We are currently on holidays up north visiting my parents and it’s been a very welcome break from the fertility grindstone of the last 12 months. Husband needed this more than myself in a lot of ways I think – he works so hard. I’m just sort of coasting through my job at the moment, it enables us to do IVF and fertility treatments, but I don’t exactly LOVE what I do anymore. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. I think if I had 12 months off on maternity leave it might re-ignite my fire a bit, but for now I just want a break and I want to be a mother.
I have been working since I was 10, yes 10… full time since I was 14, I’ve always been fiercely independent and that drove me to get out of dodge as soon as I could (an alcoholic mother also fanned that fire a bit as well). I started my working life as a chef because my family are all in hospitality and it is what I knew how to do, then moved into music journalism (a really natural transition right? ) and now I work in book publishing.
The company I am with right now is great – they have treated me really well and I’ve been there 10 years this year working my way up the ladder, but I’m tired and I want for more. Over the years I’ve seen co-workers get pregnant, sometimes more than once and while I’m happy for them, I’ve always wondered when it would be my turn.
I have to say my darkest years were when I had just broken up with my first husband because the thought of a baby was just so far away that it seemed impossible. I was in the dating wasteland for 4 years until I met my new and improved husband. Let me tell you nothing makes you feel more infertile than not having a partner – in this whole time of IVF, I’ve never felt less hope than I did when I was single and not able to afford (nor have the courage) to do fertility treatment by myself .
It just so happened that in this same time frame all my friends started to have their families. I was suddenly being invited to 1 year old birthday parties not Bill Callahan shows and to my credit in the first couple of years I did actually attend, but when you’re the only single girl at a kids birthday party, your singledom kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.
I feel now that we are on the verge of the next chapter in our life. A lot of the conversations on this break have been about the upcoming trip to Cape Town and the donor cycle. Talking my parents through the process and setting their expectations. We dare to hope, but at the same time reel ourselves back in. It’s getting more and more surreal and more and more real as the dates get closer.
We bought our donor a token gift at the market on Saturday, an Australian opal pendant. The woman at the store was asking who the gift was for. “A friend…” I said. But she’s more than that and the pendant seems insignificant to the opportunity she is affording us.
Our donor begins her testing tomorrow but I don’t feel nervous about it, if she’s been honest in her profile (and I am sure she has), I know she’ll see this through, and at the end of the week we will have our treatment dates.
In all honesty, going back to work tomorrow will be a blessing, to help time pass more quickly.