The Other Side of Wonderful

by Caroline Grace-Cassidy

  Step eight: gently tap syringe, needle pointed up to remove air bubbles. Gently push plunger until a tiny drop of medication is at needle tip. You are now ready to administer the injection.

  She would memorise every letter. It was all so important. It had to be done perfectly. He hadn’t read it. She couldn’t wait to get started.

  That evening, when they returned home, Neil was slightly tipsy as the two beers had turned into four but he was being really good to her. He was at last asking lots of questions and being supportive. They had even begun laughing together again and had a cuddle.

  They started their first round of IVF on the twenty-first of March. She had started her pill on the first day of her next period and had been so full of hope. She began on the Buserelin nasal spray, taking her two sniffs three times a day. The first appointment at the clinic she had her vaginal ultrasound to check her ovaries and her uterus, to ensure she was ‘down regulated’ prior to starting her medication. She decreased her sniffs to one sniff daily and continued her folic acid. She took her low-strength adult aspirin daily with her lunch. She injected the Luveris and Puregon into her tummy and the Gastone into her bottom and used her Cyclogest suppositories.

  Neil had even helped with some of the injections. “So what do I do exactly?” He had stood in the kitchen with the needle filled with meds.

  “Okay, so just stick it into me!” Sandra laughed, pulling up her T-shirt. “I’m a big girl – I can take it! I do it to myself for crying out loud!”

  “I hate you having to do this!” He sighed and concentrated on the job in hand.

  “I don’t mind at all. If it gets us our baby I would have a million needles stuck into me. I’d even stick them in my eyes.” She lay back on the couch when he was done, still laughing at his squirming.

  One week later she was back for an ultrasound. Her medications were increased slightly and she stopped the aspirin and continued her other meds as directed. Four days later she was back for another ultrasound and it was confirmed she was ready for her egg retrieval. She stopped her simulating drugs and had an injection of Pregnyl for the final maturation of her eggs.

  Two days later she arrived in for the retrieval. She had nothing to eat or drink since midnight. Neil had to give a fresh semen sample but this time he didn’t make too much of a fuss. It took thirty minutes and the next day the embryologist called with fertilisation results and a time for her embryo transfer. She was petrified but giddy with anticipation.

  On the day, she did her meds, went to the loo two hours before the appointment and drank the required two litres of water. It wasn’t painful. In fact she welcomed every step of the procedure. Every needle, every tablet, every scrape, every invasive moment was pulling her nearer and nearer to her baby. She could almost smell that perfect soft pink baby skin.

  When it was all done she started to relax but the two-week wait was a nightmare. The fourteen long days ahead looked like Kilimanjaro. She even called the clinic to check they couldn’t fall out. “Uterus embryos do not fall out,” the nurse had kindly reassured her. Sandra had a feeling it wasn’t the first time she’d been asked that question. She had obeyed every law: no heavy lifting, no over-exertion, no hot baths.

  Neil had been great. She had been so delighted with his reaction. He cooked and cleaned and didn’t go to the pub after work.

  “You know what, Sandra?” he had said one week later as they sat in the bungalow with the front door open. It was unusually warm for March but the warm breeze flowed through their living room. “I’m thinking it’s going to be a little boy. I have a really strong feeling.”

  Sandra felt a warm bubble of air rise within her and she smiled “Please God, Neil – wouldn’t that be amazing?” She rubbed her tummy gently for the hundredth time that day, willing their baby to grow.

  “If it is, and you can say no now, I don’t mind, but if it is could we call him Neil, do ya think?”

  A huge smile broke out on her face and she reached her hand across to take his. “Of course we can. I think that’s really lovely actually – I love tradition.”

  He jumped up and rubbed his hands together and started to jog around the couch where she was sprawled. He was kicking a piece of rolled-up paper. “And it’s Big Neil Darragh heading for the goal – but, hang on, it’s little Neil Darragh coming up behind him – he slips the ball through his dad’s feet and heads for home and it’s a goal! Little Neil Darragh scores again! This lad will play for Ireland one day, no doubt about that!” He ran in slow motion now, his hands above his head, and his face full of joy.

