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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 15, 2011 10:00 am

Tuesday 14th September 2010

One year ago.

We get a letter from Shelley.

Dear Susan and Mark,

Please find a summary of the treatment cycle you recently undertook.

IVF Reference Number:  93846/1

Type of treatment this cycle:  IVF

Number of eggs collected:  3

Number of eggs inseminated:  3

Number of eggs fertilised:  3

Number of embryos transferred:  1

Number of embryos frozen:  1

Semen frozen during this cycle:  No

Total number of available frozen embryos:  1

Total number of available frozen eggs:  0 

Please remember there is a six monthly ongoing fee for storage of frozen embryos and semen.

Wishing you every success,

Shelley.

It just makes you feel all gushy inside, doesn’t it?

* * * * *

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

Monday 30th August 2010

One year ago.

We sit down in the waiting room, our bums hitting the cushions on the plush Ikea couches.  Sitting opposite, three women look Suse up and down in unison.

“They check you out,” Suse said one day, apropos of nothing.

“Who?”

“The other women.”

“What other women?”

“At IVF.  They size you up.  All of them.”

“Really?”

“Not in a bad way.  If anything, it’s a good thing.  We all sit there, comparing ourselves to each other.  We’re all in this shit predicament together.  And so it’s kind of comforting to look at someone else and think, ‘Okay, I wouldn’t have picked her as having problems.  She looks normal.  Maybe I’m not so weird after all.’ ”

I watch as Suse pretends not to notice, as the three women peer over the top of their magazines, giving a first, a second and a third look over.  Having convinced themselves they’re not so weird, they return to their articles on overly-famous twenty-somethings who have fallen pregnant more readily than they sneeze.

* * * * *

I glance around this buzzing hive.  Nurses, radiographers and reception staff weave in and out of past each other, like they’re doing the Dosey Doe.  There are about fifteen women in this morning, all at various stages of ultrasound, blood test, and management plans.  It takes about the same number of staff to ensure that it all goes smoothly.

It’s a living, breathing organism.

The couches are arranged in two semicircles;  the ones we’re in, just outside radiology, and ones closer to the curved desk in front of the logo.   I look down the corridor to Andrology, the arse-end of this living being.  As I do, I see a man emerge, beenie on his head, a blank expression on his face.  He probably just flicked through ‘MILFs in Heat’.  He doesn’t seem to be holding a pot, but fiddles nervously in his pocket all the same.  He disappears back up the arse of Andrology, only to emerge a few seconds later, looking even more confused.

“Susan?”

We both jump up, causing all three women to again look over the top of their magazines.  ‘Ah, yes, Susan,’ they think in unison, ‘if someone called Susan can have troubles, then I must be okay.’

We walk into radiology, eyes boring into our backs, and past the impossibly tall, pencil-thin radiographer who called us in.

“Do I need to go to the toilet again?” Suse asks, like a little girl on her first day of school.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

Suse scurries back out past the women, while I enter the room and sit down in another Ikea seat, facing towards the wall.  I crane my head back over my neck, and smile like an idiot.

“You can look straight ahead,” says the Pencil lady.  Obediently, I do.  As I do, I realise there is a 32 inch-plasma screen, lit up with the ultrasound view.

“Do you know Susan’s birthday?

“23rd Jan.”

She taps away at her keyboard.  “Very good.”

“Sorry?”

“Most men don’t know their partner’s birthday.”

“No, that’s Suse’s job,” I say, looking straight ahead, not sure if I’m allowed to turn.  “She can’t remember my birthday, and she can’t remember our home phone either.”

“I’ll be back in a second,” Pencil lady says, slightly bored.

I sit there for a moment, in this darkened room.  There’s the screen, a hospital bed to my right, and the white ultrasound machine on the other side of that.   It is connected to a big probe which sits, unceremoniously, in a clear jug of liquid.

It looks like a flight-deck controlled dildo made by Apple.

Suse hurries back in, with Pencil woman right behind.

“Just remove your bottom half, sit up on the bed, and cover yourself with the sheet.  I’ll be back in a second.”  Pencil woman leaves once more.

