Although I’ve seen a few clinics by now, I have to say that I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. Generally you get your own cubicle. Sometimes you get your own room. But here you lie side by side with all the other patients, waiting to go into theatre and then recovering alongside them afterwards. It’s strange to think back now on my first ever experience of a fertility clinic: my paranoia about my eggs being mixed with someone else’s sperm, and my horror at being treated in a hospital corridor. Now, years later, I succumb silently to this factory line in what feels like some sort of Orwellian nightmare (although this is a nightmare in which all I want is for my dream to come true).
Following an all-clear from my hysteroscopy I move on to the stimulation phase. This is also nothing like I’ve experienced anywhere before. Each morning I have to go into the clinic for a blood test and every other day I have a scan. I then wait for a call to tell me my daily drug dose. Every day it’s different, and the instructions are incredibly specific, ranging from take it ‘NOW’ to take it tomorrow morning at exactly 5 a.m. Added to this there’s the two litres of water and litre of milk I have to drink each day. I seem to be spending the whole time rushing to public toilets either to have a pee or to shoot up.
During the latter stages of stimulation the blood tests and scans increase to two per day, all in a bid to pinpoint the perfect moment to trigger ovulation. It’s an exhausting but exhilarating process, which takes over my life. I’m just thankful that I have swallowed my secrecy about what I’m doing on my sabbatical and arranged to take another month off work.
The majority of the medical profession consider Taranissi’s obsession with the minutiae unnecessary. Much of his practice is still clinically unproven. His daily regime of blood tests and drug concoctions is also what makes treatment here double the price of anywhere else. But, having been through this process multiple times now, the one thing that it does make you feel is that you are receiving treatment that is tailor-made for you. Maybe it’s not the blood tests and drugs but the level of care that yields his results. Either way, it’s got to be worth it.
Midway through the second week of stimulation I get the call I’ve been longing for. I am called in for a scan with Mr T himself. It’s the first time I’ve met him in person and it’s a bit like meeting God. Not because I’m yet convinced that he will succeed where others have failed, but because of the omnipotent authority with which he runs the clinic. No decision is made on any patient’s treatment without his say-so, and he undertakes a lot of the egg collections and transfers himself. It’s a level of commitment and care from a senior consultant that, in my experience, is unprecedented in the fertility industry.
‘It’s such a pleasure to meet you,’ I gush.
It’s just as well Peter’s not here because I know he wouldn’t approve of such sycophancy.
‘Thank you. Thank you,’ he says. ‘So what do you do?’
‘I work in a theatre,’ and then add quickly for clarification: ‘Not an operating theatre. A theatre where people perform.’
I’ve realised over the last few years that this definition is necessary when talking to medical professionals.
He smiles. ‘And what clinic were you at before you came here?’
‘Oh, a few. You’re my last hope.’
‘Ah, you should have come here first.’
‘Probably,’ I say. ‘Everyone says that if anyone can get me pregnant, you can.’
He smiles again.
I can feel a miniature Peter on my shoulder saying that flattery won’t necessarily get me a baby. Maybe not, but I can only try.
I lie silently on the trolley as he scans me. Usually I would be leaning over, peering at the screen to try to count the follicles myself, but today I am so in awe that I don’t dare.
‘Things are looking good,’ Mr Taranissi says. ‘I’ll need to review your blood results from this afternoon but we will probably trigger you tonight or tomorrow. Then, in nine months, you’ll have a baby.’
I wonder how he can sound so confident, but I kind of like that he does.
