How fertility treatment has changed two friends' lives

Two friends reuinted after 30 years are appealing for women to become egg donors after fertility played a huge part in both their lives. Catherine Scott reports.
Six year old Harriet Field with her parents Julie and Jonathan. . Picture Scott MerryleesSix year old Harriet Field with her parents Julie and Jonathan. . Picture Scott Merrylees
Six year old Harriet Field with her parents Julie and Jonathan. . Picture Scott Merrylees

When Judith Smith got a Facebook message from someone she hadn’t heard from in 30 years she had no idea just how much their paths had crossed over the years.

Judith is operations manager of CARE which has a fertility clinic in Sheffield and it turns out that her long lost friend Julie Field’s daughter Harriet was only made possible thanks to an egg donor and the CARE clinic in Sheffield. Now both women are backing a campaign by the clinic to get more egg donors to come forward to create more happy families like Julie’s.

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“I got a Facebook message from someone I didn’t know,” says Judith. “I did vaguely recognised the face and then realised it was Julie. I hadn’t seen her since we left school at 18, and that’s more than 30 year ago.

Judith SmithJudith Smith
Judith Smith

“I have worked in fertility for more than 20 years and when I realised that Harriet was nearly six and my son is 19, you wonder whether they did have fertility problems. Then she said that Harriet was a CARE baby which was amazing as I am operations manager for CARE and was in Sheffield at the time she got in touch and we met up. It was fantastic to see her and hear her story about how CARE and egg donation has changed her and her husband’s lives.”

When Julie was told she was unable to have children she was devastated. The then 43-year-old from Doncaster and her husband Jonathan had been trying for a baby for a long time. They had started fertility treatment, but blood tests showed that Julie was never likely to be able to get pregnant without an egg donor.

“I had a miscarriages in 2005 but then I just couldn’t get pregnant again. They called it unexplained infertility which could have been linked to my age. We had both been in relationships before but I wasn’t ready to have children.

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“We started to look into egg donation at our local hospital in Sheffield but because I was over 40 they said I was too old for them to find me a donor because their cut off is 40. They would treat me but I had to find my own donor”

Judith SmithJudith Smith
Judith Smith

Julie and Jonathan considered asking a friend to become a donor for them.

“But in the end we decided to go to a different clinic, we felt that it would just put too much pressure on some else in case it didn’t work,” says Julie, now 50

The couple approached the CARE fertility clinic in Sheffield in July 2008 and although they were told they had been accepted they were warned there were 50 people ahead of them on the list.

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It was the following February that Julie received a call at work to say that had found a donor match and they could start the process.

“For so long your life has been on hold. It is all you think about. It takes over your life,” she says.

“They rang again to say that there were four eggs which were available for us to use - I think they like to have more as it increases your chances of getting pregnant but four was better than none. They told us to go to the clinic two days later.”

But they started to worry when one of the eggs that had been collected was damaged as specialists tried to fertilise it with Jonathan’s sperm.

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And the end only one egg was implanted, reducing Julie’s chances of getting pregnant. They then had to wait to see if Julie became pregnant

“We were on holiday when I did the pregnancy test,” recalls Julie. “I couldn’t look at the stick and so we looked at it together and there was definitely a pink line.” Julie went for a scan at seven weeks and another at 12.

But she had waited so long to become a mum that she couldn’t relax until she had that longed for baby in her arms.

“Those nine months were hell,” says Julie. “I’d waited so long to get pregnant and would go to bed and tick off another day. Until that baby is in your arms you don’t know anything for certain. One of my friends had lost a baby. When I found out I was pregnant she came up an told me that she was pregnant again. Her pregnancy was just as harrowing as mine but in a different way because of what had happened to her. She had a little girl ten days after me.”

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Julie decided to have an elective caesarean section at Bassetlaw Hospital.

“The moment they delivered her it was the best feeling in the world.” Harriet is now six year old and the apple of her parents’ eyes. “She’s amazing,” says Julie now 50. “She’s six going on 16. She’s learning to play the piano and goes to Rainbows. I cannot remember what life was like without her. It was so lovely to take her to meet Judith.

“I knew she had become a nurse but nothing more than that. I couldn’t believe it when she told me she was working in fertility and not only that for the same clinic which helped us get Harriet.

“When we had seen Judith and dropped her back at CARE Harriet said: ‘I would like to work here one day and help ladies have babies.’”

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The reunited friends are now encouraging more women to become egg donors, after a change in the law meant that children can now find out the identity of their egg or sperm donors when they are 18.

“It has put a lot of people off,” says Judith. “But on the plus side we are now able to pay women compensation of £750 for donating their eggs. But they aren’t just donating eggs, they are making families like Julie’s.”

Julie adds: “Words cannot express what we feel towards the woman that donated her eggs to allow us to become parents. It is the most amazing gift to give to someone. They cannot imagine how that other person feels to be given the gift of life. We just cannot thank them enough.”

If you are under 36 years of age, in good health, aware of your family medical history (no history of genetic disorders) and with a BMI of under 35 - you could become an egg donor.

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Donating eggs involves daily injections and you will need to come into CARE probably 3 or 4 times for ultrasound scans and blood tests. At the appropriate time, eggs are collected by a simple procedure.

Egg donor and recipient will never meet but since April 2005, any child born from donated eggs or sperm may, at age 18, request and be given identifying information about their donor.

For more information visit www.carefertility.com

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