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By Mark Nethercote, September 30, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

Suse strides over to the bench, sitting down hard.  I follow.

“Hello?” Suse says.

“Hi there, Susan, it’s Shelley here.”

“Hi Shelley.”

“Have you got a minute?”

“Yes.”

“Look,” she says, pausing again, “I can’t tell you this officially, as the analyser is still not functioning.  But your beta-HCG level is positive.”

We both sit there for a moment, before looking at each other, our eyes wide.

“Sorry?”

“It’s just the progesterone level that isn’t through yet.  But the beta-HCG, the actual pregnancy test, is positive.  And… Well, we don’t like to give out the result until we have both, but, unofficially, it’s really the beta-HCG level that counts.”

We both sit there, a little stunned.

“So, that’s good, right?” Suse says eventually.

“Yes.  Absolutely.  And the level is nice and high.  Like really high.  It’s 703, and we like it to be above a hundred.  So you’re definitely pregnant.”

“So, unofficially, you’re telling us we’re pregnant?”

“Unofficially, yes, I am.  I just didn’t want you to be waiting till tomorrow to find out.  I didn’t think that was fair.”

“No,” I pipe in, “we were just talking about that.  We were about five minutes off ringing back.”

“Well, there you go,” she says laughing, “I beat you to it.”

We all go silent.

“So, where to from here?”

“Well you know, you still need your ultrasound at five weeks to check that it’s not an ectopic, which will be a week from now.  And, like I said, I’ll give you a call tomorrow to confirm.  To re-confirm.  But for now, it’s congratulations.”

“Thank you, Shelley,” we say together.  “Thank you.”

“Okay, talk to you tomorrow,” she says, hanging up.

I sit there, still.  Still dazed, before Suse falls into my arms.  I hear her begin to cry, and instantly my own shoulders begin chugging, convulsing, as the tears drop from my eyes.  Suse throws her legs over mine, hugging herself into me.

“We did it, honey,” she mews, barely able to speak. “We did it.”

“We did it.”

“We did it!”

“I know.”

“How are you?”

“Stunned, you know.  A bit shell-shocked, really.  I’d been bracing myself for the worst.”

“Same!”

We fall silent, staring out over the water, watching the swans as the silently float around.

“Oh my god,” Suse says, exhaling heavily.  “It wasn’t all for nothing, you know?  The herbs, the acupuncture, the hypnosis…”

“…The candle.”

“The specially concocted pre-conception recipes.”

“The meditation.”

“Ella saying I was pregnant.”

“Meg’s dream we got pregnant on the first round of IVF.”

“The Garfield doctor telling us someone had to be lucky first time.”

We both watch as the birds draw up against one another, rubbing their backs together.

“I was trying not to read too much into it all,” I say, my voice cracking.  “I was trying not to get too excited, you know, to not see too many signs.”

“Me too!”

“A winter baby.”

“Just like we imagined.  Just a year later.”

“Unofficially, that is.”

“Yes, honey.  Unofficially.”

We grip each other tight, and I place my palm against her belly, again imagining the cells multiplying, becoming a baby, a childhood lived out over seconds in my mind.  I smile.

“It’s poetic you know,” Suse says eventually, “that, in the end, it’s unofficial. The whole thing, the whole damn thing, until your child is in your arms, on the day that they are born, is unofficial.  Isn’t it?”

I look at my wife, and I smile, shaking my head slightly at her insight.

I watch as her brow furrows into that familiar frown.  “She said the level was high, right?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean it’s twins?”

I laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bench.

THE END

To be continued in three months…

* * * * *

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

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

I pace around, chasing my own tail.

I’m beginning to get dizzy.

Suse bursts in.

“Let’s go for a walk to the gardens,” she says, sounding almost light.

“Good thinking,” I mumble.

We walk out, along Punt Road, down under our bridge, and along the bike track.  We leave the din and congestion and smell of the evening traffic, crossing onto Morell Bridge.  I look at the lattice work, the ornamental Victorian lights, thinking of a simpler time in which this was built.

“What are you thinking?” Suse asks.

