A couple have revealed they are expecting twins after treatment funded by The Birmingham Post's Funded Fertility Treatment For All campaign.

Claire and Tony Dunn, from Shire Oak, Walsall, could not hide their joy at the prospect of becoming parents after a 22-week scan yesterday.

Staff at Midland Fertility Services, based in Aldridge, Walsall, confirmed both babies were healthy. The twins, whose sex is not known yet, are due in May.

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A year after the campaign was launched, they are the fourth couple to receive treatment funded by The Birmingham Post and MFS, and the third to successfully conceive.

As well as taking a combination of fertility drugs, Mrs Dunn also had to take Viagra to help her uterus lining thicken before two of her frozen embryos could be implanted.

Just over a year ago it was a very different story.

After enduring hormone injections, scans and anxiety during her initial course of IVF treatment, 33-year-old Mrs Dunn was rushed to hospital on January 4, 2005.

She underwent emergency surgery after medical staff discovered she had an ectopic pregnancy, and lost the baby.

Carefully cradling her bump with one hand, and holding her husband's hand with the other, Mrs Dunn said: "We've come full circle in the past year and this still doesn't feel like it's real, it feels as if this is somebody else's pregnancy.

"I can't believe I'm five months pregnant with twins and that in three-and-a-half months' time they'll be here with us."

The couple's award enabled Mrs Dunn to have a frozen embryo transfer procedure, using two embryos created from a previous cycle of IVF.

She said: "People are starting their families later in life now and it's only then that they discover any fertility problems, and on top of that they're faced with the problems of accessing NHS treatment.

"We were so desperate, when we were initially told that it didn't look as if this treatment was working I felt as if my whole world had fallen apart.

"So to be at this point now, five months pregnant with twins, we can't thank MFS and The Birmingham Post enough."

Mr Dunn, a shopfitter, admitted the whole process had been more difficult than he had imagined.

The 36-year-old said: "It's harder for the men because the women go through the treatment, so you can feel a bit helpless, but it's best to talk about it.

"You don't realise how many people are affected by these issues.

"Now that Claire's bump is showing I can see it's physically happening - I don't have to rely on doctors telling me what's going on inside her body, I can see for myself."

Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director at MFS, said: "When these couples wrote their stories, we looked at those who had faced up to terrible difficulties already, rather than for the couples most likely to be the best clinical cases. Claire and Tony's story was a real rollercoaster, but when I saw them at their last scan everything was looking really good.

"I know they were a bit anxious as friends had had twins but lost them at five months, but so far so good."

The Birmingham Post launched its campaign last January, urging all PCTs which did not offer one cycle of fertility treatment to meet the April 1 2005 deadline set by former Health Secretary John Reid.

Following guidance issued by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in 2004, he had called for all PCTs in England and Wales to offer at least one cycle to women under 40.