Barren Mare

Throat Monster

It's funny how things change. A few months ago, if you'd asked me if I minded being around pregnant women and babies, I would have said, "Och, no. No problem. Yes, it makes me a little uncomfortable, but not so bad that I have to excuse myself from the baby shower or anything."

Today I went to see Doctor Best Friend. She's not really my friend. I realise I never explained how she came to be designated as such. You see, I like this woman. She's nice, really nice, and I might even have something of friend crush on her. She's been great about giving me all the preliminary tests as soon as I asked, she's a dab hand with the old needle, and she doesn't blow smoke up my ass about "just relaxing". After our first meeting, I decided that she was going to be my new best friend in the sense of getting me where I wanted to be in terms of treatment. And so she has been.

Doctor Best Friend asked me to come in for a sort of check up after all the thyroid carry-on and to make sure our referral to the Ass-Con Centre had gone ahead OK.

As I sat waiting, a woman with an adorable baby in a big pram came out. I helped open the door so she could manouever the behemoth of a buggy out into the hall. The baby stared up at me with big googly eyes. The mother snapped at me that she could manage. I sat down feeling superfluous.

Two seconds later, a hugely pregnant woman waddled past and took a seat for her appointment.

It's really odd when you can identify the exact moment when the bands that have been holding your heart and hope and courage in place suddenly give way. I felt an elastic pinging sensation in my chest.

Doctor Best Friend called me in. We chatted about the appointment in October, and she suggested E. get tested again. We discussed going private instead of waiting on the NHS, and she told me that the Ass-Con Centre gave good care, that they were good people. But we agreed it would be best to have E.'s swimmers checked out again before October, so he and I will have a clearer picture as to what we might be dealing with there.

Then, as we were winding up, she asked me about work. Work sucks right now, I said, and all of a sudden I got the worst case of throat monster- you know, where you nearly choke to death on the tears that are rising up on you, the lump in your throat swelling out of proportion, your eyes watering.

Maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself, but I realised afresh how utterly miserable I have been lately- at work, at home, in my sleep. I looked into Doctor Best Friend's endlessly kind blue eyes, and I wanted to cry and cry and cry. Everyone around me is pregnant, everyone else gets to be a mother. I want it to be me, I want my turn, I want for E. to be a father, I want us to be a family.

My wanting is like a monster of its own. Now I come to understand that while it has grown quietly, it has grown. It has sharp teeth and strong claws. And it has slowly reached up and taken hold of my life in a vice-like grip. I am strangling on the force of my wanting things that I cannot seem to have. The monster has me by the throat now, and I fear it will be so hard, so very hard to ever shake it loose if things don't go our way.

I didn't cry. I didn't say anything about how I was feeling. I pulled myself together. I made some lame comment about that's life, and anyway I have a great support system on the Internet blah blah blah.

I really don't think she would have minded if I cried, but I hate crying in front of other people. I prefer to do it in the privacy of my own shower, or under the covers.

And I realised if I started, how hard it was going to be to stop. I only had a 10 minute appointment, but I already have enough tears inside me to last the rest of my lifetime.

Attack of the Infertile Tomatoes

My mother and I had a long telephone call on Monday night. Despite the distance, we do manage to speak at least once every couple weeks, thanks to my discovery of an insanely cheap international telephone provider.

Do you know, it costs less for me to phone my parents all the way across the Atlantic Ocean than it does to phone across town via my normal telephone line. That's typical of Rip-Off Britain. Every time E. and I see those wanky ads about how many people are "returning" as customers to Bastard Telecom, we roll our eyes. I mean, strictly speaking, we did return to BT when we moved house last year- but it's not like we had a CHOICE in that, did we? No, we did not.

But I digress, and I've not even begun.

My mother and I talked of many things, of boats, kitchen renovations and of my tomato plants. She wanted to know how the tomatoes were doing.

