Article For Image Magazine

When I was in school a rumour went around that so-and-so’s cousin’s sister’s best friend’s American pen-pal had fallen pregnant in a Jacuzzi. According to this particular urban myth, the poor unfortunate girl had been sitting there minding her own business when a mad, recently escaped sperm, swam over and attacked her – she was (a) alone and (b) as pure as the driven snow. We were horrified. Never would we set foot in one of those racy Jacuzzis – not that it was likely as none of us had even seen one, apart from in Dallas where they seemed to spend most of their time neck high in bubbles. Getting pregnant was that easy…or so we thought.

When I first went to see my gynaecologist to complain that Mother Nature was not playing ball and no storks had been sighted in my neighbourhood recently, he helpfully informed me that women should be giving birth at sixteen years of age. Apparently that’s when our bodies are physically primed to have children. I sat staring at him – having just told him my age (a multiple of sixteen) and wondered what exactly was supposed to be helpful or uplifting about that particular gem of medical information. Besides, at sixteen years of age I was far more interested in getting John Taylor from Duran Duran to fall madly in love with me and whisk me away to LA to a life of luxury, than giving birth in tune with my teenage body.

My novel, The Baby Trail, is a comedy (albeit bitter-sweet) about the frustrations of trying to conceive. Although is not autobiographical, the idea for the book came to me when I began to try to get pregnant and found it wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. I started to think about how infertility affects so many people, especially today when women are looking to have children later in life. Suddenly, every time I opened the newspaper or turned on the TV there seemed to be articles about all aspects of infertility and the options that women face – from IVF to adoption.

Infertility affects everyone. Even if you haven’t had problems conceiving your own children, you will know someone very close to you who is struggling to get pregnant or undergoing fertility treatment or had miscarriages or is hoping to adopt…

I found writing the book immensely therapeutic. It took me completely out of my own situation and into my character’s, which was a relief and at times great fun too. I also learnt a huge amount about certain fertility treatments that I had no personal experience of – the horrors of IVF for instance.

Women need to be able to laugh about infertility. It isn’t funny when you’re going through it, but laughter is a great tonic when you’re feeling blue and it also helps to put things into perspective. I had a great time with my protagonist Emma, letting my imagination run wild as she does increasingly daft things in her attempts to conceive. Mind you – I know a lot of women who have indulged in post sex handstands to make sure the sperm were swimming the right way!

There is also a small issue of equality. Men get taken to a room filled with porn magazines and X-rated movies, to help them while giving their sperm sample. Women get stirrups and speculums. I’m not suggesting that we need porn too – after all, the doctor is in the room with us. But I think re-runs of Sex and the City would make the procedures a much less gruesome experience – gynaecologists take note! We have burnt our bras and chained ourselves to railings for equality – let’s have some in hospital too.

When you’re trying to get pregnant, it can seem as though every time you step outside your front door you are surrounded by pregnant women or women with prams – it’s like a bad Stephen King novel. Every magazine you browse through will undoubtedly have a new mother beaming out from the middle pages holding her tiny baby. The television airs nothing but ads for nappies and baby food….it is endless. You will also only ever hear the happy stories – the honeymoon pregnancies: “Oops I’m pregnant and we weren’t even trying”. I never totally grasped that thought process – doesn’t unprotected sex on honeymoon constitute trying?

As in all situations, people are always on hand to proffer well meant advice. Relax; take up yoga; give up alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine; drink Chinese herbs; exercise more; sleep more…Have you tried Chinese herbs? They not only smell foul but they taste even worse. You will be told that you’re not getting pregnant because you’re underweight, overweight, too pale, too active or too tense and that you should really try to focus on other things …..the problem is – you can’t! Wanting to get pregnant is with you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. It’s akin to being on the treadmill in a gym and not being able to press stop – although you desperately want to. Now there’s a horrid thought.

It’s also a very frustrating time because there are so many grey areas to infertility. “Unexplained infertility” is the response that almost 20% of women today receive from the fertility experts. This is after they have undergone numerous painful and expensive tests and procedures. Women have been giving birth since the world was created, so it beggars belief that medical science remains so vague about conception. In a generation so used to popping a pill for every ill, to be told your problems are “unexplainable” by someone who spent half their life studying fertility, is discouraging to say the least. I’m surprised there aren’t more law suits where wannabe-mothers at the end of their tether attack the doctors with their handbags, ovulation test packs or bottles of Chinese herbs.

Infertility is one of life’s great levellers, with one in six of all couples now seeking specialist help because of difficulty conceiving. When you want a baby and you can’t have one, everyone is in the same boat. It is equally heartbreaking for all women. Feelings of isolation and loneliness are extremely common. Why can’t you get pregnant? What’s wrong with you? Why is your body letting you down? How come everyone else’s husbands only have to wink at them and they fall pregnant straight away? Maybe it’s because you were on the pill for all those years? Maybe God’s confused because you spent years feverishly praying not to get pregnant and now that the prayers have taken a dramatic U-turn, He doesn’t know what to think? Could it be punishment for the time you had that mad party when you were eighteen and your parents went to Spain and the house got so badly trashed that you pretended that it had been robbed – although your folks thought it was odd that the robbers had taken the time to throw drink all over the floor, smoke a hundred cigarettes and dance around to scratched LPs, before smashing a few glasses and taking off with no valuables whatsoever?

The probing baby questions kick off from the day of your wedding. From the moment you utter those sacred words “I do”, your life will never be the same. You will be asked how many children you want to have? What sex you’d prefer? How big an age gap you’d like between each child? Where you’ll send them to school? What type of a mother you think you’ll be? How much TV will you let them watch? Breast or bottle? Natural or caesarean? What maternity hospital you’ll give birth in? …

Just as you should never ask a single thirty something about her love life – it is advisable not ask a married thirty something if she wants to have kids, how many and when. If she hasn’t expressed a strong desire not to have children – chances are she’s trying to get pregnant and it just isn’t going well.

But life goes on and so do you. You get up, go to work and hope that maybe this month will be the month…..