Guest Blog Post by Caroline Priddle

Caroline shares her honest account of becoming a solo mum through donor eggs, after four rounds of IVF with her own eggs didn’t bring her the baby she longed for.

Running out of time

At 42, I realised my time for meeting someone to have another child with had really run out. It was my cousin who said it to me straight. If it’s not with this guy, the mediocre man with lots of red flags, then you’ve really run out of time. She didn’t intend for it to hit so hard but it was the shock I needed to kick me into action.

I already had a son, aged four from a short lived relationship and I raise him alone. I had never felt my motherhood journey was over and longed for another child to complete our family. I had been dating over the years since having him but nothing went beyond a few months. The men my age either already had kids and didn’t want more, or they didn’t have children and wanted someone free and easy to drive off with in their campervan. That certainly wasn’t me as a single parent.

Four rounds of IVF

A few stars aligned, including that comment from my cousin, and I booked a fertility MOT at a well regarded clinic in London. The consultant talked through my options to go it alone. IUI had a 5 to 10% chance of success, IVF 25%, and donor eggs 50%. Oh the naivety of the person starting out on the fertility journey! I didn’t even register the donor egg option, I won’t need that, I thought. I have regular periods, I’m healthy, I have been pregnant a few times before, a surprise pregnancy at that. I wanted quick results now I’d made the decision so I went straight into IVF.

It worked first time but sadly I lost my son at 14 weeks. I then had another round and another, both failed. I had been having acupuncture to support my IVF rounds. Each time I saw my lovely acupuncturist, she gently talked to me about moving to donor eggs. I dismissed it, that wasn’t for me, I didn’t need that, I could do this with my own eggs.

I had one more vial of sperm from the donor I’d chosen and after that, his supply was out of stock. I really felt a connection to him and knew this was my last chance. I debated whether my acupuncturist was right and I should move to donor eggs in order to increase my chance of success with this last vial. I asked my consultant if I could use that vial to do a round with my own eggs alongside a round with donor eggs to hedge my bets. He said I could but it wouldn’t be cost effective as I’d be paying for two full rounds. It was November. My head was swimming. My mum said, why don’t you try one more time with your own eggs, then you’ve put it to bed by the end of the year. I decided to do that. One more round, maybe this would be it.

It wasn’t. It was a rollercoaster of a round. My highest number of follicles, but my least number of eggs collected. My greatest ratio of fertilisation though, and three blastocysts! I thought, this is it, surely from three, one will be my baby. But no. One didn’t end up making it to day 6, one failed the PGT-A testing and the one I put in didn’t take. That was it, four rounds of IVF, no babies. I realised after I took that negative pregnancy test, I wasn’t done. I couldn’t stop until I got my baby. But I also couldn’t keep parting with £10,000 each month for a 1 in 4 chance of success. Within days, I’d decided to look at donor eggs.

Choosing donor eggs

I poured over profiles on an egg bank. It was overwhelming. I made a spreadsheet with many columns of criteria I felt were important. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I also spoke to my existing fertility clinic. Their process was for them to pick a donor they felt was a good match for you.

At that time, I joined the Donor Conception Network and attended Zoom calls and WhatsApp groups with parents of donor conceived children. I asked them how it felt and what their challenges were. The conclusion from all those calls was, the child feels every bit theirs, in fact, they rarely think about the fact they were donor conceived.

I also considered embryo adoption, where you use an embryo donated by another couple who collected more embryos than they needed, but that didn’t feel right for me. I felt when the child was older, they might seek out that other family and see a completely different life they could have had if they were picked first from the petri dish. Also, there is a legal loophole in the UK for embryo donation to a solo woman. Technically, the man from the donating couple could claim parental responsibility, or the child could seek it from him. The law remains untested as no one donating has ever made such a claim, but it was another aspect that put me off that option.

I went with my trusted fertility clinic. I didn’t like the loss of control of someone else selecting a donor for me, so different to the sperm donor selection process. But it was considerably cheaper than a clinic that lets you choose from the database, and I’d already spent so much money. I was told it could take three months to find a match. I filled in my forms and waited. I lasted six days before I emailed the clinic and said, I’m sorry but I’m so impatient, how long do you think it’ll take? They came back and said, you’re 24th on the waiting list (my heart sank) but attached is a possible profile of a donor.

I rang my mum and read out the donor’s limited details: hair colour, eye colour, ethnicity, build, height, profession, education, number of siblings. Even their favourite colour, food and film (who cares about that?!). My mum said, well she seems alright, let’s do it. So different from the hours and hours I’d spent pouring over that spreadsheet, but I just wanted to get on with it and get my baby and here was the route to do it. I said yes and off we went.

Meeting my daughter

Amazingly, I fell pregnant! I got two embryos from the donor’s eight eggs and the first one worked. When I saw that positive pregnancy test, I just felt utter relief. Relief that this fertility journey might be over. I may not need to walk into that clinic again, have those scans, those blood tests, juggle work and stress all the way along each stage of the process.

Pregnancies are hard for me having experienced two big losses previously, but I got through it. My baby arrived via planned Caesarean section at 36 weeks. They weren’t able to immediately put her on my chest when she was born. She was taken to the corner of the room to be examined. A nurse took a photo of this screaming baby covered in blood and goo and showed me the picture saying, here she is.

My first feeling was anxiousness that I didn’t feel the immediate loving bond I had felt when they put my son on me after a 36 hour gruelling labour. The bond grew a little when they did bring her over to lay on my chest. But we then spent a whole day apart, her in NICU and me recovering from a very dicey haemorrhage. As that day wore on, being separated from my baby, I became desperate to have her with me. I worried so much about our bond being tarnished by not spending those first 12 hours together, particularly because she was donor conceived. That rush of love everyone talks about came though when they wheeled her into me that first evening. There she was, my lovely baby. All mine.

And that love has remained and strengthened ever since. She is my perfect little baby who I just love so much. I know I am biased but she truly is gorgeous and so cheery and calm, I call her Dream Baby. She’s absolutely lovely.

Life as a donor conceived family

In terms of how her being donor conceived has impacted us (she’s eight months now), I’d say hardly at all. As is common with wheeling babies about, people often say, doesn’t she look like you? Friends who know she is donor conceived marvel at how much she looks like me and my son. To those who don’t know about her conception, I explain with pride, it’s nice of you to say we look alike because actually she was conceived with a sperm and egg donor. Some people, in the supermarket for example, don’t need to know that level of detail and I just say, ahh thanks.

My daughter has some food allergies. Always the first question from any medical practitioner is, is there a family history? I have to explain that I don’t know because she’s donor conceived. None of them have batted an eyelid when I’ve explained that. The allergy consultant was fascinated about whether allergies could have come from the donors or from me carrying her for nine months as I’m asthmatic and perhaps I’m the cause. I said he’s welcome to do a study on us!

She’s the fifth grandchild in our very close family, and the first baby girl. The whole family loves her just as much as any of the boys that came along before her. She feels every bit a part of our family. The advice is to be open and honest with donor conceived children from the get go so that there is no big reveal. What has been lovely is explaining it to my seven year old son when I was pregnant so he has the child friendly language for it, and so it is always an open bit of news in our family.

Sometimes, he shares a little too much. As I met my neighbour wheeling out our bins one night, he told her, yes Mum’s eggs were no good because she was old so she got eggs from a donor. I love that it’s all there open and honest for my daughter to know about from day one.

No regrets, just do it.

For more support

To hear more from Caroline, you can listen to the podcast episode she recorded for my Thriving Solo Membership.

For more support on the decision to use donor eggs as a solo parent, you can access webinars and other support at Thriving Solo.