A Line In The Sand
I must confess, I’ve had writers block, I think it stems from the stress of being jobless at the moment. So, as a lot of you will know, I asked my social media friends to suggest a subject. The overwhelming response was, ‘When do you know it’s time to give up?’.
Like most families, we have our issues and ours is most likely no stranger to some, making a decision and committing to something. For example, a few years ago, my sister, my wife and I took my mother to Italy to visit her Dads grave to which she had never been. It was a warm evening as we strolled around the narrow streets of old Ravenna, looking for somewhere to eat. The girls studied every menu as we pasted and every time I would ask, ‘do you want to eat here?’ the reply would be either ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care’.
Now I’m not naïve, I realise unlike men who will battle for control, woman will be thinking of everyone, making sure everyone’s needs are covered and no one is offended. At the rate we were going, I’m sure they were taking into consideration the whole of Northern Italy and I was scared that I would not be eating for the next decade. And even though my gorgeous wife doesn’t share the same genes, somehow that behaviour has rubbed off on her. (said with my cheekiest of grins)
Having said this, when we were on our IVF journey, it was like I was married to a different woman. The best metaphor I can give you is a Regimental Sergeant Major with an OCD.
The initial time the procedure was performed it was a bit clumsy from our perspective and quite comical, when I get braver I may share this with you. But, my wife learnt from this, every other time was flawlessly planned, annual leave would be planned around administration of the hormones to stimulate, ultra sounds to track the growth of follicles, the trigger injections to get those follicles ready and the egg harvest (not my terminology by the way). She would remember exact dates and times for all the appointments, the exact dose of drugs we would administer at home, the exact date of the blood test to determine if the procedure worked and the exact date of when the six weeks safe period would be over. I was married to a woman possessed with the need to become a mother, to feel normal, to be a woman.
But it didn’t end here.
To give herself the best chance possible, she would take off from work the next 2 weeks, taking it easy hoping those eggs stuck to where they needed to be, of course there was no resting of the mind. Of course the obvious is, each round was unsuccessful, every time the coordinating nurse would call with the sad news, there would be tears, there would be wails of ‘Why me, I’m a good person’ and I would be afraid to come home to face the devastation.
There were times when Vickie would protect me from the bad news, whilst I was at work, but I could always tell the result as I drove up to the drive way and our curtains would be close at 3.30pm.
Once the purge had ran its appropriate course, socks were pulled up, big girl pants were put on and I would hear ‘Right, when can we do it again?’.
Of course I would not argue, I wanted to be a dad, I thought I’d be a really good father.
This merry go round, became our new normal.
What we didn’t realise was our new normal looked like this;
A decade of annual leave spent on IVF procedures
A decade of regular devastation
A decade of medical fee’s
A decade of no light let into our life
A decade of psychology fee’s
A decade of watching other families grow
As I write this and discuss with Vickie our content, she tells me,
“At the time, I would have just kept going, for me there was always hope that the next time would work. I was so focused on getting that child, I was blind to everything going on around me. The only reason I stopped was the Dr told me I had too.”
I remember that time well, at her consultation Vickie had asked the question;
“It’s not going to work for me, is it?”
As he tapped Vickie’s feet, as was his habit, he shook his head, even he couldn’t say the word, no. Later he said, “You don’t give up do you, but it’s time to stop”
This may seem callous, but this news was a relief for me, it gave me the chance to say what I had been wanting to say for some time. As I sat on the couch, holding Vickie’s hand, through the tears I said “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t deal with this emotional rollercoaster and the devastation at the end”. We were 40, one of the reasons the Dr had said no, was due to the high risk of us having a child with a disability, as well as a risk of death from over simulation. I tried to bring a little logic to the discussion, if we kept going, the potential is we would be 60 and still have a child in their teens and if this child had a disability that would not fare on that child or us, who would be there to love and care for them, when we were no longer here.
There, we drew our line in the sand.
