CONSIDERING that the majority of mainstream stories about in vitro fertilisation (IVF) are the ones accompanying a photo of a smiling baby, most people could be forgiven for believing that it?s the answer to their prayers. It isn?t.
Of course statistics only highlight part of any story, and for some people IVF does work. A recently released report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reviewed all assisted reproductive technology procedures in Australia and New Zealand in 2008 and compared them with previous years. According to the review, about 3.5 per cent of babies in Australia are now born with the help of this technology.
Fertility specialist at IVF Australia, Professor Michael Chapman, who was a medical adviser for the report, says the effort and cost of IVF is more worthwhile than it was 10 years ago, and that Australia is now leading the way when it comes to single embryo transplants.
My partner and I weren’t so lucky. We spent nearly two years on the IVF program. This translated for me as daily hormone injections, daily blood tests for one week out of every month, ongoing doctor and specialist appointments, and hospital visits. then there was the general anaesthetic required each time in order for my eggs to be collected and fertilised outside my body. then back to the hospital for the “embryo” to be put inside me. then the wait – a week that got longer every time – to see whether the fertilised egg had attached to my uterine wall and I was therefore officially pregnant.
Despite having many of the symptoms of pregnancy over two years – exhaustion, moodiness, fluid retention and weight gain – I was never pregnant. Finally we were told by our specialist that we had reached the end of what medical science could do for us. It was a shocking moment. We hadn’t “left it too late” to start trying, as some commentators are fond of accusing women (interestingly, Michael Chapman told ABC radio in September this year that evidence suggests it is actually the male career and his financial stability that is driving the age of first pregnancy up). neither is there anything wrong physically with either of us. We are part of the 3 per cent of Australian couples with unexplained infertility. Needless to say, the physical and emotional not to mention the financial demands of IVF are extremely distressing, and we did our best to manage and prepare ourselves. but we were not at all ready for other aspects of our situation: Firstly, that once we’d stopped IVF, how to articulate to others the pain of having to face the reality of our situation, and two, how to reassign meaning to our lives when something we had taken for granted was taken away.
I don’t mean we were unsupported by family and friends – we’re lucky to have wonderful families and incredible friends – and I also don’t mean to suggest that having biological children is the only way to make a family. There are other options, but none are as easy or straightforward as so many people seem to believe. Adoption is an extended process, one which is emotionally debilitating and hugely expensive. and as I am discovering, fostering is not as straightforward as I’d believed either.
If I hadn’t already had a full life when we were told we wouldn’t be able to have children, I think the news would have destroyed me. I love children, and I always wanted to have a lot. now that it seems unlikely that I will ever have any of my own kids, biological or not, I am grateful that I took the time to consider what my life was going to look like without children. Not without a family – I have my partner, my immediate family, and more amazing and dear friends than I may deserve. but still, maybe a better understanding of what life could look like wouldn’t have taken so long if there had been any clue in the public domain about how to go about that.
Initially I became perhaps overly concerned that I was going to grow from an angry and frustrated young woman into a bitter and even angrier old woman. I wasn’t too sure what to do about that. part of that frustration was knowing that unmarried, childless women are judged by many, although that was the least of my concerns.
Anyway, after the first year of IVF treatment my partner and I went to a meditation weekend and a conversation I had with a woman there resonated strongly with me. In her late 30s or early 40s she was older than me, and after years of trying was finally pregnant with her first child. We were chatting when she said, “You’ve very lucky. you have a full life, and if you don’t have children, you’ll be okay.”
While I can’t remember all the details of the conversation now, I remember I found it confronting. because it finally clicked that there would be a time when I would have to start imagining a life without children. It took me a while to do so because at that stage, I found I was unable to breathe if I tried. if you know someone you love is dying, how do you start to imagine life without them? but in order to live on, you must.
Being told we couldn’t have children was like experiencing death, for both myself and my partner. We needed to get through the grieving stage first, but we were also careful to make sure we started making tentative plans for the future. any future. We tried to prepare for having to reassign meaning to our lives. at first such plans seemed incredibly empty. who cares about a house if it’s quiet? Holidays suddenly seemed to be meaningless indulgences.Of course these are external considerations, but along with trying to forge ahead with such plans I refocused on the importance of connecting with other people and tending to my inner life. and this is where I am incredibly lucky.
I finished my PhD and now, at 40, I teach media theory, journalism and creative writing in the Communication Arts department at the University of Western Sydney and also co-host the TVS book show, Shelf Life. I love my work. My favourite things are reading, writing and researching, and I do all of these things for a living as well as for fun. so it is possible that dilemmas such as how to develop a sense of belonging, and whether infertility and childlessness necessarily redefine an identity are, for me, issues that are easier to work through than they are for someone who doesn’t “think” for a living.
Without the grief I’ve experienced in my life, and sometimes I think I’ve had more than my fair share and yes, that does make me difficult sometimes, but still, without it I may never have learnt to appreciate what I have. and I admit I would swap all that in a second for children, but that’s a hypocrisy I can live with.