And the gold medal for patiently waiting goes to…

Olympic fever is in full force with the 2012 opening ceremony in London this evening.  I love all things Olympics and am trying to embrace the excitement and energy the games are bringing to the UK.  But these Olympics are tinged with sadness for me.  Seven years ago, when London won the bid, I was at a gymnastics event with a friend and we were enthusiastically chatting about how we would get tickets to see the gymnastics in 2012.  I vividly remember gasping and saying, “oh my goodness, we’ll have to take the kids!”  I was so, completely convinced that I would have at least one, if not two children by then.  This statement has played again and again in my mind over the past few years.  I have chastised myself for my naivety and complacency and cried over what could or should have been.  But, like the rest of the country, I have continued to count down the days and wait patiently for the start of what will hopefully be a wonderful international celebration.

I have learnt that patience is not only a virtue, but also an essential part of any fertility treatment journey.  You wait patiently (mostly) for appointment dates and times; for a period to come so treatment can start; for blood test results and scan images; for news on your eggs, sperm and the fertilisation rate; for the survival rate of your embryos each torturous day until they are transferred back where they belong.  There is an almost comedy wait in theatre too when you have an embryo transferred.  This is done via a catheter inserted into the uterus (a relatively painless procedure).  Once the doctor has hit send, the catheter is removed and returned to the adjacent lab, where an embryologist checks that the microscopic babies haven’t got stuck in the tube.  This wait, with legs in stirrups, speculum still inserted and a bright light shining on lady bits, is eternal.  At my clinic, we wait for a ‘thumbs up’ from the embryologist through the little window into their lab.  Although I have been through this process 7 times, I still forget to breathe while I wait.  Saying that, there was one time in which the doctor and my DH provided some unexpected entertainment by being so engrossed in a chat about the merits of certain local golf courses that they missed the ‘thumbs up’ signal entirely, leaving me both exposed and confused as to where I was.

Then comes the biggest wait of all:  the two week wait.  Those four words now fill me with utter dread.  Gone are the positive thoughts of being PUPO (“pregnant until proven otherwise”), the excitement of what might be and the pride in how far we have come.  These are replaced with the knowledge that clocks will slow to an almost stop; days will drag on and on, filled with miniscule twinges that require endless analysis as to whether they might potentially, maybe, possibly be indicative of pregnancy.  And all with the soundtrack of two opposing little voices in my head: “just do a test”… “no, testing is a bad idea”… “but at least then you’ll know”… “but what if it’s negative?”… “but what if it’s positive?”… “but what if it’s negative?”…  you get the idea.

I appreciate that sounds defeatist, but I have had 7 ‘two week waits’ following treatment and over 20 after attempts to conceive naturally.  Not one of those has resulted in a pregnancy.  Instead each has culminated in the arrival of a bleed, sometimes expected, sometimes not.  And with that, nothing short of grief and despair.

My DH and I have been grieving for so many losses for so long.  Yet they are losses that we can’t openly acknowledge.  Society doesn’t recognise the loss of an embryo.  You don’t get to have a funeral or memorial service.  You barely even get to speak about what’s happened with anyone other than a partner who is also broken by grief.  It’s not just the loss of something we have created (albeit with the help of doctors, nurses and embryologists), but it is the loss of what might have been.  Of the hopes we had generated when we dared to believe it might actually happen for us.  Dates gain significance – when our first scan might have been, through to when our child should have been born.  It feels like every day someone else unwittingly overtakes us in our self-imposed race to parenthood.  And we are left behind in a cloud of their fertile dust, knowing we have lost another friend to that elusive club we might never get to join.

I worked with my counsellor on beginning to acknowledge the losses we have experienced.  On allowing myself to feel sad, angry, disappointed, frustrated…the list goes on and on.  And then I started to be able to pick myself up, piece by piece.  My DH and I decided we wanted to do something to honour and acknowledge our babies that never were.  We thought for a long time about how to do this.  For ages I wanted to burn something (angry much?!).  We thought about writing things down and sending them out to sea, but I worried about the pirates.  We considered planting a tree, but are garden-less.  In the end, it seemed that our quest to find a way to remember was all we really needed.  The journey is the destination after all. 

