Be careful what you wish for, the saying goes. And isn’t it true that, sometimes, when you don’t get what you wished for, what you end up with can be so much better?
That’s certainly true for me. Recently I came to the dramatic, and uncomfortable, realisation that I’m actually glad my IVF didn’t work. I’m happy I don’t have children. Yes, really.
I know there will be some people who will say that I am simply trying to convince myself that this is the happier life, to make myself feel better as a defence mechanism against the pain of the years of physical and emotional hell that go along with failed IVF.
But I have to say, hand on heart, that this really is not the case. Honestly, I know that if my fertility treatment had been a success, then there would have been no way I would have achieved the professional success I have, or be living the life I do, a life that I’ve no desire to change. I know this is quite a bold admission and what surprised me even more in the aftermath of this ‘Road to Damascus’ moment last week was that it was followed by feelings of guilt and shame.
Amanda Revell Walton said she recently came to the dramatic, and uncomfortable, realisation that she's actually glad her IVF didn’t work
Was it wrong for me to feel happy that I was not a mother? Unnatural? Was there something wrong with me that I was glad I’d not been able to have children? For a while I kept my revelation to myself. It was as though I felt afraid to admit it.
But why? Why did I feel that I couldn’t be honest about how I felt? Was I worried that people would ostracise me? Or that all those mothers out there would think I was implying that my child-free life was better than their life with children? (I’m not.)
There’s no denying there was a time when I desperately wanted the IVF to work. I was in my mid-to-late 30s and had been trying to have a baby with my husband Paul, whom I married in 2006, from the moment we fell in love.
I’d always wanted to be a mum and revelled in being auntie to my nephews and niece. I had images of them becoming best friends with my children. My sister and I have always been close, and it just seemed natural that our offspring would be too.
When nothing seemed to be happening after Paul and I had been trying for six months, we were referred to a gynaecologist who told us we hadn’t been trying long enough and to come back in 12 months’ time.
A year later we were back in the same consulting room and the tests started: a dye was squirted through my fallopian tubes to make sure they were working, and my ovaries were scrutinised.
Everything seemed fine. An analysis of Paul’s sperm quality and mobility was carried out. The production of that sperm sample caused a mixture of relief . . . not just that poor, mortified Paul had been able to do the deed on demand, but also that everything was normal.
No one was able to see any reason why I wasn’t able to fall pregnant. I was diagnosed with ‘unexplained infertility’.
There’s no denying there was a time when I desperately wanted the IVF to work. I was in my mid-to-late 30s and had been trying to have a baby with my husband Paul, whom I married in 2006, from the moment we fell in love
We waited a little while, and then raised the necessary funds for IVF since we were not entitled to treatment on the NHS because Paul already had children with his first wife (surely a ridiculous case of gender bias).
Then we were referred to a private clinic and entered the insane world of in vitro fertilisation.
During my two cycles of IVF, each of which lasted around three months, I snorted drugs up my nose, injected them into my stomach and the top of my leg, took pills to shut down my reproductive organs, stuck more needles into my stomach to bring my ovaries back to life, had countless internal ultrasounds, inserted progesterone pessaries to thicken the lining of my womb, endured the ‘harvesting’ of my eggs under sedation (not a pleasant experience, made more so when I woke up during the middle of it all).
Then there was a nail-biting wait to see if my painfully retrieved eggs would actually fertilise in a Petri dish with Paul’s sperm, then another uncomfortable appointment on the bed with the stirrups while two embryos were implanted into my (by now) thickened womb.
Then — and this was definitely the most mentally torturous time — came what is known in the world of infertility as the ‘Two Week Wait’ (2WW).
The first time I didn’t have to wait for two weeks to find out the treatment had not worked. It was bloody awful. Literally. The second time was worse still — certainly crueller — as after the 2WW I did a test which showed I was pregnant, only to then suffer an early miscarriage.
The follow-up blood test delivered a body blow to surpass all body blows, and showed that at the age of 42 I was going through the menopause early. There’s no two ways about it: I was heartbroken.
I felt cheated. Hard done by. Resentful that I’d subjected myself to two cycles of IVF (never mind spent more than £10,000) and now my reproductive organs were shutting up shop, about a decade before they should have.
And yet, that blood result actually did me a favour. It stopped me trying for cycle three and God knows how many thereafter, and it forced me to put the whole idea of becoming a mother behind me — and just get on with life.
(I didn’t want to go down the adoption or donated egg route.)
I have heard and read about couples who have parted because the woman couldn’t or didn’t want to have a family and the man did. I was fortunate that this was not the case for my husband and me.
Paul had children from a previous marriage, so, although he also really wanted to have a family with me, for him it was not a game-changer
As I’ve said, Paul had children from a previous marriage, so, although he also really wanted to
