At least sperm donation was much easier on my body than IVF. I wondered why we didn’t do this sooner. There were no raging hormones from the IVF drugs, no mood swings, no egg collection, no pain afterwards, and it was a lot less stressful. A couple of blood tests after your period, a smear-test type procedure and voilà! You’re done. The worst part was probably the $1200 bill each time . . . and the two-week wait. Every day was another day closer to the pregnancy test, but each day seemed so much longer than the day before.
Halfway through the second week I finally started to feel something. My boobs were sore, really sore. My nipples were itchy—was this a sign or did I just sleep on them last night? I mentioned it in passing to Dom’s mum and sister. His sister Charlotte shrieked, ‘That’s how I knew I was pregnant before I had a test!’ For the next two days I kept squeezing my tender boobs and then the soreness disappeared.
The day before my blood test was due I felt crampy and tired and I had a headache. My lower back was aching—I knew the feeling and I didn’t like it! My period was due in four days but a trip to the loo confirmed my worst fears—there was blood. We went to the movies as a distraction, but I found it hard to concentrate.
‘At least you’ll be able to have a glass of champagne on Christmas morning,’ Dom said, trying to make me feel better. My whole body screamed, I don’t want champagne—I want a baby!
I had my blood test at 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve and expected the results around 1 p.m. I’d popped out for some last-minute Christmas shopping when Shirley, the nurse, phoned earlier than expected. I asked if she could call me back in half an hour. I wanted to be home when I got the result. When my phone rang again, I knew, deep inside, it wasn’t going to be the best Christmas of my life.
‘Hello Jay-Jay, it’s Shirley. I haven’t got good news.’
I sat with my head in my hands for a good few minutes.
I felt robbed even though nobody had stolen anything from me. I wanted to cry but the tears didn’t come. I felt tired, exhausted, worn down. I had my hopes pinned on Super Sperm. I knew the odds weren’t in my favour, but I’d heard so many stories about other people having miracles. Why couldn’t I have a miracle of my own? Why couldn’t I have some good news for Christmas?
First thing on Christmas morning, we cracked open a bottle of expensive champagne. I had been given a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne—it’s the real deal, and I’d been keen to try it. Since I was not pregnant, I decided it was time to crack it open to celebrate Christmas and the family I was lucky enough to have! I have to say it’s the most delicious and light champagne I have ever had. There sure is a difference between expensive French champagne and bargain-bin bubbles!
After the excitement of Christmas, we started to look forward again. It was a New Year and we had enough sperm in the bank for fifteen more attempts. Because it wasn’t as taxing as IVF we could think about making an attempt every month—at 38 I didn’t have any time to lose, so we booked in for another go in January.
I told Dom I was prepared to try as many times as I could over the next year and then I’d be done. If we hadn’t succeeded by Christmas 2013, I was giving up. I could not spend my forties flogging a dead horse. Plus, I didn’t know how we were going to afford the $1200 each month for a year—I’m not the world’s best saver. All I know is what will be will be and any future baby’s life is in the hands of fate.
Okay, so Dr Fisher told me there was a less than 15 per cent chance each month of donor insemination working, but that there was a greater chance over time. It feels as if I’m riding an evil merry-go-round.
One of my best friends has been trying to get pregnant naturally with her partner for about a year. Every month on her fertile days they hump like rabbits and wait to see if her period comes. When it does, they do the same thing over again. When we talked about things, she said what she hates is putting her life on hold. After eight months, when she felt as if all the romance had been robbed from her life, she decided to just live her life as much as possible and take what comes. As she said, if people can get pregnant on a big night out and the kid is fine, why should she stress so much.
Back on the merry-go-round in January and, after my second blood test, a nurse from the clinic called to tell me to arrive for an insemination at midday the following day. When Dom asked me if I was excited, I thought for a couple of seconds before replying. ‘Not really.’ I realised I was feeling blasé. He seemed surprised. Unusually, this time I was feeling blasé and Dom was feeling optimistic.
I guessed blasé was a better way for me to feel—so far, excitement had always turned to disappointment for me. I hoped by feeling ‘whatever’ about it meant I wouldn’t be too disappointed if things went wrong. As it happened, I needed another blood test and the second insemination was carried over a day. The procedure was the same as the first time, but with a different nurse. Erama knew what she was doing and it was very quick and painless. Once again, I headed home PUPO.
At home, a colleague of mine turned up unexpectedly and asked how I was going with the fertility treatment. I told him I had just been sperminated and he asked me if I wanted a baby now. ‘What does “now” mean?’ I asked. He told me he had a 21-year-old employee who had found herself pregnant and she didn’t want to keep the baby. ‘She wants someone like you to have it,’ he said. ‘I’m against adoption so I’ve tried to talk her into keeping it but she thinks like a 21 year old. I want to tell her that you guys will take her baby.’
I really couldn’t consider adoption right then and suggested he put her onto an agency—there are so many good people wanting to adopt. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘We’ll just let the universe do its thing.’ After he’d gone I felt uncomfortable. Why did I feel stressed all of a sudden? Did I do the right thing?