The Infertility Diaries Part XXI
I have recently developed a condition that can only be described as Infertility Envy. I look at all the other women in the clinic and find a million reasons to be jealous of them. I envy the women with thin patient files who have only just started treatment and who I surmise will be successful on their first or second attempt. I envy the women with thicker files than mine, believing that their experience and determination will soon deliver results. When I’m waiting in the queue to have my blood taken, I strain to hear other women giving their date of birth, envious of all those who were born after 1970 and are younger than me. I’m envious of the women the receptionists seem to know and sometimes allow to jump the scan queue; and of the women who have forged friendships with other women and chat together in hushed tones about their treatment. And if all this weren’t enough, I’m also envious about all the usual stuff – the women who are thinner, prettier and richer than me – allowing myself to believe that these are all qualities that make them more deserving of getting a baby than I am. But of course in reality we are all the same. All of us have been denied something that we desperately want. We are equal in our infertility (even if in my envious eyes some are more equal than others).
DORITOS (FAMILY SIZE)
On the day of egg collection we arrive at the clinic, as instructed, at 6.30 a.m. It’s a beautiful morning which, after the week of rain that has preceded it, feels like some sort of pathetic fallacy. A day of hope and new beginning.
At seven o’clock, I am taken down to the basement, and Peter is taken up to the producing room. I have long since given up insisting on being together for this bit of the process. Clinics just don’t get it and, in all honesty, I’ve realised it’s probably easier for Peter if I’m not around. Plus, at Mr Taranissi’s clinic there’s such a long queue of men waiting to produce each morning that speed is of the essence. Later, Peter proudly tells me that he was in and out of the room in a total of twelve minutes: a new record.
There are six women having egg collection this morning. I am Number 4. I get chatting to Numbers 3 and 5 on either side of me. Number 3 is a party planner from West London; Number 5 is a paediatrician from Reading.
‘Is that hard?’ I ask Number 5.
‘Sometimes,’ she says.
Only another woman living with infertility could ask this question of a stranger and understand how hard it must be.
One by one we are walked into theatre, then afterwards wheeled out on a trolley and lined up side by side in recovery. I have made a pact with myself that this time around I’m not going to ask that question as soon as I wake up. I will bide my time. The answer will come when it comes and will be what it will be.
Whilst I am sipping my post-op tea and eating digestive biscuits the answer is delivered to me on a sheet of paper. At the top it says: ‘You have had eight eggs collected today.’ It’s fewer than I hoped for but more than our last cycle, which is now nearly a year ago. I guess I have to accept that, at forty, the heady days of double figures are over. Besides, they never got me pregnant, so it’s not like the numbers actually meant anything anyway. As so many doctors have told me, all we need is one plus one – one good egg plus one good sperm.
As I’m sitting pondering this the paediatrician is wheeled in next to me. As soon she wakes up I hear her ask the nurse: ‘How many eggs?’
The next morning the news is that, of my eight eggs, six were mature and injectable; of these, five have fertilised. By Day 3 the development of two of them is slowing down, but three have reached eight cells and the decision is made to put them back. This is the first cycle I have had since turning forty and I am now eligible to have up to three embryos transferred. It seems a lot. Whilst I think most couples going through IVF would secretly be happy with twins (largely so they don’t have to go through it all again), I’m not sure anyone can comprehend the thought of triplets. But I know the ch
ances of this happening are minute, especially given our track record, so we go for the hat-trick.
It’s now my third visit to the basement, and I’m starting to feel quite at home. Mr Taranissi does the transfer himself, chatting and joking at first, and then falling silent in complete concentration as he manoeuvres the catheter containing our embryos into my uterus. It’s the longest transfer procedure I’ve had and it feels like he’s taking the utmost care to put them back in exactly the right place. I like that.
Afterwards he tells us to wait upstairs whilst he reviews my medication for the next two weeks. The waiting room is unusually quiet. There are two women sitting on their own and an attractive young couple who are clearly here for their first consultation, busily filling out forms. The man’s name is called by one of the receptionists and he is taken upstairs alone. He bounds in a while later with a smile on his face.
‘Producing room,’ I mouth at Peter.
‘I was quicker,’ he mouths back.
