Charlotte Betts    

   

The air is heavy with unspoken thoughts of hopeful yearnings and creeping despair. Turning the pages of Country Life, I eye the other occupants of the clinic waiting room as they in turn watch me covertly. The men shuffle their feet and sigh. A thin blonde holds tightly onto her husband’s hand and sniffs repeatedly while he stares at the reproduction Monet over the fireplace. Why is there always a Monet in waiting rooms? Perhaps water lilies are supposed to be calming; if so it’s not working. Another woman, concentrating fiercely, knits something small and pink, counting stitches under her breath. At last, footsteps are heard click-clacking along the corridor outside and all eyes turn to the sound in tense expectation.

The receptionist pops her head around the door.

“Mr and Mrs Paine? Will you come through now?”

The sniffing blonde and her husband exit the room in silence and those who have been left behind exhale and sit back in their chairs again; waiting.

I peer around the pages of Country Life and look at the remaining half dozen women for a second time. All of us so different but all with the same thing in common. Barren. Unfruitful, infertile, call it what you like; we all desperately want a baby.

For me the wanting had started as a teasing of the appetite; a tasting and a testing of the abstract thought of motherhood. Ten years ago, as I watched my best friend Beth cradle her newborn son the realisation had come upon me that I too could have a tiny creature made of my own flesh. One day. But not yet. I’d hugged the thought in my inmost mind, to be savoured in quiet moments. Meanwhile there was a husband to be found and empire building to be accomplished. There was no doubt that Ambition stood in the way of Motherhood and time passed. But, as it now turned out, Ambition wasn’t the only obstacle. At thirty I had married the man of my dreams. At thirty one, I’d thrown away my little white pills and five years later there was still no baby.

To begin with I hadn’t worried. I’d been so busy with the empire building that I’d easily been able to distract myself from thoughts of sweet-scented little infants wrapped in cashmere shawls. But by the time several of my friends were producing a second or even a third child, I was increasingly anxious. My mother told me to relax; getting all het up about it was no help at all.

But it wasn’t easy to stay cool when I had to take my temperature every day and phone Dan at the office to tell him to come home, now, right now, so we could make a baby or it would be too late for another month. He’d found it amusing the first half a dozen times but then began to get rather tight lipped about it and on a couple of occasions simply refused. Apparently he put client meetings and overseas business trips higher on his agenda than making our baby.

This wasting of an opportunity, a whole month missed each time, plunged me into despair. In fact, the entire fertility treatment thing had nearly fallen by the wayside in the early days when Dan had at first declined to have a sperm test. He’d only agreed to go ahead once tests showed that my tubes were damaged and that it was most likely that I was the cause of our childlessness. Once this was established he was relatively happy to make his deposit as he was almost sure no one could level the accusation at him of firing blanks.

It had seemed inconceivable, sorry, no pun intended, that I couldn’t become pregnant if I set my mind to it. All my life I’d found that if I worked diligently towards my goals, I could achieve pretty well everything I wanted. Except for this. What I found most upsetting was that other women, less intelligent and ordered in their lives, seemed to fall pregnant all the time, even when they didn’t mean to.

Only the other month Kayleigh, my cleaning lady, had arrived for work with her eyes all puffy after she’d discovered there was a little surprise on the way. It was even more of a surprise since her husband, a shaven-headed man of uncertain temper, had been away on the oil rigs for the previous four months. I’d walked the floor for almost an entire night, raging at God and the unfairness of it all. And then, in a mad moment, in spite of Dan’s horror at the suggestion, had considered offering to adopt the infant. Actually, I was quite relieved when, following Kayleigh’s hastily arranged visit to the local hospital, the now not-to-be baby didn’t materialise. After all, if it had resembled Kayleigh, Dan and I might have found it hard to properly love a lumpen, carrot topped child with a sullen expression.

No, we want a child of our own blood; that way there would be no one to blame but ourselves. So here I am again this morning; about to embark on a fourth and, please God, final and fruitful round of IVF treatment. Somewhere on the other side of the waiting room door is a Petri dish with my eggs in it, mixed with Dan’s carefully collected sperm. At least he had made sure to keep that very important clinic appointment before jetting off to the States.

I uncross my legs, trying not to wriggle at the discomfort of an over full bladder. This is an essential requirement because it makes for a clearer picture on the ultrasound machine during the embryo transfer. Yet again I glance at my watch; having arrived quarter of an hour early I resent the thirty minute over-run on my appointment time. Although presenting a calm face to the world I’m screaming inside; I’d like nothing better than to kick down the waiting room door and march towards the treatment room, while shouting to be treated at once. Even though I don’t relish the thought of Dr Mahmoud probing about in my most intimate places again. There have been a great many uncomfortable and humiliating procedures to reach this point and I force myself to push those memories to the back of my mind. What does any of that matter if in the end I can hold my very own baby safely in my arms?

Feet click-clack down the corridor and the door opens again.

“Mrs Salvatore?”

 I stand up, the blood whooshing to my stomach and making me almost faint with nerves. The time has arrived. I clench my bladder and follow the receptionist down the long, long corridor and into the consulting room.

Insecurely dressed in an open backed hospital gown I am guided on to a trolley where I lie rigid with anticipation and with fingers and toes crossed. Dr Mahmoud hovers over me.

“It’s really quite encouraging,” he says. “As you know, we managed to harvest eight of your eggs, not quite as many as last time, but these have resulted in five embryos.”

I let out my pent up breath. Five embryos! Five babies! Just for a second I wonder how I will fit all the car seats into the back of the car if…

“Two of these are very good, two quite good and one is useless as it isn’t forming properly.”

“Oh. I see.” Four car seats then.

“We have to decide whether or not to implant two or three embryos. If we decide on three and all become viable it may not be the best thing. Triplets rarely stay in the womb long enough to grow really well and this can cause problems. It’s unlikely all three will implant but if they did you might decide on a selective abortion to remove one foetus later on.”

“I don’t think…”

“It’s your decision but I would recommend using only two of the embryos.”

Only a double buggy to manhandle into the car. But there would still be two high chairs, two cots… “Perhaps that would be best.”

The nurse lifts my feet up into stirrups and I lie with my legs wide apart. In this undignified and vulnerable position I glance down at the top of Dr Mahmoud’s shiny bald head as he touches my most private places and quell a moment of rising panic. As he gently squirts the two embryos into my uterus from a syringe, I’m overcome with emotion. Surely at a time such as this there should be, at the very least, a choir of angels to mark the significance of the moment? And without doubt Dan, the father of the embryos, should be here at their implantation into my womb rather than this almost unknown man who is currently staring between my legs?

“Now, Mrs Salvatore, I want you to lie here quietly for half an hour,” he says, removing his rubber gloves, his eyes not quite meeting mine.

Repressing a nervous giggle as he leaves the room, I wonder if he’s going outside for a post-coital fag. At least he didn’t promise he’d call me in a couple of days. I stare at the ceiling, counting the cracks and praying. Eyes squeezed tight shut, I mentally cheer on the embryos, willing them to enter into the spirit of the race and embed themselves deeply into the warm, red lining of my womb. I see two determined little faces, one boy and one girl, their chubby legs sprinting towards the finishing line with arms outstretched, the eggs delicately balanced on their spoons…

“A cup of tea Mrs Salvatore?”

“What?” I open my eyes to find the nurse leaning over me.

“Tea?”

“Not until I’ve been to the loo.”

“Just another few minutes and you can get up.”

Fifteen minutes later, clutching a computer printout of the image of my twins, each one only consisting of two or three cells, I leave the clinic and drive very, very carefully towards home.