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By Mark Nethercote, April 29, 2011 10:00 am

Saturday 1st May 2010

Gestation: 31 weeks, 1 day

One year ago.

Suse and I resolve to get counselling.  It’s the logical thing to do, and yet my wounded ego sees it as yet another sign of failure.

We limp along like soldiers with gangrene, holding each other up as we trudge through thick mud.  We’re not quite sure where we’re going, the bandages obscuring our view;  an amputation of some sort feels inevitable.

It feels like there is no cure for what we have.

But there is.

There has to be.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 27, 2011 10:00 am

Thursday 29th April 2010

Gestation: 30 weeks, 6 days

One year ago.

The feeling sits under my ribcage, worst when I am lying down.  It grabs a little, not quite sharp, more like an ache.  Deep breaths do nothing to relieve it.  It won’t pass, regardless of how I lie.

I understand that some types of pain are both physical and mental.  Intellectually, I get it;  I understand that it can be.  I’ve just never experienced the somatic sensation of anguish.

I guess that this is it.

* * * * *

Sure, it’s a blow about the tubes.  The blocked tubes.  Two nights ago, when we were incoherent post-battle, I’d told Suse that I didn’t care how we got pregnant.  That a petrie dish is as good as anything if it gets us the kids we want.  We both have an end result in mind, and that’s it.  It’s the end that counts, not the means.  We want kids.

But then there’s the smoking.  The fucking smoking.  I get it, on a very base level.  I get that it’s not to hurt me.  I get that she doesn’t do it to intentionally hurt me.  But it does.  It just does.

It just does.

I’ve looked at the studies.  Smoking increases your risk of ectopic pregnancy between two- and five-fold.  Up to five times the risk.  Suse is petrified of having another ectopic.  The house smells like a sewer every second day after she boils up more Chinese herbs in the hope of increasing fallopian tube function.

Why the fuck does she even bother?  Why the fuck?  It’s like making sure the pet door is locked at the back, but leaving the front door wide open.

With a note on the gate.

I’m hurting.

She’s hurting.

We both are.

We’re back to old strategies.

And we’ve both closed down.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 25, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 27th April 2010

Gestation: 30 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

Time passes as quickly as it does when your soul mate is in surgery.

Like cement through an hourglass.

Still, I keep myself busy.  I prepare dinner, knowing full well that after the operation Suse will want nothing to eat. I preheat the oven and half-cook her comfort food of choice – potato gems.  I hang out the washing, which Suse put on in a nervous state early in the day.

We’re like the yin and yang of anxiety.

I text her parents and mine, to let them know that it’ll be another hour until we have an answer.  I sort through a bill pile that has remained neglected for months.  Nothing like bank statements to distract.

Time suddenly feels like it is going backwards.

The phone rings.  “Hello, is that Mark?”

“Yes.”

“Susan is out of theatre.  She’s fine, but she’s in a bit of pain.  She’s asking for you.”

I pick up my keys and walk out the door.

* * * * *

Suse moves gingerly in the bed.  Her voice is soft, she looks swollen.  Anaesthetics aren’t kind to her.  I take her hand softly, noting the bandaid where the drip was.

All around there is noise.  There are four others in the recovery bay.  Three different nurses have already been in.  The curtains part for a fourth, before we realise that it is Dr. Fleischer.  She holds a series of photos;  Polaroids from her recent holiday into Suse’s abdomen.

“So we had a look inside, and we see that your ovaries look good and your uterus looks good from the outside.”  She points to Polaroid one and two.   “Both of the tubes look good too.  There is no dilated tube on the left…”

“…Oh, that’s good,” says Suse squeezing my hand.

“…Mmmm,” she continues.  “They both looked a little bit tortuous, but on the whole, they looked okay.  I looked inside the uterus itself, and the lining looked good and healthy.”  She takes a pause.  “And then we did the dye test,” she says, shuffling photos, “and with this, we saw that your left tube had no blockage…”

“…Oh, that’s good,” Suse repeats.

“…But the right one… was blocked.”  We both frown.  “I tried a couple of different manoeuvres, and increased the pressure quite high, but still I couldn’t get the dye through.  In fact, it started to dilate the uterus up, so I couldn’t really push any further.”

We both remain silent for a moment.  Suse is the first to recover.

