An Inconceivable Path: IVF And Me

Despite 1 in 7 couples in the UK having difficulty conceiving (NHS), the subject of infertility is still one so often not spoken about. Upon reading Lauren’s submission, we were overwhelmed not only by her story, but also her passion, empathy and bravery in sharing her journey, and in doing so helping countless other women feel less alone. We hope whatever stage of life you’re currently in, you can take a leaf from Lauren’s book in knowing your worth and resilience …

If I could go back in time and meet the ‘me’ of five years ago, I wouldn’t tell her of the struggle that lay ahead. I wouldn’t tell her about the pain she would endure or the decisions she’d have to make or the complicated emotions tangled within every twist and turn of her future path. I would not tell that deliriously happy Bride-To-Be that the next five years of her life would be the most uncertain and heart-wrenching times she’d ever known. Because, knowing what I do now, I’m not sure if the ‘me’ of five years ago would’ve felt up to the task.

Back then, my main concerns were almost exclusively wedding-related: whether Drunken Uncle Barry would have too much Bucks Fizz and topple face first into the cake, for instance, or whether the big day would arrive at the same time as an enormous chin pimple, perhaps. Annoyingly, the latter did actually occur but I’m forever grateful that Drunken Uncle Barry’s only mishap was knocking a platter of sausages off the buffet table. You win some, you lose some, I suppose. The furthest thing from my mind, back then, the absolute last thing on my radar and maybe not even on the radar at all, was infertility.

But 5 years on, a whole lot of thoroughly contraceptive-free intercourse and 2 failed rounds of IVF later; infertility is the most unwelcome and yet all-consuming aspect of my life. Injecting hormones into my stomach, wedging pessaries up my you-don’t-want-to-know-where and dropping my knickers at the Doctor’s office are such regular occurrences in my world that they no longer faze me in the slightest. In fact, this trying-to-conceive malarkey has become so second nature that I might as well rock up to each hospital appointment naked from the waist down and ready to cartwheel into the nearest pair of leg stirrups, lassoing my underwear across the room as I go. I'm a seasoned veteran in the fertility chair these days and, somewhere along the way, I developed an ability to talk about it in this lofty, tongue-in-cheek manner.

But this wasn't always the case. Until very recently, I kept our struggle completely secret.

I was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries and my husband with low motile sperm after about a year of blissfully ignorant… erm… bonking. Neither issue is especially problematic on its own, but together, the chances of us conceiving naturally are almost zero. I remember leaving the hospital that day carrying what felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders. The future we'd imagined for ourselves, the one we'd always thought was a guarantee and the one that people incessantly questioned us about; hung precariously out of reach. We were devastated. And shocked. Getting pregnant was supposed to be easy. So terrifyingly easy that we'd spent a decent chunk of our relationship taking all the precautions to prevent it from happening! We were young, healthy, happy, stable...... ready. We didn't realise infertility could affect people like us. But it can - and it was.

In the months that followed the diagnosis, I made every effort to throw people off the scent. Anytime anyone - friends, family, colleagues, strangers - asked when we might have a baby, all my energy went into (a) not bursting into tears and (b) delivering the most convincing "Oh God, babies!??! Noooo, we're not thinking about that any time soon" kind of response. What stopped me from being honest with those closest to us? A misplaced sense of shame, embarrassment and insecurity over our newly discovered label - 'infertile'.

After a lifetime believing that pregnancy might happen as a result of any fleeting encounter with a penis, my understanding of infertility - or lack thereof - was laced with both stigma and prejudice. I blamed myself entirely for a problem that I only contributed 50% to. Because it was ME who wasn't pregnant. ME who bled each month. ME who wept at pregnancy announcements and held back tears at baby showers. ME who endured all the procedures, operations, injections, pills, diet changes and therapies. ME who had to juggle a career alongside all the appointments. ME whose friendships deteriorated as they drifted away from my child-free world and into a new one I didn’t belong in. It was ME whose body changed. ME whose stomach swelled with growing follicles and whose skin bled and bruised with each injection. It was ME, the infertile woman, who the media so often branded "unhealthy", “old”, "highly stressed”, "career prioritising" and “barren” and, even though I was none of those things, I became convinced that was how others would view me. I simply didn't want to admit that I was struggling with something that I felt so sure nobody understood – not even my absolute hero of a husband who handled all of this with a strength and decorum I wasn't capable of.

