- After going on my first ever blind date at age 23, I knew I found the one in Angus, 28
- Angus confided in me that he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he was 15, and although he was now cancer free, the treatment had left him infertile
- We fell for each other quickly and didn’t think about kids until years after we married and travelled the world together
- Angus and I were successful in using his sperm he’d had frozen 26 years earlier to conceive via IVF
- We now have a new world record, as it was the longest-recorded use of a man’s sperm to have his own child!
- Rebecca Schultz, from Brisbane Qld, shares her story….
Standing outside the bar, I had butterflies in my tummy.
It was 2010, and I was about to go on my first blind date.
A month earlier, I’d added Angus Cave on Facebook, thinking he was a fellow student on the online business and marketing uni course I was taking while living in my hometown of Griffith, NSW.
Turned out, I’d got the wrong Angus – but it didn’t stop us from chatting.
Read more; My journey from miscarriages and IVF to mum of twins
I’ve just come out of a long-term relationship, Angus confided.
Me too! I replied, having just broken up with my high-school sweetheart.
We had other things in common, too. We both loved to travel and exercise. And to top it off, we lived just a few kilometres from each other!
As I waited for our date, I already felt like I’d known Angus, 28, all my life – and the moment he walked up to me, smiling, I knew he was special.
We talked non-stop.
“There’s something you should know,” Angus said, a few drinks into the night. “I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma when I was 15.”
My heart just went out to him.
“I had intensive chemo and I’m fine now…” he said, “but the cancer treatment made me infertile.”
Angus explained that he wanted to be upfront that he might not be able to caceive a baby naturally – but he told me he’d frozen some of his sperm that could potentially be used in the future.
I appreciated him telling me. And at 23, I was in no rush to start thinking about kids – so I pushed it to the back of my mind as we started dating.
After six months we moved in together, then a year after that, Angus proposed. We married in October 2012 at Luna Park in Sydney, where we’d just moved.
For the next few years, I focused on my work in events and marketing, and Angus forged ahead with his accountancy career. We spent time with friends, went running together, and travelled often.
Occasionally, we’d talk about the possibility of having a baby, but we were so happy with our lives as they were. Knowing becoming parents would involve the gruelling process of IVF using Angus’ frozen sperm, we kept putting it on the backburner.
But when we moved to Brisbane in 2015 for a slower pace, and our friends started to have kids, we thought about it even more.
“Should we at least get the ball rolling on a baby?” I suggested and Angus agreed.
In late 2019, we organised the transfer of his sperm from Sydney to Brisbane.
Then COVID hit. Thankfully, the sperm was still transported – but it wasn’t until May 2020 we were able to begin IVF.
First, I went through the egg retrieval process. We were thrilled to learn the specialist had retrieved 27 eggs, which resulted in 10 viable embryos.
In July 2020, following strict COVID procedures, I went for my first transfer. Excitedly, two weeks later, I took a pregnancy test. It was negative and we were heartbroken.
“We have plenty more opportunities to try for a baby,” Angus reassured me.
Sadly, three more unsuccessful embryo transfers followed. I found myself feeling envious of people around me falling pregnant and thinking about babies all the time.
“I never used to be like this,” I sobbed to Angus.
The process was really starting to take its toll.
It felt like we’d put our entire lives on hold to have a baby – and now it wasn’t happening for us.
“Let’s try to relax,” Angus suggested. “Live our lives as normal for a bit.”
I’d lost my job in the early months of COVID, so decided to look for work, to take my focus off our desperate attempts to fall pregnant.
But we still went ahead with our fifth attempt – this time with the help of hormone injections, which I’d previously avoided, instead using my natural cycle for each transfer.
At the end of the two-week wait, I was just about to walk into a job interview when our specialist phoned me.
“You’re pregnant, Rebecca!” he announced.
Overwhelmed with emotion, I called Angus to tell him the news. Then I had to hang up and walk straight into my job interview!
That night, we held each other tight.
“This is really happening,” I choked. “We’re having a baby.”
My pregnancy went without a hitch, and I was induced at 42 weeks.
After an arduous 32-hour labour, I gave birth to our beautiful baby boy, Noah, who weighed 4.2kg and had wisps of fair hair on his tiny head.
“He’s perfect,” Angus said.
Back home, we settled into family life. When Noah was about five months old, Angus spoke to his specialist at Concord Hospital in Sydney – where he still had annual check ups – to proudly tell him we’d conceived a baby using the sperm they’d frozen 26 years earlier, when he was just 15.
Now 42, Angus had set a new world record. It turned out it was the longest-recorded use of a man’s sperm to have his own child!
Noah is almost two now, and thriving. He’s a happy, cheeky little boy.
We currently have five more embryos on ice, so who knows, we might even try to give him a little sibling.
But for now, we’re just enjoying Noah – and still finding it hard to believe that his conception began 27 years ago.