“I’m pissed,” I say.  “I’m frustrated.  This is a test that takes ninety minutes to run, and we’ve been waiting all day.  You went in at 9.30am, and we have to wait for six hours?  For what?  So that it can get to tonight, to now, to this point where they won’t be able to tell us tonight?”

We go silent.

“I have to know tonight, honey,” Suse says, slightly desperately.  “I can’t cope having to wait another day.  What am I going to do if I don’t have the result tonight?” she says, her voice rising.

“You’ll just have to cope,” I say testily, “just like I will.  We’ll just be left in limbo for another fucking night, just like the last eleven months.”

We let go of each other’s hands, waiting at the lights.  I walk off ahead, without the green man’s permission, and in through the garden’s wrought iron gates.

Suse catches me, taking my hand into hers.  Through all of this, we’ve tightened as a team.  People say that IVF will make you or break you as a couple.

If nothing else, through all of this torture we’re closer than ever.

As we walk, I squeeze my eyes tight, thinking of the last month, of the last year. Lighting the candle and surrounding it with salt to cleanse the house.  Our fertility ritual under a full moon in Fiji.  The boats that Suse made, to float away the spirits of past pregnancies into the sunset.  Our counselling with Jules.  All of Suse’s medical trials;  her trouble with both shoulders, her ectopic, her blocked fallopian tubes, her brush with multiple sclerosis and a spinal tumour, and then her varicella reaction.

And then I think of this last month.  Of all of her pregnancy symptoms.  Of the incident with the dishwasher.  Of Meg’s dream that we would get pregnant this first time.  Of Ella’s comment in the car.  Of what the Garfield doctor said about someone having to be lucky.  Of that feeling I’ve had, ever since we lit the candle two weeks ago.

That something has got to go right for us.

I open my eyes, and I contemplate the opposite.  The reality of where we are right now, somewhere on the road of IVF, trying to lift our feet into the next heavy step.

We continue along quietly.  The gardens now surround us, the smell, the tranquillity, the soft air.  We walk down our curve, winding right around the lake.  We walk along the path, and as we do, I see Suse’s shoulders rise, the weight lifted slightly in the presence of nature.

“If it gets to five, I’m calling back,” I say.  “I’m not…”

“…It’ll be okay,” Suse says, once again composed.  “She’ll call.

She squeezes my hand, and we walk some more.  We round the bend, past the lawn, the lake in front, a couple of birds fluttering at its edge.  As if on cue, as we pass the park bench, the phone rings.

* * * * *

To be continued…

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

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

The hours pass slowly.  I start the plumbing job, but having never done anything like this before, I have trouble judging how long it’ll take.  Added to this it is uncertainty of whether it will another minute or another hour before I’m cradling Suse in the bedroom with bad news, while water slowly fills the house through a leaky tap.  So I sort of start, and then I stop, and then I start again.

I end up not doing it.

Meantime, Suse sits in the lounge room, watching internet TV.  She devours several episodes of marginally talented singers standing in front of cruel judges and a loving audience, while shoving Rice Bubbles continuously into her mouth.

I check my watch at decreasing intervals.  I feel like a relative, having learnt of a disaster in a foreign land, awaiting confirmation of death.  Each time the phone rings, I jump up from my desk, running into the lounge room.  We both stare at the mobile phone screen, at the various names that appear, none of them Shelley.  We let them all go through to message bank.

“I’m going to ring,” I declare, finally, at 3.07pm.

“She said she’d ring us,” Suse protests weakly.

“You don’t want to know?”

“Not really,” she admits meekly.

“Well, I do,” I say.

I pick up the phone, and dial.  The phone peals five times before it answers.  I feel my heart in my mouth.

“Hi, You’ve called Shelley from Monash IVF,” begins the recorded message.

My heart starts again.

* * * * *

I return to my job of doing nothing in particular. Seconds take far longer than they should.

Never before have I been so inefficient at being inefficient.

It crawls all the way to 4.12pm, before the phone finally rings.  I run out to find Suse there, the shrieking of a contestant’s final flat note cut dead with the pause button.  The mobile rings again, the ‘old phone’ ringtone breaking the silence, sounding like something from a Hitchcock movie.  We both look at the screen to see the name: ‘Shelley’.

