Annabel Gurnett  0:00  

I think it felt like the rug had just been pulled from underneath our feet. Have some paracetamol and go home.

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Amber Izzo  0:10  

Hello, you are listening to misconception a Gaia family podcast. My name is Amber, and I am your host. Each week we release a new episode talking about the various paths to parenthood, from community stories to conversations with experts. We've got you covered. Gaia's mission is to make IVF more accessible for more people with a financial plan that allows you to start and protect your IVF and access to a community who just get it. We're here for you. You can request a free personalized quote at gaiafamily.com

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This week, we are talking to Annabel Gurnett. Annabel is the co-host of fertility podcast, 'Am I Ovary Acting?' Annabel has shared much of her fertility journey on her social media as well as discussing menstrual health on her social media page. Her and her husband Matt, have been diagnosed with male factor infertility and had also sadly been through a miscarriage after having already been through one cycle of IVF, which we talk about during the episode. She's currently preparing for a whole new IVF cycle with a whole new clinic and a whole new protocol. We're really excited to be talking to her today, so let's bring her in.

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Annabel, hello. 

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Annabel Gurnett  1:21  

Hi, Amber. 

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Amber Izzo  1:22  

Thank you for joining us. How are you? 

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Annabel Gurnett  1:25  

I'm good. How are you?

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Amber Izzo  1:26  

Good, yeah, I'm good. I'm really good. Thank you. It's really nice to have you on the podcast. So this isn't new to us. Annabel is my co-host for another podcast, so it's very strange sitting here and interviewing her. I actually feel more nervous interviewing Annabel than anyone else, but this is great. Hi. Thanks for joining us. Um, if you could just kind of give our listeners a bit of a backstory and tell them, tell them your story. From your perspective.

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Annabel Gurnett  1:53  

I literally, I'm so glad that you warned me that I was going to need to do this because I've had to write notes on my phone.

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Amber Izzo  2:01  

I love it. It's all blurred into one. 

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Annabel Gurnett  2:03  

Well, that's the thing. I think that's one of those things that I think people will be able to relate to, hopefully, and I'm not just really forgetful and an awful person, but that it does just become like a blurred timeline of just like a mush. So yeah, in terms of, like, my story,

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my now husband and I, we started trying for a baby in February, 2018, so six years ago now, and it was a very kind of casual start to it just being like, oh yeah, cool, we'll start trying. I'll come off the pill.

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We'd just got engaged, so we kind of had an end date of trying in mind before we then, like, were focusing on the wedding, because I didn't want to be pregnant at my wedding. I know loads of people are, and I don't have an issue with being pregnant at the wedding, but I just really wanted to get drunk on my wedding personal choice. Yeah, so, and obviously at that point, we didn't realize that it was going to take ages, so it was a very casual, oh, we'll just, we'll pause and we'll restart again after the wedding. So initially we were probably trying for a baby for like, six months or so, and then I said, right, that's it. I don't want to continue anymore. Let's pause it. I just, like, ordered my wedding dress, stuff like that, and I was just like, we need to pause now. So in April 2019, we got married, and immediately started trying for a baby again. I came off the pill straight away because I'd gone back on it with his like, I was originally on the pill for like, like, acne, and so when I'd come off it, when we first started trying, my acne had flared up again. So I went back on it because I wanted to, like, help control that, back in control for the wedding day. So came off the pill again, and my mind was like, Okay, take a few months to get out your system, etc, etc. And then in September, found out that I was pregnant, and Matt and I, we were so excited, because it was getting to the point of being like, Oh, we've done, sort of, we've tried, sort of, we did, like, a six month stint of trying. We've now been trying for another sort of five months, five, six months. And so it was just getting to that point of having the little question mark over. Will this be okay? Do we need to kind of start questioning things and looking into it? So,

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yeah, the couple of days late, took the pregnancy test, came back positive. We were so excited.

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And then a few days later, but literally a few days later, I got cramps and started bleeding, and that was then confirmed as a miscarriage.

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I mean, the whole process of getting that kind of confirmed.

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That was like the longest weekend of my life. There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of dismissal from doctors that, oh, spotting is normal, like, just go home and relax and sort of just being ignored when I was saying, it's not just spotting,

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but, you know, that's a whole other story. So we had our honeymoon booked for the January so we were like, Okay, we'll keep trying, but let's just relax.

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So we went on our honeymoon in January 2020, literally just before lockdown and everything. I remember being on our honeymoon, looking at all the covid stuff, thinking, this is mad.

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And when we kind of got back from our honeymoon,

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I sort of started thinking, right, okay, I want to go to the doctors. I want to start looking into this and getting some answers, because my cycles were quite irregular. And Matt had been a chef for 20 years, and studies show that chefs can have fertility issues, because if you think about kind of, where they're positioned when they're cooking, all that heat is right by their bollocks. And so there's, there is this kind of, there is research that shows it can have an impact on like, sperm quality and sperm health, and so it was just something that we thought, right, okay, let's start looking into this,

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because we've both got sort of question marks over things because of the timing of that. Like there were so many delays with covid, and things just got pushed back and pushed back. I was told we're not a priority, which is fair enough. I understood that, you know, people were trying to figure out what on earth was happening in terms of covid, so I completely understood why someone didn't necessarily care that, like my cycles were, you know, 25 days one month and 40 days the next. 

