David and Me

My path to solo motherhood

Esther Robinson

Copyright

Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

HarperTrueLife

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First published by HarperTrueLife 2015

FIRST EDITION

Text © Esther Robinson 2015

Cover photo © Shutterstock 2015

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Dedication

For my beautiful baby boy - my heart sings for you.

May you have 'courage equal to desire'.

Epigraph

‘Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance it.’

Rubem Alves, Tomorrow's Child, SCM Press (1972)

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

Chapter 1: Deciding moments

Chapter 2: Dipping a toe

Chapter 3: A new clinic

Chapter 4: IVF

Chapter 5: The viability scans

Chapter 6: Loss and learning

Chapter 7: An Athens odyssey

Chapter 8: A frozen embryo transfer

Chapter 9: Pregnancy

Chapter 10: Birth

Afterword

Sources of advice and support

Acknowledgements

Why not try …

Why not try …

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

Write for Us

About the Publisher

Introduction

This is the very beginning of the story of my life with my son. In some ways it is an unconventional one; a tale of choosing solo motherhood, with all its painful and joyful twists and turns. But at its heart it simply recounts a mother’s love for her child; a love that has been replicated throughout time all over the world.

At the time of writing, the number of women seeking to be solo mums by choice is increasing significantly, and they are making the decision at an earlier stage of their lives than many have in the past. I have known of women in their twenties – as well as thirties and forties – who have acted on their desire to become solo mums and are currently pursuing treatment or already cradling their babes. Some have gone back for more and are the proud mummies of two or three (and possibly more) children.

If you are considering the solo route to motherhood, I hope my story answers some questions and, ultimately, inspires you on your journey. For others, may this simply be a tale from one of the many routes to motherhood that exist today.

Chapter 1: Deciding moments

‘Jump or stay in the boat.’

Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Darkness

I don’t ever recall deciding that I wanted to be a mother. I always believed that motherhood would be an inevitable part of my life, so I looked forward to it and planned for it. I chose names in idle moments and designed first-birthday cakes in my mind. I’d be a mum who would knit and make bunting and smother the walls in my children’s works of art.

Yet despite this powerful maternal instinct, I didn’t target potential husbands while at university or plan a wedding on graduation as I had seen some women do. And when friends and family started to have children, I loved to welcome their little bundles, often making gifts in the knowledge that, one day, I would be making clothes and toys for my own little ones. I’d have five, I always thought. It was an adventure and a challenge that lay before me. It was simply a matter of when, not if.

Despite all these expectations of motherhood, greatly bolstered by others’ expectations that I would have a large family (my own family used to say I’d have ‘a cottage in the country, a kitchen full of children, a cat and a dog and a gingham cloth on the table’), I didn’t ever give myself a deadline by which I should start producing as so many of my friends and acquaintances had done. Nature could take its time. And when some friends started to confess that they too wished they had waited, my sense of urgency retreated further. Nothing was to be gained from setting deadlines and forcing a fit where perhaps there was none.

Yet time passed and increasingly I was being reminded that I was gambling away my chances of motherhood with every birthday I celebrated. As I turned 30, the media kicked up a frenzy about foolhardy women not realising that by wasting time in the workplace or waiting for a good relationship with someone they loved and respected, they were effectively making their chances of being mothers negligible once they reached the big 3-0. At 35 – well, you may as well give up and resign yourself to childlessness forever, so the media narrative goes. Any potential role models for older mums had typically been convinced to appear in ‘I should have done it sooner’ fillers for the tabloids. The clear message was: get married – to anyone – and reproduce or else. It’s an absurd argument, particularly given what we know now about reproduction, but it’s one that some corners of the media are particularly keen on peddling.

Yet for me, and several of my friends, not being married was far preferable to being in the wrong relationship. I didn’t want to make a partner fit, or be made to fit myself, and I was happy to be unmarried. But the desire for motherhood never diminished, and once I hit 38 I decided to seriously look into being a solo mum by choice. I had seen enough of my friends struggle through divorces and custody arrangements to squash any doubts about solo motherhood being a positive choice, but I had no idea how to go about it.

Like the start of any research today, my first step was to consult Professor Google, and I was incredibly encouraged by what I found. There were whole online communities of women seeking solo motherhood for a raft of reasons, in which nurturing support and guidance was offered by women who had trod the path then decided to reach out to others and show them the way. It became clear, immediately, that solo motherhood was far from an isolating experience. The support and encouragement that was there in front of me was unlike any I had seen in any kind of community – online or otherwise.

