“I adopted two children then had a miracle baby”

As fans of BBC’s Call The Midwife wait to see if nurse Shelagh Turner and her GP husband have a surprise addition to their family after adopting, we talk to one mother who had just that experience

- Emma Elms

NAOMI RICHMOND*, 34, and her husband Phil adopted two children, now five and six, then in the same year, to Naomi’s amazement, she fell pregnant naturally. Naomi, a creative producer, gave birth to their daughter, Charlotte, last September.

I’m the youngest of four girls so I’d always wanted a large family, but my husband Phil said, “No way, we’re only having two!” I assumed I’d conceive relatively easily like my sisters, so it came as a real shock when a year later I still wasn’t pregnant. I underwent various tests but there was no real explanation. My hormone levels were slightly low, so the problem was due to me, not Phil, which made me feel I was letting him down. Over the following year I tried acupuncture, chiropractic treatment, changing my diet,losing and gaining weight, and exercising less. Finally I started fertility treatment with the drug Clomid.

It was heart-breaking and, after every scan, which showed the follicles hadn’t developed properly, I’d call my mum crying, “It hasn’t worked again.” It put a huge strain on us, though Phil was always really positive and supportive. After a year, our consultant suggested IVF but I couldn’t face putting myself through an even more intense treatment.

We went through a period of grieving for the children I’d never give birth to, but decided that adoption would be a positive choice for us. We did worry about the possible issues we might face in adopting children who’d had a challenging start but you hear stories of birth children going down the wrong path, so there’s never a guarantee of how any child will turn out.