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Amber Izzo  6:48  

Still not nice to hear. 

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Annabel Gurnett  6:49  

Yeah, it wasn't nice to hear, but it was... I understood why. Yeah, it just, it just meant that things took forever, and because I'd had the miscarriage, I got the you know... "Well, we know you can get pregnant, so just keep trying."

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So it wasn't until 2021 that Matt was diagnosed with a condition called OAT. And I, I can't say the full. It's ogli-oh, something, something. I can't even say it, but it's basically like male subfertility. So there is sperm there, but it was low count, low motility, and,

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like poor morphology. So kind of in all three scenarios, he was like, below average on that. So we were recommended, right? It's going to be IVF, IXI is the best option for you. So it was then a case of, right, let's do more tests to try and qualify for NHS funding. And I mean, you know this Amber, and I'm sure lots of listeners will know that the requirements for getting that funding vary so much depending on where you live. So where we live, we're really fortunate in that we could get, we could get one egg collection and two embryo transfers, provided that the first embryo transfer was unsuccessful, that we then qualify for a second embryo transfer. So that's what we were kind of hoping for, aiming for, but one of the requirements was that it had to be three years after a pregnancy. So because I'd been pregnant for a whole like six weeks, it meant that we had to wait until

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October 2022, before we'd be able to qualify for

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funding, which was very frustrating, because we were also told if we pursued private treatment, that we would also then not qualify for NHS treatment. So it was a case of, right, well, do we just wait, or do we go ahead with private and we decided that we would wait

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to get our treatment because we thought we're lucky enough to have access to it. So let's just wait the extra like six months, or however long it was at that point, and try and get this funding secured. So in December, literally, like two days before Christmas, we got the phone call confirming "Yes, you can go ahead, we've got your funding approved."

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And in March 2023

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we went ahead and did our round of IVF. But unfortunately it didn't go very well for a number of reasons, but ultimately it was canceled. After the egg collection, we got five eggs, two of those were mature, but neither of those fertilized. And so after that, it was canceled, and we've also therefore lost access to our embryo transfer

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on the NHS, because that was one of the

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sort of requirements. It was like, oh, okay, well, if you don't get any embryos, then you're not going to get funding for your embryo transfer either. So it was quite hard to deal with the fact that everything we'd worked so hard, we'd spent so long trying to get the NHS funding. And then it just from the moment we started treatment, it felt like nothing was quite going our way.

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And on the one hand, and I remember you saying this to me, you know, try to see this as a dummy run, because it's free, and look at it as getting loads of research and loads of information. And if it works, that's amazing, but try and, you know, keep kind of level headed about it. And we definitely tried to do that, but I think there's always still going to be that part of you, particularly because our consultant was saying, "oh, you know, there's no reason why we shouldn't get loads of eggs" and then it just, it just all went, yeah, completely the other way.

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I think we thought, if it doesn't work, it's because of an issue with Matt's sperm, but for me to effectively be the issue, because my body didn't respond the way that any any of us were anticipating...

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it was quite difficult.

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So yeah, and now we are getting, sort of, well, we're getting our ducks in a row for private treatment and restarting. It's been sort of almost a year since we did treatment, which we postponed for reason after reason, it's always so easy to be like, "Oh, well, next month we'll...", yeah, but next month we'll start looking at clinics again, because we knew that we didn't want to stay with the clinic we were originally with,

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and so it's just taken us ages to get back going again. But now we are. 

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Amber Izzo  12:04  

Now you are. I mean, I think there's a couple of angles I can go with this really. I think, first of all, I think in terms of, like, the not getting any embryos, I don't really feel like that's something that people talk about all the time, that I think when you think about an IVF cycle that's not worked,

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you tend to put it down to the

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the lack of implantation and the fact that the implantation hasn't worked, and you still have that embryo transfer. You still have the days one to five of waiting to see how many embryos are viable for transfer, and then the two week wait after that, whereas yours was cut completely short. So I mean, how, how was that? How was processing that information at the time? Because I know that you've spoken quite openly previously about how you and Matt handled that very differently at the time. And I wonder whether, as time has gone on, you you see it differently or or what with that? 

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Annabel Gurnett  13:00  

I think it felt...

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like the rug had just been pulled from underneath our feet. We had been told, oh, this is a possibility that might happen. You know, some people don't get any embryos,

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but it was, it was brushed aside. It was very much a but we don't think like that won't apply to you.

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And so then all the reasons we were given why it might not work was very much a, oh, well, once the embryo, you know, once the embryo is transferred, then it might not implant properly, or there might be issues, or getting to day five.

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So the concept of not even having anything wasn't really something that either of us had entertained. Which sounds very naive, but I think when you've got the experts telling you not to worry about something you don't you do just you trust them. I mean, I certainly, I do, like I'm just very if I'm not an expert in something, then whatever an expert tells me, I just, I go with I just follow blindly. And we had warning signs that it wasn't perhaps going our way during my tracking scans,

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you know, things I remember my first tracking scan, they couldn't find one of my ovaries, and then on my second tracking scan,

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things you know, it was still - my - the follicles were looking a bit small,

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and

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nothing was really changed in our protocol, I think I was given one extra day of stims.

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But in terms of anything else, it wasn't really changed. I didn't have any extra scans or extra monitoring to see what was going on. And in our follow up consultation, our consultant did say that, you know, retrospectively, yeah, she would have done things differently. She wouldn't have made the decisions that were made for us,

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which was, you know, comforting to hear, but also really bloody annoying, because 

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Amber Izzo  15:00  

So was that a different consultant who had... to the one that had actually been dealing with your case? 

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Annabel Gurnett  15:05  

No, it was the same one, but she said that the nurse who had basically done my tracking scan and said, oh, we'll do an extra day of stims,

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the consultant said that actually she would have done something different. She would have given us more than one extra day. So I yeah, I feel like there might have been a bit of a breakdown of communication there. But,

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you know what? What can you do? Ultimately, you're always operating in hindsight. Aren't you with these things so?

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But yeah, I remember, I remember being like, on the table, that doesn't sound very good, on the bed, um, during the egg collection, and I was still kind of alert enough to be having conversations, and I heard someone say, only five. And I was like, woozy, so I thought, oh, that doesn't sound as high as we were expecting, like we were expecting double figures. But okay. And so I was then taken back into, like, the main room, and another woman was in there, and they were all praising her because she'd got 22 eggs. And so there was this whole thing. She had multiple nurses coming up to her, being like, wow, you must be so happy she had this bed. I was plonked on this armchair, and Matt wasn't with me, and the consultant came up to me and was like, Yeah, we got five. It's not what we were expecting, it's far fewer.

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So we'll just wait and see. And I text Matt, because he was literally in the room next door,

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and I said they only got five, which isn't I know, for some people, five eggs is the goal, but for us, it did feel very much as a only five, because

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all of us were expecting that I would they would be able to get more.

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And

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I, from that moment, I was like, That's it. It's done. Like, I then switched off from it, and I was, I was then grieving like from that moment, whereas Matt, as always, very he is a very optimistic force in my life. And he was saying, you know, it's not over, till it's over, we'll wait and see. You know, they're going to phone us tomorrow. We only need one, all those kind of cliche things.

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But then the next day, they phoned and said that, no, none had fertilized. And so that was that, and I could just stop my medication there and then. And it was over, and

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I was at work, so I had to text Matt again to be like, it's done. And I think for Matt, that was when it sunk in.

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But I think it was just, we both just felt,

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well, I mean, I felt just a bit foolish that I hadn't considered that that could happen to us. But then, I guess, you know, you never think that you're going to have fertility issues. You never think you're going to be the person that needs IVF. So I should have known, if you think you're not going to be that person, chances are you're going to be that person. So.

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Amber Izzo  18:27  

Goodness me, I think, I mean, you've obviously gone on since then to kind of look into more reasons why

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I know you've had a bit of further testing with that. So how has that kind of process been? 

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Annabel Gurnett  18:42  

I mean, we've just kind of, in terms of me, everything generally, is still just coming back normal.

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And so what we were looking at for a new clinic we needed somewhere that was going to

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look at our sort of previous plan and give us something completely different, because that protocol clearly was not right for us. And fortunately, you know, we found somewhere who

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took my tracking scans and looked at both of them and then assessed from there exactly what he suspects happened. So

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he thinks that

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the down regs that I was on just kind of put me off kilter too much, and my body then didn't kind of bounce back from that the protocol that he's proposed is far more intense,

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which I like. It's made me a bit nervous, but I think from the round that we did, I didn't really have any symptoms. I was a bit like foggy, but I didn't have the extreme bloating. I didn't have the

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grumpiness and the tiredness and all of that, like, I just felt a little bit spaced out, which some people might be like, that's a great thing, but

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I wanted the symptoms, because I wanted to know that my body was reacting in some way.

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So in terms of

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research that we've done since then, it's been kind of very much. We'll keep at what we've been doing like we know that the medication that Matt, that Matt's been on, because we were speaking to a urologist before our first round of IVF,

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we know that the stuff that he's been on and recommended has had a positive impact. So Matt's continuing with that.

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And as for the rest of it, I mean, it's just a kind of wait and see what happens with this next protocol, and see from that. I think if it still doesn't work, then I'll obviously be pushing for some other tests, but for now, just hoping that okay, it's just a case of it, not my body not responding to our first protocol. 

