Some friends were really lovely about it and really did try to help and would kind of talk to me about it and things. And other people were just absolutely hopeless. And I think you have to accept that people don’t really understand what you are going through, and people do say sometimes things that seem to you so crass and awful. But it’s just that they don’t understand. And they don’t mean to be unhelpful, or they’re not trying to be horrid. But I think sometimes it does really feel as if people are just trying to get at you. You know, people would say, I remember someone saying to me after our first IVF attempt didn’t work something about, Oh, well, you could always adopt And I thought, But, you know, this is only our first IVF attempt. Why are you saying this to me now And then other people would sort of assume that because you were having treatment it would inevitably work. And I remember saying, someone saying to me when we’d had our first lot of embryos put back something like, Oh, well, you are pregnant really, aren’t you? Because the embryos are inside you now And, and to me that was just, I don’t know, it was just too unbearable to even think about. I thought it was a really upsetting thing to have said to me. But I know that the person who said it was actually trying to be really positive about it and, you know, upbeat and make me feel better. But I think it’s like anything, you know. People can’t necessarily understand unless they’ve actually been there themselves.

Did you talk to family about it or friends about it?

Yes. I was quite open. That is another issue [husband] and I had is that he was unwilling to tell his family, who actually lived quite close to us and who I felt needed to know what was going on. He didn’t want to tell them. So that took a while and in the end, I said to him, Look if you don’t tell them. I am going to tell them, because I need their help through this

So we did tell them in the end but he found that very difficult. And they were lovely, you know, they were very, very practical, his family, they are not very emotional, but they rallied round.

And in my family, I’ve got two sisters, who I’m very close to, but I would say professional support, the only support I had was the counselling and I did use that, because I just didn’t know where to take what I was feeling.

And even talking to my sisters or talking to friends, I am a firm believer that you cannot understand what anybody else has gone through unless you’ve been through that experience yourself. So whilst people might say, you know, how awful’, or whatever, they have no idea what you are feeling.

So I even questioned the counsellor quite often, saying, Well how do you know how I feel? Have you got, you know I used to get quite angry about it. And I used to think how can people sit and sympathise with you, they have no idea. But then I think that was me being angry rather than anything else.

So, yes, I mean friends are brilliant, family are brilliant. I’m really lucky. I have got lots of lovely friends and lots of lovely family. So, that’s I think, what got us through it, and I did go to them, and I did cry and I did rant and rave and do a lot of things that you do. And they were always there, especially my big sister. She used to phone me every day, she was really good. Sobut she has got me through it.

I found it quite difficult to expect support from my Mum for example. And Dads are Dads and my Dad was sort of in the background and sort of, I’m sure he was supportive, but he wasn’t really included in any conversations about it or anything. Like his role was to be a background person. But for my Mum there’s always that issue of she’s someone who’s wanting to be a Grandma who can’t be a Grandma, so like it’s difficult for her too. Which doesn’t mean that she can’t be supportive. But I was always aware, particularly like when I was pregnant, and it was just for a few weeks, my Mum would knit bootees and jackets and all sorts of things. So I knew how much, how important it was to her so you sort of, you want to protect your loved ones from sort of saying, you know she’d get the phone calls oh it didn’t work again and but actually I didn’t want to discuss it loads with her, because I knew that it was quite painful to her too. And probably the person I did discuss with most in the family would be my sister-in-law. And she’s like a nurse, and been a midwife so somehow it was a different sort, and I suppose she wasn’t quite, you know, she would have loved [husband] to be producing babies, but somehow it wasn’t quite as emotionally close to her as it was discussing it with someone like my Mum so you have to think about that sort of thing when you’re looking for support from yourI had to.

