Barren Mare

Take a number. Get in line

I have, in my own quiet way, started taking a few tentative steps toward getting political about the issue of fertility treatment in this country. I would describe my recent efforts as baby-steps in that direction, but oh! The sweet sweet irony!

Even though I'm not still yet fully subsumed into the ART vortex, I feel as though I could write the first chapters of an entire book about the perils and pitfalls of negotiating fertility treatment on the National Health Service in Scotland. But I fear that would bore most of you rigid, and how can I blame you? Let's face it, I wouldn't be particularly intrigued about the finer points of socialised medicine either, were it not a matter I must confront on a seemingly daily basis.

Put briefly, the deal is this. In Scotland, the amount of funding for fertility treatment in each area is up to each local health board. And, for most areas, the policy is that for qualifying couples, up to three IVF cycles will be paid for by the NHS. The catch? One of the criteria to qualify is that the woman must be 38 or under. That doesn't sound so bad on the face of it, but factor in the waiting lists are currently now hovering at 3 to 4 years minimum, it basically means that if you haven't gotten started by the time you are 34, you're already screwed.

It doesn't mean that IVF is not available for women over 38. It is- but most clinics require it to be paid for out of pocket. Bottom line- there is no money and no resource to fund widely available NHS treatment. In other words, if you can afford it, you pay for it. If you can't, you remain untreated and childless.

And when people shake their heads and demand to know why it should be any other way, why IVF should be "free" to couples in need of treatment, I want to beat them about the head with the arm I rip off their body. I've discussed this briefly before, but the difference is now the subject irritates me intensely. It's not fucking "free", OK? Not for me anyway, the taxpayer.

Anyway, in light of all the high pitched wailing that now emits from Minsterial offices on high whenever there is a mention of the dreaded "population" crisis, somebody somewhere has suddenly woken up to the fact that there are plenty of people who would very much like to do their bit for the census statistics, if given half a chance. What's stopping them in many cases? IVF waiting lists. Cut off age of 38.

So now there's some talk about possibly raising the age limit for treatment to 40. What a revelation, a bolt from the blue! As I read of this in one of the local newspaper- a parochial pile of crap that frequently distorts and slants just about everything it touches- I spotted the name of a certain politician who apparently is working for campaigning for better fertility services in Scotland.

I e-mailed her with my views and some of our history. Among other things, I explained that for an infertile couple, the waiting times and expense don't begin at the stage of IVF- that there is plenty of aggravation and cost the minute you step onto the diagnostic path. Example- need an HSG before you can be eligible for IVF? Choice: Wait seven months, or pay £500. Seven months, which bearing in mind the IVF waiting lists and the age limits, may just be the nail in your ART coffin before you have even begun.

The response was immediate- yes, she was working on change. Yes, it was helpful to know of our experiences. Yes, she would take it forward-and could she speak to my doctor to get more insight into the processes? So I gave her Dr Ticktock's name. A week or so later she e-mailed me back to say she had left the doctor a message, and was still waiting to hear back from him.

To which I thought, "Oh, sister. Welcome to my world. Take a number. Get in line."

How to lose sales and insult customers

I've known for some time that the market on stupid comments is not solely limited to infertility, adoption or miscarriage. It's just that I tend to be more alive to the verbal barbs which are hurtful to someone in my situation, my soft emotional underbelly more easily pierced by a thoughtless remark.

However, in the Not-Infertility Related Sphere, today someone said something so gobsmackingly idiotic to me that I just had to share.

What happened is this: some years ago I was given a hardbacked copy of the novel Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. Taking place in 1843, it's the story of a 16 year old Canadian servant girl imprisoned for the brutal murders of her employer and his mistress. I had started reading it, got sidetracked by something else, and had never returned to it until now. The main reason I had kept it was because I loved the cover, the UK hardback version being particularly attractive, and it looked so nice on the shelf. Yes, I am shallow like that.

Anyway, I recently began reading it again, and this time, was completely engrossed. Over Christmas, I made my way, page by page, chapter by chapter, toward the gripping denouement. Until finally, lying awake at midnight with the low bedside light burning, I was almost at the conclusion. I was about to find out, or so I thought: did she do it? Was she innocent? Or was she insane? I slowly turned the page and...