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Amber Izzo  21:06  

Yeah, and you have spoken about, I know you did earlier, earlier today, actually, you were talking on social media about how you're choosing to share your next cycle going forward, and how actually you are going to be keeping it private until after the fact, like you did, did the last time. But obviously you have mentioned, you know, finding a new clinic and and going through that process. And, I mean, how has that process of finding a new clinic and navigating the the costs of private treatment? Because, of course, this will all be completely new to you, because you did have the NHS cycle. I remember we went to the fertility show last year, and I remember you were looking around at different clinics then and having a conversation of, what do you even look for? How? How do you compare? And how do you navigate that? So how you know that was May last year, so we've had quite a bit of time in between then, and like you say, there's been reason after reason why you've put your treatment on hold in that time, but finding that clinic and finding that clinic that gave you the protocol that you're you're seemingly quite happy with. How was that entire process, and what did you do there? And you know, was the cost scary, or was the cost something that you knew you'd have to factor in? 

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Annabel Gurnett  22:17  

So in terms of finding the right clinic for me, I pretty much just go on convenience and recommendations and like the gut feeling. So obviously, if somewhere has like, just looks terrible, then I won't go for them. But it was very important to me to find somewhere that had recommendations that had a good reputation

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and that was easy for me to get to. So with this new protocol, they want me to go in at least every other day, but potentially every day for scans.

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And so the clinic that we've gone for is just around the corner from my office, so I hybrid work, but it just means that my bosses are going to think that I'm really, really keen during my treatment, because I'm going to be in the office pretty much every day.

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Make it work for you, yeah, exactly. Try and sort of get, like a promotion or something before.

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Amber Izzo  23:27  

I love that, ulterior motives.

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Annabel Gurnett  23:30  

Yeah, it's like, come on, I need a raise.

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Amber Izzo  23:34  

IVF to pay for

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Annabel Gurnett  23:36  

So that for me was I didn't want somewhere where I was going to have to take time, loads of time out of my day to go to appointments. So I knew that it had to be somewhere in London, had to be somewhere that I felt confident with because our previous clinic, we felt so let down by them that I knew I had to go somewhere where I was going to trust what they were telling me and what they were advising us to do.

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And so for me, those were our main things. And the actual choosing of a clinic was really, really easy because the first two that I was looking at, one of them got back to me straight away, and one of them never got back to me. And so I just thought, Oh, I'm never, I'm not going to go for you then, actually.

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And so we just kind of fell into the one that we kind of went for, because they got back to us. And it was totally seamless. And

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from the moment we had the consultation, everything since then, I've just felt so well looked after, um,

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and so, yeah, the cost, yeah, I don't think anything can kind of prepare you for the cost. 

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But for us, we were in a position to be able to go for the clinic that we wanted to go for,

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and so it is a more expensive clinic. But,

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I kind of said to Matt. I was like, well, if, if we go to a different clinic that is cheaper and it doesn't work, then I will still want to go to the more expensive clinic. I would rather go to the more expensive clinic and it not work. And then I look at other clinics rather than go for a cheaper one. You know, if we're fortunately in the position to be able to have that option, and so for me, like I said, like, trust and confidence is so key going into this next round the I yeah, I persuaded Matt, and I just... Fortunately, he agreed. 

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Amber Izzo  25:53  

That's good. It's good that you're on the same page. I mean, talking of Matt, obviously you've addressed the fact that predominantly your diagnosis is male factor, infertility, and so it must be different going through the process when, you know, I have experience of it in some aspects, but I think when it is kind of pinpointed on one person, that must be quite difficult to navigate. Because I know that, you know, in the fertility community, we talk an awful lot about the blame and the guilt and the shame and the things that people feel when they are the ones with the diagnosis. So I'm interested, really, to kind of hear from you, from the partner's perspective, of how you know, as much as kind of Matt's, you know, what Matt would be willing for you to say, but as much as Matt's kind of dealt with that and those feelings, and any kind of feelings that he's had attached to that, and then how you've navigated that, knowing that that's the reason that you're having IVF,

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Annabel Gurnett  26:52  

I think

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I've mainly just felt really heartbroken for him because he's, I mean, we both want children, obviously, that's why we're doing it. But he's always been the one that has, like, led the charge with it, and I've always been the one to delay it and to then learn that, you know, he's, he's got, you know, this condition, which means that he's got male factor infertility.

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Yeah, it was really, really, it was tricky, because we were so happy to have an answer, because I feel like unexplained infertility is just horrendous, and, God, my heart goes out to anyone who's going through that. So to have an answer we were very happy with, but yeah, I do wish that it was me, because Matt carries so much guilt, and he's not always a great talker, but I remember one day he took our dog for a walk, and he was gone for ages, and we had to go out. And I was getting really irritated because I was clock watching and wondering, you know, where the bloody hell is he? And he came back, and he just he seemed so light and so happy, and he had bumped into someone out on the walk, and was chatting away to them. And then another guy had come over and sort of told them, quite out of the blue, guess who's going to be a dad. And he'd basically just found out that his wife was pregnant, but it was through IVF, and then the other man that Matt was originally speaking to said that he and his wife had had fertility issues, and so Matt somehow had stumbled across these two men out on this walk who had both gone through what we're going through. And I can't remember if it was both the men or one of the men, but it was male factor. And so I think Matt just came back from that walk realizing that he's not alone, because I have, like, I speak about it on Instagram, so I have this sort of community of people and friends who have gone through it, whereas Matt, I think, felt like he didn't have that community of support. And then it was a very kind of abstract thing

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in terms of not knowing people, or not knowing many people that had gone through it, or the people that he didn't know were people that he only knew through me or heard about through me. And so I think to

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realize that if you speak about it, you will find people that have also gone through it,

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I think that really helped him, but he still gets it. Now. He still gets waves of this is all my fault.

