New motherhood blogger: fertility journey & the birth

I love having guest bloggers, why, you may ask?!

Because I believe it’s important to find places to read real-life people discuss and share their journeys. I have had such a variety of pregnancy and motherhood bloggers over the years.  Each one has gone through different highs and lows.

Whilst every mama’s journey is unique, there are often others going through or having been through similar situations.  I hope these blogs provide people with some comfort and find them helpful too.

Please be aware Carly will be discussing their fertility journey & IVF, the birth etc as she ‘reflects on how special & amazing this journey is.’

Pregnancy/birth blog

On Friday the 13th December (unlucky for some, but definitely not for us!) at 08.45am we welcomed our beautiful baby boy Kobe Albie Davies in to the world weighing 8lb 5oz – our little miracle!

Mine and my Husband Kyle’s journey to parenthood and pregnancy was not a straightforward forward easy one; in fact we ended up thinking this day may never come. We started trying for a baby in 2017, the year before we got married. I had found out the previous year that I have endometriosis, and we ended up being referred for fertility treatment in 2018 after a year of trying for a pregnancy with no success. This ended up with 4 unsuccessful IVF attempts over the space of 3 years, which physically and mentally took a toll on us both. We took a much-needed break and restarted our final round of IVF in December 2021, which finally gave us a glimmer of hope as I was pregnant! This heartbreakingly ended with a missed miscarriage, which left us both devastated.

We both thought we were destined to not be parents and tried to throw ourselves in to healing ourselves and making the most out of life together. I started my nursing university 2 year course which finished in Feb 2024 and then in March 2024 we had the biggest blessing of me naturally falling pregnant! Something we never thought would happen.

I found out I was pregnant in the April, 2 days before my 32nd birthday. I was alone as Kyle was working away at the time and had the same symptoms I did when I was pregnant before so I took a test, I must have looked at that test soooooooo many times. The line was so faint so I wasn’t sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

I didn’t want to tell Kyle over the phone and he was coming home the following night to spend my birthday with me so I tried to avoid speaking to him (I’m rubbish at keeping secrets!) and headed to Tesco first thing in the morning before work to get a digital test which said the beautiful words “pregnant”.

I’ve always loved the idea of people surprising their partners with the news they are pregnant, which I thought I would never be able to do as obviously Kyle always knew we were having IVF and you are told what day you have to take a pregnancy test, so to be able to surprise him was so exciting, but I knew I couldn’t wait to arrange anything big (due to my rubbish secret keeping).

So I arranged 3 envelopes for him to open, two with written clues and the last with the two pregnancy tests in. After the first two clues his guess was “are we getting a cat”. We told my parents the following day on my actual birthday.

From early on in my pregnancy I knew that I wanted to have an elective caesarean due to our history. (Fun fact – on my nursing course I have been in theatres and witnessed caesareans so I already knew the process and the thought just made me feel completely at ease). The date for my c section got closer, but my movements reduced so we ended up in the hospital every day for monitoring scans, which eventually ended up in us being admitted tothe  hospital for 5 nights before he was born.

His movements kept reducing so I changed my mind on the planned C-section and tried an induction just to try get him here quicker and for us both to be safe, but was also on a low emergency C-section list if they had availability and there were no higher emergencies. Three days of being induced, numerous walks around the hospital grounds and up and down stairs with little sleep for Kyle the induction had failed and I had not progressed.

After 2 days of being prepped for a theatre and then being stood down we went home for the last time just us two, to sleep in our own bed and go back in the morning for our original planned c section.

We arrived at 7am and were expecting a long wait, to be told we were first on the list and very quickly taken down to the theatre.

The whole experience was beautiful and such a calm environment. The theatre and recovery team were all amazing and looked after the three of us with such care. Not long after being wheeled into the theatre, the anaesthetist told me our baby was now being delivered and the drape was lowered at my request for me to be able to have the most special, immediate skin to skin with our little miracle.

We were discharged the following afternoon, home to soak in our new baby bubble and to say I am wholeheartedly the happiest I have ever been. I truly feel like I was always supposed to be a Mummy ,and I am absolutely adoring being Kobe’s Mummy.

Carly