The Pursuit of Motherhood Read online

Page 10


  The only explanation I can find is that for years I have persuaded myself that carrying on as normal and not telling anyone what I am going through is a good thing. But in doing so my infertility and IVF treatment has become such a routine and hidden part of my life that I haven’t been making any allowances for how it might be affecting me on any level: from the effect that fertility drugs might have on a few glasses of wine in the pub; to the impact that years of unsuccessful treatment might be having on my psychological health.

  Last night was a wake-up call, and as soon as my hangover is gone I start to listen.

  The Infertility Diaries Part XVI

  I bumped into a former work colleague yesterday. I hadn’t seen him for about a year, and almost as soon as we started chatting he said, ‘I’ve got some news: Celia and I are having a baby!’ Everyone I see regularly these days is so tentative and tactful about making pregnancy announcements around me that his excited openness came as quite a surprise. In fact, it was so discombobulating that, for a moment, I actually responded with spontaneous enthusiasm myself. Just like a normal person.

  THE POINT

  Sunday, 21 November 2010. My fortieth birthday. I have invited my closest family and friends to a slap-up Sunday lunch at St John in Clerkenwell, one of my favourite restaurants. Just as pudding is coming to an end, I stand up and tinkle my glass with a spoon.

  ‘First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming today and fulfilling my dream to have my forty favourite people at my fortieth birthday. It means so much to me to have you all here doing what I love doing best: eating!’

  Everyone laughs.

  ‘I’ve never been big on birthdays,’ I continue, ‘but I’ve decided that it is really important to mark and celebrate each decade of your life. The last ten years have been a wonderful time for me in many ways. I got to fulfil my childhood dream of running a theatre, and I met Peter, who has been a continuing source of joy – and frustration.’

  I smile at Peter and everyone laughs again.

  ‘However, as some of you are aware, the last decade has also been a really difficult one for us. We would love to have children but have struggled to get pregnant. We have been through a long and gruelling process of tests and treatment and there has been a lot of disappointment…’

  I look around the room. Everyone is watching me intently.

  ‘But,’ I continue, ‘I thought you might also all like to know that today, in addition to my fortieth birthday, we finally have something else to celebrate. I am three months pregnant. With twins!’

  There is a spontaneous cheer and everyone gets up and rushes forward to hug us both.

  It is a perfect moment. One that I have dreamed about. But our seventh round of IVF, which made this dream possible, has ended in another biochemical pregnancy and early miscarriage. Even more disheartening, it is my worst response to treatment so far. Five eggs collected. Three fertilised. Two embryos put back on Day 3. Spotting. Positive early pregnancy test (home kit, taken in desperation on Day 10 of the two-week wait) and then negative pregnancy test (clinic kit, taken on the official test date). Logically, I know that the incident in the Stonemasons Arms can’t be the only reason it has failed again, but nevertheless I blame myself.

  I wonder for a few days about whether to have the party still but it no longer feels like there is anything I want to mark or celebrate. The idea of standing up in front of anyone and saying anything is unbearable. So I ditch the idea, turn to my default position, and decide to spend the night of my fortieth birthday in a luxury hotel in the Adirondacks instead.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why of all places the Adirondacks? Either that, or where the hell are they? And how can you afford it? Well, the week before my birthday I have to go to New York for work, so I decide to stay on there and Peter flies out to join me. The Adirondacks is a national park in the north of New York State, which I mistakenly thought wasn’t far from Manhattan. But – just for future reference – whilst it is in New York State it is also a six-hour drive from the capital, and make that seven hours if you get lost and stopped for speeding. Both of which we did.

  The other guests at the hotel are incredulous that we have driven all this way for just twenty-four hours. Everyone else is American and they clearly think it’s a case of mad dogs and Englishmen. Frankly, though, we couldn’t afford to stay for more than a night. One of my great weaknesses is expensive hotels, and this is definitely the most expensive night of my life. So far.

  The hotel, which is perched on the side of a huge lake, originally belonged to the Rockefeller family and was their summer retreat from the city. It is so exclusive that it’s not signposted and you have to follow instructions that include: from the crossroads, check your odometer and after exactly 18.6 kilometers, turn left on to an unmarked road and continue to the end.

  When we arrive at the hotel gates they are closed and forbidding to strangers. We ring the bell and introduce ourselves over the intercom. As they slowly open, a man comes over to the car and says: ‘Welcome to the Point.’

  He directs us straight ahead to the main entrance. There, waiting for us, are two more members of staff. As we step out of the car one takes the keys and the other says: ‘You’re just in time for lunch. Would you like to start with a glass of champagne?’

  Now this is my sort of hotel.

  Although you may have to take out a second mortgage to afford a room for the night at the Point, one small bonus is that, once you have, everything is included. You could drink champagne all day if you wanted to. And if you wanted oysters to accompany it you could probably have them too. Another thing about the hotel is that you have all your meals, except breakfast, at the same table as the other guests. It’s rather like being at a posh country house party. Either that or a piece of site-specific theatre.