AGGGGGH! The book was misbound. A whole section of earlier text was duplicated, and when the normal pages resumed, it was impossible to work out exactly what had happened, or what was said.

So, in the morning, we headed out to do some errands, and on our travels stopped off at a local bookstore- mainly so I could find a copy and have a quick skim of the chapter with the missing pages. This was accomplished as E. happily discovered the book he had been wanting for months, on sale. We were thinking of heading to the tillpoint to purchase this when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

It was an acquaintance/friend of a friend, who I knew from a few years ago at the university. Whom now, as it happened, was the manager of the bookstore. We exchanged vague pleasantries in the way of people who don't really know each other. I made some benign comment about how town was so busy, but the bookshop seemed pretty quiet.

"Thank God for that," he said, shaking his head, "We had people phoning up first thing this morning to see if we were open. Imagine!"

"Yes, well, it is a holiday today here. Guess a lot of people are still off work," I observed.

"I just don't get it," he went on, "I really don't get how people can think it's a good idea to go shopping right after Christmas like this. Like we all need MORE stuff. I see them coming in here, and I think, "crazy". People who go shopping on public holidays are just crazy."

Ahem. Now. This is, in some senses, quite an astute remark. There is perhaps something a little unseemly in the general mad, slavering rush to buy a bunch of frivolous junk in the sales, especially given the stark contrast with those who have just lost everything in one dark hour half a world away. Having worked in retail myself in the past, I also have considerable sympathy for the post holiday weariness of the shop worker.

But not exactly the kind of thing you would really expect a store manager to say OUT LOUD to a potential customer who, up until categorised as "crazy", had been about to amble up to the cash desk to part with some hard earned cash. Money which could equal BONUS for you, pal.

There was a pause, while I attempted to realign my jaw to the lower half of my face. Then I turned to E., gently took the book out of his hand, and put it back on the pile.

"You're right," I said to my former aquaintance, "It would be crazy to buy this today. Guess we won't. Let's go, E."

And we walked right out of the shop.

For some reason, I found it kind of refreshing to encounter someone being insulting about something else for a change. To realise, again, that people just say dumb stuff all the time, in a range of situations- their mouth opens, and tactless crap falls out. I don't know why- I will never know why. People are just. plain. stupid. C'est la vie.

The missing pages were really quite good, by the way.

Shudder

As always, I am touched by the kindness of so many of you, women who appreciate that a garden variety, bog-standard cycle with no particular prospects for success can nonetheless deliver a pretty potent kick in the teeth. I think there are a couple of reasons I felt it quite acutely this time, but that will have to wait until I have some time to blog at will and at length.

In the meantime, can I share something else that is distressing me? Not in the grand scheme of things, exactly, but it has given me pause on more than one occasion on this trip. I'm talking about Coach.

Have they have LOST their collective minds? Whither the classy little leather bucket bag? Wherefore the once proud sleek streamlined duffle?

I mean, really. The new designs make me *shudder*- as if my granny, once immaculately decked out in Chanel, had started parading around in a Juicy velour top with acid washed micro mini. If I wanted something made out of a quilted material, lined with fur in an ocelot pattern, then frankly, I would have just gone elsewhere. I know you can still get the good stuff, but it was far from in evidence on my recent retail tour of duty.

I despair. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Bad Telephone Manners

Like many jobs in this world, mine requires a certain amount of negotiation skills. I negotiate all day with people in my own company, and then I negotiate with people outside of it, who may not like what my company is doing. In those cases I often have to make lots of telephone calls where I either try to gently smooth things over, or more actively work on keeping the shit from hitting the fan. Or, if the fan has been hit, damage limitation.

This can, in its own way, be entertaining, and I do enjoy it. But I sometimes have trouble with doing business on the phone with people I don't know. To sum it up in a single sentence, I don't give good business phone.

Part of it is that I can usually tell when whoever I am talking to seems to be distracted. While I am trying to wrap my mouth around a complicated explanation, I can practically hear them doing other things- rustling their papers, drinking coffee, checking their e-mail, feeling up their secretary.

