The IVF Diaries: A Man’s View Of A Woman’s World
Part 4
More Tests Than A University Degree
The whole IVF experience is one big test.
One big juicy test that means you’re ever only one scan, blood test, and ejaculating into a pot away from a guest appearance on Grey’s Anatomy. And, when those scans, blood tests, and ejaculating into a pot provide about as much information as the Pay By Phone parking signs in your local car park, you’re left wondering what the point of them is anyway.
While, admittedly, some are provided with clear-cut answers as to their infertility problems, I don’t think it’s a misassumption to declare that, half the time, the doctors and consultants don’t have a clue what’s going on inside their patients’ bodies. Not through any fault of their own, of course, but the inner workings — or failings — of the male and female reproductive systems appear to be as easy to understand — and fix — as a degree in astrophysics.
One test, for example — on our first round — showed Emma had to go back onto the pill for three weeks — the irony of taking contraception in the hope of getting pregnant more apparent than on the stage of an Alanis Morrisette tribute act.
It’s frustrating when you’re being depleted of valuable blood stores every week, having things shoved up your vagina, and parts of your uterine cavity taken away only to be greeted with inconclusive answers. And, when you’re parting with £1,200 for one-off blood tests, it’s not unwarranted to hope for more of an answer than, ‘It might be this; it might be that’.
Of course, when each test result comes back without showing anything wrong per se, you’re welcomed with feelings of both relief and frustration. Relief that you’re not broken, and that glimmer of pregnancy-fuelled hope still glints in the distance; frustration that you still don’t have a definitive answer to your problems and you’re still essentially pissing in the wind with each attempt, hoping something somewhere latches on to your ever-decreasing odds of getting pregnant.
Eighteen months into our journey, after countless appointments with more consultants than we could ever possibly remember the names of, it was proposed by one doctor that Emma may well have Endometriosis.
‘Brilliant’, we thought, finally an answer to our ongoing struggles. Of course, nothing came up during Emma’s laparoscopy — not even in a minor complication — so we were left with nothing but the same level of knowledge we had pre-surgery and a piece of paper describing her uterus as ‘bulky’. Nice.
We resignedly marked this experiment in the long list of experiments we were undertaking down as another reason ruled out rather than walking away with a concrete answer as to why and what the hell was going on down there. Much like attempting to visit all 92 football grounds in the Football League, if we could work our way through, and tick off, all the possible fertility surgeries and procedures, you never know; we might actually find a solution.
After our third failed embryo transfer, we’d decided to undergo more detailed testing, which included two blood tests — one testing for abnormally high natural killer cells and the other searching for an increased chance of abnormal blood clotting, both potentially affecting embryo implantation.
The former being sent off to America for testing, which was nice to know at least some part of Emma was having a nice time during this whole process.
The final test — a biopsy, labelled an ‘endometrial health pack’ — was used to test for potential underlying problems in the eggs, sperm, embryos, and uterus. Essentially an MOT for Emma’s endometrial health. These three tests, named ‘ALICE’, ‘EMMA’, and ‘ERA’ — and thereby making them one white, middle-class girl’s name short of forming a fucking girl pop group — were sent off to Spain for further examination.
We hoped that small part of Emma’s endometrium acquired a bronzed tan while galivanting around on the sun-kissed beaches of the Mediterranean.
This time, we were pleased to be greeted with a handful of issues following the results: Natural killer and TH1:TH2 intracellular cytokine ratios were elevated; Free Protein S antigens were low; the amount of pathogenic bacteria was ‘not significant’.
You’ve got your PhD in biochemistry; you get the idea.
These weren’t anything to overly concerned about, but issues that would lead to tweaks in future embryo transfer protocols. Maybe this was the level of detail and exactitude we needed?