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So, yeah, I did. I mean, I generally make jokes about things that I'm uncomfortable with, or try to kind of lighten the mood.

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So I will occasionally be like, it's all your bloody fault, which I know probably isn't the best thing for someone that

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Amber Izzo  30:07  

How kind and empathetic of you

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Annabel Gurnett  30:09  

But it's the approach that I take is, if you laugh about it and make a joke about it, I've told him, in all seriousness multiple times, that it's an us thing, you know, it's not a he versus me. It is an us thing. 

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But also then it meant that when my body didn't respond to our first round of IVF, and I wasn't able to produce, like, mature eggs that were going to fertilize and all the rest of it, I did say to him, like, look, it's one all like, you've got the problem, but I let us down when it got to the treatment so we're even

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So, yeah, we try to... We do have different ways of dealing with it. He carries guilt, and I think I carry frustration, but it's never frustration at him. It's always just frustration at the situation. 

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Amber Izzo  31:00  

Yeah, I think, I mean, you deal with it, how you deal with it, and, you know, I know, obviously we say that you you joke at him, and you kind of make these underhand comments, if you like, but you know your relationship, and I think that's the thing that with some people, that would be so over the mark, whereas for other people, it's their way of dealing with it. And I know that I have a similar relationship with my husband, and it's comments like that all the time, and obviously it's me with the diagnosis, but when he got the diagnosis, it was really nice to be able to say, Oh well, it's you too, and and jibe at that. And so I do really understand, and kind of you know, you're not you're not cruel,

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although some people may disagree, but it does. It all depends on your relationship, doesn't it, and how,

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and how you kind of communicate to get through this. And I mean, in terms of your relationship, do you feel that it has, that this whole process has impacted your relationship, or do you feel like it's made it stronger in some aspects? 

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Annabel Gurnett  31:57  

I think overall, yeah, it's made us stronger. But it's definitely, it's not,

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It's not something I'd sort of recommend to people who are going through relationship issues to be like, just do some IVF. It will really bring you together,

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like it has tested us,

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because... just in boring ways, you know, like I'll nag at him because he's eaten something that he's not meant to be eating, or has he taken his vitamins? Has he done this? And then he'll look at me and be like, you went out last week and had a bottle of wine. You're not meant to be doing that. And it does put pressure and strain, because everyone else's lives are moving forward, and it feels like everyone else is popping out kids, and so you have to kind of

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keep hold of that, like just try and manage that jealousy, because I do feel jealous. I'm not someone that can sit here and be like, Oh, I don't feel jealous, because that's their life and that's mine. I do compare. That is who I am, and I do feel envious of people when they get to do the really cute pregnancy announcements, and they'd only just got married and they weren't even dating, when Matt and I started having, like, trying for a baby, I do get pissed off, but Matt is good at calming me down, and so I think it has made us stronger. And for a while, when we first started going through tests, I became quite obsessive over tracking my ovulation and making sure we were having sex, because my GP recommended that Matt and I just have sex every other day, like just no matter where I was in my cycle, just have sex every other day indefinitely, which I think is the worst advice ever, because I understand the logic, but that is a surefire way of just ruining any kind of romance and spontaneity when you're having to be like, okay, well, we didn't have sex yesterday, so we've got to have sex today. And that then changed to when I was tracking my ovulation, being like, right, okay, well, I'm ovulating, so we need to have sex in the morning and in the evening. And it got to the point where we were just miserable, like we would be having we would not be speaking, and I'd be like, well, we need to have sex. And so we'd have sex, and then we'd roll over and be like, right? Okay, good night. Like there was no connection. So for us, it was a case of, right? Well, I stopped tracking ovulation because it was just making me very obsessive and putting a lot of pressure on Matt to perform. 

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And we also then shifted our perspective and thought, Okay, well, if we're having to wait longer for a baby, let's make sure we really make the most of this time as a couple. And so we've it's meant that we've done things that we wouldn't have done otherwise, and we've got memories that we wouldn't have had. So obviously, overall, we'd still prefer to.

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have had a baby immediately, but I think in other ways, it's made us stronger, because it's given us more time

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just us and to kind of, yeah, just have more fun together in the meantime.

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But no, it's not always easy. 

