As we waited to be called into Sara’s office, I idly picked up one of the hospital brochures and started flicking through. My nerves were up in the air and I’d already scratched off half of my nail varnish, so I needed something – anything – to distract myself.
What I saw when I opened that brochure will never leave me. The hospital I was sitting in is well known for catering for wealthier patients. It is where everyone from Victoria Beckham to the Duchess of York has paid a premium for the ultimate ‘luxury’ birth. Having read the leaflet from front to back, I turned on my phone and began searching to find out as much as I could about the place where I was currently sitting. It is one of the top private maternity hospitals in Europe and, as a result, most parents-to-be end up spending around £30,000 to have their babies there. According to various news reports, over 16,000 women a year pay for the luxury hospital experience.
The more I read, the more frantic the butterflies in my stomach became. Here I was, in one of the best hospitals in Europe, about to see one of their top fertility experts. To me, my chances of having a baby suddenly seemed more viable.
And it was at this exact moment an idea popped into my head, too. Something to do with the idea of making parenthood as easy as it can possibly be . . .
Chapter 2
I’ve always been described as someone who regularly comes up with wacky business ideas. Five years previously, I had set up the UK’s first Proposal Planning company, helping people propose to their loved ones in unique and creative ways. Everyone thought I was mad when I set it up, but it ended up taking the world by storm and I even had my own TV reality show, with a camera crew following me around as I planned out-of-this-world proposals!
And here it was, happening again. A business idea that I knew people would laugh about and raise their eyebrows in a ‘Here we go, another one of Tiffany’s mad business ideas’ way. But sitting in the reception area of the hospital, I was seeing a world unveil itself to me that I hadn’t seen before. Here were people who were used to having the best and paying for it too. They were going to this hospital because it promised them a high-end, luxury experience when it came to having their babies. Where the hospital could offer incredible medical expertise, gourmet meals and luxury hospital suites for mothers in labour, I could suddenly see something that it didn’t have – and that there was a need for. The woman sitting in the corner, idly flicking through photos of her latest holiday to the Maldives on her iPad. The woman who had just walked through the revolving doors, a neat little pregnancy bump encased in a Gucci minidress. A couple, both glancing anxiously at their Rolexes and scribbling down notes in their leather-embossed Smythson notebooks . . . They all needed something more.
These were people who were used to having everything they ever wanted at the click of their fingers. But where was the person who could help them when it came to preparing for their baby? Where was their own personal baby expert, who could advise on everything to do with becoming parents – from what baby equipment to buy and where to luxuriate on their babymoon to which obstetrician would hold their diamond-encrusted hands and make them feel safe?
These people needed a Mummy Concierge. They needed someone who was, essentially, their PA for parenthood. And as far as I could tell, there was no one in the world doing it right now. But there was one person, sitting not far away from them, determined to make it happen . . .
* * *
My first appointment with Sara, the fertility expert recommended by my friend Tara, came and went in a whirl. We were ushered into her office and the first thing that hit me was how ‘unmedical’ it all felt. Sara’s office was more akin to what you might imagine the office of a fashion editor of a top women’s magazine to be like. Huge vases full of pregnant-looking peonies were dotted around the room, their delicious scent filling the air. Immaculate watercolours hung on the wall – splashes of muted pinks, blues and greens displaying pregnant stomachs and elegant smiles. An enormous glass desk dominated the room, with a vibrant pink lever-arch file the only thing cluttering it.
Rather than the haggard-looking, tired physician I had expected, Sara looked as though she had just stepped out of Charles Worthington. Her red hair bounced around her shoulders and her silk blouse looked as though it had been plucked from a recent issue of Vogue – I’m pretty certain I caught Patrick drooling. But there was a professionalism about her that I immediately respected. She welcomed us, offered us a cup of coffee and then spent the next 70 minutes just talking. She asked us everything – what we had tried so far, what tests we had done, why other doctors had said we had a problem. Then she read through our notes and then re-read them. She called in her secretary and arranged blood tests and scans, all with the efficiency of someone who really understood and knew what she was doing. She was a woman in control and this was exactly what we needed. Not at any point during our first meeting, or in the countless others that followed, did she ever let us believe that we couldn’t have a baby.
What followed were months and months of every test you could imagine. I had a HyCoSy (where you sit spread-legged in a doctor’s chair whilst they push water up through your fallopian tubes in the hope of clearing them). The pain was so unbearable that the nurse whose hand I was holding actually yelped as I squeezed it to counteract the burning agony I was experiencing in my stomach.
Next came the Clomid tablets. These tiny little tablets are taken every day and ‘trick’ your body into increasing a certain hormone that makes your body release more eggs. The surge of hormones was so strong, one minute I was laughing uncontrollably at X Factor and the next, I was a crumpled heap of tears on the floor because we had run out of cat food. I had numerous transvaginal ultrasounds where a probe is inserted via your vagina, and underwent more than four attempts at intrauterine insemination (IUI) – where your partner’s sperm is placed inside your uterus by a doctor in the hope it increases the number of sperm to reach the fallopian tubes and subsequently increases the chance of fertilisation. Nothing worked. And I got very good at crying.
It all took its toll on our relationship. No meal could be had without discussing fertility treatments. We no longer laughed at toddlers causing trouble when visiting friends, instead sighed inwardly and gave each other a look that became our constant: this wasn’t going to happen for us, we just had to accept it.
Patrick wasn’t immune to the testing either. He regularly had to go to the fertility specialist and was directed to a small room where he looked at dog-eared porn magazines and tried to ‘produce’ some samples that could later be tested. The humiliation of having to do this – as has since been confirmed to us by numerous friends who had fertility treatment too – is beyond explanation. Walking out of a room and handing a nurse what is essentially a test tube of sperm, whilst a man in the next-door cubicle does the same, is a dent to any male ego.
The arguments between us became more frequent and more brutal. I was convinced Patrick was looking at me in a new, dull light. I was no longer his wife and potential mother of his babies. I was a failure. Unable to produce an heir. I was tainted. It’s worth noting here that Patrick NEVER felt any of these things. In the moments when I cried myself to sleep and confessed my fears to him, he would hold me tight and reassure me strongly that he never felt this way about me. In his mind, I was going to be the most incredible mother some day – it was just going to take us a while to get there.
As is the case when something happens that I can’t cope with, I turned on my ‘journalist’ mode. Nights on end, I sat up googling and researching everything there was to know about fertility treatment. I read sob-inducing stories of women who were never able to become mothers and of mothers who lost their babies. Everywhere I looked, I saw women desperate to become mothers who were struggling like me.
Looking back, I know that this is the moment motherhood became all too real to me – because it was the first time I was actually faced with the prospect that I might never experience it. One night, whilst Patrick slep
t feverishly next to me, I pressed ‘play’ on my fertility hypnotherapy podcast (research had led me to believe that it might help) and heard the therapist say the words, ‘help you to become a mother’.
It wasn’t an impressive or distinct statement, but as I heard it, something clicked inside of me. I reached for the biro I always kept on my bedside table and scribbled down the words ‘mummy help’ on the back of an ASOS receipt. Then, as swiftly as that thought occurred, I forgot about it and downed another Clomid tablet.
Looking back, I suppose in that moment my brain had clicked again onto something wonderful, but my heart wasn’t ready to digest it yet. I had realised that mothers out there needed help. I wasn’t a doctor so couldn’t help people get pregnant, but maybe I had something else I could offer.
Unbeknown to me, the idea of The Mummy Concierge had just been born.
Chapter 3
At this point in my journey to motherhood, it was over a year since we had met Sara. During that time, I had been through various rounds of IUI, taken more than 48 pregnancy tests, spoken with numerous fertility doctors and broken down in tears whenever I saw any pregnant or new mummy in the street. I wrote list after list about how life could still be good without being a mother.
Having had a horrific couple of months doing back-to-back fertility treatment, I was physically exhausted and Patrick and I both knew we needed a holiday to get away from it all and relax. A close friend of ours – knowing what we had been going through – offered us their farmhouse in Tuscany. When they sent us the photos, Patrick and I spent hours just gawping at them – the infinity pool that looked over the green and yellow Tuscan hills, the beamed kitchen with dried hydrangeas hanging from the ceiling, the covered terrace with vines heaving under the weight of the purple grapes . . . It looked perfect.
But the booking of our holiday also had a bittersweet twist to it. On the day we booked our flights, we also decided to put a halt to fertility treatments. My body (and my mind) had been put through too much and we were both exhausted from the emotional tiredness and unhappy expectations that met us every month when my period made an appearance. The cost of the fertility treatment was also adding up – so much so that I could see the pressure and stress on Patrick’s face whenever we received a letter with the hospital address emblazoned on the top. All in all, we felt as if we had been sucked dry, financially and emotionally. And it was time for it to stop.
I constantly worried that the stress of trying to have a baby would pull apart mine and Patrick’s relationship. Thankfully, it held strong, despite the fact that I had become obsessed with getting pregnant. Bit by bit, I was unravelling and losing myself. So, in February 2016, we stopped. Clutching another negative pregnancy test in my shaking, pale hand, I gulped away tears as I told him I couldn’t do it anymore.
‘Maybe we’re not meant to be parents? Maybe it’s just not supposed to happen to us?’ Patrick stroked my hair to calm me down.
The conversation about ending fertility treatment was probably one of the most emotional we had ever had. Despite knowing, internally, that it was the right decision, I battled, sobbed and cried as Patrick listed all the reasons we needed to stop.
‘Just look at your stomach, Tiff,’ he said carefully, pulling up my T-shirt to reveal a tummy that was the colour of a bruised plum due to all the hormone injections. ‘And then there’s us . . .’ He left the sentence hanging, knowing that I would understand what he was talking about without having to say any more.
