A nursery school teacher who feared she would never have children is celebrating this New Year – after giving birth thanks to the last of 14 frozen eggs.
Jenny Redout had them frozen six years ago before undergoing chemotherapy which doctors had warned might make her infertile.
Last Christmas, after getting married and trying without success to have a baby, she and husband Steve decided to have all the eggs thawed and fertilised.
Nursery school teacher Jenny Redout who feared she would never have children is celebrating this New Year – after giving birth thanks to the last of 14 frozen eggs. Last Christmas, after getting married and trying without success to have a baby, she and husband Steve decided to have all the eggs thawed and fertilised
Only five made it to embryo stage. Then four died before being ready for transplant, leaving just one.
But tonight Jenny and Steve will be seeing the New Year in with a beautiful baby named Bonnie.
Yesterday Jenny, 39, from Weymouth, Dorset, recalled the nerve-racking days she and Steve spent at Midland Fertility centre in Tamworth waiting to see if the embryos would develop well enough to be implanted into her womb.
She said: ‘Every day one dropped away, so that by the Friday we were left with only one.
‘The next day, a Saturday, should have been the day the embryo was implanted. But the embryologist said it wasn’t looking very good.’
Dismayed, the couple went to a German Christmas market in Birmingham to kill time.
She said: ‘I don’t drink but even I had a mulled wine and a Pimm’s. We thought, “It’s never going to work – let’s blow it.”
‘We were staying in a Travelodge and packed that night so we could leave early. But the next morning the clinic called and said, “Come in, the embryo’s getting itself together.”’
Only five made it to embryo stage. Then four died before being ready for transplant, leaving just one. But tonight Jenny and Steve will be seeing the New Year in with a beautiful baby named Bonnie
Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility, who had helped freeze Jenny’s eggs, said: ‘It was my privilege to transfer this infinitesimally tiny dollop of protoplasm – so small it’s invisible to the naked eye, about the same size as the point of a pin. And it worked.’
She said it was ‘entirely normal’ to start with a good harvest of eggs and end up with only a small number of viable embryos – a situation that can leave couples on tenterhooks.
In August doctors decided to induce Jenny due to her medical condition, vasculitis – a problem of the immune system – for which she had received chemotherapy.
Three days later nothing had happened so Jenny had a caesarean, losing four pints of blood. Happily, both mother and baby were fine.
Jenny said: ‘I worked out that during the years of fertility treatment, I had 296 injections, took 641 tablets and 253 hormonal pessary pills. But it was all worthwhile.’
Steve said of four-month-old Bonnie: ‘I’m over the moon – and frequently in tears. I never thought we’d be holding our own little one this New Year.’