By the time I got to the CARE Clinic it had been an exhausting conception journey filled with negative home-pregnancy tests, wasted ovulation sticks, blood tests, dosages of Clomid, then increased dosages of Clomid, laparoscopies, and failed IUI’s.

At 35 and with Stage 4 endometriosis, I was told by previous doctors/specialists that the odds were already against me. I was tired and tearful. Every passing month before that had brought with it a deepening sense of frustration and helplessness. It’s only when you’re covered in your own “snot and trane”, and you’re so tired from another failed month of trying that you can’t even cry anymore, will you know just how much of mental, emotional and physical strength it takes to pick yourself up and carry on.

When I met Dr Ramdeo, my mind and my heart told me that I had made the right choice of doctor. It was not a kind of wishy-washy-we’ll-try-this-and-see-what-happens consultation. There was a plan of action from the start. Apart from his obvious medical expertise and confidence, he displayed immense professional empathy. To me he understood infertility to its darkest depths. He knew how Infertility gnaws at a woman’s self-esteem. He understood the angst that she feels - how the inability to create life within her womb makes her feel worthless, empty, and even at times devoid of emotion - but only because it hurts too much too feel.

Dr Ramdeo’s consultations were not only medical prognoses. He took the time to counsel and advise and remind me that I was worth much more than where I was at that low point. This is part of the healing process. This kind of positive confident mindset is integral to a successful fertility journey. You have to find that doctor who will share that against-all-odds spirit with you, and who will believe that it will happen.

After a few scope procedures, I embarked on my first IVF. This is where I found the Clinic’s team to be invaluable. The IVF programme is grueling. It involves preparing your body with hormone supplements, then a period of daily hormone injections, steroid supplements, invasive scans, blood tests etc. IVF requires patience, time, discipline, and perseverance. Because it could have led to my dream of motherhood coming true, I was prepared to take on the challenge. Hence – It is what I called POSITIVE SUFFERING….

Apart from the efficient clinical medical service by the amazing nursing staff and embryologists, it was the CARE that the staff gave to me that made all the difference. Everyone - from the cheery hellos at reception by Lindi and Shantal - to the amazing nurses Cheryl, Theo, Candy and Umera, who nursed me through the various procedures, to the embryologists Kinnon and Hughlene - to the efficient admin by Jessica and Sli – even to the assistant who brought me a sandwich and tea as I awoke from anesthesia – they all played a positive role in the fertility process. I remember Kinnon describing the laboratory fertilization process to me. He was not just fusing an egg and a sperm. To me he described nurturing what had the potential to become life – my future child/ren. That kind of holistic patient rapport and care is what is so desperately needed in the fertility process. The Care Clinic is not a clinical hospital where staff come and go in between patients who are just admission numbers. Here, I was called by my first name, and cared for in the most excellent of ways.

This was one of the reasons that I was able to spring back to a second IVF. Yes, my first IVF was unfortunately unsuccessful. I knew that Dr Ramdeo and his team had done everything to ensure success. It devastated me that it was my own body that had failed me. Having invested so much of time and energy, the depths of despair that failure took me to was indescribable. It literally knocked the breath out of me - so much so that for days I could not speak to anyone about it. That’s what infertility does to you. It shuts down your mental and emotional processes.
After consulting with Dr Ramdeo, I decided to embark on the second IVF. I regarded the first IVF as the false start that allowed Dr Ramdeo to figure out how to fix things up with my body. After another grueling programme I was blessed with a twin pregnancy which, through Dr Ramdeo and the Team’s care, I carried right until 38 weeks.

My story is a success story. Even though I survived the Infertility journey, I will always be a part of the Sisterhood that shares a common pain. During my infertile times, it was a very fragile hold on life. There were times when my pain and my desire to carry a pregnancy became so consuming that everything else paled into insignificance. All I wanted was to be able to create and nurture life within me.

At this stage I was also attending the Infertility Support Group which was headed by past patients of the Care Clinic who had also been through tough infertility experiences. They provided an invaluable emotional support structure, and the inspiration that I needed – if they could do it, so could I!

Every person battling with infertility deserves a chance. The one thing that I learned sitting in doctor’s rooms for the last few years, is that I had to take responsibility for my body. I had to take the negative energy of infertility and spin it to something positive. If I had to suffer, then I should suffer positively. I had to open myself up passionately and unconditionally to the experience. Even when infertility felt like I was at war with my own body, I had to change my mindset. I even started seeing those inevitable laparoscopic scars as battle scars that were going to be visible testament to perseverance in my war against infertility. And with faith and hope, all I needed to feel was that at every turn Dr Ramdeo, the Clinic and I were trying our best! And that’s all that mattered.