I have to say, what followed really was the longest two weeks of my life. I assumed it would fly—I was still on holiday for the first week and the second week was my first week back at work for the year. I thought I would be so busy I wouldn’t notice the time go by.
By the eleventh day I’d had three headaches and a couple of twinges but it was impossible to imagine an embryo nestling in there. I really wanted this to work, but all of a sudden I felt desperate. I was so over all the treatment. I’d had enough.
The following day I started to get antsy. That night we went out for dinner with a couple of friends and I started to wonder if I had a drinking problem—I had an overwhelming urge to sniff everybody’s drinks. One by one I picked up each glass and held it to my nose before taking a long hard sniff. So good! And then I ordered a pineapple juice with a cocktail umbrella so I could feel as if I was joining in the fun.
With two days to go, I wondered if I should cheat and do a home pregnancy test. The clinic discourages it but I was feeling pregnant and I wanted to be put out of my misery. At home, after I’d unsuccessfully fossicked through our big toiletries cupboard, Dom offered to head out to the supermarket. I was so worried he might be spotted I swallowed some paracetamol and went to bed.
In bed, I felt a few twinges and a bit of lower back discomfort. I drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the night wrestling with the discomfort. I woke up with a headache, went the toilet, let out some air and felt a whole lot better.
One more day to go! For the first time this whole insem I was feeling a wee bit hopeful. I kept thinking about that home pregnancy test—day thirteen, and all I could think about was how I needed to know, right then, whether or not I was pregnant. It’s not like me to want to ruin a surprise—I’d never been so impatient before.
Besides, not knowing was making it really hard to plan ahead. For example, we were planning on doing a silly stunt for our show that week, trying to eat a burger while riding the roller-coaster at Rainbow’s End. If I was pregnant, I wouldn’t be able to participate, which would have people asking questions. If I wasn’t pregnant I’d have to cancel my hair appointment for that afternoon! Yes, I know, First World problems.
I woke
up on the fourteenth day and it was a Monday. Feeling really good, I bounced out of bed. No headache, no tummy tingles, I figured it was going to be a good day. Not long into our show, I started to feel pain in my ovaries . . . and my head hurt. I was feeling pre-menstrual. By 9 a.m. I was down in the dumps—like so sad I could cry. At one point, I had my head in my hands and I could feel the burn of tears behind my eyelids.
‘I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now,’ said Mike, my co-host.
I left to go for my blood test but I was sullen-faced—I just knew it couldn’t be good. What is the point of the test when I know what the outcome will be?
At the blood lab, my favourite nurse, Marji, asked me how I was doing.
I think she could tell by the look on my face that I wasn’t feeling great and she tried to cheer me up by saying, ‘Let’s hope for the best, aye?’
I said she’d likely see me in two weeks for another crack at it. But I realised as I said it, I didn’t want another crack at it—I was tired of the merry-go-round. I wanted to get off the ride.
I needed to vent so as soon as I could I posted on the secret Facebook page. The women there always make me feel better. I’m glad I have them. I knew the lab results would be late and I had a lunch booked at 1 p.m. that day with the publishers of this book so I emailed Fertility Associates and asked them to call me after 3 p.m. Lunch was nice but I found it hard to focus—I was dying to know my results. I talked at lunch about the writing and how I didn’t have an ending, yet. I felt I needed a happy ending. All good stories have a happy ending, don’t they?
Finally home, the phone rang. The nurse said, ‘I’m really sorry. It’s a negative.’
Gasping for breath, I said, ‘That makes me so sad!’ Dom came over to hug and kiss me. He is quite resilient and I guess I am, to a point, and it would have been a huge surprise to us both if the result was positive.
Nicci, the nurse, was comforting and said Dr Fisher would like me to do another HSG test to check my tubes were clear since even Super Sperm couldn’t seem to penetrate my old, tired eggs. But I really don’t want to do it.
Feeling tired of it all, I couldn’t be bothered trying again, but I’d committed to finishing the year off so I asked to be sperminated again. Dr Fisher wasn’t keen without an HSG test—it’d been seven years since the last test. Reluctantly, I agreed to book in.
This time, Dom wasn’t allowed into the room with me, which made me slightly nervous. To help me relax the radiologists, Marianne and Jane, chatted with me about this book and Dom’s book, Bucket List of an Idiot. I could see what was happening on the screen and I felt the dye go through my tubes. It was nowhere near as painful as it had been the last time. I was relieved and even more relieved when I saw the dye come out the ends of both tubes.
That was such great news. Later that night, while Dom and I were chilling on the couch with a glass of wine, Dom proposed a toast to ‘our good news today’.
‘Cheers to fertility!’ I said as we chinked glasses.
Boosted by the good news, I sent the nurses an email pleading for another go as soon as possible, only to find I couldn’t have an insemination attempt on the same cycle as an HSG because the dye is radioactive. It wasn’t the news I wanted to hear but, hey, after seven years what’s another month?
Postscript
I’ve been feeling a bit insecure about myself lately. Okay, a lot insecure. I’ve put on quite a bit of weight and when I look in the mirror I don’t see the cool Jay-Jay I used to be. I feel frumpy and mumsy. I don’t want to be mumsy. I want to be cool again.
