Making Babies: Turas Clainne follows the journey to parenthood

Meet three women featured in TG4’s new series as they share difficult but ultimately successful roads to pregnancy and childbirth

Prisscilla de Burca: "I’d never heard of a doula so I had no high expectations"

Turas Clainne, a new four-part series that follows the journey to parenthood and explores the many issues parents can encounter on this complex journey, has just started on TG4. It features seven families sharing intimate experiences around fertility struggles, surrogacy, miscarriage, and post-natal depression (PND).

She helped me to let go

Everything went wrong when 29-year-old mum-of-three Prisscilla De Búrca was having her second child, Michelle, now 4.

“The epidural didn’t work, the labour was horrendous, the baby struggled to come out. It was a forceps birth — I tore completely. She had reflux and colic — I got PND.” So while pregnant with Shane, now 16 months (her oldest, Amy, is 10), someone suggested hiring a doula. “I’d never heard of a doula so I had no high expectations,” says the stay-at-home mum.

The doula helped on many levels. “With her support, I decided I wouldn’t have an epidural — she explained I’d be less likely to tear because I’d be able to feel what was going on. She taught me breathing exercises and told me about CUB support [a cross between a birth ball and birth stool]. And she was able to connect with my anxiety and lower it,” says Co Galway-based Prisscilla, explaining how the doula used visualisation exercises and meditation to help her process her traumatic second childbirth.

“She helped me to let it go. I went from being so nervous about having Shane to not being nervous at all. I felt in control and I could bring in my pillow, oils, music, which created a feeling of home.” While things didn’t go to plan — she had a long two-day labour — Prisscilla’s grateful she didn’t suffer PND this time around. “I was worried I would because of giving birth so soon after Michelle. I felt rough for three days but was ok when I got home — it didn’t creep up on me.”

I cried every month when it didn't happen

Marilyn McGivern: “We had this 24-hour window to make a decision. I was like ‘we have to do this’"

 Struggling for over two years to conceive, Dublin-based Marilyn McGivern lived life month to month. “I wasn’t enjoying life. I cried every month when it didn’t happen.” Worried she and husband Wayne might have some underlying problem, she tried everything — acupuncture, massage, meditation — in an effort to combat her anxiety. “I did all the little tricks like sleeping with my legs in the air. I’d have gone anywhere.” 

Discovering Wayne’s sperm motility was low, the couple opted for IUI (intrauterine insemination). “The clinic felt I just needed a push, but my ovaries over-stimulated. It was too dangerous to continue because of the multiple pregnancy risk.” 

But there was a silver lining — Marilyn’s egg quality was good. The clinic felt she’d be a great candidate for IVF, with a 95% chance one embryo would survive. “We had this 24-hour window to make a decision. I was like ‘we have to do this’ — my husband was saying ‘we can’t afford it’. My mam lent me the money and we went ahead.

“The first few days, some of the embryos looked strong. Then we were down to one. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive. For me, it was like a death — this was our baby, it was going to be our world, I’d been convinced.” In total, Marilyn, now 46, did three IUI procedures and two rounds of IVF. All failed. And then her mother-in-law mentioned Dr Phil Boyle who developed NeoFertility (www.neofertility.ie) in 2016. Under his care, Marilyn began daily charting of her menstrual cycle and to her amazement discovered she ovulated on day nine of her cycle and not on day 14 as she’d always thought.

Encouraged to change her mindset from an anxious one to realising “Wayne and I are doing this because we love each other and we want to have a family”, she followed her doctor’s recommendation and took vitamins to improve egg quality. Crucially, she underwent laparoscopy, which detected stage one endometriosis, and she had a D&C.

“Next time I was due my period I was pregnant!” Her daughter, Tauriel, is now six and Marilyn went on to have a second girl, Reeva, 2. “For me, IVF didn’t work. It was a big financial drain and terribly hard on my body. I should have checked the small details first because they turned out to be the big ones.”

I'd been very good at growing babies 

Becky Loftus Dore: "As a woman, part of your dream is to carry the baby, to give birth. With surrogacy, you’re handing over that part to someone else."

No kids for two days, a full nights sleep and maybe some cocktails — this was all mum-of-four Becky Loftus Dore, 44, had in mind when she set off for the weekend with her husband and another couple, almost three years ago.

By the end of the weekend, the Westmeath-based mum had made a life-changing offer to the couple they’d been friends with for 20 years. “My husband was saying they’d make great parents. And they said they’d resigned themselves to not having children. It just came to me: I’d had very straightforward pregnancies. I heard myself saying ‘have you considered surrogacy? Let’s have a think about it’,” recalls Becky.

The other couple admitted they’d never thought of surrogacy. No more was said that weekend. Becky’s husband suggested giving their friends time to process. “My husband’s thinking was ‘they’d make great parents, I’d been very good at growing babies — this could work’.”

Becky had experienced secondary infertility after having daughter Rachel, 13. She conceived seven-year-old twins, Emma and Siobhán, via IVF — six-year-old Brian was a happy surprise. She understood wanting to have a child and being unable to. When the couple returned, asking Becky if she’d been serious, she said yes.

“Surrogacy chooses you,” she says. “As a woman, part of your dream is to carry the baby, to give birth. With surrogacy, you’re handing over that part to someone else. It’s a final chance for a couple if it’s a direction they want to take and they’re emotionally ready.” 

Becky got medical advice and was reassured she could do this. “Our friends created the embryo themselves and it was implanted in me. I wasn’t giving away my own baby. I was taking their baby, growing it and giving it back for them to start their life together.” 

She and the couple tried to replicate the natural experience of expectant parents. “It’s a very intimate journey, with a couple who’re experiencing their first baby, seeing them hear the heartbeat, see the baby move in the ultra-scan. We used the BellyBuds app — they could record their voices, tell a story, sing a song, and I’d place it on my tummy so their unborn baby could hear.” 

Surrogacy requires talking openly about boundaries. 

“They asked if it was OK for them to touch the bump, and it was. Like most expectant parents, they didn’t want me my dying my hair, using too many products.” 

When the time came to deliver the baby by C-section in April 2019, Becky worried: Would her hormones cooperate? 

“Up to now, I hadn’t felt any connection to the baby. But I wondered how big a part do hormones play in bonding with a child we deliver?” Going into hospital, however, she felt clear differences between having her own children by C-section and delivering her friends’ baby. “With your own, you’ve so many questions — who will they look like? What will they weigh? Now I was approaching it as an operation rather than birth. I was nervous, hoping I hadn’t put my family in a situation where something could happen to me and affect them.

“When they took him out of me and held him up, I was very eager [for them] to finish it for me now. The baby went straight to his parents — they went to a separate room and did skin-to-skin. I thought I’d feel over-protective — there was nothing.

“I’m just so delighted I was able to do it for them. It’s a huge honour.” 

• Turas Clainne is on TG4 on Thursdays at 8pm.
• Becky Loftus Dore has set up Surrogacy Ireland, hosting free knowledge-sharing events about surrogacy. To register for the next virtual event on March 13, email [e-mail].