*Sensitive and personal content that may upset some readers.*
If you asked me in my twenties if I want kids and how many my answer would be a big yes and at least four!
Then I moved to the UK, opened my little business, which I was focusing on so hard and I lived in an abusive and controlling relationship which I ended after three years. The only thing left from that relationship is Finci, my darling and faithful cat. She was with me in happiness and sadness in the past 12 years.
Not long after I got rid of that awful man, I met Miklosh. We were on the same side immediately. After 5 years we got married then we started a conversation about family and child(ren).
It wasn't easy and it took a long time to fight all childhood trauma (still working on it) on both sides, the fear, the what if's, the questions like how we will manage timewise, financially and just the two of us here in the UK. But I was always optimistic and tried to tell him that we will manage because we were alone in the last 14 years since we moved here so don't worry.
So we were trying, trying and trying but Baby Kallai didn't come. We ( or maybe I ) reached the point when I was desperate ( I blame the silly female hormones when you hit 38-39) so we decided to get help. I went to our GP surgery.
I called them in March 2023 when the call handler said yes, no problem I will book you in with a male trainee GP ( the first mistake). I had a phone call from him, asking me all sorts of questions about our fertility journey, age, lifestyle etc. I clearly remember his comment saying: I put you on the fast track list because of y o u r a g e . Hm, yes I know over 35 we say women are geriatric mothers but really need to be making this comment?
Anyway, I went for a face to face appointment where he had a conversation with my husband making the whole situation like I am not in the room. He sent us to give samples ( blood and semen). When I asked him about is there specific day I need to go for the blood test ( we, women, life in a cycle where our hormone levels different in each part of the cycle so it matters what day is the blood test is taken) he said well, not really, just one which need to be done 7 days before your next period start ( really??, how the hell I will know when it will be my next one as it could change due to stress and all sort of things. Thank God I can use Google so I managed to figure out that it has to be done on the 21st day of the cycle.)
Semen analysis at East Surrey Hospital
One word: nightmare. No one has any idea what is going on and how it needs to be done. But Miklosh managed to book an appointment. When he arrived they gave him a key for a room and a map to find the room. The room was next to a storage room where John and Jack were talking about last night's football match. The room had a toilet ( it was dirty and disgusting!), a chair, a table and a sink with a broken tap and no water. In this "welcoming and warming" environment my husband managed to do the job and the sample went to the laboratory.
After our tests came back we had another face to face appointment with a senior female gp because I wasn't happy with the first trainee one. She was ok but very strict and she said she can't put us further until Miklosh quit vaping. We had to find a clinic because the information she gave us wasn't correct ( she thinks the GP surgery does have a smoking clinic but they stopped before Covid...) and gave us the order: have sex every three days and keep trying. Like rabbits. Oh, and she booked me for a scan.
I think at this point we just said we had enough..... but at the end of May my period came much earlier than usual and the pain was excruciating. I did put this episode under stress and everything was going on with the baby project and I remember I had a very difficult time at work with one of my regulars being greedy and sending me all sorts of emails ( she is not my client anymore).
Next month I realised that I had a miscarrieage. Baby was in early weeks. It hit me because we were trying for a long time...But this time I didn't know that it was nothing to compare what happened with us in November 2023.
Life went on and we had to call the GP in July for a check up. We told her that I had a miscarriage and I had to tell her what exactly happened which I think is very insensitive. She said that she can't really help because Miklosh needs to be at least 6 months vape free so let's talk again in October. He was attending the smoking clinic in Crawley and he was doing very well.
October seemed ages ago and being 39 and 44 you just want answers so I asked around my friends and client about fertility clinics and booked an appointment with one in London.
Although I have had bad experiences with private clinics when I had an uterine polyp ( another story I will write about that one soon), I tried to be hopeful and positive. So we booked a package with one of them. The package included a semen test for Hubby ( again...), an internal scan for me ( again...), a blood test for Anti Mullerin Hormone for me and a consultation with a doctor all together for £565 (Sept 2023).
So we started again from zero. His experience was a bit better with giving a sample, my scan was altogether 7 minutes with some negative comments from the doctor like: yes you got three on this side, four on this side and yes the uterus looks normal. Bye. The only person who showed some empathy is the nurse who took my blood.
Miklosh's sample came back ok ish but a bit slow ( NHS sample came back perfect and normal), my blood came back my AMH are very low ( 0.2 should be around 10). But had this gut feeling that they do this on purpose so they can sign you up for IVF. Maybe I was wrong because I had so many bad experiences. But it was a bit fishy.
This was the end of September 2023 and we were exhausted and tired physically and emotionally so we booked a holiday and went to Menorca. And we had the best time ever! Feeding the cats, sleeping, swimming although I had an awful cold at the beginning but we had a great time.
2 days before we left MenorcaI had a spotting but I thought yes, it is normal because my period is due. I was wrong.
We had the private clinic consultation on the 9th October where the biggest problem for the doctor was: If you are allergic to so many drugs, how will we do an GA to harvest your eggs?! ( No one told them we will go with that) and he wanted to send me for a fallopian tube investigation for another £560. And when we asked him what about Miklosh's test because the other one was normal he was just gasping and telling silly things like we do differently etc. Hm...
His advice was what we already heard: Have sex every three days and if we are lucky semen and my egg will meet. But hurry up because of your age ( FFS!!! REALLY????) or have IVF.
My thoughts on IVF:
As a massage therapist and reflexologist I see how hard it is on women and on couples, not to mention the risk for cancers in later years. I said I won't play to be God. And to be honest I don't have £10000+ to pay for a fancy clinic when I know our chance is 3-4% ( check fertility clinics statistics, they "kindly" write them on their website).
I think our journey with doctors and fancy clinics ends here.
If you read this and you or you know someone who is in the same situation please do not give up! If you have the money go for it but think it through first and yes I know life gets to the point when we are too lazy to have sex and we are not in the mood but it can happen. I know it is hard, believe me, we had our ups and downs in this journey but there is always a tiny little hope.
We had a trip to Taormina in April and we had this horrendous rainfall and we ended up visiting every single church to be safe from the rain. I lit candles in every church and I prayed. I grew up as a catholic so my faith and God showed us he listened.
What had happened after we left Menorca? Click here for the next chapter.