From progesterone administration to be given 128 hours ahead of the embryo transfer instead of 120 (yes, we were getting that specific now), to pro-biotic treatments with vaginal lactobacillus to be taken (which, if my memory serves me correctly, was the exact spell Harry Potter used to defeat Voldemort), oral steroids labelled ‘prednisolone’ to be consumed, intralipid infusions to be carried out, and the drug Clexane to be administered to prevent blood clotting, we had everything in place.
It was a lot.
More medication, more tablets, more injections, more long-winded spreadsheets stuck on the fridge detailing at what exact time each drug should be taken, more of everything. Emma sighed. Resigned to the fact that she knew there would be more weeks of things stuck inside her — save for me — more physical torment, and more psychological agony.
It was no secret, however, that through the anxiety and worry, she’d have advanced with anything the doctor advised.
We were, of course, under no illusion the scientific literature for these varying tests and methods was about as robust as the pastry on your Gregg’s vegan sausage roll, but we’d be lying if we said we cared. When you’re this deep into this process, you’ll do — and pay for — anything different.
It’s why fertility clinics have come under such scrutiny for praying on vulnerable couple’s chances of getting pregnant; we were all too aware we were potentially one of those very same vulnerable couples shelling out further thousands and thousands of pounds to get what we wanted without really fully understanding what the fuck we were paying for.
Did we care? Definitely not. Did we want an extra one or even a 0.5% better chance of falling pregnant? Absolutely.
Each test we undertook, while an infuriating cog in the infertility machine, did serve a purpose and, while it didn’t seem it at the time, meant we could eventually land upon the right protocol to end up where we’d always wanted. It’s just a shame people’s chances of falling pregnant often fall under the method of ‘trial and error’, rather than, ‘here’s the answer you want’.
I Don’t Want To See Your Instagram Post
I hate social media.
Don’t get me wrong, I like perusing the bikini photos of old school friends and zooming in on the legs of my favourite Instagram influencer just as much as the next person, but I hate it. The oversharing, the inexplicable need for self-validation, the mundane trumpeting of fatuous life events, the fucking ‘what I eat in a day’ posts. It’s boring, it’s pointless, and despite a handful of small benefits to its name, I think it’s a scourge on society.
Am I unashamedly stuck in its dopamine-filled washing machine-like cycle, despite this ongoing hatred? Spending more time clicking through stories, scrolling through Tweets/X’s, and frantically searching for news on whether Erling Haaland is in the Man City squad at 11 pm on a Friday so I can make him captain of my fantasy football team? Absolutely.
Will I ever release myself from its rust-covered shackles? Probably not.
The disdain for this mental clusterfuck reinforced none more than when traversing the treacherous fertility world.
The algorithm-fuelled echo chamber we find ourselves ensconced in brings up photos, reels, and stories of babies, pregnancies, and more babies and pregnancies. Every day, there’s a new pregnancy announcement, a third, seventh, or tenth birthday party, or, even worse, one of those goddam awful gender reveals. Every time you open that app, there’s a new photo of a soon-to-be mother holding her bump, or another overly-filtered video of a child frolicking in the sun or snow, or one of those fucking insufferable ‘nine months in; nine months out’ collages.
Every second, another snippet of baby-related content is added to the ever-expanding content machine.
All of it — all the joy, happiness, and love surrounding children — unfortunately functioning as another reminder of what you don’t have. What you’re failing to get. What you’d love to be able to post, snap, and share but simply can’t.
It’s a vicious cycle: you’re searching and scouring the apps for information on fertility, seeking others also navigating the IVF journey, and cranking up that algorithm only for it to then point you in the direction you desperately don’t want to look in. You can’t win.
Emma struggled with this social media paradox the most, her Instagram and Facebook churning up more baby-related posts than the life-long catalogue of available Mothercare products. It was triggering for her. Upsetting. Each day was another reminder of the turmoil she was embroiled in and what she didn’t have.
She’d hide the profiles of close friends and unfollow people who’d clock up inexcusable amounts of content surrounding their children. She’d even delete Instagram at times (only to inevitably find it back on her home screen within a week or two, of course).
