As more and more hopeful parents are forced abroad to seek donor eggs, Victoria Macdonald recalls the agony and joy of her IVF quest
In a coffee shop the other day, a woman came over to tell me, at some length, just how cute my baby daughter is. Of course, I was hardly likely to disagree, but after a while the woman straightened up, looked long and hard at me and said: “So, does she take after her father, then?”
Later that week I was telling a friend just how determined Gabriella was becoming. My friend laughed and said: “Well, we know who she gets that from.”
There was an awkward pause. Because Gabriella does not get that from me. And, yes, she does look a lot like her father and not one bit like me. She has brown hair with a hint of red, chubby little cheeks, a perky nose and elegant long fingers. I do not.
But then it is not surprising we are so different in appearance. Although I carried her through 36 weeks of pregnancy and gave birth this time last year, there is no genetic link between us at all since Gabriella was conceived after we travelled to Spain for a donated egg.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/9nuW07
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Sunday, 11 July 2010
10 ways to tell your ready for a baby
Every time you switch on the television you see nappy adverts, everyone you know seems to be revealing they are pregnant, but how do you know whether you are ready to be a parent? The answer is it's such a big life-changing event that the no-one is really prepared for what it entails, but there are some tell-tale signs to suggest that you are willing to swap your high heels for comfy flats, short skirts for elasticated waists and are willing to sacrifice the spareroom for a nursery…
1. You and your partner have discussed buying a kitten Or a dog/rabbit/Guinea pig or all of the above! You obviously have the urge to nurture, feed, cuddle and have some level of responsibility and you are obviously prepared to part with some cash for pet food/vet bills. Is your need for a pet actually hiding your need for a baby? Are you seeing how your partner deals with a pet first before you announce you want a baby, or, are you testing them to see how much poo they end up scooping up in the park, or keeping note of the early morning dog walks your partner offers to do? If you find yourself talking about your pet incessantly, dressing it up, cancelling nights out or rushing home to give your pet a cuddle, it is safe to say you are ready for a baby!
2. You prefer a night in to a night out Yep, it happens to the best of us, the thought of donning our glad rags and going out on the town is far less appealing than settling down on the sofa with an M&S ten-pound meal deal and Desperate Housewives on the TV. Essentially your lifestyle is ready for a baby.
3. You dream of babies If you have dreams of yourself walking along with a babe in arms, or holding a toddler's hands, it's fair to say that you're ready for a baby. Even if your conscious mind is screaming NO, NO BABIES, your sub-conscious mind is already in a baby store loading up the trolley.
4. You stop and admire other people's babies If you find other peoples snotty, whingy babies cute then you are definitely ready for a baby. If you talk naturally to children and volunteer for babysitting your friend's children it's time for you to embrace the fact that you are more than ready for your own.
5. Your spare room looks empty and sad Isn't it time you started shopping for butterfly wallpaper or train bedcovers? Doesn't your spareroom deserve to be more than just a room you pile the clean washing into before you (groan) get around to ironing it.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/djzciz
1. You and your partner have discussed buying a kitten Or a dog/rabbit/Guinea pig or all of the above! You obviously have the urge to nurture, feed, cuddle and have some level of responsibility and you are obviously prepared to part with some cash for pet food/vet bills. Is your need for a pet actually hiding your need for a baby? Are you seeing how your partner deals with a pet first before you announce you want a baby, or, are you testing them to see how much poo they end up scooping up in the park, or keeping note of the early morning dog walks your partner offers to do? If you find yourself talking about your pet incessantly, dressing it up, cancelling nights out or rushing home to give your pet a cuddle, it is safe to say you are ready for a baby!
2. You prefer a night in to a night out Yep, it happens to the best of us, the thought of donning our glad rags and going out on the town is far less appealing than settling down on the sofa with an M&S ten-pound meal deal and Desperate Housewives on the TV. Essentially your lifestyle is ready for a baby.
3. You dream of babies If you have dreams of yourself walking along with a babe in arms, or holding a toddler's hands, it's fair to say that you're ready for a baby. Even if your conscious mind is screaming NO, NO BABIES, your sub-conscious mind is already in a baby store loading up the trolley.
4. You stop and admire other people's babies If you find other peoples snotty, whingy babies cute then you are definitely ready for a baby. If you talk naturally to children and volunteer for babysitting your friend's children it's time for you to embrace the fact that you are more than ready for your own.
