Single and
in her 40s, Claudia Connell decided to have a baby – it was now or never. But
during her third IVF attempt, she began to regret the whole idea
The Guardian, Claudia Connell, Saturday 16 November 2013
 |
| Claudia Connell: ‘Perhaps I needed to go through the emotional journey of IVF in order to discover that I don’t want children after all.’ Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian |
Most of us
have made extravagant purchases that we've regretted wasting money on. Things
that seemed a good idea at the time but, down the line, left you wondering what
on earth you were thinking about.
My highly
regretted buy set me back the best part of £30,000 and now, some 18 months on,
I still feel sick when I think about it. In my case, though, I'm not talking
about a flash sports car or a wardrobe full of designer clothes. Neither is it
something I can sell and try to claim some money back on. I am talking about
fertility treatment. Three cycles of IVF to try to conceive a child that I now
know with absolute certainty I do not want.
As many
women do when they approach their late 30s, I began to ponder the baby issue.
I'd just read Baby Hunger by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, in which she made a strong
case for the fact that today's "have it all" woman was facing the
prospect of a very lonely and unfulfilled middle age. She hammered home the
point with some alarming statistics: nearly half of high-achieving women were
childless in America at the age of 40, most of them bitterly regretting leaving
it so late.
To make
matters even more complicated, I am single, so any journey into motherhood
would be a lone venture. But, after much thought, I decided that I needed to
give it a shot. I had a nice home, a bit of money put by, a steady if not
entirely dependable career as a journalist and, besides, I liked children,
didn't I? I have four nieces, three nephews and several godchildren.
Aged 41, I
visited one of the biggest sperm banks in the UK to ask about artificial
insemination with donor sperm. I was told that, at my age, it was unlikely to
be successful and I was better off having IVF instead.
Even though
my own eggs were becoming distinctly hard-boiled, and an interactive online IVF
tool calculated my chances of success at 2.9% (or to look it another way: a 97.1%
chance of failure), I wanted to use them. With no help available from the NHS,
a shortage of donor sperm in the UK and clinics still decidedly sniffy about
treating single women, I opted to go abroad – to Athens. The clinic had a ready
supply of sperm donors – I selected a 6ft 2in, 28-year-old doctor – but the
consultant told me that the fibroids from which I suffered greatly impeded my
chance of success and would have to be removed. The NHS disagreed, and I ended
up spending £8,000 having the operation done privately.
After
healing from the surgery and forking out another £2,000 or so on drugs and
endless blood tests, I was ready to undergo my £4,000 cycle. I had two
"perfect" embryos transferred. I underwent the whole thing without
confiding in a soul – not my family, not my closest friends. I now believe my
reason was that I still wasn't convinced I was doing the right thing and was
faintly embarrassed about it all. Instead, I joined an internet forum for
single women having IVF.
Two weeks
after the embryo transfer, a negative pregnancy test proved what I knew from
the beginning – my body wasn't going to beat those impossible odds. While the
women on the forum I used were devastated by a negative cycle, I felt oddly
indifferent. The clinic in Athens booked a conference call with me to discuss
my case and any future protocol treatment, but when they rang I didn't take the
call.
A year went
by. Two of my closest friends had babies the good, old-fashioned way (with a
husband) and, once again, the noise of a loudly ticking biological clock became
the soundtrack to my life. Some of the older women on the forum I was using
were having success with the eggs of much younger donors, mostly from eastern
Europe.
Following a
brief hiatus where I looked into – and ruled out – adoption, I again travelled
to Athens, to another clinic, for a second cycle of IVF. This time I used the
eggs of a 26-year-old Polish teacher and the sperm of a 19-year-old Danish
student. That last part still makes me feel a bit icky. I wouldn't dream of
having sex with a 19-year-old so to take sperm from one felt somehow very
weird.
Drug
protocol is different when using donor eggs and, on the second attempt, I had
to switch off my own natural cycle to avoid ovulating, sending my body crashing
head first into a very brief but intense menopause. My bones ached, the hot
flushes were unreal and the huge doses of progesterone I was taking made me
constantly dizzy.
But with
the eggs and sperm of two such young and fertile donors, my chances of success
were put at around 60% – none of your 2% nonsense. Even so, it didn't work and
another £8,000, secured via a loan on my house, was down the pan.
After two
cycles I decided I'd had a fair crack at it and would move on. Far from feeling
sad and unfulfilled, I felt happy, content and at peace with my life as a
childless singleton.
I wish I
could tell you why, aged 44, I decided to have one last roll of the dice and
attempt another cycle of IVF. Was it because I had secured a good job and was
earning a lot of money? Was it because I had always regarded 45 as the cut-off
and I was nudging dangerously close to it? Perhaps it's because I read
somewhere that the majority of women having IVF will be successful after three
cycles.
Whatever
the reason, I chose to return to the same clinic and attempt one final cycle
with frozen embryos. Once again I took the down-regulating drugs. This time a
few steroids were thrown into the mix to suppress my overactive immune system,
causing me to balloon by a stone.
The egg
donor was Russian, 20 years old and a student, while the sperm donor was a
26-year-old architect. Other than that, all I knew was their hair and eye
colours, and height.
On the day
of the embryo transfer I had a massive panic attack and told one of the nurses
that I didn't want to go through with it. Puzzled and with poor English skills,
she just said: "You still pay."
By the time
the consultant entered the room, he was buzzing with excitement. My defrosted
embryos were among the best he'd ever seen. Grade one. He felt certain it was
going to work.
 |
Claudia
Connell in her mid-30s. 'I wish I
could tell you why I decided to have one
last
roll of the dice at the age of 44.'
|
During the
two-week wait before I found out whether the cycle had been successful, I
ignored advice about drinking and taking baths. Unlike during the first two cycles,
I felt nauseous and began to suspect that this one might have worked – and the
idea was freaking me out. Instead of thinking lovely thoughts about newborn
babies, I obsessed over how a child with whom I had no biological link would
turn out. What if it were really ugly? What if one or both of its biological
parents were dull and humourless? None of the Russian women I'd met were
exactly happy-go-lucky. These were shallow and trivial things that really
shouldn't be troubling the mind of any woman with deep maternal instincts.
At night I
couldn't sleep, and when I did I had horrible nightmares in which I gave birth
to deformed half-human, half-beast babies. I decided that if this cycle worked,
I would have to terminate the pregnancy. I didn't want a baby after all.
When the
pregnancy test showed a faint positive, instead of sharing the happy news I
starting Googling for information about early abortions.
Concerned
that the pregnancy test wasn't more conclusive, my consultant advised me to go
for a blood test. The results revealed that the pregnancy hormone was not as
strong as it should have been and that the pregnancy would not
"stick". A week later, I had a heavy period and it was all over.
I deleted
my membership of the IVF forum, chucked out all my fertility paperwork and test
results, and drew a line under the whole sorry affair.
Today, I am
happy being childless. I like my life without children and I know that I would
not have been a good mother. My body still suffers from the effects of the IVF.
I struggled to lose the weight I put on and it might be a coincidence but I
still suffer from menopausal symptoms at the relatively young age of 46.
Perhaps I
needed to go through the emotional journey of IVF in order to discover that I
don't want children after all. But as I am now stony broke, I can't help
feeling it was a very expensive, foolish and miserable way to find out.
Related Articles:
"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)
“… 3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…
Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?
The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].
Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”
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