by Hodge, Sibel
Me: I’d rather have an affair with Gordon Brown than have kids.
Amelia: Or David Blunkett.
Me: Most definitely.
Amelia: All they do is poop and cry. I can’t see the attraction. I’d rather get my leg chewed off by an alligator than change dirty nappies.
Me: I’d rather live on a desert island for a year with no wine than deal with screaming babies.
Amelia: And no chocolate.
Me: Yep. I’d rather have all my teeth extracted with no anaesthetic.
…But now maybe it was too late. My body clock was clanging in my ear with annoying persistence, and I couldn’t help wondering what would’ve happened if we’d started trying sooner. I envied Amelia and Dan. I wished I could go back to those days, where it was just Karl and me, and the only thing I had to worry about was what to cook for dinner that night, which film we were going to watch, or which party we were going to. Now it just seemed like my brain was wired up wrong and all I could think about was getting pregnant. Even a simple shopping trip just rammed down my throat that I was still very un-pregnant.
‘Oh, God, I forgot to give you this!’ She rummaged around in her bag. ‘I found this article in the newspaper the other day so I thought you should take a look.’ She thrust it in my hand.
I tried to look at it but my eyes were blurry with tears.
‘Here.’ She handed me a tissue.
I glanced up and gave her a weak smile as I wiped my eyes. ‘Thanks,’ I said, ignoring the crowds who were busy rubbernecking at me as they walked past.
The article was written by a female nutritionist called Dr Julia Jones, who had lots of credits after her name, saying how diet was really important to aid fertility.
As I took in every word slowly, I read three women’s success stories. One of them had been trying to get pregnant for six years, and after following Julia’s advice, she fell pregnant within six months. Another woman had gone through three IVF treatments and had given up hope when she bought Julia’s book and started implementing her recommended dietary changes, then she had twins within nine months. The last woman had been told by all the doctors she’d never have kids and got pregnant a year after following Julia’s advice. The title of the book and website was listed at the end.
‘Come on.’ I grabbed Amelia’s arm and dragged her towards the nearest bookshop with a new bounce in my step. This was it. All I had to do was change my diet and it would work.
****
Five hours later, I’d read the book cover to cover and was feeling more positive. If I followed her advice, I had a fantastic chance of getting pregnant. Dr Julia Jones didn’t get to be a bestselling nutritionist by talking crap, or eating crap, for that matter, so what she says goes from now on. She would be my new healthy-eating guru. All I had to do was follow her advice:
Out with the caffeine; in with the green tea, peppermint tea, nettle tea (blah! Sounded gross. Who wanted to drink a cup of scratchy weeds?).
Sugar and refined carbs were not my friend, apparently. (Damn, chocolate was definitely my friend!) Whole-wheat grains and oats were recommended. (Right, so gloopy porridge for breakfast instead of Coco Pops. Yum. Not.)
Pulses like lentils and quinoa (never heard of it), were good sources of protein instead of meat.
Everything should be organic to reduce the amount of pesticides and hormones that could be messing up my system.
Fresh fruits and veggies were the name of the game.
Nuts (not Karl’s for once) and fresh, oily fish were a must. (Ew, mackerel made me feel nauseous at just the whiff of it.)
Sodas, artificial sweeteners, and E numbers were worse than cyanide.
Plus, a list of vitamins, minerals to combat any deficiencies, and the herbal supplement Vitex, which was good for rebalancing hormone levels and normalizing ovulation.
Severely reducing, or cutting out alcohol completely (Not too keen on that part. I loved wine, but I wanted a baby more, so, I guess I’d have to do it.)
No problemo. I could do this!
As soon as Karl came home from a bike ride with Dan I said, ‘We’re going shopping,’ with a huge smile on my face.
‘Oh, God,’ he groaned, sitting on the bottom step and pulling off his trainers. ‘Haven’t you been shopping all afternoon with Amelia? I bet it’s murder out there with the Christmas rush.’
