So Cara hadn’t called her parents when she heard Neil was in an accident.
No doubt the Knocknoly grapevine would be in overdrive by now. An ambulance outside the new builds, which was big news. The accident had happened right outside their house. A young learner driver, who was practising in the estate without an accompanying driver, hadn’t seen Neil pull out and had reversed into him, sending him and the Vespa flying across the road into the side of a house. Where had he been off to, she wondered. He had told her as she left for work that morning he would be doing stuff in the house all day.
Sandra rubbed her eyes. She was truly shattered. Emotionally drained.
“You still here, dear?” A matronly type nurse shuffled in in her white plimsolls and lifted Neil’s wrist. She placed her finger on his pulse and checked the watch attached to the pocket of her white uniform. “Why don’t you head home, dear? He seems pretty much to be still in a deep sleep. It’s almost eight o’clock at night. Come back tomorrow?” She fluffed the covers at the end of the bed and took up the chart.
“I have to work at seven in the morning. I’d really like to be here when he wakes up.”
“I’m on until eight, love, twelve-hour shift, so I can tell him you waited and waited but had to go. I can bring the hospital phone in and you can call him when he wakes? Write down your mobile there and leave it by the locker in case he’s still a bit out of it. His phone was smashed to smithereens by the way. I have left it in the green plastic bag along with his clothes. Bring some clothes up tomorrow so we can hang them in the wardrobe for his discharge.” She scribbled on the clipboard, replaced it at the foot of the bed and clicked her pen.
Sandra nodded in agreement. He hadn’t told her he had found the smashed phone. Had he been going to try and get it fixed? She stood and stretched and felt her limbs ache. She hadn’t realised she had been sitting with so much tension in her body. She left the cubicle quietly. She hated hospitals. They just smelled of disappointment to her now. Ever since the first round of IVF.
***
Neil held her hand tightly. He had come home from work early, ran to the shower and he was now all clean, his hair still wet, dressed in his black jeans with a green T-shirt and light blue runners.
“Are you okay? Nervous?” he asked her.
Business was flying and she knew it was hard for him to take the time off.
“You know, I’m not really that nervous,” she lied.
She had changed her outfit three times, as ridiculous as that sounded. She wanted to look nice today. Because today she would be pregnant. Eventually. She was ecstatic. They had been trying to get pregnant for the guts of two and a half years now. Before the marriage. From the second they returned to the hotel room the night of Tom’s wedding she’d dumped her pill in the hotel bin. It was something they both wanted. She didn’t have the time to hang around. When her period came as usual at the end of every month she hadn’t panicked for the first year and a half. It took time getting pregnant, everyone knew that. She’d been to her GP for a check-up, she monitored her temperature and charted it and she bought the ovulation sticks, but still her period came. After two years she began to panic and slowly sank into despair. She just knew deep within something wasn’t right. She couldn’t put a word on it but every time they had sex and she held her legs up in the air for half an hour, sometimes an hour, she never felt like anything was happening. She knew this was ridiculous, that no one felt anything, but it swam around her head constantly. She went for more tests and bloods and nothing seemed askew. Her phone seemed to beep constantly with news of friends or friends of friends who were pregnant. People would ask her over and over, “So, any news?” “Are you two ever going to get a move on?” “You can’t put it off forever, you know.” So insensitive. So ignorant.
It had actually been Louise who had stepped in one day as Sandra was close to tears. It was a comment made by another customer in the Loft. “It’s all right for you career women,” she said as she pushed her double buggy past Louise and Sandra who were chatting at the counter. “I’d love to have the time to gossip but this pair want their bottles now!” A simple enough throwaway comment but as Sandra moved in to let her past her eyes darted down to the precious little girls in their buggy, holding their security blankets up to their tiny faces, and her heart dived into her feet. It must have been pretty clear on her face.
“Not happening for you, pet, is it?” Louise whispered when they were alone again. Sandra had kept it together but had confided in Louise and Louise had dragged Sandra straight through to her back kitchen.
“Ring Doctor Morris and make an appointment,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve had lots of appointments, Louise, but nothing is showing up.” She wiped her wet eyes.
“Then tell him it’s time to refer you both on to a fertility clinic!”
The relief of sharing had been great. She was fed up pretending she just wasn’t ready for kids. She was fed up fielding the insensitive comments. Most of all she was fed up when she still wasn’t pregnant after all the trying they were doing.
She had gone to talk to Doctor Morris again and he had been wonderful. Very understanding and helpful. He referred her to a specialist in Holles Street first where she did rounds of tests and after much discussion decided to begin taking the fertility drug, Clomid. It was a really successful fertility drug, the doctor had told her, especially in her case where the reason why she wasn’t getting pregnant was unexplained. They had wanted to see Neil. She had told them no, told them he had been checked elsewhere. Anyway she was sure it was her, it had to be. Sandra just knew Neil would react very badly to going for tests so she wanted to put that off for as long as possible. The drug hadn’t worked.
