The Fertility Clinic Wait

Rebecca - 11 Feb 19

As I sit in an office, surrounded by people, I can feel the nerves fluttering through my stomach. Today is the day that we have waited for since that weird no man’s land time between Christmas and new year. Today is our first Fertility Clinic Appointment.

We have been trying for a baby for 18 months now. It’s been long. We started the official “Doctor process” in mid-September. I remember the moment well because we were on holiday. For months before the holiday, I had been using an app, one of those fertility trackers that everyone immediately advises you to download the minute you think about trying. The app told me that I would be ovulating during this holiday so I dutifully took ovulation test strips and a ridiculously hopeful attitude that this would be the week we finally conceived. It was perfect! We would be sufficiently chilled out from the break, it would be proper sex (not the “Oh, fuck sake, we need to try tonight” type) and so I began thinking of a way to integrate the obscure holiday location name into our as yet unconceived child’s name.

But ovulation day came, and left, with no indication of ovulation. The strips all came back negative. We waited until later that day, and then the next day but no little line arrived. And there, slap bang in the middle of our retreat style holiday I had the mother of all meltdowns. It was too much, too hard, all I wanted was a baby. Did I not deserve one? What was wrong with us? Was it me? Was it him? Are we incompatible? Am I destined to be a mother without a baby? And then came the words that started making baby making more medical; “We have to see someone about this.” So there and then we rang the doctors and had an appointment booked for two weeks later.

Fast forward a few months (and more than a few initial tests later) and we’re sat in the doctors consulting room, the day after boxing day, being told that we’re being referred to the Fertility Clinic because I’m missing a hormone and there are some potential indicators of PCOS. Neither of which are fatal for the cause. The doctor reiterates that by the time we get the appointment I’ll probably have caught.

And so, here we are. Another two months (I realise that this – for some areas of the country – is a very fast turnaround, I can only imagine the pain of waiting longer. Two months was hard enough) after being referred, waiting for The Big Appointment. I’m sat at work shitting myself about what is about to come. Not because I worry about physical aspects like tests etc. but because once our feet step over that threshold, there’s no going back to “the norm”. In that room, we will start a journey for more invasive testing, more number and stats scrutiny, more waiting. We won’t get that opportunity to have a nice warm and fuzzy, ClearBlue advert style moment finding out that we’re pregnant. The one that we follow by frantically googling how big the foetus is comparable to a piece of fruit. If/when we do get pregnant (dear god I hope it’s a when) it will be known well before it’s big enough to even be considered a blueberry. There’s a chance we will find out from a blood test, taken to see if treatments have worked. It will be clinical. It will be hospital gowns, sterile needles and that smell of cleaning fluids. I envisage it will be cold and matter of fact.

That is what I fear, as I sit here impatiently waiting for 4 o’clock to come and go. I hope I’m wrong, I hope that the clinic is warm and fuzzy, and the staff are lovely and caring and that this journey will be short for us. But I also hope that this afternoon I stroll into the doctor’s office and they turn to me and say “I sense that you’re pregnant, let’s take a test. Oh wow, look, you’re pregnant! Enjoy your little sleep thief, good luck and goodbye.”

Rebecca

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