When two is the magic number, one couple's fertility journey

I’m writing this in my attic office/walk-in wardrobe.

It’s a bit of a luxury space for a freelance fashion journalist, I must admit. When my husband, Mark, and I decided to get the loft converted to create two extra bedrooms, however, it wasn’t to provide me with a workspace and a guest room; it was with the intention of filling it with children. Even the layout, with a separate bathroom rather than an ensuite, was designed with the intention of giving our future teenagers their own space in the loft. We’d always imagined that one day we’d end up with a couple of kids, both of us confident that we’d make brilliant parents. Fast forward six years, however, and that hasn’t happened.

I met Mark a week before my 19th birthday in my first year at university. By 21, we were engaged, living together in London at 22 and married at 27 — the first of our friends to do so. I knew very early on that this was the person I wanted to grow old with (I’ve always been able to imagine an elderly version of us eating fish and chips on the seafront), but to be perfectly honest, we weren’t in a hurry to start making babies. But as our friends and siblings started having children, we thought we would give it a go as well. I won’t deny that we both felt a certain degree of pressure to ‘join in’ before it was ‘too late’, but the more we discussed it, the more we were excited at the profound idea of creating a little life.

By the time we decided to try having a baby, I was 34, Mark was 35 and we had already been very happily married for seven years. Some friends our age made the same decision at the same time and when they became pregnant almost immediately, I assumed that it would be the same for us. It wasn’t. We did everything we were meant to for two years — reading up on the best methods and timings, improving our diet and taking the correct supplements, trying acupuncture and reflexology — but to no avail. When we then made the decision to try IVF, we were both on the same page about how we would go about it: we wouldn’t throw money at it endlessly, and under no circumstances would we allow it to jeopardise our relationship. We are married because we love each other and because we want to spend our lives together, not in order to have children. Even though that was part of the plan, it wasn’t the motivation. I am forever thankful that we both felt the same way; I’m not sure what we would have done if we hadn’t.

We told close friends and family about what we were doing, partly because we knew a few couples who had already done IVF and their advice was invaluable, but also because we knew they would offer support should it not work out. We even went to the Isle of Wight Festival at the time I was injecting hormones (luckily we had a friend who worked there who was able to get our syringes through security), which was a very surreal experience but sums up our relationship perfectly. Trying for a baby was very important to us, but, difficult as it was, it wasn’t going to make our world stop turning.

The IVF postcode lottery meant that in Lewisham we were only entitled to one round of IVF on the NHS. We were incredibly well looked-after from start to finish at both University Hospital Lewisham and the fertility clinic at King’s College Hospital. IVF is a strange and stressful experience. Even if you have told friends and family, you do feel as though you and your partner are existing in a little bubble. We did manage to have some laughs along the way, though. During one scan, a nurse and her student commented on my ‘beautiful womb’, a compliment I never expected to hear. And I rather enjoyed the drugs I was given at the point of my eggs being harvested. As someone who has never tried anything stronger than a tequila shot, it was an interesting experience, and Mark tells me I was quite the comedian in the theatre (as the doctors were talking about Game of Thrones I was shouting, ‘No spoilers please!’).

We knew that the IVF hadn’t worked before I even had the chance to take a pregnancy test. The two embryos that were implanted inside me didn’t make it, in spite of being very well-loved and cared for during their brief stay with us. The doctors never could give us a specific reason why we struggled to conceive. I wasn’t prepared for how much I would cry, and I think Mark felt pretty helpless over the next few weeks. We took our minds off it by booking the holiday of a lifetime to Mexico, and agreed not to rush into any decisions about what to do next. The trip was wonderful, but I think we were both still processing what had happened and I wasn’t myself at all for the first few days. Eventually, I broke down on the beach and we had a long talk. I realised that I had expected to feel more sad, and was a bit freaked out that I didn’t. Given our decision to just use what was offered to us on the NHS, this was it now. This was our lot. At 38 and 39, we were pretty unlikely to get pregnant naturally. We probably weren’t going to have children. Why wasn’t I devastated about it? As it turned out, Mark felt the same way.

I can’t stress enough the importance of speaking honestly with your partner before you attempt to get pregnant about how you might proceed if IVF (or trying naturally) doesn’t result in a baby. We had set our boundaries that we were both happy with, and there was no reason to change that after experiencing the hope that having a round of IVF inevitably gives you. Neither of us wanted to go through that emotionally draining process again, and that was okay; we wanted to get back to enjoying our lives. Some well-meaning people told me I might regret not trying IVF again, but we were both adamant that we wouldn’t, and so far, we haven’t. If it happens naturally, it happens, but if not, that’s absolutely fine.

We have four nieces and countless friends with beautiful children, so we certainly aren’t lacking any toddlers and teenagers in our lives. We are financially secure, have good health and we get a good night’s sleep every night. We can go abroad outside the school holidays, and book last-minute weekend breaks at the drop of a hat. Perhaps one day we’ll think about adopting, but right now that’s not for us. We’re too busy looking after our beautiful dog, who arrived with us almost as soon as we got back from Mexico nearly three years ago and who we adore arguably as much as we would have a baby. We are blessed with a good life, albeit one without children of our own, and if that’s the card fate has decided to deal us then we are very happy with that indeed.