Looking down at their gorgeous baby daughter sleeping peacefully in her crib, Melvyn and Natalie Lucas can’t help but be reminded of just how hard they fought to bring her into the world.
Most couples experiencing infertility tell only those closest to them. But Natalie and Melvyn chose to share their heartbreaking struggle to start a family with the whole country in the documentary series Inconceivable, which aired on TVNZ 1 last year.
At the end of the series, some of the eight Kiwi couples profiled by the documentary makers had their baby dreams fulfilled. But not Natalie and Melvyn.
By the time the cameras stopped rolling, an inconsolable Natalie had just miscarried for a second time – a devastating blow for the pair, who never dreamed that their road to parenthood would be so excruciating.
Now, at last, they’ve had their happy ending. In August this year, they welcomed tiny Thea into the world.
“We look at her and we’re like, ‘We made this,’” Natalie smiles as she shares her story with Woman’s Day. “Everything that we’ve been through is worth it. Everything is worth it for her.”
South African-born Natalie, 33, and British-born Melvyn, 34, started trying for a baby two years after their 2005 wedding. Aged just 23 and 24, they never imagined they’d experience fertility issues.
When they didn’t conceive after a year, their GP told them to be patient. But four years later, by which time they’d emigrated from England to Auckland, they knew something was awry and consulted a fertility specialist.
“It was almost like we wanted them to find something wrong so it could be fixed,” explains Melvyn. “But there was nothing physically wrong with either of us.”
The diagnosis of “unexplained infertility”did nothing to ease their frustration.
“You almost get used to the disappointment,” tells Natalie.
“But sometimes it was unbearable. I remember going to the hospital to visit a newborn baby. We got back to the car and both of us just burst out crying.”
The couple had 18 months to wait before being eligible for government-funded IVF. To increase her chances of success, Natalie adjusted her diet and exercise regimen, and lost a massive 30kg in 12 months.
It was during this period that she saw a poster calling for couples to take part in a documentary about infertility. She convinced “more reserved” Melvyn that they should do it.
There were no financial or treatment incentives for taking part in the documentary. For Natalie and Melvyn, it all came down to wanting to educate people about what it was like to experience infertility.
“We agreed it was going to have to be warts and all,” says Natalie. “We weren’t going to sugar-coat a thing.”
In March 2014, the cameras began following their struggle. Two months later, the couple signed up for a medical trial for intra uterine insemination (IUI), also called the “turkey baster method”. Melvyn’s sperm was
placed in Natalie’s uterus at the exact time she was ovulating.
Tells Melvyn, “The doctor said, ‘We don’t know why, but placing the sperm as close as possible to the target seems to get better results.’”
Following their third cycle of IUI, Natalie returned a positive pregnancy test. “We thought, ‘That’s it! There’s no looking back now.’”
But eight weeks later, the couple were “gut-punched” when they were told the embryo had stopped growing. “There was no heartbeat – nothing,” says Natalie. “I felt like my heart had been ripped out.”
Their pain was caught on camera as they dealt with the ensuing miscarriage. “We had to keep on reminding ourselves why we were doing the documentary. We had to stop and think, ‘There’s a bigger picture here.’ It’s important to do this.”
Harder times were to come. In January 2016, Natalie dramatically lost another baby together with her right Fallopian tube due to a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Then in May, she suffered a third miscarriage. This time, she and Melvyn hadn’t dared tell anyone they were expecting.
“I felt like a vase that had been broken. You can only put me back together so many times and you get weaker every time,” says Natalie.
Counselling got her through. “I learned to accept that I was never going to be the same person and I became stronger.”
“I also realised that I had been really hard on myself. I’d thought I shouldn’t burden friends and family with my feelings because I’d already used up my empathy allowance, but you don’t need to be ashamed or embarrassed about infertility and I should have told more people what I was going through.”
When she became pregnant for a fourth time without any medical intervention at the end of last year, “we decided to do things differently and to celebrate this baby, no matter what happened”.
Their little miracle, baby Thea, was born on August 5, weighing 3.125kg.
Natalie smiles, “When I heard her cry and they placed her on me, my breath was taken away. Melvyn had this sparkly look on his face. We were in this little bubble, the three of us, and nothing else mattered.”
The podcast on this story came from The Lip, a New Zealand podcast of unforgettable true stories available on Apple iTunes and Stitcher.
