The Lull between the Storms

 
0740 hrs – Thursday 6 January 2005
 
I am in my car and I am travelling to work, it’s dark and I am crying. It’s all too much and the stress is really beginning to get to me.  I am returning to work after the Christmas break and I know I should be relaxed and ready for the New Year ahead.  In reality, I have spent the previous two weeks snapping at my wife and, for the first time ever, being defensive with the best in-laws any husband could ask for.  This is not normal behaviour and I know something is very, very wrong.
 
I’ve just left Beth as we have gone our separate ways to work.  She knows something is out of place but has played the waiting game; waiting for the time when I was ready to open up and let her in.  I phone and hear her voice, she knows that time has arrived.  She knows because she is my wife, my partner and best friend.  She is the one I am bouncing off at the moment and she is the one who has, in a strange twist of events, become the supporter in the game we are playing at the moment.
 
I’ve called this chapter the Lull between the Storms because that’s where we are.  We have decided to try again and are in the process of ramping up for our second attempt at IVF.  We both really thought the time between procedures would be time well spent; a rest if you like.  We thought things would be easier because there would be no need for injections, visits to clinics or calendar watching as the days slowly passed.  Indeed, we looked at it as time off for good behaviour.  We were wrong.
 
Little did we know that, as time went on, the upcoming ‘second attempt’ would become an all encompassing vision for the pair of us.  You see, we had both agreed that the second attempt would be the final attempt.  Now that we were ramping up for that last chance things were becoming very focused..
 
For me it became a time when the whole baby thing was closing in around me.  A little dramatic but true nonetheless.  It was the little things like my mother asking Beth, quite pointedly, when she could expect her first Granddaughter.  Now, I know that’s a normal motherly type question but we had chosen not to let my parents know about the whole fertility thing so I suppose my mum couldn’t be blamed although it still hurt and added to the pain I had building inside.  It also hurt when I saw, for the first time, the overwhelming sadness in Beth’s eyes as she lied about our plans for the future.
 
It was difficult for the pair of us to cope with Christmas and the time we spent with Beth’s family.  Her brother and Sister-in-Law have four wonderful children who are simply adorable in every way.  For that very reason they both find it difficult to talk to us about our situation.  It’s not their fault and I can understand how difficult it must be for them.  However, I will never be able to understand how a brother and sister, who have shared everything, can simply go about their business, so very desperate to talk to each other about the one thing they simply dare not mention
 
2000 hrs - 06 February 2005
 
It’s a dark time for me at the moment; I am full of anger and it’s tearing me apart at a rate I simply can’t control.  I think I know why and that goes some way in providing comfort at a time when I need something to hold onto; a solid foundation during a time when nothing is taken for granted.
 
Where is this anger coming from?  Let me explain.
 
I get up every morning and I don’t want to go to work.  There is a crèche where some of the cutest children I have seen spend their days.  Their parents bring them into work and wait for the crèche doors to open.  As I walk through the building, an impressive open plan number, all I can hear is the innocent laughter of those too young to care.  I see parents who are immensely proud of their offspring, dressing them in clothes to die for and I smile as the children trot along next to their rightly proud mother or father.  I so want to be that parent; to know what it feels like; to experience that warmth and unquestioning love.   They have no idea how much I hate them for having the one thing I may never have.  Of course I don’t hate these people; they have every right in the world to be proud of their children and if there’s any hating to be done it’s down to me for thinking about it in the first place.
 
On the drive home when it’s dark and I am tired my mind tends to wander, often lead by the little green demons and it’s during these times the pain of the entire situation catches me.  It’s quite difficult to explain where this pain comes from and, as you’re reading this book perhaps you’ll know what I mean.  It’s an emptiness that creeps up on you when you least expect it or the punch that winds you when you catch yourself staring at a beautiful child playing with an older brother or sister.  It’s the snatched moments when a child catches your eye and smiles with such innocence you can’t help but crumble in on yourself.  
 
