Davina Brawshaw says, "having bought a house and financially able to afford a child, we were trying and trying and trying and nothing was happening."

Like many women trying to conceive, Davina Bradshaw was surprised to find her fallopian tubes were blocked. The reason: scar tissue from a ruptured appendix, and subsequent abdominal surgery.

Davina was shocked amd according to Davina, she was never told and didn't think to ask at 30 that it would be an issue later on.

After she found out tubal surgery wasn't an option, she turned to in vitro fertilization.

Davina's first attempt at IVF was successful, but unfortunately, she miscarried at 7 weeks. Like normal pregnancies, the rate of miscarriage is 15 to 20 percent and even higher in older women. Currently, there is no way of reducing those odds.

Dr. Timothy Rowe, UBC Centre for Reproductive Health, says, "what we of course like to be sure of is to put back embryos with normal chromosome complements patterns. At present, there is no easy way of telling that."

Davina was angry at first that she had miscarried. It was very traumatic for her husband and for her. But, she wanted to get on it as soon as possible again.

Luckily, Davina had frozen two spare embryos. They were implanted and one of them took. She carried her child Jacob to term.

Davina says, "Jacob's a joy. He's a great, healthy baby. I would definately go through this again. We'd like a sibling for Jacob at some point, when we're ready again."

With IVF, couples are usually told to prepare for three rounds of treatment. Because IVF isn't covered by MSP, costs can add up...each round is about 10-thousand dollars. Davina was lucky her husband's work plan covered 90% of the drug costs. Others aren't so fortunate.

Tuesday June 13, 2006