When Maya Tan* got married in 2015, the then-30-year-old didn’t give much thought to fertility. She assumed that when she and her husband were ready to start a family, getting pregnant would be a matter of course. Infertility was not on their minds.
After three years of marriage, the couple decided they were ready for a baby and wanted to get pregnant. But what followed was an exhausting path filled with uncertainty and disappointment.
More than a year passed and despite their efforts, Tan still could not get pregnant. When the couple went for a fertility checkup, doctors discovered multiple issues with Maya’s reproductive system.
“I was told I was in the so-called prime age to conceive yet I had so many problems … it felt like a nightmare,” she said.
“I had blocked fallopian tubes which led to an infection, cysts in my ovaries, and the worst part was that my egg reserve was extremely low.”
Tan and her husband sought second opinions and consulted various fertility clinics in Singapore. Each visit brought diminishing hope. Along the way, they endured eight unsuccessful rounds of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).