Two women and a baby – the start

Alex Baker-Nurse - 6 Sep 16

So with 8 weeks to go (or there about) until our long awaited bundle of noise arrives, it got me thinking back to when my partner and I started on this journey. It has been anything but straight forward and even once we were finally in the ‘baby making system’ we were faced with multiple miscarriages, long spells of infertility and many a day agreeing to give it all up, leave our jobs and go back packing around the world.

Fast forward 7 years and we are almost nearly there – we have other huge life challenges happening at the moment (which is a whole other blog) but after adamantly saying in Dec 15 that I had categorically drawn a line under the baby thing and I was closed for business we decided we would have ONE LAST go this year and hey presto – looks like a mini me is on the way. This is a total blessing and has given 2016 a positive focus when the rest of our lives have shattered around us.

We have also back packed around a lot of the world in between trying to reproduce so all has not been lost in the 7 years it has taken to get here.

But back to what this post is about and the frustrating and stressful experience of trying to conceive through a fertility clinic. I hope not everybody has this experience but i’m sure there will be a lot of people that can relate – you are not alone!

So lets start right at the beginning, at that moment you decide that now is a really good time in life to have a baby.

Maybe you are exactly where you want to be in your career.

Maybe you are considering a change of direction and having a baby before you do makes sense.

Maybe you have finally bought the house you want to raise a family in and the nursery is crying out for a little person to live in it.

Maybe you have met the love of your life and immediately want to produce something together that you can nurture and watch grow and be a product of your love for each other.

Maybe you have always known that motherhood is your destiny and you had always planned to do it at this exact point in your life.

or

Maybe, like me, there was no defining perfect moment to start a family. It was more of a ‘shit I’m 31, that deafening biological alarm clock never went off and I guess this is as good a time as any’.

Am pretty sure a lot of conceptions are a result of this mad panic as you wave goodbye to your twenties. You realise your career may never be exactly how you had planned when you were sixteen, it’s a harsh reality but its likely you will never be a pop star or be chosen for the GB Olympic show jumping team. You also realise you may never own your own house (let alone the big one with a massive gate and the paddock out the back), that the tick tocking of that allusive biological clock may not be heard by everyone and most importantly you realise if you want to be young enough to enjoy your children (and your own parents to be young enough to help look after them) you had better just get on with it.

Phew – decision made– that must be the hardest part out of the way right?

Wrong!

Now the baby-making journey really begins, and being two women in love obviously brings with it its own set of biological difficulties in this adventure. Hence the need for embarking on a polyamorous relationship with the good old NHS….for a second time.

My partner is a little older than me and had been through the frustrating, infuriating and at times impossible ordeal of using an NHS ACU (Assisted Conception Unit – where dreams, and supposedly babies are made) when she was trying to conceive a few years before me.

At the time, she was juggling a really full on job, an ailing parent and dealing with a younger partner (me) who wasn’t ready to jump head first into sleepless nights and trips to Peppa Pig world. Pile on top of all that an incompetent ACU and due to her age (past 39 no funding) and our postcode (SE22 no funding) a hefty price tag to accompany these incompetencies and you have yourself a pretty stressful couple of years – and stress as we all know is not conducive to producing a healthy bouncing baby.

So as a couple we have been through the following process twice (approx. 5 years apart with varying degrees of hope, doubt, excitement, weariness and moments of wanting to bang both our heads against a brick wall). And no it doesn’t get any easier, any less infuriating or any less expensive as the years go on. It would appear the clinic in question did not learn by their errors and despite an admission from them when my partner stopped trying and handed the baton over to me, that they had failed in their processes and had made some vital mistakes along the way I cant say we have seen any improvement in their care, communication or consistency. This is just our experience though – and it has been something like this.

How much is that baby in the window?

Once you have stopped reeling at the fact you are going to be self funding every step of this journey, despite the fact that friends in other London Boroughs (knew we should have moved East when we could afford it) received at least one, if not two rounds of IVF on the NHS), and after you have re-mortgaged your house (unfortunately not the one with the big gate and paddock) to pay for it – its time to go in for your initial meeting; there are lots of meetings to go to, lots of consultants to see and then another meeting to attend just to make sure you haven’t changed your mind between meetings about having a baby, how you are going to have a baby or what sort of baby you want – and yes you have to pay for all of these meetings – kerching! But it’s a bit like snakes and ladders wherein if you miss one of these meetings you go back to the bottom of the board – and trust me it takes long enough to get to the next level as it is, so dig deep in to your pockets and make sure you attend all of these meetings no matter how pricey, pointless and repetitive they seem at the time.

Firstly you have to actually speak to a real life human being to book your appointment, yes there are receptionists, but no they don’t answer the phone. You leave a message. They call you back hours later when you are in a meeting. They don’t leave a message. You call them back and leave a message asking them next time to please just leave a message. They call back hours later when you have no reception. They don’t leave a message. This goes on for the next 24 hours but eventually you will speak to a person, that person though will not be able to answer some of your questions so they have to get a nurse to call you back before they can book you in. And so it continues….

You’ve spoken to a nurse; she said your questions would be answered in your initial appointment, if you ever get that initial appointment. The nurse asks you to phone back through to reception to book your initial appointment, as she does not have access to the diary. You leave a message whilst counting to ten.

You finally speak to someone AND that someone has access to the diary – brilliant – all booked in – for 2 months time – but at least you are booked in.

First appointment: You will be asked why you want a baby (why does anyone want a baby?), you will be interrogated about your jobs, salaries, ambitions, relationship, family, pets and what size pants you wear before you get the green light to go to the next level.

Second appointment: you will be asked all of the above just by someone more senior in a white coat.

Third appointment: They will say they have no record of you having been in to answer all the above questions – at this point you are allowed to scream.

Fourth appointment: You have to go into a meeting to book a meeting with the consultant (and no doing this over the phone is not an option – don’t ask me why – maybe because no-one ever answers the bloody phone)

Fifth appointment: You meet the consultant – hurrah. This must be where we start talking about how we are actually going to do this thing. The consultant asks if you have all the results from your blood tests that you had with your GP before getting referred to the clinic – yes yes yes you do, of course you do, it took long enough to get them done on day 7, day 21 and then back again for a follow up as day 21 results came back stating you were post menopausal (at which point your future looked like it would be dominated by changing your own nappy rather than a baby’s), but then all fine. Phew. Brittle bones can jog on for a few more years thankfully. So you excitedly hand over your tip top results that say there is absolutely no reason whatsoever you shouldn’t conceive first time around. But wait – the consultant doesn’t just push you up the next ladder. She looks for longer than is required at the paper and then says ‘I’m really sorry but these results are now out of date since your initial meeting with us so you will need to go and have them all done again, by us, at an extortionate cost and no I’m afraid your GP cannot do them for you! (as that would be quick and free) There is approximately a months wait to get these done, please book in with reception and then once you have the results please make an appointment with one of the nurses to discuss them so she can refer you back to see one of the consultants. Oh and don’t forget to pay on your way out’ argggghhhhhhhhhhh you want to cry as you plummet down that slippery bugger of a snake back to the bottom left hand square.

Alex Baker-Nurse

Work in London. Live in Whitstable. Usually ranting about the God awful commute or the perils of new motherhood. When not ranting or looking after a noisy small I can be found on the back of a temperamental ginger thoroughbred or wandering the streets with my camera.

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