In one of David Lodge's comic novels about academia, a group of English literature professors play a parlour game in which they each have to name a book which they really should have read, but haven't. As Lodge recognises, academics cannot resist a bit of professional one-upmanship, and so they are all only too ready to admit to the gaps in their literary knowledge. The game culminates in one of them confessing that he has never read Hamlet and, if my memory serves me correctly, losing his job as a result.
Because I blog anonymously (Ms Heathen is not in fact my real name, nor is it to be read as a statement about my religious beliefs), I can here confess with impunity that I have never in my life read a word of Derrida. I am writing up my PhD in a department that has a formidable reputation when it comes to critical theory, and this would be considered a scandalous oversight by many of my peers. I am sure that one day I will be caught out: I will be asked a tricky question about deconstruction at a graduate seminar, and my ignorance will be exposed for all to see.
I have also never read anything by any of the great Russian novelists. It was with this in mind that last week I bought a copy of Anna Karenina (Derrida, on the other hand, I think I can manage without).
I was hooked from the moment I read the opening line:
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Along with Gertrude Stein's "rose is a rose is a rose is a rose", this is one of the sentences I would most like to have written. On its own, it stands as a concise yet profound statement on the intricate dynamics of our relationships with those to whom we are inextricably tied by our upbringing. As the first sentence of a novel, it introduces a theme and opens up a world for me. Already I know that, whatever unhappy family I am to encounter between the pages of this novel, it will be more interesting than any conventionally happy family.
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Countdown to Christmas
Christmas is a difficult time for those struggling with infertility - somehow it reminds you of all the things you can't have. A while ago, Loribeth had a great post which neatly captured all poignancy of a Christmas without children, which I went back and read as I began to think about our own plans for the holiday season.
Over the years, Mr H and I have created our own Christmas routine. We try not to get caught up in the relentless consumerism that appears to grip the entire country at this time of year. Going round the supermarket yesterday, I was faintly sickened by the excess of it all - the shelves were groaning with processed, over-packaged, fat-laden, Christmas-themed goodies (stilton & cranberry flavoured crisp anyone, or perhaps a white chocolate topped mince pie?). People were already beginning to stockpile loaves of bread, and a couple were having a bitter exchange of words next to the packets of bread sauce mix. Looking around at the overflowing trolleys in the queues for the checkouts, I couldn't help but wonder: how much of this food will go uneaten into landfill sites when people clear out their fridges and cupboards in the new year?
We don't bother with turkey and all the trimmings; for the last couple of years, we have instead had a shellfish platter from the fabulous Ramus Seafood Emporium. We generally treat ourselves to a bottle of champagne, or else a really good dry white wine, and buy each other one small gift each. We spend most of the day lazing in front of an open fire, reading, chatting or watching the television (if I have my way, we will also play board games, although Mr H is not as keen as I am!) If the weather is nice, we may go for a walk in the afternoon.
This year, however, I am counting down to Christmas for a very different reason: our Day 21 appointment is scheduled for 8.20am on Christmas Eve.
Over the years, Mr H and I have created our own Christmas routine. We try not to get caught up in the relentless consumerism that appears to grip the entire country at this time of year. Going round the supermarket yesterday, I was faintly sickened by the excess of it all - the shelves were groaning with processed, over-packaged, fat-laden, Christmas-themed goodies (stilton & cranberry flavoured crisp anyone, or perhaps a white chocolate topped mince pie?). People were already beginning to stockpile loaves of bread, and a couple were having a bitter exchange of words next to the packets of bread sauce mix. Looking around at the overflowing trolleys in the queues for the checkouts, I couldn't help but wonder: how much of this food will go uneaten into landfill sites when people clear out their fridges and cupboards in the new year?
We don't bother with turkey and all the trimmings; for the last couple of years, we have instead had a shellfish platter from the fabulous Ramus Seafood Emporium. We generally treat ourselves to a bottle of champagne, or else a really good dry white wine, and buy each other one small gift each. We spend most of the day lazing in front of an open fire, reading, chatting or watching the television (if I have my way, we will also play board games, although Mr H is not as keen as I am!) If the weather is nice, we may go for a walk in the afternoon.
This year, however, I am counting down to Christmas for a very different reason: our Day 21 appointment is scheduled for 8.20am on Christmas Eve.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Dashing about...