Then we are joined by a Moslem couple with three young children: a girl of about five, and a boy and girl of about three who are clearly twins. The wife is dressed in black burka from head to toe with only a tiny slit for her eyes. I smile at her, trying to tell whether she smiles back. I can’t, but after a while she pulls out a big bag of Doritos, gives one to each of the children, and then offers the packet to me across the room. It’s one of those special moments of connection across cultures, and as I take a crisp her husband suddenly says, pointing at the children:
‘Taranissi. All of them. My wife and I tried for eighteen years. We went all over the world. But nothing. And then, Taranissi. All of them.’
‘That’s amazing,’ I say.
Everyone in the room spontaneously agrees.
I can hardly imagine what it must have been like for this couple and for other couples that come from cultures where the woman’s primary role in life is to bear children. It must have been terrible for them both that they couldn’t. And eighteen years. It makes our six and a half feel like a breeze.
Then, as if the husband’s confession has broken a spell over the room, everyone starts to share their own stories. Each one different and yet the same. It’s such a rare moment in a fertility waiting room, usually loaded with uncomfortable silence. A reminder of how much we all want to know each other’s experiences, and share our own, but how few opportunities there are to ask.
So begins another two-week wait. It’s the first I’ve spent doing nothing. For all my other cycles I have carried on working and, to be honest, I don’t know what’s worse: waiting and doing something, or waiting and doing nothing. I think a lot about the other women who had their eggs collected on the same day, knowing that they will be going through exactly the same emotions as me. Monitoring every twinge, shifting between feeling positive and negative.
One of the strangely comforting things is that, unlike my previous clinics, Mr T still has me on a whole range of different drugs. Twice daily injections and a junior aspirin to thin the blood; a steroid tablet that has to be taken at exactly six-hour intervals, which involves waking up every morning at 4 a.m.; and a nightly injection of progesterone into my bottom. Nice. But it does feel like we’re doing stuff to help the process and that’s a comfort.
As usual, the first few days are easy as it’s too early to get anxious about what is or isn’t happening. But as the days count down I am increasingly torn between wanting the uncertainty to end and the hope to last forever. I have also made a second pact with myself (second to the not-asking-how-many-eggs pact), which is that I am not going to do my regular ‘spot check’. The deal I’ve struck is that when I wipe I mustn’t look, but I can take a quick glance in the toilet bowl before I flush the chain – just to make sure there isn’t anything significant. This is going well, a small triumph in itself, and when I safely pass the day on which I usually start spotting I feel a sense of jubilation. Statistically speaking I have started spotting on all but one of my IVF attempts before official test day (and that time I was pregnant), so not spotting has got to be a good sign. A really good sign.
The Infertility Diaries Part XXII
I have become an infertility stalker. I spend hours on websites and blogs reading other people’s conversations. I never sign up or log in, too embarrassed to officially declare myself.
I know I’m not alone. On one of my favourite stalking sites – Fertility Friends – it tells you how many guests and how many official users are online at any one time. Day or night there are always hundreds of people, many just voyeurs like me.
If I’m honest these sites scare me a bit. The women are all so knowledgeable and talk in acronyms that it took me a long time to understand. Now I’m scared by the fact that I’m starting to speak their language.
Me and DP TTC nearly 7yrs. Spent £££ on TX, OPK and Pee Sticks. Virtually given up on all BMS. DX U-IF. TX so far: IUI (disaster); ICSI (CP then BFN); FET (CP then BFN); ICSI (AF arrived. Didn’t bother testing on OTD); ICSI (ditto); ICSI (BFN then DX ectopic); FET (BFP! then M/C 9wks): ICSI (CP then BFN); ICSI (D/R a muddle; stims OK; E/C Fri; E/T Mon; now on 2WW 9 DPT PUPO). AFM all I want is to get PG and have a DD or a DS. Is that TMTA?*
I think I might have actually just made up the acronym ‘TMTA’: too much to ask. Now I’m really scared. The stalker becomes the stalked.
