Baby madness: how I survived not having one

Writer: Christine Rogers

(published Herald Sun, 31/10/09)

Everyone loves a winner. The magazines are full of them. Their stories are uplifting, they make us feel all warm inside. We like to think that we, too, would be in the 20% that succeed, that we are unique enough, that the universe holds us to 20% more special than anyone else. But what happens to those who don’t succeed? Where are their stories? This is one of them, and I’m telling it because I didn’t win and yet somehow I did, and I think it’s important that we talk too. Us silent ones. I can’t exactly remember the numbers but they were pretty similar to that 20/80 split. And I completely believed with all my heart and soul that I would be in the 20% of women who conceive, through IVF, after the age of 40.  I remember looking at the 80% as if it were some kind of weird foreign category, as if the doctors had said there’s 20% and then there’s blind mice and I thought well it’s impossible that I am blind mice so of course I will succeed.You see I wanted this pregnancy with every single cell of my body. I have never wanted anything as much, and at the time I held the ridiculous belief that if you want something that much, it will happen. For this maybe you can blame my parents, who love me a great deal and often let their strong-willed only daughter have her way. Or just maybe you can blame our culture, where we are told all the time that you just have to work really really hard and everything you want will finally materialise.

Just to keep things tidy, I might summarise under some headings what three years of useless fertility treatments taught me.

Where’s there’s a will sometimes there isn’t a way This is probably the most important thing that I learnt. I grew up with this idea, it permeated my schooling and further education, and in many areas, yes, wanting something and working towards it means you will finally get there.

But having a baby proved to be entirely out of my control, and it was horrifying. I generally do get things done. However karma or some mental flaw means I have chosen a career in the arts, so of course I’m pretty used to failure. But this itself was one of the reasons I was so baby mad.

Trying to make films feels a lot of the time like banging your head against a concrete wall for the fun of it. I started trying to get pregnant at 38.  During my twenties and thirties, I developed a number of film projects, 99% of which never came to fruition (there’s those damned statistics again).  This certainly was not the brilliant career I had envisaged for myself post film-school. To add to my slowly diminishing self-esteem, I had also had a number of relationships which hadn’t worked, due as much as anything to my own competing and contradictory need for intimacy and space (and probably also my love-hate relationship with my career). 

At 38 I found myself in a new relationship. I was making a lot of compromises, but I just kept telling myself hey, you are rubbish at relationships, just sit there, shut up, and try to get one right. One Easter we were away down the coast for a little holiday, and W said quite casually let’s have a baby, the sort of way you might say let’s have a cup of tea. I was immediately completely flooded with joy, as if I’d won tattslotto, and I threw all doubts aside.

You see, I knew that the baby I was going to have would save me. I would finally be a success, and the wee one would be a project which would give me something to do, after all, that mothering business looked pretty hectic, no doubt there would be no time at all for me to write yet another screenplay which will never get made. And, I get to join the large and diverse club of motherhood – and having been an outsider all my life, the idea of belonging even to this broad and unfussy group filled me with excitement. I knew that having a baby makes a woman a real woman, and I knew this baby would somehow erase all that had gone before. Uh oh you say. That’s a heap of expectation. Indeed. But that’s only the half of it.

Only women bleed

 First we just tried, you know, the way you do.  I think I added in naturopathy some time during that year, taking my temperature in the morning, stuff like that. Then, on my doctor’s advice, I went to the fertility clinic at the Freemason’s Hospital. If you don’t know it, you’re lucky. It’s really a huge sausage factory of dreams, with multiple doctors servicing sad-faced singles and couples. You sit on these dreadful communal couches, trying not to look at each other, variously depressed or cheerful depending what news you are expecting, or have just been given. Even the pregnant ones sit there. Some bring along the children they already have. Everybody hates those people.

