My Sister's Child

by Caroline Finnerty

  It was on their eighth failed attempt that Jo had heard the banging on the front door and tried to shut it out. It kept hitting off her head and she had to put her pillow over her ears to drown it out. She had heard Isla’s voice then, calling up the stairs to her, getting louder and more frustrated as the minutes went on.

  “Jo, I know you’re in there so open up this minute – don’t make me kick in your door!”

  That had almost made her laugh – the thought of the birdlike frame of her younger sister thinking in that insane head of hers that she could kick through the heavy wooden frame of her Victorian front door.

  “I swear, Jo, I’ll kick it down and, if I can’t, I’ll call the Gardaí and get them to do it for me!”

  And Jo knew that she would too. She had dragged herself up off the bed and gone down the stairs. She caught sight of her face in the standing mirror beside the door – a hideous reflection stared back at her, red-raw and swollen from tears. She took a deep breath and opened the door to Isla.

  Isla said nothing and instead just threw her arms around her sister, hugging her tightly until Jo started to cry.

  “Let’s go sit down,” Isla said eventually.

  Jo followed her sister into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

  “I don’t know about you but I could murder a glass of wine right now,” Isla said.

  Jo didn’t argue as Isla went into her kitchen and opened the fridge to take out a bottle. Jo could hear her opening drawers looking for a corkscrew. She didn’t have the energy to tell her that it was in the third drawer on the left from the cooker. Finally the clattering stopped and she knew that she had located it.

  Isla returned with two glasses and sat on the other end of the sofa where Jo was sitting with her legs curled up underneath her.

  “Ryan called me,” Isla said simply.

  Jo nodded. “I can’t do this any more. I can’t keep going through this.” She dabbed at her nose with a tissue as she felt the upset build up inside her once again.

  She couldn’t ever remember feeling so desolate in her entire life. Everything, every single thing that she had ever done had always been of a high standard – whether it was exam results or projects in work. But all of those things she had been in control of. Whenever she had a task to do, she could control the outcome to the standard that she wanted through hard work, but this time no matter what she did she couldn’t make her body improve its own eggs. She had tried dieting, focusing on maintaining a healthy body-mass index, she ate superfoods. She abstained from alcohol for over two years. She had tried acupuncture and yoga. For someone like Jo who was always a high achiever, trying to accept that there was nothing she could do to improve the situation was very difficult.

  Having been through it seven times before, she had known bad days, but now she found herself feeling a despair that was so acute that she never would have thought a feeling like it was possible. Every failed cycle had been awful but the last one was really bad. It was soul-destroying and just really, really sad. She was sad for herself and sad for Ryan. She felt she had failed him. He had been so good throughout it all. He had never complained about what he was missing out on when his friends or colleagues became fathers and Jo couldn’t give him the one thing that both of them so desperately craved which seemed to come so easily to everyone else. He had kept strong when Jo was going through an inner turmoil of self-loathing and a feeling of failure so awful that it was akin to wanting to claw off all her own skin and climb into someone else’s body. But that time it was different because it had marked the end game for them. That was the imaginary line that they had drawn under it all, the one she had never really believed they would reach and now there they were.

  When Ryan had come home from work that evening, she had told him to go. She had thrown him out of the house. She knew that it was cruel and selfish but she couldn’t face seeing his disappointment on top of her own. So she had made him walk through their front door and outside into the rain, which was coming down in diagonal sleet. The hurt written on his face, as he turned back to look at her, had cut deeply. Even as she was looking at him, she knew that that image of her distressed husband would probably stay with her forever. She knew that they were both thinking the same thing: what had they become? But she couldn’t let him come back. She loved him too much for that. She could not give that good man everything he deserved in life so she had to tell him to go because she knew that he would never leave her. He had obviously contacted Isla and told her what was going on which was why she had shown up and threatened to break down the door.

  “Come on, Jo, you’re strong. You’ve said before that you couldn’t go on but you’ve managed to keep on going.” Isla squeezed her arm. “Maybe you should take a break for a while?”

  “You don’t understand, Isla. That was my last chance. My consultant didn’t want me to have another round after the last time. He believes that the reason the IVF hasn’t been working is probably caused by inferior egg quality and he doesn’t think that it’s a good idea for me either physically or emotionally to keep on putting myself through it when the chances of success at this stage are not in my favour. And Ryan agreed with him. He said we have to draw a line under it at some stage. He only agreed to go ahead with it the last time on condition that it was our final shot.”

  When they had told her in the clinic that her eggs were substandard, she had taken it badly. She saw herself as a failure, that her own body had failed her. It was definitely a depression of sorts although she didn’t realise that that was what it was at the time. She had to mourn the fact that their journey was over,that a genetic child wasn’t going to happen for them.Ryan had been adamant that they were done with IVF. As well as the emotional toll it was taking on them and on their marriage, it was financially ruinous even with their large salaries. Somewhere deep inside her, in a dark, hopeless place, she knew that Ryan was right. She knew that their marriage probably wouldn’t withstand much more. She felt like a gambler choosing a colour on the roulette table – just one more time, this will be my time – except she always seemed to choose the wrong colour.