Suse answers on speaker phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi there Susan, it’s Shelley here.”

“Hi Shelley,” she says, sounding like the scolded child, about to be punished.

“How are you?”

“Okay.”

“Have you got a minute?”  She sounds apprehensive.

It’s bad news.

Fuck it all.

“Yep.”

“Look…” she says, pausing, “your result isn’t through yet.  They’re having some troubles with one of their analysers.”  I take a gasp.  “So, I’m just ringing to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you.”

“But the result will be through today,” Suse says, as statement more than question.

“Most probably.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll give you a call when it does.  Just hang in there, okay?”

“Okay.”

The phone goes dead.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, don’t you?” Suse says, her head falling into her hands.  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

I stand.  And I walk out of the room and into the study.

Looking for something expensive to throw at the wall.

* * * * *

To be continued…

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By Mark Nethercote, September 26, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 20th September 2010

One year ago.

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By Mark Nethercote, September 23, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 19th September 2010

One year ago.

We’ve stopped having sex.  Since the reimplantation.  They say that you can, that there’s no risk in doing so, but, where’s the guarantee?  Is there a money-back warranty if they’re wrong?

No.

You just never know.

“Do you think we should?” one of us has invariably asked.

“I don’t know,” the other has said.

Really, it’s a small price to pay.  Anatomically, the uterus is closed. Physiologically, the embryo will be well-implanted by now, if it is ever going to be.  It’s not like I’m going to knock it out.  Is it?  That doesn’t make sense.  Does it?

If abstinence can infer a safety effect, we’ll be abstinent.  When shit like this has happened to you, you stop being logical.  You lose objectivity.

Frankly, you go a bit nuts.

If anything could possibly help, then you do it.  Even if it doesn’t make sense.  Shit, we’ve got a candle burning in the middle of the kitchen table.

We’ll do whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes.

* * * * *

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

Saturday 18th September 2010

One year ago.

“This fucking dishwasher!” Suse yells.

I look over at her, from my position folding laundry.  We’ve had a really nice day, managing to keep ourselves busy.  There has not been a moment of tension.

Until now.

“The fucking dishwasher!” she yells again, kicking its scuff board hard.

“What’s wrong?”

“It won’t fucking start!” she yells.  She kicks it again.

I see her open it, pressing buttons randomly, before slamming it closed again.  Each time this doesn’t work, she lets out another shrill squeal.

“This fucking piece of shit!”

We have an Italian dishwasher.  I got it second hand from a mate.  It looks great, but it’s not very user friendly.  It has eight buttons, with various uninterpretable symbols.  It requires that you depress the two on the right simultaneously, before choosing one of the other settings, and then closing it tight to get it to start.  If you don’t do it quite right, it doesn’t work.

If you’re flustered, you haven’t got a hope.

I look at Suse, depressing the buttons unevenly, slamming it shut, squealing, and then pulling it open again.  Each time she does it with more force, each time throwing herself into it ever more.

“This,” she says, pointing, “is a fucking piece of shit!”

“Okay.”

“It is an absolute piece of shit, Mark!”

“Settle down, Suse.”

“I’ll settle down when you get it to work, Mark,” she says menacingly.  “Make it work, Mark!”

“Settle down, Suse.”

“Make it work!  Make the fucking dishwasher work!”

“Give me a second,” I say.

I walk over and open it, depressing buttons.  Suse leans her head over my shoulder, breathing fire.

“Can I have a moment?”

“I’m just watching to see what you do!”

I have a first go at it.  It doesn’t work.

“See?  See!”

“Hang on, Suse.  Just settle down!”

“I’ll settle down when that piece of shit works properly!” she yells, storming off down the hallway, “I can’t fucking take that piece of shit anymore!  This is bullshit!” she screams.  “I can’t take it!” she says, breaking into tears.  She throws herself onto the bed.

“Calm down, Suse,” I yell.  “Or you’ll lose the baby!” I say, more quietly.

