A NURSE who shed five stone to fulfil her dreams of becoming a mum is about to celebrate her daughter’s first birthday

Laura Magee vowed to lose the weight to improve her chances of having a child.

At 17st the A&E nurse at Whiston Hospital was told by IVF specialists that she would need to drop the pounds ahead of the treatment.

The 36-year-old, whose husband Chris, 55, is a nurse at Halton Hospital, said: “We started trying for a baby after we got married but nothing happened.

“We started going for tests in 2005.

“We were diagnosed with unexplained infertility so there was nothing majorly wrong with either of us.”

The couple, who married 13 years ago, decided to keep trying but in 2012 explored the option of IVF.

“We thought about adoption and fostering but in the end I wanted to try everything,” said Laura, from Warrington.

“But they kept saying it was my weight that was stopping us from conceiving and that if I lost weight that would help.

“It was extremely tough to hear and it took a further few years for me to get into gear.

“But I got my head screwed on and decided to do something about it.”

The couple had to pay privately for IVF as they were denied funding due to Chris having two sons from a previous marriage.

After joining a bootcamp and working with a personal trainer, Laura lost almost five stone.

In March 2014 the couple started their IVF journey at Care Fertility Manchester and on December 1 they finally received the good news they had been desperate to hear.

“It was the longest three minutes of my life waiting for the pregnancy test results,” said Laura.

“We both looked at it at the same time and saw the word ‘pregnant’.

“We both just started crying.”

In August 2015 the couple welcomed their daughter Ailish Marie.