THE proud parents of a baby girl are encouraging others to consider fertility treatment in their quest for a family - even if it brings tragedy and heartbreak along the way.

Jill and Gwyn Anthony-Ackery, of Ledbury, are mum and dad to 13-month-old Constance Lydia, thanks to their resilience and the technique of in-vitro-fertilisation.

Her birth is a tribute to the skills of Midland Fertility Services, at Aldridge, and the fact that the couple refused to give up.

Mrs Anthony-Ackery said: "We're so lucky. It's been an emotional slog and physically demanding but it's given us the most joyful thing we have in our lives."

In May 2000, after IVF treatment, the couple suffered the intense sorrow of losing twins and started to wonder if they could cope with the agony of trying again.

Mrs Anthony-Ackery said: "As a result of our first treatment with Midland Fertility Services I got pregnant with twins but I miscarried at 14 weeks. It was absolutely horrible, I had heard the babies' heartbeats.

"There's so much emotional investment - and then to lose them. It's like a cruel, massive trick. But this also happens to couples who haven't had fertility treatment."

Everything appeared to have been going as planned. The couple, who live on the New Mills estate, had carried out research to find a clinic with the best possible results, within an acceptable distance.

They also looked for a clinic that offered impressive results for women in Mrs Anthony-Ackery's age range and settled on Midland Fertility Services as the best option for them.

After the miscarriage, the couple decided to try again using frozen embryos that had been kept by the clinic. But Mrs Anthony-Ackery did not become pregnant this time.

She said: "We did wonder if we would cope going through another lot of treatment and all the hope it raises in you."

November 2000 was a tough time for the couple, especially for Mrs Anthony-Ackery. The loss of the twins hit her hardest around the time they would have been born.

"It was November, winter and a cold time," she said.

The couple's fortunes changed with news that the NHS in Herefordshire would fund a second round of treatment.

The first time, the couple had to find £3,500, plus around £700 for medication. A typical aspect of IVF treatment is the need for the woman to inject herself daily with hormones during the early stages of treatment.

The couple believe that the "postcode lottery", whereby some health authorities will pay for treatment and others will not, should be scrapped in favour of a level playing field nationally. They maintain that couples in need of fertility treatment should, ideally, be offered one or two treatments on the NHS. This would effectively cost the state around £8,000 for every couple seeking treatment.

Mrs Anthony-Ackery, now 33, said: "That would be such a gift but it still has to balance with the pressures on the NHS."

She said that couples were empowered to some extent when they have to find funding themselves.

"You don't have to go where they want to send you," she said. "You are paying for this. But we were in a position where we could do that."

The couple have nothing but praise for their chosen clinic, Midland Fertility Services.

Mrs Anthony-Ackery said: "The nurses there became friends and the babies mattered the most to them. That was important."

On September 6, the happy family numbered among 500 guests at a party, as the clinic marked it 16th birthday and the successful birth of 2,500 babies during that period.