First up we did assisted reproduction, which meant W’s sperm was collected and inserted into my vagina at the time of ovulation. Amazing stories, I got pregnant, first time! I was extremely pleased with myself, in fact, I think the word is smug. Then, at the first scan, around 4 weeks in, my doctor commented that the embryo was small. He told me to come back in one week, but warned me it was likely to not survive.  I’d gone by myself, W is a lawyer and was probably off with a client, I can’t remember. I do remember that it was a really horrible week.  The next Friday the tiny heartbeat had gone. This was my first taste of despair, but I still had Hope (yes, even with a capital), after all, a pregnancy was a very good sign.

After the D & C we moved fairly quickly into the full monty – IVF proper, on the advice that my age was fast becoming a problem. In reality, it’s a problem after 35, but all I’d ever heard about were women popping out babies whenever they like. I had honestly never had a conversation with anyone who had been unable to conceive. I guess that’s because we just don’t like to admit it. Plus, and this is pretty funny in hindsight, I remember as a sullen teenager hearing my mother and aunty banging on about how wonderful it was that such and such was pregnant and I thought to myself oh god, why the fuss? After all, any moron can get pregnant. Oh how those words returned to haunt me. 

Some time between the D & C and the first scan, it was a Friday night and W and I had a fight about something - not an unusual occurrence – and he dropped a bombshell. He told me that if I didn’t have a baby he would leave me for someone else who could. There wasn’t anyone he had in mind, it’s just children were a top priority for him. I remember this all so clearly, where I was sitting, the arrangement of the furniture, the look on his face when he told me.  It was like he had slipped a knife into my heart. I always thought he would take it back, I mean any of us can say crazy horrible things when we are angry, but he never did. He never softened it, or refuted it, over the coming 2 years that I rode the IVF horse.

But I agreed. I agreed that if there was no pregnancy or baby within that time then we would go our separate ways. I thought that I could live with that hideous bargain, but I couldn’t, and it slowly ate away at my heart like an invisible disease.

In the end it’s only yourself

So you see all the pressures I had put on myself. At my first scan there were pretty much no eggs. This was bad. It meant my system was not responding in the way it should, and I would have to go onto the highest hormone levels. My doctor at the time told me as much. He advised me to walk out the door, book an overseas trip, buy a dog. To just forget the whole thing. I was devastated. It was an impossible suggestion, completely impossible. 

I changed doctors and wrote my first doctor a sharp letter about his lack of bedside manner. He wrote back, apologetic. I’m sure he gets that sort of thing all the time – no one wants to hear the hard truth, and everyone’s emotions are running so high. Sometimes I really wished I had walked away then, but I didn’t. I guess I needed to put myself through the whole thing.

So there you have it.  Two years of cycle after cycle. Scans, blood-tests, daily injections, operations, procedures. Hope, and betrayal of hope (small h now), over and over and over again. Alongside that, I added in naturopathy, diet restrictions (no coffee, no tea, no alcohol!) and acupuncture. Just to ensure that I had done absolutely everything. Of course this complete focus actually ensured that my stress levels remained through the roof, and I thought about pretty much nothing else. Except my Masters project, which some tiny internal voice of sanity made me start in order to have a complex project to sustain me through. Near the end of the two years, when it began to become clear that it wasn’t going to happen, the multiple vitamins and minerals were joined by anti-depressants. Every cycle, and there were five in total, I did pretty much alone, with the support of two very good friends. 

If this sounds like some sort of self-inflicted hell, you’re right. Looking back, I do think in the thick of it I was quite nutty. But as I slowly began to understand that this rescue of my life wasn’t to be, I began to notice a weird by-product of the whole horrible process. I had finally become proud of myself. I learnt that I can completely rely on myself, that I am strong, resilient, and that I have a ridiculous amount of tenacity (and just need to choose what to apply it to!)

The smugness of mothers, or the club you cannot join is a rubbish club anyway

I think acceptance comes in layers, like a big sponge cake, but you have to let yourself move through the layers at your own pace, which is sometimes frustratingly slow. For a long time I was very very angry and full of pain. When my friends fell pregnant it would be like God had done it on purpose, to make me feel like shit. I tried to smile through it but sometimes I caught the hideous little thought in my mind ‘perhaps she’ll lose it’. Worst of all are those who fall pregnant the moment they starting ‘trying’ and tell you with glee, even though they know what you have been through. You certainly find out lots of people are rubbish at saying the right thing.

