Linda and Liam Mallett endured a four and a half year fertility journey to welcome son Forrest into the world.
Miscarriages, a failed egg retrieval and lost embyros, topped off with preeclampsia – the Cockatoo couple’s journey to parenthood was rough.
They tried to fall pregnant for about a year before going to see a GP, who referred the couple to a fertility specialist.
They found nothing abnormal in Liam’s tests, and an anti mullerian hormone test found Linda’s egg reserve on the low side of normal for her age.
Then a laparoscopy and hysteroscopy discovered endometriosis.
“I was very shocked that I had it,” Linda said.
“I don’t suffer from bad period pain and have no other symptoms.”
Doctors removed the endo and advised the couple to try to conceive naturally for six months.
“Most times the surgery helps, but that wasn’t working for me,” Linda said.
“Then the next option was instead of going straight into IVF, we did an IUI.”
Intrauterine insemination (IUI) places sperm that have been washed and concentrated directly into your uterus around ovulation.
“It helps the sperm find the egg easier,” Linda said.
It didn’t work, so they tried naturally for a couple more months before deciding to start IVF.
But they couldn’t go ahead – a blood test found Linda was pregnant.
“Then we went to do my six-week scan and they found no heartbeat,” she said.
“I ended up having a miscarriage. It was pretty gutting.”
She needed a cocktail of drugs to lure her period back before starting IVF drugs.
Doctors only collected one egg from her first retrieval surgery. A gutted Linda told herself she only needed one.
She stayed home from work for five days, laying flat on the couch to encourage her little embryo to stick, but it wasn’t to be.
“We waited a couple of months and were about to call up to go again, but we fell pregnant again naturally,” Linda said.
It was twins. She and Liam were elated, but at nine weeks their world was shattered yet again.
Scans found the babies were no longer growing.
Again, it was an arduous process to get her period back before she could try another IVF cycle.
“I started doing acupuncture once a week and taking the craziness of the herbs that they make you drink,” she said.
“It tasted like dirt but I was like ‘I want this baby, I don’t really care’.”
She was terrified of again waking from the retrieval to one egg – or worse.
“I wanted three. Three would give me some kind of hope,” she said.
They got seven.
“I cried. I felt such relief,” she said.
Doctors used intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), where a single sperm is given a helping hand to ‘enter’ the egg.
They successfully fertilised five of the seven, then waited five days for them to eventuate to blastocysts before implantation.
Linda was in her car at the hospital, ready for the implantation when they told her none of the embryos made it.
“I was absolutely shattered, almost as shattered as if I miscarried,” she said.
“I think I would have been less devastated if I’d got a negative pregnancy test.
“I went through all that and didn’t even get the chance to transfer.”
She thought about what else was missing from her fertility process…and bought crystals online.
Linda laughs about it now, and jokes that they made the difference.
The doctors “threw more drugs” at her and went in for another retrieval.
They again got seven eggs, and again fertilised five.
“Then it was the dreaded five-day wait to work out how many of those would make it,” Linda said.
Four made it and were top quality. The doctor told Linda “I’m going to get you pregnant”.
She snuck in a few at-home tests during the torturous fortnight between implanation and her first blood test.
They were positive and the bloods confirmed it.
“But we didn’t want to get too ahead of ourselves because of my history,” she said.
She was “so relieved and so excited” when her first scan found a heartbeat.
“But once you’ve had a miscarriage, that innocence completely goes away,” she said.
Linda made it to 35 weeks but her struggles weren’t over.
Her hands hurt, her feet were swollen, her blood pressure was increasing.
She was admitted to hospital with preeclampsia.
“I felt like I wasn’t able to complain. I was just really grateful to make it this far,” she said.
“It just got really out of control because I didn’t mention anything because I didn’t want to burst the bubble.”
Doctors gave her steroid injections to help with Forrest’s lung development. Blood pressure medication was becoming less effective. Doctors couldn’t wait much longer to deliver Forrest..
Liam was booked in for a shoulder reconstruction, and a reaction to the anesthetic kept him in hospital longer than expected.
He was discharged, returned home to pack a new bag, and back at the hospital just in time for Forrest’s dramatic birth.
“He got stuck behind my placenta, so they had to get through the placenta, pull that out, pull him out,” Linda said.
“He wasn’t breathing.”
She held her long-awaited son for a few seconds before he was whisked away to the NICU.
“I went into recovery. I couldn’t move because of the drugs,” she said.
“He couldn’t come to me because they couldn’t move the isolette.
“I had to wait until the next day to see him.”
She spent five days in hospital then was sent home without her son.
“I was expressing to get my milk to come in,” she said.
“For three months, I expressed every two to three hours to get him enough milk.”
He was able to go home at 13 days old.
Linda’s period returned without prodding, so the couple have been trying for a sibling for Forrest knowing they have two frozen embryos up their sleeves.
“People say it’s hard being a mum, but no one tells you how hard that hard is,” she said.
“But I love being Forrest’s mum.”