I took my time researching, watching online forums, reading about the lives and challenges of solo mums and, I guess, procrastinating. I learned that moving towards a decision can take time, however inevitable it was that the conclusion would be ‘yes’.

Unfortunately, shortly after I had made this decision, just as I was poised to take action, a close family member needed treatment for cancer. There was no question where my energy should be directed and so the baby plans went on hold. Once a full recovery had been made, my fortieth birthday had been celebrated and a raft of work was completed, I was staring down the barrel at 42 and I knew I needed to take action.

I learned that the first thing to do was go for a series of blood tests to check my levels of certain hormones, for example, the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). The result, roughly translated, means the higher the reading, the closer you are to menopause. Fortunately, mine was exactly what you’d expect for a pre-menopausal woman. The Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) test was another – this gives an indication of ovarian reserve; in other words, how many eggs might be left in my ovaries. My result for that was great, too; it was at a level that might be expected for a woman a decade younger than me. When it comes to fertility, I was discovering, your chronological age isn’t everything; biology counts too.

‘Time is on your side,’ my GP said when he explained the results. He was very supportive. I had been anxious about discussing my plans with him, because several women I knew had been met with obstruction and judgement when they had discussed their plans for solo motherhood with their GPs. In fact, the reactions from some GPs were nothing short of outrageous, which had meant the women were forced to pursue treatment without the support of a primary healthcare provider. I did not want that to be the case for me so I was immensely grateful when my GP showed interest and explained what he could offer on the NHS and what would have to be paid for privately. When he sensed my hesitation he asked me why.

‘What’s stopping you going ahead?’

‘I have such a good relationship with my dad but if I’m a solo mum, my baby won’t have that opportunity.’

‘How old is your dad?’

‘He’s 70.’

‘Why not let him be a granddad?’

That simple comment focused my mind and set my resolve. It was one of the most influential factors in my decision-making process.

Other investigations at the time revealed an ovarian cyst and uterine polyps – which both necessitated surgery. It was frustrating not to be able to get on with baby-making, but there was no option but to undergo a hysteroscopy and laparoscopy – privately, to avoid lengthy waiting times. Once the results came back it was reassuring to know that both the polyps and the cyst were benign and that my gynaecological health was good. I spoke to the consultant who treated me about my plans and he, too, was extremely positive.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to do this with a partner?’ he asked. ‘You can meet someone.’

‘I don’t want a partner,’ I replied without hesitation. ‘I want a baby.’

Despite my certainty, I had surprised myself with my reply.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I can refer you.’

While waiting for an appointment slot, I emailed, rang and texted many women who had either become solo mothers or were seeking to do so, and I started to make plans. I didn’t ever face any opposition from my family. We had at times spoken about the sperm donor route to motherhood in a light-hearted, ‘that’s always a possibility’ kind of way. I didn’t have to broach the subject from scratch, but there is a difference between discussing something hypothetically and discussing it with intent. ‘That’s always a possibility’ became ‘how can we make this work?’ and it felt exciting and daunting in equal measure.

I knew I didn’t want to share my plans with all my friends and extended family initially, but my parents and brother and a few close friends were involved from the very start. At no time did any of them express doubt that I could cope with the treatment process or being a solo mum, which was incredibly supportive. We discussed the practicalities – being a solo mum and working, childcare arrangements when necessary, ensuring that any child born had plenty of male influences around, who would care for the child if I was not able to, and so on. I remember having breakfast out with my brother, Harry, and asking him what he thought of my plans.

‘Really, honestly, do you think I’d be mad to go ahead with being a solo mum?’

‘I think you’d be mad not to,’ he said, with no hesitation.

Ultimately, although this decision was the biggest I am ever likely to make in my life, it was one that was made in layers with each new encouraging comment or supportive gesture, so that by the time I actually started to talk about it with doctors, bringing the dream to life, it felt like a small step to take. The toughest part had been the transition from ‘solo motherhood is always a possibility’ to ‘I’m going to look at this seriously’ (and it’s hard to convey how challenging that was).

From that point on, each step flowed.

Several of the solo mums who were local to me got in touch via the Fertility Friends website. Knowing that so many others had trod this path before me and that they were willing to help me achieve my dream was incredibly reassuring. Initially I arranged to meet a lady called Stella. We did similar jobs and I was interested to find out how she coped, what the network of solo mums was like in the area, how she’d found treatment, and to ask her a whole load of other questions that were buzzing round my mind. We met in a busy café after work one day. I was late and as I walked through the door I immediately saw a mum and daughter sitting opposite one another, chatting. Stella’s girl, Mary, was tall for her age and seemed shy at first in the noisy café. I said hello to them and handed Mary the book I had bought her. We chatted and I began to suspect that the bond between solo mums and their babies is very special. That’s not to say that the bond between all babies and their significant carers isn’t special, but what I witnessed was distinctive and further cemented my resolve to be a solo mum by choice.