“She reckons most partners don’t know their wives birthdays,” I say.  “What’s mine?”

She hesitates.  “29th May?”

I smile.

Pencil woman comes back in for the third time, and sits at her computer.  Suse lets out a little whoop, like she’s been winded, and from the views on the screen, I see that there’s no time for foreplay here;  the Mac computer is already in use.

We both stare at the screen, watching Suse’s uterus as it comes into view.  A cursor runs across the screen and then it marks it out, like some weird medical version of Space Invaders.  Pencil woman moves quickly across to the left ovary.  There we see a multi-loculated thing, a balck bunch of grapes, coated in white.  She shoots at it with her cursor.

“They look big,” I say.

“They are,” says Pencil.  The image is frozen still, like she’s pausing.  The cursor draws cross hairs on the screen, and then we’re back to moving images.   She repeats this six times in about a minute;  like she’s going for the world record.  Numbers leap onto the screen, as if to score:

‘R 16, 16, 12, 10, 6’.

“Sixteen millimetres?” I ask.

“Yep,” Pencil woman says without breaking stride.

“Already?”

“We’ve only had four injections,” Suse says, a hint of urgency in her voice.

“Well, they’ve come up pretty quickly then, haven’t they?”

“We only want them to be eighteen, don’t we?” I say, equally anxious.

“If you read the textbooks, eggs ovulate anywhere between seventeen and twenty-seven millimetres.”

With that, Pencil woman goes silent, again attempting for a personal best.  We watch in awe as she does.  I expect to see ‘Triple High Score’ come up, but instead, as she taps, more numbers appear:  ‘L 13, 9, Total 7’

“There’s actually more on this side,” Pencil says, “but they’re smaller.  Five on the right, and seven on the left.”

“Twelve in total?”

“Yep.  The trick is now to get them all to be about eighteen millimetres without some bursting.”

“Sure.”

The probe comes out, and is dunked in the jug with a splash.  I feel like I should click a stopwatch somewhere.

“That thing did have a sheath on it, didn’t it?”

“It did.  It’s already off.  I’m pretty quick.”

I know.  I’m an idiot.  I laughed when this was included in the manual.

And yet I still had to check.

Clearly I’m not the only one.

* * * * *

Within moments we’re out the door, just seconds after Suse gets her undies back on.  We’re ushered to the couches;  this time to the next set along.  Within another two minutes we’ve been called back in, directly beyond the slogan desk and into the pathology room.  A woman distracts us with questions about the weather, while sticking a sharp object into Suse’s arm.  She draws the blood, stands us again, turns us around, and frog marches us back out the door before we even learn her name.

And we’re back in Ikea land.

Five more minutes pass, just long enough to piece the events together.

And with that, there is another call.

“Susan?”  We both jump like it’s an Army drill.  “I’m Amy,” says another woman, would you like to come through?”

Holding hands, we run through the door of Room Number Three.

“Have you started the Orgalutran yet?” she says before we even sit.

“No, I’ve only just started the Puregon,” Suse says.

“Well, we’re going to give you the Orgalutran right now.  Are you okay with that?”

“I…I guess so.”

“Is sixteen millimetres too big this early in the treatment?” I ask.

“No, that’s fine,” Amy says, “we just need to get onto it.  Everyone is different.  Can you lift up your shirt, Susan?”

Again, the needle is out of its packet in microseconds;   this lady would be an asset at Christmas.  Again I hear Suse let out a whoop, as the needle goes into her belly, plunger pressed.  It’s out and in the bin before I even see it.

“You might get a bit of redness and itching with this one.”

“Really?  Are there any other side effects?”

“Oh, if you usually notice things before your period, then you might get a few things like that.”

“Okay,” I say.

“So, Shelley will have your blood results this afternoon, and then she’ll give you a call you to let you know what’s happening.”

“So at this rate…”

“…Egg collection will be on Friday or Saturday.”

“Yeah right,” Suse says.  Her eyes go wide.

And with that we’re out.

Ultrasound, blood test, injection and consultation in an hour.

You don’t get that in the public system.

* * * * *

A few hours later, I’m at work when the phone rings.

“I just spoke to Shelley,” Suse says.

