I started having, trying to have a child when I was 30. And I knew, I’d always known that I wanted children, but until then I’d been kind of, you know, busy doing all those kind of career things and feeling settled. And I really felt when I was 30 that I was actually ready to have a family and that was what I wanted to do. And a lot of my friends had started having children. And when it didn’t happen within just a few months I actually started to get slightly worried. I think even then I was quite aware of my age. Although 30 is relatively young, I knew that, you know, my fertility would soon start diminishing. And also I knew that there were long waiting lists for treatment and for tests and for all those kind of things. So I actually went to see the GP probably after only about five months. And I was really lucky because my GP was actually incredibly sympathetic, and I know a lot of people get told to go away and keep trying. But he said, Oh, no, I’ll do some tests straight away. We might as well rule out any problems immediately Which he did. And then he referred me to a clinic fairly quickly as well.

In the UK on the NHS, you have to have been trying for two years before you can consult your GP about infertility or the kind of potential prospect of infertility. So we made an appointment with our GP, who suggested some tests to make sure that I was ovulating correctly and that my husband’s sperm count was okay. She didn’t have a huge amount of time to talk to us about this. And I guess that was something that I did find hard. Because at, we’d been trying for two years at this stage, I’d got a lot of questions to ask, my doctor didn’t have the time to answer those questions. And that was quite hard, because I went away with a huge long list of questions that I didn’t know the answers to. We had this appointment with her that raised more questions than it answered. And also I think the GP had seen us as people who were educated, you know, degree level, and she talked about things, very complex medical things that were way over our heads. She talked about levels of hormones and this thing called FSH and all of these, lutenising hormone, and all of these things that we just didn’t know what it meant. But there wasn’t the time to ask or to, to get clarification for some of these terms. So I guess flattering though it was to receive the kind of consultation in that format, I didn’t understand a lot of what she was saying, was telling me.

So what would you, what would you have liked to have had from that consultation?

I think I would have liked my doctor to be able to, to maybe just give us some information to take home with us and to digest. Both of us were sitting in that meeting room with the doctor. My husband would have had his questions, I had my questions, she was trying to convey some information to us. There was words just flying about the place and I think, you know, very few of them actually went in for any of us. In a way I think it would have been good to have something, something that, written on paper that we could take away with us and digest, certainly about what our options were and the route that we would be taking. Because we didn’t have a huge amount of, well, fortunately neither of us have ever been particularly ill, so the whole process, the kind of, you know, GPs and nurses and consultants and hospital visits was alien to us. We didn’t understand how it worked. You know, it, that was quite confusing. It sounds silly but, you know, we’d, we’d been lucky up to that point of never having to re-, to use the NHS, and we didn’t understand how it worked.

It was a him. And I have to say he is really great. He is one of our, you know, favourite doctors. But through that, I was kind of surprised actually that he was as offhanded as he was about it. Because he was another one, who just said, Oh well. You have already got a child You know, It is obviously just going to happen. It is just taking a bit more time. Ra ra ra And he also, you know, he did say, somewhat apologetically you know, Oh well it is two years before we will do anything anyway AndI guess he probably, I can’t remember if it was that first visit as well or whether I went back again. That was when he said, Well we can do some sort of ovulation tests to make sure, you know, but that is allrdquo; You know, but it was very much like, oh kind of, Why are you here You know, You already have a child so obviously you can. You are taking up our time with this You know, kind of thing.

Which must have felt awful?

Yes, especially when you go in there thinking okay I have waited my year. Finally they are going to do something. And then you are told, no go back and do it and for another year.

I don’t know whether anybody, I don’t know whether it is because GP’s probably aren’t exposed to it very much or whatever, but having said that when we were sent to the OBGYN, what you call it, the gynaecologist who is connected with our practice for those tests. I mean he was exactly the same, and so I mean I would like to write it off and say the GP’s just don’t have the experience, but then he probably does and he said the same thing. The kind of why are you here, you have already got one, you know, there shouldn’t be a problem, kind of thing. And I think that I was just, you know, sort of shocked that they could overlook how completely destructive this was, you know, for all of us in the family and to an extent, you know, beyond it as well.

Well I suppose because it’s such an emotional thing and a psychological thing, you know, trying to have a child and worrying that you’re not going to be able to have a child, then I’m not sure that GP’s are very, well I’m [not] sure that they have the time really to deal with that. So whenever I went to the GP it was very much about this sort of consultation about, you know, hormones and periods and temperature, and so all these physiological things he was[n’t] interested in. But each time I went I was having to I suppose engage with all of the emotional side of it. So rather like if I was at work or something I could sort of push that to the back and forget about it a bit. So I think that was the frustrating thing about going to the GP.

Because I remember one, I went to see, it was the practice nurse and I had to, I think she gone to take, is it working, she’d gone to take some blood and it had to be at a certain point in my cycle and I think my period had started early so she couldn’t take the blood and so I went anyway, and said, Can. Because I wasn’t sure. Can you still take the blood And she said, No And just sort of sent me home. And I remember coming out crying thinking, if she, bless her actually appreciated at all that actually you know, I’d waited all month to go for that blood test and I was going to have to wait another month, which was putting off finding out what on earth is going on with me body for another month.

So, and then the GP was just not very good at recognising infertility as a psychological emotional thing as well as a physiological thing.

She was really good, because we came after the year after the ectopic and said, Okay we’ve tried ra ra ra And she said, That’s fine. I’m going to refer you. This is what’s going to happen. You need a sperm test. You go to see the infertility nurses And then she said, Remember this could be a long process and there’s a lot of choices coming up that you need to make and remember that at any point you can say no So she was really good actually, yes, she was brilliant. Hm. Hm.

So she kind of warned you about the sort of choices?

Yes, yes, she didn’t go through exactly what it was, but she just said, Remember it’s easy to be just swiped into it. You don’t, you can stop at any point So yes, she’s great, yes, yes.

And then a year afterwards, we went to a GP, she was great, she was like yes, okay no need to wait any longer now. She referred us and we went to the hospital for investigations. And that was, they were fantastic, the fertility nurses there were just great. So if anyone has a choice, definitely choose that. But it took so long to do that dye test on my tubes because the one person that could do it at the hospital was off sick. So that just, was dragged out.