Anyway, the news was good. She counted seven follicles—five good-sized ones and two smaller ones. I have no idea how she did this because I was looking at the same screen and couldn’t see a bloody thing.
About that time, a really good friend approached me and offered me his sperm, should I need it. It was the second serious offer from a friend and about the fifth offer in total. It is an extremely generous but very major thing to offer someone. Our infertility issues supposedly lay with the sperm, so it was certainly worth considering donor sperm.
I was speechless when my friend suggested it. He would be an excellent donor, but it’s a whole other dilemma that one. If you go for a donor, do you go for a stranger or someone you know? Is it easier to bond with your child if you don’t know the real father lives around the corner from you? I wasn’t emotionally ready to deal with that yet. Dom and I were just praying like crazy—and we’re not even religious—that Dom would have the goods this time.
I spoke too soon and this time, I had to admit, maybe I was part of the problem. When I went for the second scan things weren’t as hopeful as they had been on the Wednesday. I went in hoping they might found an eighth follicle, but the news was there were only three good ones! The doctors and nurses were trying to be positive and remind me that they can work with three and it’s not a bad number, but I was gutted.
I couldn’t control my disappointment and ended up bursting into tears. The TVNZ cameras were rolling and no matter how hard I tried not to cry, I couldn’t hide my pain. It was my own fault—I got too cocky and confident hoping for another one. I felt as if I was being punished for being too greedy. I knew it wasn’t over yet—there was still a chance—but I was really sad about the way it was going. I had to go back the next day and hoped like mad the three follicles would have plumped up so they would be ripe for the picking in a couple of days.
Dom and I had our operations and they both went very well. Mine was so good that I don’t remember a single thing about it—those drugs are awesome! Dom said I was cracking heaps of jokes and was quite funny. It made me think perhaps I need to take those drugs before I go on air—maybe I can be funny on the show, too.
This time Dom remembered his op but he says it didn’t hurt. We were both walking very gingerly around the house, suffering together for our cause.
Later that day, the embryologist, our friend Sonya Jerkovic, called to tell us they had collected seven eggs and injected six with sperm. Great news—that was so much better than we had expected given the previous scan. Next morning a nurse called again to say two had died, two hadn’t changed at all, but two had done what we’d hoped—they’d started to divide. We had two potential embryos. Again, we had to wait overnight to see what would happen. Would they survive the night?
Yes, they did—both embryos survived the night! Well, one multiplied as it should and the other one wasn’t quite so promising. In fact, it was highly likely it would die, but it was decided to implant both embryos in my uterus anyway, because you just never know what could happen.
The process is painless, apart from the bursting bladder and, once again, it was incredible to see the embryos pop out of the end of the straw and nestle into the uterus. It was emotional and we felt lucky to be able to see that. Not many people can say they saw their two-day-old embryo moving inside their uterus!
Dom didn’t cry but I reckon he would have if there was no-one else in the room! Even Sonya cried. It was such an amazing moment.
The two-week wait for a pregnancy test dragged on . . . and on . . . With five days to go I was getting nervous, but was relieved to have had no signs of miscarriage. I wondered if there were any signs of pregnancy—I had a slightly sore boob for two days. I’d had a headache all that week and it hurt a lot. I’d been hungrier than usual. I’d had waves of nausea. Was I imagining those things? I just wanted a sign!
Going over the possible results in my head, I thought, If it’s negative, I’ll be utterly and completely devastated. Inconsolable. I thought about whether I’d need to take time off work. If it was a positive result, I wouldn’t want to get too excited because I’d had that news before and miscarried later. I had come so far but I really didn’t want to go through it ever again. Also, I knew I wasn’t getting any younger. I thought, ‘This has to happen now or it may never happen’. It was all too much!
With three days to go before my blood test, I woke up but felt very tired. We got up at 4 a.m. and got ready for work. We left for work as normal at 5 a.m. I dragged myself there with that horrible tired feeling I usually get on the first day of my period. By mid-afternoon the cramps set in and that night there was blood.
I can’t describe the shock. My heart was racing so fast that I was shaking. I didn’t want to panic, but I knew it was not a good sign. Dom knew, too. We both sat on the couch very quietly. I felt numb. I went to the toilet numerous times hoping it was nothing, but it was something. I texted a nurse at FertilityPLUS and she told me not to panic but to call her the next day.
By 5.20 a.m. the next morning, when I was supposed to be at my Edgy best, I was a complete wreck. I just knew it was the end and I couldn’t do a thing about it. It was all I could think about. There was no way I could go on air and pretend to be happy when I was dying inside. Dom was upset and emotional, too, and announced he was coming home with me so we walked out of the studio with heavy hearts and left Mike to cover for us again. He is such a good friend.
At 8.30 a.m. I had a blood sample taken and we waited at home, doing nothing, until 1 p.m. when we had go to the clinic for the results.
The Sunday crew were waiting for us. They weren’t there when I started bleeding, so would have to cover that part of the documentary in a voiceover or interview. They showed up to all the clinic meetings and let us film our own private moments at home with our own camera. But when I saw them in nurse Penny Lewis’s office this day, I felt nervous. All of a sudden I didn’t want them there.