It didn’t help that I had a celebrity guest, Gaz, from the MTV reality show ‘Geordie Shore’, confirm my worst fears in print. He came to New Zealand to do some promo work and visited The Edge studio where he was quite the hit with the girls in the office. I started to feel a bit old, partly because I felt no attraction. Later, asked to rate ten high-profile Kiwi women for a weekend paper, this is what he said about me.
I’m sorry, babe, but no way. She was the nicest girl in the world, but she looks like your mum, she talks like your mum, acts like your mum.
Well, guess what, Gaz? I am a mum! I suddenly realised I am young no more. It’s time to get serious and embrace the mumsy mum in me. I will turn forty soon. I’ll stick to our plan of trying donor sperm insemination every month until the end of the year. If I’m not pregnant by then, we’ll have to accept it’s not meant to be.
Right now, I have a feeling deep within me that it will work—after all, my tubes are clear and we have Super Sperm on our team! Whether it works or not, Dom and I have to look ahead to the next half of our lives. It may be that our nephew, Seven, will remain a spoilt only child and we will have to learn to appreciate the fact that we’ve never had to change a dirty nappy. All I know is nobody can say we didn’t give it our best shot.
I’ve been wracking my brains to come up with a decent ending to this book. When I started writing it there was really only one happy ending I had in mind, but putting my life down on paper has made me see there might be more than one kind of happily ever after.
I was going through an old box of letters and cards recently and found a handwritten letter from John Hudson, the presenter on our Sunday documentary.
Dear Jay-Jay,
Now that I have your attention, let me tell you a story.
It’s about a dream I had about a loving, compassionate couple who adopted a young boy.
The couple loved the boy and they cared for him really well, always making sure he was happy.
But then something sad happened. The loving couple desperately wanted to have a baby. They tried and tried but through no fault of their own it just didn’t happen for them.
For a long time they were sad.
Their good friends were sad as well because they didn’t like it when the loving couple were hurting. They could only imagine the frustration and pain their friends were going through.
Eventually, though, the sadness began to fade. The loving young couple had each other and the beautiful son they nurtured turned into a lovely young man who realised he was very lucky to have loving parents and a secure happy family.
I hope this dream comes true.
John
John is a wise man and his words comforted me then, and they still comfort me now. He inspired me to step back and take a look at my life. I have an exciting job, a loving husband and a happy marriage, a gorgeous nephew who calls me Mum and Dom Dad. I have great friends, lots of life experience, a nice house . . . I have so many things other people don’t and I feel truly grateful for all the things I have. And that’s what I will focus on for now. The things I do have, rather than the things I don’t.
I have life and I have love. It’s all I really need.
Acknowledgements
I could not have written this book without the support of so many people, including my husband Dom, who has put up with me and all of my issues for over fourteen years now. I’ll be talking to the Prime Minister about getting you a knighthood!
My mum Robynne—we’ve been through some hard times together Mum, but you have always supported me and encouraged me to live my dreams. I love you so much!
Super Sperm—special thanks to our donor and his wife for giving us the greatest gift of all. I will never be able to express how much it means to us and how much we love you.
To all the amazing staff at both FertilityPLUS and Fertility Associates—thank you for trying your best for us every time and for tolerating our TV cameras and recording devices.
To the Boys Club mums—Katie, Jo, Sharon, Janet, Jenny, Carey and Sonya—you have absolutely no idea how much your friendship means to me. I am so grateful for all the support and advice you have given me over the last five years. I love you a lot!
To Dom’s mum Sue and my friend Katie—I appreciate you reading my draft and offering me your honest opinion about this book. It was because of you that this finished product looks so different to my first attempt. It mea
ns so much.
We spent a whole day taking about two thousand photos for this book cover and a lot of people helped me out.
Damian Alexander (www.krop.com/damianalexander), you are a superstar. I am so glad you agreed to help me with my cover. You take the most beautiful photos and have so many edgy ideas. I loved every minute working with you. Thank you.
Helen Luo from Smashbox, Ponsonby. One of the best makeup artists I have ever had the pleasure of working on my face! Helen, you are incredibly talented and I consider getting my makeup done by you at Smashbox as one of the greatest pleasures in life. Thanks for helping me look so stunning during the cover shoot.
Brad Lepper from French Revolver Studio, Auckland. It’s like an angel sent you to me. I am so glad we met. Thank you for working your magic on my hair for the cover shoot. You are so clever and I cannot thank you enough for donating your time and talent for me.
Vanessa Quin—the MITA hair extensions were incredible! You are such a generous, kind friend. I love you to bits.
Leah Light—you have brought my nails to life on so many occasions and made me feel so cool! Thanks for teaching me that nails are not to be ignored, and thanks for always supporting me and being so generous. I love you.
Charone at Glamour Boutique—your dresses are spectacular. Thank you for dressing me for some of the shots.
Geoff at Proctor & Gamble—even though they didn’t make the cut, it was very generous of you to give me that huge pile of Clearblue pregnancy tests. I’m sure I’ll get through them eventually!
And thanks to you for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it.
Jay-Jay xox
Misconception Page 17