She pressed on. Next Holles Street referred her to the HARI unit in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. Sandra had secretly started to look into IVF months before. On quiet days at the hotel she would Google it. It was pricy but they had the money. They needed this procedure and that valuable time was ticking away. As she expected Neil hadn’t been too keen at first.
She remembered the night she had informed him of their situation so well. She had been at work on her half day in the Moritz, Neil was putting in extra sockets at Louise’s. She left and popped into O’Dywer’s and got some wine and ingredients to make a lasagne. O’Dwyer’s sold all local fresh produce including the meat so she always shopped in there as did all the locals of Knocknoly. Back home she had skipped around his old bungalow and pulled fresh flowers from the garden.
“Smells amazing!” Neil shouted as he opened the back door and headed straight for the toilet to scrub his hands.
“It’s ready when you are!” she called back.
“Fancy a few pints in Hines after dinner, love?” he’d asked.
She was slightly nervous but only slightly – surely he would react okay? He knew how badly she wanted to have a baby.
He ducked his head as he emerged soapy-clean from the bathroom and kissed her on the lips as she ladled the lasagne onto two plates.
“Wine on a Monday? Do ya not want to head to Hines for a pint after, so?” He looked at her as she put the plate of food in front of him. He tucked in without waiting for her.
“Yes, we can – well, we’re celebrating, sort of,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” He looked up at her.
“Well, yeah, the hospital rang. It seems those tests I had done all came back clear.”
“That’s really good, love,” he mumbled through a mouthful of hot food, his fork dangling precariously now from side to side.
“So the thing is, Neil,” Sandra poured him some red wine, “well, the thing is you will have to go and get tested now.” She would tell him everything on a need-to-know basis. She sat down and pushed her fork deep into her lasagne.
“What does that mean exactly? Spit it out now, Sandra.” He dropped his fork now with a clatter on the edge of his plate, picked up his napkin and roughly wiped his mouth. “I can’t say I like the sound
of this. You already have me half demented ringing me at all times of the day to come home because you’re ovulating or whatever. I feel like a fucking baby-making machine you just plug in when the time is right!”
Sandra stared at the lasagne-stained napkin before she took a deep breath. “Okay, well, basically it’s pretty easy for you,” she laughed. “All we need you to do is to go into a room and give a sample.” God, he didn’t look happy.
“A sample? A sample of what?” his eyes darkened.
Could he really be asking this? “Well, Neil, come on . . . a – a sperm sample obviously.” She had read up so much on the subject over the last few months it seemed impossible he wouldn’t know this.
His cheeks were red and blotchy now. “Are you asking me to have a wank in a hospital room, Sandra?” His expression was zombie-like.
“Don’t be so crude, Neil. It’s not a – a wank, it’s to test your sperm. It’s sperm analysis. No big deal.”
“So basically you’re saying it’s my fault you can’t get pregnant?”
“Not me, Neil . . . we . . . we can’t get pregnant. It’s both of us. No one’s to blame. We just need a bit of assistance, that’s all. It’s very common. This is all you have to do. I can take care of all the rest.”
He pushed the full plate of steaming lasagne away now and got up, his body towering over her. “Tell me where to go, when, whatever! I’ll fucking wank anywhere to shut you up, Sandra. I am sick to my back teeth of all this baby talk. It’s so boring!” He dug his fingers into his wet hair.
“I’m the one doing all the work here! Do you not want a family?” she shouted now. He was so frustrating.
“I do, Sandra, well, at least I did, but it hasn’t happened yet, has it, and let’s face it we’ve been pretty hard at it and zilch. It’s not like we haven’t been trying our hardest, now is it? It’s a military operation every time you’re ovulating. Once I see those ovulation sticks out I know I’m on duty! The fucking pressure is on. I can’t stand it any more. Let’s face it: we might never have kids and so what? Is it the be-all and end-all? Where are you in there? Is Sandra in there any more because if she is she’s covered in baby-fucking-mania and I can’t see her!” He spat the words at her as she stared up at him.
Her eyes filled up with tears. Was he right? Had she become obsessed? Well, she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t stop it either. In fact, the one thing she was sure about was that she hadn’t even started yet.
On the first hospital appointment she had her tests done through her belly button and Neil begrudgingly had had his semen analysed but nothing untoward came back. “Unexplained infertility,” they were told rather clinically.
The next suggested route was IVF, if they were interested. She so was. She didn’t even ask Neil if he wanted to go down that route. As far as she was concerned they didn’t have a choice. She had called the NISIG, a fertility support group, and they were fantastic and told her a lot of patients had moved on to the SIMS clinic in Dublin, so she turned to them too. They explained so much more about IVF. She was so familiar with the procedure anyway but they spelled it out in simple terms. She had dragged Neil along, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head bowed. The nurse sat them down and pushed leaflets and pamphlets and a DVD in front of them, and then she went on to explain the technicalities.
