TRYING, GRIEVING, GROWING

When Martha Hayes found out it was highly unlikely that she’d be able to have biological children, she experienced an acute sense of grief and loneliness. Here, she shares the emotions she went through, and considers a possible new path to parenthood

Martha Hayes shares her own story of coming to terms with infertility

Your right ovary is very quiet,’ the doctor whispers. It seems an odd choice of words, as if my reproductive organs are a pair of music speakers that fluctuate between deafeningly loud and eerily quiet. But it is also, as I lie back with my legs in stirrups and a cold wand-like implement manoeuvring uncomfortably inside me, a gentle way of breaking the news I’m not ready to hear. She could have, after all, described my ovary as ‘empty’ or ‘inactive’. She could have come out with some reality show trite like, ‘I’m afraid it’s the end of the road.’ She could have simply been very direct, and that would have felt even more brutal. There is no good way to tell someone they are highly unlikely to have biological children. If there is, I’d like to hear it. I leave the appointment in a tearful daze, my husband helplessly reaching for my hand. There is still a tiny glimmer of hope. Isn’t there always, when it comes to infertility? My left ovary contains one follicle (which will typically release one egg) and the doctor wants to see if it responds to an oral fertility drug (stimulation may increase the number of eggs). I take the tablets, I go through the motions. But I know it’s a waste of time. IVF is a numbers game. To be a viable candidate for treatment, doctors are ideally looking for around 10 follicles across both ovaries. I’m familiar with the phrase, ‘it only takes one egg’, but this is ridiculous. A week later, one month after my 38th birthday, a blood test confirms I have the hormone levels of a woman approaching menopause. It might sound strange to someone who feels as desperate to conceive a child as I do, but the finality of the news is initially freeing. Because I’m exhausted. I’m beyond frustrated. And I’m humiliated. I’ve been trying to get pregnant for three years and in that time I’ve been fobbed off by medical professionals who don’t take my concerns seriously. I’ve heard it all, from ‘it’s probably just stress, you’re still grieving for your mum’ [she died in 2017] to ‘try holding your legs up in the air for 30 minutes afterwards.’

By the time we move to LA for my husband’s job in 2019, I’m naively hopeful that sunshine and clean living will work its magic. And if not, we’ll just do IVF, right? Because it’s ingrained in our society that IVF is the solution to every problem. If it doesn’t work (budget permitting), you can do another round. How I wish I’d been warned that IVF can be taken off the table as quickly as it appears on it.

It transpires, after some rigorous testing, that I have a ‘diminished ovarian reserve’. As anyone with ‘unexplained

infertility’ will attest, a legitimate diagnosis, however bleak, can be reassuring. It’s also deeply motivating.

I am compelled to control the few things I can. I swot up on egg health and I stop drinking alcohol and caffeine. I chuck out my beloved-but-toxic beauty products and stock up on so many supplements I could open a branch of Holland & Barrett.

So yes, three months later, when my efforts are confirmed to be futile, I’m exhausted. I silence pleas of, ‘There must be something they can do; can’t we get a second opinion?’ from family and friends. I’m done. Being told that I’m an ‘excellent candidate’ for donor conception is, initially, no consolation. I park thoughts of exploring alternative routes to parenthood because there is more important work to do. I need to grieve.

I start seeing a therapist who specialises in infertility and has personal experience of third-party reproduction. Immediately I feel validated and a lot less alone; eventually I’m forced to examine my own perception of motherhood. I ask myself why the prospect of never having a ‘biological’ child feels like a life sentence and hurts like a death. Is it inadequate that I’ve simply always imagined I would have my own children? Finally, I confront what I’m most afraid to admit. Since being left heartbroken by the death of my mum to cancer, I have clung on to the hope that having a baby would continue her genes and keep her spirit alive.

According to my therapist, my heart is having a tantrum. Emily Dickinson was on to something when she wrote: ‘The heart wants what it wants’. In my case, the heart isn’t getting what it wants so no wonder it’s throwing one hell of a wobbler. Anger is one of the nastiest side-effects of infertility. My bitterness lingers like a bad odour in conversations with well-meaning friends (most of whom are either pregnant or have babies or young children), or with my three older siblings (all of whom had children when our mum was still alive). Everybody wants to help; nobody knows what to say or do.

I find myself gravitating towards friends with fertility issues (for empathy) and friends without children (for perspective), but feel as if I’m in a miserable new category of my own making. It’s easy to fall down a shame spiral (‘Is this my fault? Have I done this to myself? Am I being punished for smoking and drinking too much in my 20s?’) and while I know I should avoid baby spam on social media, I find myself actively seeking it out when my self-esteem is at its lowest. I am personally affronted every time a pregnancy is announced, as if they’ve done it deliberately to wind me up.

The truth is, I don’t know who I am anymore. Because this certainly isn’t me. I’m not the fun-loving person who came off the pill three years ago with an optimistic shrug of, ‘What will be, will be,’ but I also don’t want to avoid baby showers or mute Whatsapp conversations out of fear that the green-eyed monster will eat me alive. Nor do I want to be the kind of wife who hysterically cries, ‘I’m sorry you married a dud!’ at her (very patient and loving) husband before telling him she’d understand if he wanted to trade her in for a 25-year-old. I’m so much better than that.

I want to appreciate what I have, rather than longing for what I don’t. A quote from the philosopher Joseph Campbell particularly resonates: ‘You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.’ If this journey has taught me anything, it’s how much I genuinely want to be a parent. There are other ways and means to achieve that and I should recognise I’m in a privileged position to be considering enlisting the help of a donor. It’s also a revelation – when infertility leaves you feeling out of control – to realise I do have a choice to make.

I acknowledge any niggling fears, from the petty (we’re falling behind our friends and when we eventually return to the UK, there won’t be room for us anymore) to the more poignant (my prospective children won’t be biologically related to my siblings’ children) and try to find humour in the darkness. I am grateful for my sisters; with one of them reminding me that ‘even when you have a genetic child, there’s no guarantee they won’t be a weirdo’.

I resolve to stop feeling resentful that I’ve been robbed of the future I imagined and try to embrace where this alternative route down a longer, winding road might take me. As women we have been conditioned for too long to believe that ‘first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby’ and that a life that doesn’t follow that pattern somehow has less meaning. But what if coming to terms with not having children is as transformative as parenthood itself? This knowledge feels powerful, like I’m armed with a secret weapon.

As the months go by, I throw myself into reading books about donor conception. It feels daunting and painful at times, so I’m struck by an analogy from my therapist, who says I’m dipping my toes in the freezing cold water and it will continue to feel uncomfortable until I know I’m ready to dive into the deep end.

When my mum was dying, she shared with me a notebook in which she wrote out her favourite poems.

On Children by Kahlil Gibran was in there, which gave me comfort because it made me appreciate how she had brought us up to be our own people and pursue our own paths.

‘Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.’ Picking up a book about egg donation, I discover this very poem on the opening page. And I think to myself, if that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.

‘ANGER IS ONE OF THE NASTIEST SIDE-EFFECTS OF INFERTILITY’