But it was just, you know, as soon as I found I started trying, everybody was pregnant. The whole world and his husband, her husband were pregnant. All the secretaries in the office, you know especially the nineteen years old seem to be at the drop of the hat. And you would have to go ooh lovely And all your friends and that I foundthat is kind of I was horrifically jealous, puce with jealousy. Eaten up inside, bitter, twisted, angry, couldn’t look at a man with a beer belly without getting upset and basically quite hysterical about the whole thing. And I laugh now but it was extremely painful because I just felt so helpless and powerless and yet powerless is not fun and I found the worse thing, the reason we didn’t tell many people, was that the people you do tell, tend to pity you and I find being pitied actually the most disempowering thing of all. So there is a physical kind of stuff that you are going through which is a bore and a drain and you know, having to rush out of work and get a scan and what have you. But it was, for me, it was more the emotional and sociological impact of it that made me suffer the most.

In a few different ways. I think it’s firstly not being able to talk about it. Which is their problem, and not my problem, I can see that now. it’s that they aren’t comfortable dealing with other people’s problems. But when it’s something that is so painful to me and they just don’t want to talk about it, because it is a bit awkward and they don’t really want to ask about how’s your latest cycle gone and we had one couple who were fantastic through our first cycle of IVF. They were absolutely brilliant. And when they found out they were pregnant with their first child, they came round, and made sure we were together and they told us, We realise this is going quite hard for you to hear, but we are having a baby, we have just found out, we are really happy, and we wanted you to know really early on [Laughs]. When they moved onto the second child, we were just starting the adoption process, so I think their view was that we had packed up all our infertile feelings and put them in a box and weren’t worried about them anymore, because she ascertained that I was doing eighty, seventy, I was going fast down the M4 at the time she started to tell me she was pregnant on the phone. On my own in the car, doing eighty and she decided that’s a really good appropriate time to tell me she was expecting another baby. And then to add to it, that, Oh it happened too soon, we’re really not that happy about it When she knows everything I had been through.

And other friends did the opposite, in that they won’t tell you they are pregnant because they think it’s going to upset you and then you find out from somebody else, or you know that they are pregnant, but they just haven’t told you. So it’s, yes, a lot of things like that. But it’s really just the not being willing to talking about it.

Yes, my best friend, from when I was seven I have known her, she doesn’t want children, she is not a family person. So she has no way of understanding any of the feelings that I have been through, but I can always talk to her about it, you know, she always listens to me, she always says the right thing. Whereas some people who should, maybe, be able to have be able to have more of an appreciation for it, just get it wrong time and time again.

And did you get support from talking to friends or family or…?

Well yes, and no. This is tricky. You have to be, it depends how you want to play it. I’m quite open. So I don’t mind telling everyone about this, but it’s much harder I think for the woman to go through this, because all the pressure is on her. For the man it’s very simple, you just go off and do and your bit and then you don’t really, you know, you’re just there being supportive, but all the pressure is on her and so people, how’s it going? Is everything okay? And that, you know, as we say to people, If there was anything to tell you, you’d know. So don’t ask. There’s no real point If they are very close friends then it, but even then, there’s no point in asking, How’s it going then Because it’s bloody obvious. We are not pregnant, so yes, don’t talk about it. And there’s good days when you can talk about it, and there’s really bad days when the hormones are playing up and you’ve, you know, you’ve had a row yourselves and it’s all just getting on top of you, and the last thing you want to do is talk about it, so
But did you want to talk about it at any point? Did you find

We’d talk about it to some friends, but it has to be on your terms, and people can’t ask you and say, Oh because, you know, people are interested and I think people are trying to be helpful. There were a couple of people who would keep pushing it, even though I would have a quiet word and say, Please don’t say anything. Please But they would keep pushing it, and that would be really upsetting.

And I mean that’s a great thing for people to be aware of actually is to try and, it’s a great thing that the man can do in the relationship is to let people know that we don’t, or we do want to talk about it Some people are very open, but just to make it clear. Because people don’t understand, they want to be involved. And it’s like well, yes, this is really tough. So you’re not there all the time, you know, the friends aren’t there all the time, whereas you two are living in that relationship and its only you know how you’re feeling how you’re feeling at that time.