  Neil was also very happy to be able to drink again.

  “Can I get you anything?” He knelt down beside her and kissed her on the lips.

  She held his chin in her hands. “No, I’m good, thanks. Are you heading back to work?”

  “Yeah, if that’s okay with you? I’ve left the lads with no scaffolding so they can’t do much until I put it up.” He stood up and went to get his high-vis jacket. “Funny though . . .” he stuck the Velcro across his chest to hold the high-vis jacket together, “you know John O’Dowd? Well, his brother’s this hot-shot economist and he says that the building trade is going to be hit so hard we won’t know what’s happened. He said we’ll all be left spinning.” Neil looked at his wife.

  Sandra laughed. “Neil, you’re such a worry wart. Don’t be listening to the scaremongers like John O’Dowd. We’ll be grand. People will always need electricians!”

  He grunted. “See you tonight. I thought we could go to Louise’s for tea and have a pint in Hines on the way home?” He pushed his yellow hard hat under his arm.

  “Well, I don’t think I will get up and walk much today, love, if you don’t mind, but you feel free to go.” Sandra was happy to look at the laptop and browse her favourite internet sites. Mainly all baby and pregnancy ones.

  “Okay, great, sure. I’ll see you later tonight so, love.”

  Sandra felt a little disappointed. She’d rather hoped he would stay home with her but she was being selfish, she supposed. What was the point in both of them lying around? It had been a whirlwind of medical procedures and she was wiped out. She hadn’t really expected it all to be so hard and she especially wasn’t prepared for the hair growth all over her body and on her face. It was awful.

  When the phone rang out two weeks later Sandra screamed for Neil who was washing his new Vespa in the garden. He ran in. Instead of doing a home pregnancy test they had chosen to do blood tests in the clinic.

  “Hello?” Sandra’s voice was crackling.

  Neil pushed his head in close to the handset so he could hear even though it was on loudspeaker. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight.

  “I’m sorry to inform you, Mr and Mrs Darragh, but you are not pregnant on this occasion.”

  Their doctor droned on and Neil let go of her hand. She couldn’t believe it. She burst into gulping tears. They had retrieved all those eggs and yet she wasn’t pregnant? She was beyond devastated. Neil took the phone as she sat on the kitchen chair.

  “Okay, thanks, doctor.” He hung up and put his arms around his wife. “It’s okay, love, what can we do? At least we tried. Come on, grab your coat and I will take you for a pint. You must be dying for a pint.”

  A pint. She didn’t give a shit if she never had a pint again in her whole fucking life! She wasn’t pregnant. This couldn’t be happening to her! After all that? How could this be? What kind of a woman was she? The tears wouldn’t stop flowing and came hard and fast, her breath rasping.

  “I can’t believe this!” she sobbed as he stared at her.

  “It’s okay, you’re not dead, it’s okay, Sandra. Come on now, pull yourself together.”

  “Pull myself together? What the fuck, Neil?” she screamed now and he stood back. She screamed at the top of her lungs. A wild crazy noise.

  “That’s your hormones, love, all that shit you’re injecting into yourself can’t be good for your head, never mind your body.”

&n
bsp; She was numb. He was not. She reluctantly pulled on her cream jacket and he linked her arm as they strolled to Hines.

  “I can’t believe it after all that,” he said as they headed over the bridge.

  “I know.”

  Neil fished for something that had blown into his eye. “Well, that’s that, isn’t it? You know, we can maybe just look to go on a nice sun holiday. We could go back to that same hotel we loved in Nerja – aah, wouldn’t that be bliss, Sandra? Remember strolling around the Balcon? The cocktails in The Dubliner? That Robbie Box who sings in there is deadly.”

  She started to cry again on the Knocknoly Bridge. The water whooshed under them and she looked up at Neil through her tears. He looked really uncomfortable.

  “I can’t give up. I want to do the IVF again.”

  “What?” His eyes narrowed rapidly as he looked at his wife in disbelief. “Why?”

  “Why? Because it will work. You remember what they said at the first meeting in the clinic – that the first time is almost a trial.”

  Neil suddenly hung his head and dug his hands into his pockets of his leather jacket. “Come on, I cannot talk about this now. I need a drink!”

