Couple Celebrate Birth Of Miracle Twins After 3 Heartbreaking Miscarriages And £82k IVF

A couple who forked out £82,000 on IVF and had three devastating miscarriages were overjoyed to welcome twins.

Amy and Gary O'Keeffe, both teachers, started trying for a baby on their honeymoon six years ago, and Amy fell pregnant immediately.

"We were constantly living with the question of will or won't we have our dream family, and we finally have closure.

"We have the happy ending that we had wished so hard for and can move on into our next chapter as a family of four.

"Gary and I are both teachers, we absolutely love kids and couldn't wait to start a family of our own.

"We have been together 11 years and been married for six. We started trying for a baby after we got married, and fell pregnant during our honeymoon which sadly ended in our first miscarriage.

"We'd fallen pregnant easily, so we didn't expect we would have any issues in the future, but after 14 months of trying again, we had no joy.

"We were in our mid-20s so falling pregnant should've been happening easier for us than it was. I was concerned that our miscarriage had knocked us out of sync, so we went to our GP who referred us to a fertility clinic.

"After extensive testing, we never received an official diagnosis and our struggles were put down to unexplained infertility."

The couple, who live in Carlow, Ireland, started their IVF journey in 2017, and Amy got pregnant for the second time in October 2018 and the third in January 2020 - but both pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

"It was devastating going through the same thing over and over again," she said.

"Each time I thought to myself that I couldn't go on again and lost a bit more hope.

"If we hadn't gotten pregnant by the 10th round of IVF, we agreed that we would bow out as the odds were more than against us.

"We were almost making peace with the idea that maybe we just wouldn't be able to have children of our own.

"We were both working extra on the side of our jobs to fund the IVF. It became part of our household budget.

"Sometimes we'd have to delay cycles while we saved up the money to pay for it.

"We had our 10th embryo transfer in November last year where we transferred two embryos, but we had no expectation of them taking.

"You can't test for two weeks but within a week of the transfer, I started feeling really unwell.

"I just thought I'd maybe overdone it this time and pushed my body too far, but out of curiosity I decided to do a pregnancy test and I saw a strong line on the stick.

"The clinic wouldn't test us so we decided to go to our GP who asked us if there is any chance it could be twins, but after everything we had been through we'd never imagine we would be that lucky."

The couple's first scan was five days before Christmas last year and they were terrified they were going to receive more bad news.

Amy said her heart was in her mouth and she couldn't believe it when the nurse told them she could see a second baby.

She added: "When we saw the two babies, there were lots of tears. We were both crying and so was the nurse, as I think she was so scared she was going to have to break some bad news to us before Christmas.

"It was so unexpected because the odds were against us.

"Our families were overjoyed when we told them. I think they felt a huge sense of relief after five years of bad news, and if it was ever good news it turned to bad news.

"So although everyone was happy, it came with a warning. It was bitter-sweet.

"I was terrified to have too much baby stuff in the house until towards the end of my pregnancy because I was constantly scared about whether we would bring the twins home.

"The pregnancy went smoothly. I carried the babies to 37 weeks and had to be induced.

"I delivered them naturally on different dates and they are both different star signs

"Maisie, 5lbs, was born just before midnight on 22 July and is a Cancer, and her twin brother Jared, 5lbs 8oz, was born just after midnight on 23 July and is a Leo.

"We didn't find out the genders of the babies, so we were so happy when we discovered we had a boy and a girl. It was the icing on the cake.

"We took our babies home three days later and it was the best feeling in the world. We finally got our happy ending after all this time.

"The twins are two little fighters. They are thriving and certainly living up to their star signs.

"We couldn't be happier."