Looking at twins Lewis and Ava, you would never guess the struggle their parents endured to bring them into the world – nor the unique treatment that finally ended in a successful birth. For the smiles in the family portrait belie the heartbreak of three failed cycles of IVF and a miscarriage, in which Yvonne Finlayson and husband Mark Ruston lost twins.
But after doctors in Los Angeles treated Mrs Finlayson with Viagra, she finally became pregnant and gave birth to her son and daughter in April last year.
Mrs Finlayson, 36, a management consultant, who lives with her husband, 35, a Royal Naval Officer, in Glasgow, said: ‘It really is amazing that using Viagra for a medical treatment has allowed me to give birth to my beautiful twins. ‘I had thought that I would never be a mother when all our attempts at IVF failed. But thanks to taking Viagra I am a mother at last.’
The couple began to try for a family after they married in May 2004, but after a year nothing had happened. So they went to the fertility clinic at the Monklands Hospital where doctors found that Mrs Finlayson had a thin womb lining, meaning it was unlikely that eggs could successfully implant and grow.
In June 2005 the couple had their first fertility treatment at Glasgow’s Nuffield Hospital but she did not get pregnant. Then in October 2005 they had another attempt, which ended in a miscarriage. A third attempt also failed in February 2006.
Mrs Finlayson then read on the internet that the Sher Institute of Reproduction in Los Angeles had a good success rate with fertility treatment. So the couple flew out in July 2006 for their fourth course of treatment. Doctors told her they were going to treat her with Viagra to try to thicken the womb lining.
She said: ‘I was willing to try anything – I just had to put my trust in the doctors. But I wasn’t very hopeful that it would work at all. We hadn’t been successful with three previous tries, so I had resigned myself to it not working again.’
Ten days later, back in the UK, Mrs Finlayson discovered she was pregnant. Doctors warned the couple that one of the twins was not likely to survive. However they both held on and were born at Wishaw General Hospital in Lanarkshire. Lewis weighed 6lb 1oz and Ava just 4lb 11oz.
The couple had to sell their house to pay for the fertility treatment, which cost a staggering £23,000 in total. Mrs Finlayson said: ‘It has cost us a lot and we had to go to America to get them but it has been worth every penny to get our twins.’