“So what does that mean?”

“Well, whatever process caused the ectopic on the left, is probably causing the blockage on the right.  Maybe there was a bit of an infection there at some point, or something else.”

She stops for a moment, and no one says anything.  The slugs bury themselves, one in each shoulder, first rounds from the ammunition.  I stand there, like you see on the screen, as yet disbelieving that I’ve been hit.  This is the moment, that very moment – just before I realise.

Just before I fall to the ground still.

This time, I snap out of it first.  “So what does this mean?”

“That you might need to consider IVF.”  Two more bullets hit.  Suse’s hand slips out of mine.

“And when do you think we should think about that?”

I hear my voice.

I guess I just spoke.

“Maybe give it another three months.  But there’s a lot to think about.  You’ll get a call from the girls in the next few days, to have a follow up appointment.  You’ve got to have your chicken pox vaccine anyway…”

“…Which will delay everything for three months…”

“…So yes, maybe after that… How old are you, again?”

“Thirty-five,” Suse says.  “Thirty-five-and-a-half.”  She looks straight through the curtain at the end.

“Yeah, so you don’t want to leave it too long.  I think three months after that is probably about right.”  Two more bullets.  Without any cotton wool.  “But you’ll have your appointment with me to talk about all of this in the next few weeks.”

She turns and leaves the tavern.

Dead bodies strewn all around.

This woman is a straight shooter.

* * * * *

We arrive home, dazed and confused.  We sit, trying to talk.  Neither of us knows what to say.  Neither of us is coherent.  Finally, Suse turns to me, and her faces scrunches up.

“I’m so sorry that I’m broken,” she says.

Potato gems sit on the plate, going cold.

* * * * *

I get ready for bed.  Suse decides to stay up, unable or unwilling to lie awake and think just yet.  We vow a united fight, but already we’ve slipped into our own patterns of coping.  Marriage is a funny thing.  To be emotionally reliant on another after years of self management.  But when crises occur, we revert back to old strategies.  I feel myself retreating into my cave, my emotions bedded down, padded in thoughts and busyness while Suse does the opposite, her own emotions winding up, a tornado of self-flagellation in the offing.

I see it happening, watching like an observer from the sidelines.

I lie down, tossing and turning.  The doona is too hot, too cold, anything but right.  After twenty minutes, my mouth feeling dry, I head to the kitchen for some water.

As I do, Suse is standing.

I walk past her, and am instantly hit by the smell of smoke.

Of cigarettes.

“Susan,” I say softly.

“I’ve only been…  It’s just been for the last few days.  With everything…”

I walk back down the hallway.  “Please don’t hate me,” she says.

I close the door.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 22, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 27th April 2010

Gestation: 30 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

We sit here waiting.  We’ve been here before.

The same vaguely comfortable seats.  The same grime on the armrests from years of patients;  all waiting for day surgery, all waiting to be served their sentence with a knife.

We’re back in the same private hospital.  The same one as last time.  Exactly the same pre-admission clinic as for Suse’s shoulder operation.

Just six months ago.

And we have the exact same television, still on, still showing drag racing.  I never knew a television’s speakers could be so tinny.  The on-off button is cleverly located on the remote.  The screen has no buttons at all.

Just very big speakers.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes?” says the plus-sized lady from behind the reception desk.  She does so without looking up.

“Is there any chance of changing the station?”

“Sure, love.”

“Or even turning it off?”

“Oh, we can’t do that, in case someone else comes in here.”  I look around the empty waiting room.  “People love the tele,” she says.  Her eyes stayed fixed on her monitor.

“They do, don’t they?”  Her eyes don’t move.  Or more accurately, they race back and forth across the screen, absorbing her favourite blog.  “Well, can we at least change it to the news, or something other than drag racing?”

In one move, she picks up the remote and changes stations, past the cable news service and onto free-to-air news.  Again, without breaking her gaze.  This woman knows remote Braille.

“Thank you.”

I sit back down.  Suse looks through a magazine while I try to block out the noise.  Braille lady gets up and disappears, so I quickly approach the counter and flick off the sound.  As I do, a man walks past, the same effeminate gentleman who checked us in.  He continues down the hall, patting his perfectly combed white hair against his head, his legs clearly moving, yet still seeming to float rather than walk.

I’ll blame it on him.

