Baby Trap

by Hodge, Sibel

  Then it was Kerry. ‘I just wanted to say good luck. I’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘Thanks. How’s baby? Have you thought of a name yet?’

  ‘We’re going to call her Elise,’ she said wistfully.

  ‘I love it.’

  ****

  ‘If you’d like to follow me,’ a young nurse who looked about fifteen led me to the scanning room. She’d overdone it with the hot straighteners, and her hair was crispy like straw.

  Was she old enough to be carrying out these tests? What if she was an imposter? Highly unlikely, I know, but my brain started going off on a worried tangent. What if she got the results wrong? What if she mixed up mine with someone else’s? Obviously, she couldn’t work a pair of simple hair straighteners, so how could she manage such complicated scanning equipment?

  ‘OK, I just need you to pop your knickers off and get up on the couch.’ She pulled a curtain to give me some privacy.

  As I pulled off my knickers my rose quartz crystal that I’d completely forgotten about fell out and shot across the floor underneath the curtain.

  ‘Shit,’ I said, pulling my skirt down and peering out.

  ‘What was that? Something just skidded across the floor.’ The nurse was bending down under the scanning equipment, trying to get a look at the offending article.

  ‘Er…it’s a crystal.’ I cringed, flushing with embarrassment at how ridiculous I must seem to her.

  She glanced up at me sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve seen all sorts of lucky charms in here.’ She wheeled the machine out of the way and I grabbed the crystal and put it in my bag for safekeeping.

  I lay back on the couch as she performed the scans, pointing at something on the screen occasionally to show another nurse who’d joined us. I craned my neck, trying to get a look but it all looked like a big, blobby mess to me.

  ‘Does everything look OK?’ I asked about a million times.

  ‘Everything looks fine,’ the fifteen-year-old said.

  ‘What’s that?’ I pointed to a dark patch on the screen. ‘That doesn’t look OK.’

  ‘That’s your kidney,’ she said.

  ‘Right. So everything’s OK?’

  She returned the transducer to its socket and gave me some tissues to clean off the gel. I could’ve sworn I heard her sigh, though.

  What? Just checking. You’re only fifteen, what do you know?

  ‘Everything is absolutely fine,’ she repeated slowly, as if talking to a five-year-old. ‘Now we need you to start taking the follicle stimulating hormone injections.’ She handed me a slip of paper with instructions on. ‘You’ll do one every day, injected in the fleshy part of your stomach. Pop your knickers on and stand up and I’ll show you what you need to do.’ She pulled the curtain back around me and I obliged.

  ‘Just pull the top of your skirt down,’ she said. ‘OK, here.’ She grabbed a wobbly bit of flesh just underneath my belly button and pressed it together. ‘This is where you need to inject.’ Then she got the injection pen and showed me how to work it. ‘The pens are pre-filled with three doses in them, so one pen will last three days.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Does it hurt?’

  She smiled. ‘No.’

  Hmmm. I wasn’t convinced about that.

  She started writing something down in her notes. ‘I’ve booked you another scan in five days time so we can check how you’re getting on.’

  ‘Right, thanks. And you’re sure everything’s OK?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ****

  I was staring at the injector pen when Karl came home. It looked pretty much like a regular pen. Harmless, innocuous. But it was what was inside it that counted. This drug had the power to create life.

  ‘Hey, that’s good news about the scan, isn’t it? Everything’s going OK.’ He kissed me on the cheek. ‘Have you done it yet?’ He nodded towards the pen.

  ‘No. I’m scared.’

  He rubbed my shoulders. ‘Do you want me to do it for you?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly enjoy it. It would freak me out, actually, sticking a needle in you, but if you want me to, I’ll give it a go.’

  I carried on staring at it. Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be such a wimp! ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t think I could stick one in you, either. Although, to be honest, I have felt like it on many occasions lately.’ I chuckled as I clutched it in my hand. ‘Probably the thought of doing it is worse than actually doing it. What do you think?’ I glanced at him for encouragement.

  ‘Absolutely. I bet you won’t even feel a thing.’ He nodded vigorously.

  I pulled the protective cap off the top and stared at the needle. I was expecting some huge thing, but it was actually quite small. I pulled the top of my skirt down, squashed a couple of inches of flesh between my fingers and hovered the needle over it.

  ‘Right. Here goes,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t look.’ He slapped a hand over his eyes.

  ‘That’s not making me feel any better,’ I said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t look either.’ I squeezed my eyes shut.

  ‘Yeah, but what if you stick it somewhere else by accident?’ he said.

  Damn. Good point.

  I opened my eyes, took a deep breath, and slid the needle into my skin. Only a slight prick. So far so good. I clicked the top of the pen to release the dose and slid the needle back out slowly.

  ‘Have you done it yet?’ Karl asked.

  ‘Yep,’ I said, feeling pretty proud of myself. ‘The fear of doing it is the biggest hurdle. It really didn’t hurt at all.’

  He dropped his hand away from his eyes. ‘Well done,’ Karl repeated over and over. ‘I can’t believe you did it.’

