I was 47 at the time and I think the oldest woman to be successfully treated at that CREATE branch

As part of our TTC journey, we found out that my husband has a low sperm count so we decided to go for a cycle of IVF through the NHS, which was successful.

After a few years, we decided to start trying to conceive again and it just wasn’t working. We tried for a few years before deciding to try IVF again. We were only eligible for 1 round of IVF on the NHS so this time around we had to go private.

We looked into a couple of clinics but because of my age, I didn’t find that the first two clinics I went to knew what to do with me. They put me on really high stimulation and also recommended I have other add ons such as the endometrial scratch. Truthfully, it felt like they were throwing everything at me and hoping that something would stick. I still managed to get a lot of eggs collected with both cycles but sadly none of the embryos were taken.

I had read about CREATE before and knew that their approach was different to other clinics but I really didn’t think, at the time, that it would work for me. I was classed as an older woman and I thought I would need more medication to help me conceive not less! But then, after my last failed cycle at the other clinic, I looked into CREATE Fertility Birmingham again and I feel like this time I understood their approach a little bit better. I decided to give it a go. We went in for an Initial Consultation and Scan and I really liked the sound of how it works - not having a huge amount of medication and working with my body in a more natural way.

My cycle at CREATE was a lot different and a lot quicker than my previous experiences. It made me feel a lot better because I was having a lot less drugs and for a shorter period of time so it didn’t feel as intense. It was a much calmer and more natural process.

Unfortunately, this first cycle at CREATE also didn’t end in a pregnancy, however, because the process was so much easier than what I was used to that I felt as though I could go for one more round.

I went back with my next cycle to hopefully try again and the scan showed that there was only one follicle there this time around. The team at CREATE were very realistic with me and explained everything to me thoroughly. I decided to not go ahead that month and wait until my next cycle to see if there would be more follicles but there weren’t.