5. Your spare room looks empty and sad Isn't it time you started shopping for butterfly wallpaper or train bedcovers? Doesn't your spareroom deserve to be more than just a room you pile the clean washing into before you (groan) get around to ironing it.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/djzciz
Friday, 9 July 2010
Manchester Pride UK 2010
THE BIG WEEKEND Friday 27 - Monday 30 August 2010
It's just weeks to go until the Manchester Pride 2010 Big Weekend bursts across the city, we're excited to announce the first round of acts set to grace the main stage...Find out who's lined up for your entertainment...
CORONATION STREET JOIN MANCHESTER PRIDE IN WHAT WILL BE THEIR BIGGEST PARADE EVER!
The cast and crew of Corrie will take part in the parade as part of the show’s 50th birthday with a top secret entry called 'Cobbles on Parade'. Manchester Pride are delighted that Corrie are their biggest parade yet!
BIG WEEKEND MAIN STAGE
Each year the main stage brings a fantastic variety of international and local artists to entertain you over all four days of the Big Weekend... The line up includes names such as Belinda Carlisle, Beveley Knight, Heaven 17 and many more....
The Big Weekend is over 70 hours of fun, wild, extravagant partying and you'd be out of your mind to miss it! If you want to get yourself a part of the action, you'll need to make sure you get your hands on a ticket
Weekend Tickets cost £17.50 and Day Tickets £10.00 if purchased before 27 August 2010 and the proceeds go towards helping LGBT community groups and HIV organisations.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/cT49DC
It's just weeks to go until the Manchester Pride 2010 Big Weekend bursts across the city, we're excited to announce the first round of acts set to grace the main stage...Find out who's lined up for your entertainment...
CORONATION STREET JOIN MANCHESTER PRIDE IN WHAT WILL BE THEIR BIGGEST PARADE EVER!
The cast and crew of Corrie will take part in the parade as part of the show’s 50th birthday with a top secret entry called 'Cobbles on Parade'. Manchester Pride are delighted that Corrie are their biggest parade yet!
BIG WEEKEND MAIN STAGE
Each year the main stage brings a fantastic variety of international and local artists to entertain you over all four days of the Big Weekend... The line up includes names such as Belinda Carlisle, Beveley Knight, Heaven 17 and many more....
The Big Weekend is over 70 hours of fun, wild, extravagant partying and you'd be out of your mind to miss it! If you want to get yourself a part of the action, you'll need to make sure you get your hands on a ticket
Weekend Tickets cost £17.50 and Day Tickets £10.00 if purchased before 27 August 2010 and the proceeds go towards helping LGBT community groups and HIV organisations.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/cT49DC
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
IVF treatment: How do we decide who deserves a baby?
New criteria to assess women eligible for IVF treatment may not solve old problems
IVF on NHS for women over 40" ran one front-page headline last week. A casual reader of that and similar articles could have been forgiven for concluding that the rule banning women aged 40 or over from accessing state-funded fertility treatment is being scrapped. It isn't, but it might be.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has recently begun looking at whether its existing guideline on fertility needs to be updated. First issued in 2004, this medical world equivalent of a tablet of stone has always been tinged with controversy. Its main recommendation – that women aged 23 to 39 meeting set medical criteria should get up to three cycles of IVF on the NHS – is widely ignored by the local NHS organisations in England and Wales who are meant to approve it and foot the bill.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/cF6FzB
IVF on NHS for women over 40" ran one front-page headline last week. A casual reader of that and similar articles could have been forgiven for concluding that the rule banning women aged 40 or over from accessing state-funded fertility treatment is being scrapped. It isn't, but it might be.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has recently begun looking at whether its existing guideline on fertility needs to be updated. First issued in 2004, this medical world equivalent of a tablet of stone has always been tinged with controversy. Its main recommendation – that women aged 23 to 39 meeting set medical criteria should get up to three cycles of IVF on the NHS – is widely ignored by the local NHS organisations in England and Wales who are meant to approve it and foot the bill.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/cF6FzB
Monday, 5 July 2010
What's driving UK fertility tourism? First study published
Expensive UK fertility treatment and long waiting times related to a shortage of egg and sperm donors are the major reasons people seek fertility treatment abroad, according to the first academic study into cross-border reproductive care.
Researchers from De Montfort University (DMU), in collaboration with the universities of Sheffield, Huddersfield and Swansea, interviewed 51 people. They found that 71 per cent of those interviewed went abroad to seek treatment using donor gametes. Out of those, 46 per cent of couples were having treatment using donor eggs, 12 per cent using donor sperm and 10 per cent using donor egg and sperm.