‘It’s not good news. I’m sorry,’ Penny said.
My head collapsed forward into my hands and I cried and cried. Dom cried, too. We had been together for eleven years and this was only the third time I’d seen him cry. My heart was aching and I couldn’t think beyond the pain. That’s the journey with IVF—it’s a long and tortuous road to happiness and only the strong survive. The question was, how strong am I? How strong are we, Dom and me?
IN HIS OWN WORDS—FOURTH IVF CYCLE
So this is it. IVF Round 4. Twice as many rounds as Shane lasted with the Tua Man and, to be honest, I feel more beaten up than what Shane Cameron was! IVF is no picnic. It is not unbearable or anything but when you go through it and it doesn’t work, and this happens over and over and over, that really takes it out of you.
I have been telling people this will be our very last round of IVF, whether it fails or gives us the baby we both want so badly. I figure if it has not worked after four cracks, it is just not meant to be. It’s just too taxing—mentally, physically and financially!
If I am being perfectly honest about it, part of this reluctance to persist with it is guilt and shame—I am the reason we are on this insane medical journey.
Yes it sucks. Yes it is a pain in the arse. Yes it rips you to pieces when you go through all this and have nothing to show at the end of it. Yes you become a little bit more cynical and negative each time another cycle fails.
But, unfortunately, this is the reality of IVF.
Time to reassess
Five days after our fourth IVF cycle failed and we had to accept we wouldn’t be having babies anytime soon, I began to pick up the pieces of my broken dreams. The week before, when I thought I was all cried out, a friend came by with flowers and a bottle of French bubbles. She had tears welling in her eyes and I said to her, ‘Don’t you dare cry! I’ve got nothing left in me!’ The bubbles helped.
It was humbling, seeing how many friends and family cared as much as we did and felt as distraught as us. And the messages and emails I received from listeners
, friends of Radiochick and blog readers were overwhelming. I wanted to reply to them all, but I simply couldn’t keep up. So many of them made me cry. Others inspired me. All of them humbled me.
I find it so hard to fathom why so many people who don’t know us personally have been touched by our journey, and I want to thank them all from the bottom of my heart. The feedback and support has meant so much to both of us and it really helped get us through the sorrow.
Neither of us knew where to go. Dom thought we needed to take a break to get our heads clear again, but I thought we should keep going while we were on a roll. We were both confused about how to proceed if we were going to carry on. Should we try again the same as before? Should we use a sperm donor next time? What about an embryo donor? Surrogate mother? Adoption? So many options . . .
So far, no-one has been able to tell us exactly what the problem is. There’s clearly more to it than the quality and quantity of Dom’s sperm. It’s frustrating because, without knowing what the problem really was, we couldn’t work on fixing it. By now, four really good friends had offered to donate sperm to us. That was huge. That would be a very difficult decision to make. And many women, most of whom we don’t know personally, have offered to carry our baby for us. It’s just crazy incredible that a stranger would offer to help in such a huge way. But I wasn’t able to think about those things. We needed to figure out what we were going to do next and into the future. We needed to seriously consider that our future might not include our own biological children!
People say to us, ‘Oh, but you have Seven.’ And we love him to pieces. But I guess the relationship with Seven is that of a step-parent to a stepson. I didn’t have the experience of being pregnant, of giving birth and bonding from day one. Instead I picked up the pieces of a five-year-old who had come from challenging circumstances. I still want my own child. One I don’t have to share with its real parents when they feel like visiting. One with that inexplicable bond that only a mother who has given birth can describe. I also don’t want Seven to continue being an only child, because he is accidentally spoilt. We have worked hard for years to live the lifestyle we want and Seven has landed right in it. So here’s a kid who has an iPad to play with at bedtime, who has travelled overseas, who has a pool and goes to a decile ten school. He doesn’t have to share with anyone, so he doesn’t really know how to. I want him to learn about love and compassion for others, and that attention needs to be shared around.
Seven is a gorgeous wee boy. I am fiercely protective of him and am so proud of how far he has come since he has been in our care. He makes me laugh so often and also pushes me to my limits at other times. He has taught me so much about myself as well, and given me a different perspective on life. I have become so much less selfish and so much more patient! And he is excited about becoming a ‘cuzzie-bro’. I don’t want to let him down.
On Sunday 30 May 2012, nineteen days after I started bleeding, the TVNZ documentary went to air. As we were filming I was thinking, How could anyone find this interesting?, but it turned out great. We got the most incredible feedback from all sorts of people—I couldn’t keep on top of all the messages. Most of them were positive, but we had our fair share of negative feedback. Some people accused us of doing it as a publicity stunt for our radio show.
I have worked in radio for 21 years, and I’ve pulled many stunts to get attention and publicity, but I can tell you, hand on heart, the doco was completely separate to my radio life. Watching ourselves on TV, we both felt slightly embarrassed, but we believe we did the right thing. Many people have thanked us for giving them insight into a topic that is largely hushed over.
