Mettisse Campbell: My pregnancy journey

You’ve been honest and open about your struggles to conceive. Tell us about your journey.

It’s been really really tough to be honest. I knew since the age of 19 that I would have trouble conceiving. I never thought IVF would be the path that I would have to go down, but here we are. I think when I first started the journey I was a little naive about just how long things would take. You have to work off your body’s timing, which can sometimes be really frustrating because you have no control over it. It’s taken around 3 years to get to where we are now.

Initially, IVF was just not an option for me. I believed that as a woman I had the ability to do it naturally and believed if I ate the best I could, took the best vitamins and did everything the doctors told me it would work. When we first started, I was having help ovulating so I would take tablets and have an injection to increase my egg count and then an injection to release the egg. I did get pregnant, but sadly lost the baby. I think your first miscarriage really hits home. I’d heard of people having them, but always thought not me, and when I did it broke me to be honest.

We attempted this another few times – I think around a year and a half we were trying through the ‘ovulation induction period’ – until it came to a point where we sat down with the consultant and asked what the next steps were.

The clinic advised IVF, which was a lot to get my head around. I remember researching it for hours and hours thinking I was a failure, but I’m actually really lucky that I got to do it and could also afford to do it so quickly. We prepared everything just before November 2022 and by January 2023 I was going in for my egg retrieval operation.

What’s been your favourite part of pregnancy to date?

The being pregnant part of course, but to be honest the whole thing. I’ve loved watching my belly grow, and feeling her move and kick has to be up there with my favourite ever thing. Then preparing for her arrival has been so fun. I just love it!

Any “can’t live without” pregnancy essentials?

My pregnancy pillow for the backache and Rennie for the heartburn! I couldn’t live without them – it would have would be horrendous!

How are you feeling about the birth?

I am so excited to experience the birth, I’m quite a spiritual person so I feel as though I’m really just looking forward to the whole experience of creating life. I think it is so magical that as a woman we are able to do that. A couple of my friends that have given birth said it’s the most euphoric experience they have ever experienced. One friend described it as you have to ride the contraction waves with your breathing – pain is all in the mind. I truly believe as long as you have control over your mind, your body will do all of the work for you.

What advice would you give to others who may be struggling to conceive?

I think it’s really important to communicate and listen at all times. Fertility struggles are up there with one of the most difficult things to go through as a couple. There are so many ups and downs and emotions and hormonal drugs that sometimes resentment can build. So just make sure to communicate and feel everything, feel every emotion there possibly is. Anger, jealousy, upset, happiness, just everything.

I think I bottled it up for a long time and would just try and tell myself I was being stupid or to stop feeling sorry for myself and you can’t do that. You need to feel every bit of pain – it’s grief at the end of the day. I went through a couple miscarriages, and they are grief, so however you need to deal with that then so be it.

There will be people that will leave your life when you are going through something like this and that’s OK. Just make sure you have a good two or three people you can lean on that just try and understand, not give advice, but just understand and validate how you feel.