“I know the whole world is familiar with IVF now but just to run through it quickly. IVF is an acronym, another word we use for in vitro fertilisation, in vitro meaning in glass. Simply put IVF is adding Neil’s sperm to your eggs, Sandra, in the laboratory, to produce embryos. In vitro fertilisation is an option for you guys as it seems for whatever reason you cannot conceive through conventional therapies. These embryos are put back into your uterus, Sandra, or more commonly we call it the womb, and after three to five days of being in the incubator, hopefully they will then grow into a baby. Any questions so far?” She smiled over at them both and they shook their heads. “Okay, great. Then, just to add so you know, the first IVF baby was Louise Brown, born on July 25th, 1978, at Oldham General Hospital, England, through a planned Caesarean section. She weighed five pounds twelve ounces. Doctor Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist at the hospital, and Doctor Robert Edwards, a physiologist at Cambridge University, had been actively working on finding an alternative solution for conception since 1966 so she was, and is, a miracle. IVF is just an incredible thing. Make sure you watch the DVD: it shows a conventional insemination with the egg surrounded by coronal and cumulus cells and sperm swimming around the egg.”
Louise, Sandra repeated the name: a good omen she thought.
Sandra was booked in for a laparoscopy and a D&C. They gave her a prescription for the pill. The outline of her IVF cycle was standard. On the day she got her period she was to call the nurse to discuss when to commence her pill. She would start the pill and continue as directed but without taking the normal seven-day break between packs. Then she would begin taking the Buserelin nasal spray, two sniffs three times a day, to prepare for treatment to artificially stimulate ovulation.
They bought her meds up in Dundrum in Dublin at the Medi Pharm.
It hadn’t been too bad a day. She had been trying really hard to cheer Neil up, cooking his favourite meals, renting his favourite DVDs and in fairness to him he had come around a bit and was actually starting to look slightly interested.
“Sorry if I was a prick but it’s just all so unnatural, isn’t it? I don’t want to be like this. I just can’t help it,” he had said when they sat down outside Mao in Dundrum Town Centre for lunch.
“It’s our only option, Neil,” she said carefully as she read the menu.
“Yeah, well, at least this is it, I suppose. What you fancy here?” He held his menu in front of his face, studying each dish carefully.
“Hmmm, so much looks nice,” she said and then added, “It will be grand, Neil, don’t worry about it.”
But his interest was gone as he was looking around for a waiter or waitress. Neil was always so impatient in restaurants it drove Sandra mad.
“Neil?” she called him back to the conversation.
“Yeah, I know, it’s just not something I thought would ever happen to us, did you?” He was waving wildly now.
“No, I suppose I always imagined I would, or we would I should say, get pregnant just like everyone else, but I am that bit older, I suppose, so let’s just hope and pray with all we have that this works.”
He was biting the top of the menu now. “It might not work?” He looked bewildered.
She held it together. “Did you not read the leaflets, Neil? Listen to the doctor?”
“Not really, no. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there, to be honest, Sandra.”
A pretty Asian waitress arrived now to take their order and Neil beamed at her.
“Can I have the Chilli Chicken Ramen with an extra portion of noodles and a Tiger beer, please, love? Sandra?” He handed the menu back when the waitress had taken down his order and she stuffed it under her arm.
“I’ll have the Nasi Goreng with a sparkling water, please, and can I get a side bowl of pickled ginger?” Sandra said.
They people-watched in silence as they waited for their meals. Sandra was afraid to say too much about the IVF as she knew he was still freaked. She wanted to keep the mood light and happy. She laughed inwardly though – you’d swear it was Neil who had to go through the needles and drugs insemination.
The waitress was back quickly and dropped two steaming plates in front of them.
“Can I get a decaffeinated coffee too?” Sandra asked her. She turned to Neil. “I’ll drive back to Knocknoly so you can have another beer if you like?”
“Go on the Sandra, you mad yolk! Two whole bottles of beer and you are letting me? Lord above, things are looking up!”
He was making a joke, she knew that, but it just hurt her. She was about to put her body and mind through so much. She couldn’t have caffeine. She couldn’t have alcohol. She would be afraid to get off
the couch and he hadn’t even read the information?
She studied the leaflets like the Holy Bible when they had got home as she memorised each step. She had opened each leaflet and laid them out on the kitchen table and poured a large glass of bottled water.
Step one: wash your hands.
Step two: line up medication vials to be taken.
Step three: open all vials by snapping off the cap.
Step four: attach green needle to your syringe, push the needle through rubber stopper and draw up all of the medication fluid.
Step five: repeat as necessary until all allocated ampoules are drawn up.
Step six: if applicable, inject medication fluid into medication powder, the Menophur. The Menophur should dissolve instantly. Using the same needle and syringe draw up all the dissolved medication. If using more than one ampoule of medication repeat steps five and six.
Step seven: carefully recap the needle. Gently twist off the needle and replace with the smaller orange, blue or grey needle. Secure needle tightly to prevent leakage.
The Other Side of Wonderful Page 11