You see, this is the first year I have had a garden. When my parents were here a few months ago, there was a plant sale for charity at work. Actually, it was more like a plant bun-fight, as we say here, with people grabbing whole boxes of sweet peas and geraniums, trampling colleagues in the rush. Two women nearly came to blows over some unspecified herb. And I came home from work with some nice little tomato plant cuttings.

My mother took one look at the little container I had picked out, and shook her head. "We're going to need something.. a bit bigger."

She was right. I now have many-vined tomato plant monsters, sprouting ample green arms up the wall, spilling over the large pot, and threatening to take over the entire patio. It's like Garden of Regime Change. Pretty soon the neighbouring poppies will start marching and waving signs saying "No Blood for Soil".

Anyway, I remarked on how the plants had yellow flowers, but no actual tomatoes.

"Hmm," said my mother, the much more experienced gardener. "Sounds like you need to do a little pollination assistance."

She went on to explain that although tomato flowers should be self-fertilizing, this may not be happening. No pollination, no tomatoes.

"Yeah, I know how that is." I said, a touch bitterly.

The solution, she said, was to try a little manual pollination with a Q-tip.

I traipsed out the following day, and gamely probed at the little buds. Further Googlage suggests I should just try shaking them to loosen things up. But I don't think that's going to help-it's mighty windy at times here, and surely there has already been enough shaking to pollinate this small army of tomato plants. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Infertile tomatoes. Figures.

At least my research confirmed my suspicions that those plants are up to no good. To see what I mean, check out this.

Pencil me in

As part of the whole Sperm Meets Egg Action Plan this month, E. e-mailed me at work this morning to ask me for a note of "the crucial dates".

Why, you may ask? So he can put them in his diary, of course, or more specifically, his Palm Pilot thingee, which will chime repeatedly when the appointed time arrives. His particular diary-gadget has an alarm sound like a mini British fire engine. Nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw. Time to impregnant girlfriend! No doubt that will make him snap to it like a lean teenage greyhound at the track.

Of course, I had to explain to him for the gazillionth month running that whilst I am quite regular, and whilst I do my best to monitor the situation, I am not blessed with the second sight as to the exact moment at which I will ovulate. If I plan on it happening early, like Day 9, it will invariably be delayed until Day 15. And vice versa.

So I got out the calendar and counted out the days, feeling frustrated and a bit aggravated that our sex life is reduced to appointment slots in a Palm Pilot, but resigned to the inevitable. Guessed which weekdays looked likely, so he could plan on commuting that week. E-mailed to say he needed to be here from X August to X August.

In response:

E: I don't understand. What days do you mean?

Mare: How is what I sent you in any way unclear? I need your presence, and more specifically your most enthusiastic sperm, on X day of the week this month. Followed by the next day and the next day and the next day. I might ovulate before the last date mentioned, but you'd better plan on being here EVERY DAY UNTIL THAT HAPPENS.

(OK, I didn't mention the sperm part of it. I'm sure the IT guys get enough yuks out of my emails as it is).

Telephone call from E. this evening.

E: Listen, I don't think I can do every day/night that week. The commute, you know, the early morning starts. It's a killer.

Is this the appropriate juncture to mention that our living arrangements suck? I honestly don't know what we will do if we actually do manage to have a baby, how we'll juggle two jobs and two flats in two cities. E. and I have discussed this ad nauseum. We have been over it about ten million times, round and round in the same endless vicious circle.

Commuting is really not an option. We've both done it once upon a time, and trust me when I say that whichever one of us was doing it would lose the will to live in about two months.

Especially in winter, which is particularly bad. Have you ever experienced winter in Scotland? It's dark almost all the time. At Solstice time it doesn't get fully "light" until about 9 or 10 am, and it gets dark again at about 3 pm. It's damp, it's dreich, it's cold. You wake up in the dark, go to work in the dark, come home in the dark. Trying to do the hour and half plus commute each way in winter is a one way ticket to depression, insanity, death. I do know a couple of people that do it, but not one of them is over 25. All that keeps them going are the same youthful reserves that allow them to drink eight pints of lager and go clubbing on weeknights. But if they keep it up, they will have that grey, hollow-eyed look that all commuters in Scotland eventually get.

