A Yorkshire couple who won a £1million lottery windfall have said they now feel like a double winner after they were able to help their two daughters have children through IVF.
As soon as they realized they had won the EuroMillions raffle in February 2018, Ruth and Mark Chalmers’ thoughts turned to the struggles their daughters Natalie and Leanne each had with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Now Mr and Mrs Chalmers, from Halifax, are celebrating life as grandparents by spending time with Natalie’s son Koby, now three, and Leanne’s son Brogen, 19 months.
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Mr Chalmers said his first thought after realizing they had won was to make sure his daughters got on the property ladder and were mortgage free.
“And, after that, it’s the grandchildren,” he said.
Mr Chalmers said: ‘Natalie had been through this for a number of years trying to get pregnant and different things were going on with her medical conditions.
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“At one point she phoned me in floods of tears saying ‘they want my womb removed’ and she thought that was the absolute end.
“But luckily she persevered, she saw other doctors and we didn’t have to go down that road. And then we considered going the IVF route.
He said: “So we kind of had another double lottery win.
“That’s how I see it – the fact that the process was reasonably easy and they both made it through the first round.
“And, obviously, we have the two boys.”
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Mr Chalmers, 60, said he and his wife, 61, had planned to use a lump sum he received when he took early retirement to try to fund Natalie’s IVF, but ” when we won the lottery, it made things so much easier.”
“The lottery is a fantasy come true for us,” Mr Chalmers said.
He added: “It gave us a lot of security and a lot of fun – especially for these two (boys).”
Mr Chalmers said he had nothing but praise for the IVF services used by his daughters.
Natalie, 33, has explained how she underwent years of operations and tests to try to help her conceive despite having PCOS, but was told it was nearly impossible to get pregnant the conventional way.
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She said that when her mum and dad told her about winning the lottery making funding for IVF much more realistic, she felt ‘happy, excited, nervous’.
Natalie said: “I just can’t thank them enough for this. They gave it to me (Koby), really. I couldn’t have done it without them. »
Leanne, 36, said: “So when I found out (about her PCOS) my doctor actually said, ‘You’re never going to have kids’, but it turns out they were wrong.
“It’s not impossible. It’s just very difficult.
She described how when she decided to try for a baby, she sat down with her parents with a financial plan and said “look, I can, I can afford to do this, I can allow me to support us both”.
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Leanne said her dad “just said yes right away, which I didn’t think he would do.”
Asked about Brogen, she said: “He’s really placid and totally against Koby.
“They look like twins – everyone thinks they’re brothers.”
Leanne said: “He’s so happy and always smiling. He just likes to play and get things done.
The sisters said it was important that people with PCOS receive help and support to get pregnant.
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“It’s a little better now,” Leanne said.
“When I was diagnosed, there weren’t many.
“I tried to do some research and there wasn’t much to read about it. Many things were rather negative.
“And it was pretty much, ‘You have to get used to the fact that you’re never going to have kids.'”
She said: “I found out quite young, I think I was 21 or 22, so it was pretty devastating at the time, thinking I could never have a family or kids or whatever. it would be.”
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