Couple's attempts to fall pregnant fail for surprising reason

Sydney couple Susane Alameddine and Daniel Walsh made the exciting decision to try and start a family three years ago. Susane tells 9Honey she thought it might take about six months to fall pregnant.

The six month mark came and went.

"I didn't look into any other avenues for about a year and then I read on IVF sites you should be trying for two years before you reach out to IVF," she says.

She went through a lot of pregnancy tests during that time. If her morning test result was negative, she may try again later in the day, quite a few times.

"I also brought the ovulation predictors and tried that for a while," she says.

After about a year she started feeling anxious.

"I tried not to stress about it," she says. "I'd hear stories about people who fell pregnant by forgetting about it and not being stressed."

She reached out to her cousin who had done fertility treatment and reached out for help shortly after.

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"I didn't know much about IVF," she says. "I did know it was expensive because of what I had heard about it years ago when it was new."

They decided to go with Adora Fertility and met Dr Paul Atkinson and embarked on their first round of fertility treatment which was more affordable than expected.

The egg retrieval went well as did every other part of the procedure, but it didn't work.

They began a second round of treatment with a slight adjustment in the medication Susane was taking and this time during the egg retrieval her doctor spotted a problem.

"He said he could see endometriosis and it blew my mind because I'd had pap smears and ultrasounds before for bloating but nobody took the time to actually dig deep and check things out," she said.

"I had no idea that I had endometriosis," she says. "I never expected to find out that was a reason why I wasn't falling pregnant"

Aside from the occasional bloating she hadn't experienced any other symptoms typical of the condition such as cramping and painful menstruation.

"The scar tissue that was all over my uterus and ovaries made it a really hard place for the egg to stick to," she says.

Susane underwent surgery for her endometriosis and after four months, they decided to try naturally before trying IVF again. Her hormone levels weren't creating an ideal environment for egg retrieval so they waited until they stabilised before doing another round.

Outside of IVF Susane was doing everything she could to fall pregnant including changing her died, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, cupping and anything else she could think of to boost her chances.

After the couple's third round of IVF they were given the news they were pregnant. Susane had spent the day checking her phone, knowing the call was going to come. When it came through she had been driving and had to pull over.

Their first scan at eight weeks showed that everything was developing normally and their next scan will be a t 12 weeks.

Susane and Daniel's baby is due on May 10.

"We'd not going to find out the baby's gender," she says. "I think it's life's greatest surprise. There can't be anything more exciting. We we did the scan we were looking to see if we could see anything, but we don't want to know."

Their next step is to start setting up the nursery.

"I was chatting to a friend and she said she had her baby in their bedroom for a year," she says.

Share your story by emailing Jo Abi at jabi@nine.com.au.