She realised scrutinising the depths of the social media world was only operating as a deep scratch on her mental health, taking her levels of paranoia and anxiety to places she’d rather have not visited. She knew she was in a bad place — a one-degree change in the weather added to friends putting full stops at the end of WhatsApp messages setting her off into a frenzy of tears — and while she put on a brave face, she was carrying the mental weight of a small country below the surface.
Are people allowed to upload photos and videos of their children on social media? Of course. Should these mums and dads and grandparents be allowed to proudly parade their children’s accomplishments, cuteness, and celebrations for all to see? Absolutely.
Should we, however, be a little more diligent and understanding of what we put on our social media profiles, perhaps toning down the fifteenth baby post you’ve uploaded in the last five minutes? I think so.
More so because, honestly, no one fucking cares.
Unfortunately, social media doesn’t play nicely with the world of infertility — this not even considering those who’ve experienced miscarriages, failed adoptions, and death. It’s another dagger to the heart of everything you’re trying — and failing — to achieve.
It takes courage and bravery to navigate the bottomless pit of heart-wrenching signposts of what you’re missing out on. I salute those who still flick through their ceaseless feeds, having to cringe and sigh every time they bear witness to another baby-related post.
I implore those going through the process to ask themselves what social media is serving them. Do you need to be putting yourself through this? What are you gaining from this mind-numbing experience? Why heighten the negative emotions you’re already experiencing? Plunging yourself into social media is like slicing open the wound further — why do it to yourself?
And I kindly ask those who seldom take a second thought about what they’re posting to just take that second thought. By all means, post away; just have a modicum of care and consideration of what this is first, doing for you, and second, what it may well be doing for your best friend — who doesn’t have a baby — who’s viewing these posts, reels, and stories.
5th Time Lucky?
When you start out on your own IVF expedition, you look at those who’ve undertaken 4, 5 — even ten — egg collections and six, seven — even fifteen — embryo transfers and confidently say, ‘Imagine having to go through all that. Surely, we’d have given up by then.’
And then, five rounds and untold months and years of strain later, you find yourself in that very same position, with absolutely no intention of giving up, nor with any lingering doubts about this now being your life’s work.
The hope still persists and the longing still remains.
As our fifth attempt loomed — with a lot more research, additional discussions with consultants, further chats with acquaintances from afar, and the gathering of opinions from as many people as we could possibly find — we found ourselves stationed at the frontier of a new chapter.
It was at this point I realised that, should Emma have decided to open her own fertility clinic, she would have been equipped with enough information, knowledge, and empathy to, actually, do a half-decent job. No doubt she’d have probably provided better porn magazines, too.
It wasn’t lost on us that we had to push hard to ensure the clinic acquiesced to some of our own well-researched requests. Emma was the one investigating different drugs, analysing her own results, and outlining potential other avenues to reach a positive conclusion.
How — why — had it come to this?
Emma had undergone the process of an endometrial scratch a month before this transfer — funnily enough, literally a scratch on the endometrium — in the hope of ensuring the body worked to ‘repair the site of the incision,’ releasing chemicals and hormones that would make the womb lining — and perhaps genes — more receptive to an embryo implanting.
I think we all needed to become a little receptive to the embryo implanting, to be totally honest with you.
We were under no illusions that much like the ALICE, EMMA, and ERA tests, the evidence for this particular ‘add-on’ possessed about as much security as a condom made from sponge cake, but when you’re three years and thousands of pounds deep into the process and realise it’s only the paltry sum of £350, you honestly think, ’Fuck it, why not? It’s only another £350. Let’s do three.’
We’d also decided to insert two embryos instead of one this time. Of course, this carried risk, namely the potential for twins — even quadruplets, we joked — with multiple pregnancies often commanding their own dangers. We were past the point of caring. Give us three. Give us seven. We’d deal with it.