“All I can smell is food,” says Suse.

All I can smell is sterilised surrounds.

At work, all day everyday, I smell nothing.  Now, in this spot, this place that my wife comes every couple of months to have something cut open, all I can smell is hospital.  It smells like a hospital.  Why doesn’t my hospital smell like a hospital?

And then the vacuum cleaner starts up.

* * * * *

We’re at the end of the day.  It’s 5pm, and our check in time was just thirty minutes ago.  At my work, there are really only two list times, morning and afternoon.  Come to a private hospital, and they have check in until 7pm.  You want a tired surgeon operating on you?  Go for it, they go till 10pm.

Another couple walks in.  They sit, and copy our pose – the woman opens a magazine she has little interest in reading, and the man stares at the TV.  By now we’re seeing reruns of M*A*S*H.  How apt.

“Susan?”  We look up, past the generously sized lady, to a kindly nurse.  She smiles as she beckons us through.

We shuffle into a second room, where Rosie remarks on Suse’s low blood pressure, a habitual pre-op process.  We check name bands, consent forms, and then name bands again.  We’ve been in this room before, too.

Déjà, déjà vu.

Rosie takes Suse to get changed, and a few minutes later she returns, the picture of hospital dowdiness.  Somehow they’ve made my wife, the fashion designer, look like a frump.  Her middle cord wraps twice around her lithe frame; one size fits all.  A few seconds later, from down the hall we can hear Rosie say, “Do you want the next Fleischer girl?”

Suse looks across.  “Sounds like Fleischer is my pimp,” she says.  She looks down at her hospital garb. “And I’m not wearing undies.”

“You do look very fetching, honey.  Good luck with your audition for Fleischer.”

Rosie returns, smiling.  “Are you ready to go?” she asks.

“Are you ready, honey?”  Suse grins, suppressing a smile.

We are shuffled to the next sets of chairs, where we meet Donna.  She goes through the basically the same thing.  We confirm that Suse does not in fact have a metal train sleeper stored in her belly, and that all of her limbs are el naturale.  Her teeth are her own, and her eyes are too.

I know, I know.  The woman is a freak.

Round the corner we head to station three.  This time, to meet the anaesthetist.  He apologises for being the replacement for another gentleman that we have never before met.  We accept his apology with grace.  He could have told us he was the mayor and I would have bought it.

All except for the scrubs.

He walks us through the procedure.  He tells us where he’ll put the drip, and that Suse is likely to have a slightly sore throat from the garden hose that will be shovelled down her gullet.

“I like that man,” Suse says at the end, “he has a very nice bedside manor for an anaesthetist.  Do you think he’s gay?”

“He must be if he’s nice,” I reply.  We laugh easily, but I know.  I know.  My wife’s silliness is in inverse proportion to her nervousness.

I feel a deep ache for what she is about to endure.

* * * * *

From here, we move to the next bay, where we sit some more.  Suse gets the chair that goes up and down, while I sit in the chair to that doesn’t.  Suse goes to the toilet four times, testament to her pre-operation nerves.

We wait, and wait, and wait some more.  My alarm goes off, telling me that the car needs moving and we’ve been here for two hours already. It’s not a bad ploy getting you to move all the time;  that way you don’t realise just how much time has passed.

Eventually, Dr. Fleischer arrives.  She looks tired and slightly bored;  I get that this is her look.  She seems like one of these incredibly functional, overtly intelligent people, for whom day to day interactions are a bit of a chore.

“How are you, Susan?” she asks.

“Good,” says my adorable wife.  She’s absolutely not good.  She’s so far from good that it’s not funny.   But this is meek Suse, scared Suse, compliant Suse.  She just wants to get it right, and she doesn’t want to make a fuss.

I just want to hug her.

Fleischer goes through a few things, and we fire a couple of questions back at her.  They’re the best we have, and yet she deflects them with a bored superhero wave.

Suse has one last nervous wee, I kiss and hug her, and then she is taken through.

While I return home.

To wait for the phone to call.

To be continued…

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 21, 2011 10:00 am

Friday 23rd April 2010

Gestation: 30 weeks

One year ago.

“I got a call today.  Apparently my varicella antibodies are low.”

“Sorry?”

“My chicken pox immunity.”

“I know what it is, hon,” I say, slightly irritated.