This disconcerts me. I find talking shop about complicated matters on the phone a little disconcerting at the best of times. I want to scream "FOCUS here, people, FOCUS!" And my tangled verbiage becomes even more tangled as I try to make my point.

Then the person at the other end lapses into a kind of unnerving silence, reduced to curt Uh-huhs, and Mmm-mmms. Or maybe I have just stunned them into submission with my use of big words in context.

Things are usually a little better if whoever it is phones me. Then it tends to be at a time when they are ready to talk, when their mind is clear and focused on the matter at hand. I try, whenever I am phoned unexpectedly, to give my full attention to the speaker. This is probably easier for me, considering I don't even have a secretary to feel up.

Yesterday,"Mrs Brown" phoned me. Heretofore, I've been dealing with Mrs Brown only in a very indirect sense about something. "Mrs Smith", the other person whom I had been dealing with up til now, was not good at returning my phone calls, and so I sometimes had to leave messages with Mrs Brown as an alternative, pleading for someone with a pulse to phone me.

The conversation went something like this:

"Hello, is that Ms Mare? It's Mrs Brown here from XYZ Ltd. I'm picking up this matter from my colleague, Mrs Smith."

"Oh, yes, hello," I said, "I gathered Mrs Smith was not around, since she hasn't gotten back to me, and I've left 10 messages. Because it's quite urgent I speak with her, or with someone, at XYZ Ltd."

"That's fine. You can talk to me."

"Good. Now, about this issue of...."

Cue interruption from Mrs Brown.

"She's on holiday, actually, with her husband. Mrs Smith, I mean. For two weeks. They go to America every year at this time."

"How nice. Now, as I was saying..."

"It's really quite hard to manage when she's away. I mean, so many things pile up. My goodness, we've been rushed off our feet here."

"Oh," I said. "Is this a good time to speak about this?"

"Yes, yes, yes, fine, really fine," said Mrs Brown, tittering nervously.

"OK, so about the..."

"It's just the last time she went to America, she came back pregnant! Which meant I had to cover her maternity leave, obviously. The baby is so cute though. She used to bring her in. What an angel! It was good when things got back to normal finally. But you can see, we've all been wondering if it's going to happen again! I mean, her coming back from America pregnant."

Cue Mrs Brown braying with insane laughter down the telephone.

I treated her to some unnerving silence, and a couple of curt Uh-huhs.

Tomorrow is Another Day

Well, well, what a complete fuckarow yesterday turned out to be. First of all, the election. Suffice to say, it didn't go the way I had hoped, obviously.

Then I found Waldough, who, as it happens, was hanging out in the ladies' bathroom on the second floor of my office building, second cubicle on the left. Welcome Waldough, you irritating little fucker. So no, I am not pregnant.

I wasn't really expecting to be, not really. I apologise for making it sound like a more exciting moment of great import than it really was. It was simply that it was day 13 DPO, and if nothing else in all this cycling nonsense, I am regular like clockwork. I may never have seen a positive pregnancy test in my life. But I have also never, since I started paying attention to these things, gotten past 14 days post ovulation, never ever ever.

Come day 13, my waking temperature will invariably hover around 97.3 degrees, a sure indicator that a hot date with Waldough is not far in the future. I don't even temp the rest of the cycle. I just make a note of the day I think I ovulate, wait 13 days, and pop the digital thermometer in my mouth that morning. And as sure as night follows day and day follows...you get the picture. It's 97.3, and I always get my period the next day. Always. Every single month for the last year and a half. There may be something else wrong with me, but it sure ain't regularity of my cycle.

As an aside, I am, as usual, cheered and bemused by the sheer enthusiasm for peestick peeing that some of you evince at the mere mention of a possible pregnancy. I liken it to some sort of tribal rite, where the women in a big group cluster round the initiate, gyrating in a slow circular dance, chanting "PEE, PEE, PEE" while waving popsicle sticks in the air.

Anyway. I sat in the bathroom feeling a bit glum, to say the least. Thank you, Universe for that sharp left hook, followed swiftly by the upper cut to the jaw. BAM, BAM. The proverbial double whammy.

I came home and watched the BBC vultures gorge on the carrion of the election wind-up. Then E. came home to find me in a dismal heap. He cooked me dinner, as he always does, bless his cotton socks. Afterwards we changed into our soft flannel jammies, ate some ice cream, and watched a fun, mindless movie, lying with our legs intertwined together on the sofa.

