CHELTENHAM COUPLE THANK THEIR LUCKY STARS
A Cheltenham couple whose very first round of IVF produced just one embryo suitable for implantation are thanking their lucky stars they have the baby they hoped for.
Lucy and Tim Beresford’s ‘Fertility MOT’ at Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM) had revealed the couple were affected by infertility challenges on both sides.
Lucy said: “It’s not until you can’t conceive a baby and start researching infertility that you realise how common the problem is, with around one in six couples affected. Nor that it tends to be a shared issue, with 40% of cases identifying issues on both sides.”
For only 30% of cases does the issue lie exclusively with the man and 30% with the woman.
Severe abdominal pains and long NHS waiting lists had led Lucy to have a private MRI scan in 2021 which revealed that her suspected endometriosis was worse than anticipated and required surgery. It also showed she was affected by adenomyosis, a condition which can hinder embryo implantation.
She was advised that if she was hoping to have a baby she shouldn’t delay things, but it wasn’t until the start of 2024, when she and Tim started trying to conceive with no result, that they accepted IVF might be needed.
They began researching fertility clinics and were encouraged by the favourable IVF success rates achieved by Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM) to contact them first.
“We chose to start with BCRM’s ‘Fertility MOT’ and were much reassured when our consultant, Becky Davies, told us it should be possible for us to have a baby despite the impediments it identified.”
Those impediments included an issue on Tim’s side as well as Lucy’s. In common with around 55% of the male population, he was found to have low sperm morphology, meaning that fewer than 4% of his sperm are the optimum shape for successfully fertilising an egg.
“We were both 30 when we started with BCRM in the summer of 2024, and hoping to have a baby in the near future.
“Having talked our situation through with Dr Davies, I had surgery to treat the endometriosis before starting IVF treatment, and was on post-surgery meds to reduce inflammation before I started my first IVF cycle in April 2025.
“I had convinced myself we would need several cycles of IVF before we got our baby, especially when – although my egg retrieval yielded 17 eggs - only one of these developed into a viable embryo.
“The embryologists had used an advanced IVF technique called ICSI, which involves careful selection of individual healthy-looking sperm and injecting one straight into each egg, giving them the best possible chance to fertilise and lead to pregnancy.
“Still, we’d only ended up with one embryo, and I was gutted. It didn’t seem to bode well.
“But sometimes one is all it takes, and we were thrilled when that embryo stuck, and my seven-week scan revealed all was progressing so well that I could be transferred to midwife care with the NHS.
“We cannot speak highly enough of the treatment received at BCRM. I started off freaked out by the idea that we might not be able to have a baby, and I was amazed by the knowledge of our consultant, Becky Davies, and the way she extrapolated our data to show us what might be possible. She made no false promises, but she was so reassuring.
“And the nurse who carried out my transfer and scans was also incredible and managed to put me at ease at that really intense time when – with only the one embryo available to us – the stakes were so high.
“Baby Elowen was born in January 2026 – a little miracle created by science and skill. We couldn’t be happier, and we want to say the biggest thank you to everyone at BCRM for bringing our daughter into existence. She is absolutely perfect and we could not be more grateful for the wonderful treatment we received.”
BCRM is the longest established fertility clinic in Bristol, helping people from throughout the South West and Wales with fertility treatment for both private and NHS patients. The clinic is involved in innovative research and has one of the best success rates with IVF and other fertility treatments in the UK.
Free open evenings, which include the opportunity for a confidential one-to-one mini consultation, are held regularly throughout the year.