In thinking about ways of recognising and acknowledging the trials, the semi-triumphs and the losses associated with fertility treatment, I am reminded of a little ‘ceremony’ my DH and I had after our very first embryo transfer.  Our treatment had been against the clock… our first cycle of ICSI had been abandoned and all embryos frozen due to the risk of me developing OHSS because of the number of eggs produced.  We then had to wait 3 months before any embryos could be thawed and replaced.  This meant that our first transfer came dangerously close to the date we were relocating abroad for a year.  There had been lots of crossing of fingers and willing hormone levels to reach their targets in time and it seemed like we were going to make it.  For those who haven’t been there, you usually only get 24-48 hours notice of when a transfer will happen.  First you need a positive ovulation test and a blood test that confirms the LH surge.  Then the frozen babies need to survive the thaw and keep growing.  With those hurdles safely cleared, you’re usually good to go.  Unfortunately the last-minute nature of transfer number 1 meant that DH was away on a business trip and not due back until after the procedure had taken place.  Although he wasn’t needed in the same way as at egg retrieval (also men’s room day), it was important to both of us that he been included somehow in the event.

So in lieu of his presence in theatre, we decided to do something just the two of us that evening after the transfer.  We had been given some Chinese lanterns the previous Christmas – the giant kind that have a wick inside that you light and then they fly off into the night sky (before landing in a field somewhere and inadvertently culling some livestock).  We wrapped up warm and walked to a nearby park with views across the city where we live.  It was a dark and somewhat breezy night so we had to shelter from the wind at the side of a big statue.  We took turns tearfully writing our hopes and wishes on our lanterns before huddling round the first one to light it.  If this generates an image that would have seemed highly suspicious to any night-time park wanderers, then you are picturing it correctly.  The lantern filled with hot air, rose gently into the air and flew graciously off above rooftops carrying DH’s wishes with it.  We took a moment to appreciate the beauty and the symbolism before turning to light my lantern.  At which point, the lighter sparked and failed.  And sparked and failed again.  It was clear it had produced its last flame.  We were left with no choice but to bundle down the hill to the nearest 24-hour shop, with my now opened, and therefore giant, lantern trailing behind us.  New lighter purchased, we trudged back up the hill to our spot in the park and lit the wick. 

Things didn’t seem quite the same as before…the lantern struggled to fill.  It was a bit squinty and there seemed to be a small tear in one side.  When it seemed full enough we tentatively let it go.  It bounced once, twice along the ground.  We cheered it on as it stuttered up in the air, rising with small jerky movements on the breeze.  Finally it seemed like it was going to take off and it rose up and…… became firmly wedged in the branches of a nearby tree.  Where it promptly burst into flames.  Fearing CCTV infamy and an arrest for reckless fire-raising, we fled the park and ran home giggling.  And revelling in the apparent symbolism of something getting ‘stuck’, which was exactly what we were hoping our embryos would do.  To this day, there is a charred metal ring in that tree, which makes me smile sadly whenever I see it.  It reminds me of what might have been, which brings that wave of grief, but this is followed by the memory of the hysteria of our sprint home, fearing the authorities might not share our delight in the symbolic stuck-ness of our lantern.

And so to the present, where rings are the symbol of the day (the 5 Olympic, un-charred variety) and I am waiting.  Waiting for a call from the clinic to tell me how many of our 12 embryos made two days ago have survived and continued to grow.  Waiting to know if and when I can go back to have one or two transferred.  Waiting to know if it is going to work this time, if our dreams might finally come true.  And if I might be ‘taking the kids’ to the Olympics after all, because I believe that embryonic and in-utero still counts for me.