I love watching movies with E. We have quite similar viewing habits, that is to say we will both watch just about everything. We enjoy "quality" films, but also have a secret mutual fondness for complete brainless fodder. You know, the type with lots of explosions, aliens, things that lurk under the bed or in the bushes, people mutating into strange forms as result of killer viruses, senseless plots to destroy the world, and anything with excessive amounts of slime and goo.

We know fine well that one should suspend all disbelief for these things, but like me, E. is quite happy to engage in a little running critique on some of the stupider efforts.

So we spent a delightful couple hours enjoying the movie and each other's commentary. Where did the red dress come from, and couldn't she have found something more substantial to wear before embarking on the mission? Why don't the soldiers radio for back-up? Why haven't they figured out that the fact that the computer shut everything down and deliberately terminated everyone in a creepy BIOHAZARD centre was probably for a very good reason? Who was that other girl meant to be working for? I wouldn't open that, would you open that? Fuck no, I thought you wouldn't, so why did they?

It was all very satisfying. I felt much better afterwards.

And this morning, strangely enough, I woke up feeling quite positive about life for the first time in awhile. Had myself a little Scarlett O'Hara moment in the shower, soaping and singing. OK, things are crapadoodle doo in many ways. But for some reason, my good spirits have returned, and I feel sort of recharged. Quite scrappy and ready for battle. Bring it on. Tomorrow is another day, and all that.

I don't know long it will last, but at the moment, it feels just fine.

Election Day

Today I discovered that there is nothing like a presidential election to take one's mind off those otherwise burning questions- you know, like, am I pregnant? Are my boobs looking bigger or am I just getting chubby from eating too many bowls of ice cream while I sit on my blogging ass? If I am not pregnant, where the fuck is Waldough ? And should I go pee on something for good measure?

Happily, all those thoughts have been wiped clean out of my tiny mind by the never ending media onslaught that is the Race to the White House 2004.

You'd think that the election was taking place in Britain, since the news coverage is so intense, and everybody here is taking such an interest. I think it would be fair to say that folks are fairly riveted. People were stopping by my desk all day to talk about it- had I voted? How did that work? Who did I vote for? What would I do if Bush won? (I never know how to answer that one- I mean, I can't very well say "leave the country", cause, um, I kind of already did that.) Colleagues at work actually stopped talking about babies and their children for at least five minutes to discuss world politics instead! It was very exciting!

I think the thing is, people recognise that the results of today's election will have a long term and significant impact on Britain. After all, the Americans are not just electing a president, they are choosing Tony Blair's new best friend.

The time difference is proving something of a pain in the ass though. I have an early meeting tomorrow morning, which rules out any ideas of staying up til the wee small hours to see a glimpse of which way the cookie is crumbling, or the final result . That is of course, if the wolf packs of lawyers can be kept under control.

I also have to laugh as I witness what is being presented as something of an immense hoo-ha over the new automated balloting machine thingies. There's no paper trail! Gah! The screen went blank! The memory card failed as we were moving it! Pass the provisional ballot! Call the lawyer!

I mentally compare it to the process here. When I vote in Britain, I go to my assigned polling station, and walk straight in, and the nice lady sitting at the collapsible card table on the folding chair ticks my name off on a long list. Then she hands a slip of paper and a stubby pencil. Yes, that's right, a stubby pencil. I kid you not.

I make a big X next to whoever I want to win, fold the slip in half, stick it in the wooden box, and away I go. Later on, the slips are all counted through the night by hand by people sitting at a big long table in the various districts throughout the country. For big elections, a news presenter called Peter Snow follows the results with statistical analysis in the form of the famous Swing-o-meter. I saw him on Newsnight or whatever that programme was last night doing something similar with a gigantic graphic of the United States, which cheered me up no end.

I love voting here, it's really sweet, a little eccentric and rather charming. It no doubt lacks most of the hype and frenzy, and of course, anything like the scale or import of voting in the USA. And to be honest that is all quite refreshing. Though right at this particular moment in my cycle, the distraction of events over the water is very welcome indeed.