I felt completely alone in my pain and the more time that passed, the harder it became to sidestep nosey questions about our reproductive status and celebrate other peoples' news. All around me, people were popping out babies with apparent ease. Nobody spoke of any difficulty conceiving, nobody mentioned IVF, nobody shared anything other than blossoming bumps and beautiful bundles of joy on perfectly pixelated tiles. Social media presented me with constant reminders of a reality that wasn't my own. One that I might never obtain, in spite of such substantial effort. I was angry at my body for not being able to get pregnant and bitter that others had achieved it so easily. I felt fragile and lost. I hated what infertility was doing to me.

A few months before our first round of IVF and shortly after a 3 month course of some pretty hefty fertility medication, a colleague joked that I better "hurry up and have a baby before.." - in his words - "...your eggs turn to mush". I still don't know exactly how I managed to not launch my stapler at his obnoxious head that day but somehow, miraculously, I refrained. When I got home that evening, I polished off half a bottle of wine, opened my laptop and let the words pour out of me…

I wrote about our struggle to conceive, our upcoming treatment and all the uncomfortable details that went with it. I wrote about feeling jealous, feeling left out of "The Mum Club" and feeling like infertility had stolen precious years of my life. I wrote about the insensitive, invasive and inappropriate comments I was so regularly on the receiving end of. I wrote about IVF, how low the odds of success were and how desperately we wanted it to work. I wrote about my husband, what an amazing support he'd been and how incredible he was for being among the very few men prepared to speak openly about male infertility. I wrote about what a wonderful father he'd make and how much we both dreamt of becoming parents one day - however it might happen for us. I let my heart spill out all over the page and signed off by saying that whilst my story didn't fit the picture-perfect world of social media, there was no use hiding from it any longer and it was time for me to be real. And then, with my husband’s permission, I hit “share”.

The responses came in thick and fast. My family and friends rallied around us with more love and support than I could have possibly hoped for. Women with similar, more heart-breaking, stories contacted me from all over the world. Friends who I’d previously assumed had a completely smooth path to parenthood reached out and shared their own difficult journeys. There were women who had been through 10 rounds of IVF and women who had experienced loss and complications I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I continued to receive messages for weeks afterward and was introduced to a whole community of women who understood me. I discovered podcasts, blogs, Instagram accounts and events - all designed to support and uplift people just like me. And it was this community – and everyone in it – who were breaking the taboos around infertility.

A year on from that initial coming-out-the-infertility-closet post and things have changed. Stigmas have been challenged, awareness has been raised and infertility is recognised as a disease that affects 1 in 8. My sincerest hope is that, with increasing transparency from real people and the media, fewer and fewer will feel the need to keep their struggle a secret, like I did.

For me and my husband, our journey with infertility and IVF continues. At the time of writing - thanks to the NHS and significant scientific intervention - an embryo that we made together is sitting in a freezer in London, waiting for us. We don’t know what the future holds for that precious little embryo but, one thing’s for sure, we are making every effort to bring it back home with us.

...And if I could go back in time and meet the ‘me’ of five years ago, I wouldn’t tell her about any of these twists and turns that life has thrown. But what I would tell her, and what I'd also like to tell you, dear reader, is this: you have strength, love, tenacity, courage, wit, empathy and resilience beyond your wildest imagination. Good luck to you.

Lauren writes about her experience with infertility - including 3 medicated cycles and 2 rounds of IVF - on her blog (thedinkyblog.com) and on Instagram (@laurenifen). Her aim is to uplift others in similar situations, educate those who aren't affected and attempt to find humour somewhere amongst all the prodding and poking. For Lauren and her husband, starting a family is not going to happen "the old fashioned way", it's going to be a long and bumpy ride - but they have every hope that they'll get there, one way or another.