The obvious answer would be for me to give up my job and move to the Other City, but both E. and I loathe that place with a fiery passion. We definitely don't want to bring up a family there. He only stays there because he has a job (which he more or less dislikes) and it's not easy for him to get another one. And I (more or less) love my job, or at least appreciate that as far as jobs go, it's (usually) good, with plenty of benefits and a very child-friendly attitude. All things considered, we both think it's lunacy for me to give up my job, especially since it's not clear if I ever will get to avail myself of that child-friendliness.

Living in the middle has potential, but not that much potential, since it would still be a commute, but this time for both of us. One of my colleagues who lives "in the middle" has a youngish baby, and she speaks longingly of moving back in. Not to mention that most of the soulless little breezeblock communities that make up much of the area of land between the two cities really don't appeal. We've looked many times, shuddered, and given up.

So here we are. Pencilling in times to be together for starting a family, when at the moment we aren't even able to be a full time family to each other. It gets me thinking about moving back to America, burning our boats and starting over. Despite the obvious attractions, neither of us can quite bring ourselves to pursue that step. And depending on the path our appointment in October takes us, we may have enough big steps to contend with at the moment, without taking on an international move.

Sometimes the only thing I am clear about anymore is that almost nothing is simple.

As Nature Intended

You know that Roy Lichtenstein print-the one that says "Oh my God, I forgot to have a Baby!"?

Well, according to Josephine Quintavalle, this sort of forgetfulness is at the very root of the causes of infertility.

For those of you not already familiar with some of the current ongoing debates about reproductive technology in this country, allow me to introduce Countess Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of "Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE)", a "public interest" group.

CORE should really be called Criticism of Reproductive Everything, because that is their basic stance. Quintavalle is an outspoken critic of IVF. "Everyone seems to think they have the absolute right to babies and that medicine can put it right for them if they can't," she complains.

She has been at the epicentre of legal challenges brought on behalf of CORE against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority including a really interesting preimplantation genetic diagnosis case which I will write about once I have done more background reading. But her remit seems to extend to commenting on as widely and obnoxiously as possible on all things reproductive.

In fact, the Countess of Asshats has said so many unbelievably infuriating and irritating things, there is enough material to keep me blogging for quite some time.

Let's start with the Ovarian Tissue Transplant case. 32 year-old woman, diagnosed with cancer has some of her ovarian tissue frozen prior to undergoing chemotherapy. Once she is well again, the tissue is replaced. She gets pregnant. No one is quite sure if her success was a result of the tissue treatment, since she did have one remaining ovary during the chemo. But whatever. It's nice news for her, and it may represent hope for a lot of women facing up to the possibility that cancer treatment will render them sterile.

In wades Quintavelle. According to her, this is all cause for concern. Quintavelle is worried! Very worried! Because this treatment may end up being used as "a lifestyle choice for designing when you want to have children." She has commented that "women should have children, "when Nature intended," in their mid-20s."".

Whoa! What a revelation. And to think all this time that I have been Iabouring under the misapprehension that nature will allow me to have children in my early thirties, or possibly even later. But I guess Mother Nature must be really pissed off with me for having the temerity to try to get pregnant now. If only I had known! Was there a memo or an e-mail or something? Did anyone else miss it, too?

Even if I had received the memo, I'm not sure what I would done about it, considering that during my mid-twenties I was trapped in a loveless marriage, obsessing over someone I couldn't have, working in a dead end job earning a pittance, friendless and alone, severely depressed and anorexic.

But hey, no worries. Because despite my utter utter selfishness in waiting until I was sane, solvent and in a secure and loving relationship (does all that constitute a "lifestyle choice"?) I now realise that all I need to do is have some ovarian tissue removed, frozen and transplanted later on. Hooray! Sign me up, cause that sounds like fun. Just the thing to enable me to carry on greedily pursuing my career and my goals in life, and defer having children until after menopause if I feel like it. Pass the Chardonnay!

I think most people do appreciate that all technology, including reproductive medicine can to some extent be dangerous, can potentially be abused. There are ethical problems that do want careful consideration and healthy debate. But, correct me if I am wrong here, I didn't get the impression that anyone would ever sign up for IVF as a part of an overall "lifestyle choice".

I wonder if Countess Quintavalle has any notion of the misery, the heartache, the stress- leading up to the point where a couple come to understand that if they want to pursue their dream of being parents, they require assisted conception. I somehow doubt it, sitting in her privileged sphere of judgmental self-righteousness. It seems to me what Quintavalle is really saying is that the only people with an absolute right to have a baby are the ones who get pregnant naturally. Like her. The rest of you women out there should also make sure that you have babies when Nature intended! What? Haven't got your act together in time? Infertile despite your youth for some other reason, like you simply don't ovulate? Well, in that case you are expected to suck it up. No medical treatment for you, you selfish/unworthy bitch, clearly you are not meant to be a mother!

All I can think of in response is that if you remove the "O" from Countess, it spells something extremely rude.

Gathering

I was lying in my hammock on Infertility Island as nightfall came. A peculiar stillness fell over the forest, and there was no sound apart from the low hum of bees in nearby tropical flowers, or the occasional gentle chortle of the bullfrog in the swamp. The moon started to rise, and I rocked back and forth, waiting for sleep.

Then I heard the sound of running feet. I swung myself out of the hammock, and stood up. In the distance, I could see shadowy forms, moving quickly down the hill. Torchlights bobbing in the darkness. And a persistant whisper across the island, growing louder by the minute.

As I stood there, I saw a young woman in a frayed bikini, running toward me. "Wait!" I called out to her as she swept by. "What's going on?"

"It's GetupGrrl. She's crying." she called over her shoulder, her voice already distant.

I found myself moving right after her. And as I ran, my feet re-tracing the well trodden steps to Grrl's hut, I saw others all around me. Throngs of women were emerging from the woods. Others were arriving from the beach. Even the watchtower was abandoned as the lookout descended the ladder.

At Grrl's hut, the crowd was so large I almost couldn't see the building. The front porch was covered in flowers, and offerings of floor cake. It was so quiet.

A familiar face emerged from the crowd and took my hand. As we stood vigil together, I saw more and more women arriving.

"Look," my friend said, clutching my hand tightly, and she pointed to the sky and the water. Parachutes were opening in mid-air, as new arrivals leapt from a low-flying plane. Just offshore, a small ship had arrived and made anchor, a raft prepared to bring more ashore.

"They can't all stay here," I whispered. "Some of them don't belong".

"They're here for Grrl. And I think they're allowed to stay as long as they are needed," my friend told me.

"What's happened?" I asked.

My friend shook her head.

"Bad news. It's bad news."

We were silent for a time.

Finally, I said quietly, "I really hope Grrl will be OK. Our beloved Grrl." The words caught on the lump in my throat. I looked around me, at the sea of faces, the torchlights flickering.

And all around me, the women mumured in agreement. Their voices carried across the water, over the hill, through the forest.

Our beloved Grrl.

One in six

Ah, statistics. Those little facts and figures that are somehow supposed to give meaning to our existence, barometers by which we can measure our role in the universe as compared to others. A number of which to pin hopes of success, or to indicate the chances of failure. Even if those numbers are distorted, or only apply to certain groups of people, or are based on some wonky research methods, isn't it just so reassuring that somebody has thought about it. Yes indeedy, a statistic tells us that somebody has gone out, investigated the situation and is reporting back on where we stand.