Our blog was viewed about 63 000 times in 2010—we got hundreds of comments and many people shared their stories. As well as messages of support, offers of donor sperm and surrogates, the most extreme offer was a baby itself. I was surprised to find the following email in my inbox one night.
Hi Jay-Jay,
In June I found out that I was pregnant again with my 6th child. I’m only 28 and this is my eleventh pregnancy. I have had 2 Mirenas (contraception) and fell pregnant on both, 2 miscarriages, 2 abortions (hardest decision I have ever had to make) and given birth to 5 super intelligent cool kids—they are my life, the very reason I am so motivated in becoming a better mother, partner and person all together.
When I found out I was pregnant, my husband and I both talked that another abortion was totally out of the question and so we opted to adopt our baby to my brother and his partner who have been trying for another baby.
Recently I phoned my brother and his partner to let them know that we were expecting a baby girl, but their response to that was very disheartening, because it was almost as if they had totally forgotten that they were to adopt her. My brother then told me that he wasn’t sure if they could adopt her.
I love all my children but the simple matter of the fact is that I have 5 other children under the age of 9. I am studying, so my time is stretched as it is.
I’m really not sure what to do because I am due in 10–12 weeks. All I know is that I want her to have good home to grow up in, plenty of one on one attention, lots of love will come naturally from the right parents.
I am considering adopting outside of my family but am really scared, because I need to know that she will be loved and cherished for the special angel that she is.
Before I go to bed I will pray that sweet serendipity comes to play and sends all the right advice and people my way to help me out of this situation.
Some insight would be greatly appreciated.
Wow. Was this person who I’d never met offering me her baby? An actual baby girl that would be here in about twelve weeks? That wasn’t much time to prepare. But I could have a baby now if I wanted it. There was so much to consider. I spoke to Dom about it and he was excited by the thought but a little bit uncomfortable with the way it had all happened. I emailed the mother back asking her if she was serious about adopting the baby out and for some more information about herself. She seemed like a genuine woman. Very smart, and with good reason to want to give her baby away. I seriously considered this. I really wanted to go out of town and meet her so I could get more of an idea of what was coming, but then I thought I would be really committing and getting her hopes up if I met her. I started to chicken out. Adoption is an option, of course, but it’s not what I wanted at the time. I was still mourning the loss of my latest embryos and was confused as to what I wanted to do next. What we really needed right then was a holiday—we were emotionally exhausted and needed to take some time off. I booked a week away in Fiji, followed by a week in Melbourne for the middle of July. It gave us something to look forward to.
I had a few sleepless nights, but in the end I decided that if I wasn’t 100 per cent committed to the idea, I would have to tell her no.
I emailed her and she responded a few weeks later.
Hi Jay-Jay
I had a beautiful baby girl, and her adoptive parents (from up north) have named her [name withheld].
The first week was the hardest for me, the worse broken heart feeling one could imagine and feel and still today, I get this overwhelming fretfulness—if that even makes sense, I can’t quite explain in words.
But she is truly loved by her new parents and the bonus of it all is that they have asked us to still be mum and dad. They text us regularly with updates on her development, and that keeps her near to us.
All this helps our family to heal, and we realise now that it’s not a loss we have suffered by adopting her out, we have only extended our family roots by sharing such a wonderful gift and no gift greater than the gift of life.
I knew it then it was too late to change my mind, no matter how much guilt or uncertainty I felt. Dom and I started on recovering from the last round, and we decided what our next move would be. We would take a break from treatment.
The kind words coming from my blog were a great help to us both; here are four extracts from the blog that moved us and
made us feel supported.
My hubby and I are currently on the IVF waiting list, waiting for our first cycle. It’s been the hardest issue we’ve ever faced and I know that keeping spirits and hopes high (while still being realistic about things!) is really tough.
It’s great to hear someone else’s journey and I just wanted to encourage you and say that you did a good thing!
—Sarah
My husband and I have lived with infertility for the last few years and there is no way either of us would have been brave enough to share our story with the country. It was bad enough that our friends and family had to know. I think it is fantastic that you have been so open about all you have gone through in your quest to have a baby.
Good luck with your next cycle.
—Tracy
I have had lots and lots of friends/family contact me today for a ‘chat’. Their main reason for calling was overwhelmingly to discuss your piece on Sunday last night. Their comments were firstly very positive and sympathetic towards you and Dom—they thought you were extremely courageous and were gutted for you both.
Secondly their comments were (in the vicinity of) ‘Now we get it Delwyn, we didn’t really understand what you were going through until we saw Sunday!’
Imagine then if this is the response I have had, how much you have educated friends and families of other couples going through fertility treatment also.
—Delwyn
When brave people like you and Dom share your stories the ‘normal’ people in this world become more educated, and hopefully, more considerate and understanding.
—Jacqui
Recovery
It took two and a half years after our fourth IVF cycle for me to begin to think about trying again. I still find it hard reading the emails of support I got during that attempt and it’s hard to see just how emotional I was at the time—it seems weird, now, that I didn’t realise just how emotional I was. And we did it all with a camera crew in tow.
Misconception Page 7