Actress Jess Impiazzi has revealed she and her partner Jermaine Pennant are having IVF after being diagnosed with low ovarian reserve
The 34-year-old and former footballer Jermaine have been together just two years and had not planned to have children this early in their relationship, but following the diagnosis, Jess said they will now start trying for a much-wanted child.
Jess, who has starred in shows such as Override, Keep Calm and Carry On and The Seven, told The Sun their news and said she cried for three days after.
She said: “I have always wanted to start a family so to be told the chances of having my own children are slim is heartbreaking. We had talked about kids but we haven’t even been together two years and assumed we had more time.”
Jermaine has recently been diagnosed with ADHD and Jess lost her father last year.
She said: “After the tough times we have had since we met, this felt like we had been thrown into a whirlwind.”
But the Ex on the Beach star was full of praise for her partner, Jermaine, who has been her rock.
Jermaine, a former Stoke and Liverpool player, said: “I understand how much she wants to have a family. Time is of the essence, so all I can do is be her support and do whatever I can to make this journey possible.”
Jess said she felt let down after thinking something might be wrong as she turned 30.
She said she began to miss periods and suffered irregular heavy bleeding, stress, fatigue, and night sweats, but despite endless GP appointments, she was not given a diagnosis.
Eventually, she paid £2,000 for specialist fertility tests and within days was diagnosed with endometriosis on her bowels and low ovarian reserve – something that has left her deeply shocked.
She said: “If I’d known what was wrong three years ago, I would have made different choices. I could have had my eggs frozen. but that was taken away from me. I felt let down by the healthcare system.”
The couple now plans to start IVF but Jess feels she may only get one shot at having a child.
She said: “I’ll start with the IVF with my eggs and if that does not work we will look at egg donors. After that I will look at what medication I’ll be on for the rest of my life, to ensure that I don’t get the associated illnesses.
We asked the team at Nova IVI to give us the lowdown on low ovarian reserve.
What does ovarian reserve mean?
This refers to the number of follicles left in the ovaries that can mature into healthy oocytes (eggs). The diagnosis of poor ovarian reserve means that there is an insufficient number of viable eggs and this decreases the chances of pregnancy.
How many eggs does a woman have?
It is estimated that a developed female fetus has over 4 million follicles, however, at birth, the number of follicles in the ovaries is reduced to roughly 1-2 million. This gets further reduced with age and by puberty, she has only 300,000 – 400,000 follicles left.
One or two follicles mature each month during the menstrual cycle and are released into the fallopian tubes as oocytes (eggs) ready for being fertilised by the sperm. This cycle continues until menopause, the cessation of the menstrual cycle that happens when the ovarian reserve is completely depleted.
In some cases, women as young as 30 years are found with a depleted ovarian reserve. This condition is called premature ovarian failure and is known to be the cause of infertility in 10-15 percent of all infertility cases.
What is the ideal age to start a family?
It is best to plan a pregnancy between 25 and 30 years of age. Obviously, as a woman ages, the ovarian reserve gets smaller and smaller. This is clearly a problem for older women – since there are fewer eggs, the clock ticks inexorably for her fertility.
What’s more, as a woman ages, her eggs become less healthy and less likely to be fertilised. Sometimes, even when fertilised, the fetus is miscarried or spontaneously aborted. The likelihood of genetic disorders (like Down’s Syndrome) in the baby also increases. Drastic reduction in the quality and the numbers starts in a woman in her forties (for Asian women, it begins even sooner).
This means that an older woman wanting to get pregnant faces significantly higher hurdles than a woman in her early thirties. And while older women do get pregnant and have healthy babies, it’s all a question of age and probabilities.
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