I had to terminate my pregnancy at 21 weeks, knowing it was my very last chance to have a baby after spending £54k on IVF. I’ll never get over the grief – and what happened next was so torturous: EMMA KEMSLEY

‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do for your baby.’

Those were the terrible words uttered by a doctor after I underwent a 20-week scan. A scan that showed my baby had a rare condition that would prevent their bladder, kidneys and lungs from developing.

As a result, my baby would not survive – and I was advised I’d need a termination for medical reasons (TFMR) at 21-and-a-half weeks.

Such a situation is devastating for any parent. But what made mine all the more unbearable was I knew that if I lost this baby, I would likely never have another.

After three long years of trying and six rounds of IVF, this had been our last chance.

There would be no next time, no miracle after the storm, no second chance to try again, no rainbow baby. This was it; the end of my road to motherhood. I would be closing the door on that part of my life forever.

As I was handed the card for an abortion clinic and sent on my way, my world collapsed around me.

Years of untold emotional, physical and financial investment were for nothing.

I made the choice no parent should ever face; to let go of the little life I’d longed for, knowing I would likely never carry another. The grief was suffocating. But in the end, I chose love in its hardest form; I chose my child’s peace over my own pain.

I had known that pregnancy would always be a challenge for me.

When I was diagnosed with severe stage 4 endometriosis at the age of 27, after almost a decade of having my pain dismissed by doctors, it was too late. My fertility was already destroyed.

Stage 4 endometriosis is the most advanced form of the disease, where endometrial tissue and large ovarian cysts bind your organs together. At the point of diagnosis my colon, bowel and bladder were already compromised in addition to my uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes.

I was advised I’d need IVF to conceive, still using my own eggs, and at age 32, I started IVF.

My husband, who I’d been with for six years when I was diagnosed, was incredible. At times he has been my carer when the pain was so bad I couldn’t even get out of bed.

Still, like so many who take this path to parenthood, I naively thought it would work.

After all, fertility clinics silence the stories of women like me – those who spend tens of thousands of pounds and inject hormones for years, only to have empty arms – choosing to highlight the success rates. The average IVF pregnancy rate is around 31 per cent, with increased success among patients aged 18-34, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

Five rounds – four of which we funded ourselves – failed. Our third cycle resulted in a bio-chemical pregnancy – a miscarriage that occurs within the first five weeks – which had provided a glimmer of hope. After every failed IVF cycle, I’d pick myself back up and remain hopeful the next one will be successful. I’d become stuck in an expensive medical world of supplements, scans and injections, determined to get to the finish line.

On our sixth, self-funded round, after three long years and having spent approximately £54,000, my husband and I finally saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test.

We both stared at the positive test in disbelief. But rather than be overjoyed, I remained cautious. Unfortunately, multiple rounds of IVF takes away the excitement of pregnancy and replaces it with fear and anxiety.

I took the pregnancy week by week, slowly feeling reassured when we reached each milestone. However, at week 18, a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach told me to book a reassurance scan. I hadn’t experienced any physical symptoms that led me believe to something wrong, but I had an overwhelming gut instinct that made me feel panicked.

I thought I was being paranoid, desperate to remain in the safe zone, but my gut instinct was right.

The private scan highlighted a problem with the baby’s bladder. I immediately called my maternity team and begged for an early 20 week scan. A week later my footsteps echoed through a dimly lit hospital corridor. I entered the scan hopeful but left with devastating news.

The diagnosis was Posterior Urethral Valves (PUV) – a rare condition where an obstruction in the urethra prevents the baby’s bladder, kidneys and lungs from developing.

Suddenly, medical teams referred to my baby as a foetus. Language turned from endearing to clinical. It wasn’t intentional but it hurt.

When they told me there was no hope – our baby’s kidneys were too damaged to sustain life, that nothing could save our baby – time felt like it stopped. That’s when I was advised I’d need the TFMR.

In such a situation, you want nothing more than reassurance that you’re making the right decision. I wanted to know the doctors were 100 per cent right; ‘what ifs’ creep in and haunts you like a never ending nightmare.

By choosing a termination for medical reasons, I wasn’t just losing my baby. It was goodbye to all those things you dream of with children; all the firsts, the excitement of Christmas through a child’s eyes, birthday parties, family holidays and so much more. Those imaginary scenarios were lost before they could begin.

And what followed the diagnosis was a crusade of tortuous problems.

Prior to conceiving, I’d been advised to have a c-section due to the endometriosis complications, adenomyosis and scar tissue. For the same reason I couldn’t give birth vaginally, I would need a surgical termination rather than the hospital inducing early labour.

Yet my hospital wouldn’t perform a surgical medical termination beyond 14 weeks. I was therefore referred to an abortion clinic, but let’s be clear: a TFMR is not an abortion. There is no choice in the matter.

The clinic couldn’t perform the procedure due to my complex gynaecological history. I was stuck between pregnancy and pain, left to organise the worst day of my life by myself with no support. Time froze. I was passed from hospital to hospital, fighting for my own safety. Every day I hoped I’d miscarry naturally to avoid the trauma. Eventually, the charity Marie Stopes helped highlight my case and I secured a surgical termination at a hospital over an hour away from my home in Cambridge, at a hospital in East London.

Even now, four years later, I still can’t make sense of how I entered that theatre carrying a heartbeat and left with only silence.

There’s no simple way to describe this kind of loss. It isn’t just grief, it’s a quiet, aching confusion that sits somewhere between love, guilt and survival. When a baby is lost through a TFMR, it doesn’t fit the world’s language for mourning. It’s a grief that exists in the shadows, caught between maternity and miscarriage.

No support was provided afterwards.

After the surgery, my milk came in. I’d been told bleeding was expected, but no one had warned me about this painful and brutally ironic part. What’s worse, I later found out there’s medication to prevent it, but it was never offered to me.

Eight weeks after the TFMR, I was rushed to hospital with sepsis following an ovarian infection. I’d laid in my bed vomiting with pain thinking it was a bad endometriosis period following a pregnancy, and almost lost my life.

A year later my mum suddenly passed away. The grief was overwhelming. I was emotionally, physically and financially drained. I learnt how short life could be in every sense. It was a miracle to create life – and it could be taken away at a moment’s notice.

But amidst this grief, something in me changed. I couldn’t continue my life based on a ‘what if’.

While I could, in theory, try IVF again for as long as my battered ovaries would allow, after years on the fertility merry-go-round, I needed to be brave and come to terms with the fact my life may look different to how I expected.

After years of hospital appointments, hormones, scans, blood tests, saving every penny and living a life on hold, in 2022 I said goodbye to the idea of children and chose a different kind of life – one which offered happiness and freedom.

Today, I live a blissful life in the Mediterranean with my husband. It may not include children, and the ache of losing a child never truly fades, but I’ve never once regretted the decision to have the TFMR.

Life after infertility may not look like you imagined. But I want all the women in my situation to know that it can be one that’s filled with happiness.

Because sometimes, resilience isn’t about holding on, it’s about knowing when to let go.

Follow Emma on Instagram @emma_kemsley