I never foresaw that I would be childless. Never imagined that I could not only survive this but thrive. When we met, life was full of summer light. We talked and laughed, and my life opened like a flower. You gave me thirty-two red and white roses for me birthday and told me with some fear you didn’t want kids – you had a dislocated chromosome; it was genetic, and your sisterhad a disabled daughter. You didn’t want to lose me. I understood, kind of, and surely all would be well. Aren’t all men unsure until the baby arrives? Time and trust would change things. We were in the glow of new love. We were so right together – a dream come true. We had protected sex, at your brother’s space, my flat, your flat, on mini breaks to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris, Ireland, in our new place.
As I reached thirty-six, I worried that dreams were narrowing. The first bloom of love was fading. You reluctantly agreed to visit Mr. Mukerjee at Guy’s Hospital Genetics Department, the expert in chromosomal abnormalities, and he reassured us, even though he knew our ages. “Translocation of chromosome 15 and 10 is rare - you are a genetic pioneer.” He told us, “Pregnancy is a risk. A little more than Downs. But there are tests, terminations. Go ahead. Have a football team of kids. ”In Costa outside guys hospital, I was distracted by relief and hope, someone took my bag. My phone, keys, diary, cards - regular life stolen.
We went for couples counselling, and you admitted to me that you feared you would leave me if we did have a child and feared you would leave me if we didn’t – you would not be able to cope with my disappointment. I was warned. I was furious, what about my hopes and dreams? You said, withdread, “If we stop using condoms, it will happen first time.” “Come on!” I said, “You are my man.” He must have loved me still, then, he wanted to make me happy at least. I purchased and used a thermometer, an ovulation kit, KY, Tracy Cox’s‘Hot Sex’. We had anxious sex, timed sex, World Cup sex in a hotel room, after Croatia beat Japan. But nothing happened, and though there was little chance now at 38, I was in the tunnel and could not see it.
He agreed we could have more intervention. I visited Mr. Muweze, a gynecologist at a private hospital near Gatwick Airport. “You just need to have sex three to four times a week…” and a prescription for six month’s supplies of Clomid for fast-track egg production. I took the Clomid. We had sex twice a week, that was the absolute maximum. You took a sperm test: yours were lazy.
We went to Anne Summers for crotchless underwear and call girl stockings. After each time we had sex, I lay with legs up the wall while you went downstairs for a beer.
Gradually light faded as the tunnel got thinner, darker, we really stopped talking about much else. At a party, a woman laughed and flicked her long hair at you, and of course you loved it. I said, “She looks horsey”. You played badminton with her and others. I was unnerved by her attraction to you, but come on, you would never leave me for her.
We had uninspired sex in the lounge, the study, the hotel. Further and further we headed down what is called the IVF route. We met Professor Terenisi, controversial pioneer of ICSI, down protocols, up protocols, monitoring, sperm cleaning in Harley Street. For £15,000, he could enable us to create a sweet baby or even two. Afterwards we sat in a wholefood café, overwhelmed by the thought that we would have to buy conception. We ate poppy seed cake blankly, had a depressed chat about adoption.
Raynes Park Clinic was much cheaper, less invasive. We talked with Professor Gita Nargund, pioneer of minimal IVF. You wrote cheques and we signed the forms from Human Fertility and Embryology Authority. These were the things you and I, both childless, and considering conception in public, were obliged to consider:
You had never had a child taken into care
You had never had treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
Social services have never been involved with you over the care of your (NONE) children
I consented to the use of my eggs in creating an embryo in vitro
I consented to the freezing of my embryo’s if appropriate
I had never had a child taken into care
I had never had treatment in a psychiatric hospital
We came home with one vial of Buserilin, thirty thin needles. We kept the Buserilin in the fridge and each night at eight, I went into the study, put on my hypnotherapy for conception cd and stuck a needle into my abdomen, while you, afraid of needles, escaping into watching football in the lounge, or onto the badminton court.
Over the next two weeks, I had three ultrasound scans, three blood tests for HIV, Hepatitis B and C and after the up protocol my eggs were ready for removal.
We booked into the Holiday Inn Express London City, the day before the London Fertility Clinic appointment at 9am. I trimmed my eyebrows with a razor, something I had never done before, and drew blood.
In the waiting room, there were magazines with think pieces on parenting. On the walls, photos of twins and triplets on pink. While you went into a locked room and jerked into a jar to porn, I took off my pants, put on a gown, lay down, open legs for the anaestethist. “We will mildly sedate you and then remove your eggs.” I was in oblivious hope. I would be one of the 20%, I’d have miracle babies. I came round, a nurse brought me sugary tea and then you drove us home, in silence, through the snow in the dark of winter.
Five days later, we made a phone call to a Dutch embryologist. “It’s good news. Three embryos of good quality tucked up in the petri dish. One has gone to blastocyst!”
A Philippine nurse inserted these three with a pipette. On the ultrasound machine, I watched three embryos fly up in to the black and white sky like shooting stars. We drove home through slush. I lay on the back seat, legs up the window. I injected one vial of viscous progesterone into my thigh with thirty thick needles to thicken up the womb wall, make it cozy, and thirty progesterone pessaries, rectally. I sat on the loo and did a pregnancy test. Watched as the one line appeared. I was not pregnant. There was sadness and a bit of relief. Perhaps we could return to our life as adults.
But I was obsessed, and the clinic advised us to go for another bout .We did it all again, further and further away from true intimacy with each other. I asked you for a penny for his thoughts, and you said there were none. Your friend David phoned and I was so sad
“Ah Pet,” he said.
I put fairy lights around the lounge for your birthday, baked you a cake, but you were not a child. You went to the gym, and to badminton, stayed chatting with the horsey woman, kissing her. When you said you were leaving me for her, I was so far down in the dark that I did not see it coming. You left me, and I felt the house and our life slide into the hill. I started a prescription for Sertraline and Zopiclone.
I got into therapy and six months later, after a grief stricken 40th Birthday, I noticed small chinks of light. I flew to the US on a lone adventure, without you. I met new people, did new things. One glittery July afternoon, I swam in the wild Atlantic Ocean, through huge waves, with new friends, and I finally and suddenly knew I would survive waves of grief, and return to shore, to start anew and find, step by step, a different world. Life could have meanings, beyond what I had imagined.
Some years have passed now since I was in the tunnel of our relationship and dreamed of child, and I have mourned my losses, and celebrated life fully in ways previously unseen. I am a non-mother; instead, I have become something other - someone powerful, kind, recovered, together.
Julie Everton
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash