A woman experiencing an ‘allergic’ reaction to her husband has opened up about the difficulties in their marriage as they attempt to start a family.
Ideally, your spouse should be the love of your life, so being ‘allergic’ to them doesn’t sound like a promising situation, does it?
This is the predicament faced by Alex Murphy Klein, who discovered her inability to conceive when she and her husband, Paul, tried to expand their family.
During an appearance on ITV’s This Morning, Alex and Paul shared how their genes ‘repel’ each other, making it impossible for them to have children naturally.
After getting married in 2023, the couple began attempting to have a baby two years into their marriage, but soon encountered hurdles.
“We started trying to conceive a little over two years ago,” Alex explained. “We thought it would happen quickly and naturally, as you do. A year went by and nothing happened.”
“I had tests and they found nothing wrong. Same with Paul.”
The couple then decided to try IVF, but that also proved to be unsuccessful.
“Unfortunately, that round of IVF didn’t work. We were getting ready to go for a second round and I just had to put the brakes on. My body works, his works, so we needed to figure out what was actually happening,” Alex added.
Eventually, Alex and Paul discovered an at-home medical blood testing kit from Fertilysis, which provided crucial insights into their situation.
“They send you these tests in the mail and you give them blood vials. We went down to the pharmacy, got our bloods drawn, sent them overseas to Greece, and we ended up finding out that we have a genetic predisposition that makes me incompatible with Paul’s DNA, which is crazy,” she said.
“I have this thing called Kir AA, and Paul has this gene called HLAC2. And what it is is when they come together, they kind of repel.”
She continued: “My genes kind of put the brakes on and say, ‘Let’s attack this.’ And so, no matter what we had done at that point in time, it wouldn’t have worked if we had tried IVF again or if we continued.
“But luckily, I think we made the right decision by taking a break and saying, ‘Let’s find let’s get to the bottom of it.’ Because I don’t like that buzz word, ‘unexplained infertility’.”
Paul described their journey to conceive as ‘extremely difficult’ and admitted feeling ‘helpless’ at times.
However, the couple remains hopeful and is currently pursuing a treatment plan that they hope will eventually enable them to have a child naturally.