Wanted: a baby

The quality of my eggs deteriorated the higher the hormone dosage I took, so logically, I knew this meant my chances were even less than 20%, but I was driven. The clinic knew it too – what was driving them?

This time I didn’t feel nauseous, and I didn’t even make it to the phone call; my period arrived early. It felt like the end of the world. And, in a way, it was. We couldn’t continue down this path; the strain on our relationship was telling – our mission to have a child was all-consuming and had taken up seven years of our lives. Enough was enough.

We decided to go away and take stock

We spent five weeks in France, letting go of the life we’d imagined and planning a different route: we’d travel, I’d write my novel. We drove north towards Calais and home; I was weeping as I said goodbye to the brown-eyed baby of my dreams.

We had a follow-up appointment at the clinic to tell the man who’d become so familiar with my insides that we’d decided to call a halt to treatment. We had to interrupt his ‘Right, you’re probably in the early stages of menopause, so this time we’ll….’ speech to say we weren’t going for another try. He seemed to find this incomprehensible and talked about alternative approaches. Was it the loss of £3,000 that upset him or the loss of control over us? Perhaps he sensed our detachment after six months of being in thrall to his every word? We left saying we’d think about it. We didn’t return.

Just before Christmas I felt nauseous. My period was late. He’s nearly six years old now. He has brown eyes and a mop of dark hair; he’s my baby.