I had to schedule IVF away from the twice-yearly radio-ratings periods, which meant January–late March and August–October were out.
Radio ratings are crucial to the survival of the business. The radio station needs good ratings to be able to sell advertising. We need the advertising sales to pay the cost of running the station and pay our salaries. If the ratings are high, we have job security. If the ratings start to fall, we might be relocated or dismissed because obviously we aren’t doing a good enough job attracting listeners! So when the ratings period is on, every radio station fights hard for listeners. They put up billboards, run TV ads, and give away enormous prizes like cash and travel.
The Edge is a very creative radio station and has won awards for our big ratings promos, like ‘Two Strangers and a Wedding’—where we married two complete strangers who met at the altar after having never seen each other’s faces. We’ve actually done this promo three times since 1999, and all three couples are still together and all have children. I had a lot to do with making this promo work, and I pride myself on being a good matchmaker!
Later, after we had married three sets of strangers, we decided to marry a couple who were already engaged. We would pay for the whole wedding on board a luxury boat, but only if the bride and groom got married in the nude. We called it ‘Nudie Nuptials’.
There was also ‘The Edge’s Next Top Friend’, where we put ten people together in a house that was wired with webcams (Big Brother–style) and gave each person a Facebook page. Their job over the six-week promo was to interact with fans and get as many Facebook fans as possible. The person who collected the most friends was crowned the winner and given a cash prize of $10 000.
When we ran ‘Wheel of Misfortune’, each week we spun a big prize wheel that had our names on it to reveal which one of us would be up for that week’s unfortunate task. The next day the wheel had envelopes stuck to it, and we spun again to reveal what the task would be and what the prize money would be. Listeners entered the draw to win the prize money, so if we went through with the task, the listener would win the money.
Mike got The Edge logo tattooed on his butt cheek, I had to get my nipple pierced, and bungee jump (which I chickened out of), Dom had to dance with a naked man outside the train station and we all had to waterski over a six-foot-high ramp.
Of all the promos we’ve run to date, however, ‘The Tom Cruise Bounty’ is still one of my favourite experiences from working in radio.
In 2003 Hollywood actor Tom Cruise came to New Zealand to film a movie called The Last Samurai in New Plymouth. Tom wasn’t doing any press or interviews while he was here, other than one press conference at the beginning of his stay. So, we decided to put a bounty on his head. We told our listeners that if they could get Tom Cruise to call our show and speak to us for just five minutes, we would pay them $5000. We heard from various sources that people put letters in his letterbox (he was renting a house in Taranaki and quite a few people knew where it was), begged his security guards to pass a message on, and hassled other Last Samurai cast members. Eventually Tom got the message loud and clear, and one day we got a call from his sister, who was his manager at the time. She told us Tom had heard about the bounty and wanted to call us the next morning after his night shoot. We were buzzing!
The next morning, at about 8.30 a.m., he called our show and spoke to us for 18 minutes. When we answered the phone, the conversation went something like this:
Me: ‘Hello, The Edge?’
Tom: ‘Hello, is that Jase, Jay-Jay and Dom?’ (Jase is my former co-host who worked with us before Mike Puru).
His voice was unmistakable.
‘Is that Tom Cruise?’ I asked, all giddy and surprised.
‘Yes it is,’ he replied.
And then I squealed, and I can’t remember much more after that. All I could think was, I’m talking to Tom fucking Cruise!
Tom made a deal with us early in the phone call. He told us that there was a small country school near where he was filming called Urenui School, and they needed $14 000 to build a sun shade for their playground. Tom told us that if we would raise our $5000 bounty to $7000 he would match it, and together we could give Urenui School their much-needed sun shade.
So we did. And Tom held up his end of the bargain. And Urenui School got their sun shade!