Over the course of the past ten days, I have:
1. Driven from York to London.
2. Coped with my mother-in-law for three days (coping with Mr H's mother in fact warrants a separate post in its own right, or even a separate blog - possibly entitled 'You'll never believe what my mother-in-law has just said').
3. Been asked a series of intrusive and insensitive questions about our forthcoming fertility treatment by Mr H's friends, who are henceforth to be known (with a nod to Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary) as 'the smug fertiles'.
4. Held & admired the smug fertiles' six month old baby.
5. Dealt with nos. 2, 3 & 4 without losing my temper or crying.
6. Taken a group of 15 students around the Louise Bourgeois show at Tate Modern.
7. Driven back to York from London.
8. Spent a day battling around the shops in York looking for something suitable to wear to a funeral.
9. Spent £50 on a black jacket I didn't particularly want, and couldn't particularly afford.
10. Been awarded a £30 parking ticket (suddenly, that jacket got even more expensive).
11. Driven from York to Shropshire in order to attend a family funeral.
12. Driven back from Shropshire to York.
13. Prepared for and taught a four hour class on women's art practice in the 1960s & 70s.
In the midst of all this dashing about from one end of the country to another, I have lain awake at night, my mind racing with all the things I have to do and places I have to be, my body tense with stress. I always thought that I would reach some magic place where I felt physically & emotionally ready to undertake IVF. Instead, I'm going into it exhausted from a term's teaching, and worried about the fact that I have been too busy teaching to make as much progress as I would have liked on my PhD. So now I'm lying awake at night, going over and over the possibility that, if the IVF doesn't work, it will be because I'm too stressed... and if Mr H's mother tells me once more that, maybe if I just relaxed and stopped working so hard, I would somehow magically manage to conceive, then I really will find it difficult not to tell her exactly what I think of her!
1. Driven from York to London.
2. Coped with my mother-in-law for three days (coping with Mr H's mother in fact warrants a separate post in its own right, or even a separate blog - possibly entitled 'You'll never believe what my mother-in-law has just said').
3. Been asked a series of intrusive and insensitive questions about our forthcoming fertility treatment by Mr H's friends, who are henceforth to be known (with a nod to Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary) as 'the smug fertiles'.
4. Held & admired the smug fertiles' six month old baby.
5. Dealt with nos. 2, 3 & 4 without losing my temper or crying.
6. Taken a group of 15 students around the Louise Bourgeois show at Tate Modern.
7. Driven back to York from London.
8. Spent a day battling around the shops in York looking for something suitable to wear to a funeral.
9. Spent £50 on a black jacket I didn't particularly want, and couldn't particularly afford.
10. Been awarded a £30 parking ticket (suddenly, that jacket got even more expensive).
11. Driven from York to Shropshire in order to attend a family funeral.
12. Driven back from Shropshire to York.
13. Prepared for and taught a four hour class on women's art practice in the 1960s & 70s.
In the midst of all this dashing about from one end of the country to another, I have lain awake at night, my mind racing with all the things I have to do and places I have to be, my body tense with stress. I always thought that I would reach some magic place where I felt physically & emotionally ready to undertake IVF. Instead, I'm going into it exhausted from a term's teaching, and worried about the fact that I have been too busy teaching to make as much progress as I would have liked on my PhD. So now I'm lying awake at night, going over and over the possibility that, if the IVF doesn't work, it will be because I'm too stressed... and if Mr H's mother tells me once more that, maybe if I just relaxed and stopped working so hard, I would somehow magically manage to conceive, then I really will find it difficult not to tell her exactly what I think of her!
Thursday, 22 November 2007
1 in 6?
Sometimes I wonder: where are all the other one in six couples who have difficulty in conceiving? When everyone around you seems to be reproducing effortlessly, it's difficult not to think that you're the only ones going through all this. But then last night, we went to an information evening hosted by the unit where we're going for treatment, and suddenly we were surrounded by other infertiles - a whole lecture theatre full of them, in fact. Like us, all of the other couples there were pinning their hopes and dreams on the three figures who were there to talk us through a typical IVF cycle. My god, the air in that room was thick and heavy with heartbreak.
The lights went down, and the entire procedure flashed before my eyes in a series of bullet points and diagrams. And I had to stop myself from holding up my hand and saying, 'Excuse me, but I think there's been a mistake. I don't really think we're supposed to be here. This isn't the way we'd planned on conceiving a child.'