It was some time before I heard from the clinic I’d been referred to by my gynaecologist, by which time I was in the United States for work. On my return, I made an appointment and worked hard at keeping the nerves (what the hell was I doing?) and the excitement (I might be a mum!) in balance.

Chapter 2: Dipping a toe

‘There is nothing like a dream to create the future.’

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

It was a 70-mile round trip to my first appointment at a fertility clinic. I arrived feeling conspicuous. Despite knowing of several solo mums who had been helped by the same clinic, I wondered what the people there would think of my plans.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have had different expectations from my initial consultations and I would have done some research and chosen a clinic that best suited my needs. With hindsight I can see that this clinic had a rather parochial way of going about things. Having been referred by my gynaecologist, I had gone along to the appointment under the impression that there was little to distinguish between clinics, and at that stage I didn’t imagine that quality of service could vary so wildly between them. I was also naïve about the fertility industry.

I was so excited about my initial appointment and could not wait to get treatment underway. I had soul-searched until every doubt had been cleansed and every question answered, so I was not prepared for what came next. During that initial appointment it was spelled out to me with the greatest clarity possible that being over 40 was ancient in terms of fertility.

‘But my great grandmother had healthy twins in her mid-forties,’ I retorted, when presented with the age card within minutes of being seated in a room clearly laid out for couples.

‘Statistically your chances of conceiving over the age of 40 are very slim indeed,’ the consultant said.

‘I want to try. My hormone tests were great for my age and I know I can conceive and carry a baby.’

He looked through my notes and commented on my AMH result.

‘Well, according to your body, you’re in your early thirties,’ he joked. ‘It is worth a try, but the chances of success are remote.’

I was underwhelmed by his attitude and left the clinic with a bundle of papers detailing treatment options. Other small things had disappointed me, too. Clinics like that one often use generic forms that are inappropriate for the would-be solo mum; they are designed so that we must cross through the ‘partner’ section or simply leave it blank. It would be easy, and cost nothing, to have appropriate forms for each client group and I wonder why so many clinics overlook this.

‘Think about it,’ the consultant had said, but it felt futile and hopeless. On the one hand age was clearly too much of a problem for success to be a possibility, but on the other hand they had accepted me for treatment and charged for their services. The messages were mixed but all I wanted to hear were those of hope. To be written off so soon was deeply upsetting.

Back home, and deflated, I read through the information I had been given, but it was incomplete and raised more questions than it answered. The girls on Fertility Friends were as helpful as ever, but I still had questions that the clinic needed to answer, so I decided to ring them.

‘I have information about the range of treatment options, but I haven’t been told which ones would be most suitable for me,’ I said.

‘We can’t tell you that,’ the nurse said. ‘You have to make that decision.’

‘But I’m not medically qualified. I would be guessing.’

‘If you want to ask a question you will have to have another appointment with the consultant.’ It was an attitude I hadn’t anticipated. In my field of work I could not get away with that approach and the withholding of information and advice felt obstructive. It was already averaging £100 a question, such is the business of making babies in the UK. As my journey to motherhood continued I was to encounter worse, once paying £200 for an eight-minute appointment and then being landed with a £50 hospital bill for the use of a consulting room. It’s difficult not to be cynical about being viewed as an income stream. At its worst, it feels like the exploitation of vulnerability, but the health industry is littered with similar – and worse – examples and you either take the financial hit and hope the service is worthy of the expense or seek treatment elsewhere.

Eventually it was decided that I would start with a cycle of IUI – inter-uterine insemination. It’s an incredibly quick and easy process during which donor sperm would be inserted into my uterus via a catheter and the clinic would be £1,200 better off.

I now know that there were many questions I should have asked (I later learned that the clinic had omitted to do some basic health checks and had no way of knowing whether my Fallopian tubes were free from blockages – which is vital if IUI is to have any chance of success). But I was naïve and excited to get treatment underway, especially as the message about being TOO OLD at 42 was repeated ad nauseum every time I had anything to do with the clinic.