  Hines was heaving on that Friday evening and the tables outside under the heat lamps were packed. They went inside.

  “Two Bud, Charlie, when you’re ready!” Neil shouted to the barman who was pulling pints faster than people could drink them.

  “Hi ya, Sandra.” Jonathan Redmond stood beside her. “Feeling better then?” He grinned at her.

  “Oh hi, Jonathan, yeah, one of those twenty-four-hour things, you know the type. Actually, Jonathan, I wanted a quick word with you. I’m looking for full-time work now and I was wondering if the Moritz could use me full time?”

  Jonathan shook his pint of Guinness gently, the black taking down the remaining cream, and then started to nod his head. “Actually, Sandra, your timing is perfect. I could use you full time on reception if you are happy with that? I’m also looking for a new hospitality manager but that will be down the line.”

  “Great, Jonathan, I’d be delighted to do full-time reception work!”

  Neil arrived back just then and handed her pint across to her.

  She tipped her pint off Jonathan’s.

  “Cheers!” they all said and then Jonathan excused himself.

  “What was all that about? Is he freaking you took time off?”

  “No, sure I was off anyway the last few days – I only took yesterday – told him I had a bit of a bug. Anyway, I’m due a load of days. It’s quite the opposite. He’s offered me a full-time job!”

  Neil’s eyes lit up. “Brill, did you accept, love?”

  “I sure did. You are looking at Sandra Darragh, full-time receptionist at the Moritz! Well, we have to sit down and work out hours and money and all that but he said he wants me full time.”

  “Well, well, well, you know what this means . . . with us both having full-time jobs and all that I can upgrade me new Vespa already!”

  Neil laughed hard now and Sandra realised it was the first time he had really laughed in quite a while. His handsome face lit up.

  “Well, I did notice the brand-new Vespa brochures on my bedside locker, then one on the breakfast table, and lo and behold there even managed to be one in my car! What are you like? You only just bought one!” She laughed now too – he really was such a child.

  “I love you, Sandra. We will be all right. I’m sorry . . . I’m a bit at a loss for words right now. Your reaction just freaked me out a bit. Scary Mary.”

  She leaned up and kissed him weakly on the lips. “It’s totally understandable. I love you too, Neil.” She felt sick inside.

  They took their drinks outside and as they leaned against the wall Sandra thought he looked sad for a brief moment, until a young blonde girl walked past him with her glass of wine in her hand and he followed her every step with his eyes. She was full of charm with her sunglasses balanced on her bouncy blonde hair. Skin-tight jeans and brown leather jacket.

  “Over here, Kelley!”

  Sandra saw another pretty girl with a sleek bob wave at the blonde.

  “Sorry, what?” Neil turned back to her now but she shook her head.

  “I didn’t say anything. Isn’t that one of your work lads over there? I know you are dying to sit with them so go on. I want to fix my make-up anyway, be back out in a bit.”

  He rolled his eyes but quickly nodded in agreement as he took in the young blonde again, her head thrown back and her giddy laughter carrying on the now cool March evening air.

  Now that Sandra had taken on the full-time job so she could save for another round of IVF. She wasn’t about to tell him that right now. Let him have his flirt with the young blonde, she thought, as she shivered. She picked up her pint and made her way inside. As she looked back over her shoulder her husband was already chatting up the other woman.

  ***

  “I want to move house, Neil,” she suddenly announced as she sat on the toilet.

  The negative pregnancy tests, all six of them, lay scattered on the bathroom floor. She had started doing tests before her period was due as she just couldn’t wait. If it really was just unexplained infertility there was still every chance they could get pregnant naturally. They were still having sex when he came home from the pub. It took him longer and she had to put a hell of a lot of foreplay into it.

  He stood at the bathroom door but didn’t answer her.

  A lump the size of a tennis ball was lodged in her throat. “Did you hear me? This house is too small – we’re sending the wrong signals to the universe – how can we raise a family in here?”