The lights went down, and the entire procedure flashed before my eyes in a series of bullet points and diagrams. And I had to stop myself from holding up my hand and saying, 'Excuse me, but I think there's been a mistake. I don't really think we're supposed to be here. This isn't the way we'd planned on conceiving a child.'
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Preparations
We are starting to gear up for IVF next month. Last week, I went to have my Day 3 bloodwork done. This week, it was Mr H's turn. On Tuesday, he went off to the clinic for an up to date semen analysis. He tells me that they operate a queueing system akin to the deli counter at the supermarket - i.e. you turn up & take a number. When that number is called, you are then ushered into a small room & expected to do the business.
Not for the first time, I am struck by how very different male sexuality is to female sexuality!
Not for the first time, I am struck by how very different male sexuality is to female sexuality!
Friday, 9 November 2007
The next step?
AF arrived bang on time this month, and so I took a deep breath and phoned the clinic to confirm that we would be proceeding with a cycle of IVF/ICSI next month (my first appointment will be on Day 21 of my December cycle, so a few days before Christmas).
I'm finding it difficult to see this as the next step in our journey through infertility - somehow it seems more like the end of something: as though we're now officially giving up on the idea that we might manage to conceive without medical assistance. It feels like we're admitting that we've failed, and that we can't do what seemingly everyone else out there can.
Infertility has taught me a great deal about my body; I have learnt to respect its rhythms and chart its cycles. Now I feel that I am going to have to give up control of that body, and hand it over to the medical profession. It is hard to accept that conceiving a child, which should be a private and intimate act between me and my husband, is going to be such an intensely medicalised and public process.
Perhaps as the IVF draws closer, I will be able to cling on to the feeling that at least we are actually doing something that will take us closer to our dream of having a baby. At the moment though, it feels more like we've come to the end of a particular road.
I'm finding it difficult to see this as the next step in our journey through infertility - somehow it seems more like the end of something: as though we're now officially giving up on the idea that we might manage to conceive without medical assistance. It feels like we're admitting that we've failed, and that we can't do what seemingly everyone else out there can.
Infertility has taught me a great deal about my body; I have learnt to respect its rhythms and chart its cycles. Now I feel that I am going to have to give up control of that body, and hand it over to the medical profession. It is hard to accept that conceiving a child, which should be a private and intimate act between me and my husband, is going to be such an intensely medicalised and public process.
Perhaps as the IVF draws closer, I will be able to cling on to the feeling that at least we are actually doing something that will take us closer to our dream of having a baby. At the moment though, it feels more like we've come to the end of a particular road.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
A blogging hiatus
When I started this blog, I was thinking a lot about infertility, and wanted to create a space where I could explore those feelings. But then I realised that, slowly and insidiously, it was taking over my life. So much of my energy was going into trying, and wishing, and hoping for a baby. My sense of self was becoming more and more bound up with my failure to conceive.
And so I decided to take a break from it all - the charting, the endless monthly cycles of hope and disappointment. I tried to push it to the back of my mind, and get on with other things - teaching and writing. I decided to stop Trying, and have sex for recreational, rather than purely procreational, purposes. Maybe other people were right - if I could relax a little more, it might 'just happen.'
But then I realised that it doesn't work like that. Once infertility has you in its clutches, it doesn't just let you go. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of not thinking about it, but then it crept up on me in the supermarket. In the queue for the checkout, a baby girl looked at me and smiled, and suddenly the grief, the anger and the futility of it all hit me again, square in the guts. And that's when I realised - this isn't going to go away.
And so I decided to take a break from it all - the charting, the endless monthly cycles of hope and disappointment. I tried to push it to the back of my mind, and get on with other things - teaching and writing. I decided to stop Trying, and have sex for recreational, rather than purely procreational, purposes. Maybe other people were right - if I could relax a little more, it might 'just happen.'
But then I realised that it doesn't work like that. Once infertility has you in its clutches, it doesn't just let you go. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of not thinking about it, but then it crept up on me in the supermarket. In the queue for the checkout, a baby girl looked at me and smiled, and suddenly the grief, the anger and the futility of it all hit me again, square in the guts. And that's when I realised - this isn't going to go away.
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