Luckily I decided long ago that I’m not a very nice person, and this has given me fantastic freedom to have those thoughts that other women might forbid themselves to have. When I meet a smug mother, and let me tell you, there are few mothers who aren’t, I like to concentrate on a few things which cheer me up. One of them is their stretched vagina. There’s also saggy breasts and stretch-marks. Then there are the children themselves – enormous seething bundles of ego and need. And that’s not counting teenagers. You see, I can see the cost that children extract. You, who have had them, can hardly allow yourselves that luxury, because you now have them for the rest of your life.

Bitterness is unbecoming

Having said that (and enjoyed it a great deal) I really think dealing with bitterness is the most important work we have to do as we age. I work hard not to bitter, and I do that by reminding myself how fantastic it is to have the freedom of no children. I can do my writing, my exercise, my hobbies, in my own time. I can go out to a movie, or a drink with friends, when I chose. I can eat what I like, when I feel like it. Plus, those smiles that parents have when they are out with their kiddies, don’t be mistaken, they are often rigours of boredom, and the sweet loving hugs from their little ones are only a passing fancy. Just a little later that very same day and the darling will have turned into a wailing tyrant. Kids are really hard work, let’s not pretend it isn’t so.

One exquisite torment is the old age one. Childless people sometimes worry about a lonely old age, but when I do, I take a moment to think about the families where the children hate their parents, where the children live overseas, contest the will, or have their parents slapped into an old persons home too early. I suspect fully functional loving family units are about as rare as lonely old spinsters.

Good friends are what you need, people who grow old with you. Include friends from younger generations (you need them so you can roll your eyes, unimpressed, when they tell you about their orgiastic adventures). You need things that deeply engage you, and connect you to the world in a way that is somehow beyond yourself. Like creative work, a fabulous garden, or volunteering.

And you need love. Finally, finally, I’d had enough of the selfish W, and left him. This shocked him to the core. I do believe he had thought our bargain an entirely reasonable one.  Now I am seeing a kind and loving man, a man moreover with three children of his own (!), so slowly I am having to soften some of my anti-children stance – a challenging exercise in itself!

Now, two years later, I am pleased that IVF did not work for me. But I cannot lie, sometimes when I see a brand new little baby, I feel a twinge of that old desire again. But that’s about as frequent for me as my desire to climb Mount Everest, so I put that in the basket of highly unlikely, and concentrate on the likely. And to be completely honest, it no longer makes me sad. And that is a success unlike any I’ve ever had.

 

Keeping it Nice: People you should not sleep with

Writer Christine Rogers

(published as Good Bedfellows, Herald Sun, 30/01/10)

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my choice of bed friend. In many ways I’m an idiot. I have even wondered if I have Aspergers, except without the brilliance. The honest truth is that I’m one of those people who leap before they look. I take risks all the time, and some of those risks pay off but some of them don’t. In most areas of my life I am highly disciplined; I go to the gym on a regular basis and have done so for years, I continue to write and develop film scripts when most people would have given up, I floss my teeth once a day. But men are my shortcoming. They are my Achilles heel. Just like a sweet tooth and lollies, I don’t like living without one for too long. But mistakes of the heart are not that easy to fix, and for me, and many women I think, casual sex is often anything but. Unlike men, whose dancing parts and heart seem to belong to different bodies, for us, the heart has a strange way of opening to an intimate touch. Which means it needs some protection. I have now officially hung up my bow and arrow, but for those of you still on the prowl, let me ease your way by sharing a few hard-won insights.

 Beer goggles

This one is so obvious I have to put it up front. There’s been a whole lot in the media recently about the levels of alcohol we are currently consuming. Drunken violence makes it into headlines, but there are lots of other stories which don’t make it to the front page, but can do just as much damage. Try to limit how much you drink, and stick with good friends who can help keep you all safe. Someone might be impossibly handsome in the dark of the night, but that someone special will still be special in the daylight, on a proper date. It’s horrible to wake up in the wrong bed, and to have to scramble around for your knickers and self-respect, both of which got dropped on the floor sometime during the night, you just can’t remember when.

