Ireland AM – Lisa Freeman’s Fertility Journey

Ireland AM has just launched a six week fertility series to highlight the options available to those who are struggling to have a baby.

Lisa Freeman, together with her 18 month old boy Charlie, joined Dr. David Walsh on the first programme in the series on Tuesday, 14 January.

Lisa and her husband had been trying for a baby for six years before she conceived Charlie.  They were diagnosed with ‘Unexplained Infertility’.  This is Lisa’s helpful and inspiring story:

Endometriosis was the first diagnosis that Lisa got on her infertility journey.  Following two operations, she still failed to get pregnant.  Lisa was also medicated for a progesterone problem.  

When she attended the Sims IVF clinic, tests showed that she had antibodies present in her body resulting from an immunology problem.   

Dr. Walsh explained that autoimmune diseases has become a relatively common problem in modern times, mainly due the fact that bugs have been taken out of the system.  Many of us have an over-active immune systems, causing food and other types of allergies.  This autoimmune problem may also be impacting our ability to get pregnant.

How does this happen?  The female body reacts against the male component – and reacts against the cell nucleus or the cell membrane, causing the pregnancy to terminate.   Dr. Walsh is an expert in reproductive immunology – which involves suppressing the immune system to enable the female to stay pregnant.

When treating Lisa, Dr. Walsh bypassed the physical issues presented by Endometriosis. using IVF procedures,.  His main objective was to help Lisa to overcome her autoimmune issues so that she could to conceive and maintain her pregnancy.    He prescribed steroids for the first 12 weeks of  her pregnancy and the baby went to full term.

 – Charlie was born.