To thank Tom for the sun shelter, we organised a huge human banner for him. We convinced about 2000 Taranaki residents to dress in black and meet us at the Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth to spell out the word TOMINAKI on the ground. The local newspaper, Taranaki Daily News, took the photo from a helicopter, and Tom saw it on the front page the next day.
Dom emailed Tom’s sister to ask where to send a copy of the photo with a letter of thanks from us, and she suggested we deliver it to Tom in person. So we were given directions to the secret location of the Last Samurai set and told that only four of us could go. So there was me, Jase, Dom and our promotions manager in New Plymouth, Beks Ali. We arrived and watched Tom filming for an hour. It was so surreal. I had never been on a movie set before, let alone a Hollywood blockbuster, and there, just ten metres in front of me, was TOM CRUISE.
After his scene he came over and talked to us for half an hour. We gave him some gifts (a few CDs by New Zealand artists, presents listeners had sent us and the framed Tominaki picture) and he was stoked—he almost cried! (Either that or he is a pretty good actor.) We weren’t allowed to take photos, or get autographs, but his photographer took some pics and Tom sent them to us.
Tom then told us to go and have lunch in the mess tent with all the cast and crew. So, on Tom’s orders, we went. The tent was huge, about the size of a school hall. There were caterers and lots of tables and chairs. There was a whole buffet of food that ranged from salads and meats, bread and potatoes to rice, curry and naans. There was also a huge table of desserts, but I can’t recall what was on it because I wasn’t really concentrating. I was too buzzed out by what was happening.
There were only a few people eating, probably about 30 or so, but it was funny to see people dressed in character having lunch. Tom’s body double was there and he looked so much like him. He was really friendly and talked to us for a while.
We were sitting eating lunch and trying not to talk too much about meeting Tom Cruise in case other people heard us when one of his people came over and said to us, ‘Tom would like to see you in his trailer.’
I almost wet my pants. Was this for real? Even now when I think about it, I find it hard to believe this happened.
So we didn’t finish lunch, we got up and headed for Tom’s trailer. It was the biggest caravan I’ve ever seen. Long and chrome and surrounded by a small white picket fence. Large for New Plymouth, but modest for a Hollywood superstar.
We were motioned to go inside and the assistant left. We walked in and Tom Cruise was standing in the doorway.
The trailer had one double bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and lounge area, and was fitted out with all the mod cons of 2003. ‘Come in and sit down,’ Tom said with that familiar Tom Cruise grin. He motioned us to his cream leather couch.
There was no-one else there. Just Tom Cruise and us.
Tom was holding a rail above his head with one arm and doing stretches. He was standing about two feet from me. He didn’t appear as short as everyone makes out, but he is only 5 foot 5 inches. Maybe he was wearing high shoes.
I looked around in front of me. There was a big plasma screen TV surrounded by framed photos of Tom and his then-girlfriend Penelope Cruz, and him with his kids. He loves his family.
On the wall was a Scientology chart. I didn’t study it, but I thought it was weird. And almost everything in the trailer, including the leather couches and the screensaver on the TV, had Tom’s monogram on it: TC.
Tom was excited and told us they had just cut the trailer for The Last Samurai that day and he wanted us to be the first to see it. He hit play. The speakers were booming and for the next two minutes all I could think was,
I’m in Tom Cruise’s trailer! At the end of the clip Tom asked, ‘So what do you think?’ We were all speechless. What do we think? ‘Um, it’s really good,’ was all we could say. He seemed a bit disappointed, expecting more from us, but we weren’t ourselves. I was not qualified to critique movie trailers, especially not in front of the star himself.
We were all very quiet and not as cool as we would have hoped we would be if we had anticipated this. We stayed and chatted for awhile, just making small talk, and then told Tom we had to leave. Yes, we excused ourselves. We didn’t want to be the people he had to evict from his trailer because we overstayed our welcome. I think we were in there for about twenty minutes.
He’s the most divine man. So enchanting and mesmerising. He is so genuine and sincere, and I can see why no-one has a bad word to say about him.
