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AS Juliet and Keith Armstrong-Pringle fly a kite on their favourite beach with their son Innes they know it’s an experience they feared they would never enjoy.

The couple believed they might not be able to have a child after fertility tests revealed Keith’s sperm count was zero.

After being given the devastating news, Juliet and Keith headed for their favourite beach at Camusdarach, near Mallaig in the Highlands.

“We went to our special place to try to come to terms with the news. It felt like we were grieving for the child we thought we’d never have,” explained Juliet.

Now they can hardly believe they’re back at the beach, this time playing on the sand with their own toddler.

“It’s a miracle we’ve been able to have a child,” said Juliet, 34, a podiatrist from Saline, Fife.

They named their son Innes – meaning “island” in Gaelic – because of the view of the islands of Rum, Eigg and Skye from Camusdarach.

And the beach where they once sat fearing they might never have a child is now a favourite place to take their son, who is three.

When Juliet and support worker Keith, 37, married in Borthwick Castle, Midlothian, in July 2005, they had their future life as parents mapped out.

But a year into their marriage when they tried for a baby nothing happened.

Juliet said: “I thought it had to be down to me because my cycle was a bit irregular. But by six months I was getting anxious that nothing was happening.”

GP tests on Juliet revealed she appeared healthy – then Keith agreed to get checked out.

It was when they went together to see their GP for the results they were given the devastating news.

“As we sat down the doctor said, ‘I’m afraid it’s not looking good, you’re probably going to have to adopt, as your husband has a zero sperm count.’

“I started sobbing as the doctor said he’d refer us to the assisted conception unit at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, but he still didn’t think there was anything that could be done.

“Keith just stared and said, ‘Zero? That must be wrong’.”

The couple were then warned it could take three years to get an appointment at the clinic.

Juliet said: “It was so traumatic and we felt heart-broken.

“I knew Keith had a double hernia operation as a boy and we wondered if that had something to do with it.

“He said he’d also had an undescended testicle – which started me thinking whether that could have affected his fertility.

“We saw it as just a health problem – it didn’t affect the way we felt about each other. We knew that we had to be strong and get through it together.”

The couple headed off for a weekend to their favourite beach in the Highlands to deal with the news.

“We had a long chat and discussed the news,” said Juliet. “We decided if we can’t have kids together then we’ll find another way to have a child.

“We adore kids. It’s what we’d always dreamed of so it was heart-wrenching news. But we didn’t want to give up hope just yet.”

The couple decided they needed to know if there was anything that could be done so Juliet contacted the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine (GCRM) for tests.

Tests revealed Juliet was fertile – but again, Keith’s sperm count came back as zero when in a healthy sample there would usually be several million.

But doctors at the GCRM said they could operate on Keith to see if they could find any sperm inside his testicles.

Juliet said: “We decided we had to be positive and see if it could work. We had a chance so it was worth trying and then if it didn’t work we’d look at the other options of sperm donor or adoption that we’d already thought through.”

Amazingly fertility experts at the GCRM managed to track down a small number of normal, healthy, mobile sperm hidden inside a tissue sample taken from Keith’s testicles. They were then able to use the sperm to fertilise Juliet’s eggs through ICSI treatment where a single sperm is injected directly into the egg.

Juliet explained: “The embryologist had spent a long time examining tissue and she eventually found a small sample hiding in the tissue – it was a miracle.”

She felt so grateful that she’d been given a chance at motherhood that she donated some of her eggs to help another woman become a mum.

“I knew what it felt like to think I might not be able to have a baby – so I decided to donate some of my eggs to help another woman become a mum.

“I felt if I did something for someone else it might give us a bit of luck and we’d be able to have a baby,” she explained.

The couple spent an anxious two weeks waiting to discover if Juliet’s embryo transfer had worked.

“I’d had no symptoms of pregnancy and initially I thought it hadn’t worked. It was the worst two weeks of my life waiting to take the test,” explained Juliet.

Then the night before Juliet was due to have a pregnancy test she had a dream where her late dad told her she was pregnant.

She woke up convinced she was carrying a baby – and was over the moon when a pregnancy test was positive.

The pregnancy went well and baby Innes was born weighing 8lb 6oz

Juliet said: “He was plopped on my chest and I saw these big boxer hands and I knew it was a boy. He was gorgeous.”

Now they’re hoping to try for another child using one of their frozen embryos – and Juliet knows the woman she donated eggs to had a child as well.

Fertility expert Marco Gaudoin, medical director of the GCRM, said: “In Keith’s case the reason he had no sperm count was largely down to an undescended testicle. This phenomenon has risen markedly over the last 30 years.

“Juliet’s embryos were frozen in 2007 using the slow freezing technique. We now use vitrification which has a 90 per cent survival success rate.

“However, all of Juliet’s eggs fertilised normally which is encouraging should she wish to go ahead with a frozen embryo transfer.”