The high cost of treatment in the UK was cited as another reason couples seek treatment abroad; most IVF (in vitro fertilisation) is not funded by the NHS and can cost a minimum of £4,500. The participants were also interviewed about their experiences abroad. The majority of couples were very positive and reported high standards of care.
Lead researcher Professor Lorraine Culley from De Montfort University said the research has: 'helped to dispel some of the myths commonly associated with having fertility treatment abroad'.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/cwdyDS
Researchers from De Montfort University (DMU), in collaboration with the universities of Sheffield, Huddersfield and Swansea, interviewed 51 people. They found that 71 per cent of those interviewed went abroad to seek treatment using donor gametes. Out of those, 46 per cent of couples were having treatment using donor eggs, 12 per cent using donor sperm and 10 per cent using donor egg and sperm.
The high cost of treatment in the UK was cited as another reason couples seek treatment abroad; most IVF (in vitro fertilisation) is not funded by the NHS and can cost a minimum of £4,500. The participants were also interviewed about their experiences abroad. The majority of couples were very positive and reported high standards of care.
Lead researcher Professor Lorraine Culley from De Montfort University said the research has: 'helped to dispel some of the myths commonly associated with having fertility treatment abroad'.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/cwdyDS
Saturday, 3 July 2010
Millionaire gay fathers celebrate arrival of twins with triple christening
A gay couple that made legal history when they fathered twins are celebrating the arrival of their fourth and fifth children.
Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow will be joined by more than 150 people at a christening service for five-month-old twins Dallas and Jasper tomorrow.
The millionaire couple, both businessmen in their 40s, said the boys were born to a surrogate mother in California in February, and would be christened at St John the Baptist Church in Danbury
They said surrogate mother Rosalind Bellamy and the egg donor - 'up-and-coming Russian supermodel' Alexandra Cooper-Strash - would be among guests.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said he and his partner had 'angered church groups over the years'. But he added: 'It is important for us to have the children all christened.
'As a Christian family we feel that it is important for our children to be given the opportunity to follow the teachings of the church and if they decide when they are older not to, then that is their choice.'
To read more go to http://bit.ly/breFQu
Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow will be joined by more than 150 people at a christening service for five-month-old twins Dallas and Jasper tomorrow.
The millionaire couple, both businessmen in their 40s, said the boys were born to a surrogate mother in California in February, and would be christened at St John the Baptist Church in Danbury
They said surrogate mother Rosalind Bellamy and the egg donor - 'up-and-coming Russian supermodel' Alexandra Cooper-Strash - would be among guests.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said he and his partner had 'angered church groups over the years'. But he added: 'It is important for us to have the children all christened.
'As a Christian family we feel that it is important for our children to be given the opportunity to follow the teachings of the church and if they decide when they are older not to, then that is their choice.'
To read more go to http://bit.ly/breFQu
Thursday, 1 July 2010
Troubling truth about egg freezing: Its expensive and medically risky
Next month, during a rare break from her frenetic career as a violinist, Linzi Stoppard will begin the gruelling preparations required to have her eggs frozen.
Daily hormone injections will shut down her ovaries. Then, further injections will cause what is known as 'hyper-ovulation'. Instead of producing one or two mature follicles - fluid-filled sacs located inside the ovaries - she will produce dozens.
A final injection will be given to mature them. After around four weeks of treatment, Linzi, 31, will be sedated while an embryologist harvests around ten healthy eggs using an ultrasound probe and places them in a tank of liquid nitrogen, stored at -195C until such time as she needs them.
'It's a back-up plan for the future, if we find we struggle to conceive naturally when the time is right,' is the way Linzi and her husband, Will, look at it. If she cannot conceive naturally when the 'right time' comes, she hopes that doctors can use her stored, younger eggs and help her to conceive using IVF.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/9lClsy
Daily hormone injections will shut down her ovaries. Then, further injections will cause what is known as 'hyper-ovulation'. Instead of producing one or two mature follicles - fluid-filled sacs located inside the ovaries - she will produce dozens.
A final injection will be given to mature them. After around four weeks of treatment, Linzi, 31, will be sedated while an embryologist harvests around ten healthy eggs using an ultrasound probe and places them in a tank of liquid nitrogen, stored at -195C until such time as she needs them.
'It's a back-up plan for the future, if we find we struggle to conceive naturally when the time is right,' is the way Linzi and her husband, Will, look at it. If she cannot conceive naturally when the 'right time' comes, she hopes that doctors can use her stored, younger eggs and help her to conceive using IVF.
To read more go to http://bit.ly/9lClsy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