‘No, we’re going food shopping. To the supermarket.’ I grabbed his coat and thrust it towards him.
He glanced down at his cycling shorts and sweaty top. ‘I need a bath first! I can’t go out like this. And didn’t you go food shopping the other day? We’ve got loads of stuff in the house.’
‘Well, first of all, you can’t have a hot bath anymore because it’s bad for your sperm, and second, we have to stock up on loads of healthy food.’ I filled him in on Julia’s book. ‘Oh, and after your lukewarm shower, not bath, you have to wear these.’ I opened up a bag full of new baggy boxer shorts I’d bought in town after reading that tight ones can cause bollock asphyxiation and damage sperm.
He looked at me like I’d just suggested a threesome with a cyborg, then peered in the bag. ‘Are you having a laugh?’ He pulled out some oversized, baggy boxers that, OK, I admit, looked like something a seventy-year-old granddad would wear.
‘If it helps increase those little swimmers, who cares? Practical, medical advice overrules vanity from now on. You’ve got to do the sperm test on Monday morning so I can take it to the hospital, and I want those little guys to pass with flying colours. At least it will be one less thing to worry about.’
‘Do you know how uncomfortable these are going to be? I love my tighties, they keep me all compact and cosy. I’ll be flopping around all over the place in these.’ He put his hands in one of the short legs and pulled the material apart to see how wide it was. ‘Fucking hell, I could fit a jumbo jet in one of these legs. You’ll be buying me a kilt next.’
‘Hey, great idea!’ I made a mental note to order him one online. ‘And you can’t go cycling anymore.’ I bit my lip, waiting for the next outburst. ‘It constricts the blood flow to your nuts, apparently.’
‘But I’ve been cycling for twenty years.’ He threw up his hands in a defeated gesture. ‘What am I allowed to do now?’
I just smiled sweetly. ‘Come on, then, hurry up and get in the shower so we can go.’
****
‘So what are we having for dinner?’ Karl dumped the last food-filled carrier bag on the kitchen worktop two hours later.
‘Vegetarian shepherd’s pie with spinach, lentils, red peppers, tomatoes and carrots, with a sweet potato topping, and a leafy green salad on the side. Then for an evening snack you can have pumpkin seeds.’
He pulled a horrified face, like I’d just suggested feeding him kangaroo’s bollocks. (I had nuts on the brain!)
‘They’re all good for both your sperm and me,’ I said, reading the instructions on the packet of dried lentils. Soak overnight before use, it said. Damn. I could see this was going to get complicated. ‘Minus the lentils,’ I added, thinking I could use them for something tomorrow, that was if I ever managed to get off the Internet because I’d be too busy looking up new recipes to make dinners with all this new stuff.
‘Right. But please don’t tell me I can’t have a beer tonight. That’s going to just about finish me off.’
‘Er…I hate to break it to you but alcohol is out, too,’ I said, thinking I could kill a glass of wine right about now. Or a bottle. I glanced over at the wine rack in the corner of the kitchen. A nice Chilean red was seriously calling my name.
No! Don’t look at the wine. Focus. Wine’s nice but a baby is better. Stop looking!
He followed my gaze. ‘What about wine? Wine’s OK, isn’t it? Red wine’s good for…’ he tilted his head, looking like he was racking his brain to come up with something it was good for. ‘Your heart!’ he finally said, looking pretty pleased with himself.
‘According to Julia, any alcohol negatively affects
a woman’s eggs, and it can increase oestrogen in males, which might interfere with sperm production. It’s also a toxin that kills off sperm-generating cells in your nuts.’ I threw a last longing look at the wine.
‘So we have to turn into teetotal vegetarians to get pregnant, otherwise I’ll end up with toxic nuts and manboobs?’
I gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘That’s about the size of it. Although, we can still have organic meat, but it’s pretty expensive so we’ll be having lots of healthy protein things like quinoa.’ I slipped my arms around his neck and kissed him.