  If truth be told we aren’t just in time for lunch. We are late. The other guests are already sitting down and there are two empty chairs at the table. We are frazzled from the long drive, and were we more accustomed to such a milieu we might ask to freshen up or even take lunch in our room. But we’re English. We’re polite. We receive our glass of champagne gratefully and say we’d be more than happy to go straight to the table.

  I introduce myself to the man sitting on my left. We start to chat. It turns out he’s the ex-Chief of Staff to the Governor of New York. I can hardly contain my excitement. It’s almost as if I’m sitting next to Leo from The West Wing. After lunch I compare notes with Peter, who is equally excited. He was sitting next to a man who told him he was a probate lawyer. When Peter said to him that he’d just been reading in Vanity Fair about an interesting probate case regarding an American billionairess, the man had said: ‘Yes, that is an interesting case. In fact, it’s one of mine.’

  It’s a wild and windy day. Most of the guests tell us they are planning to spend the afternoon relaxing by the open fires in their bedrooms. Peter gets a wistful look in his eyes. But I’ve got other plans. We’re going out for a walk. As beautiful as the hotel is, it seems madness to come to one of America’s most spectacular national parks and stay indoors. Besides, it’s my birthday, so even if I already get my way most of the time, this time it is fully justified.

  We set off on one of the designated trails around the estate. As the staff wave us off they say: ‘Don’t forget to stop at “Camp David”. There will be something waiting for you.’

  After about an hour we reach a single-storey log cabin in the middle of the woods (a small but perfectly formed copy of the country retreat of the President of the United States). The place is deserted but there’s a fire crackling in the hearth and a flask of hot chocolate on the table with a bottle of Baileys standing next to it. Beside it a handwritten note: Jessica and Peter. Just a little something to warm you up.

  Now this is my sort of walk (and Peter’s too).

  Dinner at the Point is a black-tie affair. That night there are ten guests: Peter and me; West Wing Leo and his wife; Mr Probate and his wife; a
surgeon and his wife; and a young couple in their twenties – he is a foreign correspondent for Time magazine and later admits to reviewing hotels for them on the side, which all but confirms that they are on a lig (lucky things). It makes for an interesting evening and Peter does a brilliant job of keeping up with American dinner party conversation, which includes whether Barack Obama has made any impact in office and the pros and cons of gun ownership. He even does a good job of explaining the rules of cricket and cracking a few jokes about American versus English football. One of the things I love most about Peter is that he knows a little about most things and can talk to anyone about anything. In this respect he’s totally unlike me, as these days I seem to have only three subjects I can talk about with confidence: work; being me; and (coming up on the inside) infertility.

  As dinner draws to a close the hotel manager gets everyone’s attention and says that there is just one more Point tradition we have to indulge in. In the days of the Rockefellers the evening would always end round the campfire by the lake, everyone toasting marshmallows and telling each other stories.

  We all go back to our rooms to get changed into something warm. While we’re there, I pop to the loo and get a bit of a shock to see that I appear to be bleeding a little.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Peter says as I emerge from the bathroom.

  ‘Nothing, really.’

  ‘That means something.’

  ‘It’s just I seem to be bleeding.’

  ‘Is it your period?’

  ‘No, that’s what’s confusing. My period finished last week. It’s far too early for another.’

  If I were younger, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. I wouldn’t even have mentioned it. But now, on the eve of my fortieth birthday, it seems to be unequivocal evidence of my advancing age and failing reproductive system. I lie down on the floor in front of the open fire in our beautiful bedroom in the Adirondacks and start to cry.

  We never saw the bonfire or ate a marshmallow that night. Looking back it seems such a waste. However, I have since met several women who confessed that they too ended their fortieth birthday in tears. Everyone has their reasons, but if you haven’t yet had a baby and want one, it’s definitely the point you start to feel that the egg timer’s on the final turn.

  The Infertility Diaries Part XVII

  I have recently become obsessed with listening to old episodes of Desert Island Discs on BBC iPlayer. I am most drawn to interviews with women, looking to see something in them that I recognise in myself, I guess. Lately I’ve listened to a few with women who never had children: Debbie Harry, Tracey Emin, Cath Kidston, Janet Street-Porter. In spite of their professional success, their childlessness seems to have left something missing. I can’t help wondering if it’s going to be the same for me.

  IT’S DIFFERENT FOR BOYS

  Like many people, I have always had a secret fantasy that one day I’ll be invited to appear on Desert Island Discs. I’ve already picked out my eight tracks, and one of them will definitely be by Joe Jackson. Either Is She Really Going Out with Him? or It’s Different for Girls – a reminder of the many hours I spent as a teenager lying on my bedroom floor, with my head to the speaker, thinking about my unrequited first love.

