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Guests at the party held last year to celebrate the milestone of 40 years of IVF babies ‘made in Bristol’ included one family whose own IVF ‘baby’ is now 23 years old. His parents were among many attendees who grabbed the chance to tell the team at Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM) how very grateful they are for their support to have a baby at a time when it looked like that might not happen. “Motherhood has been all I hoped it would be and more,” said dental nurse, Sharon. She also shared her recollections of what it was like going through fertility treatment at Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM) two and a half decades ago.

Mum of two Dominique Durrant is keen to encourage people to extend kindness to expectant mothers, and to avoid jumping to conclusions about why a couple doesn’t have a family. “You see pregnant women every day,” she said, “but you never know what they might have gone through to get there – for many of us it is a long hard journey. Dominique, a hospital admissions co-ordinator from Gloucester, offered to share her story after she and husband Robert, a roofer, attended Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine’s celebration of 40 years of ‘Made in Bristol’ babies.

Weston super Mare couple Bilitis and Simon Hammond were quick to respond to an invitation to take part in celebrations of the 40 year anniversary of the first ‘Made in Bristol’ babies, and delighted to introduce three-year-old Avery, a child born as the result of fertility treatment at Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM) straddling Covid, to the team who helped his parents have him.