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.
 
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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.