Two long, fear-riddled weeks passed.
At five o’clock in the morning, we nervously sat on the bathroom floor — the very same bathroom floor that had looked on at hundreds of injections, rivers of tears, untold buckets of anxiety, and an obscene amount of rectally-taken pessaries — crying.
There it was. That big, thick, beautiful blue line, plonked right in that little window of the pregnancy stick.
We were pregnant.
I checked that stick at least fifty times, convinced that line would disappear in a flash, it being an optical illusion David Blaine would have been proud of. We didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves. A mixture of emotions engulfed the room as we just sat. Reflected. Looked at each other in awe and disbelief. We were delighted and astonished and relieved in one fell swoop. Was this truly it? How had it happened? Did this mean we were finally going to have our own son or daughter?
We rang our parents at five in the morning. Then quickly realised it was five in the morning. So, waited a bit and rang them again at five past five in the morning. They were as shocked, delighted, and cautious as we were.
We then went to work as if nothing had happened, hoping not to tempt fate or get ahead of ourselves, only too aware of the numerous mountains we’d still have to climb.
I’d be lying if I said the next nine months were anything but caked in anxiety.
There were the hormone levels measuring low a mere two days after that positive pregnancy test, the gestational diabetes scare, the confusion at the baby’s tummy measuring in the 99th percentile, the low-lying placenta, the pouring with blood in the toilets of Pizza Express and having to call the paramedics on a hot Monday evening.
We were continually fearful of something going wrong, of that hope diminishing within a second and that growing baby being snatched away from us.
What is a process so seamless — and enjoyable — for most, felt like a journey lasting for decades, each scan bringing new distress and worry, each physical feeling prompting concern, each consultant appointment bringing the words, ‘Can we just get this baby out now?’
It’s the hope that this could really be it that consumes you and takes hold of any sense of rationality you may possess.
Every minor milestone was silently fist-pumped. Don’t celebrate too loudly, you don’t want to prod the beast.
We lauded any inkling of nausea Emma felt like we do when watching Netflix and realising the episode is only 30 minutes instead of 50. We breathed a huge sigh of relief every time we walked out of a scan with nothing but a new shiny photo clutched firmly in our hands. We showed gratitude for every time the baby kicked Emma in the bladder.
We held off buying prams and cots and nappies until the very last second, our superstition taking a hold of our lives like it really shouldn’t have been allowed to.
We exercised caution at every second and rarely embraced the journey of pregnancy, only sporadically pausing to revel in our joy for a brief moment when our baby reached the size of a fucking aubergine.
Emma, admittedly, did become consumed by guilt for feeling so apprehensive throughout those protracted months. She’d wished and prayed for this moment, only to then shirk from its joy and fixate on nothing but the negatives and difficulties. How could she expend so much energy yearning for this moment — both mentally and physically — only to then complain at its misgivings? How could she not possibly enjoy this moment?
Those feelings did subside, as did the difficulty of discussing and being around the world of pregnancy. Social events became easier to navigate, as did witnessing friends announce their pregnancies and being in the presence of other babies and toddlers. It seemed foolish we could only now finally tolerate these situations, but it’s evident the only way of withstanding the full force of infertility is to beat it.
Would our feelings surrounding pregnancy have been any different should we have not experienced the turbulent journey to reach this stage? I honestly don’t know. What I do know, however, is that nothing made me happier throughout those long months than when I’d occasionally glance at Emma and see her cradling her ever-growing bump with one hand, the tiniest of smiles etched across her face as she finally got to experience that feeling of pregnancy — a day she — and I — thought would never come.
She deserved that feeling more than anyone.
We slowly prodded our way through the longest pregnancy ever known to man — each day moving slower than the last few hours of a drawn-out Yom Kippur — stepping closer and closer to a goal that had consumed our lives for the past three-and-a-half-years.
We were finally on our way, consumed with disbelief and doubt that all we had worked towards had finally come to fruition.