  “Is this your little orangey The Secret book talking again because to be honest I find it a little disturbing.” He used his fingers to make inverted commas when he said ‘The Secret’. He took her hands. “Stop doing all these tests, Sandra. It’s all becoming a bit too weird for me, to be honest, it’s all freaking me out. I’m finding it difficult to be around you, love. As my mate Bucko said, if God wanted to send us a baby he would have sent us one naturally the way nature intended it to be.”

  Her mouth went as dry as a desert. “How dare you! How dare you say all that?” She stood up, her knickers and trousers around her ankles, and pushed him so he almost lost his balance.

  “What the fuck? Are you gone mental? Have you seriously lost your mind?” His eyes blazed at her.

  “Get out, Neil! Leave me alone!” she screamed at him as he stuck his two index fingers into his ears. “The Secret is only a book, it’s only words, it’s the message I take from it that is important. I want to be positive. I want to live thinking I will get good things from this life. I don’t for one second think a book is going to do that for me! There is nothing new or revolutionary in what The Secret says – it’s common sense. I believe that negativity brings you down. End of.”

  He shook his head at her and left the bathroom. She couldn’t move. She was beyond devastated. Tears started to fall and she had no desire to stop them or even brush them away. Why could she not get pregnant? Why? Why? Why? How could Neil have just said those words to her? They had hurt her almost as much as the negative tests scattered aimlessly on the cold tiled floor.

  “Did you hear me, Neil?” she shouted now as he came back. “I want to move house!”

  “Sure, whatever you want!” he shouted back.

  That calmed her a little. She did love this cosy little house but it wasn’t big enough to raise a family. Also it never really felt like their home, it always felt like Neil’s place. He had one arm into his leather jacket now. “If you don’t mind I’m heading to Hines to meet Bucko.” He kept his head down.

  “Fucking Bucko!” Sandra shouted. “I’m sick of Bucko! Will he ever grow up and find a girlfriend? What does Bucko know about life or babies? This is the third night this week. You don’t see him for nine years and now suddenly you’re best friends again?”

  “What’s wrong with you lately?” Neil
shouted now “Leave me alone! You’re constantly on my back and I can’t deal with it. It’s hard for me too, you know. Pull up your knickers, woman.” He looked disgusted at her.

  “Woman?” she spat the words at him. “What are you, seventy-five?” She reached for her knickers and jeans, pulling them up together.

  “Sometimes I feel like it with your constant nagging. My head can’t cope, Sandra. You’re turning into someone I really don’t know. I am so sorry you’re not pregnant, I really, really am, but there is nothing I can do. You can’t let this take over your whole life. You used to be a bit of craic – that’s why I married you! What happened to you? Did you trick me? Was that fun lovin’ Sandra all an act to get a ring on your finger?” He looked deflated now, his frame too thin for his leather jacket.

  “Stay, please, don’t go – let’s go to bed early?” She stood up now.

  He turned to go but came back, his finger pointing wildly. “Sandra, the only reason you want to have sex is to get pregnant. It ain’t happening. I don’t care that they say it could happen any time. I won’t live my life timing sex to your fertility needs! I do all I can do to get it up these days!”

  “Oh, my fertility needs is it now? Do you not want this baby?”

  “I do . . . I did . . . I dunno any more . . . but I won’t let it take over my life, no, and . . . and other people don’t think that makes me a bad person!”

  “Other people? What others?” She knew she was losing control now but who had he been talking to about their private life?

  “Never mind.” He put his hand on the door handle.

  “No, I want to know exactly who you have been talking to about me. I thought you didn’t want anyone to know about the IVF?”

  “I don’t!” He was really mad now. “Look, you married me, not the baby – the baby was never a given.”

  “Those words so aren’t out of your brain, Neil Darragh! Who is filling you with this shit? Paul bloody Buckland?”

  He let go of the handle now and put his back to the door. “You took all the good out of sex because it’s an obsession now. Shortly after we got married you developed a bad case of baby-brain baby-mania. You drive me crazy. I thought you were fun yet quiet and calm and that you’d be good for me. Not this – this psycho stuff! You might need to talk to someone – because I tell you one thing – if you don’t lighten up I’m out of here!” He turned, opened the door, bent his head to go out and slammed the small bungalow door behind him.