There are a lot of statistics relating to infertility, but the one that has stopped me in my tracks way before we even started trying was "one in six". As in an estimated one in six couples will have trouble conceiving. One in six translates into 17% (all you clever clogs out there may know that- I had to look it up. Math is not my forte.)

Now, what does that really mean (apart from imaging yourself as the odd pair out in a room with five pregnant couples)? How do I put that in a bigger context- more to the point, canI put that in context?

A little rummaging on Google reveals this:

* Out of 6,000 US solidiers who fought in Iraq, one in six suffer trauma disorders

* One in six adult Australians cannot read basic medical instructions, according to a United Nations development report launched in Sydney.

* One in six Americans use the wireless internet.

* One in six workers in the U.S. telecommunications industry has been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome.

* One in six High School Seniors admit to driving while high

* One in six UK workers put in more than 48 hours a week

* One in six households in the UK will be powered by windfarms

* One in six adults in the UK have a neurotic disorder

* One in six US prisoners are mentally ill (says Human Rights Watch in their 215 page report)

* One In six Americans is at risk from dangerous chemical accident exposure

So, living in the UK, I'm just as likely to be overworked, neurotic and powered by a windfarm as I am to be infertile?

I think the bottom line is that it shouldn't matter so much what the numbers say. But it's hard to get a fix on where you are, because people don't talk about it- so you never really get a sense of quite how many others around you are out there struggling. We celebrate pregnancy and birth- we hide away miscarriage and barrenness.

To E. and I, it feels like every other couple in Scotland who wants a baby has one (and even some that don't want one). Of course, if that were true, there wouldn't be such a long waiting list for fertility treatment. And maybe the numbers don't lie after all. But does that mean we've become...a statistic?

It's not free

Today I received the appointment card from the infertility clinic. Well, in reality, it's not just a clinic-it has a rather grandiose title but I'm not going to go into that. Let's just call it the Centre.

I'm pleased, in that it only took two weeks from us sending back the form for the Centre to get back to us. However, our appointment is not until October.

It seems a long time a way. I know that realistically, for the cash-strapped NHS, this is perhaps not that long a waiting list. I am further appreciative of the fact that if we enter the Centre's Assisted Conception programme (which henceforth shall be known as "Ass Con"), depending on the treatment we receive, the costs may be somewhat less than we might have had to pay if we lived in another country where infertility treatment may not have been covered by insurance.

What irritates me a little is when people describe treatments on the NHS as "free." Correction, people, NHS services are funded by the taxpayer.

Every month, a good little chunk comes out of E's paypacket, and mine. I don't really begrudge paying it, since despite the myriad of problems with socialised health care, it's always worked pretty well for me. I pay it, and I use it when I need to.

However I would point out that I don't need it very often. With the exception of a pap smear every three years and the tests I have received so far for infertility, in the ten years I have lived in Britain, I have been to the doctor a total of maybe four times. And still every month the money comes out of my paypacket. So in terms of what I have cost the NHS over the years versus what I have paid, I reckon they haven't done too badly.

Now, look, I know it's not maybe not that simple and there are a lot of complicated issues about the NHS. I know that the money I pay goes to keeping those services ticking over, in case I DO ever need to phone up my surgery for an appointment, etc, etc.

I am talking about the fact that until our infertility woes arose, I was a healthy young woman who put no additional strain on the NHS. I was employed, I paid taxes, and those taxes included National Insurance contributions. I will continue to pay those taxes as long as I work (and assuming we don't abolish the NHS altogether.)

So it's not "free". And there is a waiting list. And let us not forget that the Centre does in fact charge additional fees for Ass Con treatments like IUIs, plus up to £3,000 a pop for IVF.

Maybe I should start saving up.

My fault

Yessssss! Sweet Jesus Gay, I'm back.

In the end, I have had to McGyver an internet connection out of my 10 year old laptop, a paperclip, frog modem and a section of my small intestine. It's painfully slow, and all the fonts look funny, but it's at least a connection.

