IVF OFFERS DREAM OF A NEW LIFE
How it felt to hope for a miracle that never came
Sometimes it takes barely a moment for a lifetime of dreams to be shattered.
For me and my husband Jonny that moment came in 2013, in the London consulting room of a gynecologist we were seeing to investigate excruciating abdominal pain and ask why I was struggling to get pregnant.
Frantic googling had me convinced I had endometriosis, a condition affecting the womb lining that makes it difficult to conceive, but I thought it could be fixed. “I think,” the consultant said, “that you are going to find it impossible to have children naturally.”
It has taken four years, tens of thousands of dollars on gruelling, fruitless cycles of IVF, and endless soul-baring conversations for Jonny and I to come to terms with the fact that we may never hold our own baby.
No one can prepare you for the anger, regret and thwarted dreams that come with infertility, particularly if you grew up assuming you would be a mother one day.
I met my wonderful husband Jonny when I was 27, and we were the golden couple: madly in love, great family, friends and flourishing careers. Neither of us questioned that we would have a family. Even the fact that I’d had years of heavy periods and stomach pains that had required endless hospital investigations didn’t worry me. I assumed, following our marriage in November 2012, that I would become pregnant immediately.
So when, after three months of trying, nothing had happened I was already worried. Call it instinct but we made a private appointment pretty quickly, a decision that led to the bombshell that I had endometriosis so severe the cysts were everywhere.
It turned out to be the least of my problems: further investigations revealed that, at 30, I had the egg count of a 50-year-old. It meant the only way forward was IVF, yet while this was daunting I was oddly full of hope: I had read so many uplifting stories. Jonny was equally positive.
That all changed when, two weeks after our first round of IVF in April 2014, I had a negative pregnancy test and my dreams came crashing down.
Several horrendous days followed as Jonny and I tried to come to terms with the fact that the magic wand of IVF had not produced our baby, not to mention “un-telling” family and friends. I remember finding Jonny in a heap on the floor as he spoke to his mother on the phone. It was only the start: five further IVF attempts followed, at a cost of more than $70,000, all of them resulting in naught. Over three years, my life shrunk to the two weeks between implantation and test, and the undulating cycle of paranoia, hope and fear that goes with it.
Some days I struggled to leave the house, unable to cope with the prospect of seeing a pregnant belly.
My hopes were really crushed by the third failed cycle of IVF, this one at a wonder clinic that promised to double our chances courtesy of their fancy drug regimen. They collected one egg and it didn’t even fertilize.
That’s when I fell to pieces. I felt like I’d failed as a woman, as a wife, as a daughter: as an only child, I wanted to give my parents a grandchild. I know Mom avoids the children’s section in department stores, though she would never tell me this herself.
I felt I was letting Jonny down. Usually we were able to prop each other up, but this time he admitted he wanted to throw in the towel — an admission that broke me.
We are lucky. Our struggle brought us closer and our marriage remains not just solid but happy.
Our compromise was that we would stop the IVF when I turned 35. That took us to six attempts, the last in July last year, which ended with another failed pregnancy test, six weeks before my 35th birthday. It was the end of hope. Ultimately I still hope a miracle might happen. But if it doesn’t, whatever route we take to become parents, we do have choices. Above all, we can choose to be happy.