None of us said a word to each other as we drove away until about five minutes down the road, when we all just burst out into hysterics. It was an unbelievable experience.
So, the pressure is on to always come up with the next big thing. We work so hard during the six weeks of survey time and the weeks leading into it, and there is no way our program director, Leon, would let us have a day off during this time. I would have to be dying to get a day off during ratings; egg collections and scans are not a big enough excuse for a sick day during radio’s most crucial period.
I love my job so much that I was happy to make the compromise. I thought it was better to have fertility treatment between surveys, anyway, because I would be more relaxed.
The soonest clear time that we could think about starting treatment again after the ratings madness was in April 2008, so we went ahead and booked in for then. My drug regime leading up to the egg collection was the same as the previous cycle and, once again, I requested a general anaesthetic for the egg collection. The clinic agreed because my right ovary was still hiding behind my uterus and needed ‘considerable pressure’ to gain access to it.
They were able to collect nine eggs—nearly a dozen—and six were mature enough for sperm injection. As I was under anaesthetic getting the eggs ripped out of my ovaries—well, that’s what it felt like—Dom was upstairs having another TESA.
What a pair of lovebirds. We were recovering at the same time—we were suffering equal amounts of discomfort. We were both wearing sanitary pads and we were dozy—too dozy to drive—but we both wanted to go home. A good friend came to collect us and as soon as we got home we both took some paracetamol and crawled into bed clutching our nether-regions. I found it quietly comforting having my husband feel some of the baby-making pain with me.
The morning after the egg collection the phone rang with good enough news—two of our eggs had fertilised. This news wasn’t as good as last time, but we had two embryos fertilising in their little Petri dish. It gave us hope.
The next day the clinic called again. This time they told us one of the embryos had slowed in its development and the other was a viable embryo so they wanted to implant them both into me as soon as possible.
Two embryos! What if they both worked? Would I have twins? Oh my God, I thought, I don’t know if I could handle twins. But it was a risk we had to take. If we stuck two of those little suckers in there, at least one of them was bound to stick, right?
I went to the clinic the next day for the embryo transfer. As much as you try so hard not to get your hopes up, it’s really difficult to avoid getting excited—that day we couldn’t help it. I was about to be impregnated!
The transfer went well and I was sent home for the dreaded two-week wait. This time I was determined to take things really easy. No strenuous activity, not even sex! I would rest up as much as possible and try not to get wound up over anything. Breathe deep. Remain calm. Stay focused.
Every day when I went to the toilet I was almost too scared to look. Would I find blood?
After twelve of the longest days of my life, I went for a pregnancy test. I had it first thing in the morning and had to wait until 2 p.m. for the nurses to be able to call with the results. I literally sat by the phone the entire day. And it rang right on time. The nurse sounded happy . . . Was this good news? ‘Jay-Jay, you’re pregnant!’ Yes it was! ‘Oh my God!’ I screamed.
I cried and I looked over at Dom who looked almost teary himself. We were going to have a baby! Wow, I really couldn’t believe it. I had never been pregnant before and now I was six weeks pregnant. I had felt nothing unusual so far. When would I feel nauseous? When would I start getting fat? I started reading pregnancy books and magazines to see which stage I was at.
At six weeks pregnant . . . I only had six weeks to go until I’d have my first scan. What would our blob look like? Or was it blobs? For the first time in my life, I started thinking about baby names. For some inexplicable reason, I was drawn to names with Js and Vs in them—Devon and Jasmine were favourites.
Unfortunately, the good news was, once again, short-lived. The next day at work I started bleeding. No! No! No! I felt sick because I knew it had to be over—it was heavy and gluggy and gross. I went back into the studio, took one look at Dom and burst into tears. He knew, our co-host, Mike, knew. Everyone at The Edge knew just by looking at me.
