childless state.

The only useful advice she received was from an aunt who was a nurse at a fertility clinic. She visited the clinic and a doctor diagnosed her with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal disorder that commonly causes infertility in women. Thembi was encouraged to lose weight and keep trying.

Three Mother’s Days came and went and Thembi was still not pregnant. Her doctor prescribed medicine to help her ovulate, and suggested the couple consider in vitro fertilisation (IVF), a procedure in which the egg is fertilised with her partner’s sperm in a laboratory then placed into her uterus.

The first IVF procedure failed, as did the second and a third.

With their finances depleted by the expensive treatment and their marriage taking strain, Thembi and her husband tried to make peace with their childlessness and applied to become foster parents.

But Thembi’s grandmother passed away and left her a small inheritance, which the couple used to pay for one more IVF cycle.