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Amber Izzo  35:18  

No, yeah. I mean, if we go back, kind of to the beginning, well, I say the beginning, but if we talk about your miscarriage. So that

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must have been awful to go through. And I think I know that you said, see, you found out you were pregnant, and it was within a couple of days. So I don't know, like,

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how, how, how did you navigate? Like, had you come to terms with the fact that you were going to be a mum and that you'd got this positive test?

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Annabel Gurnett  35:50  

100%

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I think because we were actively trying for a baby, I'd already, like, I've had a list of names on my phone for years, I was looking on Pinterest. I worked out, right, this is when it's due. Okay, so it's due, I think 25th of May, 2020, so thank God I didn't have it respectfully, because I don't think I'd have been able to handle. I've had friends who had newborn babies during the pandemic and lockdown, and like I would have hated, absolutely hated it. I don't think I would have been strong enough to go through that. So in some ways that I am, it sounds really awful to say, but in some ways, I'm grateful that we didn't have to go through that.

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But I'd done everything. I'd worked out, okay, well, it'll be a spring baby. So what spring maternity fashion? What clothes could... all that stupid stuff that doesn't matter, but I had already, before I'd even seen that positive line, I'd already planned out everything, and

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it didn't occur to me that I could be the sort of person that would lose it. I just I didn't, once again, I thought that doesn't happen to me. That will happen to someone else. And so when I felt the cramps and then realized that I was bleeding and Matt was out on a walk, I do, actually, I do walk the dog as well, just any stories, Matt's been the one that's walking the dog, and I called him, and we were meant to be seeing friends that evening, and we were going to tell them, because it was like, well, if Annabel is not drinking, then they're going to know something's up. So we were going to tell them, and they were going to be the only, like, first people that we told and

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it all just,

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yeah, it just, it felt very,

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just weird, like it felt like I was in this just kind of fuzzy, just stumbling through it. And did I just imagine, like, is this just my period coming? And have I just imagined the past couple of days, because it felt like it was taken away from me as quickly as it was given to me. 

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And yeah, it's again. It doesn't take away the fact that it was awful and heartbreaking and devastating, but

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I'm so I'm thankful that it happened when it did and not further down the line, because the way that the excitement that I felt and the way that I already felt about this little thing that was growing in my belly, I don't, God, the idea of losing that when I'd had more time and it's been more real,

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just, yeah, the idea of that is just absolutely horrendous. And like, my heart goes out to anyone that has miscarriages at any point. But yeah, I'm

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yeah, it's just

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the whole thing was a bit of a shambles, and I think it would have been a lot easier had the doctors responded a bit better, yeah. 

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Amber Izzo  39:22  

But so what happened there? Because I know you said that earlier, and you'd said that it was a whole day. 

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Annabel Gurnett  39:27  

We phoned, because it was at the weekend. So we phoned one on one and said this is the situation

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We got a positive pregnancy test, now bleeding, and they were kind of like, oh, well, how many pads are you soaking - they just kept asking, how many pads are you soaking through every hour? And I kept saying, I'm not soaking any, but I'm bleeding more than, it's more than spotting. It's more like a period, but, and they were just like, yeah, but how many pads are you soaking through?

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I'm not soaking through any I'm not bleeding that heavily, but I'm bleeding more than what I would say is spotting. And they were like, oh, well, you know, we'll get a doctor to phone you. So the doctor phoned and said, yeah, you can come to the out of hours clinic. We can fit you in at like, 11 o'clock tonight. So we went down to Harlow, I think it was, and waited and waited and waited. 

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And I don't know what the kind of protocol is, but he didn't really ask me any proper questions. And he was also like, well, it's very normal to have spotting, so don't worry about it, go home, go to sleep and see how it is. In the morning, if you're still bleeding like this, in the morning, go to the hospital. And so, which to me, felt very dramatic, because I was like, bloody hell like that's... I need to go... because he was literally like, go to A&E if it's still bleeding, like you're still bleeding like this tomorrow. So to go from

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go home and go to bed to but if it's still like this in the morning, go to A&E, um, was a bit strange. So obviously I did not sleep at all that night, because

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I was very like I could feel that I was pretty much on my period. That's what it felt like. And so we went to A&E and they wanted to do another pregnancy test, so I had to try and pee in this pot again.

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And it took me ages because I didn't need the loo, and I was stressed out. And they have, like, the automatic lights in these loos. You know, when they switch off, if there's no light motion for a while, and the lights kept going off, because this is how long I was trying. So I was having to pee in this pot in the dark, and it was just very, very chaotic. And I heard them call my name, so I finished doing what I needed to do. Gave them my sample, and then they took us through to the pediatric ward, which is absolutely ridiculous that that's located in the same area. So

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they put us in this little side room, and I heard one of the nurses say to the other nurse, it's come back positive, so it looks like the pregnancy is continuing, or it was something, but it was vague, and it didn't sound good. And so then they made me, they gave me a phone to phone through to the maternity ward, and she then asked me loads of questions and told me over the phone, yeah, like it does sound like you're miscarrying. 

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Have some paracetamol and go home.