“Apparently my levels are zero.  They tell me I’ve never been exposed before.”

I frown.  “You’ve been exposed, right?”

“Of course I had.  I’ve got eight nephews and nieces.  I’ve been around heaps of people with chicken pox and never got it.”

“So you’ve got immunity, but maybe just a low titre?”

“All the same, they suggest that we should have it.  To be sure.”

“Fair enough.”

She pauses until I look up.  “But then they say we’ve got to wait three months.”  My frown doubles.  “I need the initial shot, and then another six weeks later.  And a month’s wait after this one.”  She looks at me some more, like she needs to say something, so she does.  “It’s a live vaccine, so we can’t risk it.”

Shit, fuck, motherfucking fuck.  God damned fucking hold ups!  God damned reasons not to get pregnant!  Fucking God damned fucking fuck!  All these fucking things!  All these fucking reasons!  All to be safe.  There was no such thing as chicken pox vaccine ten years ago, and now we’re not allowed to get pregnant for three months if our levels are low?

Are you fucking kidding?

Are you FUCKING KIDDING?

No, you’re not.  You’re right.  You’re God damned right.  In your precise little bubble of perfection you are absolutely God damned correct, Mr. Medical Profession.  Neonatal varicella infection is very nasty, you say.  What’s three more months?  Huh?

What’s three more months?

Three more months.

It’s like we’re on a fucking building site in the middle of an Icelandic winter.  Every fucking reason not to continue on with construction.  All the fucking reasons.  All the fucking reasons in the world to just pack up shop and move countries.

Iceland is a shithole anyway.  Even in summer.  Why are we even here?

I sigh, giving up the fight.

“Yes.  I know.  We should.  To be sure.  To be fucking sure.”  I gulp hard on the acid.  “God damned Iceland.”

“What?”

“Nothing, love.”

I hug Suse tight, dreaming of an Australian summer.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 19, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 20th April 2010

Gestation: 29 weeks, 4 days

One year ago.

We sit there on the slightly uncomfortable couches.  Suse holds the clipboard, frowning as she reads.

“What does this mean?”  I lean across to look.

“Don’t worry about that one,” I say.

“But they wouldn’t have it on the form if it wasn’t important.”

A lady appears from nowhere.

“Mark and Susan?”  We nod encouragingly, the only couple in the waiting room.  Other than us, there are two women with prams;  an encouraging sign if ever there was one in a fertility clinic.  The women don’t even look up, both utterly absorbed in their precious cargo.

We walk down the hall to a room with ‘Dr. Fleischer’ on it.  We enter.  There stands a tall woman with a shock of auburn hair.  She is dressed entirely in black, and is teetering around on three-inch heels.

“Come in, come in,” she beckons.  Suse and I oblige, sitting quietly while she completes her dictation about the previous baron couple.

“Please excuse me if I appear tired,” Suse begins, “I’ve been up most of the night with gastro.”   I look across at the doctor to see how she will respond.  There’s a rumour that some IVF doctors sub-specialise to escape the gore of general Obstetrics.  I take this as an early test.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says, “that makes two of us then.”

Suse and I nod, fake-knowingly.  I guess this means that she has a young child too.

I guess just about everyone does.

“Thanks for fitting us in,” Suse says again.  More nervous banter.

“Oh, that’s okay.  We have cancellations all the time.  People are always getting pregnant,” she jokes.  We laugh, like it’s the funniest thing we’ve heard today.  “So what’s going on?”

“Mark might want to explain,” Suse says.  “He’s a doctor, and better at summarising these things.”

Test number two.  When you are presented with a fellow medico as a patient, it can be affronting.  I have had several circumstances where this has turned the room icy – take our hospital experience up north as an example.

“What sort of doctor?” she asks warmly.

“Paediatric.”

The Paediatrician without kids.

“Great.  How do you like it?”

“It’s good and bad,” I say.  She looks at me, nodding.

“Like everything.”

“Including parenthood?”

“Including parenthood,” she says, through tired eyes.

* * * * *

I tell the story of Suse’s ectopic, its protracted course, and the difficulties since.  I talk about the problems with the saliva test, the basal body temperatures, the mittelschmerz, and, well, with everything.

“So I guess we need to look at the tube, right?  To see that it’s functioning?”  She raises her eyebrows like she’s expecting an answer.

