When twins Rorie and Logan celebrated their first birthday in Norfolk, surrounded by family and friends, the happy occasion signalled the end of an emotional rollercoaster for their parents Kerry Brookman and Stacy Phillips.
Same-sex couple Kerry (aged 33) and Stacy (25) met at work four years ago. After deciding to start a family and agreeing that Kerry would carry the baby, they approached Bourn Hall Clinic to investigate fertility treatment using donor sperm.
Nationally there is a shortage of sperm but Bourn Hall Clinic has its own sperm bank so it is possible to select your donor and reserve ‘sibling sperm’ so that further children are genetically related. Bourn Hall was the world’s first IVF clinic and also one of the first to set up a sperm bank by freezing and storing sperm from carefully screened donors.
Kerry says: “Following initial consultations we had to select a sperm donor. Kerry and I reviewed the description details we’d been given for a few anonymised sperm donors, including eye colour and hair. We selected one, which we are grateful for, but to be honest we didn’t really want to know much about the donor so we were fine with it being anonymous. For us what was important was to have a child.”
The couple funded their own treatment and Kerry started taking a course of fertility drugs to help stimulate her egg production.
Bourn Hall used Intrauterine Insemination, otherwise known as IUI, which is a delicate process that involved sperm being injected into Kerry’s womb, close to the time of her ovulation.
Unfortunately Kerry’s first and second IUI treatments were unsuccessful but in February 2013 Kerry and Stacy were absolutely delighted when Bourn Hall confirmed that Kerry was pregnant.
Stacy explains: “Our journey to have a child had been a real emotional rollercoaster. To begin with we seemed to have no luck but thank goodness for Bourn Hall and their support.”
A week after the couple found out that they were finally to become parents they returned to Bourn Hall for a check-up scan – and were delighted to be told Kerry was carrying not one, but two babies!
“We were so excited to know we were going to have a baby and then when the specialist told us we were expecting twins we couldn’t believe our luck!” says Kerry.
Stacy confirms: “Yes, we were over the moon and our luck had literally doubled.”
On 27th September 2013 Kerry was admitted into Norwich Hospital and twins Rorie and Logan were successfully delivered by caesarean section.
Kerry reflects: “Amazingly a year has now rushed by and we’ve just celebrated the twins’ first birthday. We had all our family and friends around to eat cake and we even had a bouncy castle.
“It has been a real emotional roller coaster to get here and we certainly count our blessings. It was definitely a case of third time twice lucky!”
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