“Was she in a whirlwind mood too?”

“No, she was happy to answer questions.  But she said that they’ve upped the ante.  I’m going to get both.  Orgalutran in the morning, and Puregon in the evening.

“Two injections per day?”

“Yep.”

“An antagonist and a hormone at the same time?”

“Yep.”

This is going to be fun.

* * * * *

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By Mark Nethercote, August 24, 2011 10:00 am

Sunday 29th August 2010

One year ago.

We’ve hit our groove.

After watching the DVD, we reassured ourselves that we didn’t do anything wrong.  The pen does require plastic-bending levels of pressure to dial down in an unreassuringly, flimsy manner.  I’ve also improved my grip.  The pen really needs a firm grasp on the barrel, and a thumb on the plunger, while the other hand secures it at the skin.  And, even better, if you let the thing defrost first, it isn’t quite as lumpy on the way in.

Suse already feels bloated, and we’re only about a third of the way through the injections.

“Already I feel twice as heavy as what I do before I ovulate.  This is going to be shit.”

Suse will have an ultrasound to examine her follicles tomorrow.  As we’ve been told, she’ll get Puregon until her follicles are 13-14mm, then three to five days of Orgalutran, then one dose of the Ovidrel.  By then, they’ll be about 18mm each and ready for collection.  That could mean ten follicles all up, five on each side, each nearly two centimetres in size.

According to Shelley, there really aren’t any side effects to the Puregon, other than fullness in the belly.

Try telling Suse that.

She’s cried three times since the injections began, and says she feels like absolute shit.

I’d tell her that it was all placebo effect.  But I want to keep my marriage.

And I know this isn’t a great analogy, but if I had five cysts growing on each of my balls, I think I’d be pretty emotional too.

* * * * *

Work is keeping me going.

I went out on a trip yesterday to retrieve a baby that was born in the back of a taxi.  His parents were on the way into hospital when things got a little out of hand.  They ended up pulling into the carpark of the closest local hospital, where they had their little girl.  She was thirty weeks.  That’s two-and-a-half months early.

I sat there, listening to the call as it came in.

“Oh, hi, this is Jonathan, one of the Emergency Consultants,” he said sounding somewhat flustered.  There was a lot of commotion in the background.  “We’ve just had a baby deliver in the car park.  And we don’t have a paediatric unit here.”

“How’s the baby doing?”

“It looks pink and is breathing on its own.  Pretty well, I think.  You wouldn’t believe the commotion it has caused.”

By the time we arrived, there were about fifteen people in the room.  Nurses, doctors and ward clerks all swarmed around, all keen to help.

“I’ve been here twenty-two years,” said a battle-hardened nurse as I fought my way through, “and I’ve never seen this happen here.”

“Really?” I say, trying to sound interested.  “Do you think we could clear the room just a bit?”

“Yeah, where do you want us to put Mum?” she said, her eyes never leaving the baby.

I pause for a moment.

“I’m fine with Mum being here.  It’s everybody else.”

“Right.  Yes, of course.”

It’s not just us.   Everyone is excited at the prospect of new life.  Even medical staff who’ve seen it all.

There really is nothing quite like the magic of a brand new baby.

* * * * *

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

Thursday 26th August 2010

One year ago.

I sit there on the couch, as I hold an oddly-shaped needle threateningly in front of Suse’s belly.  She pinches some skin between her fingers, while looking suitably threatened.  I pause for a moment.

“You have used one of these things before haven’t you?” she asks.  I hesitate.  “Haven’t you?”

“Well, no, not really.  Not exactly like this.”

“What sort of a doctor are you?”

“Hang on.  We don’t use this sort of thing.  I mean – this is exactly like a diabetic’s pen.  But I’m used to bog standard needles and syringes, not fancy blue plastic pens with spikes on the end.”

“Okay then,” she says, even less reassured.

Trust is a big thing for Suse.  It’s the first thing that comes up when there’s something new.  I mean, I know it does for all of us, but Suse’s trustometer is super-sensitive.  At the first sign of something unusual, her trust levels drop,  scouring for signs of danger.  And right now, I’m holding a sharp weapon in front of her guts.

