Alice's story

• Heterosexual couple
• Alice, female, 33
• under-active thyroid, unexplained infertility
• Partner, male, 50, low sperm motility, low sperm count
• Current status: Pregnant-successful on the first cycle

I'm currently 16 weeks pregnant!

I had been trying to get pregnant for over 13 years, and have been with my current parter for the past 3. I felt like there was something wrong, but just did not know what it was. My partner was diagnosed with low sperm motility and count, however has already conceived 2 children in the past, so it felt like there was something wrong with me, which had a huge impact on my mental health. I have felt desperate to be a mum for so long and each month (and year) it just gets harder and harder to keep faith! I managed to get pregnant in 2022, but unfortunately experienced an early miscarriage which as you can imagine was devastating. We kept trying, consistently taking pregnancy tests because I wanted this so much and getting so upset every time it was negative (I could have probably bought shares in clear blue the amount of tests I have bought over the years!!!). I had multiple blood tests and scans with the NHS and was diagnosed with an under-active thyroid 5 years ago, but other than that everything was fine. They also found a cyst on on my ovary which they were apprehensive to remove, but this has now disappeared since my pregnancy!

Unfortunately IVF was not even an option on the NHS as my parter already had 2 children from his previous relationship. We had already started to save for IVF, but it seemed like such a long road and things kept popping up that meant we were not able to save that month. I was even looking into IVF treatments abroad but then an advert for Béa Fertility popped up on Instagram, and here we are. I was really adamant that we tried the Béa treatment then have one go at IVF (I knew I would struggle emotionally with IVF so I couldn't guarantee at that point we would even make it that far, but that was our plan.)

When I got the applicator out the box, I thought it was huge! But it ended up being absolutely fine. It took us a while to pin down dates with abstinence periods and ovulation timing (I was adamant we abstained for 4/5 days). Once we finally were able to use the kit, I managed to use it myself on the first and second days around peak ovulation.

We used our first Béa Treatment kit in December 2023, and said we would wait 14 days after my period was due to do a pregnancy test, however I just had to test sooner. I took my first pregnancy test on 13th December and had a faint line so continued to test. I think I have over 50 positive tests in a box upstairs! When I was certain, I sent a picture to my friend, who responded “OMG have you got COVID”? 😂

I thought the treatment experience as a whole was fantastic, even better as it worked on our first go!! It's truly amazing! I personally did not want to talk about my journey to anyone else (medical or otherwise) because I'd experienced so much pain over the years already. I'd heard all of the sayings too - “just relax”, “go on holiday”, “stop trying” etc. We had decided we would try Béa and continue trying to save for one go of IVF in the meantime but we wouldn't tell anyone about either type of treatment for fear of it failing. That was that. Now I'm 4 months pregnant and get to spend what we had saved on our baby's nursery instead! 🥰

My partner was more than happy to try it, and actually much more optimistic than me. I had already given up a lot of hope but in the back of my mind I knew “you have to keep trying” because I just wanted this so much.

I would and will continue to highly recommend Béa to others. I'll forever be grateful for the best thing ever to happen to me!!! I still can't believe it at times. I'm so emotional and so so grateful! To anybody struggling with infertility to give Béa a go! It is so affordable when considering fertility treatments and I'm so glad we tried otherwise we'd still be saving for IVF spending way more money and unnecessarily for us! I know treatment is different for everyone but I would (and have) highly recommend/ed this treatment to anyone!