  ****

  Two days later, I’d just done my third injection and pulled the needle out when I noticed there was still a decent amount of the liquid left in the syringe. That didn’t make sense, though, because the nurse told me I had enough for three days so why was there some left over?

  I pulled back on the top of the pen to check how much was actually in there and accidentally squirted out what was left inside onto the kitchen table.

  Oh, shit! What am I supposed to do now?

  The pen should’ve been empty, but it wasn’t, which sent me into full-scale panic mode. I couldn’t have been giving myself the right dose. What if the drugs didn’t work because of it? Should I give myself another injection now? What if I’d screwed up the whole treatment? Would I have to start all over again?

  I quickly phoned the hospital and breathlessly explained what had happened.

  ‘It’s OK, Gina,’ Scottish Claire said to me. ‘The pens are prefilled with a little extra dosage, that’s all. It’s natural to have some left in them when you’ve finished the three days.’

  ‘So it will still work OK, then? I have been doing it right?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t panic, Gina. Everything’s fine.’

  My shoulders relaxed with relief.

  Hope

  Two days later, I was back for my next scan. I was so nervous I started hyperventilating on the train on the way to the hospital, and my palms were sweaty.

  The fifteen-year-old nurse had been replaced by Claire, which made me feel slightly more at ease. She led me into the small treatment room as I tried to calm myself down.

  Zelda, it’s me again. Can you please, please, please make sure everything’s going according to plan?

  ‘We’re doing a transvaginal scan today, so off with your knickers and get yourself comfy on the couch.’ She gave me a warm smile. ‘I’ll be back with the doctor.’

  I lay back, staring at the ceiling, twiddling with the blanket covering me for what seemed like an eternity until a tiny Indian doctor came in.

  ‘Hello, Gina. How are you today?’ she asked.

  Stressed! Hurry up and tell me what’s going on. ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Any side effects from the injections?’

  Yes, I’m going to punch yo
u if you don’t hurry up! ‘Well, the mood swings are pretty bad.’

  She patted my arm and smiled. ‘That’s normal.’ She pulled on some rubber gloves. ‘Now, let’s have a look. Put your feet together and drop your knees to the side for me, please.’ She slid a condom on the giant willy probe and inserted the fufu cam, then turned back to the screen on the scanner.

  I tried to look, then turned my head away and concentrated on the rest of the equipment in the room to take my mind off feeling anxious.

  One set of scales.

  Three models of fufus.

  A sharps bin.

  Something that looked like toilet roll for an elephant, although I suspected it was to cover the couch with.

  Then I couldn’t help myself anymore and turned to look at the screen. I could see some round things on there but I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

  The doctor clicked the scanner machine and it took stills of the screen. Then she put markers on different points of the blobs and the machine calculated the size of them.

  ‘What do you think, Doctor?’ I asked, about to burst with anticipation.

  ‘It’s all looking very good. You’ve got eight follicles forming.’ She smiled and removed the fufu cam. ‘I’ll need to do another scan in five days.’

  ****

  Thank God I had a crystal healing session booked the next day. I needed a severe dose of relaxation, and I needed Suzanne to keep me sane.

  ‘The mood swings are bad enough, but I just feel so restless,’ I told Suzanne. ‘And I know you’re going to say I’m not living in the moment, but I can’t right now. I’ve been really good, taking on board everything you said, but I’m just worried all the time and I can’t seem to relax.’

  The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. ‘Of course you feel like that. It’s all the drugs and the stress. Not everyone can cope with IVF so I think you should be incredibly proud of yourself.’

  I relaxed as she said that. How was it she always knew exactly what to say to make me feel better?

  ‘Part of me feels hope, too,’ I said. ‘Hope that it’s going to work out, but part of me feels overwhelming fear that it won’t.’

  ‘Have you thought about meditating?’

  ‘I tried some relaxation CDs before but they didn’t do anything except stress me out.’ I let out an ironic laugh.

  ‘Gina, Gina, Gina, what am I going to do with you?’ She shook her head good-naturedly. ‘Mahatma Ghandi said, “What you think, you become,” which is pretty true. Meditation lets you clear your thoughts completely so your brain has time to rest. We have all these thoughts bombarding us all the time so we need to take time out. Think of your brain as a computer. If you don’t clear out the clutter every now and then, the hard disk gets full up and doesn’t work properly. Taking five or ten minutes a day with no thoughts in your head can make all the difference to your stress levels and ability to cope with life.’

  ‘My husband would think I was really crazy if I sat on the lounge floor chanting Om all the time.’ I rolled my eyes at her.

  She laughed. ‘All our fears and worries are just thoughts.’ She shrugged. ‘Purely and simply, that’s what they are. Meditation can help let them go. Get them to disappear completely. You don’t have to chant anything if you don’t want to. Simply concentrating on your breathing, or listening to music, or cleaning can be meditation. As long as you clear your mind of the clutter and distraction by not thinking, it can be effective.’

  ‘I know me, though. As soon as I try not to think about something, I think about it more.’

  ‘I know. It takes practice. At first, when you try to clear your mind, you’ll find all these thoughts rushing in, but after you’ve done it a few times you’ll learn how to push them away.’

  ‘OK, tell me what I need to do,’ I said.