“I guess so,” says Suse.

“Otherwise there could well be a dilated tube that is not functioning.  And if that’s the case, we could be losing valuable time, right?”

I look across at Suse.  Her mouth is slightly open as she looks at me.  I know that look;  a shock at hearing someone verbalise those very concerns she has quashed for so many months, and the relief of it.  All in the same bite.

“Yes,” Suse finally says, with conviction.

“And we could do a die-test, which outlines the tubes, but that can sometimes miss things.  We can’t necessarily rule out adhesions or dilated tubes with that, and if we see anything, we’d need to do the laparoscopy anyway.  By going straight to laparoscopy, we’ll get a good look at everything.  And if there’s anything wrong, we can fix it at the time.  What do you think?”

Suse pauses for a moment, before nodding.  “I want to know what’s going on.  I need to know that everything looks okay.”

“Mark? What do you think?”

I look across at Suse, closing my eyes for a moment.  “I’m far less keen on surgery.”  She looks back at me.  “But I know how much stress has been in all of this, and how much that can affect fertility.”  I take Suse’s hand.  “If this will give you peace of mind, then…go for it.”

“And if we see anything, we can sort it out then and there,” continues Dr. Fleischer.  “How does next Tuesday sound?”

Suse and I look at each other again, trying to compute.  “Anyway,” she continues, “while you have a think about it, why don’t we do an internal ultrasound to check out your ovaries?”

* * * * *

“I know you’re not keen, honey, but it I think she knows what she’s doing.”

“Clearly she knows what she’s doing.  The woman oozes self-assuredness through every one of her freckles.”  We hold hands as we walk.

“I just feel so relieved.  Relieved that someone is doing something here.”  She pauses.  “I’m kind of in shock.  I was half-expecting her to tell me to stop being so stupid like everyone else has.  And now I’m having surgery in a week.”  We continue strolling down the street.  “And already I know that I have enough follicles from the ultrasound, that my ovaries are good, that I shouldn’t be on progesterone because I’ve had an ectopic, and now this.  That woman knows a lot.”

“Yes.  She knows a lot.”  We walk some more.  “She should, hon, she’s a fertility specialist.”

“Yeah, and so should Kath, because she’s an Obstetrician.   And so should my GP who’s had me on the progesterone that could have caused this whole thing from the start.  And so should every other fucker that’s given me poor advice!  But they don’t.  And she does!  This woman knows her shit.  She knows her shit and she backs herself.  She sees a problem and tries to sort it out, unlike every other doctor who’s told me to close my trap, stop worrying and get on with it.  And above all, stop worrying!  Everyone tells me to stop worrying!  But none of them have had an ectopic go on in their own body that has bled for six weeks!  None of them have had to go through that!  None of them!”

Suse stops for a second, and looks at me.  “I need to know that my tube is okay, Mark.  Because I don’t know what I would do if I have another ectopic.”  She drops one of my hands, and we keep walking.

“I just don’t know what I would do,” she whispers, almost to herself.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 18, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 19th April 2010

Gestation: 29 weeks, 3 days

One year ago.

“Hi there,” I say, taking on my doctor’s voice, “I’m a doctor from Richmond Community Health Centre.”  I glance around my home office.  In Richmond.  “I was wondering if I could book in a patient?”

“Certainly,” the secretary replies obligingly.

“This is Leslie Fleischer’s rooms?”

“This is Dr. Fleischer’s IVF Clinic, yes.”

“Great.  I’ve got a patient who had an ectopic pregnancy, and has been having some difficulty getting pregnant.”

“No problem.”  She pauses for a moment.  “The first available is at 3pm on the 19^th May.”

I quickly scan my own diary, ensuring that I’ll be able to make myself free on that day too.

“Excellent,” I say eventually.  “So, only a month away?”

“Yes,” she replies.  “And I’ll place your patient on the cancellation list too.”

I pause for a moment.  “You get a lot of cancellations?”  Is this woman not as good as we’d heard?

“Yes, plenty.  Women get pregnant all the time while they’re waiting to see Leslie.”

“Of course they do,” I say.  I breathe, a little relieved.  “Will Leslie need any bloods done before the appointment?”

“No, that can all be done on the day.”

