IVF: An Emotional Companion. Brigid Moss

issues for me or any babies, such as that a twin pregnancy has a higher risk of miscarriage and complications. I just desperately wanted a child or even children.

      In the end, I did have two embryos put back in. One was top grade, and the other was almost as good. Transfer was horrible: I got really cold because they told me to drink what felt like gallons of water, there was no heating on and I was only wearing a flimsy gown. John did his best to keep me calm and warm.

      People say the two-week wait is the hardest part, and it is. Suddenly, from doing injections, having scans, taking phone calls, you’re on your own and there’s no contact with the clinic. For the first three days, I stayed in bed while Jake was at nursery. One day, I’d think I was feeling pregnancy symptoms, then the next day, I wouldn’t. It was like all those months when I’d hoped I was pregnant, but much more loaded.

      The night before the pregnancy test, I couldn’t sleep. I got up at 6 a.m. and did it in the bathroom. It was positive. I couldn’t quite take it in. I went in and got into bed with John and woke him up and we hugged. It wasn’t until I went into the clinic later that day that it really sank in.

      I went to the six-week scan convinced it was twins. But there was only one heartbeat. It was a shock — I’d thought it would be all or nothing. The staff at the clinic and John were really delighted, but I kept thinking: what happened to the other one? It’s strange, as I had a sense of loss, and even though I know it’s better to have one baby at a time, I still think about the other possible baby to this day, whenever I look at beautiful Edie, who’s now six months old.

      The embryos turned out to be such good quality that we’ve got six blastocyst embryos on ice. I’m very grateful to have Jake and Edie, but I don’t know if I’m up for having a third child yet — or ever. We haven’t decided what we’ll do with the embryos; maybe we’ll donate them to medical research.

      Q: HAD YOU HEARD OF SECONDARY INFERTILITY BEFORE IT HAPPENED TO YOU?

      I knew some people struggled with miscarriage, but I assumed that if you’d had one child and wanted a second within a couple of years, you’d be fi ne. I didn’t really listen to talk about declining fertility; I thought it alarmist when I heard doctors saying that after the age of 35 your fertility ‘falls off a cliff’. Certainly, I will tell my children what happened to me, so they can make up their minds about when to try for their own family.

      Q: WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHO’S STRUGGLING TO CONCEIVE AFTER HAVING A CHILD?

      People say, ‘Oh, you have a child, you should be grateful.’ And yes, you are so grateful, but you are also devastated to think that might be it. It’s important to acknowledge what you’re going through; I think the frustration and disappointment must be every bit as acute as not being able to conceive the first time. If you already have a child, you know what you’re missing. And your idea of a family is being torn to shreds.

      You have to keep plugging away with trying, giving yourself breaks from treatment when you need to, as it’s very intense. Most importantly, keep the faith. My husband helped me with this. And now we have a daughter, we are just so delighted and grateful, with her, for ourselves and for Jake. IVF made the experience of her so much more special – a reward for all our hard work.

      Q: WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE TO SOMEONE WHO’S CONSIDERING HAVING IVF FOR SECONDARY INFERTILITY?

      Don’t be scared of it. It’s perceived in society as a much bigger deal than it really is. When you’ve got to the point that you need IVF, you’ve done a lot of the hard work by having all the fertility tests and maybe IUI. You’ve already been sad and had to deal with a lot of uncertainty. Before I had IVF, I had the attitude that it was high-tech and unnatural, but it’s really not that bad. The best way to think about it is simply that IVF gives you a better chance.

      Q: WHAT PRACTICAL THINGS HELPED YOU TO GET THROUGH IVF?

      Much as I hated having the IUI cycles before IVF, they gave me an opportunity to learn what not to do during IVF. I tried to live as normal a life as possible during IUI – for example, I was in the pub all afternoon on my birthday, when I should have been resting. But when it came to IVF, I focused on it completely and didn’t let anything get in the way.

      Also, at first I tried every complementary therapy going, but, by the time I got to doing IVF, I knew what was working for me – acupuncture. I tried to be really healthy but not obsessed, so, very occasionally, I’d have a small glass of wine. I also tried to stay calm.

      Q: IS IT A GOOD THING TO TALK TO FRIENDS ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE GOING THROUGH?

      I found it was a release to let people know what we were doing. That said, at some points it’s better to get on with things yourself and not talk about them so much. Sometimes, with other women who are also trying to get pregnant, it can become destructive, as you end up comparing yourself to them. I had one friend who I confi ded in, who was going through the same thing, and who was incredibly supportive.

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      There’s not nearly so much written about secondary infertility as primary. Fertilityzone.co.uk have a dedicated secondary infertility section on their forum and reading the posts shows how difficult it can be. One mum says, ‘I am so glad to have my son, he is my life and I wouldn’t want to be without him, but I can’t get rid of this agonising pain in my heart. I want another baby I so desperately want my son to have a sibling.’ Fertility Friends (fertilityfriends.co.uk) also has a very busy thread on their forum for secondary infertility.

      In their explanation of secondary infertility, the National Infertility Association in the US, Resolve (resolve.org), describe all the aspects in a very perceptive way: ‘It’s a cruel irony that the more positively parents feel about parenting, the more painful is their experience of secondary infertility’ (www.resolve.org/diagnosis-management/infertilitydiagnosis/secondary-infertility.html). They also bring up the issue of how wanting another child and having treatment can affect the child you already have.

      Lynda, 42, blogs at http://tryingfornumbertwo.blogspot. com/ about almost five years spent trying for a sibling for her daughter, who she conceived after only three months. She is appealingly honest: ‘It seems so unfair that for most of my daughter’s life I have been grieving for an unborn child. I really feel that my grief has overshadowed the joy of having my beautiful daughter.’ Kathy Benson, now mother to Sean and Abby, went through four years of secondary infertility and documents her journey in her blog, chicagobenson. blogspot.com. ‘I especially had a hard time’, she writes, ‘when friends and family members would announce their pregnancies publicly at social gatherings.’ She also makes the point that women with secondary infertility tend to be surrounded by reminders that they can’t conceive because they are so often around children and other mothers. The book she found most useful was Conquering Infertility: Dr. Alice Domar’s Mind/Body Guide to Enhancing Fertility and Coping With Infertility (Penguin Books).

      On the practical side, Infertility Network UK has a factsheet on secondary infertility, available at infertilitynetworkuk.com. Sadly, if you already have a child, it’s very unlikely that fertility treatment such as IVF or ICSI will be NHS-funded.

      Cancer affected my fertility

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      It seems particularly unfair that if someone has endured the uncertainties of cancer and the difficulties of treatment, that she or he could also end up infertile too, as a result. Sometimes the cancer itself is to blame, but more usually it’s down to surgery, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy.

      Fertility preservation is now usually offered before cancer treatment. For men, sperm can be frozen and stored before treatment, then used in IVF, usually ICSI. If sperm wasn’t stored — for example, if the man had cancer in childhood — then he may be able to have sperm extracted from his testes during an operation, frozen, then the couple can have ICSI later on (see Chapter 2).

      The most tried-and-tested fertility preservation technique for women is to have IVF prior to cancer treatment, and the embryos frozen, to use when you’re