I’ll pick up where I left off. The egg collection. We went into the clinic inexperienced and to be honest a little worried. We had made the decision not to tell any of our family where we were up to with the IVF. In fact, we purposely told them that we were further behind in the process than we actually were. We wanted to be able to still surprise them when we told them we were pregnant. This is another example of how naïve and new to IVF we were. I genuinely believed that we would get pregnant on our first go and I had planned how I wanted to reveal it to my family, all before we even had the collection. We got on our ‘scrubs’ and took the obligatory hospital selfie finding ourselves hilarious while we did. I went into the room with Kate just before the collection and she seemed ok and calm but I know her. I know her more than anyone and I knew that she was not ok and was not calm. But she was brave and strong and I knew she would get through it. I had to leave for the actual collection. I gave her a kiss told her I loved her and left. I held it together until I got back to our room in the hospital. As soon as the door shut behind me I sat on the bed and cried. I was terrified. I had just left the most important person in my life in a room under anaesthetic and no one even knew we were there. Kates mum, her dad, her sisters, no one. This was one of the times it hit me, how alone I was. I was worried about my wife, I was devastated that she had to go through this and I was alone, no one to put their arm around me or re assure me. I started thinking about how I could possibly tell people if something did go wrong when we hadn’t even told them that she was going into the hospital. It was one of the worst times of my life. Eventually it was over. My world was back with me, a little battered and bruised and scared but she was back with me and I was so so grateful. Once she had recovered a little, we spoke to the consultant who gave us the news. They had collected 12 eggs!! It was as good as we had hoped for and we knew how lucky we were.
We went home Kate got on the sofa and we watched Mama Mia 2. Now I let Kate choose the film and I could lie here and say I hated it. But, lads if you want brownie points for watching a ‘chick flick’ with your MRS. get onto ‘Mama Mia 2 Here we go again!’ It’s a belter.
We got the phone call; I think it was the next day and It was great news. We had eight eggs fertilised and FIVE to the blastocyst stage. That meant five little embryos that were mine and Kates. It meant five chances to get pregnant and have our baby. We spoke with the clinic and arranged for our transfer a week later. After the transfer we had always planned to go away just for a week somewhere to make the second week of the two week wait a little more bearable. I had bought Kate a zoo keeper experience for Christmas (I know how to treat a lady!) it was an experience which included feeding the penguins at the Zoo but more importantly it was in the Lake District a couple of hours from home and we saw it as a good place to go for the week. We asked the consultant for advice and if we would be ok to be around our penguin mates during our TWW and he gave us the go ahead. So, we were PUPO – Pregnant until proven otherwise we had got through our first week of the TWW and on our way for a lovely week in the lakes. Pep talk number 6 –
DO WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU DURING THE TWW. DON’T FEEL GUILTY IF YOU WANT TO RELAX AND TAKE IT EASY. DON’T FEEL GUILTY IF YOU WANT TO STAY ACTIVE. YOU KNOW YOUR BODY AND YOU KNOW YOUR MIND, LISTEN TO BOTH.
We had read the do’s and don’ts from experts online and people who had been through it before us, but the truth is it was all conflicting information. There is no sure-fire way to live your life during the TWW. There is no action you can take that will guarantee that you will get pregnant. If you are someone that is happy to sit and read book after book or binge watch TV for two weeks, then do that and don’t feel guilty or bad for doing that. If you are someone that needs to be active, that would feel trapped in their own home doing nothing but watching TV or reading books for two weeks then plan something, go somewhere. Whatever you do though ENJOY BEING PUPO! This is what you have stayed so strong for, wanted for so long and put yourself through everything for. I promise you that if you sit worrying at home and don’t allow yourself to be happy or excited during the TWW for fear of it hurting more if you don’t get that positive test then you are robbing yourself of the joy you’ve earned. It hurts just the same as if you let yourself be excited and happy but at least you have had that two weeks of joy that no one can ever take away.
Our TWW was obviously naturally nerve-racking it was like being a child again in the lead up to Christmas. When you’ve flicked through the Argos catalogue and sent your list off to Santa with that one big gift on and all you can do is wait. Wait and see if the big fella brings it for you! But it was also amazing. We spent a week in the Lake District together talking about our ‘maybe’ baby, wondering if it would have my eyes and hoping that it didn’t have my nose.
Our TWW was nearly over we had come back home on the Sunday and our test day was the Tuesday. It got to the Monday, the day before our official test day and it finally got too much for us. Kate said that she wanted to test and I was glad because I couldn’t wait any longer. She did a couple of tests and all came back NEGATIVE. Kate knew I could see it in her eyes and there was a sadness on her face. I naively thought that because it wasn’t our ‘official’ test day that we still had a day to go and that it might show up positive on tomorrows test but Kate knew that she wasn’t pregnant. The official test day came and we tested and it was negative just as my wife had said it would be. We rang the hospital and they said that they would document it and that was it. Our dream was over. I do not think for one second that I am intelligent enough or poetic enough to be able to put into words how we felt at the time. We cried a lot. Both of us. There were days when we couldn’t get out of bed. So we didn’t. We told our families and friends what had happened and most of them were amazing and supportive. It is a strange thing to grieve a baby you have never met, that you have never held or sang to or rocked to sleep. But I did. I grieved for all of those things that I would never get to do with this baby. I grieved for my wife and I. For the people that we used to be. Those people were gone now, and we weren’t going to get them back. Not how they used to be anyway. Too much had happened, we had felt so much sadness and been touched by so much grief to ever be the same people. Something good did happen though, we grew closer. We grew stronger as a couple because we changed as people together. I’m not good at remembering dates or times but Kate is. I never have been, but I would argue to my last breath with anyone who does not see losing an embryo as losing a baby. I know that my wife could tell you the due date of our first embryo. She would be able to tell you when we should have had our first scan. I could tell you how many nights I lay awake crying at our sadness and how many nights I could hear my wife crying herself to sleep.
We managed to drag ourselves out of the horrible dark hole that we were in. I like to think by standing on each other’s shoulders. When I couldn’t climb anymore Kate gave me her shoulders to climb on and I gave her mine.
We booked a holiday away to be together, just the two of us. To reconnect and decide where we wanted our journey to go next. We had lost our first embaby and we were hurting beyond comprehension, but we knew that while there was still the smallest chance that we couldn’t give up.
Infertilitybloke's 'Bollocks to infertility.' 