Two blue lines: positive. Life changing, no matter your circumstances.
Last year, in the early stages of the pandemic, I saw those blue lines. I didn’t believe it, so I tried again, and again they appeared. How could this be?
How could I possibly be lucky enough, be #blessed enough, to have a third child? A child I longed for deeply, but could never admit to wanting, not even to myself.
Because to say it - to make the universe aware of my need to fill the ‘last place’ in our family, the last seat at our dinner table - to acknowledge that we were ‘trying’ would be to open myself up to a familiar, terrible mind game. It would tempt fate. It would get my hopes up – despite my best efforts to not let hope anywhere near the door, let alone get a foot inside.
It would be to prime my heart to be gently and repeatedly broken month after month, with that vivid red declaration that sneers, you are not having a baby, and honestly, who do you think you are for even trying?
Fertility treatment and ‘trying’ to have a baby is a lonely road. When you’re surrounded by joyous announcements and arrivals, with no announcement or arrival of your own, you might feel very isolated indeed. You might even feel ever-so-slightly less than thrilled for your dear friend when she tells you she is having a baby; and moments later you might feel hot waves of guilt and shame for not sharing one hundred per cent in her joy.
No-one who has experienced IVF would describe it as anything other than invasive, in the most absolute and literal way. It takes over your life and your relationship. It is unromantic. It can be painful. Your body is not your own. You may not look like you anymore.
And fertility treatment when you live in a rural or regional area? Well, that adds another element altogether. We were in the Pilbara, a three and a half thousand kilometre round trip to the fertility clinic.
I was lucky to live close enough to the regional hospital that I could have surgery to remove endometriosis cysts without having to travel far from home. The hope was that by removing the cysts, a fertility ‘window’ would open and our longed-for child would be on their way. Of course, small towns being what they are, when you’re being rolled into theatre without your knickers, you’re sure to see someone you know – and so it was that the theatre nurse was the same person I’d faced on the netball court the night before, and would face again. She certainly saw a different side to me that day.
When the window closed with still no announcement forthcoming, it was time to consult a higher authority. I was dispatched to Perth for blood tests and examinations. Ultrasounds would be regularly required, always with only 24 hours-notice as dictated by that day’s blood results – but with a six week waiting time for regional ultrasounds, there was no choice but to book the next available (horribly unaffordable) flight to Perth, and explain to my boss as best I could why I wouldn’t be at work again the next day.
Once in Perth, I’d buy a bottle of water and begin drinking, filling my bladder to bursting point during the taxi ride to the clinic. I’d call my friend who lived nearby to say I was swinging past her place to leave my fertility drugs and needles in the beer fridge out the back to keep cool while she was at work. Later I’d take myself for a quick walk by the river before it was time to revisit the fridge and head back to the airport to fly north again.
After other, ‘less invasive’ treatments failed, IVF was the only remaining option for us. When the time came to harvest my eggs, we relocated to Perth for a fortnight to be close to the clinic. It was New Year, and we went to a party with friends in the days before the surgery. We’d told nobody there. I felt shame at my body’s failure, and I didn’t want anyone’s pity. I was hard and fragile all at once.
And I wasn’t drinking so of course, the chorus: ‘oh, you must be pregnant’.
I cried a few days later when the clinic called to say that there were four viable embryos. Four! And one they said that was so strong – that was the one.
After the implantation, I walked to sit beside the river, and I spoke to God for a while. He and I are fair-weather friends at best, but it seemed we had a lot to discuss that day.
The moment the call came to say I was pregnant is burned into my brain. I was waiting for the nurse to say the words, ‘unfortunately it didn’t work this time’… but this time was different. This time it had worked. We were having a baby. I peed on a stick just for the sheer thrill of it.
Two beautiful boys and an interstate move later, the year 2020 had unexpected plans for us all. Jokes about ‘corona babies’ were rife. With the world in lockdown and nothing much on the telly, it seemed that pregnancy announcements were all around.
For us, the closure of state borders and the cancellation of non-essential surgeries – including IVF treatments – meant that we were forced to accept the end of our fertility road. Our remaining embryos, on ice all the way across the Nullarbor in Perth – so very far from our new home in the South Australian desert – were out of reach… at that stage we had no idea how long for. The logistics of trying for a third had always been mind-boggling; COVID made them impossible.
I was approaching a birthday that for me represented an ending; there would be no more trying for us after the candles on that cake had been blown out. An arbitrary age had been reached, and that would be the end of it. And so it seemed that the decision had been taken out of our hands. The universe had spoken, and coronavirus combined with Mark McGowan’s steely resolve meant that our embryos in the west would stay put.
I grieved. I gave away the high chair and turned to social media to sell my maternity clothes. I tortured myself watching Instagram stories showing the angel-faced babes of influencers. And above all, I cherished my two little boys, and delighted in my absolute good luck to be a mother not once, but twice over… twice more than I’d ever thought possible.
And then I got indigestion. And felt so very tired. And that vivid red declaration… when did I last see that? I waited for it and waited for it. On the day of that arbitrary birthday, as I sipped champagne with the girls and toasted the pregnancy announcement of a dear friend, I waited for that declaration to come. I knew it would come, and it would come on my birthday, and it would cut like a knife despite how many stretchy dresses I’d given away and the extra space we now had in the garage without the cot taking up all that room.
But it didn’t. It didn’t come. And three days later, when it still hadn’t, I bought the test. And I saw those two blue lines: positive. And I cried and I cried, and my life was changed, and now, on the eve of another birthday, I’m on social media trying to buy the high chair back again; my dinner table is full.
An edited version of this post was originally published in Issue 3 of Galah magazine under the title Two Blue Lines.
My corona baby James and I