I locked myself in a small studio and called my favourite nurse, Penny. I told her what had happened and she said, ‘Oh no, I’m so sorry.’ I slumped to the floor and cried and cried. I could hardly breathe through the heartbreak. How could this happen when it was all looking so good? What did I do wrong? How could I have made it better? My boss was very supportive and let me go home. I can’t remember what Mike told the listeners but he made up something convincing. I had a blood test that confirmed I had miscarried and that was the end of that—third IVF cycle over and out.
Instant parenthood
As we were struggling to become parents (with a great deal of help from a large team of dedicated medical professionals) our lives were suddenly changed in a quite unexpected way. And it all came about from another major family drama involving one of my siblings!
My brother, Matt, who had been in and out of prison almost every year since he was seventeen, was doing another lag for drug-related charges on 21 February 2003, when his son and only child, Seven, was born. Matt got out of prison when Seven was two and assumed custody of his son.
Already history seemed to be repeating itself, as Matt also went to live with his dad at the age of two. Matt worked hard to build a relationship with Seven and they seemed to have a strong bond so it was very difficult for them both when Matt was sentenced to prison again not long before Seven’s fifth birthday. My sister Melissa told me what was happening and my first thought was about Seven’s future. What about Seven? Where will he go? I spoke to Dom and he seemed just as concerned as I was about this poor little boy. I called Matt and told him if he needed us to look after Seven, we would.
I didn’t hear from Matt for a couple of months and I figured he had sorted himself out. Then on 19 January 2008 he called. ‘I’m handing myself in tomorrow. Will you take my boy? I’ll bring him today.’ I was preparing for our third round of IVF. Seven was one month off turning five years old.
Today? Oh my God. I hadn’t really thought this far ahead when I had made the offer. I hadn’t actually considered that we might end up taking on a wee boy I hardly knew—I had only met him briefly about three times. Neither of us had ever had a child before. Babysitting for a couple of hours was the sum total of our experience. Dom got on well with kids but I had no idea what to do. Seven would arrive pre-programmed and with lots of baggage. And I don’t mean bags of clothes and toys—I mean emotional baggage.
‘Can you come tomorrow?’ I needed a day to get my head around the idea and to tell Dom. Meanwhile, I asked to speak to Seven, although I doubted he would remember me.
‘You are coming to stay with me and Uncle Dom for awhile,’ I told him. He sounded cute on the phone and was obviously unaware of the magnitude of what I was telling him. My heart broke.
I have to say, it wa
s painfully sad and heartbreaking to see my brother drive away, leaving his son with us. We were strangers to Seven and he was obviously afraid.
This cute little boy had already had a rocky start to life—he’d spent half of his life with each parent and now he was being left with an aunt and uncle he hardly knew. I don’t think he understood where Matt was going or why he was being left with us.
It wasn’t the best timing for stress levels. Dom and I were trying to have a calm third IVF cycle but our home life was thrown into turmoil. We had no idea how long Seven would be with us. Would it be a month? Would it be a year? He was about to start school! This was a challenge in itself—how do you choose a school?
I guess if you have a child from a baby, they grow up, you have a relationship with Plunket and a doctor, they go to kindergarten and you learn about getting them into school from there. I knew nothing of Seven’s history except that he did not have a doctor and had not been to pre-school of any kind. I didn’t know where to start, either, but we thought we would only have Seven for a short time while Matt did a stint in jail, so I didn’t bother doing any research. Matt hadn’t officially been sentenced yet but we all thought he would only be gone about three months.
We leave for work at 5 a.m. every day, so once Seven had started school we would need someone to help us by looking after Seven in the early morning and getting him to school on time.
Luckily Dom’s sister was getting married so we had lots of family staying who could help look after Seven in the mornings until we found a regular sitter. We advertised on Trade Me and eventually hired a girl called Marama to arrive at 4.50 a.m. each day.
In the end, Matt was sentenced to two years in prison and we knew we would have Seven for a long time.
Misconception Page 5