So the process began. An appointment was made with the clinic counsellor (a compulsory part of treatment), who swigged a bottle of Coke throughout our consultation, and the nurse in charge of the clinic’s sperm bank got in touch with information about possible donors. Curiously, I was asked about my financial health. I wonder now whether this was more to do with my ability to pay for treatment than my ability to support a child as a solo mum, because I haven’t heard of other clinics doing the same. It seemed absurdly intrusive at the time and not something that those who fall pregnant by other means are ever faced with.

Choosing a donor was easy. I had a call from the nurse in charge of sperm and she described two donors. I asked if I could see more information but was told no, the choice was between these two. Using the limited information I had been given, I discussed the pros and cons of each with my parents. It was a surreal moment and the humour wasn’t lost on us. I remember thinking that, with support like this from my family, I could do it. As a solo mum, I would be far from alone.

So many bridges had been crossed to get this far that I felt only excitement about treatment day. The fact that the appointment with the Coke-swilling counsellor had been a farce and the conversation about possible donors went along the lines of, ‘choose between these two or you go to the bottom of the list’, raised no alarm bells, so I rolled up for treatment one September morning full of a sense of new beginnings. Harry drove me in the milky autumn sunshine. We listened to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in the car and joked about names for the baby based on local attractions. Life on that day felt lighthearted and the treatment seemed no big deal.

The procedure itself was painful. An inordinate amount of stretching and prodding of the cervix is never going to be comfortable, and this particular nurse was thorough in her excavations. As I lay there like a stranded frog I wondered what hope there was for conception. Feeling far from relaxed, with an increasingly stressed-out nurse, I wondered if it was all over before it had even had a chance to begin.

Ten days later I started spotting – which was unheard of for me. A few days after that I began a heavy bleed and the dream was over for that month.

I was keen to try another cycle but the clinic insisted I give my body a chance to recover. A family bereavement also meant I wasn’t ready to try again until November, this time with a stimulated cycle. I was prescribed a high dose of Clomid based on my age, but I knew it would be too much for me so I took one-third of the prescribed dose. The drug is designed to stimulate the ovaries into producing an egg but mine had never needed such support. I felt awful on it and I dread to think what might have happened if I had taken the full dose. As I suspected, when I went for a scan it showed that three eggs were about to be released. This triggered much debate at the clinic about whether the cycle could go ahead because of the risk of twins or more. I told them I’d only taken a third of the dose. Rather than comments such as ‘that’s just as well!’ I was asked why I had gone against what the doctor had prescribed.

‘If you want the cycle to go ahead you’ll have to sign to say you understand the risks of twins or triplets.’

I found it curious that I had been given a 4 per cent chance of success and yet there had been such debate about whether to go ahead with treatment when my ovaries were overstimulated.

I took the (negligible) risk and the deed was done. Ten days later, and while celebrating my mother’s birthday, I started another heavy bleed and, once again, the dream was over. Despite the low expectations, the disappointment was profound. I found it draining to go through each treatment cycle, and the rollercoaster of hope and loss of hope was exhausting against a backdrop of synthetic hormones. But increasingly I had the sense that I would, eventually, be successful, and the constant hurdles seemed like a test.

‘If you really wanted a baby you’d have IVF,’ the clinic counsellor had said. It was a provocative statement that made me suspicious, but IUI, at least as I had experienced it at this clinic, is imprecise, and I was beginning to wonder if I had wasted my money on two cycles of it.

While I didn’t have a follow-up appointment as such, it was clear that the clinic was keen to move on to a cycle of IVF, but I wanted to establish why my treatment cycles were ending in early bleeds. The clinic felt that it was not worth doing any investigations and as my chances of being a mum were remote anyway, IVF was the only way it could possibly happen.

‘Why do you think my chances are so slim?’ I asked the consultant.

‘Let’s just say that if you’d come here ten years ago you would definitely go home with a baby.’

I couldn’t help feeling that I wouldn’t be treated as anything other than an age if I stayed at that clinic.

As Christmas arrived, I knew I shouldn’t return to the clinic. Too much had troubled me there and I suspected I might have a better experience elsewhere. I let the decision sit for a while and then started doing some research.

Chapter 3: A new clinic

‘And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.’

Meister Eckhart

Choosing a new clinic was a curious process. I was not so interested in overall success rates as I was in the degree to which the clinic was willing and able to take a personalised approach to its clients. Following evidence-based treatment protocols is box-tickingly easy; taking each woman as an individual case is not, and it requires time, effort and an open mind.