The sobbing stops dead.  I pause for a moment, opening and closing the thing to no avail.  I walk down the hall and into the bedroom.  Suse lies there, her arm up under her head, facing the mirror.  I lie down beside her.

“Do you really think there’s a baby in there?” she whispers.
“Yes.”

“I feel like shit, Mark.  I feel constantly nauseated, and I’m totally knackered.  This has got to be a baby, doesn’t it?  It’s got to be.  I can’t do this every month if this isn’t pregnancy.”

I touch her tummy, something I’ve been doing over the last few weeks.  It settles her further.

“Is there a baby in there?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

We go quiet.  Suse sniffs away snot.  I keep my hand on her tummy.

“What’s she saying to you?”

“He likes the dishwasher.

“Does she?”

“He does.  So go easy on it.”

“Okay.”

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, September 16, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 13th September 2010

One year ago.

“Meg had a dream,” Suse declares, in that special way that means she wants me to bite.

“Oh, yeah?”

“That we got pregnant first time.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Great.”

“That’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“It’s a nice thought,” she whispers, looking out the window.

We both go silent.  I watch her drift off, almost unaware that I am there.  As she stares out the window, I see her sad eyes come in, for a moment, like cloud over the sun, before the wind moves it on, and I see my wife again.

“Do you think a dream trumps a candle?”

I sigh deeply.

“I think that we’ve been told that IVF is a long road,” I say, taking her hand, “and that we have a twenty to twenty-five percent chance each time.”

I look into her eyes, which again betray her.  This time, they are dark.  I move closer, and take her into a hug.

“Yes, honey, I think a dream definitely trumps a candle.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” she whispers.

I feel her hugging me, relenting slightly, and then tensing again;  trying desperately to put that shattered dream back together, like a kid telling herself that Santa does exist.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, September 8, 2011 10:00 am

Monday 6th September 2010

One year ago.

There’s a mini-crisis at breakfast.

“The candle is about to go out!” Suse yells.  We both leap up from the couch and over to the table.  The flame limps lowly, the wick bobbing in a sea of wax.  All around are high resin walls, trapping this moat of molten lava inside.

Over the last hour the flame has burnt high and bright, the strongest it has been for the last four days.   But suddenly it is fading.

I grab the replacement candle, tipping its stem to the blue flame to light it.  A drop of wax beads on it’s coated wick before falling, threatening to put it out.

“Stop, stop!” Suse says.  I take it away, and we both stand there breathless, watching for a moment.

“Hang on a sec, I’ve got an idea,” she says, running to the kitchen.  “I’ll use a match to transfer from one to the other.  That way it’ll be the same flame.”

Suse runs over to grab the matches out of the cupboard above the Rangehood.  She returns, slowing as she arrives.  The flame wavers in her breeze, contemplating death.  She brings the match to the flame, threatening to extinguish it, before the phosphorus crackles brightly.

We both take a breath.

She puts the match against the new wick.

“Isn’t that cheating?” I say.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s the same flame.”

We stand for a moment, the new flame beginning while the old one limps weakly.

“I think that’s cheating,” I say frowning.  “And I’ve got an idea.”  I slowly tilt the plate of the first candle, letting the wax move to one end of the molten pond, revealing the wick, and causing the flame to jump up.

“Blow out the new one,” I say.

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mutter.

Suse blows it out.

“Now light it.”

She takes the blackened wick from the new candle and touches it to the original flame.  It lights quickly.

I resettle the plate flat, causing the first candle to have one final burst and splutter, before turning blue, folding down, and going out.

“That was close,” I say.

“Mmmm.”

We both stand there staring again.

“Does it matter that the new candle wasn’t a virgin one?”

“Like there are rules to superstition, honey.  We make this up.  We can do what we want.”

* * * * *

Suse spends the morning at the hypnotist, going for a walk through the Botanic Gardens, and then heading to the acupuncturist for her pre-transfer treatment.

She arrives home just in time for lunch.

“I asked them if there was anything else I should do to increase my chances.  And they said that we should have sex.”

“Really?”

“Supposedly that increases your chances of success even further.  What do you think about that?”