  “Well, maybe he’s right. I hate seeing you like this – I hate what the whole ‘trying for a baby thing’ is doing to you.”

  “Do you think I like it? I don’t have a choice in it! This is the hand that I was dealt. Jesus, I feel so cheated at the hoops that I have to go through to have a child of my own and it comes so bloody easy to everyone else!”

  “So is that really it? Don’t you have any other options?”

  “Basically, no. If I choose not to have any more IVF then I will never have a genetic child of my own and my only other options are adoption or egg donation.”

  “Well, if you want eggs you only have to ask me!”

  “Jesus Christ, Isla, how can you be so flippant? Have you any idea of what I’m going through here?” Jo was insulted by her suggestion and she was also angered by how casual Isla could be about something that she knew was so incredibly difficult for her. Although Isla was always there with tissues or to pour the wine when she was going through her treatment, sometimes she would say something so utterly insensitive that it was clear to Jo that she didn’t have an iota of understanding about what she was living with on a day-to-day basis.

  Jo was still reeling at finding out that she wasn’t pregnant and she couldn’t even begin to think beyond that and, yes, she wanted to have a baby, but her own baby.

  “Oh I’m sorry, Jo, I wasn’t thinking. You know I didn’t mean to upset you – I just want to help. Sorry – that was probably really thoughtless of me.”

  But in the weeks afterwards, as the long, dark days went past, even though Jo had brushed her off initially Isla’s words had stayed in her head. She had planted a small seed in there and, after the benefit of some time and perspective, it didn’t seem as ludicrous a suggestion as it had seemed at the time when she had first mentioned it. Having to use a donor was not what she wanted at all, not by a long shot, bu
t at that stage it seemed to be the only way she could get to have her own child. She wanted to be pregnant herself; she wanted people to admire her bump and to offer her their seat on the DART; she wanted to be able to hang scan pictures on her fridge and point out the obscure shapes to her friends. She wanted to feel labour pains and the tenderness that came from breastfeeding. She wanted all of that. So although adoption and egg donation were not roads that she really wanted to go down, they were the only two options open to her and her heart was leaning towards using a donor. The more that she thought about it, if she had to go the donor route, wouldn’t it better to have Isla’s eggs as opposed to some anonymous donor with no genetic link to her whatsoever? She and Isla were sisters; they shared the same parents and the same genes. If you thought about it, what was the difference in the genes that went into making Isla’s eggs when she was in their mother’s womb as opposed to Jo’s? They came from the same place; in fact, when the eggs were being dealt out Isla’s eggs could just as easily have been Jo’s eggs. It all came down to random biology. And did it really matter where the eggs originated when it would mean that she had a chance to have a child of her own? And she would finally be able to give Ryan a child of his own. She needed to put herself second in all of this. This was a chance for him to have his dreams come true.

  Suddenly the idea grew on her and she became excited by it. She decided to do a lot of research on it first before mentioning it to Ryan. She knew that he might find it difficult to get his head around it. She made an appointment to meet privately with her consultant Dr Collins to listen to his advice. After an hour in his clinic she had soon discovered that there were lots of women worldwide just like her trying to come to terms with the fact that this was their only option and learning how to accept it. She suddenly didn’t feel like what she was contemplating was that extraordinary. It was happening across the world every day but people just didn’t talk about it. Her consultant had also discussed the issues surrounding using eggs from a known familial donor or else going down the anonymous donor route. That had been a tough decision for Jo. If they decided to use an anonymous donor, she felt that it would be easier to forget about the origins of your baby if the treatment was successful. Once that egg had been fertilised and implanted, she imagined that you could switch your head off and forget it ever happened because the donor wasn’t in your life and no one need ever know except for her and Ryan. Whereas if she was to use Isla’s eggs, was she going to be reminded of the fact that Isla had donated her eggs to them every time she looked at her child? On the big features Jo knew that she and Isla were quite different but they shared certain things like the fullness of their lips and the arching curve of their eyebrows. If you looked closely enough, you’d know that they were sisters. She wondered would the child have Isla’s auburn hair with its soft curls that never seem to know which way they wanted to fall, or would he or she have Ryan’s thick dark strands? But she knew that having a genetic link with her child was important to her.