‘I don’t even think I want to know what that is.’ He rested his chin on the top of my head and groaned. ‘OK, babe. Anything I have to do to get our Cecil, I’ll do.’
Just Relax!
‘Come on, we’re going to be late round your dad and Lavinia’s,’ Karl whispered while I was on the phone to Poppy.
I’d met Poppy online at the Fertility Friends website about a month before and we’d started messaging each other. Then it progressed to phone calls. From her profile picture on the website she looked like an original hippie. Tie-dye clothes, a silver hoop through her nose, and about a million on each ear, blonde dreadlocks.
‘So Karl’s got to do his sperm test tomorrow, and I’m having my scan and HCG test next week,’ I told her.
‘Well, that’s good,’ she said. ‘At least you might get some more idea of where you are next week. But you really need to stop worrying so much about it and have some fun.’
I snorted. I was sick of people telling me that. It was like telling someone trying to give up smoking not to think about cigarettes. It just made you think about them even more.
Poppy laughed. ‘I know, it’s easier said than done, believe me. But if you constantly obsess about it, you’re likely to self-sabotage.’
I frowned. ‘Huh? What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know when you really, desperately want something in life, it just never seems to happen, but when you’re not that interested in something you seem to get it easily. It seems to just come to you without even trying.’
‘Yes.’
‘I think a lot of the time we self-sabotage when we desperately want something, because deep down we’re afraid what will happen when we get it. If we don’t care too much about something, it doesn’t matter whether we get it or not, but when we care deeply, there’s a huge risk in getting it. What if it doesn’t work out, will I be unhappy, then? What if I get it and I love it, but then it’s taken away from me? What if I get it but there’s another cost to having it – one I haven’t thought of yet? What if I lose something else along the way in trying to find it? Do you see what I mean?’ she asked.
‘So you’re saying we unconsciously put obstacles in the way of getting what we want because we’re afraid of what will happen when we get it?’ Wow, I’d never thought about it before. Did it make sense? I wracked my brains, trying to think back to things I’d really wanted in life. When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut and that didn’t happen. What else? Oh, yes, there was the time in beauty school when I wanted to win the award for the best French manicure, but that didn’t happen, which was a shame because the prize was a twenty-quid voucher for the cinema and I had a huge crush on Patrick Swayze who was starring in Dirty Dancing at the time.
‘It could be because of your mum,’ Poppy’s voice interrupted my brain-searching as Karl paced up and down the kitchen, doing flapping hurry-up motions with his hands.
I glared at him and tuned back into Poppy. This was just getting interesting.
‘Your mum died when you were seventeen, which was right about the time you were blossoming as a woman. Maybe you’re worried that if you have a baby, somehow you’ll be taken away from it, or it will be taken away from you, and so inadvertently your brain or body is putting obstacles in the way of getting pregnant.’
Oh, God, maybe she had a point. ‘I’ve never heard of that before, but maybe you’re right.’
‘Your mind is a powerful tool. When you hear the phrase “mind over matter,” it’s true. Your subconscious actually holds more power than your conscious mind. Even though you’re telling everyone that you want a baby, if you have a subconscious belief that it’s unattainable, you’re likely to be using yourself as an obstacle.’
I took a deep breath and let that sink in. Could she really be on to something about my mum? I mean, I was an only child so we were very close, and even now, I still felt the emptiness of not having her here. I knew she would understand what I was going through and be my rock of support. I guess seventeen is a pretty bad age to lose your mum, when you need to turn to her for guidance on relationships, broken hearts, new jobs, and generally flourishing into a woman. Could I really be self-sabotaging because I was scared of losing a baby somehow when I got it? Possibly. Did I have a really have a fear of succeeding in having a baby? A dread that somehow I might be a failure as a mum, or that he or she might be suddenly whipped away from me in the blink of an eye, like Mum? And if so, what could I do about it?
‘OK, so what can I do to change that?’ I said. ‘If that is what’s going on.’
