Couple raise £8k in four weeks to pay for IVF baby after 12 years of infertility

A couple raised £8,000 on GoFundMe to have IVF - and have now welcomed a son after 12 years of infertility.

Zoe Nickless, 37, and husband, Ben, 42, decided to try and start a family shortly after getting married in April 2011.

After two years of trying, they began medical investigations and eventually went to a fertility clinic.

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In 2015 they had intrauterine insemination - where the sperm is injected directly into the womb.

After that failed, the couple moved onto IVF - where the eggs are removed from the body and fertilised in a lab.

The first round of IVF was funded by the NHS, but the second cost them £7,000 out of pocket, and both attempts failed.

A third round in 2020 resulted in pregnancy, but at 25 weeks, in March 2021, their son Billy was born stillborn, leaving the parents heartbroken and unable to afford any more self-funded IVF attempts.

Zoe and Ben’s friends and family encouraged them to start a GoFundMe page to raise money for another round of IVF - and it raised over £1,000 on the first day.

In four weeks the pair raised the £8,000 needed to pay for a final round of IVF, thanks to the kindness of 160 friends, family and strangers.

The pair, from Chetser in Cheshire, travelled to Cyrpus in October 2022 for the treatment, and were delighted to learn that they were pregnant a few weeks later.

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Their son, Teddy, now five weeks, was born on June 15, 2023, three weeks ahead of his due date, at Leighton Hospital, Crewe.

"After the first couple of rounds of IVF, we were going to give up," Zoe says. "But lockdown reminded us we still did really want children in our life, so we kept trying.

"After losing Billy, I had an evening where I just sat crying and crying. But that’s when a friend said to me, you really should consider starting a GoFundMe page because there’s a lot of people who want this for you.

"Amazingly, it only took four weeks to raise the money - and it was amazing to walk out with a baby from the same hospital that we previously left empty handed.

"If it wasn’t for the GoFundMe and the generosity and good hearts of everyone, we wouldn’t have Teddy. So he's not just our baby, but everyone’s - and we are forever grateful."

Zoe says that the whole pregnancy with Teddy was an "anxious time", particularly around the 25 week mark which is when they lost Billy.

"I started reliving it - the fear it would happen again was something I couldn't even comprehend," she explains.

"With every scan we had, we got 'scanxiety' - we thought they'd find something wrong, but they never did."

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She adds that finally having their miracle baby is "everything we hoped for and more".

"IVF is not guaranteed. All the treatments and injections were blooming horrible, but to have our baby now made it all worth it," she adds.

"I would love for people to talk a bit more about infertility and not be ashamed. I think as soon as you start talking about it, there's so much more support that you don't realise is out there."

Additional reporting by SWNS.

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