“That’s good,” I say, shifting into doctor mode, “the way you’re holding your tummy.  That’s perfect.”

“I’ve been growing a bit of padding just for this,” she jokes.

I pick up one of the alcohol swabs and tear it open.  At least that’s the same.  Everything else about this set up feels totally foreign.  I’m in my own living room, about to inject my wife.  Shelley gave us instructions on how to use the pen, but all the same, right now, it feels kind of flimsy.

Suse wants me to do the injection, but she was adamant that she was going to assemble it.  So, as the alarm went off at 9pm, I watched as she silently got up, walked to the fridge, and came back with the chilly bag.  She opened it up and began unpacking boxes like it was Christmas.  She opened the Puregon cartridge and put it in the pen’s barrel.  She took a new needle and screwed it on the end.  She dialled it up to 300 units.  And that was when she handed it to me.

“Can you pinch up your skin again?” I ask.  She does this obediently, as I take the alcohol swab and wipe.  And then I take the pen, and plunge it through her skin.  I press on the plunger, but it won’t budge.

“Ow,” she says.

“It’s hard to…”

I press some more.

“Ow,” she repeats.  I press even harder, the plunger slowly giving way, twisting as it goes, undialling.  But it does it in a weird way, in a flimsy plastic way, in a ‘feels-like-it-might-break-off-in-your-wife’s-belly-because-you’re-not-doing-it-right’ kind of way.

“Owww!” she says.

I just keep pressing.  It’s all I can do.  Pushing all the way, threatening the plastic as I do, forcing the plunger down, until I hit zero.

“One, two, three, four, five,” I count, trying to sound calm.

“That really hurt,” she says, a hint of hysteria in her voice.   “Was it meant to hurt that much?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You were wiggling it around in there.”

“Sorry.  I wasn’t that easy to press down.”

“Did it work?”

“I…I don’t know,” I say out loud.

“What?”  I meant to think that.  Not say it.  “What?”

I look at the side of the pen, to see that a third of the cartridge is empty.

“It must have worked.”

“This is really starting to hurt.  Should it hurt that much?”

“I’ve just injected a couple of mils under your skin, hon.  It’s not going to tickle.”

“But it really hurts.  And it feels really cold.”

We both look at each other.  “Weren’t we meant to leave it out of the fridge for a few minutes?”

“Yes.”  Suse has that mistrusting look.  “Does that mean it’s not going to work?”

“It’ll work.  It’s fine.  We’ll make it room temperature tomorrow.  It just kind of felt like the pen was going to break.  Like it wasn’t quite right.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

We both sit there, staring forward.  I look at the detritus in front of us.  There’s a chilly bag, an ice pack at its base.  There’s nine cardboard boxes, in a variety of colours of the rainbow, each full of drugs.  There’s alcohol swabs.  There’s a swanky pen case, like it’s a Mont Blanc or something, not a flimsy piece of shit.  There’s even a sharps bin.  And then, there’s my pot, ready and waiting for my sample, in about ten days time.

“Which of them go back in the fridge?”

“You’re kidding me,” she says.  “You don’t know?”

“Should we watch the Puregon DVD?  Just in case?”

“I think that’s wise.”

Right now, I feel like we’re the Puregon people.  The woman is smiling, but it’s a grimace of fear.  She’s cropped from the shoulders down so we don’t see that in fact she’s holding a piece of cotton wool over her belly where her husband just stabbed her.

And I’m the Puregon guy.  Just sitting here, by her side, feeling a bit weird and awkward.

And this is only Day One.

* * * * *

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

Monday 23rd August 2010

One year ago.

“So this is the needle,” says Shelley, pulling out a blue, wide-barrelled pen.  I look across at Suse, who wears a glazed expression.  It’s not that she’s concerned about the needle, it’s just that she’s a little overwhelmed with information.  “You open the container, take off the cap, undo the chamber, pull out the cartridge, and place it in here.  Then you take a needle, and you screw it on here – after you’ve wiped it with an alcohol swab.  When you’re done with that, take off the plastic lid, revealing the needle.  Dial it up to 300 micrograms, just like this.  If you overdo, it, wind it further, like so, and just reset it, like this.  Take a grab of some of your stomach – anywhere below the belly button line – and place it in, inject, and hold for five seconds.  Take it out, recap the needle, unscrew it, and put it in the sharps container.  And then do the same the next night.”

