I went through 29 rounds of IVF to get the family I wanted
A woman who refused to believe she was "too old" to have a baby at 40 says it took 29 rounds of IVF - costing approximately £200,000 - to build the family she wanted.
Beth Hobson, now 55, initially began fertility treatment after being told she only had a 10% chance at conceiving naturally. She had 13 failed attempts before falling pregnant the 14th time. In the 11 years since, she has endured a number of miscarriages and a stillbirth, but welcomed two more children.
Beth, an educational advisor from Manchester, met her husband after being set up on a blind date by colleagues in July 2007. They married in 2008 and began trying for a baby within months. Beth says she was conscious her fertility “clock was ticking”, so visited a doctor to find out her conception chances. Having assessed her fallopian tubes, Beth was told she'd only have a 10% chance at conceiving naturally.
"I remember sitting in the tiny room and thinking, ‘I’m not going to cry'," she says. "I felt like apologising on behalf of my tubes."
Determined to have a family, Beth started searching for IVF clinics. "I’ve always wanted to be a mum and I was going to make it happen," she adds.
The first clinic Beth and her husband looked into was the Klinikk Hausken in Norway. Having researched the clinic's success rates, they decided to begin treatment there and Beth had her first five rounds of IVF under their supervision. Sadly they all proved unsuccessful, so the couple moved to a clinic in London for another round.
"It was so brutal," she says of the ongoing process. "I’d be in so much pain during the egg retrieval procedures. I’d have to travel from Exeter, where I lived at the time, to London on the coach, in excruciating pain."
Unfortunately, the clinicians in London were only able to retrieve one egg, which wasn’t viable.
After suspecting she was experiencing a condition called immunofertility, which means the immune system mistakenly attacks reproductive cells or tissues, Beth found the IVFSERUM clinic in Athens that specialises in the condition.
There, she tested positive for the condition, and had seven more rounds of IVF under her new consultant, which were all unsuccessful.
Thankfully, the eighth round proved successful, and in April 2012, Beth found out she was pregnant with her son, William, now 11. He was originally a triplet, but Beth miscarried his siblings throughout the pregnancy.
A year later, Beth and her husband decided they wanted to try to give William a sibling. They continued with IVF treatment in Athens and following several failed attempts, a miscarriage and a still birth, Beth and her husband welcomed their second son, Thomas, now eight, on November 11, 2015.
"IVF is like the trenches," she says of the period trying to conceive her second child. “You never get over the feelings of fear during IVF. And even during pregnancy, you never know whether your next scan will be your last. You run, fall down and pick yourself up. Three months after holding a funeral for our stillborn baby and miscarriage, I found I was pregnant with Tom."
While the family decided to continue to try for a third child, in 2019, at the age of 50, Beth was told she was "too old" to keep trying in Athens. She found a clinic in Cyprus who specialised in older mums and went through two further rounds of IVF and conceived her third child in 2021. Grace, now two, was born on April 27, 2022.
The mum-of-three had a partial hysterectomy immediately after the birth, leaving her unable to have any more babies.
Beth has decided to share her journey to parenthood to show you are never too old to start a family. "I was told I was too old to be a mum, and I proved everyone wrong," she says. "But, I always said it was a non-negotiable that this had to have a happy ending - no matter what.”
In the 15 years of fertility treatment Beth and her husband spent around £200,000 on IVF. "We saved money from our salaries, as well as donations from friends and family," Beth explains about the financial toll.
"A lot of it was making sacrifices - not going on holidays, not having any treats. Every bit of spare money went in the pot. But, it was worth it - to have our happy ending."
Additional reporting SWNS.
Read more about fertility
Brits are seeking fertility treatment abroad due to soaring costs in UK (HuffPost, 2-min read)
Woman says egg 'freeze and share' programme is how she got free fertility treatment (Yahoo Life UK, 8-min read)
Couple who don’t want children of their own donate eggs and sperm to help 16 others start a family (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)
