I mean I think that’s one of the most difficult things about it, the whole, there, there’s no choice at all. You just feel you’re completely at the mercy of other people. Like when they’re deciding to give you your next appointment, when they can fit you in. I mean I think that’s partly why so many people end up paying quite early down the route, is that if you don’t do that you just feel like you’re endlessly waiting. You’re waiting for tests, you’re waiting for results, you’re waiting for treatment. it’s all just one long wait. And every single month you’ve got another period, another month that you’re not pregnant, another month that you’re becoming older and less fertile. And I think that’s what’s really difficult about it. And it does start to feel like you’ve been put on this kind of, you know, sort of conveyor belt, and you’re just going through this thing with all these things happening to you with absolutely no control over it whatsoever. And I felt completely out of control. And I think that’s actually one of the most difficult things, especially if you’re used to being quite in control of your life. To feel everything’s just completely slipped away from you was really really tough actually.

Because I mean, one thing, that is the big problem, is where to stop if it doesn’t work. Now, we did say right at the beginning of it, We have got enough money, we will do four goes and then that will be the big cut off Because we decided there has to be a cut off otherwise this could go on forever. Now obviously we have gone past that and we are talking about going further. So although it is a good idea to have a cutoff point, whether you can actually stick to it is another matter. Financially some people might say we have got xx amount of money in the bank, that gives us three treatments and then that is end of it. Cut off. And they will be able to do it. Unfortunately it is one of those things, it is like, if we have one more go, it might work this time, if we have one more go it might work this time. Unfortunately the effects aren’t cumulative but you don’t see it as that. You look at it as if we have invested xx thousands pounds already, it would be a shame for the sake of another two thousand pounds that we don’t get anything else out of it, but it is not like money pumping into a company to bail it out. It is a case of the more money you put in it is just gone at the end of it if there is nothing to show for it. So yes, very, I’m very surprised how long it has gone on for. Because again the first couple of times you do it, you think it is going to work, because you know, a one in four chance, there is some people, because you hear, at the start you hear about people who have done it and have eight or nine attempts before it works, and instead of putting you off that actually makes you think. Oh well that makes my chances better, but then you hear more about people who get it first time and then it is like obviously that pushes your chances out a bit. But every, all things being equal, it would be, I have got as much chance as anybody else. But unfortunately we don’t know why the human body doesn’t accept the embryos. But we do get, we get viable embryos which some people don’t, as we got on our second cycle we didn’t get anything else to put back. So on the one hand you might, what is worse having nothing to put back but not having that two weeks of hell or having something to put back and waiting two weeks to find out it has not worked. Or even worse if you find out yes I am pregnant and then miscarry in the seventeen eighteen or something. You know, what is actually the worst things that can happen.

And do you feel that you have been able to make choices and decisions or do you feel about the treatment, or do you still feel that you are more sucked into it and compelled to keep going?

Yes. I think we are compelled to keep going because itsWe had throughout the first cycle we had frozen embryos and we were going to say right what we will do, that is the last fresh cycle we are going to do, we will now do frozen embryos and see what goes out. Then the consultant recommended well why don’t you take a fresh cycle straight to blastocyst and see how that goes. So of course we went for that one, so that didn’t work and now taken it to blastocyst we had nothing left to freeze but we have still got those five embryos. But now we have still got five embryos left, so you wouldn’t say well we will just throw them away because we are going to do one last cycle and that is it, so you are now committed to well we will use these up now. So that is another two cycles, you go down that route. And then it will be well why don’t we try something different? And itsit does seem like a never ending route. It is a good idea to have a cut off but whether you can stick to it, because we had a cut off and we have gone past it soI suppose it is when the money runs out that is when it’s cut off comes in.

I think, we had counselling, which I think is enormously important for both of us. We had it separately, and we had counselling together. And I think that helped us work through a lot of very mixed emotions. Anger, bitterness, heartbreak, sadness, fear. And then I think it’s just a matter of time. But obviously with the infertility journey you don’t have time, you can’t wait. I mean I’d quite happily wait another couple of years before we did it again. But I’m already 35 and there is that, that feeling of pressure, of thinking, We do need to get started. We do need to get back on, you know, the roller coaster again But I think, I mean I went to see my consultant last week about, you know, just talking through some issues about when we could start again. I think we do just have to face up to the fact that it’s not going to happen unless we do another IVF cycle. And as much as everything could still go horribly wrong a third time, one thing that we can guarantee is that it’s not going to happen unless we actually go and do it. I mean, okay, so we did have the miracle conception in October. But that really was a miracle and we can’t wait for that to happen again. And I think that’s the only thing that we can really think about is that if we don’t ever try again, the only guarantees that the medical profession will have is that we will never have our own baby. So I suppose it’s just a question of trying to find that strength to, to carry on.

Was it hard hearing that news last year…?

It was expected. No because of this back up plan. It would have been very hard if we’d you know, we hadn’t got anything else that would have been, you know, where do you go from there. Deadly silence and then what? So no that was really good. The way that we were presented with options in advance, and if I had to give advice to anybody on whatever on the website and things I would say make sure that you have a plan B. don’t pin all your hopes on one thing and then say to your partner, oh well we’ll cross that bridge when we come it if it fails. Because you need to consider that, so straight away you have got a fallback position, otherwise your world will just drop out. And it will, you know, it will be an awful feeling and, you know, it will be something that will be terrible for you. So always, there’s usually always something to cling on to, a backup plan or something like that, until right at the end and its gets, by then you will be emotionally worn down anyway and then you’ll will just probably believe it’s all over. It sounds a bit, you know, fatalistic, but do you know what I mean?

It was very difficult to admit or to accept, you know that really the time had run out. Because when you are young, you just think as though you have got forever and you don’t realise how quickly those years pass. And I sometimes think well, you know, we should really have thought about it very much earlier but then it is easy to say that with hindsight. So… but yes obviously I really regret it and I get quite upset if I dwell on it, so I try to think you know well that is past now, you know we can’t change the past and several consultants have actually said that to me, you know, not just about the fertility but also about the disease and so forth. You know you can’t change that now. You know, you have got to sort of move on.