Jolene and her wife, Sophie, started their journey with Care Fertility Birmingham after deciding to grow their family. This is Jolene’s story – from her very first appointment to the day she brought their beautiful baby girl, Remi, into the world.
During the 2020 pandemic, I met my partner, Sophie, online. I very quickly knew I’d found someone incredibly special – she is my soulmate. Sophie had an 8-year-old daughter called Poppie, who I very quickly bonded with and took on as my own.
In 2022, Sophie "popped the question" and after a year of planning we got married in April 2023. Our wedding day felt like a dream, and to this day I still wish I could go back and do it all over again!
We were a very happy family of 3. We did lots of travelling, and made plenty of amazing memories. But there felt like there was a little something missing.
It had always been my biggest dream in life to become a mother – and to experience being pregnant. This is something we'd spoken about quite early on in our relationship.
We'd done a lot of research on clinics and something about Care Fertility just made it feel like the right clinic for us. We got the ball rolling before we even got married. Then just two weeks after saying "I do" we had our first appointment at the Care Fertility Birmingham.
The journey to the clinic toom us two hours, but we were both so excited to start our journey. Our intention was to choose a donor and go down the IUI route. After our initial assessment I had my bloods taken and we were told that once the results were back we'd have a consultation with a doctor to discuss the results.
Not long after, we had a video consultation with a doctor, and she told us that I had a low ovarian count – meaning that IUI may not be the best option and we would be better off trying IVF.
This felt like a massive kick in the gut, not just because of the financial implications, but in my head I just thought that meant that I wasn’t going to be able to get pregnant.
However, the doctor assured me that this wasn't the case, and that she'd seen many pregnancies from people like who had a low ovarian reserve like me. She advised of some of the different medications I could take to increase my chances, and we made the decision to go ahead with IVF treatment.
We paid for one round of IVF. The months went on and after lots of medication and injections I was finally ready for the egg collection. We managed to get seven eggs collected, of which five fertilised, and then after what felt like the longest five days we finally got the call, whilst on the way to the clinic, that two had made it to blastocyst. One was graded as ‘very good’, but the second one wasn’t as good. We had the highest-grade embryo transferred and the second one was frozen.
Now it was the dreaded two week wait! After what felt like an eternity, our test day came and it was positive.
However, that soon turned into a loss and our hearts were shattered. The Care Fertility team were brilliant with us, but we were still completely broken.
We still had our little frozen embryo so when we were ready, we went ahead and we had it transferred. But I knew before I'd even tested that it hadn't worked.
The weeks that followed were extremely hard and I really beat myself up. Blaming myself, hating my body for not being able to accomplish what it was supposed to be able to do. I'm just so thankful that during my lowest points I had Sophie. She was so incredibly strong for me, even though she was in pain too.
When we were both ready, we went back and discussed our options again. I asked about IUI again, purely because of the cost being significantly less. But our doctor explained that as the IVF hadn't worked the IUI would be much less likely to.
So, we made the decision to throw everything we had at it and buy an IVF package, which would allow us two rounds of IVF should we need it.
With that, the process started again and with it came the medication, the injections. But this time it just felt different. We chose a new donor, but this time we took our time choosing and waited until we found what we believed to be the perfect one!
This time when they checked my follicles, they seemed to be making better progress than they had in the previous round. The ladies at Care Fertility gave me hope, and Bev in particular made me believed that I could do this. After a week of going back and forth to the clinic, it was time for egg collection. I took the trigger shot and we were ready to go. We got nine eggs, five fertilised.. and then it was time for the five day wait again to see how many made it to blastocysts.
On our way to the clinic for what we hoped to be our transfer day, my phone rang. I could tell by the ladies tone that it wasn’t good news. I made Sophie pull over and let lady the speak. She said that two of the embryos had made it to blastocyst, but they weren’t very strong. We had one little embryo still fighting to get there so she said they would leave it until the end of the day and see if it made it.
We were told to still come into the clinic to discuss our options. I hung up the phone and just cried. I felt like this round had been perfect, but I took this as such bad news.
We made our way to the clinic, and after talking to the doctor we chose to have both embryos transferred to give ourselves the best chance. He assured us not to worry about the grades of the embryos and that he’d seen many pregnancies from embryos of this grade. I still didn’t feel convinced, but we went ahead with the transfer. I went home feeling defeated, and knew that we had the dreaded two week wait ahead of us now.
Test day came and for some reason I felt hopeful – I just felt different. And there it was. Two big fat lines on the test. I WAS PREGNANT!
Me and Sophie hugged and cried. I then spent the next few weeks constantly doing tests to make sure it was real. Then wondering how many embryos had implanted. There was a very real chance we could be having twins, as we'd had a double embryo transfer.
Scan day finally came and we went back to the Care Fertility clinic for what would be our first scan.
And there it was on the screen – our perfect little single baby, with the most beautiful little heartbeat. We were both so emotional. It was finally real. We were having a baby. It had actually worked.
By the time we had gotten to this stage, we had formed a very close bond with care and upon our discharge we promised to keep them all updated.
The weeks went by and I struggled with all the normal stuff – morning sickness etc. For the first few months I found it all quite scary, and I was quite anxious. I knew I was pregnant, but how did I know if the baby was ok? We ended up having a few private scans to ease my mind.
Once the baby started moving around, I loved being pregnant. Feeling that little life kicking away inside me, it was everything I had ever dreamed of.
During our scans we were told quite early on that because of where my placenta was we could potentially need a C-section if it didn't move into the right position. This is something we hadn't planned, but we eventually got our head around it. At about 33 weeks we were told that my placenta had finally moved and we would be okay to have a natural birth, or so we thought...
Yet during the last month of pregnancy, I had to go back for multiple scans because the baby was measuring big. Then at 39 weeks we made the decision, based on advice from the doctors, to go ahead with a C-section to ensure the safe arrival of our baby.
I was very close with my Nan, Anne, and when I would visit her she would always comment on how big my belly was getting. However, in October my nan passed away peacefully. It broke my heart. But the little life in my belly gave me all the strength I needed to get through it, I knew I had to be string for my baby, and it is what my Nan would have wanted.
On the 31st January 2025, our beautiful little baby girl Remi Anne was bought into this world via C-section, weighing 8lbs 7oz (not so big, after all!). Our little miracle. That first little cry set off emotions in me that I didn’t know I had. She was here and my goodness wasn't she perfect... bearing a little heart shaped stork mark on her forehead, which according to the midwives, meant she was kissed by an angel on the way through, thanks Nan!
I had to stay in hospital for a couple of nights and I spent the entire first night just staring at her.
We did it... we actually did it. Our healthy baby girl was here and now we are the perfect family of four.
When Remi was about 7 weeks old we took her back into our Care Fertility clinic. I had sent them pictures of scans, and kept them updated on the arrival of Remi. But me and Sophie had promised to take her back into the clinic and introduce her to the ladies that had helped create her. So that’s what we did, and it was a very, very special day.
If I could offer some advice to anyone currently trying or thinking of trying to have a baby it would be to not give up – it may not be easy and at times it may break your heart, but if you have to opportunity to try, please keep going. Don’t lose hope. I thought I’d never get here, and at times I tried to accept the fact that I may never be able to have a baby. But I do, she’s here, she’s real, and she’s absolutely incredible. She makes us laugh every day and I will always be immensely grateful to the team at Care Fertility Birmingham who helped us to create her.
Miracles really do happen.