It’s the kick in the teeth when you realise that you may never become the father you so desperately want to be.  
 
There were times when the drive home was unbelievably heart wrenching.  There was one occasion when I had to stop the car, get out and scream at the darkness in order to let the anger out safely.  This is the sort of thing you can’t tell your friends or even your wife.  It scared the hell out of me as I realised, for the first time in my life, that here was something way beyond my control.  Although the drive home could be deadly it wasn’t the source of my true anger.
 
-
 
Ever since I can remember I have placed one man on the highest pedestal; a man who has taught me so much during my life time that he has moulded me into the person I am today.  He has witnessed things during his life that people should never have to see and he has achieved things way beyond the normal expectations.  When I was young I would walk next to this man and listen to his every word as he shared stories of far off lands and conflicts; stories he refused to share with others.
 
There have been times when he has sat me down and read me the riot act in such a way that my love for him has increased ten fold.  Some say I am a chip off the old block when it comes to him and, when I hear this I stop and say a quiet thank you to those who see it for it truly is the best thing anyone could say to me.  To me, this person typifies everything a man should be.  He is wise, caring, strong and unbelievably proud.
 
Right now the fact that I might not become a father, whilst crippling, is not the hardest pill to swallow.  No, it’s the fact that I might not be given the opportunity to emulate the one man who shared so much with me as a child; Arthur Munden, my Grandad.
 
When I am old I want to feel the rush of pride as my Grandson runs into the room to show me his life changing discovery.  I want to watch as he learns to ride his bike without stabilisers for the very first time and I want to spoil him as only a Grandfather can.  Most importantly, I want my Grandson to look at me in the same way I look at mine.  I want people to turn to him and say, quietly out of my earshot, that he is just like his Grandad and I want to imagine that he will fill with pride just as I do.  It is the one thing I want out of life and right now I don’t think it’s going to happen.  
 
And that makes me so bloody angry.
 

A Box within a box within a box

How are you dealing with infertility?  At what point did you sit down and say to yourself:  “I can’t have my own baby; I need help”?  When you’re lying in bed at night and your wife is asleep do you think about the process and how it impacts upon you as a couple?  Do you ever think about the consequences of failure and how the pair of you will cope with the pain?  What goes through your head when you discuss IVF procedures with the doctors and nurses and do you ever think about the day when you have to say enough is enough, accepting that you simply cannot have children?  What will you do when you have to consider other options such as adoption, egg donors or even surrogacy?  How will you cope with a life without children of your own?  Are you strong enough to get through this with your marriage intact?  Are these questions making you uncomfortable?  Have you ever asked yourself any of the above?
 
I have and you will.
 
Throughout this process I have, totally unbeknown to myself it seems, dealt with all these questions without realising it was happening. Beth calls it ‘blocking out’ whilst the Therapist calls it ‘compartmentalising’.  You see, I deal with the here and now whilst keeping a very, and I do mean very, close eye on both the short and long term future.  I can’t, it appears, deal with the here and now only.  I tend to look ahead and, in order to prepare myself for the worst case scenario, run things through to their natural end, regardless of the consequences.  This, as you can imagine causes its own set of problems as little green demons often lurk in the corners of these scenarios and are quite capable of creating havoc whenever the opportunity presents itself.  
Whereas Beth is able to visualise the entire process, where the eggs become embryos and are inserted back into her womb and are therefore living, multiplying cells - a baby even - I apparently, cannot accept she is pregnant until her pee turns the touch paper blue.  Why not?  Because I have already run the scenario where the test fails and I was able to prepare for the fall-out such a failure would create.  I don’t know why this is; it simply is.  I therefore know the moment she shows me the blue paper I will become the proud father to be.  Until that time I am on standby to help in a medical procedure that may, or may not, be successful.
 
