IVF: An Emotional Companion. Brigid Moss

out of it because I didn’t want to be let down if it didn’t work.

      It only took a couple of hours for Nick to come round after surgery, but it felt like for ever. When he was wheeled into the recovery room, he was still high, so he was joking around a bit, telling me how pretty the nurses were. I was pleased he was positive, but he was also quite groggy and it was unnerving to see him not being himself.

      A nurse came in and said, ‘I hear it’s good news.’ I said, ‘Oh no, I don’t think so.’ I was so convinced it wouldn’t be. But the nurse went on, ‘No, they looked at the tissue in theatre and they found sperm.’

      Nick went to sleep at that point, and I was sure she had confused our results with the Dutch couple’s. But an hour or so later, our specialist came in and gave us both a massive hug. He said they’d found plenty of sperm; on one side, they hadn’t found anything (the original operation to bring down the testicles had, apparently, been botched), but on the other, they’d managed to extract twelve straws. Each straw is a vial the size of a match, and you only need one to have ICSI. We still had quite a lot to do before we could have a baby, but we were on our way.

      While we were hugging and laughing with relief, the Dutch couple had found out they had a negative result. We could hear the woman crying through the curtains around her partner’s bed, and we really felt for them. It so easily could have been us.

      As we left the clinic later that afternoon, Nick wasn’t in any pain, but he was walking like John Wayne, as if he’d just got off a horse, which made us laugh. Amazingly, the swelling went down fast after the first day, and after a week or so, the stitches had dissolved; after two weeks the wounds were completely healed. The surgeon had gone in through the same incisions that had been made when Nick was a child, so there were no new scars. We were so impressed and grateful; I even called the surgeon to say what a great job he’d done.

      I wanted to crack on with my part of the treatment to keep the momentum going. Scans and blood tests at the clinic showed that I was ovulating and producing lots of eggs, so I could start the injections to stimulate my ovaries a few weeks later. The counsellor showed me how to do the injections on an orange, and I soon got over my needle phobia.

      It was quite complicated to be treated abroad: I was being monitored at a clinic near home, who would fax my results to work, then I’d fax them on to Brussels. Then Brussels would call me to say if I should change my drug dosage. Once the follicles were a certain size, I did the injection to make me ovulate, and we got on the Eurostar the next morning. It was scary, knowing I was about to release all my eggs, and I spent the whole journey hoping we’d get to Brussels on time.

      I was nervous about the egg-collection procedure, but it helped that Nick had already had an operation. He was very supportive, though I could tell he hated that I was having to go through so much.

      In the morning — roughly 36 hours after my final injection — I was wheeled into the same operating theatre where Nick had had his surgery a few weeks before. Egg collection is done under local anaesthetic at that clinic, so I had an injection in my bottom. But I don’t think it worked, as once they started doing the actual egg retrieval, via a needle through my vagina, I felt everything. I’m normally quite good with pain, but I was in agony. The only way I can describe it is like someone pushing a red-hot needle into your lower tummy, then feeling something being sucked out. Because I’d never had it done before, I assumed this was how it was meant to be, so when the nurse asked me if I was ok, I kept saying I was fine. For the first four or five eggs, I thought I could cope, but then the pain got too much and the anaesthetist put something in my drip, which helped a bit.

      In all, they collected 18 eggs, and the whole process took half an hour. When I was wheeled into recovery, I told Nick how horrific it had been. I couldn’t move as I was in so much pain. But we had good news almost straight away: 16 out of the 18 eggs were viable.

      Then we were on to the next worry: would Nick’s sperm survive defrosting? It did, but the clinic don’t give out any more information about fertilisation, so we had to endure three days without news of the embryos. We were staying in a nice hotel which helped take our minds off what was happening at the clinic, but it was a nerve-wracking time.

      On day three, we were having breakfast, when the counsellor called to say they’d like to do the transfer in two hours. We were very excited and phoned our families to say that it was finally going ahead. I felt much happier about going into the theatre with Nick holding my hand this time.

      But once we got to the clinic, there was bad news. Of the 18 eggs, only three had actually fertilised and only one was still alive at day three. We told each other that we only needed one, that it could still work, but the quality of the embryo wasn’t that great, and we were disappointed. All that effort and stress, all those injections, and we were left with a single, solitary hope.

      After transfer, I rested in bed at the hotel for three days, as I felt that would give it the best chance of working, then we took the Eurostar home. The two-week wait was hard; with every tweak and sensation, I couldn’t help questioning if I was pregnant or not. Then, the day before the end of the two-week wait, I was about to go out to my sister’s birthday party, when I got my period. Even when you’re trying to get pregnant naturally and you get your period, it feels as if you’re losing something. But this time, that feeling was much more brutal. Somewhere, I knew there was a little embryo that hadn’t taken. We’d had mainly good news until this point, so it took us a while to realise that, this time, it really was bad news.

      I wanted to try again straight away, but when I rang the clinic, they advised us to wait three months, to give my body time to settle down. They were really encouraging; they said we should think of our first go as a trial, and that we had loads of sperm left.

      I think taking that break was sensible, even though it felt as if we were back to square one. That was our lowest point. I needed to keep talking about it, but Nick was happy to talk about it just once or twice, then move on.

      We hadn’t lived a normal life for ages, so we tried to spend time together, and see friends and family. There were a lot of weddings that summer. It was hard because we hadn’t told anyone we were having treatment, and people kept asking us when we were starting a family. At home afterwards, I’d always end up in tears.

      The second treatment cycle was pretty much the same as the first: 16 eggs but, in the end, only one embryo was viable. It was easier, as I knew about the injections and all the procedures. In the end, we were unlucky again. I found out I wasn’t pregnant when I went to the loo at a friend’s wedding and I’d got my period. I went out and had a glass of champagne, because I could. I felt awful.

      The next morning, lying in bed, I was idly Googling IVF, and I put in ‘best results’. The ARGC in London came up. Nick had wanted to wait for few months for our next treatment, but I was impatient. I managed to get an appointment for a few weeks later, and took the train to London.

      I was expecting a grand Harley Street set-up, but the ARGC is pretty well worn. The doctor we saw was very helpful and easy to talk to. Pricewise, I knew it was more expensive than some other UK clinics, as there are a lot of extras (for example, daily blood tests), but then travelling to Brussels hadn’t been cheap either.

      The doctor recommended I have a hysteroscopy — an operation where the doctors look inside your womb using a camera inserted via your vagina — which, he said, may help increase the chances of success. I had to be monitored for a month too, so we couldn’t start the actual treatment for a couple of months.

      In the meantime, I went part-time at work, as working full-time and doing IVF had become too stressful. I borrowed a flat in London, as I had to have daily blood tests and go into the clinic for scans and drugs too. The nurses and staff were very kind and, through talking to the other women I met there, I learned that everyone seemed to be on different drugs and dosages, so I was confident that I was getting treatment personalised to me.

      The day of egg collection and fertilisation was nail-biting. We had arranged for Nick’s sperm to come over by courier from Brussels, but the flight was delayed. Nick had to be in the clinic early, ready to have another operation, just in case the sperm didn’t