I look at Suse.  Her eyes are open, but not much else is.  Shelley does this for a living, but somewhere along the way, she’s forgotten that this is the first time we’ve heard any of this.  I’m a doctor, I’m familiar with injections and this equipment, and yet I’m running to keep up.  Shelley’s explained the pack, our terms and conditions, the costs, and she’s up to our regime.  We’re to start on the Puregon, and then the Orgalutran.  After this, we’ll have Ovidrel, and then finally the Crinone.

We’ve got a pretty simple regime.

Supposedly.

“Make sense?”  I look across at Suse, and she looks back at me.  I expect to see fear.  But I don’t.  She’s clearly overloaded, but I see that twinkle.

She’s excited.

“You’ll remind me of anything I this that I don’t remember?” she says.  I nod.

“Good,” says Shelley quickly.  “So, you get four boxes, three of the 900 microgram chambers, three uses each, and one of the 300.  Got it?”

Again I nod.

“Good.  So onto the Orgalutran.  This is a once-only use.  The needle is slightly bigger and hurts on the way in, more than the Puregon, which is more like a diabetic’s pen.  So in that way it’s similar to the Ovidrel – which is the one we give exactly thirty-eight hours prior to collection,” she says pointedly.

I look and nod.  Shelley’s voice trails off.  I watch her animated movements, almost like a cartoon.  Someone has their hand up her, controlling her like a puppet, but there’s no body attached to the hand.  Or someone has pressed play on a tape, and although her lips are moving, the sound has gone dead.  I look across at Suse.  This time she’s the one listening.  She’s nodding with every word, taking it in.

This is my permission to vague out.

I look out the window at Melbourne below.  It’s sunny and warm, the warmest day in weeks.

It’s nine days till spring.

“Does that make sense, Mark?”

“Absolutely,” I say unconvincingly.

“So the Crinone is inserted with this applicator.  It releases progesterone directly through the vaginal wall…”

I look across at Suse, who smirks at me, the good student who knows how not to get caught.

Hopefully we can share our notes before the exam.

* * * * *

On the way out, Shelley hands us another folder.  I think that makes three that we’ve been given along the way, as well as two more we’ve nbought ourselves, just to hold all of the information.  This one is white with a peach trim and banner, declaring the motto of our year:

‘Life Starts Here’.

When I open it up, I see that it is full of brightly coloured drug flyers, interspersed with admission paperwork, some after-hour contact numbers, and, just for good measure, yet another document reminding us of potential risks.  This one quotes the incidence of twins from IVF at 16.4%.

Fuck me.  First it was 3%, then 10%, now 16.4%.   By the time we have a baby, it’ll be 1 in 2.

Luckily, there’s even a DVD on how to use the Puregon Pen.  Clearly, no one can stay awake for all of Shelley’s talk.

The drug propaganda is worthy of note:

PUREGON: A green covered booklet, with a simple yellow heading.  The drug name is at the bottom centre.  As it’s a plastic pen they’re selling, the name is written in cursive, as a reminder that you’ll be stabbing yourself with a biro.

In the centre is a picture of a couple.  They’re sitting on a set of steps, with smiles on their faces.  They’re well cast; he looks a little bit weird and awkward, like maybe his sperm count is a little low.  The hints of highlight in her hair are almost mistakable for grey.  The shot is cropped just below the shoulders.  I can almost hear them saying, ‘We may be thirty-eight years old, but we’re happy, even though we haven’t had kids.  If you want, imagine I’m thirty-eight weeks pregnant, or if it helps, I’m still barren.  We’re unassuming, and normal.  Apart from my impotent husband, that is.’

9 out of 10

ORGALUTRAN: By the same company, this one is has a yellow background with orange writing.  The drug name is in smaller print, again centred at the bottom.  The picture at the top is one of a dirty great needle, photographed on a clinical white background.