This is where we had our difficulties following our failed attempt at IVF.  I realise now, once the embryo was inserted back into her womb, why Beth was totally engrossed within the entire process and was actually talking to our child, offering soothing thoughts and interacting with it.  I would often catch her stroking her stomach and, occasionally, singing.  Whilst I could understand her actions I was slightly sceptical as, in my mind, there was, at that stage, nothing there.  I also realise that I was wrong and, having felt so helpless in the aftermath of our IVF failure, I now know that if I had opened the father-to-be box just a little earlier my feelings and reactions would have been in line with the mother of my child, the child we had both just lost to Mother Nature.
 
How you deal with your feelings will only come to light when you are faced with the issues I have tried to explain here.  I cannot prepare you for them or tell you how you will react; that’s your stuff.  The one thing you must do is talk to your partner at every stage of the process.  I am not talking about the obvious things like the shopping or whatever; I am on about the things that scare you both; the stuff only the pair of you know about.  By doing so you will go a long way in preparing the ground work for what lies ahead and the many experiences coming your way.

The Alternative Angle

 
Following close on the heels of our failed attempt, Beth began to look around for alternative treatments.  She began with pamphlets and books but quickly moved to the internet.  It was almost as if she needed something to keep her mind busy.  
 
This is when I began to feel slightly uncomfortable as I had already had to battle with myself over the entire IVF process.  You see, I initially believed if things didn’t occur naturally then they should remain as they were; let it lie.  Trying to make the body do things it didn’t want to really made me worry in the early days and, if I hadn’t sorted my head out, it would have placed Beth and me on a collision course.  I realised that in order to achieve our goal I would have to accept that Beth would have to fill herself up with drugs and potions.  I settled my nerves by acknowledging that, as the drugs were prescribed and monitored, it was OK not to worry.  That was my plan and I was sticking to it.
 
And there lies the rub.  Beth was now beginning to look at treatments that somehow promised to ‘enhance’ the user’s ability to conceive.  Of course, the literature was glossy and the many graphs went to great lengths to show positive results and, to the layman, were certainly encouraging.  All seemed well and Beth was convinced such treatments were to be investigated and used in the search for parenthood.  I, on the other hand, was not convinced, at all.
 
 You see, in the back of my mind I believe that for every hardship impacting upon mankind there will be someone offering a solution that can be used to ease the pain.  The solution often comes with promises of great things and discoveries of new treatments with advancements in technology just over the horizon.  All this can be accessed by the neediest and often is, for the right price.
 
One of the treatments Beth found offered a ‘healing hands’ approach with various ‘meetings’ with fully qualified ‘consultants’ who would “assist in re-balancing her body in order to re-align vital connections”.  The price - £180 for an initial consultation (non-refundable) and £80 for future sessions with up to six advised as the minimum required; and that’s before they’ve even met you! That’s a cool £660 to be realigned, rebalanced and rebooted!
 
Yes please, and does that come with free wine glasses?
 
Look, here’s the thing; I am not a doctor and I cannot vouch for the reliability of these alternative treatments that seem to populate every corner of the market.  I may be doing them an injustice and therefore I can only apologise.  It just seems that wherever we looked there was a treatment that would ‘complement’ the hard work already underway through official channels.  In my mind it was like adding go faster stripes to an already fast car.  You wouldn’t get there any quicker but you would feel better in the knowledge that you looked good.  However, the last time I saw a car with stripes it was being driven by a teenager who, with music blasting, flew past me at a speed way beyond his control.  Did he look good?  I think not.
 
Was I being overly cynical with this?  Was I denying Beth the opportunity of looking good in her own fast car?  Perhaps I was and I know she was upset and annoyed with me and that made me feel worse in an already difficult situation.  I was not, however, prepared to bend on this.  Yes, we had the money to spend and no, it would not hurt trying.  So why the stubbornness?  I’ll tell you why; where does it end?  
 
