But first, Plan A.

Where to start (better get yourself a cuppa; we have some catching up to do).

29th September, 2012, AKA the ‘happiest day of our lives’. For most couples, their wedding day is a line in the sand; the end of one life and the start of a new one; with a big fat arrow pointing towards uncharted territory and the hope of what will come next. Late-ish bloomer as I was, Husb and I began Plan A straight away. Why, we thought, would we have any issues getting pregnant - 38 isn’t “old” in this day and age is it? Ah, those were the days - honeymooners locked into a secret pact (when sex was something we did for fun!) and every month bore the ‘will it, won’t it’ anticipation. And, lo and behold, 8 months later, IT finally happened! “Husb, does this test say POSITIVE?”. The NEW ‘happiest day of our lives’ was followed by eleven and a half blissful weeks of early nights, a pile of bedside baby books and apps that tell you your foetus is the size of a kidney bean. 

I can’t speak for everyone who has ever been pregnant but, for me, those early weeks were a magical time. Husb and I, engrossed in our little secret, happy that, for once, something seemed to be going right. Until it wasn’t. Three days before our 12 week scan, it became obvious that something was very wrong. Suddenly, our dream was shattered and, what should have been our first interaction with Baby’s heartbeat was, instead, the devastating realisation that our Kidney Bean had stopped developing. I’ll never forget the tears in Husb’s eyes, how we sobbed and clung together in the days, weeks, months and years that followed.

“Don’t worry, at least you can get pregnant.”…“Once you’ve been pregnant, it can happen quicker next time” said all the well-meaners. And we had no reason to think otherwise. IT’S ALL GOING TO BE FINE.

Fast forward a year… a new regime of pretending to enjoy sex, peeing on sticks and monthly sobbing sessions… not to mention a series of protracted, painful and intrusive tests… and there we were in the office of Mr Stuart Lavery, one of the world’s most renowned IVF experts. “Sign us up, Stuart!,” said we.

‘Unexplained infertility’ is a double-edged sword: on one hand, it doesn’t rob you of the promise that, maybe, you’ve just had rotten luck but it will all come good. On the other, how can you fix a problem that you can’t identify??? Our first five IVF cycles were a learning curve. Each time, larger quantities of drugs, new, more torturous procedures for me and diminishing life-savings that, in another life, would have funded a deposit on a house. There wasn’t a doctor in London who hadn’t seen my uterus. No-one prepares you for the loss after an unsuccessful cycle. It feels just as acutely painful as miscarriage. You’ve gone through so much to produce even one embryo, which you nurture (in between shoving hormones up your back-passage) and root for, just as if you were pregnant. Months of your life have culminated in this one moment, when you stare at the Clear Blue test hoping that the cruel single line will miraculously turn into two. Apart from that one time, when it miraculously did. Hallelujah! The NEW-NEW ‘happiest day of our lives’. Sadly our second pregnancy, exactly 3 years after our first, ended quicker than it had begun. If it’s possible, the pain of loss, after all that waiting and emotional investment, was ten-fold. We entered a new era where every day became a struggle just to get out of bed and face the day. When all we both wanted to do was sit in a dark room and cry. Where we shrank away from all our friends and family; ashamed and exhausted by the daily pretence that everything was OK.

After one further unsuccessful cycle… “I need a break” said I. Emotionally and physically macerated, I’d long since had enough, but now I was ready to call time on Plan A. The years of perpetual grief, sense of failure, longing to just disappear into the abyss rather than face a world where I CAN’T HAVE CHILDREN had become overwhelming. I was a shell of the vivacious and positive person I once was. My body had gone to shit (“I’m infertile and I’ll comfort eat if I want to”) and the marriage that started so happily had become a sad metaphor for two people for whom ‘just getting through each day’ became the norm.

But my need for perpetual motion is strong. I’m not someone who can settle into life without a plan. So, with the help of our lovely counsellor, Jacqui, it was time to start considering Plan B.

Phew, that’s a lot for one sitting! Stay tuned...