“I don’t ask questions anymore.  I just do what I’m told.”

“So should we get to it?”

“Absolutely.”

“We haven’t got long.  Do you think we have time?”

“Honey.  We’ve been told to do this.  Doctor’s orders.”

I take my wife into an embrace, kissing her deeply.  After a few seconds, I break into laughter.

“What is it?”

“I’ve just realised that I’ve been given carer’s leave to have sex.”

“It’s a great country we live in, isn’t it?”

* * * * *

To be continued…

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By Mark Nethercote, September 7, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 5th September 2010

One year ago.

The candle continues to burn.

It sits in the middle of the dining table, on a white plate.  Two camellias and some bottle brush stolen from the garden up the street lie on its edge.

This candle from the two-dollar shop has been burning since Thursday night, throwing a glow over the darkness of the room as it rains outside.

And there’s another one ready to go when it finishes.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, September 6, 2011 10:00 am

Saturday 4th September 2010

One year ago.

“The phone’s ringing, honey!”

I run into the lounge room, where I find Suse holding the phone like it’s a bomb.  After a moment, she depresses the trigger.

“Hello, Susan speaking.”

“Hi, it’s Shelley here.  From Monash IVF,” she qualifies, like we haven’t been waiting for two hours for this very call.

“Hi Shelley,” we say together, the tension pluckable.

“Well, I’ve got some great news.”  Suse and I look at each other.  “All three of your eggs have fertilised.”

“Really?” Suse asks, grabbing my arm tightly.

“So, now you just need to come back at 2.10pm on Monday, and the implant will happen at three.  You’ll need a full bladder, but not too full.  So I advise that you go to the loo before coming in, and take a bottle of water and start drinking it here.  And then you’ll start the progesterone gel on Monday night.”

She stops.

There is a void.

We’re both mute.  Suse continues to grip my arm.  “Hello?”

“All three fertilised?” I hear myself asking.

“Correct.”

“That’s a pretty good result overall, isn’t it?”

“That’s a great result overall,” she corrects.  It’s the first time I’ve heard her genuinely animated.  Ever.  “To put it into perspective, I’ve just come off a call to another woman who had sixteen eggs collected and only two of them fertilised.  Three out of three is a fantastic result.”

Suse’s hand grips ever tighter.

“And so, I guess, from here, what should we expect on Monday?” I ask, my head swimming.

“Sorry?”

“I mean I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I want to be realistic.  Should we expect one of them left?  Or two?”

“Well, I’d be hoping there’d be at least two on Monday,” she says.

“Okay, okay, that’s good.  I mean…we’re just…we’ve just had a bit of a rough road, and this is all just a bit surreal.  There’s been a few set backs along the way.”

“That’s IVF,” she says plainly.

“Yes.”

“And this is a great result.”

“It’s quality, not quantity,” I chime, as cheesy as a box of Twisties.

“Exactly.  And then on Monday, after the implantation, we can talk about what to do with the spare ones with refreezing.”

Spare ones?

Two hours ago, I’d been considering that there might be none.  And now we’re talking about spares.

“Of course.  Of course.  We’ll talk about that with them on Monday,” says Suse, keeping it together.  “Thank you so much, Shelley.”

“Yes, well,” Shelley says, a little uneasy in this emotionally-charged territory.  “Good luck with the transfer on Monday.”

We hang up the phone, and it drops to the floor with a clack.  We rise in embrace, hugging each other, jumping up and down, in an adult version of ring-a-ring-a-rosy.

We bounce, and we bounce, and we bounce.

“Oh my God!” Suse says, grabbing my face.

“I know!”

“One hundred per cent!”

“I know!”

All morning I’d been imagining three fertilised eggs.  I knew that there might be none, but I’d just kept closing my eyes, and seeing the dish, and seeing all three.

“Do you think they’ll let us visit them?”

“Not yet, honey,” Suse says, “you’ve got to wait till they’re Day Three before they make it to the nursery.”

We both laugh, like dizzy little kids, so hopeful, yet still hardly daring to wish.

Three embryos.

One hundred percent.

Wow.

* * * * *