Harry drove me to my first appointment. It was January and it was already getting dark as we left. The clinic was over an hour’s drive away and I was grateful to be chatting freely, unconcerned about the appointment. This second clinic was also in a hospital – NHS this time. Clustered around the entrance was a group of heavily pregnant smokers, in their twenties at most, clutching dressing gowns around their bumps against the January evening air. There was a smokers’ shelter close by but it was unused, and for some inexplicable reason the hospital seemed to tolerate the entrance being crowded with pregnant smokers. It was the same entrance used by women attending for fertility treatment, for viability scans, for surgery following miscarriage and any other appointments concerned with conception and pregnancy. More than once I witnessed the distress this sight caused some women.

The clinic was markedly different from the hospital that housed it. Recently opened, it was new, clean and comparatively high-tech, and all the members of staff I encountered were friendly and welcoming. There was the usual admin to go through but they had already requested my notes from my previous clinic. When I saw the consultant he had evidently read through the notes and picked up a few omissions that would need to be corrected before I started treatment there.

I felt so relieved to be there. Attitudes were upbeat and although I did get the now-familiar ‘age speech’ it was done with a very light touch and a heavy dose of hope. Here was a clinic that looked at the whole person and kept their eyes on the prize. I couldn’t help kicking myself for not choosing this clinic in the first place.

The consultant and I devised a plan – a medicated cycle of IUI – and I had some of the blood tests that the previous clinic had neglected to do. Everything had to be paid for; making babies is big business and if you’re not fortunate to be in a group that’s funded by the NHS you will pay for every last blood test and swab. Opportunities for making money are rarely missed in this business. You have to let it go or the inequity rankles.

The medicated IUI cycle involved more drugs than I had taken so far. I was prescribed a drug to downregulate my menstrual cycle and a mild stimulant for my ovaries. Both needed to be injected. I was daunted, despite never having had a fear of needles, but I received excellent training from the staff and a few days later I had a call from the company supplying the drugs requesting payment.

When I started injecting I felt only excitement. I was so much happier about the new clinic and had a growing sense that I would have a baby; that one day it really would happen. I had no issues with the injecting at all and when the day came for insemination I was thrilled to work out that if the treatment was successful, the due date would be my birthday. It had to work. On that basis alone, it had to work.

Choosing a new donor was so much easier at this clinic. I was given a wide choice and sufficient initial information to be able to make a shortlist. I chose who I thought would be a best match based on CMV status (CMV is the Cytomegalovirus, a common virus which causes complications if contracted in pregnancy – as I had tested negative for the virus, I needed a donor who had tested negative too; a precaution that those who conceive in person don’t get to take), colouring, height and then additional information such as occupation and educational background. Clinic staff were extremely understanding of how significant this process is. It’s a decision that cannot be taken lightly.

Once I had my shortlist and had selected a favourite, I was given the donor’s pen portrait. This is a document that any children conceived in this way can read at an appropriate time to find out more about the donor. Pen portraits can vary tremendously, but I was delighted that the one my donor had written was full of detail about him, his work, hobbies, childhood, family life and reasons for being a donor. He also wrote an incredibly touching note for any child conceived as a result of his donation, complete with his advice for life. Most significantly for me, however, was his assertion that he would be delighted to meet any children that resulted from his donation if they would like to meet him when the time came. In terms of ensuring that any child I had was supported as much as possible through this less-conventional path into the world, I was convinced that this was the donor for me. His reasons for being a donor seemed entirely altruistic and I felt an instinctive peace with the whole process. This was, in part, down to the care the clinic took to ensure I was happy, and also in part due to the support I received from my family and friends.

The last injection I had was the shot to trigger ovulation. Appointments at that clinic are timed carefully so that egg and sperm have the greatest chance of meeting at the optimum moment. The appointment for treatment was lighthearted; I was relieved there was laughter. The nurses and embryologist involved were supportive and interested. It was good to talk about choosing to be a solo mum and to have such a positive response from the team helping to make that happen. All of that had been missing at the previous clinic, which had made treatments feel like impersonal business transactions.

Despite the auspicious timing of this treatment, the positivity around treatment day and the additional progesterone support I took as a result of suspicions that I may not be producing enough myself, I began a heavy bleed ten days later.

There’s a mystery about pregnancy and the birth of new life that we simply need to respect. I have spoken to women who have been told there is absolutely no reason why they cannot conceive and yet they remain childless, and others who were told at some stage that there was no way they could ever have a baby and yet they conceived and carried to term. It seems that to be realistic is to proceed with humility and an acceptance that, ultimately, what will be will be.

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