  ****

  After dinner that night I sneaked up to the bedroom so Karl wouldn’t ask me what I was doing. I dimmed the lights, sat on the floor with my legs crossed and my back against the wall and closed my eyes.

  I concentrated on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

  My brain carried on thinking in overdrive.

  Will it work?

  Will we travel to Australia?

  Will Karl and I stay together?

  Can I cope with not being a mother?

  My fears and worries are just thoughts. My fears and worries are just thoughts.

  And then, I repeated a word over and over again in time to my breathing.

  Hope. Hope. Hope.

  I heard Karl’s footsteps at the top of the hallway. As he made his way into the bedroom I expected him to crack up with laughter, but I didn’t open my eyes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Meditating.’

  Hope. Hope. Hope.

  He sat down on the floor next to me and I opened one eye to see what he was up to. He had his legs crossed, too.

  ‘So what do you have to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Try and concentrate on nothing. Repeat a word over again in time to your breathing to clear your mind.’

  ‘What word are you using?’

  ‘Hope,’ I said softly, peering at him with one open eye.

  ‘OK.’ He reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand. ‘I love you.’

  I smiled. ‘I love you, too.’

  He closed his eyes, a grin forming in the corner of his lips. ‘If you tell anyone I’m doing this, I’ll kill you.’

  Operation Ejaculation

  I don’t know if it was the meditation or not, but I was feeling a bit calmer by the time I went for my next scan. Unless you count a little episode where I kicked the stainless steel bathroom bin because Karl squeezed the toothpaste from the middle of the tube instead of the end. Now I had what looked more like a steel drum than a practical bathroom item.

  ‘Excellent,’ the little Indian doctor said as she examined my follicles again on the scanner. ‘They’re just the right size.’

  ‘Wow!’ Relief flooded my veins. ‘That’s fantastic.’

  She glanced at the clock. It was 1.00 p.m. ‘At one o’ clock in the morning you need to do the injection of HCG, which completes the final maturation of the follicles and loosens the egg’s attachment from the follicle wall.’ She scribbled down some notes. ‘We need to do the egg collection thirty-five hours after the injection. So we need you here for half-past eleven on Thursday morning.’

  I glanced at her wide-eyed with excitement. This was it. After all this time, it’s what I’d been waiting for. ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.’ I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight.

  She patted my back and extricated herself slowly, smiling. ‘Your husband can either do his sperm donation here at the hospital, or if you live within two hours away, he can do it at home and you can bring it with you.’

  I didn’t think Karl would be too impressed about doing it at the hospital again after the last time. ‘I’ll need a pot, please.’

  ‘Here you go.’ She handed me one in a sealed bag.

  ‘Double wow!’ I said, taking it off her, still in shock. ‘I have to ring my husband.’ I rushed to get dressed and get out of there so I could tell him the fantastic news.

  ‘Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww!’ I screamed down the phone at him.

  ‘That’s great. Not long to go now.’ I heard the smile in his voice.

  ‘I can’t believe it. We’re finally getting the chance to be parents.’ I giggled, ignoring the strange looks I was getting from patients coming into the hospital. ‘And I got you a pot to use.’

  ‘Oh, damn. And I so wanted to do it in a broom cupboard again.’

  ****

  When I got home, I scoured the train timetable online. This had to be the most precision timed wank of all. If Karl did the sperm sample too early, it might be ruined by the time we got to the hospital, and if we arrived at the hospital too late, I might’ve already ovulated, and once that happened, my eggs couldn’t be retrieved and we would miss our chance. T
alk about pressure for Karl! I jotted down everything and double-checked it about twenty times:

  Need a lift from the house to station – 09.45 a.m.

  Train leaves station – 10.01 a.m.

  Train arrives King’s Cross – 10.31 a.m.

  Allow a ten minute walk to tube station – 10.46 a.m.

  Allow a ten minute wait for tube – 10.56 a.m.

  Ten minutes on tube – 11.06 a.m.

  Twelve minutes to walk to hospital – 11.16 a.m.

  Two minutes in lift – 11.18 a.m.

  Right. So that meant Operation Ejaculation had to be carried out by 9.44 a.m.

  I reached for the phone and called Dad.

  ‘Hey, pumpkin. How are you?’

  ‘I’ve got eight follicles!’ I gushed.

  ‘Wow, that’s fantastic. I’m so happy for you. When are they doing the egg retrieval?’

  ‘In three days, which is why I’m calling. We need a lift to the station, but it has to be timed exactly because of Karl’s sperm.’

  ‘OK. Let me just grab a pen, hang on a sec.’ I heard him rustling papers before he came back on the phone. ‘Right. What time do you need me to pick you up?’

  ‘Nine forty-five exactly. If you’re early, can you just wait on the drive and we’ll come out. I don’t want Karl to have any interruptions at the crucial moment.’

  ‘Right you are. Don’t worry, love. Everything’s going to be fine.’

  ****

  ‘Karl,’ I whispered in the darkness at midnight.

  ‘What?’ He turned over.

  ‘I’ve just checked the injection I have to do and there’s a humongous needle on the end of it. Do you think I’m supposed to stick it all the way in? It’s massive!’