For those of you who are up to date on my brilliant but bonkers baby plan you will know that I’ve passed the counselling test and secured my donor. After the counselling appointment I met with the doctor. It was a short meeting just to agree the treatment plan. I wanted to try this cycle I explained, she thought it would be touch and go, but if I could get the sperm in time it was possible. I was going to be starting fertility treatment in a matter of weeks. OMG as the kids would say!
That was Monday. By Wednesday I was in almost panic attack mode. I was doing this thing. Suddenly it all felt so very overwhelming. Could I do this? I started to really envisage a newborn. Don’t I seem to remember that they don’t let you put them down for more than twenty minutes at a time. How would I do that alone? With a little one too? How would it be without either of them having a dad, yet both of them having very different stories. All these questions I’d been asking at the start resurfaced and suddenly the answers I’d found no longer seemed sufficient.
Everytime my son did something I couldn’t help but think, ‘how will I do that when I’m pregnant or with a newborn’? Nearly every time we head upstairs he asks to be carried (and I usually oblige). At mealtimes he loves to be read to, and I do it because it gets him to eat his dinner. When we go out I’m often carrying a bike or two plus a scooter, it knackers me out as it is, I’m not sure I can add a baby into the mix.
Luckily my mum was over, I went downstairs and spoke to her. She doesn’t know the steps I’d been taking but she knows the general gist. I felt calm again. I wanted this baby so much. Life is an unknown, however you start out and any child of mine will know so much love that they won’t miss out. I know that as these changes happen I will deal with them, I’ve dealt with bigger changes than these over the past few years. Who knows, it may require a lot of changes and none. At first I thought we’d have to stop co-sleeping, now I’ve realised that having the three of us all snuggled up together sounds just perfect. It’s not like I’ll be getting any sleep anyway and hell, other families do it with an extra adult squashed in too so it can’t be that bad.
I was hoping to order the sperm the next day. Only the clinic didn’t process the paperwork on time. I called again on Friday morning. They said they’d sort it. I spoke to the sperm bank later on the Friday. They still hadn’t received it. By this time the relevant people had left the clinic so the paperwork hadn’t been sent.
I was gutted. I wanted to start this thing. When you’re a busy, working solo mum the logistics of fitting in fertility treatment are challenging. The next couple of weeks aren’t too hectic, but busy enough to keep my mind occupied. If I don’t order the sperm by Monday first thing then it won’t happen in this cycle. Next cycle my dates probably clash with other plans. Then suddenly it’s all starting to feel very far off. I’ve already had a good couple of months of clinic appointments and scouring the web for donors. Now I’ve decided, I want to get going. I’m not naive enough to assume it will work first time or necessarily turn out OK even after a pregnancy, but all the more reason not to waste any time. When I start the treatment I’ll have a 24 hour warning for when to come in. It’s not going to be every month I can make that work.
Friday evening I felt at my wits end. I emailed the clinic to say as much. The donor bank said I had till 11am on Monday to sort it. The pressure felt immense and I began to wonder if it would have been better if I hadn’t been given this glimmer of hope, now I would spend the weekend worrying about it. I decided I was going to be the first person on the phone when they opened their office in the morning.
Then Saturday evening, out of the blue, I received an email from the sperm bank. It’s all been sorted they assured me. I couldn’t believe it. I had assumed nothing would happen over the weekend but it did. Now it’s back as a possibility, I might be starting this thing in a week or two. My weekend has gone from being slightly depressing to super exciting. I know some of you might be thinking, well there’s no rush and a few weeks or months won’t make a big difference, and they wouldn’t. After all, let’s be clear about this, even if I start treatment this month, I may not be pregnant for many months to come. Unstimulated IUI has a pretty low success rate – certainly not the kind of odds you’d bet on. So it’s not that I think I can rush the getting pregnant bit. But I want to try. This decision was me putting myself in control of my life again and trying to expand my family. When it looked like people ignoring my phone calls and emails were about to put a stop to it all, it felt overwhelming. Now, as I sit here tapping away, the seed of my (hopefully soon to be) child to be is winging it’s way to a clinic near me. It’s amazing. I can start to dream about the baby that may be. I cannot wait.
If you are interested in this story of contemplating becoming a single mum by choice then you can follow my blog on facebook. Just go to my page here and give me a like to stay up to date with my latest blogs. And follow me on twitter @EllamentalMama I’ll be writing more about this in the coming months
This is part of my single mum by choice series. You can read all about it here:
- Thinking about becoming a single mum by choice
- Deciding to become a single mum by choice
- Choosing a Clinic
- Single mum by choice: The Process
- Fertility Treatment Implications Counselling
- Choosing a Sperm Donor