Issue 09: The infertility gods are smiling

Saturday August 11th 2018

We’re getting ready to go to Miami. We booked it a little while ago because, for my husband, there is an important job at hand, as it were.

So far we have donor No 436, ready in Miami and waiting for her medical protocol to start. Once it does — and we’ll get into it properly another time, because for some reason it’s taking a lot longer than I thought — we shall have a load of eggs ready to make one half of a baby. The other half, of course, is where Mr B comes in. The rule with sperm donation is you have to get it to the sperm fridge within one hour. (I have a friend going through IVF whose husband worked out the best route from their hospital to the café with the nicest disabled loo within the time frame. You never know what is happening behind that locked Starbucks door while you’re queueing for your hazelnut latte.)

There is no route from southeast London to a fertility clinic in Miami within an hour, so we take the opportunity to book a minibreak instead. It’s one of the upsides of doing this business in the US.

While we wait for our second surrogate match to ping into the inbox (the first didn’t work out), we’re skipping along the “embryo creation” path in tandem. This is the bit that historically has made me fizz with emotional excitement. In Russia, where I underwent five rounds of IVF with donor eggs, it was the day we got news of the five healthy embryos waiting for my belly that made me properly fall in love. It took me by surprise; I opened an email, I read that of eleven embryos, five were “perfect” (we did pre-genetic screening to make sure we only attempted to transfer the chromasomally normal ones. The others would have increased likelihood of implantation failure or miscarriage), and I fell in love. Proper heart-bursting love. In a freezer somewhere in St Petersburg were our five potential children, and in that moment it didn’t matter to me that they weren’t genetically mine. I would try to carry them and one day meet the tiny person one of them turned into.

Since we’re here, I don’t need to reiterate that this did not happen, but I tacitly remember the joy, and so I’m keen to get to that stage again. Hence my badgering emails to our surrogacy agency every one or two weeks.

“Hi guys, when are we going to make some embryos?”

“Hi guys, yes, we’ll get back to you about the date to schedule our Skype meeting, but when are we going to make some embryos?”

“Hi guys, any news on Donor 436’s schedule so we can get some eggs and make some embryos?”

We still don’t have news on the above, but in the meantime, sure, we can jump on a plane to Miami to put Mr B’s sperm on ice. From now on he has to give up beer. The best advice is to aim for one to three months of healthy living to get the best deposit possible.

It’s summer, everyone is enjoying the lazy evenings and the unwinding-after-work beers, but Mr B has to concentrate on his task and cannot, well, drop the ball. Does he moan about this sacrifice one or two times too many? Of course he does, this plan has come between a man and his Peroni, but it’s only a few weeks and I take great pleasure in reminding him of my abstinence during the entire Year Of IVF. While I slowly sip a cold Aperol spritz and cackle silently.

We schedule our trip so that we arrive the day before the deposit, then plan an itinerary based around sunshine and cold beers as a reward. As it approaches, it dawns on me that I’m thinking of this as a holiday, the anticipatory antithesis to my visits to St Petersburg. This is the first trip to a fertility clinic that I’m looking forward to. I know what my role is, it’s negligible in the good way (aka, no undressing or poking or prodding), and it takes me to one of the world’s most popular beach destinations.

As I do my usual packing procrastination — I have a degree in philosophy, WHY can I be conquered by a simple suitcase? — I oscillate between emails, work emails, Instagram and TV. Ping! New Message.

From: The Agency

Subject: You Have A Match!

Oh my GOD. Just before we make our way to Miami, it looks like the surrogacy gods are smiling and we are going there with some solid news in our inbox and solid hope in our hearts. Alex, 35 from California wants to carry our baby. While we try and fail to hold down the excitement we make a plan to look over her profile on the plane. I just want to ask a quick question. So guys, when can we make some embryos?