There is no question that, at this stage of the game, both Beth and I were desperate to hold that child, to live through the sleepless nights and to play the role of proud parents; it meant everything to us.  We were sick of simply being the Godparents or the caring but slightly wacky Aunt and Uncle who could be relied upon to play with the children or babysit at the drop of a hat.  Because of these things, it would not be a large step to take before we fell into the trap of chasing every potential treatment in order to realise the dream we held so tightly to our hearts.  Yes it did hurt me to say no to Beth and I know she resented my resolve for some time.  In fact part of me still wonders if she ever fully forgave me.
 
But I had made the step from support worker, a position I held during the first attempt, to a fully paid up member of this partnership.  I knew I didn’t want to travel along that route and said so.  We were in this together and whilst I was happy with IVF and all the hardships that came with it, I was not happy to sign up to countless treatments that were being selected via an emotional rather than a more rational process.
 
I suppose it comes down to one thing; remaining focused on what it is you both really want.  It would have been so easy to let Beth have what she wanted as she was desperate for a glimpse of light that would, in some way, help her towards her goal.  There will be times when you will both need the other’s strength to cling on to and there will be times when you will feel that your combined strength is simply not enough.  It is during these times that you will need to dig deeper than you have ever dug in your life because that is where true love and strength lies, deep within the pair of you.  Trust me, it is there and it’s quietly waiting for the day you need it the most.

Therapy

Having spent some interesting nights in many inhospitable hot-spots around the world, often being shot at by people who really wanted to kill me, I thought I was able to handle most stressful situations.  It had never really occurred to me that I would need to talk about how I was feeling inside; it really wasn’t my cup of tea.  In fact, it’s not really the British cup of tea as we tend to shun the concept of pouring our hearts out to people we have only just met.  Therefore, if you’d told me four years ago that I would be sitting in a small, overly hot, room pouring my heart out to a lady that I had only just met, I would have told you to think again.  However, that’s the way it was following our first failed attempt.  
 
I have to take my hat off to Counsellors as they really know what they are doing and I would strongly advise anyone who travels the route Beth and I have to use them if and when the opportunity presents itself.  They don’t push, they certainly don’t preach and they will listen with a neutral ear as you share your most intimate inner thoughts, and substantial fears.
 
I say fears because we all have them, every single one of us.  It took a while for mine to surface but my worst fear, having seen Beth go through so much pain and heartache, was to witness the entire thing all over again.  How could I justify her pain when I was unable to take my fare share?  This was a natural blockage for me and I was having serious thoughts about the whole second attempt.  
 
That is, until I spoke to Patsy.
 
She spent the majority of our first session unravelling me and my rather complex feelings.  As you have already read, I was wrapped up with the whole supporting problem along with the feelings of simply being a failure.  Believe me when I say it didn’t take her long to discover that little issue.    Don’t get me wrong, she spent plenty of time with Beth but it was me she was keen to get her knobbly fingers into.  Why?  Because I had issues and I wouldn’t be leaving that stuffy little room until she had at least got an angle on them.  At first she spent some time fishing for a way in and when she took hold it wasn’t long before she had me cracked. Yes I lost some tears, yes I was slightly on the back foot and yes I was flatter than a pancake.  It was, however, a start.
 
Looking back, I know every second I spent in counselling I was healing. Their talents are not something I can pinpoint but if it could be bottled I’d certainly invest in the company.  These people have a skill and I am thankful for the time we spent with the many counsellors who helped me during this journey.  If I am deadly honest, I don’t think my marriage would have survived without their help.  And, when I look at things from this point of view it certainly helps to focus the mind.
 
My advice?  Open your heart and embrace counselling in all forms.  It’s not wet or weird or any other word used to describe something you really don’t want to do.  It’s simply a tool, a way used by people in our position to deal with issues that are way beyond our control.  Please, please don’t turn your back on the whole counselling thing as to do so will only delay the process of coming to terms with what you are going through.