Yesterday I ran home at lunch time to phone my ISP to establish if the problem lay at their end. Cue Telephonic Abyss of Death. The automated voice that greets you when you ring my server is so disdainful and depressing, it makes you want to stick your head in the oven. As if infertility and a wonky internet connection aren't bad enough, you have to listen as Automaton drones through the options.

Press 1 to speak to somebody who knows nothing about your problem, press 2 to be told that we have lost all your billing details again, press 3 to go straight into the Seventh Ring of Hell.

Finally, after 20 minutes on hold, I got through to a slightly more animated drone- that is to say he actually was a person rather than a computer voice, but that was about the only difference.

He went away and goosed my line or whatever it is they do, and came back to report that it was my problem.

Noooo, I wailed. Are you sure? They say it's a 50% chance either way that the cause is male or female. It can't be meee!

Well, he went on to say, it's working fine on this end. Are you sure you're not using any birth control, like a firewall or anti-virus software?

Of course I'm not. I don't even own any birth control!

Well, could you check?

I wouldn't know where to look.

OK, go to your clitoris and click on "run"…

My WHAT?

Your clitoris. Your S-T-A-R-T button.

Look, pal, I'm running a Mac here. Leave my clitoris out of it.

With that our conversation came to a frosty end.

So, dear blog readers, I am still none the wiser as to the cause of my internet woes. I have cleared caches, checked settings, looked knowingly at systems logs, done the Hokey Pokey and turned myself around. An insanely expensive computer should work. It does not. E.'s friend, a reputed computer genius is coming out to look at it this weekend.

One thing is for sure, like it or not, I depend on the internet, my friends at my message board (also known as Camp Control Freak) and the blogosphere for my sanity. Without it, I realised I am alone with my thoughts and fears about what is happening to me, and to us as we struggle to get pregnant. That's OK some of the time, but quite daunting as a permanent prospect.

I wonder if the Apple helpline people would blame it all on me, too?

Disconnected

Disaster.

For no apparent reason, my home internet connection has up and died. Why why o why? An outage, perhaps? Gremlins in my computer? I am sitting in the local internet cafe, looking over my shoulder to make sure I don't bump into anybody I know, and looking for an answer. It's been down all weekend, and the server tech support is closed. Their web site indicates there is nothing wrong. All systems appear to be go on the computer, all the lights flashing as they should be, all the settings announcing "connected". But I am not.

This makes me intensely irritable. More so than I usually I am. It also makes me realise how dependent I have become on the blogosphere for my sanity right now. And how desperately alone I feel without it.

Standby

A little update...

The ever delightful lobster girl commented on my earlier post and mentioned OPKS. Had I ever used them?

The answer is yes. I did try OPKs for awhile but I kind of gave up for various reasons. Quite a lot of the time we have to just plan on E. coming through from the Other City during what we think will be "Fertile Goo Week". We have to block out a whole section of dates ahead of time on the calendar. If we try to do it on a piecemeal basis (like me phoning up and saying "hi honey, I'm about to ovulate")- inevitably he won't be able to get here. So OPKs don't help much there. Such is the insanity of our lives.

To be honest, I also gave up on the OPKS because I can ovulate anywhere from 9-16 days, and it was costing me a fortune to keep enough of the little fuckers on hand. Between that and the price of petrol driving back and forth- and we haven't even gotten to the expensive treatments yet.

However- and despite my earlier assertion that the opportunity had come and gone:

I did another mission later on tonight (denial, thy name is Mare) and fossicked out something that looked sorta kinda eggwhitey. Since my body appears to be wholly dedicated to the production of odd mucus at the moment, maybe it was encouraged to join the party.

So we went for it. I nearly choked to death on my own phlegm in the process, but hey.

Now I am left to wonder, did we time it right after all, or did we miss it?

The airline staff have just handed me a standby ticket and told me to wait in the lounge.