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And that was it. We literally just hung up the phone, gave it to the person on the pediatric ward, and then just, well, we went to the M&S on the Concourse, and I got a pack of biscuits. And I remember when I was paying for the biscuits, they phoned me again, well, like, oh, do you want to come through for a scan? Like, we can give you a scan if you want. And I was like, well,

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am I miscarrying? Like, is this pregnancy over? They were like, yeah. So I said, well, I'm just gonna go home then, like, there's no point in longing this out. I'll just go home.

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And so, yeah, that was it. Like, the miscarriage itself was, you know, just like a period. It wasn't, there weren't any complications,

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but that was that.

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The dismissal, when I'd originally said, and contacted the doctors, and just this assumption that, oh, here's this, another stupid woman who's spotting and she's panicking, and then being told, you know, in the pediatrics ward of the hospital, on the phone to the maternity unit and being told, yeah, you having a miscarriage, go home and have some paracetamol, the whole thing just felt very

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dismissive. And again, on the grand scale of things, I can see how someone having a miscarriage when they're, you know, six weeks along

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and they're not, you know, bleeding super heavily. There's no red flags in terms of that. I can see why it was a... from their perspective, unfortunately, this happens. Just go home. Take it easy.

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But for for me, this huge thing that Matt and I had been trying for quite a while at that point, and

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it being treated by someone else as this, like, really dismissive and just this, oh, yeah, this happens, whatever. It felt like I wasn't being taken seriously, and like my feelings in it weren't being honored, like, I don't know what they could have done, but it was happening. But I feel like there's that kind of level of,

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...wasn't there? 

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Amber Izzo  44:56  

Yeah. It sounds, I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you were met with a

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Kind of lack of empathy. And I think that seems to be quite a resounding thing sometimes, which is a real shame. 

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Annabel Gurnett  45:07  

Yeah, yeah. I think when it is such a personal thing,

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it was just a lack of yeah, a lack of care, a lack of empathy.

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So yeah, just went home and took a day off work, and then I was back to it, yeah, it all felt very it felt like it was just a dream, because, you know, I'd found out I was pregnant on, like, the Thursday and the Tuesday I went into work, and, you know, people were like, oh, you feeling better because I'd been off the day before, and I was like, Yeah, fine. And it was just all of this stuff had happened over the weekend.

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Yeah, it was, it was weird. 

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Amber Izzo  45:53  

It's amazing, isn't it? Like you say that you went back into work, and everybody's asking you how you are, and you just, yeah, I'm fine. And how actually, you know, unfortunately, pregnancy loss is quite common. I think, I think the statistics are something like one in four. But ultimately, at the end of the day, that was your child, like there's no and like you say, you know, you go into that hospital and to them, you may be another person that it's happened to, because they see it quite frequently, but

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you shouldn't be treated like that, and you're still, you know, for you, this is unique, and this is your child, your baby, and then you go back to work and act like nothing's happened. And the amount of people that go through this, that you don't know are going through this, it's so difficult because it still feels a little bit like a taboo subject and like, something that you can't talk about. Yeah, did it take you a long time to, like talk about it? Because obviously now you're very open. Now you share your fertility story very openly. You're on social media discussing it. And I mean, how was that process going from going through it to feeling not comfortable with what happened, but feeling like you can talk about what happened

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and share that so openly and honestly as you do?

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Annabel Gurnett  47:08  

I think it because it got to the point where I was fed up of it being a secret. I was fed up of people asking when Matt and I were going to have a baby, and people that I didn't even know being like, oh, when you're going to give Matt a baby, you know, come on, he'd be a great dad. What's stopping you and hearing that so often, when actually it's like no, Matt and I have been trying for a while now, and it's not happening for us. And I just got fed up. And then it was, you know, the following summer, it was locked down, and that was when I was in my quite obsessive tracking ovulation and every single day looking at, like my period tracker, being like, Oh, how many days until I can take a like, pregnancy test, blah, blah, blah. And

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it was a huge it was already a huge thing in my life, but I think it was like

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compounded by being in lockdown and being stuck at home, you know, that was the only thing I had to think about, was, will I be pregnant this time next month? And

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it just got to a point where I felt like I was going to explode, and I'd started my Instagram, but I was just talking about anything and everything.

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And I just thought, I'm just going to do a video on it. I'm just going to do it. And I checked with Matt how he felt about it, and he was up for it, because I think he knew that it would help me to speak about it. And so I did, and I found people you know, that I knew had gone through the same thing, and that really, really pissed me off, because I I thought it was just me, and I don't mean that in a selfish, self absorbed way, but if you don't speak about it, you do feel completely alone. And so then I realized, hang on, it's not just me that's been bottling this up and keeping this in. My friends have been keeping this in. People that I care about have not told me this, and I haven't told them, and we could have supported each other through this, but we haven't, because we're too scared to say that we're trying.

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So yeah, that irritated me, and that then just pushed me on to keep on talking about it, and it's become a real, like, safe outlet for me, um,

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and, yeah, that's kind of how I how I decided to just go for it. I think just pure anger that we're amazed to feel like we shouldn't speak about it. 

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Amber Izzo  49:39  

Yeah, definitely, did you have much support around you while you were going through it, and why you're going through treatment too? 

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Annabel Gurnett  49:46  

I mean, it's different now. So before we were kind of open about it, we didn't really tell people. Very few people knew that we were trying. And

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now, yeah, I mean, every...

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Everyone knows, but we keep I think, because

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I'm very open about it online. When it comes to the treatment itself, we're a lot more private about it, because I think we really want to be able to surprise our families if I'm pregnant, because I think that's something that infertility takes away from you, because I'll never have the opportunity to surprise Matt with, guess what, I'm pregnant. You know, unless a miracle happens, that's not something that's going to happen for us, and

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we want to be able to share that excitement and surprise with our family and friends instead. So when we're actually doing the treatment, there will probably be a select few people that know. But other than that, we want to keep it secret, not because, you know, we don't think that they'll be there to support us because they absolutely would, but just because we want to have the opportunity to be able to tell them as a surprise, rather than them knowing that, oh, it's test today, like wonder what the answer is.

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But no, people have been good. It's nice when people check in and ask, but then I also wish sometimes that it wasn't the only thing that people kind of think

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is happening people, I think people do think that sometimes that they'll just ask, you know, oh, well, what's next? What's happening with your IVF? And it's like, there's actually nothing, like it's not that exciting. It's a slow process. So I do feel sometimes like it's not quite as entertaining as people wish it was.

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Amber Izzo  51:41  

Goodness. Yeah, I understand that completely. And it is. It's one of those things where, but, you know, it does consume your life in so many ways, but not in the way that I think people expect. I think it anybody on the outside almost thinks that you're always going through treatment, you're always having tests done, when actually the bulk of it is waiting,

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Annabel Gurnett  52:00  

Yeah, yeah. It's literally just right. Okay, so if we're doing treatment on, you know, this cycle, then we need to wait for this cycle, then we do this on this cycle, and it's just, yeah, it's just a waiting game. That's it. There's very little doing, you know, the biggest thing that it impacts at the moment is, like that I'm taking supplements in the morning. Yeah? 

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Amber Izzo  52:20  

And even they can be an expensive cost, can't they? It's, it's crazy.

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Annabel Gurnett  52:24  

Yeah, it is mad. And I think those are the things that you forget about. You look at the price that's coming through from your clinic, but you forget about the, you know? I mean, I know that my supplement, I probably spend, like, 50 quid a month on supplements, plus then it's like, oh, eat this and eat this and eat this and eat this.

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Yeah, it all adds up. 

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Amber Izzo  52:44  

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Annabel, I really enjoyed speaking to you. So thank you very much for coming on and joining us. I'm going to completely put you on the spot here,

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but if you were to give yourself or somebody else in your position at the beginning of your journey, some advice, what would you give them?

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Annabel Gurnett  53:07  

Try to not lose yourself in the process, because it's easy to become completely caught up in it. So whether it's date nights or still just trying to find time to do things,

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whatever it is, get a hobby, like just something, that means that you still have something for you. Because, unfortunately, you don't know how long this will take. And I know that there are times when I look back and how much, how many things I put on hold and delayed and didn't do because of the well, I might be pregnant,

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and I've stopped doing that, and it's made me so much happier for it. So yeah. 

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Amber Izzo  53:54  

I love that. I love how quick you were at answering that, too. It's almost like you knew I'd do that to you. 

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Annabel Gurnett  53:58  

I didn't, yeah, but I didn't. As soon as you said, I'm going to put you on the spot, I was ready to slam my laptop down.

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Amber Izzo  54:07  

Goodness me. And I think your answer actually just shows how different we are in people. You took up aerial hoop and I took up cross stitching, so... 

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Annabel Gurnett  54:13  

I already do cross stitch! 

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Amber Izzo  54:15  

Oh, there you go. Same person. I love it. Thanks so much for joining us. Annabel, it really has been a pleasure tell everybody where they can find you. 

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Annabel Gurnett  54:24  

So I am on Instagram at: Annabel Gurnett. I'm also on Tiktok, but not quite so, not quite so much. It's more about mishmash of stuff on there, and then I do a podcast as well. Who knew? Am I Ovary Acting. Ovary, as in, you know, ovaries and, yeah, you can find us on Instagram and Spotify and Apple podcasts. So yeah, that's me. 

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Amber Izzo  54:54  

Thanks so much, Annabel. We'll see you soon. Thanks. Bye.

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Annabel Gurnett everyone. 

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What a woman I adore speaking to Annabel, and I think you'll all agree that she was a great guest, and so we wish her and her husband Matt, all of our love and support as they embark on the next stage of their treatment journey. We'll be back next week with another fabulous guest and another great episode of misconception, but until then, make sure you subscribe to and rate this podcast. Follow us on socials at Gaia Family Official, and we'll see you next week. Bye!

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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