  And let’s face it, Joe Jackson was right: it is different for women. Men definitely drew the long straw when it comes to having children. The oldest father on record is in his nineties, and, for men, having children later in life is often a badge of celebrity or success. From Picasso to Michael Douglas, Charlie Chaplin to Rod Stewart. Unfortunately, God or evolution (you choose) has worked things out differently for women. By her forties, a woman’s lifetime supply of eggs is fast diminishing and natural conception becomes much harder. When you read about women giving birth in their late forties and fifties, it is mainly because they have used donor eggs from a younger woman. At the moment, the only way to significantly increase the number of older women giving birth to their own biological children is for their eggs to be routinely frozen in their twenties and thirties for later use.

  I can’t help thinking how unfair the disparity is between men and women’s fertility. It’s now perfectly normal and natural for men to focus on their careers and avoid commitment until their forties and fifties. And why shouldn’t they? As life expectancy increases there really is no need for them to settle down until they’ve exhausted all the fun and freedom that youth offers. But for women, the later we leave having children, the harder it is for us to conceive naturally. Add to this the still unknown effects of the high-flying, stressful careers that feminism has encouraged us to pursue in our twenties and thirties and the whole thing looks decidedly risky. This seems particularly ironic given that, on average, a woman’s life expectancy is longer than a man’s. But we are either going to need a major advance in medical science or a monumental shift in societal thinking for things to change anytime soon. Meanwhile, the fertility industry (or more precisely the infertility industry) is set to keep on growing.

  Yet, just to prove that life is always fair in its unfairness, it’s also true that whereas fertility favours men, the infertility industry is largely about women. Take the ‘producing room’, with its inbuilt assumption that men can basically masturbate under any conditions. Can you imagine if all the women going through fertility treatment had to go into these rooms and achieve an orgasm? There either wouldn’t be as many babies born from IVF or something would have to be done to improve them. It may be true that women have to undergo the majority of tests and treatment, but essentially most of it’s done to them. Men, on the other hand, have to go into that little room and actively produce the goods. It’s a lot of pressure.

  I think the lack of consideration for what men have to go through is one of the really hard and unspoken things about the infertility process. The social stigma surrounding a man who can’t get a woman pregnant is still immensely strong. And many men’s instinct, however wrong, is to blame themselves for their perceived inability to do what men should be able to do. But it’s rarely discussed, and whilst women increasingly have places they can turn to for advice and support, men still don’t. So, yes, Joe Jackson was right, it is different for girls. But where infertility’s concerned there’s no doubt that it’s different, and difficult, for boys too.

  HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY TOO

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve realised I don’t know what you feel.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About life.’

  ‘That’s a big question for six in the morning.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Well think about it now.’

  ‘OK. Life is a gift.’

  ‘Even when you can’t get what you want?’

  ‘Even then.’

  ‘It feels like a struggle to me.’

  ‘Life is worth living – even when it’s hard.’

  ‘This hard?’

  ‘It’s worth living, because it’s life.’

  There is a beat of silence.

  ‘Can I ask you another question?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘I’ve realised I don’t know what it’s been like for you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The tests. The treatment. Ejaculating in a cupboard.’

  ‘I don’t think about it.’

  ‘I think I thought that.’

  ‘That’s because you’re good at thinking. You can think for two.’

  Another beat of silence.

  ‘You still haven’t told me how you feel.’

  ‘Mostly I feel sad about the situation.’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Helpless. Sometimes I feel helpless.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t give you what you deserve.’

  ‘Do I deserve it?’

  ‘Everyone deserves to be happy.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I’m happy w
hen you’re happy.’

  Another beat.

  ‘Do you think we’ll ever make love for fun again?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘I hope so too.’

  Silence.

  SHIFT HAPPENS

  People often say they’re fed up with their life and then do nothing about it – it’s a very human trait. How many times have you heard friends say they want out of a relationship or a job, but then they don’t do anything to change the situation? The truth is, we’re quick to say we’ve had enough of something before we really have. But when we have had enough, when the camel’s back is truly broken, most of us do something about it. Shift happens.

  I have now been trying to have a baby for nearly six years. I have been through seven cycles of IVF. Five full and two frozen. I have had three biochemical pregnancies, one ectopic, and a miscarriage. The other two cycles were negative (well, presumed negative, as I started to bleed and didn’t bother to take a test). This, along with turning forty, is what it takes for me to stop saying that something has to change in my life and actually do something about it.

  For a while now I have been rotating round a circle of wondering whether the pressure of my job is affecting my fertility and whether I should give it up; then wondering what I’d do if I forfeited my career and didn’t get pregnant. But shortly after my fortieth birthday and our seventh round of unsuccessful IVF, I decide to ask the chairman of my theatre if I can take a three-month sabbatical.

  A couple of friends have suggested the idea to me over the years but I have constantly dismissed it out of guilt and, if I’m honest, fear of finding out that nobody needs me, not even work. However, I also know that the only person who will deny me a break is myself, and a sabbatical seems the perfect opportunity to take one without having to consider the drastic step of leaving altogether to pursue something that I might ultimately have no control over. So I swallow all my guilt, fear and pride, and ask for one.