A family at last thanks to pioneering fertility treatment

Lucy and Liam Phasey, from North Wales, had four rounds of conventional IVF treatment through the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust and suffered the pain of miscarriage.

But now, thanks to a pioneering treatment at in Manchester, they are proud parents to 14-week-old Evie.

Mrs Phasey, 27, was told in 2007 that she would never conceive naturally because of a rare condition which meant her immune system was fighting the embryo cells.

They went through four attempts, between October 2009 and April 2012, on the NHS, but each failed, and despite scrimping and saving they were unable to afford any more.

The pair then stumbled across CARE, an infertility treatment centre in Manchester, where a doctor told them Mrs Phasey's immune system was too strong, killing off embryos because it thought they were a foreign body.

The 27-year-old was given intravenous intralipid therapy, a treatment administered through an IV drip and made from soya bean oil, egg yolk, glycerin and water.

The therapy stimulates the immune system to suppress so-called 'natural killer cells' and allow an embryo to implant in the womb.

And on February 7, the couple welcomed Evie Ray into the world at Wrexham Maelor Hospital.

Mrs Phasey, from Dolgellau, said: "I have five nieces and nephews and I honestly thought I would never go through that myself.

"It has just made our whole family, on both sides, complete. It is an amazing feeling, she is such a wanted baby.

"She's 14 weeks old now and I'm still in a bubble, I have to keep pinching myself and think "Is this really me, am I a mum?"

"I'm still calling myself auntie to her by default because I still don't believe she is my daughter, I have to remind myself I'm her mum."

Mrs Phasey had egg yolk and soya bean oil injected into her system through an IV drip, and became pregnant when an embryo was implanted in her womb in April last year.

She said: "It was a very nerve-wracking morning for us and the family.

"We both held onto the hope that this would be the one. I could tell when they put it in there, I could see she was a fighter and would be the one, I just sort of knew.

"I did feel a bit weird knowing what was being put inside of me but after years of non-natural methods I was definitely on board with the more natural way.

"I just kept taking tests - we took the positive one at 5.05am before Liam went to work and we were just ecstatic, I woke all my family up to tell them.

"It was such a contrast to before. I had tried to tell Liam to go off and have a baby with someone else because I felt I couldn't make him happy, and now we were looking at our own baby, after nine years.

"He didn't believe he was going to be a daddy until she was placed in his arms really - he kept avoiding the subject until he knew she was real. It was an incredible moment."