We discuss out of pocket expenses and I give her our mailing address.

“And who will be the referring doctor?”

“Well, that’s the irony,” I say, finally fessing up.  “I’m her husband, and also the referring physician.”

Even after twelve years of being such, it still feels like cheating.

I don’t know why, it just does.

“Very good,” she says, actually meaning it.  “That’s convenient, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I say. “Well, sometimes it is.  But sometimes it’s not.”

“Right,” she says, fully understanding that we won’t be continuing this line of conversation.

“So do I need to fax the referral now?”

“No, just bring it along on the day, doctor.”

“Very good.”

I hang up the phone.

Four weeks, or earlier if there are cancellations.

I resolve to get over myself.  It’s not like this is insider trading.

There’s got to be some perks for being the Paediatrician who can’t have kids.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 15, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 18th April 2010

Gestation: 29 weeks, 2 days

One year ago.

“So how many weeks are you now, Bel?”

“Twenty-five,” she said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

“Wow,” I say, “a real live human in there.  That’s awesome.  Well done.”

“Thanks, mate,” she says.

I look across at Dan, and he gives me the exact same look that Bel just did.

It’s the ‘I get it’ look.

* * * * *

Dan and Belinda are twenty-five weeks pregnant.

Three years ago, they had a miscarriage, and four weeks later, Bel had to return to surgery for complications.

Ever since, they’ve been trying to get pregnant.  Through multiple rounds of IVF, they scaled the ever-higher walls of probability, while all of those around them fell pregnant by accident.

They went through the ringer.

I’d been witness to that look in their eyes each time in those three years that one of their friends got pregnant while they didn’t.  Everyone around them was pregnant but them.

Well, everyone but us, that is.

Now Suse and I share that look.  Shit, we’ve taken out a patent on it.

Because while we haven’t been through quite the same thing, haven’t travelled quite that far down the same road – we’ve seen the signposts, and we’ve seen the distance to the destination.

And we feel the same urgency to fill the tank to the brim.

* * * * *

Bel and Dan continue to talk, one or other of them keeping their eye on Suse and me, aware of the cauldron of emotion brimming under the surface.

As their voices fade away, like an effect in a movie, I glance around the table. Lexi and Adam sit there, playing with their fifteen-month old girl, Sally.

They fell pregnant, just like that.

They don’t know the look.

I reflect on this.  I sit back, and we are served our dinner, I run an inventory.

I scan a list in my head.

Of all the people that came to our wedding.

I list the couples off, one by one.  As I do, I come to the striking realisation that at our wedding, there were only two married couples who didn’t have kids.

One of them recently lost a child at 23 weeks;  the very definition of a tragedy.  The others have labelled themselves as a ‘cautionary tale’.  Molly and Jeff, our beautiful friends from Sydney, met later in life, and as such, left their run late.  At forty-five years young, Molly took me aside one day, and said:

“Whatever you do, don’t leave it like we did.  Please get in and have kids while you can.  Let us be your cautionary tale.”

Every other wedded couple from our wedding day is either pregnant, or has kids.

Everyone, that is, except a tragedy, a cautionary tale, and us.

No wonder my life feels like a Shakespearian drama.

* * * * *

In fact, twenty-three of those couples have thirty-eight kids between them.  And there are five more on the way.  There were eight singles at our wedding, and two who were in stable relationships.

So to maths it up a bit:  of those who are in relationships and can have kids – including those who don’t want them right now – eighty-three percent do.  And this is just those of child bearing age.  Add in our parents, those of their vintage, and the numbers rise even further.

We’re talking ninety-six percent.

Every single one of our married friends – one hundred percent of them – either have kids or want them.

And we’re in the three of twenty-eight couples who want them, and haven’t had them.

There’s the tragedy, the cautionary tale, and us.

We’re not quite sure what we are yet.

Sometimes, life’s a bitch.

* * * * *

With this thought in my head, we head to the Comedy Festival.  Suse and I are in sore need for some laughter.  And it works.  It’s a fun time.

There’s nothing quite like laughing till you cry.

We don’t mind our friends talking about their kids.  We get that this is now their life.  But like I say, of our day-to-day friends, every one of them has kids now.

All of them but us.

