We remortgaged the house & spent £26k having our miracle girls – they arrived 4 months early & weighed 2lb each
A COUPLE told how they spent £26,000 and remortgaged their home so they could have miracle baby twins who arrived months early, weighing a tiny 4lb combined.
Krissma Coleman, 39, gave birth to twin girls by emergency C-section on August 12 after she and husband Matt, 34, underwent IVF.
Proud new mum, Krissma, from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, told Fabulous Digital exclusively: “We spent absolutely everything we had to finally become a mum and dad.
“Our first round of IVF cost £9,500 and when it didn’t work I was truly heartbroken but we knew we couldn’t stop until we had a baby in our arms.
“At that time I could never have dreamed that we’d be lucky enough to end up with two.”
The couple were married in a traditional white wedding in December 2016 and immediately started trying for a baby.
Krissma said: “A family is something we both wanted with all our hearts but after trying for 15 months with no pregnancy I went to the GP.
“Tests revealed I had blocked fallopian tubes and we would need IVF to fall pregnant.
“There is no NHS IVF available in our area so we knew from the very beginning we’d need to use our own money and started saving.”
By August 2018 the couple had raised the £9,500 needed to begin treatment.
Krissma underwent hormone therapy and soon two embryos were implanted in her womb but sadly neither took.
Krissma said: “We went into the process with so much hope. We were really mentally positive, we did everything right. So when it didn’t work I took it so hard.
“I always thought the money would be worth it when we had our baby in our arms but without success I felt devastated.
“We really worried about the financial implications of trying again with no guarantees.
“But Matt and I agreed we should give our family every chance.
“So we decided to remortgage out two-bed terraced house to release £16,000 for three rounds of IVF.
“The clinic we were working with had an incentive that gave us hope.
“You could pay £16,000 for three rounds of IVF and if at the end of those rounds you didn’t fall pregnant they’d give you half of the money back.
“If we got to that stage we said we’d try to use our leftover money to perhaps go abroad for one last chance.
All the stress, money and heartache has been worth it to finally have both our girls at home with us.
Krissma Coleman
“Amazingly I fell pregnant after the first round but unfortunately we weren’t entitled to any refund, that was the risk we took.”
After a home test showed Krissma was pregnant the couple attended an early eight week scan to check their baby’s heartbeat.
That’s when a sonographer told the couple they were expecting twins. The scan showed two strong beating hearts.
Krissma, a self-employed make-up artist said: “We both broke down crying at the news.
“I was in such shock and worried about how we could make it work in our small house that we’d mortgaged up to our eyeballs but Matt was over the moon.
“He had always wanted two and his dream had come true.”
Gas fitter Matt and Krissma spent an additional £500 on a private scan and a screening blood test before their NHS dating scan at 14 weeks gestation.
Krissma had a smooth pregnancy until around 22 weeks when she started experiencing terrible pains in her back and side after a babymoon holiday in Spain.
She said: “The pain was so bad I was being sick so doctors thought I had food poisoning at first.
“But the pain didn’t go away.
“I kept going back to hospital and was sent home with pain relief until after three weeks of agony Matt took me again and it was discovered I was 8cm dialated and in late stages of labour.
“It was petrifying. I was only 27 weeks pregnant and the twins hadn’t been given steroids to protect their lungs. I was so scared to give birth in case it harmed them.
“It was decided that I’d give birth naturally once I’d been pumped full of lots of drugs to give my babies every chance.
“But when my waters broke the smaller twin’s heartbeat dropped off the monitor and I was rushed into theatre and put to sleep for an emergency C-section.”
In the early hours of August 12 the twins were born.
Boe Betty Coleman, the smaller twin, weighed a tiny 2lb 1oz and her sister Mila Misha weighed 2lb 3oz.
When Krissma came around she was on a recovery ward separated from her girls who were in intensive care.
Krissma said: “It went against every instinct as a new mother to be separated from my babies.
"I felt so ill I couldn’t take anything in.
“Matt told me we’d had two girls and I was able to briefly visit them in their incubators before I needed to go back to the post-labour ward and rest."
She added: “After that I couldn’t get out of bed I was so ill. Matt showed me pictures of the twins but I felt so detached from them I’d look at the pictures and feel like they could have been anyone’s babies.
“For the next two weeks things went from bad to worse. I contracted a hospital bug called CDIFF and had to be put into quarantine so I didn’t infect anyone else with the extreme sickness virus.
It is cramped in our little two bed house that we pay a huge mortgage on now thanks to IVF but they are worth every penny.
Krissma Coleman
“It was also discovered my pain before I went into labour was being caused by pressure around my kidneys so they had to be drained and then finally I contracted sepsis.
“Mila suffered a bleed on her lungs and had to be transferred to Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge for specialist care.
“It meant our family were split apart even further as Matt left Peterborough to be with her.
“She made a good recovery but it was three weeks before I was well enough and the girls were strong enough for me to hold both of them together.”
“I will treasure that moment forever.”
Krissma was eventually discharged after a total of six weeks in hospital and the girls followed nearly ten weeks later.
Krissma said: “Unfortunately Matt was dismissed from his job while we were in hospital and my self employed maternity allowance was delayed so there was a short time that we had no income while Matt searched for another job."
What is IVF?
IVF involves removing an egg from a woman’s ovaries and fertilising them using sperm in a laboratory.
The fertilised egg, also known as an embryo, is transferred back into a woman’s womb to grow.
The process can use eggs and sperm from the couple themselves, or these can be sourced from a donor.
There are six main stages of IVF:
- Firstly the menstrual cycle will be suppressed with medication
- You will be given further medication to encourage your ovaries to produce more eggs
- Ultrasound scans will be given to check the development of your eggs and medication can be used to help the maturing process
- The eggs will be collected by a needle being inserted into the ovaries via the vagina
- Eggs are mixed with sperm for a few days so they can be fertilised
- One or two of the fertilised embryos will be placed back into the womb. Women need to wait two weeks before taking a pregnancy test to see if the process has been successful.
She continued: “But all the stress, money and heartache has been worth it to finally have both our girls at home with us.”
Mila still needs oxygen 24/7 at the moment but after winter doctors will look to wean her off.
Krissma said: "Walking out of hospital with our babies was the best feeling.
"We'd seen so many families come and go, it felt like we'd never have our moment.
"Getting the girls home was surreal, it took some getting used to not having the nurses and support of the hospital 24 hours a day but we have adapted quickly.
"We know how lucky we are to have our miracle girls healthy and at home with us.
"It is cramped in our little two bed house that we pay a huge mortgage on now thanks to IVF but they are worth every penny.";
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