A MIRACLE mum who spent £60,000 on IVF finally gave birth after her 17th attempt.

Kirsten Tuchli-Grainger, 43, refused to give up hope after struggling to conceive for nearly six years.

Longed-for son Kobe Mac was born weighing 8lb 14oz last month.

Thrilled Kirsten said: “Being a mum is amazing. It’s everything I wanted it to be and more.

“I want to give hope to other women going through the same things I did.”

Kirsten, of Beddau, South Wales, and her rugby player husband Simon Grainger, 36, began trying for a baby a year after they wed.

'RUNNING OUT OF TIME'

But Kirsten was diagnosed with unexplained fertility problems at the age of 38 and was running out of time to have free IVF treatment on the Welsh NHS.

She said: “The NHS is great when it comes to medical emergencies, but for fertility treatment you are more or less written off by the time you reach 40.

“I’d always planned to start a family a year after getting married and then carry on with my career. How wrong was I?

“I think I was a bit naive and thought that fertility issues just happened to other people.”

Kirsten opted to use a private IVF clinic at the age of 39.

But fertility experts said one of the problems was she was not able to produce a lot of eggs, meaning there was a lack of embryos to fertilise and implant.

She explained: “Some women might have 18 eggs and eight embryos after one round and be able to freeze some of them. But I never had that luxury.”

After nine rounds of IVF at a private clinic in Wales Kirsten became pregnant but suffered a miscarriage after just six weeks.

She said: “That was a turning point for me and I knew there was another way.”

Through a mutual friend, Kirsten was told about an assisted conception unit in Athens, Greece, called Embryogenesis.

Kirsten, a senior manager at British Gas, contacted the clinic in September 2018 and had an “instant connection” with Dr Steve Davies, originally from Wales.

She said: “From the moment Steve said ‘hello’, I knew I would become a mother.

“My mum and dad were on a cruise in October and they drove to the hospital to meet Steve and see the facilities.

“He took my mother and said he was going to give her all the drugs I’d need.

'MY PREGNANCY WAS BRILLIANT'

“She then went next door to the pharmacy to pay for them.

“They are a lot cheaper and easier to access in Greece than in the UK.”

After a number of failed attempts, a biopsy revealed some uterus inflammation and a bacterial infection that may have been affecting chances of conception.

And after being given antibiotics, and another round of IVF, she fell pregnant with Kobe.

Kirsten said: “My pregnancy was brilliant. I flew through it. I think it was God’s way of repaying us after the long and arduous journey we’d been through.”

In total, including travel costs, Kirsten spent more than £60,000 on private fertility treatment.

But she said it “never, ever” crossed her mind to give up her dream and reckoned: “If it had cost £100,000 we would have found the money from somewhere. I now have a beautiful baby boy.”

Kirsten is planning on having another IVF baby and encourages British women to seek fertility treatment outside the UK.

She said: “I want more women to talk about their fertility problems. I urge women who have problems to seek help quickly as time is of the essence.”

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