Read:  ‘This is a needle that you have to have.  And it will hurt.   No point bullshitting.’

8 out of 10 (for honesty)

OVIDREL: This one’s by a different company.  It’s an all black background, the drug name written vertically down its right hand spine.  To its left is the photograph of a stunning woman in a red dress, her hands under her chin in clutched prayer.  It looks like an ad for a new brand of Christian fashion apparel.

3 out of 10.

CRINONE: By the same company as Ovidrel.   Yet another good-looking woman in a red shirt, this one with her arms wrapped around her unpregnant midriff like she’s got a gut ache.  And yet she’s grinning as she stares at the ground like she’s just seen $100 – not like she’s just sprayed a dose of PMS up her vagina.

2 out of 10.

When you open the Crinone and Ovidrel brochures, on the first page we get to meet the Merck Serono Fertility women, each with their own name.  As well as Ovidrel and Crinone, we have Cetrotide, Gonal-F, Luveris, and Serophene.  Each of these oddly named women is a vacuously ecstatic twenty-five year old model.  Cetrotide is touching her declotage like she’s just can’t believe how good it is to be alive, and Serophene holds her head in her hands like she’s just won the Miss America pageant.  Liveris is clapping her hands with glee, her mouth wide open as people only ever do in photo shoots, while Gonal-F is pumping her fists at her side, with an expression like she is actually having an orgasm.

I want to punch them all.

Drug companies, read this:  IVF is hard.  It may be about women’s health, but for God’s sake, don’t trivialise it down to a tampon commercial.  I want odd-looking, late-thirties couples and a horse needles on your branding, not models having orgasms.

This is IVF.  We don’t do regular orgasms any more.

* * * * *

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

Friday 13th August 2010

One year ago.

“Is that Mark?” asks the nasal voice.

“Yes it is.”  I’ve answered my mobile from a ‘Blocked’ number.  Nothing shits me more.  Most hospitals have blocked outgoing numbers, so, as a rule, I can’t screen them out.  But blocked numbers can equally come from marketing companies.  The nasal voice makes me think the latter.  “And who’s this?” I ask tersely.

“Shelley, the IVF Nurse.”

“Oh, right,” I sat.  “Shit, sorry Shelley.”  There I go swearing at her again.  “It was a blocked number.  It’s a pet hate.  Sorry if I was short with you.”

“Hadn’t noticed.  Anyway, I was just ringing you about your cycle.”

“Yes?”

“I’m still waiting on your Police Checks.”

“We’ve had them done.”

“Yes, but you haven’t brought them in yet.  For me to sight.  I need to see them before we can get your wife’s regime organised.”

“The Orgalutran?” I say stupidly.  Talking to this woman turns me into a git.

“And the rest.”

There is a pause.  “I’ll do that.  Sure.  But I can’t bring them in today.  I’m at work.  I’m sure I can early next week.”

“I’d appreciate that.  Susan’s treatment cycle will be commencing the following week, and we need to have it all ready.”

“That’s if we don’t get pregnant this month,” I add.  Pause.  “Naturally, I mean.  If we don’t get pregnant naturally.”  Another pause.  “We’ve been trying really hard.”

“Too much information, Mr. Nethercote.”

“Yes, yes, of course.  But we still hold out hope that we might just be lucky, in this, our last month.”  Long silence.  “I’ll bring it in for you next week,” I say, slightly deflated

“Thank you very much.”

“Okay, Shelley.  I’ll do it on Tuesday.  See you then.”

“Ah, one more thing.  Have you had a chance to read the ART Agreement?

“Yes, I have.  I made my own summary and everything.”

“Really,” she says, disbelievingly.

“Absolutely.  Wonderful document.  Such light reading.”  She taps away on her keyboard some more, something else for her database.  ‘Weirdo’, probably.

“Do you think you could bring that in too?”

“My summary, or the original?”  Pause.  Pause.  Pause.  “We’ll sign our lives away this weekend.”

“Thank you very much.”

“See you Tuesday, Shelley.”

I write on my hand in big black ink – ‘SIGN LIFE AWAY’.

I’ll do that when I get home.

* * * * *