Greek mythology tells of a king who was punished by Zeus. Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of rolling a huge bolder uphill only to watch it roll down again. The frustrating and repetitive nature of this task resulted in the expression of Sisyphean meaning something that is pointless or unrewarding. We do not need to look to ancient times for such an analogy; we have a perfect equivalent in our own contemporary times. Replace that punished king with an average woman who falls within reproductive age and is considered infertile, and substitute that bolder for IVF procedures and there you have it; a ARThean Challenge.
The other day I was astounded to be asked a straight forward question by my naturopath. Not that my naturopath is normally short on questions, straight forward or otherwise. It is just that this particular one gave Lifeslurper a bit of a jolt. I found myself searching for a decent response.
Our professional acquaintance extends back some months now. We have discussed much about infertility and IVF and its alternatives. Perhaps I thought we had already covered this ground. Maybe that was why I found myself tripping over my own words stumbling for a fair answer to her question;
Why are you doing IVF?
She wasn’t questioning my commitment to the task. She was asking why it is necessary for Wobbles and I to employ medical science and all that entails to give us our much longed for baby. All I knew for certain was that there was no reason to suspect that I had upset Zeus the ancient king of the gods.
I was at a loss to deliver a satisfactory answer. For this very question is something that has been troubling me for some time now. For just on a year now, we have been associated with this sausage-factory approach our group of fertility clinics seem to favour. We are stuck on a big conveyer belt and churned out in large numbers. The clinics control IVF cycles and related ART procedures in bulk. Their approach is largely impersonal. Find yourself unhappy with aspects of your treatment, be it personal or medical, and the simplest response is for us to change clinic or fertility specialist. Even these small choices can prove time consuming and financially costly. Often, because we are so reliant on fertility clinic these services we are prepared to put up with far much more than we would tolerate in other areas of our lives.
Infertility treatments have for me become inexorably linked to desperation. Wobbles’ and my desire to have a family is such an emotive issue, decision making around this becomes incredibly difficult. We fell in love. We decided we would try to have a baby together. Eventually, constant media references to the over 40s and infertility led us to see our general practitioner, Dr. Cutey, MD. The good doctor was neither alarmed nor surprised about our quest.
Since entering this baby making business, Lifeslurper has felt a certain amount of shame about her desire to have a baby. I have allowed myself to feel freakish for having such a wish. Age is at the centre of every media and fertility specialist comment. I imagine myself being mistaken as the grandmother of my own progeny. Dr Cutey suggested we give it three months, and was most positive we would not need any further assistance. From there we made some half hearted attempts at temperature taking and saliva testing. Neither of us was too worried, for we had the vague thought that specialist help would be at hand if our three months trial period did not result in pregnancy.
Fast forward us through the standard tense wait and gut wrenching disappointment of the monthly home pregnancy test, and slowly we became more attracted to the idea that infertility treatments would be the answer for us. Each passing month seemed to be worth six months of time from our old pre-baby making days. The world told us we did not have a moment to spare.
Within the first five minutes of our initial appointment with a fertility specialist we were being given dire warnings over my fertility-advanced age. This has never ceased, although now we have a specialist (our third and hopefully last!) who is far more polite about matters relating to age. We have bought in to all the discussion of age, read all the media reports and studied the statistics. The fact that we have no other apparent causes for infertility has been lost in this maddening race to do cycle after cycle, attend appointment after appointment. We are not “unexplained infertility” we are just plain old.
Recently I have internalised this never ceasing struggle and began to associate our infertility with my overweight. Again, more studies, more statistics, more bad news. My panic has risen as quickly as my hopes of having a baby have been fading. Yet, only months back when we first attended an appointment with our new fertility specialist, Dr Loverley, he noted our ages, then asked; “what is the reason for your infertility?” He wasn’t being glib. This was our first official clue in this whole process that advanced age did not have to equal infertility. Sure, we had both suspected as such our selves, but what did we know? We were just a couple of hapless fools unable to navigate our way around this baby making maze.
This week I heard it again when the naturopath gently asked;
Why are you doing IVF?
It was a question made stunning by its simplicity. With a forth cycle failure behind us, I had long brushed off Dr. Loverley’s separation of age and infertility. Yet here it was again.
It is possible to become pregnant in your forties. Your body is intact. You have not commenced menopause. You menstruate and ovulate regularly….
“But I am overweight! The statistics say…..”
Why are you buying into this? Lose weight, but eat healthily. Exercise. The statistics and studies tell one story. Why not try to make one of your own? You are not that younger, slimmer person.
For the first time, I heard a professional tell me something very positive and very direct. We become so accustomed to those in this fertility business needing to stay impartial, even circumspect, that offering hopes seems to have become a lost art.
There is no reason why you can’t become pregnant.
In that one tiny statement, my baby hopes are reborn. Sure, it was an alternative therapist making that bold statement. I will not pin my hopes on this alone, nor will I pursue her through litigation if I fail to fall pregnant. The point is I feel like I have finally been given permission to do this. This is a kind of ‘permission’ that comes from beyond the tried and tested sources of my beloved Wobbles, or even my wise old mother, or even Squeak the Cat. At the beginning Dr Cutey, MD hinted at it, and Dr Lovely has been the most positive of the three fertility specialists. Now Mrs Vile Tonic is willing to chime in.
None of these can provide a guarantee. Nor would I expect them to. Yet for the first time in a year our infertility does not feel like a huge bolder we have been sentenced to force uphill for all eternity. Finally I can see some level ground ahead. Perhaps we can rest our bolder there for a while?
