Making A baby

Myself and my partner Chris have been together for 8 years. We’re getting ready to move into house number two, have a collie-cross rescue dog, and are well-established in our careers. Life is settled, all is well, and it’s time to make a baby.

Out of the two of us it’s definitely Chris that’s the broody one, ready to start a family and be a dad. For myself, the decision is entirely age-related. The, very well-known, fact of the matter is that the older I get the less likely I can have children, or an easy childbirth. And the selfish part of me would like to have kids young enough to still have a life left to live once they have moved on with theirs.

While this difference might seem unsual, this disparity isn’t as uncommon as you would think. For a woman having a baby often has much more serious consequences, from physical to mental, career to social life. Not that a man’s life doesn’t significantly change too, but even in today’s world it is usually (but of course not always) the woman who takes the heavier burden of parenthood.

I’ve had conversations with many women who made similar logic-driven decisions. It’s pragmatic, rather than romantic, and not often how women are portrayed when getting ready to get pregnant, but I think it’s no worse a reason than being ‘broody’ for a baby.

So that’s us, Chris the excited expectant father, me the logic-driven mother-to-be. Sounds simple enough, but pregnancy often isn’t.

PGD vs PKD

In May 2018 Chris, at age 32, had to have a kidney transplant. The reason for this is a disease called Polycystic Kidney Disease or PKD. It’s surprisingly common for an acronym you’ve probably never heard of. Over time it means that a person’s kidneys can reduce in function to the point that they need dialysis to survive, and a kidney transplant is the only way forward.

PKD is a hereditary disease, passed down as a dominant gene. It has no benefit, and can only be described as a faulty cog in a relatively well-oiled machine.

The idea that there might be something that could be done about this unpleasant inheritance never really occurred to us, until Chris’s brother told us he’s been looking into the potential for Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).

PGD is a method for screening embryos for genetic diseases as part of In vitro fertilisation (IVF). As with normal IVF, eggs and sperm are harvested and fertilised within a laboratory setting. Tests are then carried out to check for the unwanted PKD genes. Healthy embryos can then be reimplanted in the womb, following the same process of general IVF.

While, as far as we know, we should be able to conceive naturally, PGD would completely remove the PKD gene from our children’s DNA, and from any future generations. While IVF has by no means a guaranteed success rate, we feel it is a worth a try to permanently fix this genetic fault.

As we start our, very long, journey to conception I wanted to share our ups and downs on this blog. Many couples going through IVF can feel very isolated, so by sharing our own story I’m hoping we can help others going through the same thing. Hopefully at the end of the road we will have a perfectly healthy, PKD-free, baby. But as all couples going through IVF will know, nothing is guaranteed.