Sophie's story

Heterosexual couple, TTC 11 months
Sophie, female, 34. Low AMH.
Partner, male, 35. Semen abnormalities.
Current status: 15 weeks pregnant

I'm currently 15 weeks pregnant and owe it all to Béa!

We tried for 11 months, but been off the pill for 9 months before. Something just wasn't quite right, so I took matters into our own hands over the summer, and looked for a private fertility clinic. We had the standard tests and scans and the fertility specialist there told us the only route for us would be via IVF and ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection - a treatment that selects a single sperm cell and injects it directly into an egg. It’s an add-on to IVF that usually costs an extra £1300 or so

My partner was told he had an antigen sperm (related to his autoimmune condition). This means his immune system fights his own sperm cells killing them as well as a 5% abnormal motility (a condition that means the sperm cannot move as efficiently as they should ). I also had a low AMH (around 2.5). Because of the semen abnormalities and my AMH, we were told by the private clinic that ICSI was the only way for us to get pregnant. They told us the waitlist for IVF was around 12-18 months on the NHS, so we agreed to go private and start saving.

It was really hard, and lonely. My partner really felt like he'd failed when we found out about the semen diagnosis, which was so hard. He knew I'd always wanted children and searched for alternatives and anything we could do, and came across the Guardian Article about Béa. He was keen to try it and give anything a go but I didn't think it was going to work. To be totally honest, I felt ashamed about having to resort to buying a Béa Treatment. It made me feel like I'd failed, which felt really hard.

I posted on a few forums asking “has anyone tried Béa” to see if anyone had any idea. I really wasn't super optimistic, especially when no one replied. In the meantime I was also looking for alternatives to IVF for semen abnormalities, and there really wasn't much information there. Whilst saving up for IVF, we decided to give Béa a try as we were willing to try anything.

I couldn't believe it. We were in utter disbelief as we got pregnant on our first try. It was the most incredible feeling after seeing so many negative tests. Sadly, that pregnancy ended up as a chemical (a very early miscarriage typically under 5 weeks). We tried again straight away and got pregnant again. The Béa treatment was so simple, easy and absolutely perfect for us.

We're now 15 weeks pregnant and very excited for what the future holds. I've gone from feeling ashamed of buying a Béa kit, to being really proud of being a Béa pregnancy. There's a huge information gap when it comes to fertility knowledge, and I'd love it if there was some kind of forum where I could chat to other people who went through the same journey, and other people who are pregnant.
Note from Tess, Sandy and the Béa Team: Leave it with us Sophie, we'll get that forum started for you!