Anyone who has heard the ethereal voices of the Vard Sisters will remember their transcendent version of Jimmy McCarthy’s classic song Wonder Child, recorded by the trio as a charity single for Concern. The song opens with the poignant words “This child he means the world to me” and such is the poetic ambiguity of the Cork songswriter’s lyric that it could refer to the infant Jesus or to any precious newborn baby, held for the first time in his mother’s arms. The song has a heartrending beauty, but it was particularly hard for Lisa Vard, the youngest of the sisters, to sing those words. Their simple directness were a constant reminder to her that she had no child of her own.
The Vard Sisters were discovered by chance when a Sony record executive was a guest at a friends’s wedding in Dublin at which they were singing. Their debut album Heavenly became an instant multi-platinum best-seller and the glamoures sisters found themselves thrown into the media spotlight. But while they appeared to be on the fast track to a demanding career of touring and recording, Lisa, who was by then agead 36, wanted above all else to be a mother.
“I was the only one in my family who didn’t have a child”, says Lisa, who is still increadibly gorgous as she approaches her 40th birthday. “My sisters wanted to progress with their singing career, but I was in a totally different place.”
After discussions with her husband Barry, who works in the motor industry in Dublin and was equally committed to becoming a parent, Lisa decided it was time to have a serious conversation with her older sisters. Kathy and Wendy supported her decision entirely, and it was agreed that they would take a break a few months down the line when it was time for Lisa to have her baby.
But things didn’t go as smoothly as expected. Lisa was soon pregnant but, after only 12 weeks, she suffered a devastating blow when a scan revealed that her baby had died in the womb. “I had to wait a week before my body finally ejected the dead foetus”, she says, recalling that her doctors advised this to avoid damaging her chances of future conception. It was immensely traumatic for Lisa to have to go through the birthing process, knowing that her baby had already died – the memory is clearly still very painful as she discusses it – but , once she and Barry had dealt with the initial shock, they resumed their attempts to try to conceive.
However, a year passed without any positive results, and Lisa was starting to get worried. “I had never been on the Pill, so I knew that our difficulties conceiving had not been chemically induced”, she says. “I was starting to feel that my situation was serious.”
She decided it was time to seek advice and, after a discussion with her gynaecologist, Lisa was referred to the Merrion Fertility Clinic in Dublin. Once initial tests had been done, the clinic was able to tell the couple that Barry’s fertility was not in question. “His sperm is top-class”, says Lisa, laughing, “which was good news, because it’s much better if the woman has the fertility issue as there is very little that can be done for the man.” A laparoscopy revealed nothing unusual, and after her tubes were tested with a dye and no blocks discovered, Lisa was diagnosed with “unexplained infertility”.
The next stage for the couple was intrauterine insemination, a medical term for artificial insemination. Semen is prepared in the laboratory to select the healthiest sperm, and is placed directly into the uterus on the day the woman is ovulating. Unfortunately, the results were again negative and the couple was finally referred for in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Before treatment began, a second laparoscopy had to be done and, this time it was discovered that Lisa had a significant number of fibroids, the benign growths which can be serious impediment to conception. “There were three in particular on the lining of my womb”, says Lisa, “and, quite simply, my husband’s sperm didn’t take at all kindly to them being there. In fact, they ran a mile in the opposite direction.”
IVF could not go ahead until the fibroids were dealt with, so the clinic recommended a relatively new treatment, uterine artery embolisation, which targets the fibroids through the main artery of the groin. The operation was instantly successful and the growths that had been holding back Lisa’s chance of conceiving vanished over a period of a couple of months.
“I suppose if I it had been around the age of 30, the doctors would have said to myself and Barry, ‘Off you go now and try for a baby’, says Lisa “but I was 38, and my biological clock was ticking, so time was not on our side. We decided, instead, to opt again for IVF.”
The subsequent treatment was very intense. Lisa was given a strong drug which had to be sniffed every day in order to activate the pituitary gland, along with daily injections. It’s a delicate treatment that has to be carefully monitored because over-stimulation can be quite dangerous and, in fact, that is exactly what happened to Lisa who, disappointed yet again, had to have her IVF treatment postponed to let her hormone level come back down to normal.
However, two months later, with an adjusted dosage, everything worked well and the treatment was very successful. Two fertilised eggs were inserted in a procedure called “embryo transfer” and, after waiting a nail-biting 16 days, the couple were told Lisa was finally pregnant.
Now, as I sit talking to her in the living room of her house in south Dublin, her precious three-month-old baby Paul lies quietly in her arms. “He is my angel”, she says adoringly, “my little miracle!” Then she adds with typical disarming wit, “It’s hard to believe he spent his first two weks in the fridge!”
While Lisa’s joy radiates, it is also clear that she hasn’t forgotten her struggle to have a baby. It occurs to me to ask her if, because of the extraordinary lengths she went to achieve her dream, she feels she cherishes her child more, perhaps, than someone who didn’t have her experience.
“Any mother must feel an overwhelming love for her child”, she assures me, “but after all that I went through, believe me, you take nothing for granted.”
It’s clear talking to her that the difficulties she endured were entirely worth it and that she would advise any one in her situation to keep positive and, above all, not give up trying.
As I left Lisa, she was preparing to put little Paul down for his afternoon nap and I thought of her singing to her beautiful baby as she rocked him gently to sleep. There was little doubt in my mind what song she would sing. After all, she had finally been blessed with her wonder child.
The Merrion Fertility Clinic, tel (01) 678-8688 or see www.merrionfertility.ie