Becoming a mother – without a child

I have wanted children all my life, especially after my wedding in my late twenties. But first I decided to get a gastric bypass, as I was massively overweight after suffering from binge eating disorder in my late teens and early twenties. I got pregnant really quick after losing about 40 kilos, but it was not meant to be and I lost the child before its first heartbeat. I will never forget how it felt when I looked at the ultrasound and… there was nothing. Only black. In that moment, my life has changed. I had become a mother without a child. And that is how all my life felt afterwards.

My husband and I split up, I had to go to therapy once more and I fell in love with a man with whom I was not able to have children. After months and years of crying during diaper commercials, locking myself into bathrooms during children’s birthday parties and not being able to feel happiness for anyone who got pregnant we agreed that this was not how our lives could go on and we needed a solution. We decided to stay together and find alternatives.

Treatment options in Denmark

I heard about insemination in Denmark and checked the internet…and found that despite losing more than 50 kgs by now this clinic’s BMI requirement was out of reach. 

Had I only known that there was another clinic in Denmark who did not care about my BMI I would have saved myself years of pain and I would have a child going to school this summer. But that’s not how things went.

Considering co-parenting and a private donor

We liked the thought of co-parenting, and I signed up to a platform where people interested in co-parenting could meet, but after a year there was no success. I was desperate and started looking for private sperm donors and trusted people with my plans which I regretted rather quickly after finding out not everyone is supportive, some even rude. I got even more desperate and joined online groups looking for another sperm donor. And regretted this also, as I have never received so many disgusting messages from disgusting people in all my life.

In the end, I found one nice sperm donor, drove a couple of hours for the donation and then had the weirdest moment of my life, with an empty syringe in one hand and my phone in the other, telling my girlfriends what had just happened and asking my unborn child to please please come to me, after all the things I’m going through. But it didn’t come, and the donor turned out to be a horrible person.

I had another private donor, he was living closeby, he was kind, he was handsome, and he really wanted to help. But after three times his girlfriend asked him to quit, and that’s something we had to respect.

Finding Diers

These lines describe years of hope, pain, fear and desperation. I did not know what to do anymore, I felt like I had tried everything. And then my friend told me to check for a Danish clinic again, a lesbian couple she knows just had become parents.

And this time I found the Diers website and could not believe they had no BMI restriction for IUI treatment. After a few days I made an appointment for a phone call. It was very nice, they wanted to know about me, my life and if I was able to provide a loving home. I also had to send some documents from my doctor. But not once I was reduced to my weight or age. And that’s when I decided: This is it. I will no longer rely on anyone, I will not have to trust anyone again, I will just pay for it and travel, and no one can tell me what to do or not to do.

The first IUI

A few months later I was already in Aarhus, and I liked how the clinic did not feel like a clinic. I had found a donor in their database that I liked, I got an ultrasound and then the insemination. Every step was explained to me, and I felt taken care of. After the insemination I was crying (thanks to Adele singing in the background) and again asking my child to please, please come to me, after all I’ve been through by now.

When I left, I got a goodie bag with water, sweets, a pregnancy test and a card wishing me good luck. It just felt right.

A positive pregnancy test – I can do this

In the summer of 2022 i have had a couple of tries and a positive pregnancy test, but it was not meant to be again. However, I felt that I was on the right track and my body was able to conceive, so giving up was not an option. 

My gyn was so supportive and checked on me every time before I went to Denmark to make sure I’m not travelling for nothing, and he encouraged me to not give up. However, it became frustrating and every month I endured it got harder to get up again. I had to borrow money from my friends because I was running out, but they were still by my side.

13 IUI treatments with ups and downs

It took 13 tries. I have so many stories to tell from travelling (missing flights, no trains due to the weather, a murder in the train in front of mine), my body was giving me a hard time (it was hard to do ultrasounds, follicles were either not there or there was no positive ovulation test) and sometimes staying in Aarhus was a nightmare (had my wallet stolen and dirty hotel rooms).

I cried on the bus, the plane, the train, the hotel room. My life was all about intervals of two weeks and peeing on ovulation tests or pregnancy tests, always hoping for a positive result. The waiting in between was the hardest and it got more difficult to cope with the disappointment. 

There were even people telling me that Diers was a company, they earn money with desperate women like me and maybe they don’t always inject sperm so you have to come back and pay again. Yeah, well, I disagree. I pay for a service performed by educated and supportive human beings who have not once pressured me into anything and made me feel like they really care about what they do. And those human beings want to pay rent and live a good life. And that’s what you pay for. In my opinion that’s okay, but everybody can decide for themselves.

It worked!

In August 2023 the donor that I had chosen was no longer available except for siblings, which felt like another knockback, one of many. I picked another donor who sounded nice and had a cute baby pic. I had already given up on doing early pregnancy tests and I only did a test because I had so many left from the Diers goodie bags. And there it was…a faint line. I took a photo and sent it to my friends to confirm but we did not dare be happy yet. Until the day I saw this little heartbeat on the ultrasound…I cried my eyes out from happiness, I had never seen anything this beautiful before.

The first three months were difficult for us, we were so scared. But it stayed. It turned out healthy. It turned out to be a boy. I enjoyed pregnancy so, so much and had no complications whatsoever.

Our baby boy arrived

Birth however was horrible. I was in a lot of pain, and we had to have an emergency C-section. He had the umbilical cord around his neck and could not breathe on his own. When I finally got to see him for the first time, he had needles in his hands and a tube up his nose. But he was there. It could have gone so horribly wrong, but he was really there. 

A child is a miracle. It is a miracle how the female body is capable of making a human being. But our son being with us, after all these years, all the disappointments, the tears and a birth that could have gone wrong, that is the real miracle. Without Diers I would still be a mother without a child.

Thank you for reading my long story, which, funny enough, is just a short version of a story that is actually much longer. My boy only exists because I refused to accept to be nobody’s mom for the rest of my life. And whatever reason it is that brought you here and that made you read my story: I wish you happiness and success and the energy to go through with everything, from the bottom of my heart. 

Blog post written by Johanna, client at Diers Klinik and proud mom