‘Okay, so we’re inserting the embryo now,’ says Dr Williams, though Kate doesn’t know if he’s talking to her or the eager student, who can’t seem to get close enough to see what’s happening.
As it turns out, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been poked and prodded, it will never feel like going to the hairdressers.
She wants to push the invasive hands and instruments away, restore her dignity and tell them she’s had enough of being treated like a laboratory rat. But then she looks at Matt, with his gentle smile and hopeful eyes. She could so easily take herself down the why is life so unfair? route, but in the rare moments of clarity, when she knows that having a good life isn’t dependent on having a child, she is so grateful to have him.
She’d always wanted a baby with the husband she loves, more than anything in the world. Had been consumed by it at one point. But the pain and constant disappointment were taking their toll. If she’d had her way, they would have stopped at the third IVF attempt. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally; her nervous energy depleted by the tales she’d had to spin to friends and work colleagues who raised a knowing eyebrow whenever she refused an alcoholic drink.
‘This is it,’ she’d said to Matt, a couple of nights ago, as they were snuggled on the couch watching TV.
She felt him stiffen and sit up straighter. ‘What, this is our last chance?’ he asked, seemingly floored.
Hadn’t he noticed how tired she was? Seen her desolation every time they looked at a blank pregnancy test? Couldn’t he see how their whole lives had been taken over by the process of getting pregnant?
‘I’ve had enough,’ she’d said quietly.
‘But we . . .’ he stuttered. ‘Darling, we’re so close now – I know it. We can do this.’
Something inside her had snapped. ‘You keep saying we, as if we’re going through this together.’
He’d looked at her, hurt. ‘Aren’t we?’
She chastised herself for taking her frustrations out on the person she loves the most. But isn’t that always the way?
She thinks back to how carefree they’d once been. How they’d met on the newsroom floor of the Gazette and bonded over mutual banter about a loathsome editor. It had made the day go quicker, made the shifts under the editor’s watch seem a little easier to bear. Whenever he’d march into the open-plan office, shouting his morning mantra, ‘Who are we going to throw to the lions today?’, Kate and Matt would race to send each other an email with ‘YOU?’ in the subject heading. It was a regrettable day when the editor himself received Matt’s email.
‘I’ll miss working with you,’ said Matt, as he and Kate sat in the pub ruing their stupidity. ‘But every cloud has a silver lining.’
She’d thought he was referring to his new job at rival newspaper the Echo. She couldn’t stop grinning when he added, ‘Because now I can ask you out.’
They’d spent blissful evenings trawling the pubs of South London and lazy weekend mornings reading the papers in bed. But now she can’t remember the last time they’d done either.
Instead, they’d been referring to ovulation charts before they made love and subliminally avoiding social events with their pregnant and blessed-with-children friends, which seemed to be just about everyone they knew.
In their effort to have a baby, they’d lost the ability to be spontaneous. Ironically, they’d given up what should have been the halcyon days of pre-parenthood to the restrictions of being responsible for another human, despite the painful absence of one.
‘Done!’ says Dr Williams with a flourish. He puts the catheter back on the tray and pings his gloves off.
‘So, we’ve got two more in the freezer?’ asks Matt. ‘Before we have to go through egg retrieval again, I mean?’
‘Yes, we’ve got two more good quality embryos left to go on this cycle.’
‘But even if they don’t work, we can still go again, can’t we?’ Matt continues.
Kate doesn’t want to have this conversation. She has an urgent need to empty her painfully full bladder and all the time there’s a viable chance of a baby being inside her, she refuses to acknowledge that they’ll have to go through this again. Because that would mean that the little human being who is having to work so hard right now isn’t going to make it.
‘Let’s concentrate on the here and now,’ says Dr Williams,