[*Me and Dear Partner Trying To Conceive for nearly seven years. Spent thousands of pounds on Treatment, Ovulation Predicator Kits and Home Pregnancy Tests. Virtually given up on all Baby-Making Sex. Diagnosed with Unexplained Infertility. Treatment so far: Intrauterine Insemination (disaster); Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (Biochemical Pregnancy then Big Fat Negative); Frozen Egg Transfer (Biochemical Pregnancy then Big Fat Negative); Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (Aunt Flo arrived. Didn’t bother testing on Official Test Date); Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ditto); Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (Big Fat Negative then diagnosed with Ectopic Pregnancy); Frozen Egg Transfer (Big Fat Positive! Then Miscarriage at 9 weeks); Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (Biochemical Pregnancy then Big Fat Negative); Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (Down Regulation a muddle; Stimulation OK; Egg Collection Friday; Egg Transfer Monday; now on Two Week Wait, 6 Days Post Transfer, Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise). As For Me, all I want is to get Pregnant and have a Dear Daughter or a Dear Son. Is that Too Much To Ask?]
ZEBRAS AND LEOPARDS
I’ve decided to have my hair done this afternoon at a new salon just round the corner from us. It’s in a beautifully restored Victorian town house with stripped wooden floors and Farrow & Ball paintwork. They even serve tea made with muslin teabags. The prospect of a hair makeover and a few hours reading glossy magazines seems like the perfect way to spend the afternoon before test day.
Everything is going well until the reveal. When the hairdresser swivels me round to show me the back of my head, I am horrified to see that it looks like a yellow and black zebra. Usually, like most women in the world, I would smile rigidly, hand over my credit card and race home in tears. But today I find myself exclaiming: ‘But it’s stripey!’
Within minutes all the stylists in the salon have come over and are running their fingers through my hair, saying it looks fabulous, whilst all the other customers are staring at me in pity, breathing a silent sigh of relief that it’s not them. It doesn’t look fabulous, it looks stripey, and no amount of primping can console me. But as the discussion escalates I become increasingly embarrassed that it ever began, and eventually do a bad job of telling the guy who cut it not to worry, pay and leave.
Peter meets me outside the salon and we have a tense walk home. Why is it that men will never learn that if a woman doesn’t like her haircut no amount of saying it looks ‘fine’ will make it better? It actually makes it worse. I now feel terrible: for causing a scene; for probably ruining the day of the man who cut it; and for having to go out in stripes. Do I need a clearer sign that I am stressed about tomorrow – either that or I’ve got pregnancy hormones racing ar
ound my body…
I have decided to do a test at home first thing in the morning, prior to going to the clinic for my official blood test. Mr Taranissi doesn’t even give you the option of doing a home test (which, following my ectopic, I think is a very good thing). However, I’ve been giving it quite a bit of thought and have decided that by doing a test at home first, I’ll get a heads up and this will make the wait for the blood test result marginally less agonising.
I sleep sporadically and in my waking moments mull over how to do the test. Shall I pee on it or collect the urine in a pot? The problem with the pee thing is that it often won’t go where you want it to, and you find yourself chasing it around the toilet bowl as it goes everywhere but on the stick itself. As I’ve only bought one test I don’t want to risk it. But the alternative is a pot, and what to use? I don’t like the idea of peeing into a glass we’ll be drinking from later. I mentally run through all the container-like objects in our flat that might fit the job, and finally land on the ball you put into the washing machine. I wonder whether the residue detergent might have an effect, but I guess it guarantees it’s clean. That’s settled, I think, and fall back to sleep for a few hours.
When I wake up again it’s about ten to six. Peter is still breathing heavily. I get up and head for the door. He looks up blearily.
‘I’m going to do it,’ I say.
Ball filled. Stick inserted for five seconds (plus another five for luck). I take the test back to bed and put it on the bedside table without looking at it. I check the clock: 05.59.
‘Three minutes,’ I say.
‘OK,’ Peter replies, stretching out of sleep.
At exactly 06.02 I pick up the test and hold it out in front of us. There is one clear pink line. We both look at it.
The Pursuit of Motherhood Page 13