  When she finally felt ready to tell Ryan about what she was thinking, she was a bit deflated by his initial reaction. She thought he’d be excited, ebullient even, at another chance to have a child of his own. She knew that she would have been if Dr Collins had phoned her up and said ‘Hang on a minute, Jo, before you rush off there lining up egg donors – there’s this new treatment that might just work for you’. But instead Ryan had been wary. He had lots of questions – first and foremost, would the child be Isla’s or theirs? She knew that he was getting confused with surrogacy so she had patiently explained her research into it as if she was instructing one of the junior solicitors in the firm. She told him that under Irish law the donor would relinquish all rights to the baby with the act of donation and that it was the birth mother who would be the legal mother on the birth certificate. She would carry the baby; it would be her blood that would flow through it, her body that would nourish it. “And,” she had said, handing him a research paper that Dr Collins had given her, “did you know that the birth mother’s genes will affect how the donor egg’s genes are expressed?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Basically, if Isla had that exact same foetus growing inside of her, it would be a different baby because it would be her body that would determine which genes get turned on and off in the baby and it would be the same for me if I was carrying the baby. Isn’t nature fascinating?”

  “And how difficult would the treatment be from her point of view?”

  “It would be the exact same as what I go through with an IVF cycle. So first she would inject herself to make her body shut everything down and then she would have drugs to stimulate egg production. The eggs would be harvested and then that would be her bit done. Then in the lab they would fertilise them with your swimmers and just like what we’ve done before, the resulting embryo would be implanted into me and we would hope and pray to every god above that it takes and that we get a baby at the end of it all.”

  “And what if we went through all that and it didn’t work out?”

  “I don’t want to think about that but, yeah . . . it would be awful for us and also for Isla having gone through all of it too.”

  “Do you think you would resent her, if it didn’t work? Would she resent you?”

  “We’re sisters, we’re closer than that. I hate the thought of her having to put her body through what I’ve been doing for so long, but it’s a once-off – if it doesn’t work then that’s it – I wouldn’t ask her to do it again.”

  “And if it worked what would we tell the child? Would it know that Isla was its mother?”

  “You need to change the way you’re thinking about this, Ryan. She wouldn’t be its mother – it’d be our baby – yours and mine! But we wouldn’t tell it anyway. No one would know except for you and me – and Isla obviously.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Jo . . . don’t these things always come out in the end?”

  “Well, neither of us would say anything and I’d trust Isla with my life.”

  “But wouldn’t it be a bit weird? It’s like me having a baby with my sister-in-law for god’s sake!”

  “You wouldn’t be having a baby with her – it’d be my baby. She would be only giving us the egg. It only becomes a baby after it’s fertilised and is growing inside my body. It’s not a baby with just Isla’s egg – it is you and me that make it into a baby. We would be its creators because it would never exist in the first place if it wasn’t for us wanting it so badly.”

  “Is it even legal to do this?”

  “It has been happening for a long time. At the moment in Ireland there are no laws really governing this area yet so it’s a bit grey.”

  “Ah, Jo, come on! Doesn’t it all sound a bit crazy? A bit far-fetched? Like we’re messing with nature?”

  “It’s our only option, Ryan – it’s either this or we remain childless.”

  “We could adopt?”

  “Do you know how long you have to wait to get a child? There are so few children given up for adoption these days. You could be waiting for years and you’re still not guaranteed to even get a child at the end of it and you can end up in a legal nightmare if you decide to venture abroad. I really think we have a great opportunity here, Ryan, and we have to take it.”

  She decided not to push the issue any further with him and instead gave him some space to get his head around it all. She bided her time before bringing it up with him once more a few weeks later. When he raised the same concerns again, she had all her arguments ready to convince him.

  “I just think we need to accept the hand that we’ve been dealt,” he had said.

  “No, we don’t, Ryan.”

  “We can still be happy, Jo – we can still have a really great life together. Just because we can’t have children doesn’t have to mean that we’re living a poorer version of the lives we could have had. We have each other – it can still be great if you want it to be!”

  “Please, Ryan, there is one more option o
pen to us and I really want to try it. It’s our last chance and, if we don’t at least try it, I think I will always wonder what might have been and regret it for the rest of my life.”

  “But it’s not just us involved – there’s your sister as well.”

  “Ryan, please, just one more chance, that’s all I want. If it doesn’t work then that’s it. I’ll raise my hands in defeat.”

  “But I’ve heard that so many times already, Jo!”

  “Well, if you want to be the one to stop me from experiencing the joy of carrying my own baby then so be it.”

  She had stormed out of the room and gone upstairs and bawled. Why were they being tested like this? Why did the whole thing have to be so hard and stressful? What had she ever done to deserve this? She had tried hard throughout her treatment to be strong and not to let herself fall into a ‘why me?’ puddle of self-indulgent pity but sometimes it was very difficult.

  Ryan had come upstairs and pushed open the bedroom door a while later. He came over and put his arms around her on the bed and she had sobbed heartily into his shoulder.

  “I hate seeing you like this, Jo . . . so if it’s what you really want and you’re sure about it, we can do it.” He had sounded hesitant. “Once Isla is fully on board and understands completely what would be involved in it.”

  “She is, well, she will be – I know she will.”

  “Okay then, if that’s what you want . . . if you’re sure, and Isla too, we’ll do it.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, breathing in his scent, and for the first time in a long time they made love.