Infertile in London

So..... haven't had those two glasses of wine but didn't have to feed the baby overnight (yayayayaya) so lots of sleep almost as intoxicating.

After nine months of trying we went to see a GP. I pulled the doctor card and insisted on investigations. Normally, doctors make couples wait two years - this is to cover the small group of people who are too fat, too alcoholic, don't have enough sex or have a sub-fertility issue which makes conceiving unlikely but not impossible. We were healthy, having lots of sex - there MUST be something WRONG.

December 2008 my husband and I received news that we were very unlikely to conceive without medical assistance. My husband was practical, planning his next move. I was devastated - tearing up in random places, crying in the bath, not sleeping - the whole bit.

I can't express enough how thankful I was to work in medicine. Not for the knowledge base or access to information. Just that my colleagues are used to dealing with people in pain - physical and emotional. They understand the need to say something, nothing, whatever - just be there and they were. So thanks ladies!

We had three options; sperm donation, adoption or IVF with ICSI.

Sperm donation was the 'easiest' option physically but very difficult legally and emotionally. I didn't want just any man's child I wanted my husband's baby. I couldn't see the difference between the child of a sperm donor and an adopted child. At that stage I had no real drive to be pregnant. My husband saw it differently; he would rather have a child that was half-us than not-us-at-all. For many very sensible reasons, sperm donation is very rarely anonymous these days and the spectre of another father lurking in the future is scary.

Adoption was my preferred option initially. There are, unfortunately, still many children born into less than desirable circumstances who need homes and loving families. It isn't that easy to adopt in the West anymore. First, there are more adoptive parents than there are children so there is a substantial queue. Also, social services get to define what they see as desirable characteristics in an adoptive parent. Inevitably, this has led to a list of criteria and we don't fit.

London councils require that you live in their boundaries for more than two years before they will start the process. This is nigh on impossible in London when changing flats in the same area can mean you change council jurisdictions and, at this point, my husband was exasperated by the UK's "efficiency" and the weather. The idea of two years in a holding pattern was terrifying! As a couple of European origin, we would not be able to adopt cross-culturally, so the pool of available children is very small indeed.

We investigated adopting from New Zealand - we were excluded due to our international abode and constantly changing address - we look like child traffickers on paper!

Then my husband's native South Africa - we were not able to 'import' a child except to some Western European nations. Some sort of exclusive international adoption deal having been performed several years earlier.

So IVF it was then.

I've worked in the NHS and for somethings it is excellent.

IVF is not one of them.

We attended three appointments; all with long wait times and weeks between them. I had blood tests and ultrasounds. We got as far as completing a piece of paper to apply to have IVF funded - this took 4 months. We asked about privately funding a cycle ourselves (I was 32 at the time and we didn't want to wait too long) and were told the clinic shut over summer!! The coup de gras was the appointment before which we had abstained from sex (poor husband was even denied solo fun) and mountain biking for six weeks, only to be told that the planned semen freezing wouldn't take place as all the technologists were on a conference. Grrrrrrr - we'd had the appointment for weeks - it could have been moved surely!

Then, hubby got offered a job in Hong Kong - so we took it.

I wrote to the PCT (funding body in the UK) and retracted our application for funding. We packed our bags and July 2009 we were living in Hong Kong - a strange, beautiful city.