 Don’t bang your buddy

Sometimes that sexual connection has been fizzing away for a long time, but the best advice is, let it fizzle. This friend and I had had a drunken (see, there’s that old alcohol again) embrace at my best friend’s 21^st birthday party, before she threw me out of her bed so she could continue where I’d left off. That is where it should have ended, filed away under silly nights of my youth. Our mutual but fairly disinterested flirting throughout the years was fun, but it seems pretty clear in hindsight that if anything were going to happen, it would have many years ago, when we first met. A long friendship with him made it clear that although he is funny, chaotic, and fun, we would be hell together. Still, a barren period persuaded me, and like most men, he didn’t put up a fight. What followed was a short but intense period of conflicting emotions – I wanted to go there again, but luckily some intelligent part of me stopped me, knowing that I was only seeking pleasure, not a proper relationship. Did it damage our friendship? It sure did. He was confused and hurt at what appeared to be my cold-heartedness. (Actually, I was cold-hearted, lets not pretend). I do know people who turn friendships into relationships, but I just wanted touch, so I should have thrown the net wider.

 Don’t screw the crew

Put this mistake down to youthful exuberance. Trouble is, I had to then spend considerable time and effort trying to stop this particular colleague from mentioning out aloud a personal piece of information, which only someone who had seen me without clothes would know. Obviously he was an idiot, but the whole experience was frustrating and stressful, and I quickly regretted my liaison. If you are going to bonk someone you work with, make sure first they either appear to be the love of your life in the cold sober light of day, or choose someone who can be discreet. Water cooler talk is not pleasant, and even in our liberated 21^st century, reputation matters. It’s surprising how many people are still judgemental about those of us who have bed buddies, especially the ones in sexless marriages. Freelance work is very helpful in this way, as you move right along, hopefully leaving the man, and night, behind. This is why the film industry is full of inappropriate shagging and broken marriages.

Groping the groupie

Oh man, I really am trawling back into my past here. Close proximity to stardom is a very bad news for any vows of chastity and good taste, and I imagine I am not the first woman, and will not be the last, to divest herself of clothes and self-respect for the bass guitarist of their number one favourite band. In my youthful, and once again, drunken state I imagined that sex is the horse which comes before the relationship cart. In my head I almost had us happily married off, but like most of these kinds of horses, this one just ran off into the wind, neighing annoyingly. I think that might be a hard lesson some of us have to repeat a number of times before the message sinks in.  

Don’t make like the cuckoo

The cuckoo is the bird who pushes other eggs out of the nest, so the brooding hen hatches and then feeds the cuckoo babies, not their own. Getting together with someone who is already living with someone else, or married, is not the great start to anything. I know some people make it work, but I couldn’t. I think there was too much pain and grief and guilt swimming around. This section could also be called ‘don’t rekindle an old flame’. In this instance he was an older man, someone who had been very keen on me when I was younger. I was entering my crazy-for-a-baby years so I am tempted to plead reduced responsibility, but in reality I was as sane as the next man-hungry female. Anyway, long story short, I initiated contact with someone I knew from years back, blew on the flame, which quickly turned into a roaring fire, then flew back to NZ and into bed with the poor chap. Everything looked rosy for a few months. He confessed to his partner, moved out, and began living under the (totally reasonable) assumption that we were now on. But the rosy glow quickly faded for me. I discovered that I had hold of a fantasy, which was fast dissolving in the face of a much more complicated reality.  He turned out to be someone who needed his partner to support him financially and emotionally. Well, let’s face it, there’s only room for one starving and neurotic artist in any relationship, and that’s me. This is all something I should have discovered as a matter of course during dating, but because of the fraught and hothouse nature of the start of this affair, things got much uglier much faster.