‘Well, acknowledging it is probably the first step. Maybe you should try and repeat some mantra every day to introduce positive thoughts.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Something like, “I can be happy as a mother,” or “the past will not become the future.” If you say it often enough, it might get through to your subconscious. I’d also recommend doing some relaxation CDs. There’s a new one out especially for fertility that you can order,’ she said as Karl poked me to hurry up.
I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘OK, that’s really helpful, Poppy, thanks. I’ll think about what you said and get the CD.’
‘And don’t forget to call me any time.’
‘Right back at ya!’ I said and hung up.
‘Come on, we’re going to be late,’ Karl said as I flung on my coat. ‘I don’t want to risk the wrath of Lavinia.’
I curled my lip up and groaned. Dad had met Lavinia six years ago, and she was the complete opposite of my mum. How can I describe her without sounding like a complete bitch? Hmm…Lavinia was the most difficult woman I’d ever met. Nothing was ever right for her, and she complained constantly about everything. God knows how Dad put up with her, although he was so placid, he probably just went along with her for a quiet life. Whereas mum had been full of fun and life and the kindest person I’d ever known, Lavinia was…well, a self-centred, snooty witch. But somehow, and I haven’t got the foggiest idea how, she seemed to make Dad happy, so I vowed ages ago to be the perfect stepdaughter and not upset the applecart. Along with Lavinia came a stepsister called Jayne, who was pretty much the spitting image of Lavinia, in looks and personality. She was married to Wayne, and I still couldn’t say Jayne and Wayne in the same sentence without chuckling to myself. OK, childish I know, but I couldn’t help myself.
‘Shit! I forgot to bring the wine!’ I said as we pulled up outside their house across town.
‘Good, it’s not like we’re drinking it anyway,’ Karl said. ‘I might be tempted to smack Lavinia over the head with it if it’s in my reach. Well, after being tempted to drink the whole bottle.’
Since Karl’s parents lived in Spain, we hardly ever got to see his side of the family, and even though he loved my dad like a second father figure, he felt the same about Lavinia as I did, tolerating her for Dad’s sake.
‘No, I’d bought some non-alcoholic elderflower wine to bring.’ I opened their gate and walked up the driveway.
‘Yum.’ He gave me a look that said it sounded anything but yum.
‘Lavinia will be in moany mode now. Why don’t you nip down to the corner shop and grab a bottle?’ I said. ‘I’ll just have water.’
‘OK.’ He kissed the top of my nose as I rang the doorbell, probably grateful for a few more minutes of non-Lavinia time.
Oh, and speak of the devil…she swung open the door and gave me a tight smile. ‘Gina, how lovely of you to m
ake it.’ She glanced at my empty, non-wine bearing hands and her mouth pinched slightly. ‘Come in.’ She stepped back and let me enter.
‘So how’ve you been?’ I asked as she closed the door.
‘Wonderful, thanks. Everyone’s in the lounge.’ She disappeared as I slipped off my coat and hung it on the hook by the door.
Well, I’m good, too, thanks for asking!
‘Aunty Gina!’ Rupert and Quentin, Jayne and Wayne’s (ha ha!) two sons came bounding over to hug me.
Rupert was seven and hugged me tight around the waist, resting his head on my stomach and gazing up at me like a long-lost friend. Quentin was nine and nestled his head into me until I put my arm around him. I kissed the tops of their heads. They smelt of grass and toothpaste.
‘How are you both?’ I said, smiling down at them.
‘Now, now, boys, let Gina go.’ Jayne clapped her hands to get their attention like they were a couple of dogs she was trying to distract. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t want to be hassled by you as soon as she walks in the door.’
‘Of course I do!’ I said, ruffling their hair. ‘What have you been up to? How’s school? How’s the football team going?’ I asked them.
‘Do you want to see the drawing I did?’ Rupert asked, pulling me towards the coffee table.
‘No, Aunty Gina wants to see the new model dinosaur I made.’ Quentin pulled me in the opposite direction.
‘Boys, go outside and play,’ Wayne barked at them. ‘This is adult time now.’