We had definitely changed throughout the fertility process. Gone were the days when we would belly laugh at each other’s attempts at doing foreign accents or jump at any opportunity to do something spontaneous. Instead, we had been replaced by a couple who did everything by the diary – every appointment, every day of the month, was mapped out on our phones and in our diaries so that we knew when/if/how I was ovulating. Sex was no longer something we did for fun, it was now a pre-arranged, static event that happened for the pure purpose of trying to get pregnant. The arguments came thick and fast – I was obsessed with everything to do with babies and found myself unable to talk about anything else. Even on days when we went for a walk through Hyde Park to clear our heads, I would spot happy families or newborn babies being pushed around in prams, and end up in a fit of tears.
The blame also made an appearance at my more vicious moments, where I bandied words around, such as, ‘Go and find someone who CAN give you a baby’ or ‘Maybe it’s you’, followed by a challenging stare meant to make Patrick feel inferior and the reason for our troubles. The sad fact is, looking back now, it was neither of our ‘fault’. It’s something I remain very passionate about, that infertility should never have a finger pointed at one person in a couple. Blame and resentment is the one thing that can kill a relationship – but especially a relationship where getting pregnant is at the forefront of the couple’s minds. The only way Patrick eventually managed to convince me to stop with the fertility treatments was to promise me we could register under the NHS for IVF. We knew that having IVF on the NHS was likely to take a lot longer (due to the huge waiting lists) so we decided to take a break for six months and hopefully by the end of those months, we would get a call from the NHS, telling us we could start.
The day we booked the holiday, Patrick headed off to his office and after answering a few work emails, I decided to start sorting through my ‘holiday wardrobe’ in the hope of mustering up some enthusiasm about our Italian getaway in a few weeks’ time. Goodness, that sounds so spoilt, but I have to acknowledge that there was a sadness there too. We had stopped all treatments and my dreams of becoming a mother seemed to have had a full stop put next to them. As I picked up a little summery dress to throw into my suitcase, I pulled it across my stomach and breathed in deeply, making my tummy protrude and look as if I was pregnant. It was as though I was punishing myself, saying, ‘You could have been pregnant on this holiday and looked like this . . . but you’re not.’
I knew my period was due to arrive whilst in Italy, so rather than delay the inevitable, I decided to quickly do a pregnancy test to be sure. There was not one single iota of my being that thought I was pregnant. The sole purpose of me doing that test was so that I wouldn’t spend the first couple of days in Tuscany having the occasional ‘hope’ that my period might not arrive. I wanted to be organised and devoid of disappointment, so I quickly peed on the stick and then went back to my packing. Two hours later, and my suitcase was full. I’d also managed to spill the entire contents of a red nail varnish on the white carpet (Patrick was going to go mad!) so I quickly rushed into the bathroom to grab some tissue in the hope of mopping it up. Seeing the pregnancy test on top of the loo cistern, I grabbed it idly, glancing at it quickly whilst simultaneously unravelling loo roll from the holder for the nail varnish.
I then collapsed on the bathroom floor.
The test was one of those slightly newer brands that tells you a) if you ARE pregnant (with a very obviously, digitally typed-out ‘pregnant/not pregnant’ announcement) and b) works out how pregnant you are in weeks. Mine read as follows:
Pregnant. 4–6 weeks.
My first thought was How? As far as I could remember, our sex life had gone down the drain having decided to stop fertility treatment. We had been so used to scheduling sex by the clock that we had actually been enjoying just getting into bed and going to sleep, rather than checking our diaries or having me emerge from the bathroom waving an ovulation stick. Yup, sex had become a process rather than something we lost ourselves in and, as such, we had forgotten the positives of it and actually enjoyed, er, not having to do it!
However, miracles do happen. And in our case, they obviously had.
My next thought was: Do I really want this? I know that sounds strange coming from someone who had been trying for a baby for so long, but when it actually happens, your mind does strange things. Suddenly I was pining for the life I had left behind – the boozy Saturday nights sitting in a friend’s garden in t
he summer, the tight-fitting jeans that showed off my stomach, the ability to just jump on a plane or visit friends abroad without having to plan. Your brain really does do strange things when you find out you are pregnant and I’m not afraid to admit it. But it’s only now, on reflection, I can see why I was thinking things like this: I was scared. Petrified, even. Here was something I had been longing for, for so long, and it had actually happened. I was scared of how life was going to change. Scared in case something went wrong with the pregnancy. Scared how Patrick would react. Scared I might not be a good mother. Scared in case the baby wasn’t healthy . . . It was at this precise moment I now realise I ‘became a mother’. Why? Because when you become a mother, fear engulfs you. You are suddenly in charge of a brand-new, innocent and fragile life and keeping that little one alive and healthy and happy is your responsibility.
An hour later and I had managed to compose myself a little. I still had mascara stains under my eyes and I had peed on four more pregnancy tests. I sat in our tiny little spare bedroom (God knows why I chose this room for our announcement, but it seemed the most comforting in its tininess), waiting impatiently for Patrick to arrive home. All five pregnancy tests were now positioned under a pillow on the bed and I’d been googling ‘How to tell your husband you’re pregnant’ for the last 40 minutes. In the end, I downloaded a pregnancy app and calculated my due date (7 May 2017) before taking a screenshot on my phone.
Secrets of the Mummy Concierge Page 2