 The men your girlfriends fancy

That is, if you want your friendships to last. I reckon this is one that men just don’t get. I think it’s open slaver for men, but for us, there are certain rules that can’t be broken, and this is one of them. But this rule also comes with a caveat – I mean if you are dead set certain he’s the one, then maybe you should sacrifice the friendship for the love of your life, but think long and hard. If you are just playing like a kitten with a mouse, then keep those claws sheathed. This very bad behaviour caused a major rift in a very close friendship, one I was able to repair only with time and perseverance. My boyfriend was in NZ, I was bored and looking for some attention, and when an attractive man at my girlfriend’s party paid me some, I took it with both hands. Never mind that I later fended the poor chap off after what he must have considered a most promising start, and lay awake all night in his bed with a massive attack of the guilts. But the damage had been done, both to my boyfriend and my friend, and also to this man.

 Don’t cradle-snatch

I know men do it, especially if they have money and power, but for us, I think it often ends in tears. I once had jolly good fun with a Scottish backpacker who had a wicked sense of humour, but in the morning I made the stupid mistake of admitting my age. It was less fun watching his face fall, and fairly humiliating how fast he made his exit. A good match is one where you are both pretty even in what you bring to the table, in terms of money, attractiveness, and social power. For reasons that are completely unfair, a young man has much more social power than an older woman, unless she is famous, stunning or rich. So save yourself the pain and find someone around your own age.

Relative are a complete no no

I am kidding. I did know someone, also adopted, who spent the night with her blood brother shortly after they first met and they didn’t play chess. I don’t think she regretted what happened, but I know it was a total once off due to the many strange and strong emotions which get stirred up by meeting your birth family. I know, for me too, this is a bridge too far.

 Let’s take a look at some men you won’t get into bed, but cannot figure out why.

 Men who like men

My gaydar is completely useless and I have been known to throw myself at men who will never be interested. Some discerning sober questions should quickly sort out which team he bats for, before you go making a complete dick of yourself (like I did).

 The super-friendly guy who must fancy you

A couple of my friends have had this experience, and it’s painful. He’s so lovely and friendly and you laugh and kid around and he never reveals he’s got a live-in partner, slash wife at home. Until the night when you finally pluck up the courage to make the move and it goes very badly indeed. You’ve probably heard of the book, or film, He’s Just Not That Into You. The gist of that, and I can totally vouch for it, is that men will make a move if they like you in that way. They are used to being the one to make the move. They grew up with the expectation that they should make the first move. Yes, not talking about partners, or saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ in answer to your innocent but probing question about what they did on the weekend is having a bet both ways, but rest assured that if they are keen, they will make it known. If it never seems to quite happen despite your hints, then he doesn’t want it as much as you do. Move on.

 And finally, men who might insinuate themselves into your heart before your brain has had time to yell NO!

 Perverts, womanisers and selfish men

These guys are a common breed, but sometimes it’s hard to pick them. My best advice is to be alert for behaviour and verbal hints, and to know what you will and won’t like or at least put up with. Once I went on a promising date with a man who told me that he found all body hair repulsive. I imagined how that would translate to where and how he lived. I also imagined his negative response when confronted with my normal body, because I am not doing even the Brazilian for anyone. So he never got to date number two. Watch the men who obsessively talk about themselves. You want to be number one in their life, not bobbing up and down for attention around the sides of their ego. In my youthful ignorance I did take my clothes off for some quite unattractive characters, but commonsense luckily got me out of there before my heart became involved. Counting the men that I have actually loved, none of them has cheated on me (I think!).  This may be because I don’t trust very handsome men, there’s something creepy about them and their self-confidence. There are a lot of very beautiful women out there, and being someone with slippery morals, I know that some of them would not hesitate. Do you know the saying that a marriage (read relationship) works when the man loves the woman more? I think that men are natural ‘strayers’ who will peer over the fence just to see what or who is on the other side.

Who was it that wrote that ‘with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world’? Yes, I know, it’s mawkish and obvious, but somehow true. So try and keep your own sham, drudgery and broken dreams to a minimum, by keeping your wits about you, and your knickers on.