The good thing about being forty-five is that all that angst about how I look is behind me. I’ve learnt how to accept myself, make the most of myself, that’s what women like me must do. However, I live in awe of my child. Sweet, yet certain. I look at her and I know I’ve done something right. No matter what.
Before Millie came along, we endured a decade of longing for a baby. Most young, happily married couples wait a few years before they turn their attention to baby-making, I was faster off the blocks. By the time I met Simon, my sister Rose was already the mother of two adorable boys – twins! I realised to make any impact at all on my parents, in terms of providing grandchildren, I’d have to get cracking and ideally produce a daughter. I’m joking, I wasn’t motivated to procreate by the innate competitiveness that exists between siblings, I simply adore children and I longed to be a mother. As a young girl I played with dolls, nothing else, I wasn’t interested in Play-Doh, colouring books or Lego, for me it was all about pretending to be a mummy. I started babysitting my little cousins when I was twelve and then for various neighbours by the time I was fifteen. I’m a primary school teacher. I like children, the cheeky, boisterous or mischievous types, the shy, arty or cuddly types. I’ll take any of them.
I threw away my pill packet the morning we got married. It was one of the most exciting things about the day. For the first few months, I didn’t allow myself to be at all concerned when I still got my period. I was busy putting our house together. We’d bought a one-bedroom flat in North London, I was occupied with hanging pictures, picking out furniture, getting a washing machine plumbed in. It was all so new and exhilarating. Back then, every dull chore seemed like such a delicious treat. Adulting was a novelty. I found it thrilling that I was allowed to slob around in pyjamas all day on a wet, wintery Sunday, that I was allowed to say the words ‘my husband’, and I was allowed to go with said husband to Tesco Metro at 9 p.m. to buy a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, if we so desired. We were in charge of our time and finances, we were a couple. Such thrilling freedom. We were just waiting for the next bit to start.
On our first wedding anniversary, I started to feel qualms of unease. I’d held this secret little fantasy that I’d be announcing our pregnancy that day. I was a month off my thirty-first birthday, Simon was just thirty-two, still young. But, even so. We made an appointment with our local GP. The doctor laughed, told us we had plenty of time ahead of us, told us to relax. When I pushed him, ‘Is there anything I can do?’ he checked I didn’t smoke, suggested I cut back on alcohol, ‘Start preparing your body if you want to. You don’t need to deprive yourself, though. Don’t be silly about it. Just get healthy. Exercise, consider yoga. Everything will be fine. You’ve nothing to worry about.’
I wanted to do anything and everything I could to chivvy along the process. I took folic acid, I started to meditate, I stopped drinking altogether. Simon picked up the slack. Instead of sharing a bottle over a meal, he started to polish one off on his own. I didn’t mind, he was funny and relaxed when drunk. I’m not saying he was usually uptight, but he is quite a reserved man in some ways. Most comfortable in a one-to-one situation.
On our second anniversary I suggested he too might like to stop drinking. That maybe we needed to go back to the doctors and get some tests done. He agreed to the tests.
They examined my fertility first. I don’t know why, maybe because medically women are more often the cause for concern, or maybe it’s just sexist. I wasn’t surprised when the tests came back and said I was to blame for our problems. I had fibroids: non-cancerous, oestrogen-dependent benign tumours, growing in my uterus. These tumours cause pelvic pain and heavy menstrual bleeding. They can also cause infertility. It was recommended that I have a myomectomy to remove them. We did that, another two years passed, we still didn’t get pregnant, so we saw another doctor. She recommended that they run some tests on Simon too. I couldn’t believe it when the results came back. He also had problems. Sluggish and poor-quality sperm. We were both to blame.
It was a very difficult time. It seemed that we looked at one another in a slightly different light. I didn’t want to, but I found myself thinking he was a little less perfect, not quite so golden; I realised that he’d probably been thinking as much about me for a while.
My story, our story, is not particular or peculiar. Everyone knows someone who has struggled with infertility. The very regularity of the story is a tragedy. We started IVF shortly after our fifth wedding anniversary. It takes its toll. I think any couple who has been through it would agree. When we’d been trying to conceive naturally we’d still had a bit of fun, we’d tried different positions, we’d had lots of sex. IVF was not fun. There’s no sex involved – well, other than the thing Simon had to do into a pot. I don’t think jerking off to porn counts as sex after the age of about fourteen.
I can’t bear being in this room. True, we have never visited Dr Martell before, but we’ve been to enough similar clinics that it makes me feel tired and sad. I reach over to Millie and brush her hair out of her eyes with my hand. I want to lean into her, cover her in kisses, but I resist. I have to try very hard not to smother her in love. There’s such a thing as too much. She’s confident, content, happy practicing her points. I leave her to it.
When we were going through IVF, I started to think of my body as the enemy. As I mentioned, I’ve never had the sort of body that filled me with pride, but it had, up until the infertility point, been functional. I’m not often sick, I’ve never broken a bone, but suddenly it was failing me. Even after four financially and emotionally costly bouts of IVF, my body failed me.
People kept telling me that I should think about something else. ‘Don’t worry, it will happen!’ my friend Connie would say cheerfully. She’d then tell me a story about someone she’d known for years who had given up trying altogether when bang, it happened, she conceived. My mum kept telling me to, ‘Take up a hobby. Forget about this business for a while.’ Rose suggested a holiday. ‘Relax!’
They meant well.
Simon and I would smile, nod, agree. We didn’t point out that we didn’t have any spare cash to spend on a holiday, repeated rounds of IVF had cleaned out or savings. Rather than taking up hobbies, we were giving them up. Simon played less golf, he’d left his club, the fees were expensive. He said he’d go back to it, but it never happened. It was put on hold. Many things were. We were in limbo. Waiting. The advice was hollow, irritating. Alone together, Simon and I didn’t bother to pretend to believe in it. Simon knew my cycle as well as I did. On the day my period was due our house was awash with a terrible expectancy and fear. When I came on, which I did with cruel regularity, I’d simply say, ‘Not this month’, and he’d say, ‘Next time.’ Neither of us believed him.
At that point I think we were close to giving up, not only on conceiving, but maybe even on our marriage too. Wanting something that much is damaging. Longing nudges so easily into despair. I didn’t know what to do. I was prepared to do anything.
But then everything changed. It happened, just when I thought I had no more reserves of hope. Millie was a miracle. Conceived without any medical intervention.
A miracle. She saved us.
Habit meant that Simon glanced around the office with an interior designer’s eye. He could see where the exorbitant consultancy fees were going. Dr Martell sat behind a huge mahogany desk with a superb, mellow antique patina. It wasn’t his specialist area, but Simon would date the desk at about 1880. French. It was well figured with a brass inlay, brass mouldings and beadings and shallow bun feet. You wouldn’t get much change from