I got pregnant while using Mounjaro – and my husband was on Ozempic. This is why I’m convinced it finally helped me have the baby I longed for after 5 years of infertility

My period was weeks late. Most women would wonder if they were pregnant, but I knew better. Ever since my teens my cycle was often late, though it was never clear why.

That’s not to say I didn’t hope. My first child was born in 2020 and in the following years I longed for another. Month after month, I would convince myself I was pregnant. With every late period, I believed it had happened.

But each month, I’d be devastated when the tests I’d bought came out negative.

And yet, this time, my prayers were finally answered. Today, after five years of fertility struggles, I’m just two months away from having my second child.

It’s not down to IVF or fertility drugs such as Clomid. In fact, I credit another, rather more controversial, drug for conceiving at last: Mounjaro.

As the use of GLP-1 weight-loss jabs has become more common, so too have pregnancies in women taking them.

In most cases these are unplanned; Mounjaro can stop oral contraception from being as effective, and early studies show it improves markers of fertility in men and women.

But there’s little known about the long-term effects it has on children conceived under its use. The medication warns that women looking to conceive should not use them.

So when I saw that positive test in April, after starting the jabs in January, I was both thrilled and worried. Would my unborn child be OK?

My concerns were even more pronounced as at the time my baby was conceived, I was on Mounjaro… and my husband was taking Ozempic. Our unborn son might be the first ever GLP-1 hybrid baby.

After the birth of my daughter Ada when I was 28, I spent years in denial about my apparent inability to conceive. My husband and I stopped using contraception about a year after she was born. To my mind, every tiny symptom was proof we’d succeeded: tender breasts, a swollen abdomen, a craving, an excited tingle. I was wrong every time.

I went to the doctor many times but was brushed off. When I had an early miscarriage, they said it didn’t mean anything. An ovarian cyst rupture got the same response.

After many crushed dreams, I gave up. I was 35, probably the least fertile I’d ever been – what hope was there?

So I thought if I couldn’t have a baby, I might as well have the boost of getting back to my pre-pregnancy figure.

A size 10-12, I’d never been obese – but at 5ft 2in my BMI said I was overweight, so I qualified for Mounjaro from a private online prescriber. I started taking the minimum dose of 2.5mg and found it brilliant; I was more energetic and losing weight steadily, at around 2lb per week.

I saw the warning about not using the drug if you hoped to get pregnant. I ticked the form to say I would take precautions. But we hadn’t used contraception for five years and, with no baby to show for it, I saw no reason to start now.

While the weight loss felt like a real achievement, the best part was that my irregular, heavy periods were now more regular and pain-free.

My husband was feeling insecure after putting on a few kilos. So seeing my results, and with a holiday coming up, he bought Ozempic online.

Although he only took it for a month or so, it would transpire we’d conceived in this window. When I realised my period was late – after four months on the jabs, having lost two stone – I took a pregnancy test the way you buy a lottery ticket: you don’t think you’re going to win.

I couldn’t believe it when I saw two blue lines. Neither could my husband, who made me take another. Two more lines appeared. Still unsure, I waited a few weeks and booked a private scan. I learned I was seven weeks along and heard my baby’s heartbeat.

But amid my joy, my mind went to the jabs. Was the baby OK? I stopped jabbing after the test, but it was the first thing I asked the midwife about at my check-up.

She told me she sees mothers all the time who are taking GLP-1s. Although research into their safety in pregnancy is limited, a new study from Harvard has shown early use in pregnancy does not increase the risk of adverse outcomes.

There’s little evidence about the effect on babies whose fathers have been taking GLP-1s, but the drugs are thought to increase testosterone and sperm motility.

Although I was concerned, everything is going well so far. In fact, this pregnancy is going better than my first. Ada was born very small, in the first percentile. Yet this GLP-1 baby is in the 50th percentile.

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence from women who, like me, conceived after years of infertility once they started taking the jabs. Many others found them effective for menstrual issues like polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I suspect I may have had all along.

While I can’t say conclusively that these medications caused my pregnancy, in my mind GLP-1s are to thank for my baby boy on the way. I realise there are risks, but for now it feels worth it.