Three couples told the stories of their struggles to become parents
Seven years before the birth of Louise Brown made history, the Observer of 31 October 1971 asked: ‘What would you do if the doctor said you couldn’t have children?’ With limited options (and the ‘test tube baby’ still only theoretical), three couples told their stories. Sheila hoped an operation to clear a fallopian tube blockage with a 15% success rate would deliver a miracle; two years later, she and husband Sidney were advised to adopt. Even so, Sheila ‘always felt happy’ on hearing other women who had had the procedure were pregnant: ‘I thought it would eventually be my turn.’ After trying for five years, improbably, it was. She conceived naturally, going into labour during ‘a plate of whelks at the local pub’. A peep at her hospital notes revealed the gynaecologist had written of their son ‘This is a very precious baby…’
William and Gwen tried for 12 years. Gwen had a child from a previous marriage and a clean bill of health, but William refused medical examinations, insisting ‘I must be able to produce children… If you can’t reproduce, you’re not a man.’ He blamed Gwen; Gwen felt guilty: ‘I thought I was doing my husband a wrong.’ Their marriage suffered: William drank; Gwen was hospitalised with a nervous breakdown. Despite it all, when their daughter finally arrived after hormone treatment, Gwen said she was ‘born of true love’. William, apparently, ‘changed his mind about doctors’,
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