It’s been 20 months since we started trying and every month it’s been a nail-biting wait until D-day. Each month it’s been another disappointment added to the ever-growing list. I had originally thought that the worst were when I was on the hormones, because at that time I was convinced that it was going to happen, but I was so very, very wrong. The worst so far was this month and partially all because I listened to the wrong voice.
Last month the new doctor asked me to come off the hormones, since it wasn’t him who had put me on them in the first place; he justified it by wanting to see how everything worked without drugs. It sounded reasonable and logical, even though it was a setback in my minds, so off I came. 14 days later I went in for a scan and transvaginal probe. He found one tiny egg, scrunched up his nose, did the maths, and told me to go back in two days. Two days later there I was again (convinced that THAT was the day). He found the egg, a tad bigger, did the maths again and scrunched up his nose even further. Again, I was asked to go back in two days. Slight snag though, for professional reasons, it just wasn’t viable. So he rushed up to his office and printed off a prescription for the same bloody drug I had been on before. I stared in dismay at the paper; after all it’s not like it had worked last time, is it? Then I read the instructions. Ah, ok so the way I was taking it was different. Hope was back.
So, I went back to my normal, mundane life. On the 22nd I prepared myself for D-day, got the tampons in my handbag, threw in a few painkillers just in case, and went about my business. Nothing. 23rd came and went. Nothing. 24th… 25th … All this time, I was bursting to tell someone, but refrained from doing so for fear of jinxing it. I didn’t even tell my husband until late evening on the 25th. As I was driving to work, I had already started to weed out who may or may not be a good “godparent” for Alyana Bernadette (the name had been previously chosen on another drive to work). Whilst doing the shopping yesterday (the 26th and 4 days into being late) I decided to buy a pregnancy test. I swore to myself that I would only do it in the morning, thus giving D-day enough time to arrive.
As I was going to bed late last night, my level-headed voice spoke to me, told me to stop being so fantastical. Unless the best specialist in the country was completely incompetent there was no possible way that the test would be positive. I even agreed with it. And immediately after, imagined taking the test, it being positive and me immediately phoning my sister. I even smiled at the thought!
So at 7.30 am today, I took the test. Then I sat at the kitchen table with my daughter watching Barbie on TV in the living room and my husband running yet another mini-marathon, and cried until 10 am. I have never felt so alone. I have said and written this sentence before, but I haven’t appreciated the true meaning behind it until this morning. Unless you are living exactly what I’m living right now, you don’t understand me. You may empathize with me and you may even pity me – which you can shove where the sun doesn’t shine – but you don’t understand me.
No one around me is fighting this fight, in fact everyone seems to be dropping out babies faster than I can say “baby factory” and the two people I know who at one point in their lives wrestled with this are on either side of the globe. I could go online, meet other men and women who are having their hearts ripped out of them every month, share my highs and lows with a bunch of strangers who I’ll never meet, and read about all the success stories – which will either fuel my energy or drive me to despair – but I won’t. It’s not me. Although I could potentially see me allowing myself to hide behind the monitor and expose my inner thoughts quite nakedly, I won’t. It’s just not me. So, I’ll continue to talk about the facts very naturally and plainly and I’ll continue to pretend to care when people say they can understand what I’m going through, I’ll even offer them a smile. But I won’t go online in search for a community of other sufferers because it’s easier to pretend and discuss facts than it is to be nakedly truthful.
Now the real irony is that 4 hours after having done the test D-day actually came. I don’t know whose gods I’ve pissed off, but I wish they’d get over themselves and allow me to have a healthy baby to nurture and love.