So when Adam Hills gets on stage, we are ready for a topical joke.  He’s not my favourite comedian, but the man is smart.  And given my recent revelations, his choice of topic can not have been more apt:

“Having kids is a little bit like owning an Apple Mac.  Once you get one, you never shut up about it.”

Suse and I look at each other, and fall apart.

It isn’t even his punch line.

But for us, it is.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 14, 2011 10:00 am

Saturday 17th April 2010

Gestation: 29 weeks, 1 day

One year ago.

We wake this morning, and instantly, I get that it’s going to be one of those days.

Suse has already applied her worry mask.

“My temperature is still up.”

“Right,” I say, before pausing.   “Is that good?”

“No, that’s bad.  That’s really bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your temperature is meant to go back down as soon as you’ve had your period.”

“And it hasn’t?”

“No,” she says, a little frustrated.  “It’s still 36.65.”

“That’s up?”

“What do you mean?  Of course that’s up.”

“Sorry, hon.  It’s just that…”  She looks at me with a stony face.  “I’m used to kid’s temperatures.  Thirty-eight or thirty-nine is up.”

“Well, I’m not a child, Mark.  So, 36.65 is up.”

“Okay.”  I pause.  “Well, you only did it when you woke up.  At 9.30am.  Other days you’ve woken at five.  Maybe that’s made the difference, love.”

Suse takes me by the hand, pulling me towards the chart.

“See here?  This is where my temperature was.”  She tape the paper with fury.  “This is where it is now.  It’s not good.”

I look at the numbers, and see that, in fact, it appears that her temperature has not gone down since her period started.  It’s been floating between 36.38 and 36.83.  Nothing as low as last month, when it was down to 36.08.  All the same, I can’t help but be impressed by how even they all are.

“Mmmm,” I say.

“And my period hasn’t been heavy enough.”  She sighs.  “Maybe I am broken.”

“What do you mean?” I say.  I bite the inside of my mouth, ensuring a serious face.

“None of the tests work for me.  Not the saliva test, not the pee sticks, and now not the temperature.  I’m broken.”

I sit there for a moment, saying nothing.  This is one of those moments I’ve learnt about.  The hard ones.  The unfixable ones.

Patience, Mark.  The answer will come.

Don’t try to fix it.

Eventually she opens her mouth.  I watch, waiting.

“I knew I should have made that appointment with that IVF lady.”

Ah.

There you go.

The answer.

Wait, and it shall come.

“So make an appointment with her.  On Monday.”

“But she has a two-month waiting list.”

“Look.  We spoke to Nadine, and she said that we’d want six months of trying before investigating.”

“Well, I don’t want to wait for six months before investigating!  I’m thirty-five-and-a-half!  I want to know now!”

“Okay.  So we’ll book an appointment on Monday.”

“I knew we should have booked ages ago.”

Groundhog day.

“We’ll book one on Monday.”  I look at my wife.

At that look of regret and worry and every possible anxiety in existence, all coursing through her brain.

“She’ll have cancellations,” I persist.  “You’ll get in.”  I take her hand, clapping it between mine.  “We’ll book on Monday.”

Suse looks up and me, frustration on her bottom lip.  It quivers slightly, before breaking as we fall into a hug.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, April 12, 2011 10:00 am

Thursday 15th April 2010

Gestation: 28 weeks, 6 days

One year ago.

Sometimes she is present, and other times she’s not.

Sometimes I live with my beautiful, warm, sensitive, caring wife.  The woman that I married.  The one who cares for me, and loves me, and fully supports me.

Other times, I cohabitate with a powerfully intemperate, irrational woman.  An irascible, cantankerous being.  One whom I tippee-toe around.

Mostly unsuccessfully.

At other times, I share a house with a sensitive, fragile, frightened girl.  One who cries in fear of being broken, of not being able to be fixed.  Of being baron, and irredeemable, and unable to reach happiness.  And cursed.

And other times again, I have none of the above.

I have a shell of a person living with me.

This is the worst of all.

* * * * *

I wake each morning, waiting to see who’s day it is.  Where we’re up to in the cycle.  What day it is on the roster.

Because, you see, no one handed me the roster.  No one bothers to let me know who’s on yard duty.  I just have to wait for the rock to hit me in the back of the head.  That’s how I find out.

The pregnancy game.

It’s a roller coaster, they say.

But without the thrills.

* * * * *