IVF was torture – and I was one of the lucky ones
As National Fertility Awareness Week begins, recalls the roller-coaster of gruelling treatment that produced her daughter
Inever really yearned for a baby – until it seemed as if it might not happen. In my twenties, I was too busy travelling around the world for my career in overseas aid. I’d always assumed babies would happen when I met someone. Nick and I met in a pub in Covent Garden. He was 36, a lawyer and a passionate West Ham fan; I was 35 and hated football. On an early date he took me to a match. When they scored, we shot to our feet en masse, but the goal was disallowed, and I was the only one still standing, still cheering. Searing embarrassment for Nick, but by then we were already soulmates.
We bought a house, back when you could, in leafy Chiswick. It was well before the wedding that we started trying for a baby. But after a couple of years, I was lurching towards 40 and still sitting in airport lounges. I felt a rising panic that I would never feel that love, never hold a small hand in mine and walk to the park to feed the ducks. My husband felt the longing just as keenly.
We had a raft of tests. All were inconclusive, but they diagnosed polycystic ovaries, which suggested possible impaired fertility, and IVF was recommended. Thus began 18 months of gruelling fertility treatment, which was to leave both of us emotionally ragged.
I’ll never forget injecting myself for the first time. I can still see the needle hovering between my slippery thumb and finger, telling myself to shoot it at my stomach – now! I continued to inject myself with a drug known as Gonal-F every day for a fortnight. The alchemy produced a batch of eggs, which I could feel hanging like grapes off my ovaries.
Ten eggs were harvested, five of which were successfully fertilised. Our consultant slid three top-grade embryos into my womb, pointing out the four-celled grey blobs on a TV monitor. Nick and I were already building sandcastles with them. The two-week wait to see if it had worked was when the emotional anguish really kicked in. I spent hours lurking in IVF online chat rooms, finding myself seeking out loss – because that’s how I could best torture myself.
By the end of it we were both defeated, resigned to the worst. And yet, amazingly, we were pregnant.
But our euphoria at the sight of the blue line was short-lived. There are no crueller words in the distressing world of IVF than: “I’m sorry, there’s no foetal heartbeat.” An abortion followed – a D&C, which stands for in French so dainty, on the clinic’s invoice so grotesque – the evacuation of reproductive products.
The next two cycles didn’t work, and by the time we approached the fourth, over a year later, our days were dark indeed. We were fortunate in that our relationship was relatively new and we were still pretty smitten. There was no blame, just a shared sadness and a continued hope, albeit one which was waning.
IVF consumed me. I felt myself turning inwards, curling up in a ball and shutting down in self-defence against its onslaught. Nick was just as shattered: he felt impotent, wishing he could take the needles for me.
It was our fourth cycle that was successful. The daughter we’d longed for was born and we were puffed up with happiness. I dumped all the memories of the fertility treatment, and threw myself into the joy and toil of a new baby. It’s not even as if I ached for a second child. A friend told me that the sight of mums with two children in the park would tear her apart, but that was not my experience; I felt blessed to have one. Yet, somehow, we found ourselves back at the clinic.
On the first go I was 12 weeks pregnant, had marvelled at the hands and feet during a recent scan, and then, one lunchtime, I bled. The sonographer called me in for a scan and gently confirmed the death of our baby. Our final two cycles are lost to me; I have no recollection of them, and neither does my husband. With IVF, I think you need to know when to stop, and at the age of 42 that’s what we did.
I know that we were among the lucky ones. My daughter is a teenager now but sometimes when she walks into a room and smiles, I still find myself gazing at her in wonder. IVF fails 75 per cent of the time; all sadness should be for those who endure it and then remain childless.
This week is National Fertility Awareness Week, run by the National Fertility Network, which supports couples who struggle to become parents. I’ll be supporting them with proceeds from my new novel. draws on my personal experience of IVF, but it’s not my story. This has been my story.